THE SHEPHERDESS
Reading edition
I
By one whose heart kept watch was heard the fame
Of a bright world that, like a ship of war,
Was launched in heaven beside the last that came
O’er the sky’s outer bar:
Her land Chaldea, she that blessed name
Gave to the coming star.
II
Child of a lord, they called on her to reign
O’er that old story-land whose shepherds deem
The stars a flock that studs a holy plain;
And she had learned in dream
That her loved land, through her, that star should gain
And with its blessings teem.
111III
But heartless deeds were of her father told
Who the fair daughters, in the mountains born,
Had captured and to days of slavery sold
Where bends the Golden Horn:
A shepherd chief, who robbed his neighbour’s fold,
And took the lamb unshorn.
IV
She bears her crook o’er living plains, her way
Through tents in which the thoughtful shepherds dwell
Who watch the heavens where the bright grazers stray
And think they hear the bell
Whose holy tinklings, as they softly play,
The fates of men foretell.
V
So doth she haste to meet her shepherd-seers,
And see the promised star that shall eclipse
The one which filled her father’s land with tears,
And learn from their own lips
The happy portents that to man it bears
From the new heaven it skips.
112VI
While Tigris and Euphrates still o’erleap
Their shallow bounds her camel slowly goes,
When nigh her tent, on vengeful errand, creep
Her father’s olden foes,
And seize her, helpless, in her noon-day sleep
While all her tribes repose.
VII
In a barred chamber, and in chains, a slave,
She weeps with eyes upon the Golden Horn,
And thinks of far-off waters as they lave
Blest homes in Capricorn,
Where happy beings find the Heaven that gave
To her the star new-born.
VIII
Strangers have come and through her prison-gate
They count her price and would her love allure;
But her eyes restless watch and wide dilate;
Their look can none endure,
So wild in sorrow and so mild in hate,
In majesty so pure.
113IX
One comes towards whom the look of prayer she bends
That seems to utter ‘Thou, my star, arise!’
And while that heaven-adoring thought ascends
New sorrows fill her eyes,
That tell how Love is dead and beauty ends
When human pity dies!
X
All that he has, the mystic life he bears,
What is their worth, her soul in slavery?
He pays the ransom, breaks the chain she wears,
As though some god were he:
Voiceless, she offers up to him the tears
Her anguish has set free.
XI
Handmaids and armed protectors are at hand,
All that to queenly power and pomp pertains,
And, passing waters from the stranger-land,
Her star-roofed home she gains,
Where her sleek camels, crimson-girded, stand
To bear her o’er the plains.
114XII
In her slow path the faithful seers arrive
And with prophetic tidings bid her cheer:
That night, they tell, the older worlds shall strive,
As the new star comes near,
And into depths of unknown darkness dive
And find no other sphere.
XIII
But little heed gives she to their appeals:
The coming star, alas! not yet is found;
Deep-sighing in her silence, she reveals
A heart in slavery bound:
Her bonds are there, and there it is she feels
The chain about her wound.
XIV
’Mid joyous shouts she sees her open gates,
But enters not, up-gazing in the thought
That never sleeps or in her breast abates,
Where is the star she sought!
But now a greater seer her advent waits;
He hath the tidings brought.
115XV
‘The hour is come, the star is now in sight;
Portents of blessed change the heavens bestrew:
The shepherds upward gaze, the air is bright,
The sky is gold and blue,
The ancient stars are on their downward flight
And others come anew.
XVI
‘And in the shower of burning worlds, self-hurled
From heaven to heaven, a lord is on his way
Around whose hosts the golden dust is whirled,
While, in divine array,
Green floats his shepherd-banner, wide-unfurled,
With flocks thereon at play.’
XVII
The hour has come in clouds that hurry o’er
Her palace towers, and scatter while the rays
Of new-made light upon the valleys pour;
While flocks awake and graze,
And shepherds sing and the new star adore:
But she, beholding, prays.
116XVIII
The seer of seers stands forth, he takes her hands;
He cries, ‘Thy star is come! Be it to thee
A rich reward and to these teeming lands;
The lord, who made thee free,
Now in his earthly place before thee stands,
Thy guiding-star to be.’
XIX
She looks at heaven; afar the cloud-vane drifts;
Her face is pale, he comes, the lord is found:
She kneels, once more his slave; the stranger lifts
The virgin from the ground,
And offers up for sacred wedding gifts
The chains her heart had bound.
117