Whom she chooses to change, she’ll choke the voice
In his throat. Thickly, like a thing without sense,
Growling and grunting, grovelling four-foot,
He will pad upon paws. Pelt coats him round,
He is a brute beast then, once her bonds catch him.
The other half of my old shipmates
She bewitched in her wood. It is the way she deals.
Therefore I lurk alone in the land between
Twixt the devil and the deep. I am in dread of both,360
Either the stone or the sty. But here I stay, hoping
Always, if ever such an hour should come.
To drink before I die out of the deep tankard,
And to eat ham and eggs in my home country
That is the weald of Kent. And I wish that I was there.’
Doubts came darkening and all grew dull within,
Cold and clouded with clinging dread,
At this new story. Noon was burning
Bright about us. I bade the dwarf
To lead me, though he was loth, to the lair of the mage.370
Willingly he would not. But with word of threat,
With coaxing and with kicks, he must come at the last,
Following me; a faltering, faint-hearted guide.
Over hedge, over ditch, over high, over low,
By waters and wood I went and ran
Till many a mile was marched away.
I swung no more my sword as I walked;
Little stomach to laugh had I,
And shuffling, and shaking on his shoulders his shaggy head came the dwarf,
Cunningly catching all occasions to creep aside out of the way.380
Every mile, he would be asking for another rest. If I had let him,
The task would have been interminable, the tale wanted an ending.
Day was dropping to the dazzling plain
Of the waves westward. Winging homeward
Came the flying flocks; flowers were closing,
Level light over the land was poured.
I looked to my left in a low valley
Among quiet flowers. Queen-like there stood
A marble maid, mild of countenance,
Her lips open, her limbs so lithe390
Made for moving, that the marble death
Seemed but that moment to have swathed her round.
Her beauty made me bow as a brute to the earth.
To have won a word of her winsome mouth,
Scorn or sweetness, salutation,
Bidding or blessing, I would have borne great pain.
Longing bade me to lay my cheek
On the cool, carven countenance, and worshipping
To kiss the maid, if so she might come awake.
Awe forbade me, and her anger feared.400
Then I was ware in a while of one behind;
There stood in stole that stately fell
And swept, beneath, the sward, a man.
The beard upon his bos’m, burnt-gold in hue
Grew to his girdle. That was the gravest man,
Of amplest brow, and his eye steadiest,
And his mien mightiest, that I have met in earth.
Then I gathered more sure my grip upon the sword,
And for clear arm-play I cast aside
From shoulder my sack. The silly dwarf410
Caught and kept it. He was cold at heart
Whimpering and woebegone. The wizard spoke:
‘Second counsels, my son, are best.
If my art aid not, in empty land,
Lonely and longing for a lifeless stone,
Here you may harbour. What help is that?
Marble minds not a man’s desire,
Cold lips comfort him neither with kiss nor speech,
Nor will her arms open. Eager lover,
Not even the art of this old master420
Can wake, as you want, this woman here.
Chaste, enchanted, till the change of the world,
In beauty she abides. Nor breath, nor death,
Touches nor troubles her. You can be turned and made
Nearer to her nature; not she to yours
Ever. Only your own changing,
Boy, can bring you, where your bride waits you,
If you are love-learned to so large a deed.
You think, being a thrall, that it is thorough death
To be made marble and to move no limb.430
Wise men are wary. Once only fools
Look before leaping. Lies were told you.
Fear was informer;9 else you had freely craved,
If your master had been love, to be made even now
Like to the Lady. It was your loins told you,
And your belly, and your blood, and your blind servants
Five, who are unfaithful. Fear had moved them.
For their fading and their fall is the first waking,
And their night the noon, of a new master,440
Peace after pleasure. Passionless for the stonemen10
Life stands limpid. Left far behind
Is that race rushing over its roar’d cataracts,
The murmuring, mixed, much thwarted stream
Of the flesh, flowing with confused noise,
Perishing perpetually. Had you proved one hour
Their blessed life whose blood is stilled,
—How they hearken to the heavens raining
Starry influence in the still of night,
Feel the fingers, far below them450
Of the earth’s archon in an ancient place
Moulding metals: how among them steals,
As the moon moves them when the month flows full,
Love and longing, that is unlike mortals’
Dreams of druery, drawn from further,
Nobler in nature—you would know ’tis small
Wonder if they will not to wander any more.
Life has left them, whoso looks without;
All things are other on their inner side.
This child that I have changed with the chalice of peace,460
Was my own daughter. I, pondering much,
Gave her the greatest of gifts I knew.
