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Ranolf and Amohia

Canto the Tenth

page 167

Canto the Tenth.

I.

Swim, Amohia, swim!—with strong swift grace she swims
Lightly in silence cleaves the pathway smooth.
The water's gurgle from her waving limbs,
Only its ripple from her flexile limbs—
Seems less to break than gently soothe
The hush of solemn Silence as she swiftly swims.

And now the cooling lymph more calmly breasting,
She comes upon some wild-fowl resting:
And as soft plashing she intrudes
Into their glassy open home so wide,
And feels the solemn still impress
Of sweetly-sheltering loneliness—
"Safe in their gleaming solitudes "
She sighs, "each bird with what it loves allied!
How well doth for his trusting broods
The Spirit of the Lake provide!"
With startled glance their heads they raise,
One movement quick from side to side.
Then far into the dimness sail
With shrill wild cry and dripping trail.
page 168 As each into the still air dashes,
Its level-flapping wing-tips make
Upon the else unruffled Lake
A double row of silver splashes
Spurting a moment in its wake.
She smiles: "Ah, had I wings like you,
Could be so soon love-nestled too!
Dread Spirit! help me too as well,
Whom no irreverent thoughts compel
Unwillingly to break the spell
Of Silence lone wherein you dwell!"

II.

Lightly along her liquid path she presses;
Nor yet the toil her buoyant frame distresses.
Anon, as patiently she sped,
There came as of itself into her head
An old and simple lay,
She oft had sung in many a happier day,
About a maid her home for love forsaking;
And the recurring rhythm making
The effort of volition less,
And so preventing weariness,—
Though scarce a meaning to its phrases linking—
She kept into her spirit drinking
The metre's chime—a kind of rest from thinking;
And steadily aside the crystal waters flinging,

Kept murmuring the old rhyme in time—she had no breath for singing:—

1.

"The freshet is flowing,
But growing quite clear;
page 169 The full river flashes
And gurgles and dashes
With tinklings and plashes
How pleasant to hear!
The tiny bright billows
That lately were whirling
So turbid and dun,
Are playfully curling,
And merrily glance as they dance in the Sun!—
To the current confiding
My little canoe,
See 1 joyously gliding
My course I pursue.
Look! carelessly twirling
The paddle I sit,
The river deciding
Which way we shall flit:
I sit all alone,
No fear have I, none!
For I know to what quarter its waters will run!

2.

And see how, while speeding,
A Maiden unheeding,
Wherever those curling
Crisp billows are leading—
Never raising a mast or
The light sail unfurling,
But leaving my boat free to float as it will;
The rich breeze comes after
To drive her the faster—
The faster to waft her
page 170 To where out of sight
Stands a cottage so bright;
(Ah well do I know it,
Rush-wall and red rafter
And carvings so gay!)
Which oft far away
I have watched half the day,
When the sunbeam would show it
One spot of red light
Beneath the deep-glooming, far-looming blue hill.

3.

No obstacles stay me,
No dangers delay me!
The streams,—where the river
In summer dividing
In silvery threads,
Slips hurriedly gliding
O'er glittering beds
Of shingle,—all mingled, you nowhere can see!
All the rapids wherever
The water ran creaming,
And—flashing and gleaming
From humps and from shoulders
Of obstinate boulders,—
Snow-tassels off streaming
Would flutter and quiver—
They have vanished—replenished to let me go free!
And the broad yellow spaces
Where lost were all traces
Of the creaming, the flashing,
The streaming, the dashing,
The stir and the strife;
page 171 Where you heard not a murmur,
No chatter or churme or
Low musical plaint;
Where the gravel-beds wholly
Concealing it, slowly
The river went oozing
Beneath, and gave life
To a few dainty bosses
Of pallid gray mosses,
Such fragrance diffusing
Delicious and faint—
They are gone—they have vanished—all banished for me!

4.

The ranks of green rushes
With their brown knobs of down,
Where the stream's overflow
Creeps dimpling and slow—
How gentle their stirring
As softly conferring
They murmur so low!
In a moment 'tis done;
They are still every one!
As they stand in a row
And watch me, I know
Why it is they are so—
I know each green lisper
Fears even a whisper
May show where I go, who the rover must be!
And the louder flax-bushes
With their crowding and crossing
Black stems, darkly studded
With blossoms red-blooded—
page 172 Their long blades are tossing
As the breeze comes up quicker
(So wantonly spilling
The honeysweet liquor
Their ruddy-cups filling):
Hark! pattering, playing,
They rustle in glee;
And I fancy them saying:
'O fondly, O fleetly
She flies—never heed her,
For Love is her leader;
And fairly and featly
He steers, who but he!
Then mind her not—hinder not—let her go free!'—
And brighter and higher,
Like flames of pale fire,
The great plumes far and wide
Of the sword-grass aspire;
In their grace and their pride
They are all on my side!
See! feather to feather
How bending together
They seem to try whether
My flight they may hide;
'We know where she hies to—
We know what she flies to—
Droop thickly—wave quickly—that no one may see!'

