Julia Alpinula :: :: University of Virginia Library

As brightly wild the hours of Glory run,
So throng her shadows, and so sinks her sun;
That brilliant Circle which the day-star drew
Round Nature, is her type of being too:
See first how splendour's rushing rays adorn
The peopled towers of empire in her morn;
Thither the yet barbaric nations pour,
And Battle's blast is blown from shore to shore.

140

By fire and freedom in her bright noon nursed,
The glow of genius is a glorious thirst;
Then Power his pinnacle bestrides, and we
View Taste spring forth, like Venus from the sea,
Radiant, and pure, and goddess-like to draw
High aspirations, settling into awe.
Last Pride and Luxury, wedded to decay,
Conceal, in clouds, the ruins of her ray;
Faint, and more faint, upon the dial falls
That ray, long shadows creep o'er crumbling walls;
When that, her sunshine of renown expires,
The sons forget the grandeur of their sires;
Heroes are shrunk to vassals; deeds sublime
Are scoffed; and Liberty becomes a crime;
Scarce known, through Slavery's gathering shadows flit,
Like ghosts, the forms of Wisdom and of Wit;
Taste breaks her pencil; Hope her charmed glass,—
Another age—and her descendants pass
O'er altars rent, and sculptures green with grass;
From gilded halls, the crouching tiger springs,
And ivy crests the Capitols of kings;
Doubt on his moonlit marbles sits, and spells
Disputed names, and cancelled chronicles;
And as the melancholy wind repines
Through vacant temples, and deserted shrines,
Sighs o'er the vigils which his fondness keeps,
Or sickens at the solitude and weeps.

141

II.

Yet with her day of majesty, not all
Is wrapt in night's annihilating pall;
Memory and song transmit her patriot's name,
Through years of wrong, and centuries of shame;
Our eye once more upon their pages cast,
Forgets the present and renews the past;
Lit by their ray again, a golden shower
Of sunshine hangs on temple and on tower;
The fluted column burns; in bright relief,
Each statue stands of goddess and of chief;
The olive grows more green; a murmuring sound
Steals the rich shrines and holy mountains round.
All things existent, speak of spirit still,—
The rock, the flower, the ocean, and the hill;
On its blue crag the' Acropolis defies
The strength of time, the lightnings of the skies;
Each field, each wave o'er which the mighty flew,
By fancy tinged with inspiration's hue,
Despite the fallen fane, the people's trance,
Still breathe of power, of passion, and romance.

142

III.

Thus is there beauty still upon thy cheek,
Pride of the modern Goth, and elder Greek,
Queen of the Orient! Thou, whom Constantine
Crowned, in a bridal hour, almost divine,
To keep perpetual Glory's golden keys;
All earth thy dower, thy ministers all seas.
Though thy fair halls a tyrant makes his home,—
And the Seraglio shows its burnished dome,
Though the high Mosque a sainted sod profane,
Though bearded Moslems shame Sophia's fane,
Thou hast thy beautiful dust,—urns which enfold
The ashes of thy demigods of old;—
The same wild path of waves too, which has worn
And to the Crescent shaped thy Golden Horn,

The harbour of Constantinople obtained, in a very remote period, the denomination of the Golden Horn. Its figure was a curve resembling the horn of an ox. The epithet of golden was expressive of the riches which every wind wafted from the most distant countries into its secure and capacious port.

That path o'er which Minerva's Xenophon,
From red Cunaxa called his heroes on;
The baffled Persian barred his way in vain,
And idly round him shook his empty chain;
In all, through all, he mocked the' insidious foe,
The Median sling and the barbaric bow;
Chill, faint with famine, bleeding, wasted, wet,
Firm, though betrayed, and conquering, though beset;

143

O'er snows and sands they strive; O, can it be!
Is yon the heaving of the dark blue sea?
The shout of happy thousands rends the air:
“The sea! the sea!” and all is safety there.

The account which Xenophon gives in his history of the celebrated retreat of the Ten Thousand, of the event alluded to in the text, is one of the most interesting passages in that interesting work; one, which, after the long series of dangers to which his daring band had been exposed, awakens in the mind of the reader no common sympathy: we participate in all the joy of such a discovery. “The fifth day they arrived at the high mountain called Theches. As soon as the vanguard had ascended the mountain, and beheld the sea, they raised a mighty shout, which when Xenophon and those in the rear heard, they concluded that some other enemies were attacking them in front, for the people belonging to the country they had burned followed their rear, some of whom those who had the charge of it had killed, and taken others prisoners in an ambuscade; they had also taken twenty bucklers, made of ox-hides, with the hair on.”

