Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in ævo,
Perlegis hic lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta
Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus.
Omnia paulatim consumit longior ætas,
Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo.
Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor:
Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis, imago,
Voxque aliud sonat-
Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes,
Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus
Mens horret, relegensque alium putat ista locutum.
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;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve !
She lean'd against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my ioy! 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 downcast 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, And that he crossed the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night;
That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade
And sometimes starting up at once
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 ;—
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 inclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace ;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.
'Twas partly love and partly fear,
And partly 'twas 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.
A cypress and a myrtle-bough
This morn around my harp you twined,
Because it fashioned mournfully
Its murmurs in the wind.
And now a tale of love and woe,
A woful tale of love I sing;
Hark, gentle maidens! hark, it sighs
And trembles on the string.
But most, my own dear Genevieve,
It sighs and trembles most for thee!
O come and hear the cruel wrongs,
Befell the Dark Ladie !*
*Here followed the stanzas, afterwards published separately under the title "Love," (see this vol. p. 126,) and after them came the other three stanzas printed above; the whole forming the introduction to the intended Dark Ladie, of which all that exists is to be found on next page. Late Ed.
And now once more, a tale of woe,
A woful tale of love I sing;
For thee, my Genevieve, it sighs,
And trembles on the string.
When last I sang the cruel scorn,
That crazed this bold and lovely knight,
And how he roamed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day or night;
I promised thee a sister tale,
Of man's perfidious cruelty;
Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong Befell the Dark Ladie.
THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE
BENEATH yon birch with silver bark
And boughs so pendulous and fair,
The brook falls scattered down the rock:
And all is mossy there!
And there upon the moss she sits,
The Dark Ladie in silent pain;
The heavy tear is in her eye;
And drops and swells again.
Three times she sends her little page
Up to the castled mountain's breast,
If he might find the Knight that wears
The Griffin for his crest..
The sun was sloping down the sky,
And she had lingered there all day,
Counting moments, dreaming fears—
O wherefore can he stay?
She hears a rustling o'er the brook,
She sees far off a swinging bough!
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