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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Ballads and Sonnets (1881), second edition
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of publication: 1881
Publisher: F. S. Ellis
Printer: Chiswick Press, C. Wittingham and Co.
Edition: 2

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

page: [unpaginated]
Manuscript Addition: L. Toulmin Smith / Highgate
Editorial Description: upper right in pencil
Editorial Note: There is also a stray pencil mark through the “T” of the title.
BALLADS AND SONNETS.
page: [unpaginated]
Note: blank page
page: [i]
BALLADS AND SONNETS



BY

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

SECOND EDITION

LONDON:

ELLIS AND WHITE,

29, New Bond Street, W.

1881.

page: [ii]
CHISWICK PRESS:—C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT

CHANCERY LANE.
page: [iii]


TO

THEODORE WATTS,

THE FRIEND WHOM MY VERSE WON FOR ME,

THESE FEW MORE PAGES

ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
page: [iv]
Note: blank page
page: [v]
CONTENTS.
page: vi
Transcribed Footnote (page vi):

1 In this table, the sonnets marked * are those which appeared in the author's

former volume.

page: xi
Editorial Note (page ornament): Page
page: [1]
Sig. B
Manuscript Addition: 50
Editorial Description: Written in pencil in lower left corner.
Manuscript Addition: zix
Editorial Description: Written in pencil in lower left corner.
more about Ballads.
more about Rose Mary.
ROSE MARY.
page: [2]
Note: blank page
page: [3]
ROSE MARY.
  • Of her two fights with the Beryl-stone:
  • Lost the first, but the second won.
more about Rose Mary. Part I.
PART I.
  • “Mary mine that art Mary's Rose,
  • Come in to me from the garden-close.
  • The sun sinks fast with the rising dew,
  • And we marked not how the faint moon grew;
  • But the hidden stars are calling you.
  • “Tall Rose Mary, come to my side,
  • And read the stars if you'd be a bride.
  • In hours whose need was not your own,
  • While you were a young maid yet ungrown,
  • 10You've read the stars in the Beryl-stone.
page: 4
  • “Daughter, once more I bid you read;
  • But now let it be for your own need:
  • Because to-morrow, at break of day,
  • To Holy Cross he rides on his way,
  • Your knight Sir James of Heronhaye.
  • “Ere he wed you, flower of mine,
  • For a heavy shrift he seeks the shrine.
  • Now hark to my words and do not fear;
  • Ill news next I have for your ear;
  • 20But be you strong, and our help is here.
  • “On his road, as the rumour's rife,
  • An ambush waits to take his life.
  • He needs will go, and will go alone;
  • Where the peril lurks may not be known;
  • But in this glass all things are shown.”
page: 5
  • Pale Rose Mary sank to the floor:—
  • “The night will come if the day is o'er!”
  • “Nay, heaven takes counsel, star with star,
  • And help shall reach your heart from afar:
  • 30A bride you'll be, as a maid you are.”
  • The lady unbound her jewelled zone
  • And drew from her robe the Beryl-stone.
  • Shaped it was to a shadowy sphere,—
  • World of our world, the sun's compeer,
  • That bears and buries the toiling year.
  • With shuddering light 'twas stirred and strewn
  • Like the cloud-nest of the wading moon:
  • Freaked it was as the bubble's ball,
  • Rainbow-hued through a misty pall
  • 40Like the middle light of the waterfall.
page: 6
  • Shadows dwelt in its teeming girth
  • Of the known and unknown things of earth;
  • The cloud above and the wave around,—
  • The central fire at the sphere's heart bound,
  • Like doomsday prisoned underground.
  • A thousand years it lay in the sea
  • With a treasure wrecked from Thessaly;
  • Deep it lay 'mid the coiled sea-wrack,
  • But the ocean-spirits found the track:
  • 50A soul was lost to win it back.
  • The lady upheld the wondrous thing:—
  • “Ill fare”(she said) “with a fiend's-fairing:
  • But Moslem blood poured forth like wine
  • Can hallow Hell, 'neath the Sacred Sign;
  • And my lord brought this from Palestine.
page: 7
  • “Spirits who fear the Blessed Rood
  • Drove forth the accursed multitude
  • That heathen worship housed herein,—
  • Never again such home to win,
  • 60Save only by a Christian's sin.
  • “All last night at an altar fair
  • I burnt strange fires and strove with prayer;
  • Till the flame paled to the red sunrise,
  • All rites I then did solemnize;
  • And the spell lacks nothing but your eyes.”
  • Low spake maiden Rose Mary:—
  • “O mother mine, if I should not see!”
  • “Nay, daughter, cover your face no more,
  • But bend love's heart to the hidden lore,
  • 70And you shall see now as heretofore.”
page: 8
  • Paler yet were the pale cheeks grown
  • As the grey eyes sought the Beryl-stone:
  • Then over her mother's lap leaned she,
  • And stretched her thrilled throat passionately,
  • And sighed from her soul, and said, “I see.”
  • Even as she spoke, they two were 'ware
  • Of music-notes that fell through the air;
  • A chiming shower of strange device,
  • Drop echoing drop, once twice and thrice,
  • 80As rain may fall in Paradise.
  • An instant come, in an instant gone,
  • No time there was to think thereon.
  • The mother held the sphere on her knee:—
  • “Lean this way and speak low to me,
  • And take no note but of what you see.”
page: 9
  • “I see a man with a besom grey
  • That sweeps the flying dust away.”
  • “Ay, that comes first in the mystic sphere;
  • But now that the way is swept and clear,
  • 90Heed well what next you look on there.”
  • “Stretched aloft and adown I see
  • Two roads that part in waste-country:
  • The glen lies deep and the ridge stands tall;
  • What's great below is above seen small,
  • And the hill-side is the valley-wall.”
  • “Stream-bank, daughter, or moor and moss,
  • Both roads will take to Holy Cross.
  • The hills are a weary waste to wage;
  • But what of the valley-road's presage?
  • 100That way must tend his pilgrimage.”
page: 10
  • “As 'twere the turning leaves of a book,
  • The road runs past me as I look;
  • Or it is even as though mine eye
  • Should watch calm waters filled with sky
  • While lights and clouds and wings went by.”
  • “In every covert seek a spear;
  • They'll scarce lie close till he draws near.”
  • “The stream has spread to a river now;
  • The stiff blue sedge is deep in the slough,
  • 110But the banks are bare of shrub or bough.”
  • “Is there any roof that near at hand
  • Might shelter yield to a hidden band?”
  • “On the further bank I see but one,
  • And a herdsman now in the sinking sun
  • Unyokes his team at the threshold-stone.”
page: 11
  • “Keep heedful watch by the water's edge,—
  • Some boat might lurk 'neath the shadowed sedge.”
  • “One slid but now 'twixt the winding shores,
  • But a peasant woman bent to the oars
  • 120And only a young child steered its course.
  • “Mother, something flashed to my sight!—
  • Nay, it is but the lapwing's flight.—
  • What glints there like a lance that flees?—
  • Nay, the flags are stirred in the breeze,
  • And the water's bright through the dart-rushes.
  • “Ah! vainly I search from side to side:—
  • Woe's me! and where do the foemen hide?
  • Woe's me! and perchance I pass them by,
  • And under the new dawn's blood-red sky
  • 130Even where I gaze the dead shall lie.”
page: 12
  • Said the mother: “For dear love's sake,
  • Speak more low, lest the spell should break.”
  • Said the daughter: “By love's control,
  • My eyes, my words, are strained to the goal;
  • But oh! the voice that cries in my soul!”
  • “Hush, sweet, hush! be calm and behold.”
  • “I see two floodgates broken and old:
  • The grasses wave o'er the ruined weir,
  • But the bridge still leads to the breakwater;
  • 140And—mother, mother, O mother dear!”
  • The damsel clung to her mother's knee,
  • And dared not let the shriek go free;
  • Low she crouched by the lady's chair,
  • And shrank blindfold in her fallen hair,
  • And whispering said, “The spears are there!”
page: 13
  • The lady stooped aghast from her place,
  • And cleared the locks from her daughter's face.
  • “More's to see, and she swoons, alas!
  • Look, look again, 'ere the moment pass!
  • 150One shadow comes but once to the glass.
  • “See you there what you saw but now?”
  • “I see eight men 'neath the willow-bough.
  • All over the weir a wild growth's spread:
  • Ah me! it will hide a living head
  • As well as the water hides the dead.
  • “They lie by the broken water-gate
  • As men who have a while to wait.
  • The chief's high lance has a blazoned scroll,—
  • He seems some lord of tithe and toll
  • 160With seven squires to his bannerole.
page: 14
  • “The little pennon quakes in the air,
  • I cannot trace the blazon there:—
  • Ah! now I can see the field of blue,
  • The spurs and the merlins two and two;—
