Canto the Seventh. The Captive.
1. Ranolf seized. 2. Where imprisoned. 3. Prospect of death. 4. A
midnight visitor. 5. Plot against him explained. 6. The first
Kiss. 7. The parting. Amo's despairing song. 8. Nature helps
Love.
I.
O'er all the East the sunset's flush
From plain to peak began to rise;
That slowly-fading fever flush
Of beauteous Day before she dies.
The friends again had reached the Isle
And for a little space had parted;
Those elder women kindly-hearted
About the evening meal employed:
Their guest had strolled away awhile,
And by the Lake the painted eve enjoyed;
There, tempted after all the sweltering heat
By the cool water glistening black
In shade behind a green spur's shelving back,
Which seemed a place for bathing meet,
Had passed some wooded rocks upon his right
Into a thicket where karakas veiled
The path in gloom almost as dark as night—
When from behind he felt himself assailed
By ambushed men unseen, unknown;
Before he could resist was overpowered;
A mantle o'er his head was thrown,
His arms and feet fast pinioned; nor availed
His stifled shouts, the threats and taunts he showered
Upon his dastard foes, who answered nought
But with determined silence and one will
Their struggling captive rapidly conveyed
O'er rocks and rooty paths (he thought)
Where branches oft their way opposed
Into some place from outer air enclosed;
For cooler seemed and yet more still
The atmosphere; and on his sense the smell
Of the dried rushes used in buildings fell.
There on the ground the luckless youth they laid;
And when a sliding panel was made fast
With cautious footsteps out of hearing passed.
II.
Now left alone, the youth contrived to free
His head, and strove his prison-place to see.
All round was sombre darkness; but it teemed
With great white ghastly eyes that strangely gleamed
With pink and silvery flashings here and there,
And seemed to float and throb in the dun air;
Then by degrees grew motionless, and fixed
On him one savage and concentred gaze;
And slowly he discerns, those eyes betwixt,
Features gigantic—furious—in amaze;
Wild brows upbranching broad, yet corrugate
With close-knit frowns ferocious; blubber lips
Stretched wide as rage and mockery can strain
Mouths—monstrous as the Shark's when 'mid the ship's
Exultant crew he gnashes in dumb pain—
That grin grotesque, intense and horrible hate,
And thrust out sidelong tongues that from their root
The very frenzy of defiance shoot.
So, with malignant and astonished stare
They gaze, as if the intruder's blood to freeze.
At length, accustomed to the gloom, he sees
What dwarfish forms those ponderous heads upbear;
Their crooked tortoise-legs, club-curved and short;
Their hands, like toasting-forks or tridents prest
Against each broad and circle-fretted breast;
And all the fact discerned at last, he knows
These pigmy-giants form red-ochred rows
Of rafters and pilasters to support
A spacious hall;—some carved in high relief;
While others standing from the walls aloof
Piled up in pillars of squat monsters rise
Perched on each others' shoulders to the roof.
The tribe's great Council-Chamber this should be,
Their Wháre-kúra, Hall of sacred Red,
For worship—justice; where the most adept,
The glorious deeds of their ancestral dead,
And pedigrees that back for centuries crept,
Safe in their memories by rehearsal kept.
Those forms were effigies (he might surmise)
Each of some famous ancestress or chief;
But to his fancy now the crowd appeared
A Gorgon-eyed and grinning demonry
Whose fiendish rancour his misfortune jeered.
III.
And bitter were his feelings as he lay
To dark forebodings, anxious fears a prey:
What could have caused this outrage? whose the deed?
Or what its object? in his utmost need
Where could he look for succour? how escape
The doom that threatened him in some dread shape
He scarce could doubt, although the thought might strike
His cooler mind, so unprovoked a wrong
Done by these islanders, was little like
(As all his past experience would attest)
Their usual treatment of a peaceful guest.
