Prometheus' daughter : a poem

Front matter

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

Contents

CANTO PAGE

Preface -- ------ vu

Introduction - - - 1

Part II. - - 307 XII.— The Battle— Part I. ------- 329

PEEFACE.

The half-fabulous tradition of Prometheus has afforded subject for the drama to the Greek tragedian iEschylus and to the poet Shelley ; the poem of the latter being a beautiful completion of the bold outline of the Greek.

No resemblance to either, whether in plot or character, will be found in the following work. But, as the Author has presumed to read differently from those two great names the tradition or allegory of Prometheus, a reason for the deviation may be expected of him.

The sufferings of Prometheus, as narrated by iEschylus, afforded the Greeks their noblest idea of moral sublimity. The spectacle of a mighty being deliberately choosing to

Via PREFACE.

suffer the most terrible of tortures for 30,000 years, rather than betray a secret which would confirm the tyranny of Jupiter over Gods and Men, is undoubtedly sublime. But that sublimity is more effectively rendered in a score of words than in a volume. And probably there are few readers of jJEschylus, or of Shelley, who will not allow that our sympathy with the great victim would have been greater had his complaints been less. The dignity of silent sorrow is expressed in few words ; and the expansion of that single idea into a drama robs it of its greatest power over the heart.

My purpose, however, is not to criticize, but to explain my motives for deviating from the assumption of two great authorities. To the human mind there can be but one object, — absolutely good, absolutely great, absolutely glorious. Other beings can be so only by comparison. When, therefore, Prometheus is made better and wiser than the greatest of the Gods ; when the existence of that God is made to depend upon the breath of Prometheus' nostrils, we do not so much perceive Pro-

PKEFACE. IX

metheus to be elevated as that the Godhead is degraded : for Prometheus is confessedly a finite being.

To sympathize with any being, we must understand his nature so thoroughly as to be able to enter, as it were, into his breast. The human can sympathize with the human — can even descend to sympathize in a less degree with the inferior creation. But when a man is called on to sympathize with a being so incomprehensible as Prometheus — who is, in fact, the Godhead in his beneficent attribute of Divine Providence — he finds it impossible to fit his own nature into the shapeless and boundless mould before him. His reason is shocked to find the higher attributes of God — his love, his mercy, truth, justice, and knowledge — in subjection to attributes which, disjoined from these, take the character of brute force, yet appertain to the so-named King of Gods. The kingship of the latter conflicts with our high estimate of the former ; and the subjection of the former desecrates the high pretentions of the latter ; and thus the two divine natures cancel one another.

x PREFACE.

It has always seemed to me that the story of Prometheus was susceptible of its sublimest interpretation by regarding him as a mortal King, impressed with a sense of the misery and moral degradation of his people, resulting from a false and perverted worship ; and standing forth, alone and unsupported, against a corrupt and all-powerful priesthood, — whom he challenges to prove their vaunted infallibility in the selection of a victim for sacrifice. They accept the challenge and the test. The result disproves their own asserted infallibility, and with it, the divinity of their Jupiter.

Incensed at this, Jupiter (i. e. his Priests) withhold fire from the Earth: religious rites, perhaps. The nation is excommunicated. Prometheus, by the aid of Minerva (Wisdom) climbs the heavens, and conveys to man the Divine Fire (of Truth) from the source of life and light, typified by the Chariot of the Sun. Jupiter (i.e. the Priesthood) seize and chain him to a rock of the Caucasus.

Whatever may be the capacity of Angels to appreciate the sufferings of an order of beings higher than Man,

PREFACE. XI

it is certain that, to human contemplation, no spectacle can exceed in sublimity that of a mortal king deliberately enduring, for the love of his people, and to rescue them from moral degradation, the utmost torture which human malice could invent. This fills up the measure of our capacity to admire, and rivets all our sympathies.

The Greeks, indeed, being familiar with the superhuman attributes of Prometheus, would ill have endured that he should be lowered to the standard of humanity. But a modern public are under no such restraint, and would (it is believed) give their sympathies more readily to a mortal than to a demigod.

