Idyls and Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

'Tis an old tale, and may be told once more:—
—Cospatrick brings his Bride across the foam;
Fourscore tall ships bore Beauty from the bower,
And fourscore ships in triumph bore to land:
And twain and twain his kinsmen, blithe and bold,
Marshall'd procession, lead her to the kirk:—
—But she is sad, the Lady of the day:—
—Why is she sad, the Lady of the day?
It is not for her saddle set awry,
'Tis not the managed prancings of her steed:
‘I sorrow for my sorrowing mother's sake.
Tell me, fair Page, that by my stirrup runs,
And tell me true, the custom of the land.’
‘It is no custom,’ the fair Page replies,
‘It is no message for a Lady's ear.
For seven king's daughters, seven fair as thou,
Cospatrick's wedded brides,—thy lord and mine—
Each bridal after-morn went weeping home,
Weeping, dishonour'd, bearing shameful wounds;
For they were frail, and thus he punish'd them.
But any maid of maiden innocence,
He bids unfearing to the bridal couch,
Cospatrick's honour'd wife—thy lord and mine.’
So they, till twain and twain the kirk was reach'd.
But when reluctant even, orange-robed,
Dyed her in grayness, and the bells were rung,
And louder revel pledged Cospatrick's weal,
Withdrawing thro' still chambers—as he came

The lady call'd her maiden to the bower,
And laid her there, and thro' the twilight fled.
And now the blithe Earl enter'd, and he saw
Long golden locks, but not the locks he loved;
And azure eyes, but not that azure: Then,
O then in full wrath from the couch he fled,
And wrathful thro' hush'd revellers in the hall,
And on his mother call'd:—‘I of all men
Thro' Christian lands most wretched! once again
Now yet once more by woman's fraud beguiled!’
She bids her son among the revellers stay,
‘For I will track the serpent to the lair,
For I will bring the tale should ne'er be brought’—
And she has steel'd her woman's heart to wrath,
And she has burst within the secret bower:
‘I bare Cospatrick; I, a loyal wife:
But who art thou to bring dishonour thus
Within the precincts of a bridal bed?’
‘O hear me, Mother, hear me on my knee:—
For we were seven sisters, fairer none,
Each still apart the fairest: youngest I:
And so it fell, one summer's afternoon,
When toil was over, and the lots were thrown
For who should walk the greenwood: and I knew—
—For aye my lot was hardest—ever cross'd—
Evil betides the youngest: so it fell:
For with the lot dishonour waited me
Within the greenwood, as I sought the rose,
The rose and wild thyme for my mother's bower:
—I pluck'd the rose, Mother, my rose was pluck'd:
For thro' the greenwood rode a gallant youth,
A gay gallant, and royal in his robes,
And eyes right royal: and he held me there,
Till even there: then from his breast he drew
A bracelet of bright beads, and placed on mine;
And bade me keep his bracelet and his ring,
And bade me keep a ringlet of his hair,
The tokens of true love against my need.’
O then Cospatrick's Mother smote her hands,
And took the tokens of true love, and ran,
And sought her son within the clamorous hall;
And cried, ‘Where are the bracelet and the ring’
The tokens of true love I gave my child!'

But he was not within the clamorous hall,
Nor found within the bower: but where the ghosts
Of glimmering waves roll shrouded to the sands,
And cast themselves in suppliant faintness prone,
As maiden corpses when the wreck dissolves
And Death wafts Beauty shoreward:—but he heard:
—And as the blast that sends the surf ashore
E'en as it falls, veering in sudden flaw,
Catches the sinking crest, and whirls aloft:—
—So that remembrance borne upon her words
Smote silent sorrow, and his voice rose high:
‘The maid that wears the bracelet and the ring,
I'd give my halls and towers to have her here,
My very life to call that beauty Bride.’
She threw her arms around her wondering child;
‘O keep your halls and towers, my son, my son:
For she that wears the bracelet and the ring,
The tokens of true love, awaits thee there,
Herself more true: thy greenwood Bride: thine own’—
—Cospatrick clasp'd her neck, and wept aloud;
Wept in fulness of heart, and follow'd her.