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

Ellen! “the dead are safe,” I said;
Yet to the unreturning dead
I must again sad utterance give:
My pleasing task will then be done;
Soon, then, my mortal course be run;
And I, too, shall begin to live.
Who shall undo the past day's deed?
It labours for the coming hour;
And if I am but as a weed,
The weed, though dead, is still a power;
Ay, and of Goodness! of all powers
Greatest, the Life that cannot die,
The evergrowing Unity,
Whose death-matured and brightest flowers

392

Will not the tiny soul contemn
That bloom'd its best, and went to them!
The perfect joy, that once was grief,
Will see no sorrow in my leaf.
Freed worms, that blamed a worm's excess,
Will pardon kindred littleness.
The left-on-earth will cease to blame
Mistaken words, or failing aim;
Nor scorn, perchance, from Shirecliff's side
To gaze, with me, o'er Hallam wide;
Or wander with a child of sin
By shadow-haunted Rivilin;
Or, loved of sunbeams! talk with one
Whose soul, by Rother, Sheaf, or Don
Still lingering, wreaths for truth will weave;
And all that spirits tell believe.

I.

Oh, hast thou seen the mountain snow
Which south winds softly overblow,
How fast it wastes, how swiftly hastes
To feed the rock-rill's lonely flow,
And swell a sea of tears below?
So wastes, so weeps lone Etheline,
For she hath lost her Telmarine.
In evil hour, an awful power

393

Hath stol'n Lord Konig's child;
And never since that dismal hour
Hath she, the maiden-mother, smiled.
Seldom she sleeps,
But always weeps;
And when she sleeps, she dreams
That Telmarine, with joyful screams,
Returns, to sport upon her breast,
And laugh her into rest:
Starting, she wakes! illusion flies;
And back come dire realities.
Then, to the silent gloom she sighs,
And asks the silent gloom in vain,
“When will my child come back again?”

II.

In solitude, yet not alone,
She lived, with nought to do but weep:
Oh, better had she been a stone
O'er whose old age old mosses creep!
For emerald shadows with them dwell,
And lonely sunbeams love them well.

394

Ever, “My child! my child!” she said,
And loathed her food, her hearth, her bed;
And could not bear to keep
Within her cot, by day or night;
But, like a cloud that cannot sleep,
Abroad, with darkness dwelt and light,
And with the dews that pitied her,
And with the winds that soothed her sadness;
A homed, yet homeless sufferer,
Watch'd by the sun, the moon, the grey
Of moonless night, and sunless day:
And watch'd by Adwick's madness.

III.

If chanced the warm autumnal skies
To lure the adder from its bed,
(Where the bog-myrtle's fruit turn'd red,
Or violets, blowing late, smell'd sweet,
And the bank sloped, the morn to meet,)
Green, blazed its never-closing eyes;
“Still is she here!” the adder said,
And, like an eye-glance, vanishèd.

IV.

To slumber lull'd by wailings faint,
Awaked by moanings of complaint,
From his high seat, in sportive glee
Down looking on her misery,

395

The squirrel, morrow after morrow,
Heard speech that sigh'd.
The sun, at noon, still found her weeping;
The sun, at eve, beheld her weeping,
And bow'd his beamy head in sorrow;
And when, at night, the otter stole
From his root-roof'd and fishy hole
Beneath the moonlit tree—
The sound that mingled with the beam
Reflected from the “watery gleam,”
Was speech that sigh'd.

V.

When stoop'd the bramble's arm'd rich stems
Beneath their darkening load of gems,
And “on its thorny tree” the sloe
Stole from the west a purply glow,
While bees and blooms revisited
The all-thorn'd gorse, she nothing said
But, “Cruel was that friend of mine
Who stole my pretty Telmarine.”
But when the slow was blackly mellow,
When the crab wore its flamy yellow,
When starken'd the dim heav'ns with cold,
And woods put on their crimson'd gold,
She sigh'd, “The year is darkening down,
The green locks of the crags turn brown,

396

Ripe bramble-berries cover them,
The fiend his club casts over them,
And winter comes, in hail and rain;
But Telmarine comes not again!”

VI.

