In a kingdom of mist and moonlight,
Or ever the world was known,
Past leagues of unsailed water,
There reigned a king with a daughter
That shone like a starry stone.

The day grew out o' the moonlight;
But never a day was there.
The king was wise as hoary,
And his daughter, like the glory
Of seven kingdoms, fair.

And the night dimmed over the moonlight, —
And ever the mist was gray, —
With slips of dull stars, bluer
Where the princess met her wooer,
A page like the month o' May.

In her eyes the mist, and the moonlight
In hair of a crumpled gold;
By day they wooed a-hawking,
A-hawking laughed, a-mocking
The good, white king and old.

On the sea the mist, and the moonlight
Poured pale to the lilies' tips; —
At eve, when the hawks were feeding,
In courts to the kennels leading,
He kissed her mouth and lips.

On towers the mist, and the moonlight
On a dead face staring up; —
His kingly couch was ready,
But and her hand was steady
Giving the poisoned cup.

MY ROMANCE

If it so befalls that the midnight hovers
In mist no moonlight breaks,
The leagues of years my spirit covers,
And myself myself forsakes.

And I live in a land of stars and flowers,
White cliffs by a silver sea;
And the pearly points of her opal towers
From the mountains beckon me.

And I think that I know that I hear her calling
From a casement bathed with light —
The music of waters in waters falling
To palms from a rocky height.

And I feel that I think my love's awaited
By the romance of her charms;
That her feet are early and mine belated
In a world that chains my arms.

But I break my chains and the rest is easy —
In the shadow of the rose
Snow-white, that blooms in her garden breezy,
We meet and no one knows.

To dream sweet dreams and kiss sweet kisses;
The world – it may live or die;
The world that forgets, the soul that misses
The life that has long gone by.

We speak old vows that have long been spoken,
And weep a long-gone woe, —
For you must know our hearts were broken
Hundreds of years ago.

THE EPIC

"To arms!" the battle bugles blew.
The daughter of their Earl was she,
Lord of a thousand swords and true;
He but a squire of low degree.

The horns of war blew up to horse:
He kissed her mouth; her face was white;
"God grant they bear thee back no corse!" —
"God give I win my spurs to-night!"

Each watch-tower's blazing beacon scarred
A blood-blot in the wounded dark:
She heard knights gallop battleward,
And from the turret leaned to mark.

"My God, deliver me and mine!
My child! my God!" all night she prayed:
She saw the battle beacons shine;
She saw the battle beacons fade.

They brought him on a bier of spears. —
For him – the death-won spurs and name;
For her – the sting of secret tears,
And convent walls to hide her shame.

THE BLIND HARPER

And thus it came my feet were led
To wizard walls that hairy hung
Old as their rock the moss made dead;
And, like a ditch of fire flung
Around it, uncouth flowers red
Thrust spur and fang and tongue.

And here I harped. Did dead men list?
Or was it hollow hinges gnarred
Huge, iron scorn in donjon-twist?
And when I thought a face sword-scarred
Would curse me, lo! a woman kissed
At me hands ringed and starred.

And so I sang; for she had leaned
Rare beauty to me, dark and tall;
I sang of Love, whose Court is queened
Of Aliénor the virginal,
Nor saw how rolled on me a fiend
Wolf-eyeballs from the wall.

Oh, how I sang! until she laughed
Red lips that made lute harmony;
I sang of knights who fought and quaffed
To Love's own paragon, Marie —
Nor saw the suzerain whose shaft
Was bowed and bent on me.

And I had harped until she wept;
But when I sang of Ermengarde
Of Anjou, – where her Court is kept
By brave, by beauty, and by bard, —
She turned a raven there and swept
Me, like a fury, 'ward.

A bleeding beak had pierced my sight;
A crimson claw each cheek had lined;
One glimpse: wild walls of threatening night
Heaped raven battlements behind
A moat of blazing serpents bright —
And then I wandered blind.

ELPHIN

The eve was a burning copper,
The night was a boundless black
Where wells of the lightning crumbled
And boiled with blazing rack,
When I came to the coal-black castle
With the wild rain on my back.

Thrice under its goblin towers,
Where the causey of rock was laid,
Thrice, there at its spider portal,
My scornful bugle brayed,
But never a warder questioned, —
An owl's was the answer made.

When the heaven above was blistered
One scald of blinding storm,
And the blackness clanged like a cavern
Of iron where demons swarm,
I rode in the court of the castle
With the shield upon my arm.

My sword unsheathed and certain
Of the visor of my casque,
My steel steps challenged the donjon
My gauntlet should unmask;
But never a knight or varlet
To stay or slay or ask.

My heels on the stone ground iron,
My fists on the bolts clashed steel; —
In the hall, the roar of the torrent,
In the turret, the thunder's peal; —
And I found her there in the turret
Alone by her spinning-wheel.

She spun the flax of a spindle,
And I wondered on her face;
She spun the flax of a spindle,
And I marvelled on her grace;
She spun the flax of a spindle,
And I watched a little space.

But nerves of my manhood weakened;
The heart in my breast was wax;
Myself but the hide of an image
Out-stuffed with the hards of flax: —
She spun and she smiled a-spinning
A spindle of blood-red flax.

