And back to my grave went silently, THE FAERY FOSTER-MOTHER. I. BRIGHT Eyes, Light Eyes! Daughter of a Fay! I had not been a married wife a twelvemonth and a day, I had not nursed my little one a month upon my knee, When down among the blue-bell banks rose elfins three times three : They griped me by the raven hair, I could not cry for fear, They put a hempen rope around my waist and dragged me here; They made me sit and give thee suck as mortal mothers can, Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! strange and weak and wan! II. Dim Face, Grim Face! lie ye there so still? Thy red, red lips are at my breast, and thou mayst suck thy fill; But know ye, though I hold thee firm, and rock thee to and fro, 'Tis not to soothe thee into sleep, but just to still my woe? And know ye, when I lean so calm against the wall of stone, Tis when I shut my eyes and try to think thou art mine own? And know ye, though my milk be here, my heart is far away, Dim Face, Grim Face! Daughter of a Fay! III. Gold Hair, Cold Hair! Daughter to a King! Silver cradle velvet-lined for thee to slumber in, Pigmy pages, crimson-haired, to serve thee on their knees, To bring thee toys and greenwood flowers and honey-bags of bees, I was but a peasant-lass, my babe had but the milk, IV. Pale Thing, Frail Thing! dumb and weak and thin, Although thou ne'er dost utter sigh, thou'rt shadowed with a sin; Thy minnie scorns to suckle thee, thy minnie is an elf, V. Weak Thing, Meek Thing! take no blame from me, Although my babe may fade for lack of what I give to thee; For though thou art a stranger thing, and though thou art my woe, To feel thee sucking at my breast is all the joy I know. If I had none to tend at all, to be its nurse and slave, VI. Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! lying on my knee! If soon I be not taken back unto mine own countree, shine,- I'll lean my head against the wall and close my weary eyes, And think my own babe draws the milk with balmy pants and sighs, And smile and bless my little one, and sweetly pass away, Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! Daughter of a Fay! Algernon Charles Swinburne. CHORUS. (From "ATALANTA IN CALYDON.") WHEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amorous For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers, With a noise of winds and many rivers, With a clamour of waters, and with might; Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers, Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her, O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her, For the stars and the winds are unto her As raiment, as songs of the harp-player; For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her, And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing. For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. The full streams feed on flower of rushes, The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes From leaf to flower and flower to fruit; And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire, And the oat is heard above the lyre, And the hoofed heel of a satyr crushes The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root. And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night, And soft as lips that laugh and hide The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair Her bright breast shortening into sighs; To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare CHORUS. EFORE the beginning of years BE There came to the making of man Time, with a gift of tears; Grief, with a glass that ran; |