The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ballads from the Danish and Original Verses, by E. M. Smith-Dampier
Author: E. M. Smith-Dampier
Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BALLADS FROM THE DANISH AND ORIGINAL VERSES ***
The king has busked him forth to ride
All on his steed so brown—
He’s halted him by the standing stone
To see the sun sink down.
And is it the moan of the mourning pine
Doth in his ear complain?
The wizened bough of the lean thorn-tree
That clutches his bridle-rein?
He looks, and knows the grisly witch
That wears the grey wolf-skin—
“Ruth, ruth, oh king, on the deadly wrong
That’s wrought thy realm within!
“Thou hast taken a wife of alien life
From far beyond the sea;
And she’s brought in a foreign faith
To flout thy gods and thee.{46}
“The kirk-bell rings, the pale priest sings,
By thorpe and tower and town—
The black rood stands with arms spread wide
Where of old the blood ran down.
“The carven stone stands drear and lone—
And the old gods in their pain
Rave high and wail in the winter gale
And sob in the running rain.
“Harken and hear—for I crouched this eve
Where thistle and dock grow tall,
And I saw her steal from the postern-gate
And creep by the palace-wall.
“She’s off and away to the lonely kirk
To keep a cursèd tryst;
She’s taken thy son, to be bound for aye
A slave to the wan White Christ.”
The king he rides by holt and heath,
The witch goes on before,
By the carven stone on the moorland lone
Where the blood ran down of yore.
Oh, wan was the glint of the misty moon
In the brimming burn, and shrill
The wind it wailed in the lean thorn-trees
That crouch upon the hill.{47}
“The font is dight, the taper bright,
I hear the sound of prayer—
Lest I be banned with bell and book
I dare not enter there.”
All lily-white the fair queen stood—
In strode the angry king—
“Thy God is thine, but my son is mine,
And I will not have this thing!”
White as a lily-flower, the queen
Fell down upon her knee—
“Have pity, have pity, thou cruel king,
On the souls of mine and me!”
The pale priest stood before the rood,
His look was proud and grim—
“Stand back, unshriven! the King of Heaven
Doth claim the babe for Him!”
Most like the wail of a winter gale
The grisly witch laughed loud—
“The christening-robes are white enow
To serve as a goodly shroud!”
She’s witched his arm, she’s witched his heart,
She’s witched his blade so true,
She’s cast the glamour o’er his eyes,
The deadly deed to do.{48}
The king, he drew his trusty brand,
And clove him to the chin—
“Short shrift at least is thine, proud priest,
Thy God His grace to win!”
Alas! alas! for the bloody chrism
The king’s son got that day!
For the queen fell down at the self-same stroke
Nor turned not where she lay.
He’s seized his young son in his arms,
And busked his steed to flee;
Like a crooked shadow the grisly witch
Runs ever beside his knee.
With laughter shrill she’s by him still
While the misty moon grows dim—
Ere he can cross the running burn
She’s reft the babe from him.
Where the priests of eld high worship held
The witch-wife laughs alone;
“The babe she bore shall learn my lore,
And dance by the carven stone!”
The tapers’ light is quenched in night—
Hushed is the holy bell—
The pale priest’s blood is on the rood—
The old gods have their will.
. . . .
{49}
Now on a day when years are gone
The knights they rise apace—
For the sound of the horn in the dim red morn
Has called them to the chase.
The gaunt grey wolf-hounds growl and grin,
And the king is at their head—
His face is white in the breaking light
As the face of one new-dead;
His voice is hollow as one that cries
In a dreary vault of stone;
And, on thin lips, his smile is grim,
For the trampled branches sound to him
Like the cracking of bare-bleached bone.
Ho, holla-ho! the game’s afoot!
He breaks for the open moor!
But hearts grow chill, as the pack cries shrill,
That ne’er felt fear before.
The horses sweat, they plunge and fret,
Tho’ the spur with blood drop fast—
Each man looks on his fellow’s face,
And sees it all aghast—
Aghast and pale, he knows not why—
But the king’s is red with wrath—
“How now, my masters! Shake like babes
To follow the grey wolfs path?{50}”
And none spake word but the eldest lord:
“God shield us from the chase!
For the quarry crossed me as he ran,
And the eyes I saw were the eyes of a man,
Tho’ they looked from a grey wolfs face.”
