Thirty Poems/Sella
SELLA.
Hear now a legend of the days of old—The days when there were goodly marvels yet,When man to man gave willing faith, and lovedA tale the better that 'twas wild and strange.Beside a pleasant dwelling ran a brookScudding along a narrow channel, pavedWith green and yellow pebbles; yet full clearIts waters were, and colorless and cool,As fresh from granite rocks. A maiden oftStood at the open window, leaning out,And listening to the sound the water made, A sweet, eternal murmur, still the same,And not the same; and oft, as spring came on,She gathered violets from its fresh moist bank,To place within her bower, and when the herbsOf stammer drooped beneath the midday sun,She sat within the shade of a great rock,Dreamily listening to the streamlet's song. Ripe were the maiden's years; her stature showedWomanly beauty, and her clear, calm eyeWas bright with venturous spirit, yet her faceWas passionless, like those by sculptor gravedFor niches in a temple. Lovers oftHad wooed her, but she only laughed at love,And wondered at the silly things they said.'Twas her delight to wander where wild vinesO'erhang the river's brim, to climb the pathOf woodland streamlet to its mountain springs,To sit by gleaming wells and mark belowThe image of the rushes on its edge,And, deep beyond, the trailing clouds that slid Across the fair blue space. No little fountStole forth from hanging rock, or in the sideOf hollow dell, or under roots of oak,No rill came trickling, with a stripe of green,Down the bare hill, that to this maiden's eyesWas not familiar. Often did the banksOf river or of sylvan lakelet hearThe dip of oars with which the maiden rowedHer shallop, pushing ever from the prowA crowd of long, light ripples toward the shore. Two brothers had the maiden, and she thought,Within herself: "I would I were like them;For then I might go forth alone, to traceThe mighty rivers downward to the sea,And upward to the brooks that, through the year,Prattle to the cool valleys. I would knowWhat races drink their waters; how their chiefsBear rule, and how men worship there, and how They build, and to what quaint device they frame,Where sea and river meet, their stately ships;What flowers are in their gardens, and what treesBear fruit within their orchards; in what garbTheir bowmen meet on holidays, and howTheir maidens bind the waist and braid the hair.Here, on these hills, my father's house o'erlooksBroad pastures grazed by flocks and herds, but thereI hear they sprinkle the great plains with cornAnd watch its springing up, and when the greenIs changed to gold, they cut the stems and bringThe harvest in, and give the nations bread.And there they hew the quarry into shafts,And pile up glorious temples from the rock,And chisel the rude stones to shapes of men. All this I pine to see, and would have seen,But that I am a woman, long ago."Thus in her wanderings did the maiden dream,Until, at length, one morn in early spring,When all the glistening fields lay white with frost,She came half breathless where her mother sat:"See, mother dear," she said, "what I have found,Upon our rivulet's bank; two slippers, whiteAs the mid-winter snow, and spangled o'erWith twinkling points, like stars, and on the edgeMy name is wrought in silver; read, I pray,Sella, the name thy mother, now in heaven,Gave at my birth; and sure, they fit my feet!""A dainty pair," the prudent matron said,"But thine they are not. We must lay them byFor those whose careless hands have left them here;
Or haply they were placed beside the brookTo be a snare. I cannot see thy nameUpon the border,—only charactersOf mystic look and dim are there, like signsOf some strange art; nay, daughter, wear them not." Then Sella hung the slippers in the porchOf that broad rustic lodge, and all who passed,Admired their fair contexture, but none knowWho left them by the brook And now, at length,May, with her flowers and singing birds, had gone,And on bright streams and into deep wells shoneThe high, mid-summer sun. One day, at noon,Sella was missed from the accustomed meal.They sought her in her favorite haunts, they lookedBy the great rock, and far along the stream,And shouted in the sounding woods her name. Night came, and forth the sorrowing household wentWith torches over the wide pasture groundsTo pool and thicket, marsh and briery dell,And solitary valley far away.The morning came, and Sella was not found.The sun climbed high; they sought her still; the noon,The hot and silent noon, heard Sella's name,Uttered with a despairing cry, to wastesO'er