Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TWO FRESCOES, by FORD MADOX FORD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TWO FRESCOES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Down there where europe's arms
Last Line: Rose over africa.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hueffer, Ford Hermann; Hueffer, Ford Madox
Subject(s): Africa; Art & Artists; Courts & Courtiers; Royal Court Life; Royalty; Kings; Queens


It occurred to me that a series of frescoes might arise dealing with the
fortunes of Roderick the Goth. Having neither wall nor brushes I have tried to
put two of them upon paper.

I

THE TOWER

DOWN there where Europe's arms
Stretch out to Africa,
Throughout the storms, throughout the calms
Of centuries it took the alms
Of sun and rain; the loud alarms
Of war left it unmoved; and grey
And brooding there it watched the strip of foam
And fret of ruffled waters, was the home
Of the blue rock-dove and the birds o' the main.

Coming from Africa
The swallows rested on it flying north
In spring-time; rested there again,
When the days shorten, speeding on the way
Homewards to Africa.
Back and forth
The tiny ships below sped; east and west
It was called blest
By mariners it guided. Mystery
Hung round it like a veil. The ancient Ones,
They said, had seen it rise
Upwards to the old suns,
Upwards to the old skies,
When Hercules
Did bid it guard those seas.

It was a thing of the Past;
Stood there untroubled; like a virgin, dreamed;
And not a man of all that land but deemed
The tower sacred.
It was a symbol of an ancient faith,
Some half-forgotten righteousness, some Truth,
Some virtue in the land whose tillers said:
"Whilst that stands unenforced, it is well."
Be sure the thing is even so to-day,
Our tower doth somewhere unenforced rise
Upwards to our old skies.
And if we suffer sacrilegious hands
To force its innocence, our knell shall ring
As it rang out for them on that old day
Knolling from Africa.
You say it was the King who did this thing,
Who sinned against this righteousness. But say:
If we stand by and with averted eyes,
Or, shrugging shoulders, let our rulers sin
Against the very virtue of the race,
Who is it then but us must bear the pains
Of Nemesis? Ah, yes, it was the King. ...

II

GOTHS

"Let the stars flame by as the flaming earth falls down,
Ruined fall the earth as the clanging heavens fall.
Clasp me, love of mine; be the jewels in my crown
But the firelit tears of Gods, of the Ancient Ones of all."

The swart King paced his palace wall
And down below the maids at ball
Sang in choir at evenfall
As they played:
"Make our couch of Greece and the footstool for our throne
Of Rome, throw scented Spain for the incense of our fire,
Bring me all the East for the jewels in my zone,
Cast them all together for our leaping wedding pyre."

And he looked down
Into their cloistral shade
And saw, without the tongues of shadow thrown
By wall and tree of that sequestered place
One girl who had the sunlight on her face,
Who swayed and clapped her hands and sang alone.

"My father can but die," she sang,
"My mother can but weep,
This weary town fall blazing down
And be a smouldering heap
Beneath the flame
Where I was wont to keep
My weary vigil till my lover came."

Chanting in her pauses all the girls within the close
Sang to her singing, and their hidden chorus rose
Like a wave, fell like falling asleep.
And for the King, her voice like fiery wine
Set all his pulses throbbing and her face
Did dazzle more than did the blood-red sun.

"He who would win me, let him woo like this,
Flames on his face and the blood upon his hands,
Ravish me away when the blackening embers hiss
As the red flesh weeps to the brands."

That King was one who reignèd there alone
Upon those very confines of the world,
Where conquering races ebb to sloth and sink
As still great rivers sink into the sands.
And—for his fathers had been rav'ning wolves
Who coursed through ruin, pestilence and death
When all the world flamed red from end to end—
That ancient song of his destroying race
The girl sang stirred the fibres of his frame
Till all the earth was red before his face.
It had been so the women sang of old
To his forgotten sires, and still they sang
Within the shadow of his palace wall,
The cloister of his grimmest liege of all.
And as she sang the ferment worked in her
And shook her virgin's voice to jarring notes.
Stirring in her the ancient cry of throats
Torn with the passions of the ancient days.

"Pour me blood o' gods; bring me broken oaths for toys
Countless of the cost, of their ruin, of thine own;
Drunk with wine and passion, drink thy moment's fill of joys,
Godlike, beastlike, manlike, drink and cast thy cup a-down;
Lose thy life; give thy crown,
Lose thy soul, give thine all,
As we sink to death and ruin with the smokeo' worlds for pall."

And so she raised her eyes and saw the King
Stand frowning down, his face inspired with flame
Fro' the west'ring sun. And then the Angelus
Chimed out across the silent land of Spain.
Beyond the strip of foam the imaums called,
And Africa and Europe fell to prayer.
But those two gazing in each other's eyes
Looked back into the hollows of the years.
And as he stood above his brooding land
It was as if she saw her sires again.
Flames shone upon his face and on his hands
Incarnadined; whenas the sun sank down
He raised his eyes and seemed to see that Spain
Was all on fire with blood upon the roofs.
And down to South the inviolate, pallid tower
Rose silent, pointing to the crescent moon
And that great peering planet called Sohéil,
That heralds, as Mahomet's doctors say,
His domination and his children's sway,
Rose over Africa.





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