• The blessed damozel leaned out
• From the gold bar of Heaven;
• Her eyes were deeper than the depth
• Of waters stilled at even;
• She had three lilies in her hand,
• And the stars in her hair were seven.

• Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
• No wrought flowers did adorn,
• But a white rose of Mary's gift,
• 10 For service meetly worn;
• And her hair lying down her back
• Was yellow like ripe corn.

• Herseemed she scarce had been a day
• One of God's choristers;
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• The wonder was not yet quite gone
• From that still look of hers;
• Albeit, to them she left, her day
• Had counted as ten years.

• (To one, it is ten years of years.
• 20 . . . Yet now, and in this place,
• Surely she leaned o'er me—her hair
• Fell all about my face . . .
• Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves.
• The whole year sets apace.)

• It was the rampart of God's house
• That she was standing on;
• By God built over the sheer depth
• The which is Space begun;
• So high, that looking downward thence
• 30 She scarce could see the sun.

• It lies in Heaven, across the flood
• Of ether, as a bridge.
• Beneath, the tides of day and night
• With flame and darkness ridge
• The void, as low as where this earth
• Spins like a fretful midge.

• She scarcely heard her sweet new friends;
• Amid their loving games
• Softly they spake among themselves
• 40 Their virginal chaste names;
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• And the souls mounting up to God
• Went by her like thin flames.

• And still she bowed above the vast
• Waste sea of worlds that swarm;
• Until her bosom must have made
• The bar she leaned on warm,
• And the lilies lay as if asleep
• Along her bended arm.

• From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
• 50 Time like a pulse shake fierce
• Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
• Within the gulf to pierce
• Its path; and now she spoke as when
• The stars sang in their spheres.

• The sun was gone now; the curled moon
• Was like a little feather
• Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
• She spoke through the still weather.
• Her voice was like the voice the stars
• 60 Had when they sang together.

• ‘I wish that he were come to me,
• For he will come,’ she said.
• ‘Have I not prayed in Heaven?—on earth,
• Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd?
• Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
• And shall I feel afraid?

• ‘When round his head the aureole clings,
• And he is clothed in white,
• I'll take his hand and go with him
• 70 To the deep wells of light;
• We will step down as to a stream,
• And bathe there in God's sight.

• ‘We two will stand beside that shrine,
• Occult, withheld, untrod,
• Whose lamps are stirred continually
• With prayer sent up to God;
• And see our old prayers, granted, melt
• Each like a little cloud.

• ‘We two will lie i' the shadow of
• 80 That living mystic tree
• Within whose secret growth the Dove
• Is sometimes felt to be,
• While every leaf that his plumes touch
• Saith his name audibly.

• ‘And I myself will teach to him,
• I myself, lying so,
• The songs I sing here; which his voice
• Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
• And find some knowledge at each pause,
• 90 Or some new thing to know.’

• ( Ah Sweet! Just now, in that bird's song,
• Strove not her accents there,
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• Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
• Possessed the midday air,
• Was she not stepping to my side
• Down all the trembling stair?)

• ‘We two,’ she said, ‘will seek the groves
• Where the lady Mary is,
• With her five handmaidens,whose names
• 100Are five sweet symphonies,
• Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
• Margaret and Rosalys.

• ‘Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
• And foreheads garlanded;
• Into the fine cloth white like flame
• Weaving the golden thread,
• To fashion the birth-robes for them
• Who are just born, being dead.

• ‘He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:
• 110Then will I lay my cheek
• To his, and tell about our love,
• Not once abashed or weak:
• And the dear Mother will approve
• My pride, and let me speak.

• ‘Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
• To Him round whom all souls
• Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
• Bowed with their aureoles:
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• And angels meeting us shall sing
• 120To their citherns and citoles.

• ‘There will I ask of Christ the Lord
• Thus much for him and me:—
• Only to live as once on earth
• With Love,— only to be,
• As then awhile, for ever now
• Together, I and he.’

• She gazed and listened and then said,
• Less sad of speech than mild,—
• ‘All this is when he comes.’ She ceased.
• 130The light thrilled towards her, fill'd
• With angels in strong level flight.
• Her eyes prayed, and she smil'd.

