The Poetical Works of Laman Blanchard :: :: University of Virginia Library

She stood beside the ruin of a wall
Painted and carved; where unplucked flowers and moss
O'ergrew the beauty of the ruling Cross:
And sainted foreheads, which in other time
Had bowed their earth in heaven's cloud-columned hall,
Were queenly wreathed in mockery of age.
And here a bank its purple shadow kept
Above a lake, where Hope perchance had wept,
Ere yet a tear was made the mirror of a crime.
And here a monument whose ice-like page
Dropt as the day perused it—though a bard
Had found therein the coldness of reward.
Dark trees were dying round it. Farther on
A grey and falling bridge sent gentle strife
Through waters, which, unstained with human life,
Made music 'mid the roots that twined the stone.
And far beyond a plain, where living forms
Flashed in the lustre of warm summer hours;
And a thick world of forest, whose deep tune

And shadows stretched where no sear leaves were strewn,
Stood hills, the hiding-place of sunny-storms
That laughed amid the light in sudden showers.

II

She looked not on the pride of marble, built
By mortal hands, but happy, yet afraid
Of her sweet soaring, still unweighed by guilt,
Gazed on the light that man could never shade,
Nature's first spirit. O'er the sands she strayed
Mute as a wish within a human breast;
And ever where her step its footmark made
Some wave did woo its faintness into rest.
Or, as the fairy wind, her travels passed
O'er bud and leaves, that bowed but did not break.
Her heart was as a vase where Love at last
Had found a warmth to keep his flowers awake;
A twilight fount, whose varied currents take
The hue of heaven and fall with it to earth,
Lending life beauty, and affliction mirth.
Her eye had many shadows, as each dye,
Each tinge of thought dissolved into its sky.
Their lids encircled with small beams of gold
Were silver clouds; and showed the sun behind
A world of deepening blue, that chased the cold
Left on her temples by some wandering wind;
Feeding with light, or sending fitful showers
To wash her warm cheek's fondest passion-flowers.

III

Her lips released the music which the lute
Of her soft tongue discoursed; or, if 'twas mute,
A living whisper, a perpetual breath,
Almost a sigh, did on her lips remain;
As if 'twould rather linger in such death
Than fly to life where louder breathings reign.
O'er the transparent clearness of her brow
Her hair, like a fine waterfall, waved down,
Bathing the pliant marble of her neck;
Whose native light streamed through without a speck,
Now flashing out in snowiness, and now
Hiding its glory in a ringlet's crown.
Her waist love-zoned; her veins seemed heaven's blue,
And their bright blood the sunshine that runs through.
Simple, yet robed in all that dignifies;
Gifted with beauty's artless eloquence;
Her look fell humble, as ashamed to rise,
And her thin hand upraised its innocence
To screen (in vain) those spirit-lighted eyes.

IV

A Poet's heart beat for her in that hour,
And gave its pride to grace her single power;
Though he had taught life's sleep to dream and think
Of shapes unmet with, save in death's far sky,
Which his youth pined for—yet on earth each link
Of his soul's chain had been some ardent eye.

And there stood she to whom the poet's line
Seemed hope's true calendar of wild desire;
Whose speech was music, whose unwasting fire
Burned on her gentle heart as on a shrine.
Their eyes perceive each other's beauty, growing
With too much splendour to be gazed upon;
But only felt to tremble in its flowing,
With fear that fetters not the hope it girds;
While as he speaks, all cold concealment gone,
A silver sigh answers his golden words.

V

And that brief moment of the heart's unveiling,
Is worth its long years of succeeding light;
For every coming hour must find it failing
With hopes that may return not—onward sailing
Until its voyage shall be wrecked in night,
And all things darken in the sinking sight.
Not thus with these—the poet who had seen
Earth's splendour fade before him, and the bride
Whom his stript breast now sheltered in its pride—
In whom no thought recoiled on what had been,
But clasped the heart whereof she felt the queen,
And feared no darkness as the daylight died.
Each was the other's life: their passion seemed
All that hath e'er been found, or feigned, or dreamed;
The atmosphere and earth, the sky, the shade—
All which was theirs to see, and all that cannot fade.

