1
Late evening, on the first of May—
The twilit May—the time of
love.
Meltingly called the turtle-dove,
Where rich and sweet pinewoods
lay.
Whispered of love the mosses frail,
The flowering tree as sweetly
lied,
The rose's fragrant sigh replied
To love-songs of the
nightingale.
In shadowy woods the burnished lake
Darkly complained a
secret pain,
By circling shores embraced again;
And heaven's clear sun
leaned down to take
A road astray in azure deeps,
Like burning tears the
lover weeps.
A haze of stars in heaven hovers—
That church of endless love's
communion—
Each jewel blanches and recovers
As blanch and burn long-parted
lovers
In the high rapture of reunion.
How clear, to her full beauty
grown,
How pale, how clear, the moon above,
Like maiden seeking for her
love,
A rosy halo round her thrown!
Her mirrored image she espied,
And
of self-love, beholding, died.
Forth from the farms pale shadows
strayed,
Lengthening longing to their kind,
Till they embraced, and close
entwined,
Coiled low into the lap of shade,
Grown all one twilight
unity.
Tree in the shadows writhes to tree.
In the far mountains' dark
confine
Pine leans to birch and birch to pine.
Wave baunting wave the
streamlets move.
For love's sake—in the time of love—
Anguished goes every
living thing.
A fair girl at the rim of land
Watches the evening's rosy phases;
Under
the oak-tree by the strand
Far out across the lakes she gazes.
Blue to her
feet it coils and glimmers,
And green beyond, and greener, sleeps,
Till in
the distances and deeps
In clear, pale light all melts and shimmers.
Over
the wide and watery plain
The girl has fixed her weary gaze;
Over the wide
and watery plain
Only the glint of starlight plays.
A lovely girl, an
angel ravaged,
A bud that April winds have savaged,
In her pale cheeks
doomed beauty hastens.
One hour has swallowed up her morrow,
One hour her
promise chills and chastens,
Marries her May to grief and sorrow.
Of twenty days the last has died;
Still dreams the quiet
countryside.
The last light hastens to its close,
And heaven, like a
great, clear rose,
Over the deep blue mountains flushes.
“He comes not!
Ah, such anguish takes me!
Another spoiled, and he forsakes me!”
A heavy
sigh her sad voice bushes,
Her aching heart burns in her breast,
And with
the water's plaint unsleeping
Mingles the note of bitter weeping.
Snared
in her tears the stars find rest,
Down her pale cheeks like bright sparks
flowing
Till like quenched stars they burn to shades there,
On her cold
countenance briefly glowing.
And where they fall, the blossom fades
there.
At the rock's rim she glimmers whitely;
A silken standard flies her
gown,
In evening zephyrs fluttering lightly.
Her eyes on distance fix and
frown—
In haste she dries her blinding tears,
Beneath her shading hand she
peers,
And on the distant shore she fastens,
Where in the hills the lake
creeps hiding;
Over the waves live sparks go gliding,
Star after watery
starlet bastens.
Even as snow-white virgin doves
Against dark wastes of cloud in
flight,
On water-lily flowering white
On deepest blue—so something
moves—
Where in the hills the lake creeps hiding—
Over the dark waves
nearer gliding,
Nearer in haste. A moment proves
Now as the stork's grave
flight it looms,
No dove so flies nor lily blooms,
But a white sail rocked
by hasting breezes.
A slender oar the blue wave teases,
With flaming
furrows the surface bazing.
The golden rose of heaven's hold,
High in the
mountain oakwoods blazing,
Gilds the ripples with rosy gold.
“Swift litlle
boat! Near, nearer bounding!
'Tis be! 'Tis be! Those plumes bright
beaming,
The hat, the eyes beneath it gleaming—
His cloak—” The boat in
the beach is grounding.
Over the rocks his light step rings,
By a known path he climbs and
closes.
The girl's pale face flowers into roses;
From the tree's shade in
wild hope flying
She runs, high-calling, runs and springs,
And on the
rower's breast she's lying-
“Alas, my heart!: The moonlight shows
In its
full flood a face she knows.
Her pounding blood to terror knells
her.
Where is Vilem?”
