Rewards and Fairies

Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.’
‘As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small,
For Iron – Cold Iron – must be master of men all!’

Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!)
‘Here is Bread and here is Wine – sit and sup with me.
Eat and drink in Mary’s name, the whiles I do recall
How Iron – Cold Iron – can be master of men all!’

He took the Wine and blessed It; He blessed and brake the Bread.
With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He said:
‘Look! These Hands they pierced with nails outside my city wall
Show Iron – Cold Iron – to be master of men all!

‘Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong,
Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong.
I forgive thy treason – I redeem thy fall —
For Iron – Cold Iron – must be master of men all!’

‘Crowns are for the valiant – sceptres for the bold!
Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold.’
‘Nay!’ said the Baron, kneeling in his hall,
‘But Iron – Cold Iron – is master of man all!
Iron, out of Calvary, is master of man all!’

Gloriana

THE TWO COUSINS

Valour and Innocence
Have latterly gone hence
To certain death by certain shame attended.
Envy – ah! even to tears! —
The fortune of their years
Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended.

Scarce had they lifted up
Life’s full and fiery cup,
Than they had set it down untouched before them.
Before their day arose
They beckoned it to close —
Close in destruction and confusion o’er them.

They did not stay to ask
What prize should crown their task,
Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for;
But passed into eclipse,
Her kiss upon their lips —
Even Belphœbe’s, whom they gave their lives for!

Gloriana

Willow Shaw, the little fenced wood where the hop-poles are stacked like Indian wigwams, had been given to Dan and Una for their very own kingdom when they were quite small. As they grew older, they contrived to keep it most particularly private. Even Phillips, the gardener, told them every time he came in to take a hop-pole for his beans, and old Hobden would no more have thought of setting his rabbit-wires there without leave, given fresh each spring, than he would have torn down the calico and marking-ink notice on the big willow which said: ‘Grown-ups not allowed in the Kingdom unless brought.’

Now you can understand their indignation when, one blowy July afternoon, as they were going up for a potato-roast, they saw somebody moving among the trees. They hurled themselves over the gate, dropping half the potatoes, and while they were picking them up Puck came out of a wigwam.

‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said Una. ‘We thought it was people.’

‘I saw you were angry – from your legs,’ he answered with a grin.

‘Well, it’s our own Kingdom – not counting you, of course.’

‘That’s rather why I came. A lady here wants to see you.’

‘What about?’ said Dan cautiously.

‘Oh, just Kingdoms and things. She knows about Kingdoms.’

There was a lady near the fence dressed in a long dark cloak that hid everything except her high red-heeled shoes. Her face was half covered by a black silk fringed mask, without goggles. And yet she did not look in the least as if she motored.

Puck led them up to her and bowed solemnly. Una made the best dancing-lesson curtsy she could remember. The lady answered with a long, deep, slow, billowy one.

‘Since it seems that you are a Queen of this Kingdom,’ she said, ‘I can do no less than acknowledge your sovereignty.’ She turned sharply on staring Dan. ‘What’s in your head, lad? Manners?’

‘I was thinking how wonderfully you did that curtsy,’ he answered.

She laughed a rather shrill laugh. ‘You’re a courtier already. Do you know anything of dances, wench – or Queen, must I say?’

‘I’ve had some lessons, but I can’t really dance a bit,’ said Una.

‘You should learn then.’ The lady moved forward as though she would teach her at once.‘It gives a woman alone among men or her enemies time to think how she shall win or – lose. A woman can only work in man’s playtime. Heigho!’ She sat down on the bank.

Old Middenboro, the lawn-mower pony, stumped across the paddock and hung his sorrowful head over the fence.

‘A pleasant Kingdom,’ said the lady, looking round. ‘Well enclosed. And how does your Majesty govern it? Who is your Minister?’

Una did not quite understand. ‘We don’t play that,’ she said.

‘Play?’ The lady threw up her hands and laughed.

‘We have it for our own, together,’ Dan explained.

‘And d’you never quarrel, young Burleigh?’

‘Sometimes, but then we don’t tell.’

The lady nodded. ‘I’ve no brats of my own, but I understand keeping a secret between Queens and their Ministers. Ay de mi! But with no disrespect to present majesty, methinks your realm is small, and therefore likely to be coveted by man and beast. For example’ – she pointed to Middenboro – ‘yonder old horse, with the face of a Spanish friar – does he never break in?’

‘He can’t. Old Hobden stops all our gaps for us,’ said Una, ‘and we let Hobden catch rabbits in the Shaw.’