The bridal of Vaumond :: :: University of Virginia Library

Know'st thou the land where citrons scent the gale,
Where glows the ornage in the golden vale,
Where softer breezes fan the azure skies,
Where myrtles grow, and prouder laurels rise?
GOETHE

TO WASHINGTON IRVING, ESQ. THIS ROMANCE IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

There is but little necessity of troubling the public, either with a criticism or an apology, in the front of this Romance. The author publishes from none of the avowed motives of his countrymen; neither at the solicitations of friends, for the good of the poor, nor for his own good. He is not ashamed of acknowledging, that the impelling principle is the same with that which instigates all authors, whose reasons are worth scrutinizing. After this candid confession, he states, not by way of apology, but to give his readers fair data, to form their estimate of his ability, that he is yet a youth, and, among the rhymers of the day, “a childe,” in a legal as well as in a poetical sense of the term.

The first part was written some time ago, when the writer beguiled his leisure moments with “loose numbers,” without dreaming that they would ever be subjected to the inspection of a human eye. The last eight scenes have been lately added. The whole was rapidly written in that lax measure which mightier bards have adopted; and which is, therefore, a sufficient vindication of the present humble performance.

Custom and prejudice have made it necessary that a new candidate among us should come forward anonymously. This is perhaps the only happy effect, which the personages aforesaid have produced on the literature of the United States. Without a name, and without a patron, with all the defects arising from not being at home in the scenes he describes, venturing his taper in the meridian blaze of modern minstrelsy; yet, if there be any of the “disjecti membra poetæ” among the rhymes of the author, he must be encouraged—il sera bientôt deterré: if none there are, a happy oblivion will shroud at once his verses and his hopes.

1. PART FIRST.

INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.

TO --- ---, ESQ.

August 15.

Misi ad te frivola gerris Siculis vaniora: ut quum agis nihil, hæc legus; et, ne nihil agas, defendas.

AUSON.

Now in the Lion's fiery reign,
The fierce sun drives his ardent wain;
In sultry summer's kindling arch
He holds on high his blazing march;
The rustic quits the glowing fields,
And, fainting, to his influence yields;
To gentler shades, afar, he flies,
While the mown grass ungather'd lies:
Fast, o'er the burning pavement hurl'd,
Th' impatient merchant's car is whirl'd;
From bustling quay, with weary feet,
Escap'd, he seeks his cool retreat:
The student's clouded eyeballs roam,
Bent idly on the ponderous tome:
And pretty lips, with drawling speech,
Complain that they can find no leech,
Whose skill can baffle that disease,
Where conquest's self forgets to please

The minstrel's chords relax'd, in vain
He woos them to a nobler strain;
For, o'er the diapason deep,
His failing fingers tiring, sleep;
The spell-bound mind, in waking slumbers,
Sinks lull'd by the lethargic numbers.

While Morpheus round his wreaths hath strown,
Where Themis nods upon her throne,—
(Wo to the wight whose weal or bale
Hangs trembling in that cumbrous scale!)
While hurrying judges quit the court,
And make e'en—himself grow short—
Whilst thou, my friend, all listless lolling,
Feelst bland oblivion round thee rolling,
Till thou art stretch'd beneath her wand,
The ‘Memory of Man’ beyond—
While master Littleton, supine,
Dreads no ejectment from his shrine—
For e'en John Stiles, beneath such skies,
Wanes in his deathless energies—
While each reporter, in due place,
Need fear no trespass on the case—
Haply the minstrel's idle tale
At such a tide may yet prevail;
May, with one spark of fire of eld,—
When chaos slow her depths unveil'd,
And listening caught the spheral song,
—Thy waking dreams awhile prolong.

Nor deem the crier's hoarse Oyes,
That calls thee to thine honour'd place,
The only melody that e'er
Mounts to Astræa's hallow'd sphere.

If right I read the lore of time,
Far in proud learning's natal clime,
With law and polity began
The Muses' seven-string'd talisman;
The same fleet herald brought them there,
Jove's golden-sandal'd messenger.

Mercury is said to have introduced letters and polity into Egypt.

When Greece, o'er Freedom's sacred tide,
Saw Persia's gorgeous gallies ride,
Whose war-song peal'd along the wave,
Sent craven terror to the slave—

The elegy composed by Solon, to excite the Athenians to retake Salamis, is said to have been sung at the naval engagement which happened afterward near that place.

Awakening every echoing shore
As onward dash'd each gallant prore?
'Twas his—who erst, in milder stole,
Had tam'd the uncouth warrior's soul;
The sage who made Athena free,
And lov'd the songs of minstrelsy.

Awhile unbend thy brow—I fear
No harsher frown or critic sneer,
As the deep student's eye shall rove
O'er a tale of magic, a tale of love.

PROEM.

Know ye the land where nature wantons wild,
Where terror wars with beauty for the sway—
The boast of art, and all earth's glory spoil'd
By fate and havoc, since her natal day—
Where mildest skies are lit with quenchless ray,
And Paradise reveals her pride array'd—
Where verdure ever blooms, and breezes play;
Where oft the angel drops the flaming blade,
And hell triumphant reigns o'er trembling man dismay'd!

Where demon tales believ'd the soul perturb'd
Of starting peasant bid in slumber cry,
Where superstition, dark and all uncurb'd,
Lords in the cot and in the palace high;
Where the cowl'd monk his beads tells, roving by
Where sleep the ashes of the chiefs of eld;
Gigantic columns all neglected lie,
And domes that pagan rites whilere beheld,
The chaunt of cloister'd nuns with Mary's name hath fill'd.

Where gleams the poniard in night's trembling beam,
The red-cross oft doth knighthood's fall proclaim—

A cross is always painted on the wall opposite to the spot where a knight has been killed. Hill's Tour in Sicily and Malta.

The slave of love or honour's glittering dream—
While heav'n, indignant, that such deeds of shame,
In land so fair, are link'd with honour's name,
Sends the fell Samum

The Sirocco is called in Sicily the Samum. Hager's Picture of Palermo.

withering every sense,
The red Volcano's never-dying flame
And breath sulphureous—in their impotence,
They dread the deluge wild, earthquakes and pestilence!

O'er her green hills and plains with glory clad,
Mid the dark forests of her giant mound,
Where ruin marches in the vineyard glad
And his dire steps since nature's birth resound,
A rhymer wander'd;—he survey'd each bound,
Till his tir'd eyes in weary slumbers close—
Yet still the mountain's roar re-echo'd round,
Still fleeting visions wake in his repose:
And there this wilder'd dream, yet all connected rose.

SCENE I.
THE CHARM.

I.

“Spirits rouse! another task
Our king commands,
A boon the Destin'd hath to ask,
He claims it at our hands.
Weave the charm and light the flame
For him who doth our covenant claim!
He hath giv'n the whole
To mountain powers,
Body and soul
He is ours!

II.

“Light the flame, pronounce the charm;
Blood of widow'd dove yet warm,
Lonely blood of widow'd dove,
This around the HEART shall move.

“Light the flame, pronounce the charm;

To excite love, anciently, the Thessalian charms or filtres were composed of the hippomanes, junx, insects bred from putrefaction, the fish remora, the lizard, brains of a calf, hairs on the tip of a wolf's tail, DOVE'S BLOOD, snake's bones, screech-owl's feathers, WOOLLEN CORD IN WHICH A PERSON HAD HANGED HIMSELF, THE MARROW OF A BOY FAMISHED IN THE MIDST OF PLENTY, herbs growing out of putrid substances, &c. &c. &c.

Rope from strangled murderer warm,

Torn off in his dying pain,
This shall madden in the BRAIN.

“Works the charm, the flame burns wild;
Marrow drain'd from starving child,
Starving mid surrounding food,
This shall riot in the BLOOD!

III.

“See, she melts! behold her eye
Languish on the DESTIN'D ONE!
Works the charm, the flame burns high,
See, she yields, she is undone!
Weave the charm, and light the flame,
For him who doth our covenant claim;
He hath giv'n the whole
To the mountain powers,
Body and soul
He is ours!”

IV.

Thus while they sung, th' accurst of God,
An armed knight the cavern trod;
Of fair and goodly port was he
Who met that fearful companie:
And, as his sentence loud they sung,
And as the awful chorus rung,
He started—and his cheek wax'd pale,
As parent nature's tortur'd breast,
When tyrant winter's icy gale
Hath all her genial streams opprest.
That horrid vault hoarse laughter shook,
As thus they peal'd their stern rebuke.

V.

“Fearest thou, Sir Knight, thy doom,
Seal'd and written with thy blood?
Fearest thou this cavern's gloom?
Know'st thou not our trysting room?
Hither hast thou never trod?
Thou hast giv'n the whole
To mountain powers,
Body and soul
Thou art ours!”

VI.

“Ye juggling imps why speak ye still
Your taunting threats of future ill?
My hour is not yet come—
Why from the compact did ye blot
That all the past should be forgot,
All foretaste of my doom?
Unequal gift ye found me low
In the black list of human wo—
Poor—and repining at my fate—
Of all, in high or mean estate,
The scorn and mockery:—
For nature stampt me, at my birth,
The foulest blot on this proud earth,
A base deformity!
On woman's eye I might not cast
One wistful glance, whene'er she past—
While those, who gave me to the light,
Loath'd the foul object of their sight!
And, in the gangrene of their scorn,
In life, in light, in hope forlorn,

I nurst the serpent in my soul,
Till all was black, and waste, and drear,
Corruption revel'd in the whole—
And made me fit—to mingle here!

VII.

“Ye gave me—honour, wealth and love—
But gave my soul no place above;
The never-dying worm ye gave,
Hell here—and hell beyond the grave!
My term is set—and fear of THAT,
Which, come what will, must be my fate,
Drugs, that poor cup of present joy,
Which, e'en unmix'd too soon would cloy!
I may not sleep in Christian ground,
Nor in holy earth my bones be found:
And, might I—O what sod could bloom
Upon the ‘God abandon'd’ tomb?
What flower could lift its lovely head,
Where cheering hope had never shed
On that accursed soil, one ray?
What mourner there a prayer shall say,
Or drop one tear, or cast one look
Upon that unassoiled nook?
What child his father's deeds shall tell,
And with the kindling ardour swell
That erst awoke within his sire?
Poor wretch! the spawn of guilt and hell,
Giv'n to the earth by miracle,
And warm'd with everlasting fire!

VIII.

“No kindred tree the Upas knows;
In isolation stern it blows;—

Its roots unmingling with its kind,
No sympathy its juices find;
Its nurture into venom turns,
Death in the living currents burns!
For wrongs sustain'd, for insults brook'd,
In hopeless impotence o'erlook'd,—
—Last savage joy this heart can feel!
Even what YE left, REVENGE shall steel—
And in my brief and fiery span,
I live to plague the race of man!

IX.

“Now mock me not! I will not shrink—
I'll stretch my chain's remotest link;
Tremble—for I can call up here
Him, whom your wild battalia fear,
When shrinking in your burning beds,
Ye bear him, as his home he treads!
—Say, have ye perform'd your care?
Where is the charm ye should prepare?”

X.

The shooting flame its dying rays
Now scatter'd high with bickering blaze;
And darkly show'd its lurid gleam
Below a foul and troubled stream:
The charm did an evil spirit take,
He dipp'd it thrice in the cursed lake,
Then gave it to the knight;
He paus'd not for more parley then,
But swift he left that dismal den,
To catch the blessed light;

Still, as he went, he heard their song
That winding passage dark prolong.

XI.
Spirits' Memento.

Thou shalt not bow to altar low,
Nor book nor saint shall hear thy vow;
Remember!

In holy rite if thou dost unite,
Thou may'st no more partake the light,
Remember!

Hear, DESTIN'D ONE! thy doom is done,
When thou breathest prayer to the Holy One,
Remember!

SCENE II.
THE VISION.

I.

'Tis night, and the bell hath told one;
There is rest in the cot of the swain,
Whose care with his labour is done;
It is still, save the murmuring main,
That is rippling beneath the pile;
There is rest on the earth, and the face of the deep,
But the eye of Isabel knew no sleep—
What marr'd her peace the while?
No sting of guilt or guile;
But the sorrows of love, too well return'd,
Chas'd the visions of sleep, and within her burn'd.

II.

The thoughts of her heart were as pure as the day
That in the courts of heav'n doth play;
But her pillow, that caught from her burning brow,
The mad'ning fire and raging glow,
To her aching head could yield no calm;
The wounded heart finds there no balm!

III.

She left her couch; the chilly air
May cool the raving fever there;—
The sea-girt pile is tall and steep,
Below there yawns a fathomless deep—
O there the wanderer might sleep!
Could Isabel such thought have fram'd,
Though tenfold agony inflam'd?
No; she could kiss the chast'ning rod
And live and die the spouse of God.

IV.

While thus she sung the sea-nymphs vile,
Who lurk'd to grasp their lovely spoil,
Ceas'd for a while their guileful strain,
Hid in the coral caves of the main.
The evil demons of the hour
Rous'd from sulphureous beds, by power
Of magic dark, away have flown,
And the innocent maid was left alone.

V.
Night Hymn.

God of tiring nature! now
Round her couch thy presence throw—
Helpless at thy throne we bow,
Shield us, Father!

Now the day hath wan'd in sleep,
O! in blest oblivion steep
Hearts that bleed, and eyes that weep,
Hear us, Father!

Unassoil'd from sinful strife,
If the ruffian's lifted knife
Threatens the warm font of life—
Shield us, Father!

From disease's uncheck'd skaith,
Bursting vessel, struggling breath,
Dark, uncheer'd, and hopeless death—
Shield us, Father!

From the flames' wild revelry,
From the whirlwind lording high,
From the earthquake's jeopardy,
Shield us, Father!

May the orb that sets in tears,
Rise releas'd from wo and fears,
When the rosy morn appears—
Hear us, Father!

O! when evening's sable brood
Shrinks before the golden flood,
Wake our song of gratitude—
God our Father!

VI.

Now mark'd the maid the silver car of night

In the Faro di Messina, a singular phenomenon often takes place before the sun rises, when it disappears. The heavens appear crowded with palaces, woods, gardens, figures of men and other animals. Byrdone's Travels in Sicily and Malta—Leonti and Gallo of Messina—See also Encyclop. Brit.—Swinburne's Travels in the two Sicilies, &c. This last author gives an account of the phenomenon, and assigns philosophical reasons for it. It is somewhat different, both as to the time of its taking place, the spot where the figures are observable, and their appearance.

Hold on her progress through the azure realm,
Mid brilliant worlds and glittering isles of light;
Nor mist nor cloud her opal glories whelm.
Still as she gaz'd, no bounds the scene disclos'd,
Below all bright the studded waves repos'd;
But shadowy forms all indistinctly rise,
Fantastic figures floating on the eyes;

Where curtain'd mists upon the distance flit,
Veiling the line where heaven and ocean meet.
That heaven seem'd opening now its glorious lands
To mortal view; a dazzling world expands—
Fair fields of emerald; stately domes of gold,
And streams, o'er diamond beds that hold their way,
With stalwart chieftains of immortal mould,
And gorgeous dames, the pageant doth display.
These past:—two banner'd hosts appear above,
In proud array their lengthen'd columns move;
They meet, in mimic shock conflicting there,
They part, they scatter wide, and vanish into air.

VII.

Was it a show prophetic fancy rais'd
From shadowy nothing, as the maiden gaz'd?
Or did indulgent heaven her mists unrol,
To bid her read the future's awful scroll?
Howe'er it was, she saw, or thought she view'd,
A beauteous dame, by chieftains twain pursu'd;
Of godlike port they were, and martial mien,
The form of one was darkly, dimly seen;
In shades envelop'd, oft obscur'd was he,
He follow'd still, but mov'd in mystery.
An aged man arrests the lady's flight,
And drags her struggling to the sable knight—
She tears her hair, she lifts to heav'n her hands,
The knight implores, the aged man commands.

VIII.

Sudden and wondrous, then her actions change;
Is womankind so fickle? it was strange—

She yields—the sable warrior clasp'd the maid,
And bar'd the failing chief his glittering blade;
Then clouds and blackness gather'd round his form,
He sunk in night, and vanish'd with the storm.

IX.

Now a bright altar seem'd to lift its head,
There was the bride, no more resisting, led;
Where round array'd a motley group there stood,
Wild, wandering forms the astonish'd lady view'd:
But it was fearful to behold the glare
Of ruddy light, that flash'd around them there—
'Twas not, I ween, the glow of kindling day,
No vivid beams in flaming glory play;
'Twas not pale Dian's chaste and holy tide;
With blood-red hue, the deep, the heavens were died.
A fiery band the pair encircling seem'd,
And mystic characters around them gleam'd—
Then startling thunder shook the mists around,
And gathering night outstretch'd her veil profound—
Red lightning stream'd their sable screen along,
O'er the prone altar rush'd, and hid the shrinking throng.

X.

But why dissolve the phantoms all away?
Lo! the first blushes of the glimmering day
Upon the billowy hosts their radiance shed,
Tinging their skirts with glory, as they fled.

XI.

Marv'ling, the lady mark'd the whole,
And as afar the shadows roll,

With holy prayer to heav'n assur'd,
She sought her couch, from bale secur'd.
The sable god, invok'd, hath spread
His leaden pinions o'er her head:
Fair as the lovely dreamer, then
Came blyther scenes, with rosy train.

XII.

Sleep on—for O, if mystic heaven
To grosser ken hath ever given
A vision of the blest,
It is, when in her lonely bower,
Chaste beauty woos the tranquil power,
In calm, unsullied rest:
When all that sports with captive hearts,
When every wayward mood departs.
No gleam of passion fires her eye,
All angel, save her witchery,
To mortal sight confest—
It were idolatry to bow,
Although so bright, to thing below;
And yet she seems so passing fair,
Can human frailty harbour there?

The following lines are taken from a prize poem, by Henry Hart Milman, of Brazen Nose College, Oxford, on the “Belvidere Apollo.”

“Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep
By holy maid on Delphi's haunted steep,
Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove,
Too fair to worship, too divine to love.”

XIII.

Pure as the dying Christian's prayer,
And glorious as his hopes of bliss,
Can savage man, relentless, dare
To blast such stamp of heaven as this?
Ay, even so the chaste Lucrece
From matron dreams to horror broke,
When, fiend-like, in the bowers of bliss,
The tyrant's damned lust awoke!

But might some knight, to honour true,
With truant step such vision view,
Such were the thoughts of gallant breast—
Soft queen of rapture! in thy rest,
So share, and in thy waking hour,
No lovelier dream, in fairy bower,
Could golden fancy form;
O, dearer than the meed well won
In battle's proudest storm,
Or that high race, so nobly run
In glory's giddy car—
Than all the soldier's pride, that wakes,
When earth with closing armies shakes,
The ecstacy of war!
More precious than the starry zone
Of fame could yield me ever—
And thou art helpless and alone,
And will I wrong thee, lonely one?
By Him who made me, never!

SCENE III.
THE TOURNAMENT.

I.

