Her thoughts they were drear, and the silent tear It fill'd her faint blue eye, As oft she heard, in fancy's ear, Her Bertrand was the bravest youth And many a month had pass'd away, But nothing the maid from Palestine Full oft she vainly tried to pierce Full oft she thought her lover's bark And every night she placed a light But now despair had seized her breast, 'Oh! tell me but if Bertrand live, And I in peace will die.' She wander'd o'er the lonely shore, The Curlew scream'd above; She heard the scream with a sickening heart, Yet still she kept her lonely way, Oh! tell me but if Bertrand live, And now she came to a horrible rift, And pendent from its dismal top And all within was dark and drear, Yet Gondoline entered, her soul upheld And as she enter'd the cavern wide, And she saw a snake on the craggy rock, Her foot it slipped, and she stood aghast, Yet, still upheld by the secret charm, And now upon her frozen ear So, on the mountain's piny top, Then furious peals of laughter loud Low whispering o'er the ground. Yet still the maiden onward went, But now a pale blue light she saw, She stood appall'd; yet still the charm Yet each bent knee the other smote, And such a sight as she saw there, And such a sight as she saw there, A burning caldron stood in the 'midst, And round about the caldron stout Their waists were bound with living snakes, Their hands were gory too; and red And suddenly they join'd their hands, And utter'd a joyous cry, And round about the caldron stout And now they stopped; and each prepared Since last the Lady of the Night Behind a rock stood Gondoline, The first arose: She said she'd seen Rare sport since the blind cat mew'd, ` She call'd around the winged winds, And she laugh'd so loud, the peals were heard Full fifteen leagues about. She said there was a little bark Upon the roaring wave, And there was a woman there who'd been To see her husband's grave. And she had got a child in her arms, It was her only child, And oft its little infant pranks Her heavy heart beguiled. And there was, too, in that same bark, A father and his son: The lad was sickly, and the sire And when the tempest waxed strong, The mother clasp'd her orphan child Unto her breast and wept; And sweetly folded in her arms The careless baby slept. And she told how, in the shape o' the wind, As manfully it roar'd, She twisted her hand in the infant's hair, And threw it overboard. And to have seen the mother's pangs, 'Twas a glorious sight to see; The crew could scarcely hold her down From jumping in the sea. The hag held a lock of the hair in her hand, And it was soft and fair: It must have been a lovely child, To have had such lovely hair. |