Henry Brocken

  XII

  _The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie._

  --S.T. Coleridge.

  So Reverie, as he had promised, rode out with me a few miles to see meon my way. Above the gloom and stillness of the valley the scene beganto change again. I was glad as I could be to view once more thetossing cornfields and the wind at play with shadow. Near and far,woods and pastures smoked beneath the sun. I know not through how manyarches of the elms and green folds of the meadows I kept watch on thechimneys of a farmhouse above its trees.

  But Reverie, the further we journeyed, the less he said. I almostchafed to see his heedless eyes turned upon some inward dream, whilehere, like life itself, stood cloud and oak, warbled bird and brookbeneath the burning sun. I saw again in memory the silver twilight ofthe moon, and the crazy face of Love's Warrior, haunter of shade. Lethim but venture into the open, I thought, hear again the distantlowing of the oxen, the rooks cawing in the elms, see again the flocksupon the hillside!

  I suppose this was her home my heart had turned to. This was my dust;night's was his. For me the wild rose and the fields of harvest; forhim closed petals, the chantry of the night wind, phantom lutes andvoices. And, as if he had overheard my thoughts, Reverie turned at thecross-ways.

  "You will come back again," he said. "They tell me in distant landsmen worship Time, set up a shrine to him in every street, and treasurehis emblem next their hearts. There, they say, even the lover babblesof hours, and the dreamer measures sleep with a pendulum. Well, myhouse is secluded, and the world is far; and to me Time is naught.Return, sir, then, when it pleases you. Besides," he added, smilingfaintly, "there is always company at the World's End."

  The crisp sunbeams rained upon his pale and delicate horse, itsequal-plaited mane, on the darkness of his cloak, that dream-delightedface. Here smouldered gold, here flushed crimson, and here the curveddamaskening of his bridle glistened and gleamed. He was a strangevisitant to the open day, between the green hedges, beneath theenormous branching of the elms. And there I bade him farewell.

  Some day, perhaps, I shall return as he has foretold, for it is evereasy to find again the house of Reverie--to them who have learned theway.

  On I journeyed, then, following as I had been directed the main roadto Vanity Fair. But whether it is that the Fair is more difficult toarrive at than to depart from, or is really a hard day's journey evenfrom the gay parlour of the World's End, it already began to beevening, and yet no sign of bunting or booth or clamour or smoke.

  And it was at length to a noiseless Fair, far from all vanity, that Icame at sunset--the cypresses of a solitary graveyard. I was tired outand desired only rest; so dismounting and leading Rosinante, I turnedaside willingly into its peace.

  It seemed I had entered a new earth. The lane above had wandered on inthe gloaming of its hedges and over-arching trees. Here, all theclouds of sunset stood, caught up in burning gold. Even as I paused,dazzled a moment by the sudden radiance, from height to height thewild bright rose of evening ran. Not a tottering stone, black,well-nigh shapeless with age, not a green bush, but seemed to dwellunconsumed in its own fire above this desolate ground. The trees thatgrew around me--willow and yew, thorn and poplar--were but flamingcages for the wild birds that perched in their branches.

  Above these sound-dulled mansions trod lightly, as if of thought,Rosinante's gilded shoes. I wandered on in a strange elation of mind,filled with a desperate desire ever to remember how flamed this rosebetween earth and sky, how throbbed this jargon of delight. Andturning as if in hope to share my enthusiasm, a childish peal oflaughter showed me I was not alone.

  Beneath a canopy of holly branches and yew two children sat playing.The nearer child's hair was golden, glistening round his face ofroses, and he it was who had laughed, tumbling on the sward. But theface of the further child was white almost as crystal, and the darkhair that encircled his head with its curved lines seemed as it werethe shadow of the gold it showed beside. These children, it was plain,had been running and playing across the tombs; but now they werestooping together at some earnest sport. To me, even if they had seenme, they as yet paid no heed.

  I passed slowly towards them, deeming them at first of solitude'screation, my eyes dazzled so with the sun. But as I approached, so thebranches beneath which they played gradually disparted, and I saw notfar distant from them one sitting who evidently had these jocund boysin charge.

  I could not but hesitate awhile as I surveyed them. These were nomortal children playing naked amid the rose of evening: nor she whosat veiled and beautiful beneath the ruinous tombs. I turned withsudden dismay to depart from their presence unobserved as I hadentered; but the children had now espied me, and came running, filledwith wonder of Rosinante and the stranger beside her.