VI

Their melancholy was but deeper joy,
Too deep for smiles—for he was marked with grief;
And she, though sunnier thoughts the spell destroy,
Was fashioned in the sweetest starriest time
E'er whispered of in poet's midnight rhyme;
And her pale gloom had ever felt relief
In token of a morrow. Now they were
Throned on the bosom of their love, uniting
In one small circle all that least can err,
Sting and deceive, with all that most can bless,
Support and shield in virtue's pathlessness.
They winged them o'er the fields of air, alighting
In some lone spot to talk on fairy themes;
Or twined within the hollow of a shell
Whose sea-voice sang to them, steered their true dreams.
Where never mortal eye hath seen how well
The beautiful unenvied things of ocean dwell,
They met the winds together; walked the space
Of their serene dominions as a meadow,
Reading strange poetry on heaven's face,
Translated by the heart. Their spirits rode
On a loose rose-leave or a flying shadow,
Looking for happiness; and in such quest
Its ample heaven inhaling, as afar
His fleet heart's horses bore her willing car.
They gazed upon their vastness of abode,
And asked not if the traveller Time should rest;
They knew no measure in mortality.

And if the heavens should change they could not guess,
If the pale earth should shrink beneath the sea,
And if the large sun roll blank and shadowless.

VII

Around his heart she hovered like a bird
Secure of its firm nest; his faintest word
Called sudden light into her love-taught eyes,
And bound her in a chain of ecstasies.
She sent rich-laden sighs from out her soul,
And caused fair smiles and dew-like tears to sit
In his heart's honeysuckles; or on the scroll
Of the vast shore his haunting image traced,
And wept to see the waters razing it.
Or harped some magic words of love misplaced,
Then clung in sweet conviction to her own,
Breathing her winged wishes through her eyes,
That trembled as they flew. And on a throne
Built in a little skiff, impelled by sighs
And launched on tears (a picture of man's love),
They drifted in the morning of the moon—
He on her heart which lulled him still too soon;
Whilst his illumined features mutely move
With the strange life within; till it would fly
Like a quick cloud before the wakening eye.

VIII

She watched him like a star, till sleep would seal
Her fervid eyes; till each sweet sense would reel,

Yet never tiring, with deep prayers and hopes,
And love that gazing could no longer feel,
But burned and burned—too strangely to reveal.
They safely bounding from some daisied slope,
She passed her fingers o'er his brow, and wrought
A spell of peace around each struggling thought.
She studied how his secret pain to win,
That she might bear it, though it were sharp with sin.
Still waiting on his eye as her life's king,
That motioned her still purpose; from the bee
That gave him its true wealth she wooed the sting,
And balmed his worldly heart with Love's own surgery.
In earth's dim chamber she did hang a lamp,
Gilding its walls with cheerfulness, and breathed
Strength in the sinking fire that chased the damp;
And as he left the chilling crowd she flew
His love to kindle and his hate subdue;
Binding his shattered feelings, till he sheathed
That withering fury—smiling in the hue,
The truant picture of a poet's mind,
That feels a joy in rest which flight could never find.

IX

His wearied feet she bathed with pleasant waters;
And with a magic care she treasured up
The dew of morning in a lily's cup,
For the noon's banquet, not produced by slaughters,
Which she did spread in such peace-haunting bowers
That all the year seemed sown with long and happy hours.

And when Night's wing hath skimmed the purple air,
And fond hearts sleep within a breast as fair,
Hers throbbed before him, or enthralled beside,
Answered its nature's name—a poet's bride.
In every season, scene, and wearying trial,
Still rose she as the light on his heart's dial;
Folding his bosom from each naked woe,
The storm above and frozen world below.
In rage, compassion, pride—in that disdain
Which knows no terror and which owns no pain,
In the strange frenzy of that full belief
Which binds imagined raptures in dull grief,
In those wild moments of unearthliness,
When mortals with the dead, not living, hold
Their spiritual converse—she did press
Still as his own; a wanderer from life's fold
To share his herbless mountain and bleak waste,
And mould her beauty to her shepherd's taste;
To have no prompter but his look—no song
But Love's deep whisper which contained no wrong.

