Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, A Dramatic Poem :: :: University of Virginia Library

It was Hallowmass eve;—like a bride at her bowering
The moon on green Skiddaw sat shining,—and showering
Her silver light on the Solway waves,—steeping
In brightness the cormorants rocking and sleeping:
The lone Ellenbrook 'neath the brown boughs was simmering,
In castle and cottage the candles were glimmering;
No foot was abroad,—dread of witch-spell and glamour
Bound matron and maid to the hall and the chaumer.
In a mariner's ear the night-tide singeth sweet;
So I sat and I gazed, while the flood, at my feet,
Leap'd, and murmur'd:—I thought when the stiff breeze was sounding,
How my bark through the billows went breasting and bounding;
And I long'd much to lift up my halser, and fly
Where there's nought to be gazed at but ocean and sky.

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2.

As I wish'd, lo! there came my bright bark, Barbara Allan;
Her fair shadow far on the moonlight flood falling;
Her silk pennon streaming so gay at her side,
And her gallant sails bent all in seafaring pride:
Around her the glad waters, leaping and flashing,
Clave wide with delight, and away she went dashing:
Before the fair presence of my beauteous shallop
The cormorants fly, and the porpoises gallop;
The seamews dive down, and the seagulls go soaring,
As her prow through the deep brine goes sweeping and snoring.
Loud and loud came the voice from the mainland to hail her—
The glad whistle, the shout, and free song of the sailor.
John Selby, cried faint, and then bolder and bolder,
“Ho! launch out the boat, and bring me Richard Faulder!”
He whistled—the boat, with one stroke of the oar,
At my foot made a furrow ell deep in the shore.

3.

I laugh'd and sprung in,—soon the smitten waves parted,
And flash'd, as along to my shallop I darted.
The mariners shouted, nor lack'd there the tone
Of tongues which from boyhood to manhood I'd known;
The mariners shouted, nor lack'd they the form
Of friends who with me had braved tempest and storm:
And away went the shallop, with bent sail and rudder,
And the shore gave a groan, and the sea gave a shudder.

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We hail'd the clear diamond on green Criffel burning,
That stream'd on our path, like the star of the morning;
And gleaming behind us, shot o'er the wild seas
The Hallowmass torches of bonnie Saint Bees;
The sweet glens of Cumberland lessen'd,—and colder
The moonbeam became, and the wind waken'd bolder;
And the sable flood roar'd, while along the rude furrow
The slender bark flew, with the flight of an arrow.

4.

'Twas sweet now to hear how the strain'd canvas sung,
As, right on our path, like a reindeer we sprung;
'Twas sweet now to hear how the chafed wind kept trying
The might of our mast, and the foaming waves frying:
'Twas sweet from the stem to the stern to be pacing,—
In the chart of my mind the bark's course to be tracing,—
In some far sunny bay to be dropping our anchor;
Or, where the spiced woodlands tower'd greener and ranker,
To chace, when the sun on the desert smote sorest,
The fleet-footed deer, and the king of the forest;
Or, where the free balm richer dropt from the bushes,
Hear the frank maiden's sighs in her shealing of rushes,
As she thinks, while her girdle grows tighter, of sailing
With one who had loved, and had left her bewailing:—
Such thoughts came upon me—Mid curse and carousing,
The Man Island smugglers sat singing and bousing;
They ceased as we passed, and an old man cried, “See!
Lo! there goes the Spectre-ship sundering the sea!’

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5.

Loud laugh'd all my mariners—and as they laugh'd, there
Fell a thick smoke from heaven, that choak'd the sweet air;
Loud laugh'd all the mariners—and as they laugh'd, whistling,
Like the hunting hawk's wings, went the wing'd shallop rustling,
And at once o'er our heads there came stooping a cloud
Huge and sable, that swathed up my ship like a shroud;
Above and about me the low thunder pudder'd,
A dread fell upon me—the dark ocean shudder'd!
A rush of wind came, and away the cloud pass'd—
And there sat a hoary Old One at the mast,
With his furrow'd brows bent down, like one in devotion,
And his ancient eyes cast on the star-gleaming ocean.
“Hoary father,” I said, “ill it suits thee to brave
The moisture of night, and the damp of the wave:
Go hillock my blankets above thee—and here,
Take this tass of strong water to charm thee and cheer!”