Loud laughed the king; “A fitting tale
For doting age to tell!
Who lists turn back, but I follow the track
Tho’ it lead to the fires of hell.”
The king doth force his restless horse
Till like the deer he bounds,
Like a flying breath, o’er the windy heath
Behind the calling hounds.
The knightly train spur on amain
As fast as they may flee—
And two are down by the broken bank,
And one by the fallen tree.
Their shadows run in the wan low sun,
Like ghosts they flit beside—
And one is down where the snow lies late,
And two where the marsh is wide.
“Stay, stay, oh king! of all thy train
Alone I am left to follow!”
But the wind beat back the labouring breath
That rattled hoarse and hollow.{51}
In the fearful flight each gallant knight
Lies cold, a broken corse;
By two, by one, the hounds drop dead;
But the king checks not, nor turns his head,
Nor curbs his foaming horse.
Among the lines of the sombre pines
He rides o’er moss and mire;
And lo! their boughs as a brooding smoke,
Their stems as a burning fire!
And had the red sun scorched his sight
Ere he entered the lonely wood?
For he saw in the air but a shifting glare
Like a floating pool of blood.
And was it but the sighing bough
That whispered in his ear
A boding thought, an evil breath?—
Till he could not tell for fear
Whether a fiend spake in his soul,
Or a voice spake in his ear.
In the heart of the wood, a darksome den
Where the lightning-blasted tree
Gleamed in the gloom like whitened bones,
He saw the quarry flee,
With lolling tongue and foaming jaws,
With faint and faltering pace,
And eyes like the eyes of a soul in pain,
Tho’ they looked from a grey wolf’s face.{52}
Lo! with the crash of a falling tree,
The gallant steed drops dead!
But he loosed his foot from the stirrup-iron,
And fast and far he fled.
Thro’ grey twilight, thro’ falling night
Rang the tireless steps and fleet,
And the throb of his heart kept feverish time
To the falling of his feet.
Oh, thick and tall by the lone kirk-wall
Grew thistle and broom and bent;
The holy bell lay where it fell,
And the walls were riven and rent.
Like a fair white shroud on the altar-stone
Lay the late-lingering snow,
And in the window towards the east
The waning moon hung low.
Now, when the beast had reached the kirk,
It moaned like one in pain,
And swerved, but the hunter cried behind,
And drove it on again.
But when it came to the altar-stone,
It started, and leapt, and fell—
And the shout of the king as he gripped its throat
Mixed with its dying yell.{53}
And lo! some evil ban was loosed
By the power of the holy place—
And the glazing eyes with ghastly gleam
Glared from a dead man’s face!
Black as a pall did darkness fall
As the moon hid in a cloud—
And still lay the king by that nameless thing,
Nor knew that he cried aloud,
Till the white face glimmered thro’ the gloom
As the moon stole out again;
When he dashed from his eyes the reeking blood
And stared upon the slain.
And who may tell, save those of hell,
Of the horror cold and grim
That he felt, who saw in that mirk midnight
His own face look at him?
His own dead face, with the haunting eyes
Of the wife his youth had won?
Woe, woe! in the were-wolf’s grisly guise,
Oh king, thou hast slain thy son!
{54}
Oh, the goodwives they go out and in,
And gossip beside the well;
But the witless wife, she fares alone,
With never a tale to tell.
Oh, the goodwives go to the holy kirk,
And bow their knees to pray;
But the witless wife, she steeks her door,
And keeps no holy-day.
Oh, the lasses and lads run up and down,
Their gleeful games to tread,
And they fleer and flout at the witless wife
That goes with a shaking head.
But when she turns on them, lasses and lads,
They take to their heels and flee,
For they fear the curse of the witless wife
And the look of her blinking e’e.{59}
When the owlet shrill called from the hill,
And night was dark and deep,
One came and knocked at her cottage door
And roused her from her sleep.
“Oh, the clink I hear of a gallant’s gear,
And the tread of steelèd shoon!
And he that knocks at my door so late
Is neither knave nor loon!”
“Come forth, come forth, thou witless wife,
And earn a goodly wage!
There’s a rune to read, and a spell to speed,
In the hold of Hermitage!”
