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THE GOLDEN HELM
Cover
THE
GOLDEN HELM
AND OTHER VERSE
BY
WILFRID WILSON GIBSON
LONDON
ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET
1903
TO
HOWARD PEASE
BY THE SAME WRITER
URLYN THE HARPER AND OTHER SONG
THE QUEEN'S VIGIL AND OTHER SONG
Thanks are due to Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co., for permission to reprint "The King's Death," "The Three Kings," and the first part of "Averlaine and Arkeld," from The Cornhill Magazine; to the editor of Macmillan's Magazine for leave to reprint "In the Valley"; to the editor of The Saturday Review for leave to reprint "Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière"; and to the editors of The Pilot, The Outlook, The Pall Mall Gazette, Country Life, The Week's Survey, and The Broadsheet, for like courtesy with regard to a number of "The Songs of Queen Averlaine."
Contents
The Torch
The Unknown Knight
The King's Death
The Knight of the Wood
Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière
In the Valley
The Vision: a Christmas Mystery
The Three Kings
The Songs of Queen Averlaine
The Golden Helm
The Torch
Through skies blown clear by storm, o'er storm-spent seas,
Day kindled pale with promise of full noon
Of blue unclouded; no night-weary wind
Ruffled the slumberous, heaving deeps to white,
Though round the Farne Isles the waves never sink
In foamless sleep--about the pillared crags
For ever circling with unresting spray.
At dawn's first glimmer, from his island-cell--
Rock-hewn, secure from tempest--Oswald came
With slow and weary step, white-faced and worn
With night-long vigil for storm-perilled souls.
His anxious eye with sharp foreboding bright--
He scanned the treacherous flood; the long froth-trail
That marks the lurking reefs; the jag-toothed chasms
Which, foaming, gape at night beneath the keel--
The mouth of hell to storm-bewildered ships:
But no scar-stranded vessel met his glance.
Relieved, he drank the glistering calm of morn,
With nostril keen and warm lips parted wide;
While, gradually, the sun-enkindled air
Quickened his pallid cheek with youthful flame,
Though lonely years had silvered his dark head,
And round his eyes had woven shadow-meshes.
Clearly he caught the ever-clamorous cries
Of guillemot and puffin from afar,
Where, canopied by hovering, white wings,
They crowded naked pinnacles of rock.
He watched, with eyes of glistening tenderness,
The brooding eider--Cuthbert's sacred bird,
That bears among the isles his saintly name--
Breast the calm waves; a black, wet-gleaming fin
Cleft the blue waters with a foaming jag,
Where, close behind the restless herring-herd,
With ravening maw of death, the porpoise sped.
Oswald, light-tranced, dreamed in the sun awhile;
Till, suddenly, as some old sorrow starts,
Though years have glided by with soothing lull,
The gust of ancient longing rent his bliss:
His narrow isle, as by some darkling spell,
More narrow shrank; the gulls' unceasing cries
Grew still more fretful; and his hermit-life
A sea-scourged desolation to him seemed.
The holy tree of peace--which he had dreamt
Would flourish in the wilderness afresh,
Upspringing ever in new ecstasy
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class="line">Of branching beauty and white blooms of truth,
Till its star-tangling crest should cleave the sky,
And angels rustle through its topmost boughs--
Seemed sapless, rootless. Through his quivering limbs
His famine-wasted youth to life upleapt
With passionate yearning for humanity:
The stir of towns; the jostling of glad throngs;
Welcoming faces and warm-clasping hands;
Yea, even for the lips and eyes of Love
He hungered with keen pangs of old desire:
And, if for him these might not be, he craved
At least the exultation of swift peril--
The red-foamed riot of delirious strife
That rears a bloody crest o'er peaceful shires,
And, slaying, in a swirl of slaughter dies.
With brow uplifted and strained, pulsing throat,
And salt-parched lips out-thrust, unto the sun
He stretched beseeching hands, as though he sought
To snatch some glittering disaster thence.
