The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott :: :: University of Virginia Library

Sad Laura! dost thou mourn with me
The year's autumnal spring?
Sigh'st thou this second wreath to see
Of woodbines blossoming?
So late, so pale, with scentless breath—
Like lingering Hope, that smiles in death;
And, e'en when life is o'er,
Leaves on Misfortune's ice-cold face
The sweetness of its last embrace
To fade, and be no more.
Lo! June's divested primrose sports
A silken coif again;
And, like late-smiling sickness, courts
The coy morn, but in vain!
Lo! half the elm's rich robe is gone!
The ash, a living skeleton,

Deplores his yellow hair!
Yet, while the maple bows her head,
In mournful honours fair,
And while the beach-leaf rustles red,
Methinks the armèd gorse appears
More golden, than when May
Left April dying in her tears,
Beneath the plumy spray;
And, for her lover's triumph won,
Danced with her blue-bell anklets on,
And bless'd his burning eye.
Then, Laura, come, and hear the thrush,
O'er Autumn's gorse, from budding bush,
Pour vernal melody!
Come! and, beneath the fresh green-leaf
That mocks the agèd year,
Thy bard, who loves the joy of grief,
Shall weave a chaplet here;
Not pluck'd from Summer's wither'd bowers,
Not form'd of Autumn's hopeless flowers—
Yet sad and wan as they:
Here, still some flowers of Eden blow;
But, deadly pale, and stain'd with woe,
Like guilt they shun the day;
While Folly treads beneath his feet
The daisy of the vale;
Love's rose, though sick at heart, is sweet—
Joy's leaf is fair, though pale;

And worth admires, resign'd and meek,
The tear-drop on the violet's cheek,
And hope shall death survive;
But, like the gorse, all thorns and gold,
Pride bids the sickening sun behold
How blushing virtues thrive!

Oft, Laura, have we seen (while dewy Spring
Bent to the stockdove's plaintive murmuring
O'er shaded flowers) the lone, wild apple-tree,
With every bough carnation'd pallidly,
In some bright glade, exposed to morning's breeze
Some verdant isle, amid a sea of trees.
It seem'd to live on heaven's own sweets, and call
The wanton winds to kiss its blossoms all.
But soon, like dewdrops in the brightening sun,
Its fragrant soul exhaled—soon, one by one,
Its petals, faded into whiteness, died;
And, sweet in ruin, lay on Canklow's side—
The snow of June. And thus, when time began
His deedful race, the young enthusiast, man,
In first intensest passion bless'd, could see,
Where all was beauty, nought so fair as he;
But from his cheek sin chased th' elysian glow,
And turn'd the brightest hues of love to woe.
O Sin! what havoc hast thou wrought on earth!
To what abortions has thy womb giv'n birth!

When first thy victim, man, conversed with pain,
Love's purest spirit soar'd to God again,
And murmurs issued from the bowers of bliss;
But, when thy treachery poison'd in a kiss,
Hell raised his hands, and mock'd the throne sublime;
Hell scarce believed th' unutterable crime;
Heaven's brightness faded; and, with sadden'd eye,
The blushing angels sigh'd—“Adultery!”

In yonder glen, beneath the aspen lone,
A matron sleeps, without memorial stone;
And children trip unconscious o'er her grave,
Where, through the long grass, steals the lucid wave.
When earth was dark with fear, and, lost and seen,
The high moon glanced the hurried clouds between,
Like some blood-guilty wretch, who, self-exiled,
Wakes in the dead of night with anguish wild,
And, o'er the tree-tops waving to and fro,
Looks on the hopeless sea that moans below;
Then stole she from her faithless husband's side,
Sought Don's dark margin, sobb'd a prayer and died.
He waked not, though a hand unearthly drew
The curtains of his bed, and to the hue
Of ashes changed his cheek. With open eyes,
He slumber'd still; but speechless agonies
Wrought on his face convulsed his heart's despair,
And terror smote his damp, uplifted hair.
His spirit felt a spirit's strong control,
An injured spirit whisper'd to his soul—

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“No worm slinks down when I approach,
No night-bird stints his ditty;
Yet will I mourn thee, though unheard,
For now my love is pity.
Again I'll hear thee talk of truth,
When Rother's rose is sweetest;
Again I'll meet thee, perjured one,
When thou thy new love meetest.
While stars in silence watch my dust,
I'll sigh, where last ye parted,
O'er her who soon shall droop, like me,
Thy victim, broken-hearted.
And in that hour, to love so dear,
The stillest and the fleetest,
Unfelt I'll kiss my rival's cheek,
When Rother's rose is sweetest.”

