one
Black red o'er my heart.--You see, 't is good
To die so for love!... Does the sinking sun,
Through the dull vast west burst banked with blood?--
Or is it that life will at last have done?...

So you are her husband? and--well, you see,
You see she is dead ... But your face, how white!
--Is it with hate or with misery?--
What matters it now!--For, at last, the night
Falls and the silence covers me.

An Old Tale Re-told

From the terrace here, where the hills indent,
You can see the uttermost battlement
Of the castle there; the Cliffords' home;
Where the seasons go and the seasons come
And never a footstep else doth fall
Save the prowling fox's; the ancient hall
Echoes no voice save the owlet's call:
Its turret chambers are homes for the bat;
And its courts are tangled and wild to see;
And where in the cellar was once the rat,
The viper and toad move stealthily.
Long years have passed since the place was burned,
And he sailed to the wars in France and earned
The name that he bears of the bold and true
On his tomb. Long years, since my lord, Sir Hugh,
Lived; and I was his favorite page,
And the thing then happened; and he of an age
When a man will love and be loved again,
Or hie to the wars or a monastery,
Or toil till he conquer his heart's sore pain,
Or drink and forget it and finally bury.

I was his page. And often we fared
Through the Clare demesnes, in autumn, hawking;
If the Baron had known, how they would have glared
'Neath their bushy brows, those eyes of mocking!--
That last of the Strongbows, Richard, I mean--
And growling some six of his henchmen lean
To mount and after this Clifford and hang
With his crop-eared page to the nearest oak,
How he would have cursed us while he spoke!
For Clare and Clifford had ever a fang
In the other's side ... And I hear the clang
Of his rage in the hall when the hawker told--
If he told!--how we met on the autumn wold
His daughter, sweet Clara of Clare, the day
Her hooded tiercel its brails did burst,
And trailing its jesses, came flying our way--
An untrained haggard the falconer cursed
While he tried to secure:--as the eyas flew
Slant, low and heavily over us, Hugh,--
Who saw it coming, and had just then cast
His peregrine hawk at a heron quarry,--
In his saddle rising, so, as it passed,