Early and late poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary

Among the rocks and glaciers,
Where the summer never came,
There lived, one time, a hunter—
Pierre Ravenal by name.
He had a hut in the mountain,
And a little red-cheeked wife,
But to chase and kill the chamois
Was the pleasure of his life.

And he did not love his fireside,
Nor love the milk of his goats,
Nor love his cloak of camel-cloth,
As he loved their silken coats.
His eye was all undazzled
By the plume of the rarest bird,
If he happed to cross in the snow-fields
The trail of a chamois herd.

One day, when over the glacier
The wind blew bitter and chill,
Pierre Ravenal shouldered his carbine,
And tramped away with a will.

And the good little wife by the chimney
She carded her flaxen wisp,
And left the quarter of rabbit
To broil on the coals to a crisp.

Ah! what was the blazing fagot,
And what was the savory meat,
When Pierre, her hunter and husband,
Was off in the freezing sleet!
But he loved to chase the chamois
As well as he loved his life,
Nor ever dreamed of the trouble
In the heart of the good little wife.

So, while she sat by the chimney,
And carded a shirt for her Pierre,
He laughed to himself, and shouted,
For the grandest luck of the year.
He had chased a herd of chamois
Up, up through the jagged blocks,
To the ledge where they fell sheer downward,
Four hundred feet of rocks!

When all at once, beside him,
A dwarf, with a hand of ice,
Stood close, and clutched and held him,
As if with an iron vice.
Oh, never was seen a monster
So black, and of shape so ill;
And the tones of his speech they grated
Like stones that are crunched in a mill.

And his beard it shook and rattled
Like withered reeds in a storm,

As he held poor Pierre, head foremost,
By all the length of his arm;
And backward and forward swung him,
With his ugly face in a frown,
As if he were ready to dash him
Four hundred feet sheer down.

“I've caught you killing my chamois!”
He cried, “as I knew I should;
And you, for the sake of justice,
Shall give back blood for blood!”—
“Have mercy, oh, have mercy!
Good King of the Dwarfs,” cried Pierre,
“For the sake of my starving children,—
For the sake of my wife, so dear!

“They are faint with cold and hunger,
In our poor hut under the snow,—
Good King of the Dwarfs, have mercy,
And for love's sake, let me go!”—
And the heart of the monster softened
When he heard the piteous call,
And he dragged the hunter in across
The jagged top of the wall.

“Go back!” he said, as he crushed him
All up in his arm, like a sheaf,
“Go back to your hut; but I tell you,
You are none the less a thief!”
And then the dwarf, still growling,
Dropt down upon his knees,
And digged from under the snow-cakes
A golden-rinded cheese.

“Take this to your wife and children,
And by my kingly grace,
Whenever they eat a mouthful,
Another shall come in its place;
But only just so long,” he said,
“As you hold your honor good;
For if I catch you here again,
I will have back blood for blood!”

Then Pierre took up his carbine,
Saying, “Stand our bargain so!”
And buttoned the cheese beneath his coat,
And tramped across the snow.
And seven long years together
His good little wife and he
Lived in their hut by the mountain side,
As happy as they could be.

And still, as they ate their supper
Of cheese, and went to bed,
The golden rind grew whole again,
The same as the dwarf had said.
And what with the cup of goat's milk,
And the Alpine flower or two
Sold now and then to a traveller,
They were well enough to do.

But the little wife had all the while
A thorn in her bosom hid,
For Pierre would keep his carbine bright,
Whatever else he did.
“To scour the lock so often,
It is a foolish thing to do!”

She would say, because in secret
She feared the worst was true.

One day, as by the chimney
She sat at her wheel and sung,
With her face away from the rafter
Where the polished carbine hung,
Pierre Ravenal slipt it lightly
From off the beam so low,
And with it slung on his shoulder
Went tramping through the snow.

And when a herd of chamois
Before him leaped and ran,
He straight forgot the bargain
With the dwarfish little man,
And scurried over the snow-fields,
And up and up the blocks
Of steel-blue ice, till he stood again
By the awful wall of rocks.

Then all at once the monster,
With a hand so strong and brown,
Doubled him up, and dashed him
Four hundred feet sheer down!
And still about the ink-black pool,
Where he lost his life that day,
You may see him spinning round and round,
Like the wheel of his wife, they say.

And she, poor soul, when she missed him,
Snapt straight her song in twain,

And never in all her lifetime
Could join it on again.
For she knew when she brought her cheese-cake
To end her week of fast,
By the golden rind still broken,
That her fears were true at last.

University of Virginia Library

PIERRE RAVENAL.