IV.
The May itself in soft sea-green Is Oriana, Spring"s high queen, And Amadis beside her seen Some prince of Fairy stones: Where her castle"s ivied towers Drowse above her budded bowers, Flaps the heron thro" the sky, And the wild swan gives a cry By woody Miraflores.
LA BEALE ISOUD.
I.
With bloodshot eyes the morning rose Upon a world of gloom and tears; A kindred glance queen Isoud shows-- Come night, come morn, cease not her fears.
The fog-clouds whiten all the vale, The sunlight draws them to its love; The diamond dews wash ev"ry dale, Where bays the hunt within the grove.
Her lute--the one her touch he taught To wake beneath the stars a song Of swan-caught music--is as naught And on yon damask lounge is flung.
Down o"er her cheeks her hair she draws In golden rays "twixt lily tips, And gazes sad on gloomy shaws "Neath which had often touched their lips.
II.
With irised eyes, from morn to noon.
And noon to middle night she stoops From her high lattice "neath the moon, Hoping to see him "mid the groups Of mail-swathed braves come jingling by.
And once there came a dame in weft All pearl besprent, as when the sky A springtide day hath wept and left A stormy eve one flash of gems.
""Mid neatherds he"s a naked waif Unwitted," said she, lipping scorn: And shook deep curls with a weak laugh Tib clinked the gold thick in them worn.
III.
"How long to wait!" and far she bent From her tall cas.e.m.e.nt toward the lawn; A prospect of a wide extent Gla.s.sed in her eyes and hateful shown.
Along the white lake windy crags Blue with coa.r.s.e brakes and ragged pines; A bandit keep with trembling flags; And barren scars, and waste marsh lines, And now a palfried dame and knight.
Deep deer-behaunted forests old, Whose sinewy boughs dark blocked the cave Of Heav"n o"er Earth; a blasted hold "Mid livid fields; a torrent"s wave.
And o"er the bridge whose marble arched The torrent"s foam, dim in the dew Of morning, one all glimmering marched In glittering steel from helm to shoe, With lance whose fang smote back the dawn.
IV.
Selled on a barb whose trappings shone Red bra.s.s,--a morning star of jousts Upon the dawning beaming lone Burst from the hills" empurpled crusts.
A lying star, whose double tongue Was slave to gold: "I saw him die!-- "Tis ruth, for he was brave and young,-- I saw him in the close clay lie."
Then pa.s.sed he rattling from the court....
So grief in furrows ploughed her front"s Smooth surface wan, and toward the eve,-- The bloodshot eve upon the mounts, Who o"er day"s flow"ry bier did grieve And bow her melancholy star,-- O"er teenful eyes she bent the light Of her crown-crescent"s gem, and far She lingered till the full-mooned night Showered ripple-stars the gray mere o"er.
V.
"And I"m like her who trims a flame Of sickly color, bowing low To balk the wind; in wanton game One stoops in secret toward her brow With wind-bulged cheeks, a quick breath sends-- And then the world is blind with gloom, And filled with phantoms and with fiends, That strain huge eyes and jibe her doom."
Thus thought Isoud in her despair, Of Launcelot then thoughts grew on, And Arthur"s lovely queen away In castled courts of Caerleon, And all their joy and dalliance gay.
Until she could have thawed the spars Of her clear-fountained eyes to tears, And gush wild grief long-seared by wars Of pa.s.sionate anguish and great fears: "Oh Tristram gone! oh death in life!"
Soft down below in the thick dark A fountain throbbed monotonous foam, Unseen within the starlit park, Deep in the tower"s shadowed dome.
"And thus my heart drums frigid life In hateful gloom of fear and woe!
One flood of sorrow, cataract-rife, My full-flush heart streams come and go Since Tristram"s gone and I"m alone!"
VI.
Then sunk the moon, and far away, Beside the bickering lake, the towers Of bandit braves shone tall and gray, Like specters in her lonely hours.
And "twixt the nodding grove and lake A glimmering fawn stalked thro" the night; And with full brow the musks did take, Then bowed to drink--she veiled her sight And moaning said, "Death is but life!
The fawn "mid lilies from the mere Sucks genial draughts to dull its thirsts; O fondest spirit, art thou near?
Draw to thy soul this soul that bursts!
The vivid lilies to the stars Clasp their white eyes and sink to sleep: O anguish, to thy burning wars Lock my sad heart and drag it deep!"-- Albeit she slept, she dreamed in grief.
BELTENEBROS AT MIRAFLORES.
I.
The quickening East climbs to yon star, That, cradled, rocks herself in morn; The liquid silver broad"ning far Dawn drencheth cliff, holt, down and tarn.
The trembling splendors gild the sky, Breath"d from her tawny champion"s lips; The clear green dews above me lie, Their l.u.s.tre the dark eyelash tips Of Oriana sitting by.
The crested c.o.c.k "mid his stout dames Crows from the purple-clover hill; His glossy coat the morn enflames, And all his leaping heart doth thrill.
His curving tail sickles the plume That rosy nods against his eye.
Laughs from deep beds of twinkling bloom The lilied East when wand"reth nigh My Oriana in the gloom.
The rooks swarm clatt"ring "round the tow"rs; The falcon jingles in the air; The bursting dawn around him show"rs A clinging glory of wan glare.
From the green knoll the shouting hunt With swollen cheeks clangs his alarms; Mayhap I hear the bristler"s grunt: But where my Oriana charms The wood, hushed is its ev"ry haunt.
The willowed lake is cool with cloud Breaking and dimming into shreds, Which gauze the azure, thinly crowd The mist-pink West with hazy threads.
A wild swan ruffles o"er the mere Soft as the drifting of a soul; A double swan she doth appear In mirage fixed "twixt pole and pole When Oriana singeth near.
II.
Spring high into the shuddering stars, O florid sunset, burning gold!
Flash on our eyeb.a.l.l.s lurid bars To beam them with air-fires cold!
The blowing dingles soak with light, The purple coppice hang with blaze; But where we stand a meeker white Bloom on us thro" the hill"s soft haze, For Oriana stars the night!
Float from the East, O silver world, Unto the ocean of the West; And the foam-sparkles upward hurled, That fringe the twilight"s surging crest, s.n.a.t.c.h up and gather "round thy brow In l.u.s.trous twine of rosy heat, And rain on us its starry glow,-- O fragment of the evetide"s sheet,-- And Oriana"s eyes o"erflow.
O courting cricket, with thy pipe Now shrill true love thro" the warm grain O feathered buds, that nodding stripe The blue glen"s night, sigh love again!
Thou glimmering bird, that aye doth wail From some wind-wavered branch of snow, Sweep down the moonlit, hay-sweet dale Thy bubbled anguish, swooning low, For Oriana walks the vale!
The moon comes sowing all the eve With myriad star-grains of her light; The torrent on the crag doth grieve; The glittering lake is smooth with night.
O mellow lights that o"er us slide, O wrinkled woods that ridge the steep, O bearded stems that billowing glide, With laughing night-dews happy weep, For Oriana"ll be my bride!