University of Virginia Library

“'Tis sixteen hundred years ago,
Since I came from Israel's land;
Sixteen hundred years of woe!—
With deep and furrowing hand,
God's mark is painted on my head;
Must there remain until the dead
Hear the last trump, and leave the tomb,
And earth spouts fire from her riven womb.

“How can I paint that dreadful day,
That time of terror and dismay,
When, for our sins, a Saviour died,
And the meek Lamb was crucified!
As dread that day, when borne along
To slaughter by the insulting throng,
Infuriate for Deicide,
I mocked our Saviour, and I cried,
Go, go, ‘Ah! I will go,’ said he,
‘Where scenes of endless bliss invite;
To the blest regions of the light
I go, but thou shalt here remain—
Thou diest not till I come again’—
E'en now, by horror traced, I see
His perforated feet and hands;
The madden'd crowd around him stands.
Pierces his side the ruffian spear,
Big rolls the bitter anguish'd tear.
Hark, that deep groan!—he dies—he dies.
And breathes, in death's last agonies,
Forgiveness to his enemies.
Then was the noon-day glory clouded,
The sun in pitchy darkness shrouded.
Then were strange forms through the darkness gleaming,
And the red orb of night on Jerusalem beaming;
Which faintly, with ensanguined light,
Dispersed the thickening shades of night.
Convulsed, all nature shook with fear,
As if the very end was near;
Earth to her centre trembled;
Rent in twain was the temple's vail,
The graves gave up their dead;
Whilst ghosts and spirits, ghastly pale,
Glared hideous on the sight,
Seen through the dark and lurid air,
As fiends array'd in light,
Threw on the scene a frightful glare,
And, howling, shriek'd with hideous yell—
They shriek'd in joy, for a Saviour fell!
'Twas then I felt the Almighty's ire;
Then full on my remembrance came
Those words despised alas! too late!
The horrors of my endless fate
Flashed on my soul and shook my frame;
They scorch'd my breast as with a flame
Of unextinguishable fire;
An exquisitely torturing pain
Of frenzying anguish fired my brain.
By keen remorse and anguish driven,
I called for vengeance down from Heaven.
But, ah! the all-wasting hand of Time,
Might never wear away my crime!
I scarce could draw my fluttering breath—
Was it the appalling grasp of death?
I lay entranced, and deemed he shed
His dews of poppy o'er my head;
But though the kindly warmth was dead,
The self-inflicted torturing pangs
Of conscience lent their scorpion fangs,
Still life prolonging, after life was fled.

“Methought, what glories met my sight,
As burst a sudden blaze of light,
Illumining the azure skies,
I saw the blessed Saviour rise.
But how unlike to him who bled!
Where then his thorn-encircled head?
Where the big drops of agony
Which dimmed the lustre of his eye?
Or deathlike hue that overspread
The features of that heavenly face?
Gone now was every mortal trace;
His eyes with radiant lustre beamed—
His form confessed celestial grace,
And with a blaze of glory streamed.
Innumerable hosts around,
Their brows with wreaths immortal crowned,
With amaranthine chaplets bound,
As on their wings the cross they bore,
Deep dyed in the Redeemer's gore,
Attune their golden harps, and sing
Loud hallelujahs to their King.

“But, in an instant, from my sight,
Fled were the visions of delight.
Darkness had spread her raven pall;
Dank, lurid darkness cover'd all.
All was as silent as the dead;
I felt a petrifying dread,
Which harrowed up my frame;
When suddenly a lurid stream
Of dark red light, with hideous gleam,
Shot like a meteor through the night,
And painted Hell upon the skies—
The Hell from whence it came.
What clouds of sulphur seemed to rise!
What sounds were borne upon the air!
The breathings of intense despair—
The piteous shrieks—the wails of woe—
The screams of torment and of pain—
The red-hot rack—the clanking chain!
I gazed upon the gulf below,
Till, fainting from excess of fear,
My tottering knees refused to bear
My odious weight. I sink—I sink!
Already had I reached the brink.
The fiery waves disparted wide,
To plunge me in their sulphurous tide;
When, racked by agonizing pain,
I started into life again.

