<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=360809" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The White Ship Henry I. Of England.—25th November 1120</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">By none but me can the tale be told,<br>The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold.<br>(Lands are swayed by a King on a throne.)<br>'Twas a royal train put forth to sea,<br>Yet the tale can be told by none but me.<br>(The sea hath no King but God alone.)<br>King Henry held it as life's whole gain<br>That after his death his son should reign.<br>`Twas so in my youth I heard men say,<br>And my old age calls it back to-day.<br>King Henry of England's realm was he,<br>And Henry Duke of Normandy.<br>The times had changed when on either coast<br>“Clerkly Harry” was all his boast.<br>Of ruthless strokes full many an one<br>He had struck to crown himself and his son;<br>And his elder brother's eyes were gone.<br>And when to the chase his court would crowd,<br>The poor flung ploughshares on his road,<br>And shrieked: “Our cry is from King to God!”<br>But all the chiefs of the English land<br>Had knelt and kissed the Prince's hand.<br>And next with his son he sailed to France<br>To claim the Norman allegiance:<br>And every baron in Normandy<br>Had taken the oath of fealty.<br>'Twas sworn and sealed, and the day had come<br>When the King and the Prince might journey home:<br>For Christmas cheer is to home hearts dear,<br>And Christmas now was drawing near.<br>Stout Fitz-Stephen came to the King,—<br>A pilot famous in seafaring;<br>And he held to the King, in all men's sight,<br>A mark of gold for his tribute's right.<br>“Liege Lord! my father guided the ship<br>From whose boat your father's foot did slip<br>When he caught the English soil in his grip,<br>“And cried: ‘By this clasp I claim command<br>O'er every rood of English land!’<br>“He was borne to the realm you rule o'er now<br>In that ship with the archer carved at her prow:<br>“And thither I'll bear, an it be my due,<br>Your father's son and his grandson too.<br>“The famed White Ship is mine in the bay;<br>From Harfleur's harbour she sails to-day,<br>“With masts fair-pennoned as Norman spears<br>And with fifty well-tried mariners.”<br>Quoth the King: “My ships are chosen each one,<br>But I'll not say nay to Stephen's son.<br>“My son and daughter and fellowship<br>Shall cross the water in the White Ship.”<br>The King set sail with the eve's south wind,<br>And soon he left that coast behind.<br>The Prince and all his, a princely show,<br>Remained in the good White Ship to go.<br>With noble knights and with ladies fair,<br>With courtiers and sailors gathered there,<br>Three hundred living souls we were:<br>And I Berold was the meanest hind<br>In all that train to the Prince assign'd.<br>The Prince was a lawless shameless youth;<br>From his father's loins he sprang without ruth:<br>Eighteen years till then he had seen,<br>And the devil's dues in him were eighteen.<br>And now he cried: “Bring wine from below;<br>Let the sailors revel ere yet they row:<br>“Our speed shall o'ertake my father's flight<br>Though we sail from the harbour at midnight.”<br>The rowers made good cheer without check;<br>The lords and ladies obeyed his beck;<br>The night was light, and they danced on the deck.<br>But at midnight's stroke they cleared the bay,<br>And the White Ship furrowed the water-way.<br>The sails were set, and the oars kept tune<br>To the double flight of the ship and the moon:<br>Swifter and swifter the White Ship sped<br>Till she flew as the spirit flies from the dead:<br>As white as a lily glimmered she<br>Like a ship's fair ghost upon the sea.<br>And the Prince cried, “Friends, 'tis the hour to sing!<br>Is a songbird's course so swift on the wing?”<br>And under the winter stars' still throng,<br>From brown throats, white throats, merry and strong,<br>The knights and the ladies raised a song.<br>A song,—nay, a shriek that rent the sky,<br>That leaped o'er the deep!—the grievous cry<br>Of three hundred living that now must die.<br>An instant shriek that sprang to the shock<br>As the ship's keel felt the sunken rock.<br>'Tis said that afar—a shrill strange sigh—<br>The King's ships heard it and knew not why.<br>Pale Fitz-Stephen stood by the helm<br>'Mid all those folk that the waves must whelm.