THE LEGEND OF OSYTH’S WOOD.
[To W. Richer.]
How well I remember the tranquil hours
We spent in the haunted wood;
How fair was the glade and the primrose flowers
Where the ruined abbey stood,
For there, near the lake where water springs—
It gushed in a crystal stream—
From the mouth of a dragon with carven wings
And eyes of a fearful gleam.
And there was the grotto, with walls inlet
With shells from the shining sands,
And the floor with mosaic scenes was set,
All relics from Eastern lands.
We played, and we idly wondered who
In the centuries past and gone
Had chiselled the antique shape so true
Of this monster in sculptured stone.
And the legend weird of this ancient pile
We many a time had heard,
And oft in the dusk we would list, the while
The leaves by the wind were stirred.
For ages and ages ago ’twas said
A prince of the Saxon blood
With the Lady Osyth one day was wed
By a priest of the holy rood.
He bade adieu at the altar there,
But alas, for the vows they made,
A rival prince took his bride so fair
By force to the forest shade.
She was rescued, assuming the sacred veil,
And a nun she had scarce been made,
When up to the abbey, in coat of mail,
Rode the prince with a gleaming blade.
And with sword held high he espied the face
Of his wife in a window near,
A moment more, in his fast embrace
Swooned the lady in deadly fear.
And fast on his palfrey they rode away
These twain through the woodland deep,
And saw not the rival till brought to bay
Near the “Fatal Lover’s Leap.”
And the enemy’s knights came and bore them on
And round to the moonlit lake
And jeered: “So perish each wicked one
Who is false to the vows they make.”
The prince they bound to his steed and led
The lady whose every limb
Trembled, while faltering prayers she said
And her glorious eyes grew dim.
Then they bade her stand by the dragon’s side
When with swift and sudden blow
The rapier fell, and her life’s red tide
Welled o’er to the stream below.
And the legend runs that the headless form
Of the maiden quickly bent
And lifted her head beneath her arm
While a shriek the wild echoes rent.
And the prince enraged, when he knew her fate,
Unbuckled his heavy mail,
And, stabbing himself as his steed he sate,
He died with a mournful wail.
And the story goes that the lady’s shade
Still walks, and her voice is heard,
When the moon is old in the haunted glade—
Like the cry of a wounded bird—
And the headless image in marble chased
Of this saint in the chancel old
Still stands, though time hath its lines effaced
And despoiled it of beauty’s mould.
And oft as I think of the woodland fair
And the legend, I fain would be
Once more near the dragon which standeth where
St. Osyth lived, just by the sea.
MOUNT GAMBIER, SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
In lone magnificence and stately pride,
Majestic in thy ruin and decay,
Thou, whose unfathomed crater yawned wide
When Pluto’s furies in thy depths held sway;
And forked lightning on black clouds astride,
And igneous rocks, their glowing masses hurled
While streams of lava in a ceaseless tide
Flowed o’er thy base upon a darkened world.
What hast thou felt in cycles long untold?
What hast thou heard within thine eyrie there,
That scalding tears of rage hath down thee rolled
Scarring thine image and thy bosom bare?
What hath the glorious sun-god looked upon,
Searching thy heart with brilliant-zoned light?
What hath the silver-veiled Fingari, lone
Viewed from her vantage in the solemn night?
Thou must have breathed when regal Pompeii, placed
On proud Italia’s olive-mantled shore
Was by Vesuvius’ wrath engulfed and rased,
And eighteen centuries was covered o’er.
If thou but had a tongue, mayhap thou would
Tell us when fair Lemuria disappeared,
Or how the dusky tribes, with rites of blood,
In bora rings their writhing victims speared.
Thou antique dial: scarce thou feeleth, though
Thy faint spasmodic tremblings still are felt,
And o’er thy sunken cranium waters flow,
The rocky amphitheatre thy belt.
Now, foliage green adorns thy noble form—
Lo! Mansions fair are nestling there serene
Around thy neck, and in the gathering gloom
At eve we picture what thou once hath been.
And Oh! Thou mighty Gambier, not in vain
Thou teacheth like a sad and silent sage
The wisdom and the pleasure we may gain
While pondering on thy splendour and thine age.