A Dream of Fair Women

As when a man, that sails in a balloon,Downlooking sees the solid shining groundStream from beneath him in the broad blue noon,Tilth, hamlet, mead and mound:

And takes his flags and waves them to the mob,That shout below, all faces turned to whereGlows ruby-like the far up crimson globe,Filled with a finer air:

So lifted high, the Poet at his willLets the great world flit from him, seeing all,Higher thro’ secret splendours mounting still,Self-poised, nor fears to fall.

Hearing apart the echoes of his fame.While I spoke thus, the seedsman, memory,Sowed my deepfurrowed thought with many a name,Whose glory will not die.

I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade,“The Legend of Good Women,” long agoSung by the morning star of song, who madeHis music heard below;

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breathPreluded those melodious bursts, that fillThe spacious times of great ElizabethWith sounds that echo still.

And, for a while, the knowledge of his artHeld me above the subject, as strong galesHold swollen clouds from raining, tho’ my heart,Brimful of those wild tales,

Charged both mine eyes with tears.In every land I saw, wherever light illumineth,Beauty and anguish walking hand in handThe downward slope to death.

Those far-renowned brides of ancient songPeopled the hollow dark, like burning stars,And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong,And trumpets blown for wars;

And clattering flints batter’d with clanging hoofs:And I saw crowds in column’d sanctuaries;And forms that pass’d at windows and on roofsOf marble palaces;

Corpses across the threshold; heroes tallDislodging pinnacle and parapetUpon the tortoise creeping to the wall;Lances in ambush set;

And high shrine-doors burst thro’ with heated blastsThat run before the fluttering tongues of fire;White surf wind-scatter’d over sails and masts,And ever climbing higher;

Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates,Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes,Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates,And hush’d seraglios.

So shape chased shape as swift as, when to landBluster the winds and tides the self-same way,Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand,Torn from the fringe of spray.

I started once, or seem’d to start in pain,Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak,As when a great thought strikes along the brain,And flushes all the cheek.

And once my arm was lifted to hew down,A cavalier from off his saddle-bow,That bore a lady from a leaguer’d town;And then, I know not how,

All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thoughtStream’d onward, lost their edges, and did creepRoll’d on each other, rounded, smooth’d and broughtInto the gulfs of sleep.

At last methought that I had wander’d farIn an old wood: fresh-wash’d in coolest dew,The maiden splendours of the morning starShook in the steadfast blue.

Enormous elmtree-boles did stoop and leanUpon the dusky brushwood underneathTheir broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green,New from its silken sheath.

The dim red morn had died, her journey done,And with dead lips smiled at the twilight plain,Half-fall’n across the threshold of the sun,Never to rise again.

There was no motion in the dumb dead air,Not any song of bird or sound of rill;Gross darkness of the inner sepulchreIs not so deadly still

As that wide forest.Growths of jasmine turn’dTheir humid arms festooning tree to tree,And at the root thro’ lush green grasses burn’dThe red anemone.

I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knewThe tearful glimmer of the languid dawnOn those long, rank, dark wood-walks, drench’d in dew,Leading from lawn to lawn.

The smell of violets, hidden in the green,Pour’d back into my empty soul and frameThe times when I remember to have beenJoyful and free from blame.

And from within me a clear under-toneThrill’d thro’ mine ears in that unblissful clime“Pass freely thro’: the wood is all thine own,Until the end of time”.

At length I saw a lady within call,Stiller than chisell’d marble, standing there;A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,And most divinely fair.

Her loveliness with shame and with surpriseFroze my swift speech: she turning on my faceThe star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,Spoke slowly in her place.

“I had great beauty: ask thou not my name:No one can be more wise than destiny.Many drew swords and died.Where’er I came I brought calamity.”

“No marvel, sovereign lady: in fair fieldMyself for such a face had boldly died,”I answer’d free; and turning I appeal’dTo one that stood beside.

But she, with sick and scornful looks averse,To her full height her stately stature draws;“My youth,” she said, “was blasted with a curse:This woman was the cause.

“I was cut off from hope in that sad place,Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears:My father held his hand upon his face;I, blinded with my tears,

“Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighsAs in a dream. Dimly I could descryThe stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes,Waiting to see me die.

“The high masts flicker’d as they lay afloat;The crowds, the temples, waver’d, and the shore;The bright death quiver’d at the victim’s throat;Touch’d; and I knew no more.”

Whereto the other with a downward brow:“I would the white cold heavy-plunging foam,Whirl’d by the wind, had roll’d me deep below,Then when I left my home.”

Her slow full words sank thro’ the silence drear,As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea:Sudden I heard a voice that cried, “Come here,That I may look on thee”.

I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise,One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll’d;A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes,Brow-bound with burning gold.

She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began:“I govern’d men by change, and so I sway’dAll moods. Tis long since I have seen a man.Once, like the moon, I made

“The ever-shifting currents of the bloodAccording to my humour ebb and flow.I have no men to govern in this wood:That makes my only woe.

“Nay—yet it chafes me that I could not bendOne will; nor tame and tutor with mine eyeThat dull cold-blooded Caesar. Prythee, friend,Where is Mark Antony?

“The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublimeOn Fortune’s neck: we sat as God by God:The Nilus would have risen before his timeAnd flooded at our nod.

