Madison Cawein - La Beale Isoud lyrics

I. With bloodshot eyes the morning rose Upon a world of gloom and tears; A kindred glance queen Isoud shows— Come night, come morn, cease not her fears. The fog-clouds whiten all the vale, The sunlight draws them to its love; The diamond dews wash ev'ry dale, Where bays the hunt within the grove. Her lute—the one her touch he taught To wake beneath the stars a song Of swan-caught music—is as naught And on yon damask lounge is flung. Down o'er her cheeks her hair she draws In golden rays 'twixt lily tips, And gazes sad on gloomy shaws 'Neath which had often touched their lips. II. With irised eyes, from morn to noon. And noon to middle night she stoops From her high lattice 'neath the moon, Hoping to see him 'mid the groups Of mail-swathed braves come jingling by. And once there came a dame in weft All pearl besprent, as when the sky A springtide day hath wept and left A stormy eve one flash of gems. "'Mid neatherds he's a naked waif Unwitted," said she, lipping scorn: And shook deep curls with a weak laugh Tib clinked the gold thick in them worn. III. "How long to wait!" and far she bent From her tall casement toward the lawn; A prospect of a wide extent Gla**ed in her eyes and hateful shown. Along the white lake windy crags Blue with coarse brakes and ragged pines; A bandit keep with trembling flags; And barren scars, and waste marsh lines, And now a palfried dame and knight. Deep deer-behaunted forests old, Whose sinewy boughs dark blocked the cave Of Heav'n o'er Earth; a blasted hold 'Mid livid fields; a torrent's wave. And o'er the bridge whose marble arched The torrent's foam, dim in the dew Of morning, one all glimmering marched In glittering steel from helm to shoe, With lance whose fang smote back the dawn. IV. Selled on a barb whose trappings shone Red bra**,—a morning star of jousts Upon the dawning beaming lone Burst from the hills' empurpled crusts. A lying star, whose double tongue Was slave to gold: "I saw him die!— 'Tis ruth, for he was brave and young,— I saw him in the close clay lie." Then pa**ed he rattling from the court.... So grief in furrows ploughed her front's Smooth surface wan, and toward the eve,— The bloodshot eve upon the mounts, Who o'er day's flow'ry bier did grieve And bow her melancholy star,— O'er teenful eyes she bent the light Of her crown-crescent's gem, and far She lingered till the full-mooned night Showered ripple-stars the gray mere o'er. V. "And I'm like her who trims a flame Of sickly color, bowing low To balk the wind; in wanton game One stoops in secret toward her brow With wind-bulged cheeks, a quick breath sends— And then the world is blind with gloom, And filled with phantoms and with fiends, That strain huge eyes and jibe her doom." Thus thought Isoud in her despair, Of Launcelot then thoughts grew on, And Arthur's lovely queen away In castled courts of Caerleon, And all their joy and dalliance gay. Until she could have thawed the spars Of her clear-fountained eyes to tears, And gush wild grief long-seared by wars Of pa**ionate anguish and great fears: "Oh Tristram gone! oh d**h in life!" Soft down below in the thick dark A fountain throbbed monotonous foam, Unseen within the starlit park, Deep in the tower's shadowed dome. "And thus my heart drums frigid life In hateful gloom of fear and woe! One flood of sorrow, cataract-rife, My full-flush heart streams come and go Since Tristram's gone and I'm alone!" VI. Then sunk the moon, and far away, Beside the bickering lake, the towers Of bandit braves shone tall and gray, Like specters in her lonely hours. And 'twixt the nodding grove and lake A glimmering fawn stalked thro' the night; And with full brow the musks did take, Then bowed to drink—she veiled her sight And moaning said, "d**h is but life! The fawn 'mid lilies from the mere s**s genial draughts to dull its thirsts; O fondest spirit, art thou near? Draw to thy soul this soul that bursts! The vivid lilies to the stars Clasp their white eyes and sink to sleep: O anguish, to thy burning wars Lock my sad heart and drag it deep!"— Albeit she slept, she dreamed in grief.