The Pearl

Pearl that the Prince full well might prize, So surely set in shining gold! No pearl of Orient with her vies; To prove her peerless I make bold: So round, so radiant to mine eyes, smooth she seemed, so small to hold, Among all jewels judges wise Would count her best an hundred fold. Alas! I lost my pearl of old! I pine with heart-pain unforgot; Down through my arbour grass it rolled, My own pearl, precious, without spot.

II

Since in that spot it slipped from me I wait, and wish, and oft complain; Once it would bid my sorrow flee, And my fair fortune turn again; It wounds my heart now ceaselessly, And burns my breast with bitter pain. Yet never so sweet a song may be As, this still hour, steals through my brain, While verity I muse in vain How clay should her bright beauty clot; O Earth! a brave gem thou dost stain, My own pearl, precious, without spot!

III

Needs must that spot with spices spread, Where such wealth falleth to decay; Fair flowers, golden and blue and red, Shine in the sunlight day by day; Nor flower nor fruit have witherèd On turf wherein such treasure lay; The blade grows where the grain lies dead, Else were no ripe wheat stored away; Of good come good things, so we say, Then surely such seed faileth not, But spices spring in sweet array From my pearl, precious, without spot.

IV

Once, to that spot of which I rhyme, I entered, in the arbour green, In August, the high summer-time When corn is cut with sickles

VI

From the spot my spirit springs into space, The while my body sleeping lies; My ghost is gone in God’s good grace, Adventuring mid mysteries; I know not what might be the place, But I looked where tall cliffs cleave the skies, Toward a forest I turned my face, Where ranks of radiant rocks arise. A man might scarce believe his eyes, Such gleaming glory was from them sent; No woven web may men devise Of half such wondrous beauties blent.

VII

In beauty shone each fair hillside With crystal cliffs in shining row, While bright woods everywhere abide, Their boles as blue as indigo; Like silver clear the leaves spread wide, That on each spray thick-quivering grow; If a flash of light across them glide With shimmering sheen they gleam and glow; The gravel on the ground below Seemed precious pearls of Orient; The sunbeams did but darkling show So gloriously those beauties blent.

VIII

The beauty of the hills so fair Made me forget my sufferings; I breathed fruit fragrance fine and rare, As if I fed on unseen things; Brave birds fly through the woodland there, Of flaming hues, and each one sings; With their mad mirth may not compare Cithern nor gayest citole-strings; For when those bright birds beat their wings, They sing together, all content; Keen joy to any man it brings To hear and see such beauties blent.

IX

So beautiful was all the wood Where, guided forth by Chance, I strayed, There is no tongue that fully could Describe it, though all men essayed. Onward I walked in merriest mood Nor any highest hill delayed My feet.

Marvels more and more amaze My mind beyond that water fair: From a cliff of crystal, splendid rays, Reflected, quiver in the air. At the cliff’s foot a vision stays My glance, a maiden debonaire, All glimmering white before my gaze; And I know her⁠—have seen her otherwhere. Like fine gold leaf one cuts with care, Shone the maiden on the farther shore. Long time I looked upon her there, And ever I knew her more and more.

XV

As more and more I scanned her face And form, when I had found her so, A glory of gladness filled the place Beyond all it was wont to show. My joy would call her and give chase, But wonder struck my courage low; I saw her in so strange a place, The shock turned my heart dull and slow. But now she lifts that brow aglow, Like ivory smooth, even as of yore, It made my senses straying go, It stung my heart aye more and more.

Pearl bedight full royally, Adown the bank with merry mien, Came the maiden, fresh as fleur-de-lys. Her surcoat linen must have been Shining in whitest purity, Slashed at the sides and caught between With the fairest pearls, it seemed to me, That ever yet mine eyes had seen; With large folds falling loose, I ween, Arrayed with double pearls, her white Kirtle, of the same linen sheen, With precious pearls all round was dight.

XVIII

A crown with pearls bedight, the girl Was wearing, and no other stone; High pinnacled of clear white pearl, Wrought as if pearls to flowers were grown. No band nor fillet else did furl The long locks all about her thrown. Her air demure as duke or earl, Her hue more white than walrus-bone; Like sheer gold thread the bright hair strown Loose on her shoulders, lying light. Her colour took a deeper tone With bordering pearls so fair bedight.

XIX

Bedight was every hem, and bound, At wrists, sides, and each aperture, With pearls the whitest ever found⁠— White all her brave investiture; But a wondrous pearl, a flawless round, Upon her breast was set full sure; A man’s mind it might well astound, And all his wits to madness lure. I thought that no tongue might endure Fully to tell of that sweet sight, So was it perfect, clear and pure, That precious pearl with pearls bedight.

XX

Bedight in pearls, lest my joy cease, That lovely one came down the shore; The gladdest man from here to Greece, The eagerest, was I, therefore; She was nearer kin than aunt or niece, And thus my joy was much the more.

That Jewel then with gems besprent Glanced up at me with eyes of grey, Put on her pearl crown orient, And soberly began to say: “You tell your tale with wrong intent, Thinking your pearl gone quite away. Like a jewel within a coffer pent, In this gracious garden bright and gay, Your pearl may ever dwell at play, Where sin nor mourning come to her; It were a joy to thee alway Wert thou a gentle jeweler.

XXIII

“But, Jeweler, if thou dost lose Thy joy for a gem once dear to thee, Methinks thou dost thy mind abuse, Bewildered by a fantasy; Thou hast lost nothing save a rose That flowered and failed by life’s decree: Because the coffer did round it close, A precious pearl it came to be. A thief thou hast dubbed thy destiny That something for nothing gives thee, sir; Thou blamest thy sorrow’s remedy, Thou art no grateful jeweler.”

XXIV

Like jewels did her story fall, A jewel, every gentle clause; “Truly,” I said, “thou best of all! My great distress thy voice withdraws. I thought my pearl lost past recall, My jewel shut within earth’s jaws; But now I shall keep festival, And dwell with it in bright wood-shaws; And love my Lord and all His laws, Who hath brought this bliss. Ah! if I were Beyond these waves, I should have cause To be a joyful jeweler.”

XXV