 | Poems by Edward C. Pinkney |  |
44
RODOLPH
“Call these forms from under ground,
With a soft and happy sound.”
Fletcher.
With a soft and happy sound.”
Fletcher.
“There is an order
Of mortals on the earth, who do become
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age,
Without the violence of warlike death;
Some perishing of pleasure—some of study—
Some worn with toil—some of mere weariness,
Some of disease—and some insanity—
And some of withered, or of broken hearts;
For this last is a malady which slays
More than are numbered in the lists of fate,
Taking all shapes, and bearing many names.
Lord Byron.
Of mortals on the earth, who do become
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age,
Without the violence of warlike death;
Some perishing of pleasure—some of study—
Some worn with toil—some of mere weariness,
Some of disease—and some insanity—
And some of withered, or of broken hearts;
For this last is a malady which slays
More than are numbered in the lists of fate,
Taking all shapes, and bearing many names.
Lord Byron.
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DEDICATION.
Sweet Promiser!—If now to thee(No halcyon on the wintry sea
Of troubled feeling yet)
I dedicate this idle rhyme,
Woven to cheer the laggard time,
Though wisdom would forget;
Learn that when as a funeral train
The mournful moments crossed my brain,
I could not but remember hours,
Which wore bright coronals of flowers,
And came successively to me,
Like notes of heart-felt melody.
Learn further, that with these was shown
A phantom fairer far—thine own—
An apparition none can know,
Or guess of, saving only thou.
As for this story of an age
That saw life fanciful as dreams,
Thy gem-like eye will scan its page;
And if, with sounds of sleepy streams,
Thy voice make music of my lays—
Could they obtain a dearer praise?
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1. PART I.
I.
The Summer's heir on land and seaHad thrown his parting glance,
And Winter taken angrily
His waste inheritance.
The winds in stormy revelry
Sported beneath a frowning sky;
The chafing waves with hollow roar
Tumbled upon the shaken shore,
And sent their spray in upward shower
To Rodolph's proud ancestral towers,
Whose station from its mural crown
A regal look cast sternly down.
II.
At such a season, his domainThe lord at last arrived again,
Changed to the sight, and scarce the same
Grown old in heart, infirm of frame.
His earlier years had been too blest
For anguish not to curse the rest:
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Alternately in heaven and hell.
Let those, whose lives are in their prime,
Use to the uttermost the time;
For as with the enchanted thrall
Of Eblis and his fatal hall,
When a short period departs,
The flame shall kindle in their hearts.
Thou only, mighty Love!—canst will
Much herald good, much after-ill;
Thou holdest human hearts in fee,
And art the Second Destiny.
He loved—he won—and whom?—he sighed
First for, next with, another's bride:
To both extremes of feeling,—strong
Or feeble,—the same signs belong,
And sighs may the expression be
Of ecstasy or agony.
[OMITTED]
III.
Like rarest porcelain were they,Moulded of accidental clay:
She, loving, lovely, kind, and fair—
He, wise, and fortunate, and brave—
You'll easily suppose they were
A passionate and radiant pair,
Lighting the scenes else dark and cold,
As the sepulchral lamps of old,
A subterranean cave.
'Tis pity that their loves were vices,
And purchased at such painful prices;
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That grief allays her golden stores.
Yet if all chance brought rapture here,
Life would become a ceaseless fear
To leave a world, then rightly dear.
Two kindred mysteries —are bright,
And cloud-like, in the southern sky;
And shadow and its sister-light,
Around the pole they float on high,
Linked in a strong though sightless chain,
The types of pleasure and of pain.
IV.
There was an age, they tell us, whenEros and Anteros dwelt with men,
Ere selfishness had backward driven
The wrathful deities to heaven;
Then gods forsook their outshone skies,
For stars mistaking female eyes;
Woman was true, and man though free
Was faithful in idolatry.
No dial needed they to measure
Unsighing being—Time was Pleasure;
And lustres, never dimmed by tears,
Were not misnamed from lustrous years.
Alas! that such a tale must seem
The fiction of a dreaming dream!—
Is it but fable?—has that age
Shone only on the poet's page,
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Revolves not both in sun and shade?—
No!—happy love, too seldom known,
May make it for awhile our own.
V.
Yes, although fleeting rapidly,It sometimes may be ours,
And he was gladsome as the bee
Which always sleeps in flowers.
Might this endure?—her husband came
At an untimely tide,
But ere his tongue pronounced her shame,
Slain suddenly, he died.
'Twas whispered by whose hand he fell,
And Rodolph's prosperous loves were gone.
The lady sought a convent-cell,
And lived in penitence alone;
Thrice blest, that she the waves among
Of ebbing pleasure staid not long,
To watch the sullen tide, and find
The hideous shapings left behind.