6.

The Old One look'd up—Then the hawthorn's sweet timmer
Had shed its rich bloom on my twenty third simmer,—
The Old One look'd up—Then these hoar locks were black,
As the moor-cock's soot wing, or the sea eagle's back,—

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But from glad three and twenty till threescore and seven,
From my locks like the snow, to my locks like the raven,
I never beheld such an aspect;—abaft
I leapt in dismay,—and the Ancient One laugh'd!
Laugh'd loud, and a thousand unseen lips laugh'd round,
And the smooth pleasant sea murmur'd far to the sound.
My comrades were vanish'd—men, framed by the spell
Of the fiends, with their bark, in the dock-yeards of hell,
To wile Richard Faulder, at midnight unhallow'd,—
When the dark angels rule,—in the sea to be swallow'd!
Away flew the fiend-bark, so smoothly and fine
That she seem'd more to swim in the air than the brine;
The green islands stoop'd low their heads as we pass'd,
And the stars seem'd in pairs from the firmament cast;
Sole charmer, alone the charm'd moon stay'd to smile,
Till my Grey Guide dropp'd anchor before a green isle.

FITTE SECOND.

1.

It was a fair land, that sprung up like the blossom-
Ing rose when the dew has fall'n soft on its bosom:
Of balm smell'd the woods, and of myrrh smell'd the mountains;
Of fruit smell'd the valleys, of wine smell'd the fountains;
The waves on the shore all in concert kept springing,
With the soft nightingale sitting 'mongst the boughs singing;

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The winds in the woodtops sung to a glad tune,
Like a small bird's voice heard 'mongst the brown bees in June;
And each time the breeze in the woodlands made stir,
The ship's sails seemed steep'd in frankincense and myrrh.
Around sang the mermaids—one swam till her hair,
Like gold melting in silver, show'd wavering and rare;
One reclined on a couch all of shell-work and spars,
And warbled charm'd words to the Hesperide stars;
There one, with a shriek more of rapture than fear,
With the bright waters bubbling around her, came near,
And seeing the shallop, and forms of rude men,
Shriek'd,—clave wide the water,—and vanish'd again.
I stood at the helm, and beheld one asleep—
James Graeme, a young sailor I lost in the deep;
All lovely as lifetime, though summer suns seven,
Since his loss, his young sister to sorrow had given.
A mermaid a soft couch had made him, the tender
One sat nigh and warbled,—her voice, sweet and slender,
Pierced through the mute billows; all tear-dew'd and shaking
I gazed, and the form as I gazed seem'd to waken;
All the seamaids with song hail'd him from his long slumber,
And their songs had no end, and their tongues had no number.
The Old One leap'd up with a laugh—but there came
A bright Figure past him, he ceased,—and, in shame,

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Dropp'd his eyes and sat mute—the rebuked ocean veil'd
Her loose bosom, and loud all her mermaidens wail'd.

2.

The green land of mermaidens vanish'd, and soon
A fair island rose, round and bright as the moon;
Where damsels as pure as, lone Skiddaw! thy flocks,
Show'd blue eyes and bosoms from thickets and rocks;
Or lay on the sward, half reveal'd and half shielded—
(The flowers, touch'd by beauty, a richer scent yielded);
Or sat and loud love-ditties warbled, and sang
And harp'd so melodious that all the woods rang.
And there lay a fair one 'tween sleeping and waking,
The breeze her dark brow-tresses moving and shaking,
Round her temples they cluster'd all glossy and gleaming,
Or gush'd o'er her bosom-snow, curling and streaming.
I wish'd—for that sight chased remembrance away—
And the bark knew my wishes, and stood for the bay:
Less old and less ghastly my dread comrade grew—
With the change of his look, like a levin-flash, flew
From the stem to the stern a bright Presence—I saw
The ancient one tremble—I prayed in mine awe,
And named God! with a bound from the lewd isle we started,
O'er the flood like the wild flame the spectre-bark darted.

3.

