Page images
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

You'd have him gore the parish-priest, And run against the altar

You Fiend!"-The sage his warnings ceased, And North, and South, and West, and East, Halloo! they follow the poor beast,

Mat, Dick, Tom, Bob, and Walter.

Old Lewis, 't was his evil day,
Stood trembling in his shoes;
The Ox was his-what could he say?
His legs were stiffen'd with dismay,
The Ox ran o'er him 'mid the fray,
And gave him his death's bruise.

The frighted beast ran on-but here,
The Gospel scarce more true is-
My muse stops short in mid-career-
Nay! gentle reader! do not sneer,
I cannot choose but drop a tear,
A tear for good old Lewis.

The frighted beast ran through the town,
All follow'd, boy and dad,

Bull-dog, Parson, Shopman, Clown,
The Publicans rush'd from the Crown,
"Halloo! hamstring him! cut him down!'
They drove the poor Or mad.

Should you a rat to madness tease,

Why even a rat might plague you : There's no philosopher but sees That rage and fear are one diseaseThough that may burn and this may freeze They're both alike the ague.

And so this Ox, in frantic mood,

Faced round like any BullThe mob turn'd tail, and he pursued, Till they with fright and fear were stew'd, And not a chick of all this brood

But had his belly-full.

Old Nick's astride the beast, 't'is clear-
Old Nicholas to a tittle!

But all agree he'd disappear,
Would but the parson venture near,
And through his teeth, right o'er the steer,
Squirt out some fasting-spittle.t

Achilles was a warrior fleet,

The Trojans he could worryOur parson too was swift of feet, But show'd it chiefly in retreat! The victor Ox scour'd down the street, The mob fled hurry-skurry.

Through gardens, lanes, and fields new-plow'd,
Through his hedge and through her hedge,
He plunged and toss'd, and bellow'd loud,
Till in his madness he grew proud
To see this helter-skelter crowd,

That had more wrath than courage.

According to the superstition of the West Countries, if you meet the Devil, you may either cut him in half with a straw, or you may cause him instantly to disappear by spitting over his horns.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE
DARK LADIE.

The following Poem is intended as the introduction to a somewhat longer one. The use of the old Ballad word Ladie for Lady, is the only piece of obsoleteness in it; and as it is professedly a tale of ancient times, I trust that the affectionate lovers of venerable antiquity [as Camden says] will grant me their pardon, and perhaps may be induced to admit a force and propriety in it. A heavier objection may be adduced against the author, that in these times of fear and expectation, when novelties explode around us in all directions, he should

presume to offer to the public a silly tale of old-fashioned love:
and five years ago, I own I should have allowed and felt the
force of this objection. But, alas! explosion has succeeded
explosion so rapidly, that novelty itself ceases to appear new; and
it is possible that now even a simple story, wholly uninspired with
politics or personality, may find some attention amid the hub-
bub of revolutions, as to those who have remained a long time
by the falls of Niagara, the lowest whispering becomes distinct
ly audible.
S. T. C

Dec. 21, 1799.

O LEAVE the lily on its stem;

O leave the rose upon the spray;
O leave the elder bloom, fair maids!
And listen to my lay.

A cypress and a myrtle-bough

This morn around my harp you twined Because it fashion'd mournfully

Its murmurs in the wind.

And now a Tale of Love and Woe,
A woful Tale of Love I sing ;
Hark, gentle maidens, hark! it sighs
And trembles on the string.

But most, my own dear Genevieve,

It sighs and trembles most for thee!
O come, and hear what cruel wrongs
Befell the Dark Ladie.

Few Sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope, my joy, my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stir this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oh! ever in my waking dreams,
I dwell upon that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I sate,
Beside the ruin'd tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,

Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She lean'd against the armed man,

The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listen'd to my harp,
Amid the ling'ring light.