“See, by the lake,”
In low grim tone the boatman tells her,
“Above the
night the forests make
Rises a tower, its image white
Deep in the lake's
heart drowned from sight;
But deeper, see, at the water's rim,
From a
little window a lantern's gleam;
This night to vigil Vilem is
giving:
Tomorrow sets him free from living.
His heavy guilt and yours he
carries:
Deep your seducer's blood has stained him,
That stroke a
parricide arraigned him.
Still, still revenge the avenger barries!
A
felon's death! Peace to him bring,
Lord, when that face, the rose
outshining,
In its high place stands withering,
And in the wheel his limbs
are twining!
So dies the dreaded Forest King!
Bear for his guilt, and your
own shame,
My bitter curse, and the world's blame!”
He turns. His voice to silence falls;
Down he climbs through the rocky
walls,
Outward his boat goes gliding.
Swift as the stork's flight, beating
fast,
Dwindling, dwindling, a lily at last,
Over the lake in the mountains
hiding.
Hushed are the waters, dark, forlorn,
In deep dusk all things crouch to
cover.
A white dress gleams on the waves that mourn
Over her: “Jarmila!”
like a lover,
And the woods sigh: “Jarmila!” over and over.
Late evening, on the first of May—
The twilit May-the time of love.
To
dalliance woos the turtle-dove:
“Jarmila! Jarmila!! Jarmila!!!”
2
Out of heaven a star falls questing,
Dying through the wastes of
space,
Endlessly it falls unresting
Through its endless
resting-place;
From the unbounded grave wild crying
Beats at heaven with
bitter breath.
“Is there then no end of dying?”
Nowhere—never an end of
death.
Around the white tower breezes shiver,
Beneath, the whispering
wavelets quiver.
On the blanched walls in silver glance
The argent moon
sheds radiance.
But deep within the tower is darkness only,
For the clear
moon's pale wealth of light
Through narrow window into the cell gropes
lonely,
And dims into the assault of night.
Column by column the sombre
vault's recesses
Melt into darkness. The entering wind sighing
Circles the
cell like murdered felons crying,
And stirs the prisoner's tresses.
Beside
a table hewn of stone,
His head upon his hands inclining
Half-sits,
half-kneels this wretched one,
To deeps of thought his soul resigning.
As
clouds the moon's face veil and cover,
He draws their web his spirit
over;
Thought into thought flows undesigning.
“Deep night, now in your veiling hold
My native village you enfold,
And
friends weep for my end there.
Weep?—and for me? A dream outworn!
Long
since I have no friend there.
The first gleam of tommorow's morn
Over her
forest breaking,
Will send me to my death forlorn,
And gild, as when her
child was born,
Her merry, mild awaking.”
Silent he falls; but through the night,
About the high vault
flying,
Far, far his voice goes sighing,
Till as with horror frozen in
flight
At the cell's end it chills there,
And into darkness stills
there.
The silence in the darkness grieving
Calls back to heart the days
departed;
Again in waking dreams he's living
The long-lost life of a boy
light-hearted.
Remembrance of green years and kind
Brings back a young
man's dreams to mind;
The prisoner's eyes with tears are flowing,
And in
his heart a great pain growing—
A lost world how shall the seeker find?
Mountain on mountain westward presses
Beyond the lake high-piled
And
there in the pinewoods' sweet recesses,
He dreams himself once more a
child.
Early thrust from his father's care,
Bred up by brigands in strifes
and stresses,
Last to their leader fallen heir,
Gallant and daring they
acclaim him.
Known to all men, thus all men name him,
Lord of the Woods, a
name of fear.
Till the love of a broken rose inflames him;
His hand, to
bitter vengeance straying,
Seeks the seducer, strikes him, claims him,
His
stranger father strangely slaying.
Wherefore a prisoner he lies,
Doomed to
the wheel's embrace that kills;
Lord of the Woods, at dawn he dies,
At the
first kindling of the hills.
Now at a table hewn of stone,
His head upon his hands
reposing,
Half-sits, half-kneels this wretched one,
The abyss of thought
his soul enclosing:
As clouds the moon's face veil and cover,
He draws
their web his spirit over,
Thought evermore new thought disclosing.
“He, sire and foe!-I, death and seed!
And he my love's betrayer!
I knew
him not! My fearful deed
recoiled and slew the slayer.
