Stood from him, loth to strive or smite,
And bade him hear their woful word,
That not the maiden’s death they sought;
But there through years too dire for thought
Had lain their lady stricken, and nought
Might heal her: and he heard.
For there a maiden clean and whole
In virgin body and virgin soul,
Whose name was writ on royal roll,
That would but stain a silver bowl
With offering of her stainless blood,
Therewith might heal her: so they stayed
For hope’s sad sake each blameless maid
There journeying in that dolorous shade
Whose bloom was bright in bud.
No hurt nor harm to her it were
If she should yield a sister there
Some tribute of her blood, and fare
Forth with this joy at heart to bear,
That all unhurt and unafraid
This grace she had here by God’s grace wrought.
And kindling all with kindly thought
And love that saw save love’s self nought,
Shone, smiled, and spake the maid.
“Good knight of mine, good will have I
To help this healing though I die.”
“Nay,” Balen said, “but love may try
What help in living love may lie.
— I will not lose the life of her
While my life lasteth.” So she gave
The tribute love was fain to crave,
But might not heal though fain to save,
Were God’s grace helpfuller.
Another maid in later Mays
Won with her life that woful praise,
And died. But they, when surging day’s
Deep tide fulfilled the dawn’s wide ways,
Rode forth, and found by day or night
No chance to cross their wayfaring
Till when they saw the fourth day spring
A knight’s hall gave them harbouring
Rich as a king’s house might.
And while they sat at meat and spake
Words bright and kind as grace might make
Sweet for true knighthood’s kindly sake,
They heard a cry beside them break
The still-souled joy of blameless rest.
“What noise is this?” quoth Balen. “Nay,”
His knightly host made answer, “may
Our grief not grieve you though I say
How here I dwell unblest.
“Not many a day has lived and died
Since at a tournay late I tried
My strength to smite and turn and ride
Against a knight of kinglike pride,
King Pellam’s brother: twice I smote
The splendour of his strength to dust:
And he, fulfilled of hate’s fierce lust,
Swore vengeance, pledged for hell to trust,
And keen as hell’s wide throat.
“Invisible as the spirit of night
That heaven and earth in depth and height
May see not by the mild moon’s light
Nor even when stars would grant them sight,
He walks and slays as plague’s blind breath
Slays: and my son, whose anguish here
Makes moan perforce that mars our cheer,
He wounded, even ere love might fear
That hate were strong as death.
“Nor may my son be whole till he
Whose stroke through him hath stricken me
Shall give again his blood to be
Our healing: yet may no man see
This felon, clothed with darkness round
And keen as lightning’s life.” Thereon
Spake Balen, and his presence shone
Even as the sun’s when stars are gone
That hear dawn’s trumpet sound.
“That knight I know: two knights of mine,
Two comrades, sealed by faith’s bright sign,
Whose eyes as ours that live should shine,
And drink the golden sunlight’s wine
With joy’s thanksgiving that they live,
He hath slain in even the same blind wise:
Were all wide wealth beneath the skies
Mine, might I meet him, eyes on eyes,
All would I laugh to give.”
His host made answer, and his gaze
Grew bright with trust as dawn’s moist maze
With fire: “Within these twenty days,
King Pellam, lord of Lystenayse,
Holds feast through all this country cried,
And there before the knightly king
May no knight come except he bring
For witness of his wayfaring
His paramour or bride.
“And there that day, so soon to shine,
This knight, your felon foe and mine,
Shall show, full-flushed with bloodred wine,
The fierce false face whereon we pine
To wreak the wrong he hath wrought us, bare
As shame should see and brand it.” “Then,”
Said Balen, “shall he give again
His blood to heal your son, and men
Shall see death blind him there.”
“Forth will we fare to-morrow,” said
His host: and forth, as sunrise led,
They rode; and fifteen days were fled
Ere toward their goal their steeds had sped.
And there alighting might they find
For Balen’s host no place to rest,
Who came without a gentler guest
Beside him: and that household’s hest
Bade leave his sword behind.
“Nay,” Balen said, “that do I not:
My country’s custom stands, God wot,
That none whose lot is knighthood’s lot,
To ride where chance as fire is hot
With hope or promise given of fight,
Shall fail to keep, for knighthood’s part,
His weapon with him as his heart;
And as I came will I depart,
Or hold herein my right.”