The moon sunk—the flame o'er dark heaven wentrushing,
The loud thunder follow'd, the rain-flood came gushing,

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I sain'd myself oft, yet no shape could I see,
Either bless'd or unbless'd, save that Old One and me.
The thunder-burst ceased—dropt the wind—yet our flight
Wax'd swifter—I long'd for the merry morn-light:
No light came, and soon, shadow'd high o'er the flood,
Rose a huge dusky outline of mountain and wood,
And I saw a deep vale, and beheld a dark river,
And away flew the bark as a shaft from the quiver.
Around me the waters kept toiling and dashing,
On the land stood a crowd their teeth grinding and gnashing,—
Groups of figures, who hover'd 'tween living and dying,
And “water” and “water” continually crying,—
Loud cursing, and stooping their lips to the flood,
While the stream as they touch'd it was changed into blood:—
Their crime has no name—for those wretches who hate
Their home and their country, her glory and state,
Are born without name, and live nameless, and die
As dishonour should ever. I hearken'd their cry
And gazed on their persons—in bliss or in pain
Some marks of the semblance immortal remain;
But those came in aspect so grisly and ghast,
That my Grey Guide smiled scorn, and flew sullenly past;
And a yell such as wolves give when baffled of blood,
Came following us far down that dark dismal flood.

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4.

And away we rush'd on, while along the shores follow
A shout and a shriek, and a yell and a hollo!
And a thick cloud was there, and amidst it a cry
Of the tortured in spirit flew mournfully by;
And I saw, through the darkness, the war-steeds careering,
The rushing of helm'd ones, the fierce charioteering;
I heard shouting millions, the clang of opposing
Sharp steel unto steel, and the cry at the closing;
The neighing of horses, and that tender moan
Which the smote courser yields when his glory is gone—
I have heard him in battle to moan and to shriek,
With an agony to which human agony's weak.
I heard the trump clang—of fierce captains the cheering—
The descent of the sword hewing, cleaving, and shearing;
Earth murmur'd and yawn'd, and disclosing, like hell,
A fathomless gulph, ate them up as they fell.
The Old One smiled ghastly with gladness, and starker
The wild havoc wax'd, and the rolling flames darker.
The tumult pass'd by—and a swift glance I gave,
And the greensward stood gaping like death and the grave;
Far down, and still downward, my glance seem'd to enter,
And beheld earth's dread secrets from surface to centre.
Crush'd helms, altars, crowns, swords, and monument stones,
Gods, gold, sceptres, mitres and marrowless bones—

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Lay thick—things immortal, men deem'd them!—for ever
That grass will grow green, and flow on will that river;
The fair sun, now riding so beauteous in noon,—
The stars all preparing for shining,—the moon
Which maidens love much to walk under,—the flowing
Of that stream—who can stay, or that green grass from growing?
The stars are for ever,—the wind in its flight,
The moon in her beaming, the sun in his might:
But man and his glory!—the tide in the bay,
The snow in the sun, are less fleeting than they.

5.

I still stood dread gazing, and lo, there came on,
With sobbing and wailing, and weeping and moan,
A concourse of wretches, some reverend, some regal,
Their robes all in rags, and with claws like the eagle:
The miser was there, with looks vulgar and sordid;
The lord too was there, but no longer he lorded;
Anointed heads came—but a monarch still stronger
Rules now, and no king shall reign sterner or longer:
There one stood, whose hero-blood, boiling and brave,
Is cold as the peasant, and dull as the slave;
And him whose proud name, while there lives a bardstrain,
And a heart that can throb, must immortal remain;
Immortal remain too, in spite of the clods
Of gross earth, who inherit that name of the gods.
Beside them stood rank'd up, in shadowy array,
The harp-in-hand minstrels whose names live for aye;

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Those bright minds the muses so honour'd and served,
And whom our rich nobles have lauded—and starved—
All vision'd in glory:—in prostrate obeisance
Mammon's mighty men fell—and seem'd damn'd by their presence.
There Butler I saw, with his happy wit growing,
Like a river, still deeper the more it kept flowing;
Young Chatterton's rich antique sweetness and glory;
And Otway, who breathes while warm nature rules story.

6.

