Poems & Ballads Volume I Part 30

And it was now an hour upon the night And winter-time, and a few stars began.

The weather was yet feeble and all wan For beating of a weighty wind and snow.

And she came walking in soft wise and slow, And many men with faces piteous.

Then came this heavy cursing Gabalus, That swore full hard into his drunken beard; And faintly after without any word Came Theophile some paces off the king.

And in the middle of this wayfaring Full tenderly beholding her he said: There is no word of comfort with men dead Nor any face and colour of things sweet; But always with lean cheeks and lifted feet These dead men lie all aching to the blood With bitter cold, their brows withouten hood Beating for chill, their bodies swathed full thin: Alas, what hire shall any have herein To give his life and get such bitterness?

Also the soul going forth bodiless Is hurt with naked cold, and no man saith If there be house or covering for death To hide the soul that is discomforted.

Then she beholding him a little said: Alas, fair lord, ye have no wit of this; For on one side death is full poor of bliss And as ye say full sharp of bone and lean: But on the other side is good and green And hath soft flower of tender-coloured hair Grown on his head, and a red mouth as fair As may be kissed with lips; thereto his face Is as G.o.d's face, and in a perfect place Full of all sun and colour of straight boughs And waterheads about a painted house That hath a mile of flowers either way Outward from it, and blossom-gra.s.s of May Thickening on many a side for length of heat, Hath G.o.d set death upon a n.o.ble seat Covered with green and flowered in the fold, In likeness of a great king grown full old And gentle with new temperance of blood; And on his brows a purfled purple hood, They may not carry any golden thing; And plays some tune with subtle fingering On a small cithern, full of tears and sleep And heavy pleasure that is quick to weep And sorrow with the honey in her mouth; And for this might of music that he doth Are all souls drawn toward him with great love And weep for sweetness of the noise thereof And bow to him with worship of their knees; And all the field is thick with companies Of fair-clothed men that play on shawms and lutes And gather honey of the yellow fruits Between the branches waxen soft and wide: And all this peace endures in either side Of the green land, and G.o.d beholdeth all.

And this is girdled with a round fair wall Made of red stone and cool with heavy leaves Grown out against it, and green blossom cleaves To the green c.h.i.n.ks, and lesser wall-weed sweet, Kissing the crannies that are split with heat, And branches where the summer draws to head.

And Theophile burnt in the cheek, and said: Yea, could one see it, this were marvellous.

I pray you, at your coming to this house, Give me some leaf of all those tree-branches; Seeing how so sharp and white our weather is, There is no green nor gracious red to see.

Yea, sir, she said, that shall I certainly.

And from her long sweet throat without a fleck Undid the gold, and through her stretched-out neck The cold axe clove, and smote away her head: Out of her throat the tender blood full red Fell suddenly through all her long soft hair.

And with good speed for hardness of the air Each man departed to his house again.

Lo, as fair colour in the face of men At seed-time of their blood, or in such wise As a thing seen increaseth in men's eyes, Caught first far off by sickly fits of sight, So a word said, if one shall hear aright, Abides against the season of its growth.

This Theophile went slowly, as one doth That is not sure for sickness of his feet; And counting the white stonework of the street, Tears fell out of his eyes for wrath and love, Making him weep more for the shame thereof Than for true pain: so went he half a mile.

And women mocked him, saying: Theophile, Lo, she is dead; what shall a woman have That loveth such an one? so Christ me save, I were as lief to love a man new-hung.

Surely this man has bitten on his tongue, This makes him sad and writhled in his face.

And when they came upon the paven place That was called sometime the place amorous There came a child before Theophilus Bearing a basket, and said suddenly: Fair sir, this is my mistress Dorothy That sends you gifts; and with this he was gone.

In all this earth there is not such an one For colour and straight stature made so fair.

The tender growing gold of his pure hair Was as wheat growing, and his mouth as flame.

G.o.d called him Holy after his own name; With gold cloth like fire burning he was clad.

But for the fair green basket that he had, It was filled up with heavy white and red; Great roses stained still where the first rose bled, Burning at heart for shame their heart withholds: And the sad colour of strong marigolds That have the sun to kiss their lips for love; The flower that Venus' hair is woven of, The colour of fair apples in the sun, Late peaches gathered when the heat was done And the slain air got breath; and after these The fair faint-headed poppies drunk with ease, And heaviness of hollow lilies red.

Then cried they all that saw these things, and said It was G.o.d's doing, and was marvellous.

