The Poetical Works of John Payne :: :: University of Virginia Library

THE still earth sleeps in the Summer night,
The air is full of the moon;
All over the land, in her silver sight,
The roses blossom, ruddy and white;
The world is joyous with June.

There goes a moan in the greenwood hoar,
A moan, but and a wail:
What sighing is that the breezes bore?
What plaining is that which shrilleth o'er
The note of the nightingale?

A green glade lies in the middle wood:
Under the moonlight pale,
The greensward glitters many a rood.
Who lies on the grass, bedabbled with blood?
A knight in his silver mail.

128

A murdered knight on the greensward lies,
Under the witch-white moon:
The air is thick with his dying sighs;
The nightbirds flutter about his eyes;
The corbies over him croon.

II.

The night-wind wails,
The moon-silver pales,
The stars are faint in the mist;
The king's daughter rides over hill and dale,
Under the arch of the pine-shade pale,
A lily of gold in the moon-mist's veil.
And as she rides
Where the mill-stream glides,
A raven is sitting on the tree by the brown water,
With ‘Woe to thee! oh, woe to thee, king's daughter!
Thou ridest to an evil tryst.’

The silence quivers,
The pine-shade shivers,
Sad flute-notes wake in the gloom.
The king's daughter rides in the hawthorn track;
Gold is her hair on the black steed's back.
Whose steps are those
That the echo throws
Back on the startled ear of the night?
What form is that in the moonlight white
That follows the track of her horse's feet?
Whose hands on the red-gold bridle meet?
Whose spells are they that such scath have wrought her,
That the night-winds cry to her, ‘Woe, king's daughter!
Thou ridest to thy place of doom.’

The moon brims up
In her pearlèd cup,

129

The air grows purple as gore;
The stars are red
With blood to be shed;
The king's daughter sees in the purple sky
The wings of the birds of ill omen fly,
And the broidered lights in the cloud-rack burn
With a word that is weary and fierce and stern;
The shadows of the night in their arms have caught her
And the night-winds cry to her, ‘Woe, king's daughter!
Thy pleasant place of life shall never know thee more.’

Out of the maze
Of the woodbind ways,
Into a moonlit glade,
The maiden rides, with the shape of gloom
Casting a shade on her cheek's rose-bloom,
A shadow of surely hastening doom.
What glitter is that of silvered mail,
Prone on the grass in the moonlight pale?
A sword-hilt joined to a broken blade:
Whose blood is red on the bright brown steel?
Who lies in the sleep of death?
It is her knight, that was true and leal,
Whose lips so often her lips have kissed,
To whom the shades of the night have brought her;
And she hears in the echo his dying breath:
‘Ah! woe is me for thee, king's daughter!
Thou comest to a woful tryst.’

III.

She hath alighted from off her steed
And she hath raised her lover's head
And laid it on her knees;
The rose of her heart begins to bleed
And on her breast his blood is red;
Her heart begins to freeze.

130

She hath arisen from off the ground
And she hath ta'en the bloodied blade
And dug with it a grave;
She hath diggèd a grave both deep and round
And there his body hath she laid:
His soul the dear Christ save!

She hath folded her round her mantle gray
And she hath stepped into the tomb
And laid her by his side:
The dead and the live, the knight and his may,
They are wedded at last in night and gloom:
The grave is fair and wide.

IV.

The day-flower blows on the eastern hills.
(Woe is me for the king's daughter!)
The throstle in the morn
Sings blithely on the thorn
And golden is the sun on the grave of the king's daughter.

The wind of dawn through the forest shrills,
With leaves for the grave of the king's daughter.
A lily of red gold
Its flower-flames doth unfold
And glisters in the sun from the heart of the king's daughter.