University of Virginia Library

Amabel was fairy led.
In the holy month of May,
As she went at break of day
To Saint Mary's church to pray;
Stooping low her white veiled head
'Neath the dewy hawthorn spray,
From her hands she dropt her beads
In the glistening water reeds.

Looking down, she saw instead,
Neither holy beads nor book,
But beyond the purling brook,
Where a broader river rolled,
In the morning's pearly light,
On his knees a fairy knight,
Who was clad in green and gold.

He was kneeling toward the west,
And the blazon of his crest
Seemed in jewelled words to say,
“Day is night and night is day.”

Then the Lady Amabel
Answered, “I will go and see
Who this fairy knight can be,
Who has charmed my beads from me.”

But the old nurse shook her head,
Thinking, “Nothing here goes well,
She will pay their tithe to hell,”—
Saying, falteringly and slow,
“Oh, my darling, never go
On the road you do not know:
Let your first loss be your last,
Though they were your mother's beads.
I am old, my time is past,
Soon my death-bed will be spread,
Yet I know that nothing needs
More on earth than light and air,
More in heaven than love and prayer;
Though you grieve the whole day long
Peace will come with even-song.”

Amabel gave little heed,
Kissed her nurse, and crossed herself
From the witchcraft of the elf,
Ran across the jewelled mead;
All the little flowers of May
Twined themselves about her feet,
Till she murmured, “Spring is sweet;”—
But she would not sit or stay.

Mountains which she had not seen
Hemmed the widening cirque of green
With their purple buttresses;
Far away their crests of snow
Sparkled with a rosy glow
Through their forest draperies,
While the sun drank up the dew
Into heaven's pearly blue.
Still she ran, and still the knight
Knelt before her full in sight;
But the meadow seemed to spread,
And the sun began to beat
Fiercely on her white-veiled head,
And a thunder-cloud or two
Cut into the deepening blue
With an edge of watery light.
Amabel with weary feet,
Trammelled by the tangled flowers,
Murmured, “May is over sweet,”—
But she would not count the hours.

Then she heard the dead-bell toll,
“Mother Mary, rest the soul
Who is gone to God in May;”
Heard the muffled thunder roll,
Said, “There is no time to stay;”
Ran again, until she heard
Even the rustling of his beard:
Still he seemed to stay for her,
Did not turn away or stir,
But he knelt to tell her beads
Still beside the water weeds.

Amabel sat down to rest,
Thought it ill to break his prayer:
“Though he worship to the west,
God,” she said, “is everywhere.”
In the sultry scented air,
Amabel's blue eyes grew dim,
But she kept them fixed on him;
Murmured, “May is not so fair,”—
Waited till the sky grew black,
Till she could not see the sun;
Looked a-down the lengthening track
To the little clump of hay,
Where the prince still knelt to pray—
Prayers too subtle to be spoken,
Whether unto heaven or hell.
Then poor little Amabel
Started up in half-dismay,
Followed him the live-long day,
Walking where she could not run;
Still he seemed as far away
As before her quest begun.

Then fair Amabel looked back,
And the fairy spell was broken,
And the serpent lightnings woke,
And the lordly thunder spoke.
When she turned her cowering head,
Knight and mead and day were fled;
She was standing all alone,
Clinging to a blasted tree,
On the blackened crumbling stone
Of a ghastly precipice,
Looking o'er a field of ice,
To a leaden waste of sea,
Heaving most unquietly
'Neath a leaden wrack of sky.

Just below she spied a crone
Cringing low for charity,
Gathering sticks, and always double,
With the weight of years and trouble.
Amabel could hear her say,
“Mary was not always queen
Of the merry month of May;
Surely I have known the green
Brighter in Dione's day.”

Amabel gave little heed
To the beggar's blasphemy;
Said that she had lost her way,
“Can you guide me homeward, pray?
Well my father will repay
If you help me at my need.”

“Stay and rest,” the beggar said,
“Till the tempest pass away,
Till the moon bring back the day.
Stay within my cave and feed;
Have you eaten aught to-day?”
“No,” she said; “I miss it now;”
Took the beggar's hand, who led,
Just beneath the mountain's brow,
To a cavern, whose low mouth
Fronted to the west and south,
Guarded by a deep brown lynn.

