University of Virginia Library

Love, O love! thou bright and burning
Weathercock for ever turning;
Gilded vane, fix'd for our seeing
On the highest spire of being;
Symbol, indication; reeling
Round to every wind of feeling;
Only pointing some sad morrow,
In one sudden gust of sorrow,
Sunset-ward, where redly, slowly,
Passion sets in melancholy.

In the wood-ways, roof'd by heaven,
Were the nuptial kisses given;
In the dark green, moonbeam-haunted
Forest; in the bowers enchanted
Where the fiery specks are flying,
And the whip-poor-will is crying;
Where the heaven's open blue eye
Thro' the boughs broods dark and dewy,
And the white magnolia glimmers
Back the light in starry tremors;
Where the acacia in the shady
Silence trembles like a lady
Scented sweet and softly breathing;
There, amid the brightly wreathing,
Blooming branches, did they capture
Love's first consecrated rapture.

Pure she came to him, a maiden
Innocent as Eve in Eden,
Tho' in secret; for she dreaded
Wrath of kinsmen tiger-headed,
In whose vision, fierce and awful,
Love for white men was unlawful.
Yet in this her simple reason
Knew no darker touch of treason
Than dost thou, O white and dainty
English maid of sweet-and-twenty,
When from guardian, father, brother,
[Harsh protectors, one or t'other,]
Off you trip, self-handed over
To your chosen lord and lover,
Tears of love and rapture shedding
In the hush of secret wedding.

Now from these lost days Elysian,
Modestly I drop my vision!
Rose the wave supreme and splendid,
To a tremulous crest, and ended,
Falling, falling, one sad morrow,
In a starry spray of sorrow.

Whether 'twas by days or hours,
Weeks or months, in those bright bowers,
They their gladness counted,—whether
Like the one day's summer weather
At the pole, their bliss upstarted,
Brighten'd, blacken'd, and departed,—
I relate not; all my story
Is, that soon or late this glory
Fell and faded. After daylight
Came an eve of sad and gray light;
There were tears—wild words were spoken
Down the cup was dash'd, and broken.

First came danger,—eyeballs fiery
Watch'd the pair in fierce inquiry;
Secret footsteps dodged the lovers;
As a black hawk slowly hovers
O'er the spot amid the heather
Where the gray birds crouch together,
Hung Suspicion o'er the places
Where they sat with flaming faces.
Next came—what d'ye call the dreary
Heavy-hearted thing and weary,
In old weeds of joy bedizen'd?
By the shallow French 'tis christen'd
Ennui! Ay, the snake that grovels
In a host of scrofulous novels,
Leper even of the leprous
Race of serpents vain and viprous,
Bred of slimy eggs of evil,
Sat on by the printer's devil,
Last, to gladden absinthe-lovers,
Born by broods in paper covers!

After the great wave of madness,
Ennui came; and tho' in gladness
Still the Indian maiden's nature
Clung round the inferior creature,
Though with burning, unconsuming,
Deathless love her heart was blooming,
He grew weary, and his passion
In a dull evaporation
Slowly lessen'd, till caressing
Grew distracting and distressing.
Conscience waken'd in a fever,
Just a day too late, as ever;
He remember'd, one fine day,
His relations far away.

All the beavers! the deceiver!
After all, he was a beaver
Born and bred, tho' the unchanging
Dash of wild blood kept him ranging;
Beaver-conscience, now awaken'd,
Since the first true bliss had slacken'd,
Whisper'd with a sad affection,
‘Fie! it is a strange connection!
Is it worthy? Can it profit?
Sits the world approving of it?’
While another whisper said,
‘You're a white man! She is red!’
Ne'ertheless he seem'd to love her,
Watch'd her face and bent above her,
Fondly thinking, ‘Now, I wonder
If the world would blame my blunder?
If her skin were only whiter,
If her manners were politer,
I would take her with me nor'ward,
Wed her, cling to her thenceforward,
Clothe her further, just a tittle,
Live respectable and settle!’
She was silent, as he brooded
Handsome-faced and beaver-mooded,
Thinking, ‘Now my chief is seeming
Where the fires of fight are streaming!
O, how great and grand his face is,
Lit with light of the pale races!’
And she bent her brows before him,
Kiss'd his hands, and did adore him,
And she waited in deep duty;
While her eyes of dazzling beauty,
Like two jewels ever streaming
Broken yet unceasing rays,
Watch'd him as in beaver-dreaming
He would walk in the green ways.

