SELLA.

Hear now a legend of the days of old —

The days when there were goodly marvels yet,

When man to man gave willing faith, and loved

A tale the better that‘ twas wild and strange.

Beside a pleasant dwelling ran a brook

Scudding along a narrow channel, paved

With green and yellow pebbles; yet full clear

Its waters were, and colorless and cool,

As fresh from granite rocks. A maiden oft

Stood at the open window, leaning out,

And listening to the sound the water made,

A sweet, eternal murmur, still the same,

And not the same; and oft, as spring came on,

She gathered violets from its fresh moist bank,

To place within her bower, and when the herbs

Of summer drooped beneath the mid-day sun,

She sat within the shade of a great rock,

Dreamily listening to the streamlet's song.

Ripe were the maiden's years; her stature showed

Womanly beauty, and her clear, calm eye

Was bright with venturous spirit, yet her face

Was passionless, like those by sculptor graved

For niches in a temple. Lovers oft

Had wooed her, but she only laughed at love,

And wondered at the silly things they said.

‘ Twas her delight to wander where wild-vines

O'erhang the river's brim, to climb the path

Of woodland streamlet to its mountain-springs,

To sit by gleaming wells and mark below

The image of the rushes on its edge,

And, deep beyond, the trailing clouds that slid

Across the fair blue space. No little fount

Stole forth from hanging rock, or in the side

Of hollow dell, or under roots of oak;

No rill came trickling, with a stripe of green,

Down the bare hill, that to this maiden's eye

Was not familiar. Often did the banks

Of river or of sylvan lakelet hear

The dip of oars with which the maiden rowed

Her shallop, pushing ever from the prow

A crowd of long, light ripples toward the shore.

Two brothers had the maiden, and she thought,

Within herself: “I would I were like them;

For then I might go forth alone, to trace

The mighty rivers downward to the sea,

And upward to the brooks that, through the year,

Prattle to the cool valleys. I would know

What races drink their waters; how their chiefs

Bear rule, and how men worship there, and how

They build, and to what quaint device they frame,

Where sea and river meet, their stately ships;

What flowers are in their gardens, and what trees

Bear fruit within their orchards; in what garb

Their bowmen meet on holidays, and how

Their maidens bind the waist and braid the hair.

Here, on these hills, my father's house o'erlooks

Broad pastures grazed by flocks and herds, but there

I hear they sprinkle the great plains with corn

And watch its springing up, and when the green

Is changed to gold, they cut the stems and bring

The harvest in, and give the nations bread.

And there they hew the quarry into shafts,

And pile up glorious temples from the rock,

And chisel the rude stones to shapes of men.

All this I pine to see, and would have seen,

But that I am a woman, long ago.”

Thus in her wanderings did the maiden dream,

Until, at length, one morn in early spring,

When all the glistening fields lay white with frost,

She came half breathless where her mother sat:

“See, mother dear,” she said, “what I have found,

Upon our rivulet's bank; two slippers, white

As the midwinter snow, and spangled o'er

With twinkling points, like stars, and on the edge

My name is wrought in silver; read, I pray,

Sella, the name thy mother, now in heaven,

Gave at my birth; and sure, they fit my feet!”

“A dainty pair,” the prudent matron said,

“But thine they are not. We must lay them by

For those whose careless hands have left them here;

Or haply they were placed beside the brook

To be a snare. I cannot see thy name

Upon the border — only characters

Of mystic look and dim are there, like signs

Of some strange art; nay, daughter, wear them not.”

Then Sella hung the slippers in the porch

Of that broad rustic lodge, and all who passed

Admired their fair contexture, but none knew

Who left them by the brook. And now, at length,

May, with her flowers and singing birds, had gone,

And on bright streams and into deep wells shone

The high, midsummer sun. One day, at noon,

Sella was missed from the accustomed meal.

They sought her in her favorite haunts, they looked

By the great rock and far along the stream,

And shouted in the sounding woods her name.

Night came, and forth the sorrowing household went

With torches over the wide pasture-grounds,

To pool and thicket, marsh and briery dell,

And solitary valley far away.

The morning came, and Sella was not found.

