Page images
PDF
EPUB

is by no means certain that she fulfilled the last part of the precept, for there were occasions-on market days and the like-when she reminded her husband of his liability to trip.

As for Robert, his triumph seemed to give him a new lease of life, and though he and his son-in-law were ever on the most amicable terms he never failed to assert his own pre-eminence as the ploughing champion.

IN THE PLEASAUNCE OF DAME PHANTASY.

There is a spirit in the woods.-WORDSWORTH,' Nutting.'

To dwellers in a wood every species of tree has its voice, as well as its features.— THOMAS HARDY, Under the Greenwood Tree.'

[ocr errors]

C'est la vague parole où toute la nature

S'émeut, et que la lèvre humaine ne peut dire.'

-ALBERT MOCKEL, L'Homme à la Lyre.'

DAME PHANTASY a pleasaunce hath,
A queenly pleasaunce, set with trees,
Where wanders many a wayward path
And wilful stream; and light the breeze
Lingers there whispering; and all seems
Real yet unreal: a place of dreams.

'Twas in that pleasaunce that erewhile,

When England's year was in its spring,

Dan Chaucer saw the daisies smile,

And heard the little finches sing,
While round him, in resentful mood,
Gathered the flower of womanhood.

And Spenser too, the monarch crowned
Of all the realms of Faërie,
He came to that enchanted ground;
Ah! of his coming fain was she,
The Lady, soft she kissed him there,
And twined her myrtle in his hair.

Not far from thence does Arden lie,

Nor are the Ludlow woods remote,
And those hills, clear against the sky,
Where fleecy carded cloudlets float-
There Dian, in sheen silver clad,
Shed love-light on her shepherd lad.

And 'twas, too, from a neighbouring port, Thronged by the high-pooped ships of yoreAn old-time mariners' resort

That a gaunt seaman sailed, who bore,

Hung from his neck, a golden cross :
Ill-starred he shot the albatross.

Ah! lovely, lovely is the land

Whereof that pleasaunce forms a part,
For Nature there, touched by the hand
The glowing, glorious hand of Art,
And quickening into life, unfolds
The soul of beauty that she holds.

And in that pleasaunce it befell—
How should I tell how I came there,
Whether by necromancer's spell,
Or favour of that Lady fair?-
But, as by some quick sleight, I found
Her boskages enwrap me round.

'Twas eve, Midsummer Eve; the flush,
Left by the sun's last lingering beams,
Kissed the pale skies; a fainter blush,
Such as might tinge a maiden's dreams,
Died on the waters; starshine made
Blue glow-worm light in every glade.

And as I looked, misdoubting, lo!
A stir, a shaking in the trees,
A weaving of shadows to and fro,

A flutter of shapes that by degrees
Showed woman-and around me stood
The Oread spirits of the wood.

Of shapes most diverse: from the Oak
Majestic daughters of the soil,

Strong for the glebe, sturdy of stroke;

And, yet more rugged from their toil, Elm women;-by them Birch-tree girls, With flix of hair and frolic curls,

And dainty in white linen smocks,

Laugh to the Larches, who, in turn, Laugh back, and shake their trixy locksSo gay they are !-but sad and stern, With eyes of doom, as when they gave Their wood of old for bow and glaive,

Stands, stiff of stower, each Yew-tree maid;
And there, see, shadowing the bourne
That none repass, there in deep shade,
See where the Cypress widows mourn,
And Willow damsels, wan with grief,
Droop weeping because life is brief,

And death eternal; and, hard by,
The lutist dwelling in the Pine
Sends forth a muted minstrelsy,
Sad as sedge voices, sibilline
As London's never-ceasing roar
Heard faintly, breaking on the shore

Of the Park's silence. Bold and free,
Yet virginal in austere grace,
Cinctured, short-kirtled to the knee,

With limbs clear-cut as for the chaceWhat nymphs are these, fair beyond speech?

These are the daughters of the Beech.

Ah! who shall tell those Oreads all?

From fairy Rowan light they leap,
And Aspen coy and Poplar tall,

And feathered Ash; or, statelier, sweep
From out the Cedar's gloom profound;
Or, billowy, with zones unbound,

Great Flanders creatures, slow emerge

From Chestnut clumps; while here and there, Slim vestals from the Lime-trees' verge, Fling from their censers to the air, The sweet air swooning unto death, The incense of the Summer's breath.

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

And hark they sing! Like leafage stirred
By harper fingers of the Wind,
That make a fitful music, blurred,
Shadowy, formless, undefined,
Yet haunting, for its every tone
Tells vaguely of the vast unknown-

Even such their song: it sinks, it soars,

It floats up from the depths beneath,
It ripples, whispering on dim shores,
It echoes the beyonds of death,
It lisps of life, life's hidden springs
Far in the genesis of things;

And swelling thence, it seems to voice
Life's pageant progress through the years,
The glory that would make rejoice,

The pain of it that moves to tears,
The whither in Time's scroll enfurled,
The why and wherefore of the world.

But wordless all! O, Oreads fair,

Oreads of beauty, you who come
Straight from the womb of Nature, where
The primal forces have their home,
Tell me the secret of your birth,
Read me the riddle of the earth.

In vain, in vain! Vainly I cry,
Vainly would agonise to reach
Through mists of music some reply

That, outlined clear in forms of speech,

Flits not, elusive and uncaught,

Beyond the bounds of human thought.

Vain, vain! Again and yet again,
Like echoes dwindling in the hills,
Such seems the dying song's refrain,

Its one clear message.-Silence fills
The pleasaunce, and the dark invades
The glory of its star-lit glades.

FRANK T. MARZIALS.

« PreviousContinue »