[Dream Gate] [Poet Glas]

The Moonlit Queen of Elfland

I wrote this tale for K. Kessler ('Lady Teagan'), a dear friend and beautiful lady, who told me once that no-one had ever written poetry for her. This piece came to me as I sat one afternoon in the Missouri Botanical Gardens, and I knew this piece for hers. Though a ballad in concept, the measure is long (all iambic tetrameter; ballad meter alternates tetrameter and trimeter). I intended this piece as mine own complement to True Thomas and Tam Lin, both of which can be found in Professor Francis James Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.

THREE SCORE YEARS I'VE walked this land,
And never again her face I'll see;
But when I was half the age I am,
The Queen of Elfland smiled on me.

Beware the lass you meet at night,
Who dances round the fairy-ring;
Her moon-lit smiles are honey-sweet;
She's Elphane's Queen, without her King!

A younger man, with hair of brown,
And shining hazel eyes, I had;
But now my hair has turned to snow,
And now my eyes are red and sad.

And in that younger time my voice
Was clear, and sweet, and carried well--
But that was ere I saw her face,
And glimpsed where heaven mixed with hell.

I thought the full moon's light was right
For cheerful song and harping skill,
And found a hillock, where to play,
Not knowing whom my musick'd thrill.

And while I softly sang and harped,
A mushroom circle round me sprang;
And when my fingers played no more,
Yet music in that glade still rang!

And in the moonlight, shining bright,
A maid, or so it seemed, was there;
She held her hand as if to dance,
While gold and silver shone her hair.

We danced, and all about us swirled
A folk whose like I'd never met;
We kissed, and all the night I spent
With hands entwined in her hair's net.

She fled when dawn's rose burned the sky,
And weeping did I watch her go;
I left that wood with heavy heart;
My sorrowed tread was measured slow.

Now, half my three-score years was I,
When Elphane's Queen danced round with me;
'Twas but a year past Bannockburn,
Where once I'd drawn my bow with glee.

I see the look within your eyes,
And how you quickly cross yourself;
A century passed that fated night,
When into Elvish song I delved.

So, think you not these tales of old
Are fit for nothing more than play;
Remember now what happ'ed to me,
And heed these things we old ones say.

copyright 12 Sep 1990 (AS XXV) by Earle B. 'Glas' Durboraw

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