University of Virginia Library

3. PART THIRD.

INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE

TO PART THIRD.

TO MR. --- ---.

SCENE IX.

Vesuvius, Ætna, and Stromboli, are supposed to be connected. Vesuvius is certainly hollow. Ferber, Voltaire. Stromboli is quite excavated by its disgorgements. Lithgow.

ÆTNA.

I.

A shuddering tremour shook
The rocks of that earthly womb,
And massy fragments broke
From the warrior's living tomb.
Bursting from its cavern'd vent,
Roars around convuls'd the thunder,
Muttering, deep, by mountains pent;
Lodowick in appalling wonder
Breathless mark'd the stern event;
Rifted, gape the walls in sunder!
Bows the arch above his head—
The rugged stones forsake their bed—
Speeds the whelming ruin down!
On the earth the lamp is thrown;
Gapes that earth—precipitate
Down the chasm it holds its way,
Nor pause its track may now await
Until it speed, impell'd by fate
Where bar'd hell's central regions lay.

II.

Darkness, ruin, now surround;
Tottering in that fearful stound,
On a trembling mass that hung
O'er that gulf of horror swung,
Down the knight his knee hath bent—
I will not say but his cheek was blent
With terror's ashen hue,
While the hoarse voice of earth was roaring,
And her secret chambers' depths exploring,
Round him the masses flew—
Ever leaving that frail stone
That now bears his frame alone,
Tottering to its destin'd wreck!
Pale was then the warrior's cheek—
But in his heart devotion glow'd
As his lips it taught to pray
To the holy mother of our God
And to Saint Agatha.

III.

Streaming on the blackness deep
Was a glare at distance shed,
Quick from his knee did the warrior leap—
As his saviour rock down sped!
The sign of the blessed cross he made
And onward rush'd where the gleaming play'd;
Now by rudely jutting stone
Backward in his progress thrown—
Plunging on with steps of haste,
Downward, darkling was he cast;—
As in a dream no harm we feel,
Hurl'd down precipice and hill,
So terror, hope, and faith combined,
While sense to toil and pain was blind,
To lead the youth toward the light
In the waking dream of that awful night!

IV.

Ha! Maria! can they bear
Now, thy frame recoiling there?—
Whence the glare? far, far below
Infernal seas of liquid fire—
Raving, roaring, sullen, flow,
Lashing fierce to hell-wrought ire!
High their steam sulphureous wreathes,
Taints the air where mortal breathes,
Its vapory hangings wildly surging,
From whose red, fiery clouds emerging
Blue, quivering lightnings wildly shoot
To guide the wanderer's trembling foot.
Through a disjointed bridge of stone
O'er that dread lake all tottering thrown,
With frequent gap and yawning rest
Betray'd its tides each glittering cleft;—
Behind—convulsions tear the womb
Of earth, as in her thrall of doom.
And now th' unlovely light that prob'd
Those warring realms in shadows rob'd,
Show'd heaving mounds or whelming steeps
Down the interminable deeps
Thund'ring in swift career;—
Before—a half-supported mass
Shot high across that lurid pass,
And spann'd the chasm drear,
Abruptly o'er the top it ceas'd—
And leap the rest—who may!
Yet still the tumult wild increas'd,
Still melts the mass away;
Down hissing in the flame it fell,
Each sound, of death the awful knell,
That warns the wanderer of the hour
Of fiery doom—of fiendish power!

V.

No safety there—despair in flight!
Onward, onward went the knight;
Though frailer be that trembling span
Than sabre arch of mussulman,
While darker hell and fiercer death
Foam and roar and yawn beneath,
Onward, lo! he treads the arch—
He casts no look below,
To mark despair's unsteadied march,
The flame's unearthly glow;
But its dun vapours round him wreathe,
And fear, that bade him not to breathe
Preserv'd his life—that withering fire
He who would breathe again may not respire!

VI.

He leaps the pass—and terrible
The yielding ruin whelming fell
Headlong into the lake;
His footstep slips, that wild shore gain'd;—
Despair its energies retain'd,
High o'er the abyss a black crag jutting
By chance he caught—his eyelids shutting—
He felt that fragment quake;
He hangs above that fiery sea—
That trembling stone alone may be
His saviour in his jeopardy!
But 'twas a grasp of agony
That had from its time-rooted bed
Ætna's proud chesnut borne!
One mad'ning spring the warrior made—
Forth was the fragment torn!—

VII.

But he is safe!

—“Fell it alone? alone it fell.” Rokeby.

—the struggle o'er
The cold dews gush'd from every pore—
An icy trembling came;
Such knew he not on battle plain,
When the bloodhound gorging o'er the slain
Laid the quivering flesh all bare,
Till bursting with his banquet there
Sunk down his bloated frame!
A deathlike damp was on his brow—
The nerveless limbs all idly now
In fear's delirium motionless
The passive failing will confess.

VIII.

O! rouse thee from thy lethargy!
For life—revenge—salvation—flee!
Thy fate unknown—thy memory curst—
Thy manhood stamp'd with flight;
And worst—if yet there can be worst
To soul of gallant knight—
Beyond—thy dark conclusion seal'd,
All unassoil'd and unanneal'd
By one atoning rite,
Mock'd by the fiend—thy prayer unheard,
On earth abhorr'd—from heaven debarr'd!

IX.

Yes:—all the Christian, all the man
Around his heart quick summon'd, ran.
Onward his unlit path he grop'd
That wandering strange, still downward slop'd;
Seem'd it an iron channel led
To earth's remotest, secret bed—
Narrow that chamber, where he bent
Full low his form as on he went;
Its walls were hard and firm and cold,
Nature's impenetrable hold.

X.

Still a low murmuring seem'd to rise
That iron cavern through—
Notes caught the warrior with surprise
Of language that he knew;
It was of Sicily—but ne'er
Such tones before did mortal hear;
Such voices ne'er his native tongue
To such a fearful descant sung.
Long through th' untrodden maze he err'd,
Still, still that pæan wild he heard.

XI.
Song of the Spirits in Aetna.

XII.
SONG CONTINUED.

XIII.
SONG CONTINUED.

XIV.
SONG CONTINUED.

XV.
SONG CONTINUED.

XVI.
SONG CONTINUED.

XVII.

Sore Lodowick had toil'd, and long,
While still awoke the demon song.
Now wider that dark channel grew,
And suffocating, round him blew
Sulphureous currents,—and he might
Afar descry a pale blue light:—
So lately lur'd, will he agen,
Trust hope within this fearful den?
It was not hope—it was the burst
That darts man on to dare the worst—
To brave all peril—rash, to pry
Into the realms of mystery.

