University of Virginia Library

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
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?
'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;
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,
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:
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.