“The noise still increasing as they came nearer, and the men, as fast as they came up, running to those who still continued shouting, their cries swelled with their numbers; so that Xenophon, thinking something more than usual had occurred, mounted his horse, and taking with him Lycius and his troop of cavalry, rode up to their assistance, and presently they hear the soldiers shouting—“THE SEA! THE SEA!” and cheering one another. At this all the rear-guard ran with the rest and thither were driven the horses and beasts of burden. When all were come together on the top of the mountain, they embraced their general, their captains, and one another, with many tears. And there, by whose orders is uncertain, the soldiers instantly bring together a vast number of stones, and raise a great monument, on which they placed a number of shields made of raw hides, and many other trophies taken from the enemy.”

Xenophon, Anab. Lib. iv. cap. 7.

As o'er the blackening Bosphorus they sweep,
Byzantium seems to meet them on the deep,
And gladdening thoughts of their dear Athens come
In each green olive and columnar dome;
There, in bright hour, resigned that glorious soul,
The warrior's trophy, for the sage's stole,
And left his name and story evermore,
To charm a world he almost saved before.

IV.

But past that vision, later ages roll,
Nor is Byzantium near, but Istamboul;
There, yet, a Greek the throne of Julian fills,
And sees a lordlier Athens on the hills,
Looks with wide eye around the vext Euxine,
But not to hail a warrior from its brine;
One came, and what was his embrace?—a chain.
Long may he gaze there, but to gaze in vain.
Long be Prince Andron hid from Manuel's eye,
Whate'er his doom, and wheresoe'er he fly!

144

V.

The blush of the eve fadeth dim o'er the water;
The night-wind is rising, and billows dash high,
As in her lone tower, Stamboul's loveliest daughter
Looks abroad from her lattice o'er ocean and sky.
There's a frown in the heaven, and a gloom on the ocean,
And a low, hollow dirge in the lapse of the wind,
That well suit the sad melancholious emotion,
The feeling and fire of a musical mind,—
Of one whose live chords with swift impulse will borrow
A token and tone from the hue of the hour,
Inspiration in joy, and sereneness in sorrow,
Subdued into patience, but latent with power.
She turned to the page of the past;—'twas a dream;—
To the future;—'twas life without one joyous ray;
For quenched in despair was the tremulous beam,
Her beacon by night, and her vision by day.
O, O! for a wing the dark storm to outfly
Like the birds of the storm that so soaringly shriek
Round her turret, to kindle a cresset on high,
On each Asian precipice, castle, and peak;

145

Though dim, it might lure him to anchor in sands
Where the wave lies serenest in haven and bay.
Now, haply, his bark the wild element strands,
Assassins surround, or the ruthless betray!
With that image came terror, and lowering suspense,
And doubt, giant lord of the rack and the wheel,
Whose ordeal, wrought up into torture intense,
Not the loftiest can scorn, nor the haughtiest conceal!—
She felt it—Eudora, steal over her frame,
And the veil of her fantasy strip from her eye,
As the earthquake of night, that, long slumbering in flame,
Rends the mantle of Nature in passing her by.
“I could brook,” she exclaimed, “the foul finger of scorn,
“The scowl of contempt, and the menace of hate,
“These, these, I could bear, and unmurmuring have borne
“With a bosom undaunted, and spirit elate;
“But to linger for ever in towers, to commune
“With nought but the sun-loving swallow, and cloud,
“Soaring free,—soaring free!—in calm regions of noon,
“Of their limitless pleasure and liberty proud,
“And alone on the frailty of fortune relying,
“To gaze on, to envy their transit, and feel
“There is wormwood in life, and a solace in dying,
“Yet to linger, weep, tremble, and agonize still;—
“And at night, when her poppies should silence the toil
“Of the mind, and hush all its wild fancies asleep,

146

“To dream of the loved and the absent, awhile,
“In slumber to smile, and awaking to weep;—
“I know not—this dark brain, now tearless and dry,
“May reel with its sufferance, and thus it were well;
“But gently, O maid of the lunatic eye,
“Lay thy shaft on my heart, and it will not rebel;
“For thee, savage Chief, unrepentant in ire,—
“Hark! hark! 'tis the voice of the injured that calls!
“May thy hearth be usurped by the ivy and briar,
“And the fox and owl hoot in thy tenantless walls!
“Dim, dim through the compassing clouds of decay,
“The stars that o'er-ruled thy nativity shine,
“Thy sceptre soon shivered, thy crown passed away,
“To circle a forehead more royal than thine:
“I err not; there sits on a shadowy throne,
“Whose steps are on kingdoms, the form of the brave,
“With finger that beckons, ah me! 'tis his own!
“Now, haughty Insulter! down, down to the grave!”

VI.