Amabel turned very pale
As she stooped to enter in,
And the earthy roof and floor
Stained her vesture and her veil.
But the beggar shut the door,
Hung the walls with tapestry,
Lit a fire, and led her on
To a seat of woven grass;
Gave her yellow robes to don,
By a lamp and looking-glass,
Which were framed in ebony;
Gave her venison and mead,
Gave her milk and honey-comb,
Gave her cake of lotus-seed,
That she might forget her home.
“Are you rich,” said Amabel,
“Mother, for you feast me well?
Why is it you choose to dwell
In this lonely low-browed cell?”
“In will tell you, but not now,
Why a solitary vow,
Terrible to break or keep,
Holds me here in shameful weed,
Begging things I do not need.
It is time you were asleep,
After all your weary sorrow;
I myself am tired, too,
I will lead you home to-morrow.”

Amabel said, “That is true,
It were wrong to trouble you,
Though the moon is very bright.”
So she slept till morning light—
Hardly saw, with sleepy eyes,
How the beggar rose and sang
Snatches of a sleepy tune,
Honied, old world lullabies,
As the bell for matins rang.
So she turned and slept till noon—
Woke at last in merry mood,
Eat her fill of that strange food,
Turned to go upon her way.

But the beggar took a hair,
One from all her golden head,
Braided it with tender care,
Breathed on it, and turned it grey;
Whispering to Amabel,
As she turned it on her hand,
“Lady fair, you understand
You are mine until you pay
For the shelter of my cell.”
“In what coin?” the maiden said.
“Ask the priest if he can tell.”
“How if I forget to pay?”
“I should send and fetch you then,
Sell you to black-wizard men.”
“When?” “Within a year and day.”
Amabel said, “Tell me now
Of your solitary vow?”
“Yes, as soon as you can say
In what coin you mean to pay.”

Amabel, with drooping head,
Followed where the beggar led,
Through a garden of bog-roses,
Which have neither thorn nor fruit,
But a mandrake at their root;
Where the brown moor-king reposes,
With a bulrush for a flute,
Through a rocky mossy dell,
Where the early fox-gloves grew
By the path; the wood was blue
With the hyacinths below,
All the hospitable trees
Shaken by a scented breeze
Over frail anemones;
Through a field of corn knee-high,
Green against the pale blue sky;
Down a bank of gorse and heather,
Still the twain went on together
Mutely, in the rich spring weather,
By a road towards the right,
Till the maid saw home in sight.

Then the beggar said, “Farewell,
And remember, Amabel,
If you do not mean to pay,
Come before the year and day,
For you will not miss the way;
And I will not sell you then
Far away to wizard men.
You shall be my slave, and wear
Silken fetters soft and fair,
Woven of your golden hair,
Which I will not change to grey.”

“Shall I turn with you to-day?”
Amabel began to say,
When she saw her father stand
On the drawbridge-parapet,
Beckoning her with mailed hand,
And she thought his eyes were wet;
So she ran to him apace,
Would have kissed his grizzled face,
But he put her back, and said,
“Do you know your nurse is dead,
Dead because you ran away?”

Ah, indeed,” said Amabel,
“Mary Mother rest her well;
Then I heard the passing bell
Tolling for her yesterday;
But I had no time to stay,
Seeking for my mother's beads
Lost among the water-weeds,
Stolen by the winds of May
For an elfin diadem,
Though I learnt to pray with them.”

“Yes, she said a fairy knight
Lured you far beyond her sight,
And she thought it was not well,
You would serve them far away
In a land of mock delight,
Till you paid their tithe to hell.
And where were you all the night?”
“In a beggar-woman's cell,
Who had asked for charity,
But she feasted me right well,”
Amabel said carelessly.
“And she gave those yellow weeds,
Which you wear so daintily,
For her master's livery?
Did she give you back your beads?
Let me have no more to fear,”
Said the baron moodily.

Cowering from her father's eye,
Amabel half wished again
For rich food and silken chain;
Said, between a silver tear
And a soft self-pitying sigh,
“No, they are not worth a thought,
While my nurse is lying here;
Take me to her, take me quick,”
And she looked so faint and sick,
And so innocently pale,
That her sire forgat the tale
Of the sins he should have sought.
And she reached to his right hand,
As one weak and like to fall;
Still she seemed too frail to stand,
Twined about his hard grey mail,
Like to ivy on a wall,
Where a golden watery ray
Clings on a November day,
Though the trees behind are grey.