Then gat he leave to wear his sword
Beside the strange king’s festal board
Where feasted many a knight and lord
In seemliness of fair accord:
And Balen asked of one beside,
“Is there not in this court, if fame
Keep faith, a knight that hath to name
Garlon?” and saying that word of shame,
He scanned that place of pride.
“Yonder he goeth against the light,
He with the face as swart as night,”
Quoth the other: “but he rides to fight
Hid round by charms from all men’s sight,
And many a noble knight he hath slain,
Being wrapt in darkness deep as hell
And silence dark as shame.” “Ah, well,”
Said Balen, “is that he? the spell
May be the sorcerer’s bane.”
Then Balen gazed upon him long,
And thought, “If here I wreak my wrong,
Alive I may not scape, so strong
The felon’s friends about him throng;
And if I leave him here alive,
This chance perchance may life not give
Again: much evil, if he live,
He needs must do, should fear forgive
When wrongs bid strike and strive.”
And Garlon, seeing how Balen’s eye
Dwelt on him as his heart waxed high
With joy in wrath to see him nigh,
Rose wolf-like with a wolfish cry
And crossed and smote him on the face,
Saying, “Knight, what wouldst thou with me? Eat,
For shame, and gaze not: eat thy meat
Do that thou art come for: stands thy seat
“Well hast thou said: thy rede rings true;
That which I came for will I do,”
Quoth Balen: forth his fleet sword flew,
And clove the head of Garlon through
Clean to the shoulders. Then he cried
Loud to his lady, “Give me here
The truncheon of the shameful spear
Wherewith he slew your knight, when fear
Bade hate in darkness ride.”
And gladly, bright with grief made glad,
She gave the truncheon as he bade,
For still she bare it with her, sad
And strong in hopeless hope she had,
Through all dark days of thwarting fear,
To see if doom should fall aright
And as God’s fire-fraught thunder smite
That head, clothed round with hell-faced night,
Bare now before her here.
And Balen smote therewith the dead
Dark felon’s body through, and said
Aloud, “With even this truncheon, red
With baser blood than brave men bled
Whom in thy shameful hand it slew,
Thou hast slain a nobler knight, and now
It clings and cleaves thy body: thou
Shall cleave again no brave man’s brow,
Though hell would aid anew.”
And toward his host he turned and spake;
“Now for your son’s long-suffering sake
Blood ye may fetch enough, and take
Wherewith to heal his hurt, and make
Death warm as life.” Then rose a cry
Loud as the wind’s when stormy spring
Makes all the woodland rage and ring:
“Thou hast slain my brother,” said the king,
“And here with him shalt die.”
“Ay?” Balen laughed him answer. “Well,
Do it then thyself.” And the answer fell
Fierce as a blast of hate from hell,
“No man of mine that with me dwell
Shall strike at thee but I their lord
For love of this my brother slain.”
And Pellam caught and grasped amain
A grim great weapon, fierce and fain
To feed his hungering sword.
And eagerly he smote, and sped
Not well: for Balen’s blade, yet red
With lifeblood of the murderous dead,
Between the swordstroke and his head
Shone, and the strength of the eager stroke
Shore it in sunder: then the knight,
Naked and weaponless for fight,
Ran seeking him a sword to smite
As hope within him woke.
And so their flight for deathward fast
From chamber forth to chamber passed
Where lay no weapon, till the last
Whose doors made way for Balen cast
Upon him as a sudden spell
Wonder that even as lightning leapt
Across his heart and eyes, and swept
As storm across his soul that kept
Wild watch, and watched not well.
For there the deed he did, being near
Death’s danger, breathless as the deer
Driven hard to bay, but void of fear,
Brought sorrow down for many a year
On many a man in many a land.
All glorious shone that chamber, bright
As burns at sunrise heaven’s own height:
With cloth of gold the bed was dight,
That flamed on either hand.
And one he saw within it lie:
A table of all clear gold thereby
Stood stately, fair as morning’s eye,
With four strong silver pillars, high
And firm as faith and hope may be:
And on it shone the gift he sought,
A spear most marvellously wrought,
That when his eye and handgrip caught
Small fear at heart had he.
Right on King Pellam then, as fire
Turns when the thwarting winds wax higher,
He turned, and smote him down. So dire
The stroke was, when his heart’s desire
Struck, and had all its fill of hate,
That as the king fell swooning down
Fell the walls, rent from base to crown,
Prone as prone seas that break and drown
Ships fraught with doom for freight.