The sun climbed high; they sought her still; the noon,

The hot and silent noon, heard Sella's name,

Uttered with a despairing cry, to wastes

O'er which the eagle hovered. As the sun

Stooped toward the amber west to bring the close

Of that sad second day, and, with red eyes,

The mother sat within her home alone,

Sella was at her side. A shriek of joy

Broke the sad silence; glad, warm tears were shed,

And words of gladness uttered. “Oh, forgive,”

The maiden said, “that I could e'er forget

Thy wishes for a moment. I just tried

The slippers on, amazed to see them shaped

So fairly to my feet, when, all at once,

I felt my steps upborne and hurried on

Almost as if with wings. A strange delight,

Blent with a thrill of fear, o'ermastered me,

And, ere I knew, my splashing steps were set

Within the rivulet's pebbly bed, and I

Was rushing down the current. By my side

Tripped one as beautiful as ever looked

From white clouds in a dream; and, as we ran,

She talked with musical voice and sweetly laughed.

Gayly we leaped the crag and swam the pool,

And swept with dimpling eddies round the rock,

And glided between shady meadow-banks.

The streamlet, broadening as we went, became

A swelling river, and we shot along

By stately towns, and under leaning masts

Of gallant barks, nor lingered by the shore

Of blooming gardens; onward, onward still,

The same strong impulse bore me, till, at last,

We entered the great deep, and passed below

His billows, into boundless spaces, lit

With a green sunshine. Here were mighty groves

Far down the ocean-valleys, and between

Lay what might seem fair meadows, softly tinged

With orange and with crimson. Here arose

Tall stems, that, rooted in the depths below,

Swung idly with the motions of the sea;

And here were shrubberies in whose mazy screen

The creatures of the deep made haunt. My friend

Named the strange growths, the pretty coralline,

The dulse with crimson leaves, and, streaming far,

Sea-thong and sea-lace. Here the tangle spread

Its broad, thick fronds, with pleasant bowers beneath;

And oft we trod a waste of pearly sands,

Spotted with rosy shells, and thence looked in

At caverns of the sea whose rock-roofed halls

Lay in blue twilight. As we moved along,

The dwellers of the deep, in mighty herds,

Passed by us, reverently they passed us by,

Long trains of dolphins rolling through the brine,

Huge whales, that drew the waters after them,

A torrent-stream, and hideous hammer-sharks,

Chasing their prey. I shuddered as they came;

Gently they turned aside and gave us room.”

Hereat broke in the mother: “Sella dear,

This is a dream, the idlest, vainest dream.”

“Nay, mother, nay; behold this sea-green scarf,

Woven of such threads as never human hand

Twined from the distaff. She who led my way

Through the great waters, bade me wear it home,

A token that my tale is true.‘ And keep,’

She said,‘ the slippers thou hast found, for thou,

When shod with them, shalt be like one of us,

With power to walk at will the ocean-floor,

Among its monstrous creatures, unafraid,

And feel no longing for the air of heaven

To fill thy lungs, and send the warm, red blood

Along thy veins. But thou shalt pass the hours

In dances with the sea-nymphs, or go forth,

To look into the mysteries of the abyss

Where never plummet reached. And thou shalt sleep

Thy weariness away on downy banks

Of sea-moss, where the pulses of the tide

Shall gently lift thy hair, or thou shalt float

On the soft currents that go forth and wind

From isle to isle, and wander through the sea.’

“So spake my fellow-voyager, her words

Sounding like wavelets on a summer shore,

And then we stopped beside a hanging rock,

With a smooth beach of white sands at its foot,

Where three fair creatures like herself were set

At their sea-banquet, crisp and juicy stalks,

Culled from the ocean's meadows, and the sweet

Midrib of pleasant leaves, and golden fruits

Dropped from the trees that edge the southern isles,

And gathered on the waves. Kindly they prayed

That I would share their meal, and I partook

With eager appetite, for long had been

My journey, and I left the spot refreshed.

“And then we wandered off amid the groves

Of coral loftier than the growths of earth;

The mightiest cedar lifts no trunk like theirs,

So huge, so high toward heaven, nor overhangs

Alleys and bowers so dim. We moved between

Pinnacles of black rock, which, from beneath,

Molten by inner fires, so said my guide,

Gushed long ago into the hissing brine,

That quenched and hardened them, and now they stand

Motionless in the currents of the sea

That part and flow around them. As we went,

We looked into the hollows of the abyss,

To which the never-resting waters sweep

The skeletons of sharks, the long white spines

Of narwhal and of dolphin, bones of men

Shipwrecked, and mighty ribs of foundered barks.

