'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition

In the darkness of the dolorous time,
When simple faith was the only crime,
And the earth had lost its Gospel chime,
There was done a deed in Spain—
A deed, though generations old,
At which the very blood runs cold,
And the heart turns sick with pain.

In the time, when the Inquisition lay,
Like a thunder cloud upon the day,
And the iron grip of its grim sway
Into men's hearts had grown,
There was done this deed of bitter shame
On a woman fair of noble name,
Who called her will her own.

When she dared to love her husband best,
To be faithful still though sorely prest
By the priests, who, while she sins confest,
To worse sins tried to lure;
They denounced her, they denounced her lord,
Because she feared not rack or sword,
And kept her purpose pure.

They were dragged before that court so fell,
Which was but the upper court of Hell;
For they loved their honour all too well,
More than their living breath;
And the sentence of their secret doom,
Was recorded in the judgment gloom,
And the sentence it was death.

Then his wife was slain before his face,
Because she scorned to be so base,
As to yield to them her spotless grace,
What makes a matron strong;
And before his staring maddened eyes,
And beneath the veiled and silent skies,
Was done this damnéd wrong.

But first in the black defiling dust,
They wreaked on her all their hellish lust,
Though they could not break her woman's trust,
In the great God of love;
Though they laid her outraged body low,
Yet the angels came in the sunset glow,
And they took her soul above.

Then they bound the live man to the dead,
And they bound them fast from foot to head,
And they spurned him with their cruel tread,
As a master spurns the slave;

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And they left him in that ghastly life,
The husband with his butchered wife,
In the darkness of the grave.

They were wedded in a marriage strange,
And stern as the tomb that knows not change,
When the thought alone can freely range,
And madness is the thought;
They were wedded in that funeral place,
And they mingled in that last embrace,
That the hand of hell had wrought.

And the white lips lay upon his own,
But the spirit warm had from them flown,
And they spoke of mysteries unknown,
But they breathed no tender breath;
And their message he might never guess,
In the silence of that cold caress,
Which was the kiss of death.

And he listened as his heart beat on,
Till the last low lingering step was gone,
And the last dim lantern no more shone,
Till the light within went out;
And he looked as dying souls for day,
Till the last pale shadow passed away,
With the distant ribald shout.

And he was alone with his heart and God,
Alone like a man in the burial sod,
And the ghostly stillness on him trod,
Like the weight of the coffin lead;
And his thoughts ran high in a raging flood,
As he lay in the horror and the blood,
Alone with his precious dead.

For the key was turned and the bolts were shot,
And for him had fallen the changeless lot,
And the massive door would open not,
Till his pulse had ceased to beat;
And he cried for mercy, and the walls
Re-echoed his despairing calls,
From out their stony seat.

But he cried in vain from his iron cage,
And the moment seemed an endless age,
And the cell the universe's stage,
And his breast a battle ground;
There was night without in the rayless gloom,
There was night within in the dreadful doom,
That his soul with darkness bound.

And he felt the warm blood slowly drip,
From the corpse and each dumb crimson lip,
And each drop falling seemed to slip

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Into his heart's own tide;
And the hours went by, and there he lay,
In the tomb that slew, and did not slay,
With the dead thing at his side.

But, hark! a sound as of friendly feet,
Mustering many and mustering fleet;
If the message were God's, the voice were sweet,
For it would release the slave;
They are coming and coming, an army strong;
He has waited late, he has waited long,
In the grip of that living grave.

They will break his bonds, they will set him free,
The light will arise and the shadows flee,
And the blinded eyes again shall see
The woman he loved so well;
And the dreadful dream in which he lies,
It will pass like a thunder-cloud from the skies,
Or the throb of a funeral bell.

There is help for the helpless soul at last,
There is hope for the hopeless, fear is past,
And the burdened breast its cares can cast
On the Lord who bids him come;
There is rest for the restless grinding pains,
Remembrance of forgotten chains,
And for the weary home.

But what do they mean? For the sounds are strange.
Has his mind, in its maddened wandering range—
Has his mind gone through some awful change,
And mocked his brain with din?
Is the noise outside in the ghostly space?
Or is fancy but its dwelling-place,
And is its seat within?

Oh, is it the wind from his mountain moor,
Chittering, chattering,
Pittering, pattering,
Over the breadth of the bloody floor,
Out of the walls and under the door,
Hurrying, scurrying,
Flurrying, worrying—
Has the wind swept down to visit the poor?

