Poems (May)/Guendolen

by Edith May

For works with similar titles, see Guendolen.

GUENDOLEN.

Old Ralph, the gray-haired serving man,
Is nodding asleep by his pipe and can;
And Ursula, where the firelight falls,
Tossing the shadows about the walls,
Hears a death-watch tick in the beams above her,
Keeping time to a tune she is thinking over.
A bird within a silver ring
    Sits swinging softly to and fro,
Shading his eyes with a crimson wing;
    Across the rafters all a-glow
    His shadow flits with a motion slow.
Carven goblets from the wall
    Cast red flecks about the floor;
    From over window and bolted door
Antlers vast fling round the hall
Shadowy arms that rise and fall
Whenever the flames spring up to make
The fresh-heaped fagots curl and break.
The hound sleeps fast on the warm hearth stone,
And, with dropt ears and muzzle thrown
Over his slender outstretched limbs.
Dreams deeper as the firelight dims:
    But Guendolen is wide awake;
Vassal and lord to the chase have gone;
Ralph and the dame and the drowsy crone
Watch in Sir Ethel's hall alone.

Wide awake was Guendolen;
   Sometimes she paced the oaken floor,
    Or, pausing at the barred door,
    Hearkened a space, and turning then
Hung musing o'er the flames again.
Sometimes she teased the bird, that still,
    Hiding under its painted wing,
Answered her call and whet its bill
    Against the rim of its silver swing.
And once from turrets twain, enshrined
    Deep in the heart of a wooded dell,
A sound came coupled with the wind
    Like a slow counted knell.
"How goes the night by the abbey bell?"
    Cried Ursula, awaking then;
"'Tis twelve o' the clock," said Guendolen;
"Get thee to rest," said Guendolen;
    "For me, good mother, I may not sleep,
So wild a wind comes up the glen,
    So wild a moan the forests keep."
Now to her rest the crone hath gone;
Ralph asleep in the warder's chair,
Is sitting without by the postern stair;
And Guendolen watches alone.

Swart shadows seemed to peer and float
    Deep in the corners and niches dim;
    Over and under the rafters grim
Flitted the bat; and an owl without,
In the fitful pauses of wind and rain,
Tapped his beak at the window pane.

The wind is high and the clouds fly fast,
But the stars shine out and the rain is past.
"Oh, for the first gray glance of morn!
Oh, for a blast of Sir Ethel's horn!
Chill is my heart, I know not why.
Haunting the night with its boding eye,
With crest erect, and ruffled wing,
My bird sits watchful on its swing;
In his sleep the hound whines soft,
The bat drops down from his flight aloft;
She pauses with a fearful start,
With eyes upraised, and lips apart,
And locked hands clasped across her heart.
Shrill through the wind, far up the glen,
What voice had shrieked "Help, Guendolen!"
Glancing up at the casement high,
She catches a glimpse of the western sky,
But nothing sees save the stars that stand
    At anchor in its dark lagoon,
And the night, with a cloud like a snow-white hand,
    Shading the moon,

Unmantled, alone,
Beneath portals of stone
Fringed around with wet mosses,
    Low-arched, damp, and green,
The threshold she crosses
    Unseen!

There were paths to the left, and paths to the right,
    And one that struck through a frowning wood;
    This was gloomy, and narrow, and rude;
Boughs above shut in the night;
    On either side an aspen stood
Turning its leaves to the silver light;
And Guendolen here paused and paled,
For on that tree our Lord was nailed;
Thence, from that day to this, 'tis said,
Stirs every leaf with separate dread.

Runlets that hide in the meadow grass,
Moan in the distance and sobbing pass;
The clouds drift whiter, the flagging wind
Lies down in the brake like a wearied hind.
She hears the rain-drops gliding soft
To the leaf below from the leaf aloft;
She hears the breeze in its distant flight
    Skimming over the marshy river,
And from the wood to the open night
    Starts with a keen electric shiver.
Over the postern a loophole bright
    Searches the dark with a lurid glare,
Ursula there with lamp alight
    Sayeth her matin prayer.
What tempted her hither? What o'erstrained chord,
Struck in her heart by an elvish fear,
Knelled the voice of her absent lord
    Into her wakeful ear?

