Book IV

Dawn, everlasting and almighty Dawn,Hailed by ten thousand names of death and birth,Who, chiefly by thy name of Sorrow, seem'stTo half the world a sunset, God's great Dawn,Fair light of all earth's partings till we meetWhere dawn and sunset, mingling East and West,Shall make in some deep Orient of the soulOne radiant Rose of Love for evermore;Teach me, oh teach to bear thy broadening light,Thy deepening wonder, lest as old dreams fadeWith love's unfaith, like wasted hours of youth,And dim illusions vanish in thy beam,Their rapture and their anguish break that heartWhich loved them, and must love for ever now.Let thy great sphere of splendour, ring by ringFor ever widening, draw new seas, new skies,Within my ken; yet, as I still must bearThis love, help me to grow in spirit with thee.Dawn on my song which trembles like a cloudPierced with thy beauty. Rise, shine, as of oldAcross the wondering ocean in the sightOf those world-wandering mariners, when earthRolled flat up to the Gates of Paradise,And each slow mist that curled its gold awayFrom each new sea they furrowed into pearlMight bring before their blinded mortal eyesGod and the Glory. Lighten as on the soulOf him that all night long in torment dire,Anguish and thirst unceasing for thy rayUpon that lonely Patagonian shoreHad lain as on the bitterest coasts of Hell.For all night long, mocked by the dreadful peaceOf world-wide seas that darkly heaved and sankWith cold recurrence, like the slow sad breathOf a fallen Titan dying all aloneIn lands beyond all human loneliness,While far and wide glimmers that broken targeHurled from tremendous battle with the gods,And, as he breathes in pain, the chain-mail ringsRound his broad breast a muffled rattling makeFor many a league, so seemed the sound of wavesUpon those beaches--there, be-mocked all night,Beneath Magellan's gallows, Drake had watchedBeside his dead; and over him the starsPaled as the silver chariot of the moonDrove, and her white steeds ramped in a fury of foamOn splendid peaks of cloud. The Golden HyndeSlept with those other shadows on the bay.Between him and his home the Atlantic heaved;And, on the darker side, across the straitOf starry sheen that softly rippled and flowedBetwixt the mainland and his isle, it seemedDeath's Gates indeed burst open. The night yawnedLike a foul wound. Black shapes of the outer darkPoured out of forests older than the world;And, just as reptiles that take form and hue,Speckle and blotch, in strange assimilationFrom thorn and scrub and stone and the waste earthThrough which they crawl, so that almost they seemThe incarnate spirits of their wilderness,Were these most horrible kindred of the night.Æonian glooms unfathomable, grim aisles,Grotesque, distorted boughs and dancing shadesOut-belched their dusky brood on the dim shore;Monsters with sooty limbs, red-raddled eyes,And faces painted yellow, women and men;Fierce naked giants howling to the moon,And loathlier Gorgons with long snaky tressesPouring vile purple over pendulous breastsLike wine-bags. On the mainland beach they litA brushwood fire that reddened creek and coveAnd lapped their swarthy limbs with hideous tonguesOf flame; so near that by their light Drake sawThe blood upon the dead man's long black hairClotting corruption. The fierce funeral pyreOf all things fair seemed rolling on that shore;And in that dull red battle of smoke and flame,While the sea crunched the pebbles, and dark drumsRumbled out of the gloom as if this earthHad some Titanic tigress for a soulPurring in forests of EternityOver her own grim dreams, his lonely spiritPassed through the circles of a world-wide wasteDarker than ever Dante roamed. No gulfWas this of fierce harmonious reward,Where Evil moans in anguish after death,Where all men reap as they have sown, where gluttonsGorge upon toads and usurers gulp hot streamsOf molten gold. This was that MalebolgeWhich hath no harmony to mortal ears,But seems the reeling and tremendous dreamOf some omnipotent madman. There he sawThe naked giants dragging to the flamesYoung captives hideous with a new despair:He saw great craggy blood-stained stones upheavedTo slaughter, saw through mists of blood and fireThe cannibal feast prepared, saw filthy handsRend limb from limb, and almost dreamed he sawFoul mouths a-drip with quivering human fleshAnd horrible laughter in the crimson stormThat clomb and leapt and stabbed at the high heavenTill the whole night seemed saturate with red.

