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THE LAST CRUSADE

THE DEATH OF SAINT LOUIS.

1

The summer sea lay fair as any flower
Whose blue eye rests upon its mother sky;
A million sparkles danced, till far away
They seemed one liquid diamond; whisperingly
Wave melted into wave, and smile chased smile
Across the dappled waters, till each flake
Of purple vanished with its parent cloud
In that wide dreamland, where, dissolved in mist,
The sky and sea are one. Noon held her breath;
The sea-bird slept upon the crestless wave,
The ripple scarcely kissed the foamless shore,
The warm rocks trembled in the giddy air;
And basking in serene transparent depths,
The bright sea-ferns that nestled round their feet
Stirred not a frond. O'er all this loveliness,
Like a mild mother o'er her dimpled babe,
Whose beauteous calm is mirrored in her face,
Bent the blue heaven.
2

Far as the eye could strain,
As 'twere beyond the faint horizon-line,
Faded the lily-wingèd fleet of France,
Fraught with the flower of all her chivalry,
Fraught with her purest saint, her noblest king,
Fraught with the failing hope of Christendom.
Behind them lay what most the earthly heart
Holds dear: broad pastures, miles of sunny corn,
Silvery valleys with their bosomed slopes
Clad in the russet garment of the grape,
Quaint chateaux with their files of marshalled trees,
Rich chambers eloquent with heraldry,
The constant quiet joy of gentle wives,
The careful hope of princely babes, and all
The pride and art and luxury of life.
Before them lay the perils of the deep,
Remorseless weary wastes of blinding sand,
A sun, as fierce as love transformed to hate,
Glaring destruction from a tearless sky,
The tiger-breath of poisonous blasts that drain
The last sap lurking in the shrivelled limbs,
The jackal's howl, the vulture's silent swoop,
The gloating grin of an abhorrèd foe,
3

Famine and torture, pestilence and death—
Beyond all these, the Sepulchre of Christ.
So sailed the lily-wingèd fleet of France.
On many a deck stood many a goodly knight
Shading with level hand a gnarlèd brow,
Straining dim eyes lest, but a moment lost,
The drowning coast should sink for evermore;
They watched the glittering harbour of Marseilles
Dwindle to scarce a star, till none could tell
Whether he saw or fancied that he saw;
Then turning paced the deck in sullen mood,
Or talked in gathering knots regretfully;
For now the loadstar of Jerusalem
Had well-nigh set; the passion, that had wrapt
Prince, baron, priest, and serf in one wild flame,
Was now in ashes; not a soldier there
Save one, and he sublime above them all,
But wore his cross for gold.
He, saint and king,
Thought but a moment of his own fair realm
And loving people, of his faithful queen,
And those long hours of anguish when she lay
4

In Damietta, tended by one squire
Of eighty winters, and a son was born,
While conquering armies thundered at the gates,
And he lay captive in the Sultan's power,
Disdaining all his tortures.—Then he sought
His recreant lords, and marking how they drooped,
Rallied them thus:—
“Soldiers of Christ! 'tis meet
That we commend our loved ones unto God
In faith and prayer. That done, let us take heart,
Thinking on Him Who for our sakes braved all.
See on our breasts the Cross, whereby we live,
Dyed with His blood!—O, friends, the worst that we,
Guilty of that dear blood, may bear for Him,
Is light to what He, sinless, bore for us.
And trust me, friends, 'tis not the foeman's rage,
Nor scorching blast, nor thirst, nor pestilence,
That hitherto hath foiled the arms of Christ,
And mocked us with the mirage of His tomb;—
No! 'tis our own most foul, most faithless hearts!
Soldiers! shall we, while very infidels
Are faithful to their master, Antichrist,
Turn traitors to our Captain? Shall we call
5

The curse of Achor on us? Shall we sap
Our strength with crawling jealousies, or stain
Our tents with lust?—O, Sirs! if they whom Christ
Stamped for His type, if they whom God's own Son
Clasped in His arms and blessed, if they of whom
His Kingdom is, if Christian little ones,
Clad in full faith, approved of Holy Church,
A bloodless armament of snow-white doves,
Went forth and failed—then marvel not that we,
Clogged with our sins, faint-hearted, lacking love,
Stand yet upon the border-land and view
The promise from afar. Then, in God's name,
Let us unlock the closet of our heart,
Pluck forth the cherished thing that doth offend,
And shut in Christ's pure presence!”
At these words
A spirit like the breath of Pentecost
Rushed through the ship; a hundred cheeks caught fire,
A hundred leaden eyes flashed sacred flame,
A hundred hearts leapt up, a hundred blades
Dazzled the sunshine, and the cry, “Christ lives!”
Rang o'er the silvery laughter of the sea;
The very air stirred in its noontide dream,
6

Its light breath struggled into panting gusts,
And ocean's tender-heaving bosom shook
With quickened pulse; the lazy, lolling sails
Swelled firmly Eastwards, and the hissing spray
Danced at the bows.
Thus onward to his doom
Went Louis, King and Saint, midst one wide smile
Of peaceful blue; oft rapt in silent prayer,
When Morn lay half-awake upon the wave
Pillowed on downy mist, till Evening drew
Her opal-tinted mantle o'er her face,
And overhead the Eagle and the Swan
Soared on their milky way with star-set wings.
But no man knew as yet, not e'en the King,
Whither their voyage tended; so they furled
Their sails, and let their bubbling anchors down
Off Cagliari and the bugle's throat
Sang out a royal summons, loud and clear,
Startling the sea-bird on the distant cliff;
Then quick from many a slowly-swaying ship
Dropped the light boats, and fast from every side
Flocked Count and Baron, till the royal deck
Was all one blaze of banners and bright arms.
7

And as the sun, arrayed in golden clouds,
Rises majestic o'er the glancing waves,
Lending them each some beauty of his own,
Yet far outshining all—so rose the King
Above the glitter of that wavering throng,
And crossing first his heaven-reflecting breast
Spake to them thus:—
“My lords, the hour is come
When we must choose our ground whereon to fight
The cause of Christ; whether to turn our helms
And bend the eager bosoms of our sails
Southwards, where fair Tunissa, phœnix-like,
Mounteth triumphant o'er the buried dust
Of Rome's proud rival; or to seek that shore,
That thousand-channelled plain, half land, half lake,
Where, choked with rich abundance of his spoils,
Old Nilus labours slowly out to sea.
Now inasmuch as one, our firmest prop
Save God, is absent, one whose promised aid
With hope and courage nerves our enterprise—
Charles of Anjou, Sicilia's prudent king—
'Tis meet, or e'er the molten gold of thought
Harden to cold resolve, that it receive
8

His sterling impress. Know ye then, my Lords,
The mind of royal Sicily, inspired
No less by martial sense than Christian zeal,
Is wholly fixed on Tunis. I perceive
The judgment of so strong and staunch a friend
Is not without due moment. For awhile
I would withhold my own resolve, hard-won
From many a night spent wide-awake with Care,
In hope the thoughts of some in this wise throng
May lend it strength.—My lords, I pray you, speak!”
Then rose the Count of Flanders, huge and slow,
With eyes as dull as calm November seas;
Fringed o'er with hempen locks, his broad white brow
Seemed a blank page, where neither Pain nor Thought
Had traced one single record; like an oak,
That spreads athwart a wall of ice-planed rock,
Branched the green cross embroidered on his breast.
Low and yet full he spake, like some great bell
Tolled with a muffled tongue:—
“My lords, methinks,
Remembering all the pains we have endured
From heat and thirst and sickness in times past—
9

Foes against whom no human arms are proof—
'Twere best we carry, wheresoe'er we go,
The shield of caution. Egypt heretofore
Hath been to us no better than a tomb,
And those few hopes we bore away from thence
Look worn and famished. Sirs, the bravest hounds
Need sometimes fleshing, and our jaded host,
Much lamed of late by quarry overstrong,
Will fight the bolder drunken with the blood
Of some fat conquest; therefore let us rouse
Our sinking appetites with easy spoil;
Tunis in all her wealth and loveliness,
Tunis our prey, lies close and unaware!”
Next spake the Count of rock-bound Brittany,
A sorrow-seasoned man, whose patient eyes,
Like mellow sunshine o'er chill autumn fields,
Kindled his aging countenance with light
Of unimpassioned thought:—
“My liege, my lords,
Methinks our brave companion hath said well.
Moreover, Tunis conquered, the control
Of this great inland sea is thenceforth ours,
10

The Mamelukes do lose high vantage-ground,
Whence we, its gainers, may with full-fed hopes,
Dread reputation, and rich spoil, descend
On Egypt.”
But the dark Count of Champagne,
With twitching forehead and impatient eyes:—
“My lords, we know not what fair arguments
Lie hid behind these masks; but this we know,
That somewhat less than zeal for Holy War
Hath moved the King of Sicily to urge
Our expedition, and direct its aim
So far beside the mark. Let him who will,
Stain his pure sword, and lavish precious life,
Most solemnly devote to Jesu's cross,
In private feud. But know that I at least
Shed not one drop of blood, one bead of sweat,
In any man's behoof! I say, my lords,
We are not mustered here to fight the cause
Of any Count or King, save only Christ!”
With that a storm of savage lightning-looks
Flashed out from many a thunder-clouded brow,
Waking a murmur like the muffled roar
11

That rides before the hurricane. Then rose
King Louis, with firm lip but gentle front,
And eyes as meek as stars of Paradise:—
“Sirs! I beseech you, sprinkle on your wrath
The holy dew of Christian charity—
Nay, lay not any man an impious hand
Upon his sword, to turn the arms of God
Against Himself, or sow His sacred field
With seed of bloody discord! Sirs, for shame!
My lord of Champagne, 'twas too rashly spoke;
Allow, Sir Count, to others that pure zeal
Which all confess and all admire in you;
But let not any, brooding o'er his words
With warm and jealous breast, derive therefrom
More than was meant. Remember, gentlemen,
We all are servants of one master, Christ;
Bound by one law, redeemèd by one love,
And every brow sealed with the self-same print
Of blessèd brotherhood. It matters not
How wide soever we may stand apart
In rank, or wealth, or might, if but our hearts
Are all attuned to one true harmony;
12

It matters little how we be disjoined
In outward strategy, if but our souls
Are urged by one great motive to one end.
For sacred conquest, such as that we seek,
Comes not of cunning, is not won by storm,
But waits on quiet faith and fervent prayer.
Therefore be patient, while each counsellor
Unfolds his thought.”
So spake the righteous king;
And for awhile dead silence held the ranks,
Made sensible by lapse of languid waves
Against the prow, and the short lonely note
Of sea-gulls, and a mingled hum of life
From the dim harbour. Then—for eager looks
Implored him—rose the Count of Poictiers.
An early frost had kissed his iron hair
Lightly, as when the layers of morning mist
Wreathe from late summer lawns, and every blade
Gleams with a bright uncertain diadem,
Half icicle, half dewdrop; but as yet
The lusty vintage of departed youth
Mantled within his veins; his swarthy cheek
13

Was carved with many a silent tragedy
Of strangled passion; and his lofty eye,
Waited upon by quick obedient thoughts,
Ruled like a monarch from his marble throne.—
He rose, and crossed his mailèd breast, and spake:—
“Most gracious Sire, my peers, with all goodwill
I do concede to those renownèd lords,
The Counts of Flanders and fair Brittany,
And all who share their mind, the purest zeal;
Yet am I but the voice of many hearts,
Contending 'twere a sin to spend our strength
Or turn the headlong current of our wrath
On Tunis, while the Holy Land cries out
For instant succour. I do fear, my lords,
While we are lingering on an unknown coast,
Besieging a strong city unexplored,
Blunting our lances on a harmless foe
Two hundred leagues from Egypt, I do fear
Lest the affrighted towns of Palestine,
So hardly rescued from the infidel
By costly blood of many a Christian Knight,
Should yield them to the Saracen. We know
14

With whom we have to do, the fierce Bibars,
Sultan of Egypt, enemy of God,
Whose power corrupteth like a mortal plague
From Dor to Ptolemaïs. Doth he lie
In Tunis?—Nay, two hundred leagues from thence!
Two hundred leagues nearer the tomb of Christ!
Beside that river, that proud-swelling Nile
Which oft hath blushed with blood of Christian France,
And borne our brethren to a moaning grave
In the all-cleansing, wide, forgetful sea.
Then let us up, and ere he be advised,
Carry our wrath unchecked, our swords undulled,
Into the inmost bosom of his realm!”
He ceased: but ere the echo of his voice
Had reached the heedless waves, a swelling shout,
Like that which bruits some vanquished citadel,
Burst from the throng. Whereat, as though a cloud
Had sailed across the sun, deep shadow fell
Athwart the hope-lit forehead of the king;
A chillness smote his heart, and for awhile
His high resolve drooped like a sapless flower.
Then lifting up his thirsting eyes to Heaven,
15

He slaked them at the fountain of all life,
And turning on his councillors a face
Illumined with that love, whose gentle breath,
Like springtime melting winter's frozen heart,
Prevaileth over all opposing storms,
Spake to them thus:—
“My brave and faithful peers,
Brothers and fellow-soldiers of the Cross!
I know the lightning of your headlong wrath
Springs from a captive heat of holy zeal,
And is not kindled at the reeky torch
Of earth-born passion. Yet beware, beware!
For oftentimes the very sword of God,
Wielded by uncelestial hands, hath dealt
Most fearfully amiss. My lords, there sits
On the eternal judgment-seat of Heaven
A Counsellor whose name is Prince of Peace;
Who, though He left a sword upon the earth,
Wills not that any use it but to win
Souls to Himself; and if they may be won
Without the cost of bloodshed, bids us sheathe
His sword in loving-kindness, lest it turn
Upon ourselves, his worthless instruments.
16

