Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

And back to my grave went silently,
And soon my baby was brought to me:
My son and daughter beside me rest,
My little baby is on my breast;
Our bed is warm and our grave is deep,
But he cannot sleep, he cannot sleep!

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!
Wrapped in bands of snow-white silk with jewels glittering,
Tiny slippers of the gold upon thy feet so thin,

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,
Gold Hair, Cold Hair! raimented in silk!

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,
Upon a bed of rose's-leaves she lies and fans herself;
And though my heart is aching so for one afar from me,
I often look into thy face, and drop a tear for thee;
And I am but a peasant born, a lowly cotter's wife,
Pale Thing, Frail Thing! sucking at my life!

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.
It soothes me, though afar away I hear my daughter call:
My heart were broken if I felt no little lips at all!

If I had none to tend at all, to be its nurse and slave,
Weak Thing, Meek Thing! I should shriek and rave!

VI.

Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! lying on my knee!

If soon I be not taken back unto mine own countree,
To feel my own babe's little lips, as I am feeling thine,
To smooth the golden threads of hair, to see the blue eyes

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
Is half assuaged for Itylus,

For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.

Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
Maiden most perfect, lady of light,

With a noise of winds and many rivers,

With a clamour of waters, and with might;

Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
Over the splendour and speed of thy feet

For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,
Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.

Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?

O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her,
Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!

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,
Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,

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,
Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
Follows with dancing and fills with delight.
The Mænad and the Bassarid;

And soft as lips that laugh and hide
The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
And screen from seeing and leave in sight
The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair
Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes;
The wild vine slipping down leaves bare

Her bright breast shortening into sighs;
The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,
But the berried ivy catches and cleaves

To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare
The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.

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;

« ZurückWeiter »