The Demon of Destiny :: :: University of Virginia Library

“High Heaven, by solemn oracles, of old
A gracious covenant with man proclaim'd,
That if by righteous means, he serv'd the right,
His efforts still should be with honour blest,
But if he swerv'd self-will'd, thence would to him
But shame, and penalty, and woe ensue.

“The recompense, like all that's ever shown
Of Heavens revealments to man's finite sense,
Is given in mystery, for not by aught
In Fortune's harvest, nor in wish'd possession
Of worldly circumstance, is it bestow'd:
Only the righteous bosom's heart enjoys
The Covenanted boon. Hence on his throne
The golden sovereign in his purple pride
Doth pine unblest, while helpless at his gate,
Some loathed Lazarus refulgent bears
A richer jewel in his hidden heart,
Than stars the apex of anointed kings.

“From age to age, that men may ne'er forget
The paction tied of old, proclaiming come,
With more than trumpets and resounding drums,
The heralds of the Lord, to tell the world
That still unchang'd the Covenant remains.

“Once when of late, in all the pageantry,
With which the Heavens invest their avatars,
The harbingers stepp'd on the trembling Earth
Opal was summon'd, with endowments grac'd,
To win such honours as had ne'er before
Exalted man, minion of Providence.

“As in the splendour of the summer's glow,
The tinted tulip brightens into beauty,
With time the gifts of Opal richer spread;
But he was wayward, and, while yet a child,
Bore the undaunted front of masterdom,
Nor ever mingled with the gay of heart,
Where heedless Innocence derides at Care.

“Oft times he, pensive, on the sounding shore,
Would in proud thought the vaulting billows ride,
Or wand'ring solitary o'er the heath,
In aimless reveries of immortal themes,
Think Hope was Fortune, and intrepid zeal
Power to command—ah! phantasies of youth!

“But most he lov'd, when Winter winds his horn,
Beneath the cliffs that gloom'd the wreck-strewn shore,
To muse companionless, or on the hearth
To read romances of stout-hearted men,
Of cities sack'd, and trophies won in war,
When monarchs harnish'd by triumphant victors,
Amidst the shoutings of exulting thousands,
Stoop'd to the yoke, and own'd themselves subdu'd.
For only themes of world-amazing Fame
Had e'er affinity with his bold thoughts.
Thus mineral fires in Etna caverns mine,
Till, with the passion of volcanic rage,
They spurn the mountains to the roaring sea.

“Alas! the blooms and garlands of the spring,
That wreath the boughs with beauty and delight,
Give no assurance to the vernal bower,
Of Vice or Virtue in their future fruit.

“When Time, the stripling, led to Fortune's fane,
That stands refulgent on a lofty steep,
The starry cluster, Immortality
Holds in her hand, to crest their helmed brows
Who strive in darings, twinkl'd, faint, and dim;
And soon the welkin frown'd with direr gloom,
Than e'er till then had lower'd upon the earth.

“With sleeves uproll'd, and to the shoulders bar'd
His arms Herculean, in the market place,
Slaughter toil'd grim with cleaver, dropping blood;
Round him lay martyrs, and men ghastly doom'd
Amidst an aw'd and thrilling throng were seen;
While wives and children clasp'd their hands to God,
Chang'd into widows and wild fatherless!
Mad to thunder, Revelry and Horror
Danc'd hand in hand; Guilt, bold as Justice, seiz'd
Its shrinking victims, and the shuddering earth
Heard Chaos coming, and with earthquake hurl,
Shatter the ramparts of society.

“Then dauntless Opal, with the fervent hope

Of Fame heroical, breasted the waves,
And saw amidst the darkness and dismay,
As 'twere a meteor-apparition bright.—
The midnight moon, within the ominous halo,
Is not so mystical as was that Fair,
Dower'd with the promises of prophecy.

“Her dower to Opal was a philtre charm;
For when he heard of her predicted fortunes,
All love in him, the love of self awoke;
And round him shone, but substanceless as dreams,
Visions of things to be—thrones, as the hills,
Ancient and strong, he saw crush'd into sand,
And Power, a streamlet, leaping from its glen
Become a river, like the epic Danube,
While, through the avenue of future years,
Rose domes and pyramids, as loud afar
Shouted the echoes of posterity.

