[Sidenote: STEPHEN HAWKER]
I.
Did the wild blast of battle sound,
Of old, from yonder lonely mound?
Race of Pendragon! did ye pour,
On this dear earth, your votive gore?
II.
Did stern swords cleave along this plain
The loose rank of the roving Dane?
Or Norman chargers’ sounding tread
Smite the meek daisy’s Saxon head?
III.
The wayward winds no answer breathe,
No legend cometh from beneath,
Of chief, with good sword at his side,
Or Druid in his tomb of pride.
IV.
One quiet bird that comes to make
Her lone nest in the scanty brake;
A nameless flower, a silent fern--
Lo! the dim stranger’s storied urn.
V.
Hark! on the cold wings of the blast
The future answereth to the past;
The bird, the flower, may gather still,
Thy voice shall cease upon the hill!
Witch Margaret.
[Sidenote: RICCARDO STEPHENS]
Who hath not met Witch Margaret?
Red gold her rippling hair,
Eyes like sweet summer seas are set
Beneath her brow so fair;
And cream and damask rose have met
Her lips and cheek to share.
Come up! and you shall see her yet,
Before she groweth still;
Before her cloak of flame and smoke
The winter air shall fill;
For they must burn Witch Margaret
Upon the Castle Hill.
* * * * *
They found on her the devil’s mark,
Wherein naught maketh pain,--
“Bind her and dip her! stiff and stark
She floateth aye again;
Her body changeth after dark,
When powers of darkness reign.”
They drave the boot on Margaret
And crushed her dainty feet;
The hissing searing-irons set
To kiss her lips so sweet:
She hath not asked for mercy yet,
Nor mercy shall she meet.
The silent sky was cold and grey,
The earth was cold and white,
They brought her out that Christmas Day
To burn her in our sight;
The snow that fell and fell alway
Would cover her ere night.
All feebly as a child would go
Her bleeding feet dragged by,
Blood-red upon the white, white snow
I saw her footprints lie;
And some one shrieked to see her so--
God knows if it was I!
Upon her body, all in black,
Fell down her red-gold hair;
All bruised and bleeding from the rack
Her writhen arms hung bare;
Red blood dripped all along her track,
Red blood seemed in the air.
The while they told her deeds of shame,
She, resting in the snow,
Stretched out weak hands toward the flame,
Watched the sparks upward go,
Till on the pale pinched face there came
Some of the red fire’s glow.
* * * * *
Oh, is it blood that blinds mine eyes,
Or is it driving snow?
And are these but the wild wind’s cries
That drive me to and fro,
That beat about mine ears and rise
Wherever I may go?
It’s red and black on Castle Hill!
The people go to pray,
A little wind sighs on, until
The ashes float away;
And then God’s earth is very still,
For this is Christmas Day.
A Ballad.
[Sidenote: RICCARDO STEPHENS]
The Autumn leaves went whispering by,
Like ghosts that never slept.
Up through the dusk a curlew’s cry
From glen to hill-top crept.
The Dead Man heard the burn moan by
And thought for him it wept.
Lapped in his grave, a night and day,
The Dead Man marked the sound:
He knew the moon rose far away,
Grey shadows gathered round,
Then down the glen, he heard the bay
Raised by his great grey hound.
A stag crashed out, and thundered back
--She never turned aside.
The swollen stream ran cold and black,
--She leapt the waters wide,
Nor paused, nor left the shadowy track
Till at the dark grave side.
“What brings you here, my great grey hound,
What brings you here, alone?
True I am dead, but is there found
Beneath my board no bone?
No rushy bed for your grey head
Now I am dead and gone?”
“Your brother reads your title-deeds,
Your wife counts out red gold,
And laughs in rich black widow’s-weeds,
Red-lipped and smooth and bold.
I want no bone, to gnaw alone,
Now that your hand is cold.”
The Dead Man laughed in scornful hate,
While the great hound growled low,
“Last night I rose to Heaven’s gate,”
He said, “for I would know
The best or worst dealt out by Fate,
And whither I must go.”
