Queen of Night

“ A shadow had just fallen upon the surface of the queen of night, slowly if spread over it until the face of the great luminary was covered, and it hung in the cloudless heavens an orb of roseate hue, its radiance all gone. ”

“ There is, I know not why, something peculiarly pleasing to the imagination, in contemplating the Queen of Night, when she is wading, as the expression is, among the vapours which she has not power to dispel, and which on their side are unable entirely to quench her lustre. ”

“ My voice burst into song so spontaneously that it seemed involuntarily.
“Not a sound But, echoing in me, Vibrates all around With a blind delight, Till it breaks on Thee, Queen of Night! Every tree, O’ershadowing with gloom, Seems to cover thee Secret, dark, love-still’d, In a holy room Silence-filled. “Let no moon Creep up the heaven to-night; I in darksome noon Walking hopefully, Seek my shrouded light— Grope for thee! “Darker grow The borders of the dark! Through the branches glow, From the roof above, Star and diamond-sparks Light for love.” ”

“ Her cloak, borne on the wind, streamed like a banner behind her; the plume in her hat fluttered gracefully; and her little grey kid boots hardly touched the ground. She soon reached her destination and, in a few bounds, came to the great hall where Night was.
It was really a wonderful sight. Night, stately and grand as a Queen, reclined upon her throne; she slept; and not a glimmer, not a star twinkled around her. But we know that the night has no secrets for cats and that their eyes have the power of piercing the darkness. So Tylette saw Night as though it were broad daylight. ”

“ When the Queen of Night came home, she went first, as was her wont, to the chamber of her dear adopted daughter, and finding her thus, she said, as she bent over the maiden and kissed her beautiful mouth, "She has tired herself, poor child, over that embroidery-frame; she is so industrious." ”

“ Farther can they see than beyond the palest of that countless host; without need of light can they pierce the depths of a spirit of love, that fills a yet more glorious space with joy beyond expression. Glory to the world’s Queen, the high declarer of spheres of holiness, the nurse of hallowed love! Thee, thou tenderly beloved one, doth she send to me—thee, lovely sun of the Night. Now I awaken, for I am thine and mine: the Night hast thou given as a sign of life, and made me man. ”

“ Pictures of moonlight lovers strolling along moonlit lanes, rowing on moonlit rivers, in moonlit boats, moonlight gleaners and the harvest home have been painted over and over again in word and color, but the why and wherefor of the extraordinary brilliance of the Queen of Night during the period that she is known as the “harvest moon” has been completely lost sight of by the great majority. ”

“ She is comparable to a great black Sun, if one could imagine a dark star brimming over with happiness and light. She stirs within one dreams of the moon, Night's Queen who casts spells upon her—not the white moon, that cold bride of summer idylls, but the sinister, intoxicating moon which hangs in the leaden vault of storm, among the driven clouds; not the pale, peaceful moon who visits the sleep of the pure ”

“ By the advice of the King, however, Queen Flora told nobody about the transformation which took place at sundown, and always put the Princess to bed herself every night. Then, as the sunlight died out of the western skies, the pretty baby would change into a delicate white rosebud, and rested on a velvet cushion beside the Queen’s bed every night. At the first golden ray of the sun the bud changed to a beautiful Princess once more, and no one ever knew that she was only a flower transformed for the day into a human being. ”

“ Then off ran the dog, back to the copper palace with the Princess.
"I had such a strange dream last night," the Princess told the King and Queen at breakfast next morning. "I dreamed that an enormous dog came and carried me off to a soldier, and the soldier kissed my hand. It was a strange dream," she murmured.
"The Princess must not be left alone to-night," said the Queen. "She may be frightened if she dreams again." And she told an old dame who lived at court to sit in the Princess's room at night. ”

“ For Queen Diana did my body change
Into a fork-tongued dragon flesh and fell,
And through the island nightly do I range,
Or in the green sea mate with monsters strange,
When in the middle of the moonlit night
The sleepy mariner I do affright. ”

“ Then, my queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after night’s shade.
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wand’ring moon. ”