It was the morn of a summer's day,
And brightly did its radiance play
On armour burnish'd fair;
The breeze that blythely swept the grove
A nodding field of plumes did move
All stately waving there:
But the beam that fir'd the warrior's heart,
From his lady's lovely eye did dart;
And glory's wing hath fann'd his plume,
As he rushes to fame or warrior's doom.

II.

Each tuneful songster rais'd his notes,
On every gale the music floats;
But the herald's voice and trumpet sound,
The charger's tramp, that shook the ground,
The shivering lance and clashing sword,
The warrior's melody afford.

III.

Two gallant lines on either side,
Of all fair Sicily the pride,
Flower of her chivalry,
In lengthen'd row the list divide,
And watch to swell the battle's tide,
The martial melody.
In war more terrible none stood,
The umpires of the field of blood;
But now, in mimic fight they share,
And blunted lance the champions bear.

IV.

Thron'd in the front a lovely band,
The peerless glory of the land,
Most noble and most fair,
Life of that martial revelry,
Survey'd the scene with anxious eye,
Each, for the knight who mastery
In her soft bosom bare;
For, strung to unison, a chord
Woke at the triumphs of his sword;
And still its low or lofty tone
Echo'd responsive to his own.

V.

O when the pride of war is o'er,
When battle's thunders wake no more,
Say, what were honour, life, and fame,
Earn'd mid pale flight, gaunt death, and flame,
If no soft heart thy triumph share,
Warrior, of all thy glory heir!

So mark we on the ivied wall,
Memorial sad of empire's fall,
—Where high-wrought courage breath'd its last,
Where guileful glory came and past,
Where waves the high grass o'er the grave,
Where lonely silence vigils keeps,
While, o'er the couches of the brave,
Oblivion, solemn hermit, sleeps,—
One beauteous flower its hues display,
Blooming in solitudes its day:
So, mingling with the trump's acclaim,
The lute's mild tones can move;
So, link'd with every warrior's fame,
Is every warrior's love!

VI.

Above the rest fair Margaret sat,
Conspicuous in her throne of state;

Margaret of Anjou, who was afterward married to Henry VI. of England; and of whose fortitude so many traditions have been preserved. See Notes to Shakspear's Henry VI. Part 1.

From bloodless strife and mimic fray,
The valiant maid turn'd not away;
Brac'd to endure the stern award,
That fate in her dark realms prepar'd.
Her mother's weakness less she felt
Than many a champion who knelt
And sued to win her hand;
Could better breast the blackest storm,
With softest soul and frailest form,
Than some who vow'd to shield from harm
Her person and her land.

VII.

She were a monarch's proudest gem,
The glory of his diadem!

But some there were who could not brook
Her bearing proud, and haughty look,
When, rob'd in modest maiden grace,
Fair Isabel her honour'd place
Held by that lady's side;
Her eyes dark glance, that minstrels prais'd,
To view the lists she scarcely rais'd;
They may not meet the glare where blaz'd
The sun's reflected tide.
For there was one, her bosom's lord,
A knight adoring and ador'd;
And one who would as high aspire,
The bridegroom chosen by her sire.
In different ranks the champions stood;
Now may thine arm—thy lance hold good—
Firm be thou in that stounde—
Keen be thine eye, and cool thy force,
Young Lodowick, when for the course
Awakes the trumpet's sound!

VIII.

Who is that chief of haughty mien,
With golden armour glittering sheen?
Sable the plume that shades a brow
Where pride and scornful daring throw
A dark and sombre cloud;—
Sable his steed of fiery mould,
That, foaming, champs the bit of gold,
Flings his black mane upon the breeze,
When he rides the battle's stormy seas,
The battle's ruler proud.
That champion's shield bore no device
Of fealty, war, or love;

No workman's craft with labour nice,
Its mimic skill did prove,
O'er that broad buckler, where you mark
Rude semblances and symbol dark;—
Chaldean characters they seem'd,
Sacred in distant ages deem'd.

The Sicilians say they are descended from Ham, or Cham; and Ceres was his daughter, who reigned over Sicily with great moderation. Palermo, the most ancient city in the island, is said to have been founded by the Chaldeans, when Isaac reigned in Damascus, and Esau in Idumæa. Many monuments, with Chaldean inscriptions, are found yet, some of which have been deciphered. Brydone, Hager, &c.

Those polish'd arms, that brazen shield,
In war were never known to yield;
That knight paus'd not for shivering lance,
And on his arms the weapons glance,
As when in Ætna's stormy breast
Cyclopean forges glow,
And the steadfast anvil in its rest
Feels not the mighty blow!
Vaumond! his name the harper sung,
His praise on lady's accents hung:
For giant danger's mighty form
Allur'd him in the wildest storm,
When boldest chiefs withdrew—
Like the fabled wind—around whose course,
As it sped along in its stemless force,
The clouds careering flew.

There is a wind called ctesias, which attracts the clouds. Aristotle.

IX.

Fix'd in its rest was every lance,
Each warrior cast a searching glance
On the opposing knight;
Prick'd up each steed his watchful ears,
Trembling with hope, until he hears
The summons for the fight.
Fair Margaret rais'd her truncheon high,
The pealing clang ascends the sky,

The trumpet's tone awoke—
Then to his saint and mistress fair
Address'd each knight an inward prayer,
And rush'd to meet the shock.
Not then the chance of modern war,
Or unseen death-ball, wing'd afar—
When prostrate hosts at one fell sweep,
Unstruggling, time's dark barrier leap,
Their shroud encircling smoke:
Then at fair bay each closing band
Ply'd at their need the mighty brand;
Then nerve and sinew lent their aid,
And drove all terribly the blade;
Then courage cool, yet wrought to dare
The direst exigence of war,
With lion heart and eagle eye,
Rode the red carnage steadfastly!

X.

As blooming on the checquer'd soil
—Where ruin fraught, in terror boil
The lava floods, to madness prest
In the Volcano's tortur'd breast—
The nodding grove ascends;
With peaceful flowers, that love the plains
Where lonely calmness ever reigns;—
So pleasure springs on danger's brink,
And such the draught that warriors drink,
When fame with peril blends!
In tranquil bowers of peace and rest,
He were for aye like him unblest,
On whom the vulture prey'd—

But in extremes, he life may know—
When grappling with his mortal foe—
Or, in revenge's softer hour,
When, in the foeman's treacherous bower,
He clasps the willing maid!

XI.

They meet, they pass, and wheel again
Their foaming steeds upon the plain;
Kindling anew with fiercer fire,
As when the fervent steeds aspire
Of day's high charioteer,—
Scaling the empyrean arch,
Their axles kindle in the march,
And brighter glow, and, dazzling, pour
Their glories half the concave o'er
In their untir'd career—
So woke the chiefs, while lances shiver'd,
And steeds, from rider's curb deliver'd,
Show'd all disorderly;
As when the midnight tempest wakes,
Where the deep forest bows and shakes,
Its lawless revelry,
With fitful pause and dying swell,
While the mountain echoes to the gale
With awful minstrelsy—
So rang around the battle peal,
With tramping steed and din of steel;
The while the field was lost and won,
And the trumpet ever and anon
Its voice sent cheerily.

XII.

Ah! why attempt the bootless reed!
Why seek the rhymer's sacred meed
In days when chivalry has fled,
Her soul, her fire, her bards are dead!
In climes remote from classic seas,
Where vainly on the hollow breeze
Echoes the fainter lay;
Where men are dull to poet's dream,
Or list perverse to every theme
Save that their sons essay!

XIII.

Then speed we onwards with our song—
A summer's morn they tilted long;
Hurl'd from his selle each knight, remain
But two unhors'd upon the plain,
And, flashing forth exultant glance,
Vaumond and Lodowick advance.
All eyes upon the chiefs were bent,
On every movement all intent
Were gazing on the strife;
All, save that maid whose fate I tell,
Dim grew the eye of Isabel;
For, on the issue of that fight
Hung the fair fame of her true knight,
Dearer than hope or life!

XIV.

Enkindled at the self-same shrine,
Awoke with energy divine
In either chief the fire;

As when the shuddering mountain shakes,
And the glowing torrent wildly breaks
Forth in impetuous ire—
Down, down, the fiery column speeds,
Nor, in its blasting progress heeds
Of God or man the bar;—
Nor holy relic, priestly spell,
Nor barefoot monks, their beads that tell,
Can stem the impending war—
Wild flies the swain, o'erwhelm'd his home;
The hamlet, and the regal dome;
Without a mark, without a trace,
To point their former resting-place,
One iron plain usurps the spot,
Once cherish'd, now remember'd not!
Down—down—with roar that shakes the heaven
The liquid lakes of hell are driven,
Till now the ocean sands they whelm—
Then shudders earth, to her central realm!
Then, mid the elemental roar
Nature her bounds can know no more!
In scorn, from out his coral bed,
The hoary sire exalts his head;
Smiles at the weak and vain descent
Of his sworn foe, all impotent!
So, waking into fiercest glow,
Young Lodowick rush'd on;
So sure, the Baron met his foe,
Of conquest's earnest won.

XV.

Thrice did they to the shock advance,
Thrice Lodowick's unharming lance

In the stern conflict fail'd—
And shivering thrice it left its rest
Against Vaumond's unyielding breast,
Nor yet his arm prevail'd.
Thrice did the youth his weapon weak
Renew, and rush again to seek
The scornful foe he brav'd;
No dint his buckler broad betray'd,
The faithless steel, around that laid,
No token there had grav'd.
Infuriate then upon the field
Flung Lodowick his shatter'd shield;
Collecting all his energies,
The last and desperate race he tries.

XVI.

But no! nor courage lash'd to rage,
Nor hate, nor wounded pride, that wage
A war that death shall scarce assuage,
Saves conquest's guerdon, valour's gage!
He falls—the cool, resistless blow,
Far from his charger, laid him low!
Stagger'd the steed—his armour rang
Upon the plain, the while its clang
Melodious to the Baron bold
The pæan of his victory told.

XVII.

And now fair Margaret's gentle tone
Gave, for the well-fought field, his own,
The proud reward of fame;

“Brave knight—accept thy well-earn'd meed;
And may it fire thee, at thy need,
With an undying flame!
The cross, that saw a Saviour bleed,
True knight will ever seek, to speed
His fortunes and his name.
Fight then with this before thy heart,
And what has death to terrify?
Comes he upon the foeman's dart,
That rends the twisted mail apart?
Faith is thy living panoply.
Yet, be the praise so justly bought
Theirs, who to win the field have fought,
Though thine the battle's chance;
Yet, be his honour ever high,
Who strove so long and gallantly,
To bear the palm of victory
From thy unfailing lance.
And blasted be the narrow heart,
That in fair praise can bear no part—
Cold, curdling, cheerless, that denies
Fame's dearest pledge, and valour's prize!”

XVIII.

She said—and as she spoke, she press'd
The hand of Isabel,
And deem'd, that through her tears, she guess'd
Her heart's emotions well—
On beauty's cheek the pearly flow
Is bright as heaven's mysterious bow—
But vain their lore—the sacred seers,
Who read the language of the spheres,
That magic deep to tell!

And when that gentle pressure rais'd
The glow of gratitude,
Was it that the proud chief was prais'd
Who now the victor stood?
And when that pressure was return'd
With feeling keen and quick,
Was't not, that boon, so justly earn'd
Was given to Lodowick?

XIX.

Bow'd on his knee the Baron bold,
And stoop'd to take the cross of gold;
He press'd it not, he kiss'd it not,
But the snow-white hand he kiss'd devout—
And if devotion's lustre grave
Shed o'er his brow one ray,
'Twas lit by that fair saint who gave
The triumph of the fray.

SCENE IV.
THE PAGE.

I.

Alone, at eve's approaching tide,
Where Loro's silver waters glide,
To mingle with the deep blue main,
Young Lodowick his way hath ta'en;
Dark shades were flitting o'er his brain,
And wounded pride and recent smart
Were burrowing in his inmost heart.
Nor yet discomfiture alone
Hath rear'd revenge's midnight throne;
For lynx-eyed jealousy had shot
Into his soul a blasting thought;
A fiend—who lifts with mocks, and mows
The film that heaven indulgent throws
O'er mortal sight, and gives to view
What wildest fancy ne'er b'liev'd true.

II.

Far o'er yon western hills the sun
Sees half his tireless journey done;
In seas of gold, along the verge
Of heaven, his waning glories merge;

While darker hues the eastern sky
Have shrouded with their purple die:

The eastern part of the horizon, for half an hour after sunset is of a fine deep purple; the western, brilliant yellow. Brydone.

Sleeping on ocean's tranquil breast,
Its chastely brilliant beauties rest;
So richly pure the tinge that dims
Earth's amethysts or ocean's gems,
That glows in these fair climes alone,
Ere night's dark mantle round is thrown.

III.

O'er glorious fields and blooming glade
Deep came the mountain's giant shade:
The peasant, as he wends along,
Awakes with glee his evening song,
While home, with all its mystic ties,
Came lovelier still upon his eyes.
The bird, that sought his sheltering spray,
Carol'd his last notes to the day;
And softer, sadder seems the tone,
Than when he greets the morn his own.

IV.

In yon blue sky there is no cloud—
That sky so pure, so deep—
Even Ætna's everlasting shroud
Seems for a while to sleep;
Where, girt with triple zone, she rose
And rear'd her diadem of snows,
In misty grandeur far below;
Pillar of heaven—in heaven her brow
She hides from mortal ken;
Her base on earth—her roots, O where!

The swain, with terror, tells that there
The damned souls their torments bear,
With roar and yell—and then
He tells his beads, and breathes a prayer
To her who lends her guardian care,
To kind St. Agatha,

“Santa Agatha, a virgin martyr, who, under Quintilian, and in the yeer of our salvation 152, suffered martyrdome for Christ.” Warcup's Italy, folio. For the miracles pretended to be wrought by the veil of this saint see Hill, Brydone, &c.

to speed
Him at his last and awful need!

V.

Unclouded, now the moon rides high;
Yon boundless plain spreads tranquilly—
Its billows sleep, its breast unstirr'd,
Save where the light oar's dash is heard,
Fires gleaming at each stroke;

“A worm of a phosphorent nature produces the nocturnal lightning of the sea, which runs along the heads and sides of vessels, when they seem to be in a blaze of fire. The keel water seems to be a fiery smoke.” Ferber's Mineralogical Tour in Italy.

A brilliant, shooting lustre glides
Along the boat's illumin'd sides,
Curls round the prow, and fires the sail,
And gleams upon the dusky veil
Of billowy, circling smoke;
Until the wandering eye doth trace
From Zahara's red wilderness,
Upon the wave, some wizard dire,
Careering in his bark of fire.
The eastern breeze, that scarce could wake
One ripple on that boundless lake,
With fitful pause and solemn, bore
The distant hymn the waters o'er;
Where the lone mariner his song
Did to the Virgin's ear prolong,
Or to Saint Rosalie,

This saint had probably made her disappearance at this time; but her bones were not found till 600 years afterward, when they were discovered on Mount Pelegrino. She was daughter to King William the Good, and left society at the age of 15, &c. She disappeared, A. D. 1159. Brydone.

As swift the tranquil wave along,
The bark skimm'd merrily.

VI.

While gaz'd the knight, a softer hue,
A mellower influence nature threw
Around his heart;—for who can look—
Ay, though each chord, to madness struck,
Returns its harshest, rudest tone—
Where dwells the wretch, so lost, so lone,
Who, at such tide, can gaze on earth,
Still, calm, and fair, as at her birth—
In yon unfathom'd heaven high
Hold converse with eternity,
That flings her shroud around the deep,
Where mystery seems enthron'd to sleep—
Who soars not from the cares of man,
Spurns not the poor and narrow span,
Between the tear, on natal bed,
That love and fond affection shed,
And that which, haply, to his grave,
One lonely, sorrowing mourner gave!
Mounts not the pure intelligence
To mingle with the eternal soul,
That doth all quickening life dispense,
Absorbs, pervades, ingulphs the whole!

VII.

And now, with awful reverence, he stray'd
Where the pale moonbeam's trembling radiance play'd
On marble columns of the elder time,
And Dorian shafts its chroniclers sublime;
And storied capitals, that frown on high,
Scap'd from the wrack of ages long gone by:

Even so, when valour's dazzling sun hath set,
In solemn majesty endureth yet,
The fame of sages, warriors, now no more,
Lit by the moonlight beam of poesy and lore.
Kneel! for beneath thee heroes' ashes lie!
They bore the eagle o'er a crouching world—
His wings were clad with thunder, and his eye
The lightning of dominion round him hurl'd!
Move not their spirits in the uncertain shade?
Scan they not him whose footsteps hither err?
And lower they not on the unhallow'd tread
That wakes their country's silent sepulchre!

VIII.

So mus'd the chief, and fancy wild,
His thoughts, that rov'd from earth, beguil'd;
For, as he turn'd, full well he deem'd
Some vision of the heavens had gleam'd;—
Some child of light had left its sphere
Above, awhile to wander here.
Around that kneeling suppliant fair
A spheral light was thrown;
And form so frail our grosser air
Did never call its own.
Worlds, far beyond the circling skies,
Immortal grace have lent,
And that blue robe hath caught its dies
In purer firmament.
He knelt before the wondering knight,
And doff'd his plumes and bonnet light;
Then the dark curls, that scap'd their braid,
An earth-born female had betray'd—

But that, so bright they wanton'd wide,
So lovely, in the opal tide,
Sure they were glean'd from beams more fair
Than Berenice's fabled hair;
Beams of some distant sphere unnam'd,
And of immortal texture fram'd.
As up he cast a wistful glance
Upon the warrior's countenance,
Beauty undying, light divine,
All, all the seraph seem'd to shine.

IX.

So deem'd the knight: when silence broke
The fair boy first, as thus he spoke,
—With pleading eyes, that might impart
One human throb to demon's heart—
“A boon, Sir Knight, to beg I have,
An orphan boy thy grace would crave;
An orphan boy, whose parents kept
Their flocks in southern clime;
But since they with their fathers slept,
Oh! 'tis a weary time!

X.

“A knight had sworn their child to guard:
I serv'd him long; his heart was hard—
Cold—as yon mountain streamlet hoarse,
That numbs the life-drop in its course;
Yet all unfix'd it onward flows,
Nor winter's iron influence knows.

The river Acis, on the side of Ætna, is supposed to contract a greater degree of cold than ice, but never freezes. Brydone.

He, who had known that knight as well
As one, who dismal tales could tell—

Had deem'd, to adamant congealing,
That he would loose all life, all feeling:
But ah! in form how fair! deceiving,
Still as on he holds his way,
While some, who never prov'd him, b'lieving,
Fall, his scorn'd, hopeless prey!”

XI.

Emotions strong, a wavering glow
Shed o'er the gentle suppliant's brow;
He wip'd away a gushing tear,
As strove the knight to soothe his fear,
Then thus went on—“his house I fled,
O'er the wide world to roam;
No roof have I, to shield my head,
No dear and sacred home.
O pity one whose childhood fate
Hath frown'd on with remorseless hate;
And hide me from his face, whose wrath
Would close the scene of ills by death!
I cannot—dare not speak his name—
But it ranks high in martial fame;
And great is at your court his power
Who on poor Paulo's hopes doth lower.”

