University of Virginia Library

So when the light was springing in the east,
Unkennelled staghounds bayed, men's voices rose,
Steeds pawed and clanked their bridles. Then, equipped
In hunting gear, Prince Edwin and the rest
Trooped forth with spirits gay as their attire;
And with the dawn, and like another dawn,
But fairer, Bertha came. Amid the dogs
They mounted, and the instant that the sun
Stood on the hill-tops, prodigal of light,
They rode with wondrous clatter on their way;
And ever as they in their joyous haste
Skirted dim forest, forded shallow stream—
In which the sun had thrown a spear that lay
Golden on amber pebbles—pushed o'er heath,
The sound that gaily travelled on before
Woke all things ere they came. For when afar
At instance of a strong-lunged forester,
The sudden bugle on the rosy cliff
Was splintered into echoes, from the marsh
The heron screaming rose; within his wood
The mountain bull stood listening to the sound,
Silent as lowering thunder, when the winds
Are choked, and leaves hang dead; and from his lair
Rose, with dew-dappled flanks, the stag, and snuffed
Their coming in the wind—a moment stood,
His speed in all his limbs—but when the pack
Dragged with them down the echoes of the vale
And opened out, he fled, with antlers laid
Along his back like ears. Halloo and horn
Broke then upon the breeze. Now on his flight
By flying wood, o'er wastes, thro' streams that splashed
High o'er the saddle girths, the hunters hung,
And ever as a slowly burning fire
Consumed the space between. And, as it happed,
When the increasing sun grew hot and strong
In an impetuous whirl of stormy chase,
The Prince and Bertha were alike thrown out.
The rest ne'er drew a rein, for now the troop,
With long-haired Regner far in the advance,
Was pressing hard upon the weary brute,
Sore-panting, black with sweat. Around a crag
That with its gloomy pines o'er-hung the vale,
Swept hunt and hunter out of sight and sound.
They were alone, and in the sudden calm,
When round them came the murmur of the woods
Upon a sweeping sigh of summer wind—
O moment dying ere a cymbal's clash!
O memory enough to sweeten death!—
The unexpected solitude surprised
His heart to utterance, and the Princess sat
Blinded and crimson as the opening rose
That feels yet sees not day. Then, while the wind
To his quick heart grew still, and every leaf
Was watchful ear and eye, he pressed his lips
Upon the fairest hand in all the world
Once. That instant, like an envious fate
That rushes through, dissevering clinging joys,
A distance-muffled bugle sang à mort;
His courser started to his iron heel;
And, ere the blush had died on Bertha's cheek,
And ere her eyes could bear the conscious day,
They reached the crag with its black scalp of pines:
Rounding, they saw the end. For on a rock
That rose fern-fringed and lichened in a dell,
Tall Regner stood. “Ye twain have lost a sight!
With bursting heart he turned upon us here,
Desperate in death. Upon him climbed the dogs
To drop off gored. He would have beat them, too,
Had not I on him drawn my hunting knife—
He came down like a pine!”

