 | The bridal of Vaumond |  |
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SCENE VII.
THE BOWER.
I.
The noonday tide has wan'd away,Its flickering beams but sparsely stray,
Through shadowing boughs, its blossoms blent,
With every soft and glorious tint.
Far as the eye around could view,
Wav'd a bright sea of every hue,
The golden orange there is glowing,
Its liveliest tinge the olive yields;
In genial soil, in beauty blowing,
The blushing almond clothes the fields.
Here the proud laurel lifts its head,
Or the tall cypress dark arises;
Citrons their softest perfume shed,
Of loaded gales the balmy prizes.
The modest violet appears
Just peeping from its much-lov'd shade,
The hyacinth its stem uprears,
With gentle honours clustering clad;
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And tempts the breezes as they glide;
And round the trunk are twining seen
The tendrils of the jessamin.
II.
Forth walked the knight; and, by his side,Hung on his arm his destin'd bride,
In sweet, complying confidence,
The soft, yet all-absorbing sense
Of loving—and of being lov'd,
The ascendant's lord—while all around,
But more the magic charm hath mov'd,
Where the rapt vision, as it rov'd,
Still for the heart new offerings found.
III.
A stately aloe in their view,In all its pride and glory grew;
The flower stems of the aloe are between twenty and thirty feet high; covered with flowers from top to bottom, tapering regularly, and forming a beautiful pyramid, the pedestal of which is the spreading leaves. They blossom every fifth or sixth year. The substance is carried into the stem and flowers. Soon as it blows the leaves decay, and a numerous offspring of young plants rise round the roots of the old one. Hill.
While springs have past, and flower and tree
Have shed their bloom successively,
Its promise, long delay'd, at length
Puts forth its beauty and its strength;
Now, nature's boast and wonder high,
It towers in its luxuriancy.
“Even here is true love typified,
So strong, so fair,” the Baron cried.
“Pyramidal, it braves the shocks,
Where crouching interest yields and rocks;
Yet cloth'd with garb of all most frail,
With more than mortal beauty's veil.”
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IV.
“Paulo, my little page, could tellA different tale,” said Isabel—
“A youth with simile grown mad,
And still his similes are sad.
For he would say, that fragile thing
But strength dissembles, perishing—
Its vigour, in its tapering flower,
Exults but for a fleeting hour;
The root its perish'd nurture grieves,
The broad, expanding base of leaves
Wither, when first, in all its pride,
It greets the day's surrounding tide;
Its flowers have droop'd—the blasted stem
But mocks at all-enduring flame—
While from its root, a countless train
Are rising round it on the plain—
Even so love fades; while myriad ties
Upon its prostrate ruins rise.”
V.
It is the hour when clerkly loreThe student's eye delights no more;
The mortal frame subdu'd can bind
The potent energies of mind.
When fancy wakes—but not as erst
Hath the creating spirit burst,
To soar with him, Jove's eagle high,
Bathe in intolerable day,
To catch the spheral melody,
With elemental radiance play—
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From spray to spray, from grove to grove—
And wild and wavering is her tone,
But still it wakes to tell of love.
VI.
If there be passion, pure as waveScreen'd from the day, where nereids lave,—
Yet ever flowing, deep and strong,
As that broad tide that pours along,
Stemless, eternal, to the sea—
Alas, the doubt! but if there be,
Deem not that nature's breath, though rise
With love, can fan its flame to life.
The spring is past, the summer gone,
And autumn's sighs make sullen moan,
And winter howls with angry blast,
Long, long, since passion came and past!
VII.
Yet the gale is fraught with the living food,And the breath of life is the breath of love—
While the vital current, the heart's best blood,
By its spirit is fed and taught to move.
Hark to the strain! the gale is fraught
With music for the entranced thought—
Such notes on upper earth before
Were heard not, shall be heard no more,
Thrill'd through the soul wild ecstacy,
Fill'd with the soul of melody—
It was no mortal minstrelsy!
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VIII.
No studied measures told the earThe life of music was not there;
'Twas not lone Philomela's notes,
More fire upon the music floats—
Nor of chords, where gales delighted stay
To wonder at their untaught lay—
Its notes were language for souls to tell,
Its tones were feeling, its breathings thought—
Whence came they? the soul of Isabel
Woke to the strain, nor its master sought.
IX.
The heart beat quick, the pulses play'dSwift, as they reach'd an arbour's shade;
And yielded, in its mild retreat,
To one absorbing influence sweet;
While the notes, in varying numbers, stole,
Now languishing upon the soul—
And now the swelling tones arise
In livelier, bolder melodies—
Till they woke too exquisitely high,
Till they died away in ecstacy.
