Another poem involving a romance with a were-raven came from the pen of Robert
Surtees, a correspondent who supplied some fabricated ballads to Sir Walter Scott.
This poem was included by Surtees, without attribution, in his History of Durham.
The poet considers this to be a legend of the possible Danish ancestry for the Hilton
family. The raven here is associated with Odin and his messenger ravens. Surtees
observes, “It should, however, he recollected, to say nothing of Leda and such by-
gone times, that the Ascanian princess of Saxony sprung from the loins of a bear,
and, which is more to the purpose, that the Staffords of Buckingham chose to
descend from a white swan.”
His fetters of ice the broad Baltic is breaking,
In the deep glens of Denmark sweet summer is waking,
And, blushing amidst her pavilion of snows,
Discloses her chalice the bright Lapland rose.
Yet the leaves that the tempest has strewn on the ground
Are whirling in magical eddies around.
For deep in the forest where wild flowers are blushing,
Where the stream from its cistern of rock-spar is gushing,
The magic of Lapland the wild winds is hushing.
Why slumbers the storm in the caves of the north?
When, when shall the carrier of Odin go forth?
Loud, loud laughed the hags as the dark raven flew,
They had sprinkled his wings with the mirk midnight dew, (1)
That was brushed in Blockula from cypress and yew. (2)
That raven in its charmed breast
Bears a sprite that knows no rest —
(When Odin’s darts, in darkness hurl’d,
Scattered lightnings through the world;
Then beneath the withering spell.,
Harold son of Eric fell) —
Till lady, unlikely thing I trow,
Print three kisses on his brow —
Herald of ruin, death, and flight,
Where will the carrier of Odin alight?
What Syrian maid in her date-covered bower,
Lists to the lay of a gay troubadour?
His song is of war, and he scarcely conceals
The tumult of pride that his dark bosom feels;
From Antioch beleaguer’d the recreant has stray’d,
To kneel at the feet of an infidel maid;
His mail laid aside, in a minstrel’s disguise
He basks in the beams of his Nourjahad’s eyes.
Yet a brighter flower in greener bower,
He left in the dewy west,
Heir of his name and his Saxon tower;
And Edith’s childish vest
Was changed for lovelier’s woman’s zone,
And days and months and years have flown,
Since her parting sire her red lips prest.
And she is left an orphan child
In her gloomy hall by the woodland wild;
A train of menials only wait
To guard her towers, to tend her state,
Unlettered hinds and rude. (3)
Unseen the tear-drop dims her eye,
Her breast unheeded heaves the sigh,
And youth’s fresh roses fade and die
In wan unjoyous solitude.
Edith, in her saddest mood,
Has climbed the bartizan stair; (4)
No sound comes from the stream or wood,
No breath disturbs the air.
The summer clouds are motionless,
And she, so sad, so fair,
Seems like a lily rooted there,
In lost forgotten loneliness.
A gentle breeze comes from the vale,
And a sound of life is on the gale,
And see a raven on the wing,
Circling around in airy ring,
Hovering about in doubtful flight —
Where will the carrier of Odin alight?
The raven has lit of the flag-staff high
That tops the dungeon tower;
But he has caught fair Edith’s eye,
And gently, coyly, venturing nigh,
He flutters round her bower;
For he trusted the soft and maiden grace
That shone in that sweet young Saxon face.
And now he perched on her willow wand,
And tries to smooth his raven note,
And sleeks his raven coat,
To court the maiden’s hand.
And now caressing and caress’d,
The raven is lodged in Edith’s breast;
’Tis innocence and youth that makes
In Edith’s fancy such mistakes;
But that maiden kiss hath holy power
O’er planet and sigillary hour;
The elvish spell has lost its charms,
And a Danish knight is in Edith’s arms;
And Harold, at his bride’s request,
His barbarous gods forswore,
Freya and Woden, and Balder and Thor;
And Jarrow with tapers blazing bright (5)
Hail’d her gallant Proselyte.
Footnotes
1 Mirk. Murky, shadowed, obscure.
2 Blockula. Blockula is originally the same place as the island Blå Jungfrun, which was in old days called Blåkulla. Associated with the Swedish witch trials, a considerable lore grew up around Blockula as a gathering place of witches, where, in orgies with Satan, a variety of demonic creatures were spawned.
3 Hinds. Household servants (from the Middle English and Northumbrian).
4 Bartizan. An overhanging turret of a castle.
5 Jarrow. Town on the River Tyne in Durham County, home of the Venerable Bede.
From the forthcoming Poet's Press/ Yogh & Thorn edition, Tales of Terror: The Supernatural Poem Since 1800, Volume 3.
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