GONDOLINE; A BALLAD. THE night it was still, and the moon it shone And the waves at the foot of the rifted rock When Gondoline roam'd along the shore, Though love had made bleak the rose on her cheek, 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 Of all our good King's men, And he was gone to the Holy Land 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 To guide her lover to the land, Should the murky tempest lower. But now despair had seiz'd her breast, And sunken in her eye: "Oh! tell me but if Bertrand live, "And I in peace will die" She wander'd o'er the lonely shore, She heard the scream with a sickening heart, Yet still she kept her lonely way, And this was all her cry, "Oh! tell me but if Bertrand live, "And I in peace shall die." And now she came to a horrible rift All in the rock's hard side, A bleak, and blasted oak, o'erspread And pendant from its dismal top The hemlock, and the aconite, Across the mouth were flung. And all within, was dark, and drear, And, as she enter'd the cavern wide, Her foot it slipp'd, and she stood aghast, Yet still, upheld by the secret charm, And now upon her frozen ear Mysterious sounds arose, So, on the mountain's piny top, The blustering North-wind blows. Then furious peals of laughter loud Till they died away, in soft decay, 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, A burning cauldron stood in the midst, The flame was fierce, and high, And all the cave so wide and long, Was plainly seen thereby. And round about the cauldron stout Twelve withered witches stood: Their waists were bound with living snakes, And their hair was stiff with blood. Their hands were gory too; and red And suddenly they join'd their hands, And now they stopt; and each prepared Since last the Lady of the night, Behind a rock stood Gondoline, Thick weeds her face did veil, And she lean'd fearful forwarder, To hear the dreadful tale. The first arose: She said she'd seen Rare sport, since the blind cat mew'd, She'd been to sea, in a leaky sieve, And a jovial storm had brew'd. |