Bright gleam’d the lake’s broad sheet of liquid blue,
Where, with the rabid pike, the troutling play’d;
The rose unlock’d its folded leaves anew,
And blush’d, besprinkled with the night’s cold tear.
Once more the lily rais’d its head and smil’d,
All ghastly white, as when it decks the bier.
Though sweet she sang, my fears were not the less,
For in her accents there was something wild,
Which I can feel, ’t is true, but not express.
“Come with us,” sang she, “deep below the earth,
Where sun ne’er burns, and storm-winds never rave;
Come with us to our halls of princely mirth,
“There thou shalt learn from us the Runic lay;
But dip thee, first, in yonder crystal wave,
Which binds thee to the Elfin race for aye:
“Though painted flowers on earth’s breast abound,
Yet we have far more lovely ones below;
Like grass the chrysolites there strew the ground.”
“O come,” the other syren did exclaim,
“For rubies there more red than roses grow—
The sapphir’s blue the violet puts to shame.”
I rais’d my eyes to heaven’s starry dome,
And gripp’d my faulchion with convulsive might,
Resolv’d no witchcraft should my mind o’ercome.
My lengthen’d silence vex’d the maidens sore:
“Wilt thou detain us here the live-long night,
Or must we, stripling, proffer something more?
“Taught by us, thou shalt bind the rugged bear,—
Seize on the mighty dragon’s heap of gold,—
And slay the cockatrice while in her lair!