She spun and she laughed a-spinning
The blood of my veins in a skein;
But I knew how the charm was mastered,
And snapped in the hissing vein;
So she wove but a fiery scorpion
That writhed from her hands again…

Fleeing in rain and in tempest,
Saw by the cataract's bed, —
Cancers of ulcerous fire,
Wounds of a bloody red, —
Its windows glare in the darkness
Eyes of a dragon's head.

PRE-ORDINATION

She bewitched me in my childhood,
And the witch's charm is hidden —
Far beyond the wicked wildwood
I shall find it, I am bidden.

She commands me, she who bound me
With soft sorcery to follow;
In a golden snare who wound me
To her bosom's snowy hollow…

Comes a night-dark stallion sired
Of the wind; a mare his mother
Whom Thessalian madness fired,
And the hurricane his brother.

Then my soul delays no longer:
Though the night around is scowling,
Keenly mount him blacker, stronger
Than the tempest that is howling.

At our ears wild shadows whistle;
Brazen forks the lightning o'er us
Flames; and huge the thunder's missile
Bursts behind us, drags before us.

Over fire-scorched fields of stubble;
Iron forests dark with wonder;
Evil marshes black with trouble;
Nightmare torrents thundering under:

In the thorn that past us races,
Harelipped hags like crows are rocking;
Stunted oaks have dwarf-like faces
Gnarled that leer an impish mocking:

Rocks, in which the storm is hooting,
Thrust a humpbacked murder over;
Bristling heaths, dead thistles shooting,
Raven-haunted gibbets cover:

Each and all are passed, like water
Under-rolled into a cavern,
Till we see the Devil's daughter
Waiting at the Devil's tavern.

And we stay; I drain the beaker
In her hand; the draught is fire;
World-remembrances grow weaker,
And my spirit, one desire.

Course it! course it! Darkness passes
Like an uprolled banner tattered;
Walled before us mountain masses
Rise like centuries unscattered.

And the storm flies ragged. Slowly
Comes a moon of copper-color,
And the evil night grows holy,
Mists the wild ride growing duller.

In the round moon's angry scanning,
Demon-swift cross spider arches
Of the web-thick bridges spanning
Chasms of her kingdom's marches.

We have reached her kingdom, olden
As the sea that sighs its sadness;
Rocks and trees and sands are golden,
And the air a golden gladness.

Shapely ingots are the flowers,
And the waters, amber brightness;
Gold-bright, song-birds in the bowers
Sing with eyes of diamond whiteness.

And she meets me with a chalice
Like the Giamschid ruby burning,
And I drain it without malice,
To her towers of topaz turning.

Many hundred years forgetting
All that's earth: within her power
I possess her: naught regretting
Since each year is as an hour.

AT THE STILE

Young Harry leapt over the stile and kissed her,
Over the stile the stars a-winking;
He thought it was Mary – 't was Mary's sister —
And love hath a way of thinking.

"Thy pail, sweetheart, I will take and carry." —
Over the stile the stars hang yellow. —
"Just to the spring, my sweetheart Harry." —
And love is a heartless fellow.

"Thou saidst me yea when the frost did shower
Over the stile from stars a-shiver." —
"I say thee nay now the cherry-trees flower,
And love is taker and giver."

"O false! thou art false to me, sweetheart!" —
Over the stile the stars a-glister.
"To thee, the stars, and myself, sweetheart,
I never was aught save Mary's sister.

"Sweet Mary's sister and thou my Harry,
Her Harry and mine, but mine the weeping:
In a month or twain you two will marry —
And I in my grave be sleeping."

Alone among the meadows of millet,
Over the stile the stars pursuing,
Some tears in her pail as she stoops to fill it —
And love hath a way of doing.

THE ALCALDE'S DAUGHTER

The times they had kissed and parted
That night were over a score;
Each time that the cavalier started,
Each time she would swear him o'er,

"Thou art going to Barcelona! —
To make Naxera thy bride!
Seduce the Lady Yöna! —
And thy lips have lied! have lied!

"I love thee! I love thee, thou knowest!
And thou shalt not give away
The love to my life thou owest;
And my heart commands thee stay! —

"I say thou hast lied and liest! —
For where is there war in the state? —
Thou goest, by Heaven the highest!
To choose thee a fairer mate.

"Wilt thou go to Barcelona
When thy queen in Toledo is?
To wait on the haughty Yöna,
When thou hast these lips to kiss?"

And they stood in the balcony over
The old Toledo square:
And weeping she took for her lover
A red rose out of her hair.

And they kissed farewell; and higher
The moon made amber the air:
And she drew for the traitor and liar
A stiletto out of her hair…

When the night-watch lounged through the quiet
With the stir of halberds and swords,
Not a bravo was there to defy it,
Not a gallant to brave with words.

One man, at the corner's turning,
Quite dead. And they stoop or stand —
In his heart a dagger burning,
And a red rose crushed in his hand.

AT THE CORREGIDOR'S

To Don Odora says Donna De Vine:
"I yield to thy long endeavor! —
At my balcony be on the stroke of nine,
And, Signor, am thine forever!"

