The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir :: :: University of Virginia Library

'Twas a tempestuous eve; the rains,
Over the mountains and the plains,
Pour'd down with ceaseless noise;
The forest depths were in a roar;
The sea came foaming to the shore,
And through the rocky caverns hoar
Howl'd with a giant's voice.

316

II

At length the winds began to still,
As Hesper crown'd the southern hill:
The rains began to cease;
Night's star-bestudded map unfurl'd,
Up from the earth the black clouds curl'd;
And the white moon rose o'er the world,
As 'twere to herald Peace.

III

Lull'd was the turmoil on the shore,
While the fierce rack that, just before,
With tempest laden deep,
Swept through the sad and sullen sky,
Grew bright, and, in serenity,
Beneath the quiet moon's calm eye,
Appear'd to fall asleep.

IV

The green trees twinkled in the vale;
Pure was the radiance—pure and pale,
With beauty silvering o'er
The verdant lawn, and lapsing rill;
There was a silence on the hill;
Hush'd were the winds; and all grew still,
Except the river's roar.

317

V

Leaving the fireside's circling talk,
'Twas then my solitary walk
Amid the fields I took,
To where a ruin'd convent stood,
As 'twere the abode of solitude,
Left, 'mid the relics of its wood,
To stockdove and to rook.

VI

Lorn was the scene and desolate,
Rank weeds o'ergrew its mouldering gate:
I clomb its fragile stair;
The moonbeams piercing through the gloom
Of each untenanted lone room,
Where erst the censer shed perfume,
Show'd only ruin there.

VII

Pleased with the prospect—pleased, yet pain'd,
The summit of the walls I gain'd,
And leant me there alone,
Beneath the solitary sky;
While, in the moon's pale argentry,
As woke the wild bird's fitful cry,
The dewy wall-flowers shone.

318

VIII

The jasmine seem'd alive with bees;
Blossoms were on the cultur'd trees,
That now were gnarl'd and wild;
And rose Devotion from each cell,
Where holy Nun, at sound of bell,
Did daily kneel and worship well
The Mother and her Child.

IX

How came they there, these lovely forms?—
Was it to shield them from the storms
Of this unquiet earth,
That from its sinful crowds they fled?
Or, warn'd by Conscience, did the dread
Of Judgment o'er each guilty head,
To Penitence give birth?

X

These questions, who may answer?—Lo!
With eyes of thought, and cheek of woe,
That pale and sighing maid,
Devoutly kneeling at the shrine—
Her true love, bound for Palestine,
Sank with his warriors in the brine,
To sudden death betray'd.

319

XI

Life's day for her had found its close:
Straight from her brow she pluck'd the rose;
And from her cheek the bloom
Faded like tints from autumn flowers,
When over earth the tempests lowers,
And rude winds leave the saddening bowers
To Winter's sullen gloom.

XII

And lo! that other by her side,
Hopeful so soon to be a bride;
Blue eyes and auburn hair,
That might have chain'd all human hearts,
Were vain—her fickle knight departs—
Her soul's deep-cherish'd vision thwarts—
And leaves her to despair.

XIII

With indignation and amaze,
She saw her rival, heard the praise,
Once deem'd her own, bestow'd
On stranger charms; and she could not—
Forlorn, forsaken, and forgot—
Uphold the burden of her lot,
But to its misery bow'd.

320

XIV

Then, in her solitary cell,
It yielded painful joy to dwell
On raptures that had been:
Her full heart to her throat would rise,
While turning oft her tearful eyes
From changeful earth to changeless skies,
All cloudless and serene.

XV

A third—around her, one by one,
Like vernal flowers in summer's sun,
Those whom she loved had fled;
So, bowing to her cheerless fate—
Home left unto her desolate—
Her pilgrim step sought out this gate,
To commune with the dead.

XVI

There Recollection's sunlight streams;
And, in the silence of her dreams,
She hears their voices still—
Hears the blue rill amid its flowers,
As erst she heard in Childhood's hours—
Strays with them thro' the garden bowers,
And climbs her native hill.

321

XVII

A fourth—her black and midnight eyes,
Wherein the abyss of passion lies,
Silently burn; but she
Loved whom her kindred sanction'd not:
He fell—she sought the bloody spot—
And, to forget and be forgot,
Was hither doom'd to flee.

XVIII

Yes, far more dear was he, though dead,
Than all yet living things; she fled
A world which gave but pain,
Heroic constancy to prove;
And nursing, for his sake, a love
Which nought could change, and none could move,
Disdain'd to love again.

XIX

Yes! there she strove to yield her soul
Unto Religion's calm control;
But Memory's charms outlast
Long years of solitude and gloom;
And oft his image, from the tomb,
To bless her came, in beauty's bloom,
When hours of prayer were past.

322

XX

Thoughts sad and strange came thronging fast,
As, through the pale and peopled past,
Keen Fancy clove her way:
The scene around me changed, and bright
Lay pile and garden on my sight,
As once they shone in summer light,
Ere yet they knew decay.

XXI

Dreams—fancies—visions—such are these;
Yet on the musing mind they seize,
When, on an eve like this
On which I write, through far-past things
Her flight lone Meditation wings,
And to the dallying spirit brings
Pictures of bale or bliss.

XXII

And ye, grey convent walls, teach well,
That onward centuries only swell
The catalogue of change;
Yea, while we look around, and scan
What happen'd in our own brief span,
Things, which occurr'd since life began,
Even to ourselves seem strange.

323

XXIII

Then, what is life?—'tis like a flower
That blossoms through one sunny hour;
A bright illusive dream;
A wave that melts upon the shore;
A lightning flash that straight is o'er;
A phantom seen—then seen no more;
A bubble on the stream!

XXIV

Look on the churchyard's yellow skull—
Is not the contemplation full
Of serious thought and deep?
'Tis ownerless; but yet ere fled
The spirit, Love upheld that head,
And friends hung round a dying bed,
To hide their eyes and weep.

XXV

Thus generations pass away—
'Tis renovation and decay—
'Tis childhood and old age:
Like figures in the wizard's glass,
In long succession on we pass,
Act our brief parts; and then, alas!
Are swept from off the stage!