Our counsels therefore should be wholly swayed
By two regards: the chief, how best to fill
The vacant room in Christ's wide fold; the next,
How to achieve such Heavenly victory
With lightest loss, not only of those lives
Already one with Him, but those dark souls
That may be His hereafter. Both regards
Do point one way—to Tunis. Ye well know
How oft of late her king hath sent to France
Ambassadors, as many deemed through fear,
Few sounding his deep purpose, which in truth
Is nothing less than to receive the rite
Of baptism at my most unworthy hands,
He, and through him his people.—O! my lords,
That were a glory to make dull the glare
Of sordid conquest, shrivel up the bays
Of mortal triumph, and outshine to death
The blood-red planet, kindling in its stead
The pastoral star that shone o'er Bethlehem.
That were a victory to make high Heaven
Ring o'er with joy and drown with angel-song
All the unlovely discords of poor Earth.
For but to sow one seed of Christian love
17

Is worthier in the eyes of Heaven than fields
Of slaughter, and the lightest grain of faith
Weighs heavier in the balances of God
Than warfare's richest harvest.—Where is now
The pride of Carthage? Where her palaces
Soft-lined with luxury, her silken beds,
The tinkling feet of pleasure-breathing girls,
The music of her fountains echoing
Through halls of marble coolness? Where her marts
Aching with costly merchandise, her fanes
Filled with faint incense and the hymns of old?—
Conquered and trampled, buried and decayed!
Her dust lies lower than the withered grass!
Yet from those ashes, if we do but plant
The Cross of Christ, shall spring a marvellous growth,
Wide as the world, sublime as Heaven itself,
The eternal Tree of Life!—which to achieve,
Most joyfully would I embrace the worst
That flesh can fear; would quit this living air,
And pass the bitter remnant of my days
In some foul dungeon, where the healing sun
Ne'er shed a ray, nor morning-breath of flowers
E'er entered, nor the song of bird or bee,
18

Where reptiles sicken, and the very weed
Dies on the slimy wall—yea! but for sin,
Would cast away the heritage of Heaven,
And spurn the immortal crown!—O! gentlemen,
Bear with my seeming madness till you hear
My warranty for this. Ye all do know
How I have watched of late when all things slept,
And inly wrestled many a teeming hour
In thought made pure by fast and constant prayer,
So haply I might win the ear of saints,
Or catch some whisper from the throne of God,
To point our wavering steps; and not in vain
Was heavenly guidance asked; for yesternight,
When all the huddling fleet was rocked to sleep
With murmurous lullaby of wind and wave,
I left my trouble-haunted couch, and sought
The influence of those silent counsellors
Who, since the cloudless night when first they met
In Man's strange horoscope, have never ceased
To utter the great tranquil thoughts of God
To fretful souls. Then, as I watched and prayed,
Methought the radiance of the jewelled Lyre
Grew ever brighter, nearer; and I saw
19

An angel take it, and with glittering hands
Sweep the great chords, till all the sky was full
Of wondrous music, and the furthest star
Throbbed like a fire; and when those holy strains
Drew back to heaven, I saw the Northern Crown
Descend upon the angel, and he fell
Swift as a moonbeam fledged with whispering wings,
And held the crown above me, and I read
“Tunissa” wrought in stars; but when I moved
To take it, a full blast of harmony
Rapt him away, and surged across the deep
Thundering out “To Tunis;” then the night
Grew slowly silent and a mystic gleam
Stole like the dawn of Heaven along the sea,
And smote the dead grey level of the main
Into a million crystals, till the air
Glistened with diamond-dust, and every wave
Lisped, as it fell, “Tunissa.”—Last there came
A weight of mist upon me, and methinks
I lay entranced; for when the veil removed
I heard the beating of my laboured heart
Blend with the sounds of day about the ship,
And felt the sun's kiss hot upon my cheek,
20

And saw the sea-birds, with white heads down-bent,
Float o'er my face beneath the naked blue.
My lords, the finger of the Most High God
Hath traced this vision, and a glorious crown
Remains for Tunis, and a deathless name
For you whom Christ hath chosen to fulfil
His boundless purposes of love and peace.
We go to pluck no earthly kingdom down,
To bind no bloody laurels round our brows,
Nor glut our baser part on others' pain.
We go to win a royalty for our Lord,
To sign a nation's forehead with the Cross,
To bid our brethren to the marriage feast
That shall not close till all be gathered in.
Let them that don the livery of Hell
Divide the spoil of lust with reeking hands,
And gulp the wine of conquest mixed with tears;
But we who wear the badge of God's fair Son,
Be ours this stainless glory, to bestow
A crown on Tunis, whose mysterious sheen
Shall light the utmost nations of the East,
Till all that dusky brotherhood, whom we,
Proud fools, despise, albeit the King of Heaven
21

Sprang from their midst, shall join our whiter flock,
And all the world be one celestial fold!”
So spake the king; and they that listened marked
An aureole, like the mellow zone of light
That breathes around a planet in the mist,
Glow from his sacred head, and steep his face
In living glory, shining through his mail
Like sunshine through a pearl, until his form
Grew radiant as an angel's, all beside
Earthy, and dull, and cold; and none dare lift
A thwarting voice, but all with one consent
Murmured “So be it;” and the doom was sealed.
That night, or e'er the giddy lights of earth
Danced in the island harbour, while the lamps
Of Heaven shone pale upon the dying sun,
A gentle breeze woke from its noontide sleep
Along the shore, and fluttered out to sea
Laden with sounds of loveliest harmony:
“Veni Creator,” chanted by a band
Of snow-white priests, who watched the holy fleet
Shrink to a sail upon the southern sky;
22

And they within the ships first heard the hymn
Swelling and falling in sweet gusts, and next
A whisper scarcely caught between the laps
Of prattling waves, and last a memory,
So like the straining sense, that wind and wave
Seemed to repeat the subtlest cadences
When all had sunk to silence.
So the fleet
Was wafted on towards the lidless sun.
Two days she drifted like a white-winged bird
Lost in a perfect orb of spotless blue;
Two nights within a closer orb, thick-set
With twinkling gems, she drew her radiant train,
Bright as a comet, far along the sea;
But ere the azure of the second morn
Melted to rose and silver, landward birds
Flew crying round the ships, and like a dream
The distant mountains grew upon the sight;
And ere the sun went down, they heard the surge
Unfolding slowly down the level shore,
And watched the glittering fish glance in and out
Down the bright dingles deep beneath the keel;
And anchored in the beauteous bay, and saw,
23

(Like Dido, when the softness of the scene
Went to her soul and bred an empire there,)
The mountains full five leagues across the bay
Double their splendour in the glassy deep.
But over all the solitary plain
Dead silence hung. The Carthage that had fought
For fair dominion of the glorious sea,
Lay buried deep beneath the buried wrecks
Of Carthage Roman-reared; and those few stones
That yet remained had hid their trampled heads
Low in the smothered grass and sifted sand.
And as, where once some lovely garden bloomed,
A meaner life of noisome weed upsteals,
More desolate than utter barrenness,
So on the two-fold grave of that proud realm
Had grown a scanty village; and a port,
As 'twere in scorn of her whose bosom nursed
The fleets of nations, fed a squalid few,
To whom the name of Carthage—her that shook
The world with terror—was an unknown sound.
The good king gazed and marvelled; for no sign
Of human life was on that lonely shore;
24

No thin blue smoke slept o'er the little town
Or curled in darker wreaths against the sky,
And the few barks which lay within the port
Dozed listlessly upon the stagnant brine.
Therefore he bad Florent, who ruled the fleet,
Take boat with some few trusty men, and prove
If treachery might not lurk beneath that hush.
For once a cry of terror—like the cry
Of some wild creature that has writhed and bled
All night upon the snare, and suddenly,
Her eyes dilate with anguish, hears afar
The crackling twigs, and sees the fowler's shape
Burst through the bush, and tears her swollen wound
In one last frantic struggle to be free—
Once, even such a cry startled the ears
That listened from the ships, then all was still.
But ere an hour had passed, Florent returned,
And met the king with cheerful eyes, and said:—
“My lord, an easy triumph will be ours
If that no time be lost. We found the ships
And houses hollow-empty, but in some
The ashes yet were warm upon the hearth,
25

And cats basked tamely at the open doors.
One human face alone we saw, and she
A wretched woman, old, and sick, and blind,
Who crouched within a filthy hut, and clutched
With skinny hands her scanty locks, and shrieked
In terror when we entered. Doubtless, Sire,
The dwellers on the coast have taken flight,
At sight of us, to Tunis. Ere day break
The city will be armed; but if we land
This very night, and scour across the plain
Three cool and starlit leagues, and scale the walls
Ere they be manned, the startled citizens
Will crouch like conies when a polecat storms
The crowded warren with his needle-tooth,
And Tunis will be ours without a blow!”
But the king answered:—“Truly, good Florent,
Thou speakest like a soldier, and thy words
Are wisdom of this world; but thou forget'st
Our sacred bent; we are not here to force
Beneath an earthly yoke an earthly foe,
But in a willing bond wed East to West,
The gentle tie of Christian fellowship.
26

How can we hope our brother will join hands
Whith Christ's fair Church, if she put on the mask
Of bloody hatred and unfaithful war?
To-morrow in God's name I mean to send
A messenger of peace, to call to mind
That holy purpose, and acquaint the king
Why we are here. If he refuse to keep
His Christian vow, there will be time enough
Alas! to cast away the olive-branch
And draw the hateful sword. But furthermore,
We may not venture any enterprise
Till Sicily be here, on whose accord
Our strength depends. Too much of bitterness
Was slowly borne in Egypt through the speed
Of self-sufficient rashness. This attempt
Let caution manage and firm prudence curb.”
So rare occasion slipped; and all that night
The restive soldiers tossed upon the wave,
Baulked into idleness; but when the face
Of Morn peered here and there between the folds
Of sea-mist rolling off the sluggard shore,
It glanced on flashing arms, and steeds that seemed
27

Giants to draw the chariot of the sun;
And as each curtain lifted, and rolled up,
A snowy cloud dissolving to clear blue,
It showed the coast thick-strewn with Saracens,
Gay with rich colours, like a garden sown
And blooming in a night. And when the king
Could not restrain his eager lords, he gave
The word to land, and fast from every ship
Fell boats o'ercharged with knights and blazoned arms
Almost to sinking, till the sea itself
Was hidden, and the fronting hosts appeared
Two sheets of summer blossom which a stream
Of sparkling foam divides. But when the Moors
Beheld the banners of the host of France
Nodding towards the shore, a sudden fright,
Like that which scares a file of staring sheep,
Ran shuddering through them, and they turned and fled;
And ere the shining pebbles, streaming back
With each receding billow, hailed against
The grazing gunwale of the foremost boat,
They seemed a swarm of flies across the plain.
So the wide shore was won without a blow;
28

But all the host was drawn up battle-wise,
In jealous order, each battalion crowned
With its own gay-wrought ensign, waving high
Above the glittering lances, as a pink
Waves high above its bristling close array
Of steel-blue spears. And when the shifting troops
Were firmly marshalled, the king's almoner,
Pierre de Condé, stood before the host,
And clarion-clear his silver-tempered voice
Rang through the bright blue morning:—
“In the name
Of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the name
Of Louis, King of France, His Serjeant,
I take possession of this land and realm.”
And there they pitched their tents, and girt their camp
With fosse and mound, and manned the ancient tower
That stood upon the wave-worn promontory,
A steadfast sentinel of land and sea;
And with the next dawn half-a-thousand men
Planted the lily-broidered flag of France
High o'er the battered castle; and they housed
29

Their sick and women in the vacant homes
That stared on vacant pathways; but the men
Abode beneath their tents, and all day long
Whetted their keen arms till the wasted edge
Must be fresh-whetted, and explored the plain,
And chafed like beasts, and thirsted after blood.
Then to the king, still fondling in his breast
One darling hope, (for early yestermorn
A peaceful embassy had left the camp,
And still he trusted, though delay blew cold,)
Came dark-browed legates from the Moorish prince;
Who, when the king had bad them to his tent,
Made humble-proud obeïssance, and said:—
“To Louis, King of France, and all his pack
Of Christian hounds, Tunissa's faithful king
Sends uttermost defiance; and will meet
The Paynim with a hundred thousand men
To-morrow on the battlefield, to claim
There at his hands the baptism of his blood.
Moreover he hath seized since yestermorn
All Christian infidels within his realm,
30

And tethered them with chains, so to abide
Till every foreign dog hath quit this shore;
And if one hair of these his messengers
Be wounded, or the Christian king advance
One step towards his capital, they die.”
Whereat a sudden blast of manly wrath
Shook the king's firmly-balanced heart, and fired
To boiling all the royal blood of France;
But fleshly passion could not long prevail
In one whose pulse was governed by the flow
Of constant deep communion with his God;
For like a silver sunshaft piercing through
A purple pall of storm-cloud, came the thought
Of Him who turned the torture-notes of death
To everlasting music, when He prayed
Faint on the cross for those that nailed Him there;
And lighted by that thought, the Christ-like king
Forbore awhile to speak, and so returned
A soft reply, and sent the Saracens
Wondering back.
But such rare gentleness
31

