BALLADS.
• Rose Mary, Part I . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
• Rose Mary, Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
• Rose Mary, Part III . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
• The White Ship . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
• The King's Tragedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

THE HOUSE OF LIFE.

A SONNET-SEQUENCE . ¹
• Introductory Sonnet. . . . . . . . . . . 161
• Part I. Youth and Change.
  • I. Love Enthroned . . . . . . . 163
  • *II. Bridal Birth . . . . . . . . 164
  • *III. Love's Testament . . . . . . . 165
  Transcribed Footnote (page [v]):

  ¹ In this table, the sonnets marked * are those which appeared in the author's
  
  former volume.

  page: vi  
  • *IV. Lovesight . . . . . . . 166
  • V. Heart's Hope . . . . . . . 167
  • *VI. The Kiss . . . . . . . 168
  • *VII. Supreme Surrender. . . . . . 169
  • *VIII. Love's Lover's . . . . . . . 170
  • *IX. Passion and Worship. . . . . 171
  • *X. The Portrait . . . . . . . . 172
  • *XI. The Love-Letter . . . . . . . 173
  • XII. The Lover's Walk . . . . . . . 174
  • XIII. Youth's Antiphony . . . . . . . 175
  • XIV. Youth's Spring-Tribute . . . . . 176
  • *XV. The Birth-Bond . . . . . . . . . 177
  • *XVI. A Day of Love . . . . . . . . . 178
  • XVII. Beauty's Pageant . . . . . . . . 179
  • XVIII. Genius in Beauty . . . . . . . . 180
  • XIX. Silent Noon . . . . . . . . . . 181
  • XX. Gracious Moonlight . . . . . . . 182
  • *XXI. Love-Sweetness . . . . . . . . . 183
  • XXII. Heart's Haven . . . . . . . . . 184
  • *XXIII. Love's Baubles . . . . . . . . . 185
  • XXIV. Pride of Youth . . . . . . . . . 186
  • *XXV. Winged Hours . . . . . . . . . . 187
  • XXVI. Mid-Rapture . . . . . . . . . . 188
  • XXVII. Heart's Compass . . . . . . . . 189
  page: vii  
  • XXVIII. Soul-Light . . . . . . . . . . 190
  • XXIX. The Moonstar . . . . . . . . . 191
  • XXX. Last Fire . . . . . . . . . . . 192
  • XXXI. Her Gifts . . . . . . . . . . . 193
  • XXXII. Equal Troth . . . . . . . . . . 194
  • XXXIII. Venus Victrix . . . . . . . . . 195
  • XXXIV. The Dark Glass . . . . . . . . . 196
  • XXXV. The Lamp's Shrine. . . . . . . . 197
  • *XXXVI. Life-in-Love . . . . . . . . . . 198
  • *XXXVII. The Love-Moon . . . . . . . . . 199
  • *XXXVIII. The Morrow's Message. . . . . . 200
  • *XXXIX. Sleepless Dreams. . . . . . . . 201
  • XL. Severed Selves . . . . . . . . 202
  • XLI. Through Death to Love . . . . . 203
  • XLII. Hope Overtaken . . . . . . . . 204
  • XLIII. Love and Hope . . . . . . . . . 205
  • XLIV. Cloud and Wind . . . . . . . . 206
  • *XLV. Secret Parting . . . . . . . . 207
  • *XLVI. Parted Love . . . . . . . . . . 208
  • *XLVII. Broken Music. . . . . . . . . . 209
  • *XLVIII. Death-in-Love . . . . . . . . . 210
  • *XLIX. Willowwood. . . . . . . . . . . 211
  • *L. Willowwood II . . . . . . . . . 212
  • *LI. Willowwood III. . . . . . . . . 213
  page: viii  
  Note: Printer marks heading of Part II for fixing type.
  Note: The page number for sonnet LXII. (The Choice. II) wrongly appears as 334, not 234.
  • *LII. Willowwood IV . . . . . . . . . 214
  • LIII. Without Her . . . . . . . . . . 215
  • LIV. Love's Fatality . . . . . . . . 216
  • *LV. Stillborn Love . . . . . . . . 217
  • LVI. True Woman. I. Herself. . . . . 218
  • LVII. True Woman. II. Her Love . . . 219
  • LVIII. True Woman. III. Her Heaven . . 220
  • LIX. Love's Last Gift. . . . . . . 221
• Part II. Change and Fate.
  • LX. Transfigured Life. . . . . . . . 222
  • LXI. The Song-Throe . . . . . . . . . 223
  • LXII. The Soul's Sphere. . . . . . . . 224
  • *LXIII. Inclusiveness. . . . . . . . . . 225
  • LXIV. Ardour and Memory. . . . . . . . 226
  • *LXV. Known in Vain. . . . . . . . . . 227
  • LXVI. The Heart of the Night . . . . . 228
  • *LXVII. The Landmark . . . . . . . . . . 229
  • *LXVIII. A Dark Day . . . . . . . . . . . 230
  • *LXIX. Autumn Idleness. . . . . . . . . 231
  • *LXX. The Hill Summit . . . . . . . . 232
  • *LXXI. The Choice. I. . . . . . . . . . 233
  • *LXXII. The Choice. II. . . . . . . . . 334
  page: ix  
  Note: Printer marks line 2 for correction of asterisk placement..
  • *LXXIII. The Choice. III. . . . . . . . . 235
  • LXXIV. Old and New Art. *I. St. Luke the
    
    Painter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
  • LXXV. Old and New Art. II. Not as These . 237
  • LXXVI. Old and New Art. III. The Husband-
    
    men. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
  • *LXXVII. Soul's Beauty. . . . . . . . . . 239
  • *LXXVIII. Body's Beauty. . . . . . . . . . 240
  • *LXXIX. The Monochord . . . . . . . . . . 241
  • LXXX. From Dawn to Noon . . . . . . . . 242
  • LXXXI. Memorial Thresholds . . . . . . . 243
  • *LXXXII. Hoarded Joy . . . . . . . . . . . 244
  • *LXXXIII.Barren Spring . . . . . . . . . . 245
  • *LXXXIV. Farewell to the Glen . . . . . . 246
  • *LXXXV. Vain Virtues. . . . . . . . . . . 247
  • *LXXXVI. Lost Days . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
  • *LXXXVII.Death's Songsters . . . . . . . . 249
  • LXXXVIII.Hero's Lamp . . . . . . . . . . . 250
  • LXXXIX. The Trees of the Garden . . . . . 251
  • *XC. “Retro me, Sathana!”. 252
  • *XCI. Lost on Both Sides . . . . . . . 253
  • XCII. The Sun's Shame. I. . . . . . . . 254
  • XCIII. The Sun's Shame. II.. . . . . . . 255
  • XCIV. Michael Angelo's Kiss . . . . . . . 256
  page: x  
  • *XCV. The Vase of Life . . . . . . . . 257
  • XCVI. Life the Beloved. . . . . . . . . 258
  • *XCVII. A Superscription. . . . . . . . . 259
  • *XCVIII. He and I. . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
  • *XCIX. Newborn Death. I. . . . . . . . . 261
  • *C. Newborn Death. II. . . . . . . . 262
  • *CI. The One Hope. . . . . . . . . . . 263

LYRICS, &c.
• Soothsay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
• Chimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
• Parted Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
• A Death-Parting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
• Spheral Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
• Sunset Wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
• Song and Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
• Three Shadows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
• Alas, So Long! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
• Adieu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
• Insomnia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
• Possession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
• The Cloud Confines . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

SONNETS.
• For the Holy Family (by Michael Angelo). . . 311
• For Spring (by Sandro Botticelli) . . . . 312
• Five English Poets—
  • I. Thomas Chatterton . . . . . . . . . . . 313
  • II. William Blake . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
  • III. Samuel Taylor Coleridge . . . . . . . 315
  • IV. John Keats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
  • V. Percy Bysshe Shelley . . . . . . . . . 317
• Tiber, Nile, and Thames . . . . . . . . . 318
• The Last Three From Trafalgar. . . . . . . 319
• Czar Alexander II . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
• Words on the Window-pane . . . . . . . . . 321
• Winter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
• Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
• The Church-Porch . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
• Untimely Lost. (Oliver Madox Brown). . . . 325
• Place de la Bastille, Paris . . . . . . . 326
• “Found” (for a Picture). . . 327
• A Sea-Spell (for a Picture) . . . . . . . 328
• Fiammetta (for a Picture). . . . . . . . . 329
page: xii  
• The Day-Dream (for a Picture). . . . . . . 330
• Astarte Syriaca (for a Picture) . . . . . 331
• Proserpina (per un Quadro) . . . . . . . . 332
• Proserpina (for a Picture) . . . . . . . . 333
• La Bella Mano (per un Quadro). . . . . . . 334
• La Bella Mano (for a Picture). . . . . . . 335

       

• “Mary mine that art Mary's Rose,
• Come in to me from the garden-close.
• The sun sinks fast with the rising dew,
• And we marked not how the faint moon grew;
• But the hidden stars are calling you.

• “Tall Rose Mary, come to my side,
• And read the stars if you'd be a bride.
• In hours whose need was not your own,
• While you were a young maid yet ungrown,
• 10You've read the stars in the Beryl-stone.

• “Daughter, once more I bid you read;
• But now let it be for your own need:
• Because to-morrow, at break of day,
• To Holy Cross he rides on his way,
• Your knight Sir James of Heronhaye.

• “Ere he wed you, flower of mine,
• For a heavy shrift he seeks the shrine.
• Now hark to my words and do not fear;
• Ill news next I have for your ear;
• 20But be you strong, and our help is here.

• “On his road, as the rumour's rife,
• An ambush waits to take his life.
• He needs will go, and will go alone;
• Where the peril lurks may not be known;
• But in this glass all things are shown.”

• Pale Rose Mary sank to the floor:—
• “The night will come if the day is o'er!”
• “Nay, heaven takes counsel, star with star,
• And help shall reach your heart from afar:
• 30A bride you'll be, as a maid you are.”

• The lady unbound her jewelled zone
• And drew from her robe the Beryl-stone.
• Shaped it was to a shadowy sphere,—
• World of our world, the sun's compeer,
• That bears and buries the toiling year.

• With shuddering light 'twas stirred and strewn
• Like the cloud-nest of the wading moon:
• Freaked it was as the bubble's ball,
• Rainbow-hued through a misty pall ,
• 40Like the middle light of the waterfall.