And all night long upon the Golden Hynde,A cloud upon the waters, brave Tom MooneWatched o'er the bulwarks for some dusky plungeTo warn him if that savage crew should markHis captain and swim over to his isle.Whistle in hand he watched, his boat well ready,His men low-crouched around him, swarthy facesGrim-chinned upon the taffrail, muttering oathsThat trampled down the fear i' their bristly throats,While at their sides a dreadful hint of steelSent stray gleams to the stars. But little heedHad Drake of all that menaced him, though oftSome wandering giant, belching from the feast,All blood-besmeared, would come so near he heardHis heavy breathing o'er the narrow strait.Yet little care had Drake, for though he satBowed in the body above his quiet dead,His burning spirit wandered through the wastes,Wandered through hells behind the apparent hell,Horrors immeasurable, clutching at dreamsFound fair of old, but now most foul. The worldLeered at him through its old remembered maskOf beauty: the green grass that clothed the fieldsOf England (shallow, shallow fairy dream!)What was it but the hair of dead men's graves.Rooted in death, enriched with all decay?And like a leprosy the hawthorn bloomCrawled o'er the whitening bosom of the spring;And bird and beast and insect, ay and man,How fat they fed on one another's blood!And Love, what faith in Love, when spirit and fleshAre found of such a filthy composition?And Knowledge, God, his mind went reeling backTo that dark voyage on the deadly coastOf Panama, where one by one his menSickened and died of some unknown disease,Till Joseph, his own brother, in his armsDied; and Drake trampled down all tender thought,All human grief, and sought to find the cause,For his crew's sake, the ravenous unknown causeOf that fell scourge. There, in his own dark cabin,Lit by the wild light of the swinging lanthorn,He laid the naked body on that boardWhere they had supped together. He took the knifeFrom the ague-stricken surgeon's palsied hands,And while the ship rocked in the eternal seasAnd dark waves lapped against the rolling hulkMaking the silence terrible with voices,He opened his own brother's cold white corse,That pale deserted mansion of a soul,Bidding the surgeon mark, with his own eyes,While yet he had strength to use them, the foul spots,The swollen liver, the strange sodden heart,The yellow intestines. Yea, his dry lips hissedThere in the stark face of Eternity,"Seëst thou? Seëst thou? Knowest thou what it means?"Then, like a dream up-surged the belfried nightOf Saint Bartholomew, the scented palacesWhence harlots leered out on the twisted streetsOf Paris, choked with slaughter! Europe flamedWith human torches, living altar candles,Lighted before the Cross where men had hangedThe Christ of little children. Cirque by cirqueThe world-wide hell reeled round him, East and West,To where the tortured Indians worked the willOf lordly Spain in golden-famed Peru."God, is thy world a madman's dream?" he groaned:And suddenly, the clamour on the shoreSank and that savage horde melted awayInto the midnight forest as it came,Leaving no sign, save where the brushwood fireStill smouldered like a ruby in the gloom;And into the inmost caverns of his mindThat other clamour sank, and there was peace."A madman's dream," he whispered, "Ay, to meA madman's dream," but better, better farThan that which bears upon its awful gates,Gates of a hell defined, unalterable,Abandon hope all ye who enter here!Here, here at least the dawn hath power to bringNew light, new hope, new battles. Men may fightAnd sweep away that evil, if no more,At least from the small circle of their swords;Then die, content if they have struck one strokeFor freedom, knowledge, brotherhood; one strokeTo hasten that great kingdom God proclaimsEach morning through the trumpets of the Dawn.

And far away, in Italy, that nightYoung Galileo, gazing upward, heardThe self-same whisper from the abyss of starsWhich lured the soul of Shakespeare as he layDreaming in may-sweet England, even now,And with its infinite music called once moreThe soul of Drake out to the unknown West.

