 | Maiden Ecstasy |  |
3
THE BETROTHED.
I
Her boat is scudding on and onLike a white shell hand-pitched from out the creek;
She holds the rope, her canvas flaps, anon
Is puffed like cherub's cheek.
Half smiles she while she watches, half she fears,
So fast she flits, so joyous feels to leap
Two waves as one whose jagged jaws she clears
That fall back empty as they prowl the deep.
II
A sculptured and stone-coffined raceBy ancient death in armour clad for aye
In her survives; that healthful, daring face
Mirthless yet seeming gay.
4
Splashed by the spray-lit billows, wave by wave
The wind is parrying off the water's thrust
While all she sighs for is that glairy grave.
III
A seigneur, watching from his bay,Sees two dark lines, with danger in their trail,
Bar the west sky, that, while she seems at play,
A gust may sink her sail.
More than his honour, than his life far more,
He loves the venturous maid and spares not haste
To push his boat out with his ashen oar,
As though the fateful moment were her last.
IV
She sees him, laughs, and drops her sail:He presses on, rippling the sunny seas,
Grateful to tell her love's alluring tale
While sinks away the breeze.
In lulled enchantment, boat by boat they sit
Mating their hearts though it be not to wed:
Hers gives she, but her sire has plighted it,
Whence had that laugh an echo with the dead.
5
V
Saith she, ‘Though martyrdom be oursThis can we bear: to us is daring given
Wherewith to meet the cloud that o'er us lowers;
It is as health from heaven.’
He answers, ‘Hope yet have I when alone
To breathe in me a courage from above:
When you are nigh that whisperer is gone,
Because it has no place within your love.’
VI
She says ‘Let us await the end!Tears that to dryness flow,—such were our tears
To drop upon the burning sands, to blend
With the parched, desert years!
Honour remains, through it can we behold
A world that still is beautiful and large;
Our fathers won it in the days of old,
Unstained, the heirloom passes to our charge.’
VII
‘When is the sacrifice to be,—Your love in mine, but in that wedding shroud?
She answers not, but seems to ask the sea
And darkly pluming cloud.
6
Her heart's life rising is again extinct,
As if her fatal promise were unchained
Only to be in stronger bonds relinked.
VIII
Sadly he says, ‘My heart is rashThat would your spotless honour even pain,
For not as hands can we our conscience wash
And rid it of a stain.
Oh! that some sudden turn of time would show
A way, yet open, to our hidden home,
Or point to the dark end, to never know
In its long night the suffering years to come!’
IX
She murmurs, ‘Oh! that newly bornWe now could see the way we might have seen,
Free from our own remorse and others' scorn:
And this might once have been.’
She lifts her sail, she cuts a wave in twain;
But the black lines have met, the gust comes down,
Her boat is drawn below the ready main
And lets her like a water lily drown.
7
X
He plunges to the burial plains'Neath the reft surge, then thinking not of death;
Not till the lovely lost one he regains
Who smiles without her breath.
He can but bear his darling to the shore,
O miracle of death wrought of a storm!
To tend her ever, though she live no more,
And in his castle lay that precious form.
XI
Yet she is his, her lips declaredHer heart's life to him in their latest bloom;
Yes, she is his, ah! thus! and yet if spared
More sad had been her doom!
His to the last, and now can human force
Not sever them! ‘Sweet lips, revive!’ he cries,
As at his breast he breathes upon the corse
That, knowing not its life, there conquered lies.
XII
Long has he sobbed to those meek charms,Not hoping now, when comes a loving stare:
She wakes enclosed within his tender arms
Yet feels no stranger there
8
‘Kiss me, beloved!’ she utters, and his cheek
She fondles as her arms his neck enfold,
Till in her quiet love again she speaks.
XIII
‘Have I slept long, for I have dreamedMy heart's life o'er again: its early ways
In one swift-flowing memory o'er me streamed
Into my youthful days,
In love with all until this love I knew.
When came a rush of joy, for then we met
And to your heart my heart in secret flew,
And still is yours, beloved! and with you yet.
XIV
‘Then, I remember, still I wentThrough my heart's life until a wind arose,
And o'er my sinking boat towards me you bent,
And being seemed to close,
But in your arms! Oh! in so sweet a rest,
I felt death's calm like life come over me
And hush me into slumber on your breast
Beneath those dreamy waters of the sea’
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XV
He saw she knew not how she cameTo be his own, and as the days passed by
None would recall the plighted lover's name
To her new memory.
From her heart's life the drowning flood erased
All but the one true love which clung within;
So was her pledge, with all its ills, effaced,
And her life changed to what it might have been.
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