Such, sinking to its slimy bed,
Old Nile upon the antique land,
Where Time's inviolate temples stand
Hath ne'er deposited.
Happy, the monster of that Nile,
The vast and vigorous crocodile;
Happy, because his dying-day
Is unpreceded by decay:
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Only completes one piece-meal death.
VI.
She ceased to smile back on the sun,Their task the Destinies had done;
And earth, which gave, resumed the charms;
Whose freshness withered in its arms;
But never walked upon its face,
Nor mouldered in its dull embrace,
A creature fitter to prepare
Sorrow, or social joy to share:
When her the latter-life required,
A vital harmony expired;
And in that melancholy hour,
Nature displayed its saddest power,
Subtracting from man's darkened eye
Beauties that seemed unmeant to die,
And claiming deeper sympathy
Than even when the wise or brave
Descend into an early grave.
We grieve when morning puts to flight
The pleasant visions of the night;
And surely we shall have good leave,
When a fair woman dies, to grieve.
Whither have fled that shape, and gleam
Of thought—the woman, and the dream?—
Whither have fled that inner light,
And benefactress of our sight?—
Nothing in answer aught can show,
Only thus much of each we know—
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She left for aye the sons of men!—
Death may in part discharge its debt,
Half render back its trust—
Life may redeem her likeness yet,
Reanimate her dust;
But both will bear another name,
Nor, like the dream, appear the same.
VII.
While Hope attends her sacred fire,All joy rejoices in its pyre:
Once quenched, what ray the flame renews?
What but calamity ensues?
When ill-report disgraced his name,
And turned to infamy his fame,
Bearing from home his blighted prime,
He journeyed to some distant clime,
Where babbling rumour could not trace
His footsteps to a resting place.
Mean while, the quest of happiness
He made, dispairing of success;
Unhoped, but not pursued the less,
It urged around the world its flight
Away from him, like day from night.
There are, who deem of misery
As if it ever craved to die:
They err; the full of soul regard,
More than the calm, their graves with hate;
The loss of such a life is hard,
And, ending their eventful fate,
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The change be pain—from this to dust!—
To fill the chasms of the breast,
'Tis happiness they seek, not rest;
Wishing for something to amend
Existence, they must shun its end;
And this the princely will betrays
To many sufferings and days.
VIII.
As sunk, avoiding mortal touch,The Cabalist's discovered treasure,
So met his sight, escaped his clutch,
Many appearances of pleasure,
Deceitful as that airy lie,
The child of vapour and the sky.
Which cheats the thirsty Arab's eye,
Only the palm, heat-loving tree,
Or bird of happy Araby,
May burn, and not to die:
Philosophy has lost the power
From ashes to reform a flower;
Magic and Alchemy no more
Men's primal strength and youth restore,
Nor could those great and dream-like arts,
While flourishing, revoke their hearts:
The feelings rise regenerate never,
But, once consumed, are gone forever.
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED]
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2. PART II.
I.
How feels the guiltless dreamer, whoWith idly curious gaze
Has let his mind's glance wander through
The relics of past days?—
As feels the pilgrim that has scanned,
Within their skirting wall,
The moon-lit marbles of some grand
Disburied capital;
Masses of whiteness and of gloom,
The darkly bright remains
Of desolate palace, empty tomb,
And desecrated fanes:—
For in the ruins of old hours,
Remembrance haply sees
Temples, and tombs, and palaces,
Not different from these.
II.
But such mere musings could not nowMove Rodolph's lip, or curl his brow:
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And former fine transparency,
Nor would, as once, his spirit pass
Its fleshly mask, like light through glass.
In his sad aspect seemed to be
Troubled reflections of a life,
Nourished by passion, spent in strife—
Gleams, as of drowned antiquity
From cities underneath the sea
Which glooms in famous Galilee.
III.
In the calm scene he viewed was aught,That might disturb a froward thought?
He saw, new-married to the air,
The tranquil, waveless deep,
Reposing in a night as fair
As woman's softest sleep:
Peaceful and silent, were met all
The elements in festival,
And the wide universe seemed to be
One clear obscure transparency.
Could such a quiet Fancy wake?
And doth she from her slumbers break,
As drowsy mortals often will,
When lamps go out, or clocks fall still?
No less than when the Wind-God's breath
Blackens the wilderness beneath,
Until contrasted stars blaze bright
With their own proper heavenly light,
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For our unseen mythology.
Motion or rest, a sound, a glance,
Alike rouse memory from its trance.
IV.
Perhaps, presentiment of illMight shake him—hearts are prophets still—
What though the fount of Castaly
Not now stains leaves with prophecy?—
What though are of another age
Omens, and Sibyl's boding page?—
Augurs and oracles resign
Their voices—fear can still divine:
Dreams and hand-writings on the wall
Need not foretell our fortune's fall;
Domitian in his galleries,
The soul all hostile advents sees,
As in the mirror-stone;
Like shadows by a brilliant day
Cast down from falcons on their prey;
Or watery demons, in strong light,
By haunted waves of fountains old,
Shown indistinctly to the sight
Of the inquisitive and bold.
