ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

{North Coast and other Poems - Revisions}

North Coast - 2 original versions

SIR BAALDWIN. An Allegory of Love and Loss

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY. A Study after Boccaccio

The original version of ‘Sigurd of Saxony’ was published in The St. James's Magazine (July, 1862) as ‘Sir Baaldwin’:

SIR BAALDWIN.
AN ALLEGORY OF LOVE AND LOSS.

BY WILLIAMS BUCHANAN.

I.

THE sedgy shores of this enchanted lake
Are dark with shadows of the swans which make
         Their nests along its marge;
And on the hither side, where small crisp waves
Creep with low music into hollow caves,—
         Waiting for that bright barge
Which bears the blest across to faëry land—
I, Baaldwin, in my weary watching, stand.

II.

I stand alone beneath Heaven’s silent arch,
Shaded both night and day by clouds that march
         And countermarch above;
A sombre suit of perfect mail I wear—
A gloomy plume, that troubles the thin air
         To sighs whene’er I move;
My sword is red and broken; and my shield
Bears a gold anchor on a sable field.

III.

This is a place where mortals find not speech.
Save the small wrinkled waves that crawl the beach,
         All is as still as death: 
I hear my heart against my ribs of stone
Like a lorn prisoned lark make constant moan;
         My slow and frozen breath
Thrills like an echo thro’ the silent spot;
My shadow seeks my feet, and moveth not.

IV.

What do I wait for, watch for? Wherefore can
I stand here ghost-wise, like a frozen man
         Upon a frozen sea?
Why do I watch the perilous waters fling
Weeds at my feet? Nor time nor tears can bring
         My Lady back to me—
My Lady Una from my strong caress
Vineyarded by her ghostly loveliness.

V.

Nought can redeem her. Wherefore I seek grace
To join her in her distant dwelling-place
         Of pastoral repose;
And I would make this heart that aches and grieves
As white and perfect as a lily’s leaves
         And fragrant as a rose,—
That with a stainless spirit I may take
The faëry barge across the enchanted lake.

VI.

For, having worn her stainless badge in fight,
Thrice conquering in her name, by main and might
         I rode with vizor down,
Meeting and slaying honourable foes,
Wounded in flesh, giving and taking blows,
         To spread her just renown:
Thus, warring a sweet war without reprieve,
I, Baaldwin, wore her badge upon my sleeve.

VII.

The Lady of Shalott is very fair,
Sunbeams are prisoned in her silken hair;
         Fair is young Uniun;
And Guinevere in her rich queenly dress
Changes the hues of her high loveliness
         Like doves’ necks in the sun;
Dame Avoraine is stately, proud, and tall,
But Una is the fairest of them all.

VIII.

Her eyes are deep and tremulous as a stream
Disturbed with its own beauty, when a gleam
         Of light drops down like wind;
Her skin is like white poppies veined with red;
A wonder of bright locks enstars her head!
         And there she wears entwined
A lily sweet that double beauty took
For love of its own image in a brook.

IX.

Her voice like running waters is her own;
Her foot is arch’d like the white bridge of stone
         At Camelot, in Usk;
And clothed in silken samite, soft and small,
She makes a glamour like a waterfall
         That shines along the dusk:
She is the queen of sweetness none may share,
Wherefore I, Baaldwin, held her the most fair.

X.

Arméd from head to heel, with spear in hand,
I cried her praises through the wondering land,
         And few her praise refused;
Then flushing with my victory complete,
I hastened back and knelt me at her feet,
         Battered, and maim’d, and bruised;
And then I wooed her in a secret place,
With light upon me from her shining face.

XI.

She bathed my bloody brow, with red wounds striped;
And with a kerchief white as snow she wiped
         The foam from off my mouth:
She set my unhelmed head upon her knee,
And wound white arms about me tenderly,
         And slaked the thirsty drouth
That ebbed in streams of fire through blood and brain,
From a full cup of cool white porcelain.