which the eagle hovered. As the sunStooped toward the amber west to bring the closeOf that sad second day, and, with rod eyes,The mother sat within her home alone,Sella was at her side. A shriek of joyBroke the sad silence; glad, warm tears were shod,And words of gladness uttered. "Oh, forgive,"The maiden said, "that I could e'er forgetThy wishes for a moment. I just tried The slippers on, amazed to see them shapedSo fairly to my feet, when, all at once,I felt my steps upborne and hurried onAlmost as if with wings. A strange delight,Blent with a thrill of fear, o'ermastered me,And, ere I knew, my plashing steps were setWithin the rivulet's pebbly bed, and IWas rushing down the current. By my sideTripped one as beautiful as ever lookedFrom white clouds in a dream; and, as we ran,She talked with musical voice and sweetly laughed;Gayly we leaped the crag and swam the pool,And swept with dimpling eddies round the rock,And glided between shady meadow banks.The streamlet, broadening as we went, becameA swelling river, and we shot alongBy stately towns, and under leaning mastsOf gallant barks, nor lingered by the shoreOf blooming gardens; onward, onward still, The same strong impulse bore me till, at last,We entered the great deep, and passed belowHis billows, into boundless spaces, litWith a green sunshine. Here were mighty grovesFar down the ocean valleys, and betweenLay what might scem fair meadows, softly tingedWith orange and with crimson. Here aroseTall stems, that, rooted in the depths below,Swung idly with the motions of the sea;And here were shrubberies in whose mazy screenThe creatures of the deep made haunt. My friondNamed the strange growths, the pretty coral-line,The dulse with crimson leaves, and streaming far,Sea-thong and sea-lace. Here the tangle spreadIts broad, thick fronds, with pleasant bowers beneath, And oft we trod a waste of pearly sands,Spotted with rosy shells, and thence looked inAt caverns of the sea whose rock-roofed hallsLay in blue twilight. As we moved along,The dwellers of the deep, in mighty herds,Passed by us, reverently they passed us by,Long trains of dolphins rolling through the brine,Huge whales, that drew the waters after them,A torrent stream, and hideous hammer-sharks,Chasing their prey; I shuddered as they came;Gently they turned aside and gave us room." Hereat broke in the mother, "Sella, dear,This is a dream, the idlest, vainest dream." "Nay, mother, nay; behold this sea-green scarf,Woven of such threads as never human handTwined from the distaff. She who led my wayThrough the great waters, bade me wear it home,A token that my tale is true. 'And keep,' She said, 'the slippers thou hast found, for thou,When shod with them, shalt be like one of us,With power to walk at will the ocean floor,Among its monstrous creatures unafraid,And feel no longing for the air of heavenTo fill thy lungs, and send the warm, red bloodAlong thy veins. But thou shalt pass the hoursIn dances with the sea-nymphs, or go forth,To look into the mysteries of the abyssWhere never plummet reached. And thou shalt sleepThy weariness away on downy banksOf sea-moss, where the pulses of the tideShall gently lift thy hair, or thou shalt floatOn the soft currents that go forth and windFrom isle to isle, and wander through the sea.' "So spake my fellow-voyager, her wordsSounding like wavelets on a summer shore,And then we stopped beside a hanging rockWith a smooth beach of white sands at its foot, Where three fair creatures like herself were setAt their sea-banquet, crisp and juicy stalks,Culled from the ocean's meadows, and the sweetMidrib of pleasant leaves, and golden fruits,Dropped from the trees that edge the southern isles,And gathered on the waves. Kindly they prayedThat I would share their meal, and I partookWith eager appetite, for long had beenMy journey, and I left the spot refreshed. "And then we wandered off amid the grovesOf coral loftier than the growths of earth;The mightiest cedar lifts no trunk like theirs,So huge, so high, toward heaven, nor overhangsAlleys and bowers so dim. We moved betweenPinnacles of black rock, which, from beneath,Molten by inner fires, so said my guide,Gushed long ago into the hissing brine, That quenched and hardened them, and now they standMotionless in the currents of the seaThat part and flow around them. As we went,We looked into the hollows of the abyss,To which the never-resting waters sweepThe skeletons of sharks, the long white spinesOf narwhale and of dolphin, bones of menShipwrecked, and mighty ribs of foundered barks.Down the blue pits we looked, and hastened on. "But beautiful the fountains of the seaSprang upward from its bed; the silvery jetsShot branching far into the azure brine,And where they mingled with it, the great deepQuivered and shook, as shakes the glimmering airAbove a furnace. So we wandered throughThe mighty world of waters, till, at length I wearied of its wonders, and my heartBegan to yearn for my dear mountain home.I prayed my gentle guide to lead me backTo the upper air. 