Softly then she followed him
To a chamber veiled and dim,
Where the aged woman lay.
They had curtained out the May,
But the windows' cross of red
Struggled through into the gloom,
Flickered on the shaded room,
Flickered on the lowly bed,
On the sallow hoary dead.

Amabel knelt down to pray,
And true sobbing tears fell fast,
All too bitterly to last;
Till she rose for weariness,
Wiped the scalding drops away,
Went to change her yellow dress,
To her chamber silently;
Clothed herself in pearly grey,
Soft and fit to hide the band,
Woven tight about her hand,
For a charm and for a chain,
For she felt it pinch again;
Veiled with black her golden head,
“What is it I miss?” she said,
As she went despondingly,
Where the matted hawthorn spread
A dew-laden canopy,
Dark against the western light.
Ever without pause she sped,
Following the vesper bell,
Shuddering half for fear of hell,
Half for horror of the night,
Till she found her place to rest,
In a corner by the west.
But the people shrank from her,
Whispering, “She is fairy led;
Though she look so good and fair,
See she cannot speak a prayer:
God, she knows, will never hear
Anything that she can say.”
And indeed she spake no word,
But her spirit seemed to sing
Blindly,—as a moulting bird
Sings at eve with folded wing,—
Musing in a listless dream,
Half of God and half of folly,
Wholly sweet and melancholy,
Till the latest hymn had died
On the calm of eventide.
Then the moon, with sudden gleam,
Rose above a jagged cloud,
In the face of Amabel,
Whose austere intensity
Quickened all her memory,
Broke the dream which could not last,
Woke the hunger of the past,
And she knew the water-reeds
Where she lost her mother's beads.
“I must find them soon,” she said;
“Then the spiteful envious crowd
Will not call me fairy-led.”
So she rose with morning light,
Searched until no dew was left,
But she saw no fairy knight;
Then she sat among the flowers,
Desolately, many hours,
In a tangled little cleft,
Where the purple loosestrife grew,
Mixed with wanton meadow-sweet,
Where she paddled in the brook
With bare travel-blistered feet,
With a wistful haggard look,
Counting May-flies as they flew,
Till the balmy sultriness
Melted all her discontent
Into dreamy idleness;
Then she slept an hour or two,
Till the twilight and the dew
Broke her day-dream; then she went
With the vesper bell, to pray
For God's pardon on a day
Sweetly wasted, evil spent;
Tost upon her curtained nest,
Moodily, unquietly,
Feeling in her dreams unblest,
As she missed the lullaby
Of Saint Mary's rosary,
Which had lulled her once to rest.
So the holy month of May
Slipt into the dusk away,
While poor little Amabel
Faded in her vest of grey,
Fasting on a barren quest,
Soothed and saddened day by day,
As she kissed the passing flowers,
Which were shrivelling one by one,
As the fierceness of the sun
Gathered with the summer hours.
But upon a rosy eve,
When the sun set gloriously,
Flaming through the tracery
Of the window in the West,
Which fair Amabel loved best,
And her heart began to glow
With its early triumphing;
Suddenly she marked the ring,
Which defiled her wrist of snow,
Witnessing her slavery;
Still she was too glad to grieve,
Said, “I will make haste to pay,
Will not wait the year and day.”
So she waited for the priest,
Told him all her tale of woe,
Only spake not of her chain;
While he looked, and could not see
What she strove to break in vain,
And she wept and felt heart-free,
As he said “God pardon thee,”
And the daybreak flushed the east.
“You shall hence to cloister-cell,
There you will be guarded well
From the powers of earth and night.
And the world of mock delight:
If they sue you as they may,
Then your angel in God's might
With a fiery sword will pay
All the debt you owe to hell.”
So the priest and Amabel
Walked away with downcast eyes
In the beautiful sunrise;
But her maiden heart beat high
As she met her father's eye,
And he gave her leave to go
To God's garden, where the flowers
Fast from sun and feast on showers,
And the chaste buds never blow;
But in hell they have their root,
And in heaven they bear their fruit.
There was summer overhead;
She with autumn in her heart,
Full of thoughts unharvested,
Bowing in her yellow weeds,
Which she took again for shame;
Walked, with aching feet and lame,
Through the upland marishes,
Shadowy, broad, and desolate,
By the flinty path that leads
To the stunted cypresses,
And the low-eaved cloister-bound,
Where the widowed virgins wait
For the coming of their mate,
Like the turtle,—comfortless;
And the mountain damps are hung
On the winds of bitterness,
Over all the holy ground.
“Sister, you are very young,”
Said the portress at the gate.
Damp and thick, a corpse-like smell
Caught the breath of Amabel,
Clinging to the rotten wall,
Which is driven round the space
Where dead sisters sleep in grace,
Where the living sisters flit
With slow dreamy steps, or sit,
Broidering each the funeral pall
Which shall be her marriage vest.
“Sisters, have you any rest
In the service of your King?”
Amabel said shuddering.
“Seeking us He rested not
On the road to Calvary,”
Said the Abbess grey and pale.
Amabel said, “I forgot,
For He suffered long ago;
Now I wander wearily,
Who am weak. And are you strong,
Do you find the twilight long?
Can you see the stars shine through,
Under your black-folded veil?
But what need to ask of you?
If I live here I shall know.”
So they shore her yellow hair,
And they changed her yellow weeds,
And they gave her bitter seeds
Strung in a black rosary;
And they told her she was fair
As a bride espoused should be;
Took her to the shrine to sing
Songs of praise for sins forgiven,
To her Spouse and to her King;
On the wings of melody
Half her heart went up to heaven,
Half was inly wrung with pain
By the fretting of the chain,
Which the sisters could not see;
Then they led her to her cell,
Gave her wool to spin a shroud,
In the shadow of a cloud,
Seen between black window-bars,
In a twilight without stars;
Kissed her as they said farewell,
Shut the door on Amabel.