With filmed eye, and fixed look,
As if her brain, indeed, were reeling,
Eudora trembled as she spoke
This more than earthly burst of feeling;

147

For there was visioned to her sight
With martial figures compassed round,
A form, an eye like Andron's, bright,
With sceptred hand, and arm unbound,—
But dark his cheek as one who frowned
Some object of his hate to see,—
Fetter or chain, whose cankering wound
He wears to all eternity;
And in his eye there still was dread,
As one not yet unused to pain,—
That sleepless sense of torture fled,
Whilst dark remembrances remain,
Which Titan on his rock would feel
Loosed from his eagle and his chain,
Or mad Ixion from his wheel,
That ordeal of a brain
Blinded by Night's long tyrannies,
To which the very light of skies
Were agony, until it grew
Fixed and familiar to the view:
But his Byzantine diadem
Was starred with many a flaming gem,
Opal, and pearl, and amethyst,
Torn from turbans of the East,
And crouched on many a gonfalon,
From Syria's holiest ramparts won;
His feet the Turkish libbard kissed;—

148

It might be but a phantasm sent
In pity from the world of dreams,
A show which fancy oft has lent
To soften passion's fierce extremes,
But which in years of brighter date,
The future quickens into fate.
Whence, or whate'er that gifted vision
Which charmed her soul with thoughts Elysian,
Or of the future or the past,
It could not, and it did not last:
The image of that sceptred king,
The glittering diadem he wore,
Passed by, like an unreal thing,
And she but listens to the roar
Of rising winds and tossing seas,
And the stormy music which the breeze
Makes as it drives ashore
The big waves, that, in ceaseless lash,
Heavily boom, and whitely dash.

VII.

A moment, and Eudora's heart,
Its own proud quietude regains,

149

And high resolve and courage, dart
A keener current through her veins.
But hark; she hears the dread tambour
Beat an alarum near her tower,
In a wild, a muffled knell.
“Blessed Virgin! can it be,
“Is my chief no longer free!
“Seek they this lone cell!”
Hush, for the cry of warder!—no;
But the wailing trumpets blow
Accents sorrowful and shrill.
Vale to valley, hill to hill,
Wave to wave, the signal tossed;
In the captive's fancy naming
Andron's name, with grief proclaiming
Lost, for ever lost.
In the courts around, below,
Heard was many a voice, recounting
Fruitless chasing of the foe;
Knights from weary steeds dismounting;
Horses pawing, arch resounding;
Watchword passed to centinel;
Helm unbuckling; sabre sheathing;
Soldier curse or blessing breathing
On the mighty scaped so well.

150

Sounds now ceasing, now renewing,
Rising on the ear, and fainting,
Andron gone beyond pursuing:—
Hers is pleasure past the painting.
Now there's not a voice in hearing,
Knight on knight is disappearing
From the area's space, below.
Ye, who've seen the battle veering,
Doubting, trembling, hoping, fearing,
Banners rearing, sinking, rearing,
Till a panic seized the foe,
And they fled, like winds on ocean,
With a terrible commotion,—
That lone lady's deep emotion,
Ye, and ye alone, can know.
Far-off is the tambour beating;—
Far-off are the bugles greeting;
Ceasing as the bands they number,
Striking now the hour of slumber.
In an echo, deep and low,
Through the silent city ranging,
Stationed guards the watch are changing.
Hark! again their trumpets blow
Accents silver toned and shrill!—
Not a beagle now is baying,
Soldier shouting, war-horse neighing;—
All lies gathered, dark and still.

151

VIII.

All is still but the wind on the wave,
The minute-beat of the ocean's pulse!
All is at rest but the hoarser rave
Of rushing tides which the walls repulse,—
That mighty voice, that hollow sound
From all the mustering billows round,
Heaved in a mass from realm to realm,
As if the floods which erst did whelm
The universal earth, were yet
Not all assuaged, nor could forget
How, in their rushing might, went down,
Temple on temple, tower on town,
The lofty mountains wild and wide
With all their snows upon them,—Pride
In his communion with the stars,—
Battle, with all his crests and cars,—
All, all the Omnipotent created,
And none were left of millions, none
But Pyrrha and Deucalion,
To watch the waves as they abated,
And smile, amid their wilderness,

152

When the first star of their new night
Put forth from clouds, its lonely light
As Venus dimly does on this.
With thoughts like theirs, Eudora sate,
Her eye upon the roaring strait;
Earth, was, to her, that vacant ball,
And she the only left of all.
But yet not wholly left:—a strain
Is heard from Passion's sweetest string;
To the Genii of the main,
Is it that sister-spirits sing!
Is it that the sea-shell rings
With the west-wind's visitings,
Now just hushed,—now mildly waking
Sounds which the hoarse sea is breaking,
And breathing now, when it seemed o'er,
A heavenlier strain than all before!

