Chapter XXI: Our elder boy has got the clear

Great brow; tho' when his brother's black

Full eye shows scorn, it... Gismond here?

And have you brought my tercel back?

I just was telling Adela

How many birds it struck since May.

----R. Browning.

A LOWLAND WITCH BALLAD

|The old witch-wife beside her door

Sat spinning with a watchful ear,

A horse's hoof upon the road

Is what she waits for, longs to hear.

The mottled gloaming dusky grew,

Or else we might a furrow trace,

Sowed with small bones and leaves of yew,

Across the road from place to place.

Hark he comes! The young bridegroom,

Singing gaily down the hill,

Rides on, rides blindly to his doom,

His heart that witch hath sworn to kill.

Up to the fosse he rode so free,

There his steed stumbled and he fell,

He cannot pass, nor turn, nor flee;

His song is done, hes in the spell.

She dances round him where he stands,

Her distaff touches both his feet,

She blows upon his eyes and hands,

He has no power his fate to cheat.

"Ye cannot visit her to-night,

Nor ever again," the witch-wife cried;

"But thou shalt do as I think right,

And do it swift without a guide.

"Upon the top of Tintock Hill

This night there rests the yearly mist,

In silence go, your tongue keep still,

And find for me the dead mans kist.

"Within the kist there is a cup,

Thou'lt find it by the dead man's shine,

Take it thus! thus fold it up,--

It holds for me the wisdom-wine.

"Go to the top of Tintock hill,

Grope within that eerie mist,

Whatever happens, keep quite still

Until ye find the dead man's kist.

"The kist will open, take the cup,

Heed ye not the dead man's shine,

Take it thus, thus fold it up,

Bring it to me and I am thine."

He went, he could make answer none,

He went, he found all as she said,

Before the dawn had well begun

She had the cup from that strange bed.

Into the hut she fled at once,

She drank the wine;--forthwith behold!

A radiant damozel advance

From that black door in silken fold.

The little Circe flower she held

Towards the boy with such a smile

Made his heart leap, he was compelled

To take it gently as a child.

She turned, he followed, passed the door,

Which closed behind: at noon next day,

Ambling on his mule that way,

The Abbot found the steed, no more,

The rest was lost in glamoury.

----William Bell Scott.

THE WEIRD LADY

|The swevens came up round Harold the Earl,

Like motes in the sunnès beam;

And over him stood the Weird Lady,

In her charmed castle over the sea,

Sang ".Lie thou still and dream."

"Thy steed is dead in his stall, Earl Harold,

Since thou hast been with me;

The rust has eaten thy harness bright,

And the rats have eaten thy greyhound light,

That was so fair and free."

Mary Mother she stooped from heaven;

She wakened Earl Harold out of his sweven,

To don his harness on;

And over the land and over the sea

He wended abroad to his own countrie,

A weary way to gon.

Oh but his beard was white with eld,

Oh but his hair was gray;

He stumbled on by stock and stone,

And as he journeyed he made his moan

Along that weary way.

Earl Harold came to his castle wall;

The gate was burnt with fire;

Roof and rafter were fallen down,

The folk were strangers all in the town,

And strangers all in the shire.

Earl Harold came to a house of nuns,

And he heard the dead-bell toll;

He saw the sexton stand by a grave;

"Now Christ have mercy, who did us- save,

Upon yon fair nun's soul."

The nuns they came from the convent gate

By one, by two, by three;

They sang for the soul of a lady bright

Who died for the love of a traitor knight:

It was his own lady.

He stayed the corpse beside the grave;

"A sign, a sign!" quod he.

"Mary Mother who rulest heaven,

Send me a sign if I be forgiven

By the woman who so loved me."

F

A white dove out of the coffin flew;

Earl Harold's mouth it kist;

He fell on his face, wherever he stood;

And the white dove carried his soul to God

Or ever the bearers wist.

----C. Kingsley.

THE SANDS OF DEE

|O Mary, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home

Across the sands of Dee;"

The western wind was wild and dank with foam,

And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,

And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as eye could see.

The rolling mist came down and hid the land:

And never home came she.

"Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair--

A tress of golden hair,

A drowned maiden's hair

Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair

Among the stakes on Dee."

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,

The cruel crawling foam,

The cruel hungry foam,

To her grave beside the sea:

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home

Across the sands of Dee.

----C. Kingsley.

BALLAD OF EARL HALDAN'S DAUGHTER

|It was Earl Haldan's daughter,

She looked across the sea;

She looked across the water;

And long and loud laughed she:

"The locks of six princesses

Must be my marriage fee,

So hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat!

Who comes a wooing me?"

It was Earl Haldan's daughter,

She walked along the sand;

When she was aware of a knight so fair,

Came sailing to the land.

His sails were all of velvet,

His mast of beaten gold,

And "Hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat!

Who saileth here so bold?"

"The locks of five princesses

I won beyond the sea;

I dipt their golden tresses,

To fringe a cloak for thee.

One handful yet is wanting,

But one of all the tale;

So hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat!

Furl up thy velvet sail!"

He leapt into the water,

That rover young and bold;

He gript Earl Haldan's daughter,

He dipt her locks of gold:

"Go weep, go weep, proud maiden,

The tale is full to-day.

Now hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat!

Sail Westward ho! away!"

----C. Kingsley.

LORRAINE, LORRAINE, LORRÈE