• 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,
• 120 And As 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, unwearied,
• 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 b 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 opened the packet heedfully;
• The blood was stiff, and it scarce might be.
• She found but a folded paper there,
• And round it, twined with tenderest care,
• 240A long bright tress of golden hair.

• Even as she looked, she saw again
• That dark-haired face in its swoon of pain:
• It seemed a snake with a golden sheath
• Crept near, as a slow flame flickereth,
• And stung her daughter's heart to death.

• She loosed the tress, but her hand did shake
• As though indeed she had touched a snake;
• But And next she undid the paper's fold,
• And But that too trembled in her hold,
• 250And the sense scarce grasped the tale it told.

• “My heart's sweet lord,” ('twas thus she read,)
• “At length our love is garlanded.
• At Holy Cross, within eight days' space,
• I seek my shrift; and the time and place
• Shall fit thee too for thy soul's good grace.

• “From Holycleugh on the seventh day
• My brother rides, and bides away:
• And long or ere he is back, mine own,
• Afar where the face of fear's unknown
• 260We shall be safe with our love alone.

• “Ere yet at the shrine my knees I bow,
• I shear one tress for our holy vow.
• As round these words these threads I wind,
• So, eight days hence, shall our loves be twined,
• Says my lord's poor lady, JOCELIND.”

• 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 T 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  
• 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?
• A 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.