Down the blue pits we looked, and hastened on.

“But beautiful the fountains of the sea

Sprang upward from its bed: the silvery jets

Shot branching far into the azure brine,

And where they mingled with it, the great deep

Quivered and shook, as shakes the glimmering air

Ahove a furnace. So we wandered through

The mighty world of waters, till at length

I wearied of its wonders, and my heart

Began to yearn for my dear mountain-home.

I prayed my gentle guide to lead me back

To the upper air.‘ A glorious realm,’ I said,

‘ Is this thou openest to me; but I stray

Bewildered in its vastness; these strange sights

And this strange light oppress me. I must see

The faces that I love, or I shall die.’

“She took my hand, and, darting through the waves

Brought me to where the stream, by which we came,

Rushed into the main ocean. Then began

A slower journey upward. Wearily

We breasted the strong current, climbing through

The rapids, tossing high their foam. The night

Came down, and in the clear depth of a pool,

Edged with o'erhanging rock, we took our rest

Till morning; and I slept, and dreamed of home

And thee. A pleasant sight the morning showed;

The green fields of this upper world, the herds

That grazed the bank, the light on the red clouds,

The trees, with all their host of trembling leaves,

Lifting and lowering to the restless wind

Their branches. As I woke, I saw them all

From the clear stream; yet strangely was my heart

Parted between the watery world and this,

And as we journeyed upward, oft I thought

Of marvels I had seen, and stopped and turned,

And lingered, till I thought of thee again;

And then again I turned and clambered up

The rivulet's murmuring path, until we came

Beside the cottage-door. There tenderly

My fair conductor kissed me, and I saw

Her face no more. I took the slippers off.

Oh! with what deep delight my lungs drew in

The air of heaven again, and with what joy

I felt my blood bound with its former glow;

And now I never leave thy side again!”

So spoke the maiden Sella, with large tears

Standing in her mild eyes, and in the porch

Replaced the slippers. Autumn came and went;

The winter passed; another summer warmed

The quiet pools; another autumn tinged

The grape with red, yet while it hung unplucked,

The mother ere her time was carried forth

To sleep among the solitary hills.

A long, still sadness settled on that home

Among the mountains. The stern father there

Wept with his children, and grew soft of heart,

And Sella, and the brothers twain, and one

Younger than they, a sister fair and shy,

Strewed the new grave with flowers, and round it set

Shrubs that all winter held their lively green.

Time passed; the grief with which their hearts were wrung

Waned to a gentle sorrow. Sella, now,

Was often absent from the patriarch's board;

The slippers hung no longer in the porch;

And sometimes after summer nights her couch

Was found unpressed at dawn, and well they knew

That she was wandering with the race who make

Their dwelling in the waters. Oft her looks

Fixed on blank space, and oft the ill-suited word

Told that her thoughts were far away. In vain

Her brothers reasoned with her tenderly:

“Oh leave not thus thy kindred!” so they prayed;

“Dear Sella, now that she who gave us birth

Is in her grave, oh go not hence, to seek

Companions in that strange cold realm below,

For which God made not us nor thee, but stay

To be the grace and glory of our home.”

She looked at them with those mild eyes and wept,

But said no word in answer, nor refrained

From those mysterious wanderings that filled

Their loving hearts with a perpetual pain.

And now the younger sister, fair and shy,

Had grown to early womanhood, and one

Who loved her well had wooed her for his bride,

And she had named the wedding-day. The herd

Had given its fatlings for the marriage-feast;

The roadside garden and the secret glen

Were rifled of their sweetest flowers to twine

The door-posts, and to lie among the locks

Of maids, the wedding-guests, and from the boughs

Of mountain-orchards had the fairest fruit

Been plucked to glisten in the canisters.

