University of Virginia Library

Canto 8

But as the prisoner's strength returned to him;
And sadly back she nursed him in her thought,
For it would come to pass that he at length
Restored and full of rest would leave her side;
So, with his gathering strength, the thought grew strong
To fare away over the distant sea
And clasp those first inspirers of his life
Yet once again on his long parted breast.
And she—she saw the ungovernable hope
Spring in his eyes each day and settle there.
Then would she commune thus with her lone heart.
“And if I find some means for his escape,
If I devise his solitary flight,
For without me, and my sad aid at hand,
He never shall escape this prisoning stone!
If I, who love him so, deliberately,
Even with stratagem, and peril too,
Conspire to lose him, what the gain to me?
Why should I not then hold him as a bird,
My favourite bird to look on at all hours,
To keep and nurture, ever in my sight?
Shall I, who hang upon the thought of him,
Unbar the cage for my own misery,
And see with swimming eyes him flee away?
For never again shall he return to me,
Once having gained the vast and spacious plains,
Even should he meet with violence on his road,
Or yet again a prisoner should be held,
Or put to midnight-death in forest deep,
Or in wild tempest thrown upon the track,
And all that lovely body with the sea
Rise and subside, then sink for evermore.
Whate'er might chance to him in wandering
Back to that isle which lures him night and day,
Never shall I behold him any more,
Unless”—and now a light came to her cheek
And sudden splendour on her upraised face,
“Unless I set him free; then follow him,
Not as his servant or attending page,
But all unknown, whate'er the perils be.
For I should have more comfort in my heart,
Be better able to oppose distress,
Or danger or whate'er calamity,
So that I felt each step that I did take,
Was bringing me the nearer to his side.
O this were better! Ten times better this
Than here to languish full of memories,
Breathing what has been rather than what is.
My mother long is dead: she shall not mourn
Whate'er betide me; only I repent
My father stern, yet ever soft to me,
Left to uncertainty of my wild fate.
He to his father flies, but mine I leave.
And when did ever a woman or a girl,
Whose heart love filled, weigh old against the young,
Or father against lover; or ever set
The maiden past against the future wild,
That beckons on and ever on her soul?
So cannot I: at once I'll set him free,
But never a word of my adventure hint
And half the pain of his departure miss
In secret joyous knowledge of the heart.”
So chanced it then that, preparation made,
The Guard, cajoled or bribed or drugged asleep,
Upon a lucky night of solid gloom,
He, softly swinging down a rope, touched earth,
And was away into the ebon night.
But ere he went, again and yet again
He thanked her, and would kiss her burning lips
And swear him chained unto her memory
For ever: and if things about his hearth
Prospered, he would return and ask her hand,
Of the stern father from whose grasp he fled.
And all the while her heart was smiling fast
To think that she would follow him amain,
He knowing nothing. Last she asked of him
To say again the far-off city's name,
Which he so oft had murmured in his dreams.
“London,” he murmured; “London,” murmured she,
As though she clasped to her a talisman
Or put a key within her bosom safe
That should unlock the gates of all the West.
He being fled, Haidee her father's wrath
Must dare; but never in his mind it slipped
That she, his daughter, that escape devised.
The guards were fettered for a while; but they
Had payment full, and at their fetters laughed.
The storm of passion from her father passed;
His rage subsiding as a sea, when winds
That lifted the wild billow to the clouds
Sink; and the sun smiles out upon a floor
Of gold and scarcely heaving waters bright.
And now her own more perilous escape
She must devise and without quailing make.
First thought she, should she have companions by
And take one with her but to exchange a word,
And lighten the great solitude of nights?
But better at the last it seemed that she
Should all the adventure brave out by herself,
And if she perished, perish then alone.