Shall set me from thy bondage free.”
And there the man had died self-slain,
But Balen leapt on him and caught
The blind fierce hand that fain had wrought
Self-murder, stung with fire of thought,
As rage makes anguish fain.
Then, mad for thwarted grief, “Let go
My hand,” the fool of wrath and woe
Cried, “or I slay thee.” Scarce the glow
In Balen’s cheek and eye might show,
As dawn shows day while seas lie chill,
He heard, though pity took not heed,
But smiled and spake, “That shall not need:
What man may do to bid you speed
I, so God speed me, will.”
And the other craved his name, beguiled
By hope that made his madness mild.
Again Sir Balen spake and smiled:
“My name is Balen, called the Wild
By knights whom kings and courts make tame
Because I ride alone afar
And follow but my soul for star.”
“Ah, sir, I know the knight you are
And all your fiery fame.
“The knight that bears two swords I know,
Most praised of all men, friend and foe,
For prowess of your hands, that show
Dark war the way where balefires glow
And kindle glory like the dawn’s.”
So spake the sorrowing knight, and stood
As one whose heart fresh hope made good:
And forth they rode by wold and wood
And down the glimmering lawns.
And Balen craved his name who rode
Beside him, where the wild wood glowed
With joy to feel how noontide flowed
Through glade and glen and rough green road
Till earth grew joyful as the sea.
“My name is Garnysshe of the Mount,
A poor man’s son of none account,”
He said, “where springs of loftier fount
Laugh loud with pride to be.
“But strength in weakness lives and stands
As rocks that rise through shifting sands;
And for the prowess of my hands
One made me knight and gave me lands,
Duke Hermel, lord from far to near,
Our prince; and she that loved me — she
I love, and deemed she loved but me,
His daughter, pledged her faith to be
Ere now beside me here.”
And Balen, brief of speech as light
Whose word, beheld of depth and height,
Strikes silence through the stars of night,
Spake, and his face as dawn’s grew bright,
For hope to help a happier man,
“How far then lies she hence?” “By this,”
Her lover sighed and said, “I wis,
Not six fleet miles the passage is,
And straight as thought could span.”
So rode they swift and sure, and found
A castle walled and dyked around:
And Balen, as a warrior bound
On search where hope might fear to sound
The darkness of the deeps of doubt,
Made entrance through the guardless gate
As life, while hope in life grows great,
Makes way between the doors of fate
That death may pass thereout.
Through many a glorious chamber, wrought
For all delight that love’s own thought
Might dream or dwell in, Balen sought
And found of all he looked for nought,
For like a shining shell her bed
Shone void and vacant of her: thence
Through devious wonders bright and dense
He passed and saw with shame-struck sense
Where shame and faith lay dead.
Down in a sweet small garden, fair
With flowerful joy in the ardent air,
He saw, and raged with loathing, where
She lay with love-dishevelled hair
Beneath a broad bright laurel tree
And clasped in amorous arms a knight,
The unloveliest that his scornful sight
Had dwelt on yet; a shame the bright
Broad noon might shrink to see.
And thence in wrathful hope he turned,
Hot as the heart within him burned,
To meet the knight whose love, so spurned
And spat on and made nought of, yearned
And dreamed and hoped and lived in vain,
And said, “I have found her sleeping fast,”
And led him where the shadows cast
From leaves wherethrough light winds ran past
Screened her from sun and rain.
But Garnysshe, seeing, reeled as he stood
Like a tree, kingliest of the wood,
Half hewn through: and the burning blood
Through lips and nostrils burst aflood:
And gathering back his rage and might
As broken breakers rally and roar
The loud wind down that drives off shore,
He smote their heads off: there no more
Their life might shame the light.
Then turned he back toward Balen, mad
With grief, and said, “The grief I had
Was nought: ere this my life was glad:
Thou hast done this deed: I was but sad
And fearful how my hope might fare:
I had lived my sorrow down, hadst thou
Not shown me what I saw but now.”
The sorrow and scorn on Balen’s brow
Bade silence curb him there.
And Balen answered: “What I did
I did to hearten thee and bid
Thy courage know that shame should rid
A man’s high heart of love that hid
Blind shame within its core: God knows,
I did, to set a bondman free,
But as I would thou hadst done by me,
That seeing what love must die to see
Love’s end might well be woe’s.”
