Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue

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ROSALIND AND HELEN.

Lately published in 8vo. 10s. 6d.

The REVOLT OF ISLAM: a Poem in twelve Cantos: by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Rosalind and Helen

ROSALIND AND HELEN.

Rosalind, Helen and her Child.

Scene, the Shore of the Lake of Como.

HELEN.

Come hither, my sweet Rosalind. 'Tis long since thou and I have met; And yet methinks it were unkind Those moments to forget. Come sit by me. I see thee stand By this lone lake, in this far land, Thy loose hair in the light wind flying, Thy sweet voice to each tone of even United, and thine eyes replying To the hues of yon fair heaven. Come, gentle friend: wilt sit by me? And be as thou wert wont to be

Ere we were disunited? None doth behold us now: the power That led us forth at this lone hour Will be but ill requited If thou depart in scorn: oh! come, And talk of our abandoned home. Remember, this is Italy, And we are exiles. Talk with me Of that our land, whose wilds and floods, Barren and dark although they be, Were dearer than these chesnut woods: Those heathy paths, that inland stream, And the blue mountains, shapes which seem Like wrecks of childhood's sunny dream: Which that we have abandoned now, Weighs on the heart like that remorse Which altered friendship leaves. I seek No more our youthful intercourse. That cannot be! Rosalind, speak, Speak to me. Leave me not.—When morn did come, When evening fell upon our common home,

When for one hour we parted,—do not frown: I would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken: But turn to me. Oh! by this cherished token, Of woven hair, which thou wilt not disown, Turn, as 'twere but the memory of me, And not my scorned self who prayed to thee.

ROSALIND.

Is it a dream, or do I see And hear frail Helen? I would flee Thy tainting touch; but former years Arise, and bring forbidden tears; And my o'erburthened memory Seeks yet its lost repose in thee. I share thy crime. I cannot choose But weep for thee: mine own strange grief But seldom stoops to such relief: Nor ever did I love thee less, Though mourning o'er thy wickedness Even with a sister's woe. I knew What to the evil world is due,

And therefore sternly did refuse To link me with the infamy Of one so lost as Helen. Now Bewildered by my dire despair, Wondering I blush, and weep that thou Should'st love me still,—thou only!—There, Let us sit on that grey stone, Till our mournful talk be done.

HELEN.

Alas! not there; I cannot bear The murmur of this lake to hear. A sound from thee, Rosalind dear, Which never yet I heard elsewhere But in our native land, recurs, Even here where now we meet. It stirs Too much of suffocating sorrow! In the dell of yon dark chesnut wood Is a stone seat, a solitude Less like our own. The ghost of peace Will not desert this spot. To-morrow,

If thy kind feelings should not cease, We may sit here.

ROSALIND.

Thou lead, my sweet, And I will follow.

HENRY.

'Tis Fenici's seat Where you are going? This is not the way, Mamma; it leads behind those trees that grow Close to the little river.

HELEN.

Yes: I know: I was bewildered. Kiss me, and be gay, Dear boy: why do you sob?

HENRY.

I do not know: But it might break any one's heart to see You and the lady cry so bitterly.

HELEN.

It is a gentle child, my friend. Go home, Henry, and play with Lilla till I come. We only cried with joy to see each other; We are quite merry now: Good night.

The boy Lifted a sudden look upon his mother, And in the gleam of forced and hollow joy Which lightened o'er her face, laughed with the glee Of light and unsuspecting infancy, And whispered in her ear, "Bring home with you That sweet strange lady-friend" Then off he flew, But stopt, and beckoned with a meaning smile, Where the road turned. Pale Rosalind the while, Hiding her face, stood weeping silently.

In silence then they took the way Beneath the forest's solitude.

