A COUNCILLOR

What say the leeches?  Is all their skill left them?

MASTER OLIVER

Nay, they bade lead him to hunt and to tilting,
To set him on high in the throne of his honour
To judge heavy deeds:  bade him handle the tiller,
And drive through the sea with the wind at its wildest;
All things he was wont to hold kingly and good. 
So we led out his steed and he straight leapt upon him
With no word, and no looking to right nor to left,
And into the forest we fared as aforetime: 
Fast on the king followed, and cheered without stinting
The hounds to the strife till the bear stood at bay;
Then there he alone by the beech-trees alighted;
Barehanded, unarmoured, he handled the spear-shaft,
And blew up the death on the horn of his father;
Yet still in his eyes was no look of rejoicing,
And no life in his lips; but I likened him rather
To King Nimrod carved fair on the back of the high-seat
When the candles are dying, and the high moon is streaming
Through window and luffer white on the lone pavement
Whence the guests are departed in the hall of the palace.—­
—­Rode we home heavily, he with his rein loose,
Feet hanging free from the stirrups, and staring
At a clot of the bear’s blood that stained his green kirtle;—­
Unkingly, unhappy, he rode his ways homeward.

A COUNCILLOR

Was this all ye tried, or have ye more tidings? 
For the wall tottereth not at first stroke of the ram.

MASTER OLIVER

Nay, we brought him a-board the Great Dragon one dawning,
When the cold bay was flecked with the crests of white billows
And the clouds lay alow on the earth and the sea;
He looked not aloft as they hoisted the sail,
But with hand on the tiller hallooed to the shipmen
In a voice grown so strange, that it scarce had seemed stranger
If from the ship Argo, in seemly wise woven
On the guard-chamber hangings, some early grey dawning
Great Jason had cried, and his golden locks wavered. 
Then e’en as the oars ran outboard, and dashed
In the wind-scattered foam and the sails bellied out,
His hand dropped from the tiller, and with feet all uncertain
And dull eye he wended him down to the midship,
And gazing about for the place of the gangway
Made for the gate of the bulwark half open,
And stood there and stared at the swallowing sea,
Then turned, and uncertain went wandering back sternward,
And sat down on the deck by the side of the helmsman,
Wrapt in dreams of despair; so I bade them turn shoreward,
And slowly he rose as the side grated stoutly
’Gainst the stones of the quay and they cast forth the hawser.—­
Unkingly, unhappy, he went his ways homeward.