Peter's Unsung Spheres

THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH

 

A FAIR, pale beauty—with a shadowy lustre 

    Flung over neck and forehead by her hair, 

Gathered behind into a golden cluster, 

    As if the morning sunshine rested there. 

 

Pensive she was, as if the spirit pondered 

    On things that rarely make the thoughts of youth ; 

Upon an angel’s wings those white thoughts wandered, 

    Asking of purer air, diviner truth. 

 

Down to the earth her large blue eyes are bending, 

    Turned on the inward world which gives their light, 

Like the first star upon the eve attending, 

    Too spiritual for day—too fair for night.   

 

Pale is her cheek, and serious is her seeming, 

    Unkindled by a blush, or by a smile— 

So might a seraph look while mournful dreaming 

    Over a world it does not share the while.

 

Oh ! there are moments when the full heart, turning 

    From this life, insufficient, vexed, and drear, 

Looks to the skies with an impatient yearning, 

    And asks the morning for another sphere. 

 

She is full young for this—when hopes lie scattered 

    Like bridal flowers, above young Pleasure’s tomb ; 

Then may the chain that binds to earth be shattered— 

    But she knows not this weariness—this gloom.

 

But not the less the worldly chain is riven— 

    The world’s joys, griefs, and cares behind her thrown. 

Such are the spirits that aspire to heaven, 

    And such the hearts that heaven stamps as its own.

 

Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839

 

THE FAIRY OF THE FOUNTAINS

 

WHY did she love her mother's so?

It hath wrought her wondrous wo.

 

Once she saw an armed knight

In the pale sepulchral light;

When the sullen starbeams throw

Evil spells on earth below:

And the moon is cold and pale,

And a voice is on the gale,

Like a lost soul's heavenward cry,

Hopeless in its agony.

 

He stood beside the castle gate,

The hour was dark, the hour was late;

With the bearing of a king

Did he at the portal ring,

And the loud and hollow bell

Sounded like a Christian's knell.

That pale child stood on the wall,

Watching there, and saw it all.

Then she was a child as fair

As the opening blossoms are:

But with large black eyes, whose light

Spoke of mystery and might.

    The stately stranger's head was bound

With a bright and golden round;

Curiously inlaid, each scale

Shone upon his glittering mail;

His high brow was cold and dim,

And she felt she hated him.

Then she heard her mother's voice,

Saying, " 'Tis not at my choice!

"Wo for ever, wo the hour,

"When you sought my secret bower,

"Listening to the word of fear,

"Never meant for human ear.

"Thy suspicion's vain endeavour,

"Wo! wo! parted us for ever."

 

Still the porter of the hall

Heeded not that crown'd knight's call.

When a glittering shape there came,

With a brow of starry flame;

And he led that knight again

O'er the bleak and barren plain.

He flung, with an appealing cry,

His dark and desperate arms on high;

And from Melusina's sight

Fled away through thickest night.

    Who has not, when but a child,

Treasured up some vision wild:

Haunting them with nameless fear,

Filling all they see or hear,

In the midnight's lonely hour,

With a strange mysterious power?

So a terror undefined

Entered in that infant mind;--

A fear that haunted her alone,

For she told her thought to none.

 

    Years passed on, and each one threw,

O'er those walls a deeper hue;

Large and old the ivy leaves

Heavy hung around the eaves,

Till the darksome rooms within

Daylight never entered in.

And the spider's silvery line

Was the only thing to shine.

    Years past on,—the fair child now

Wore maiden beauty on her brow—

Beauty such as rarely flowers

In a fallen world like ours.

She was tall;—a queen might wear

Such a proud imperial air;

She was tall, yet when unbound,

Swept her bright hair to the ground,

Glittering like the gold you see

On a young laburnum tree.

Yet her eyes were dark as night,

Melancholy as moonlight,

With the fierce and wilder ray

Of a meteor on its way.

