Complete works of willia.., p.312
Complete Works of William Morris, page 312
Sad whisperings of happy times,
The face of him who sings these rhymes.
King Guilbert rides beside her there,
Bends low and calls her very fair,
And strives, by pulling down his hair,
To hide from my dear lady’s ken
The grisly gash I gave him, when
I cut him down at Camelot;
However he strives, he hides it not,
That tourney will not be forgot,
Besides, it is King Guilbert’s lot,
Whatever he says she answers not.
Now tell me, you that are in love,
From the king’s son to the wood-dove,
Which is the better, he or I?
For this king means that I should die
In this lone Pagan castle, where
The flowers droop in the bad air
On the September evening.
Look, now I take mine ease and sing,
Counting as but a little thing
The foolish spite of a bad king.
For these vile things that hem me in,
These Pagan beasts who live in sin,
The sickly flowers pale and wan,
The grim blue-bearded castellan,
The stanchions half worn-out with rust,
Whereto their banner vile they trust:
Why, all these things I hold them just
As dragons in a missal book,
Wherein, whenever we may look,
We see no horror, yea delight
We have, the colours are so bright;
Likewise we note the specks of white,
And the great plates of burnish’d gold.
Just so this Pagan castle old,
And everything I can see there,
Sick-pining in the marshland air,
I note: I will go over now,
Like one who paints with knitted brow,
The flowers and all things one by one,
From the snail on the wall to the setting sun.
Four great walls, and a little one
That leads down to the barbican,
Which walls with many spears they man,
When news comes to the castellan
Of Launcelot being in the land.
And as I sit here, close at hand
Four spikes of sad sick sunflowers stand;
The castellan with a long wand
Cuts down their leaves as he goes by,
Ponderingly, with screw’d-up eye,
And fingers twisted in his beard.
Nay, was it a knight’s shout I heard?
I have a hope makes me afeard:
It cannot be, but if some dream
Just for a minute made me deem
I saw among the flowers there
My lady’s face with long red hair,
Pale, ivory-colour’d dear face come,
As I was wont to see her some
Fading September afternoon,
And kiss me, saying nothing, soon
To leave me by myself again;
Could I get this by longing? vain!
The castellan is gone: I see
On one broad yellow flower a bee
Drunk with much honey.
Christ! again,
Some distant knight’s voice brings me pain,
I thought I had forgot to feel,
I never heard the blissful steel
These ten years past; year after year,
Through all my hopeless sojourn here,
No Christian pennon has been near.
Laus Deo! the dragging wind draws on
Over the marshes, battle won,
Knights’ shouts, and axes hammering;
Yea, quicker now the dint and ring
Of flying hoofs; ah, castellan,
When they come back count man for man,
Say whom you miss.
THE PAGANS, from the battlements.
Mahound to aid!
Why flee ye so like men dismay’d?
THE PAGANS, from without.
Nay, haste! for here is Launcelot,
Who follows quick upon us, hot
And shouting with his men-at-arms.
SIR GUY.
Also the Pagans raise alarms,
And ring the bells for fear; at last
My prison walls will be well past.
SIR LAUNCELOT, from outside.
Ho! in the name of the Trinity,
Let down the drawbridge quick to me,
And open doors, that I may see
Guy the good knight!
THE PAGANS, from the battlements.
Nay, Launcelot,
With mere big words ye win us not.
SIR LAUNCELOT.
Bid Miles bring up la perriere,
And archers clear the vile walls there.
Bring back the notches to the ear,
Shoot well together! God to aid!
These miscreants will be well paid.
Hurrah! all goes together; Miles
Is good to win my lady’s smiles
For his good shooting: Launcelot!
On knights apace! this game is hot!
SIR GUY sayeth afterwards.
