The Fairy of the Fountains - Part I - continued

Easy 'tis advice to give,
    Hard it is advice to take
Years that lived--and years to live,
    Wide and weary difference make.
To that elder ladye's mood,
Suited silent solitude:
For her lorn heart's wasted soil
Now repaid not hope's sweet toil.
Never more could spring-flowers grow,
On the worn-out soil below;
But to the young Melusine,
Earth and heaven were yet divine.
Still illusion's purple light
    Was upon the morning tide,
And there rose before her sight
    The loveliness of life untried.
Three sweet genii,--Youth, Love, Hope,--
Drew her future horoscope.
Must such lights themselves consume?
Must she be her own dark tomb?
But far other thoughts than these—
Life's enchanted phantasies,
Were with Melusina now,
Stern and dark contracts her brow;
And her bitten lip is white,
As with passionate resolve,
Muttered she,--"It is my right;
"On me let the task devolve:
"Since such blood to me belongs;
    "I shall seek its own bright sphere;
"I will well avenge the wrongs
    "Of my mother exiled here."
 *     *     *     *     *     *     *
Two long years are come and past,
And the maiden's lot is cast;--
Cast in mystery and power,
Worked out by the watching hour,
By the word that spirits tell,
By the sign and by the spell.
Two long years have come and gone,
And the maiden dwells alone.
For the deed which she hath done,
Is she now a banished one;--
Banished from her mother's arms,
Banished by her mother's charms,
With a curse of grief and pain,
Never more to meet again.
Great was the revenge she wrought,
Dearly that revenge was bought.

    When the maiden felt her powers,
Straight she sought her father's towers.
With a sign, and with a word,
Passed she on unseen, unheard,
One, a pallid minstrel born
On Good Friday's mystic morn,
Said he saw a lady there,
Tall and stately, strange and fair,
With a stern and glittering eye,
Like a shadow gliding by.
All was fear and awe next day,
For the king had passed away.
He had pledged his court at night,
In the red grape's flowing light.
All his pages saw him sleeping;
Next day there was wail and weeping.
Halls and lands were wandered o'er,
But they saw their king no more.
    Strange it is, and sad to tell,
What the royal knight befell.
Far upon a desert land,
Does a mighty mountain stand;
On its summit there is snow,
While the bleak pines moan below;
And within there is a cave
Opened for a monarch's grave
Bound in an enchanted sleep
She hath laid him still and deep.
She, his only child, has made
That strange tomb where he is laid:
Nothing more of earth to know,
Till the final trumpet blow.
Mortal lip nor mortal ear,
Were not made to speak nor hear
That accursed word which sealed,--
All those gloomy depths concealed.
    With a look of joy and pride,
Then she sought her mother's side.
Whispering, on her bended knee,
"Oh! my mother, joyous be;
"For the mountain torrents spring
"O'er that faithless knight and king."
Not another word she spoke,
For her speech a wild shriek broke;
For the widowed queen upsprung,
Wild her pale thin hands she wrung.
With her black hair falling round,
Flung her desperate on the ground;
While young Melusine stood by,
With a fixed and fearful eye.
    When her agony was past,
Slowly rose the queen at last;
With her black hair, like a shroud,
And her bearing high and proud;
With the marble of her brow,
Colder than its custom now;
And her eye with a strange light
Seem'd to blast her daughter's sight.
And she felt her whole frame shrink,
And her young heart's pulses sink;
And the colour left her mouth,
    As she saw her mother signing,
One stern hand towards the south,
    Where a strange red star was shining.
With a muttered word and gaze,
Fixed upon its vivid rays;
Then she spoke but in a tone,
Hers, yet all unlike her own.—
''Spirit of our spirit-line,
"Curse for me this child of mine.
"Six days yield not to our powers,
"But the seventh day is ours.
"By yon star, and by our line,
"Be thou cursed, maiden mine."
Then the maiden felt hot pain
Run through every burning vein.
Sudden with a fearful cry
Writhes she in her agony;
Burns her cheek as with a flame,
For the maiden knows her shame.