1. THE FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE, A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.
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I never saw the man whom you describe.
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'Tis strange! he spake of you familiarly
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As mine and Albert's common Foster-mother.
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Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be,
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That joined your names with mine! O my sweet lady,
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As often as I think of those dear times
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When you two little ones would stand at eve
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On each side of my chair, and make me learn
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All you had learnt in the day; and how to talk
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In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you—
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'Tis more like heaven to come than what has been.
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O my dear Mother! this strange man has left me
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Troubled with wilder fancies, than the moon
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Breeds in the love-sick maid who gazes at it,
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Till lost in inward vision, with wet eye
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She gazes idly!—But that entrance, Mother!
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Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!
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My husband's father told it me,
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Poor old Leoni!—Angels rest his soul!
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He was a woodman, and could fell and saw
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With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam
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Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel?
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Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree
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He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined
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With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool
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As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home,
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And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost.
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And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,
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A pretty boy, but most unteachable—
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And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead,
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But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes,
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And whistled, as he were a bird himself:
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And all the autumn 'twas his only play
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To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them
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With earth and water, on the stumps of trees.
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A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood,
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A grey-haired man—he loved this little boy,
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The boy loved him—and, when the Friar taught him,
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He soon could write with the pen: and from that time,
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Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.
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So he became a very learned youth.
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But Oh! poor wretch!—he read, and read, and read,
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'Till his brain turned—and ere his twentieth year,
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He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
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And though he prayed, he never loved to pray
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With holy men, nor in a holy place—
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But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
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The late Lord Velez ne'er was wearied with him.
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And once, as by the north side of the Chapel
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They stood together, chained in deep discourse,
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The earth heaved under them with such a groan,
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That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen
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Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened;
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A fever seized him, and he made confession
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Of all the heretical and lawless talk
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Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized
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And cast into that hole. My husband's father
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Sobbed like a child—it almost broke his heart:
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And once as he was working in the cellar,
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He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's,
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Who sung a doleful song about green fields,
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How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah,
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To hunt for food, and be a naked man,
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And wander up and down at liberty.
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He always doted on the youth, and now
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His love grew desperate; and defying death,
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He made that cunning entrance I described:
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And the young man escaped.
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Such as would lull a listening child to sleep,
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His rosy face besoiled with unwiped tears.—
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And what became of him?
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With those bold voyagers, who made discovery
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Of golden lands. Leoni's younger brother
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Went likewise, and when he returned to Spain,
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He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth,
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Soon after they arrived in that new world,
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In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat,
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And all alone, set sail by silent moonlight
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Up a great river, great as any sea,
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And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis supposed,
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