Complete Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  He only knows he holds her; - but what part

  Can life now take? She cries in her locked heart, -

  ‘Leave me - I do not know you - go away!’

  CZAR ALEXANDER THE SECOND

  (13TH MARCH 1881)

  From him did forty million serfs, endow’d

  Each with six feet of death-due soil, receive

  Rich freeborn lifelong land, whereon to sheave

  Their country’s harvest. These to-day aloud

  Demand of Heaven a Father’s blood, - sore bow’d 5

  With tears and thrilled with wrath; who, while they grieve,

  On every guilty head would fain achieve

  All torment by his edicts disallow’d.

  He stayed the knout’s red-ravening fangs; and first

  Of Russian traitors, his own murderers go 10

  White to the tomb. While he, - laid foully low

  With limbs red-rent, with festering brain which erst

  Willed kingly freedom, - ‘gainst the deed accurst

  To God bears witness of his people’s woe.

  THE KING’S TRAGEDY

  JAMES I OF SCOTS. 20TH FEBRUARY 1437

  NOTE: Tradition says that Catherine Douglas, in honour of her heroic act when she barred the door with her arm against the murderers of James the First of Scots, received popularly the name of "Barlass." The name remains to her descendants, the

  Barlas family, in Scotland, who bear for their crest a broken arm. She married Alexander Lovell of Bolunnie.

  A few stanzas from King James's lovely poem, known as The King's Quhair, are quoted in the course of this ballad.

  I Catherine am a Douglas born,

  A name to all Scots dear;

  And Kate Barlass they've called me now

  Through many a waning year.

  This old arm's withered now. 'T was once

  Most deft 'mong maidens all

  To rein the steed, to wing the shaft,

  To smite the palm-play ball.

  In hall adown the close-linked dance

  It has shone most white and fair;

  It has been the rest for a true lord's head,

  And many a sweet babe's nursing-bed,

  And the bar to a King's chambère.

  Ay, lasses, draw round Kate Barlass,

  And hark with bated breath

  How good King James, King Robert's son,

  Was foully done to death.

  Through all the days of his gallant youth

  The princely James was pent,

  By his friends at first and then by his foes,

  In long imprisonment.

  For the elder Prince, the kingdom's heir,

  By treason's murderous brood

  Was slain; and the father quaked for the child

  With the royal mortal blood.

  I' the Bass Rock fort, by his father's care,

  Was his childhood's life assured;

  And Henry the subtle Bolingbroke,

  Proud England's King, 'neath the southron yoke

  His youth for long years immured.

  Yet in all things meet for a kingly man

  Himself did he approve;

  And the nightingale through his prison-wall

  Taught him both lore and love.

  For once, when the bird's song drew him close

  To the opened window-pane,

  In her bowers beneath a lady stood,

  A light of life to his sorrowful mood,

  Like a lily amid the rain.

  And for her sake, to the sweet bird's note,

  He framed a sweeter Song,

  More sweet than ever a poet's heart

  Gave yet to the English tongue.

  She was a lady of royal blood;

  And when, past sorrow and teen

  He stood where still through his crownless years

  His Scotish realm had been,

  At Scone were the happy lovers crowned,

  A heart-wed King and Queen.

  But the bird may fall from the bough of youth,

  And song be turned to moan,

  And Love's storm-cloud be the shadow of Hate,

  When the tempest-waves of a troubled State

  Are beating against a throne.

  Yet well they loved; and the god of Love,

  Whom well the King had sung,

  Might find on the earth no truer hearts

  His lowliest swains among.

  From the days when first she rode abroad

  With Scotish maids in her train,

  I Catherine Douglas won the trust

  Of my mistress sweet Queen Jane.

  And oft she sighed, "To be born a King!"

  And oft along the way

  When she saw the homely lovers pass

  She has said, "Alack the day!"

  Years waned, the loving and toiling years:

  Till England's wrong renewed

  Drove James, by outrage cast on his crown,

  To the open field of feud.

  'T was when the King and his host were met

  At the leaguer of Roxbro' hold,

  The Queen o' the sudden sought his camp

  With a tale of dread to be told.

  And she showed him a secret letter writ

  That spoke of treasonous strife,

  And how a band of his noblest lords

  Were sworn to take his life.

  "And it may be here or it may be there,

  In the camp or the court," she said:

  "But for my sake come to your people's arms

  And guard your royal head."

  Quoth he, "'Tis the fifteenth day of the siege,

  And the castle's nigh to yield."

  "O face your foes on your throne," she cried,

  "And show the power you wield;

  And under your Scotish people's love

  You shall sit as under your shield."

  At the fair Queen's side I stood that day

  When he bade them raise the siege,

  And back to his Court he sped to know

  How the lords would meet their Liege.

  But when he summoned his Parliament,

  The lowering brows hung round,

  Like clouds that circle the mountain-head

  Ere the first low thunders sound.

  For he had tamed the nobles' lust

  And curbed their power and pride,

  And reached out an arm to right the poor

  Through Scotland far and wide;

  And marry a lordly wrong-doer

  By the headsman's axe had died.

  'T was then upspoke Sir Robert Græme,

  The bold o'ermastering man:

  "O King, in the name of your Three Estates

  I set you under their ban!

