No heart, save one, his joy and dole might share.
Passed on the winter’s rain and summer’s drouth;
Friends more and more, and lovers true, the pair,
Though life its passion and its youth had spent,
Still kept their faith as seasons came and went.
* * * * *
One final hour, with stammering voice and halt,
The Prince said: “Dear, for you,—whose only gain
Was in your love that made such long default
To self,—Heaven deems you sinless! but a pain
Is on my soul, and shadow of guilt threefold:
First, in your fair life, fettered by my hold;
“Then in the ceaseless wrong I do the Queen,
Who worships me, unknowing; worse than all,
To wear before the world this painted mien!
See to it: on my head some bolt will fall!
We have sweet memories of the good years past,
Now let this secret league no longer last.”
So of her love and pure unselfishness
She yielded at his word, yet fain would pray
For one more tryst, one day of tenderness,
Where first their lives were mated. Such a day
Found them entwined together, met to part,
Lips pressed to lips, and voiceless grief at heart.
And last the Prince drew off his signet-stone,
And gave it to his mistress,—as he rose
To shut the book of happy moments gone,
For so all earthly pleasures find a close,—
Yet promised, at her time of utmost need
And summons by that token, to take heed
And do her will. “And from this hour,” he said,
“No woman’s kiss save one my lips shall know.”
So left her pale and trembling there, and fled,
Nor looked again, resolved it must be so;
But somewhere gained his horse, and through the wood
Moved homeward with his thoughts, a phantom brood
That turned the long past over in his mind,
Poising its good and evil, while a haze
Gathered around him, of that sombre kind
Which follows from a place where many days
Have seen us go and come; and even if sore
Has been our sojourn there, we feel the more
That parting is a sorrow,—though we part
With those who loved us not, or go forlorn
From pain that ate its canker in the heart;
But when we leave the paths where Love has borne
His garlands to us, Pleasure poured her wine,
Where life was wholly precious and divine,
Then go we forth as exiles. In such wise
The loath, wan Prince his homeward journey made,
Brooding, and marked not with his downcast eyes
The shadow that within the coppice shade
Sank darker still; but at the horse’s gait
Kept slowly on, and rode to meet his fate.
For from the west a silent gathering drew,
And hid the summer sky, and brought swift night
Across that shire, and went devouring through
The strong old forest, stronger in its might.
With the first sudden crash the Prince’s steed
Took the long stride, and galloped at good need.
The wild pace tallied with the rider’s mood,
And on he spurred, and even now had reached
The storm that charged the borders of the wood,
When one great whirlwind seized an oak which bleached
Across his path, and felled it; and its fall
Bore down the Prince beneath it, horse and all.
There lay he as he fell; but the mad horse
Plunged out in fright, and reared upon his feet,
And for the city struck a headlong course,
With clatter of hoof along the central street,
Nor halted till, thus masterless and late,
Bleeding and torn, he reached the palace-gate.
Then rose a clamor and the tidings spread,
And servitors and burghers thronged about,
Crying, “The Prince’s horse! the Prince is dead!”
Till on the courser’s track they sallied out,
And came upon the fallen oak, and found
The Prince sore maimed and senseless on the ground.
Then wattling boughs, they raised him in their hold,
And after that rough litter, and before,
The people went in silence; but there rolled
A fiery vapor from the lights they bore,
Like some red serpent huge along the road.
Even thus they brought him back to his abode.
There the pale Queen fell on him at the porch,
Dabbling her robes in blood, and made ado,
And over all his henchman held a torch,
Until with reverent steps they took him through;
And the doors closed, and midnight from the domes
Was sounded, and the people sought their homes.
But on the morrow, like a dreadful bird,
Flew swift the tidings of this sudden woe,
And reached the Prince’s paramour, who heard
Aghast, as one who crieth loud, “The blow
Is fallen! I am the cause!”—as one who saith,
“Now let me die, whose hands have given death!”
So gat her to the town remorsefully,
White with a mortal tremor and the sin
Which sealed her mouth, and waited what might be,
And watched the doors she dared not pass within.
Alas, poor lady! that lone week of fears
Outlived the length of all her former years.
Some days the Prince, upon the skirts of death,
Spake not a word nor heard the Queen’s one prayer,
Nor turned his face, nor felt her loving breath,
Nor saw his children when they gathered there,
But rested dumb and motionless; and so
The Queen grew weak with watching and her woe,
Till from his bed they bore her to her own
A little. In the middle-tide of night,
Thereafter, he awoke with moan on moan,
And saw his death anigh, and said outright,
“I had all things, but love was worth them all!”