XII.

“Fair boy, in vain thou shalt not sue;—
Can'st thou be secret, cautious, true?
And wilt thou serve him who would die
To rescue thee?” “My fealty try—
In aught, that with indulgent eye,

The Power who sees us, could behold
This heart, by nature little bold,
Shall beat to answer thy behest;
Prove me, Sir Knight, my fealty test!”

XIII.

“Light is the task I give, fair youth,
And light the toil that proves thy truth;
For thou shalt serve a gentle maid,
Yon castle's towers shall shield thy head.
To serve her is no harsh command!
Bear thou the letter to her hand
That I will give, and fearlessly
To a safe home of refuge fly.”

XIV.

The knight and page have wound their way
Along the curvings of the bay;
Each with a heart too full to tell
The changing tides that ebb and swell.
To Regnier's

Duke of Anjou and titular King of Sicily. He was father of Margaret of Anjou. See Swinburne.

banquet bid, the one,
With love and hatred fraught, hath gone—
There shall he meet his lady's eye,
The polar star of destiny—
There shall he meet his rival's glance,
Keener, more deadly than his lance!

2. PART SECOND.

INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE

TO PART SECOND.

TO MR. --- ---.

August 23.

Carmine Dî superi placantur, carmine manes.

From that bleak path that winds around
That mount sublime, where shades profound
Veil, in their deep obscurity,
The darkling cliffs of destiny,
A wanderer oft, in vales I go,
Where babbling streamlets gently flow;
And gather, in their wildness sweet,
The flowers the pilgrim's eye that meet.
Ere yet the wreath is twin'd, they fade,
Scatter'd in deep oblivion's shade—
Yet in thy fame's bright blushing morn,
Full well I know, thou wilt not scorn
The wither'd garland, that would speak
A firmer pledge, in tokens weak.

From all the pomp that worldlings cherish,
From all the dreams that charm, to perish,

Delusive fame, or sordid pelf,
The altar calls thee to itself.
But the lone hermit's heart estrang'd,
Its earthly essence purg'd and chang'd,
Bars not to song its holy lair—
Last pulse of earth, it enters there.

It boots not that I spin the rhyme
With legends of the elder time;
When song, by fondest theme inspir'd,
Immortal breasts with fervour fir'd,
And drew chaste Dian from above,
Her radiant sphere, for minstrel's love—

Musæus is fabled to have been the son of Luna, by Linus.

—What time a sister goddess fell—
But weaker man, by holier spell,
On purer altars lit the flame,
That burns for one, and burns the same,

‘Concubitu prohibere vago, dare jura maritis.’ Hor. Art. Poet.

By zephyrs fann'd, or tempest's swell,
Eternal and unquenchable!

It boots not, that my lay should rove
To wake the murmurs of the grove,
That Patriarch bands had rear'd to God
Upon the consecrated sod,
And where the voice of melody
Invok'd the present Deity.
Nor to the awful couch I go,
Where run their pilgrimage below,
The angel's pinions dark they hear,
Their fathers' voices whispering near—
When, short and quick as came their breath,
They girded them to combat death;
Then op'd the womb of darkling ages,
Then time unscroll'd his giant pages—

Pour'd the prophetic tide along,
Eternity reveal'd in SONG!

The valedictory blessings of the patriarchs were delivered in dithyrambic measures.

In dust the MONARCH MINSTREL sleeps,
While music o'er his ashes weeps;
The chords he woke to rapture high,
Shrin'd in sepulchral darkness lie:
Their notes no more to mortals given,
He sweeps the golden lyres of heaven!
Yet, by his burning numbers fraught,
Soul mingles with the soul of thought;—
What Brahma's fabling seers have taught
She feels, when, from her mortal clod
She soars in melody to God!

Alas for song, when she shall need
So poor a rhymer's laggard reed!
And idle were her proudest strain,
Her loftiest pæan breath'd in vain,
To one—the priest whom she inspires,
Whose eye hath watch'd the eternal fires;
For she, even to her living springs,
Hath borne thee on her eagle wings—
To point thy gaze, hath been her care,
To all that's bright and dazzling there!

No weed impure, that taints the gale,
I mingle with the garland frail;
And chaste, though wild, the wreath shall be
That now I dedicate to thee.

SCENE V.
THE BANQUET.

I.

“Pledge we the knight who bore away
The well-earn'd laurels of the day;
And pledge we her, at whose bright eyes
Was lit the fire that won the prize;”—

II.

So Regnier spoke; and murmurs flew
The assembled crowd of gentles through;
Applauding all—yet envy's dart
Rankled and glow'd in many a heart:
Joy woke in old Rugero's breast,
His aged orbs that joy confest;
For stern ambition, led by love,
His brightest chaplet now had wove,
An only daughter's brow to grace,
And crown the honours of his race.

III.

“Pledge we the knight and lady fair;”—
The sparkling goblets high they bear,
All pledg'd the noble, destin'd pair—

But one old man—his locks were gray,
His form was yielding to decay;
Majestic still, its ruins proud
To the destroyer's might that bow'd,
Yet told of glory, that had shed
A noontide lustre on his head.
Hopes prostrate, wounded pride, and all
The train that howl'd around their fall,
Upon his brow had left their traces,
In lines that time nor death effaces;
Where sorrow, in that dreary night,
Brooded, a lonely eremite.

IV.

“Pardon, ye gentles all,” said he,
“An old man's want of courtesy—
And pardon, lady, one who would,
That, as thou'rt fair and high of blood,
Thou may'st be happy—time has been,
One call'd me FATHER;”—falter'd then
Gonsalvo's voice—but pride repell'd
The tide, that in despite had swell'd:
And, as when tortur'd nature heaves
Her hundred breasts with fiercest war,
Each stream its wonted channels leaves
And pours its deluge broad and far,—
Even so, conflicting passions rag'd,
While in his heart their strife they wag'd.
An ancient house that long had stood,
No dark dishonour in his hall,
The unsullied channels of his blood
Despoil'd and tainted, in her fall—

These rose again, in dark array,
And nature's throb was chas'd away.

V.

But for awhile—for Oh! if when
Into that chaste and holy fane,—
That hands immortal rear'd below,
Upon whose altars quenchless glow
The fires from heaven's own fountain caught,
With heaven's own purest influence fraught,—
The giant brood have enter'd in,—
Their legions stern the portals win,
They cannot spoil the eternal shrine,
Or quench the undying flame divine!

VI.

The old man left the banquet-hall,
And, as he went, his eye
Wander'd among the nobles all,
Swiftly and carelessly;
But on Vaumond his glance hath lit—
Some speakless power arrested it:
Wild as the light on summer's even,
That kindles o'er the verge of heaven,
Fires the dark arch—is fear'd by none,—
As brief, it pass'd, and he is gone.
Read Vaumond aught within that look?
The Baron's face was mystic book,
Where none one character might tell—
His eye was bent on Isabel.

VII.

The mirth and laughter damp'd have been,
The fair forget to spread their toil,
The knights forgot to gaze awhile,
For they remember'd Imogen,
As one from death recall'd to light—
Bright was the star that rose upon
Their court, and blaz'd in dazzling noon,
But it had pass'd and sunk in night.
Sad was the thought of Imogen,
It came, and went as soon, I ween!
Like April showers or morning dream,
That fly before the brilliant beam.
So yields the thought that far had rov'd
To one before deem'd well belov'd,
To transient joys, before the eyes,
Glitt'ring in their ten thousand dies!
And what is friendship? what is fame?
Or what a life to buy it wasted?
We toil to grasp a meteor flame;
To fill the goblet high, we aim,
And leave the hard-earn'd store untasted!

IX.

Gay was that proud hall, where high hung
A thousand lamps their lustres flung,
With banner'd trophies round bedight,
And wove was many a gallant fight
In gorgeous tapestry;
The sparkling vault, the checquer'd floor,
Memorials of the conquerors, bore
From sumptuous Araby.

And hark! the minstrels wake the chords,
Merrily float the inspiring words.

XI.
Wine.

1.

AS sparkles in its chrystal vase
The ruddy, soul-illuming juice,
So sparkling wit can sorrow chase
And round its brilliancy diffuse—
And at the same shrine are they lit,
In brightest wine we pledge thee, wit,
We pledge thee, WIT!

2.

So bright is beauty's ruby lip,
Where soft persuasion sits enthron'd;
And laughing Cupid's nectar sip,
Whose power immortal gods have own'd:
Who would not live for ever there?
In ruby wine we pledge the fair,
We pledge the FAIR!

3.

So kindles valour's gen'rous fire,
So plays the high and stemless tide—
When souls to fame or death aspire,
And battle's swelling surges ride.
Triumph bedews the soldier's grave;
In blood-red wine we pledge the brave,
We pledge the BRAVE!

X.

As when the panther from on high
Has fix'd his never-failing eye,
That scans each impulse of his prey,
That marks each footstep of his way—
So Lodowick, with restless soul,
Saw the gay Baron fill the bowl;
The Lady of his love took up,
With downcast eye, the foaming cup;
But, ere her ruby lips, that dim
Its sparkling lustre, touch'd the brim,
A glance that stole into his heart,
Bade every idle fear depart.

XI.

Still Lodowick intently gaz'd,
And dream'd he ne'er before
Such supernatural beauty blaz'd
This earth's dark surface o'er.
Her eyes unwonted lustre shed;
Her cheek betray'd a livelier red:

A similar effect is described by Dr. Smollet, in his Peregrine Pickle.

Her words, the music of the lyre,
Were music still, but tones of fire!

XII.

Wild grew the youth—who still did mark
The Baron's moveless glances dark,
Caught, and from all around them stay'd
By the radiant smile of that fair maid,
Her heart their centre true—
Where long in harmless light they play'd,
And all unkindling flew.

XIII.

Was it a jealous lover's doubt,
That idly his own doom made out?
—Like him who forg'd, at tyrant's will,
The brazen bull;—and, for his skill,
Was doom'd to prove its torture first,
With his own scheme of anguish curst?
—Was it a jealous lover's fear?
Like summer's insects they appear—
While none their origin may tell,
And short is their tormenting spell,
How oft they plant their stings right well!
I wot not—but the lady's eye
No more, as if all anxiously,
Sooth'd Lodowick's waking agony.

XIV.

Still all is glee; and if the fair
Beheld the form that dimm'd them there,
It was but to admire and feel
The triumphs of the female weal.
—For ill 'twould suit the minstrel's lay,
To deem they own'd dark envy's sway—
And if the knights that board about
The charms of sparkling wine forgot,
It was but to adore;
But ONE there was, who scann'd her soul,
Trac'd every throb, and read the whole
That mazy volume o'er.

XV.

Still Lodowick gaz'd earnest on;
He caught a glance all wandering thrown

On that self-tortur'd youth—
What means the eye averted fast?
The hurrying blush, that came and past?
I may not read in sooth.
'Twas such a blush as tints the west,
Kindling o'er ocean's gorgeous breast—
Now heaven forefend, fair maid! that glow
Precede thy glory sinking low!

XVI.

Merrily, merrily wake the sounds,

Scott's Lord of the Isles:—

“Merrily, merrily bounds the bark,” &c.

The minstrel sweeps the strings—
And the light heart of beauty bounds
And to the measure springs;
The pulses in full concord beat,
Disdaining earth, the elastic feet
As lightly tripping move,
As buoyant on the sandals fleet
Of the wing'd son of Jove.
Now Lodowick, whose soul distraught
But food had found for mad'ning thought,
Held with himself communion brief,
Given for a moment's space relief.
“And can she trifle with this heart?”
He bade the unworthy fear depart.

XVII.

Merrily, merrily wakes the strain,
The joyous measures swell,
The anxious knight hath sought again
The form of Isabel.

He came with her to tread a measure,
To brave her sordid sire's displeasure,
Exulting, prove her heart his own,
Defiance on his rival frown.

XVIII.

He saw the Baron clasp her hand,
He heard her tones, divinely bland,
Breath'd on his rival's ear;
That glance so arch—its living light
Had fir'd the frozen anchorite—
So soft, its rapturous power confest,
It had unlock'd the miser's breast—
The Baron caught it there.

XIX.

Merrily, merrily wake the notes
That charm away dull care,
Along the form of beauty floats
As buoyant on the air;
While manhood stately follows still,
Delighted servant of her will.—
Well might the painter here portray
An angel, guiding wisdom's way
To that high world above;
The beams of its eternal day,
Seen round that seraph form to play—
The beams of light and love.
And never yet, in hall of pride,
Or by the streamlet's flowery side,

On checquer'd floor, or verdant mead,
Did lovelier pair the mazes tread
Of the gay dance than now—
When that bold Baron the lady led
Its varying measures through.

XX.

Upon the mourners of the earth,
Like torture, falls the roar of mirth;
It speaks light hearts, from sorrow free,
An insult to their agony—
With clouded brow and folded arms,
Stood Lodowick, while beauty's charms
With anxious carelessness display'd,
Were flitting past him unsurvey'd;
The lively tones through the hall that rung
Fell mad'ning on his ear unstrung—
All seem'd a wilder'd pageant there,
An envious mockery of despair.

XXI.

The Baron pass'd—a careless look
At once undying hate awoke.
A common gazer had seen nought,
Nor deeper meaning, covert thought;
But to his soul, on whom it fell,
More deadly triumph could it tell
Than foaming lip and glaring eye,
And unsheath'd faulchion brandish'd high,
And swollen vein and muscle strain'd;—
More fury's fuel it contain'd.

'Twas keen and brilliant, as the wave
Of wonder-working tide;—
For whatsoe'er its waters lave,
Black as the darkness of the grave
Its very core is died!

The waters of a small lake called Naso are perfectly clear and pure, but die every thing black which is dipped in them. Denon's Travels in Sicily.

XXII.

“Why so disconsolate, Sir Knight?
Can ruby wine, nor beauty bright,
Nor minstrelsy upon thy brow
Dispell the sombre shadows now?”
—“Wouldst thou insult me, Baron? say,
Can the poor victory of the day
So far thy pride inflate?
Here is my glove—to-morrow's eve
Our feud for ever quell'd shall leave;
Shall check thy hopes

The Sicilian gentry have always decided their rivalships by the sword. The quaint William Lithgow, who, by the way, is very fond of lauding his own honesty and exclaiming against the extortions of others, gives an account of the manner in which he picked the pockets and stole the horses of two barons, who had fallen in such a rencontre. Lithgow's Travels, p. 329.

and haughty mood,
Or feel, with this heart's dearest blood,
With loftier glow elate.
Then meet me, if thou durst”—he cried,
And left the hall with hurrying stride.

SCENE VI.
THE WARNING.

I.

And days and weeks have hurried on,
And varying tales have come and gone:
His pledge he comes not to maintain,
Or wash away his nightly stain.
From chivalry's high roll of fame,
They blot the traces of his name;
The escutcheons of his house are torn
From whence they were for ages borne—
The fire upon his hearth hath died;
Broods silence in his halls of pride;
His mother hides within her bower,
And drags a sunless, endless hour;
His father in his cold shroud sleeps,
His sister in her convent weeps;
His lady's love another hath;
His vassals serve another lord;
Eternal infamy's foul breath
Hath breath'd upon the wretch abhorr'd—

And shame her midnight taper burns,
And beauty nauseates, manhood spurns,
Whene'er that name meets ear or sight,
All shedding mildews, blasts, and blight,
On memory of a recreant knight!

II.

Said I of the dishonour'd one,
His lady's love another won?
All, without leasing, I must say—
List to her page, young Paulo's lay.

III.
A Female Heart.

1.

Hast thou e'er mark'd on ocean's breast,
When the wild wave hath sunk to rest,
The golden sunbeam play—
—As upon hearts, as soft, as mild,
And ah! too oft as yielding, wild
Dances fond flattery's ray—
Their frolic measures couldst thou tell,
Or heed their mystic union well?

2.

Or saw'st thou, where the torrent flows,
Above the feathery spray that rose,
The arch their hosts that spann'd?
—As shines o'er minds as light, the bow,
In fond self-love's believing glow
By idle plaudits fann'd—

Couldst thou, with eye undazzled, view,
Catch, ere they merg'd, each mingling hue?

3.

Saw'st thou the strife, when winter's lord
His fleecy store around thee pour'd,
Sparkling in day's glad beam—
—Lost on the white plain now they lie;—
—So shines and sinks, on fancy's eye,
Each fleeting, golden dream—
Their numbers, stranger, couldst thou tell?
And couldst thou mark them, when they fell?

4.

Or hast thou seen, where autumn's blast
Around the forest leaves hath cast—
—Such wreck can passion make!
Destroying all that once was there,
Lovely, of good report, and fair,
The boughs when whirlwinds shake—
And from their traces couldst thou tell
The breeze that bore, or whence they fell?

5.

Or canst thou, on the boundless deep,
The pilot lost instruct, where sleep
The treacherous rock and shoal—
—As darkling oft on passion's waste,
The bark unheedingly is cast,
A shipwreck of the soul—
Know'st thou where'er gaunt danger's head
Lurks beneath ocean's giant bed?

6.

Hast thou beheld the mountain drest
With glory, in whose tortur'd Breast
Revels the pent up storm—
—As souls distraught and hearts on fire,
Enkindled with demoniac ire,
Lurk oft in angel form—
Know'st thou how soon the mountain riv'n
Will pour its volumes red to heaven?

7.

Gaze on yon vault of mystery,
Scan, if thou may'st the galaxy,
And number every world:
Its course fulfill'd, proclaim these, burst
Its bonds, what star shall perish first,
Unspher'd, in ruin hurl'd!
Then, stranger, thou hast wondrous art,
And thou can'st read a female heart.

IV.

What past within the maiden's breast
Must be for ever unconfest;
Alas! a deeper power than sways
The thoughts of women, she obeys!
Yet ill it were, I ween, to deem
That in that wild, unnatural dream,
The memory of Lodowick came
Never, to wrap in shroud of flame
Her spell-bound heart—but he is naught,
And wherefore give his name one thought?
A soul-absorbing passion wrought;
Profane not love—love it was not.

V.

Her father to the Baron's walls
Conducts the wilder'd maid;
She graces now the chieftain's halls,
The rites shall soon be said.
And, while her bridal robe she decks,
Brief flight from memory dark she seeks
In listening to the page's lay;
He whiled his solitary day,
That lonely boy, in secret bower,
And with his harp beguil'd the hour.
No eye, save her's, he dar'd to meet,
No heart, save her's, his sorrow cheer'd—
Her service mild, her mandate sweet,
He lov'd to own, nor peril fear'd.
And ever would he sing of love,
And such the idle lay he wove.

VI.
Love and Friendship.

Love is like the solar tide,
That flings its tameless glories wide;
Friendship, Dian's purer beaming,
Chaster o'er earth's darkness gleaming.

Love is like the deep, unbounded,
That its banks full oft o'erflows,
Where the sailor, oft confounded,
Finds in death alone repose.

Friendship, like a noble river,
Rolls its stately waters by;
Tempest-toss'd and troubled never,
Gliding to eternity.

