King Poppy By the Earl of Lytton |
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| I. |
| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
| VII. | VII.
THE PRINCESS. |
| VIII. |
| IX. |
| X. |
| XI. |
| XII. |
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 | King Poppy |  |
187
VII. THE PRINCESS.
The new-born babe upon its mother's breast
Lacks nothing. But the loss of life begins
At life's beginning, in the guise of growth;
And every gain, the tributary years
Bring with them to enrich it, fills the room
Of something lost. The blossom wants a grace
That vanish'd with the bud; when comes the fruit
The flower is gone; and ah, which most prevail,
The gains or losses of the neutral time
'Twixt bud and blossom, when nor boy nor girl
Are either man or woman, or any more
That perfect sexless creature so complete
In its own perishable charm, a child?
The lingering gentleness of childhood hides
Its soon-dishonour'd presence in the heart
Of boisterous boyhood, when the little hand,
Within whose clasping fingers it was fain
To insinuate a perpetual caress,
Turns to a fist that combatively grasps
A flower-stem like the pommel of a sword:
And, while the force of a disfiguring growth
Converts what was erewhile a butterfly
Into a chrysalis that disavows
The ashamed remembrance of its own lost wings,
The growing boy's embarrass'd consciousness
Of those propensities that are the cause
Why every garden hath a garden wall
Creates within his predatory breast
A stealthy greed of the forbidden fruit,
Ere yet the fruit itself hath power to tempt.
Not so the crescent maiden. Husht she moves
About a world where all familiar things,
As in a dream, have furtively assumed
A strange and undivined significance,
Half wooing and half warning her. She feels
Her hesitating steps held back from harm,
Haunted, and over-hover'd, and pursued
By a protecting phantom. But to feel
Protected is, perchance, to be aware
That there is peril somewhere. With shy guess
That shuns the revelation it invokes,
To Modesty, her mystic guardian new,
The woman-instinct in the maiden-child
Confidingly for secret guidance turns.
She knows not why the watch is set, nor whence
The danger it mysteriously denotes:
But what she carelessly enjoy'd before
As common treasures, coveted by none
Since shared with all, must needs, if menaced, be
More precious to her; and, if watch'd, less safe.
The Eden of her Infancy remains
On all sides round her, innocent and fair:
But thro' its roses, and its revelling leaves,
She sees at intervals the boundary walls,
Suspects the existence of a world beyond,
And feels the limits of security.
What startles her What brings the sudden blush,
The sudden sigh? Hath some wild bird, that bears
In his blown plumage the bewildering breath
Of freedom, or the blush of feathers stain'd
Red by strange fruits, alighted for awhile
Upon the battlements of Paradise?
Or where unlifted branches hide the dim
Husht gateway, hath she heard some venturous key
Trying its never-yet-attempted locks?
No! 'Twas the nightingale's first evening note
That trembled from the uninvaded bowers.
And yet what wonder that the maiden starts?
The moonborn music of the nightingale
Hath in it ever something from afar.
Lacks nothing. But the loss of life begins
At life's beginning, in the guise of growth;
And every gain, the tributary years
Bring with them to enrich it, fills the room
Of something lost. The blossom wants a grace
That vanish'd with the bud; when comes the fruit
The flower is gone; and ah, which most prevail,
The gains or losses of the neutral time
'Twixt bud and blossom, when nor boy nor girl
Are either man or woman, or any more
That perfect sexless creature so complete
188
The lingering gentleness of childhood hides
Its soon-dishonour'd presence in the heart
Of boisterous boyhood, when the little hand,
Within whose clasping fingers it was fain
To insinuate a perpetual caress,
Turns to a fist that combatively grasps
A flower-stem like the pommel of a sword:
And, while the force of a disfiguring growth
Converts what was erewhile a butterfly
Into a chrysalis that disavows
The ashamed remembrance of its own lost wings,
The growing boy's embarrass'd consciousness
Of those propensities that are the cause
Why every garden hath a garden wall
Creates within his predatory breast
A stealthy greed of the forbidden fruit,
Ere yet the fruit itself hath power to tempt.