• ( I saw her smile). But soon their path
• Was vague in distant spheres:
• And then she cast her arms along
• The golden barriers,
• And laid her face between her hands,
• And wept. ( I heard her tears.)

   

• Master of the murmuring courts
• Where the shapes of sleep convene!—
• When among thy dim resorts
• This my soul in dreams hath been,
• What of her whom it hath seen?
• No reports
• From those jealous courts I glean.

• Vapourous, unaccountable,
• Low they stand, unknown to light,
• 10Hollow like a breathing shell.
• Ah! that in those halls I might
• Choose a dream for my delight!
• I know well
• What her sleep should tell to-night.

• There the dreams are multitudes:
• Some whose buoyance waits not sleep,
• Deep within the August woods;
• Some that hum while rest may steep
• Weary labour laid a-heap:
• 20 Interludes,
• Some, of grievous moods that weep.

• Thence are youth's warm fancies: there
• Women thrill with whisperings
• Valleys full of plaintive air;
• There breathe perfumes; there in rings
• Whirl the foam-bewildered springs;
• Siren there
• Winds her dizzy hair and sings.

• Thence the one dream mutually
• 30 Dreamed in bridal unison,
• Less than waking ecstasy;
• Half-formed visions that make moan
• In the house of birth alone;
• And what we
• At death's wicket see, unknown.

• But for mine own sleep, it lies
• In one gracious form's control,
• Fair with honorable eyes,
• Lamps of an auspicious soul:
• 40 O their glance is loftiest dole,
• Sweet and wise,
• Wherein Love descries his goal.

• Reft of her, my dreams are all
• Clammy trance that fears the sky:
• Changing footpaths shift and fall;
• From polluted coverts nigh,
• Miserable phantoms sigh;
• Quakes the pall,
• And the funeral goes by.

• 50 As, since man waxed deathly wise,
• Secret somewhere on this earth
• Unpermitted Eden lies,—
• Thus within the world's wide girth
• Hides she from my spirit's dearth,—
• Paradise
• Of a love that cries for birth.

• Master, it is soothly said
• That, as echoes of man's speech
• Far in secret clefts are made,
• 60 So do all men's bodies reach
• Shadows o'er thy sunken beach,—
• Shape or shade
• In those halls pourtrayed of each?

• Ah! might I, by thy good grace
• Groping in the windy stair,
• (Darkness and the breath of space
• Like loud waters everywhere,)
• Meeting mine own image there
• Face to face,
• 70 Send it from that place to her!

• Nay, not I; but oh! do thou,
• Master, from thy shadowkind
• Call my body's phantom now:
• Bid it bear its face declin'd
• Till its flight her slumbers find,
• And her brow
• Feel its presence bow like wind.

• Where in groves the gracile Spring
• Trembles, with mute orison
• 80 Confidently strengthening,
• Water's voice and wind's as one
• Shed an echo in the sun,
• Soft as Spring,
• Master, bid it sing and moan.

• Song shall tell how glad and strong
• Is the night she soothes alway;
• Moan shall grieve with that parched tongue
• Of the brazen hours of day:
• Sounds as of the springtide they,
• 90 Moan and song,
• While the chill months long for May.

• Not the prayers which with all leave
• The world's fluent woes prefer,—
• Not the praise the world doth give,
• Dulcet fulsome whisperer;—
• Let it yield man's love to her,
• And achieve
• Strength that shall not grieve or err.

• Wheresoe'er my sleep befall,
• 100 Both at night-watch, (let it say,)
• And where round the sundial
• The reluctant hours of day,
• Heartless, hopeless of their way,
• Rest and call;—
• There her glance doth fall and stay.

• Suddenly her face is there:
• So do mounting vapours wreathe
• Subtle-scented transports where
• The black firwood sets its teeth.
• 110 Part the boughs and look beneath,—
• Lilies share
• Secret waters there, and breathe.