Still he seem'd to her a splendid
Creature, but his trance had ended;
More and more, thro' ever seeing
Red skins round him, he lost patience,
More and more the hybrid being
Sigh'd for civilised relations;
For Eureka Hart, tho' wholly
Of a common social mind,
Narrow-natured, melancholy,
Hated ties of any kind;—
Yet if any tie could hold him
To a place or to a woman,
'Twould be one the world had told him
Was respectable and common.
Here, then, hemm'd in by a double
Dark dilemma, he found trouble,
And with look a Grecian painter
Would have given to a god,
Feeling passion still grow fainter,
Thought, ‘I reckon things look odd!
Wouldn't Parson Pendon frown,
If he knew, in Drowsietown?’

As he spoke he saw the village
Rising up with tilth and tillage,
Saw the smithy, like an eye
Flaming bloodshot at the sky,
Saw the sleepy river flowing,
Saw the swamps burn in the sun,
Saw the people coming, going,
All familiar, one by one.
‘There the plump old Parson goes,
Silver buckles on his toes.
Broad-brimm'd beaver on his head,
Clean-shaved chin, and cheek as red
As ripe pippins, kept in hay,
Polish'd on Thanksgiving day;
Black coat, breeches, all complete,
On the old mare he keeps his seat,
Jogging on with smiles so bright
To creation left and right.
There's the Widow Abner smiling
At her door as he goes past,
Guess she thinks she looks beguiling,
But he cuts along more fast.
There's Abe Sinker drunk as ever,
There's the pigs all in the gutter,
There's the miller by the river,
Broad as long and fat as butter.
See it all, so plain and pleasant,
Just like life their shadows pass,
Wonder how they are at present?
Guess they think I'm gone to grass!’
While this scene he contemplated,
Sighing like a homeless creature,
Round him, brightly concentrated,
Glow'd the primal fire of Nature!
Rainbow-hued and rapturous-colour'd,
With one burning brilliant look
Flaming fix'd upon the dullard,
Nature rose in wild rebuke!
Shower'd her blossoms round him, o'er him,
Breathed warm breath upon his face,
Flash'd her flowers and fruits before him,
Follow'd him from place to place;
With wild jasmine and with amber
She perfumed his sleeping chamber,
Hung around him happy hours
With her arms of lustre-flowers,
Held to his in blest reposes
Her warm breasts of living roses;
Bade a thousand dazzling, crying,
Living, creatures do him honour,
Stood herself, naked and sighing,
With an aureole upon her;
Then, with finger flashing brightly
Pointing to her prime creation,—
Fruits and flowers and scents blent lightly
In one dazzling adumbration,—
Cried unto him over and over,
‘See my child! O love her, love her!
I eternal am, no comer
In a feeble flush of summer,
Like the hectic colour flying
Ot a maid love-sick and dying;
Here no change, but ever burning
Quenchless fire, and ceaseless yearning:
Endless exquisite vibration
Sweet as love's first nuptial kiss,
One soft sob of strange sensation
Flowering into shapes of bliss;
And the brightest, O behold her
With a changeless warmth like mine—
Love her! In thy soul enfold hër!
Blend with us, and be divine!’
All in vain that fond entreating!
Still Eureka's beaver-brain
Thought—‘This climate's rather heating—
Weather's cooler up in Maine!’

