THE PAINT-KINGS
by: Washington Allston (1779-1843)
- AIR Ellen was long the delight of the young,
- No damsel could with her compare;
- Her charms were the theme of the heart and the tongue.
- And bards without number in extacies sung,
- The beauties of Ellen the fair.
-
- Yet cold was the maid; and tho' legions advanced,
- All drill'd by Ovidean art,
- And languish'd, and ogled, protested and danced,
- Like shadows they came, and like shadows they glanced
- From the hard polish'd ice of her heart.
- Yet still did the heart of fair Ellen implore
- A something that could not be found;
- Like a sailor she seem'd on a desolate shore,
- With nor house, nor a tree, nor a sound but the roar
- Of breakers high dashing around.
- From object to object still, still would she veer,
- Though nothing, alas, could she find;
- Like the moon, without atmosphere, brilliant and clear,
- Yet doom'd, like the moon, with no being to cheer
- The bright barren waste of her mind.
- But rather than sit like a statue so still
- When the rain made her mansion a pound,
- Up and down would she go, like the sails of a mill,
- And pat every stair, like a woodpecker's bill,
- From the tiles of the roof to the ground.
- One morn, as the maid from her casement inclin'd,
- Pass'd a youth, with a frame in his hand.
- The casement she clos'd--not the eye of her mind;
- For, do all she could, no, she could not be blind;
- Still before her she saw the youth stand.
- "Ah, what can he do," said the languishing maid,
- "Ah, what with that frame can he do?"
- And she knelt to the Goddess of Secrets and pray'd,
- When the youth pass'd again, and again he display'd
- The frame and a picture to view.
- "Oh, beautiful picture!" the fair Ellen cried,
- "I must see thee again or I die."
- Then under her white chin her bonnet she tied,
- And after the youth and the picture she hied,
- When the youth, looking back, met her eye.
- "Fair damsel," said he (and he chuckled the while)
- "This picture I see you admire:
- Then take it, I pray you, perhaps 'twill beguile
- Some moments of sorrow; (nay, pardon my smile)
- Or, at least, keep you home by the fire."
- Then Ellen the gift with delight and surprise
- From the cunning young stripling receiv'd.
- But she knew not the poison that enter'd her eyes,
- When sparkling with rapture they gaz'd on her prize--
- Thus, alas, are fair maidens deceiv'd!
- 'Twas a youth o'er the form of a statue inclin'd,
- And the sculptor he seem'd of the stone;
- Yet he languished as tho' for its beauty he pin'd
- And gaz'd as the eyes of the statue so blind
- Reflected the beams of his own.
- Twas the tale of the sculptor Pygmalion of old;
- Fair Ellen remember'd, and sigh'd;
- "Ah, could'st thou but lift from that marble so cold,
- Thine eyes too imploring, thy arms should enfold,
- And press me this day as thy bride."
- She said: when, behold, from the canvass arose
- The youth, and he stepp'd from the frame:
- With a furious transport his arms did enclose
- The love-plighted Ellen: and, clasping, he froze
- The blood of the maid with his flame!
- She turn'd and beheld on each shoulder a wing.
- "Oh, heaven! cried she, who art thou?"
- From the roof to the ground did his fierce answer ring,
- As frowning, he thunder'd " I am the PAINT-KING!
- And mine, lovely maid, thou art now!"
- Then high from the ground did the grim monster lift
- The loud screaming maid like a blast;
- And he sped through the air like a meteor swift,
- While the clouds, wand'ring by him, did fearfully drift
- To the right and the left as he pass'd.
- Now suddenly sloping his hurricane flight,
- With an eddying whirl he descends;
- The air all below him becomes black as night,
- And the ground where he treads, as if mov'd with affright,
- Like the surge of the Caspian bends.
- "I am here!" said the Fiend, and he thundering knock'd
- At the gates of a mountainous cave;
- The gates open flew, as by magick unlocked,
- While the peaks of the mount, reeling to and fro, rock'd
- Like an island of ice on the wave.
- "Oh, mercy!" cried Ellen, and swoon'd in his arms,
- But the PAINT-KING, he scoff'd at her pain.
- "Prithee, love," said the monster, "what mean these alarms?"
- She hears not, she sees not the terrible charms,
- That work her to horrour again.
- She opens her lids, but no longer her eyes
- Behold the fair youth she would woo;
- Now appears the PAINT-KING in his natural guise;
- His face, like a palette of villainous dies,
- Black and white, red, and yellow, and blue.