• Shadows dwelt in its teeming girth
• Of the known and unknown things of earth;
• The cloud above and the wave around,—
• The central fire at the sphere's heart bound,
• Like doomsday prisoned underground.

• A thousand years it lay in the sea
• With a treasure wrecked from Thessaly;
• Deep it lay 'mid the coiled sea-wrack,
• But the ocean-spirits found the track;
• 50A soul was lost to win it back.

• The lady upheld the wondrous thing:—
• “Ill fare”(she said) “with a fiend's-fairing:
• But Moslem blood poured forth like wine
• Can hallow Hell, 'neath the Sacred Sign;
• And my lord brought this from Palestine.

• “Spirits who fear the Blessed Rood
• Drove forth the accursed multitude
• That heathen worship housed herein,—
• Never again such home to win,
• 60Save only by a Christian's sin.

• “All last night at an altar fair
• I burnt strange fires and strove with prayer;
• Till the flame paled to the red sunrise,
• All rites I then did solemnize;
• And the spell lacks nothing but your eyes.”

• Low spake maiden Rose Mary:—
• “O mother mine, if I should not see!”
• “Nay, daughter, cover your face no more,
• But bend love's heart to the hidden lore,
• 70And you shall see now as heretofore.”

• Paler yet were the pale cheeks grown
• As the grey eyes sought the Beryl-stone:
• Then over her mother's lap leaned she,
• And stretched her thrilled throat passionately,
• And sighed from her soul, and said, “I see.”

• Even as she spoke, they two were 'ware
• Of music-notes that fell through the air;
• A chiming shower of strange device,
• Drop echoing drop, once twice and thrice,
• 80As rain may fall in Paradise.

• An instant come, in an instant gone,
• No time there was to think thereon.
• The mother held the sphere on her knee:—
• “Lean this way and speak low to me,
• And take no note but of what you see.”

• “I see a man with a besom grey
• That sweeps the flying dust away.”
• “Ay, that comes first in the mystic sphere;
• But now that the way is swept and clear,
• 90Heed well what next you look on there.”

• “Stretched aloft and adown I see
• Two roads that part in waste-country:
• The glen lies deep and the ridge stands tall;
• What's great below is above seen small,
• And the hill-side is the valley-wall.”

• “Stream-bank, daughter, or moor and moss,
• Both roads will take to Holy Cross.
• The hills are a weary waste to wage;
• But what of the valley-road's presage?
• 100That way must tend his pilgrimage.”

• “As 'twere the turning leaves of a book,
• The road runs past me as I look;
• Or it is even as though mine eye
• Should watch calm waters filled with sky
• While lights and clouds and wings went by. ”

• “In every covert seek a spear;
• They'll scarce lie close till he draws near.”
• “The stream has spread to a river now;
• The stiff blue sedge is deep in the slough,
• 110But the banks are bare of shrub or bough.”

• “Is there any roof that near at hand
• Might shelter yield to a hidden band?”
• “On the further bank I see but one,
• And a herdsman now in the sinking sun
• Unyokes his team at the threshold-stone.”

• “Keep heedful watch by the water's edge,—
• Some boat might lurk 'neath the shadowed sedge.”
• “One slid but now 'twixt the winding shores,
• But a peasant woman bent to the oars
• And only a young child steered its course.

• “Mother, something flashed to my sight—
• Nay, it is but the lapwing's flight.—
• What glints there like a lance that flees?—
• Nay, the flags are stirred in the breeze,
• And the water 's bright through the dart-rushes.

• “Ah! vainly I search from side to side:—
• Woe's me! and where do the foemen hide?
• Woe's me! and perchance I pass them by,
• And under the new dawn's blood-red sky
• 130Even where I gaze the dead shall lie.”

• Said the mother: “For dear love's sake,
• Speak more low, lest the spell should break.”
• Said the daughter: “By love's control,
• My eyes, my words, are strained to the goal;
• But oh! the voice that cries in my soul!”

• “Hush, sweet, hush! be calm and behold.”
• “I see two floodgates broken and old:
• The grasses wave o'er the ruined weir,
• But the bridge still leads to the breakwater;
• 140And—mother, mother, O mother dear!”

• The damsel clung to her mother's knee,
• And dared not let the shriek go free;
• Low she crouched by the lady's chair,
• And shrank blindfold in her fallen hair,
• And whispering said, “The spears are there!”

• The lady stooped aghast from her place,
• And cleared the locks from her daughter's face.
• “More's to see, and she swoons, alas!
• Look, look again, 'ere the moment pass!
• 150One shadow comes but once to the glass.

• “See you there what you saw but now?”
• “I see eight men 'neath the willow bough.
• All over the weir a wild growth's spread:
• Ah me! it will hide a living head
• As well as the water hides the dead.

• “They lie by the broken water-gate
• As men who have a while to wait.
• The chief's high lance has a blazoned scroll,—
• He seems some lord of tithe and toll
• 160With seven squires to his bannerole.

• “The little pennon quakes in the air,
• I cannot trace the blazon there:—
• Ah! now I can see the field of blue,
• The spurs and the merlins two and two;—
• It is the Warden of Holycleugh!”

• “God be thanked for the thing we know!
• You have named your good knight's mortal foe.
• Last Shrovetide in the tourney-game
• He sought his life by treasonous shame;
• 170And this way now doth he seek the same.

• “So, fair lord, such a thing you are!
• But we too watch till the morning star.
• Well, June is kind and the moon is clear:
• Saint Judas send you a merry cheer
• For the night you lie in Warisweir!

• “Now, sweet daughter, but one more sight,
• And you may lie soft and sleep to-night.
• We know in the vale what perils be:
• Now look once more in the glass, and see
• 180If over the hills the road lies free.”

• Rose Mary pressed to her mother's cheek,
• And almost smiled but did not speak;
• Then turned again to the saving spell,
• With eyes to search and with lips to tell
• The heart of things invisible.

• “Again the shape with the besom grey
• Comes back to sweep the clouds away.
• Again I stand where the roads divide;
• But now all's near on the steep hillside,
• 190And a thread far down is the rivertide.”

• “Ay, child, your road is o'er moor and moss,
• Past Holycleugh to Holy Cross.
• Our hunters lurk in the valley's wake,
• As they knew which way the chase would take:
• Yet search the hills for your true love's sake.”

• “Swift and swifter the waste runs by,
• And nought I see but the heath and the sky;
• No brake is there that could hide a spear,
• And the gaps to a horseman's sight lie clear;
• 200Still past it goes, and there's nought to fear.”

• “Fear no trap that you cannot see,—
• They'd not lurk yet too warily.
• Below by the weir they lie in sight,
• And take no heed how they pass the night
• Till close they crouch with the morning light.”

           

• “The road shifts ever and brings in view
• Now first the heights of Holycleugh:
• Dark they stand o'er the vale below,
• And hide that heaven which yet shall show
• 210The thing their master's heart doth know.

• “Where the road looks to the castle steep,
• There are seven hill-clefts wide and deep:
• Six mine eyes can search as they list,
• But the seventh hollow is brimmed with mist;
• If aught were there, it might not be wist.”

• “Small hope, my girl, for a helm to hide
• In mists that cling to a wild moorside:
• Soon they melt with the wind and sun,
• And scarce would wait such deeds to be done:
• 220God send their snares be the worst to shun.”

• “Still the road winds ever anew
• As it hastens on towards Holycleugh;
• And ever the great walls loom more near,
• Till the castle-shadow, steep and sheer,
• Drifts like a cloud, and the sky is clear.”

• “Enough, my daughter,” the mother said,
• And took to her breast the bending head;
• “Rest, poor head, with my heart below,
• While love still lulls you as long ago:
• 230For all is learnt that we need to know.

• “Long the miles and many the hours
• From the castle-height to the abbey-towers;
• But here the journey has no more dread;
• Too thick with life is the whole road spread
• For murder's trembling foot to tread.”

• She gazed on the Beryl-stone full fain
• Ere she wrapped it close in her robe again:
• The flickering shades were dusk and dun,
• And the lights throbbed faint in unison,
• 240Like a high heart when a race is run.

• As the globe slid to its silken gloom,
• Once more a music rained through the room;
• Low it splashed like a sweet star-spray,
• And sobbed like tears at the heart of May,
• And died as laughter dies away.

• The lady held her breath for a space,
• And then she looked in her daughter's face:
• But wan Rose Mary had never heard;
• Deep asleep like a sheltered bird
• 250She lay with the long spell minister'd.

• “Ah! and yet I must leave you, dear,
• For what you have seen your knight must hear.
• Within four days, by the help of God,
• He comes back safe to his heart's abode:
• Be sure he shall shun the valley-road.”

• Rose Mary sank with a broken moan,
• And lay in the chair and slept alone,
• Weary, lifeless, heavy as lead:
• Long it was ere she raised her head
• 260And rose up all discomforted.

• She searched her brain for a vanished thing,
• And clasped her brows, remembering;
• Then knelt and lifted her eyes in awe,
• And sighed with a long sigh sweet to draw:—
• “Thank God, thank God, thank God I saw!”

• The lady had left her as she lay,
• To seek the Knight of Heronhaye.
• But first she clomb by a secret stair,
• And knelt at a carven altar fair,
• 270And laid the precious Beryl there.

• Its girth was graved with a mystic rune
• In a tongue long dead 'neath sun and moon:
• A priest of the Holy Sepulchre
• Read that writing and did not err;
• And her lord had told its sense to her.

• She breathed the words in an undertone:—
• “ None sees here but the pure alone.”
• “And oh!” she said, “what rose may be
• In Mary's bower more pure to see
• 280Than my own sweet maiden Rose Mary?”

 

• We whose home is the Beryl,
• Fire-spirits of dread desire,
• Who entered in
• By a secret sin,
• Gainst whom all powers that strive with ours are
• sterile,—
• We cry, Woe to thee, mother!
• What hast thou taught her, the girl thy daughter,
• That she and none other
• Should this dark morrow to her deadly sorrow imperil?
• 10 What were her eyes
• But the fiend's own spies,
• O mother,
• And shall We not fee her, our proper prophet and seër?
  page: 23  
• Go to her, mother,
• Even thou, yea thou and none other,
• Thou, from the Beryl:
• Her fee must thou take her,
• Her fee that We send, and make her,
• Even in this hour, her sin's unsheltered avower.
• 20 Whose steed did neigh,
• Riderless, bridle-less,
• At her gate before it was day?
• Lo! where doth hover
• The soul of her lover?
• She sealed his doom, she, she was the sworn
• approver,—
• Whose eyes were so wondrous wise,
• Yet blind, ah! blind to his peril!
• For stole not We in
• Through a love-linked sin,
  page: 24  
• 30 'Gainst whom all powers at war with ours are
• sterile,—
• Fire-spirits of dread desire,
• We whose home is the Beryl?

