Page images
PDF
EPUB

The huge hall-table's oaken face,
Scrubbed till it shone the day to grace,
Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty brawn,
By old blue-coated serving-man;
Then the grim boar's head frowned on
high,

Crested with bays and rosemary.
Well can the green-garbed ranger tell
How, when, and where the monster fell;
What dogs before his death he tore,
And all the baiting of the boar.
The wassail round, in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked; hard by
Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas pie;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce,
At such high-tide, her savory goose.
Then came the merry maskers in,
And carols roared with blithesome din;
If unmelodious was the song,
It was a hearty note, and strong.
Who lists may in their mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery;
White skirts supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the visors made:
But, O, what maskers richly dight
Can boast of bosoms half so light!
England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
'T was Christmas broached the mightiest
ale;

"T was Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man's heart through half the
year.

And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the arméd man, The statue of the arméd knight; She stood and listened to my lay, Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own, My hope! my joy! my Genevieve! She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story,
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downeast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face.

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. And that he crossed the mountain-woods,

[1772-1834.]

GENEVIEVE.

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay

Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;

Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade,

And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade,

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death,
The Lady of the Land;

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;
And how she tended him in vain;
And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain;

And that she nursed him in a cave,
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying man he lay;

His dying words- but when I reached That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp

Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,

Subdued and cherished long.

She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love, and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved, she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stept,
Then suddenly, with timorous eye,
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And, bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

'T was partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 't was a bashful art
That I might rather feel than see

The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning

star

In his steep course? So long he seems to pause

109

[blocks in formation]

From dark and icycaverns called you forth, | Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! Down those precipitous, black, jagged

rocks,

Forever shattered and the same forever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,

Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came),

Here let the billows stiffen and have rest? Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow

Adown enormous ravines slope amain, Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,

And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!

Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven

Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun

Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

thou

That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused
with tears,

Solemnly seemest like a vapory cloud
To rise before me Rise, O, ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense from the
Earth!

Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,

Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,

Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

CHRISTABEL.

PART L

'T Is the middle of night by the castle clock,

And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;

Tu-whit! tu-whoo!

And hark, again! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff bitch;
From her kennel beneath the rock
She maketh answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the
hour;

Ever and aye, by shine and shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over-loud;
Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.

Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full;
And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray;
'T is a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

The lovely lady, Christabel,
Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothed knight;

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE,

111

And she in the midnight wood will pray | And the lady, whose voice was faint and For the weal of her lover that's far away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke, The sighs she heaved were soft and low, And naught was green upon the oak, But moss and rarest mistletoe : She kneels beneath the huge oak-tree, And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly, The lovely lady, Christabel! It moaned as near as near can be, But what it is she cannot tell. On the other side it seems to be Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak-tree.

The night is chill; the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek, There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

Hush, beating heart of Christabel ! Jesu Maria, shield her well!

She folded her arms beneath her cloak, And stole to the other side of the oak. What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright, Drest in a silken robe of white, That shadowy in the moonlight shone. The neck that made that white robe wan, Her stately neck, and arms were bare; Her blue-veined feet unsandalled were, And wildly glittered here and there The gems entangled in her hair. I guess, 't was frightful there to see A lady so richly clad as she, Beautiful exceedingly!

"Mary mother, save me now!" Said Christabel; "and who art thou?"

The lady strange made answer meet, And her voice was faint and sweet: "Have pity on my sore distress, I scarce can speak for weariness.' "Stretch forth thy hand, and have no

fear!"

Said Christabel; "how camest thou here?"

sweet,

Did thus pursue her answer meet:

"My sire is of a noble line, And my name is Geraldine: Five warriors seized me yestermorn, Me, even me, a maid forlorn; They choked my cries with force and fright,

And tied me on a palfrey white.
The palfrey was as fleet as wind,
And they rode furiously behind.
They spurred amain, their steeds were
white,

And once we crossed the shade of night.
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,
I have no thought what men they be;
Nor do I know how long it is
(For I have lain entranced, I wis)
Since one, the tallest of the five,
Took me from the palfrey's back,
A weary woman, scarce alive.
Some muttered words his comrades spoke:
He placed me underneath this oak;
He swore they would return with haste;
Whither they went I cannot tell-
I thought I heard, some minutes past,
Sounds as of a castle-bell.

Stretch forth thy hand" (thus ended she), "And help a wretched maid to flee."

Then Christabel stretched forth her

hand

And comforted fair Geraldine:
"O well, bright dame! may you command
The service of Sir Leoline;
And gladly our stout chivalry

Will he send forth, and friends withal,
To guide and guard you safe and free
Home to your noble father's hall."

She rose and forth with steps they
passed

That strove to be, and were not, fast.
Her gracious stars the lady blest,
And thus spake on sweet Christabel:
"All our household are at rest,
The hall as silent as the cell;
Sir Leoline is weak in health,
And may not well awakened be,
But we will move as if in stealth,
And I beseech your courtesy,
This night, to share your couch with me."

They crossed the moat, and Christabel Took the key that fitted well;

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

As still as death with stifled breath!
And now have reached her chamber door;
And now doth Geraldine press down
The rushes of the chamber floor.

The moon shines dim in the open air, And not a moonbeam enters here. But they without its light can see The chamber carved so curiously, Carved with figures strange and sweet, All made out of the carver's brain, For a lady's chamber meet: The lamp with twofold silver chain Is fastened to an angel's feet. The silver lamp burns dead and dim; But Christabel the lamp will trim. She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright, And left it swinging to and fro, While Geraldine, in wretched plight, Sank down upon the floor below.

"O weary lady, Geraldine,
I pray you, drink this cordial wine!
It is a wine of virtuous powers;
My mother made it of wild flowers."

"And will your mother pity me,
Who am a maiden most forlorn?"
Christabel answered: "Woe is me!
She died the hour that I was born.
I have heard the gray-haired friar tell,
How on her death-bed she did say,
That she should hear the castle-bell
Strike twelve upon my wedding-day.
O mother dear! that thou wert here!"
"I would," said Geraldine, "she were!"
But soon with altered voice, said she:
"Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine!
I have power to bid thee flee."
Alas! what ails poor Geraldine?
Why stares she with unsettled eye?
Can she the bodiless dead espy?
And why with hollow voice cries she:
"Off, woman, off! this hour is mine,
Though thou her guardian spirit be,
Off, woman, off! 'T is given to me.'

Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side,

And raised to heaven her eyes so blue;
"Alas!" said she, "this ghastly ride, -
Dear lady! it hath wildered you!"
The lady wiped her moist cold brow,
And faintly said, "T is over now!"

Again the wild-flower wine she drank: Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright,

« PreviousContinue »