X.
It is the hour when language wereToo cold, estrang'd, and common there;
The heart at once may read full well
All that a fervent glance can tell,—
And pour its language on the cheek,
Nor the tongue its surly office speak
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When lovers meet in shelter'd bower,
Their sympathy to mar?
Can the brain cool at time like this,
In calculating selfishness,
With the heart's dearest, warmest bliss,
Hold an unnatural war?
XI.
Few rolling suns shall see her given,By man approv'd, in sight of heaven,
The guerdon proud of valour bright,
The partner of each day and night—
And who forbids, that all unseen,
While skies are blue, and fields are green,
While all is joy and love, that they
The genial power should disobey?
Who cries out shame, his arm if thrown
Where clasps her slender waist the zone—
And who that pressure soft shall part
That draws her closer to his heart?
Light was the form that yet betray'd
The full proportion of the maid—
The Baron gaz'd where her tresses flow
Of raven hue, o'er brow of snow;
Upon the eye so darkly wild,
That cloister'd abbot it had beguil'd,
While languid simile vainly tells,
Its glance is like the wild gazelle's—
And could the knight, in hour like this,
Forbear to print a glowing kiss
Upon the lips so close to his—
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Whose faint resistance woo'd the more—
Or closer bind that trembling form
Glowing with softest fervours warm?
XII.
Where the rich rose its fragrance flings,The zephyr sports with filmy wings;
And while he steals the balmy breath,
The flower more beauteous glows beneath.
His frolic pressure odours gives
Sweeter than those he bears afar;
And still his lovely mistress lives
More blooming from the gentle war.
But wilder breezes bend the bough—
And lordly Boreas rises now;
The fragrance on his pinions flew,
But, ah! he bore the floweret too—
The blighted chalice left alone;
Its blushing glories round are strown.
XIII.
—'Twere not in man—and is she lost?They heard a tread that bent the grass,
A footstep light the green sward crost,
And then they saw a shadow pass—
An insect flutter'd on gilded wing,
And the Page leapt with eager spring,
To grasp his prize—as fell his glance,
Transient—but full—on Isabel,
First seem'd she waking from her trance,
First breaking from a potent spell:
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If all were fair and innocent!
The quivering frame, the downcast eye,
At childhood's frolic gambols, why?
XIV.
Swift as he came, young Paulo cleftThe umbrageous foliage, and as swift
Its dangerous shade the lady left;
Broke from the arms of bold Vaumond,
Shot like the arrow his glance beyond.
XV.
He follow'd not; he knew the hourWas past, the season of his power—
Holy Maria! still unsung
Be the curses black from his bosom wrung!
Foul the core, and foul the curses,
As the sap that Java's upas nurses!
In different loom the fates have wove
The wars of men and wars of love;
Defeat his drooping crest may rear,
And poise again the avenging spear,
More terrible in his recoil—
—As when, bent low upon the soil,
Proud victory's meed rebounds again
The stubborn palm deprest in vain—
Defeat in love is dark defeat,
Dark as the promis'd boon was sweet.
XVI.
“That boy”—he dwelt upon the name—Suspicion dark and wildering came;
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The object of his angry thought—
He found him; on a grassy bed,
With flowers bespangled, lay his head:
From antique marble basin near,
A melancholy fountain play'd;
He lay, as listening still to hear
Its sad and lonely chiding;
But when a step fell on his ear,
He started, as in sudden fear,
And swift away was gliding.
The Baron sent forth a stern command,
And grasping him with iron hand,
Survey'd his face—Maria! why
Starts back that Baron bold,
As if the bolt that shakes the sky,
Had on him its fury roll'd?
XVII.
A quick and desperate thought againShot like the levin through his brain—
The boy upon the sod he prest,
Planted his knee upon his breast,
And bar'd the glittering knife—
Pale was the Page's cheek—his eye
Fix'd on the Baron steadfastly;
Not to implore, not to entreat—
But calm the impending blow to meet,
As reckless all of life.
“Strike!”—mild, yet firm, the victim spoke—
And why delays the threaten'd stroke?
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Palsied his arm's proud energies?
Or did his heart relenting shed,
One gushing tear from the fountain-head?
There is a syroc in his soul,
That its wildest impulse can control:
But tears? such tears Vaumond's may be
As Satan shed on Calvary!
“Go—and be Paulo still—away!
Death here awaits thy further stay.”
| The bridal of Vaumond | |