• ‘Friend, stay in peace. God keep your head,
• And mine, where I will go;
• For He is here and there,’ he said.
• He passed the hill-side, slow,
• 20 And stood below.

• The Queen sat idle by her loom:
• She heard the arras stir,
• And looked up sadly: through the room
• The sweetness sickened her
• Of musk and myrrh.

• Her women, standing two and two,
• In silence combed the fleece.
• The Pilgrim said, ‘Peace be with you,
• Lady;’ and bent his knees.
• 30 She answered, ‘Peace.’

• Her eyes were like the wave within;
• Like water-reeds the poise
• Of her soft body, dainty thin;
• And like the water's noise
• Her plaintive voice.

• For him, the stream had never well'd
• In desert tracts malign
• So sweet; nor had he ever felt
• So faint in the sunshine
• 40 Of Palestine.

• Right so, he knew that he saw weep
• Each night through every dream
• The Queen's own face, confused in sleep
• With visages supreme
• Not known to him.

• ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘your lands lie burnt
• And waste: to meet your foe
• All fear: this I have seen and learnt.
• Say that it shall be so,
• 50 And I will go.’

• She gazed at him. ‘Your cause is just,
• For I have heard the same:’
• He said: ‘God's strength shall be my trust.
• Fall it to good or grame,
• 'Tis in His name.’

• ‘Sir, you are thanked. My cause is dead.
• Why should you toil to break
• A grave, and fall therein?’ she said.
• He did not pause but spake:
• 60 ‘For my vow's sake.’

• ‘Can such vows be, Sir—to God's ear,
• Not to God's will?’ ‘My vow
• Remains: God heard me there as here,’
• He said with reverent brow,
• ‘Both then and now.’

• They gazed together, he and she,
• The minute while he spoke;
• And when he ceased, she suddenly
• Looked round upon her folk
• 70 As though she woke.

• ‘Fight, Sir,’ she said; ‘my prayers in pain
• Shall be your fellowship.’
• He whispered one among her train,—
• ‘To-morrow bid her keep
• This staff and scrip.’

• She sent him a sharp sword, whose belt
• About his body there
• As sweet as her own arms he felt.
• He kissed its blade, all bare,
• 80 Instead of her.

• She sent him a green banner wrought
• With one white lily stem,
• To bind his lance with when he fought.
• He writ upon the same
• A o nd kissed her name.

• She sent him a white shield, whereon
• She bade that he should trace
• His will. He blent fair hues that shone,
• And in a golden space
• 90 He kissed her face.

• Born of the day that died, that eve
• Now dying sank to rest;
• As he, in likewise taking leave,
• Once with a heaving breast
• Looked to the west.

• And there the sunset skies unseal'd,
• Like lands he never knew,
• Beyond to-morrow's battle-field
• Lay open out of view
• 100 To ride into.

• Next day till dark the women pray'd:
• Nor any might know there
• How the fight went: the Queen has bade
• That there do come to her
• No messenger.

• The Queen is pale, her maidens ail;
• And to the organ-tones
• They sing but faintly, who sang well
• The matin-orisons,
• 110 The lauds and nones.

• Lo, Father, is thine ear inclin'd,
• And hath thine angel pass'd?
• For these thy watchers now are blind
• With vigil, and at last
• Dizzy with fast.

• Weak now to them the voice o' the priest
• As any trance affords;
• And when each anthem failed and ceas'd,
• It seemed that the last chords
• 120 Still sang the words.

• ‘Oh what is the light that shines so red?
• 'Tis long since the sun set;’
• Quoth the youngest to the o eldest maid:
• ‘'Twas dim but now, and yet
• The light is great.’

• Quoth the other: ‘'Tis our sight is dazed
• That we see flame i' the air.’
• But the Queen held her brows and gazed,
• And said, ‘It is the glare
• 130 Of torches there.’

• ‘Oh what are the sounds that rise and spread?
• All day it was so still;’
• Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid : ;
• ‘Unto the furthest hill
• The air they fill.’

• Quoth the other; ‘'Tis our sense is blurr'd
• With all the chants gone by.’
• But the Queen held her breath and heard,
• And said, ‘It is the cry
• 140 Of Victory.’

• The first of all the rout was sound,
• The next were dust and flame,
• And then the horses shook the ground:
• And in the thick of them
• A still band came.

• ‘Oh what do ye bring out of the fight,
• Thus hid beneath these boughs?’
• ‘Thy conquering guest returns to-night,
• And yet shall not carouse,
• 150 Queen, in thy house.’

• ‘Uncover ye his face,’ she said.
• ‘O changed in little space!’
• She cried, ‘O pale that was so red!
• O God, O God of grace!
• Cover his face.’

• His sword was broken in his hand
• Where he had kissed the blade.
• ‘O soft steel that could not withstand!
• O my hard heart unstayed,
• 160 That prayed and prayed!’

• His bloodied banner crossed his mouth
• Where he had kissed her name.
• ‘O east, and west, and north, and south,
• Fair flew my web, for shame,
• To guide Death's aim!’

• The tints were shredded from his shield
• Where he had kissed her face.
• ‘Oh, of all gifts that I could yield,
• Death only keeps its place,
• 170 My gift and grace!’

• Then stepped a damsel to her side,
• And spoke, and needs must weep:
• ‘For his sake, lady, if he died,
• He prayed of thee to keep
• This staff and scrip.’

• That night they hung above her bed,
• Till morning wet with tears.
• Year after year above her head
• Her bed his token wears,
• 180 Five years, ten years.

