The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun Read online

  and I would have had her sweetly lie

  and sweet arise; and live yet long,

  and see our children hale and strong."

  His words they little understood,

  but cursed the fevers of the wood,

  and to their lady no word spoke.

  Ere second morn was old she woke,

  and to her women standing near

  gave greeting with a merry cheer:

  "Good people, lo! the morn is bright!

  Say, did my lord return ere night,

  and tarries now with hunting worn?"

  "Nay, lady, he came not with the morn;

  but ere men candles set on board,

  thou wilt have tidings of thy lord;

  or hear his feet to thee returning,

  ere candles in the eve are burning."

  Ere the third morn was wide she woke,

  and eager greeted them, and spoke:

  "Behold the morn is cold and grey,

  and why is my lord so long away?

  I do not hear his feet returning

  neither at evening nor at morning"

  "We do not know, we cannot say"

  they answered and they turned away.

  Her gentle babes in swaddling white,

  now seven days had seen the light,

  and she arose and left her bed,

  and called her maidens and she said:

  "My lord must soon return. Come, bring

  my fairest raiment, stone on ring,

  and pearl on thread; for him 'twill please

  to see his wife abroad at ease."

  She looked from window tall and high,

  and felt a breeze go coldly by;

  she saw it pass from tree to tree;

  the clouds were laid from hill to sea.

  She heard no horn and heard no hoof,

  but rain came pattering on the roof;

  in Brittany she heard the waves

  on sounding shore in hollow caves.

  The day wore on till it was old;

  she heard the bells that slowly tolled.

  "Good folk, why do they mourning make?

  In tower I hear the slow bells shake,

  and Dirige the white priests sing.

  Whom to the churchyard do they bring?"

  "A man unhappy here there came

  a while agone. His horse was lame;

  sickness was on him, and he fell

  before our gates, or so they tell.

  Here he was harboured, but to-day

  he died, and passeth now the way

  we all must go, to church to lie

  on bier before the altar high."

  She looked upon them, dark and deep,

  and saw them in the shadows weep.

  "Then tall, and fair, and brave was he,

  or tale of sorrow there must be

  concerning him, that still ye keep,

  if for a stranger thus ye weep!

  What know ye more? Ah, say! ah, say!"

  They answered not, and turned away.

  "Ah me," she said, "that I could sleep

  this night, or least that I could weep!"

  But all night long she tossed and turned,.

  and in her limbs a fever burned:

  and yet when sudden under sun

  a fairer morning was begun,

  "Good folk, to church I wend," she said.

  "My raiment choose, or robe of red,

  or robe of blue, or white and fair,

  silver and gold–I do not care."

  "Nay, lady," said they, "none of these.

  The custom used, as now one sees,

  for women that to churching go

  is robe of black and walking slow."

  In robe of black and walking bent

  the lady to her churching went,

  in hand a candle small and white,

  her face so pale, her hair so bright.

  They passed beneath the western door;

  there dark within on stony floor

  a bier was covered with a pall,

  and by it yellow candles tall.

  The watchful tapers still and bright

  upon his blazon cast their light:

  the arms and banner of her lord;

  his pride was ended, vain his hoard.

  To bed they brought her, swift to sleep

  for ever cold, though there might weep

  her women by her dark bedside,

  or babes in cradle waked and cried.

  There was singing slow at dead of night,

  and many feet, arid taper-light.

  At morn there rang the sacring knell;

  and far men heard a single bell

  toll, while the sun lay on the land;

  while deep in dim Broceliande

  a silver fountain flowed and fell

  within a darkly woven dell,

  and in the homeless hills a dale

  was filled with laughter cold and pale.

  Beside her lord at last she lay

  in their long home beneath the clay;

  and if their children lived yet long,

  or played in garden hale and strong,

  they saw it not, nor found it sweet

  their heart's desire at last to meet

  In Brittany beyond the waves

  are sounding shores and hollow caves;

  in Brittany beyond the seas

  the wind blows ever through the trees.

  Of lord and lady all is said:

  God rest their souls, who now are dead!

  Sad is the note and sad the lay,

  but mirth we meet not every day.

  God keep us all in hope and prayer

  from evil rede and from despair,

  by waters blest of Christendom

  to dwell, until at last we come

  to joy of Heaven where is queen

  the maiden Mary pure and clean.

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