Opening

Opening

THE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART. M.P.

A NEW EDITION

LONDON: ROUTLEDGE, WARNE, & ROUTLEDGE, FARRINGDON STEEET; NEW YORK: 56, WALKER STREET. 1860.

PREFATORY NOTE.

In this collection of the Author's Poems will be found some not before printed, and some entirely re-written from the more imperfect productions of earlier years. Few, if any, that have previously appeared, have escaped revision and alteration.

THE NEW TIMON Page 1 CONSTANCE; OR, THE PORTRAIT 88 MILTON 119 EVA 140 THE FAIRY BRIDE 149 THE BEACON 159 THE LAY OF THE MINSTREL'S HEART 163 NARRATIVE LYRICS; OR, THE PARCAE. IN SIX LEAVES FROM THE SIBYL'S BOOK. I.--NAPOLEON AT ISOLA BELLA 166 II.--MAZARIN 169 III.--ANDRE CHENIER 173 IV.--MARY STUART AND HER MOURNER 176 V.--THE LAST DAYS OF ELIZABETH 179 VI.--CROMWELL'S DREAM 186

KING ARTHUR.--BOOKS I. TO XII. 193

CORN-FLOWERS.--BOOK I. THE FIRST VIOLETS 467 THE IMAGE ON THE TIDE 468 IS IT ALL VANITY? 469 THE TRUE JOY-GIVER 472 BELIEF; THE UNKNOWN LANGUAGE 473 THE PILGRIM OF THE DESERT 475 THE KING AND THE WRAITH 477 LOVE AND DEATH 478 THE POET TO THE DEAD 479 MIND AND SOUL 486 THE GUARDIAN ANGEL 488 THE LOVE OF MATURER YEARS 489 THE EVERLASTING GRAVE-DIGGER 491 THE DISPUTE OF THE POETS 492 GANYMEDE 500 MEMNON 501 THE ANGEL AND THE CHILD 502 TO A WITHERED TREE IN JUNE 502 ON THE REPERUSAL OF LETTERS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 504 THE DESIRE OF FAME 505 THE LOYALTY OF LOVE 507 A LAMENT 508 LOST AND AVENGED 508 THE TREASURES BY THE WAYSIDE 510 ADDRESS TO THE SOUL IN DESPONDENCY 512

CORN-FLOWERS--BOOK. II. THE SABBATH 513 THE HOLLOW OAK 514 LOVE AND FAME 515 LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT 516 LOVE'S SUDDEN GROWTH 517 THE LOVE-LETTER 518 THE LANGUAGE OF THE EYES 518 DOUBT 519 THE ASSURANCE 519 MEMORIES, THE FOOD OF LOVE 520 ABSENT, YET PRESENT 521 LOVERS' QUARRELS 522 THE LAST SEPARATION 524 THE POPE AND THE BEGGAR 525 THE BEAUTIFUL DESCENDS NOT 526 THE LONG LIFE AND THE FULL LIFE 527 THE MIND AND THE HEART 528 THE LAST CRUSADER 529 FOREBODINGS 531 ORAMA; OR, FATE AND FREEWILL 532

EARLIER POEMS. THE SOULS OF BOOKS 536 LA ROCHEFOUCAULD AND CONDORCET 539 JEALOUSY AND ART 540 THE MASTER TO THE SCHOLAR 540 THE TRUE CRITIC 541 TALENT AND GENIUS 541 EURIPIDES 542 THE BONES OF RAPHAEL 543 THE ATHENIAN AND THE SPARTAN 546 THE PHILANTHROPIST AND THE MISANTHROPE 548 THE IDEAL WORLD 551 EPIGRAPH 561

* * * * *

THE NEW TIMON.

I.

O'er royal London, in luxuriant May, While lamps yet twinkled, dawning crept the day. Home from the hell the pale-eyed gamester steals; Home from the ball flash jaded Beauty's wheels; The lean grimalkin, who, since night began, Hath hymn'd to love amidst the wrath of man, Scared from his raptures by the morning star, Flits finely by, and threads the area bar; From fields suburban rolls the early cart; As rests the revel, so awakes the mart. Transfusing Mocha from the beans within, Bright by the crossing gleams the alchemic tin,-- There halts the craftsman; there, with envious sigh, The houseless vagrant looks, and limps foot-weary by.

Behold that street,--the Omphalos of Town! Where the grim palace wears the prison's frown, As mindful still, amidst a gaudier race, Of the veil'd Genius of the mournful Place-- Of floors no majesty but Griefs had trod, And weary limbs that only knelt to God.[A]

What tales, what morals, of the elder day-- If stones had language--could that street convey! Why yell the human bloodhounds panting there?-- To drown the Stuart's last forgiving prayer.[B] Again the bloodhounds!--whither would they run? To lick the feet of Stuart's ribald son. There, through the dusk-red towers, amidst his ring Of Vans and Mynheers, rode the Dutchman king; And there--did England's Goneril thrill to hear The shouts that triumph'd o'er her crownless Lear? There, where the gaslight streams on Crockford's door, Bluff Henry chuckled at the jests of More; There, where you gaze upon the last H. B., Swift paused, and mutter'd, "Shall I have that see?" There, where yon pile, for party's common weal, Knits votes that serve, with hearts abhorring, Peel, Blunt Walpole seized, and roughly bought, his man;-- Or, tired of Polly, St. John lounged to Anne. Well, let the world change on,--still must endure While Earth is Earth, one changeless race--the Poor! Within that street, on yonder threshold stone, What sits as stone-like?--Penury, claim thine own! She sate, the homeless wanderer,--with calm eyes Looking through tears, yet lifted to the skies; Wistful, but patient, sorrowful, but mild, As asking God when He would claim his child. A face too youthful for so hush'd a grief;-- The worm that gnaw'd the core had spared the leaf; Though worn the cheek, with hunger, or with care, Yet still the soft fresh childlike bloom was there; And each might touch you with an equal gloom, The youth, the care, the hunger, and the bloom;-- As if, when round the cradle of the child With lavish gifts the gentler fairies smiled, One vengeful sprite, forgotten as the guest, Had breathed a spell to disenchant the rest, And prove how slight each favour, else divine, If wroth the Urganda of the Golden Mine!

Now, as the houseless sate, and up the sky Dawn to day strengthen'd, pass'd a stranger by: He saw and halted;--she beheld him not-- All round them slept, and silence wrapt the spot. To this new-comer Nature had denied The gifts that graced the outcast crouch'd beside: With orient suns his cheek was swarth and grim, And low the form, though lightly shaped the limb; Yet life glow'd vigorous in that deep-set eye, With a calm force that dared you to defy; And the strong foot was planted on the stone Firm as a gnome's upon his mountain throne; Simple his garb, yet what the wealthy wear, And conscious power gave lordship to his air.

Lone in the Babel thus the maid and man; Long he gazed silent, and at last began: "Poor homeless outcast--dost thou see me stand Close by thy side, yet beg not? Stretch thy hand." The voice was stern, abrupt, yet full and deep: The outcast heard, and started as from sleep, And meekly rose, and stretch'd the hand and sought To murmur thanks--the murmur fail'd the thought. He took the slight thin hand within his own: "This hand hath nought of honest labour known; And yet methinks thou'rt honest!--speak, my child." And his face broke to beauty as it smiled. But her unconscious eyes, cast down the while, Met not the heart that open'd in the smile: Again the murmur rose, and died in air. "Nay, what thy mother and her home, and where?" Lo, with those words, the rigid ice that lay Layer upon layer within, dissolves away, And tears come rushing from o'ercharged eyes:-- "There is my mother--there her home--the skies!" Oh, in that burst, what depth of lone distress! O desolation of the motherless! Yet through the anguish how survived the trust, Home in the skies, though in the grave the dust! The man was moved, and silence fell again; Upsprung the sun--Light re-assumed the reign;-- Love ruled on high! Below, the twain that share Men's builded empires--Mammon and Despair!

At length, with pitying eye and soothing tone, The stranger spoke: "Thy bitterer grief mine own; Amidst the million, lonely as thou art, Mine the full coffers, but the beggar'd heart. Yet Gold--earth's demon, when unshared, receives God's breath, and grows a god, when it relieves. Trust still our common Father, orphan one, And He shall guide thee, if thou trust the son. Nay, follow, child." And on with passive feet, Ghost-like she follow'd through the death-like street. They paused at last a stately pile before; The drowsy porter oped the noiseless door; The girl stood wistful still without;--the pause The guide divined, and thus rebuked the cause:-- "Enter, no tempter let thy penury fear; I have a sister, and her home is here."

II.

And who the wanderer that hath shelter won Beneath the roof of Fortune's favour'd son? Ill stars predoom'd her, and she stole to birth Fresh from the Heaven,--Law's outcast on the earth; The child of Love betraying and betray'd, The blossom open'd in the Upas shade;-- So ran the rumour; if the rumour lied, The humble mother wept, but not denied: Ne'er had the infant's slumber known a rest On childhood's native shield--a father's breast. Dead or neglectful, 'twas to her the same; } But, oh, how dear!--yea, dearer for the shame, } All that God hallows in a mother's name! } Here, one proud refuge from a world's disdain, Here the lost empress half resumes her reign;-- Here the deep-fallen Eve sees Eden's skies Smile on the desert from the cherub's eyes. Sweet to each human heart the right to love; But 'tis the deluge consecrates the dove; And haply scorn yet more the child endears, Cradled in misery, and baptized with tears.

Each then the all on earth unto the other,-- The sinless infant and the erring mother: The one soon lost the smile which childhood wears, Chill'd by the gloom it marvels at--but shares; The other, by that purest love made pure, Learn'd to redeem, by labouring to endure; Who can divine what hidden music lies In the frail reed, till winds awake its sighs?

Hard was their life, and lonely was their hearth; There, kindness brought no holiday of mirth; No kindred visited, no playmate came;-- Joy, the proud worldling, shunn'd the child of shame! Yet in the lesson which, at stolen whiles, 'Twixt care and care, the respite-hour beguiles, The mother's mind the polish'd trace betrays } Of early culture and serener days; } And gentle birth still moulds the delicate phrase. } By converse, more than books (for books too poor), Learn'd Lucy more than books themselves insure; For if, in truth, the mother's heart had err'd, Pure now the life, and holy was the word: The fallen state no grov'ling change had wrought; Meek if the bearing, lofty was the thought; So much of noble in the lore instill'd, You felt the soul had ne'er the error will'd;-- That fraud alone had duped its wings astray From their true instinct tow'rds empyreal day. Thus life itself, if sadd'ning, still refined, And through the heart the culture reach'd the mind. As to the moon the tides attracted move, So flow'd the intellect beneath the love.-- To nurse the sickness, to assuage the care, To charm the sigh into the happier prayer; Forestall the unutter'd wish with ready guess; Wise in the exquisite tact of tenderness! These Lucy's study;--and, in grateful looks, Seraphs write lessons more divine than books.

So dawn'd her youth:--Youth, Nature's holiday! Fair time, which dreams so gently steal away; When Life--dark volume, with its opening leaf Of Joy,--through fable dupes us into grief-- Tells of a golden Arcady;--and then Read on,--comes truth;--the Iron world of men! But from her life thy opening poet page Was torn!--Its record had no Golden Age.

Behold her by the couch, on bended knees! There the wan mother--there the last disease! Dread to the poor the least suspense of health,-- Their hands their friends, their labour all their wealth: Let the wheel rest from toil a single sun, And all the humble clock-work is undone. The custom lost, the drain upon the hoard, The debt that sweeps the fragment from the board, How mark the hunger round thee, and be brave-- Foresee thy orphan, and not fear the grave? Lower and ever lower in the grade Of penury fell the mother and the maid, Till the grim close; when, as the midnight rain Drove to the pallet through the broken pane, The dying murmur'd: "Near,--thy hand,--more near! I am not what scorn deem'd,--yet not severe The doom which leaves me, in the hour of death, The right to bless thee with my parting breath-- These, worn till now, wear thou, his daughter. Live To see thy sire, and tell him--I forgive!" Cold the child thrills beneath the hands that press Her bended neck--slow slackens the caress-- Loud the roof rattles with the stormy gust; The grief is silent, and the love is dust; From the spent fuel God's bright spark is flown; And there the Motherless, and Death--alone!

Then fell a happy darkness o'er the mind;-- That trance, that pause, the tempest leaves behind: Still, with a timid step, around she crept, And sigh'd, "She sleeps!" and smiled. Too well she slept! Dark strangers enter'd in the squalid cell; Rude hirelings placed the pauper in the shell; Harsh voices question'd of the name and age; Ev'n paupers live upon the parish page. She answers not, or sighs, and smiles, and keeps The same meek language:--"Hush! my mother sleeps." They thrust some scanty pence into her palm, And led her forth, scarce marv'ling at her calm; And bade her work, not beg--be good, and shun All bad companions--so their work was done, And the wreck left to drift amidst the roar Of the Great Ocean with the rocky shore.

And thou hast found the shelter!--from thine eyes Melt the long shadows. Dawn is in the skies. Low on the earth, while Night endures,--unguess'd Hope folds the wing and slumbers on its nest; Let but a sunbeam to the world be given-- And hark--it singeth at the gates of Heaven!

III.

Yet o'er that house there hung a solemn gloom; The step fell timid in each gorgeous room, Vast, sumptuous, dreary as some Eastern pile, Where mutes keep watch--a home without a smile; Still as if silence reign'd there, like a law, And left to pomp no attribute but awe; Save when the swell of sombre festival Jarr'd into joy the melancholy hall, So some chance wind in mournful autumn wrings Discordant notes, although from music-strings. Wild were the wealthy master's moods and strange, As one whose humour found its food in change; Now for whole days content apart to dwell With books and thought--his world the student's cell; And now, with guests around the glittering board, The hermit-Timon shone the Athenian lord. There bloom'd the bright ephemerals of the hour, Whom the fierce ferment forces into flower, The gorgeous nurslings of the social life, Sprung from our hotbeds--Vanity and Strife! Lords of the senate, wrestlers for the state, Grey-hair'd in youth, exhausted, worn,--and great; Pale Book-men,--charming only in their style; And Poets, jaundiced with eternal bile;-- All the poor Titans our Cocytus claims, With tortured livers, and immortal names:-- Such made the guests, Amphitryons well may boast, But still the student travail'd in the host;-- These were the living books he loved to read, Keys to his lore, and comments on his creed. From them he rose with more confirm'd disdain Of the thorn-chaplet and the gilded chain. Oft, from such stately revels, to the shed Where Hunger couch'd, the same dark impulse led; Intent, the Babel, Art has built, to trace, Here scan the height, and there explore the base; That structure call'd "The Civilized," as vain As its old symbol on the Shinar plain, Where Pride collects the bricks and slime, and then But builds the city to divide the men; Swift comes the antique curse,--smites one from one, Rends the great bond, and leaves the pile undone.

Man will o'er muse--when musing on mankind: The vast expanse defeats the searching mind, Blent in one mass each varying height and hue:-- Wouldst thou seize Nature, Artist?--bound the view! But He, in truth, is banish'd from the ties That curb the ardent, and content the wise; From the pent heart the bubbling passions sweep, To spread in aimless circles o'er the deep.

Still in extremes--in each was still betray'd A soul at discord with the part it play'd; A soul in social elements misplaced, Bruised by the grate and yearning for the waste, And wearing custom, as a pard the chain, Now with dull torpor, now with fierce disdain.

All who approach'd him by that spell were bound, Which nobler natures weave themselves around: Those stars which make their own charm'd atmosphere; Not wholly love, but yet more love than fear, A mystic influence, which, we know not why, Makes some on earth seem portions of our sky.

In truth, our Morvale (such his name) could boast Those kinglier virtues which subject us most; The ear inclined to every voice of grief, The hand that oped spontaneous to relief, The heart, whose impulse stay'd not for the mind } To freeze to doubt what charity enjoin'd, } But sprang to man's warm instinct for mankind; } Honour, truth's life-sap, with pervading power Nurturing the stem to crown it with the flower; And that true daring not alone to those Whom fault or fate has marshall'd into foes; But the rare valour that confronts with scorn The monster shape, of Vice and Folly born, Which some "the World," and some "Opinion," call, Own'd by no heart, and yet enslaving all; The bastard charter of the social state, Which crowns the base to ostracise the great; The eternal quack upon the itinerant stage, This the "good Public," that "the enlighten'd Age," Ready alike to worship and revile, To build the altar, or to light the pile; Now "Down with Stuart and the Reign of Sin," Now "Long live Charles the Second and Nell Gwynne;" Now mad for patriots--hot for revolution, Now all for hanging and the Constitution. Honour to him, who, self-complete, if lone, Carves to the grave one pathway all his own; And, heeding nought that men may think or say, Asks but his soul if doubtful of the way.

IV.

Such was the better nature Morvale show'd; Now view the contrast which the worse bestow'd. Large was his learning, yet so vague and mix'd It guided less the reason than unfix'd; The dauntless impulse and the kingly will, Prompted to good, but leapt the checks to ill; Quick in revenge, and passionately proud, His brightest hour still shone forth from a cloud, And none conjecture on the next could form-- So play'd the sunbeam on the verge of storm.

Still young--not youthful--life had pass'd through all Age sighs, and smiles, and trembles to recall. From childhood fatherless and lone begun His fiery race, beneath as fierce a sun, Where all extremes of Love and Horror are, Soft Camdeo's lotos bark, grim Moloch's gory car; Where basks the noonday luminously calm, O'er eldest grot and immemorial palm; And in the grot, the Goddess of the Dead And the couch'd strangler, list the wanderer's tread, And where the palm leaves stir with breeze-like sigh, Sports the fell serpent with his deathful eye.

Midst the exuberant life of that fierce zone, Uncurb'd, self-will'd to man had Morvale grown. His sire (the offspring of an Indian maid And English chief), whose orient hues betray'd The Varna Sankara[C] of the mix'd embrace. Carved by his sword a charter from disgrace; Assumed the father's name, the Christian's life, And his sins cursed him with an English wife: A haughty dame, whose discontented charms That merchant, Hymen, bargain'd to his arms. In war he fell: his wife--the bondage o'er, Loath'd the dark pledge the abhorred nuptials bore-- Yet young, her face more genial wedlock won, And one bright daughter made more loath'd the son. Widow'd anew, for London's native air, And two tall footmen, sigh'd the jointured fair: Wealth hers, why longer from its use exiled?-- She fled the land and the abandon'd child; Yet oft the first-born, 'midst the swarthier race, Gazed round and miss'd the fair unloving face. In vain the coldness, nay, the hate had been, Hate, by the eyes that love, is rarely seen.

Yet more he miss'd the playmate, sister, child, With looks that ever on his own had smiled; With rosy lips, caressing and caress'd; Led by his hand and cradled on his breast: But, as the cloud conceals and breaks in flame, The gloom of youth the fire of man became. Not his the dreams that studious life allows, "Under the shade of melancholy boughs,"-- Dreams that to lids the Muse anoints belong,-- Rocking the passions on soft waves of song: No poet he; adventure, wandering, strife, War and the chase, wrung poetry from life.

One day a man, who call'd his father "friend," Told o'er his rupees and perceived his end. Life's business done--a million made--what still Remain'd on earth? Wealth's last caprice--a Will! The man was childless--but the world was wide; He thought on Morvale, made his will,--and died. They sought and found the unsuspecting heir Crouch'd in the shade that near'd the tiger's lair; His gun beside, the jungle round him--wild, Lawless and fierce as Hagar's wandering child:-- To this fresh nature the sleek life deceased Left the bright plunder of the ravaged East.

Much wealth brings want,--that hunger of the heart Which comes when Nature man deserts for Art: His northern blood, his English name, create Strife in the soul, till then resign'd to fate; The social world with blander falsehood graced, Smiles on his hopes, and lures him from the waste. Alas! the taint that sunburnt brow bespeaks, Divides the Half-Caste from the world he seeks: In him proud Europe sees the Paria's birth, And haughty Juno spurns his barren hearth. Half heathen, and half savage,--all estranged Amidst his kind, the Ishmael roved unchanged.

Small need to track his course from year to year, Till wearied passion paused in its career: Youth goads us on to action; lore of men Brings thought--thought books--books quiet; well, and then? Alas! we move but in the Hebrews' ring;[D] Our onward steps but back the landmarks bring, Until some few at least escape the thrall, And breathe the space beyond the flaming wall: Feel the large freedom which in faith is given, And poise the wings that shall possess the heaven.

He sought his mother. She, intent to shun, Closed that last refuge on the homeless son, Till death approach'd, and Conscience, that sad star, Which heralds night, and plays but on the bar Of the Eternal Gate,--laid bare the crime, And woke the soul upon the brink of time. Haply if close, too closely, we would read That sibyl page, the motive of the deed, Remorse for him her life abandon'd, weaves Fear for the dearer one her death bereaves; And penitent lines consign'd, with eager prayer, The lorn Calantha to a brother's care. Not till long moons had waned in distant skies, O'er the last mandate wept the Indian's eyes; But the lost sister lived, the flower of yore Bloom'd from the grave,--and earth was sweet once more; Fair Florence holds the heart he yearns to meet; Swift, when heart yearns to heart, how swift the feet! Well, and those arms have clasp'd a sister now! Thy tears have fallen on a sister's brow! Alas! a sister's heart thy doom forbade; Thy lot as lonely, and thy hearth as sad. Is that pale shade the Peri-child in truth, Who shone, like Morning, on the hills of Youth? Is that cold voice the same that rang through air, Blithe as the bird sings in rebuke of care?

