Canto the First. Weariness.
1. Amo's exhaustless love. 2. Ranolf pines for civilized life. 3. Her
efforts to amuse him. 4. Ranolf cannot conceal their failure. 5.
Can he take her away with him?
I.
Alas! that human Happiness should never
Like those fair-flowing snowy fringes be,
That down Mahana's geyser-terraced hill
Grow into permanence as they distil;
In loveliness of marble mimicry
There, in the act of falling, fixed for ever!—
Alas! that Love's best transports may—
Like rills that dance and gleam and glance,
In loveliest forms of foam and spray
Down common cataracts every day—
So swiftly cease their sparkling play;
Though Love—the River's self—below
As deep or deeper still may flow!
The days rolled on—as dark or bright they will;
And found those lovers fondly loving still.
Could chance or change or circumstance destroy
Fair Amo's fondness for her bright Sea-boy?
Hers was a love exhaustless as the Ocean;
Her heart unwearied—as his waves with motion—
With restless play of passionate devotion.
Her pure profound Affection could outpour
Its tender tributes from an endless store,
With lavish waste diminishing no more
Than his with rolling snow-wreaths on the shore.
Enraptured in the presence of the Lord
And Idol of her young imagination,
Her Soul seemed always in the act to bless—
Her Spirit in a posture that adored;
Each look seemed love—each gesture a caress;
And every breath a yearning aspiration!
Though half the gems with which her Idol glowed
And won her worship, she herself bestowed—
Her heart was an unworked Golconda-mine,
Unconscious as 'twas careless, what a dower—
As a volcano might its scoria-shower—
It flung of diamond-fancies on the shrine
And round the Deity it made divine.
The knowledge—courage—courtesy—whate'er
In mind or body might be found, of fair
Intelligent or brave in him she loved,
By her fresh bosom's fond illusive pride
Were all sublimed, transfigured, glorified,
Beyond the reach of her and hers removed,—
As are some landscapes' beauties you survey
With head downbent, and such new charms diffuse
That woods and plains are in transcendent hues
Of tenderest richness floated far away.
II.
Was she not happy then?—what shadow stole
Over her full contentedness of soul?—
It was that as the days less swiftly flew
A weariness o'er Ranolf's spirit grew;
Not of her charms or her—for none the less
He loved his Wonder of the Wilderness.
But that the Life he led of savage ease
The more it was prolonged, seemed less to please.
Perhaps his love of roving was too strong,
Too deep-engrained to be quiescent long:
But this was not a conscious need, nor would
Have been the parent of his present mood.
It was the crave for intellectual food,
For which a young enthusiast Thinker pines,
Who daringly has tasted of the Tree
Forbidden still, of Knowledge of a Good
Beyond the actual still to be pursued
In all things to all ends; an Evil still
To be assailed by Reason still more free,
By wider Love and more exalted Will.
It was the crave for Books—the mighty mines
Where all the extinguished forests of mankind
In diamond-thoughts lie crystallized—enshrined:
And 'twas the haply sadder doom to be
Excluded from the guidance—sympathy—
The fellowship or presence of the prime
Of men who towards the Light the highest climb;
And head the onslaught of the human Mind
Against the strongholds of dim Destiny.
Ambition—progress—all the hope and pride
Of true Existence seemed to him denied.
That land so rich in Beauty's sensuous smile
Seemed for the Soul, only a desert Isle.
If ever chance-sent rumours reached his ear
Of the great Nations in their grand career,
They seemed dim records of aerial hosts
Who struggled in the heavens—or shadowy ghosts.
All the loud wonder-throes of peace or war
Seemed melted to a murmur faint and far!
What marvel if a feeling would intrude
Of something wanting in this solitude?—
Was it a treason to almighty Love
This sense of unfulfilled desire to prove?
Could any Love in any Paradise
Howe'er impassioned, mutual, melting, true—
Alone for any lovers long suffice?—
Not poets' dreams can make it ever new—
Not even a bridling dove can always coo!
III.
And anxious Amo could not but perceive
His thoughts were often wandering far away;
Her keen-eyed love would note, and inly grieve,
The shadow on his features once so gay.
The very love that to her faithful breast
So magnified the merits he possessed—
On which to dwell and feel them all her own
Were highest bliss to be conceived or known—
Made her inclined to rate herself too low;
With timid doubt it could indeed be so,
That such a treasure was reserved for her!
And often to her memory would recur
With what a glow he answered her demand
To paint the Beauties of his native Land.
And when her fond eye marked—more frequent now,
His sad abstracted air and troubled brow,
She could not check the thought, how full of woe,
“Ah! he is pining for those charms, I know,
Those lovely beings all of light and snow!
