Kitabı oku: «Elves and Heroes», sayfa 4

THE CHANGELING

 
By night they came and from my bed
  They stole my babe, and left behind
A thing I hate, a thing I dread—
  A changeling who is old and blind;
He's moaning all the night and day
For those who took my babe away.
 
 
My little babe was sweet and fair,
  He crooned to sleep upon my breast—
But O the burden I must bear!
  This drinks all day and will not rest—
My little babe had hair so light—
And his is growing dark as night.
 
 
Yon evil day when I would leave
  My little babe the stook behind!—
The fairies coming home at eve
  Upon an eddy of the wind,
Would cast their eyes with envy deep
Upon my heart's-love in his sleep.
 
 
What holy woman will ye find
  To weave a spell and work a charm?
A holy woman, pure and kind,
  Who'll keep my little babe from harm—
Who'll make the evil changeling flee,
And bring my sweet one back to me?
 

MY FAIRY LOVER

 
My fairy lover, my fairy lover,
  My fair, my rare one, come back to me—
All night I'm sighing, for thee I'm crying,
  I would be dying, my love, for thee.
 
 
Thine eyes were glowing like blue-bells blowing,
  With dew-drops twinkling their silvery fires;
Thine heart was panting with love enchanting,
  For mine was granting its fond desires.
 
 
    My fairy lover, my fairy lover,
      My fair, my rare one, come back to me—
    All night I'm sighing, for thee I'm crying,
      I would be dying, my love, for thee.
 
 
Thy brow had brightness and lily-whiteness,
  Thy cheeks were clear as yon crimson sea;
Like broom-buds gleaming, thy locks were streaming,
  As I lay dreaming, my love, of thee.
 
 
    My fairy lover, my fairy lover,
      My fair, my rare one, come back to me—
    All night I'm sighing, for thee I'm crying,
      I would be dying, my love, for thee.
 
 
Thy lips that often with love would soften,
  They beamed like blooms for the honey-bee;
Thy voice came ringing like some bird singing
  When thou wert bringing thy gifts to me.
 
 
    My fairy lover, my fairy lover,
      My fair, my rare one, come back to me—
    All night I'm sighing, for thee I'm crying,
      I would be dying, my love, for thee.
 
 
O thou'rt forgetting the hours we met in
  The Vale of Tears at the even-tide,
Or thou'd come near me to love and cheer me,
  And whisper clearly, "O be my bride!"
 
 
    My fairy lover, my fairy lover,
      My fair, my rare one, come back to me—
    All night I'm sighing, for thee I'm crying,
      I would be dying, my love, for thee.
 
 
What spell can bind thee? I search to find thee
  Around the knoll that thy home would be—
Where thou did'st hover, my fairy lover,
  The clods will cover and comfort me.
 
 
    My fairy lover, my fairy lover,
      My fair, my rare one, come back to me—
    All night I'm sighing, on thee I'm crying,
      I would be dying, my love, for thee.
 

THE FIANS OF KNOCKFARREL

(A Ross-shire Legend.)

I

 
On steep Knockfarrel had the Fians made,
For safe retreat, a high and strong stockade
Around their dwellings. And when winter fell
And o'er Strathpeffer laid its barren spell—
When days were bleak with storm, and nights were drear
And dark and lonesome, well they loved to hear
The songs of Ossian, peerless and sublime—
Their blind, grey bard, grown old before his time,
Lamenting for his son—the young, the brave
Oscar, who fell beside the western wave
In Gavra's bloody and unequal fight.
 
 
Round Ossian would they gather in the night,
Beseeching him for song … And when he took
His clarsach, from the magic strings he shook
A maze of trembling music, falling sweet
As mossy waters in the summer heat;
And soft as fainting moor-winds when they leave
The fume of myrtle, on a dewy eve,
Bound flush'd and teeming tarns that all night hear
Low elfin pipings in the woodlands near.
 
 
'Twas thus he sang of love, and in a dream
The fair maids sighed to hear. But when his theme
Was the long chase that Finn and all his men
Followed with lightsome heart from glen to glen—
His song was free as morn, and clear and loud
As skylarks carolling below a cloud
In sweet June weather … And they heard the fall
Of mountain streams, the huntsman's windy call
Across the heaving hills, the baying hound
Among the rocks, while echoes answered round—
They heard, and shared the gladness of the chase.
 
