Phantastes by George MacDonald (best classic books .TXT) 📕

thee at last, in dreamless mood,
“To sleep the sleep a dead lady should?

“Thine eyes they fill me with longing sore,
“As if I had known thee forevermore.

“Oh, lovely ghost, I could leave the day,
“To sit with thee in the moon away,

“If thou wouldst trust me, and lay thy head
“To rest on a bosom that is not dead.”

The lady sprang up with a strange ghost cry,
And she flung her white ghost-arms on high;

And she laughed a laugh that was not gay,
And it lengthened out till it died away;

And the dead beneath turned and moaned,
And the yew-trees above they shuddered and groaned.

“Will he love me twice with a love that is vain?
“Will he kill the poor ghost yet again?

“I thought thou wert good; but I said, and wept:
“ ‘Can I have dreamed who have not slept?’

“And I knew, alas! or ever I would,
“Whether I dreamed, or thou wert good.

“When my baby died, my brain grew wild.
“I awoke, and found I was with my child.”

“If thou art the ghost of my Adelaide,
“How is it? Thou wert but a village maid,

“And thou seemest an angel lady white,
“Though thin, and wan, and past delight.”

The lady smiled a flickering smile,
And she pressed her temples hard the while:

“Thou seest that Death for a woman can
“Do more than knighthood for a man.”

“But show me the child thou callest mine.
“Is she out tonight in the ghost’s sunshine?”

“In St. Peter’s Church she is playing on,
“At hide-and-seek, with Apostle John.

“When the moonbeams right through the window go,
“Where the twelve are standing in glorious show,

“She says the rest of them do not stir,
“But one comes down to play with her.

“Then I can go where I list, and weep,
“For good St. John my child will keep.”

“Thy beauty filleth the very air.
“Never saw I a woman so fair.”

“Come, if thou darest, and sit by my side;
“But do not touch me, or woe will betide.

“Alas, I am weak: I might well know
“This gladness betokens some further woe.

“Yet come. It will come. I will bear it. I can.
“For thou lovest me yet⁠—though but as a man.”

The knight dismounted in earnest speed;
Away through the tombstones thundered the steed,

And fell by the outer wall, and died.
But the knight he kneeled by the lady’s side;

Kneeled beside her in wondrous bliss,
Rapt in an everlasting kiss:

Though never his lips come the lady nigh,
And his eyes alone on her beauty lie.

All the night long, till the cock crew loud,
He kneeled by the lady, lapt in her shroud.

And what they said, I may not say:
Dead night was sweeter than living day.

How she made him so blissful glad
Who made her and found her so ghostly sad,

I may not tell; but it needs no touch
To make them blessed who love so much.

“Come every night, my ghost, to me;
“And one night I will come to thee.

“ ’Tis good to have a ghostly wife:
“She will not tremble at clang of strife;

“She will only hearken, amid the din,
“Behind the door, if he cometh in.”

And this is how Sir Aglovaile
Often walked in the moonlight pale.

And oft when the crescent but thinned the gloom,
Full orbed moonlight filled his room;

And through beneath his chamber door,
Fell a ghostly gleam on the outer floor;

And they that passed, in fear averred
That murmured words they often heard.

’Twas then that the eastern crescent shone
Through the chancel window, and good St. John

Played with the ghost-child all the night,
And the mother was free till the morning light,

And sped through the dawning night, to stay
With Aglovaile till the break of day.

And their love was a rapture, lone and high,
And dumb as the moon in the topmost sky.

One night Sir Aglovaile, weary, slept,
And dreamed a dream wherein he wept.

A warrior he was, not often wept he,
But this night he wept full bitterly.

He woke⁠—beside him the ghost-girl shone
Out of the dark: ’twas the eve of St. John.

He had dreamed a dream of a still, dark wood,
Where the maiden of old beside him stood;

But a mist came down, and caught her away,
And he sought her in vain through the pathless day,

Till he wept with the grief that can do no more,
And thought he had dreamt the dream before.

From bursting heart the weeping flowed on;
And lo! beside him the ghost-girl shone;

Shone like the light on a harbor’s breast,
Over the sea of his dream’s unrest;

Shone like the wondrous, nameless boon,
That the heart seeks ever, night or noon;

Warnings forgotten, when needed most,
He clasped to his bosom the radiant ghost.

She wailed aloud, and faded, and sank.
With upturn’d white face, cold and blank,

In his arms lay the corpse of the maiden pale,
And she came no more to Sir Aglovaile.

Only a voice, when winds were wild,
Sobbed and wailed like a chidden child.

Alas, how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.

This was one of the simplest of her songs, which, perhaps, is the cause of my being able to remember it better than most of the others.

While she sung, I was in Elysium, with the sense of a rich soul upholding, embracing, and overhanging mine, full of all plenty and bounty. I felt as if she could give me everything I wanted; as if I should never wish to leave her, but would be content to be sung to and fed by her, day after day, as years rolled by. At last I fell asleep while she sang.

When I awoke, I knew not whether it was night or day. The fire had sunk to a few red embers, which just gave light enough to show me the woman standing a few feet from me, with her back towards me, facing the door by which I had entered. She was weeping, but very gently and plentifully. The tears seemed to come freely from her heart. Thus she stood for a few minutes; then, slowly turning at right angles to her former position, she faced another of the four sides of the cottage. I now observed, for the first time, that here was a door likewise; and that, indeed, there was one in the center of every side of