Page:Dublin University Review vol 1 pt 1.pdf/173

, 1885.] For such a call. Let the wild word be cried

As though she whom you fear had crossed the wide

Swift lake.

Enchantress. A very little thing that is,

And shall be done, if you will deign to kiss

My lips, fair youth.

Naschina.It shall be as you ask.

Enchantress. Forth! forth! O spirits, ye have heard your task!

Voices. We are gone!

Enchantress [sitting down by Naschina].

Fair shepherd, as we wandered hither,

My words were all: 'Here no loves wane and wither,

Where dream-fed passion is and peace encloses,

Where revel of fox-glove is and revel of roses.'

My words were all: 'O whither, whither, whither

Wilt roam away from this rich island rest?

I bid thee stay, renouncing thy mad quest.'

But thou wouldst not, for then thou wert unblest

And stony-hearted; now thou hast grown kind,

And thou wilt stay. All thought of what they find

In the far world will vanish from thy mind,

Till thou rememberest only how the sea

Has fenced us round for all eternity.

But why art thou so silent? Did'st thou hear

I laughed?

Naschina.And why is that a thing so dear?

Enchantress. From thee I snatched it; e'en the fay that trips

At morn, and with her feet each cobweb rends,

Laughs not. It dwells alone on mortal lips:

Thou'lt teach me laughing, and I'll teach thee peace,

Here where laburnum hangs her golden fleece;

For peace and laughter have been seldom friends.

But, for a boy, how long thine hair has grown!

Long citron coils that hang around thee, blown

In shadowy dimness. To be fair as thee

I'd give my faery fleetness, though I be

Far fleeter than the million-footed sea.

A Voice.By wood antique, by wave and waste,

Where cypress is and oozy pine,

Did I on quivering pinions haste,

And all was quiet round me spread,

As quiet as the clay-cold dead.

I cried the thing you bade me cry.

An owl, who in an alder tree

Had hooted for an hundred years,

Up-raised his voice, and hooted me.

E'en though his wings were plumeless stumps,

And all his veins had near run dry,

Forth from the hollow alder trunk

He hooted as I wandered by.

And so with wolf, and boar, and steer.

And one alone of all would hark,

A man who by a dead man stood.

A star-lit rapier, half blood-dark,

Was broken in his quivering hand.

As blossoms, when the winds of March

Hold festival across the land,

He shrank before my voice, and stood

Low bowed and dumb upon the sand.

A foolish word thou gavest me!

For each within himself hath all

The world, within his folded heart,

His temple and his banquet hall;

And who will throw his mansion down

Thus for another's bugle call!

Enchantress. But why this whim of thine? A strange unrest,

As alien as a cuckoo in a robin's nest,

Is in thy face, and lips together pressed;

And why so silent? I would have thee speak.

Soon wilt thou smile, for here the winds are weak

As moths with broken wings, and as we sit

The heavens all star-throbbing are a-lit.

Naschina. But art thou happy?

Enchantress.Let me gaze on thee

At arm's length, thus till dumb eternity

Has rolled away the stars and dried the sea

I could gaze, gaze upon thine eyes' clear grey;

Gaze on till ragged time himself decay.

Ah! you are weeping; here should all grief cease.

Naschina. But art thou happy?

Enchantress.Youth, I am at peace.

Naschina. But art thou happy?

Enchantress.Those grey eyes of thine

Have they ne'er seen the eyes of lynx or kine,

Or aught remote; or hast thou never heard

Mid bubbling leaves a wandering song-rapt bird

Going the forest through, with flutings weak;

Or hast thou never seen, with visage meek,

A hoary hunter leaning on his bow,

To watch thee pass? Yet deeper than men know

These are at peace.

A Voice.Sad lady, cease!

I rose, I rose

From the dim wood's foundation—

I rose, I rose

Where in white exultation

The long lily blows,

And the wan wave that lingers

From flood-time encloses

With infantine fingers

The roots of the roses.