The land breeze lay mute, and the dark stream lay calm,
But my guide gave a nod, and away the bark swam;
And I heard from the mountains, and heard from the trees,
The song of the stream, and the murmuring of bees;
From the low-bloomy bush, and the green grassy sward,
Were the sweet evening bird, and the grasshopper heard,
While the balm from the woodland, and forest, and lea,
Came dropping and sprinkling its riches on me.
And I heard a deep shriek, and a long sob of woe;
And beheld a procession, all mournful and slow,
Of forms who came down to the river in ranks,
Their stain'd marriage garments to blanch on the banks:
Ranks of regal and noble adultresses steeping
Their limbs and their robes, and still wailing and weeping;
Vain toil—all the water of that dismal river
Can cleanse not those stains—they wax deeper than ever.
One came and gazed on me—then fill'd all the air
With shriekings, and wrong'd her white bosom, and hair;

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All faded and fallen was the glance and the mien
Of her whom I woo'd and adored at eighteen.
She fell from her station, forsook the pure trust
Of my heart—wedded—sinn'd, and sunk deeper than dust:
To my deep sleep by night and my waking by day,
There's a fair vision comes that will not pass away.
I turn'd mine eyes from her;—the bark, fast and free,
Went furrowing the foam of the bonnie green sea.

FITTE THIRD.

1.

We furrow'd the foam of the bonnie green sea,
And sweet was the sound of its waters to me;
We bore away eastward; it seem'd as grey day
Gan to mottle the mountains—away, and away,
As we wanton'd, the billows came curling in night
I' th' eastward,—but westward they sparkled in light.
The wind in our mainsail sang fitful and loud,
And the cry of the sea-eagle came from the cloud;
We pass'd wooded headland, and sharp promontory,
And ocean-rock famous in maritime story;
Till the sun with a burst o'er the tall eastern pines,
Shower'd his strength on the ocean in long gleaming lines—
And lo! and behold! we rode fair in the bay
Of that fairest of friths, the broad sunny Solway:
There tower'd haughty Skiddaw; here rose Criffel green;
There, haunted Caerlaverock's white turrets between,
Green Man, like a garden, lay scenting the seas;
Gay maidens gazed seaward from sunny Saint Bees—

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Dumfries's bright spires, Dalswinton's wild hill,
Comlongan's grey turrets,—deep Nith, winding still
'Tween her pine-cover'd margins her clear-gushing waters,
Which mirror the shapes of her song-singing daughters;
Thou too, my own Allanbay, sea-swept and sunny;
Whitehaven for maidens, black, comely, and bonny;
And generous Arbigland, by mariners hallow'd,
A name known in prayer, and in blessing, and ballad.

2.

As I look'd, two gay barks from their white halsers broke
With a shout o'er the billows from Barnhourie rock;
Their white pennons flaunted, their masts seem'd to bend;
As they pass'd the rough headland of cavern'd Colvend;
My ancient guide smiled, and his old hand he lay'd
On the helm,—and the ship felt his wish and obey'd:
Her head from sweet Allanbay suddenly turning,
Sprung away—and the billows beneath her seem'd burning.
Nigh the sister barks came, and the deep shores were ringing
With a merry wild legend the seamen kept singing,
Nor man's voice alone o'er the sea-wave could render
Bard's labour so witching, and charming, and tender;
For I heard a rich voice through that old legend pour'd,
The voice too of Her I long served and adored;
Hard fortune, false friends, and mine ill-destinie,
And the dark grave have sunder'd that sweet one from me.

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3.

Soon the sister barks came, and shout, yelloch, and mirth,
Now rung in the water, and rung in the earth;
And I saw on the decks, with their merry eyes glancing,
And all their fair temple locks heaving and dancing,
Not my true love alone; but maids mirthsome and free,
And as frank as the wind to the leaf of the tree.
There was Katherine Oneen, Lurgan's bonniest daughter,
Gay Mally Macbride, from the haunted Bann water,
And she who lays all seamen's hearts in embargoes,
Who have hearts for to lose, in old kind Carrickfergus.
Green Nithsdale had sent me her frank Nannie Haining,
With an eye that beam'd less for devotion than sinning;
Mary Carson the meek, and Kate Candlish the gay,
Two maids from the mountains of blythe Galloway;
And Annand, dear Annand, my joys still regarding,
Sent her joyous Johnstone, her blythesomer Jardine;
And bonnie Dumfries, which the muse loves so well,
Came gladdening my heart with her merry Maxwell;
And loveliest and last, lo! a sweet maiden came,
I trust not my tongue with recording her name,—
She is flown to the land of the leal, and I'm left,
As a bird from whose side the left wing has been reft.