X

At the year's dawn pale coronals she twined
To screen him from the sun, whose furious ray
She locked in her parched heart; and then resigned
Her burning wealth to warm his wintry day.
And lovelier were the leaves that took their birth
From that fair stem than e'er have dropt from earth;

High on Affection's mount, its tops partook
Heaven's holiest light, its root earth's clearest brook.
Formed to depend, and yet majestic made;
To bend in pliancy, yet rise unchecked,
Save by the hand that clung to it for aid
When Hope's bold galley on the world lay wrecked.
Branching and budding to its master's hand,
A breath might stir it, whirlwinds not command;
Gracing the calm—or, struck by sudden thunder,
With bending top it saved the blossoms under.
In the wide wilderness it had no brother;
A gentle sky bedewed it in pure love;
And though it shared the sorrow of its mother,
Rooted in dust, its bright brow waved above.

XI

She lived as lives the moon, for her dark lord,
Or rainbow, scabbard of the tempest's sword;
Thus like a mountain shadow, broad and brief
As the sun ruleth; or a bird's bright grief
Loving the beam that blinds it—thus lived she
For him who lived for all—whose heart and mind
Were of one essence, mixed and most refined;
Whose moral was a deep unhiding sea;
Though men in life ne'er ventured on its glory,
They found in death the truth of his strange story.
Thus lived they in the world things of the sky,
With hopes that could not falter, love not die.

Their lives a secret from the vulgar throng,
Their very names unsyllabled in song.
To poets and their brides alone are given
Passion like theirs to light earth's path to heaven;
And they were circled by Love's fairies there—
Daughters bird-voiced, but more than cygnets fair,
Learning and lisping joy—and sons with wreathed hair.

XII

They were united where no human ear
Drank their deep vow, and where no human gaze
Startled their still intensity of praise;
Where feet save theirs ne'er wandered, nor huge piles
Of turrets and tall porticoes appear,
Wild nature mocking with smooth symmetry.
The clouds in maiden meekness fled the smiles
Of their bright lover, blushing into eve.
In heaven's high arch showed nothing made to die,
Where mortal pride ne'er led its pageantry,
And mortal fame had wrought not to achieve
Its sculptured triumph on a lifeless stone.
All shapes looked free, yet fastened; most alone
And yet encompassed by society.
In the far valley camels caught the wealth
Poured from the liberal mountain, fitted yet
For their unladen lives and sunny health;
And o'er a modest, mute, clear rivulet
That gushed at a hill's foot, a lone tree hung,

Sending its leafy shade to pay the debt
Of its green nourishment: and all day here
Came happy bands of never hunted deer,
Whose footsteps beat the mountain-nests among
Ne'er frighted bird, or hushed its merry tongue.

XIII

Then might the bard and his young Eve confer
Of lands too sacred for the serpent's trail—
Free paradise where no hand might err.
They turned their eyes on a most gentle dale,
Gracious, like morning standing on its shore
Ready to sail, for it did seem no more
Than the fleet gardens of the firmament.
There light and music, hue and odour blent,
Played round their senses, beamed into their blood.
Gales, trembling with their freight, mild lightning sent
Into the bosoms of unwearied streams,
That for the love of flowers, still poured their flood,
And told their wave-lipped secrets as they went.
And lilies bowed their heads, as with love-dreams,
To look on the gay jewels, which the hand
Of human vanity ne'er dived for: wings
Of most minute and perishable things
Slept, as if rested on immortal land,
In leaves that hardly hid them, and which floated
Like little ships upon their sea of light.
Each object wore the air of one devoted,
Filled with rich sympathies of sound and sight.