He paused--“My grave is damp and cold;
I feel the slow worms glide
Smoothly and softly through the mould,
And nestle by my side.
What lives and moves, in wood and wold,
Where love and laughter bide?”
“The wild fowl fly across, and call
In from the grey salt sea;
I scent the red stag by the Fall,
He fears no more from me.
The moon comes up, and over all
She glimmers eerily.”
The corpse replied, “At Heaven’s gates
They stand to let me through,
And there, years hence, a welcome waits
False Wife and Brother too.
Do what you will, my hound, and still
Heaven holds no place for you.
“With tooth and claw tear down to me,
And Death shall be no tether.
The swift red deer once more shall flee,
Panting through burn and heather:
And you and I once more shall be
Hunting my hills together!”
* * * * *
That night the deer across the wold
From dark to dawning fled;
The lady dreamt that, shroud-enrolled,
A corpse had shared her bed;
But by the grave wind-swept and cold,
The great grey hound lay dead!
Hell’s Piper.
[Sidenote: RICCARDO STEPHENS]
O have ye heard of Angus Blair,
Who lived long since in black Auchmair?
And have ye heard old pipers tell
His story--how he piped in Hell?
When Angus piped the old grew young,
Crutches across the floor were flung;
Nay more, ’twas said his witching breath
Had robbed the grave, and cheated death.
Above all else, a march of war
Was what men praised and feared him for;
When that he played, like fire it ran
In blood and brain of every man;
Then stiffened hair began to rise,
Bent brows scowled over staring eyes;
Then, at his will, men spilt their blood
Like water of a winter flood,
Swearing, with Angus, ill or well,
They’d charge light-hearted into Hell.
Long years, through many a feast and fray,
Did Piper Angus pipe his way;
Till, swept upon the swirling tide
Of a night-charge, he sank and died.
That night the Piper rose to tread
The ways that lie before the dead.
He saw God’s battlements afar
Blazing behind the utmost star,
And turning in the chill night air,
Thought he might find a shelter there.
But as he turned to leave the earth,
With all its music, maids, and mirth,
The battered pipes beneath his feet
Screamed out a wailing, last retreat;
Then Piper Angus paused, and thought
Of the wild work those pipes had wrought;
“But there,” quoth he, “in peace and rest,
Up there, the holy ones, the blest,
Praise aye the Lord, and aye they sing,
While golden harps and cymbals ring.
To my wild march or mad strathspey
The heavenly host would say me nay,
And none would hear my chanter more
Unless the Lord went out to war.
But often have I heard men tell
How they would follow pipes to Hell:
That way I’ll try: in Hell maybe
Some corner’s kept for them and me.”
So said, so done--for well content
Down the dark way to Hell he went.
The Chanter felt his finger-tips,
The Blow-pipe thrilled between his lips,
The Drones across his shoulder flung,
Moaned till the Earth’s foundations rung,
The streamers flaunted on the blast
As, striding smoke and shadow past,
With bonnet cocked, and careless air,
Piping his march, went Piper Blair.
Down where the shackled earthquakes dwell
Are piled the reeking halls of Hell.
Their walls are steel, their gates are brass;
Round them four flaming rivers pass;
And sleepless sentinels are set
On every point and parapet,
To hedge the souls whose far-off cries
Up to the world may never rise.
That night, so still the whole place seemed,
You’d think all Hell had peace, and dreamed
For the dark Master, brooding aye
Over lost hope and ancient fray,
Had, from his vantage, pale and grim,
Perchance to please a passing whim,
Hissed down a word which quelled and cowed
And silenced all that shuddering crowd.
So now aloft upon his throne
He sat indifferent, alone,
While poor damned souls who dared not cry
In writhing droves went whirling by.
These, dumb, before he noted aught,
Some strange and wandering sound now caught.
And first a little note they heard
Far off--and like a lonely bird;
And then it grew, and grew, and grew,
As near and nearer still it drew,
Until Hell’s Lord in slow surprise
Turned on the gates his weary eyes.
