 | Legends of the Morrow |  |
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SABA.
I
Death saw the ring with eyes ice cold,And clasped the wedded maid:
She felt his arms her heart enfold
And in his keeping stayed.
She breathed not and her eyes were dark;
But, while unsouled she lay,
The ring which tranced her left no mark,
So she passed not away.
14
II
'Twas at her bridal, when the ringOn Saba's finger slid:
The death-touch did it seem to bring
The pending bliss amid.
All dizzy, (not through inward glare
So blinding to a bride),
She fell upon the altar-stair,
And like a martyr died.
III
There was a calm upon her face;The love seemed from it driven.
Was it the ring whose hard embrace
Had with her passion striven,
15
And chilled her blood to ice,
And, serpent-like, whose coil had crushed
Her heart within its vice?
IV
All sojourn with the soul that diesTill their one day of birth;
They rarely bring the mysteries
Of their old world to earth.
But Saba's land breathed frankincense
Whose balm can death delay;
So in her youth departing thence
Her soul came back to day.
16
V
She died amid her fields of myrrhAnd incense-feeding spice;
So did her soul keep nigh to her
In its own paradise,
Whose balms unto her bosom crept,
Though breathless and unmoved;
Whose odours on her bosom slept
Though it no longer loved.
VI
All watch her till in dizzy hazeThey seem to glide along,
Like those who, over-still, forth-gaze
Upon a moving throng.
17
To make a sudden stay,
And death within eternity
To move another way.
VII
A form so still, it may be sleepThat neither lives nor dies;
So well doth she her secret keep
Who through her transit hies.
Her life and death in one same glance
Do all beholders see;
Her life and death in one same trance:—
Which shall the victor be?
18
VIII
What keeps her soul, low-hovering,Of neither world a part?
They bid the bridegroom move the ring
That presses on her heart:
She breathes; they see her bosom stir;
She rises from the dead:
The spirit has returned to her,
Unshackled and unwed.
IX
As from the wonder of a tranceThe bride looks out; so cold,
The bridegroom, even, dares not advance
As in the time of old:
19
The colour leaves his cheek;
He looks, still doubting if she lives
Until he hears her speak.
X
He lists to her in more alarm;His cheek grows paler still
As Saba lifts her sceptre-arm
And utters thus her will:
“At my return art thou afraid?
Death is our common lot:
Our past was but the world of shade
So soon by us forgot.
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XI
“It is the country whence we hieAnd whither still we tend:
Alongside is eternity
Still toiling towards no end;
While shadows, piled in wavy shreds,
Among each other stray;
While souls rest on the downy beds
As on a sunken day.
XII
“There Death, that without rapture knowsThe being of the whole,
Seems still; but, ever rushing, flows
Against a mighty Soul;
21
Did reach the false and true:
The fatal ties of love unbind;
The bloom of youth renew.
XIII
“I am the queen of all the land,And Saba hath her will
While these balm-bearing forests stand
Which frankincense distil;
While these myrrh-valleys drink the sun,
And while the spice-buds grow;
While clear the holy waters run
Whence deathless rivers flow.
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XIV
“Here floats the shadow of the palmWherein the pilgrims rest;
Here doth the loving air embalm
The bodies of the blest.
But he who hath forsworn the vows
Of love's most wondrous tie,
Now to the final forfeit bows:
It is his turn to die.”
XV
The paleness darkens o'er his face;The hues of death are there:
She watches him, with queenly grace,
Who breathes the chilly air.
23
But hidden from his eyes;
He feasts not on the life divine,
He drinks not of the skies.
XVI
He stirs no more; in darkness castHis senses are astray:
Through deep myrrh-valleys they have passed,
But Nature is away.
He falls upon the downy bed
Where the old shadows rove,
And sinks among the idle dead
Too poor for Saba's love.
| Legends of the Morrow | |