University of Virginia Library

AND now six days of journeying were done,
And eke the seventh one
Drew tow'rd the hour when, in the middle day,
The golden lights do stay
Their upward travel in the slant blue sky,
And all the plains do lie
Asleep beneath the sun. And with the flame
Of noon, a change there came
Upon the forward path; for until then
The squire's advance had lain
Through plains and woods and countries known to man:
But now the road began,
Upon the nooning of the seventh day,
To merge into a way
Strange beyond any that a man could know.
Upon the earth below
Strange glittering shells and sands of gray were strown,
And many a blood-red stone,
Changeful in colour; and above, gnarl'd trees
Shook with an unfelt breeze;
And therein many a shape of dwarf and gnome,
Such as, folk say, do roam
About the dreamland's gates, did climb and cling,
Mowing and gibbering
Like uncouth monstrous apes. On either hand,
Gray flowerless plants did stand
Along the highway's marge, and blood-red bells,
Such as for midnight spells
Thessalian witches pluck: and thereabout
Crowded a noiseless rout
Of gray and shadowy creatures. All the air
Was misted with the glare
Of the curst flowers and the strange baleful scent
That from the herbs was sprent
As for some ill enchantment: and the things
That hover'd there had wings
And waver'd dimly over Ebhart's head
And beckon'd as they sped
Across his path, striving to draw him off
From the highway most rough
And rude, among the pleasant fields that lay
Each side the rugged way,—
Tempting the man with many-colour'd flowers
And semblants of lush bowers
Of trellised foliage, set beside the path
In many a waving swath
Of corn and greensward, easeful to behold,—
Wooing him in the gold
Of the rich meadows to lie down and sleep
Away, in that green deep
Of flowers, the weariness of his long ride.
But Ebhart not aside
A hair's-breadth turn'd his steed for all their wiles,
Nor for the golden smiles
Of the fair harbours that invited him,
Swerved from the highway's rim,
Clear cut against the far horizon's blaze
Of gold, his steadfast gaze;
But with a firm-set mouth rode on thereby,
Watching the sun now nigh
To death upon the hills, as one that sees
In thought his miseries
Draw to their term, and for no thing nor power
Will, in that fateful hour,
Draw bridle nor be tempted from his road.
So ever he abode
In the due westward path, regarding not
The glamours any jot,
That compass'd him about. Then those strange things,
That with their blandishings
And spellwork strove to tempt him to forego
His long intent, did know
Their efforts void and with a doleful cry
Evanish'd utterly
Into the twilight and were no more seen.
And as they fled, the treen
Grew green again; the grey herbs wither'd off
And all the sky did doff
The lurid gloom and hazes that it wore.
But Ebhardt, conning o'er
The dim-gold landscape and the purple west
For tokens of his quest,
E'en as he rode, o'er in his memory turn'd
The things for which he yearn'd,—
That of the dreams which had possest his youth
There might no whit, in sooth,
Be lost for lack of his remembering:
And so, as with swift wing
His spirit wander'd in the olden ways,
Searching amid the maze
Of memories thick-woven in his mind,—
The hurrying thoughts were twined
Into the fulness of the old desire;
And with the ancient fire
There grew within the chambers of his brain,
Unchanged by years and pain,
The flower-new fantasies of days gone by.
Now was the time to die
Come for the day, wearied to utterest
Of life, whenas the west
Kiss'd its last kiss against the pale sun's lips;
And now, as the eclipse
Of the red light left void the weeping blue
Of the pale heaven and through
The woven cloisters of the purpled trees
The evening-waken'd breeze
Began to flutter, — upon either hand
Over the weary land,
Faint music sounded from the dim sweet woods,
And the delight that broods
Over fill'd sleep was sweet upon the squire:
And all the man's desire
As 'twere to brim with ecstasy, he heard
The carol of a bird,
That sang as it awhile had dwelt among
The high seraphic throng
And listen'd to the smitten golden lyres
Pulsing among the choirs
Of Paradise, beside the crystal sea, —
And such an ecstasy
Of echoes linger'd at its heartstrings still,
It never could fulfil
Its bliss with memory of those wondrous hours,
But to the earthly flowers
Some snatches of the singing's rise and fall
Strove ever to recall.