So the maiden span and sang
Of the burial of her King,
Till the bell for compline rang;
Then she found her place in choir,
Voice and heart still quivering
With old Pain and young Desire,
Mother of a new Despair.
As she passed to take her rest,
With wet eyes and throbbing head,
Bowed upon the cross of red
Woven on her coarse white vest,—
Soft and summer laden air
Sighed about the cloister bare,
And was balmy even there;
All the dewy herbs were bright,
Where the moon's delicious light
Scarcely veiled by clouds was shed.

As she knelt beside her bed,
She could see the fairy knight,
With a diadem of stars,
Looking through the window bars;
Still he seemed to tell the beads
Lost among the water weeds,
But the silver cross was gone
Which beforetime hung thereon;
In its stead a heart was seen,
Girdled with a wreath of green,
Which was knit about a star.
Amabel would cross the elf,
Bade him answer for himself,—
“Nay, why did you turn away?
For I waited long for you,
Waited all a summer day;”
So he said. “That is not true,
And you only seemed to stay,”
Said the novice angrily.
“There are many things that seem;
In the sunshine you were free,
You had hope of finding me;
Now you walk in a sick dream,
Where grey shadows only are,”
Said the elfin patiently.
“Give me back what you have taken,
Then I shall not feel forsaken,
Though I walk in twilight here,”
So she pleaded; but the elf
Said, “You have to thank yourself
That your life is blank and drear;
Come into the light with me,
Kiss my mouth with kisses three,
You shall have your rosary.”
But the Abbess came to see,
If her novice rested well;
When he heard her faltering tread,
Then the fair knight vanished
From the sight of Amabel,
As he said, “Forget me not.”
But the Abbess' aged eyne
Saw him like an angel shine,—
Like an angel set to keep
Watch at the low truckle-bed
Where poor Amabel feigned sleep,
Feigned until the matin bell
Woke her from a dream of hell.
Then she watched till morning light,
Musing on her helpless lot,
Went about dull tasks all day,
Marvelling if the fairy knight
Would flash out upon her sight;
But the vision never came;
So her sick life wore away,
Slowly, sadly, still the same,
Like an endless, aimless lay,
Till the moons brought back the May.