“Yet still the impression left behind
Was deeply graven on my mind,
In characters whose inward trace
No change or time could e'er deface;
A burning cross illumed my brow,
I hid it with a fillet grey,
But could not hide the wasting woe
That wore my wildered soul away,
And ate my heart with living fire.
I knew it was the avenger's sway,
I felt it was the avenger's ire!

“A burden on the face of earth,
I cursed the mother who gave me birth;
I cursed myself—my native land.
Polluted by repeated crimes,
I sought in distant foreign climes
If change of country could bestow
A transient respite from my woe.
Vain from myself the attempt to fly,
Sole cause of my own misery.

“Since when, in death-like trance I lay,
Past, slowly past, the years away
That poured a bitter stream on me,
When once I fondly longed to see
Jerusalem, alas! my native place,
Jerusalem, alas! no more in name,
No portion of her former fame
Had left behind a single trace.
Her pomp, her splendour, was no more.
Her towers no longer seem to rise,
To lift their proud heads to the skies.
Fane and monumental bust,
Long levelled even with the dust.
The holy pavements were stained with gore.
The place where the sacred temple stood
Was crimson-dyed with Jewish blood.
Long since, my parents had been dead,
All my posterity had bled
Beneath the dark Crusader's spear,
No friend was left my path to cheer,
To shed a few last setting rays
Of sunshine on my evening days!

“Rack'd by the tortures of the mind,
How have I long'd to plunge beneath
The mansions of repelling death!
And strove that resting place to find
Where earthly sorrows cease.
Oft, when the tempest-fiends engaged,
And the warring winds tumultuous raged,
Confounding skies with seas,
Then would I rush to the towering height
Of the gigantic Teneriffe,
Or some precipitous cliff,
All in the dead of the silent night.

“I have cast myself from the mountain's height,
Above was day—below was night;
The substantial clouds that lower'd beneath
Bore my detested form;
They whirl'd it above the volcanic breath,
And the meteors of the storm;
The torrents of electric flame
Scorch'd to a cinder my fated frame.
Hark to the thunder's awful crash—
Hark to the midnight lightning's hiss!
At length was heard a sullen dash,
Which made the hollow rocks around
Rebellow to the awful sound;
The yawning ocean opening wide,
Received me in its vast abyss,
And whelm'd me in its foaming tide.
Though my astounded senses fled,
Yet did the spark of life remain;
Then the wild surges of the main
Dash'd and left me on the rocky shore.
Oh! would that I had waked no more!
Vain wish! I lived again to feel
Torments more fierce than those of hell!
A tide of keener pain to roll,
And the bruises to enter my inmost soul!

“I cast myself in Etna's womb,
If haply I might meet my doom,
In torrents of electric flame;
Thrice happy had I found a grave
'Mid fierce combustion's tumults dire,
'Mid oceans of volcanic fire
Which whirl'd me in their sulphurous wave,
And scorched to a cinder my hated frame,
Parch'd up the blood within my veins,
And rack'd my breast with damning pains;
Then hurl'd me from the mountain's entrails dread.
With what unutterable woe
Even now I feel this bosom glow—
I burn—I melt with fervent heat—
Again life's pulses wildly beat—
What endless throbbing pains I live to feel!
The elements respect their Maker's seal,—
That seal deep printed on my fated head.

“Still like the scathed pine-tree's height,
Braving the tempests of the night
Have I 'scaped the bickering fire.
Like the scathed pine which a monument stands
Of faded grandeur, which the brands
Of the tempest-shaken air
Have riven on the desolate heath,
Yet it stands majestic even in death,
And rears its wild form there.
Thus have I 'scaped the ocean's roar
The red-hot bolt from God's right hand,
The flaming midnight meteor brand,
And Etna's flames of bickering fire.
Thus am I doom'd by fate to stand,
A monument of the Eternal's ire;
Nor can this being pass away,
Till time shall be no more.

