Complete Works of William Morris, page 316
O maiden Mary, be wary, be wary!
And go not down to the river,
Lest the kingfisher, your evil wisher,
Lure you down to the river,
Lest your white feet grow muddy,
Your red hair too ruddy
With the river-mud so red;
But when you are wed
Go down to the river.
O maiden Mary, be very wary,
And dwell among the corn!
See, this dame Alice, maiden Mary,
Her hair is thin and white,
But she is a housewife good and wary,
And a great steel key hangs bright
From her gown, as red as the flowers in corn;
She is good and old like the autumn corn.
MAIDEN MARY.
This is knight Roland, Father John,
Stark in his arms from a field half-won;
Ask him if he has seen your son:
Roland, lay your sword on the corn,
The piled-up sheaves of the golden corn.
KNIGHT ROLAND.
Why does she kiss me, Father John?
She is my true love truly won!
Under my helm is room for one,
But the molten lead-streams trickle and run
From my roof-tree, burning under the sun;
No corn to burn, we had eaten the corn,
There was no waste of the golden corn.
FATHER JOHN.
Ho, you reapers, away from the corn,
To march with the banner of Father John!
THE REAPERS.
We will win a house for Roland his son,
And for maiden Mary with hair like corn,
As red as the reddest of golden corn.
OMNES.
Father John, you have got a son,
Seven feet high when his helm is on
Pennon of Roland, banner of John,
Star of Mary, march well on.
SIR GILES’ WAR-SONG
Ho! is there any will ride with me,
Sir Giles, le bon des barrières?
The clink of arms is good to hear,
The flap of pennons fair to see;
Ho! is there any will ride with me,
Sir Giles, le bon des barrières?
The leopards and lilies are fair to see;
St. George Guienne! right good to hear:
Ho! is there any will ride with me,
Sir Giles, le bon des barrières?
I stood by the barrier,
My coat being blazon’d fair to see;
Ho! is there any will ride with me,
Sir Giles, le bon des barrières?
Clisson put out his head to see,
And lifted his basnet up to hear;
I pull’d him through the bars to ME,
Sir Giles; le bon des barrières.
NEAR AVALON
A ship with shields before the sun,
Six maidens round the mast,
A red-gold crown on every one,
A green gown on the last.
The fluttering green banners there
Are wrought with ladies’ heads most fair,
And a portraiture of Guenevere
The middle of each sail doth bear.
A ship which sails before the wind,
And round the helm six knights,
Their heaumes are on, whereby, half blind,
They pass by many sights.
The tatter’d scarlet banners there,
Right soon will leave the spear-heads bare.
Those six knights sorrowfully bear,
In all their heaumes some yellow hair.
PRAISE OF MY LADY
My lady seems of ivory
Forehead, straight nose, and cheeks that be
Hollow’d a little mournfully.
Beata mea Domina!
Her forehead, overshadow’d much
By bows of hair, has a wave such
As God was good to make for me.
Beata mea Domina!
Not greatly long my lady’s hair,
Nor yet with yellow colour fair,
But thick and crispèd wonderfully:
Beata mea Domina!
Heavy to make the pale face sad,
And dark, but dead as though it had
Been forged by God most wonderfully
Beata mea Domina!
Of some strange metal, thread by thread,
To stand out from my lady’s head,
Not moving much to tangle me.
Beata mea Domina!
Beneath her brows the lids fall slow.
The lashes a clear shadow throw
Where I would wish my lips to be.
Beata mea Domina!
Her great eyes, standing far apart,
Draw up some memory from her heart,
And gaze out very mournfully;
Beata mea Domina!
So beautiful and kind they are,
But most times looking out afar,
Waiting for something, not for me.
Beata mea Domina!
I wonder if the lashes long
Are those that do her bright eyes wrong,
For always half tears seem to be
Beata mea Domina!
Lurking below the underlid,
Darkening the place where they lie hid:
If they should rise and flow for me!
Beata mea Domina!
Her full lips being made to kiss,
Curl’d up and pensive each one is;
This makes me faint to stand and see.
Beata mea Domina!
Her lips are not contented now,
Because the hours pass so slow
Towards a sweet time: (pray for me),
Beata mea Domina!