When rose the heron in the wind,
His legs outstretch'd his flight behind,
In search of warmer skies;
She gazed on him, with upturn'd eyes,
And said, “Oh, thou, the fleet, the wild!
Stay! tell me—Hast thou seen my child?”
When after him the eagle pass'd,
And over her his shadow cast,
She said, “Thou strong of eye and wing!
Far canst thou fly, and widely see;
Oh, King-bird, seek her, find her, bring
My Telmarine to me!
Or I must die in misery.”
Then, on the bird she strain'd her sight,
Till he became a speck in light,
And till, at last, he vanish'd quite;
And then she gazed on empty air,
Fearing to take her eyes away,
As if her only hope was there,
There—in that depth of barren grey,
On which, with his last gasp of breath,
Man tries to fix his gaze in death.

397

Death!—face of stone, and soul of lath,
Yet the last friend that misery hath—
“A long sweet sleep awaiteth thee,”
Saith ghastly Death to Misery!
And he, in pity, on her smiled;
For she must die! or find her child.
And soon nor squirrel, otter, snake,
Shall see her, from the wood or lake;
Nor hawk, nor heron, from the sky
Look on the maid, now fain to die.
Pale, paler, weaker she became;
Chill tremors shook her failing frame;
And with slack knees, and swimming head
She sank upon her sleepless bed,
Where her worn face, a child's in size,
Seem'd cold in woe, as polar skies,
And polar snow.
The fountain of her tears was dried;
She wept no more, but ever sigh'd;
Her heart broke not! 'twas petrified.

VII.

Then, came o'er Adwick's frenzied mind
A change, like colour to the blind.
Oh, deem not him a cruel man,
That victim of a ruthless ban,

398

And of compassionate sympathy,
Which suffers in his destiny,
And darkly, dreadly shares the fate
That made him desolate!
If thou would'st see the gentle sky
Reflected in the lake,
Bid the black tempest's agony
Its tortured waves forsake;
Then, shall the banks, the whispering trees
The cloud, the herd, the rock, the hill,
The foxglove, ay, the birds and bees,
Live in that mirror bright and still.
So, when warm tears gush'd from his brain,
And cool'd its burning hell of pain,
(Frenzy subsiding into sadness,
And saddest pity conqu'ring madness,)
He was himself again;
Like one who wakes from dreams of woe,
When blackest night is past—and, lo,
Morn glitters on a world of snow!
He saw his victim's mute despair;
To see her die he could not bear.
Himself he hated for the deed
That laid her, like a withering weed,
Before him—dying, helpless, pale;
And if man's courage can avail,
Oh, yet will he save Etheline!
He will bring back her Telmarine.

399

Yea, he hath sought the dread retreat,
Where none may tread with unbless'd feet.
Hark! Voices? Shouts? A fearful cry
Wakes the green night of Mystery:
“Oh, Sacrilege! a man defiled
Hath from the hallow'd chamber borne
The consecrated child!”
And she, the Nun of Snow, hath sworn
That he, the thief, whoe'er he be,
Shall for his crime with life atone,
And suffer on the slaughter-stone
Pain's worst extremity.

VIII.

“The little hand of Telmarine
Presses thy bosom, Etheline!
The soft warm cheek of Telmarine
Rests on thy cold face, Etheline!
Konig's blue eyes, in Telmarine,
Smile on the softer blue of thine.
Is it not well?” said Adwick, sighing;
“Art thou not happy?” “Yes, and dying,
My Adwick!” pressing with her own
His hand, she said, in sweetest tone,
Her eyes on his o'er-flowing eyes
Fix'd, “I am dying. Be not thou
(My Friend! my Love!) offended now,

400

That my soul yearns again to see
My Konig's face. If thou lov'st me,
Love Konig, too. And when I'm dead—
When number'd are my vanities;
When aching heart, and reeling head,
And throbbing pulse, are quieted,
Tell him I loved him! and”—she smiled
On little Telmarine—“the child
I leave behind me. Bid him take
My child, and love it for my sake—
As I love it for his. In heart
A mother, tell him—I depart
In soul a bride;
In truth, a virgin; satisfied
To be, in soul, his bride.”

IX.

