What was said in that moment I do not know, That moment of meeting between those lovers: Whatever it was, 'twas whispered low, Soft as a leaf that swings and hovers, A twinkling gold, when the woods are yellow. And her face with the joy was still aglow When out of 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 vaulting his horse, with a loosened rein Rode with a song in his heart all day.
He loved and was loved, I knew; for, look! All other sports for the chase he forsook. And strange that he never went to hawk, Or hunt, but Clara would meet him there In the Strongbow forest!--I know the rock, With its ferns and its moss, by the bramble lair, Where oft and often he met--by chance, Shall I say?--the daughter of Clare; as fair Of face as a queen in an old romance, Who waits expectant and pale; her hair Night-deep; and eyes dove-gray with dreams;-- By the fountain-side where the statue gleams And the moonbeam lolls in the lily white,-- For her knightly lover who comes at night.
Heigh-ho! they ceased, those meetings. I wot, Betrayed to the Baron by some of his crew Of menials who followed and saw and knew. For she loved too well to have once forgot The time and the place of their trysting true. "Why and when?" would ask Sir Hugh In the labored letters he used to lock --The lovers' post--in a coigne of that rock. She used to answer, but now did not. But, nearing Yule, love gat them again A twilight tryst--through frowardness sure!-- They met. And the day was gray with rain, And snow: and the wind did ever endure A long bleak moaning through the wood, That chapped i' the cheek and smarted the blood; And a burne in the forest went throb and throb, And over it all was the wild-beast sob Of the rushing boughs like a thing pursued. And then it was that he learned how she, (God's blood! how it makes my old limbs quiver To think what a miserable tyrant he-- The Baron Richard--aye and ever To his daughter was!) forsooth! _must_ wed With an eastern earl--a Lovell: to whom (Would God o' His mercy had struck him dead!) Clara of Clare when merely a child,-- With a face like a flower, that blows in the wild Of the hills, and a soul like its soft perfume,-- Was given--say, sealed--to strengthen some ties Of power and wealth--say bartered, then, Like the veriest chattel. With tearful eyes And lips a-tremble she spoke. And when My lord, her lover, had learned and heard,-- He'd have had her flee with him then, 'sdeath! In spite of them all! Let her say the word, They would fly together: the baron's men Might follow; and if ... and he touched his sword-- _It_ should answer! But she, while she seemed to stay, With a hand on her bosom, her heart's quick breath, Replied to his heat: "They would take and slay Thee who art life of my life!--Not thus Will we fly!--There's another way for us; A way that is sure; an only way; I have thought on it this many a day."-- The words that she spake how well I remember! As well as the mood o' that day of December, That bullied and blustered and seemed in league, Like a spiteful shrew, with the wind and the snow, To drown the words of their sweet intrigue, With the boom of the boughs tossed to and fro, That the storm swept through with its wild-beast low. Her last words these, "By curfew sure, On Christmas eve, at the postern door."