Now like a wild rose in the fields of heavenSlipt forth the slender fingers of the Dawn,And drew the great grey Eastern curtains backFrom the ivory saffroned couch. Rosily slidOne shining foot and one warm rounded kneeFrom silken coverlets of the tossed-back clouds.Then, like the meeting after desolate years,Face to remembered face, Drake saw the DawnStep forth in naked splendour o'er the sea;Dawn, bearing still her rich divine increaseOf beauty, love, and wisdom round the world;The same, yet not the same. So strangely gleamedHer pearl and rose across the sapphire wavesThat scarce he knew the dead man at his feet.His world was made anew. Strangely his voiceRang through that solemn Eden of the mornCalling his men, and stranger than a dreamTheir boats black-blurred against the crimson East,Or flashing misty sheen where'er the lightSmote on their smooth wet sides, like seraph shipsMoved in a dewy glory towards the land;Their oars of glittering diamond broke the seaAs by enchantment into burning jewelsAnd scattered rainbows from their flaming blades.The clear green water lapping round their prows,The words of sharp command as now the keelsCrunched on his lonely shore, and the following waveLeapt slapping o'er the sterns, in that new lightWere more than any miracle. At lastDrake, as they grouped a little way belowThe crumbling sandy cliff whereon he stood,Seeming to overshadow them as he loomedA cloud of black against the crimson sky,Spoke, as a man may hardly speak but once:"My seamen, oh my friends, companions, kings;For I am least among you, being your captain;And ye are men, and all men born are kings,By right divine, and I the least of theseBecause I must usurp the throne of GodAnd sit in judgment, even till I have setMy seal upon the red wax of this blood,This blood of my dead friend, ere it grow cold.Not all the waters of that mighty seaCould wash my hands of sin if I should nowFalter upon my path. But look to it, you,Whose word was doom last night to this dead man;Look to it, I say, look to it! Brave men might shrinkFrom this great voyage; but the heart of himWho dares turn backward now must be so hardyThat God might make a thousand millstones of itTo hang about the necks of those that hurtSome little child, and cast them in the sea.Yet if ye will be found so more than bold,Speak now, and I will hear you; God will judge.But ye shall take four ships of these my five,Tear out the lions from their painted shields,And speed you homeward. Leave me but one ship,My Golden Hynde, and five good friends, nay one,To watch when I must sleep, and I will proveThis judgment just against all winds that blow.Now ye that will return, speak, let me know you,Or be for ever silent, for I swearOver this butchered body, if any swerveHereafter from the straight and perilous way,He shall not die alone. What? Will none speak?My comrades and my friends! Yet ye must learn,Mark me, my friends, I'd have you all to knowThat ye are kings. I'll have no jealousiesAboard my fleet. I'll have the gentlemanTo pull and haul wi' the seaman. I'll not haveThat canker of the Spaniards in my fleet.Ye that were captains, I cashier you all.I'll have no captains; I'll have nought but seamen,Obedient to my will, because I serveEngland. What, will ye murmur? Have a care,Lest I should bid you homeward all alone,You whose white hands are found too delicateFor aught but dallying with your jewelled swords!And thou, too, master Fletcher, my ship's chaplain,Mark me, I'll have no priest-craft. I have heardOvermuch talk of judgment from thy lips,God's judgment here, God's judgment there, upon us!Whene'er the winds are contrary, thou takestTheir powers upon thee for thy moment's end.Thou art God's minister, not God's oracle:Chain up thy tongue a little, or, by His wounds,If thou canst read this wide world like a book,Thou hast so little to fear, I'll set thee adriftOn God's great sea to find thine own way home.Why, 'tis these very tyrannies o' the soulWe strike at when we strike at Spain for England;And shall we here, in this great wilderness,Ungrappled and unchallenged, out of sight,Alone, without one struggle, sink