PROMETHEUS' MU&HTEE.

Introduction

Know'st thou how Day declines, where mountains rise To greet with rugged brows his farewell ray ? Know'st thou how Night descends from Alpine skies O'er Alpine thrones to hold majestic sway? Know'st thou, how, pausing on their downward way. Th' ethereal coursers curb their steps of fire, Champ the bright bit, in lingering, long delay, And backward gaze with memory's fond desire, Ere in the golden West their glorious course expire ?

riiOMETIIEUS' DAUGHTER.

Oh ! there be lands, whose boast is in the dower Of Nature's lavish and o'erteeming breast, Lands of the Field, the Orchard, and the Bower, Of Ceres cherish'd, of Pomona blest : Where, by the gentle violence opprest Of the Day's Lord to store and garner, flow The riches Man first priz'd and first possess'd, Ere from Earth's bowels wrung those ores did glow, Fruitful, alas ! of crime, dull care, and carking woe !

On fertile plains the Day-star glides away, And Evening heralds soul-subduing Night : But here, the rival thrones of Night and Day Together was;e th' intense tho' silent fiffht : For while thine eye drinks deep the roseate light Of some high summit, in the dell below Darkness hath wing'd her mystery-burden'd flight, And rules supreme her sombre realm of woe Down in the deep, deep glen, where cedar forests grow.

INTRODUCTION. 3

And in micl-air a dreamy twilight floats, Where the twin realms harmonious blend together, Darkness and Light, with all their mimic motes In contest soft contending each with other. And the mock'd eye seeks vainly to discover Where meet the limits of their neighbour reign, And on the ear sweet sounds are wafted over From thickets where in rival notes complain The birds of Night and Day, of blithe and solemn strain.

Such, when serene the mountain shadows grow From base to summit. But, when Daylight dies Mid the loud crash of tempests, would'st thou know What might majestic their wild rage supplies To Beauty, form'd alike to harmonize With Heavens all peace and their chaotic jar? Then follow me ; for even now do rise Moans on the breeze, betokening from afar The Powers of Woe abroad, Death and the scythe-arm'd Car.

1—2

PROMETHEUS' DAUGHTER

Canto I. THE EXILES

" Sweet Mother, haste thee to the lattice. Mark How whelm'd the East with storm-clouds dense and

dark.

Still gleams the Sun : his parting glance repay With smiles, Lake, mead, soft basking in his ray. The waving oaks that in his glory stood Sombre and threat'ning as some midnight flood, Now, as he quits the world he fill'd with light, Veil all their sternness in the farewell rite,

And take, return the warm, impassion'd hue Diffus'd o'er Heaven, as glows his last adieu : Whilst o'er yon Eastern pile of mountains rude Night pours the terrors of her solitude.

" Long as engag'd in training up the Vine, And golden jasmine, and fair eglantine, That shade the sunbeams from my elfin bower, I've watch'd the gloom increasing, hour by hour ; And as the hues of amethyst decay O'er mountains swath 'd in ether, far away, And as the purple of the sunset sky Declines apace, yon summit looms more nigh ; And old Traditions heaviest woe portend From the near frown of snow-clad Demawend."

" Child of my joyless age, my widow'd breast, Thou young Aurora of Life's dire unrest, What be the portents of an evening sky To her, whose sunset gleams in years gone by, Whose very night, unlighted, save of one Sweet Star of Hope, so tremulous and lone,

CANTO I.] THE EXILES. 7

Declines apace, foreshadowing with its gloom The direr Night and thraldom of the Tomb ? Thou my sweet bosom-flower, sprung up ere yet The soil empoison'd, or the curse deep set Of barrenness for all save that which grows From hopeless prospects and remember'd woes : — Thou my sweet flower ! Oh, yes ! to view that form Of life and Ii«;ht in contrast with the storm Brooding o'er yonder heights ; to watch thee nigh, Hope in thy smile, young promise in thine eye ; Whilst the far realm to which those young hopes tend Glooms like the wrack o'er snow-girt Demawend ; — Oh, yes ! to this dim eye it still is given To view, not all unmov'd, the signs of Heaven, To pray the bolt its vengeance may fulfil On this scath'd trunk, and leave my flower of Promise, still."