• Master, bid my shadow bend
• Whispering thus till birth of light,
• Lest new shapes that sleep may send
• Scatter all its work to flight;—
• Master, master of the night,
• Bid it spend
• Speech, song, prayer, and end aright.

• 120 Yet, ah me! if at her head
• There another phantom lean
• Murmuring o'er the fragrant bed,—
• Ah! and if my spirit's queen
• Smile those alien words between,—
• Ah! poor shade!
• Shall it strive, or fade unseen?

• Like a vapour wan and mute,
• Like a flame, so let it pass;
• One low sigh across her lute,
• 130 One dull breath against her glass;
• And to my sad soul, alas!
• One salute
• Cold as when death's foot shall pass.

• How should love's own messenger
• Strive with love and be love's foe?
• Master, nay! If thus in her,
• Sleep a wedded heart should show,—
• Silent let mine image go,
• Its old share
• 140 Of thy sunken air to know.

• Then, too, let all hopes of mine,
• All vain hopes by night and day,
• Master, at thy summoning sign
• Rise up pallid and obey.
• Dreams, if this is thus, were they:—
• Be they thine,
• And to dreamland pine away.

• (So, when some lost legion lies
• Ambushed where no help appears,—
• 150 All night long their unseen eyes
• Watching for the growth of spears,—
• Like their ghosts, when morning nears,
• Dumb they rise,
• Ready without sighs or tears.)

• Yet from old time, life, not death,
• Master, in thy rule is rife:
• Lo! through thee, with mingling breath,
• Adam woke beside his wife.
• O Love bring me so, for strife,
• 160 Force and faith,
• Bring me so not death but life!

• Yea, to Love himself is pour'd
• This frail song of hope and fear.
• Thou art Love, of one accord
• With kind Sleep to bring her here,
• Still-eyed, deep-eyed, ah how dear!
• Master, Lord,
• In her name implor'd, O hear!

    ‘Burden. Heavy calamity; The chorus of a song.’ — Dictionary.

• In our Museum galleries
• To-day I lingered o'er the prize
• Dead Greece vouchsafes to living eyes,—
• Her Art for ever in fresh wise
• From hour to hour rejoicing me.
• Sighing I turned at last to win
• Once more the London dirt and din;
• And as I made the swing-door spin
• And issued, they were hoisting in
• 10 A wingèd beast from Nineveh.

• A human face the creature wore,
• And hoofs behind and hoofs before,
• And flanks with dark runes fretted o'er.
• 'Twas bull, 'twas mitred Minotaur,
• A dead disbowelled mystery;
• The mummy of a buried faith
• Stark from the charnel without scathe,
• Its wings stood for the light to bathe,—
• Such fossil cerements as might swathe
• 20 The very corpse of Nineveh.

• The print of its first rush-wrapping,
• Wound ere it dried, still ribbed the thing.
• What song did the brown maidens sing,
• From purple mouths alternating,
• When that was woven languidly?
• What vows, what rites, what prayers preferr'd,
• What songs has the strange image heard?
• In what blind vigil stood interr'd
• For ages, till an English word
• 30 Broke silence first at Nineveh?

• Oh when upon each sculptured court,
• Where even the wind might not resort,—
• O'er which Time passed, of like import
• With the wild Arab boys at sport,—
• A living face looked in to see:—
• Oh seemed it not—the spell once broke—
• As though the carven warriors woke,
• As though the shaft the string forsook,
• The cymbals clashed, the chariots shook,
• 40 And there was life in Nineveh?

• On London stones our sun anew
• The beast's recovered shadow threw.
• (No shade that plague of darkness knew,
• No light, no shade, while older grew
• By ages the old earth and sea.)
• Lo thou! could all thy priests have shown
• Such proof to make thy godhead known?
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• From their dead Past thou livest alone;
• And still thy shadow is thine own
• 50 Even as of yore in Nineveh.

