• 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:—
• “I 'll 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.

           

• Her senses gasped in the sudden air,
• And she looked around, but none was there.
• She felt the slackening frost distil
• Through her blood the last ooze dull and chill:
• Her lids were dry and her lips were still.

• Her tears had flooded her heart again;
• As after a long day's bitter rain,
• At dusk when the wet flower-cups shrink,
• The drops run in from the beaded brink,
• 20And all the close-shut petals drink.

• Again her sighs on her heart were rolled;
• As the wind that long has swept the wold,—
• Whose moan was made with the moaning sea,—
• Beats out its breath in the last torn tree,
• And sinks at length in lethargy.

• She knew she had waded bosom-deep
• Along death's bank in the sedge of sleep:
• All else was lost to her clouded mind;
• Nor, looking back, could she see defin e 'd
• 30O'er the dim dumb waste what lay behind.

• Slowly fades the sun from the wall
• Till day lies dead on the sun-dial:
• And now in Rose Mary's lifted eye
• 'Twas shadow alone that made reply
• To the set face of the soul's dark sky.

• Yet still through her soul there wandered past
• Dread phantoms borne on a wailing blast,—
• Death and sorrow and sin and shame;
• And, murmured still, to her lips there came
• 40Her mother's and her lover's name.

• Three steps she took through the altar-gate,
• And her neck reared and her arms grew straight:
• The sinews clenched like a serpent's throe,
• And the face was white in the dark hair's flow,
• As her hate beheld what lay below.

• Dumb she stood in her malisons,—
• A silver statue tressed with bronze:
• As the fabled head by Perseus mown,
• It seemed in sooth that her gaze alone
• 140Had turned the carven shapes to stone.

• O'er the altar-sides on either hand
• There hung a dinted helm and brand:
• By strength thereof, 'neath the Sacred Sign,
• That bitter gift o'er the salt sea-brine
• Her father brought from Palestine.

• Rose Mary moved with a stern accord
• And reached her hand to her father's sword;
• Nor did she stir her gaze one whit
• From the thing whereon her brows were knit;
• 150But gazing still, she spoke to it.

• “O ye, three times accurst,” she said,
• “By whom this stone is tenanted!
• Lo! here ye came by a strong sin's might;
• Yet a sinner's hand that's weak to smite
• Shall send ye you hence ere the day be night.

• “This hour a clear voice bade me know
• My hand shall work your overthrow:
• Another thing in mine ear it spake,—
• With the broken spell my life shall break.
• 160I thank t Thee, God, for the dear death's sake!

• “And he t Thy heavenly minister
• Who swayed erewhile this spell-bound sphere,—
• My parting soul let him haste to greet,
• And none but he be guide for my feet
• To where t Thy rest is made complete.”

• Then deep she breathed, with a tender moan:—
• “My love, my lord, my only one!
• Even as I held the cursed clue,
• When thee, through me, these foul ones slew,—
• 170By mine own deed shall they slay me too!

• “Even while they speed to Hell, my love,
• Two hearts shall meet in Heaven above.
• Our shrift thou sought'st, but might'st not bring:
• And oh! for me 'tis a blessed thing
• To work hereby our ransoming.

• “One were our hearts in joy and pain,
• And our souls e'en now grow one again.
• And O my love, if our souls are three,
• O thine and mine shall the third soul be,—
• 180One threefold love eternally.”

• Her eyes were soft as she spoke apart,
• And the lips smiled to the broken heart:
• But the glance was dark and the forehead scored
• With the bitter frown of hate restored,
• As her two hands swung the heavy sword.

• Three steps back from her f Foe she trod:—
• “Love, for thy sake! In Thy Name, O God!”
• In the fair white hands small strength was shown;
• Yet the blade flashed high and the edge fell prone,
• 190And she cleft the heart of the Beryl-stone.

           

• “Though naught for the poor corpse lying here
• Remain to-day but the cold white bier,
• But burial-chaunt and bended knee,
• But sighs and tears that heaviest be,
• But rent rose-flower and rosemary.”

 

• We, cast forth from the Beryl,
• Gyre-circling spirits of fire,
• Whose pangs begin
• With God's grace to S sin,
• For whose spent powers the immortal hours are
• sterile,—
• Woe! must We behold this mother
• Find grace in her dead child's face, and doubt of
• none other
• But that perfect pardon, alas! hath assured her
• guerdon?
• Woe! must We behold this daughter,
• 10 Made clean from the soil of S sin wherewith We had
• 10 fraught her,
page: 67  
• Shake off a man's blood like water?
• Write up her story ,
• On the Gate of Heaven's glory,
• Whom there We behold so fair in shining apparel,
• And beneath her the ruin
• Of our own undoing!
• Alas, the Beryl!
• We had for a foeman
• But one weak woman;
• 20 In one day's strife,
• Her hope fell dead from her life;
• And yet no iron,
• Her soul to environ,
• Could this manslayer, this false soothsayer imperil!
• Lo, where she bows
• In the Holy House!
• Who now shall d eli issever her soul from its joy for ever,
page: 68  
• While every ditty
• Of love and plentiful pity
• 30 Fills the White City,
• And the floor of Heaven to her feet for ever is given
• Hark, a voice cries “Flee!”
• Woe! woe! what shelter have We,
• Whose pangs begin
• With God's grace to S sin,
• For whose spent powers the immortal hours are
• sterile,
• Gyre-circling spirits of fire,
• We, cast forth from the Beryl?

