---

• “ 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 & 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.

• “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 spoke 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 & 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.”
• “Aye, 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 & 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
• 120And 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 bulrushes.

• “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 watergate
• 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 & 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 they crouch close 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 pale Rose Mary had never heard;
• Deep asleep like a sheltered bird
• 250She lay with the long spell ministered.

• “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 Heronshaye.
• 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 & 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?”

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• “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 face that must not see 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 Heronshaye!o—
• Thy sin and mine was for love alone;
• And oh! in the sight of God 'tis known
• How the heart strove once and since made 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 heartstrings 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 lifeblood'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?
• Well I knew that all sin must chase
• From the spell's sphere the spirits of grace,
• 90And yield their rule to the evil race.

• “Well I knew and would well have 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 lady 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 heartstrings:
• 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 selfsame 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 withdrew,
• “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 from 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 Heronshaye!
• 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 Heronshaye.

• 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;
• And next she undid the paper's fold,
• 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 e'er he is back, mine own,
• “Afar where the face of fear's unknown
• 260“We 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!”

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• 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.

• 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 & 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 folded petals drink.

• Again her sighs on her heart were roll'd;
• 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'd
• 30O'er the dim dumb waste what lay behind.

• Slowly fades the sun from the wall
• Till day lies dead on the sundial:
• 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.

• How to ask, and what thing to know?
• She might not stay and she dared not go.
• From fires unseen these smoke-clouds curled;
• But where did the hidden curse lie furl'd?
• And how to seek through the weary world?

• With toiling breath she rose from the floor
• And dragged her steps to an open door:
• 'Twas the secret panel standing wide,
• As the lady's hand had let it bide
• 50In hastening back to her daughter's side.

• She passed, but reeled with a dizzy brain
• And smote the door which closed again.
• She stood within by the darkling stair,
• But her feet might mount more freely there,—
• 'Twas the open light most blinded her.

• Within her mind no wonder grew
• At the secret path she never knew:
• All ways alike were strange to her now,—
• One field bare-ridged from the spirit's plough,
• 60One thicket black with the cypress-bough.

• Once she thought that she heard her name;
• And she paused, but knew not whence it came.
• Down the shadowed stair a faint ray fell
• That guided the weary footsteps well
• Till it led her up to the altar-cell.

• No change there was on Rose Mary's face
• As she leaned in the portal's narrow space:
• Still she stood by the pillar's stem,
• Hand and bosom and garment's hem,
• 70As the soul stands by at the requiem.

• The altar-cell was a dome low-lit,
• And a veil hung in the midst of it:
• At the pole-points of its circling girth
• Four symbols stood of the world's first birth,—
• Air and water and fire and earth.

• To the north, a fountain glittered free;
• To the south, there glowed a red fruit-tree;
• To the east, a lamp flamed high and fair;
• To the west, a crystal casket rare
• 80Held fast a cloud of the fields of air.

• The painted walls were a mystic show
• Of Time's ebb-tide and overflow;
• His hoards long-locked and conquering key,
• His service-fires that in heaven be,
• And earth-wheels whirled perpetually.

• Rose Mary gazed from the open door
• As on idle things she cared not for,—
• The fleeting shapes of an empty tale;
• Then stepped with a heedless visage pale,
• 90And lifted aside the altar-veil.

• The altar stood from its curved recess
• In a coiling serpent's life-likeness:
• Even such a serpent evermore
• Lies deep asleep at the world's dark core
• Till the last Voice shake the sea and shore.

• From the altar-cloth a book rose spread
• And tapers burned at the altar-head;
• And there in the altar-midst alone,
• 'Twixt wings of a sculptured beast unknown,
• 100Rose Mary saw the Beryl-stone.

• Firm it sat 'twixt the hollowed wings,
• As an orb sits in the hand of kings.
• And lo! for that Foe whose curse far-flown
• Had bound her life with a burning zone,
• Rose Mary knew the Beryl-stone.