O thou, whose wings o'er-arch the flood of years,
That rolling, stain'd with crimes, and mix'd with tears,
Whelms in his gulfs each unimmortal form;
Spirit of Brightness! proud to span the storm!
Thy word, O Love! bade light and beauty be,
And Chaos had no form, till touch'd by thee!
Though call'd of old the god of serpent wiles,
Thou source of sweetest, bitterest tears and smiles,
Thy voice endears to man the humblest home;
Fair is the desert, if with love we roam.
Where barks the fox, by golden broom o'erhung,
Where coos the fern-fowl o'er her cowering young,

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Thee gloomiest rocks acclaim, with greeting stern,
To thee the uplands bow their feathery fern:
Shaking the dewdrop from his raptured wings,
The waking thrush salutes his mate, and sings;
With amorous lays the glad lark climbs the sky,
And Heaven to earth pours down his melody.
But in thy name when erring mortals sin,
A plague, a cancer, blackens all within,
Till life groans loud his hopeless load beneath,
And the soul darkens into worse than death.
Then Love's meek question meets with no reply,
Save the fierce glance in hatred's sullen eye:
Sad is the day, and sleepless is the night,
And the rose poisons like the aconite.
Earth's verdant mantle is become a shroud;
Sweet Eden's blushes vanish from the cloud;
The rural walk, that pleased when life was new,
Where pendent woodbines grow, as erst they grew,
Can please no more; the mountain air is dead;
And Nature is a book no longer read.
Suspicion, scorn, contention, treachery come,
And all the fiends that make a hell of home.
Sold to the Furies, ever glad to buy,
Perchance lost man makes haste to kill and die,
Uplifts the assassin's dagger, and lays low
His idol, once adored, though hated now.
Then Horror's harpy hand, and gorgon scowl,
Rend the distracted tresses of his soul.

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He hears sad voices in the silent air;
Heaven seems a marble roof, that spurns his prayer,
Oh, for oblivion, he would barter heaven!
And self-forgotten need he be forgiven?
In thought he sees the midnight stake, the tomb
Delved by the highway-side, in starless gloom,
And the swift bullet flash'd into the brain;
Or robèd Justice and her awful train;
The fetter'd limb—the dungeon's agonies,
The scaffold—and the thousand thousand eyes,
All fix'd on him, whose head despair hath bow'd,
Whose heart is all alone in all that crowd;
And like a hooted traitor, wild with fears,
Who sheds from eyeless sockets blood for tears,
While, raining curses on his guilty head,
The rabble shout him to his death of dread;
Chain'd through the soul, he moves, in anguish blind,
And drags remembrance and remorse behind.

Sad as the marble forms on frailty's tomb,
The few surviving flowers of Eden bloom;
And must the serpent, Falsehood, hide, beneath
Their petals dim, the fang whose touch is death?
Hence to the fiends, thou glistering, fatal Asp!
By the long transport of thy parting clasp,
Then most adored, when falsest fear'd or found,
By thy dear coils around the true heart wound!
By suffering weakness, punish'd for thy guilt,
By all the blood which thou hast damn'd or spilt!

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And, by the victims, who implore thy stay!
False Asp, that poisonest Love! away—away!
Hence, serpent, to the fiends! or darkling, rave
In Bothwell's form, o'er Mary Stuart's grave!
Shed o'er her dust thy tears of blood and fire,
And in repentant agonies, expire!
So shall distrust from Love's elysium fly,
So, the worst fever of the soul shall die,
With all the woes that Herod's ghost could tell,
And Mariamne—loved, alas! too well!
But doom'd with Time to perish, yet shalt thou
Wrinkle with many a snaky fold his brow.
Though from his snowy pinions, never dry,
He hourly shakes the tears of poesy,
While woe shall weep, his wings are shook in vain,
And every plume must wear its pearl of pain.
To bards unborn thy deeds shall furnish themes
More sad than death, more dire than murder's dreams.

No fancied Muse do I invoke to aid
The song that tells of trusting truth betray'd;
Be thou, my Muse, thou darkest name of woe,
Thou saddest of realities below,
Love!—But I call'd not thee, thou Boy of guile,
Cruel, though fair, that joy'st to sting and smile!
Sly urchin, wing'd and arm'd, too, like the bee,
And tressed with living gold—I call'd not thee!
But thee, sweet profligate, who gavest all—
Peace, earth, and Heav'n—for poison'd fire and gall!