Why was I banished
from his sight
The lawless woods to barry?
Whose crime does the dawn's
death requite?
Whose guilt is this I carry?
Not mine! ab, surely I was
bent
A mute, unwitting instrument
God's judgment to deliver.
Not mine
the deed! Why, then, ah, why
Out to this hideous death go I
So soon-and,
ah, for ever?
Soon, and for ever! Endless—death—”
For horror fails the
prisoner's breath,
Echoing from the dungeon wall;
The voiceless shadow of
the night
In iron grip shuts sound and sight.
A new dream holds his mind
in thrall.
“Ah, she, my saint, my rose embowered!
Why lost ere ever she was
found?
Why at my father's hands deflowered?
Accursed I!—” Deep anguish
drowned
The struggling words. With sudden sound
Of clamorous chains he
springs upright,
And from the little window strains
Over the waves his
tortured sight.
Cloud veils the moon, and shadow reigns
Over the earth,
but no shade mars
The zenith glittering with stars;
With points of fire
the lake they stain,
That flash and fade in waters hollow.
Their
glimmering flight his fixed eyes follow,
And all his heart is wrenched with
pain.
“How fair the world! How rich the night!
Silver and shade
agreeing!
Ah, tomorrow shuts my dying sight
On all the bliss of
seeing!
And as grey cloud across the skies
Far, far and wide goes
flying,
So—” Down he sinks, his hungering eyes
Torn from the scene, his
chains' harsh cries
Soon into silence dying.
A monstrous bird's extended wing,
From peak to peak the cloud is
driven,
Under one vast pall gathering
In blackest marriage earth and
heaven.
Hark! from the high hills lost to sight
A poignant voice is
trilling,
A forest piper of the night,
The song of heaven
distilling.
To all things which bave wakeful lain
It charms down sleep's
completeness;
The prisoner in his mortal pain
Finds Lethe in its
sweetness.
“How beautiful, dear voice, the song
On the night's breast
you're flinging!
But one more night-ah, God, not long!-
And deaf to your
enchanted tongue,
No more I'll hear such singing.”
Again be sings-the
clank of chains
Rings through the cell, despairing-
Deep silence. Once
again the pains
Of death his heart are tearing,
And fading far the voice
complains
An anguish beyond bearing.
“Time yet to come? Tomorrow's
day?
Still, still some dream will time repay,
Or sleep too deep for
dreaming?
Perhaps this life which here I live
Is but a sleep, and dawn
will give
Only another seeming?
Or that best rose, long longed-for
here,
That fruit the wide earth did not bear,
Will dawn and death
disclose?
Who knows?—Ah, no one knows!”
Silence again. The hush of night
On all the earth is draped
there.
Quenched is the moon's benignant light,
Quenched are the stars, and
all around
Is purest darkness, black, profound,
As if the grave's mouth
gaped there.
No winds blow more, nor waves complain,
Nor even the far,
sweet pipe of pain,
And in the bosom in the cell
Dead silence, utter
darkness dwell.
“How deep the night-how dark the night!
On me a darker
closes—
Away, thought!” Panic shuts from sight
The grave his thought
discloses.
Deep silence. From the streaming wall
Flows down a small, slow
river,
And echoing drops the silence fret;
Through the long cell their
hollow fall,
Measuring night's moments of regret,
Chimes—ceases—chimes and
ceases ever,
Chimes—ceases—chimes and ceases yet.
“How long the night—how long the night!
On me a longer closes—
Away,
thought!” Horror shuts from sight
The grave his thought discloses.
Deep
silence. Once again the chime
Of slow drops falling metes out time.
“A darker night! Here in the womb
Of veriest midnight shines some
beam
Of moon or star—there—hideous gloom,
There never—never—never a
gleam,
Only the dark for ever.
All's one there, without part-they
send
no hours, no moments to befriend,
Night fails not, never dawns the
day,
For there time passes never.
There never—never—never an end!
From
death that passes not away
Who shall my soul deliver?
“There utter
emptiness, beneath,
Around, above, the void of death,
Quenching all live's
endeavour.
Unending silence—never a sound—
Unending space, night, time,
surround
The dead mind dreaming on decay—
Mere nothingness—for
ever!
And I to nothing—but one more day,
And I to nothing am cast
away—”
He faints, he falls aquiver.