It was a vast and antique wood, Thro' which they took their way; And the grey shades of evening O'er that green wilderness did fling Still deeper solitude. Pursuing still the path that wound The vast and knotted trees around Thro' which slow shades were wandering, To a deep lawny dell they came, To a stone seat beside a spring, O'er which the columned wood did frame A roofless temple, like the fane Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain, Man's early race once knelt beneath The overhanging deity. O'er this fair fountain hung the sky, Now spangled with rare stars. The snake, The pale snake, that with eager breath Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake, Is beaming with many a mingled hue, Shed from yon dome's eternal blue, When he floats on that dark and lucid flood

In the light of his own loveliness; And the birds that in the fountain dip Their plumes, with fearless fellowship Above and round him wheel and hover. The fitful wind is heard to stir One solitary leaf on high; The chirping of the grasshopper Fills every pause. There is emotion In all that dwells at noontide here: Then, thro' the intricate wild wood, A maze of life and light and motion Is woven. But there is stillness now: Gloom, and the trance of Nature now: The snake is in his cave asleep; The birds are on the branches dreaming: Only the shadows creep: Only the glow-worm is gleaming: Only the owls and the nightingales Wake in this dell when day-light fails, And grey shades gather in the woods: And the owls have all fled far away In a merrier glen to hoot and play,

For the moon is veiled and sleeping now. The accustomed nightingale still broods On her accustomed bough, But she is mute; for her false mate Has fled and left her desolate.

This silent spot tradition old Had peopled with the spectral dead. For the roots of the speaker's hair felt cold And stiff, as with tremulous lips he told That a hellish shape at midnight led The ghost of a youth with hoary hair, And sate on the seat beside him there, Till a naked child came wandering by, When the fiend would change to a lady fair! A fearful tale! The truth was worse: For here a sister and a brother Had solemnized a monstrous curse, Meeting in this fair solitude: For beneath yon very sky, Had they resigned to one another Body and soul. The multitude,

Tracking them to the secret wood, Tore limb from limb their innocent child, And stabbed and trampled on it's mother; But the youth, for God's most holy grace, A priest saved to burn in the market-place.

Duly at evening Helen came; To this lone silent spot, From the wrecks of a tale of wilder sorrow So much of sympathy to borrow As soothed her own dark lot. Duly each evening from her home, With her fair child would Helen come To sit upon that antique seat, While the hues of day were pale; And the bright boy beside her feet Now lay, lifting at intervals His broad blue eyes on her; Now, where some sudden impulse calls Following. He was a gentle boy And in all gentle sports took joy; Oft in a dry leaf for a boat,

With a small feather for a sail, His fancy on that spring would float, If some invisible breeze might stir It's marble calm: and Helen smiled Thro' tears of awe on the gay child, To think that a boy as fair as he, In years which never more may be, By that same fount, in that same wood, The like sweet fancies had pursued; And that a mother, lost like her, Had mournfully sate watching him. Then all the scene was wont to swim Through the mist of a burning tear.

For many months had Helen known This scene; and now she thither turned Her footsteps, not alone. The friend whose falsehood she had mourned, Sate with her on that seat of stone. Silent they sate; for evening, And the power it's glimpses bring Had, with one awful shadow, quelled

The passion of their grief. They sate With linked hands, for unrepelled Had Helen taken Rosalind's. Like the autumn wind, when it unbinds The tangled locks of the nightshade's hair, Which is twined in the sultry summer air Round the walls of an outworn sepulchre, Did the voice of Helen, sad and sweet, And the sound of her heart that ever heat, As with sighs and words she breathed on her, Unbind the knots of her friend's despair, Till her thoughts were free to float and flow And from her labouring bosom now, Like the bursting of a prisoned flame, The voice of a long pent sorrow came.

ROSALIND.

I saw the dark earth fall upon The coffin; and I saw the stone Laid over him whom this cold breast Had pillowed to his nightly rest! Thou knowest not, thou can'st not know

My agony. Oh! I could not weep: The sources whence such blessings flow Were not to be approached by me! But I could smile, and I could sleep, Though with a self-accusing heart. In morning's light, in evening's gloom, I watched,—and would not thence depart— My husband's unlamented tomb. My children knew their sire was gone, But when I told them,—'he is dead,' They laughed aloud in frantic glee, They clapped their hands and leaped about, Answering each other's ecstacy With many a prank and merry shout. But I sat silent and alone, Wrapped in the mock of mourning weed.

They laughed, for he was dead: but I Sate with a hard and tearless eye, And with a heart which would deny The secret joy it could not quell,

Low muttering o'er his loathed name; Till from that self-contention came Remorse where sin was none; a hell Which in pure spirits should not dwell.

I'll tell thee truth. He was a man Hard, selfish, loving only gold, Yet full of guile: his pale eyes ran With tears, which each some falsehood told, And oft his smooth and bridled tongue Would give the lie to his flushing cheek: He was a coward to the strong: He was a tyrant to the weak, On whom his vengeance he would wreak: For scorn, whose arrows search the heart, From many a stranger's eye would dart, And on his memory cling, and follow His soul to it's home so cold and hollow. He was a tyrant to the weak, And we were such, alas the day! Oft, when my little ones at play,

Were in youth's natural lightness gay, Or if they listened to some tale Of travellers, or of fairy land,— When the light from the wood-fire's dying brand Flashed on their faces,—if they heard Or thought they heard upon the stair His footstep, the suspended word Died on my lips: we all grew pale: The babe at my bosom was hushed with fear If it thought it heard its father near; And my two wild boys would near my knee Cling, cowed and cowering fearfully.

I'll tell thee truth: I loved another. His name in my ear was ever ringing, His form to my brain was ever clinging? Yet if some stranger breathed that name, My lips turned white, and my heart beat fast: My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame,

My days were dim in the shadow cast, By the memory of the same! Day and night, day and night, He was my breath and life and light, For three short years, which soon were past. On the fourth, my gentle mother Led me to the shrine, to be His sworn bride eternally. "And now we stood on the altar stair, When my father came from a distant land, And with a loud and fearful cry Rushed between us suddenly. I saw the stream of his thin grey hair, I saw his lean and lifted hand, And heard his words,—and live! Oh God! Wherefore do I live?—'Hold, hold!' He cried,—'I tell thee 'tis her brother! Thy mother, boy, beneath the sod Of yon church-yard rests in her shroud so cold: I am now weak, and pale, and old: We were once dear to one another,

I and that corpse! Thou art our child!' Then with a laugh both long and wild The youth upon the pavement fell: They found him dead! All looked on me, The spasms of my despair to see: But I was calm. I went away: I was clammy-cold like clay! I did not weep: I did not speak: But day by day, week after week, I walked about like a corpse alive! Alas! sweet friend, you must believe This heart is stone: it did not break.

My father lived a little while, But all might see that he was dying, He smiled with such a woful smile! When he was in the church-yard lying Among the worms, we grew quite poor, So that no one would give us bread: My mother looked at me, and said Faint words of cheer, which only meant That she could die and be content;

So I went forth from the same church door To another husband's bed. And this was he who died at last, When weeks and months and years had past, Through which I firmly did fulfil My duties, a devoted wife, With the stern step of vanquished will, Walking beneath the night of life, Whose hours extinguished, like slow rain Falling for ever, pain by pain, The very hope of death's dear rest; Which, since the heart within my breast Of natural life was dispossest, It's strange sustainer there had been.

When flowers were dead, and grass was green Upon my mother's grave,—that mother Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make My wan eyes glitter for her sake, Was my vowed task, the single care Which once gave life to my despair,—

When she was a thing that did not stir And the crawling worms were cradling her To a sleep more deep and so more sweet Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee, I lived: a living pulse then beat Beneath my heart that awakened me. What was this pulse so warm and free? Alas! I knew it could not be My own dull blood: 'twas like a thought Of liquid love, that spread and wrought Under my bosom and in my brain, And crept with the blood through every vein; And hour by hour, day after day, The wonder could not charm away, But laid in sleep, my wakeful pain, Until I knew it was a child, And then I wept. For long, long years These frozen eyes had shed no tears: But now—'twas the season fair and mild When April has wept itself to May: I sate through the sweet sunny day

By my window bowered round with leaves, And down my cheeks the quick tears ran Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves, When warm spring showers are passing o'er Helen, none can ever tell The joy it was to weep once more!