5.

Then, Father, why chide her,
Your darling, your pride, or
Lament at her going
Whatever betide her!
page 173 For though your eyes glisten.
O how can she listen—

To such a fond lover the rover has flown!

Unavailing the wailing,
And idle to chide her,
When breezes fresh blowing,
When waters quick flowing,
All fair things upgrowing
And waving beside her,

Will but guide and confide her to one heart alone!"

Thus, not without a sense forlorn and dreary
How doubtful her own flight and fate
Beside that maiden's, speeding to her mate
With answered love and confidence elate,
Poor Amohia swims till she is weary.

III.

A welcome rest! Above the surface, see,
Projects the stump of a long-sunken tree:
Last remnant of a forest-giant
That once with our flung arms defiant,
With all his green fraternity
Stood shouldering out the dappled sky
On this same spot, and shed around
Noon-twilights, where in leafy shade
The golden tremors sparely played;
Or in the echoing hush profound
At intervals the soft quick beats
Of the wild-pigeon's winnowing wing,
Subsiding whisper-like, betrayed
Where high up in his green retreats,
page 174 He flitted leisurely at feed.—
The mighty forest like a weed
Has withered—-vanished like a dream!
The sky is bare, and everywhere
Above; you spreads the empty air,
Around the lonely waters gleam:
Where insects burrowed, hummed and swarmed
The wildfowl dips; and, unalarmed,
In silvery shoals the minnows stream,
Their thousands moving with one will;
Or. lying motionless and still
On tiny fins self-balancing,
Like spreading arrows shoot away
If any swimming Maiden may
Perchance their crystal-folded slumbers fray.
Such wondrous change can compassed be
By Ru, the Earth quake-God's decree,
Who lifts and lowers the groaning land
As in the hollow of his hand.

To this old timeworn stump unsought
Her slightly devious course had brought
The unconscious Maid, direct and true,
So that perforce it was descried.
She found a footing on its side,
And as a long deep breath she drew,
And firm her panting bosom prest
The filmy weeds that o'er it grew
Light green, and dangling rose and fell,
listless in the lapping swell
Her swimming left—her arms she threw
Around it, grateful for the timely rest.
Spontaneous gratefulness—to whom and why?
page 175 Wondrous, with no one to be grateful to,
That thus the natural heart should ever fly,
Thus gravitate, as 'twere, if left alone,
To something all unseen, unknown:
That its perennial lights, intense or dwindling,
To bold clear Love and Adoration kindling,
Or dimly down to Fetish fear declining,
Keep pointing to a polestar—nowhere shining!
You pity her—untaught and rude
To know how blind such gratitude;
Who threw away vain thanks because
Her own proceedings and intent
Just then fell out coincident
With the fixed working of cast-iron laws;
And so o'erlooked in ignorance
That principle, to minds profound
So much more rational and sound,
Her real benefactor—Chance!

IV.

But right the sentiment or wrong,
It was not one to hold her long.
To her deserted Father flew
Her thoughts—his anguish when her clothes they found:
What if his Child, his grey hair's pride were drowned:
Her loss how would he brood upon and rue;
With dim eyes, in the sleepy old canoe,
With pole and hoopnet as he used to do,
Fishing perhaps the long day through—
Unconscious half, in his distress
And heedless of his ill-success.
To think of his despair her bosom bled—
Vet how could they upbraid her that she fled?
page 176 Could they, if all were known, bid her contend
Against a fate she could not help nor mend?
Was Love to be resisted? Could they blame her
If that insidious Power o'ercame her?
Because they could not see nor feel
The spell whose tyrannous control
Absorbed, entranced her mind—her soul,
Should they expect she could reject
Its might, her heart against it steel?
As well—(for as her feelings rose,
The oriental fancy, bred
And born with her, and through all joys and woes
With metaphor and song for ever fed,
At once in some remembered chaunt
Springing so ready to her want,
Again to Natures' ways and shows
For vindication and example sped)
As well upbraid the feathery clouds of Morning,
Because the un risen Sun is out of sight,
For not in cold impassive pallor scoring
The first faint touches of his cheering light;
As well expect their snowy fleeces,
As upward from his sea hid cave he rushes,
Not to be heart-struck into burning blushes;
Or as he nigher comes and nigher
And the soft-flowing splendour still increases,
Though all his disc be hidden yet,
As well expect the basking brood
No further to drink-in the blissful flood,
But fling it eddying back, nor let
The rosy blushes rapture-kindle into golden fire.
"Ah no!" she thought, while her full bosom heaves
A sigh—" with me no more than these—Ah no.
page 177 It cannot be—it never can be so!
Him I was born, compelled to love—I know;
Him I shall love—him ever—till the day
When with thick coronals of freshest leaves
The maids and matrons to my funeral go! "—
In fresh resolve the passing pang she smothers,
And dashes, as it starts, the tear away:
Then with a half impatience and mute pain
She turns into the yielding Lake again—
Again the Lake's mild breast receives her like a Mother's.