“I pierce with intellectual eye,
Into each hidden mystery;
I penetrate the fertile womb
Of nature; I produce to light
The secrets of the teeming earth,
And give air's unseen embryos birth:
The past, the present, and to come,
Float in review before my sight:
To me is known the magic spell,
To summon e'en the Prince of Hell;
Awed by the Cross upon my head,
His fiends would obey my mandates dread,
To twilight change the blaze of noon,
And stain with spots of blood the moon—
But that an interposing hand
Restrains my potent arts, my else supreme command.”

He raised his passion-quivering hand,
He loosed the grey encircling band,
A burning Cross was there;
Its colour was like to recent blood,
Deep marked upon his brow it stood,
And spread a lambent glare.
Dimmer grew the taper's blaze,
Dazzled by the brighter rays,
Whilst Paulo spoke—'twas dead of night—
Fair Rosa shuddered with affright;
Victorio, fearless, had braved death
Upon the blood-besprinkled heath;
Had heard, unmoved, the cannon's roar,
Echoing along the Wolga's shore.
When the thunder of battle was swelling,
When the birds for their dead prey were yelling,
When the ensigns of slaughter were streaming,
And falchions and bayonets were gleaming,
And almost felt death's chilling hand,
Stretched on ensanguined Wolga's strand,
And, careless, scorned for life to cry,
Yet now he turned aside his eye,
Scarce could his death-like terror bear,
And owned now what it was to fear.

“Once a funeral met my aching sight,
It blasted my eyes at the dead of night,
When the sightless fiends of the tempests rave,
And hell-birds howl o'er the storm-blacken'd wave.
Nought was seen, save at fits, but the meteor's glare
And the lightnings of God painting hell on the air;
Nought was heard save the thunder's wild voice in the sky,
And strange birds who, shrieking, fled dismally by.
'Twas then from my head my drench'd hair that I tore,
And bade my vain dagger's point drink my life's gore;
'Twas then I fell on the ensanguined earth,
And cursed the mother who gave me birth!
My maddened brain could bear no more—
Hark! the chilling whirlwind's roar;
The spirits of the tombless dead
Flit around my fated head,—
Howl horror and destruction round,
As they quaff my blood that stains the ground,
And shriek amid their deadly stave,—
‘Never shalt thou find the grave!
Ever shall thy fated soul
In life's protracted torments roll,
Till, in latest ruin hurl'd,
And fate's destruction, sinks the world!
Till the dead arise from the yawning ground,
To meet their Maker's last decree,
Till angels of vengeance flit around,
And loud yelling demons seize on thee!’
“Ah! would were come that fated hour,
When the clouds of chaos around shall lower;
When this globe calcined by the fury of God
Shall sink beneath his wrathful nod!”

As thus he spake, a wilder gaze
Of fiend-like horror lit his eye
With a most unearthly blaze,
As if some phantom-form passed by.
At last he stilled the maddening wail
Of grief, and thus pursued his tale:—

“Oft I invoke the fiends of hell,
And summon each in dire array—
I know they dare not disobey
My stern, my powerful spell.
—Once on a night, when not a breeze
Ruffled the surface of the seas,
The elements were lulled to rest,
And all was calm save my sad breast,
On death resolved—intent,
I marked a circle round my form;
About me sacred reliques spread,
The reliques of magicians dead,
And potent incantations read—
I waited their event.
“All at once grew dark the night,
Mists of swarthiness hung o'er the pale moonlight.
Strange yells were heard, the boding cry
Of the night raven that flitted by,
Whilst the silver winged mew
Startled with screams o'er the dark wave flew.
'Twas then I seized a magic wand,
The wand by an enchanter given,
And deep dyed in his heart's red blood.
The crashing thunder pealed aloud;
I saw the portentous meteor's glare
And the lightnings gleam o'er the lurid air;
I raised the wand in my trembling hand,
And pointed Hell's mark at the zenith of Heaven.

