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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=447598" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Fairy Of The Fountains</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">WHY did she love her mother's so? <br>It hath wrought her wondrous wo.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Once she saw an armed knight<br>In the pale sepulchral light;<br>When the sullen starbeams throw<br>Evil spells on earth below:<br>And the moon is cold and pale,<br>And a voice is on the gale,<br>Like a lost soul's heavenward cry,<br>Hopeless in its agony.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He stood beside the castle-gate,<br>The hour was dark, the hour was late;<br>With the bearing of a king<br>Did he at the portal ring,<br>And the loud and hollow bell<br>Sounded like a Christian's knell.<br>That pale child stood on the wall,<br>Watching there, and saw it all.<br>Then she was a child as fair<br>As the opening blossoms are:<br>But with large black eyes, whose light<br>Spoke of mystery and might.<br>The stately stranger's head was bound<br>With a bright and golden round;<br>Curiously inlaid, each scale<br>Shone upon his glittering mail;<br>His high brow was cold and dim,<br>And she felt she hated him.<br>Then she heard her mother's voice,<br>Saying, ' 'Tis not at my choice!<br>'We for ever, wo the hour,<br>'When you sought my secret bower,<br>'Listening to the word of fear,<br>'Never meant for human ear.<br>'Thy suspicion's vain endeavour,<br>'We! we! parted us for ever.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Still the porter of the hall<br>Heeded not that crown'd knight's call.<br>When a glittering shape there came,<br>With a brow of starry flame;<br>And he led that knight again<br>O'er the bleak and barren plain.<br>He flung, with an appealing cry,<br>His dark and desperate arms on high;<br>And from Melusina's sight<br>Fled away through thickest night.<br>Who has not, when but a child,<br>Treasured up some vision wild:<br>Haunting them with nameless fear,<br>Filling all they see or hear,<br>In the midnight's lonely hour,<br>With a strange mysterious power?<br>So a terror undefined<br>Entered in that infant mind;—<br>A fear that haunted her alone,<br>For she told her thought to none.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Years passed on, and each one threw,<br>O'er those walls a deeper hue;<br>Large and old the ivy leaves<br>Heavy hung around the eaves,<br>Till the darksome rooms within<br>Daylight never entered in.<br>And the spider's silvery line<br>Was the only thing to shine.<br>Years past on,—the fair child now<br>Wore maiden beauty on her brow—<br>Beauty such as rarely flowers<br>In a fallen world like ours.<br>She was tall;—a queen might wear<br>Such a proud imperial air;<br>She was tall, yet when unbound,<br>Swept her bright hair to the ground,<br>Glittering like the gold you see<br>On a young laburnum tree.<br>Yet her eyes were dark as night,<br>Melancholy as moonlight,<br>With the fierce and wilder ray<br>Of a meteor on its ray.<br>Lonely was her childhood's time,<br>Lonelier was her maiden prime;<br>And she wearied of the hours<br>Wasted in those gloomy towers;<br>Sometimes through the sunny sky<br>She would watch the swallows fly;<br>Making of the air a bath,<br>In a thousand joyous rings:<br>She would ask of them their path,<br>She would ask of them their wings.<br>Once her stately mother came,<br>With her dark eye's funeral flame,<br>And her cheek as pale as death,<br>And her cold and whispering breath;<br>With her sable garments bound<br>By a mystic girdle round,<br>Which, when to the east she turned,<br>With a sudden lustre burned.<br>Once that ladye, dark and tall,<br>Stood upon the castle wall;<br>And she marked her daughter's eyes<br>Fix'd upon the glad sunrise,<br>With a sad yet eager look,<br>Such as fixes on a book<br>Which describes some happy lot,<br>Lit with joys that we have not.<br>And the thought of what has been,<br>And the thought of what might be,<br>Makes us crave the fancied scene,<br>And despise reality.<br>'Twas a drear and desert plain<br>Lay around their own domain;<br>But, far off, a world more fair<br>Outlined on the sunny air;<br>Hung amid the purple clouds,<br>With which early morning shrouds<br>All her blushes, brief and bright,<br>Waking up from sleep and night.