Legends of the Morrow | ||
13
SABA.
I
Death saw the ring with eyes ice cold,And clasped the wedded maid:
She felt his arms her heart enfold
And in his keeping stayed.
She breathed not and her eyes were dark;
But, while unsouled she lay,
The ring which tranced her left no mark,
So she passed not away.
14
II
'Twas at her bridal, when the ringOn Saba's finger slid:
The death-touch did it seem to bring
The pending bliss amid.
All dizzy, (not through inward glare
So blinding to a bride),
She fell upon the altar-stair,
And like a martyr died.
III
There was a calm upon her face;The love seemed from it driven.
Was it the ring whose hard embrace
Had with her passion striven,
15
And chilled her blood to ice,
And, serpent-like, whose coil had crushed
Her heart within its vice?
IV
All sojourn with the soul that diesTill their one day of birth;
They rarely bring the mysteries
Of their old world to earth.
But Saba's land breathed frankincense
Whose balm can death delay;
So in her youth departing thence
Her soul came back to day.
16
V
She died amid her fields of myrrhAnd incense-feeding spice;
So did her soul keep nigh to her
In its own paradise,
Whose balms unto her bosom crept,
Though breathless and unmoved;
Whose odours on her bosom slept
Though it no longer loved.
VI
All watch her till in dizzy hazeThey seem to glide along,
Like those who, over-still, forth-gaze
Upon a moving throng.
17
To make a sudden stay,
And death within eternity
To move another way.
VII
A form so still, it may be sleepThat neither lives nor dies;
So well doth she her secret keep
Who through her transit hies.
Her life and death in one same glance
Do all beholders see;
Her life and death in one same trance:—
Which shall the victor be?
18
VIII
What keeps her soul, low-hovering,Of neither world a part?
They bid the bridegroom move the ring
That presses on her heart:
She breathes; they see her bosom stir;
She rises from the dead:
The spirit has returned to her,
Unshackled and unwed.
IX
As from the wonder of a tranceThe bride looks out; so cold,
The bridegroom, even, dares not advance
As in the time of old:
19
The colour leaves his cheek;
He looks, still doubting if she lives
Until he hears her speak.
X
He lists to her in more alarm;His cheek grows paler still
As Saba lifts her sceptre-arm
And utters thus her will:
“At my return art thou afraid?
Death is our common lot:
Our past was but the world of shade
So soon by us forgot.
20
XI
“It is the country whence we hieAnd whither still we tend:
Alongside is eternity
Still toiling towards no end;
While shadows, piled in wavy shreds,
Among each other stray;
While souls rest on the downy beds
As on a sunken day.
XII
“There Death, that without rapture knowsThe being of the whole,
Seems still; but, ever rushing, flows
Against a mighty Soul;
21
Did reach the false and true:
The fatal ties of love unbind;
The bloom of youth renew.
XIII
“I am the queen of all the land,And Saba hath her will
While these balm-bearing forests stand
Which frankincense distil;
While these myrrh-valleys drink the sun,
And while the spice-buds grow;
While clear the holy waters run
Whence deathless rivers flow.
22
XIV
“Here floats the shadow of the palmWherein the pilgrims rest;
Here doth the loving air embalm
The bodies of the blest.
But he who hath forsworn the vows
Of love's most wondrous tie,
Now to the final forfeit bows:
It is his turn to die.”
XV
The paleness darkens o'er his face;The hues of death are there:
She watches him, with queenly grace,
Who breathes the chilly air.
23
But hidden from his eyes;
He feasts not on the life divine,
He drinks not of the skies.
XVI
He stirs no more; in darkness castHis senses are astray:
Through deep myrrh-valleys they have passed,
But Nature is away.
He falls upon the downy bed
Where the old shadows rove,
And sinks among the idle dead
Too poor for Saba's love.
Legends of the Morrow | ||