• “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.