4.

Glad danced all the damsels—their long flowing hair
In bright tresses swam in the dewy morn air;
More lovely they look'd, and their eyes glanced more killing,
As the music wax'd louder, and warmer, and thrilling;

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The waves leap'd and sang, and seem'd with the meek lute
To keep, not to give, the meet time to the foot.
The shaven masts quiver'd, the barks to the sound
Moved amid the deep waters with start and with bound;
All the green shores remurmur'd, and there seemed to run
Strange shapes on the billows; the light of the sun
Was lustrous and wild, and its shooting gleam gave
More of cold than of warmth to the swelling sea-wave.
I trembled and gazed, for I thought on the hour,
When the witch has her will, and the fiend has his power,
And the sea-spirit rides the dark waters aboon,
Working mariners woe 'neath the Hallowmass moon.
And I thought on my old merry mate, Martin Halmer,
Doom'd till doomsday to sail in a vessel of glamour,
Between sunny Saint Bees and the Mouth of the Orr—
Wives pray still, as shrieking he shoots from the shore.

5.

Now nigh came the sister barks—nigher and nigher—
More gay grew the song, more melodious the lyre;
More lovely maids look'd, and their feet leap'd more free,
The rocks rung, and more merrily sung the green sea:
And I gazed, for I could not but gaze, and there stood—
Meek and mild her dark eye-glance down-cast on the flood—
That fair one whose looks, while ships swim the salt sea,
While light comes to morning, and leaves to the tree,
While birds love the greenwood, and fish the fresh river,
Shall bless me, and charm me, for ever and ever.

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O I deem'd that nought evil might mimic the light
Of those dark eyes divine, and that forehead so bright,
Nought from the grim sojourn unhallow'd, unshriven,
Dared put on the charms, and the semblance of heaven;
She glanced her eye on me—from white brow to bosom,
All ruddy she wax'd, as the dewy rose blossom.
I call'd on my love—with a blush and a sigh,
And side-looking, as still was her wont, she drew nigh.

6.

“Heaven bless thee!” I said,—even while I was speaking,
The phantom barks vanish'd, with yelling and shrieking;
And mine Ancient Guide glared, as a tiger will glare,
When he comes to his den and the hunters are there:
And changing his shape, to a cormorant he grew,
Thrice clanging his wings round the shallop he flew;
And away from the sea and the shore, in his flight,
Fast faded and vanish'd that charmed day-light.
Down on the dread deck then my forehead I laid,
Call'd on Him that's on high—to his meek Son, I pray'd:
The spectre bark shook—'neath my knees seem'd to run
The planking, like snow in the hot summer sun:
Such darkness dropt on me as when the sea wars
With the heaven, and quenches the moon, and the stars;
And my dread guide flew round me, in swift airy rings,
Stooping down, like a sea raven, clapping his wings—
A raven no more, now a fire he became,
And thrice round the shallop has flown the fiend-flame;
In the flame flew a form; and the bark, as he shot
Shrivel'd down to a barge, and a bottomless boat—

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And I call'd unto him who is mighty to save;
Swift his spirit flew down and rebuked the sea-wave,
And smote the charm'd boat; with a shudder it sounded
Away through the flood, on the greensward I bounded;
And back flew the boat, to a black mist I saw
It dissolve—I gazed seaward in terror and awe;
While my Fiend Guide passed off, like a shadow, and said
“Mahoun had not power to harm hair of thy head!”
I praised God, and pondering sought gladly my way,
To the merriment-making in sweet Allanbay.
But never may landsman or mariner more
Muse in Hallowmass eve on that haunted sea shore;
Nor behold the fiend's wonders he works in the main,
With my Guide and his dread Spectre Shallop again!