'A glorious realm,' I said,'Is this thou openest to me; but I strayBewildered in its vastness; these strange sightsAnd this strange light oppress me. I must seeThe faces that I love, or I shall die.' "She took my hand, and, darting through the waves,Brought me to where the stream, by which we came,Rushed into the main ocean. Then beganA slower journey upward. WearilyWe breasted the strong current, climbing throughThe rapids tossing high their foam. The nightCame down, and, in the clear depth of a pool,Edged with o'erhanging rock, we took our restTill morning; and I slept, and dreamed of homeAnd thee. A pleasant sight the morning showed; The green fields of this upper world, the herdsThat grazed the bank, the light on the red clouds,The trees, with all their host of trembling leaves,Lifting and lowering to the restless windTheir branches. As I woke I saw them allFrom the clear stream; yet strangely was my heartParted between the watery world and this,And as we journeyed upward, oft I thoughtOf marvels I had seen, and stopped and turned,And lingered, till I thought of thee again;And then again I turned and clambered upThe rivulet's murmuring path, until we cameBeside this cottage door. There tenderlyMy fair conductor kissed me, and I sawHer face no more. I took the slippers off.Oh! with what deep delight my lungs drew inThe air of heaven again, and with what joyI felt my blood bound with its former glow;And now I never leave thy side again." So spoke the maiden Sella, with large tearsStanding in her mild eyes, and in the porchReplaced the slippers. Autumn came and went;The winter passed; another summer warmedThe quiet pools; another autumn tingedThe grape with red, yet while it hung unplucked,The mother ere her time was carried forthTo sleep among the solitary hills. A long still sadness settled on that homeAmong the mountains. The stern father thereWept with his children, and grew soft of heart,And Sella, and the brothers twain, and oneYounger than they, a sister fair and shy,Strewed the new grave with flowers, and round it setShrubs that all winter held their lively green.Time passed; the grief with which their hearts were wrungWaned to a gentle sorrow. Sella, now, Was often absent from the patriarch's board;The slippers hung no longer in the porch;And sometimes after summer nights her couchWas found unpressed at dawn, and well they knewThat she was wandering with the race who makeTheir dwelling in the waters. Oft her looksFixed on blank space, and oft the ill-suited wordTold that her thoughts were far away. In vainHer brothers reasoned with her tenderly."Oh leave not thus thy kindred;" so they prayed;"Dear Sella, now that she who gave us birthIs in her grave, oh go not hence, to seekCompanions in that strange cold realm below,For which God made not us nor thee, but stayTo be the grace and glory of our home."She looked at them with those mild eyes and wept, But said no word in answer, nor refrainedFrom those mysterious wanderings that filledTheir loving hearts with a perpetual pain. And now the younger sister, fair and shy,Had grown to early womanhood, and oneWho loved her well had wooed her for his bride,And she had named the wedding day. The herdHad given its fatlings for the marriage feast;The roadside garden and the secret glenWere rifled of their sweetest flowers to twineThe door posts, and to lie among the locksOf maids, the wedding guests, and from the boughsOf mountain orchards had the fairest fruitBeen plucked to glisten in the canisters.Then, trooping over hill and valley, cameMatron and maid, grave men and smiling youths,Like swallows gathering for their autumn flight. In costumes of that simpler age they came,That gave the limbs large play, and wrapt the formIn easy folds, yet bright with glowing huesAs suited holidays. All hastened onTo that glad bridal. There already stoodThe priest prepared to say the spousal rite,And there the harpers in due order sat,And there the singers. Sella, midst them all,Moved strangely and serenely beautiful,With clear blue eyes, fair locks, and brow and cheekColorless