V.

Northward they climbed from out the valley mist;

Northward they crossed the sun-enchanted fells;

Northward they plunged down deep, fern-hidden dells;

And northward yet — until the sapphire noon

Had burned and glowed to thunderous amethyst

Of evening skies about an opal moon;

Northward they followed fast the loud-tongued fame

Of young Sir Geoffrey of the golden helm;

Until it seemed that storm must overwhelm

Their weary flight. They sought a lodging-place,

And soon upon a lonely cell they came

Wherein a hermit laboured after grace.

On beds of withered bracken, soft and warm,

He housed them, and himself, all night, alone,

Knelt in long vigil on the aching stone,

Within his little chapel, though, all night,

His prayers were drowned by thunders of the storm,

And all about him flashed blue, pulsing light.

Christine in calm, undreaming slumber lay,

Nor stirred till, clear and glittering, the morn

Sang through the forest; though, with roots uptorn,

The mightiest-limbed and highest-soaring oak

Had fallen charred, with green leaves shrivelled grey.

At tinkling of the matin-bell she woke,

And soon with Philip left the woodland boughs

For barer uplands. Over tawny bent

And purpling heath they rode till day was spent;

When, down within a broad, green-dusking dale,

They sought the shelter of the holy house

Of God's White Sisters of the Virgin's Veil.

So, day by day, they ever northward pressed,

Until they left the lands of peace behind,

And rode among the border-hills, where blind

Insatiate warfare ever rages fierce;

Where night-winds ever fan a fiery crest,

And dawn's light breaks on bright, embattled spears:

A land whose barren hills are helmed with towers;

A lone, grey land of battle-wasted shires;

A land of blackened barns and empty byres;

A land of rock-bound holds and robber-hordes,

Of slumberous noons and wakeful midnight hours,

Of ambushed dark and moonlight flashing swords.

With hand on hilt and ever-kindling eyes,

Flushed face and quivering nostril, Philip rode;

But nought assailed them; every lone abode

Forsaken seemed; all empty lay the land

Beneath the empty sky; only the cries

Of plovers pierced the blue on either hand;

Until, at sudden cresting of a hill,

The clang of battle sounded on their ears,

And, far below, they saw a surge of spears

Crash on unyielding ranks; while, from the sea

Of striving steel, with deathly singing shrill,

A spray of arrows flickered fitfully.

Amazed they stood, wide-eyed, with holden breath;

When, of a sudden, flashed upon their sight

The golden helm in midmost of the fight,

Where, with high-lifted head and undismayed,

Sir Geoffrey rode, a very lord of death,

With ever-leaping, ever-crashing blade.

Christine watched long, now cold with quaking dread,

Now hot with hope as each assailant fell;

The bright sword held her gaze as by a spell;

Because love blinded her to all but love,

Unmoved she watched the foemen shudder dead,

She whose heart erst the meanest woe could move.

Then, dazed, she saw a solitary shaft,

Unloosed with certain aim from out the bow,

Strike clean through Geoffrey's hauberk, and bring low

The golden helm, while o'er him swiftly met

The tides of fight. Christine a little laughed

With rattling throat, and stood with still eyes set.

Scarce Philip dared to raise his eyes to hers

To see the terror there. No word she spake,

But leaned a little forward through the brake

That bloomed about her in a golden blaze;

Her hands were torn to bleeding by the furze,

Yet nothing could disturb that dreadful gaze.

Then, gradually, the heaving battle swerved

To northward, faltering broken, and afar

It closed again, where, round a jutting scar,

The flashing torrent of the river curved.

With eager step Christine ran down the hill,

And sped across the late-forsaken field

To where, with shattered sword and splintered shield,

Among the mounded bodies Geoffrey lay.

She loosed his helm, but deathly pale and still

His young face gleamed within the light of day.

Christine beside him knelt, as Philip sought

A draught of water from the peat-born stream;

When, in his eyes, at last, a fitful gleam

Flickered, and bending low, with straining ears,

The laboured breathing of her name she caught;

And over his dead face fell fast her tears.

Once more towards them the tide of battle swept;

Christine moved not. Young Philip on her cried,

And strove, in vain, to draw her safe aside.

A random shaft in her unshielded breast —

Though hot to stay its course her brother leapt —

Struck quivering, and she slowly sank to rest.