Love, the miser's wish obtain'd,
Palls upon the sated soul;
Sought with life, and loath'd when gain'd,
'Tis possession drugs the bowl.

Friendship, like the Christian's hope,
Fix'd, unchanging and sublime;
Wider grasping in its scope,
And confirm'd by fleeting time.

Love, a plant of fragile form,
Fir'd by ardent suns to birth,
Shrinks before the whelming storm,
Withering, dies and sinks to earth.

Friendship, Ætna's giant tree,
Slowly rising, rooted fast,

In the middle region of Ætna are chesnut-trees of an enormous size, the circumference of one of which is 204 feet, or more, say others. See particularly Denon. The tree called κατ' εξοχην, THE Castagno, is apparently a union of several trunks; but the Canon Recupero assured Mr. Brydone, that he had found by digging that they were united at the root. This excavation will contain a large troop of horse.

Brav'd the mountain revelry,
And the fiery flood that past!

VII.

The lady smil'd to hear the boy,
With themes too high, in numbers toy.
“My little page, thy minstrelsy
Well suits youth's untried hour;
But hearken to my prophecy,
For thou wilt prove its power.

Dazzled with light, on ocean tost,
Thy riper bark will yet be lost;
When thou shalt seek, with burning soul,
To taste and drain the enchanted bowl!
And thou shalt find the heavens o'ercast,
Where clouds of mortal passion past;
The stately stream its bounds shall burst,
Or shrink before the might of day;
When hatred lights his torch accurst,
Pale hope shall quench her sickly ray;—
The giant stem, that brav'd the storm,
Its roots destroy'd by preying worm,
Shall sink on earth—and where it fell,
Its wrecks the common annals tell.”

VIII.

“Few years, my lady, have I seen,
My term of trial brief hath been;
But sad experience, on my sight,
Hath yet unroll'd her veil of night.
I had a sister once; and none
Awoke the lay with livelier tone
In southern plains; as light and gay
As the blythe birds, that trill'd their lay
In every vale, from every spray.
Pure, as the bleating flocks she led,
With jocund heart, along the mead—
And modest as the blushing glow,
When first the lovely almonds blow,
As gentle, soft, and pure;—
But ah! like it, her beauties shone
Ere riper wisdom was her own;
The bloom was premature!

The almond-tree blows before it has its foliage; and towards the end of February, its delicious fruit is eatable. Hager.

IX.

“The shepherd's pipe and tender tale
Contended vainly to prevail;
Their vows of faith she heard and met
With firm refusal, yet so sweet,
They mourn'd, and yet could but adore,
Despairing, but admiring more.

X.

“One morn we saw her not; the swain
Sought to behold her, but in vain—
The breeze wafts not her music bland;
Her flocks in idle wonder stand,
Watching, as if that form to see,
That long they follow'd joyously—
List'ning, as if to hear her tread,
From whose kind hand so oft they fed:
Her crook hangs idly by; her lute
Within the cot is still and mute;—
Yes, she was gone; surprise and grief,
Hope and despair, with influence brief,
All came by turns; but she was gone—
Her flight unmark'd—her doom unknown.

XI.

“Her fate I learnt, when fortune's ire
Had robb'd me of my sainted sire
And of his cheerless dame:
Peace to the sod wherein they sleep!
Hither was led my wandering step,
Here, where my sister came.
With simple tale of misery
I will not weary, lady high;—

Suffice to say, a baron bold
Had lur'd her from her parent fold:
With honey'd word and treachery foul,
He woo'd her ear and won her soul.

XII.

“And long he hid his trusting prize,
In castle proud, from kindred eyes.
In secret, with too rapid wings,
Unholy transports fled—
Till the poor dupe her offerings
To vain repentance made—
When cold neglect infix'd his stings,
The spoiler's passion dead.

XIII.

“He car'd no more to feign a flame
He never felt; but lest a name,
Rank'd high in knighthood's scroll,
From her foul wrongs dark blot should bear,
He guarded her with anxious care,
Till from his grasp she stole.
And where she wanders now, the eye
That mark'd her crimes, and heard her cry
For mercy, knows alone;
O lady, 'tis too trite a tale!—
Man call'd her fair, he prov'd her frail,
She bloom'd, and was undone!”

XIV

“Thou prat'st of love, my little Page—
Come, tell me thine opinion sage;
Can love be twice awoke?”

A burning blush came mantling high,
And downcast was the lady's eye,
As thus she faultering spoke.
Scap'd from the Page some mutter'd words,
Wild were his dark locks flung,
And wild and quick he swept the chords,
As thus the fair boy sung.

XV.
The Unfaithful.

The honey in his throat,

“People assign different reasons for the return of the doves to their home. Malaterra says it is effected by means of grain dipped in honey, &c. According to others, it is owing to the separation of the female dove from her young; or the male from his mate. When their separation lasts long, the memory grows feedle, and no dependance can be placed upon him. According to all accounts, fourteen days are sufficient to make the mother forget her young; the male probably will forget his love much sooner.” Hager.

The billet in his beak,
The lonely dove will float
Mid skies serene or bleak:
He lingers not behind,
His course is homeward bent,
And swifter than the wind
He cuts the firmament.
His home is in his mind,
Nor wavers his intent—
And, till his mate he find,
His strength is never spent.

His pinions never tire
O'er deserts wild and waste,
Though skies are all on fire,
Or heaven is overcast.
He never stays his wing
O'er realms most blest and bright,
The balmy gale of spring
But speeds him in his flight.

But earth is wide and great,
And foaming seas are broad,
If he forgets his mate,
He wanders from his road.

His nest he hath forgot,
His pinions wildly roam;
The letter he brings not,
He never finds his home!
Who their first loves forget
From thy communion sever,
They ne'er were faithful yet,
They can be trusted never.
Who their first loves forget
By every gale are tost,
And left a wreck by fate
On passion's blighted coast!

XVI.

Approach'd them now a stately tread;
The Page from the apartment sped,
But, ere he went, he paus'd, and threw
Upon the dame his anxious view.
His look a labouring heart betray'd,
As if he something would have said,
Some hidden secret had reveal'd—
But mightier power his lips had seal'd.
A look of pity 'twas—but fraught
With tokens of some darker thought.
“Lady”—he said, when at the door
The Baron's step was heard—he spake no more.

XVII.

No time to read, then had the maid,
All in that wilder'd look convey'd.
“All nature blooms, my lovely bride,
She blooms for thee,” the Baron cried.
“What were the glorious arch above,
Of peace profound and mystic love—
Would it have canopied our earth,
If beauty never sprang to birth?
Her eye, so darkly rolling, tells
Weak man of all the bliss that dwells
Beyond yon azure sky.
Why sighs the zephyr, but to bear
Her balmy breath in upper air,
To realms of purity?
Her carpet why hath nature spread,
If not for beauty's fairy tread?
And why her myriad, countless hues
Flings she around, with hand profuse,
From evening's tears and summer's showers,
From all her fruits and all her flowers,
On towering mount, in valley green,
If not to hail and bless their queen?
All nature blooms, yet languishes,
Until her fairest boast she sees:
Come then, my bride, with me to prove
The universal sympathy of love.”

SCENE VII.
THE BOWER.

I.

The noonday tide has wan'd away,
Its flickering beams but sparsely stray,
Through shadowing boughs, its blossoms blent,
With every soft and glorious tint.
Far as the eye around could view,
Wav'd a bright sea of every hue,
The golden orange there is glowing,
Its liveliest tinge the olive yields;
In genial soil, in beauty blowing,
The blushing almond clothes the fields.
Here the proud laurel lifts its head,
Or the tall cypress dark arises;
Citrons their softest perfume shed,
Of loaded gales the balmy prizes.
The modest violet appears
Just peeping from its much-lov'd shade,
The hyacinth its stem uprears,
With gentle honours clustering clad;

Fair blooms the rose, in all her pride,
And tempts the breezes as they glide;
And round the trunk are twining seen
The tendrils of the jessamin.

II.

Forth walked the knight; and, by his side,
Hung on his arm his destin'd bride,
In sweet, complying confidence,
The soft, yet all-absorbing sense
Of loving—and of being lov'd,
The ascendant's lord—while all around,
But more the magic charm hath mov'd,
Where the rapt vision, as it rov'd,
Still for the heart new offerings found.

III.

A stately aloe in their view,
In all its pride and glory grew;

The flower stems of the aloe are between twenty and thirty feet high; covered with flowers from top to bottom, tapering regularly, and forming a beautiful pyramid, the pedestal of which is the spreading leaves. They blossom every fifth or sixth year. The substance is carried into the stem and flowers. Soon as it blows the leaves decay, and a numerous offspring of young plants rise round the roots of the old one. Hill.

While springs have past, and flower and tree
Have shed their bloom successively,
Its promise, long delay'd, at length
Puts forth its beauty and its strength;
Now, nature's boast and wonder high,
It towers in its luxuriancy.
“Even here is true love typified,
So strong, so fair,” the Baron cried.
“Pyramidal, it braves the shocks,
Where crouching interest yields and rocks;
Yet cloth'd with garb of all most frail,
With more than mortal beauty's veil.”

IV.

“Paulo, my little page, could tell
A different tale,” said Isabel—
“A youth with simile grown mad,
And still his similes are sad.
For he would say, that fragile thing
But strength dissembles, perishing—
Its vigour, in its tapering flower,
Exults but for a fleeting hour;
The root its perish'd nurture grieves,
The broad, expanding base of leaves
Wither, when first, in all its pride,
It greets the day's surrounding tide;
Its flowers have droop'd—the blasted stem
But mocks at all-enduring flame—
While from its root, a countless train
Are rising round it on the plain—
Even so love fades; while myriad ties
Upon its prostrate ruins rise.”

V.

It is the hour when clerkly lore
The student's eye delights no more;
The mortal frame subdu'd can bind
The potent energies of mind.
When fancy wakes—but not as erst
Hath the creating spirit burst,
To soar with him, Jove's eagle high,
Bathe in intolerable day,
To catch the spheral melody,
With elemental radiance play—

She wanders like the songster lone,
From spray to spray, from grove to grove—
And wild and wavering is her tone,
But still it wakes to tell of love.

VI.

If there be passion, pure as wave
Screen'd from the day, where nereids lave,—

—“Pure as the fountain in rocky cave
Where never sunbeam kiss'd the wave.”
Bridal of Triermain.

Yet ever flowing, deep and strong,
As that broad tide that pours along,
Stemless, eternal, to the sea—
Alas, the doubt! but if there be,
Deem not that nature's breath, though rise
With love, can fan its flame to life.
The spring is past, the summer gone,
And autumn's sighs make sullen moan,
And winter howls with angry blast,
Long, long, since passion came and past!

VII.

Yet the gale is fraught with the living food,
And the breath of life is the breath of love—
While the vital current, the heart's best blood,
By its spirit is fed and taught to move.
Hark to the strain! the gale is fraught
With music for the entranced thought—
Such notes on upper earth before
Were heard not, shall be heard no more,
Thrill'd through the soul wild ecstacy,
Fill'd with the soul of melody—
It was no mortal minstrelsy!

VIII.

No studied measures told the ear
The life of music was not there;
'Twas not lone Philomela's notes,
More fire upon the music floats—
Nor of chords, where gales delighted stay
To wonder at their untaught lay—
Its notes were language for souls to tell,
Its tones were feeling, its breathings thought—
Whence came they? the soul of Isabel
Woke to the strain, nor its master sought.

IX.

The heart beat quick, the pulses play'd
Swift, as they reach'd an arbour's shade;
And yielded, in its mild retreat,
To one absorbing influence sweet;
While the notes, in varying numbers, stole,
Now languishing upon the soul—
And now the swelling tones arise
In livelier, bolder melodies—
Till they woke too exquisitely high,
Till they died away in ecstacy.

X.

It is the hour when language were
Too cold, estrang'd, and common there;
The heart at once may read full well
All that a fervent glance can tell,—
And pour its language on the cheek,
Nor the tongue its surly office speak

What business hath it, in such hour,
When lovers meet in shelter'd bower,
Their sympathy to mar?
Can the brain cool at time like this,
In calculating selfishness,
With the heart's dearest, warmest bliss,
Hold an unnatural war?

XI.

Few rolling suns shall see her given,
By man approv'd, in sight of heaven,
The guerdon proud of valour bright,
The partner of each day and night—
And who forbids, that all unseen,
While skies are blue, and fields are green,
While all is joy and love, that they
The genial power should disobey?
Who cries out shame, his arm if thrown
Where clasps her slender waist the zone—
And who that pressure soft shall part
That draws her closer to his heart?
Light was the form that yet betray'd
The full proportion of the maid—
The Baron gaz'd where her tresses flow
Of raven hue, o'er brow of snow;
Upon the eye so darkly wild,
That cloister'd abbot it had beguil'd,
While languid simile vainly tells,
Its glance is like the wild gazelle's—
And could the knight, in hour like this,
Forbear to print a glowing kiss
Upon the lips so close to his—

That smil'd, the lover's eye before,
Whose faint resistance woo'd the more—
Or closer bind that trembling form
Glowing with softest fervours warm?

XII.

Where the rich rose its fragrance flings,
The zephyr sports with filmy wings;
And while he steals the balmy breath,
The flower more beauteous glows beneath.
His frolic pressure odours gives
Sweeter than those he bears afar;
And still his lovely mistress lives
More blooming from the gentle war.
But wilder breezes bend the bough—
And lordly Boreas rises now;
The fragrance on his pinions flew,
But, ah! he bore the floweret too—
The blighted chalice left alone;
Its blushing glories round are strown.

XIII.

—'Twere not in man—and is she lost?
They heard a tread that bent the grass,
A footstep light the green sward crost,
And then they saw a shadow pass—
An insect flutter'd on gilded wing,
And the Page leapt with eager spring,
To grasp his prize—as fell his glance,
Transient—but full—on Isabel,
First seem'd she waking from her trance,
First breaking from a potent spell:

Else why the blush, that came and went,
If all were fair and innocent!
The quivering frame, the downcast eye,
At childhood's frolic gambols, why?

XIV.

Swift as he came, young Paulo cleft
The umbrageous foliage, and as swift
Its dangerous shade the lady left;
Broke from the arms of bold Vaumond,
Shot like the arrow his glance beyond.

XV.

He follow'd not; he knew the hour
Was past, the season of his power—
Holy Maria! still unsung
Be the curses black from his bosom wrung!
Foul the core, and foul the curses,
As the sap that Java's upas nurses!
In different loom the fates have wove
The wars of men and wars of love;
Defeat his drooping crest may rear,
And poise again the avenging spear,
More terrible in his recoil—
—As when, bent low upon the soil,
Proud victory's meed rebounds again
The stubborn palm deprest in vain—

The palm is an emblem of victory, because it rises up against a weight imposed.

Defeat in love is dark defeat,
Dark as the promis'd boon was sweet.

XVI.

“That boy”—he dwelt upon the name—
Suspicion dark and wildering came;

By hasty impulse driven, he sought
The object of his angry thought—
He found him; on a grassy bed,
With flowers bespangled, lay his head:
From antique marble basin near,
A melancholy fountain play'd;

These were among the luxuries of Arabian magnificence, which Roger introduced into Sicily. Hager.

He lay, as listening still to hear
Its sad and lonely chiding;
But when a step fell on his ear,
He started, as in sudden fear,
And swift away was gliding.
The Baron sent forth a stern command,
And grasping him with iron hand,
Survey'd his face—Maria! why
Starts back that Baron bold,
As if the bolt that shakes the sky,
Had on him its fury roll'd?

XVII.

A quick and desperate thought again
Shot like the levin through his brain—
The boy upon the sod he prest,
Planted his knee upon his breast,
And bar'd the glittering knife—
Pale was the Page's cheek—his eye
Fix'd on the Baron steadfastly;
Not to implore, not to entreat—
But calm the impending blow to meet,
As reckless all of life.
“Strike!”—mild, yet firm, the victim spoke—
And why delays the threaten'd stroke?

Hath the fell samum, from southern skies,
Palsied his arm's proud energies?
Or did his heart relenting shed,
One gushing tear from the fountain-head?
There is a syroc in his soul,
That its wildest impulse can control:
But tears? such tears Vaumond's may be
As Satan shed on Calvary!
“Go—and be Paulo still—away!
Death here awaits thy further stay.”

SCENE VIII.
THE DUNGEON.

I.

Home from the banquet, on the night
He dar'd the Baron to the fight,
His troubled way bent Lodowice—
While madd'ning thoughts in tumult quick,
Like ocean's wild succeeding waves,
Each in its wild ascension raves,
Then, whelm'd for ever, sinks to rest,
Scatter'd on his tumultuous breast.

II.

'Twas the dead of night—from his couch he rose,
Sworn foe to sorrow's woo'd repose;—
Slumber'd his menials still and deep,
Upon their eyes sat deathlike sleep.
Many a black and gloomy cloud
Hung upon night's sable shroud;
On the chilly air came not a sound,
Fell not a leaf the castle round;

The measur'd pace of the knight alone
Sent back upon his ear its tone,
His dog, whose eyes in slumber watch,
Whose ears in sleep each foot-fall catch,
Stirs not, his master's feet to lick,
All slept—wak'd none but Lodowick.

III.

A grasp as of iron caught him behind—
He turn'd—and he was seiz'd again;
His powerless arms they grasp and bind,
He called for aid—he called in vain.
Strong was the knight, unwont to yield,
Approv'd in many a battle field,
But in that clasp so swift and stern,
He might not struggle, he might not turn—
A new-born infant's sinews might
Cope with a giant's limbs in fight
As well, as hopefully—
He calls, the watch-dog sleeps unrous'd,
Nor heed the slumbering menials hous'd
Their master's jeopardy.

IV.

They drew a covering o'er his head,
And from the castle's portals sped:—
The gate on its massy hinges leaps,
And yet while the trusty porter sleeps,
The keys beneath his pillow he keeps.

V.

Onward, onward, swift as light!
Now they rais'd the captive knight;

Now the jolt of a car he feels,
He caught the rumbling of its wheels,
The tramp of steeds, and he could hear
A murmuring sound as of water near.
For hours they rode; upon his ear
There came no other sound.
But paus'd they now; no word they spoke,
As they in mysterious silence took
From his seat their captive bound.

VI.

A rough descent, where oft the feet
From rubbish rude resistance meet,
Proclaim'd that now their progress lay
Adown some lone and secret way,—
Where oft abrupt and sudden shock
Would the very soul of caution mock—
Some dark retreat—where things are done
That may not meet the living sun.

VII.

A stifled hum of voices rose
As massy doors unbarr'd, unclose.
And now his arms are freed—his eyes
From their black shroud of darkness rise—
A narrow vault of rugged stone
In rude disorder round him thrown,
Let by a taper's dubious beam
That show'd like melancholy gleam,
The last pale ray of ebbing hope,
Confin'd th' unfetter'd vision's scope.

VIII.