   

• “Pale Rose Mary, what shall be done
• With a rose that Mary weeps upon?”
• “Mother, let it fall from the tree,
• And never walk where the strewn leaves be
• Till winds have passed and the path is free.”

• “Sad Rose Mary, what shall be done
• With a cankered flower beneath the sun?”
• “Mother, let it wait for the night;
• Be sure its shame shall be out of sight
• 10Ere the moon pale or the east grow light.”

• “Lost Rose Mary, what shall be done
• With a heart that is but a broken one?”
• “Mother, let it lie where it must;
• The blood was drained with the bitter thrust,
• And dust is all that sinks in the dust.”

• “Poor Rose Mary, what shall I do,—
• I, your mother, that lovèd you?”
• “O my mother, and is love gone?
• Then seek you another love anon:
• 20Who cares what shame shall lean upon?”

• Low drooped trembling Rose Mary,
• Then up as though in a dream stood she.
• “Come, my heart, it is time to go;
• This is the hour that has whispered low
• When thy pulse quailed in the nights we know.

• “Yet O my heart, thy shame has a mate
• Who will not leave thee desolate.
• Shame for shame, yea and sin for sin:
• Yet peace at length may our poor souls win
• 30If love for love be found therein.

• “O thou who seek'st our shrift to-day,”
• She cried, “O James of Heronhaye—
• Thy sin and mine was for love alone;
• And oh! in the sight of God 'tis known
• How the heart has since made heavy moan.

• “Three days yet!” she said to her heart;
• “But then he comes, and we will not part.
• God, God be thanked that I still could see!
• Oh! he shall come back assuredly,
• 40But where, alas! must he seek for me?

• “O my heart, what road shall we roam
• Till my wedding-music fetch me home?
• For love's shut from us and bides afar,
• And scorn leans over the bitter bar
• And knows us now for the thing we are.”

• Tall she stood with a cheek flushed high
• And a gaze to burn the heart-strings by.
• 'Twas the lightning-flash o'er sky and plain
• Ere labouring thunders heave the chain
• 50From the floodgates of the drowning rain.

• The mother looked on the daughter still
• As on a hurt thing that's yet to kill.
• Then wildly at length the pent tears came;
• The love swelled high with the swollen shame,
• And their hearts' tempest burst on them.

• Closely locked, they clung without speech,
• And the mirrored souls shook each to each,
• As the cloud-moon and the water-moon
• Shake face to face when the dim stars swoon
• 60In stormy bowers of the night's mid-noon.

• They swayed together, shuddering sore,
• Till the mother's heart could bear no more.
• 'Twas death to feel her own breast shake
• Even to the very throb and ache
• Of the burdened heart she still must break.

• All her sobs ceased suddenly,
• And she sat straight up but scarce could see.
• “O daughter, where should my speech begin?
• Your heart held fast its secret sin:
• 70How think you, child, that I read therein?”

• “Ah me! but I thought not how it came
• When your words showed that you knew my shame:
• And now that you call me still your own,
• I half forget you have ever known.
• Did you read my heart in the Beryl-stone?”

• The lady answered her mournfully:—
• “The Beryl-stone has no voice for me:
• But when you charged its power to show
• The truth which none but the pure may know,
• 80Did naught speak once of a coming woe?”

• Her hand was close to her daughter's heart,
• And it felt the life-blood's sudden start:
• A quick deep breath did the damsel draw,
• Like the struck fawn in the oakenshaw:
• “O mother,” she cried, “but still I saw!”

• “O child, my child, why held you apart
• From my great love your hidden heart?
• Said I not that all sin must chase
• From the spell's sphere the spirits of grace,
• 90And yield their rule to the evil race?

• “Ah! would to God I had clearly told
• How strong those powers, accurst of old:
• Their heart is the ruined house of lies;
• O girl, they can seal the sinful eyes,
• Or show the truth by contraries!”

• The daughter sat as cold as a stone,
• And spoke no word but gazed alone,
• Nor moved, though her mother strove a space
• To clasp her round in a close embrace,
• 100Because she dared not see her face.

• “Oh!” at last did the mother cry,
• “Be sure, as he loved you, so will I!
• Ah! still and dumb is the bride, I trow;
• But cold and stark as the winter snow
• Is the bridegroom's heart, laid dead below!

• “Daughter, daughter, remember you
• That cloud in the hills by Holycleugh?
• 'Twas a Hell-screen hiding truth away:
• There, not i' the vale, the ambush lay,
• 110And thence was the dead borne home to-day.”

• Deep the flood and heavy the shock
• When sea meets sea in the riven rock:
• But calm is the pulse that shakes the sea
• To the prisoned tide of doom set free
• In the breaking heart of Rose Mary.

           

• Once she sprang as the heifer springs
• With the wolf's teeth at its red heart-strings:
• First 'twas fire in her breast and brain,
• And then scarce hers but the whole world's pain,
• 120As she gave one shriek and sank again.

• In the hair dark-waved the face lay white
• As the moon lies in the lap of night;
• And as night through which no moon may dart
• Lies on a pool in the woods apart,
• So lay the swoon on the weary heart.

• The lady felt for the bosom's stir,
• And wildly kissed and called on her;
• Then turned away with a quick footfall,
• And slid the secret door in the wall,
• 130And clomb the strait stair's interval.

• There above in the altar-cell
• A little fountain rose and fell:
• She set a flask to the water's flow,
• And, backward hurrying, sprinkled now
• The still cold breast and the pallid brow.

• Scarce cheek that warmed or breath on the air,
• Yet something told that life was there.
• “Ah! not with the heart the body dies!”
• The lady moaned in a bitter wise;
• 140Then wrung her hands and hid her eyes.

• “Alas! and how may I meet again
• In the same poor eyes the self-same pain?
• What help can I seek, such grief to guide?
• Ah! one alone might avail,” she cried,—
• “The priest who prays at the dead man's side.”

• The lady arose, and sped down all
• The winding stairs to the castle-hall.
• Long-known valley and wood and stream,
• As the loopholes passed, naught else did seem
• 150Than the torn threads of a broken dream.

• The hall was full of the castle-folk;
• The women wept, but the men scarce spoke.
• As the lady crossed the rush-strewn floor,
• The throng fell backward, murmuring sore,
• And pressed outside round the open door.

• A stranger shadow hung on the hall
• Than the dark pomp of a funeral.
• 'Mid common sights that were there alway,
• As 'twere a chance of the passing day,
• 160On the ingle-bench the dead man lay.

• A priest who passed by Holycleugh
• The tidings brought when the day was new.
• He guided them who had fetched the dead;
• And since that hour, unwearièd,
• He knelt in prayer at the low bier's head.

• Word had gone to his own domain
• That in evil wise the knight was slain:
• Soon the spears must gather apace
• And the hunt be hard on the hunters' trace;
• 170But all things yet lay still for a space.

• As the lady's hurried step drew near,
• The kneeling priest looked up to her.
• “Father, death is a grievous thing;
• But oh! the woe has a sharper sting
• That craves by me your ministering.

• “Alas for the child that should have wed
• This noble knight here lying dead!
• Dead in hope, with all blessed boon
• Of love thus rent from her heart ere noon,
• 180I left her laid in a heavy swoon.

• “O haste to the open bower-chamber
• That's topmost as you mount the stair:
• Seek her, father, ere yet she wake;
• Your words, not mine, be the first to slake
• This poor heart's fire, for Christ's sweet sake!

• “God speed!” she said as the priest passed through,
• “And I ere long will be with you.”
• Then low on the hearth her knees sank prone;
• She signed all folk from the threshold-stone,
• 190And gazed in the dead man's face alone.

• The fight for life found record yet
• In the clenched lips and the teeth hard-set;
• The wrath from the bent brow was not gone,
• And stark in the eyes the hate still shone
• Of that they last had looked upon.

• The blazoned coat was rent on his breast
• Where the golden field was goodliest;
• But the shivered sword, close-gripped, could tell
• That the blood shed round him where he fell
• 200Was not all his in the distant dell.

• The lady recked of the corpse no whit,
• But saw the soul and spoke to it:
• A light there was in her steadfast eyes,—
• The fire of mortal tears and sighs
• That pity and love immortalize.

• “By thy death have I learnt to-day
• Thy deed, O James of Heronhaye!
• Great wrong thou hast done to me and mine;
• And haply God hath wrought for a sign
• 210By our blind deed this doom of thine.

• “Thy shrift, alas! thou wast not to win;
• But may death shrive thy soul herein!
• Full well do I know thy love should be
• Even yet—had life but stayed with thee—
• Our honour's strong security.”

• She stooped, and said with a sob's low stir,—
• “Peace be thine,—but what peace for her?”
• But ere to the brow her lips were press'd,
• She marked, half-hid in the riven vest,
• 220A packet close to the dead man's breast.

• 'Neath surcoat pierced and broken mail
• It lay on the blood-stained bosom pale.
• The clot clung round it, dull and dense,
• And a faintness seized her mortal sense
• As she reached her hand and drew it thence.

• 'Twas steeped in the heart's flood welling high
• From the heart it there had rested by:
• 'Twas glued to a broidered fragment gay,—
• A shred by spear-thrust rent away
• 230From the heron-wings of Heronhaye.

• She gazed on the thing with piteous eyne:—
• “Alas, poor child, some pledge of thine!
• Ah me! in this troth the hearts were twain,
• And one hath ebbed to this crimson stain,
• And when shall the other throb again?”

• She read it twice, with a brain in thrall,
• And then its echo told her all.
• O'er brows low-fall'n her hands she drew:—
• “O God!” she said, as her hands fell too,—
• 270“The Warden's sister of Holycleugh!”

• She rose upright with a long low moan,
• And stared in the dead man's face new-known.
• Had it lived indeed? She scarce could tell:
• 'Twas a cloud where fiends had come to dwell,—
• A mask that hung on the gate of Hell.

• She lifted the lock of gleaming hair
• And smote the lips and left it there.
• “Here's gold that Hell shall take for thy toll!
• Full well hath thy treason found its goal,
• 280O thou dead body and damnèd soul!”