Nay, hold thy peace! for who can tell?
But this at least I know full well,
Her lips are parted longingly,
Beata mea Domina!
So passionate and swift to move,
To pluck at any flying love,
That I grow faint to stand and see.
Beata mea Domina!
Yea! there beneath them is her chin,
So fine and round, it were a sin
To feel no weaker when I see
Beata mea Domina!
God’s dealings; for with so much care
And troublous, faint lines wrought in there,
He finishes her face for me.
Beata mea Domina!
Of her long neck what shall I say?
What things about her body’s sway,
Like a knight’s pennon or slim tree
Beata mea Domina!
Set gently waving in the wind;
Or her long hands that I may find
On some day sweet to move o’er me?
Beata mea Domina!
God pity me though, if I miss’d
The telling, how along her wrist
The veins creep, dying languidly
Beata mea Domina!
Inside her tender palm and thin.
Now give me pardon, dear, wherein
My voice is weak and vexes thee.
Beata mea Domina!
All men that see her any time,
I charge you straightly in this rhyme,
What, and wherever you may be,
Beata mea Domina!
To kneel before her; as for me,
I choke and grow quite faint to see
My lady moving graciously.
Beata mea Domina!
SUMMER DAWN
Pray but one prayer for me ‘twixt thy closed lips;
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
The summer night waneth, the morning light slips,
Faint and grey ‘twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the
cloud-bars,
That are patiently waiting there for the dawn:
Patient and colourless, though Heaven’s gold
Waits to float through them along with the sun.
Far out in the meadows, above the young corn,
The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold
The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;
They pray the long gloom through for daylight new born,
Round the lone house in the midst of the corn.
Speak but one word to me over the corn,
Over the tender, bow’d locks of the corn.
IN PRISON
Wearily, drearily,
Half the day long,
Flap the great banners
High over the stone;
Strangely and eerily
Sounds the wind’s song,
Bending the banner-poles.
While, all alone,
Watching the loophole’s spark,
Lie I, with life all dark,
Feet tether’d, hands fetter’d
Fast to the stone,
The grim walls, square letter’d
With prison’d men’s groan.
Still strain the banner-poles
Through the wind’s song,
Westward the banner rolls
Over my wrong.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON
CONTENTS
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK I.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK II.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK III.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK IV.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK V.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK VI.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK VII.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK VIII.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK IX.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK X.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK XI.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK XII.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK XIII.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK XIV.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK XV.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK XVI.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK XVII.
One of the original wood engravings designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones for the epic poem
Page from the first edition of ‘The Life and Death of Jason’ (1867), Morris’ first poetical success
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK I.
Jason having grown up to manhood in the woods, is warned of what his life shall be.
IN Thessaly, beside the tumbling sea,
Once dwelt a folk, men called the Minyæ;
For, coming from Orchomenus the old,
Bearing their wives and children, beasts and gold,
Through many a league of land they took their way,
And stopped at last, where in a sunny bay
The green Anaurus cleaves the white sea-sand,
And eastward inland doth Mount Pelion stand,
Where bears and wolves the centaurs’ arrows find;
And southward is a gentle sea and kind,
Nigh landlocked, peopled with all kinds of fish,
And the good land yields all that man can wish.
So there they built Iolchos great of girth,
That daily waxed till these had left the earth,
With many another, and Cretheus the king
Had died, and left his crown and everything
To Aeson, his own son by fair Tyro;
Whom, in unhappy days and long ago,
A God had loved, whose son was Pelias.
And so, within a while, it came to pass
This Pelias, being both covetous and strong
And full of wiles, and deeming nought was wrong
That wrought him good, thrust Aeson from his throne,
And over all the Minyæ reigned alone;
While Aeson, like a poor and feeble lord,
Dwelt in Iolchos still, nor was his word
Regarded much by any man therein,
Nor did men labour much his praise to win.