Lightly the waves at play come springing
Under the tower, their small
spray flying,
Ever a gentle murmur bringing,
A cradle-song for captive
singing,
Who in a deep half-death is lying.
The fearful clash of chains awakes
The guard, who with his lamp comes
hasting;
So light a step, it scarcely breaks
The prisoner's trance of
dread unresting.
Pillar to pillar the lantern bright
Puts forth its little
gleaming:
Still paler, paler grows its light,
Till fails at last the
exhausted spark,
And absolute and moveless dark
On all beyond lies
dreaming.
But still the prisoner's eyes, adaze
As if night shrouded still
their gaze,
Strain forward, nothing seeing,
Althought the lantern's
reddening ray
Lights his wan face, and drives away
The timid shadows
fleeing.
Beside the table hewn of stone,
His head upon his hands
inclining,
Half-sits, half-kneels the wredched one,
To sick despair his
soul resigning;
And the faint whispering of his breath
Tells forth
tormenting dreams of death.
“Alas, my soul-Alas, my love-”
Single and slow the sad words move
Out
of his shut lips sighing.
Scarcely they reach the straining ear
When,
newly born in pain and fear,
Already they are dying.
The gaoler's light before him goes,
And on the prisoner's face it
glows.
The prisoner's face—ah, dread and pain!—
His fixed eyes glare in
wild distress
After an end of endlessness,
Tears, sweat and blood his
pallor stain,
For speech his lips contend in vain.
The frightened gaoler stoops to snare
The thread of utterance from the
air,
Lighter than lightest breeze he hears
The prisoner's tale of blood
and tears.
Lower he leans, and closer yet
To the wan mouth his ear is
set,
Hard on the labouring lips now leaning,
Till fainting, fainting, they
forget
Speech, as if sleep came unawares.
Still stands the guard in dreadful dreaming,
Like bees in swarm his tears
come teeming,
Sorrow his heart within him sears.
Long he stands frozen
there aghast,
Till thrusting off his helpless fears,
Out of the cell he
flies in haste.
Long as he lived, he told no word
Of what his ears this
night had heard:
Rather his whole life through thereafter
His pale lips
said farewell to laughter.
The guard is fled, fast-closed the door.
Deep darkness shrouds the cell
once more;
And through the night once more the chime
Of slow drops falling
metes out time.
Beside the table hewn of stone
Half-sits, half-kneels Vilem alone;
His
face a sight for fear and pain,
With fixed eyes staring in distress
After
an end of endlessness—
Tears, sweat and blood his pallor stain.
Incessantly the watery chime
Of slow drops falling metes out time,
And
wind and wawes as one complain;
To Vilem's ear of death they tell.
He
faints beneath the thought appalling.
Far through the night an owl is
calling,
And louder beats the midnight bell.
Intermezzo I
Midnight
(a lonely place in the countryside)
In the wide plains sleeps sound the pale moon's argent light,
Darkness is
on the hills, the lake with stars is bright.
A hillock by the lake-shore
rises,
A stake thereon, a wheel raised lightly,
Whereon a bleached skull
glistens whitely,
While ghostly rout a dance devises,
About the high wheel
revelling rightly.
Chorus of Phantoms
“Silent the midnight graveyard lies;
Through the graves the marshlight
flies,
Its dead blue radiance lights the head
Of the newly-buried
dead,
Who, while his fellows sleep, stands guard,
Last of the sepulchred,
dead today,
Beside his own cross keeping ward.
A grey cloud in the zenith
stays,
No moon beneath it but the ray
Of the dead man's glassy
gaze,
And through half-open lips beneath
The glitter of his gnashing
teeth.”
A Voice
“This is the hour! The place prepare!
Lord of the Woods, the lord of
fear,
Is one with us at dawn of day.”
Chorus of Phantoms (lifting down the skull)
“From death's dim threshold come away,
Inherit life - a voice
receive.
Be one among us, know us well,
No more be doomed alone to
dwell.
Another must your place achieve.”
The Skull (joining in their dance)
“How my limbs long to join again
In one whole creature, only one!
What
is this rout of terror and pain?
My newest dream - I still dream on!”
Voice
“His place of honour ready see!
When tomorrow's course is o'er
The
storm shall bear us here once more.
