The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed :: :: University of Virginia Library

The way was lone, and the hour was late,
And Sir Rudolph was far from his castle gate.
The night came down by slow degrees
On the river stream, and the forest-trees;
And by the heat of the heavy air,
And by the lightning's distant glare,
And by the rustling of the woods,
And by the roaring of the floods,
In half an hour, a man might say,
The Spirit of Storm would ride that way.
But little he cared, that stripling pale,
For the sinking sun, or the rising gale;
For he, as he rode, was dreaming now,
Poor youth, of a woman's broken vow,
Of the cup dashed down, ere the wine was tasted,
Of eloquent speeches sadly wasted,
Of a gallant heart all burnt to ashes,
And the Baron of Katzberg's long mustaches.
So the earth below, and the heaven above,
He saw them not;—those dreams of love,
As some have found, and some will find,
Make men extremely deaf and blind.

185

At last he opened his great blue eyes,
And looking about in vast surprise,
Found that his hunter had turned his back
An hour ago on the beaten track,
And now was threading a forest hoar,
Where steed had never stepped before.

“By Cæsar's head,” Sir Rudolph said,
“It were a sorry joke,
If I to-night should make my bed
On the turf, beneath an oak!
Poor Roland reeks from head to hoof;—
Now, for thy sake, good roan,
I would we were beneath a roof,
Were it the foul fiend's own!”

Ere the tongue could rest, ere the lips could close,
The sound of a listener's laughter rose.
It was not the scream of a merry boy
When Harlequin waves his wand of joy;
Nor the shout from a serious curate, won
By a bending bishop's annual pun;
Nor the roar of a Yorkshire clown;—oh, no!
It was a gentle laugh, and low;
Half uttered, perhaps, and stifled half,
A good old-gentlemanly laugh;
Such as my uncle Peter's are,
When he tells you his tales of Dr. Parr.

186

The rider looked to the left and the right,
With something of marvel, and more of fright:
But brighter gleamed his anxious eye,
When a light shone out from a hill hard by.
Thither he spurred, as gay and glad
As Mrs. Macquill's delighted lad,
When he turns away from the Pleas of the Crown
Or flings, with a yawn, old Saunders down,
And flies, at last, from all the mysteries
Of Plaintiffs' and Defendants' histories,
To make himself sublimely neat,
For Mrs. Camac's in Mansfield Street.

At a lofty gate Sir Rudolph halted;
Down from his seat Sir Rudolph vaulted:
And he blew a blast with might and main,
On the bugle that hung by an iron chain.
The sound called up a score of sounds;—
The screeching of owls, and the baying of hounds
The hollow toll of the turret bell,
The call of the watchful sentinel,
And a groan at last, like a peal of thunder
As the huge old portals rolled asunder
And gravely from the castle hall
Paced forth the white-robed seneschal.
He stayed not to ask of what degree
So fair and famished a knight might be;

187

But knowing that all untimely question
Ruffles the temper, and mars the digestion,
He laid his hand upon the crupper,
And said,—“You're just in time for supper!”

They led him to the smoking board,
And placed him next to the castle's Lord.
He looked around with a hurried glance:
You may ride from the border to fair Penzance
And nowhere, but at Epsom Races,
Find such a group of ruffian faces
As thronged that chamber: some were talking
Of feats of hunting and of hawking,
And some were drunk, and some were dreaming,
And some found pleasure in blaspheming.
He thought, as he gazed on the fearful crew,
That the lamps that burned on the walls burned blue.
They brought him a pasty of mighty size,
To cheer his heart, and to charm his eyes;
They brought the wine, so rich and old,
And filled to the brim the cup of gold;
The Knight looked down, and the Knight looked up,
But he carved not the meat, and he drained not the cup.

“Ho, ho,” said his host with angry brow,
“I wot our guest is fine;
Our fare is far too coarse, I trow,
For such nice taste as thine:

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Yet trust me I have cooked the food,
And I have filled the can,
Since I have lived in this old wood,
For many a nobler man.”—
“The savoury buck and the ancient cask
To a weary man are sweet;
But ere he taste, it is fit he ask
For a blessing on bowl and meat.
Let me but pray for a minute's space,
And bid me pledge ye then;
I swear to ye, by our Lady's grace,
I shall eat and drink like ten!”

The Lord of the castle in wrath arose,
He frowned like a fiery dragon;
Indignantly he blew his nose,
And overturned a flagon.
And “Away,” quoth he, “with the canting priest,
Who comes uncalled to a midnight feast,
And breathes through a helmet his holy benison,
To sour my hock, and spoil my venison!”

That moment all the lights went out;
And they dragged him forth, that rabble rout,
With oath, and threat, and foul scurrility,
And every sort of incivility.
They barred the gates; and the peal of laughter,
Sudden and shrill, that followed after,

189

Died off into a dismal tone,
Like a parting spirit's painful moan.
“I wish,” said Rudolph, as he stood
On foot in the deep and silent wood;
“I wish, good Roland, rack and stable
May be kinder to-night than their master's table!”

