 | The complete works of N.P. Willis |  |
POEMS OF PASSION.
THE DYING ALCHYMIST.
The night wind with a desolate moan swept by;
And the old shutters of the turret swung
Screaming upon their hinges; and the moon,
As the torn edges of the clouds flew past,
Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes
So dimly, that the watchful eye of death
Scarcely was conscious when it went and came.
The fire beneath his crucible was low;
Yet still it burned; and ever as his thoughts
Grew insupportable, he raised himself
Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals
With difficult energy, and when the rod
Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye
Felt faint within its socket, he shrunk back
Upon his pallet, and with unclosed lips
Muttered a curse on death! The silent room,
From its dim corners, mockingly gave back
His rattling breath; the humming in the fire
Had the distinctness of a knell; and when
Duly the antique horologe beat one,
He drew a phial from beneath his head,
And drank. And instantly his lips compressed,
And, with a shudder in his skeleton frame,
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat
Upright, and communed with himself: —
I did not think to die
Till I had finished what I had to do;
I thought to pierce th' eternal secret through
With this my mortal eye;
I felt — Oh God! it seemeth even now
This can not be the death-dew on my brow!
And yet it is — I feel,
Of this dull sickness at my heart, afraid;
And in my eyes the death-sparks flash and fade;
And something seems to steal
Over my bosom like a frozen hand —
Binding its pulses with an icy band.
And this is death! But why
Feel I this wild recoil? It can not be
Th' immortal spirit shuddereth to be free!
Would it not leap to fly,
Like a chained eaglet at its parent's call?
I fear — I fear — that this poor life is all!
Yet thus to pass away! —
To live but for a hope that mocks at last —
To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast,
To waste the light of day,
Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought —
All that we have and are — for this — for naught!
Grant me another year
God of my spirit! — but a day — to win
Something to satisfy this thirst within!
I would know something here!
Break for me but one seal that is unbroken!
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken!
Vain — vain! — my brain is turning
With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick,
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick,
And I am freezing — burning —
Dying! Oh God! if I might only live!
My phial — Ha! it thrills me — I revive.
Ay — were not man to die
He were too mighty for this narrow sphere!
Had he but time to brood on knowledge here —
Could he but train his eye —
Might he but wait the mystic word and hour —
Only his Maker would transcend his power!
Earth has no mineral strange —
Th' illimitable air no hidden wings —
Water no quality in covert springs,
And fire no power to change —
Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell,
Which the unwasting soul might not compel.
Oh, but for time to track
The upper stars into the pathless sky —
To see th' invisible spirits, eye to eye —
To hurl the lightning back —
To tread unhurt the sea's dim-lighted halls —
To chase Day's chariot to the horizon-walls —
And more, much more — for now
The life-sealed fountains of my nature move —
To nurse and purify this human love —
To clear the god-like brow
Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down
Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one:
This were indeed to feel
The soul-thirst slaken at the living stream —
To live — Oh God! that life is but a dream!
And death — Aha! I reel —
Dim — dim — I faint — darkness comes o'er my eye —
Cover me! save me! — God of heaven! I die!
'Twas morning, and the old man lay alone.
No friend had closed his eyelids, and his lips,
Open and ashy pale, th' expression wore
Of his death-struggle. His long silvery hair
Lay on his hollow temples thin and wild,
His frame was wasted, and his features wan
And haggard as with want, and in his palm
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe
Of the last agony had wrung him sore.
The storm was raging still. The shutters swung
Screaming as harshly in the fitful wind,
And all without went on — as aye it will,
Sunshine or tempest, reckless that a heart
Is breaking, or has broken, in its change.
The fire beneath the crucible was out;
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them, and the small rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on th' alembic's rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at its master's will.
And thus had passed from its unequal frame
A soul of fire — a sun-bent eagle stricken
From his high soaring down — an instrument
Broken with its own compass. Oh how poor
Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies,
And the old shutters of the turret swung
Screaming upon their hinges; and the moon,
As the torn edges of the clouds flew past,
Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes
So dimly, that the watchful eye of death
Scarcely was conscious when it went and came.
The fire beneath his crucible was low;
Yet still it burned; and ever as his thoughts
Grew insupportable, he raised himself
Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals
With difficult energy, and when the rod
Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye
Felt faint within its socket, he shrunk back
Upon his pallet, and with unclosed lips
Muttered a curse on death! The silent room,
From its dim corners, mockingly gave back
His rattling breath; the humming in the fire
Had the distinctness of a knell; and when
Duly the antique horologe beat one,
He drew a phial from beneath his head,
And drank. And instantly his lips compressed,
And, with a shudder in his skeleton frame,
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat
Upright, and communed with himself: —
I did not think to die
Till I had finished what I had to do;
I thought to pierce th' eternal secret through
With this my mortal eye;
I felt — Oh God! it seemeth even now
This can not be the death-dew on my brow!
And yet it is — I feel,
Of this dull sickness at my heart, afraid;
And in my eyes the death-sparks flash and fade;
And something seems to steal
Over my bosom like a frozen hand —
Binding its pulses with an icy band.
And this is death! But why
Feel I this wild recoil? It can not be
Th' immortal spirit shuddereth to be free!
Would it not leap to fly,
Like a chained eaglet at its parent's call?
I fear — I fear — that this poor life is all!
Yet thus to pass away! —
To live but for a hope that mocks at last —
To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast,
To waste the light of day,
Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought —
All that we have and are — for this — for naught!
Grant me another year
God of my spirit! — but a day — to win
Something to satisfy this thirst within!
I would know something here!
Break for me but one seal that is unbroken!
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken!
Vain — vain! — my brain is turning
With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick,
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick,
And I am freezing — burning —
Dying! Oh God! if I might only live!
My phial — Ha! it thrills me — I revive.
Ay — were not man to die
He were too mighty for this narrow sphere!
Had he but time to brood on knowledge here —
Could he but train his eye —
Might he but wait the mystic word and hour —
Only his Maker would transcend his power!
Earth has no mineral strange —
Th' illimitable air no hidden wings —
Water no quality in covert springs,
And fire no power to change —
Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell,
Which the unwasting soul might not compel.
Oh, but for time to track
The upper stars into the pathless sky —
To see th' invisible spirits, eye to eye —
To hurl the lightning back —
To tread unhurt the sea's dim-lighted halls —
To chase Day's chariot to the horizon-walls —
And more, much more — for now
The life-sealed fountains of my nature move —
To nurse and purify this human love —
To clear the god-like brow
Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down
Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one:
This were indeed to feel
The soul-thirst slaken at the living stream —
To live — Oh God! that life is but a dream!
And death — Aha! I reel —
Dim — dim — I faint — darkness comes o'er my eye —
Cover me! save me! — God of heaven! I die!
'Twas morning, and the old man lay alone.
No friend had closed his eyelids, and his lips,
Open and ashy pale, th' expression wore
Of his death-struggle. His long silvery hair
Lay on his hollow temples thin and wild,
His frame was wasted, and his features wan
And haggard as with want, and in his palm
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe
Of the last agony had wrung him sore.
The storm was raging still. The shutters swung
Screaming as harshly in the fitful wind,
And all without went on — as aye it will,
Sunshine or tempest, reckless that a heart
Is breaking, or has broken, in its change.
The fire beneath the crucible was out;
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them, and the small rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on th' alembic's rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at its master's will.
And thus had passed from its unequal frame
A soul of fire — a sun-bent eagle stricken
From his high soaring down — an instrument
Broken with its own compass. Oh how poor
Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies,
834
Like the adventurous bird that hath out-flown
His strength upon the sea, ambition-wrecked —
A thing the thrush might pity, as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest.
His strength upon the sea, ambition-wrecked —
A thing the thrush might pity, as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest.
PARRHASIUS.
“Parrhasius, a painter of Athens, among those Olynthian captives
Philip of Macedon trought home to sell, bought one very old man;
and when he had him at his house, put him to death with extreme
torture and torment, the better, by his example, to express the pains
and passions of his Frometheus, whom he was then about to paint.”
— Burton's Anat. of Mel.
There stood an unsold captive in the mart,
A grayhaired and majestical old man,
Chained to a pillar. It was almost night,
And the last seller from his place had gone,
And not a sound was heard but of a dog
Crunching beneath the stall a refuse bone,
Or the dull echo from the pavement rung,
As the faint captive changed his weary feet.
He had stood there since morning, and borne
From every eye in Athens the cold gaze
Of curious scorn. The Jew had taunted him
For an Olynthian slave. The buyer came,
And roughly struck his palm upon his breast,
And touched his unhealed wounds, and with a sneer
Passed on; and when, with weariness o'erspent,
He bowed his head in a forgetful sleep,
Th' inhuman soldier smote him, and, with threats
Of torture to his children, summoned back
The ebbing blood into his pallid face.
'Twas evening, and the half-descended sun
Tipped with a golden fire the many domes
Of Athens, and a yellow atmosphere
Lay rich and dusky in the shaded street
Through which the captive gazed. He had borne up
With a stout heart that long and weary day,
Haughtily patient of his many wrongs;
But now he was alone, and from his nerves
The needless strength departed, and he leaned
Prone on his massy chain, and let his thoughts
Throng on him as they would. Unmarked of him,
Parrhasius at the nearest pillar stood,
Gazing upon his grief. Th' Athenian's cheek
Flushed as he measured with a painter's eye
The moving picture. The abandoned limbs,
Stained with the oozing blood, were laced with veins
Swollen to purple fulness; the gray hair,
Thin and disordered, hung about his eyes;
And as a thought of wilder bitterness
Rose in his memory, his lips grew white,
And the fast workings of his bloodless face
Told what a tooth of fire was at his heart.
The golden light into the painter's room
Streamed richly, and the hidden colors stole
From the dark pictures radiantly forth,
And in the soft and dewy atmosphere
Like forms and landscapes magical they lay.
The walls were hung with armor, and about
In the dim corners stood the sculptured forms
Of Cytheris, and Dian, and stern Jove,
And from the casement soberly away
Fell the grotesque long shadows, full and true,
And, like a veil of filmy mellowness,
The lint-specks floated in the twilight air.
Parrhasius stood, gazing forgetfully
Upon his canvass. There Prometheus lay,
Chained to the cold rocks of Mount Caucasus —
The vulture at his vitals, and the links
Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh;
And, as the painter's mind felt through the dim,
Rapt mystery, and plucked the shadows forth
With its far-reaching fancy, and with form
And color clad them, his fine earnest eye
Flashed with a passionate fire, and the quick curl
Of his thin nostril, and his quivering lip,
Were like the winged God's, breathing from his flight.
“Bring me the captive now!
My hands feel skilful, and the shadows lift
From my waked spirit airily and swift,
And I could paint the bow
Upon the bended heavens — around me play
Colors of such divinity to-day.
“Ha! bind him on his back!
Look! — as Prometheus in my picture here!
Quick — or he faints! — stand with the cordial near!
Now — bend him to the rack!
Press down the poisoned links into his flesh!
And tear agape that healing wound afresh!
“So — let him writhe! How long
Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now!
What a fine agony works upon his brow!
Ha! grayhaired and so strong!
How fearfully he stifles that short moan!
Gods! if I could but paint a dying groan!
“`Pity' thee! So I do!
I pity the dumb victim at the altar —
But does the robed priest for his pity falter?
I'd rack thee though I knew
A thousand lives were perishing in thine —
What were ten thousand to a fame like mine?
“`Hereafter!' Ay — hereafter!
A whip to keep a coward to his track!
What gave death ever from his kingdom back
To check the skeptic's laughter?
Come from the grave to-morrow with that story,
And I may take some softer path to glory.
“No, no, old man! we die
E'en as the flowers, and we shall breathe away
Our life upon the chance wind, even as they!
Strain well thy fainting eye —
For when that bloodshot quivering is o'er,
The light of heaven will never reach thee more.
“Yet there's a deathless name!
A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn,
And like a steadfast planet mount and burn;
And though its crown of flame
Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone,
By all the fiery stars! I'd bind it on!
“Ay — though it bid me rifle
My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst —
Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first —
Though it should bid me stifle
The yearning in my throat for my sweet child,
And taunt its mother till my brain went wild —
“All — I would do it all —
Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot —
Thrust foully into earth to be forgot!
Oh heavens — but I appal
Your heart, old man! forgive — ha! on your lives
Let him not faint! — rack him till he revives!
“Vain — vain — give o'er! His eye
Glazes apace. He does not feel you now —
Stand back! I'll paint the death-dew on his brow!
Gods! if he do not die
But for one moment — one — till I eclipse
Conception with the scorn of those calm lips!
“Shivering! Hark! he mutters
Brokenly now — that was a difficult breath —
Another? Wilt thou never come, oh Death!
Look! how his temple flutters!
Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head!
He shudders — gasps — Jove help him! — so — he's dead.”
How like a mounting devil in the heart
Rules the unreined ambition! Let it once
But play the monarch, and its haughty brow
Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought
And unthrones peace for ever. Putting on
The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns
The heart to ashes, and with not a spring
Left in the bosom for the spirit's lip,
We look upon our splendor and forget
The thirst of which we perish! Yet hath life
Many a falser idol. There are hopes
Promising well, and love-touched dreams for some,
And passions, many a wild one, and fair schemes
For gold and pleasure — yet will only this
A grayhaired and majestical old man,
Chained to a pillar. It was almost night,
And the last seller from his place had gone,
And not a sound was heard but of a dog
Crunching beneath the stall a refuse bone,
Or the dull echo from the pavement rung,
As the faint captive changed his weary feet.
He had stood there since morning, and borne
From every eye in Athens the cold gaze
Of curious scorn. The Jew had taunted him
For an Olynthian slave. The buyer came,
And roughly struck his palm upon his breast,
And touched his unhealed wounds, and with a sneer
Passed on; and when, with weariness o'erspent,
He bowed his head in a forgetful sleep,
Th' inhuman soldier smote him, and, with threats
Of torture to his children, summoned back
The ebbing blood into his pallid face.
'Twas evening, and the half-descended sun
Tipped with a golden fire the many domes
Of Athens, and a yellow atmosphere
Lay rich and dusky in the shaded street
Through which the captive gazed. He had borne up
With a stout heart that long and weary day,
Haughtily patient of his many wrongs;
But now he was alone, and from his nerves
The needless strength departed, and he leaned
Prone on his massy chain, and let his thoughts
Throng on him as they would. Unmarked of him,
Parrhasius at the nearest pillar stood,
Gazing upon his grief. Th' Athenian's cheek
Flushed as he measured with a painter's eye
The moving picture. The abandoned limbs,
Stained with the oozing blood, were laced with veins
Swollen to purple fulness; the gray hair,
Thin and disordered, hung about his eyes;
And as a thought of wilder bitterness
Rose in his memory, his lips grew white,
And the fast workings of his bloodless face
Told what a tooth of fire was at his heart.
The golden light into the painter's room
Streamed richly, and the hidden colors stole
From the dark pictures radiantly forth,
And in the soft and dewy atmosphere
Like forms and landscapes magical they lay.
The walls were hung with armor, and about
In the dim corners stood the sculptured forms
Of Cytheris, and Dian, and stern Jove,
And from the casement soberly away
Fell the grotesque long shadows, full and true,
And, like a veil of filmy mellowness,
The lint-specks floated in the twilight air.
Parrhasius stood, gazing forgetfully
Upon his canvass. There Prometheus lay,
Chained to the cold rocks of Mount Caucasus —
The vulture at his vitals, and the links
Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh;
And, as the painter's mind felt through the dim,
Rapt mystery, and plucked the shadows forth
With its far-reaching fancy, and with form
And color clad them, his fine earnest eye
Flashed with a passionate fire, and the quick curl
Of his thin nostril, and his quivering lip,
Were like the winged God's, breathing from his flight.
“Bring me the captive now!
My hands feel skilful, and the shadows lift
From my waked spirit airily and swift,
And I could paint the bow
Upon the bended heavens — around me play
Colors of such divinity to-day.
“Ha! bind him on his back!
Look! — as Prometheus in my picture here!
Quick — or he faints! — stand with the cordial near!
Now — bend him to the rack!
Press down the poisoned links into his flesh!
And tear agape that healing wound afresh!
“So — let him writhe! How long
Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now!
What a fine agony works upon his brow!
Ha! grayhaired and so strong!
How fearfully he stifles that short moan!
Gods! if I could but paint a dying groan!
“`Pity' thee! So I do!
I pity the dumb victim at the altar —
But does the robed priest for his pity falter?
I'd rack thee though I knew
A thousand lives were perishing in thine —
What were ten thousand to a fame like mine?
“`Hereafter!' Ay — hereafter!
A whip to keep a coward to his track!
What gave death ever from his kingdom back
To check the skeptic's laughter?
Come from the grave to-morrow with that story,
And I may take some softer path to glory.
“No, no, old man! we die
E'en as the flowers, and we shall breathe away
Our life upon the chance wind, even as they!
Strain well thy fainting eye —
For when that bloodshot quivering is o'er,
The light of heaven will never reach thee more.
“Yet there's a deathless name!
A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn,
And like a steadfast planet mount and burn;
And though its crown of flame
Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone,
By all the fiery stars! I'd bind it on!
“Ay — though it bid me rifle
My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst —
Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first —
Though it should bid me stifle
The yearning in my throat for my sweet child,
And taunt its mother till my brain went wild —
“All — I would do it all —
Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot —
Thrust foully into earth to be forgot!
Oh heavens — but I appal
Your heart, old man! forgive — ha! on your lives
Let him not faint! — rack him till he revives!
“Vain — vain — give o'er! His eye
Glazes apace. He does not feel you now —
Stand back! I'll paint the death-dew on his brow!
Gods! if he do not die
But for one moment — one — till I eclipse
Conception with the scorn of those calm lips!
“Shivering! Hark! he mutters
Brokenly now — that was a difficult breath —
Another? Wilt thou never come, oh Death!
Look! how his temple flutters!
Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head!
He shudders — gasps — Jove help him! — so — he's dead.”
How like a mounting devil in the heart
Rules the unreined ambition! Let it once
But play the monarch, and its haughty brow
Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought
And unthrones peace for ever. Putting on
The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns
The heart to ashes, and with not a spring
Left in the bosom for the spirit's lip,
We look upon our splendor and forget
The thirst of which we perish! Yet hath life
Many a falser idol. There are hopes
Promising well, and love-touched dreams for some,
And passions, many a wild one, and fair schemes
For gold and pleasure — yet will only this
835
Balk not the soul — Ambition only, gives,
Even of bitterness, a beaker full!
Friendship is but a slow-awaking dream,
Troubled at best — Love is a lamp unseen,
Burning to waste, or, if its light is found,
Nursed for an idle hour, then idly broken —
Gain is a grovelling care, and Folly tires,
And Quiet is a hunger never fed —
And from Love's very bosom, and from Gain,
Or Folly, or a Friend, or from Repose —
From all but keen Ambition — will the soul
Snatch the first moment of forgetfulness
To wander like a restless child away.
Oh, if there were not better hopes than these —
Were there no palm beyond a feverish fame —
If the proud wealth flung back upon the heart
Must canker in its coffers — if the links
Falsehood hath broken will unite no more —
If the deep-yearning love, that hath not found
Its like in the cold world, must waste in tears —
If truth, and fervor, and devotedness,
Finding no worthy altar, must return
And die of their own fulness — if beyond
The grave there is no heaven in whose wide air
The spirits may find room, and in the love
Of whose bright habitants the lavish heart
May spend itself — what thrice-mocked fools are we!
Even of bitterness, a beaker full!
Friendship is but a slow-awaking dream,
Troubled at best — Love is a lamp unseen,
Burning to waste, or, if its light is found,
Nursed for an idle hour, then idly broken —
Gain is a grovelling care, and Folly tires,
And Quiet is a hunger never fed —
And from Love's very bosom, and from Gain,
Or Folly, or a Friend, or from Repose —
From all but keen Ambition — will the soul
Snatch the first moment of forgetfulness
To wander like a restless child away.
Oh, if there were not better hopes than these —
Were there no palm beyond a feverish fame —
If the proud wealth flung back upon the heart
Must canker in its coffers — if the links
Falsehood hath broken will unite no more —
If the deep-yearning love, that hath not found
Its like in the cold world, must waste in tears —
If truth, and fervor, and devotedness,
Finding no worthy altar, must return
And die of their own fulness — if beyond
The grave there is no heaven in whose wide air
The spirits may find room, and in the love
Of whose bright habitants the lavish heart
May spend itself — what thrice-mocked fools are we!