Lonely was her childhood's time,

Lonelier was her maiden prime;

And she wearied of the hours

Wasted in those gloomy towers;

Sometimes through the sunny sky

She would watch the swallows fly;

Making of the air a bath,

    In a thousand joyous rings:

She would ask of them their path,

    She would ask of them their wings.

Once her stately mother came,

With her dark eye's funeral flame,

And her cheek as pale as death,

And her cold and whispering breath;

With her sable garments bound

By a mystic girdle round,

Which, when to the east she turned,

With a sudden lustre burned.

Once that ladye, dark and tall,

Stood upon the castle wall;

And she marked her daughter's eyes

Fix'd upon the glad sunrise,

With a sad yet eager look,

Such as fixes on a book

Which describes some happy lot,

Lit with joys that we have not.

And the thought of what has been,

    And the thought of what might be,

Makes us crave the fancied scene,

    And despise reality.

'Twas a drear and desert plain

Lay around their own domain;

But, far off, a world more fair

Outlined on the sunny air;

Hung amid the purple clouds,

With which early morning shrouds

All her blushes, brief and bright,

Waking up from sleep and night.

    In a voice so low and dread,

As a voice that wakes the dead;

Then that stately lady said:

"Daughter of a kingly line,—

''Daughter, too, of race like mine,—

"Such a kingdom had been thine;

"For thy father was a king,

"Whom I wed with word and ring.

"But in an unhappy hour,

"Did he pass my secret bower,—

"Did he listen to the word,

"Mortal ear hath never heard;

"From that hour of grief and pain

"Might we never meet again.

    "Maiden, listen to my rede,

"Punished for thy father's deed:

"Here, an exile I must stay,

"While he sees the light of day.

"Child, his race is mixed in thee,

"With mine own more high degree.

"Hadst thou at Christ's altar stood,

"Bathed in His redeeming flood;

"Thou of my wild race had known

"But its loveliness alone.

"Now thou hast a mingled dower,

"Human passion—fairy power.

"But forefend thee from the last:

"Be its gifts behind thee cast.

"Many tears will wash away

"Mortal sin from mortal clay.

"Keep thou then a timid eye

"On the hopes that fill yon sky;

"Bend thou with a suppliant knee,

"And thy soul yet saved may be;—

"Saved by Him who died to save

"Man from death beyond the grave."

Easy 'tis advice to give,

    Hard it is advice to take

Years that lived—and years to live,

    Wide and weary difference make.

To that elder ladye's mood,

Suited silent solitude:

For her lorn heart's wasted soil

Now repaid not hope's sweet toil.

Never more could spring-flowers grow,

On the worn-out soil below;

But to the young Melusine,

Earth and heaven were yet divine.

Still illusion's purple light

    Was upon the morning tide,

And there rose before her sight

    The loveliness of life untried.

Three sweet genii,—Youth, Love, Hope,—

Drew her future horoscope.

Must such lights themselves consume?

Must she be her own dark tomb?

But far other thoughts than these—

Life's enchanted phantasies,

Were with Melusina now,

Stern and dark contracts her brow;

And her bitten lip is white,

As with passionate resolve,

Muttered she,—"It is my right;

"On me let the task devolve:

"Since such blood to me belongs;

    "I shall seek its own bright sphere;

"I will well avenge the wrongs

    "Of my mother exiled here."

 *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Two long years are come and past,

And the maiden's lot is cast;—

Cast in mystery and power,

Worked out by the watching hour,

By the word that spirits tell,

By the sign and by the spell.

Two long years have come and gone,

And the maiden dwells alone.

For the deed which she hath done,

Is she now a banished one;—

Banished from her mother's arms,

Banished by her mother's charms,

With a curse of grief and pain,

Never more to meet again.

Great was the revenge she wrought,

Dearly that revenge was bought.

 

    When the maiden felt her powers,

Straight she sought her father's towers.