I wept to think how hard it were To kill my babe, and take from it The sense of light, and the warm air, And my own fond and tender care, And love and smiles; ere I knew yet That these for it might, as for me, Be the masks of a grinning mockery. And haply, I would dream, 'twere sweet To feed it from my faded breast, Or mark my own heart's restless beat Rock it to its untroubled rest, And watch the growing soul beneath Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath, Half interrupted by calm sighs,

And search the depth of its fair eyes For long departed memories! And so I lived till that sweet load Was lightened. Darkly forward flowed The stream of years, and on it bore Two shapes of gladness to my sight; Two other babes, delightful more In my lost soul's abandoned night, Than their own country ships may be Sailing towards wrecked mariners, Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea. For each, as it came, brought soothing tears, And a loosening warmth, as each one lay Sucking the sullen milk away About my frozen heart, did play, And weaned it, oh how painfully!— As they themselves were weaned each one From that sweet food,—even from the thirst Of death, and nothingness, and rest, Strange inmate of a living breast! Which all that I had undergone Of grief and shame, since she, who first

The gates of that dark refuge closed, Came to my sight, and almost burst The seal of that Lethean spring; But these fair shadows interposed: For all delights are shadows now! And from my brain to my dull brow The heavy tears gather and flow: I cannot speak: Oh let me weep!

The tears which fell from her wan eyes Glimmered among the moonlight dew: Her deep hard sobs and heavy sighs Their echoes in the darkness threw. When she grew calm, she thus did keep The tenor of her tale:

He died: I know not how: he was not old, If age be numbered by its years: But he was bowed and bent with fears, Pale with the quenchless thirst of gold, Which, like fierce fever, left him weak;

And his strait lip and bloated cheek Were warped in spasms by hollow sneers; And selfish cares with barren plough, Not age, had lined his narrow brow, And foul and cruel thoughts, which feed Upon the withering life within, Like vipers on some poisonous weed. Whether his ill were death or sin None knew, until he died indeed, And then men owned they were the same.

Seven days within my chamber lay That corse, and my babes made holiday: At last, I told them what is death: The eldest, with a kind of shame, Came to my knees with silent breath, And sate awe-striken at my feet; And soon the others left their play, And sate there too. It is unmeet To shed on the brief flower of youth The withering knowledge of the grave; From me remorse then wrung that truth.

I could not bear the joy which gave Too just a response to mine own. In vain. I dared not feign a groan; And in their artless looks I saw, Between the mists of fear and awe, That my own thought was theirs; and they Expressed it not in words, but said, Each in its heart, how every day Will pass in happy work and play, Now he is dead and gone away.

After the funeral all our kin Assembled, and the will was read. My friend, I tell thee, even the dead Have strength, their putrid shrouds within, To blast and torture. Those who live Still fear the living, but a corse Is merciless, and power doth give To such pale tyrants half the spoil He rends from those who groan and toil, Because they blush not with remorse Among their crawling worms. Behold,

I have no child! my tale grows old With grief, and staggers: let it reach The limits of my feeble speech, And languidly at length recline On the brink of its own grave and mine.

Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty Among the fallen on evil days: 'Tis Crime, and Fear, and Infamy, And houseless Want in frozen ways Wandering ungarmented, and Pain, And, worse than all, that inward stain Foul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers Youth's starlight smile, and makes its tears First like hot gall, then dry for ever! And well thou knowest a mother never Could doom her children to this ill, And well he knew the same. The will Imported, that if e'er again I sought my children to behold, Or in my birth-place did remain Beyond three days, whose hours were told,

They should inherit nought: and he, To whom next came their patrimony, A sallow lawyer, cruel and cold, Aye watched me, as the will was read, With eyes askance, which sought to see The secrets of my agony; And with close lips and anxious brow Stood canvassing still to and fro The chance of my resolve, and all The dead man's caution just did call; For in that killing lie 'twas said— "She is adulterous, and doth hold In secret that the Christian creed Is false, and therefore is much need That I should have a care to save My children from eternal fire." Friend, he was sheltered by the grave, And therefore dared to be a liar! In truth, the Indian on the pyre Of her dead husband, half consumed, As well might there be false, as I To those abhorred embraces doomed,

Far worse than fire's brief agony. As to the Christian creed, if true Or false, I never questioned it: I took it as the vulgar do: Nor my vext soul had leisure yet To doubt the things men say, or deem That they are other than they seem.

All present who those crimes did hear, In feigned or actual scorn and fear, Men, women, children, slunk away, Whispering with self-contented pride, Which half suspects its own base lie. I spoke to none, nor did abide, But silently I went my way, Nor noticed I where joyously Sate my two younger babes at play, In the court-yard through which I past; But went with footsteps firm and fast Till I came to the brink of the ocean green, And there, a woman with grey hairs, Who had my mother's servant been,

Kneeling, with many tears and prayers, Made me accept a purse of gold, Half of the earnings she had kept To refuge her when weak and old.

With woe, which never sleeps or slept, I wander now. 'Tis a vain thought— But on yon alp, whose snowy head 'Mid the azure air is islanded, (We see it o'er the flood of cloud, Which sunrise from its eastern caves Drives, wrinkling into golden waves, Hung with its precipices proud, From that grey stone where first we met) There, now who knows the dead feel nought? Should be my grave; for he who yet Is my soul's soul, once said: "'Twere sweet 'Mid stars and lightnings to abide, And winds and lulling snows, that beat With their soft flakes the mountain wide, When weary meteor lamps repose, And languid storms their pinions close:

And all things strong and bright and pure, And ever during, aye endure: Who knows, if one were buried there, But these things might our spirits make, Amid the all-surrounding air, Their own eternity partake?" Then 'twas a wild and playful saying At which I laughed, or seemed to laugh: They were his words: now heed my praying, And let them be my epitaph. Thy memory for a term may be My monument. Wilt remember me? I know thou wilt, and canst forgive Whilst in this erring world to live My soul disdained not, that I thought Its lying forms were worthy aught And much less thee.

HELEN.

O speak not so, But come to me and pour thy woe Into this heart, full though it be,

Aye overflowing with its own: I thought that grief had severed me From all beside who weep and groan; Its likeness upon earth to be, Its express image; but thou art More wretched. Sweet! we will not part Henceforth, if death be not division; If so, the dead feel no contrition. But wilt thou hear, since last we parted All that has left me broken hearted?

ROSALIND.

Yes, speak. The faintest stars are scarcely shorn Of their thin beams by that delusive morn Which sinks again in darkness, like the light Of early love, soon lost in total night.

HELEN.

Alas! Italian winds are mild, But my bosom is cold—wintry cold— When the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves,

Soft music, my poor brain is wild, And I am weak like a nursling child, Though my soul with grief is gray and old.

ROSALIND.

Weep not at thine own words, though they must make Me weep. What is thy tale?

HELEN.

I fear 'twill shake Thy gentle heart with tears. Thou well Rememberest when we met no more, And, though I dwelt with Lionel, That friendless caution pierced me sore With grief; a wound my spirit bore. Indignantly, but when he died With him lay dead both hope and pride.

Alas! all hope is buried now. But then men dreamed the aged earth Was labouring in that mighty birth,

Which many a poet and a sage Has aye foreseen—the happy age When truth and love shall dwell below Among the works and ways of men; Which on this world not power but will Even now is wanting to fulfil.

