Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PASSIONATE DOWSABELLA: 2, by THEOPHILE JULIUS HENRY MARZIALS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PASSIONATE DOWSABELLA: 2, by                    
First Line: The pears were in the perry
Last Line: And dowsabella's cry is still -- and is she still in pain?
Alternate Author Name(s): Marzials, Theo; Marzials, Theophile Jules Henri
Subject(s): Death; Love; Moon; Night; Dead, The; Bedtime


The pears were in the perry;
The apples froth'd in the cider;
'Twas twilight; loud and merry,
The circle grew the wider
Around the crackling fire,
Where red the flames leapt higher
To ghost tales that ne'er tire,
When every girl creeps nigher
To the swain who sits beside her!

It was kissing, it was quaffing
The bright bubbles on the ale;
And with shrieking, and with laughing,
As the grandam told the tale, --
And the fold without was bleating,
As the thin cold clouds fell sleeting;
But the men their maids a-seating
On their knees, as ripe as sweeting
Bit their lips, -- their cold arms heating
With their stalwart flesh and hale.

And anon the rebeck-player
Scraped a cord to make them mind,
Till the dancers whirl'd the gayer
Round in rings, like apple-rind,
Hand in hand the comely pair,
Lubin footing with his fair,
As she mouthed a plait of hair,
Strutting here, and curtsying there --
The calm beauty, Blowselind.

And the red light leap up, running
Round the walls, and stair, and store,
And the gaming, and the funning
At the cider-butts, and, roar!
Up the chimney wriggled red,
Eke the rafters overhead,
Where the mint and sages dead
Rattled to the dancers' tread,
Leaping lustier from the floor.

Blowselind's a girl to wed, --
Large, and calm, and white, and red,
Has her suitors by the score;
When the service is well said,
Meet to mate in marriage-bed;
Love no less, and love no more,
Though the whole world else were dead,
Just as placid as before.

Lubin loves her, in love's stead,
To the pips of her cold core;
And a-near -- and shame to tell --
Dowsabel, poor Dowsabel,
She who loved, and loved so well,
Writhed, as in the fires of hell,
In the chill draughts of the door.

After summer out of mind!
Calmer lass you'd never find
Than broad-bosom'd Blowselind!
And the red light kiss'd her o'er
As her firm step trod the floor;
And her white throat and cheek red
Never ruddier than before;
And a-near, with twisted head,
Dowsabel, poor Dowsabel,
Writhed beside the door;
Stiff and still, she might be dead,
But her round lips pouted sore,
And her heart it knock'd so loud,
And her face, as white as shroud,
Gleam'd anon with passion pale,
As when murky streaks of cloud
From the ashy moon unveil;
And her fearful eyes shrink inward,
And across the silent heaven --
Dark, the looming deathly heaven --
She glides as with a sail.

And thus Dowsabella glided
From the red light of the firelight,
Shooting crimson, splutt'ring red,
More and more,
To the green light of the moon-light,
Checker'd by the diamond window,
Cold and silent 'thwart the floor;
And the red light and the green light,
Jarr'd and marr'd her beauty o'er.

And with eyes as wild as witches',
Without motion t'wards the door,
With her eyes strain'd out behind her,
Seeming
As if struggling from a dreaming
Ever lured her on before,

On she writhed without a stagger,
As if some strong hand did drag her
On and on, she knew not whither;
Where the green moon-light did pour,
Till again it slided off her
And then slid along the floor,
Like a shade into the shadow
As she mingled at the door.

Close to her back thro' the rattling panes
The cold wind blew on her scalding veins;
Yet ever, with burning eyes askance,
Where fever dried the torrent-rains,
She mark'd the circles of the dance,
And clench'd in time, as in a trance,
Her fair arms cross'd in passon-pains,
As foot to foot, and hand to hip,
Her love and her hate went turn and trip,
Now before, and now behind,
Now Lubin, now large Blowselind;
And without the whirring wind
Squeal'd into her ears -- oh pity!
Dowsabel, whilom so pretty,
Struggled out of brain and mind!

And, just hark, the creaking vane
On the silent barn -- again
Taps the ivy on the pane;
And a fire is in her brain,
And her heart thumps at each strain
Of her throbbing limbs, entwined!

Dowsabel, thus Dowsabel,
Scorched as in the flames of hell,
Turn'd and tortur'd, tear and twist,
All her fair lithe lissom body
That whilom had been so kiss'd,
In the checker'd curtain-blind;
And a-down the village street,
Through the rafter'd lofts, the sleet
In the whizzing of the wind,
Fell and fell.