“A superhuman sound
Broke faintly on the listening ear,
Like to a silver harp the notes,
And yet they were more soft and clear.
I wildly strained my eyes around—
Again the unknown music floats.
Still stood Hell's mark above my head—
In wildest accents I summoned the dead—
And through the unsubstantial night,
It diffused a strange and fiendish light;
Spread its rays to the charnel-house air,
And marked mystic forms on the dark vapours there.
The winds had ceased—a thick dark smoke
From beneath the pavement broke;
Around ambrosial perfumes breathe
A fragrance, grateful to the sense,
And bliss, past utterance, dispense.
The heavy mists, encircling, wreath,
Disperse, and gradually unfold
A youthful female form;—she rode
Upon a rosy-tinted cloud;
Bright stream'd her flowing locks of gold;
She shone with radiant lustre bright,
And blazed with strange and dazzling light;
A diamond coronet deck'd her brow,
Bloom'd on her cheek a vermeil glow;
The terrors of her fiery eye
Pour'd forth insufferable day,
And shed a wildly lurid ray.
A smile upon her features play'd,
But there, too, sate pourtray'd
The inventive malice of a soul
Where wild demoniac passions roll;
Despair and torment on her brow,
Had mark'd a melancholy woe
In dark and deepen'd shade.
Under those hypocritic smiles,
Deceitful as the serpent's wiles,
Her hate and malice were conceal'd;
Whilst on her guilt-confessing face,
Conscience, the strongly printed trace
Of agony betray'd,
And all the fallen angel stood reveal'd.
She held a poniard in her hand,
The point was tinged by the lightning's brand;
In her left a scroll she bore,
Crimson'd deep with human gore;
And, as above my head she stood,
Bade me smear it with my blood.
She said, that when it was my doom
That every earthly pang should cease;
The evening of my mortal woe
Would close beneath the yawning tomb;
And, lull'd into the arms of death,
I should resign my labouring breath;
And in the sightless realms below
Enjoy an endless reign of peace.
She ceased—oh, God, I thank thy grace,
Which bade me spurn the deadly scroll;
Uncertain for a while I stood—
The dagger's point was in my blood.
Even now I bleed!—I bleed!
When suddenly what horrors flew,
Quick as the lightnings through my frame;
Flash'd on my mind the infernal deed,
The deed which would condemn my soul
To torments of eternal flame.
Drops colder than the cavern dew
Quick coursed each other down my face,
I labour'd for my breath;
At length I cried, ‘Avaunt! thou fiend of Hell,
Avaunt! thou minister of death!’
I cast the volume on the ground,
Loud shriek'd the fiend with piercing yell,
And more than mortal laughter peal'd around.
The scatter'd fragments of the storm
Floated along the Demon's form,
Dilating till it touched the sky;
The clouds that roll'd athwart his eye,
Reveal'd by its terrific ray,
Brilliant as the noontide day,
Gleam'd with a lurid fire;
Red lightnings darted around his head,
Thunders hoarse as the groans of the dead,
Pronounced their Maker's ire;
A whirlwind rush'd impetuous by,
Chaos of horror fill'd the sky;
I sunk convulsed with awe and dread.
When I waked the storm was fled,
But sounds unholy met my ear,
And fiends of hell were flitting near.

“Here let me pause—here end my tale,
My mental powers begin to fail;
At this short retrospect I faint:
Scarce beats my pulse—I lose my breath,
I sicken even unto death.
Oh! hard would be the task to paint
And gift with life past scenes again;
To knit a long and linkless chain,
Or strive minutely to relate
The varied horrors of my fate.
Rosa! I could a tale disclose,
So full of horror—full of woes,
Such as might blast a demon's ear,
Such as a fiend might shrink to hear—
But, no—”

Here ceased the tale. Convulsed with fear,
The tale yet lived in Rosa's ear—
She felt a strange mysterious dread,
A chilling awe as of the dead;
Gleamed on her sight the demon's form.
Heard she the fury of the storm?
The cries and hideous yells of death?
Tottered the ground her feet beneath?
Was it the fiend before her stood?
Saw she the poniard drop with blood?
All seemed to her distempered eye
A true and sad reality
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