• That day whereof we keep record,
• When near thy city-gates the Lord
• Sheltered his Jonah with a gourd,
• This sun, (I said) here present, pour'd
• Even thus this shadow that I see.
• This shadow has been shed the same
• From sun and moon,—from lamps which came
• For prayer,—from fifteen days of flame,
• The last, while smouldered to a name
• 60 Sardanapalus' Nineveh.

• Within thy shadow, haply, once
• Sennacherib has knelt, whose sons
• Smote him between the altar-stones:
• Or pale Semiramis her zones
• Of gold, her incense brought to thee,
• In love for grace, in war for aid: . . . .
• Ay, and who else? . . . . till 'neath thy shade
• Within his trenches newly made
• Last year the Christian knelt and pray'd—
• 70 Not to thy strength—in Nineveh.*

• Now, thou poor god, within this hall
• Where the blank windows blind the wall
• From pedestal to pedestal,
• The kind of light shall on thee fall
• Which London takes the day to be:
• While school-foundations in the act
• Of holiday, three files compact,
• Shall learn to view thee as a fact
• Connected with that zealous tract:
• 80 ‘Rome,—Babylon and Nineveh.’

• Deemed they of this, those worshippers,
• When, in some mythic chain of verse,
• Which man shall not again rehearse,
• The faces of thy ministers
• Yearned pale with bitter ecstasy?
• Greece, Egypt, Rome,—did any god
• Before whose feet men knelt unshod
• Deem that in this unblest abode
• Another scarce more unknown god
• 90 Should house with him from Nineveh?

• Ah! in what quarries lay the stone
• From which this pigmy pile has grown,
• Unto man's need how long unknown,
• Since thy vast temples, court and cone,
• Rose far in desert history?
• Ah! what is here that does not lie
• All strange to thine awakened eye?
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• Ah! what is here can testify
• (Save that dumb presence of the sky)
• 100 Unto thy day and Nineveh?

• Why, of those mummies in the room
• Above, there might indeed have come
• One out of Egypt to thy home,
• An alien. Nay, but were not some
• Of these thine own ‘antiquity?’
• And now,—they and their gods and thou
• All relics here together,—now
• Whose profit? whether bull or cow,
• Isis or Ibis, who or how,
• 110 Whether of Thebes or Nineveh?

• The consecrated metals found,
• And ivory tablets, underground,
• Winged teraphim and creatures crown'd,
• When air and daylight filled the mound,
• Fell into dust immediately.
• And even as these, the images
• Of awe and worship,—even as these,—
• So, smitten with the sun's increase,
• Her glory mouldered and did cease
• 120 From immemorial Nineveh.

• The day her builders made their halt,
• Those cities of the lake of salt
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• Stood firmly 'stablished without fault,
• Made proud with pillars of basalt,
• With sardonyx and porphyry.
• The day that Jonah bore abroad
• To Nineveh the voice of God,
• A brackish lake lay in his road,
• Where erst Pride fixed her sure abode,
• 130 As then in royal Nineveh.

• The day when he, Pride's lord and Man's,
• Showed all the kingdoms at a glance
• To Him before whose countenance
• The years recede, the years advance,
• And said, Fall down and worship me:—
• 'Mid all the pomp beneath that look,
• Then stirred there, haply, some rebuke,
• Where to the wind the salt pools shook,
• And in those tracts, of life forsook,
• 140 That knew thee not, O Nineveh!

• Delicate harlot! On thy throne
• Thou with a world beneath thee prone
• In state for ages sat'st alone;
• And needs were years and lustres flown
• Ere strength of man could vanquish thee:
• Whom even thy victor foes must bring,
• Still royal, among maids that sing
• As with doves' voices, taboring
• Upon their breasts, unto the King,—
• 150 A kingly conquest, Nineveh!

• . . . Here woke my thought. The wind's slow sway
• Had waxed; and like the human play
• Of scorn that smiling spreads away,
• The sunshine shivered off the day:
• The callous wind, it seemed to me,
• Swept up the shadow from the ground:
• And pale as whom the Fates astound,
• The god forlorn stood winged and crown'd:
• Within I knew the cry lay bound
• 160 Of the dumb soul of Nineveh.

