Dinah Maria Mulock Craik: Verses about Steel Arms

I.

RICHARD the Lion-hearted, crowned serene
With the true royalty of perfect man;
Seated in stone above the praise or ban
Of these mixed crowds who come gaping lean
As if to see what the word 'king' might mean
In those old times. Behold! what need that rim
Of crown 'gainst this blue sky, to signal him
A monarch, of the monarchs that have been,
And, perhaps, are not?--Read his destinies
In the full brow o'er-arching kingly eyes,
In the strong hands, grasping both rein and sword,
In the close mouth, so sternly beautiful:--
Surely, a man who his own spirit can rule;
Lord of himself, therefore his brethren's lord.

II.

'O Richard, O mon roi.' So minstrels sighed.
The many-centuried voice dies fast away
Amidst the turmoil of our modern day.
How know we but these green-wreathed legends hide
An ugly truth that never could abide
In this our living world's far purer air?--
Nevertheless, O statue, rest thou there,
Our Richard, of all chivalry the pride;
Or if not the true Richard, still a type
Of the old regal glory, fallen, o'er-ripe,
And giving place to better blossoming:
Stand--imaging the grand heroic days;
And let our little children come and gaze,
Whispering with innocent awe--'This was a King.'

After War-time.

O LIFE, dear life, with sunbeam finger touching
This poor damp brow, or flying freshly by
On wings of mountain wind, or tenderly
In links of visionary embraces clutching
Me from the yawning grave--
Can I believe thou yet hast power to save?

I see thee, O my life, like phantom giant
Stand on the hill-top, large against the dawn,
Upon the night-black clouds a picture drawn
Of aspect wonderful, with hope defiant,
And so majestic grown
I scarce discern the image as my own.

Those mists furl off, and through the vale resplendent
I see the pathway of my years prolong;
Not without labor, yet for labor strong;
Not without pain, but pain whose touch transcendent
By love's divinest laws
Heart unto heart, and all hearts upwards, draws.

O life, O love, your diverse tones bewildering
Make silence, like two meeting waves of sound;
I dream of wifely white arms, lisp of children--
Never of ended wars,
Save kisses scaling honorable scars.

No more of battles! Save the combat glorious
To which all earth and heaven may witness stand;
The sword of the Spirit taking in my hand
I shall go forth, since in new fields victorious
The King yet grants that I
His servant live, or His good soldier die.

A Statuette.

I.

MY white archangel, with thy steadfast eyes
Beholding all this empty ghost-filled room,
Thy clasped hands resting on the sword of doom,
Thy firm, close lips, not made for human sighs
Or smiles, or kisses sweet, or bitter cries,
But for divine exhorting, holy song
And righteous counsel, bold from seraph tongue.
Beautiful angel, strong as thou art wise,
Would that the sight of thee made wise and strong!
Would that this sheathèd sword of thine, which lies
Stonily idle, could gleam out among
The spiritual hosts of enemies
That tempting shriek--'Requite thou wrong with wrong.'
Lama Sabachthani,--How long, how long.


II.

MICHAEL, the leader of the hosts of God,
Who warred with Satan for the body of him
Whom, living, God had loved--If cherubim
With cherubim contended for one clod
Of human dust, for forty years that trod
The gloomy desert of Heaven's chastisement,
Are there not ministering angels sent
To battle with the devils that roam abroad,
Clutching our living souls? 'The living, still
The living, they shall praise Thee!'--Let some great
Invisible spirit enter in and fill
The howling chambers of hearts desolate;
With looks like thine, O Michael, strong and wise,
My white archangel with the steadfast eyes.

AY, in thy face, old fellow! Now's the time.
The Black Sea wind flaps my tent-roof, nor wakes
These lads of mine, who take of sleep their fill,
As if they thought they'd never sleep again,
Instead of--
Pitiless Crimean blast,
How many a howling lullaby thou'lt raise
To-morrow night, all nights till the world's end,
Over some sleepers here!
Some?--who? Dumb Fate
Whispers in no man's ear his coming doom;
Each thinks--'not I--not I.'
But thou, grim Death,
I hear thee on the night-wind flying abroad,
I feel thee here, squatted at our tent-door,
Invisible and incommunicable,
Pointing:
'Hurrah!'
Why yell so in your sleep,
Comrade? Did you see aught?
Well--let him dream:
Who knows, to-morrow such a shout as this

He'll die with. A brave lad, and very like
His sister.
* * * * * *

So! just two hours have I lain
Freezing. That pale white star, which came and peered
Through the tent-opening, has passed on, to smile
Elsewhere, or lost herself i' the dark,--God knows.
Two hours nearer to dawn. The very hour,
The very hour and day, a year ago,
When we light-hearted and light-footed fools
Went jingling idle swords in waltz and reel,
And smiling in fair faces. How they'd start,
Those dainty red ad white soft faces kind,
If they could but behold my visage now,
Or his--or his--o some poor faces cold
We covered up with earth last noon.
--There sits
The laidly Thing I felt on our tent-door
Two hours back. It has sat and never stirred.
I cannot challenge it, or shoot it down,
Or grapple with it, as with that young Russ
Whom I killed yesterday. (What eyes he had!--
Great limpid eyes, and curling dark-red hair,--
A woman's picture hidden in his breast,--
I never liked this fighting hand to hand.)
No, it will not be met like flesh and blood,
This shapeless, voiceless, immaterial Thing,
Yet I will meet it. Here I sit alone,--
Show me thy face, O Death!
There, there. I think
I did not tremble.
I am a young man;
Have done full many an ill deed, left undone
Many a good one: lived unto the flesh,
Not to the spirit: I would rather live
A few years more, and try if things might change.
Yet, yet I hope I do not tremble, Death;
And that thy finger pointed at my heart
But calms the tumult there.
What small account
The All-living seems to take of this thin flame
Which we call life. He sends a moment's blast
Out of war's nostrils, and a myriad
Of these our puny tapers are blown out
Forever. Yet we shrink not,--we, such frail
Poor knaves, whom a spent ball can instant strike
Into eternity,--we helpless fools,
Whom a serf's clumsy hand and clumsier sword
Smiting--shall sudden into nothingness
Let out that something rare which could conceive
A universe and its God.
Free, open-eyed,
We rush like bridegrooms to Death's grisly arms:
Surely the very longing for that clasp
Proves us immortal. Immortality
Alone could teach this mortal how to die.
Perhaps, war is but Heaven's great ploughshare, driven
Over the barren, fallow earthly fields,
Preparing them for harvest; rooting up
Grass, weeds, and flowers, which necessary fall,
That in these furrows the wise Husbandman
May drop celestial seed.
So let us die;
Yield up our little lives, as the flowers do;
Believing He'll not lose one single soul,--
One germ of His immortal. Naught of His
Or Him can perish; therefore let us die.

I half remember, something like to this
She says in her dear letters. So--let us die.
What, dawn? The faint hum in the trenches fails.
Is that a bell i' the mist? My faith, they go
Early to matins in Sebastopol!--
A gun!--Lads, stand to your arms; the Russ is here.
Agnes.
Kind Heaven, I have looked Death in the face,
Help me to die.