" Nay, sweetest Mother, first, best guardian, nay, Thy fears recall, thy fond vows yet unsay. If life have trouble in its mingled flow, The hand that mixed can temper every woe.

8 PROMETHEUS' DAUGHTER. [CAKTO I.

For me its cup all blessedness hath been,

Peace, health, and hope, light griefs and hours serene ;

A Heaven most kind, o'ershadowing me above,

On Earth, a Mother's arms, a Mother's beauteous love.

On thee the storm hath lour'd : on thy sad path

Unsparing rag'd Affliction's fiery wrath :

But, sweetest Evenings bless the storm-clear'd sky,

And peace gains beauty from each woe gone by,

And those black shadows in thy path attest

How bright on high the sunshine of thy rest."

" Indra, my sweet enthusiast, yet awhile Beam o'er my soul that pure and guileless smile ! For, basking in its ray, I drown life's care, And catch Hope's wreck, regurging from despair. Oh ! were all hearts prophetic as thine own Of such fair promise for the hour to come : Were not Experience but a name the more For inward death to sympathies whose lore Was fram'd for world less perishably fair : Were Truth less frail and falsehood less sincere,

CANTO I.] THE EXILES.

We yet might drag along Life's carking chain,

Nor curse the future, which brings round again

The record drear of toils without an aim ;

The tale of woes whose very sameness cloys,

And thin, dim wrecks of mutilated joys,

A Future, onlv diverse from the Past,

In that its vista's swallowed up, at last,

By the sheer precipice o'er whose dread brow

Hang gloom and terror and mysterious woe,

The shrieking: things abhorr'd of Nature most,

And far beneath that soul-affrighting coast,

To which, unskill'd, we names of gloom bequeath,

As Ades, Lethe, Nullity or Death.

" Death ! Ah, that name hath terror in its tone. What ! must the hope which scarce hath buoy'd us on O'er each most sad vicissitude bygone, With all its promise unfulfill'd, be o'er And set in gloom profound, to rise no more ? Drear as Life still hath been and sad as be Our cold dim prospects of Futurity,

'Twere easier far its countless ills to brave,

Than brook the heart-loath'd mystery of the Grave :

To cease at once from sympathies, inwove

By Sorrow's self all closely with our love,

To go, we know not whither, be, we know

Nor what, nor how ; it may be, far below

The meanest thing, that trails its form along

And ends existence with the setting sun :

Piecemeal dispers'd on Earth, air, fire or wind

The frame corporeal and the mystic mind :

Pain to such nullity were simple bliss,

And Life's worst bondage freedom, weigh'd with this.

" But mark, how denser pil'd and nearer grown, Yon mighty heap of watery gloom rolls on, Like some dark pall with mournful mystery rife, To cloak Death's dismal triumph over life. While still, above each deep'ning shade of gloom, Which Earth and Heaven's commingling bounds assume, His brow upheaves th' empyreal vault to rend, With snows age-crown'd, majestic Demawend.

CANTO I.] THE EXILES. 1 1

Low at his feet, where crouching mountains bow The dwindled form and pride-despoiled brow, Low at his base and round his footstool sweep Floods, like old Ocean's, swelling blue and deep : But not a wave shall toss its angry spray, And not a cloud shall climb the upward way, And scarce a sigh of all the wrathful blast, In yon black dungeon pent and prison'd fast, Shall with its idle breath the peace molest Or break the stillness of his awful crest.