Then they sent meek Amabel
All alone to fast and pray
On the convent Calvary
For a happy wedding day.
Coming thence, she met a crone
Who went slow and stumblingly,
Clad in serving sister's grey,
With a face that she had known
Somewhere, where she could not tell:
As she past she heard her say,
Though the crone spake mumblingly,
“Pretty novice, will you pay,
Will you wait the year and day?”
Stood the novice full of fear,
Crossed herself, and,—“You are here!
Know you of the fairy knight?
You and he seem everywhere.”
“Yea, his name is Lost Delight,
And his castle standeth near;
All earth's joy is buried there,
Stored to deck his bridal bed.
I too am a fairy queen,
And they call me Evergreen;
I must haunt you till you wed.”
“Never with your prince,” she said;
“In God's name are you of hell?”
“No, upon the road I dwell,
But with leave to halt halfway.”
“Shall I see the knight again?”
“If you dare to venture, yea.”
“And win back my rosary?”
“If you do not flinch from pain
And obey me perfectly.”
“Can you set my spirit free?”
“If you trust my ministry.”
“I will do as you shall say.”
“It is late, but it is well.”

So they parted, and that night,
Very late within her cell,
Just before the matin bell,
Stood the fair prince, Lost Delight,
And he murmured tenderly,
“You will keep your tryst with me.”
Then he stooped to kiss her hand;
At his kiss the ring thereon
Changed into a shining band
Bright with mystic jewellery,
Where the tender opal shone
Wet with dews of mystery.

Evergreen came as he went,
Came to bid the novice sleep,
For the lady Abbess said,
“She is wasted, weak, and bent,
And her sunken cheek is pale,
Whiter than her wimpled veil;
She will die before she wed,
Die, and have no time to weep.”

So she slept until the Morn
Kissed her eyelids with a kiss,
Very tender, very keen,
Hard to bear, and hard to miss.
Then the sister Evergreen
Crowned her with the thorn of May,
Said, “You must not wait to pray,
All your golden hair is grey,
You have far to go to-day,
Crowned with flowers of healing thorn.”
Joyously went Amabel,
Leaping like a tethered fawn,
For the glistening dewy dawn
Threw a tender, dreamy spell
Over the bare cloister cell;
And one spray of wilding rose
Flung across the gleaming sky,
Whitherward she clomb at leisure,
By a path that mounted high,
Till the lonely convent sank
Underneath the dreary bank
Whence the twain tripped down together
To a land of lower pleasure,
Where the rushes changed to heather,
Buds of heather, flowers of broom,
Springing between rocky crests
Frosted o'er with mossy bloom;
All the many coloured hill
Lay asleep in shadow still,
And the birds were in their nests,
Save one skylark, only one,
Far away shrill matins sung
To his idol king the sun.
Evergreen said, “Amabel,
God's betrothed, have you no tongue?”
“Hush,” she said, “I cannot tell,
But my singing days are done,
Wasted on woe wanton lays;
Let me use my seeing days
Ere my morn of life is gone.”
So the twain went mutely on
Till they saw faint points of dew
Glimmering through the tufted gloom
Of the deepening, widening glen,
Where the wide-armed bracken grew,
And the birch between the broom:
And at each step Evergreen
Towered to a statelier queen
In the sight of Amabel,
With a look more motherly,
As the water plashed between
Rockier banks with louder swell,
Not too loud for lullaby.

When the sun was riding high
On a cloudy canopy
Woven slowly overhead,
Where a sultry shadow fell
On the larches of the glen,
Where a mountain torrent ran
Deep enough for fishermen,
Ran to mingle with a river,
Where the tawny eddies swept
Round grey boulders, till they leapt
With a broken, fretful shock,
Over scoops of living rock,
With a sudden sunlit shiver,
While the lesser runnels crept
In the shadow, here and there,
Over tufts of maidenhair:—

Then the fairy queen began
Stately speech to Amabel,
Kissed her maiden brow, and said,
“Since I am not sent of Hell,
Daughter, it were well to say,
If you trust my ministry,
Wherewithal you mean to pay,
Being just as well as brave,
When you have your rosary?”
Amabel spake falteringly,
Faltering for eagerness,
“Put the fetters on your slave,
Brand her with your royal brand,
Lead her captive through your land,
Shackled straitly, lest she stray
On the lonely, untried way,
From her mother and her queen,
Whose she is to save or slay:
Bind your daughter's hands and feet,—
Bondage will be very sweet
Now I am not motherless.”