THE SCHOLAR OF THEBET BEN KHORAT.[1]
“Influentia cœli morbum hunc movet, interdum omnibus aliis
amotis.”
— Melancthon de Anima, Cap. de Humoribus.
I.
Night in Arabia. An hour ago,
Pale Dian had descended from the sky,
Flinging her cestus out upon the sea,
And at their watches now the solemn stars
Stood vigilant and lone; and, dead asleep,
With not a shadow moving on its breast,
The breathing earth lay in its silver dew,
And, trembling on their myriad viewless wings,
Th' imprisoned odors left the flowers to dream,
And stole away upon the yielding air.
Ben Khorat's tower stands shadowy and tall
In Mecca's loneliest street; and ever there,
When night is at the deepest, burns his lamp
As constant as the Cynosure, and forth
From his looped window stretch the brazen tubes,
Pointing for ever at the central star
Of that dim nebula just lifting now
Over Mount Arafat. The sky to-night
Is of a clearer blackness than is wont,
And far within its depths the colored stars[2]
Sparkle like gems — capricious Antares[3]
Flushing and paling in the southern arch;
And azure Lyra, like a woman's eye,
Burning with soft blue lustre; and away
Over the desert the bright Polar-star,
White as a flashing icicle; and here,
Hung like a lamp above th' Arabian sea,
Mars with his dusky glow; and, fairer yet,
Mild Sirius,[4] tinct with dewy violet,
Set like a flower upon the breast of Eve;
And in the zenith the sweet Pleiades,[5]
(Alas — that ev'n a star may pass from heaven
And not be missed!) — the linked Pleiades
Undimned are there, though from the sister band
The fairest has gone down; and, south away,
Hirundo[6] with its little company;
And white-browed Vesta, lamping on her path
Lonely and planet-calm, and, all through heaven,
Articulate almost, they troop to-night,
Like unrobed angels in a prophet's trance.
Ben Khorat knelt before his telescope,[7]
Gazing with earnest stillness on the stars.
The gray hairs, struggling from his turban folds,
Played with the entering wind upon his cheeks,
And on his breast his venerable beard
With supernatural whiteness loosely fell.
The black flesh swelled about his sandal thongs,
Tight with his painful posture, and his lean
And withered fingers to his knees were clenched,
And the thin lashes of his straining eye
Lay with unwinking closeness to the lens,
Stiffened with tense up-turning. Hour by hour,
Till the stars melted in the flush of morn,
The old astrologer knelt moveless there,
Ravished past pain with the bewildering spheres,
And, hour by hour, with the same patient thought,
Pored his pale scholar on the characters
Of Chaldee writ, or, as his gaze grew dim
With weariness, the dark-eyed Arab laid
His head upon the window and looked forth
Upon the heavens awhile, until the dews
And the soft beauty of the silent night
Cooled his flushed eyelids, and then patiently
He turned unto his constant task again.
The sparry glinting of the Morning Star
Shot through the leaves of a majestic palm
Fringing Mount Arafat; and, as it caught
The eye of the rapt scholar, he arose
And clasped the volume with an eager haste,
And as the glorious planet mounted on,
Melting her way into the upper sky,
He breathlessly gazed on her: —
“Star of the silver ray!
Bright as a god, but punctual as a slave —
What spirit the eternal canon gave
That bends thee to thy way?
What is the soul that on thine arrowy light
Is walking earth and heaven in pride to-night?
“We know when thou wilt soar
Over the mount — thy change, and place, and time —
'Tis written in the Chaldee's mystic rhyme
As 'twere a priceless lore!
I knew as much in my Bedouin garb —
Coursing the desert on my flying barb!
“How oft amid the tents
Upon Sahara's sands I've walked alone,
Waiting all night for thee, resplendent one!
With what magnificence,
In the last watches, to my thirsting eye,
Thy passionate beauty flushed into the sky!
“Oh, God! how flew my soul
Out to thy glory — upward on thy ray —
Panting as thou ascendedst on thy way,
As if thine own control —
This searchless spirit that I can not find —
Had set its radiant law upon my mind!
“More than all stars in heaven
I felt thee in my heart! my love became
A phrensy, and consumed me with its flame.
Ay, in the desert even —
My dark-eyed Abra coursing at my side —
The star, not Abra, was my spirit's bride!
Night in Arabia. An hour ago,
Pale Dian had descended from the sky,
Flinging her cestus out upon the sea,
And at their watches now the solemn stars
Stood vigilant and lone; and, dead asleep,
With not a shadow moving on its breast,
The breathing earth lay in its silver dew,
And, trembling on their myriad viewless wings,
Th' imprisoned odors left the flowers to dream,
And stole away upon the yielding air.
Ben Khorat's tower stands shadowy and tall
In Mecca's loneliest street; and ever there,
When night is at the deepest, burns his lamp
As constant as the Cynosure, and forth
From his looped window stretch the brazen tubes,
Pointing for ever at the central star
Of that dim nebula just lifting now
Over Mount Arafat. The sky to-night
Is of a clearer blackness than is wont,
And far within its depths the colored stars[2]
Sparkle like gems — capricious Antares[3]
Flushing and paling in the southern arch;
And azure Lyra, like a woman's eye,
Burning with soft blue lustre; and away
Over the desert the bright Polar-star,
White as a flashing icicle; and here,
Hung like a lamp above th' Arabian sea,
Mars with his dusky glow; and, fairer yet,
Mild Sirius,[4] tinct with dewy violet,
Set like a flower upon the breast of Eve;
And in the zenith the sweet Pleiades,[5]
(Alas — that ev'n a star may pass from heaven
And not be missed!) — the linked Pleiades
Undimned are there, though from the sister band
The fairest has gone down; and, south away,
Hirundo[6] with its little company;
And white-browed Vesta, lamping on her path
Lonely and planet-calm, and, all through heaven,
Articulate almost, they troop to-night,
Like unrobed angels in a prophet's trance.
Ben Khorat knelt before his telescope,[7]
Gazing with earnest stillness on the stars.
The gray hairs, struggling from his turban folds,
Played with the entering wind upon his cheeks,
And on his breast his venerable beard
With supernatural whiteness loosely fell.
The black flesh swelled about his sandal thongs,
Tight with his painful posture, and his lean
And withered fingers to his knees were clenched,
And the thin lashes of his straining eye
Lay with unwinking closeness to the lens,
Stiffened with tense up-turning. Hour by hour,
Till the stars melted in the flush of morn,
The old astrologer knelt moveless there,
Ravished past pain with the bewildering spheres,
And, hour by hour, with the same patient thought,
Pored his pale scholar on the characters
Of Chaldee writ, or, as his gaze grew dim
With weariness, the dark-eyed Arab laid
His head upon the window and looked forth
Upon the heavens awhile, until the dews
And the soft beauty of the silent night
Cooled his flushed eyelids, and then patiently
He turned unto his constant task again.
The sparry glinting of the Morning Star
Shot through the leaves of a majestic palm
Fringing Mount Arafat; and, as it caught
The eye of the rapt scholar, he arose
And clasped the volume with an eager haste,
And as the glorious planet mounted on,
Melting her way into the upper sky,
He breathlessly gazed on her: —
“Star of the silver ray!
Bright as a god, but punctual as a slave —
What spirit the eternal canon gave
That bends thee to thy way?
What is the soul that on thine arrowy light
Is walking earth and heaven in pride to-night?
“We know when thou wilt soar
Over the mount — thy change, and place, and time —
'Tis written in the Chaldee's mystic rhyme
As 'twere a priceless lore!
I knew as much in my Bedouin garb —
Coursing the desert on my flying barb!
“How oft amid the tents
Upon Sahara's sands I've walked alone,
Waiting all night for thee, resplendent one!
With what magnificence,
In the last watches, to my thirsting eye,
Thy passionate beauty flushed into the sky!
“Oh, God! how flew my soul
Out to thy glory — upward on thy ray —
Panting as thou ascendedst on thy way,
As if thine own control —
This searchless spirit that I can not find —
Had set its radiant law upon my mind!
“More than all stars in heaven
I felt thee in my heart! my love became
A phrensy, and consumed me with its flame.
Ay, in the desert even —
My dark-eyed Abra coursing at my side —
The star, not Abra, was my spirit's bride!
836
“My Abra is no more!
My `desert-bird' is in a stranger's stall —
My tribe, my tent — I sacrificed them all
For this heart-wasting lore! —
Yet, than all these, the thought is sweeter far —
Thou wert ascendant at my birth, bright star!
“The Chaldee calls me thine —
And in this breast, that I must rend to be
A spirit upon wings of light like thee,
I feel that thou art mine!
Oh, God! that these dull fetters would give way
And let me forth to track thy silver ray!”
* * * Ben Khorat rose
And silently looked forth upon the East.
The dawn was stealing up into the sky
On its gray feet, the stars grew dim apace,
And faded, till the Morning Star alone,
Soft as a molten diamond's liquid fire,
Burned in the heavens. The morn grew freshlier —
The upper clouds were faintly touched with gold;
The fan palms rustled in the early air;
Daylight spread cool and broadly to the hills;
And still the star was visible, and still
The young Bedouin with a straining eye
Drank its departing light into his soul.
It faded — melted — and the fiery rim
Of the clear sun came up, and painfully
The passionate scholar pressed upon his eyes
His dusky fingers, and with limbs as weak
As a sick child's, turned fainting to his couch,
And slept.
II.
* * It was the morning watch once more,
The clouds were drifting rapidly above,
And dim and fast the glimmering stars flew through;
And as the fitful gust soughed mournfully,
The shutters shook, and on the sloping roof
Plashed, heavily, large, single drops of rain —
And all was still again. Ben Khorat sat
By the dim lamp, and, while his scholar slept,
Pored on the Chaldee wisdom. At his feet,
Stretched on a pallet, lay the Arab boy,
Muttering fast in his unquiet sleep,
And working his dark fingers in his palms
Convulsively. His sallow lips were pale,
And, as they moved, his teeth showed ghastly through,
White as a charnel bone, and — closely drawn
Upon his sunken eyes, as if to press
Some frightful image from the bloodshot balls —
His lids a moment quivered, and again
Relaxed, half open, in a calmer sleep.
Ben Khorat gazed upon the dropping sands
Of the departing hour. The last white grain
Fell through, and with the tremulous hand of age
The old astrologer reversed the glass;
And, as the voiceless monitor went on,
Wasting and wasting with the precious hour,
He looked upon it with a moving lip,
And, starting, turned his gaze upon the heavens,
Cursing the clouds impatiently.
“'Tis time!”
Muttered the dying scholar, and he dashed
The tangled hair from his black eyes away,
And, seizing on Ben Khorat's mantle-folds,
He struggled to his feet, and falling prone
Upon the window-ledge, gazed steadfastly
Into the East: —
“There is a cloud between —
She sits this instant on the mountain's brow,
And that dusk veil hides all her glory now —
Yet floats she as serene
Into the heavens! — Oh, God! than even so
I could o'ermount my spirit cloud, and go!
“The cloud begins to drift!
Aha! Fling open! 'tis the star — the sky!
Touch me, immortal mother! and I fly!
Wider! thou cloudy rift!
Let through! — such glory should have radiant room!
Let through! — a star-child on its light goes home!
“Speak to me, brethren bright!
Ye who are floating in these living beams!
Ye who have come to me in starry dreams!
Ye who have winged the light
Of our bright mother with its thoughts of flame —
(I knew it passed through spirits as it came) —
“Tell me! what power have ye?
What are the heights ye reach upon your wings?
What know ye of the myriad wondrous things
I perish but to see?
Are ye thought-rapid? — Can ye fly as far —
As instant as a thought, from star to star?
“Where has the Pleiad gone?
Where have all missing stars[8] found light and home?
Who bids the Stella Mira[9] go and come?
Why sits the Pole-star lone?
And why, like banded sisters, through the air
Go in bright troops the constellations fair?
“Ben Khorat! dost thou mark?
The star! the star? By heaven! the cloud drifts o'er!
Gone — and I live! nay — will my heart beat more?
Look! master! 'tis all dark!
Not a clear speck in heaven? — my eye-balls smother!
Break through the clouds once more! oh, starry mother!
“I will lie down! Yet stay,
The rain beats out the odor from the gums,
And strangely soft to-night the spice-wind comes!
I am a child alway
When it is on my forehead! Abra sweet!
Would I were in the desert at thy feet!
“My barb! my glorious steed!
Methinks my soul would mount upon its track
More fleetly, could I die upon thy back!
How would thy thrilling speed
Quicken my pulse! — Oh, Allah! I get wild!
Would that I were once more a desert-child!
“Nay — nay — I had forgot!
My mother! my star mother! — Ha! my breath
Stifles! — more air! — Ben Khorat! this is — death!
Touch me! — I feel you not!
Dying! — Farewell! good master! — room! more room!
Abra! I loved thee! star — bright star! I — come!”
How idly of the human heart we speak,
Giving it gods of clay! How worse than vain
Is the school homily, that Eden's fruit
Can not be plucked too freely from “the tree
Of good and evil.” Wisdom sits alone,
Topmost in heaven; — she is its light — its God!
And in the heart of man she sits as high —
Though grovelling eyes forget her oftentimes,
Seeing but this world's idols. The pure mind
Sees her for ever: and in youth we come
Filled with her sainted ravishment, and kneel,
Worshipping God through her sweet altar-fires,
And then is knowledge “good.” We come too oft —
The heart grows proud with fulness, and we soon
Look with licentious freedom on the maid
Throned in celestial beauty. There she sits,
Robed in her soft and scraph loveliness,
Instructing and forgiving, and we gaze
Until desire grows wild, and, with our hands
Upon her very garments, are struck down,
Blasted with a consuming fire from heaven!
My `desert-bird' is in a stranger's stall —
My tribe, my tent — I sacrificed them all
For this heart-wasting lore! —
Yet, than all these, the thought is sweeter far —
Thou wert ascendant at my birth, bright star!
“The Chaldee calls me thine —
And in this breast, that I must rend to be
A spirit upon wings of light like thee,
I feel that thou art mine!
Oh, God! that these dull fetters would give way
And let me forth to track thy silver ray!”
* * * Ben Khorat rose
And silently looked forth upon the East.
The dawn was stealing up into the sky
On its gray feet, the stars grew dim apace,
And faded, till the Morning Star alone,
Soft as a molten diamond's liquid fire,
Burned in the heavens. The morn grew freshlier —
The upper clouds were faintly touched with gold;
The fan palms rustled in the early air;
Daylight spread cool and broadly to the hills;
And still the star was visible, and still
The young Bedouin with a straining eye
Drank its departing light into his soul.
It faded — melted — and the fiery rim
Of the clear sun came up, and painfully
The passionate scholar pressed upon his eyes
His dusky fingers, and with limbs as weak
As a sick child's, turned fainting to his couch,
And slept.
II.
* * It was the morning watch once more,
The clouds were drifting rapidly above,
And dim and fast the glimmering stars flew through;
And as the fitful gust soughed mournfully,
The shutters shook, and on the sloping roof
Plashed, heavily, large, single drops of rain —
And all was still again. Ben Khorat sat
By the dim lamp, and, while his scholar slept,
Pored on the Chaldee wisdom. At his feet,
Stretched on a pallet, lay the Arab boy,
Muttering fast in his unquiet sleep,
And working his dark fingers in his palms
Convulsively. His sallow lips were pale,
And, as they moved, his teeth showed ghastly through,
White as a charnel bone, and — closely drawn
Upon his sunken eyes, as if to press
Some frightful image from the bloodshot balls —
His lids a moment quivered, and again
Relaxed, half open, in a calmer sleep.
Ben Khorat gazed upon the dropping sands
Of the departing hour. The last white grain
Fell through, and with the tremulous hand of age
The old astrologer reversed the glass;
And, as the voiceless monitor went on,
Wasting and wasting with the precious hour,
He looked upon it with a moving lip,
And, starting, turned his gaze upon the heavens,
Cursing the clouds impatiently.
“'Tis time!”
Muttered the dying scholar, and he dashed
The tangled hair from his black eyes away,
And, seizing on Ben Khorat's mantle-folds,
He struggled to his feet, and falling prone
Upon the window-ledge, gazed steadfastly
Into the East: —
“There is a cloud between —
She sits this instant on the mountain's brow,
And that dusk veil hides all her glory now —
Yet floats she as serene
Into the heavens! — Oh, God! than even so
I could o'ermount my spirit cloud, and go!
“The cloud begins to drift!
Aha! Fling open! 'tis the star — the sky!
Touch me, immortal mother! and I fly!
Wider! thou cloudy rift!
Let through! — such glory should have radiant room!
Let through! — a star-child on its light goes home!
“Speak to me, brethren bright!
Ye who are floating in these living beams!
Ye who have come to me in starry dreams!
Ye who have winged the light
Of our bright mother with its thoughts of flame —
(I knew it passed through spirits as it came) —
“Tell me! what power have ye?
What are the heights ye reach upon your wings?
What know ye of the myriad wondrous things
I perish but to see?
Are ye thought-rapid? — Can ye fly as far —
As instant as a thought, from star to star?
“Where has the Pleiad gone?
Where have all missing stars[8] found light and home?
Who bids the Stella Mira[9] go and come?
Why sits the Pole-star lone?
And why, like banded sisters, through the air
Go in bright troops the constellations fair?
“Ben Khorat! dost thou mark?
The star! the star? By heaven! the cloud drifts o'er!
Gone — and I live! nay — will my heart beat more?
Look! master! 'tis all dark!
Not a clear speck in heaven? — my eye-balls smother!
Break through the clouds once more! oh, starry mother!
“I will lie down! Yet stay,
The rain beats out the odor from the gums,
And strangely soft to-night the spice-wind comes!
I am a child alway
When it is on my forehead! Abra sweet!
Would I were in the desert at thy feet!
“My barb! my glorious steed!
Methinks my soul would mount upon its track
More fleetly, could I die upon thy back!
How would thy thrilling speed
Quicken my pulse! — Oh, Allah! I get wild!
Would that I were once more a desert-child!
“Nay — nay — I had forgot!
My mother! my star mother! — Ha! my breath
Stifles! — more air! — Ben Khorat! this is — death!
Touch me! — I feel you not!
Dying! — Farewell! good master! — room! more room!
Abra! I loved thee! star — bright star! I — come!”
How idly of the human heart we speak,
Giving it gods of clay! How worse than vain
Is the school homily, that Eden's fruit
Can not be plucked too freely from “the tree
Of good and evil.” Wisdom sits alone,
Topmost in heaven; — she is its light — its God!
And in the heart of man she sits as high —
Though grovelling eyes forget her oftentimes,
Seeing but this world's idols. The pure mind
Sees her for ever: and in youth we come
Filled with her sainted ravishment, and kneel,
Worshipping God through her sweet altar-fires,
And then is knowledge “good.” We come too oft —
The heart grows proud with fulness, and we soon
Look with licentious freedom on the maid
Throned in celestial beauty. There she sits,
Robed in her soft and scraph loveliness,
Instructing and forgiving, and we gaze
Until desire grows wild, and, with our hands
Upon her very garments, are struck down,
Blasted with a consuming fire from heaven!
837
Yet, oh! how full of music from her lips
Breathe the calm tones of wisdom! Human praise
Is sweet — till envy mars it, and the touch
Of new-won gold stirs up the pulses well;
And woman's love, if in a beggar's lamp
'Twould burn, might light us clearly through the world;
But Knowledge hath a far more 'wildering tongue,
And she will stoop and lead you to the stars,
And witch you with her mysteries — till gold
Is a forgotten dross, and power and fame
Toys of an hour, and woman's careless love,
Light as the breath that breaks it. He who binds
His soul to knowledge steals the key of heaven —
But 'tis a bitter mockery that the fruit
May hang within his reach, and when, with thirst
Wrought to a maddening phrensy, he would taste —
It burns his lips to ashes!