" Child of an ancient Race, sublime and lone, O'er Man uprais'd, like yon cloud-girdled throne, Ah ! why hath Fate, to Might material kind, Still wreak'd her fury on the matchless Mind ? Thy first great Sire, who brav'd the Thunderer's might To snatch from Heaven Truth's soul-reviving Light, For love to Man reap'd perfidy and hate : — All hearts have quail'd o'er great Prometheus' fate. He fell : and from his phoenix dust did spring A long proud Line, of Prophet, Chief, and King ;

12 PEOMETHEUS' DAUGHTER. [CANTO I.

Each Avith his spirit's glowing seal imprest, Truth's zeal, Man's love inspiring each large breast ; Each to like doom decreed: — an infant lone Last heir, — and exil'd from Prometheus' throne. Here, refuge from Man's hate the princely child Found mid Hvrcania's rocks and mountains wild ; Bequeathing for the boon his matchless Line, To build mid barbarous hosts a fane divine.

" Hence sprang thy matchless Sire. My Indra, how Describe his stately mien, his princely brow, Those attributes sublime, which mark the mind Form'd by its majesty to awe mankind. Against a nation in that nation's cause He stirr'd his might, dragg'd forth her tarnish'd laws To open day ; despoil'd the worshipp'd fire Of honours vain ; taught mortals to aspire To worship worthy of the wise and free, The great First-Cause, th' essential Deity. Indra, thou know'st his fate. 'Twas such a day As this : the Summer sun's declining ray

CANTO I.] THE EXILES. 13

Stream'd o'er an ocean of dark clouds, afar

Pil'd o'er yon Eastern heights : — th' infuriate war

Of elemental Powers drew slowly on,

And Demawend's vast mass upheav'd and lone

Stood like wave-girdled pinnacle of snow.

Ne'er since that Eve so near hath gloom'd his brow,

So vast hath seem'd his tempest-skirted form :

That was the Eve when thou, sweet child, wert born :

Born mid thy father's blood, thy mother's woes.

And this — ay ! this so semblant eve will close

The fourth sweet lustre of my child's career,

And a like term of widowhood to her,

Whom Man, more cruel than relentless Death,

Bereav'd of peace, yet left the curse of breath.

'Twas such an eve as this "

" Forbear, forbear, Sweet Friend. That dismal record will impair Thy shatter'd strength. In characters of fire Lives each dread record of her matchless &ire Upon his daughter's grateful soul imprest. He fell, but not ignobly : his large breast

O'erteemecl with fires divine that never die. He was a martyr for the Truth, and high As Truth can lift Man's tarnish'd soul, he rose, And seal'd his birthright in the very woes, Devis'd of thankless Man."

" 'Twas even so He spake and look'd. The glory of his brow Thine own hath caught. Ah ! could he see thee now ! Far from me, Love, for ever, ever far Be it thy meek and beauteous faith to mar With the dark doubts by mental woe imprest And dread experience on this widow'd breast. It were a bliss I dare not hope, to dwell On some bright future, where the word e farewell ' Is a forgotten sound : — where we might claim All that high promise, coupled with Love's name, In which we fondly, trustingly invest The wealth, the peace, the sunshine of the breast. But where is Truth ? All things around us fade ; E'en Love and Friendship side by side are laid In a few fleeting hours : all seek one bourne, With tidings of its nature none return :

CANTO I.] THE EXILES. 15

Mid signs of Death innumerous, where may be The path the clew to immortality ? "

" Where ! — Oh ! I've trac'd it in the breeze that flies Laden with incense of a thousand sighs ; In every stream bright-gushing from the rock ; In every thunder's hoarse conflictive shock, In the fork'd lightning, quivering as it plays, The Moon's pale beam, the Sun's life-kindling rays, In the Morn's music and the Eve's still sigh ; And in that heart-pause of intensity, When Night hath banish'd each distracting sound, The World shut out and drawn her curtain round My soul, my conscience and that awful eye, Which scans the records of Eternity.

" Ah ! scorn not, Mother dear, that Realm refin'd By Reason sway'd, the Empire of the Mind. Think not, our aspirations pure and high To Virtue, goodness, immortality, Can ever (more than senseless matter) prove Curb'd in durational) or compell'd to move

In sphere unworthy their exalted aim.

