Wanting the sun and rain to beat
His wings, soon lay with gathered feet;
And my flowers faded, lacking heat. 710
‘Such still were griefs: for grief was still
A separate sense, untouched
Of that despair which had become
My life. Great anguish could benumb
My soul, - my heart was quarrelsome. 715
‘Time crept. Upon a day at length
My kinsfolk sat with me:
That which they asked was bare and plain:
I answered: the whole bitter strain
Was again said, and heard again. 720
‘Fierce Raoul snatched his sword, and turned
The point against my breast.
I bared it, smiling: “To the heart
Strike home,” I said; “another dart
Wreaks hourly there a deadlier smart.” 725
‘ ’Twas then my sire struck down the sword,
And said with shaken lips:
“She from whom all of you receive
Your life, so smiled; and I forgive.”
Thus, for my mother’s sake, I live. 730
‘But I, a mother even as she,
Turned shuddering to the wall:
For I said: “Great God! and what would I do,
When to the sword, with the thing I knew,
I offered not one life but two!” 735
‘Then I fell back from them, and lay
Outwearied. My tired sense
Soon filmed and settled, and like stone
I slept; till something made me moan,
And I woke up at night alone. 740
‘I woke at midnight, cold and dazed;
Because I found myself
Seated upright, with bosom bare,
Upon my bed, combing my hair,
Ready to go, I knew not where. 745
‘It dawned light day, - the last of those
Long months of longing days.
That noon, the change was wrought on me
In somewise, - nought to hear or see, -
Only a trance and agony.’ 750
The bride’s voice failed her, from no will
To pause. The bridesmaid leaned,
And where the window-panes were white,
Looked for the day: she knew not quite
If there were either day or night. 755
It seemed to Aloÿse that the whole
Day’s weight lay back on her
Like lead. The hours that did remain
Beat their dry wings upon her brain
Once in mid-flight, and passed again. 760
There hung a cage of burnt perfumes
In the recess: but these,
For some hours, weak against the sun,
Had simmered in white ash. From One
The second quarter was begun. 765
They had not heard the stroke. The air,
Though altered with no wind,
Breathed now by pauses, so to say:
Each breath was time that went away, -
Each pause a minute of the day. 770
I’ the almonry, the almoner,
Hard by, had just dispensed
Church-dole and march-dole. High and wide
Now rose the shout of thanks, which cried
On God that He should bless the bride. 775
Its echo thrilled within their feet,
And in the furthest rooms
Was heard, where maidens flushed and gay
Wove with stooped necks the wreaths alway
Fair for the virgin’s marriage-day. 780
The mother leaned along, in thought
After her child; till tears,
Bitter, not like a wedded girl’s,
Fell down her breast along her curls,
And ran in the close work of pearls. 785
The speech ached at her heart. She said:
‘Sweet Mary, do thou plead
This hour with thy most blessed Son
To let these shameful words atone,
That I may die when I have done.’ 790
The thought ached at her soul. Yet now: -
‘Itself - that life’ (she said,)
Out of my weary life - when sense
Unclosed, was gone. What evil men’s
Most evil hands had borne it thence 795
‘I knew, and cursed them. Still in sleep
I have my child; and pray
To know if it indeed appear
As in my dream’s perpetual sphere,
That I - death reached - may seek it there. 800
‘Sleeping, I wept; though until dark
A fever dried mine eyes
Kept open; save when a tear might
Be forced from the mere ache of sight.
And I nursed hatred day and night. 805
‘Aye, and I sought revenge by spells;
And vainly many a time
Have laid my face into the lap
Of a wise woman, and heard clap
Her thunder, the fiend’s juggling trap. 810
‘At length I feared to curse them, lest
From evil lips the curse
Should be a blessing; and would sit
Rocking myself and stifling it
With babbled jargon of no wit. 815
‘But this was not at first: the days
And weeks made frenzied months
Before this came. My curses, pil’d
Then with each hour unreconcil’d,
Still wait for those who took my child.’ 820
She stopped, grown fainter. ‘Amelotte,
Surely,’ she said, ‘this sun
Sheds judgment-fire from the fierce south:
It does not let me breathe: the drouth
Is like sand spread within my mouth.’ 825
The bridesmaid rose. I’ the outer glare
Gleamed her pale cheeks, and eyes
Sore troubled; and aweary weigh’d
Her brows just lifted out of shade;
And the light jarred within her head. 830
‘Mid flowers fair-heaped there stood a bowl
With water. She therein
Through eddying bubbles slid a cup,
And offered it, being risen up,
Close to her sister’s mouth, to sup. 835
The freshness dwelt upon her sense,
Yet did not the bride drink;
But she dipped in her hand anon
And cooled her temples; and all wan
With lids that held their ache, went on 840
‘Through those dark watches of my woe
Time, an ill plant, had waxed
Apace. That year was finished. Dumb
And blind, life’s wheel with earth’s had come
Whirled round: and we might seek our home 845
Our wealth was rendered back, with wealth
Snatched from our foes. The house
Had more than its old strength and fame:
But still ‘neath the fair outward claim
I rankled, - a fierce core of shame. 850
‘It chilled me from their eyes and lips
Upon a night of those
First days of triumph, as I gazed
Listless and sick, or scarcely raised
My face to mark the sports they praised. 855
‘The endless changes of the dance
Bewildered me: the tones
Of lute and cithern struggled tow’rds
Some sense; and still in the last chords
The music seemed to sing wild words. 860
‘My shame possessed me in the light
And pageant, till I swooned.
