Classic Poem

When that poor peasant to this point was come,
He stayed and sighed: " Ah, wherefore wishes vain
Make in the breast of wretched men their home,
And most concerning children: who with pain
Being born, and nurtured in their infancy,
Still, after nonage past, a care remain;
Nor can we parents, to our misery,
The former manage of their state forbear,
Or free our hearts from old anxiety.
For how to shape their course is still a care,
Neither may we reject and cast away
Our fullgrown offspring anyhow to fare,
As do the beasts, their hearts to disarray
Of tenderness, when infant cries are o'er;
Alas, we toil and spin till we be grey!
— My hapless neighbour, who still hoped the more
That every day he saw his hopes decline,
Ended them all in sudden trouble sore,
When went his son one day to herd the swine
In yon oak forests whence the vale is sought,
And ne'er again returned, and left no sign.
In vain his parents Heaven for him besought,
They never knew what I too well can say —
That in the woods, far from his father's cot,
He met the evil wight who doth waylay
The dwellers hereabout; and being prone
To mischief, did his evil hests obey:
And so on him by art a charm was thrown
To make him seem another: by which spell
Disordered, in the woods he journeyed on,
Till in the company of thieves he fell,
As it was like to be: he met a band
Of pillers and agreed with them to dwell,
And soon was known chief robber in the land,
By name of Riculf: and, to crown this height,
That gang so bold their practice took in hand,
That they assailed the castle of a knight,
And slew him, and in prison cast his son.
And thence, so dealt the evil valley-wight,
This knave a guise so like the son put on,
That he usurped his name, (his own real state,
Save to his comrades, being known to none):
And him he pined, whom he did personate,
With pining sore, and kept in prison strong,
And in foul living wasted his estate.
" Some time being passed these wicked deeds among,
There fell on this foul cheat a sickly blight:
He took to bed, he wasted, and ere long
The spreading pain deprived his eyes of sight
Whereat he bade proclaim a great reward
To any who should bring him back to light
Then many famous surgeons, when they heard,
And many other wanderers, him to please,
The journey to the dangerous manor dared:
They brought strange drugs to give him sight and ease,
But when each failed, the most remorseless brute,
Who lay in bed, wrung dreadful penalties:
For from their heads the living eyes he cut,
And sent them groaning o'er the drawbridge steep:
So perished they who dared this vain pursuit
Thenceforth none ventured to approach his keep:
And with the fell disease which racked his frame
The wretch was left alone, to wake or sleep.
" At length, after some days, a young man came,
Asking to put a medicine to the test,
That he might do the cure and win a name
Then e'en those thieves to whom he made request,
So brave he seemed, were sorry in good sooth
To see him run on danger manifest:
And fain would have withheld him, but the youth
Prevailed to have his way; and so was brought
Unto the bed of that blind man uncouth:
Who warned him of the torment to be wrought,
If his nigh hopeless hope were unfulfilled;
But the youth smiled, as not regarding aught,
And presently upon his eyes distilled
A wondrous liquid, which at once made clear
Their glaring round, which rage with blood had filled
Their light returned to them, and from their drear
And horrid stare moving, thet first beheld
The keen smile of that youth so close and near:
Who with his phial, bent like one impelled
By waking first to scan his bed-fellow
Still sleeping; nor long time his smile withheld:
But, as he gazed, broke into laughter low
To see him seeing, and himself be seen:
And tossing down his phial said, 'Lo, lo!
What wonders I can work, if that I mean!'
The other leaped from bed: 'Brave youth, 'said he,
'Ask anything thou wilt; command me e'en
To the thousandth of my little territory.'
But the youth laughed again: said he, 'I crave
Not to command thee for my doctor's fee,
But rather to obey thee as thy slave.'
And therewithal her bosom bare she laid,
Drawing her robe apart; then stared the knave,
For he was talking with a lovely maid.
Wherewith full soon o'erjoyed to her he ran,
But she with graceful hand did him evade:
'Nay, fear, 'said she, 'thine own physician!
Full oft of old have I thy form admired,
Begirt with many a gallant serving-man,
When in our vale thy glittering hunts have fired
The forest woods: full often have I prayed
That heaven would raise me to thy height desired;
For I was lowly born, by fate betrayed,
And by my parents kindlessly designed
To marry one whom fate my equal made;
One, as in station low, so base in mind,
A wretched swineherd's son, a sordid pest,
A hideous and miserable hind:
But my disgust with hate soon filled his breast,
And some few months ago he disappeared,
And left the valleys and the hills at rest.'