Long she was in labour in a land of dread,
Tangled in torments. The toils had her,
And her wild mother, witch-hearted queen,
Delayed her in that lair. Long since it was
When the woman was my wife. Worse befell her
After, when she was evil. By arts she stole
The golden flute, that was a gift fashioned
For my dear daughter, and a daemon’s work,470
The earth’s archon of old made it.
She took the toy. To touch the stops
Or to make with her mouth the music it held,
Art she had not. Envy moved her.
She was changed at heart. My child she stole,
Fled to the forests: found there comrades,
Beasts and brambles and brown shadows,
With whom she holds. Half this island
Wrongly she has ravished. I am its rightful lord.
Where she flung the flute as she fled thither,480
No man knoweth. None the richer
Was the thief of her theft: but that she thinks it wealth
If another ail. She aches at heart.
Second counsels, oh son, are best.
All things are other on their inner side.’
He spoke those words. They sped so well,
What for the maiden’s love and the man’s wisdom,
Awed and eager, I asked him soon
For a draught of that drink. Drought parched my throat.
Cold and crystal in the cup it glanced,490
White like water. In the west, scarlet,
Day was dying. Dark night apace
Over11 earth’s eastern edge towards us
Came stri
ding up. Stars, one or two,
Had lit their lamps. My lip was set
To the cold border of the cup. The dwarf
Cried out and crossed himself: ‘This is a crazy thing!
Dilly, dilly, as the duckwife said,
Come and let me kill you. Catch younger trouts, Sir,
Tickling, tickling, with no trouble at all.’500
‘What meddling mite,’ said the man of spells,
‘Creeps in my country? Clod! Earth thou art,
Unworthy to be worked to a white glory
Of stable stone. But stay not long,
Base, mid thy betters! Or into boggy peats,
Slave, I’ll sing thee.’ But he skipped away
Light and limber, though his limbs were crook’d.
Out of the bag that he bore on his brown shoulder
—He had caught it and kept when I cast it away—
The dwarf deftly12 drew the flute out,510
Gold and glittering. Grinned while he spoke,
‘All things, ogre, have another side.
I trust even now, by a trick I have learnt,
That I shall drink before I die out of a deep tankard
In the weald of Kent, will you, nill you!’
He laid his lip to the little flute.
Long and liquid,—light was waning—
The first note flowed. Then faster came,
Reedily, ripple-like, running as a watercourse,
Meddling of melodies, moulded in air,520
Pure and proportional. Pattering as the rain-drops
Showers of it, scattering silverly, poured on us,
Charmed the enchanter that he was changed and wept,
At the pure, plashing, piping of the melody,
Coolly calling, clearer than a nightingale,
Defter and more delicate. Dainty the division of it,
True the trilling and the turns upon itself,
Sweet the descending. For it sang so well,
First he fluted off his flesh away
The shaggy hair; and from his shoulders next530
Heaved by harmonies the hump away;
Then he unbandied, with a burst of beauty, his legs,
Standing straighter as the strain loudened.
I saw that the skin was smoother on his face
Than a five-year boy’s. He was the fairest thing
That ever was on earth. Either shoulder
Was swept with wings; swan’s down they were,
Elf-bright his eyes. Evening darkened,
The sun had set. Over the sward he danced,
With arms open, as an eager boy540
Leaps towards his lover. I looked whither.
Noble creatures were coming near, and more
Stirring, as I saw them, out of stone bondage,
Stirring, and descending from their still places,
And every image shook, as an egg trembles
Over the breaking beak. Through the broad garden
—The dew drenched it—drawn, ev’n as moths,
To that elf’s glimmering, his old shipmates
Moved to meet him. There, among, was tears,
Clipping and kissing. King they hailed him,550
Men, once marble, that were his mates of old,
Fair in feature and of form godlike,
For the stamp of the stone was still on them
Carved by the wizard. They kept, and lived,
The marble mien. They were men weeping,
Round the dwarf dancing to his deft fingers.
Then was the grey garden as if the gods of heaven
On the carol dancing had come and chos’n
The flowers folded, for their floor to dance.
Close beside me, as when a cloud brightens560
When, mid thin vapours, through comes the sun,
The marble maid, under mask of stone,
Shook and shuddered. As a shadow streams
Over the wheat waving, over the woman’s face
Life came lingering. Nor was it long after
Down its blue pathways, blood returning
Moved, and mounted to her maiden cheek.
Breathing broadened her breast. Then light
From her eyes’ opening all that beauty
Worked into woman. So the wonder was complete,570
Set, precipitate, and the seal taken,
Clear and crystal the alchemic change,
Bright and breathing. In my breast faltering
My spirit was spent. Speech none I found,
Standing by13 the stranger who was stone before.