Certes, to those who might more closely mark, That dove brought nought of gladness to his ark; No loving step, to meet him homeward, flew; Still at his voice her pale cheek paler grew. The greeting kiss, the tender trustful talk,-- Arm link'd in arm--the dear familiar walk; The sweet domestic interchange of cares, Memories and hopes--this union was not theirs. Partly perchance the jealous laws that guard The Eastern maids, their equal commune barr'd; For still, in much the antique creed retain'd Its hold, and India in the Alien reign'd: That superstitious love which would secure What the heart worships, for the world too pure; And wrap with solemn mystery and divine, From the crowd's gaze, the idol and the shrine, In him was instinct,--generous if austere; More priestly reverence, than dishonouring fear. Yet wherefore shun no less, if this were all, His lonely chamber than his crowded hall? For days, for weeks, perchance, unseen, aloof Far as the poles, beneath one common roof, She drew around her the cold spells, which part From forward sympathies the unsocial heart. Yet, strange to say, each seem'd to each still dear; And love in her but curb'd by stronger fear; And love in him by some mysterious pride, That sought the natural tenderness to hide: Did she but name him, you beheld her raise Moist eyes to heaven, as one who inly prays. News of her varying health he daily sought, And his mood alter'd with the tidings brought: If worse than wonted, it was sad to view That stern man's trembling lip and waning hue,-- Sad, yet the sadness with an awe was blent,-- No words e'er gave the struggling passion vent; And still that passion seem'd not grief alone, Some curse seem'd labouring in the stifled groan: Some angrier chord the mix'd emotion wrench'd; The brow was darken'd, and the hand was clench'd.

There was a mystery that defied the guess, In so much love, and so much tenderness. What sword, invisible to human eyes, So sternly sever'd Nature's closest ties: To leave each yearning unto each--apart-- All ice the commune, and all warmth the heart?

V.

But how gain'd she, whom pity strange and rare Gave the night's refuge,--more than refuge there? At morn the orphan hostess had received The orphan outcast,--heard her and believed,-- And Lucy wept her thanks, and turn'd to part; But the sad tale had touch'd a woman's heart. Calantha's youth was lone, her nature kind, She knew no friend--she sigh'd a friend to find; That chasten'd speech, the grace so simply worn, Bespoke the nurture of the gentle-born; And so she gazed upon the weeping guest, Check'd the intended alms, and murmur'd "Rest, For both are orphans,--I should shelter thee, And, weep no more--thy smile shall comfort me."

Thus Lucy rested--finding day by day Her grateful heart the saving hand repay. Calantha loved her as the sad alone Love what consoles them;--in that life her own Seem'd to revive, and even hope to flower: Ah, over Sorrow Youth has such sweet power! The very menials linger'd as they went, To spy the fairy to their dwelling sent, To list her light step on the stair, or hark Her song;--yes, now the dove was in the ark! Ev'n the cold Morvale, spell'd at last, was found Within the circle drawn his guest around; Less rare his visits to Calantha grew, And her eye shrunk less coldly from his view The presence of the gentle third one brought Respite to memory, gave fresh play to thought; And as some child to strifeful parents sent, Laps the long discord in its own content, This happy creature seem'd to reach that home, To say--"Love enters where the guileless come!" It was not mirth, for mirth she was too still; It was not wit, wit leaves the heart more chill; But that continuous sweetness, which with ease Pleases all round it, from the wish to please,-- This was the charm that Lucy's smile bestow'd; The waves' fresh ripple from deep fountains flow'd;-- Below exhaustless gratitude,--above, Woman's meek temper, childhood's ready love.

Yet oft, when night reprieved the tender care, And lonely thought stole musing on to prayer; As some fair lake reflects, when day is o'er, With clearer wave from farther glades the shore, So, her still heart remember'd sorrows glass'd; And o'er its hush lay trembling all the past, Again she sees a mother's gentle face; Again she feels a mother's soft embrace; Again a mother's sigh of pain she hears, And starts--till lo, the spell dissolves in tears! Tears that too well the faithful grief reveal, Which smiles, by day made duties, would conceal.

VI.

It was a noon of summer in its glow, And all was life, but London's life, below; As by the open casement half reclined Calantha's languid form;--a gentle wind Brought to her cheek a bloom unwonted there, And stirr'd the light wave of the golden hair. Hers was a beauty that made sad the eye, Lovely in fading, like a twilight sky; The shape so finely, delicately frail, As form'd for climes unruffled by a gale; The lustrous eye, through which looks forth the soul, Bright and more brightly as it nears the goal; The fever'd counterfeit of healthful bloom, The rose so living yet so near the tomb; The veil the Funeral Genius lends his bride, When, fair as Love, he steals her to his side, And leads her on till at the nuptial porch, He murmurs, "Know me now!" and lowers the torch. What made more sad the outward form's decay, A soul of genius glimmer'd through the clay; Oft through the languor of disease would break That life of light Parnassian dreamers seek; And music trembled on each aspen leaf Of the boughs drooping o'er the fount of grief.

Genius has so much youth no care can kill; Death seems unnatural when it sighs--"Be still." That wealth, which Nature prodigally gave, Shall Life but garner for its heir the Grave? What noble hearts that treasure might have bless'd! How large the realm that mind should have possess'd! Love in the wife, and wisdom in the friend, And earnest purpose for a generous end, And glowing sympathy for thoughts of power And playful fancy for the lighter hour; All lost, all cavern'd in the sunless gloom Of some dark memory, beetling o'er the tomb;-- Like bright-wing'd fairies, whom the hostile gnome Has spell'd and dungeon'd in his rocky home, The wanderer hears the solitary moan, Nor dreams the fairy in the sullen stone.

Contrasting this worn frame and weary breast, Fresh as a morn of April bloom'd the guest: April has tears, and mists the morn array; The mists foretell the sun,--the tears the May. Lo, as from care to care the soother glides, How the home brightens where the heart presides! Now hovering, bird-like, o'er the flowers,--at times Pausing to chant Calantha's favourite rhymes, Or smooth the uneasy pillow with light hand; Or watch the eye, forestalling the demand, Complete in every heavenly art--above All, save the genius of inventive love.

The window open'd on that breadth of green, To half the pomp of elder days the scene. Gaze to thy left--there the Plantagenet Look'd on the lists for Norman knighthood set;[E] Bright issued forth, where yonder archway glooms, Banner and trump, and steed, and waves of plumes, As with light heart rides wanton Anne to brave Tudor's grim love, the purple and the grave. Gaze to the right, where now--neat, white, and low, The modest Palace looks like Brunswick Row;[F] There, echoed once the merriest orgies known, Since the frank Norman won grave Harold's throne; There, bloom'd the mulberry groves, beneath whose shade His easy loves the royal Rowley made; Where Villiers flaunted, and where Sedley sung, And wit's loose diamonds dropp'd from Wilmot's tongue! All at rest now--all dust!--wave flows on wave; But the sea dries not!--what to us the grave? It brings no real homily, we sigh, Pause for awhile and murmur, "All must die!" Then rush to pleasure, action, sin once more, Swell the loud tide, and fret unto the shore.

And o'er the altered scene Calantha's eye Roves listless--yet Time's Great the passers by! Along the road still fleet the men whose names Live in the talk the moment's glory claims. There, for the hot Pancratia of Debate Pass the keen wrestlers for that palm,--the State. Now, "on his humble but his faithful steed," Sir Robert rides--he never rides at speed-- Careful his seat, and circumspect his gaze; And still the cautious trot the cautious mind betrays. Wise is thy heed!--how stout soe'er his back, Thy weight has oft proved fatal to thy hack![G] Next, with loose rein and careless canter view Our man of men, the Prince of Waterloo; O'er the firm brow the hat as firmly press'd, The firm shape rigid in the button'd vest; Within--the iron which the fire has proved, And the close Sparta of a mind unmoved!

Not his the wealth to some large natures lent, Divinely lavish, even where misspent, That liberal sunshine of exuberant soul, Thought, sense, affection, warming up the whole; The heat and affluence of a genial power, Rank in the weed as vivid in the flower; Hush'd at command his veriest passions halt, Drill'd is each virtue, disciplined each fault; Warm if his blood--he reasons while he glows, Admits the pleasure--ne'er the folly knows; If Vulcan for our Mars a snare had set, He had won the Venus, but escaped the net; His eye ne'er wrong, if circumscribed the sight, Widen the prospect and it ne'er is right, Seen through the telescope of habit still, States seem a camp, and all the world--a drill!

Yet oh, how few his faults, how pure his mind, Beside his fellow-conquerors of mankind; How knightly seems the iron image, shown By Marlborough's tomb, or lost Napoleon's throne! Cold if his lips, no smile of fraud they wear, Stern if his heart, still "Man" is graven there; No guile--no crime his step to greatness made, No freedom trampled, and no trust betray'd; The eternal "I" was not his law--he rose Without one art that honour might oppose, And leaves a human, if a hero's, name, To curb ambition while it lights to fame.

But who, scarce less by every gazer eyed, Walks yonder, swinging with a stalwart stride? With that vast bulk of chest and limb assign'd So oft to men who subjugate their kind; So sturdy Cromwell push'd broad-shoulder'd on; So burly Luther breasted Babylon; So brawny Cleon bawl'd his Agora down; And large-limb'd Mahmoud clutch'd a Prophet's crown!

Ay, mark him well! the schemer's subtle eye, The stage-mime's plastic lip your search defy-- He, like Lysander, never deems it sin To eke the lion's with the fox's skin; Vain every mesh this Proteus to enthrall, He breaks no statute, and he creeps through all;-- First to the mass that valiant truth to tell, "Rebellion's art is never to rebel,-- Elude all danger but defy all laws,"-- He stands himself the Safe Sublime he draws! In him behold all contrasts which belong To minds abased, but passions roused, by wrong; The blood all fervour, and the brain all guile, The patriot's bluntness, and the bondsman's wile. One after one the lords of time advance,-- Here Stanley meets,--how Stanley scorns, the glance! The brilliant chief, irregularly great, Frank, haughty, rash,--the Rupert of Debate; Nor gout, nor toil, his freshness can destroy, And Time still leaves all Eton in the boy;-- First in the class, and keenest in the ring, He saps like Gladstone, and he fights like Spring; Ev'n at the feast, his pluck pervades the board, And dauntless game-cocks symbolize their lord. Lo where atilt at friend--if barr'd from foe-- He scours the ground, and volunteers the blow, And, tired with conquest over Dan and Snob, Plants a sly bruiser on the nose of Bob; Decorous Bob, too friendly to reprove, Suggests fresh fighting in the next remove, And prompts his chum, in hopes the vein to cool, To the prim benches of the Upper School:

Yet who not listens, with delighted smile, To the pure Saxon of that silver style; In the clear style a heart as clear is seen, Prompt to the rash--revolting from the mean.

Next cool, and all unconscious of reproach, Comes the calm "Johnny who upset the coach."[H] How form'd to lead, if not too proud to please,-- His fame would fire you, but his manners freeze. Like or dislike, he does not care a jot; He wants your vote, but your affection not; Yet human hearts need sun, as well as oats, So cold a climate plays the deuce with votes.-- And while his doctrines ripen day by day, His frost-nipp'd party pines itself away;-- From the starved wretch its own loved child we steal-- And "Free Trade" chirrups on the lap of Peel![I]-- But see our statesman when the steam is on, And languid Johnny glows to glorious John! When Hampden's thought, by Falkland's muses dress'd, Lights the pale cheek, and swells the generous breast; When the pent heat expands the quickening soul,-- And foremost in the race the wheels of genius roll!

VII.

What gives the Past the haunting charms that please Sage, scholar, bard?--The shades of men like these! Seen in our walks;--with vulgar blame or praise, Reviled or worshipp'd as our faction sways: Some centuries hence, and from that praise or blame, As light from vapour, breaks the steady flame, And the trite Present which, while acted, seems Time's dullest prose,--fades in the land of dreams, Gods spring from dust, and Hero-Worship wakes Out of that Past the humble Present makes. And yet, what matter to ourselves the Great? What the heart touches--that controls our fate! From the full galaxy we turn to one, Dim to all else, but to ourselves the sun; And still, to each, some poor, obscurest life, Breathes all the bliss, or kindles all the strife. Wake up the countless dead!--ask every ghost Whose influence tortured or consoled the most: How each pale spectre of the host would turn From the fresh laurel and the glorious urn, To point where rots beneath a nameless stone, Some heart in which had ebb'd and flow'd its own!

So one by one, Calantha listlessly Beheld and heeded not the Great pass by. But now, why sudden that electric start? She stands--the pale lips soundless, yet apart! She stands, with clasped hands and strained eye-- A moment's silence--one convulsive cry, And sinking to the earth, a seeming death Smites into chill suspense the senses and the breath: Quick by the unconscious hostess knelt the guest, Bathed the wan brows, and loosed the stifling vest; As loosed the vest,--like one whose sleep of fear Is keen with dreams that warn of danger near,-- Calantha's hand repell'd the friendly care, And faintly clasp'd some token hoarded there, Perchance some witness of the untold grief,-- Some sainted relic of a lost belief, Some mournful talisman, whose touch recalls The ghost of time in Memory's desolate halls, And, like the vessels that, of old, enshrined The soil of lands the exile left behind,-- Holds all youth rescues from that native shore Of hope and passion, life shall tread no more.

Calantha wakes, but not to sense restored, The mind still trembled on the jarring chord, And troubled reason flicker'd in the eye, As gleams and wanes a star in some perturbed sky. Yet still, through all the fever of the brain, Terror, more strong, can Frenzy's self restrain. Few are her words, and if at times they seem To touch the dark truths shadow'd on her dream, She starts, with whitening lip--looks round in fear, And murmurs, "Nay! my brother did not hear!" Then smiles, as if the fear were laid at rest, And clasps the token treasured at her breast, And whispers, "Lucy, guard my sleep;--they say That sleep is faithless, and that dreams betray!"

Yet oft the while--to watch without the door, The brother's step glides noiseless o'er the floor,-- There meekly waits, until the welcome ray Of Lucy's smile gives comfort to the day, Till Lucy's whisper murmurs, "Be of cheer," And Pity dupes Affection's willing ear. Once, and but once, within the room he crept, When all was silent, and they deem'd she slept, Not softer to the infant's cradle steals The mother's step;--she hears not, yet she feels, As by strange instinct, the approach;--her frame Convulsed and shuddering as he nearer came; Till the wild cry,--the waiving hand convey The frantic prayer, so bitter to obey; And with stern brow, belying the wrung heart, And voiceless lips compress'd, he turns him to depart.

VIII.

Much wondering Lucy mused,--nor yet could find Why one so mournful shrunk from one so kind. Awe that had chill'd the gratitude she felt For Morvale, now in pity learn'd to melt: This tender patience in a man so stern, This love untiring--fear the sole return, This rough exterior, with this gentle breast, Awoke a sympathy that would not rest; The wistful eye, the changing lip, the tone Whose accents droop'd, or gladden'd, from her own, Haunted the woman's heart, which ever heaves Its echo back to every sound that grieves. Light as the gossamer its tissue spins O'er freshest dews when summer morn begins, Will Fancy weave its airy web above The dews of Pity, in the dawn of Love.-- At length, Calantha's reason wakes;--the strife Calms back,--the soul re-settles to the life. Freed from her post, flies Lucy to rejoice The anxious heart, so wistful for her voice; Not at his wonted watch the brother found, She seeks his door--no answer to her sound; She halts in vain, till, eager to begin The joyous tale, the bright shape glides within. For the first time beheld, she views the lone And gloomy rooms the master calls his own; Not there the luxury elsewhere, which enthralls With pomp the gazer in the rich man's halls; Strange arms of Eastern warfare, quaintly piled, Betray'd the man's fierce memory of the child,-- And litter'd books, in mystic scrolls enshrined The solemn Sibyl of the elder Ind. The girl treads fearful on the dismal floors, And with amazed eye the gloomy lair explores; Thus, as some Peri strays where, couch'd in cells With gods dethroned, the brooding Afrite dwells, From room to room her fairy footsteps glide, Till, lo! she starts to see him by her side.-- With crimson cheek, and downcast eyes, that quail Beneath his own, she hurries the glad tale, Then turns to part--but as she turns, still round She looks,--and lingers on the magic ground, And eyes each antique relic with the wild Half-pleased, half-timorous, wonder of a child; And as a child's the lonely inmate saw, And smiled to see the pleasure and the awe; And soften'd into kindness his deep tone, And drew her hand, half-shrinking, in his own, And said, "Nay, pause and task the showman's skill, What moves thee most?--come, question me at will."

Listening she linger'd, and she knew not why Time's wing so swiftly never seem'd to fly; Never before unto her gaze reveal'd The Eastern fire, the Eastern calm conceal'd: Child of the sun, and native of the waste, Cramp'd in the formal chains it had embraced, His heart leapt back to its old haunts afar, As leaps the lion from the captive bar; And, as each token flash'd upon the mind, Back the bold deeds that life had left behind, The dark eye blazed, the rich words roll'd along, Vivid as light, and eloquent as song; At length, with sudden pause, he check'd the stream, And his soul darken'd from the gorgeous dream. "So," with sad voice he said, "my youth went by, Fresh was the wave, if fitful was the sky; What is my manhood?--curl'd and congeal'd, A stagnant water in a barren field: Gall'd with strange customs,--in the crowd alone; And courting bloodless hearts that freeze my own. In the far lands, where first I breathed the air,-- Smile if thou wilt,--this rugged form was fair, For the swift foot, strong arm, bold heart give grace To man, when danger girds man's dwelling-place,-- Thou seest the daughter of my mother, now, Shrinks from the outcast branded on my brow; My boyhood tamed the panther in his den, The wild beast feels man's kindness more than men. Like with its like, they say, will intertwine,-- I have not tamed one human heart to mine!"-- He paused abruptly. Thrice his listener sought To shape consoling speech from soothing thought, But thrice she fail'd, and thrice the colour came And went, as tenderness was check'd by shame! At length her dove-like eyes to his she raised, And all the comfort words forbade, she gazed; Moved by her childlike pity, but too dark In hopeless thought than pity more to mark; "Infant," he murmur'd, "not for others flow The tears the wise, how hard soe'er, must know; As yet, the Eden of a guileless breast, Opes a frank home to every angel guest; Soft Eve, look round!--The world in which thou art Distrusts the angel, nor unlocks the heart-- Thy time will come!"--

He spoke, and from her side Was gone,--the heart his wisdom wrong'd replied!

[A] Where now stands St. James's palace stood the hospital dedicated to St. James, for the reception of fourteen leprous maidens.

[B] Charles the First attended divine service in the Royal Chapel immediately before he walked through the park to his scaffold at Whitehall. In the palace of St. James's, Monk and Sir John Granville schemed for the restoration of Charles II.

[C] The Sanscrit term, denoting the mixture or confusion of classes; applied to that large portion of the Indian population excluded from the four pure castes.

[D] According to Eastern commentators, the march of the Israelites in the Desert was in a charmed circle; every morning they set out on their journey, and every night found themselves on the same spot as that from which the journey had commenced.

[E] The Tilt-yard.

[F] Since this was written, to Buckingham Palace has been prefixed a front which is not without merit--in thrusting out of sight the other three sides of the building.

[G] The reader need scarcely be reminded, that these lines were written years before the fatal accident which terminated an illustrious life. If the lines be so inadequate to the subject, the author must state freely that he had the misfortune to differ entirely from the policy pursued by Sir Robert Peel at the time they were written; while if that difference forbade panegyric, his respect for the man checked the freedom of satire. The author will find another occasion to attempt, so far as his opinions on the one hand, and his reverence on the other, will permit--to convey a juster idea of Sir Robert Peel's defects or merits, perhaps as a statesman, at least as an orator.

[H] Lord Stanley's memorable exclamation on a certain occasion which now belongs to history,--"Johnny's upset the coach!" Never was coach upset with such perfect sang-froid on the part of the driver.

[I] Written before Sir Robert's avowed abandonment of protection. Prophetic.

PART THE SECOND.

I.

London, I take thee to a Poet's heart! For those who seek, a Helicon thou art. Let schoolboy Strephons bleat of flocks and fields, Each street of thine a loftier Idyl yields; Fed by all life, and fann'd by every wind, There burns the quenchless Poetry--Mankind! Yet not for me the Olympiad of the gay, The reeking SEASON'S dusty holiday:-- Soon as its summer pomp the mead assumes, And Flora wanders through her world of blooms, Vain the hot field-days of the vex'd debate, When Sirius reigns,--let Tapeworm rule the state! Vain Devon's cards, and Lansdowne's social feast, Wit but fatigues, and Beauty's reign hath ceased. His mission done, the monk regains his cell; Nor even Douro's matchless face can spell. Far from Man's works, escaped to God's, I fly, And breathe the luxury of a smokeless sky. Me, the still "LONDON," not the restless "TOWN" (The light plume fluttering o'er the helmed crown), Delights;--for there the grave Romance hath shed Its hues; and air grows solemn with the Dead. If, where the Lord of Rivers parts the throng, And eastward glides by buried halls along, My steps are led, I linger, and restore To the changed wave the poet-shapes of yore; See the gilt barge, and hear the fated king Prompt the first mavis of our Minstrel spring;[J] Or mark, with mitred Nevile,[K] the array } Of arms and craft alarm "the Silent way," } The Boar of Gloucester, hungering, scents his prey! } Or, landward, trace where thieves their festive hall Hold by the dens of Law,[L] (worst thief of all!) The antique Temple of the armed Zeal That wore the cross a mantle to the steel; Time's dreary void the kindling dream supplies, The walls expand, the shadowy towers arise, And forth, as when by Richard's lion side, For Christ and Fame, the Warrior-Phantoms ride! Or if, less grave with thought, less rich with lore, The later scenes, the lighter steps explore, If through the haunts of living splendour led-- Has the quick Muse no empire but the Dead? In each keen face, by Care or Pleasure worn, Grief claims her sigh, or Vice invites her scorn; And every human brow that veils a thought Conceals the Castaly which Shakespeare sought.