<br>In a voice so low and dread,<br>As a voice that wakes the dead;<br>Then that stately lady said:<br>'Daughter of a kingly line,—<br>''Daughter, too, of race like mine,—<br>'Such a kingdom had been thine;<br>'For thy father was a king,<br>'Whom I wed with word and ring.<br>'But in an unhappy hour,<br>'Did he pass my secret bower,—<br>''Did he listen to the word,<br>'Mortal ear hath never heard;<br>'From that hour of grief and pain<br>'Might we never meet again.<br>'Maiden, listen to my rede,<br>'Punished for thy father's deed:<br>'Here, an exile I must stay,<br>'While he sees the light of day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Child, his race is mixed in thee,<br>'With mine own more high degree.<br>'Hadst thou at Christ's altar stood,<br>'Bathed in His redeeming flood;<br>'Thou of my wild race had known<br>'But its loveliness alone.<br>'Now thou hast a mingled dower,<br>'Human passion—fairy power.<br>'But forefend thee from the last:<br>'Be its gifts behind thee cast.<br>'Many tears will wash away<br>'Mortal sin from mortal clay.<br>'Keep thou then a timid eye<br>'On the hopes that fill yon sky;<br>'Bend thou with a suppliant knee,<br>'And thy soul yet saved may be;—<br>''Saved by Him who died to save<br>'Man from death beyond the grave.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Easy 'tis advice to give,<br>Hard it is advice to take<br>Years that lived—and years to live,<br>Wide and weary difference make.<br>To that elder ladye's mood,<br>Suited silent solitude:<br>For her lorn heart's wasted soil<br>Now repaid not hope's sweet toil.<br>Never more could spring-flowers grow,<br>On the worn-out soil below;<br>But to the young Melusine,<br>Earth and heaven were yet divine.<br>Still illusion's purple light<br>Was upon the morning tide,<br>And there rose before her sight<br>The loveliness of life untried.<br>Three sweet genii,—Youth, Love, Hope,—<br>Drew her future horoscope.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Must such lights themselves consume?<br>Must she be her own dark tomb?<br>But far other thoughts than these—<br>Life's enchanted phantasies,<br>Were with Melusina now,<br>Stern and dark contracts her brow;<br>And her bitten lip is white,<br>As with passionate resolve,<br>Muttered she,—'It is my right;<br>'On me let the task devolve:<br>'Since such blood to me belongs;<br>'It shall seek its own bright sphere;<br>'I will well avenge the wrongs<br>'Of my mother exiled here.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Two long years are come and past,<br>And the maiden's lot is cast;—<br>Cast in mystery and power,<br>Worked out by the watching hour,<br>By the word that spirits tell,<br>By the sign and by the spell.<br>Two long years have come and gone,<br>And the maiden dwells alone.<br>For the deed which she hath done,<br>Is she now a banished one;—<br>Banished from her mother's arms,<br>Banished by her mother's charms,<br>With a curse of grief and pain,<br>Never more to meet again.<br>Great was the revenge she wrought,<br>Dearly that revenge was bought.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When the maiden felt her powers,<br>Straight she sought her father's towers.<br>With a sign, and with a word,<br>Passed she on unseen, unheard,<br>One, a pallid minstrel born<br>On Good Friday's mystic morn,<br>Said he saw a lady there,<br>Tall and stately, strange and lair,<br>With a stern and glittering eye,<br>Like a shadow gliding by.<br>All was fear and awe next day,<br>For the king had passed away.<br>He had pledged his court at night,<br>In the red grape's flowing light.<br>All his pages saw him sleeping;<br>Next day there was wail and weeping.<br>Halls and lands were wandered o'er,<br>But they saw their king no more.<br>Strange it is, and sad to tell,<br>What the royal knight befell.<br>Far upon a desert land,<br>Does a mighty mountain stand;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On its summit there is snow,<br>While the bleak pines moan below;<br>And within there is a cave<br>Opened for a monarch's grave<br>Bound in an enchanted sleep<br>She hath laid him still and deep.<br>She, his only child, has made<br>That strange tomb where he is laid:<br>Nothing more of earth to know,<br>Till the final trumpet blow.<br>Mortal lip nor mortal ear,<br>Were not made to speak nor hear<br>That accursed word which sealed,—<br>All those gloomy depths concealed.<br>With a look of joy and pride,<br>Then she sought her mother's side.<br>Whispering, on her bended knee,<br>'Oh! my mother, joyous be;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'For the mountain torrents spring<br>'O'er that faithless knight and king.'