Where now her dying husband lay!
Urged by such thought, she paused no more;
And, as the Abbey’s guardian roof
Might shield him, should the last be o’er,
There would she seek her first dread proof.
XXIX.
She turned her steed, and gave the rein.
But checked awhile his course again,
As from by-way and near she heard
A slow wheel pressing the green-sward.
It bore, beneath the veiling shade,
Some wounded chieftain lowly laid.
In dread attention Florence sees,
As the light steals through parted trees,
The mute train turn the jutting bank,
(Where the high beech, of silver rind,
Caught the slant sunbeam ere it sank,)
And through the deepening forest wind.
The level radiance, shooting far
Within the shadows, touched that car;
And, glancing o’er a steely crest,
Flushed the wan visage in it pressed.
Too distant fell the slanting light
To bring the features forth to sight;
But played on falchions drawn around,
Guarding their chief o’er dangerous ground
And gleamed upon the silver badge,
Of lofty servitude the pledge.
XXX.
Florence restrained the impulse strong,
That would have forced her to that throng,
And Leonard hastened to explore
Some signal of the Chief they bore,
While she, within the deepest gloom,
Watched, as for sentence of her doom.
She marked, when he o’ertook the chief,
No gesture of surprise, or grief.
Soon, where the broader foliage shed
It’s gloom o’er woodbanks high and steep,
Beyond the warriors’ way there creep
A sandaled group with hooded head,
Silently from the umbrage deep.
This pilgrim-band might scarce be known,
Clad in their amice grey,
From tint of boughs with moss o’ergrown;
But that some clasp, or chainlet shone,
And ruddy tinge their faces own
Of the full Western ray.
XXXI.
As from the pass that shadowy train
Sought Alban’s sheltering aisles to gain,
Unknowing that the war s sad course
Had thither brought Duke Richard’s force,
Sudden, the wounded Chief they meet,
And, doubting, wondering, pitying, greet.
Leonard, while he drew near, o’erheard
The meeting Pilgrim’s hailing word,
And question, on the spreading war,
And who was borne upon the car?
There lay Earl Stafford, wounded sore,
Whom Buckingham must long deplore:
Then prompt good wishes they exchange,
State of the roads and pass declare,
Give news of war, and counsel fair
How best the Pilgrims may arrange
Their distant way, through secret path,
To gain, ere night, some quiet hearth.
XXXII.
Leonard asked tidings of his lord
From all who, round that bleeding car,
Halted with watchful eye and guard.
And various rumours of the war
They told, of chiefs slain, saved, or fled;
Clifford and Henry too were dead:
Brief and unsure was all they said.
Baron Fitzharding? He was slain —
Some told, and some denied again.
Leonard, on mention of his death,
With eager look and trembling breath,
Straight to the Chief himself addressed
His question; who, howe’er distressed,
Upraised with patient courtesy
His languid head, for brief reply: —
“‘Twas said, that, early in the strife,
Fitzharding fell, yielding his life
To Richard’s sword; but then such tale
Should not as certainty prevail;
For those engaged in ardent fight
Know not who falls beyond their sight.”
XXXIII.
Ere yet the hasty talk had passed,
Swelled on the calm a clarion’s blast;
Then sudden and near shout thrilled high,
And pain and terror’s mingled cry.
The Earl gave signal to proceed;
And wishes warm the conference close
For life and health and safe repose.
The car then moved with feeble speed.
Fixed in dismay the Pilgrims stood,
Till Leonard, pointing through the wood,
Told where a little dim path wound,
Remote from Alban’s fatal ground.
Then bent he with the fearful tale
To Florence. How may he prevail
To lead her home? How soothe her woes,
When his dire news he shall disclose?
XXXIV.
While she had watched his steps with doubt,
She heard the faint pursuing shout,
And marked where trailed the distant rout.
But, even here, where all seemed lone,
The dreariness was not her own;
At times came nearer voice, and yell
Of wandering bands, or bugle’s swell
In signal-call, or laughter loud,
Horrid to her, as voice from shroud!
Others there were who shunned the road,
Anxious to reach some safe abode,
Ere yet the brooding tempest fell;
For so the gestures seemed to tell
Of men, who, on the wild heath turned,
And pointing where the red gloom burned,
A moment paused, as if to say
“How dark the storm comes on our way!”
XXXV.