II.

Amidst the crowd (what time the glowing Hours Strew, as they glide, the summer world with flowers), Who fly the solitude of sweets to drown Nature's still whisper in the roar of Town; Who tread with jaded step the weary mill-- Grind at the wheel, and call it "Pleasure" still;-- Gay without mirth, fatigued without employ, Slaves to the joyless phantom of a joy;-- Amidst this crowd was one who, absent long, And late return'd, outshone the meaner throng; And, truth to speak, in him were blent the rays Which form a halo in the vulgar gaze; Howden's fair beauty, Beaufort's princely grace, Hertford's broad lands, and Courtney's vaunted race; And Pembroke's learning in that polish'd page, Writ by the Grace, 'the Manners and the Age!' Still with sufficient youth to please the heart, But old enough for mastery in the art;-- Renown'd for conquests in those isles which lie In rosy seas beneath a Cnidian sky, Where the soft Goddess yokes her willing doves, And meets invasion with a host of Loves; Yet not unlaurell'd in the war of wile Which won Ulysses grave Minerva's smile, For those deep arts the diplomat was known Which mould the lips that whisper round a throne.

Long in the numbing hands of Law had lain Arden's proud earldom, Arden's wide domain. Kinsman with kinsman, race with race had vied To snatch the prize, and in the struggle died; Till all the rights the crowd of heirs made dim, Death clear'd--and solved the tangled skein in him. There was but ONE who in the bastard fame Wealth gives its darlings, rivall'd Arden's name: A rival rarely seen--felt everywhere, With soul that circled bounty like the air, Simple himself, but regal in his train, Lavish of stores he seem'd but to disdain; To art a Medici--to want a god, Life's rougher paths grew level where he trod. Much Arden (Arden had a subtle mind, Which sought in all philosophy to find) Loved to compare the different means by which Enjoyment yields a harvest to the rich-- Himself already marvell'd to behold How soon trite custom wears the gleam from gold; Well, was his rival happier from its use Than he (his candour whisper'd) from abuse? He long'd to know this Morvale, and to learn: They met--grew friends--the Sybarite and the stern. Each had some fields in common: mostly those From which the plant of human friendship grows. Each had known strong vicissitudes in life; The present ease, and the remember'd strife. Each, though from differing causes, nursed a mind At war with Fate, and chafed against his kind. Each with a searching eye had sought to scan The solemn Future, soul predicts to man; And each forgot how, cloud-like passions mar, In the vex'd wave, the mirror of the star;-- How all the unquiet thoughts which life supplies May swell the ocean but to veil the skies; And dark to Man may grow the heaven that smiled On the clear vision Nature gave the Child. Each, too, in each, where varying most they seem, Found that which fed half envy, half esteem. As stood the Pilgrim of the waste before The stream that parted from the enchanted shore, Though on the opposing margent of the wave Those fairy boughs but seeming fruitage gave; Though his stern manhood in its simple power, If cross'd the barrier, soon had scorn'd the bower; Yet, as some monk, whom holier cloisters shade, Views from afar the glittering cavalcade, And sighs, as sense against his will recalls Fame's knightly lists and Pleasure's festive halls,-- So, while the conscience chid, the charm enchain'd, And the heart envied what the soul disdain'd.

While Arden's nature in his friend's could find An untaught force that awed his subtler mind-- Awed, yet allured;--that Eastern calm of eye And mien--a mantle and a majesty, At once concealing all the strife below It shames the pride of lofty hearts to show, And robing Art's lone outlaw with the air Of nameless state the lords of Nature wear;-- This kingly mien contrasting this mean form, This calm exterior with this heart of storm, Touch'd with vague interest, undefined and strange, The world's quick pupil whose career was change.

Forth from the crowded streets one summer day, } Rode the new friends; and cool and silent lay } Through shadowy lanes the chance-directed way. } As with slow pace and slacken'd rein they rode, Men's wonted talk to deeper converse flow'd.

"Think'st thou," said Arden, "that the Care, whose speed Climbs the tall bark and mounts the flying steed, And (still to quote old Horace) hovers round Our fretted roofs, forbears yon village ground?-- Think'st thou that Toil drives trouble from the door; And does God's sun shine brightest on the Poor?"

"I know not," answer'd Morvale, "but I know Each state feels envy for the state below; Kings for their subjects--for the obscure, the great: The smallest circle guards the happiest state. Earth's real wealth is in the heart;--in truth, As life looks brightest in the eyes of youth, So simple wants--the simple state most far From that entangled maze in which we are, Seem unto nations what youth is to man,"--

"'When wild in woods the noble savage ran,'" Said Arden, smiling. "Well, we disagree; Even youth itself reflects no charms for me; And all the shade upon my life bestow'd Spreads from the myrtle which my boyhood sow'd." His bright face fell,--he sigh'd. "And canst thou guess Why all once coveted now fails to bless?-- Why all around me palls upon the eye, And the heart saddens in the summer sky? It is that youth expended life too soon: A morn too glowing sets in storm at noon."

"Nay," answer'd Morvale, gently, "hast thou tried That second youth, to which ev'n follies guide; Which to the wanderer SENSE, when tired and spent, Proclaims the fount by which to fix the tent? The heart but rests when sense forbears to roam; We win back freshness when Love smiles on Home;-- Home not to thee, O happy one! denied." } } "To me of all," the impatient listener cried, } "Thy words but probe the wounds I vainly hide; } That which I pine for, thou hast pictured now;-- The hearth, the home, the altar, and the vow; The tranquil love, unintertwined with shame; The child's sweet kiss;--the Father's holy name; The link to lengthen a time-honour'd line;-- These not for me, and yet these should be mine." "If," said the Indian, "counsel could avail, Or pity soothe, a friend invites thy tale."

"Alas!" sigh'd Arden, "nor confession's balm Can heal, nor wisdom whisper back to calm. Yet hear the tale--thou wilt esteem me less-- But Grief, the Egoist, yearneth to confess. I tell of guilt--and guilt all men must own, Who but avow the loves their youth has known. Preach as we will, in this wrong world of ours, Man's fate and woman's are contending powers; Each strives to dupe the other in the game,-- Guilt to the victor--to the vanquish'd shame!" He paused, and noting how austerely gloom'd His friend's dark visage, blush'd, and thus resumed. "Nay, I approve not of the code I find, Not less the wrong to which the world is kind. But, to be frank, how oft with praise we scan Men's actions only when they deal with man; Lo, gallant Lovelace, free from every art That stains the honour or defiles the heart,-- With men;--but how, if woman the pursuit? What lies degrade him, and what frauds pollute; Yet still to Lovelace either sex is mild, And new Clarissas only sigh--'How wild!'"

"Enough," said Morvale; "I perforce believe: Strong Adam owns no equal in his Eve; But worse the bondage in your bland disguise; Europe destroys,--kind Asia only buys! If dull the Harem, yet its roof protects, And Power, when sated, still its slave respects. With you, ev'n pity fades away with love,-- No gilded cage gives refuge to the dove; Worse than the sin the curse it leaves behind: Here the crush'd heart, or there the poison'd mind,-- Your streets a charnel or a market made, For the lorn hunger, or the loathsome trade. Pardon,--Pass on!" "Behold, the Preface done," Arden resumed, "now opens Chapter One!"

III.

LORD ARDEN'S TALE.

"Rear'd in a court, a man while yet a boy, Hermes said 'Rise,' and Venus sigh'd 'Enjoy;' My earlier dreams, like tints in rainbows given, Caught from the Muse, glow'd but in clasping heaven; The bird-like instinct of a sphere afar Pined for the air, and chafed against the bar. But can to Guelphs Augustan tastes belong? Or Georgium Sidus look benign on song? My short-lived Muse the ungenial climate tried, Breathed some faint warbles, caught a cold, and died! Wise kinsmen whisper'd 'Hush! forewarn'd in time; The feet that rise are not the feet of Rhyme; Your cards are good, but all is in the lead, Play out the heart, and you are lost indeed: Leave verse, my boy, to unaspiring men-- The eagle's pinion never sheds a pen!'

"So fled the Muse! What left the Muse behind? The aimless fancy and the restless mind; The eyes, still won by whatsoe'er was bright, But lost the star's to prize the diamond's light. Man, like the child, accepts the bauble boon. And clasps the coral where he ask'd the moon. Forbid the pomp and royalty of heaven,-- To the born Poet still the earth is given; Duped by each glare in which Corruption seems To give the glory imaged on his dreams: Thus, what had been the thirst for deathless fame, Grew the fierce hunger for the Moment's name; Ambition placed its hard desires in Power, And saw no Jove but in the Golden Shower. No miser I--no niggard of the store-- The end Olympus, but the means the ore: I look'd below--there Lazarus crawl'd disdain'd; I look'd aloft--there, who but Dives reign'd? He who would make the steeps of power his home, Must mask the Titan till he rules the Gnome. If I insist on this, my soul's disease, Excuse for fault thy practised sight foresees: It makes the moral of my tale, in truth, And boyhood sow'd the poison of my youth.

"Meanwhile men praised, and women smiled;--the wing, Bow'd from the height, still bask'd beneath the spring. Pass by the Paphian follies of that day,-- When true love comes, it is to close our May. Well, ere my boyish holiday was o'er, The grim god came, and mirth was mine no more: A well-born pauper, I seem'd doom'd to live By what great men to well-born paupers give: I had an uncle high in power and state, Who ruled three kingdoms' and one nephew's fate. This uncle loved, as English thanes will all, An autumn's respite in his rural hall; In slaughtering game, relax'd his rigid breast; And so,--behold me martyr'd to his guest!

IV.

"Wandering, one day, in discontented mood By a clear brook--through grassy solitude, Leading the dance of light waves chanting low-- A little world of sunshine seem'd to grow Out from the landscape--as with sudden spring From bosk and brake--leapt the stream glittering. Lo, the meek home, its porch with roses twined, Green sward before, a sacred tower behind; On the green sward the year's last flowers were gay, And the last glory of the golden day Paused on the spire, that, shining, soar'd to cleave Those clouds, the loveliest, that precede the eve.

"Along the bank, beneath the bowering tree, Young fairies play'd--young voices laugh'd in glee; One voice more mellow'd in its silver sound, Yet blithe as rang the gladdest on the ground; One shape more ripen'd, one sweet face more fair, Yet not less happy, the Titania there. Soft voice, fair face, I hear, I see ye still! Shades and dim echoes from the blissful hill Behind me left, to cast but darkness o'er The waste slow-lengthening to the grave before!

"So Love was born. With love invention came; I won my entrance, but conceal'd my name. A village priest her father, poor and wise, In aught that clears to mortal sight the skies, But blind and simple as a child to all The things that pass upon the earth we crawl; The mask'd Lothario to his eyes appear'd A student youth, by Alma Mater rear'd The word to preach, the hunger to endure, And see Ambition close upon a Cure;-- A modest youth, who own'd his learning slight, And brought his taper to the master's light. This tale believed, the good man's harmless pride Was pleased the bashful neophyte to guide: Spread out his books, and, moved to pity, press'd The backward pupil to the daily guest.

"So from a neighbouring valley, where they deem My home, each noon I cross the happy stream, And hail the eyes already watchful grown, And clasp the hand that trembles in my own; But not for guilt had I conceal'd my name, The young warm passion nursed no thought of shame; The spell that bound ennobled while it charm'd, And Romeo's love Lothario's guile disarm'd; And vain the guile had been!--impure desire Round that chaste light but hover'd to expire: Her angel nature found its own defence, Ev'n in the instincts of its innocence; As that sweet plant which opens every hue Of its frank heart to eyes content to view, But folds its leaves and shrinks in coy disdain From the least touch that would the bloom profane. Link'd with the woman's Meekness, side by side, Stood, not to lose but guard the angel, Pride; Pride, with the shield for honour, not the heart, Sacred from stain, not proof against the dart. Brief,--then, such love it was my lot to win As sways a life to every grief but--sin.

V.

"Yet in the light of day to win and wed, To boast a bride, yet not to own a shed; To doom the famine, yet proclaim the bliss, And seal the ruin in the nuptial kiss;-- Love shunn'd such madness for the loved one's sake; What course could Prudence sanction Love to take? Lenient I knew my kinsman to a vice; But, oh, to folly Cato less precise! And all my future, in my kinsman bound, Shadow'd his humours--smiled in him or frown'd; But uncles still, however high in state, } Are mortal men--and Youth has hope to wait, } And Love a conqueror's confidence in Fate.-- } A secret Hymen reconciled in one Caution and bliss--if Mary could be won? Hard task!--I said it was my lot to win Sway o'er a life for grief;--this was not sin. To her I told my name, rank, doubts, and fears, And urged the prayer too long denied with tears-- 'Reject'st thou still,' I cried, 'well, then to me The pride to offer all life holds to thee; I go to tell my love, proclaim my choice-- Clasp want, mar fate, meet ruin, and rejoice, So that, at least, when next we meet, thy sigh Shall own this truth--"He better loved than I."'

"With that, her hand upon my own she laid, Look'd in my eyes--the sacrifice was made; Alas, she had no mother!--Nature moved That heart to this--she trusted, for she loved!

"I had a friend of lowlier birth than mine, The sunnier spot allured the trailing vine. My rising fortunes had the southern air, And fruit might bless the plant that clamber'd there. My smooth Clanalbin!--shrewd, if smooth, was he, His soul was prudent, though his life was free; Scapin to serve, and Machiavel to plot, Red-hair'd, thin-lipp'd, sly, supple,--and a Scot! To him the double project I confide, To cloak the rite, and yet to clasp the bride; Long he resisted--solemnly he warn'd, And urged the perils love had seen and scorn'd. At length subdued, he groan'd a slow consent, And pledged a genius practised to invent. A priest was found--a license was procured, Due witness hired, and secrecy assured; All this his task:--'tis o'er;--and Mary's life Bound up in one who dares not call her wife!

"Alas--alas, why on the fatal brink Of the abyss--doth not the instinct shrink? The meaner tribe the coming storm foresees-- In the still calm the bird divines the breeze-- The ox that grazes shuns the poison-weed-- The unseen tiger frights afar the steed-- To man alone no kind foreboding shows The latent horror or the ambush'd foes; O'er each blind moment hangs the funeral pall, Heaven shines, earth smiles--and night descends on all!

"But I!--fond reader of imagined skies, Foretold my future in those stars--her eyes! O heavenly Moon, circling with magic hues And mystic beauty all thy beams suffuse, Is not in love thine own fair secret seen? Love smooths the rugged--love exalts the mean: Love in each ray inspires the hush'd alarm, Love silvers every shadow into charm.

VI.

"O lonely beech, beneath whose bowering shade The tryst, encircling Paradise, was made, How the heart heard afar the hurrying feet, And swell'd to breathless words--'At last we meet!' But Autumn fades--dark Winter comes, and then Fate from Elysium calls me back to men; We part!--not equal is the anguish;--she Parts with all earth in that farewell to me; For not the grate more bars the veiled nun From the fair world with which her soul has done, Than love the heart, that vows, without recall, To one,--fame, honour, memory, hope, and all! But I!--behold me in the dazzling strife, The gaud, the pomp, the joyous roar of life,-- Man, with man's heart insatiate, ever stirr'd By the crowd's breath to conflict with the herd; Which never long one thought alone can sway,-- The dream fades from us when we leap to-day. New scenes surround me, new ambitions seize,-- All life one fever,--who defy disease?-- Each touch contagion:--living with the rest, The world's large pulse keeps time in every breast. Yet still for her--for her alone, methought, Its web of schemes the vulgar labour wrought: To ransom fate--to soar, from serfdom, free, Snap the strong chains of high-born penury; And, grown as bold to earth as to the skies, Proclaim the bliss of happy human ties:-- So, ever scheming, the soothed conscience deem'd! Fate smiled, and speeded all for which I schemed. My noble kinsman saw with grave applause My sober'd moods, too wise to guess the cause. ''Tis well,' said he, one evening; 'you have caught From me the ardour of the patriot's thought; No more distinguish'd in the modes of vice, Forsworn the race-course, and disdain'd the dice: A nobler race, a mightier game await The soul that sets its cast upon the state. Thoughtful, poor, calm, yet eager; such, in truth, He who is great in age should be in youth, Lo, your commencement!'

"And my kinsman set Before the eyes it brighten'd--the Gazette! Oh, how triumphant, Calendar of Fame! Halo'd in type, emerged the aspirant's name!

"'We send you second to a court, 'tis true; Small, as befits a diplomat so new,' Quoth my wise kinsman: 'but requiring all Your natural gifts;--to rise not is to fall! And harkye, stripling, you are handsome, young, Active, ambitious, and from statesmen sprung! Wed well--add wealth to power by me possess'd, And sleep on roses,--I will find the rest! But one false step,--pshaw, boy! I do not preach Of saws and morals, his own code to each,-- By one false step, I mean one foolish thing, And the wax melts, my Icarus, from your wing! Let not the heart the watchful mind betray,-- Enough!--no answer!--sail the First of May!'

"Here, then, from vapour broke at last the sun! Station, career, fame, fortune, all begun! Now, greater need than ever to conceal The secret spring that moved the speeding wheel; And half forgetting that I wish'd forgot, Each thought divides the absent from my lot. One night, escaped my kinsman's hall, which blazed With dames who smiled, and garter'd peers who praised, I seek my lonely home,--ascend the stair,-- Gain my dim room,--what stranger daunts me there? A grey old man!--I froze his look before; } The Gorgon's eye scarce fix'd its victim more,-- } The bride's sad father on the bridegroom's floor! } In the brief pause, how terrible and fast, As on the drowning seaman, rush'd the past! How had he learn'd my name,--abode,--the tie That bound?--for all spoke lightning in his eye. Lo, on the secret in whose darkness lay Power, future, fortune, pour'd the hateful ray! Thus silence ceased.

"'When first my home you deign'd To seek, what found you?--cheeks no tears had stain'd! Untroubled hearts, and conscience clear as day: And lips that loved, where now they fear, to pray: 'Twixt kin and kin, sweet commune undefiled-- The grateful father--the confiding child! What now that home?--behold! its change may speak In hair thus silver'd--in this furrow'd cheek! My child'--(he paused, and in his voice, not eyes, Tears seek the vent indignant pride denies) 'My child--God pardon me!--I was too proud To call her "daughter!"--what shall call the crowd? Man--man, she cowers beneath a Father's eye, And shuns his blessing--with one wish to die; And I that death-bed will resign'd endure If--speak the word--the soul that parts is pure?'

"'Who dares deny it?' I began, but check'd In the warm burst--cold wisdom hiss'd--'Reflect; Thy fears had outstripp'd truth--as yet unknown, The vows, the bond!--are these for thee to own?' The father mark'd my pause, and changing cheek, 'Go on!--why falter if the truth thou speak?' "Who dares deny it?"--Thou!--thy lip--thine eye-- Thy heart--thy conscience--these are what deny? O Heaven, that I were not thy priest!'

"His look Grew stern and dark--the natural Adam shook The reverend form an instant;--like a charm The pious memory stay'd the lifted arm; And shrunk to self-rebuke the threatening word, 'Man's not my weapons--I thy servant, Lord!' Moved, I replied--'Could love suffice alone } In this hard world,--the love to thee made known, } A bliss to cherish, 'twere a pride to own: } And if I pause, and if I falter--yet I hide no shame, I strive with no regret. Believe mine honour--wait the ripening hour; Time hides the germ, the season brings the flower.' Wildly he cried--'What words are these?--but one Sentence I ask--her sire should call thee son! Hist, let the heavens but hear us!--in her life Another lives--if pure she is thy wife! Now answer!'

I had answer'd, as became The native manhood and the knightly name; But shall I own it? the suspicious chill, The world-wise know, froze up the arrested will. Whose but her lips, sworn never to betray, Had fail'd their oath, and dragg'd my name to day? True, she had left the veil upon the shrine, But set the snare to make confession mine. Thus half resentment, half disdain, repell'd The man's frank justice, and the truth withheld. Yet, so invoked, I scorn'd at least the lie, And met the question with this proud reply:-- 'If thou dost doubt thy child, depart secure, My love is sinless, and her soul is pure. This by mine honour, and to Heaven, I swear! Dost thou ask more?--then bid thy child declare; What she proclaims as truth, myself will own; What she withholds, alike I leave unknown; What she demands, I am prepared to yield; Now doubt or spurn me--but my lips are seal'd.' I ceased, and stood with haughty mien and eye, That seem'd all further question to defy; He gazed, as if still spell'd in hope or fear, And hungering for the word that fail'd the ear. At last, and half unconscious, in the thrall Of the cold awe, he groan'd--

'And is this all? Courage, poor child--there may be justice yet-- Justice, Heaven, justice!'

