Wyndham Towers

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Wyndham Towers

TO EDWIN BOOTH. MY DEAR BOOTH:

In offering these verses to you, I beg you to treat them (as you have many a time advised a certain lord chamberlain to treat the players) not according to their desert. “Use them after your own honor and dignity; the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.”

These many years your friend and comrade,T. B. ALDRICH.

NOTE

The motif of the story embodied in the following poem was crudely outlined in a brief sketch printed in an early collection of the authors verse, and subsequently cancelled for a purpose not until now accomplished. Wyndham Towers is not to be confused with this discarded sketch, the text of which has furnished only a phrase, or an indirect suggestion, here and there. That the writer’s method, when recasting the poem, was more or less influenced by the poets he had been studying—chiefly the dramatists of the Elizabethan era—will, he hopes, be obvious. It was part of his design, however far he may have fallen from it, to give his narrative something of the atmosphere and color of the period in which the action takes place, though the story is supposed to be told at a later date.

WYNDHAM TOWERS

     Before you reach the slender, high-arched bridge,     Like to a heron with one foot in stream,     The hamlet breaks upon you through green boughs—     A square stone church within a place of graves     Upon the slope; gray houses oddly grouped,     With plastered gables set with crossed oak-beams,     And roofs of yellow tile and purplish slate.     That is The Falcon, with the swinging sign     And rustic bench, an ancient hostelry;     Those leaden lattices were hung on hinge     In good Queen Bess’s time, so old it is.     On ridge-piece, gable-end, or dove-cot vane,     A gilded weathercock at intervals     Glimmers—an angel on the wing, most like,     Of local workmanship; for since the reign     Of pious Edward here have carvers thrived,     In saints’-heads skillful and winged cherubim     Meet for rich abbeys.  From yon crumbling tower,     Whose brickwork base the cunning Romans laid—     And now of no use else except to train     The ivy of an idle legend on—     You see, such lens is this thin Devon air,     If it so chance no fog comes rolling in,     The Torridge where its branching crystal spreads     To join the Taw.  Hard by from a chalk cliff     A torrent leaps: not lovelier Sappho was     Giving herself all silvery to the sea     From that Leucadian rock.  Beneath your feet     Lie sand and surf in curving parallels.     Off shore, a buoy gleams like a dolphin’s back     Dripping with brine, and guards a sunken reef     Whose sharp incisors have gnawed many a keel;     There frets the sea and turns white at the lip,     And in ill-weather lets the ledge show fang.     A very pleasant nook in Devon, this,       Upon the height of old was Wyndham Towers,     Clinging to rock there, like an eagle’s nest,     With moat and drawbridge once, and good for siege;     Four towers it had to front the diverse winds:     Built God knows when, all record being lost,     Locked in the memories of forgotten men.     In Caesar’s day, a pagan temple; next     A monastery; then a feudal hold;     Later a manor, and at last a ruin.     Such knowledge have we of it, vaguely caught     Through whispers fallen from tradition’s lip.     This shattered tower, with crenellated top     And loops for archers, alone marks the spot,     Looming forlornly—a gigantic harp     Whereon the invisible fingers of the wind     Its fitful and mysterious dirges play.       Here dwelt, in the last Tudor’s virgin reign,     One Richard Wyndham, Knight and Gentleman,     (The son of Rawdon, slain near Calais wall     When Bloody Mary lost her grip on France,)     A lonely wight that no kith had nor kin     Save one, a brother—by ill-fortune’s spite     A brother, since ‘t were better to have none—     Of late not often seen at Wyndham Towers,     Where he in sooth but lenten welcome got     When to that gate his errant footstep strayed.     Yet held he dear those gray majestic walls,     Time-stained and crusted with the sea’s salt breath;     There first his eyes took color of the sea,     There did his heart stay when fate drove him thence,     And there at last—but that we tell anon.     Darrell they named him, for an ancestor     Whose bones were whitening in Holy Land,     The other Richard; a crusader name,     Yet it was Darrell had the lion-heart.     