Poems (Forrest)/The king came home
THE KING CAME HOME
The mists that are as melted pearls were in the green cup of the wood,Which Morn had emptied of the Night, and Life and High Emprise seemed good,His war-horse champed its ringing bit to hear them sound the tourney call,And bravely to its jewelled sheath I heard the sword of victory fall.A white-throat sang against the copse, the pennons on the blue were gay,And with my favour on his heart, and at his helm, he rode away. . .
The kine came home at evenfall, I heard them lowing in the byre;The sunset died along the hills in one wild wave of orange fire;The hinds were talking of the jousts, of blows for honour or for shame,But when they told of gallant deeds not one among them spoke his name.
I donned my robe of heaven's blue, I drew my golden cincture down,I set a jewel in my hair, and underneath my festal gownMy quilted petticoat I wore, my silken hose with clocks of green,For when a king rides home at night 'twere fitting he should find a queen. . .
A cricket in the grass was shrill, the whispering wind was full of flowers,The clatter on the highroad died: then came the silent, moonlit hours.Oh, surely but he tarries long, weighed with the olives on his browIn triumph, does a king forget a woman who is lonely now?
He rode not to my door, but came—too slowly—by the secret trail;There was no morion on his head, his throat was bare, his cheek was pale;Between the tapestries he stood and stared into my lighted room,A shattered sword was in his hand, those dancing eyes were still with gloom. . .
He knelt before my gilded chair, heaped with its cushions of brocade,He placed no laurels at my feet; his head against my knee he laid.I saw that alien patch of red amongst the matted hair, and brown,From where the stroke had bitten deep, his blood was on my sky-blue gown. . .
My King came home—a king uncrowned—and I was decked as any queenIn satin petticoat and hose with clocks of the Imperial green;My King came home—a broken man—too sad to woo, too spent to kiss,Victor or Vanquished—he came home—what mattered anything but this?