With this doubtful threat He turn'd, was gone!--that look of stern despair, The uncertain footstep tottering down the stair, The clapping door; and then that void and chill, Which would be silence, were the conscience still; That sense of something gone, we would recall; The soul's dim stun before it feels its fall.

VII.

"Next day, the sire my noble kinsman sought; One ruling senates must be just, he thought. What chanced, untold--what follow'd may declare: } Behold me summon'd to my uncle's chair! } See his cold eye--I saw my ruin there! } I saw and shrunk not, for a sullen pride Embraced alike the kinsman and the bride: Scorn'd here, the seeming snare by cunning set; And there, coarse thraldom, with rebellion met.

"Brief was my Lord--

'An old man tells me, sir, You woo his child, to wed her you demur; Who knows, perhaps (and such his shrewd surmise), The noose is knit--you but conceal the ties! Please to inform me, ere I go to court, How stands the matter?--sir, my time is short.'

"'My Lord,' I answer'd, with unquailing brow, 'Not to such ears should youth its faults avow; And grant me pardon if I boldly speak, Youth may have secrets honour shuns to seek. I own I love, proclaim that love as pure! If this be sin--its sentence I endure. All else belongs unto that solemn shrine, In the veil'd heart, which manhood holds divine. Men's hearths are sacred, so our laws decree; Are hearts less sacred? mine at least is free. Suspect, disown, forsake me, if thou wilt; I prize the freedom where thou seest the guilt.' My kinsman's hand half-shaded the keen eye, Which glanced askant;--he paused in his reply. At length, perchance, his practised wit foresaw Threats could not shake where interest fail'd to awe; And judged it wise to construe for the best The all I hid, the little I confess'd; Calmly he answer'd--

'Sir, I like this heat; Duper or duped, a well-bred man's discreet; Take but this hint (one can't have all in life), You lose the uncle if you win the wife. In this, you choose Rank, Station, Power, Career; In that, Bills, Babies,--and the Bench, I fear. Hush;--'the least said' (old proverb, sir, but true!)-- As yet your fault indulgently I view. Words,--notes (sad stuff!)--some promise rashly made-- Action for breach--that scandal must be stay'd. I trust such scrapes will teach you to beware; 'Twill cost some hundreds--that be my affair. Depart at once--to-morrow--nay, to-day: When fairly gone, there will be less to pay!' So spoke the Statesman, whom experience told The weight of passion in the scales of gold. Pleased I escape, but how reprieve enjoy? One word from her distrusted could destroy! Yet that distrust the whispering heart belied, Self ceased, and anger into pity died; I thought of Mary in her desolate hour, And shudder'd at the blast, and trembled for the flower. Why not go seek her?--chide the impatient snare; } Or if faith linger'd, win it to forbear? } Now was the time, no jealous father there! } Swift as the thought impell'd me, I obey'd! 'Tis night; once more I greet the moonlit shade; Once more I see the happy murmuring rill; The white cot bower'd beneath the pastoral hill! An April night, when, after sparkling showers, The dewy gems betray the cradled flowers, As if some sylphid, startled from her bed In the rath blossom by the mortal's tread, Had left behind her pearly coronal.-- Bright shone the stars on Earth's green banquet-hall; You seem'd, abroad, to see, to feel, to hear The new life flushing through the virgin year; The visible growth--the freshness and the balm; The pulse of Nature throbbing through the calm; As wakeful, over every happy thing, Watch'd through the hush the Earth's young mother--Spring! Calm from the lattice shot a steady ray; } Calm on the sward its silvery lustre lay; } And reach'd, to glad the glancing waves at play. } I stood and gazed within the quiet room;-- Gazed on her cheek;--there, spring had lost its bloom! Alone she sate! Alone!--that worn-out word, So idly spoken, and so coldly heard; Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known, Of hope laid waste, knells in that word--ALONE!

"Who contemplates, aspires, or dreams, is not Alone: he peoples with rich thoughts the spot. The only loneliness--how dark and blind!-- Is that where fancy cannot dupe the mind; Where the heart, sick, despondent, tired with all, Looks joyless round, and sees the dungeon wall; When even God is silent, and the curse Of torpor settles on the universe; When prayer is powerless, and one sense of dearth Abysses all, save solitude, on earth! So sate the bride!--the drooping form, the eye Vacant, yet fix'd,--that air which Misery, The heart's Medusa, hardens into stone, Sculptured the Death which dwelleth in the lone! Oh, the wild burst of joy,--the life that came } Swift, brightening, bounding through the lips and frame, } When o'er the floors I stole, and whisper'd soft her name! } 'Come--come at last! Oh, rapture!' Who can say Why meaner natures hold mysterious sway Over the nobler? Why mine orb malign Ruled as a fate a spirit so divine; Giving or light or darkness all its own Unto a star so near the Sapphire Throne?

"'So thou art come!' 'Hush! say whose lips reveal'd All these soft traitors swore to guard conceal'd-- Our love--my name?' 'Not I--not I--thy wife! No, truth to thee more dear than fame, than life: A friend, my father's friend, the secret told; How guess'd I know not. Oh! if Love controll'd My heart that hour--that bitter hour--when, there Bent that old man who----Husband, hear my prayer Have mercy on my father!--break, oh, break This crushing silence!--bid his daughter speak, And say, Thou'rt not dishonour'd?'

'If thou wilt, Tell all;--dishonour not alone in guilt! Men's eyes dishonour in the fallen see;-- Speak, and dishonour thou inflict'st on me: The debt, the want, the beggary, and the shame,-- The pauper branded on the noble's name! Speak and inflict--I still can spurn--the doom; Unveil the altar to prepare the tomb! I, who already in my grasp behold, Bright from Hesperian fields, the fruit of gold, By which alone the glorious prize we gain, Foil'd of the goal will die upon the plain. I own two brides, both dear alike, and see In one Ambition--in the other Thee: Destroy thy rival, and to her destroy'd Succeeds despair to make the world a void.' Then, with stern frankness to that shrinking ear, I told my hopes,--in her my only fear; Told, with a cheek no humbling blushes dyed, How met the sire--how unavow'd the bride! 'Thus have I wrong'd--this cruel silence mine; And now be truth, and truth is vengeance, thine!' I ceased to speak; lo, she had ceased to weep; Her white lips writhed, as Suffering in its sleep; And o'er the frame a tremulous shudder went, As every life-stream to the source was sent: The very sense seem'd absent from the look, And with the Heart, its temple, Reason shook! So there was silence; such a silence broods In winter nights, o'er frost-bound solitudes, Darkness, and ice, and stillness all in one,-- The silence without life, the withering without sun. But o'er that silence, as at night's full noon, Through breathless cloud, shimmers the sudden moon; A sad but heavenly smile a moment stirr'd, And heralded the martyr's patient word: 'Fear not; pursue thy way to fortune, fame; I will not soil thy glory with my shame. Betray! avenge!--For ever, until thou Proclaim the bond and ratify the vow, Closed in this heart, as lamps within the tomb, Shall waste the light, that lives amidst the gloom,-- That lives, for oh! the day shall come at length, Though late, though slow,--(give hope, for hope is strength!)-- When, from a father's breast no more exiled, The wife may ask forgiveness for the child?'"

VIII.

"And so you parted?" with a moisten'd eye, Said Morvale;--"nay, man, spare me the reply; Too much the Eve has moved me----" "Not to feel That for the serpent which thy looks reveal," Said Arden, sadly smiling; "yet in truth, See how the grey world grafts its age on youth; See how we learn to prize the bullion Vice, Coin'd in all shapes, yet still but Avarice; The stamp may vary,--you the coin may call 'Ambition,' 'Power,' 'Success,'--but Gold is all. Mine is the memoir of a selfish age: Turn every leaf--slight difference in the page; Through each, the same fierce struggle to secure Earth's one great end--distinction from the Poor; All our true wealth, like alchemists of old, Fused in the furnace--for a grain of gold.

IX.

"Well then, we parted,--to make brief the tale, I take my orders, and my leave, set sail; For weeks, for months, fond letters, long nor few, Keep hope alive with love for ever new: If she had suffer'd, she betray'd it not; All save one sweetness--'that we loved' forgot. She never named her father;--once indeed The name was writ, but blurr'd;--it was decreed That she should fill the martyr-measure,--hide Not the dart only, but the bleeding side, And, wholly generous in the offering made, Veil even sorrow, lest it should upbraid.

"At length one letter came--the last; more blest In faith, in love, false hope, than all the rest; But at the close some hastier lines appear, Tremblingly writ, and stain'd with many a tear, In which, less said than timorously implied (The maid still blushing through the secret bride), I heard her heart through that far distance beat: The hour Eve's happiest daughter dreads to meet,-- The hour of Nature's agony was nigh,-- Husband and father, false one, where was I?

"Slow day on slow day, unrevealing, crept, And still its ice the freezing silence kept: Fear seized my soul, I could no longer brook The voiceless darkness which the daylight took. I feign'd excuse for absence;--left the shore: Fair blow the winds;--behold her home once more!

"Her home! a desert! Still, though rank and wild, On the rank grass the heedless floweret smiled; Still by the porch you heard the ungrateful bee; Still brawl'd the brooklet's unremembering glee; But they--the souls of the sweet pastoral ground? Green o'er the father rose the sullen mound! Amidst his poor he slept; his end was known,-- Life's record rounded with the funeral stone: But she?--but Mary?--but my child?--what dews Fall on their graves?--what herbs which heaven renews Pall their pure clay?--Oh! were it mine at least To weep, beloved, where your relics rest!-- Bear with me, Morvale,--pity if you can-- These thoughts unman me--no, they prove me man!" "Man of the cities," with a mutter'd scorn, Groan'd the stern Nomad from the lands of Morn,-- "Man of the sleek, far-looking prudence, which Beggars life's May, life's Autumn to enrich; Which, the deed doing, halts not in its course, But, the deed done, finds comfort in remorse. Man, in whom sentiment, the bloodless shade Of noble passion, alternates with trade,-- Hard in his error--feeble in his tears, And huckstering love, yet prattling of the spheres!" So mused the sombre savage, till the pale And self-gnaw'd worldling nerved him to his tale:-- "The hireling watch'd the bed where Mary lay, In stranger arms my first-born saw the day. Below,--unseen his travail, all unknown His war with Nature, sate the sire alone: He had not thrust the one he still believed, If silent, sinless, or in sin deceived-- He had not thrust her from a father's door; So Shame came in, and cower'd upon the floor, And face to face with Shame, he sate to hear The groan above bring torture to his ear. In that sad night, when the young mother slept, Forth from his door the elder mourner crept; Absent for days, none knowing whither bent, Till back return'd abruptly as he went. With a swift tremulous stride he climb'd the stair, } Through the closed chamber gleam'd his silver hair, } And Mary heard his voice soft--pitying--as in prayer! } 'Child, child, I was too hard!--But woe is wild; Now I know all!--again I clasp my child!' Within his arms, upon his heart again His Mary lay, and strove for words in vain; She strove for words, but better spoke through tears The love the heart through silence vents and hears.

"All this I gather'd from the nurse, who saw The scene, which dews from hireling eyes could draw; So far;--her sob the pastor heard, and turn'd, Waved his wan hand, nor what more chanced she learn'd.

"Next morn in death the happier father lay, From sleep to Heaven his soul had pass'd away; He had but lived to pardon and to bless His child;--emotion kills in its excess, And that task done, why longer on the rack Stretch the worn frame?--God's mercy call'd him back. The day they buried him, while yet the strife Of sense and memory raged for death and life In Mary's shatter'd brain, her father's friend, Whose hand, perchance, had sped him to his end, Whose zeal officious had explored, reveal'd My name, the half, worse half, of all conceal'd, Sought her, and saw alone: When gone, a change Came o'er the victim, terrible and strange; All grief seem'd hush'd--a stern tranquillity Calm'd the wan brow and fix'd the glassy eye; She spoke not, moved not, wept not,--on her breast Slept Earth's new stranger--not more deep its rest. They fear'd her in that mood--with noiseless tread Stole from the room; and, ere the morn, she fled. Gone the young Mother with her babe!--no trace; As the wind goes, she vanish'd from the place; They search'd the darkness of the wood, they pried Into the secrets of the tempting tide, In vain,--unseen on earth as in the wave, Where life found refuge or despair a grave." "And is this all?" said Morvale-- "No, my thought Guess'd at the clue; her father's friend I sought, A stern hard man, of Calvin's iron mould, And yet I moved him, and his tale he told. It seem'd (by me unmark'd), amidst the rest, My uncle's board had known this homely guest. Our evil star had led the guest, one day, Where through the lone glade wound our lovers' way, To view, with Age's hard, suspecting eyes, The high-born courtier in the student's guise. Thus, when the father, startled to vague fears, By his child's waning cheek and unrevealing tears, First to his brother priest for counsel came, He urged stern question--track'd the grief to shame, Guess'd the undoer, and disclosed the name.

"Time went--the priest had still a steady trust In Mary's honour; but, to mine unjust, Divined some fraud--explored, and found a clue, There had been marriage, if the rites were due; Had learn'd Clanalbin's name, as one whose eye Had seen, whose witness might attest the tie. This news to Mary's father was convey'd The eve her infant on her heart was laid.

"That night he left his home, he did not rest Till found Clanalbin--'Well, and he confess'd?' I cried impatient;--my informer's eye Flash'd fire--'Confess'd the fraud,' was his reply. 'The fraud!'--'The impious form, the vile disguise! Mock priest, false marriage, hell's whole woof of lies!' 'Lies!--had the sound earth open'd its abyss Beneath my feet, my soul had shudder'd less. Lies!--but not mine!--his own!--not mine such ill. O wife, I fly--to right, avenge, and claim thee still!'" "Thy hand--I wrong'd thee," Morvale falter'd, while His strong heart heaved--"Thou didst avenge the guile? Thou found'st thy friend--thy witness--well! and he?"-- "Had spoken truth, the truth of perfidy. This man had loved me in his own dark way, Loved for past kindness in our wilder day, Loved for the future, which, obscure for him, Link'd with my fate, with that grew bright or dim. I told thee how he warr'd with my intent, The strong dissuasion, and the slow consent: The slow consent but veil'd the labour'd wile; That I might yet be great, he grovell'd to be vile. 'Twas a false Hymen--a mock priest--and she The pure, dishonour'd--the dishonourer free!

"This then the tale that, while it snapp'd the chord, Still to the father's heart the child restored; This told to her by the hard zealot's tongue, Had the last hope from spoil'd existence wrung; Had driven the outcast through the waste to roam, And with the altar shatter'd ev'n the home. No! trust ev'n then,--ev'n then, hope, was not o'er: One morn the wanderer reach'd Clanalbin's door. O steadfast saint! amidst the lightning's scathe, Still to the anchor clung the lingerer Faith; Still through the tempest of a darken'd brain, Where misery gnaw'd and memory rack'd in vain, The last lone angel that deserts the grief Of noble souls, survived and smiled,--BELIEF! There had she come, herself myself to know, And bow'd the head, and waited for the blow! What matter how the villain soothed, or sought To mask the crime?--enough that it was wrought; She heard in silence,--when all said, all learn'd, Still silent linger'd; then a flush return'd To the pale cheek,--the Woman and the Wrong Rear'd the light form,--the voice came clear and strong. 'Tell him my father's grave is closed; the dread Of shame sleeps with him--dying with the dead: Tell him on earth we meet no more;--in vain Would he redress the wrong, and clear the stain, His child is nameless; and his bride--what now To her, too late, the mockery of the vow? I was his wife--his equal;--to endure Earth's slander? Yes!--because my soul was pure! Now, were he kneeling here,--fame, fortune won,-- My pride would bar him from the fallen one. Say this; if more he seek my fate, reply-- 'Once stain the ermine, and its fate--to die!' I need not tell thee if my fury burst Against the wretch--the accurser--the accurst! I need not tell thee if I sought each trace That lured false hope to woe's lorn resting-place; If, when all vain,--gold, toil, and art essay'd, Still in my sunlight stalk'd the avenging shade, Lost to my life for ever;--on the ground Where dwell the spectres,--Conscience--ever found!"

X.

"True was the preface to thy gloomy tale; Pity can soothe not--counsel not avail," Said Morvale, moodily. "What bliss foregone! What years of rich life wasted! What a throne In the arch-heaven abandon'd! And for what? Darkness and gold!--the slave's most slavish lot! Thy choice forsook the light--the day divine-- God's loving air--for bondage and the mine! Oh! what delight to struggle side by side With one loved soother!--up the steep to guide Her steps--as clinging to thy hardier form, She treads the thorn and smiles upon the storm! And when firm will and gallant heart had won The hill-top opening to the steadfast sun, Look o'er the perils of the vanquish'd way, And bless the toil through which the victory lay, And murmur--'Which the sweeter fate, to dare With thee the evil, or with thee to share The good?' Nay, haunting must thine error be; Thee Camdeo gave the blest Amrita tree,[M] The ambrosia of the gods,--to scorn the prize, And choose the Champac[N] for its golden dyes: Thou hast forsaken--(thou must bear the grief)-- The immortal fruitage for the withering leaf!"

"Nay," answer'd Arden, writhing, "cease to chide; Who taunts the ordeal should the fire have tried. If Fortune's priests had train'd thy soul, like mine, } To worship Fortune's as the holiest shrine, } Perchance my error, cynic, had been thine!" }

"Pardon," said Morvale; "and my taunt to shame, Know me thus weak,--I envy while I blame; Thou hast been loved! And had I err'd like thee; Mine had been crime, from which thy soul is free, Thy gentler breast the traitor could forgive----" "Never!" cried Arden-- "Does the Traitor live?" And as the ear that hissing whisper thrill'd, That calm stern eye the very life-blood chill'd; For there, the instinct Cain bequeath'd us spoke, And from the chain the wild's fierce savage broke. "O yes!" the fiery Alien thus renew'd; "I know how holy life by law is view'd; I know how all life's glory may be marr'd, If safe the clay, which, as life's all, ye guard. Law--Law! what is it but the word for gold? Revenge is crime, if taken--Law if sold! Vile tongues, vile scribes, may rot your name away, But Law protects you,--with a fine to pay! The child dishonour'd, the adulterous wife, Gold requites all, save this base garment--life! So, life alone is sacred!--so, your law Hems the worm's carcass with a godhead's awe: So, if some mighty wrong with black despair Blots out your sun, and taints to plague the air; If with a human impulse shrinks the soul Back from the dross which compensates the whole; If from the babbling court, the legal toil, And the lash'd lackey's guerdon, ye recoil, And seize your vengeance with your own right arm, How every dastard quivers with alarm! Mine be the heart, that can itself defend-- Hate to the foe, devotion to the friend!-- The fearless trust, and the relentless strife: Honour unsold, and wrong avenged with life!" He ceased, with trembling lip and haughty crest, The native heathen labouring in the breast! As waves some pine, with all its storm of boughs, O'er the black gulf Norwegian winds arouse, Shook that strong spirit, gloomy and sublime, Bending with troubled thought above the abyss of crime!

XI.

Long was the silence, till to calm restored The moody Indian and the startled lord. "And yet," resumed the first, with softer mien, And lip that smiled, half mocking, yet serene, "Not long thy sorrow dimm'd thy life;--unless Men's envy wrong thee, thou mightst more confess Of loves, perchance as true and as deceived; Of rose-wreaths wither'd in the hands that weaved. Talk to the world of Arden's dazzling lord, } And tales of joyous love go round the board; } Who, though adoring less, by beauty more adored?" }

"Ill dost thou read the human heart, my friend, If bounding man's life with the novel's end; Where lovers married, ever after love-- To birds alone the turtle and the dove! Where wicked men (if I be of the gang) Repent, turn hermits, or cut throats and hang! Our souls repent,--our lives but rarely change; Grief halts awhile, then goads us on to range. More woo'd than wooing, scarce I feign'd to feel-- What magic to the magnet draws the steel? Wealth soon grew mine, the parasital fame Conceal'd the nature while it deck'd the name; Kinsman on kinsman died, each death brought gold; In birth, wealth, fame, strange charms the sex behold! The outward grace the life of courts bestows, The tongue that learns unconsciously to gloze, All drew to mine the fates I could but mar; And Aphrodite was my native star! Forgive the boast, not blessings these, but banes, If spring sows only flowers, small fruit the autumn gains! I mark my grave coevals gather round Their harvest-home, with sheaves for garners bound; And I, that planted but the garden, see How the blooms fade! no harvest waits for me!"

"Yet didst thou never love again? as o'er The soft stream, gliding by the enamell'd shore, Didst thou ne'er pause, and in some lovelier vale Moor thy light prow, and furl thy silken sail?" "But once," said Arden; "years on years had fled, And half it soothed to think my Mary dead. For I had sworn (could faith, could honour less?) My hearth at least to priestly loneliness; To wed no other while she lived, and be, If found at last, for late atonement free. I kept the vow, till this ambiguous doom, Half wed, half widow'd, took a funeral gloom; So many years had pass'd, no tidings gain'd, The chance so slight that yet the earth retain'd, At length, though doubtful, I believed that time Had from the altar ta'en the ban of crime. Impulse, occasion, what you will, at last Seized one warm moment to abjure the past.