And in brief while this knight Theophilus Is waxen full of faith, and witnesseth Before the king of G.o.d and love and death, For which the king bade hang him presently.

A gallows of a goodly piece of tree This Gabalus hath made to hang him on.

Forth of this world lo Theophile is gone With a wried neck, G.o.d give us better fare Than his that hath a twisted throat to wear; But truly for his love G.o.d hath him brought There where his heavy body grieves him nought Nor all the people plucking at his feet; But in his face his lady's face is sweet, And through his lips her kissing lips are gone: G.o.d send him peace, and joy of such an one.

This is the story of St. Dorothy.

I will you of your mercy pray for me Because I wrote these sayings for your grace, That I may one day see her in the face.

THE TWO DREAMS

(FROM BOCCACCIO)

I will that if I say a heavy thing Your tongues forgive me; seeing ye know that spring Has flecks and fits of pain to keep her sweet, And walks somewhile with winter-bitten feet.

Moreover it sounds often well to let One string, when ye play music, keep at fret The whole song through; one petal that is dead Confirms the roses, be they white or red; Dead sorrow is not sorrowful to hear As the thick noise that breaks mid weeping were; The sick sound aching in a lifted throat Turns to sharp silver of a perfect note; And though the rain falls often, and with rain Late autumn falls on the old red leaves like pain, I deem that G.o.d is not disquieted.

Also while men are fed with wine and bread, They shall be fed with sorrow at his hand.

There grew a rose-garden in Florence land More fair than many; all red summers through The leaves smelt sweet and sharp of rain, and blew Sideways with tender wind; and therein fell Sweet sound wherewith the green waxed audible, As a bird's will to sing disturbed his throat And set the sharp wings forward like a boat Pushed through soft water, moving his brown side Smooth-shapen as a maid's, and shook with pride His deep warm bosom, till the heavy sun's Set face of heat stopped all the songs at once.

The ways were clean to walk and delicate; And when the windy white of March grew late, Before the trees took heart to face the sun With ravelled raiment of lean winter on, The roots were thick and hot with hollow gra.s.s.

Some roods away a lordly house there was, Cool with broad courts and latticed pa.s.sage wet From rush-flowers and lilies ripe to set, Sown close among the strewings of the floor; And either wall of the slow corridor Was dim with deep device of gracious things; Some angel's steady mouth and weight of wings Shut to the side; or Peter with straight stole And beard cut black against the aureole That spanned his head from nape to crown; thereby Mary's gold hair, thick to the girdle-tie Wherein was bound a child with tender feet; Or the broad cross with blood nigh brown on it.

Within this house a righteous lord abode, Ser Averardo; patient of his mood, And just of judgment; and to child he had A maid so sweet that her mere sight made glad Men sorrowing, and unbound the brows of hate; And where she came, the lips that pain made strait Waxed warm and wide, and from untender grew Tender as those that sleep brings patience to.

Such long locks had she, that with knee to chin She might have wrapped and warmed her feet therein.

Right seldom fell her face on weeping wise; Gold hair she had, and golden-coloured eyes, Filled with clear light and fire and large repose Like a fair hound's; no man there is but knows Her face was white, and thereto she was tall; In no wise lacked there any praise at all To her most perfect and pure maidenhood; No sin I think there was in all her blood.

She, where a gold grate shut the roses in, Dwelt daily through deep summer weeks, through green Flushed hours of rain upon the leaves; and there Love made him room and s.p.a.ce to worship her With tender worship of bowed knees, and wrought Such pleasure as the pained sense palates not For weariness, but at one taste undoes The heart of its strong sweet, is ravenous Of all the hidden honey; words and sense Fail through the tune's imperious prevalence.

In a poor house this lover kept apart, Long communing with patience next his heart If love of his might move that face at all, Tuned evenwise with colours musical; Then after length of days he said thus: "Love, For love's own sake and for the love thereof Let no harsh words untune your gracious mood; For good it were, if anything be good, To comfort me in this pain's plague of mine; Seeing thus, how neither sleep nor bread nor wine Seems pleasant to me, yea no thing that is Seems pleasant to me; only I know this, Love's ways are sharp for palms of piteous feet To travel, but the end of such is sweet: Now do with me as seemeth you the best."

She mused a little, as one holds his guest By the hand musing, with her face borne down: Then said: "Yea, though such bitter seed be sown, Have no more care of all that you have said; Since if there is no sleep will bind your head, Lo, I am fain to help you certainly; Christ knoweth, sir, if I would have you die; There is no pleasure when a man is dead."

