Читать книгу Fairy Realm: A Collection of the Favourite Old Tales Told in Verse - Tom Hood - Страница 6

The Princess looked in at the door and said—

Merrily, merrily turned the wheel!—

"What bonny white wool, and what bonny white thread!"

Merrily, merrily turned the wheel!

"Come hither, then, fair one, and make the wheel go!"

Merrily, merrily turned the wheel!

Said ugly old Spite, who sang, "Merrily, oh!

Merrily turn the wheel!"

She turns the wheel and wakes its busy hum,

She twists the white wool with her whiter fingers;

She hears them call her, but she will not come:

Charmed with the toy, in that small room she lingers.

The wheel runs swiftly and the distaff's full,

She takes the spindle—heedless of who calls her.

Two tiny drops of blood fall on the wool,

And all that cruel Spite foretold befalls her!

On one and all

Did sudden slumber fall!

The steed that in the palace courtyard cropt—

The very bird upon the roof that hopt—

The cook who mincemeat for the banquet chopt—?

The gardener who the fruit tree's branches lopt—

The huntsman who his beaded forehead mopt—

The gay young lover who the question popt—

The damsel who thereat her eyelids dropt—

The councillor who fain the state had propt—

The King, his measures anxious to adopt—

The courtier in his new court suit be-fopt—

The toper who his beak in Rhenish sopt—

The scullion wiping up the sauce he slopt—

The chamberlain, as wise as ancient Copt—

The purblind peer who'd in the fountain flopt—

The jester who that fall with mirth had topt—

Stopt!

And over all there came a change;

A silence terrible and strange

Enwrapt the place:

While thickets dense of thorn and brier

Grew round it till the topmost spire

They did efface.

And only agéd crones came nigh

To gather sticks; or, passing by,

Some huntsman bold,

Spying a tower, would ask its tale,

And by the shepherds scared and pale

Would then be told—

How many a prince of noble blood

Had striven to penetrate the wood,

And reach the keep

Where that Princess so passing fair,

With King and Queen and courtiers there,

Lay wrapt in sleep.

But how none ever yet could make

A path through that thick-tangled brake—

And none came back,

But perished miserably there,

And left their bones all bleached and bare

In that dark track!

It was a solemn place, I ween,

Wrapt in its shroud of sombre green,

So hushed and still;

The fall of every leaf you heard,

Nor was there in its shades a bird

To cheep and trill.

No cricket chirped beneath the hedge—

No reed-wren rustled in the sedge—

No skylark soared;

Only at times, where round the keep

Did thickest snaky ivies creep,

A grey owl snored.

The sunlight slumbered on the wall;

The trancéd shadow did not crawl,

Or scarcely crept;

Dreaming the white lake-lilies lay

Above their image, still as they;

The hushed wave slept;

Like hermits dozing in their cells,

Drowsed in the drooping blossom-bells

The murmurous bees;

All languidly the land up-clomb

Around the central palace dome

By slow degrees.