Then in the middle road there rose before
The squire a mist, that wore
Strange blazonry of many mingling hues,
As 'twere the falling dews
Were curtain'd in a thick and glittering haze
Across the forward ways;
And in the clear sweet hour before the night
There rose in the twilight
An arch of glitterance upon the hem
Of heaven, like a gem
Built to a rainbow, that 'twixt earth and sky
Grew higher and more high;
And as it grew, the colours that it wore
Shone glorious ever more,
As if it were the portal of the land
Of Faerie. Nigh at hand
The place beyond that archway of a dream
Unto the squire did seem,
And with great joyance through the bended bow,
That all the earth did strow
With blending lights of amethyst and gold,
He rode, thinking to hold
His dream at once; but, as he pass'd the verge,
The mountains seem'd to surge
In the blue distance like a billowy sea,
And the far sky did flee
Along the arch. The golden heaven's rim
Grew paler and more dim,
Receding alway, and the place whereon
He rode was clad upon
With a bright sudden growth of magic blooms.
Out of the folding glooms
Of the near dusk rose trail on trail of flowers
And arch'd the road with bowers
Of an unearthly sweetness, marking out
His way, beyond a doubt,
Unto his quest: and as he rode along
The vaulted path, the song
Of the strange bird more rapturous ever grew,
Like an enchanted dew
Of music falling in a silver sea.
All over flower and lea
A new light pass'd, that was not of the sun,
For all the day was done
And the dim night held all the lands aswoon,
Until the hornèd moon
Should ride pearl-shod across the purple wold.
Then from the rim of gold
That linger'd still on the horizon's marge,
A golden blaze grew large
Of glamorous colour and within the span
Of the broad arch began
To spread and hold the purple of the skies;
And as with all his eyes
Gazed Ebhart, wonder-dumb, — against the ground
Of purest gold that crown'd
The heavens in the ending of the glade,
There were for him inlaid
Turrets and battlements, a flowering
Of every lovely thing.
Along the marge of the sweet sky there rose
Gold towers and porticoes
Of burnish'd jasper, ruby cupolas
And domes high-hung, topaz
And opal-vaulted; sapphire campanelles
Held up their flower-blue bells
Against the gold sky; silver fountain-jets
Between the minarets
Threw high their diamond spray, and fretted spires
Flamed up, like frozen fires
Of amethyst and beryl, past the height
Of lofty walls of white,
Thickset with terraces aflame with flower.
Shower upon scented shower,
The blossoms rain'd from high and bloomy trees,
Before a scented breeze,
That fill'd the air with balms and orient gold
And on its waftings roll'd
Across the plains a singing sound of lyres,
Smitten from golden wires,
And clarion-notes, wide-spreading like a sea
Under a company
Of joinèd voices, murmuring softest words
To music like white birds
Winnowing the foam of some gold Indian bay.
Lay murmur'd unto lay
From out that dwelling of a God's delight,
Following each other's flight
To greet the dreamer with their blissful stress,
And pipes and lutes no less
Yearn'd up to him with strains of welcoming.
And Ebhart, lingering
As 'twere before his nigh-fulfill'd desire,
Knew all those towers of fire,
Sun-glancing, and the flower-fleck'd terraces,
And in the harmonies,
Wide-winging through the crystal air agleam
With gold-flakes, knew his dream,
As of old times he had pourtray'd the place,
With all its changeful grace
No moment same, for all the golden dew
And all the flowers that blew
And shimmer'd like a noon-mist thereabout.
So with a glad heart, out
Through the flower-arch he rode and came unto
The portal, sculptured through
With pictures of a dream in chrysoprase
And beryl and a maze
Of blossoms of the jewel that in one
Is flower and precious stone,
Being clear hyacinth, — wroughten by no hand
Of man. The leaves did stand
Wide-open for his coming, backward roll'd
Even to their flange of gold.
So in he rode and saw the white town spread,
In all its goodlihead
Like nothing earthly, very still and wide,
Upon his either side
Far-stretching like a vision of the night
Beyond his further sight.
