THE
MARRING OF MALYN
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I
THE
MERRYMAKERS
AMONG
the wintry mountains beside the Northern sea
There is a merrymaking, as old as old can be.
Over
the river reaches, over the wastes of snow,
Halting at every doorway, the white drifts come
and go.
They
scour upon the open, and mass along the wood,
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The
burliest invaders that ever man withstood.
With
swoop and whirl and scurry, these riders of the
drift
Will mount and wheel and column, and pass into
the lift.
All
night upon the marshes you hear their tread go
by,
And all night long the streamers are dancing on
the sky.
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Their light in Malyn’s chamber is pale upon
the floor,
And Malyn of the mountain is theirs for evermore.
She
fancies them a people in saffron and in green,
Dancing for her. For Malyn is only seventeen.
Out
there beyond her window, from frosty deep to deep,
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Her
heart is dancing with them until she falls asleep.
Then
all night long through heaven, with stately to
and fro,
To music of no measure, the gorgeous dancers go.
The
stars are great and splendid, beryl and gold and
blue,
And there are dreams for Malyn that never will
come true.
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Yet
for one golden Yule-tide their royal guest is
she,
Among the wintry mountains beside the Northern
sea.
II
A
SAILOR'S WEDDING
THERE
is a Norland laddie who sails the round sea-rim,
And Malyn of the mountains is all the world to
him.
The Master of the Snowflake, bound upward from
the line, |
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He
smothers her with canvas along the crumbling brine.
He crowds her till she buries and shudders from
his hand,
For in the angry sunset the watch has sighted land;
And he will brook no gainsay who goes to meet his
bride.
But their will is the wind’s will who traffic
on the tide. |
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Make
home, my bonny schooner! The sun goes down to
light
The gusty crimson wind-halls against the wedding
night.
She
gathers up the distance, and grows and veers and
swings,
Like any homing swallow with nightfall in her
wings.
The wind’s white sources glimmer with shining
gusts of rain;
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And
in the Ardise country the spring comes back again.
It is the brooding April, haunted and sad and dear,
When vanished things return not with the returning
year.
Only, when evening purples the light in Malyn’s
dale,
With sound of brooks and robins, by many a hidden
trail, |
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The
dream-folk of the gloaming come back to Malyn’s
door.
The dusk is long and gracious, and far up in the
sky
You hear the chimney-swallows twitter and scurry
by.
The hyacinths are lonesome and white in Malyn’s
room;
And out at sea the Snowflake is driving through
the gloom. |
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The
whitecaps froth and freshen; in squadrons of white
surge
They thunder on to ruin, and smoke along the verge.
The lift is black above them, the sea is mirk below,
And down the world’s wide border they perish
as they go.
They comb and seethe and founder, they mount and
glimmer and |
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flee, |
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Amid
the awful sobbing and quailing of the sea.
They sheet the flying schooner in foam from stem
to stern,
Till every yard of canvas is drenched from clew
to ear’n’.
And where they move uneasy, chill is the light and
pale;
They are the Skipper’s daughters, who dance
before the gale. |
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They
revel with the Snowflake, and down the close of
day
Among the boisterous dancers she holds her dancing
way;
And then the dark has kindled the harbor light alee,
With stars and wind and sea-room upon the gurly
sea.
The storm gets up to windward to heave and clang
and brawl; |
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The
dancers of the open begin to moan and call.
A lure is in their dancing, a weird is in their
song;
The snow-white Skipper’s daughters are stronger
than the strong.
They love the Norland sailor who dares the rough
sea play;
Their arms are white and splendid to beckon him
away. |
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They
promise him, for kisses a moment at their lips,
To make before the morning the port of missing ships,
Where men put in for shelter, and dreams put forth
again,
And the great sea-winds follow the journey of the
rain.
A bridal with no morrow, no welling of old tears, |
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For
him, and no more tidings of the departed years!
For there of old were fashioned the chambers cool
and dim,
In the eternal silence below the twilight’s
rim.
The borders of that country are slumberous and wide;
And they are well who marry the fondlers of the
tide. |
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Within
their arms immortal, no mortal fear can be;
But Malyn of the mountains is fairer than the sea.
And so the scudding Snowflake flies with the wind
astern,
And through the boding twilight are blown the shrilling
tern.
The light is on the headland, the harbor gate is
wide; |
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But
rolling in with ruin the fog is on the tide.
Fate like a muffled steersman sails with that Norland
gloom;
The Snowflake in the offing is neck and neck with
doom.
Ha, ha, my saucy cruiser, crowd up your helm and
run!
There’ll be a merrymaking to-morrow in the
sun. |
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A
cloud of straining canvas, a roar of breaking foam,
The Snowflake and the sea-drift are racing in for
home.
Her heart is dancing shoreward, but silently and
pale
The swift relentless phantom is hungering on her
trail.
