THE DYING OF TANNEGUY DU BOIS En los nidos de antaño No hay pájaros hogaño. -SPANISH Proverb. ́EA, I am passed away, I think, from this; YEA, Nor helps me herb, nor any leechcraft But lift me hither the sweet cross to kiss, Yea, I am sped, and never more shall see, As once I dreamed, the show of shield and crest, Gone southward to the fighting by the sea ;— There is no bird in any last year's nest! Yea, with me now all dreams are done, I ween, Grown faint and unremembered; voices call High up, like misty warders dimly seen Moving at morn on some Burgundian wall; And all things swim-as when the charger stands Quivering between the knees, and East and West Are filled with flash of scarves and waving hands; There is no bird in any last year's nest! Is she a dream I left in Aquitaine?— My wife Giselle,-who never spoke a word, Although I knew her mouth was drawn with pain, Her eyelids hung with tears; and though I heard The strong sob shake her throat, and saw the cord Her necklace made about it;—she that prest To watch me trotting till I reached the ford ;There is no bird in any last year's nest! Ah! I had hoped, God wot,--had longed that she Should watch me from the little-lit tourelle, Me, coming riding by the windy lea Me, coming back again to her, Giselle; Yea, I had hoped once more to hear him call, The curly-pate, who, rushen lance in rest, Stormed at the lilies by the orchard wall;— There is no bird in any last year's nest! But how, my Masters, ye are wrapt in gloom! This Death will come, and whom he loves he cleaves Sheer through the steel and leather; hating whom He smites in shameful wise behind the greaves. 'Tis a fair time with Dennis and the Saints, And weary work to age, and want for rest, When harness groweth heavy, and one faints, With no bird left in any last year's nest! Give ye good hap, then, all. For me, I lie Broken in Christ's sweet hand, with whom shall rest To keep me living, now that I must die ; There is no bird in any last year's nest! THE MOSQUE OF THE CALIPH UNTO NTO Seyd the vizier spake the Caliph "Now hearken and hear, I am weary, by Allah! I am faint with the mere over-running of leisure; I will rouse me and rear up a palace to Pleasure!" To Abdallah the Caliph spake Seyd the vizier : "All faces grow pale if my Lord draweth near; And the breath of his mouth not a mortal shall scoff it ; They must bend and obey, by the beard of the Prophet!" Then the Caliph that heard, with becoming sedateness, Drew his hand down his beard as he thought of his greatness; Drained out the last bead of the wine in the chalice : "I have spoken, O Seyd; I will build it, my palace! "As a drop from the wine where the wine-cup hath spilled it, As a gem from the mine, O my Seyd, I will build it; Without price, without flaw, it shall stand for a token That the word is a law which the Caliph hath spoken !" Yet again to the Caliph bent Seyd the vizier : "Who shall reason or rail if my Lord speaketh clear? Who shall strive with his might? Let my Lord live for ever! He shall choose him a site by the side of the river." Then the Caliph sent forth unto Kür, unto Yemen, To the South, to the North,—for the skilfullest freemen; And soon, in a close, where the river breeze fanned it, The basement uprose, as the Caliph had planned it. |