Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ORDEAL, by JOHN DAVIDSON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ORDEAL, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Between the golden city and the sea
Last Line: Across the sounding threshold of the sea.
Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers; Family Life; Justice; Longing; Love; Marriage; Rites & Ceremonies; Torture; Tragedy; Unfaithfulness; Violence; Royal Court Life; Royalty; Kings; Queens; Relatives; Weddings; Husbands; Wives; Infidelity; Adultery; Inconstancy


BETWEEN the Golden City and the sea
A damasked meadow lay, the saffron beach
And silver loops of surge dissevering
The violet water from the grass-green land.

While yet the morning sun swung low in heaven,
A crystal censer in a turquoise dome,
Emanuel meted justice in the gate,
Emanuel of the Golden City King.
To him there came Sir Hilary; his wife,
The comely Bertha; after them their sons
And daughters grieving. Godfrey also came,
Knight-errant of the Phœnix; from that quest
Lately returned: guarded he was and bound.

'Justice, my lord and king!' cried Hilary,
With passion hoarse, and wanner than a flame
That flickers in the sun. 'I saw them kiss:
I saw her from her bosom take a ring
And place it warm upon his finger. Here'—
He gave the King the ring—'an old worn hoop
Of pale alloy, but clasping, doubt it not,
A horde of sweet and shameful memories
More dear to them than mines of virgin gold.
Justice, my lord and king!'

'Whom do you charge?'

'Sir Godfrey and my wife. I saw them kiss;
I saw her tearfully assign the ring
Warm from her bosom to his lustful hand.
For him the gallows and for her the stake!'

'But if you saw this done, Sir Hilary,
Why is her lover here alive to-day?'

'I ran upon him in the garden-close
When I espied them; but he beat me back.
Hearing the clash of steel my folk rushed forth
And fettered him. Vengeance miscarrying thus,
Before the world the law shall have its way.
The age is dissolute; the hearts of men
Know every sin by rote; their starveling souls
Are blind and lame: I publish my disgrace
To warn the world. This woman is my wife;
These well-grown youths; these budding damsels— look ...
I scarce can say the words ... look you, my liege,
These are our children: treasure, you would say,
To fill a woman's heart? Oh no! He there,
That lecher, is her lover, gray and gaunt.
If she be burned before her children's eyes,
The wanton blood they have from her, refined
By fire, in her fierce torment drained and seared,
May leave them humble-hearted and afraid
Even of the lawful kiss of married love.
Justice, my lord, upon the shameful pair!'

'Do they admit the charge? What do you say,
Sir Godfrey? Bertha, answer.'

'All my life,'
The lady said, looking upon the ground:
Because when she looked up her stricken eyes
Turned to her children, sorrowing by her side;
And her true heart when most she needed strength
Began to break: wherefore upon the ground
She cast her gaze and answered, 'All my life
I have been faithful to my husband's bed.'

'And I,' said Godfrey, 'never did him wrong.'

Knight-errant of the Phœnix, fancy-charmed
At fifty still, but as inept to lie
As tongueless men to sing, even furtive minds
A grudging credence paid him: jealousy
That calls the moon a leper, and will swear
There never was a maid of sweet sixteen,
Only the heart's attorney, jealousy,
Had any countenance to doubt his word.

'He lies,' cried Hilary, 'as the lovers' code Requires.'

'The ring, the keepsake?' said the King:
'Did you receive it with a kiss from her?'

'I kissed her, and she gave me back the ring.'

'Oh! she returned the ring!' cried Hilary.
'A stale, old shame! I might have guessed as much.
The happiest of men I judged myself.
My wife, so delicate, so meek, so chaste,
A rare obedience gave; but unperfumed,
Unlit by passion: so she seemed, and so
To me she was, because her false blood burned
In the dark-lantern of a lawless love.
Where did he hunt the Phœnix? Ask him that.
How often has he, wandering secretly,
Discovered in my arbours, here at home,
Or on my pillows, Araby the Blest?'

'Nay,' said the King; 'have patience, Hilary.
Let Godfrey plead; she after him shall tell
Her own romance. Lead her aside meanwhile.'

'Content,' said Hilary.