Thereat he kissed her hands and yellow head And clipped her fair long body many times; I have no wit to shape in written rhymes A scanted t.i.the of this great joy they had.

They were too near love's secret to be glad; As whoso deems the core will surely melt From the warm fruit his lips caress, hath felt Some bitter kernel where the teeth shut hard: Or as sweet music sharpens afterward, Being half disrelished both for sharp and sweet; As sea-water, having killed over-heat In a man's body, chills it with faint ache; So their sense, burdened only for love's sake, Failed for pure love; yet so time served their wit, They saved each day some gold reserves of it, Being wiser in love's riddle than such be Whom fragments feed with his chance charity.

All things felt sweet were felt sweet overmuch; The rose-thorn's p.r.i.c.kle dangerous to touch, And flecks of fire in the thin leaf-shadows; Too keen the breathed honey of the rose, Its red too harsh a weight on feasted eyes; They were so far gone in love's histories, Beyond all shape and colour and mere breath, Where pleasure has for kinsfolk sleep and death, And strength of soul and body waxen blind For weariness, and flesh entailed with mind, When the keen edge of sense foretasteth sin.

Even this green place the summer caught them in Seemed half deflowered and sick with beaten leaves In their strayed eyes; these gold flower-fumd eves Burnt out to make the sun's love-offering, The midnoon's prayer, the rose's thanksgiving, The trees' weight burdening the strengthless air, The shape of her stilled eyes, her coloured hair, Her body's balance from the moving feet-- All this, found fair, lacked yet one grain of sweet It had some warm weeks back: so perisheth On May's new lip the tender April breath: So those same walks the wind sowed lilies in All April through, and all their latter kin Of languid leaves whereon the Autumn blows-- The dead red raiment of the last year's rose-- The last year's laurel, and the last year's love, Fade, and grow things that death grows weary of.

What man will gather in red summer-time The fruit of some obscure and h.o.a.ry rhyme Heard last midwinter, taste the heart in it, Mould the smooth semitones afresh, refit The fair limbs ruined, flush the dead blood through With colour, make all broken beauties new For love's new lesson--shall not such find pain When the marred music labouring in his brain Frets him with sweet sharp fragments, and lets slip One word that might leave satisfied his lip-- One touch that might put fire in all the chords?

This was her pain: to miss from all sweet words Some taste of sound, diverse and delicate-- Some speech the old love found out to compensate For seasons of shut lips and drowsiness-- Some grace, some word the old love found out to bless Pa.s.sionless months and undelighted weeks.

The flowers had lost their summer-scented cheeks, Their lips were no more sweet than daily breath: The year was plagued with instances of death.

So fell it, these were sitting in cool gra.s.s With leaves about, and many a bird there was Where the green shadow thickliest impleached Soft fruit and writhen spray and blossom bleached Dry in the sun or washed with rains to white: Her girdle was pure silk, the bosom bright With purple as purple water and gold wrought in.

One branch had touched with dusk her lips and chin, Made violet of the throat, abashed with shade The breast's bright plaited work: but nothing frayed The sun's large kiss on the luxurious hair.

Her beauty was new colour to the air And music to the silent many birds.

Love was an-hungred for some perfect words To praise her with; but only her low name "Andrevuola" came thrice, and thrice put shame In her clear cheek, so fruitful with new red That for pure love straightway shame's self was dead.

Then with lids gathered as who late had wept She began saying: "I have so little slept My lids drowse now against the very sun; Yea, the brain aching with a dream begun Beats like a fitful blood; kiss but both brows, And you shall pluck my thoughts grown dangerous Almost away." He said thus, kissing them: "O sole sweet thing that G.o.d is glad to name, My one gold gift, if dreams be sharp and sore Shall not the waking time increase much more With taste and sound, sweet eyesight or sweet scent?

Has any heat too hard and insolent Burnt bare the tender married leaves, undone The maiden gra.s.s shut under from the sun?

Where in this world is room enough for pain?"

The feverish finger of love had touched again Her lips with happier blood; the pain lay meek In her fair face, nor altered lip nor cheek With pallor or with pulse; but in her mouth Love thirsted as a man wayfaring doth, Making it humble as weak hunger is.

She lay close to him, bade do this and this, Say that, sing thus: then almost weeping-ripe Crouched, then laughed low. As one that fain would wipe The old record out of old things done and dead, She rose, she heaved her hands up, and waxed red For wilful heart and blameless fear of blame; Saying "Though my wits be weak, this is no shame For a poor maid whom love so punisheth With heats of hesitation and stopped breath That with my dreams I live yet heavily For pure sad heart and faith's humility.

