Where sycamores and elm-trees tall,
Full-leav’d, the forest had outstript,
By no sharp north-wind ever nipt,
So shelter’d by the mighty pile.
Bertha arose, and read awhile,
With forehead ‘gainst the windowpane.
Again she try’d, and then again,
Until the dusk eve left her dark
Upon the legend of St Mark.
From plaited lawn-frill, fine and thin,
She lifted up her soft warm chin.
With aching neck and swimming eyes,
And daz’d with saintly imageries.
All was gloom, and silent all,
And now and then the still footfall
Of one returning homewards late,
Past the echoing minstergate.
The clamorous daws, that all the day
Above tree-tops and towers play,
Pair by pair had gone to rest,
Each in its ancient belfry nest,
Where asleep they fall betimes,
To music of the drowsy chimes.
All was silent, all was gloom,
Abroad and in the homely room:
Down she sat, poor cheated soul!
And struck a lamp from the dismal coal;
Lean’d forward, with bright drooping hair
And slant book, full against the glare.
Her shadow, in uneasy guise,
Hover’d about, a giant size,
On ceiling-beam and old oak chair,
The parrot’s cage, and panel square;
And the warm angled winter screen,
On which were many monsters seen,
Call’d doves of Siam, Lima mice,
And legless birds of Paradise,
Macaw, and tender Avadavat,
And silken-furr’d Angora cat.
Untir’d she read, her shadow still
Glower’d about, as it would fill
The room with wildest forms and shades,
As though some ghostly queen of spades
Had come to mock behind her back,
And dance, and ruffle her garments black.
Untir’d she read the legend page,
Of holy Mark, from youth to age,
On land, on sea, in pagan chains,
Rejoicing for his many pains.
Sometimes the learned eremite,
With golden star, or dagger bright,
Referr’d to pious poesies
Written in smallest crow-quill size
Beneath the text; and thus the rhyme
Was parcell’d out from time to time:
– ‘Als writith he of swevenis,
Men han beforne they wake in bliss,
Whanne that hir friendes thinke hem bound
In crimped shroude farre under grounde;
And how a litling child mote be
A saint er its nativitie,
Gif that the modre (God her blesse!)
Kepen in solitarinesse,
And kissen devoute the holy croce.
Of Goddes love, and Sathan’s force, -
He writith; and thinges many mo:
Of swiche thinges I may not show.
Bot I must tellen verilie
Somdeln of Sainte Cicilie,
And chieflie what he auctorethe
Of Sainte Markis life and dethe:’
At length her constant eyelids come
Upon the fervent martyrdom;
Then lastly to his holy shrine,
Exalt amid the tapers’ shine
At Venice, -
Dawlish Fair
Over the hill and over the dale,
And over the bourne to Dawlish,
Where gingerbread wives have a scanty sale,
And gingerbread nuts are smallish.
O Solitude! If I Must With Thee Dwell
O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep, —
Nature’s observatory – whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
‘Mongst boughs pavillion’d, where the deer’s swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.
But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin’d,
Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of humankind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.
Song of Four Faeries – Fire, Air, Earth, and Water -
Salamander, Zephyr, Dusketha and Breama
SALAMANDER Happy, happy glowing fire!
ZEPHYR Fragrant air! delicious light!
DUSKETHA Let me to my glooms retire!
BREAMA I to greenweed rivers bright!
SALAMANDER Happy, happy glowing fire!
Dazzling bowers of soft retire,
Ever let my nourish’d wing,
Like a bat’s, still wandering.
Faintless fan your fiery spaces,
Spirit sole in deadly places.
In unhaunted roar and blaze,
Open eyes that never daze,
Let me see the myriad shapes
Of men, and beasts, and fish, and apes,
Portray’d in many a fiery den,
And wrought by spumy bitumen.
On the deep intenser roof,
Arched every way aloof,
Let me breathe upon their skies,
And anger their live tapestries;
Free from cold, and every care,
Of chilly rain, and shivering air.
ZEPHYR Spirit of Fire – away! away!
Or your very roundelay
Will sear my plumage newly budded
From its quilled sheath, all studded
With the selfsame dews that fell
On