The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme :: :: University of Virginia Library

Nor less did Esther twine and fold
The tendrils of her blooming May
About the waif of storm and wold,
And hold her dearer day by day.
Full sisterly the damsels kept
Each other close in loving palms,
Together laughed, together wept,
Together sang the sabbath psalms.

For Yesebel appeared as pure
As ever breeze that summer stirs;
No weird perfume, no naughty lure
Exhaled from any word of hers.
The knowledge of the wizard past
Had faded from her merry brain,
As one may see a dusky mast
Go down behind a shining main.
She knew no single wicked thing,
No cabalistic sign or spell,
Nor any stave that sorcerers sing
To greet the seignories of hell.

Forbidden carols, which before
Defiled her dainty coral mouth,
Had died like bubbles on the shore,
Had gone like swallows flitted south.
She knew not whence she came, nor how;

The elfin past was all a haze;
If any one recalled it now,
She mutely stared in prim amaze.
She held herself the very kin
Of those who daily kissed her face,
And found their sweetest joyaunce in
Communing with her sunny grace.