So after rest,
Homeward through prime of noon the hunters wound;
The Princess rode with dewy drooping eyes
And heightened colour. Voice and clang of hoof,
And all the clatter as they sounded on,
Became a noisy nothing in her ear,
A world removed. The woman's heart that woke
Within the girlish bosom—ah! too soon!—
Filled her with fear and strangeness; for the path,
Familiar to her childhood, and to still
And maiden thoughts, upon a sudden dipped
To an unknown sweet land of delicate light
Divinely aired, but where each rose and leaf
Was trembling, as if haunted by a dread
Of coming thunder. Changed in one quick hour
From bud to rose, from child to woman, love
Silenced her spirit, as the swelling brine
From out the far Atlantic makes a hush
Within the channels of the careless stream,
That erst ran chattering with the pebble stones.
Somewhat in front rode on the happy Prince;
His heart was frozen on that battle-day
To one wild thought of vengeance, and stood still
Like a stopped clock, aye pointing to one hour
Through days of gloom and shine. But now the hate
And ancient sorrow, piled up cloud on cloud,
Lost form, and in an ecstasy dissolved,
In wandering blood that knew itself beloved,
And with the tidings ran to pulse and nerve
And thrilled them. Once again the light was sweet,
The lark sang, and the hedge wore scent and bloom,
And in his spirits' morning light, a word,
A hunter's jest, the nothings of discourse,
Were things to play with in his happiness,
As they were golden toys. So, when they reached
The palace gate, and Bertha had gone in,
Taking the sunshine with her, Edwin flung
The reins impatient on his courser's neck,
Broke through the crowd of losels gathered round,
And sought the loneliness of wood and field
To listen to the nightingale that sang
Within his heart of love and love's delight;
And on it sang till, through enkindled air,
The heron flapped toward his forest home
With gullet full of fish. Returning then
Slow-paced, and miser of his own delight,
While lovely shapes of summer twilight stole
From tree-root and from hollow, and joined hands
In silence on the plain, he reached at last
The palace, stiller than its wont, and would
Have entered, but from out the solid gloom,
Flung from an overhanging eave, the Page
Who met him by the rock-split streamlet, broke
With finger on his lip: “O enter not!
The place is trapped and baited for thy life.
The hate of Ethelbert is round thee here.
I know thy story as it hath been noised,
And that the King is troubled by thy case,
And would, and yet would not. So when at noon,
In absence of the Princes and thyself,
There came one seeking Redwald, travel-stained,
I was alert as a hind's ear to catch
The danger in the wind. I hid myself
Within the private chamber, where the King
Gives his selectest audience. When they came,
Without a pause, the strange man opened out
His treacherous purpose with a shameless brow,
And guessing, as I deemed, the King was weak,
And must in any strife go to the wall;
Or that the coward dwelling in his heart
Would prove the ally in the house, and fling
Out to the foe the keys of every gate,
He scorned to lacquer the accursed thing
(Which in the first flush of its hideousness,
Like a fanged snake, might make a man shriek out)
With glozing speech. And wisely. Deeds like these
Corrupt in their excuses. Ethelbert,
I gathered from their converse, having heard
That thou art come for shelter to the court—
(Ill fall the little bird that sang the news),
Threats war on Redwald if he stands thy friend—
Sharp war that will not spare a living thing.
If he betrays thee, gold is his, and part
Of thy dismembered kingdom. Long they talked—
I heard the chink of golden argument,
While Redwald's mind swayed this way now, now that,
And now he would betray thee, now defend.
Thus hearing, from my hiding-place I stole
To warn thee hence if not indeed too late.
There is no time to lose. This very night
The foul thing may be done; strange whispers pass
Throughout the palace. Openly his sons
Marvel at what's afoot. This moment fly—
I know the secretest sequestered paths
And hiding places that ne'er saw the day.”

As nightmared man—when solid-seeming ground
Breaks downward in a cliff precipitous
And on the sheer edge leaves him, dizzy-brained,
Toppling o'er death,—strives to regain the morn
And the sweet healthy world, Prince Edwin strove
In coils of monstrous evil, and at last,
Trampling the foul thing underfoot, he smiled.
“I owe thee many thanks for thy regard,
And for this cruel kindness more than all.
Out of thy love for me, thou urgest flight—
The falcon hath its nature and the dove,
And by that nature is each motion shaped
And every beat of wing. Thy master's hearth
Hath warmed me, at his table have I fed,
Drunk of his cup, and 'twere the vil'st return
By hasty flight to call him traitorous
To dead and living. Doubtless, this bad hour
But swims a vapour o'er the heavenly lights
That will be clear anon. But if, indeed,
His spirit harbours murder—if the knife
Has bloody fascination for the hand—
I have no power to cover up my throat,
'Tis naked to its using.”