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Thee, thee, thou weeping Magdalene, I call!
Alas! o'er thee hath rush'd th' avenging blast;
Through thee the arrows of the grave have pass'd!
Avaunt! thou palest daughter of Despair!
If thou art Love, what form doth Horror wear?
Yet stay! I know thee: in thy faded eye
The light of beauty lingers—soon to die:
Known by the worm that feedeth on the heart,
Stay, guilty Magdalene! we must not part
Till I have told this saddest tale of thine,
And steep'd in tears each slow, complaining line.
For what is sinful passion, but the lamp
That gilds the vapours of a dungeon damp,
And cheers the gloom awhile, with fatal light,
Only to leave at last a deeper night,
And make the darkness horror? Yet for this,
This shadowy glimmering of a troubled bliss,
Insensate man, peace, joy, and hope foregoes;
Reckless, he plunges into cureless woes,
Buys fleeting pleasure with enduring pain,
And, drunk with poison, weeps to drink again.

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BOOK II.

How, in this wild night, fares the malcontent?
Beneath what pine, by bolt and whirlwind rent,
Seeks he to shelter his devoted form?
Or, on what rock does he contemn the storm,
And shrink from human faces? Cromwell dead,
And Charles restored, to northern isles he fled,
And vainly hoped (a cavern'd wolf) to dwell,
Where reigns the monarch eagle o'er the dell,
In hideous safety. But the billows wide
Yearn to divulge the restless wretch they hide;
And ocean doth but mock him with the roar
Of waves cast high between him and the shore
Of verdant England. Wander where he will,
Proclaim'd a traitor, dogg'd and hunted still,
Swift comes the end, a struggle and a groan,
Death by the hangman's hand, or by his own.

There is a cavern midway in the rock
That bears, unmoved, the wave's eternal shock;
'Tis called the Pirate's Den: gigantic stones
Hide the dark entrance; and above them groans,
In every blast, a time-defying-tree,
Twin-brother of the crag. Sublimity,
Lean'd on his arm, beneath it sits, and sees
The bay of shipwreck, where the woful breeze

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Murmurs, prophetic of the seaman's knell,
And screams the petrel o'er the hollow swell.
Full many a shrub, sequester'd, blooms around;
The cluster'd Loveage decks the rugged ground;
And o'er the rustic carpet, wrought in flowers,
The osprey's wing a snow of blossom showers.
It is a scene so lonely and so fair—
The winds, enamour'd, love to loiter there,
Stoop to salute the sea-pink, as they pass,
And coldly kiss the ever-waving grass.
The roof within, Cathedral-like, ascends
Sublimely arch'd and vaulted high, and bends
O'er pillars vast its sparry curtains grand,
Whose gems unnumber'd shine on every hand
Bright as the plumage of a seraph's wing:
Behold a palace meet for Ocean's King!
But he who lies in troubled sleep beside
The central fire, that casts its radiance wide,
Making with darkness and reflected light
A starry roof, and imitated night,
Most awful in its grandeur—What is he?
What slumbering wretch, escaped the stormy sea,
Who, when his comrades sank to rise no more,
Sent his wild laugh th' affrighted billows o'er?
What mortal slave of sorrow, love, or hate,
Cast on the strand alive to execrate
The storm that was not fatal, and the wave
That did not make the howling foam his grave?

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'Tis Moreland, passion's victim from his birth,
Who, like the murderer Cain, hath roam'd the earth.
He, self-deceived, deems man a dungeon'd slave,
While Fate, the gaoler, hears the captive rave;
Smiling to see him roll his eyes in vain,
And grind his teeth, and shake th' insulting chain;
And writhe in fury, like a self-stung snake,
And stamp upon his tombstone but to wake
The echoes of his prison-house of woe.
Victim of passion! hast thou found it so?
Evil must come of evil; and, too late,
Thou call'st the fruit of crime and folly, “Fate.”