Then they that bent beneath a load
Stood up, nor felt the fiery goad.
Then they that trod on forks of flame
Tramped to the wild notes as they came.
Then, look, old foes of long ago
Feel old revenge revive and glow.
Then, heedless of the flaming whip,
They roll in one another’s grip
With shout and shriek and throttled jeer,
--And over all the pipes rang clear.
But from the march those pipes turned soon,
And sank, to sing another tune;
A low lament, whose sobbing wail
Filled aching hearts and made them fail.
And they that fought a breath ago
Now wept at one another’s woe.
A second change--a lilting air
Made Hell look bright, made Hell look fair,
And wretches gasping new from death
Followed the tune beneath their breath--
Then, piping yet, erect, alone,
The Piper stood before the throne.
Up rose the Master in his place,
Eyeing the Piper’s careless face,
“No room, no room in Hell can be
For Piper Angus Blair,” cried he;
“Would to such sounds my host had trod
Ere I was hurled down here by God;
Mine hadst thou been, before I fell,
I’d rule in Heav’n now--not in Hell.
Then every night and every day
On Heav’n’s high ramparts shouldst thou play,
But here--here’s neither war nor mirth,
Nor more in Heav’n; so back to Earth.”
Thus now, as over glen and brae
The wild wind wanders on its way,
Dead Piper Angus Blair goes too,
And pipes and pipes the whole world through.
Unseen, unknown he goes. To-day
He’ll pipe perchance for bairns at play
To set them dancing: maybe steal
To-night to watch a roaring reel.
There, when the panting pipers tire,
He joins, and sets all hearts afire;
And ere the dawn his pipes have pealed
Fiercely across some stricken field.
But when each year is at its close
Right down the road to Hell he goes.
There the gaunt porters all a-grin
Fling back the gates to let him in,
Then damned and devil, one and all,
Make mirth and hold high carnival,
The while the Master sits apart
Plotting rebellion in his heart.
Till, when above the dawn is grey,
The Piper turns and tramps away.
VII
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY BRETON
_O Breiz-Izel, O Kaera bro!_
_Koat enn hi c’ hreiz, mor enn he zro!_
The Poor Clerk.
(Ar C’Hloarek Paour.)
[Sidenote: MEDIÆVAL BRETON]
My wooden shoes I’ve lost them, my naked feet I’ve torn
A-following my sweeting through field and brake of thorn;
The rain may beat, and fall the sleet, and ice chill to the bone,
But they’re no stay to hold away the lover from his own.
My sweeting is no older than I that love her so:
She’s scarce seventeen, her face is fair, her cheeks like roses glow.
In her eyes there is a fire, sweetest speech her lips doth part;
Her love it is a prison where I’ve locked up my heart.
Oh, to what shall I liken her, that a wrong it shall not be?
To the pretty little white rose, that is called Rose-Marie?
The pearl of girls; the lily when among the flowers it grows,
The lily newly opened, among flowers about to close.
When I came to thee a-wooing, my sweet, my gentle May,
I was as is the nightingale upon the hawthorn spray:
When he would sleep the thorns they keep a-pricking in his breast,
That he flies up perforce and sings upon the tree’s tall crest.
I am as is the nightingale, or as a soul must be
That in the purgatory fires lies longing to be free,
Waiting the blessèd time when I unto your house shall come,
All with the marriage-messenger[32] bearing his branch of broom.
Ah, me! my stars are froward: ’gainst nature is my state;
Since in this world I came I’ve dreed a dark and dismal fate:
I have nor living kin nor friends, mother nor father dear,
There is no Christian on earth to wish me happy here.
There lives no one hath had to bear so much of grief and shame
For your sweet sake as I have, since in this world I came;
And therefore on my bended knees, in God’s dear name I sue,
Have pity on your own poor clerk, that loveth only you!
The Cross by the Way.
(Kroaz ann Hent.)
[Sidenote: MEDIÆVAL BRETON]
Sweet in the green-wood a birdie sings,
Golden-yellow its two bright wings,
Red its heartikin, blue its crest:
Oh, but it sings with the sweetest breast!