Seemed craven to their heathen sense, and swelled
Their puny hearts with pride; and day and night
They prowled like wolves around the Christian camp,
With wolfish greed for easy straggling prey,
With wolfish panic at the bugle-call;
For when, made bold by darkness, they had rained
A shower of arrows on the sleeping tents,
And stung some half-armed warrior as he lay,
Who rose and blew a blast of loud alarm
Waking the clank of steel through all the host,
They waited only till the dancing shields
Glanced in the moonlight, dipping down the trench,
Then wheeled their steeds, and shocked the whispering night
With worse than brutal howlings, and struck spur,
Scouring like jackals when the lion nears.
And once three hundred Moslems on their knees
Crawled through the lines, beseeching to be crossed
With holy water, while a hundred more
Crept in their trail; and when the guileless king
Was serpent-charmed, and would have wrought their will,
Four hundred stings of poisoned steel flashed forth,
Four hundred foul mouths hissed out deadly hate,
Four hundred base forms writhed from off the earth
32

And darted forward; but his nearest knights
Rallied around their king, and held their ground,
And cried for succour; and ere long, the snakes,
Environed from without by those who watched
Expectant of some vile attempt, were hacked
To pieces; but the few that still could crawl
Lay in their fellow-reptiles' thickening blood,
Pleading for mercy at the hands of those
Whom they would fain have tortured with slow death;
And the proud knights, disdaining such a foe,
Beat them with flat swords whining from the camp.
Then stung to rage, and chafing at the curb,
The lords of France besought the gentle king
To check their speed no longer, for a friend
Who, lagging thus, would prove their dearest foe;
And when, each morning, grown by custom bold,
The Moorish hordes were seen upon the plain
Taunting to battle, scarcely could the king,
Recalling all the evils that ensued
In Egypt from rash onset, and their strength
In Charles, and his sure coming, rein his host.
33

By this the crescent moon, which quaked and ran
In silver links along the rippling sea,
That night before the fatal fleet set sail,
Had reigned her golden prime, and worn away,
And sunk, a phantom, underneath the plain;
And now a new-born crescent streaked the waves
With one thin line of broken light, and peered
Betwixt the mottled leaves and purpling grapes
That slumbered on the silent slopes of France;
And all that while from town and desert tent
Pressed help to Tunis, and the din of arms
Was heard along the rich reposeful shore
Of Nilus, and the fierce Bibars himself
Sent word of speedy succour; so the foe
Waxed proud with numbers and unchallenged strength.
But all that weary while, by night and day,
The lily-bannered host lay under arms,
Harried by worse than human enemies;
For dry and scorching as the sand below
Glared pitiless the beating sky above;
The choking air between was seen to reel;
And naught remained to feed their shrivelled throats
34

Save salted meats, which stung the cracking lips
And maddened the parched tongue; yet not a drop
Could all their prayers wring from the staring heavens,
And ever tempting them, the great salt sea
Laughed at their thirst.
Moreover, torrid blasts
Licked their sun-blistered cheeks with tongues of flame,
And cunning in their hate, the Saracens
Mounted the panting hills with mighty flails,
And raised great storms of sand, which, northward blown
Towards the tortured, whirled in burning showers
On to the camp, filled all their tents with dust,
Entered their eyes and ears like stinging flies,
Found every crevice in their mail, crept deep
Into unhealing wounds, and crammed the throats
Of those that cried with death.
But still the King,
Misjudging by his own firm faithfulness,
Which never borrowed weak strength of an oath,
Nor ever brake his Christian Yea or Nay
E'en to the basest, rested on a prince
More false than quicksand, and a murderer's word
Brittle as hollow ice.
35

Last, the same sun
Which, smiling o'er a thousand azure miles
Of winking wavelets, lit the crystal belt,
That girt the shores of France, with rainbow-spray,
And o'er her rustling cornfields shed the glow
Of golden peace, and tanned the reaper's cheek
As ruddy as his sheaf, and blessed the land
With ripeness and rich health,—the selfsame sun,
Commingling foully with the stale low air
Which lay pest-laden on that stagnant strand,
Gave life and force to many an unseen germ;
Which being breathed grew to a raging fire
Within the breast, devoured the wholesome flesh,
Seethed in the entrails, palsied the firm heart,
Rotted the belly, and, in fewer hours
Than blossoms fade in, left the soundest frame
A putrid horror.
Then full many a cheek,
Which proudly wore the seams of grisly wounds
And glowed for scorn of danger, paled and sank,
Touched by the carrion finger of the Plague;
Full many an eye, that foremost in the charge
Seemed mad for love of death, grew dull and glazed
And shrank within its socket at the glance
36

Of green-eyed Pestilence; full many a front,
Which some sweet lady, kneeling far away
For her dear lord, had kissed a moon ago,
And thought between her tears, “Was ever brow
So noble?”—now was blotched with loathsome boils
And knit with agony. The camp, which shone
So snowy-cool to view, ere long became
A charnel-ground of whited sepulchres,
Each tent a tomb, 'midst which the stricken men,
Unshamed by anguish, reeled in maniac rage,
Stark naked, rolled upon the burning sand
To ease by smart the itch of fiery blains,
Or staggered to the sea, and shrieking sank
Against the breaking wave, and let the surge
Wash them to death; some fell upon their swords;
Some sought the ships, and writhed within the hold,
Hearing the wavelet lap the baking board,
Till, faint with pain and smothered by the smell
Of melting pitch that oozed between the planks,
They clambered on to deck, either to swoon
Beneath the downright sun, or crawl aside,
And staring down upon the throbbing blue
Drop by the board and sink without a cry.
37

Then, guided by the kind but artless hand
Of that dark age, the rudely-fashioned knife
Did cruel service; for the cheeks of those,
Whose strength of core withstood triumphing Death,
Became as rotten parchment, and their jaws
Blackened and festered and decayed away;
Till, fearful for the ear and so the brain,
The anxious steel carved out the putrid parts
With ghastly patience, leaving the poor face
That once was proud a fixed and hideous yawn,
Never to speak, never to smile again.
And still the King said, Wait! albeit himself
Was nigh to sicken; and by this his Knights,
Though no constraining voice had held them back,
Could scarce have fought; for lean and pale and faint,
His strongest, who had borne their galling arms
Through all those scorching days and stifling nights,
His bravest, who had robbed their own parched lips
Of those few precious drops that were their due,
To cool some dying plague-corrupted brow,
His noblest and his courtliest and his best
Moved like their ghosts. One held the twitching hand
38

Of some prone knight, whose fixed and glazing stare
Knew not the iron face made soft with mist
Of manly pity; one bent down a head
Bared to the deathful sun, to catch perchance
Some gasping syllable of love for those
At home in France, half lost amid the buzz
Of flies within his ears; but ere the stars
Put forth their quiet mockery, he himself
Lay in delirium, muttering o'er the words
That ran and raged like fire along his brain,
Mixed with a roar of flies.
Then every night
Was heard the dismal requiem, and the surge
Low-moaning in the moonlight seemed the wail
Of love left desolate beyond the deep;
But night by night the awful harmony
Grew thinner, and the slimy beach at ebb
Flickered with fewer torches, and the air
Was laden with less incense, till at last
No solemn mass obscured the naked clank
Of pick and spade, but muffled soldiers bore
Loads to the common grave, and swung them in
Without a prayer, in wild haste; for the dead
Outnumbered them that buried.
39

So they toiled,
The dying 'midst the dead; and staggering oft
From hunger, heat, and spasms of fierce disease,
Purged the foul camp so long as strength remained,
And hid their ghastly burdens 'neath the earth;
Till all worn out with watching 'mid the sights
They saw, the sounds they heard, the air they breathed,
They ceased their sickening labours, and sank down
In sheer despair. The ditch that girt the camp
Became a nameless horror; o'er it hung
An ochre pall of pestilential gas,
So horrible that not the boldest knight
Dared to approach its margin, but the corpse
Rotted where first it fell; whence soon that pall
Spread over all the camp; a fungus, like
To putrid flesh, grew on the very tents;
And such a stench arose, that wandering birds
Fell senseless flying over it. Each tide
Receding left more bodies on the shore,
Swollen with brine and mangled by the teeth
Of loathsome fish; and thicker every day
Gathered the swarms of filthy-feeding flies
On that which vultures shrank from.
40

But one eve,
When the brave King lay sick within his tent,
His sons attending, he that should succeed,
And he that came most near his father's heart,
Tristan, the son of sorrow, Egypt-born,
A sudden shout shook all the stagnant air
That stank throughout the camp, and whilst it died
There came a footfall lighter than had been
For many a weary week, towards the tent;
And ere the King, whose watchful heart was quick
To catch an answer to unceasing prayer,
Could raise his head, the curtain of the tent
Was parted, and Florent, who ruled the fleet,
Stood over him with eager face:—
“My liege,
Be cheerful; there is hope; the sentinel
That watches on the castle-tower hath seen
A sail upon the distance, winging straight
Towards the shore; he lands while yet I speak,
Olivier de Termes, the harbinger
Of many a goodly ship and gallant crew
Now hither bound from Sicily, whose king,
Though he come late indeed, could scarce have come
More longed-for.”
41

Then the king, with far-off eyes
And wasted hands tight-clasped:—“Blessed be God
For all His tender mercies.—Go, Florent,
And tell my patient warriors, that the King
Would share their joy, as they have shared his woe,
And greet them once again before he die.
Go, bid them range themselves about my tent,
That I may see them all and say farewell.”
“Nay, lord,” began the other; but the King,
Raising a hand whose trembling more availed
Than sternest bidding, checked his faltering tongue:—
“Nay, good Florent; my hour is almost here;
As thou wert alway loyal to my love,
Do me this latest service.”
So Florent
Turned heart-sick from the king, and wrought his will
With aching faithfulness; and when the knights
Were ranged before the tent, the stricken saint
Leant forward, with wide eyes that seemed to count
Each hair of them and search their inmost souls,
Till every fault seemed precious, and the ill
More hard to part from than the leal and true.
42

So some fond mother, when her wilful boys
Break from their village home to brave the world
Grieves most o'er him that most hath slighted her
So Christ himself, the very heart of love,
While faithful women lingered by the cross,
Spake comfort rather to the dying thief.
But when the death-light of those yearning eyes
Fell on him, not the purest soldier there
Could meet their truth, but hung the head, and some
Dared not to raise it more. Then faint, yet firm,
The voice that ne'er had breathed a truant word
Unfit for angel ears, stirred the sad air:—
“Brothers in Christ! Not all our sins have power,
How deep soe'er they be, to quench the hope
Of mercy at the last; then be ye strong,
Seeing that Heaven hath heard our feeble prayers,
And sent its angel at our sorest need.
Oh, were it but for thankfulness, be strong!
And fear not Christ will utterly forsake
His cause for which ye wrestle, nor His sons
Whom he hath bought with suffering more intense
Than all earth's misery—Sirs, I cannot speak
43

That which I would. The guiding hand of Death
Beckons me gently, from beyond this gloom
Of thought and fear and strivings after speech,
To perfect light and silence.”
And no tongue
Said “Nay lord;” for the look that held their speech
Was as the look upon the face of one
Who, after years of parted toil and pain,
Sees yet afar the love for whom he toiled
Waving him welcome; but all bowed the head
In prayerful silence, then with lingering gaze
Moved slowly past, like mourners from a grave,
Who feel the one they leave less pitiable
Than they who leave him; yet for him they weep,
And not for selfish sorrow.
But the King
Lay long with waxen eyelids closely drawn,
And parted lips, through which the failing breath
Came not as strongly as the faintest sigh
Of summer twilight, when the quaking-grass
Scarce trembles, and the aspen-leaves are dumb.
And while he lay as dead, his darling son,
The child of sorrow, who till now had hushed
44

His own complaint for love of one more dear,
Was sorely stricken. So the earliest sounds
That smote the saint-king's ears, when yet again
He crept from out the shadow of the grave
And staggered on its brink, were muttering tones
And broken ravings of that winsome voice,
Whose every accent to a father's love
Had hitherto been music.
Then those few
That watched beside the King, perceiving Death
Had seized already on the tenderer prey,
Gave word, ere yet the father's helpless lips
Could frame remonstrance, and the son was borne
Senseless away from those entreating eyes,
Whose fondness shone e'en through the mist of death,
Following, as the new-made slave, that stands
Bound in the mart, follows with struggling eyes
His child, sold first, and borne he knows not where.
But Love, Death's foe and conqueror, deeply shook
The smothered embers, till the flame of life
Glowed through the ashen lips, and once again
The hectic flashed across the hollow cheek;
45

And the strong fervour pulsing from the heart
Quickened the palsied tongue to steady speech:—
“My son, my son!—Where have they borne my son?”
“Sire, to the ships, in hope the ocean-air,
Less close than that which reeks within the camp,
May heal him; and we would that our dear lord
Would seek him there.”
Then for a little space
A tremor stirred the father's lips, and tears
Were blended with the death-mist; not for long;
For with firm voice but weaker:—“Well for him;
And ye did well; but I must live and die
With these whom I have brought to suffer thus.”
So death awhile was baffled, and the saint—
In whom self-love had perished, other love
Sprung in its stead, as fairest flowers arise
From ashes of foul weeds—ceased not to toil,
Howe'er his brain might throb, while any shift
Could ease the tortured army; neither ceased
To offer up his will a sacrifice
Each hour to Heaven; yet ever and anon,
More often through the listening hush of night,
46