Then the Page—
“Remain awhile within the friendly dark,
And ere the thing draws to a wicked head,
Poisoned and fanged, and raised in act to sting,
I will rejoin thee here, and lead thee far;
And, if it melts in nothingness away,
I'll be the blithest bearer of good news
That ever ran. So cloak thyself in night.
I will into the palace, where I'll tread
With foot of air, made up of ears and eyes.”

When he was gone, the Prince, with heavy heart,
Not knowing what to do or where to turn,
Sat on a stone, a bow-shot from the gate,
Sore troubled. In his cloak he wrapt his face
Like one who hears the coming foot of doom
And waits the end. Hour passed on tardy hour,
And in the dreary middle of the night
The late moon rose, and then he groaning said:

“Ah, miserable me! My soldiers bleach
Beneath the moon, and she who bore me, sleeps
On flint beside the waterfall, begirt
By widows, and by children, and by all
The congregated sorrow of a realm
Most sorrowful. And I, who can alone
Bring to my people roof-tree, fire, and law,
And build again for them an ordered state,
Sit here an outcast, and the door is shut.
And Ethelbert, my deadly foe, like air
Enclips me round, and there is no escape.
Ah, wretched! for to me the healthy world
Is poisoned and deranged; where'er I go
Worth turns to baseness; and sweet love itself
That dwells with weary hinds, and makes the load
To the galled shoulder lighter, brandishes
With snow-soft arm a burning torch for me
That but reveals the face of a despair
That darkling stood, and all my prison's strength—
A prison wide as the unbounded world,
Whose walls are my own life. To-day I've fallen
From summer, and the song-bird and the rose,
To a dark ground, exempt from light, that breathes
The earthy horror of a new-made grave,
And those who should be unto me as friends
Stretch hands to push me in. So let it be:
Death heads the mighty count of human ills,
And every man can die. And in the grave
All hatred and revenge are baulked at last;
No smiles that murder hide, no star of love
Lighting my steps to ruin, no bloodhound
Hoarse baying on my track, can ever more
Disturb my quiet. A great sea of peace,
On which was never boat nor puff of wind,
'Twixt me and sorrow flows.”

Thereat down pressed
With grief he forward leaned, as forward leans
The bulrush when the stream runs swift with rain.
Thus like one carved he sat, till suddenly
He felt upon him breathe an icy wind,
And with an unknown terror every hair
From heel to scalp arise; then looking up
He saw in that lone place a dark-robed man
Stand like a pillar in the setting moon;
And at the sight Prince Edwin's heart stood still.

“What man art thou that sitt'st on this cold stone
When every bird, its head beneath its wing,
Is sound asleep upon the forest bough?”

“It matters little where I sit o' nights.”

“I know thy name, and why thou sittest here.
I saw thee sleeping on the naked ground
With but a rainy sky for coverlet.
I know thy story and the things thou fear'st;
What wouldst thou give if I turned Redwald's heart
And made him draw the sword in thy defence?”

“I have not much, but I would give thee all.”

“What, if I clothe thy limbs with mightiness?
What if, in far days when thou tak'st the field
Beneath thine ancient banner wide displayed,
I give thee spoil and captive? If I give
Her soft voice to thine ear, her lips to thine,
Her white arms to thy neck?”

“O mock not so
My sharp distress: for any good I'll be
Most answerably grateful.”

“If I build
Thy throne secure against the flaws of time?
If I send teachers that will teach thee more
Of the dark world that lies beyond the grave
Than if thy father's ghost did speak with thee—
Teachers as never king in England had?”

“Who speaks with me?” cried Edwin starting up.
“Thy voice is like a trumpet that proclaims
Something, I know not what—but at the sound
Through pallid ash the embers of my hope
Have burst in flame. I tremble at the brightness.”
“Who speaks with thee thou canst not know as yet;
But,” here he laid his hand on Edwin's head,
“When next this sign upon thy body comes
The promise thou hast given me remember.”

And lo! before the Prince could utter word
The moon had fallen and the man was gone.