• And as I turned, my sense half shut
• Still saw the crowds of kerb and rut
• Go past as marshalled to the strut
• Of ranks in gypsum quaintly cut.
• It seemed in one same pageantry
• They followed forms which had been erst;
• To pass, till on my sight should burst
• That future of the best or worst
• When some may question which was first,
• 170 Of London or of Nineveh.

• For as that Bull-god once did stand
• And watched the burial-clouds of sand,
• Till these at last without a hand
• Rose o'er his eyes, another land,
• And blinded him with destiny:—
• So may he stand again; till now,
• In ships of unknown sail and prow,
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• Some tribe of the Australian plough
• Bear him afar,—a relic now
• 180 Of London, not of Nineveh!

• Or it may chance indeed that when
• Man's age is hoary among men,—
• His centuries threescore and ten,—
• His furthest childhood shall seem then
• More clear than later times may be:
• Who, finding in this desert place
• This form, shall hold us for some race
• That walked not in Christ's lowly ways,
• But bowed its pride and vowed its praise
• 190 Unto the God of Nineveh.

• The smile rose first,—anon drew nigh
• The thought: . . . Those heavy wings spread high
• So sure of flight, which do not fly;
• That set gaze never on the sky;
• Those scriptured flanks it cannot see;
• Its crown, a brow-contracting load;
• Its planted feet which trust the sod: . . .
• (So grew the image as I trod:)
• O Nineveh, was this thy God,—
• 200 Thine also, mighty Nineveh?

   

• Mother of the Fair Delight,
• Thou handmaid perfect in God's sight,
• Now sitting fourth beside the Three,
• Thyself a woman-Trinity,—
• Being a daughter borne to God,
• Mother of Christ from stall to rood,
• And wife unto the Holy Ghost:—
• Oh when our need is uttermost,
• Think that to such as death may strike
• 10 Thou once wert sister sisterlike!
• Thou headstone of humanity,
• Groundstone of the great Mystery,
• Fashioned like us, yet more than we!

• Mind'st thou not (when June's heavy breath
• Warmed the long days in Nazareth,)
• That eve thou didst go forth to give
• Thy flowers some drink that they might live

• One faint night more amid the sands?
• Far off the trees were as pale wands
• 20 Against the fervid sky: the sea
• Sighed further off eternally
• As human sorrow sighs in sleep.
• Then gloried thy deep eyes, and deep,
• Within thine heart the song waxed loud:
• It was to thee as though the cloud
• Which shuts the inner shrine from view
• Were molten, and thy God burned through:
• Until a folding sense, like prayer,
• Which is, as God is, everywhere,
• 30 Gathered about thee; and a voice
• Spake to thee without any noise,
• Being of the silence:—‘Hail,’ it said,
• ‘Thou that art highly favourèd;
• The Lord is with thee here and now;
• Blessed among all women thou.’

• Ah! knew'st thou of the end, when first
• That Babe was on thy bosom nurs'd?—
• Or when He tottered round thy knee
• Did thy great sorrow dawn on thee?—
• 40 And through His boyhood, year by year
• Eating with Him the Passover,
• Didst thou discern confusedly
• That holier sacrament, when He,
• The bitter cup about to quaff,
• Should break the bread and eat thereof?—
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• Or came not yet the knowledge, even
• Till on some day forecast in Heaven
• His feet passed through thy door to press
• Upon His Father's business?—
• Or still was God's high secret kept?

• Nay, but I think the whisper crept
• 50 Like growth through childhood. Work and play,
• Things common to the course of day,
• Awed thee with meanings unfulfill'd;
• And all through girlhood, something still'd
• Thy senses like the birth of light,
• When thou hast trimmed thy lamp at night
• Or washed thy garments in the stream;
• To whose white bed had come the dream
• That He was thine and thou wast His
• Who feeds among the field-lilies.
• 60 O solemn shadow of the end
• In that wise spirit long contain'd!
• O awful end! and those unsaid
• Long years when It was Finishèd!