XII.

Wherefore my soul again was strong. I caught
The voiceless music of her form and thought;
         I knelt upon my knee,
Saying, “I love thee more than life or fame,—
I love thee only less than my good name,
         Which is a part of thee;  
And I adore thy beauty undefiled!”
Whereat she looked into mine eyes and smiled.

XIII.

I wooed her night and day with virtuous deeds,
And that humility which intercedes
         With ladies for true men;
I took her little lily-hand in mine,
Drinking her breath, as soft as eglantine,
         And wooing well; and then
She toyed with my great beard, and gave consent—
Then down the flowery path of love we went.

XIV.

Twined closely, down the soft descent of love,
We wandered on, with golden stars above,
         And many flowers below;
Until we came to this dark lake or sea,
Which openeth upon eternity,
         And could no farther go;
For beyond life and death, and these dark skies,
Avilion, the summer valley, lies.

XV.

Here on the beach we stood, and hand in hand
Waited to pass across to faëry land,
         And all the land was dark;
Saying, “We yearn to see the happy vale,
And hand-in-hand together we will sail
         In the enchanted bark!” 
Too late to turn. Our passage we must take
Across the gleaming silence of the lake.

XVI.

She said, “The waters make such threatening moan,
Neither can pass across their waste alone;
         We cannot, cannot part;
We will together cross these waves of death:”
But the dark waves grew darker, and the breath
         Died dark upon the heart;
And by each face a tremulous cloud was worn
Small as the shadow of a lamb new-born.

XVII.

Then in the distant waves we could behold
A radiance like the blowing autumn gold
         Of woodland forests dark;
And my sweet Lady trembled, growing white
As foam of ocean on a summer night
         When the wild surges bark;
And falling very cold upon my breast,
She said, “I am a-weary—let me rest!”

XVIII.

I laid her down upon a flowery bed,
And put soft mosses underneath her head,
         And kissed her, and she slept;
And the air brightened round her, as the far
Blue ether burns like silver round a star;
         And round her slumber crept
A murmur louder than the hissing spray,
And the dim light grew clearer far away.

XIX.

Whereat the bark grew nearer still, and soon
Shaped like the sickle of an early moon,
         The faëry barge drew near,
And, tossing on the silver waves, the barge
Paused among sedges at the lake’s blue marge—
         I looked in utter fear,
And round my Lady crept a shadowy crowd,
Fading and brightening like a moonlit cloud.

XX.

They clustered with a vaporous light around
My Lady dear, and raised her from the ground,
         And bare her to the bark;
Whereon I would have followed, but a hand
Held me like iron to the hated land:
         Then all again was dark,
And from the breathing darkness came a hum
Of voices sweet, “Thy time has not yet come!”

XXI.

And then I shrieked in utter agony; 
While dying, as a glowworm, in the sea,
         I saw the light again;
And with a cry into the waves I sprung,
And sought to follow, but the waters clung
         About me like a chain;
And thrice I fought amid their rage and roar,
And thrice they hurled me bleeding on the shore.

XXII.

In vain—in vain! I might not follow where
She sailed with those strange shapes of luminous air,
         In her most quiet sleep:
I threw myself upon the oozy ground,
And heard the long waves make a sobbing sound,
         And bitterly did weep;
Then springing up I cried with reeling brain,
“Here will I wait till the barge comes again!”

XXIII.

Long have I waited here, alone, alone,
Hearing the hollow-chested waves make moan
         Upon the pebbly beach;
With eyes upon the pitiless stars above,
Here have I waited in my homeless love,
         Pale, patient, deaf to speech,
With the salt rheum upon me, pale and bent,
And breathless as a marble monument.

XXIV.

This lonely watching would invite despair,
Did I not oft catch glimpses of my fair
         Lady so sadly lost,
Making, with radiance round her like a star,
A luminous pathway on the hills afar,
         Then fading like a ghost;
What time I shout aloud, and at the shout 
Pause, shuddering at the echoes round about.

