Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (275 page)

And now that all was still through the hall,
 
More clearly we heard the rain
That clamored ever against the glass
 
And the boughs that beat on the pane.

But the fire was bright in the ingle-nook,
  
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And through empty space around
The shadows cast on the arras’d wall
‘Mid the pictured kings stood sudden and tall
 
Like spectres sprung from the ground.

And the bed was dight in a deep alcove;
  
445
 
And as he stood by the fire
The king was still in talk with the Queen
 
While he doffed his goodly attire.

And the song had brought the image back
 
Of many a bygone year;
  
450
And many a loving word they said
With hand in hand and head laid to head;
 
And none of us went anear.

But Love was weeping outside the house,
 
A child in the piteous rain;
  
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And as he watched the arrow of Death,
He wailed for his own shafts close in the sheath
 
That never should fly again.

And now beneath the window arose
 
A wild voice suddenly:
  
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And the King reared straight, but the Queen fell back
 
As for bitter dule to dree;
And all of us knew the woman’s voice
 
Who spoke by the Scottish Sea.

“O King,” she cried, “in an evil hour
  
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They drove me from thy gate;
And yet my voice must rise to thine ears;
 
But alas! it comes too late!

“Last night at mid-watch, by Aberdour,
 
When the moon was dead in the skies
  
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O King, in a death-light of thine own
 
I saw thy shape arise.

“And in full season, as erst I said,
 
The doom had gained its growth;
And the shroud had risen above thy neck
  
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And covered thine eyes and mouth.

“And no moon woke, but the pale dawn broke,
 
And still thy soul stood there;
And I thought its silence cried to my soul
 
As the first rays crowned its hair.
  
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“Since then have I journeyed fast and fain
 
In very despite of Fate,
Lest Hope might still be found in God’s will:
 
But they drove me from thy gate.

“For every man on God’s ground, O King,
  
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His death grows up from his birth
In a shadow-plant perpetually;
And thine towers high, a black yew-tree,
 
O’er the Charterhouse of Perth!”

That room was built far out from the house;
  
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And none but we in the room
Might hear the voice that rose beneath,
 
Nor the tread of the coming doom.

For now there came a torchlight-glare,
 
And a clang of arms there came;
  
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And not a soul in that space but thought
 
Of the foe Sir Robert Græme.

Yea, from the country of the Wild Scots,
 
O’er mountain, valley, and glen,
He had brought with him in murderous league
  
500
 
Three hundred armèd men.

The King knew all in an instant’s flash,
 
And like a King did he stand;
But there was no armor in all the room
 
Nor weapon lay to his hand.
  
505

And all we women flew to the door
 
And thought to have made it fast:
But the bolts were gone and the bars were gone
 
And the locks were riven and brast.

And he caught the pale queen in his arms
  
510
 
As the iron footsteps fell, —
Then loosed her, standing alone, and said,
 
“Our bliss was our farewell!”

And ‘twixt his lips he murmured a prayer,
 
And he crossed his brow and breast;
  
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And proudly in royal hardihood
Even so with folded arms he stood, —
 
The prize of the bloody quest.

Then on me leaped the Queen like a deer:
 
“Catherine, help!” she cried.
  
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And low at his feet we clasped his knees
 
Together side by side.
“Oh! even a King, for his people’s sake,
 
From treasonous death must hide!”

“For
her
sake most!” I cried, and I marked
  
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The pang that my words would wring.
And the iron tongs from the chimney-nook
 
I snatched and held to the King: —
“Wrench up the plank! and the vault beneath
 
Shall yield safe harboring.”
  
530

With brows low-bent, from my eager hand
 
The heavy heft did he take;
And the plank at his feet he wrenched and tore:
And as he frowned through the open floor,
 
Again I said, “For her sake!”
  
535

Then he cried to the Queen, “God’s will be done!”
 
For her hands were clasped in prayer.
And down he sprang to the inner crypt;
And straight we closed the plank he had ripp’d
 
And toiled to smoothe it fair.
  
540

(Alas! in that vault a gap once was
 
Wherethro’ the King might have fled;
But three days since close-walled had it been
By his will; for the ball would roll therein
 
When without at the palm he play’d.)
  