XVIII.

He trac'd the beam—through a rift it stole—

See the wonderful history of Dr. Faustus, how he was sold to the devil, &c.

He gaz'd—heaven help th' unpardon'd soul!
The pit was deep, and high, and wide—
Blue wreathing flames on every side
Curtain and canopy, unfolding
Upon the eye that ach'd, beholding;
A pageantry, the cheek to blanch,
And freeze the heart of warrior staunch,—
Dire mockery of the festive hall—
The mountain spirits' trysting place;—
The livid glare confounded all
The movements of that damned race;
But earnest strove he to dispel
The mist that on his eyelids fell,
And mark'd he flitting, undefined
Fantastic shapes below,
And round and round again they wind,
All dizzily they go.
And there was of flame a crawling ring
Their giddy goings circuiting;
All around it snakes were hissing
Slimy fold in fold caressing;
Lizards dragg'd their nauseous mire
Creeping countless round the fire;
Living members there he spied,
Sever'd from corses putrified,
And these around the circle leapt;
But from the liquid trunk corrupt,
Where the loathing worm no longer supt,
A myriad slimy insects crept.

XIX.

Another step the cavern treads,
Another form reveal the shades—
How?—in this infernal world
Comes there aught of mortal mould?
Limbs of man it hath indeed,
Of a goodly man they seem—
Armour it weareth—Mary speed!
That monarch port—that sable crest—
It cannot—ay, HE stands confest—
Or is it all a dream?

XX.

He spoke—
“Black cor'd and juggling fiends,
Truce with your foolery!
Him, who on my behests attends,
On this night summon ye!
Till mine eternal judgment come
I am your lord, and this your home
Shall quake and bow to me!
—Enough your dupe—O foul deceit!
Gall mingles with the surfeit sweet;
The ruddy fruit, with crimson stain,
Is fairest on Sicilia's plain;

There is in Sicily a kind of orange called Sanguineus, red in the middle, and of the finest flavour. Hill.

Sweet its core, with red imbued,—
Highest, pleasure, bought with blood!
The meanest slave, for fancied wrong,
May bid his bravo vengeance seek—
The proudest noble, peers among,
Must stalk all-impotent along,
Controll'd by demons' conscience meek!
—She has escap'd—her wrongs to brawl,
And he must live—accurst of all—
Both with my fame and peace to sport—
One blow had cut the story short.”

XXI.

XXII.

“My bands in many a darksome cave,
Await my signal word;
Brief space shall see my standard wave,
And this fair isle the reptile's grave
Who dares deny its lord.
Yet, ere the whirlwind sweep its plain,
There is one lovely flower that fain
These hands would pluck away—
And taste its fragrance ere it fade;
Anon its beauties will be dead—
Perchance before its glory dies
The storm of vengeance shall arise
And bear it, where it may.
Mine is the monarch's fabled grasp—
Whate'er my hands unhallow'd clasp
Your care converts to gold;—
O gorgeous mockery of bliss!
My never-dying soul for this
To you and hell was sold!
That fades upon this icy heart
Which hope that lur'd me did impart;
And all the stores of power and pride,
And beauty yielding at my side
For me are chill and cold!
Mine is your dæmon grasp—whate'er
It haply touches, it must sear—
To life and hope it may not beat
Wrapt in a venom'd winding sheet!

XXIII.

“My soul within itself must coil—
Why speak its pangs to ye
Who wait to close its circling toil?—
Ye idle murmurs then—begone—
Or nestle here—with fiends alone
I may find sympathy!

XXIV.

“Let then my nuptial rites be said—
As fiends should wed—so will I wed,
And Isabel shall grace my bed”—
—“Now God forbid!”—cried Lodowick—
And all that pageant faded quick,
As the blaze of the levin red—
As when in the fulness of ripen'd years,
When the last trump shall shake the spheres,
Yon heavens away shall fade!

XXV.

They vanish'd—blackness fell around
Impenetrable and profound.
A hollow roar of mirth all strange
In distant echoes died,
And Lodowick was left to range
The solitudes untried.
And seem'd it that in chaos then
Were whelm'd the warrior's soul and brain—
Nor doubt—nor fear—nor hope remain.
If from his dream he ever wake
And blest communion e'er partake
Of fellow-man—again, if e'er
His tones are breath'd, where such may hear,
Where cheerful day's glad fountain glows,
What secrets can the knight disclose!
—He wander'd on—to stupor wrought,
The excommunicate of thought—
As seeing, hearing, feeling, nought;
A glittering on his eye there came
Of opal light and ruby flame;
But they fell on the brain's obscurity,
Like the beam, absorb'd that may not be
In the pitchy waves of Galilee.

The Dead Sea. See Josephus, Clarke's Travels, &c.

They cannot his clouded soul engage
That had purchas'd a monarch's heritage;—
There were tones of wo and voices loud
That had woke the dead from their coffin and shroud—
They fell on his ear like the trumpet's breath
That shall rouse him from the sleep of death—
They died on his soul like the murmur'd roar
Of ocean heard on a distant shore.
He trod where a snake had made her nest,
And the slimy brood to death he prest,—
The parent her venom'd tongue thrust out
And tight, his leg she wound about,—
He slipp'd in the slime as he trod on her head,
But he heard not the hissing fierce she made;
He shook off the living, madden'd coil,
As ye dash thro' the tangled forest's toil!

XXVI.

Is yon another luring ray?
Or is it a spark of glorious day?—
Was that the mountain's voice he heard,
Or is it the song of a little bird?—
Hope sprang again to life; and sense
Asserted her omnipotence,
As with wild joy, the cleft he tried—
When he stood on Ætna's giant side!
He could not bear the blazing tide
Even in the forest shade,
But he fell on the earth—and to the Power
That had led him safe, in that awful hour,
With soul o'erflowing pray'd.

SCENE X.
THE PEASANT

I.

O sweet is now the genial breeze
That breathes amid the giant trees;
Cool and balmy on his brow
Came the gales of heaven now;
They came with sweetest perfume rife,
Waking energy to life.
'Scap'd from dungeons subterrene,
'Twas as if the knight had been
Bathing in the floods of bliss
That fill the realms of happiness!

II.

And gentle is the forest shade
In all its blithest robes array'd.
Lithesome were its leaves to view,
Proud around the tall oak grew.
The small birds rais'd their woodland song;
The sportive wild deer fled along;
Soars the monarch falcon high
And spreads his broad wings fearlessly—
Born on their iron energy,
Till his course is lost amid the sky.

