URGANDA
It is Sir Elid of the Sword,
Of whom his wife, Helis, hath heard
For three long years no wished-for word.
His armor dofft, he comes in fur
And velvet, all the warrior,
And takes her hand and kisses her.
“Thrice have I seen the summer die;
And thrice the autumn, fading, lie:
And heard the weary winter sigh,
“Since last, my lord, my own true heart,
From me, thy wife, with love, didst part,
And rode to war with Lisuarte:”—
So said Helis with many tears:—
“Still welcome, Elid! though long years
Of silence, what with doubts and fears,
“Have made me deem that thou wast dead.—
Why dost thou stare so overhead?—
What is it that thy soul doth dread?”
He said to her: “My own, my best,
To thee alone . . . Witch! wilt thou wrest
This hour from me? . . . shall be confessed
The thing that will not let me rest.
“It was at Hallowmas I spurred
Through woods wherein no wild thing stirred,
No sound of brook, no song of bird.
“When softly down a tangled way
A dim fair woman, white as day,
Rode on a palfrey misty gray.
“Upon her brow a circlet burned
Of jewels, and the fire, inurned
Within them, changed, and turned and turned.
“I stared like one, who, wild and pale,
Spurs, hag-led, through the night and hail:
When, lo! adown a forest vale
An angel with the Holy Grail.
“It vanishes; but, once beheld,
The longing heart is never quelled,
Its loveliness hath so enspelled.—
“She vanished. And I rode alone,
Save for a voice that did intone,
‘Urganda is she, the Unknown.
“‘And never shalt thou clasp the form
Of her who leads thee by a charm
To follow her through sun and storm.’
“I can not stay for weal or woe.
E'en now her magic bids me go,
Soft-summoning through wind and snow.”
[OMITTED]
Helis with some old song beguiles
His hollow face until it smiles;
And with her lute shapes sweeter wiles:
Till kingly figures, woven in
The shadowy arras, seem to win
Strange, ghostly life, and slay and sin.
Until her deep hair's golden glow
Sweeps his dark curls as, praying low,
She kneels, a marble-sculptured woe.
And then she left him there to rest,
A weary with his haggard quest,
All in gray fur and velvet dressed. . . .
At midnight through the vaulted roof
She heard armed steps of ringing proof:
She heard a charger's iron hoof.
The leaded lattice glowed, a square
Of moonlight in the moonlit air:
She flung it wide: what saw she there?
Sir Elid in the moonlight's beam,
Stark, staring as if still a-dream
Rode downward towards the rushing stream.
His helm and corselet had he on,
And, in one gauntlet, silver-wan,
His bugle-horn was upward drawn.
Upon his horn he blew his best;
Then sang, it seemed, his merriest,
“I ride upon my love's last quest:
And on her breast at last shall rest.”
Straight onward by some mighty will,
Into the stream below the hill
She saw him ride. Then all was still. . . .
Not wider than her eyes are his
That stare, where icy eddies kiss
His lips. “Urganda's work is this!”
She cries, and where her warrior lies
With horror in his face and eyes,
She bends above his form and sighs.
And then she seems to hear a moan
Beside her;—but she leans alone:—
Then laughter; and a cloud seems blown
Before her eyes, that doth intone:
“Beware, Helis! beware! beware
My curse! my kiss, that is despair!
Kiss not his brow, lest unaware,
Helis, Helis, my curse be there!”