And it was done.
Her children gathered round her as she went,
Worship and sorrow fighting in their looks.
The youngest, eager to be near her, trod
Upon her skirt, making her halt. Abashed
He shrank behind the others; but she turned,
And, seeing him distressed, held out her hand,
Moving her fingers as she used to do
Winningly when her children first could walk,
She sent him also so humane a smile,
So sweet, so patient, that his ruddy cheek
Grew pale as hers; and, suffering more than she,
Because he hardly knew—and yet he knew—
The naked meaning of his father's charge,
He cried aloud, and, throttled by his sobs,
Sank to the ground: the mounting tide of life
Had but begun to press upon his heart
With murmured news of mystery unveiled;
And all his fancy innocently clung
About his mother—he, her latest born;
And she, his earliest sweetheart.

Silently,
Before another could, she reached her son,
And lifted him and bore him in her arms.
Dismayed to find himself a babe again,
He pushed her from him, straining towards the ground.
'Be still!' she said, 'This is a thing to do!
Something to do!' and crushed him to her breast.

East of the city wall a virgin wood
Discovered twilight gleams of emerald
In depths of leafy darkness treasured up.
Upon its verge a grove of hawthorn hung,
The friendly tree—and Nature's favourite:
For now that all its own unhoarded bloom
Was withered, and its incense sacrificed,
The honeysuckle lit the matted boughs
With cressets burning odour, and the briar
Enwreathed and overhung them lovingly,
Its pallid rose like elfin faces sweet
Peering from out the swart-green thicket-side.

Thither they led dame Bertha. In the shade
She sat: her son, still as a nursling now,
With solemn eyes where stately dreams reside,
Lay in her arms and watched her ashen lips.
The brilliant blackbirds, sauntering through the brake,
Doled out indifferently their golden notes,
Or sprinkled magic phrases, summer showers
Of jewelled rain, the while Sir Godfrey's voice
Re-echoed faintly from the City gate.
Then Bertha, all benumbed with misery,
Caressed her son, and, swaying to and fro,
In troubled whispers told a fairy tale
Of how a lady, deeply wronged, became
The happiest princess in the world at last.
Her other children, kneeling by her side,
Powerless to comfort, worshipped her and wept.

Sir Godfrey, standing bound before the King,
Spoke thus: 'My cognizance has wrought my fate:
A Phœnix burning in his nest; the scroll,
Viget in cinere virtus. In my youth
I swore to find the Phœnix, being scorned
By many who averred that no such fowl
Inhabited the earth. And here, my lord,
Before I answer Hilary's reproach,
I beg all men to know the Phœnix lives;
For I have seen him fly across the Nile,
Beating the air with gold and purple plumes,
Towards Yemen, where he reigns: this was last year,
The thirtieth of my quest.'

'Sir,' said the King:
'I marvel at your patience. Thirty years!'
'Patience? I know it not! Embarked, I swore
That thirty weeks, and sorely grudged the time,
Should see the Phœnix caught and caged; myself,
Renowned throughout the world, and fixed in fame
With Lancelot and Roland. Youth and hope
Spare none of us—Syren and Circe linked
In one divine betrayal of the world!
Even while the Golden City towered behind
And bathed its glittering shadow in the deep
The Berber galleys swooped: captivity
Her twisted talons settled in my flesh
To tire on body and soul with dripping beak
For thrice the time I vowed. That was the dawn!
Also in Hadramaut, five savage years
Of lash and shackle, scornful destiny
Awarded me. Tenacious death, in shapes
Of thraldom, pestilence, contention, thirst,
Shipwreck and famine, flame and blind despair,
Remained my mate by day, my watch by night.
Yet, and although I still am buffeted
By every busy wind and stroke of chance:
Deceived, disgraced, contemptuously foiled
By oracles, by wantonness of fools,
And by the sleepless masked malignity
That men pursue the soul of man withal,
I am neither taught nor tamed. Intolerance
Of mundane things—of utter sanctity
As of indulged desire—shines in the stars,
And in the icy menace of the moon.
From them my fire is kindled, keenest flame
Of passion; for I look not to be praised
Here in the courts of Kings and homes of men;
Nor happily hereafter to usurp
A blissful throne of that imagined world
By terror-stricken envy reared in air
For the immortal solace and reward
Of humbleness and chastity, the true
Accomplices, the virtuous other selves
Of mediocrity and impotence.
But I desire to follow out this quest:
Achieved or unachieved it is my own:
Even if the glorious creature were no more ...
A foolish word! I have seen him, as I said:
From Heliopolis he took his flight
Towards Yemen, like a rainbow laced with gems.
Whether I find him, or am overthrown
Pursuing him, the world shall never know:
My purpose is sufficient for my soul.
Farewell at once. I must be gone—again
To feel my heart leap at the sudden foe,
The lonely battle in the wilderness;
To come at night under the desert moon
On pillars, ghostly porches, temples, towers
Silent for centuries; to see at dawn
The shadow of the Arab on the sand.'