XII.

"Far other, she, who charm'd me thus awhile, Thought in each glance, and mind in every smile; Genius was hers, with all the Iris dyes That paint on cloud the arch that spans the skies; Wild in caprice, impassion'd, and yet coy, Woman when mournful, a frank child in joy; The Phidian dream, in one concentring all } The thousand spells with which the charmers thrall, } And pleasing most the eye which years begin to pall. } I do not say I loved her as, in truth, We only love when life is in its youth; But here at least I thought to fix my doom, And from the weary waste reclaim a home. Enough I loved, to woo, to win, to bind To her my fate, if Heaven had so assign'd! The nuptial day was fix'd, the plighting kiss Glow'd on my lips;--that moment the abyss, Which, hid by moss-grown time, yet yawn'd as wide Beneath my feet, divorced me from her side. A letter came--Clanalbin's hand; what made Treason so bold to brave the man betray'd? I break the seal--O Heaven! my Mary yet Lived; in want's weeds the wretch his victim met; Track'd to her home (a beggar's squalid cell!), } Told all the penitence that lips could tell: } 'Come back and plead thyself, and all may yet be well!' } Had I a choice? could I delay to choose?-- Here conscience dragg'd me, there it might excuse.

"Few hurried lines, obscurely dark with all The war within, my later vows recall, Breathe passionate prayer--for hopeless pardon sue, And shape soft words to soothe the stern adieu. So, as some soul the beckoning ghost obeys, The haunting shadow of the vanish'd days Lures to the grave of Youth my charmed tread, And sighs, 'At length thou shalt appease the Dead!'

"Scarce had I reach'd the shores of England, ere New pomps spring round me,--I am Arden's heir! The last pretender to the princely line, Whose flag had waved from towers in Palestine, Borne to our dark Walhalla,--left me poor In all which sheds a blessing on the boor.-- Yes, thou art right! how, at each sickening grasp For the heart's food, had gold befool'd my clasp! Gorged with a satrap's treasure, the soul's dearth Envied the pauper crawling to his hearth." "But Mary--she--thy wife before Heaven's eye?" "Lost as before!" was Arden's anguish-cry; "Not beggary, famine--not her child (for whom, What could she hope from earth?--as stern a doom!) Could bow the steel of that proud chastity, Which scorn'd as alms the atonement due from me! Out of the sense of wrong her grandeur grown, She look'd on shame from Sorrow as a throne. Once more more she fled;--no sign!--again the same Vain track--vain chase!--Not here was I to blame!"

"Thou track the outcast!" mutter'd Morvale!--"No! Too far from Luxury lies the world of Woe!"

"Henceforth," sigh'd Arden, "hope, aim, end, confined To one--my heart, if tortured, is resign'd; So lately seen, oh! sure she liveth yet! Once found--oh! strong thine eloquence, Regret! The palace and the coronal, the gauds With which our vanity our will defrauds,-- These may not tempt her, but the simple words 'I love thee still,' will touch on surer chords, And youth rush back with that young melody, To the lone moonlight and the trysting-tree!"

As the tale ceased, the fields behind them lay,-- The huge town once more open'd on the way; The whir of wheels, the galliard cavalcade; The crowd of pleasure, and the roar of trade; The solemn abbey soaring through the dun And reeking air, in which sunk slow the sun; The dusky trees, the sultry flakes of green; The haunts where Fashion yawns away the spleen;-- Vista on vista widens to reveal Ease on the wing, and Labour at the wheel! The friends grew silent in that common roar, The Real around them, the Ideal o'er; So the peculiar life of each, the unseen Core of our being--what we are, have been-- The spirit of our memory and our soul Sink from the sight, when merged amidst the whole; Yet atom atom never can absorb, Each drop moves rounded in its separate orb.

[J] "One of the most remarkable pictures of ancient manners which has been transmitted to us, is that in which the poet Gower describes the circumstances under which he was commanded by King Richard II.--

'To make a book after his hest.'

The good old rhymer---- ... had taken boat, and upon the broad river he met the king in his stately barge.... The monarch called him on board his own vessel, and desired him to book 'some new thing.'--This was the origin of the Confessio Amantis."--KNIGHT'S London, vol. i. art. The Silent Highway.

[K] "What a picture Hall gives us of the populousness of the Thames, in the story which he tells us of the Archbishop of York (brother to the King-maker), after leaving the widow of Edward IV. in the sanctuary of Westminster, 'sitting below on the rushes all desolate and dismayed,' and when he opened his windows and looked on the Thames, he might see the river full of boats of the Duke of Gloucester his servants, watching that no person should go to sanctuary, nor none should pass unsearched."--Id. ibid.

[L] A favourite rendezvous a few years since (and probably even still) for the heroes of that fraternity, more dear to Mercury than to Themis, was held at Devereux Court, occupying a part of the site on which stood the residence of the Knights Templars.

[M] The Amrita is the name given by the mythologists of Thibet to the heavenly tree which yields its ambrosial fruits to the gods.

[N] The Champac, a flower of a bright gold-colour, with which the Indian women are fond of adorning their hair. Moore alludes to the custom in the "Veiled Prophet."

"The maid of India blest again to hold In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold," &c.

PART THE THIRD.

I.

Lord Arden's tale robb'd Morvale's couch of sleep, The star still trembled on the troubled deep, O'er the waste ocean gleam'd its chilling glance, To make more dark the desolate expanse.

This contrast of a fate, but vex'd by gales Faint with too full a balm from Rhodian Vales;[O] This light of life all squander'd upon one Round whom hearts moved, as planets round a sun, Mocks the lone doom his barren years endure, As wasted treasure but insults the poor. Back on his soul no faithful echoes cast Those tones which make the music of the past. No memories hallow, and no dreams restore Love's lute, far heard from Youth's Hesperian shore;-- The flowers that Arden trampled on the sod, Still left the odour where the step had trod; Those flowers, so wasted!--had for him but smiled One bud,--its breath had perfumed all the wild! He own'd the moral of the reveller's life, So Christian warriors own the sin of strife,-- But, oh! how few can lift the soul above Earth's twin-born rulers,--Fame and Woman's Love!

Just in that time, of all most drear, upon Fate's barren hill-tops, gleam'd the coming sun; From nature's face the veil of night withdrawn, Earth smiled, and Heaven was open'd in the dawn!

How chanced this change?--how chances all below? What sways the life the moment doth bestow: An impulse, instinct, look, touch, word, or sigh-- Unlocks the Hades, or reveals the sky.

II.

'Twas eve; Calantha had resumed again The wonted life, recaptured to its chain; In the calm chamber, Morvale sat, and eyed Lucy's lithe shape, that seem'd on air to glide; Eyed with complacent, not impassion'd, gaze; So Age looks on, where some fair Childhood plays: Far as soars Childhood from dim Age's scope, Beauty to him who links it not with hope!

"Sing me, sweet Lucy," said Calantha, "sing Our favourite song--'The Maiden and the King.' Brother, thou lov'st not music, or, at least, But some wild war-song that recalls the East. Who loves not music, still may pause to hark Nature's free gladness hymning in the lark: As sings the bird sings Lucy! all her art A voice in which you listen to a heart."

A blush of fear, a coy reluctant "nay" Avail her not--thus ran the simple lay:--

THE MAIDEN AND THE KING.

I.

"And far as sweep the seas below, My sails are on the deep; And far as yonder eagles go, My flag on every keep.

"Why o'er the rebel world within Extendeth not the chart? No sail can reach--no arms can win The kingdom of a heart!"

So sigh'd the king--the linden near; A listener heard the sigh, And thus the heart he did not hear, Breathed back the soft reply:--

II.

"And far as sweep the seas below, His sails are on the deep; And far as yonder eagles go, His flag on every keep;

"LOVE, thou art not a king alone, Both slave and king thou art! Who seeks to sway, must stoop to own The kingdom of a heart!"

So sigh'd the Maid, the linden near, Beneath the lonely sky; Oh, lonely not!--for angels hear The humblest human sigh!

III.

His ships are vanish'd from the main, His banners from the keep; The carnage triumphs on the plain; The tempest on the deep.

"The purple and the crown are mine"-- An Outlaw sigh'd--"no more; But still as greenly grows the vine Around the cottage door!

"Rest for the weary pilgrim, Maid, And water from the spring!" Before the humble cottage pray'd The Man that was a King.

Oh, was the threshold that he cross'd The gate to fairy ground? He would not for the kingdom lost, Have changed the kingdom found!

Divine interpreter thou art, O Song! To thee all secrets of all hearts belong! How had the lay, as in a mirror, glass'd The sullen present and the joyless past, Lock'd in the cloister of that lonely soul!-- Ere the song ceased, to Lucy's side he stole, And, with the closing cadence, mournfully Lifted his doubtful gaze:--so eye met eye.

If thou hast loved, re-ope the magic book; Say, do its annals date not from a look? In which two hearts, unguess'd perchance before, Rush'd each to each, and were as two no more; While all thy being--by some Power, above Its will constrain'd--sigh'd, trembling, "This is Love."

A look! and lo! they knew themselves alone! Calantha's place was void--the witness gone; They had not mark'd her sad step glide away, When in sweet silence sank, less sweet, the lay; For unto both abruptly came the hour When springs the rose-fence round the fairy bower; When earth shut out, all life transferr'd to one, Each other life seems cloud before the sun; It comes, it goes, we know if it depart But by the warmer light and quicken'd heart.

And what then chanced? O, leave not told, but guess'd; Is Love a god?--a temple, then, the breast! Not to the crowd in cold detail allow Its delicate worship, its mysterious vow! Around the first sweet homage in the shrine Let the veil fall, and but the Pure divine! Coy as the violet shrinking from the sun, The blush of Virgin Youth first woo'd and won; And scarce less holy from the vulgar ear The tone that trembles but with noble fear: Near to God's throne the solemn stars that move The proud to meekness, and the pure to love!

Let days pass on; nor count how many swell The episode of Life's hack chronicle! Changed the abode, of late so stern and drear, How doth the change speak--"Love hath enter'd here!" How lightly sounds the footfall on the floor! How jocund rings sweet laughter, hush'd no more! Wide from two hearts made happy, wide and far, Circles the light in which they breathe and are; Liberal as noontide streams the ambient ray, And fills each crevice in the world with day.

And changed is Lucy! where the downcast eye, And the meek fear, when that dark man was by? Lo! as young Una thrall'd the forest-king, She leads the savage in her silken string; Plays with the strength to her in service shown, And mounts with infant whim the woman's throne! Charm'd from his lonely moods and brooding mind, And bound by one to union with his kind, No more the wild man thirsted for the waste; No more, 'mid joy, a joyless one, misplaced; His very form assumed unwonted grace, And bliss gave more than beauty to his face: Let but delighted thought from all things cull Sweet food and fair--hiving the Beautiful, And lo! the form shall brighten with the soul! The gods bloom only by joy's nectar bowl.

Nor deem it strange that Lucy fail'd to trace } In that dark brow, the birthright of disgrace, } And Europe's ban on Earth's primeval race. }

Were she less pure, less harmless, less the child, Not on the savage had the soft one smiled. Ev'n as the young Venetian loved the Moor, Love gains the shrine when Pity opes the door; Love like the Poet, whom it teaches, where Round it the Homely dwells, invents the Fair; And takes a halo from the air it gilds To crown a Seraph for the Heaven it builds. And both were children in this world of ours, Maiden and savage! the same mountain flowers, Not trimm'd in gardens, not exchanged their hues, Fresh from the natural sun and hardy dews, For the faint fragrance and the sickly dyes Which, Art calls forth by walling out the skies: So children both, each seem'd to have forgot How poor the maid's--how rich the lover's lot; Ne'er did the ignorant Indian pause in fear, Lest friends should pity, and lest foes should sneer. "What will the world say?"--question safe and sage; The parrot's world should be his gilded cage; But fly, frank wilding, with free wings unfurl'd, Where thy mate carols--there, behold thy world! And stranger still that no decorous pride Warn'd her, the beggar, from the rich man's side. Sneer, ye world-wise, and deem her ignorance art; She saw her wealth (and blush'd not) in her heart!-- Saw through the glare of gold his lonely breast; He had but gold, and hers was all the rest.

Pleased in the bliss to her, alas! denied, } Calantha hail'd her brother's plighted bride: } "Glad thou the heart which I made sad," she sigh'd. } Since Arden's tale, but once the friends had met, Nor known to one the other's rapture yet; Some fancied clue, some hope awhile restored, Had from the Babel lured the brilliant lord. The wonted commune Morvale fail'd to miss,-- We want no confidant in happiness.

Baffled, and sick of hope, wealth, life, and all, One night return'd the noble to his hall; He found some lines, stern, brief, in Morvale's hand,-- Brief with dark meaning,--stern with rude command,-- Bidding his instant presence. Arden weigh'd } Each word; some threat was in each word convey'd; } A chill shot through his heart--foreboding he obey'd. }

III.

What caused the mandate?--wherefore do I shrink? The stream runs on,--why tarry at the brink? Nay, let us halt, and in the pause between Sorrow and joy, behold the quiet scene;-- The chamber stately in that calm repose, Which Time's serene, sweet conqueror, ART bestows; There, in bright shapes which claim our homage still, Live the grand exiles from the Olympian Hill; Still the pale Queen Cithaeron forests know, Turns the proud eye, and lifts the deathful bow; Still on the vast brow of the father-god, Hangs the hush'd thunder of the awful nod; Still fair, as when on Ida's mountain seen, By Troy's young shepherd, Beauty's bashful Queen; Still Ind's divine Iacchus laughing weaves His crown of clustering grapes and glossy leaves; Still thou, Arch-type of Song, ordain'd to soothe The rest of Heroes, and with deathless youth Crown the Celestial Brotherhood--dost hold, Brimm'd with the drink of gods, the urn of gold!

All live again! The Art which images Man's noblest conquest, as it slowly frees Thought out of matter, labouring patient on, Till springs a god-world from reluctant stone, Charm'd Morvale more than all the pomp and glow With which the Painter limns a world we know.

'Twas noon, and broken by the gentle gloom Of coolest draperies, through the shadowy room, In moted shaft aslant, the curious ray Forced lingering in, through tiers of flowers, its way, Glanced on the lute (just hush'd, to leave behind Elysian dreams, the music of the mind), Play'd round the songstress, and with warmer flush Steep'd the young cheek, unconscious of its blush, And fell, as if in worship, at thy base, O sculptured Psyche[P] of the soul-lit face, Bending to earth resign'd the mournful eye, Since earth must prove the pathway to the sky; Doom'd here, below, Love's footprint to explore } Till Jove relents, the destined wandering o'er, } And in celestial halls, Soul meets with Love once more.[Q] }

And, side by side, the lovers sat,--their words Low mix'd with notes from Lucy's joyous birds, Sole witnesses and fit--those airy things, That, 'midst the bars, can still unfold the wings, And soothe the cell with language, learn'd above; As the caged bird--so on the earth is love! Their talk was of the future; from the height Of Hope, they saw the landscape bathed in light, And, where the golden dimness veil'd the gaze, Guess'd out the spot, and mark'd the sites of happy days; Till silence came, and the full sense and power Of the blest Present,--the rich-laden Hour That overshadow'd them, as some hush'd tree With mellow fruitage bending heavily,-- What time, beneath the tender gloom reclined, Dies on the lap of summer-noon the wind!

Roused from the lulling spell with startled blush At such strange power in silence, to the hush The maid restored the music, while she sought Fresh banks for that sweet river--loving thought.

"Tell me," she said, "if not too near the gloom Of some sad tale, the rash desire presume; What severs so the chords that should entwine With one warm bond our sister's heart and thine? Why does she love yet dread thee? what the grief That shrinks from utterance and disdains relief? Hast thou not been too stern?--nay, pardon! nay, Let thy words chide me,--not thy looks dismay!" "Not unto thee, beneath whose starry eye Each wild wave hushes, did my looks reply; They were the answer to mine own dark thought, Which back the grief, thy smile had banish'd, brought.

"Well--to the secrets of my soul thy love Hath such sweet right, I lift the veil above Home's shattered gods, and show what wounds belong To writhing honour and revengeless wrong.--

"Rear'd in the desert, round its rugged child, All we call life, group'd, menacing and wild; But to man's soul there is an inner life; There, one soft vision smiled away the strife! A fairy shape, that seem'd afar to stand On the lost shores of Youth--the Fairy land; A voice that call'd me 'brother;'--years had fled Since my rough breast had pillow'd that sweet head, Yet still my heart throbb'd with the pressure; still Tears, such as mothers know, my eyes would fill; Prayers, such as fathers pray, my soul would breathe; The oak were sere but for that jasmine-wreath! At length, wealth came; my footsteps left the wild,-- Again we met:--to woman grown the child: How did we meet?--that heart to me was dead! The bird, far heard amidst the waste was fled! With earthlier fires that breast had learn'd to burn; And what yet left? but ashes in the urn: Woo'd and abandon'd! all of love, hope, soul Lavish'd--now lifeless!--well, were this the whole! But the good name--the virgin's pure renown-- Woman's white robe, and Honour's starry crown, Lost, lost, for ever!"

O'er his visage past His trembling hand,--then, hurriedly and fast, As one who from the knife of torture swerves, Then spurns the pang, as pride the weakness nerves, Resumed--"As yet that secret was withheld, All that I saw, was sorrow that repell'd,-- A dreary apathy, whose death-like chill Froze back my heart and left us sever'd still.

"One night I fled that hard indifferent eye; To crowds, the heart that Home rejects, will fly!-- Gay glides the dance, soft music fills the hall: I fled, to find, the loneliness through all! Thou know'st but half a brother's bond I claim,-- My mother's daughter bears her father's name; My mother's heart had long denied her son, And loath'd the tie that pride had taught to shun. My sister's lips, forbid the bond to own, Left the scorn'd life, a brother breathed, unknown.[R] Not even yet the alien blood confest; Who, in the swart hues of the Eastern guest And unfamiliar name, could kindred trace With the young Beauty of the Northern Race?-- Calm in the crowd I stood, when hark, a word Smote on my ear, and stunn'd the soul that heard! A sound, with withering laughter muttered o'er, Blistering the name--O God!--a sister bore; Nought clear, and nought defined, save scorn alone,-- Not heard the name scorn coupled with her own; Somewhat of nuptials fix'd, of broken ties, The foul cause hinted in the vile surmise, The gallant's fame for conquests, lightly won, For homes dishonour'd, and for hearts undone: Not one alone on whom my wrath could seize, From lip to lip the dizzying slander flees; No single ribald separate from the herd, Through the blent hum one stinging tumult stirr'd; One felt, unseen, infection circling there A bodiless venom in the common air, And as the air impalpable!--so seem The undistinguished terrors of a dream, Now clear, now dim, transform'd from shape to shape, The gibbering spectres scare us and escape.

"Fearful the commune, in that dismal night, Between the souls which could no more unite,-- The lawful anger and the shaming fears, Man's iron question, woman's burning tears; All that, once utter'd, rend for aye the ties Of the close bond God fashion'd in the skies. I learn'd at last,--for 'midst my wrath, deep trust In what I loved, left even passion just; And I believed the word, the lip, the eye, That to my horrid question flash'd reply;-- I learn'd at last that but the name was stain'd, Honour was wreck'd, but Purity remain'd. Oh pardon, pardon!--if a doubt that sears, A word that stains, profane such holy ears! So, oft amidst my loneliness, my heart Hath communed with itself, and groan'd apart,-- Recall'd that night, and in its fierce despair, Shaped some full vengeance from the desert air,-- That I forgot what angel, new from Heaven, Sweet spotless listener, to my side was given!

"But who the recreant lover?--this, in vain My question sought; that truth not hard to gain; And my brow darken'd as I breathed the threat Fierce in her shrinking ear, 'that wrath should reach him yet!' I left her speechless; when the morning came, } With the fierce pang, writhed the self-tortured frame, } The poison hid by Woe, drain'd by despairing Shame. }

"Few words, half-blurr'd by shame, the motive clear'd, For the false wooer, not herself, she feared; 'Accept,' she wrote 'O brother, sternly just, The life I yield,--but holy be my dust! Hear my last words, for, them Death sanctify! Forbear his life for whom it soothes to die. And let my thought, the memory of old time, The soul that flees the stain, nor knew the crime, Strike down thine arm! and see me in the tomb, Stand, like a ghost, between Revenge and Doom!'

"I bent, in agony and awe, above The broken idol of my boyhood's love. Echo'd each groan and writhed with every throe, And cried, 'Live yet! O dove, but brood below, Hide with thy wings the vengeance and the guilt, And give my soul thy softness if thou wilt!' And, as I spoke, the heavy eye unclosed, The hand press'd mine, and in the clasp reposed, The wan lip smiled, the weak frame seem'd to win Strange power against the torture-fire within; The leach's skill the heart's strong impulse sped, She lived--she lived:--And my revenge was dead!

"She lived!--and, clasp'd within my arms, I vow'd To leave the secret in its thunder-shroud, To shun all question, to refuse all clue, And close each hope that honour deems its due; But while she lived!--the weak vow halted there, Her life the shield to that it tainted mine to spare!