“ The Queen’s health was received with great enthusiasm, and, though it was by far the hottest night we have had this year, they set to work after supper dancing harder than ever. In short, the whole thing gave great satisfaction, which is lucky; and, if we can but have a fine night next week for the fireworks for the wedding, the population, high and low, will have been pleased. I hear them knocking away all round the house, putting up platforms. ”

“ So sweet a face, so fair—was never beauty such as this;
He stands—he stoops to gaze—he kneels—he wakes her with a kiss.
He leads her forth: the magic sleep of all the Court is o'er,—
They wake, they move, they talk, they laugh, just as they did of yore
A hundred years ago. The King and Queen awake, and tell
How all has happed, rejoicing much that all has ended well.
They hold the wedding that same day, with mirth and feasting good—
The wedding of the Prince and Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. ”

“ One hushing afternoon hour may yet be ours on the waters—another of the slowly-walking twilight—that time which the gazing spirit is too wrapt to measure, while "sinks the Day-star in the ocean's bed"—and so on to midnight, the reign of silence and shadow, the resplendent Diana with her hair-halo, and all her star-nymphs, rejoicing round their Queen. ”

“ Does it not seem magical that a woman can, by a little bright velvet and shimmering silk, thus make herself a fairy? And the glorious Night is approaching — this quaint old-time night, star-jeweled, fantastically robed; and the blue river is bearing us fleets of white boats thronged with strangers who doubtless are dreaming of lights and music, the tepid, perfumed air of Rex's Palace, and the motley rout of merry ghosts, droll goblins, and sweet fairies, who will dance the dance of the Carnival until blue day puts out at once the trembling tapers of the stars and the lights of the great ball. ”

“ The stars' dim course, the birds' lone dreamy flight,
Will ever fill our souls with doubt and fear.
We walk upon life's unknown shadowy shore
With wandering steps, while through the heavens clear
The stars their music sing forevermore.
A Sonnet.
Sweet summer queen, with trailing robe of green,
What spell has thou to bind the heart to thee?
Thy throne is built upon the sun-lit sea,
Where break the waves in clouds of silver sheen
And oft at dawn like some resplendent queen,
Thou sittest on the hills in majesty;
And all the flowers wake at thy decree. ”

“ Queen Darkness gladly carried their good servant, the Moon, to her dark castle to live with Queen Sunshine’s children.
She named them the Star-children. Queen Darkness always keeps the Star-children near her. The little ones are so close together that they look like a silver ribbon on her dress. ”

“ In despairing, motionless silence, she looks at the sinking sun, with no color in her cheeks but that which he casts upon her. The red, warning sun looks awfully back, face to face with her, in the narrowing strip of blue sky between two horizontal bars of thundering clouds, which the lightning is beginning to chain together, that the night may come before its time, and the enchanted princes and their sister may drown in darkness. ”

“ The face of the Madonna alone shone with the delicate brilliance of alabaster within which glows a light. Queen of Heaven, she was shown to men in the gloom of twilight, in a subterranean cavern, in the most secret of the recesses of nature, perhaps the last refuge of ancient Pan and the wood nymphs—she, the mystery of mysteries, the mother of the God-man, in the very bosom of mother earth. ”

“ But the murmur now is hushing--there's a pushing and a rushing, There's a crowding and a crushing, through that golden, fairy place, Where a snowy veil is lifting, like the slow and silent shifting Of a shining vapour drifting across the moon's pale face-- For there sits gentle Una, fairest queen of fairy race, In her beauty, and her majesty, and grace. The moon by stars attended, on her pearly throne ascended, Is not more purely splendid than this fairy-girted queen ”

“ At this very instant, the young Fairy came out from behind the curtains, and spake these words aloud, Assure yourselves, O King and Queen, that your daughter shall not die of this disaster; it is true, I have not power to undo what my elder has done. The Princess shall indeed pierce her hand with a spindle, but instead of dying she shall only fall into a profound sleep, which shall last an hundred years ”