III.

O glorious is that heaven above
Unfathom'd sea of light and love!
And who but the captive its joy can tell,
And who can speak its praise so well
As he, escap'd from the blackness of hell!

IV.

O glorious is that heaven of love
That hangs its glittering arch above!
With joyaunce leaps the raptur'd soul
Communing with its destiny,
And fain would soar to win the goal
Of pure and perfect liberty!
The chasten'd beam that milder play'd
Errant amid the fitful shade,
And lent the foliage hues as bright
As beam from changeful chrysolite—
(Save where a browner hue proclaim'd
Where the lava rush'd, where the æther flam'd)
His eye could bear—and as he trod
Mid wither'd leaves and tangled sod,
Or cross'd the adamant's black streak
Where erst the glowing tide did break,
With bolder ken, the warrior strove
To mark the regions of his love.
On its tall sides a nameless race
Scatter'd, th' eternal mountain grace.
He climb'd a lava pyramid,
Where nought the boundless landscape hid,
And mark'd with rapture's rising glow
The paradise that stretch'd below.

V.

Around, how far!—all unconfest
Its bounds,

The prospect from Ætna has been described by Denon and others; but by none whose account can bear any comparison with that of Brydone. His description of the effect produced by the sun's rising is indeed truly sublime; and it is the more wonderful as it is in part fiction: for his fellow-traveller, Dr. North, who has been in this country, stated that they arrived at the top of the mountain too late to witness the glorious spectacle.

with the blue heaven blending,
Spread the broad ocean's dimpled breast,
Where many a glittering sail is wending,
Amid yon offspring of the deep

The Lipari Islands, of which Stromboli alone is now volcanic, although they have all evidently been so.

That restless on its bosom sleep,
Shrouded in their encircling cloak
Their billowy canopy of smoke,
And capt with tapering flame their head;
Here the fair island's shores were spread
With rugged rock and bold cliff blent,
Where turret rose and battlement—
The island guards—a giant host
That hold their watch along the coast.
In mingling, bright succession lay
Mountains green and valleys gay;
Tall ridges o'er that garden hung
And far their deep'ning shadows flung;—
There were golden seas of billowy grain,
Glad vineyards smiling on the plain;
The silver streamlets wound along
The emerald meads of peace among;—
There were fruits of every hue and die
That mellow in Sicilian sky;
Here the dark forest sombre rose
And gave the tiring ken repose;
And wandering, by its contrast showing
More fair the Eden round it glowing,
Wound about in frequent vein
Th' arrested torrent's iron plain.
Here lay, embosom'd in her dell
Fair Palermo's “golden shell;”—
Gleaming mid the mountain fires
Rose the hamlets' glittering spires;
Marble domes in ruin lie
To tell of ages long gone by;—
Sithence the Saracen had rear'd
Dark towers, that frowning high appear'd
On masses of eternal rock;
Stupendous piles! whose ruins mock
The feebleness of modern days,
The vanity of glory's blaze!
The convents' turrets oft obtrude
Above their hallow'd, peaceful wood;—
All tells of love and sympathy
And heav'n-descended charity!

VI.

Columns of eld! ye mouldering fanes,
Where wonder rapt, with silence reigns;
Fair feast of ruin! havoc's prey,
Spoil'd since creation's natal day!
Fair isle! how oft thy sons have wept
When Ætna's boiling bosom slept,—
Volcano fraught with fate of ages
Her darker warfare ever wages.
Still are its traces scatter'd wide,
Stern in their never-dying pride;
There is no rock unknown to fame,
‘There is no stone without a name!’

Nullum sine nomine saxum.

VII.

VIII.

Proud gaz'd the youth;—and know'st thou not,
Amid the pageant, yon fair spot—
Those hills whose tops with glory glow—
That silver stream, that winds below—
Amid the oaks and shadows broad
The turrets of thine own abode?

IX.

A varying and a warring throng
Of thoughts and passions rush'd along,
But on the darkly gathering crowd
Flash'd, like the lightning on the cloud,
His country snatch'd from threaten'd harm,
Her vengeance—brandish'd by his arm;—
And wish'd the knight that he might be
The victim, when her plains were free,
In glory's lap that he might die—
For him hath earth no other tie!
And now thro' groves his footsteps tread,
Where the glossy beach its dark leaves spread,
The shapely fir, the light cork rose,
And from the ash the manna flows;
He saw a bird on fluttering wing
From her wonted store in terror spring,
For round the roots did a serpent coil

This incident is related by Swinburne, vol. 1.

And his venom'd tongue was in the spoil.
“Ev'n so,”—thought Lodowick,—“must it be,
Ev'n so, fair Sicily, with thee!
Upon thy fatness live alike
The good, the pure, the foul in spirit,
And adders in thy bosom strike
To taint the store thy sons inherit.
But even so, yet, shall it be
With all thy peace, fair Sicily?—
Shall beauty, valour, honour, low
Before the dæmon-leaguer'd bow,
And innocence her pinions light
Spread for a long—eternal flight?—
God of my fathers! nerve my blade
Let me the sacrifice be made,
The cenotaph that tells of me
Telling of rescued Sicily!”

X.

On sped the knight his anxious way:
Beneath fair Val-Demoni lay;

Val-Demoni; so called from the suppose infernal inhabitants, and from its being the haunt of the ancient condottieri and modern banditti. Brydone.

Her tangled screen the caves concealing,
Where murder gaunt and rapine stealing
In fastnesses unsearchable
Plot the black train of wo and ill;
And—or the peasant's fears belie
Their foul and damning treachery—
Deep in their unhallow'd wold
With mountain spirits converse hold,
The knight could tell—but he must be
Wrapt in a boding secrecy.

XI.

Hark! 'tis the voice of man—as sweet,
As the carol of birds the day that greet,
From a horrible dream when wakes the soul;
As glad as the sound where waters roll,
When the fainting traveller wanders lone
In the boundless wastes of the burning zone.
Ye sacred sympathies that bind
Man and his subjects to their kind,
Let but the links awhile be burst
In the dreariest breast, the blackest, worst,
Or seared by wrongs or fortune rude,
Your tendrils shoot in solitude!
Shipwreck'd in love, in hope, in fame,
His moody spirit could have given
Earth and her sons to central flame,
To the ocean's swell or winds of heaven
But O! how cheering is that song!
A kindred being, a kindred tongue!

XII.