"But to have walk'd into the thronging street, But to have sought the haunt where babblers meet, But to have pluck'd one idler by the sleeve, And asked, 'who woo'd yon fairhair'd bride, to leave?' And street, and haunt, and every idler's tongue, Had given the name with which the slander rung-- To me alone,--to me of all the throng, The unnatural silence mask'd the face of wrong. But I had sworn! and, of myself in dread, From the loath'd scene, from mine own wrath, I fled.

"We left the land, in this a home we find. Home! by our hearth the cleaving curse is shrined! Distrust in her--and shame in me; and all The unspoken past cold present hours recal; And unconfiding hearts, and smiles but rife With the bland hollowness of formal life! In vain my sacrifice, she fears me still! Vain her reprieve;--grief barr'd from vent can kill. And then, and then (O joy through agony!) My oath absolves me, and my arm is free! The lofty soul may oft forgive, I own, The lighter wrong that smites itself alone; But vile the nature, that when wrong hath marr'd All the rich life it was our boast to guard But weeps the broken heart and blasted name;-- Here the mean pardon were the manhood's shame; And I were vilest of the vile, to live To see Calantha's grave--and to forgive: Forgive!"

There hung such hate upon that word, The weeping listener shudder'd as she heard, And sobb'd--

"Hush, hush! lest Man's eternal Foe } Hear thee, and tempt! Oh, never may'st thou know } Beside one deed of Guilt--how blest is guiltless Woe!" } Then, close, and closer, clinging to his side, Frank as the child, and tender as the bride, Words--looks--and tears themselves combine the balm, Lull the fierce pang, and steal the soul to calm! As holy herbs (that rocks with verdure wreathe, And fill with sweets the summer air they breathe,) In winter wither, only to reveal Diviner virtues--charged with powers to heal, So are the thoughts of Love!--if Heaven is fair, Blooms for the earth, and perfumes for the air;-- Is the Heaven dark?--doth sorrow sear the leaf? They fade from joy to anodynes for grief! From theme to theme she lures his thought afar, From the dark haunt in which its demons are; And with the gentle instinct which divines Interest more strong than aught which Self entwines With its own suffering--changed the course of tears, And led him, child-like, through her own young years. The silent sorrows of a patient mind-- Grief's loveliest poem, a soft soul resign'd, Charm'd and aroused---- "O tell me more!" he cried; "Ev'n from the infant let me trace the bride. Of thy dear life I am a miser grown, And grudge each smile that did not gild my own; Look back--thy Father? Canst thou not recal His kiss, his voice? Fair orphan! tell me all."

"My Father? No!" sigh'd Lucy; "at that name Still o'er my mother's cheek the fever came; Thus, from the record of each earlier year, That household tie moved less of love than fear; Some wild mysterious awe, some undefined Instinct of woe was with the name entwined. Lived he?--I knew not; knew not till the last Sad hours, when Memory struggled to the Past, And she--my dying mother--to my breast Clasp'd these twain relics--let them speak the rest!" With that, for words no more she could command, She placed a scroll--a portrait--in his hand; And overcome by memories that could brook Not ev'n love's comfort,--veil'd her troubled look, And glided swiftly thence. Nor he detain'd: Spell bound, his gaze upon the portrait strain'd: That brow--those features! that bright lip, which smiled Forth from the likeness!--Found Lord Arden's child! The picture spoke as if from Mary's tomb, Death in the smile and mockery in the bloom. The scroll, unseal'd--address'd the obscurer name That Arden bore, ere lands and lordship came; And at the close, to which the Indian's eyes } Hurried, these words:-- } "In peace thy Mary dies; } Forgive her sternness in her sacrifice! } It had one merit--that I loved! and till Each pulse is hush'd shall love, yet fly, thee still. Now take thy child! and when she clings with pride To the strong shelter of a father's side, Tell her, a mother bought the priceless right To bless unblushing her she gave to light; Bought it as those who would redeem a past Must buy--by penance, faithful to the last. Thorns in each path, a grave the only goal, Glides mine, atoning, to my father's soul!"

What at this swift revealment--dark and fast As fleets the cloud-wrack, o'er the Indian past? No more is Lucy free with her sweet dower } Of love and youth! Another has the power } To bar the solemn rite, to blast the marriage bower. } "Will this proud Saxon of the princely line Yield his heart's gem to alien hands like mine? What though the blot denies his rank its heir: } The more his pride will bid his love repair } By loftiest nuptials--O supreme despair! } Shall I divulge the secret! shall I rear, Myself, the barrier,--and the bliss so near?"

He scorn'd himself, and raised his drooping crest: "Mine be Man's honour--leave to God the rest!" As thus his high resolve, a sudden cry } Startled his heart. He turn'd: Calantha by! } Why on the portrait glares her haggard eye? }

"Whose likeness this? Thou know'st not, brother? speak! What mean that clouded brow--that changing cheek? Thou know'st not!" "Yes!" And as the answer came, With Death's strong terror shook the sister's frame, A bitterer pang, an icier shudder, ran Through his fierce nature-- "Dost thou know the man? Ha! his own tale! O dull and blinded! how, Flash upon flash, descends the lightning now! Thou, his forsaken--his! And I--who--nay! Look up Calantha; for, befal what may, He shall----" The promise, or the threat, was said To ears already deafen'd as the dead! His arm but breaks the fall: the panting breast Yet heaves convulsive through the stifling vest. The robe, relax'd, bids doubt--if doubt yet be-- Merge the last gleam in starless certainty! Lo there, the fatal gift of love and woe Miming without the image graved below-- The same each likeness by each sufferer worn, Or differing but as noonday from the morn. In Lucy's portrait, manhood's earliest youth Shone from the clear eye with a light like truth. There, play'd that fearless smile with which we meet The sward that hides the swamp before our feet; The bright on-looking to the Future, ere Our sins reflect their own dark shadows there:-- Calantha's portrait spoke of one in whom, Young yet in years; the heart had lost its bloom; The lip of joy the lip of pride had grown; It smiled--the smile we love to trust had flown. In the collected eye and lofty mien The graver power experience brings was seen; Beautiful both; and if the manlier face Had lost youth's candid and luxuriant grace, A charm as fatal as the first it wore, Pleased less--and yet enchain'd and haunted more.

And this the man to whom his heart had moved! Whose hand he had clasp'd, whose child he loved!--he loved! This, out of all the universe--O Fate! This, the dark orb, round which revolved his hate; This, the swart star malign, whose baleful ray Ruled in his House of Life; and day by day, And hour by hour, upon the tortured past One withering, ruthless, demon influence cast! There writhes the victim--there, unmasking, now The invoked Alecto frowns from Arden's brow. O'er that fierce nature, roused so late from sleep, Course the black thoughts, and lash to storm the deep. Love flies dismay'd--the sweet delusions, drawn By Hope, fade ghost-like in the lurid dawn; As when along the parch'd Arabian gloom Life prostrate falls before the dread Simoom, No human mercy the strong whirlwind faced, And its wrath reign'd sole monarch of the waste!

IV.

The Hours steal on. Like spectres, to and fro Hurry hush'd footsteps through the house of woe. That nameless chill, which tells of life that dies, Broods o'er the chamber where Calantha lies.

The Hours steal on--and o'er the unquiet might Of the great Babel--reigns, dishallow'd, Night. Not, as o'er Nature's world, She comes, to keep Beneath the stars her solemn tryst with Sleep, When move the twin-born Genii side by side, And steal from earth its demons where they glide; Lull'd the spent Toil--seal'd Sorrow's heavy eyes, And dreams restore the dews of Paradise; But Night, discrown'd and sever'd from her twin, No pause for Travail, no repose for Sin, Vex'd by one chafed rebellion to her sway, Flits o'er the lamp-lit streets--a phantom day! Alone sat Morvale in the House of Gloom, Alone--no! Death was in the darken'd room; All hush'd save where, at distance faintly heard, Lucy's low sob the depth of silence stirr'd; Or where, without, the swift wheels hurrying by, Bear those who live--as if life could not die. Alone he sat! and in his breast began Earth's deadliest strife--the Angel with the Man! Not his the light war with its feeble rage Which prudent scruples with faint passions wage, (The small heart-conflicts which disturb the wise, Whom reason succours when the anger tries, Such as to this meek social ring belong, In conscience weak, but in discretion strong;) But that known only to man's franker state, In love a demigod--a fiend in hate, Him, not the reason but the instincts lead, Prompt in the impulse, ruthless in the deed.

And if the wrong might seem too weak a cause For the fell hate--not his were Europe's laws.-- Some think dishonour, if it halt at crime, A stingless asp,--what injury in the slime? As if but this poor clay--this crumbling coil Of dust for graves--were all the foul can soil! As if the form were not the type (nor more Than the mere type) of what chaste souls adore! That Woman-Royalty, a spotless name, For sires to boast--for sons unborn to claim, That heavenly purity of thought--as free From shame as sin, the soul's virginity, If these be lost--why what remains?--the form? Has that such worth?--Go, envy then the worm!

And well to him may such belief belong, And India's memories blacken more the wrong; In Eastern lands, by tritest tales convey'd, How Honour guards from sight itself the maid; Home's solemn mystery, jealous of a breath, Screen'd by religion, and begirt with death:-- Again he cower'd beneath the hissing tongue, Again the gibe of scurril laughter rung, Again the Plague-breath air itself defiled, And Mockery grinn'd upon his mother's child! All the heart's chaste religion overthrown, And slander scrawl'd upon the altar-stone!

And if that memory pause, what shapes succeed? The martyr leaning on the broken reed! The life slow-poison'd in the thoughts that shed Shame o'er the joyless earth;--and there, the dead! Marvel not ye, the soft, the fair, the young, Whose thoughts are chords to Love's sweet music strung, Whose life the sterner genius--Hate, has spared, If on his soul no torch but Ate's glared! If in the foe was lost to sight the bride, The foe's meek child!--that memory was denied! The face, the tale, the sorrow, and the love, } All fled--all blotted from the breast: Above } The Deluge not one refuge for the Dove! } There is no Lethe like one guilty dream, It drowns all life that nears the leaden stream; And if the guilt seem sacred to the creed, Between the stars and earth, but stands the Deed! So in his breast the Titan feud began: Which shall prevail--the Angel or the Man?

The Injurer comes! the lone light breaking o'er } The gloom, waves flickering to the open door, } And Arden's step is on the fatal floor! } Around he gazed, and hush'd his breath,--for Fear Cast its own shadow on the wall,--a drear And ominous prescience of the Death-king there Breathed its chill horror to the heavy air; O'er yon recess--which bars with draperied pall The baffled gaze--the unbroken shadows fall. The lurid embers on the hearth burn low; The clicking time-piece sounds distinct and slow; And the roused instinct hate's suspense foreshows In the pale Indian's lock'd and grim repose.

So Arden enter'd, and thus spoke; the while His restless eye belied his ready smile: "Return'd, I find thy mandate, and attend To hear a mystery, or to serve a friend." "Or front a foe!" A stifled voice replied. O'er Arden's temples flush'd the knightly pride. "What means that word, which jars, not daunts, the ear? I own no foe,--if foe there be, no fear."

"Pause and take heed--then with as firm a sound Disdain the danger--when the foe is found! What, if thou had'st a sister, whom the grave To thy sole charge--a sacred orphan--gave-- What, if a traitor had, with mocking vows, Won the warm heart, and woo'd the plighted spouse, Then left--a scoff;--what, if his evil fame, Alone sufficed to blast the virgin name, What--hourly gazing on a life forlorn, Amidst a solitude wall'd round with scorn, Shame at the core--death gnawing at the cheek-- What, from the suitor, would the brother seek?"

"Wert thou that brother," with unsteady voice, Arden replied: "not doubtful were thy choice: Were I that Suitor----" "Ay?" "I would prepare To front the vengeance, or--the wrong repair."

"Yes"--hiss'd the Indian--"front that mimic strife, That coward's die, which leaves to chance the life; That mockery of all justice, framed to cheat Right of its due--such vengeance thou wouldst meet!-- Be Europe's justice blind and insecure! Stern Ind asks more--her son's revenge is sure! 'Repair the wrong!'--Ay, in the Grave be wed! Hark! the Ghost calls thee to the bridal bed! Come (nay, this once thy hand!)--come!--from the shrine I draw the veil!--Calantha, he is thine! Man, see thy victim!--dust!--Joy--Peace and Fame, } These murder'd first--the blow that smote the frame } Was the most merciful!--at length it came. } Here, by the corpse to which thy steps are led, Beside thee, murderer, stands the brother of the Dead!"

Brave was Lord Arden--brave as ever be Thor's northern sons--the Island Chivalry; But in that hour strange terror froze his blood, Those fierce eyes mark'd him shiver as he stood; But oh! more awful than the living foe That frown'd beside--the Dead that smiled below! That smile which greets the shadow-peopled shore, Which says to Sorrow--"Thou canst wound no more!" Which says to Love that would rejoin--"Await!" Which says to Wrong that would redeem--"Too late!" That lingering halo of our closing skies Cold with the sunset never more to rise!

Though his gay conscience many a heavier crime Than this had borne, and drifted off to Time; Though this but sport with a fond heart which Fate Had given to master, but denied to mate, Yet seem'd it as in that least sin arose The shapes of all that Memory's deeps disclose; The general phantom of a life whose waste Had spoil'd each bloom by which its path was traced, Sporting at will, and moulding sport to art, With that sad holiness--the Human Heart! Upon his lip the vain excuses died, In vain his manhood struggled for its pride; Up from the dead, with one convulsive throe, He turn'd his gaze, and voiceless faced his foe: Still, as if changed by horror into stone, He saw those eyes glare doom upon his own; Saw that remorseless hand glide sternly slow To the bright steel the robe half hid below,-- Near, and more near, he felt the fiery breath Breathe on his cheek; the air was hot with death, And yet he sought nor flight--nor strove for prayer, As one chance-led into a lion's lair, Who sees his fate, nor deems submission shame,-- Unarm'd to combat, and unskill'd to tame, What could this social world afford its child, Against the roused Nemaean of the wild!

A lifted arm--a gleaming steel--a cry Of savage vengeance!--swiftly--suddenly, As through two clouds a star--on the dread time Shone forth an angel face and check'd the startled crime! She stood, the maiden guest, the plighted bride, The victim's daughter, by the madman's side; Her airy clasp upon the murtherous arm, Her pure eyes chaining with a solemn charm: Like some blest thought of mercy, on a soul Brooding on blood--the holy Image stole! And, as a maniac in his fellest hour Lull'd by a look whose calmness is its power, Backward the Indian quail'd--and dropp'd the blade!-- To see the foeman kneeling to the maid; As with new awe and wilder, Arden cried, "Out from the grave, O com'st thou, injured bride!" Then with a bound he reach'd the Indian-- "Lo! I tempt thy fury, and invite thy blow; But, by man's rights o'er men,--oh, speak! whose eyes Ope, on life's brink, my youth's lost paradise? The same--the same--(look, look!)--the same--lip, brow, Form, aspect,--all and each--fresh, fair as now, Bloom'd my heart's bride!"-- Silent the Indian heard, Nor seem'd to feel the grasp, nor heed the word! As when some storm-beat argosy glides free From its vain wrath,--subsides a baffled sea,-- His heaving breast calm'd back--the tempest fell, And the smooth surface veil'd the inward hell. Yet his eye, resting on the wondering maid, Somewhat of woe, perchance remorse, betray'd, And grew to doubtful trouble--as it saw Her aspect brightening slowly from its awe, Gazing on Arden till shone out commix'd, Doubt, hope, and joy, in the sweet eyes thus fix'd;-- Till on her memory all the portrait smil'd, And voice came forth, "O Father, bless thy child!"

As from the rock the bright wave leaps to day, The mighty instinct forced its living way: No need of further words;--all clear--all told; A father's arms the happy child enfold: Nature alone was audible!--and air Stirr'd with the gush of tears, and gasps of murmur'd prayer!

Motionless stands the Indian; on his breast, As one the death-shaft pierces, droops his crest; His hands are clasp'd--one moment the sharp thrill Shakes his strong limbs;--then all once more is still; And form and aspect the firm calmness take Which clothes his kindred savage at the stake. So--as she turn'd her looks--the woe behind That quiet mask, the girl's quick heart divined,-- "Father!" she cried--"Not all, not all on me Lavish thy blessings!--Him, who saved me, see! Him who from want--from famine--from a doom, Frowning with terrors darker than the tomb, Preserved thy child!"

Before the Indian's feet } She fell, and murmur'd--"Bliss is incomplete } Unless thy heart can share--thy lips can greet!" } Again the firm frame quiver'd;--roused again, The bruised eagle struggled from the chain; Till words found way, and with the effort grew Man's crowning strength--Man's evil to subdue.

"Foeman--'tis past!--lo, in the strife between Thy world and mine, the eternal victory seen! Thou, with light arts, my realm hast overthrown, And, see, revenge but threats to bless thine own! My home is desolate--my hearth a grave-- The Heaven one hour that seem'd like justice gave, The arm is raised, the sacrifice prepared-- The altar kindles, and the victim's--spared! Free as before to smite and to destroy, Thou com'st to slaughter to depart in joy!

"From the wayside yon drooping flower I bore; Warm'd at my heart--its root grew to the core, Dear as its kindred bloom seen through the bar By some long-thrall'd, and loneliest prisoner-- Now comes the garden's Lord, transplants the flower, And spoils the dungeon to enrich the bower?

"So be it, law--and the world's rights are thine Lost the stern comfort, Nature's law and mine! She calls thee 'Father,' and the long deferr'd, Long-look'd for vengeance, withers at the word! Take back thy child! Earth's gods to thee belong! } To me the iron of the sense of wrong } Heaven makes the heart which Earth oppresses--strong!" }

"Not so,--not so we part! O husband!" cried The Girl's full soul--"Divorce not thus thy bride! Yes, Father, yes!--in woe thy Lucy won This generous heart; shall joy not leave us one?"

A moment Arden paused in mute surprise (How charm'd that outcast Beauty's blinded eyes?) Then, with the impulse of the human thought, Prompt to atonement for the evil wrought, "Hear her!" he said--"her words her father's heart Echoes.--Not so--nor ever, may ye part! Nobly, hast thou an elder right than mine Won to this treasure;--still its care be thine; Withhold thy pardon if thou wilt,--but take The holiest offering wrong to man can make!"

Slowly the Indian lifts his joyless head, Pointing with slow hand to the present dead, And from slow lips comes heavily the breath: "Behold, between us evermore--is Death!"

"Maiden, recal my tale;--thou clasp'st the hand Which shuts the Exile from the promised land; Can the dead victim's brother, undefiled, From him who slew the sister take the child!" With that, he bent him o'er the shuddering maid, On her fair looks a solemn hand he laid; Lifted eyes, tearless still--but dark with all The cloud, that not in such soft dews can fall: "If to the Dead an offering still must be, All vengeance calls for be fulfill'd in me! I make myself the victim!--Thou dread Power Guiding to guilt the slow chastising hour, Far from the injurer's hearth by her made pure, Let this lone roof thy thunder-stroke allure!--

"Go hence--(nay, near me not!) behold!--the kind Oblivion closes round her darken'd mind; If, when she wake, it be awhile for grief, Soon dries the rain-drop on the April leaf!"

He said, and vanish'd, with a noiseless tread, Within the folds which curtain'd round the dead! So, the stern Dervish of the East inters His sullen soul with Death in sepulchres!

His new-found prize, while yet th' unconscious sense Sleeps in the mercy of the brief suspense, With gliding feet, the Father steals away. Grief bends alone above the lonely clay; But over grief and death th' Eternal Eye Shines down,--and Hope lives ever in the sky.

[O] The perfumes from the island of Rhodes,--to which the roses that still bloom there gave the ancient name,--are wafted for miles over the surrounding seas.

[P] The Psyche of Naples, the most intellectual and (so to speak) the most Christian of all the dreams of beauty which Grecian art has embodied in the marble.

[Q] Every one knows, through the version of Mrs. Tighe, the lovely allegory of Eros and Psyche, which Apuleius--the neglected original, to whom all later romance writers are unconsciously indebted--has bequeathed to the delight of poets and the recognition of Christians.

[R] The reader will bear in mind these lines, important to the clearness of the story; and remember that Calantha bore a different name from her half-brother--that her mother's unnatural prejudice or pride of race had forbidden her ever to mention that brother's name; and that, therefore, her relationship to Morvale, until he sought her out, was wholly unknown to all: the reader will remember, also, that during Calantha's subsequent residence in Morvale's house, she lived as woman lives in the East, and was consequently never seen by her brother's guests.

PART THE FOURTH.

I.

To Joy's brisk ear there's music in the throng; Glorious the life of cities to the strong! What myriad charms, all differing, smile for all The hardier Masks in the Great Carnival! Amidst the vast disguise, some sign betrays To each the appointed pleasure in the maze; Ambition, pleasure, love, applause, and gold, Allure the young, and baby[S] yet the old. For here, the old, if nerves and stubborn will Defy Experience, linger, youthful still, Haunt the same rounds of idlesse, or of toil That lure the freshest footsteps to the soil, Still sway the Fashion or control the State, Gay at the ball, or fierce at the debate. It is not youth, it is the zest of life } Surviving youth--in age itself as rife, } That fits the Babel and enjoys the strife; } But not for you our world's bright tumults are, Soft natures, born beneath the Hesperus star,-- To us, the storm is but the native breath; To you, the quickening of the gale is death; Leave Strife to battle with its changeful clime, And seek the peace which saves the weak, in time! Not Man's but Nature's world be yours!--The shade Where, all unseen, the cushat's nest is made, Less lone to you than pomps which but bestow The tinkling cymbal and the painted show.

