Golden Numbers Part 55

INTERLEAVES

_Story Poems: Romance and Reality_

When the King in Lowell's poem asked his three daughters what fairings he should bring them on his home-coming, the two elder ones demanded jewels and rings, silks that would stand alone, and golden combs for the hair. But the youngest Princess, she that was whiter than thistledown--somehow it is always the youngest princess who is beloved of the poets and romancers--asked as her fairing the Singing Leaves. The King could not buy them in Vanity Fair, but in the deep heart of the greenwood he found Walter, the little foot-page, who drew a thin packet from his bosom and said,

_"Now give you this to the Princess Anne, The Singing Leaves are therein."_

She took them when the King met her at the castle gate, the lovely little Princess with the golden crown s.h.i.+ning dim in the blithesome gold of her hair; took them with a smile that

_"Lighted her tears as the summer sun Transfigures the summer rain."_

The poems we give you here, young princes and princesses of the twentieth century, are all Singing Leaves of one sort or another. There are leaves that sing tragedies, like those in "Earl Haldan's Daughter,"

"The High Tide," or "The Sands o' Dee"; there are leaves that sing fantasies, like "The Forsaken Merman," "The Pied Piper," or the enchanting "Lady of Shalott," weaving her magic web of colors gay. There are Singing Leaves that grew on the Tree of Reality; leaves that tell stories like Bret Harte's "Greyport Legend" or Browning's "Herve Riel"; while in "Seven Times Two," the "Swan's Nest," "Lord Ullin," "Young Lochinvar," and "Jock o' Hazledean" you have pure romances, sweet and youthful, gay and daring.

XIII

STORY POEMS: ROMANCE AND REALITY

_The Singing Leaves_

I

"What fairings will ye that I bring?"

Said the King to his daughters three; "For I to Vanity Fair am boun', Now say what shall they be?"

Then up and spake the eldest daughter, That lady tall and grand: "Oh, bring me pearls and diamonds great, And gold rings for my hand."

Thereafter spake the second daughter, That was both white and red: "For me bring silks that will stand alone, And a gold comb for my head."

Then came the turn of the least daughter, That was whiter than thistle-down, And among the gold of her blithesome hair Dim shone the golden crown.

"There came a bird this morning, And sang 'neath my bower eaves, Till I dreamed, as his music made me, 'Ask thou for the Singing Leaves.'"

Then the brow of the King swelled crimson With a flush of angry scorn: "Well have ye spoken, my two eldest, And chosen as ye were born;

"But she, like a thing of peasant race, That is happy binding the sheaves;"

Then he saw her dead mother in her face, And said, "Thou shalt have thy leaves."

II

He mounted and rode three days and nights Till he came to Vanity Fair, And 't was easy to buy the gems and the silk, But no Singing Leaves were there.

Then deep in the greenwood rode he, And asked of every tree, "Oh, if you have ever a Singing Leaf, I pray you give it me!"

But the trees all kept their counsel, And never a word said they, Only there sighed from the pine-tops A music of seas far away.

Only the pattering aspen Made a sound of growing rain, That fell ever faster and faster, Then faltered to silence again.

"Oh, where shall I find a little foot-page That would win both hose and shoon, And will bring to me the Singing Leaves If they grow under the moon?"

Then lightly turned him Walter the page, By the stirrup as he ran: "Now pledge you me the truesome word Of a king and gentleman,

"That you will give me the first, first thing You meet at your castle-gate, And the Princess shall get the Singing Leaves, Or mine be a traitor's fate."

The King's head dropt upon his breast A moment, as it might be; 'T will be my dog, he thought, and said, "My faith I plight to thee."

Then Walter took from next his heart A packet small and thin, "Now give you this to the Princess Anne, The Singing Leaves are therein."

III

As the King rode in at his castle-gate, A maiden to meet him ran, And "Welcome, father!" she laughed and cried Together, the Princess Anne.

"Lo, here the Singing Leaves," quoth he, "And woe, but they cost me dear!"

She took the packet, and the smile Deepened down beneath the tear.

It deepened down till it reached her heart, And then gushed up again, And lighted her tears as the sudden sun Transfigures the summer rain.

And the first Leaf, when it was opened, Sang: "I am Walter the page, And the songs I sing 'neath thy window Are my only heritage."

And the second Leaf sang: "But in the land That is neither on earth nor sea, My lute and I are lords of more Than thrice this kingdom's fee."

And the third Leaf sang, "Be mine! Be mine!"

And ever it sang, "Be mine!"

Then sweeter it sang and ever sweeter, And said, "I am thine, thine, thine!"

At the first Leaf she grew pale enough, At the second she turned aside, At the third, 't was as if a lily flushed With a rose's red heart's tide.

"Good counsel gave the bird," said she, "I have my hope thrice o'er, For they sing to my very heart," she said, "And it sings to them evermore."

She brought to him her beauty and truth, But and broad earldoms three, And he made her queen of the broader lands He held of his lute in fee.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

_Seven Times Two_

You bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your changes, How many soever they be, And let the brown meadow-lark's note as he ranges Come over, come over to me!

Yet birds' clearest carol by fall or by swelling No magical sense conveys; And bells have forgotten their old art of telling The fortune of future days.

"Turn again, turn again!" once they rang cheerily, While a boy listened alone; Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily All by himself on a stone.