



Produced by Ted Garvin, Josephine Paolucci, and Project
Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders











THE RIDE TO THE LADY

And Other Poems

BY

HELEN GRAY CONE

1891







  CONTENTS

  The Ride to the Lady

  The First Guest

  Silence

  Arraignment

  The Going Out of the Tide

  King Raedwald

  Ivo of Chartres

  Madonna Pia

  Two Moods of Failure

  The Story of the "Orient"

  A Resurrection

  The Glorious Company

  The Trumpeter

  Comrades

  The House of Hate

  The Arrowmaker

  A Nest in a Lyre

  Thisbe

  The Spring Beauties

  Kinship

  Compensation

  When Willows Green

  At the Parting of the Ways

  The Fair Gray Lady

  The Encounter.

  Summer Hours

  Love Unsung

  The Wish for a Chaplet

  Sonnets:
  The Torch Race
  To Sleep
  Sister Snow
  The Contrast
  A Mystery
  Triumph
  In Winter, with the Book we had in Spring
  Sere Wisdom
  Isolation
  The Lost Dryad
  The Gifts of the Oak
  The Strayed Singer
  The Immortal Word




  THE RIDE TO THE LADY


  "Now since mine even is come at last,--
  For I have been the sport of steel,
  And hot life ebbeth from me fast,
  And I in saddle roll and reel,--
  Come bind me, bind me on my steed!
  Of fingering leech I have no need!"
  The chaplain clasped his mailed knee.
  "Nor need I more thy whine and thee!
  No time is left my sins to tell;
  But look ye bind me, bind me well!"
  They bound him strong with leathern thong,
  For the ride to the lady should be long.

  Day was dying; the poplars fled,
  Thin as ghosts, on a sky blood-red;
  Out of the sky the fierce hue fell,
  And made the streams as the streams of hell.
  All his thoughts as a river flowed,
  Flowed aflame as fleet he rode,
  Onward flowed to her abode,
  Ceased at her feet, mirrored her face.
  (Viewless Death apace, apace,
  Rode behind him in that race.)

  "Face, mine own, mine alone,
  Trembling lips my lips have known,
  Birdlike stir of the dove-soft eyne
  Under the kisses that make them mine!
  Only of thee, of thee, my need!
  Only to thee, to thee, I speed!"
  The Cross flashed by at the highway's turn;
  In a beam of the moon the Face shone stern.

  Far behind had the fight's din died;
  The shuddering stars in the welkin wide
  Crowded, crowded, to see him ride.
  The beating hearts of the stars aloof
  kept time to the beat of the horse's hoof,
  "What is the throb that thrills so sweet?
  Heart of my lady, I feel it beat!"
  But his own strong pulse the fainter fell,
  Like the failing tongue of a hushing bell.
  The flank of the great-limbed steed was wet
  Not alone with the started sweat.

  Fast, and fast, and the thick black wood
  Arched its cowl like a black friar's hood;
  Fast, and fast, and they plunged therein,--
  But the viewless rider rode to win,
  Out of the wood to the highway's light
  Galloped the great-limbed steed in fright;
  The mail clashed cold, and the sad owl cried,
  And the weight of the dead oppressed his side.

  Fast, and fast, by the road he knew;
  And slow, and slow, the stars withdrew;
  And the waiting heaven turned weirdly blue,
  As a garment worn of a wizard grim.
  He neighed at the gate in the morning dim.

  She heard no sound before her gate,
  Though very quiet was her bower.
  All was as her hand had left it late:
  The needle slept on the broidered vine,
  Where the hammer and spikes of the passion-flower
  Her fashioning did wait.
  On the couch lay something fair,
  With steadfast lips and veiled eyne;

  But the lady was not there,
  On the wings of shrift and prayer,
  Pure as winds that winnow snow,
  Her soul had risen twelve hours ago.
  The burdened steed at the barred gate stood,
  No whit the nearer to his goal.
  Now God's great grace assoil the soul
  That went out in the wood!




  THE FIRST GUEST


  When the house is finished, Death enters.
  _Eastern Proverb_

  Life's House being ready all,
  Each chamber fair and dumb,
  Ere life, the Lord, is come
  With pomp into his hall,--
  Ere Toil has trod the floors,
  Ere Love has lit the fires,
  Or young great-eyed Desires
  Have, timid, tried the doors;
  Or from east-window leaned
  One Hope, to greet the sun,
  Or one gray Sorrow screened
  Her sight against the west,--
  Then enters the first guest,
  The House of life being done.

  He waits there in the shade.
  I deem he is Life's twin,
  For whom the house was made.
  Whatever his true name,
  Be sure, to enter in
  He has both key and claim.

  The daybeams, free of fear,
  Creep drowsy toward his feet;
  His heart were heard to beat,
  Were any there to hear;
  Ah, not for ends malign,
  Like wild thing crouched in lair,
  Or watcher of a snare,
  But with a friend's design
  He lurks in shadow there!

