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, By the jesses caught, and to her did carry, Where she stood near the wood. Her face flushed rose With the glad of the meeting. No two foes Her eyes and my Lord's, I swear, who saw 'Twas love from the start. And I heard him speak Some words; then he knelt; and the sombre shaw, With the rust of the autumn waste and bleak, Grew spring with her smile, as the hawk she took On her lily wrist, where it pruned and shook Its ragged wings. Then I saw him seize The hand, that she reached to him, long and white, As she smilingly bade him rise from his knees--
When he kissed its fingers, her eyes grew bright. But her cheeks grew pallid when, lashing through The woodland there, with a face a-flare With the sting of the wind, and his gipsy hair Flying, the falconer came, and two Or three of the people of Castle Clare. And the leaves of the autumn made a frame For the picture there in the morning's flame.
What was said in that moment, I do not know, That moment of meeting, between those lovers; But whatever it was, 't was whispered low, And soft as a leaf that swings and hovers, A twinkling gold, when the leaves are yellow. And her face with the joy was still aglow, When down through the wood that burly fellow Came with his frown, and made a pause In the pulse of their words. My lord, Sir Hugh, Stood with the soil on his knee. No cause Had he, but his hanger he partly drew, Then clapped it sharp in its sheath again, And bowed to my Lady, and strode away; And mounting his horse, with a swinging rein Rode with a song in his heart all day.