From the spire boom'd the bell!

And the snow lay like a sheet,
And the wind against the window
In her deaf ears whirr'd and whined;
And she heard it with the rebeck
And the laugh of Blowselind,
Lubin coying her with kisses,
And her tresses round them twined --
And her large eyes leapt flame-fire,
And her fair breasts huddled higher;
And she circled through the doorway,
Some great madness on her mind.

* * *

Dowsabella, Dowsabella, whither are you going?
Alone along the wintry wilds where biting winds are blowing, --
Down the steps, along the fold, where cold the kine are lowing,
The white steam rising from the roofs, just red i'the windows glowing;
And out against a thin grey cloud methinks would be a-snowing,
The wan white moon her cold sad face so fearfully is showing;
And through the jutting rafters down her cold grim light is flowing, --
And only hark the wintry wind how bitterly 'tis blowing.
Dowsabella, Dowsabella, whither are you going?

Across the waste, across the rise, where stands the still chapel,
All black and bleak against the sky, and no one booms the bell,
But one cold crow, perch'd up aloft, a croaking curse doth tell.

Across the crinkling fields of snow, across the rounded wold,
Where three scrag trees upon the crown are crazy with the cold;
The cold stars shivering up above seem like to lose their hold,
And one has fallen -- down it swirls -- down in a great cloud fold, --
And breaks a-through, and bursts -- 'tis gone, like a sad soul unsoul'd!
And Dowsabella, Dowsabella, fear'st thou not the cold?

Oh, Dowsabella, turn thee yet; the dead are in the night!
A shrieking soul went whizzing by, too quick for ear or sight, --
Up from the deepest ground it ran and writhed to heaven's height;
And all the world is cold and bleak, in cold the weird moonlight;
And all the loppard-soughs have arms, and wriggle in the night;
And every gnarl hath a great face that mocketh thee out-right;
Oh! turn thee, Dowsabel; I shrink and sicken with affright!
And, far away, the last red pane is hidden out of sight.

The very stars are turning faint, the lonely moon turns white; --
Another spirit, aye, and two, are struggling in their flight,
And rend away within the wind to somewhere in the night.
How many spirits are let loose from out their graves tonight!
And all the air is green with moon, and all the world snow-white!
And Dowsabella's face was wan as ghastliest moonlight!

Dowsabella never shuddered; never stay'd or look'd behind;
Ever shrunk, yet ever glided, as if lured on by the wind
To some terrible great furnace that was burning in her mind,
Whose flames reflected in her eyes nigh burnt the eye-balls blind.
Thus she stole a-down the wastes, all open to the view,
Where all the winds went mocking, mocking, mocking as they blew,
And revelled in the empty night -- (There, quick another flew! --
Another soul! I saw its shroud; like thin flame it ran through;
I hear its shrieking die away!) and there a crazy crew,
The willows by the river leer, and beckon her thereto;
Oh! Dowsabella, turn you yet, -- some devil thirsts for you!
And down the open stream the crow went chattering as it flew.

Dowsabella, through the silence, crackled through the crickling sedge;
Shrinking -- ever shrinking -- huddled downward to the water's edge, --
Down the low slope where the rushes, torn and wither'd, freeze and shake,
Glittering as her body's writhings through the tanglenesses break,
Ever on without a motion, as of some corpse just awake,
And whose eyes 'gin burn with fires that now never shall aslake;
And her fair limbs strain'd as if some stone some dreaful writhe did make,
Yet never moved, yet struggle-strain'd, yet still a writhe did make,
And down the river slowly float the icy films and flake.
Her tighten'd hair is torn and strangled, straggled through her lips,
And round her neck, and round her hand, and lower yet, the tips
Run trickling in the stream below, where eke her garment dips;
And on without a murmur, and a wanting in her eyes,
Looking far, and deep, and down, the water's mysteries --
On she shrinks, yet glideth ever, -- downward, down, nor sound, nor sigh. --
And the waters close above her,
Round and round as if they love her,
And the bubbles ripple by
Along the freezing river, flaking down along the marshy plain,
In cold the moonlight streaming, gleaming, flooding in a sheet-ice rain;
And one shriek rings into the night,
Her soul runs shrieking in hell's pain,
Her poor soul in the cold, cold wind, a-melting with its pain.

The waters close below, and lounge, and never move again;
But wind, and wind, and film, and flake, along the silent plain, --
And Dowsabella's cry is still -- and is she still in pain?





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