One moment radiant thus; and then once more
His arms dropped listless, and he slowly shrank
Within his sea-stained habit, cowering dark
Amid the azure blaze of sea and sky.
Then, stirring, with impatient step he moved
Across the isle to where the rocky shore,
Forming a little, crag-encircled bay,
Sloped steeply to the level of the sea;
But, as he neared the edges of the tide,
Startled, he paused, as, marvelling, he saw
A woman on the shelving, wet, black rock,
Lying, forlorn, among the storm-wrack, white
And motionless; still wet, her raiment clung
About her limbs, and with her wet, gold hair
Green sea-weed tangled. Oswald on her looked
Amazed, as one who, in a sea-born trance,
Discovers the lone spirit of the storm,
Self-spent at last, and sunk in dreamless slumber
Within some caverned gloom. Coldly he watched
The little waves creep up the glistening rock,
And, faltering, slide once more into the deep,
As though they feared to waken her: at length,
When one, more venturous, about her stole,
And moved her heavy hair as if with life,
He shuddered; and a lightning-knowledge struck
His heart with fear; and in a flash he knew
That no sea-phantom couched before him lay,
But some frail fellow-creature, tempest-tost,
Hung yet in peril on the edge of death,
Her weak life slipping from the saving grasp
While he delayed. He sprang through plashy weed,
O'er slippery ridges, to the rock whereon
She lay with upturned face and close-shut eyes--
One hand across her breast, the other dipped
Within a shallow pool of emerald water,
With blue-veined fingers clutching the red fronds
Of frail sea-weed. Then Oswald, bending, felt
Upon his cheek the feeble breath that still
Fluttered between the pallid, parted lips.
In trembling haste, he loosed the sodden cords
That bound her to a spar; and with hot hands
He chafed her icy limbs, until the glow
Of life returned. With fitful quivering
The white lids opened; and she looked on him
With dull, unwondering eyes whose deep-sea blue
The gloom of death's late passing shadowed yet;
When suddenly light thrilled them, and bright fear
Flashed from their depths, and, with a little gasp,
She strove to rise; but Oswald with quick words
Calmed her weak terror, and she sank once more,
Closing her eyes; and, gently lifting her
Within his arms--her gold hair hanging straight
And heavy with sea-water, as he plunged
Knee-deep through pools of crackling bladder-weed--
He bore her, unresisting, o'er the isle
Unto the rock-built shelter he had reared,
Some little way apart from his own cell,
For storm-stayed fishers or wrecked mariners.
He laid her on a bed of withered bents,
And ministered to her with gentle hands
And ceaseless care; till, wrapped in warm, deep sleep,
She sank oblivious. Silently he placed
His island-fare beside her on the board,
Lest she should wake in need; then, with hushed step,
He turned to go; but, ere he reached the door,
He paused, and looked again towards the bed,
As though he feared his strange sea-guest might flee
Like some wild spirit, born of wondering foam,
That wins from man the shelter of his breast,
Then, on a night of moon-enchanted tides,
Leaps with shrill laughter to its native seas,
Bearing his soul within its glistening arms,
To drown his peace on earth and hope of heaven
In cold eternities of lightless deeps.
But still in dreamless sleep the stranger lay,
With parted lips and breathing soft and calm;
About her head unloosed, her hair outshone,
Among the grey-green bents, like fine, red gold.
So beautiful she was that Oswald, pierced
With quivering rapture, dared no longer bide,
But, with quick fingers, softly raised the
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latch,
And stumbled o'er the threshold. As he went,
A flock of sea-gulls from the bent-thatched roof
Rose, querulous, and round him, wheeling, swept,
With creaking wings and cold, black eyes agleam;
Yet Oswald saw them not, nor heard their cries;
Nor saw he, as he paced the eastern crags,
How, round the Farnes, the dreaming ocean lay
In broad, unshadowed, sapphire ecstasy,
That glowed to noon through slow, uncounted hours.
