Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (287 page)

A tongue from Windsor’s distant tower
Tolled Twelve along the silent wood,
When, lo! the planet of the hour
Quivered upon the trembling flood.

Cheered by the monitory sight,
Then Edwy forth his mirrors draw,
And by that star’s informing light.
Upheld them to his searching view.

Again be called on Eda’s name
Mildly and meekly to appear.
And round the crystals rolled a flame;
While unknown murmurs met his ear.

See! — o’er the mirrors mists arise,
And strange and fearful shadows throng;
Frowning faces, glaring eyes
Look and threat and glance along.

These gone, a tiny form there bounds,
Flitting along the magic glass;
Which, in an instant, her surrounds
With leaves of Love in Idleness.

She seems reclining in a bower,
As the green leaves around her spread,
The motley-yellow, purple flower
Bends in a top-knot o’er her head.
As round this cage of wreaths she hies,
Forth from her wand a lustre pale
Dawns o’er her blue and frolic eyes,
And silvers all her dewy veil.

Touches the rose upon her cheek,
The dimple, that her quaint lip owns,
The smile, that now begins to break,
Through clouds of wild, capricious frowns.

While Edwy gazed, a little strain
Of sweet complaint did feebly swell,
When, hovering round her leafy chain,
Behold! her faithful Nightingale!

He perched upon the true-knot there,
And tried to break, with slender bill,
Her prison-wreath, so flowery fair;
But the leaves mocked his puny skill.

Too late, she owns the forceful spell
The little purple blossom throws.
Fixed, as a painting, she must tell
Mildly and meekly all she knows!

“Fairy Eda! show to me
Aùra, as she’s now employed.” —
“On the other glass you ‘ll see
With pretty lisp the Fay replied.

He looked; the colours faintly dawn, ‘
And living forms begin to glow:
Aura, full-dressed in lace and lawn,
Blooms in a ball-room with a beau.

And, dancing with a Grace’s air,
And with the eyes of Venus smiling,
Edwy beheld her, with despair,
His hated rival’s heart beguiling.

To atoms he had almost dashed
The mirror, and so lost the spell,
But warning lights around him flashed,
Checked his hand, and all was well,
“Who is this Fop, so light and vain?” —
Quickly, the magic scene is changed
To rivers, woods, a wide domain,
With falconers on the banks ranged.

All at their head his rival pranced
In velvet cap, with feathers gay,
And proudly o’er the sward advanced,
While men and steeds their lord obey.

“O tell me, Eda — loves she him?
Can she her promise old forget?” —
A flame curled round the mirror’s rim;
The crystal darkened into jet.

And in long moonlight prospect rose
Windsor-Terrace, flanked with towers;
How soft the lights and shades repose —
Among the low Park’s lawns and bowers!

Oh! what an arch the heavens throw
Upon the vast horizon round!
The stars! how numberless they glow
Down to the landscape’s dim-seen bound!

Some battlements are left in night;
Others almost appear to shine
Of yonder tower, whose stately height
Draws on the sky a tall black line,

That measures, on the azure void.
Billions of miles, while worlds unknown,
Distant howe’er, glow, side by side,
Upon it’s shadowy profile shown.

Down on the terrace, men appear,
Gliding along the stately wall,
With arms enfolding the tall spear —
How still their measured footsteps fall!

Voices are heard round that vast shade,
Although no talkers meet the sight;
But, beyond, where moonbeams spread,
Figures steal upon the light.
‘Twas Aura, with a lady-friend —
‘Twas Aura, with this lover new!
Ah! does she to his suit attend?
The distance baffled Edwy’s view.

“Eda! Eda! why torment me
With obscure ambiguous truth?
Thou to show my fate wast sent me.
Say, will she wed this fopling-youth?”

Behold! the terrace fades away!
And a tap’stried room succeeds;
Her sire, with age and wisdom grey,
‘Mid lawyer, settlements and deed

Again, the charmed picture changed:
A gothic porch, with silk all hung;
There beaux and ladies fair are ranged,
While humbler gazers round them throng.

There a happy rival waited
With his friends, in trim array:
“Aura! what makes thee belated?
Aura! why this long delay?”

Again, the mirrors were in danger,
From our thoughtless Edwy’s rage;
But a fairie checked his anger —
Would she might his grief assuage!

Next, dimly on the crystal steals
A chamber in her father’s home;
There, Aura, weeping, pleads and kneels!
The father, frowning, quits the room.

