her see and hear so well.
"Oh what are the sounds that rise and spread?
All day it was so still;"
Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid:
"Unto the furthest hill
The air they fill."
Quoth the other: "'Tis our sense is blurr'd
With all the chants gone by."
But the Queen held her breath and heard,
And said, "It is the cry
Of Victory."
The first of all the rout was sound,
The next were dust and flame,
And then the horses shook the ground;
And in the thick of them
A still band came.
I think that no poet in the world ever performed a greater feat than this stanza, in which, and in three lines only, the whole effect of the spectacle and sound of an army returning at night has been given. We must suppose that the women have gone out to wait for the army. It comes; but the night is dark, and they hear at first only the sound of the coming, the tramp of black masses of men passing. Probably these would be the light troops, archers and footmen. The lights are still behind, with the cavalry. Then the first appearance is made in the light of torches—foot soldiers still, covered with dust and carrying lights with them. Then they feel the ground shake under the weight of the feudal cavalry—the knights come. But where is the chief? No chief is visible; but, surrounded by the mounted knights, there is a silent company of men on foot carrying something. The Queen wants to know what it is. It is covered with leaves and branches so that she cannot see it.
"Oh what do ye bring out of the fight,
Thus hid beneath these boughs?"
"Thy conquering guest returns to-night,
And yet shall not carouse,
Queen, in thy house."
After a victory there was always in those days a great feast of wine-drinking, or carousal. To carouse means to take part in such noisy festivity. When the Queen puts her question, she is kindly but grimly answered, so that she knows the dead body of her knight must be under the branches. But being a true woman and lover, her love conquers her fear and pain; she must see him again, no matter how horribly his body may have been wounded.
"Uncover ye his face," she said.
"O changed in little space!"
She cried, "O pale that was so red!
O God, O God of grace!
Cover his face!"
His sword was broken in his hand
Where he had kissed the blade.
"O soft steel that could not withstand!
O my hard heart unstayed,
That prayed and prayed!"
Why does she call her heart hard? Because she naturally reproaches herself with his death. Unstayed means uncomforted, unsupported. There is a suggestion that she prayed and prayed in vain because her heart had suffered her to send that man to battle.
His bloodied banner crossed his mouth
Where he had kissed her name.
"O east, and west, and north, and south,
Fair flew my web, for shame,
To guide Death's aim!"
The tints were shredded from his shield
Where he had kissed her face.
"Oh, of all gifts that I could yield,
Death only keeps its place,
My gift and grace!"
The expression "my web" implies that the Queen had herself woven the material of the flag. The word "web" is not now often used in modern prose in this sense—we say texture, stuff, material instead. A shred especially means a small torn piece. "To shred from" would therefore mean to remove in small torn pieces—or, more simply expressed, to scratch off, or rend away. Of course the rich thick painting upon the shield is referred to. Repeated blows upon the surface would remove the painting in small shreds. This is very pathetic when rightly studied. She sees that all the presents she made to him, banner, sword, shield, have been destroyed in the battle; and with bitter irony, the irony of grief, she exclaims, "The only present I made him that could not be taken back or broken was death. Death was my grace, my one kindness!"
Then stepped a damsel to her side,
And spoke, and needs must weep;
"For his sake, lady, if he died,
He prayed of thee to keep
This staff and scrip."
That night they hung above her bed,
Till morning wet with tears.
Year after year above her head
Her bed his token wears,
Five years, ten years.
That night the passion of her grief
Shook them as there they hung
Each year the wind that shed the leaf
Shook them and in its tongue
A message flung.
We must suppose the Queen's bed to have been one of the great beds used in the Middle Ages and long afterwards, with four great pillars supporting a kind of little roof or ceiling above it, and also supporting curtains, which would be drawn around the bed at night. The staff and scrip and the token would have been hung to the ceiling, or as the French call it ciel, of the bed; and therefore they might be shaken by a passion of grief—because a woman sobbing in the bed would shake the bed, and therefore anything hung to the awning above it.
And once she woke with a clear mind
That letters writ to calm
Her soul lay in the scrip; to find
Only a torpid balm
And dust of palm.
Sometimes when we are very unhappy, we dream that what we really wish for has happened, and that the sorrow is taken away. And in such dreams we are very sure that what we were dreaming is true. Then we wake up to find the misery come back again. The Queen has been greatly sorrowing for this man, and wishing she could have some news from his spirit, some message from him. One night she dreams that somebody tells her, "If you will open that scrip, you will find in it the message which you want." Then she wakes up and finds only some palm-dust, and some balm so old that it no longer has any perfume—but no letter.
They shook far off with palace sport
When joust and dance were rife;
And the hunt shook them from the court;
For hers, in peace or strife,
Was a Queen's life.
A Queen's death now: as now they shake
To gusts in chapel dim—
Hung where she sleeps, not seen to wake
(Carved lovely white and slim),
With them by him.
It would be for her, as for any one in great sorrow, a consolation to be alone with her grief. But this she cannot be, nor can she show her grief to any one, because she is a Queen. Only when in her chamber, at certain moments, can she think of the dead knight, and see the staff and scrip shaking in their place, as the castle itself shakes to the sound of the tournaments, dances, and the gathering of the great hunting parties in the court below.
In that age it was the custom when a knight died to carve an image of him, lying asleep in his armour, and this