A hush and pause fell down a wondrous minute, With deep half-stifled sobs and sound of bad men bow'd and moved to weeping,

And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home, The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy

childhood,

The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence;

A wondrous minute then-but after in the solitary night, to many, many there,

Years after, even in the hour of death, the sad refrain, the tune, the voice, the words,

Resumed, the large calm lady walks the narrow aisle, The wailing melody again, the singer in the prison sings,

O sight of pity, shame and dole!
O fearful thought-a convict soul.

97

THE WHITE SHIP1

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

By none but me can the tale be told,
The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold.

(Lands are swayed by a King on a throne.)
'Twas a royal train put forth to sea,
Yet the tale can be told by none but me.
(The sea hath no King but God alone.)

1. This narrative is based upon fact. Henry I of England was returning from Normandy, France. To quote from the historian Green: "His son William had, with a crowd of nobles, accompanied the king on his return from Normandy; but the white ship in which he had embarked lingered behind the rest of the royal fleet while the young nobles, excited with wine, hung over the ship's side and chased away with taunts the priest who came to give the customary benediction. At last the guard of the king's treasure pressed the

King Henry held it as life's whole gain
That after his death his son should reign.

'Twas so in my youth I heard men say, And my old age calls it back today.

King Henry of England's realm was he,
And Henry Duke of Normandy.

The times had changed when on either coast "Clerkly Harry" 2 was all his boast.

Of ruthless strokes full many an one

He had struck to crown himself and his son;
And his elder brother's eyes were gone.

And when to the chase his court would crowd,
The poor flung plowshares on his road,
And shrieked: "Our cry is from King to God!"

But all the chiefs of the English land
Had knelt and kissed the Prince's hand.

And next with his son he sailed to France
To claim the Norman allegiance:

And every baron in Normandy
Had taken the oath of fealty.

vessel's departure, and, driven by the arms of fifty rowers, it swept swiftly out to sea. All at once the ship's side struck on a rock at the mouth of the harbor, and in an instant it sank beneath the waves. One terrible cry, ringing through the stillness of the night, was heard by the royal fleet; but it was not till the morning that the fatal news reached the king. He fell unconscious to the ground and rose never to smile, again."

2. Clerkly Harry. scholar."

3. Elder brother. for thirty years.

Henry I, surnamed Beauclerc, "the good

Henry kept his elder brother Robert in prison

'Twas sworn and sealed, and the day had come

When the King and the Prince might journey home:

For Christmas cheer is to home hearts dear,

And Christmas now was drawing near.

Stout Fitz-Stephen came to the King,-
A pilot famous in seafaring;

And he held to the King, in all men's sight,
A mark of gold for his tribute's right.

"Liege Lord! my father guided the ship
From whose boat your father's foot did slip
When he caught the English soil in his grip,

"And cried: 'By this clasp I claim command O'er every rood of English land!'

"He was borne to the realm you rule o'er now
In that ship with the archer carved at her prow:

"And thither I'll bear, an' it be my due, Your father's son and his grandson too.

"The famed White Ship is mine in the bay, From Harfleur's harbor she sails today,

"With masts fair-pennoned as Norman spears And with fifty well-tried mariners."

Quoth the King: "My ships are chosen each one,
But I'll not say nay to Stephen's son.

4. Your father's foot, etc. William of Normandy, father of Henry I, landed in England with an army in 1066.

"My son and daughter and fellowship Shall cross the water in the White Ship."

The King set sail with the eve's south wind,
And soon he left that coast behind.

The Prince and all his, a princely show,
Remained in the good White Ship to go.

With noble knights and with ladies fair,
With courtiers and sailors gathered there,
Three hundred living souls we were:

And I Berold was the meanest hind 5
In all that train to the Prince assign'd.

The Prince was a lawless shameless youth; From his father's loins he sprang without ruth:

Eighteen years till then he had seen,
And the devil's dues in him were eighteen.

And now he cried: "Bring wine from below;
Let the sailors revel ere yet they row:

"Our speed shall o'ertake my father's flight Though we sail from the harbor at midnight.”

The rowers made good cheer without check;
The lords and ladies obeyed his beck;
The night was light, and they danced on the deck.

But at midnight's stroke they cleared the bay.
And the White Ship furrowed the water-way.

5. Hind. Peasant.

The sails were set, and the oars kept tune
To the double flight of the ship and the moon:

Swift and swifter the White Ship sped
Till she flew as the spirit flies from the dead:

As white as a lily glimmered she

Like a ship's fair ghost upon the sea.

And the Prince cried, "Friends, 'tis the hour to sing! Is a songbird's course so swift on the wing?"

And under the winter stars' still throng,

From brown throats, white throats, merry and strong, The knights and the ladies raised a song.

A song,—nay, a shriek that rent the sky,
That leaped o'er the deep!-the grievous cry
Of three hundred living that now must die.

An instant shriek that sprang to the shock
As the ship's keel felt the sunken rock.

'Tis said that afar-a shrill strange sighThe King's ships heard it, and knew not why.

Pale Fitz-Stephen stood by the helm
'Mid all those folk that the waves must whelm.

A great King's heir for the waves to whelm,
And the helpless pilot pale at the helm!

The ship was eager and sucked athirst,

By the stealthy stab of the sharp reef pierc'd: