Betrayal

Give me the pulse of the tide again
    And the slow lapse of the leaves,
The rustling gold of a field of grain
    And a bird in the nested eaves;

And a fishing-smack in the old harbour
    Where all was happy and young;
And an echo or two of the songs I knew
    When songs could still be sung.

For I would empty my heart of all
    This world's implacable roar,
And I would turn to my home, and fall
    Asleep in my home once more;

And I would forget what the cities say,
    And the folly of all the wise,
And turn to my own true folk this day,
    And the love in their constant eyes.

There is peace, peace, where the sea-birds wheel,
    And peace in the breaking wave;
And I have a broken heart to heal,
    And a broken so...

The Text.--As printed in Sharpe's Ballad Book, from the Skene MS. (No. 8). It is fragmentary--regrettably so, especially as stanzas 10-12 belong to Thomas Rymer.


The Story is the well-known one of the abduction of a young mother to be the Queen of Elfland's nurse. Fairies, elves, water-sprites, and nisses or brownies, have constantly required mortal assistance in the nursing of fairy children. Gervase of Tilbury himself saw a woman stolen away for this purpose, as she was washing clothes in the Rhone.

The genuineness of this ballad, deficient as it is, is best proved by its lyrical nature, which, as Child says, 'forces you to chant, and will not be read.'

'Elfan,' of course, is Elfland; 'nourice,' a nurse.


THE QUEEN OF ELFAN'S NOURICE

    1.
    'I heard a cow ...

Captain, or colonel, or knight in arms,
Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize,
If deed of honour did thee ever please,
Guard them, and him within protect from harms.
He can requite thee, for he knows the charms
That call fame on such gentle acts as these,
And he can spread thy name o’er lands and seas,
Whatever clime the sun’s bright circle warms.
Lift not thy spear against the Muse’s bower;
The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground; and the repeated air
Of sad Electra’s Poet had the power
To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare.

    For years it had been neglected,
    This wilderness garden of ours,
    And its ruin had shone reflected
    In its pools through abandoned hours.
    For none had cared for its beauty
    Till we came, the strangers, the Giaours,
    And none had thought of a duty
    Towards its squandering flowers.

    Of broken wells and fountains
    There were half a dozen or more,
    And, beyond the sea, the mountains
    Of that far Bithynian shore
    Were blue in the purple distance
    And white was the cap they wore,
    And never in our existence
    Had life seemed brighter before!

    And the fruit-trees grew in profusion,
    Quince and pomegranate and wine,
    And the roses in rich confusion
    With the lilac intertwine,

Time drops in decay,
Like a candle burnt out,
And the mountains and woods
Have their day, have their day;
What one in the rout
Of the fire-born moods,
Has fallen away?

Sweet little myth of the nursery story -
    Earliest love of mine infantile breast,
Be something tangible, bloom in thy glory
    Into existence, as thou art addressed!
Hasten! appear to me, guileless and good -
    Thou are so dear to me, Red Riding-Hood!

Azure-blue eyes, in a marvel of wonder,
    Over the dawn of a blush breaking out;
Sensitive nose, with a little smile under
    Trying to hide in a blossoming pout -
Couldn't be serious, try as you would,
    Little mysterious Red Riding-Hood!

Hah! little girl, it is desolate, lonely,
    Out in this gloomy old forest of Life! -
Here are not pansies and buttercups only -
    Brambles and briers as keen as a knife;
And a Heart, ravenous, trails in the wood
For the meal have he must, - Red R...

"Saint Praxed's ever was the Church for peace"


If down here I chance to die,
Solemnly I beg you take
All that is left of "I"
To the Hills for old sake's sake,
Pack me very thoroughly
In the ice that used to slake
Pegs I drank when I was dry,
This observe for old sake's sake.

To the railway station hie,
There a single ticket take
For Umballa, goods-train, I
Shall not mind delay or shake.
I shall rest contentedly
Spite of clamour coolies make;
Thus in state and dignity
Send me up for old sake's sake.

Next the sleepy Babu wake,
Book a Kalka van "for four."
Few, I think, will care to make
Journeys with me any more
As they used to do of yore.
I shall need a "special" brake,
'Thing I never took before,
...

When beauty grows too great to bear
How shall I ease me of its ache,
For beauty more than bitterness
Makes the heart break.

Now while I watch the dreaming sea
With isles like flowers against her breast,
Only one voice in all the world
Could give me rest.

In these fair vales hath many a Tree
At Wordsworth's suit been spared;
And from the builder's hand this Stone,
For some rude beauty of its own,
Was rescued by the Bard:
So let it rest; and time will come
When here the tender-hearted
May heave a gentle sigh for him,
As one of the departed.

She comes not with the conscious grace
    Of gentle, winsome womanhood,
Nor yet, withal, the flaunting face
    Of men and women understood,
But rather as a thing apart,
    A wind-blown petal of a rose,
A specter with a specter's heart
    That cometh once--and goes.

Her eyes some trace of cold, white light
    Within their haunted depths still hold,
Though hunger's fever made them bright,
    And lack of pity made them cold.
We know her when she passes by,
    Whom no one loves or chides or greets--
The woman with the cold, bright eye--
    Our sister of the streets.

