A stranger thing was never seen: The damned stood silent to a man; They saw the great gulf set between. To her it seemed a meadow fair; And flowers sprang up about her feet; She entered heaven; she climbed the stair; And knelt down at the mercy-seat. Seraphs and saints with one great voice Welcomed that soul that knew not fear; Amazed to find it could rejoice, Hell raised a hoarse half-human cheer. ----John Davidson. THE WEDDING OF PALE BRONWEN I. |The wind was waked by the morning light, And it cried in the gray birch-tree, And the cry was plain in Bronwen's bower, "Oh, Bronwen, come to me!" Pale, pale sleeps Bronwen, pale she wakes; "What bird to my bower is flown? For my lover, Red Ithel, is at the wars Before Jerusalem town." But still the wind sang in the tree, "Come forth,'tis your wedding morn, And you must be wed in Holy Land Ere your little babe is born." And still the wind had her true-love's cry, "Kind Bronwen, come!" until She could not rest, and rose to look To the sea beyond Morva Hill. And afar came the cry over Morva Hill, "Kind Bronwen, come to me!" Till she could not stay, for very love, And stole away to the sea. She crossed the hill to the fishing-boats, And away she sailed so fine, "Is it far, my love, in the summer sun To the shores of fair Palestine?" II. There was no sun at sea that day, To watch pale Bronwen drown, But the sun was hot on the deadly sands Before Jerusalem town.' All day Red Ithel lay dying there, But he thought of the far-off sea; And he cried all day till his lips grew white, "Kind Bronwen, come to me!" And so it passed till the evening time, And then the sea-wind came, And he thought he lay on Morva Hill And heard her call his name. He heard her voice, he held her hand, "This is the day," she said, "And this is the hour that Holy Church Has given for us to wed." There was no strength in him to speak, But his eyes had yet their say, "Kind Bronwen, now we will be wed Forever and ever and aye!" III. Beneath the sea pale Bronwen lies, Red Ithel beneath the sand; But they are one in Holy Church, One in love's Holy Land. Red Ithel lies by Jerusalem town, And she in the deep sea lies; But I trow their little babe was born In the gardens of Paradise. ---Ernest Rhys. THE BALLAD OF FISHER'S BOARDING-HOUSE |That night, when through the mooring-chains The wide-eyed corpse rolled free, To blunder down by Garden Reach And rot at Kedgeree, The tale the Hughli told the shoal The lean shoal told to me. |Twas Fultah Fisher's boarding-house Where sailor-men reside, And there were men of all the ports From Mississip to Clyde, And regally they spat and smoked, And fearsomely they lied.