Classic Poem

( MEDIVAL .)

The sedgy shores of this enchanted lake
Are dark with shadows of the swans which make
Their nests along its marge;
And on the hither side, where silver waves
Curl with low music into hollow caves,
Waiting for that bright barge
Which beareth sleepers to the silent land,
I, Sigurd, in my ghostly sorrow, stand.

I stand alone beneath heaven's silent arch,
Shaded both night and day by clouds that march,
And countermarch above;
A sombre suit of perfect mail I wear,
A gloomy plume, that troubles the thin air
To murmurs if I move;
My sword is red and broken; and my shield
Bears a gold anchor on a sable field.

This is a place where mortals find not speech;
Save the small murmurous waves that crawl the beach,
All is as still as death:
I hear my heart against my ribs of stone,
Like to a wild bird in the net, make moan;
My slow and frozen breath
Curls like a vapour o'er the silent spot;
My shadow seeks my feet, and moveth not.

Nought can redeem her. Wherefore I seek grace
To join her in her distant dwelling-place
Of pastoral repose;
And I would make this heart that aches and grieves
As white and perfect as a lily's leaves
And fragrant as a rose,
That with a stainless spirit I may take
The solemn barge across the enchanted lake.

For, having worn her stainless badge in fight,
Thrice conquering in her name, by day and night
I rode with vizor down,
Meeting and slaying honourable foes,
Wounded in flesh, giving and taking blows
To compass her renown.
Thus, warring a sweet war without reprieve,
I, Sigurd, wore her badge upon my sleeve.

Armed from head to heel, with spear in hand,
I cried her praises through the wondering land,
And few her praise refused;
Then flushing with my victory complete,
I hastened back and knelt me at her feet,
Battered, and maimed, and bruised;
And then I wooed her in a secret place,
With light upon me from her shining face.

She bathed my bloody brow, with red wounds striped,
And with a kerchief white as snow she wiped
The foam from off my mouth;
She set my unhelmed head upon her knee
And wound white arms about me tenderly,
And slaked the thirsty drouth
That ebbed in sluggish fire through blood and brain,
From a full cup of cool white porcelain.

Wherefore my soul again was strong. I caught
The voiceless music of her form and thought.
I knelt upon my knee,
Saying, " I love thee more than life or fame;
I love thee only less than my good name,
Which is a part of thee;
And I adore thy beauty undefiled!"
Whereat she looked into mine eyes and smiled.

I wooed her night and day with virtuous deeds,
And that humility which intercedes
With ladies for true men.
I took her lily of a hand in mine,
Drinking her breath, as soft as eglantine,
And wooing well; and then
She toyed with my great beard, and gave consent:
So down the flowery path of love we went.

Twined closely, down the soft descent of love
We wandered on, with golden stars above,
And many flowers below,
Until we came to this dark lake or sea,
Which openeth upon eternity,
And could no farther go;
For beyond life and death, and these dark skies,
The place of sleep, the Silent Valley, lies.

Here on the beach we stood, and hand in hand
Waited to wander to that silent land,
And all the shore was dark;
Saying, " We yearn to see the Happy Vale,
And hand in hand together we will sail
In the enchanted barque."
Too late to turn: one passage we must take
Across the gleaming silence of the lake.

She said, " The waters make such threatening moan,
Neither can pass across their waste alone;
We cannot, cannot part;
We will together cross these waves of death."
But the dark waves grew darker, and the breath
Came colder from the heart;
And by each face a quiet cloud was worn,
Small as the shadow of a lamb new born.

Then in the distant waves we could behold
A radiance like the blowing autumn gold
Of woodland forests deep;
And my sweet lady trembled, growing white
As foam of ocean on a summer night,
When the wild surges leap;
And falling very cold upon my breast,
She faltered, " I am weary, — let me rest."

I laid her down upon a flowery bed,
And put soft mosses underneath her head,
And kissed her, and she slept;
And the air brightened round her, as the far
Blue ether burns like silver round a star.
And round her slumber crept
A trouble of the air, and silver clear
The ghostly light upon the lake grew near.

Yea, nearer, nearer grew the light, and soon,
Shaped like the sickle of the early moon,
The barge drew shoreward slow —
A vapour and a radiance all around,
A gleaming of fair faces, and a sound
Of flutes and lute-strings low.
And round my lady crept a shadowy crowd,
Fading and brightening like a moonlit cloud.

They clustered with a ghostly light around
My lady dear, and raised her from the ground,
And bare her to the barque:
Whereon I would have followed, but a hand
Held me like iron to the hated land.
Then all again was dark;
And from the breathing darkness came a hum
Of voices sweet, " Thy time has not yet come."

And then I shrieked in utter agony;
While fading far away upon the sea,
I saw the light again;
And with a cry into the waves I sprung,
And sought to follow, but the waters clung
About me like a chain;
And thrice I fought amid their rage and roar,
And thrice they hurled me bleeding on the shore.

Long have I waited here, alone, alone,
Hearing the melancholy waves make moan
Upon the pebbly beach:
With eyes upon the pitiless stars above
Here have I waited in my homeless love,
Pale, patient, deaf to speech,
With the salt rheum upon me, pale and bent,
And breathless as a marble monument.

This lonely watching would invite despair
Did I not oft catch glimpses of my fair
Lady, so sadly lost,
Making, with radiance round her like a star,
A luminous pathway on the hill afar,
Then fading like a ghost;
What time I shout aloud, and at the shout
Pause, shuddering at the echoes round about.

Twice has the barge returned: once for a bent
Old servitor, who, down the soft descent
That leads to this dim land,
Had wandered from the towns that lie behind,
And, groping in the cold, had fall'n stone-blind
Upon the shifting sand;
Once for a little gold-haired child astray,
Who, wandering hither, fell to sleep at play.

Twice has the mystic barge returned, and twice
Have I been frozen to the earth in ice,
Helpless to move or speak;
Thrice have I fought with the relentless roar
Of water, and been flung upon the shore
Battered, and maimed, and weak;
But now I wait with quiet heart and brain.
Grown patient with unutterable pain.

And I will wait. To slay myself were sin,
And I, self-slaughter'd, could not hope to win
My solitary boon;
But if the barge should come again, and leave
Me still in lonely watch without reprieve,
Under the silver moon
I will lie down upon my back and rest,
With mailed hands crossed praying on my breast;

And fall to slumber on a bed of weeds,
A knight well worn in honourable deeds,
Yet lost to life, and old;
And haply I may dream before I wake
That I am floating o'er the pathless lake
In that bright barge of gold;
And, waking, I may see with sweet surprise
Light shining on me from my lady's eyes.