Think not — oh ! scorn to think, that when tins flame

Leaps from its urn, to leave it dark and lone,

A lifeless wreck, its essence bright hath flown

Back to the prison of some baser clod, \

Deflected from the path it erst had trod |-

Tow'rd the pure presence of its source and God.'" J

She ceas'd, then meekly on her knees sank down

With eye uprais'd and tresses backward thrown,

And lip that quiver'd with the struggling fire

Of chasten'd rapture's most sublim'd desire.

" Spirit of Truth," she said, and every word

Distinct amid the stilly pause was heard

Of the vex'd elements, tho' deep and low

From the heart's inmost fane it seemed to flow.

" Spirit of Truth, whose seal we find imprest

On Heaven's starred vault, Earth's fair and genial breast,

In flowery mead and memory-haunted grove,

The Day-star's glory and Eve's star of Love,

Springs cmshino- bliss, still Autumn's sheenv ";old,

And hoarse-voic'd Winter, cloud and thunder-roll'd,

CANTO I.] THE EXILES. 17

And (than eternal Nature mightier still) In each sublime and mystery-hidden thrill Of inward consciousness, each strong desire To pierce beyond the visible World, and higher E'en than the highest soar, t' attain to Thee, Wellspring of Truth and Love and Purity ; Here at thy feet, and meekly to thy shrine, We bring the offering, worthiest thee and thine, Thine own best gifts, the thoughts that fain would rise, The hopes that root their anchors in the skies, Th' intense desire, more potent far than death, To burst the chains of ignorance and breathe Truth's pure, inspiring atmosphere, and be Freemen, by Truth, Eternal Truth, set free.

" Alas ! we gaze around us, all in vain ; Earth, wrapt in error, loves the sensual chain : Night robes the Earth in her funereal pall, And eyes, long us'd to darkness, vainly call That, good, which our best sympathies within Abhorring, own is vanity and sin.

Whither, ah ! whither shall we turn ? To thee ?

And wilt thou, Spirit of dread Purity

Thron'd in ineffable perfection, deign

Thine ear in pity to a Worm's sad plain —

Or stoop one thought tow'rd those whose feeble

prayers Are drown'd in music of ten thousand spheres, And shouts of mighty, bright angelic throngs, And answering raptures of material tongues Swarming through Nature's realm ? Ah ! rather, say, Hast thou, in boundless plenitude of sway, Created aught beyond thine own control, And cast the wondrous structure of the soul Like dew, upon the desert to expire, Merg'd in its sands or withered by its fire, A fruitless, useless waste ? Or hast thou wrought One utmost point of Space, from which thy thought Is bounded by remoteness ; or, which Thou Found'st worthy to create, yet deem'st too low To claim thy sovereign care ? Our hearts reply, Accurst the doubt, attaching the Most High Of error, feebleness, inconstancy !

CANTO I.] THE EXILES. 19

" Then, where is truth ? Once more to thee we turn. Hast thou delight to see thy creatures mourn And pine for that thou hold'st in boundless bliss ? What ! shall a Worm impugn of littleness Heav'n's Majesty supreme ? Yet, this our Earth Continues still, as at primordial birth, Sighing for truth, with not one gracious ray To streak its void, its darkness roll away.

" Spirit of Truth ! And is it thus ? Hast thou Ne'er sent a message of thy love below ? Ne'er felt the pleading of thine own great might, Thine own large goodness, to vouchsafe the light Thou causest us to pine for ? Can there be In unparticipated wealth, that free Unbounded bliss our hearts ascribe to thee ?

" Then, were good, evil. Then, were darkness, light. Then Chaos' self were order. Then, this bright And beauteous Earth were but an humbling blot On the great hand which formed it, yet forgot His own strange nature ; causing it to spring

A deep reproach to him, its architect and king.