as the lily of the lakes,Yet moulded to such shape as artists giveTo beings of immortal youth. Her handsHad decked her sister for the bridal hourWith chosen flowers, and lawn whose delicate threadsVied with the spider's spinning. There she stoodWith such a gentle pleasure in her looks As might beseem a river-nymph's soft eyesGracing a bridal of the race whose flocksWere pastured on the borders of her stream. She smiled, but from that calm sweet face the smileWas soon to pass away. That very mornThe elder of the brothers, as he stoodUpon the hillside, had beheld the maid,Emerging from the channel of the brook,With three fresh water lilies in her hand,Wring dry her dripping locks, and in a cleftOf hanging rock, beside a screen of boughs,Bestow the spangled slippers. None beforeHad known where Sella hid them. Then she laidThe light brown tresses smooth, and in them twinedThe lily buds, and hastily drew forthAnd threw across her shoulders a light robeWrought for the bridal, and with bounding steps Ran toward the lodge. The youth beheld and markedThe spot and slowly followed from afar. Now had the marriage rite been said; the brideStood in the blush that from her burning cheekGlowed down the alabaster neck, as mornCrimsons the pearly heaven halfway to the west.At once the harpers struck their chords; a gushOf music broke upon the air; the youthsAll started to the dance. Among them movedThe queenly Sella with a grace that seemedCaught from the swaying of the summer sea.The young drew forth the elders to the dance,Who joined it half abashed, but when they feltThe joyous music tingling in their veins,They called for quaint old measures, which they trodAs gayly as in youth, and far abroad Came through the open windows cheerful shoutsAnd bursts of laughter. They who heard the soundUpon the mountain footpaths paused and said,"A merry wedding." Lovers stole awayThat sunny afternoon to bowers that edgedThe garden walks, and what was whispered thereThe lovers of those later times can guess. Meanwhile the brothers, when the merry dinWas loudest, stole to where the slippers lay,And took them thence, and followed down the brookTo where a little rapid rushed betweenIts borders of smooth rock, and dropped them in.The rivulet, as they touched its face, flung upIts small bright waves like hands, and seemed to takeThe prize with eagerness and draw it down. They, gleaming through the waters as they went,And striking with light sound the shining stones,Slid down the stream. The brothers looked and watchedAnd listened with full beating hearts till nowThe sight and sound had passed, and silentlyAnd half repentant hastened to the lodge.The sun was near his set; the music rangWithin the dwelling still, but the mirth waned;For groups of guests were sauntering toward their homesAcross the fields, and far on hillside paths,Gleamed the white robes of maidens. Sella grewWeary of the long merriment; she thoughtOf her still haunts beneath the soundless sea,And all unseen withdrew and sought the cleftWhere she had laid the slippers. They were gone. She searched the brookside near, yet found them not.Then her heart sank within her, and she ranWildly from place to place, and once againShe searched the secret cleft, and next she stoopedAnd with spread palms felt carefully beneathThe tufted herbs and bushes, and again,And yet again she searched the rocky cleft."Who could have taken them?" That question clearedThe mystery. She remembered suddenlyThat when the dance was in its gayest whirl,Her brothers were not seen, and when, at length,They reappeared, the elder joined the sportsWith shouts of boisterous mirth, and from her eyeThe younger shrank in silence. "Now, I knowThe guilty ones," she said, and left the spot, And stood before the youths with such a lookOf anguish and reproach that well they knewHer thought, and almost wished the deed undone. Frankly they owned the charge: "And pardon us;We did it all in love; we could not bearThat the cold world of waters and the strangeBeings that dwell within it should beguileOur sister from us." Then they told her all;How they had seen her stealthily bestowThe slippers in the cleft, and how by stealthThey took them thence and bore them down the brook,And dropped them in, and how the eager wavesGathered and drew them down: but at that wordThe maiden shrieked—a broken-hearted shriek—And all who heard it shuddered and turned paleAt the despairing cry, and "They are gone," She said, "gone—gone forever. Cruel ones!'Tis you who shut me out eternallyFrom that serener world which I had