MUNDI"
BY WALTER S. HINCHMAN
OU may remember how we stood alone,
We silent watched from a high eastern hill
The autumn setting sun, bright as the fires
That burn along the elm-arched ways of fall.
In front stood one small isle of dark green pines,
And by the river smoked an evening fire,
And on the hill beyond a cottage perched
And jutted dark against the western light.
Far, far beyond, in blue that seemed to fade
Yet ever changed to gold or ere it died,
The mountains silent stood against the deep,
Ranging eternal toward an endless west.
We speechless stood forever thus to gaze;
One common thought was ours, one keen desire
To sing, like angels in their melody,
Those mountain peaks against that glowing sky;
A single word for that ethereal blue !
Nay, a mere whispered thought
Immortal aspiration to express
That master workman at his final task.
We thought perchance of young Orestes then,
How he and Pylades stood on the shore,
And gazing at the open, beating sea,
How one oft swung his spangle-hilted sword
Till future deeds took shape and clustered round them,
As star on star springs countless from the night.
And then perhaps a hint of all the pain,
Inexorable fate, impersonal,
Of those snake-locks and of that hideous laughter -
The graceless sisters heralding a Hell.
And all our aspiration infinite
Shrank as the dark drew on.
With all that fair faith run to lees, we left.
Another time together stood we two
Upon the chapel's skyward-pointing tower
Under a winter's moon. The night was cold
And clear; across the glistering snow the hills
Rose white and far, beyond the shadow-land,
Like ghosts against the night. Perhaps we had
Again brave thoughts, perhaps we dreamed once more,
Under that moon-cold sky, of things too far
To fashion, and we prayed, in that pure air,
Faintly to shadow forth the deathless soul
Which nature showed us two at that midnight;
As who should say, 'Come then, 'tis fashioned thus;
Behold you but this single masterpiece.
What! would your aspiration breathe and be,
And then brook bonds of earthly fearfulness;
Wish bravely and then meet defeat, and thus
Failing at every new desire, so end,—
Complacent in eternal apathy?'
The thought of that lost sunset, of that night
When, heart and head, we drank eternity,
Brings Marlowe's' broken branch' to memory:
How, being human, we must e'er aspire;
How being human, we can ne'er attain.
One craftily contrives his handiwork;
Another plies with fingers marvellous :
A silver strand, a bit of beaten brass,
A golden goblet brimmed with burning wine,
A song sung softly on a summer's eve -
The shadow of a glory just to be -
But none hath builded final, quite complete,
Nor can build, nature's deathless masterpiece.
that sunset and that moonlight pure,
The inspiration and the dream, the trace
That in our memories survives, were more
Than fond bright baubles for a child's caprice.
Perchance the thought, the mere wish to express,
Is art in kind as much as finished form;
The shadow strikes, and be it ne'er so faintly
If only in a flickering glimpse of sun —
In shape and manner its original.
They say, 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came;'
Well, then, put slug-horn to your lips and blow!
Not feebly, courting limitations passed,
But blow a brave blast, as you would come through.
For in that shadow's shadow, in that moment's touch
Which tentative shapes all we seek to know,
There lurks a breath of something infinite,
A faint first flash of immortality,
Prophetic of divinity to be.
HE stag was at bay on an autumn day,
And a strange thing did befall;
And the little birds of the wood
Saw it all, saw it all.
The river from the fields of green
Flows through the royal town,
And other freight than ladies gay
The river carries down.
For drifting corpses, so they tell,
At matin-time are seen;
Short shrift and never a passing bell
For the lovers of the queen.
And children waking in the night
May hear a sudden cry;
But the Seine runs deep, the Seine runs fast,
And palace walls are high.
Our lord, the king, upon the floor,
He plays with puppets there,
Woe worth the land, whose king is mad,
And whose queen is passing fair!
Let other women mind their steps
And tell their beads and sigh!
Not she, not she, the gay and proud,
Whom God hath set so high.
Let other women pray, not she,
Whom God hath made so fair;
For Lilith, the witch, that children dread,
Hath not such golden hair.
Her hunting-train swept o'er the bridge,
To seek the forest glade;
And never an honest heart, I trow,
In all that cavalcade.
The nobles at her bridle-rein
To-day they are but three,
The Count of Tours and the Sire d'Auvergne
And the Lord of Picardie.
They entered into the deep forest
By the forge as it did betide,
And who but the farrier's stalwart son,
Stood forth to see her ride.
Oh! a neck of brawn and clustering curls
And a ruddy cheek had he ! -
'Give back, give back, my lords of France, For he shall ride with me!'
They have set him on the huntsman's horse.
Oh! he doth need, I ween,
A steady hand and a gallant heart,
Who rideth with the queen.
Oh! fast the pace, and mad the race,
For youth doth know no fear;
And he and she are the only ones
To see the mort o' the deer.
What word was that she whispered him,
As he bent to her embrace?
The lubberly yokel started back
And struck her in the face!
Oh! a woman's hand is quick and white
And strong as it is fair;
She has stretched him dying at her feet
With the bodkin from her hair.
'Par terre! Par terre! Hah! Halleli!
The horn sounds loud and clear,
The hunt comes rushing down the glade,
To wind the mort o' the deer.
'Now see, my lords, if 'twas well done,
I stand and ask of you;
And whoso gives assent shall kiss
The blood upon my shoe.
Oh! down they lighted on the grass
And quickly bent the knee;
The Count of Tours and the Sire d'Auvergne And the Lord of Picardie.
Oh! then her scorn flashed from its sheath, Like lightning through the trees, —
Small wonder, Lord! what women be,
When men are such as these!
'Ye kiss my hands, ye lick my
Ye call my garments clean,
But here was a man who dared to die
For the honor of his queen.
'Ye shall not cast him to the crows,
Like an unbaptisèd hound,
Ye shall bear his body, with book and bell, To consecrated ground.
'And craven puppets are ye all,
From east and west and south! God knows he was at least a man, Who struck me on the mouth!'
Red were the leaves in the autumn wood,
When the stag to his death did fall;
And the little birds of the wood
Saw it all, saw it all.
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