that flagWhich, when the cannon thundered, could but streamTriumphant over all the storms of death.Nay, master Wynter and my gallant captains,I see ye are tamed. Take up your ranks againIn humbleness, remembering ye are kings,Kings for the sake and by the will of England,Therefore her servants till your lives' last end.Comrades, mistake not this, our little fleetIs freighted with the golden heart of England,And, if we fail, that golden heart will break.The world's wide eyes are on us, and our soulsAre woven together into one great flagOf England. Shall we strike it? Shall it be rentAsunder with small discord, party strife,Ephemeral conflict of contemptible tongues,Or shall it be blazoned, blazoned evermoreOn the most heaven-wide page of history?This is that hour, I know it in my soul,When we must choose for England. Ye are kings,And sons of Vikings, exiled from your throne.Have ye forgotten? Nay, your blood remembers!There is your kingdom, Vikings, that great oceanWhose tang is in your nostrils. Ye must chooseWhether to re-assume it now for England,To claim its thunders for her panoply,To lay its lightnings in her sovereign hands,Win her the great commandment of the seaAnd let its glory roll with her dominionRound the wide world for ever, sweeping backAll evil deeds and dreams, or whether to yieldFor evermore that kinghood. Ye must learnHere in this golden dawn our great empriseIs greater than we knew. Eye hath not seen,Ear hath not heard what came across the darkLast night, as there anointed with that bloodI knelt and saw the wonder that should be.I saw new heavens of freedom, a new earthReleased from all old tyrannies. I sawThe brotherhood of man, for which we rode,Most ignorant of the splendour of our spears,Against the crimson dynasties of Spain.Mother of freedom, home and hope and love,Our little island, far, how far away,I saw thee shatter the whole world of hate,I saw the sunrise on thy helmet flameWith new-born hope for all the world in thee!Come now, to sea, to sea!"

And ere they knewWhat power impelled them, with one mighty cryThey lifted up their hearts to the new dawnAnd hastened down the shores and launched the boats,And in the fierce white out-draught of the wavesThrust with their brandished oars and the boats leaptOut, and they settled at the groaning thwarts,And the white water boiled before their blades,As, with Drake's iron hand upon the helm,His own boat led the way; and ere they knewWhat power as of a wind bore them along,Anchor was up, their hands were on the sheets,The sails were broken out and that small squadronWas flying like a sea-bird to the South.Now to the strait Magellanus they came,And entered in with ringing shouts of joy.Nor did they think there, was a fairer straitIn all the world than this which lay so calmBetween great silent mountains crowned with snow,Unutterably lonely. MarvellousThe pomp of dawn and sunset on those heights,And like a strange new sacrilege the advanceOf prows that ploughed that time-forgotten tide.But soon rude flaws, cross currents, tortuous channelsBewildered them, and many a league they droveAs down some vaster Acheron, while the coastsWith wailing voices cursed them all night long,And once again the hideous fires leapt redBy many a grim wrenched crag and gaunt ravine.So for a hundred leagues of whirling spumeThey groped, till suddenly, far away, they sawFull of the sunset, like a cup of gold,The purple Westward portals of the strait.Onward o'er roughening waves they plunged and reachedCapo Desiderato, where they sawWhat seemed stupendous in that lonely place,--Gaunt, black, and sharp as death against the skyThe Cross, the great black Cross on Cape Desire,Which dead Magellan raised upon the heightTo guide, or so he thought, his wandering ships,Not knowing they had left him to his doom,Not knowing how with tears, with tears of joy,Rapture, and terrible triumph, and deep awe,Another should come voyaging and readUnutterable glories in that sign;While his rough seamen raised their mighty shoutAnd, once again, before his wondering eyes,League upon league of awful burnished gold,Rolled the unknown immeasurable sea.

