Читать книгу Tides - Drinkwater John - Страница 2

There is an old woman who looks each night

Out of the wood.

She has one tooth, that isn’t too white.

She isn’t too good.

She came from the north looking for me,

About my jewel.

Her son, she says, is tall as can be;

But, men say, cruel.

My girl went northward, holiday making,

And a queer man spoke

At the woodside once when night was breaking,

And her heart broke.

For ever since she has pined and pined,

A sorry maid;

Her fingers are slack as the wool they wind,

Or her girdle-braid.

So now shall I send her north to wed,

Who here may know

Only the little house of the dead

To ease her woe?

Or keep her for fear of that old woman,

As a bird quick-eyed,

And her tall son who is hardly human,

At the woodside?

She is my babe and my daughter dear,

How well, how well.

Her grief to me is a fourfold fear,

Tongue cannot tell.

And yet I know that far in that wood

Are crumbling bones,

And a mumble mumble of nothing that’s good,

In heathen tones.

And I know that frail ghosts flutter and sigh

In brambles there,

And never a bird or beast to cry —

Beware, beware, —

While threading the silent thickets go

Mother and son,

Where scrupulous berries never grow,

And airs are none.

And her deep eyes peer at eventide

Out of the wood,

And her tall son waits by the dark woodside,

For maidenhood.

And the little eyes peer, and peer, and peer;

And a word is said.

And some house knows, for many a year,

But years of dread.