“Alas,” the woful weakling said,
“I have slain what most I loved: I have shed
The blood most near my heart: the head
Lies cold as earth, defiled and dead,
That all my life was lighted by,
That all my soul bowed down before,
And now may bear with life no more:
For now my sorrow that I bore
Is twofold, and I die.”
Then with his red wet sword he rove
His breast in sunder, where it clove
Life, and no pulse against it strove,
So sure and strong the deep stroke drove
Deathward: and Balen, seeing him dead,
Rode thence, lest folk would say he had slain
Those three; and ere three days again
Had seen the sun’s might wax and wane,
Far forth he had spurred and sped.
And riding past a cross whereon
Broad golden letters written shone,
Saying, “No knight born may ride alone
Forth toward this castle,” and all the stone
Glowed in the sun’s glare even as though
Blood stained it from the crucified
Dead burden of one that there had died,
An old hoar man he saw beside
Whose face was wan as woe.
“Balen the Wild,” he said, “this way
Thy way lies not: thou hast passed to-day
Thy bands: but turn again, and stay
Thy passage, while thy soul hath sway
Within thee, and through God’s good power
It will avail thee:” and anon
His likeness as a cloud was gone,
And Balen’s heart within him shone
Clear as the cloudless h
our.
Nor fate nor fear might overcast
The soul now near its peace at last.
Suddenly, thence as forth he past,
A mighty and a deadly blast
Blown of a hunting-horn he heard,
As when the chase hath nobly sped.
“That blast is blown for me,” he said,
“The prize am I who am yet not dead,”
And smiled upon the word.
As toward a royal hart’s death rang
That note, whence all the loud wood sang
With winged and living sound that sprang
Like fire, and keen as fire’s own fang
Pierced the sweet silence that it slew.
But nought like death or strife was here:
Fair semblance and most goodly cheer
They made him, they whose troop drew near
As death among them drew.
A hundred ladies well arrayed
And many a knight well weaponed made
That kindly show of cheer: the glade
Shone round them till its very shade
Lightened and laughed from grove to lawn
To hear and see them: so they brought
Within a castle fair as thought
Could dream that wizard hands had wrought
The guest among them drawn.
All manner of glorious joy was there:
Harping and dancing, loud and fair,
And minstrelsy that made of air
Fire, so like fire its raptures were.
Then the chief lady spake on high:
“Knight with the two swords, one of two
Must help you here or fall from you:
For needs you now must have ado
And joust with one hereby.
“A good knight guards an island here
Against all swords that chance brings near,
And there with stroke of sword and spear
Must all for whom these halls make cheer
Fight, and redeem or yield up life.”
“An evil custom,” Balen said,
“Is this, that none whom chance hath led
Hither, if knighthood crown his head,
May pass unstirred to strife.”
“You shall not have ado to fight
Here save against one only knight,”
She said, and all her face grew bright
As hell-fire, lit with hungry light
That wicked laughter touched with flame.
“Well, since I shall thereto,” said he,
“I am ready at heart as death for me:
Fain would I be where death should be
And life should lose its name.
“But travelling men whose goal afar
Shines as a cloud-constraining star
Are often weary, and wearier are
Their steeds that feel each fret and jar
Wherewith the wild ways wound them: yet,
Albeit my horse be weary, still
My heart is nowise weary; will
Sustains it even till death fulfil
My trust upon him set.”
“Sir,” said a knight thereby that stood,
“Meseems your shield is now not good
But worn with warrior work, nor could
Sustain in strife the strokes it would:
A larger will I lend you.” “Ay,
Thereof I thank you,” Balen said,
Being single of heart as one that read
No face aright whence faith had fled,
Nor dreamed that faith could fly.
And so he took that shield unknown
And left for treason’s touch his own,
And toward that island rode alone,
Nor heard the blast against him blown
Sound in the wind’s and water’s sound,
But hearkening toward the stream’s edge heard
Nought save the soft stream’s rippling word,
Glad with the gladness of a bird,
That sang to the air around.
And there against the water-side
He saw, fast moored to rock and ride,
A fair great boat anear abide
Like one that waits the turning tide,
Wherein embarked his horse and he
Passed over toward no kindly strand:
And where they stood again on land
There stood a maiden hard at hand
Who seeing them wept to see.