• She turned, sore dazed, for a voice was near,
• And she knew that some one called to her.
• On many a column fair and tall
• A high court ran round the castle-hall;
• And thence it was that the priest did call.

• “I sought your child where you bade me go,
• And in rooms around and rooms below;
• But where, alas! may the maiden be?
• Fear nought,—we shall find her speedily,—
• 290But come, come hither, and seek with me.”

• She reached the stair like a lifelorn thing,
• But hastened upward murmuring:—
• “Yea, Death's is a face that's fell to see;
• But bitterer pang Life hoards for thee,
• Thou broken heart of Rose Mary!”

 

• We whose throne is the Beryl,
• Dire-gifted spirits of fire,
• Who for a twin
• Leash Sorrow to Sin,
• Who on no flower refrain to lour with peril,—
• We cry,—O desolate daughter!
• Thou and thy mother share newer shame with each
• other
• Than last night's slaughter.
• Awake and tremble, for our curses assemble!
• 10 What more, that thou know'st not yet,—
• That life nor death shall forget?
• No help from Heaven,—thy woes heart-riven are
• sterile!
  page: 46  
• O, once a maiden,
• With yet worse sorrow can any morrow be laden?
• It waits for thee,
• It looms, it must be,
• O lost among women,—
• It comes and thou canst not flee.
• Amen to the omen,
• 20 Says the voice of the Beryl.
• Thou sleep'st? Awake,—
• What dar'st thou yet for his sake,
• Who each for other did God's own Future imperil?
• Dost dare to live
• 'Mid the pangs each hour must give?
• Nay, rather die,—
• With him thy lover 'neath Hell's cloud-cover to fly,—
• Hopeless, yet not apart,
• Cling heart to heart,
page: 47  
Manuscript Addition: I sh d always write mayst—no one says mayest
Editorial Description: WMR's note to line 32 in right margin.
• 30 And beat through the nether storm-eddying winds
• together?
• Shall this be so?
• There thou shalt meet him, but may'st thou greet him?
• ah no!
• He loves, but thee he hoped never more to see,—
• He sighed as he died,
• But with never a thought for thee.
• Alone!
• Alone, for ever alone,—
• Whose eyes were such wondrous spies for the fate
• foreshown!
• Lo! have not We leashed the twin
• 40 Of endless Sorrow to Sin,—
• Who on no flower refrain to lour with peril,—
• Dire-gifted spirits of fire,
• We whose throne is the Beryl?

   

• A Swoon that breaks is the whelming wave
• When help comes late but still can save.
• With all blind throes is the instant rife,—
• Hurtling clangour and clouds at strife,—
• The breath of death, but the kiss of life.

• The night lay deep on Rose Mary's heart,
• For her swoon was death's kind counterpart:
• The dawn broke dim on Rose Mary's soul,—
• No hill-crown's heavenly aureole,
• 10But a wild gleam on a shaken shoal.

           

• I Catherine am a Douglas born,
• A name to all Scots dear;
• And Kate Barlass they've called me now
• Through many a waning year.

• This old arm's withered now. 'Twas once
• Most deft 'mong maidens all
• To rein the steed, to wing the shaft,
• To smite the palm-play ball.

• In hall adown the close-linked dance
• 10It has shone most white and fair;
• It has been the rest for a true lord's head,
• And many a sweet babe's nursing-bed,
• And the bar to a King's chambère.

• Aye, lasses, draw round Kate Barlass,
• And hark with bated breath
• How good King James, King Robert's son,
• Was foully done to death.

• Through all the days of his gallant youth
• The princely James was pent,
• 20By his friends at first and then by his foes,
• In long imprisonment.

• For the elder Prince, the kingdom's heir,
• By treason's murderous brood
• Was slain; and the father quaked for the child
• With the royal mortal blood.

• I' the Bass Rock fort, by his father's care,
• Was his childhood's life assured;
• And Henry the subtle Bolingbroke,
• Proud England's King, 'neath the southron yoke
• 30His youth for long years immured.

• Yet in all things meet for a kingly man
• Himself did he approve;
• And the nightingale through his prison-wall
• Taught him both lore and love.

• For once, when the bird's song drew him close
• To the opened window-pane,
• In her bowers beneath a lady stood,
• A light of life to his sorrowful mood,
• Like a lily amid the rain.

• 40And for her sake, to the sweet bird's note,
• He framed a sweeter Song,
• More sweet than ever a poet's heart
• Gave yet to the English tongue.

• She was a lady of royal blood;
• And when, past sorrow and teen,
• He stood where still through his crownless years
• His Sco t tish realm had been,
• At Scone were the happy lovers crowned,
• A heart-wed King and Queen.

• 50But the bird may fall from the bough of youth,
• And song be turned to moan,
• And Love's storm-cloud be the shadow of Hate,
• When the tempest-waves of a troubled State
• Are beating against a throne.

• Yet well they loved; and the god of Love,
• Whom well the King had sung,
• Might find on the earth no truer hearts
• His lowliest swains among.

• From the days when first she rode abroad
• 60With Scotish maids in her train,
• I Catherine Douglas won the trust
• Of my mistress sweet Queen Jane.

• And oft she sighed, “To be born a King!”
• And oft along the way
• When she saw the homely lovers pass
• She has said, “Alack the day!”

• Years waned,—the loving and toiling years:
• Till England's wrong renewed
• Drove James, by outrage cast on his crown,
• 70To the open field of feud.

• 'Twas when the King and his host were met
• At the leaguer of Roxbro' hold,
• The Queen o' the sudden sought his camp
• With a tale of dread to be told.

• And she showed him a secret letter writ
• That spoke of treasonous strife,
• And how a band of his noblest lords
• Were sworn to take his life.

• “And it may be here or it may be there,
• 80In the camp or the court,” she said:
• “But for my sake come to your people's arms
• And guard your royal head.”

• Quoth he, “'Tis the fifteenth day of the siege,
• And the castle's nigh to yield.”
• “O face your foes on your throne,” she cried,
• “And show the power you wield;
• And under your Scotish people's love
• You shall sit as under your shield.”

• At the fair Queen's side I stood that day
• 90When he bade them raise the siege,
• And back to his Court he sped to know
• How the lords would meet their Liege.

• But when he summoned his Parliament,
• The louring brows hung round,
• Like clouds that circle the mountain-head
• Ere the first low thunders sound.

• For he had tamed the nobles' lust
• And curbed their power and pride,
• And reached out an arm to right the poor
• 100Through Scotland far and wide;
• And many a lordly wrong-doer
• By the headsman's axe had died.

• 'Twas then upspoke Sir Robert Græme,
• The bold o'ermastering man:—
• “O King, in the name of your Three Estates
• I set you under their ban!

• “For, as your lords made oath to you
• Of service and fealty,
• Even in like wise you pledged your oath
• 110Their faithful sire to be:—

• “Yet all we here that are nobly sprung
• Have mourned dear kith and kin
• Since first for the Scotish Barons' curse
• Did your bloody rule begin.”

• With that he laid his hands on his King:—
• “Is this not so, my lords?”
• But of all who had sworn to league with him
• Not one spake back to his words.

• Quoth the King:—“Thou speak'st but for one
• Estate,
• 120Nor doth it avow thy gage.
• Let my liege lords hale this traitor hence!”
• The Græme fired dark with rage:—
• “Who works for lesser men than himself,
• He earns but a witless wage!”

• But soon from the dungeon where he lay
• He won by privy plots,
• And forth he fled with a price on his head
• To the country of the Wild Scots.

• And word there came from Sir Robert Græme
• 130To the King at Edinbro':—
• “No Liege of mine thou art; but I see
• From this day forth alone in thee
• God's creature, my mortal foe.

• “Through thee are my wife and children lost,
• My heritage and lands;
• And when my God shall show me a way,
• Thyself my mortal foe will I slay
• With these my proper hands.”

• Against the coming of Christmastide
• 140That year the King bade call
• I' the Black Friars' Charterhouse of Perth
• A solemn festival.

• And we of his household rode with him
• In a close-ranked company;
• But not till the sun had sunk from his throne
• Did we reach the Scotish Sea.

• That eve was clenched for a boding storm,
• 'Neath a toilsome moon half seen;
• The cloud stooped low and the surf rose high;
• 150And where there was a line of the sky,
• Wild wings loomed dark between.

• And on a rock of the black beach-side,
• By the veiled moon dimly lit,
• There was something seemed to heave with life
• As the King drew nigh to it.

• And was it only the tossing ferns
• Or brake of the waste sea-wold?
• Or was it an eagle bent to the blast?
• When near we came, we knew it at last
• 160For a woman tattered and old.

• But it seemed as though by a fire within
• Her writhen limbs were wrung;
• And as soon as the King was close to her,
• She stood up gaunt and strong.

• 'Twas then the moon sailed clear of the rack
• On high in her hollow dome;
• And still as aloft with hoary crest
• Each clamorous wave rang home,
• Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed
• 170Amid the champing foam.

• And the woman held his eyes with her eyes:—
• “O King, thou art come at last;
• But thy wraith has haunted the Scotish Sea
• To my sight for four years past.

• “Four years it is since first I met,
• 'Twixt the Duchray and the Dhu,
• A shape whose feet clung close in a shroud,
• And that shape for thine I knew.

• “A year again, and on Inchkeith Isle
• 180I saw thee pass in the breeze,
• With the cerecloth risen above thy feet
• And wound about thy knees.

       

• “And yet a year, in the Links of Forth,
• As a wanderer without rest,
• Thou cam'st with both thine arms i' the shroud
• That clung high up thy breast.

• “And in this hour I find thee here,
• And well mine eyes may note
• That the winding-sheet hath passed thy breast
• 190And risen around thy throat.

• “And when I meet thee again, O King,
• That of death hast such sore drouth,—
• Except thou turn again on this shore,—
• The winding-sheet shall have moved once more
• And covered thine eyes and mouth . :

• “O King, whom poor men bless for their King,
• Of thy fate be not so fain , ;
• But these my words for God's message take,
• And turn thy steed, O King, for her sake
• 200Who rides beside thy rein!”

• While the woman spoke, the King's horse reared
• As if it would breast the sea,
• And the Queen turned pale as she heard on the gale
• The voice die dolorously.

• When the woman ceased, the steed was still,
• But the King gazed on her yet,
• And in silence save for the wail of the sea
• His eyes and her eyes met.