<br>Not another word she spoke,<br>For her speech a wild shriek broke;<br>For the widowed queen upsprung,<br>Wild her pale thin hands she wrung.<br>With her black hair falling round,<br>Flung her desperate on the ground;<br>While young Melusine stood by,<br>With a fixed and fearful eye.<br>When her agony was past,<br>Slowly rose the queen at last;<br>With her black hair, like a shroud,<br>And her bearing high and proud;<br>With the marble of her brow,<br>Colder than its custom now;<br>And her eye with a strange light<br>Seem'd to blast her daughter's sight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And she felt her whole frame shrink,<br>And her young heart's pulses sink;<br>And the colour left her mouth,<br>As she saw her mother signing,<br>One stern hand towards the south,<br>Where a strange red star was shining.<br>With a muttered word and gaze,<br>Fixed upon its vivid rays;<br>Then she spoke but in a tone,<br>Her's, yet all unlike her own.—<br>''Spirit of our spirit-line,<br>'Curse for me this child of mine.<br>'Six days yield not to our powers,<br>'But the seventh day is ours.<br>'By yon star, and by our line,<br>'Be thou cursed, maiden mine.'<br>Then the maiden felt hot pain<br>Run through every burning vein.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sudden with a fearful cry<br>Writhes she in her agony;<br>Burns her cheek as with a flame,<br>For the maiden knows her shame.<br>PART II.<br>By a lovely river's side,<br>Where the water-lilies glide,<br>Pale, as if with constant care<br>Of the treasures which they bear;<br>For those ivory vases hold<br>Each a sunny gilt of gold.<br>And blue flowers on the banks,<br>Grow in wild and drooping ranks,<br>Bending mournfully above,<br>O'er the waters which they love;<br>But which bear off, day by day,<br>Their shadow and themselves away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Willows by that river grow<br>With their leaves half green, half snow,<br>Summer never seems to be<br>Present all with that sad tree.<br>With its bending boughs are wrought<br>Tender and associate thought,<br>Of the wreaths that maidens wear<br>In their long neglected hair.<br>Of the branches that are thrown<br>On the last, the funeral stone.<br>And of those torn wreaths that suit<br>Youthful minstrel's wasted lute.<br>But the stream is gay to-night<br>With the full-moon's golden light,<br>And the air is sweet with singing,<br>And the joyous horn is ringing,<br>While fair groups of dancers round<br>Circle the enchanted ground.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And a youthful warrior stands<br>Gazing not upon those bands,<br>Not upon the lovely scene,<br>But upon its lovelier queen,<br>Who with gentle word and smile<br>Courteous prays his stay awhile.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The fairy of the fountains, she<br>A strange and lovely mystery,<br>She of whom wild tales have birth,<br>When beside a winter hearth,<br>By some aged crone is told,<br>Marvel new or legend old.<br>But the lady fronts him there,<br>He but sees she is so fair,<br>He but hears that in her tone<br>Dwells a music yet unknown;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He but feels that he could die<br>For the sweetness of her sigh.<br>But how many dreams take flight<br>With the dim enamoured night;<br>Cold the morning light has shone,<br>And the fairy train are gone,<br>Melted in the dewy air,<br>Lonely stands young Raymond there.<br>Yet not all alone, his heart<br>Hath a dream that will not part<br>From that beating heart's recess;<br>What that dream may lovers guess.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet another year hath flown<br>In a stately hall alone,<br>Like an idol in a shrine<br>Sits the radiant Melusine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It is night, yet o'er the walls,<br>Light, but light unearthly, falls.<br>Not from lamp nor taper thrown,<br>But from many a precious stone,<br>With whose variegated shade<br>Is the azure roof inlaid,<br>And whose coloured radiance throws<br>Hues of violet and rose.<br>Sixty pillars, each one shining<br>With a wreath of rubies twining,<br>Bear the roof—the snow-white floor<br>Is with small stars studded o'er.<br>Sixty vases stand between,<br>Filled with prefumes for a queen;<br>And a silvery cloud exhales<br>Odours like those fragrant gales,<br>Which at eve float o'er the sea<br>From the purple Araby.