Sleep, but not rest! Lo! o'er his features spread
An earthly darkness grows; and pallid dread
Smites every lock and every limb amain.
His bristling hair is damp with fear and pain;
And while without the deepening thunders roll,
He seems to hear the tempest in his soul.
O God! 'tis dreadful! Nature's self doth quake
As though her final hour were come; and shake
E'en like the felon, whom th' offended laws
Have doom'd to die. And now the soundless pause
Locks the suspended soul in icy fear,
While Conscience whispers, “God, thy hand is here.”
Again the billows are conflicting light:
The evil Angels have a dance to-night,
That shakes the centre! O'er the booming bay
Again the sound, re-echoing, dies away;

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And still that sleeper trembles! In his dreams
Sees he the flaming storm that wildly gleams
O'er ocean's wildness? Wretch! no common woe
Hath stamp'd the curse of Cain upon thy brow.
Hark! in those horrid accents shriek'd Despair!
He rises:—Hath the lightning singed his hair?
Lo! from the ground he leaps in pale surprise,
And veils, with lifted hands, his dazzled eyes;
And now he starts to find himself alone!
The hideous phantoms of his sleep are gone:
In low and interrupted words he speaks
His troubled thoughts; and to the wave that breaks
Heard in the pauses of the storm below,
Mutters his guilt and recollected woe.

“Again I am alone. Long have I been
Alone in crowds, and alien to the scene
Where the world's bustling minions shoulder'd me,
Outliving joy and hope itself, to be
My own tormentor; and in vain to curse
The heart's blank solitude—a hell far worse
Than that which bigots fear. I have endured,
I still endure—though not in hope; immured,
In dark reflection, scowling on the past,
Fearing the future; and, if man is cast,
Like a frail weed upon the waters wide,
Rising and falling with the faithless tide,
Life is endurance. Best is he who sinks,
And sinks at once. The humble floweret shrinks,

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And dies uprooted when the gloomy hour
Holds converse with the storm. But, cursed with power,
Th' etersial pine, coeval with his rocks,
In gloomy stateliness triumphant, mocks
Heaven's baffled wing; yet stands, with tresses rent,
Tremendous, undesired, a monument
Of vengeance! O'er calamity and crime,
O'er feeling victor, I arose sublime
And tranquil, though terrific. Now I roam
Where pirates lurk, making the sea-bird's home
My alpine fortress, and the blast my page.
To me the deep pays tribute in his rage.
Me, on his rocks impregnable, the Hern
Beholds in dread amaze; and from the fern
Looks forth the astonish'd fox with fading eyes,
Yells o'er the cliffs, and, wing'd with terror, flies.

“Yet courage here avails, and everywhere,
And all things may be vanquish'd, but despair;
For, though 'tis vain to fly from certain doom,
There is a Power which cannot be o'ercome—
The dreadless heart that will not. Black and vast
Let vengeance ride upon the rabid blast;
Let the storm smite his hands together; loud
The fiery bolt may thunder from the cloud—
‘But not for ever!’ Hope exclaims to Fear:
‘When night's cold cheek is coldest, morn is near:

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Beneath her heavy wind and pelting rain,
Low droops the flower that yet shall smile again;
And while the coward trembles in dismay,
The brave look eastward, and behold 'tis day!’

“But I shall hear Hope's angel voice no more:
Sternly I bear, as valour ever bore,
The evil that admits no cure; and scorn
All-shunn'd complaint. Hope saw Duration born,
And never should desert him till he dies;
But, falsely call'd the wretch's friend, she flies
When man is doom'd with cureless ills to cope;
All but the wretched have a friend in Hope.
Yet while she smiles on Nature's common woe,
And plants the storm with flowers that sometimes blow,
Why should I rave, though here they will not grow?
Alike averse to murmur and to weep,
Still in despite of thunder, I can sleep,
Though rest is for the happy. Come what may,
The past is past, nor will the future stay,
Though man, or fiend, or god obstruct her way.

“I wore my youth in dreams on Pleasure's breast;
My sleep was sinful, and I woke unbless'd:
Most wretched, and deserving so to be,
I darkly suffer, but not sullenly.
I have rejoiced and sorrow'd; I have proved
Th' extremes of fate, ‘have loved, and been beloved.’
What fallen angel, not without a tear,
And piteous wafture of that hand most dear,

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And frantic locks, and looks where love yet lives,
Smiles on my soul, and pities and forgives,
Even while she mourns the hour when first she fell
To guilt and shame? I know thee, wrong'd one, well!
Cursed be the tongue that utters ill of thee!
I found thee fond as fair: and I will be
Still faithful to thy memory, and disdain
The lying penitence of fear and pain.
Ye woodbine bowers, where oft, with throbbing heart,
We met in ecstasy, in tears to part!
Oh, woods of Darnal! ye no more shall see
The matron tall who loved your shades for me;
Love-listening Rother, thou wilt hear no more
Her guilty whisper on thy silent shore!
As when she trembled, hung her head, and wept,
Sweet as the flower on which the moonbeam slept,
Wan as the snow-white rose in Catliffe's vale,
But not, like it, in stainless meekness pale.
Scenes of my youth! 'tis sadly sweet to look
Back on your paths, and read, as in a book,
Where painting's magic brings the path to view,
A witching story, mournful and too true;
A tale of other times, when life was young,
And passion's heavenly harp was newly strung.