Then the lady Evergreen,
With exceeding tenderness,
Took her slave, the motherless,
And she bound her as she said,
And she set three stars of red
With two ivy leaves between
On her brow and either hand,
For they were her royal brand.
“Thank you, mother, this is well;
Now,” she murmured, “I can tell
How you love your Amabel.”
Evergreen hung over her,
Feeding on her with mute eyes,
Pleading with low rapturous sighs,
To her bondmaid for a kiss,
Like a happy worshipper,
Kneeling in the sight of bliss.
Then she rose, though loth to rise,
Meekly, when her boon was won,
Laid her darling in the sun,
Spake to her beseechingly,—
“I have bound you, little one,
For the virtue of my chain
Charms from weariness and pain
Those who wear it lovingly;
But if once you seek to stray,
Your desire will melt away
Any chain that I can weave;
I shall sit alone and grieve,
Till they make me rise and slay
My beloved Amabel.
Therefore when you see the knight,
Pity me, my sweet, sweet child,
Dearly bought and undefiled,
Worn with travel, without stain,
If you wish to see your cell,
Or your father's house again;
When you see your jewels shine
In the hand of Lost Delight,
Do not loose your hand from mine,
If you love me, Amabel.”
Amabel with white lips spake,
“Slay me, mother, for love's sake
Ere the bonds I love can break,
Slay me now, for I am weak;
In my cell I find no grace,
In my father's house no place,
Let me not die motherless:”
And she raised a trustful cheek
For her mother's cheek to press;
But the other shook her head
Very piteously, and said,
“Sweet, I love you none the less,
You are but the sweeter slave
For this clinging helplessness,
Which I have no charm to save.”
“Then you think that I must die?”
“Nestle closer to my breast,
Darling, though the sun is high,
We have still an hour to rest,
For your tryst is made at noon,—
Rest and ask me for a boon.”
“Mother, will you tell me now,”
Amabel said, “of your vow,
And my wandering, weary quest,
When I met you in the west?—
You were not so loving then.”
“When the world and I were young,
Undefiled by evil men,
In my ears a woodbird sung
Very sweetly, but a hawk
Stooped upon it from the sky,
Struck the bird, and fled my eye;
Then I saw the throstle lie
Bleeding in the myrtle walk,
Underneath the broken stalk
Where a drooping floweret hung:
Then I sank upon the sod,—
You remember I was young,—
Then my weak voice faltered, `Why?'
And an angel from on high
Spake, `It is the will of God.'
Then I sware to recreate
All that He made desolate
Ere despair had vanquished hate.
He, whose privilege it is
Without lying to deceive,
Ere I asked it, gave me leave,
Bade me be vicegerent,
Till His great and dreadful day,
On whatever feels decay
In this lower world of His.
As I sat upon my throne,
Blindly proud of punishment,
Fashioning the sweet wood green
To woodbirds of sweeter tone,
Came his messenger to say,—
‘Know you not, O fairy queen!
That the fount of fruitfulness
Springeth in the wilderness?
Leave your handmaids here to play
In this dewy, curtained hall;
From your solitary height
You should send them wherewithal,
From your darkness to their light.’
Shuddering since that day I dwell
At the parting of the water,
In the solitary cell
Where you found me, O my daughter!
Begging in the desert there
For whatever men would waste,
And I mould it by-and-bye
Into joys I may not taste,
Beauty I may never wear;
If I loiter, if I stay
On my work a single day,
Then the Judgment Day is nigh
When I know that I must die,
Die in burning pains of hell,
Die for ever, Amabel,
Die upon the very day
You begin with God to dwell,
For He is both heaven and hell,
As I hear His angels say.”
“Tell me, mother, if you may,
Why you seem unlovely there,
Though your true face is so fair.”
“I love those, sweet, that love me,
And I give them eyes to see
What I am not but would be.”
“Have you left your work to-day,
Have you leave to be away?”
“Little one,” said Evergreen,
“My right hand is everywhere,
And my face where it is seen.”
“I am answered, O my queen!”
“Is there more that you would know?
Tell me, sweet, before we go
Where we must walk silently.”
“Tell me how he fled away
While he seemed to kneel and pray.”
“Know you not the place he knelt,
Whether it seemed far or nigh,
As you journeyed, only dwelt
In your tearful, wistful eye?
And before you went astray
You had but to stretch your hand,
Without peril, without pain,
Over all that fairy land
And take back your bliss again.
Do not murmur, Amabel;”—
For a sobbing Ave fell
As she heard by what a spell
She was sold to sweet despair—
“Do not weep,—a single tear
Breaks the peaceful chain you wear.
Little one, be comforted,
Be content, we love you well,
Love you more than heaven,” she said,
Raining kisses wistfully
On her little bondmaid's head,
Till it sank upon her knee.
There was silence half an hour
In the windless bracken bower
By the rocky waterside,
Like the silence up in heaven
While God's anger like a tide
Gathered in the vials seven
With redeeming vengeance fraught
Ere the latest seal was riven.
Neither spake and neither thought,
Each within her inmost heart
Hugged the happiness apart
Which she thought not of but felt.
Amabel half-clung, half-knelt
To her mother, who, upright,
Looked at something out of sight,
Listened for some voiceless speech;
In that feverish, glad hush
You might think you heard the flush
Stealing o'er the cheek of each,
As they watched the moments pass
In the summer hourglass,
Wishing now to stay the sun,
And the leaping, headlong river,
In that pleasant dream for ever
Now to have their waiting done.
Suddenly the fairy queen
Rose with a low, stifled groan,
Said, “The time is short, my daughter,”
Bared the feet of Amabel,
Led her up the roaring water
By a craggy, rifted dell
Overflowing with dim gloom,
Where the sunbeams had no room
(If the sunbeams came) to play,
And the weltering, steaming foam
Whirled impatiently between
Rocks that crumbled in its spray,
As it panted to its home
In the ocean far away,
Fretting that it had to stay
Where few broken ferns were seen,
In the vista of grey stone
Overarched with golden green.
Swiftly, steadily the twain
Journeyed over slimy ledge,
Set their feet on jagged edge,
Without stumbling, without pain,
For her mother's magic chain
Still bore up May Amabel;
Then the sudden turning dell
Let the magic sunlight in
On the lower hanging leaves,
On the early barley sheaves,
On the dancing river's din.
There, but not by earthly light,
Amabel saw Lost Delight,
Very royally bedight
In the richest of his state,
Sitting on a rainbow throne
O'er the highest waterfall,
Singing in a tender tone
Queen Dione's litany,
Saw his face and heard him call,
“Come, my love, I may not wait.”
Then she brake her mother's band,
Then she loosed her mother's hand,
Leapt to meet her lover's kiss,
Caught and kissed her rosary,
Murmured, “God be thanked for this,
God and Sister Evergreen.”
At the word the fairy queen,
Clad in clinging corpselike white,
Girt and crowned with shivering light,
Stood upon the maiden's right
As she sat beside him there,
On the throne of painted air;
And the maiden fearlessly
Thanked her for her ministry,
But the other huskily,
Fingering at the broken bands,
Said, “I lose my sweetest slave;”
Then she stood and wrung her hands
As the throne sank silently,
Fading from her moveless eye.
Clinging unto Lost Delight,
Amabel said, “O my knight!
For I give myself to thee,—
Help me now before I die.”
“I can follow, cannot save.”
Amabel, still unaghast,
Would have told her rosary,
But she sank with him too fast
Into many-coloured spray,
Under the white hawthorn-tree
In the holy noon of May.