   

• But all the chiefs of the English land
• Had knelt and kissed the Prince's hand.

• And next with his son he sailed to France
• To claim the Norman allegiance:

• And every baron in Normandy
• Had taken the oath of fealty.

• 'Twas sworn and sealed, and the day had come
• When the King and the Prince might journey home:

• For Christmas cheer is to home hearts dear,
• 30And Christmas now was drawing near.

• Stout Fitz-Stephen came to the King,—
• A pilot famous in seafaring;

• And he held to the King, in all men's sight,
• A mark of gold for his tribute's right.

• “Liege Lord! my father guided the ship
• From whose boat your father's foot did slip
• When he caught the English soil in his grip,

• ”And cried: “By this clasp I claim command
• O'er every rood of English land!”

• 40“He was borne to the realm you rule o'er now
• In that ship with the archer carved at her prow:

• ”And thither I'll bear, an ' it be my due,
• Your father's son and his grandson too.

• “The famed White Ship is mine in the bay;
• From Harfleur's harbour she sails to-day,

• ”With masts fair-p i ennoned as Norman spears
• And with fifty well-tried mariners.“

• Quoth the King: ”My ships are chosen each one,
• But I'll not say nay to Stephen's son.

• 50“My son and daughter and fellowship
• Shall cross the water in the White Ship.”

• The King set sail with the eve's south wind,
• And soon he left that coast behind.

• The Prince and all his, a princely show,
• Remained in the good White Ship to go.

• With noble knights and with ladies fair,
• With courtiers and sailors gathered there,
• Three hundred living souls we were:

• And I Berold was the meanest hind
• 60In all that train to the Prince assign e 'd.

• The Prince was a lawless shameless youth;
• From his father's loins he sprang without ruth:

• Eighteen years till then he had seen,
• And the devil's dues in him were eighteen.

• And now he cried: “Bring wine from below;
• Let the sailors revel ere yet they row:

       

• He gazed aloft, still rowing apace,
• And through the whirled surf he knew her face.

• To the toppling decks clave one and all
• As a fly cleaves to a chamber-wall.

• I Berold was clinging anear;
• I prayed for myself and quaked with fear,
• But I saw his eyes as he looked at her.

• He knew her face and he heard her cry,
• 120And he said, “Put back! she must not die!”

• And back with the current's force they reel
• Like a leaf that's drawn to a water-wheel.

• 'Neath the ship's trava i ìl they scarce might float,
• But he rose and stood in the rocking boat.

• Low the poor ship leaned on the tide:
• O'er the naked keel as she best might slide,
• The sister toiled to the brother's side.

• He reached an oar to her from below,
• And stiffened his arms to clutch her so.

• 130But now from the ship some spied the boat,
• And “Saved!” was the cry from many a throat.

• And down to the boat they leaped and fell:
• It turned as a bucket turns in a well,
• And nothing was there but the surge and swell.

• At last the morning rose on the sea
• Like an angel's wing that beat towards tow'rds me.

• Sore numbed I was in my sheepskin coat;
• Half dead I hung, and might nothing r note,
• Till I woke sun-warmed in a fisher-boat.

• The sun was high o'er the eastern brim
• As I praised God and gave thanks to Him.

• 210That day I told my tale to a priest,
• Who charged me, till the shrift were releas e 'd,
• That I should keep it in mine own breast!

• And with the priest I thence did fare
• To King Henry's court at Winchester.

• We spoke with the King's high chamberlain,
• And he wept and mourned again and again,
• As if his own son had been slain:

• And round us ever there crowded fast
• Great men with faces all aghast:

• 220And who so bold that might tell the thing
• Which now they knew to their lord the King?
• Much woe I learnt in their communing.

• The King had watched with a heart sore stirred
• For two whole days, and this was the third:

• And still to all his court would he say,
• “What keeps my son so long away?”

• And they said: “The ports lie far and wide
• That skirt the swell of the English tide;

• “And England's cliffs are not more white
• 230Than her women are, and scarce so light
• Her skies as their eyes are blue and bright;

• “And in some port that he reached from France
• The Prince has lingered for his pleasa ùnce.”

• But once the King asked: “What distant cry
• Was that we heard 'twixt the sea and sky?”

• And one said: “With suchlike shouts, pardie!
• Do the fishers fling their nets at sea.”

• And one: “Who knows not the shrieking quest
• When the sea-mew misses its young from the nest?”

• 240'Twas thus till now they had soothed his dread,
• Albeit they knew not what they said:

• But who should speak to-day of the thing
• That all knew there except the King?

• Then pondering much they found a way,
• And met round the King's high seat that day:

• And the King sat with a heart sore stirred,
• And seldom he spoke and seldom heard.

• 'Twas then through the hall the King was 'ware
• Of a little boy with golden hair,

       

• 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.