“Yet deeds on memory's faithful tablet live
Which man cannot forget, nor God forgive.

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Still to my soul returns the hour deplored
When I became a traitor, fear'd, abhorr'd,
And fiercely fought, and fought against the throne,
By gloomy, envious malice urged alone.
No love of freedom fired my stormy breast:
I deem'd the patriot half a fool at best.
I scorn'd his shallow hope, his honest zeal,
I mock'd the virtues which I could not feel.
No sacred ardour sanctified the deed,
And nerved my arm to make a tyrant bleed;
But a base lust to trample on the great,
A fiendish instinct, a demoniac hate.

“Whence was that sound? It came not from below;
There none but wanderers of the waves can go:
Hush!—many voices hath the stormy sea.
I tremble—do I tremble causelessly?
Death, I have heard thy shout, and seen thy frown,
When stooping Slaughter mow'd his thousands down;
And I have couch'd beside the sever'd limb,
When Horror call'd on night to cover him,
And thou wast dreadful then. But for this hour
Hast thou reserved thy soul-subduing power:
Thee never, Death, did I invoke, but still
I bow'd to mightiest circumstance my will;
And, in the darkest hour and stormiest shade,
Look'd ever calmly for the dawn delay'd.

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Yet would that thou hadst laid me with the slain,
Where England's bravest fell on Marston's plain;
Little they fear'd thee, King of Terrors, then,
Now not at all: for in the war of men
They fought, and, shouting, died. But thus to meet
Thy certain aim, and count thy coming feet,
While the half bloodless heart forgets to beat—
To meet thee thus, O Death! is terrible!
Hush!—the hoarse cry is drown'd in ocean's yell.
Hark!—voices, murmurs, and the steps of men!
What! will they storm the lion in his den?
Hither my evil Angel led my feet,
And here deserted me. But, from retreat
Cut off, I still can rush upon the foe;
And bold shall be the arm that lays me low,”
He said, and rush'd into the darkness lone,
And from his scabbard flash'd his falchion, known
By many a deathful deed in fields of blood,
Where guileful Cromwell's iron warriors stood
Like wave-girt rocks that spurn th' assailing sea.
Through rifted clouds the moon look'd fearfully,
On ocean's mountain'd plain and frantic foam,
And rocks and caves—the ocean-prowler's home.
He listen'd—but he heard no human sound;
He spoke—but none replied; he gazed around,
And half expected, on night's rushing wing,
To meet the frown of some unearthly thing.

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Lo! in the light a dangerous pavement lay,
Bright, dewy, cold, th' eternal marble grey!
And, at his feet, with bare and hoary head,
Expiring, gasp'd the object of his dread.
O'er no arm'd spy, by kingly vengeance sent—
O'er dying Age reclined the Malcontent,
Raised in his arms the panting wretch he bore,
And laid him on the cavern's gleaming floor;
But as he stoop'd beside the fire to bare
The ice-cold limbs, and wring the dripping hair,
Glanced o'er the stranger's brow his troubled eye,
And, shuddering, he arose, and raised a cry
Of terror; backward sinking on his knee,
With lifted hands, like one who starts to see
The features of the murder'd on his way,
And, bent on flight, but palsied by dismay,
Falls chain'd to what he dreads. Why shrank the bold,
Appall'd by weakness, weaponless, and old?
Because he saw in that expiring man
An injured friend. In youth their love began—
A love that, save in Heaven, could not endure;
So warm it was, so passionately pure,
More like the love of angels than of men;
And both were bless'd, for both were guiltless then,
And one was guiltless still. He, wise in vain,
Sow'd hope and love, but reap'd despair and pain;
And too severely wrong'd to be forgiven,
Now stood between the Malcontent and Heaven.

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By seas divided, and by years of pain,
To part for ever, lo! they met again!
And Moreland's gloomy spirit seem'd to mourn
O'er hopeless hours that never could return,
And listen to a sweet and soul-felt tone,
That long, long lost, vibrated to his own.
The wintry frost of sixty hapless years,
All dark and sunless, melted into tears:
He watch'd the struggling sufferer where he lay,
And wept as he would weep his heart away.

BOOK III.

