Verses (Baughan)/Leon
LEON
The good Lord, Leon of Northumberland,
King Ector’s son, had trouble in his youth,
For, first, there was a malison on his birth,
So that his thigh was shrunken; next, his sire,
A great lord, and a mighty man of war,
Hated him, being angry at his hurt:
And then, his mother, whose whole life had been
One prayer for him, with a sad, heavy heart
Died in his greenhead youth,
When she was dead,
Leon, taught curtly how that, being maim’d,
Joustings and tourneys and the joy of war
Were not for him, and making curt reply
He was not for the cloister, found it best
To call the forest home; and there dwelt long,
Father’d and mother’d but by loneliness,
Tutor’d in war by beasts, in gentleness
By the small woodland creatures, and in hate
By all he knew of men. Meanwhile he grew
Goodly of face and stature, strong and brave—
A fair lord, but he had a maimed side.
Once, in the season when the charmed woods
Dream and awake not, and the dank blue mist,
Swinging by ghostly hands twixt bole and bole,
Doth print them round with lichens and wet moss:
One heavy noon, beside a mildew’d pool,
Moody he sat, and wish’d, he scarce knew what.
All on a sudden, sharp and shrill rang out
A clamour, “Help! O help!” And straight be-stirr’d
By headlong instinct, as a wounded hare
Not stays, but runneth fleetly to its home,
So limping Leon ran; and found a Queen
With two that would have done her knight to death.
Now men he hated, but his mother’s love
Spake for the Queen, and, leaping on those churls,
With unmail’d hands he smote at them, so sore,
So sudden, that their coward’s valour slunk
For hiding to their heels. “A pouncing beast!”
One cried; the other, “Mercy!” and they fled.
Then the Queen stood upright, and from her face,
Panting, drew down the veil. He knew her not,
But she was Morgan, the great wizard Queen,
And she knew him, and (for she ow’d him thanks,
And therewith ever loved a goodly face)
Cast spells for him; so, as it were a film
Cover’d her eyes, her voice brake out in gasps,
And as a rime-bound branch upstanding stiff,
“Good cheer,” she said, “Sir Leon! From the sea
Comes Venus, and the daughter of a king.
Look clear, speak loud, bow low; thou shalt wed high.”
Amazed at what he saw, yet more amazed
At what he heard, Leon stood dumb; but when
The life flow’d back into her thawing limbs,
And made her face once more a woman’s, he,
Catching his breath, besought more counsel. “Go,
Get to the sea!” she said, and, bending down,
Like one of very flesh and blood she search’d
The wide wounds of her knight, and said no more.
But Leon, lingering, of a sudden found
Nought, save the trampled bracken. Both were gone.
Marvelling much, he left the woods, and came
To a great Castle by the bare sea-shore.
But neither sight, nor sound, nor good salt smell
Had he to guide him, till he cross’d the dunes;
For the milk-handed mist had tamed the sea,
That, listless as lake water, on the strand
Laid down her weak, wan waves, each one a sob.
No hovering gull, no guillemot busy-wing’d,
Rent the thick-webbed air; the sharp black isles,
The beacon Castle, were not; close in shore,
Dark bladderwrack, the strong tide’s thrall, thrust up
Her million nodding and exultant heads;
Nothing else moved.
And now the clammy calm,
The waves’ gasp, and the stealthy swathing mist,
Wrought upon Leon like the sense of Death.
He paus’d upon the midway sand, secrete,
Alone; in the dim silence Morgan’s words
Burst lurid on his mind, a sinister glare,
And lit the one thought—Death.
“Fool! fool!” he cried;
A savage laughter took him. “From the sea
Love was to rise? Out of the sea, forsooth,
My bride was coming? Oh, a fair conceit,
Kind Queen! a riddle plain to rede! Ay, thee,
Rising at last to rid me of life’s hate,
Thee see I clear, thee speak I loud, thee―Death!
‘Bow low?’ Yea! even to the ocean-floor,
Where wait high nuptials with a fair bride—Death!
Give ye good welcome, O most royal bride!
Ah, Venus! ah, sweet guerdon from the sea,
Gramercy!” (and he hirpled down the sand),
“Gramercy!”
Thereupon, the mist, with voice
Near and outringing, toss’d an answer back,
“Who cries Gramercy?”
