THE WHITE WITCH - Charles Grant

THE WHITE WITCH

"O What have you seen, my son, my son,
That your eyes are so wild and bright?
Or what have you heard in the eerie woods,
'Twixt the gloaming and the night?"

"I have met a witch, a white white witch,
My mother, mother dear;
The glamour of earth is on my eyes,
And its music in my ear.

"For we are deafen'd by angry words,
Are blinded by tears of woe,
But she has garner'd the secret joys
That only the genii know;—

"Has learn'd from the voice of the fern-hid stream
Where all sweet thoughts abide,
And the violets have told her how they dream
In the quiet eventide;

"And they fancy, mother, the world above
Where the baby cloudlets play
Yearns down to the earth in mystic love
That shall never pass away.

"The greenwood knows it; of this sweet thought
Its murmuring tunes are made,
And the strange wild tale that is ever wrought
Through its sunshine and its shade.

"And the holy moon, as she moves along
From star to star on high,
Pours forth her light as a bridal song
And a tender lullaby.

"O mother, my mother, mother dear,
Who may the white witch be?
She has heard the things we cannot hear,
She has seen what we cannot see;

"The beauty that comes in fitful gleams,
That comes, but will not stay,
The music that steals across our dreams
From a region far away;

"What vainly I sought in pain and doubt,
The light, the form, the tone,
At a single glance she has found them out,
And made them all her own.

"And with all the music we cannot hear,
The beauty we cannot see,
O mother, mother, my mother dear,
She has wrought a charm on me."

[from Studies in Verse, by Charles Grant. London: John Pearson York Street Covent Garden 1875]

with thanks to Raven Grimassi for sharing.