I ween, that song was rugged and coarse
As the fitful tempest's murmurs hoarse,
But it was the voice of Man!
In his toil, by melody rude beguil'd
All careless he chaunted his descant wild—
And thus the legend ran.

XIII.
The Peasant's Legend.

XIV.

“God speed thee, friend,” the knight exclaim'd,
“To a merry lay is thy story fram'd,
Yet 'tis a woful tale;”—
“Sir Knight,” he said, “thy courtly ear
Well, at my untaught lay may sneer,—
I sing of my own bale;
Of a lost, vile, abandon'd one—
God rest him yet—he was my son!—
But thine armour is soil'd, and broken, and torn,
Thy face with vigil and toil is worn;
In my humble cot, my lowly fare
Full welcome art thou here to share,
From the fountain head, the sparkling wave
Or the ruby wine, thou there may'st have,—
My goat's milk, pure and white shall flow
As yonder heaven-capt steep of snow—
But poor, alas! for a knight the cheer
Of a lowly, lonely widower.”

XV.

Well pleas'd tir'd Lodowick partook
Of the cottager's simple store,
He lav'd him in the crystal brook,
And woke to life once more;
While the garrulous host in simple strain
Strove his high guest to entertain,
His own mishap the burden still;
How the foes of God, the friends of ill,
Away his son had spirited,—
How his spouse had sicken'd and was dead,—
How his crops were blasted, and parch'd the sod,
His vines by feet unseen were trod,—
And the blessed saint, in wrath, he said,
For his son, no more would lend her aid.

XVI.

“Now, by my faith,” the hero cried,
“Mine host, I like thee well;
Go with me to the Dromo's side,
In peace thou there may'st dwell.
Messina's priests shall bend the knee,
And pray Our Lady kind for thee;—
Thy spouse and son may not return,
But mass shall be said, and tapers burn,
That brief and light may their entrance be
Where blest St. Peter keeps the key.”—

XVII.

He hath donn'd a cloak of russet brown,
A bonnet o'er his dark locks is thrown;
The knight and serf their pathway hold
Where pearly Alcantara roll'd;
Where blithe perennial hues adorn
The fields whence Proserpine was borne;
Where limpid, rush-clad fountains run,
Hid from the glare of the fervent sun,
Yet modest, as when chang'd of eld,
In tears, the rape the nymphs beheld;

They were fabled to have been nymphs who witnessed the carrying away of Proserpine. For the supposed historical origin of the fable, see Denon.

All pure and shrinkingly they hide
Mid the green surf their lucid tide.

XVIII.

Now boune we on, my trembling bark!
Awhile o'erwhelm'd in ocean dark—
I see full many a swelling wave,
And blackly yawning gulfs that rave
Beyond us—hie thee on!
I dare not woo Parnassian gale,
To swell my unassuming sail;
Better it is to hug the shore,
Than where rocks lie hid and breakers roar
To vaunt and be undone!
Yet, all unenvying, may we mark
O'er ocean furrows, the gallant bark—
Her boom uncheck'd to the winds she throws,
With bellying canvass proud she goes;
While the helmsman scans with steady eye
The clear expanse or the clouded sky;
For whether the breeze be foul or fair,
He knows his port—she must go there!
O gallantly, gallantly rides she now,
While the torrent is whirling beneath her prow,
And the feathery foam of her crested spray,
And the deep voice of ocean their homage pay;—
O would that mine were that broad sail!
I dare not woo Parnassian gale!

XIX.

Now through the broad lands trod the twain
Of the proudest noble in prince's train:
He rul'd his serfs with iron hand—
They bleed and die at his command;
The meed of toil, that the scalding tear
On the spurn'd hearth must be dropping e'er;
That the burning soul's indignant burst
Must wither the source its warmth that nurst;
When the son from his helpless sire was torn,
When the bride was widow'd and left forlorn,
When lust his foul and damning stain
Left on the unrespected fane,—
When wife and daughter were shrinking led,
For the sacrifice deck'd to the tyrant's bed;—
Ask ye his name?—'tis known beyond
His power's wide grasp—accurst Vaumond!

XX.

It was the solemn noon of night;
The pale moon rode at her central height;
It was in a dark and awful grove,
Where never songster told his love;
Where the peasant ne'er at eve would rove;
(For the simple loon, in its hollow tone,
Heard demon-shout, or sufferer's moan,
Or, in its wild fantastic forms,
Saw grinning fiends of coming storms)—
'Twas there they stood—but cloth'd were all,
Earth, air, and heaven, in silent pall;
An awful stillness! no leaf was seen
To change its hue of sable green
No silvery radiance through their cloud,
With fitful gleaming tipt their shroud.
Seem'd that the ray arrested slept,—
Nor through the grove one whisper crept.
Then shuddering awe usurp'd its reign,
E'en on the warrior's cheek—
Cold shivering crawl'd through every vein,
He knew what such tokens speak;
As when the curtain-fold reveals
Where the grim night-mare slowly steals,
And wildly shakes her spectred mane,
And rolls her fiery eyeballs twain—
The sufferer knows the blasting vision,
He would—but has not power—to shun;
And she, in her uncouth derision,
Mocks at the fever'd, trembling one.—
He thought on the spirit's prophecy,
And he knew that the EARTHQUAKE'S HOUR was nigh!

SCENE XI.
THE BRIDAL.

I.

II.

A lovely treacherous bower beheld,
With gilded scales, a serpent lurk,
While livid infamy, conceal'd,
Rejoic'd, prophetic of her work.
He hath not wound her in his coil;
The rose may still its fragrance shed;
Crime hath not sear'd the cheerful soil,
And the lily need not hang its head.

III.

But not again may she tempt its shade,
Till the vow is plighted, the blessing said,
That, like the holy man of old,
As chroniclers inspired have told,

The Maltese say that the Apostle Paul banished all venomous reptiles from the island when he shook off the serpent. Brydone.

From the fair isle of love and bliss
Charm all the venom'd things that hiss,
And rob the serpent of his sting,
At virtue's shrine meet offering.

IV.

Sick in his couch Rugero lay,
The leech foretells his final day
Fast hurrying to its close;
He bids them tie the knot of fate,
That calm, well pleas'd, he may await
His last and long repose.
The hour drew near: “O come, my bride;”
Thus spoke the Baron bold—
“Why wait the dull delays of pride,
A monster stern and cold?
No pomp shall mar the mystic rite,
Love spreads his rosy pinions light,
The gorgeous pageant flies!”—
Rugero rais'd his failing hands,
The Knight implores, and he commands,
And her last struggle dies.

V.