Now, in those days, as even Magellan held,Men thought that Southward of the strait there sweptFirm land up to the white Antarticke Pole,Which now not far they deemed. But when Drake passedFrom out the strait to take his Northward wayUp the Pacific coast, a great head-windSuddenly smote them; and the heaving seasBulged all around them into billowy hills,Dark rolling mountains, whose majestic crestsLike wild white flames far-blown and savagely flickeringSwept through the clouds; and on their sullen slopesLike wind-whipt withered leaves those little ships,Now hurtled to the Zenith and now plungedDown into bottomless gulfs, were suddenly scatteredAnd whirled away. Drake, on the Golden Hynde,One moment saw them near him, soaring upAbove him on the huge o'erhanging billowsAs if to crash down on his poop; the next,A mile of howling sea had swept betweenEach of those wind-whipt straws, and they were goneThrough roaring deserts of embattled death,Where, like a hundred thousand chariots chargedWith lightnings and with thunders, one great waveLeading the unleashed ocean down the stormHurled them away to Southward.

One last glimpseDrake caught o' the Marygold, when some mighty vortexWide as the circle of the wide sea-lineSwept them together again. He saw her staggeringWith mast snapt short and wreckage-tangled deckWhere men like insects clung. He saw the wavesLeap over her mangled hulk, like wild white wolves,Volleying out of the clouds down dismal steepsOf green-black water. Like a wounded steedQuivering upon its haunches, up she heavedHer head to throw them off. Then, in one massOf fury crashed the great deep over her,Trampling her down, down into the nethermost pit,As with a madman's wrath. She rose no more,And in the stream of the ocean's hurricane laughterThe Golden Hynde went hurtling to the South,With sails rent into ribbons and her mastSnapt like a twig. Yea, where Magellan thoughtFirm land had been, the little Golden HyndeWhirled like an autumn leaf through league on leagueOf bursting seas, chaos on crashing chaos,A rolling wilderness of charging AlpsThat shook the world with their tremendous war;Grim beetling cliffs that grappled with clamorous gulfs,Valleys that yawned to swallow the wide heaven;Immense white-flowering fluctuant precipices,And hills that swooped down at the throat of hell;From Pole to Pole, one blanching bursting stormOf world-wide oceans, where the huge PacificRoared greetings to the Atlantic and both sweptIn broad white cataracts, league on struggling league,Pursuing and pursued, immeasurable,With Titan hands grasping the rent black skyOf midget men upon that wisp of grassThe Golden Hynde, who, as her masts crashed, hungClearing the tiny wreckage from small decksWith ant-like weapons. Not their captain's voiceAvailed them now amidst the deafening thunderOf seas that felt the heavy hand of God,Only they saw across the blinding spumeIn steely flashes, grand and grim, a face,Like the last glimmer of faith among mankind,Calm in this warring universe, where DrakeStood, lashed to his post, beside the helm. Black seasBuffeted him. Half-stunned he dashed awayThe sharp brine from his eagle eyes and turnedTo watch some mountain-range come rushing downAs if to o'erwhelm them utterly. Once, indeed,Welkin and sea were one black wave, white-fanged,White-crested, and up-heaped so mightilyThat, though it coursed more swiftly than a herdOf Titan steeds upon some terrible plainNigh the huge City of Ombos, yet it seemedMost strangely slow, with all those crumbling crestsEach like a cataract on a mountain-side,And moved with the steady majesty of doomHigh over him. One moment's flash of fear,And yet not fear, but rather life's regret,Felt Drake, then laughed a low deep laugh of joySuch as men taste in battle; yea, 'twas goodTo grapple thus with death; one low deep laugh,One mutter as of a lion about to spring,Then burst that thunder o'er him. Height o'er heightThe heavens rolled down, and waves were all the world.