O my o'erweening pride to think that he
The glorious one, could be content with me!—”
Then would she seek the saddened heart to ease,
And ply with simple craft her arts to please;
With skilful change her finest mantles choose
Of broadest purfle and the fairest hues;
Their folds around her shapely shoulders place
Or dainty waist in each remembered way
He most had praised for piquancy and grace:
Or the soft glitter of her lustrous hair—
So glossy black, the lights thrown off would play
In sharp metallic gleams of bluish gray—
In crimson flowers he loved her so to wear
Or wax-white creeper-wreaths, she would array,
With chance-taught Taste so sure—such careless Care!
Or she would set herself a serious task,
Through tangled woods and thickets dense to range
In search of plants and insects—else despised—
Because he took in them an interest strange
She knew not why and scarcely cared to ask,
Since 'twas enough they were by Ranolf prized.
Or she would summon all her Damsels gay,
To lively dance or sportive game, that best
Would dexterous skill or native grace display:
Or send them on a harvest-gathering quest
Of clustering purple-fringes whence they squeeze
Sweet jellies ruby-clear; because the sight
Once seemed his fancy so to strike and please
Of these wild Wood-nymphs trooping through the trees
Back with their mirth-lit eyes—teeth glittering white
With laughter—tresses floating on the breeze,
And cheeks and foreheads in their reckless mood
All dashed and splashed with crimson berry-blood;
Like nymphs that frolic reeled in Bacchic dance
In Nature's golden-aged exuberance,
Or with goat-borne Silenus loved to romp
In grape-empurpled grace and tipsy pomp!
IV.
And Ranolf would her loving purpose guess;
And chide himself that he could not repress
The weary longing that would o'er him steal;
And force a gaiety he could not feel;
And show her deeper love and double tenderness.
But how should this content her? whose sole aim
Was to light up the old gladness in his eyes;
And little cared what of herself became,
Were that secured at any sacrifice;
But gained from true love far too keen a glance
To be deceived by any simulance
Of feeling, or affectionate pretence;—
Is not true Love the Mesmerizer true—
Beyond material Nature and above;
Clear-seeing, with its supernatural sense
The sympathetic object through and through?
Into its inmost being swift to dart,
In strange emotion take magnetic part,
And throb with beatings of the loved one's heart?
So Ranolf fondly sought—but sought in vain
From those fond eyes to hide his inward pain.
V.
What could be done? could he then bear her hence,
A wondering Wilding to his native land,
A savage wife! Ah what a startling shock
To prejudices like a wall of rock
Sense-based or senseless—piled on every hand!
Could he find fortitude or impudence
The ridicule and censure to withstand
Wisdom and folly would alike dispense?
Could he endure to be the mark or mock
For open pity—secret insolence?
To friends and kindred such a stumbling-block
Of deep and irremediable offence?
Ah could he brave all this?—But graver care
It was, how Amo such a change could bear?
Could this bright Child of woods and waters thrive
In the hot crowding of our social hive—
Though not like its mere honey-workers tasked,
Though only for such lightsome labour asked,
Such sweet monotony of toil as there
The partner of his moderate means must share?—
This life, self-guided by her will or whim—
Could she resign it for confinement dim,
Cooped round with indoor comfort—too secure?
Give up bright careless ease and breathing pure
In azure liberty of Sun and Air,
To choke in some fine atmosphere of nice
Punctilios and proprieties precise?
Be drilled into the trite and tedious round
Of petty duties, poor amusements, found
In formal life by strict conventions bound?—
Or could it flourish, this wild-flowering Tree,
Transparent with the sunbeams flowing free
Through its white cloud of blossom—nailed and trained
Espalier-wise against the rigid Wall
Of civilized existence—shorn of all
Its shoots of natural beauty—every spray
Checked in its impulses of artless play—
And all its waving wanton boughs constrained
And tortured into stiff and starch array,
In straightened uniformity controlled
Like iron grate-bars regular and cold?—
Or could the Tree transplanted long endure
The chill and rigour of a rougher sky?
The beautiful Exotic would be sure
In such ungenial clime to droop and die!
Nay (for this minor matter too deserves
A moment's thought) what sacrilege 'twould seem
To bolster out, disfigure and compress
That realization of a sculptor's dream
Of pure proportion—sinuous symmetry—
So simply clad in classic drapery—
That hit the happy and harmonious mean
Between the ripe and rich voluptuousness
Of lovely Aphrodite—soft and warm—
And beauty bright with a severer charm,
The light strong grace of active Artemis:—
Ah! what a sin to cramp a shape like this
Into some flaunting wire-and-whalebone screen
Of beauty-blighting frippery that combines
In dull extravagance discordant lines,
Sharp angles, shooting arcs and cutting curves;
Aping—wasp-waisted, ample-skirted some—
Cathedral-lantern o'er its swelling dome;
Some hourglass-shaped, knee-hobbled, mummy-screwed
Into the—modest frankness of ‘the nude!’
Each form fantastic from true taste that swerves
In hideous freaks of fashionable dress!
No! whether for her mind's or body's weal
He most was anxious—most was bound to feel—
Whichever way he looked, it seemed too plain,
He must this longing for his home restrain.
