Ellen Gray :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ellen Gray

or, The dead maiden's curse. A poem, by the late Dr. Archibald Macleod [i.e. W. L. Bowles]

Bowles, William Lisle (1762-1850)

[epigraph]

[CANTO I.]

II.

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[CANTO I.]

“Oh! shut the book, dear Ellen, shut the book!”
Hubert exclaim'd, with wild and frantic look.—
She whom he lov'd was in her shroud,—nor pain
Nor grief shall visit her sad heart again.
There is no sculptur'd tomb-stone at her head;
No rude memorial marks her lowly bed:
The village children, every holiday,
Round the green turf, in summer sunshine play;
And none, but those now bending to the tomb,
Remember Ellen, lovely in her bloom!

Yet oft the hoary swain, when autumn sighs
Thro' the long grass, sees a dim form arise,
(Its wan lips moving, in its hand a book,)
And hie in glimmering moonlight to the brook.
So, like a bruised flower, when in the pride
Of youth and beauty, injur'd Ellen died.
Hubert some years surviv'd, but years no trace
Of his sick heart's deep anguish could erase.
Still the dread spectre seem'd to rise, and, worse,
Still in his ears rung the appalling curse,
(While loud he cries, despair upon his look,)
“Oh! shut the book, dear Ellen, shut the book!”
The sun is in the west; and the last ray
Yet lingers on our churchyard dial grey.
Come, sit on these stone steps, while I relate
Hubert's dread doom, and hapless Ellen's fate.
Yon tempest-shatter'd elm, that heavily
Sways to the wind, seems for the dead to sigh.

How many generations, since the day
Of its green pride, have pass'd, like leaves, away;
How many children of the hamlet play'd
Round its hoar trunk, who at its feet were laid,
Wither'd and grey old men! In life's first bloom,
How many has it seen borne to the tomb!
But never one so sunk in hopeless woe
As she, who in that nameless grave lies low.
Her, I remember, by her mother's chair,
Lisping, with folded hands, her first imperfect pray'r:
For Ellen grew, as beautiful in youth,
As lesson'd in the early lore of truth.
What diff'rent passions in her bosom strove,
When first she heard the tale of village love!
The youth whose voice then won her partial ear,
A yeoman's son, had pass'd his twentieth year;
She scarce eighteen: her mother, with the care
Of boding age, oft whisper'd, “Oh! beware!”
For Hubert was a thoughtless youth, and wild,
And like a colt, unbroken from a child:

But he had vow'd, and plighted her his troth,
“Never to part;” and Heaven had heard the oath.
Poor Ellen, while her father was alive,
Saw all things round the humble dwelling thrive:
Her widow'd mother now was growing old,
And, one by one, their worldly goods were sold:
Ellen remain'd, her mother's hope and pride—
How oft, when she was sleeping by her side,
She wak'd at night, and kiss'd her brow, with tears,
And prayed for blessings on her future years,—
When she, her mother, ev'ry trial o'er,
Should rest on earth's cold lap, to weep no more.
But Ellen to love's dream her heart resign'd,
And gave to fancy all her ardent mind.
Shall I describe her?—Did'st thou never mark
A soft blue light, beneath eye-lashes dark?
Hair auburn, part by riband-braid confin'd,
Part o'er her brow, blown lightly by the wind?

The village beauty, when on Sunday drest,
Her looks a sweet, but lowly grace express'd,
As modest as the violet at her breast.
She sat all day by her grey mother's side,
And now and then would turn a tear to hide.
Such Ellen was, in her youth's opening day,—
Now in the grave, and to the worm a prey.
Where winds the brook, by yonder bord'ring wood,
Her mother's solitary cottage stood.
A few pale poplars, and an aged pine,
Its rugged bark festoon'd with eglantine,
Grew near the whiten'd front, that, o'er the down,
Look'd to the grey smoke of a neighb'ring town.
Beneath an ivied bank, abrupt and high,
A small clear well reflected bank and sky,
In whose translucent mirror, smooth and still,
From time to time, a small bird dipp'd its bill.

Before the window, with late April show'rs
Refresh'd, a border bloom'd of Ellen's flow'rs.
There the first snow-drop; and, of livelier hue,
The polyanthus and narcissus grew.
'Twas Ellen's care a jessamine to train,
With small white blossoms round the window-pane:
A rustic wicket open'd to the meads,
Where a scant path-way to the hamlet leads:
A mill-wheel in the glen toil'd round and round,
Dashing the o'er-shot stream, with deep continuous sound.
Beyond, when the brief show'r had sail'd away,
The tap'ring spire shone out in sun-light grey;
And climb o'er yonder northern point, to sight
Stretching far on, the main-sea rolled in light.
Enter the dwelling, it is small but neat,—
One book lies open on the window-seat,—
The spectacles are on a leaf of Job:
Here mark, a map of the terrestrial globe;

And opposite, with its prolific stem,
The Christian's tree , and new Jerusalem;
Below, a printed paper to record
A veritable “letter from our Lord :”
Some books are on the window-ledge beneath,—
The Book of Prayer, and Drelincourt on Death.
With sounds of birds and bees the garden rung,
And Ellen's linnet at the casement sung.