• That night the passion of her grief
• Shook them as there they hung.
• Each year the wind that shed the leaf
• Shook them and in its tongue
• A message flung.

• And once she woke with a clear mind
• That letters writ to calm
• Her soul lay in the scrip; to find
• Only a torpid balm
• 190 And dust of palm.

• They shook far off with palace sport
• When joust and dance were rife;
• And the hunt shook them from the court;
• For hers, in peace or strife,
• Was a Queen's life.

• A Queen's death now: as now they shake
• To gusts in chapel dim,—
• Hung where she sleeps, not seen to wake,
• (Carved lovely white and slim),
• 200 With them by him.

• Stand up to-day, still armed, with her,
• Good knight, before His brow
• Who then as now was here and there,
• Who had in mind thy vow
• Then even as now.

• The lists are set in Heaven to-day,
• The bright pavilions shine;
• Fair hangs thy shield, and none gainsay;
• The trumpets sound in sign
• 210 That she is thine.

• Not tithed with days' and years' decease
• He pays thy wage He owed,
• But with imperishable peace
• Here in His own abode,
• Thy jealous God.

   

• MOTHER of the Fair Delight,
• Thou handmaid perfect in God's sight,
• Now sitting fourth beside the Three,
• Thyself a woman-Trinity,—
• Being a daughter borne to God,
• Mother of Christ from stall to rood,
• And wife unto the Holy Ghost:—
• Oh when our need is uttermost,
• Think that to such as death may strike
• 10 Thou once wert sister sisterlike!
• Thou headstone of humanity,
• Groundstone of the great Mystery,
• Fashioned like us, yet more than we!

• Mind'st thou not (when June's heavy breath
  page: 44  
• Warmed the long days in Nazareth,)
• That eve thou didst go forth to give
• Thy flowers some drink that they might live
• One faint night more amid the sands?
• Far off the trees were as pale wands
• 20 Against the fervid sky: the sea
• Sighed further off eternally
• As human sorrow sighs in sleep.
• Then suddenly the awe grew deep,
• As of a day to which all days
• Were footsteps in God's secret ways:
• Until a folding sense, like prayer,
• Which is, as God is, everywhere,
• Gathered about thee; and a voice
• Spake to thee without any noise,
• 30 Being of the silence:—‘Hail,’ it said,
• ‘Thou that art highly favourèd;
• The Lord is with thee here and now;
• Blessed among all women thou.’

• Ah! knew'st thou of the end, when first
• That Babe was on thy bosom nurs'd?—
• Or when He tottered round thy knee
• Did thy great sorrow dawn on thee?—
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• And through His boyhood, year by year
• Eating with Him the Passover,
• 40 Didst thou discern confusedly
• That holier sacrament, when He,
• The bitter cup about to quaff,
• Should break the bread and eat thereof?—
• Or came not yet the knowledge, even
• Till on some day forecast in Heaven
• His feet passed through thy door to press
• Upon His Father's business?—
• Or still was God's high secret kept?

• Nay, but I think the whisper crept
• 50 Like growth through childhood. Work and play,
• Things common to the course of day,
• Awed thee with meanings unfulfill'd;
• And all through girlhood, something still'd
• Thy senses like the birth of light,
• When thou hast trimmed thy lamp at night
• Or washed thy garments in the stream;
• To whose white bed had come the dream
• That He was thine and thou wast His
• Who feeds among the field-lilies.
• 60 O solemn shadow of the end
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• In that wise spirit long contain'd!
• O awful end! and those unsaid
• Long years when It was Finishèd!

• Mind'st thou not (when the twilight gone
• Left darkness in the house of John,)
• Between the naked window-bars
• That spacious vigil of the stars?—
• For thou, a watcher even as they,
• Wouldst rise from where throughout the day
• 70 Thou wroughtest raiment for His poor;
• And, finding the fixed terms endure
• Of day and night which never brought
• Sounds of His coming chariot,
• Wouldst lift through cloud-waste unexplor'd
• Those eyes which said, ‘How long, O Lord?’
• Then that disciple whom He loved,
• Well heeding, haply would be moved
• To ask thy blessing in His name;
• And that one thought in both, the same
• 80 Though silent, then would clasp ye round
• To weep together,—tears long bound,
• Sick tears of patience, dumb and slow.
• Yet, ‘Surely I come quickly,’—so
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• He said, from life and death gone home.
• Amen: even so, Lord Jesus, come!

• But oh! what human tongue can speak
• That day when death was sent Michael came* to break
• From the tir'd spirit, like a veil,
• Its covenant with Gabriel
• 90 Endured at length unto the end?
• What human thought can apprehend
• That mystery of motherhood
• When thy Beloved at length renew'd
• The sweet communion severèd,—
• His left hand underneath thine head
• And His right hand embracing thee?—
• Lo! He was thine, and this is He!

• Soul, is it Faith, or Love, or Hope,
• That lets me see her standing up
• 100 Where the light of the Throne is bright?
• Unto the left, unto the right,
• The cherubim, succinct, conjoint,
• Float inward to a golden point,
• And from between the seraphim
• The glory issues for a hymn.
Transcribed Footnote (page 47):

Added Text* A Church legend of the Blessed Virgin's death.

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• O Mary Mother, be not loth
• To listen,—thou whom the stars clothe,
• Who seëst and mayst not be seen!
• Hear us at last, O Mary Queen!
• 110 Into our shadow bend thy face,
• Bowing thee from the secret place,
• O Mary Virgin, full of grace!