The Queen of the Hid Isle An Allegoric Poem |
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 | The Queen of the Hid Isle |  |
Scene II.
—A Grove beyond the Gardens.Clar.
I am sick at heart to see them dally so
And feel my life so lonely. On this bank
So violet-enamelled, under shade
Of the great maple-trees, will I recline,
Deep in the glumes of the rich flowering grass.
The orchids hang in long festoons of flowers
From tree to tree their twined anguineal coils;
The coral-trees bristle with crimson spikes,
And feathery aigrets top the tasseled reeds
With tufts of scarlet yellowed by the moon;
And flower-cups like soft alembics drenched
With magic liquors send forth fumes of sleep.
There is a poisonous stillness in the place:
The upas and the shumac are at hand:
The nightshade and the spindle-berry tree
In purple blooms and carmine bunches vie
To make death odorous and beautiful.
Why should I ever seek this airling queen?
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When here at hand is death's own morphia?
My heart is all annealed to liquid love,
Which there is none to cool. Shall it go waste?
Shall all my days be vain? Nay, better die.
What! die and leave the quest? Never, I swear!
Perchance e'en now the queen is nigh at hand,
The road draws near a close. But soft; who comes?
There, 'mid the florulent bushet's under-wood,
I saw some female shape—Eulice belike,
Or fair Amanda. Will they follow here?
And is there nowhere peace?
Elzir.
Fair stranger knight,
I crave you of your courtesy what path
Leads to the castle?
Clar.
This whereon you stand.
Elzir.
I am forwandered and forwearied, sir,
With tracking up and down in the cold dews
(Nay, look not on me as a basilisk
That kills with touch of eyes), and I were fain
Of rest and lodgment. Pray you lead the way
Among the boles of these bewildering trees.
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No candent robe like surf of fire or snow,
No glamour, no pale lady of the woods,
But a poor wearied maid.
Clar.
I know not fear,
But for one moment my heart stayed for joy,—
Now keeps her music steady. I had thought
At first you were not earthly. Now I see
The merest maiden half bestraught with fear
And weariness.
Elzir.
And did you feel no dread,
Deeming me nymph or goddess?
Clar.
Nay, but joy.
I took you for some say, some glamoured dame,
Perchance that queen to whom my days are sworn,
Who sits beneath the nickar-tree and weaves
In the Hid Isle.
Elzir.
The queen of the Hid Isle?
Clar.
The same. But ah! 'tis gone, my golden dream.
Elzir.
Here's one will be your lady for amends,
For I have lost my knight.
Clar.
Beseech you, maid,
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To an immortal love.
Elzir.
Who aims too high
O'ershoots the mark. Mortal to mortal hearts
Are best beseen, and each thing to its kind.
Will you not wear my colours and my glove
Pinned to your brasset at all tourneyings,
And fight for me? I am in mine own land
A queen.
Clar.
Queen or no queen, it may not be.
I am the pursuivant of heavenly Love,
And may not taste of earthly.
Elzir.
Love on love
Is built as tower on tower that would touch heaven.
Love is a ladder for the angels' feet,
A tree built up by storeys, growth on growth,
And heavenly love a flower that tops the plant
The root whereof drinks nutriment from earth,
And is but earthy. Love is a torch-race,
And each to each hands on the blazing brand,
The sacred inextinguishable brand.
Love merges into love by faint degrees:
There are no gaps in Nature: first the high
Melts into higher ere to highest caught:
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The love of man before the love of gods.
The lowest is self-love. From forth of self
Man yearns to woman, woman yearns to man.
Next, in the sphere and circle of our love
We clasp all breathing things and beauteous,
All forms of earth and sky. Next from that fruit
We squeeze the essence, and love Beauty pure,
Led to her by all lovely arts. She is
The Hid Isle's queen, and such the path to her.
Clar.
Temptress and witch! I know thee who thou art,
The stumbling-block of all pure-hearted knights,
The unhallowed Venus.
Elzir.
Rest you well, fair sir!
You crave to be a seraph and to know:
I point the path of knowledge. You would lift
The camis off the Queen of Beauty's limbs
And look on Nature naked, not through gauze:
I rend the veil for you. You would behold
The Hid Isle's queen: I offer me your guide.
You turn and spurn me.
Clar.
Nay, I know you not.
How should I trust your truth?
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Truth is a gem
Locked in a casket; the key lies at hand.
Some find the key at once and lift the lid.
To others if you offer it, they gibe,
And set off seeking over sea and land.
“Tell me not 'tis so easy.” So they sneer,
And they are lost. Ye cannot change the heart.
The statue is of one piece with the rock
Whence it was hewn, granite or marble pure,
Basalt, or crumbling tuff. Some you may smooth,
Some never.
Clar.
You shall not mistrain my steps
For all your evil bodements. I will keep
The pure path and the clean.
Elzir.
So were you best.
All miry ways lead to the supreme slough.
I never sought to moil the purity
Of your clean heart: but purity and love
Never were foes save unto eyes impure.
Clar.
Peace, lady, and I pray you pardon me
If like a churl I wrangled with a queen.
But I bethought me of old tales which speak
Of evil dames that haunt lake-lumined woods,
With misty tresses and with lamping eyes
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By white cascades and on smooth river-lawns
Belled with the hoary spray of waterfalls,
Or gleaming ghostlike through the duskier woods,
Leaving a white track with their odorous robes,
A snake-like, leprous, sleepy trail of fire
Under the plashes of the flowery trees,
Over the velvet mosses and the ferns.
E'en such I deemed thee after thy plain speech
Bespoke thee other than the queen I love,
And when thy loftier utterance showed thee more
Than mere forwandered maiden seeking rest,
And therefore feared thee, and mistrustful fear
Bred the rude haste of a discourteous tongue.
Elzir.
Have my free pardon: give me conduct hence:
Or, since I may not be thy queen (and that
I will ask never more), point thou the way,
And I will go alone. Gainsay me not.
I would not have you with me. Sir, obey.
Clar.
Then yonder is the ingate of the wood,
Where through the embowèd arches you see light.
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Then a long vista of white abel-trees,
Which past, you will behold a sudden light
That breaks in rainbows from the grainèd glass
Of agatine and shot prismatic panes,
And hear the choiring anthem. Hard foreby
Is the fair castle porch. Above the gate
You will see two stone cupids with bent bows
Entailed with branching scroll-work all about.
There blow the horn. Now, lady, by your grace
I will pass onward.
[Exit Clarimonde.
Elzir.
Fare you well, kind sir.
Oh, blindness baffling fickle jealousy!
I would not change my faithless for this faith,
My recreant for this slave. Year after year
He seeks me. Lo, I give myself to him:
He flies as from a devil; knows me not,
Talks with me deeming me some common stray,
Mere maiden and mere mortal, or at best
An evil wraith, a goblin of the wood.
I will lure back my hawk and gyve him fast
With golden jesses, let this kestrel be.
| The Queen of the Hid Isle | |