Early, early it ’lighted down
On the edge of my ingle-stone,
As I prayed my morning prayer,--
“Tell me thy errand, birdie fair.”
Then sung it as many sweet things to me
As there are roses on the rose-tree:
“Take a sweetheart, lad, an’ you may;
To gladden your heart both night and day.”
Past the cross by the way as I went,
Monday, I saw her fair as a saint:
Sunday, I will go to mass,
There on the green I’ll see her pass.
Water poured in a beaker clear,
Dimmer shows than the eyes of my dear;
Pearls themselves are not more bright
Than her little teeth, pure and white.
Then her hands and her cheek of snow,
Whiter than milk in a black pail, show.
Yes, if you could my sweetheart see,
She would charm the heart from thee.
Had I as many crowns at my beck,
As hath the Marquis of Poncalec;
Had I a gold-mine at my door,--
Wanting my sweetheart, I were poor.
If on my door-sill up should come
Golden flowers for furze and broom,
Till my court were with gold piled high,
Little I’d reck, but she were by.
Doves must have their close warm nest,
Corpses must have the tomb for rest;
Souls to Paradise must depart,--
And I, my love, must to thy heart.
Every Monday at dawn of day
I’ll on my knees to the cross by the way;
At the new cross by the way I’ll bend,
In thy honour, my gentle friend!
The Secrets of the Clerk.
[Sidenote: LATER BRETON]
Each night, each night, as on my bed I lie,
I do not sleep, but turn myself and cry.
I do not sleep, but turn myself and weep,
When I think of her I love so deep.
Each day I seek the Wood of Love so dear,
In hopes to see you at its streamlet clear.
When I see you come through the forest grove,
On its leaves I write the secret of my love.
--But a fragile trust are the forest leaves,
To hold the secrets close which their page receives.
When comes the storm of rain, and gusty air,
Your secrets close are scattered everywhere.
’Twere safer far, young clerk, on my heart to write.
Graven deep they’d rest, and never take their flight.
Love Song.
[Sidenote: MODERN BRETON]
In the white cabin at the foot of the mountain,
Is my sweet, my love:
Is my love, is my desire,
And all my happiness.
Before the night must I see her
Or my little heart will break.
My little heart will not break,
For my lovely dear I have seen.
Fifty nights I have been
At the threshold of her door; she did not know it.
The rain and the wind whipped me,
Until my garments dripped.
Nothing came to console me
Except the sound of breathing from her bed.
Except the sound of breathing from her bed,
Which came through the little hole of the key.
Three pairs of shoes I have worn out,
Her thought I do not know.
The fourth pair I have begun to wear,
Her thought I do not know.
Five pairs, alas, in good count,
Her thought I do not know.
--If it is my thought you wish to know,
It is not I who will make a mystery of it.
There are three roads on each side of my house,
Choose one among them.
Choose whichever you like among them,
Provided it will take you far from here.
[Sidenote: MODERN BRETON]
--More is worth love, since it pleases me,
Than wealth with which I do not know what to do.
Wealth comes, and wealth it goes away,
Wealth serves for nothing.
Wealth passes like the yellow pears:
Love endures for ever.
More is worth a handful of love
Than an oven full of gold and silver.
Hymn to Sleep.
[Sidenote: HERVÉ-NOËL LE BRETON]
Keeper of the keys of Heaven,
Lingering near the starry Seven!
Guardian of the gates of Hell,
Hushed beneath thy drowsy spell!
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.
When the pilgrim of strange lore
Haunts thy pale phantasmal shore,
Dreams and absolution grant,
Priestess thou and hierophant!
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.
Builder of eternal towers!
Weaver of enchanted bowers!
Thou dost forge the fighter’s arms,
Thee the lover woos for charms:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.
Thou dost soothe the virgin’s fears,
Thou dost staunch the widow’s tears,
Smooth the wrinkled brows of Care,
Still the cries of wild Despair:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.
Healer of the sores of shame!