<br>A great King's heir for the waves to whelm,<br>And the helpless pilot pale at the helm!<br>The ship was eager and sucked athirst,<br>By the stealthy stab of the sharp reef pierc'd:<br>And like the moil round a sinking cup<br>The waters against her crowded up.<br>A moment the pilot's senses spin,—<br>The next he snatched the Prince 'mid the din,<br>Cut the boat loose, and the youth leaped in.<br>A few friends leaped with him, standing near.<br>“Row! the sea's smooth and the night is clear!”<br>“What! none to be saved but these and I?”<br>“Row, row as you'd live! All here must die!”<br>Out of the churn of the choking ship,<br>Which the gulf grapples and the waves strip,<br>They struck with the strained oars' flash and dip.<br>'Twas then o'er the splitting bulwarks' brim<br>The Prince's sister screamed to him.<br>He gazed aloft, still rowing apace,<br>And through the whirled surf he knew her face.<br>To the toppling decks clave one and all<br>As a fly cleaves to a chamber-wall.<br>I Berold was clinging anear;<br>I prayed for myself and quaked with fear,<br>But I saw his eyes as he looked at her.<br>He knew her face and he heard her cry,<br>And he said, “Put back! she must not die!”<br>And back with the current's force they reel<br>Like a leaf that's drawn to a water-wheel.<br>'Neath the ship's travail they scarce might float,<br>But he rose and stood in the rocking boat.<br>Low the poor ship leaned on the tide:<br>O'er the naked keel as she best might slide,<br>The sister toiled to the brother's side.<br>He reached an oar to her from below,<br>And stiffened his arms to clutch her so.<br>But now from the ship some spied the boat,<br>And “Saved!” was the cry from many a throat.<br>And down to the boat they leaped and fell:<br>It turned as a bucket turns in a well,<br>And nothing was there but the surge and swell.<br>The Prince that was and the King to come,<br>There in an instant gone to his doom,<br>Despite of all England's bended knee<br>And maugre the Norman fealty!<br>He was a Prince of lust and pride;<br>He showed no grace till the hour he died.<br>When he should be King, he oft would vow,<br>He'd yoke the peasant to his own plough.<br>O'er him the ships score their furrows now.<br>God only knows where his soul did wake,<br>But I saw him die for his sister's sake.<br>By none but me can the tale be told,<br>The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold.<br>(Lands are swayed by a King on a throne.)<br>'Twas a royal train put forth to sea,<br>Yet the tale can be told by none but me.<br>(The sea hath no King but God alone.)<br>And now the end came o'er the waters' womb<br>Like the last great Day that's yet to come.<br>With prayers in vain and curses in vain,<br>The White Ship sundered on the mid-main:<br>And what were men and what was a ship<br>Were toys and splinters in the sea's grip.<br>I Berold was down in the sea;<br>And passing strange though the thing may be,<br>Of dreams then known I remember me.<br>Blithe is the shout on Harfleur's strand<br>When morning lights the sails to land:<br>And blithe is Honfleur's echoing gloam<br>When mothers call the children home:<br>And high do the bells of Rouen beat<br>When the Body of Christ goes down the street.<br>These things and the like were heard and shown<br>In a moment's trance 'neath the sea alone;<br>And when I rose, 'twas the sea did seem,<br>And not these things, to be all a dream.<br>The ship was gone and the crowd was gone,<br>And the deep shuddered and the moon shone,<br>And in a strait grasp my arms did span<br>The mainyard rent from the mast where it ran;<br>And on it with me was another man.<br>Where lands were none 'neath the dim sea-sky,<br>We told our names, that man and I.<br>“O I am Godefroy de l'Aigle hight,<br>And son I am to a belted knight.”<br>“And I am Berold the butcher's son<br>Who slays the beasts in Rouen town.”<br>Then cried we upon God's name, as we<br>Did drift on the bitter winter sea.<br>But lo! a third man rose o'er the wave,<br>And we said, “Thank God! us three may He save!”<br>He clutched to the yard with panting stare,<br>And we looked and knew Fitz-Stephen there.<br>He clung, and “What of the Prince?” quoth he.<br>“Lost, lost!” we cried. He cried, “Woe on me!”<br>And loosed his hold and sank through the sea.<br>And soul with soul again in that space<br>We two were together face to face:<br>And each knew each, as the moments sped,<br>Less for one living than for one dead:<br>And every still star overhead<br>Seemed an eye that knew we were but dead.