Glorious may his burial be!”
Chorus of Phantoms
“His place of honour ready see!
When tomorrow's course is o'er
The
storm shall bear us here once more.
Glorious may his burial be!”
Voice
Fly, voice, across the fields with power!
At midnight is the funeral
hour.
His votive gift let each make known!
The Stake and Wheel
“I'll be the coffin to his repose.”
Frogs in the Marsh
“The burial anthem we'll intone.”
Storm over the Lake
“The gale funeral music knows.”
The Moon in the Zenith
“I'll cover him with snow-white pall.”
Mist on the Mountains
“With veils I'll drape his funeral.”
Night
“I'll give black weeds to mourn the dead.”
The Hills Standing Round
“Give veils and garments to us all.”
The Falling Dew
“And I will give you tears to shed.”
The Barren Soil
“I'll incense with sweet smoke his head.”
The Sinking Cloud
“With rain will I asperge his bed.”
The Falling Blossom
“I will weave garlands for his bier.”
Light Breezes
“We'll bear them to the coffin lightly.”
St John's Fireflies
“Our tiny candles shall burn up brightly.”
Thunder out of the Depths
“I'll wake the great bell's hollow tone.”
The Mole under the Earth
“I'll dig his grave, I, lowly here.”
Time
“Over his bones a tomb I'll rear.”
Flocks of Night-Birds Crossing the Moon
“We'll make the funeral feast our own.”
Voice
“All honour to his grave we pay!
The moon pales in the heaven's
heart,
The gates of morning draw apart—
It is day! It is day!”
Chorus of Phantoms (as they vanish)
“It is day! It is Day!”
3
Over the dark hills rosy day
Arises, the May valley wakes;
Above the
woods, as morning breaks,
Like mist lies long the dream of May.
Out of the
forests bluely lifting
Faint vapours climb the rose-flushed sky,
And on
the lake more bluely drifting
In delicate colours melt and die;
And on the
shore, and in the shadow
Of hills and valleys flowering,
Shine out white
courts through wood and meadow,
Waking; till like a mighty king—
Colossal
as the shade of night
Against thwe heaven's rosy light—
The highest peak
stands towering.
But now the sun his first red blessing gives
Over the blue, dark hills,
and by that token
Suddenly all the spell of dreams is broken,
And joy
possesses everything that lives.
Whitely the lake's green glass the flight of
birds receives,
And fleets of little craft, and small, swift-rowing
shallops,
Pattern the dim blue waves with glancing, fiery
scallops.
Murmurous by the shore the pinewoods greet the day,
Sweet with
the song of birds, the thrush's shower of pearls,
And mingling with their
psalm the mirth of straying girls,
As all that lives draws breath to praise
the youthful May.
The morning wind, like song, through the green valley
blowing,
Bears on its incensed breath a sweet white foam of flowers,
And
wild geese ride its flight above the forest bowers,
And to its touch young
trees unfold their eager growing.
One scene, and only one, the fair young
morn defaces,
Where to the wide lake's heart a narrow isle goes
straying,
Bearing the little town, and the white tower, whose shade
Deep
in the waters green in quiveringly laid.
Here wakes a clamorous cry, babel of
human baying,
As from the gates of the town the hungry man-pack
races.
From far the people haste, a swift stream rushing by,
And ever
swells the food, a river strongly rolling,
A mighty multitude, its voice to
thunder tolling;
The unhappy felon comes, led forth at dawn to die.
Now from the little town a troop of guards comes swinging,
In slow and
sombre march the hapless prisoner bringing,
Whose old, proud habit soon the
eager watchers spy.
The clamour stills around—a hush falls on the
crowd—
Till babel bursts anew, with many a cry and loud:
“Tis he! The
flowers, the plumes he's wearing,
The hat, the eye beneath it glaring—
His
very cloak—'Tis he,'tis he! The dreaded Forest King!”
About him beats the
cry, his old name echoing;
And louder still it rings, as thundering waters
clear,
As with a heavy step the criminal draws near.
Round him darkens the
throng—like heavy clouds in heaven—
A sword flames from the dark—as heaven's
lightnings flare;
Slowly the doomed man goes, his gaze to earth is
given.
The town bell tolls; the crowd pities and falls to prayer.