With a sign, and with a word,

Passed she on unseen, unheard,

One, a pallid minstrel born

On Good Friday's mystic morn,

Said he saw a lady there,

Tall and stately, strange and fair,

With a stern and glittering eye,

Like a shadow gliding by.

All was fear and awe next day,

For the king had passed away.

He had pledged his court at night,

In the red grape's flowing light.

All his pages saw him sleeping;

Next day there was wail and weeping.

Halls and lands were wandered o'er,

But they saw their king no more.

    Strange it is, and sad to tell,

What the royal knight befell.

Far upon a desert land,

Does a mighty mountain stand;

On its summit there is snow,

While the bleak pines moan below;

And within there is a cave

Opened for a monarch's grave

Bound in an enchanted sleep

She hath laid him still and deep.

She, his only child, has made

That strange tomb where he is laid:

Nothing more of earth to know,

Till the final trumpet blow.

Mortal lip nor mortal ear,

Were not made to speak nor hear

That accursed word which sealed,—

All those gloomy depths concealed.

    With a look of joy and pride,

Then she sought her mother's side.

Whispering, on her bended knee,

"Oh! my mother, joyous be;

"For the mountain torrents spring

"O'er that faithless knight and king."

Not another word she spoke,

For her speech a wild shriek broke;

For the widowed queen upsprung,

Wild her pale thin hands she wrung.

With her black hair falling round,

Flung her desperate on the ground;

While young Melusine stood by,

With a fixed and fearful eye.

    When her agony was past,

Slowly rose the queen at last;

With her black hair, like a shroud,

And her bearing high and proud;

With the marble of her brow,

Colder than its custom now;

And her eye with a strange light

Seemed to blast her daughter's sight.

And she felt her whole frame shrink,

And her young heart's pulses sink;

And the colour left her mouth,

    As she saw her mother signing,

One stern hand towards the south,

    Where a strange red star was shining.

With a muttered word and gaze,

Fixed upon its vivid rays;

Then she spoke but in a tone,

Hers, yet all unlike her own.—

"Spirit of our spirit-line,

"Curse for me this child of mine.

"Six days yield not to our powers,

"But the seventh day is ours.

"By yon star, and by our line,

"Be thou cursed, maiden mine."

Then the maiden felt hot pain

Run through every burning vein.

Sudden with a fearful cry

Writhes she in her agony;

Burns her cheek as with a flame,

For the maiden knows her shame.

 

PART II.

 

By a lovely river's side,

Where the water-lilies glide,

Pale, as if with constant care

Of the treasures which they bear;

For those ivory vases hold

Each a sunny gilt of gold.

And blue flowers on the banks,

Grow in wild and drooping ranks,

Bending mournfully above,

O'er the waters which they love;

But which bear off, day by day,

Their shadow and themselves away.

Willows by that river grow

With their leaves half green, half snow,

Summer never seems to be

Present all with that sad tree.

With its bending boughs are wrought

Tender and associate thought,

Of the wreaths that maidens wear

In their long neglected hair.

Of the branches that are thrown

On the last, the funeral stone.

And of those torn wreaths that suit

Youthful minstrel's wasted lute.

    But the stream is gay to-night

With the full-moon's golden light,

And the air is sweet with singing,

And the joyous horn is ringing,

While fair groups of dancers round

Circle the enchanted ground.

And a youthful warrior stands

Gazing not upon those bands,

Not upon the lovely scene,

But upon its lovelier queen,

Who with gentle word and smile

Courteous prays his stay awhile.

    The fairy of the fountains, she

A strange and lovely mystery,

She of whom wild tales have birth,

When beside a winter hearth,

By some aged crone is told,

Marvel new or legend old.

But the lady fronts him there,

He but sees she is so fair,

He but hears that in her tone

Dwells a music yet unknown;

He but feels that he could die

For the sweetness of her sigh.

