The Golden Helm Part 5

AVERLAINE: The Shadow is strong with the strength of Fate, And, slain, would rise from the grave to-morrow.

ARKELD: Ah G.o.d, ah G.o.d, that it never had been!

AVERLAINE: The Shadow, the Shadow for ever between!

2.

AVERLAINE: Yea, we must part, and tear with ruthless hands The golden web wherein, too late, Love strove To weave us joy and bind us heart to heart.

ARKELD: Yea, we must part, and strew on desert-sands Petal by petal all the rose of Love, And part for ever where the cross-ways part.

AVERLAINE: Yea, we must part, and never turn our eyes From strange horizons, desolate and far, Though Love cry ever: "Turn but once, sad heart!"

ARKELD: Yea, we must part, and under alien skies Must follow after some cold, gleaming star, And roam, as north and south winds roam, apart.

AVERLAINE: Yea, we must part, ere Love be grown too strong And we too helpless to resist his might; While each may go with pure, unshamed heart.

ARKELD: Yea, we must part; and though we do Love wrong, He will the more subdue us in our flight, And hold us each more surely his, apart.

III. QUEEN AVERLAINE.

1.

O love, I bade you go; and you have borne The summer with you from the valley-lands; The poppy-flame has perished from the corn; And in the chill, wan light of early morn The reapers come in doleful, starveling bands, To bind the blackened sheaves with listless hands; For rain has put their sowing-toil to scorn.

O Love, I bade you go; and autumn brings Bleak desolation; yet within my heart Unquenched and fierce the flame you kindled springs; For, echoing all day long, the courtyard rings As loud it rang when, rending Love apart, Your white horse cantered--swift and keen to start-- Into a world of other queens and kings.

2.

I bade you go; ah, wherefore are you gone?

How could you leave me dark and desolate, O Sun of Love, that for brief summer shone?

Mine eyes are ever on the western gate, Half-wishing, half-foredreading your return.

Return, O Love, return!

I cannot live without you; through the dark I stretch blind hands to you across the world; All day on unknown battle-fields I mark Your sword's red course, your banner blue unfurled; Yet never, in my day-dreams, you return.

Return, O Love, return!

Nay, you are gone: O Love, I bade you go.

I would not have you come again to be A stranger in this house of silent woe, Where, being all, you would be naught to me.

Mine, mine in dreams, but lost if you return; Oh, nevermore return!

3.

"To-day a wandering harper came With outland tales of deeds of fame; I hearkened from the noonday bright Until the failing of the light, The while he sang of joust and fight; Yet never once I caught your name.

Oh, whither, whither are you gone, Whose name victorious ever shone Above all knights of other lands?

Across what wilderness of sands?

By what dead sea-deserted strands?

On what far quest of Love forlorn?

I loved you when men called you Lord Arkeld, the never-sleeping sword; Yet now, when all your might is furled, And you no longer crest the world, More are you mine than when you hurled Destruction on the embattled horde.

4.

Oh, deeper in the silent house The silence falls; Only the stir of bat or mouse About the walls.

No cry, no voice in any room, No gust of breath; As if, within the clutch of doom, We waited death.

5.

The King is dead; No longer now The cold eyes gleam Beneath his brow.

O cold, grey eyes, Wherein the light Of Love at dawn Seemed clear and bright,

No true Love burned Your cold desire, Which mirrored but My own heart's fire.

6.

The King died yesterday.... Ah, no, he died When young Love perished long, so long ago; And on his throne, as marble at my side, Has reigned a carven image, cold as snow, Though all men bowed before it, crying: "King!"

Too late, too late the chains which held me fall; Rock-bound, I bade the victor-knight go by; And now, when time has loosed me from the thrall, I know not where he tarries, 'neath what sky He waits the winter's end, the dawn of spring.

7.

Spring comes no more for me: though young March blow To flame the larches, and from tree to tree The green fire leap, till all the woodlands glow-- Though every runnel, filled to overflow, Bear sea-ward, loud and brown with melted snow, Spring comes no more for me!

Spring comes no more for me: though April light The flame of gorse above the peac.o.c.k sea; Though in an interweaving mesh of white The seagulls hover 'neath the cliff's sheer height; Though, hour by hour, new joys are winged for flight, Spring comes no more for me!

Spring comes no more for me: though May will shake White flame of hawthorn over all the lea, Till every thick-set hedge and tangled brake Puts on fresh flower of beauty for her sake; Though all the world from winter-sleep awake, Spring comes no more for me!

8.

I wandered through the city till I came Within the vast cathedral, cool and dim; I looked upon the windows all aflame With blazoned knights and saints and seraphim.

I looked on kings in purple, gold and blue, On martyrs high before whom all men bow; Until a gleam of light my footsteps drew Before a shining seraph, on whose brow

A little flame, for ever pure and white, Unwavering burns--the symbol of our love; And as I knelt before him in the night, He looked, compa.s.sionate, on me from above.