I said, I go to meet her now,
And saying so, I felt a blow
From some clench’d hand across my brow,
And fell down on the sunflowers
Just as a hammering smote my ears;
After which this I felt in sooth,
My bare hands throttling without ruth
The hairy-throated castellan;
Then a grim fight with those that ran
To slay me, while I shouted: God
For the Lady Mary! deep I trod
That evening in my own red blood;
Nevertheless so stiff I stood,
That when the knights burst the old wood
Of the castle-doors, I was not dead.
I kiss the Lady Mary’s head,
Her lips, and her hair golden red,
Because to-day we have been wed.
OLD LOVE
You must be very old, Sir Giles,
I said; he said: Yea, very old!
Whereat the mournfullest of smiles
Creased his dry skin with many a fold.
They hammer’d out my basnet point
Into a round salade, he said,
The basnet being quite out of joint,
Natheless the salade rasps my head.
He gazed at the great fire awhile:
And you are getting old, Sir John;
(He said this with that cunning smile
That was most sad) we both wear on;
Knights come to court and look at me,
With eyebrows up; except my lord,
And my dear lady, none I see
That know the ways of my old sword.
(My lady! at that word no pang
Stopp’d all my blood). But tell me, John,
Is it quite true that Pagans hang
So thick about the east, that on
The eastern sea no Venice flag
Can fly unpaid for? True, I said,
And in such way the miscreants drag
Christ’s cross upon the ground, I dread
That Constantine must fall this year.
Within my heart, these things are small;
This is not small, that things outwear
I thought were made for ever, yea, all,
All things go soon or late, I said.
I saw the duke in court next day;
Just as before, his grand great head
Above his gold robes dreaming lay,
Only his face was paler; there
I saw his duchess sit by him;
And she, she was changed more; her hair
Before my eyes that used to swim,
And make me dizzy with great bliss
Once, when I used to watch her sit,
Her hair is bright still, yet it is
As though some dust were thrown on it.
Her eyes are shallower, as though
Some grey glass were behind; her brow
And cheeks the straining bones show through,
Are not so good for kissing now.
Her lips are drier now she is
A great duke’s wife these many years,
They will not shudder with a kiss
As once they did, being moist with tears.
Also her hands have lost that way
Of clinging that they used to have;
They look’d quite easy, as they lay
Upon the silken cushions brave
With broidery of the apples green
My Lord Duke bears upon his shield.
Her face, alas! that I have seen
Look fresher than an April field,
This is all gone now; gone also
Her tender walking; when she walks
She is most queenly I well know,
And she is fair still. As the stalks
Of faded summer-lilies are,
So is she grown now unto me
This spring-time, when the flowers star
The meadows, birds sing wonderfully.
I warrant once she used to cling
About his neck, and kiss’d him so,
And then his coming step would ring
Joy-bells for her; some time ago.
Ah! sometimes like an idle dream
That hinders true life overmuch,
Sometimes like a lost heaven, these seem.
This love is not so hard to smutch.
THE GILLIFLOWER OF GOLD
A golden gilliflower to-day
I wore upon my helm alway,
And won the prize of this tourney.
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
However well Sir Giles might sit,
His sun was weak to wither it,
Lord Miles’s blood was dew on it:
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
Although my spear in splinters flew,
From John’s steel-coat, my eye was true;
I wheel’d about, and cried for you,
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
Yea, do not doubt my heart was good,
Though my sword flew like rotten wood,
To shout, although I scarcely stood,
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
My hand was steady too, to take
My axe from round my neck, and break
John’s steel-coat up for my love’s sake.
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
When I stood in my tent again,
Arming afresh, I felt a pain
Take hold of me, I was so fain,
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
To hear: Honneur aux fils des preux!
Right in my ears again, and shew
The gilliflower blossom’d new.
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
The Sieur Guillaume against me came,
His tabard bore three points of flame
From a red heart: with little blame,
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
Our tough spears crackled up like straw;
He was the first to turn and draw
His sword, that had nor speck nor flaw;
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
But I felt weaker than a maid,
And my brain, dizzied and afraid,
Within my helm a fierce tune play’d,
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
Until I thought of your dear head,
Bow’d to the gilliflower bed,
The yellow flowers stain’d with red;
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
Crash! how the swords met: giroflée!