There stahd a little mound, on the lake-shore leaning lightly,
A long
stake raised thereon, a wheel above it rearing,
A steep hill looms above,
twin peaks its summit sharing,
And on the higher point a chapel gleaming
whitely.
In sombre march thereto company is come;
Now all men move
aside—the felon stands alone.
A last time led forth here, still he beholds
his own,
The dark, deep-breasted hills which were his early home,
Where
the lost coin was spent, the golden childhood days.
Yet once more, only once,
in the rosy dawning light,
Let forth to the hills, a shade before the chapel
white,
To the lord of heaven and earth his reverence he pays.
And deep
compassion folds its hands on every heart.
His grief their grief inflames,
they suffer his despair,
Fixing their eyes through tears on the summit where
he stands
Adoring the fair earth well-fashioned at God's hands,
A murderer
praising God in the humbled hush of prayer.
The rising sun with ruddy grace
Flushes the prisoner's pallid face;
His
eyes, through mists of weeping,
A last love-tryst are keeping.
Beneath him
deep the lovely vale
Dreams in its rugged mountain pale,
By forests
circled greenly.
The lucid lake serenely
Nursed in the flowering valley
drowses.
Blue to the shore it coils and glimmers,
And green beyond, and
greener, sleeps,
Till in the distances and deeps
In clear, pale light all
melts and shimmers.
About the wheel the white farmhouses
Dimpling the
sunlit lake-shore lie.
Across the mirroring waters fast
Flocks of white
birds and small boats fly,
Till bluely hides the lake at last,
Far in the
hills retreating.
And white craft in the scalloped beaches—
The tower-the
town-the white birds' flight—
Hillocks and shadowy mountain reaches—
Gaze
on that mirror with delight,
Their deep-drowned beauty greeting.
Rocks are
piled heavy on that far shore
Where flowering land and lake are
meeting,
And there an oak-tree old and hoar
Roots in the rocks-once, once
the dove
Called there deliciously to love—
Oh, fair lost hour and
fleeting!
Never again! The mound is nearing,
The column an the wheel
appearing.
Beyond the hill there slips away
A young wood, murmuring
mournfully;
Radiant the sun on vale and lea—
The morning dew—the morning
May.
Beauty once more the felon's eyes receive,
Beauty which now for ever he
must leave,
And passionate regret his heart possesses:
Deeply he
sighs—tear after tear flows over—
One last long look, lingering as looks the
lover,
Then to the sky his tear-dimmed eyes he raises.
In the azure vault
of heaven the blanching mists are dancing,
In light dissolving zephyrs
tattered,
And on the far horizon scattered
White cloudlets over the placid
sky go glancing.
The grieving prisoner greets them as they race:
“You
clouds, whou in your wandering course embrace
Like secret circling arm the
earth her own course keeping,
You dissolutions of stars, shades in the blue
of heaven,
You mourners ever to mutual sorrow given,
Who know so well the
ways of silent weeping—
Bear you my charge, of all things that have
birth.
Where you pass from me on your long, wide way
To the distant shore,
there for a moment stay,
There, pilgrim clouds, greet reverently the
earth.
Ah, well-beloved earth, beautiful earth,
My cradle and grave, the
womb that gave me birth,
My sweet, sole land, left to my spirit's
keeping,
Ah, vast and single of beauty as of worth!-
Seek there that rock,
and when your swift sails gain it—
If you shall see—by the shore—a woman
weeping—”
There fails his voice, the strangling tears have slain it.
Down
from the height the guards their prisoner lead
By a wide pathway through
young pinewoods threading,
Down and still down; now on the mound they're
treading;
And now the multitude is hushed indeed.
The executioner with his
sword stands ready.
Yet one more time the prisoner lifts his
eyes,
Worships the sweet, encircling world-once sighs-
And on the
approaching death his soul makes steady.
His breast and throat he bares,
kneeling to earth he leaves it;
Back steps the headsman-an age the frozen
mind believes it!—
The sword flashes; a rapid forward stride—
The sword
circles; the bent white neck receives it—
The head falls—a tremor—and yet a
tremor beside—
And falls the body after, one with the grieved earth
growing.
Into the earth, so beautiful, so beloved.