XXV.

Twice has the barge returned. Once for a bent
Old servitor who, down the soft descent
         That leads to this dim land,
Had wandered from the towns that lie behind,
And, groping in the cold, had fall’n stone-blind
         Upon the shifting sand;
Once for a little gold-hair’d child astray,
Who, wandering hither, fell to sleep at play.

XXVI.

Twice has the mystic barge returned, and twice
Have I been frozen to the earth in ice,
         Helpless to move or speak;
Thrice have I fought with the relentless roar
Of waters, and been flung upon the shore
         Battered and maimed and weak.
But now I wait with quiet heart and brain,
Grown patient with unutterable pain.

XXVII.

And I will wait. To slay myself were sin;
And I, self-slaughtered, could not hope to win
         My solitary boon;
But if the barge should come again and leave
Me still in lonely watch without reprieve,
         Under the silver moon,
I will lie down upon my back and rest
With mailéd hands crossed praying on my breast,

XXVIII.

And fall to slumber on a bed of weeds,
A knight well worn in honourable deeds,
         Yet lost to life, and old;
And haply I may dream before I wake
That I am floating o’er the pathless lake
         In that bright barge of gold:
And, waking, I may see with sweet surprise
Light shining on me from my Lady’s eyes.

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The original version of ‘The Saint’s Story’ was published in The St. James's Magazine (May, 1864) as ‘La Belle Dame Sans Mercy’:

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY.

A STUDY AFTER BOCCACCIO.

I.

LA belle dame sans mercy
Seldom knelt on her knee
To saints of any degree
Ere she made a saint of me!

II.

Listen as spirits can,
Ghost of the sacristan,
     And come and join me here,
Sitting cross-legg’d on my own
Effigy cut in stone!
     There let us chatter; how queer!
In the light of the moonshine, faint
Looks the full-length form of the saint
(Myself), with his broken nose,
Closed eyes, and his turn’d-up toes,
And his folded hands on his breast, 
In the end of the crypt—at rest;
For the beam of the moon creeps through
The purple, orange, and blue
     Shapes on the window-panes—
Saints and madonnas too,—
     Creeps through like a ghost, and stains
     The pavement with azure veins,
And the floating religious mist,
To the dimmest amethyst.
How queer looks the long, dim aisle,
     Down which there wander and walk
Shadow on shadow, the while
     We sit cross-legg’d and talk:
You with your faint. pinch’d face,
And your little nose out of place,
And your sour and holy grimace,
As you sit and stroke at ease
Your little thin legs and knees,
And jingle your spectral keys;
     Me the spectre forlorn,
     Tall, and tatter’d, and torn,
Hollow of cheek, and dreary!
Domine, miserere!
But listen as spirits can,
Ghost of the sacristan!

III.

A very long time ago,
     When you were the sacristan—
     A wheezy little old man,
Fluttering to and fro
In the church crypt after prayers,
Or perch’d on the belfry stairs,
Like a big black moth, in the light
Of a moon like this to-night,
When you were alive, old ghost,
But wrinkled and deaf as a post,—
I was a fine young spark,
Plump as a pheasant; with dark,
Long hair that curl’d on my back,
And a little moustache jet-black,
And eyes like the eyes of a hen;
     And a lady of quality said,
I look’d irresistible when
     My lips parted juicy and red,
And I ogled, indulging the while
In a cynical, innocent smile,
And my curling moustache show’d beneath
Two rows of the whitest of teeth!
And then for my dress!—but there,
I had money enough and to spare,
     And I clad me from head to foot,
     Like an apple tree loaded with fruit.
I oil’d and scented my hair,
I gave my moustache a twirl,
I powder’d my teeth with pearl.
With the air of a corsair afloat,
     Or the arm-sweep of kings, I drank wine;
And in secret I silently wrote
On many a pink little note,
     Embroider’d with flourishes fine,
Sonnets Petrarchan. He! he!
Laugh, wheezy old ghost, at me!
It was then I knelt on the knee
To la belle dame sans mercy!

