The Cuckoo’s Return from a Love Embassy
The bard asks the Cuckoo why he had not brought back a love message from Morvyth; he replies, that he had been stopped by the arrival of winter.
BARD.
Good morrow, bird of kindly tongue,
Whose voice is ever heard among
The forest’s loftiest spray!
Where hast thou been away so long,
In what far land astray?
Thou, who hast plumes for thy array!
CUCKOO.
Four ages I have been away!
My eyes with grief are blind;
With sickness and with sleeplessness,
I left my own sweet voice behind!
Thy name, alas! I cannot guess,
Thou who beneath the hazel tree
Thus with thy questions searchest me!
BARD.
Know then, the poet blythe and boon,
The love-sick bard, at whose command
Thou flew’st an outlaw from the land
To her of beauty like the noon!
CUCKOO.
Name then the lady of thy lay.
BARD.
S. and E. and N. and A.
CUCKOO.
I asked the maid of golden locks,
Amid the birch-robed mountain rocks,
To meet thee!
BARD.
For thy courtesy
I thank thee.—But, ah, tell me why
Thou didst not journey speedily
Back with her answer?—art thou dumb,
Or is the trysting time not come?
CUCKOO.
With many a kind and courteous word,
The gentle lady charged thy bird;
And long ago on woodland boughs
Had I delivered all her vows,
But that (before I could return)
The earth grew naked, wild and stern,
With wintry darkness—tempests white,
And the keen wind’s terrific spite,
That put me with the leaf to flight!
BARD.
This argues well thy wondrous care,
Prude of the leaf!
CUCKOO.
Sage poet, hear!
The woodcock promised me to bear
The lady’s message to thy ear—
The woodcock, guest with ruddy hair—
When he should come with thee to dwell,
And with him bring the icicle!
BARD.
When did he promise to be here?
CUCKOO.
At Christmas he was to appear!
BARD.
Woe to the weak and wicked bird,
The careless envoy!—I have heard,
That in the thicket he lies low,
Pierced by a shaft from vig’rous bow!
Again, my cuckoo, take to flight,
And to the glorious paragon,
Through the green hazels hurry on,
And with expanded wings alight!
And give into bright Essyllt’s hand
My letter, full of praises sweet;
Upon the birch grove take thy stand,
And thence for me the beauty greet!
Bell of the bush—warbler, whose lay
Lasts through the livelong summer’s day!
Cuckoo! attired in robes of grey,
Thou serpent of the thicket—soar
Hence to the plane tree by her door!
With thy sweet “treble” summon her,
My simple woodland messenger!
And I from bush to bush will trace
Thy pinions to the trysting place,
Where thou must bring the maiden meek,
Of golden locks—with me to speak!
The Bird That Guides Him to the Bower of Morvyth. Description of Her Bower
He declares in his usual style that if the month of May should return once more, he would demand from Morvyth a fulfilment of her pledges to meet him in the green woods, and that he would trace out her arbour with the same speed and sagacity that the deer is tracked by hound and huntsman. He gives the following fanciful description of his companion in the pursuit.
By the welkin’s side
Floats my airy guide,
With unrivall’d skill
And intonations sweet,
Indicating still
Whither Essyllt’s feet
Through the forest glade
From my sight have stray’d,
And with comic lay
Calls on her to stay!
But for grief I could have smiled
At that warbler’s frolics wild;
And when I wept and felt despair,
And fear’d I ne’er should find the fair,
He carroll’d forth a noble strain,
With silvery voice to soothe my pain,
But when he reach’d a certain grove,
He would not rove!
But o’er it all enraptur’d hung,
And all his choicest stanzas sung,
And to it like an anchor clung!
It was a glorious sight
To see the bird alight,
When first he found amid the woods of May
The maid with locks like gold upon the forest spray!
He then describes the bower in which they found Morvyth; it appears to have been formed of one birch tree: his description of the appearance of the sunbeams glancing through the leaves is very beautiful.
On the cliff her birch bower stands,
Tower unformed by axe or hands;
Noble mansion soaring high,
On one pillar—to the sky;
True affection’s verdant shrine,
Where I’ve met the girl divine!
Flickering through its leafy caves,
Fitful sunbeams round us roll’d
Many a transient band of gold—
Gorgeous ridges like the waves—
Or rich coins that come and fly,
Whilst the girl with pale blue eye
Cast upon her lovesick bard
Many a bright and fond regard!
The Snow
To-day I may not quit my home;
For maiden’s love or maiden’s plight
I dare not o’er my threshold roam;
For field and flood and vale and height
Are chained with frost, with snows are white!
Close as the scales on dragon’s breast,
Those flakes would cluster round my vest;
And in a miller’s lowly guise,
Conceal the bard from beauty’s eyes!
Brightly to all created things
The lime-white vest of winter clings;
Fair as a grey stoled hermit’s robe
It wraps this dark and dreary globe!