And near him a dark figure stood
Proclaim'd at once of robber brood;
His form was girt in sable cloak,
Save where a dagger's handle broke
Its folds:—upon his front, above
The darkly shadow'd brow,
Where the pale taper's gleamings move
So fitful, wildly now,
Nature and fate conspired to write
‘Murder’ in characters of night.
Th' inthrall'd had spoke—the robber's hand
In sternly confident command
Now pointed to his lip,—then prest
The poniard's hilt beneath his vest;
Then show'd a rude and scanty store
Of captive's fare upon the floor;
And springing through a narrow door,
It clos'd the ruffians, step behind;
Bolts, locks, nor bars its fast'nings bind,—
A spring without alone may ope
The path to freedom, light, and hope!

IX.

When the dun clouds are rolling high,
The monarch eagle braves the sky;
Buoyant he soars, and spurns the storm
That bursts beneath, and veils his form;
But when the wily hunter's toil
Snares in his net the royal spoil,
The plumes that lav'd in living tide
Droop idly on the captive's side;

The wings along yon vault that bore
The thunder to each startled shore,
Must sleep, till brushing in their might,
Like him the gifted Israelite,
The dreams of idleness afar,
In tenfold fury wakes their war!
The eye that caught undimm'd the ray
Of perfect, uncreated day,
Bids, while the bonds of thraldom cumber,
The terror of its lightnings slumber;—
He bows his unavailing will,
But wakes in thought triumphant still!

Endungeon'd in a living grave
Yield both the coward and the brave;—
But the burning soul of valour, round
The dastard's night and gloom profound,
A diamond tried, will its lustre shed
On damp'ning walls and iron bed.

X.

Some fierce convulsion of our earth
Gave that dark, broken prison birth,—
The sever'd rocks by man unwrought
Show'd on its walls their sides distraught:
Such shock alone as tore them in twain
Shall burst that prison's walls again!
The frequent crevice but derides
The hope to freedom fair that guides;
Impervious gloom, and rock and rock
Beyond, the anxious vision mock,

All vain were mortal man's essay
To pluck one bedded mass away.

XI.

But through one deep and narrow hole
A beam through shadowy windings stole;—
Here strain'd the knight his anxious ken
To search that wild, mysterious den.
A vault, whose bounds he could not scan
Deep, dim, and far beneath him ran;
A dusky light that o'er it gleam'd
From bickering blaze at distance seem'd;—
Frequent it rested to betray
Where scatter'd armour gleaming lay,
And darkling shadows pass'd along
A rugged, tall, and well-arm'd throng;
Low mutter'd sounds beneath him roll'd,
But undistinct—no tale they told.
When loud and quick a shrill tone rang,
And came upon his ear a clang;—
Seem'd brazen portals to expand—
Started at once the robber band—
Dread they some fell, unlook'd assault?
A pealing shout ascends the vault.—
Each distant crag the echoes brought
Where the breathless knight the accents caught.—
“Vaumond!”—It shook that dismal den
Till all was still and dull agen.
Vanish'd each form below that past,
Upon that sound they flitted fast;—
And now afar he heard alone
A varying, low, and fitful tone;

A distant tread of heavy steps
Along that endless dungeon creeps;
Silence succeeds—the light went out—
All now is mystery, night, and doubt.

XII.

My idly measur'd prose must hie
Right onward in my tale—
And on the chief's uncertainty,
Tumultuous, may not dwell.
Suffice it, he no more might mark
One glimmering, through that cavern dark;
His narrow prison-house, the care
That bore him from his castle there
Had stor'd with oil, within his view,
His waning taper to renew.
And ever at the midnight tide
His food a hand unseen supplied;
From the central rock above a chain
Let down his daily store,
But voice or tread of man again
Heard Lodowick no more.

XIII.

Full well was plann'd thy gaoler's scheme!
Light, food, and each unfetter'd limb,
Lone on the reeking rack each hour
The hope they fann'd to life;—
Thy impotence but mock'd their power,
And deadly was the strife.
Oh, mad'ning was thy lengthen'd spell,
And memory lit her torch in hell!

No spirit o'er thy chaos hover'd,
No light thy solitude discover'd!

XIV.

My onward tale may not give place
To dwell on that fell thrall,—
In soothless, utter loneliness
The heart's blood curdling into gall,—
The fever'd, madden'd, raving, longing,
Driv'n back upon the soul—
Where black recording fiends are thronging,
And fire to break the adamantine goal;—
Cracks not the heart?—bursts not the head?—
Or hath the monarch reason fled?
Or sleeps she on her noontide throne?
Oh! that such opiate were his own!

XV.

The wretch on ocean's central waste
Whom fate in one lone park hath cast,—
That bark all strain'd, and steerless riding
While billows chafe and heaven is chiding,—
He in his struggle wild hath still
Hope fiercer from each gathering ill;
The mountain wave o'ercome towers high
His pyramid of victory;—
The agony of hope and fear
To rapture's fiery bound is near;
The drop that o'erwrought energy
Wrung from the brow with pangs severe,
Bears high and close affinity
With rapture's burning tear!

XVI.

Prometheus, mind's proud sacrifice,

I borrow the following translation from a friend's version of Æschylus.

Vulcan.
Where the burning flame
From the bright centre of the blooming world
Shall scorch the colour fading on the cheek—
[OMITTED]
—Wherefore in sleepless nights and restless days
Thy form erect, thy knee unbent, shalt thou
Stand the sad guardian of this dismal cliff.
[OMITTED]
With brazen bolts, too strong for power to break,
Here must I chain thee to this lonely crag.
[OMITTED]

Prom.
Ah! what sound is that I hear!
The voice of wings approaching near—
The air resounds, as lightly they
Press through its liquid paths their way.
[Enter chorus of sea-nymphs.]

Prom.
Yet shall he seek me in my wo,
Thus chain'd, insulted, and thus low;
Yet shall that chief of gods from me
Implore the tale of destiny,
And seek to learn the new design
That threatens danger to his line.
See also Lord Byron's “Prometheus.”

Fix'd on his sea-lash'd precipice,
And scorch'd by central fire,—
While God-wrought chains his soul corrode,
His madden'd heart th' undying food
On which the vampire vulture fasten'd
To mock the desperate hope that hasten'd
In triumph to expire,—
Even he—was not all desolate;
The sea-nymphs mourn'd his iron fate,
And sympathy upon the billow
Wafted her notes to his stony pillow;
One human drop from his heart she led—
While the vulture wonder'd as he fed!

Ay—even in his foe's full boast
Of his power the plenitude—
Revenge his sinking bosom crost
That could taste no other food;—
The God from him alone the key
Must seek, that opes futurity;
And though the seer hath known the worst
The full of destiny accurst,—
Yet with that light with hope unblended
A ray of gladness fell descended;
And like the lightning round his head,
Whose pale, unharming fury play'd,
Revell'd revenge on the clouds of fate—
No! he was not all desolate!

3. PART THIRD.

101

INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE

TO PART THIRD.

TO MR. --- ---.

September 7th, 1817.

The bark is bounding, with her canvass wide,
Where gallant Hudson pours his full, deep tide;
Through scenes still varying, and through regions blest,
Where art smiles loveliest, nature's reign confest.
With eye untiring, still absorpt, I mark
The yellow meadow and the forest dark;
The serried rocks, the cedars never sere,
The fisher's cot, that tells that man is here;
The darkening mountains' far extended sweep,
Heav'd in mild majesty each rising steep;
Or frowning, in their shadowy honours clad,
Or with each tall head in the day-beam glad,
While, far below, their girdle's dusky fold
Shows the grew clouds in billowing warfare roll'd.
Where, if the mellow horn the silence breaks,
Wild echo, with her hundred voices, wakes;

102

Or all is still, unless some tinkling bell
The giant mountain's simple tenants tell.

A deeper hum the listening ear invades,
And cities rise amid the frowning shades;
The cedars quit the deep descent's broad span,
That shines and gladdens with the haunts of man.

Lo! where, through saffron bright and purple deep,
The eternal orb descends the gorgeous steep—
Flings o'er yon Andean brethren's fading pride,
The dazzling radiance of his ruby tide,
By the bright blaze of lengthen'd glory spread,
Defining each blue mountain's waving head,
That else, commingling with the tints profound,
Had shar'd with heaven the shadowy arch around.
Such flame to Guebre had reveal'd the flood
That fills the fiery palace of his god;
Too bright for ken—its lustre unrestrain'd,
As if yon jewel of the heavens disdain'd
O'er other steeps to see his flag unfurl'd,
Than those whose giant limbs repose o'er half the world!

Each fleecy cloud, as fast the monarch fled,
With roseate lustre look'd towards his bed;
They linger still, till darkness wraps the wave,
Like hopes whose radiance trembles on the grave.

Majestic, beautiful! my native land!
How wildly fair! how nobly, darkly grand!
Born in the moonlight of a latter age,
And the last leaf in earth's extended page—
Opening, like heaven, upon a race of crime,
Thou look'st through tears of blood, in grief sublime!
The lyre of heaven is bright in thy clear sky,
But speaks not e'er its tones of mystery:

103

Whether the warwhoop wakes thy mountain hold,
Or the clear horn its milder tale hath told,
No minstrel measures to the gale are given,
And all is apathy where all is heaven!
Where rocks eternal speak, man only mute,
Holds high communion with his kindred brute.

And why? ah wherefore! be it theirs to tell,
Who know all things, and nothing eke so well—
The mighty whipsters, on our western shore,
Who stride the Pegasus of wit and lore—
School-boy reviewers, mountebanks of sense,
Who never bungled thro' their accidence!

And now the star-bright queen of closing even
Lights the pure vault of yon unfathom'd heaven;
While fickle breeze holds dalliance with the sail,
The deep wave scarcely rippling in the gale:
Slow walks the bark, while round her all is bright,
Where in chaste brilliance sports the inconstant light;
But the dark mountain, melting into shade,
Beyond, the billow hath in night array'd;
Still, as to woo the south-wind turns the prore,
The shades retreat as nearer frowns the shore.
—This is the bark of life,—and that, the tide
That bears our fate, and frets beneath our pride;
Yon black, veil'd steep, the mount of destiny—
Time's shadows darkling swift around us flee,
As yon fair orb supreme illumes our path,
And gleams and sparkles in the gulf of death—
Beams—the warm consciousness of being, still,
Hope, quenchless hope, that earth can never chill.

Cold blows the wind; and warmer rests invite
To shun the chilly gales of closing night;

104

O let us hope! though all be colder far,
Where trembles poesy's unworshipp'd star!
Although no chord the slumbering echo wakes,
The golden bowl, unmov'd, no music makes—
The time shall come, perchance these orbs shall wane,
And cold this wither'd heart shall crumble then—
The time shall come, the dawn must break perforce,
When circling lustres have perform'd their course,
When the full sweep o'er burning chords shall try
The diapason's thrill of ecstacy—
As heav'd yon mountains to the spheral chaunt,
The fire nor fear nor apathy can daunt,
The shaggy vesture of the hills shall pierce
And kindle every wave with beams more fierce—
Earth, ocean, heaven shall burst the bonds of fate
And wake to life, in song regenerate!

O thou! to whom, where'er my footsteps wend,
My heart turns ever, scholar, minstrel, friend!
At whose Promethean font, with glory fraught,
My trembling taper's dubious beam was caught,
Be thine the lay—upon whose op'ning youth
Shines the clear blaze of poesy and truth—
Be thine the saviour song, that gives to fame
Each gallant tide, each steep without a name—
Be thine the light, whose parting rays shall pour
The effulgent line the broad Atlantic o'er,
As Plata broad, as Mississippi strong,
The champion strain that gives her fields to song!

We rov'd together over sacred hills,
We drank together from Castalian rills;
Our cause, our hopes were one; nor envy blasted
The wreath we pluck'd, nor drugg'd the bowl we tasted.

105

If haply as my feeble song holds on
Its varied course—since first the lay begun,
More fire to bolder measures wake the strain,
Commenc'd in listlessness, the cause is plain—
Thou wert not near when first the chords I woo'd;
My heart retir'd in its own solitude,
Upon itself—itself to shun it woke
The idle rhyme, that into story broke—
But droop'd, until thy presence cheer'd the bard,
Thyself its inspiration and its guard.

107

SCENE IX.

Vesuvius, Ætna, and Stromboli, are supposed to be connected. Vesuvius is certainly hollow. Ferber, Voltaire. Stromboli is quite excavated by its disgorgements. Lithgow.

ÆTNA.

I.

A shuddering tremour shook
The rocks of that earthly womb,
And massy fragments broke
From the warrior's living tomb.
Bursting from its cavern'd vent,
Roars around convuls'd the thunder,
Muttering, deep, by mountains pent;
Lodowick in appalling wonder
Breathless mark'd the stern event;
Rifted, gape the walls in sunder!
Bows the arch above his head—
The rugged stones forsake their bed—
Speeds the whelming ruin down!
On the earth the lamp is thrown;
Gapes that earth—precipitate
Down the chasm it holds its way,
Nor pause its track may now await
Until it speed, impell'd by fate
Where bar'd hell's central regions lay.

108

II.

Darkness, ruin, now surround;
Tottering in that fearful stound,
On a trembling mass that hung
O'er that gulf of horror swung,
Down the knight his knee hath bent—
I will not say but his cheek was blent
With terror's ashen hue,
While the hoarse voice of earth was roaring,
And her secret chambers' depths exploring,
Round him the masses flew—
Ever leaving that frail stone
That now bears his frame alone,
Tottering to its destin'd wreck!
Pale was then the warrior's cheek—
But in his heart devotion glow'd
As his lips it taught to pray
To the holy mother of our God
And to Saint Agatha.

III.

Streaming on the blackness deep
Was a glare at distance shed,
Quick from his knee did the warrior leap—
As his saviour rock down sped!
The sign of the blessed cross he made
And onward rush'd where the gleaming play'd;
Now by rudely jutting stone
Backward in his progress thrown—
Plunging on with steps of haste,
Downward, darkling was he cast;—

109

As in a dream no harm we feel,
Hurl'd down precipice and hill,
So terror, hope, and faith combined,
While sense to toil and pain was blind,
To lead the youth toward the light
In the waking dream of that awful night!

IV.

Ha! Maria! can they bear
Now, thy frame recoiling there?—
Whence the glare? far, far below
Infernal seas of liquid fire—
Raving, roaring, sullen, flow,
Lashing fierce to hell-wrought ire!
High their steam sulphureous wreathes,
Taints the air where mortal breathes,
Its vapory hangings wildly surging,
From whose red, fiery clouds emerging
Blue, quivering lightnings wildly shoot
To guide the wanderer's trembling foot.
Through a disjointed bridge of stone
O'er that dread lake all tottering thrown,
With frequent gap and yawning rest
Betray'd its tides each glittering cleft;—
Behind—convulsions tear the womb
Of earth, as in her thrall of doom.
And now th' unlovely light that prob'd
Those warring realms in shadows rob'd,
Show'd heaving mounds or whelming steeps
Down the interminable deeps
Thund'ring in swift career;—

110

Before—a half-supported mass
Shot high across that lurid pass,
And spann'd the chasm drear,
Abruptly o'er the top it ceas'd—
And leap the rest—who may!
Yet still the tumult wild increas'd,
Still melts the mass away;
Down hissing in the flame it fell,
Each sound, of death the awful knell,
That warns the wanderer of the hour
Of fiery doom—of fiendish power!

V.

No safety there—despair in flight!
Onward, onward went the knight;
Though frailer be that trembling span
Than sabre arch of mussulman,
While darker hell and fiercer death
Foam and roar and yawn beneath,
Onward, lo! he treads the arch—
He casts no look below,
To mark despair's unsteadied march,
The flame's unearthly glow;
But its dun vapours round him wreathe,
And fear, that bade him not to breathe
Preserv'd his life—that withering fire
He who would breathe again may not respire!

VI.

He leaps the pass—and terrible
The yielding ruin whelming fell
Headlong into the lake;

111

His footstep slips, that wild shore gain'd;—
Despair its energies retain'd,
High o'er the abyss a black crag jutting
By chance he caught—his eyelids shutting—
He felt that fragment quake;
He hangs above that fiery sea—
That trembling stone alone may be
His saviour in his jeopardy!
But 'twas a grasp of agony
That had from its time-rooted bed
Ætna's proud chesnut borne!
One mad'ning spring the warrior made—
Forth was the fragment torn!—

VII.

But he is safe!

—“Fell it alone? alone it fell.” Rokeby.

—the struggle o'er
The cold dews gush'd from every pore—
An icy trembling came;
Such knew he not on battle plain,
When the bloodhound gorging o'er the slain
Laid the quivering flesh all bare,
Till bursting with his banquet there
Sunk down his bloated frame!
A deathlike damp was on his brow—
The nerveless limbs all idly now
In fear's delirium motionless
The passive failing will confess.

VIII.

O! rouse thee from thy lethargy!
For life—revenge—salvation—flee!

112

Thy fate unknown—thy memory curst—
Thy manhood stamp'd with flight;
And worst—if yet there can be worst
To soul of gallant knight—
Beyond—thy dark conclusion seal'd,
All unassoil'd and unanneal'd
By one atoning rite,
Mock'd by the fiend—thy prayer unheard,
On earth abhorr'd—from heaven debarr'd!

IX.

Yes:—all the Christian, all the man
Around his heart quick summon'd, ran.
Onward his unlit path he grop'd
That wandering strange, still downward slop'd;
Seem'd it an iron channel led
To earth's remotest, secret bed—
Narrow that chamber, where he bent
Full low his form as on he went;
Its walls were hard and firm and cold,
Nature's impenetrable hold.

X.

Still a low murmuring seem'd to rise
That iron cavern through—
Notes caught the warrior with surprise
Of language that he knew;
It was of Sicily—but ne'er
Such tones before did mortal hear;
Such voices ne'er his native tongue
To such a fearful descant sung.

113

Long through th' untrodden maze he err'd,
Still, still that pæan wild he heard.

XI.
Song of the Spirits in Aetna.

When, while mortals pale are trembling
At their mother's agony;

This description of an earthquake is, in general, taken from Hill's translation of an account of one by a Sicilian, as far as relates to the incidents of an earthquake. Cowper, in his description in the Task, has mentioned the most prominent—perhaps, not the most terrible. The involuntary trembling of animal life, the wild terrors of the brute creation, who seem conscious that their mother earth is no longer a place of safety, must add greatly to the fearful effect.

When in upper air assembling
Hold we our high revelry!

When in mist-envelop'd fields
Hath the sun all cheerless stood,
When the moon no radiance yields
Trembling in a sea of blood;

When the messenger of death
Shoots o'er heaven's expanse profound,
Fiery pestilence his breath
Ruddy meteors shedding round;

When pale streaks of livid light
Dart on high their awful rays,
Circuiting the brow of night
With their wild and ghostly blaze.

When the brute, in terror quaking,
Beats his parent's shuddering breast;
When the bird, her home forsaking,
Wildered, flies her children's nest;

114

When the angel flaps his pinion,
Mortal sickness shedding round,
Sinking in his stern dominion,
Man no resting-place hath found;

Death, despair, all rank dividing,
Friendship, love, affinity—
Then hurra! the whirlwinds riding
Hold we our high revelry!

