LADY.
Yes. The tale! the tale!
WALTER.
On balcony, all summer roofed with vines, A lady half-reclined amid the light, Golden and green, soft-showering through the leaves, Silent she sat one-half the silent noon; At last she sank luxurious in her couch, Purple and golden-fringed, like the sun"s, And stretched her white arms on the warmed air, As if to take some object wherewithal To ease the empty aching of her heart.
"Oh, what a weariness of life is mine!"
The lady said, "soothing myself to sleep With my own lute, floating about the lake To feed my swans; with nought to stir my blood, Unless I scold my women thrice a-day.
Unwrought yet in the tapestry of my life Are princely suitors kneeling evermore.
I, in my beauty, standing in the midst, Touching them, careless, with most stately eyes.
Oh, I could love, methinks, with all my soul!
But I see nought to love; nought save some score Of lisping, curl"d gallants, with words i" their mouths Soft as their mothers" milk. Oh, empty heart!
Oh, palace, rich and purple-chambered!
When will thy lord come home?
"When the grey morn was groping "bout the east The Earl went trooping forth to chase the stag; I trust he hath not, to the sport he loves Better than ale-bouts, ta"en my cub of Ind.
My sweetest plaything. He is bright and wild As is a gleaming panther of the hills,-- Lovely as lightning, beautiful as wild!
His sports and laughters are with fierceness edged; There"s something in his beauty all untamed, As I were toying with a naked sword, Which starts within my veins the blood of earls.
I fain would have the service of his voice To kill with music this most languid noon."
She rang a silver bell: with downcast eyes The tawny nursling of the Indian sun Stood at her feet. "I pr"ythee, Leopard, sing; Give me some stormy song of sword and lance, Which, rushing upward from a hero"s heart, Straight rose upon a hundred leaguered hills, Ragged and wild as pyramid of flame.
Or, better, sing some hungry lay of love Like that you sang me on the eve you told How poor our English to your Indian darks; Shaken from od"rous hills, what tender smells Pa.s.s like fine pulses through the mellow nights; The purple ether that embathes the moon,-- Your large round moon, more beautiful than ours; Your showers of stars, each hanging luminous, Like golden dewdrops in the Indian air."
"I know a song, born in the heart of love, Its sweetest sweet, steeped ere the close in tears.
"Twas sung into the cold ears of the stars Beside the murmured margent of the sea.
"Tis of two lovers, matched like cymbals fine, Who, in a moment of luxurious blood, Their pale lips trembling in the kiss of G.o.ds, Made their lives wine-cups, and then drank them off, And died with beings full-blown like a rose; A mighty heart-pant bore them like a wave, And flung them, flowers, upon the next world"s strand.
Night the solemn, night the starry, "Mong the oak-trees old and gnarry; By the sea-sh.o.r.e and the ships, "Neath the stars I sat with Clari; Her silken bodice was unlaced, My arm was trembling round her waist, I plucked the joys upon her lips; Joys that plucked still grow again!
Canst thou say the same, old Night?
Ha! thy life is vain.
Oh, that death would let me tarry Like a dewdrop on a flower, Ever on those lips of Clari!
Our beings mellow, then they fall, Like o"er-ripe peaches from the wall; We ripen, drop, and all is o"er; On the cold grave weeps the rain; I weep it should be so, old Night.
Ah! my tears are vain.
Night the solemn, night the starry, Say, alas! that years should harry Gloss from life and joy from lips, Love-l.u.s.tre from the eyes of Clari!
Moon! that walkest the blue deep, Like naked maiden in her sleep; Star! whose pallid splendour dips In the ghost-waves of the main.
Oh, ye hear me not! old Night, My tears and cries are vain."
He ceased to sing; queenly the lady lay, One white hand hidden in a golden shoal Of ringlets, reeling down upon her couch, And heaving on the heavings of her breast, The while the thoughts rose in her eyes like stars, Rising and setting in the blue of night.
"I had a cousin once," the lady said, "Who brooding sat, a melancholy owl, Among the twilight-branches of his thoughts.
He was a rhymer, and great knights he spoiled, And damsels saved, and giants slew--in verse.
He died in youth; his heart held a dead hope, As holds the wretched west the sunset"s corpse: He went to his grave, nor told what man he was.
He was unlanguaged, like the earnest sea, Which strives to gain an utterance on the sh.o.r.e, But ne"er can shape unto the listening hills The lore it gathered in its awful age; The crime for which "tis lashed by cruel winds; The thought, pain, grief, within its labouring breast.
To fledge with music, wings of heavy noon, I"ll sing some verses that he sent to me:--
Where the west has sunset-bloomed, Where a hero"s heart is tombed, Where a thunder-cloud has gloomed,
Seen, becomes a part of me.
Flowers and rills live sunnily In gardens of my memory.