Again the changeful glass receives
The porch — and Edwy, doth he tremble,
As smiling Aura there he sees?
And whom doth the bridegroom resemble?

It is
— himself! —
He’s joyous, frantic,
As the glass showed his happy shape;
But as he sprung, with gesture antic,
It fell, and let the fairie ‘scape!
Without due homage let her fly!
Straight, unknown voices from the ground
Wildly exclaimed, “ O fie! fie! fie!”
And “Fie! fie! fie!” the echoes sound.

Unhomaged he had let her fly f
From the old oak an owlet hooted;
And thence a louder “Fie! fie! fie!”
To the spot poor Edwy rooted.

But, soon recovered, through the woods,
Hopeful and light, away he sprung:
The moon peeped through their leafy hoods,
And o’er the path her chequers flung.

To the forest’s-edge he hied,
Where the Beech’s giant-form
Had, for age on age, defied,
With his lion-fangs the storm:

Where the Lime, with spotted bark —
Spots, that old moss on silver weaves,
Hung her spray on branches dark
Among the light transparent leaves,

And fragrant blossoms, forming bowers,
That cast, at noon, a twilight green,
Where ‘twas most sweet to watch the hours
Change the highly-tinctured scene.

The silvery Aspin quivered nigh,
The spiry Pine in darkness rose,
The Ash, all airy grace, on high
Waved her lightly-feathered boughs.

And there the mighty Chesnut reared
His massy verdure, deepening night;
Whose pale flowers through the dark appeared
Like gleams of April’s coldest light.

Under the low boughs Edwy went.
Shade, after shade, in dose array,
A sadder tint to midnight lent;
And thoughtless Edwy lost his way.
Now, far beyond the long-drawn gloom.
Where a faint, misty moonlight fell,
He watched a lonely figure roam,
And loud he made the echoes swell.

His call was heard, the stranger turned,
And paused a moment; but, in vain,
Our Edwy would his way have learned,
For, not a word in answer came.

The vision fled — but soon a cry,
Loud, though far-off, alarmed his ear;
And a footstep passed him by;
Which he followed fast and near.

Till a groan of sad affright
Almost killed him, with dismay;
And to his undoubting sight
There a man expiring lay.

As, horror-fixed, awhile he stood,
A cloud o’erspread it’s darkening veil;
It suited well his fearful mood;
It hid that dreadful visage pale.

Now, mark, where yonder high elms crowd,
What red lights gleam and pass along!
What funeral torches, dirges loud!
A bier and mourners round it throng.

Down th’ avenue of pines they go:
All sad and chaunting their despair,
Then wind they on in pomp of woe;
Then fade and vanish into air!

For, yonder, o’er the eastern hill,
Morning’s crystal tint is seen,
Edging the darkness, solemn still,
And glimmering o’er the sleeping scene.

O best of light! O light of soul!
O blessed Dawn, to thee we owe
The humbled thought — our mind’s best dole,
The bliss of praise — Devotion’s glow.
O blessed Dawn! more sweet to me
Thy gradual hues, thy influence fine
O’er flying darkness, than the ray
And glorious pomp, that doth enshrine

The cope of heaven, when the Sun
Comes laughing from the joyous East,
And bids th’ expressive shadows run
To tell his coming to the West.

At thy first tint the happy lark
Awakes, and trills his note of joy;
And feebler, warbling murmurs, hark!
Break from the woodlands — rise, and die,

At thy first tint, O blessed light!
Th’ observant Elves and spectres fled,
And that misguiding, watching sprite
Home to her oaken dungeon sped;

Elfena then, the mischief-fay,
Who with an urchin had combined
To ‘wilder Edwy thus astray;
Now in a Monk’s-hood is confined.

No dying man was there — no moan,
There were no red-lights, near the elms,
No funeral torches, dirge’s moan,
No sable band, whom grief o’erwhelms.

Still, doubtful of his homeward way,
Our hero watched the rise of dawn,
Over a beech-tree’s airy spray,
That trembles on the Park’s high lawn.