And there for three days’ silent space
Balen and Pellam face to face
Lay dead or deathlike, and the place
Was death’s blind kingdom, till the grace
That God had given the sacred seer
For counsel or for comfort led
His Merlin thither, and he said,
Standing between the quick and dead,
“Rise up, and rest not here.”
And Balen rose and set his eyes
Against the seer’s as one that tries
His heart against the sea’s and sky’s
And fears not if he lives or dies,
Saying, “I would have my damosel,
Ere I fare forth, to fare with me.”
And sadly Merlin answered, “See
Where now she lies; death knows if she
Shall now fare ill or well.
“And in this world we meet no more,
Balen.” And Balen, sorrowing sore,
Though fearless yet the heart he bore
Beat toward the life that lay before,
Rode forth through many a wild waste land
Where men cried out against him, mad
With grievous faith in fear that bade
Their wrath make moan for doubt they had
Lest hell had armed his hand.
For in that chamber’s wondrous shrine
Was part of Christ’s own blood, the wine
Shed of the true triumphal vine
Whose growth bids earth’s deep darkness shine
As heaven’s deep light through the air and sea;
That mystery toward our northern shore
Arimathean Joseph bore
For healing of our sins of yore,
That grace even there might be.
And with that spear there shrined apart
Was Christ’s side smitten to the heart.
And fiercer than the lightning’s dart
The stroke was, and the deathlike smart
Wherewith, nigh drained of blood and breath,
The king lay stricken as one long dead:
And Joseph’s was the blood there shed,
For near akin was he that bled,
Near even as life to death.
And therefore fell on all that land
Sorrow: for still on either hand,
As Balen rode alone and scanned
Bright fields and cities built to stand
Till time should break them, dead men lay;
And loud and long from all their folk
Living, one cry that cursed him broke;
Three countries had his dolorous stroke
Slain, or should surely slay.
VII
In winter, when the year burns low
As fire wherein no firebrands glow,
And winds dishevel as they blow
The lovely stormy wings of snow,
The hearts of northern men burn bright
With joy that mocks the joy of spring
To hear all heaven’s keen clarions ring
Music that bids the spirit sing
And day give thanks for night.
Aloud and dark as hell or hate
Round Balen’s head the wind of fate
Blew storm and cloud from death’s wide gate:
But joy as grief in him was great
To face God’s doom and live or die,
Sorrowing for ill wrought unaware,
Rejoicin
g in desire to dare
All ill that innocence might bear
With changeless heart and eye.
Yet passing fain he was when past
Those lands and woes at length and last.
Eight times, as thence he fared forth fast,
Dawn rose and even was overcast
With starry darkness dear as day,
Before his venturous quest might meet
Adventure, seeing within a sweet
Green low-lying forest, hushed in heat,
A tower that barred his way.
Strong summer, dumb with rapture, bound
With golden calm the woodlands round
Wherethrough the knight forth faring found
A knight that on the greenwood ground
Sat mourning: fair he was to see,
And moulded as for love or fight
A maiden’s dreams might frame her knight;
But sad in joy’s far-flowering sight
As grief’s blind thrall might be.
“God save you,” Balen softly said,
“What grief bows down your heart and head
Thus, as one sorrowing for his dead?
Tell me, if haply I may stead
In aught your sorrow, that I may.”
“Sir knight,” that other said, “thy word
Makes my grief heavier that I heard.”
And pity and wonder inly stirred
Drew Balen thence away.
And so withdrawn with silent speed
He saw the sad knight’s stately steed,
A war-horse meet for warrior’s need,
That none who passed might choose but heed,
So strong he stood, so great, so fair,
With eyes afire for flight or fight,
A joy to look on, mild in might,
And swift and keen and kind as light,
And all as clear of care.
And Balen, gazing on him, heard
Again his master’s woful word
Sound sorrow through the calm unstirred
By fluttering wind or flickering bird,
Thus: “Ah, fair lady and faithless, why
Break thy pledged faith to meet me? soon
An hour beyond thy trothplight noon
Shall strike my death-bell, and thy boon
Is this, that here I die.
“My curse for all thy gifts may be
Heavier than death or night on thee;
For now this sword thou gavest me
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 140