Then, trooping over hill and valley, came

Matron and maid, grave men and smiling youths,

Like swallows gathering for their autumn flight,

In costumes of that simpler age they came,

That gave the limbs large play, and wrapped the form

In easy folds, yet bright with glowing hues

As suited holidays. All hastened on

To that glad bridal. There already stood

The priest prepared to say the spousal rite,

And there the harpers in due order sat,

And there the singers. Sella, midst them all,

Moved strangely and serenely beautiful,

With clear blue eyes, fair locks, and brow and cheek

Colorless as the lily of the lakes,

Yet moulded to such shape as artists give

To beings of immortal youth. Her hands

Had decked her sister for the bridal hour

With chosen flowers, and lawn whose delicate threads

Vied with the spider's spinning. There she stood

With such a gentle pleasure in her looks

As might beseem a river-nymph's soft eyes

Gracing a bridal of the race whose flocks

Were pastured on the borders of her stream.

She smiled, but from that calm sweet face the smile

Was soon to pass away. That very morn

The elder of the brothers, as he stood

Upon the hillside, had beheld the maid,

Emerging from the channel of the brook,

With three fresh water-lilies in her hand,

Wring dry her dripping locks, and in a cleft

Of hanging rock, beside a screen of boughs,

Bestow the spangled slippers. None before

Had known where Sella hid them. Then she laid

The light-brown tresses smooth, and in them twined

The lily-buds, and hastily drew forth

And threw across her shoulders a light robe

Wrought for the bridal, and with bounding steps

Ran toward the lodge. The youth beheld and marked

The spot and slowly followed from afar.

Now had the marriage-rite been said; the bride

Stood in the blush that from her burning cheek

Glowed down the alabaster neck, as morn

Crimsons the pearly heaven half-way to the west.

At once the harpers struck their chords; a gush

Of music broke upon the air; the youths

All started to the dance. Among them moved

The queenly Sella with a grace that seemed

Caught from the swaying of the summer sea.

The young drew forth the elders to the dance,

Who joined it half abashed, but when they felt

The joyous music tingling in their veins,

They called for quaint old measures, which they trod

As gayly as in youth, and far abroad

Came through the open windows cheerful shouts

And bursts of laughter. They who heard the sound

Upon the mountain footpaths paused and said,

“A merry wedding.” Lovers stole away

That sunny afternoon to bowers that edged

The garden-walks, and what was whispered there

The lovers of these later times can guess.

Meanwhile the brothers, when the merry din

Was loudest, stole to where the slippers lay,

And took them thence, and followed down the brook

To where a little rapid rushed between

Its borders of smooth rock, and dropped them in.

The rivulet, as they touched its face, flung up

Its small bright waves like hands, and seemed to take

The prize with eagerness and draw it down.

They, gleaming through the waters as they went,

And striking with light sound the shining stones,

Slid down the stream. The brothers looked and watched,

And listened with full beating hearts, till now

The sight and sound had passed, and silently

And half repentant hastened to the lodge.

The sun was near his set; the music rang

Within the dwelling still, but the mirth waned;

For groups of guests were sauntering toward their homes

Across the fields, and far, on hillside paths,

Gleamed the white robes of maidens. Sella grew

Weary of the long merriment; she thought

Of her still haunts beneath the soundless sea,

And all unseen withdrew and sought the cleft

Where she had laid the slippers. They were gone!

She searched the brookside near, yet found them not.

Then her heart sank within her, and she ran

Wildly from place to place, and once again

She searched the secret cleft, and next she stooped

And with spread palms felt carefully beneath

The tufted herbs and bushes, and again,

And yet again, she searched the rocky cleft.

“Who could have taken them?” That question cleared

The mystery. She remembered suddenly

That when the dance was in its gayest whirl,

Her brothers were not seen, and when, at length,

They reappeared, the elder joined the sports

With shouts of boisterous mirth, and from her eye

The younger shrank in silence. “Now, I know

The guilty ones,” she said, and left the spot,

And stood before the youths with such a look

Of anguish and reproach that well they knew

Her thought, and almost wished the deed undone.

Frankly they owned the charge: “And pardon us;

We did it all in love; we could not bear

That the cold world of waters and the strange

Beings that dwell within it should beguile

Our sister from us.” Then they told her all;

How they had seen her stealthily bestow

The slippers in the cleft, and how by stealth

They took them thence and bore them down the brook,

And dropped them in, and how the eager waves

Gathered and drew them down; but at that word

The maiden shrieked — a broken-hearted shriek —

And all who heard it shuddered and turned pale

At the despairing cry, and “They are gone,”

She said, “gone — gone forever! Cruel ones!