They scour and fly together, until across the roar |
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He
signals for a pilot—and Death puts out from
shore.
A moment Malyn’s window is gleaming in the
lee,
And then—the ghost of wreckage upon the
iron sea.
Ah,
Malyn, lay your forehead upon your folded arm,
And hear the grim marauder shake out the reefs
of storm!
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Loud
laughs the surly Skipper to feel the fog drive in,
Because a blue-eyed sailor shall wed his kith and
kin,
And the red dawn discover a rover spent for breath
Among the merrymakers who fondle him to death.
And all the snowy sisters are dancing wild and grand, |
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For
him whose broken beauty shall slacken to their hand.
They wanton in their triumph, and skirl at Malyn’s
plight;
Lift up their hands in chorus, and thunder to the
night.
The gulls are driven inland; but on the dancing
tide
The master of the Snowflake is taken to his bride. |
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And
there when daybreak yellows along the far sea-plain,
The fresh and buoyant morning comes down the wind
again.
The world is glad of April, the gulls are wild with
glee,
And Malyn on the headland alone looks out to sea.
Once more that gray Shipmaster smiles, for the night
is done, |
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And
all his snow-white daughters are dancing in the
sun.
III
THE
LIGHT ON THE MARSH
THE
year grows on to harvest, the tawny lilies burn
Along the marsh, and hillward the roads are sweet
with fern.
All day the windless heaven pavilions the sea-blue,
Then twilight comes and drenches the sultry dells
with dew. |
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The
lone white star of evening comes out among the hills,
And in the darkling forest begin the whip-poor-wills.
The fireflies that wander, the hawks that flit and
scream,
And all the wilding vagrants of summer dusk and
dream,
Have all their will, and reck not of any after thing, |
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Inheriting
no sorrow and no foreshadowing.
The wind forgets to whisper, the pines forget to
moan,
And Malyn of the mountains is there among her own.
Malyn, whom grief nor wonder can trouble nevermore,
Since that spring night the Snowflake was wrecked
beside her |
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door, |
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And
strange her cry went seaward once, and her soul
thereon
With the vast lonely sea-winds, a wanderer, was
gone.
But she, that patient beauty which is her body fair,
Endures on earth still lovely, untenanted of care.
The folk down at the harbor pity from day to day; |
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With
a "God save you, Malyn!" they bid her
on her way.
She smiles, poor feckless Malyn, the knowing smile
of those
Whom the too sudden vision God sometimes may disclose
Of this wild, lurid world-wreck, has blinded with
its sheen.
Then, with a fond insistence, pathetic and serene, |
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They
pass among their fellows for lost minds none can
save,
Bent on their single business, and marvel why men
rave.
Now far away a sighing comes from the buried reef,
As though the sea were mourning above an ancient
grief.
For once the restless Mother of all the weary lands |
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Went
down to him in beauty, with trouble in her hands,
And gave to him forever all memory to keep,
But to her wayward children oblivion and sleep,
That no immortal burden might plague one living
thing,
But death should sweetly visit us vagabonds of spring. |
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And
so his heart forever goes inland with the tide,
Searching with many voices among the marshes wide.
Under the quiet starlight, up through the stirring
reeds,
With whispering and lamenting it rises and recedes.
All night the lapsing rivers croon to their shingly
bars |
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The
wizardries that mingle the sea-wind and the stars.
And all night long wherever the moving waters gleam,
The little hills hearken, hearken, the great hills
hear and dream.
And Malyn keeps the marshes all the sweet summer
night,
Alone, foot-free, to follow a wandering wisp-light. |
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For
every day at sundown, at the first beacon’s
gleam,
She calls the gulls her brothers and keeps a tryst
with them.
"O gulls, white gulls, what see you beyond
the sloping blue?
And where away’s the Snowflake, she’s
so long over-due?"
Then, as the gloaming settles, the hilltop stars
emerge |
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And
watch that plaintive figure patrol the dark sea
verge.
She follows the marsh fire; her hears laughs and
is glad;
She knows that light to seaward is her own sailor
lad!
What are those tales they tell her of wreckage on
the shore?
Delay but makes his coming the nearer than before! |
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Surely
her eyes have sighted his schooner in the lift!
But the great tide he homes on sets with an outward
drift.
So will-o’-the-wisp deludes her till dawn,
and she turns home
In unperturbed assurance, "To-morrow he will
come."
This is the tale of Malyn, whom sudden grief so
marred. |
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And
sill each lovely summer resumes that sweet regard,—
The old unvexed eternal indifference to pain;
The sea sings in the marshes, and June comes back
again.
All night the lapsing rivers lisp in the long dike
grass,
And many memories whisper the sea-winds as they
pass; |
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The
tides disturb the silence; but not a hindrance bars
The wash of time, where founder even the galleon
stars.
And all night long wherever the moving waters gleam,
The little hills hearken, hearken, the great hills
hear and dream. |
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