<br>And the hours passed; till the noble's son<br>Sighed, “God be thy help! my strength's foredone!<br>“O farewell, friend, for I can no more!”<br>“Christ take thee!” I moaned; and his life was o'er.<br>Three hundred souls were all lost but one,<br>And I drifted over the sea alone.<br>At last the morning rose on the sea<br>Like an angel's wing that beat tow'rds me.<br>Sore numbed I was in my sheepskin coat;<br>Half dead I hung, and might nothing note,<br>Till I woke sun-warmed in a fisher-boat.<br>The sun was high o'er the eastern brim<br>As I praised God and gave thanks to Him.<br>That day I told my tale to a priest,<br>Who charged me, till the shrift were releas'd,<br>That I should keep it in mine own breast.<br>And with the priest I thence did fare<br>To King Henry's court at Winchester.<br>We spoke with the King's high chamberlain,<br>And he wept and mourned again and again,<br>As if his own son had been slain:<br>And round us ever there crowded fast<br>Great men with faces all aghast:<br>And who so bold that might tell the thing<br>Which now they knew to their lord the King?<br>Much woe I learnt in their communing.<br>The King had watched with a heart sore stirred<br>For two whole days, and this was the third:<br>And still to all his court would he say,<br>“What keeps my son so long away?”<br>And they said: “The ports lie far and wide<br>That skirt the swell of the English tide;<br>“And England's cliffs are not more white<br>Than her women are, and scarce so light<br>Her skies as their eyes are blue and bright;<br>“And in some port that he reached from France<br>The Prince has lingered for his pleasaùnce.”<br>But once the King asked: “What distant cry<br>Was that we heard 'twixt the sea and sky?”<br>And one said: “With suchlike shouts, pardie!<br>Do the fishers fling their nets at sea.”<br>And one: “Who knows not the shrieking quest<br>When the sea-mew misses its young from the nest?”<br>'Twas thus till now they had soothed his dread,<br>Albeit they knew not what they said:<br>But who should speak to-day of the thing<br>That all knew there except the King?<br>Then pondering much they found a way,<br>And met round the King's high seat that day:<br>And the King sat with a heart sore stirred,<br>And seldom he spoke and seldom heard.<br>'Twas then through the hall the King was 'ware<br>Of a little boy with golden hair,<br>As bright as the golden poppy is<br>That the beach breeds for the surf to kiss:<br>Yet pale his cheek as the thorn in Spring,<br>And his garb black like the raven's wing.<br>Nothing heard but his foot through the hall,<br>For now the lords were silent all.<br>And the King wondered, and said, “Alack!<br>Who sends me a fair boy dressed in black?<br>“Why, sweet heart, do you pace through the hall<br>As though my court were a funeral?”<br>Then lowly knelt the child at the dais,<br>And looked up weeping in the King's face.<br>“O wherefore black, O King, ye may say,<br>For white is the hue of death to-day.<br>“Your son and all his fellowship<br>Lie low in the sea with the White Ship.”<br>King Henry fell as a man struck dead;<br>And speechless still he stared from his bed<br>When to him next day my rede I read.<br>There's many an hour must needs beguile<br>A King's high heart that he should smile,—<br>Full many a lordly hour, full fain<br>Of his realm's rule and pride of his reign:—<br>But this King never smiled again.<br>By none but me can the tale be told,<br>The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold.<br>(Lands are swayed by a King on a throne.)<br>'Twas a royal train put forth to sea,<br>Yet the tale can be told by none but me.<br>(The sea hath no King but God alone.)</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Dante+Gabriel+Rossetti">Dante Gabriel Rossetti</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=360809" data-title="The White Ship Henry I. Of England.—25th November 1120 de Dante Gabriel Rossetti" data-description="By none but me can the tale be told, The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold. (Lands are swayed by a King on a throne.) 'Twas a royal train put forth to sea, Yet the tale can be told by none but me. (The sea hath no King but God alone.) King Henry held ..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black