The place was overrun with flowerage
Of wondrous blooms that wage
War with the sun in many an Orient clime:
Great silver bells did climb
The gabled turrets with their linking chains,
Mix'd thick with crimson skeins
And chalices of sapphire. In the ways
Gold-paven, rose a maze
Of trellised porticoes and white dream-steads;
And midst the mossy beds
Of the lush flowers, strewn like a rain of stars
In every court, through bars
Of gold one saw clear lakelets lay and toy'd
With the white swans, that joy'd
To sport in their cool pleasance; and the air
Was tuneful with the fair
Clear tinkle of the crystal rills that ran
Across each flowerbed's span
And fed the grass-roots. Then, as down the street
Rang out the horse's feet,
Calling strange lovely echoes from their cells,
Flute-notes and silver bells,
That broke the silence with a songful spray,
There ran in the mid way
Unto the man a sudden cloud of girls,
With breasts like double pearls
Rose-tinted by long sojourn in the gold
Of some far Orient, stoled
But in the waving mantles of their hair:
Tall maidens, dusk and fair
With the long gilding kisses of the light,
Fresh from the fierce delight
Of plains of golden Ind and Javan seas,
Shook on the fragrant breeze
Rich scents from lotus-cups; and Grecian maids,
Under their night-black braids,
Cinct with the green acanthus, did advance,
Link'd in a rhythmic dance:
Fair girls came, crown'd with white narcissus-stars,
From rose-strewn plains of Fars;
The lithe mild maids of gold Pacific isles
Brought him their pearly smiles
And olive brows set clear with eyes of black:
Nor to his sight did lack
Women with faces of the rosy snow
Only the west can show,
In whose fair ivory for double light
Two tender eyes and bright
Were set, the colour of the spring-sky's blue,
Hazed with the early dew,—
And down their shoulders fell a fleece of gold,
In many a ripple roll'd
Of sun-imprisoning locks. And these beside,
From every portal's wide
Gaped folds came out into the golden street,
Eager the man to greet,
Bright shapes of every radiant eye-delight
Of lovely women dight
In pleasant raiment, that a dream can heap
Up in the aisles of sleep.
Then those fair creatures,—waving like a sea
Of gold and ebony,
For all the mazes of their floating hair,—
Smote the clear jewell'd air
With songs of triumph and of welcoming;
And while their lips did sing,
Their hands strew'd jasmines in the horse's path
And with a scented swath
Of violet and rose and orange-stars,
Hid every sign of wars
And toil that cumberèd the valiant steed.
Now in the song indeed
And in the varied beauty of the girls,
Set clear in clustering curls,
Were easance and delight for any man
That since the world began
Loved girls and song and the soft cadenced beat
Of golden-sandall'd feet
On thick-strewn flowers; and there might well the fire
Of any man's desire
Be quell'd and satisfied with loveliness
And all its dreams possess
In those fair women, with their flowery kiss
And their descant's clear bliss.
But Ebhart cherish'd in his heart—made clear
By many a weary year
Of void desire—the memory of a face
Of an unearthly grace
And glory, that had smïled on him in dreams,
Woven, it seem'd, of gleams
Of pure spring suns and flowers of white moonlight,—
And for the memory, might
Have pleasance in no woman save in this,
That was his Beatrice
And queen of love. So all unmoved he went
By any blandishment
Of that fair throng, slowly adown the street,
Hoping his eyes should meet
Her eyes for whom alone his heartstrings shook.
Then, seeing that the look
Of yearning died not from the seeker's eyes,
Circling in bright bird-wise,
The fair crowd broke before his onward route;
And from the rest came out
A maiden, robed in falling folds of green
And crown'd with jessamine
And myrtle-snows, that took his bridle-rein
And led the steed, full fain,
Along the fragrant carpet of the way,
Toward a light that lay
Far in the westward distance like a flame
Of gold. Behind them came
The frolic crowd of girls, following the twain
With showers of blossom-rain
And rills of song, until they brought them where
Pillars of pearl upbare
A dome of lustrous sapphire, flank'd with spires
That pierced the sky like fires
Up-flaming from the molten furnaces
Of middle earth, 'mid trees
Ablaze with flowers of gold. Before the gate
The maiden did abate
Her onward way and bade the squire alight.
Then on the pavement, white
With scented snows, the man sprang lightly down
And with his gauntlet brown
Smote on the golden trellis such a stroke,
That all the echoes woke
Thereto: and therewithal the gold leaves split
In twain and did admit
The sight through archways into many a glade
Of gardens, all outlaid
Beneath the heavens' kisses. Entering
Therein, the maid did bring
The squire, through many dwellings of delight,
Into a place where light
Lay full and soft a velvet sward athwart.
There in the middle court
Circled with jewell'd cloisters all around,—
Upon the emerald ground
Of gilded mosses broider'd with all flowers
In stories of the hours
That through the spring and summer bear the year
Over the flower-beds clear,—
There was a throne of gold and coral set,
With many a goodly fret
Of ivory work, upon the suppliant heads
Of strange fair quadrupeds,
Most like a lovely lion with girl's eyes,
Upborne; and warder-wise
About the throne, stood maidens white as milk,
Vestured in snowy silk
Banded with cramozin, and pages fair,
Clad all in pleasant vair
And silver, that so thick and numberless
About the throne did press,
One might not see the visage of the Crown'd
That sat thereon. Around,
Among the roses and the tulip-beds,
Thick-vein'd with silver threads
Of tiny trickling rills, fair birds of white
And red did stalk and bright
Peacocks and doves of every lovely hue,
Golden and green and blue,
Trail'd jewell'd plumes along the garden-ways,
That with the goodly blaze
Of their full splendour so did fill the bowers,
It seem'd all fairest flowers
Had put on wing and motion, to fulfil
Their beauty at the will
Of some enchantress of the olden days.