  • It is the Warden of Holycleugh!”
  • “God be thanked for the thing we know!
  • You have named your good knight's mortal foe.
  • Last Shrovetide in the tourney-game
  • He sought his life by treasonous shame;
  • 170And this way now doth he seek the same.
  • “So, fair lord, such a thing you are!
  • But we too watch till the morning star.
  • Well, June is kind and the moon is clear:
  • Saint Judas send you a merry cheer
  • For the night you lie at Warisweir!
page: 15
  • “Now, sweet daughter, but one more sight,
  • And you may lie soft and sleep to-night.
  • We know in the vale what perils be:
  • Now look once more in the glass, and see
  • 180If over the hills the road lies free.”
  • Rose Mary pressed to her mother's cheek,
  • And almost smiled but did not speak;
  • Then turned again to the saving spell,
  • With eyes to search and with lips to tell
  • The heart of things invisible.
  • “Again the shape with the besom grey
  • Comes back to sweep the clouds away.
  • Again I stand where the roads divide;
  • But now all's near on the steep hillside,
  • 190And a thread far down is the rivertide.”
page: 16
  • “Ay, child, your road is o'er moor and moss,
  • Past Holycleugh to Holy Cross.
  • Our hunters lurk in the valley's wake,
  • As they knew which way the chase would take:
  • Yet search the hills for your true love's sake.”
  • “Swift and swifter the waste runs by,
  • And nought I see but the heath and the sky;
  • No brake is there that could hide a spear,
  • And the gaps to a horseman's sight lie clear;
  • 200Still past it goes, and there's nought to fear.”
  • “Fear no trap that you cannot see,—
  • They'd not lurk yet too warily.
  • Below by the weir they lie in sight,
  • And take no heed how they pass the night
  • Till close they crouch with the morning light.”
page: 17
Sig. C
  • “The road shifts ever and brings in view
  • Now first the heights of Holycleugh:
  • Dark they stand o'er the vale below,
  • And hide that heaven which yet shall show
  • 210The thing their master's heart doth know.
  • “Where the road looks to the castle steep,
  • There are seven hill-clefts wide and deep:
  • Six mine eyes can search as they list,
  • But the seventh hollow is brimmed with mist:
  • If aught were there, it might not be wist.”
  • “Small hope, my girl, for a helm to hide
  • In mists that cling to a wild moorside:
  • Soon they melt with the wind and sun,
  • And scarce would wait such deeds to be done:
  • 220God send their snares be the worst to shun.”
page: 18
  • “Still the road winds ever anew
  • As it hastens on towards Holycleugh;
  • And ever the great walls loom more near,
  • Till the castle-shadow, steep and sheer,
  • Drifts like a cloud, and the sky is clear.”
  • “Enough, my daughter,” the mother said,
  • And took to her breast the bending head;
  • “Rest, poor head, with my heart below,
  • While love still lulls you as long ago:
  • 230For all is learnt that we need to know.
  • “Long the miles and many the hours
  • From the castle-height to the abbey-towers;
  • But here the journey has no more dread;
  • Too thick with life is the whole road spread
  • For murder's trembling foot to tread.”
Editorial Description: Mark over the second “i” in “minister'd.”
page: 19
  • She gazed on the Beryl-stone full fain
  • Ere she wrapped it close in her robe again:
  • The flickering shades were dusk and dun,
  • And the lights throbbed faint in unison,
  • 240Like a high heart when a race is run.
  • As the globe slid to its silken gloom,
  • Once more a music rained through the room;
  • Low it splashed like a sweet star-spray,
  • And sobbed like tears at the heart of May,
  • And died as laughter dies away.
  • The lady held her breath for a space,
  • And then she looked in her daughter's face:
  • But wan Rose Mary had never heard;
  • Deep asleep like a sheltered bird
  • 250She lay with the long spell minister'd.
page: 20
  • “Ah! and yet I must leave you, dear,
  • For what you have seen your knight must hear.
  • Within four days, by the help of God,
  • He comes back safe to his heart's abode:
  • Be sure he shall shun the valley-road.”
  • Rose Mary sank with a broken moan,
  • And lay in the chair and slept alone,
  • Weary, lifeless, heavy as lead:
  • Long it was ere she raised her head
  • 260And rose up all discomforted.
  • She searched her brain for a vanished thing,
  • And clasped her brows, remembering;