IX.

Bright in the bosom of the west,
There shines a track in the stormy skies;—
Is it the wan moon's wasting crest,
Which sheds one luminous smile and flies!—
Its momentary lustre lies,

153

With lapse of shadow, on the main,
But flashes through her glimmering grate,
On each memorial of her fate,—
Portal and pillow, bar and chain,—
And shows a cedarn lute, uphung
Ere the beam was in its wane,
O'er which the fairy-footed winds,
Had walked in tenderness, and flung
The all unearthly strain
Which came, which often comes to gentle minds,
Who eye the brightness of that star which binds
Our life with beauty in a magic link
With each fresh ray which thence our spirits drink.

X.

From the high and sullen walls
She that lute of lutes hath taken;
Happy airs in happy halls,
It was ever wont to waken.
There is a bliss in every touch
Of chords where Andron's used to linger;
But yet her numbers are not such:—
Hark ye to her fairy finger.

154

1.

“Camest thou, trembling soul of sound, from o'er the heaving sea
To bear the voice of him I love, absent although he be!
Gladness was in each tone; but yet these waters of my woe
Obey not the beguiling charm; they lie too deep to flow.
This heart, alas! has long been chill, and dry this aching brain,
And I deem, even now, of a Princess' pride, that it should not stoop to pain.

2.

“I sit in the visions of my thought, my palace-hall a tower,
And memory traces yet for me, thy first departing hour.
All day I watched, though fled the ship, thy pathway on the sea,
Which though serene as light, yet seemed to darkly frown on me;
The dashing of the sable waves, the murmur of the blue.
Re-echoed back upon my heart, thy desolate adieu.

155

3.

“I sit in the visions of my thought; 'twas sunset on the main,
The Turkish blast of war blew o'er, we flew to our hills again.
To scenes of liberty and peace, where heroes of old name
Blew Freedom's Grecian clarion, till the world filled with their fame;
It was thy bliss by Delphi's wave, and consecrated shrine,
To dwell upon their deeds as my warm spirit did on thine.

4.

“But through the bowers where turtles dwell, the eagle's eye may roam,
And loved Parnassus' mountain-peaks will be the thunder's home:
The war-bell tolled our knell of peace, but still it was a charm
To watch the floating of thy crest, the waving of thine arm,
Till gashing swords rained wounds on thee, and then my brain became
Frantic with agony and fear,—all ashes, yet all flame.

156

5.

“I sit in the visions of my thought; a vesper-hymn arose,—
Old Stamboul's sword was scabbarded, and vanished were her foes!
On the golden sands of the shelly sea, at evetide, were we met,
And still we gazed, and lingering watched, though many a star had set.—
Who, at so sweet an hour, could hear immortal ocean roar,
And leave to vacancy and night, that dear romantic shore?

6.

“But ev'n at that delicious hour, and on that tranquil path,
Rapt in such joy as angels feel, and pure Elysium hath,—
In that divinity of thought—soothed, softened, melted, awed,
Hate spoke his malison, and poured his vials all abroad;

157

Why did I e'er survive that night, why when the morning frowned,
Wake from the sickly trance of grief to see my warrior bound!

7.

“Then agony—but thou art safe, and I should not repine,—
Bright flowers bedeck thy goodly stem! they bloom no more on mine.
In the loved presence of my lord, I stood a beauteous tree,
The glory of sweet waters near, the banquet of the bee;—
The lightning fell, nor dew nor shower can ever gladden more
My leafless branches, for decay is busy at the core.

8.

“Orion proudly mounts the sky, pale shimmering through the shower;—
Why does he bend a guiding ray to this sepulchral tower!

158

The weight of sleep is on my lids; winds, clouds, stars, waters, ye
Must be my ministers of rest, my sentries must ye be!—
Give all your sounds to this lorn lute, when silent and uphung,
That life, captivity, and light, may look like strangers long!

XI.

Not long the golden juice might lie
Of slumber on Eudora's eye;
In restless ecstacy, her dream
Made night's uncertain phantoms seem
Like him she loved, for ever near;—
But flying, ever, chased by fear,
And she as on the wings of wind,
Was hasting evermore behind.
In seeming swiftness, now they pass
The spiry cliff, the quick morass,
And hill whose windy summit forms
Wild lineament of clouds and storms,
Which, as she tracked his steps with pain,
Would tear him from her sight again.