Breathe the calm tones of wisdom! Human praise
Is sweet — till envy mars it, and the touch
Of new-won gold stirs up the pulses well;
And woman's love, if in a beggar's lamp
'Twould burn, might light us clearly through the world;
But Knowledge hath a far more 'wildering tongue,
And she will stoop and lead you to the stars,
And witch you with her mysteries — till gold
Is a forgotten dross, and power and fame
Toys of an hour, and woman's careless love,
Light as the breath that breaks it. He who binds
His soul to knowledge steals the key of heaven —
But 'tis a bitter mockery that the fruit
May hang within his reach, and when, with thirst
Wrought to a maddening phrensy, he would taste —
It burns his lips to ashes!
[1]
A famous Arabian astrologer, who is said to have spent forty
years in discovering the motion of the eighth sphere. He had a
scholar, a young Bedouin Arab, who, with a singular passion for
knowledge, abandoned his wandering tribe, and, applying himself
too closely to astrology, lost his reason and died.
[2]
“Even to the naked eye, the stars appear of palpably different colors; but when viewed with a prismatic glass, they may be very accurately classed into the red, the yellow, the brilliant white, the dull white, and the anomalous. This is true also of the planets, which shine by reflected light; and of course the difference of color must be supposed to arise from their different powers to absorb and reflect the rays of the sun. The original composition of the stars, and the different dispersive powers of their different atmospheres, may be supposed to account also for this phenomenon.”
[3]
This star exhibits a peculiar quality — a rapid and beautiful change in the color of its light; every alternate twinkling being of an intense reddish crimson color, and the answering one of a brilliant white.
[6]
An Arabic constellation placed instead of the Piscis Australls, because the swallow arrives in Arabia about the time of the hellacal rising of the Fishes.
[7]
An anachronism, the author is aware. The telescope was not invented for a century or two after the time of Ben Khorat.
[8]
“Missing stars” are often spoken of in the old books of astronomy. Hipparchus mentions one that appeared and vanished very suddenly: and in the beginning of the sixteenth century Kepler discovered a new star near the heel of the right foot of Serpentarius, “so bright and sparkling that it exceeded anything he had ever seen before.” He “took notice that it was every moment changing into some of the colors of the rainbow, except when it was near the horizon, when it was generally white.” It disappeared in the following year, and has not been seen since.
[9]
A wonderful star in the neck of the Whale, discovered by Fabricius in the fifteenth century. It appears and disappears seven times in six years, and continues in the greatest lustre for fifteen days together.
THE WIFE'S APPEAL.
“Love borrows greatly from opinion. Pride above all things
strengthens affection.”
— E. L. Bulwer.
He sat and read. A book with silver clasps,
All gorgeous with illuminated lines
Of gold and crimson, lay upon a frame
Before him. 'Twas a volume of old time;
And in it were fine mysteries of the stars
Solved with a cunning wisdom, and strange thoughts,
Half prophecy, half poetry, and dreams
Clearer than truth, and speculations wild
That touched the secrets of your very soul,
They were so based on Nature. With a face
Glowing with thought, he pored upon the book.
The cushions of an Indian loom lay soft
Beneath his limbs, and, as he turned the page,
The sunlight, streaming through the curtain's fold,
Fell with a rose-teint on his jewelled hand;
And the rich woods of the quaint furniture
Lay deepening their veined colors in the sun,
And the stained marbles on the pedestals
Stood like a silent company — Voltaire,
With an infernal sneer upon his lips;
And Socrates, with godlike human love
Stamped on his countenance; and orators,
Of times gone by that made them; and old bards,
And Medicean Venus, half divine.
Around the room were shelves of dainty lore,
And rich old pictures hung upon the walls
Where the slant light fell on them; and wrought gems,
Medallions, rare mosaics, and antiques
From Herculaneum, the niches filled;
And on a table of enamel, wrought
With a lost art in Italy, there lay
Prints of fair women, and engravings rare,
And a new poem, and a costly toy;
And in their midst a massive lamp of bronze
Burning sweet spices constantly. Asleep
Upon the carpet couched a graceful hound,
Of a rare breed, and, as his master gave
A murmur of delight at some sweet line,
He raised his slender head, and kept his eye
Upon him till the pleasant smile had passed
From his mild lips, and then he slept again.
The light beyond the crimson folds grew dusk,
And the clear letters of the pleasant book
Mingled and blurred, and the lithe hound rose up,
And, with his earnest eye upon the door,
Listened attentively. It came as wont —
The fall of a light foot upon the stair —
And the fond animal sprang out to meet
His mistress, and caress the ungloved hand,
He seemed to know was beautiful. She stooped
Gracefully down and touched his silken ears
As she passed in — then, with a tenderness,
Half playful and half serious, she knelt
Upon the ottoman and pressed her lips
Upon her husband's forehead.
She rose and put the curtain-folds aside
From the high window, and looked out upon
The shining stars in silence. “Look they not
Like Paradises to thine eye?” he said —
But, as he spoke, a tear fell through the light —
And — starting from his seat — he folded her
Close to his heart, and — with unsteady voice —
Asked — if she was not happy. A faint smile
Broke through her tears; and pushing off the hair
From his broad forehead, she held back his head
With her white hand, and, gazing on his face,
Gave to her heart free utterance: —
Happy? — yes, dearest! — blest
Beyond the limit of my wildest dream —
Too bright indeed, my blessings ever seem;
There lives not in my breast,
One of Hope's promises by Love unkept,
And yet — forgive me, Ernest — I have wept.
How shall I speak of sadness,
And seem not thankless to my God and thee?
How can the lightest wish but seem to be
The very whim of madness?
Yet, oh, there is a boon thy love beside —
And I will ask it of thee — in my pride!
List, while my boldness lingers!
If thou hadst won yon twinkling star to hear thee —
If thou couldst bid the rainbow's curve bend near thee —
If thou couldst charm thy fingers
To weave for thee the Sunset's tent of gold —
Wouldst in thine own heart treasure it untold?
If thou hadst Ariel's gift,
To course the veined metals of the earth —
If thou couldst wind a fountain to its birth —
If thou couldst know the drift
Of the lost cloud that sailed into the sky —
Wouldst keep it for thine own unanswered eye?
It is thy life and mine!
Thou, in thyself — and I, in thee — misprison
Gifts like a circle of bright stars unrisen —
For thou whose mind should shine,
Eminent as a planet's light, art here —
Moved with the starting of a woman's tear!
I have told o'er thy powers
In secret, as a miser tells his gold;
I know thy spirit calm, and true and bold:
I've watched thy lightest hours,
And seen thee, in the wildest flush of youth,
Touched with the instinct ravishment of truth.
Thou hast the secret strange
To read that hidden book, the human heart;
Thou hast the ready writer's practised art;
Thou hast the thought to range
The broadest circles Intellect hath ran —
And thou art God's best work — an honest man!
And yet thou slumberest here
Like a caged bird that never knew its pinions,
And others track in glory the dominions
Where thou hast not thy peer —
Setting their weaker eyes unto the sun,
And plucking honor that thou shouldst have won.
Oh, if thou lovedst me ever,
Ernest, my husband! If th' idolatry
That lets go heaven to fling its all on thee —
If to dismiss thee never
In dream or prayer, have given me aught to claim —
Heed me — oh, heed me! and awake to Fame!
Her lips
Closed with an earnest sweetness, and she sat
Gazing into his eyes as if her look
Searched their dark orbs for answer. The warm blood
Into his temples mounted, and across
His countenance the flush of passionate thoughts
Passed with irresolute quickness. He rose up
And paced the dim room rapidly awhile,
Calming his troubled mind; and then he came
And laid his hand upon her orbed brow,
And in a voice of heavenly tenderness
Answered her: —
All gorgeous with illuminated lines
Of gold and crimson, lay upon a frame
Before him. 'Twas a volume of old time;
And in it were fine mysteries of the stars
Solved with a cunning wisdom, and strange thoughts,
Half prophecy, half poetry, and dreams
Clearer than truth, and speculations wild
That touched the secrets of your very soul,
They were so based on Nature. With a face
Glowing with thought, he pored upon the book.
The cushions of an Indian loom lay soft
Beneath his limbs, and, as he turned the page,
The sunlight, streaming through the curtain's fold,
Fell with a rose-teint on his jewelled hand;
And the rich woods of the quaint furniture
Lay deepening their veined colors in the sun,
And the stained marbles on the pedestals
Stood like a silent company — Voltaire,
With an infernal sneer upon his lips;
And Socrates, with godlike human love
Stamped on his countenance; and orators,
Of times gone by that made them; and old bards,
And Medicean Venus, half divine.
Around the room were shelves of dainty lore,
And rich old pictures hung upon the walls
Where the slant light fell on them; and wrought gems,
Medallions, rare mosaics, and antiques
From Herculaneum, the niches filled;
And on a table of enamel, wrought
With a lost art in Italy, there lay
Prints of fair women, and engravings rare,
And a new poem, and a costly toy;
And in their midst a massive lamp of bronze
Burning sweet spices constantly. Asleep
Upon the carpet couched a graceful hound,
Of a rare breed, and, as his master gave
A murmur of delight at some sweet line,
He raised his slender head, and kept his eye
Upon him till the pleasant smile had passed
From his mild lips, and then he slept again.
The light beyond the crimson folds grew dusk,
And the clear letters of the pleasant book
Mingled and blurred, and the lithe hound rose up,
And, with his earnest eye upon the door,
Listened attentively. It came as wont —
The fall of a light foot upon the stair —
And the fond animal sprang out to meet
His mistress, and caress the ungloved hand,
He seemed to know was beautiful. She stooped
Gracefully down and touched his silken ears
As she passed in — then, with a tenderness,
Half playful and half serious, she knelt
Upon the ottoman and pressed her lips
Upon her husband's forehead.
She rose and put the curtain-folds aside
From the high window, and looked out upon
The shining stars in silence. “Look they not
Like Paradises to thine eye?” he said —
But, as he spoke, a tear fell through the light —
And — starting from his seat — he folded her
Close to his heart, and — with unsteady voice —
Asked — if she was not happy. A faint smile
Broke through her tears; and pushing off the hair
From his broad forehead, she held back his head
With her white hand, and, gazing on his face,
Gave to her heart free utterance: —
Happy? — yes, dearest! — blest
Beyond the limit of my wildest dream —
Too bright indeed, my blessings ever seem;
There lives not in my breast,
One of Hope's promises by Love unkept,
And yet — forgive me, Ernest — I have wept.
How shall I speak of sadness,
And seem not thankless to my God and thee?
How can the lightest wish but seem to be
The very whim of madness?
Yet, oh, there is a boon thy love beside —
And I will ask it of thee — in my pride!
List, while my boldness lingers!
If thou hadst won yon twinkling star to hear thee —
If thou couldst bid the rainbow's curve bend near thee —
If thou couldst charm thy fingers
To weave for thee the Sunset's tent of gold —
Wouldst in thine own heart treasure it untold?
If thou hadst Ariel's gift,
To course the veined metals of the earth —
If thou couldst wind a fountain to its birth —
If thou couldst know the drift
Of the lost cloud that sailed into the sky —
Wouldst keep it for thine own unanswered eye?
It is thy life and mine!
Thou, in thyself — and I, in thee — misprison
Gifts like a circle of bright stars unrisen —
For thou whose mind should shine,
Eminent as a planet's light, art here —
Moved with the starting of a woman's tear!
I have told o'er thy powers
In secret, as a miser tells his gold;
I know thy spirit calm, and true and bold:
I've watched thy lightest hours,
And seen thee, in the wildest flush of youth,
Touched with the instinct ravishment of truth.
Thou hast the secret strange
To read that hidden book, the human heart;
Thou hast the ready writer's practised art;
Thou hast the thought to range
The broadest circles Intellect hath ran —
And thou art God's best work — an honest man!
And yet thou slumberest here
Like a caged bird that never knew its pinions,
And others track in glory the dominions
Where thou hast not thy peer —
Setting their weaker eyes unto the sun,
And plucking honor that thou shouldst have won.
Oh, if thou lovedst me ever,
Ernest, my husband! If th' idolatry
That lets go heaven to fling its all on thee —
If to dismiss thee never
In dream or prayer, have given me aught to claim —
Heed me — oh, heed me! and awake to Fame!
Her lips
Closed with an earnest sweetness, and she sat
Gazing into his eyes as if her look
Searched their dark orbs for answer. The warm blood
Into his temples mounted, and across
His countenance the flush of passionate thoughts
Passed with irresolute quickness. He rose up
And paced the dim room rapidly awhile,
Calming his troubled mind; and then he came
And laid his hand upon her orbed brow,
And in a voice of heavenly tenderness
Answered her: —
838
Before I knew thee, Mary,
Ambition was my angel. I did hear
For ever its witched voices in mine ear;
My days were visionary —
My nights were like the slumbers of the mad —
And every dream swept o'er me glory clad.
I read the burning letters
Of warlike pomp, on History's page, alone;
I counted nothing the struck widow's moan;
I heard no clank of fetters;
I only felt the trumpet's stirring blast,
And lean-eyed Famine stalked unchallenged past!
I heard with veins of lightning,
The utterance of the Statesman's word of power —
Binding and loosing nations in an hour —
But, while my eye was brightening,
A masked detraction breathed upon his fame,
And a curst serpent slimed his written name.
The poet rapt mine ears
With the transporting music that he sung.
With fibres from his life his lyre he strung,
And bathed the world in tears —
And then he turned away to some muse apart,
And Scorn stole after him — and broke his heart!
Yet here and there I saw
One who did set the world at calm defiance.
And press right onward with a bold reliance;
And he did seem to awe
The very Shadows pressing on his breast,
And, with a strong heart, held himself at rest.
And then I looked again —
And he had shut the door upon the crowd,
And on his face he lay and groaned aloud —
Wrestling with hidden pain;
And in her chamber sat his wife in tears,
And his sweet babes grew sad with whispered fears.
And so I turned sick-hearted
From the bright cup away, and, in my sadness,
Searched mine own bosom for some spring of gladness;
And lo! a fountain started
Whose waters even in death flow calm and fast,
And my wild fever-thirst was slaked at last.
And then I met thee, Mary,
And felt how love may into fulness pour,
Like light into a fountain running o'er:
And I did hope to vary
My life but with surprises sweet as this —
A dream — but for thy waking — filled with bliss.
Yet now I feel my spirit
Bitterly stirred, and — nay, lift up thy brow!
It is thine own voice echoing to thee now,
And thou didst pray to hear it —
I must unto my work and my stern hours!
Take from my room thy harp, and books, and flowers!
A year —
And in his room again he sat alone.
His frame had lost its fulness in that time;
His manly features had grown sharp and thin,
And from his lips the constant smile had faded.
Wild fires had burned the languor from his eye:
The lids looked fevered, and the brow was bent
With an habitual frown. He was much changed.
His chin was resting on his clenched hand,
And with his foot he beat upon the floor,
Unconsciously, the time of a sad tune.
Thoughts of the past preyed on him bitterly.
He had won power and held it. He had walked
Steadily upward in the eye of Fame,
And kept his truth unsullied — but his home
Had been invaded by envenomed tongues;
His wife — his spotless wife — had been assailed
By slander, and his child had grown afraid
To come to him — his manner was so stern.
He could not speak beside his own hearth freely.
His friends were half estranged, and vulgar men
Presumed upon their services and grew
Familiar with him. He'd small time to sleep,
And none to pray; and, with his heart in fetters,
He bore deep insults silently, and bowed
Respectfully to men who knew he loathed them!
And, when his heart was eloquent with truth,
And love of country, and an honest zeal
Burned for expression, he could find no words
They would not misinterpret with their lies.
What were his many honors to him now?
The good half doubted, falsehood was so strong —
His home was hateful with its cautious fears —
His wife lay trembling on his very breast
Frighted with calumny! — And this is FAME.
Ambition was my angel. I did hear
For ever its witched voices in mine ear;
My days were visionary —
My nights were like the slumbers of the mad —
And every dream swept o'er me glory clad.
I read the burning letters
Of warlike pomp, on History's page, alone;
I counted nothing the struck widow's moan;
I heard no clank of fetters;
I only felt the trumpet's stirring blast,
And lean-eyed Famine stalked unchallenged past!
I heard with veins of lightning,
The utterance of the Statesman's word of power —
Binding and loosing nations in an hour —
But, while my eye was brightening,
A masked detraction breathed upon his fame,
And a curst serpent slimed his written name.
The poet rapt mine ears
With the transporting music that he sung.
With fibres from his life his lyre he strung,
And bathed the world in tears —
And then he turned away to some muse apart,
And Scorn stole after him — and broke his heart!
Yet here and there I saw
One who did set the world at calm defiance.
And press right onward with a bold reliance;
And he did seem to awe
The very Shadows pressing on his breast,
And, with a strong heart, held himself at rest.
And then I looked again —
And he had shut the door upon the crowd,
And on his face he lay and groaned aloud —
Wrestling with hidden pain;
And in her chamber sat his wife in tears,
And his sweet babes grew sad with whispered fears.
And so I turned sick-hearted
From the bright cup away, and, in my sadness,
Searched mine own bosom for some spring of gladness;
And lo! a fountain started
Whose waters even in death flow calm and fast,
And my wild fever-thirst was slaked at last.
And then I met thee, Mary,
And felt how love may into fulness pour,
Like light into a fountain running o'er:
And I did hope to vary
My life but with surprises sweet as this —
A dream — but for thy waking — filled with bliss.
Yet now I feel my spirit
Bitterly stirred, and — nay, lift up thy brow!
It is thine own voice echoing to thee now,
And thou didst pray to hear it —
I must unto my work and my stern hours!
Take from my room thy harp, and books, and flowers!
A year —
And in his room again he sat alone.
His frame had lost its fulness in that time;
His manly features had grown sharp and thin,
And from his lips the constant smile had faded.
Wild fires had burned the languor from his eye:
The lids looked fevered, and the brow was bent
With an habitual frown. He was much changed.
His chin was resting on his clenched hand,
And with his foot he beat upon the floor,
Unconsciously, the time of a sad tune.
Thoughts of the past preyed on him bitterly.
He had won power and held it. He had walked
Steadily upward in the eye of Fame,
And kept his truth unsullied — but his home
Had been invaded by envenomed tongues;
His wife — his spotless wife — had been assailed
By slander, and his child had grown afraid
To come to him — his manner was so stern.
He could not speak beside his own hearth freely.
His friends were half estranged, and vulgar men
Presumed upon their services and grew
Familiar with him. He'd small time to sleep,
And none to pray; and, with his heart in fetters,
He bore deep insults silently, and bowed
Respectfully to men who knew he loathed them!
And, when his heart was eloquent with truth,
And love of country, and an honest zeal
Burned for expression, he could find no words
They would not misinterpret with their lies.
What were his many honors to him now?
The good half doubted, falsehood was so strong —
His home was hateful with its cautious fears —
His wife lay trembling on his very breast
Frighted with calumny! — And this is FAME.
MELANIE.
I.
I stood on yonder rocky brow,[10]
And marvelled at the Sibyl's fane,
When I was not what I am now.
My life was then untouched of pain;
And, as the breeze that stirred my hair,
My spirit freshened in the sky,
And all things that were true and fair
Lay closely to my loving eye,
With nothing shadowy between —
I was a boy of seventeen.
Yon wond'rous temple crests the rock —
As light upon its giddy base,
As stirless with the torrent's shock,
As pure in its proportioned grace,
And seems a thing of air — as then,
Afloat above this fairy glen;
But though mine eye will kindle still
In looking on the shapes of art,
The link is lost that sent the thrill,
Like lightning, instant to my heart.
And thus may break before we die,
Th' electric chain 'twixt soul and eye!
Ten years — like yon bright valley, sown
Alternately with weeds and flowers —
Had swiftly, if not gayly, flown,
And still I loved the rosy Hours;
And if there lurked within my breast
Some nerve that had been overstrung
And quivered in my hours of rest,
Like bells by their own echo rung,
I was with hope a masquer yet,
And well could hide the look of sadness;
And, if my heart would not forget,
I knew, at least, the trick of gladness;
And when another sang the strain,
I mingled in the old refrain.
'Twere idle to remember now,
Had I the heart, my thwarted schemes.
