The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy

by Brian Stableford

  GOBLIN MARKET

  By Christina Rossetti

  Morning and evening

  Maids heard the goblins cry:

  “Come buy our orchard fruits,

  Come buy, come buy:

  Apples and quinces,

  Lemons and oranges,

  Plump unpecked cherries,

  Melons and raspberries,

  Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,

  Swart-headed mulberries,

  Wild free-born cranberries,

  Crab-apples, dewberries,

  Pine-apples, blackberries,

  Apricots, strawberries; -

  All ripe together

  In summer weather, -

  Morns that pass by,

  Fair eves that fly;

  Come buy, come buy:

  Our grapes fresh from the vine,

  Pomegranates full and fine,

  Dates and sharp bullaces,

  Rare pears and greengages,

  Damsons and bilberries,

  Taste them and try;

  Currants and gooseberries,

  Bright-fire-like barberries

  Figs to fill your mouth,

  Citrons from the South,

  Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;

  Come buy, come buy.”

  Evening by evening

  Among the brookside rushes,

  Laura bowed her head to hear,

  Lizzie veiled her blushes:

  Crouching close together

  In the cooling weather,

  With clasping arms and cautioning lips,

  With tingling cheeks and finger tips.

  “Lie close,” Laura said,

  Pricking up her golden head:

  “We must not look at goblin men,

  We must not buy their fruits:

  Who knows upon what soil they fed

  Their hungry thirsty roots?”

  “Come buy,” call the goblins

  Hobbling down the glen.

  “Oh,” cried Lizzie,” Laura, Laura,

  You should not peep at goblin men.”

  Lizzie covered up her eyes,

  Covered close lest they should look;

  Laura reared her glossy head,

  And whispered like the restless brook:

  “Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,

  Down the glen tramp little men.

  One hauls a basket,

  One bears a plate,

  One lugs a golden dish

  Of many pounds’ weight.

  How fair the vine must grow

  Whose grapes are so luscious;

  How warm the wind must blow

  Through those fruit bushes.”

  “No,” said Lizzie: “No, no, no;

  Their offers should not charm us,

  Their evil gifts would harm us.”

  She thrust a dimpled finger

  In each ear, shut eyes and ran:

  Curious Laura chose to linger

  Wondering at each merchant man.

  One had a cat’s face,

  One whisked a tail,

  One tramped at a rat’s pace,

  One crawled like a snail,

  One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,

  One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.

  She heard a voice like voice of doves

  Cooing all together:

  They sounded kind and full of loves

  In the pleasant weather.

  Laura stretched her gleaming neck

  Like a rush-imbedded swan,

  Like a lily from the beck,

  Like a moonlit poplar branch,

  Like a vessel at the launch

  When its last restraint is gone.

  Backwards up the mossy glen

  Turned and trooped the goblin men,

  With their shrill repeated cry,

  “Come buy, come buy.”

  When they reached where Laura was

  They stood stock still upon the moss,

  Leering at each other,

  Brother with queer brother;

  Signalling each other,

  Brother with sly brother.

  One set his basket down,

  One reared his plate;

  One began to weave a crown

  Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown

  (Men sell not such in any town):

  One heaved the golden weight

  Of dish and fruit to offer her:

  “Come buy, come buy,” was still their cry.

  Laura stared but did not stir,

  Longed but had no money.

  The whisk-tailed merchant bade her taste

  In tones as smooth as honey,

  The cat-faced purr’d

  The rat-paced spoke a word

  Of welcome and the snail-paced even was heard;

  One parrot-voiced and jolly

  Cried ’Pretty Goblin’ still for ’Pretty Polly’;

  One whistled like a bird.

  But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:

  “Good folk, I have no coin;

  To take were to purloin:

  I have no copper in my purse,

  I have no silver either,

  All my gold is on the furze

  That shakes in windy weather

  Above the rusty heather.”

  “You have much gold upon your head,”

  They answered all together:

  “Buy from us with a golden curl.”

  She clipped a precious golden lock.

  She dropped a tear more rare than pearl,

  Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red.

  Sweeter than honey from the rock,

  Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,

  Clearer than water flowed that juice;

  She never tasted such before,

  How should it cloy with length of use?

  She sucked and sucked and sucked the more

  Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;

  She sucked until her lips were sore;

  Then flung the emptied rinds away

  But gathered up one kernel stone,

  And knew not was it night or day

  As she turned home alone.

