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

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—

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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,

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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,

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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.

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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:

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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;

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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,

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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.

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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.

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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;

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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,

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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!

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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

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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!