Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (274 page)

“And if God in His wisdom have brought close
 
The day when I must die,
  
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That day by water or fire or air
My feet shall fall in the destined snare
 
Wherever my road may lie.

“What man can say but the Fiend hath set
 
Thy sorcery on my path,
  
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My heart with the fear of death to fill,
And turn me against God’s very will
 
To sink in His burning wrath?”

The woman stood as the train rode past,
 
And moved nor limb nor eye;
  
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And when we were shipped, we saw her there
 
Still standing against the sky.

As the ship made way, the moon once more
 
Sank slow in her rising pall;
And I thought of the shrouded wraith of the King,
  
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And I said, “The Heavens know all.”

And now, ye lasses, must ye hear
 
How my name is Kate Barlass: —
But a little thing, when all the tale
 
Is told of the weary mass
  
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Of crime and woe which in Scotland’s realm
 
God’s will let come to pass.

’Twas in the Charterhouse of Perth
 
That the King and all his Court
Were met, the Christmas Feast being done,
  
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For solace and disport.

’Twas a wind-wild eve in February,
 
And against the casement-pane
The branches smote like summoning hands
 
And muttered the driving rain.
  
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And when the wind swooped over the lift
 
And made the whole heaven frown,
It seemed a grip was laid on the walls
 
To tug the housetop down.

And the Queen was there, more stately fair
  
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Than a lily in garden set;
And the king was loth to stir from her side;
For as on the day when she was his bride,
 
Even so he loved her yet.

And the Earl of Athole, the King’s false friend,
  
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Sat with him at the board;
And Robert Stuart the chamberlain
 
Who had sold his sovereign Lord.

Yet the traitor Christopher Chaumber there
 
Would fain have told him all,
  
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And vainly four times that night he strove
 
To reach the King through the hall.

But the wine is bright at the goblet’s brim
 
Though the poison lurk beneath;
And the apples still are red on the tree
  
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Within whose shade may the adder be
 
That shall turn thy life to death.

There was a knight of the King’s fast friends
 
Whom he called the King of Love;
And to such bright cheer and courtesy
  
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That name might best behove.

And the King and Queen both loved him well
 
For his gentle knightliness;
And with him the King, as that eve wore on,
 
Was playing at the chess.
  
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And the King said, (for he thought to jest
 
And soothe the Queen thereby;) —
“In a book ’tis writ that this same year
 
A King shall in Scotland die.

“And I have pondered the matter o’er,
  
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And this have I found, Sir Hugh, —
There are but two Kings on Scottish ground,
 
And those Kings are I and you.

“And I have a wife and a newborn heir,
 
And you are yourself alone;
  
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So stand you stark at my side with me
 
To guard our double throne.

“For here sit I and my wife and child,
 
As well your heart shall approve,
In full surrender and soothfastness,
  
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Beneath your Kingdom of Love.”

And the Knight laughed, and the Queen too smiled;
 
But I knew her heavy thought,
And I strove to find in the good King’s jest
 
What cheer might thence be wrought.
  
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And I said, “My Liege, for the Queen’s dear love
 
Now sing the song that of old
You made, when a captive Prince you lay,
And the nightingale sang sweet on the spray,
 
In Windsor’s castle-hold.”
  
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Then he smiled the smile I knew so well
 
When he thought to please the Queen;
The smile which under all bitter frowns
 
Of hate that rose between,
For ever dwelt at the poet’s heart
  
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Like the bird of love unseen.

And he kissed her hand and took his harp,
 
And the music sweetly rang;
And when the song burst forth, it seemed
 
’Twas the nightingale that sang.
  
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“Worship, ye lovers, on this May:
 
Of bliss your kalends are begun:
Sing with us, Away, Winter, away!
 
Come, Summer, the sweet season and sun!
 
Awake for shame, — your heaven is won, —
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And amorously your heads lift all:
Thank Love, that you to his grace doth call!”

But when he bent to the Queen, and sang
The speech whose praise was hers
It seemed his voice was the voice of the Spring
  
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And the voice of the bygone years.

