 | The Mermaid |  |
SCENE I.
The Shore of Staffa.Glenelg.
Forbear, forbear! allow me all my grief.
O she is lost! my Agandel is gone,
Sunk to the dungeon caverns of the sea!
Roll on, ye waves; ye winds, still wilder howl!
O never will your random tyranny
Enrich the treasures of the miser deep
With such a pearl as ye have snatch'd from me.
Lo! the just Heavens dart their avenging fires
Against the fell and furious ocean's breast.
Alas! what sound of power shall wake the sleep
Of those that wreck'd in the sea-tangle lie!
Ronaldsey.
Restrain, Glenelg, this feminine lament,
Nor thus, with rash abandonment to woe,
Surpass the raving of a woman's grief.
Come, let us quit this bleak tempestuous shore,
And seek the shelter of some cliff or cave
Till the day dawn, or the abating rain
Permit the kindling of a signal-fire,
To summon succour from the neighb'ring isles.
Glenelg.
O I could chide for ever at the waves,
For they have quench'd to me the charm of life,
Light of my soul, and sunbeam of my joy—
But in this gloom of nature and despair,
Why stand I venting to th'insensate deep
Effectless sorrow, which I thus may end?—
[Enter Caluthan.]
Ha! what art thou that dare so boldly step
Betwixt a wretch's suffering and relief?
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He has some gentleness in his wild look,
And seems by his compassionate survey
To know our shipwreck and forlorn escape.
Glenelg.
If thou canst speak, hoary, unearthly form,
Say what thou art, and what thou wouldst with us?
Caluthan.
I am a mortal, like yourselves.
Glenelg.
It speaks!
Our language too!
Caluthan.
Thrice nine times through the signs
The glorious sun his golden car hath driven,
Since the dread uproar of the winds and waves
Wreck'd my frail vessel on the rugged cliffs
That rudely fence this lone enchanted isle.
Glenelg.
How strange and hollowly his accents sound!
Caluthan.
But saving once, in such a dismal night,
No human form hath since rejoic'd my eyes.
Ronaldsey.
Art thou then here the sole inhabitant?
Caluthan.
I am: yet I am not.
Glenelg.
Who else beside?
Caluthan.
The child of one, who, like you and myself,
Was by the rash remorseless tempest cast
To pine and perish here.
Ronaldsey.
His child, sayst thou?
And yet that thou art sole inhabitant?
How may this be?
Glenelg.
Prythee explain thyself.
Caluthan.
He was a man in fancy most forlorn!
The evening's shadow and the midnight's shade,
Did more accord with his unsocial mind,
Than the bright morning or the cheerful day.
Frequent along the lonely murmuring beach
He chose his pensive solitary walk.
A Mermaid met him, and with syren songs
Woo'd him to love, and that fair child was hers.
Soon after, he fell into craze, and died,
And the sad Mermaid many a summer day
Sat moaning on the rocks expecting him.
At length the ripen'd mother's time was come,
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Her beauteous progeny I chanc'd to find,
Bedded on sea-weed, sleeping on the sand.
I took the child, and bore it to my grot,
And constant, at the flowing of the tide,
Towards the rocks where the sad mother pined
I carried it, and she would smile, and come
To give maternal nourishment. Sometimes,
Pleas'd she would dandle it amidst the waves,
But ever at the ebbing of the sea
She brought it back, and laid it softly down.
Glenelg.
And still this strange and lovely offspring lives?
Caluthan.
She does. But long ago the mother died.
Her grave I dug within the high-sea mark,
And fair Marina, as I nam'd the child,
Has deck'd the much-lov'd spot with shells and pebbles,
Which, when the waves disperse, she still restores.
Ronaldsey.
What is the semblance of this sea-born nymph?
Caluthan.
You'd think her moulded to the fullest grace
That e'er voluptuous love for dalliance feign'd:—
Such is the marbly lustre of her skin,
And the enamell'd ruby of her cheek,—
Yet all so chaste and passionless her eye,
That admiration doats without desire,
As on some rare and beauteous piece of art.
She is a creature fram'd in gentleness;
The sea-cool'd current from her mother's veins
Has so allay'd the human of her blood,
That though she live to love incapable,
Her heart with maiden kindness is possess'd.
Her gay green silky hair she often braids
With curling tangle, gather'd from the rocks,
And finds a sweeter perfume in the weeds
That float umbrageous on the crystal wave,
Than all the fragrance of the mountain's breast,
And flowery pastures of the golden bee.
Glenelg.
Has she intelligence of speech or sign
To hold communion with her father's race?
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I taught her language; but her mind conceives
Things all awry from our accustom'd modes,
And finds delight where we should meet annoy.
She sometimes sings a sweet pathetic note,
And the rude ditty of her own conceit
Is wilder than the accents of her strain:—
But come with me into my lonely cave,
And you shall see the gentle nymph herself;
Where, if the wind sigh aught that's musical,
She'll raise her voice like one constrain'd by charms,
And tune her lay to the symphonious gale.
Come with me, strangers, this way lies the path.
[Exeunt
| The Mermaid | |