University of Virginia Library

Meanwhile Arviragus, a year before
Returned in honor from the English shore,
Led with his faithful Iolene that life
Harmonious, justly balanced, free from strife,
Which crowns our hopes with a true-hearted wife.

Ne'er dreamed he, as she laid her happy head
Close to his heart, what cloud of shame and dread
Gloomed o'er his placid roof-tree; but content
To think how nobly his late toils had spent
Their force beneath Death's gory dripping brow
Through shocks of battle, a fresh laurel bough
Plucking therefrom to flourish green and high
About his war-worn temples' majesty,
Gladly from bloodshed, conflicts, and alarms
Here rested in those white, encircling arms,
And oft his strong heart thrilled, his eyes grew dim,
To know, kind heaven! how deep her love for him.

Thus month on month the cheerful days went by,
Like carolling birds across an April sky,
A fairy sky undimmed by clouds or showers.
But on a morning, while her favorite flowers
Iolene tended, in the garden-walks
Pausing to clip dead leaves and prop the stalks
Of drooping plants, herself more sweet and fair
Than any flower, the brightest that blushed there,
Her lord stole gently on her unaware;
His haughty grace all softened, he bowed down
To kiss the stray curls of her locks of brown,
Thick sown with threads of tangled, glimmering gold:
“At need,” he said, “thou canst be calm and bold;
Therefore, thou wilt not yield to foolish woe
If duty parts us briefly. Wife, I go
To scourge some banded ruffians who of late
Assailed our peaceful serfs, and our estate—
Thou knowest it well—northwest of Penmark town,
Ravished with sword and fire. Thy lord's renown,
Yea, and thy lord, were soon the scoff of all,
If in his own fair fief such crimes befall
Unscourged of justice; so, dear love, adieu!
Nor fear the end of that I have to do.”
Thus spake the knight, who forthwith raised a shout,
And bade them bring his stalwart war-horse out;
When, on the sudden, a steel, tall, jet-black,
Led by a groom came whinnying down the track,
'Twixt the green myrtle hedges; at a bound
He vaulted in the selle; smilingly round
He turned to wave “farewell” with mailèd hand,
And then rode blithely down the sunlit land.

That evening, at the close of vesper prayer,
Wandering along through the still twilight air,
Iolene, somewhat sad and sick in mind,
Met in her homeward pathway, low-reclined
Beneath the blasted branches of an oak,
Aurelian, her wild lover of old days:
She started backward in a wan amaze.
But he, uprising calmly, bowed and spoke;
“Ha! thou recall'st me, lady? I had deemed
These bitter years which have so scarred and seamed
Whate'er of grace I owned in youthful prime,
Had razed me from thy memory. See a rime
Like that of age hath touched my locks to white;
Yet never once,—so help me heaven!—by night
Or day, in storm or brightness, hath my soul
Veered but a point from thee, its starry goal.
A mighty purpose doth itself fulfil,
Wise men have said. Lady! I love thee still,
And Love works marvels. Prithee come with me,
Ay, quickly come, and thou thyself shalt see
I am no falsehood-monger. Yea, come, come!”
His words, his sudden passion, smote her dumb,
And from her cheeks, those delicate gardens, wane
The rare twin roses, as when autumn rain,
Fatally sharp, sweeps o'er some doomed domain
Of matron blooms, and their rich colors fade
Like rainbows slowly dying, shade by shade,
Unto wan spectres of the flowers that were.
With languid head and thoughts of prescient fear,
Passively following where Aurelian guides,
She hears anon the surge and rush of tides
On the seashore, and feels the freshening spray
Bedew her brow. “Lady, look forth, and say
If, to a love unquenched, unquenchable,
Eternal Nature yields not; its strong spell
Hath toiled for me, till the rocks rooted under
Those heaving waters have been rent asunder,
And the wide spaces of the ocean plain,
Down to the farthest bounds of wild Bretaigne,
Rise calmly glorious in the day-god's beam.
Look, look thy fill! it is no vanishing dream:
Lo! now I claim thy promise!”