No love and little liking served this pair,     In look and word unpaired as white and black—     Of once rich bough the last unlucky fruit.     The one, for straightness like a Norland pine     Set on some precipice’s perilous edge,     Intrepid, handsome, little past blown youth,     Of all pure thought and brave deed amorous,     Moulded the court’s high atmosphere to breathe,     Yet liking well the camp’s more liberal air—     Poet, soldier, courtier, ‘t was the mode;     The other—as a glow-worm to a star—     Suspicious, morbid, passionate, self-involved,     The soul half eaten out with solitude,     Corroded, like a sword-blade left in sheath     Asleep and lost to action—in a word,     A misanthrope, a miser, a soured man,     One fortune loved not and looked at askance.     Yet he a pleasant outward semblance had.     Say what you will, and paint things as you may,     The devil is not black, with horn and hoof,     As gossips picture him: he is a person     Quite scrupulous of doublet and demeanor,     As was this Master Wyndham of The Towers,     Now latterly in most unhappy case,     Because of matters to be here set forth.       A thing of not much moment, as life goes,     A thing a man with some philosophy     Had idly brushed aside, as ‘t were a gnat     That winged itself between him and the light,     Had, through the crooked working of his mind,     Brought Wyndham to a very grievous pass.     Yet ‘t was a grapestone choked Anacreon     And hushed his song.  There is no little thing     In nature: in a raindrop’s compass lie     A planet’s elements.  This Wyndham’s woe     Was one Griselda, daughter to a man     Of Bideford, a shipman once, but since     Turned soldier; now in white-haired, wrinkled age     Sitting beneath the olive, valiant still,     With sword on nail above the chimney-shelf     In case the Queen should need its edge again.     An officer he was, though lowly born.     The man aforetime, in the Netherlands     And through those ever-famous French campaigns     (Marry, in what wars bore he not a hand?)     In Rawdon Wyndham’s troop of horse had served,     And when he fell that day by Calais wall     Had from the Frenchmen’s pikes his body snatched,     And so much saved of him, which was not much,     The good knight being dead.  For this deed’s sake,     That did enlarge itself in sorrow’s eye,     The widow deemed all guerdon all too small,     And held her dear lord’s servant and his girl,     Born later, when that clash of steel was done,     As her own kin, till she herself was laid     I’ the earth and sainted elsewhere.  The two sons     Let cool the friendship: one in foreign parts     Did gold and honor seek; at hall stayed one,     The heir, and now of old friends negligent:     Thus fortune hardens the ignoble heart.     Griselda even as a little maid,     Demure, but with more crotchets in the brain,     I warrant ye, than minutes to the hour,     Had this one much misliked; in her child-thought     Confused him somehow with those cruel shapes     Of iron men that up there at The Towers     Quickened her pulse.  For he was gaunt, his face,     Mature beyond the logic of his years,     Had in it something sinister and grim,     Like to the visage pregnant fancy saw     Behind the bars of each disused casque     In that east chamber where the harness hung     And dinted shields of Wyndhams gone to grace—     At Poitiers this one, this at Agincourt,     That other on the sands of Palestine:     A breed of fierce man-slayers, sire and son.     Of these seemed Richard, with his steel cross-bow     Killing the doves in very wantonness—     The gentle doves that to the ramparts came     For scattered crumbs, undreamful of all ill.     Each well-sent dart that stained a snowy breast     Straight to her own white-budding bosom went.     Fled were those summers now, and she had passed     Out of the child-world of vain fantasy     Where many a rainbow castle lay in ruin;     But to her mind, like wine-stain to a flask,     The old distrust still clung, indelible,     Holding her in her maidhood’s serious prime     Well pleased from his cold eyes to move apart,     And in her humble fortunes dwell secure.     Indeed, what was she?—a poor soldier’s girl,     Merely a tenant’s daughter.  Times were changed,     And life’s bright web had sadder colors in ‘t:     That most sweet gentle lady—rest her soul!