- On the skull of a Titan, that Heaven defied,
- Sat the fiend, like the grito Giant Gog,
- While aloft to his mouth a huge pipe he applied,
- Twice as big as the Eddystone Lighthouse, descried
- As it looms through an easterly fog.
- And anon, as he puff'd the vast volumes, were seen,
- In horrid festoons on the wall,
- Legs and arms, heads and bodies emerging between,
- Like the drawing-room grim of the Scotch Sawney Beane,
- By the Devil dress'd out for a ball.
- "Ah me!" cried the Damsel, and fell at his feet.
- "Must I hang on these walls to be dried?"
- "Oh, no!" said the fiend, while he sprung from his seat,
- "A far nobler fortune thy person shall meet;
- Into paint will I grind thee, my bride!"
- Then, seizing the maid by her dark auburn hair,
- An oil jug he plung'd her within.
- Seven days seven nights, with the shrieks of despair,
- Did Ellen in torment convulse the dun air,
- All covered with oil to the chin.
- On the morn of the eighth on a huge sable stone
- Then Ellen, all reeking, he laid;
- With a rock for his muller he crush'd every bone,
- But, though ground to jelly, still, still did she groan;
- For life had forsook not the maid.
- Now reaching his palette, with masterly care
- Each tint on its surface he spread;
- The blue of her eyes, and the brown of her hair,
- And the pearl and the white of her forehead so fair,
- And her lips' and her cheeks' rosy red.
- Then, stamping his foot, did the monster exclaim,
- "Now I brave, cruel Fairy, thy scorn!"
- When lo! from a chasm wide-yawning there came
- A light tiny chariot of rose-colour'd flame,
- By a team of ten glow-worms upborne.
- Enthroned In the midst on an emerald bright,
- Fair Geraldine sat without peer;
- Her robe was a gleam of the first blush of light,
- And her mantle the fleece of a noon-cloud white,
- And a beam of the moon was her spear.
- In an accent that stole on the still charmed air
- Like the first gentle language of Eve,
- Thus spake from her chariot the Fairy so fair:
- "I come at thy call, but, oh Paint-King, beware.
- Beware if again you deceive."
- "Tis true," said the monster, "thou queen of my heart,
- Thy portrait I oft have essay'd;
- Yet ne'er to the canvass could I with my art
- The least of thy wonderful beauties impart;
- And my failure with scorn you repaid.
- "Now I swear by the light of the Comet-King's tail!"
- And he tower'd with pride as he spoke,
- "If again with these magical colours I fail,
- The crater of Etna shall hence be my jail,
- And my food shall be sulphur and smoke.
- "But if I succeed, then, oh, fair Geraldine!
- Thy promise with justice I claim,
- And thou, queen of Fairies, shalt ever be mine,
- The bride of my bed; and thy portrait divine
- Shall fill all the earth with my fame."
- He spake; when, behold, the fair Geraldine's form
- On the canvass enchantingly glow'd;
- His touches--they flew like the leaves in a storm;
- And the pure pearly white and the carnation warm
- Contending in harmony flow'd;
- And now did the portrait a twin-sister seem
- To the figure of Geraldine fair:
- With the same sweet expression did faithfully teem
- Each muscle; each feature; in short not a gleam
- Was lost of her beautiful hair.
- Twas the Fairy herself! but, alas, her blue eyes
- Still a pupil did ruefully lack;
- And who shall describe the terrifick surprise
- That seiz'd the PAINT-KING when, behold, he descries
- Not a speck on his palette of black!
- "I am lost!" said the Fiend, and he shook like a leaf;
- When, casting his eyes to the ground,
- He saw the lost pupils of Ellen with grief
- In the jaws of a mouse, and the sly little thief
- Whisk away from his sight with a bound.
- "I am lost!" said the Fiend, and he fell like a stone;
- Then rising the Fairy in ire
- With a touch of her finger she loosen'd her zone,
- (While the limbs on the wall gave a terrible groan,)
- And she swelled to a column of fire.
- Her spear now a thunder-bolt flash'd in the air,
- And sulphur the vault fill'd around:
- She smote the grim monster; and now by the hair
- High-lifting, she hurl'd him in speechless despair
- Down the depths of the chasm profound.
- Then over the picture thrice waving her spear,
- "Come forth!" said the good Geraldine;
- When, behold, from the canvass descending, appear
- Fair Ellen, in person more lovely than e'er,
- With grace more than ever divine!
"The Paint-Kings" is reprinted from The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems. Washington Allston. Boston: Cummings and Hillard, 1813. |
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