Sudden, while Silence slept around,
Her courser listened, as if sound
Disturbed his watchful ear;
With feet outstretched and rising mane,
Averted head and eyes, that strain,
He gazed, in stiffening fear;
Then reared, and, with a restive bound,
He bore her from that fearful ground,
Ere she had aught perceived for dread,
Or sound had heard, that terror spread.
Vainly she tried to rein her steed;
So docile late, he keeps his speed,
Though now they meet a haggard group,
Who, with fierce gesture and wild whoop,
Would check his rapid flight;
Trying, when near, to snatch the rein;
To chase, when passed; but still in vain;
He bears her from their might.
XXXVI.
Pencil alone may trace such woe
As darkened faithful Leonard’s brow,
When he had reached the oak’s lone gloom
Where Florence dared to meet her doom,
And found her not! But, while around
He searched the close embowered ground,
A form terrific fixed his eyes.
Sheltered within the thickest shade,
There lay a pale and dying head:
In blood an armoured warrior lies!
It was his lowly, faltering groan!
His casque, where a stray light had shone,
And might give glimpse of ghastly face,
Betrayed him to the startled steed;
Who bore his mistress off at speed,
Ere she his cause of fear could trace.
XXXVII.
Ere Leonard, ‘neath the darksome bough,
Might the dead form, or feature, know,
A fearful sound and shrill and high
Upon the rushing breeze went nigh.
/> A shriek it seemed — again he hears
The voice, that summoned all his fears.
Once more he listened, but the breeze
Rolled lonely o’er the bended trees,
And died, but, as it swelled again,
Brought on it’s tide that note of pain!
Leonard, ere yet the plaint might close,
Turned his good steed the way it rose.
CANTO VI.
THE EVENING AFTER THE BATTLE.
SCENE — WITHIN THE TOWN AND ABBEY OF ST. ALBAN’S.
I.
THOUGH now, within St. Alban’s wall,
Was hushed the turmoil of the day,
The crash of arms, the Chieftain’s call,
The onset shout, the clarion’s bray.
The stillness there was scarce less dread
Of those, who, looking on the dead,
In voice suppressed and trembling spake,
As if they feared the very sound,
Or, that it might disturb, or wake
The victims stretched around.
Yet, sometimes, ‘mid this calm of fear,
Rose sudden cries of woe most drear
For friend or kinsman found.
But, though the slain filled all the ground,
No brother yet dared brother move,
Or close his eyes with pious love;
And, though amid that ghastly band
Lay chiefs and nobles of the land,
Yet might no man his pity prove;
Nor herald take his fearful course,
To know and name the new-made corpse.
II.
Earl Warwick ruled that woeful hour.
What were compassion ‘gainst his power?
How many, fallen upon that heap.
Warm and alive, but succourless,
Had there unnoticed ‘found the sleep
His will might never more distress!
While he disputed, planned, arranged
Ambition’s little dream of fame,
Or with his peers, or knights, exchanged
Some narrow points of rival claim.
And thus it went till eventide;
And then the mitred fathers’ cry,
That those who had, on each side, died,
Should rest with equal honours here,
Was coldly granted; while a tear
Of saddest pity filled his eye,
Who pleaded for such ministry.
The monks, too, asked an armed band
Might round their Abbey portals stand,
And yet another guard their way,
When they their pious dues should pay,
And step amid th’ unhallowed troop,
Who o’er the dead and dying stoop.
III.
Then went the heralds on their round,
Proclaiming forth the dead;
And, following on that blood-stained ground,
York’s plundering lancemen sped.
And then, sustained by courage high,
Pale brothers of the monastery,
Solemn and still and sad went by;
Nor shrunk they, with an useless fear,
To do their awful office here.
IV.
Then straight were borne to Alban’s aisle,
Rescued by guard from wanton spoil,
Dead chief and prince and noble knight,
High plumed, and harnessed for the fight,
To rest, all in their steely gear,
In consecrated chapel there;
Knights, who that very morning rode
Beneath the Abbey’s tower,
And hardly owned the earth they trod,
Or any earthly power.
So light in hope, so high in pride,
Pranced they to battle, side by side:
Now under Death’s dim flag enrolled,
Their transient story now all told;
Still, comrades, side by side, they go,
And side by side, though shrined in brass,
Must soon into oblivion pass;
Scarce word shall live, nor sign, to show
What spirit’s dust sleeps there below.
V.
‘Twas well Duke Richard granted guard;
Much need had they of warlike ward —
Those hooded monks and lay;
Since armour rich of men they bear
The conquerors might strive to tear
From the dead corpse away.
