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THE FOSTER-MOTHER’S TALE, A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.


    FOSTER-MOTHER.
    I never saw the man whom you describe.

    MARIA.
    ’Tis strange! he spake of you familiarly
    As mine and Albert’s common Foster-mother.

    FOSTER-MOTHER.
    Now blessings on the man, whoe’er he be,
    That joined your names with mine! O my sweet lady,
    As often as I think of those dear times
    When you two little ones would stand at eve
    On each side of my chair, and make me learn
    All you had learnt in the day; and how to talk
    In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you--
    ’Tis more like heaven to come than what _has_ been.

    MARIA.
    O my dear Mother! this strange man has left me
    Troubled with wilder fancies, than the moon
    Breeds in the love-sick maid who gazes at it,
    Till lost in inward vision, with wet eye
    She gazes idly!--But that entrance, Mother!

    FOSTER-MOTHER.
    Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!

    MARIA.
    No one.

    FOSTER-MOTHER
            My husband’s father told it me,
    Poor old Leoni!--Angels rest his soul!
    He was a woodman, and could fell and saw
    With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam
    Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel?
    Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree
    He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined
    With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool
    As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home,
    And reared him at the then Lord Velez’ cost.
    And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,
    A pretty boy, but most unteachable--
    And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead,
    But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes,
    And whistled, as he were a bird himself:
    And all the autumn ’twas his only play
    To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them
    With earth and water, on the stumps of trees.
    A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood,
    A grey-haired man--he loved this little boy,
    The boy loved him--and, when the Friar taught him,
    He soon could write with the pen: and from that time,
    Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.
    So he became a very learned youth.
    But Oh! poor wretch!--he read, and read, and read,
    ’Till his brain turned--and ere his twentieth year,
    He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
    And though he prayed, he never loved to pray
    With holy men, nor in a holy place--
    But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
    The late Lord Velez ne’er was wearied with him.
    And once, as by the north side of the Chapel
    They stood together, chained in deep discourse,
    The earth heaved under them with such a groan,
    That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen
    Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened;
    A fever seized him, and he made confession
    Of all the heretical and lawless talk
    Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized
    And cast into that hole. My husband’s father
    Sobbed like a child--it almost broke his heart:
    And once as he was working in the cellar,
    He heard a voice distinctly; ’twas the youth’s,
    Who sung a doleful song about green fields,
    How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah,
    To hunt for food, and be a naked man,
    And wander up and down at liberty.
    He always doted on the youth, and now
    His love grew desperate; and defying death,
    He made that cunning entrance I described:
    And the young man escaped.

    MARIA.
                               ’Tis a sweet tale:
    Such as would lull a listening child to sleep,
    His rosy face besoiled with unwiped tears.--
    And what became of him?

    FOSTER-MOTHER.
                            He went on ship-board
    With those bold voyagers, who made discovery
    Of golden lands. Leoni’s younger brother
    Went likewise, and when he returned to Spain,
    He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth,
    Soon after they arrived in that new world,
    In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat,
    And all alone, set sail by silent moonlight
    Up a great river, great as any sea,
    And ne’er was heard of more: but ’tis supposed,
    He lived and died among the savage men.