The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

HIC
Why do you sadly go alone,
O fair friend? Are your pigeons flown,
Or has the thunder killed your bees,
Or he-goats barked your apple-trees?
Or has the red-eared bull gone mad,
Or the mead turned from good to bad?
Or did you find the merchant lied
About the gay cloth scarlet-dyed?
And did he sell you brass for gold,
Or is there murrain in the fold?

ILLE
Nay, no such thing has come to me.
In bird and beast and field and tree,
And all the things that make my store,
Am I as rich as e'er before;
And no beguilers have I known
But Love and Death; and Love is gone,
Therefore am I far more than sad,
And no more know good things from bad.

HIC
Woe worth the while! Yet coming days
May bring another, good to praise.

ILLE
Nay, never will I love again,
For loving is but joyful pain
If all be at its very best;
A rose-hung bower of all unrest;
But when at last things go awry,
What tongue can tell its misery?
And soon or late shall this befall—
The Gods send death upon us all.

348

HIC
Nay, then, but tell me how she died,
And how it did to thee betide
To love her; for the wise men say
To talk of grief drives grief away.

ILLE

Alas, O friend, it happed to me
To see her passing daintily
Before my homestead day by day—
Would she had gone some other way!
For one day, as she rested there
Beneath the long-leaved chestnuts fair,
In very midst of mid-day heat,
I cast myself before her feet,
And prayed for pity and for love.
How could I dream that words could move
A woman? Soft she looked at me:
“Thou sayest that I a queen should be,”
She answered with a gathering smile;
“Well, I will wait a little while;
Perchance the Gods thy will have heard.”

And even with that latest word,
The clash of arms we heard anigh;
And from the wood rode presently
A fair knight well apparelled.
And even as she turned her head,
He shortened rein, and cried aloud:
“O beautiful, among the crowd
Of queens thou art the queen of all!”

But when she let her eyelids fall,
And blushed for pleasure and for shame,
Then quickly to her feet he came,
And said, “Thou shalt be queen indeed;
For many a man this day shall bleed

349

Because of me, and leave me king
Ere noontide fall to evening.”

Then on his horse he set the maid
Before him, and no word she said
Clear unto me, but murmuring
Beneath her breath some gentle thing,
She clung unto him lovingly;
Nor took they any heed of me.

Through shade and sunlight on they rode
But 'neath the green boughs I abode,
Nor noted aught that might betide.
The sun waned and the shade spread wide;
The birds came twittering overhead;
But there I lay as one long dead.

But ere the sunset, came a rout
Of men-at-arms with song and shout,
And bands of lusty archers tall,
And spearmen marching like a wall,
Their banners hanging heavily,
That no man might their blazon see;
And ere their last noise died away,
I heard the clamour of the fray
That swelled and died and rose again;
Yet still I brooded o'er my pain
Until the red sun nigh was set,
And then methought I e'en might get
The rest I sought, nor wake forlorn
Midst fellow-men the morrow morn;
So forth I went unto the field,
One man without a sword or shield.
But none was there to give me rest,
Tried was it who was worst and best,
And slain men lay on every side;
For flight and chase were turned aside,

350

And all men got on toward the sea.
But as I went right heavily
I saw how close beside the way
Over a knight a woman lay
Lamenting, and I knew in sooth
My love, and drew a-near for ruth.

There lay the knight who would be king
Dead slain before the evening,
And ever my love cried out and said,
“O sweet, in one hour art thou dead
And I am but a maiden still!
The Gods this day have had their will
Of thee and me; whom all these years
They kept apart: that now with tears
And blood and bitter misery
Our parting and our death might be.”

Then did she rise and look around,
And took his drawn sword from the ground
And on its bitter point she fell—
No more, no more, O friend, to tell!
No more about my life, O friend!
One course it shall have to the end.

O Love, come from the shadowy shore,
And by my homestead as before
Go by with sunlight on thy feet!
Come back, if but to mock me, sweet!

HIC
O fool! what love of thine was this,
Who never gave thee any kiss,
Nor would have wept if thou hadst died?
Go now, behold the world is wide:
Soon shalt thou find some dainty maid
To sit with in thy chestnut shade,

351

To rear fair children up for thee,
As those few days pass silently,
Uncounted, that may yet remain
'Twixt thee and that last certain pain.

ILLE
Art thou a God? Nay, if thou wert,
Wouldst thou belike know of my hurt,
And what might sting and what might heal?
The world goes by 'twixt woe and weal
And heeds me not; I sit apart
Amid old memories. To my heart
My love and sorrow must I press;
It knoweth its own bitterness.