 | Areytos or songs and ballads of the South |  |
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DOST THOU THAT NIGHT REMEMBER?
I.
Dost thou that night remember,When silently we sped,
The broad blue bay around us,
The blue sky overhead;
The world of stars down-shining,
With each a smile to cheer—
To pierce the loving heart with love,
And wing each fancy there;
Soft zephyrs darting from the deep
In moment-gushes forth,
As if, that instant, from the wave
Each little wing had birth;
The dark mutes bending forward,
Oars plangent in the wave,
That, with our rapt hearts chiming,
Such tender echoes gave;
The stately pines that brooded close
Beside the ocean's brim,
And, dark in foliage, massed behind,
The forest still and grim;
That lonely camp-fire shining out
Upon the headland far,
And, through a rifted realm of cloud,
One little golden star?
Oh! of that holy night, blue heaven and lonely sea,
Keep the sweet memory as a dream—a sad, sweet dream of me!
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II.
We sate together lonely,But with such loneliness
As love can soothe—love only—
With silent tenderness:
My right hand grasped the rudder,
The left was scarcely mine—
'Twas next my heart, but clasp'd by thee,
It felt each beat of thine;
Then throbb'd the instant passion,
Then breathed the instant bliss,
Then both hearts swell'd, and both lips met
In one long loving kiss!
We knew not then of night or sky,
The billows round our prow,
The Past, the Future, dark or bright,
We knew but of the Now!
Nor that the slaves were near us,
Nor did we hear the oars,
As, with their equal stroke, they sent
The billows to the shores;
Nor, till the boatmen's chorus burst—
A rude and mournful strain,
The echo of their simple hearts—
Came we to earth again:
Came we to consciousness of all, that night upon the sea,
That vast of bliss that Life even yet had stored for thee and me!
III.
No more, no more, though feelingStill lives in either breast,
Must we recall that happy hour
Which, mad'ning, made us bless'd—
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Forgetful of the Fate
That mock'd us with a single hour,
To leave us desolate!
Why were we sent together,
With hearts so knit to one?
Why had we thoughts, dreams, feelings,
In such sweet unison?
What hope had we to cherish,
When thou, already doom'd,
Had but a life for sacrifice,
A heart already tomb'd?
We knew it both!—yet in that hour,
With thy hand caught in mine,
That one star, through the rifted cloud,
Shone forth with fatal sign:
Made us forget that Fate, or Man,
Was hostile to our bliss—
Made sinful that embrace, and sad
That first, fond, fatal kiss!
Oh! not less sweet for all the sin, that precious hour with thee,
That wild, weird night, when first we went o'er Coosaw's lonely sea!
IV.
Dim shores and moaning waters,That, on that hallowéd night
Beheld her face of troubled joy,
All pallid mid the bright:
Saw us, in that delirious bliss,
The first that ever taught
How precious was a mortal kiss
To Passion and to Thought:
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And half a sigh, that broke,
As from the ecstatic dream of joy
We both together woke!
Oh! keep the memory on your waves,
Your shores, your headlands dark:
So shall ye sway o'er future souls,
In other wandering bark;
And of that glorious form, all soul,
Dark eye, and pale white brow,
Still let the spell be on ye all,
As when ye heard our vow—
As when they won the fond young heart
They could not then requite,
And made, for all his life and thought,
A memory of that night!
So shall ye bear my memories—hers—though far apart we be,
Keeping Love's record well for us—for her—for her and me!
| Areytos or songs and ballads of the South | |