  • Then knelt and lifted her eyes in awe,
  • And sighed with a long sigh sweet to draw:—
  • “Thank God, thank God, thank God I saw!”
page: 21
  • The lady had left her as she lay,
  • To seek the Knight of Heronhaye.
  • But first she clomb by a secret stair,
  • And knelt at a carven altar fair,
  • 270And laid the precious Beryl there.
  • Its girth was graved with a mystic rune
  • In a tongue long dead 'neath sun and moon:
  • A priest of the Holy Sepulchre
  • Read that writing and did not err;
  • And her lord had told its sense to her.
  • She breathed the words in an undertone:—
  • “ None sees here but the pure alone.”
  • “And oh!” she said, “what rose may be
  • In Mary's bower more pure to see
  • 280Than my own sweet maiden Rose Mary?”
page: 22
Beryl-Song.
  • We whose home is the Beryl,
  • Fire-spirits of dread desire,
  • Who entered in
  • By a secret sin,
  • Gainst whom all powers that strive with ours are
  • sterile,—
  • We cry, Woe to thee, mother!
  • What hast thou taught her, the girl thy daughter,
  • That she and none other
  • Should this dark morrow to her deadly sorrow imperil?
  • 10 What were her eyes
  • But the fiend's own spies,
  • O mother,
  • And shall We not fee her, our proper prophet and seër?
    page: 23
  • Go to her, mother,
  • Even thou, yea thou and none other,
  • Thou, from the Beryl:
  • Her fee must thou take her,
  • Her fee that We send, and make her,
  • Even in this hour, her sin's unsheltered avower.
  • 20 Whose steed did neigh,
  • Riderless, bridle-less,
  • At her gate before it was day?
  • Lo! where doth hover
  • The soul of her lover?
  • She sealed his doom, she, she was the sworn
  • approver,—
  • Whose eyes were so wondrous wise,
  • Yet blind, ah! blind to his peril!
  • For stole not We in
  • Through a love-linked sin,
    page: 24
  • 30 'Gainst whom all powers at war with ours are
  • sterile,—
  • Fire-spirits of dread desire,
  • We whose home is the Beryl?
page: 25
more about Rose Mary. Part II.
PART II.
  • “Pale Rose Mary, what shall be done
  • With a rose that Mary weeps upon?”
  • “Mother, let it fall from the tree,
  • And never walk where the strewn leaves be
  • Till winds have passed and the path is free.”
  • “Sad Rose Mary, what shall be done
  • With a cankered flower beneath the sun?”
  • “Mother, let it wait for the night;
  • Be sure its shame shall be out of sight
  • 10Ere the moon pale or the east grow light.”
page: 26
  • “Lost Rose Mary, what shall be done
  • With a heart that is but a broken one?”
  • “Mother, let it lie where it must;
  • The blood was drained with the bitter thrust,
  • And dust is all that sinks in the dust.”
  • “Poor Rose Mary, what shall I do,—
  • I, your mother, that lovèd you?”
  • “O my mother, and is love gone?
  • Then seek you another love anon:
  • 20Who cares what shame shall lean upon?”
  • Low drooped trembling Rose Mary,
  • Then up as though in a dream stood she.
  • “Come, my heart, it is time to go;
  • This is the hour that has whispered low
  • When thy pulse quailed in the nights we know.
page: 27
  • “Yet O my heart, thy shame has a mate
  • Who will not leave thee desolate.
  • Shame for shame, yea and sin for sin:
  • Yet peace at length may our poor souls win
  • 30If love for love be found therein.
  • “O thou who seek'st our shrift to-day,”
  • She cried, “O James of Heronhaye—
  • Thy sin and mine was for love alone;
  • And oh! in the sight of God 'tis known
  • How the heart has since made heavy moan.
  • “Three days yet!” she said to her heart;
  • “But then he comes, and we will not part.
  • God, God be thanked that I still could see!
  • Oh! he shall come back assuredly,
  • 40But where, alas! must he seek for me?
page: 28
  • “O my heart, what road shall we roam
  • Till my wedding-music fetch me home?
  • For love's shut from us and bides afar,
  • And scorn leans over the bitter bar
  • And knows us now for the thing we are.”
  • Tall she stood with a cheek flushed high
  • And a gaze to burn the heart-strings by.
  • 'Twas the lightning-flash o'er sky and plain
  • Ere labouring thunders heave the chain
  • 50From the floodgates of the drowning rain.
  • The mother looked on the daughter still
  • As on a hurt thing that's yet to kill.
  • Then wildly at length the pent tears came;
  • The love swelled high with the swollen shame,
  • And their hearts' tempest burst on them.
page: 29
