Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 6/The chase of the Siren
THE CHASE OF THE SIREN.
A DORIC LEGEND.
Ages past a Doric village
Heard at night a spirit summons,
Sounding over wood and commons,
Over fallow, rock, and tillage,
Waking all the rustic sleepers,
Weary with the toil of tillage.
For that music shook the branches,
From their clay nests woke the thrushes;
Where the brook thro' fern leaves gushes—
Brook that summer scarcely stanches;
Woke the bird whose endless sorrow
Rest, nor years, nor absence stanches.
Watchmen by the gate's barred portal
Woke and heard the spirit calling,
As the chill night dew was falling.
“Lo!” they said, “’tis an Immortal
Come to bless our new-built temple—
Now the moonbeam strikes its portal.”
Dusky faces, over doorways,
Peered into the moonshine quiet,
Thinking it some rustic riot
Of god Pan, who often plays
To the Bacchants in the midnight.
All dark through, so they but praise.
Hark! it rises and it hovers
"Where the dew, so fresh and gleaming,
Like a diamond treasure beaming,
Studs the rose-flowers, dear to lovers.
Can it be a wandering Siren
Luring Dryads from their lovers?
Now a bird returning seaward,
Then it moaneth like the dying;
Now it clamours like the flying
Of a host fierce driven seaward;
Then there comes a sound of pinions
As of creatures winging seaward.
Floats through ilex boughs that tangle,
Where moss-banks the violets cover.
Where the amorous night-moths hover,
By the brooks that playful wrangle,
Washing round the roots of beeches.
Where the water-courses jangle.
Now it seems a Pæan holy
Keeping cadence to the beating
Of the wild Fauns' golden cymbals,
When their blood the wine is heating,
When the lambs burn on the turf,
And the worshippers are meeting.
Hearing it, the green-mailed adder
From the bramble wood came creeping,
Then the tortoise from its sleeping
Slowly woke, and loud and madder
Howled the wolf, as if tormented
By those sounds that cheered all other
Sounds that Echo answered sadder.
Now it passes to'ards the village,
In between the wattled houses,
And each drowsy shepherd rouses.
Faces stare out on the tillage,
Thinking that some god were coming,
Or the light-armed hot for pillage.
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