The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed :: :: University of Virginia Library

The morn is laughing in the sky,
The sun hath risen jocundly,
Brightly the dancing beam hath shone
On the cottage of clay and the abbey of stone;
As on the redolent air they float,
The songs of the birds have a gayer note,
And the fall of the waters hath breathed around
A purer breath and a sweeter sound;
And why is Nature so richly drest
In the flowery garb she loveth best?
Peasant and monk will tell you the tale!
There is a wedding in Nithys-dale.

With his green vest around him flung,
His bugle o'er his shoulders hung
And roses blushing in his hair,
The Minstrel-Boy is waiting there!
O'er his young cheek and earnest brow
Pleasure hath spread a warmer glow,
And love his fervid look hath dight
In something of ethereal light:
And still the Minstrel's pale blue eye
Is looking out impatiently

To see his glad and tender bride
Come dancing o'er the hillock's side:
For look! the sun's all-cheering ray
Shines proudly on a joyous day;
And, ere his setting, young Le Fraile
Shall wed the Lily of Nithys-dale.

A moment, and he saw her come,
That maiden, from her latticed home,
With eyes all love, and lips apart,
And faltering step, and beating heart.
She came, and joined her cheek to his
In one prolonged and rapturous kiss,
And while it thrilled through heart and limb
The world was nought to her or him!
Fair was the boy; a woman's grace
Beamed o'er his figure and his face;
His red lips had a maiden's pout,
And his light eyes looked sweetly out,
Scattering a thousand vivid flashes
Beneath their long and jetty lashes;—
And she, the still and timid bride
That clung so fondly to his side,
Might well have seemed, to Fancy's sight,
Some slender thing of air or light!
So white an arm, so pale a cheek,
A look so eloquently meek,

A neck of such a marble hue,
An eye of such transparent blue,
Could never, never, take their birth
From parentage of solid earth!
He that had searched fair England round
A lovelier pair had never found
Than that Minstrel-Boy, the young Le Fraile,
And Alice, the Lily of Nithys-dale!

Hark! hark! a sound!—it flies along,
How fearfully!—a trembling throng
Come round the bride in wild amaze,
All ear and eye to hear and gaze;
Again it came, that sound of wonder,
Rolling along like distant thunder;
“That barbarous growl, that horrid noise—
Was it indeed a human voice?
The man must have a thousand tongues,
And bellows of brass by way of lungs!”
Each to his friend, in monstrous fuss,
The staring peasants whispered thus:
“Hark! hark! another echoing shout!”
And, as the boobies stared about,
Just leaping o'er a mountain's brow,
They saw the Brute that made the row;
Two meadows and a little bog
Divided them from cruel Gog!

Maiden and matron, boy and man,
You can't conceive how fast they ran!
And as they scampered, you might hear
A thousand sounds of pain and fear.
“I get so tired.”—“Where's my son?”—
“How fast the horrid beast comes on!”—
“What plaguy teeth!”—“You heard him roar?
I never puffed so much before!”
“I can't imagine what to do!”—
“Whom has he caught?”—“I've lost my shoe!”—
“Oh! I'm a sinful”—“Father Joe
Do just absolve me as we go!”
“Absolve you here? pray hold your pother:
I wouldn't do it for my mother!
A pretty time to stop and shrive,
Zounds! we shall all be broiled alive!
I feel the spit!”—“Nay, Father, nay,
Don't talk in such a horrid way!”—
“O mighty Love, to thee I bow!
Oh! give me wings, and save me now!”—
“A fig for Love!”—“Don't talk of figs!
He'll stick us all like sucking-pigs,
Or skin us like a dish of eels”—
“Run—run—he's just upon your heels!”—
“I promise the Abbey a silver cup.
Holy St. Jerome, trip him up!”—
“I promise the Abbey a silver crown!
Holy St. Jerome, knock him down!”—

The Monster came, and singled out
The tenderest bit in all the rout;
Spite of her weeping and her charms,
He tore her from her lover's arms:
Woe for that hapless Minstrel-Boy!
Where is his pride—his hope—his joy?
His eye is wet, his cheek is pale;
He hath lost the Lily of Nithys-dale!

It chanced that day two travelling folk
Had spread their cloth beneath an oak,
And sat them gaily down to dine
On good fat buck and ruddy wine.
One was a Friar, fat and sleek,
With pimpled nose and rosy cheek,
And belly, whose capacious paunch
Told tales of many a buried haunch.
He was no Stoic!—In his eye
Frolic fought hard with gravity;
And though he strove in conversation
To talk as best beseemed his station,
Yet did he make some little slips;
And in the corners of his lips
There were some sly officious dimples,
Which spake no love for roots and simples.
The other was a hardy Knight,
Caparisoned for instant fight;

You might have deemed him framed of stone
So huge he was of limb and bone;
His short black hair, unmixed with grey,
Curled closely on his forehead lay;
His brow was swarthy, and a scar,
Not planted there in recent war,
Had drawn one long and blushing streak
Over the darkness of his cheek;
The warrior's voice was full and bold,
His gorgeous arms were rich with gold;
But weaker shoulders soon would fail
Beneath that cumbrous mass of mail;
Yet from his bearing you might guess
He oft had worn a softer dress,
And laid aside that nodding crest
To lap his head on lady's breast.