He knew it was a spirit with him talked;
And like an idol-stone uncouthly hewn
In image of a man, the astonished Prince
Sat folded in his cloak the while the words
Went wandering through the regions of his mind
Like thunder 'mong far hills. Slowly the woods
Came out in ghastly glimmer, slowly dawn
Stained the horizon with a beamless red.
And when the risen sun outstretched his lance
O'er dewy earth, a sound of voices stirred
Around the palace and unfroze his limbs.
And as the world swam back into his brain,
He threw the darkness with his mantle off,
And started at the morning's lucid walls
Grown up in silence round him. And the Page,
Right in the glory of the level beam,
Came running from the shadowed palace-gate,
Dawn in his face, and called him with a voice
Sweeter than any grove of singing birds
That ever waved, an emerald of May.
“O Prince, unto the palace come again.
The messenger has gone with angry heart,
And like a cobwebbed banner from its nook
Where it has hung for ages, taken down
And streaming in the wind, the King cries ‘War!’
In the rude shaking of the boughs, rich fruit
Will tumble in our laps.” And then the Prince,
With an unfluttered countenance and eye,
Like one who has already heard the news,
Arose and followed him within the gate.

They reached the chamber hung with horn and head,
Antler and weapon, where Redwald up and down,
Much troubled, paced with quick impatient starts.
Bertha sat weeping, but the brothers stood,
Their bold hearts tingling to the stirring time,
Its light was in their faces, like proud crags
High up, that wear the morning ere it comes.
The King turned sharply as the Prince approached:
“Whether to bless or curse the hour I know not
That blew thee here, for everything hath clashed
In broil since then; things unconceived have bred
Their strangest opposites, as eagles doves,
And fruit trees poison. I that did thee love
Have listened with no inattentive ear
To the sweet music of the minted gold
That foul betrayal urged; and I that clung
To peace—that fattens beeves, and tills the mead,
And fills the bursting barns with harvest-home—
Have, like a passionate whipster, drawn a sword
That fruitless blood must paint. In even poise
The issue hung; and, lo! a chitling's tears—
This lily thrown into the trembling scale
The heavier only by some dewy drops—
Makes wisdom kick the beam. Within my heart
There beats another heart that is not mine:
I go, but like a steed that chafing goes.
I am an arrow by some unknown hand
Drawn tensely to a mark. Here yestermorn,
As now thou know'st, a man came from thy foe
With gold in one hand, in the other war,
Demanding me to give thy body up.
I kept thee, and chose war. So take my sons,
My towns, my horses, arms, and goodly men;
Enclothe thyself in all my kingdom's strength,
And try the hazard of a bloody field,
Which will, I doubt not, to the right incline,
And with its dust at sunset shape a throne—
Which, howsoe'er it turn must cost me dear—
And, now what can I more?” And while the King
Went on thus chafing, Edwin's sleepless heart
Grew silent, as an eagle's famished brood
Huddled upon a ledge of rosy dawn,
When sudden in the blinding radiance hangs
Their mighty dam, a kid within her grip,
Borne off from valleys filled with twilight cold
That know not yet the morn. Yet somewhat sore
At Redwald's cautious balancings and doubts,
He fiercely spoke: “I do suspect me, King,
The self-same wind that pushed me out to sea
Now blows me into port. Yet, as I hold
The golden apple in my fortunate palm,
I need not all too curiously inquire
Upon what bough it grew.” At that, Remorse,
In generous crimson, rushed to cheek and brow,
And shook his voice. “Redwald, I could thee thank,
Upon the gratefulest knees that ever knelt
On ground. But, though these words of thine surpass
All other sounds that ever reached my ear,
As angels men, I thrill with no surprise;
For, sitting on a stone without thy gate
When gold was being weighed against my life,
I knew a morning fair as this would break,
And to this interview I walked assured,
As one who hath been absent but a day
Into his house, where table, bed, and stool,
Have places kept since childhood. And I know
This morn is prologue to a happy act:
The future rises like a curtain up,
And, shadow-like, I see a battle won
And a recovered throne. And once more, King,
A world thou'st given me wherein to live;
I also crave the dawn to make it fair,
To gild its forest tops, to light its streams,
To set a rainbow in its cloudy gloom,
To fill its soft green vales with tender light,
That I may see the work grow neath my hands—
Thy daughter whom I love.”