Large, coloured prints, in most cottages.

The letter said to be written by our Saviour, to king Agbarus. This also is seen in many cottages.

It is not long—not long to Whitsuntide,
And haply Ellen then shall be a bride.
On Sunday morn, when a slant light was flung
On the pale tow'r, where bells awak'ning rung,
Hubert and Ellen I have seen repair,
Arm link'd in arm, to the same house of pray'r.
“These bells will sound more merrily” (he cried,
And gently press'd her hand) “at Whitsuntide.”

She check'd th' intruding thought, and hung her head;
Ellen, alas! ere Whitsuntide—was dead!
'Twas said, but we could scarce the tale believe,
That Ellen's form was seen upon that eve ,
When, in the churchyard trooping, all appear,
All who should die within the coming year;
Piteous and strangely pallid was her look,
Her right hand held the shadow of a book,
On which her long hair dripp'd,—the cold moon cast
A glimmering light, as in her shroud she pass'd!
One thing is certain, that she went alone
To learn her fate, at Madern's mystic stone ;

What there she heard ne'er came to human ears;
But, from that hour she oft was seen in tears.

In Cornwall, and in other counties remote from the metropolis, it is a popular belief, that they who are to die in the course of the year, appear, on the eve of Midsummer, before the church porch. See an exquisite dramatic sketch on this subject, called “the Eve of St. Mark.”

Madern-stone, a Druidical monument in the village of Madern, to which the country people often resort, to learn their future destinies.

'Twas spring tide now: the butterfly more bright,
Wheel'd o'er the cowslips, in the rainbow light;
The lamb, the colt, the blackbird in the brake,
Seem'd all a vernal feeling to partake;
The “swallow twitter'd” in the earliest ray,
That show'd the flow'r on Gwinnear's turret grey;
More grateful comes the fragrance after rain,
To him who steals along the sweet-briar lane,
And all things seem, to the full heart, to bring
The blissful breathings of the world's first spring.
More cheerful came the sunshine of May-morn,
The bee from earliest light had wound his horn,
Busiest from flower to flower, as he would say,
“Up! Ellen! for it is the morn of May!”
The lads and lasses of the hamlet bore
Branches of blossom'd thorn or sycamore ;

And at her mother's porch a garland hung,
While thus their rustic roundelay they sung:—

MAY SONG.

1

“And we were up as soon as day ,
“To fetch the summer home,
“The summer and the May,
“For summer now is come.”

2

In Madern vale the bell-flow'rs bloom ,
And wave to Zephyr's stirring breath:
The cuckoo sings in Morval coombe,
O'er Penron spreads the purple heath .

3

Come, dance around Glen-Alston tree,
We'll weave a crown of flowrets gay,
And Ellen of the brook shall be
Our Lady of the May.

This is invariably the custom in Cornwall. See Polwhele.

These are the first four lines of the real song of the season, which is called “the Furry-song of Helstone.”

Campanula cymbalaria, foliis hederaciis.

Erica multiflora, common in this part of Cornwall.

Ellen expected Hubert; the first flow'r
She gather'd, now was fading; hour by hour
She watch'd the sunshine on the thatch; again
Her mother turn'd the hour-glass; now, the pane
The west'ring sun has left. The long May-day,
So Ellen wore in hopes and fears away.
Slow twilight steals—by the small garden-gate
She stands,—“Oh! Hubert never came so late!”
Her mother's voice is heard; “Good child, come in;
“Dream not of bliss on earth—it is a sin:
“Come, take the Bible down, my child, and read;
“In disappointed hopes, in grief, in need,—
“By friends forsaken, and by fears oppress'd,
“There, only, can the weary heart find rest!”

