King Canute

King Canute died. Encoffined he was laid.Of Aarhuus came the Bishop prayers to say,And sang a hymn upon his tomb, and heldThat Canute was a saint--Canute the Great,That from his memory breathed celestial perfume,And that they saw him, they the priests, in glory,Seated at God's right hand, a prophet crowned.

Evening came,And hushed the organ in the holy place,And the priests, issuing from the temple doors,Left the dead king in peace. Then he arose,Opened his gloomy eyes, and grasped his sword,And went forth loftily. The massy wallsYielded before the phantom, like a mist.

There is a sea where Aarhuus, Altona,And Elsinore's vast domes and shadowy towersGlass in deep waters. Over this he wentDark, and still Darkness listened for his footInaudible, itself being but a dream.Straight to Mount Savo went he, gnawed by time,And thus, "O mountain buffeted of storms,Give me of thy huge mantle of deep snowTo frame a winding-sheet." The mountain knew him,Nor dared refuse, and with his sword CanuteCut from his flank white snow, enough to makeThe garment he desired, and then he cried,"Old mountain! death is dumb, but tell me thouThe way to God." More deep each dread ravineAnd hideous hollow yawned, and sadly thusAnswered that hoar associate of the clouds:"Spectre, I know not, I am always here."Canute departed, and with head erect,All white and ghastly in his robe of snow,Went forth into great silence and great nightBy Iceland and Norway. After himGloom swallowed up the universe. He stoodA sovran kingdomless, a lonely ghostConfronted with Immensity. He sawThe awful Infinite, at whose portal paleLightning sinks dying; Darkness, skeletonWhose joints are nights, and utter FormlessnessMoving confusedly in the horrible darkInscrutable and blind. No star was there,Yet something like a haggard gleam; no soundBut the dull tide of Darkness, and her dumbAnd fearful shudder. "'Tis the tomb," he said,"God is beyond!" Three steps he took, then cried:'Twas deathly as the grave, and not a voiceResponded, nor came any breath to swayThe snowy mantle, with unsullied whiteEmboldening the spectral wanderer.Sudden he marked how, like a gloomy star,A spot grew broad upon his livid robe;Slowly it widened, raying darkness forth;And Canute proved it with his spectral handsIt was a drop of blood.

But he saw nothing; space was black--no sound."Forward," said Canute, raising his proud head.There fell a second stain beside the first,Then it grew larger, and the Cimbrian chiefStared at the thick vague darkness, and saw naught.Still as a bloodhound follows on his track,Sad he went on. 'There fell a third red stainOn the white winding-sheet. He had never fled;Howbeit Canute forward went no more,But turned on that side where the sword arm hangs.A drop of blood, as if athwart a dream,Fell on the shroud, and reddened his right hand.Then, as in reading one turns back a page,A second time he changed his course, and turnedTo the dim left. There fell a drop of blood.Canute drew back, trembling to be alone,And wished he had not left his burial couch.But, when a blood-drop fell again, he stopped,Stooped his pale head, and tried to make a prayer.Then fell a drop, and the prayer died awayIn savage terror. Darkly he moved on,A hideous spectre hesitating, white,And ever as he went, a drop of bloodImplacably from the darkness broke awayAnd stained that awful whiteness. He beheldShaking, as doth a poplar in the wind,Those stains grow darker and more numerous:Another, and another, and another.They seem to light up that funereal gloom,And mingling in the folds of that white sheet,Made it a cloud of blood. He went, and went,And still from that unfathomable vaultThe red blood dropped upon him drop by drop,Always, for ever--without noise, as thoughFrom the black feet of some night-gibbeted corpse.Alas! Who wept those formidable tears?The Infinite!--Toward Heaven, of the goodAttainable, through the wild sea of night,That hath not ebb nor flow, Canute went on,And ever walking, came to a closed door,That from beneath showed a mysterious light.Then he looked down upon his winding-sheet,For that was the great place, the sacred place,That was a portion of the light of God,And from behind that door Hosannas rang.The winding-sheet was red, and Canute stopped.This is why Canute from the light of dayDraws ever back, and hath not dared appearBefore the Judge whose face is as the sun.This is why still remaineth the dark kingOut in the night, and never having powerTo bring his robe back to its first pure state,But feeling at each step a blood-drop fall,Wanders eternally 'neath the vast black heaven.