• Mind'st thou not (when the twilight gone
• Left darkness in the house of John,)
• Between the naked window-bars
• That spacious vigil of the stars?—
• For thou, a watcher even as they,
• Wouldst rise from where throughout the day
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• 70 Thou wroughtest raiment for His poor;
• And, finding the fixed terms endure
• Of day and night which never brought
• Sounds of His coming chariot,
• Wouldst lift through cloud-waste unexplor'd
• Those eyes which said, ‘How long, O Lord?’
• Then that disciple whom He loved,
• Well heeding, haply would be moved
• To ask thy blessing in His name;
• And that one thought in both, the same
• 80 Though silent, then would clasp ye round
• To weep together,—tears long bound,
• Sick tears of patience, dumb and slow.
• Yet, ‘Surely I come quickly,’—so
• He said, from life and death gone home.
• Amen: ‘even so, Lord Jesus, come!’

• But oh! what human tongue can speak
• That day when death was sent to break
• From the tir'd spirit, like a veil,
• Its covenant with Gabriel
• 90 Endured at length unto the end?
• What human thought can apprehend
• That mystery of motherhood
• When thy Beloved at length renew'd
• The sweet communion severèd,—
• His left hand underneath thine head
• And His right hand embracing thee?—
• Lo! He was thine, and this is He!

• Soul, is it Faith, or Love, or Hope,
• That lets me see her standing up
• 100 Where the light of the Throne is bright?
• Unto the left, unto the right,
• The cherubim, arrayed, conjoint,
• Float inward to a golden point,
• And from between the seraphim
• The glory issues like a hymn.
• O Mary Mother, be not loth
• To listen,—thou whom the stars clothe,—
• Who seëst and mayst not be seen!
• Hear us at last, O Mary Queen!
• 110 Into our shadow bend thy face,
• Bowing thee from the secret place,
• O Mary Virgin, full of grace!

   

• ‘Who rules these lands?’ the Pilgrim said.
• ‘Stranger, Queen Blanchelys.’
• ‘And who has thus harried them?’ he said.
• ‘It was Duke Luke did this:
• God's ban be his!’

• The Pilgrim said: ‘Where is your house?
• I'll rest there, with your will.’
• ‘Ye've but to climb these blackened boughs
• And ye'll see it over the hill,
• 10 For it burns still.’

• ‘Which road, to seek your Queen?’ said he.
• ‘Nay, nay, but with some wound
• Thou'lt fly back hither, it may be,
• And by thy blood i'the ground
• My place be found.’

• ‘Friend, stay in peace. God keep thy head,
• And mine, where I will go;
• For He is here and there,’ he said.
• He passed the hill-side, slow,
• 20 And stood below.

• The Queen sat idle by her loom:
• She heard the arras stir,
• And looked up sadly: through the room
• The sweetness sickened her
• Of musk and myrrh.

• Her women, standing two and two,
• In silence combed the fleece.
• The pilgrim said, ‘Peace be with you,
• Lady;’ and bent his knees.
• 30 She answered, ‘Peace.’

• Her eyes were like the wave within;
• Like water-reeds the poise
• Of her soft body, dainty thin;
• And like the water's noise
• Her plaintive voice.

• For him, the stream had never well'd
• In desert tracts malign
• So sweet; nor had he ever felt
• So faint in the sunshine
• 40 Of Palestine.

• Right so, he knew that he saw weep
• Each night through every dream
• The Queen's own face, confused in sleep
• With visages supreme
• Not known to him.

• ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘your lands lie burnt
• And waste: to meet your foe
• All fear: this I have seen and learnt.
• Say that it shall be so,
• 50And I will go.’

• She gazed at him. ‘Your cause is just,
• For I have heard the same:’
• He said: ‘God's strength shall be my trust.
• Fall it to good or grame,
• 'Tis in His name.’

• ‘Sir, you are thanked. My cause is dead.
• Why should you toil to break
• A grave, and fall therein?’ she said.
• He did not pause but spake:
• 60‘For my vow's sake.’

