Julia Alpinula With The Captive of Stamboul and Other Poems. By J. H. Wiffen |
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 | Julia Alpinula |  |
XI.
Not long the golden juice might lieOf slumber on Eudora's eye;
In restless ecstacy, her dream
Made night's uncertain phantoms seem
Like him she loved, for ever near;—
But flying, ever, chased by fear,
And she as on the wings of wind,
Was hasting evermore behind.
In seeming swiftness, now they pass
The spiry cliff, the quick morass,
And hill whose windy summit forms
Wild lineament of clouds and storms,
Which, as she tracked his steps with pain,
Would tear him from her sight again.
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Her wanderer to the dancing wave;
Blue glowed the waters, and on high
His sails swelled in a cloudless sky;—
She had forsook her hated tower,
Had baffled Manuel's jealous power,
And far, upon the tossing main,
His flying vessel sought to gain.
The shore was near; the' ambitious prow
Chid the long billows' lingering flow;
But as the sails the seamen furl,
The whirlwinds rise, the surges curl;
A moment—and the form he wore
Is whelmed beneath the ocean-floor.
Now seem the war-drum and the fife,
Again to call her chief to life;
With plated cuirass on his breast,
With white plume waving, lance in rest,
On, on he rushed to victory,
“For Stamboul!” was the battle-cry,
And cloven shield, and turban-fold,
Horseman and horse, beneath him rolled;—
But, full upon her startled view,
Distinct, a Giant shadow grew!
His arm ascending in the sky,
Unsheathed the sabre from his thigh,
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With laughing shout, and frantic air,
Her visioned Prince he sternly smote,
Who groan or murmur uttered not,
But strove one only thought to claim,
In utterance of her gentle name.
His timeless fate her woe would weep,
And anguish broke the bonds of sleep.
| Julia Alpinula | |