Cleanser of the unholy flame!
Thou dost breathe beatitude
On the evil and the good:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.
[Sidenote: HERVÉ-NOËL LE BRETON]
When the cup that Pleasure sips
Turns to wormwood on the lips;
When Remorse, with venomed mesh,
Frets and tears the writhing flesh:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.
Queller of the storms of Fate!
Quencher of the fires of Hate!
In thy peaceful bosom furled
Lies the turmoil of the world:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.
Calm as noon’s abysmal blue,
Soundless as the falling dew,
Soft as snow with fleecy plumes,
Sweet as curling incense-fumes:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.
Keeper of the keys of Heaven!
(Cease your vigil, starry Seven)
Guardian of the gates of Hell!
(Loosen not the drowsèd spell)
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.
The Burden of Lost Souls.
This was our sin. When Hope, with wings enchanted
And shining aureole,
Hung on the blossomed steps of Youth and haunted
The chancel of the soul;
When we whose lips haply had blown the bugle
That cheers the wavering line,
And solaced those to whom the world was frugal
Of Love, the food divine;
Whose hands had strength to strike men’s chains asunder
And heal the poor man’s wrong,
Whose breath was blended with the chords that thunder
Along the aisles of song;
Whose eyes had seen and hailed the Light of Ages,
In cloudiest heavens a star,
Whose ears had heard, on ringing wheels, the stages
Of Freedom’s trophied car:--
We turned, rebellious children, to the clamour
And tumult of the world;
We gave our souls in fee for Circe’s glamour
And white limbs lightly whirled;
We drank deep draughts of Moloch’s unclean liquor
Even to the dregs of shame,
And blinded by the golden lights that flicker
From Mammon’s altar-flame
We burned strange incense, bowed before his idol
Whose eucharist is fire,
And on the neck of passion loosed the bridle
Of fierce and wild desire:--
[Sidenote: HERVÉ-NOËL LE BRETON]
Till now in our own hearts the ashy embers
Of Love lie smouldering,
And scarce our Autumn chill and bare remembers
The glory of the Spring;
While faith, that in the mire was fain to wallow,
Returns at last to find
The cold fanes desolate, the niches hollow,
The windows dim and blind,
And, strown with ruins round, the shattered relic
Of unregardful youth,
Where shapes of beauty once, with tongues angelic,
Whispered the runes of Truth.
Confession.
[Sidenote: VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM]
Since I have lost the words, the flower
Of youth and the fresh April breeze ...
Give me thy lips; their perfumed dower
Shall be the whisper of the trees!
Since I have lost the deep sea’s sadness,
Her sobs, her restless surge, her graves ...
Breathe but a word; its grief or gladness
Shall be the murmur of the waves!
Since in my soul a sombre blossom
Broods, and the suns of yore take flight ...
O hide me in thy pallid bosom,
And it shall be the calm of night!
Discouragement.
[Sidenote: VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM]
Athwart the unclean ages whirled
To solitary woods sublime,
Oh! had I first beheld this world
Alone and free in Nature’s prime!
When on its loveliness first seen
Eve cast her pure blue eyes abroad:
When all the earth was fresh and green,
And simple Man believed in God!
When sacred accents, vibrating
Beneath the naked sun and sky,
Rose from each new-created thing
To hail the Lord of Life on high;
I would have learned and lived in hope
And loved! For in those vanished days,
Faith wandered on the mountain-slope ...
But now the world has changed her ways:
Our feet, less free, less fugitive,
Tread beaten tracks from shore to shore ...
Alas! what is the life we live?
--A dream of days that are no more!
The Black Panther.
[Sidenote: LECONTE DE LISLE]
Along the rosy cloud light steals and twinkles;
The East is flecked with golden filigree:
Night from her loosened necklace slowly sprinkles
Pearl-clusters on the sea.
Clasped on the bosom of the sparkling azure
Soft skirts of flame trail like a flowing train,
And cast on emerald blades a bright emblazure,
Like drops of fiery rain.
