The Knickerbocker/Volume 64/Number 3/The Sweeper of Dunluce
THE SWEEPER OF DUNLUCE: A LEGEND.
Ope wide the door!How cleanly swept that stony floor!How resonant within this cold, deserted room,The voices, thunder-like, of lifted waves!The sounding caves—Rocks, castle-capped, the ocean laves.Hush! like a whisper 'midst the thunder boom,A soft sound hurries through this haunted room.And see! a comely maiden, with her broom,Sweeping attent, while oft her cast-down eyesAre fixed upon the stony floor, where liesHurtled together, like a folded cloud,All cunning wrought, a ghostly shroud.Ah! evil future doth this sight betide—And evil spirits through the darkness ride!And this was she whose father's sternness yieldedOnly at last, when she and he, who shieldedHer half-clothed form, lay rocking on the billow.She, early seeking her scarce rumpled pillow,The midnight saw escaped to join her lover,(Whose voice and mien her eager eyes discover,)Watched by her father to the shallow bay,Where, hid in shade, her lover's shallop lay.They well escape whom father's love espy;They rest secure enough beneath his eye.They see not how the billows rise and swell;They heed not now the tale the north winds tell—The ocean's solemn and terrific roar,The swelling surges bursting on the shore,Love sways all passions from a powerful throne,'Tis blind to all indeed except its own.Who could survive with help denied their reach?Their little boat is cast upon the beach.Norman lies dead and bleeding on the sand,Lilian in death beside him, grasps his hand.The father seeks them, but he cannot save,And sadly lays them in one common grave.'Twas he who bade his trusty servant turn the key,And loose the maiden that she might be freeTo join her lover, whom he once denied,For one he chose, the bliss of being by her side.She loved but Norman—Norman loved her soThat where she went he was content to go.
Her father's duty, but for once relenting,Brought death to both, to him full sore repenting.'Stay thou within these four strong walls,' he said;'Thou art a cruel disobedient maid.Sweep, day by day, thy cold and dusty floor,For Norman thou shalt surely see no more.''I make my shroud, my father,' then she said;'I soon shall wear it—I shall soon be dead.For ever sweep my cold and dusty floor,For Norman I shall never see him more!'Clean, day by day, the maiden's floor appears,As daily swept, though passed a hundred years.And some hear sounds as of a rustling broom—(The maiden sweeping in the haunted room;)A voice reëchoing in the stilly air—'Father, my shrouded robe I soon shall wear!'H. C.