Sent word for him who lay within the ship,
Now three days still.
Long shrank the boldest lips
From blurting forth a truth grown half a lie
By hiding; till one night the messenger,
Charged with fair falsehood, 'neath the searching light
Of eyes that seemed a part of God's own eyes,
Quailed; and a sudden lightning seemed to scorch
All cunning, as a web is shrivelled up
By touch of flame; and all the tent was dumb.
Then slowly, with a stifled voice that came
As from the inmost caverns of his heart,
Spake the sick King:—
“Philip, my son, lay thou
Thy hand in mine; nay, tremble not; the worst
Is known, the best is in the hands of God;
I vainly wished to pass before my son;
God's will be done; he waits for me in Heaven.”
And Philip said, “He waits.”
Then all the love,
That still had held the holy King to life,
Was melted, and the prince felt heavy tears
Burst on his hand, whose smart in after time
47

Was more remembered than re-opening wounds.
Again the life-glow sank and left the cheek
Ashy and hollow, and across the eyes
Was woven once again the film of death.
One held the cross before him, the worn hands
Outstretched towards it, and the pallid lips
Moving in prayer.
Meantime without the tent
There reigned a silence sadder than all sounds
Of mourning, such a hush as scarcely breathes
Around the death-bed while the rattle fails
In the dear throat and yet the brow is warm.
For numb with terror of the blow that hung
Over themselves and France and Christendom,
His warriors scarcely felt the mortal bite
Of pestilence, but merged their own full woes
In deeper sorrow; those half-angry prayers
That day and night had still beseigèd Heaven
Were spent like smoke, and in their hearts remained
Only a smothered fire of fierce despair.
Sleepless they hovered round the tent where lay
Their withering hope, and clutched with nervous grasp
Each knight that left it, ere his hand had loosed
48

The curtain; but at sight of his sad eyes
Fell back with drooping head and tottering knees
To wait for yet another; till at last
Suspense itself grew precious, and none dared
With eager beck or question any more
To tempt the fateful silence.
So the hours
Crawled onward, clogged with woe and weariness.
But now the whisper of the wings of Death
Was heard within the tent; a desperate shock
Braced all the fainting powers, and that strange light
Which seems not of this world, like snow-white heat
Or marble lit with life, was seen to breathe
Through all the wasted features of the King.
And while the watchers bent, with prisoned breath
And hearts whose laboured throbbing seemed a sin,
A hand, through which the night-lamp's tempered glow
Was almost seen, shook beckoning through the gloom
To Philip. Swiftly, softly knelt the son
Beside the couch, and felt the father's touch
Tremble along his brow, compelling forth
The swelling tears that long had ached within;
Then, while his head was deeply bowed, and all
49

Were kneeling, in a hush so full of grief,
Of fear, of love, of passionate thought, it seemed
A lifetime, once again the rigid lips
Were kindled into speech, which, fainter far
Than midnight's secret, rang within his ears,
Wrought to a thousand-fold in that last hour,
Louder than thunder.
“My belovèd son,
A little space, and all this troubled life
Will be to me no more; the grosser clouds
That wrap about the kingdoms of the world
Are parting, and beyond I see a vast
Of pure tranquillity, where love is light,
The everlasting countenance of God.
There shall we meet, when all our anguish here
Will be remembered only as the joy
Of winning; but as yet it cannot be;
For ere thou come to that eternal peace
Much must thou do and suffer. Thou, my son,
Hast not the liberty of lowlier men
To rest awhile in grief, since the same stroke,
That ends my being, forges thee a crown
Which thou must needs endure. I leave thee king
50

Of a great people; loyal in their depths,
But tossed upon the face with many a flaw;
Strong with the strength and peril of a storm;
Swift to be thrown, yet swifter to rebound;
Most hard to bridle, but when managed well
Able for any enterprise; bedecked
With every outward charm and subtle grace,
Nor wanting that fine polish which can stand
On sterling metal only; yet most prone,
From very nimbleness of sense and thought,
To dire excess. To such a government
Art thou, my son, now called by Heaven and France,—
A post most sacred and beset with toil,
Which I would render easier, ere I die,
And yet more full of loving-anxious care
Than I, the faultful king, have ever shown,
By these last counsels.
“Before all, my son,
This, without which no effort of thine own,
How pure, how true soe'er, availeth aught;—
Confirm and guard from ill throughout thy realm
The holy tie that binds this world to Heaven
In mystic union: cherish and protect
Its blessèd ministers, that day by day
51

Their moving prayers may intercede for thee
Before the throne of Wisdom. Above all,
Fear to offend the Majesty of God,
In Whose Eternal Presence earthly kings
Are less than beggars, Whose deep-searching eye
Sees all our worth as sin, sees fear in faith,
Self-love in sacrifice, desire and hate
In courage, and behind our noblest deeds
The arch-fiend Pride. Act ever as if Christ
Stood over thee; so will thine eyes be turned
Not on the good thou dost, not on thyself,
The instrument, no more, but on thy King
Who wrought both it and thee. And seeing that He
Hath taught us, kinsmen though we be of those
That slew Him, how we yet may succour Him,
Give richly to the needy, feed the poor
And serve them at thy table; but beware
Lest, stooping thus, as once thy Master stooped
To wash His servants' feet, thy lightened heart
Be lifted up with saintly vanity;
For there be some, my son, in every age,
Who, toiling for the weal of Publicans,
Are yet the Pharisee.
52

“When thou art crowned,
Strive to be worthy in thy lightest act
Of that mysterious unction which hath balmed
The head of many a noble ancestor;
Be just in all, nor suffer fear or hope
To turn thee from the perfect path of truth.
If e'er the widow or the fatherless
Contend before thee with a mighty foe,
Be loftier than brute Nature, and incline
Towards the weaker, till the right appear.
If e'er a cause be brought to thee, wherein
Thou hast a heart, lean thou, howe'er it strain
Thy wilful self, toward the opposing side,
Lest that thy counsellors should shrink to speak
Against thy liking, and a sweet-tongued lie
Should breed a court of flatterers. O! beware
Most watchfully of aught that might inflame
The ready fuel of thy warriors' hearts
'Gainst any Christian people; for the fire
Of war once kindled, who can mete its bounds?
And ye are brothers all. But if a day,
Which Heaven keep far, should see thy chivalry
Marshalled of dire necessity to match
53

Some neighbour nation, be thy chiefest care
The innocent poor, in whom the blast of war
Wakens but terror, seeing that victory
Is bought with their scant bread and glory's sun
Shines not on them. Quench thou the earliest sparks
Of civil strife, and to that end maintain
Well-chosen provosts, whom being wise and just
Thou may'st securely furnish with full power;
But spare not to chastise with iron arm—
For falsehood in high places stinketh most—
The man that walled around with kingly strength
Maketh the sacred fortress of the law
A bandit's hold. Beware of pomp, whose cost
Is ever wrung from out the patient poor;
But rather spend the surplus, that abides
When royal state is fed, on them whose toil
Sustaineth thee. Correct with careful fear
Whate'er is faulty in thy kingdom's laws,
But seek not to molest the ancient rights
Bequeathèd by thy fathers; for the hearts
Of all thy people, using them, are filled
With pious love and worship, as the soul
Of one, that stands and listens in the dusk
54

Of some great minster, feels the subtle scent
Of bygone years breathe from the wood and stone,
And loveth it and worships; so they feel
Toward their olden charters, and their hearts
Are then most loyal, and thyself most strong,
And all thy foes most helpless. These precepts
Write in thy heart, and may the King of Kings
Fulfil thee with His mercy, love, and truth!
And now, my son, the icy hand of Death
Lies heavy on my bosom, and the voice
That summons to the judgment-hall of God
Rings through the folding darkness. Fare thee well!
Leave me alone, save for these holy men
Whose prayers shall be my escort from this world,
Their chanting in my ears until I hear
The angels chiming on the further shore;
Alone with God. Belovèd, we shall meet—
Thy lips one moment on my brow—sweet son,
Think, when thy heart is boisterous with the wine
New-pressed from out the swelling fruit of life,
When lusty health, or sport, or lofty art,
Or poet's praise, or woman's yielding eyes,
55

Seem to thee present Heaven, think of this kiss;
And all that makes the riddle of Man's life,
Its ignorance and its cunning, its vast scope,
Its quivering subtleties, its loves and hates,
Its infinite varieties, its wild maze
Of woe and joy, of wealth and poverty,
Its passions, manners, follies, hopes, and fears,
All that bewilders and o'erwhelms thee now,
Shall seem a simple nothing.—Fare thee well!—
Belovèd, succour me with ceaseless prayers
And solemn masses, for the wrath of God
Is even as His mercy, infinite.
With all a father's tenderness I lay
My dying blessing on thee, and beseech
My Lord and thine to guard thee of His grace
From evil, and from aught that may offend
His holy will, and afterward to join
Father to son where we shall see His face,
And love and praise Him everlastingly!”
He ceased; and while the silence shook with sobs
Rose Philip from his knees, and clasping yet
The strengthless hand, and reading on the brow
56

Death's awful signature, felt all the past
Swell in his heart and overflow his eyes,
And all the future looming through the dark.
“My king!—my father!”—but the dewy front
Knew not love's impress, and the bloodless lips
Were murmuring faint, “Alone—alone—with God.”
Then, like a flood that bursting from a dyke,
Long pent in vain, sweeps headlong, fury-blind,
O'er flower and field and forest, and at last,
Its passion spent, leaves all the ruined plain
A waste of sullen water, even so
Came rushing desolation o'er the soul
Of Philip. Long he stood, the helpless hand
Locked in his grasp, and stared upon the face
That never more would own him; till the touch
Of those that waited with the oil of death
Convulsed him, and with one despairing cry
He turned, and heard the curtain of the tent
Rustle behind him, and “Alone with God”
Blurred by the moaning of the deep, and felt
A myriad cold, small, narrow, eyes look down
From empty vasts of darkness.
57

But the King
Lay like a saint within his marble shrine,
Peaceful and white and still, his almoners
Chanting in tremulous harmony the prayers
Of Holy Church; and ever and anon
Those thin lips quivered, answering them, and called,
But with an inward voice that scarce might drown
A whisper, like a far-off cry for help,
On good Saint Denis, for their hapless sakes
Who soon would stand unguided. Then the priests,
Marking the shadow of the flight of Death
Steal o'er the heaven-lit face, as shadows cast
By satin-shining clouds glide silently
Athwart a gleaming meadow, raised the king,
More gently than a mother her sick child,
And laid him, following out his last command,
Low on a bed of ashes; softly pressed
The holy wafer 'twixt his senseless lips,
And poured the sacred oil. Without, the sun
Toiled sweating up the morning steep; but when
It blazed triumphant on the peak of noon,
Peaceful, as when a tender-nurtured babe
Wakes from a dreamless sleep, the dying King
58

Unveiled his eyes, and raising them to Heaven,
Aflame with love and spiritual light,
Cried with the fulness of an angel's voice,—
“Into Thy house, O Lord!—To worship Thee
For ever in Thy holy tabernacle!”—
Then sank and slept, and in the self-same hour
Wherein our Saviour tasted of the gall
And hung for once the head, he passed away.
That very hour, ere yet the weary flood
Was stagnant in the worn-out heart, ere yet
The dew of death was dry upon the brow,
While moans of agony raving through the camp
Made horrid discord with loud-tongued despair
And curses on the prince whose laggard craft
Had wrought their ruin, along the desert shore
Was heard the sound of martial minstrelsy,
And like a mocking laugh the bugle's crow
Shocked through the tent of Death. But not a man
Stirred, not a word of welcome left their lips,
Each hand was clenched, each brow was knit, each foot
Stamped where it stood; and when false Sicily
Rode stumbling over death from tent to tent,
59

There fell an utter silence, and the camp
Was seen as when the angel of the Lord
Breathed o'er the Syrian host. The unburied dead
Stared helplessly, the dying held their wail,
And they that lived stood fast with folded arms
Like sentinels of stone. With shuddering heart,
Not daring question, the shame-stricken prince
Urged on his frighted charger, whose fine sense
Quaked at the poisonous reek, until he saw
The lily-banner of the royal tent
Droop in the dull air; then he sprang to earth
And loosed the rein; whereat the maddened steed,
With glowing nostril and dilated eye,
Fled neighing from the horror.
But the prince,
Crossing his craven bosom, drew aside
The curtain, and still grasping it beheld
His victim, that one king whom neither pain,
Nor fear, nor love could move to break his troth,
That saint whose faith in Christ was all too rich
For petty victory of poor pride and hate,
Whose charity knew neither East nor West,
But only one vast brotherhood to be,
60

Low on a bed of ashes. Long he stood
Heart-frozen, staring speechless at the dead,
Until the silver cross upon the breast
Seemed heaving, and the sweet forgiving smile,
Engraven by the master-hand of death,
Seemed not the record of a blameless life
But living welcome; then with one deep sob
He fell upon the earth, and bathed with tears,
Such tears as Judas wept, those quiet feet
That ne'er had trod unhallowed ground, nor shunned
The slippery steep of duty; kissed his robe,
And called him lord and brother; and so lay
Lost in remorse, nor heeded those that stood
Silent, with bowed heads, round about the tent,
Nor marked the swinging censer, nor the priests
Moaning their slow-drawn requiem, nor descried
The fierce light growing in the eyes of one
That watched with head unbowed and bitten lip,
But railed upon his tarrying, cursed aloud
The ears that had not drunk the dying charge
Of earth's best king, and smote upon his breast
With such a hollow clang as well bespoke
The fashion of his sorrow.
61

Then, as when
A forked flash tears a jaggèd path through heavens
Thick-stuffed with livid cloud, the loosened storm,
That long has muttered distant threats, leaps forth
Shattering all the sultry air, so leapt
Quick passion from the stifled heart of him
That stood unbowed, the dark Count of Champagne.
“It well beseemeth thee, remorseful prince,
To rail upon thyself; thou hast good cause;
For thou hast slowly slain the noblest heart
That ever wore the cross; 'twas bravely done;
And 'tis most brave to wallow weeping there
About his feet. Arise! let fall thy tears
On those meek marble lips—they will not chide,
That never uttered e'en thy name in wrath;
Kiss that victorious brow—it will not heed
The venom. Out upon thy tears, false prince!
Take them where there is yet a dying wretch
To curse thee; offer them for balm; go, slake
His raging throat with gushing penitence;
Or else seek out—thou need'st not wander far—
Some foul untended corpse, and wash it clean
62

With thy pure tears; maybe the harlot Plague,
Now well-nigh weary of our failing strength,
Will kiss thee too!”
He ceased, and once again,
As, when the storm has crashed its full and fled
Deep-muttering far away, a clearer hush
Succeeds, ere yet the cowering birds dare lift
A timorous note to welcome the keen sun
Bright-glancing through the dripping leaves, e'en so
Fell silence through the tent, the murmuring tones
Of those that echoed wrath grew slowly faint,
And only the low requiem still wailed on,
Like autumn twilight sighing to her rest
Among the withered reeds.
Then rose the prince,
Stood fixed awhile, with shifting eyes downcast,
Tongue-tied as in a nightmare, and so shrank
Crippled with shame and terror from the tent.
But far across the leagues of rosy waves,
The same dear sun that saw the death of Christ,
And hid its crimson face, shed one deep blush
O'er orphaned France, and smote through many a pane,
63

Dyed with his blood, on many a head that bowed
Low in the vast cathedrals for their king;
Then sank beneath the west, whose shadow passed
O'er meadow, wood and wave, to where he lay,
With all the mystery of this human life
Frozen for ever into one calm smile.
67

THE BURIAL OF SAINT LOUIS.

