THE LAST SCION OF THE HOUSE OF CLARE.

Barbican, bartizan, battlement,

With the Abergavenny mountains blent,

Look, from the Raglan tower of Gwent,

My lord Hugh Clifford's ancient home

Shows, clear morns of the Spring or Summer,

Thrust out like thin flakes o’ a silver foam

From a climbing cloud, for the hills gloom glummer,

Being shaggy with heath, yon.— I was his page;

A favorite then; and he of that age

When a man will love and be loved again,

Or die in the wars or a monastery:

Or toil till he stifle his heart's hard pain,

Or drink, drug his hopes and his lost love bury.

I was his page; and often we fared

Thro’ the Clare desmene in Autumn hawking —

If the baron had known how he would have glared

From their bushy brows eyes dark with mocking!

— That of the Strongbows, Richard, I mean —

Had growled to his yeomen, “A score! mount, Keene!

Forth and spit me this Clifford, or hang

With his crop-eared page to the closest oak!”

For he and the Cliffords had ever a fang

In the other's side,... but I see him choke

And strangle with wrath when his hawker told —

If he told!— how we met on that flowery wold

His daughter, sweet Hortense of Clare, the day

Her hooded tiercel its brails did burst

To trail with its galling jesses away;

An untrained haggard the falconer cursed,

Vain whistled to lure; when the eyas sped

Slant, low and heavily overhead

By us; and Sir Hugh,— who had just then cast

His peregrine fierce at a heron-quarry,—

In his stirrups rising, thus — as it passed,

By the jesses caught and to her did carry,

Lingering slender and tall by a rose

Whence she pulled the berries — But no two foes

Her eyes and Sir Hugh's!— And I swear each felt

A song in their hearts!— For I heard him quaver

Somewhat and then — by Mary!— he knelt!—

And the Lady herself in her words did waver

And wonder with smiles. Then daintily took

The hawk on her fist where it pruned and shook

Its callowness ragged, as Hugh did seize

Softly the other hand long and white,—

Reached forth to him craving him rise from his knees,—

And mouthed with moist kisses an hundred quite.

Tho’ she blushed up burning, no frowned “Beware!”

But seemed so happy! when crushing thro’ —

Her sturdy retainer with swarthy stare —

The underwoods burst; and her maiden crew

Drew near them naming her name, and came

With leaves and dim Autumn blossoms aflame.—

“Their words?” I know not! for how should I?—

I paged my master but was no spy.

Nothings, I think, as all lovers’, you know;

Yet how should I hear such whispered low,

Quick by the wasted woodland yellow?

When up thro’ the brush thrashed that burly fellow

With his ale-coarse face, and so made a pause

In the pulse of their words, there my lord Sir Hugh

Stood with the soil on his knee: No cause

Had he — but his hanger he halfway drew —

Then paused, thrust it clap in its sheath again

And bowed to the Lady and strode away;

Up, vault, on his steed — and we rode amain

Gay to his towers that merry day.

He loved and was loved,— why, I knew!— for look,

All other sports for the chase he forsook;

To ride in the Raglan marches and hawk

And to hunt and to wander. And found a lair,

In the Strongbow forest, of bush and of rock,

Of moss and thick ferns; where Hortense of Clare,

How often I wis not, met him by chance —

Perhaps!— Sweet sorceress out of romance,

Those tomes of Geoffrey — for she was fair!

Her large, warm eyes and hair,... ah, hair,

How may one picture or liken it!

With the golden gloss of its full brown, fit

For the Viviane face of lovable white

Beneath;— like a star that a cloud of night

Stops over to threaten but never will drench

Its tremulous beauty with mists that quench.—

Heigho!— but they ceased, those meetings. I wot

Watched of the baron, his menial crew;

For she loved too well to have once forgot

The place and the time of their trysting true.

But she came not — ah! and again came not:

“Why and when?” would question Sir Hugh

In his labored scrawls a crevice of rock —

The lovers’ post — in its coigne would lock.

Until near Yule Love gat them again

A twilight tryst — by frowardness sure.—

They met. And that day was gray with rain —

Or snow, and the wind did ever endure

A long, bleak moaning thorough the wood,

Smarted the cheek and chapped i’ the blood;

And a burne in the forest cried “sob and sob,”

And whimpered forever a chopping throb

Thro’ the rope-taunt boughs like a thing pursued.

— And there it was that he learned how she

( My faith! how it makes me burn and quiver

To think what a miserable despot he —

Lord Richard Strongbow, aye and ever

To his daughter was! ) forsooth! must wed

With an Eastern Earl — some Lovell: one whom

( That God in His mercy had smote him dead! )

Hortense of Clare — but in baby bloom —

Never had mirrored with maiden eyes.