While thus she spoke, Lord Konig paced
His castle and the lake between,
With cold hand on his hot brow placed,
And blood-shot eyeballs, in despair
Fix'd wildly on the Wizard's chair,
Far over wood and water seen.
Earth, and the clear heav'n overhead,
Were tranquil as the sinless dead;
They might have sooth'd and tranquillized
A heart less torn and agonized;
But the mute clouds, the stirless air,

401

The silent light, the lake at rest,
All, mock'd the tumult in his breast,
The tempest raging there;
When—as a smile lights silently
The lip of sleeping infancy—
Out of the still lake's crystal bright,
Out of the silent air and light,
Seeming to soul and sight
A portion of the air and light,
The form, the face of Telma came!
In all her living loveliness
She stood before him. Motionless,
(Save that her moving lips display'd
What seem'd the teeth's pure ivory,
Like white flowers trembling in the shade,)
She utter'd his dear name!
Death had not from her stature taken
Its graceful slightness:
Still seem'd to heave, in blissful whiteness,
Her bosom soft and warm:
Nor had the dewy rose forsaken
Her full lip's eloquent charm;
Nor on her cheek had morning faded;
Nor had the eyes, which black locks shaded;
Lost their black brightness.
Yet was there a solemnity,
A marble fixedness of eye,
In her dread beauty; in her look

402

A calmness—Oh, Thou Wizard's Chair,
And thy grim guest of bone and hair!
That calmness took
The fever-flush from Konig's cheek,
And paled it, as with fear;
It was the look that bids hearts break
Hope shudder, and bereavement seek
No solace here.

X.

“Konig!” in speech that was not song,
Yet sweeter far, she said,
Or whisperèd,
“The hours of God, seem long
To man's impatience, and to me;
For slowly, mercifully still,
Ev'n to the freed of death,
Himself and his unerring will
The All-wise discovereth.
We are not fitted yet to be
Where dwell the painless, where the pure
Live with the pure in purity.
Much must thou dare, and more endure,
Ere we can wed as spirits wed.
Yet did I err not when I said,
‘In heav'n our marriage-feast is spread,
And well are they who love the dead;’
For none are happy but the true;

403

And, Konig, we have work to do.
Go, then, to lonest Waterside;
There kiss, thy chaste, thy virgin-bride;
Long hast thou been expected there,
And she hath yet a pang to bear;
For one, whom yet thou may'st not see,
(The Angel of Extremity,
Whose touch of ice, and look of steel,
All who draw breath are doom'd to feel,)
Bends there o'er Etheline, and weeps.
A precious gift for thee she keeps;
Our child! oh, place her in thy bower,
And tend, for me, my living flower!
Ordain'd to win
For us an Eden, lost by sin,
She bends to Heav'n
Both me and thee.
Nay, kneel not—no! ask not of me
Forgiveness—Art thou not forgiv'n?
Strive not to clasp the impassive air;
But do thy mission! and prepare,
On earth, for heav'n. I'll meet thee there—
Where no harsh fates annul
Love's law of blissful trust;
And Beauty casts between
Her smiles serene
And the All-loving Beautiful,
No veil of dust.”

404

XI.

As light, when noon puts darkness on,
Gilds a wan rose, and disappears;
So Telma, smiling on his tears,
Turns from her Konig—and is gone.
He gasps, he bids the vision stay;
His heart hath years of thought to say.
What would'st thou clasp? and whom address?
Here smiles no loved one's loveliness.
The stirless air, the lake at rest,
The light and silence on its breast,
The sleeping cloud, the sleeping tree,
The music of the busy bee,
The tremble of the lifted leaf;
And one vain mortal—bow'd with grief,
As if on his crush'd heart had come,
With all their weight of guilty fears,
The burden of a thousand years;
And on his cheek, and youthful bloom,
The stain of an eternal tear;
These only (and thy God!) are here.

XII.

Lord Konig in his bark is gone,
Over the lake of Dar and Don,

405

To lonely Waterside,
Where everplayful Telmarine,
With looks that sweetly chide,
Wonders at silent Etheline!
“Why will not mother speak?”
She says, with saddening cheek,
And still-enquiring eyes,
To which no voice, no look replies!
While Adwick, watching near,
And scarcely seeming ought to hear,
Or feel, or know,
(Yet too, too conscious,) stands,
With cold, damp forehead, and clasp'd hands,
Gazing on hopeless woe,
That vainly loves! on speechless pain,
And dying truth—beloved in vain!