The mind is capable to show
Thoughts of so dim a feature,
That consciousness can only know
Their presence, not their nature;
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Supply recording life to others,
And forthwith lose their own.
V.
He backed his steed, and took his wayWhere a large cemetery lay,
Beaming beneath the star-light gay,
A white spot in the greenery,
Semblant of what it well might be—
A blossom unto which the earth
As a spring-favour yielded birth.
They looked for his return in vain,
Homeward he never rode again.
What boots it to protract the verse,
In which his story I rehearse?—
He had won safely through the past,
The growing sickness smote at last:
His vassals found him on the morn,
Senseless beside his lady's urn;
And they beheld with wonderment
His visage—like a bow unbent,
From the distorting mind unstrung,
By painful thought no longer wrung,
It offered once more to their gaze
The cheerful mien of former days,
And on it the fixt smile had place,
Which lights the Memnon's marble face.
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VI.
Hot fever raged in Rodolph's brain,Till tortured reason fled,
And madness a delirious reign
Asserted in its stead;
And then he raved of many crimes,
Achieved in shadows of all climes;
Of Indian islands, tropic seas,
Ships winged before the flying breeze;
Of peace, of war, of wine, of blood,
Of love and hate, of changing mood
Or changing scenery;
And often on his language hung
The accents of an alien tongue,
But still they circled one dark deed,
As charmed men that magic weed,
The herb of Normandy.
He spoke of one too dearly loved,
And one unwisely slain,
Of an affection hardly proved
By murder done in vain—
Affection which no time could tire,
Constant as emeralds in fire,
Like that which weds insanity
To the sole truth that earth may see.
Some fragments of his speech my rhyme
Shall rescue from the grasp of time,
As trophies, by the march of song,
In tuneless triumph borne along.
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VII.
“The evil hour in which you traced“Your name upon my heart, is passed,
“And hidden fires or lightning-flashes
“Have since reduced it into ashes;
“Yet oft will busy thought unrol
“That fragile, scorched, and blackened scroll,
“And shrink to find the spell, your name,
“A legend uneffaced by flame.
VIII.
“Who spoke that lawless, sounding word,“So early hushed, so long unheard?—
“Its syllables came o'er my brain,
“Like the last trumpet's call;
“And, starting from their graves again,
“My buried thoughts, in fear and pain,
“Are gathering one and all.
“The pictured memories hid by grief
“Come forth in beautiful relief,
“Freed from their former thrall—
“As, through the torch-touched rust of years
“A waxen painting re-appears
“On a sepulchral wall.
VIII.
“Thy face revives the face of one,“That lived in other days—
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“To fail my fancy's gaze;
“Though shadowed forth too long and well,
“As my sad history may tell.
“Thy face revives the face of one,
“That loved in other days—
“Of whom or thought or speech was none,
“Less passionate than praise:
“So much she beautified the place
“Replete with her in time and space.
“Thy face revives the face of one,
“That died in other days—
“Who bought, not borrowed, from the sun
“Its scarcely needed rays;
“And thousand charms could not concur
“To make thee fair,—yet unlike her.
“It is herself!—the gods in pity
“Restore her from the silent city!—
“Now, where are they, that falsely said,
“Her form in stirless dust was laid?
“Who reared the lying pyramid,
“Whose epitaph, and lamp, and flame,
“Told that her heavenward home lay hid
“In its sky-pointing frame?
“She is not dead—behold her eye,
“That portion of a summer-sky:
“She is not dead—her cheeks are rife
“With rosy clouds of blooming life:
“She is not dead—the shining hair
“Is wreathed about her forehead fair,
“As when I saw in better hours
“Her gentle shape of living mirth,
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“Worn by the festive earth.
“Time interposed—it was not Death,
“He could not stop her spicy breath—
“But hearts and hands have met once more;
“We will be happy as before;
“And my crime-sullied memory
“Like a re-written code shall be,
“Full of the poetry of truth,
“The annals of a second youth,
“Illuminations blazoned bright
“With sun-born tints of golden-light.
IX.
“If, memory, on thy silent shore“The stream of time hath left
“Some broken hopes, plans quick no more,
“And thoughts of breath bereft;
“The strong belief in happiness,
“It could but half destroy;
“The now-dead generous carelessness,
“That hung around the boy;
“And feelings which the subtile wave
“Bore not through later years—
“Such wrecks the smiles of wisdom crave
“Not less than passion's tears.—
“But thou, the sweetest of Eve's daughters,
“Genius of that shore, and those waters!—
“A music visible, a light
“Like lamps unto an infant's sight!—
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“Too lovely for aught ill to mar,
“Which Love from Beauty's planet stole,
“The morn and evening star!—
“Come thou, and pass away with me
“From haunts unworthy of thy smile,
“And find in some far, sunny sea,
“A lonely, laughing isle,
“Where we may through all pleasures rove,
“And live like votaries of love,
“Drinking the sparkling stream of years,
“Pure, and unmixt with worm-wood tears.