Then sped they for the Queen, yet ere the call
Reached her, he cried once more, “Too late! too late!”
And at those words, before they led her in,
Come the sure dart of him that lay in wait.
The Prince was dead: what goodness and what sin
Died with him were untold. At sunrise fell
Across the capital his solemn knell.
All respite it forbade, and joyance thence,
To one for whom his passion till the last
Wrought in the dying Prince. Her wan suspense
Thus ended, a great fear upon her passed.
“I was the cause!” she moaned from day to day,
“Now let me bear the penance as I may!”
So with her whole estate she sought and gained
A refuge in a nunnery close at view,
And there for months withdrew her, and remained
In tears and prayers. Anon a sickness grew
Upon her, and her face the ghost became
Of what it was, the same and not the same.
So died the blameless Prince. The spacious land
Was smitten in his death, and such a wail
Arose, as when the midnight angel’s hand
Was laid on Egypt. Gossips ceased their tale,
Or whispered of his goodness, and were mute;
No sound was heard of viol or of lute;
The streets were hung with black; the artisan
Forsook his forge; the artist dropped his brush;
The tradesmen closed their windows. Man with man
Struck hands together in the first deep hush
Of grief; or, where the dead Prince lay in state,
Spoke of his life, so blameless, pure, and great.
But when, within the dark cathedral vault,
They joined his ashes to the dust of kings,
No royal pomp was shown; for Death made halt
Above the palace yet, on dusky wings,
Waiting to gain the Queen, who still was prone
Along the couch where haply she had thrown,
At knowledge of the end, her stricken frame.
With visage pale as in a mortal swound
She stayed, nor slept, nor wept, till, weeping, came
The crown-prince and besought her to look round
And speak unto her children. Then she said:
“Hereto no grief has fallen on our head;
“Now all our earthly portion in one mass
Is loosed against us with this single stroke!
Yet we are Queen, and still must live,—alas!—
As he would have us.” Even as she spoke
She wept, and mended thence, yet bore the face
Of one whose fate delays but for a space.
Thenceforth she worked and waited till the call
Of Heaven should close the labor and the pause.
Months, seasons passed, yet evermore a pall
Hung round the court. The sorrow and the cause
Were always with her; after things were tame
Beside the shadow of his deeds and fame.
Her palaces and parks seemed desolate;
No joy was left in sky or street or field;
No age, she thought, would see the Prince’s mate:
What matchless hand his knightly sword could wield?
The world had lost, this royal widow said,
Its one bright jewel when the Prince was dead.
So that his fame might be enduring there
For many a reign, and sacred through the land,
She gathered bronze and lazuli, and rare
Swart marbles, while her cunning artists planned
A stately cenotaph,—and bade them place
Above its front the Prince’s form and face,
Sculptured, as if in life. But the pale Queen,
Watching the work herself, would somewhat lure
Her heart from plaining; till, behind a screen,
The tomb was finished, glorious and pure,
Even like the Prince: and they proclaimed a day
When the Queen’s hand should draw its veil away.
It chanced, the noon before, she bade them fetch
Her equipage, and with her children rode
Beyond the city walls, across a stretch
Of the green open country, where abode
Her subjects, happy in the field and grange,
And with their griefs, that took a meaner range,
Content. But as her joyless vision dwelt
On beauty that so failed her wound to heal,
She marked the Abbey’s ancient pile, and felt
A longing at its chapel-shrine to kneel,
To pray, and think awhile on Heaven,—her one
Sole passion, now the Prince had thither gone.
She reached the gate, and through the vestibule
The nuns, with reverence for the royal sorrow,
Led to the shrine, and left her there to school
Her heart for that sad pageant of the morrow.
O, what deep sighs, what piteous tearful prayers,
What golden grief-blanched hair strewn unawares!
Anon her coming through the place was sped,
And when from that lone ecstasy she rose
The saintly Abbess held her steps, and said:
“God rests those, daughter, who in others’ woes
Forget their own! In yonder corridor
A sister-sufferer lies, and will no more
“Pass through her door to catch the morning’s breath,—
A worldling once, the chamberlain’s young wife,
But now a pious novice, meet for death;
She prays to see your face once more in life.”
“She, too, is widowed,” thought the Queen. Aloud
She answered, “I will visit her,” and bowed
Her head, and, following, reached the room where lay
One that had wronged her so; and shrank to see
That beauteous pallid face, so pined away,
And the starved lips that murmured painfully,
“I have a secret none but she may hear.”
At the Queen’s sign, they two were left anear.