Meanwhile, in England, dreaming of her sailor,Far off, his heart's bride waited, of a proudAnd stubborn house the bright and gracious flower.Whom oft her father urged with scanty graceThat Drake was dead and she had best forgetThe fellow, he grunted. For her father's heartWas fettered with small memories, mocked by allThe greater world's traditions and the traceOf earth's low pedigree among the suns,Ringed with the terrible twilight of the Gods,Ringed with the blood-red dusk of dying nations,His faith was in his grandam's mighty skirt,And, in that awful consciousness of power,Had it not been that even in this he fearedTo sully her silken flounce or farthingaleWi' the white dust on his hands, he would have chalkedTo his own shame, thinking it shame, the wordNearest to God in its divine embraceOf agonies and glories, the dread wordDemos across that door in NazarethWhence came the prentice carpenter whose voiceHath shaken kingdoms down, whose menial gibbetRises triumphant o'er the wreck of EmpiresAnd stretches out its arms amongst the Stars.But she, his daughter, only let her heartLoveably forge a charter for her love,Cheat her false creed with faithful faery dreamsThat wrapt her love in mystery; thought, perchance,He came of some unhappy noble raceRuined in battle for some lost high cause.And, in the general mixture of men's blood,Her dream was truer than his whose bloodless prideUrged her to wed the chinless moon-struck foolSprung from five hundred years of idiocyWho now besought her hand; would force her bearSome heir to a calf's tongue and a coronet,Whose cherished taints of blood will please his friendsWith "Yea, Sir William's first-born hath the freak,The family freak, being embryonic. Yea,And with a fine half-wittedness, forsooth.Praise God, our children's children yet shall seeThe lord o' the manor muttering to himselfAt midnight by the gryphon-guarded gates,Or gnawing his nails in desolate corridors,Or pacing moonlit halls, dagger in hand,Waiting to stab his father's pitiless ghost."So she--the girl--Sweet Bess of Sydenham,Most innocently proud, was prouder yetThan thus to let her heart stoop to the lureOf lording lovers, though her unstained soulSlumbered amidst those dreams as in old talesThe princess in the enchanted forest sleepsTill the prince wakes her with a kiss and drawsThe far-flung hues o' the gleaming magic webInto one heart of flame. And now, for Drake,She slept like Brynhild in a ring of fireWhich he must pass to win her. For the wrathOf Spain now flamed, awaiting his return,All round the seas of home; and even the QueenElizabeth flinched, as that tremendous PowerMenaced the heart of England, flinched and vowedDrake's head to Spain's ambassadors, though stillBy subtlety she hoped to find some wayLater to save or warn him ere he came.Perchance too, nay, most like, he will be slainOr even now lies dead, out in the West,She thought, and then the promise works no harm.But, day by day, there came as on the wingsOf startled winds from o'er the Spanish Main,Strange echoes as of sacked and clamouring portsAnd battered gates of fabulous golden cities,A murmur out of the sunset of Peru,A sea-bird's wail from Lima. While no lessThe wrathful menace gathered up its mightAll round our little isle; till now the KingPhilip of Spain half secretly decreedThe building of huge docks from which to launchA Fleet Invincible that should sweep the seasOf all the world, throttle with one broad graspAll Protestant rebellion, having stablishedHis red feet in the Netherlands, thence to hurlHis whole World-Empire at this little isle,England, our mother, home and hope and love,And bend her neck beneath his yoke. For nowNo half surrender sought he. At his back,Robed with the scarlet of a thousand martyrs,Admonishing him, stood Rome, and, in her hand,Grasping the Cross of Christ by its great hilt,She pointed it, like a dagger, tow'rds the throatOf England.