159

Anon, bewildering Fancy gave
Her wanderer to the dancing wave;
Blue glowed the waters, and on high
His sails swelled in a cloudless sky;—
She had forsook her hated tower,
Had baffled Manuel's jealous power,
And far, upon the tossing main,
His flying vessel sought to gain.
The shore was near; the' ambitious prow
Chid the long billows' lingering flow;
But as the sails the seamen furl,
The whirlwinds rise, the surges curl;
A moment—and the form he wore
Is whelmed beneath the ocean-floor.
Now seem the war-drum and the fife,
Again to call her chief to life;
With plated cuirass on his breast,
With white plume waving, lance in rest,
On, on he rushed to victory,
“For Stamboul!” was the battle-cry,
And cloven shield, and turban-fold,
Horseman and horse, beneath him rolled;—
But, full upon her startled view,
Distinct, a Giant shadow grew!
His arm ascending in the sky,
Unsheathed the sabre from his thigh,

160

Dark Manuel's form he seemed to wear,
With laughing shout, and frantic air,
Her visioned Prince he sternly smote,
Who groan or murmur uttered not,
But strove one only thought to claim,
In utterance of her gentle name.
His timeless fate her woe would weep,
And anguish broke the bonds of sleep.

XII.

She woke in terror, and her eye, awake,
Yet seemed in ghastly energy to ache
With some such vision as in sleep appeared
To woo her to the danger which she feared,
For as upon the lonely walls it fell,
She saw a shadow move across the cell,—
Slow, but distinct, no creature of the brain,
It paused,—it moved,—and then it paused again.
Eudora, startled at the Presence, said
“What form art thou which risest from the dead
“To awe my sorrow? Ha! I know thee now,
“O Andron! O my husband! it is thou!—
“The paleness of the grave is on thy brow.

161

“And thou wert buried in the darkening deep:—
“I knew it! there was torture in my sleep!
“Speak to my spirit, shade of air, or place
“Thy shadowy form once more in my embrace.”
It was no dream: she rushed that shade to clasp,
And a strong arm of iron met her grasp.
She feebly, fondly shrieked; that shriek again
Another's voice of gladness made more plain.
A few wild accents faltered on her tongue;—
To his fond arms the sad Eudora sprung,
Threw back the tresses of her hair, though weak,
That hers might feel the pressure of his cheek,
Which chill at first, and tremulous, became
With the next pulse, all fever and all flame,
Flushed with a hope too strong for mortal faith,
And scarcely conscious of his life or death;
He kissed her beating temples,—stilly kissed,—
And, whispering, strove to clear away the mist
Which wrapt her soul,—those thoughts which scarce we feel—
When dread and doubt contend with hope and zeal.
It is the living Andron in her arms,
Who stills her tremors, and her terror calms!—
“Fear not, Eudora, heaven has heard thy prayer,
“It still has left some joy for both to share;—

162

“But hush! though deep the stair, thy voice may tell
“My tale of wonder to the centinel.
“I heard, I hear his footfall in the gale.—
“Hark to the tread!—now list, I have a tale.”
—'Twas long ere that delicious agony
Was o'er, that flood of deep suspense and joy;
Long, long her eye the glassy lustre took,
Which on the seeming spirit bent its look,
Till, cleared from her delusive dream of fear,
She faintly smiled, and bowed her head to hear.

XIII.

“Manuel thou know'st, with what a jealous guard
“These towers he strengthened and this cell he barred,—
“Barred from approach alike of friend and foe,
“A spy within, a bloodhound lurked below,
“That so, if ev'n the virtue of the grape
“Might steep all others, this might track escape.
“Whilst thou, my life, wert near at times to soothe
“My hopes, all blighted in their fire of youth,
“To give thy soft voice to the summer-wind,
“And teach the sullen warder to be kind,—
“Whilst thy stol'n visits made my chains sit well,
“I was a Prince, though fettered in my cell!—

163

“My first, sole feelings, giv'n to love and thee,
“I recked not of the bliss of being free;
“But when his active hate afar removed
“The form I worshipped, and the voice I loved,
“I felt an angry malice in my veins,
“And burned, and fretful, strove to break my chains,
“If only in defiance of the wrong,
“To sting the' unfeeling, and to pique the strong;
“But every rivet of the fettering coil
“With firmness mocked the toiler and the toil,
“Till, late last night, in grinding rage I lent
“My utmost vigour to the fierce intent;—
“It bent! it snapped as by a powerful charm!
“Oh! it was heaven once more to stretch my arm
“In freedom to the stars, and wave abroad
“The bickering splendours of my sheathless sword!
“He left me this with sneers but ill concealed
“To mock the hand which should essay to wield,—
“But wielding this, I still the power command
“To teach the long-chained arm, the writhing hand,
“The long reversion of their wrongs to quit,
“Till pride of art repays his scornful wit.
“I next surveyed my cell from side to side,
“With loftier instinct, and an ampler stride,
“And each lethargic sense, with freedom, rose
“To tenfold strength from languor's long repose;