Sealed over a baby to strengthen some ties —

Of power or wealth — had been bartered then

And sold and purchased, and now... but when

To her lover, the Clifford, she told this — there

He had faced with his love the talons of Death —

Only for her, who did stay with a stare

Of reproach all his heat and say in a breath,

“Is love, that thou sware to me aye and so often,

To live too feeble or — how?— doth it soften

And weaken away and — to die?— why die?—

Live and be strong! and this is why.” —

Her words are glued here so!... I remember

All as well as that sullen December,

That blustered and bullied about them and

Spat stiff its spiteful and cold-cutting snow

Where they talked there dreamily hand in hand,

While the rubbing boughs clashed rattling low.

Her last words these, “By curfew sure

On Christmas eve at the postern door.”

And we were there, and a void horse too:

Armed: for a journey I hardly knew

Whither, but why you well can guess.

I could have uttered a certain name —

Our comrade's sure — of what loveliness!

Waited with love, impatience aflame.

While Raglan bulged its baronial girth

To roar to its battlements Yule and song;

Retainers loud rollicked in wassail and mirth

Where the mistletoe‘ round the vast hearths hung,

And holly beberried the elden wall

Of curious oak in the banqueting hall.

And the spits, I trow, by the scullions turned

O'er the snoring logs, rich steamed and burned

With flesh; where the whole wild-boar was roasted

And the dun-deer flanks and the roebuck haunches;

Fat tuns of ale, that the cellars boasted,

Old casks of wine were broached for paunches

Of the vassals that reveled in bower and stall;

Pale pages who diced and bluff henchmen who quarr'led

Or swore in their cups, while lean mastiffs all,

O'er bones of the feast in their kennels snarled;

For Hortense — drink! drink!— by the Virgin's leave,

Were wed to this Lovell this Christmas Eve.

“Was she long — Did she come?”... By that postern we

Like shadows lurked. Said my lord Sir Hugh:

“Yon tower, remember!— that casement, see!—

When a stealthy light in its slit burns blue

And signals thrice slowly, thus —‘ tis she.”

And about his person his gaberdine drew,

For the wind it hugged and the snow beat thro’.

Did she come?— We had watched for an hour or twain

Ere that light burned there in the central pane

And was flourished thrice and departed so.

Then closer we packed to the postern portal

Horses and all in the stinging snow.

Stiff with the cold was I.— Immortal

Minutes we waited breath-bated and listened

Shuddering there in the gusty gale.

Whizzing o'er parapets sifted and glistened

Wild drift, thro’ battlements hissed in a veil.

Quoth my lord Sir Hugh, for his love was a-heat,

“She feels for the spring in the hidden panel

‘ Neath the tapestry... ah! thou hast pressed it, sweet!

— How black gulps open the secret channel!

Now cautiously step, and thy bridal garb

Swirled warm with a mantle o’ fur... she plants

One foot — then a pause — on the stair — So, Barb,

So!— If the tempest that barks and pants

Would throttle itself with its yelps! then I

Might hear but one footstep echo and sing

Down the ugly... there!‘ tis her fingers try

The massy bolts which the rust makes cling.”

But ever some whim of the wind that shook

The clanging ring of a creaking hook

In the buttress or wall; and we waited so

Till the East grew gray. Did she come?— ah, no!

I must tell you why, and enough:‘ Tis said

On the eve of the marriage she fled the side

Of the baron, the bridegroom too she fled,

With a mischievous laugh, “I'll hide! I'll hide!

Seek! and be sure to seek well!” and led

A wild chase after her, but defied

All search for — a score and ten more years,

And the laughter of Yule was changed to tears.

But they searched and the snow was bleared with the glare

Of torches that hurried thro’ chamber and stair;

And tower and court re-echoed her name,

But she laughed no answer and never came.

So over the channel to France with his King

And the Black Prince, sailed to the wars — to deaden

The ache of the mystery — Hugh that Spring,

And fell at Poitiers: for his loss lay leaden

On hope, and his life was a weary sadness,

So he flung it away with a very gladness.

And the baron died — and the bridegroom, well,—

Unlucky that bridegroom, sooth!— to tell

Of him there is nothing. The baron died;

The last of the Strongbows he, gramercy!

And the Clare estate with its wealth and its pride

Devolved to the Bloets, Walter or Percy.

Ten years and a score thereafter. And they

Ransacked the old castle and mark!— one day

In a lonesome tower uprummaged a chest

From Flanders, of sinister ebon, carved

Sardonic with masks‘ round an olden crest,

Gargoyle faces distorted and starved:

Fast fixed with a spring which they forced and lo!

When they opened it — ha, Hortense!— or, no!—

Fantastic a skeleton jeweled and wreathed

With flowers of dust, and a minever

About it hugged, which quaint richness sheathed

Of a bridal raiment and lace with fur.

— I'd have given such years of my life — yes, well!—

As were left me then so her lover, Hugh,

For such time breathed as it took one to tell

How she forever, deemed false, was true!

He'd have known how it was, “For, you see, in groping

For the puny spring of that panel — hoping

And fearing as nearer and nearer grew

The boisterous scramble — why, out she blew

Her windy taper and quick — in this chest

Wary would lie for — a minute, mayhap,

Till the hurry all passed; but the death-lock pressed

— Ere her heart was aware — with a hungry snap.”