His cradle and grave,
the womb that gave him birth,
His sweet, sole land, his heritage
approved,
In the generous earth, the single, holy earth,
Into the mother's
heart the blood of her son is flowing.
The prisoner's shattered shell, limb after long limb broken,
Twined in the
wheel's embrace is raised, a terrible token,
And over the wheel his head, a
blind, oblivious thing.
So died the lord of the woods, the dreaded Forest
King.
On the dead countenance the last dream lingers still.
Gazing upon
his face, mute round the little hill
The unquiet multitude awaits the long
day's ending,
Till the declining sun draws to the west once more,
Into the
head's blind eyes its gay last laughter sending.
Hushed is the broad
lake-hushed is the evening shore.
Above the far dark hills the last radiance blazed.
The pale, dead face of
the head is softly silvered o'er,
Silvered the silent mound, hushed by the
lake-shore,
As in the evening hush the moon's fair face is raised.
Distant
are grown the towns, far as a cloud in air,
Beyond to the edge of seeing the
dead eyes steadily stare,
To the edge of sight, to his youth-Oh, brief,
bright childhood day!
Time in its headlong flight has carried that Spring away.
Far fled is his
dream, a shadow no more found,
Like visions of white towns, deep in the
waters drowned,
The last indignant thoughts of the defeated dead,
Their
unremembered names, the clamour of old fights,
The worn-out northern lights,
after their gleam is fled,
The untuned harp, whose strings distil no more
delights,
The deeds of time gone by, quenched starlight overhead,
Heresy's
pilgrimage, the loving, lovely dead,
The deep forgotten grave, eternal board
and bed;
As the smoke of burned-out fires, as the shattered bell's
chime,
Are the dead years of the dead, their beautiful childhood time!
Late eve—the second eve of May—
The twilit May—the time of
love—
Meltingly calls the turtle-dove:
Vilem! Vilem! Vilem!!
Intermezzo II
Close the hills lean to each other,
Underneath a dark cloud
hiding,
Like a vaulted ceiling riding
Taut from one peak to his
brother.
Dark this place by evening gloom is,
Dark and silent as the tomb
is.
In the portal deeply-shaded,
Where the hills shrink back
dividing,
Sharp rocks in the opening spaces
Steeply rear their frowning
faces,
Lower, narrower, blackly biding;
Underneath the cloud
dark-braided
Shuts this gate of rocks and boulders.
In the valley's heart
deep-gladed,
Darkly red a camp-fire smoulders,
Broken from the west
bright-beaming,
A long sliver of the sunset;
Round its red nocturnal
gleaming
Circle night-birds, wheeling, plaining,
In a red and restless
onset,
Till the blue of night they borrow.
Sinks the fire, still
waning-waning,
Till the broad and bounteous heaven
Melts in nightly dews
of sorrow,
And the earth to grief is given.
Oaks a hundred years a-growing,
Darkness within darkness throwing,
Hide
a company of friends there.
Cloaked in white, as in the bright time,
Sit
the comrades of the night-time.
Each before him groundward bends
there,
Wordless, motionless, his vision,
As if terror's chill
transition
Into stone their flesh had stricken.
Through the valley seems
to quicken
Whispered breath of lamentation
Round the moveless men who
plain him,
Secretly, without cessation:
“Lost, our leader!—they have slain
him!”
And the wind, the smoke-wreaths plying,
To the moveless men is
crying:
“Lost, our leader!-they have slain him!”
And the restless leaves aquiver
Underneath the cold
cliff-faces,
Trembling, murmuring, utter ever
These insistent, changeless
phrases:
“Lost, our leader!-they have slain him!”
All the forests in their station
Sound the great, sad accusation:
“They
have slain him—slain him!!—slain him—!!!”
4
Beautiful May is passed, withered the bloom of Spring;
The summer fire
burns high, wanes, and as soon is gone,
Autumn, and winter after; another
Spring comes on,
As time bears off the years on its unresting wing.
The seventh year it was, the seventh year's last day;
Deep on it lay the
night, and with the midnight chime
A new year would be born. The cold earth
dreaming lay.
Lone hoof-beats by the lake troubled the silent time.
I was
that wayfarer, bound for the town by night,
Led by chance to the mound,
where, long ago at rest,
The dreaded Forest King lingered a quiet
guest;
There first I saw Vilem- a bare skull glistening white.