I play'd a sad and doleful air,

I sang an old and moving story-
An old rude song, that fitted well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listen'd with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore

Upon his shield a burning brand;
And how for ten long years he woo'd
The Ladie of the Land:

[blocks in formation]

The little cloud-it floats away,
Away it goes; away so soon?
Alas! it has no power to stay:
Its hues are dim, its hues are gray-
Away it passes from the moon!
How mournfully it seems to fly,
Ever fading more and more,
To joyless regions of the sky-

And now 't is whiter than before!
As white as my poor cheek will be,

When, Lewti! on my couch I lie, A dying man for love of thee.

Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind― And yet thou didst not look unkind.

I saw a vapor in the sky,
Thin, and white, and very high;
I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud :

Perhaps the breezes that can fly
Now below and now above,
Have snatch'd aloft the lawny shroud
Of Lady fair-that died for love.
For maids, as well as youths, have perish'd
From fruitless love too fondly cherish'd.
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind—
For Lewti never will be kind.

Hush! my heedless feet from under
Slip the crumbling banks for ever:
Like echoes to a distant thunder,

They plunge into the gentle river.
The river-swans have heard my tread,
And startle from their reedy bed.
O beauteous Birds! methinks ye measure
Your movements to some heavenly tune!
O beauteous Birds! 't is such a pleasure
To see you move beneath the moon,
I would it were your true delight
To sleep by day and wake all night.

I know the place where Lewti lies,
When silent night has closed her eyes:
It is a breezy jasmine-bower,
The nightingale sings o'er her head:

Voice of the Night! had I the power That leafy labyrinth to thread,

And creep, like thee, with soundless tread,
I then might view her bosom white
Heaving lovely to my sight,

As these two swans together heave
On the gently swelling wave.

Oh! that she saw me in a dream,
And dreamt that I had died for care;
All pale and wasted I would seem,
Yet fair withal, as spirits are!

I'd die indeed, if I might see
Her bosom heave, and heave for me!
Soothe, gentle image! soothe my mind!
To-morrow Lewti may be kind.

1795.

THE PICTURE, OR THE LOVER'S
RESOLUTION.

THROUGH weeds and thorns, and matted underwood
I force my way; now climb, and now descend

O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot
Crushing the purple whorts; while oft unseen,
Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves,
The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil,
I know not, ask not whither! A new joy,
Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust,
And gladsome as the first-born of the spring,
Beckons me on, or follows from behind,
Playmate, or guide! The master-passion quell'd,
I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark
The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak,
Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake
Soar up, and form a melancholy vault
High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea.

Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse;
Here too the lovelorn man who, sick in soul,
And of this busy human heart aweary,
Worships the spirit of unconscious life
In tree or wild-flower.-Gentle Lunatic!
If so he might not wholly cease to be,
He would far rather not be that, he is;
But would be something, that he knows not of,
In winds or waters, or among the rocks!

But hence, fond wretch! breathe not contagion here!

No myrtle-walks are these: these are no groves
Where Love dare loiter! If in sullen mood
He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore
His dainty feet, the brier and the thorn
Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird
Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs,
Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades!
And you, ye Earth-winds! you that make at morn
The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs!
You, O ye wingless Airs! that creep between
The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze,
Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon,
The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed-
Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp,
Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb.
Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes!
With prickles sharper than his darts bemock
His little Godship, making him perforce
Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's back

This is my hour of triumph! I can now
With my own fancies play the merry fool,
And laugh away worse folly, being free.
Here will I seat myself, beside this old,
Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine
Clothes as with net-work here will I couch my
limbs,

Close by this river, in this silent shade,
As safe and sacred from the step of man
As an invisible world-unheard, unseen,
And list'ning only to the pebbly brook
That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound;
Or to the bees, that in the neighboring trunk
Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me,
Was never Love's accomplice, never raised
The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow,
And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek;
Ne'er play'd the wanton-never half-disclosed
The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence
Eye-poisons for some love-distemper'd youth,
Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-grove

Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.

Sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright, Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast, That swells its little breast, so full of song, Singing above me, on the mountain-ash. And thou too, desert Stream! no pool of thine, Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve, Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe, The face, the form divine, the downcast look Contemplative! Behold! her open palm Presses her cheek and brow! her elbow rests On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree, That leans towards its mirror! Who erewhile Had from her countenance turn'd, or look'd stealth

Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun
Throbbing within them, Heart at once and Eye!
With its soft neighborhood of filmy clouds,
The stains and shadings of forgotten tears,
Dimness o'erswum with lustre! Such the hour
Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds ;
And hark, the noise of a near waterfall!

I pass forth into light-I find myself
Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful
Of forest-trees, the Lady of the woods),
Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock
That overbrows the cataract. How bursts
The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hills
Fold in behind each other, and so make
A circular vale, and land-lock'd, as might seem,
by With brook and bridge, and gray stone cottages,
Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet,
The whortle-berries are bedew'd with spray,
Dash'd upwards by the furious waterfall.
How solemnly the pendent ivy mass
Swings in its winnow all the air is calm.

(For fear is true love's cruel nurse), he now
With stedfast gaze and unoffending eye,
Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes
Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain,
Een as that phantom-world on which he gazed,
But not unheeded gazed: for see, ah! see,
The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks
The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow,
Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells:
And suddenly, as one that toys with time,
Scatters them on the pool! Then all the charm
Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each misshapes the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth, who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes!
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return! And lo! he stays:
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror; and behold
Each wild-flower on the marge inverted there,
And there the half-uprooted tree-but where,
O where the virgin's snowy arm, that lean'd
On its bare branch? He turns, and she is gone!
Homeward she steals through many a woodland

maze

Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth!
Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime
In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook,
Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou
Behold'st her shadow still abiding there,
The Naiad of the Mirror!

Not to thee,

O wild and desert Stream! belongs this tale:
Gloomy and dark art thou-the crowded firs
Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed,
Making thee doleful as a cavern-well:
Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest
On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream!

This be my chosen haunt-emancipate From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone, I rise and trace its devious course. O lead, Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms. Lo! stealing through the canopy of firs, How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock, Isle of the river, whose disparted waves Dart off asunder with an angry sound, How soon to reunite! And see! they meet, Each in the other lost and found: and see

The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with light,

Rises in columns; from this house alone,
Close by the waterfall, the column slants,

And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this?
That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke,
And close beside its porch a sleeping child,
His dear head pillow'd on a sleeping dog-
One arm between its fore-legs, and the hand
Holds loosely its small handful of wild-flowers,
Unfilleted, and of unequal lengths.

A curious picture, with a master's haste
Sketch'd on a strip of pinky-silver skin,
Peel'd from the birchen bark! Divinest maid!
Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berries
Her pencil! See, the juice is scarcely dried
On the fine skin! She has been newly here;
And lo! yon patch of heath has been her couch--
The pressure still remains! O blessed couch!
For this mayst thou flower early, and the Sun,
Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long
Upon thy purple bells! O Isabel!
Daughter of genius! stateliest of our maids!
More beautiful than whom Alcæus wooed,
The Lesbian woman of immortal song!
O child of genius! stately, beautiful,
And full of love to all, save only me,
And not ungentle e'en to me! My heart,
Why beats it thus? Through yonder coppice-wood
Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straightway
On to her father's house. She is alone!
The night draws on-such ways are hard to hit-
And fit it is I should restore this sketch,
Dropt unawares, no doubt. Why should I yearn
To keep the relic? 't will but idly feed
The passion that consumes me. Let me haste!
The picture in my hand which she has left,
She cannot blame me that I follow'd her;
And I may be her guide the long wood through

THE NIGHT-SCENE.

A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.

SANDOVAL.

You loved the daughter of Don Manrique?

« PreviousContinue »