It is the wind that round her lingers,
Plucking her back with its chilly fingers;
'Tis only a brook that yonder passes,
Stifling its sobs in the limp marsh grasses;
Those are pines in their funeral vesture,
Waving her on with a solemn gesture!

Out of the heart of the wooded dell
Three times tolls the abbey bell;
And, in the wake of its echoed knell
    Follows a softer, weirder tone;
Her heart upleaping at the sound,
    Under the clasp of her broidered zone
Grows eager as a leashed hound.
Not breathed into her straining ear,
But in her spirit, silver clear,
Spoken far, yet sounding near,
She hears Sir Ethel's voice again.
And the words "Help, Guendolen!"

She does not waken the hound asleep
    Dreaming within, by the glimmering light,
But treads alone through the forest deep,
    Trusting herself to the lawless night.
From drenched boughs the rain is shed
At every step on her shrinking head;
Deep in the hollows, the stealthy vine
Catches her feet in its secret twine.
There are dancing lights in the marshes damp
Where the firefly kindles his fitful lamp,
All a-flame, like a burning gem
Dropped from a fiend's red diadem;
Through the tufted moss, where the fern lies dead,
The glow-worm shimmers, and, over head,
A star betwixt the branches high
Looks down through the leaves like a panther's eye.

The path is lost, and Guendolen,
    Grown doubtful of her midnight fear,
Stands on the skirt of a hollow glen
    And sees the dawn appear.
But, ere the leaves wax green with day,
She knows the chase has passed that way.
The turf is broken and trampled sore,
    The low boughs hung with branches torn;
Here lies the plume Sir Ethel wore,
    And here his silver hunting horn.
A steed that feeds at a fountain's edge,
Scared by her step, through the matted sedge
Drags his bruised limbs with pain,
Catching his hoof in the trailing rein.
The hills crowd close, and the vale between
Narrows to a deep ravine.
Here the sombre woods divide;
Clutching the rocks with roots outspread,
Trees that lean from either side
    Make midnight overhead;
And only small bright blossoms grow
On the lawny turf that lies below.

But Guendolen, grown sudden pale,
    Sinks fainting nigh the shadowy pass,
Seeing through a leafy veil
    One pillowed on the grass.
With still arms tossed apart he lies,
Dark twilight waxing in his eyes.
Under the shade of a leaning crag
    Hung with a scarlet parasite,
Two hounds that guard a wounded stag
    Crouch at its left and right;
Old Victor, chiefest of the pack,
    Gladdest at the bugle note,
Keenest on the mazy track———
    Ripped lengthwise from the throat,
Holds back his moans in savage pride;
And Elf is panting on his side.
But Sylvia, wont to take her stand,
    Daily, by the castle board,
Feeding from her master's hand;
    Sylvia, that only loves her lord;
    That, heedless of another's word
Doeth gladly his behest,
Hath dragged herself across his breast,
And lies with limbs stretched out at rest.

Turning slowly his weary head,
"Sweet Guendolen!" the hunter said;
    "What, Sylvia, ho!" the panting hound
Only whimpered at the sound,
    Answering with dim upturned glance;
But she who slept a space beyond,
    Starting from her trance,
With light feet muffled by the sward
Drew nearer to her fainting lord.
Over his wounds and his weary brows
She laid wet leaves from the weeping boughs;
Silent, till a glad surprise
Dawned through the darkness in his eyes;
Then from the bugle's ringing throat
Sped so long and wild a note,
Over the dells and the vales remote
A flight of arrowy echoes sprang,
From hill to hill the signal rang,
And echoing horns and hounds that cried
Out of the hollow glens replied.
They who beside the watch-fire's flame
Sought rest and food when even came,
And, heedless of the midnight storm,
    Slept pillowed on the reeking earth,
Believed their lord found shelter warm
Beside some cottage hearth;
'Nor guessed how, parted from his train,
He crossed the broken scent again,
And cheering with a hunter's zeal
    His flagging hounds upon the way,
With planted foot and brandished steel
    Held the brown stag at bay.
Now, startled by his bugle blast,
    Quitting their lairs in the scented grass,
Blythe hunters up the valley, fast,
    Came riding towards the lonely pass.