IV.

She made at the Duke’s small Court
No sensation of any sort,
Though the Duke himself admitted
She was pleasing and subtle-witted.
Stuff!—For wit, her brains were as narrow
And small as the brains of a sparrow;
But (I’ll tell you), however flat
And silly her words, they fell pat,
On account of the bright witty eyes,
     And the ringlets that shone as they shook;
And the soft, tinkling laugh; and the wise,
     Half-crafty, half-innocent look,
Wherewith, with her finger of snow,
Just touching your own hand,—so!—
     She would look up into your face
     With a pretty infantine grace.
Her lips were her best bon mot:
Her very eyes were a pun;
And she’d give to her glove, in fun,
An epigrammatical kiss!
But the fun of it all was this,—
Though older, and bolder, and colder,
She scarcely came up to my shoulder—
Part fairy, part elf, part human;
A little white mouse of a woman.

V.

Just so! In the Duke’s Court she,
Among beauties of high degree,
Dashing and plump and tall,
Cut a figure remarkably small;
And small she seem’d, though sweet,
From her fair shining head to her feet;
And just as a little doe crops
     Roses, she’d munch her words small,
     Or let simpering syllables fall
Through her lips in nectarine drops.
There it was! When hidden among
The brocaded and furbelow’d throng,
Like a daisy ’mong tulips, she seem’d
     So tiny, so sweet, so unsinning,
That, being moustached then, I dream’d
     She wouldn’t be hard of the winning.
And, besides, I was everywhere thought
Good-looking, fine-spirited, fraught
     With the graces of goodness and gold;
But there! she for money cared nought,
     And for love,—verbum sap.—she was cold.

VI.

Cold!—that’s the expression—

VII.

                                   Cold? yes!
Not cold to her dog on her dress;
Not cold to the crowd the Duke drags
     Behind him, a gay-coloured train,
     High-born, and foolish, and vain;
Not cold to beggars in rags;
Not cold to respectable grief,
     Whatever the rank or the place of it;
Not cold to the world;—to be brief,
     Not cold to myself on the face of it,
But cold in so far as one thought
She might have been earlier taught
A little personal power
     Of awakening dreams, thoughts, and feelings,
     Brain-prompting and sweetheart revealings,
When apart from the rest, like a flower,
     Without wholly submitting to measure
     Her passion, grief, wonder, and pleasure
By the whim of the crowd and the hour.
Do you take me? as warm as is fire
     To whatever sensation you chose
     To pop right under her nose,
And which it look’d nice to admire:
Not cold to a smile from the Duke;
Not cold to my passionate look;
Not cold to the dish she was eating;
Not cold to the friend she was meeting;
Not cold to your sorrow or strife;
     Not cold to a kind hint or comment;
     Not cold to one thing, for a moment;
But cold to all earth, for long life.

VIII.

Listen as spirits can,
Ghost of the sacristan!
Pinch’d, and wither’d, and wan!
And, just at this point, pray a prayer
Of thanks that we spirits of air
Are much less opaque than we were,
And without any trouble or bother
Have the power to see through one another!

IX.

Well, la belle dame sans mercy,
     Though little, as I have stated,
Wasn’t so moved by me
     As I had anticipated.
If I gave her a lily or rose,
     She took it with sweet joy-flushes,
And held it up to her nose
     To cover her thanks and blushes.
But a plague on the wanton head!
Whatever you did or said,
Whatsoever you placed in her eyes,
One emotion alone would arise,
With a thrill, in her bosom—SURPRISE!
For a rose to be held to her nose,
For a rose whose thorns tore her fine clothes,
For a peep at a sparrow’s nest,
Or a lover’s bare, bleeding breast,—
For compliment, praise, wrath, admonishment,
She had only one answer,—ASTONISHMENT!