This beauty but once had the Don descried
As she quit the confessional; followed;
"What a foot for silk! a face for a bride —
Hem – !" the rest Odora swallowed.

And with vows as soft as his oaths were sweet
Her heart he barricaded;
And pressed this point with a present meet,
And that point serenaded.

What else could the enemy do but yield
To a handsome importuning!
A gallant blade with a lute for shield
All night at her lattice mooning!

"Que es estrella! O lily of girls!
Here's that for thy fierce duenna:
A purse of pistoles and a rosary o' pearls
And gold as yellow as henna.

"She will drop from thy balcony's rail, my sweet!
My seraph! this silken ladder;
And then – sweet then! – my soul at thy feet
No lover of lovers gladder!"

And the end of it was! – But I will not say
How he won to the room of the lady: —
Ah! to love is life and to live is gay,
For the rest – a maravedi!

Now comes her betrothed from the wars, and he,
A Count of the Court Castilian,
A Don Diabolus, sword at knee,
And moustaches – uncivilian.

And his is a jealous love; and – for
He marks that this marriage makes sadder —
He watches, and sees a robber to her,
Or gallant, ascend a ladder.

So he pushes inquiry unto her room,
With his naked sword demanding —
An Alquazil with the face of Doom,
Sure of a stout withstanding.

And weapon to weapon they foined and fought;
Diabolus' thrusts were vicious;
Three thrusts to the floor Odora had brought,
A fourth was more malicious,

Through the offered bosom of Donna De Vine —
And this is the Count's condition …
Was he right, was he wrong? the question is mine,
To judge – for the Inquisition.

THE PORTRAIT

In some quaint Nürnberg maler-atelier
Uprummaged. When and where was never clear,
Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom
'T was painted – who shall say? itself a gloom
Resisting inquisition. I opine
It is a Dürer. Humph? – that touch, this line
Are not deniable; distinguished grace
In the pure oval of the noble face;
The color badly tarnished. Half in light
Extend it, so; incline; the exquisite
Expression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn,
Imperial beauty; icy, each a thorn
Of light – disdainful eyes and … well! no use!
Effaced and but beheld, a sad abuse
Of patience. Often, vaguely visible,
The portrait fills each feature, making swell
The soul with hope: avoiding face and hair
Alive with lively warmth; astonished there
"Occult substantial!" you exult, when, ho!
You hold a blur; an undetermined glow
Dislimns a daub. – Restore? – ah, I have tried
Our best restorers, all! it has defied …
Storied, mysterious, say, mayhap a ghost
Lives in the canvas; hers, some artist lost,
A duchess', haply. Her he worshipped; dared
Not tell he worshipped; from his window stared
Of Nuremburg one sunny morn when she
Passed paged to court. Her cold nobility
Loved, lived for like a purpose; seized and plied
A feverish brush – her face! despaired and died.

The narrow Judengasse; gables frown
Around a skinny usurer's, where brown
And dirty in a corner long it lay,
Heaped in a pile of riff-raff, such as – say,
Retables done in tempora and old
Panels by Wohlgemuth; stiff paintings cold
Of martyrs and apostles, names forgot;
Holbeins and Dürers, say, a haloed lot
Of praying saints, madonnas: such, perchance,
Mid wine-stained purples mothed; a whole romance
Of crucifixes, rosaries; inlaid
Arms Saracen-elaborate; a strayed
Niello of Byzantium; rich work
In bronze, of Florence; here a delicate dirk,
There holy patens.

So, my ancestor,
The first De Herancour, esteemed by far
This piece most precious, most desirable;
Purchased and brought to Paris. It looked well
In the dark panelling above the old
Hearth of his room. The head's religious gold,
The soft severity of the nun face,
Made of the room an apostolic place
Revered and feared. —

Like some lived scene I see
That Gothic room; its Flemish tapestry:
Embossed above the aged lintel, shield —
Deep Or-enthistled, in an Argent field
Three Sable mallets – arms De Herancour,
Carved with the torso of the crest that bore,
Outstretched, two mallets. Lozenge-paned, embayed,
Its slender casements; on a lectern laid,
A vellum volume of black-lettered text;
Near by a blinking taper – as if vexed
With silken gusts a nervous curtain sends,
Behind which, maybe, daggered Murder bends; —
Waxed floors of rosy oak, whereon the red
Torchlight of Medicean wrath is shed,
Down knightly corridors; a carven couch
Sword-slashed; dark velvets of the chairs that crouch,
It seems, with fright; clear-clashing near, more near,
The stir of searching steel.

What find they here? —
'T is St. Bartholomew's – a Huguenot
Dead in his chair? – dead! violently shot
With horror, eyes glued on a portrait there,
Coiling his neck one blood line, like a hair
Of finest fire; the portrait, like a fiend, —
Looking exalted visitation, – leaned
From its black panel; in its eyes a hate
Demonic; hair – a glowing auburn, late
A dim, enduring golden.
"Just one thread
Of the fierce hair around his throat," they said,
"Twisting a burning ray, he – staring-dead."