XII.
SONG CONTINUED.

Now begins the riot high,
Trembles earth's remotest cell,
Groaning in her agony,
Bellowing peals her anguish tell.

Peals around the deaf'ning din,—
Mute were now the bolt of heaven,
All unheard the culverin,
All unfear'd the blazing levin!

Now, like ocean, earth is heaving,
Waves on waves tumultuous press;
Mountains, their foundations leaving,
Find another resting-place.

Hark! the deep, its barriers breaking,
Pours its furious deluge blind;
Hell triumphant, God forsaking,
Fate to us hath man resign'd!

115

Husbandman! thy toil is done,
Whelm'd thy fields beneath the main;—
Avarice, thy wish is won,
Central regions hoard thy gain!

Father! all thy cares are over,
Ocean all thy children hath;—
Hope not, fear not, sue not, lover!
Thou shalt meet thy bride—in death!

Mother! who his fate shall tell,
Who so stately woo'd thy breast?—
Where yon pile tremendous fell
Are his sightless ruins prest!

XIII.
SONG CONTINUED.

Now the home, by whirlwinds sever'd,
Leaves no mournful wreck behind;
Now before yon altar, shiver'd,
None a resting-place may find.

Saint, nor miracle, nor spell
Save thee, priest, or sinner pale;
'Tis the jubilee of hell!
'Tis the hour when WE prevail!

Now from smoking ruins glaring
Where the wand'rer sought his home,
In his anguish, wildly staring,
Mock we at the wretch's doom.

116

Now, in flame or flood, exulting,
Jest we with the dying cry;
O'er the struggling wretch insulting,
We enjoy his latest sigh.

XIV.
SONG CONTINUED.

Earth is rending—chasms gape
From beneath the flying tread,
Closing, hopeless of escape,
On the living and the dead!

Half is buried, half is thrown
Writhing on the earth again;—
Shapeless mass! we catch its groan
We prolong its mortal pain.

What is beauty?—mangled members
Now, that once it was proclaim;
Half consum'd in bloody embers,
Who was this? and what her name?

XV.
SONG CONTINUED.

Horror, horror gathers round,
Clouds the scene are veiling fast;
Darkness, dismal and profound,
Hath her robe around them cast.

117

Hid the canopy—no eye
Now may pierce the gloominess,
Nor one blessed ray descry,—
All is black and fathomless.

Sun, and moon, and stars, have faded,
Showers of ashes ceaseless fall,
Central night hath day pervaded,
Nature dead beneath her pall.

Then the flame sulphureous, guiding,
Lure we on the wilder'd one,
Till his heedless footstep sliding
His last race on earth is run.

XVI.
SONG CONTINUED.

Horror, horror darker gathers,
Hunger fury lends despair,
Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers,
Own no tie of nature there.

Than the famish'd lioness,
For a wilder deed prepar'd,
On for food to death they press,
And destroy whom we had spar'd!

Two towards the dying flame
Of a cottage, darkling led,
By the lurid embers came,
And each hollow face survey'd;—

118

One a female;—she had caught
From a dying man his food;
There an infant's corse she brought,
Mangled, streaming in its blood.

Fitful blazing as the fire
On each wasted visage shone,
She beheld that infant's sire—
She beheld her new-born son!

They had lov'd as few can love;
Not one year he call'd her spouse,
Since the marriage wreath was wove,
Since that cottage heard their vows.

On the spot that saw them wed
Warr'd they for the babe's remains,
Tore away the reeking head,
Eager suck'd its famish'd veins.

Gorg'd they, till in death they sunk—
E'en we shudder'd at the sight,
Horror-struck, away we shrunk,
Wandering in that awful night.

Soon, hurra! the fiend's dominion
Uncontrol'd on earth shall be;
Soon, hurra! on whirlwind's pinion,
Mount we for our revelry!

XVII.

Sore Lodowick had toil'd, and long,
While still awoke the demon song.

119

Now wider that dark channel grew,
And suffocating, round him blew
Sulphureous currents,—and he might
Afar descry a pale blue light:—
So lately lur'd, will he agen,
Trust hope within this fearful den?
It was not hope—it was the burst
That darts man on to dare the worst—
To brave all peril—rash, to pry
Into the realms of mystery.

XVIII.

He trac'd the beam—through a rift it stole—

See the wonderful history of Dr. Faustus, how he was sold to the devil, &c.

He gaz'd—heaven help th' unpardon'd soul!
The pit was deep, and high, and wide—
Blue wreathing flames on every side
Curtain and canopy, unfolding
Upon the eye that ach'd, beholding;
A pageantry, the cheek to blanch,
And freeze the heart of warrior staunch,—
Dire mockery of the festive hall—
The mountain spirits' trysting place;—
The livid glare confounded all
The movements of that damned race;
But earnest strove he to dispel
The mist that on his eyelids fell,
And mark'd he flitting, undefined
Fantastic shapes below,
And round and round again they wind,
All dizzily they go.
And there was of flame a crawling ring
Their giddy goings circuiting;

120

All around it snakes were hissing
Slimy fold in fold caressing;
Lizards dragg'd their nauseous mire
Creeping countless round the fire;
Living members there he spied,
Sever'd from corses putrified,
And these around the circle leapt;
But from the liquid trunk corrupt,
Where the loathing worm no longer supt,
A myriad slimy insects crept.

XIX.

Another step the cavern treads,
Another form reveal the shades—
How?—in this infernal world
Comes there aught of mortal mould?
Limbs of man it hath indeed,
Of a goodly man they seem—
Armour it weareth—Mary speed!
That monarch port—that sable crest—
It cannot—ay, HE stands confest—
Or is it all a dream?

XX.

He spoke—
“Black cor'd and juggling fiends,
Truce with your foolery!
Him, who on my behests attends,
On this night summon ye!
Till mine eternal judgment come
I am your lord, and this your home
Shall quake and bow to me!

121

—Enough your dupe—O foul deceit!
Gall mingles with the surfeit sweet;
The ruddy fruit, with crimson stain,
Is fairest on Sicilia's plain;

There is in Sicily a kind of orange called Sanguineus, red in the middle, and of the finest flavour. Hill.

Sweet its core, with red imbued,—
Highest, pleasure, bought with blood!
The meanest slave, for fancied wrong,
May bid his bravo vengeance seek—
The proudest noble, peers among,
Must stalk all-impotent along,
Controll'd by demons' conscience meek!
—She has escap'd—her wrongs to brawl,
And he must live—accurst of all—
Both with my fame and peace to sport—
One blow had cut the story short.”

XXI.

Thus he spoke; in troubled ire
Answer'd him the conclave dire.

1.

We have no power
O'er Christian life;
Till the destin'd hour
For carnal strife.
We may but tempt—
Who holds his faith
From harm exempt
We may not do to death.

2.

Thou hast a charmed being
That weapon may not harm—

122

When battle is raving
Its terrors braving
Then spill the life-blood warm;
But in battle or peace
Till the charm shall cease,
Fear not earth or heav'n or hell,
None but thee can break the spell.

3.

Destin'd one!
Thy doom is done
When thy homage is said to the Holy one
Remember!

XXII.

“My bands in many a darksome cave,
Await my signal word;
Brief space shall see my standard wave,
And this fair isle the reptile's grave
Who dares deny its lord.
Yet, ere the whirlwind sweep its plain,
There is one lovely flower that fain
These hands would pluck away—
And taste its fragrance ere it fade;
Anon its beauties will be dead—
Perchance before its glory dies
The storm of vengeance shall arise
And bear it, where it may.
Mine is the monarch's fabled grasp—
Whate'er my hands unhallow'd clasp
Your care converts to gold;—
O gorgeous mockery of bliss!
My never-dying soul for this

123

To you and hell was sold!
That fades upon this icy heart
Which hope that lur'd me did impart;
And all the stores of power and pride,
And beauty yielding at my side
For me are chill and cold!
Mine is your dæmon grasp—whate'er
It haply touches, it must sear—
To life and hope it may not beat
Wrapt in a venom'd winding sheet!

XXIII.

“My soul within itself must coil—
Why speak its pangs to ye
Who wait to close its circling toil?—
Ye idle murmurs then—begone—
Or nestle here—with fiends alone
I may find sympathy!

XXIV.

“Let then my nuptial rites be said—
As fiends should wed—so will I wed,
And Isabel shall grace my bed”—
—“Now God forbid!”—cried Lodowick—
And all that pageant faded quick,
As the blaze of the levin red—
As when in the fulness of ripen'd years,
When the last trump shall shake the spheres,
Yon heavens away shall fade!

XXV.

They vanish'd—blackness fell around
Impenetrable and profound.

124

A hollow roar of mirth all strange
In distant echoes died,
And Lodowick was left to range
The solitudes untried.
And seem'd it that in chaos then
Were whelm'd the warrior's soul and brain—
Nor doubt—nor fear—nor hope remain.
If from his dream he ever wake
And blest communion e'er partake
Of fellow-man—again, if e'er
His tones are breath'd, where such may hear,
Where cheerful day's glad fountain glows,
What secrets can the knight disclose!
—He wander'd on—to stupor wrought,
The excommunicate of thought—
As seeing, hearing, feeling, nought;
A glittering on his eye there came
Of opal light and ruby flame;
But they fell on the brain's obscurity,
Like the beam, absorb'd that may not be
In the pitchy waves of Galilee.

The Dead Sea. See Josephus, Clarke's Travels, &c.

They cannot his clouded soul engage
That had purchas'd a monarch's heritage;—
There were tones of wo and voices loud
That had woke the dead from their coffin and shroud—
They fell on his ear like the trumpet's breath
That shall rouse him from the sleep of death—
They died on his soul like the murmur'd roar
Of ocean heard on a distant shore.
He trod where a snake had made her nest,
And the slimy brood to death he prest,—

125

The parent her venom'd tongue thrust out
And tight, his leg she wound about,—
He slipp'd in the slime as he trod on her head,
But he heard not the hissing fierce she made;
He shook off the living, madden'd coil,
As ye dash thro' the tangled forest's toil!

XXVI.

Is yon another luring ray?
Or is it a spark of glorious day?—
Was that the mountain's voice he heard,
Or is it the song of a little bird?—
Hope sprang again to life; and sense
Asserted her omnipotence,
As with wild joy, the cleft he tried—
When he stood on Ætna's giant side!
He could not bear the blazing tide
Even in the forest shade,
But he fell on the earth—and to the Power
That had led him safe, in that awful hour,
With soul o'erflowing pray'd.

127

SCENE X.
THE PEASANT

I.

O sweet is now the genial breeze
That breathes amid the giant trees;
Cool and balmy on his brow
Came the gales of heaven now;
They came with sweetest perfume rife,
Waking energy to life.
'Scap'd from dungeons subterrene,
'Twas as if the knight had been
Bathing in the floods of bliss
That fill the realms of happiness!

II.

And gentle is the forest shade
In all its blithest robes array'd.
Lithesome were its leaves to view,
Proud around the tall oak grew.
The small birds rais'd their woodland song;
The sportive wild deer fled along;
Soars the monarch falcon high
And spreads his broad wings fearlessly—

128

Born on their iron energy,
Till his course is lost amid the sky.

III.

O glorious is that heaven above
Unfathom'd sea of light and love!
And who but the captive its joy can tell,
And who can speak its praise so well
As he, escap'd from the blackness of hell!

IV.

O glorious is that heaven of love
That hangs its glittering arch above!
With joyaunce leaps the raptur'd soul
Communing with its destiny,
And fain would soar to win the goal
Of pure and perfect liberty!
The chasten'd beam that milder play'd
Errant amid the fitful shade,
And lent the foliage hues as bright
As beam from changeful chrysolite—
(Save where a browner hue proclaim'd
Where the lava rush'd, where the æther flam'd)
His eye could bear—and as he trod
Mid wither'd leaves and tangled sod,
Or cross'd the adamant's black streak
Where erst the glowing tide did break,
With bolder ken, the warrior strove
To mark the regions of his love.
On its tall sides a nameless race
Scatter'd, th' eternal mountain grace.
He climb'd a lava pyramid,
Where nought the boundless landscape hid,

129

And mark'd with rapture's rising glow
The paradise that stretch'd below.

V.

Around, how far!—all unconfest
Its bounds,

The prospect from Ætna has been described by Denon and others; but by none whose account can bear any comparison with that of Brydone. His description of the effect produced by the sun's rising is indeed truly sublime; and it is the more wonderful as it is in part fiction: for his fellow-traveller, Dr. North, who has been in this country, stated that they arrived at the top of the mountain too late to witness the glorious spectacle.

with the blue heaven blending,
Spread the broad ocean's dimpled breast,
Where many a glittering sail is wending,
Amid yon offspring of the deep

The Lipari Islands, of which Stromboli alone is now volcanic, although they have all evidently been so.

That restless on its bosom sleep,
Shrouded in their encircling cloak
Their billowy canopy of smoke,
And capt with tapering flame their head;
Here the fair island's shores were spread
With rugged rock and bold cliff blent,
Where turret rose and battlement—
The island guards—a giant host
That hold their watch along the coast.
In mingling, bright succession lay
Mountains green and valleys gay;
Tall ridges o'er that garden hung
And far their deep'ning shadows flung;—
There were golden seas of billowy grain,
Glad vineyards smiling on the plain;
The silver streamlets wound along
The emerald meads of peace among;—
There were fruits of every hue and die
That mellow in Sicilian sky;
Here the dark forest sombre rose
And gave the tiring ken repose;
And wandering, by its contrast showing
More fair the Eden round it glowing,

130

Wound about in frequent vein
Th' arrested torrent's iron plain.
Here lay, embosom'd in her dell
Fair Palermo's “golden shell;”—
Gleaming mid the mountain fires
Rose the hamlets' glittering spires;
Marble domes in ruin lie
To tell of ages long gone by;—
Sithence the Saracen had rear'd
Dark towers, that frowning high appear'd
On masses of eternal rock;
Stupendous piles! whose ruins mock
The feebleness of modern days,
The vanity of glory's blaze!
The convents' turrets oft obtrude
Above their hallow'd, peaceful wood;—
All tells of love and sympathy
And heav'n-descended charity!

VI.

Columns of eld! ye mouldering fanes,
Where wonder rapt, with silence reigns;
Fair feast of ruin! havoc's prey,
Spoil'd since creation's natal day!
Fair isle! how oft thy sons have wept
When Ætna's boiling bosom slept,—
Volcano fraught with fate of ages
Her darker warfare ever wages.
Still are its traces scatter'd wide,
Stern in their never-dying pride;
There is no rock unknown to fame,
‘There is no stone without a name!’

Nullum sine nomine saxum.

131

VII.

Lo!—they have pass'd—I saw the helmets gleam.
The dark crests nodded in the burnish'd beam:—

Alluding to the defeat of the Athenians under Nicias; and the burning of the Roman fleet by Archimedes.

And there was many a galley brazen prow'd—
The foaming wave their oars unnumber'd plough'd—
And now pale flight hung maddening o'er the flood
That roll'd its waters red, a sea of blood!
But they have pass'd;—again the sails I greet,
And hurling thunder, moors a gallant fleet.
Lo! from yon battlement, the mid-day dimming
A flood of light intense on high is streaming;
The ocean kindles as it meets the wave,
And fiery billows bear the galleys brave;
They fire the decks—the prow—in their ascent,
They climb the shrouds, and lick the firmament!—

Visions roll on!—the eagle's wings are spread—
Dark came the storm, the while the eagle fled;
Black is the robe of time; above its shroud
Now, spurning heaven mounts the crescent proud—
She glar'd and sunk;—still on the torrents flow,
While scatter'd relics empire's downfal show.
So, where the bellowing mountain's tides have gush'd,
Th' ascending pile points where the lava rush'd.
Still, mind's undying energies have woke,
And lit the darkness when the tempest broke;
So, from the iron plain the verdure shoots,
And laughing summer revels in her fruits!

Ye cannot die—ye mighty ones
Who dar'd the Amreeta cup to drink,
While puny empires' vaunted suns
Like meteors rise, like meteors sink:

132

Ye cannot die! though all may perish,
The trophy, column, whelm'd in night,
While story lives, while hearts can cherish
The memory of thy vanish'd light;
Or song can tell, in deathless rhymes,
Th' eternal boast of elder times!

VIII.

Proud gaz'd the youth;—and know'st thou not,
Amid the pageant, yon fair spot—
Those hills whose tops with glory glow—
That silver stream, that winds below—
Amid the oaks and shadows broad
The turrets of thine own abode?

IX.

A varying and a warring throng
Of thoughts and passions rush'd along,
But on the darkly gathering crowd
Flash'd, like the lightning on the cloud,
His country snatch'd from threaten'd harm,
Her vengeance—brandish'd by his arm;—
And wish'd the knight that he might be
The victim, when her plains were free,
In glory's lap that he might die—
For him hath earth no other tie!
And now thro' groves his footsteps tread,
Where the glossy beach its dark leaves spread,
The shapely fir, the light cork rose,
And from the ash the manna flows;

133

He saw a bird on fluttering wing
From her wonted store in terror spring,
For round the roots did a serpent coil

This incident is related by Swinburne, vol. 1.

And his venom'd tongue was in the spoil.
“Ev'n so,”—thought Lodowick,—“must it be,
Ev'n so, fair Sicily, with thee!
Upon thy fatness live alike
The good, the pure, the foul in spirit,
And adders in thy bosom strike
To taint the store thy sons inherit.
But even so, yet, shall it be
With all thy peace, fair Sicily?—
Shall beauty, valour, honour, low
Before the dæmon-leaguer'd bow,
And innocence her pinions light
Spread for a long—eternal flight?—
God of my fathers! nerve my blade
Let me the sacrifice be made,
The cenotaph that tells of me
Telling of rescued Sicily!”

X.

On sped the knight his anxious way:
Beneath fair Val-Demoni lay;

Val-Demoni; so called from the suppose infernal inhabitants, and from its being the haunt of the ancient condottieri and modern banditti. Brydone.

Her tangled screen the caves concealing,
Where murder gaunt and rapine stealing
In fastnesses unsearchable
Plot the black train of wo and ill;
And—or the peasant's fears belie
Their foul and damning treachery—
Deep in their unhallow'd wold
With mountain spirits converse hold,

134

The knight could tell—but he must be
Wrapt in a boding secrecy.

XI.

Hark! 'tis the voice of man—as sweet,
As the carol of birds the day that greet,
From a horrible dream when wakes the soul;
As glad as the sound where waters roll,
When the fainting traveller wanders lone
In the boundless wastes of the burning zone.
Ye sacred sympathies that bind
Man and his subjects to their kind,
Let but the links awhile be burst
In the dreariest breast, the blackest, worst,
Or seared by wrongs or fortune rude,
Your tendrils shoot in solitude!
Shipwreck'd in love, in hope, in fame,
His moody spirit could have given
Earth and her sons to central flame,
To the ocean's swell or winds of heaven
But O! how cheering is that song!
A kindred being, a kindred tongue!

XII.

I ween, that song was rugged and coarse
As the fitful tempest's murmurs hoarse,
But it was the voice of Man!
In his toil, by melody rude beguil'd
All careless he chaunted his descant wild—
And thus the legend ran.