X.

She was so small, I suppose,
     That, just as a honey-bee rifles
Bit by bit the sweet core of a rose,
     She was forced to chop life into trifles;
Nor in dealing with sorrow to feel too much,
Nor sipping of pleasure to steal too much;
Since her small brain found ample employment,
And her smaller heart ample enjoyment,
In taking short sips of delight,
With a bee’s very nice appetite,
Here and there, be wherever she might;
     And perceiving, wherever her blue
Little eyes ranged, day, morning, and night,
     Some pleasure that struck her as new.

XI.

Thus she floated about wheresoe’er
     The tide liked to carry her, finding,
     With a sweetness quite winning and blinding,
Something wonderful here, something there,
Which engaged, for the minute, the whole
Of her faculties—body and soul;
And seeing a fine variorum
     Of incidents wondrously fair,
     No matter what trifles they were,
     Her conduct in life (to be fair)
Was faultless in point of decorum;
And I’ll do her the justice to say,
     That, though she danced just on the border
Of folly, and liked to be gay,
     She kept her small heart in such order,
That it tempted her never astray.
This it is: Had I known how to win it,
Had I chosen the very right minute,
Her heart, though not amorous-warm,
Might have surely been taken by storm;
But I swam to her sight on the tide
Of faces, and just as she cried,
With her sweet startled smile of amaze,
     And her blush, “What a darling young man!”
Something novel attracted her gaze . . .
But listen as spirits can,
Ghost of the sacristan.

XII.

Cut it short, you suggest? To be short,
     I woo’d her, pursued her, and swore
     A thousand sweet oaths con amor’;
And sometimes she liked the sweet sport,
And sometimes—she thought it a bore.
She’d smile, frown, and cry, o’er and o’er,
Praise, find fault, snub, encourage, commend,
Give cold shoulder, or fondly attend.
But—here was the worm, not a doubt—
She’d be terribly earnest about
No two things in succession; but all
Those things she most relish’d chopp’d small!
So when I first made my profession
     Of passion, she noted my dress,
And my curling mustachio’s expression,
     And smiled so divinely, you’d guess
That her mind was engaged all the time
With sentiments really sublime.
Then, lo! as my speech warmer grew,
     And fuller of thoughts high and choice,
     And the beating heart thrill’d in the voice,
Tears stood in her eyes of soft blue;
And she suddenly noticed the fact
That my voice had grown husky and crack’d,
By a draught from a scoundrelly door,
At the ball a few evenings before.
And she trembled, glowing and panting
     Like a rose on a stem milky-stalk’d,
Urging me on, and half granting
My boon with a wonder enchanting,
     And thinking how thickly I talk’d.
And when I at last made a pause,
     She was “O so sorry!” she said,
And refused me! And I say the cause
     Was—because I’d a cold in my head!

XIII.

Ah, these women! they’re not to be made out,
     Ghost of the sacristan!
The first of the drama was play’d out,—
     But listen as spirits can!

XIV.

First, I swear by the ash of the coals
     That roasted St. Lawrence, and by
     The keys of St. Peter, that I
Had loved with the truest of souls!
     Now it amuses me! . . . Why?
Instead of seeking a cure,
     By flirting with some new passion
     (A very popular fashion),
I grew doleful, distraught, and demure,
Lost my appetite, ceased my wineing,
     Robb’d my blood of its brightness and quickness,
Whining, at last, and repining
     Into downright green-sickness!
Ay, I wasted and wasted away,
Thinner and thinner each day,
Shunning and hating society;
     Till at last, with a shudder of pain,
     The weathercock of my brain
Suddenly pointed to Piety!

XV.

