"George Bidder - Merlin's Youth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bidder George)

"MERLIN'S YOUTH"
by
GEORGE BIDDER
PREFACE

The name Yberha is pronounced nearly to
rhyme with the Italian word guerra.

G. P. B.

FIRST PART

1

A lad I was, dark-haired and dark of eye,
Ever the first to court a danger shown,
Ever the last to lay my courage down
In face of man or sprite. Strife then ran high
Betwixt us and the strangers; and the land
Stirred with a thrill it could not understand.

For 'twas the tie that bound mother and child,
And strangers would possess her bosom bare,
And strangers batten on our woodland air,
And strangers trample on our mountains wild;
And so the earth stirred in stern motherhood,
And all her children knew in their blood.

Slight-limbed was I, nor challenged feats of strength:
My great-thewed cousins hurled the massy rock,
And flung the fir-tree that ten winters' shock
Had left unharmed. Thick shoulders, thighs of length,
Flat hips, stout buttocks; -- they could throw a steer,
Or drink their shallow wits away the livelong year.

2

Yberha was her name. Across the flood,
Where then a mounded tower in stoutness stood,
There lived her father; -- silent, moody man,
Caring not who was kind nor who was proud,
Nor what more than aught else men cried aloud,
Nor where his neighbour's power stretched its span.

One moonlight night I swam the tide across,
Met the great wave in the middle, saw it toss,
Tossed a long bowshot in its boiling surge,
Fought till the flood could know its master there,
Swam, bold, to the further bank, for earth and air,
And saw her standing silent on the verge.