“Now nay, now nay, thou black Bothwèll!
I dare not for deadly sin!
There’s a heavy spell on that cursed cell
That none may enter in.”
“Oh, the walls are rent, and the roof is riven,
And gone is the sealing stone;
And the night is deep, and all men sleep,
Save thou and I alone.”
“There’s an echo aloof in the riven roof
Of grisly grammarye!
And one that doth sleep where the dust lies deep
That brooks not a mortal’s eye!{60}”
Black, black, I ween, grew Bothwell’s mien;
“If thou dost not my will
Thine ending shall be a nine-days’ tale
To the crowd on the Castle Hill!
“Faggot and fire, a goodly pyre,
Shall pay the witch her fee!
The leaping lowe shall send a glow
To the ships far out at sea!”
The witch-wife goes with shaking head—
Black Bothwell goes before—
To the secret cell where a heavy spell
Was laid by a lord of yore.
No light was there in earth or air,
No light in all the land,
Save the red torch, like an evil eye,
That glimmered in his hand.
When the owlet shrill called from the hill,
And all men were asleep,
Slow did they fare by the broken stair,
And down to the dungeon deep.
There was nought to see in the doleful vault
Save the mould and the mildew green—
But the hair stood up on Bothwell’s head
As he and the witch went in.{61}
Oh, deep and still was the secret cell—
There was never a sound to hear
Save the echo aloof in the riven roof—
But his knees were loosed for fear.
Oh, thrice she bent, and thrice she bowed,
As she muttered the secret spell—
The grisly lore they learned of yore
That loosens the fiends of hell.
She rose on her feet, and she stood upright,
And high she reared her head;
Oh, her face was wan to look upon
As the face of one that’s dead.
And like the dead, in the torchlight red,
Her eyes were bleared and dim,
And her lips were still, yet ghostly shrill
The voice came forth from them.
Like an echo aloof in the riven roof
The eldritch voice made moan—
“Alas for my sleep in the dust so deep!
Alas for the sealing stone!”
“Now heed, now hark, thou spirit dark,
And look thou tell me true.
Say, is it meet, for a lady sweet,
A philtre fine to brew?{62}”
“No philtre fine she needs o’ mine
To turn her heart to thee—
Thou hast set the spell on her thysel
With the glint o’ thy bold black e’e!”
“Dost see her dight in bridal white,
In satin of shimmering fold?
Does she go like a queen, amid the sheen
Of gems, and the red, red gold?”
“I see her dight in lily-white,
But not for the bridal-day—
And the red round the neck of that shimmer sark
Is not of the gold so gay!
“Oh, pay the fee that’s due to me,
The precious price of sin,
That I may dig a grave, a grave,
And lay me down therein!”
“Now hark, now heed! if thou indeed
Dost bend her to my will,
Thou shalt ask what fee thou wilt of me
And take it to thy fill.”
“Oh, a fearful fee I ask of thee,
And a bitter from thy bride—
For pay she must in her people’s trust
In pomp and place and pride.{63}
“The hue so fair of bonnie brown hair—
The glint of gladsome e’e—
And lightsome step, and pride of youth,
She must pay for the love of thee!
“And as for thee, thou shalt know my fee
And curse me, in that day
When thou stretchest thine arms o’er the wan water
To the land that’s far away.”
His laughter rang in the riven roof—
“I shall not pale nor pine!
Each dog, they say, must have its day,
And shall I not have mine?”
He’s up and out of the doleful vault,
In the misty dawn so dim
That glimmers pale on his coat of mail—
And the witch steals after him.
Oh, her look is cowed, and her back is bowed,
And tottering is her tread—
And she’s but a witless wife again
That goes with a shaking head.
The queen sits wan in Jethart town
Beside her Maries three—
“Alas! for the wish I dare not name
Betwixt my heart and me!{64}
“There’s a merry bird in the garden green
That lilts the livelong day;
And aye the ower-word of his song
Is the name I must not say!
“Oh, pride of youth, and high heart’s truth,
Were all too light a fee,
And the bitter tears of years on years,
To win his heart to me!”
The queen has mounted her palfry white,
And called her trusty page—
And she’s away o’er moss and moor
To the hold of Hermitage!
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BALLADS FROM THE DANISH AND ORIGINAL VERSES ***
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