University of Virginia Library

VII.

When Zulma heard her sister's plaint,
And saw her gentle spirit sink,
Her soul arose in power—“To faint
“While standing on dark ruin's brink
“Were madness worse than mirth in death
“When love and bliss our flight await
“To quail, to droop despair beneath
“Were folly that deserved the fate.”
“But if we fail”—“It cannot be!
“Love, like the mountain breeze, is free,
“And, amid peril, wrong and ill,
“Strong as the gale that sweeps the hill,
“Or severing ocean in its might,
“Brings long lost treasures into light.”
“But will beholding heaven approve
“Our broken vows for earthly love?”
“St. Mary shrive thee! would'st thou be
“A vestal in hypocrisy?
“Oh, gentle Inez, guard thy love!
“Count Dion's daring quest would prove
“But folly's dream in evil hour,
“If thou dost spurn the boy-god's power.”
Inez arose, her blue eye flowed
In gushing tears of pearly light—
“Zulma! my heart were ill-bestowed
“If Dion called me false to-night.”
“Vemeira's daughter still!—O Heaven!
“Love's messenger his call hath given!
“Inez! that rose, by Dion thrown,
“Lay on thy heart—it is thine own—
“And haste thee, for we must be gone!”
The soft strain of a sweet guitar
Now mellowed came as if from far,
But, skillful in its measured fall,
It rose by dark St. Clara's wall,
And, mastered by Prince Julian's hand,
Its sweet notes flowed so richly bland,
They told unseen the minstrel lover,
And Zulma's soaring spirit over
Threw breathless rapture as she fled
From her lone cell with footstep light,
While Inez' heart, at every tread,
Spake like deep voices of the night.