The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme The witch of Shiloh, the last of the Wampanoags, the gentle earl, the enchanted voyage |
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 | The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme |  |
XIV
So other peaceful moons went by.
O gladsome moons, why should ye die?
Why should the perfect-circled light
Of joyaunce dwindle into night?
Alas! how many roses bloom
To shed their petals o'er a tomb!
There was a lily of the vale.
There was! Where is she? Ask the gale.
O gladsome moons, why should ye die?
Why should the perfect-circled light
17
Alas! how many roses bloom
To shed their petals o'er a tomb!
There was a lily of the vale.
There was! Where is she? Ask the gale.
There came a change in Esther's dream
Of life. It took a nightmare cast.
She rowed in vain against a stream.
A shadow threatened; spectres passed.
There came a phantom, vague but grim,
A fitful looking-for of wrong
Betwixt her loving heart and him
Who lately made her life a song.
Of life. It took a nightmare cast.
She rowed in vain against a stream.
A shadow threatened; spectres passed.
There came a phantom, vague but grim,
A fitful looking-for of wrong
Betwixt her loving heart and him
Who lately made her life a song.
There came a change in Yesebel,
A transformation hard to tell,
A marvel wrought by ancient spell,
A bubble rising through a mere
But lately crystal pure and clear,—
A bubble from the founts of hell.
Aye, suddenly this saintly thing
Became as weird as any fay
That ever haunted moonlit spring
Before the elder faiths were grey.
In other maids it might have been
The pranksomeness of youthful mood,
The witchery of years of teen,
The dazing dawn of womanhood.
With Yesebel it seemed to be
A swift revulsion tow'rd the mind
And memories of days when she
Was one of Elfland's darkling kind.
Aroused—no matter how—who knows?
A dormant nature waked again,
A resurrected maenad rose,
A fettered syren burst her chain.
A transformation hard to tell,
A marvel wrought by ancient spell,
A bubble rising through a mere
But lately crystal pure and clear,—
A bubble from the founts of hell.
Aye, suddenly this saintly thing
Became as weird as any fay
That ever haunted moonlit spring
Before the elder faiths were grey.
In other maids it might have been
The pranksomeness of youthful mood,
The witchery of years of teen,
The dazing dawn of womanhood.
With Yesebel it seemed to be
A swift revulsion tow'rd the mind
And memories of days when she
Was one of Elfland's darkling kind.
18
A dormant nature waked again,
A resurrected maenad rose,
A fettered syren burst her chain.
| The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme | |