 | Maiden Ecstasy |  |
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THE POETESS.
I
The poetess, with drifting gaze that floatsBack on her inmost sight,
Seems one entranced who only tells the motes
That dance along the light;
Yet holds she in her look the vales afar
Whose pastures doubly shine,
While burns her trembling mount whose summits are
To distant eyes divine.
II
As a still bird that in its stillness hidesSeems not of living things
Till its neck glistens and at large it glides
On its defiant wings,
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Where seemeth nought to move,
In thought enthralled she tarries, waxing still
As solitary love.
III
The poetess of maiden passion, she,Though exiled be her joy,
Can with a note wake its full melody
And her stray bliss decoy.
As in the windings of a hollow shell
Rest memories of old,
In her the murmurs of past passion dwell
In rapture oft re-told.
IV
Love's artless passion to a maiden breastCan none like her recal,
So to her brow, for ages there to rest,
The leaves of laurel fall;
And hearts in mourning to her mountain throng
To live again, to feel
Hers is the voice of an immortal song
No other can reveal.
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V
Her love, so early born, through childhood's daysIn beauty only grew,
And, in its ardour, skipped in passion's ways
Ere it the passion knew;
A torment to the hapless boy she chose,
Who shunned her but through shame,
While loving deeper than the blush that rose
When others spoke her name.
VI
Breathless she sees towards her lone mount arise—What phantom of despair!
Is it that he through those death-seeing eyes
Seeks his last solace there?
Yonder he comes whence spires and gilded ships
Are imaged in the bay
Whose light, blue-dyed in heaven, so plenteous dips,
'Tis seen thus far away.
VII
‘Why come you hither,’ asks the poet-maid;‘To reap a wilderness
Where is no vine, where olive tends no shade
To shelter man's distress?
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Where maidens yearly bring
To me their secret grief and solace seek
And with their sisters sing.
VIII
‘Here, to escape awhile the city's cry,They come, heart-bruised and wan:
The white-winged, crimson-spotted butterfly
Dies at the touch of man.’
She turns aside and goes a little higher
O'er the last mountain spur,
Then sighs for him unseen, her heart on fire
While his eyes follow her.
IX
She knows his face and hurries towards her peak;For, once he bade her die.
Seeks he the grave he told her there to seek,
Beside her now to lie?
He knows not heaven had saved her and had sent
The message-birds of love
To soothe her grief, returning as they went,
On manna fed above.
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X
A little while and he has slowly clombThe mountain path she crossed,
But nowhere doth he see a living home,
Or trace of her he lost.
‘Nurse of young love, with sunbeam wings thou hiest
And everywhere may'st be!
Peace speeds thee, and this broken heart thou fliest
In its sweet company!’
XI
Still for another maid he looks around,While up the crag he creeps,
And o'er the cliffs still sees her spirit bound
Where but a river leaps.
This, thought he, is the scene of sacrifice;
He shudders at his breath,
And, with her image living in his eyes,
Would follow to her death.
XII
One look towards heaven, when, at a cavern's mouth,On wings that earthward beat,
Two doves along the sky, from north and south.
With fluttering pinions meet.
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Who scarce perceives him there;
Though o'er her face his sorrow casts a shade
That lightens his despair.
XIII
Soft breathings issue from the cavern's mouth,Not louder than a sigh,
But lift his spirit in its thought of death
To dauntless ecstasy.
She lists, she hears his broken-hearted wail:
His shouts the woe-depths rend:
Now like volcanic rage his accents fail,
Now burn as they ascend.
XIV
‘Here did I spurn the lost one, when a childShe prayed to only prove
Her love eternal, and with heart enviled
I told her death was love!
And then I pointed to the mountain side
Where the black water leaps,
And bade her deathward with the torrent glide
Where love eternal sleeps.
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XV
‘The thought of her, in all her love to die,I can no longer bear;
'Tis bliss to rend it from its agony
And her brave end to share.’
She holds him: ‘Stay, beloved wanderer,
Thine eyes shall weep no more:
I feel the holy phrenzy in me stir—
Be mute the torrent's roar!
XVI
‘Look in my face, into my heart descend!Is boundless love not here
That shall not with this mortal being end,
That after shall appear?
Have I not died? Heaven drew me hitherwards
In my fidelity,
And as I leapt the gulf these holy birds
Upbore me towards the sky.’
XVII
She is a child again; as ere its floodShe feels first passion rise,
And rush on towards her glorious womanhood
In love that prophesies,
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And while the phrenzy glows
She casts herself with its inspiring might
On him whence it arose.
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