INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE DARK LADIE. O LEAVE the lily on its stem; A cypress and a myrtle-bough This morn around my harp you twined, Its murmurs in the wind. And now a tale of love and woe, But most, my own dear Genevieve, And now, once more a tale of woe, And trembles on the string. Here followed the Stanzas, afterwards published separately under the titie "Love" (see p. 198), and after them came the other three stanzas printed above; the whole forming the introduction to the intended Dark Ladie, of which all that exists is subjoined. When last I sang the cruel scorn, I promised thee a sister tale, Come then, and hear what cruel wrong THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE. A FRAGMENT. BENEATH yon birch with silver bark, And there upon the moss she sits, The Dark Ladie in silent pain; The heavy tear is in her eye, And drops and swells again. Three times she sends her little page The sun was sloping down the sky, She hears a rustling o'er the brook, She springs, she clasps him round the neck, Her kisses glowing on his cheeks “My friends with rude ungentle words "My Henry, I have given thee much, gave what I can ne'er recall, I I gave my heart, I gave my peace, The Knight made answer to the Maid, "The fairest one shall be my love's, The fairest castle of the nine! Wait only till the stars peep out, The fairest shall be thine "Wait only till the hand of eve "The dark? the dark? No! not the dark? The twinkling stars? How, Henry? How? O God! 'twas in the eye of noon He pledged his sacred vow! "And in the eye of noon, my love, Shall lead me from my mother's door, "But first the nodding minstrels go "And then my love and I shall pace, And blushing bridal maids." 1799. THE DAY-DREAM. FROM AN EMIGRANT TO HIS ABSENT WIFE. If thou wert here, these tears were tears of light! My mouth half open, like a witless man, I saw our couch, I saw our quiet room, All o'er my lips a soft and breeze-like feeling- Upon a sleeping mother's lips, I guess It would have made the loving mother dream That she was softly bending down to kiss Her babe, that something more than babe did seem, A floating presence of its darling father, And yet its own dear baby self far rather! Across my chest there lay a weight, so warm! Thine, Sara, thine? O joy, if thine it were! |