And though the tide of his regrets ran strong
With self-reproaches that a careless hour
Had placed his life within their savage power,
Mokoia's Chief he felt could never be
Privy to such a wrong!—The ‘Sounding Sea’
Had spurned such crafty craven treachery.
His natural spirits at the thought revived;
And he resolved forthwith to be prepared
The moment that his unknown foes arrived
And loosed his bonds, to spring upon them—dash
Between then—struggle—lose no slightest chance
But do and dare whatever might be dared
Or done, however desperate, wild and rash,
That might accomplish his deliverance.
Or if no opening should occur for swift
Decisive force or dexterous agile shift,
He still would try what gentle means might do,—
Never despair! in worst extremes he knew
So many chances to the brave accrue,
Hopes to the true heart come so often true!
But should all fail, and he be doomed to die,
Ah, could he help but feel—no soul so dull
As not to feel—how deep the misery—
The bitterness to leave a world so full
Of vivid beauty, varied life and joy,
'Twould scarce the wisest even in ages cloy!
Yet even then he had the heart to rest
In trust his great All-giver would invest—
Out of the infinite exhaustless store
Of Life he loves with lavish hand to pour
Thick as a mist of dew-drops over all
The inconceivable array of star-worlds more
In number than the sands on ocean's shore—
His soul with new existence; though to dust
This apparition of mere clay should fall,
Its present phantasm. “What!” so ran the train
Of thoughts that darkling hurried through his brain
Like caverned ocean-tides—“‘Is man more just
Than God?’ that immemorial chime
Asked out of Arab wastes in earliest time;
And why not ask, Is he more generous, too?
Should not God's great beneficence outdo
What Man could in conception and in will
Be equal to? should He not spare
Another life—a hundred if need were,
To beings into whom his loving care
Did such deep longing for the boon instil?”—
Yes, he would trust in this his extreme need
The Infinite; who if infinite indeed
In aught, is infinite in Love as well
That must our own heart's highest love excel.
So with firm patience he resolves to wait,
Whatever be its form, his coming fate.
IV.
Two hours or more had dragged their weary way
While cramped with chafing bonds in pain he lay.
Those stony eyes had faded from his sight
When deeper fell the shades of growing night.
Far, far away his mournful thoughts had flown
To friends and scenes in happy boyhood known;
When—hist! a rustling sound that softly falls
Upon his ear, his wandering mind recalls;
He listens—all is silent—then again
The rustle and slight creak are heard—'tis plain
Some cautious hand has thrust aside the door—
Some noiseless foot steals light along the floor.
The form that owned them had a moment hid
The patch of moonlight where the panel slid
Away—too briefly for his eye to trace
Its outline—guess its purpose; to his side,
So stealthy, swift and noiseless was its pace,
The shadowy Shape seemed less to walk than glide.
Could this some midnight murderer be? his heart
Beat quick as over him that Shadow bent—
Quick as the sweet breath felt upon his face,
That Phantom's breath, that quickly came and went
As if in his emotion it took part.
A soft voice whispered: “Stranger—hist! no word—
'Tis I—'tis Amohia!”—Then she fell
To her kind work, and every cutting cord
Sought out and severed with a sharpened shell.
Upsprung the youth, to life and joy restored;
And rapturous thanks had to the Maid outpoured,
But that her hand upon his lips was laid,
But that her lips in briefest whisper prayed
What her unseen more eloquent looks implored:
“O for your life no sound! but follow me—
Who knows how near your deadliest foe may be!”
V.
So through the doorway stealing in the dark,
She makes the panel fast, and he may mark
Less-pleased, that silvery blue solemnity
That mingles with the bowery trees hard by.
Then in the open, silently they creep,
They, and their shadows thrown so sharp and deep.
Upon a terrace half way up a cleft
Or hollow on the mountain's northern steep,
'Mid tufts of flax, tall-bladed, bright as glass,
And ferny tree-clumps, stood the house they left.