—     Shrunk to an epitaph beside her lord’s,     And six lines shorter, which was all a shame;     Gaunt Richard heir; that other at earth’s end,     (The younger son that was her sweetheart once,)     Fighting the Spaniards, getting slain perchance;     And all dear old-time uses quite forgot.     Slowly, unnoted, like the creeping rust     That spreads insidious, had estrangement come,     Until at last, one knew not how it fell,     And little cared, if sober truth were said,     She and the father no more climbed the hill     To Twelfth Night festival or May-day dance,     Nor commerce had with any at The Towers.     Yet in a formless, misty sort of way     The girl had place in Wyndham’s mind—the girl,     Why, yes, beshrew him! it was even she     Whom his soft mother had made favorite of,     And well-nigh spoiled, some dozen summers gone.       Perhaps because dull custom made her tame,     Or that she was not comely in the bud,     Her sweetness halting like a tardy May     That wraps itself in mist, and seems not fair,     For this or finer reason undivined,     His thought she touched not, and was glad withal     When she did note how others took his eye     And wore rue after.  Thus was her white peace     Undarkened till, it so befell, these two     Meeting as they a hundred times had met     On hill-path or at crossing of the weir,     Her beauty broke on him like some rare flower     That was not yesterday.  Ev’n so the Spring     Unclasps the girdle of its loveliness     Abruptly, in the North here: long the drifts     Linger in hollows, long on bough and briar     No slight leaf ventures, lest the frost’s keen tooth     Nip it, and then all suddenly the earth     Is nought but scent and bloom.  So unto him     Griselda’s grace unclosed.  Where lagged his wit     That guessed not of the bud that slept in stem,     Nor hint had of the flower within the bud?     If so much beauty had a tiger been,     ‘T had eaten him!  In all the wave-washed length     Of rocky Devon where was found her like     For excellence of wedded red and white?     Here on that smooth and sunny field, her cheek,     The hostile hues of Lancaster and York     Did meet, and, blending, make a heavenly truce,     This were indeed a rose a king might wear     Upon his bosom.  By St. Dunstan, now,     Himself would wear it.  Then by seeming chance     Crossed he her walks, and stayed her with discourse     Devised adroitly; spoke of common things     At first—of days when his good mother lived,     If ‘t were to live, to pass long dolorous hours     Before his father’s effigy in church;     Of one who then used often come to hall,     Ever at Yule-tide, when the great log flamed     In chimney-place, and laugh and jest went round,     And maidens strayed beneath the mistletoe,     Making believe not see it, so got kissed—     Of one that joined not in the morrice-dance,     But in her sea-green kirtle stood at gaze,     A timid little creature that was scared     By dead men’s armor.  Nought there suffered change,     Those empty shells of valor grew not old,     Though something rusty.  Would they fright her now     Looked she upon them?  Held she in her mind—     ‘T was Spring and loud the mavis piped outside—     The day the Turkish helmet slipped from peg,     And clashing on the floor, congealed her blood     And sent both hands to terror-smitten eyes,     She trembling, ready to yield up the ghost?     Right merry was it!  Finally he touched     On matters nearer, things she had foreboded     And this one time must needs lend hearing to,     And end so sorry business ere woe came,     Like a true maid and honest, as she was.     So, tutoring the tremble on her lip     And holding back hot tears, she gave reply     With such discretion as straight tied his tongue,     Albeit he lacked not boldness in discourse:       “Indeed, indeed, sir, you speak but in jest!     Lightly, not meaning it, in courtier-way.     I have heard said that ladies at the Court—     I judge them not!—have most forgiving ears,     And list right willingly to idle words,     Listen and smile and never stain a cheek.     Yet not such words your father’s son should use     With me, my father’s daughter.  You forget     What should most precious be to memory’s heart,     Love that dared death; and so, farewell.”  Farewell     It was in sooth; for after that one time,     Though he had fain with passion-breathed vows     Besieged that marble citadel her breast,     He got no speech of her: she chose her walks;     Let only moon and star look on the face

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