Not so the crescent maiden. Husht she moves
189
As in a dream, have furtively assumed
A strange and undivined significance,
Half wooing and half warning her. She feels
Her hesitating steps held back from harm,
Haunted, and over-hover'd, and pursued
By a protecting phantom. But to feel
Protected is, perchance, to be aware
That there is peril somewhere. With shy guess
That shuns the revelation it invokes,
To Modesty, her mystic guardian new,
The woman-instinct in the maiden-child
Confidingly for secret guidance turns.
She knows not why the watch is set, nor whence
The danger it mysteriously denotes:
But what she carelessly enjoy'd before
As common treasures, coveted by none
Since shared with all, must needs, if menaced, be
More precious to her; and, if watch'd, less safe.
190
On all sides round her, innocent and fair:
But thro' its roses, and its revelling leaves,
She sees at intervals the boundary walls,
Suspects the existence of a world beyond,
And feels the limits of security.
What startles her What brings the sudden blush,
The sudden sigh? Hath some wild bird, that bears
In his blown plumage the bewildering breath
Of freedom, or the blush of feathers stain'd
Red by strange fruits, alighted for awhile
Upon the battlements of Paradise?
Or where unlifted branches hide the dim
Husht gateway, hath she heard some venturous key
Trying its never-yet-attempted locks?
No! 'Twas the nightingale's first evening note
That trembled from the uninvaded bowers.
And yet what wonder that the maiden starts?
191
Hath in it ever something from afar.
But Diadema with the growing years
Outgrew not infancy. It grew with her,
And, mingling with her maiden beauty, clung
As clings the calyx where the flower unfolds.
Nothing had changed around her. In herself
Nothing, begun and ended, mark'd the bound
Of that blest kingdom we, who measure it
By our remembrance only, left too soon
To learn its limits. Thither we return
Long afterward, full weary of the world
Since traversed, and yet know it not again.
Like those Phœnician voyagers we are,
Who, voyaging in search of lands unknown,
Sail'd round the globe, and reach'd at last a land
They knew not. 'Twas the land they first had left,
Sailing in search of other lands beyond.
So we, who call that fair land Poësy,
Which is forgotten Childhood reattain'd.
But slowly, softly, imperceptibly,
Into pure poësy pure childhood pass'd
From hour to hour thro' Diadema's days;
As round the southward traveller melts unmark'd
The Italian into the Sicilian sky,
Or as the Ganges on its bosom bears
The Brahmin floating to his sacred goal,
Seaward and heavenward on the selfsame wave.
“She changes not,” said Rhoda to the King,
“But with an annually differing charm
Remains herself. I understand at last
The meaning of the dragon in my dream.
Sleeping, from grace to grace her childhood grows,
Without an effort. The bright years of it
Are gems from earth, and sea, and sky distill'd,
Each in its turn more lovely than the last,
And she, the crescent diadem that links
With golden interfusion gem to gem.”
Not lonesome in her solitary isle,
Albeit alone, did Diadema dwell.
Pilgram, her father, and Dame Rhoda came
And went miraculously. 'Twas not strange.
So did the blossoms. So did everything.
What had been always, always still would be,
For why should it be otherwise? The sun
Into the sea went naturally down,
But not more naturally than the King
Went down into the well. They both came back,
And that was all she knew, or cared to know.
She never would have thought of digging holes
Into the earth, and searching them to find
What happen'd to the flowerets underground;
Nor thought of plunging in the sea to seek
The sun beneath it. Why, then, should she think
Of asking explanations from the well?
It was her father's way of going down
At nightfall, as the sun's way was the sea.
And morning after morning, when the sun
Had high enough in heaven at noontide climb'd
To peep into the well, the old King rose.
The sun rose first, the King rose afterwards:
He rested with her all the glad day long:
At night she fell asleep, and he was gone:
So was the sun. The sun was first to go,
Since first to come. The sun would come again
To-morrow, as the sun came yesterday,
Bringing the old King back. Who doubts the sun?
Her father and the sun had never fail'd.
What joy it was to welcome his return!
He look'd so comely, rising up his well
Out of his dusky dwelling underneath,
His golden crown upon his silver locks,
His sceptre in his hand, his royal robe
Upon his shoulders! With maternal care,
And infinite precaution and advice,
The little maiden help'd him to descend
Out of his oaken bucket. Half his life
Pass'd in the bottom of a well, explain'd
His ignorance about all sorts of things
It was her pride to teach him. How, indeed,
Would fathers ever know, or ever see,
The things that are important to be known
And noticed in this wondrous world, if left
Uneducated by their children? “Come!