The fierce tune in my helm would play,
La belle! la belle! jaune giroflée!
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
Once more the great swords met again:
“La belle! la belle!” but who fell then?
Le Sieur Guillaume, who struck down ten;
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
And as with mazed and unarm’d face,
Toward my own crown and the Queen’s place,
They led me at a gentle pace.
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
I almost saw your quiet head
Bow’d o’er the gilliflower bed,
The yellow flowers stain’d with red.
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.
SHAMEFUL DEATH
There were four of us about that bed;
The mass-priest knelt at the side,
I and his mother stood at the head,
Over his feet lay the bride;
We were quite sure that he was dead,
Though his eyes were open wide.
He did not die in the night,
He did not die in the day,
But in the morning twilight
His spirit pass’d away,
When neither sun nor moon was bright,
And the trees were merely grey.
He was not slain with the sword,
Knight’s axe, or the knightly spear,
Yet spoke he never a word
After he came in here;
I cut away the cord
From the neck of my brother dear.
He did not strike one blow,
For the recreants came behind,
In a place where the hornbeams grow,
A path right hard to find,
For the hornbeam boughs swing so,
That the twilight makes it blind.
They lighted a great torch then,
When his arms were pinion’d fast,
Sir John the knight of the Fen,
Sir Guy of the Dolorous Blast,
With knights threescore and ten,
Hung brave Lord Hugh at last.
I am threescore and ten,
And my hair is all turn’d grey,
But I met Sir John of the Fen
Long ago on a summer day,
And am glad to think of the moment when
I took his life away.
I am threescore and ten,
And my strength is mostly pass’d,
But long ago I and my men,
When the sky was overcast,
And the smoke roll’d over the reeds of the fen,
Slew Guy of the Dolorous Blast.
And now, knights all of you,
I pray you pray for Sir Hugh,
A good knight and a true,
And for Alice, his wife, pray too.
THE EVE OF CRECY
Gold on her head, and gold on her feet,
And gold where the hems of her kirtle meet,
And a golden girdle round my sweet;
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
Margaret’s maids are fair to see,
Freshly dress’d and pleasantly;
Margaret’s hair falls down to her knee;
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
If I were rich I would kiss her feet;
I would kiss the place where the gold hems meet,
And the golden girdle round my sweet:
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
Ah me! I have never touch’d her hand;
When the arriere-ban goes through the land,
Six basnets under my pennon stand;
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
And many an one grins under his hood:
Sir Lambert du Bois, with all his men good,
Has neither food nor firewood;
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
If I were rich I would kiss her feet,
And the golden girdle of my sweet,
And thereabouts where the gold hems meet;
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
Yet even now it is good to think,
While my few poor varlets grumble and drink
In my desolate hall, where the fires sink,
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
Of Margaret sitting glorious there,
In glory of gold and glory of hair,
And glory of glorious face most fair;
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
Likewise to-night I make good cheer,
Because this battle draweth near:
For what have I to lose or fear?
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
For, look you, my horse is good to prance
A right fair measure in this war-dance,
Before the eyes of Philip of France;
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
And sometime it may hap, perdie,
While my new towers stand up three and three,
And my hall gets painted fair to see,
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
That folks may say: Times change, by the rood,
For Lambert, banneret of the wood,
Has heaps of food and firewood;
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite;
And wonderful eyes, too, under the hood
Of a damsel of right noble blood.
St. Ives, for Lambert of the Wood!
Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite.
THE JUDGMENT OF GOD
Swerve to the left, son Roger, he said,
When you catch his eyes through the helmet-slit,
Swerve to the left, then out at his head,
And the Lord God give you joy of it!
The blue owls on my father’s hood
Were a little dimm’d as I turn’d away;
This giving up of blood for blood
Will finish here somehow to-day.
So, when I walk’d out from the tent,