I bear beneath this altered brow
The ashes of a thousand dreams —
Some wrought of wild Ambition's fingers,
Some colored of Love's pencil well —
But none of which a shadow lingers,
And none whose story I could tell.
Enough, that when I climbed again
To Tivoli's romantic steep,
Life had no joy, and scarce a pain,
Whose wells I had not tasted deep;
And from my lips the thirst had passed
For every fount save one — the sweetest — and the last.
The last — the last! My friends were dead,
Or false; my mother in her grave;
Above my father's honored head
The sea had locked its hiding wave;
Ambition had but foiled my grasp,
And love had perished in my clasp;
And still, I say, I did not slack
My love of life, and hope of pleasure,
But gathered my affections back;
And, as the miser hugs his treasure
When plague and ruin bid him flee,
I closer clung to mine — my loved, lost Melanie!
I stood on yonder rocky brow,[10]
And marvelled at the Sibyl's fane,
When I was not what I am now.
My life was then untouched of pain;
And, as the breeze that stirred my hair,
My spirit freshened in the sky,
And all things that were true and fair
Lay closely to my loving eye,
With nothing shadowy between —
I was a boy of seventeen.
Yon wond'rous temple crests the rock —
As light upon its giddy base,
As stirless with the torrent's shock,
As pure in its proportioned grace,
And seems a thing of air — as then,
Afloat above this fairy glen;
But though mine eye will kindle still
In looking on the shapes of art,
The link is lost that sent the thrill,
Like lightning, instant to my heart.
And thus may break before we die,
Th' electric chain 'twixt soul and eye!
Ten years — like yon bright valley, sown
Alternately with weeds and flowers —
Had swiftly, if not gayly, flown,
And still I loved the rosy Hours;
And if there lurked within my breast
Some nerve that had been overstrung
And quivered in my hours of rest,
Like bells by their own echo rung,
I was with hope a masquer yet,
And well could hide the look of sadness;
And, if my heart would not forget,
I knew, at least, the trick of gladness;
And when another sang the strain,
I mingled in the old refrain.
'Twere idle to remember now,
Had I the heart, my thwarted schemes.
I bear beneath this altered brow
The ashes of a thousand dreams —
Some wrought of wild Ambition's fingers,
Some colored of Love's pencil well —
But none of which a shadow lingers,
And none whose story I could tell.
Enough, that when I climbed again
To Tivoli's romantic steep,
Life had no joy, and scarce a pain,
Whose wells I had not tasted deep;
And from my lips the thirst had passed
For every fount save one — the sweetest — and the last.
The last — the last! My friends were dead,
Or false; my mother in her grave;
Above my father's honored head
The sea had locked its hiding wave;
Ambition had but foiled my grasp,
And love had perished in my clasp;
And still, I say, I did not slack
My love of life, and hope of pleasure,
But gathered my affections back;
And, as the miser hugs his treasure
When plague and ruin bid him flee,
I closer clung to mine — my loved, lost Melanie!
839
The last of the De Brevern race,
My sister claimed no kinsman's care;
And, looking from each other's face,
The eye stole upward unaware —
For there was naught whereon to lean
Each other's heart and heaven between —
Yet that was world enough for me;
And, for a brief but blessed while,
There seemed no care for Melanie
If she could see her brother smile!
But life with her was at the flow,
And every wave went sparkling higher,
While mine was ebbing, fast and low,
From the same shore of vain desire;
And knew I, with prophetic heart,
That we were wearing, aye, insensibly apart.
II.
We came to Italy. I felt
A yearning for its sunny sky;
My very spirit seemed to melt
As swept its first warm breezes by.
From lip and cheek a chilling mist,
From life and soul a frozen rime,
By every breath seemed softly kissed —
God's blessing on its radiant clime!
It was an endless joy to me
To see my sister's new delight;
From Venice in its golden sea
To Pœstum in its purple light —
By sweet Val d'Arno's teinted hills —
In Vallombrosa's convent gloom —
Mid Terni's vale of singing rills —
By deathless lairs in solemn Rome —
In gay Palermo's “Golden Shell” —
At Arethusa's hidden well —
We loitered like th' impassioned sun
That slept so lovingly on all,
And made a home of every one —
Ruin, and fane, and waterfall —
And crowned the dying day with glory
If we had seen, since morn, but one old haunt of story.
We came with Spring to Tivoli.
My sister loved its laughing air
And merry waters, though, for me,
My heart was in another key;
And sometimes I could scarcely bear
The mirth of their eternal play,
And, like a child that longs for home
When weary of its holyday,
I sighed for melancholy Rome.
Perhaps — the fancy haunts me still —
'Twas but a boding sense of ill.
It was a morn, of such a day
As might have dawned on Eden first,
Early in the Italian May.
Vine-leaf and flower had newly burst,
And on the burthen of the air
The breath of buds came faint and rare;
And far in the transparent sky
The small, earth-keeping birds were seen
Soaring deliriously high;
And through the clefts of newer green
Yon waters dashed their living pearls;
And with a gayer smile and bow
Trooped on the merry village-girls;
And from the contadino's brow
The low-slouched hat was backward thrown,
With air that scarcely seemed his own;
And Melanie, with lips apart,
And clasped hands upon my arm,
Flung open her impassioned heart,
And blessed life's mere and breathing charm;
And sang old songs, and gathered flowers,
And passionately bless'd once more life's thrilling hours.
In happiness and idleness
We wandered down yon sunny vale —
Oh mocking eyes! — a golden trees
Floats back upon this summer gale!
A foot is tripping on the grass!
A laugh rings merry in mine ear!
I see a bounding shadow pass! —
O God! my sister once was here!
Come with me, friend. — We rested yon!
There grew a flower she plucked and wore!
She sat upon this mossy stone —
That broken fountain running o'er
With the same ring, like silver bells.
She listened to its babbling flow,
And said, “Perhaps the gossip tells
Some fountain-nymph's love-story now!”
And as her laugh ran clear and wild,
A youth — a painter — passed and smiled.
He gave the greeting of the morn
With voice that lingered in mine ear.
I knew him sad and gentle born
By those two words — so calm and clear.
His frame was slight, his forehead high
And swept by threads of raven hair,
The fire of thought was in his eye,
And he was pale and marble fair,
And Grecian chisel never caught
The soul in those slight features wrought.
I watched his graceful step of pride,
Till hidden by yon leaning tree,
And loved him ere the echo died;
And so, alas! did Melanie!
We sat and watched the fount awhile
In silence, but our thoughts were one;
And then arose, and, with a smile
Of sympathy, we sauntered on;
And she by sudden fits was gay,
And then her laughter died away,
And in this changefulness of mood
(Forgotten now those May-day spells)
We turned where Varro's villa stood,
And gazing on the Cascatelles,
(Whose hurrying waters wild and white
Seemed maddened as they burst to light,)
I chanced to turn my eyes away,
And lo! upon a bank, alone,
The youthful painter, sleeping, lay!
His pencils on the grass were thrown
And by his side a sketch was flung,
And near him as I lightly crept,
To see the picture as he slept,
Upon his feet he lightly sprung;
And, gazing with a wild surprise
Upon the face of Melanie,
He said — and dropped his earnest eyes-
“Forgive me! but I dreamed of thee!”
His sketch, the while, was in my hand,
And, for the lines I looked to trace —
A torrent by a palace spanned,
Half-classic and half fairy-land —
I only found — my sister's face!
III.
Our life was changed. Another love
In its lone woof began to twine:
But ah! the golden thread was wove
Between my sister's heart and mine!
She who had lived for me before —
She who had smiled for me alone —
Would live and smile for me no more!
The echo to my heart was gone!
It seemed to me the very skies
Had shone through those averted eyes;
The air had breathed of balm — the flower
Of radiant beauty seemed to be —
But as she loved them, hour by hour,
And murmured of that love to me!
Oh, though it be so heavenly high
The selfishness of earth above,
That, of the watchers in the sky,
He sleeps who guards a brother's love —
Though to a sister's present weal
The deep devotion far transcends
The utmost that the soul can feel
For even its own higher ends —
My sister claimed no kinsman's care;
And, looking from each other's face,
The eye stole upward unaware —
For there was naught whereon to lean
Each other's heart and heaven between —
Yet that was world enough for me;
And, for a brief but blessed while,
There seemed no care for Melanie
If she could see her brother smile!
But life with her was at the flow,
And every wave went sparkling higher,
While mine was ebbing, fast and low,
From the same shore of vain desire;
And knew I, with prophetic heart,
That we were wearing, aye, insensibly apart.
II.
We came to Italy. I felt
A yearning for its sunny sky;
My very spirit seemed to melt
As swept its first warm breezes by.
From lip and cheek a chilling mist,
From life and soul a frozen rime,
By every breath seemed softly kissed —
God's blessing on its radiant clime!
It was an endless joy to me
To see my sister's new delight;
From Venice in its golden sea
To Pœstum in its purple light —
By sweet Val d'Arno's teinted hills —
In Vallombrosa's convent gloom —
Mid Terni's vale of singing rills —
By deathless lairs in solemn Rome —
In gay Palermo's “Golden Shell” —
At Arethusa's hidden well —
We loitered like th' impassioned sun
That slept so lovingly on all,
And made a home of every one —
Ruin, and fane, and waterfall —
And crowned the dying day with glory
If we had seen, since morn, but one old haunt of story.
We came with Spring to Tivoli.
My sister loved its laughing air
And merry waters, though, for me,
My heart was in another key;
And sometimes I could scarcely bear
The mirth of their eternal play,
And, like a child that longs for home
When weary of its holyday,
I sighed for melancholy Rome.
Perhaps — the fancy haunts me still —
'Twas but a boding sense of ill.
It was a morn, of such a day
As might have dawned on Eden first,
Early in the Italian May.
Vine-leaf and flower had newly burst,
And on the burthen of the air
The breath of buds came faint and rare;
And far in the transparent sky
The small, earth-keeping birds were seen
Soaring deliriously high;
And through the clefts of newer green
Yon waters dashed their living pearls;
And with a gayer smile and bow
Trooped on the merry village-girls;
And from the contadino's brow
The low-slouched hat was backward thrown,
With air that scarcely seemed his own;
And Melanie, with lips apart,
And clasped hands upon my arm,
Flung open her impassioned heart,
And blessed life's mere and breathing charm;
And sang old songs, and gathered flowers,
And passionately bless'd once more life's thrilling hours.
In happiness and idleness
We wandered down yon sunny vale —
Oh mocking eyes! — a golden trees
Floats back upon this summer gale!
A foot is tripping on the grass!
A laugh rings merry in mine ear!
I see a bounding shadow pass! —
O God! my sister once was here!
Come with me, friend. — We rested yon!
There grew a flower she plucked and wore!
She sat upon this mossy stone —
That broken fountain running o'er
With the same ring, like silver bells.
She listened to its babbling flow,
And said, “Perhaps the gossip tells
Some fountain-nymph's love-story now!”
And as her laugh ran clear and wild,
A youth — a painter — passed and smiled.
He gave the greeting of the morn
With voice that lingered in mine ear.
I knew him sad and gentle born
By those two words — so calm and clear.
His frame was slight, his forehead high
And swept by threads of raven hair,
The fire of thought was in his eye,
And he was pale and marble fair,
And Grecian chisel never caught
The soul in those slight features wrought.
I watched his graceful step of pride,
Till hidden by yon leaning tree,
And loved him ere the echo died;
And so, alas! did Melanie!
We sat and watched the fount awhile
In silence, but our thoughts were one;
And then arose, and, with a smile
Of sympathy, we sauntered on;
And she by sudden fits was gay,
And then her laughter died away,
And in this changefulness of mood
(Forgotten now those May-day spells)
We turned where Varro's villa stood,
And gazing on the Cascatelles,
(Whose hurrying waters wild and white
Seemed maddened as they burst to light,)
I chanced to turn my eyes away,
And lo! upon a bank, alone,
The youthful painter, sleeping, lay!
His pencils on the grass were thrown
And by his side a sketch was flung,
And near him as I lightly crept,
To see the picture as he slept,
Upon his feet he lightly sprung;
And, gazing with a wild surprise
Upon the face of Melanie,
He said — and dropped his earnest eyes-
“Forgive me! but I dreamed of thee!”
His sketch, the while, was in my hand,
And, for the lines I looked to trace —
A torrent by a palace spanned,
Half-classic and half fairy-land —
I only found — my sister's face!
III.
Our life was changed. Another love
In its lone woof began to twine:
But ah! the golden thread was wove
Between my sister's heart and mine!
She who had lived for me before —
She who had smiled for me alone —
Would live and smile for me no more!
The echo to my heart was gone!
It seemed to me the very skies
Had shone through those averted eyes;
The air had breathed of balm — the flower
Of radiant beauty seemed to be —
But as she loved them, hour by hour,
And murmured of that love to me!
Oh, though it be so heavenly high
The selfishness of earth above,
That, of the watchers in the sky,
He sleeps who guards a brother's love —
Though to a sister's present weal
The deep devotion far transcends
The utmost that the soul can feel
For even its own higher ends —
840
Though next to God, and more than heaven
For his own sake, he loves her, even —
'Tis difficult to see another,
A passing stranger of a day
Who never hath been friend or brother,
Pluck with a look her heart away —
To see the fair, unsullied brow
Ne'er kissed before without a prayer,
Upon a stranger's bosom now,
Who for the boon took little care —
Who is enriched, he knows not why —
Who suddenly hath found a treasure
Golconda were too poor to buy,
And he perhaps, too cold to measure —
(Albeit, in her forgetful dream,
Th' unconscious idol happier seem),
'Tis difficult at once to crush
The rebel mourner in the breast,
To press the heart to earth and hush
Its bitter jealousy to rest —
And difficult — the eye gets dim,
The lip wants power — to smile on him!
I thank sweet Mary Mother now,
Who gave me strength those pangs to hide —
And touched mine eyes and lit my brow
With sunshine that my heart belied.
I never spoke of wealth or race
To one who asked so much from me —
I looked but in my sister's face,
And mused if she would happier be;
And hour by hour, and day by day,
I loved the gentle painter more,
And, in the same soft measure, wore
My selfish jealousy away:
And I began to watch his mood,
And feel, with her, love's trembling care,
And bade God bless him as he wooed
That loving girl so fond and fair.
And on my mind would sometimes press
A fear that she might love him less.
But Melanie — I little dreamed
What spells the stirring heart may move —
Pygmalion's statue never seemed
More changed with life, than she with love!
The pearl teint of the early dawn
Flushed into day-spring's rosy hue —
The meek, moss-folded bud of morn
Flung open to the light and dew —
The first and half-seen star of even
Waxed clear amid the deepening heaven —
Similitudes perchance may be!
But these are changes oftener seen,
And do not image half to me
My sister's change of face and mein.
'Twas written in her very air
That Love had passed and entered there.
IV.
A calm and lovely paradise
Is Italy, for minds at ease.
The sadness of its sunny skies
Weighs not upon the lives of these.
The ruined aisle, the crumbling fane,
The broken column, vast and prone —
It may be joy — it may be pain —
Amid such wrecks to walk alone!
The saddest man will sadder be,
The gentlest lover gentler there —
As if, whate'er the spirit's key,
It strengthened in that solemn air.
The heart soon grows to mournful things,
And Italy has not a breeze
But comes on melancholy wings;
And even her majestic trees
Stand ghost-like in the Cœsars' home,
As if their conscious roots were set
In the old graves of giant Rome,
And drew their sap all kingly yet!
And every stone your feet beneath
Is broken from some mighty thought;
And sculptures in the dust still breathe
The fire with which their lines were wrought;
And sundered arch, and plundered tomb,
Still thunder back the echo, “Rome!”
Yet, gayly o'er Egeria's fount
The ivy flings its emerald veil,
And flowers grow fair on Numa's mount,
And light-sprung arches span the dale;
And soft, from Caracalla's Baths,
The herdsman's song comes down the breeze
While climb his goats the giddy paths
To grass-grown architrave and frieze;
And gracefully Albano's hill
Curves into the horizon's line;
And sweetly sings that classic rill;
And fairly stands that nameless shrine;
And here, oh, many a sultry noon
And starry eve, that happy June,
Came Angelo and Melanie!
And earth for us was all in tune —
For while Love talked with them, Hope walked apart with me!
V.
I shrink from the embittered close
Of my own melancholy tale.
'Tis long since I have waked my woes —
And nerve and voice together fail,
The throb beats faster at my brow,
My brain feels warm with starting tears,
And I shall weep — but heed not thou!
'Twill sooth awhile the ache of years!
The heart transfixed — worn out with grief —
Will turn the arrow for relief.
The painter was a child of shame!
It stirred my pride to know it first,
For I had questioned but his name,
And, thought, alas! I knew the worst,
Believing him unknown and poor.
His blood, indeed, was not obscure;
A high-born Conti was his mother,
But, though he knew one parent's face,
He never had beheld the other,
Nor knew his country or his race.
The Roman hid his daughter's shame
Within St. Mona's convent wall,
And gave the boy a painter's name —
And little else to live withal!
And with a noble's high desires
For ever mounting in his heart,
The boy consumed with hidden fires,
But wrought in silence at his art;
And sometimes at St. Mona's shrine,
Worn thin with penance harsh and long,
He saw his mother's form divine,
And loved her for their mutual wrong.
I said my pride was stirred — but no!
The voice that told its bitter tale
Was touched so mournfully with wo,
And, as he ceased, all deathly pale,
He loosed the hand of Melanie,
And gazed so gaspingly on me —
The demon in my bosom died!
“Not thine,” I said, “another's guilt;
I break no hearts for silly pride;
So, kiss yon weeper if thou wilt!”
VI.
St. Mona's morning mass was done,
The shrine-lamps struggled with the day;
And rising slowly, one by one,
Stole the last worshippers away.
The organist played out the hymn,
The incense, to St. Mary swung,
Had mounted to the cherubim,
Or to the pillars thinly clung;
And boyish chorister replaced
The missal that was read no more,
And closed, with half irreverent haste,
Confessional and chancel door;
For his own sake, he loves her, even —
'Tis difficult to see another,
A passing stranger of a day
Who never hath been friend or brother,
Pluck with a look her heart away —
To see the fair, unsullied brow
Ne'er kissed before without a prayer,
Upon a stranger's bosom now,
Who for the boon took little care —
Who is enriched, he knows not why —
Who suddenly hath found a treasure
Golconda were too poor to buy,
And he perhaps, too cold to measure —
(Albeit, in her forgetful dream,
Th' unconscious idol happier seem),
'Tis difficult at once to crush
The rebel mourner in the breast,
To press the heart to earth and hush
Its bitter jealousy to rest —
And difficult — the eye gets dim,
The lip wants power — to smile on him!
I thank sweet Mary Mother now,
Who gave me strength those pangs to hide —
And touched mine eyes and lit my brow
With sunshine that my heart belied.
I never spoke of wealth or race
To one who asked so much from me —
I looked but in my sister's face,
And mused if she would happier be;
And hour by hour, and day by day,
I loved the gentle painter more,
And, in the same soft measure, wore
My selfish jealousy away:
And I began to watch his mood,
And feel, with her, love's trembling care,
And bade God bless him as he wooed
That loving girl so fond and fair.
And on my mind would sometimes press
A fear that she might love him less.
But Melanie — I little dreamed
What spells the stirring heart may move —
Pygmalion's statue never seemed
More changed with life, than she with love!
The pearl teint of the early dawn
Flushed into day-spring's rosy hue —
The meek, moss-folded bud of morn
Flung open to the light and dew —
The first and half-seen star of even
Waxed clear amid the deepening heaven —
Similitudes perchance may be!
But these are changes oftener seen,
And do not image half to me
My sister's change of face and mein.
'Twas written in her very air
That Love had passed and entered there.
IV.
A calm and lovely paradise
Is Italy, for minds at ease.
The sadness of its sunny skies
Weighs not upon the lives of these.
The ruined aisle, the crumbling fane,
The broken column, vast and prone —
It may be joy — it may be pain —
Amid such wrecks to walk alone!
The saddest man will sadder be,
The gentlest lover gentler there —
As if, whate'er the spirit's key,
It strengthened in that solemn air.
The heart soon grows to mournful things,
And Italy has not a breeze
But comes on melancholy wings;
And even her majestic trees
Stand ghost-like in the Cœsars' home,
As if their conscious roots were set
In the old graves of giant Rome,
And drew their sap all kingly yet!