With that the dying rushed upon her speech,
As one condemned, who gulps the poisoned wine
Nor pauses, lest to see it stand at reach
Were crueller still. “Madam, I sought a sign,”
She cried, “to know if God would have me make
Confession, and to you! now let me take
“This meeting as the sign, and speak, and die!”
“Child,” said the Queen, “your years are yet too few.
See how I live,—and yet what sorrows lie
About my heart.”—“I know,—the world spake true!
You too have loved him; ay, he seems to stand
Between us! Queen, you had the Prince’s hand,
“But not his love!” Across the good Queen’s brow
A flame of anger reddened, as when one
Meets unprepared a swift and ruthless blow,
But instant paled to pity, as she thought,
“She wanders: ’tis the fever at her brain!”
And looked her thought. The other cried again:
“Yes! I am ill of body and soul indeed,
Yet this was as I say. O, not for me
Pity, from you who wear the widow’s weed,
Unknowing!”—“Woman, whose could that love be,
If not all mine?” The other, with a moan,
Rose in her bed; the pillow, backward thrown,
Was darkened with the torrent of her hair.
“’Twas hers,” she wailed,—“’twas hers who loved him best.”
Then tore apart her night-robe, and laid bare
Her flesh, and lo! against her poor white breast
Close round her gloomed a shift of blackest serge,
Fearful, concealed!—“I might not sing his dirge,”
She said, “nor moan aloud and bring him shame,
Nor haunt his tomb and cling about the grate,
But this I fashioned when the tidings came
That he was dead and I must expiate,
Being left, our double sin!”—In the Queen’s heart,
The tiger—that is prisoned at life’s start
In mortals, though perchance it never wakes
From its mute sleep—began to rouse and crawl.
Her lips grew white, and on her nostrils flakes
Of wrath and loathing stood. “What, now, is all
This wicked drivel?” she cried; “how dare they bring
The Queen to listen to so foul a thing?”
“Queen! I speak truth,—the truth, I say! He fed
Upon these lips,—this hair he loved to praise!
I held within these arms his bright fair head
Pressed close, ah, close!—Our lifetimes were the days
We met,—the rest a void!”—“Thou spectral Sin,
Be silent! or, if such a thing hath been,—
“If this be not thy frenzy,—quick, the proof,
Before I score the lie thy lips amid!”
She spoke so dread the other crouched aloof,
Panting, but with gaunt hands somewhere undid
A knot within her hair, and thence she took
The signet-ring and passed it. The Queen’s look
Fell on it, and that moment the strong stay,
Which held her from the instinct of her wrong,
Broke, and therewith the whole device gave way,
The grand ideal she had watched so long:
As if a tower should fall, and on the plain
Only a scathed and broken pile remain.
But in its stead she would not measure yet
The counter-chance, nor deem this sole attaint
Made the Prince less than one in whom ’twas set
To prove him man. “I held him as a saint,”
She thought, “no other:—of all men alone
My blameless one! Too high my faith had flown:
“So be it!” With a sudden bitter scorn
She said: “You were his plaything, then! the food
Wherewith he dulled what appetite is born,
Of the gross kind, in men. His nobler mood
You knew not! How, shall I,—the fountain life
Of yonder children,—his embosomed wife
“Through all these years,—shall I, his Queen, for this
Sin-smitten harlot’s gage of an hour’s shame,
Misdoubt him?”—“Yes, I was his harlot,—yes,
God help me! and had worn the loathly name
Before the world, to have him in that guise!”
“Thou strumpet! wilt thou have me of his prize
“Rob Satan?” cried the Queen, and one step moved.
“Queen, if you loved him, save me from your bane,
As something that was dear to him you loved!”
Then from beneath her serge she took the chain
Which, long ago in that lone wood, the Prince
Hung round her,—she had never loosed it since,—
And gave therewith the face which, in its years
Of youthful, sunniest grace, a limner drew;
And unsigned letters, darkened with her tears,
Writ in the hand that hapless sovereign knew
Too well;—then told the whole, strange, secret tale,
As if with Heaven that penance could avail,
Or with the Queen, who heard as idols list
The mad priest’s cry, nor changed her place nor moaned,
But, clutching those mute tokens of each tryst,
Hid them about her. But the other groaned:
“The picture,—let me see it ere I die,—
Then take them all! once, only!”—At that cry
The Queen strode forward with an awful stride,
And seized the dying one, and bore her down,
And rose her height, and said, “Thou shouldst have died
Ere telling this, nor I have worn a crown
To hear it told. I am of God accurst!
Of all his hated, may he smite thee first!”