Leon’s heart stood still.
Who spoke? Or can the mist find words, and speak?
“Who cries Gramercy?” At this second call,
Remembering Death, he answer’d listlessly,
“I, Leon, son of Ector.” Came the voice:
“Wait, Leon, son of Ector! Wait for me!”
So there he stay’d; for Morgan’s glozing words
Held honey yet; the voice was not a man’s,
And he began to wonder if the fog
Held very Venus with some royal maid.
At such fair prospect, Death he clean forgot,
And on the hard, wet sand abiding, peer’d
Hither and thither. By-and-by, a swell
Of glossy water quell’d the bladderwrack,
With a loud sudden splash striking the shore;
But scarce he heard it, for this time the voice
Cried almost at his car: “Ho! Ector’s son,
Where art thou?” And with widening eyes, he said,
“Here, Queen!”
Mocking she laugh’d, mocking she look’d,
Face to his face, and breath upon his cheek—
No Venus, no, nor queen, but a fish-girl
Brown and bare-neck’d, with ankles in the sea,
Her girded dress, bright limbs, and heavy hair,
That, dark and gleaming like sea-ribbon, clung
Round her wet, laughter-quaking throat—all these
Breathed out the sea’s own breath of pungent brine.
“Leon, good son of Ector! what dost here?
Mercy! the dolorous look! Oh, hie thee hence,
And sit thee by the fagot! For I swear
By mine own heart, the which thou makest ache
With laughter at such sourness, never once
Saw I a knight less worthy of my sea,
Mother of every health, the live strong sea!”
She stopp’d; her loosen’d laughter came again,
Curdling the milky air, and by his cheek
Drove the thin mist with brush of chilly wings.
Till, perching both bare arms upon a rock
Like two bright stems to prop that salt sea-flower
Her pointed face, she pucker'd up her lips
To keep them still, and stood regarding him.
But Leon had no spirit to be moved—
Hazy despair had wrapt him like a fog,
Dull acquiescence calm’d all impulses.
“Damsel!” he said, “half in my heart it were
To wish your face as dolorous, if thro’ that
Such wine of laughter might but touch my lips.
Nay, prithee!” (for her face grew grave), “laugh on,
And, in a little, tell me of thy name.”
“Riance!” quoth she: “Dark Riance is my name;
I have it of my laughter. But, fair Sir,
What do you on my marches? Lack you crabs
Or spotted jellies, limpets, cloudy shrimps—
Or had you but a mind to taste my fog?
Good wholesome cheer for heart and stomach both,
And yet meseems you do not thrive withal?”
With that she smiled, a very vexing smile.
“Nay, child,” he said; “Reserve for fishermen
Thy lavish wealth; but I am none. My nets
Were spread for spoil far richer.”
“What is that?
Will it content you? For my father seeks,
He says, a richer spoil, honours and lands,
And never hath eno’; I in my Sea
Find rich contentment. Will your spoil suffice?”
“Ay! for ’tis Death!” he said.
At that dark word,
Flat fell her cheek as the undimpled waves.
Leon himself, at something in her look,
Shrank from the dismal thought. Now first it seem’d
Harsher to die than live, nay, life was sweet,
Death terrible. What sudden rising sun
Made such a sharp division, light from dark,
Dawn on his twilight spirit?
“Must it be?”
The words brake from him: “Death? Oh, horrible,
Impossible!” A doubtful hope flash’d up:
“Perchance not Death she meant! Perchance I err’d!
I will not die!”
At once the fish-girl’s face
Quicken’d; at once he felt the doubt decrease!
“Pray you,” he cried, “all japeries apart,
Saw you at any time from out this sea
A fair Queen rising, wondrous fair! and bright
Like foam upon the waters are her feet—
Know you of such?” But Riance shook her head,
And spake not, Loath to lose the sudden hope,
“Your folk,” he urged, “may give her some sea-name,
‘Queen of the Sea,’ or ‘Lady of the Sea;’
Know you none such?” She hung her head, her cheeks
Grew rosy—why? “I have seen one,” she said,
“That hath a curious love to play among
The merry wavelets, hangeth on their necks―
And I have seen bright foam beneath her feet.