Now be not wroth and I will show you this.

"Methought our lips upon their second kiss Met in this place, and a fair day we had And fair soft leaves that waxed and were not sad With shaken rain or bitten through with drouth; When I, beholding ever how your mouth Waited for mine, the throat being fallen back, Saw crawl thereout a live thing flaked with black Specks of brute slime and leper-coloured scale, A devil's hide with foul flame-writhen grail Fashioned where h.e.l.l's heat festers loathsomest; And that brief speech may ease me of the rest, Thus were you slain and eaten of the thing.

My waked eyes felt the new day shuddering On their low lids, felt the whole east so beat, Pant with close pulse of such a plague-struck heat, As if the palpitating dawn drew breath For horror, breathing between life and death, Till the sun sprang blood-bright and violent."

So finishing, her soft strength wholly spent, She gazed each way, lest some brute-hoovd thing, The timeless travail of h.e.l.l's childbearing, Should threat upon the sudden: whereat he, For relish of her tasted misery And tender little thornp.r.i.c.k of her pain, Laughed with mere love. What lover among men But hath his sense fed sovereignly 'twixt whiles With tears and covered eyelids and sick smiles And soft disaster of a paind face?

What pain, established in so sweet a place, But the plucked leaf of it smells fragrantly?

What colour burning man's wide-open eye But may be pleasurably seen? what sense Keeps in its hot sharp extreme violence No savour of sweet things? The bereaved blood And emptied flesh in their most broken mood Fail not so wholly, famish not when thus Past honey keeps the starved lip covetous.

Therefore this speech from a glad mouth began, Breathed in her tender hair and temples wan Like one prolonged kiss while the lips had breath.

"Sleep, that abides in va.s.salage of death And in death's service wears out half his age, Hath his dreams full of deadly va.s.salage, Shadow and sound of things ungracious; Fair shallow faces, hooded bloodless brows, And mouths past kissing; yea, myself have had As harsh a dream as holds your eyelids sad.

"This dream I tell you came three nights ago; In full mid sleep I took a whim to know How sweet things might be; so I turned and thought; But save my dream all sweet availed me not.

First came a smell of pounded spice and scent Such as G.o.d ripens in some continent Of utmost amber in the Syrian sea; And breaths as though some costly rose could be Spoiled slowly, wasted by some bitter fire To burn the sweet out leaf by leaf, and tire The flower's poor heart with heat and waste, to make Strong magic for some perfumed woman's sake.

Then a cool naked sense beneath my feet Of bud and blossom; and sound of veins that beat As if a lute should play of its own heart And fearfully, not smitten of either part; And all my blood it filled with sharp and sweet As gold swoln grain fills out the huskd wheat; So I rose naked from the bed, and stood Counting the mobile measure in my blood Some pleasant while, and through each limb there came Swift little pleasures pungent as a flame, Felt in the thrilling flesh and veins as much As the outer curls that feel the comb's first touch Thrill to the roots and shiver as from fire; And blind between my dream and my desire I seemed to stand and held my spirit still Lest this should cease. A child whose fingers spill Honey from cells forgotten of the bee Is less afraid to stir the hive and see Some wasp's bright back inside, than I to feel Some finger-touch disturb the flesh like steel.

I prayed thus; Let me catch a secret here So sweet, it sharpens the sweet taste of fear And takes the mouth with edge of wine; I would Have here some colour and smooth shape as good As those in heaven whom the chief garden hides With low grape-blossom veiling their white sides And lesser tendrils that so bind and blind Their eyes and feet, that if one come behind To touch their hair they see not, neither fly; This would I see in heaven and not die.

So praying, I had nigh cried out and knelt, So wholly my prayer filled me: till I felt In the dumb night's warm weight of glowing gloom Somewhat that altered all my sleeping-room, And made it like a green low place wherein Maids mix to bathe: one sets her small warm chin Against a ripple, that the angry pearl May flow like flame about her: the next curl Dips in some eddy coloured of the sun To wash the dust well out; another one Holds a straight ankle in her hand and swings With lavish body sidelong, so that rings Of sweet fierce water, swollen and splendid, fail All round her fine and floated body pale, Swayed flower-fashion, and her balanced side Swerved edgeways lets the weight of water slide, As taken in some underflow of sea Swerves the banked gold of sea-flowers; but she Pulls down some branch to keep her perfect head Clear of the river: even from wall to bed, I tell you, was my room transfigured so.

Sweet, green and warm it was, nor could one know If there were walls or leaves, or if there was No bed's green curtain, but mere gentle gra.s.s.

