Classic Poem

But at last,—and it was at the fall of the day,
When the thought of a fair land far away
And a face she should never behold again
Was filling her heart with a faint dull pain,
There came a trample of horses and men;
And a blowing of horns at the Castle-Gate:
Then a clattering noise; then a pause; and then,
With the sudden jerk of a heavy weight,
The sound of the falling of cable and chain;
And the grey Seneschal bawl'd out in the hall,
“The Earl and the Devil are come back again!”
High up on the beach were the long black ships:
And the brown sails hung from the masts in strips;
And the surf was whirl'd over and over them,
And swept them dripping from stern to stem.
There was a wringing of horny hands;
And a swearing of oaths; and a great deal of laughter;
The grim Earl growling his hoarse commands
To the Warden that follow'd him growling after;
A lowing of cattle along the wet sands;
And a plashing of hoofs on the slippery rafter,
As the long-tail'd black-maned horses each
Went over the bridge from the grey sea-beach.
Then a babble as tho' of building crows
That came and went in the court below:
And then, as a prisoner counts the blows
Of the death-bell's hammer, heavy and slow,
Crouch'd in her turret, that lady counted
Step after step of her lord, as he mounted
The narrow stair. Then a pause. Then the shock
Of an iron glove on the iron lock,
And the door burst open—the Earl burst through it—
But she saw him not. The window-pane,
Far off, grew large and small again;
For the staggering light did wax and wane,
As, when through windy mist you view it,
Moonlight mix'd with shadowy rain;
Till there came a snap of the heavy brain;
And a slow-subsiding pulse of pain;
And, the life of her sank into darkness and rest,
As the grim Earl press'd to his unloved breast
The dead face of the woman that he loved best.