Sir Godfrey bowed and strode a pace away;
Then stopped like one enchanted, wondering
What spell o'ermastered him. When from his dream
He woke, and felt his pinioned arms, a blush
Shone on his tawny cheek and untanned brow.
He muttered something quickly; stumbled—stood,
Staring before him.

'Mediocrity
And impotence!' cried Hilary. 'The phrase,
The very motto lechery inscribes
Beneath the cuckold's sign armorial,
Crested dilemma, honour's hatchment, horns.
This Phœnix-hunt, this magpie-tale of his
Allures no sober judgment from the nest
He fouled! Incredible effrontery!'
'Not in my thought, Sir Hilary,' said the King.
'I cannot press a finger on the wrist
Of treason, and declare 'This blood is false';
Nor is there a divining-rod for kings
To tell the hearts of gold; but I dare stake
My Crown against an apple that the man
Is honest: he forgot the charge preferred
Against him.—Answer me: How came you, sir,
To be discovered with Sir Hilary's wife?'

'Oh, very simply!' said Sir Godfrey.

'Ay!'
Groaned Hilary in his beard; 'simply enough!'
'When I at last beheld the Phœnix, watched
His dazzling flight stream through the eastern air,
The sun fell down behind me, and my heart
Beset me in the darkness. Overpowered
By deep desire to repossess a ring
That was my mother's ... Many men, my lord,
Of hardihood sufficient have been known
To hold the memories of their mothers dear ...
I told myself that having seen once more
The Golden City, wandered through its streets
Of cheerful folk, and by the windy wharfs
Where silent shipmen hang about, and stir
The hearts of passers strangely, never more
Should any thought withdraw me from my quest.
As for the ring, I knew not Hilary's wife
Possessed it; but I knew that Bertha did.
It happened thus: At twenty years, alone
And penniless, house, trinkets—all I sold
To furnish fame with wings; and straightway shipped
For Egypt and the Phœnix. Ere we sailed
I saw this Bertha wistfully approach,
And ran to her, for we were pleasant friends—
Sweethearts, perhaps. Younger than I she was,
And like a palm-tree tall and lithe. I think
Until that day I had not said one word
Of love; but in the morning, half in jest,
Shamefast I whispered, bidding her good-bye,
'And will you marry me when I come back?'
Her blood dyed all her face and neck deep red:
She leaned aside and gazed askance with looks
As wide as day; then fronted me. Her sighs
Beat from her open mouth hot on my face
Like scented winds that blow in Hadramaut.
She trembled, sobbed, and while I wondered fled—
In anger or in love I could not tell.'
'Ay, ay!' went Hilary, with the dog-like leer
Of one whose ribs are grilled by torturers.

'But when she sought me out upon the ship,
And silently embraced me meeting her,
I knew, I surely knew that it was love.
She knotted in my scarf a silken purse,
And said, 'A keepsake. Give me something, sir.'
The ring, my lord, was all I had to give.
I would have pawned, as I have spent, my soul
To serve my purpose: that metallic lie,
My mother's talisman—its paltriness
As merchandise and unappraisable
Romance preserved it. Often I had watched
My mother turn and turn it lost in thought;
And watching I divined its history.
With hoarded pence, my father, straitly kept,
Had bought it for her on a festival
When they were children: love began with them
In April: and she showed me—for I asked
If I divined aright—half-hidden zones
Engraved as with her ripening the ring
On divers fingers had reposed in turn.
Quickly at Bertha's vehement desire
I offered the remembrance I had kept.
She stretched her hand—a fragrant lily hand,
And slipped a petal through the pinchbeck hoop;
Then clad me in her glance and stole away.
Now that I think, I never have beheld
In any other face or other eyes
Of man or woman, or hero in my dreams,
So great a passion, so profound a hope.'

'Ha!' cried the King. 'Regret has found you out?'

