University of Virginia Library

II. PART THE SECOND.

I.

Oh power of Love so fearful and so fair—
Life of our life on earth, yet kin to care—
Oh! thou day-dreaming Spirit, who dost look
Upon the future, as the charmed book
Of Fate were open'd to thine eyes alone—
Thou who dost cull, from moments stolen and gone
Into eternity, memorial things
To deck the days to come—thy revellings
Were glorious and beyond all others: Thou
Didst banquet upon beauty once; and now
The ambrosial feast is ended!—Let it be.
Enough to say ‘It was.’—Oh! upon me
From thy o'ershadowing wings etherial
Shake odorous airs, so may my senses all
Be spell-bound to thy service, beautiful power,
And on the breath of every coming hour
Send me faint tidings of the things that were,
And aid me as I try gently to tell
The story of that young Italian pair,
Who loved so lucklessly, yet ah! so well.

II.

How long Colonna in his gloomier mood
Remained, it matters not: I will not brood
On evil themes; but, leaving grief and crime,
At once I pass unto a blyther time.
—One night—one summer night he wandered far
Into the Roman suburbs; Many a star
Shone out above upon the silent hours,
Save when, awakening the sweet infant flowers,
The breezes travell'd from the west, and then
A small cloud came abroad and fled again.
The red rose was in blossom, and the fair
And bending lily to the wanton air
Bared her white breast, and the voluptuous lime
Cast out his perfumes, and the wilding thyme
Mingled his mountain sweets, transplanted low
'Midst all the flowers that in those regions blow.
—He wandered on: At last, his spirit subdued
By the deep influence of that hour, partook
E'en of its nature, and he felt imbued
With a more gentle love, and he did look
At times amongst the stars, as on a book
Where he might read his destiny. How bright
Heaven's many constellations shone that night!
And from the distant river a gentle tune,
Such as is uttered in the months of June,
By brooks, whose scanty streams have languished long
For rain, was heard;—a tender, lapsing song,
Sent up in homage to the quiet moon.

III.

He mused, 'till from a garden, near whose wall
He leant, a melancholy voice was heard
Singing alone, like some poor widow bird
That casts unto the woods her desert call.
It was the voice—the very voice that rung
Long in his brain that now so sweetly sung.
He passed the garden bounds and lightly trod,
Checking his breath, along the grassy sod,
(By buds and blooms half-hidden, which the breeze
Had ravished from the clustering orange trees,)
Until he reached a low pavillion, where
He saw a lady pale, with radiant hair
Over her forehead and in garments white;
A harp was by her, and her fingers light
Carelessly o'er the golden strings were flung;
Then, shaking back her locks, with upward eye,
And lips that dumbly moved, she seemed to try
To catch an old disused melody—
A sad Italian air it was, which I
Remember in my boyhood to have heard,
And still—(tho' here and there perhaps a word
Be now forgot,) I recollect the song,
Which might to any lovelorn tale belong.

SONG.

IV.

The lady ended, and Colonna knelt
Before her with outstretched arms: He felt
That she, whom in the mountains far away
His heart had loved so much, at last was his.
“Is there, oh! is there in a world like this”
(He spoke) “such joy for me? Oh! Julia,
Art thou indeed no phantom which my brain
Has conjured out of grief and desperate pain—
And shall I then from day to day behold
Thee again, and still again? Oh! speak to me,
Julia—and gently for I have grown old
In sorrow ere my time: I kneel to thee.”
—Thus with a passionate voice the lover broke
Upon her solitude, and while he spoke
In such a tone as might a maiden move,
Her fear gave place to pride, and pride to love.
Quick are fond women's sights, and clear their powers,
They live in moments years, an age in hours;
Thro' every movement of the heart they run
In a brief period with a courser's speed,
And mark, decide, reject; but if indeed
They smile on us—oh! as the eternal sun
Forms and illuminates all to which this earth
(Impregnate by his glance) hath given birth,
Even so the smile of woman stamps our fates,
And consecrates the love it first creates.