O many a winding stair doth lead
To that chapel where they shall be wed.
The lady to her lover clung,
For damps and glooms around them hung;
Torches threw round a dusky glare,
But no living soul was there.
Of solid rock was hewn each step,
In days to song unknown;
Their records all in mystery sleep,
And their memorial gone.
But on the arching walls were trac'd
Strange characters,

Chaldean inscriptions are constantly found in Sicily. See a former note.

yet uneffac'd,
And symbol wild, that all the lore
Of clerks all vainly might explore.

VI.

O countless are the steps they tread
Ere the chapel is gain'd where the rites shall be said.
Trembled each taper in the gale
The hidden realms unwont inhale;
But trembled more the bride, for whom
They flar'd amid the shadowy gloom.
“What fears my gentle bride?”
“O weary is this dark descent,
And I with toil am worn and spent—
Watching life's pale and waning lamp
And death-dews gathering cold and damp,
By a sick father's side.”

VII.

When shall the winding rock-hewn stair,
How distant now from upper air!
When shall it find an end?
The lady paus'd—“why stays my love.?”
“Vaumond, no farther will I move,
No more will I descend.”
“Now, Isabel, my own thou art,
Here will I claim thee, better part,
Of every life-throb of my heart!
Here at the solemn tide of eve,
And in night's central realm,
Our deathless destinies we weave,
And all disunion whelm—
One upon earth, till earth is gone,
In heav'n or hell, we will be ONE!”

VIII.

“Hah! where the priest? the altar where”
“The priest and altar both are near”—
Then heaving on its hinges hoarse,
The portal op'd, by unseen force;
Broad and deep the chapel show'd,
Where granite columns darkly stood;
The marvel, since the days of eld
What power each giant mass upheld.
All rudely character'd, the dome
Conceal'd their capitals in gloom
Of stones immense, the floor far spread
Gave hollow echo to their tread;
But other sound was none to chase
The awful silence of the place.
Far, in the darksome distance gleaming,
A many-colour'd light was streaming—
There should the altar be—
There should a Saviour's love divine
Be present in his mystic sign;
But the lady's soul within her sunk,
And all unknowing why, she shrunk,
As she look'd on the pageantry.

IX.

Is that a cross, the pillar bears?
Not now, as wont, its form it rears,
Recording agonies, that won
Redemption by the incarnate Son.—
—If cross it be, the sacred sign
Is prostrate; flames around it twine;
And, blasphemous, the sculptor's care
Made wreathing flames ascending there.
Is that the font; where believers prest
To dip their hands in waters blest,
And bear their sign of pride?
Deceit perchance of the shadowy place,
Boiling it seem'd in its black vase—
Perchance the distant light belies
Its crystal wave and purer dies,
But blood-red was the tide.
As wont, the lady stretch'd her hand
Towards the living fountain bland,
And quick her arm the baron stay'd
Not till it mov'd where that water play'd—
Not till a fierce and mad'ning flame
Shot thro' her heart and fir'd her frame—
Pierc'd thro' the brain and bursting head,
Intense and brief, it came and fled.

X.

“O come, my bride—the priest awaits—
Come, let us link our deathless fates”—
“Vaumond! Vaumond! in such abode,
Never did Christian worship God!
There is a whirl within my brain,
Bear me to upper air again!”
“O 'tis a maiden's blushing fears,
Mine antique chapel stern appears:
O let them not thy true love blight,
For so his troth should warrior plight.”

XI.

The lady in her terrors lost,
The mighty nave scarce conscious crost;
And, e'er her steps the chancel won,
All sight, all sound distinct, were gone,
For a mingling glare bedimm'd her eye,
That seem'd to mock at every die,
That tints the bow which spans the sky.
Seem'd it many a twisted snake
Breath'd forth each one a varying flake,
That wildly lit the kindling wall,
Where light intense outshone them all;
Where no embodied soul may gaze
On the uncouth symbols of the blaze—
It was so fierce and deep to see,
So livid was its brilliancy!
Beneath the serpent's foul embrace,
Was the hideous altar of the place;
And seem'd, that from the Isle of Bones
Were dug its grisly stepping-stones—

The island of Ustica, where several thousand Carthaginians are said to have perished by famine.

Upon the shrine she might not look,
But on it lay an open book—
While blacker fast, the sleepy spell,
In gathering shadows, round her fell,
A fearful thought flash'd on her soul,
That of dead men's skins was form'd the scroll,
And its letters bright were writ with fire
That was, and is, and never shall expire!

XII.

Erect her head that 'gan to droop,
Her silken eyelash slow rais'd up—
When a tall figure dark she view'd
Before the fearful altar rude;
The broad leaves of the volume spread
Before the priest conceal'd his bead.
But as the air his cowl way'd by,
The lady look'd on his flashing eye—
She look'd, and shuddering sunk once more,
Where her shivering frame the Baron bore:
She heard the monk's low mutter'd tone,
But word distinct yet mark'd she none;
Till sharp and quick he fiercely spoke—
“Art thou HIS, now and ever,
That when the bonds of life are broke,
The soul death shall not sever?”
—Then, as his dismal tones he breath'd,
Was a twisted ring around them swath'd;
The pale blue lights about them danc'd,
Burst one wild shriek from Isabel—
Deep came upon her soul the trance,
And while, before her falling glance,
The mists collecting fell,
Was heard afar a rumbling sound,
As if thousand chariots shook the ground;
She saw the streaming lightning flash,
She heard the unholy altar crash—
And, as the radiance pour'd along,
Faded the pale lights' charnel throng—
The blasted serpents wither'd lay,
With the blaze, the fiend priest pass'd away.
Again, again the avenging flame
Lit those foul walls of sin and shame—
She saw the massy columns move,
As when the whirlwind shakes the grove—
The granite masses bow and shake;—
Then clos'd her eyes, as if no more to wake.

XIII.

'Twas in the greenwood shade they woke,
Where first her orb's dark lustre broke
Upon the tide of day;
Two stranger serfs support her now,
Lave her pale cheek and icy brow,
And watch, the dark-fring'd lid below,
The slow-returning ray.
All brightly, through the quivering shade,
The golden shafts of morning play'd—
“Where am I?”—seated they the maid
Upon a moss-clad rock;
Winding his cloak his form around,
And bent his gaze upon the ground,
The younger stranger spoke.

XIV.

