Ballads of Lost Haven Part 8

Halting a moment to converse With old Babette who had been my nurse,

There pa.s.sed through the stalls a woman, bright With a kirtle of cinnabar and white

Among the kerseys blue; and I said, "Who is it, Babette, with lifted head,

"And the startled look, possessed and strange, Under the paint--secure from change?"

"Ah, 'Sieur Jean, do ye not ken Of the eerie folk of Bareau Fen?"

I blenched, and she knew too well I wist The fearsome fate of the goblin tryst.

"The street is a cruel home, 'Sieur Jean, But a weird uncanny drives her on.

"'Tis a bitter tale for Christian folk, How once she dreamed, and how she woke."

"Ay, ay!" I pa.s.sed and reached the spring Where the poplars kept their whispering,

Hid for an hour in the shade, In the rank marsh gra.s.s of a tiny glade.

There crossed the moor from the town afar, In kirtle of white and cinnabar,

A wanderer on that plain of tears, Bowed with a burden not of the years,

As one that goeth sorrowing For many an unforgotten thing.

To the crystal well as the sun drew low There came that harridan of woe.

She stooped to drink; I heard her cry: "Ah, G.o.d, how tired out am I!

"I called him by the dearest name A girl may call; I have my shame.

"'Yet death is crueller than life,'

Once they said, 'for all the strife.'

"And so I lived; but the wild will, Broken and bitter, drives to ill.

"And now I know, what no one saith, That love is crueller than death.

"How I did love him! Is love too high, My G.o.d, for such lost folk as I?"

Her tears went down to the gra.s.s by the well, In that pa.s.sion of grief, and where they fell

Windflowers trembled pale and white.

A craven I crept away from the sight;

And turned me home to St. Louis' Hall, Where the sunflowers burn by the eastern wall.

The vesper frankincense that day Rose to the rafters and melted away,

And was no more than a cloud that stirs Among the spires of Norway firs.

And I said, "The holy solitude Of the h.o.a.ry crypt and the wild green wood

"Are one to the G.o.d I have never known, Whose kingdom has neither bourn nor throne."

V

Now I am old, and the years delay; But I know, I know, there will come a day,--

When April is over the Norland town.

And the loosened brooks from the hills go down,

When tears have quenched the sorrow of time,-- Wherein the earth shall rebuild her prime,

And the houses of dark be overthrown; When the goblin maids shall love their own,--

Their arms forever unlaced from their hold Of the earls of the sea on that alien wold,--

And the f.e.c.kless light of their golden eyes Shall forget the desire that made them wise;

When the hands of the foam shall beckon and flee.

And the Kelpie riders ride for the sea;

And the whip-poor-will the whole night long Repeat his litanies of song,

Till morning whiten the world again, And the flowers revive on Bareau Fen,

Over the acres of calm Roch.e.l.le Fresh by the stream of the crystal well.

NOONS OF POPPY

Noons of poppy, noons of poppy, Scarlet leagues along the sea; Flaxen hair afloat in sunlight, Love, come down the world to me!

There's a Captain I must s.h.i.+p with, (Heart, that day be far from now!) Wears his dark command in silence With the sea-frost on his brow.

Noons of poppy, noons of poppy, Purple shadows by the sea; How should love take thought to wonder What the destined port may be?

Nay, if love have joy for s.h.i.+pmate For a night-watch or a year, Dawn will light o'er Lonely Haven, Heart to happy heart, as here.

Noons of poppy, noons of poppy, Scarlet acres by the sea Burning to the blue above them; Love, the world is full for me.

LEGENDS OF LOST HAVEN