Glenaveril : or, The metamorphoses. A poem in six books

Front matter

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I

Born on the day when Lord Glenaveril died Was Lord Glenaveril ; and the sire's last sigh,

Breathing a premature farewell, replied To the son's first petitionary cry.

On that dim tract which doth two worlds divide And yet unite, they passed each other by

As strangers, tho* each bore the selfsame name ;

The one departing as the other came.

ii.

Life and Death darkly jostled in the door That opes and shuts upon the days of man ;

The sire had lived scarce thirty years before The sireless son his orphaned life began.

That fragile ark in its small bosom bore

A race which else had perished, tho' its span

Was shorter than a cubit's when one bell

Rang birth and burial, welcome and farewell.

GLEN A VERIL. book i.

III

Long ere the child hath left its mother's knee The web of the man's character is spun ;

Those future paths, no living eye may see, Ere life's beginning were by Fate begun ;

And all the living do, and all they be,

Proceeds from what the dead have been, or done ;

For Fate hath no finality on earth.

This is the story of Glenaveril's birth : —

IV

Twas nigh the ending of the year and day, And both in sombre golden splendour glowed ;

October prone upon the hillside lay,

Down-drooping, half asleep, his fervid load

Of loosened fruitage ; when along the way, Full light of heart, a youthful horseman rode

With heedless hand, at rapid pace, not knowing

That Death, by chance, the selfsame way was going.

v.

Youth, in its saucy certitude of joy, Slights and offends, by noticing it not,

The sadness of that shrouded majesty

Whose unseen power is jealous when forgot.

The Austrian Gessler hung his bonnet high Upon a pole in some conspicuous spot,

And bade the surly Switzer doff his own,

Passing the symbol of an unseen crown.

canto I. DEATH. 7

VI

A bidding easily obeyed ! And yet

The rascals all refused to be polite, Taking the invitation for a threat ;

And that is why, perchance, the Swiss are quite The most uncivil folks you ever met,

Even to this day. But Gessler's thought was right. Tyranny's motto (learn it, young aspirant To freedom !) is Memento. Death's a tyrant.

VII. Remember, and salute him, sons of clay !

That horseman spied not Death upon his way,

And passed without saluting. Death was cross To be so slighted by his natural prey,

And shook the rein with a resentful toss. The steed beheld the spectre, swerved aside, Rolled down the abyss, — and Death was satisfied.

VIII

This happened somewhere in a lone retreat Of the Black Forest, yet not far from where

Fortune erewhile had fixed her favourite seat,

And round her nimble wheel, from here and there,

Her wandering devotees were wont to meet In Baden Baden's pleasant groves, now bare

Of those gay crowds, those golden oracles,

And Monsieur Benazet's alluring spells.

GLEN A VERIL, book i.

IX

Here dwelt a widow, whose late-buried spouse (A simple-minded Lutheran village priest)

Had left her with a living pledge of vows To love and death twice plighted, unreleased

From ante-natal bondage in that house

Not made with hands : and in the mother's breast

Grief, like a grave that puts forth blossoms, smiled

Its timorous welcomes to her unborn child.

x.

Three sons the Pastor's wife had borne him— all, Before their father, had in childhood died ;

So, from the past, four shadows seemed to fall About the empty cradle Fancy tried

To fill with infant features augural

Of future joys to former hopes denied.

These deaths the dwelling of the widowed wife

Had left too large for her diminished life ;

XI

But hither, homeward from the hot south, came Glenaverirs new-wed Earl, and Countess fair,

The drooping sweetness of whose flowerlike frame, That late had languished for its native air,

Here drew from breezes which, if not the same, At least were mountain-born, fresh strength to bear

Those mystic agitations that prelude

The burthened bliss of coming motherhood.

canto I. DEATH.

XII. So here Glenaveril was content to stay

The widow's tenant, till his wife had gained

Health to begin again the homeward way

To their own highlands. Women have retained

Better than men have, the original sway Of nature's human instincts : unrestrained

By barriers that divide, and ranks that vex,

Theirs is the strong old commonwealth of sex.