• At last he said:—“God's ways are His own;
• 210Man is but shadow and dust.
• Last night I prayed by His altar-stone;
• To-night I wend to the Feast of His Son;
• And in Him I set my trust.

• “I have held my people in sacred charge,
• And have not feared the sting
• Of proud men's hate, —to His will resign'd
• Who has but one same death for a hind
• And one same death for a King.

• “And if God in His wisdom have brought close
• 220The day when I must die,
• That day by water or fire or air
• My feet shall fall in the destined snare
• Wherever my road may lie.

• “What man can say but the Fiend hath set
• Thy sorcery on my path,
• My heart with the fear of death to fill,
• And turn me against God's very will
• To sink in His burning wrath?”

• The woman stood as the train rode past,
• 230And moved nor limb nor eye;
• And when we were shipped, we saw her there
• Still standing against the sky.

• As the ship made way, the moon once more
• Sank slow in her rising pall;
• And I thought of the shrouded wraith of the King,
• And I said, “The Heavens know all.”

• And now, ye lasses, must ye hear
• How my name is Kate Barlass:—
• But a little thing, when all the tale
• 240Is told of the weary mass
• Of crime and woe which in Scotland's realm
• God's will let come to pass.

• 'Twas in the Charterhouse of Perth
• That the King and all his Court
• Were met, the Christmas Feast being done,
• For solace and disport.

• 'Twas a wind-wild eve in February,
• And against the casement-pane
• The branches smote like summoning hands
• 250And muttered the driving rain.

• And when the wind swooped over the lift
• And made the whole heaven frown,
• It seemed a grip was laid on the walls
• To tug the housetop down.

• And the Queen was there, more stately fair
• Than a lily in garden set;
• And the King was loth to stir from her side;
• For as on the day when she was his bride,
• Even so he loved her yet.

• 260And the Earl of Athole, the King's false friend,
• Sat with him at the board;
• And Robert Stuart the chamberlain
• Who had sold his sovereign Lord.

• Yet the traitor Christopher Chaumber there
• Would fain have told him all,
• And vainly four times that night he strove
• To reach the King through the hall.

• But the wine is bright at the goblet's brim
• Though the poison lurk beneath;
• 270And the apples still are red on the tree
• Within whose shade may the adder be
• That shall turn thy life to death.

• There was a knight of the King's fast friends
• Whom he called the King of Love;
• And to such bright cheer and courtesy
• That name might best behove.

• And the King and Queen both loved him well
• For his gentle knightliness;
• And with him the King, as that eve wore on,
• 280Was playing at the chess.

• And the King said, (for he thought to jest
• And soothe the Queen thereby;)—
• “In a book 'tis writ that this same year
• A King shall in Scotland die.

• “And I have pondered the matter o'er,
• And this have I found, Sir Hugh,—
• There are but two Kings on Scotish ground,
• And those Kings are I and you.

• “And I have a wife and a newborn heir,
• 290And you are yourself alone , ;
• So stand you stark at my side with me
• To guard our double throne.

• “For here sit I and my wife and child,
• As well your heart shall approve,
• In full surrender and soothfastness,
• Beneath your Kingdom of Love.”

• And the Knight laughed, and the Queen too smiled ;
• But I knew her heavy thought,
• And I strove to find in the good King's jest
• 300What cheer might thence be wrought.

• And I said, “My Liege, for the Queen's dear love
• Now sing the song that of old
• You made, when a captive Prince you lay,
• And the nightingale sang sweet on the spray,
• In Windsor's castle-hold.”

• Then he smiled the smile I knew so well
• When he thought to please the Queen;
• The smile which under all bitter frowns
• Of fate that rose between,
• 310For ever dwelt at the poet's heart;
• Like the bird of love unseen.

• And he kissed her hand and took his harp,
• And the music sweetly rang;
• And when the song burst forth, it seemed
• 'Twas the nightingale that sang.

• “Worship, ye lovers, on this May:
• Of bliss your K kalends are begun:
• Sing with us, Away, Winter, away!
• Come, Summer, the sweet season and sun!
• 320 Awake for shame,—your heaven is won,—
• And amorously your heads lift all:
• Thank Love, that you to his grace doth call!”

• But when he bent to the Queen, and sang
• The speech whose praise was hers,
• It seemed his voice was the voice of the Spring
• And the voice of the bygone years.

• “The fairest and the freshest flower
• That ever I saw before that hour,
• The which o' the sudden made to start
• 330 The blood of my body to my heart.

---

• Ah sweet, are ye a worldly creature
• Or heavenly thing in form of nature?”

• And the song was long, and richly stored
• With wonder and beauteous things;
• And the harp was tuned to every change
• Of minstrel ministerings;
• But when he spoke of the Queen at the last,
• Its strings were his own heart-strings.

• “Unworthy but only of her grace,
• 340 Upon Love's rock that's easy and sure ,
• In guerdon of all my lovè's space

• She took me her humble creäture.
• Thus fell my blissful aventure
• In youth of love that from day to day
• Flowereth aye new, and further I say.

• “To reckon all the circumstance
• As it happed when lessen gan my sore,
• Of my rancour and woful chance,
• It were too long,—I have done therefor.
• 350 And of this flower I say no more
• But unto my help her heart hath tended
• And even from death her man defended.”

• “Aye, even from death,” to myself I said;
• For I thought of the day when she
• Had borne him the news, at Roxbro' siege,
• Of the fell confederacy.

• But Death even then took aim as he sang
• With an arrow deadly bright;
• And the grinning skull lurked grimly aloof,
• 360And the wings were spread far over the roof
• More dark than the winter night.

• Yet truly along the amorous song
• Of Love's high pomp and state,
• There were words of Fortune's trackless doom
• And the dreadful face of Fate.

• And oft have I heard again in dreams
• The voice of dire appeal
• In which the King then sang of the pit
• That is under Fortune's wheel.

• 370 “And under the wheel beheld I there
• An ugly p Pit as deep as hell,
• That to behold I quaked for fear:
• And this I heard, that who therein fell
• Came no more up, tidings to tell:
• Whereat, astound of the fearful sight,
• I wist not what to do for fright.”

• And oft has my thought called up again
• These words of the changeful song:—
• “Wist thou thy pain and thy travàil
• 380 To come, well might'st thou weep and wail!”
• And our wail, O God! is long.

• But the song's end was all of his love;
• And well his heart was grac'd
• With her smiling lips and her tear-bright eyes
• As his arm went round her waist.

• And on the swell of her long fair throat
• Close clung the necklet-chain
• As he bent her pearl-tir'd head aside,
• And in the warmth of his love and pride
• 390He kissed her lips full fain.

• And her true face was a rosy red,
• The very red of the rose
• That, couched on the happy garden-bed,
• In the summer sunlight glows.

• And all the wondrous things of love
• That sang so sweet through the song
• Were in the look that met in their eyes,
• And the look was deep and long.

       

• And the King said: “The hour is late;
• 400To-morrow will serve, I ween.”
• Then he charged the usher strictly, and said:
• “No word of this to the Queen.”

• But the usher came again to the King.
• “Shall I call her back?” quoth he:
• “For as she went on her way, she cried,
• ‘Woe! Woe! then the thing must be!‘”

• And the King paused, but he did not speak.
• Then he called for the Voidee-cup:
• And as we heard the twelfth hour strike,
• 410There by true lips and false lips alike
• Was the draught of trust drained up.

• So with reverence meet to King and Queen,
• To bed went all from the board;
• And the last to leave of the courtly train
• Was Robert Stuart the chamberlain
• Who had sold his sovereign lord.

• And all the locks of the chamber-door
• Had the traitor riven and brast;
• And that Fate might win sure way from afar,
• 420He had drawn out every bolt and bar
• That made the entrance fast.

• And now at midnight he stole his way
• To the moat of the outer wall,
• And laid strong hurdles closely across
• Where the traitors' tread should fall.

• But we that were the Queen's bower-maids
• Alone were left behind;
• And with heed we drew the curtains close
• Against the winter wind.

• And now that all was still through the hall,
• 430More clearly we heard the rain
• That clamoured ever against the glass
• And the boughs that beat on the pane.

• But the fire was bright in the ingle-nook,
• And through empty space around
• The shadows cast on the arras'd wall
• 'Mid the pictured kings stood sudden and tall
• Like spectres sprung from the ground.

• And the bed was dight in a deep alcove;
• And as he stood by the fire
• 440The King was still in talk with the Queen
• While he doffed his goodly attire.

• And the song had brought the image back
• Of many a bygone year;
• And many a loving word they said
• With hand in hand and head laid to head;
• And none of us went anear.

• But Love was weeping outside the house,
• A child in the piteous rain;
• And as he watched the arrow of Death,
• 450He wailed for his own shafts close in the sheath
• That never should fly again.

• And now beneath the window arose
• A wild voice suddenly:
• And the King reared straight, but the Queen fell back
• As for bitter dule to dree;
• And all of us knew the woman's voice
• Who spoke by the Scotish Sea.

• “O King,” she cried, “in an evil hour
• They drove me from thy gate;
• 460And yet my voice must rise to thine ears;
• But alas! it comes too late!

• “Last night at mid-watch, by Aberdour,
• When the moon was dead in the skies,
• O King, in a death-light of thine own
• I saw thy shape arise.

• “And in full season, as erst I said,
• The doom had gained its growth;
• And the shroud had risen above thy neck
• And covered thine eyes and mouth.

• 470“And no moon woke, but the pale dawn broke,
• And still thy soul stood there;
• And I thought its silence cried to my soul
• As the first rays crowned its hair.

• “Since then have I journeyed fast and fain
• In very despite of Fate,
• Lest Hope might still be found in God's will:
• But they drove me from thy gate.

• “For every man on God's ground, O King,
• His death grows up from his birth
• 480In a shadow-plant perpetually;
• And thine towers high, a black yew-tree,
• O'er the Charterhouse of Perth!”

• That room was built far out from the house;
• And none but we in the room
• Might hear the voice that rose beneath,
• Nor the tread of the coming doom.

• For now there came a torchlight-glare,
• And a clang of arms there came;
• And not a soul in that space but thought
• 490Of the foe Sir Robert Græme.

• Yea, from the country of the Wild Scots,
• O'er mountain, valley, and glen,
• He had brought with him in murderous league
• Three hundred armèd men.

• The King knew all in an instant's flash;
• And like a King did he stand;
• But there was no armour in all the room,
• Nor weapon lay to his hand.