Among mankind what thence befel Of strife, how vain, is known too well; When liberty's dear paean fell 'Mid murderous howls. To Lionel, Though of great wealth and lineage high, Yet through those dungeon walls there came Thy thrilling light, O liberty! And as the meteor's midnight flame Startles the dreamer, sun-like truth Flashed on his visionary youth, And filled him, not with love, but faith, And hope, and courage mute in death; For love and life in him were twins, Born at one birth: in every other First life then love its course begins,

Though they be children of one mother; And so through this dark world they fleet Divided, till in death they meet: But he loved all things ever. Then He past amid the strife of men, And stood at the throne of armed power Pleading for a world of woe: Secure as one on a rock-built tower O'er the wrecks which the surge trails to and fro, 'Mid the passions wild of human kind He stood, like a spirit calming them; For, it was said, his words could bind Like music the lulled crowd, and stem That torrent of unquiet dream, Which mortals truth and reason deem, But is revenge and fear and pride. Joyous he was; and hope and peace On all who heard him did abide, Raining like dew from his sweet talk, As where the evening star may walk Along the brink of the gloomy seas, Liquid mists of splendour quiver.

His very gestures touched to tears The unpersuaded tyrant, never So moved before: his presence stung The torturers with their victim's pain, And none knew how; and through their ears, The subtle witchcraft of his tongue Unlocked the hearts of those who keep Gold, the world's bond of slavery. Men wondered, and some sneered to see One sow what he could never reap: For he is rich, they said, and young, And might drink from the depths of luxury. If he seeks fame, fame never crowned The champion of a trampled creed: If he seeks power, power is enthroned 'Mid antient rights and wrongs, to feed Which hungry wolves with praise and spoil, Those who would sit near power must toil; And such, there sitting, all may see. What seeks he? All that others seek He casts away, like a vile weed Which the sea casts unreturningly.

That poor and hungry men should break The laws which wreak them toil and scorn, We understand; but Lionel We know is rich and nobly born. So wondered they: yet all men loved Young Lionel, though few approved; All but the priests, whose hatred fell Like the unseen blight of a smiling day, The withering honey dew, which clings Under the bright green buds of May, Whilst they unfold their emerald wings: For he made verses wild and queer On the strange creeds priests hold so dear, Because they bring them land and gold. Of devils and saints and all such gear, He made tales which whoso heard or read Would laugh till he were almost dead. So this grew a proverb: "don't get old Till Lionel's 'banquet in hell' you hear, And then you will laugh yourself young again." So the priests hated him, and he Repaid their hate with cheerful glee.

Ah, smiles and joyance quickly died, For public hope grew pale and dim In an altered time and tide, And in its wasting withered him, As a summer flower that blows too soon Droops in the smile of the waning moon, When it scatters through an April night The frozen dews of wrinkling blight. None now hoped more. Grey Power was seated Safely on her ancestral throne; And Faith, the Python, undefeated, Even to its blood-stained steps dragged on Her foul and wounded train, and men Were trampled and deceived again, And words and shews again could bind The wailing tribes of human kind In scorn and famine. Fire and blood Raged round the raging multitude, To fields remote by tyrants sent To be the scorned instrument With which they drag from mines of gore The chains their slaves yet ever wore:

And in the streets men met each other, And by old altars and in halls, And smiled again at festivals. But each man found in his heart's brother Cold cheer; for all, though half deceived, The outworn creeds again believed, And the same round anew began, Which the weary world yet ever ran.

Many then wept, not tears, but gall Within their hearts, like drops which fall Wasting the fountain-stone away. And in that dark and evil day Did all desires and thoughts, that claim Men's care—ambition, friendship, fame, Love, hope, though hope was now despair— Indue the colours of this change, As from the all-surrounding air The earth takes hues obscure and strange, When storm and earthquake linger there.