beast
Or of pernicious man! If I must die
Be it upon this hallowed ground, O Lord!

[Hides in the hut.

Enter a young KNIGHT.

KNIGHT [reining in his horse].

Rest, Albus, rest.—Doth the sun sink in glory
Because he sinks to rise?—
Breathe here a space; here bends the promontory,
There Acra's haven lies.
Those specks are galleys waiting for the gale
To make for Christian shores.
To-morrow they will fly with bellying sail
And plash of swinging oars,
Bearing us both to where the freeman tills
The plot where he was born,
And belfry answers belfry from the hills
Above the fields of corn.
Thence one less sea to traverse ere we come
Where all our hopes abide,
One truant journey less to end in home,
Thy mistress, and my bride. [He dismounts.
Good Albus, 't is enough for one day's riding.
Here shall our bivouac be.
Surely by that green sward some brook is hiding
To welcome thee and me.
Yes, hark! Its laugh betrays it. Graze thou there,
Nor fear the camp's alarms.

[Lets the horse go and turns, perceiving the cross on the hillside.

See where a cross, inviting me to prayer,
Outspreads its sacred arms.
O first of many that mine eyes shall see
On altar, tomb, and tower,
Art thou the last of crosses come to me
Before my guerdon's hour?
Or first or last, and by whatever hands
Here planted in the wild,
Hail to thee, cross, that blessest in far lands
Thy champion and thy child.

[Goes up to the cross and kneels before it.
The angel of the Lord appeared to Mary
And she conceived of the Holy Ghost.

[Continues silently.

HERMIT [from within].

All's quiet. God hath made the danger pass.

[Comes out.

Nay, hold! A horse without a rider here?
Perchance a devil, come, if I should mount him,
To gallop with me into yawning hell.
Yet he looks gentle, munching the young grass,
The tempting bridle looped about his neck.
I will go catch him. When the traders pass—
And they pass after Christmas—I will barter
The beast for a good cloak. The winter's blasts
Are on us.

KNIGHT. Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
Be't done to me according to thy word—

[Confutes silently.

HERMIT. A voice! A Christian voice! Some winged angel
Floats through the ether, magnifying God.
Merciful heaven! There, ay, there he kneels
Before the cross I planted. 'T is the cross
That to earth brings down heaven. Yes, Saint Michael,
For he is clad in arms, and his casque fringed
With the bright nimbus of his golden hair.
Yet he seems wingless; if he stirs a limb
The heavy armour clangs. No angel, surely;
Rather Saint George, with steed and magic lance
Returned to fight against the infidel.

KNIGHT. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us.[Continues silently.

HERMIT. Listen! they speak my native tongue in heaven.
Those are the words my sainted mother spake—
Nightly she crooned them, teaching Palmerin
His orisons.

[The KNIGHT rises.

Come, shall I challenge him?
No: I am foul. I will hide crouching here
And spy him as he goes.

KNIGHT. What stirreth there?

[Pushes a branch aside.

HERMIT [falling on his knees].
Have mercy, glorious Saint! a sinful man
Lives in this hovel; no man's enemy
Except his own. Sir, spare an anchorite.

KNIGHT. Fear nothing, holy man. I am a Christian
Although no saint, but sinful more than thou
Who in the desert livest near to God.
My sword is stained with blood, my heart is rash,
And if my youth is free from foul dishonour
'T is God's good mercies hedge my wayward days
And marvellously guide me through the world.
But thou art surely wise. In solitude
The mind of the Most High possesseth men,
And they whom sorrow chaseth from the world
Learn in their grief the purposes of heaven.
God's hand appears in this, that here I find thee
To shrive me, father. Many months I roam
Through heathen wilds in sorry need of shrift.
Who knows if in some luckless fray to-morrow
I bite the dust, or in that golden sea
Perish unknelled and far from Christendom?
A soldier's soul should be like his bright blade
Ready to unsheathe.

HERMIT. O music of high thoughts!
O harmony of long-forgotten words!
Fair visitation! In her youth the soul,
Gathering, the heavy heritage of Adam,
Looks with strange horror on her own abyss
And on the stars, and her increasing knowledge
Ever increaseth sorrow; yet with years,
Touching the depths and wholly mortified,
She sees her desert bloom with mystic flowers
And sweeter smiles of God. O mortal bosom
Both in foreboding and in hope beguiled!
Not where I fancied in my night of trouble
Dawns comfort on mine eyes, but wondrously.
Whence earnest thou? Tell me what princely house
And fruitful country bred and nurtured thee.

KNIGHT. 'T is not a fruitful land. On heathered hills
My father fed his flocks. We gazed not down
On vineyard slopes and waters blue as these
But there a sea of swaying tree-tops spread
Boundless beneath us, without path or tower,
Save where beside the river's bend the monks
Had built their cells and cleared the wood away.
We called it milking time when we could hear
The distant music of their matin chimes.

HERMIT. Be your monks rich?

KNIGHT. Their fields are ploughed and brown
But the poor upland shepherd has no corn;
His flock must feed him with its milk and flesh,
Unless he snare a partridge in the wood
As I did oft, or standing in the brook
Where the green water eddies in the pool
Enmesh the foolish fishes.

HERMIT. Never shepherd
Could bear these arms or show this courtesy.
Where wast thou bred, if thou wast born a hind,
That thou art gentle? Who hath knighted thee?

KNIGHT. The Baron of the Marches is my liege;
To him I owe my nurture and my sword,
And the sweet hope that leads me.

HERMIT. Ah, the faith?

KNIGHT. Nay, that my mother gave me with her prayers,
Saintliest of women.