— " 'Well, 'Quoth the knave, when this account he heard,
And knew my daughter, whom he hated erst,
As now he loved with fury, being assured
She knew him not in his disguise accursed,
'Go on, thou lovely stranger, tell to me
What blessing told thee of my sickness first?'
— " 'I saw the hunt one daybreak, 'answered she,
'In joyous summer riding round the wood,
And thou wast not among their company
Then mournful in my flock long time I stood,
Ere at my side I saw an aged wight,
Who told me thou wast playing blind-man's hood
Against thy will; then pensive with the night
Homeward I fared; and sat full sad and still,
Until my angry mother gan me smite,
And chide me for high thoughts and wayward will;
And bade me next our supper to prepare:
And when I scorned to mix the wretched swill,
She called the swineherd, him whose noble heir
I was to wed, to force me to obey:
The ready refuge of her sordid care
To him she raced, my father being away,
And he came quickly with his fingers spread,
And dragged me to his hut, which thereby lay:
Where to his wife me he delivered,
" Upon this wicked disobedient trull
Revenge thou thy son's loss, " to her he said
The eyes of that old wife, of fury full,
Sparkled when she beheld me; and full soon
My long hair loose with curses did she pull,
And beat me sore, and haled me up and down;
Nor from her cruelties desisted she,
Till to the ground I staggered in a swoon.
" This story mixed of spiteful falsity
My wicked daughter gave, as I received
From one who in the place happened to be.
But now the knave who heard, and well believed
What his own thoughts desired, bellowed on high,
'By Satan, they who thy fair head mischieved
Of such a deed the cost shall well aby,
Though they my father and my mother were'
Then she, 'Let me tell on their cruelty
'Next morning did these swineherds reappear,
Leaving the wretched chamber where they lay,
And offered me to share their meagre cheer.
'Then, when their summons I would not obey,
Shut in the house was I till eventide,
And slept that night upon the floor of clay.
'The next day was the same on either side:
But on the third, when the man took his road,
Against the watchful wife my strength I tried,
'And quickly left that villainous abode.
Nor hied I home; but up the valley went,
Where soon I marked that one before me strode:
'Who, keeping still before, his footsteps bent
Into the glades of the wide-spreading wood,
Then turned and waited me: — " Oh, excellent, "
'Said he; " thou pupil spirited and good,
Save that thou long hast kept me waiting here. "
Him then the same old carle I understood,
'Who haunted ever in the valley drear,
Who told me of thine ill; he told me now
How all thy surgeons thou hadst quitted dear:
'But bade me, armed with this strong philtre, go,
Fearless, and pour the liquor in thine eyes.
Thou knowest the rest; deserve I thanks or no?'
" Then the knave kissed her; and to win his prize
That very night he sent a numerous band
Of his own servitors in sure disguise
To my poor neighbour's cot with this command,
Him and his aged wife to bring away:
That is, his parents, thou mayst understand.
Alas for them! for in the night heard they
A fiendish yelling round their little place;
And looking out saw it as light as day,
With torches burning in their garden space,
And the False Faces in disorderly
And frightful dresses, with great headpieces.
Then, in their dreadful misery, to fly
In darkness to the woods that wretched pair
Thought first; and might have saved themselves thereby
But at that moment from the outer air
Sounded a solemn voice, 'Go, fearing nought,
If ye would see your son married to her,
The woman whom to be his bride ye sought.' —
And the poor father knew the valley-wight,
Who erewhile to his ears that promise brought.
And they surrendered to his evil might,
And with that company they went along,
Suffering hard usage through the weary night;
And saw so many spectacles of wrong
Upon the way, that they were well-nigh dead
Ere they arrived before the castle strong.
There, lifting up with pain each aged head,
They saw indeed their son, that felon high,
And my vile child, by him dishonoured
And on them in that house of villainy
The voices thick of fiends began to shower
Insult and taunt and all impiety.
And thus these parents gained a child the more;
Thus their life's fondest wishes did they gain,
Thus they their son recovered in that hour
The magic hid him not; they saw him plain,
And speechless fell in death in that ill place
And this is that with sorrow I complain:
My wicked daughter, and their evil case. "