But from that hour I put my shame
From me, and cast it over them
By God’s command and in God’s name 865
‘For my child’s bitter sake. O thou
Once felt against my heart
With longing of the eyes, - a pain
Since to my heart for ever, - t
hen
Beheld not, and not felt again!’ 870
She scarcely paused, continuing: -
‘That year drooped weak in March;
And April, finding the streams dry,
Choked, with no rain, in dust: the sky
Shall not be fainter this July. 875
‘Men sickened; beasts lay without strength;
The year died in the land.
But I, already desolate,
Said merely, sitting down to wait, -
“The seasons change and Time wears late.” 880
‘For I had my hard secret told,
In secret, to a priest;
With him I communed; and he said
The world’s soul, for its sins, was sped,
And the sun’s courses numbered. 885
‘The year slid like a corpse afloat:
None trafficked, - who had bread
Did eat. That year our legions, come
Thinned from the place of war, at home
Found busier death, more burdensome. 890
‘Tidings and rumours came with them,
The first for months. The chiefs
Sat daily at our board, and in
Their speech were names of friend and kin:
One day they spoke of Urscelyn. 895
‘The words were light, among the rest:
Quick glance my brothers sent
To sift the speech; and I, struck through,
Sat sick and giddy in full view:
Yet did none gaze, so many knew. 900
‘Because in the beginning, much
Had caught abroad, through them
That heard my clamour on the coast:
But two were hanged; and then the most
Held silence wisdom, as thou know’st. 905
‘That year the convent yielded thee
Back to our home; and thou
Then knew’st not how I shuddered cold
To kiss thee, seeming to enfold
To my changed heart myself of old. 910
‘Then there was showing thee the house,
So many rooms and doors;
Thinking the while how thou wouldst start
If once I flung the doors apart
Of one dull chamber in my heart 915
‘And yet I longed to open it;
And often in that year
Of plague and want, when side by side
We’ve knelt to pray with them that died,
My prayer was, “Show her what I hide!” 920
END OF PART I
SONG AND MUSIC
O leave your hand where it lies cool
Upon the eyes whose lids are hot:
Its rosy shade is bountiful
Of silence, and assuages thought.
O lay your lips against your hand 5
And let me feel your breath through it,
While through the sense your song shall fit
The soul to understand.
The music lives upon my brain
Between your hands within mine eyes; 10
It stirs your lifted throat like pain,
An aching pulse of melodies.
Lean nearer, let the music pause:
The soul may better understand
Your music, shadowed in your hand, 15
Now while the song withdraws.
PLACE DE LA BASTILLE, PARIS
How dear the sky has been above this place!
Small treasures of this sky that we see here
Seen weak through prison-bars from year to year;
Eyed with a painful prayer upon God’s grace
To save, and tears that stayed along the face
Lifted at sunset. Yea, how passing dear,
Those nights when through the bars a wind left clear
The heaven, and moonlight soothed the limpid space!
So was it, till one night the secret kept
Safe in low vault and stealthy corridor 10
Was blown abroad on gospel-tongues of flame.
O ways of God, mysterious evermore!
How many on this spot have cursed and wept
That all might stand here now and own Thy Name.
WELLINGTON’S FUNERAL
18TH NOVEMBER 1852
‘VICTORY!’
So once more the cry must be.
Duteous mourning we fulfil
In God’s name; but by God’s will, 5
Doubt not, the last word is still
‘Victory!’
Funeral,
In the music round this pall,
Solemn grief yields earth to earth;
But what tones of solemn mirth 10
In the pageant of new birth
Rise and fall?