  They stayed at a little distance from us with dwelling eyes and partedlips. Then the fairer and, as it seemed to me, elder of the brothersstooped and plucked a few blades of grass and proffered them, halffearfully, to the beast that amazed him. But the other gave less heedto Rosinante, fixed the filmy lustre of his eyes on me, his wonderfulyoung face veiled with that wisdom which is in all children, and of animmutable gravity.

  But by this time, she who it seemed had the charge of these childrenhad followed them with her eyes. To her then, leaving Rosinante in anecstasy of timidity before such god-like boys, I addressed myself.

  So might a traveller lost beneath strange stars address unansweringNight. She, however, raised a compassionate face to me and listenedwith happy seriousness as to a child returned in safety at eveningfrom some foolhardy venture. Yet there seemed only a deeperyouthfulness in her face for all its eternity of brooding on herbeauteous children. Narrow leaves of olive formed her chaplet. Thedarker wine-colours of the sea changed in her eyes. There was no senseof gloom or sorrowfulness in her company. I began to see how the samestill breast might bear celestial children so diverse as these, whosenames, she told me presently, were Sleep and Death.

  I looked at the two children at play, "Ah! now," I said, almostinvoluntarily "the golden boy who has caught my horse's bridle in hishand, is not he Sleep? and he who considers his brother'sboldness--that one is Death?"

  She smiled with lovely vanity, and told me how strange of heart youngchildren are. How they will alter and vary, never the same for longtogether, but led by indiscoverable caprices and obedient to somefurther will. She smiled and said how that sometimes, when the birdshush suddenly from song, Sleep would creep tenderly and sadly to herknees, and Death clasp her roguishly, as if in some secret with thebeams of morning. So would they change, one to the likeness of theother. But Sleep was, perhaps, of the gentler disposition; a littleobstinate and headstrong; at times, indeed, beyond all cajolery; yetvery sweet of impulse and ardent to make amends. But Death's capricesbaffled even her. He seemed now so pitiless and unlovely of heart; andnow, as if possessed, passionate and swift; and now would break awayburning from her arms in an infinite tenderness.

  But best she loved them when there came a transient peace to both; andlooking upon them laid embraced in the shadow-casting moonbeam, noteven she could undoubtingly touch the brow of each beneath theirlikened hair, and say this is the elder, and this the dreamlessyounger of the boys.

  Seeing, too, my eyes cast upon the undecipherable letters of the tombby which we sat, she told me how that once, near before dawn, she hadawoke in the twilight to find their places empty where the childrenhad lain at her side, and had sought on, at last to find them evenhere, weeping and quarrelling, and red with anger. Little by little,and with many tears, she had gleaned the cause of their quarrel--howthat, like very children, they had run a race at cockcrow, and allthese stones and the slender bones and ashes beneath to be the prize;and how that, running, both had come together to the goal set, andboth had claimed the victory.

  "Yet both seem happy now to share it," I said, "or how else were theycomforted?" Nor did I consider before she told me that they will runagain when they be grown men, Sleep and Death
, in just such a thickdarkness before dawn; and one called Love will then run with them, whois very vehement and fleet of foot, and never turns aside, norfalters. He who then shall win may ask a different prize. For truth totell, she said, only children can find delight for long in dust andruin.

  At that moment Death himself came hastening to his mother, and, takingher hand, turned to the enormous picture of the skies as if in somefaint apprehension. But Sleep saw nothing amiss, lay at full lengthamong the "cool-rooted flowers," while Rosinante grazed beside him.

  I told her also, in turn, of my journey; and that although transient,or everlasting, solace of all restlessness and sorrow and too-wildhappiness may be found in them, yet men think not often on thesedivine children.

  "As for this one," I said, looking down into the pathless beauty ofDeath's grey eyes, "some fear, some mock, some despise him; someviolently, some without complaint pursue; most men would altogetherdismiss, and forget him. He is but a child, no older than the sea, nostranger than the mountains, pure and cold as the water-springs. Yetto the bolster of fever his vision flits; and pain drags a heavy netto snare him; and silence is his echoing gallery; and the gold ofSleep his final veil. They shall play on; and see, lady, flame hasleft the clouds; the birds are at rest. The earth breathes in, and itis day; and exhales her breath, and it is night. Let them then playsecret and innocent between her breasts, comfort her with silenceabove the tempest of her heart.... But I!--what am I?--a traveller,footsore and far."

  And then it was that I became conscious of a warm, sly, youthful handin mine, and turned, half in dread, to see only happy Sleep laughingunder his glistening hair into my eyes. I strove in vain against hissorcery; rolled foolish orbs on that pure, starry face; and then Ismelled as it were rain, and heard as it were tempestuousforest-trees--fell asleep among the tombs.