Here, in the city, in those days
Spent his religious, morose days,
     A lantern-jaw’d Carmelite,
High in the popular fame,
     For horror of lewd delight
     And unspiritual appetite,—
Brother Jean Jacques by name;
A man with an eye like a hawk,
But little given to talk.
At the convent gate, one day,
     I found my Carmelite waiting,
     Moodily contemplating
The clowns who were flocking to pay
Their regards to the father confessor,
The Italian intercessor.
And after a benedicite,
During which he noticed, with gravity,
And a rather complacent suavity,
My dirtiness, thinness, simplicity,
My starved-looking, not over-clean,
And very lugubrious mien,
I drew him aside, and greedily
Question’d him, wildly and needily,
     How such a poor rascal as I
Might win for his soul, and most speedily,
     A place ’mid the saints in the sky.

XVI.

With eager anticipation,
     Every hair on my body bristled,
     As he pursed his lips and whistled;
And, in solemn deliberation,
Eyed me from head to foot.
With the hawk’s eye blacker than soot.
Long did he meditate, eyeing me
As if he were weighing and buying me;
And after appraising me fully,
He whisper’d, quite calmly and coolly,
“Be of good cheer, my son;
I swear the thing shall be done,
Thy place ’mong the holy won,
In a manner not very unpleasant:
We’re in want of a SAINT at present,
And the place is not easily had;
     But, in my poor estimation,
You’re a very likely lad
     For the vacant situation!”

XVII.

Listen as spirits can,
Ghost of the sacristan!
In less than a week from that hour
A rumour went up and down,
Round and around the town,
That grace had come down in a shower
     On the body of Carmelite brothers,
In the shape of a saint whose power
     Transcended the power of all others.
Miracles! wonders! Faint
     Is my power of conveying to you
     The circumstantial and true
Facts of the Carmelite saint,
Whom the brother Jean Jacques (for so
Ran the story) found lying low,
Paler and colder than snow,
One wintry night and late,
Stretch’d at the convent gate;
But (and here was the wonder) when
Revived by those sanctified men,
     He had flatly refused all food,
     Nor, wrapt in prophetical mood,
Had eaten or drunken since then!
And, of all that is earthly bereaven,
     Full of a spiritual glory,
     Was passing through purgatory,
And thence (per starvation) to heaven!

XVIII.

Humph! I see your glances question
     The bliss of my situation—
     And (let me confess it) starvation
Was difficult of digestion;
But take in consideration
The spiritual exultation!
And the great and dignified goal
That body was earning for soul,
     And I think you’ll hold, with the rest,
     That my end, on the whole, was blest;
And if still you dissent, control
     Your amusement, and hear the rest.
O triumph of pride o’er passion!
     The first to come worshipping me,
When the saint had become the fashion,
     Was la belle dame sans mercy!

XIX.

Humbly, devotedly, weepingly,
While the blood in my veins hiss’d creepingly,
She knelt at my side, and alone,
     Imploring some symbol or token,
     And the silence was sobbingly broken
By many a musical moan!
Sincere? ay, I swear that her eyes
Were as true (for that hour) as the skies,
While with gaze all fixed and intense
I froze the pale simpleton’s sense,
Till a cloud seem’d to blind her and cover her,
     And my brain seem’d to burn and to melt;
Then, eyed like a fiend, I stoop’d over her,
     And strangled her where she knelt!

XX.

That very night, at her side,
I, the saint, yery tranquilly died;
And ’twas afterwards told with wonder,
     That late in the eve, when the dame
     Was beseeching his saintship, came
A fiend amid lightning and thunder,
With a view of enrisking a fight
For the soul of the saint that night;
But being defeated entirely
     By the saint with the strength to defy him,
He had seized and demolishèd direly
     The sinner that knelt close by him!

XXI.

You shiver, old fellow? He! he!
     Well, my story is almost done:
For the rest, in the crypt there, you see
     My saintship in stone—what fun!
But hark! that faint, far crowing,
     Familiar to me and to you!
     Ugh! ugh!
               Cock-a-doodle doo!
Good morning! it’s time to be going!

                                                                                                 R. B.

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