'Oh no, my lord! My spirit stands aloof
In judgment of the past. The Moorish whips
Cut from my fancy Bertha's image, pale
Even at the start. Scarcely, until I longed
To have my mother's ring, did any thought
Of Bertha's love offend me in my quest.
After delays—the lackeys circumstance
Provides abundantly for all my schemes—
I reached the Golden City. Hilary's wife,
They told me, was the Bertha I had known.
I found her house, and seeing her without—
It could be no one else; indeed I seemed
To catch her walk again—I went to her,
Withdrawn among a grove of cypresses,
And asked her headlong for my mother's ring.
She gave it me, as Hilary says, and looked,
Poor soul, so sad, that pity wrung my heart.
I kissed her brow: down fell the silvery tears,
And thrice she tried to speak: but Hilary came
And made this ugly rent in our adieus.'
'This is the truth,' said King Emanuel.

'Lies! Subtle lies!' the husband hissed. 'Hear her!
The trap he sets himself. If her account
Accord with his, chance deals in miracles.'

Said Godfrey then, 'My lord, I kissed his wife,
And therefore overlook the littleness
Of his attack; but now that he has heard
The truth, and still denies my honesty,
I claim the combat.'

'And the claim is just,'
Emanuel said. 'I stand for God; but step
Aside, well-pleased that He should arbitrate
Immediately. So, let the lists be set.'

'But Bertha's story?' stammered Hilary.

'Sir,' said the King. 'The combat shall decide
Whether your wife requires to plead or no.'

'Well—very well!' said Hilary. 'I am old;
My joints are stiff; my sinews slack; my sight
Begins to fail; 'tis ebbtide in my blood:
He like a lion from the desert comes
Supple and strong with questing up and down.
Behold an opportunity for God—
Which He will profit by!'

'I doubt it not,'
The King said meaningly.

But Godfrey said,
'What prate is this? I am the better man,
And Hilary shall fall before my lance.'

At noon the lists were set. About the earth,
Whose sea-enamelled disk resplendent wheeled
Among the hidden stars, deep-bosomed clouds,
Horizon-haunting, towered and stooped; the sun
Poured from his quenchless urn, high-held in heaven,
A silent cataract of light, whereto
The mounting larks with sinewy wings and throats
Of tempered gold harnessed a voice inspired.
But in the shining City the tilt-yard hummed
With the inhuman gossip of the world—
The lickerish crowd agape to dip their mouths
In purple-streaming agony, distrained
From hearts mature for torture, newly plucked
And cast into the press.

Emanuel,
When as the sullen-sounding bell had rung
The heavy peal of noon, gave forth the word.
Straightway the trumpets rang, and every look
Towards Bertha veered at once. The petulant throng
Again and yet again, with puckered brows
And hands aslant against the naked light,
Had prowled and peered, and launched surmises wide
Of her repose and countenance serene—
Inscrutable to eyes of cavillers;
But now the winepress flowed, the bout began
With winks and elbowings and nimble nods.
For at the trumpets' call a scarlet sign
Flashed up on Bertha's face; and from the post
Where opposite the King she stood alone,
Patient and proud, a smile of utter peace,
A shaft of glory on her children fell;
And they, disburdened, stretched their hands and laughed:
Since God Himself had hung His balance out,
Already they could hear the host of Heaven,
With psalteries and far-resounding songs,
Acclaim their mother's starry chastity,
And laud the righteous Judge of all the earth.

A second time the trumpets rang—a cry
Implacable with shrieking echoes winged;
Then silence like a heavy dew came down.
Before a breath could move the stagnant air,
And while the pennoned lances of the twain—
Godfrey and Hilary in arms of proof—
Upon the summons in the sockets couched
Still quivered pausing, overthwart the lists
A vagrant bee twanged like an airy lyre
Of one rich-hearted chord. Swift underneath
The honey-laden track the gleaming hoofs
Of either spur-wrung charger gripped the ground,
Flung forth and spanned the course with fluent speed
Of thudding leaps entwined. Together hurled
In uncontrolled assault—each rivet wrenched,
Each nerve and artery of horse and man
Shot through with scalding flame—helm-smitten, both
Hung overborne and toppling urgently,
Till Hilary in his stirrups rose and screamed,
Startling his mastered steed, 'Go down to Hell'—
Astounded at his triumph and meanly glad
That Godfrey should have fallen pierced through the brain
By his haphazard, his unworthy lance,
'Go down to Hell, and cook your Phœnix there!'

The instant murmur of the tossing crowd
Sprang to a roar; and like a home-sick wretch
Delivered from the storm whose gliding hull
Founders upon the welcome harbour-bar,
The voice of malice thrust into her ears
Even as the din and hubbub of the sea
Deafens the drowning outcast, Bertha fell
Wrecked in the very haven of her hope.