His early gloom had vanished; time and space
And earth and sea no longer compassed him;
One thought alone consumed him--beauty slept
Within the shelter of his hermitage,
Upon grey, rustling bents, with golden hair.
He roamed, unresting, till the copper sun
Sank in a steel-grey sea, and earth and sky
Were strewn with shadows--wavering and dim--
To weave a pathway for the dawning moon,
That she, from night's oblivion, might create
With the cold spell of her enchantments old
A phantom earth with magical, bright seas,
A vaster heaven of unrevealed stars.
Unmoving, on a headland of swart crag
That jutted gaunt and sharp against the night,
Stood Oswald, cowled and silent. Hour by hour
He gazed across the sea, which nothing shadowed,
Save where--now dim, now white--a lonely sail
Hung, restless, o'er a fisher's barren toil.
Yet Oswald saw nor sail nor moon nor sea:
His heart kept vigil by the little house
Wherein the stranger slumbered; and it seemed
His life, by some strange power within him stayed,
Awaited the unlatching of the door.
But now, within the hut, the sleeper dreamt
Of foaming caverns and o'erwhelming waters;
Then, shuddering awake, awhile she lay,
And watched the moonlight, cold and white, which poured
Through the warm dusk, from the high window-slit;
When, all at once, the strangeness of the room
Closed in upon her with bewildering dread.
She stirred; the bents, beneath her, rustled strange;
She started in affright, and, swaying, stood
Within the streaming moonlight, till, at last,
In memory, once more disaster swept
Over her life, and left her, desolate,
Upon bleak crags of alien seas unknown.
Yet, through the tumult of tempestuous dark,
Above the echo of despairing cries,
A calm voice sounded; and beyond the whirl
Of foaming death, wherein she caught the gleam
Of well-loved faces drowning in cold seas,
A living face shone out--a beacon clear:
Then numbing fear fell from her, and she moved,
Unlatched the door, and stole into the night.
One moment, dazzled by the full-moon glare,
She paused, a shivering form within the wide
And glittering desolation--lone and frail.
But Oswald, watchful on the eastern scars,
Seeing her, forward came with eager pace
To meet her; and, as he drew swiftly near,
His cowl fell backward; and she knew again
The face that calmed the terrors of her dreams.
Yet, with the knowledge, through her being stole,
Vague fear more strange, more impotent than the blind
Unquestioning dread when death had round her stormed;
No peril of the body could arouse
Such ecstasy of terror in her soul,
Which seemed upborne upon the shivering crest
Of some great wave, just curving, ere it crash
Upon the crags of time. Yet, though she feared
When Oswald paused, uncertain, quick she spake,
As though she sought to parry doom with words.
She questioned him--scarce heeding his replies--
How she had hither come; when, suddenly,
Sped by her fluttering words, the last, dim cloud
Rolled from her memory, and she saw revealed
Within a pitiless glare of naked light
The utmost horror of her desolation.
Mute with despair, she stood with parted lips,
And then cried fiercely: "Hath the sea upcast
None other on this shore? Am I, alone,
Of all my kin who sailed in that doomed ship,
Flung back to life?" And as, with piteous glance,
He answered her: "Ah God, that I, with them,
Had died! O traitor cords that held too sure
My body to the broken spar of life!
O feeble seas, that fumed in such wild wrath,
Yet could not quench so frail a thing as I!"
With passionate step, across the isle she ran,
And leapt from crag to crag, until she stood
Upon a dizzy scar that jutted sheer
Above low-lapping waves. Then once again
Her moaning cry was heard among the Isles:
"O bitter waters, give them back to me!
You shall not keep them; all your waves of woe
Cannot withhold from me those dauntless lives
That were my life. Surely they cannot rest
Without me; even from your unfathomed graves
Surely my love will draw them to my arms!"
