 | The white sail and other poems |  |
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SAINT CADOC'S BELL.
I.
Sailor! with wonder thou hearest me,
Moored where the roots of thine anchors be,
Tolling and wailing, bursting and failing, afar in the heart of the sea.
Moored where the roots of thine anchors be,
Tolling and wailing, bursting and failing, afar in the heart of the sea.
A bell was I of Pagan lands
Forged and welded in might and beauty,
But captured by Christian chivalry,
And set in a belfry by godly hands,
With chrisms and benedictions three,
For a fourfold consecrated duty:
To summon to pray, to peal for the fray,
To measure the hours, to moan for the dead;
To moan for the dead, ah me! ah me!
Where the wild gold parasites suck and spread,
Where the sea-flower rears her dreamy head;
In the grots of immortality
The cool weird singing mermaids dwell in;
In the still city, with its empurpled air
Shaken upon the eye from bastions fair
Of coral, and pearl, and unbought jasper's glisten,
I toll and wail, I burst and fail, ah, listen!
I, the holy bell, the gift of the Lord Llewellyn,
Now the keel of a Cornish ship looms over my prison,
Call from the underworld in mine old despair.
Forged and welded in might and beauty,
But captured by Christian chivalry,
And set in a belfry by godly hands,
With chrisms and benedictions three,
For a fourfold consecrated duty:
To summon to pray, to peal for the fray,
To measure the hours, to moan for the dead;
To moan for the dead, ah me! ah me!
Where the wild gold parasites suck and spread,
Where the sea-flower rears her dreamy head;
In the grots of immortality
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In the still city, with its empurpled air
Shaken upon the eye from bastions fair
Of coral, and pearl, and unbought jasper's glisten,
I toll and wail, I burst and fail, ah, listen!
I, the holy bell, the gift of the Lord Llewellyn,
Now the keel of a Cornish ship looms over my prison,
Call from the underworld in mine old despair.
II.
They brought me in my virgin fameTo the carven minster wonder-high,
Close to the glorious sun and sky,
With song, and jubilee, and acclaim:
The fountains brimming with wine sprayed out on the crowd;
In the chapel-porches the viols and harps clanged loud,
And the slim maids danced a solemn measure, ever and aye the same,
Singing: ‘Behold, we hang our bell in
The freedom of spring, in the golden weather,
The gift of the Lord Llewellyn,
Redeemed from heathenry and strange shame,
The lion-strong bell, for our service at last led hither,
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But ere the pleased stir of the people had died,
Llewellyn, fresh home from the wars, with his soldierly stride
Climbed, bearded and splendid in mail, and his only young child
Held up from his shoulder in sight of them all; till they cried
Peal on peal of delight when the rosy babe turned, and her lip
Laid sweetly upon me in benison mild.
Yea, sailor! and thou that hearest my voice from thy ship,
Thou knowest my sorrow's beginning, thou knowest, ah me!
Whence my tolling and wailing, my breaking and failing, afar in the heart of the sea.
III.
I served the Lord ten years and a day,
In Saint Cadoc's church by the surging bay;
And housed with the gathering webs and must,
'Mid whirring of velvety wings outside,
In calm and in wind, brooding over the tide,
And the bright massed roofs, and the crags' array,
My strong life, innocent and just,
Fell of a sudden to ashes and dust,
And on my neck hotly the demon laid the bare rod of his sway!
In Saint Cadoc's church by the surging bay;
And housed with the gathering webs and must,
'Mid whirring of velvety wings outside,
In calm and in wind, brooding over the tide,
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My strong life, innocent and just,
Fell of a sudden to ashes and dust,
And on my neck hotly the demon laid the bare rod of his sway!
How it befell, I know not yet,
(Sailor, with wonder thou hearest me),
Save that a passionate sharp regret,
An exile's longing, o'ermastered not,
Seared thought like a pestilential spot,
And sent my day-dreams traitorously
Back to the place where my life began,
To the long blue mornings, blown and wet,
To the pyre by the sacred rivulet,
And the chanting Cappadocian.
No more a Christian bell was I!
For all became, which seemed so good,
Vile thraldom, in my bitter mood
That thrust the old conformance by.
Sullen and harsh, to the acolyte
I answered of a Sabbath night,
And sprang on the organ's withdrawing peal
To shatter its pomp, like a charge of steel.
The good monks puzzled and prayed, I trow:
But against their Heaven I set my brow.
(Sailor, with wonder thou hearest me),
Save that a passionate sharp regret,
An exile's longing, o'ermastered not,
Seared thought like a pestilential spot,
And sent my day-dreams traitorously
Back to the place where my life began,
To the long blue mornings, blown and wet,
To the pyre by the sacred rivulet,
And the chanting Cappadocian.
No more a Christian bell was I!
For all became, which seemed so good,
Vile thraldom, in my bitter mood
That thrust the old conformance by.
Sullen and harsh, to the acolyte
I answered of a Sabbath night,
And sprang on the organ's withdrawing peal
To shatter its pomp, like a charge of steel.
The good monks puzzled and prayed, I trow:
But against their Heaven I set my brow.
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IV.
To me, by the ancient, triple-roped,Lone, tortuous stair, whereby I made
A tingling silence, a heavy concentric shade,
The twelve-years' child of the Lord Llewellyn groped:
With May-wreaths laden, the loving strange child came!
And my pulses that throbbed at sight of her, ten years gone,
Chilled and recoiled at her delicate finger-touch, guessing
Along my brazen-wrought margin, the laud and the blessing
Traced, thro' the vine, thro' the tangle of star and of sun,
By her dead father's name, by Llewellyn's magnificent name.
And even as she stood in the dark, the doom and the horror rushed on me;
(I had weakened my soul, and they won me!)
I felt the desire at my vitals, the unbearable joy that is pain:
With one mad tigerish spring against the dim rafter,
I smote the sweet child in my rage, I smote her with laughter,
And a sound like the rain
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And I knew that the life in her brain
I had quenched at the stroke, and flung even my darling of yore
Down the resonant, tottering stair, down, down to the centuried door!
Then the swift hurricane,
The clamoring army thronged up from below, my allegiance to claim!
Lean goblins, brown-flecked like a toad, the gnomic horned ghosts,
Imps flickering, quarry-sprites grim, all the din of the dolorous hosts,
All the glory and glee of the cursèd hissed round me and round, as a flame.
And they loosened my hold from the tower, and my hope from the hem
Of the garment of Him who could save, as they jeered! and with speed
Crashed down past the rocks and the wrecks; and the horrible deed
Was done. I was theirs; and I gave up my spirit to them.
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V.
In a mossy minaretFathoms under, I am set.
All the sea-shapes undulating
At my gates forlorn are waiting,
All the dreary faint-eyed people
Watch me in my hollow steeple,
While the glass-clear city heaves
Oft beneath its earthy eaves.
So in sorrow, sorrow, sorrow
Yestereven and to-morrow,
Thro' the æons, in a cell
Hangs Saint Cadoc's loveless bell,
Orbèd, like a mortal's tear,
On the moony atmosphere,
Bearing, the refrain of time,
Memory, and unrest, and crime.
Thou that hast the world sublime!
I that was free, I am lost, I am damned, I am here!
And whenever a child among men by a blow is dead,
Docile for aye from the deeps must I lift my head,
And from the heathen heart of me that breaks,
The unextinguishable music wakes,
Naught availing, naught deterred.
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Even as thou, alas! hast heard,
Fallen in awe upon thy knee,
Tolling and wailing, bursting and failing, afar in the ominous sea.
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