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

26

"This thing that fed my follies, in my blindness
I thought to marry; but my father wise,
Seeing my madness with a father's eyes,
Dissuaded, vainly, gently, with a father's kindness.
-- Foolish or false, my strange arts this man shared:
Traitor in them, his black heart he has bared;

"I leave him, and for ever." Such mad words --
More mad, more fierce than memory affords
To utter rightly, -- with proud head back thrown,
She uttered; in some glamour, as I thought,
That made her to the bold day I had fought
Blind, and forgetful of our magic throne;

I deemed that it would pass. And cousin stout
Stood forth and said, "Fair lady, in yon rout
Young Merlin led the van, no traitor he.
Of star-work tricks I know not; but you twain
Foolish and young, grow not so young again:
Marry him, maid! he made our foes to flee."

27

So his two brothers dropped axe-handle down
Upon the ground; and, nodding with wise frown,
Said, "Aye, the chief is right; he led the van:
Marry him, lady, 'tis a fightsome lad!"
And one said, "Lady, be not all so sad;
Your father breathes, perchance not sped his span."

But she looked on the corse despairingly:
And one said to me, "Lad, 'twere better see
This is no time for wooing. On the morrow
She will forget these strange things she has said
Of all your love-games. Leave her with her dead;
You must not woo a maiden in her sorrow."

Then looked she on my cousin. Big and tired
He stood, his eye no more with battle fired,
His face astreak with blood. One ugly gash
Left half his forehead hanging; his right hand
Swung powerless, broke at the elbow. Brown and tanned,
You saw him pale in the lips, and all his eyes with blood asplash.

28

"Friend, you bestrode, untrod, my father's corse