But how many dreams take flight

With the dim enamoured night;

Cold the morning light has shone,

And the fairy train are gone,

Melted in the dewy air,

Lonely stands young Raymond there.

Yet not all alone, his heart

Hath a dream that will not part

From that beating heart's recess;

What that dream that lovers guess.

 

    Yet another year hath flown

In a stately hall alone,

Like an idol in a shrine

Sits the radiant Melusine.

It is night, yet o'er the walls,

Light, but light unearthly, falls.

Not from lamp nor taper thrown,

But from many a precious stone,

With whose variegated shade

Is the azure roof inlaid,

And whose coloured radiance throws

Hues of violet, and rose.

Sixty pillars, each one shining

With a wreath of rubies twining,

Bear the roof—the snow-white floor

Is with small stars studded o'er.

Sixty vases stand between,

Filled with perfumes for a queen;

And a silvery cloud exhales

Odours like those fragrant gales,

Which at eve float o'er the sea

From the purple Araby.

Nothing stirs the golden gloom

Of that dim enchanted room.

Not a step is flitting round,

Not a noise, except the sound

Of the distant fountains falling,

With a soft perpetual calling,

To the echoes which reply

Musical and mournfully.

 

    Sits the fairy ladye there,

Like a statue, pale and fair;

From her cheek the rose has fled,

Leaving deeper charms instead.

On that marble brow are wrought

Traces of impassioned thought;

Such as without shade or line

Leave their own mysterious sign.

While her eyes, they are so bright,

Dazzle with imperious light.

Wherefore doth the maiden bend?

Wherefore doth the blush ascend,

Crimson even to her brow,

Sight nor step are near her now?

Hidden by her sweeping robe,

Near her stands a crystal globe,

Gifted with strange power to show

All that she desires to know.

    First she sees her palace gate,

With its steps of marble state;

Where two kneeling forms seem weeping

O'er the watch which they are keeping,

While around the dusky boughs

Of a gloomy forest close,

Not for those that blush arose.

But she sees beside the gate,

A young and anxious palmer wait;

Well she knows it is for her,

He has come a worshipper.

For a year and for a day.

Hath he worn his weary way;

Now a sign from that white hand,

And the portals open stand.

But a moment, and they meet,

Raymond kneels him at her feet;

Reading in her downcast eye,

All that woman can reply.

    Weary, weary had the hours

Passed within her fairy bowers;

She was haunted with a dream

Of the knight beside the stream.

Who hath never felt the sense

Of such charmed influence.

When the shapes of midnight sleep

One beloved object keep,

Which amid the cares of day

Never passes quite away?

Guarded for the sweetest mood

Of our happy solitude,

Linked with every thing we love,

Flower below, or star above:

Sweet spell after sweet spell thrown

Till the wide world is its own.

    Turned the ladye deadly pale,

As she heard her lover's tale,

"Yes," she said, oh! low sweet word,

Only in a whisper heard.

"Yes, if my true heart may be

Worthy, Christian knight, of thee,

By the love that makes thee mine

I am deeply, dearly thine.

But a spell is on me thrown,

Six days may each deed be shown.

But the seventh day must be

Mine, and only known to me.

Never must thy step intrude

On its silent solitude.

Hidden from each mortal eye

Until seven years pass by.

When these seven years are flown,

All my secret may be known.

But if, with suspicious eye,

Thou on those dark hours wilt pry,

Then farewell, beloved in vain,

Never might we meet again."

Gazing on one worshipped brow,

When hath lover spared a vow?

With an oath and with a prayer

Did he win the prize he sought.

Never was a bride so fair

As the bride that Raymond brought

From the wood's enchanted bowers

To his old ancestral towers.

——Oh, sweet love, could thy first prime

Linger on the steps of time,

Man would dream the unkind skies

Sheltered still a Paradise.

But, alas, the serpent's skill

Is amid our garden still.

    Soon a dark inquiring thought

On the baron's spirit wrought:

She, who seemed to love him so,

Had she aught he might not know?

