 | Poems lyric and idyllic |  |
XI.
It is the Hallow Eve, when elves have powerAnd dark enchantments fill the haunted air;
When, through great castle-hall and ladye's bower,
White faces glimmer, dank with mildewed hair;
And sickly will-o-wisp his fiendish glare
Throws, like a murderer's candle, through the mist,
While shrouded Evil watches everywhere;
Ah! the foul fiend is busy now, I wist,
And all the goblin imps his dismal spells assist!
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XII.
What timorous damsel dares to wander throughThe elfin glen on this ill-fated eve?
Yet Margret will her venturous path pursue,
In spite of all that simple girls believe:
Though flutteringly her gentle breast may heave,
Darkling she hastens onward, while old dreams
A hundred pictures for her fancy weave,
And on her spectral form the fire-fly gleams
Through all the climbing fog, till like a ghost she seems;
XIII.
A ghost of maiden, by false lover's sinHeart-broken, and forever wandering where
The traitor did her brightest jewel win;
And why doth Marguerite alone repair,
With robe of white and little ankles bare,
Through the witch-haunted valley? Hear you not
Saint Mary's chapel bell? and see the glare
Of waxen taper, in the holy spot,
Where all but pious vow and penance is forgot.
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XIV.
Thither she turns her course mysteriously,And thither to our Lady fain would pray,
That, on this night, in great benignity,
All spells and demons she will guard away
From her dear cottage, till the breaking day
Upon Ursula and herself shall glow;
With such kind purpose, in her pure array
She hurries forth—but ah! she needs must go
Past the great holly-oak o'er-clomb with mistletoe.
XV.
Saint Mary be her guardian! for see,What sudden radiance beacons through the ferns,
Of flame intense, and colored variously
As that which in some perfumed censer burns!
Boding the antique legend, Margret yearns,
In all her terror, with a strange delight,
And slowly toward those drooping branches turns,
With half-way thrills of longing—half-affright—
As one who fears, yet pines, to view some ghostly sight.
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XVI.
What sees the maiden, that so fixed she stays?From what arch spell of elfin glamoury,
Bathed in the light of those bewildering rays,
In all her wonderment so loth to fly?
For whom those parted lips—that passionate sigh?
And see her now like Ariadne smile,
When her god-lover shone out splendidly
Before her eyes, and clasped her hand the while,
And told his love divine—in Naxos' dewy isle;
XVII.
Smile at the vision of a youthful king,With coronal of ocean-emerald crowned,
And amber hair, by many a gorgeous ring
Of wreathéd gold fantastically bound;
'Mong all her peasant lovers, that around
The village-pole on merry-makings throng,
Such stately courtesy she has not found,
And beauty, which young maidens praise in song,
Or picture to their hearts in summer day-dreams long.
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XVIII.
And ah! with pure, harmonious, dying notes,More sweetly than the nightingale's sweet tune,
Which, mystically uttered, ever floats
Along the ether to the listening moon,
He prays of Marguerite a gentle boon,
That she to bannered Faëry-land will go,
And share with him the Elle-King's pearly throne;
Soft, as on Danaë fell the golden snow,
Falls on her charmed ear the elfin music low!
| Poems lyric and idyllic | |