And every stone your feet beneath
Is broken from some mighty thought;
And sculptures in the dust still breathe
The fire with which their lines were wrought;
And sundered arch, and plundered tomb,
Still thunder back the echo, “Rome!”
Yet, gayly o'er Egeria's fount
The ivy flings its emerald veil,
And flowers grow fair on Numa's mount,
And light-sprung arches span the dale;
And soft, from Caracalla's Baths,
The herdsman's song comes down the breeze
While climb his goats the giddy paths
To grass-grown architrave and frieze;
And gracefully Albano's hill
Curves into the horizon's line;
And sweetly sings that classic rill;
And fairly stands that nameless shrine;
And here, oh, many a sultry noon
And starry eve, that happy June,
Came Angelo and Melanie!
And earth for us was all in tune —
For while Love talked with them, Hope walked apart with me!
V.
I shrink from the embittered close
Of my own melancholy tale.
'Tis long since I have waked my woes —
And nerve and voice together fail,
The throb beats faster at my brow,
My brain feels warm with starting tears,
And I shall weep — but heed not thou!
'Twill sooth awhile the ache of years!
The heart transfixed — worn out with grief —
Will turn the arrow for relief.
The painter was a child of shame!
It stirred my pride to know it first,
For I had questioned but his name,
And, thought, alas! I knew the worst,
Believing him unknown and poor.
His blood, indeed, was not obscure;
A high-born Conti was his mother,
But, though he knew one parent's face,
He never had beheld the other,
Nor knew his country or his race.
The Roman hid his daughter's shame
Within St. Mona's convent wall,
And gave the boy a painter's name —
And little else to live withal!
And with a noble's high desires
For ever mounting in his heart,
The boy consumed with hidden fires,
But wrought in silence at his art;
And sometimes at St. Mona's shrine,
Worn thin with penance harsh and long,
He saw his mother's form divine,
And loved her for their mutual wrong.
I said my pride was stirred — but no!
The voice that told its bitter tale
Was touched so mournfully with wo,
And, as he ceased, all deathly pale,
He loosed the hand of Melanie,
And gazed so gaspingly on me —
The demon in my bosom died!
“Not thine,” I said, “another's guilt;
I break no hearts for silly pride;
So, kiss yon weeper if thou wilt!”
VI.
St. Mona's morning mass was done,
The shrine-lamps struggled with the day;
And rising slowly, one by one,
Stole the last worshippers away.
The organist played out the hymn,
The incense, to St. Mary swung,
Had mounted to the cherubim,
Or to the pillars thinly clung;
And boyish chorister replaced
The missal that was read no more,
And closed, with half irreverent haste,
Confessional and chancel door;
841
And as, through aisle and oriel pane,
The sun wore round his slanting beam,
The dying martyr stirred again,
And warriors battled in its gleam;
And costly tomb and sculptured knight
Showed warm and wondrous in the light.
I have not said that Melanie
Was radiantly fair —
This earth again may never see
A loveliness so rare!
She glided up St. Mona's aisle
That morning as a bride,
And, full as was my heart the while,
I blessed her in my pride!
The fountain may not fail the less
Whose sands are golden ore,
And a sister for her loveliness,
May not be loved the more;
But as, the fount's full heart beneath,
Those golden sparkles shine,
My sister's beauty seemed to breathe
Its brightness over mine!
St. Mona has a chapel dim
Within the altar's fretted pale,
Where faintly comes the swelling hymn,
And dies half lost the anthem's wail.
And here, in twilight meet for prayer,
A single lamp hangs o'er the shrine,
And Raphael's Mary, soft and fair,
Looks down with sweetness half divine,
And here St. Mona's nuns alway
Through latticed bars are seen to pray.
Avé and sacrament were o'er,
And Angelo and Melanie
Still knelt the holy shrine before:
But prayer, that morn was not for me!
My heart was locked! The lip might stir,
The frame might agonize — and yet,
Oh God! I could not pray for her!
A seal upon my brow was set —
My brow was hot — my brain opprest —
And fiends seemed muttering round, “Your bridal is unblest!”
With forehead to the lattice laid,
And thin, white fingers straining through,
A nun the while had softly prayed.
Oh, even in prayer that voice I knew!
Each faltering word — each mournful tone —
Each pleading cadence, half-suppressed —
Such music had its like alone
On lips that stole it at her breast!
And ere the orison was done
I loved the mother as the son!
And now, the marriage vows to hear,
The nun unveiled her brow —
When, sudden, to my startled ear,
There crept a whisper, hoarse like fear,
“De Brevern! is it thou!”
The priest let fall the golden ring,
The bridegroom stood aghast,
While, like some weird and frantic thing,
The nun was muttering fast;
And as, in dread, I nearer drew,
She thrust her arms the lattice through,
And held me to her straining view —
But suddenly began
To steal upon her brain a light
That staggered soul, and sense, and sight,
And, with a mouth all ashy white,
She shrieked, “It is his son!
The bridegroom is thy blood — thy brother!
Rodolph de Brevern wronged his mother!
And, as that doom of love was heard,
My sister sunk — and died — without a sign or word!
I shed no tear for her. She died
With her last sunshine in her eyes.
Earth held for her no joy beside
The hope just shattered — and she lies
In a green nook of yonder dell;
And near her, in a newer bed,
Her lover — brother — sleeps as well!
Peace to the broken-hearted dead!
The sun wore round his slanting beam,
The dying martyr stirred again,
And warriors battled in its gleam;
And costly tomb and sculptured knight
Showed warm and wondrous in the light.
I have not said that Melanie
Was radiantly fair —
This earth again may never see
A loveliness so rare!
She glided up St. Mona's aisle
That morning as a bride,
And, full as was my heart the while,
I blessed her in my pride!
The fountain may not fail the less
Whose sands are golden ore,
And a sister for her loveliness,
May not be loved the more;
But as, the fount's full heart beneath,
Those golden sparkles shine,
My sister's beauty seemed to breathe
Its brightness over mine!
St. Mona has a chapel dim
Within the altar's fretted pale,
Where faintly comes the swelling hymn,
And dies half lost the anthem's wail.
And here, in twilight meet for prayer,
A single lamp hangs o'er the shrine,
And Raphael's Mary, soft and fair,
Looks down with sweetness half divine,
And here St. Mona's nuns alway
Through latticed bars are seen to pray.
Avé and sacrament were o'er,
And Angelo and Melanie
Still knelt the holy shrine before:
But prayer, that morn was not for me!
My heart was locked! The lip might stir,
The frame might agonize — and yet,
Oh God! I could not pray for her!
A seal upon my brow was set —
My brow was hot — my brain opprest —
And fiends seemed muttering round, “Your bridal is unblest!”
With forehead to the lattice laid,
And thin, white fingers straining through,
A nun the while had softly prayed.
Oh, even in prayer that voice I knew!
Each faltering word — each mournful tone —
Each pleading cadence, half-suppressed —
Such music had its like alone
On lips that stole it at her breast!
And ere the orison was done
I loved the mother as the son!
And now, the marriage vows to hear,
The nun unveiled her brow —
When, sudden, to my startled ear,
There crept a whisper, hoarse like fear,
“De Brevern! is it thou!”
The priest let fall the golden ring,
The bridegroom stood aghast,
While, like some weird and frantic thing,
The nun was muttering fast;
And as, in dread, I nearer drew,
She thrust her arms the lattice through,
And held me to her straining view —
But suddenly began
To steal upon her brain a light
That staggered soul, and sense, and sight,
And, with a mouth all ashy white,
She shrieked, “It is his son!
The bridegroom is thy blood — thy brother!
Rodolph de Brevern wronged his mother!
And, as that doom of love was heard,
My sister sunk — and died — without a sign or word!
I shed no tear for her. She died
With her last sunshine in her eyes.
Earth held for her no joy beside
The hope just shattered — and she lies
In a green nook of yonder dell;
And near her, in a newer bed,
Her lover — brother — sleeps as well!
Peace to the broken-hearted dead!
LORD IVON AND HIS DAUGHTER.
“Dost thou despise
A love like this! A lady should not scorn
One soul that loves her, howe'er lowly it be.”
A love like this! A lady should not scorn
One soul that loves her, howe'er lowly it be.”
LORD IVON.
How beautiful it is! Come here, my daughter!
Is't not a face of most bewildering brightness?
ISIDORE.
The features are all fair, sir, but so cold —
I could not love such beauty!
LORD IVON.
Yet, e'en so
Looked thy lost mother, Isidore! Her brow
Lofty like this — her lips thus delicate,
Yet icy cold in their slight vermeil threads —
Her neck thus queenly, and the sweeping curve
Thus matchless, from the small and “pearl round ear”
To the o'er-polished shoulder. Never swan
Dreamed on the water with a grace so calm!
ISIDORE.
And was she proud, sir?
LORD IVON.
Or I had not loved her.
ISIDORE.
Then runs my lesson wrong. I ever read
Pride was unlovely.
LORD IVON.
Dost thou prate already
Of books, my little one? Nay, then, 'tis time
That a sad tale were told thee. Is thy bird
Fed for the day? Canst thou forget the rein
Of thy beloved Arabian for an hour,
And, the first time in all, thy sunny life,
Take sadness to thy heart? Wilt listen, sweet?
ISIDORE.
Hang I not ever on thy lips, dear father?
LORD IVON.
As thou didst enter, I was musing here
Upon this picture. 'Tis the face of one
I never knew; but, for its glorious pride,
I bought it of the painter. There has hung
Ever the cunning curse upon my soul
To love this look in woman. Not the flower
Of all Arcadia, in the Age of Gold,
Looked she a shepherdess, would be to me
More than the birds are. As the astrologer
Worships the half-seen star that in its sphere
Dreams not of him, and tramples on the lily
That flings, unasked, its fragrance in his way,
Yet both (as the high-born and the low)
Wrought of the same fine Hand — so, daringly,
Flew my boy-hopes beyond me. You are here
In a brave palace, Isidore! The gem
That sparkles in your hair, imprisons light
Drunk in the flaming Orient: and gold
Waits on the bidding of those girlish lips
In measures that Aladdin never knew —
Yet was I — lowly born!
ISIDORE.
Lord Ivon!
LORD IVON.
Ay,
You wonder; but I tell you that the Lord
Of this tall palace was a peasant's child!
And, looking sometimes on his fair domain,
Thy sire bethinks him of a sickly boy,
Nursed by his mother on a mountain side,
His only wealth a book of poetry,
With which he daily crept into the sun,
How beautiful it is! Come here, my daughter!
Is't not a face of most bewildering brightness?
ISIDORE.
The features are all fair, sir, but so cold —
I could not love such beauty!
LORD IVON.
Yet, e'en so
Looked thy lost mother, Isidore! Her brow
Lofty like this — her lips thus delicate,
Yet icy cold in their slight vermeil threads —
Her neck thus queenly, and the sweeping curve
Thus matchless, from the small and “pearl round ear”
To the o'er-polished shoulder. Never swan
Dreamed on the water with a grace so calm!
ISIDORE.
And was she proud, sir?
LORD IVON.
Or I had not loved her.
ISIDORE.
Then runs my lesson wrong. I ever read
Pride was unlovely.
LORD IVON.
Dost thou prate already
Of books, my little one? Nay, then, 'tis time
That a sad tale were told thee. Is thy bird
Fed for the day? Canst thou forget the rein
Of thy beloved Arabian for an hour,
And, the first time in all, thy sunny life,
Take sadness to thy heart? Wilt listen, sweet?
ISIDORE.
Hang I not ever on thy lips, dear father?
LORD IVON.
As thou didst enter, I was musing here
Upon this picture. 'Tis the face of one
I never knew; but, for its glorious pride,
I bought it of the painter. There has hung
Ever the cunning curse upon my soul
To love this look in woman. Not the flower
Of all Arcadia, in the Age of Gold,
Looked she a shepherdess, would be to me
More than the birds are. As the astrologer
Worships the half-seen star that in its sphere
Dreams not of him, and tramples on the lily
That flings, unasked, its fragrance in his way,
Yet both (as the high-born and the low)
Wrought of the same fine Hand — so, daringly,
Flew my boy-hopes beyond me. You are here
In a brave palace, Isidore! The gem
That sparkles in your hair, imprisons light
Drunk in the flaming Orient: and gold
Waits on the bidding of those girlish lips
In measures that Aladdin never knew —
Yet was I — lowly born!
ISIDORE.
Lord Ivon!
LORD IVON.
Ay,
You wonder; but I tell you that the Lord
Of this tall palace was a peasant's child!
And, looking sometimes on his fair domain,
Thy sire bethinks him of a sickly boy,
Nursed by his mother on a mountain side,
His only wealth a book of poetry,
With which he daily crept into the sun,
842
To cheat sharp pains with the bewildering dream
Of beauty he had only read of there.
ISIDORE.
Have you the volume still, sir?
LORD IVON.
'Twas the gift
Of a poor scholar wandering in the hills,
Who pitied my sick idleness. I fed
My inmost soul upon the witching rhyme —
A silly tale of a low minstrel boy,
Who broke his heart in singing at a bridal.
ISIDORE.
Loved he the lady, sir?
LORD IVON.
So ran the tale.
How well I do remember it!
ISIDORE.
Alas!
Poor youth!
LORD IVON.
I never thought to pity him.
The bride was a duke's sister; and I mused
Upon the wonder of his daring love,
Till my heart changed within me. I became
Restless and sad; and in my sleep I saw
Beautiful dames all scornfully go by;
And one o'er weary morn I crept away
Into the glen, and, flung upon a rock,
Over a torrent whose swift, giddy waters
Filled me with energy, I swore my soul
To better that false vision, if there were
Manhood or fire within my wretched frame.
I turned me homeward with the sunset hour,
Changed — for the thought had conquered even disease;
And my poor mother checked her busy wheel
To wonder at the step with which I came.
Oh, heavens! that soft and dewy April eve,
When, in a minstrel's garb, but with a heart
As lofty as the marble shafts upreared
Beneath the stately portico, I stood
At this same palace door!
ISIDORE.
Our own! and you
A minstrel boy!
LORD IVON.
Yes — I had wandered far
Since I shook off my sickness in the hills,
And, with some cunning on the lute, had learned
A subtler lesson than humility
In the quick school of want. A menial stood
By the Egyptian sphinx; and when I came
And prayed to sing beneath the balcony
A song of love for a fair lady's ear,
He insolently bade me to begone.
Listening not, I swept my fingers o'er
The strings in prelude, when the base-born slave
Struck me!
ISIDORE.
Impossible!
LORD IVON.
I dashed my lute
Into his face, and o'er the threshold flew;
And threading rapidly the lofty rooms,
Sought vainly for his master. Suddenly
A wing rushed o'er me, and a radiant girl,
Young as myself, but fairer than the dream
Of my most wild imagining, sprang forth,
Chasing a dove, that, 'wildered with pursuit,
Dropt breathless on my bosom.
ISIDORE.
Nay, dear father!
Was't so indeed?
LORD IVON.
I thanked my blessed star!
And, as the fair, transcendent creature stood
Silent with wonder, I resigned the bird
To her white hands; and, with a rapid thought,
And lips already eloquent of love,
Turned the strange chance to a similitude
Of my own story. Her slight, haughty lip
Curled at the warm recital of my wrong,
And on the ivory oval of her cheek
The rose flushed outward with a deeper red;
And from that hour the minstrel was at home,
And horse and hound were his, and none might cross
The minion of the noble Lady Clare.
Art weary of my tale?
ISIDORE.
Dear father!
LORD IVON.
Well!
A summer, and a winter, and a spring,
Went over me like brief and noteless hours.
For ever at the side of one who grew
With every morn more beautiful; the slave,
Willing and quick, of every idle whim;
Singing for no one's bidding but her own,
And then a song from my own passionate heart,
Sung with a lip of fire, but ever named
As an old rhyme that I had chanced to hear;
Riding beside her, sleeping at her door,
Doing her maddest bidding at the risk
Of life — what marvel if at last I grew
Presumptuous?
A messenger one morn
Spurred through the gate — “A revel at the court!
And many minstrels, come from many lands,
Will try their harps in presence of the king;
And 'tis the royal pleasure that my lord
Come with the young and lovely Lady Clare,
Robed as the queen of Faery, who shall crown
The victor with his bays.”
Pass over all
To that bewildering day. She sat enthroned
Amid the court; and never twilight star
Sprang with such sweet surprise upon the eye
As she with her rare beauty on the gaze
Of the gay multitude. The minstrels changed
Their studied songs, and chose her for a theme;
And ever at the pause all eyes upturned
And fed upon her loveliness.
The last
Long lay was ended, and the silent crowd
Waited the king's award — when suddenly
The sharp strings of a lyre were swept without,
And a clear voice claimed hearing for a bard
Belated on his journey. Masked, and clad
In a long stole, the herald led me in.
A thousand eyes were on me; but I saw
The new-throned queen, in her high place, alone;
And, kneeling at her feet, I pressed my brow
Upon her footstool, till the images
Of my past hours rushed thick upon my brain;
Then, rising hastily, I struck my lyre;
And, in a story woven of my own,
I so did paint her in her loveliness —
Pouring my heart all out upon the lines
I knew too faithfully, and lavishing
The hoarded fire of a whole age of love
Upon each passionate word, that, as I sunk
Exhausted at the close, the ravished crowd
Flung gold and flowers on my still quivering lyre;
And the moved monarch in his gladness swore
There was no boon beneath his kingly crown
Too high for such a minstrel!
Did my star
Speak in my fainting ear? Heard I the king?
Or did the audible pulses of my heart
Seem to me so articulate? I rose,
And tore my mask away; and, as the stole
Dropped from my shoulders, I glanced hurriedly
A look upon the face of Lady Clare
It was enough! I saw that she was changed —
That a brief hour had chilled the open child
Of beauty he had only read of there.
ISIDORE.
Have you the volume still, sir?
LORD IVON.
'Twas the gift
Of a poor scholar wandering in the hills,
Who pitied my sick idleness. I fed
My inmost soul upon the witching rhyme —
A silly tale of a low minstrel boy,
Who broke his heart in singing at a bridal.
ISIDORE.
Loved he the lady, sir?
LORD IVON.
So ran the tale.
How well I do remember it!
ISIDORE.
Alas!
Poor youth!
LORD IVON.
I never thought to pity him.
The bride was a duke's sister; and I mused
Upon the wonder of his daring love,
Till my heart changed within me. I became
Restless and sad; and in my sleep I saw
Beautiful dames all scornfully go by;
And one o'er weary morn I crept away
Into the glen, and, flung upon a rock,
Over a torrent whose swift, giddy waters
Filled me with energy, I swore my soul
To better that false vision, if there were
Manhood or fire within my wretched frame.
I turned me homeward with the sunset hour,
Changed — for the thought had conquered even disease;
And my poor mother checked her busy wheel
To wonder at the step with which I came.
Oh, heavens! that soft and dewy April eve,
When, in a minstrel's garb, but with a heart
As lofty as the marble shafts upreared
Beneath the stately portico, I stood
At this same palace door!
ISIDORE.
Our own! and you
A minstrel boy!
LORD IVON.
Yes — I had wandered far
Since I shook off my sickness in the hills,
And, with some cunning on the lute, had learned
A subtler lesson than humility
In the quick school of want. A menial stood
By the Egyptian sphinx; and when I came
And prayed to sing beneath the balcony
A song of love for a fair lady's ear,
He insolently bade me to begone.
Listening not, I swept my fingers o'er
The strings in prelude, when the base-born slave
Struck me!
ISIDORE.
Impossible!
LORD IVON.
I dashed my lute
Into his face, and o'er the threshold flew;
And threading rapidly the lofty rooms,
Sought vainly for his master. Suddenly
A wing rushed o'er me, and a radiant girl,
Young as myself, but fairer than the dream
Of my most wild imagining, sprang forth,
Chasing a dove, that, 'wildered with pursuit,
Dropt breathless on my bosom.
ISIDORE.
Nay, dear father!
Was't so indeed?
LORD IVON.
I thanked my blessed star!