Was it wo, how could she bear

Grief he did not soothe nor share?

Was it guilt? no—heaven's own grace

Lightened in that loveliest face.

Then his jealous fancies rose,

(Our Lady keep the mind from those!)

Like a fire within the brain,

Maddens that consuming pain.

Henceforth is no rest by night,

Henceforth day has no delight.

Life hath agonies that tell

Of their late left native hell.

But mid their despair is none

Like that of the jealous one.

    'Tis again the fatal day,

When the ladye must away,

To her lonely palace made

Far within the forest shade,

Where the mournful fountains sweep

With a voice that seems to weep.

On that morn Lord Raymond's bride

Ere the daybreak leaves his side.

Never does the ladye speak

But her tears are on his cheek,

And he hears a stifled moan

As she leaves him thus alone.

Hath she then complaint to make,

Is there yet some spell to break?

Come what will, of weal or wo,

'Tis the best the worst to know.

 

He hath followed—wo, for both,

That the knight forgot his oath.

    Where the silvery fountains fall,

Stands no more the charmed hall;

But the dismal yew-trees droop,

And the pines above them stoop,

While the gloomy branches spread,

As they would above the dead,

In some churchyard large and drear

Haunted with perpetual fear.

Dark and still like some vast grave,

Near there yawns a night-black cave.

O'er its mouth wild ivy twines

There the daylight never shines.

Beast of prey or dragon's lair,

Yet the knight hath entered there.

    Dimly doth the distant day

Scatter an uncertain ray,

While strange shapes and ghastly eyes

Mid the spectral darkness rise.

But he hurries on, and near

He sees a sudden light appear,

Wan and cold like that strange lamp

Which amid the charnel's damp

Shows but brightens not the gloom

Of the corpse and of the tomb.

With a cautious step he steals

To the cave that light reveals.

'Tis such grotto as might be,

Nereïd's home beneath the sea.

Crested with the small bright stars

Of a thousand rainbow spars.

And a fountain from the side

Pours beneath its crystal tide,

In a white and marble bath

Singing on its silvery path;

While a meteor's emerald rays

O'er the lucid water plays.—

Close beside, with wild flowers laid,

Is a couch of green moss made.

There he sees his lady lie;

Pain is in her languid eye,

And amid her hair the dew

Half obscures its golden hue;

Damp and heavy, and unbound,

Its wan clusters sweep around.

On her small hand leans her head,—

See the fevered cheek is red,

And the fiery colour rushes

To her brow in hectic blushes.—

What strange vigil is she keeping!

He can hear that she is weeping.—

He will fling him at her feet,

    He will kiss away her tears.

Ah, what doth his wild eyes meet,

    What below that form appears?

Downwards from that slender waist,

By a golden zone embraced,

Do the many folds escape,

Of the subtle serpent's shape.—

Bright with many-coloured dyes

All the glittering scales arise,

With a red and purple glow

Colouring the waves below!

At the strange and fearful sight,

Stands in mute despair the knight,—

Soon to feel a worse despair,

Melusina sees him there!

And to see him is to part

With the idol of her heart,

Part as just the setting sun

Tells the fatal day is done.

Vanish all those serpent rings,

To her feet the lady springs,

And the shriek rings through the cell,

Of despairing love's farewell,—

Hope and happiness are o'er,

They can meet on earth no more.

  *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Years have past since this wild tale—

Still is heard that lady's wail,

Ever round that ancient tower,

Ere its lord's appointed hour.

With a low and moaning breath

She must mark approaching death,

While remains Lord Raymond's line

Doomed to wander and to pine.

Yet, before the stars are bright,

On the evening's purple light,

She beside the fountain stands

Wringing sad her shadowy hands.

May our Lady, as long years

Pass with their atoning tears,

Pardon with her love divine

The fountain fairy—Melusine! * 

 

Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835