III. QUEEN AVERLAINE.
O love, I bade you go; and you have borne
The summer with you from the valley-lands;
The poppy-flame has perished from the corn;
And in the chill, wan light of early morn
The reapers come in doleful, starveling bands,
To bind the blackened sheaves with listless hands;
For rain has put their sowing-toil to scorn.
O Love, I bade you go; and autumn brings
Bleak desolation; yet within my heart
Unquenched and fierce the flame you kindled springs;
For, echoing all day long, the courtyard rings
As loud it rang when, rending Love apart,
Your white horse cantered — swift and keen to start —
Into a world of other queens and kings.
I bade you go; ah, wherefore are you gone?
How could you leave me dark and desolate,
O Sun of Love, that for brief summer shone?
Mine eyes are ever on the western gate,
Half-wishing, half-foredreading your return.
Return, O Love, return!
I cannot live without you; through the dark
I stretch blind hands to you across the world;
All day on unknown battle-fields I mark
Your sword's red course, your banner blue unfurled;
Yet never, in my day-dreams, you return.
Return, O Love, return!
Nay, you are gone: O Love, I bade you go.
I would not have you come again to be
A stranger in this house of silent woe,
Where, being all, you would be naught to me.
Mine, mine in dreams, but lost if you return;
Oh, nevermore return!
“To-day a wandering harper came
With outland tales of deeds of fame;
I hearkened from the noonday bright
Until the failing of the light,
The while he sang of joust and fight;
Yet never once I caught your name.
Oh, whither, whither are you gone,
Whose name victorious ever shone
Above all knights of other lands?
Across what wilderness of sands?
By what dead sea-deserted strands?
On what far quest of Love forlorn?
I loved you when men called you Lord
Arkeld, the never-sleeping sword;
Yet now, when all your might is furled,
And you no longer crest the world,
More are you mine than when you hurled
Destruction on the embattled horde.
Oh, deeper in the silent house
The silence falls;
Only the stir of bat or mouse
About the walls.
No cry, no voice in any room,
No gust of breath;
As if, within the clutch of doom,
We waited death.
The King is dead;
No longer now
The cold eyes gleam
Beneath his brow.
O cold, grey eyes,
Wherein the light
Of Love at dawn
Seemed clear and bright,
No true Love burned
Your cold desire,
Which mirrored but
My own heart's fire.
The King died yesterday.... Ah, no, he died
When young Love perished long, so long ago;
And on his throne, as marble at my side,
Has reigned a carven image, cold as snow,
Though all men bowed before it, crying: “King!”
Too late, too late the chains which held me fall;
Rock-bound, I bade the victor-knight go by;
And now, when time has loosed me from the thrall,
I know not where he tarries,‘ neath what sky
He waits the winter's end, the dawn of spring.
Spring comes no more for me: though young March blow
To flame the larches, and from tree to tree
The green fire leap, till all the woodlands glow —
Though every runnel, filled to overflow,
Bear sea-ward, loud and brown with melted snow,
Spring comes no more for me!
Spring comes no more for me: though April light
The flame of gorse above the peacock sea;
Though in an interweaving mesh of white
The seagulls hover‘ neath the cliff's sheer height;
Though, hour by hour, new joys are winged for flight,
Spring comes no more for me!
Spring comes no more for me: though May will shake
White flame of hawthorn over all the lea,
Till every thick-set hedge and tangled brake
Puts on fresh flower of beauty for her sake;
Though all the world from winter-sleep awake,
Spring comes no more for me!
I wandered through the city till I came
Within the vast cathedral, cool and dim;
I looked upon the windows all aflame
With blazoned knights and saints and seraphim.
I looked on kings in purple, gold and blue,
On martyrs high before whom all men bow;
Until a gleam of light my footsteps drew
Before a shining seraph, on whose brow
A little flame, for ever pure and white,
Unwavering burns — the symbol of our love;
And as I knelt before him in the night,
He looked, compassionate, on me from above.
I heard a harper‘ neath the castle walls
Sing, for night-shelter in the house of thralls,
A song of hapless lovers; in the shade
I paused awhile, unseen of man or maid.
Taking his harp, he touched the moaning strings,
And sang of queens unloved and loveless kings;
His song shot through my fluttering heart like flame
Till, wondering, I heard him breathe your name.
Oh, then I knew how all the deathless wrong
Time wrought of old is but a harper's song;
And all the hopeless sorrow of long years
An idle tale to win a stranger's tears.
Yea, in the song of Love's immortal dead
Our love was told; with shuddering heart I fled,
And strove to pass upon my way unseen,
But song was hushed with whispers: “Lo, the Queen!”
Was it for this we loved, O Time, to be
Among Love's deathless through eternity,
Set high on lone, divided peaks above
The sheltered summer-valley, broad and green?
Was it for this our joy and grief have been,
Our barren day-dreams, dream-deserted nights —
That valley-lovers, looking up, might see
How vain is Love among the starry heights,
And, loving, sigh: “How vain a thing is Love!”?
O Love, that we had found thee in the shade
Where, all day long, the deep, leaf-hidden glade
Hears but the moan of some forsaken dove,
Or the clear song of happy, nameless streams;
Where, all night long, the August moonlight gleams
Through warm, green dusk, no longer cold and white!
O Love, that we had found thee, unafraid,
One summer morn, and followed thee till night,
As unknown valley-lovers follow Love!
I have grown old, awaiting spring's return,
And, now spring comes, I stand like winter grey
In a young world; yet warm within me burn
The morning-fires Love kindled in youth's day.
I have grown old; the young folk look on me
With sighs, and wonder that I once was fair,
And whisper one another: “Is this she?
Did summer ever light that winter hair?
“Ah, she is old; yet, she, too, once was young:
Yea, loved as we love even, for men tell
How bright her beauty burned on every tongue,
And how a knightly stranger loved her well.
“Yet Love grows old that beats so young and warm;
His leaping fires in dust and ashes fail;
Shall we, too, wither in the winter-storm,
And wander thus one April, old and frail?”
Love grows not old, O lovers, though youth die,
And bodily beauty perish as the flower;
Though all things fail, though spring and summer fly,
Love's fire burns quenchless till the last dark hour.
O valley-lovers, think you love,
Being all of joy, knows naught of sorrow?
A day, a night
Of swift delight
That fears no dread, grey-dawning morrow?
O valley-lovers, think you love
Knows only laughter, naught of weeping?
A rose-red fire
Of warm desire
For ever burning, never sleeping?
O lovers, little know ye Love.
Love is a flame that feeds on sorrow —
A lone star bright
Through endless night
That waits a never-dawning morrow.
“Thus would I sing of life,
Ere I must yield my breath:
Though broken in the strife,
I sought not after death.
Though ruthless years have scourged
My soul with sorrow's brands,
And, day by day, have urged
My feet o'er desert-sands;
Yet would I rather tread
Again the bitter trail,
Than lie, calm-browed and pale,
Among the loveless dead.
No pang would I forego,
No stab of suffering,
No agony of woe,
If I to life might cling;
If I might follow still,
For evermore, afar,
O'er barren dale and hill,
My Love's unfading star.
Yea, now, with failing breath,
Thus would I sing of life:
Though broken in the strife,
I sought not after death.
Darkness has come upon me in the end;
Darkness has come upon me like a friend,
Yet undesired; why comest thou, O night,
To seal mine eyes for ever from the light?
Darkness has come upon me; yet a star
Burns through the night and beckons me from far.
Look up, O eyes, unfaltering, without fear;
O morning-star of Love, the dawn is near!