With that wild speech she fled, nor looked behind,
Hasting to get her from that fearful room,
Past the meek nuns in wait. These did not find
The sick one’s eyes—yet staring through the gloom,
While her hands fumbled at her heart, and Death
Made her limbs quake, and combated her breath—
More dreadful than the Queen’s look, as she thence
Made through the court, and reached her own array
She knew not how, and clamored, “Bear me hence!”
And, even as her chariot moved away,
High o’er the Abbey heard the minster toll
Its doleful bell, as for a passing soul.
Though midst her guardsmen, as they speeded back,
The wont of royalty maintained her still,
Where grief had been were ruin now and rack!
The firm earth reeled about, nor could her will
Make it seem stable, while her soul went through
Her wedded years in desperate review.
The air seemed full of lies; the realm, unsound;
Her courtiers, knaves; her maidens, good and fair,
Most shameless bawds; her children clung around
Like asps, to sting her; from the kingdom’s heir,
Shuddering, she turned her face,—his features took
A shining horror from his father’s look.
Along her city streets the thrifty crowd,
As the Queen passed, their loving reverence made.
“’Tis false! they love me not!” she cried aloud;
So flung her from her chariot, and forbade
All words, but waved her ladies back, and gained
Her inmost room, and by herself remained.
“We have been alone these years, and knew it not,”
She said; “now let us on the knowledge thrive!”
So closed the doors, and all things else forgot
Than her own misery. “I cannot live
And bear this death,” she said, “nor die, the more
To meet him,—and that woman gone before!”
Thus with herself she writhed, while midnight gloomed,
As lone as any outcast of us all;
And once, without a purpose, as the doomed
Stare round and count the shadows on the wall,
Unclasped a poet’s book which near her lay,
And turned its pages in that witless way,
And read the song, some wise, sad man had made,
With bitter frost about his doubting heart.
“What is this life,” it plained, “what masquerade
Of which ye all are witnesses and part?
’Tis but a foolish, smiling face to wear
Above your mortal sorrow, chill despair;
“To mock your comrades and yourselves with mirth
That feeds the care ye cannot drive away;
To vaunt of health, yet hide beneath the girth
Impuissance, fell sickness, slow decay;
To cloak defeat, and with the rich, the great,
Applaud their fairer fortunes as their mate;
“To brave the sudden woe, the secret loss,
Though but to-morrow brings the open shame;
To pay the tribute of your caste, and toss
Your last to him that’s richer save in name;
To judge your peers, and give the doleful meed
To crime that’s white beside your hidden deed;
“To whisper love, where of true love is none,—
Desire, where lust is dead; to live unchaste,
And wear the priestly cincture;—last, to own,
When the morn’s dream is gone and noontide waste,
Some fate still kept ye from your purpose sweet,
Down strange, circuitous paths it drew your feet!”
Thus far she read, and, “Let me read no more,”
She clamored, “since the scales have left mine eyes
And freed the dreadful gift I lacked before!
We are but puppets, in whatever guise
They clothe us, to whatever tune we move;
Albeit we prate of duty, dream of love.
“Let me, too, play the common part, and wean
My life from hope, and look beneath the mask
To read the masker! I, who was a Queen,
And like a hireling thought to ’scape my task!
For some few seasons left this heart is schooled:
Yet,—had it been a little longer fooled,—
“O God!” And from her seat she bowed her down.
The gentle sovereign of that spacious land
Lay prone beneath the bauble of her crown,
Nor heard all night her whispering ladies stand
Outside the portal. Greatly, in the morn,
They marvelled at her visage wan and worn.
* * * * *
But when the sun was high, the populace
By every gateway filled the roads, and sought
The martial plain, within whose central space
That wonder of the Prince’s tomb was wrought.
Thereto from out the nearer land there passed
The mingled folk, an eager throng and vast;
Knights, commons, men and women, young and old,
The present and the promise of the realm.
Anon the coming of the Queen was told,
And mounted guards, with sable plumes at helm,
Made through the middle, like a reaper’s swath,
A straight, wide roadway for the sovereign’s path.
Then rose the murmurous sound of her advance,
And, with the crown-prince, and her other brood
Led close behind, she came. Her countenance
Moved not to right nor left, until she stood
Before the tomb; yet those, who took the breath
That clothed her progress, felt a waft of death.
O noble martyr! queenliest intent!
Strong human soul, that holds to pride through all!
Ah me! with what fierce heavings in them pent
The brave complete their work, whate’er befall!
Upon her front the people only read
Pale grief that clung forever to the dead.