And “O knight Balen,” was her cry,
“Why have ye left your own shield? why
Come hither out of time to die?
For had ye kept your shield, thereby
Ye had yet been known, and died not here.
Great pity it is of you this day
As ever was of knight, or may
Be ever, seeing in war’s bright way
Praise knows not Balen’s peer.”
And Balen said, “Thou hast heard my name
Right: it repenteth me, though shame
May tax me not with base men’s blame,
That ever, hap what will, I came
Within this country; yet, being come,
For shame I may not turn again
Now, that myself and nobler men
May scorn me: now is more than then,
And faith bids fear be dumb.
“Be it life or death, my chance I take,
Be it life’s to build or death’s to break:
And fall what may, me lists not make
Moan for sad life’s or death’s sad sake.”
Then looked he on his armour, glad
And high of heart, and found it strong:
And all his soul became a song
And soared in prayer that soared not long,
For all the hope it had.
Then saw he whence against him came
A steed whose trappings shone like flame,
And he that rode him showed the same
Fierce colour, bright as fire or fame,
But dark the visors were as night
That hid from Balen Balan’s face,
And his from Balan: God’s own grace
Forsook them for a shadowy space
Where darkness cast out light.
The two swords girt that Balen bare
Gave Balan for a breath’s while there
Pause, wondering if indeed it were
Balen his brother, bound to dare
The chance of that unhappy quest:
But seeing not as he thought to see
His shield, he deemed it was not he,
And so, as fate bade sorrow be,
They laid their spears in rest.
So mighty was the course they ran
With spear to spear so great of span,
Each fell back stricken, man by man,
Horse by horse, borne down: so the ban
That wrought by doom against them wrought:
But Balen by his falling steed
Was bruised the sorer, being indeed
Way-weary, like a rain-bruised reed,
With travel ere he fought.
And Balen rose again from swoon
First, and went toward him: all too soon
He too then rose, and the evil boon
Of strength came back, and the evil tune
Of battle unnatural made again
Mad music as for death’s wide ear
Listening and hungering toward the near
Last sigh that life or death might hear
At last from dying men.
Balan smote Balen first, and clove
His lifted shield that rose and strove
In vain against the stroke that drove
Down: as the web that morning wove
Of glimmering pearl from spray to spray
Dies when the strong sun strikes it, so
Shrank the steel, tempered thrice to show
Strength, as the mad might of the blow
Shore Balen’s helm
away.
Then turning as a turning wave
Against the land-wind, blind and brave
In hope that dreams despair may save,
With even the unhappy sword that gave
The gifts of fame and fate in one
He smote his brother, and there had nigh
Felled him: and while they breathed, his eye
Glanced up, and saw beneath the sky
Sights fairer than the sun.
The towers of all the castle there
Stood full of ladies, blithe and fair
As the earth beneath and the amorous air
About them and above them were:
So toward the blind and fateful fight
Again those brethren went, and sore
Were all the strokes they smote and bore,
And breathed again, and fell once more
To battle in their sight.
With blood that either spilt and bled
Was all the ground they fought on red,
And each knight’s hauberk hewn and shred
Left each unmailed and naked, shed
From off them even as mantles cast:
And oft they breathed, and drew but breath
Brief as the word strong sorrow saith,
And poured and drank the draught of death,
Till fate was full at last.
And Balan, younger born than he
Whom darkness bade him slay, and be
Slain, as in mist where none may see
If aught abide or fall or flee,
Drew back a little and laid him down,
Dying: but Balen stood, and said,
As one between the quick and dead
Might stand and speak, “What good knight’s head
Hath won this mortal crown?
“What knight art thou? for never I
Who now beside thee dead shall die
Found yet the knight afar or nigh
That matched me.” Then his brother’s eye
Flashed pride and love; he spake and smiled
And felt in death life’s quickening flame,
And answered: “Balan is my name,
The good knight Balen’s brother; fame
Calls and miscalls him wild.”
The cry from Balen’s lips that sprang
Sprang sharper than his sword’s stroke rang.
More keen than death’s or memory’s fang,
Through sense and soul the shuddering pang
Shivered: and scarce he had cried, “Alas
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 141