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The Ballad of the Fairy Thorn-Tree · Ririro.com - Poetry

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  Speaker 1: The Ballad of the Fairy Thorn Tree. This is an
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  Speaker 1: evil night. To go, my sister to the fairy tree
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  Speaker 1: across the fairy wrath. Will you not wait till hollow
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  Speaker 1: eve is over? For many are the dangers in your path.
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  Speaker 1: I may not wait till hollow eve is over. I
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  Speaker 1: shall be there before the night is fled. For brother,
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  Speaker 1: I am weary for my lover, and I must see him,
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  Speaker 1: once alive or dead. I have prayed to heaven, but
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  Speaker 1: it would not listen. I'll call thrice in the Devil's
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  Speaker 1: name tonight. Be it a live man that shall come
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  Speaker 1: to hear me, or but a corpse. All clad in
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  Speaker 1: snowy white, she had drawn on her silken hose and garter.
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  Speaker 1: Her crimson petticoat was kilted high. She trod her way
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  Speaker 1: amid the bog and brambles until the ferry tree she
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  Speaker 1: stood near by. When first she cried the devil's name
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  Speaker 1: so loudly, she listened, but she heard no sound at all.
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  Speaker 1: When twice she cried, she thought from out the darkness
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  Speaker 1: she heard the echo of a light footfall. When last
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  Speaker 1: she cried, her voice came in a whisper. She trembled
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  Speaker 1: in her loneliness and fright. Before her stood a shrouded,
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  Speaker 1: mighty figure in somber garments, blacker than the night. And
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  Speaker 1: if you be my own true love, she questioned, I
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  Speaker 1: fear you speak you quickly unto me. Oh I am
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  Speaker 1: not your own true love, it answered. He drifts without
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  Speaker 1: a grave upon the sea. If he be dead, then
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  Speaker 1: gladly will I follow down the black stairs of death
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  Speaker 1: into the grave. Your lover calls you for a place
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  Speaker 1: to rest him from the eternal tossing of the wave.
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  Speaker 1: I'll make my love a bed both wide and hollow,
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  Speaker 1: a grave wherein we both may ever sleep. What give
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  Speaker 1: you for his body, fair and slender, to draw it
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  Speaker 1: from the dangers of the deep. I'll give you both
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  Speaker 1: my silver comb and ear rings. I'll give you all
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  Speaker 1: my little treasure store. I will but take what living
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  Speaker 1: thing comes forward the first to meet you passing to
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  Speaker 1: your door. Oh, may my little dog be first to
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  Speaker 1: meet me. So loose my lover from your dreaded hold.
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  Speaker 1: What will you give me for the heart that loved you,
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  Speaker 1: the heart that I hold chained and frozen cold? My
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  Speaker 1: own betrothed ring, I give you, gladly, my ring of pearls,
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  Speaker 1: and every one a tear. I will but have what
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  Speaker 1: other living creature that second in your pathway shall appear
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  Speaker 1: to buy this heart, to warm my love to living.
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  Speaker 1: I pray my pony meet me on return. And now
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  Speaker 1: for his young soul? What will you give me his soul?
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  Speaker 1: That night and day doth fret and burn. You will
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  Speaker 1: not have my silver comb and earrings. You will not
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  Speaker 1: have my ring of precious stone. Oh nothing have I
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  Speaker 1: left to promise to you, but give my soul to
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  Speaker 1: buy him back his own. All Woefully she wept, and,
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  Speaker 1: stepping homeward, bemoaned aloud her dark and cruel fate. O come,
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  Speaker 1: she cried, my little dog to meet me, And you,
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  Speaker 1: my horse, be browsing at the gate right hastily she
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  Speaker 1: pushed by bush and bramble, chaste, by a fear that
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  Speaker 1: made her footsteps fleet, And as she ran she met
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  Speaker 1: her little brother, then her old father, coming her to meet.
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  Speaker 1: Oh brother, little brother, cried she weeping, Well, you said
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  Speaker 1: a fairy tree. Beware, for precious things are bought and
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  Speaker 1: sold ere midnight on hollow eve by those who barter there.
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  Speaker 1: She went alone into the little chapel and knelt before
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  Speaker 1: the Holy Virgin's shrine, saying, Mother Mary, pray you for
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  Speaker 1: me to save those two most gentle souls of thine.
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  Speaker 1: And as she prayed, behold the holy statue spoke to her, saying,
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  Speaker 1: little can, I aid, God's ways are just, and you
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  Speaker 1: have dared to question his judgment on this soul you
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  Speaker 1: bought and paid for that one soul, your father and
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  Speaker 1: your brother, Your my own immortal life you bartered. Then,
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  Speaker 1: Yet one chance is allowed your sure repentance. Give back
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  Speaker 1: his heart you made to live again for these two souls,
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  Speaker 1: my father and my brother. I give his heart back
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  Speaker 1: into death's cold land, never again to warm his dead
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  Speaker 1: sweet body, or beat to madness underneath my hand. And
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  Speaker 1: for your soul, to save it from its sorrow. You
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  Speaker 1: must drive back his soul into the night, back into
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  Speaker 1: righteous punishment and justice, or lose your chance of everlasting light. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: never shall I drive him back to anguish. My soul
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  Speaker 1: shall suffer, letting his go free. She rose, and weeping
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  Speaker 1: left the little chapel, went forward blindly till she reached
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  Speaker 1: the sea. She dug a great grave within the surf
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  Speaker 1: and shingle, a dark, cold bed made very deep and wide.
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  Speaker 1: She laid her down, all stiff, and stretched for burial,
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  Speaker 1: right in the pathway of the rising tide. First tossed
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  Speaker 1: into her waiting arms, the restless loud waves, a woman
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  Speaker 1: very gray and cold within her bed. She stood upright
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  Speaker 1: so quickly and loosed her fingers from the dead hands
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  Speaker 1: hold The second, who, upon her heart, had rested from
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  Speaker 1: out the storm, a baby, chill and stark, with one
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  Speaker 1: long sob She drew it on her bosom, then thrust
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  Speaker 1: it out again into the dark. The last who came
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  Speaker 1: so slow was her own lover. She kissed his icy
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  Speaker 1: face on cheek and chin. O, cold shall be your
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  Speaker 1: house tonight, beloved, oh cold, the bed that we might
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  Speaker 1: sleep within, and heavy, heavy on our lips, so faithful
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  Speaker 1: and on our hearts shall lie our own roof tree.
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  Speaker 1: And as she spoke, the bitter tears were falling on
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  Speaker 1: his still face, all salter than the sea. And oh,
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  Speaker 1: she said, if for a little moment you knew, my cold,
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  Speaker 1: dead love, that I was by that my soul goes
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  Speaker 1: into the utter darkness when yours comes forth, and mine
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  Speaker 1: goes in to die. And as she wept, she kissed
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  Speaker 1: his frozen forehead, laid her warm lips upon his mouth
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  Speaker 1: so chill, with no response. And then the waters flowing
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  Speaker 1: into their grave grew heavy, deep and still. And so
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  Speaker 1: tis said, if to that fairy thorn tree you dare
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  Speaker 1: to go, you see her ghost alone. She prays for
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  Speaker 1: love of her, that you will aid her and give
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  Speaker 1: your soul to buy her back her own