Читать книгу Taliessin through Logres - Charles Williams - Страница 4

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The seas were left behind;

in a harbour of Logres

lightly I came to land

under a roaring wind.

Strained were the golden sails,

the masts of the galley creaked

as it rode for the Golden Horn

and I for the hills of Wales.

In a train of golden cars

the Emperor went above,

for over me in my riding

shot seven golden stars,

as if while the great oaks stood,

straining, creaking, around,

seven times the golden sickle

flashed in the Druid wood.

Covered on my back,

untouched, my harp had hung;

its notes sprang to sound

as I took the blindfold track,

the road that runs from tales,

through the darkness where Circe’s son

sings to the truants of towns

in a forest of nightingales.

The beast ran in the wood

that had lost the man’s mind;

on a path harder than death

spectral shapes stood

propped against trees;

they gazed as I rode by;

fast after me poured

the light of flooding seas.

But I was Druid-sprung;

I cast my heart in the way;

all the Mercy I called

to give courage to my tongue.

As I came by Broceliande

a diagram played in the night,

where either the golden sickle

flashed, or a signalling hand.

Away on the southern seas

was the creaking of the mast;

beyond the Roman road

was the creaking of the trees.

Beyond the farms and the fallows

the sickle of a golden arm

that gathered fate in the forest

in a stretched palm caught the hallows.

At the falling of the first

chaos behind me checked;

at the falling of the second

the wood showed the worst;

at the falling of the third

I had come to the king’s camp;

the harp on my back

syllabled the signal word.

I saw a Druid light

burn through the Druid hills,

as the hooves of King Arthur’s horse

rounded me in the night.

I heard the running of flame

faster than fast through Logres

into the camp by the hazels

I Taliessin came.