135

XIII.
The Peasant's Legend.

1.

There was a wight of low degree,
But of honest parentage came he;
To kind St. Agatha they pray'd
For a blessing on their marriage bed.

2.

A fiend came by and the prayer he heard,
He came in the form of a roving bird;
His broad black wings he clapt and spread
As he flew above their marriage bed.

3.

They blest the saint as the hour drew near,
But the gossip scream'd as the babe did appear;
For an awful sight it was, she said,
To look on the fruit of that marriage bed.

4.

The child grew up of dwarfish size,
Huge feet, crook'd legs, and goggle eyes,
With bow-bent back and monstrous head,—
Such was the fruit of the marriage bed.

5.

The youth was moody and forlorn,
He curst the hour when he was born;
The fiend came by, and saw how sped
The curse he breath'd on the marriage bed.

136

6.

He tempted the youth—ah! well-a-day!
Aweary of man, he led him away—
Away to the mountain together they fled;
So perish'd the fruit of the marriage bed!

XIV.

“God speed thee, friend,” the knight exclaim'd,
“To a merry lay is thy story fram'd,
Yet 'tis a woful tale;”—
“Sir Knight,” he said, “thy courtly ear
Well, at my untaught lay may sneer,—
I sing of my own bale;
Of a lost, vile, abandon'd one—
God rest him yet—he was my son!—
But thine armour is soil'd, and broken, and torn,
Thy face with vigil and toil is worn;
In my humble cot, my lowly fare
Full welcome art thou here to share,
From the fountain head, the sparkling wave
Or the ruby wine, thou there may'st have,—
My goat's milk, pure and white shall flow
As yonder heaven-capt steep of snow—
But poor, alas! for a knight the cheer
Of a lowly, lonely widower.”

XV.

Well pleas'd tir'd Lodowick partook
Of the cottager's simple store,
He lav'd him in the crystal brook,
And woke to life once more;

137

While the garrulous host in simple strain
Strove his high guest to entertain,
His own mishap the burden still;
How the foes of God, the friends of ill,
Away his son had spirited,—
How his spouse had sicken'd and was dead,—
How his crops were blasted, and parch'd the sod,
His vines by feet unseen were trod,—
And the blessed saint, in wrath, he said,
For his son, no more would lend her aid.

XVI.

“Now, by my faith,” the hero cried,
“Mine host, I like thee well;
Go with me to the Dromo's side,
In peace thou there may'st dwell.
Messina's priests shall bend the knee,
And pray Our Lady kind for thee;—
Thy spouse and son may not return,
But mass shall be said, and tapers burn,
That brief and light may their entrance be
Where blest St. Peter keeps the key.”—

XVII.

He hath donn'd a cloak of russet brown,
A bonnet o'er his dark locks is thrown;
The knight and serf their pathway hold
Where pearly Alcantara roll'd;
Where blithe perennial hues adorn
The fields whence Proserpine was borne;
Where limpid, rush-clad fountains run,
Hid from the glare of the fervent sun,

138

Yet modest, as when chang'd of eld,
In tears, the rape the nymphs beheld;

They were fabled to have been nymphs who witnessed the carrying away of Proserpine. For the supposed historical origin of the fable, see Denon.

All pure and shrinkingly they hide
Mid the green surf their lucid tide.

XVIII.

Now boune we on, my trembling bark!
Awhile o'erwhelm'd in ocean dark—
I see full many a swelling wave,
And blackly yawning gulfs that rave
Beyond us—hie thee on!
I dare not woo Parnassian gale,
To swell my unassuming sail;
Better it is to hug the shore,
Than where rocks lie hid and breakers roar
To vaunt and be undone!
Yet, all unenvying, may we mark
O'er ocean furrows, the gallant bark—
Her boom uncheck'd to the winds she throws,
With bellying canvass proud she goes;
While the helmsman scans with steady eye
The clear expanse or the clouded sky;
For whether the breeze be foul or fair,
He knows his port—she must go there!
O gallantly, gallantly rides she now,
While the torrent is whirling beneath her prow,
And the feathery foam of her crested spray,
And the deep voice of ocean their homage pay;—
O would that mine were that broad sail!
I dare not woo Parnassian gale!

139

XIX.

Now through the broad lands trod the twain
Of the proudest noble in prince's train:
He rul'd his serfs with iron hand—
They bleed and die at his command;
The meed of toil, that the scalding tear
On the spurn'd hearth must be dropping e'er;
That the burning soul's indignant burst
Must wither the source its warmth that nurst;
When the son from his helpless sire was torn,
When the bride was widow'd and left forlorn,
When lust his foul and damning stain
Left on the unrespected fane,—
When wife and daughter were shrinking led,
For the sacrifice deck'd to the tyrant's bed;—
Ask ye his name?—'tis known beyond
His power's wide grasp—accurst Vaumond!

XX.

It was the solemn noon of night;
The pale moon rode at her central height;
It was in a dark and awful grove,
Where never songster told his love;
Where the peasant ne'er at eve would rove;
(For the simple loon, in its hollow tone,
Heard demon-shout, or sufferer's moan,
Or, in its wild fantastic forms,
Saw grinning fiends of coming storms)—
'Twas there they stood—but cloth'd were all,
Earth, air, and heaven, in silent pall;
An awful stillness! no leaf was seen
To change its hue of sable green

140

No silvery radiance through their cloud,
With fitful gleaming tipt their shroud.
Seem'd that the ray arrested slept,—
Nor through the grove one whisper crept.
Then shuddering awe usurp'd its reign,
E'en on the warrior's cheek—
Cold shivering crawl'd through every vein,
He knew what such tokens speak;
As when the curtain-fold reveals
Where the grim night-mare slowly steals,
And wildly shakes her spectred mane,
And rolls her fiery eyeballs twain—
The sufferer knows the blasting vision,
He would—but has not power—to shun;
And she, in her uncouth derision,
Mocks at the fever'd, trembling one.—
He thought on the spirit's prophecy,
And he knew that the EARTHQUAKE'S HOUR was nigh!

141

SCENE XI.
THE BRIDAL.

I.

Listen, gentles, while I tell
Of the bridal rites of Isabel.

The drug that darker powers infuse
Into that fountain's purest hues,
That trembling in its crystal vase,
In bright, yet modest loveliness
Shone erst, a darker tinge reveals,
Nor yet the quickening life congeals.
And O! with all of life or love,
Thy maiden virtue still must move!
Can magic sever the spirit whole,
Or part the individual soul?

II.

A lovely treacherous bower beheld,
With gilded scales, a serpent lurk,
While livid infamy, conceal'd,
Rejoic'd, prophetic of her work.

142

He hath not wound her in his coil;
The rose may still its fragrance shed;
Crime hath not sear'd the cheerful soil,
And the lily need not hang its head.

III.

But not again may she tempt its shade,
Till the vow is plighted, the blessing said,
That, like the holy man of old,
As chroniclers inspired have told,

The Maltese say that the Apostle Paul banished all venomous reptiles from the island when he shook off the serpent. Brydone.

From the fair isle of love and bliss
Charm all the venom'd things that hiss,
And rob the serpent of his sting,
At virtue's shrine meet offering.

IV.

Sick in his couch Rugero lay,
The leech foretells his final day
Fast hurrying to its close;
He bids them tie the knot of fate,
That calm, well pleas'd, he may await
His last and long repose.
The hour drew near: “O come, my bride;”
Thus spoke the Baron bold—
“Why wait the dull delays of pride,
A monster stern and cold?
No pomp shall mar the mystic rite,
Love spreads his rosy pinions light,
The gorgeous pageant flies!”—
Rugero rais'd his failing hands,
The Knight implores, and he commands,
And her last struggle dies.

143

V.

O many a winding stair doth lead
To that chapel where they shall be wed.
The lady to her lover clung,
For damps and glooms around them hung;
Torches threw round a dusky glare,
But no living soul was there.
Of solid rock was hewn each step,
In days to song unknown;
Their records all in mystery sleep,
And their memorial gone.
But on the arching walls were trac'd
Strange characters,

Chaldean inscriptions are constantly found in Sicily. See a former note.

yet uneffac'd,
And symbol wild, that all the lore
Of clerks all vainly might explore.

VI.

O countless are the steps they tread
Ere the chapel is gain'd where the rites shall be said.
Trembled each taper in the gale
The hidden realms unwont inhale;
But trembled more the bride, for whom
They flar'd amid the shadowy gloom.
“What fears my gentle bride?”
“O weary is this dark descent,
And I with toil am worn and spent—
Watching life's pale and waning lamp
And death-dews gathering cold and damp,
By a sick father's side.”

VII.

When shall the winding rock-hewn stair,
How distant now from upper air!
When shall it find an end?

144

The lady paus'd—“why stays my love.?”
“Vaumond, no farther will I move,
No more will I descend.”
“Now, Isabel, my own thou art,
Here will I claim thee, better part,
Of every life-throb of my heart!
Here at the solemn tide of eve,
And in night's central realm,
Our deathless destinies we weave,
And all disunion whelm—
One upon earth, till earth is gone,
In heav'n or hell, we will be ONE!”

VIII.

“Hah! where the priest? the altar where”
“The priest and altar both are near”—
Then heaving on its hinges hoarse,
The portal op'd, by unseen force;
Broad and deep the chapel show'd,
Where granite columns darkly stood;
The marvel, since the days of eld
What power each giant mass upheld.
All rudely character'd, the dome
Conceal'd their capitals in gloom
Of stones immense, the floor far spread
Gave hollow echo to their tread;
But other sound was none to chase
The awful silence of the place.
Far, in the darksome distance gleaming,
A many-colour'd light was streaming—
There should the altar be—
There should a Saviour's love divine
Be present in his mystic sign;

145

But the lady's soul within her sunk,
And all unknowing why, she shrunk,
As she look'd on the pageantry.

IX.

Is that a cross, the pillar bears?
Not now, as wont, its form it rears,
Recording agonies, that won
Redemption by the incarnate Son.—
—If cross it be, the sacred sign
Is prostrate; flames around it twine;
And, blasphemous, the sculptor's care
Made wreathing flames ascending there.
Is that the font; where believers prest
To dip their hands in waters blest,
And bear their sign of pride?
Deceit perchance of the shadowy place,
Boiling it seem'd in its black vase—
Perchance the distant light belies
Its crystal wave and purer dies,
But blood-red was the tide.
As wont, the lady stretch'd her hand
Towards the living fountain bland,
And quick her arm the baron stay'd
Not till it mov'd where that water play'd—
Not till a fierce and mad'ning flame
Shot thro' her heart and fir'd her frame—
Pierc'd thro' the brain and bursting head,
Intense and brief, it came and fled.

X.

“O come, my bride—the priest awaits—
Come, let us link our deathless fates”—

146

“Vaumond! Vaumond! in such abode,
Never did Christian worship God!
There is a whirl within my brain,
Bear me to upper air again!”
“O 'tis a maiden's blushing fears,
Mine antique chapel stern appears:
O let them not thy true love blight,
For so his troth should warrior plight.”

XI.

The lady in her terrors lost,
The mighty nave scarce conscious crost;
And, e'er her steps the chancel won,
All sight, all sound distinct, were gone,
For a mingling glare bedimm'd her eye,
That seem'd to mock at every die,
That tints the bow which spans the sky.
Seem'd it many a twisted snake
Breath'd forth each one a varying flake,
That wildly lit the kindling wall,
Where light intense outshone them all;
Where no embodied soul may gaze
On the uncouth symbols of the blaze—
It was so fierce and deep to see,
So livid was its brilliancy!
Beneath the serpent's foul embrace,
Was the hideous altar of the place;
And seem'd, that from the Isle of Bones
Were dug its grisly stepping-stones—

The island of Ustica, where several thousand Carthaginians are said to have perished by famine.

Upon the shrine she might not look,
But on it lay an open book—

147

While blacker fast, the sleepy spell,
In gathering shadows, round her fell,
A fearful thought flash'd on her soul,
That of dead men's skins was form'd the scroll,
And its letters bright were writ with fire
That was, and is, and never shall expire!

XII.

Erect her head that 'gan to droop,
Her silken eyelash slow rais'd up—
When a tall figure dark she view'd
Before the fearful altar rude;
The broad leaves of the volume spread
Before the priest conceal'd his bead.
But as the air his cowl way'd by,
The lady look'd on his flashing eye—
She look'd, and shuddering sunk once more,
Where her shivering frame the Baron bore:
She heard the monk's low mutter'd tone,
But word distinct yet mark'd she none;
Till sharp and quick he fiercely spoke—
“Art thou HIS, now and ever,
That when the bonds of life are broke,
The soul death shall not sever?”
—Then, as his dismal tones he breath'd,
Was a twisted ring around them swath'd;
The pale blue lights about them danc'd,
Burst one wild shriek from Isabel—
Deep came upon her soul the trance,
And while, before her falling glance,
The mists collecting fell,
Was heard afar a rumbling sound,
As if thousand chariots shook the ground;

148

She saw the streaming lightning flash,
She heard the unholy altar crash—
And, as the radiance pour'd along,
Faded the pale lights' charnel throng—
The blasted serpents wither'd lay,
With the blaze, the fiend priest pass'd away.
Again, again the avenging flame
Lit those foul walls of sin and shame—
She saw the massy columns move,
As when the whirlwind shakes the grove—
The granite masses bow and shake;—
Then clos'd her eyes, as if no more to wake.

XIII.

'Twas in the greenwood shade they woke,
Where first her orb's dark lustre broke
Upon the tide of day;
Two stranger serfs support her now,
Lave her pale cheek and icy brow,
And watch, the dark-fring'd lid below,
The slow-returning ray.
All brightly, through the quivering shade,
The golden shafts of morning play'd—
“Where am I?”—seated they the maid
Upon a moss-clad rock;
Winding his cloak his form around,
And bent his gaze upon the ground,
The younger stranger spoke.

XIV.

“Lady, chance here our footsteps bore,
Last eve, when woke the earthquake's roar;

149

Earth yawn'd beneath us; terror led,
Then down the cleft we darkling sped.
The lightning's momentary glow
Illum'd the giant-vault below,
Discovering thy senseless form—
Fearful, but transient, was the storm;
And, when ascending, we survey'd
Yon castle's towers in ruin laid”—
“Ha! then my father, perish'd he?”
—Now on the air a sound arose,
'Twas chaunted slow and solemnly,
Prolong'd and mournful was its close.
And mark'd they on the hill's wild side,
Where late had frown'd the castle's pride,
Slow winding down, a train
Of holy monks, who strove to save,
In that dread hour the only brave:
And now it was, the fathers said
The passing requiem for the dead,
When earthly hope was vain.
Midway a sable bier was borne,
And the mild breeze of early morn
Wafted the solemn strain.

XV.
Requiescat in Pace.

1.

O sleep in peace! thou aching frame,
Thou beating heart and tortur'd head!
God hath call'd them whence they came,
All the pangs of flesh have fled.

150

On thy burning pillow ne'er
More to toss disquieted.
There is tranquil slumber here;
There's no waking with the dead.
Sleep in peace!

2.

O sleep in peace! thou trembling soul
May God be merciful to thee,
Now thou hast shot time's awful goal,
The future's dark uncertainty!
From sins recorded purified,
For faith accepted may'st thou be;
And in the arms of Him who died
Thy ransom upon Calvary,
Sleep in peace!

3.

O sleep in peace! remembrance dark!
Deeds of charity and love,
Tears that bending angels mark,
Live on earth, and plead above.
But all that tells of good forgot,
Of sins committed, cease to move—
The grave that frailties telleth not,
For them oblivion's shroud hath wove.
Sleep in peace!

XVI.

Her fears confirm'd, the lady then
Had sunk into her trance agen;

151

The STRANGER'S tones recall'd her sense,
For such were those she once had lov'd;
That love was pure as 'twas intense—
Whither, ah! whither had it rov'd?
Their memory was, like the well-known air
His native mountain-echoes bear,
That the stranger hears in a distant clime,
Whom the hurrying flight of fate and time,
And the weary waste of waters part
From the land where still abides his heart,
She wept; and O! those tears were sweet
They were the first her cheek that wet,
Since at the baleful banquet, she
Had pledg'd the Baron's victory.

XVII.

And who will weep for Isabel?
The untun'd throbs of a heart of flame,
The wild mirth of the demon yell,
Are these her only requiem?
O, as the stranger bore her on,
How fair in her unfaithfulness!
Thus from her first, her true love won,
More lovely in her blighted grace—
He felt, that if his love had perish'd,
That once, e'en as his life he cherish'd,
That pity had more power to prove
Than all the wildest dreams of love.
Revenge! revenge! but not on her—
Revenge upon her murderer!
Whose poniard enter'd the pure mind,
And left a blighted wreck behind.

152

XVIII.

So whilom on the hero's son

Telemachus.

The warrior goddess rose confest;
All terribly her armour shone,
And frown'd the Gorgon on her breast—
But her blue eye its radiance shed,
And, while he gaz'd, his terrors fled.

XIX.

They led the lady, journeying light,
Where the convent's open gates invite;
They left her by her father's bier,
Wet with a daughter's holy tear.

153

SCENE XII.
THE COMBAT.

I.

“Summon the Baron of Vaumond
From treason foul and dæmon bond,
To cleanse his honour's stain!”
—I cannot tell the countless throng
Whose gathering thousands roll'd along
Upon the echoing plain;
As waves the serried grain, each crest
By every transient gale carest,
That undulating multitude
A mingling mass all anxious stood.

II.

About the barrier, far and near
They press its sides to gain,
Where the mail'd ranks with bristling spear
And flaming steel their might uprear,
Their foaming chargers rein.
Above, enthron'd in ermin'd state
The monarch of the pageant sate;

154

Beneath, an ancient, stern array
Were plac'd the umpires of the day:
Stream'd on their robes of sable die
The wintry honours blanch'd by time,—
But beam'd from every steady eye
The firmer glances of their prime.
The light from youth's inconstant orb
Is glorious as the summer tide;
But mists its brightness must absorb,
And shadows must its brilliance hide;
Keen—but not fierce, and cold—yet bright
The ray of age's chasten'd light.

III.

In sterner dignity uprose
Gonsalvo's form; where age's snows
For pity sue—yet awe inspire;
That lonely, widow'd, childless sire,
Whose heart pride would not break, and fed
The core on which remembrance prey'd,
That told of her, who all had been,—
Now worse than nought—of Imogen.

IV.

Now in the lists their palfreys pranc'd
As the shrill-ton'd heralds forth advanc'd;
The trumpet's pealing clangours broke—
With Vaumond's name the plains awoke;
Thrice, loud, distinctly sent, the sound—
While echo answer'd all aroud:
And as yon hills that circling sweep
Prolong'd the summons quick and deep,

155

Seem'd that the earth he would betray
Call'd him, the forfeit dread to pay.—
Died the third summon's distant note,
In lingering murmurs heard remote:
Thro' that vast crowd that hides the plain
Doth a stilly expectation reign,
As if they watch'd the appointed tide,
When heaven shall furl her arch of pride!

V.

