Peter Faultless to his brother Simon :: :: University of Virginia Library

Then Mary to the window drew,
And, hid behind the curtain blue,
Look'd out into the dismal night.
Gone was the universal white;
Wild heaven with skurrying clouds was spread;
And through the darkness rush'd the light
Oft, as the wan moon, overhead,
Like murder chas'd by conscience, fled;
And lovely was th' illumin'd cloud,
As, on the tip of virgin dead,
The smile that mocks her stainless shroud.
And, as a maniac bends aghast,
Smiting his clench'd hands high and fast,
Did many a huge tree, in the blast
Wave, crashing loud, his branches vast,
Between her and the light.

175

Afar, she saw the river deep,
And Mexbro, by his side, asleep;
And all the snow was in the stream,
Roaring beneath the fitful beam;
But the wild rain had ceas'd to pour.
Then o'er her heart chill terror crept,
And fancy, sad enthusiast, wept,
And heard the distant waters roar.
“Did Mathew, on that gloomy shore,
Where the voic'd billows wail of woe,
As, dread, in frantic whirls, they flow,
Seek him, the man of mystery?
But little good bodes he to me.
Ah!—ne'er be that thought realiz'd!—
Wedded in vain, and vainly priz'd,
Deep in the wave lies Mathew, drown'd?”
She look'd, but vainly look'd around:
Yet some one mov'd, or seem'd to move,
She thought, between the house and grove:
On tiptoe stood the anxious dame!
But o'er the moon, like envy, came
Darkness—and all was dread and woe.

176

Thus, Empress of Britannian bowers,
The hawthorn shakes her lovely flowers
Beneath th' half-shaded beam of noon,
Which, glimmering on the pale wave, soon
Vanishes with the dying breeze,
And the cloud deepens o'er the trees,
While green-isled Morley, dark and still,
Listens beneath the glooming hill.
But, while she stood entranc'd in woe,
The door flew open wide; and, lo,
A stranger enter'd! “Mathew? No!”
With clench'd hands, and retracted form,
Like sapling bent beneath the storm,
Or statue of Despair, she stood.
“Where is thy husband, Mathew Hall?”
Exclaim'd, in seeming sullen mood,
That age-bent stranger, broad and tall,
With spade-like beard of reddish grey.
The bride, who scarce knew what to say,
Stood mute awhile, then, half afraid,
“Art thou my husband's friend?” she said.

177

“I am,” quoth he, with alter'd tone,
“His best, his worst, his only one.”
Forthwith, unask'd, he took his seat;
While Jacob, once more on his feet,
Warbled a stave, with gruntle sweet,
Such as was used in times pass'd long,
Ere notes and tunes were known in song.