KING CANUTE

 ("Un jour, Kanut mourut.") 
 
 {Bk. X. i.} 


 King Canute died.{1} Encoffined he was laid. 
 Of Aarhuus came the Bishop prayers to say, 
 And sang a hymn upon his tomb, and held 
 That Canute was a saint—Canute the Great, 
 That from his memory breathed celestial perfume, 
 And that they saw him, they the priests, in glory, 
 Seated at God's right hand, a prophet crowned. 
 
 I. 
 
 Evening came, 
 And hushed the organ in the holy place, 
 And the priests, issuing from the temple doors, 
 Left the dead king in peace. Then he arose, 
 Opened his gloomy eyes, and grasped his sword, 
 And went forth loftily. The massy walls 
 Yielded before the phantom, like a mist. 
 
 There is a sea where Aarhuus, Altona, 
 And Elsinore's vast domes and shadowy towers 
 Glass in deep waters. Over this he went 
 Dark, and still Darkness listened for his foot 
 Inaudible, itself being but a dream. 
 Straight to Mount Savo went he, gnawed by time, 
 And thus, "O mountain buffeted of storms, 
 Give me of thy huge mantle of deep snow 
 To frame a winding-sheet." The mountain knew him, 
 Nor dared refuse, and with his sword Canute 
 Cut from his flank white snow, enough to make 
 The garment he desired, and then he cried, 
 "Old mountain! death is dumb, but tell me thou 
 The way to God." More deep each dread ravine 
 And hideous hollow yawned, and sadly thus 
 Answered that hoar associate of the clouds: 
 "Spectre, I know not, I am always here." 
 Canute departed, and with head erect, 
 All white and ghastly in his robe of snow, 
 Went forth into great silence and great night 
 By Iceland and Norway. After him 
 Gloom swallowed up the universe. He stood 
 A sovran kingdomless, a lonely ghost 
 Confronted with Immensity. He saw 
 The awful Infinite, at whose portal pale 
 Lightning sinks dying; Darkness, skeleton 
 Whose joints are nights, and utter Formlessness 
 Moving confusedly in the horrible dark 
 Inscrutable and blind. No star was there, 
 Yet something like a haggard gleam; no sound 
 But the dull tide of Darkness, and her dumb 
 And fearful shudder. "'Tis the tomb," he said, 
 "God is beyond!" Three steps he took, then cried: 
 'Twas deathly as the grave, and not a voice 
 Responded, nor came any breath to sway 
 The snowy mantle, with unsullied white 
 Emboldening the spectral wanderer. 
 Sudden he marked how, like a gloomy star, 
 A spot grew broad upon his livid robe; 
 Slowly it widened, raying darkness forth; 
 And Canute proved it with his spectral hands 
 It was a drop of blood. 
 
 R. GARNETT. 


 

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