The meal of course was short and hasty,
And they had half got through the pasty,
When hark!—a shriek rung loud and shrill;
The churchman jumped, and dropped the gill;
The soldier started from the board,
And twined his hand around his sword.
While they stood wondering at the din,
The Minstrel-Boy came running in;
With trembling frame and rueful face
He bent his knee, and told his case:—

“The Monster's might away hath riven
My bliss on earth, my hope in Heaven;
And there is nothing left me now
But doubt above, and grief below!
My heart and hers together fly,
And she must live, or I must die!
Look at the caitiff's face of pride,
Look at his long and haughty stride;
Look how he bears her o'er hill and vale,
My Beauty, the Lily of Nithys-dale!”

They gazed around them;—Monk and Knight
Were startled at that awful sight!
They never had the smallest notion
How vast twelve feet would look in motion.
Dark as the midnight's deepest gloom,
Swift as the breath of the Simoom,
That hill of flesh was moving on;
And oh! the sight of horror won
A shriek from all our three beholders,—
He bore the maid upon his shoulders!
“Now,” said the Knight, “by all the fame
That ever clung to Arthur's name,
I'll do it,—or I'll try, at least,
To win her from that monstrous Beast.”
“Sir,” said the Friar to the Knight,
“Success will wait upon the right;

I feel much pity for the youth,
And though, to tell the honest truth,
I'm rather used to drink than slay,
I'll aid you here as best I may!”
They bade the minstrel blow a blast,
To stop the monster as he passed;
Gog was quite puzzled!—“Zounds—I'feg!
My friend—piano!—let me beg!”
Then in a rage towards the place
He strode along a rattling pace;
Firm on the ground his foot he planted,
And “wondered what the deuce they wanted!”

No blockhead was that holy man,
He cleared his throat, and thus began:—
“O pessime!—that is, I pray,
Discede—signifying, stay!
Damno—that is, before you go,
Sis comes in convivio:
Abi—that is, set down the lass;
Monstrum—that is, you'll take a glass?
Oh, holy Church!—that is, I swear
You never looked on nicer fare;
Informe—horridum—immane!
That is, the wine's as good as any;
Apage!—exorcizo te!
That is, it came from Burgundy;

We both are anxious—execrande!
To drink your health—abominande!
And then my comrade means to put
His falchion through your occiput!”
The Giant stared (and who would not?)
To find a monk so wondrous hot;
So fierce a stare you never saw;
At last the brute's portentous jaw
Swung like a massy creaking hinge,
And then, beneath its shaggy fringe
Rolling about each wondrous eye,
He scratched his beard and made reply:—
“Bold is the Monk, and bold the Knight,
That wishes with Gog to drink, or fight,
For I have been from east to west,
And battled with King Arthur's best,
And never found I friend or foe
To stand my cup—or bear my blow!”
“Most puissant Gog! although I burst,”
Exclaimed the Monk, “I'll do the first;”
And ere a moment could be reckoned,
The Knight chimed in—“I'll try the second.”

The Giant, ere he did the job,
Took a huge chain from out his fob:
He bound his captive to a tree;
And young Le Fraile came silently,

And marked how all her senses slept,
And leaned upon her brow, and wept;
He kissed her lip, but her lip was grown
As coldly white as a marble stone;
He met her eye, but its vacant gaze
Had not the light of its living rays;
Yet still that trembling lover pressed
The maiden to his throbbing breast,
Till consciousness returned again,
And the tears flowed out like summer rain;
There was the bliss of a hundred years
In the rush of those delicious tears!

The helm from off the Warrior's head
Is doffed to bear the liquor red:
That casque, I trow, is deep and high,
But the Monk and the Giant shall drain it dry;
And which of the two, when the feat is done,
Shall keep his legs at set of sun?

They filled to the brim that helm of gold,
And the Monk hath drained its ample hold;
Silent and slow the liquor fell,
As into some capacious well:
Tranquilly flowing down it went,
And made no noise in its long descent;
And it leaves no trace of its passage now,
But the stain on his lip, and the flush on his brow.

They filled to the brim that helm of gold,
And the Giant hath drained its ample hold;
Through his dark jaws the purple ocean
Ran with a swift and restless motion,
And the roar that heralded on its track
Seemed like the burst of a cataract.
Twice for each was the fountain filled,
Twice by each was the red flood swilled;
The Monk is as straight as a poplar tree,
Gog is as giddy as Gog may be!

“Now try we a buffet!” exclaimed the Knight,
And rose collected in his might,
Crossing his arms, and clenching his hand,
And fixing his feet on their firmest stand.
The Giant struck a terrible stroke,
But it lighted on the forest-oak;
And bough and branch of the ancient tree
Shook, as he smote it, wondrously:
His gauntleted hand the Warrior tried;
Full it fell on the Giant's side;
He sank to earth with a hideous shock,
Like the ruin of a crumbling rock,
And that quivering mass was senseless laid
In the pit its sudden fall had made.

That stranger Knight hath gone to the tree
To set the trembling captive free;

Thrice hath he smitten with might and main,
And burst the lock, and shivered the chain;
But the knotty trunk, as the warrior strove,
Wrenched from his hand the iron glove,
And they saw the gem on his finger's ring,
And they bent the knee to England's King.
“Up! up!” he said, “for the sun hath passed,
The shadows of night are falling fast,
And still the wedding shall be to-day,
And a King shall give the bride away!”

The abbey bells are ringing
With a merry, merry tone;
And the happy boors are singing
With a music all their own;
Joy came in the morning, and fled at noon;
But he smiles again by the light of the moon:
That Minstrel-Boy, the young Le Fraile,
Hath wedded the Lily of Nithys-dale!