• And all we women flew to the door
• 500And thought to have made it fast;
• But the bolts were gone and the bars were gone
• And the locks were riven and brast.

• And he caught the pale pale Queen in his arms
• As the iron footsteps fell,—
• Then loosed her, standing alone, and said,
• “Our bliss was our farewell!”

• And 'twixt his lips he murmured a prayer,
• And he crossed his brow and breast;
• And proudly in royal hardihood
• 510Even so with folded arms he stood,—
• The prize of the bloody quest.

• Then on me leaped the Queen like a deer:—
• “O Catherine, help!” she cried.
• And low at his feet we clasped his knees
• Together side by side.
• “Oh! even a King, for his people's sake,
• From treasonous death must hide!”

• “For her sake most!” I cried, and I marked
• The pang that my words could wring.
• 520And the iron tongs from the chimney-nook
• I snatched and held to the King:—
• “Wrench up the plank! and the vault beneath
• Shall yield safe harbouring.”

• With brows low-bent, from my outstretched eager hand
• The heavy heft did he take;
• And the plank at his feet he wrenched and tore;
• And as he frowned through the open floor,
• Again I said, “For her sake!”

• Then he cried to the Queen, “God's will be done!”
• 530For her hands were clasped in prayer.
• And down he sprang to the inner crypt;
• And straight we closed the plank he had ripp'd
• And toiled to smoothe it fair.

• (Alas! in that vault a gap once was
• Wherethro' the King might have fled:
• But three days since close-walled had it been
• By his will; for the ball would roll therein
• When without at the palm he play'd.)

• Then the Queen cried, “Catherine, keep the door,
• 540And I to this will suffice!”
• At her word I rose all dazed to my feet,
• And my heart was fire and ice.

• And louder ever the voices grew,
• And the tramp of men in mail;
• Until to my brain it seemed to be
• As though I tossed on a ship at sea
• In the teeth of a crashing gale.

• Then back I flew to the rest; and hard
• We strove with sinews knit
• 550To force the table against the door;
• But we might not compass it.

• And Then my wild gaze sped far down the hall
• To the place of the hearthstone-sill;
• And the Queen bent ever above the floor,
• For the plank was rising still.

• And now the rush was heard on the stair,
• And “God, what help?” was our cry.
• And was I frenzied or was I bold?
• I looked at each empty stanchion-hold,
• 560And no bar but my arm had I!

• Like iron felt my arm, as through
• The staple I made it pass:—
• Alack! it was flesh and bone—no more!
• 'Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door,
• But I fell back Kate Barlass.

• With that they all thronged into the hall,
• Half dim to my failing ken;
• And the space that was but a void before
• Was a crowd of wrathful men.

• 570Behind the door I had fall'n and lay,
• Yet my sense was wildly aware,
• And for all the pain of my shattered arm
• I never fainted there.

• Even as I fell, my eyes were cast
• Where the King leaped down to the pit;
• And lo! the plank was smooth in its place,
• And the Queen stood far from it.

• And under the litters and through the bed
• And within the presses all
• 580The traitors sought for the King, and pierced
• The arras around the wall.

• And through the chamber they ramped and stormed
• Like lions loose in the lair,
• And scarce could trust to their very eyes,—
• For behold! no King was there.

• Then one of them seized the Queen, and cried,—
• “Now tell us, where is thy lord?”
• And he held the sharp point over her heart:
• She drooped not her eyes nor did she start,
• 590But she answered never a word.

• Then the sword half pierced the true true breast:
• But it was the Græme's own son
• Cried, “This is a woman,—we seek a man!”
• And away from her girdle-zone
• He struck the point of the murderous steel;
• And that foul deed was not done.

• And forth flowed all the throng like a sea,
• And 'twas empty space once more;
• And my eyes sought out the wounded Queen
• 600As I lay behind the door.

• And I said: “Dear Lady, leave me here,
• For I cannot help you now;
• But fly while you may, and none shall reck
• Of my place here lying low.”

• And she said, “My Catherine, God help thee!”
• Then she looked to the distant floor,
• And clasping her hands, “O God help him,”
• She sobbed, “for we can no more!”

• But God He knows what help may mean,
• 610If it mean to live or to die;
• And what sore sorrow and mighty moan
• On earth it may cost ere yet a throne
• Be filled in His house on high.

       

• And now the ladies fled with the Queen;
• And thorough the open door
• The night-wind wailed round the empty room
• And the rushes shook on the floor.

• And the bed drooped low in the dark recess
• Whence the arras was rent away;
• 620And the firelight still shone over the space
• Where our hidden secret lay.

• And the rain had ceased, and the moonbeams lit
• The window high in the wall,—
• Bright beams that on the plank that I knew
• Through the painted pane did fall
• And gleamed with the splendour of Scotland's crown
• And shield armorial.

• But then a great wind swept up the skies,
• And the climbing moon fell back;
• 630And the royal blazon fled from the floor,
• And nought remained on its track;
• And high in the darkened window-pane
• The shield and the crown were black.

• And what I say next I partly saw
• And partly I heard in sooth,
• And partly since from the murderers' lips
• The torture wrung the truth.

• For now again came the armèd tread,
• And fast through the hall it fell;
• 640But the throng was less; and ere I saw,
• By the voice without I could tell
• That Robert Stuart had come with them
• Who knew that chamber well.

• And over the space the Græme strode dark
• With his mantle round him flung;
• And in his eye was a flaming light
• But not a word on his tongue.

• And Stuart held a torch to the floor,
• And he found the thing he sought;
• 650And they slashed the plank away with their swords;
• And O God! I fainted not!

• And the traitor held his torch in the gap,
• All smoking and smouldering;
• And through the vapour and fire, beneath
• In the dark crypt's narrow ring,
• With a shout that pealed to the room's high roof
• They saw their naked King.

• Half naked he stood, but stood as one
• Who yet could do and dare:
• 660With the crown, the King was stript away,—
• 670The Knight was reft of his battle-array,—
• But still the Man was there.

• From the rout then stepped a villain forth,—
• Sir John Hall was his name;
• With a knife unsheathed he leapt to the vault
• Beneath the torchlight-flame.

• Of his person and stature was the King
• A man right manly strong,
• And mightily by the shoulder-blades
• His foe to his feet he flung.

• 680Then the traitor's brother, Sir Thomas Hall,
• Sprang down to work his worst;
• And the King caught the second man by the neck
• And flung him above the first.

• And he smote and trampled them under him;
• And a long month thence they bare
• All black their throats with the grip of his hands
• When the hangman's hand came there.

• And sore he strove to have had their knives,
• But the sharp blades gashed his hands.
• 690Oh James! so armed, thou hadst battled there
• Till help had come of thy bands;
• And oh! once more thou hadst held our throne
• And ruled thy Scotish lands!

• But while the King o'er his foes still raged
• With a heart that nought could tame,
• Another man sprang down to the crypt;
• And with his sword in his hand hard-gripp'd,
• There stood Sir Robert Græme.

• (Now shame on the recreant traitor's heart
• 700Who durst not face his King
• Till the body unarmed was wearied out
• With two-fold combating!

• Ah! well might the people sing and say,
• As oft ye have heard aright:—
• “ O Robert Græme, O Robert Græme,
• Who slew our King, God give thee shame!”
• For he slew him not as a knight.)

• And the naked King turned round at bay,
• But his strength had passed the goal,
• 710And he could but gasp:—“Mine hour is come;
• But oh! to succour thine own soul's doom,
• Let a priest now shrive my soul!”

• And the traitor looked on the King's spent strength,
• And said:—“Have I kept my word?—
• Yea, King, the mortal pledge that I gave?
• No black friar's shrift thy soul shall have,
• But the shrift of this red sword!”

• With that he smote his King through the breast;
• And all they three in that pen
• 720Fell on him and stabbed and stabbed him there
• Like merciless murderous men.

• Yet seemed it now that Sir Robert Græme,
• Ere the King's last breath was o'er,
• Turned sick at heart with the deadly sight
• And would have done no more.

• But a cry came from the troop above:—
• “If him thou do not slay,
• The price of his life that thou dost spare
• Thy forfeit life shall pay!”

• 730O God! what more did I hear or see,
• Or how should I tell the rest?
• But there at length our King lay slain
• With sixteen wounds in his breast.

• O God! and now did a bell boom forth,
• And the murderers turned and fled;—

• And, girls, 'twas a sweet sad thing to see
• How the curling golden hair,
• As in the day of the poet's youth,
• From the King's crown clustered there.

• 740And if all had come to pass in the brain
• That throbbed beneath those curls,
• Then Scots had said in the days to come
• That this their soil was a different home
• And a different Scotland, girls!

• And the Queen sat by him night and day,
• And oft she knelt in prayer,
• All wan and pale in the widow's veil
• That shrouded her shining hair.

• And I had got good help of my hurt:
• 750And only to me some sign
• She made; and save the priests that were there,
• No face would she see but mine.

• And the month of March wore on apace;
• And now fresh couriers fared
• Still from the country of the Wild Scots
• With news of the traitors snared.

• And still as I told her day by day,
• Her pallor changed to sight,
• And the frost grew to a furnace-flame
• 760That burnt her visage white.

• And evermore as I brought her word,
• She bent to her dead King James,
• And in the cold ear with fire-drawn breath
• She spoke the traitors' names.

• But when the name of Sir Robert Græme
• Was the one she had to give,
• I ran to hold her up from the floor;
• For the froth was on her lips, and sore
• I feared that she could not live.

• 770And the month of March wore nigh to its end,
• And still was the death-pall spread;
• For she would not bury her slaughtered lord
• Till his slayers all were dead.

• And now of their dooms dread tidings came,
• And of torments fierce and dire;
• And nought she spake,—she had ceased to speak,—
• But her eyes were a soul on fire.

• But when I told her the bitter end
• Of the stern and just award,
• 780She leaned o'er the bier, and thrice three times
• She kissed the lips of her lord.

• And then she said,—“My King, they are dead!”
• And she knelt on the chapel-floor,
• And whispered low with a strange proud smile,—
• “James, James, they suffered more!”

• Last she stood up to her queenly height,
• But she shook like an autumn leaf,
• As though the fire wherein she burned
• Then left her body, and all were turned
• 790To winter of life-long grief.

• And “O James!” she said,—“My James!” she
• said,—
• “Alas for the woful thing,
• That a poet true and a friend of man,
• In desperate days of bale and ban,
• Should needs be born a King!”