2—2

" It is not thus. Oh ! by thy thunders say It is not, cannot be. E'en tho' thou slay Deny us not ; for rather would we fall By thy great hand, than brook th' ignoble thrall Of that our souls despise. If Truth's pure light Must needs destroy these mortal frames, too bright For their gross fabric, — spare, oh ! spare them not. Launch down thine awful bolt, e'en on this spot, And, whatsoe'er the grosser wreck may be, Let thy large goodness set our spirits free.

" But, if thou rather lov'st to work thy will Benign and righteous, by the peaceful rill Than the hoarse torrent : if the fruitful shower And gentle dew be tokens of thy power, And ruin thy strange work : oh ! then distil Into our hearts the truth we pine for, still ; Or if that truth has been to Earth sent down Make its blest precepts evermore our own."

She ceas'd. Down glanc'd as 'twere in answer dire O'er her fair brow Heaven's fork'd, destroying fire,

CANTO I.] THE EXILES. 21

Lit up that forehead with surnatural light, All too effulgent for her Mother's sight ; Who in the fancied wreck before her spread Bow'd, shuddering, to the Earth her careworn head. But, harmless o'er Prometheus' child did play- Promethean fire with consecrating ray, Touch'd the tiar her fairy brow that bound, And fus'd the ores in golden showers around ; But spar'd the delicate cheek, the fearless eye, Pouring its own pure flood of light on high, The tresses sacred to the soul of night, The forehead glistering in its snowy height. Yes ! forth Prometheus' fearless daughter came From searchino; test of fire's intensest flame. Her beauty, breathing of the hand divine, Her soul, aspiring to its source sublime, Offer'd no base alloy t' incense the ray, Beneath whose touch Earth's purest ores decay.

END OF CANTO I.

Canto II. THE MINSTEEL

Days of the shadowy Past, dim years and lone, Whose knell uprises from the dark abyss, Where have your dun, far-glooming pinions flown With all the Night and Sunshine, woe and bliss Of our vain World ; its pomp and littleness ? The Mighty of old Times ye've swept away ; Yea ! the dread Shades, once visitant of this Our dwindled World, may here no longer stray, Nor on our moonlit lawns disport the frolic Fay.

What have ye left us for the treasures, merg'd In those black caverns, buried out of sight ; For souls of fire, whose daring genius urg'd E'en to the gates of Heaven their eagle flight ? For him, who robb'd Sol's chariot of the light And brav'd the Thunderer in his people's cause ? For him, whose justice triumph'd o'er thy might, Paternal love, and rebaptiz'd the laws In blood, the dearest, Woe from Man's crush'd bosom draws ?

A dwindled world — a race of little men, Gigantic prejudice, and coward crime ; The sceptic snarling in his secret den, The bigot stabbing in the broad sunshine ; The foul seducer and the heartless mime ; — These have ye left, for those ye've downward drawn ; The flash gin-palace, for the marble shrine, And for the fairy dance on midnight lawn, Her step, Man's victim pale, heartbroken and forlorn.

CANTO II.] THE MINSTREL. 25

What have ye left us, for the faith approv'd, The leal, warm heart, the hospitable board ? The rude old hall our Fathers' Fathers lov'd, The manly spirit and the stainless sword ? What fate perverse invests an insect word With immortality, to deeds denied ? That thou canst but the Poet's song accord, For all thou'st whelm'd beneath thy plombless tide — For all our World's best wealth, its glory, boast and pride ?

Who would abide on this dispeopled Land, Its honour tarnish'd and its might decay'd ? Nor pant to join that old, illustrious Band, Beneath thy banner, awful Power, array'd ? To meet the Sage of Academus' shade, Each stainless Martyr to his Faith and Race, Th' angelic soul, of Heaven that breath'd and made An Eden bloom on Earth's sin-blighted face, And link'd us to the skies, with pure, ineffable grace ?

Oh ! bear me hence, ye billows that roll on Your gloomy channel to the vasty Deep ! Bear me to realms that own no tarnish'd sun Beyond Earth's cavern'd cell and dungeon keep. Waft, whirl me onward, downward o'er the steep, Where billows of the Past have hurl'd their spray, To where the Mighty of all Times from sleep Have ris'n to greet the Beauteous, Wise, and Gay, And of the dower of Eld, but Woe hath known decay.