And, as the fair, transcendent creature stood
Silent with wonder, I resigned the bird
To her white hands; and, with a rapid thought,
And lips already eloquent of love,
Turned the strange chance to a similitude
Of my own story. Her slight, haughty lip
Curled at the warm recital of my wrong,
And on the ivory oval of her cheek
The rose flushed outward with a deeper red;
And from that hour the minstrel was at home,
And horse and hound were his, and none might cross
The minion of the noble Lady Clare.
Art weary of my tale?
ISIDORE.
Dear father!
LORD IVON.
Well!
A summer, and a winter, and a spring,
Went over me like brief and noteless hours.
For ever at the side of one who grew
With every morn more beautiful; the slave,
Willing and quick, of every idle whim;
Singing for no one's bidding but her own,
And then a song from my own passionate heart,
Sung with a lip of fire, but ever named
As an old rhyme that I had chanced to hear;
Riding beside her, sleeping at her door,
Doing her maddest bidding at the risk
Of life — what marvel if at last I grew
Presumptuous?
A messenger one morn
Spurred through the gate — “A revel at the court!
And many minstrels, come from many lands,
Will try their harps in presence of the king;
And 'tis the royal pleasure that my lord
Come with the young and lovely Lady Clare,
Robed as the queen of Faery, who shall crown
The victor with his bays.”
Pass over all
To that bewildering day. She sat enthroned
Amid the court; and never twilight star
Sprang with such sweet surprise upon the eye
As she with her rare beauty on the gaze
Of the gay multitude. The minstrels changed
Their studied songs, and chose her for a theme;
And ever at the pause all eyes upturned
And fed upon her loveliness.
The last
Long lay was ended, and the silent crowd
Waited the king's award — when suddenly
The sharp strings of a lyre were swept without,
And a clear voice claimed hearing for a bard
Belated on his journey. Masked, and clad
In a long stole, the herald led me in.
A thousand eyes were on me; but I saw
The new-throned queen, in her high place, alone;
And, kneeling at her feet, I pressed my brow
Upon her footstool, till the images
Of my past hours rushed thick upon my brain;
Then, rising hastily, I struck my lyre;
And, in a story woven of my own,
I so did paint her in her loveliness —
Pouring my heart all out upon the lines
I knew too faithfully, and lavishing
The hoarded fire of a whole age of love
Upon each passionate word, that, as I sunk
Exhausted at the close, the ravished crowd
Flung gold and flowers on my still quivering lyre;
And the moved monarch in his gladness swore
There was no boon beneath his kingly crown
Too high for such a minstrel!
Did my star
Speak in my fainting ear? Heard I the king?
Or did the audible pulses of my heart
Seem to me so articulate? I rose,
And tore my mask away; and, as the stole
Dropped from my shoulders, I glanced hurriedly
A look upon the face of Lady Clare
It was enough! I saw that she was changed —
That a brief hour had chilled the open child
843
To calculating woman — that she read
With cold displeasure my o'er-daring thought;
And on that brow, to me as legible
As stars to the rapt Arab, I could trace
The scorn that waited on me! Sick of life,
Yet, even then, with a half-rallied hope
Prompting my faltering tongue, I blindly knelt,
And claimed the king's fair promise —
ISIDORE.
For the hand
Of Lady Clare?
LORD IVON.
No, sweet one — for a sword.
ISIDORE.
You surely spoke to her?
LORD IVON.
I saw her face
No more for years. I went unto the wars;
And when again I sought that palace door,
A glory heralded the minstrel boy
That monarchs might have envied.
ISIDORE.
Was she there?
LORD IVON.
Yes — and, O God! how beautiful! The last,
The ripest seal of loveliness, was set
Upon her form; and the all-glorious pride
That I had worshipped on her girlish lip,
When her scared dove fled to me, was matured
Into a queenly grace; and nobleness
Was bound like a tiara to her brow,
And every motion breathed of it. There lived
Nothing on earth so ravishingly fair.
ISIDORE.
And you still loved her?
LORD IVON.
I had periled life
In every shape — had battled on the sea,
And burnt upon the desert, and outgone
Spirits most mad for glory, with this one
O'ermastering hope upon me. Honor, fame,
Gold, even, were as dust beneath my feet;
And war was my disgust, though I had sought
Its horrors like a bloodhound — for her praise.
My life was drunk up with the love of her.
ISIDORE.
And now she scorned you not?
LORD IVON.
Worse, Isidore!
She pitied me! I did not need a voice
To tell my love. She knew her sometime minion —
And felt that she should never be adored
With such idolatry as his, and sighed
That hearts so true beat not in palaces —
But I was poor, with all my bright renown,
And lowly born: and she — the Lady Clare!
ISIDORE.
She could not tell you this?
LORD IVON.
She broke my heart
As kindly as the fisher hooks the worm —
Pitying me the while!
ISIDORE.
And you —
LORD IVON.
Lived on!
But the remembrance irks me, and my throat
Chokes with the utterance!
ISIDORE.
Dear father!
LORD IVON.
Nay —
Thanks to sweet Mary Mother, it is past:
And in this world I shall have no more need
To speak of it.
ISIDORE.
But there were brighter days
In store. My mother and this palace —
LORD IVON.
You outrun
My tale, dear Isidore! But 'tis as well,
I would not linger on it.
Twenty years
From this heart-broken hour, I stood again
An old man and a stranger, at the door
Of this same palace. I had been a slave
For gold that time! My star had wrought with me!
And I was richer than the wizard king
Throned in the mines of Ind. I could not look
On my innumerable gems, the glare
Pained so my sun-struck eyes! My gold was countless.
ISIDORE.
And Lady Clare?
LORD IVON.
I met upon the threshold
Her very self — all youth, all loveliness —
So like the fresh-kept picture in my brain,
That for a moment I forgot all else,
And staggered back and wept. She passed me by
With a cold look —
ISIDORE.
Oh! not the Lady Clare!
LORD IVON.
Her daughter yet herself! But what a change
Waited me here! My thin and grizzled locks
Were fairer now than the young minstrel's curls;
My sun-burnt visage and contracted eye
Than the gay soldier in his gallant mien;
My words were wit, my looks interpreted;
And Lady Clare — I tell you, Lady Clare
Leaned fondly — fondly! on my wasted arm.
O God! how changed my nature with all this!
I, that had been all love and tenderness —
The truest and most gentle heart, till now,
That ever beat — grew suddenly a devil!
I bought me lands, and titles, and received
Men's homage with a smooth hypocrisy;
And — you will scarce believe me, Isidore —
I suffered them to wile their peerless daughter,
The image and the pride of Lady Clare,
To wed me!
ISIDORE.
Sir! you did not!
LORD IVON.
Ay! I saw
The indignant anger when her mother first
Broke the repulsive wish, and the degrees
Of shuddering reluctance as her mind
Admitted the intoxicating tales
Of wealth unlimited. And when she looked
On my age-stricken features, and my form,
Wasted before its time, and turned away
To hide from me her tears, her very mother
Whispered the cursed comfort in her ear
That made her what she is!
ISIDORE.
You could not wed her,
Knowing all this!
LORD IVON.
I felt that I had lost
My life else. I had wrung, for forty years,
My frame to its last withers; I had flung
My boyhood's fire away — the energy
Of a most sinless youth — the toil, and fret,
And agony of manhood. I had dared,
Fought, suffered, slaved — and never for an hour
Forgot or swerved from my resolve; and now —
With the delirious draught upon my lips —
Dash down the cup!
With cold displeasure my o'er-daring thought;
And on that brow, to me as legible
As stars to the rapt Arab, I could trace
The scorn that waited on me! Sick of life,
Yet, even then, with a half-rallied hope
Prompting my faltering tongue, I blindly knelt,
And claimed the king's fair promise —
ISIDORE.
For the hand
Of Lady Clare?
LORD IVON.
No, sweet one — for a sword.
ISIDORE.
You surely spoke to her?
LORD IVON.
I saw her face
No more for years. I went unto the wars;
And when again I sought that palace door,
A glory heralded the minstrel boy
That monarchs might have envied.
ISIDORE.
Was she there?
LORD IVON.
Yes — and, O God! how beautiful! The last,
The ripest seal of loveliness, was set
Upon her form; and the all-glorious pride
That I had worshipped on her girlish lip,
When her scared dove fled to me, was matured
Into a queenly grace; and nobleness
Was bound like a tiara to her brow,
And every motion breathed of it. There lived
Nothing on earth so ravishingly fair.
ISIDORE.
And you still loved her?
LORD IVON.
I had periled life
In every shape — had battled on the sea,
And burnt upon the desert, and outgone
Spirits most mad for glory, with this one
O'ermastering hope upon me. Honor, fame,
Gold, even, were as dust beneath my feet;
And war was my disgust, though I had sought
Its horrors like a bloodhound — for her praise.
My life was drunk up with the love of her.
ISIDORE.
And now she scorned you not?
LORD IVON.
Worse, Isidore!
She pitied me! I did not need a voice
To tell my love. She knew her sometime minion —
And felt that she should never be adored
With such idolatry as his, and sighed
That hearts so true beat not in palaces —
But I was poor, with all my bright renown,
And lowly born: and she — the Lady Clare!
ISIDORE.
She could not tell you this?
LORD IVON.
She broke my heart
As kindly as the fisher hooks the worm —
Pitying me the while!
ISIDORE.
And you —
LORD IVON.
Lived on!
But the remembrance irks me, and my throat
Chokes with the utterance!
ISIDORE.
Dear father!
LORD IVON.
Nay —
Thanks to sweet Mary Mother, it is past:
And in this world I shall have no more need
To speak of it.
ISIDORE.
But there were brighter days
In store. My mother and this palace —
LORD IVON.
You outrun
My tale, dear Isidore! But 'tis as well,
I would not linger on it.
Twenty years
From this heart-broken hour, I stood again
An old man and a stranger, at the door
Of this same palace. I had been a slave
For gold that time! My star had wrought with me!
And I was richer than the wizard king
Throned in the mines of Ind. I could not look
On my innumerable gems, the glare
Pained so my sun-struck eyes! My gold was countless.
ISIDORE.
And Lady Clare?
LORD IVON.
I met upon the threshold
Her very self — all youth, all loveliness —
So like the fresh-kept picture in my brain,
That for a moment I forgot all else,
And staggered back and wept. She passed me by
With a cold look —
ISIDORE.
Oh! not the Lady Clare!
LORD IVON.
Her daughter yet herself! But what a change
Waited me here! My thin and grizzled locks
Were fairer now than the young minstrel's curls;
My sun-burnt visage and contracted eye
Than the gay soldier in his gallant mien;
My words were wit, my looks interpreted;
And Lady Clare — I tell you, Lady Clare
Leaned fondly — fondly! on my wasted arm.
O God! how changed my nature with all this!
I, that had been all love and tenderness —
The truest and most gentle heart, till now,
That ever beat — grew suddenly a devil!
I bought me lands, and titles, and received
Men's homage with a smooth hypocrisy;
And — you will scarce believe me, Isidore —
I suffered them to wile their peerless daughter,
The image and the pride of Lady Clare,
To wed me!
ISIDORE.
Sir! you did not!
LORD IVON.
Ay! I saw
The indignant anger when her mother first
Broke the repulsive wish, and the degrees
Of shuddering reluctance as her mind
Admitted the intoxicating tales
Of wealth unlimited. And when she looked
On my age-stricken features, and my form,
Wasted before its time, and turned away
To hide from me her tears, her very mother
Whispered the cursed comfort in her ear
That made her what she is!
ISIDORE.
You could not wed her,
Knowing all this!
LORD IVON.
I felt that I had lost
My life else. I had wrung, for forty years,
My frame to its last withers; I had flung
My boyhood's fire away — the energy
Of a most sinless youth — the toil, and fret,
And agony of manhood. I had dared,
Fought, suffered, slaved — and never for an hour
Forgot or swerved from my resolve; and now —
With the delirious draught upon my lips —
Dash down the cup!
844
ISIDORE.
Yet she never wronged you!
LORD IVON.
Thou'rt pleading for thy mother, my sweet child!
And angels hear thee. But, if she was wronged,
The sin be on the pride that sells its blood
Coldly and only for this damning gold.
Had I not offered youth first? Came I not,
With my hands brimmed with glory, to buy love —
And was I not denied?
ISIDORE.
Yet, dearest father,
They forced her not to wed?
LORD IVON.
I called her back
Myself from the church threshold, and, before
Her mother and her kinsmen, bade her swear
It was her own free choice to marry me.
I showed her my shrunk hand, and bade her think
If that was like a bridegroom, and beware
Of perjuring her chaste and spotless soul,
If now she loved me not.
ISIDORE.
What said she, sir?
LORD IVON.
Oh! they had made her even as themselves:
And her young heart was colder than the slab
Unsunned beneath Pentelicus. She pressed
My withered fingers in her dewy clasp,
And smiled up in my face, and child “my lord”
For his wild fancies and led on!
ISIDORE.
And no
Misgiving at the altar?
LORD IVON.
None! She swore
To love and cherish me till death should part us,
With a voice as clear as mine.
ISIDORE.
And kept it, father!
In mercy tell me so!
LORD IVON.
She lives, my daughter!
Long ere my babe was born, my pride had ebbed,
And let my heart down to its better founts
Of tenderness. I had no friends — not one!
My love gushed to my wife. I racked my brain
To find her a new pleasure every hour —
Yet not with me — I feared to haunt her eye!
Only at night, when she was slumbering
In all her beauty, I would put away
The curtains till the pale night-lamp shone on her,
And watch her through my tears.
One night her lips
Parted as I gazed on them, and the name
Of a young noble, who had been my guest,
Stole forth in broken murmurs. I let fall
The curtains silently, and left her there
To slumber and dream on; and gliding forth
Upon the terrace, knelt to my pale star,
And swore, that if it pleased the God of light
To let me look upon the unborn child
Lying beneath her heart, I would but press
One kiss upon its lips, and take away
My life — that was a blight upon her years.
ISIDORE.
I was that child!
LORD IVON.
Yes — and I heard the cry
Of thy small “piping mouth” as' twere a call
From my remembering star. I waited only
Thy mother's strength to bear the common shock
Of death within the doors. She rose at last,
And, oh! so sweetly pale! And thou, my child!
My heart misgave me as I looked upon thee;
But he was ever at her side whose name
She murmured in her sleep; and, lingering on
To drink a little of thy sweetness more
Before I died, I watched their stolen love
As she had been my daughter, with a pure,
Passionless joy that I should leave her soon
To love him as she would. I know not how
To tell thee more.
* * Come, sweet! she is not worthy
Of tears like thine and mine.
* * * She fled and left me
The very night! The poison was prepared —
And she had been a widow with the morn
Rich as Golconda. As the midnight chimed,
My star rose. Gazing on its mounting orb,
I raised the chalice — but a weakness came
Over my heart; and, taking up the lamp,
I glided to her chamber, and removed
The curtains for a last, a parting look
Upon my child.
* * * Had she but taken thee,
I could have felt she had a mother's heart,
And drained the chalice still. I could not leave
My babe alone in such a heartles world!
ISIDORE.
Thank God! Thank God!
Yet she never wronged you!
LORD IVON.
Thou'rt pleading for thy mother, my sweet child!
And angels hear thee. But, if she was wronged,
The sin be on the pride that sells its blood
Coldly and only for this damning gold.
Had I not offered youth first? Came I not,
With my hands brimmed with glory, to buy love —
And was I not denied?
ISIDORE.
Yet, dearest father,
They forced her not to wed?
LORD IVON.
I called her back
Myself from the church threshold, and, before
Her mother and her kinsmen, bade her swear
It was her own free choice to marry me.
I showed her my shrunk hand, and bade her think
If that was like a bridegroom, and beware
Of perjuring her chaste and spotless soul,
If now she loved me not.
ISIDORE.
What said she, sir?
LORD IVON.
Oh! they had made her even as themselves:
And her young heart was colder than the slab
Unsunned beneath Pentelicus. She pressed
My withered fingers in her dewy clasp,
And smiled up in my face, and child “my lord”
For his wild fancies and led on!
ISIDORE.
And no
Misgiving at the altar?
LORD IVON.
None! She swore
To love and cherish me till death should part us,
With a voice as clear as mine.
ISIDORE.
And kept it, father!
In mercy tell me so!
LORD IVON.
She lives, my daughter!
Long ere my babe was born, my pride had ebbed,
And let my heart down to its better founts
Of tenderness. I had no friends — not one!
My love gushed to my wife. I racked my brain
To find her a new pleasure every hour —
Yet not with me — I feared to haunt her eye!
Only at night, when she was slumbering
In all her beauty, I would put away
The curtains till the pale night-lamp shone on her,
And watch her through my tears.
One night her lips
Parted as I gazed on them, and the name
Of a young noble, who had been my guest,
Stole forth in broken murmurs. I let fall
The curtains silently, and left her there
To slumber and dream on; and gliding forth
Upon the terrace, knelt to my pale star,
And swore, that if it pleased the God of light
To let me look upon the unborn child
Lying beneath her heart, I would but press
One kiss upon its lips, and take away
My life — that was a blight upon her years.
ISIDORE.
I was that child!
LORD IVON.
Yes — and I heard the cry
Of thy small “piping mouth” as' twere a call
From my remembering star. I waited only
Thy mother's strength to bear the common shock
Of death within the doors. She rose at last,
And, oh! so sweetly pale! And thou, my child!
My heart misgave me as I looked upon thee;
But he was ever at her side whose name
She murmured in her sleep; and, lingering on
To drink a little of thy sweetness more
Before I died, I watched their stolen love
As she had been my daughter, with a pure,
Passionless joy that I should leave her soon
To love him as she would. I know not how
To tell thee more.
* * Come, sweet! she is not worthy
Of tears like thine and mine.
* * * She fled and left me
The very night! The poison was prepared —
And she had been a widow with the morn
Rich as Golconda. As the midnight chimed,
My star rose. Gazing on its mounting orb,
I raised the chalice — but a weakness came
Over my heart; and, taking up the lamp,
I glided to her chamber, and removed
The curtains for a last, a parting look
Upon my child.
* * * Had she but taken thee,
I could have felt she had a mother's heart,
And drained the chalice still. I could not leave
My babe alone in such a heartles world!
ISIDORE.
Thank God! Thank God!
TO ERMENGARDE.
I know not if the sunshine waste —
The world is dark since thou art gone!
The hours are, oh! so leaden-paced!
The birds sing, and the stars float on,
But sing not well, and look not fair —
A weight is in the summer air,
And sadness in the sight of flowers,
And if I go where others smile,
Their love but makes me think of ours,
And heavier gets my heart the while.
Like one upon a desert isle,
I languish of the weary hours;
I never thought a life could be
So flung upon one hope, as mine, dear love, on thee!
I sit and watch the summer sky,
There comes a cloud through heaven alone;
A thousand stars are shining nigh —
It feels no light, but darkles on!
Yet now it nears the lovelier moon;
And, flushing through its fringe of snow,
There steals a rosier die, and soon
Its bosom is one fiery glow!
The queen of light within it lies!
Yet mark how lovers meet to part!
The cloud already onward flies,
And shadows sink into its heart,
And (dost thou see them where thou art?)
Fade fast, fade all those glorious dies!
Its light, like mine, is seen no more,
And, like my own, its heart seems darker than before
Where press this hour those fairy feet,
Where look this hour those eyes of blue!
What music in thine ear is sweet!
What odor breathes thy lattice through!
What word is on thy lip? What tone —
What look — replying to thine own?
Thy steps along the Danube stray —
Alas it seeks an orient sea!
Thou wouldst not seem so far away
Flowed but its waters back to me?
I bless the slowly coming moon
Because its eye looked late in thine!
I envy the west wind of June
Whose wings will bear it up the Rhine;
The flower I press upon my brow
Were sweeter if its like perfumed thy chamber now!
The world is dark since thou art gone!
The hours are, oh! so leaden-paced!
The birds sing, and the stars float on,
But sing not well, and look not fair —
A weight is in the summer air,
And sadness in the sight of flowers,
And if I go where others smile,
Their love but makes me think of ours,
And heavier gets my heart the while.
Like one upon a desert isle,
I languish of the weary hours;
I never thought a life could be
So flung upon one hope, as mine, dear love, on thee!