Here is a bird's nest, with four tiny birds,
And each of them was only yesterday
A smooth round speckled pebble. Upon the shore
Are little pebbles too, that birds would be
Had they the chance; but these the sea scrapes back,
And turns them into fishes. Hast thou heard
The story of the Butterflies? Not yet?
Then listen, Father! Yesterday, there hung
On yonder branch a cluster of green nuts.
Green nuts they look'd, but nuts they were not. Each
A case was, full of woven fineries,
Rare tissues by the cunning Spider spun
As only she knows how. The Butterflies
Had found this out. And so by night they came,
And, while the Spider slept, they oped and search'd
Her treasure-cases. There were robes of rose,
And robes of blue, and there were yellow robes,
Broider'd and beautiful with sparks and spots.
These to the Butterflies the Spider gave,
But only on condition that they go
And fetch her all the colours she requires
For her fine spinning. For those colours come
From far away. The blue is from the sky,
he yellow from the sun, the purple tints
Are from the sea and mountains, and the red
From evening's crimson clouds. The Butterflies
Go flying all about the flowers, for there
They often find the colours that she wants,
And then they go no further. When the robes
That all the Summer they have worn are soil'd,
Ashamed to wear them, to the moon they go,
And there they get their wing-robes washt pure white
Before the Springtime. Then the Spider weaves
Fresh colours in. But in the Winter-tide,
When their moon-whiten'd wings they have put by
For Spring's return, a cold wind often blows,
So sharp that down it shakes and scatters them
Thick on the ground. That grieves the Butterflies:
And, if you touch or take them in your hand,
The white wings, disappearing, leave behind
Only warm tears the Butterflies have wept
Because they cannot wear their wings again.”
“Whence dost thou know all this?” the old King sigh'd.
“'Tis Pilgram that hath told me,” said the child,
“And he knows everything. Dame Rhoda, too!
'Twas she that tole me all about the girl
Who wept because she was to wed a Frog,
And yet the Frog was all the while a Prince.
I would not mind so much had I to wed
A little bright-eyed big-mouth'd Frog. We three
In Frogland, at the bottom of a well,
Would live together, thou, and he, and I.
The Rain-drops tell the Frogs so many things,
When they, to see their cousins, have come down!
Their cousins are the common Water-drops
That here together dwell in pools and ponds.
They say it is Earth's fault, and punishment,
That Heaven is still so far away from Earth.
I know not what the fault was; but I know
Heaven, for Earth's sake, hath wept so many tears
That all the ponds, and even all the sea,
Are fill'd quite full. But this could not be help'd,
For tears must still fall somewhere. The kind Heaven
Thinks, ‘Since the Water is not as the Earth,
But almost, as it were, a child of mine,
It cannot be forbid to go and see
The Water sometimes.’ So when Heaven comes down
To see the Water, if the day be fine,
The Water, for Heaven's welcoming, invites
Earth's woods and mountains. There, they all have leave
To stand head-downwards, and to dance about
Blithe with the little ripples, if a breeze
Sets the dance going. That reposes them.
Out of the water, they must always stand
Head-upwards, and stay always in one place.
Thou good old Father, I could talk with thee
For ever about all things! For, indeed,
No one knows how to listen half so well
As thou dost.” That was true. The glad old King
Knew how to listen. And in every tale
His little teacher told him he believed.
Nothing had ever seem'd to him so wise,
So fascinating, or so full of truth,
As Diadema's stories. Years, that left
Less infantine his fair instructress, found
His faith in her more childlike. Blossom-girt,
About the casement of the craggy tower
Wherein she dwelt, a marble balcony
Had Pilgram built, with golden balustrade.
Here every morning old Dame Rhoda brought
Her spinning-wheel, and many a ballad sung
Or story told, while Diadema watch'd
The wide sea, listening dreamily. One day,
“The swallows are departing!” said the child.
“And thou, too, wilt be going hence ere long,”
The Dame replied. “Go hence?” the child ask'd. “Where?”
“To thine own Kingdom.” “Is not this mine own?
What is that other Kingdom?” And the Dame
Answer'd, “It is a land thou wilt be call'd
To govern in thy father's stead, for he
Is growing old and tired.” The child looked sad.
