The Poetical Works of William Motherwell/Lady Margaret
Lady Margaret.
I lay within the chamber lone
Where the Lady Margaret died;
And wildly there the midnight wind
Like hapless spirit sighed.
I mused upon that peerless One,
So beautiful of blee;
And marvelled much of her sad death's
Time-hallowed mystery:
For, as a rainbow-tinted cloud,
Smote by a gentle wind,
Sails o'er the deep, slow paced and proud,
Yet leaves no trace behind;
Nor can conjecture index true
Where one bright shadow lay,
Till all has melted from the view,
In nothingness away;
So did that lady vanish quite,
In her sad latter day!
It is a hundred years agone
Since living limb did rest
Within that chamber's chilling gloom,
And rose a living guest!
But many a brave and stately corpse
Of lord and lady tall,
Have here lain cold and motionless
Ere their proud funeral:
For no sound or sight, however strange,
Can lifeless flesh appal.
But ancient crones have noted well
Of each corpse that lay there,
That writhen was each ghastly limb,
The eyelid opened wide, and grim
Each cold dead eye did glare.
It is a hundred years agone,
Even on this very night,
Since, in this unsunned room, and lone,
Reposed that lady bright—
A miracle of loveliness—
A very beam of light.
Blythe dawns the morn—her bridal morn,
And merry minstrels play;
The brisk bridegroom, and all his kin,
Came trooping with a joyous din,
In seemliest array.
The bridegroom came, but ah! the bride
Was missing and away!
And of that gentle lady's fate
None wot of till this day!
And, since that night, all tenantless
Of life hath been her room;
Till even I did madly break
Upon its sacred gloom.
It was a dull and eerie night
Of wind and bitter sleet,
When first that tomb-like chamber rung
With the echoes of my feet;
And on its narrow casements hard
The hail and rain did beat,
While through each crazed and time-worn chink
The hollow wind did moan,
As if a hundred harps were strung
Within that chamber lone,
And every minstrel there had been
Some disembodied one!
But it is a lofty chamber,
And passing rich withal
When on its gilded mouldings huge
The quivering moonbeams fall.
And, ever and anon, in sooth,
Even on that stormy night,
Would some pale tempest-shattered ray
Through the dim windows find its way—
A very thread of light—
To glimmer on the needlecraft
And curious tapestry
Which moulder on the walls,—brave scrolls
Of dim antiquitye,
Embodying many a qnaint device
Of love and chivalrye.
Oh! it is a lofty chamber,
But dull it is to see,
In the dead pause of the deep midnight,
When the faggots dying be,
And nought but embers red
Throw round a dubious gleam,
Like the indistinct forthshadowings
Of a sad and unquiet dream.
Then suddenly to wake from sleep,
To gaze round that dim room
We're sure to feel as one whose pulse
Again beats in the tomb,
Swelling with idle life and strength
Within its stifling gloom.
'Twas even so that I awoke
(Sure awake I could not be),
Though with the life-likeness of waking truths
Were all things clothed to me.
'Twas in terror I awoke
Within that chamber dim;
The sweat drop burst on my cold brow,
Dull horror numbed each limb.
In agony my temples beat,
Life only throbbed there;
And creeping cold, like living things,
Stood up each clammy hair.
It seemed as if a spell from hell
Were drugg'd deep with the air;
Yet wherefore should I fear,
To me was all unknown;
For that chamber was, as heretofore,
Dim, desolate, and lone.
And I heard the angry winter's wind
Still shrilly whistling by;
I heard it stir the leafless trees,
And heard their faint reply.
While the ticking clock, right audibly,
Did note time's passing sigh,
And, like some dusky banner broad,
Loud flapping in the breeze,
The faded arras on the walls
Sung its own exiquies.
Then, then, methought I heard a foot,
It sounded soft and still;
And slowly then it died away,
Like echo on the hill,
Or like the far faint murmuring
Of a lone hermit rill.
Again that footstep sounded near,
Again it died away;
And then I heard it gliding past
The couch on which I lay!
I raised my head, and wildly gazed
Into the glimmering gloom;
But nothing save the embers red,
That on the spacious hearth were spread.
I saw within that room.
And all was dusky round,
Save where these embers shed
A pale and sickly gleam of light
On the Lady Margaret's bed.
On the couch where I did lye
That sickly light did shine
With one bright flash, when, as a voice
Did cry—"Revenge is mine!"
Another answered straight,
And said, "The hour is come!"
I listened—but these voices twain
For evermore were dumb.
But again the still soft foot
Came creeping stealthy on;
And then, Oh God! mine ear upcaught
A deep and stifled groan.
It echoed through the lofty room
So loud, so clear, and shrill,
Methinks even to my dying-day
I'll hear that echo still.
Again that deep and smothered groan—
That rattle in the throat—
That awful sob of struggling life—
On my strained ear-strings smote.
In desperate fear I madly strove
To start from that witch'd bed,
But on my breast there seem'd up-piled
A mountain weight of lead.
And when I strove to speak aloud,
To dissipate that spell,
I shuddered at the shapeless sounds
That from mine own lips fell.
'Twas then, full filled with fear, I shut
Mine eyes t' escape the gaze
Of that dim chamber's arras'd walls,
With their tales of other days,
Lest ghastly shapes should start from them
To sport in horrid glee
Before my tortured sight—dark scenes
Of their life's tragedy,
And like exulting fiends proclaim
How black man's heart can be.
But visionless scant space I lay
With throbbing downshut lid,
When o'er my brow and cheek, dear Lord!
A clammy coldness slid.
O'er brow and cheek I felt it slide;
And, like a frozen rill,
The blood waxed thick within my veins,
Grew pulseless, and stood still.
O'er brow and cheek I felt it slide,
So clammy and so cold,
Like the touch of one whose lifeless limbs
In winding-sheet are rolled.
Straight upward did I look, and then
From the thick obscurity—
Oh, horrible! there downward gleamed
Two glittering eyes on me.
From the ceiling of that lofty room
These glittering eyes did stare;
They rested on me, under them,
With a fixed and fearful glare.
Oh, never human eyes did flash
So wild and strange a light,
As these twin eyes straight downward poured
On that unhappy night.
Their beams shot down like lances long,
Unutterably bright.
And still these glittering living lights
Did steadfast gaze on me;
And each fibre of my heart shrunk up
Beneath their sorcery.
Still, still they gleam—their searching glance
Has pierced into my brain.
I feel the stream of fire pass through,
I feel its cureless pain!
One moment seemed to pass, and then
My vision waxed more clear
And livelier to my spell-fraught sight,
These blazing eyes appear.
As with unholy light they lit
A pallid cheek and brow,
And quivered on a lip as cold
And blenched as driven snow.
And I did gaze on that pale brow,
And on that lovesome check;
I watched those cold part-opened lips,
Methought that they would speak;
But motionless, and void of life
As monumental stone,
Was every feature, save those eyes,
That evermore out shone
With a fearful lustre, that to life
On earth, is never known.
That face was all a deadly white,
Yet beautiful to see;
And indistinctly floated down
Its body's symmetry,
In ample folds and wimples quaint
Of gorgeous drapery.
And gleaming forth, like spots of snow
On a sad coloured field,
A small white hand on either side
Was partially revealed.
O'er me a deeper horror,
A marvellous rush of light—
Long-perished memories returned
Upon that dreadful night.
I heard the voice of other times,
The tale of other years,
Re-acted were their direst crimes,
Re-shed their bitterest tears!