THE MARINER’S BRIDE.
“Look, mother! the mariner’s rowing
His galley adown the tide;
I’ll go where the mariner’s going,
And be the mariner’s bride!
“I saw him one day through the wicket,
I opened the gate and we met—
As a bird in the fowler’s net,
Was I caught in my own green thicket.
O mother, my tears are flowing,
I’ve lost my maidenly pride—
I’ll go if the mariner’s going,
And be the mariner’s bride!
“This Love the tyrant winces,
Alas! an omnipotent might,
He darkens the mind like night,
He treads on the necks of Princes!
O mother, my bosom is glowing,
I’ll go whatever betide,
I’ll go where the mariners going,
And be the mariner’s bride!
“Yes, mother! the spoiler has reft me
Of reason and self-control;
Gone, gone is my wretched soul,
And only my body is left me!
The winds, O mother, are blowing,
The ocean is bright and wide;
I’ll go where the mariner’s going,
And be the mariner’s bride.”
This appears among the Apocrypha, and is credited by Mangan to the “Spanish;” but it is safe to assume when he is so vague that the poem is original. It is one of the most bright and cheerful he has given us. The only touch of sorrow we feel is for the poor mother who is about to lose so impulsive and vivacious a daughter. The time of this delightful ballad is not clearly defined, but we may be absolutely certain that we of this moribund nineteenth century will never meet except at a function of a recondite spiritual medium even the great grandchild of the Mariner’s Bride. How much more is our devout gratitude due to a good and pious spiritualist than to any riotous and licentious poet! The former can give us intercourse with the illustrious defunct of history; the latter can give us no more than the image of a figment, the phantom of a shade, the echo of sounds that never vibrated in the ear of man. All persons who believe the evidence adduced by poets are the victims of subornation.
A saw-mill does not seem a good subject for a “copy of verses.” Mangan died single and in poverty, and was buried by his friends. Listen:—