         

• I Catherine am a Douglas born,
• A name to all Scots dear;
• And Kate Barlass they've called me now
• Through many a waning year.

• This old arm's withered now. 'Twas once
• Most deft 'mong maidens all
• To rein the steed, to wing the shaft,
• To smite the palm-play ball.

• In hall adown the close-linked dance
• 10It has shone most white and fair;
• It has been the rest for a true lord's head,
• And many a sweet babe's nursing-bed,
• And the bar to a King's chambère.

• Aye, lasses, draw round Kate Barlass,
• And hark with bated breath
• How good King James, King Robert's son,
• Was foully done to death.

• Through all the days of his gallant youth
• The princely James was pent,
• 20By his friends at first and then by his foes,
• In long imprisonment.

• For the elder Prince, the kingdom's heir,
• By treason's murderous brood
• Was slain; and the father quaked for the child
• With the royal mortal blood.

• I' the Bass Rock fort, by his father's care,
• Was his childhood's life assured;
• And Henry the subtle Bolingbroke,
• Proud England's King, 'neath the southron yoke
• 30His youth for long years immured.

• Yet in all things meet for a kingly man
• Himself did he approve;
• And the nightingale through his prison-wall
• Taught him both lore and love.

• For once, when the bird's song drew him close
• To the opened window-pane,
• In her bowers beneath a lady stood,
• A light of life to his sorrowful mood,
• Like a lily amid the rain.

• 40And for her sake, to the sweet bird's note,
• He framed a sweeter Song,
• More sweet than ever a poet's heart
• Gave yet to the English tongue.

• She was a lady of royal blood;
• And when, past sorrow and teen,
• He stood where still through his crownless years
• His Scotish realm had been,
• At Scone were the happy lovers crowned,
• A heart-wed King and Queen.

• 50But the bird may fall from the bough of youth,
• And song be turned to moan,
• And Love's storm-cloud be the shadow of Hate,
• When the tempest-waves of a troubled State
• Are beating against a throne.

• Yet well they loved; and the god of Love,
• Whom well the King had sung,
• Might find on the earth no truer hearts
• His lowliest swains among.

• From the days when first she rode abroad
• 60With Scotish maids in her train,
• I Catherine Douglas won the trust
• Of my mistress sweet Queen Jane.

• And oft she sighed, “To be born a King!”
• And oft along the way
• When she saw the homely lovers pass
• She has said, “Alack the day!”

• Years waned,—the loving and toiling years:
• Till England's wrong renewed
• Drove James, by outrage cast on his crown,
• 70To the open field of feud.

• 'Twas when the King and his host were met
• At the leaguer of Roxbro' hold,
• The Queen o' the sudden sought his camp
• With a tale of dread to be told.

• And she showed him a secret letter writ
• That spoke of treasonous strife,
• And how a band of his noblest lords
• Were sworn to take his life.

• “And it may be here or it may be there,
• 80In the camp or the court,” she said:
• “But for my sake come to your people's arms
• And guard your royal head.”

• Quoth he, “'Tis the fifteenth day of the siege,
• And the castle's nigh to yield.”
• “O face your foes on your throne,” she cried,
• “And show the power you wield;
• And under your Scotish people's love
• You shall sit as under your shield.”

• At the fair Queen's side I stood that day
• 90When he bade them raise the siege,
• And back to his Court he sped to know
• How the lords would meet their Liege.

• But when he summoned his Parliament,
• The louring brows hung round,
• Like clouds that circle the mountain-head
• Ere the first low thunders sound.

• For he had tamed the nobles' lust
• And curbed their power and pride,
• And reached out an arm to right the poor
• 100Through Scotland far and wide;
• And many a lordly wrong-doer
• By the headsman's axe had died.

• 'Twas then upspoke Sir Robert Græme,
• The bold o'ermastering man:—
• “O King, in the name of your Three Estates
• I set you under their ban!

• “For, as your lords made oath to you
• Of service and fealty,
• Even in like wise you pledged your oath
• 110Their faithful sire to be:—

• “Yet all we here that are nobly sprung
• Have mourned dear kith and kin
• Since first for the Scotish Barons' curse
• Did your bloody rule begin.”

• With that he laid his hands on his King:—
• “Is this not so, my lords?”
• But of all who had sworn to league with him
• Not one spake back to his words.

• Quoth the King:—“Thou speak'st but for one
• Estate,
• 120Nor doth it avow thy gage.
• Let my liege lords hale this traitor hence!”
• The Græme fired dark with rage:—
• “Who works for lesser men than himself,
• He earns but a witless wage!”

• But soon from the dungeon where he lay
• He won by privy plots,
• And forth he fled with a price on his head
• To the country of the Wild Scots.

• And word there came from Sir Robert Græme
• 130To the King at Edinbro':—
• “No Liege of mine thou art; but I see
• From this day forth alone in thee
• God's creature, my mortal foe.

• “Through thee are my wife and children lost,
• My heritage and lands;
• And when my God shall show me a way,
• Thyself my mortal foe will I slay
• With these my proper hands.”

• Against the coming of Christmastide
• 140That year the King bade call
• I' the Black Friars' Charterhouse of Perth
• A solemn festival.

• And we of his household rode with him
• In a close-ranked company;
• But not till the sun had sunk from his throne
• Did we reach the Scotish Sea.

• That eve was clenched for a boding storm,
• 'Neath a toilsome moon half seen;
• The cloud stooped low and the surf rose high;
• 150And where there was a line of the sky,
• Wild wings loomed dark between.

• And on a rock of the black beach-side,
• By the veiled moon dimly lit,
• There was something seemed to heave with life
• As the King drew nigh to it.

• And was it only the tossing ferns
• Or brake of the waste sea-wold?
• Or was it an eagle bent to the blast?
• When near we came, we knew it at last
• 160For a woman tattered and old.

• But it seemed as though by a fire within
• Her writhen limbs were wrung;
• And as soon as the King was close to her,
• She stood up gaunt and strong.

• 'Twas then the moon sailed clear of the rack
• On high in her hollow dome;
• And still as aloft with hoary crest
• Each clamorous wave rang home,
• Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed
• 170Amid the champing foam.

• And the woman held his eyes with her eyes:—
• “O King, thou art come at last;
• But thy wraith has haunted the Scotish Sea
• To my sight for four years past.

• “Four years it is since first I met,
• 'Twixt the Duchray and the Dhu,
• A shape whose feet clung close in a shroud,
• And that shape for thine I knew.

• “A year again, and on Inchkeith Isle
• 180I saw thee pass in the breeze,
• With the cerecloth risen above thy feet
• And wound about thy knees.

       

• And the King said: “The hour is late;
• To-morrow will serve, I ween.”
• Then he charged the usher strictly, and said:
• “No word of this to the Queen.”

• But the usher came again to the King.
• 410“Shall I call her back?” quoth he:
• “For as she went on her way, she cried,
• ‘Woe! Woe! then the thing must be!‘”

• And the King paused, but he did not speak.
• Then he called for the Voidee-cup:
• And as we heard the twelfth hour strike,
• There by true lips and false lips alike
• Was the draught of trust drained up.

• So with reverence meet to King and Queen,
• To bed went all from the board;
• 420And the last to leave of the courtly train
• Was Robert Stuart the chamberlain
• Who had sold his sovereign lord.

• And all the locks of the chamber-door
• Had the traitor riven and brast;
• And that Fate might win sure way from afar,
• He had drawn out every bolt and bar
• That made the entrance fast.

• And now at midnight he stole his way
• To the moat of the outer wall,
• 430And laid strong hurdles closely across
• Where the traitors' tread should fall.

• But we that were the Queen's bower-maids
• Alone were left behind;
• And with heed we drew the curtains close
• Against the winter wind.

• And now that all was still through the hall,
• More clearly we heard the rain
• That clamoured ever against the glass
• And the boughs that beat on the pane.

• 440But the fire was bright in the ingle-nook,
• And through empty space around
• The shadows cast on the arras'd wall
• 'Mid the pictured kings stood sudden and tall
• Like spectres sprung from the ground.

• And the bed was dight in a deep alcove;
• And as he stood by the fire
• The King was still in talk with the Queen
• While he doffed his goodly attire.

• And the song had brought the image back
• 450Of many a bygone year;
• And many a loving word they said
• With hand in hand and head laid to head;
• And none of us went anear.

• But Love was weeping outside the house,
• A child in the piteous rain;
• And as he watched the arrow of Death,
• He wailed for his own shafts close in the sheath
• That never should fly again.

• And now beneath the window arose
• 460A wild voice suddenly:
• And the King reared straight, but the Queen fell back
• As for bitter dule to dree;
• And all of us knew the woman's voice
• Who spoke by the Scotish Sea.

• “O King,” she cried, “in an evil hour
• They drove me from thy gate;
• And yet my voice must rise to thine ears;
• But alas! it comes too late!

• “Last night at mid-watch, by Aberdour,
• 470When the moon was dead in the skies,
• O King, in a death-light of thine own
• I saw thy shape arise.

• “And in full season, as erst I said,
• The doom had gained its growth;
• And the shroud had risen above thy neck
• And covered thine eyes and mouth.

• “And no moon woke, but the pale dawn broke,
• And still thy soul stood there;
• And I thought its silence cried to my soul
• 480As the first rays crowned its hair.

• “Since then have I journeyed fast and fain
• In very despite of Fate,
• Lest Hope might still be found in God's will:
• But they drove me from thy gate.

• “For every man on God's ground, O King,
• His death grows up from his birth
• In a shadow-plant perpetually;
• And thine towers high, a black yew-tree,
• O'er the Charterhouse of Perth!”

• 490That room was built far out from the house;
• And none but we in the room
• Might hear the voice that rose beneath,
• Nor the tread of the coming doom.

• For now there came a torchlight-glare,
• And a clang of arms there came;
• And not a soul in that space but thought
• Of the foe Sir Robert Græme.

• Yea, from the country of the Wild Scots,
• O'er mountain, valley, and glen,
• 500He had brought with him in murderous league
• Three hundred armèd men.

• The King knew all in an instant's flash;
• And like a King did he stand;
• But there was no armour in all the room,
• Nor weapon lay to his hand.

• And all we women flew to the door
• And thought to have made it fast;
• But the bolts were gone and the bars were gone
• And the locks were riven and brast.

• 510And he caught the pale pale Queen in his arms
• As the iron footsteps fell,—
• Then loosed her, standing alone, and said,
• “Our bliss was our farewell!”