'Tis morning; o'er the billows glimmers grey,
The growing light of slow advancing day;
Restored to life and thought, the wanderer hoar
Wakes in the cave high-roof'd on ocean's shore.
Stretch'd near the fire above the restless waves,
With many a pause between, he weeps and raves;
Now sad his speech and low—now wildly loud;
And near him Moreland sits in sadness bow'd,
Turning, at times, his alter'd face aside,
The growing trouble on his brow to hide;
Oft through his fingers and the gushing tear
He views his guest; and tawny gleams of fear
Course his sad check, and to his gloomy eye
Give milder light and tamed ferocity.

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But when, with counterfeited voice, he strove
To soothe the dying sufferer, and remove
His mind's disease, and health's destroyer—fear—
Bidding him hope there yet was comfort near,
And that he yet his distant home should see—
Then Eustace raised his eye of misery,
And fix'd it on the speaker, with a look
That from his cheek the sickly yellow took,
And left it white. “But what art thou?” he said;
“My languid eyes, with death's dim films o'erspread,
Scarce see thy face; yet I, on some far shore,
Have heard, methinks, that hollow voice before.”

“Nay,” answer'd Moreland: “for, from youth to age,
Here have I dwelt in this my hermitage;
And made my feet familiar with the glens
Of unclimb'd mountains, and the perilous dens
Where the wolf sleeps, and wilds, since time began,
Untrodden, save by me, a homeless man.”

“'Tis well!” said Eustace; “and, my friend unknown,
Thou soon again shalt sojourn here alone.
A little while, and thou with up-piled stones
And scanty earth, shalt sepulchre my bones.
Oh, I have long conversed with sighs and groans!
Long—I have been acquainted long with tears;
And I am old, and older than my years.
But tell not me of home. I have no home—
The wretched can have none. I love to roam

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A wanderer from myself; and, had my soul
Wings, I would fly beyond the farthest pole—
Yea, cast behind me earth and every star,
And dwell in soulless, lifeless space afar.
Home, saidst thou? To the grave, thou babbler—go,
And ask the worm what home hath hopeless woe?
Home!—what is home? O read the answer here!
Tis not the hearth, but that which makes it dear.
I dream'd of such a home—that dream is gone;
And now I seek my home—the silent one;
For life is joyless, hope is fled, and fear;
Death, death alone remains—and he is near.
Life's glow, departing, yet informs my cheek;
Feeble, not feeblest. I have strength, though weak,
Enough to feel, in Nature's fainting strife,
More than all pain—this weariness of life.
O Death! how long? O let me—let me die!
There is a love eternal in the sky;
And there I may forgive—perhaps forget.
I do not curse—I will be patient yet;
Though they whom most I scorn'd contemn'd me most,
I will be patient—Will? Oh, while we boast
Our woe-tried constancy, we but sustain,
Because we must, inevitable pain!

“I know it well—I know I rave in vain.
What brought me hither, say'st thou? Love and hate,
A faithless friend, a woman, and my fate.

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I once was rich, nor dwelt beneath the sky
A flatter'd fool more fortune-cursed than I;
And Love's false morn was bright, too bright to last:
But, when the dogs bark'd at me as I pass'd,
And worldlings, if they met me, travell'd fast,
Ann tore at once the bandage from my mind;
I gazed on truth, and wish'd my heart were blind!

“I was undone! by Ann and all forgot;
Cold—naked—hungry—and she sorrow'd not;
Distracted—and she soothed not my despair;
Sick, and in prison—and she came not there.
Night was around me, and I wept alone,
Despised, neglected, left unheard to groan.
But when I rose out of the earth, and light
And Nature's face rush'd lovely on my sight,
How did the bosom-serpent greet her mate?—
With looks of rancour and with words of hate;
And wretch she call'd the wretch herself had made.
She cursed me to my weeping eyes—she bade
My children curse me! and I wish'd again
To hear the clanking of my dungeon chain.
But Julia was the sweetest child of all:
She kiss'd, she bless'd me, she alone did call
Her mother's husband ‘Father!’ While the rest,
Jane and Matilda, (though my own,) express'd
No joy their sire's long-absent face to see,
Julia—the youngest—Julia welcomed me!

119

Dear Julia!—on my broken heart she smiled;
Dear Julia!—wherefore was not she my child?