Dead silence o'er the pass, from Alp to Alp.
The silence of a midnight, whose thin breath
Slept silvered on the torrent dumb with frost,
The silence of eternal towers of ice,
The silence of eternal glades of snow,
The silence of the ghostly mountain-tops,
And crowning these the silence of the stars.
A death-white wilderness, whereon a moon
Of gleaming marble from an ice-green sky
Gazed as upon her mirror. Like a shroud
The glistening snow-slope swept in shaded folds
Down from the peak, and spread its wrinkled skirts
Far o'er the solid lake, whose polished face,
Muffled to scarce a tarn by curving drifts,
Lay twinkling with a million miles of depth.
Heaving and vast the moonlit glaciers stared,
Streaked with huge wrecks and riven to the base,
68

As if, when grappling storms were at their full
In some wild Arctic channel, while the bergs
Boomed, and the billows swilled their heads with foam
A sudden hush had fallen, and the breath
Of the great God had smitten all to ice.
Dead silence; and a loneliness so vast,
So awful in its self-sufficient calm,
The very shadows of the starward spires,
Scarce creeping, flake by flake, along the snow,
Seemed fearful of their presence, stealing past
Like sinners that have entered unawares
The Holiest of Holies; for it seemed
Death's inmost temple, whose high psalmody
Is silence, and whose worship breathlessness.
Death's solemn temple, whose huge buttresses
Were planted and its deep foundations laid
In molten crystal, when this world was yet
One furnace; whose gigantic aisles were hewn
By earthquake; whose stern columns were upreared
By fire, and carven by the stormy hand
Of everlasting winter; whose wide floor
69

Was paved with ice and strewn with winnowed snow,
Grain upon grain, for ages; and its dome,
Girdled with fretted pinnacles of pearl,
Built without bound and gemmed with countless worlds.
Death's chosen temple, waiting but for one
Worthy of such a vast and spotless shrine.
Dead silence; yet the silence of a death
That seemed the utmost life; like to the calm
Which sleeps upon the whirlpool's glassy breast,
Or some great spirit motionless with thought;
That hush of heart which is the open grave
Of deepest agony. For yesternight
The bosom of the mountains shook with storm,
And all the mighty orchestra of heaven,
From ravined crypt to trembling spire, crashed
With God's own passion-music; the big blasts
Were hurled from height to height; the scudding mists
Writhed in their pain; the rattling ice-flakes flew;
And limbs of mountain, bristling with black pines,
Leapt thundering down and down, from ridge to ridge,
To shatter and be shattered in the depths
Of yelling forests and abysmal floods
70

Dammed with their ruin. But or e'er the moon
Had groped her blindfold way through shaggy clouds
Hounding her westward, the great symphony
Had told its heart of sorrow; and all day
Moaned in its sleep or woke in rarer bursts
Of fitful anguish; till with eventide
The mighty instruments lay hushed below,
The worn-out echo of its parting breath
Had died upon the distance, and no sound,
Not e'en the whisper of a feathery flake,
Profaned the utter silence.
Nor in vain
Did Heaven proclaim her passion; nor in vain
Her loneliest star kept watch with veilless eyes,
And all that awful sanctuary lay
Breathless with expectation. For to-night
The purest kingly heart that ever glowed
With love to the dear God that lives in man,
Must rest awhile amid the mountain-tops,
Icy and still as they.
And even now,
Far in the phantom depths; athwart the bridge
That spanned the ice-hushed torrent; through straight chasms
71

Steeped on one hand with moonlight, one with gloom;
Up winding terraces, whence sheer below
Sank precipices whose dim base was lost
In distance, and above, bare flanks of rock
Smoothed by a thousand snow-slips; long and slow,
With muffled tread and voices dumb with awe,
Crept on the dark procession—the dead hope
Of Christendom, the ashes of that flame
Whose throbbing for two hundred years had fired
All Europe to a hero, and now lay
Quenched in her blood.
Nearer, but scarcely heard,
Moved the sad blot across the waste of white,
The remnant of the chivalry of France,
The wreck of that fair Eastward host which left,
But six moons since, with proudly-tossing plumes,
Their summer land, dazzling the village crowds
With blaze of shield and bickering of lance,
While greybeards left their world beside the hearth
To wave the crutch, and beldams knelt to pray,
And mothers held their babes toward the sight,
And maidens blest them, and the very leaves
Shook with God-speed—the wreck of that fair host;
72

Heads deeply bowed, and shoulders stooped in pain;
Soiled arms, that flashed no longer to the moon;
Eyes, that were wont to lighten for the fray,
Sodden and bleared and bent upon the snow;
A prince sore sick, half-longing for the grave,
Orphaned of father, brother, sister, wife,
Of him whose death was widowhood to France,
Of that one Christian king who ruled for Christ,
And bearing now their bones at last to rest,
Over the winter-world, beneath one pall
Stiff-set with frost and glistering with rime.
Onward and upward, till the mountain-stairs
And over-reaching corridors of ice
Lay far beneath them, looming through the wreaths
Of moonlit vapour, and they stood amazed
Within that lofty temple draped with snow,
And spake no word, but falling on their knees
Felt the eternal majesty of Death.
Then Philip beckoned; and with trembling hands
They laid their solemn burden on the snow,
And all that night held fearful watch, with eyes
73

That dare not close, and lips that dare not speak;
While ranged around the lonely mountain-tops
Stood sentinel, and overhead the stars
Kept boundless vigil o'er the sacred heart.
Dead silence; save that once a smothered sound,
Like echo of far thunder, from above
Boomed, and grew downward, shocking with great leaps
The feeling hush; till with one gathered crash
It left the shelving pass; and then a pause,
Long as a man might hold his breath; and then,
Scarce heard, the dreadful message of its doom
Far down upon the glacier; and again,
But that each watcher heard his startled heart,
Dead silence.
So the awful night wore on.
And crystal grew to crystal o'er the pall,
And starker every fold that wrapt the urn,
And sparkling white with frost the rigid men
Seemed fragments of the ice whereby they crouched,
And seen like mist their breathing rose to heaven.
But care lay tossing on the troubled breast
Of Philip, and his heart was swollen with pain,
74

And sore with its own restlessness, nor drew
The nestling silence in, but evermore
Leapt hotter from itself, as one that flees
Starts at the echo of his own wild steps;
For still the plague was smouldering in his veins,
And in that realm of mind, where princely will
Was wont to rule o'er serviceable thoughts,
Disorder now ran riot; and a crowd
Of vague forebodings and dark memories
Whirled hotly through the brain's still council-halls,
Stifling each other in their eager throng.
Once more he heard the moaning of the surge,
Unutterably sad, swell forth, and sink,
And swell again, along the desert shore.
Once more he felt the panic of the plague
Curdle his wholesome blood, till the night-air,
That missed the sense for very purity,
Seemed laden with the reek of pestilence,
And the white peaks dim-glimmering 'mid the stars
Seemed tents beset with corpses. Once again
He knelt beside a father's dying bed,
And felt the pressure of the parting hand,
75

So weak, so strong, until the frosty damp
About his lips chilled like the damp of death.
Then, as the crag descended, heard again
The roar of battle, yell, and curse, and groan,
With clash of scimitar and snap of lance,
And felt his good sword stagger in the bulk
Of many a flying Saracen, and swung
Its deadly lightnings right and left; and knelt
Victorious by that unimpassioned form,
Printing a kiss upon the sealèd eyes.
Then, as he stared upon the gulfs of ice,
The wide crevasses ran like furrowed sea,
The long moraines were seen to rise and fall
Like lines of huddling wreck, and once again
He reeled on the steep slippery deck, and clung,
And heard the gurgling cry of drowning men,
And saw the stout ships take their last slow plunge
Beneath the boiling billows, and the flood
Suck down, and whirl, and bubble where they sank.
Last, when his labouring brain was near to burst,
Saw that which many a sleepless night had saved
His soul from madness, softening agony
To tenderest tears; saw his true-hearted wife,
76

Robed in a texture like the green wall-moss
Lit by a flash of April, gently stroke
With grateful words her palfrey's glossy neck,
Pausing to let him drink, while the swift stream
Chafed pettishly against his weary feet;
Heard the false rattle of the slimy stones—
The cry—and felt his heart give one great leap
That choked him, as she fell, and with her fell
The unborn hope of France. Then with a moan
He turned to where her form, despoiled of love,
Lay 'neath the frozen pall, and heart-wrung tears
Fretted the senseless snow.
But when that storm
Of stifled pain had sobbed itself to rest,
And life with all its dragging load of cares
Seemed a dull dream, as to some passionate child
Who cries himself to weakness, the sick prince
Upraised his glistening eyes, and his purged soul,
Lost in the vast tranquillity of Heaven,
Grew as it gazed, and touched the feet of God.
Then every form of thought, which heretofore
Had veiled for him that dreadful Majesty,
77

Fell earthward to its birthplace, and he stood
Before his very Maker unafraid;
And saw no frown of judgment, but a brow
Of passionless repose; and heard no voice
Pealing the doom of nations, but a hush
Beyond all utterance; and felt the arms
Of everlasting pity fold the world.
And so he gazed and listened, till he heard
The heart of all things beating with his own,
And his great grief went forth in chastened prayer.
“Father!—forgive the passion of a woe
That murmured at Thy bidding—it is well.
Thou teachest every star its hour to set,
Thou teachest every flake its hour to fall,
Thou tellest every grave beneath the moon;
And they, who were the pledges of Thy love,
Are in Thy faithful keeping—it is well.
Pardon the sin of prayer that thwarts Thy will,
The ignorance of the prayer that cries for good;
Shall God do wrong because His children weep,
Or stifle the strong promptings of His love
78

Because we know them not?—Yet we believe,
If love Divine admitteth more and less,
Thou, as an earthly father his weak babes,
Most lovest when we seek Thy heart in prayer.
Saviour of men!—not for the far-off dead
My spirit pleads; the dead are past our reach;
For them a thousand requiems shall make moan
Unceasingly—who knows with what avail?—
But these, Thy weary tempest-driven sheep,
These, the long-suffering soldiers of Thy Cross,
Are still to help; and I, their feeble stay,
Totter beneath the burden, and would lean
On Thy Almighty arm.—O King of kings,
Whose throne is Heaven, Whose reign Eternity,
Whose realm exceedeth unimagined space,
By Whose right hand the world-sown Universe
Was fashioned and directed, yet Who deign'st
To make Thy home within the broken heart;
Thou Light of lights, by Whose eternal Sun
Our brightest thoughts are but as shadows cast,
Illume my soul with somewhat of that ray
Which lit the life now nearer to Thyself
By all my sorrow's distance; that my yoke
79

May lie as light as his on stricken France,
That men may feel his firmly-gentle hand
Still guiding them, though oft against their will,
To their own good, and hear his temperate voice
Warning them still to truth and righteousness.
Father! now most my Father!—for we feel
The sacred dead are almost one with Thee—
Father! forgive, hear me, and answer!”—
He ceased;—and while he listened, the deep hush
Grew ever deeper; the vast loneliness
More desolate; the stars, that seemed erewhile
To quiver as with some celestial life,
Were glazed like dying eyes, and death seemed lord;
Death in the moon, death on the world of ice,
Death 'neath the pall, and death about his heart,
Till Heaven itself seemed lifeless, and a chill
Smote to his very spirit, and his head
Sank on his breast in uttermost despair.
But now a whisper like the voice of God
Quickened the silence; and the western stars
Paled, one by one, and slowly drowned themselves
80