  • Closely locked, they clung without speech,
  • And the mirrored souls shook each to each,
  • As the cloud-moon and the water-moon
  • Shake face to face when the dim stars swoon
  • 60In stormy bowers of the night's mid-noon.
  • They swayed together, shuddering sore,
  • Till the mother's heart could bear no more.
  • 'Twas death to feel her own breast shake
  • Even to the very throb and ache
  • Of the burdened heart she still must break.
  • All her sobs ceased suddenly,
  • And she sat straight up but scarce could see.
  • “O daughter, where should my speech begin?
  • Your heart held fast its secret sin:
  • 70How think you, child, that I read therein?”
page: 30
  • “Ah me! but I thought not how it came
  • When your words showed that you knew my shame:
  • And now that you call me still your own,
  • I half forget you have ever known.
  • Did you read my heart in the Beryl-stone?”
  • The lady answered her mournfully:—
  • “The Beryl-stone has no voice for me:
  • But when you charged its power to show
  • The truth which none but the pure may know,
  • 80Did naught speak once of a coming woe?”
  • Her hand was close to her daughter's heart,
  • And it felt the life-blood's sudden start:
  • A quick deep breath did the damsel draw,
  • Like the struck fawn in the oakenshaw:
  • “O mother,” she cried, “but still I saw!”
page: 31
  • “O child, my child, why held you apart
  • From my great love your hidden heart?
  • Said I not that all sin must chase
  • From the spell's sphere the spirits of grace,
  • 90And yield their rule to the evil race?
  • “Ah! would to God I had clearly told
  • How strong those powers, accurst of old:
  • Their heart is the ruined house of lies;
  • O girl, they can seal the sinful eyes,
  • Or show the truth by contraries!”
  • The daughter sat as cold as a stone,
  • And spoke no word but gazed alone,
  • Nor moved, though her mother strove a space
  • To clasp her round in a close embrace,
  • 100Because she dared not see her face.
page: 32
  • “Oh!” at last did the mother cry,
  • “Be sure, as he loved you, so will I!
  • Ah! still and dumb is the bride, I trow;
  • But cold and stark as the winter snow
  • Is the bridegroom's heart, laid dead below!
  • “Daughter, daughter, remember you
  • That cloud in the hills by Holycleugh?
  • 'Twas a Hell-screen hiding truth away:
  • There, not i' the vale, the ambush lay,
  • 110And thence was the dead borne home to-day.”
  • Deep the flood and heavy the shock
  • When sea meets sea in the riven rock:
  • But calm is the pulse that shakes the sea
  • To the prisoned tide of doom set free
  • In the breaking heart of Rose Mary.
page: 33
Sig. D
  • Once she sprang as the heifer springs
  • With the wolf's teeth at its red heart-strings:
  • First 'twas fire in her breast and brain,
  • And then scarce hers but the whole world's pain,
  • 120As she gave one shriek and sank again.
  • In the hair dark-waved the face lay white
  • As the moon lies in the lap of night;
  • And as night through which no moon may dart
  • Lies on a pool in the woods apart,
  • So lay the swoon on the weary heart.
  • The lady felt for the bosom's stir,
  • And wildly kissed and called on her;
  • Then turned away with a quick footfall,
  • And slid the secret door in the wall,
  • 130And clomb the strait stair's interval.
page: 34
  • There above in the altar-cell
  • A little fountain rose and fell:
  • She set a flask to the water's flow,
  • And, backward hurrying, sprinkled now
  • The still cold breast and the pallid brow.
  • Scarce cheek that warmed or breath on the air,
  • Yet something told that life was there.
  • “Ah! not with the heart the body dies!”
  • The lady moaned in a bitter wise;
  • 140Then wrung her hands and hid her eyes.
  • “Alas! and how may I meet again
  • In the same poor eyes the self-same pain?
  • What help can I seek, such grief to guide?
  • Ah! one alone might avail,” she cried,—
  • “The priest who prays at the dead man's side.”
page: 35
  • The lady arose, and sped down all
  • The winding stairs to the castle-hall.
  • Long-known valley and wood and stream,
  • As the loopholes passed, naught else did seem
  • 150Than the torn threads of a broken dream.
  • The hall was full of the castle-folk;
  • The women wept, but the men scarce spoke.
  • As the lady crossed the rush-strewn floor,
  • The throng fell backward, murmuring sore,
  • And pressed outside round the open door.