One long year, two years had passedSince Drake set sail from grey old Plymouth Sound;And in those woods of faery wonder stillSlumbered his love in steadfast faith. But nowWith louder lungs her father urged--"He is dead:Forget him. There is one that loves you, seeksYour hand in marriage, and he is a goodly matchE'en for my daughter. You shall wed him, Bess!"But when the new-found lover came to woo,Glancing in summer silks and radiant hose,Whipt doublet and enormous pointed shoon,She played him like a fish and sent him homeSpluttering with dismay, a sticklebackDiscoloured, a male minnow of dimpled streamsWith all his rainbows paling in the prime,To hide amongst his lilies, while once moreShe took her casement seat that overlookedThe sea and read in Master Spenser's book,Which Francis gave "To my dear lady and queenBess," that most rare processional of love--"Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song!"Yet did her father urge her day by day,And day by day her mother dinned her earsWith petty saws, as--"When I was a girl,"And "I remember what my father said,"And "Love, oh feather-fancies plucked from geeseYou call your poets!" Yet she hardly meantTo slight true love, save in her daughter's heart;For the old folk ever find it hard to seeThe passion of their children. When it wakes,The child becomes a stranger. So with Bess;But since her soul still slumbered, and the moonsRolled on and blurred her soul's particular loveWith the vague unknown impulse of her youth,Her brave resistance often melted nowIn tears, and her will weakened day by day;Till on a dreadful summer morn there came,Borne by a wintry flaw, home to the Thames,A bruised and battered ship, all that was left,So said her crew, of Drake's ill-fated fleet.John Wynter, her commander, told the taleOf how the Golden Hynde and MarygoldHad by the wind Euroclydon been drivenSheer o'er the howling edges of the world;Of how himself by God's good providenceWas hurled into the strait Magellanus;Of how on the horrible frontiers of the VoidHe had watched in vain, lit red with beacon-firesThe desperate coasts o' the black abyss, whence noneEver returned, though many a week he watchedBeneath the Cross; and only saw God's wrathBurn through the heavens and devastate the mountains,And hurl unheard of oceans roaring downAfter the lost ships in one cataractOf thunder and splendour and fury and rolling doom.

Then, with a bitter triumph in his face,As if this were the natural end of allSuch vile plebeians, as if he had foreseen it,As if himself had breathed a tactful hintInto the aristocratic ears of God,Her father broke the last frail barriers down,Broke the poor listless will o' the lonely girl,Who careless now of aught but miseryPromised to wed their lordling. Mighty speedThey made to press that loveless marriage on;And ere the May had mellowed into JuneHer marriage eve had come. Her cold hands heldDrake's gift. She scarce could see her name, writ broadBy that strong hand as it was, To my queen Bess.She looked out through her casement o'er the sea,Listening its old enchanted moan, which seemedStriving to speak, she knew not what. Its breathFluttered the roses round the grey old walls,And shook the ghostly jasmine. A great moonHung like a red lamp in the sycamore.A corn-crake in the hay-fields far awayChirped like a cricket, and the night-jar churredHis passionate love-song. Soft-winged moths besiegedHer lantern. Under many a star-stabbed elmThe nightingale began his golden song,Whose warm thick notes are each a drop of bloodFrom that small throbbing breast against the thornPressed close to turn the white rose into red;Even as her lawn-clad may-white bosom pressedQuivering against the bars, while her dark hairStreamed round her shoulders and her small bare feetGleamed in the dusk. Then spake she to her maid--"I cannot sleep, I cannot sleep to-night.Bring thy lute hither and sing. Alison, think youThe dead can watch us from their distant world?Can our dead friends be near us when we weep?I wish 'twere so! for then my love would come,No matter then how far, my love would come,And he'd forgive me."

Then Bess bowed down her lovely head: her breastHeaved with short sobs, sickening at the heart,She grasped the casement moaning, "Love, Love, Love,Come quickly, come, before it is too late,Come quickly, oh come quickly."Then her maidSlipped a soft arm around her and gently drewThe supple quivering body, shaken with sobs,And all that firm young, sweetness to her breast,And led her to her couch, and all night longShe watched beside her, till the marriage mornBlushed in the heartless East. Then swiftly flewThe pitiless moments, till--as in a dream--And borne along by dreams, or like a lilyCut from its anchorage in the stream to glideDown the smooth bosom of an unknown worldThrough fields of unknown blossom, so moved BessAmongst her maids, as the procession passedForth to the little church upon the cliffs,And, as in those days was the bridal mode,Her lustrous hair in billowing beauty streamedDishevelled o'er her shoulders, while the sunCaressed her bent and glossy head, and shoneOver the deep blue, white-flaked, wrinkled sea,On full-blown rosy-petalled sails that flashedLike flying blossoms fallen from her crown.