“My father tired?” she said. “I saw not that.
What is he tired of? Here shall he remain
When next he comes, and I will sing him songs
The honey-bees have taught me; songs that bring
Sleep from the sighing hearts of Summer woods,
Like a tame bird.” The old Dame shook her head.
“The crown,” she said, “makes this impossible.”
Gaily the child replied, “That cannot be,
For is it not his own crown, all his own,
To do with as he pleases?” “Nay, not so,”
Dame Rhoda sigh'd. “The crown, child, is not his.
He is the crown's. For to his crown a king
Belongs, as doth a father to his child.
Children and crowns are the great gifts of God,
And cannot be got rid of. King and Sire,
To thee, his child, one half thy father's heart
Belongs, and to his kingly crown the rest.”
The Princess mused; then said, with moisten'd eyes,
“Only one half? And I must share him, then,
With others? He whom others call their king,
And I my father! Can a heart's two halves
Make up one whole if each loves something else?
Nay, were it mine, I would not wear that crown!”
“Yet must thou wear it,” said the Dame, “ere long.
And thou, I trust, wilt wear it many a year,
And suffer it with queenly patientness.”
But Diadema suddenly exclaim'd,
“What, if I gave my crown away?” “Thy crown
Thou canst not give away,” the Dame replied,
“For there is none to give it to; and they
That were not born to wear it, know not how.”
The little Princess hung her head. The thought
Of that inevitable crown return'd
Continually afterwards to vex
Her joy in all the present with the fear
Of an unwelcome future: and full oft
“Oh, is there no one that will rescue me
And all I love from it?” she sigh'd unheard.
And still the Summers came and went, and still
The Winters: and the flowers fell, and the frosts:
But flower and frost, Summer and Winter-tide,
Came not and went not as of old, like friends
Who, going, know that when they come again
They shall find nothing alter'd. In the child
Chaste mysteries were passing. Day by day
The sunward season of the virgin year
Transforms itself, and wonders at the change:
Each morrow some surprising charm reveals
In secret places, by the timid time
Demurely welcomed with suggestive sighs:
At dawn, from dells and hollows, bare before,
New buds are peeping: and along the husht
Rich heavens, at eve, a rosy softness falls,
Preluding the approach of mellower hours.
So, daily, as her deepening maidenhood
Her little body with new beauties deck'd,
Did Diadema, flower-like, turn them all
Into new blushes that were prophecies.
And fifteen times, since first her bowery realms
Their maiden monarch ruled, the fourfold year
Had turn'd the green leaf golden. Fifteen times
The moonborn months had brought the snows, and brought
The snowdrops, and those flowers of frailer bud
That blossom in the front of May, and fall
Ere June is over. Fifteen jewels fair
Dame Rhoda counted in the crown of gems
Wrought by the unsleeping dragon of her dream:
And now no more thro' Diadema's isle
The primrose lit the pathways of the Spring,
But Summer and the rose were everywhere.
Outgrew not infancy. It grew with her,
And, mingling with her maiden beauty, clung
As clings the calyx where the flower unfolds.
Nothing had changed around her. In herself
Nothing, begun and ended, mark'd the bound
Of that blest kingdom we, who measure it
By our remembrance only, left too soon
To learn its limits. Thither we return
Long afterward, full weary of the world
Since traversed, and yet know it not again.
Like those Phœnician voyagers we are,
Who, voyaging in search of lands unknown,
Sail'd round the globe, and reach'd at last a land
They knew not. 'Twas the land they first had left,
Sailing in search of other lands beyond.
192
Which is forgotten Childhood reattain'd.
But slowly, softly, imperceptibly,
Into pure poësy pure childhood pass'd
From hour to hour thro' Diadema's days;
As round the southward traveller melts unmark'd
The Italian into the Sicilian sky,
Or as the Ganges on its bosom bears
The Brahmin floating to his sacred goal,
Seaward and heavenward on the selfsame wave.
“She changes not,” said Rhoda to the King,
“But with an annually differing charm
Remains herself. I understand at last
The meaning of the dragon in my dream.
Sleeping, from grace to grace her childhood grows,
Without an effort. The bright years of it
Are gems from earth, and sea, and sky distill'd,
Each in its turn more lovely than the last,
193
With golden interfusion gem to gem.”