  • A stranger shadow hung on the hall
  • Than the dark pomp of a funeral.
  • 'Mid common sights that were there alway,
  • As 'twere a chance of the passing day,
  • 160On the ingle-bench the dead man lay.
page: 36
  • A priest who passed by Holycleugh
  • The tidings brought when the day was new.
  • He guided them who had fetched the dead;
  • And since that hour, unwearièd,
  • He knelt in prayer at the low bier's head.
  • Word had gone to his own domain
  • That in evil wise the knight was slain:
  • Soon the spears must gather apace
  • And the hunt be hard on the hunters' trace;
  • 170But all things yet lay still for a space.
  • As the lady's hurried step drew near,
  • The kneeling priest looked up to her.
  • “Father, death is a grievous thing;
  • But oh! the woe has a sharper sting
  • That craves by me your ministering.
page: 37
  • “Alas for the child that should have wed
  • This noble knight here lying dead!
  • Dead in hope, with all blessed boon
  • Of love thus rent from her heart ere noon,
  • 180I left her laid in a heavy swoon.
  • “O haste to the open bower-chamber
  • That's topmost as you mount the stair:
  • Seek her, father, ere yet she wake;
  • Your words, not mine, be the first to slake
  • This poor heart's fire, for Christ's sweet sake!
  • “God speed!” she said as the priest passed through,
  • “And I ere long will be with you.”
  • Then low on the hearth her knees sank prone;
  • She signed all folk from the threshold-stone,
  • 190And gazed in the dead man's face alone.
page: 38
  • The fight for life found record yet
  • In the clenched lips and the teeth hard-set;
  • The wrath from the bent brow was not gone,
  • And stark in the eyes the hate still shone
  • Of that they last had looked upon.
  • The blazoned coat was rent on his breast
  • Where the golden field was goodliest;
  • But the shivered sword, close-gripped, could tell
  • That the blood shed round him where he fell
  • 200Was not all his in the distant dell.
  • The lady recked of the corpse no whit,
  • But saw the soul and spoke to it:
  • A light there was in her steadfast eyes,—
  • The fire of mortal tears and sighs
  • That pity and love immortalize.
page: 39
  • “By thy death have I learnt to-day
  • Thy deed, O James of Heronhaye!
  • Great wrong thou hast done to me and mine;
  • And haply God hath wrought for a sign
  • 210By our blind deed this doom of thine.
  • “Thy shrift, alas! thou wast not to win;
  • But may death shrive thy soul herein!
  • Full well do I know thy love should be
  • Even yet—had life but stayed with thee—
  • Our honour's strong security.”
  • She stooped, and said with a sob's low stir,—
  • “Peace be thine,—but what peace for her?”
  • But ere to the brow her lips were press'd,
  • She marked, half-hid in the riven vest,
  • 220A packet close to the dead man's breast.
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  • 'Neath surcoat pierced and broken mail
  • It lay on the blood-stained bosom pale.
  • The clot clung round it, dull and dense,
  • And a faintness seized her mortal sense
  • As she reached her hand and drew it thence.
  • 'Twas steeped in the heart's flood welling high
  • From the heart it there had rested by:
  • 'Twas glued to a broidered fragment gay,—
  • A shred by spear-thrust rent away
  • 230From the heron-wings of Heronhaye.
  • She gazed on the thing with piteous eyne:—
  • “Alas, poor child, some pledge of thine!
  • Ah me! in this troth the hearts were twain,
  • And one hath ebbed to this crimson stain,
  • And when shall the other throb again?”
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  • She opened the packet heedfully;
  • The blood was stiff, and it scarce might be.
  • She found but a folded paper there,
  • And round it, twined with tenderest care,
  • 240A long bright tress of golden hair.
  • Even as she looked, she saw again
  • That dark-haired face in its swoon of pain:
  • It seemed a snake with a golden sheath
  • Crept near, as a slow flame flickereth,
  • And stung her daughter's heart to death.
  • She loosed the tress, but her hand did shake
  • As though indeed she had touched a snake;
  • And next she undid the paper's fold,
  • But that too trembled in her hold,
  • 250And the sense scarce grasped the tale it told.
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  • “My heart's sweet lord,” ('twas thus she read,)