Is it lapsing of raindrops on the leaves,
Tinkling and twinkling,
Calling and falling,
Fretting the edge of familiar eaves,
Flying in spray from the arméd sheaves,
Dripping and dropping,
Chipping and chopping
The pebbles to which the dust still cleaves?

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Is he dreaming? Or are they waves that beat,
Leaping and lisping,
Creeping and crisping,
Shy in the shadow and bold in the heat,
Up to the foot of the castled seat,
Nearer and nearer,
Clearer and clearer,
Dancing to light from their dim retreat?

Are they feet of his children upon the mats,
Sliding and gliding,
Hiding and chiding,
That come flitting across the marble flats?—
Or are they the wings of the vampire bats,
Rustling and bustling,
Hustling and justling?—
Or are they—Oh, are they the damnéd rats?

At the gastly thought, his heart stood still
And he heard afar the laughing rill,
As it hastened down his native hill,
In its bright enriching track;
He saw it all in a moment's time,
And the music of its happy chime,
Brought his whole history back.

It all came back, with his childhood's toys,
And the mother's smile that caught her boy's,
And the splendour of his springtide joys,
And the service of the sword;
He knelt once more by his Inez' side,
When his love became a soldier's bride,
And he gave her to the Lord.

And then as the dreadful truth came nigh,
His breast was torn with a tempest sigh,
And his heart beat quick and his heart beat high,
Like a steed that longs to start;
And face to face with the frightful death,
He clenched his teeth and he held his breath,
To play a conqueror's part.

And lo! in a kind of trancèd daze,
Through the horror of the battle haze,
He saw the ranks in their rhythmic maze,
And many a noble Don;
He saw the red masses backward reel,
From a moving wall of flashing steal,
That still kept rolling on.

Then he felt the rats in their legions steal,
To the feasting of that funeral meal,
On the face his hands would fain conceal,

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Were they not in fetters tied;
And they peeled the precious tender flesh,
Grew tired, and the began afresh,
And were yet unsatisfied.

And they tore her tresses, shred by shred,
As the bloom of a glorious flower is shed;
But they lingered on the lovely red,
Where the red rose had been;
And God, in his mercy, veiled the night
Of the living man in dusky night,
From the things he might have seen.

For they crept and crawled, a hideous rout,
Laid bare the skull, and in and out
They swarmed, and revelled all about,
To find some feast to suit;
They gnawed and nibbled, rent the skin
To suck the sweetness from within,
As one might rend a fruit.

They fought and frolicked o'er their prey,
And none were better fed than they;
Till his jet black hair grew stiff and grey,
And his mind began to rave;
And he heard his teeth at work on her
He loved, like the pick of the grave-digger
Digging his own dark grave.

And the cruel greedy crunching sound
Went on, in its dull and ceaseless round,
As the busy fangs were sharper ground
On the once so lovely form;
And outside the walls of that dismal deep,
There came echoes as from the land of sleep—
Were they guns, or a gathering storm?

And he listened and listened, in breathless need;
But the feasting rats, they took no heed,
As they stript the frame in ravenous greed
Of the features that made it fair;
And when they were full, with emulous pace
Fresh troops poured in to take their place,
In the reeking fetid air.

And still they came in their hungry hosts,
They squeaked and moaned like gibbering ghosts,
And still drove in the outward posts
Of the army on the field;
They fought with frantic tooth and nail
For the dainty food, ere it should fail,
That none would lightly yield.

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And his straining face was ashen gray,
As he cried to God for breaking day;
And the rats they gnawed and gnawed alway,
Till his starting eyes grew dim;
But the sun would rise and the sun would set,
And the mother might her child forget,
Yet nought would shine on him.

In the blackness of that bloody strife,
On the shapeless thing that was his wife,
It seemed each rent was the butcher's knife,
And was driven into his frame;
It seemed as if for him they fought,
On him the devilry was wrought
That had no Christian name.

Each tap of the feet that darkness hid,
As a rat was gorged and downward slid,
Was the hammer's tap on the coffin lid,
From a hand that would not spare;
And the work went on, and the work went fast,
Till the awful meal was done at last,
And they picked the body bare.

And now was a pause in the dreadful deed,
While fresh rats gathered still to feed,
And still they came in their cursèd speed,
And they all had to be fed . . . .
But then they turned to the living man,
And on him once more fresh hosts began,
While they tore him shred by shred.