At the King's feet
She sat, and, hearing, over neck and brow
Brake morning; and, as love is faced like fear,
Or wears fear's mask, she hid her own and shrank;
And, shrinking, like a sudden burst of light,
The unimprisoned splendour of her hair
In coil on coil of heavy ringlets fell,
And veiled the face that burned through hands close pressed,
And clothed her to the knee. The King down glanced,
And caught the sweet confusion, while his spleen
Went out in words, like thunder's dying groan,
When tempest passes, and reveals again
The azure and the sun. “And dost thou, too,
Fret in thy nest's confinement, and desire
To flit away into the boundless world
And range therein with some gay-feathered mate
The summer through? We fathers are the soil
In which a second generation grows:
From our decrease it draws the youthful sap
That keeps it green atop. Nay weep not, girl!
Press not against my knee in that wild way
A cheek all flame and tears. I cannot chide:
It is the very order of the world;
We have our seasons, even as the flowers.
And I, when I did once a daughter seek,
Made thick a father's heart. Some twenty years,
This hour may be thine own. Most gladly, Prince,
When time hath tried thy steadfastness of heart,
And when the wayward fowl, Prosperity,
Roosts in thy boughs, I'll see her wife of thine,
Wearing with thee the crown. So, sweet, arise,
And give the man thy heart hath chosen out
From all his fellows a pure hand in pledge
Of faithfulness—the one assured thing
He ever will possess upon the earth.”
She heard, and, all untouched by virgin shame,
False and unworthy then, erect she stood
Before her father and her brethren seven,
Pale as her robe, and in her cloudless eyes
Love, to which death and time are vapoury veils
That hide not other worlds, and stretched a hand,
Which Edwin held, and kissed before them all
In passionate reverence; smitten dumb by thanks
And noble shame of his unworthiness,
And sense of happiness o'erdue. And while
The Prince's lips still lingered on the hand
That never more could pluck a simple flower
But he was somehow mixed up in the act,
She faltered, like a lark beneath the sun
Poised on the summit of its airy flight,
And, sinking to a lower beauteous range
Of tears and maiden blushes, sought the arms
That sheltered her from childhood, and hid there,
Shaken by happy sobs. “Prince,” quoth the King,
The while his palm lay on the golden head,
“I count myself this day most fortunate
In that, by the sweet ministry of love,
(Which was to me invisible as spring,
Shaping itself beneath the winter's white,)
I see the future fairly form and flow
From happy throne to throne. I am no more
A cliff that fronts a waste abyss of air—
Beyond me seem to glimmer cultured fields
And a continued world. My heart feels light
With children yet to be. But those sweet days
Are distant, and the present in our path
Stands like a grisly thistle spiked with spears,
That will draw blood from the bold hand that grasps.
I do remember me there was a time
When fight was keenlier wooed than any girl;
And, though my fires are wasted, even now
This withered hand is hankering for a lance—
Even now these feeble knees compress a steed,
And the wild rank tears onward—and I hear
The combat's music when great spears go crash,
When through the dust of fight the clarions blow,
And red blood springs. 'Tis but an old man's dream,
And other hands must rule the battle now:
Take Regner to thy council: think it out.
Be wise, be wise, yet be not over-wise—
Plot like an old man, execute like youth—
We will discuss thy plans around the board.
Come, Bertha!” So they went, nor did love's sun
Vouchsafe a beam at parting.

