Autumn Shadows, Quiet Magic

We pair the pulse of Shakespeare’s witches with a reading of Thomas Moore’s ballad, moving from playful spellcraft to a tender meditation on love, loss, and the images that carry us through darkness. We close by asking you to notice the memory that still glows in your fog.

Transcript

Welcome And October Series

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Hello, and welcome to Breathe and Be. I'm Marianne and I'm so glad you're here. This is the fourth episode in our October poetry series, where we explore the shadows, mysteries, and quiet magic of autumn using poems you can find in the public domain. Before we dive into today's poem, let's pause for a moment with the haunting rhythm of Shakespeare's Song of the Witches from Macbeth. Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble, filet of a fenny snake in the cauldron boil and bake, eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind worm sting, lizard's leg and howl its wing. For a charm of powerful trouble, like a hell broth boil and bubble. Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble, cool it with it baboon's blood. Then the charm is firm and good. I've always loved that poem. There's something so alive in its imagery. It wasn't long enough for its own episode, but I knew I wanted to include it, and the one nearest Halloween felt just right. I loved its rhythm, its sense of magic. It just feels like Halloween to me. Which has always been my favorite holiday. The idea of becoming someone else, even just for one night, always felt so freeing. But today, we will be reading a ballad, The Lake of the Dismal Swamp by Thomas Moore, a poet whose words invite us into the shadowed, melancholic landscape of Norfolk, Virginia, where nature and mystery intertwine. As you listen, allow yourself to wander through the foggy, quiet beauty of this lake, noticing the emotions, images, and reflections that arise within you. They made her a grave too cold and damp for a soul so warm and true, and she's gone to the lake of the dismal swamp, where all night long by a firefly lamp she paddles her white canoe. And her firefly lamp I soon shall see, and her paddle I soon shall hear. Long and loving our life shall be, and I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree, when the footsteps of death is near. Away to the dismal swamp he speeds, his path was rugged and sore, through tangled juniper beds of reeds, through many a fen where a serpent feeds, and man never trod before. And when on the earth he sunk to sleep, if slumber his eyelids knew, he lay where the deadly vine doth weep, its venomous tear and nightly steep, the fleshed with a blistering dew. And near him the she wolf stirred the break, and the copper snake breathed in his ear, till he starting cried, From his dream awake. Oh, when shall I see the dusky lake and the white canoe of my deer? He saw the lake and the meteor bright, quick over its surface played. Welcome, he said, My dear one's light, and the dim shore echoed for many a night, the name of the death cold maid. Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark, which carried him off from shore. Far, far he followed the meteor spark. The wind was high and the clouds were dark, and the boat returned no more. But oft from the Indian hunters' camp, this lover and maid so true are seen at the hour of midnight damp to cross the lake by a firefly lamp and paddle their white canoe. Moore wrote this poem in 1803 after visiting the real Dilsmill Swamp, a vast, mist covered wetland that stretches across Virginia, North Carolina. Folklore told of a grieving man who vanished into the swamp, searching for the spirit of his lost beloved. And it's said that his ghost still wanders there, calling her name through the fog. That legend became the inspiration for Moore's poem. Moore himself was known not only as a poet, but also as a musician and lyricist, often weaving melody and melancholy together. His works captured the delicate space between love and loss, beauty and sorrow. As we close, take a moment to reflect what old story or memory still lingers within you? Something you've never quite let go of that might hold its own kind of melancholy beauty. Thank you for listening and for sharing this quiet moment with me. Until next time, breathe, be, and take good care.