University of Virginia Library

THE SKELETONS.

My Fancy wander'd in the Caves of Death,
'Mid heaps of mould'ring bones, and heard and view'd
The words I echo and the scenes I sing.
Around me Skeletons stood lank and foul:
Their looks were horrible; for one and all
Seem'd gifted with existence—a pale light
Shone in their eyeless sockets, and their jaws
Mov'd as in mockery of living lips.
I past before them, when they grinn'd amain,
And hollow laughter shook the dreary vault!
'Twas terrible to see—and seeing, think
In space how brief should I as they become,
And be a partner in their devilish joy.—
I thought it devilish—not so their speech,
Which spoke in sorrowful and human tones,
And this the tenor of their eloquence.
‘The fears of Genius, in extreme despair
Of doing ought to make his name immortal,
Tho' sad and desolate, have bliss, compar'd
With the o'erwhelming and grief-laden clouds
That wait on Passion when her sun is set.
Each youthful Fancy, in its rising pride,
Creates an idol, before which it bows
As to reality; but soon dull Time
Proves the bright image to be false as dear,
And seldom is it that in after-life
We meet the Spirit of our early dreams.
My fate was otherwise: the very form
Which lit my slumbers, and my waking thoughts
Fill'd with its visionary loveliness,
Before me came in actual being—fair
As her imaginary counterpart:
The fetterless hair—the eye, half blue, half grey,
Shone both as in my musings, and the lips
Whose coolness I had prest in fancied bliss,
Existed—beautiful as ever gave
Sweet sounds in answer to the minstrel-string—
Sweet words respondent to the voice of love!
Her figure was of those that seem as made
For adoration, and of such a form
Was her mind worthy:—she admir'd the swell
Of Ocean's thunder and the Thunder's roar;
She lov'd the wildest elements—her eye
Watch'd the strong eagle in his reckless flight
Whither no other bird had dar'd to mount;
Her ear would listen to the lion's growl,
And therein find a music—and her thoughts
Ran thro' the maze of all sublimity!
Yet in her converse she was gentle ever,
And 'mid surrounding vice did keep as pure
As snows do even in a torrid clime,
Where the hot sun moves all things, save themselves.
But Purity itself in Passion dies:
We met, we lov'd—how wildly, deeply, words
Can shew, no better than an orrery
The stately motion of the living fires
That roll in air: but, oh! between the hour
When first of beauty all my visions were,
And that wherein appear'd young Beauty's self,
Communion I had held with sinful men,
And learn'd to laugh at virtue—marriage rites
I thought an idle mummery, to which
Disgust was near akin—a stranger, love.
When woman gives her heart away, her mind
A prisoner too becomes;—and thus it was
With her who deem'd me guileless as herself;
She drank the poison of my tongue—and fell!
Yes—the sole flash that lit my cheerless sky
Did I extinguish in an hour of guilt;
I stole the honey, but I burnt the bee;
I broke the cypress-head—the cypress died.—
Oh! not a villain on the guilty earth
With him can vie in damn'd hypocrisy,
Who plays deception with a woman's heart,
And blights the bosom that was wholly his.’
‘Regard not outward show—it falsifies:—
The lightest finger steals the heaviest purse;
More saintly nothing than a villain's speech.
Plain is the plumage of melodious birds—
Gaudy, of those which sing not; the loud drone
Preserves no honey in its noisy flight,
But how industrious is the silent bee!
Trust not the man who hath a specious smile
For ever on his face, and on his tongue
Most pliant words—the world's a world of rogues,
And few are honest who do honest seem.
Of all things doubt—give ample faith to none,
And thine own senses credit least of all.’
‘I was the Parent of as fair a Child
As ever gamboll'd o'er the the meads of Spring.
Unceasing mirth and fine intelligence
Were her peculiar attributes—tho' young;
For fifteen Autumns had not yet opprest
The earth with moistureless and faded leaves
Since she was born: her deep blue eye
Just spoke of rising passion, and her ear
Now lov'd impassion'd melody, the which
Her small lips warbled forth in strains divine:
In the light dance did she the lightest move,
And the most exquisite in form and step.
Dead was her mother—she my only child;
The spring of all my pleasures, all my love;
The only object that I priz'd on earth—
My earthly jewel, that had hues of heaven!
She died—my sweet girl died: her eloquence
Grew silent, and her beauty pale and dim;
The azure brilliance of her eye declin'd,
And Death exulted o'er her dying frame.
In the cold earth she was by moonlight laid,
When all was voiceless as her whit'ning lip,
Save the loud pealing of the funeral bell
That pour'd monotonous music into air.
My bliss was buried in my offspring's grave;—
I liv'd in utter solitude and woe,
Far from all revelry; for sounds of joy
Fell on the stillness of my broken heart
As fall the sun-beams on a plague-struck City,
Which doubly desolate and fearful make
The desolation which their splendor lights!’
‘There is a pride in singularity,
A foolish pride—most paltry pride of all;
For ne'er was excellence, or merit prov'd
By strange behaviour and unsocial ways;—
They shew an emptiness in heart and head,
And wise men should avoid this buffoon art,
Which suits mean Folly in his simplest mood.
Of form and dress let idle Idiots boast:
Chance gives the first—the last will riches bring.
Not so the clothing of th' immortal mind,
Which thought and constant study yield alone.
In mental beauty there is cause for pride:
The Mind—the glorious Mind hath nought to do
With form, with feature, or with modes of dress;
Its riches are as hidden as divine—
Boundless its powers, which can prevail o'er all
The disadvantages of corporal shape,
And lift a Pigmy o'er a Giant's head!’
In strange and desultory fashion thus
Spoke each stern Skeleton—and I mov'd on;
Till, suddenly, another in my path
Stood tall and fearful, and these words pronounc'd:
‘Hark unto tidings of the airless grave!
My body lay as dead within the earth:—
It mov'd not, felt not; neither saw, nor heard;
But still I had a consciousness of life,
Commingled with a dim idea of death:
I knew that I was utterly alone—
Apart from all things living, save the worm,
Whose bravest palace is the well-stor'd tomb.
And I had many dreams—such dreams as come
O'er brains molested by a calenture:
Now seem'd I on a vessel's busy deck,
'Mid waves of fire; until a hurricane
Arose and bore the lofty masts away,
As they were feeble osiers; then the ship
Sank in the flaming billows, and a shriek
Spoke tales of torture—but I felt no pain.
Again I dream'd: and thought me on the top
Of a sky-touching tree, from which I fell—
And falling, snatch'd at every neighb'ring branch,
In hope to cling thereto; but each in turn
Broke in my grasp—and down, and down I went,
With varied motion, till the dream decay'd.
And next came more than visionary grief;
For life appear'd returning to my frame:
My eyelids open'd, but I could not see;
I felt the gnawing of the hungry worms,
And heard them creeping round me, but to move
And crush their myriads was beyond my power:
Then burning thirst assail'd me—but I knew
That no blest liquids sparkled in the grave,
And the dire knowledge parch'd my lips the more:
I tried to speak—but could not, and my pangs
Grew to intolerable agony,
When, in a moment, all the wide earth shook,
And here I wander'd, as thou see'st me now.’
Such was my vision—if, indeed, I dreamt:
But the strange scene, the laugh, the voices, song
So real all appear'd, that, even now,
I cannot think it was a dream alone.