Poems (Cary)/The Daughter
For works with similar titles, see The Daughter.
THE DAUGHTER.
Alack, it is a dismal night—In gusts of thin and vapory lightBloweth the moonshine cold and whiteBetwixt the pauses of the storm,That beats against, but cannot harmThe lady, whose chaste thoughts do charmBetter than pious fast or prayerThe evil spells and sprites of air—In sooth, were she in saintly careSafer she could not be than nowWith truth's white crown upon her brow—So sovereign, innocence, art thou.
Just in the green top of a hedgeThat runs along a valley's edgeOne star has thrust a shining wedge,And all the sky beside is drear—It were no cowardice to fearIf some belated traveller near,To visionary fancies born,Should see upon the moor, forlorn,With spiky thistle burs and thorn;
The lovely lady silent go,Not on a "palfrey white as snow,"But with sad eyes and footstep slow;And softly leading by the handAn old man who has nearly spannedWith his white hairs, life's latest sand.
Hope in her faint heart newly thrillsAs down a barren reach of hillsBefore her fly two whippoorwills;But the gray owl keeps up his wail—His feathers ruffled in the gale,Drowning almost their dulcet tale.
Often the harmless flock she seesLying white along the grassy leas,Like lily-bells weighed down with bees.Sometimes the boatman's horn she hearsRousing from rest the plowman's steers,Lowing untimely to their peers.And now and then the moonlight snakeCurls up its white folds, for her sake,Closer within the poison brake.But still she keeps her lonesome way,Or if she pauses, 'tis to saySome word of comfort, else to pray.For 'tis a blustery night withal,In spite of star or moonlight's fall,Or the two whippoorwills' sweet call.
What doth the gentle lady hereWithin a wood so dark and drear,Nor hermit's lodge nor castle near?See in the distance robed and crownedA prince with all his chiefs around,And like sweet light o'er sombre groundA meek and lovely lady, thereProffering her earnest, piteous prayerFor an old man with silver hair.
But what of evil he hath doneO'erclouding beauty's April sunI know not—nor if lost or won.The lady's pleading, sweet and low—About her pilgrimage of wo,Is all that I shall ever know.