And hardly did the guardian sword,
Or written sign of Richard’s word,
Deter from bloody fray.
And scarce the palls the Abbot sent
To shade the noble slain,
While through the open street they went,
Could hide bright casque, or chain.
Oft would a sullen murmur run
From lancemen rude the porch beside,
That the rich armour they had won
Should be preserved for chieftain’s pride
That they, who braved so much of toil,
Should share not in the hard-earned spoil.
They laughed in scorn, when it was said,
Such spoil would in the grave be laid,
Fit shrouding for a warrior dead.
Forty and nine of dead alone
Then bear they through the gate;
And many wounded men unknown,
Their pious care and pity own,
Too oft in dying state.
VI.
How mournful was the scene and dread
Of monks around those warriors dead.
Laid out in aisle and nave,
When, through the western window’s height,
The red sun, ere he sunk in night,
His last sad farewell gave!
His beams a darkened glory threw,
Tinged with that gorgeous window’s hue,
On every vault and arch on high;
Glanced on each secret gallery,
And half unveiled it’s mystery;
While shrine and bier and form of woe
Lay sunk in shadows deep below.
Grand as the closing battle-hour,
Yet gloomy as it’s fateful power,
Hovered that light above the slain,
Last light of their last day, and vain.
VII.
‘Twas at this hour of twilight pale,
When curfew-bell gave heavy wail,
A Pilgrim to the Abbey came
Brief rest and timely aid to claim.
While seated in Refectory
Thus did he to the warders state.
That, trusting to no bravery,
But to his honoured weed, his fate,
He passed alone the tented line
Of Richard’s camp, his outer guard,
And the town barrier’s watch and ward.
Now, when the Abbey-band asked sign,
And answer due to their watchword,
He ne’er before their pass had heard.
Then other means he tried to gain
The warders, and tried not in vain;
His gift bestowed, he pressed his way,
Where dim the convent portal lay.
VIII.
Lofty and dark that porch arose,
By fits the vaulting shown,
When the tossed torch a red flash throws
O’er thick-ribbed arch and crowning rose,
And hooded face of carved stone.
While passed the dead and dying through.
There watched the Pilgrim, hid from view,
Within a turret’s dusky stair,
Whence he might note what corpse they bear
He watched, with fixed and tearless eye,
The warrior’s death-march crowding by.
IX.
Under the gloom of portal door,
On bier and shield while soldiers bore
The hopeless wounded and the dead,
Pale monks with lifted torches led,
And Abbey-knights in silence ward;
Following came lancemen, as rear-guard.
The dying forms, then passing by,
Showed every shade of misery,
Mingling with warlike pageantry.
Some lay in quilted brigandine,
Others in polished armour shine,
And some in surcoat blazoned high.
Some were in ‘bossed and damasked steel,
With threatening crest and plumed head;
These the closed helmet-bars conceal.
On others the raised vizor shed
A shade athwart the eyes more dread
Even than the wounds it might expose.
And some there were, whose shroud-like mail,
Binding the chin and forehead pale,
Would all the dying look disclose!
O! that poor look, that sinking eye,
When glanced a light from torch on high,
Held by some mute o’erbending monk,
Of ghastly air and visage shrunk;
Whose wanness, though of different hue
From his, that lay beneath his view,
Yet, seen beside the living tint
Of men, who bore the corpse away,
Seemed but a fleeting shadowy hint
Of one, who had lived yesterday,
As with still step he passed along
The wounded and the dying throng.
X.
Once, as the grave’s dark guests pass by,
The Pilgrim’s sad and bursting sigh
Betrayed him in that shaded nook;
And, as the sound fell on the ear
Of monk, attendant on the bier,
He raised his torch around to look.
It showed him but the portal-roof,
The studded gates, long battle-proof,
The low-browed door and turret-stair,
And not the dark weed resting there.
And, had he spied that pilgrim-weed,
The form beneath he might not read,
Nor guess the world there hid, the fears,
The trembling thought, that sees and hears.
In every shape, in every sound,
Image, or hint of grief profound;
The pang, that seeks the worst to know,
Yet shrinks, and shuns the meeting woe,
Affection’s pang, o’er-watching care,
And, sickness of the heart! despair.
Yes; it was Florence there who stood,
Watching each passing corpse,
And waiting till a firmer mood
Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) Page 254