  • “At length our love is garlanded.
  • “At Holy Cross, within eight days' space,
  • “I seek my shrift; and the time and place
  • “Shall fit thee too for thy soul's good grace.
  • “From Holycleugh on the seventh day
  • “My brother rides, and bides away:
  • “And long or e'er he is back, mine own,
  • “Afar where the face of fear's unknown
  • 260“We shall be safe with our love alone.
  • “Ere yet at the shrine my knees I bow,
  • “I shear one tress for our holy vow.
  • “As round these words these threads I wind,
  • “So, eight days hence, shall our loves be twined,
  • “Says my lord's poor lady, JOCELIND.”
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  • She read it twice, with a brain in thrall,
  • And then its echo told her all.
  • O'er brows low-fall'n her hands she drew:—
  • “O God!” she said, as her hands fell too,—
  • 270“The Warden's sister of Holycleugh!”
  • She rose upright with a long low moan,
  • And stared in the dead man's face new-known.
  • Had it lived indeed? She scarce could tell:
  • 'Twas a cloud where fiends had come to dwell,—
  • A mask that hung on the gate of Hell.
  • She lifted the lock of gleaming hair
  • And smote the lips and left it there.
  • “Here's gold that Hell shall take for thy toll!
  • Full well hath thy treason found its goal,
  • 280O thou dead body and damnèd soul!”
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  • She turned, sore dazed, for a voice was near,
  • And she knew that some one called to her.
  • On many a column fair and tall
  • A high court ran round the castle-hall;
  • And thence it was that the priest did call.
  • “I sought your child where you bade me go,
  • And in rooms around and rooms below;
  • But where, alas! may the maiden be?
  • Fear nought,—we shall find her speedily,—
  • 290But come, come hither, and seek with me.”
  • She reached the stair like a lifelorn thing,
  • But hastened upward murmuring:—
  • “Yea, Death's is a face that's fell to see;
  • But bitterer pang Life hoards for thee,
  • Thou broken heart of Rose Mary!”
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Beryl-Song.
  • We whose throne is the Beryl,
  • Dire-gifted spirits of fire,
  • Who for a twin
  • Leash Sorrow to Sin,
  • Who on no flower refrain to lour with peril,—
  • We cry,—O desolate daughter!
  • Thou and thy mother share newer shame with each
  • other
  • Than last night's slaughter.
  • Awake and tremble, for our curses assemble!
  • 10 What more, that thou know'st not yet,—
  • That life nor death shall forget?
  • No help from Heaven,—thy woes heart-riven are
  • sterile!
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  • O, once a maiden,
  • With yet worse sorrow can any morrow be laden?
  • It waits for thee,
  • It looms, it must be,
  • O lost among women,—
  • It comes and thou canst not flee.
  • Amen to the omen,
  • 20 Says the voice of the Beryl.
  • Thou sleep'st? Awake,—
  • What dar'st thou yet for his sake,
  • Who each for other did God's own Future imperil?
  • Dost dare to live
  • 'Mid the pangs each hour must give?
  • Nay, rather die,—
  • With him thy lover 'neath Hell's cloud-cover to fly,—
  • Hopeless, yet not apart,
  • Cling heart to heart,
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  • 30 And beat through the nether storm-eddying winds
  • together?
  • Shall this be so?
  • There thou shalt meet him, but may'st thou greet him?
  • ah no!
  • He loves, but thee he hoped never more to see,—
  • He sighed as he died,
  • But with never a thought for thee.
  • Alone!
  • Alone, for ever alone,—
  • Whose eyes were such wondrous spies for the fate
  • foreshown!
  • Lo! have not We leashed the twin
  • 40 Of endless Sorrow to Sin,—
  • Who on no flower refrain to lour with peril,—
  • Dire-gifted spirits of fire,
  • We whose throne is the Beryl?
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more about Rose Mary. Part III.
PART III.
  • A swoon that breaks is the whelming wave
  • When help comes late but still can save.
  • With all blind throes is the instant rife,—
  • Hurtling clangour and clouds at strife,—
  • The breath of death, but the kiss of life.
  • The night lay deep on Rose Mary's heart,
  • For her swoon was death's kind counterpart:
  • The dawn broke dim on Rose Mary's soul,—
  • No hill-crown's heavenly aureole,
  • 10But a wild gleam on a shaken shoal.
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Sig. E