Then the sons,
His brethren now, came crowding round the Prince
With joyful faces, and with many a wish
That the miraculously blossomed time
Would ne'er its vermeil promise falsify,
But come to happy fruit. And Regner threw
His arm round Edwin's neck, for elder love
Claimed a fond precedence, and, brother-linked,
They passed through gates to sunshine, and then struck
Adown a road, tree-shaded, silent both,
Though many a thought was stirring at their hearts.
At last, Prince Regner, on a ruined dyke,
Hoary with lichens, with each crevice bossed
And bulged with mossy emerald, sat, the while
The sunlight, broken by the thronging boughs,
Splashed his great limbs, and Edwin standing near,
And all the lonely greenness of the place.
Then turned he, smiling: “Edwin, when I dreamed
Of distant days when we twain should be kings,
Ruling our realms in peacefulness and joy,
Yet with the awe of justice intermixed—
With a most perfect friendship, good to us,
And to our people ever issuing thence—
I did not count on such a day as this,
In which the dearest sister in the world
Hath made us brothers, not in love alone,
But by the sweetest tie that ever knit
A man to man.” Then, as a sudden wind
Swayed every bough, and broke the mass of light
Into a swarm of golden butterflies,
That danced and bickered o'er the velvet sward,
Then slowly grew to one, Prince Edwin said:
“I know that I am happy; I know not
How happy—and I may not ever know!
I am as one engifted in a realm,
Whose wide unskirted boundaries and shores
He will not have encompassed round about
When he is hoary grown.” Then Regner's laugh
Rang like the blackbird's whistle, loud and clear,
When all the woods are breathing after rain.
“It is a churlish bird that will not sing
Against the ray. Bridegroom will be bridegroom,”
The mirth died in his face as he went on.
“Thou wilt be my superior in this war;
At pointing of thy sword 'tis mine to ride,
Though it point straight to death. Yet let me speak
Before I sink into a place wherein
My duty is obedience absolute.
The morning after thou didst on us burst
Like one on fire, telling the King thy wrongs,
In likeness of a harper with a harp,
I sent one privately to gather news.
Last night he came, and told me how distressed
Is that fair land in which thine enemy dwells;
How conflagrations redden every night,
And how the mead on which he halts a space
Looks, when he leaves it, as if charred by fire.
But now by some fair wanton meshed and toiled,
The King a canvas town of pleasure spreads,
And lays his arms by for the moment. Well.
The voice now running through my father's land
Will make each knight collect his plump of spears,
The smith his hammer on the anvil leave,
The hind his lowing oxen in the trace,
And hither will they troop. King Ethelbert
Was drawing this way, when his heart was caught
By white arms, glittering eyes. Yon range of hills,
On which the heaven leans with rack and cloud,
Is all that stands between us. Swiftly lead
Thy files up through a world of mist, and crag,
And dashing waterfall, and from the height,
Upon the flushed King in the wanton's lap,
Drop like the thunderstone and crush him out,—
Him and his strength for ever.” Edwin then:
“But all the perilous passes! Canst thou guide?”
And Regner, bearing on like stream at flood,
“I know the region dwelling in the mist
As do the wild blasts penned within it; come,
And let us lay the thing before the King.”
So they arose and to the palace walked,
Through wondrous fantasy of light and shade
That danced and glimmered with each sigh of wind,
And entering, found a plenteous table spread;
And soon the King came in, and then the sons,
But Bertha's place was empty all the while.

Then, through the progress of the stately feast,
The question of the conduct of the war
Drew all discourse, and Regner opened out
His plan, and held it swiftest, simplest, best:
Affirmed that Ethelbert, in pleasure drowned,
Was helpless as a leveret in a snare;
That Edwin need not fear his guidance up,
For that he knew the misty mountain world
As the fierce torrent knows its native gorge,
Through which it has run white a thousand years.
With Regner every brother gave his voice;
The King was doubt-perplexed, and slowly moved,
Like a clogged wheel, till Edwin, who had sat
Silent among the talkers, suddenly,
Like a grave echo from a mountain height
That startles, gave his full adhesion in.
And, driven thus from point to point, the King
To half-enforced agreement warmed at last.
They rose from table when the midnight hung,
An emerald twilight up among the stars;
All night the Prince tossed restless on his couch,
With trumpets blowing in his ears, a sword
Haunting his hand; but with the whitening dawn
Sleep brought a shock of joy, for, out of waste
And formless horror, Ethelbert and he
Fell grappling, and in fight rolled o'er and o'er,
Mid plunging horses, in a hug of death.