If it be she you mean, she is not near
So bright and fair as foam is; but, in sooth,
Folk call her Maid, and Lady, of the Sea.”
Here she peep’d sidelong at him, like a bird,
As if in doubt; but all his doubts were gone.
“O ignorant!” he cried, “do ye not know
Whom ye have seen? But I know! Blessed words!
Not Death, not Death, not Death! O gentle maid,
That Queen I seek; pray lead me where she is;
And Heaven reward thee with undazzled sight!”
“Wherefore? What would’st thou with her?”
Riance ask’d,
And ey’d him much askance, but did not laugh.
He, seeing speedy haven for his hopes
With wind of so fair promise, answer’d quick,
“Worship I owe her, and a boon beside
Have I to beg.”
“What is your boon?”
“Fair maid,
Have done with teasing! Prithee, show me her!
The boon imports thee nothing.”
“How, fair Sir!
How should I grant it, then? Down on your knees!
I thought in kindness to award the boon,
Waiving the worship. Since you will not—why,
Long worship scarce will win that boon, methinks!”
O treacherous wind! What hidden reef was this?
Was it the mist wrought so bewilderingly?
He stood confused. But Riance chirrup’d on,
Flouting, and fleering, yet in all her ways
Sweet as a wagtail on the briny beach:
“So slow of courtesy, Sir Dolorous-Face?
Art doubtful? Why, me was it not you sought,
Me, they call Maid, and Lady, of the Sea?
Art dainty? Are my trickling sands too hard?
Nay, but thy knees, forsooth, too proud! Kneel, kneel!
Bow low, do worship! Then—who knows? The boon. . . .”
What with the weltering mist, that of her form
Made something formless, something weird and vague,
Continually drifting, yet unmoved:
What with her mockery, and some blurred shame
Felt in his tangled mind: as a sick man
Resigns his peevish and self-thwarting will
With tacit pleasure to his resolute nurse,
So Leon was reliev’d at her behest,
And knelt.
Now Riance, while she spake with him,
Both for the fog, and the upsloping sand,
Saw not his hurt; but when he came to kneel
He did it hardly, and she, coming close,
Found that his side was maim’d; and when she mark’d
His cavern’d eyes and miserable mouth,
And the deep furrows by the plough of Pain
Dug out on cheek and youthful forehead, then
Her tender heart rebuked her, slow great tears
Well’d in her innocent eyes, and from the breast
Whence the wild laughter leapt but now, a sob,
A long, deep sob, came bursting. And he took
Her sea-stain’d hand to kiss it, but she snatch’d
The fingers from him, and she fell and wept
Heart-broken on the sand. No Venus, she!
But Leon, thinking that she had but slipp’d
On weed or slimy stones, crawl’d to her side;
Lifted her, not with ease, for he was lame,
And rose, supporting her; and she look’d up—
At him she look’d, and straightway hid her face,
For she that wont to laugh was weeping now,
And she that mock’d him clung about his neck.
Then he, maim’d Leon, that had never felt
Anything nestle to him, needing him,
Thought nothing more of Venus, nothing more
Of Morgan and her promise, nothing more
Of anything save Riance; rais’d her head,
And on the mist-wet, sea-wet, tear-wet face
Press’d passionate kisses, born of gratitude
And love.
And Riance, comforted, said, “Leon,
Forgive me! Tell me, who is it ye seek?
For I will help your quest.” But he cried out:
“Venus I sought, and a king’s daughter; now
I seek them not!”
“No Venus do I know;
“She dwells not here,” quoth Riance, much perplex’d.
“King Lamorake is my father, and, save him,
Here is no King.”
As the thick fog is blown
To tatters by strong wind, and leaves clear air,
Her words brought light at last to Leon. “Oh,
Out of the sea,” he cried, “in very truth
Is risen the Queen of Love and Loveliness,
Out of the sea my Queen! And I will bow
Low as the grave; yea, I will beg so loud
The stars at noon shall hear me, if thereby
The promise sweetly closing-in thy strain,
Wizard! ring rhymes with Truth. If it prove so,
Oh, then, be blessed! Oh, then, not for Death—
For Life, for Life, Gramercy!”
As he spake,
Leon the dolorous laugh’d, and with him laugh’d
Riance, her eyes tear-bright. And well he spake;
For they two loved together all life long.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.