545

Then the Queen cried, “Catherine, keep the door,
 
And I to this will suffice!”
At her word I rose all dazed to my feet,
 
And my heart was fire and ice.

And louder ever the voices grew,
  
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And the tramp of men in mail;
Until to my brain it seemed to be
As though I tossed on a ship at sea
 
In the teeth of a crashing gale.

Then back I flew to the rest; and hard
  
555
 
We strove with sinews knit
To force the table against the door;
 
But we might not compass it.

Then my wild gaze sped far down the hall
 
To the place of the hearthstone-sill;
  
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And the Queen bent ever above the floor,
 
For the plank was rising still.

And now the rush was heard on the stair,
 
And “God, what help?” was our cry.
And was I frenzied or was I bold?
  
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I looked at each empty stanchion-hold,
 
And no bar but my arm had I!

Like iron felt my arm, as through
 
The staple I made it pass: —
Alack! it was flesh and bone — no more!
  
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’Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door,
 
But I fell back Kate Barlass.

With that they all thronged into the hall,
 
Half dim to my failing ken;
And the space that was but a void before
  
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Was a crowd of wrathful men.
Behind the door I had fall’n and lay,
 
Yet my sense was wildly aware,
And for all the pain of my shattered arm
 
I never fainted there.
  
580

Even as I fell, my eyes were cast
 
Where the King leaped down to the pit;
And lo! the plank was smooth in its place,
 
And the Queen stood far from it.

And under the litters and through the bed
  
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And within the presses all
The traitors sought for the King, and pierced
 
The arras around the wall.

And through the chamber they ramped and stormed
 
Like lions loose in the lair,
  
590
And scarce could trust to their very eyes, —
 
For behold! no King was there.

Then one of them seized the Queen, and cried, —
 
“Now tell us, where is thy lord?”
And he held the sharp point over her heart:
  
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She dropped not her eyes nor did she start,
 
But she answered never a word.

Then the sword half pierced the true true breast:
 
But it was the Græme’s own son
Cried, “This is a woman, — we seek a man!”
  
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And away from her girdle-zone
He struck the point of the murderous steel;
 
And that foul deed was not done.

And forth flowed all the throng like a sea,
 
And ’twas empty space once more;
  
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And my eyes sought out the wounded Queen
 
As I lay behind the door.

And I said: “Dear Lady, leave me here,
 
For I cannot help you now;
But fly while you may, and none shall reck
  
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Of my place here lying low.”

And she said, “My Catherine, God help thee!”
 
Then she looked to the distant floor,
And clasping her hands, “Oh God help
him,”
 
She sobbed, “for we can no more!”
  
615

But God He knows what help may mean,
 
If it mean to live or to die;
And what sore sorrow and mighty moan
On earth it may cost ere yet a throne
 
Be filled in His house on high.
  
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And now the ladies fled with the Queen:
 
And through the open door
The night-wind wailed round the empty room
 
And the rushes shook on the floor.

And the bed drooped low in the dark recess
  
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Whence the arras was rent away;
And the firelight still shone over the space
 
Where our hidden secret lay.

And the rain had ceased, and the moonbeams lit
 
The window high in the wall, —
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Bright beams that on the plank that I knew
 
Through the painted pane did fall
And gleamed with the splendor of Scotland’s crown
 
And shield armorial.

But then a great wind swept up the skies,
  
635
 
And the climbing moon fell back;
And the royal blazon fled from the floor,
 
And nought remained on its track;
And high in the darkened window-pane
 
The shield and the crown were black.
  
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And what I say next I partly saw
 
And partly I heard in sooth,
And partly since from the murderers’ lips
 
The torture wrung the truth.

For now again came the armèd tread
  
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And fast through the hall it fell;
But the throng was less; and ere I saw,
 
By the voice without I could tell
That Robert Stuart had come with them
 
Who knew that chamber well.
  
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And over the space the Græme strode dark
 
With his mantle round him flung;
And in his eye was a flaming light
 
But not a word on his tongue.

And Stuart held a torch to the floor,
  
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And he found the thing he sought;
And they slashed the plank away with their swords;
 
And O God! I fainted not!