But the wing’d wonder—wide rings they danced
Over the flowers folded to his fluting sweet—
Danced to my dear one. Druery he taught her,
Bent her, bowed her, bent never before,
Brought her, blushing as it were a bride mortal,580
To hold to her heart my head as I kneeled,
Faint in that ferly: frail, mortal man,
Till I was love-learned both to learn and teach
Love with that lady. Nor was it long after
That the man of spells moved and started
As one that wakes. ‘Weary it is to me
To remember much. Miseries innumerable
Have ruled in this realm. I will run quickly
West to the woodland, to the wild city,
Haply my love lives yet. Long time I’ve borne590
Hate and hungering. Now is harvest come,
Now is the hour striking, the ice melting,
The bond broken, and the bride waiting.’
All in order—the old one led—
On flowers folded, to flute music,
Forth we followed. No fays lightlier
Dance and double in their dew’d ringlet
On All Saints Eve. Earth-breathing scents
On mildest breeze moved towards us.
Cobwebs caught us. Clear-voiced, an owl600
To his kind calling clove the darkness,14
The fox, further, was faint barking.
We came quickly to the country of downs
That lies so long between the land of dread
And the grim garden. Glory breaking
Unclosed the clouds. Clear and golden
Out into the open swam the orb’d splendour
Of a moon, marvellous. Magic called her.
Pale as paper, where she poured her ray
The downs lay drenched. Dark before us,610
Stilly standing, was the stern frontier
Of the aisled forest. Out thence there came
Thunder, I thought it. Thick copses broke.
From dread darkness, with drumming hoofs,
Swept the centaurs, swift in onset,
Abreast, embattled, as a broad army,
To that elf’s glimmering. They were his old shipmates,
Unenchanted, as those others were,
Bettered after beasthood. They had the brows of men,
Tongues to talk with, and, to touch the string,620
Hands for harping. But the horse lingered,
And the mark of their might, as magic had wrought,
The stamp of that strength was still on them.
Hands for harping, hoofs for running,
Mighty stallions, that were men weeping
Round the dwarf dancing to his deft music.
First before them ran the fairest one,
Comeliest of the courses; king-like his eye,
Proud his pawing and his pomp of speed,
Big and bearded. On his back riding—630
Such courtesy he could—there came, so fair,
The lady of the land, lily-breasted,
Gentle and rejoicing. The magician’s love
Made her beauty burn as a bright ruby
Or as a coal on fire, under cool moonlight,
And swam in her eyes till she swooned almost
Bending her body to his back on whom she rode.
&n
bsp; And now full near those nations stood,
That king’s courtiers whom he had carved in stone,
And the wide flung wings of the woman’s horse,640
Both as for battle; all the beauty of his,
The strength of hers. Straightway they fell
To talk, those two. Their tale was sweet
In all our ears. Earth stood silent.
Either answered other softly.
HIC: ‘My love’s laughter is light falling
Through broad branches in brown woodland,
On a cold fountain, in a cave darkling,
A mild sparkling in mossy gloom.’
ILLA: ‘But my lord’s wisdom is light breaking,650
And sound shaking, a sundered tomb.’
HIC: ‘My love’s looking is long dimness
And stars’ influence. In strange darkness
Her eyes open their orb’d dreaming
As a huge, gleaming15 mid-harvest moon.’
ILLA: ‘But my lord’s looking is the lance darted
Through mists parted when morn comes soon.’
HIC: ‘Thy dear bosom is a deep garden
Between high hedges where heat burns not,
Where no rains ruin and no rimes harden,660
A closed garden, where climbs no snake.’
ILLA: ‘But thy dear valour is a deep, rolling,
And a tower tolling strong towns awake.’
HIC: ‘My friend’s beauty is the free springing
Of the world’s welfare from the womb’d ploughland,
The green growing, the great mothering,
Her breast smothering with her brood unfurled.’
ILLA: ‘But my friend’s beauty is the form minted
Above heav’n, printed on the holy world.’
So they were singing. The song was done.670
When either in arms other folded
Fondly and fairly, fire-red was she,
Fire-white the sage. The fields of air
Beamed more brightly. About the moon
More than a myriad mazy weavings
Of fire flickered. Far off there rolled
Summer thunder. The sage all mild
For the maid and for me his mouth opened,
‘The air of earth this other two
Must breathe in breast. Now broad ocean680
Smiles in sleeping and smoother winds
Favour, let us find them a ferry hence.
This elf also, even as he wished for,
Hoping, while he was helpless, for his home country,
Earth of England, unenchanted,
Let us send on the sea. He served us well,
MULTUM AMAVIT, which is of most virtue,
In heav’n and here and in hell under us.’
Centaurs swiftly, when he said, were gone,
Glorying in gallop to the great forest.690
Heaving hardily, whole trees they tore
From earth upward. Echoing ruin