In that which seemed a dream of golden sea;
While round the topmost spires there played a tint
Faint as a primrose wan in maidenhood,
And all the East deepened to purple gloom.
Then, as the West grew livid, every height
Became a folded rose, and blushing swift
From pink to crimson cast dark sapphire streaks
Far o'er the snowfields, till the moonlight-shades
Faded abashed; then the wide grave of night
Was filled with colour, ocean's deepest blue,
The lurid flush of thunder, and above
Pale turquoise; and the golden mountain-loins
Were girt with scarves of rainbow; and the sky
Was ringed with ruby, amethyst, and pearl,
Zone upon zone; but when the dawn-flash flew
Downward from height to height, as butterflies
From bloom to bloom, the lightening peaks of snow
Swam in a dove-hued softness, bathing all
The round horizon-line, and overhead
Melting to searchless azure. Last, there rayed
Great beams of glory upward from the East,
As if the dungeoned monarch of the morn
Gilded, ere yet he burst, the bars of night;
81

Which, ever widening, spread, a giant fan
Of silver ribs o'erwebbed with opal gauze,
E'en to the zenith, while each jagged ridge
Was rimmed with molten gold. Then from behind,
Rejoicing in the splendour he had wrought,
Uprose the living sun; and, as a dream
Dissolveth in the waking of the bliss
That gave it birth, so vanished those fair mists
Before that dazzling flood of sudden sheen,
Until the air itself was lost in light,
Till every col flashed like a cataract
Cloven by crags of crystal, every peak
Was hewn from one great diamond, and the plain
Heaped with its countless brilliants. Over all
A calm of spotless blue; so near, it seemed
To kiss the snow; so far, it seemed to faint
If any eye would fathom its pure depth.
Then all the woe which bound the young king's blood
Was thawed by that full glory, and he felt
The spirit of the morning flush his veins
With vigour, and a stream of thankfulness
Rushed from his swelling heart.
82

“Thanks be to God!
And praisèd be the Father of all life!
Who hideth not the radiance of His face
E'en from His meanest creature, but doth shed
His bounteous warmth alike on weed and flower,
His bounteous love alike on wretch and king.
Thine is the first grey glimmer that foretells
The fresh dominion of ascending Day,
Ere yet the birds have thrust with dewy wing
The beaded twigs aside, and shyly chirped
The half-remembered music of their dreams;
Thine the first frail anemone that lifts
A starry head above the mouldering leaves,
To tell the naked underwood of Spring;
Thine the first sunbeam on the latest snow;
Thine the first laughter of the new-born babe;
And Thine, dear God, the earliest ray of hope
That gilds the night and winter of despair.
Blest be the silent-growing power of Day,
Blest be the slowly-widening dawn of Truth,
Blest be the ever-conquering might of Good,
And blest the surely-coming reign of Love.
Let shine Thy light!—we long to see, nor flinch
83

From naked fact; if ill await, 'twill be,
However hid, and hidden seems the worst;
But if not ill—as deeply, 'mid the storms
Of doubt and dread and wreckage of our joys,
We still have faith—then, the same fostering hand,
That sowed the seed of hope in darksomeness,
Will bring it to fair blossom and full fruit
In open sunlight.—Shine upon the dead!
We dare, in the strong buoyancy of morn,
To look that gross corruption in the face,
Whose phantom was the terror of the night;
We listen in the darkness—and the hush
Of the stilled heart, the hollow of the cheek,
The sunken eyelid, and the marble chill
Seem all the man; we view it in broad light—
And these, the worn-out vesture of the soul,
Are empty, and the life is far away,
Thou knowest where.—Shine upon darkened France!
Let Thy bright comfort, smiling through her tears,
Weave the full rainbow of celestial hope,
Proclaiming the rich promise of a day
When, widely storming from a blood-red dawn,
Her beams of thought shall lighten through the West,
84

Break up the frost of hardened centuries,
And melt the barren ice of selfish use
To streams of fertile freedom. Shine on Man,
Thine own benighted and bewildered child,
Striving, with many a stumble, many a halt
And wilful wandering, still towards Thy light;
That from his eyes may melt the blearing fog
Of ignorant fore-judgment; that the life,
Bright-bounding through the channels of his heart,
May sweep it clear of avarice and of lust,
And crawling pride, and trembling tyranny,
And all that loves the darkness which it makes;
That never may his limbs grow stiff in sloth,
Never the sacred sword of manful deed
Rust in its scabbard, but, whate'er attained,
A somewhat nobler tempt him, till he reach
Full liberty, and scale the heights of Heaven!”
Thus thanks, as oft it doth from hungry hearts,
Became a loftier prayer, and braced the soul
Of the sore-proven prince to still endure;
And sweetly on his jaded senses came
The trickling of the secret mountain-rill,
85

Swelling its way beneath the splintered ice,
The tinkle of the falling icicle,
The sun-awakened stir amid the flakes,
And all the subtle music of the morn;
As when the spring-song of a mated thrush
Breaks on the ear of one that all night long
Hath watched beside the death-bed of his love;
Gently he draws aside the casement-blind,
And meets the grey untroubled eyes of Dawn;
Nor grudges the poor bird its happiness,
But feels the scene withdrawing through his tears,
Leaving within his heart an undertone
Of hope amid the discords of despair,
And raving anguish hallowed to deep calm.
So tenderly the beauty of the morn
Touched the sore heart of Philip, and his grief
Softened to tranquil strength.
By this, the sun
Had quenched the watch-fires, which the livelong night
Had gamboled with the moonbeams o'er the ice
In sparkling rivalry, to hoary ash;
And lit the lines of many an anxious brow
That hour by hour had stooped around the flames,
86

Lightening darkly in the fickle glow,
And now, scarce conscious of the crownèd dawn,
Still brooded o'er the embers. Then the prince
Gave word, and caring little for their life,
Yet holding by it, as a trusty watch
Stands by the desperate post he knows must fall,
They ate their bread in silence, and once more
The sad procession whispered through the snow
Its painful passage.
Slow, with faltering haste,
That feared itself yet dared not slacken speed,
With struggling pantings strangled in the birth,
Toiled on the broken army of the Cross;
In dread at every step to hear above
The stealthy hiss of the long avalanche
Sliding, a snowy snake, adown the slope;
In dread, lest echo of the faintest sound,
Shivering along the frosty sunlit calm,
Might wake the whirlwind's slumber, and arouse
The monster couching on the burdened heights;
Who, leaping with a low growl from his lair,
And roaring ever louder as he neared,
Would bound, through following rocks and crashing woods,
87

A rushing storm-cloud of tempestuous snow,
Charged with terrific bolts of crag and ice,
Down on his prey, and bury as he slew.
But safely grew the young day to its prime,
And firmly the broad bosom of the noon
Arrayed itself in steel against the towers
Of glittering white; and not a harsher sound
Jarred on the crystal silence than the cry
Of the high eagle poised with level wings,
Lone in his peerless kingship, the dull threats
Of the frost-throttled torrent, the shrill notes
Of chattering runnels, and the measured drip
Of the sun-smitten cornice.
So they passed,
With quick weak hearts, beneath the roof of snow,
Where curling over, like a giant wave
Proud-lingering o'er its fall, it hung aloft,
Fringed with transparent javelins of ice,
That breathed again the atmosphere they shed
Of emerald lost in azure, till the air
And ice were all one gleam, and the dazed men
Seemed to be standing in the radiant heart
Of some great jewel.
88

Then they wound their way
Along the skirts of a wide steep of pine,
That wrapt the mountain with a dark-lined robe
Of spotless ermine; and they heard the voice
Of the hoarse torrent, wrestling deep below,
Grow slowly nearer, till at length they felt
The damp of its chill breath upon their cheek;
And stood before the mouth of a dim cave,
Whose horrid jaws bristled with teeth of ice,
Like some huge monster yawning for its prey;
While from its throat resounded the career
Of plunging waters, thundering their mad way,
With echoes drumming all along the roof,
On to the cataract; and a narrow ledge
Of ice-clad rock, wet with perpetual foam,
Lessened, a fearful pathway, to a disc
Of far-off blue, the lofty roof of France.
Then with a short instinctive cry to Heaven—
Not that they held their shattered lives so dear,
Yet longing to be laid in some still spot
Of hallowed ground, where the mild evening sun
Might rest upon their grave, and homely flowers
89

Utter the simple tenderness of love,
And not to lie engulfed in that loud chasm,
The ghastly plaything of the demon flood—
So praying, the o'erwearied men crept on
In deafened silence, every step a thought;
Till, toiling for an hour towards the light,
They reached a sudden precipice, and saw
The eager waters make a glassy arch,
Through which there gleamed unruffled the black slab
Of polished rock, while mountain-deep below,
And smothered 'neath a cloud of spray, arose
The dull reverberation of the fall.
Midway, upon a jutting crag, there clung
A single tree, whose leafless tresses swayed
Upon the wind begotten of the flood;
And, like a pennon in the thunderous smoke
Of battle, half a rainbow faintly smiled
Athwart the veiled abysm.
With shrinking eyes,
And feet rebellious to the daring will,
They bore the royal dead along the brink
Of that stupendous gulf, and gained the point,
Marked by a storm-stained cross, where gallant hearts,
90

Mindful of others in their own sore need,
Had planted ladders 'gainst the upright rock.
Gently they lowered their sacred burden down;
And, that steep peril passed, with steadier hearts
Threaded the horror of the dark defile;
Till, rounding a sharp curve, which from afar
Seemed the barred gate of hope, a shout of joy
Burst from their breasts, nor wronged the quiet dead;
For stretching far away beneath their feet,
Asleep in the still sunshine, half revealed,
Half hidden in its own deep loveliness,
Lay the soft-sloping bosom of Savoy;
A mile below, warm-nestling in a fold
Of the rich robe that wrapt the mountain's feet,
The stooping gables of a little thorpe
Peeped through a brooding haze of hoary smoke;
And dreaming o'er the distance, the faint hills,
Lost in the misty border of the sky,
Seemed the horizon of a sea becalmed.
At that fair sight the weary months of pain,
Remorseful memory and deluded hope,
Vanished, as when one waketh from a night
91

Of crowded anguish struggling with itself,
And finds his pillow wet with passionate tears,
And the warm sunbeam reddening through his lids,
And cries aloud “Thank God, it was a dream!”
So lightened, the sick prince spake words of cheer;
And that sweet pain which hungers in the soul
Rapt on a lovely scene, as if some sense
Were wanting to embrace its loveliness,
Welled up in the worn hearts; and yearningly
They thought of their true wives and tender babes
And lordly homes beyond the bourn of sight,
While ever the black wall of mountain scowled
Higher behind them, and the village-roofs
Broadened beneath their feet; till at the last
They halted in the sleepy street, and watched
The great sun sink upon his snowy couch,
And one by one the blushing mountain-heads
Draw their grey mantles round them, and the moon
Steal the faint beauty of the afterglow.
And sweet it was to see the peaceful smoke
Drowsily curl from the warm hearths of men
Athwart the crimson sky; once more to hear
92

The low of homeward oxen, and the chime
Of children's voices, and the chapel-bell
Pleading for evening-worship; and when all
Had long lain hushed beneath the quivering stars,
Twas sweet to think upon that last dread night,
And hear the watch-dog's bark, and cheery crow
Of the first cock chiding the sluggard morn.
But ere the herdsman left his dreamless sleep,
Rich meed of wholesome toil, while yet the sun
Was weaving low beyond the moonlit peaks
His daily-fresh apparel, the young king,
Roused by the sight of his fair fatherland
To lend a speedy hand to her grave cares,
And spurred by anxious thoughts of coming state,
Urged on the solemn progress.
So they left
The narrow village slumbering, and passed forth
Into a world of coral, every twig
Crusted with heavy rime, and every bud
Glassed in an ice-drop. But when scarce three leagues
Of the crisp road were printed with their feet,
The risen sun, whose sovereign influence
93

Had slowly steeped the breathing morn with light,
Burst through the threadbare mist, and far and wide
Scattered his flashing jewels o'er the land.
Then sprinkling lightest music the hoar frost
Dissolved, and the dry earth sucked in the dew
At every pore, and many a lowly plant
Felt the strong nurture mantling in its veins;
While glistening threads of sunny rain unsealed
The pointed sheath wherein the chestnut's fan
Slept folded round its bloom, and overflowed
The daisy's red-rimmed cup, and brightly kissed
The honeysuckle's winter-braving buds,
And moved the modest-drooping violet
To fragrant tears of joy. The neighbouring woods
Were changing their warm winter-robe of brown
And dusky purple for the soft grey veil
They wear before they don their golden green;
And fringing them the hazel's tasselled twigs
Were gemmed with ruby-tufted buds, most like
The tiny sea-anemone, that spreads
Its fairy arms deep in some tranquil dell
Of ocean, while the great storms swing above
Nor stir its silent home. The same faint smell
94

That reached the nostrils of the angry God,
Relenting o'er the water-silenced world,
Rose from the growing earth; a quintessence
Of pure spring-scents; the breathing of young buds,
The steam of wayside brooklets bearing forth
The fragrance of their mosses, the warm reek
Giddily dancing o'er the tender crops
And strips of fresh-turned soil, with all the sweets
Distilled by sun and moisture from wild life;
While over all the upward-quivering lark
Poured wave on wave of overflowing song,
And almost burst his heart for ecstasy.
Thrice rode the sun across the noontide blue
In dazzling panoply of silver-white;
Thrice lashed his steeds adown the western slope,
Hastening with smoking flanks to their repose;
But when the netted shadows of the trees
Doubled their stature eastward, and the star
Of the third eve was lonely, far away
They heard the faint, weird murmur of a town
Swell on the hushing twilight; and when Day
Lay buried, and the distant poplar-plumes
95

