#warwick deeping

“Heaven and God’s throne, you shall hear me to the end. Woman, woman, my soul flows to you as the sea ebbs to the moon; deep in the sky a new sun burns; the stars are dust, dust blown from the coffins of the dead who loved. Life leaps in me like another chaos. All my heart glows like an autumn orchard, and I burn. The world is red with a myriad of roses. God’s in heaven, Christ bleeds in Calvary.”

“Yet what are dreams but snowflakes drifting from the heavens, now white, now red, as God or man carries the lamp of love? The girl’s ecstasy of faith was but a potion to her, dazing her from a yet more subtle dream. A faint voice summoned her from the unknown. She would hear it often in the silence of the night, or at full noon as she faltered in her prayers. The rosary would hang idle on her wrist, the crucifix melt from her vision. She would find her heart glowing like a rose at the touch of the sun. Anon, frightened, she would shake the human half of herself, and run back penitent to her prayers. It was springtide, and the year’s youth, when memories are garlanded with green, and romance scatters wind-flowers over the world. Many voices awoke, like the chanting of birds, in Yeoland’s heart.”

“Ah, sire, it is the old tale. They have cramped up your youth with book and ring; shut you up in a moral sarcophagus with a woman they call your wife. You burn for liberty, and the unknown that shines like a purple streak in the fading west. Ah, sire, you look for that one marvellous being, who shall torch again the youth in your heart, make your blood burn, your soul to sing. That one woman in the world, mysterious as the moon, subtle as the night, ineffably strange as a flaming dawn. That woman shall lift you to the stars; whose lips suck the sap of the world; whose bosom breathes to the eternal swoon of all sweet sounds. She shall light the lust of battle in your heart. For her your sword shall leap, your towers totter. Chivalry should lead you like a pillar of fire out of the night, a heroic god striving for a goddess.”

“Picture a slim but muscular figure with the virile figure of a young David, a keen, smooth face, a halo of brown hair, eyes as eloquent as a woman’s. Picture a good grey horse trapped in red and green, full of fettle as a colt, burly as a bull. Picture the ermine borderings, the jewelled clasps, brigantine of quilted velvet, fur-lined bassinet bright as a star. Youth, clean, adventurous, aglow to the last finger-tip, impetuous to the tune of thirty breaths a minute. Youth with all its splendid waywardness, its generosities, its immense self-intoxications. Youth with the voice of a Golden Summer in its heart, and for its plume the gorgeous fires of eve.”

“It was a superstitious age, touched with phantasy and gemmed with magic. Relics were casketed in gold and silver; holy blood amazed with yearly liquefactions the souls of the devout; dreamers gazed into mirrors, crystals, finger-nails, for visions of heaven. Jewels were poured in scintillant streams at the white feet of the Madonna. It was all done with rare mysticism, colour, and rich music. The moon ruled marriage, corn, and kine. The saints, like a concourse of angels, walked with melancholy splendour through the wilds. As for the girl Yeoland, she had the heart of a woman in the noblest measure, a red heart, yet pure and passionate. The world waxed prophetic that shrill season. She was as full of dreams and phantasies as an astrologer’s missal. Nothing amazed her, and yet all the earth was mysterious.”

“An owl’s cry sounded in the woods. Sudden and strange, as though dropped from the stars, faint music quivered on the frost-brilliant air. It gathered, died, grew again, and with a mysterious flux of sweetness, as of some song stealing from the Gardens of the Dead. Flute, cithern, and viol were sounding under the moon, merging a wizard chant into the magic of the hour. Angels, crimson-winged, in green attire, seemed to descend the burning stair of heaven. A sudden great radiance lit the ruin, a glory of gold streaming from the altar. Cymbals clashed; waves of shimmering light surged over the broken walls. Incense, like purple smoke, curled through the casements. The music rushed in clamorous rapture to the stars. A voice was heard crying in the chapel, elfin and wild, yet full of a vague rich sanctity.”