About the glancing ways
Of that bright garden ceaselessly they went,
Weaving its ravishment
Into fresh webs of colour and delight.
And as their pageant bright
Eddied and wound among the garden-grots,
From all their fluted throats
There was a vaporous choral song exhaled,
As 'twere the spirit fail'd
Within them, for delight, to shape its bliss
Into the words that kiss
The ear with perfect music, and was fain
For very rapturous pain
Of ecstasy to lapse into a song.
Now on the glittering throng
Long time the squire had gazed, held in a trance
Of joy, nor dared advance
His spell-bound feet; and oft for bliss he sigh'd.
But that fair maid, his guide,
Laid hands on him and brought him, through the crowd
Of maidens snowy-brow'd,
To the mid-garden, where the throne was set.
Then did the man forget
All things that blazon'd earthly life for him,
And all his dream grew dim
Before a new-born wonder: for, as there
He stood, he was aware
Of a fair shape that sat upon the throne,
Such as to him was shown
In dreams the image of his Queen of Love.
Clear was her brow above
The crystals of the snow for purity,
And round its ivory
Seven silver stars there were for diadem
Upon the waving hem
Of the rich tresses set, that rippled down,
A flood of golden-brown,
The colour of the early chestnut's robe,
When yet the summer's globe
Is but half rounded out with flower and sun.
And from the stars did run
Commingling rays of many-colour'd light,
That with a strange delight
Fill'd all the trancèd network of her hair,
Wherein for all men's care
Were set soft anodynes and balms of sleep.
Within her lips, a deep
Of coral garner'd up its pearls a-row,
And in her arching brow
There were two eyes unfathomable set,
Wherein might one forget
The glance of the dead friend of bygone years
And the sweet smile through tears
Of the lost love of youth; for they were clear
And soft as a hill-mere
After spring-rains, whenas the early dew
Has fallen in its blue,
And yet with some strange hints of deeper tones,
Such as the June night owns,
Before the moon is full, when the clear stars
Ride on their jewell'd cars,
Queenless, across the purple of the skies
And the day-murmur dies
Under the vaulted dome of amethyst.
With such lips Dian kiss'd
Endymion sleeping on the Latmian sward:
From such twin eyes were pour'd
The philtres of the summer night upon
The evil-fortuned son
Of Priam, smitten with a fearful bliss.
Whoever had the kiss
Of her red lips kiss'd never woman more,
Having attain'd the shore
Of that supernal bliss the ancients sought
So long, but never wrought
To find,—the very perfectness of love.
Upon one hand, a dove,
Pearl-white and with a golden colleret,
Was for a symbol set,
And in the other one lys-blooms she held,
Gold-cored and snowy-bell'd,
The sceptre of her queendom. 'Twixt the snows
Of her fair breast, a rose,
Mix'd red and white, lay droop'd with heavy head,
As with the mightihead
Of love that fill'd her presence all forspent.
And as on him was bent
That full sweet visage, its sheer perfectness
Of glory did possess
The squire with such a wondering delight
Of bliss and such a might
Of hurrying thoughts, that for the very fire
Of his fulfill'd desire
The life well-nigh forsook him; and eftsoon
He would have fallen aswoon
Before that Lady of all loveliness,
That from the ardent stress
And furnace of his dream to shape had grown.
But she, to whom were known
The passions that within his soul did meet,
Descending from her seat,
Bent down and in her ivory arms embraced
His neck and all enlaced
His failing visage with her woven hair,
Holding him captive there
Within a gold and silver prison house.
Then, parting from the brows
His ruffled hair, she kiss'd him on the mouth;
And suddenly the drouth
Of yearning, that so many years had tried
His spirit, did subside
And was all quench'd within a honied deep
Of kisses, that did steep
His soul in ravishment ineffable
And restful. So there fell
A woof of sleep upon his every limb;
And in the trances dim
Of twining dreams, he heard a silver song
From out that glittering throng
Of lovely girls and jewel-plumaged birds
Fill all the air with words,
That (if with devious weary earthly speech
One might avail to reach
Some echo of their sweetness) in this wise
Somewhat did fall and rise,
Like sea-waves beating on a golden bar
Of sands, but lovelier far.

Song.