“But never will I drink again from cup
Made by the skill of mortal. I scoop'd up
The water in the shallows of the sand,
And drank it from the hollow of my hand.
Nay, do not think that I myself deceive,
But trust what I, in horror, must believe.
They gave me poison in my drink; and he
Smiled as I drank it; and—O misery!
I burn'd and lived; I burn'd—and yet I live.
God, in thy mercy infinite, forgive—
Forgive them if thou canst! and I will try—
Will wrestle hard to pardon both and die.”

Breathless, he paused; and Moreland tried again
To soothe with gentle words his bosom's pain;
And bade him hope, since life's worst ills were o'er,
Heav'n yet had earthly good for him in store.

“Good?” Eustace cried—“O speak of good no more!
It is a word that I have heard of—‘Good?’
O name it not to me! I understood
Its import feelingly when life was new,
And faith a child; for then my Ann was true.
But now I have no name. An eaglet fledged,
Or, like the homeless tempest, privileged
To wander where I will, I breathe on her
Forgiveness, mix'd with curses; and prefer,

120

Before all roofs of faithless man, the sky,
And envy every wild bird's wing on high.
A moment she was mine—one bright brief hour;
And then she fled in darkness! Like a flower,
Dropp'd from an infant's hand into the deep,
She left my bosom, and to troubled sleep
Consign'd my dreams. A vision bright and brief,
Joy fled to come no more! and, like a leaf
Shook from the bough when winds of winter rave,
I float and whiten on the desert wave.

“Thus was I left, but not alone, to sigh.
Though sickness quench'd the light in Julia's eye.
My Julia faded. Mine?—she died, at last,
And then the bitterness of woe was past;
For I had loved her better than my own,
Because she kiss'd me, when my soul bow'd down
By rancour's curse despair'd. I follow soon;
My day of life wanes nightward fast from noon,
And evening lowers. Yet, once more let me gaze
On ocean, stretch'd in wild morn's clouded blaze.
For Ann and I (she lov'd thee, Ocean, well)
Have watch'd on other shores thy hollow swell,
So brightly blue, so beautifully bright,
When every billow was a ridge of light,
And light seem'd life. But she will hear no more
The tumult of thy loud-resounding shore:
I follow next, for she, too, went before.

121

O native scenes, I see ye in my soul!
O England, green, where southern billows roll!
Ye towers of Sheaf, where royal Mary wept!
Ye banks of Don, where oft my childhood slept!
Ye giant oaks, that, from the adder's cliff,
Frown'd o'er the dark wave and my gliding skiff!
Thou, Wincobank, on whom the golden cheek
Of eve rests loveliest! and ye hills of Peak,
That softly melt into the airy blue,
And hear the lark beneath—adieu! adieu!”

Here paused he; but ere long, in accents low,
Resumed, with dying lips, his tale of woe;
As, whispering, thro' the gorse on Bretland's breast,
The dark March tempest sighs itself to rest.

“Oh, she was foul and fair! Yet once her mind
Was lovely as her face; and if the wind
Ne'er kiss'd a ringlet on a fairer cheek,
Her spirit once was, as the twilight meek,
And, as the wild flower's blushes, innocent.
Yet to the grave with spotted name she went,
Before the faces of astonish'd men.
I saw her strive with death, and wept not then.
She wept—and raised her trembling hands in pray'r,
And mine were raised with hers; for I was there,
E'en by her bed of pain. I saw the fear
Of death convulse her frame, and in her ear
I whisper'd hope. Then from her bosom broke
Sad thanks in sighs, and, sobbing loud, she spoke:

122

‘Pardon'd by thee, I seek my shameful grave:
Oh, still, my Lord, thy injured heart forgave!
Tender and true, though sever'd from my hate,
Thy love still lived, and sought no second mate.
O may I meet thee in those realms divine!
Or is eternal Mercy less than thine?
Yet will I love, and hear thee—see thee still;
And woe shall bow to my triumphant will.
Yet will I snatch thy whisper from the gale,
And o'er the gates of sin and death prevail.
What chain can hold the disembodied mind?
Grim hell may torture thought, but cannot bind.
And when, released from this disastrous clay,
To happier regions thou shalt wing thy way,
My soul, by rigid Justice unforgiven,
Shall weep, an outcast on the verge of heaven;
At distance see my children wander free,
And never bid adieu to them or thee!’

“I pour'd into her soul Religion's balm;
I watch'd her awful silence, and was calm;
And when she raised her eye, resign'd and meek,
Warm on my wither'd hand, and woe-worn cheek,
I felt her last—last tear. She spoke no more:
The sinful sufferer's many pangs were o'er,
And mine scarce felt. I heard the shovell'd clay
Fall heavy on her bier. I turn'd away
With bursting heart. Lo! as my head I bow'd
I saw th' adulterer in the homeward crowd!