There were set also hard against the feet Gold plates with honey and green grapes to eat, With the cool water's noise to hear in rhymes: And a wind warmed me full of furze and limes And all hot sweets the heavy summer fills To the round brim of smooth cup-shapen hills.

Next the grave walking of a woman's feet Made my veins hesitate, and gracious heat Made thick the lids and leaden on mine eyes: And I thought ever, surely it were wise Not yet to see her: this may last (who knows?) Five minutes; the poor rose is twice a rose Because it turns a face to her, the wind Sings that way; hath this woman ever sinned, I wonder? as a boy with apple-rind, I played with pleasures, made them to my mind, Changed each ere tasting. When she came indeed, First her hair touched me, then I grew to feed On the sense of her hand; her mouth at last Touched me between the cheek and lip and past Over my face with kisses here and there Sown in and out across the eyes and hair.

Still I said nothing; till she set her face More close and harder on the kissing-place, And her mouth caught like a snake's mouth, and stung So faint and tenderly, the fang scarce clung More than a bird's foot: yet a wound it grew, A great one, let this red mark witness you Under the left breast; and the stroke thereof So clove my sense that I woke out of love And knew not what this dream was nor had wit; But now G.o.d knows if I have skill of it."

Hereat she laid one palm against her lips To stop their trembling; as when water slips Out of a beak-mouthed vessel with faint noise And chuckles in the narrowed throat and cloys The carven rims with murmuring, so came Words in her lips with no word right of them, A beaten speech thick and disconsolate, Till his smile ceasing waxed compa.s.sionate Of her sore fear that grew from anything-- The sound of the strong summer thickening In heated leaves of the smooth apple-trees: The day's breath felt about the ash-branches, And noises of the noon whose weight still grew On the hot heavy-headed flowers, and drew Their red mouths open till the rose-heart ached; For eastward all the crowding rose was slaked And soothed with shade: but westward all its growth Seemed to breathe hard with heat as a man doth Who feels his temples newly feverous.

And even with such motion in her brows As that man hath in whom sick days begin, She turned her throat and spake, her voice being thin As a sick man's, sudden and tremulous; "Sweet, if this end be come indeed on us, Let us love more;" and held his mouth with hers.

As the first sound of flooded hill-waters Is heard by people of the meadow-gra.s.s, Or ever a wandering waif of ruin pa.s.s With whirling stones and foam of the brown stream Flaked with fierce yellow: so beholding him She felt before tears came her eyelids wet, Saw the face deadly thin where life was yet, Heard his throat's harsh last moan before it clomb: And he, with close mouth pa.s.sionate and dumb, Burned at her lips: so lay they without speech, Each grasping other, and the eyes of each Fed in the other's face: till suddenly He cried out with a little broken cry This word, "O help me, sweet, I am but dead."

And even so saying, the colour of fair red Was gone out of his face, and his blood's beat Fell, and stark death made sharp his upward feet And pointed hands; and without moan he died.

Pain smote her sudden in the brows and side, Strained her lips open and made burn her eyes: For the pure sharpness of her miseries She had no heart's pain, but mere body's wrack; But at the last her beaten blood drew back Slowly upon her face, and her stunned brows Suddenly grown aware and piteous Gathered themselves, her eyes shone, her hard breath Came as though one nigh dead came back from death; Her lips throbbed, and life trembled through her hair.

And in brief while she thought to bury there The dead man that her love might lie with him In a sweet bed under the rose-roots dim And soft earth round the branchd apple-trees, Full of hushed heat and heavy with great ease, And no man entering divide him thence.

Wherefore she bade one of her handmaidens To be her help to do upon this wise.

And saying so the tears out of her eyes Fell without noise and comforted her heart: Yea, her great pain eased of the sorest part Began to soften in her sense of it.

There under all the little branches sweet The place was shapen of his burial; They shed thereon no thing funereal, But coloured leaves of latter rose-blossom, Stems of soft gra.s.s, some withered red and some Fair and fresh-blooded; and spoil splendider Of marigold and great spent sunflower.

And afterward she came back without word To her own house; two days went, and the third Went, and she showed her father of this thing.

And for great grief of her soul's travailing He gave consent she should endure in peace Till her life's end; yea, till her time should cease, She should abide in fellowship of pain.

And having lived a holy year or twain She died of pure waste heart and weariness.

And for love's honour in her love's distress This word was written over her tomb's head; "Here dead she lieth, for whose sake Love is dead."

AHOLIBAH