‘ Tis you who shut me out eternally

From that serener world which I had learned

To love so well. Why took ye not my life?

Ye cannot know what ye have done!” She spake

And hurried to her chamber, and the guests

Who yet had lingered silently withdrew.

The brothers followed to the maiden's bower,

But with a calm demeanor, as they came,

She met them at the door. “The wrong is great,”

She said, “that ye have done me, but no power

Have ye to make it less, nor yet to soothe

My sorrow; I shall bear it as I may,

The better for the hours that I have passed

In the calm region of the middle sea.

Go, then. I need you not.” They, overawed,

Withdrew from that grave presence. Then her tears

Broke forth a flood, as when the August cloud,

Darkening beside the mountain, suddenly

Melts into streams of rain. That weary night

She paced her chamber, murmuring as she walked,

“O peaceful region of the middle sea!

O azure bowers and grots, in which I loved

To roam and rest! Am I to long for you,

And think how strangely beautiful ye are,

Yet never see you more? And dearer yet,

Ye gentle ones in whose sweet company

I trod the shelly pavements of the deep,

And swam its currents, creatures with calm eyes

Looking the tenderest love, and voices soft

As ripple of light waves along the shore,

Uttering the tenderest words! Oh! ne'er again

Shall I, in your mild aspects, read the peace

That dwells within, and vainly shall I pine

To hear your sweet low voices. Haply now

Ye miss me in your deep-sea home, and think

Of me with pity, as of one condemned

To haunt this upper world, with its harsh sounds

And glaring lights, its withering heats, its frosts,

Cruel and killing, its delirious strifes,

And all its feverish passions, till I die.”

So mourned she the long night, and when the morn

Brightened the mountains, from her lattice looked

The maiden on a world that was to her

A desolate and dreary waste. That day

She passed in wandering by the brook that oft

Had been her pathway to the sea, and still

Seemed, with its cheerful murmur, to invite

Her footsteps thither. “Well mayst thou rejoice,

Fortunate stream!” she said, “and dance along

Thy bed, and make thy course one ceaseless strain

Of music, for thou journeyest toward the deep,

To which I shall return no more.” The night

Brought her to her lone chamber, and she knelt

And prayed, with many tears, to Him whose hand

Touches the wounded heart and it is healed.

With prayer there came new thoughts and new desires.

She asked for patience and a deeper love

For those with whom her lot was henceforth cast,

And that in acts of mercy she might lose

The sense of her own sorrow. When she rose

A weight was lifted from her heart. She sought

Her couch, and slept a long and peaceful sleep.

At morn she woke to a new life. Her days

Henceforth were given to quiet tasks of good

In the great world. Men hearkened to her words,

And wondered at their wisdom and obeyed,

And saw how beautiful the law of love

Can make the cares and toils of daily life.

Still did she love to haunt the springs and brooks

As in her cheerful childhood, and she taught

The skill to pierce the soil and meet the veins

Of clear cold water winding underneath,

And call them forth to daylight. From afar

She bade men bring the rivers on long rows

Of pillared arches to the sultry town,

And on the hot air of the summer fling

The spray of dashing fountains. To relieve

Their weary hands, she showed them how to tame

The rushing stream, and make him drive the wheel

That whirls the humming millstone and that wields

The ponderous sledge. The waters of the cloud,

That drench the hillside in the time of rains,

Were gathered, at her bidding, into pools,

And in the months of drought led forth again,

In glimmering rivulets, to refresh the vales,

Till the sky darkened with returning showers.

So passed her life, a long and blameless life,

And far and near her name was named with love

And reverence. Still she kept, as age came on,

Her stately presence; still her eyes looked forth

From under their calm brows as brightly clear

As the transparent wells by which she sat

So oft in childhood. Still she kept her fair

Unwrinkled features, though her locks were white.

A hundred times had summer, since her birth,

Opened the water-lily on the lakes,

So old traditions tell, before she died.

A hundred cities mourned her, and her death

Saddened the pastoral valleys. By the brook,

That bickering ran beside the cottage-door

Where she was born, they reared her monument.

Ere long the current parted and flowed round

The marble base, forming a little isle,

And there the flowers that love the running stream,

Iris and orchis, and the cardinal-flower,

Crowded and hung caressingly around

The stone engraved with Sella's honored name.