By some tall damsels tiremaids of some queen
Stately and dark, who moved as if a sheen
Of starlight spread her presence; and she came
With healing herbs and searched my wounds. A dame
So marvelous in raiment silvery
I feared lest some attendant chaste were she
To that high Holy Grael, which Arthur hath
Sought ever widely by hoar wood and path; —
Thus not for me, a worldly one, to love,
Who loved her even to wonder; skied above
His worship as our moon above the Main,
That passions upward yearning in great pain,
And suffers wearily from year to year,
She peaceful pitiless with virgin cheer. —
Ah, ideal love, as merciless as fate!
And, oh, that savage aching which must wait
For its fulfillment, tortured love in tears,
Until that beauty dreamed of many years
Bends over one from luminous skies, so grand
One's weakness fears to touch its mastering hand,
And hesitates and stammers nothings weak,
And loves and loves with love that can not speak!
Ah, there's the tyranny that breeds despair;
Breaks hearts whose strong youth by one golden hair
Coiled 'round the throat is sooner strangled dumb
Than by a glancing dagger thrust from gloom
Of an old arras at the very hour
One thought one safest in one's guarded tower. —
Thus, Morgane, worshiping that lady I
Was speechless; longing now to live, now die,
As her fine face suggested secrets of
Some passion kin to mine, or scorn of love
That dragged heroic humbleness to her feet,
For one long look that spake and made such sweet.
Ah, never dreamed I of what was to be, —
Nay! nay! how could I? while that agony
Of doubtful love denied my heart too much,
Too much to dream of that perfection such
As was to grant me boisterous hours of life
And sever all the past as with a knife!
"One night a tempest scourged and beat and lashed
The writhing forest and vast thunders crashed
Clamorous with clubs of leven, and anon,
Between the thunder pauses, seas would groan
Like some enormous curse a knight hath lured
From where it soared to maim it with his sword.
I, with eyes partly lidded, seemed to see
That cloudy, wide-wrenched night's eternity
Yawn hells of golden ghastliness; and sweep
Distending foams tempestuous up each steep
Of furious iron, where pale mermaids sit
With tangled hair black-blown, who, bit by bit,
Chant glimmering; beckoning on to strangling arms
Some hurt bark hurrying in the ravenous storm's
Resistless exultation; till there came
One breaker mounting inward, all aflame
With glow-worm green, to boom against the cliff
Its thunderous bulk – and there, sucked pale and stiff,
Tumbled in eddies up the howling rocks
My dead, drawn face; eyes lidless; matted locks
Oozed close with brine; tossed upward merrily
By streaming mermaids. – Madly seemed to see
The vampire echoes of the hoarse wood, who,
Collected, sought me; down the casement drew
Wet, shuddering fingers sharply; thronging fast
Up hooting turrets, fell thick screaming, cast
Down bastioned battlements trooped whistling off;
From the wild woodland growled a backward scoff. —
Then far away, hoofs of a thousand gales,
As wave rams wave up windy bluffs of Wales,
Loosed from the groaning hills, the cohorts loud,
Spirits of thunder, charioteered of cloud,
Roared down the rocking night cored with the glare
Of fiery eyeballs swimming; their drenched hair
Blown black as rain unkempt back from black brows,
Wide mouths of storm that voiced a hell carouse
And bulged tight cheeks with wind, rolled riotous by
Ruining to ruinous cliffs to headlong die.
"Once when the lightning made the casement glare
Squares touched to gold, between it rose her hair,
As if a raven's wing had cut the storm
Death-driven seaward; and a vague alarm
Stung me with terrors of surmise where hope
As yet pruned weak wings crippled by their scope.
And, lo, she kneeled low, radiant, wonderful,
Lawn-raimented and white; kneeled low, – 'to lull
These thoughts of night such storms might shape in thee,
All such to peace and sleep,' – Ah, God! to see
Her like a benediction fleshed! with her
Hearing her voice! her cool hand wandering bare
Wistful on feverish brow thro' long deep curls!
To see her rich throat's carcaneted pearls
Rise as her pulses! eyes' large influence
Poured toward me straight as stars, whose sole defense
Against all storm is their bold beauty! then
To feel her breathe and hear her speak again!
'Love, mark,' I said or dreamed I moaned in dreams,
'How wails the tumult and the thunder gleams!
As if of Arthur's knights had charged two fields
Bright as sun-winds of dawn; swords, spears and shields
Flashed lordly shocked; had, – to a man gone down
In burst of battle hurled, – lain silent sown.
Love, one eternal tempest thus with thee
Were calm, dead calm! but, no! – for thee in me
Such calm proves tempest. Speak; I feel thy voice
Throb soft, caressing silence, healing noise.'
"Is radiance loved of radiance? day of day?
Lithe beam of beam and laughing ray of ray?
Hope loved of hope and happiness of joy,
Or love of love, who hath the world for toy?
And thou – thou lov'st my voice? fond Accolon!
Why not – yea, why not? – nay! – I prithee! –