The lights of revel flash from Arden's halls; There, throng the shapes that troop where Comus calls; But not Sabrina more apart and lone From the loud joy, on her pure coral throne, Than thou, sad maiden!--round the holy tide Swell the gay notes, the airy dancers glide; But o'er the shadowy grot the waters roll, And shut the revel from the unconscious soul!

What rank has noblest, manhood's grace most fair, Bend low to her now hail'd as Arden's heir? If rumour doubts the birthright to his name, The father's wealth redeems the mother's shame; And kindly thoughts o'er lordly pride prevail, "The Earl's best lands are not in the entail!"

How Arden loved his child!--how spoke that love Of those dead worlds the light herb waves above; Layer upon layer--those strata of the past, Those gone creations buried in the last! Their bloom, their life, their glory past away, Speak in this relic of a vanish'd day. There, in that guileless face, revived anew The visions glistening through life's morning dew, Fair Hope, pure Honour, undefiled Truth-- The young shape stood before him as his youth![T] And in this love his chastisement was found-- The thorns he had planted, here enclosed him round; He, whom to see had been to love,--in vain Here loved; that heart no answer gave again-- It lived upon the past,--it dwelt afar, This new-found bond from what it loved the bar. Her conscience chid, yet, while it chid, her thought Still the cold past, to freeze the present, brought; How love the sire round whom such shadows throng, The mother's death-bed and the lover's wrong? The dazzling gifts, which had through life beguiled All other souls, are powerless with his child. Vain the melodious tongue, and vain the mind, Sparkling and free as wavelets in the wind; The roseate wreath the handmaid Graces twine Round sternest hearts,--soft infant, breaks on thine; Child, candid, simple, frank, to her allied, Far more, the nature sever'd from her side, With its fresh instincts and wild verdure, fann'd By fragrant winds, from haunted Fable-land; Than all the garden graces which betray By the bough's riches the worn tree's decay. What charms the ear of Childhood?--not the page Of that romance which wins the sober sage; Not the dark truths, like warning ghosts, which pass Along the pilgrim path of Rasselas; Not wit's wrought crystal which, so coldly clear, Reflects, in Zadig, learning's icy sneer; Unreasoning, wondering, stronger far the thrall Of Aimee's cave,[U] or young Aladdin's hall; And so the childhood of the heart will find } Charms in the poem of a child-like mind, } To which the vision of the world is blind! } Ev'n as the savage, 'midst the desert's gloom, Sees, hid from us, the golden fruitage bloom, And, where the arid silence wraps us all, Lists the soft lapse of the glad waterfall!

So Lucy loved not Arden!--vainly yearn His moisten'd eyes;--Can softness be so stern? That soul how gentle! but that smile how cold! A marble shape the parent arms enfold! No hurrying footstep bounds his own to meet, No joyous smiles with morning's welcome greet, Not him that heart--so bless'd with love--can bless, } Lost the pure Eden of a child's caress; } He saw--he felt, and suffer'd powerless! } Remorse seized on him;--his gay spirit quail'd; The cloud crept on,--it gather'd, it prevail'd. The spectre of the past--the martyr bride, Sat at his board, and glided by his side; Sigh'd, "With the dead, Love the Consoler dies," And spoke his sentence in his child's cold eyes! And now a strange and strong desire was born, } With the young instinct of life's credulous morn, } In that long sceptic-breast, so world-corrupt and worn. }

From the rank soil in which grim London shrouds Her dead,--the green halls of the ghastly crowds-- To bear his Mary's dust; the dust to lay By the clear rill, beside her father's clay, Amidst those scenes which saw the rapture-strife And growth of passion--life's sweet storm of life, Consign the silent pulse, the mouldering heart, Deaf to the joy to meet--the woe to part; Rounding and binding there as into one Sad page, the tale of all beneath the sun; And there, before that grave--beneath the beam Of the lone stars, and by that starlit stream, To lead the pledge of the fresh morn of love, And while the pardoning skies seem'd soft above, Murmur, "For her sake, her, who, reconciled, Hears us in heaven, give me thy heart, my child!" But first--before his conscious soul could dare For the consoling balm to pour the prayer, Alone the shadows of the past to brave, Alone to commune with the accusing grave, And shrive repentance of its haunting gloom Before Life's true Confessional--the Tomb;-- Such made his dream!--Oh! not in vain the creed Of old that knit atonement with the dead! The penitent offering, the lustrating tide, The wandering, haunted, hopeful homicide, Who sees the spot to which the furies urge, Where halt the hell-hounds, and where drops the scourge, And the appeased Manes pitying sigh-- "Thou hast atoned! once more enjoy the sky!"

Such made the dream he rushes to fulfil!-- Round the new mound babbled the living rill; A name, the name that Arden's wife should bear, Sculptured the late and vain repentance there. O'er the same bridge which once to rapture led, Went the same steps their pathway to the dead: Night after night the same lone shadow gave A tremulous darkness to the hurrying wave; Lost,--and then, lengthening from the neighbouring yews, Dimm'd the wan shimmer of the moonlit dews, Then gain'd a grave;--and from the mound was thrown, Still as the shadow of yon funeral stone!

II.

Meanwhile to Morvale!--Sorrow, like the wind Through trees, stirs varying o'er each human mind; Uprooting some, from some it doth but strew Blossom and leaf, which spring restores anew; From some, but shakes rich powers unknown in calm, And wakes the trouble to extract the balm. Let weaker natures suffer and despair, Great souls snatch vigour from the stormy air; Grief not the languor,--Grief the action brings; And clouds the horizon but to nerve the wings.

Up from his heavy thought, one dawning day, The Indian, silent, rose, and went his way; Palace and pomp and wealth and ease resign'd, } As one new-born, he plunged amidst his kind, } Whither, with what intent, he scarce divined. } He turn'd to see, through mists obscure and dun, The domes and spires of the vex'd Babylon; Before him smiled the mead and waved the corn, And Nature's music swell'd the hymns of Morn. A sense of freedom, of the large escape From the pent walls our customs round us shape; The imperfect sympathies which curse the few, Who ne'er the chase the many join pursue; The trite convention, with its cold control, Which thralls the habit, yet not links the soul; --The sense of freedom pass'd into his breast, But found no hope it flatter'd and caress'd; So the sad captive, when at length made free, Shrinks from the sunlight he had pined to see; Feels on the limb the custom of the chain, Each step a struggle and each breath a pain, And knows--return'd unto the world too late, No smile shall greet him at his lonely gate; Seal'd every eye, of old that watch'd and wept; The world he knew has vanish'd while he slept!

He wander'd on, alone, on foot,--alone, As in the waste his earlier steps had known. Forth went the peasant--Adam's curse begun;-- Home went the peasant in the western sun; He heard the bleating fold, the lowing herd, The last shrill carol of the nestling bird! He saw the rare lights of the hamlet gleam And fade;--the stars grow stiller on the stream; Swart, by the woodland, cower'd the gipsy tent Whence peer'd dark eyes that watch'd him as he went-- He paused and turn'd:--Him more the outlaws charm Than the trim hostel and the happy farm. Strangers, like him, from antique lands afar, Aliens untamed where'er their wanderings are, High Syrian sires of old;[V]--dark fragments torn From the great creed of Isis,--now forlorn In rags--all earth their foe, and day by day Worn in the strife with social Jove away-- Wretched, 'tis true, yet less enslaved, their strife, Than our false peace with all this masque of life, Convention's lies,--the league with Custom made, The crimes of glory, and the frauds of trade. Rest and rude food the lawless Nomads yield; The dews rise ghost-like from the whitening field, And ghost-like on the wanderer glides the sleep Through which the phantom Dreams their witching Sabbat keep!

At dawn, while yet, around the Indian, lay The dark, fantastic groups,--resumed the way; Before his steps the landscape spreads more free And fresh from man;--ev'n as a broadening sea, When, more and more the harbour left behind, The lone sail drifts before the strengthening wind. Behold the sun!--how stately from the East, Bright from God's presence, comes the glorious Priest! Deck'd as beseems the Mighty One to whom Heaven gives the charge to hallow and illume! How, as he comes,--through the Great Temple, EARTH, Peels the rich Jubilee of grateful mirth! The infant flowers their odour-censers swinging, Through aisled glades Air's Anthem-Chorus ringing; While, like some soul lifted aloft by love, High and alone the sky-lark halts above, High, o'er the sparkling dews, the glittering corn, Hymns his frank happiness and hails the morn!

He stands upon the green hill's lighted brow, And sees the world at smiling peace below, Hamlet and farm, and thy best type, Desire Of the sad Heart,--the heaven-ascending spire!

He stood and mused, and thus his musing ran:-- "How strong, how feeble, is thine art, O Man! Thou coverest Earth with wonders--at thy hand Curbs the meek water, blooms the subject land: Why halts thy magic here?--Why only deck'd Earth's sterile surface, mournful Architect? Why art thou powerless o'er the world within? Why raise the Eden, yet retain the sin? Why, while the earth, thou but enjoy'st an hour, Proclaims thy splendour and attests thy power, Why o'er the spirit does thy sorcery cease?-- Lo the sweet landscape round thee lull'd in peace! Why wakes each heart to sorrow, care, and strife? Why with yon temple so at war the life? Why all so slight the variance, or in grief Or guilt,--the sum of suffering and relief, Between the desert's son whose wild content Redeems no waste, enthralls no element, And ye the Magians?--ye the giant birth Of Lore and Science--Brahmins of the Earth? Behold the calm steer drinking in the stream, Behold the glad bird glancing in the beam. Say, know ye pleasure,--ye, the Eternal Heirs Of stars and spheres--life's calm content, like theirs? Your stores enrich, your powers exalt, the few, And curse the millions wealth and power subdue; And ev'n the few!--what lord of luxury knows The joy in strife, the sweetness in repose, Which bless the houseless Arab?--Still behind } Ease waits Disgust, and with the falling wind } Droop the dull sails ordain'd to speed the mind. } Increasing wants the sum of care increase, The piled-up knowledge but sepulchres peace, Ye quell the instincts, the free love, frank hate, And bid hard Reason hold the scales of Fate-- What is your gain?--from each slain instinct springs A hydra passion, poisoning while it stings; Free love, foul lust;--the frank hate's manly strife A plotting mask'd dissimulating life;-- Truth flies the world--one falsehood taints the sky Each form a phantom, and each word a lie!

"Yet what am I?--the crush'd and baffled foe, Who dared the strife, yet would denounce the blow. What arms had I against this world to wield? What mail the naked savage heart to shield? To this hoar world I brought the trusts of youth, Warm zeal for men, and fix'd repose in truth-- Amongst the young I look'd for young desires, Love which adores, and Honour which aspires-- Amongst the old, for souls set free from all The earthlier chains which young desires enthrall, Serene and gentle both to soothe and chide, The sires to pity, yet the seers to guide-- And lo! this civilised and boasted plan, This order'd ring and harmony of man, One hideous, cynic, levelling orgy, where Youth Age's ice, and Age Youth's fever share-- The unwrinkled brow, the calculating brain, The passion balanced with the weights of gain, And Age more hotly clutching than the boy At the lewd bauble and the gilded toy.

"Why should I murmur?--why accuse the strong? I own Earth's law--the conquer'd are the wrong, Am I ambitious?--in this world I stand Closed from the race, an Alien in the land. Dare I to love?--O soul, O heart, forget That dream, that frenzy!--what is left me yet? Revenge!"--His dark eyes flash'd--yet straightway died The passionate lightning--"No!--revenge denied! All the wild man in the tame slave is dead, The currents stagnate in the girded bed! Back to my desert!--yet, O sorcerer's draught, O smooth false world,--what soul that once has quaff'd, Renounces not the ancient manliness? Now, could the Desert the charm'd victim bless? Can the caged bird, escaped from bondage, share As erst the freedom of the hardy air? Can the poor peasant, lured by Wealth's caprice To marts and domes, find the old native peace In the old hut?--on-rushing is the mind: It ne'er looks back on what it leaves behind. Once cut the cable and unfurl the sail, And spreads the boundless sea, and drifts the hurrying gale!

"Come then, my Soul, thy thoughts thy desert be! Thy dreams thy comrades!--I escape to thee! Within, the gates unbar, the airs expand, No bound but Heaven confines the Spirit's Land! Such luxury yet as what of Nature lives In Art's lone wreck, the lingering instinct gives; Joy in the sun, and mystery in the star, Light of the Unseen, commune with the Far; Man's law,--his fellow, ev'n in scorn, to save, And hope in some just World beyond the Grave!"

So went he on, and day succeeds to day, Untired the step, though purposeless the way; At night his pause was at the lowliest door, The beggar'd heart makes brothers of the Poor; They who most writhe beneath Man's social wrong, But love the feeble when they hate the strong. Laud not to me the optimists who call Each knave a brother--Parasites of all-- Praise not as genial his indifferent eye, Who lips the cant of mock philanthropy; He who loathes ill must more than half which lies In this ill world with generous scorn despise; Yet of the wrong he hates, the grief he shares, His lip rebuke, his soul compassion, wears; The Hermit's wrath bespeaks the Preacher's hope Who loves men most--men call the Misanthrope!

At times with honest toil reposed--at times Where gnawing wants beset despairing crimes, Both still betray'd the sojourn of his soul, Here wise to cheer, there fearless to control. His that strange power the Church's Fathers had To awe the fierce and to console the sad; For he, like them, had sinn'd;--like them had known Life's wild extremes;--their trials were his own! Were we as rich in charity of deed As gold--what rock would bloom not with the seed? We give our alms, and cry--"What can we more?" One hour of time were worth a load of ore! Give to the ignorant our own wisdom!--give Sorrow our comfort,--lend to those who live In crime, the counsels of our virtue,--share With souls our souls, and Satan shall despair! Alas, what converts one man, who would take The cross and staff, and house with Guilt, could make!

Still, in his breast, 'midst much that well might shame The virtues Christians in themselves proclaim, There dwelt the Ancient Heathen;--still as strong Doubts in Heaven's justice,--curses for man's wrong. Revenge, denied indeed, still rankled deep In thought--and dimm'd the day, and marr'd the sleep And there were hours when from the hell within Faded the angel that had saved from sin; When the fell Fury, beckoning through the gloom, Cried "Life for life--thou hast betray'd the tomb!" For the grim Honour of the ancient time Deem'd vengeance duty and forgiveness crime; And the stern soul fanatic conscience scared, For blood not shed, and injury weakly spared;-- Woe, if in hours like these, O more than woe, Had the roused tiger met the pardon'd foe!

Nor when his instinct of the life afar Soar'd from the soil and task'd the unanswering star, Came more than Hope--that reflex-beam of Faith-- That fitful moonlight on the unknown path; And not the glory of the joyous sun, That fills with light whate'er it shines upon; From which the smiles of God as brightly fall On the lone charnel as the festive hall!

Now Autumn closes on the fading year, The chill wind moaneth through the woodlands sere; At morn the mists lie mournful on the hill,-- The hum of summer's populace is still! Hush'd the rife herbage, mute the choral tree, The blithe cicala, and the murmuring bee; The plashing reed, the furrow on the glass Of the calm wave, as by the bank you pass Scaring the lazy trout,--delight no more; The god of fields is dead--Pan's lusty reign is o'er! Solemn and earnest--yet to holier eyes Not void of glory, arch the sober'd skies Above the serious earth!--The changes wrought Type our own change from passion into thought. What though our path at every step is strewn With leaves that shadow'd in the summer noon; Through the clear space more vigorous comes the air, And the star pierces where the branch is bare. What though the birds desert the chiller light; To brighter climes the wiser speed their flight. So happy Souls at will expand the wing, And, trusting Heaven, re-settle into Spring.

An old man sat beneath the yellowing beech, Vow'd to the Cross, and wise the Word to teach. A patriarch priest, from earth's worst tempters pure, Gold and Ambition!--sainted and obscure! Before his knee (the Gospel in his hands, And sunshine at his heart), a youthful listener stands!

The old man spoke of Christ--of Him who bore } Our form, our woes;--that man might evermore } In succouring woe-worn man, the God, made Man, adore! } "My child," he said, "in the far-heathen days, Hope was a dream, Belief an endless maze; The wise perplex'd, yet still with glimpse sublime Of ports dim-looming o'er the seas of Time Guess'd HIM unworshipp'd yet--the Power above Or Dorian Phoebus, or Pelasgic Jove! Guess'd the far realm, not won by Charon's oar Not the pale joys the brave who gain abhor; No cold Elysium where the very Blest Envy the living and deplore the rest;[W] Where ev'n the spirit, as the form, a ghost, Dreams back life's conflicts on the shadowy coast, Hears but the clashing steel, the armed train, And waves the airy spear, and murders hosts again! More just the prescience of the eternal goal, Which gleam'd 'mid Cyprian shades, on Zeno's soul, Or shone to Plato in the lonely cave; God in all space, and life in every grave! Wise lore and high,--but for the few conceived; By schools discuss'd, but not by crowds believed. The angel-ladder touch'd the heavenly steep, But at its foot the patriarchs did but sleep; They did not preach to nations 'Lo your God;' No thousands follow'd where their footsteps trod; Not to the fisherman they said 'Arise!' Not to the lowly they reveal'd the skies;-- Aloof and lone their shining course they ran Like stars too high to gild the world of man:[X] Then, not for schools--but for the human kind-- The uncultured reason, the unletter'd mind; The poor, the oppress'd, the labourer, and the slave, God said, 'Be light!'--And light was on the Grave! No more alone to sage and hero given, Ope for all life the impartial Gates of Heaven! Enough hath Wisdom dream'd, and Reason err'd, All they would seek is found!--O'er Nature sleeps the Word!

"Thou ask'st why Christ, so lenient to the deed, So sternly claims the faith which founds the creed; Because, reposed in faith the soul has calm; The hope a haven, and the wound a balm; Because the light, dim seen in Reason's Dream, On all alike, through faith alone, could stream. God will'd support to Weakness, joy to Grief, And so descended from his throne--BELIEF! Nor this alone--Have faith in things above, The unseen Beautiful of Heavenly Love; And from that faith what virtues have their birth, What spiritual meanings gird, like air, the Earth! A deeper thought inspires the musing sage! To youth what visions--what delights to age! A loftier genius wakens in the world, To starrier heights more vigorous wings unfurl'd. No more the outward senses reign alone, The soul of Nature glides into our own. To reason less is to imagine more; They most aspire who meekly most adore!

"Therefore the God-like Comforter's decree-- 'His sins be loosen'd who hath faith in me.' Therefore he shunn'd the cavils of the wise, And made no schools the threshold of the skies: Therefore he taught no Pharisee to preach His Word--the simple let the simple teach. Upon the infant on his knee he smiled, And said to Wisdom, 'Be once more a child!'"

The boughs behind the old man gently stirr'd, By one unseen those Gospel accents heard; Before the preacher bow'd the pilgrim's head: "Heaven to this bourne my rescued steps hath led, Grieving, perplex'd--benighted, yet with dim Hopes in God's justice,--be my guide to Him! In vain made man, I mourn and err!--restore Childhood's pure soul, and ready trust, once more!" The old man on the stranger gazed;--unto The stranger's side the young disciple drew, And gently clasp'd his hand;--and on the three The western sun shone still and smilingly; But, round--behind them--dark and lengthening lay The massive shadow of the closing day. "See," said the preacher, "Darkness hurries on, But Man, toil-wearied, grieves not for the Sun; He knows the light that leaves him shall return, And hails the night because he trusts the morn! Believe in God as in the Sun,--and, lo! Along thy soul, morn's youth restored shall glow! As rests the earth, so rest, O troubled heart, Rest, till the burthen of the cloud depart; Rest, till the gradual veil, from Heaven withdrawn, Renews thy freshness as it yields the dawn!"

Behold the storm-beat wanderer in repose! He lists the sounds at which the Heavens unclose, Gleam, through expanding bars, the angel-wings, And floats the music borne from seraph-strings. Holy the oldest creed which Nature gives, Proclaiming God where'er Creation lives; But there the doubt will come!--the clear design Attests the Maker and suggests the Shrine; But in that visible harmonious plan, What present shows the future world to man? What lore detects, beneath our crumbling clay, A soul exiled, and journeying back to day; What knowledge, in the bones of charnel urns, The etherial spark, the undying thought, discerns? How from the universal war, the prey Of life on life, can love explore the way? Search the material tribes of earth, sea, air, And the fierce SELF that strives and slays is there. What but that SELF to Man doth Nature teach? Where the charm'd link that binds the all to each? Where the sweet Law--(doth Nature boast its birth)-- "Good will to man, and charity to earth?" Not in the world without, but that within, Reveal'd, not instinct--soul from sense can win! And where the Natural halts, where cramp'd, confined, The seen horizon bounds the baffled mind, The Inspired begins--the onward march is given; Bridging all space, nor ending ev'n in Heaven! There, veil'd on earth, we mark divinely clear, Duty and end--the There explains the Here! We see the link that binds the future band, Foeman with foeman gliding hand in hand; And feel that Hate is but an hour's--the son Of earth, to perish when the earth is done-- But Love eternal; and we turn below, To hail the brother where we loathed the foe; There, in the soft and beautiful Belief, Flows the true Lethe for the lips of Grief; There, Penury, Hunger, Misery, cast their eyes, How soon the bright Republic of the Skies! There, Love, heart-broken, sees prepared the bower, And hears the bridal step, and waits the nuptial hour! There, smiles the mother we have wept! there bloom Again the buds asleep within the tomb; There, souls regain what hearts had lost before In that fix'd moment call'd the--Evermore!