“We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and litLamps which outburn’d Canopus. O my lifeIn Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit,The flattery and the strife,

“And the wild kiss, when fresh from war’s alarms,My Hercules, my Roman Antony,My mailèd Bacchus leapt into my arms,Contented there to die!

“And there he died: and when I heard my nameSigh’d forth with life, I would not brook my fearOf the other: with a worm I balk’d his fame.What else was left? look here!”

(With that she tore her robe apart, and halfThe polish’d argent of her breast to sightLaid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh,Showing the aspick’s bite.)

“I died a Queen. The Roman soldier foundMe lying dead, my crown about my brows,A name for ever!—lying robed and crown’d,Worthy a Roman spouse.”

Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest rangeStruck by all passion, did fall down and glanceFrom tone to tone, and glided thro’ all changeOf liveliest utterance.

When she made pause I knew not for delight;Because with sudden motion from the groundShe raised her piercing orbs, and fill’d with lightThe interval of sound.

Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts;As once they drew into two burning ringsAll beams of Love, melting the mighty heartsOf captains and of kings.

Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heardA noise of some one coming thro’ the lawn,And singing clearer than the crested bird,That claps his wings at dawn.

“The torrent brooks of hallow’d IsraelFrom craggy hollows pouring, late and soon,Sound all night long, in falling thro’ the dell,Far-heard beneath the moon.

“The balmy moon of blessed IsraelFloods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine:All night the splinter’d crags that wall the dellWith spires of silver shine.”

As one that museth where broad sunshine lavesThe lawn by some cathedral, thro’ the doorHearing the holy organ rolling wavesOf sound on roof and floor,

Within, and anthem sung, is charm’d and tiedTo where he stands,—so stood I, when that flowOf music left the lips of her that diedTo save her father’s vow;

The daughter of the warrior Gileadite,A maiden pure; as when she went alongFrom Mizpeh’s tower’d gate with welcome light,With timbrel and with song.

My words leapt forth: “Heaven heads the count of crimesWith that wild oath”. She render’d answer high:“Not so, nor once alone; a thousand timesI would be born and die.

“Single I grew, like some green plant, whose rootCreeps to the garden water-pipes beneath,Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruitChanged, I was ripe for death.

“My God, my land, my father—these did moveMe from my bliss of life, that Nature gave,Lower’d softly with a threefold cord of loveDown to a silent grave.

“And I went mourning, ‘No fair Hebrew boyShall smile away my maiden blame amongThe Hebrew mothers’—emptied of all joy,Leaving the dance and song,

“Leaving the olive-gardens far below,Leaving the promise of my bridal bower,The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glowBeneath the battled tower

“The light white cloud swam over us. AnonWe heard the lion roaring from his den;We saw the large white stars rise one by one,Or, from the darken’d glen,

“Saw God divide the night with flying flame,And thunder on the everlasting hills.I heard Him, for He spake, and grief becameA solemn scorn of ills.

“When the next moon was roll’d into the sky,Strength came to me that equall’d my desire.How beautiful a thing it was to dieFor God and for my sire!

“It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,That I subdued me to my father’s will;Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,Sweetens the spirit still.

“Moreover it is written that my raceHew’d Ammon, hip and thigh, from AroerOn Arnon unto Minneth.” Here her faceGlow’d, as I look’d at her.

She lock’d her lips: she left me where I stood:“Glory to God,” she sang, and past afar,Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood,Toward the morning-star.

Losing her carol I stood pensively,As one that from a casement leans his head,When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly,And the old year is dead.

“Alas! alas!” a low voice, full of care,Murmur’d beside me: “Turn and look on me:I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair,If what I was I be.

“Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor!O me, that I should ever see the light!Those dragon eyes of anger’d EleanorDo haunt me, day and night.”

She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust:To whom the Egyptian: “O, you tamely died!You should have clung to Fulvia’s waist, and thrustThe dagger thro’ her side”.

With that sharp sound the white dawn’s creeping beams,Stol’n to my brain, dissolved the mysteryOf folded sleep. The captain of my dreamsRuled in the eastern sky.

Morn broaden’d on the borders of the dark,Ere I saw her, who clasp’d in her last tranceHer murder’d father’s head, or Joan of Arc,A light of ancient France;

Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death,Who kneeling, with one arm about her king,Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath,Sweet as new buds in Spring.

No memory labours longer from the deepGold-mines of thought to lift the hidden oreThat glimpses, moving up, than I from sleepTo gather and tell o’er

Each little sound and sight. With what dull painCompass’d, how eagerly I sought to strikeInto that wondrous track of dreams again!But no two dreams are like.

As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,Desiring what is mingled with past years,In yearnings that can never be exprestBy sighs or groans or tears;

Because all words, tho’ cull’d with choicest art,Failing to give the bitter of the sweet,Wither beneath the palate, and the heartFaints, faded by its heat.

Old Chaucer, like the morning starTo us discoversDay from far.

In every land I thought that, more or less,The stronger sterner nature overboreThe softer, uncontrolled by gentlenessAnd selfish evermore:

And whether there were any means whereby,In some far aftertime, the gentler mindMight reassume its just and full degreeOf rule among mankind.

Clasping jasmine turnedIts twined arms festooning tree to tree.