 
He sang the glories of the Fian race,
Whose fame is flashed through Alba far and wide—
Their valorous deeds he sang with joy and pride …
When their dark foemen from the west came o'er
The ragged hills, and when on Croumba's shore
The Viking hordes descending, fought and fled—
And when brave Conn, who would avenge the Red,
By one-eyed Goll was slain. Of Finn he sang,
And Dermaid, while the clash of conflict rang
In billowy music through the heroes' hall—
And many a Fian gave the battle-call
When Ossian sang.
 
 
                  Haggard and old, with slow
And falt'ring steps, went Winter through the snow,
As if its dreary round would ne'er be done—
The last long winter of their days—begun
Ere yet the latest flush of falling leaves
Had faded in the breath of chilling eves;
Nor ended in the days of longer light,
When dawn and eve encroached upon the night—
A weary time it was! The long Strath lay
Snow-wreathed and pathless, and from day to day
The tempests raved across the low'ring skies,
And they grew weak and pale, with hollow eyes,
The while their stores shrank low, waiting the dawn
Of that sweet season when through woodlands wan
Fresh flowers flutter and the wild birds sing—
For Winter on the forelock of the Spring
Its icy fingers laid. The huntsmen pined
In their dim dwellings, wearily confined,
While the loud, hungry tempest held its sway—
The red-eyed wolves grew bold and came by day,
And birds fell frozen in the snow.
 
 
                                   Then through
The trackless Strath a balmy south wind blew
To usher lusty Spring. Lo! in a night
The snows 'gan shrinking upon plain and height,
And morning broke in brightness to the sound
Of falling waters, while a peace profound
Possessed the world around them, and the blue
Bared heaven above … Then all the Fians knew
That Winter's spell was broken, and each one
Made glad obeisance to the golden sun.
 
 
Three days around Knockfarrel they pursued
The chase across the hills and through the wood,
Round Ussie Loch and Dingwall's soundless shore;
But meagre were the burdens that they bore
At even to their dwellings. To the west
"But sorrow not," said Finn, when all dismay'd
They hastened on a drear and bootless quest—
With weary steps they turned to their stockade,
"To-morrow will we hunt towards the east
To high Dunskaith, and then make gladsome feast
By night when we return."
 
 
                          Or ever morn
Had broken, Finn arose, and on his horn
Blew loud the huntsman's blast that round the ben
Was echoed o'er and o'er … Then all his men
Gathered about him in the dusk, nor knew
What dim forebodings filled his heart and drew
His brows in furrowed care. His eyes a-gleam
Still stared upon the horrors of a dream
Of evil omen that in vain he sought
To solve … His voice came faint from battling thought,
As he to Garry spake—"Be thou the ward
Strong son of Morna: who, like thee, can guard
Our women from all peril!" … Garry turned
From Finn in sullen silence, for he yearned
To join the chase once more. In stature he
Was least of all the tribe, but none could be
More fierce in conflict, fighting in the van,
Than that grim, wolfish, and misshapen man!
 
 
Then Finn to Caoilte spake, and gave command
To hasten forth before the Fian band—
The King of Scouts was he! And like the deer
He sped to find if foemen had come near—
Fierce, swarthy hillmen, waiting at the fords
For combat eager, or red Viking hordes
From out the Northern isles … In Alba wide
No runner could keep pace by Caoilte's side,
And ere the Fians, following in his path,
Had wended from the deep and dusky strath,
He swept o'er Clyne, and heard the awesome owls
That hoot afar and near in woody Foulis,
And he had reached the slopes of fair Rosskeen
Ere Finn by Fyrish came.
 
 
                         The dawn broke green—
For the high huntsman of the morn had flung
His mantle o'er his back: stooping, he strung
His silver bow; then rising, bright and bold,
He shot a burning arrow of pure gold
That rent the heart of Night.
 
