Ballads of Lost Haven Part 6

Till dawn,--and the revel died with a shout, For the ocean riders were wearied out.

They looked, and the gra.s.s was warm and soft; The dreamy clouds went over aloft;

A gloom of pines on the weather verge Had the lulling sound of their own white surge;

A whip-poor-will, far from their din, Was saying his litanies therein.

Then voices neither loud nor deep: "Tired, so tired; sleep! ah, sleep!

"The stars are calm, and the earth is warm, But the sea for an earldom is given to storm.

"Come now, inherit the houses of doom; Your fields of the sun shall be harried of gloom."

They laid them down; but over long They rest,--for the goblin maids are strong.

The sun goes round; and Bareau Fen Is a door of earth on the Kelpie men,--

Buried at dawn, asleep, unslain, With not a mound on the sunny plain,

Hard by the walls of calm Roch.e.l.le, Row on row by the crystal well.

And never again they are free to ride Through all the years on the tossing tide,

Barred from the breast of the barren foam, Where the heart within them is yearning home,--

For one long drench of the surf to quell The cursing doom of the goblin spell.

Only, when bugling snows alight To smother the marshes stark and white,

Or a low red moon peers over the rim Of a winter twilight crisp and dim,

With a sound of drift on the buried lands, The goblin maidens loose their hands;

A wind comes down from the sheer blue North; And the Kelpie riders get them forth.

III

Twice have I been on Bareau Fen, But the son of my son is a man since then.

Once as a lad I used to bear St. Louis' cross through the chapel square,

Leading the choristers' surpliced file Slow up the dusk Cathedral aisle.

I was the boy of all Roch.e.l.le The pure old father trusted well.

But one clear night in the winter's heart, I wandered out to that place apart.

The shafts of smoke went up to the stars, Straight as the Northern Streamer spars,

From the town's white roofs, so still it was.

The night in her dream let no word pa.s.s,

Nor ever a breath that one could feel; Only the snow shrieked under my heel.

Yet it seemed when I reached the poplar hole, The ghost of a voice was crying, "Skoal!

"Rouse thee and drink, for the well is sweet, And the crystal snow is good to eat!"

I heeded little, but stooped on my knee, And ate of a handful dreamily.

'Twas cool to the mouth and slaking at first, But the lure of it was ill for thirst.

The voice cried, "Soul of the mortal span, Art thou not of the Kelpie clan?"

"What are you doing there in the ground, Kelpie rider, and never a sound

"To roam the night but the ghost of a cry?"

Ringing and swift there came reply,

"He is asleep where thou art afraid, In the tawny arms of a goblin maid!"

Then I knew the voice was the voice of a girl, And I marvelled much (while a little swirl

Of snow leaped up far off on the plain Of sparkling dust and died again),

For what do the cloisters know, think ye, Of women's ways? They be hard to see.

Again the voice cried, "Kin of my kin, The child of the Sun shall win, shall win!"

'Twas an evil weird that so befell; Yet I leaned and drank of the bubbling well.

I looked for my face in the crystal spring, But the face that flickered there was a thing

To make the nape of your neck grow chill, And every vein surge back and thrill

With a pa.s.sion for something not their own-- In a life their life has never known.

For raven hair and eyes like the sun Are merry but dour to look upon.

She smiled through her lashes under the wave, And my soul went forth her bartered slave.

I swore, "By St. Louis, I'll come to thee, Though I ride to my doom in the gulfs of the sea!

"Thy Kelpie rider shall wake and rue His ruined life in the loss of you."

Then I fled in the start of a terror of joy, O'er leagues where a legion might deploy;

For the acres of snow were level and hard, Every flake like a crystal shard.