V.

VI.

To those o'er whom pale Destiny with his sting
Hangs, a mere glance, a word, a sound will bring
The bitter future with its terrors, all
Black and o'erwhelming. Like Colonna's star,
Tho' hidden for awhile or banish'd far,
The time will come,—at prayer or festival,
Slumber or morning sport or mid-day task;
The soul can never fly itself, nor mask
The face of fate with smiles.—
How oft by some strange ill of body or mind
Man's fine and piercing sense is stricken blind;
No matter then how slight the shadows be,
The veil is thick to him who cannot see.
Solid and unsubstantial, false and true,
Are Fear and Fate; but to that wretched few,
Who call the dim phantasmas from their graves,
And bow before their own creations, slaves,
They are immortal—holy—fix'd—supreme.
—No more of this. Now pass I to my theme.

VII.

VIII.

Once—only once—('twas in a lonely hour)
He felt the presence of his evil power
Weighing upon him, and he left his home
In silence, amidst fresher scenes to roam.
—'Twas said that he did wander far and wide
O'er desert heaths, and on the Latian plains
Bared his hot forehead to the falling rains,
Which there bring death; and, with a heart allied
To gentle pleasures still, on the green hill's side
Would stretch his length upon the evening grass,
Shedding sweet tears to see the great sun pass
Away like a dream of boyhood. Darkness then
Grew his familiar, and in caverns deep,
(By the strange voice of silence lulled asleep,)
He oft' would hide himself within its arms;
Or gaze upon the eyes of Heaven, when
She stands illustrious with her midnight charms
Revealed—all unobscured by moon or sun,
Gay-tincted cloud, or airy rainbow won
From light and showers; and when storms were high
He listened to the Wind-God riding by
The mountain places, and there took his stand,
Hearkening his voice of triumph or command,
Or heard him thro' the piny forests rave,
Ere he went murmuring to his prison cave.

IX.

And then unto the rocks of Tivoli
He went: Alas! for gone Antiquity—
Its holy and mysterious temple where
The Sybil spread abroad her hoary hair,
And spoke her divine oracles. Her home
Is crumbling into dust, and sheeted foam
Now sparkles where her whitened tresses hung;
And where her voice, like Heaven's, was freely flung
Unto the echoes, now fierce torrents flow,
Filling with noise and spray the dell below.
Not useless are ye yet, ye rocks and woods
Of Tivoli, altho' long since have vanished
From your lost land its gorgeous palaces,
And tho' the spirit of the place be banished
The earth for ever—yet your silver floods
Remain, (immortal music!) and the breeze
Brings health and freshness to your waving trees.

X.

For weeks amongst the woods did Marcian rove
And wilds: At last, unto his widowed love
He came again, while yet the fever stained
His cheek and darkness on his brow remained.
She saw the hectic colour burning bright
Clouded by looks of sorrow, and one night—
It was a night of sultry summer weather,
And they were sitting in the garden where,
Guided by fate, and drawn like doves together,
They once had met, and meeting mocked at care,
And he first sank upon her bosom fair:
Her white and delicate fingers now by his
Were held and not withdrawn, and with a kiss
He thanked her, yet with idle question tried
To cheat away the grief she could not hide.
He felt that he had planted in her heart
The seeds of grief; and could he then depart
And leave the lady of his love in tears—
Weighed down (and for his sake) by silent fears?
He could not: Oh he felt the pleading look
Of her who loved him so, nor could he brook
Still to be thought a frantic. “Thou shalt know,
Dearest,” he said, “my hidden story now;
Forgive me that before I told thee not:
I thought—I wished to think the thing forgot.”
—He pondered then, as to regain a thought:
At length, with a firm tongue, (but mingling still
Much fancy with the fact, as madmen will,)
He told his tale—his dream:—

XI.