By this the storm had fleeted by;
And the moon with a quiet smile looked out
From the glowing arch of a cloudless sky,
Flinging her silvery beams about
On rock, tree, wave, and gladdening all
With just as miscellaneous bounty,
As Isabel's, whose sweet smiles fall
In half an hour on half the county.
Less wild Sir Rudolph's pathway seemed,
As he turned from that discourteous tower
Small spots of verdure gaily gleamed
On either side; and many a flower,
Lily, and violet, and heart's-ease,
Grew by the way, a fragrant border;
And the tangled boughs of the hoary trees
Were twined in picturesque disorder:
And there came from the grove, and there came from the hill
The loveliest sounds he had ever heard,
The checrful voice of the dancing rill,
And the sad sad song of the lonely bird.

190

And at last he stared with wondering eyes,
As well he might, on a huge pavilion:
'Twas clothed with stuffs of a hundred dyes,
Blue, purple, orange, pink, vermilion;
And there were quaint devices traced
All round in the Saracenic manner;
And the top, which gleamed like gold, was graced
With the drooping folds of a silken banner;
And on the poles, in silent pride,
There sat small doves of white enamel;
And the veil from the entrance was drawn aside,
And flung on the humps of a silver camel.
In short, it was the sweetest thing
For a weary youth in a wood to light on;
And finer far than what a King
Built up, to prove his taste, at Brighton.

The gilded gate was all unbarred;
And, close beside it, for a guard,
There lay two dwarfs with monstrous noses,
Both fast asleep upon some roses.
Sir Rudolph entered; rich and bright
Was all that met his ravished sight;
Soft tapestries from far countries brought,
Rare cabinets with gems inwrought,
White vases of the finest mould,
And mirrors set in burnished gold.
Upon a couch a greyhound slumbered;

191

And a small table was encumbered
With paintings, and an ivory lute,
And sweetmeats, and delicious fruit.
Sir Rudolph lost no time in praising;
For he, I should have said, was gazing,
In attitude extremely tragic,
Upon a sight of stranger magic;
A sight, which, seen at such a season,
Might well astonish Mistress Reason,
And scare Dame Wisdom from her fences
Of rules and maxims, moods and tenses.

Beneath a crimson canopy,
A lady, passing fair, was lying;
Deep sleep was on her gentle eye,
And in her slumber she was sighing
Bewitching sighs, such sighs as say
Beneath the moonlight, to a lover,
Things which the coward tongue by day
Would not, for all the world, discover:
She lay like a shape of sculptured stone,
So pale, so tranquil:—she had thrown,
For the warm evening's sultriness,
The broidered coverlet aside;
And nothing was there to deck or hide
The glory of her loveliness,
But a scarf of gauze so light and thin
You might see beneath the dazzling skin,

192

And watch the purple streamlets go
Through the valleys of white and stainless snow,
Or here and there a wayward tress,
Which wandered out with vast assurance
From the pearls that kept the rest in durance,
And fluttered about, as if 'twould try
To lure a zephyr from the sky.

“Bertha!”—large drops of anguish came
On Rudolph's brow, as he breathed that name,—
“O fair and false one, wake, and fear!
I, the betrayed, the scorned, am here.”
The eye moved not from its dull eclipse,
The voice came not from the fast-shut lips;
No matter! well that gazer knew
The tone of bliss, and the eyes of blue.

Sir Rudolph hid his burning face
With both his hands, for a minute's space,
And all his frame, in awful fashion,
Was shaken by some sudden passion.
What guilty fancies o'er him ran?—
Oh! Pity will be slow to guess them;
And never, save to the holy man,
Did good Sir Rudolph e'er confess them.
But soon his spirit you might deem
Came forth from the shade of the fearful dream;

193

His cheek, though pale, was calm again,
And he spoke in peace, though he spoke in pain:

“Not mine! not mine! now Mary, mother,
Aid me the sinful hope to smother!
Not mine, not mine!—I have loved thee long,
Thou hast quitted me with grief and wrong;
But pure the heart of a knight should be,—
Sleep on, sleep on! thou art safe for me.
Yet shalt thou know by a certain sign
Whose lips have been so near to thine,
Whose eyes have looked upon thy sleep,
And turned away, and longed to weep,
Whose heart,—mourn—madden as it will,—
Has spared thee, and adored thee still!”

His purple mantle, rich and wide,
From his neck the trembling youth untied,
And flung it o'er those dangerous charms,
The swelling neck, and the rounded arms.
Once more he looked, once more he sighed;
And away, away from the perilous tent,
Swift as the rush of an eagle's wing
Or the flight of a shaft from Tartar string,
Into the wood Sir Rudolph went:
Not with more joy the schoolboys run
To the gay green fields, when their task is done;—

194

Not with more haste the members fly,
When Hume has caught the Speaker's eye

At last the daylight came; and then
A score or two of serving men,
Supposing that some sad disaster
Had happened to their lord and master,
Went out into the wood, and found him
Unhorsed, and with no mantle round him.
Ere he could tell his tale romantic,
The leech pronounced him clearly frantic,
So ordered him at once to bed,
And clapped a blister on his head.

Within the sound of the castle clock
There stands a huge and rugged rock;
And I have heard the peasants say,
That the grieving groom at noon that day
Found gallant Roland, cold and stiff,
At the base of the black and beetling cliff.

Beside the rock there is an oak,
Tall, blasted by the thunder-stroke;
And I have heard the peasants say,
That there Sir Rudolph's mantle lay,
And coiled in many a deadly wreath
A venomous serpent slept beneath.