Upon yon green hill's sunny brow
Flashes a gleaming blaze—
It shoots adown the dark sward now
Upon the eager gaze;
It is his glittering armour flings
Reflected day afar—
It is his coal-black steed that springs
Fleet as that day's high car!
And now he gains the circling bound
Where swarming vassals clos'd around;
In many a swell tumultuous thrown,
They scatter'd as his steed dash'd on;—
As when the billowy mists above
Down the veil'd mountain trembling move—
Successive rolls each mingling host,—
So, till that foaming courser crost
The barrier, from his ardent side
The severing myriads wild divide.

VI.

Forth from his selle the baron bold
Sprang in his coat of burning gold.

156

A priest before the conclave stood,
And bore on high the blessed wood,
Type of a suffering Saviour's wo,
Endur'd for guilty race below.
All vainly,—the accuser said,
For dark Vaumond that blood was shed!—
The old men who should doom award
Fix'd on the chief their stern regard;
And every knight's indignant look
Fell on him who his faith forsook.
Unbending, proud, amid his peers
His stalworth form Vaumond uprears;
With a swift glance, his eagle eye
Scann'd all the awful pageantry,
Then fix'd in sullen majesty.

VII.

Spoke then the king:—“Three years have past
Since among knights thy lot was cast;
Battling against the Saracen,
A youth unknown, I found thee then,
When from my crest thine arm turn'd far
The turban'd moslem's scimitar.
Thy arm in fight hath still prevail'd,
Thy breast in battle hath not quail'd,—
And thine was ever valour's boon;
Vaumond—now speak!—for here is one
Who saith thou hast forsworn the faith
Of daring knight in life and death;
Leagu'd with the mountain-spirits foul,
And purchas'd with thy desperate soul

157

These fair fields that have given thee birth,
Thy natal soil, thy fostering earth,—
To lord—when ruin's march hath past—
Dark monarch of the dismal waste.

VIII.

“Stand forth;”—he said, and from the train
A stranger stept upon the plain;
He strode the lists with stately pace,
Veil'd was his form and hid his face;
But his dark robe afar he threw,
And his mail'd form reveal'd to view;—
His vizor up, beneath his crest,
The warrior's features were confest.—
As from their long eclipse they rise,
Ran a quick murmur of surprise
Around the lists from chieftains proud,
And spread amid th' admiring crowd.
—Bright as the lurid whizzing streak
That riots in its path,
As if in vengeance it would speak
The joyaunce of its wrath—
So Vaumond's glance his foeman eyed,
Yielding again to cloudless pride.—

“Mine honour blasted in its shoot,
The axe laid to my house's root,
Forgotten in the soldier's care—
Forgotten in my lady's prayer.—
Now, from my fame's deep bed I come,
Dark caitiff, to announce thy doom!

158

Outlaw'd of heaven, by fiends carest,
An adder in thy country's breast;—
So may my soul acceptance gain
When time's dark verge my feet have trod,
Or anguish'd plead—and plead in vain
Before the awful throne of GOD—
As here thy falsehood I maintain;
Here cleanse my honour with thy blood!”—

IX.

He said, and down his gauntlet flung;
The Baron's sword from its sheath hath sprung—
With its point he pierc'd the proffer'd glove,
And bore the deadly pledge above
In scornful mockery,—
“So be it as thyself hath spoken,
As with this firmly plighted token
So let it fare with thee!”

X.

Forth stept the priest; and spake the king,
—“Now grasp the cross and swear

The form of the old abjuration of sorcery, taken by champions before the battle is as follows:—“Hear this, ye judges, that I have this day neither eat, drank, nor have upon me, neither bone, brass, stone ne grass, nor any enchantment, sorcery, or witchcraft, whereby the law of God may be abased, or the law of the devil exalted. So help me God and his saints.”

That no unclean, unholy thing,
By magic fram'd, to aid ye bring
Nor spell nor talisman nor ring,
Nor charmed weapon bear:
God and his saints to mark the oath,
Now, in their presence, plight your troth.”

XI.

Lodowick knelt to the sacred sign,
And kneeling, grasp'd the cross divine,
As he magic aid denied;

159

Light turn'd the Baron on his heel,
And taunting shook his glittering steel,
As thus in scorn he cried:
“A soldier's faith is his bounding blood,
A soldier's sign is his broadsword good;
Mine honour and my life I plight,
Sole umpires of the truth of knight.”—
—“Swear!”—cried the starting conclave,—“swear!—
Or now our pendent sentence hear,
That gives thy castles to the flame,
To deathless infamy thy name,
Thy life—to yon broad spreading bough,
Thyself to the vulture and the crow,
Thy soul—to the fire that fiends prepare,—
Knight! yield thee now—or kneel and swear!”

XII.

Fiercely his haughty lip was curl'd
As he grasp'd the cross, so rude,
And on the earth the sign he hurl'd,
And trampled on the wood!
Wild gaz'd in horror that abbot gray,
As in dust the awful symbol lay;—
Upstarted all that conclave quick—
His faulchion broad bar'd Lodowick—
Every sword from its scabbard swung—
—When the Baron's brazen bugle rung;
The impending steel forgot its stroke
When rending earth in sunder broke!
The warriors mark'd with wild surprise
Black plumes and glittering helmets rise—

160

On that fell day, with shuddering awe,
A second iron birth earth saw!
From beneath their charger's tread
Rose full many an armed head,—
Forth they leapt, the shock to meet,
Mail'd in panoply complete!
—Burst one wild yell from all the plain,
The flying crowd prolong'd the strain—
Frequent their footing fail'd beneath
At the sound of the clanging clarion's breath,—
And swords and spears among them flash'd,
And host to host succeeding dash'd—
To gain the lists was their course held on,
Where now the conflict had begun.

XIII.

Mid uproar fierce and discord loud,
The rush and scattering of the crowd,
The clanging din of shivering steel,
And that dread trump's awaken'd peal,—
Around the throne to guard the king
Firm rooted form'd a brazen ring.
In legiance, more than armour mail'd.
By the fierce bandits round assail'd
They stood;—as vain the foemen pour'd
To break the ranks that girt their lord,
As if they strove, the sons of earth,
To tear spher'd Saturn from his girth.

XIV.

Wild, wild, around the swarming plain,
Pale terror and confusion reign;

161

As when the faithful guardians hold
Their watch amid the timorous fold,
And the prowling wolves by hunger lash'd
Amid their fleecy care have dash'd,
Scatters the multitude afar
While nobler foes maintain the war,—
So, mingling where the helpless prest,
Rung the shield, and shone the crest;
There the thundering charger neigh'd,
Sweeping there the hero's blade
In its bright circle as it swung
A halo fierce around him flung,
A fleeting diadem of flame.
A deathless symbol of revolving fame,
That metes eternity, unchang'd, the same!

XV.

They fall—that magic host—in death,
They draw, like man, a fleeting breath;
They bleed,—and fiercer strife awoke
When the red torrents round them broke.
Prest by the rush, when first was heard
The bugle note, the battle word,
Mid flying serf and troop of horse,
All vainly there the refluent course
Strove Lodowick to brave;—
Yet he saw his foeman's sable plume,
The battle-star of wrath and doom,
Upon the breezes wave;
Yet he heard his foeman's clarion shrill
That woke the voice of every hill,
In their wild echo maddening still,
Its tones of fury pour—

162

As if every fiend exultant lent
His breath to swell the notes it sent
Like their own deep'ning roar!

XVI.

As the black billow on the rock
Spreads o'er the deep its scatter'd flock,
Was the press in severing masses thrown;
And lo! a snorting steed
All riderless came bounding on—
And now the warrior's wish was won,
To aid him at his need.
One grasp arrests the charger's flight,
One vault, and mounted now the knight
Plung'd headlong in the burning fight;
His hot soul kindling at the sight
Outstripp'd the flying steed.

XVII.

Blow echoes blow—blood follows blood
Beneath war's iron hand,—
As from the black leaves of the wood
Where the unconscious hero stood
Upon the fatal strand.

Æneas, at the grave of Polydore.

And still the knights their ring made good,
That talisman left unsubdu'd
Their fealty to their native land.
Still urging where the tumult grows,
Th' avenging blade cleaves thickening foes—
Still from the gorge of earth they wake
In that fell revelry to partake—

163

Till the mounted chiefs amid the swell
Show'd, each the rock's tall pinnacle
Amid the heaving wastes of ocean;
As firm against the wild commotion—
But wave on wave, with ceaseless sway,
Will wear the solid rock away!

XVIII.

Trumpet's notes are loudly waking;
Down the hill, like torrent breaking,
Pours a motley half-arm'd troop
Of hardy liegemen true—
To hearts, that hopeless would not droop,
Now hope lent fervour new.
That gathering mist with the war-cloud blended,
The thunders of the strife ascended;
And darker its swart shadows pour
Along the sluggish tides of gore.
The peaceful steel that bade the field
The golden hopes of labour yield,
Now, in the iron harvest cast
Plate and mail and sinew brast,
Flash'd in the day's broad eye bright gleaming,
Then rose again, all purply streaming.
All rank was broke—save that firm girt
That guards the monarch, yet unhurt;
In war's delirium then began
The desp'rate strife of man with man,
One wild, continuous uproar drown'd
The yellings of the bugle's sound.

164

XIX.

I never woo'd thee—thou! whose plumes
Delighted linger, as they shake
Fury's black drops in air—
When in the shroud of ev'n, thy spirit looms
To mark red murder wake
In central deserts drear!

See Sidi Hamet's adventures, in the narrative of Captain Riley.

When the pale moon looks sick'ning from her path,
And hunger's maddening energies
Bid thousand fiends incarnate rise,
And in the marrowless bones light fires of wrath!
Where the worn camel's bones are strew'd,
And living skeletons o'er the red sand
In their last struggle sink in blood,
Wielding with death's unnatural force the brand!

I woo'd the sober muse in shades
Where no unholy beam pervades;
Her fluttering pinions soar afar,
She cannot pierce the cloud of war.
Gentles, awhile your grace prolong,
I hurry onward with my song.

XX.

The sun walks high in his pilgrimage,
He smiles at the wars that mortals wage,
And laughing, shakes his golden hair,
While battle drives uncheck'd his share;—
Onward in his slippery course
Plunging, tears the gory horse,
Where vassal, knight, and bandit spread,
Lie swelter'd in their common bed.

165

And where was Lodowick? where'er
The strife wax'd fiercest, he was there;
His charger slain, on foot he fought,
And still his foe thro' the battle sought;
But morn had wan'd away, and yet
Th' apostate traitor he had not met;
Tho' he saw his crest careering proud,
And heard his bugle, shrill and loud,—
He was borne away by the surging crowd.

XXI.

He eyed Vaumond on the battle's verge,
A flagging few to the combat urge;
Then, thro' the slaying and the slain,
Mowing his way, he strode amain,
Through the hot ploughshares of the fray,
In the high ordeal of the day;
His bassnett through its circuit raz'd,
Resounding still the wandering shield,—
Till full on his proud foe he gaz'd,
The traitor on his sight reveal'd.
“Now turn thee—craven renegade!”—
No further challenge was there said—
Quick from his Afric barb hath lit
The Baron bold his foe to meet:—
—“Now with my blood thy vengeance slake—
No odds to combat man I take—
And parle and priestcraft all aside,
Knight—let our feud at last be tried.”—
Even as he spake, his foeman's steel
Swung imminent in its flaming wheel

166

Above his head—but its descent
Its fury on the keen edge spent,
Where, planted in his stounde unchang'd,
The Baron's eye o'er Lodowick rang'd.
He mark'd not the faulchion's wanderings
As round him flash'd its curvetings;
In his foeman's eye he could detect
Where'er the stroke he would direct;
His eye the planet his course that show'd,
When wrath th' ascendant's monarch rode.

XXII.

While fought the chiefs, the few, whom fear
Or chance had left in battle's rear,
Had but one soul, and thought, and sight,
Addressing them to scan the fight.
Far off—a lingering host that fled
When first arose the bandits dread,
With timorous footsteps gain the spot
Where that eventful strife was fought.

XXIII.

When, as the eagle bears his prize,
Cleaving midway the startled skies,
The hungry vulture's pinions slope
Riding the light adown heaven's cope,
And the prey his iron talons pierce,
—That fight of horror is brief as fierce!
Their fluttering wings in terror bear
Afar each living thing in air,
As instant from his pride of place
Drops one dread tyrant of their race!

167

—Too desperate is that struggle now—
Too swift resounds each furious blow—
The combat cannot last!
Where the knit corslet clad the breast
The furious blade of Lodowick prest;
On the broad concave's iron bound
The rigid steel resistance found,
And swift in sunder brast!
—Back sprung the knight in swift recoil,
And a wild cry went forth the while
From the encircling host;
Above his fenceless prey uprais'd
The Baron's temper'd faulchion blaz'd,
And smil'd he, as it swung suspended,
As if, ere yet the steel descended,
He mock'd his foeman lost.—
A hasty glance to the vanquish'd show'd
Where hid in dust lay the sacred wood,
In that evil tide by thousands spurn'd
Where'er the course of battle turn'd;—
Uprooted from the clotted mould
Around it swung in his iron hold;
And as it cleft the sounding air
At Vaumond's bright helm levell'd fair,
—The Baron bent him to the blow—
Ha!—where that harness'd champion now?—

This incident, the hinge of the fable, is borrowed from a tale of Lewis's.

An elf, all wrinkled, crook'd, and gray,
Crouching beneath the cross upstarted—
That mighty form hath past away,
And like unreal light departed!

168

XXIV.

Fell the uplifted cross once more
From the wondering warrior's guard,
As a rushing fierce and a wild roar
Above him in air were heard.
A wight the shrinking mass broke through,
—The mountain peasant Lodowick knew,—
And as he gaz'd the elf upon
He shriek'd and cried—“my son! my son!”—
Chatter'd that hideous goblin foul,
His straggling locks of flame he rent,
Then with a yell like the midnight owl,
And a bound, from out their sight he went!

XXV.

Another stifled shriek—among
The motley group the warrior sprung;
There lay a form, how lovely! prest
Fast to a kneeling old man's breast;
The peasant's cap beside them thrown,
Her dark locks round luxuriant strown,
Her eye half clos'd,—his grasp within,—
“Tis the page! Paulo!”—“Imogen!”—
Aye, Imogen!—Gonsalvo there
Supports that fragile woman fair,
While the coarse crowd all idly look,
All, all the Father soften'd woke,
As the cold iron melts the ice;—
His pride was nature's sacrifice.
Beneath the day, the shallowest stream
The first, reflects the sparkling beam;

169

And lightest hearts for joy that live
The quickest tear to sorrow give;
But who shall speak the torrent wide
That gushing came from that heart of pride!

XXVI.

Quiver'd her pale lips—but no word
The listless crowd of strangers heard;
“For this I fell”—a father's ear
Caught them alone; a father's tear
Fell on her sheeted cheek;
Then slowly op'd her eyes—their fire
Quench'd—to the fix'd gaze of her sire,
Their beamings such as show the cell
Where the world-worn anchorite doth dwell,
The sufferer's annals speak.
Lock'd was their grasp—and while they gaz'd,
So fix'd, that mournful glance uprais'd,
So deeply calm that passion chaste,
They knew not when the spirit past!

XXVII.

Away! away! to the battle roar!
That bugle strain is heard no more;
That sable barb away hath sped,
The steed and his rider vanished;
The bandits look'd for the meteor crest,
They saw it not—still the foemen prest;—
They sunk on the earth, in spirit broke,
Or they fell, mow'd down like the mountain oak
Beneath the sturdy woodsmans stroke,

170

While his scythe the dauntless vassal plied,
And the death-bearing chargers ride!—
They plung'd into their darksome den,
Nor more in day emerg'd agen—
Them let the nightly wanderer shun,
Or unassoil'd, his doom is done!
But when the mountain shades grew long,
That merciless and dauntless throng,
Like autumn's shocks in the harvest lie,
Their grisly faces toward the sky;
And on each whisker'd lip you met
The lurid smile that linger'd yet
Of fierce disdain, unbending hate,—
Fearless, prayerless, in their fate!

XXVIII.

That eve—the trembling peasant says,
And crosses him, and to Mary prays—
A phantom gray before him fled—
Like mountain deer along it sped.
Shapeless and rude, 'twas seen to glide
Straight up the mountain's rugged side,
And, in the latest beam that fell
Upon its snow-capt pinnacle,
Tow'ring into gigantic size
Vanish'd for ever from his eyes.—
Marvel who may—believe who list—
Unheard, he reap'd his dark acquist—
The sole memorial of his fate,
“The serpent tempted, and he ate!”—

171

XXIX.

And have I, in my idle time,
Spun for such ear the untaught rhyme,
As must, in words precise be told,
How when the war-cloud far had roll'd,
And when the phantom wild was gone,
That rose upon the altar stone,
When doubts were clear'd and far off flew
As the eye of love their shades look'd through,
When the pious weeds for a sire were doff'd,
And sorrow sunk to memory soft—
How minstrels loud their tribute swell
At the Bridal of fair Isabel!

XXX.
L'ENVOY.

And now, as eld in numbers sweet
Hath taught, to courteous minstrel meet,
He bids God-speed to one and all
On whom slumber's lightsome links may fall,
As the rhymer wakes from his lengthen'd dream,
And hails with joy day's rosy beam.

172

CONCLUSION.

Weep, land of plenty! for the faded hours
Sung by the muse in eld's romance sublime,
When Ceres reign'd emparadis'd in bowers,
In central throne, the boast of beauty's clime—
Green as the laurels, which the hand of time
Hath water'd o'er thy minstrel's hallow'd grave;
His music's echoes died in Maro's rhyme,
But still perennial shall their verdure wave,
While ages howl their march, and round their tempests rave!

Weep, land of glory! for thy heroes dead,
Heroes of fame, the boast of every age!
For him, on mind's eternal wings who sped
Beyond the indignant spirit's narrow cage,
And burning in his mighty pilgrimage
Ask'd but another sphere, to heave on high
Earth and her mountains; weep thy perish'd sage!
And weep, that bard so weak the theme should try,
And mingle with his notes for Sicily a sigh!

FINIS.

University of Virginia Library

THE BRIDAL OF VAUMOND;

A Metrical Romance.

PREFACE.

1. PART FIRST.

INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.

TO --- ---, ESQ.

PROEM.

SCENE I. THE CHARM.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI. Spirits' Memento.

SCENE II. THE VISION.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V. Night Hymn.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

SCENE III. THE TOURNAMENT.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

SCENE IV. THE PAGE.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

2. PART SECOND.

INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE

TO PART SECOND.

SCENE V. THE BANQUET.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

SCENE I.
THE CHARM.

XI.
Spirits' Memento.

SCENE II.
THE VISION.

V.
Night Hymn.

SCENE III.
THE TOURNAMENT.

SCENE IV.
THE PAGE.

SCENE V.
THE BANQUET.

XI.
Wine.

SCENE VI.
THE WARNING.

III.
A Female Heart.

VI.
Love and Friendship.

XV.
The Unfaithful.

SCENE VII.
THE BOWER.

SCENE VIII.
THE DUNGEON.