XIII.

How like the beauteous awfulness
That moulders into clay,
And humbles man's hard-heartedness
With its sublime decay,
Upon her couch of death she lay!
Nor limb, nor feature stirr'd.
But when Lord Konig's foot she heard,
Like one arising from the dead,
She started, she lean'd up in bed;

406

(Oh, Love is strong!) she rose to greet him;
(Oh, Love is strength!) she went to meet him;
She met him—met his dear embrace;
And in his bosom hid her face.

XIV.

They seated them upon a stone,
Wash'd by the rains of ages gone,
And bleach'd by every blast that blew;
With forests brown, and Konig's town,
And the lake's mirror, all in view;
(She leaning fondly on his knee,
He weeping o'er her tenderly;)
And talk'd to sleep each little leaf;
And talk'd the sun down to the west;
Nor saw him veil his head in grief,
And sadden into golden rest.
Death, all-shunn'd death, she knew, was nigh,
Yet felt as if she could not die.
But when, at length, the parting hour
Gloom'd dimly on the dying flower,
Then Konig trembled—and she smiled!
Giving to him the willing child.
“Kiss me!” (she said, scarce audibly,
While, sick with parting's agony,
He felt as if they could not part,)
“Kiss me! and go. I die content.
Love our poor Adwick—he loves me:

407

Farewell!” He wept, as if his heart
Was made of tears—and went.
She watch'd them o'er the lake;
She saw him leap to land,
Place on the shore the child, and take
Its little offer'd hand;
Then, shuddering as she turn'd her head,
Sank at the feet of Adwick—dead.

XV.

Sad, from the dell of Ravensly,
A wail of chaunting echo'd wide;
Harsh, in oak-waving Denaby,
A trumpet's brazen laugh replied;
And far o'er Watchly came the cry
That ever told when doom was nigh,
When cruel gods claim'd bloody rites,
And men prepared for ghastly sights.
But Adwick heard no trumpet blow,
No chaunt, no death-dirge, wailing low;
Mute as a stone, and tranced in woe,
He stood! and moved
Nor hand, nor foot, nor lock of hair;
But, like a statue of despair,
Gazed on the warm, yet lifeless snow,
That still was all he loved.
Lo! one by one, fierce men surround him!

408

By him unheard, unseen, they come,
All sable vested,
Sable helm'd, and sable crested;
They are the ministers of doom,
Whom follows slow
The Nun of Snow;
And they have seized and bound him.

XVI.

Then, Adwick saw, approaching nigh,
A form of haughtiest dignity.
Never was grander presence seen,
Or loftier stature.
The demon in his nature
Wore a sublimely mournful mien;
And as he trod
The shrinking sod,
He seem'd not less than demigod.
Crisp curl'd his locks of auburn hue
O'er features beautiful,
High brow, thin lips, arch'd nose;
A face of marble-like repose,
Whose coldness shamed young June's white rose.
Yet on his front scowl'd rigor. Blue,
Watch'd his fix'd eyes—small, cavern'd, dull;
And cuplike ears, placed wide apart,
Before a knotted mass of skull,
Proclaim'd a tyrant's brain and heart;

409

Though his sad smile turn'd dim
The sun's glad calmness, as he set,
And Autumn's violet
Stole a sweet look of tears from him.

XVII.

“Infidel!” Slowly, thus he spoke,
In tones that on the hearer broke
Like dying thunder. “It is well
That we are mighty, Infidel!
Or tortured human life, in vain,
Would petrify Love's tears with pain.
Live, then, to feel, in heart and brain,
Worst pain's intensity of pain,
Ere death dismiss thy atheist soul,
To tenant some vile toad or owl,
Or stinking fox, or filthier swine,
And find no beastlier shape than thine.”

XVIII.

“Bend not thy cruel brow on me,
Priest!” Adwick answer'd mournfully;
“I know thy power, and pity thee.
The feet that on long-suffering trod
Cannot crush out my trust in God;
Nor canst thou waste, or use in vain,
His fund of dreadful mercy, pain.