“He deem'd the possibles of Fortune, Fate,
And felt himself exalted as a God,
Whose will is wisdom, and his wishes power;
But still his fancies were to mend mankind,
For he was conscious of his gifted nature,
And in his spirit's vast would glories gleam,
And nebulæ of radiant worlds to be.

“While thus he rose refulgent into fame,
He rashly thought that in predominance
Might should thereafter arbitrate on earth;
But soon by Nilus, mythologic stream,
Where wonder pores on hiereoglyphics old,
And everlasting structures, vast as hills,
The epitaphless pyramids, avouch
Colossal levers and preadamites
In times primeval—booming from afar,
He heard reveberations thundering rend,
And thus a doubt of what he will'd confess'd.

“What! if the covenant of old proclaim'd
Exist eterne, and Right be lord of Power?
Right ministers to good, good to increase,
And for increase the teeming world was made,—
Power without right is blind—can but destroy;
And if unbridl'd, what may then succeed?
This garnish'd polygon, the earth, which shines
In space immense, beaming as beautiful,

As in the boundless of the poet's mind
Fancy's creation beams, would then become
Such heritage as Death bequeaths to Night.
Yes! 'tis the nature of all things that are,
To prey upon each other. Unrestrain'd
By man, who only has the sense of right,
They would destroy, waste, and eradicate.

“Appall'd that e'er from right he thought to swerve,
Back he return'd to where his name renown'd,
Unclouded, bright, in morning splendour shone.
But carious ossicles and bones of men
Breathe no such influence of mephitic fume,
As did the guilty city from her crimes,
When, as a ghost at midnight, suddenly
To him reveal'd who writhes upon remorse,
The cry arose that Opal was return'd.

“All then obedient to his bidding vow'd,
And order rose restor'd, as when the word
That still is sounding through the void forever,
Bade starr'd creation ‘Be,’ and it out-glanc'd;
While Opal proudly deem'd that man would thence
Sing Hallelujahs and triumphant songs
To him, the true Emanuel of the earth.”

Thus, as the Demon told his mystic tale,
And seem'd preparing to relate the sequel
That would incite Salome, he was disturb'd;
For in the dubious midst of what he told,
A mountain shepherd, pelted by the storm,
For refuge came, and list'ning to the tale,
Look'd oft as if he knew what should ensue.

That pastoral swain was young, and in the garb
Of those who highest on the hills attend
The woolly charge. His eyes were calm and mild
As twin-like lakes that in still upland scenes
Reflect the clear blue sky; belted around,
He deftly wore a snowy toga cloak,
And on his feet were sandals beaming red;
While gently doff'd aside, but gracefully,
His cap betoken'd youth's desire to please.

The Demon winc'd to see him lingering there—
He knew not wherefore; startled by his voice,
As by sweet music heard in other scenes,
He cowr'd unconsciously abash'd; but so

Recondite Heaven its providence unfolds,
And seeming chance pleads advocate for Faith.
The mood of glory by the Fiend inspir'd,
Soon in Salome was chang'd, for then the swain
Began the sequence of the mystic tale.

“Oh never yet has been, may never be,
So craz'd an alchymist with his delusion,
As he who thinks, by slight or stratagem,
That aught of good may be obtain'd by guile.
While the wide world resounded with the fame
By Opal won, for order so restor'd,
All Hell rebellowing through her vaultages,
Prepar'd a gorgeous banquet for perdition.

“Upon one pillow when two heads repose,
Heaven hides mysteriously from mortal ken
On which its boons or banes descend. The Fair,
Whose dower prophetical so Opal charm'd,
Seem'd then no more to his imperial pride
An hostage worthy to secure his hope.
He cast her off, and made the sacrifice,
By Cæsar immolated in despair,
A bail-pledge for the destiny he dreamt of.

“Braving the probables of nature, then
He bow'd in worship down to Might alone,
And as an earthquake shuddering amidst tempests,
Deriding Might he scorn'd the Covenant.

“Ruth, nor contrition, nor the visibles
Of winter omen'd in the chrystalline,
Daunted his will. On he career'd—
A God in fancy, though in might but man;
And, startl'd, kings, on all their thrones upstanding,
Beheld him drive in wrath and thunder past.

“Still Heaven forbore: while Nature Winter rein'd,
And storms stood satraps to his royalty.
Afar was heard a booming brazen voice,
And wide and wild a scattering crowd was seen,
Oft looking back in terror and in tears.