How should they know she trod the royal stand,
And took within her hold the silken line,
As, while the headsman waits, one lays her hand
Upon the scarf that slays her by a sign?
With one great pang she drew the veil, and lo!
The work was dazzling in the noonday glow.
There shone the Prince’s image, golden, high,
Installed forever in the people’s sight.
“Alas!” they cried, “too good, too fair to die!”
But at the foot the Queen had bid them write
Her consort’s goodness, and his glory-roll,
Yet knew not they had carved upon the scroll
That last assurance of his stainless heart,—
For such they deemed his words who heard them fall,—
“_Of all great things this Prince achieved his part,_
_Yet wedded Love to him was worth them all._”
Thus read the Queen: till now, her injured soul
Of its forlornness had not felt the whole.
Now all her heart was broken. There she fell,
And to the skies her lofty spirit fled.
The wrong of those mute words had smitten well.
A cry went up: “The Queen! the Queen is dead!
O regal heart that would not reign alone!
O fatal sorrow! O the empty throne!”
Her people made her beauteous relics room
Within the chamber where her consort slept.
There rest they side by side. Around the tomb
A thousand matrons solemn vigil kept.
Long ages told the story of her reign,
And sang the nuptial love that had no stain.
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
I.
SONGS AND STUDIES.
SURF.
Splendors of morning the billow-crests brighten,
Lighting and luring them on to the land,—
Far-away waves where the wan vessels whiten,
Blue rollers breaking in surf where we stand.
Curved like the necks of a legion of horses,
Each with his froth-gilded mane flowing free,
Hither they speed in perpetual courses,
Bearing thy riches, O beautiful sea!
Strong with the striving of yesterday’s surges,
Lashed by the wanton winds leagues from the shore,
Each, driven fast by its follower, urges
Fearlessly those that are fleeting before;
How they leap over the ridges we walk on,
Flinging us gifts from the depths of the sea,—
Silvery fish for the foam-haunting falcon,
Palm-weed and pearls for my darling and me!
Light falls her foot where the rift follows after,
Finer her hair than your feathery spray,
Sweeter her voice than your infinite laughter,—
Hist! ye wild couriers, list to my lay!
Deep in the chambers of grottos auroral
Morn laves her jewels and bends her red knee:
Thence to my dear one your amber and coral
Bring for her dowry, O beautiful sea!
TOUJOURS AMOUR.
Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin,
At what age does Love begin?
Your blue eyes have scarcely seen
Summers three, my fairy queen,
But a miracle of sweets,
Soft approaches, sly retreats,
Show the little archer there,
Hidden in your pretty hair;
When didst learn a heart to win?
Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin!
“Oh!” the rosy lips reply,
“I can’t tell you if I try.
’Tis so long I can’t remember:
Ask some younger lass than I!”
Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face,
Do your heart and head keep pace?
When does hoary Love expire,
When do frosts put out the fire?
Can its embers burn below
All that chill December snow?
Care you still soft hands to press,
Bonny heads to smooth and bless?
When does Love give up the chase?
Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face!
“Ah!” the wise old lips reply,
“Youth may pass and strength may die;
But of Love I can’t foretoken:
Ask some older sage than I!”
LAURA, MY DARLING.
Laura, my darling, the roses have blushed
At the kiss of the dew, and our chamber is hushed;
Our murmuring babe to your bosom has clung,
And hears in his slumber the song that you sung;
I watch you asleep with your arms round him thrown,
Your links of dark tresses wound in with his own,
And the wife is as dear as the gentle young bride
Of the hour when you first, darling, came to my side.
Laura, my darling, our sail down the stream
Of Youth’s summers and winters has been like a dream;
Years have but rounded your womanly grace,
And added their spell to the light of your face;
Your soul is the same as though part were not given
To the two, like yourself, sent to bless me from heaven,—
Dear lives, springing forth from the life of my life,
To make you more near, darling, mother and wife!
Laura, my darling, there’s hazel-eyed Fred,
Asleep in his own tiny cot by the bed,
And little King Arthur, whose curls have the art
Of winding their tendrils so close round my heart;
Yet fairer than either, and dearer than both,
Is the true one who gave me in girlhood her troth:
For we, when we mated for evil and good,—
What were we, darling, but babes in the wood?
Laura, my darling, the years which have flown
Brought few of the prizes I pledged to my own.
I said that no sorrow should roughen her way,—
Her life should be cloudless, a long summer’s day.
Shadow and sunshine, thistles and flowers,
Which of the two, darling, most have been ours?
Yet to-night, by the smile on your lips, I can see
You are dreaming of me, darling, dreaming of me.