410

Me thou canst rack, my blood canst spill;
But there's a power thou canst not kill,
The will and power To Think and Know.
Sure is its march, however slow;
And it shall put to shame and flight
The darkness which to thee is light:
Torturing, and blackening, like a sky
Darken'd with arrows—Infamy,
Though she hath done your bidding well,
Shall find the truth invincible.
Nor will my disembodied soul
Live in the shape of toad or owl,
(Shapes, not despised by Power Divine,
Nor less august, perchance, than thine,)
But—with the spirit of that form
Which there invites the wasting worm—
Delight to number, as they fly,
The age-long hours of Deity;
Until, at last, Hate's altars fall,
And Loving-kindness conquer all.”

XIX.

“With her? This impious wretch! So foul,
And yet so fair?” the King-Priest said;
And, not unmoved, contemplated
The beauteous corpse. “Her wretched soul
Is now a crow's. Her carrion soon

411

Shall feed the wolf, beneath the moon
And winking stars.” Scornful, he spoke,
Though pity in his heart awoke;
Then, self-reproach'd, threw back his head,
While blacken'd on his lip of bile
The fiend of his unwilling smile—
And kick'd, with cruel foot, the dead.

XX.

Darkens in grief the snowy Nun;
Slow, down her cheek the large tears run:
Burns Adwick's brow. His fetter'd hands
Smite the Priest-Monarch, where he stands.
He strives, with desperate strain,
To break his bonds. His dizzy brain
Flames. Down he drops. Half-raised, he sighs,
Falls back, and deeply sighs:
See! how the fetter'd Lion dies!
Yet his last looks, his closing eyes,
Seek the dear, outraged form, that lies
Beside him, marble-pale and still,
And angel-fair;
And Love's strong will,
With his last breath,
Stamps on his failing motion grace,
And beauty on his heart-worn face,
Even in death;
While gasp the sable-helm'd, and stare.

412

Oh, thou large heart, and ample chest!
Oh, Man contemn'd, reviled, oppress'd!
(Yet not unloved, though rude thy form;
Nor all-contemn'd, nor all-unbless'd,
Though trampled, like a trampled worm;)
Join, in the realm that knows not pain,
Thy vainly loved, who loved in vain,
And there thy soul's high lineage prove;
Though conquer'd, not enslaved;
Not lost! but saved
By All-Redeeming Love.

XXI.

“He hath escaped,” the King-Priest said.
Then, turn'd he to the lifeless maid.
Nor armlet she, nor anklet wore,
But on her veiny wrist
A clasp of amethyst,
And on her right third finger fair
A relic, which he valued more;
A ring of gold-and-silver twist,
And Homer's auburn-silver'd hair.
He took the ring, and from her wrist
The nun its clasp of amethyst,
The mighty spell by which men knew
She could o'ercome, far off, the foe
Who but in thought might work her woe;

413

And then the darkness-clad withdrew
The long rich robe of tyrian hue
Which, folded round her beauteous waist,
And underdrawn, her hips embraced;
Leaving her naked, where she lay,
To be of worms and wolves the prey.
Thus sternly Highest Love decided,
That not by death divided,
But side by side, like groom and bride,
Should lie, at last, His sternly tried;
And, lo, the pair are not alone,
Though priest, and nun, and guard are gone!
Above them bends
A form that godlike man's transcends,
When godlike most; a face of pride,
More mournful than a fallen king's
Whose world-wide realms are miseries,
Whose empire, splendors fled!
And in his mien
Such majesty is seen,
That in heav'n's courts he might have borne
A demigod's regalities,
And on immortal shoulders worn
Archangel's wings.
“These are but seeds of future weeds
Sown to replace our hated race,”
In thought, he sighs,
Contemplating the dead;

414

And to the skies
Raising his heav'n-reft eyes,
Adds, with serenely saddest brow,
“Will not the seed He soweth grow?”

If in the commencement of this book, I have imitated one of the masterpieces of the age, the Mariana of Tennyson, (as at the close of the third, one of the finest passages in Scott,) I have done so, because I could not help it. I am aware that an original conception cannot be appropriated by any thief, however dexterous. “But many minds may gird their brows with beams. Though one did throw the fire.”