• And 'twixt his lips he murmured a prayer,
• And he crossed his brow and breast;
• And proudly in royal hardihood
• Even so with folded arms he stood,—
• The prize of the bloody quest.

• Then on me leaped the Queen like a deer:—
• 520“O Catherine, help!” she cried.
• And I felt the strength of a mighty man
• As wildly across the room I ran
• And reached her husband's side.

• And the iron tongs from the chimney-nook
• I snatched, nor my hand did shake,
• But the plank at my feet I wrenched and tore,
• And pointed down through the open floor,
• And said, “My Liege, for her sake!”

• And he looked to the Queen, and then he came,
• For her hands were clasped in prayer.
• And down he sprang to the inner crypt;
• And straight I closed the plank I had ripp'd
• 540And spread the rushes there.

• (Alas! in that vault a gap once was
• Wherethro' the King might have fled:
• But three days since close-walled had it been
• By his will; for the ball would roll therein
• When without at the palm he play'd.)

• 550And louder ever the voices grew,
• And the tramp of men in mail;
• Until to my brain it seemed to be
• As though I tossed on a ship at sea
• In the teeth of a crashing gale.

• Then back I flew to the rest; and hard
• We strove with sinews knit
• To force the table against the door;
• But we might not compass it.

• And now the rush was heard on the stair,
• And “God, what help?” was our cry.
• And was I frenzied or was I bold?—
• I looked at each empty stanchion-hold,
• And no bar but my arm had I!

• Like iron felt my arm, as through
• The staple I made it pass:—
• 570Alack! it was flesh and bone—no more!
• 'Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door,
• But I fell back Kate Barlass.

• With that they all thronged into the hall,
• Half dim to my failing ken;
• And the space that was but a void before
• Was a crowd of raging men.

• Behind the door I had fall'n and lay,
• Yet my sense was wildly aware,
• And for all the pain of my shattered arm
• 580I never fainted there.

• And under the litters and through the bed
• And within the presses all
• They sought in vain for the King, and pierced
• The arras around the wall.

• And through the chamber they stamped and stormed
• 590Like lions loose in the lair,
• And scarce could trust to their very eyes,—
• For behold! no King was there.

• Then one of them seized the Queen, and cried,—
• “Now tell us, where is thy lord?”
• And he held the sharp point over her heart:
• She dropped not her eyes nor did she start,
• But she answered never a word.

• Then the sword half pierced the true true breast:
• But it was the Græme's own son
• 600Cried, “This is a woman,—we seek a man!”
• And away from her girdle-zone
• He struck the point of the murderous steel;
• And that foul deed was not done.

• And forth flowed all the throng like a sea,
• And 'twas empty space once more;
• And my eyes sought out the wounded Queen
• As I lay behind the door.

• And I said: “Dear Lady, leave me here,
• For I cannot help you now;
• 610But fly while you may, and none shall reck
• Of my place here lying low.”

• And she said, “My Catherine, God help thee!”
• Then she looked to the distant floor,
• And clasping her hands, “O God help him,”
• She sobbed, “for we can no more!”

• But God He knows what help may mean,
• If it mean to live or to die;
• And what sore sorrow and mighty moan
• On earth it may cost ere yet a throne
• 620Be filled in His house on high.

• And now the ladies fled with the Queen;
• And thorough the open door
• The night-wind wailed round the empty room
• And the rushes shook on the floor.

• And the bed drooped low in the dark recess
• Whence the arras was rent away;
• And the firelight still shone over the space
• Where our hidden secret lay.

• And the rain had ceased, and the moonbeams lit
• 630The window high in the wall,—
• Bright beams that on the plank that I knew
• Through the painted pane did fall
• And gleamed with the splendour of Scotland's crown
• And shield armorial.

• But then a great wind swept up the skies,
• And the climbing moon fell back;
• And the royal blazon fled from the floor,
• And nought remained on its track;
• And high in the darkened window-pane
• 640The shield and the crown were black.

       

• And what I say next I partly saw
• And partly I heard in sooth,
• And partly since from the murderers' lips
• The torture wrung the truth.

• For now again came the armèd tread,
• And fast through the hall it fell;
• But the throng was less; and ere I saw,
• By the voice without I could tell
• That Robert Stuart had come with them
• 650Who knew that chamber well.

• And over the space the Græme strode dark
• With his mantle round him flung;
• And in his eye was a flaming light
• But not a word on his tongue.

• And Stuart held a torch to the floor,
• And he found the thing he sought;
• And they slashed the plank away with their swords;
• And O God! I fainted not!

• And the traitor held his torch in the gap,
• 660All smoking and smouldering;
• And through the vapour and fire, beneath
• In the dark crypt's narrow ring,
• With a shout that pealed to the room's high roof
• They saw their naked King.

• Half naked he stood, but stood as one
• Who yet could do and dare:
• With the crown, the King was stript away,—
• The Knight was reft of his battle-array,—
• But still the Man was there.

• 670From the rout then stepped a villain forth,—
• Sir John Hall was his name;
• With a knife unsheathed he leapt to the vault
• Beneath the torchlight-flame.

• Of his person and stature was the King
• A man right manly strong,
• And mightily by the shoulder-blades
• His foe to his feet he flung.

• Then the traitor's brother, Sir Thomas Hall,
• Sprang down to work his worst;
• 680And the King caught the second man by the neck
• And flung him above the first.

• And he smote and trampled them under him;
• And a long month thence they bare
• All black their throats with the grip of his hands
• When the hangman's hand came there.

• And sore he strove to have had their knives,
• But the sharp blades gashed his hands.
• Oh James! so armed, thou hadst battled there
• Till help had come of thy bands;
• 690And oh! once more thou hadst held our throne
• And ruled thy Scotish lands!

• But while the King o'er his foes still raged
• With a heart that nought could tame,
• Another man sprang down to the crypt;
• And with his sword in his hand hard-gripp'd,
• There stood Sir Robert Græme.

• (Now shame on the recreant traitor's heart
• Who durst not face his King
• Till the body unarmed was wearied out
• 700With two-fold combating!

• Ah! well might the people sing and say,
• As oft ye have heard aright:—
• “ O Robert Græme, O Robert Græme,
• Who slew our King, God give thee shame!”
• For he slew him not as a knight.)

• And the naked King turned round at bay,
• But his strength had passed the goal,
• And he could but gasp:—“Mine hour is come;
• But oh! to succour thine own soul's doom,
• 710Let a priest now shrive my soul!”

• And the traitor looked on the King's spent strength,
• And said:—“Have I kept my word?—
• Yea, King, the mortal pledge that I gave?
• No black friar's shrift thy soul shall have,
• But the shrift of this red sword!”

• With that he smote his King through the breast;
• And all they three in that pen
• Fell on him and stabbed and stabbed him there
• Like merciless murderous men.

• 720Yet seemed it now that Sir Robert Græme,
• Ere the King's last breath was o'er,
• Turned sick at heart with the deadly sight
• And would have done no more.

• But a cry came from the troop above:—
• “If him thou do not slay,
• The price of his life that thou dost spare
• Thy forfeit life shall pay!”

• O God! what more did I hear or see,
• Or how should I tell the rest?
• 730But there at length our King lay slain
• With sixteen wounds in his breast.

• O God! and now did a bell boom forth,
• And the murderers turned and fled;—
• Too late, too late, O God, did it sound!—
• And I heard the true men mustering round,
• And the cries and the coming tread.

• But ere they came, to the black death-gap
• Somewise did I creep and steal;
• And lo! or ever I swooned away,
• 740Through the dusk I saw where the white face lay
• In the Pit of Fortune's Wheel.

---

• And now, ye Scotish maids who have heard
• Dread things of the days grown old,—
• Even at the last, of true Queen Jane
• May somewhat yet be told,
• And how she dealt for her dear lord's sake
• Dire vengeance manifold.

• 'Twas in the Charterhouse of Perth,
• In the fair-lit Death-chapelle,
• 750That the slain King's corpse on bier was laid
• With chaunt and requiem-knell.

• And all with royal wealth of balm
• Was the body purified;
• And none could trace on the brow and lips
• The death that he had died.

• In his robes of state he lay asleep
• With orb and sceptre in hand;
• And by the crown he wore on his throne
• Was his kingly forehead spann'd.

• 760And, girls, 'twas a sweet sad thing to see
• How the curling golden hair,
• As in the day of the poet's youth,
• From the King's crown clustered there.

• And if all had come to pass in the brain
• That throbbed beneath those curls,
• Then Scots had said in the days to come
• That this their soil was a different home
• And a different Scotland, girls!

• And the Queen sat by him night and day,
• 770And oft she knelt in prayer,
• All wan and pale in the widow's veil
• That shrouded her shining hair.

• And I had got good help of my hurt:
• And only to me some sign
• She made; and save the priests that were there,
• No face would she see but mine.

• And the month of March wore on apace;
• And now fresh couriers fared
• Still from the country of the Wild Scots
• 780With news of the traitors snared.

• And still as I told her day by day,
• Her pallor changed to sight,
• And the frost grew to a furnace-flame
• That burnt her visage white.

• And evermore as I brought her word,
• She bent to her dead King James,
• And in the cold ear with fire-drawn breath
• She spoke the traitors' names.

• But when the name of Sir Robert Græme
• 790Was the one she had to give,
• I ran to hold her up from the floor;
• For the froth was on her lips, and sore
• I feared that she could not live.

• And the month of March wore nigh to its end,
• And still was the death-pall spread;
• For she would not bury her slaughtered lord
• Till his slayers all were dead.

• And now of their dooms dread tidings came,
• And of torments fierce and dire;
• 800And nought she spake,—she had ceased to speak,—
• But her eyes were a soul on fire.

• But when I told her the bitter end
• Of the stern and just award,
• She leaned o'er the bier, and thrice three times
• She kissed the lips of her lord.

• And then she said,—“My King, they are dead!”
• And she knelt on the chapel-floor,
• And whispered low with a strange proud smile,—
• “James, James, they suffered more!”

• 810Last she stood up to her queenly height,
• But she shook like an autumn leaf,
• As though the fire wherein she burned
• Then left her body, and all were turned
• To winter of life-long grief.

• And “O James!” she said,—“My James!” she
• said,—
• “Alas for the woful thing,
• That a poet true and a friend of man,
• In desperate days of bale and ban,
• Should needs be born a King!”