The dew shines, like a sheaf of splendour shaken,
On cinnamon leaves and lychee’s purple flesh;
Among the drowsed bamboos the wind’s wings waken
A myriad whisperings fresh.
From mounds and woods, from mossy tufts and flowers,
In the warm air, with sudden tremours thrilled,
Fragrance bursts forth in sweet and subtile showers,
With feverish rapture filled.
By virgin jungle-track and hidden hollow,
Where in the morning sun smoke tangled weeds,
And where live streams their winding channels follow
Through arches of green reeds,
Steals the black panther from her midnight prowling,
With dawn turned to the lair in which her cubs
Among smooth shining bones, with hunger growling,
Grovel beneath the shrubs.
Restless she slinks along, with arrowy flashes
That scan the shadows of the drooping wood.
The bright, fresh-sprinkled crimsoned dew that dashes
Her velvet skin is blood.
[Sidenote: LECONTE DE LISLE]
Behind she drags the relict of her quarry
Torn from the stricken stag, a mangled spoil
That leaves a loathsome trail and sanguinary
Along the moss-flowered soil.
Round her the tawny bees and light-winged dragons
Flit fearless as she glides with supple flanks;
And clustering foliage from a thousand flagons
Pours fragrance on the banks.
The python, through a scarlet cactus peering,
Slowly above the bush lifts his flat head
And curious eyes, his scaly folds uprearing
To watch her stealthy tread.
She glides in silence into the tall bracken,
Then plunges lost beneath the lichened boughs:
Air burns in the vast light, earth’s noises slacken,
And wood and welkin drowse.
The Spring.
A live spring sparkles in the bosky gloom,
Hidden from the noonday glare;
The green reeds bend above its banks and there
Blue-bells and violets bloom.
No kids that batten on the bitter herb,
On slopes of the near hill,
Nor shepherd’s song, nor flute-note sweet and shrill,
Its crystal source disturb.
Hard by, the dark oaks weave a peaceful screen
Whose shade the wild-bee loves,
And nestled in dense leaves the murmuring doves
Their ruffled plumage preen.
The lazy stags in mossy thickets browse
And sniff the lingering dew;
Beneath cool leaves, that let the sunlight through,
The languorous Sylvans drowse.
White Naïs, near the sacred spring that drips,
Closing her lids awhile,
Dreams as she slumbers, and a radiant smile
Floats on her purple lips.
No eye, kindling with love’s desire, has scanned
Beneath those lucent veils
The nymph whose snowy limbs and hair that trails
Gleam on the silvery sand.
None gazed on the soft cheek, suffused with youth,
The splendid bosom’s swerve,
The ivory neck, the shoulder’s delicate curve,
White arms and innocent mouth.
[Sidenote: LECONTE DE LISLE]
But now the lecherous Faun, that haunts the grove,
Spies from his leafy trench
Those supple flanks, kissed by the oozy drench
As with a kiss of love;
Then laughs, as when the Satyr’s wanton imps
A wood-nymph’s bower assail,
And, waking with the sound the virgin pale
Flies like the lightning-glimpse.
Even as the Naiad, haunting the clear stream,
Slumbers in woods obscure,
Fly from the impious look and laugh impure
O Beauty, the soul’s dream!
The Return of Taliesen.
[Sidenote: LEO-KERMORVAN]
On my lips the speech, in my ears the sound of the Armorican:
I hear the voice of Esus by the shores of the ocean,
And the songs which the great bard Ossian
Resings by the ancient dolmen.
Many times since this, my twelfth rebirth on earth,
Have I seen the mistletoe grow green on the oak,
Seen the yellow crocus, the sunbright, and the vervein
Bloom again in the woodlands:
But never shall I see again the white-robed Druid of old
Seek the sacred mistletoe as one seeketh a treasure;
Never more shall I see him cut the living plant
With his golden sickle.
Alas! the valiant chiefs with the flowing locks!
All sleep in the cairns, beneath the fresh green grass;
In vain my voice o’er the fields of the dead lamenting--
“Vengeance! Treason!