As though in tremulous expectation
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tranced,
She yearned, with arms outstretched; as dawn arose
Exultant from the sea, and with clear rays
Kindled her wind-tost hair to streaming flame.
Awhile she stood, then, moaning, slowly sank
Upon the crag; and Oswald came to her
With words of comfort which unloosed her pent
And aching woe in swift, tumultuous tears.
Oswald, in silent anguish, drew apart,
Gazing, unseeing, o'er the dawning waves;
Until at last the tempest of her grief,
In low and fitful sobbing, spent itself;
When, turning to him, once again she spake,
And, shuddering, with faltering voice, outpoured
The tale of her despair: and Oswald heard
How she, who sat thus strangely by his side,
Marna, a sea-earl's daughter, had besought
Her father, when the old sea-hunger lit
His eyes--as waves shot through with stormy fight--
For leave to bear him company but once,
When, with his sons, he rode the adventurous seas;
How he had yielded with reluctant love;
And how, from out the firth of some far strand,
Their galley rode, beneath a flaming dawn;
How her young heart had leapt to see the sails
Unfurled to take the wind, as, one by one,
Toil-glistening rowers shipped the dripping oars,
And loosened every sheet before the breeze;
How, as the ship with timbers all astrain,
Leapt to mid-sea, through Marna's body thrilled
A kindred rapture, and there came to her
The sheer, delirious joy of them true-born
To wander with the foam--each creaking cord
That tugged the quivering mast unto her singing
Of unknown shores and far, enchanted lands,
Beyond the blue horizon; how, all day,
They rode, undaunted, through the spinning surf;
But, as the sun dipped, in the cold, grey tide,
The wind, that since the dawn with steady speed
Had filled the sails, now came in fitful gusts,
Fierce and yet fiercer, till the sullen waves
Were lashed to anger, and the waters leapt
To tussle with the furies of the air;
And how the ship, in the encounter caught,
Was tossed on crests of swirling dark, or dropped
Between o'er-toppling walls of whelming night;
How in those hours--too dread for thought or speech--
Her father's hand had bound her to a spar;
And, even as--the cord between his teeth--
He tugged the last knot sure, the vessel crashed
Upon a cleaving scar; and she but saw
The strong, pale faces looking upon death,
Before the fierce, exultant waters closed
With cold oblivion o'er them; and no more
She knew, until she waked within the hut,
To find her world, in one disastrous night,
In one swift surge of roaring darkness, swept
From her young feet; her kindred, home and friends,
And all familiar hopes and joys and fears
Dropt like a garment from her life, which now
Stood naked on the edge of some new world
Of unknown terrors.
Oswald heard her tale
With pitying glance; yet in his eyes arose
A strange, new light, which as each gust of grief
Shook out the fluttering words, more brightly burned;
So that, when Marna ceased, it seemed to her
That he, in holy contemplation rapt,
Had heeded not her woe; and from her heart
Burst out a cry: "Ah God, I am alone!"
But, stung by her shrill anguish, Oswald waked
From his bright reverie, and his shining eyes
Darkened with swift compassion, as he turned
And, trembling, spake: "Nay, not alone..."
Then mute
He stood--his pale lips clenched--as though within
There surged a torrent which he dared not loose.
Marna looked wondering up; but, when her eyes
Saw the white passion of his face, her soul
Was tossed once more on crests of unknown fears;
Yet rapture warred with terror in her heart;
She trembled, and her breath came short and quick.
She dared not raise her eyes again to his,
Till, on her straining ears, his words, once more,
Fell, slow and cold and clear as water dripping
Between locked sluice-gates: "Nothing need you fear.
Beyond the sea of unknown terrors lie
White havens of an undiscovered peace.
For even this bleak, scar-embattled coast
May yield safe harbour to the storm-spent soul.
Your world has fallen from you that you may
Enter another world, more beautiful,
Built 'neath the shadow of the throne of God.