• ‘Can such vows be, Sir—to God's ear,
• Not to God's will?’ ‘My vow
• Remains. God heard me there as here,’
• He said with reverent brow,
• ‘Both then and now.’

• They gazed together, he and she,
• The minute while he spoke;
• And when he ceased, she suddenly
• Looked round upon her folk
• 70As though she woke.

• ‘Fight, Sir,’ she said: ‘my prayers in pain
• Shall be your fellowship.’
• He whispered one among her train,—
• ‘To-night thou'lt bid her keep
• This staff and scrip.’

• She sent him a sharp sword, whose belt
• About his body there
• As sweet as her own arms he felt.
• He kissed its blade, all bare,
• 80Instead of her.

• She sent him a green banner wrought
• With one white lily stem,
• To bind his lance with when he fought.
• He writ upon the same
• And kissed her name.

• She sent him a white shield, whereon
• She bade that he should trace
• His will. He blent fair hues that shone,
• And in a golden space
• 90He kissed her face.

• Right so, the sunset skies unseal'd,
• Like lands he never knew,
• Beyond to-morrow's battle-field
• Lay open out of view
• To ride into.

• Next day till dark the women pray'd:
• Nor any might know there
• How the fight went: the Queen has bade
• That there do come to her
• 100No messenger.

• Weak now to them the voice o' the priest
• As any trance affords;
• And when each anthem failed and ceas'd,
• It seemed that the last chords
• Still sang the words.

• ‘Oh what is the light that shines so red?
• 'Tis long since the sun set;’
• Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid:
• ‘'Twas dim but now, and yet
• 110The light is great.’

• Quoth the other: ‘'Tis our sight is dazed
• That we see flame i' the air.’
• But the Queen held her brows and gazed,
• And said, ‘It is the glare
• Of torches there.’

• ‘Oh what are the sounds that rise and spread?
• All day it was so still;’
• Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid;
• ‘Unto the furthest hill
• 120The air they fill.’

• Quoth the other; ‘'Tis our sense is blurr'd
• With all the chants gone by.’
• But the Queen held her breath and heard,
• And said, ‘It is the cry
• Of Victory.’

• The first of all the rout was sound,
• The next were dust and flame,
• And then the horses shook the ground:
• And in the thick of them
• 130A still band came.

• ‘Oh what do ye bring out of the fight,
• Thus hid beneath these boughs?’
• ‘One that shall be thy guest to-night,
• And yet shall not carouse,
• Queen, in thy house.’

• ‘Uncover ye his face,’ she said.
• ‘O changed in little space!’
• She cried, ‘O pale that that was so red!
• O God, O God of grace!
• 140Cover his face.’

• His sword was broken in his hand
• Where he had kissed the blade.
• ‘O soft steel that could not withstand!
• O my hard heart unstayed,
• That prayed and prayed!’

• His bloodied banner crossed his mouth
• Where he had kissed her name.
• ‘O east, and west, and north, and south,
• Fair flew my web, for shame,
• 150To guide Death's aim!’

• The tints were shredded from his shield
• Where he had kissed her face.
• ‘Oh, of all gifts that I could yield,
• Death only keeps its place,
• My gift and grace!’

• Then stepped a damsel to her side,
• And spake, and needs must weep:
• ’For his sake, lady, if he died,
• He prayed of thee to keep
• 160This staff and scrip.’

• That night they hung above her bed,
• Till morning wet with tears.
• Year after year above her head
• Her bed this token wears,
• Five years, ten years.

• That night the passion of her grief
• Shook them as there they hung.
• Each year the wind that shed the leaf
• Shook them and in its tongue
• 170A message flung.

• And she would wake with a clear mind
• That letters writ to calm
• Her soul lay in the scrip; and find
• Only a torpid balm
• And dust of palm.

• They shook far off with palace sport
• When joust and dance were rife;
• And the hunt shook them from the court;
• For hers, in peace or strife,
• 180Was a Queen's life.

• A Queen's death now: as now they shake
• To chaunts in chapel dim,—
• Hung where she sleeps, not seen to wake,
• (Carved lovely white and slim),
• With them by him.

