Chapter I

Once on a time, a Dawn, all red and brightLeapt on the conquered ramparts of the Night,And flamed, one brilliant instant, on the world,Then back into the historic moat was hurledAnd Night was King again, for many years.-- Once on a time the Rose of Spring blushed outBut Winter angrily withdrew it backInto his rough new-bursten husk, and shutThe stern husk-leaves, and hid it many years.-- Once Famine tricked himself with ears of corn,And Hate strung flowers on his spiked belt,And glum Revenge in silver lilies pranked him,And Lust put violets on his shameless front,And all minced forth o' the street like holiday folkThat sally off afield on Summer morns.-- Once certain hounds that knew of many a chase,And bare great wounds of antler and of tuskThat they had ta'en to give a lord some sport,-- Good hounds, that would have died to give lords sport --Were so bewrayed and kicked by these same lordsThat all the pack turned tooth o' the knights and bitAs knights had been no better things than boars,And took revenge as bloody as a man's,Unhoundlike, sudden, hot i' the chops, and sweet.-- Once sat a falcon on a lady's wrist,Seeming to doze, with wrinkled eye-lid drawn,But dreaming hard of hoods and slaveriesAnd of dim hungers in his heart and wings.Then, while the mistress gazed above for game,Sudden he flew into her painted faceAnd hooked his horn-claws in her lily throatAnd drove his beak into her lips and eyesIn fierce and hawkish kissing that did scarAnd mar the lady's beauty evermore.-- And once while Chivalry stood tall and litheAnd flashed his sword above the stricken eyesOf all the simple peasant-folk of France:While Thought was keen and hot and quick,And did not play, as in these later days,Like summer-lightning flickering in the west-- As little dreadful as if glow-worms layIn the cool and watery clouds and glimmered weak --But gleamed and struck at once or oak or man,And left not space for Time to wave his wingBetwixt the instantaneous flash and stroke:While yet the needs of life were brave and fierceAnd did not hide their deeds behind their words,And logic came not 'twixt desire and act,And Want-and-Take was the whole Form of life:While Love had fires a-burning in his veins,And hidden Hate could flash into revenge:Ere yet young Trade was 'ware of his big thewsOr dreamed that in the bolder afterdaysHe would hew down and bind old ChivalryAnd drag him to the highest height of fameAnd plunge him thence in the sea of still RomanceTo lie for aye in never-rusted mailGleaming through quiet ripples of soft songsAnd sheens of old traditionary tales; --On such a time, a certain May aroseFrom out that blue Sea that between five landsLies like a violet midst of five large leaves,Arose from out this violet and flew onAnd stirred the spirits of the woods of FranceAnd smoothed the brows of moody Auvergne hills,And wrought warm sea-tints into maidens' eyes,And calmed the wordy air of market-townsWith faint suggestions blown from distant buds,Until the land seemed a mere dream of land,And, in this dream-field Life sat like a doveAnd cooed across unto her dove-mate Death,Brooding, pathetic, by a river, lone.Oh, sharper tangs pierced through this perfumed May.Strange aches sailed by with odors on the windAs when we kneel in flowers that grow on gravesOf friends who died unworthy of our love.King John of France was proving such an acheIn English prisons wide and fair and grand,Whose long expanses of green park and chaceDid ape large liberty with such successAs smiles of irony ape smiles of love.Down from the oaks of Hertford Castle park,Double with warm rose-breaths of southern SpringCame rumors, as if odors too had thorns,Sharp rumors, how the three Estates of France,Like old Three-headed Cerberus of HellHad set upon the Duke of Normandy,Their rightful Regent, snarled in his great face,Snapped jagged teeth in inch-breadth of his throat,And blown such hot and savage breath upon him,That he had tossed great sops of royaltyUnto the clamorous, three-mawed baying beast.And was not further on his way withal,And had but changed a snarl into a growl:How Arnold de Cervolles had ta'en the trackThat war had burned along the unhappy land,Shouting, `since France is then too poor to payThe soldiers that have bloody devoir done,And since needs must, pardie! a man must eat,Arm, gentlemen! swords slice as well as knives!'And so had tempted stout men from the ranks,And now was adding robbers' waste to war's,Stealing the leavings of remorseless battle,And making gaunter the gaunt bones of want:How this Cervolles (called "Arch-priest" by the mass)Through warm Provence had marched and menace madeAgainst Pope Innocent at Avignon,And how the Pope nor ate nor drank nor slept,Through godly fear concerning his red wines.For if these knaves should sack his holy houseAnd all the blessed casks be knocked o' the head,HORRENDUM! all his Holiness' drink to beProfanely guzzled down the reeking throatsOf scoundrels, and inflame them on to seizeThe massy coffers of the Church's gold,And steal, mayhap, the carven silver shrineAnd all the golden crucifixes? No! --And so the holy father Pope made stirAnd had sent forth a legate to Cervolles,And treated with him, and made compromise,And, last, had bidden all the Arch-priest's troopTo come and banquet with him in his house,Where they did wassail high by night and dayAnd Father Pope sat at the board and carvedMidst jokes that flowed full greasily,And priest and soldier trolled good songs for mass,And all the prayers the Priests made were, `pray, drink,'And all the oaths the Soldiers swore were, `drink!'Till Mirth sat like a jaunty postillonUpon the back of Time and urged him onWith piquant spur, past chapel and past cross:How Charles, King of Navarre, in long duressBy mandate of King John within the wallsOf Crevacoeur and then of strong Alleres,In faithful ward of Sir Tristan du Bois,Was now escaped, had supped with Guy Kyrec,Had now a pardon of the Regent DukeBy half compulsion of a Paris mob,Had turned the people's love upon himselfBy smooth harangues, and now was bold to claimThat France was not the Kingdom of King John,But, By our Lady, his, by right and worth,And so was plotting treason in the State,And laughing at weak Charles of Normandy.Nay, these had been like good news to the King,Were any man but bold enough to tellThe King what [bitter] sayings men had madeAnd hawked augmenting up and down the landAgainst the barons and great lords of FranceThat fled from English arrows at Poictiers.POICTIERS, POICTIERS: this grain i' the eye of FranceHad swelled it to a big and bloodshot ballThat looked with rage upon a world askew.Poictiers' disgrace was now but two years old,Yet so outrageous rank and full was grownThat France was wholly overspread with shade,And bitter fruits lay on the untilled groundThat stank and bred so foul contagious smellsThat not a nose in France but stood awry,Nor boor that cried not FAUGH! upon the air.