There shall you find new friends, who yet will seem
Familiar to your eyes, because their souls
Have passed through kindred perils and despairs."
He ceased; and silence, trembling, 'twixt them hung;
Till Marna, gazing yet across the sea,
Rent it with words: "Where may I find this peace?"
And Oswald answered: "In an inland
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dale
The Sisters of the Cross await your coming,
With ever-open gate. Within seven days,
My brethren from the mainland will put out,
Bringing me food; on their return with them
You may embark. Till then, this barren rock
Must be your home." Exultant light once more
Leapt, flashing, in the depths of his dark eyes.
Yet Marna looked not up, but, slowly, spake:
"Yea, I must go.... But you...."
Then in dismay
She stopped, as though the thought had slipped unknown
From her full heart; but Oswald caught the words,
And spake with hard, quick speech, as if to baffle
Some doubt that strove within him: "On this Isle
I bide, till God shall kindle my weak soul
To burn, a beacon o'er His lonely seas."
Once more he paused; and perilous silence swayed
Between them, until Oswald, quaking, rose,
As one who dared no longer rest beneath
O'er-toppling doom. Yet, with calm voice, he spake:
"Even within this wilderness abides
Such beauty that, in your brief sojourn here,
Your soul shall starve not; all about you sweeps
The ever-changing wonder of the sea;
But if, too full of bitter memories,
The bright waves darken, you may lift your eyes
To watch the swooping gull; the flashing tern;
The stately cormorant and the kittiwake--
Most beautiful of all the island-birds;
Or, if your woman's heart should crave some grace
More exquisite, see, frail bell-campions blow,
As foam-flowers on the shallow, sandy turf."
As thus he spake, a light in Marna's eyes
Arose, and sorrow left her for awhile:
And she with bright glance questioned him, and watched
The hovering gulls, and plucked the snowy blooms,
With little cries at each discovered beauty.
Yet Oswald by her side walked silently,
And watched, as one struck mute with anguished fear,
Her eager eyes, and heard her chattering words.
Then, suddenly, he left her, but returned
Within the hour, with faltering step, and spake
With tremulous voice: "We two must part awhile;
For I must keep lone vigil in my cell
Six days and nights, with fasting and with prayer;
Meanwhile, within the little hut for you
Are food and shelter till the brethren come.
When I must give you over to their care."
Marna, with wondering heart, looked up at him;
But such a wild light flickered in his eyes
She dared not speak; and, shuddering, he turned,
And strode back swiftly to the hermitage.
Marna looked after him with yearning gaze,
As though her heart would have her call him back,
Yet her lips moved not; motionless, she watched
Until he passed from sight; then, sinking low
Among the flowers, she wept, she knew not why.
And, as the door closed on him, Oswald fell
Prone on the cold, black, vigil-furrowed rock
That paved his narrow cell; and long he lay
As in the clutch of some dread waking-trance,
Nor stirred until the shadows into night
Were woven. Then unto his feet he leapt
With this wild cry: "O God, why hast Thou sent
This scourge most bitter for my naked soul?
I feared not storm nor solitude, O God;
I shrank not from the tempest of Thy wrath;
Though oft my weak soul wavered, trampled o'er
By deedless hours, and yearned unto the world,
Ever afresh Thy love hath bound me fast
Unto this island of Thy lonely seas;
And I, who deemed that I at last might reach--
I who had come through all--Thy golden haven,
Knew not Thy hand withheld this last despair,
This scourge most bitter, being most beautiful."
Then on his knees he sank, and tried to pray
Before the Virgin's shrine, where ever burned
His votive taper with unfailing light.
But when his lips would breathe the holy name,
His heart cried: "Marna! Marna!" Every pulse
Throbbed "Marna!" And his body shook and swayed,
As though it strove to utter that one word,
And cry it once unto eternal stars,
Though it should perish crying. Through the cell
The silence murmured: "Marna!" And without
A lone gull wailed it to the windy night.
