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Title: The Foster-Mother's Tale
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge [
More Titles by Coleridge]
A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT
[From _Osorio_, Act IV. The title and text are here printed from _Lyrical Ballads_, 1798.]
_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 rear'd 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 mock'd 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 gather'd simples in the wood,
A grey-haired man--he lov'd this little boy,
The boy lov'd 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 learnéd youth.
But Oh! poor wretch!--he read, and read, and read,
Till his brain turn'd--and ere his twentieth year,
He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
And though he prayed, he never lov'd 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, chain'd in deep discourse,
The earth heav'd under them with such a groan,
That the wall totter'd, and had well-nigh fallen
Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frighten'd;
A fever seiz'd him, and he made confession
Of all the heretical and lawless talk
Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seiz'd
And cast into that hole. My husband's father
Sobb'd 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 describ'd:
And the young man escap'd.
_Maria._
'Tis a sweet tale:
Such as would lull a listening child to sleep,
His rosy face besoil'd with unwiped tears.--
And what became of him?
_Foster-Mother._
He went on shipboard
With those bold voyagers, who made discovery
Of golden lands. Leoni's younger brother
Went likewise, and when he return'd to Spain,
He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth,
Soon after they arriv'd in that new world,
In spite of his dissuasion, seiz'd 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 suppos'd,
He liv'd and died among the savage men.
1797.
[The end]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem: Foster-Mother's Tale
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