See! by a hut which they perforce must pass,
Across their very path, three youths, asleep
In the warm moon upon the sun-dried grass
Are lying!—'twould be ruin to retreat:—
The Maiden's heart, he almost hears it beat!
Each foot placed firm before the last is raised,
They step between the knees so nearly grazed:
And soon are safe beneath the blessed shade
By trees—themselves as still as shadows, made.
Then round the island's end, that fear allayed,
Beneath its woody western slopes they steal,
Where they may speak secure, and she reveal,
The cause and author of the base assault
Her friend had suffered. Kangapo's the fault—
That priest's, and not her father's, she averred:
For Kangapo's sole aim, he might have heard,
The one great passion that his bosom stirred,
The main pursuit in which his life was spent,
Was, next his own, their tribe's aggrandizement.
For this, by his advice, almost from birth,
Herself had been made ‘tapu’ to her grief,
To Taupo's Lord—an old whiteheaded chief,
Of mighty power, no doubt, high rank and worth;
And though this marriage of her dread and hate
That landslip had relieved her from of late,
Yet much she feared—the Priest already planned
Some other proud disposal of her hand;
So jealously he watched, so little brooked
The slightest glance of any youth who looked
With any (here she checked herself)—at least
Of any one who talked with her awhile.
And so that day when she observed the Priest
Eye them so keenly with his crafty smile,
Although deceived a moment by his guile,
It roused suspicions, strengthened when she saw
Again, on their returning to the Isle,
He noticed Ranolf from the group withdraw
At sunset; and himself stole off so soon
By the same pathway towards the western wood;
She followed; for the thing could bode no good;
But by another track; had seen him meet
Four men to whom his slightest wish was law,
Then to a copse of mánuka retreat
Where they could safely, secretly commune;
Had crept close-up on tiptoe—overheard
Their vile atrocious project every word;
To seize, bind, bear the Stranger to their great
Runanga-house; there leave him bound and wait
The setting of the Moon, till they could take
Their captive to the middle of the Lake,
Where they would throw him overboard, still bound;
And tell her Father next day how they found
The Stranger at his evening meal—with food—
Aye, food! beside the monument that stood
High carved in their most sacred burial-ground
O'er his most famous ancestor's dead bones:
And though a bird sung on it all the while—
Doubtless the spirit of that Chief renowned,
It still could not prevent the outrage vile:—
Would not such impious sacrilege astound
The boldest?—how aloof the crime they viewed
With hair on end, tongues to their palates glued
In speechless horror, motionless as stones:
But how his Ancestor's insulted Shade
With vengeance dire the deed profane repaid;
For when the Stranger launched his boat again
There was no ripple on the watery plain;
Yet scarce a spear-flight had he left the bank
Before his boat without a breeze capsized,
And with it—he with scarce a struggle—sank;
For all his powers that Spirit had paralyzed.
This was the plot concerted then and there;
And next she noted where his boat they hid
To make all points of their narration square;
And Miroa was to bring it, as she bid,
Round to a spot they presently would reach,—
Yes! there she saw them waiting on the beach!
The rest he knew. “But now, O Stranger, haste!
Fly to your skiff—O not a moment waste
In words—already, see! the Moon is low—
Away, before your flight those traitors know!”
He turned to thank her—would not take her nay;
Despite her struggles clasped her to his breast,
And ere from his embrace she broke away
Upon her lips a shower of fervent kisses prest.
VI.
O in all climes and every age a token
Of one bright link for suffering mortals left
With the Eternal and Divine unbroken—
By all Earth's strain and tears untarnished and unreft!—
O tempting—time-worn—ever-during theme—
That first fond kiss of Love! first dazzling gleam
When two surcharged electric Love-clouds meet—
Flash Paradise into the mutual dream
Of rapt twin-spirits in a lightning-stream,
And blend in blissful rest their soul-entrancing heat!—
Most surely is the Heav'n-glimpse visible there,
When some young creature, innocent as fair,
Supreme Civilization's tender heir,
Such first faint utterance of true love may dare.
