Tale of Balen

Swinburne, Algernon Charles

• Publisher: pubOne.info
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9782819912644

pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. Then spake the great king's wrathful wil

VII

In winter, when the year burns low
As fire wherein no firebrands glow,
And winds dishevel as they blow
The lovely stormy wings of snow,
The hearts of northern men burn bright
With joy that mocks the joy of spring
To hear all heaven's keen clarions ring
Music that bids the spirit sing
And day give thanks for night.

Aloud and dark as hell or hate
Round Balen's head the wind of fate
Blew storm and cloud from death's wide gate:
But joy as grief in him was great
To face God's doom and live or die,
Sorrowing for ill wrought unaware,
Rejoicing in desire to dare
All ill that innocence might bear
With changeless heart and eye.

Yet passing fain he was when past
Those lands and woes at length and last.
Eight times, as thence he fared forth fast,
Dawn rose and even was overcast
With starry darkness dear as day,
Before his venturous quest might meet
Adventure, seeing within a sweet
Green low-lying forest, hushed in heat,
A tower that barred his way.

Strong summer, dumb with rapture, bound
With golden calm the woodlands round
Wherethrough the knight forth faring found
A knight that on the greenwood ground
Sat mourning: fair he was to see,
And moulded as for love or fight
A maiden's dreams might frame her knight;
But sad in joy's far-flowering sight
As grief's blind thrall might be.

"God save you," Balen softly said,
"What grief bows down your heart and head
Thus, as one sorrowing for his dead?
Tell me, if haply I may stead
In aught your sorrow, that I may."
"Sir knight," that other said, "thy word
Makes my grief heavier that I heard."
And pity and wonder inly stirred
Drew Balen thence away.

And so withdrawn with silent speed
He saw the sad knight's stately steed,
A war-horse meet for warrior's need,
That none who passed might choose but heed,
So strong he stood, so great, so fair,
With eyes afire for flight or fight,
A joy to look on, mild in might,
And swift and keen and kind as light,
And all as clear of care.

And Balen, gazing on him, heard
Again his master's woful word
Sound sorrow through the calm unstirred
By fluttering wind or flickering bird,
Thus: "Ah, fair lady and faithless, why
Break thy pledged faith to meet me? soon
An hour beyond thy trothplight noon
Shall strike my death-bell, and thy boon
Is this, that here I die.

"My curse for all thy gifts may be
Heavier than death or night on thee;
For now this sword thou gavest me
Shall set me from thy bondage free."
And there the man had died self-slain,
But Balen leapt on him and caught
The blind fierce hand that fain had wrought
Self-murder, stung with fire of thought,
As rage makes anguish fain.

Then, mad for thwarted grief, "Let go
My hand," the fool of wrath and woe
Cried, "or I slay thee." Scarce the glow
In Balen's cheek and eye might show,
As dawn shows day while seas lie chill,
He heard, though pity took not heed,
But smiled and spake, "That shall not need:
What man may do to bid you speed
I, so God speed me, will."

And the other craved his name, beguiled
By hope that made his madness mild.
Again Sir Balen spake and smiled:
"My name is Balen, called the Wild
By knights whom kings and courts make tame
Because I ride alone afar
And follow but my soul for star."
"Ah, sir, I know the knight you are
And all your fiery fame.

"The knight that bears two swords I know,
Most praised of all men, friend and foe,
For prowess of your hands, that show
Dark war the way where balefires glow
And kindle glory like the dawn's."
So spake the sorrowing knight, and stood
As one whose heart fresh hope made good:
And forth they rode by wold and wood
And down the glimmering lawns.

And Balen craved his name who rode
Beside him, where the wild wood glowed
With joy to feel how noontide flowed
Through glade and glen and rough green road
Till earth grew joyful as the sea.
"My name is Garnysshe of the Mount,
A poor man's son of none account,"
He said, "where springs of loftier fount
Laugh loud with pride to be.

"But strength in weakness lives and stands
As rocks that rise through shifting sands;
And for the prowess of my hands
One made me knight and gave me lands,
Duke Hermel, lord from far to near,
Our prince; and she that loved me - she
I love, and deemed she loved but me,
His daughter, pledged her faith to be
Ere now beside me here."

And Balen, brief of speech as light
Whose word, beheld of depth and height,
Strikes silence through the stars of night,
Spake, and his face as dawn's grew bright,
For hope to help a happier man,
"How far then lies she hence?" "By this,"
Her lover sighed and said, "I wis,
Not six fleet miles the passage is,
And straight as thought could span."

So rode they swift and sure, and found
A castle walled and dyked around:
And Balen, as a warrior bound
On search where hope might fear to sound
The darkness of the deeps of doubt,
Made entrance through the guardless gate
As life, while hope in life grows great,
Makes way between the doors of fate
That death may pass thereout.

Through many a glorious chamber, wrought
For all delight that love's own thought
Might dream or dwell in, Balen sought
And found of all he looked for nought,
For like a shining shell her bed
Shone void and vacant of her: thence
Through devious wonders bright and dense
He passed and saw with shame-struck sense
Where shame and faith lay dead.

Down in a sweet small garden, fair
With flowerful joy in the ardent air,
He saw, and raged with loathing, where
She lay with love-dishevelled hair
Beneath a broad bright laurel tree
And clasped in amorous arms a knight,
The unloveliest that his scornful sight
Had dwelt on yet; a shame the bright
Broad noon might shrink to see.

And thence in wrathful hope he turned,
Hot as the heart within him burned,
To meet the knight whose love, so spurned
And spat on and made nought of, yearned
And dreamed and hoped and lived in vain,
And said, "I have found her sleeping fast,"
And led him where the shadows cast
From leaves wherethrough light winds ran past
Screened her from sun and rain.

But Garnysshe, seeing, reeled as he stood
Like a tree, kingliest of the wood,
Half hewn through: and the burning blood
Through lips and nostrils burst aflood:
And gathering back his rage and might
As broken breakers rally and roar
The loud wind down that drives off shore,
He smote their heads off: there no more
Their life might shame the light.

Then turned he back toward Balen, mad
With grief, and said, "The grief I had
Was nought: ere this my life was glad:
Thou hast done this deed: I was but sad
And fearful how my hope might fare:
I had lived my sorrow down, hadst thou
Not shown me what I saw but now."
The sorrow and scorn on Balen's brow
Bade silence curb him there.

And Balen answered: "What I did
I did to hearten thee and bid
Thy courage know that...

Table of contents

• DEDICATION
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• VII
• Copyright