When the morning board with the rests of the feast
Was set, and the martial kin-
The vassals in chief of the castle’s lord-
Still heavy with sleep dropped in,
They found a smiling chatelaine
Threading her keys on a silver chain.
And still when her lord, like a thunder-cloud
Full-charged, came louring down,
With her own white hand she served to him
The prime of the venison;
So tending him in the downward eyes,
It ‘hoved him nor to speak or rise.
Thus every morning she was meek
As a loving wife might be,
And full of service and soothfastness
As a lady of high degree:
In house and hall a guiding power,
A gracious presence in lady’s bower.
At eventide she graced the feast
With a face of merry cheer,
And her voice to the harp when the harp went round,
As the laverock’s note was clear:
So “she singeth in the night, they say,
As a bird that singeth in the day.”
And seeing her so amenable
And lovely in daylight hour,
Her lord would follow as time might serve
For dalliance in lady’s bower,
Where sitting apart on the window stone
They parleyed together as if alone.
And once, she making the shuttle fly,
Her maidens spinning near,
He seized her fluttering hands, and laughed:
“They are captives, white with fear.”
“Nay, call them rather,” she laughed back,
“Pale victims, faithful on the rack.”
And seeing her frail, as she was fair,
He measured with thievish eye
The length of the dirk which clove her breast,
And thought where the hilt might lie;
But he saw no way through her silken suit,
Which clipt her close as the rind the fruit.
And seeing her fair, as she was frail,
In the sting of a new-born need,
His tuneless voice for once rang true,
His fierce tongue learnt to plead.
Then her daylight face was in eclipse,
The shadow of night on her eyes and lips,
As she answered him: “While the stars endure
You will get no more of me
Than what you hold at my brother’s hand,
For a gift is of the free:
That hour which made us two handfast,
The time to win as to woo, was past.”
“You are haggard, dame, as a hawk,” he said,
As he gave her hands reprieve,
“But we tame the wildest tercelet
That ever we let live.”
Then he rose and left the bower in wrath,
And the stones cried out upon his path.
“Craft is the strength of Argyle; she knows
Our heads are under one hood,
But that hood shall be cover for mine alone,
If ever meseemeth good;
The sleuth-hound in vain, if he failed of that,
Had been held in leash with the mountain cat.
“Now is better than then; good brother Argyle,
New love is like new wine;
I will put to the proof this brotherly shield,
Before it is worn too fine,
And see when my hand has done a thing,
How you make it good in the eye of the king.”
He called aloud to his namesmen all,
As they loitered about the court;
“Come, rouse ye, men, for a bloody raid,
And I warrant ye good sport;
The better that we by night shall stoop,
And seize our prey in a silent swoop.
“And some of your band must go by land,
And some shall come by sea;
And those shall ride with Malcolm M?r,
And these shall sail with me;
Our meeting-place Glengarry Bay:
The boats, there needs no more to say.”
Then some to horse, and some to ship,
Some sailed, some rode or ran;
While shrill at their head the pipers played
The gathering of the clan;
The work was death, the road was rough,
They knew no more, it was enough.
But when they came to Loch-na-kiel,
Nor pipe nor voice was heard,
You might have caught, as you brushed the ling,
The cry of a brooding bird,
And a league or ever you reached the shore,
Have steered by the dull Atlantic roar.
Then warily they at Glengarry Bay
Make sign to the waiting boat,
And the word goes round whereto they are bound,
As they silently get afloat;
And they steal upon Cairnburg’s island keep,
Where it lies in the cradling surf asleep.
Then little they heard of the scared sea-bird
Or the near Atlantic roar,
For the fierce war-clang of the crossing swords
As led by Malcolm M?r.
They stormed the keep, and its keepers slew,
Or laid in irons before;
Maclean with his merry men sailed in,
Safe to conquer, and bold to win.
He passed the body of Cairnburg’s lord
With its gaping wounds and red,
And he spurned it from him with his foot-
He did not fear the dead;
Then he filled a horn and gave a toast,
“We’ll drink,” quoth he, “to our silent host.”
The thirsty crews swarmed up, they left
The dead men and the bound,
And, drunk with blood, in wassail deep
Their reeling senses drowned.
The captive’s groans, the victor’s glee,
The lashing of the ruthless sea,
Made up the wild world’s harmony.
O loving God, whom all men loved
When hating most their kind,
They lifted bloody hands in prayer,
Now all are stricken blind,-
And we never more may see the sun
Till all men’s eyes and hearts are one!
The red Maclean set his signet seal
On the castle’s garnered store,
Then he filled his pouch with its gold, and gave
The keys to Malcolm M?r,
Whom he left in charge, bold man and true,
While himself took ship with his jolly crew.
And he thought: “To this frost-bound maid of mine
When I come red-handed in,
Will the ice of her virgin pride break up,
Shall I come as I came, to win?”
But the spirits that wrought for him by day
Were nought at night; and she held her way.
Then he fell in longing by day and night
As the sick man longs for health;
And he longed for her by night and day
As the beggar longs for wealth,
As one who hung over the pit of hell
Might clutch at a star-beam ere he fell.
And his stricken thought turned round on himself,
And his dim low-lying soul
Caught a shadowy glimpse of a fairer way,
As he deemed, to a fairer goal;
So a heavier stone on his heart was flung,
Which helped but to sink him where he hung.
He dreamed of tortures of rare device
As to give his passion ease,
And once in his dire extremity
He sued her upon his knees;
But alone, without her Campbell shield,
Who knows to die, needs not to yield.
For bulwark and for last defence
She had the strength of steel:
The sword betwixt them was a sign,
The dagger was a seal;
And each fine hair that wound about
The dagger’s hilt, a watchful scout.
But sitting alone on the window stone,
Though still was the summer air,
She heard a whispering on the sea,
A moaning she knew not where;
Then she looked to the hills where the two winds meet,
And saw them wrestle together, and beat
Each against each, and pant and smoke
Like beasts that fret in unequal yoke.
And she said: “O love that I knew so fair,
Whoever had thought of thee
That thy summery breath could raise the storm,
And the wreck-whose shall it be?
Were the end but death, would it now were here,
And a white fringed pall on my maiden bier.”
(Emily Pfeiffer)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Man Poems, God Poems, Night Poems, Mind Poems, Time Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Faces Poems, Fairness Poems, Cry Poems, Kings & Queens PoemsBased on Keywords: brotherly, clipt, thievish, venison, argyle, thunder-cloud, low-lying, dirk, louring, malcolm, laverock