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nothing stirs the golden gloom<br>Of that dim enchanted room.<br>Not a step is flitting round,<br>Not a noise, except the sound<br>Of the distant fountains falling,<br>With a soft perpetual calling,<br>To the echoes which reply<br>Musical and mournfully.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sits the fairy ladye there,<br>Like a statue, pale and fair;<br>From her cheek the rose has fled,<br>Leaving deeper charms instead.<br>On that marble brow are wrought<br>Traces of impassioned thought;<br>Such as without shade or line<br>Leave their own mysterious sign.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">While her eyes, they are so bright,<br>Dazzle with imperious light.<br>Wherefore doth the maiden bend?<br>Wherefore doth the blush ascend,<br>Crimson even to her brow,<br>Sight nor step are near her now?<br>Hidden by her sweeping robe,<br>Near her stands a crystal globe,<br>Gifted with strange power to show<br>All that she desires to know.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">First she sees her palace gate,<br>With its steps of marble state;<br>Where two kneeling forms seem weeping<br>O'er the watch which they are keeping,<br>While around the dusky boughs<br>Of a gloomy forest close,<br>Not for those that blush arose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But she sees beside the gate,<br>A young and anxious palmer wait;<br>Well she knows it is for her,<br>He has come a worshipper.<br>For a year and and for a day.<br>Hath he worn his weary way;<br>Now a sign from that white hand,<br>And the portals open stand.<br>But a moment, and they meet,<br>Raymond kneels him at her feet;<br>Reading in her downcast eye,<br>All that woman can reply.<br>Weary, weary had the hours<br>Passed within her fairy bowers;<br>She was haunted with a dream<br>Of the knight beside the stream.<br>Who hath never felt the sense<br>Of such charmed influence.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When the shapes of midnight sleep<br>One beloved object keep,<br>Which amid the cares of day<br>Never passes quite away?<br>Guarded for the sweetest mood<br>Of our happy solitude,<br>Linked with every thing we love,<br>Flower below, or star above:<br>Sweet spell after sweet spell thrown<br>Till the wide world is its own.<br>Turned the ladye deadly pale,<br>As she heard her lover's tale,<br>'Yes,' she said, oh! low sweet word,<br>Only in a whisper heard.<br>'Yes, if my true heart may be<br>Worthy, Christian knight, of thee,<br>By the love that makes thee mine<br>I am deeply, dearly thine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But a spell is on me thrown,<br>Six days may each deed be shown.<br>But the seventh day must be<br>Mine, and only known to me.<br>Never must thy step intrude<br>On its silent solitude.<br>Hidden from each mortal eye<br>Until seven years pass by.<br>When these seven years are flown,<br>All my secret may be known.<br>But if, with suspicious eye,<br>Thou on those dark hours wilt pry,<br>Then farewell, beloved in vain,<br>Never might we meet again.'<br>Gazing on one worshipped brow,<br>When hath lover spared a vow?<br>With an oath and with a prayer<br>Did he win the prize he sought.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Never was a bride so fair<br>As the bride that Raymond brought<br>From the wood's enchanted bowers<br>To his old ancestral towers.<br>——Oh, sweet love, could thy first prime<br>Linger on the steps of time,<br>Man would dream the unkind skies<br>Sheltered still a Paradise.<br>But, alas, the serpent's skill<br>Is amid our garden still.<br>Soon a dark inquiring thought<br>On the baron's spirit wrought:<br>She, who seemed to love him so,<br>Had she aught he might not know?<br>Was it wo, how could she bear<br>Grief he did not soothe nor share?<br>Was it guilt? no—heaven's own grace<br>Lightened in that loveliest face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then his jealous fancies rose,<br>(Our Lady keep the mind from those!)<br>Like a fire within the brain,<br>Maddens that consuming pain.<br>Henceforth is no rest by night,<br>Henceforth day has no delight.<br>Life hath agonies that tell<br>Of their late left native hell.<br>But mid their despair is none<br>Like that of the jealous one.<br>'Tis again the fatal day,<br>When the ladye must away,<br>To her lonely palace made<br>Far within the forest shade,<br>Where the mournful fountains sweep<br>With a voice that seems to weep.