THE HAUNTED PALACE

Come to the haunted palace of my dreams,

My crumbling palace by the eternal sea,

Which, like a childless mother, still must croon

Her ancient sorrows to the cold white moon,

Or, ebbing tremulously,

With one pale arm, where the long foam-fringe gleams,

Will gather her rustling garments, for a space

Of muffled weeping, round her dim white face.

A princess dwelt here once: long, long ago

This tower rose in the sunset like a prayer;

And, through the witchery of that casement, rolled

In one soft cataract of faëry gold

Her wonder-woven hair;

Her face leaned out and took the sacred glow

Of evening, like the star that listened, high

Above the gold clouds of the western sky.

Was there no prince behind her in the gloom,

No crimson shadow of his rich array?

Her face leaned down to me: I saw the tears

Bleed through her eyes with the slow pain of years,

And her mouth yearned to say —

“Friend, is there any message, from the tomb

Where love lies buried?” But she only said —

“Oh, friend, canst thou not save me from my dead?

“Canst thou not minister to a soul in pain?

Or hast thou then no comfortable word?

Is there no faith in thee wherewith to atone

For his unfaith who left me here alone,

Heart-sick with hope deferred;

Oh, since my love will never come again,

Bring'st thou no respite through the desolate years,

Respite from these most unavailing tears?”

Then saw I, and mine own tears made response,

Her woman's heart come breaking through her eyes;

And, as I stood beneath the tower's grey wall,

She let the soft waves of her deep hair fall

Like flowers from Paradise

Over my fevered face: then all at once

Pity was passion; and like a sea of bliss

Those waves rolled o'er me drowning for her kiss.

Seven years we dwelt together in that tower,

Seven years in that old palace by the sea,

And sitting at that casement, side by side,

She told me all her pain: how love had died

Now for all else but me;

Yet how she had loved that other: like a flower

Her red lips parted and with low sweet moan

She pressed their tender suffering on mine own.

And always with vague eyes she gazed afar,

Out through the casement o'er the changing tide;

And slowly was my heart's hope brought to nought

That some day I should win each wandering thought

And make her my soul's bride:

Still, still she gazed across the cold sea-bar;

Ay; with her hand in mine, still, still and pale,

Waited and watched for the unreturning sail.

And I, too, watched and waited as the years

Rolled on; and slowly was I brought to feel

How on my lips she met her lover's kiss,

How my heart's pulse begat an alien bliss;

And cold and hard as steel

For me those eyes were, though their tender tears

Were salt upon my cheek; and then one night

I saw a sail come through the pale moonlight.

And like an alien ghost I stole away,

And like a breathing lover he returned;

And in the woods I dwelt, or sometimes crept

Out in the grey dawn while the lovers slept

And the great sea-tides yearned

Against the iron shores; and faint and grey

The tower and the shut casement rose above:

And on the earth I sobbed out all my love.

At last, one royal rose-hung night in June,

When the warm air like purple Hippocrene

Brimmed the dim valley and sparkled into stars,

I saw them cross the foam-lit sandy bars

And dark pools, glimmering green,

To bathe beneath the honey-coloured moon:

I saw them swim out from that summer shore,

Kissed by the sea, but they returned no more.

And into the dark palace, like a dream

Remembered after long oblivious years,

Through the strange open doors I crept and saw

As some poor pagan might, with reverent awe,

And deep adoring tears,

The moonlight through that painted window stream

Over the soft wave of their vacant bed;

There sank I on my knees and bowed my head,

For as a father by a cradle bows,

Remembering two dead children of his own,

I knelt; and by the cry of the great deep

Their love seemed like a murmuring in their sleep,

A little fevered moan,

A little tossing of childish arms that shows

How dreams go by! “If I were God,” I wept,

“I would have pity on children while they slept.”

The days, the months, the years drift over me;

This is my habitation till I die:

Nothing is changed; they left that open book

Beside the window. Did he sit and look

Up at her face as I

Looked while she read it, and the enchanted sea

With rich eternities of love unknown

Fulfilled the low sweet music of her tone?

So did he listen, looking in her face?

And did she ever pause, remembering so

The heart that bore the whole weight of her pain

Until her own heart's love returned again?

In the still evening glow

I sit and listen in this quiet place,

And only hear — like notes of phantom birds —

Their perished kisses and little broken words.

Come to the haunted palace of my dreams,

My crumbling palace by the eternal sea,

Which, like a childless mother, still must croon

Her ancient sorrows to the cold white moon,

Or, ebbing tremulously,

With one pale arm, where the long foam-fringe gleams,

Will gather her rustling garments, for a space

Of muffled weeping, round her dim white face.