164

“And prying grew my gaze; that gaze was thrown
“By chance, at length, upon a loosening stone,
“Through whose small cleft I felt the crannying air:
“The stone removed, light broke on my despair,—
“I saw the semblance of a broken stair!
“A glimpse of hope, one glimpse, however brief,
“Will rouse the loneliest captive from his grief.
“I toiled till midnight, in that secret way;
“On arched walls in ruinous decay
“The moon through rifts her lonely lustre threw;
“I hailed the omen with dilated view;
“And now resolved the cavern to explore,
“Replaced, with care, the loose stones of the floor.
“There have I walked, and heard the quickening sound
“Of waters rolling freely, but profound.
“I know not where it leads, but, where it leads
“Are tangled roots, loose earth, and clustering weeds,
“And there some outlet we may find, or shape
“By mine or breach, the means of our escape.
“I heard all day the shrilling horn proclaim
“The captive's freedom, and the monarch's shame,
“And smiled to think, that I, in my dim vault,
“Could with such dread the purple-born assault!
“I heard the rush of steeds, the creaking gates,
“(How my heart shudders whilst my tongue relates!)—

165

“Which to this sullen cell my love betrayed:—
“But, fear not, all shall sternly be repaid;
“And if to bound once more upon the tide,
“In nature's freedom, be a wish denied,
“Life yet shall roll rejoicingly away,
“Thy arms my camp, thy smile of smiles my ray,
“Till, tempered to thy loveliness of soul,
“Death opes a portal to the years which roll
“In music, and our bark obeys the breeze,
“To happy islands o'er celestial seas.”

XIV.

Then came the long embrace, the scanning eye,
The eager question, and the fond reply;
The feelings uttered of departed years,
Sweet smiles of rapture, and still sweeter tears.
To one who long in pain has pined apart,
How grateful rush those ‘waters of the heart!’
The cord which bound the brain, beneath the thirst
Of long-denied relief is brightly burst;
And then, how fast, how free those currents rise!—
The heart transfers all utterance to the eyes.
No desert spring, just found in cooler skies,
Ere the breath thickens, and the traveller dies,—

166

No sound which life's scarce-beating pulse recals,
Of palms that whisper with the cloud that falls,
Comes with such gladdening import to his ear,
As the full flow of Hope's forgotten tear;
The heart's sweet flowers though withered long ago,
Fed by those drops, catch freshness as they flow,
And give their incense to the winds again,
In grateful triumph o'er remembered pain.

XV.

Eudora trembled, though by tears relieved;—
It was so sudden, scarce could be believed.
An hour ago so tortured, now so blest!
In the past—anguish,—in the future—rest!
She wished no more than, thus, in chambers dim,
To gaze, love, listen, weep once more with him:
Day, midnight, eve, may roll unheeded now,
Too happy she to think if swift or slow;
Nor can the seasons, in their changes more
Brighten or chill;—the billow on the shore
Which lately broke, as with bewildered groan,
Has much of music in its loneliest tone,—
It seems to say, they are the only two
With whom earth, sky, and ocean have to do.

167

XVI.

To thoughts of lightest kind, joy lends his ray,
And paints the morrow brighter than to day;
Though not by day, with Andron, can she steal
The bliss to speak, the paradise to feel,
To watch with him the clouds that flit and flee,
The gliding ships, the sunsets o'er the sea,
And birds of calm that dip their azure wings
In ocean, loveliest of a thousand things,—
Yet can she soothe the darkness of his cell,
With glad inventions that shall please as well.
Romantic harp, and legendary song,
Shall make his hours of absence seem less long;
And the resounding voice of one so dear,
Falling like seraph's hymns upon his ear,
Shall soothe each wild anxiety, and still
The many thoughts that blindly war with will.
The night is all their own; and O, the night
Has charms—the hours in their so silent flight,
Each stamped with lovelier feeling than the last,
And each more prized in passing to the past.
The faint white flush long lingering in the west,
The stars revolving, and all earth at rest

168

Save two fond souls, the only ones which find
Their Eden in this vigil of the mind:—
The all-transfusing eye, the placid brow,
The whispering undertone, the murmured vow,
The midnight watch o'er weariness asleep,
The chronicles which they together keep,
The clouds that round the moon in shadow lay,
The yellow moonshine brightening all the bay,
Or, yet more stirring to a heroine's soul,
The thunders in their repercussive roll,
The storm, the wind, the lightning, and the sweep
Of the gigantic waters of the deep.

XVII.