NOW ‘mid all this a fair young son he had;
Of whom he thought when good had fallen to bad;
Though Pelias doth to-day my life endure,
Yet may he crave to make his kingship sure
Some morrow yet by slaying sire and son:
Therefore will I send forth the little one,
Ere Pelias feels his high seat tottering,
And gets to know the terrors of a king,
That blood alone can deaden. Therewithal
A faithful slave unto him did he call,
And bade him from his nurses take the child
And bear him forth unto the forest wild
About the feet of Pelion: There should he
Blow loudly on a horn of ivory
That Aeson gave him; then would come to him
A Centaur, grave of face and large of limb,
Before whom he should fall upon his knees
And, holding forth the child, say words like these:
O my lord Chiron, Aeson sends me here
To say, if ever you have held him dear,
Take now this child, his son, and rear him up
Till we have fully drained the bitter cup
The fates have filled for us; and if times change
While through the peaceful oakwood here you range,
And the crown comes upon the youngling’s head,
Then, though a king right fair apparelled,
Yet unto you shall he be but a slave,
Since now from fear his tender years you save.
And then, quoth Aeson, all these words being said,
Hold out this ring, set with a ruby red,
Adorned with gold and man-like images,
And this same horn, whereon, ‘twixt carven trees,
Diana follows up the flying hart;
They shall be signs of truth upon your part.
Then leave the child with him; and fear no whit
But all the Centaur saith, give ear to it
And tell me all: now bring the child in haste;
Dusk grows the world, and day is weary-faced.
THEN went the man and came again to him
With Jason, who was strong and large of limb
As for his years, and now upon his feet
Went firmly, and began to feel life sweet,
And longed for this and that, and on his tongue,
Bewildered, half articulate, speech hung.
But Aeson, when he saw the sturdy boy,
His bright round limbs and face lit up with joy
Of very life, sighed deeply, and he spake:
O head beloved, I pray thou mayst not ache
With bearing of the crown; were it not good
That thou shouldst live and die within this wood
That clothes the feet of Pelion, knowing nought
Of all the things by foolish men so sought;
For there, no doubts is everything man needs,
The quiver, with the iron-pointed reeds,
The cornel bow, the wood-knife at the side,
The garments of the spotted panther’s hide,
The bed of bear-skin in the hollow hill,
The bath within the pool of some green rill;
There shall the quick-eyed centaurs be thy friends,
Unto whose hearts such wisdom great Jove sends
They know the past and future, and fear nought
That by the fates upon them may be brought.
And when the spring brings love, then mayst thou hap
On the kind wood-nymphs in the mountain’s lap,
And choose thy mate, and with her, hand in hand,
Go wandering through the blossoming sweet land
And nought of evil there shall come to thee,
But like the golden age shall all things be;
And when upon thee falls the fated day,
Fearless and painless shalt thou pass away.
SO spoke he foolishly, nor knew indeed
How many hearts his son should make to bleed,
How many griefs his head, whitened with care
Long ere its time, before his death should bear.
NOW, since the moonless night and dark was come,
Time was it that the child should leave his home
So men to Aeson’s door the war-horse led
That was to bear them from the gates of dread,
And by the godlike Aeson stood the slave,
With wallet on his back, and sharpened glaive
Girt to his side; to whom the horn and ring,
Fit for the belt and finger of a king,
Did Aeson give, and therewith kissed the boy,
Who with his black beard played, and laughed for joy
To see the war-horse in the red torch-light.
At last, being mounted, forth into the night
They rode, and thus hath Jason left his home.
ALL night they rode, and at the dawn, being come
Unto the outskirts of the forest wild,
They left the horse, and the still sleeping child
The slave bore in his arms, until they came
Unto the place where, living free from blame,
Chiron the old roamed through the oaken wood;
There by a flowering thorn-bush the slave stood,
And set the little Jason on the ground;
Who, waking from sweet sleep, looked all around
And ‘gan to prattle; but his guardian drew
The horn from off his neck, and thereon blew
A point of hunting known to two or three,
That sounded through the forest merrily,
Then waited listening. And meantime the sun,
Come from Eubœan cliffs, had just begun
To light the high tips of the forest grass,
And in the thorn the blackbird singing was;
But ‘mid his noise the listening man could hear
The sound of hoofs, whereat a little fear
He felt within his heart, and heeded nought
The struggling of the child, who ever sought
To gain the horn all glittering of bright gold,
Wrought by the cunning Dædalus of old.