  Lizzie met her at the gate

  Full of wise upbraidings:

  “Dear, you should not stay so late,

  Twilight is not good for maidens;

  Should not loiter in the glen

  In the haunts of goblin men.

  Do you not remember Jeanie,

  How she met them in the moonlight,

  Took their gifts both choice and many,

  Ate their fruits and wore their flowers

  Plucked from bowers

  Where summer ripens at all hours?

  But ever in the noonlight

  She pined and pined away;

  Sought them by night and day,

  Found them no more, but dwindled and grew grey;

  Then fell with the first snow,

  While to this day no grass will grow

  Where she lies low:

  I planted daisies there a year ago

  That never blow.

  You should not loiter so.”

  “Nay, hush,” said Laura:

  “Nay, hush my sister:

  I ate and ate my fill,

  Yet my mouth waters still:

  To-morrow night I will

  Buy more;” and kissed her.

  “Have done with sorrow;

  I’ll bring you plums to-morrow

  Fresh on their mother twigs,

  Cherries worth getting;

  You cannot think what figs

  My teeth have met in.

  What melons icy-cold

  Piled on a dish of gold

  Too huge for me to hold,

  What peaches with a velvet nap,

  Pellucid grapes without one seed:

  Odorous indeed must be the mead

  Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink

  With lilies at the brink,

  And sugar-s
weet their sap.”

  Golden head by golden head,

  Like two pigeons in one nest

  Folded in each other’s wings,

  They lay down in their curtained bed:

  Like two blossoms on one stem,

  Like two flakes of new-fall’n snow,

  Like two wands of ivory

  Tipped with gold for awful kings.

  Moon and stars gazed in at them,

  Wind sang to them lullaby,

  Lumbering owls forebore to fly,

  Nor a bat flapped to and fro

  Round their nest:

  Cheek to cheek and breast to breast

  Locked together in one nest.

  Early in the morning

  When the first cock crowed his warning,

  Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,

  Laura rose with Lizzie:

  Fetched in honey, milked the cows,

  Aired and set to rights the house,

  Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,

  Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,

  Next churned butter, whipped up cream.

  Fed their poultry, sat and sewed;

  Talked as modest maidens should:

  Lizzie with an open heart,

  Laura in an absent dream,

  One content, one sick in part;

  One warbling for the mere bright day’s delight,

  One longing for the night.

  At length slow evening came:

  They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;

  Lizzie most placid in her look,

  Laura most like a leaping flame.

  They drew the gurgling water from its deep.

  Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags,

  Then turning homeward said: “The sunset flushes

  Those furthest loftiest crags;

  Come, Laura, not another maiden lags.

  No wilful squirrel wags,

  The beasts and birds are fast asleep.”

  But Laura loitered still among the rushes,

  And said the bank was steep.

  And said the hour was early still,

  The dew not fall’n, the wind not chill;

  Listening ever, but not catching

  The customary cry,

  “Come buy, come buy,”

  With its iterated jingle

  Of sugar-baited words:

  Not for all her watching

  Once discerning even one goblin

  Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling -

  Let alone the herds

  That used to tramp along the glen,

  In groups or single,

  Of brisk fruit-merchant men.

  Till Lizzie urged, “O Laura, come;

  I hear the fruit-call, but I dare not look:

  You should not loiter longer at this brook:

  Come with me home.

  The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,

  Each glow-worm winks her spark,

  Let us get home before the night grows dark:

  For clouds may gather

  Though this is summer weather,

  Put out the lights and drench us through;

  Then if we lost our way what should we do?”

  Laura turned cold as stone

  To find her sister heard that cry alone,

  That goblin cry,

  “Come buy our fruits, come buy.”

  Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?

  Must she no more such succous pasture find,

  Gone deaf and blind?

  Her tree of life drooped from the root:

  She said not one word in her heart’s sore ache:

  But peering thro’ the dimness, nought discerning,

  Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way;

  So crept to bed, and lay

  Silent till Lizzie slept;

  Then sat up in a passionate yearning,

  And gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept

  As if her heart would break.

  Day after day, night after night,

  Laura kept watch in vain

  In sullen silence of exceeding pain.

  She never caught again the goblin cry,

  “Come buy, come buy;”

  She never spied the goblin men

  Hawking their fruits along the glen:

  But when the noon waxed bright

  Her hair grew thin and grey;

  She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn

  To swift decay and burn

  Her fire away.