• Dread is the meteor's blazing sphere
• When the poles throb to its blind career;
• But not with a light more grim and ghast
• Thereby is the future doom forecast,
• 110Than now this sight brought back the past.

• The hours and minutes seemed to whirr
• In a clanging swarm that deafened her;
• They stung her heart to a writhing flame,
• And marshalled past in its glare they came,—
• Death and sorrow and sin and shame.

• Round the Beryl's sphere she saw them pass
• And mock her eyes from the fated glass:
• One by one in a fiery train
• The dead hours seemed to wax and wane,
• 120And burned till all was known again.

• From the drained heart's fount there rose no cry,—
• There sprang no tears, for the source was dry.
• Held in the hand of some heavy law,
• Her eyes she might not once withdraw,
• Nor shrink away from the thing she saw.

• Even as she gazed, through all her blood
• The flame was quenched in a coming flood:
• Out of the depth of the hollow gloom,
• On her soul's bare sands she felt it boom,—
• 130The measured tide of a sea of doom.

• 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 man's might;
• Yet a woman's hand that's weak to smite
• Shall send 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 thee, God, for the dear death's sake!

• 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,—
• By 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
• 170To 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,—
• One 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 scor'd
• With the bitter frown of hate restor'd,
• 180As her two hands swung the heavy sword.

• Three steps back from her 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,
• And she cleft the heart of the Beryl-stone.

• What living flesh in the thundercloud
• Hath sat and felt heaven cry aloud?
• Or known how the levin's pulse may beat?
• Or wrapped the hour when the whirlwinds meet
• 190About its breast for a winding-sheet?

• Who hath crouched at the world's deep heart
• While the earthquake rends its loins apart?
• Or walked far under the seething main
• While overhead the heavens ordain
• The tempest-towers of the hurricane?

• Who hath seen or what ear hath heard
• The secret things unregister'd
• Of the place where all is lost and done
• And tears and laughter sound as one
• 200In Hell's unhallowed unison?

• Nay, is it writ how the fiends despair
• In earth and water and fire and air?
• Even so no mortal tongue may tell
• How to the clang of the sword that fell
• The echoes shook the altar-cell.

• When all was still on the air again
• The Beryl-stone lay cleft in twain;
• The veil was rent from the riven dome;
• And every wind that's winged to roam
• 210Might have the ruined place for home.

• The fountain no more glittered free;
• The fruit hung dead on the leafless tree;
• The flame of the lamp had ceased to flare;
• And the crystal casket shattered there
• Was emptied now of its cloud of air.

• And lo! on the ground Rose Mary lay,
• With a cold brow like the snows ere May,
• With a cold breast like the earth till Spring,
• With such a smile as the June days bring
• 220When the year grows warm for harvesting.

• The death she had won might leave no trace
• On the soft sweet form and gentle face:
• In a gracious sleep she seemed to lie;
• And over her head her hand on high
• Held fast the sword she triumphed by.

• 'Twas then a clear voice said in the room:—
• “Behold the end of the heavy doom.
• O come,—for thy bitter love's sake blest:
• By a sweet path now thou journeyest,
• 230And I will lead thee to thy rest.

• “Me thy sin by Heaven's sore ban
• Did chase erewhile from the talisman:
• But to my heart, as a conquered home,
• In glory of strength thy footsteps come
• Who hast thus cast forth my foes therefrom.

• “Already thine heart remembereth
• No more his name thou sought'st in death:
• For under all deeps, all heights above,—
• So far that the count is lost thereof,—
• 240Are Hell of Treason and Heaven of Love.

• “Thee, true soul, shall thy truth prefer
• To blessed Mary's rose-bower:
• Warmed and lit is thy place afar
• With guerdon-fires of the sweet Love-star
• Where hearts of steadfast lovers are:—

• “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,
• 250But rent rose-flower and rosemary.”

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