XIV

Bees at perpetual springs in honey draughts
Drank to the health of the gay sun, and hived
Treasure unvalued where no theft had thrived;
In lasting homes—where winter never wafts
Its piercing blight, but floats unhurting by,
Leaving a cool repose in the o'erheated sky.
In the green boughs and on the glittering ground
Were bowers for gentle birds, such as ne'er dropt
At fowler's foot, or with unheeded sound
Fluttered on brazen spire or ruined spot,
Or peaceful thatch of cotter ivy-topped.
And there they flourished in their changeless lot
Within pavilions wove of tendrils rare;
And nothing saw they that might be forgot,
But all that moved in the delighted air
Stilled at their melodies and grew more fair.

XV

And blood of lambs not destined for the knife
Of luxury or of sacrifice, atoning
For man's proud evil with their harmless life,
Ran pure as mountain water, calmly clear:
And fed with freedom hearts unworn with moaning.
Goats claimed the hilly places without fear,
Glad with continual pasture, where each blade
Did seem to bear a separate shape and shade,

Growing in green luxuriance. Vineyards yield
Their purpling drink up to the thirsty day,
And a tall wood flings forth its olive shield
Where curious forms of limpid currents stray.
O'er grassy pinnacles a pine-tree soared
Sun-bronzed, like Triumph on a pedestal;
And groves of ever-ripened fruits afford
Delicious rest and banqueting, and all
That Nature's holiest hand refineth unadorned.

XVI

And all the living verdure grows so well,
No soft small worm hath life amid its roots;
And through the air no sound unechoed shoots,
And not a leaf but whose light curl can tell
Of waters playing on their coral flutes;
No sigh or sorrow, or heart-heard farewell,
Or sharper wail when worldly promise fell—
Leaving the heart to break or find its fruits
Black with a deadly bloom—to feel its fame
But folly, disappointment, and dumb shame.
Here nothing lived that owned an earthly law:
Sincerity and Fearlessness were by;
And each seemed kindred to the scenes it saw
Break on its separate nature, from an eye
Which guiltless oped at morn and closed as merrily.
The air not damp and dark with human ills
Was as a heavenly breath, serene, endued

100

With warmer life and truer principles;
With woman's faith not man's ingratitude.
Nature, amid the rich romantic scene,
Assumed the likeness of a fairy queen,
Marking with sunny wand her pleasant circles green.

XVII

Here among scenes which the pale tempest pities,
Sighing along the desert and the waves;
Here unprofaned beneath the breath of cities,
Nor humbled by the height of painted domes
(Fit pride for kings and wonder of rude slaves),
These two united were. Upon the earth,
Heaven's altar first, they knelt and saw their homes,
Formed for all times, for mournfulness and mirth.
O'er chains like theirs but transient torture plays,
Whose links are forged from over-pliant rays.
Round the fair world they looked and saw no error;
All there was hope not precipiced by terror,
But laughing like an infant through a dream
Which ne'er might waken to a sadder theme.
Their creed is written on each other's heart,
And sealed with truth that no false hand can part.
—And o'er them flies the day, but leaves behind
A track where the moon glides, with stars strewn o'er,
Like jewels in the night sea; and they find
A bird is lingering by, unseen before,
With crest of crimson, lightening more and more
As the sun droppeth on his drowsy shore.

101

XVIII

And as a seraph-guide its wings did show
The path from that proud place, and did illume
With darting lights, and filled with rare perfume,
The herbage and the air; that held no foe
To the sweet rites which none beside may know.
And now the bird hath severed the grey gloom,
A winged devotee of love; and under
A palm-tree's ceiling shows a shrine of wonder,
Surrounded with sweet flowers—some hung like bells
And breathed upon, as a faint ringing tells;
And some when evening closed them shut within
The beam which they had loved; and these shed round
That mystic couch the light which they did win.
Each thing displayed a beauty so profound
That heaven's pure eyes look down and see no sin;
And the presiding moon hears not a sound
In her fine hall more happy than the sighs,
That break from the bride's bosom to apprize
Her poet lord, as falls the last disguise
From her full wish; and on the threshold fair
Of that safe structure, a scarce murmured air
Invites her further. They have entered there.