He lifted his wild eyes, and in the shrine
He saw the face of Marna, which outburned
The flickering taper; on the gloom up-surged,
Foam-white, the face of Marna; till the dark
Flowed pitiful o'er him, and on the stone
He sank unconscious. Night went slowly by,
And pale dawn stole in silence through his cell;
And, in the light of morn, the taper died,
With feeble guttering; yet he never stirred,
Though noonday waxed and waned.
But Marna roamed
All night beneath the stars. To her it seemed
That not until the closing of the
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door
Had all hope perished: now death tore, afresh,
Her father and her brothers from her arms.
By day and night and under sun and moon
She roamed unresting--seeing, heeding naught--
Till weariness o'ercame her, and she slept;
And, as she slumbered, snowy-plumed peace
Nestled within her heart; and, when she waked,
She only yearned for that dim, cloistral calm,
Embosomed deep in some bough-sheltered vale,
Whither the boat must bear her.
In his cell,
As night paled slowly to the seventh morn,
Oswald arose--the fire within his eyes
Yet more intense, more fierce. With eager hand
He clutched the latch, and, flinging wide the door,
He strode into the dawn. One moment, dazed,
As though bewildered by the light, he paused;
But, when his glance in restless roving fell
On Marna, standing on the western crag
Against the setting moon, beneath the dawn,
His passion surged upon him, and he shook;
Then, springing madly forth, he, stumbling, ran,
And, falling at her feet upon the rock,
His voice rang out in fearful exultation:
"You shall not go! I cannot let you go!
Has not the tumult tossed you to my breast?
Yea, and not all the storms of all the seas
Shall drag you from me! Nay, you shall not go!
For we will live together on this isle
Which time has builded in the deeps for us--
We two together, one in ecstasy,
Throughout eternity; for time shall fall
From off us; and the world shall be no more:
And God, if God should stand between us now..."
Faltering, he paused; and Marna stood, afraid,
Quaking before him; but she spake no word.
Across the waters came the plash of oars;
But Oswald heard them not, and once more cried:
"You will not go--thrusting me back to death?
For now I know the strange, new thing you brought
For me from out the storm was life--yea, life;
And I am one arisen from the grave.
You will not thrust me back and take again
That which you came through storm to bring to me?
You will not go? I cannot let you go!"
He ceased; and now the even plash of oars
Came clearer. One dread moment Marna stood
Swaying; then, stretching forth her arms, she cried:
"Ah God! Ah God! Why hath Thy cold hand set
This doom upon me? Must I ever bear
Death and disaster unto whom I love?
Oh, is it not enough that, 'neath the wave,
Because I sought to bear them company,
My father and my brothers lie in death?
But this--ah God--that it should come to this!
Must I bear ever death within my hands?"
She paused one moment, with wild-heaving breast;
Then, turning unto Oswald, spake again,
With softer voice: "But you--have you no pity?
You who are but God's servant--surely you
Have pity on my weakness. From this doom
Which overhangs me you must set me free.
You say I brought you life; but in me lies
For you--the priest of God--a death more deep
Than all the drowning fathoms of the sea.
I go, that you may live. If life indeed
I brought you, I was but the torch of God
To kindle the clear flame of your strong soul
To burn, a beacon o'er His lonely seas."
She ceased, with arms outstretched and lighted eyes.
As on some holy vision Oswald gazed
In rapt, adoring fear; nor spake, nor stirred.
Near, and yet nearer, drew the plash of oars;
And, turning in the boat, the brethren looked
With wondering eyes upon them, whispering: "Lo,
Some seraph-messenger of God most high
Tarries with Oswald. See the strange new peace
That burns his face like a white altar-flame.
Not yet must we draw near, lest our weak sight
Be blinded by that glory of gold hair
That gleams so strangely in the light of dawn."