Volume I Part 29 (1/2)
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath, Then her finger moved in the moonlight, Her musket shattered the moonlight, Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him--with her death.
VIII
He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear How Bess, the landlord's daughter, The landlord's black-eyed daughter, Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.
IX
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky, With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat, When they shot him down on the highway, Down like a dog on the highway, And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
X
_And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, A highwayman comes riding-- Riding--riding-- A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door._
XI
_Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard; He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred; He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there But the landlord's black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord's daughter, Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair._
THE HAUNTED PALACE
Come to the haunted palace of my dreams, My crumbling palace by the eternal sea, Which, like a childless mother, still must croon Her ancient sorrows to the cold white moon, Or, ebbing tremulously, With one pale arm, where the long foam-fringe gleams, Will gather her rustling garments, for a s.p.a.ce Of m.u.f.fled weeping, round her dim white face.
A princess dwelt here once: long, long ago This tower rose in the sunset like a prayer; And, through the witchery of that cas.e.m.e.nt, rolled In one soft cataract of faery gold Her wonder-woven hair; Her face leaned out and took the sacred glow Of evening, like the star that listened, high Above the gold clouds of the western sky.
Was there no prince behind her in the gloom, No crimson shadow of his rich array?
Her face leaned down to me: I saw the tears Bleed through her eyes with the slow pain of years, And her mouth yearned to say-- ”Friend, is there any message, from the tomb Where love lies buried?” But she only said-- ”Oh, friend, canst thou not save me from my dead?
”Canst thou not minister to a soul in pain?
Or hast thou then no comfortable word?
Is there no faith in thee wherewith to atone For his unfaith who left me here alone, Heart-sick with hope deferred; Oh, since my love will never come again, Bring'st thou no respite through the desolate years, Respite from these most unavailing tears?”
Then saw I, and mine own tears made response, Her woman's heart come breaking through her eyes; And, as I stood beneath the tower's grey wall, She let the soft waves of her deep hair fall Like flowers from Paradise Over my fevered face: then all at once Pity was pa.s.sion; and like a sea of bliss Those waves rolled o'er me drowning for her kiss.
Seven years we dwelt together in that tower, Seven years in that old palace by the sea, And sitting at that cas.e.m.e.nt, side by side, She told me all her pain: how love had died Now for all else but me; Yet how she had loved that other: like a flower Her red lips parted and with low sweet moan She pressed their tender suffering on mine own.
And always with vague eyes she gazed afar, Out through the cas.e.m.e.nt o'er the changing tide; And slowly was my heart's hope brought to nought That some day I should win each wandering thought And make her my soul's bride: Still, still she gazed across the cold sea-bar; Ay; with her hand in mine, still, still and pale, Waited and watched for the unreturning sail.