“Mothers were there with babies at the breast,
The old, the feeble, and the orbicled,
Led by the young, ran weeping from their homes,
The sick, the bed-rid, on rough waggons groan'd;
While Christians, self-yok'd in the wains for horses,
Toil'd, lash'd by desperation, and the lame

Sat on the way-sides with their eyes to Heaven,
Crying, ‘God help us! help our parent land!’

“'Twas then that Opal reach'd the ridge of fame—
A mountain summit—all around him snow;
And then the Avenger bade the Registrar
Bring his archieves, and Mercy plead if aught
Were in them found that might appease Destruction;
But all was blank, and thence dismal ensued
The vindication of the Covenant.

“Winter, that Nature in her dungeon cave
Held chain'd, a maniac furious, was set free;
And Death came quivering as a shivering starvling,
And spread with fleshless arms a seamless shroud.

“Rash squadrons, plunging into fordless streams,
Perish'd outright, or grasp'd by ice, expir'd;
While on the frozen indurated earth
Stood veterans cap-a-pie, valiant afar,
But harmless as the sculptur'd effigies,
That grim the silence of chivalric aisles.

“Hail scourg'd the howling winds, and fiercely rose
Curses, and rage, and yells of foundering souls,
With all that Chaos and Despair invoke,
When Ruin strangles Misery in the dark.

“Ha! who is he that in yon hurdle sleighs,
While the pale frighten'd moon glares on the earth,
Or hides behind the cloud. Rising, he sees
The midnight kindling and behind the blaze:
His hand is on the shoulder of that man,
Who woeful sits beside his empty seat;
And hark! the leafless trees, huzzaing, wave
Their blasted boughs in frantic jubilee—
It is, it is, convicted Opal doom'd!

“He flies! he flies! the faithless felon flies!
The hiss, the hootings of mankind pursue;
Stripp'd of his merits, bar'd for punishment,
Lime, and the juice of guilt, gnaw in his sores;
And in his bosom, thoughts intenser burn
Than Babylonian fires of seven-fold heat.

“Before him, dismal as perdition's mart,
Extends afar the ocean wild and black;
And lo! the cliffs of his grim prison isle,
Where leap and roar the hungry surges ever.
See! see! on vantage, peak and precipice,

The gathering myriads of the famous great—
All skeletons, like morts—derisive grin;
They point at him with their long-finger bones
His hands are chain'd—Prometheus like he writhes—
Remorse, the vulture, feeds upon his heart.
But who is yon, the veil'd, that follows Death?
Lo! in his bronz'd eternal hand he brings
The pond'rous clavis of some torture cave.”

The shepherd ended; and the Demon saw,
Still more perplext, that his terrific tale
Had cleans'd the bosom of Salome of all
He had himself of Opal's fortune told,
And that no more by lure or enterprise,
He ever would, e'en by Ambition urg'd,
Now seek a recompense for being born,
In the sylvannahs of that beauteous land,
Which smil'd so heavenly to the setting sun.
So seem'd the Covenant to him unchang'd.
But ever and anon, as thus he thought,
His eyes askance upon the stranger turn'd,
As if he dreaded him, and deem'd he might
Be some mysterious incarnation there.

Meanwhile, Salome, with reverence for the Right,
Had, in the region of his native land,
Resolv'd to front his destiny again;
But in his heart Pride and Ambition then
Lay fast asleep; nor did the slumberers wake
When the young shepherd to his flock return'd.

The gallant semblance which the demon bore,
When they abroad on vague adventures roam'd,
Was hidden in the hoar caloyer's form;
And when they parted, at the shelt'ring cave,
The seeming father feign'd to bless and pray.—
A gracious spirit, in that crisis-time,
Prompted the meditations of Salome,
How best he might that blessed boon obtain,
Of sweeter odour than the Egyptian gum,
Which keeps the dead in everlasting beauty;
The recompense of those who with good deeds
Bespeak the plaudits of the wise unborn.

But such benevolence was as the hope
Which warm assurances to youth impart;
Or as the dawn of morning, that betides

Sunshine and revels for the holiday;
Or that more beautiful, great Nature's blush,
When smiling Spring round every orchard bough
Twines vernal garlands; singing as she twines,
Dreadless of blasts and withering winds that harm.