<br>On that morn Lord Raymond's bride<br>Ere the daybreak leaves his side.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Never does the ladye speak<br>But her tears are on his cheek,<br>And he hears a stifled moan<br>As she leaves him thus alone.<br>Hath she then complaint to make,<br>Is there yet some spell to break?<br>Come what will, of weal or wo,<br>'Tis the best the worst to know.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He hath followed—wo, for both,<br>That the knight forgot his oath.<br>Where the silvery fountains fall,<br>Stands no more the charmed hall;<br>But the dismal yew-trees droop,<br>And the pines above them stoop,<br>While the gloomy branches spread,<br>As they would above the dead,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In some churchyard large and drear<br>Haunted with perpetual fear.<br>Dark and still like some vast grave,<br>Near there yawns a night-black cave.<br>O'er its mouth wild ivy twines<br>There the daylight never shines.<br>Beast of prey or dragon's lair,<br>Yet the knight hath entered there.<br>Dimly doth the distant day<br>Scatter an uncertain ray,<br>While strange shapes and ghastly eyes<br>Mid the spectral darkness rise.<br>But he hurries on, and near<br>He sees a sudden light appear,<br>Wan and cold like that strange lamp<br>Which amid the charnel's damp<br>Shows but brightens not the gloom<br>Of the corpse and of the tomb.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With a cautious step he steals<br>To the cave that light reveals.<br>'Tis such grotto as might be,<br>Nereïd's home beneath the sea.<br>Crested with the small bright stars<br>Of a thousand rainbow spars.<br>And a fountain from the side<br>Pours beneath its crystal tide,<br>In a white and marble bath<br>Singing on its silvery path;<br>While a meteor's emerald rays<br>O'er the lucid water plays.—<br>Close beside, with wild flowers laid,<br>Is a couch of green moss made.<br>There he sees his lady lie;<br>Pain is in her languid eye,<br>And amid her hair the dew<br>Half obscures its golden hue;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damp and heavy, and unbound,<br>Its wan clusters sweep around.<br>On her small hand leans her head,—<br>See the fevered cheek is red,<br>And the fiery colour rushes<br>To her brow in hectic blushes.—<br>What strange vigil is she keeping!<br>He can hear that she is weeping.—<br>He will fling him at her feet,<br>He will kiss away her tears.<br>Ah, what doth his wild eyes meet,<br>What below that form appears?<br>Downwards from that slender waist,<br>By a golden zone embraced,<br>Do the many folds escape,<br>Of the subtle serpent's shape.—<br>Bright with many-coloured dyes<br>All the glittering scales arise,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With a red and purple glow<br>Colouring the waves below!<br>At the strange and fearful sight,<br>Stands in mute despair the knight,—<br>Soon to feel a worse despair,<br>Melusina sees him there!<br>And to see him is to part<br>With the idol of her heart,<br>Part as just the setting sun<br>Tells the fatal day is done.<br>Vanish all those serpent rings,<br>To her feet the lady springs,<br>And the shriek rings through the cell,<br>Of despairing love's farewell,—<br>Hope and happiness are o'er,<br>They can meet on earth no more.<br>Years have past since this wild tale—<br>Still is heard that lady's wail,<br>Ever round that ancient tower,<br>Ere its lord's appointed hour.<br>With a low and moaning breath<br>She must mark approaching death,<br>While remains Lord Raymond's line<br>Doomed to wander and to pine.<br>Yet, before the stars are bright,<br>On the evening's purple light,<br>She beside the fountain stands<br>Wringing sad her shadowy hands.<br>May our Lady, as long years<br>Pass with their atoning tears,<br>Pardon with her love divine<br>The fountain fairy—Melusine!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Letitia+Elizabeth+Landon">Letitia Elizabeth Landon</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=447598" data-title="The Fairy Of The Fountains de Letitia Elizabeth Landon" data-description="WHY did she love her mother's so? 
It hath wrought her wondrous wo.

Once she saw an armed knight
In the pale sepulchral light;
When the sullen starbeams throw
Evil spells on earth below:
And the moon is cold and pale,
And a voice is on the gale,
..."></div>
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