Yes,—these shall all be theirs, and hers the care
To save the ripest fruits for him to share,
Or whate'er else stern Manuel may impart
To feed with life her agony of heart,
To smile away the clouds which intervene
To make his present what the past had been;
And he, too, in such visions, feeleth more
Of promised comfort than in years before.
Yes! though a thousand tender ties allied
The young, the plighted bridegroom to his bride,

169

Though 'twas his pride in love's ecstatic hour
To tend her as a florist tends a flower,
Note each bright sparkle of her eye, each tress
Whose motion was a living loveliness,
Treasure each object that had felt her touch,
And ever in her absence think of such,
Yet, never, in her bridal hours, she seemed
So beautiful as now, when o'er her streamed
Her hair from recent sorrow loosely thrown
On the fair breast that throbbed for him alone—
Now,—when her many sufferings all approved
How she resented, and how fondly loved.
The blooms of virgin passion past away,
Time gives to Woman deeper claims than they,—
That new existence flushing round the heart,
The friendship, pure, which acts a sister's part.
No act of hers but breathes a secret charm,
Desires all innocent, affections warm;
The white transparent candour of the brow,
No false appearance, no dissembled vow,
But open faith, unconscious of a crime,
Emotions mild, and harmonized by time;
A concord ripened into love sincere,
Kind without doubt, and tender without tear;—
The electric threads which by new instincts tied,
Age does but strengthen, pain can not divide:

170

Touched by the hand that spun them, how they thrill!
So fond in good, so doubly fond in ill,
That only at our glance of scorn or hate,
Scorched they recoil, and leave us to our fate!

XVIII.

Fortune not oft seems anxious to atone
The wrongs of years, and blend all joys in one,
When grand events in sure succession flow,
Wave after wave, nor yet too fast, nor slow,—
When various means, in due gradation tend,
Firm to one purpose, faithful to one end,
As though to lifeless things were given a sense
Of good and evil, an intelligence
To deal around, for years of crime and wrong,
Strength to the weak, and weakness to the strong;
Yet now to Andron's lot such grace was lent,
To soothe a spirit broken but unbent,
As if heaven now had made him all its care,
In one glad moment answering years of prayer.

171

XIX

A tower stood near in sight, whose battled frieze
Sung to the wing and wildness of the breeze,
Where oft the sea-bird in its fear would hie,
When winds were up, and tempests swept the sky;
With clustering ivy were the loopholes hid;
Seaward the steep cliffs all access forbid;—
Poised on the boiling surf, it seemed to be
An island rock, or pillar of the sea.
But not on all sides beaten,—for to view
On one grey side, high clustering alders grew,
In florid verdure beautiful; the more
As Andron oft had watched their growth before;—
Hour after hour it was his wont to stand,
And watch the leaf a twig, the twig a wand,
The wand a graceful sapling in whose leaves
The small birds sang so sweet in summer-eves:—
The very leaves brought peace to him, they played
With such sweet interchange of light and shade,
And threw, when all was black and parched around,
Bright thoughts of freedom in their whispering sound—
In that quick sympathy of thought which finds
Love in the trees, rocks, waters, stars, and winds,

172

So full with feeling that it must express
That love, or perish with its mute excess.

XX.

There are mysterious sounds at this lone hour,
Heard from the rustling ivies of that tower,
The alder-branches, rent, in ruin fall,
And steps are surely heard upon the wall,
And voices through the wind to answering voices call.
And something like the name of Andron there,
To them the many-murmuring billows bear.
The prince looked out, the eastern clouds were white
With morn's first flush, and by that dubious light
He sees a beckoning form which now is bent,
'Twixt sea and sky, above his battlement.
'Tis Cosmo! in far sterner hours than these,
Towers he has scaled o'erhanging deeper seas,
When every step was o'er a foeman slain,
A turbaned Turk, or prostrate Saracen.
“Captive, a stranger and a friend, behold:—
“I smile at danger, fortune aids the bold.
“Haste! to thyself thy flight and freedom owe,
“Night rolls away, a bark is moored below,

173

“And once afloat, no arm can countervail
“The tossing billow and the driving sail.
“Cosmo of Venice knows no idle fear;—
“I pitied thy sad doom, and I am here;
“Nor shalt thou doubt my truth,—a jewelled ring,
“This scarf enfolds, fit signet of a king,
“Found on the morrow of that midnight strife
“Which left thee, Christian captive, nought but life.”

XXI.

And Andron knew that figured scarf of pride,
Though deeply stained, had wrapt his early bride;
And this the monarch's ring, the seal of power
Which stamped his will on that remembered hour.
He faltered thanks to heaven! a beam of thought
Flashed on his mind, and there like sunshine wrought;
“Stranger, he said, I tax thy courage high,
“The path is dangerous which thou needs must try;
“For me I reck not of the venturous limb
“To scale a turret or the billow swim;
“But on thy aid, Eudora must depend;—
“This instant, therefore, with the ring descend,

174

“And at the orient gate, beside the sea,
“Seeks out the Cyprian guard who holds the key,—
“Brief be thy message; bid them that they bear
“The slave Eudora, to the garden stair,
“With one attendant left, prince Andron meets thee there.”