Not lonesome in her solitary isle,
Albeit alone, did Diadema dwell.
Pilgram, her father, and Dame Rhoda came
And went miraculously. 'Twas not strange.
So did the blossoms. So did everything.
What had been always, always still would be,
For why should it be otherwise? The sun
Into the sea went naturally down,
But not more naturally than the King
Went down into the well. They both came back,
And that was all she knew, or cared to know.
She never would have thought of digging holes
Into the earth, and searching them to find
What happen'd to the flowerets underground;
Nor thought of plunging in the sea to seek
The sun beneath it. Why, then, should she think
Of asking explanations from the well?
194
At nightfall, as the sun's way was the sea.
And morning after morning, when the sun
Had high enough in heaven at noontide climb'd
To peep into the well, the old King rose.
The sun rose first, the King rose afterwards:
He rested with her all the glad day long:
At night she fell asleep, and he was gone:
So was the sun. The sun was first to go,
Since first to come. The sun would come again
To-morrow, as the sun came yesterday,
Bringing the old King back. Who doubts the sun?
Her father and the sun had never fail'd.
What joy it was to welcome his return!
He look'd so comely, rising up his well
Out of his dusky dwelling underneath,
His golden crown upon his silver locks,
His sceptre in his hand, his royal robe
Upon his shoulders! With maternal care,
195
The little maiden help'd him to descend
Out of his oaken bucket. Half his life
Pass'd in the bottom of a well, explain'd
His ignorance about all sorts of things
It was her pride to teach him. How, indeed,
Would fathers ever know, or ever see,
The things that are important to be known
And noticed in this wondrous world, if left
Uneducated by their children? “Come!
Here is a bird's nest, with four tiny birds,
And each of them was only yesterday
A smooth round speckled pebble. Upon the shore
Are little pebbles too, that birds would be
Had they the chance; but these the sea scrapes back,
And turns them into fishes. Hast thou heard
The story of the Butterflies? Not yet?
Then listen, Father! Yesterday, there hung
On yonder branch a cluster of green nuts.
196
A case was, full of woven fineries,
Rare tissues by the cunning Spider spun
As only she knows how. The Butterflies
Had found this out. And so by night they came,
And, while the Spider slept, they oped and search'd
Her treasure-cases. There were robes of rose,
And robes of blue, and there were yellow robes,
Broider'd and beautiful with sparks and spots.
These to the Butterflies the Spider gave,
But only on condition that they go
And fetch her all the colours she requires
For her fine spinning. For those colours come
From far away. The blue is from the sky,
he yellow from the sun, the purple tints
Are from the sea and mountains, and the red
From evening's crimson clouds. The Butterflies
Go flying all about the flowers, for there
They often find the colours that she wants,
197
That all the Summer they have worn are soil'd,
Ashamed to wear them, to the moon they go,
And there they get their wing-robes washt pure white
Before the Springtime. Then the Spider weaves
Fresh colours in. But in the Winter-tide,
When their moon-whiten'd wings they have put by
For Spring's return, a cold wind often blows,
So sharp that down it shakes and scatters them
Thick on the ground. That grieves the Butterflies:
And, if you touch or take them in your hand,
The white wings, disappearing, leave behind
Only warm tears the Butterflies have wept
Because they cannot wear their wings again.”
“Whence dost thou know all this?” the old King sigh'd.
“'Tis Pilgram that hath told me,” said the child,
“And he knows everything. Dame Rhoda, too!
198
Who wept because she was to wed a Frog,
And yet the Frog was all the while a Prince.
I would not mind so much had I to wed
A little bright-eyed big-mouth'd Frog. We three
In Frogland, at the bottom of a well,
Would live together, thou, and he, and I.
The Rain-drops tell the Frogs so many things,
When they, to see their cousins, have come down!
Their cousins are the common Water-drops
That here together dwell in pools and ponds.
They say it is Earth's fault, and punishment,
That Heaven is still so far away from Earth.