[OMITTED]
X.
“Why have I, speaking thus to thee,“Vague sense that these things may not be?—
“Strange flitting fires each other chase,
“Like meteors, through a cheerless space:
“My sight grows heavy, and my breast
“By something mountainous is prest;
“And, in my veins, the lazy blood
“Is not that eager, rushing flood,
“It was when thou wert nigh,
“Nor will my limbs avail to bear
“My feeble, sickly body, where
“Thou standest moveless by.
“I feel a weary wish to close
“Mine eye-lids in a long repose;
“But fear that thou wilt fly,
“And let me wake alone to sigh
“That one so beautiful could die!
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XI.
“Author of my unhappiness!—“Let me thy lip and small hand press.
“Since love increases when the day
“Its object's presence makes is done,
“And takes from night a warmer ray,
“As did the Fountain of the Sun,
“Thine, so long absent, should forgive
“The death of one I slew for thee—
“Resentment cannot bid him live,
“Pardon perchance may me.
“Obdurate Lady, even thine eye
“To my fond prayer makes no reply;
“And hast thou come then from afar,
“A coldly re-appearing star?—
“Thou never lov'dst:—thy constancy
“Would answer else aright to mine:
“In one so lovely, love must be
“Preserved still fresh, like grapes in wine.
“Thy smiles were but a shining mask,
“Thy vows no more than vocal air,
“If thou canst let me vainly ask
“Relief from this despair.
“By all that I have borne and bear,
“She fades to unsubstantial air!—
[OMITTED]
XII.
“The perturbation of my soul“Subsides as I approach the goal;
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“Whose brow was like her ivory brow.
“When shall we two meet again,
“And not, as last, to part in pain?—
“Spring shall leave to rear the flowers,
“And Autumn to let fall the showers;
“Summer shall forbear to glow,
“And Winter doff its veil of snow;
“Man shall know no more to mourn,
“The age of miracles return;
“Woman shall forget to range,
“And fortune and the moon to change;
“Tears and tides shall cease to flow,
“The sea and life their storms forego;
“Opportunity shall stay
“The wings on which it flies away;
“Memory the past shall scan,
“Yet see not, like a drowning man,
“Fast upon the bitter wave
“The ship depart, that ought to save;
“Noon and midnight shall have met,
“The stars have risen where they set;
“Ere, though but in sleep, we twain
“Can dream one hope to meet again.—
“She lies amid the sluggish mould,
“Her ardent heart has long been cold!
“Above it wave the idle weeds,
“On it the sordid earth-worm feeds.
“Mine too is buried there—her knell
“Served also for its passing bell:
“It died—and would have known 't was time,
“Without that melancholy chime.
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“Like stunning blows upon my brain;
“I listen yet the dissonant laughter
“Of the same bell, some moments after;
“And now the frequent ding-dong hear,
“With which it mimics hope and fear
XIII.
“Ay, wrapt around a whiter breast,“The shroud her body doth invest;
“But in that other world, her grave,
“My soul and body both inter,
“There to enjoy the rest they crave,
“And, if at all, arise with her:
“Never may either wake, unless
“To her, and former happiness!—
“Yet how am I assured that rest
“Will ever bless the aching breast,
“Which passion has so long possessed?—
“At baffled death's oblivious art
“This love perchance will mock,
“Deep-dwelling in my festering heart,
“A reptile in its rock:
“The warm and tender violet
“Beside the glaciers grows,
“Although with frosty airs beset,
“And everlasting snows;
“So, lying in obstruction chill,
“This stronger flower may flourish still.
“Oh, in the earth, ye furies, let
“My thoughtful clay all thought forget:
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“Among mine ashes to remain:
“Give, give me utterly to prove
“Insentient of the pangs of love!—
“—Why waver thus these forms?—there lies
“A palpable blackness on mine eyes;
“And yet the figures gleam
“With the impressive energy,
“Which clothes the phantoms that we see
“Shown by a fever-dream.
“How the air thickens—all things move—
“'Tis night—'tis chaos—my lost love!—”
XIV.
He perished. None wept o'er his bier,Although above such things we weep,
And rest obtains the useless tear,
Due rather to the state of sleep;—
For why?—because the common faith
Of passion is averse from death;
Yet Jove, the sages all declare,
Granted the Argive mother's prayer.
| Poems by Edward C. Pinkney | |