The Daffodil Fields Part 12

"Drink," muttered Michael, "drink. We two shall sleep to-night."

He tilted up the hat, and Lion drank.

Lion lay still a moment, gathering power, Then rose, as Michael gave him more, and sank.

Then, like a dying bird whom death makes tower, He raised himself above the bloodied flower And struck with all his force in Michael's side.

"You should not have done that," his stricken comrade cried.

"No; for I meant to tell you, Lion; meant To tell you; but I cannot now; I die.

That hit me to the heart and I am spent.

Mary and I have parted; she and I Agreed she must return, lad. That is why I came to see you. She is coming here, Back to your home to-night. Oh, my beloved dear,

"You come to tread a b.l.o.o.d.y path of flowers.

All the gold flowers are covered up with blood, And the bright bugles blow along the towers; The bugles triumph like the Plate in flood."

His spilled life trickled down upon the mud Between weak, clutching fingers. "Oh," he cried, "This isn't what we planned here years ago." He died.

Lion lay still while the cold tides of death Came br.i.m.m.i.n.g up his channels. With one hand He groped to know if Michael still drew breath.

His little hour was running out its sand.

Then, in a mist, he saw his Mary stand Above. He cried aloud, "He was my brother.

I was his comrade sworn, and we have killed each other.

"Oh desolate grief, beloved, and through me.

We wise who try to change. Oh, you wild birds, Help my unhappy spirit to the sea.

The golden bowl is scattered into sherds."

And Mary knelt and murmured pa.s.sionate words To that poor body on the dabbled flowers: "Oh, beauty, oh, sweet soul, oh, little love of ours--

"Michael, my own heart's darling, speak; it's me, Mary. You know my voice. I'm here, dear, here.

Oh, little golden-haired one, listen. See, It's Mary, Michael. Speak to Mary, dear.

Oh, Michael, little love, he cannot hear; And you have killed him, Lion; he is dead.

My little friend, my love, my Michael, golden head.

"We had such fun together, such sweet fun, My love and I, my merry love and I.

Oh, love, you shone upon me like the sun.

Oh, Michael, say some little last good-bye."

Then in a great voice Lion called, "I die.

Go home and tell my people. Mary. Hear.

Though I have wrought this ruin, I have loved you, dear.

"Better than he; not better, dear, as well.

If you could kiss me, dearest, at this last.

We have made b.l.o.o.d.y doorways from our h.e.l.l, Cutting our tangle. Now, the murder past, We are but pitiful poor souls; and fast The darkness and the cold come. Kiss me, sweet; I loved you all my life; but some lives never meet

"Though they go wandering side by side through Time.

Kiss me," he cried. She bent, she kissed his brow: "Oh, friend," she said, "you're lying in the slime."

"Three blind ones, dear," he murmured, "in the slough, Caught fast for death; but never mind that now; Go home and tell my people. I am dying, Dying, dear, dying now." He died; she left him lying,

And kissed her dead one's head and crossed the field.

"They have been killed," she called, in a great crying.

"Killed, and our spirits' eyes are all unsealed.

The blood is scattered on the flowers drying."

It was the hush of dusk, and owls were flying; They hooted as the Occleves ran to bring That sorry harvest home from Death's red harvesting.

They laid the bodies on the bed together.

And "You were beautiful," she said, "and you Were my own darling in the April weather.

You knew my very soul, you knew, you knew.

Oh, my sweet, piteous love, I was not true.

Fetch me fair water and the flowers of spring; My love is dead, and I must deck his burying."

They left her with her dead; they could not choose But grant the spirit burning in her face Rights that their pity urged them to refuse.

They did her sorrow and the dead a grace.

All night they heard her pa.s.sing footsteps trace Down to the garden from the room of death.

They heard her singing there, lowly, with gentle breath,

To the cool darkness full of sleeping flowers, Then back, still singing soft, with quiet tread, But at the dawn her singing gathered powers Like to the dying swan who lifts his head On Eastnor, lifts it, singing, dabbled red, Singing the glory in his tumbling mind, Before the doors burst in, before death strikes him blind.

So triumphing her song of love began, Ringing across the meadows like old woe Sweetened by poets to the help of man Unconquered in eternal overthrow; Like a great trumpet from the long ago Her singing towered; all the valley heard.

Men jingling down to meadow stopped their teams and stirred.

And they, the Occleves, hurried to the door, And burst it, fearing; there the singer lay Drooped at her lover's bedside on the floor, Singing her pa.s.sionate last of life away.

White flowers had fallen from a blackthorn spray Over her loosened hair. Pale flowers of spring Filled the white room of death; they covered everything.

Primroses, daffodils, and cuckoo-flowers.

She bowed her singing head on Michael's breast.

"Oh, it was sweet," she cried, "that love of ours.

You were the dearest, sweet; I loved you best.

Beloved, my beloved, let me rest By you forever, little Michael mine.

Now the great hour is stricken, and the bread and wine

"Broken and spilt; and now the homing birds Draw to a covert, Michael; I to you.

Bury us two together," came her words.

The dropping petals fell about the two.

Her heart had broken; she was dead. They drew Her gentle head aside; they found it pressed Against the broidered 'kerchief spread on Michael's breast,

The one that bore her name in Michael's hair, Given so long before. They let her lie, While the dim moon died out upon the air, And happy sunlight coloured all the sky.

The last c.o.c.k crowed for morning; carts went by; Smoke rose from cottage chimneys; from the byre The yokes went clanking by, to dairy, through the mire.

In the day's noise the water's noise was stilled, But still it slipped along, the cold hill-spring, Dropping from leafy hollows, which it filled, On to the pebbly shelves which made it sing; Glints glittered on it from the 'fisher's wing; It saw the moorhen nesting; then it stayed In a great s.p.a.ce of reeds where merry otters played.

Slowly it loitered past the shivering reeds Into a mightier water; thence its course Becomes a pasture where the salmon feeds, Wherein no bubble tells its humble source; But the great waves go rolling, and the horse Snorts at the bursting waves and will not drink, And the great ships go outward, bubbling to the brink,

Outward, with men upon them, stretched in line, Handling the halliards to the ocean's gates, Where flicking windflaws fill the air with brine, And all the ocean opens. Then the mates Cry, and the sunburnt crew no longer waits, But sing triumphant and the topsail fills To this old tale of woe among the daffodils.