I sit and watch the summer sky,
There comes a cloud through heaven alone;
A thousand stars are shining nigh —
It feels no light, but darkles on!
Yet now it nears the lovelier moon;
And, flushing through its fringe of snow,
There steals a rosier die, and soon
Its bosom is one fiery glow!
The queen of light within it lies!
Yet mark how lovers meet to part!
The cloud already onward flies,
And shadows sink into its heart,
And (dost thou see them where thou art?)
Fade fast, fade all those glorious dies!
Its light, like mine, is seen no more,
And, like my own, its heart seems darker than before
Where press this hour those fairy feet,
Where look this hour those eyes of blue!
What music in thine ear is sweet!
What odor breathes thy lattice through!
What word is on thy lip? What tone —
What look — replying to thine own?
Thy steps along the Danube stray —
Alas it seeks an orient sea!
Thou wouldst not seem so far away
Flowed but its waters back to me?
I bless the slowly coming moon
Because its eye looked late in thine!
I envy the west wind of June
Whose wings will bear it up the Rhine;
The flower I press upon my brow
Were sweeter if its like perfumed thy chamber now!
845
THE PITY OF THE PARK FOUNTAIN.
'Twas a summery day in the last of May —
Pleasant in sun or shade;
And the hours went by as the poets say,
Fragrant and fair on their flowery way;
And a hearse crept slowly through Broadway;
And the Fountain gayly played.
The Fountain played right merrily,
And the world looked bright and gay;
And a youth went by, with a restless eye,
Whose heart was sick, and whose brain was dry,
And he prayed to God that he might die —
And the Fountain played away.
Uprose the spray like a diamond throne,
And the drops like music rang —
And of those who marvelled how it shone,
Was a proud man, left in his shame alone,
And he shut his teeth with a smothered groan,
And the Fountain sweetly sang.
And a rainbow spanned it changefully,
Like a bright ring broke in twain;
And the pale, fair girl, who stopped to see,
Was sick with the pangs of poverty —
And from hunger to guilt she chose to flee,
As the rainbow smiled again.
And all as gay, on another day,
The morning will have shone;
And at noon, unmarked, through bright Broadway,
A hearse will take its silent way;
And the bard who sings will have passed away —
And the Fountain will play on!
Pleasant in sun or shade;
And the hours went by as the poets say,
Fragrant and fair on their flowery way;
And a hearse crept slowly through Broadway;
And the Fountain gayly played.
The Fountain played right merrily,
And the world looked bright and gay;
And a youth went by, with a restless eye,
Whose heart was sick, and whose brain was dry,
And he prayed to God that he might die —
And the Fountain played away.
Uprose the spray like a diamond throne,
And the drops like music rang —
And of those who marvelled how it shone,
Was a proud man, left in his shame alone,
And he shut his teeth with a smothered groan,
And the Fountain sweetly sang.
And a rainbow spanned it changefully,
Like a bright ring broke in twain;
And the pale, fair girl, who stopped to see,
Was sick with the pangs of poverty —
And from hunger to guilt she chose to flee,
As the rainbow smiled again.
And all as gay, on another day,
The morning will have shone;
And at noon, unmarked, through bright Broadway,
A hearse will take its silent way;
And the bard who sings will have passed away —
And the Fountain will play on!
“CHAMBER SCENE.”
(An exquisite picture in the studio of a young artist at Rome.)
She rose from her untroubled sleep,
And put away her soft brown hair,
And in a tone as low and deep
As love's first whisper, breathed a prayer —
Her snow-white hands together pressed,
Her blue eyes sheltered in the lid,
The folded linen on her breast
Just swelling with the charms it hid —
And from her long and flowing dress
Escaped a bare and slender foot,
Whose shape upon the earth did press
Like a new snow-flake, white and “mute;”
And there, from slumber pure and warm,
Like a young spirit fresh from heaven,
She bowed her slight and graceful form,
And humbly prayed to be forgiven.
Oh God! if souls unsoiled as these
Need daily mercy from thy throne —
If she upon her bended knees —
Our loveliest and our purest one —
She, with a face so clear and bright
We deem her some stray child of light —
If she, with those soft eyes in tears,
Day after day in her first years,
Must kneel and pray for grace from thee —
What far, far deeper need have we?
How hardly, if she win not heaven,
Will our wild errors be forgiven!
And put away her soft brown hair,
And in a tone as low and deep
As love's first whisper, breathed a prayer —
Her snow-white hands together pressed,
Her blue eyes sheltered in the lid,
The folded linen on her breast
Just swelling with the charms it hid —
And from her long and flowing dress
Escaped a bare and slender foot,
Whose shape upon the earth did press
Like a new snow-flake, white and “mute;”
And there, from slumber pure and warm,
Like a young spirit fresh from heaven,
She bowed her slight and graceful form,
And humbly prayed to be forgiven.
Oh God! if souls unsoiled as these
Need daily mercy from thy throne —
If she upon her bended knees —
Our loveliest and our purest one —
She, with a face so clear and bright
We deem her some stray child of light —
If she, with those soft eyes in tears,
Day after day in her first years,
Must kneel and pray for grace from thee —
What far, far deeper need have we?
How hardly, if she win not heaven,
Will our wild errors be forgiven!
TO A STOLEN RING.
Oh for thy history now! Hadst thou a tongue
To whisper of thy secrets, I could lay
Upon thy jewelled tracery mine ear,
And dream myself in heaven. Thou hast been worn
In that fair creature's pride, and thou hast felt
The bounding of the haughtiest blood that e'er
Sprang from the heart of woman; and thy gold
Has lain upon her forehead in the hour
Of sadness, when the weary thoughts came fast,
And life was but a bitterness with all
Its vividness and beauty. She has gazed
In her fair girlhood on thy snowy pearls,
And mused away the hours, and she has bent
On thee the downcast radiance of her eye
When a deep tone was eloquent in her ear,
And thou hast lain upon her cheek, and prest
Back on her heart its beatings, and put by
From her veined temples the luxuriant curls,
And in her peaceful sleep, when she has lain
In her unconscious beauty, and the dreams
Of her high heart came goldenly and soft,
Thou hast been there unchidden, and hast felt
The swelling of the clear transparent veins
As the rich blood rushed through them, warm and
I am impatient as I gaze on thee,
Thou inarticulate jewel! Thou hast heard
With thy dull ear such music! — the low tone
Of a young sister's tenderness, when night
Hath folded them together like one flower —
The sudden snatch of a remembered song
Warbled capriciously — the careless word
Lightly betraying the inaudible thought
Working within the heart; and more than all,
Thou hast been lifted when the fervent prayer
For a loved mother, or the sleeping one
Lying beside her, trembled on her lip,
And the warm tear that from her eye stole out
As the soft lash fell over it, has lain
Amid thy shining jewels like a star.
To whisper of thy secrets, I could lay
Upon thy jewelled tracery mine ear,
And dream myself in heaven. Thou hast been worn
In that fair creature's pride, and thou hast felt
The bounding of the haughtiest blood that e'er
Sprang from the heart of woman; and thy gold
Has lain upon her forehead in the hour
Of sadness, when the weary thoughts came fast,
And life was but a bitterness with all
Its vividness and beauty. She has gazed
In her fair girlhood on thy snowy pearls,
And mused away the hours, and she has bent
On thee the downcast radiance of her eye
When a deep tone was eloquent in her ear,
And thou hast lain upon her cheek, and prest
Back on her heart its beatings, and put by
From her veined temples the luxuriant curls,
And in her peaceful sleep, when she has lain
In her unconscious beauty, and the dreams
Of her high heart came goldenly and soft,
Thou hast been there unchidden, and hast felt
The swelling of the clear transparent veins
As the rich blood rushed through them, warm and
I am impatient as I gaze on thee,
Thou inarticulate jewel! Thou hast heard
With thy dull ear such music! — the low tone
Of a young sister's tenderness, when night
Hath folded them together like one flower —
The sudden snatch of a remembered song
Warbled capriciously — the careless word
Lightly betraying the inaudible thought
Working within the heart; and more than all,
Thou hast been lifted when the fervent prayer
For a loved mother, or the sleeping one
Lying beside her, trembled on her lip,
And the warm tear that from her eye stole out
As the soft lash fell over it, has lain
Amid thy shining jewels like a star.
TO HER WHO HAS HOPES FOR ME.
Oh stern, yet lovely monitress!
Thine eye should be of colder hue,
And on thy neck a paler tress
Should toy among those veins of blue!
For thou art to thy mission true —
An angel clad in human guise —
But sinners sometimes have such eyes,
And braid for love such tresses too;
And, while thou talkst to me of heaven,
I sigh that thou hast not a sin to be forgiven!
Night comes, with love upon the breeze,
And the calm clock strikes, stilly, “ten.”
I start to hear it beat, for then
I know that thou art on thy knees —
And, at that hour, where'er thou be,
Ascends to heaven a prayer for me!
My heart drops to its bended knee —
The mirth upon my lip is dumb —
Yet, as a thought of heaven would come,
There glides, before it, one of thee —
Thou, in thy white dress, kneeling there! —
I fear I could leave heaven to see thee at thy prayer!
I follow up the sacred aisle,
Thy light step on the Sabbath day,
And — as perhaps thou pray'st the while —
My light thoughts pass away!
As swells in air the holy hymn,
My breath comes thick, my eyes are dim,
And through my tears I pray!
I do not think my heart is stone —
But, while for heaven it beats alone —
In heaven would willing stay —
One rustle of thy snow-white gown
Sends all my thoughts astray!
The preaching dies upon my ear —
What “is the better world” when thy dark eyes are here!
Yet pray! my years have been but few —
And many a wile the tempter weaves,
And many a saint the sinner grieves
Ere Mercy brings him through!
But oh, when Mercy sits serene
And strives to bend to me,
Pray, that the cloud which comes between
May less resemble thee!
The world that would my soul beguile
Teints all its roses with thy smile!
In heaven 'twere well to be!
But — to desire that blessed shore —
Oh lady! thy dark eyes must first have gone before!
Thine eye should be of colder hue,
And on thy neck a paler tress
Should toy among those veins of blue!
For thou art to thy mission true —
An angel clad in human guise —
But sinners sometimes have such eyes,
And braid for love such tresses too;
And, while thou talkst to me of heaven,
I sigh that thou hast not a sin to be forgiven!
Night comes, with love upon the breeze,
And the calm clock strikes, stilly, “ten.”
I start to hear it beat, for then
I know that thou art on thy knees —
And, at that hour, where'er thou be,
Ascends to heaven a prayer for me!
My heart drops to its bended knee —
The mirth upon my lip is dumb —
Yet, as a thought of heaven would come,
There glides, before it, one of thee —
Thou, in thy white dress, kneeling there! —
I fear I could leave heaven to see thee at thy prayer!
I follow up the sacred aisle,
Thy light step on the Sabbath day,
And — as perhaps thou pray'st the while —
My light thoughts pass away!
As swells in air the holy hymn,
My breath comes thick, my eyes are dim,
And through my tears I pray!
I do not think my heart is stone —
But, while for heaven it beats alone —
In heaven would willing stay —
One rustle of thy snow-white gown
Sends all my thoughts astray!
The preaching dies upon my ear —
What “is the better world” when thy dark eyes are here!
Yet pray! my years have been but few —
And many a wile the tempter weaves,
And many a saint the sinner grieves
Ere Mercy brings him through!
But oh, when Mercy sits serene
And strives to bend to me,
Pray, that the cloud which comes between
May less resemble thee!
The world that would my soul beguile
Teints all its roses with thy smile!
In heaven 'twere well to be!
But — to desire that blessed shore —
Oh lady! thy dark eyes must first have gone before!
846
THE DEATH OF HARRISON.
What! soared the old eagle to die at the sun!
Lies he stiff with spread wings at the goal he had won!
Are there spirits, more blest than the “Planet of Even,”
Who mount to their zenith, then melt into Heaven —
No waning of fire, no quenching of ray,
But rising, still rising, when passing away?
Farewell, gallant eagle! thou'rt buried in light!
God-speed into Heaven, lost star of our night!
Death! Death in the White House! Ah, never before,
Trod his skeleton foot on the President's floor!
He is looked for in hovel, and dreaded in hall —
The king in his closet keeps hatchment and pall —
The youth in his birth-place, the old man at home,
Make clean from the door-stone the path to the tomb; —
But the lord of this mansion was cradled not here —
In a churchyard far off stands his beckoning bier!
He is here as the wave-crest heaves flashing on high —
As the arrow is stopped by its prize in the sky —
The arrow to earth, and the foam to the shore —
Death finds them when swiftness and sparkle are o'er —
But Harrison's death fills the climax of story —
He went with his old stride — from glory to glory!
Lay his sword on his breast! There's no spot on its blade
In whose cankering breath his bright laurels will fade!
'Twas the first to lead on at humanity's call —
It was stayed with sweet mercy when “glory” was all!
As calm in the council as gallant in war,
He fought for his country, and not its “hurrah!”
In the path of the hero with pity he trod —
Let him pass — with his sword — to the presence of God!
What more! Shall we on, with his ashes! Yet, stay!
He hath ruled the wide realm of a king, in his day!
At his word, like a monarch's, went treasure and land —
The bright gold of thousands has passed through his hand —
Is there nothing to show of his glittering hoard?
No jewel to deck the rude hilt of his sword —
No trappings — no horses? — what had he, but now?
On! — on with his ashes! — HE LEFT BUT HIS PLOUGH!
Brave old Cincinnatus! Unwind ye his sheet!
Let him sleep as he lived — with his purse at his feet!
Follow now, as ye list! The first mourner to-day
Is the nation — whose father is taken away!
Wife, children, and neighbor, may moan at his knell —
He was “lover and friend” to his country, as well!
For the stars on our banner, grown suddenly dim,
Let us weep, in our darkness — but weep not for him!
Not for him — who, departing, leaves millions in tears!
Not for him — who has died full of honor and years!
Not for him — who ascended Fame's ladder so high
From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky!
It is blessed to go when so ready to die!
Lies he stiff with spread wings at the goal he had won!
Are there spirits, more blest than the “Planet of Even,”
Who mount to their zenith, then melt into Heaven —
No waning of fire, no quenching of ray,
But rising, still rising, when passing away?
Farewell, gallant eagle! thou'rt buried in light!
God-speed into Heaven, lost star of our night!
Death! Death in the White House! Ah, never before,
Trod his skeleton foot on the President's floor!
He is looked for in hovel, and dreaded in hall —
The king in his closet keeps hatchment and pall —
The youth in his birth-place, the old man at home,
Make clean from the door-stone the path to the tomb; —
But the lord of this mansion was cradled not here —
In a churchyard far off stands his beckoning bier!
He is here as the wave-crest heaves flashing on high —
As the arrow is stopped by its prize in the sky —
The arrow to earth, and the foam to the shore —
Death finds them when swiftness and sparkle are o'er —
But Harrison's death fills the climax of story —
He went with his old stride — from glory to glory!
Lay his sword on his breast! There's no spot on its blade
In whose cankering breath his bright laurels will fade!
'Twas the first to lead on at humanity's call —
It was stayed with sweet mercy when “glory” was all!
As calm in the council as gallant in war,
He fought for his country, and not its “hurrah!”
In the path of the hero with pity he trod —
Let him pass — with his sword — to the presence of God!
What more! Shall we on, with his ashes! Yet, stay!
He hath ruled the wide realm of a king, in his day!
At his word, like a monarch's, went treasure and land —
The bright gold of thousands has passed through his hand —
Is there nothing to show of his glittering hoard?
No jewel to deck the rude hilt of his sword —
No trappings — no horses? — what had he, but now?
On! — on with his ashes! — HE LEFT BUT HIS PLOUGH!
Brave old Cincinnatus! Unwind ye his sheet!
Let him sleep as he lived — with his purse at his feet!
Follow now, as ye list! The first mourner to-day
Is the nation — whose father is taken away!
Wife, children, and neighbor, may moan at his knell —
He was “lover and friend” to his country, as well!
For the stars on our banner, grown suddenly dim,
Let us weep, in our darkness — but weep not for him!
Not for him — who, departing, leaves millions in tears!
Not for him — who has died full of honor and years!
Not for him — who ascended Fame's ladder so high
From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky!
It is blessed to go when so ready to die!
“SHE WAS NOT THERE.”
“The bird
Let loose, to his far nest will flee,
And love, though breathed but on a word
Will find thee, over land and sea.”
'Tis midnight deep — I came but now
From the close air of lighted halls;
And while I hold my aching brow
I gaze upon my dim-lit walls;
And feeling here that I am free
To wear the look that suits my mood,
And let my thoughts flow back to thee,
I bless my tranquil solitude,
And bidding all thoughts else begone,
I muse upon thy love alone.
Yet was the music sweet to-night,
And fragrant odors filled the air,
And flowers were drooping in the light,
And lovely women wandered there,
And fruits and wines with lavish waste
Were on the marble tables piled;
And all that tempts the eye and taste,
And sets the haggard pulses wild,
And wins from care, and deadens sadness,
Were there — but yet I felt no gladness.
I thought of thee — I thought of thee —
Each cunning change the music played,
Each fragrant breath that stole to me,
My wandering thought more truant made.
The lovely women passed me by,
The wit fell pow'rless on mine ear,
I looked on all with vacant eye,
I did not see — I did not hear!
The skilled musician's master-tone
Was sweet — thy voice were sweeter far!
They were soft eyes the lamps shone on —
The eyes I worship gentler are!
The halls were broad, the mirrors tall,
With silver lamps and costly wine —
I only thought how poor was all
To one low tone from lips like thine —
I only felt how well forgot
Were all the stars look on — and thy sweet eyes do not!
Let loose, to his far nest will flee,
And love, though breathed but on a word
Will find thee, over land and sea.”
'Tis midnight deep — I came but now
From the close air of lighted halls;
And while I hold my aching brow
I gaze upon my dim-lit walls;
And feeling here that I am free
To wear the look that suits my mood,
And let my thoughts flow back to thee,
I bless my tranquil solitude,
And bidding all thoughts else begone,
I muse upon thy love alone.
Yet was the music sweet to-night,
And fragrant odors filled the air,
And flowers were drooping in the light,
And lovely women wandered there,
And fruits and wines with lavish waste
Were on the marble tables piled;
And all that tempts the eye and taste,
And sets the haggard pulses wild,
And wins from care, and deadens sadness,
Were there — but yet I felt no gladness.
I thought of thee — I thought of thee —
Each cunning change the music played,
Each fragrant breath that stole to me,
My wandering thought more truant made.
The lovely women passed me by,
The wit fell pow'rless on mine ear,
I looked on all with vacant eye,
I did not see — I did not hear!
The skilled musician's master-tone
Was sweet — thy voice were sweeter far!
They were soft eyes the lamps shone on —
The eyes I worship gentler are!
The halls were broad, the mirrors tall,
With silver lamps and costly wine —
I only thought how poor was all
To one low tone from lips like thine —
I only felt how well forgot
Were all the stars look on — and thy sweet eyes do not!
FAIL ME NOT THOU!
“Oh, by that little word
How many thoughts are stirred! —
The last, the last, the last!”
The star may but a meteor be,
That breaks upon the stormy night;
And I may err, believing thee
A spark of heaven's own changeless light!
But if on earth beams aught so fair,
It seems, of all the lights that shine,
Serenest in its truth, 'tis there,
Burning in those soft eyes of thine.
Yet long-watched stars from heaven have rushed,
And long-loved friends have dropped away,
And mine — my very heart have crushed!
And I have hoped this many a day,
It lived no more for love or pain!
But thou hast stirred its depths again,
And to its dull, out-wearied ear,
Thy voice of melody has crept,
In tones it can not choose but hear;
And now I feel it only slept,
And know at ev'n thy lightest smile,
It gathered fire and strength the while.
Fail me not thou! This feeling past,
My heart would never rouse again.
Thou art the brightest — but the last!
And if this trust, this love is vain —
If thou, all peerless as thou art,
Be not less fair than true of heart —
My loves are o'er! The sun will shine
Upon no grave so hushed as this dark breast of mine.
How many thoughts are stirred! —
The last, the last, the last!”
The star may but a meteor be,
That breaks upon the stormy night;
And I may err, believing thee
A spark of heaven's own changeless light!
