Poems of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in The Casket, 1829/The Fountain
THE FOUNTAIN.
A BALLAD
Why startest thou back from that fount of sweet water?
The roses are drooping while waiting for thee;
‘Ladye, 'tis dark with the red hue of slaughter,
There is blood on that fountain—oh! whose may it be?’
Uprose the ladye at once from her dreaming,
Dreams born of sighs from the violets round,
The jasmine bough caught in her bright tresses, seeming
In pity to keep the fair prisoner it bound;
Tear-like the white leaves fell round her, as, breaking
The branch in her haste, to the fountain she flew,
The wave and the flowers o'er its mirror were reeking,
Pale, as the marble around it, she grew.
She followed its track to the grove of the willow,
To the bower of the twilight it led her at last,
There lay the bosom so often her pillow,
But the dagger was in it, its beating was past.
Round the neck of the youth a light chain was entwining,
The dagger had cleft it, she joined it again,
One dark curl of his, one of her's like gold shining.
"They hoped this would part us, they hoped it in vain.
Race of dark hatred, the stern unforgiving,
Whose hearts are as cold as the steel which they wear.
By the blood of the dead, the despair of the living,
Oh, house of my kinsman, my curse be your share!"
She bowed her fair face on the sleeper before her,
Night came and shed its cold tears on her brow;
Crimson the blush of the morning past o'er her,
But the cheek of the maiden returned not its glow.
Pale on the earth are the wild flowers weeping,
The cypress their column, the night-wind their hymn,
These mark the grave where those lovers are sleeping
Lovely—the lovely are mourning for them.