Her children, led by him whom she had nursed
To cheat the time beneath the hawthorn-shade,
Tongue-tied with grief and dazzled by their tears,
But bright instinctive creatures in the speed
And promptness of their act, maidens and youths,
O'er skipped the barrier. Bertha then, sustained
By hands of love that trembled and were strong,
Arose, and midmost of her brood at bay
Confronted the eclipse of her renown.

His latticed vizor raised, Sir Hilary cried
Above the dwindled clamour, 'Heaven has judged,
Oh King Emanuel! Bid her now confess!'

'I bid her speak. Speak, Bertha,' said the King,
Heart-struck and pale, but waiting yet on God;
While all the quidnuncs inly hugged themselves,
And market-haunters chafed their sweaty palms,
For now, indeed, the winepress overflowed.

Heading her cygnets, Bertha paced the lists
Towards the throne, a stately sufferer.
Her curtsy not forgotten, and her glance
Sweeping the gazers till it lit and hung
Upon the watchful King; in either hand
A child's close-clasped; and in her bosom pent
A tide of tears, she stood till silence reigned,
Then lifted up a sick and shuddering voice.

But Hilary broke out, 'What need, my lord?
The judgment has been given: the sentence now
Is all that should be said.'

'Your best and worst
Is said and done!' the King declared. 'What should
And should not be, who dare assume? God's mind
Is not apparent yet. Your wife shall speak.'

'Now, is this just?' said Hilary.

'Just?' she cried.
'My children at my skirt, before the world,
My zealous husband and the King and God,
I wish to speak!' Intolerant at last,
Her mouth distorted and her eyes on fire,
She threw her piercing challenge out: 'My love
Was never Hilary's!' That said, she paused,
The mistress of her audience. Slowly then
She bent her gaze on Godfrey's mail-clad corpse:
Through the crushed beaver—the floodgate of his life—
A crimson current sluiced his helm, and stained
With ruddy umber a sodden patch of sand.
But steadfastly she looked and proudly spake:
'I loved the dead man there. O King, O God'—
Now to the earthly throne and now to heaven—
'His was the face and form adored the most
By noble maidens, grave and ardent: his
The highest heart, the freest soul of all
The aspirants of the City in the days
When love laid claim to us who now are old.
In dreams and potent melancholy steeped
I felt the subtle essence, the desire,
The pure, unmingled virtue of my life
Yield up itself, a suppliant passion, bound
To minister to his, or waste away
The impatient captive of his memory.
He loved me as a young man loves who knows
By hearsay only of the deeds of love—
As virgins love he loved me; but without
The overwhelming anguish I endured,
I being a woman. When at last he spoke
It was not till the luckless day he sailed
On his adventure: 'Would I marry him
When he came back?' My heart took fire: it seemed
To melt and flow: speech failed me and I fled.
But in the evening, when the land-breeze blew,
Breathless I hurried through the murmuring streets
Refreshed with scent of meadow-bay new-reaped
Behind the Golden City. He saw me come
Staring along the quay; he leapt ashore;
He kissed me: but the ropes were casting off;
The ripple beat and chid his tardy barque.
I twisted in his dress a silken purse
With twenty golden ducats of my own;
He on my finger thrust that piteous ring:
And straight the sundering ocean lay between,
All in the springtime thirty years ago.'

'A perfect tale,' cried Hilary. 'A plot
Nicely prepared!'

