University of Virginia Library

THE OUTLAW'S BRIDE.

In a lone vale, unknown to pomp and state,
Beloved by few, unwilling to be great,
Yet pressed by them in love and faith sincere,
Inmates of penury, beyond a fear
For simple life, save that the hydra head
Of vice might rise in their secluded shed,
Congenial souls, by virtue joined in love,
With not a wish that flew beyond the grove,
Lucius and Laura saw their offspring rise,
Like gilded stars along cerulean skies,
Their minds expanding like the blushing flowers
Beneath bright sunbeams, and prolific showers.
Wild was the scenery, and an arid heath,
Emblem of desolation, and of death
To those who revel in voluptuous mirth,
And scorn the treasure of ignoble birth,
Spread round the cot, that stood within a glade
Which labour's hand had opened from the shade,
But patient toil had drawn from nature's breast
A store, that made the unambitious blest,
And crowned the weary cares of sire and son
With hope of wealth by wise exertions won.
Each infant mien within the cot was bland,
And all was neat, for Laura's toilless hand
Had spread a chaste and graceful scene around,
O'er which the fawn and kid, with sportive bound
Enhanced the blushing maiden's merry glee,
And nature held a joyful jubilee.
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When from the wood, where fell the gnarled oak,
And towering pine beneath his nervous stroke,
Or the far field, enriched with golden sheaves,
That for the granary the planter leaves,
The joyous husband smiles to meet the eye
Of her he loves, nor heaves a bitter sigh;
When gathered round autumnal fires, that burn
And gild the scene to welcome their return,
The social circle blend their rural smiles,
Unheeding envy, and her wanton wiles,
Survey past scenes and hope for joys to come,
The weeping eye, condemned to gaze and roam,
Might rest upon that quiet spot, and glow
In sparkling fervour o'er a placid brow.
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Amid the calm scenes of those gladsome days
A sullen darkness, and a sunless haze,
A fitful wildness, and elinguid mood,
Came o'er the cheerful tenant of the wood;
His fields were fruitless, and his home unknown
To rustic pleasure, and the honied tone
Of love and friendship, gratitude, content,
With moody sadness and despair unblent.
His board was crowned with viands, known before
To those alone, to whom the ample store
Of fortune had descended, with its train
Of luxuries, attendant on her reign;
Yet 'mid the banquet, wondrous to the view
Of her, whose wild imagination flew
Not o'er her hills to search the aulic dome,
And know its pleasures—but ne'er thought to roam—
He sat unquiet, unallured by all
The glowing, rich, and vinous festival;
A pang would rack his soul, the iron there
Was treasuring fast the horrors of despair.
The leaden eye of Laura could not pierce
His darkling breast, nor learn his terrors fierce;
As fond philosophy ascends the height,
And views the lava that illumes the night,
Bends o'er the crater, where the volcan's flame
Not billowy floods could subjugate and tame,
Hears the dread rumbling of the giant's car
Shake the proud height with subterranean war,
But cannot penetrate the scene of strife,
Nor scan the gulf with deadly horrors rife;
So guilt corrodes the bosom of despair,
While conscience, like the lion from his lair,
Asserts her empire, o'er the madding soul
Doth all its sins, unholy deeds, unroll;
When racks the brain with terrors none can tell,
Displays the writhing agonies of hell,
And bids to hope and heaven a long farewell!
But the fierce fires by shame and guilt represt,
Assuaged by none, within the hopeless breast
In vivid fury, not exhaustion burn,
And unknown miseries proffered solace spurn.
Yet, when in midnight visions, reason slept,
And lovely Laura on her pillow wept,
Delirious Fancy, in her airy flight,
Invoked the appalling demons of the night,
And told a tale, from which the soul recoiled,—
The sense was frenzied, and the life-blood boiled,
The voice of Lucius gave the dread command,
His eyeballs flashed, and in his gory hand
A sabre gleamed—“the noble deed is done,
The miser falls, the golden prize is won.”
Low murmurs now his pallid lips declare,
Before his vision frowned the fiend Despair,
And shook his brand amid the hydra brood
Of withering spectres lured by human blood;
The incantation he could not dispel,
Nor exorcise the fiends of wrath, who dwell
Within his burning brain; his straining eye
Saw nought but dread, undying agony.
“Poor guileless Austin! thine it was to feel
The ruthless brand, the undeserved steel,
Edgeless but for my adamantine heart—
O God! my hand impelled the deadly dart!
Demons of Death! ye strained the dreadful bow,
And smiling saw the reeking life-blood flow,
Ye nerved my arm, and rung his funeral knell,
Ye are my compeers—and my dome is hell!”
He paused and slept; a ghastly smile was seen
Upon his lip—bewildered was his mien.
But Oh! what anguish rent a woman's breast,
What moonless darkness on her senses prest!
No sound is heard beneath the thatched roof,
But low, and far, and rapid tramps a courser's hoof.
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“Lucius! thy crime is known to Him on high,
Prepare thy shroud, and pall, for thou must die!
The sword of Justice o'er thy fate-doomed head
Is hung, to avenge the blood that thou hast shed;
Vengeance hath heard, and bared her crimson arm,
Her eye is on thee, her thou canst not charm.”
The frantic woodsman saw the massive chain,
And owned the dread of murder's purple grain,
A horse, a bar, a dungeon, meet his eye,
All that remains is to confess and die!
Before his view the fatal scene appears,
The husband dies, the wife is left to tears.
The hope of youth, when every scene is fair,
Unknown deep wo, and pleasure-blighting care,
The nectared joys of matrimonial love,
The peace of age, and happiness above,
Have lost their richness, and the soul in gloom
Seeks her bright home beyond the darkling tomb.
Reason deserts her awe-commanding throne,
Her soul is void, and every passion lone,
Save when dread memory recalls the hours,
That flew along a brilliant field of flowers;
When hope was smiling, blissful dreams beguiled
The lonely tenant of the desert wild;
The days of toil then ushered nights of rest,
Each eye was glowing, and each passion blest.
But when bewildering miseries inurn
The mind, while fires of fitful fury burn,
When the warm heart, in agony immured,
By nothing bright or lovely is allured;
It is as if the human frame entombed,
While yet the vital spark the breast illumed,
Felt every pang inflicted by the worm,
And every gripe he makes upon the form;
But cannot frame a curse to fright away
The revellers jubilant over mortal clay;
Nor lift a hand the reptiles low to crush,
Who hold dominion, and in armies rush.
Laura, who once with joyous fervour hailed
The glad return of Lucius, and regaled
His hours of solitude with bonny love,
And roved delighted through the maple grove,
Who pledged her hand, and yielded up her breast
To cheer his loneliness, his heart divest
Of all the stings a reckless world will give,
And all the darts that rankle there and thrive,
No more with rosy foot treads o'er the lawn,
And heralds with her radiant smile the dawn;
Dark is her soul, her every hope is dead,
Misfortune's baneful vial now has shed
A blighting poison through her graceful frame,
A storm around her home, a stigma on her name.
Her cot is roofless, and the scene is mute
That echoed once the flagelet and flute,
Her fields uncultured, and her children fair,
Like silver down upon the viewless air,
Scattered through varied climes unsought, unknown,
Deaf to a mother's prayers, or mellow tone,
Or laid in sunless mansions premature,
And shroudless, on a wild and desert moor.
Round the lone fountain, digged by hands beloved,
Musing on other scenes, she oft has roved,
While the clear wave, that glistened sheeny there,
Flung back the bending form, and imaged out Despair.