Stood ranged like lingering mourners, sable-tall,
Against the pallor brooding o'er his grave,
They gained the peopled pride of Lyonnais,
And saw the starlit bosom of the Saone
Blend with its mightier sister-tide, and bound
With one full pulse on to the longing sea.
And so from dawn to gloaming, ten fair days
Of girlish Spring, the shadow of their woe
Passed onward, darkening all the lusty land;
Onward through treeless plains, where every clod
Was clothed with promised harvest, and the road,
Straight-seen for miles, a narrowing line of white,
Wakened a lonely sadness; through the hush
Of pine-woods, where the darkened solitude
Seemed as a house of death; o'er many a bridge
Flecked with the smiles of under-dancing waves,
Where the quick trout took shelter in the gleam
Of eddies mingling o'er the reeling stones,
Or darted 'neath the tresses of the nymphs
Hiding their faces in the shining sand;
On through sequestered hamlets, where for hours
The eager hinds had flocked from miles around,
96

Leaving the plough-share gleaming in the loam,
To line the way with whispering files, and lounge,
When the rare sight had passed, in gossip-groups
Through half the day—a rich experience told
To make their grandsons gape; onward through towns
Idle in grief and thronged with curious awe;
Till, looming grandly through the vapour-pall
That hid the mother-city from the stars,
Towered the sombre bulk of Notre Dame.
Thither they bore the dead, and all that night
The shadowy aisles and dusty-raftered roof,
Scarce seen by the faint glow of pendent lamps
Slow-swaying in the incense-laden gloom,
Re-echoed to the muffled bass of priests
Moaning their ceaseless requiem; and wan Dawn,
Stealing athwart the twilight sanctuary,
Found the young king a watcher by the dead.
But when the summer of high noon declined
Into that weary autumn pensiveness
Which saddens ere the sunset, Philip raised
The urn wherein his father's worn-out heart
97

Lay sleeping, and with hardly-measured tread
Passed from the hushed cathedral.
Twice a league
Of living road, whose banks were human throngs,
Silent, save only when a stronger sob
Burst from its prison; lines of soldiery
With arms reversed and eyes upon the earth,
Bare-headed priests whose sorrow was a prayer,
Women with infants cowering to the breast,
Maidens with snowy garlands fresh with tears,
Children with smileless faces wonder-wide,
Rich nobles poor as beggars in their loss,
And beggars poorer by their servant-king.
Two leagues of reverent worship of the dead,
Two leagues of loyalty to him who bore
Upon his shoulder all that could decay
Of that great heart.
Onward for two deep hours
Moved the bowed prince—a kinglier funeral,
And worthier of the pride-disdaining dead,
Than all the pomp of hired pageantry.
And wheresoe'er he stayed to rest awhile
His sacred load, arose a graceful cross,
98

Mute witness to the ages yet unborn
Of the good king.
But when the setting sun
Mellowed the sculptured porch of Saint Denis—
That aged abbey, where the Lords of France,
Gathered around their father Dagobert,
Lay in the fretless fellowship of death—
And stained the curious pavement with blurred form
Of saint and prophet, peopling the rich glass
That darkened all it lightened; while the bell
With sorrow-stifled tongue tolled heavily
The lengthening moments, and the waiting priests
Stretched, a black aisle, from door to outer gate;
Then, trembling 'neath his burden, stepped the prince
Across the threshold, blind with beating thought,
Yet ever after the vague memory
Haunted his eyelids; slowlier paced the aisle
Whose distance seemed a lifetime, and stood girt
With priests and knights, facing the lofty tomb
Of Dagobert, reared southward in the choir,
At his behest, whose chiefest minister
And abbot of the royal fane had laid
The floor with costliest marble-work and filled
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The windows' branching tracery with Heaven,
At his behest, whose silence was the soul
Of that day's mourning.
Then, while all the roof
Sighed with the dying music, Philip took
The oriflamme, dulled by the jealous sun
Of Tunis, and with kingly reverence
Laid it behind the altar, praying thus:—
“Strong Saint of France! I thought not, when the hand
Of my good father plucked thy oriflamme
From this, its solemn resting-place, to waft
Thy blessing o'er the host, I little thought
That I, his worthless son, should render it
Again to thee, standing beside his death.
Thou knowest the pang that wrings a nation's heart,
Thou knowest the after-ache of dull regret,
Thou knowest the lasting sorrow clinging-sweet;
And, knowing, wilt forgive us when we make
Our blindfold love blaspheme thy providence.
O lend us some small measure of the faith
Which conquers through defeat. He hath not failed.
That royal soul, so gentle and so brave,
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Thy care on earth, thy latest friend in Heaven,
Bore not thy banner vainly, if so be
That love and truth are stronger than all lust,
And Cæsar less than Christ. I yield it back
More sacred than when first he bore it hence,
More potent unto final victory,
By that heroic patience whose effect,
However foiled, yet in a noble cause
Endureth beyond death and is the strength
Of all that follow.”
So with fuller trust
Turned the bereavèd prince, and stood once more
Beside the grave; and while a trembling hush
Held all the glooming abbey, and without
The lonely wind moaned like a spirit fled,
They laid the weary heart at last to rest.
To rest, till that wild time when the deep hell,
That somewhere lurks in every human breast,
Boiled from the riven volcano-heart of France
And weltered on the surface; when the thirst
Of patient men to fare no worse than beasts,
The thirst that kings had scarcely deigned to scorn,
101

Was slaked with blood of princes, and the force
Compressed for ages burst with awful right
The bonds of serfdom; when, for three fierce days,
The hands that haled a monarch to his doom
Rifled the royal treasure-house of Death,
And half a hundred tombs stood gaping wide,
And half a hundred mangled bodies rolled,
Trampled with unknown dust, to one vile trench.
And so the ashes of the guileless king
Were scattered o'er the bleeding land, whose wounds
His hand had ever been the first to heal;
And the loud clamour of a thousand tongues,
Wagging for selfish prominence, hath drowned
The quiet memory of his gentle sway.
He was a ruler after Christ's own heart,
Who, judging all things by the Master's law,
Dealt justice to the weak ones of his realm,
Revered the poor, and sought not his own name;
Who, staggering oft—as who of men shall not,
When Christ himself prayed that the cup might pass—
Yet bore his burden bravely to the end,
Led by the loadstar of an aim sublime;
102

Who, gazing down the ages' avenue,
When other thrones sought but to quench the fire
Of God's bright East, saw far ahead but sure
The universal brotherhood of man,
One fold, one shepherd, and laid down his life
To bring it nearer. But the dull-eyed crowd,
Caught by the vulgar spangle of the names
That time will tarnish, misses the rare jewel
Whose inward glow outlasts the centuries.
His very loftiness to lower minds
Seemed wavering; as when one stands beneath
Some heaven-aspiring tower, and looks up,
And sees the light clouds skimming o'er its head,
And thinks it totters, till he turns to find
His own weak footsteps reeling, but the tower
Erect against the everlasting blue.
105

THE STORMING OF NAZARETH.

The storming of the village-home of Christ,
The last page of that heavy book of blood,
Scored with the fierce accounts of East and West,
Red with the record of two hundred years
Of valour wasted in the desert sand,
Of sacred passion grovelling down to lust,
Of carnage fathered on the Prince of Peace,
Till, with its last and saddest reckoning writ,
It closed from very weariness of hate.
The holy king lay low within the tent,
Cold on his couch of ashes; nor as yet
Had the swift finger of Corruption soiled
The stainless beauty of that peacefulness
Which smiles behind the rending storm of death.
But all the camp was stricken dumb with woe;
And marking the long silence of their grief,
And knowing not the strength that sorrow lends
106

To men of finer nerve, the Moslem hordes
Swooped round the tents, like craven birds of prey
That dare not strike the living, shrieking threats
Of chains and torture.
Then those knights of France,
Whom pestilence had spared or lightlier scourged,
Felt all the courage of the patient king
Bound in their veins, and all their love for him
Boil up within their hearts; and since the prince
Lay sick almost to death, they joined the host
Of brave-tongued Sicily, and bad him lead
Their fury to its mark, stifling the smart
Of wounded honour in a common hate.
Thrice rang the hideous music of the war
From bolt and brand, and thrice the yelling throngs
Drew back in screens of dust before the might
Of desperate grief; while he, that should have been
Their heart of fight, lay sheltered from the stroke,
Of sword and sun, deep in the secret shade
Of marble grottoes, drowsing in the lap
Of some fair slave. But when the irksome tale
Of treble rout and close-beleagured walls
107

Jarred on his sensual dream, the same loose lips,
That two days since had wagged with idle boasts,
Now cried his peace for sale, and sent forthwith
Smooth tonguesters to the conquering host, to be
The chapmen of his honour; not in vain;
For spent with famine, drought, and pestilence,
Heartsick of endless sand and throbbing sky,
And longing for a breath of meadow-breeze,
And children's laughter, and the glad, low voice
Of waiting love, and reft of that strong soul
That kindled all, the champions of the Cross
Spurned their own conquest, and base Sicily,
The slave from first to last of greed and gold,
Bartered his faith for forty thousand crowns.
But ere three suns had blushed upon the deed,
Dim from the ocean's scarcely-curving breast
Arose a full-fledged fleet, whose far grey wings
Grew whiter toward the shore, while first was heard
The cheery English horn, and then the wail
Of bagpipes, like the garrulous monotone
Of Highland streams; and when the steadied ships
Chased the short ripple of the quiet bay
108

And hailed the shore, a ringing shout of joy
Burst from the host; and eagerly they pressed
Far out into the shallow ebb, and hauled
The grounding boats in welcome to the strand;
And showed all honour to that English prince,
That nobler nephew of the Lion-heart,
Whose boyhood had upheld the tottering throne
Of our third Henry, whose majestic brain,
Stout as his arm, rough-hewed this Kingdom's shape
And stamped it with his image. Grand he stood
Upon the barren shore, his mighty bust
Towering above the crowd, his royal brow
Close-knit with strength, and his bright wealth of hair
Shaming his helmet's glitter;—the first prince
Whose Norman breast swelled with an English heart
And bore it through in triumph.
But a storm
Of sullen wrath, like that which swept the face
Of Ilion's terror, darkened his fair front,
Hearing the shameful story of the peace;
And hurling down one glance of utter scorn
On Sicily, he muttered 'twixt his teeth:—
109

“God's blood! 'twas not to sell the sword of Christ
I took His Cross upon me, not to play
The huckster with a Moslem dog!—My lord,
I swear by him who lies 'neath yonder pall,
Deaf to this outrage, that a day shall dawn
When Syria shall repent this haggled truce;
And you—go hug your gold—your better part—
And buy your own peace as your conscience will,
And prate away the cause of Christendom,
But spare me from your councils!”
So he turned,
And sharply drew the curtain of the tent,
While those around stood staring at the spot
Where late he stood, as if the earth should gape
To swallow them; and spake no word, but slunk
Like beaten curs away; and the stale plain
Seemed yet more hateful to their shame-sick eyes,
And the bare sky more brazen, and the East
A burden, and the Cross a thing of naught.
And all those months of patience unto death
Were spent in vain; unless there be no waste
In Earth's profuse economy, but all
Which seems to us most prodigal, the frost
110

That nips the opening bud, the blight that spoils
The full-blown flower, the mildew that devours
The garnered fruit, the worm within the heart
Of young life flushed with promise, loss and wreck,
Hunger and pain and death, yea, sin itself,
Have each some saving office and promote,
Somehow, somewhere, the good they seem to blast.
Not with that blessed weariness which crowns
A duty hardly done and leaves the soul
No taste for meaner pleasure, but with hearts
Benumbed with failure, sailed the knights of France
From that loathed coast. But when the welcome shore
Of Sicily now beckoned through the mist,
And Tunis with her load of woe and shame
Was lost in thoughts of home, the heavens, whose smile
Had ever mocked their course, threw off the mask
Of favour and arrayed themselves in wrath;
The sky grew one black scowl, the sea one plain
Of billowy lead, while far away the storm
Muttered its stuttering threats; and ere the fleet
Could reach the paling harbour, all the trumps
Of Heaven spake forth, and all its muffled drums
111

Rolled long reverberations o'er the deep;
The lightnings tore the purple clouds in twain,
The wild white horses reared aloft and flung
Their windy manes against the lowering rack,
And the doomed ships now reeled upon the ridge
Of the huge wave, now dived adown the slope,
And now were hidden in the gulf that yawned
Betwixt the watery mountains; the strong masts
Were bent like reeds and snapped their whistling shrouds,
The sails flew loose in tatters, and the boards
Groaned with the buffets of the demon sea;
And eighteen gallant ships that night went down,
And twice two thousand hearts that wore the Cross
Lay still beneath the tempest.
But the bark
That bore the sacred ashes of the king
Drave safe to port; and with the flare of morn
Drifted the shattered remnant of the fleet
Through tangled wreckage onward to the land;
And when the stricken prince had somewhat won
Of strength, and tidings of his kingdom's grief
Ached in his ear, he bad his fretful knights
Meet Sicily and England round his couch,
112

To mingle counsel, ere they sought their homes,
How best the withered laurels of the Cross
Might be refreshed. Then, when the tongues of all
Clamoured for rest and darted hints of hate
At him who wrought their ruin, a sudden wave
Of generous passion heaved proud Edward's breast,
And like a lion's growl above the din
Of meaner beasts his accents shook the air:—
“For shame, my lords!—think ye to heal your hurts,
Or win again the honour ye have lost,
By vain upbraidings of your host?—For shame!—
The past is dead, and let your ill-timed rage
Die with it; but the future yet remains
To pile the inglorious grave of what is done
With such a monument of gallant acts
As shall for ever hide it from the eyes
Of after men. Here will we rest awhile,
To weld in one the fragments of our strength,
And dip the half-extinguished torch of zeal
In fire of holy purpose; then let him
Whose sword hath still an edge, whose lance a point,
Whose seasoned manhood is not wholly warped
113