Night glooms without : but in Prometheus' Hall The cresset lamp lights up the old rude wall, Casting long, wavering shadows, crost in path By countershades, projected from the hearth : As crackling high those cheerful flames aspire, And Man owns friendship with destroying fire. That ruddy flame might well the gloom allay Of the rude Hall that feels its genial ray ; But how dispel the still encroaching night Shrouding their hearts, lone watchers of its light ?

CANTO II.] THE MINSTREL. 27

" What holds his step ? Alas ! what led him forth To brave the Night gloom and the tempest wroth ? Indra my child ? Ah me ! that blinding flash, That peal, as Heaven and Earth in one dire crash Were wreck'd together ! Fearful is the night, And what avail firm heart and nerve of might When age-pil'd rocks the Whirlwind's fury own, And e'en the Monarch of the Woods is thrown From his primeval base."

The Maid replied With words of cheer, whose faltering notes belied Th' assum'd composure she would fain instil :

" Wild is the night, the rude gale rises still, And the fork'd lightning's flash incessant plays Scatt'ring the gloom with dire yet friendly rays : But Dion kens each sign the welkin shows Of brooding storm ; and never tempest rose With more of portent to forenounce its path And warn the wanderer of impending wrath. I heard the mighty Mountain's distant groan, (2) I heard the woodland Spirit's plaintive moan,

I saw the Tarn in silvery waves upbreak, When not one Aspen's mobile leaf might quake, Whilst (grown so near his mass) each rift was

kenn'd Scarring the awful front of Demawend: These Dion could not miss, nor scan in vain : He, doubtless, shelters with some friendly swain. Fear not for him, whom Heaven reserves a place Mid chiefs and heroes of our ancient Race."

The grace of eloquence was in her eye, The fervor, kindled in the soul, by high And holy confidence : yet as she spoke At times the faltering of frail nature broke The current of her voice, and on her cheek The deadly pallor and the hectic streak Emotion's conflict with the spirit speak.

Deeper, meanwhile and deadlier in its ire The Tempest pour'd its mingled flood and fire :

CANTO II.] THE MINSTREL. 29

Howl'd the Night-blast and hoarsely peal'd on high

In awful bursts the chorus of the sky.

While at each flash that lonely cresset's glare

Pal'd into dimness : then, with sickly flare

Resum'd, th' effulgence past, its languid reign,

Dim as the twilight of some battle-plain,

Where Man's fell passions from their drear abode

Hell's thin ghosts muster to their feast of blood.

Still, at each gust of that all-powerful blast

Trembled the walls, of massive fabric cast,

And wildly shook, as 'twere to giant's hand,

That door of strength like screen of willow wand ;

And still young Indra to the portal pass'd

Listing each shrill note of the fitful blast,

And half believ'd, amid the jarring war

Of the vex'd elements, the shriek to hear

Or wail of human woe ; and scarce might quell

Her own wild cry of anguish, as they fell :

Yet, veiling in calm mien her soul's alarms,

Return'd to fill her widow'd Mother's arms,

And felt the terrors of her heart surcease

In anxious ministry to others' peace.

'Twas now the midnight time ; and there is power (Who hath not own'd it ?) in the midnight hour. E'en when the sun hath left a cloudless sky, And all Night's golden host keep watch on high, Tis not, alone, that slumber then hath prest Her solemn signet o'er Creation's rest, And that our fancies take the mournful tone Of things that walk the noiseless World alone ; But that a slumb'rous torpor hath o'erta'en The healthful guardians of the teeming brain, And dark and restless Spirits freedom win, To range at large the gloomier world within. 'Tis thus, that judging Nature's happier cause By the stern verdict of his bosom's laws, Man peoples Earth with many a fearful throng Of phantom shapes that to the soul belong, Inverting Nature's order, till are hurl'd The Mind's dark outcasts on the natural world.