Literary Gazette, 28th February, 1824, Page 139
ORIGINAL POETRY.
METRICAL TALES.
1.—THE THREE WELLS—A Fairy Tale.
"J'ai grand regret à la fairie”— Marmontel.
There 's an island which the sea
Keeps in lone tranquillity;
Filled with flowers which the sun
Never yet hath looked upon,—
Flowers lighted with the light
Left by fairy feet at night;
Worshippers of the sweet moon,
Veiled from the eye of noon,
For, by daylight, bud nor bloom
Smiles amid the island gloom.
All is desolate and drear,
As no spring were in the year:
But beneath night's shadowy wing
Violets and roses spring;
Perfume floats upon the air,
Myrtle boughs are waving there;
Stars shine in their beauty forth,
Meteors glisten from the north,
Rode by radiant shapes that seem
Creatures made of bloom and beam,
With their hair and plumes' gay dyes
Glorious as the morning skies.
Seldom hath a mortal eye
Looked upon their revelry;
Yet sometimes, for what is there
Love in young hearts will not dare,
Lover's step has dared to press
That ground's haunted loveliness.
When the moon in her blue hall
Lights her zenith coronal,
On each mystic leaf and flower
Lies a spell of true love power:
Often have they borne away
Rosy leaf and scented spray;
Next the heart the charm have worn,
Long as true love faith was borne.
But as old tradition tells,
There are other, deeper, spells
In the lone and mystic wells—
Spells of strange wild augury
Few have had the heart to try.—
She came, or ever the dawning bright
Banished in blushes the grey twilight;
Like a spirit she seemed to float,
As the morning star guided her lonely boat;
With her golden hair, like a sunny sail
Spread by hope for a favouring gale;
With a cheek like the rose, when first the spring
Wakes its life of scented languishing;
And eyes, to whose dazzling beauty were given
The blue and the light of a summer heaven—
She sat alone in the boat, as it went
Calm thro' the sleep-hushed element.