“Lady, chance here our footsteps bore,
Last eve, when woke the earthquake's roar;
Earth yawn'd beneath us; terror led,
Then down the cleft we darkling sped.
The lightning's momentary glow
Illum'd the giant-vault below,
Discovering thy senseless form—
Fearful, but transient, was the storm;
And, when ascending, we survey'd
Yon castle's towers in ruin laid”—
“Ha! then my father, perish'd he?”
—Now on the air a sound arose,
'Twas chaunted slow and solemnly,
Prolong'd and mournful was its close.
And mark'd they on the hill's wild side,
Where late had frown'd the castle's pride,
Slow winding down, a train
Of holy monks, who strove to save,
In that dread hour the only brave:
And now it was, the fathers said
The passing requiem for the dead,
When earthly hope was vain.
Midway a sable bier was borne,
And the mild breeze of early morn
Wafted the solemn strain.

XV.
Requiescat in Pace.

XVI.

Her fears confirm'd, the lady then
Had sunk into her trance agen;
The STRANGER'S tones recall'd her sense,
For such were those she once had lov'd;
That love was pure as 'twas intense—
Whither, ah! whither had it rov'd?
Their memory was, like the well-known air
His native mountain-echoes bear,
That the stranger hears in a distant clime,
Whom the hurrying flight of fate and time,
And the weary waste of waters part
From the land where still abides his heart,
She wept; and O! those tears were sweet
They were the first her cheek that wet,
Since at the baleful banquet, she
Had pledg'd the Baron's victory.

XVII.

And who will weep for Isabel?
The untun'd throbs of a heart of flame,
The wild mirth of the demon yell,
Are these her only requiem?
O, as the stranger bore her on,
How fair in her unfaithfulness!
Thus from her first, her true love won,
More lovely in her blighted grace—
He felt, that if his love had perish'd,
That once, e'en as his life he cherish'd,
That pity had more power to prove
Than all the wildest dreams of love.
Revenge! revenge! but not on her—
Revenge upon her murderer!
Whose poniard enter'd the pure mind,
And left a blighted wreck behind.

XVIII.

So whilom on the hero's son

Telemachus.

The warrior goddess rose confest;
All terribly her armour shone,
And frown'd the Gorgon on her breast—
But her blue eye its radiance shed,
And, while he gaz'd, his terrors fled.

XIX.

They led the lady, journeying light,
Where the convent's open gates invite;
They left her by her father's bier,
Wet with a daughter's holy tear.

SCENE XII.
THE COMBAT.

I.

“Summon the Baron of Vaumond
From treason foul and dæmon bond,
To cleanse his honour's stain!”
—I cannot tell the countless throng
Whose gathering thousands roll'd along
Upon the echoing plain;
As waves the serried grain, each crest
By every transient gale carest,
That undulating multitude
A mingling mass all anxious stood.

II.

About the barrier, far and near
They press its sides to gain,
Where the mail'd ranks with bristling spear
And flaming steel their might uprear,
Their foaming chargers rein.
Above, enthron'd in ermin'd state
The monarch of the pageant sate;
Beneath, an ancient, stern array
Were plac'd the umpires of the day:
Stream'd on their robes of sable die
The wintry honours blanch'd by time,—
But beam'd from every steady eye
The firmer glances of their prime.
The light from youth's inconstant orb
Is glorious as the summer tide;
But mists its brightness must absorb,
And shadows must its brilliance hide;
Keen—but not fierce, and cold—yet bright
The ray of age's chasten'd light.

III.

In sterner dignity uprose
Gonsalvo's form; where age's snows
For pity sue—yet awe inspire;
That lonely, widow'd, childless sire,
Whose heart pride would not break, and fed
The core on which remembrance prey'd,
That told of her, who all had been,—
Now worse than nought—of Imogen.

IV.

Now in the lists their palfreys pranc'd
As the shrill-ton'd heralds forth advanc'd;
The trumpet's pealing clangours broke—
With Vaumond's name the plains awoke;
Thrice, loud, distinctly sent, the sound—
While echo answer'd all aroud:
And as yon hills that circling sweep
Prolong'd the summons quick and deep,
Seem'd that the earth he would betray
Call'd him, the forfeit dread to pay.—
Died the third summon's distant note,
In lingering murmurs heard remote:
Thro' that vast crowd that hides the plain
Doth a stilly expectation reign,
As if they watch'd the appointed tide,
When heaven shall furl her arch of pride!

V.

Upon yon green hill's sunny brow
Flashes a gleaming blaze—
It shoots adown the dark sward now
Upon the eager gaze;
It is his glittering armour flings
Reflected day afar—
It is his coal-black steed that springs
Fleet as that day's high car!
And now he gains the circling bound
Where swarming vassals clos'd around;
In many a swell tumultuous thrown,
They scatter'd as his steed dash'd on;—
As when the billowy mists above
Down the veil'd mountain trembling move—
Successive rolls each mingling host,—
So, till that foaming courser crost
The barrier, from his ardent side
The severing myriads wild divide.

VI.

Forth from his selle the baron bold
Sprang in his coat of burning gold.
A priest before the conclave stood,
And bore on high the blessed wood,
Type of a suffering Saviour's wo,
Endur'd for guilty race below.
All vainly,—the accuser said,
For dark Vaumond that blood was shed!—
The old men who should doom award
Fix'd on the chief their stern regard;
And every knight's indignant look
Fell on him who his faith forsook.
Unbending, proud, amid his peers
His stalworth form Vaumond uprears;
With a swift glance, his eagle eye
Scann'd all the awful pageantry,
Then fix'd in sullen majesty.

VII.

Spoke then the king:—“Three years have past
Since among knights thy lot was cast;
Battling against the Saracen,
A youth unknown, I found thee then,
When from my crest thine arm turn'd far
The turban'd moslem's scimitar.
Thy arm in fight hath still prevail'd,
Thy breast in battle hath not quail'd,—
And thine was ever valour's boon;
Vaumond—now speak!—for here is one
Who saith thou hast forsworn the faith
Of daring knight in life and death;
Leagu'd with the mountain-spirits foul,
And purchas'd with thy desperate soul
These fair fields that have given thee birth,
Thy natal soil, thy fostering earth,—
To lord—when ruin's march hath past—
Dark monarch of the dismal waste.

VIII.

IX.

He said, and down his gauntlet flung;
The Baron's sword from its sheath hath sprung—
With its point he pierc'd the proffer'd glove,
And bore the deadly pledge above
In scornful mockery,—
“So be it as thyself hath spoken,
As with this firmly plighted token
So let it fare with thee!”

X.