Then with the rising of the third day's sun,
As wave doth shoulder wave toward an isle
When thither sets the tide and blows the breeze,
Till in the silence of its central vale
Is heard the surgy murmur, troop on troop
Pressed round the palace; and Prince Edwin gazed
Down on the living sward, and saw a knight
Go pricking through the press in harness rich,
Dark groves of footmen standing in their ranks,
Mares whinnying from the stake, and from the wood,
Slow trickling through the light, a rill of spears.
And as he gazed upon the joyous scene
His forward-pushing spirit made his face
Pale, as a man's who, with a resolute heart,
Towers in the breach at daybreak, hand on hilt,
When shouting comes the foe. Descending then,
He found the King and all his seven sons
Standing in hall amid a hundred lords,
Brown-cheeked, fierce-eyed, long-bearded, mighty-limbed,
Who from each corner of the realm were bade
To battle, and who came as to a feast.
Walking from martial knot to knot that buzzed
With all the fiery pleasure of the time,
King Redwald made each chief to Edwin known,
Summed up the spears he brought, and proudly flashed
A hurried sunbeam o'er his foregone life,
That made each brave deed sparkle jewel-like,
And wandering up and down among the lords.
More loud the din of preparation grew—
The sudden opening of a door let in,
The neigh of steeds, clashed anvils, countless fires
Blistering the noontide air, and on the skirts
Of tumult, oft a coming trumpet blown.

And Bertha in an eastern turret sate,
That took the sunrise like a cliff, and heard
The steed neigh, and the coming trumpet blow.
And knowing that her life was being shaped
By Fate's dark hands, that heed not sob or tear,
Above the tumult, like a thing divine,
Arose her voice. To this effect she sang—

“On many pastures man can feed his heart;
He drinks the wine of travel to the lees,
His is the sceptre and the golden crown,
His is the strife and glory of the field;
But ours the empty couch on which he lay,
The listening at the gate for dreadful news,
The breaking heart, and binding up of wounds.”

So all the land around the Palace glowed
With upward-striking fires when fell the night,
And shapes of men went flitting through the glare,
Gigantic. From the ruddy distance came
The hum of thousands, and steed neighed to steed:
The minstrels sang great battles to the lords,
But, in his hand the reins of all the host,
The Prince, with Redwald, Regner, and the rest,
Sat half the night discoursing, grave and sad,
For in the presence of the war each heart
Was clear and naked as a sword unsheathed.
The minstrels ceased, the Palace lights burned low,
The circle round the King arose at last.
Beside a thousand fires the army slept,
Except the watcher leaning on his spear,
Or when, affrighted by a falling brand,
A war-horse reared and snorted at the stake.

At the first wind of dawn the thousands woke
And rolled into their places, rank on rank,
Expectant, ready, shadowing large as groves;
But when the sun arose, and was afar
Mirrored in dewy lawns, a window oped,
At which King Redwald and his daughter stood
With eyes of sad farewell. A bugle's cry
Went tingling to the roots of every heart;
And, ere it died, from out the Palace gate
The Princes issued 'gainst the level rays
That burned on breast and helm, and, at the sight
The host rocked like a forest in a storm,
The banners shook, with clash and cry they cheered
The lords of Battle. Then, as the army moved
Onward, like thunder's corrugated gloom
Rolling o'er desert hills, with fire reserved
For other lands, the wistful hearts and eyes
Of those within the silent Palace left
Hung on its dusty rear. Spears ceased to flash
And horns to sound. At height of noon it hung
Cloud-like upon a ridge; and as a cloud,
If the hot sun but touch it with a beam,
Crumbles into a livid dust of rain
Leaving the rock-line clear against the sky,
The shadow passed.