“From my sad youth
I never was beloved,—never. Truth
Fell mildew'd from my lips, and in my eye
Gloomed, it was said, the red insanity.
I was not mad—nor am; but I became
Withered by malice, and a clouded flame
Rose from my heart and made my eyesight dim,
And my brain turn, and palsied every limb,
And the world stood in stupor for a time.
Yet from my fiery cloud I heard of crime,
Of parents'—brother's hate, and of one lost
For want of kindness.—Then?—aye; then there came
The rushing of innumerable wings
By me, and sweets, such as the summer flings,
Fell on my fainting senses, and I crept
Into some night-dark place, and long I slept.
I slept, until a rude uneasy motion
Stirred me: what passed I know not then, and yet
Methought the air blew freshly, and the ocean
Danced with its bright blue waters: I forget
Where all this happened; but at last my brain
Seemed struggling with itself, awhile in vain.
There was a load on it, like hopeless care
Upon the mind—a dreary heavy load,
And, now and then, it seemed as shapes did goad
My soul to recollection,—or despair.”

XII.

“Clearer and clearer now from day to day
The figures floated on my sight, but when
I moved they vanished. Then, a grim array,
Like spectres from the graves of buried men,
Came by in silence: each upon his face
Wore a wild look, as tho' some sad disgrace
Had stamped his life (or thus I thought) with sorrow.
They vanished too; but ever on the morrow
They came again, in greater sadness, 'till
I spoke; then one of them gave answer—shrill
As blasts that whistle thro' the dungeon's grate
On bleak December nights, when in her state
Comes the white Winter. ‘Look!’—(I thus translate
The sounds it uttered)—‘Look,’ the phantom said,
‘Upon thine ancestry departed—dead.
‘Each one thou seest hath left his gaping tomb
‘Empty, and comes to warn thee of thy doom:
‘And each, whilst living, bore within his brain
‘A settled madness: start not—so dost thou:
‘Thou art our own, and on thy moody brow
‘There is the invisible word ne'er writ in vain.
‘Look on us all: we died as thou shalt die,
‘The victims of our heart's insanity.
‘From sire to son the boiling rivers ran
‘Thro' every vein, and 'twas alike with all:
‘It touched the child and trampled down the man;
‘And every eye that, with its dead dull ball,
‘Seems as it stared upon thee now, was bright
‘As thine is, with the true transmitted light.
‘Madness and pain of heart shall break thy rest,
‘And she shall perish whom thou lovest the best.
‘Once thou hast been a mockery unto men,
‘But thus, at least, it shall not be again.
‘Behold—where yon red rolling star doth shine
‘From out the darkness: that fierce star is thine,
‘Thy Destiny, thy Spirit, and its power
‘Shall guard and rule thee to thy latest hour;
‘And never shall it quit thy side, but be
‘Invisible to all and dim to thee,
‘Save when the fever of thy soul shall rise,
‘And then that light shall flash before thine eyes,
‘And thou shalt then remember that thy fate
‘Is—murder.’—Thus upon the silence broke
The spectre's hollow words; but while it spoke,
Its pale lip never moved, nor did its eye
Betray intelligence. With sweeping state,
Over the ground the train then glided by,
And vanish'd—vanish'd. Then methought I 'woke.”

XIII.

XIV.

He ended, and with kisses sweet and soft
She recompensed his words, and bade him dwell
No more upon the past, but look aloft
And pray to Heaven; and yet she bade him tell
Again the story of that lady young,
Who o'er him in such dream like beauty hung
“You saw her, Marcian—No?”—“My love, my love,
My own,” he said, “'twas thou, my forest dove,
Who soothed me in the wilderness, and crept
Into my heart, and o'er my folly wept
From dusky evening to the streaming morn,
Showers of sparkling tears. Oh! how forlorn
Was I without thee. Should I lose thee now—”
“Away, away,” she said, and on his brow
Pressed her vermillion lips, and drew his hair
Aside and kissed again his forehead fair.
“Come, thou shalt lie upon—aye, on my breast,
And I will sing thee into golden rest.”

XV.

XVI.