Forth stept the priest; and spake the king,
—“Now grasp the cross and swear

The form of the old abjuration of sorcery, taken by champions before the battle is as follows:—“Hear this, ye judges, that I have this day neither eat, drank, nor have upon me, neither bone, brass, stone ne grass, nor any enchantment, sorcery, or witchcraft, whereby the law of God may be abased, or the law of the devil exalted. So help me God and his saints.”

That no unclean, unholy thing,
By magic fram'd, to aid ye bring
Nor spell nor talisman nor ring,
Nor charmed weapon bear:
God and his saints to mark the oath,
Now, in their presence, plight your troth.”

XI.

Lodowick knelt to the sacred sign,
And kneeling, grasp'd the cross divine,
As he magic aid denied;
Light turn'd the Baron on his heel,
And taunting shook his glittering steel,
As thus in scorn he cried:
“A soldier's faith is his bounding blood,
A soldier's sign is his broadsword good;
Mine honour and my life I plight,
Sole umpires of the truth of knight.”—
—“Swear!”—cried the starting conclave,—“swear!—
Or now our pendent sentence hear,
That gives thy castles to the flame,
To deathless infamy thy name,
Thy life—to yon broad spreading bough,
Thyself to the vulture and the crow,
Thy soul—to the fire that fiends prepare,—
Knight! yield thee now—or kneel and swear!”

XII.

Fiercely his haughty lip was curl'd
As he grasp'd the cross, so rude,
And on the earth the sign he hurl'd,
And trampled on the wood!
Wild gaz'd in horror that abbot gray,
As in dust the awful symbol lay;—
Upstarted all that conclave quick—
His faulchion broad bar'd Lodowick—
Every sword from its scabbard swung—
—When the Baron's brazen bugle rung;
The impending steel forgot its stroke
When rending earth in sunder broke!
The warriors mark'd with wild surprise
Black plumes and glittering helmets rise—
On that fell day, with shuddering awe,
A second iron birth earth saw!
From beneath their charger's tread
Rose full many an armed head,—
Forth they leapt, the shock to meet,
Mail'd in panoply complete!
—Burst one wild yell from all the plain,
The flying crowd prolong'd the strain—
Frequent their footing fail'd beneath
At the sound of the clanging clarion's breath,—
And swords and spears among them flash'd,
And host to host succeeding dash'd—
To gain the lists was their course held on,
Where now the conflict had begun.

XIII.

Mid uproar fierce and discord loud,
The rush and scattering of the crowd,
The clanging din of shivering steel,
And that dread trump's awaken'd peal,—
Around the throne to guard the king
Firm rooted form'd a brazen ring.
In legiance, more than armour mail'd.
By the fierce bandits round assail'd
They stood;—as vain the foemen pour'd
To break the ranks that girt their lord,
As if they strove, the sons of earth,
To tear spher'd Saturn from his girth.

XIV.

Wild, wild, around the swarming plain,
Pale terror and confusion reign;
As when the faithful guardians hold
Their watch amid the timorous fold,
And the prowling wolves by hunger lash'd
Amid their fleecy care have dash'd,
Scatters the multitude afar
While nobler foes maintain the war,—
So, mingling where the helpless prest,
Rung the shield, and shone the crest;
There the thundering charger neigh'd,
Sweeping there the hero's blade
In its bright circle as it swung
A halo fierce around him flung,
A fleeting diadem of flame.
A deathless symbol of revolving fame,
That metes eternity, unchang'd, the same!

XV.

They fall—that magic host—in death,
They draw, like man, a fleeting breath;
They bleed,—and fiercer strife awoke
When the red torrents round them broke.
Prest by the rush, when first was heard
The bugle note, the battle word,
Mid flying serf and troop of horse,
All vainly there the refluent course
Strove Lodowick to brave;—
Yet he saw his foeman's sable plume,
The battle-star of wrath and doom,
Upon the breezes wave;
Yet he heard his foeman's clarion shrill
That woke the voice of every hill,
In their wild echo maddening still,
Its tones of fury pour—
As if every fiend exultant lent
His breath to swell the notes it sent
Like their own deep'ning roar!

XVI.

As the black billow on the rock
Spreads o'er the deep its scatter'd flock,
Was the press in severing masses thrown;
And lo! a snorting steed
All riderless came bounding on—
And now the warrior's wish was won,
To aid him at his need.
One grasp arrests the charger's flight,
One vault, and mounted now the knight
Plung'd headlong in the burning fight;
His hot soul kindling at the sight
Outstripp'd the flying steed.

XVII.

Blow echoes blow—blood follows blood
Beneath war's iron hand,—
As from the black leaves of the wood
Where the unconscious hero stood
Upon the fatal strand.

Æneas, at the grave of Polydore.

And still the knights their ring made good,
That talisman left unsubdu'd
Their fealty to their native land.
Still urging where the tumult grows,
Th' avenging blade cleaves thickening foes—
Still from the gorge of earth they wake
In that fell revelry to partake—
Till the mounted chiefs amid the swell
Show'd, each the rock's tall pinnacle
Amid the heaving wastes of ocean;
As firm against the wild commotion—
But wave on wave, with ceaseless sway,
Will wear the solid rock away!

XVIII.

Trumpet's notes are loudly waking;
Down the hill, like torrent breaking,
Pours a motley half-arm'd troop
Of hardy liegemen true—
To hearts, that hopeless would not droop,
Now hope lent fervour new.
That gathering mist with the war-cloud blended,
The thunders of the strife ascended;
And darker its swart shadows pour
Along the sluggish tides of gore.
The peaceful steel that bade the field
The golden hopes of labour yield,
Now, in the iron harvest cast
Plate and mail and sinew brast,
Flash'd in the day's broad eye bright gleaming,
Then rose again, all purply streaming.
All rank was broke—save that firm girt
That guards the monarch, yet unhurt;
In war's delirium then began
The desp'rate strife of man with man,
One wild, continuous uproar drown'd
The yellings of the bugle's sound.

XIX.

XX.

The sun walks high in his pilgrimage,
He smiles at the wars that mortals wage,
And laughing, shakes his golden hair,
While battle drives uncheck'd his share;—
Onward in his slippery course
Plunging, tears the gory horse,
Where vassal, knight, and bandit spread,
Lie swelter'd in their common bed.
And where was Lodowick? where'er
The strife wax'd fiercest, he was there;
His charger slain, on foot he fought,
And still his foe thro' the battle sought;
But morn had wan'd away, and yet
Th' apostate traitor he had not met;
Tho' he saw his crest careering proud,
And heard his bugle, shrill and loud,—
He was borne away by the surging crowd.

XXI.

