| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
|
||
|
348 Music of the Waters. |
||
|
|
||
|
most plaintively before a wreck, and that, all along the shore, the spirits have echoed her in low moaning voices. Young men are said to have swam off to the rock, lured by the songs which they heard, but they have never returned" —a peculiarity of young men who endeavour to prosecute their acquaintance with mermaids further than viewing them from a safe and enchanted distance. Appended to this little story in Mr. Hunt's volume, there is a note of explanation, which says, " The undulations of the air, travelling with more rapidity than the currents, reach our shores long before the tempest by which they have been established in the centre of the Atlantic, and by producing a low moaning sound, ' the soughing of the wind,' predicates the storms."
There is a longer tale, entitled " The Mermaid's Vengeance," in the same chapter, which introduces several songs ; one is sung by the heroine, evidently a very cruel mermaid, to the hero, Walter by name, whom she holds by the hair of his head :—
" Come away, come away— O'er the waters wild. Our earth-born child Died this day, died this day.
Come away, come away— The tempest loud Weaves the shroud For him who did betray.
Come away, come away—
Beneath the wave
Lieth the grave
Of him we slay, him we slay.
Come away, come away—
He shall not rest
In earth's own breast,
For many a day, many a day. |
||
|
|
||