Through its walks and leafy lanes, Float fair shapes "mong sunlight rains; Blood is running in their veins.
One, a queenly maiden fair, Sweepeth past me with an air, Kings might kneel beneath her stare.
Round her heart, a rosebud free, Reeled I, like a drunken bee; Alas! it would not ope to me.
One comes shining like a saint, But her face I cannot paint, For mine eyes and blood grow faint.
Eyes are dimmed as by a tear, Sounds are ringing in mine ear, I feel only, she is here,
That she laugheth where she stands, That she mocketh with her hands; I am bound in tighter bands.
Laid "mong faintest blooms is one, Singing in the setting sun, And her song is never done.
She was born "mong water-mills; She grew up "mong flowers and rills, In the hearts of distant hills.
There, into her being stole Nature, and embued the whole, And illumed her face and soul.
She grew fairer than her peers; Still her gentle forehead wears Holy lights of infant years.
Her blue eyes, so mild and meek, She uplifteth, when I speak, Lo! the blushes mount her cheek.
Weary I of pride and jest, In this rich heart I would rest, Purple and love-lined nest.
"My dazzling panther of the smoking hills, When the hot sun hath touched their loads of dew, What strange eyes had my cousin, who could thus (For you must know I am the first o" the three That pace the gardens of his memory) Prefer before the daughter of great earls, This giglot, shining in her golden hair, Haunting him like a gleam or happy thought; Or her, the last, up whose cheeks blushes went As thick and frequent as the streamers pa.s.s Up cold December nights. True, she might be A dainty partner in the game of lips, Sweet"ning the honeymoon; but what, alas!
When redhot youth cools down to iron man?
Could her white fingers close a helmet up, And send her lord unkissed away to field, Her heart striking with his arm in every blow?
Would joy rush through her spirit like a stream, When to her lips he came with victory back: Acclaims and blessings on his head like crowns, His mouthed wounds brave trumpets in his praise, Drawing huge shoals of people, like the moon, Whose beauty draws the solemn-noised seas?
Or would his bright and lovely sanguine-stains Scare all the coward blood into her heart, Leaving her cheeks as pale as lily leaves?
And at his great step would she quail and faint, And pay his seeking arms with bloodless swoon?
My heart would leap to greet such coming lord, Eager to meet him, tiptoe on my lips."
"This cousin loved the Lady Constance; did The Lady Constance love her cousin, too?"
"Ay, as a cousin. He woo"d me, Leopard mine, I speared him with a jest; for there are men Whose sinews stiffen "gainst a knitted brow, Yet are unthreaded, loosened by a sneer, And their resolve doth pa.s.s as doth a wave: Of this sort was my cousin. I saw him once, Adown a pleached alley, in the sun, Two gorgeous peac.o.c.ks pecking from his hand; At sight of me he first turned red, then pale.
I laughed and said, "I saw a misery perched I" the melancholy corners of his mouth, Like griffins on each side my father"s gates."
And, "That by sighing he would win my heart, Somewhere as soon as he could hug the earth, And crack its golden ribs." A week the boy Dwelt in his sorrow, like a cataract Unseen, yet sounding through its shrouding mists.
Strange likings, too, this cousin had of mine.
A frail cloud trailing o"er the midnight moon, Was lovelier sight than wounded boar a-foam Among the yelping dogs. He"d lie in fields, And through his fingers watch the changing clouds, Those playful fancies of the mighty sky, With deeper interest than a lady"s face.
He had no heart to grasp the fleeting hour, Which, like a thief, steals by with silent foot, In his closed hand the jewel of a life.
He scarce would match this throned and kingdom"d earth Against a dew drop.
"Who"d leap into the chariot of my heart, And seize the reins, and wind it to his will, Must be of other stuff, my cub of Ind; White honour shall be like a plaything to him, Borne lightly, a pet falcon on his wrist; One who can feel the very pulse o" the time, Instant to act, to plunge into the strife, And with a strong arm hold the rearing world.
In costly chambers hushed with carpets rich, Swept by proud beauties in their whistling silks, Mars" plait shall smooth to sweetness on his brow; His mighty front whose steel flung back the sun, When horsed for battle, shall bend above a hand Laid like a lily in his tawny palm, With such a grace as takes the gazer"s eye.
His voice that shivered the mad trumpet"s blare,-- A new-raised standard to the reeling field,-- Shall know to tremble at a lady"s ear, To charm her blood with the fine touch of praise, And as she listens--steal away the heart.
If the good G.o.ds do grant me such a man, More would I dote upon his trenched brows, His coal-black hair, proud eyes, and scornful lips, Than on a gallant, curled like Absalom, Cheek"d like Apollo, with his luted voice.
"Canst tell me, Sir Dark-eyes, Is "t true what these strange-thoughted poets say, That hearts are tangled in a golden smile?
That brave cheeks pale before a queenly brow?