He eyed Vaumond on the battle's verge,
A flagging few to the combat urge;
Then, thro' the slaying and the slain,
Mowing his way, he strode amain,
Through the hot ploughshares of the fray,
In the high ordeal of the day;
His bassnett through its circuit raz'd,
Resounding still the wandering shield,—
Till full on his proud foe he gaz'd,
The traitor on his sight reveal'd.
“Now turn thee—craven renegade!”—
No further challenge was there said—
Quick from his Afric barb hath lit
The Baron bold his foe to meet:—
—“Now with my blood thy vengeance slake—
No odds to combat man I take—
And parle and priestcraft all aside,
Knight—let our feud at last be tried.”—
Even as he spake, his foeman's steel
Swung imminent in its flaming wheel
Above his head—but its descent
Its fury on the keen edge spent,
Where, planted in his stounde unchang'd,
The Baron's eye o'er Lodowick rang'd.
He mark'd not the faulchion's wanderings
As round him flash'd its curvetings;
In his foeman's eye he could detect
Where'er the stroke he would direct;
His eye the planet his course that show'd,
When wrath th' ascendant's monarch rode.

XXII.

While fought the chiefs, the few, whom fear
Or chance had left in battle's rear,
Had but one soul, and thought, and sight,
Addressing them to scan the fight.
Far off—a lingering host that fled
When first arose the bandits dread,
With timorous footsteps gain the spot
Where that eventful strife was fought.

XXIII.

When, as the eagle bears his prize,
Cleaving midway the startled skies,
The hungry vulture's pinions slope
Riding the light adown heaven's cope,
And the prey his iron talons pierce,
—That fight of horror is brief as fierce!
Their fluttering wings in terror bear
Afar each living thing in air,
As instant from his pride of place
Drops one dread tyrant of their race!
—Too desperate is that struggle now—
Too swift resounds each furious blow—
The combat cannot last!
Where the knit corslet clad the breast
The furious blade of Lodowick prest;
On the broad concave's iron bound
The rigid steel resistance found,
And swift in sunder brast!
—Back sprung the knight in swift recoil,
And a wild cry went forth the while
From the encircling host;
Above his fenceless prey uprais'd
The Baron's temper'd faulchion blaz'd,
And smil'd he, as it swung suspended,
As if, ere yet the steel descended,
He mock'd his foeman lost.—
A hasty glance to the vanquish'd show'd
Where hid in dust lay the sacred wood,
In that evil tide by thousands spurn'd
Where'er the course of battle turn'd;—
Uprooted from the clotted mould
Around it swung in his iron hold;
And as it cleft the sounding air
At Vaumond's bright helm levell'd fair,
—The Baron bent him to the blow—
Ha!—where that harness'd champion now?—

This incident, the hinge of the fable, is borrowed from a tale of Lewis's.

An elf, all wrinkled, crook'd, and gray,
Crouching beneath the cross upstarted—
That mighty form hath past away,
And like unreal light departed!

XXIV.

Fell the uplifted cross once more
From the wondering warrior's guard,
As a rushing fierce and a wild roar
Above him in air were heard.
A wight the shrinking mass broke through,
—The mountain peasant Lodowick knew,—
And as he gaz'd the elf upon
He shriek'd and cried—“my son! my son!”—
Chatter'd that hideous goblin foul,
His straggling locks of flame he rent,
Then with a yell like the midnight owl,
And a bound, from out their sight he went!

XXV.

Another stifled shriek—among
The motley group the warrior sprung;
There lay a form, how lovely! prest
Fast to a kneeling old man's breast;
The peasant's cap beside them thrown,
Her dark locks round luxuriant strown,
Her eye half clos'd,—his grasp within,—
“Tis the page! Paulo!”—“Imogen!”—
Aye, Imogen!—Gonsalvo there
Supports that fragile woman fair,
While the coarse crowd all idly look,
All, all the Father soften'd woke,
As the cold iron melts the ice;—
His pride was nature's sacrifice.
Beneath the day, the shallowest stream
The first, reflects the sparkling beam;
And lightest hearts for joy that live
The quickest tear to sorrow give;
But who shall speak the torrent wide
That gushing came from that heart of pride!

XXVI.

Quiver'd her pale lips—but no word
The listless crowd of strangers heard;
“For this I fell”—a father's ear
Caught them alone; a father's tear
Fell on her sheeted cheek;
Then slowly op'd her eyes—their fire
Quench'd—to the fix'd gaze of her sire,
Their beamings such as show the cell
Where the world-worn anchorite doth dwell,
The sufferer's annals speak.
Lock'd was their grasp—and while they gaz'd,
So fix'd, that mournful glance uprais'd,
So deeply calm that passion chaste,
They knew not when the spirit past!

XXVII.

Away! away! to the battle roar!
That bugle strain is heard no more;
That sable barb away hath sped,
The steed and his rider vanished;
The bandits look'd for the meteor crest,
They saw it not—still the foemen prest;—
They sunk on the earth, in spirit broke,
Or they fell, mow'd down like the mountain oak
Beneath the sturdy woodsmans stroke,
While his scythe the dauntless vassal plied,
And the death-bearing chargers ride!—
They plung'd into their darksome den,
Nor more in day emerg'd agen—
Them let the nightly wanderer shun,
Or unassoil'd, his doom is done!
But when the mountain shades grew long,
That merciless and dauntless throng,
Like autumn's shocks in the harvest lie,
Their grisly faces toward the sky;
And on each whisker'd lip you met
The lurid smile that linger'd yet
Of fierce disdain, unbending hate,—
Fearless, prayerless, in their fate!

XXVIII.

That eve—the trembling peasant says,
And crosses him, and to Mary prays—
A phantom gray before him fled—
Like mountain deer along it sped.
Shapeless and rude, 'twas seen to glide
Straight up the mountain's rugged side,
And, in the latest beam that fell
Upon its snow-capt pinnacle,
Tow'ring into gigantic size
Vanish'd for ever from his eyes.—
Marvel who may—believe who list—
Unheard, he reap'd his dark acquist—
The sole memorial of his fate,
“The serpent tempted, and he ate!”—

XXIX.

And have I, in my idle time,
Spun for such ear the untaught rhyme,
As must, in words precise be told,
How when the war-cloud far had roll'd,
And when the phantom wild was gone,
That rose upon the altar stone,
When doubts were clear'd and far off flew
As the eye of love their shades look'd through,
When the pious weeds for a sire were doff'd,
And sorrow sunk to memory soft—
How minstrels loud their tribute swell
At the Bridal of fair Isabel!

XXX.
L'ENVOY.