  "For, as your lords made oath to you

  Of service and fealty,

  Even in like wise you pledged your oath

  Their faithful sire to be:

  "Yet all we here that are nobly sprung

  Have mourned dear kith and kin

  Since first for the Scotish Barons' curse

  Did your bloody rule begin."

  With that he laid his hands on his King:

  "Is this not so, my lords?"

  But of all who had sworn to league with him

  Not one spake back to his words.

  Quoth the King: "Thou speak'st but for one Estate,

  Nor doth it avow thy gage.

  Let my liege lords hale this traitor hence!"

  The Græme fired dark with rage:

  "Who works for lesser men than himself,

  He earns but a witless wage!"

  But soon from the dungeon where he lay

  He won by privy plots,

  And forth he fled with a price on his head

  To the country of the Wild Scots.

  And word there came from Sir Robert Græme

  To the King at Edinbro':

  "No Liege of mine thou art; but I see

  F
rom this day forth alone in thee

  God's creature, my mortal foe.

  "Through thee are my wife and children lost,

  My heritage and lands;

  And when my God shall show me a way,

  Thyself my mortal foe will I slay

  With these my proper hands."

  Against the coming of Christmastide

  That year the King bade call

  I' the Black Friars' Charterhouse of Perth

  A solemn festival.

  And we of his household rode with him

  In a close-ranked company;

  But not till the sun had sunk from his throne

  Did we reach the Scotish Sea.

  That eve was clenched for a boding storm,

  'Neath a toilsome moon, half seen;

  The cloud stooped low and the surf rose high;

  And where there was a line of the sky,

  Wild wings loomed dark between.

  And on a rock of the black beach-side

  By the veiled moon dimly lit,

  There was something seemed to heave with life

  As the King drew nigh to it.

  And was it only the tossing furze

  Or brake of the waste sea-wold?

  Or was it an eagle bent to the blast?

  When near we came, we knew it at last

  For a woman tattered and old.

  But it seemed as though by a fire within

  Her writhen limbs were wrung;

  And as soon as the King was close to her,

  She stood up gaunt and strong.

  'T was then the moon sailed clear of the rack

  On high in her hollow dome;

  And still as aloft with hoary crest

  Each clamorous wave rang home,

  Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed

  Amid the champing foam.

  And the woman held his eyes with her eyes:

  "O King, thou art come at last;

  But thy wraith has haunted the Scotish Sea

  To my sight for four years past.

  "Four years it is since first I met,

  'Twixt the Duchray and the Dhu,

  A shape whose feet clung close in a shroud,

  And that shape for thine I knew.

  "A year again, and on Inchkeith Isle

  I saw thee pass in the breeze,

  With the cerecloth risen above thy feet

  And wound about thy knees.

  "And yet a year, in the Links of Forth,

  As a wanderer without rest,

  Thou cam'st with both thine arms i' the shroud

  That clung high up thy breast.

  "And in this hour I find thee here,

  And well mine eyes may note

  That the winding-sheet hath passed thy breast

  And risen around thy throat.

  "And when I meet thee again, O King,

  That of death hast such sore drouth,

  Except thou turn again on this shore,

  The winding-sheet shall have moved once more

  And covered thine eyes and mouth.

  "O King, whom poor men bless for their King,

  Of thy fate be not so fain;

  But these my words for God's message take,

  And turn thy steed, O King, for her sake

  Who rides beside thy rein!"

  While the woman spoke, the King's horse reared

  As if it would breast the sea,

  And the Queen turned pale as she heard on the gale

  The voice die dolorously.

  When the woman ceased, the steed was still,

  But the King gazed on her yet,

  And in silence save for the wail of the sea

  His eyes and her eyes met.

  At last he said: "God's ways are His own;

  Man is but shadow and dust.

  Last night I prayed by His altar-stone;

  To-night I wend to the Feast of His Son;

  And in Him I set my trust.

  "I have held my people in sacred charge,

  And have not feared the sting

  Of proud men's hate, to His will resign'd

  Who has but one same death for a hind

  And one same death for a King.

  "And if God in His wisdom have brought close

  The day when I must die,

  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,

  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;

  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,

  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

  Of crime and woe which in Scotland's realm

  God's will let come to pass.

  'T was in the Charterhouse of Perth

  That the King and all his Court

  Were met, the Christmas Feast being done,

  For solace and disport.

  'T was a wind-wild eve in February,

  And against the casement-pane

  The branches smote like summoning hands

  And muttered the driving rain.

  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

  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,

  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,

  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

  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

  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.

  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,

  And this have I found, Sir Hugh,

  There are but two Kings on Scotish ground,

  And those Kings are I and you.

  "And I have a wife and a newborn heir,

  And you are yourself alone;

  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,

  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.

  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."

  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

  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

  'T was the nightingale that sang.

  "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,

  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

  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.

  * * * * *

  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

  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,

  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.

  "To reck all the circumstance

  As it happed when lessen gan my sore,

  Of my rancor and woeful chance,

  It were too long--I have done therefor.

  And of this flower I say no more

  But unto my help her heart hath tended

  And even from death her man defended."

  "Ay, even from death," to myself I said;

  For I thought of the day when she

  Had borne him the news, at Roxbro' siege,

  Of the fell confederacy.

  But death even then took aim as he sang