''Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
And the owls have awaken'd the crowing cock;
Tu —— whit! —— Tu —— whoo!
And hark, again! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.'
'Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff bitch;
From her kennel beneath the rock
She makes answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour:
Ever and aye, moonshine or shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over loud;
Some say she sees my lady's shroud.'
'Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.' p. 3, 4.
It is probable that Lord Byron may have had this passage in his eye, when he called the poem 'wild' and 'original;' but how he discovered it to be 'beautiful,' is not quite so easy for us to imagine.
Much of the art of the wild writers consists in sudden transitions—opening eagerly upon some topic, and then flying from it immediately. This indeed is known to the medical men, who not unfrequently have the care of them, as an unerring symptom. Accordingly, here we take leave of the Mastiff Bitch, and lose sight of her entirely, upon the entrance of another personage of a higher degree,
'The lovely Lady Christabel,
Whom her father loves so well'—
And who, it seems, has been rambling about all night, having, the night before, had dreams about her lover, which 'made her moan and leap.' While kneeling, in the course of her rambles, at an old oak, she hears a noise on the other side of the stump, and going round, finds, to her great surprize, another fair damsel in white silk, but with her dress and hair in some disorder; at the mention of whom, the poet takes fright, not, as might be imagined, because of her disorder, but on account of her beauty and her fair attire—
'I guess, 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she—
Beautiful exceedingly!'
Christabel naturally asks who she is, and is answered, at some length, that her name is Geraldine; that she was, on the morning before, seized by five warriors, who tied her on a white horse, and drove her on, they themselves following, also on white horses; and that they had rode all night. Her narrative now gets to be a little contradictory, which gives rise to unpleasant suspicions. She protests vehemently, and with oaths, that she has no idea who the men were; only that one of them, the tallest of the five, took her and placed her under the tree, and that they all went away, she knew not whither; but how long she had remained there she cannot tell—
'Nor do I know how long it is,
For I have lain in fits, I wis;'
—although she had previously kept a pretty exact account of the time. The two ladies then go home together, after this satisfactory explanation, which appears to have conveyed to the intelligent mind of Lady C. every requisite information. They arrive at the castle, and pass the night in the same bed-room; not to disturb Sir Leoline, who, it seems, was poorly at the time, and, of course, must have been called up to speak to the chambermaids, and have the sheets aired, if Lady G. had had a room to herself. They do not get to their bed, however in the poem, quite so easily as we have carried them. They first cross the moat, and Lady C. 'took the key that fitted well,' and opened a little door, 'all in the middle of the gate.' Lady G. then sinks down 'belike through pain;' but it should seem more probably from laziness; for her fair companion having lifted her up, and carried her a little way, she then walks on 'as she were not in pain.' Then they cross the court—but we must give this in the poet's words, for he seems so pleased with them, that he inserts them twice over in the space of ten lines.
'So free from danger, free from fear,
They crossed the court—right glad they were.'