'I have not done,' she said.
'Love like a dragon breathing smoke and armed
In jewelled scales withdrew me to the den
Of starless night his burning orbs illume.
Whene'er I struggled in that dreadful hold,
Where only long-drawn sighs are heard and groans
Unpitied ever, adamantine fangs
Were mortised in my heart. So clutched and torn,
Year after year I waited on my knight,
My lover, to deliver me from love.
But madness came instead and death stood near:
These the abounding vigour of my race,
And youth, long-suffering, quickly overpowered.
Forthwith to blight my new-blown summer-time
The vision of my hero dawned once more,
And at my chamber-window in the night
I saw the jewelled dragon vigilant.
Then was it that I turned to thee, O God
Who madest me! 'Thy handmaid, Lord,' I said;
'Pity Thy handmaid! Him whom I adore
On earth the most—in Thine own image shaped
More excellently than all men beside—
Has wandered over sea: no message comes,
No token; none report him; he is lost—
Is dead to me, for I am more than thought.
Must I descend into the dust again
And of my body see no fruit at all?
O God, the heaped-up treasure of delight
Garnered by Thee within me, may no man
Unlock it but the loved one? Must I clasp
No child of my own womb if he be dead
Or come not back to me? O God, dear God,
I did not make myself: Thy strong desire
Consumes me. Help me! help me!'—On the night
I wrestled thus in prayer, divine content
Descended tranquilly and overbrimmed
My famished heart; the lurking dragon whirled
His jewelled mail away, his blood-stained fangs;
And at my chamber-window watching me,
And beckoning, and waiting to be born,
The seraph faces of my children pressed.
In widow's weeds I tarried one year more,
Then chose Sir Hilary from out my throng
Of honourable blandishers to be
The father of my children—stately then
And tall, a personable gentleman
Some ten years older than myself: sedate
He seemed and wise—his fame without a flaw.
I told him though I had no love to give
I should be proud to be his faithful wife
And bosom-friend. That pleased him best, he said—
Lying, because he strove to make of me
An instrument of pleasure for himself;
But like Zenobia, noblest of her sex,
I kept my babes unsullied. Look at them!'

She stepped behind her children, seven in all—
Four lustrous youths, three maidens lovelier
Than seraphs hallowed visionaries see.
'These are my witnesses.' Emanuel
Bent towards them, blessing them. Sir Hilary,
Hell glimmering in his visage, gnawed his tongue,
And let his beaver down.

'My Bertha here'—
Taking her eldest daughter by the hand—
'Sleepless all night, this morning to my room
Came blushing with the dawn. Beside me couched,
She told the tale of passion Sigismund
Beneath the evening star had told to her,
And in my arms fell peacefully asleep.'

At once a page attendant on the King
Vaulted the barrier, and took his post
Beside the younger Bertha, overjoyed
To find his suit accepted, and of right
Claiming a share in what should now befall
His lady's house. The elder Bertha smiled
A welcome, tender of any happiness
Even in her misery; then made an end.

'My daughter's passion wakened from the grave
The memory of the wonder-working stir
And daybreak of my womanhood. I stole
The ring—to me it seemed indeed a theft,
A crime of sacrilege against the past,
Which yet I had no courage to forgo—
From out the casket where I buried it
Upon my marriage-morn. Helpless I thrust
The pale thing in my breast, and took it forth,
And kissed it ... out among the trees I ran ...
The meadow-hay new-reaped ... I saw him come;
He kissed me after thirty years ... I ... God ...'
The younger Bertha caught her in her arms,
And dried her tears.

Well-pleased the King arose
To vindicate her fame; but Hilary cried,
"This was appealed to God, and He has judged:
There one adulterer lies; the other waits
The sentence of the King. Who looks with lust
Commits adultery. Be strong; do right.
Dare you annul God's manifest decree?
Do you believe in God, Emanuel—
No shifting thought of man's, a living God?'
A poignant voice from out his hollow casque;
Whereat the King delayed the judgment, dulled
By nerveless doubt.

But Bertha laughed, 'Believe
In God!'—shaking her loosened mane of gold
From off her face, and with her heavy-lashed
And azure-watered eyelids clearing up
Her clouded vision—'I believe in God!
And He inspires me now to understand
His purpose in my lover's overthrow.
Doubtless He needed him in Heaven to be
His champion against some challenger,
Or to explore a new-made tract of worlds.
Me He requires to signify to men
That those obey Him best and do His will
Implicitly, who on themselves alone
Rely in peril of a tarnished name;
For power divine in plenitude enough
To conquer every ill endows us all,
If valiantly we give it scope to work
By taking on ourselves the total war.
Had Godfrey beaten Hilary, 'Oh ay'—
The gossips and the sponsors of report
Would certainly have made the accepted word—
'The hardy, brilliant lover overthrows
The age-bent husband.' Now myself can clear
From every foul aspersion Godfrey's fame.
Mine, and my children's. Wherefore I demand
The Ordeal by Fire, Emanuel.'

'I grant it,' said the King, feeling himself
Heroic: 'I believe in God and you.
Choose, then: the bar; the ring?'

But Hilary said,
'The way of ploughshares heated hot remains
The ordeal provided by the law.'

'The ploughshares!' said the King, held in the trap
Of code that men will set to catch themselves.
'None ever traverse them uncharred, and few
Escape with life.'