A keen gleam
Shot its victorious radiance o'er his brow.
But she, bewildered, tremulous, shrinking low,
Her clinched hands pale even to the finger-tips,
Pressed on her blinded eyes and faltering lips,
Sued in a voice like wailing wind that breaks
From aspen coverts over lonely lakes,
In the shut heart of immemorial dells,—
A fitful, sobbing voice, whose anguish swells,
Burdened with deep upyearning supplication,
Coldly across his evil exultation.
She pleads for brief delay, with frenzied pain
Grasping at some dim phantom of the brain,
Shadowing a vague deliverance. “As thou wilt,”
He answered slowly. “Well I know the guilt
Of broken vows can never rest on thee!
Pass by unhurt!” Mutely she turned to flee,
Nor paused until her chambered privacy
She reached with panting sides, pallid as death,
And gasping with short, anguished sobs for breath.
“Caught am I, trapped like a poor fluttering bird,
Or dappled youngling from the innocent herd
Lured to a pitfall! Yet such oath as this
Were surely void? If not, he still shall miss—
Whate'er betide—his long-expected bliss!
Better pure-folded arms, and stainless sleep
Where the gray-drooping willow-branches weep,
Than meet a fate so hideous! Let me think!
Others,—pure wives, brave virgins, on the brink
Of shame and ruin, have struck home and fled,
To find unending quiet with the dead.”
Borne down as by a demon's hand which pressed
Invisible, but stifling on her breast,
With brain benumbed, yet burning, and a sense
Of utter, wearied, desperate impotence,
Her forlorn glance around the darkening room
Roving in helpless search, from out the gloom
Caught the blue glitter of a half-sheathed blade,
A small but trenchant steel, whose lustre played
Balefully bright, and like a serpent's eye
Fixed on her with malign expectancy,
Drew her perforce towards Death,—that death which seemed
The sole, stern means through which her fame redeemed,
Should soar in spiritual beauty o'er the tomb
Wherein might rest her body's mouldering bloom.

Ah, me! the looks distraught, the passionate care,
The whole wild scene, its misery and despair,
Come back like scenes of yesterday. Half bowed
Her queenly form, and the pent grief allowed
A moment's freedom shakes her to the core,
The inmost seat of reason. “All is o'er,”
She murmurs, as her slender fingers feel
The deadly edge of the cold shimmering steel.
At once her swift arm flashes to its height,
While the poised death hangs quivering, and her sight
Grows dazed and giddy: when from far, so far
It sounded like the weird voice of a star,
Muffled by distance, yet distinct and deep,
About her in the terrible silence creep
Accents that seize as with a bodily force
On her white arm suspended, and its course
To fatal issues, with arresting will
Hold rigid, till supine it drops and still,
Back to its drooping level, and a clang
Of the freed steel through all the chamber rang
Sharply, and something shuddered down the air
Like wings of baffled fiends passing in fierce despair.

A warning blent of prescient wrath and prayer
Those accents seemed, where through a palpable dread
Ran coldly shivering. “Pause, pause, pause!” they said;
“Bar not thy hopes 'gainst chance of happier fate!
The circuit vast which rounds life's dial-plate
Hath many lights and shades; its hand which lowers
So threatening now, may move to golden hours,
And thou on this sad time may'st look like one
Smiling on mortal woes from some unsetting sun.”

