Orval, or The Fool of Time :: :: University of Virginia Library

Up and down the Tchardak, underneath the blossom'd roof,
Musing, young Iövo, at midnoon, walkt all aloof.
Suddenly the Tchardak broke beneath him: slipping through
The rotten plank, he fell, and his right arm was snapt in two.
Straight, a leech he sought him. Evil leech, in truth, he found.
Save the mountain Vila, none had skill to heal the wound:
But the Vila claim'd in price of service, ere the cure began,

404

The right hand of the mother of the maim'd and mangled man;
The long hair of his sister with the riband in the hair;
And the white pearl necklace which his wife was wont to wear.
The mother gave her right hand, and the sister gave her curls;
But the wife refused her necklace . . . “I? I will not give my pearls!
Each is perfect, each is precious, nowhere else is such a set.
'Twas my dowry from my father, and I mean to wear it yet.”
This the Vila of the mountain heard; and, anger'd in her mood,
She dropt a little purple drop of poison in the food
Of young Iövo, and he died.

Then, for the murder'd man,
Those three women to lament, in funeral dole began.
One there was that, deeply mourning, evermore did grieve:
One that miss'd and mourn'd for him at morning and at eve:
One that mourn'd him now and then, with eyes a little dim,
And looks a little changed, whenever she remember'd him.
She whose sorrow ceased not, mourning more than any other,

405

Missing aye her murder'd son, was young Iövo's mother:
She that mourn'd at morning, and at evening mourn'd and miss'd her
Brother, when day came or went, was young Iövo's sister.
She that mourn'd him now and then, when sometimes in her life
Old memories fill'd vacant hours, was young Iövo's wife.

A sort of gallery or verandah, running round a house. Also, sometimes, a pavilion, summer-house, or granary.

Diminutive for Iovan or John.