The Arctic Queen | Page 4

through the courtly train?Stirred, like the shimmer of a moonlit breeze?Kissing the waves:--"I will thy message hear!"
And so the maiden, gathering courage, said:?"Far in a blooming isle, in Southern seas,?I had a home, whose walls, of marble cool,?Were chequered by soft shadows, hovering,?Like flocks of birds, about its battlements;?For, all around, were trees, whose glistening leaves?Danced ever, in the sunlight or the moonlight,?To the soft flutes of the Arcadian winds;?And to the sleepy music, drowsily?The gorgeous flowers nodded their lovely heads.?Through the bright days, and in my sleep at night,?I heard the ripples breaking on the sand,?Till their continual murmur grew to be?A thing of course,--like sunshine and fresh air,--?Or like the love which grew into my life,?As color into flowers when they unfold.?The fluttering foliage and the sighing waves?Seemed whispering "BERTHO!" ever in my ear;?For BERTHO was my lover, and my heart?Could find no other meaning in their sound.?I was a princess of that blooming isle;?But BERTHO--he was poor! still, not so poor?As brave, high-souled, and strangely venturesome.?He trusted to the sea to gain his wealth,?As well as knowledge and a manly fame.?Ah! how I wept, when told that we must part!?How much more bitter tears I shed that day?On which he left me, wretched, by the shore,?Watching the gleam of his receding sails!
"Dim grew the golden air from that dark hour.?Like some rich flower, torn from the wooing kiss?Of the warm sun, and hidden in a cell,?I drooped, and lost the redness of my cheeks.?All the wild thrills that used to come and go,?Tumultuous, through my happy heart, and send?The pulses flying through my frame, died out.
"And thus in sadness two long summers passed.?In madness or in wisdom my poor brain?Wrought out a vision in my troubled sleep,?Through which I saw my BERTHO, and he bade?My soul be still and fear not,--I should take?My little boat, in which I used to skirt?The island shores, and loose it on the deep,?Placing myself within it:--It would come,?By force of an unknown and magic current,?(The thought of which, in speculative minds,?Had long been cherished,) straightway to the shore?Of the strange country where, enthralled, he dwelt.?If I still loved him, this would prove my love!
"Straight from my couch I rose, and like a ghost?Stole through the darkness of my father's halls;?Fled to the sea; and in my fragile bark?I heaped a few fresh fruits, and bore a vase?Filled with fresh water,--this was all my store.?I loosed my shallop from the anchoring rock,?And, as it drifted out upon the tide,?I leaned upon the single, slender oar?Whose aid was all I asked upon the deep.?Before my yearning vision lay my home,?Fading away from sight as the full tide?Went murmuring back from its delightful shores.?The loveliest hour of all the twenty-four?Charmed earth and ocean, that eventful time.?Moonlight and morning, softly blending, lay?Upon the land; while down the glassy sea,?Far in the distance, slowly stole a band?Of sunrise glories, smiling, looking back,?And glowing with warm splendors. All the East?Was crimson with their blushes, and the waves?Which followed in their bright and stately way?Wore crests of gold, and purple-shaded robes.?Next came light breezes blowing from the land,?Odorous with roses, sweet with drowsy songs?Of nightingales, and cool with myrtle leaves,?Following down the path the sunrise took.?And next, the stars went dimly down the west,?Crowd upon crowd, in slow and shining cars,?Bright wheeling down their heaven-appointed way.
"All day the sun shadowed himself in clouds;?My cheeks scarce browned beneath his cooled rays.?At night I sank contentedly to sleep,?Upon the silken cushions of my bark;?Then mermaids, who, attracted by my voice,?Had floated round me, underneath the waves,?Not daring to appear, swam near, reached out?Their arms of glowing white, and touched the boat.?Charmed by the helplessness of sleep in me,?They chanted sea-hymns, and I, straightway, dreamed?Of tinkling fountains in my father's halls,?And how my lover sat beside me there,?Murmuring his words of love in my thrilled ear.?They rocked the bark, too, with their lily hands,?As tender mothers rock their cradled babes:?And one wild sea-nymph reached and touched my hair--?I saw her through my dream!--and one unstrung?The pearls from out her own wave-wetted locks,?And flung them by me.
"The fresh morn waked me;?A current, gentle as a musical sound,?Swept the boat onward, as by magic power.?At times I thought, perchance, the nymphs beneath?Propelled it, but when I recalled my dream,?I knew some freak of nature, or some law,?By me uncomprehended, did the work.?At night I heard the naiads, in a tone?As soft as shepherd's reed, sing ocean-songs;?And sometimes, in the day, above the wave?I for a moment saw a lovely face,?Pearled in a clinging mass of shell-wreathed hair,?Peering upon me with strange, smiling eyes.?Gay fishes, in the sunlight gleaming, swam?With playful fires of evanescent hues;?And birds did sometimes rest their weary wings?Upon my shoulder, pecking at the fruit?Which I did share with them, though