  One day remembering her kernel-stone

  She set it by a wall that faced the south;

  Dewed it with tears, hoped for a root,

  Watched for a waxing shoot,

  But there came none.

  It never saw the sun,

  It never felt the trickling moisture run:

  While with sunk eyes and faded mouth

  She dreamed of melons, as a traveller sees

  False waves in desert drouth

  With shade of leaf-crowned trees,

  And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.

  She no more swept the house,

  Tended the fowls or cows,

  Fetched honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,

  Brought water from the brook:

  But sat down listless in the chimney-nook

  And would not eat.

  Tender Lizzie could not bear

  To watch her sister’s cankerous care,

  Yet not to share.

  She night and morning

  Caught the goblin’s cry:

  “Come buy our orchard fruits,

  Come buy, come buy:”

  Beside the brook, along the glen,

  She heard the tramp of goblin men,

  The voice and stir

  Poor Laura could not hear;

  Longed to buy fruit to comfort her,

  But feared to pay too dear.

  She thought of Jeanie in her grave,

  Who should have been a bride;

  But who for joys brides hope to have

  Fell sick and died

  In her gay prime,

  In earliest winter time,

  With the first glazing rime,

  With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.

  Till Laura dwindling

  Seemed knocking at Death’s door.

  Then Lizzie weighed no more

  Better and worse;

  But put a silver penny in her purse,

  Kissed Laura, crossed the heath with clumps of furze

  At twilight, halted by the brook:

  And for the first time in her life

  Began to listen and look.

  Laughed every goblin

  When they spied her peeping:

  Came towards her hobbling,

  Flying, running, leaping,

  Puffing and blowing,

  Chuckling, clapping, crowing,

  Clucking and gobbling,

  Mopping and mowing,

  Full of airs and graces,

  Pulling wry faces,

  Demure grimaces,

  Cat-like and rat-like,

  Ratel and wombat-like,

  Snail-paced in a hurry,

  Parrot-voiced and whistler,

  Helter skelter, hurry skurry,

  Chattering like magpies,

  Fluttering like pigeons,

  Gliding like fishes, -

  Hugged her and kissed her:

  Squeezed and caressed her:

  Stretched up their dishes,

  Panniers, and plates:

  “Look at our apples

  Russet and dun,

  Bob at our cherries,

  Bite at our peaches,

  Citrons and dates,

  Grapes for the asking,

  Pears red with basking

  Out in the sun,

  Plums on their twigs;

  Pluck them and suck them, -

  Pomegranates, figs.”

  “Good folk,” said Lizz
ie,

  Mindful of Jeanie:

  “Give me much and many”:

  Held out her apron,

  Tossed them her penny.

  “Nay, take a seat with us,

  Honour and eat with us,”

  They answered grinning:

  “Our feast is but beginning.

  Night yet is early,

  Warm and dew-pearly,

  Wakeful and starry:

  Such fruits as these

  No man can carry;

  Half their bloom would fly,

  Half their dew would dry,

  Half their flavour would pass by.

  Sit down and feast with us,

  Be welcome guest with us,

  Cheer you and rest with us.” -

  “Thank you,” said Lizzie: “But one waits

  At home alone for me:

  So without further parleying,

  If you will not sell me any

  Of your fruits though much and many,

  Give me back my silver penny

  I tossed you for a fee.”-

  They began to scratch their pates,

  No longer wagging, purring,

  But visibly demurring,

  Grunting and snarling.

  One called her proud,

  Cross-grained, uncivil;

  Their tones waxed loud,

  Their looks were evil.

  Lashing their tails

  They trod and hustled her,

  Elbowed and jostled her,

  Clawed with their nails,

  Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,

  Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,

  Twitched her hair out by the roots,

  Stamped upon her tender feet,

  Held her hands and squeezed their fruits

  Against her mouth to make her eat.

  White and golden Lizzie stood,

  Like a lily in a flood, -

  Like a rock of blue-veined stone

  Lashed by tides obstreperously, -

  Like a beacon left alone

  In a hoary roaring sea,

  Sending up a golden fire, -

  Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree

  White with blossoms honey-sweet

  Sore beset by wasp and bee, -

  Like a royal virgin town

  Topped with gilded dome and spire

  Close beleaguered by a fleet

  Mad to tug her standard down.

  One may lead a horse to water,

  Twenty cannot make him drink.

  Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,

  Coaxed and fought her,

  Bullied and besought her,

  Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,

  Kicked and knocked her,