But if on earth beams aught so fair,
It seems, of all the lights that shine,
Serenest in its truth, 'tis there,
Burning in those soft eyes of thine.
Yet long-watched stars from heaven have rushed,
And long-loved friends have dropped away,
And mine — my very heart have crushed!
And I have hoped this many a day,
It lived no more for love or pain!
But thou hast stirred its depths again,
And to its dull, out-wearied ear,
Thy voice of melody has crept,
In tones it can not choose but hear;
And now I feel it only slept,
And know at ev'n thy lightest smile,
It gathered fire and strength the while.
Fail me not thou! This feeling past,
My heart would never rouse again.
Thou art the brightest — but the last!
And if this trust, this love is vain —
If thou, all peerless as thou art,
Be not less fair than true of heart —
My loves are o'er! The sun will shine
Upon no grave so hushed as this dark breast of mine.
SPIRIT-WHISPERS.
(Spirit-whisper in the poet's ear — MORNING.)
Wake! poet, wake! — the morn has burst
Through gates of stars and dew,
And, winged by prayer since evening nursed,
Has fled to kiss the steeples first,
And now stoops low to you!
Oh poet of the loving eye
For you is drest this morning sky!
(Second whisper — NOON.)
Oh, poet of the pen enchanted!
A lady sits beneath a tree!
At last, the flood for which she panted —
The wild words for her anguish wanted,
Have gushed in song from thee!
Her dark curls sweep her knees to pray: —
“God bless the poet far away!”
(Third whisper — MIDNIGHT.)
King of the heart's deep mystries!
Your words have wings like lightning wove!
This hour, o'er hills and distant seas,
They fly like flower-seeds on the breeze,
And sow the world with love!
King of a realm without a throne,
Ruled by resistless tears alone!
Wake! poet, wake! — the morn has burst
Through gates of stars and dew,
And, winged by prayer since evening nursed,
Has fled to kiss the steeples first,
And now stoops low to you!
Oh poet of the loving eye
For you is drest this morning sky!
(Second whisper — NOON.)
Oh, poet of the pen enchanted!
A lady sits beneath a tree!
At last, the flood for which she panted —
The wild words for her anguish wanted,
Have gushed in song from thee!
Her dark curls sweep her knees to pray: —
“God bless the poet far away!”
(Third whisper — MIDNIGHT.)
King of the heart's deep mystries!
Your words have wings like lightning wove!
This hour, o'er hills and distant seas,
They fly like flower-seeds on the breeze,
And sow the world with love!
King of a realm without a throne,
Ruled by resistless tears alone!
847
TO M — FROM ABROAD.
“The desire of the moth for the star —
Of the night for the morrow —
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.”
Of the night for the morrow —
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.”
Shelley.
“L'alma, quel che non ha, sogna a figura.”
Metastasio.
As, gazing on the Pleiades,
We count each fair and starry one,
Yet wander from the light of these
To muse upon the Pleiad gone —
As, bending o'er fresh gathered flowers,
The rose's most enchanting hue
Reminds us but of other hours
Whose roses were all lovely too —
So, dearest, when I rove among
The bright ones of this foreign sky,
And mark the smile, and list the song,
And watch the dancers gliding by,
The fairer still they seem to be,
The more it stirs a thought of thee!
The sad, sweet bells of twilight chime,
Of many hearts may touch but one,
And so this seeming careless rhyme
Will whisper to thy heart alone.
I give it to the winds! The bird
Let loose, to his far nest will flee,
And love, though breathed but on a word,
Will find thee, over land and sea.
Though clouds across the sky have driven,
We trust the star at last will shine,
And like the very light of heaven
I trust thy love. Trust thou in mine!
We count each fair and starry one,
Yet wander from the light of these
To muse upon the Pleiad gone —
As, bending o'er fresh gathered flowers,
The rose's most enchanting hue
Reminds us but of other hours
Whose roses were all lovely too —
So, dearest, when I rove among
The bright ones of this foreign sky,
And mark the smile, and list the song,
And watch the dancers gliding by,
The fairer still they seem to be,
The more it stirs a thought of thee!
The sad, sweet bells of twilight chime,
Of many hearts may touch but one,
And so this seeming careless rhyme
Will whisper to thy heart alone.
I give it to the winds! The bird
Let loose, to his far nest will flee,
And love, though breathed but on a word,
Will find thee, over land and sea.
Though clouds across the sky have driven,
We trust the star at last will shine,
And like the very light of heaven
I trust thy love. Trust thou in mine!
SUNRISE THOUGHTS AT THE CLOSE OF A BALL.
Morn in the East! How coldly fair
It breaks upon my fevered eye!
How chides the calm and dewy air!
How chides the pure and pearly sky!
The stars melt in a brighter fire —
The dew, in sunshine, leaves the flowers —
They, from their watch, in light retire,
While we, in sadness, pass from ours.
I turn from the rebuking morn —
The cold gray sky, a fading star —
And listen to the harp and horn,
And see the waltzers near and far —
The lamps and flowers are bright as yet,
And lips beneath more bright than they —
How can a scene so fair beget
The mournful thoughts we bear away!
'Tis something that thou art not here
Sweet lover of my lightest word!
'Tis something that my mother's tear
By these forgetful hours is stirred!
But I have long a loiterer been
In haunts where joy is said to be,
And though wifh Peace I enter in,
The nymph comes never forth with me.
It breaks upon my fevered eye!
How chides the calm and dewy air!
How chides the pure and pearly sky!
The stars melt in a brighter fire —
The dew, in sunshine, leaves the flowers —
They, from their watch, in light retire,
While we, in sadness, pass from ours.
I turn from the rebuking morn —
The cold gray sky, a fading star —
And listen to the harp and horn,
And see the waltzers near and far —
The lamps and flowers are bright as yet,
And lips beneath more bright than they —
How can a scene so fair beget
The mournful thoughts we bear away!
'Tis something that thou art not here
Sweet lover of my lightest word!
'Tis something that my mother's tear
By these forgetful hours is stirred!
But I have long a loiterer been
In haunts where joy is said to be,
And though wifh Peace I enter in,
The nymph comes never forth with me.
TO A FACE BELOVED.
The music of the wakened lyre
Dies not upon the quivering strings,
Nor burns alone the minstrel's fire
Upon the lip that trembling sings;
Nor shines the moon in heaven unseen.
Nor shuts the flower its fragrant cells,
Nor sleeps the fountain's wealth, I ween,
For ever in its sparry wells —
The spells of the enchanter lie
Not on his own lone heart — his own rapt ear and eye.
I look upon a face as fair
As ever made a lip of heaven
Falter amid its music-prayer!
The first-lit star of summer even
Springs not so softly on the eye,
Nor grows, with watching half so bright,
Nor mid its sisters of the sky,
So seems of heaven the dearest light —
Men murmur where that face is seen,
My youth's angelic dream was of that look and mien.
Yet though we deem the stars are blest,
And envy, in our grief, the flower
That bears but sweetness in its breast,
And fear th' enchanter for his power,
And love the minstrel for his spell,
He winds out of his lyre so well —
The stars are almoners of light,
The lyrist of melodious air,
The fountain of its waters bright
And everything most sweet and fair
Of that by which it charms the ear,
The eye of him that passes near —
A lamp is lit in woman's eye
That souls, else lost on earth, remember angels by.
Dies not upon the quivering strings,
Nor burns alone the minstrel's fire
Upon the lip that trembling sings;
Nor shines the moon in heaven unseen.
Nor shuts the flower its fragrant cells,
Nor sleeps the fountain's wealth, I ween,
For ever in its sparry wells —
The spells of the enchanter lie
Not on his own lone heart — his own rapt ear and eye.
I look upon a face as fair
As ever made a lip of heaven
Falter amid its music-prayer!
The first-lit star of summer even
Springs not so softly on the eye,
Nor grows, with watching half so bright,
Nor mid its sisters of the sky,
So seems of heaven the dearest light —
Men murmur where that face is seen,
My youth's angelic dream was of that look and mien.
Yet though we deem the stars are blest,
And envy, in our grief, the flower
That bears but sweetness in its breast,
And fear th' enchanter for his power,
And love the minstrel for his spell,
He winds out of his lyre so well —
The stars are almoners of light,
The lyrist of melodious air,
The fountain of its waters bright
And everything most sweet and fair
Of that by which it charms the ear,
The eye of him that passes near —
A lamp is lit in woman's eye
That souls, else lost on earth, remember angels by.
UNSEEN SPIRITS.
The shadows lay along Broadway,
'Twas near the twilight-tide —
And slowly there a lady fair
Was walking in her pride.
Alone walked she; but, viewlessly,
Walked spirits at her side.
Peace charmed the street beneath her feet,
And honor charmed the air;
And all astir looked kind on her,
And called her good as fair —
For all God ever gave to her
She kept with chary care.
She kept with care her beauties rare
From lovers warm and true —
For her heart was cold to all but gold,
And the rich came not to woo —
But honored well are charms to sell
If priests the selling do.
Now walking there was one more fair —
A slight girl, lily-pale;
And she had unseen company
To make the spirit quail —
'Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn,
And nothing could avail.
No mercy now can clear her brow
For this world's peace to pray;
For as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,
Her woman's heart gave way!
But the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven
By man is curst alway!
'Twas near the twilight-tide —
And slowly there a lady fair
Was walking in her pride.
Alone walked she; but, viewlessly,
Walked spirits at her side.
Peace charmed the street beneath her feet,
And honor charmed the air;
And all astir looked kind on her,
And called her good as fair —
For all God ever gave to her
She kept with chary care.
She kept with care her beauties rare
From lovers warm and true —
For her heart was cold to all but gold,
And the rich came not to woo —
But honored well are charms to sell
If priests the selling do.
Now walking there was one more fair —
A slight girl, lily-pale;
And she had unseen company
To make the spirit quail —
'Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn,
And nothing could avail.
No mercy now can clear her brow
For this world's peace to pray;
For as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,
Her woman's heart gave way!
But the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven
By man is curst alway!
BETTER MOMENTS.
My mother's voice! how often creeps
Its cadence on my lonely hours!
Like healing sent on wings of sleep,
Or dew to the unconscious flowers.
I can forget her melting prayer
While leaping pulses madly fly,
But in the still, unbroken air,
Her gentle tone comes stealing by —
And years, and sin, and manhood flee,
And leave me at my mother's knee.
The book of nature, and the print
Of beauty on the whispering sea
Give aye to me some lineament
Of what I have been taught to be.
My heart is harder, and perhaps
My manliness hath drank up tears;
And there's a mildew in the lapse
Of a few miserable years —
But nature's book is even yet
With all my mother's lessons writ.
Its cadence on my lonely hours!
Like healing sent on wings of sleep,
Or dew to the unconscious flowers.
I can forget her melting prayer
While leaping pulses madly fly,
But in the still, unbroken air,
Her gentle tone comes stealing by —
And years, and sin, and manhood flee,
And leave me at my mother's knee.
The book of nature, and the print
Of beauty on the whispering sea
Give aye to me some lineament
Of what I have been taught to be.
My heart is harder, and perhaps
My manliness hath drank up tears;
And there's a mildew in the lapse
Of a few miserable years —
But nature's book is even yet
With all my mother's lessons writ.
848
I have been out at eventide
Beneath a moonlight sky of spring,
When earth was garnished like a bride,
And night had on her silver wing —
When bursting leaves, and diamond grass,
And waters leaping to the light,
And all that make the pulses pass
With wilder fleetness, thronged the night —
When all was beauty — then have I
With friends on whom my love is flung
Like myrrh on wings of Araby,
Gazed up where evening's lamp is hung,
And when the beautiful spirit there
Flung over me its golden chain,
My mother's voice came on the air
Like the light dropping of the rain —
And resting on some silver star
The spirit of a bended knee,
I've poured out low and fervent prayer
That our eternity might be
To rise in heaven, like stars at night,
And tread a living path of light.
I have been on the dewy hills,
When night was stealing from the dawn,
And mist was on the waking rills,
And teints were delicately drawn
In the gray East — when birds were waking,
With a low murmur in the trees,
And melody by fits was breaking
Upon the whisper of the breeze,
And this when I was forth, perchance
As a worn reveller from the dance —
And when the sun sprang gloriously
And freely up, and hill and river
Were catching upon wave and tree
The arrows from his subtle quiver —
I say a voice has thrilled me then,
Heard on the still and rushing light,
Or, creeping from the silent glen,
Like words from the departing night,
Hath stricken me, and I have pressed
On the wet grass my fevered brow,
And pouring forth the earliest
First prayer, with which I learned to bow,
Have felt my mother's spirit rush
Upon me as in by-past years,
And, yielding to the blessed gush
Of my ungovernable tears,
Have risen up — the gay, the wild —
As humble as a very child.
Beneath a moonlight sky of spring,
When earth was garnished like a bride,
And night had on her silver wing —
When bursting leaves, and diamond grass,
And waters leaping to the light,
And all that make the pulses pass
With wilder fleetness, thronged the night —
When all was beauty — then have I
With friends on whom my love is flung
Like myrrh on wings of Araby,
Gazed up where evening's lamp is hung,
And when the beautiful spirit there
Flung over me its golden chain,
My mother's voice came on the air
Like the light dropping of the rain —
And resting on some silver star
The spirit of a bended knee,
I've poured out low and fervent prayer
That our eternity might be
To rise in heaven, like stars at night,
And tread a living path of light.
I have been on the dewy hills,
When night was stealing from the dawn,
And mist was on the waking rills,
And teints were delicately drawn
In the gray East — when birds were waking,
With a low murmur in the trees,
And melody by fits was breaking
Upon the whisper of the breeze,
And this when I was forth, perchance
As a worn reveller from the dance —
And when the sun sprang gloriously
And freely up, and hill and river
Were catching upon wave and tree
The arrows from his subtle quiver —
I say a voice has thrilled me then,
Heard on the still and rushing light,
Or, creeping from the silent glen,
Like words from the departing night,
Hath stricken me, and I have pressed
On the wet grass my fevered brow,
And pouring forth the earliest
First prayer, with which I learned to bow,
Have felt my mother's spirit rush
Upon me as in by-past years,
And, yielding to the blessed gush
Of my ungovernable tears,
Have risen up — the gay, the wild —
As humble as a very child.
THE ANNOYER.
“Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.”
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.”
— Shelley.
Love knoweth every form of air,
And every shape of earth,
And comes, unbidden, everywhere,
Like thought's mysterious birth.
The moonlit sea and the sunset sky
Are written with Love's words,
And you hear his voice unceasingly,
Like song in the time of birds.
He peeps into the warrior's heart
From the tip of a stooping plume,
And the serried spears, and the many men,
May not deny him room.
He'll come to his tent in the weary night,
And be busy in his dream;
And he'll float to his eye in morning light
Like a fay on a silver beam.
He hears the sound of the hunter's gun,
And rides on the echo back,
And sighs in his ear, like a stirring leaf,
And flits in his woodland track,
The shade of the wood, and the sheen of the river,
The cloud and the open sky —
He will haunt them all with his subtle quiver,
Like the light of your very eye.
The fisher hangs over the leaning boat,
And ponders the silver sea,
For Love is under the surface hid,
And a spell of thought has he;
He heaves the wave like a bosom sweet,
And speaks in the ripple low,
Till the bait is gone from the crafty line,
And the hook hangs bare below.
He blurs the print of the scholar's book,
And intrudes in the maiden's prayer,
And profanes the cell of the holy man,
In the shape of a lady fair.
In the darkest night, and the bright daylight,
In earth, and sea, and sky,
In every home of human thought,
Will love be lurking nigh.
And every shape of earth,
And comes, unbidden, everywhere,
Like thought's mysterious birth.
The moonlit sea and the sunset sky
Are written with Love's words,
And you hear his voice unceasingly,
Like song in the time of birds.
He peeps into the warrior's heart
From the tip of a stooping plume,
And the serried spears, and the many men,
May not deny him room.
He'll come to his tent in the weary night,
And be busy in his dream;
And he'll float to his eye in morning light
Like a fay on a silver beam.
He hears the sound of the hunter's gun,
And rides on the echo back,
And sighs in his ear, like a stirring leaf,
And flits in his woodland track,
The shade of the wood, and the sheen of the river,
The cloud and the open sky —
He will haunt them all with his subtle quiver,
Like the light of your very eye.
The fisher hangs over the leaning boat,
And ponders the silver sea,
For Love is under the surface hid,
And a spell of thought has he;
He heaves the wave like a bosom sweet,
And speaks in the ripple low,
Till the bait is gone from the crafty line,
And the hook hangs bare below.
He blurs the print of the scholar's book,
And intrudes in the maiden's prayer,
And profanes the cell of the holy man,
In the shape of a lady fair.
In the darkest night, and the bright daylight,
In earth, and sea, and sky,
In every home of human thought,
Will love be lurking nigh.
ANDRE'S REQUEST TO WASHINGTON
It is not the fear of death
That damps my brow,
It is not for another breath
I ask thee now;
I can die with a lip unstirred
And a quiet heart —
Let but this prayer be heard
Ere I depart.
I can give up my mother's look —
My sister's kiss;
I can think of love — yet brook
A death like this!
I can give up the young fame
I burned to win —
All — but the spotless name
I glory in.
Thine is the power to give,
Thine to deny,
Joy for the hour I live —
Calmness to die.
By all the brave should cherish,
By my dying breath,
I ask that I may perish
By a soldier's death!
That damps my brow,
It is not for another breath
I ask thee now;
I can die with a lip unstirred
And a quiet heart —
Let but this prayer be heard
Ere I depart.
I can give up my mother's look —
My sister's kiss;
I can think of love — yet brook
A death like this!
I can give up the young fame
I burned to win —
All — but the spotless name
I glory in.
Thine is the power to give,
Thine to deny,
Joy for the hour I live —
Calmness to die.
By all the brave should cherish,
By my dying breath,
I ask that I may perish
By a soldier's death!
DAWN.
“That line I learned not in the old sad song.”
— Charles Lamb.
Throw up the window! 'Tis a morn for life
In its most subtle luxury. The air
Is like a breathing from a rarer world;
And the south wind is like a gentle friend.
Parting the hair so softly on my brow.
It has come over gardens, and the flowers
That kissed it are betrayed; for as it parts,
With its invisible fingers, my loose hair,
I know it has been trifling with the rose,
And stooping to the violet. There is joy
For all God's creatures in it. The wet leaves
Are stirring at its touch, and birds are singing
As if to breathe were music, and the grass
Sends up its modest odor with the dew,
Like the small tribute of humility.
I had awoke from an unpleasant dream,
And light was welcome to me. I looked out
To feel the common air, and when the breath
Of the delicious morning met my brow
Cooling its fever, and the pleasant sun
Shone on familiar objects, it was like
The feeling of the captive who comes forth
From darkness to the cheerful light of day.
Oh! could we wake from sorrow; were it all
A troubled dream like this, to cast aside
Like an untimely garment with the morn;
Could the long fever of the heart be cooled
By a sweet breath from nature; or the gloom
Of a bereaved affection pass away
With looking on the lively teint of flowers —
How lightly were the spirit reconciled
To make this beautiful, bright world its home!
In its most subtle luxury. The air
Is like a breathing from a rarer world;
And the south wind is like a gentle friend.
Parting the hair so softly on my brow.
It has come over gardens, and the flowers
That kissed it are betrayed; for as it parts,
With its invisible fingers, my loose hair,
I know it has been trifling with the rose,
And stooping to the violet. There is joy
For all God's creatures in it. The wet leaves
Are stirring at its touch, and birds are singing
As if to breathe were music, and the grass
Sends up its modest odor with the dew,
Like the small tribute of humility.
I had awoke from an unpleasant dream,
And light was welcome to me. I looked out
To feel the common air, and when the breath
Of the delicious morning met my brow
Cooling its fever, and the pleasant sun
Shone on familiar objects, it was like
The feeling of the captive who comes forth
From darkness to the cheerful light of day.
Oh! could we wake from sorrow; were it all
A troubled dream like this, to cast aside
Like an untimely garment with the morn;
Could the long fever of the heart be cooled
By a sweet breath from nature; or the gloom
Of a bereaved affection pass away
With looking on the lively teint of flowers —
How lightly were the spirit reconciled
To make this beautiful, bright world its home!
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