Motionless, overcome by hushing awe,
She heard the mystic voice, and dreamed she saw,
Just o'er the dubious borders of the light,
A wavering apparition, scarce more bright
Than one faint moon-ray, through the misty tears
Of clouded evenings seen on breezeless mountain meres.
Mistlike it waned; but in her heart of hearts
The solemn counsel sank: with guilty starts,
She thought how near, through grief's bewildering blight,
How near to death, to death and shame, this night
Her reckless soul had strayed. Yet short-lived hope
Moved hour by hour through paths of narrowing scope,
As, day by day, her term of grace passed by,
Like phantom birds across a phantom sky;
Her lord still absent, and Aurelian bound
(For thus he wrote her) to one weary round,
Morn after morn, of pacings to and fro,
Within the wooded garden-walls below
The city's southward portals. “There,” said he,
“Each day, and all day long, impatiently
I wait thy will.”
As when in dewy spring,
'Mid the moist herbage closely nestling,
Ofttimes we see the hunted partridge cling,
Panting and scared, to the thick-covering grass,
The while above her couch doth darkly pass
What seemeth the shadow of a giant wing,
And she, more lowly, with a cowering stoop,
Shivers, expecting the fell, fiery swoop
Of the gaunt hawk, that corsair of the breeze,
And feels beforehand his sharp talons seize
And rend her tender vitals; so at home,
Iolene, trembling at the stroke to come,
Touched by the lurid shadow of her doom,
Lingered; until, upon a sunny dawn,
Her lord returning, gayly up the lawn
Urged his blithe courser, and, dismounting, came
Upon her, warmly glowing, all aflame
With hope and love. But as her dreary eyes
Were turned on his, a quick, disturbed surprise
And then a terror, smote him, and the voice
All jubilant, full-breathed to say, “Rejoice,
Our foes are slain!” clave stammering in his throat.
But she, her loose, dishevelled locks afloat
Round the fair-sloping shoulders, her hands clasped
About his mailèd knees, brokenly gasped
Her anguish forth, and told her sorrowful tale.
Dizzy and mute, and as the marble pale
Whereon he leaned, unto the desperate close
The knight heard all, locked in a cold repose
More dread than stormiest passion; life and strength
Seemed slowly ebbing from him, till at length
His soul, like one that walks the fatal sand
(Whose treacherous smoothness looks a solid strand,
But tempts to ruin), felt all earth grow dim,
And round him saw, as in a chaos, swim
Joy's fair horizon melting in the cloud.
But soon his stalwart will, rugged and proud,
Woke lionlike to action; a swift flush
Rushed like a sunset river's reddening glow
O'er the tempestuous blackness of his brow,
Pregnant with thunder; through the dismal hush,
His pitiless voice, sharp-echoing round about
The clanging court, leaped like a falchion out.

“Thou hast played with honor as a juggler's ball;
God strikes thee from thy balance, and the thrall
Art thou, henceforth, of one vainglorious deed.
What! shall we plant with rash caprice the seed
Of bitterness, nor look for some harsh fruit
To spring untimely from its poisonous root?
What! a lewd spark, a perfumed popinjay,
Dares in the broad-browed, honest gaze of day,
To dash a foul thought, like the hideous spray
Of Hell, right in thy forehead,—and thy hand,
Which should have towered as if the levin-brand
Of scorn and judgment armed it, but a bland
Dismissal signs him! not one hint which tells
Thy lord, meantime, what loathsome secret dwells
Here, by his hearthstone, muffled up, concealed,
And like a corse corrupting, till, revealed
By vengeful doom, its pestilent odor steals
Outward, while all the wholesome blood congeals
To a chill horror, and the air grows vile,
And even the blessed sun a death's-head smile
Assumes in our distempered fantasy?
By Heaven! this withering curse which hangs o'er thee,
O Iolene!”—but here his angry voice
Broke short,—“There is no choice,” he moaned, “no choice.
Yea, wife! may Christ adjudge me if I lie,
To endless, as now keen calamity,
But through this troublous gloom my mind discerns
One lonely light to guide us; lo, it burns
Lurid, yet clear, by whose fierce flame I see—
Ah, grief malign! ah, bitter destiny!—
As if God's own right hand the blazing pain
And fiery bale did stamp on soul and brain,
These terms of doom:
Shame and despair for both,
Sorrow and heartbreak! Through all, keep thine oath,
Thou woman, self-involved, self-lost; and so
Face the black front of this tremendous woe!”

She bowed as if a blast of sudden wind,
Breathing full winter, smote her cold and blind;
Then as one wandering in a soul-eclipse,
Feebly she rose, and with her quivering lips
Kissed her pale lord, stifling one desolate cry.
Anon she moved around him noiselessly
Bent on the small, sweet offices of love;
And sometimes pausing, she would glance above
With tearless eyes, for solemn griefs like this,
Blighting at once both root and flowers of bliss,
Are arid as the desert, and in vain
Thirst for the cooling freshness of the rain,
Fitfully led from treasured nook to nook
Of her dear home, she walked with far-off look,
And absent fingers, plying household tasks:
Bravely her sunless wretchedness she masks
Through moments deemed unending while they passed—
When passed, a flickering point! Hark! The doomed hour at last!
[OMITTED]
An afternoon it was, stirless and calm:
From field and garden-close rare breaths of balm
Made the air moist and odorous. Nature lay
Divinely peaceful; only far away
In the broad zenith, a strange cloud unfurled
Its boding banner weirdly o'er the world;
Whilst Iolene, her veiled head sadly bowed,
Passed through the gay thorpe and its motley crowd,
To where a great wall towered this side a wood.
All things her mazed, chaotic fancy viewed
Looked dreamlike; even Aurelian lingering there,
To meet her in the shadiest forest-lair,
Gleamed ghostly dim, a dreadful ghost in sooth,—
For still a hideous trance appeared to press
Upon her and a nightmare helplessness,—
To whom she knelt in sad mechanic guise,
Pleading for mercy with such piteous eyes,
And such soft flow of self-bewailing ruth,
Aurelian felt his passion's quivering chords
Stilled at the touch of those pathetic words,
That glance of wild appealing agonies.
Stirred by his nobler nature's grave command
(That fair, indwelling angel sweet and grand,
Born to transmute the worn and blasted soil
Of sinful hearts by his celestial toil
To Eden places and the haunts of God),
He stooped, and, courteous, raised her from the sod,
And whispered closely in her eager ear
Words which his guardian genius smiled to hear;
Words of release, and balmy breathing cheer.
And while his softening gaze a grateful mist
Feelingly dimmed, with knightly grace he kissed
Her drooping forehead, and loose tresses thrown
In rippling waves adown the heaving zone;
Once, twice, he kissed her thus, with reverence meek;
But when her brimming eyes uplifted, seek
Aurelian now, with eloquent looks to tell
What tenderest words could not convey so well,
She only hears the tree-stems, tall and brown,
The golden leaves come faintly fluttering down,
And only hears the wind of sunset moan:
Midmost the twilight wood the lady stands alone.

Stung by his misery into frenzied motion,
Her lord meantime beside the restless ocean
Roamed, hearkening to the mournful undertone
Of the sea's mighty heart, which touched his own,
O God, how sadly! when abruptly lifting
His furrowed brow, long fixed upon the shifting
And mimic whirlwinds of loose sand that flew
Hither and thither, as the brief winds blew
At fitful whiles from o'er the watery waste,
He saw, as if she spurned the earth in haste,
His gentle wife returning, with a face
Whereon there dwelt no shadow of disgrace;
A face that seemed transfigured in the light
Of Paradise, it shone so softly bright.
Beautiful ever, round her now there hovered
A subtle, new-born glory, which discovered
A shape so dazzling, you had thought the plume
Of some archangel's pinion cast its bloom
About her, and the veil of heaven withdrawn,
She viewed the mystic streams, the sapphire dawn,
And heard the choirs celestial, tier on tier
Uptowering to the uttermost golden sphere,
Sing of a vanquished dread, a blest release,
The effluence and the solemn charm of peace.

Evening closed round them; o'er the placid reach
Stretching far northward of the sea-girt beach,
They passed, while night's first planet in the sky
Faltered from out the stillness timidly,
And perfumed breezes rustled murmuring by,
'Twixt the grim headlands up the glens to die,
And white-winged sea-birds, with a long-drawn cry,
Which spake of homeward flight and billowy nest,
Glanced through the sunset down the wavering West.
Evening closed o'er them, mellowing into dark;
Along the horizon's edge, a tiny spark,
Dull-red at first, but broadening to a white
And tranquil orb of silver-streaming light,
Slowly the Night Queen fair her heaven ascends:
The outlines of those loving forms she blends
Into one luminous shade, which seems to float,
Mingle and melt in shining mists remote;
Type of two perfect lives, whose single soul
Outbreathes a cordial music, sweet and whole,
One will, one mind, one joy-encircled fate,
And one winged faith that soars beyond the heavenly gate.