Story and Song of Black Roderick | Page 8

to her in her passing, lest thou thinkest so innocent a child had laid violent hands upon her life, who only had met death through the breaking of her heart.
Here sat she on the mountain, and the wild things spoke of her in her silence. The red weasel, the bee, and the bramble, and many others, moved to watch her. Well have they known her in her young joyfulness; here had she made the place she loved best--the high brow of the hill where she sat as a child and watched--on the one side the far-off city and the white towers that held the wonder-knight of her dreams. Here had she sat and seen the gleam of his spear as he went with his hunters through the valley; and here, too, had her mother come to tell her of her betrothal, so she had nigh fainted in her happiness, in looking upon the white tower that was to be her home.
Here had she learned the sweet language of the birds and flowers, and they, too, had partaken of her joys; but of her sorrows they would not understand, for our joys and our laughter, are they not as the singing of the bird and the dancing of the fly, who weep only when they meet death? In our griefs do we not stand alone, who have in our hearts the fierce desires of love and all the tragedies of despair?
Now, as the young bride turned her slow feet up the mountain, down where her glad feet had turned as a maid, she sat her there by the lake.
The little creatures she was wont to love and understand gathered about her and wondered at her state.
"She hath returned," said the red weasel; "see where she sitteth, her head upon her hand. I slew a young bird at her feet, and she spake no word, nor did she care."
"It is not she," said a linnet, swaying on a safe spray, "for had it been she her anger would have slain thee."
"It is she," said the red weasel, laughing in his throat; "but her eyes are hidden by her fingers, and she cannot see."
"It is not she," said a brown wren. "Her cheek was full and rosy and her song loud. This one sitteth all mute and pale."
"It is she," said the red weasel, "who sitteth upon the mountain, her face hidden between her hands. She sitteth in silence, and who can tell her thoughts? She hath been to the great city."
"It is a small place," hummed a honey-bee. "Once, long ago, she raised her white palm between her eyes and its smoke. 'See,' she laughed, 'my little hand can cover it.'"
"It is so great," said the red weasel, "that those who leave the mountains for love of it return to us no more."
"Yet she hath returned," said a lone lark hanging in the sky, "and I myself have sung beside her ear."
"She came, yet she came not," said the red weasel. "What did she answer when thou saidst that I had slain thy mate?"
"She sighed, 'Thou singest a gay song, O bird!'" hummed a golden beetle. "My grief! that she cannot understand."
"She is lost to us indeed!" said a honeysuckle swaying in the wind, "for she trod me beneath her feet when I held my sweet blossoms for her lips."
"And she tore me aside," cried the wild bramble, "when I did but reach towards her for embrace."
"She will know thee no more," said the red weasel; "she hath been to the great city."
"She laid her lips upon me ere she went," spake the wild bramble, "and said she would return to us soon."
"She bid me ring a merry chime," whispered the heather, "and I move my many bells now for her welcome, but she will not hear."
"She will speak with thee no more," said the red weasel; "she hath walked in the city, like one goeth upon the fairy sleeping grass, and her soul hath forgotten us."
"She is still and cold," said a shining fly glancing through the air. "I have danced a measure under her eyes, and she did not see."
"She is dead," said the honey-bee, "for when she would not look upon me as before, I drew my sword and stung her sharply, but she did not stir. She sat and gazed into the distance where the smoke like a great gray web lieth heavy. She is surely dead."
"She is not dead," said the red weasel; "she hath been to the great city."
"Maybe there she hath found Death," said the shining fly, "for his web reacheth far, and he loveth the dark places and hidden ways. He hideth, too, in the cool arbors of the wood, stretching a gray chain for our undoing. Maybe she found Death. He spreadeth ropes