For indeed,
If our eyes were openèd,
Who shall say what escort floats 15
Here, which breath nor gleam denotes, -
Fiery horses, chariots
Fire-footed?
Trumpeter,
Even thy call he may not hear; 20
Long-known voice for ever past,
Till with one more trumpet-blast
God’s assuring word at last
Reach his ear.
Multitude, 25
Hold your breath in reverent mood:
For while earth’s whole kindred stand
Mute even thus on either hand,
This soul’s labour shall be scann’d
And found good. 30
Cherubim,
Lift ye not even now your hymn?
Lo! once lent for human lack,
Michael’s sword is rendered back.
Thrills not now the starry track, 35
Seraphim?
Gabriel,
Since the gift of thine ‘All hail!’
Out of Heaven no time hath brought
Gift with fuller blessing fraught 40
Than the peace which this man wrought
Passing well.
Be no word
Raised of bloodshed Christ-abhorr’d.
Say: “Twas thus in His decrees 45
Who Himself, the Prince of Peace,
For His harvest’s high increase
Sent a sword.’
Veterans,
He by whom the neck of France 50
Then was given unto your heel,
Timely sought, may lend as well
To your sons his terrible
Countenance.
Waterloo! 55
As the last grave must renew,
Ere fresh death, the banshee-strain, -
So methinks upon thy plain
Falls some presage in the rain,
In the dew. 60
And O thou,
Watching with an exile’s brow
Unappeased, o’er death’s dumb flood: -
Lo! the saving strength of God
In some new heart’s English blood 65
Slumbers now.
Emperor,
Is this all thy work was for? -
Thus to see thy self-sought aim,
Yea thy titles, yea thy name 70
In another’s shame, to shame
Bandied o’er?
Wellington,
Thy great work is but begun.
With quick seed his end is rife 75
Whose long tale of conquering strife
Shows no triumph like his life
Lost and won.
THE CHURCH PORCH I
Sister, first shake we off the dust we have
Upon our feet, lest it defile the stones
Inscriptured, covering their sacred bones
Who lie i’ the aisles which keep the names they gave,
Their trust abiding round them in the grave; 5
Whom painters paint for visible orisons,
And to whom sculptors pray in stone and bronze;
Their voices echo still like a spent wave.
Without here, the church-bells are but a tune,
And on the carven church-door
this hot noon 10
Lays all its heavy sunshine here without:
But having entered in, we shall find there
Silence, and sudden dimness, and deep prayer,
And faces of crowned angels all about.
THE CHURCH PORCH II
Sister, arise: We have no more to sing
Or say. The priest abideth as is meet
To minister. Rise up out of thy seat
Though peradventure ’tis an irksome thing
To cross again the threshold of our King 5
Where His doors stand against the evil street,
And let each step increase upon our feet
The dust we shook from them at entering.
Must we of very sooth go home? The air,
Whose heat outside makes mist that can be seen, 10
Is very cool and clear where we have been.
The priest abideth, ministering. Lo!
As he for service, why not we for prayer?
It is so bidden, sister, let us go.
WORDS ON THE WINDOW-PANE
Did she in summer write it, or in spring,
Or with this wail of autumn at her ears,
Or in some winter left among old years
Scratched it through tettered cark? A certain thing
That round her heart the frost was hardening, 5
Not to be thawed of tears, which on this pane
Channelled the rime, perchance, in fevered rain,
For false man’s sake and love’s most bitter sting.
Howbeit, between this last word and the next
Unwritten, subtly seasoned was the smart, 10
And here at least the grace to weep: if she,
Rather, midway in her disconsolate text,
Rebelled not, loathing from the trodden heart
That thing which she had found man’s love to be.
GIOVENTÛ E SIGNORIA - YOUTH AND LORDSHIP
An Italian Street Song
È giovine il signore,
Ed ama molte cose, -
I canti, le rose,
La forza e l’amore.
Quel che più vuole
Ancor non osa:
Ahi più che il sole,
Più ch’ ogni rosa,
La cara cosa,
Donna a gioire.
È giovine il signore,
Ed ama quelle cose
Che ardor dispose
In cuore all’ amore.
Bella fanciulla,
Guardalo in viso;
Non mancar nulla,
Motto o sorriso;
Ma viso a viso
Guarda a gradire.
E giovine il signore,
Ed ama tutte cose,
Vezzose, giojose,
Tenenti all’ amore.
Prendilo in braccio
Adesso o mai;
Per più mi taccio,
Chè tu lo sai;
Bacialo e l’avrai,
Complete Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Page 18