Yet no wonder Nature loved him,
Sought to take his soul by storm,
Gloried when her meaning moved him,
Clung in fondness round his form;
For, in sooth, tho' unimpassion'd,
Gloriously the man was fashion'd:
One around whose strength and splendour
Women would have pray'd to twine,
As the lian loves to blend her
Being with the beech or pine.
And his smile when she was present
Was seraphic, full of spirit,
And his voice was low and pleasant,
And her soul grew bright to hear it!
And when tall he strode to meet her,
And his handsome face grew sweeter,
In her soul she thought, ‘O being,
Fair and gracious and deep-seeing,
White man, great man, far above me,
What am I, that thou shouldst love me?’

She had learnt him with lips burning
(O for such a course of learning!)
Something of her speech,—'twas certain
Quite enough to woo and flirt in;
Words not easy of translation
They transfused into sensation,
Soon discovering and proving,
As a small experience teaches,
‘Bliss’ and ‘kiss,’ and other loving
Words, are common to all speeches!
Ah, the rapture! ah, the fleeting
Follies of each fond, mad meeting!
Smiling with red lips asunder,
Clapping hands at each fond blunder,
She instructed him right gaily
In her Indian patois daily,
Sweetly from his lips it sounded,
Help'd with those great azure eyes,
Till upon his heart she bounded
Panting praise with laughs and cries.
'Twas a speech antique and olden,
Full of gurgling notes, it ran
Like some river rippling golden
Down a vale Arcadian;
Like the voices of doves brooding;
Like a fountain's gentle moan;
Nothing commonplace intruding
On its regal monotone:
Sounds and symbols interblending
Like the heave of loving bosoms;
Consonants like strong boughs bending,
Snowing vowels down like blossoms!
Faltering in this tongue, he told her,
Sitting in a secret place,
While with bright head on his shoulder,
Luminous-eyed, she watch'd his face,
How, tho' every hour grown fonder,
Tho' his soul was still aflame,
Still, he sigh'd once more to wander
To the clime from whence he came;
Just once more to look upon it,
Just for one brief hour to con it,
Just to see his kin and others
In the Town where they did dwell.
Just to say to his white brothers
One farewell, a last farewell.
Then to hasten back unto her,
And to live with her and die. . . ,
Sharp as steel his speech stabb'd thro' her,
Cold she sat without a cry,
On her heart her small hand pressing,
Breathing like a bird in pain,
Silent, tho' he smiled caressing,
Kiss'd, but kissing not again.

Then she waken'd, like one waking
From a trance, and with heart aching
Clung around him, as if dreading
Lest some hand should snatch him thence!
Then, upon his bosom shedding
Tears of ecstacy intense,
By her gods conjured him wildly
Never, never to depart!
O how meekly, O how mildly,
Answer'd back Eureka Hart!

But by slow degrees he coax'd her,
Night by night, and day by day,
With such specious spells he hoax'd her
That her first fear fled away.
Slow she yielded, still believing
Not for long he'd leave her lonely;
For he told her, still deceiving,
'Twas a little journey only.
Poor, dark bird! nought then knew she
Of this world's geography!

Troubled, shaken, half-demented,
Broken-hearted—she assented.
Since, by wind, and wave, and vapour,
By the shapes of earth and skies;
By the white moon's ghostly taper,
By the stars that like dead eyes
Watch it burning; by the mystic
Motion of the winds and woods;
By all dark and cabalistic
Shapes of tropic solitudes;
By the waters melancholy;
By God's hunting-fields of blue;
By all things that she deem'd holy
He had promised to be true!
Just to pay a flying visit
To connections close at hand,
Then to haste with love undying
Back unto that happy land.
'Twas enough! the Maid assented,
Thinking sadly, in her pain,
‘He will never be contented
Till he sees them once again.
Thither, thither let him wander;
When once more I feel his kiss,
His proud spirit will be fonder
Since my love hath granted this!’

‘Go!’ she cried, and her dark features
Kindled like a dying creature's,
And her heart rose, and her spirit
Cried as if for God to hear it—
Wildly in her arms she press'd him
To her bosom broken-hearted—
Call'd upon her gods, and blest him!
And Eureka Hart departed.