• Stand up to-day, still armed, with her,
• Good knight, before His brow
• Who then as now was here and there,
• Who had in mind thy vow
• 190Then even as now.

• The lists are set in Heaven to-day,
• The bright pavilions shine;
• Fair hangs thy shield, and none gainsay;
• The trumpets sound in sign
• That she is thine.

• Not tithed with days' and years' decease
• He pays thy wage He owed,
• But with imperishable peace
• Here in His own abode,
• 200Thy jealous God.

   

• ‘Why did you melt your waxen man,
• Sister Helen?
• To-night is the third since you began.’
• ‘The days were long, yet the days ran,
• Little brother.’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘But if you have done your work aright,
• Sister Helen,
• 10 You'll let me play, for you said I might.’
• ‘Be very still in your play to-night,
• Little brother.’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Third night, to-night, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘You said it must melt ere vesper-bell,
• Sister Helen;
• If now it be molten, all is well.’
• ‘Even so,—nay, peace! you cannot tell,
• Little brother.’
• 20( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• O what is this, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘Oh the waxen knave was plump to-day,
• Sister Helen;
• How like dead folk he has dropped away!’
• ‘Nay now, of the dead what can you say,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What of the dead, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘See, see, the sunken pile of wood,
• 30 Sister Helen,
• Shines through the thinned wax red as blood!’
• ‘Nay now, when looked you yet on blood,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• How pale she is, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Now close your eyes, for they're sick and sore,
• Sister Helen,
• And I'll play without the gallery door.’
• ‘Aye, let me rest,—I'll lie on the floor,
• 40 Little brother,’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What rest to-night, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘Here high up in the balcony,
• Sister Helen,
• The moon flies face to face with me.’
• ‘Aye, look and say whatever you see,
• Little brother.’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What sight to-night, between Hell and Heaven?)

• 50‘Outside it's merry in the wind's wake,
• Sister Helen;
• In the shaken trees the chill stars shake.’
• ‘Hush, heard you a horse-tread as you spake,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What sound to-night between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘I hear a horse-tread, and I see,
• Sister Helen,
• Three horsemen that ride terribly.’
• 60‘Little brother, whence come the three,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Whence should they come, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘They come by the hill-verge from Boyne Bar,
• Sister Helen,
• And one draws night, but two are afar.’
• ‘Look, look, do you know them who they are,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• 70 Who should they be, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘Oh, it's Holm of East Holm rides so fast,
• Sister Helen,
• For I know the white mane on the blast.’
• ‘Thou hour has come, has come at last,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Her hour at last, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘He has made a sign and called Haloo!
• Sister Helen,
• 80And he says that he would speak with you.’
• ‘Oh tell him I fear the frozen dew,
• Little brother.’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Why laughs she thus, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘The wind is loud, but I hear him cry,
• Sister Helen,
• That Holm of Ewern's like to die.’
• ‘And he and thou, and thou and I,
• Little brother.’
• 90 ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• And they and we, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘For three days now he has lain abed,
• Sister Helen,
• And he prays in torment to be dead.’
• ‘The thing may chance, if he have prayed,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• If he have prayed, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘But he has not ceased to cry to-day,
• 100Sister Helen,
• That you should take your curse away.’
• ‘ My prayer was heard,—he need but pray,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Shall God not hear, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘But he says, till you take back your ban,
• Sister Helen,
• His soul would pass, yet never can.’
• ‘Nay then, shall I slay a living man,
• 110 Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• A living soul, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘But he calls for ever on your name,
• Sister Helen,
• And says that his body melts with flame.’
• ‘My heart was there till his body came,
• Little brother.’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Fire at the heart, between Hell and Heaven!)

• 120‘Here's Holm of West Holm riding fast,
• Sister Helen,
• For I know the white plume on the blast.’
• ‘The hour, the sweet hour I forecast,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Is the hour sweet, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘He stops to speak, and he stills his horse,
• Sister Helen;
• But his words are drowned in the wind's course.’
• 130‘Nay hear, nay hear, you must hear perforce,