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"Tall Rose Mary, come to my side,
And read the stars if you'd be a bride.
In hours whose need was not your own,
While you were a young maid yet ungrown,
You've read the stars in the Beryl-stone."
The lady unbound her jeweled zone
And drew from her robe the Beryl-stone.
Paler yet were the pale cheeks grown
As the gray eyes sought the Beryl-stone.
And lo! for that Foe whose curse far-flown
Had bound her life with a burning zone,
Rose Mary knew the Beryl-stone.
Three steps back from her Foe she trod :
"Love, for thy sake ! In Thy Name, O God !"
In the fair white hands small strength was shown;
Yet the blade flashed high and the edge fell prone,
And she cleft the heart of the Beryl-stone-
And lo! on the ground Rose Mary lay,
With a cold brow like the snows ere May,
With a cold breast like the earth till Spring.
In a gracious sleep she seemed to lie;
And over her head her hand on high
Held fast the sword she triumphed by.
In the seventeenth century the stone was in great demand for
purposes of divination, the method often being to suspend a ring
in which was set a beryl over a bowl of water, the edge of the bowl
marked with the letters of the alphabet, the stone giving answer to
questions by stopping before certain letters, after being whirled
about. It was also supposed to possess power over evil spirits, and a
man might call a devil out of hell, to answer questions, if he held a
beryl in his mouth. The sphere in the English crown is set with a
blue beryl, symbolic, possibly, of these magical powers.
As the birthstone for October the beryl was used by all nations
from the beginning of the zodiacal science, in the Middle Ages, till
the opal became favored by moderns. It is also the guardian angel's
talismanic gem for December. Happiness and everlasting youth are
supposed to attend its possessor. In olden times,
sweet-tempered stone."
Marbodus says :
The most admired displays a softened beam,
Like tranquil seas or olive's oily gleam.
This potent gem, found in far India's mines,
With mutual love the wedded couple binds;
The wearer shall to wealth and honors rise
And from all rivals bear the wished-for prize:
Too tightly grasped, as if instinct with ire,
It burns the incautious hand with sudden fire.
Lave this in^ water, it a wash supplies
For feeble sight and stops convulsive sighs.
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it was called "the