University of Virginia Library

Canto 2

Long on the plains of parching Palestine,
Under the Eastern sun or Eastern stars,
Had Europe's chivalry with Paynim clashed,
In doubtful shock and in protracted siege,
To wrest from heathen hands the tomb of Christ;
And many a mighty deed was seen and sung,
And many a brave man bit the bloody dust,
And many in strange dungeons were detained,
Of all who took the field of Palestine,
Leaving the English cliffs and barriers pale
To battle for their Lord on distant shore.
None fairer shone in tent or tournament,
Or in the raging battle's wild onset,
Than young A'Becket from fair London town.
How strange to him from London streets to fare
Over the grey sea to that fiery shore.
What different fields he viewed, what other skies,
A larger sun with nearer fire; and stars
Pulsing magnificently in a vault
More thickly strewn than here we ever scan.
For if the star of Love in English heavens
Shows beautiful, more beautiful she glows
In Eastern midnights or in Eastern eves;
A sudden palace of immortal love
Disclosed in sapphire and in flame revealed.
He often, after the hot fight was over,
Would from his tent come forth into the cool
And feel the vastness of that serried host,
Removed from battle and from human strife
And he drank strength in from immortal space,
And death itself seemed but a little thing.
To die and pass into that glory of light!
The thought gave strength unto his arm at dawn
And a cool careless courage to his brow.
Oft in the mortal joust of spurring steeds
Had young A'Becket foremost shone and struck
And many a desperate necessary charge
Had led; but though in thickest fight so oft,
In rally or retreat or dangerous shock,
Ne'er had he suffered wound to keep him fast
Within the camp or from the saddle hold him.
It seemed that where he pricked without a fear,
Or thundered without qualm amid the press,
That there alone was safety; yet at times,
Did others so essay ill fared they all;
Some trampled under foot, some travail taken,
Some fortunately borne by comrades back.
But at the last it chanced, before the walls
Of some high city that had long endured
The shock of European chivalry
And stood unshaken yet, at last it chanced,
For Fortune will not evermore uphold,
And of her favourites wearies in her time,
That Gilbert, so the boy had at the font
Been named, was struck from off his horse and fell,
Blind in his own blood in the rising dust.
The wound was deep and he could lift not arm
Nor rise, while in the twilight now his friends
Retreated, all unknowing of his fate.
He was made captive as he lay near death
By an Emir El Selim, bearded, grave,
Silent and proud, for to the Sultan scarce
He bent his knee, so old his lineage read,
So pure the blood he bore within his veins.
He then commanded that his prisoner
Should to his castle suddenly be borne,
And there immured until his friends should seek
To free him by rich ransom from afar.
Here then the English soldier lay for long,
Until his captor, silent, stern at first,
Was won to speech and with his prisoner,
Who slowly had that Eastern tongue rehearsed,
Would long hours of the olden land enquire
Whence Gilbert came, and of the city famed
Whose name was noised unto the orient.
So as a guest he now entreated him,
And half he hoped that Gilbert would abide,
Making his home there in a foreign land,
For the Emir had no son of his own.
No son had he, only a daughter fair,
As beautiful as is a summer night
Or summer eve ere yet the moon is risen,
A breezeless night of clear and cloudless bliss.
Although her eye might melancholy seem,
Holding within the secret of all night,
Yet was her smile like sudden Paradise,
And seemed to lap one in a warmer world.
And when she spoke, her voice was as the sound
Of some lone rivulet on mossy stones,
That in the green heart of a forest flows
Afar from men, unheard but of itself.
She then the wounded man was at the last
Permitted by her father to o'erwatch,
And tend the deep scar that so near to death
Had brought him. Sweetly ministering she
Moved as an angel round about his couch,
And first would smooth a pillow for his head,
Or some cool draught would bring him to allay
The fever that would rise upon his lips;
And ever as she came she longer stayed.
And though at first in broken jargon, he
From converse with her father, slowly learned
To speak to her in language of her own.