Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN EASTERN LEGEND, by MARGARET LOUISA WOODS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN EASTERN LEGEND, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In cloisters dim and haunted
Last Line: The world and men and fate.
Alternate Author Name(s): Woods, Mrs. Margaret Louisa Bradley
Subject(s): Immortality; Legends; Love


IN cloisters dim and haunted
She met me and I said:
"Art thou the queen enchanted
Of whom long since I read?
Whose heart a great magician
Has hidden from her birth,
Either in the deep ocean,
The forest or the earth."

She seemed a monarch's daughter,
Her body like a palm,
Her voice like silver water
That speaks when all is calm.
She answered, "It is hidden."
And smiling dreamily,
"But messengers unbidden
Bring news of it to me.
The wildest nights creep hither
All dumb, with muffled feet,
Yet through the halcyon weather
I often feel the fleet
Fresh wind about me blowing
And power within my breast,
As of the great seas flowing
That do not ask for rest.

"O then my heart is driven
I know 'twixt shore and shore.
The moon is large in heaven,
The gathering waters roar.
The sullen trees unshaken
Keep charmèd shadow here,
Nor know how woods awaken
Afar when spring is near.
Yet from the boughs wild voices
Are sometimes calling me;
The soul of me rejoices,
The frozen blood runs free,
And needs I must go roaming
And sing and laugh alone,
While through the magic gloaming
Strange lights are tossed and blown.

"'Tis when mid forest branches
My heart keeps watch and sees
As wind the water blanches,
How spring makes red the trees.
About my trancèd slumber
At moments rise and sweep
Dread visions without number
That battle and that weep;
And more than men who waken
I know of Death and Birth,
Because my heart is taken
And buried in the Earth."

I said: "The habitation
Of dreams is not for thee.
Tell me what incantation,
What toil can set thee free?
Surely thy soul desireth
The sun and moon for light,
Ay, and the glow that fireth
The festal halls at night.
The springtime in its sweetness,
The summer in its strength,
The world in its completeness
Thou shalt possess at length."

Pale, with a solemn gesture
Either of prayer or pain,
She wrapped her in her vesture,
Nor looked on me again.

I heard a hollow crying
In all the palace around,
Like echoes far replying
To unperceived sound,
A clash along the arches
Long drawn on either side,
As of a guard that marches—
It rose and passed and died.
Her saw I not, nor even
Shadows of living things,
Save that without the seven
Great sphinxes stirred their wings;
They who with sleepless vision
For ever contemplate,
Smiling in still derision,
The world and men and fate.





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