XXII.

In pride of peril, with a brief adieu,
Cosmo received the ring, and thence withdrew;—
Passed to the tower which bears the ocean blast,
And gave the word to Guiscard as he passed.
A kiss of gladness, and one soothing tone,
Are given Eudora, and her chief is gone
Down the deep windings of the steps of stone.
No outward sign that vault must e'er betray;—
'Tis closed upon him, and he strides away:
So much of firmness did his step assume,
She would not doubt, but still must dread his doom.
With ear awake to every sound, she stands,
Pale lip, quick pulse, short breath, and clasped hands,
And eager head bent downward to the floor;
A faint, departing footfall sounds—one more—

175

And all is silence, and a dim delay,
And golden moments hurrying on the day;
Then a strong arm has smote the yielding wall,
And stones fall fast without—she hears them fall.
What next the Lady saw, she scarcely knew,
Sick with suspense, or dizzy with the view,—
A gasping at the heart she felt, of breath
Denied,—the film without the rest of death.

XXIII.

But grappling fast the cords which Guiscard flung,
'Twixt crag and coast, intrepid Andron hung,—
So low, he heard the swimming bittern shriek,
And felt the salt foam driven upon his cheek;
But even in this severe extremity,
Hope filled his soul,—he felt that he was free!
And bliss was in that momentary date,
That dangerous pause, which vigour saved from fate.
He nears the summit with a greeting eye;—
A moment, and the cords vibrating fly,
Loose to the winds, and, in a wild embrace,
Guiscard he folds, hiding his weeping face
Within his mantle, and his words, though weak,
All—all that e'er the heart can utter, speak.

176

XXIV

Oh, there was music in the oars' long sweep,
Which bore their boat so boldly on the deep!
And a stern beauty in each wave that flew
By the strong keel, then flashed away in dew!
The amplitude of heaven, the stars, the robe
Of freedom spread o'er all the glorious globe,
The stir of the strong winds, the cry—the call
Of Nature in her boundless carnival,
Come down upon his heart, and that endue
As with a sense electrical and new.
But dark emotions mingled, unforgot,
And urged him, like an eagle, past the spot.
A light is glimmering at the iron gate,
And there are slaves, with folded arms, who wait.
The guards in silence eyed them as they came,
Just bowed in reverence at the emperor's name,
Bear from the tower Eudora's fainting weight
And idly of the stormy ocean prate.
His hand prince Andron to the stranger gave,
Then waved his arm and measured back the wave.
Long at that gate the mutes remained to gaze,
In darkening doubt, and ill-suppressed amaze,

177

And many a legend of remorse and awe
From this wild night did Grecian damsels draw
Of her who would not o'er the waters flee,
And of the armed Phantom of the Sea.

XXV.

No longer tossed upon the waves of night,
'Tis morn, and ocean smiles again in light;
The clouds have vanished ere the stars went down,
And heaven's deep figure shows without a frown
As in Creation's birth; around, behind,
The azure waves are rolled before the wind;
There one white sail glides happily and fleet,
As speed and sunshine fill the flowing sheet.
To them who o'er those freshening billows bound
Life, like the sea, is an enchanted round,—
A path of rays,—a circle of delight,—
All wildly free, and passionately bright;—
Too full for speech they sit, and silent eye,
Upward, the blue benevolence of sky,
Offering their orisons;—and thus they glide,
By human eye unknown and undescried,
Hour after hour, along the ample tide.
Away! away! away! for ever so,
Long as the breeze shall urge, the waters flow,—

178

Through noon, through eve, through night, a second day
Burns on the wave, but still away, away.
The bark flies forward to a barbarous shore,
And doubt expires, and danger is no more.

XXVI.

Long years in Manuel's eye, a restless gloom
Was seen to strive, and haunt him to the tomb.
And Andron came his kinsman's strife to see,
The last strong throe, and mortal agony.
And Manuel's crown he wore, and saw the stones
Grow grey with years, and darken o'er his bones.
Whate'er befel that heart, his own was changed,
In roving wide, avenging or avenged.
He brought a bride from o'er the heaving main,
Yet on his brow were lines,—perchance of pain,—
Such they might be! who knew? who knows ev'n now?—
They could but see the blackness of his brow.
If e'er Eudora's name was named aloud,
His look grew gloomy, and his bearing proud:
In all beside, gay, versatile, and brave,
Free as the wind, and reckless as the wave.

END OF CANTO II.