• “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 waters 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.”