123

But, like a frozen sea, on which the wind
Can raise no billow, slept my awe-quell'd mind;
All angry feeling from my bosom fled,
The passions all were chain'd—my heart was dead.

“I may not lie where Ann in cold earth lies;
But might I see again with these sad eyes
The clay that is her pillow, they would close
Happy to shut for ever on the woes
Of such a world as this. I weep for her:
I am not stone: she was a sufferer,
And, though a sinner, yet a Magdalene:
She died repentant, and was loveliest then.
Oh, she was false to me! but I am true;
And, when she died, we then were wed anew.
The worms, the worms our bridal bed prepare;
Long waits the bride—in vain! I come not there.
Sever'd in life, still, still let death divide;
Why should I slumber by the lost one's side?
Yet, when the trump of doom shall rend the sky,
And wake all sleepers, she shall meet an eye
That could not meet hers frowning. Oh, her breast,
Though dearest still, is spotted and unbless'd:
No pillow meet for me, although I long for rest!

“Let me not doubt God's justice! Oh, what fate
Pursues my race, as with a demon's hate?
Evil must come of evil! that I know;
But how have we incurr'd this shame, this woe,

124

This desolation? How long must I bear
This fever of the soul, and, in despair,
Invoke the worm that will not come and feed?
Still, still I breathe, while woes on woes succeed.
Happy in this, Ann did not live, like me,
To mourn her daughters' guilt and misery.
Lured by two villains from their native shore,
By me pursued in vain, and seen no more,
They fled—they left me, hopeless and alone,
To curse their birth, and name them with a groan.
As back I voyaged, the tempestuous wind
Bow'd the tall masts, and heaved the seas behind;
The thunder knew me, the flash look'd me through,
The billows wild the man of sorrows knew;
And ocean would not spare one friendly wave
To whelm my misery in a briny grave.
Dash'd from the reeling deck by surge and blast,
I sunk—I rose—I reach'd the strand at last.
And when thou found'st me on the rock's cold brow,
I was not sure if then I dream'd or no:
From mile-high crags, girt midway by the storm,
Th' adult'ress seemed to hurl my faded form;
And thou might'st deem the fierce and parching wind
Had left of me no trace, save dust behind—
Wan dust, on which a viewless finger cold
Had traced the lines that all with dread behold.

“Why dost thou turn away thy brow severe?
Why would'st thou hide from me thy generous tear?

125

The rock's dark tenant melts at my distress!
Thou weepest, cavern'd king of loneliness!
Alas!—but no, it cannot be; for thou
Didst rove, thou say'st, in childhood, on the brow
Of star-loved mountains hoar since Time began
Pathless and wild, and seldom sought by man,
Thou say'st, I have not known thee; and mine eyes,
Dim as my troubled spirit, recognize
In thee distinctly nought; yet—oh, thy scowl
Brings back a wintry darkness to my soul,
Like the remembrance of a dream, that leaves
No definite impression, while it grieves
The heart that feels, and long will feel, how dire,
How black it stood, and what a livid fire
Gleam'd o'er its features of obscurity!
Or, like the sea, when midnight storms are high,
Heard, but not seen, while terror on the shore
Sees the gun flash, but cannot hear its roar;
And long with eyes strain'd dizzy o'er the main,
Vainly expects to hail that flash again!

“Farewell, kind tenant of the ocean's cave!
I hear no more the restless billow rave.
Thy features vanish from my view: I reel,
From sense to gloom. What is that I feel,
Foretelling stranger feelings yet to be,
Ere all is past? A shuddering agony
That is not pain. O thou most terrible!
Thou nothing, that marr'st all things! canst thou tell,

126

When from the block the sever'd head falls low,
And glaring eyes seem conscious of the blow,
And quivering lips in soundless words complain,
What pangs may writhe the agonizing brain,
Where thought, perchance, still lingers? I shall know
Soon the deep secret, veil'd from all below,
And what the dying feel when sense is dumb:—
Thou beckonest me, black angel! and I come.”

Thus, in the ocean-cavern's glimmering light,
To Moreland spake the wanderer of the night.
Question'd in vain, his words replied no more;
But Moreland bent the lifeless body o'er,
Fix'd in the mute intensity of pain,
And lived, in thought, his past years o'er again.
What, hopeless rebel! would'st thou give to be
Wrong'd, like thy victim, and as pure as he?