And soon the glorious Sun was spied,
And Windsor, in her pomp of groves,
Hose up in battlemented pride,
Queen of the vale, that Old Thames loves —

From where the far-seen western hill
In smiling slumber seems to lie,
Upon the azure vault so still
As listening heaven’s harmony,
To where, beneath the eastern ray,
With swelling dome and spires aloft,
Vast London’s lengthened city lay,
All miniatured, distinct and soft —

To where, upon the northern edge,
Learned Harrow points her vane,
And Stanmore lifts it’s heathy ridge,
Sloping to the cultured plain,

Which, purpled with the morning’s glow,
To boundless tints of azure fades,
While humbler spires and hamlets show
Their sun-lights o’er the woody shades;

And gleaming Thames along the vale,
‘Midst willowy meads, his waters led,
While, here and there, a feeble sail
Was to the scarce-felt breeze outspread.

The willowy meads and lawns rejoice;
And every heath, and warbling wood;
The fragrant air, with whispering voice,
The golden clouds, the brightened flood,

All laugh and sing beneath the morn,
The dancing lamb, the springing deer;
The wild bee with his humming horn,
And, loud and long, Sir Chanticleer.

Soon as his joyous clarion calls,
Answering notes strike up and swell
From rafter dark and loop-holed walls,
Where sleep and silence seemed to dwell,

Surprising with their clamour clear
The passing herdsman and his hound;
Thus, far and near, Sir Chanticleer
Rouses up all the country round.

Edwy so roused, who long had stood
Over this scene of morning beauty,
Forgetting every other good,
And lost to each forgotten duty,
Now, bounding lightly down the hills
And through the high o’erarching groves,
Hied to his home, where Eda wills
He soon shall wed the nymph he loves;

And grateful for the boon she grants,
He now resolves, that, never more,
His spell shall shock her quiet haunts;
And quite abjures the magic lore.

But, — never let impatient wight,
When he presumes to woo a fairie,
Destroy his glass, — or rouse her spite,
But civil be — and very wary.

Thus all was well,
As watchmen tell,
Of fairie sports in Windsor glades,
Save that too long
A summer-song
Once lingered in those witching shades.

SCENE ON THE NORTHERN SHORE OF SICILY
.

HERE, from the Castle’s terraced site,
I view, once more, the varied scene
Of hamlets, woods, and pastures green,
And vales far stretching from the sight
Beneath the tints of coming night;
And there is misty ocean seen,
With glancing oars and waves serene,
And stealing sail of shifting light.
Now, let me hear the shepherd’s lay,
As on some bank he sits alone;
That oaten reed, of tender tone,
He loves, at setting sun, to play.
It speaks in Joy’s delightful glee;
Then Pity’s strains its breath obey —
Or Love’s soft voice it seems to be —
And steals at last the soul away!

Radcliffe lived for many years at 5 Stafford Row, Pimlico, modern day Bressenden Place. This is one of the few biographical locations that are known regarding the author’s life.

A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794 Through Holland and the West Frontier of Germany
is a travel narrative, published in 1795, which traces Radcliffe’s journey through Holland to parts of West Germany, including a trip down the Rhine. Radcliffe also records her visits to the lakes of ‘Lancashire, Westmoreland and Cumberland’. This kind of travel writing was popular with writers and public figures in the 18
^th
and 19
^th
century, with Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens and Thomas Jefferson all contributing to the genre. Radcliffe travelled with her husband and the work consists of their joint observations, although the whole book is written by Radcliffe. The opening section details her journey through Holland where she makes observations about the attire of Dutch people, the furniture and surroundings. Radcliffe includes a very detailed account of what she sees, such as the height and width of the corn and comments that roads were not divided by hedges or walls, but by deep ditches full of water. The wealth of the country and the national character come under scrutiny when Radcliffe proclaims that the Dutch love money not as a means, but an end, although she grants them a lack of cruelty in their enjoyment of sport.

Radcliffe visits Cologne where she describes the towers and spires and towers of churches and the suffocating air. While Radcliffe continues to comment on her environment and those she encounters, she also describes in great detail historical battles fought at certain locations and the colour of the Austrian regiments’ uniforms. The tour through the lakes in Northern England provides Radcliffe with the opportunity to provide incredibly detailed observations about the shape, width and depth of the water expanses and the surrounding woods and summits. The architecture and construction of the villages is assessed alongside the behaviour of the ‘poor’ and the clergy. The author describes the history, geography and culture of the Lake-District and the manners and accents of its inhabitants. Whilst her travel narrative clearly reflects her tastes, Radcliffe avoids engaging with political ideas and it does not serve as a deliberate vehicle to express her philosophy or ideas.