By sun and storm, whose faithful heart yet throbs
With the remembrance of a hero-king,
Follow my banner, and wreak out his wrath
Where wrath avails.—Your hands, my lords; your hands!—
God's death!—not one?—Then hear me while I swear.
By the Lord's blood, though all my countymen,
The lusty hearts of my dear island-realm,
Should here desert me, yet will I, alone
With Fowin, keeper of my palfrey, fare
To Palestine, there to require the blood
Of him whose selfless courage made my sword
Leap from its sheath for this—aye, and the blood
Of every Christian warrior that now lies
Rotting at Tunis; I will rouse to arms
The soldier-monks, and for each costly drop
That dyed the Carthage sand will have a life;
And he, your king, shall be as that dread corpse,
Whose bulk thrice-quartered spread the word of war
Through Israel's tribes; and ye shall sit at home,
Telling your scars, if any be to tell,
Chewing the cud of indolent content,
While deeds of wonder ringing through the world
Proclaim you traitors to the cause of Christ!”
114

He ceased; and sullen-cowering 'neath the lash
Of those indignant words the bolder bloods
Snarled angry vindication, and made oath
Four summers thence to waste God's chosen East
With fire and sword; and kept not one his faith,
But bearing their lost leader to his rest
Buried his longings with him, and forgat
Their oath, and held the honour of the Cross
A distant toil to heighten present ease.
Not so firm England's prince. For when the woods,
That hid the castles, where the lords of France
Lay toying with light Peace, were filled with green,
And children wandered o'er the English fields
With warm hands full of drooping woodland flowers,
The sails of Edward, swelling towards the shore,
Sent rapture through the hearts of those that watched
From Acre's walls, and terror to the breast
Of him who couched, like some strong beast of prey,
Patient for blood, without the city gates—
The fell Bibars, chief foeman of the Cross;
Who tarried not to brave the lion's brood,
But trembling at the memory of that king,
115

Whose name quick-whispered by the Moslem nurse
Would still her peevish child, drew off his host,
While the freed city reeled with joy and flung
Its barred gates wide in welcome.
Yet the prince
Loosed not, as men are wont, good Fortune's hand
To bask him in the memory of her smile,
But grasped it hard and followed where she led.
For thrice ten days he scoured the country round,
Learning its meanest dell; for thrice ten days
The cloister-knights of Palestine spurred in,
Hot from pursuit, to fight beneath his flag.
Then, when the scanty thousand of his own
Were seven-fold swelled by these, he marshalled all
Before him, and his manly bass rang out
Beyond the farthest listener:—
“My brave lords,
True knights, and fellow-soldiers of the Cross,
Bethink ye well or e'er ye plight your troth
To this our desperate business; for we stand
A handful 'gainst a host; so Gideon stood;
And so, like him, I bid that man begone
Who holdeth not his ease, his wealth, his life,
116

All but his honour, cheap, all but his God.
I and the remnant have a thing to do
That never half-hearts wrought. There lies, my lords,
Ten barren leagues from hence, a little town,
Where the great Master left His throne in Heaven
To bear the yoke of childhood; where the fount
Still darkens deep, wherein He stooping saw
His Godhead's image, and the very stones
That knew the pressure of His blessèd feet
Are yet uncrumbled. There the Moslem walks,
And dogs of heathen vomit forth His name
With bestial loathing of its sacredness,
And pagan hags give suck to pagan spawn
Within those very walls where once High God
Lay sleeping on the Maiden Mother's breast.
There shall ye see Her church, the fairest fane
That bore the Cross in Palestine, a heap
Of trampled ashes, and the crescent-flag
Flaunting above its ruins. Sirs, how long
Shall this endure? Ye know the dead Saint-king,
When late-delivered from the Sultan's chains,
And all aglow with gratitude to God,
Took up the pilgrim-staff, and unesquired,
117

Save for his trusty seneschal, did bend
His painful footsteps toward the home of Christ.
Thus did the king in lowly guise; but we,
Who, reverencing the white heat of his zeal,
Yet lack his tender saintliness, will make
Our pilgrimage according to our faith,
Not clad in weeds of meekness, but begirt
With the swift sword of vengeance; that the doom
Of Nazareth may re-echo to the doom
Of that beleagured city which the Lord
Gave into Joshua's hand, and not a tongue,
The quavering voice of age, the liquid tones
Of woman, nor the lisping of a child,
Be left to tell its tale.”
Thus spake the prince;
And all the army, heartened by his words,
Rang with acclaim. So when the great sun sank
A blood-red dome whereto a path of blood
Ran o'er the purple deep, and the moon rose
A blood-red dome above the sandy verge,
They left the cooling city and all night
Marched through the mellow silence, till broad day
Smote fierce upon their mail and laid them low
118

Beneath the shadow of a stooping rock;
But when the monarch of the sky had left
His kingdom to the stars, and a cool breeze,
From seaward woke fresh vigour in their limbs,
They took again their way; and when the moon
Had floated far above the mists that swelled
Her golden fulness, and rode high in Heaven
A dwindling disc of silver, and the night
Seemed like a solemn day, so clear, so still,
They reached the opening of a narrow glen,
That winding clove a barrier of grey rock.
Its walls were clad with many a twisted growth
Of fig and olive, and the cedar stretched
Its level arms and layers of dusky green
Far o'er the vale; the oleander slept
A tower of rosy fragrance, and the path
Was fringed with fiery poppies quenched in night,
And folded wind-flowers, whose bright-blended hues
Of purple, white, and scarlet, glistened dim
Amid the moonbeams; while the air was faint
With perfume of rich hyacinths, somewhere spread,
Like to a fallen sky, beneath the trees
Whose gloom now hid them.
119

Onward through the shade
For half a league they marched, and not a sound
Vexed earth's deep slumber, save the measured tread
Of their own steps, or rustle of the leaves
When some bright bird broke from his dewy bower,
And down the valley with a startled cry
Flew to a deeper shelter. But the walls
Of riven limestone glimmering to the stars
Grew ever wider parted, till they made
A sloping circle, like the storm-worn wreck
Of some great amphitheatre; and midway
Adown the slope, and nestling to the plain,
Asleep beneath the breathing moonlight, lay
The village-home of Christ.
O ye, who deem
The din of cities better than the hush
Of the bare hills, the pomp of painted roofs
More glorious than the starry vault of Heaven,
The strife of factions sweeter than the song
Of woodland birds, the raiment of a king
More lovely than the lily, and the roar
Of nations greater than the still small voice;
Ponder it well, or e'er your ears grow deaf
120

To God's deep music, that earth's strongest soul,
Who best hath known to cope with pain, and grief,
And shame, and sin, Who best hath held His way
Unflinching through the tempest of the world,
Most nobly wrestled with the powers of Hell,
And looked most calmly in the face of Death,
Drew His vast might, not from the turbid flow
Of crowded streets, but those pure influences
Which spring from star and bird and wayside flower.
Folded in sleep the holy village lay,
Unconscious of its doom; as in the depths
Of some entangled wild a gentle fawn
Sleeps, resting on its mother's dappled neck,
Nor sees the panther couching for the leap.
The narrow streets were hushed, and softly laid
With strips of moonlight; on the white house-tops
The doves slept side by side; and low within
The simple dwellings many a weary form
Lay dreaming its last dream; the infant's hand,
That fell asleep dimpling the soft brown breast
It could not clasp, drooped o'er it sweetly curled;
The mother's fondling arm had loosed its hold,
And fallen, a lovely curve, beside the babe;
121

And the faint whisper of their peaceful breath,
And the warm heaving of their bosoms, made
Unbroken music; e'en the father's brow,
Scarred with the early hardships of the poor,
Was smoothed by Slumber's tender-nursing hand;
Yet once he turned and started, as the neigh
Of a far war-horse broke the crystal hush;
But the swift weaver Thought, to lull his fear,
Wove from that sudden sound a subtle dream,
And half-aroused he shed a tender smile
Upon his loved ones, and again he slept.
But ere that moon went down, he lay half-dead
Beside the outraged body of his wife,
Beside the butchered body of his child,
And clasping still the household axe wherewith
He dearly sold their lives; and while the blood
Throbbed struggling from his heart, and while his eyes
Gazed fiercely-fondly on his ruined home,
He heard the iron voice of Edward ring
Above the shrieks of maids, the groans of men,
“Slay, slay, and spare not! 'tis the cause of Christ!
Slay all—their wives, their babes, their very beasts!
122

Slay on, slay on!” and staggering to his feet
He gasped a hideous laugh, and vented forth
A moan that shook the last wild flicker out,
And falling back upon his mangled child
Hissed through his teeth, “A curse upon their Christ!”
And never, since the innocent eyes of Morn
Shrank from the first foul murder, rose the sun
Upon a sadder sight. Christ's simple home,
The chosen dwelling of the Son of Man,
Steeped in man's helpless blood; pure women slain
And outraged in the name of Him Who spake
Compassion to the harlot; tender babes
Strangled and quartered for His sake Who bad
All men be mild as they; black pools of gore
Blotting those streets, wherein His faultless feet
Did pace for thirty years the lovely path
Of meekness and divine obedience;
Blood in the fountain where His thirst was quenched,
Blood on the lilies that He loved so well
And dowered with the pearl of all His words,
Blood on the matted fleeces of His lambs,
Blood on the ruffled bosoms of His doves,
And all for Him Who is the Prince of Peace
123

O God!—we fools of pride and lust and hate!
Tyrants and slaves of ignorance!—We stand
Alone within the darkness, and put out
Each man his fellow's dimly-flickering light,
And think our own the one pure ray from Heaven;
We gird us with the sword of self-esteem,
Call it the sword of faith, and so hew down
Our brother's hard-wrought idol, while we boast
Our own an image of the Most High God;
We rear fair altars to the Lord of Love,
And every temple is a hold of hate
Besieged with angry tongues; we sign our babes
With the deep symbol of self-sacrifice,
And still the strong wage war upon the weak,
And the wide world is bathed in harmless blood,
And Time is sick of carnage. What avails
That rack and boot and thumbscrew rust away,
Lost in the hideous lumber of the past;
That never more the reek of human flesh
Blackens the open forehead of the day;
That no young victim, whiter than her shroud,
With bloodshot eyes fixed wildly upon naught,
The funeral-candle trembling in her hand,
124

Totters between the ranks of austere priests,
Beneath the shadow of the crucifix,
On to her living grave?—The same foul fiend
Still lives, but mantled in a subtler garb,
Not striking with the sudden hand of force,
But slowly slaying with the little stings
Of rancour and the blight of social scorn;
Whilst one by one the beacon-fires of old,
Whereby our fathers steered, faint out and leave
The darkness closer, and no pilot's voice
Rings through the gathering storms, and no new light
Flashes across the bosom of the deep.
Nor need we any; for those bright lights of old,
That seemed to man's young eyes reflected beams
From some far heaven, were but the first grey streaks
Of that slow dawn now widening through the world,
Whose sun is man himself; and the same fire,
Whose quick flame leapt to life in the warm heart
Of Eastern sage and prophet, burneth still,
But kindling through a thousand thousand souls
Where then it lit but one.—What need of light?—
There glows within the breast of every man,
125

However smothered by the fogs of sin,
The light that never yet hath led astray,
The light that was in Christ, the light of love.
Take up the burden of humanity,
The changeless load of sorrow, pain, and death;
Thy father bore it, and thy children's children
Shall stoop beneath its weight; not Christ Himself
Can lift it from Thy shoulder; murmur not;
For all thy woe but quickens that keen sense
Of others' sorrow which is woe's best balm;
And the black void which deepens round the world
But swells the radiance of the lamp of love,
Makes soul seek soul in livelier sympathy,
As children cling together in the dark,
And lightens each one's burden by the help
Of all that bear it.
But for pity's sake
Lay not upon thy brother's bowèd neck
The yoke of persecution; goad him not
With the fine point of scorn to loathe thy face;
For love once quenched, no other light remains,
But all is utter darkness, and the pain
126

Of hate hath no consoler. Yet take heart;
For the Eternal Power, Who sowed the seed
Of all things, hath ordained that hate shall tire,
And love grow ever stronger.
So the strife
Which sprang from the fierce hate of East and West,
And fed itself on hate, grew sick at last
Of that which lent it life; and those wild swords,
Whose ruthless frenzy, for two hundred years,
Wounded the Spirit of the living Christ
To win His tomb, were sheathed for evermore
Amid the ruins of His childhood's home.
For the same blow, whose venom well-nigh stilled
The savage heart of Edward, when he turned,
Flushed with unnatural pride, to rest again
His fever-stricken men within the walls
Of sea-fanned Acre, was the death-stroke dealt
To this, the last Crusade.
And we, who stand
Through others' toil upon a loftier height,
And see the little realms of human creed
Spread like a map beneath the voiceless sky,
Marvel at that hard pride, which made one faith
127

The measure of the universe, and strove
To war it through all nations in the name
Of Him Who laid His curse upon the sword.
And yet, so potent is the growth of good,
That not the rankest poison-weeds of Sin
Can wholly choke it; and the very chains,
That bigots forged to fetter bigot foes,
Bound East to West in ever-strengthening ties
Of mutual helpfulness, that shall not snap
Till all the world be grafted in one growth,
And one full tide of ever-swelling love
Flow in the hearts of all men.
For Christ lives
Lives in despite of them who made “Christ lives”
The battle-cry of hatred, and still make;
Lives in the happy hearts of trustful babes,
Lives in the patient souls of simple maids,
Lives in the wider, gentler minds of men,
And shall not die till love be known no more.
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