The bottom gained, they found a grotto cold
And vast; midway whereof a beldam old,
The witch Taven, sat silent, crouching lowly
As lost in thought and utter melancholy,
Holding a sprig of brome, and muttering,
“Some call thee devil’s wheat, poor little thing,
“Yet art thou one of God’s own signs for good!”
Therewith Mirèio, trembling where she stood,
Was fain to tell why they had sought her thus.
“I knew it!” cried the witch, impervious,
The brome addressing still, with bended head.
“Thou poor field-flower! The trampling flock,” she said,
“Browse on thy leaves and stems the whole year long;
But all the more thou spreadest and art strong,
And north and south with verdure deckest yet.”
She ceased. A dim light, in a snail-shell set,
Danced o’er the dank rock-wall in lurid search:
Here hung a sieve; there, on a forkèd perch,
Roosted a raven, a white hen beside.
Suddenly, as if drunken, rose and cried
The witch, “And what care I whoe’er you be?
Faith walketh blindfold, so doth Charity,
Nor from her even tenor wandereth.
Say, Valabregan weaver, have you faith?”
“I have.” Then wildly, their pursuit inviting,
Like a she-wolf her flanks with her tail smiting,
Darted the hag into a deeper shaft,
While the fowl cackled and the raven laughed
Before her footsteps; and the boy and maid
Followed her through the darkness, sore afraid.
“Stay not!” she cried. “The time is now to find
The mystic mandrake.” And, with hands entwined,
Obedient to the voice the two crept on,
Through the infernal passage, till they won
A grotto larger than the rest. “Lo! now,
Lord Nostradamus’ plant, the golden bough,
“The staff of Joseph and the rod of Moses!”
Thus crying, Taven a slender shrub discloses,
And, kneeling, with her chaplet crowns. Then said,
Arising, “We too must be garlanded
With mandrake;” and the plant in the rock’s cleft
Of three fair sprays mysteriously bereft,
Herself crowned first, and next the wounded man,
And last the maid. Then, crying, “Forward!” ran
Down the weird way, before her footsteps lit
By shining beetles trooping over it.
Yet turned with a sage word,—“All paths of glory,
My children, have their space of purgatory!
“Therefore have courage! for we must, alas!
The terrors of the Sabatori pass.”
And, while she spake, their faces cut they find,
And breathing stopped, by rush of keenest wind.
“Lie down!” she whispered hurriedly,—“lie low!
The triumph of the Whirlwind Sprites is now!”
Then fell upon them, like a sudden gale
Or white squall on the water fraught with hail,
A swarm of whirling, yelping, vicious things,
Under the fanning of whose icy wings
The mortals, drenched with sweat and struck with cold,
Stood shivering. “Away, ye over-bold,