A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. All those sharp fancies by down-lapsing thought I answered free; and turning I appealed Streamed onward, lost their edges, and did To one that stood beside. 307 But she, with sick and scornful looks averse, To her full height her stately statue draws. "My youth," she said, "was blasted with a curse: This woman was the cause. "I was cut off from hope in that sad place, Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears: My father held his hand upon his face; "Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs As in a dream. Dimly I could descry The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes, Waiting to see me die. "The high masts flickered as they lay afloat; The crowds, the temples, wavered, and the shore ; The bright death quivered at the victim's throat; Touched; and I knew no more." THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. "Alas! alas!" a low voice, full of care, Murmured beside me: "Turn and look on me: I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair, If what I was I be. "Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor! O me, that I should ever see the light! She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust: To whom the Egyptian: "Oh, you tamely died! You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust The dagger through her side." With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping beams, Stolen to my brain, dissolved the mystery Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams Ruled in the eastern sky Morn broadened on the borders of the dark, Ere I saw her, who clasped in her last trance Her murdered father's head, or Joan of Arc, A light of ancient France; Or her, who knew that love can vanquish death, Who kneeling, with one arm about her king, Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, Sweet as new buds in spring. No memory labors longer from the deep Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep To gather and tell o'er Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain Compassed, how eagerly I sought to strike Into that wondrous track of dreams again! But no two dreams are like. As when a soul laments, which hath been blessed, In yearnings that can never be expressed Because all words, though culled with choicest art, Failing to give the bitter of the sweet, Wither beneath the palate, and the heart Faints, faded by its heat. THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow, Old year, you must not die; 309 The night is starry and cold, my friend, And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend, Comes up to take his own. How hard he breathes! over the snow The cricket chirps: the light burns low: Shake hands, before you die. His face is growing sharp and thin. Close up his eyes: tie up his chin: And waiteth at the door. There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, You ask me, why, though ill at ease, That sober-suited Freedom chose, A man may speak the thing he will; A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown, Where freedom broadens slowly down From precedent to precedent: Where faction seldom gathers head, But by degrees to fulness wrought, The strength of some diffusive thought Hath time and space to work and spread. Should banded unions persecute Opinion, and induce a time When single thought is civil crime, And individual freedom mute: Though power should make from land to land The name of Britain trebly greatThough every channel of the state Should almost choke with golden sand— Yet waft me from the harbor-mouth, MORTE D'ARTHUR. So all day long the noise of battle rolled The goodliest fellowship of famous knights But now delay not: take Excalibur, And fling him far into the middle mere: And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, heard?" And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: "I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, And the wild water lapping on the crag." To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: "Thou hast betrayed thy nature and thy name, Not rendering true answer, as beseemed Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: For surer sign had followed, either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought; But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, How curiously and strangely chased, he smote His palms together, and he cried aloud: "And if indeed I cast the brand away, Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, Should thus be lost forever from the earth, Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. What good should follow this, if this were done? What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey, Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. Were it well to obey, then, if a king demand An act unprofitable, against himself? The king is sick, and knows not what he does. What record, or what relic of my lord Should be to after-time, but empty breath And rumors of a doubt? but were this kept, Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, Some one might show it at a joust of arms, Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps word." To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: "It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, Aidless, alone, and smitten through the helm. A little thing may harm a wounded man. Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." So saying, from the ruined shrine he stepped Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' So might some old man speak in the after-time MORTE D'ARTHUR. 311 "What is it thou hast seen? or what hast | And would have spoken, but he found not heard?" "Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! Authority forgets a dying king, Laid widowed of the power in his eye That bowed the will. I see thee what thou art, And the third time may prosper, get thee hence: And strongly wheeled and threw it. The great brand Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, him Three times, and drew him under in the mere. "Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?" And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: "Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, Not though I live three lives of mortal men, So great a miracle as yonder hilt. Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; But when I looked again, behold an arm, Three times and drew him under in the mere." And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: "My end draws nigh; 't is time that I were gone. Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, So saying, from the pavement he half rose, Muttering and murmuring at his ear: "Quick, quick! I fear it is too late, and I shall die." Larger than human on the frozen hills. His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, Beneath them; and descending they were 'ware That all the decks were dense with stately forms Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream-by these Three queens with crowns of gold-and from them rose A cry that shivered to the tingling stars, And to the barge they came. There those three queens Put forth their hands, and took the king, and wept. But she, that rose the tallest of them all And called him by his name, complaining loud, |