What had once been Amabel
Whirled adown the fairy dell,
Whirled along by rock and lea,
Through the shadow, through the sun,
Till the river let the weight
Rest awhile in sight of sea,
By her father's water-gate,
That her father might behold
What a work on her was done;
Both her hands and visage shone
Like to sapphire, clear and cold,
Save her lady's brand thereon,
And her novice robe of white
Was shot through with amber light,
And the red cross, emerald,
And an opal cross shone too,
Sometimes rosy, sometimes green,
On her crystal brow of blue,
Where her chrisom cross had been,
But she kept her locks of gold.
Then the baron, standing there,
Saw her slowly float away
From the mossy water-stair,
From the bolted water-door,
And no eyes beheld her more.
Sent the tidings of dismay
To the moorland cloister bare,
Bade the moody henchman say,
“You have kept your novice well.”

Then the Abbess left her cell,
Bade the sisters toll the bell,
“Pray for her, although she fell,
Lured away by snares of hell,—
Pray for little Amabel,
It may help her,—who can tell?”

But the sister Evergreen,
Who had entered in unseen,
As she went away unspied,
To the youngest novice said,
“While you weep for Amabel,
While you curse the fairy knight,
Fairy fingers deck the bride
In the land of Lost Delight,
And she pillows her flushed head
In the shadow of his side,
Or she dances with the dead,
With the merry blue-faced dead,
Who are never fairy-led.”