 | Poems lyric and idyllic |  |
I.
Long years ago, in idle greenwood time,When fairies tript it merrily on the toe,
With roundels gay and many a tinkling rhyme;
When wrinkled hags their sorcery muttered low,
And forms of evil flitted to and fro
In dark attendance on the magic spell;
When woods were elfin-haunted—long ago—
An aged good-wife dwelt within a dell
The loveliest of Lorraine—romantic Epinel.
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II.
Her cottage was enwreathed luxuriouslyWith flowering lilac and sweet jessamine,
And by its step there grew a linden-tree,
Deckt all about with thorny eglantine;
Two loving willows strove to intertwine
Their yellow branches—pendulous among
Its straw-thatched gables—with the fragrant vine;
A joyous brook, with gushing, wildwood song,
Flowed aye between their gnarl'd and earth-black roots along.
III.
Above the low and diamond-latticed doorAn oaken cross was hung—that whoso stept,
Howbeit by chance, upon the cottage floor,
Its silent benediction might accept;
Before it oft Ursula prayed, and wept—
Though lorn of goodman and each darling son—
In pious joy, as not yet quite bereft,
With one fair daughter, spared to soothe her moan,
And dearer to her heart than all those dear ones gone.
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IV.
For Marguerite her every want supplied,And stayed with care her tottering steps and faint;
And oft Ursula trudged along beside
The maiden, seeming little else than saint,
With silvery tresses flowing down her quaint
Provençal habit—waited on in love
By ministering seraph without taint;
Or, in some strange acquaintance interwove,
A grey, old falcon-hawk beside a mild-eyed dove.
V.
Ah, Marguerite, sweet pearl of Epinel!Fair lily of Lorraine!—how should it fade,
And vanish quite from that enamored dell!
All living creatures loved the little maid,
At her own mirrored beauty half affrayed;
To whose clear eyes the faun and satyr-kind,
And dryad wood-nymphs, rural homage paid;
And then how tunefully her eager mind
To legends old and tales of romance was inclined!
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VI.
For at Ursula's footstool would she kneel,With frequent sigh and tremulous heart's delight,
To list how royal Guinevere did steal
Away with Launcelot—her own true knight;
Anon would shudder with bewitching fright,
When of dark goblins spake the ancient dame—
Of Roncesvalles and brave Orlando's fight;
But most of all she loved to hear the fame
Of Elf and Fairy, and the Elle-King's dreaded name.
VII.
The Elle-King, who—as every wrinkled dameThroughout fair Epinel, with boding tongue,
Told the scared children, that around them came
Listening, with little hearts by terror wrung—
Held royal sway in Elfland, where were hung
Live fairy-harps on every orange bough,
Breathing wild music, and where, all among
The groves and rills and blossoms, whispering low,
Elf pledged his love to Fay in many a summer vow;
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VIII.
And who, they said, would oft in mortal guise,Down in the vale, beneath the holly-tree,
On haunted nights appear to maidens' eyes,
And woo them with unearthly melody,
Until their souls would all entrancèd be
With shadowy forms of beauty, and they sighed
In Faëry-land forever amorously
To dwell, and be the Elle-King's stately bride:—
Saint Denis aid fair damsels when thus sorely tried!
IX.
For past redemption would that maiden beWho, music-charmed, should yield her to the Fay!
Such ballads sang the dames continually,
And twirled the distaff through the live-long day;
But Marguerite strayed thoughtfully away,
And often all the legend o'er would dream,
Whene'er at night she might forget to pray
To good saint Denis, or the silvery stream
Of moonlight on her couch shone in with ominous gleam.
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X.
And so forevermore her little heartWith young romance was easily beguiled:
Sometimes throughout the forest, far apart
From the wierd cottage, in the copses wild,
She sought for elfin grottoes, and then smiled,
And curled her dainty lip in high disdain,
To see herself so like a simple child!
But ah! what longings nestled in her brain,
Like serpents twining round the Lily of Lorraine!
| Poems lyric and idyllic | |