I know not what the fault was; but I know
Heaven, for Earth's sake, hath wept so many tears
That all the ponds, and even all the sea,
Are fill'd quite full. But this could not be help'd,
For tears must still fall somewhere. The kind Heaven
199
But almost, as it were, a child of mine,
It cannot be forbid to go and see
The Water sometimes.’ So when Heaven comes down
To see the Water, if the day be fine,
The Water, for Heaven's welcoming, invites
Earth's woods and mountains. There, they all have leave
To stand head-downwards, and to dance about
Blithe with the little ripples, if a breeze
Sets the dance going. That reposes them.
Out of the water, they must always stand
Head-upwards, and stay always in one place.
Thou good old Father, I could talk with thee
For ever about all things! For, indeed,
No one knows how to listen half so well
As thou dost.” That was true. The glad old King
200
His little teacher told him he believed.
Nothing had ever seem'd to him so wise,
So fascinating, or so full of truth,
As Diadema's stories. Years, that left
Less infantine his fair instructress, found
His faith in her more childlike. Blossom-girt,
About the casement of the craggy tower
Wherein she dwelt, a marble balcony
Had Pilgram built, with golden balustrade.
Here every morning old Dame Rhoda brought
Her spinning-wheel, and many a ballad sung
Or story told, while Diadema watch'd
The wide sea, listening dreamily. One day,
“The swallows are departing!” said the child.
“And thou, too, wilt be going hence ere long,”
The Dame replied. “Go hence?” the child ask'd. “Where?”
“To thine own Kingdom.” “Is not this mine own?
201
Answer'd, “It is a land thou wilt be call'd
To govern in thy father's stead, for he
Is growing old and tired.” The child looked sad.
“My father tired?” she said. “I saw not that.
What is he tired of? Here shall he remain
When next he comes, and I will sing him songs
The honey-bees have taught me; songs that bring
Sleep from the sighing hearts of Summer woods,
Like a tame bird.” The old Dame shook her head.
“The crown,” she said, “makes this impossible.”
Gaily the child replied, “That cannot be,
For is it not his own crown, all his own,
To do with as he pleases?” “Nay, not so,”
Dame Rhoda sigh'd. “The crown, child, is not his.
He is the crown's. For to his crown a king
Belongs, as doth a father to his child.
Children and crowns are the great gifts of God,
And cannot be got rid of. King and Sire,
202
Belongs, and to his kingly crown the rest.”
The Princess mused; then said, with moisten'd eyes,
“Only one half? And I must share him, then,
With others? He whom others call their king,
And I my father! Can a heart's two halves
Make up one whole if each loves something else?
Nay, were it mine, I would not wear that crown!”
“Yet must thou wear it,” said the Dame, “ere long.
And thou, I trust, wilt wear it many a year,
And suffer it with queenly patientness.”
But Diadema suddenly exclaim'd,
“What, if I gave my crown away?” “Thy crown
Thou canst not give away,” the Dame replied,
“For there is none to give it to; and they
That were not born to wear it, know not how.”
The little Princess hung her head. The thought
Of that inevitable crown return'd
Continually afterwards to vex
203
Of an unwelcome future: and full oft
“Oh, is there no one that will rescue me
And all I love from it?” she sigh'd unheard.
And still the Summers came and went, and still
The Winters: and the flowers fell, and the frosts:
But flower and frost, Summer and Winter-tide,
Came not and went not as of old, like friends
Who, going, know that when they come again
They shall find nothing alter'd. In the child
Chaste mysteries were passing. Day by day
The sunward season of the virgin year
Transforms itself, and wonders at the change:
Each morrow some surprising charm reveals
In secret places, by the timid time
Demurely welcomed with suggestive sighs:
At dawn, from dells and hollows, bare before,
New buds are peeping: and along the husht
Rich heavens, at eve, a rosy softness falls,
204
So, daily, as her deepening maidenhood
Her little body with new beauties deck'd,
Did Diadema, flower-like, turn them all
Into new blushes that were prophecies.
And fifteen times, since first her bowery realms
Their maiden monarch ruled, the fourfold year
Had turn'd the green leaf golden. Fifteen times
The moonborn months had brought the snows, and brought
The snowdrops, and those flowers of frailer bud
That blossom in the front of May, and fall
Ere June is over. Fifteen jewels fair
Dame Rhoda counted in the crown of gems
Wrought by the unsleeping dragon of her dream:
And now no more thro' Diadema's isle
The primrose lit the pathways of the Spring,
But Summer and the rose were everywhere.
| King Poppy | |