There in
the midnight land, far as the eye's reach ranging,
Through valleys, over
hills, by forest, lake and meadow,
A wide, white pall of snow lay level and
unchanging,
Over the skull and wheel-all white without a shadow.
Deep
clouds hemmed in the moon, which seemed to droop and sicken;
Sometimes the
weird owl cried, ever the sad wind's shaking
Plucked at the wheel above, and
set the loud bones quaking,
So that my horse and I with panic dread were
stricken.
Forward I spurred in fear, there where the safe town hailed
me,
And asked what wheel, what bones were these which grimly grew
there,
The old innkeeper told the story all men knew there-
The story I
have told-and on that wheel impaled me.
Far I went through the world-and the world has enough of pain,
Many a
storm of heart blew over me and bled me;
But still this old, worn woe
beckoned me back again,
Till in a young Spring season home to the mound it
led me.
Under the stake I sat, just as the sun descended,
Under the wheel
which bore the skeleton and skull there,
Gazing sad-eyed on Spring, whose cup
was fair and full there,
Even to the misty rim where earth and heaven
blended.
Evening once more, the first of May-
The twilit May-the time of
love.
Meltingly called the turtle-dove,
Where rich and sweet the pinewoods
lay.
Whispered of love the mosses frail,
The flowering tree as sweetly
lied
The rose's fragrant sigh replied
To love-songs of the
nightingale.
The lake within the dark woods straying
Softly complained a
secret pain,
By circling shores embraced again
As brother sister in their
playing.
About the head the sunset bright
Lay like a wreath of roses
growing,
Gilding the bony face with light,
On fretted skin and white jaw
glowing.
In the hollow skull the breezes sped
As if grim laughter mocked
the dead,
and lifted lightly here and there
What time had left of his long
hair;
Beneath his brows the dewdrops borrow
The sunset light, as if,
discerning
The evening beauty of May's returning,
His dead eyes brim with
tears of sorrow.
There I sat on, until the young moon's light
Blanched both my face and his
with rays as pale as bright;
Now like a snowy pall its whiteness spreads
before him
Over the vales and woods to the distant hills that bore
him.
Sometimes from far away the cuckoo's greeting sounds here,
Flung from
the flowering vale, sometimes the owl's grave warning;
From many a farmyard
near the bark of dogs rebounds here;
Out of the dust arises a sweet incense
of mourning,
The little tears of the Virgin upon the hill are
flowering,
Deep in the heart of the lake a secret light is burning;
And
the fireflies, shooting stars, about the wheel are showering,
Glittering in
their play, touching the pale skull brightly,
Lighting to launch again, and
launch again ac lightly,
Like fiery falling tears, all his spent tears
embowering.
And in my grieving eyes two hot tears rise and break,
Glittering down my
cheeks as sparks play in the lake;
For my young years, mine too, my childhood
golden-gay,
Time in its headlong flight has seized and borne away.
Far is
that lost dream now, a shadow no more found,
Like visions of white towns,
deep in the waters drowned,
The last indignant thoughts of the defeated
dead,
Their unremembered names, the clamour of old fights,
The worn-out
northern lights after their gleam is fled,
The untuned harp, whose strings
distil no more delights,
The deeds of time gone by, quenched starlight
overhead,
Heresy's pilgrimage, the loving, lovely dead,
The deep,
forgotten grave, etrnal board and bed,
The smoke of burned-out fires, the
scattered bell's chime—
Like the song of dead swam, like Eden snatched
away,
So is my childhood time—
But what of following time?
My youth,
alas, my youth! My season and song are May!
An eventide of May on a rocky,
desolate shore:
Light laughter on the lips, deep grief in the heart's
core.
See you the pilgrim there, hastening on his quest
Through the long, sunset
fields, beneath the dimming west?
Strain your eyes as you will, the end you
cannot see,
As over the edge of vision he falters and finds no
rest.
Never-ah, never! And this is all life offers me!
Comfort? Who
comforts me? What charm this heart can move?
Love is without an end!—And
bitter is my love!
Late evening, on the first of May—
The twilit May-the time of
love—
Meltingly calls the turtle-dove:
“Hynek! Vilem! Ah,
Jarmila!!!”