'But I uncharred shall pass,'
The victim said. 'Sir, I appeal to God
Within me and about me and above
To bear me scathless through the fiercest test.
Heat hot your ploughshares—now!'

Her children quailed:
'No, mother—no!' they whispered. 'What!' she cried,
'You also doubt your mother's chastity
And God's omnipotence and rectitude!'
Abashed they fell behind her.

Still the King
Debated with himself: but from the crowd
A tigrish clamour burst, and watering mouths
Gnashed as they roared, 'The ploughshares! Heat them hot!'

'Hark!' said the King, 'it is the voice of God!
Prepare the ordeal chosen and ordained.'

So when the evening threw across the west
Fabrics of vapour fine as treasured lace—
Dishevelled, faded, stained with crimson, trailed
And dipped in sacramental chalices
Of sunset unforgotten while love lasts—
Upon the damasked meadow fires were built
Beside the sounding threshold of the sea:
Nine furnaces, fierce-tempered, wherewithal
The snoring bellows, plied by eager hands,
Imparted to the iron the sexual hate
Obscurely rankling in the heart of life,
And now unloosed against the innocent.
As at a fair men laughed obscenely, trolled
The vapid catches ballad-mongers hawked,
And munched the wares of wayside merchantmen.
Upon the City wall strange women climbed—
No nearer might they stand: men ruled it so—
To watch their sister's martyrdom, unawed,
Or with a dull disquietude, or to pray:
For even soulless women sometimes pray
As headless insects buss. Emanuel
Sat in a chair of state, and gripped the arms,
Teeth clenched, eyes fixed, extorting from his soul
Belief that God Would do what he desired.
Sir Hilary stood by, the ripened grudge
Of twenty years triumphant in his eyes,
And in his rigid heart a holy sense.
Of dreadful duty done—one drop of gall,
One only in his vengeful cup: the King
In every charitable name had driven
The children, guarded, out of sight and sound
Of Bertha's hazard: thus the simpletons,
Who liked their father little and adored
The adulteress, were not to see the end!

Blindfolded, in her shroud, with naked feet,
She waited for the signal to advance.

'Is all prepared?' the King demanded. Ay;
All was prepared. Aghast and tremulous,
He turned to Bertha: 'Are you ready, now?'

'Ready,' she said, clear-voiced, 'God helping me!'
'What is your plea?' he asked; for this the law required.

She answered: 'If in thought or deed
I once betrayed my husband's trust, may death
Lay hold of me and drag the shrieking down
A branded corpse among the smouldering blades.'

'In God's great heart the issue lies. Proceed.'
This said, the King bent down his twitching face
In prayer; for even men of parts will pray
Against the wrong instead of smiting it,
Besotted with a creed.

The farriers,
Aglow, begrimed and moist with smoky sweat,
Their ready pinchers on the coulters clasped
And plucked them forth, sprinkling the dewy green
With jets of dying embers. Placed apart
At intervals irregular, the nine
Deep notes of carmine pulsed in unison
Upon the hissing turf. Trumpet and drum
Announced the ordeal; then softly raised
A funeral dirge as Bertha, breathing quick,
Set out upon her march. She placed her foot,
Her naked buoyant foot, dew-drenched and white,
She placed it firmly on the first red edge,
Leapt half her height, and with a hideous cry
Fell down face-foremost brained upon the next.
They took her from among the smouldering blades,
A branded corpse, and laid her on the bier
Prepared: alive or dead, the record told
Of none who trod this fiery path uncharred.
The miserable King arose and turned
In haggard silence toward the city.

'Sir,'
Said Hilary in an icy voice, 'the law
Exacts your sentence.'

'Bloody, hellish beast!'
Burst out Emanuel, weak and broken.

'Sir,'
Said Hilary, 'you stand for God, and must
Pronounce the doom which he has dumbly wrought.
You know the form.'

Then sullenly the King:
'Bertha, the wife of Hilary, is proved
A foul adulteress upon her own appeal
To Heaven, and in the market-place forthwith
Shall be consumed by fire.'

'So let it be,'
The multitude replied. So was it done.
And while the harlots and the prodigals
Jested and danced about the blazing corpse,
The moon, dispensing delegated light,
Behind the City stealthily arose;

And, fresh with scent of meadow-hay new-reaped,
The land-breeze bore to many a mariner,
Outward or homeward bound, the sweetest news,
Across the sounding threshold of the sea.





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