“ Luckily the child was asleep; and the good Fairy, after driving away the black kite and the crowd of beasts it had called to its aid, wrapped the Princess up in a shawl and carried her away to a dark room where no glimmer of light could get in.
She said to the Queen: "Till I can devise a better way, you must keep her in the dark; and when you take her into the open air you must blindfold her eyes. Some day, when she is of a fit age, I will bring a handsome Prince for her; and only to him shall you unblindfold her at last, and make love safe for her." ”

“ The evening sunlight is falling through the birches in the beautiful garden; the air is full of fragrance and harmony; the queen is returning. Wearily she opens the gate to enter. She is filled with pain, for the many sadnesses to which she has drawn near have touched her own soul with the shadow of suffering. ”

“ The world could have but one sun, and every man or woman who sought its warmth must be a sun-worshipper. There could be no divided faith, no luminaries in the sky save those which lived by borrowed radiance.
Here in this bright theatre of green and roses poets had sung the praises of this Queen to her unblushing and approving face; here ladies thrice as beautiful as she had begged her to tell them the secret of her beauty, so much greater than that of any living woman ”

“ But the old witch cried out, ‘Take care and keep the curtains drawn; don’t let the light get into the Queen’s eyes; she must be kept perfectly quiet.’ So the King went away and never knew that it was a false Queen who lay in the bed. When midnight came and everyone in the palace was sound asleep, the nurse who alone watched by the baby’s cradle in the nursery saw the door open gently, and who should come in but the real Queen. ”

“ A DUEL WITH SWORDS THERE is nothing in the world more beautiful than the dawn—the birth of a new day—the resurrection of the light. Darkness rolling away like a vapour, lying low on the earth, dropping away into its valleys; above, the firmament is radiant, an arch of glory, of tender colour, of soft white clouds, transcendently lovely, and the very air is sweeter, fresher, full of musical sounds—life stirring gently out of silence and sleep.
As the Princess Daria and I rode from the hut by the wayside, such a dawn was breaking ”

“ Drawn erect and with set features, which are so pale that the moonlight could not make them paler, the queen stares fixedly and yet eagerly into the distance, as if she had the will to look over the very edge of the world for the light to come. ”

“ Time shall not make the Princess sad. All days will be like one day till her deliverer comes. And you and I, dear Queen, will sit in stone at the gate of the tower. In doing this for you I lose all my witch's powers, and when I say the spell that changes you to stone, I shall change with you, and if ever we come out of the stone, I shall be a witch no more, but only a happy old woman. ”

“ Now she is happy—a nightingale, singing melodiously in harmonious concert with a thousand sisters amid the sacred grove—fair girls, with jet-black eyes and locks darker than the night, come to hear the song of the nightingales—how sweetly the evening breeze, cool from the water, soughs through the whispering branches! There is something in yonder aisle of trees!—a youth and a maiden walking under the shadows, their arms encircling each other’s waist—soft hours of confidence, of fond anticipation never destined to be realized. ”

“ At the foot of the throne there appeared to [Pg 89] be a low seat of heaped-up rose-leaves, and in a circle round it a double row of glow-worms shed a soft clear light. Small mushroom tables, filled with plates of dew-drop ices, were already laid out; and the fairies only waited for the presence of their beloved Queen to open the ball.
Suddenly the music quickened; the fire-flies sparkled and danced, and all rose respectfully as the Queen touched the green velvety floor. ”

“ She told the bamboo-cutter and his wife how very sorry she would be to leave them, and that it was not her wish to leave them. It made her sad to think that she would not be able to make a return for all the love and kindness they had shown her.
The harvest moon arose, and flooded the earth with her beautiful golden light, and still nothing happened. The darkness of night had begun to make way for the gray dawn, and hope came to the anxious watchers; hope that the Princess would not be taken away after all. ”

“ It was the old witch's determination to make this creature the queen of the realm. As she was frustrated in her design she raved. In her fury she tore up bits of rocks, and dried up whole forests. She vowed death upon the poor orphan's head; and, in order to cheer up her ugly daughter's long forlorn hope, she prophecied the queen's death, and thus spoke: "Dear child, beloved Lucinda, would you like to be a queen? if so, go secretly into the king's palace, and when the king is out hunting, steal near the queen in her sleep, and cut off a large lock of her hair, and bring it to me. ”