  He goes not to the gates
  To welcome any other,
  Nay, not Lord Life, his brother;
  But still his hour awaits
  Each several guest to find
  Alone, yea, quite alone;
  Pacing with pensive mind
  The cloister's echoing stone,
  Or singing, unaware,
  At the turning of the stair
  Tis truth, though we forget,
  In Life's House enters none
  Who shall that seeker shun,
  Who shall not so be met.
  "Is this mine hour?" each saith.
  "So be it, gentle Death!"
  Each has his way to end,
  Encountering this friend.
  Griefs die to memories mild;
  Hope turns a weaned child;
  Love shines a spirit white,
  With eyes of deepened light.
  When many a guest has passed,
  Some day 'tis Life's at last
  To front the face of Death.
  Then, casements closed, men say:
  "Lord Life is gone away;
  He went, we trust and pray,
  To God, who gave him breath."
  Beginning, End, He is:
  Are not these sons both His?
  Lo, these with Him are one!
  To phrase it so were best:
  God's self is that first Guest,
  The House of Life being done!




  SILENCE


  Why should I sing of earth or heaven? not rather rest,
  Powerless to speak of that which hath my soul possessed,--
  For full possession dumb? Yea, Silence, that were best.

  And though for what it failed to sound I brake the string,
  And dashed the sweet lute down, a too much fingered thing,
  And found a wild new voice,--oh, still, why should I sing?

  An earth-song could I make, strange as the breath of earth,
  Filled with the great calm joy of life and death and birth?
  Yet, were it less than this, the song were little worth.

  For this the fields caress; brown clods tell each to each;
  Sad- leaves have sense whereto I cannot reach;
  Spiced everlasting-flowers outstrip my range of speech.

  A heaven-song could I make, all fire that yet was peace,
  And tenderness not lost, though glory did increase?
  But were it less than this, 't were well the song should cease.

  For this the still west saith, with plumy flames bestrewn;
  Heaven's body sapphire-clear, at stirless height of noon;
  The cloud where lightnings pulse, beside the untroubled moon.

  I will not sing of earth or heaven, but rather rest,
  Rapt by the face of heaven, and hold on earth's warm breast.
  Hushed lips, a beating heart, yea, Silence, that were best.




  ARRAIGNMENT


  "Not ye who have stoned, not ye who have smitten us," cry
  The sad, great souls, as they go out hence into dark,
  "Not ye we accuse, though for you was our passion borne;
  And ye we reproach not, who silently passed us by.
  We forgive blind eyes and the ears that would not hark,
  The careless and causeless hate and the shallow scorn.

  "But ye, who have seemed to know us, have seen and heard;
  Who have set us at feasts and have crowned with the costly rose;
  Who have spread us the purple of praises beneath our feet;
  Yet guessed not the word that we spake was a living word,
  Applauding the sound,--we account you as worse than foes!
  We sobbed you our message; ye said, 'It is song, and sweet!'"




  THE GOING OUT OF THE TIDE


  The eastern heaven was all faint amethyst,
  Whereon the moon hung dreaming in the mist;
  To north yet drifted one long delicate plume
  Of roseate cloud; like snow the ocean-spume.

  Now when the first foreboding swiftly ran
  Through the loud-glorying sea that it began
  To lose its late gained lordship of the land,
  Uprose the billow like an angered man,
  And flung its prone strength far along the sand;
  Almost, almost to the old bound, the dark
  And taunting triumph-mark.

  But no, no, no! and slow, and slow, and slow,
  Like a heart losing hold, this wave must go,--
  Must go, must go,--dragged heavily back, back,
  Beneath the next wave plunging on its track,
  Charging, with thunderous and defiant shout,
  To fore-determined rout.

  Again, again the unexhausted main
  Renews fierce effort, drawing force unguessed
  From awful deeps of its mysterious breast:
  Like arms of passionate protest, tossed in vain,
  The spray upflings above the billow's crest.
  Again the appulse, again the backward strain--
  Till ocean must have rest.

  With one abandoned movement, swift and wild,--
  As though bowed head and outstretched arms it laid
  On the earth's lap, soft sobbing,--hushed and stayed,
  The great sea quiets, like a soothed child.
  Ha! what sharp memory clove the calm, and drave
  This last fleet furious wave?

  On, on, endures the struggle into night,
  Ancient as Time, yet fresh as the fresh hour;
  As oft repeated since the birth of light
  As the strong agony and mortal fight
  Of human souls, blind-reaching, with the Power
  Aloof, unmoved, impossible to cross,
  Whose law is seeming loss.

  Low-sunken from the longed-for triumph-mark;
  The spent sea sighs as one that grieves in sleep.
  The unveiled moon along the rippling plain
  Casts many a keen, cold, shifting silvery spark,
  Wild as the pulses of strange joy, that leap
  Even in the quick of pain.

  And she compelling, she that stands for law,--
  As law for Will eternal,--perfect, clear,
  And uncompassionate shines: to her appear
  Vast sequences close-linked without a flaw.
  All past despairs of ocean unforgot,
  All raptures past, serene her light she gives,
  The moon too high for pity, since she lives
  Aware that loss is not.




  KING RAEDWALD


  Will you hear now the speech of King Raedwald,--heathen Raedwald,
        the simple yet wise?
  He, the ruler of North-folk and South-folk, a man open-browed
        as the skies,
  Held the eyes of the eager Italians with his blue, bold,
        Englishman's eyes.

  In his hall, on his throne, so he sat, with the light of the fire
        on him full:
   bright as the ring of red gold on his