learnedTo love so well. Why took ye not my life?Ye cannot know what ye have done." She spakeAnd hurried to her chamber, and the guestsWho yet had lingered silently withdrew. The brothers followed to the maiden's bower,But with a calm demeanor, as they came,She met them at the door. "The wrong is great,"She said, "that ye have done me, but no powerHave ye to make it less, nor yet to sootheMy sorrow; I shall bear it as I may,The better for the hours that I have passedIn the calm region of the middle sea.Go, then. I need you not." They, overawed,Withdrew from that grave presence. Then her tears Broke forth a flood, as when the August cloud,Darkening beside the mountain, suddenlyMelts into streams of rain. That weary nightShe paced her chamber, murmuring as she walked,"Oh peaceful region of the middle sea!Oh azure bowers and grots, in which I lovedTo roam and rest! Am I to long for you,And think how strangely beautiful ye are,Yet never see you more? And dearer yet,Ye gentle ones in whose sweet companyI trod the shelly pavements of the deep,And swam its currents, creatures with calm eyesLooking the tenderest love, and voices softAs ripple of light waves along the shore,Uttering the tenderest words! Oh! ne'er againShall I, in your mild aspects, read the peaceThat dwells within, and vainly shall I pineTo hear your sweet low voices. Haply nowYe miss me in your deep-sea home, and think Of me with pity, as of one condemnedTo haunt this upper world, with its harsh soundsAnd glaring lights, its withering heats, its frosts,Cruel and killing, its delirious strifes,And all its feverish passions, till I die. So mourned she the long night, and when the mornBrightened the mountains, from her lattice lookedThe maiden on a world that was to herA desolate and dreary waste. That dayShe passed in wandering by the brook that oftHad been her pathway to the sea, and stillSeemed, with its cheerful murmur, to inviteHer footsteps thither. "Well may'st thou rejoice,Fortunate stream!" she said, "and dance alongThy bed, and make thy course one ceaseless strain Of music, for thou journeyest toward the deep,.To which I shall return no more." The nightBrought her to her lone chamber, and she kneltAnd prayed, with many tears, to Him whose handTouches the wounded heart and it is healed.With prayer there came new thoughts and new desires.She asked for patience and a deeper loveFor those with whom her lot was henceforth cast,And that in acts of mercy she might loseThe sense of her own sorrow. When she roseA weight was lifted from her heart. She soughtHer couch, and slept a long and peaceful sleep.At morn she woke to a new life. Her daysHenceforth were given to quiet tasks of goodIn the great world. Men hearkened to her words,And wondered at their wisdom and obeyed, And saw how beautiful the law of loveCan make the cares and toils of daily life. Still did she love to haunt the springs and brooks,As in her cheerful childhood, and she taughtThe skill to pierce the soil and meet the veinsOf clear cold water winding underneath,And call them forth to daylight. From afarShe bade men bring the rivers on long rowsOf pillared arches to the sultry town,And on the hot air of the summer flingThe spray of dashing fountains. To relieveTheir weary hands, she showed them how to tameThe rushing stream, and make him drive the wheelThat whirls the humming millstone and that wieldsThe ponderous sledge. The waters of the cloud,That drench the hillside in the time of rains, Were gathered at her bidding into pools,And in the months of drought led forth again,In glimmering rivulets, to refresh the vales,Till the sky darkened with returning showers. So passed her life, a long and blameless life,And far and near her name was named with loveAnd reverence. Still she kept, as age came on,Her stately presence; still her eyes looked forthFrom under their calm brows as brightly clearAs the transparent wells by which she satSo oft in childhood. Still she kept her fairUnwrinkled features, though her locks were white.A hundred times had summer since her birthOpened the water lily on the lakes,So old traditions tell, before she died.A hundred cities mourned her, and her deathSaddened the pastoral valleys. By the brook,That bickering ran beside the cottage door Where she was born, they roured her monument.Ere long the current parted and flowed roundThe marble base, forming a little isle,And there the flowers that love the running stream,Iris and orchis, and the cardinal flower,Crowded and hung caressingly aroundThe stone engraved with Sella's honored name.