Edwin of Deira | ||
181
BLAAVIN.
[I.]
O wonderful mountain of Blaavin,How oft since our parting hour
You have roared with the wintry torrents,
You have gloomed through the thunder-shower!
But by this time the lichens are creeping
Grey-green o'er your rocks and your stones,
And each hot afternoon is steeping
Your bulk in its sultriest bronze.
O sweet is the spring wind, Blaavin,
When it loosens your torrents' flow,
When with one little touch of a sunny hand
It unclasps your cloak of snow.
O sweet is the spring wind, Blaavin,
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For before the bell of the snowdrop
Or the pink of the apple tree—
Long before your first spring torrent
Came down with a flash and a whirl,
In the breast of its happy mother
There nestled my little girl.
O Blaavin, rocky Blaavin,
It was with the strangest start
That I felt, at the little querulous cry,
The new pulse awake in my heart;
A pulse that will live and beat, Blaavin,
Till, standing around my bed,
While the chirrup of birds is heard out in the dawn,
The watchers whisper, He's dead!
O another heart is mine, Blaavin,
Sin' this time seven year,
For Life is brighter by a charm
Death darker by a fear.
O Blaavin, rocky Blaavin,
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To see lashed gulf and gully
Smoke white in the windy rain—
To see in the scarlet sunrise
The mist-wreaths perish with heat,
The wet rock slide with a trickling gleam
Right down to the cataracts' feet;
While toward the crimson islands,
Where the sea-birds flutter and skirl,
A cormorant flaps o'er a sleek ocean floor
Of tremulous mother-of-pearl.
II.
Ah me! as wearily I treadThe winding hill-road mute and slow,
Each rock and rill are to my heart
So conscious of the long-ago.
My passion with its fulness ached,
I filled this region with my love,
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Thou heard'st me singing, blue above.
O never can I know again
The sweetness of that happy dream,
But thou remember'st iron crag,
And thou remember'st falling stream!
O look not so on me, ye rocks.
The past is past, and let it be;
Thy music ever falling stream
Brings more of pain than joy to me.
O cloud, high dozing on the peak,
O tarn, that gleams so far below,
O distant ocean, blue and sleek,
On which the white sails come and go,
Ye look the same; thou sound'st the same,
Thou ever falling, falling stream—
Ye are the changeless dial-face,
And I the passing beam.
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III.
As adown the long glen I hurried,With the torrent from fall to fall,
The invisible spirit of Blaavin
Seemed ever on me to call.
As I passed the red lake fringed with rushes
A duck burst away from its heart,
And before the bright circles and wrinkles
Had subsided again into rest,
At a clear open turn of the roadway
My passion went up in a cry,
For the wonderful mountain of Blaavin
Was bearing his huge bulk on high,
Each precipice keen and purple
Against the yellow sky.
Edwin of Deira | ||