We know the tawdry arts she tries,
    The tint of cheek, the gold of hair,
To mimic nature for the eyes
    Of those who scorn her paltry care,
And spurn those ...

Another day awakes. And who -
    Changing the world - is this?
He comes at whiles, the Winter through,
    West Wind! I would not miss
His sudden tryst: the long, the new
    Surprises of his kiss.

Vigilant, I make haste to close
    With him who comes my way.
I go to meet him as he goes;
    I know his note, his lay,
His colour and his morning rose;
    And I confess his day.

My window waits; at dawn I hark
    His call; at morn I meet
His haste around the tossing park
    And down the softened street;
The gentler light is his; the dark,
    The grey - he turns it sweet.

So too, so too, do I confess
    My poet when he sings.
He rushes on my mortal guess
    With his immortal things.
I feel, I know him. On I pr...

1.
A cat in distress,
Nothing more, nor less;
Good folks, I must faithfully tell ye,
As I am a sinner,
It waits for some dinner
To stuff out its own little belly.

2.
You would not easily guess
All the modes of distress
Which torture the tenants of earth;
And the various evils,
Which like so many devils,
Attend the poor souls from their birth.

3.
Some a living require,
And others desire
An old fellow out of the way;
And which is the best
I leave to be guessed,
For I cannot pretend to say.

4.
One wants society,
Another variety,
Others a tranquil life;
Some want food,
Others, as good,
Only want a wife.

5.
But this poor little cat
Only wanted a rat,
To stuff out its ...

I.

O Age that half believ'st thou half believ'st,
Half doubt'st the substance of thine own half doubt,
And, half perceiving that thou half perceiv'st,
Stand'st at thy temple door, heart in, head out!
Lo! while thy heart's within, helping the choir,
Without, thine eyes range up and down the time,
Blinking at o'er-bright science, smit with desire
To see and not to see. Hence, crime on crime.
Yea, if the Christ (called thine) now paced yon street,
Thy halfness hot with His rebuke would swell;
Legions of scribes would rise and run and beat
His fair intolerable Wholeness twice to hell.
`Nay' (so, dear Heart, thou whisperest in my soul),
`'Tis a half time, yet Time will make it whole.'


II.

Now at thy soft recalling voice I rise
Where tho...

"If I could whisper you all I know,"
    Said the Old Fool in the Wood,
"You'd never say that green leaves grow.
    You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood
The Master must be in today,
    To think such thoughts,'
That's what you'd say."

"If I could whisper you all I've heard,"
    Said the Old Fool in the fern,
"You'd never say the song of a bird.
    You'd say, 'I'll listen, and p'raps I'll learn
One word of His joy as He passed this way,
    One syllable more,'
That's what you'd say."

"If I could tell you all the rest,"
    Said the Old Fool under the skies,
"You'd hug your griefs against your breast
    And whisper with love-lit eyes,
'I am one with the sorrow that made the may,
    And the pulse of His heart,'
That's what you'd ...

There is a princess in the South
    About whose beauty rumors hum
Like honey-bees about the mouth
    Of roses dewdrops falter from;
    And O her hair is like the fine
    Clear amber of a jostled wine
    In tropic revels; and her eyes
    Are blue as rifts of Paradise.

Such beauty as may none before
    Kneel daringly, to kiss the tips
Of fingers such as knights of yore
    Had died to lift against their lips:
    Such eyes as might the eyes of gold
    Of all the stars of night behold
    With glittering envy, and so glare
    In dazzling splendor of despair.

So, were I but a minstrel, deft
    At weaving, with the trembling strings
Of my glad harp, the warp and weft
    Of rondels such as rapture sings, -
    I'd loop my l...

Each human life with mysteries is replete;
They press upon us in its early dawn,
And multiply apace as years roll on,
And at each turn we must their problems meet.
Reason is blind, and fails their end to see,
Misjudges God and gathers only woe,
And from this spring much turbid waters flow.
Only the pure in heart from doubt are free;
They read aright the writing on the wall
Which solves the problems of our earthly lot;
To them God draws aside the veil, and shows
The golden threads with which the garment glows,
And why one dwells in palace, one in cot,
And how His love is working good to all.

"Thou shalt be - Nothing." - OMAR KHAYYAM.
"Tombless, with no remembrance." - W. SHAKESPEARE.

Dead shalt thou lie; and nought
Be told of thee or thought,
For thou hast plucked not of the Muses' tree:
And even in Hades' halls
Amidst thy fellow-thralls
No friendly shade thy shade shall company!

When they were come into Faery's Court
They rang, no one at home, all gone to sport
And dance and kiss and love as faerys do
For Faries be as human lovers true,
Amid the woods they were so lone and wild
Where even the Robin feels himself exil'd
And where the very books as if affraid
Hurry along to some less magic shade.
'No one at home'! the fretful princess cry'd
'And all for nothing such a dre[a]ry ride
And all for nothing my new diamond cross
No one to see my persian feathers toss
No one to see my Ape, my Dwarf, my Fool
Or how I pace my Otaheitan mule.
Ape, Dwarf and Fool why stand you gaping there
Burst the door open, quick, or I declare
I'll switch you soundly and in pieces tear.'
The Dwarf began to tremble and the Ape
Star'd at the Fool, the Fo...