And the lean grew fat and the fat grew more,
As they revelled in human flesh and gore,
And they gnawed and nibbled, sucked and tore,
And ground as the millstones grind;
For they plucked the meat to the very bone,
As a dainty girl, though she has but one,
From the apple sheds its rind.

And they gouged his eyes and gauged his lips,
They clove to the cheeks with relentless grips,
And tasted his throat with greedy sips,
In their hunger great and grim;
And they rent him piecemeal, till the bands
They rattled upon his fleshless hands,
And they fastened on every limb.

As he heard the grating rasping strain,
He laughed like a marked undying Cain,
And he laughed till the walls they laughed again,
And the rats one moment stopped;

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For it seemed to him, as he maddened lay,
They were feasting on something far away,
That the battle had somewhere dropped.

He felt no pain in the cutting pangs,
And there was no edge to the cruel fangs,
For his sense was dead as the life that hangs
Over the pit of death;
Though he knew the damnèd rats were there,
And rats and rats were everywhere,
And he drank their short sharp breath.

Though he heard them picking, picking still,
And each one worked its savage will,
And each one ate its ghastly fill,
Till they could eat no more;
Though he saw the branding on his brain,
Yet never he felt a pulse of pain,
As he felt for her before.

And a fire within him seemed to burn,
As the embers in the funeral urn,
While fresh rats quarreled for their turn,
For the flesh of man is sweet;
And they had starved and waited long,
They were mad for food and fresh and strong,
And the famine winged their feet.

But again he heard that volleying sound,
That like a tempest wrapped him round—
Was it overhead or underground?
Or within his reeling mind?
And with those echoing thunder tones,
The teeth went on like chattering stones,
That cannot choose but grind.

It nearer drew and yet more near,
It clearer came and yet more clear,
Like a message to the mournful ear
Of the soul that fortune shuns;
And he strained till his ribs began to start,
For he knew it in his soldier's heart—
It was the sound of guns.

And onward still the tumult came,
With the clash of swords and the glare of flame,
Till it rolled unto those walls of shame,
And it thundered at the door;
And the rats they fled from that slaughter room,
And he heard them scattering through the gloom,
And plashing over the floor.

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A wonderment filled his soul! And then,
There trod into his troubled ken
The heavy tramp of arméd men,
With the clanking of the sword;
And it seemed to his poor clouded brain,
As if the old life had dawned again,
And he of himself was lord.

Then the tide swept in, till it reached the cell,
And the bars before its billows fell,
As the earthquake rends its earthen shell,
And vengeance flashed its light;
But the men who would rather die than yield,
And were blood-stained from the battle field,
Stood awestruck at the sight.

Lo, there was the dead to the living bound,
And the fleshless jaws they mumbled sound,
While the eyeless sockets stared around,
And the clean-picked head stood white;
For the thing half-eaten still lived on,
And jabbered to the skeleton,
And the fingers strove to write.

And there in the light of that judgment day,
In a resurrection cold and gray,
By the dead and the dying the live rats lay
So gorged that they could not fly;
And there was the man who would not sell
His soul, and the woman who loved too well
Her honour and purity.

The stones were strewn with knots of hair,
And bloody rags, that once were fair;
And bloody steps ran down the stair,
With more that did not show;
The air was thick with bloody fume,
And the red torch shone but to illume
The redder pools below.

And the rugged face turned sad and soft,
While the vow of vengeance trembled oft,
And many a sword was held aloft
By many a strong right hand;
And the hardened soldiers turned away
From the woe no mortal could allay,
As it passed to the silent land.

Then a cry of horror and of hate
The prison shook to its utmost gate,
When they measured all the accurséd fate
Of the grimly-wedded twain;

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And they hunted far and hunted wide,
For the fiends who had killed a woman's pride,
And a man had doubly slain.

Till they dragged them from their holes of shade,
At the point of the pursuing blade,
To every torture they had made,
And every hellish doom;
To see the future grow more black,
To lie on the more dreadful rack
Of memory's torture-room.

And they chained the murderers cheek by jowl,
In the reverend cassock and the cowl,
And laid them with their dying howl,
In the darkness with the bats;
With their gimcracks and their Devil's tricks,
Their crosses and their candlesticks,
They left them to the rats.

University of Virginia Library

A LEGEND OF THE INQUISITION.