Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, A Dramatic Poem :: :: University of Virginia Library

It was Hallowmass eve;—like a bride at her bowering
The moon on green Skiddaw sat shining,—and showering
Her silver light on the Solway waves,—steeping
In brightness the cormorants rocking and sleeping:
The lone Ellenbrook 'neath the brown boughs was simmering,
In castle and cottage the candles were glimmering;
No foot was abroad,—dread of witch-spell and glamour
Bound matron and maid to the hall and the chaumer.
In a mariner's ear the night-tide singeth sweet;
So I sat and I gazed, while the flood, at my feet,
Leap'd, and murmur'd:—I thought when the stiff breeze was sounding,
How my bark through the billows went breasting and bounding;
And I long'd much to lift up my halser, and fly
Where there's nought to be gazed at but ocean and sky.

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2.

As I wish'd, lo! there came my bright bark, Barbara Allan;
Her fair shadow far on the moonlight flood falling;
Her silk pennon streaming so gay at her side,
And her gallant sails bent all in seafaring pride:
Around her the glad waters, leaping and flashing,
Clave wide with delight, and away she went dashing:
Before the fair presence of my beauteous shallop
The cormorants fly, and the porpoises gallop;
The seamews dive down, and the seagulls go soaring,
As her prow through the deep brine goes sweeping and snoring.
Loud and loud came the voice from the mainland to hail her—
The glad whistle, the shout, and free song of the sailor.
John Selby, cried faint, and then bolder and bolder,
“Ho! launch out the boat, and bring me Richard Faulder!”
He whistled—the boat, with one stroke of the oar,
At my foot made a furrow ell deep in the shore.

3.

I laugh'd and sprung in,—soon the smitten waves parted,
And flash'd, as along to my shallop I darted.
The mariners shouted, nor lack'd there the tone
Of tongues which from boyhood to manhood I'd known;
The mariners shouted, nor lack'd they the form
Of friends who with me had braved tempest and storm:
And away went the shallop, with bent sail and rudder,
And the shore gave a groan, and the sea gave a shudder.

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We hail'd the clear diamond on green Criffel burning,
That stream'd on our path, like the star of the morning;
And gleaming behind us, shot o'er the wild seas
The Hallowmass torches of bonnie Saint Bees;
The sweet glens of Cumberland lessen'd,—and colder
The moonbeam became, and the wind waken'd bolder;
And the sable flood roar'd, while along the rude furrow
The slender bark flew, with the flight of an arrow.

4.

'Twas sweet now to hear how the strain'd canvas sung,
As, right on our path, like a reindeer we sprung;
'Twas sweet now to hear how the chafed wind kept trying
The might of our mast, and the foaming waves frying:
'Twas sweet from the stem to the stern to be pacing,—
In the chart of my mind the bark's course to be tracing,—
In some far sunny bay to be dropping our anchor;
Or, where the spiced woodlands tower'd greener and ranker,
To chace, when the sun on the desert smote sorest,
The fleet-footed deer, and the king of the forest;
Or, where the free balm richer dropt from the bushes,
Hear the frank maiden's sighs in her shealing of rushes,
As she thinks, while her girdle grows tighter, of sailing
With one who had loved, and had left her bewailing:—
Such thoughts came upon me—Mid curse and carousing,
The Man Island smugglers sat singing and bousing;
They ceased as we passed, and an old man cried, “See!
Lo! there goes the Spectre-ship sundering the sea!’

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5.

Loud laugh'd all my mariners—and as they laugh'd, there
Fell a thick smoke from heaven, that choak'd the sweet air;
Loud laugh'd all the mariners—and as they laugh'd, whistling,
Like the hunting hawk's wings, went the wing'd shallop rustling,
And at once o'er our heads there came stooping a cloud
Huge and sable, that swathed up my ship like a shroud;
Above and about me the low thunder pudder'd,
A dread fell upon me—the dark ocean shudder'd!
A rush of wind came, and away the cloud pass'd—
And there sat a hoary Old One at the mast,
With his furrow'd brows bent down, like one in devotion,
And his ancient eyes cast on the star-gleaming ocean.
“Hoary father,” I said, “ill it suits thee to brave
The moisture of night, and the damp of the wave:
Go hillock my blankets above thee—and here,
Take this tass of strong water to charm thee and cheer!”

6.

The Old One look'd up—Then the hawthorn's sweet timmer
Had shed its rich bloom on my twenty third simmer,—
The Old One look'd up—Then these hoar locks were black,
As the moor-cock's soot wing, or the sea eagle's back,—

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But from glad three and twenty till threescore and seven,
From my locks like the snow, to my locks like the raven,
I never beheld such an aspect;—abaft
I leapt in dismay,—and the Ancient One laugh'd!
Laugh'd loud, and a thousand unseen lips laugh'd round,
And the smooth pleasant sea murmur'd far to the sound.
My comrades were vanish'd—men, framed by the spell
Of the fiends, with their bark, in the dock-yeards of hell,
To wile Richard Faulder, at midnight unhallow'd,—
When the dark angels rule,—in the sea to be swallow'd!
Away flew the fiend-bark, so smoothly and fine
That she seem'd more to swim in the air than the brine;
The green islands stoop'd low their heads as we pass'd,
And the stars seem'd in pairs from the firmament cast;
Sole charmer, alone the charm'd moon stay'd to smile,
Till my Grey Guide dropp'd anchor before a green isle.