The wondrous, pure, envelopment divine
Of fearful awe and maiden scruples fine—
That trembling kiss has broken through it now,
Like the first crocus peeping through the snow.
Oh timid touching of a terrible joy
Whose sweet excess would almost ask alloy!
First hesitating step within the range
Of unimagined worlds—enchanted—strange!—
Ah! break off there, young throbbing hearts! Ah stay,
Let that ecstatic dawn ne'er darken into day!
The quivering brilliance of that hour so tender,
Love's disc emerging o'er the horizon's rim,
Does not its molten palpitating splendour
Leave vulgar Noon and its refulgence dim?
Oh might that Morn its freshness ne'er surrender,
But still in blinding innocency swim!—
Vain thought!—save one such bud of bliss, unblown—
And laws that rule the Universe were gone!
But now, the kisses prest with youthful passion
On Amohia's lips were not alone
The first those lips from one she loved had known,
They were the first she ever felt at all!
A novel mode—a strange too fervent fashion,
Of salutation or caressing this!
What aid, what safeguard to her side to call,
This subtle soft assailant to repel,
This cunning and insidious foe—a kiss!
Was it not thrice too thrilling? might not well
This meeting of the lips and breath appear,
Spirit to spirit—soul to soul to bring
Too dangerously close—too fondly near?
Through joining lips heart seemed to heart to cling;
And had not breath and spirit but one name—
In hers, as many a rougher tongue, the same?—
But she has torn herself away—“Oh go,
Ranoro, only go! haste—haste, or they
Will track us here!” She could,—she would not say
For fear more than those choking words, although
Such briefest farewell seemed a knell of woe.
“Farewell, then, dearest! till we meet once more!”
He said, and pushed off quickly from the shore.
VII.
She gazed unmoving—watched his boat depart,
With desolation dragging at her heart.
Just then the ill-omened Moon withdrew behind
A sable cloud-stripe, sudden, as if dropped—
Dead Nun! into a coffin snowy-lined.
Then swelled her heart with tears her pride had stopped;
Weeping she stole the silent trees among,
Weeping reproved her weeping with a song;
For the spontaneous song her sadness moaned,
Provoked the very weakness it disowned;
Racking her bosom with its feigned relief,
And bitter comfort that redoubled grief.
1
“Leave me! yes, too dear one, leave me!
Better now, when least 'twill grieve me!
While unrisen, unconsuming,
Love's red dawn is but illuming
With faint rays our spirits glooming—
Oh while we can bear to sever,
Let us part and part for ever!
Part with wishes—vows unspoken,
Tears unshed and hearts unbroken!
2
“O this feeling! who shall cure it—
Teach the Maiden to endure it?—
Where is he, whitebearded, holy,
Who shall lead his daughter slowly
To the waters melancholy?
Lead his love-afflicted daughter
To the still, estranging water?—
Where the pool so gloomy-shining,
Can relieve this love-repining?
3
“She has let it charm too dearly,
Lull too fondly, touch too nearly,
That sweet sorrow; now unwilling,
In the wave so soothing, chilling,
Pure, translucent, passion-killing,
He must lave her—chaunting faintly
Hymns so piteous, hymns so saintly!
Then shall cease this yearning—sighing,
With the mystic measure dying.”
VIII.
So parted they—and so they strove apart
Each to repress the risings of the heart;
Each to rake out, ungerminant, ungrown,
The seed in fertile soil too richly sown.
Yet in her own despite, it seemed, the Maid,
Was still recalled to something done or said
By or about the Stranger; to her breast
Tidings of him like wild birds to their nest
Would fly it seemed as to their natural rest;
The slightest news that floated in the air
By some attraction seemed to settle there;
Nor ever seemed there lack of such, or dearth
Of Fancy's food; for desert wastes of Earth
Blush nectared fruits, and the blue void above
Rains mystic manna but to nourish Love!