Her thin hands mark'd by many a wand'ring vein,
The mother turn'd her ebbing glass again;
The rush-light now is lit—the Bible read,—
But, ere poor Ellen can retire to bed,
She listens,—Hark! no voice, no step she hears,—
Oh! seek thy bed to hide those bursting tears!
When the slow morning came, the tale was told,
(Need it have been?) that Hubert's love was cold.
But hope yet whispers, “Dry the accusing tear,—
When Sunday comes, again he will be here!”
And Sunday came, and struggling from a cloud,
The sun shone bright,—the bells were chiming loud,—
And lads and lasses in their best attire,
Were tripping past, and light was on the spire;—
But Hubert came not;—with an aching heart
Poor Ellen saw the Sunday train depart:
Her mother follow'd, with starch'd pinners clean,
And pray'r-book, tottering o'er the dewy green;

Ellen, to hear no more of peace on earth,
Retir'd in silence to the lonely hearth.
Next day the tidings to the cottage came,
That Hubert's heart confess'd another flame:
That, cold and wayward falsehood made him prove
At once a traitor to his faith and love;
That, with our Bailiff's daughter he was seen,
At the new Tabernacle on the green;
Had join'd the Calvinistic flock, and there
Renounc'd his pray'r-book, yea, our Saviour's pray'r ;

And, if he left young Ellen's heart to bleed,
Poor Ellen's heart to break—it was decreed!

The poet is unhappily borne out in this incident, by the actual fact of the rejection of the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments, in the service of certain places of dissenting worship. It is in the recollection of our readers, that during the course of last year, a witness appeared to give evidence in one of our courts of justice, who had constantly attended a place of worship with her mother, but never heard of the Lord's Prayer, or the Ten Commandments: the judge, very properly, refused to admit her evidence, until she had been six months under the instruction of a clergyman of the Church of England. Such a fact speaks volumes, and may be considered as a practical comment upon an expression of Bunyan, in his “Pilgrim's Progress,” who calls going to church, going to the town of morality.

The Doctor, in the lines to which this note refers, cannot be supposed to allude to the philosophical, or at least sober, Calvinism of the Scotch and Genevan churches; but to the vulgar and terrible Calvinism mouthed out by the ignoramuses, enthusiasts, or something worse, of some of our own conventicles.

Alas! her heart was left indeed to break;
Wan sorrow prey'd upon her vermeil cheek.—
Now, with a ghastly moodiness she smil'd,
Now, still and placid look'd as when a child,
Or rais'd her eyes disconsolate and wild.
Then, as she stray'd the brook's green marge along,
She oft would sing this sad and broken song:—

1

Lay me where the willows wave,
In the cold moon-light;
Shine upon my quiet grave,
Softly, queen of night!

2

I to thee would fly for rest,
But a stone—a stone—
Lies like lead upon my breast,
All hope on earth is flown.

3

Lay me where the willows wave,
In the cold moon-light;
Shine upon my quiet grave,
Softly, queen of night !

The cadence of this song is taken from a ballad “most musical, most melancholy,” in the British tragedy, “Lay a garland on my grave.”

Her mother said, “My child, go unconfin'd,
“For thou art meek and harmless, and thy mind
“The water's sound may soothe; or, as it blows,
“The very tempest bring thy mind repose.”

Ellen oft wander'd to the northern shore, ,
And heard, with boding voice, the gaunt Tregagel roar,
Among the rocks, and when the tempest blew,
And like the shivered foam her long hair flew,
And all the billowy space was tossing wide,
“Rock! rock! thou melancholy main,” she cried,
“I love thy noise, oh, ever sounding sea,
“And learn stern patience, while I look on thee!”

The bay of St. Ives.

Tregagel is a giant, whose voice (according to the superstition of the country) is heard among the rocks constantly preceding and during a storm.

Then on the clouds she gazed with vacant stare,
Or dancing with wild fennel in her hair ,
Sang merrily: “Oh! we must dry the tear,
“For Mab, the queen of fairies, will be here,—

She shall know all—know all,”—and then again
Her ditty died into its opening strain:—

“Lay me where the willows wave,
In the cold moon-light;
Shine upon my quiet grave,
Softly, queen of night!”

The children in their sports would pause and say ,
With pitying look, “There goes poor Ellen Gray.”

Feniculum vulgare, or wild fennel, common on the northern coast of Cornwall.

Who does not remember Crabbe's exquisite lines in his Village, and the affecting image of the children standing over the old man's grave?—

“Silent and sad, and gazing hand in hand!”

Now, loitering home, while tears ran down apace,
She look'd in silence in her mother's face;
Then, starting up, with wild emotion cried,
“To-morrow! oh, to-morrow's Whitsuntide,
“And all shall dance when Ellen is a bride!”

Now, some dire thought seem'd in her heart to rise,
Stern with terrific joy she roll'd her eyes:
Her mother heeded not,—nor when she took
(With more impatient haste) her Sunday book,—
She heeded not—for age had dimmed her sight.
Now twilight slowly steals—'tis eve—'tis night,—
“Ellen! my Ellen!” her lone mother cried,
“Ellen! my Ellen!”—but no voice replied.