And nothing now stood 'twixt
The act and issue. And soft-plumaged Time,
That ere while with a soundless wafture shot
From ruddy sunrise to all-swallowing night,
Fanned hearts to fever with his creaking wings.
Still as a rooted flower the Princess sate,
With face intense that ever searched the north
For the first glitter of returning spears.
The grey King whitened in the weary hours,
And watched with vacant eyes, bewildered hands
That worked, and had forgot at what they worked:
Then at the simple carol of a bird
He started, with a scared look in his face,
As if he feared from out the invisible air
Something would break in fire. Each morn and eve
He questioned, like a voyager who knows
That land is somewhere hidden in the sky,
And, weary of the ocean's silence, thrusts
A haggard face into the eyes of dawn
And reads no news, and, when the long day falls
With its great torch of sunset o'er the west,
Revealing nothing, sickens. But afar,
On the sixth day, a courier was descried
Swift-hasting, like a solitary crow
Winging the empty heaven. Out of doors
The people, on a sudden impulse, shoaled
Impetuous, but only to be hurt
By the keen shaft the archer Sorrow sent
Before he came himself. The panting man
Caught these words from the top of difficult breath:
“The field is ours—Prince Regner's ghost has fled—
King Ethelbert is cold, and all his lords—
They broke at sunset!”—As a rill is lost
In ocean's murmur, all the rest was drowned
In lamentation and a bitter cry;
And then, besurged by weeping multitudes,
The man was borne into the palace hall,
Where Bertha lay at the King's feet, while he
Stood up before them, mute and stony-eyed,
Like one so far o'ercome by sore distress
That he no sharpness knows, and can but wring
Piteous incapable hands. And then the man
Rehearsed the story of the bitter field:—
“Hanging upon the midnight hill we saw
Their watch-fires dot the plain. Slow broke the morn,
All damp and rolling vapour, with no sun,
But in its place a moving smear of light,
And through the mist we heard a trumpet blow.
By mid-day we were on them ere they knew,
And Ethelbert, like some wild beast at bay,
Fought but to kill, while he was being killed.
For him Prince Edwin and Prince Regner sought;
And though so knit in love their noble hearts
That each would give the other all he had,
Yet each grudged each his death. So when the sun
Broke through the clouds at setting, on a mound,
Lifted in seeing of the swaying fight,
Stood Ethelbert, surrounded by his lords,
Known by his white steed and his diadem,
And by his golden armour blurred with blood.
'Gainst him with but a single score of knights
The Princes spurred. Many were ridden down
In shock of onset. Regner's horse was speared,
And, rearing with fore feet that pawed the sky,
Fell backward on his rider, in whose side
A thirsty arrow stuck. Prince Edwin then,
With axe and arm up to the elbow red,
Drove up his horse 'gainst Ethelbert's, and struck,
Crushing the diadem and head at once,
And rode him down, and spurned him with his hooves.
Then, as a tent when the main pole has snapped
Falls into ruin, all the army fell,
On the King's death. By this, the sun had set.
They fled before us, drove on drove, like sheep,
And Edwin, like one famishing for blood,
Headed the chase, and night held up her moon,
To light us to the slaying.” While the tale
Was being told, the people silent stood,
But at its close their grief broke out afresh,
When some fond memory brought back Regner's face,
His gait, his voice, some cordial smile of his,
And all the frank and cunning ways he had
To steal a gazer's heart. The long day waned,
And, at the mournful setting of the sun,
Up through the valley came the saddened files,
With Regner's body borne on levelled spears.
And, when they laid the piteous burden down
Within the gate, with a most bitter cry
The loose-haired Bertha on it flung herself,
And strove, in sorrow's passionate unbelief,
To kiss dead lips to life. The hardest eyes
Oozed pitying dews. But when the ancient King
Was, like a child, led up to see his son,
With sense of woe in woe's own greatness drowned,
With some obscure instinct of reverence
For sorrow sacreder than any crown,
The weeping people stood round, hushed as death.