“The fairest and the freshest flower
That ever I saw before that hour,
The which o’ the sudden made to start
The blood of my body to my heart.
  
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Ah sweet, are ye a worldly creature
Or heavenly thing in form of nature?”

And the song was long, and richly stored
 
With wonder and beauteous things;
And the harp was tuned to every change
  
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Of minstrel ministerings;
But when he spoke of the Queen at the last,
 
Its strings were his own heart-strings.

“Unworthy but only of her grace,
 
Upon Love’s rock that’s easy and sure,
  
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In guerdon of all my love’s space
 
She took me her humble creäture.
 
Thus fell my blissful aventure
In youth of love that from day to day
Flowereth aye new, and further I say.
  
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“To reckon all the circumstance
 
As it happed when lessen gan my sore,
Of my rancor and woful chance,
 
It were too long, — I have done therefor.
 
And of this flower I say no more
  
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But unto my help her heart hath tended
And even from death her man defended.”

“Aye, even from death,” to myself I said;
 
For I thought of the day when she
Had borne him the news, at Roxbro’ siege,
  
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Of the fell confederacy.

But Death even then took aim as he sang
 
With an arrow deadly bright;
And the grinning skull lurked grimly aloof,
And the wings were spread far over the roof
  
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More dark than the winter night.

Yet truly along the amorous song
 
Of Love’s high pomp and state,
There were words of Fortune’s trackless doom
 
And the dreadful face of Fate.
  
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And oft have I heard again in dreams
 
The voice of dire appeal
In which the King then sang of the pit
 
That is under Fortune’s wheel.

“And under the wheel beheld I there
  
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An ugly Pit as deep as hell,
That to behold I quaked for fear:
 
And this I heard, that who therein fell
 
Came no more up, tidings to tell:
Whereat, astound of the fearful sight,
  
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I wist not what to do for fright.”

And oft has my thought called up again
 
These words of the changeful song: —
“Wist thou thy pain and thy travàil
To come, well might’st thou weep and wail!”
  
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And our wail, O God! is long.

But the song’s end was all of his love;
 
And well his heart was grac’d
With her smiling lips and her tear-bright eyes
 
As his arm went round her waist.
  
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And on the swell of her long fair throat
 
Close clung the necklet-chain
As he bent her pearl-tir’d head aside,
And in the warmth of his love and pride
 
He kissed her lips full fain.
  
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And her true face was a rosy red,
 
The very red of the rose
That, couched on the happy garden-bed,
 
In the summer sunlight glows.

And all the wondrous things of love
  
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That sang so sweet through the song
Were in the look that met in their eyes,
 
And the look was deep and long.

’Twas then a knock came at the outer gate,
 
And the usher sought the King.
  
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“The woman you met by the Scottish Sea,
 
My Liege, would tell you a thing;
And she says that her present need for speech
 
Will bear no gainsaying.”

And the King said:— “The hour is late;
  
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To-morrow will serve, I ween.”
Then he charged the usher strictly, and said:
 
“No word of this to the Queen.”

But the usher came again to the King,
 
“Shall I call her back?” quoth he:
  
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“For as she went on her way, she cried,
 
‘Woe! Woe! then the thing must be!’”

And the King paused, but he did not speak.
 
Then he called for the Voidee-cup;
And as we heard the twelfth hour strike,
  
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There by true lips and false lips alike
 
Was the draught of trust drained up.

So with reverence meet to King and Queen,
 
To bed went all from the board;
And the last to leave of the courtly train
  
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Was Robert Stuart the chamberlain
 
Who had sold his sovereign lord.

And all the locks of the chamber-door
 
Had the traitor riven and brast;
And that Fate might win sure way from afar,
  
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He had drawn out every bolt and bar
 
That made the entrance fast.

And now at midnight the stole his way
 
To the moat of the outer wall,
And laid strong hurdles closely across
  
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Where the traitors’ tread should fall.

But we that were the Queen’s bower-maids
 
Alone were left behind;
And with heed we drew the curtains close
 
Against the winter wind.
  
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