 
                              As far behind
The Fians followed, Caoilte, like the wind,
Sped on—yon son of Ronan—o'er the wide
And marshy moor, and 'thwart the mountain side,—
By Delny's shore far-ebbed, and wan, and brown,
And through the woods of beautous Balnagown:
The roaring streams he vaulted on his spear,
And foaming torrents leapt, as he drew near
The sandy slopes of Nigg. He climbed and ran
Till high above Dunskaith he stood to scan
The outer ocean for the Viking ships,
Peering below his hand, with panting lips
A-gape, but wide and empty lay the sea
Beyond the barrier crags of Cromarty,
To the far sky-line lying blue and bare—
For no red pirate sought as yet to dare
The gloomy hazards of the fitful seas,
The gusty terrors, and the treacheries
Of fickle April and its changing skies—
And while he scanned the waves with curious eyes,
The sea-wind in his nostrils, who had spent
A long, bleak winter in Knockfarrel pent
Over the snow-wreathed Strath and buried wood,
A sense of freedom tingled in his blood—
The large life of the Ocean, heaving wide,
His heart possessed with gladness and with pride,
And he rejoiced to be alive…. Once more
He heard the drenching waves on that rough shore
Raking the shingles, and the sea-worn rocks
Sucking the brine through bared and lapping locks
Of bright, brown tangle; while the shelving ledges
Poured back the swirling waters o'er their edges;
And billows breaking on a precipice
In spouts of spray, fell spreading like a fleece.
 
 
Sullen and sunken lay the reef, with sleek
And foaming lips, before the flooded creek
Deep-bunched with arrowy weed, its green expanse
Wind-wrinkled and translucent … A bright trance
Of sun-flung splendour lay athwart the wide
Blue ocean swept with loops of silvern tide
Heavily heaving in a long, slow swell.
 
 
A lonely fisher in his coracle
Came round a headland, lifted on a wave
That bore him through the shallows to his cave,
Nor other being he saw.
 
 
                        The birds that flew
Clamorous about the cliffs, and diving drew
Their prey from bounteous waters, on him cast
Cold, beady eyes of wonder, wheeling past
And sliding down the wind.
 

II

 
                           The warm sun shone
On blind, grey Ossian musing all alone
Upon a knoll before the high stockade,
When Oscar's son came nigh. His hand he laid
On the boy's curls, and then his fingers strayed
Over the face and round the tender chin—
"Be thou as brave as Oscar, wise as Finn,"
Said Ossian, with a sigh. "Nay, I would be
A bard," the boy made answer, "like to thee."
"Alas! my son," the gentle Ossian said,
"My song was born in sorrow for the dead!…
O may such grief as Ossian's ne'er be thine!—
If thou would'st sing, may thou below the pine
Murmuring, thy dreams conceive, and happy be,
Nor hear but sorrow in the breaking sea
And death-sighs in the gale. Alas! my song
That rose in sorrow must survive in wrong—
My life is spent and vain—a day of thine
Were better than a long, dark year of mine….
But come, my son—so lead me by the hand—
To hear the sweetest harper in the land—
The wild, free wind of Spring; all o'er the hills
And under, let us go, by tuneful rills
We'll wander, and my heart shall sweetened be
With echoes of the moorland melody—
My clarsach wilt thou bear." And so went they
Together from Knockfarrel. Long they lay
Within the woods of Brahan, and by the shore
Of silvery Conon wended, crossing o'er
The ford at Achilty, where Ossian told
The tale of Finn, who there had slain the bold
Black Arky in his youth. And ere the tale
Was ended, they had crossed to Tarradale.
Where dwelt a daughter of an ancient race
Deep-learned in lore, and with the gift to trace
The thread of life in the dark web of fate.
And she to Ossian cried, "Thou comest late
Too late, alas! this day of all dark days—
Knockfarrel is before me all ablaze—
A fearsome vision flaming to mine eyes—
O beating heart that bleeds! I hear the cries
Of those that perish in yon high stockade—
O many a tender lad, and lonesome maid,
Sweet wife and sleeping babe, and hero old—
O Ossian could'st thou see—O child, behold
Yon ruddy, closing clouds … so falls the fate
Of all the tribe … Alas! thou comest late." …