O’er every wood, o’er every grove,
Its veil of dazzling light is wove;
Spotless and glittering as mail,
Those snowy showers at random sail;
Not April’s choicest flowers outvie
Those chilly blossoms of the sky.
Those show’rs of foam intensely driven,
In fleecy clouds from earth to heaven!
They seem mid Gwyneth’s stormy skies,
Like the white bees of Paradise!
And hill and glen, and rock and height,
Are one wild maze of beauteous blight!
What soul their native home can guess,
What band those silv’ry floods restrain,
Vanescent, beauteous, numberless,
Like the blue pavement of the main!
To the Lark. He Asks the Lark to Be His Envoy to Morvyth
Sentinel of the dawning light!
Reveller of the Spring!
How sweetly, nobly wild thy flight,
Thy boundless journeying,
Far from thy brethren of the woods alone,
A hermit chorister before God’s throne!
Oh, wilt thou climb yon heav’ns for me,
Yon starry turret’s height,
Thou interlude of melody,
’Twixt darkness and the light!
And find—(heav’n’s blessings on thy pinions rest!)
My lady love—the moonlight of the west?
No woodland caroller art thou,
Far from the archer’s eye,
Thy course is o’er the mountain’s brow,
Thy music in the sky!
Then fearless be thy flight and strong,
Thou earthly denizen of angel song!
The Bard’s Reproof to His Fair Contrywomen for Their Fondness for Gaudy Dress
Too oft the maidens of our land infold
Their lovely brows in rubies, pearls, and gold—
Too oft in meretricious charms delight!
With gems and beads each beauteous neck is bright,
And from each gentle hand wild falcons eye the light!
The vilest bow that e’er was framed of yew,
That in the hand abruptly snaps in two,
When all its faults are varnished o’er with gold,
Looks strong, and fair, and faultless, and—is sold;
But beauty’s form should spurn each false disguise,
For love, in beauty’s charms, no fault descries!
Would the pure radiance of the warlike mail,
That hangs on yon white wall with glimm’rings pale,
Gleam brightly thus, if muffled and concealed
In the long tabard—that with many a shield
And many a rich emblazonry is dyed
By painter’s hand, and all diversified
With rare devices?—On the brow of snow,
E’en thus no diadem fresh glory can bestow!
The Bard’s Long-Tried Affection for Morvyth
All my lifetime I have been
Bard to Morvyth, “golden mien!”
I have loved beyond belief,
Many a day to love and grief
For her sake have been a prey,
Who has on the moon’s array!
Pledged my truth from youth till now,
To the girl of glossy brow.
Oh, the light her features wear,
Like the tortured torrent’s glare!
Oft by love bewildered quite,
Have my aching feet all night
Stag-like tracked the forest shade
For the foam-complexioned maid,
Whom with passion firm and gay
I adored mid leaves of May!
Mid a thousand I could tell
One elastic footstep well!
I could speak to one sweet maid—
(Graceful figure!)—by her shade.
I could recognize till death,
One sweet maiden by her breath!
From the nightingale could learn
Where she tarries to discern;
There his noblest music swells
Through the portals of the dells!
When I am from her away,
I have neither laugh nor lay!
Neither soul nor sense is left,
I am half of mind bereft;
When she comes, with grief I part,
And am altogether heart!
Songs inspired, like flowing wine,
Rush into the mind of mine;
Sense enough again comes back
To direct me in my track!
Not one hour shall I be gay,
Whilst my Morvyth is away!
The Mirror
I always deemed my features bright,
And beautiful and fair,
Until yon mirror met my sight—
When, lo! an ugly face was there!
And from that mirror I have learned,
That now my beauty all is fled,
To yellow—Enid’s scorn has turned
The glow that o’er my cheeks was spread!
And that by grief’s incessant dews
My faded cheeks are changed to glass,
So striped with blue and yellow hues,
So thin, so pale, they seem, alas!
And that a razor now supplies,
Oh, woe! the place of the long nose;
And that the seat of the full eyes,
Holes, as by auger pierced, disclose!
That all the rich and flowing locks
Have fall’n for ever from my head—
Thy tale my sense, false mirror, mocks!
The wrinkles thou hast freely shed
O’er all my visage are the stains
Of thine own foul and mottled mien!
Had love thus wracked me with his pains,
Long in my grave should I have been!
Thou blue round moon—thou drear delusion!
Thou magnet fashioned sorceress!
Thou world of dreams and dire confusion,—
Ice-like in hue and brittleness!
Gem of enchantment—thing of guilt—
Of falsehood, treachery, and shame—
I’ll fling thy frame by sorc’rers built—
Thou wry-mouthed mirror—to the flame!
If I give credit to thy tale,
For Gwyneth’s maiden kind and meek:
My face is wrinkled o’er and pale—
Ah! she has power to blanch the cheek!