A Minstrel's Ballad

Lady Penrhyn
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

THE Minstrel came from beyond the sea,

And weary with his toil was he;

But wearied more, that in one long year

No news of his lady he could hear.

By land and sea he had wander'd far,

With Hope alone for a guiding star;

Yet had he been so tempest lost,

That oft the guiding star was lost.

Safe from the land, safe from the main,

Again he has reached his native Spain;

And he feels of its sun the blessed glow,

And inhales new life, as its breezes blow.

Yet he will not stop, nor he will not stay,

But onward goes, by night and by day;

Till at length he has reach'd that fateful spot,

Ne'er from the parting hour forgot.

There—and he dare no farther go

To seek what he dies, yet dreads, to know;

And he lingers till the moonlight hour,

When that lady lov'd to sing in her bower.

Oh! will this dazzling sun ne'er fade,

This sky ne'er soften into shade;

Longer than all that came before,

Will never this joyless day be o'er:

Faded, at last the sun's red ray

Softened the sky to cloudless gray;

The longest noon must have its night,—

And o'er the bower the moon rose bright.

Roses are wavering in its beam,

As thro' their foliage zephyrs stream;

Perfumes are floating on the air,

But no sweet song is singing there.

He listens—listens—but in vain,

From that low bower there breathes no strain:

“Yet may she come"—for Hope will stay,

Even till her last star fades away.

“Yet may she come”—no more—no more,—

The dreamings of thy heart be o'er:

Who slumbers the long sleep of rest,

Is dull to the voice she once lov'd best.

A ray within the green bower shone,

It danced upon a funeral stone;

There sculptured was a well-known name,

The name most dear—the same—the same!

That night, and o'er lost hope he mourn'd;

But ere again the hour return'd,

Had parted from his native shore

An exile—to return no more.

Yet, as he left that bower of woe,

That all of his constancy might know,

A ringlet of hair on that grave he bound,

A chain of gold round that pillar he wound.

lsabel D.

From The Literary Gazette, January 1818, Public Domain