Refresh'd in that soft baptism, and reborn, The Indian woke, and on the world was morn! All things seem'd new--rose-colour'd in the skies Shone the hoar peaks of the old memories; No more enshrouded with unbroken gloom Calantha's injured name and early tomb-- No more with woe (how ill-suppress'd by pride!) Thought sounds the gulf that parts the promised bride! Faithful no less to Death, and true to Love, This blooms again--that shall rejoin, above! The Stoic courage had the wound conceal'd; The Christian hope the wound's sharp torture heal'd. As rude the waste, but now before him shone } The star;--he rose, and cheerful journey'd on, } Full of the God most with us when alone! }

III.

'Tis night,--a night by fits now foul, now fair, As speed the cloud-wracks through the gusty air: At times the wild blast dies--and high and far, Through chasms of cloud, looks down the solemn star-- Or the majestic moon;--so watchfires mark Some sleeping War dim-tented in the dark; Or so, through antique Chaos and the storm Of Matter, whirl'd and writhing into form, Pale angels peer'd!

Anon, from brief repose The winds leap forth, the cloven deeps reclose; Mass upon mass, the hurtling vapours driven, As one huge blackness walls the earth from heaven!-- In one of these brief lulls--you see, serene, The village church spire 'mid its mounds of green, The scattered roof-tops of the hamlet round, And the swoll'n rill that girds the holy ground.

A plank that rock'd above the rushing wave, The dizzy pathway to a wanderer gave; There, as he paused, from the lone churchyard, slow Emerged a form the wanderer's eyes should know! It gains the opposing margent of the stream, Full on the face shines calm the crescent beam; It halts upon the bridge! Now, Indian, learn If in thy soul the heathen yet can yearn! Swift runs the wave, the instinct and the hour, The lonely night, when evil thoughts have power, The foe before thee, and no things that live To witness vengeance--Canst thou still forgive? Scarce seen by each the face of each--when, deep O'er the lost moon, the cloud's loud surges sweep; Yea, as a sea devours the fated bark, Vanish'd the heaven, and closed the abyss of dark! You heard the roaring of the mighty blast, The groaning trees uprooted as it pass'd The wrath and madness of the starless rill, Swell'd by each torrent rushing from the hill. The slight plank creaks--high mount the waves and high, Hark! with the tempest's shrieks the human cry! Upon the bridge but one man now!--below, The night of waters and the drowning foe! The Indian heard the death-cry and the fall; Still o'er the wild scene hung the funeral pall! What eye can pierce the darkness of the wave? } What hand guide rescue through the roaring grave? } Not for such craven questions pause the brave! } Again the moon!--again the churchyard's green, Spire, hamlet, mead, and rill distinct are seen; But on the bridge no form, no life! The beam Shoots wan and broken on the tortured stream; Vague, indistinct, what yonder moveth o'er The troubled tide, and struggles to the shore? Hark, where the sere bough of the tossing tree Snaps in the grasp of some strong agony, And the dull plunge, and stifled cry betray Where the grim water-fiend reclasps his prey!

Still shines the moon--still halts the panting storm, It moves again--the shadow shapes to form, Lo! where yon bank shelves gradual, and the ray Silvers the reed, it cleaves its vigorous way!-- Saved from the deep, but happier far to save, The foeman wrests the foeman from the grave! Still shines the moon--still halts the storm!--above His sons, looks down divine the Father-Love! Upon the Indian's breast droops Arden's head, Its marble beauty rigid as the dead. What skill so fondly tends the soul's eclipse, Chafes the stiff limb, and breathes in breathless lips? Wooes back the flickering life, and when, once more, The ebbing blood the wan cheek mantles o'er; When stirs the pulse, when opes the glazing eye, What voice of joy finds listeners in the sky? "Bless thee, my God!--this mercy thine!--he lives: Look in my heart, forgive, for it forgives!"

Then, while yet clear the heaven, he flies--he gains The nearest roof--prompt aid his prayer obtains; Well known the noble stranger's mien--they bear To the rude home, and ply the zealous care; Life with the dawn comes sure, if faint and slow, And all night long the foeman watch'd the foe!

Day dawns on earth, still darkness wraps the mind; Sleep pass'd, the waking is a veil more blind: The soul, scared roughly from its mansion, glides O'er mazy wastes through which the meteor guides.

The startled menial, who, alone of all The hireling pomp that swarms in Arden's hall, Attends his lord,--dismay'd lest one so high, A rural Galen should permit to die, Departs in haste to seek the subtler skill Which from the College takes the right to kill; And summon Lucy to the solemn room To watch the father's life,--fast by the mother's tomb. Meanwhile such facile arts as nature yields, Draughts from the spring and simples from the fields, Learn'd in his savage youth, the Indian plies; The fever slakes, the cloudy darkness flies; O'er the vex'd vision steals the lulling rest, And Arden wakes to sense on Morvale's breast!

On Morvale's breast!--and through the noiseless door A fearful footfall creeps, and lo! once more Thou look'st, pale daughter, on thy father's foe! Not with the lurid eye and menaced blow; Not as when last, between the murtherous blade And the proud victim, gleam'd the guardian maid-- Thy post is his!--that breast the prop supplies That thine should yield;--as thine so watch those eyes, Wistful and moist, that waning life above; Recal the Heathen's hate!--behold the Christian's love!

The learned leech proclaims the danger o'er; When life is safe, can Fate then harm no more?

The danger past for Arden, but for you Who watch the couch, what danger threats anew? How meet in pious duty and fond care, In hours when through the eye the heart is bare? How join in those soft sympathies, and yet The earlier link, the tenderer bond forget? How can the soul the magnet-charm withstand, When chance brings look to look, and hand to hand! No, Indian, no--if yet the power divine Above the laws of our low world be thine; If yet the Honour which thy later creed Softens, not quells, revere the injured dead, Fly, ere the full heart cries, "I love thee still"-- And find thy guardian in the angel--WILL! That power was his!

Along the landscape lay The hazy rime of winter's dawning day: Snake-like the curving mists betray'd the rill, The last star gleam'd upon the Eastern hill, Still slept beneath the leafless trees the herd; Still mute the sharp note of the sunless bird; No sound, no life; as to some hearth, bereft By death, of welcome, since his wanderings left, Comes back the traveller;--so to earth, forlorn Returns the ungreeted melancholy Morn.

Forth from the threshold stole the Indian!--far Spread the dim land beneath the waning star. Alas! how wide the world his heart will find Who leaves one spot--the heart's true home, behind! He paused--one upward look upon the gloom Of the closed casement, the love-hallow'd room, Where yet, perchance, while happier Suffering slept Its mournful vigil tender Duty kept; One prayer! What mercy taught us prayer?--as dews On drooping herbs--as sleep tired life renews, As dreams that lead, and lap our griefs in Heaven, To souls through Prayer, dew, sleep, and dream, are given! So bow'd, not broken, and with manly will, Onwards he strode, slow up the labouring hill!

If Lucy mourn'd his absence, not before Her sire's dim eyes the face of grief she wore; Haply her woman heart divined the spell Of her own power, by flight proclaim'd too well; And not in hours like these may self control The generous empire of a noble soul: Lo, her first thought, first duty--the soft reign Of Woman--patience by the bed of pain! As mute the father, yet to him made clear The cause of flight untold to Lucy's ear; Thus ran the lines that met, at morn, his eyes:-- "Farewell! my place a daughter now supplies!-- Thou hast pass'd the gates of Death, and bright once more Smile round thy steps the sunlight and the shore. Farewell; and if a soul, where hatred's gall Melts into pardon that embalmeth all, Can with forgiveness bless thee;--from remorse Can pluck the stone which interrupts the course Of thought to God;--and bid the waters rest Calm in Heaven's smile,--poor fellow-man, be blest! I, that can aid no more, now need an aid Against myself; by mine own thoughts dismay'd: I dare not face thy child--I may not dare To commune with my heart--thy child is there! I hear a voice that whispers hope, and start In shame, to shun the tempter and depart. How vile the pardon that I yield would seem, If shaped and colour'd from the egoist's dream; A barter'd compromise with thoughts that take The path of conscience but for passion's sake-- If with the pardon I could say--'The Tomb Devours the Past, so let the Moment bloom, And see Calantha's brother reconciled, Kneel to Calantha's lover, for his child!' It may not be; sad sophists were our vain Desires, if Right were not a code so plain; In good or ill leave casusits on the shelf, 'He never errs who sacrifices self!'"

Great Natures, Arden, thy strange lot to know And lose!--twin souls thy mistress and thy foe! How flash'd they, high and starry, through the dull World's reeking air--earnest and beautiful! Erring perchance, and yet divinely blind, Such hero errors purify our kind! One noble fault that springs from SELF'S disdain May oft more grace in Angel eyes obtain, Than a whole life, without a seeming flaw, Which served but Heaven, because of Earth in awe, Which in each act has loss or profit weigh'd, And kept with Virtue the accounts of Trade! He too was born, lost Idler, to be great, The sins that dwarf'd, he had a soul to hate. Ambition, Ease, Example had beguiled, And our base world in fawning had defiled; Yet still, contrasting all he did, he dream'd; And through the Wordling's life the Poet gleam'd. His eye not blind to Virtue; to his ear Still spoke the music of the banish'd sphere; Still in his thought the Ideal, though obscured, Shamed the rank meteor which his sense allured. Wreck if he was, the ruin yet betray'd The shatter'd fane for gods departed made; And still, through weeds neglected and o'erthrown, The blurr'd inscription show'd the altar-stone. So scorn'd he not, as folly or as pride, The lofty code which made the Indian's guide; But from that hour a subtle change came o'er The thoughts he veil'd, the outward mien he wore; A mournful, weary gloom, a pall'd distaste Of all the joys so warmly once embraced. His eye no more looks onward. but its gaze Rests where Remorse a life misspent surveys: What costly treasures strew that waste behind; What whirlwinds daunt the soul that sows the wind! By the dark shape of what he is, serene Stands the bright ghost of what he might have been: Here the vast loss, and there the worthless gain-- Vice scorn'd, yet woo'd, and Virtue loved in vain.

'Tis said, the Nightingale, who hears the thrill Of some rich lute, made vocal by sweet skill, To match the music strains its wild essay, Feels its inferior art, and envying, pines away: So, waked at last, and scarcely now confest, Pined the still Poet in the Worldling's breast! So with the Harmony of Good, compared Its lesser self--so languish'd and despair'd.

Awhile, from land to land he idly roved, And join'd life's movement with a heart unmoved. No more loud cities ring with Arden's name, Applaud his faults, and call his fashion "Fame!" Disgust with all things robes him as he goes, In that pale virtue, Vice, when weary, knows. Yet his, at least, one rescue from the past; His, one sweet comfort--Lucy's love at last! That bed of pain o'er which she had watch'd and wept-- That grave, where Love forgot its wrongs and slept-- That touching sorrow and that still remorse Unlock'd her heart, and gave the stream its course. From her own grief, by griefs more dark beguiled, Rose the consoling Angel in the Child! Yet still the calm disease, whose mute decay No leech arrests, crept gradual round its prey. Death came, came gently, on his daughter's breast, Murm'ring, "Remember where this dust should rest." They bear the last Lord of that haughty race Where winds the wave round Mary's dwelling-place; And side by side (oh, be it in the sky As in the earth!)--the long-divided lie!

Doth life's last act one wrong at least repair-- His nameless child to wealth at least the heir? So Arden's will decreed--so sign'd the hand; So ran the text--not so Law rules the land: "I do bequeath unto my child,"[Y]--that word Alone on strangers has the wealth conferr'd. O'erjoy'd Law's heirs the legal blunder read, And Justice cancels Nature from the deed. O moral world! deal sternly if thou wilt With the warm weakness as the wily guilt, But spare the harmless! Wherefore shall the child Be from the pale which shelters Crime exiled? Why heap such barriers round the sole redress Which sin can give to sinless wretchedness? Why must the veriest stranger thrust aside Our flesh--our blood, because a name's denied? Give all thou hast to whomsoe'er thou please, Foe, alien, knave, as whim so Law decrees; But if thy heart speaks, if thy conscience cries-- "I give my child"--the law thy voice belies; Chicanery balks all effort that atones, And Justice robs the wretch that Nature owns!

So abject, so despoil'd, so penniless, Stood thy love-born in the world's wilderness, O Lord of lands and towers, and princely sway! O Dust, from whom with breath has pass'd away The humblest privilege the beggar finds In rags that wrap his infant from the winds!

In the poor hamlet where her grandsire died, Where sleeps her mother by the magnate's side, The orphan found a home. Her story known, Men's hearts allow the right men's laws disown. Though lost the birthright, and denied the name, Her pastor-grandsire's virtues shield from shame; Pity seeks kind pretext to pour its balms, And yields light toils that saves the pride from alms. A soft respect the orphan's steps attends, And the sharp thorn at least the rose defends. So flows o'ershadow'd, but not darksome by, Her life's lone stream--the banks admit the sky Day's quiet taskwork o'er, when Ev'ning grey Lists the last carol on the quivering spray, When lengthening shades reflect the distant hill, And the near spire, upon the lulled rill; Her sole delight with pensive step to glide Along the path that winds the wave beside, A moment pausing on the bridge, to mark Perchance the moonlight vista through the dark: Or watch the eddy where the wavelets play Round the chafed stone that checks their happy way, Then onward stealing, vanish from the view, Where the star shimmers on the solemn yew, As shade from earth and starlight from the sky Meet--and repose on Death's calm mystery.

Moons pass'd--Behold the blossom on the spray! Hark to the linnet!--On the world is May! Green earth below and azure skies above; May calling life to joy, and youth to love; While Age, charm'd back to rosy hours awhile, Hears the lost vow, and sees the vanish'd smile. And does not May, lone Child, revive in thee, Blossom and bud and mystic melody; Does not the heart, like earth, imbibe the ray? Does not the year's recal thy life's sweet May? When like an altar to some happy bride, Shone all creation by the loved one's side? Yes, Exile, yes--that Empire is thine own, Rove where thou wilt, awaits thee still thy throne! Lo, where the paling cheek, the unconscious sigh, The slower footstep, and the heavier eye, Betray the burthen of sweet thoughts and mute, The slight tree bows beneath the golden fruit!

'Tis eve. The orphan gains the holy ground, } And listening halts;--the boughs that circle round } Vex'd by no wind, yet rustle with a sound, } As if that gentle form had scared some lone Unwonted step more timid than its own! All still once more; perchance some daunted bird, That loves the night, the murmuring leaves had stirr'd? She nears the tomb--amaze!--what hand unknown Has placed those pious flowers upon the stone? Why beats her heart? why hath the electric mind, Whose act, whose hand, whose presence there, divined? Why dreading, yearning, turn those eyes to meet The adored, the lost?--Behold him at her feet! His, those dark eyes that seek her own through tears, His hand that clasps, and his the voice she hears, Broken and faltering--"Is the trial past? Here, by the dead, art thou made mine at last? Far--in far lands I heard thy tale!--And thou Orphan and lone!--no bar between us now! No Arden now calls up the wrong'd and lost; Lo, in this grave appeased the upbraiding ghost! Orphan, I am thy father now!--Bereft Of all beside,--this heart at least is left. Forgive, forgive--Oh, canst thou yet bestow One thought on him, to whom thou art all below? Who could desert but to remember more? Canst thou the Heaven, the exile lost, restore? Canst thou----"

The orphan bow'd her angel head; Breath blent with breath--her soul her silence said; Eye unto eye, and heart to heart reveal'd;-- And lip on lip the eternal nuptials seal'd!

The Moon breaks forth--one silver stream of light Glides from its fount in heaven along the night-- Flows in still splendour through the funeral gloom Of yews,--and widens as it clasps the tomb-- Through the calm glory hosts as calm above Look on the grave--and by the grave is LOVE!

[S] "At best it babies us."--YOUNG.

[T] "For, oh! he stood before me as my youth."--COLERIDGE'S Wallenstein.

[U] The beautiful story of Aimee--the delight of all children--is in the collection entitled "The Temple of the Fairies."

[V] According to the exploded hypothesis of Voltaire, that the Gipsies are a Syrian tribe, the remains of the long scattered fraternity of Isis.

[W] Whoever is well acquainted with the heathen learning must often have been deeply impressed with the mournful character of the mythological Elysium. Even the few admitted to the groves of asphodel, unpurified by death, retain the passions and pine with the griefs of life; they envy the mortal whom the poet brings to their moody immortality; and, amidst the disdained repose, sigh for the struggle and the storm.

[X] Not only were the lofty and cheering notions of the soul, that were cherished by the more illustrious philosophers of Greece, confined to a few, but even the grosser and dimmer belief in a future state, which the vulgar mythology implied, was not entertained by the multitude. Plato remarked that few, even in his day, had faith in the immortality of the soul; and indeed the Hades of the ancients was not for the Many. Amongst those condemned we find few criminals, except the old Titans, and such as imitated them in the one crime--blasphemy to the fabled gods: and the dwellers of Elysium are chiefly confined to the poets and the heroes, the oligarchy of earth.

[Y] If a man wishes to leave a portion to his natural child, his lawyer will tell him to name the child as if it were a stranger to his blood. If he says, "I leave to John Tompson, of Baker-street, L10,000," John Tompson may probably get the legacy; if he says, "I leave to my son, John Tompson, of Baker-street, L10,000," and the said John Tompson is his son (a natural one), it is a hundred to one if John Tompson ever touches a penny! Up springs the Inhuman Law, with its multiform obstacles, quibbles, and objections--proof of identity--evidence of birth!--Many and many a natural child has thus been robbed and swindled out of his sole claim upon redress--his sole chance of subsistence. In most civilised countries a father is permitted to own the offspring, whom, unless he do so, he has wronged at its very birth--whom, if he do not so, he wrongs irremedially; with us the error is denied reparation, and the innocence is sentenced to outlawry. Our laws, with relation to illegitimate children, are more than unjust--they are inhuman.

CONSTANCE; OR, THE PORTRAIT.

PART THE FIRST.

I.

On Avon's stream, in day's declining hours, The loitering Angler sees reflected towers; Adown the hill the stately shadows glide, And force their frown upon the gentle tide: Another shade, as stately and as slow, Steals down the slope and dims the peace below: There, side by side, your noiseless shadows fall, Time-wearied Lord, and time-defying hall! As Song's sweet Master fled the roar of Rome, For the Bandusian fount and Sabine home, A soul forsook the beaten tracks of life, Sought the lone bye-path and escaped the strife; And paused, reviving 'mid the haunts of youth, To conjure fancies back, or muse on truth. One home there is, from which, howe'er we stray, True as a star, the smile pursues our way; The home of thoughtful childhood's mystic tears, Of earliest Sabbath bells on sinless ears, Of noonday dreamings under summer trees, And prayers first murmur'd at a mother's knees. Ah! happy he, whose later home as man Is made where Love first spoke, and Hope began, Where haunted floors dear footsteps back can give, And in our Lares all our fathers live!

Graced with those gifts the vulgar mostly prize, And if used wisely, precious to the wise, Wealth and high lineage;--Ruthven's name was known Less for ancestral greatness than its own: With boyhood's dreams the grand desire began Which, nerved by labour, lifts from rank the man Ev'n as the eye in Art's majestic halls Not on the frame but on the portrait falls; So to each nobler life the gaze we bound, Nor heed what casework clasps the picture round.

But who can guess that crisis of the soul When the old glory first forsakes the goal? When Knowledge halts and sees but cloud before; When sour'd Experience whispers 'hope no more;' When every onward footstep from our side Parts the slow friend or hesitating guide; When envy rots the harvest in the sheaf; When faith in virtue seems the child's belief; And life's last music sighs itself away On some false lip, that kiss'd but to betray? Thus from a world that wrong'd him, self-exiled, The man resought the birthplace of the child. Rest comes betimes, if toil commence too soon; The brightest sun is stillest at the noon; Weary at mid-day, genius halts the course, And hails the respite which renews the force.

II.

Deep in the vale from which those towers arose, A life more shatter'd, sought more late repose; In Seaton long had men and marts obey'd The unerring hierarch in thy temple, Trade. Trade, the last earth-god; whom the Olympian Power Begot on Danae, as the Golden Shower, To whose young hands the weary Jove resign'd. Some ages since, the scales that weigh mankind. But that dire Fate, who Jove himself controll'd, Still shakes the urn, although the lots are gold: Reverses came, the whirlwind of a day Swept the strong labours of a life away; Rased out of sight whate'er is sold or bought, And left but name and honour--men said "nought." True, knavery whisper'd, "Only still disguise: Credit is generous, if you blind its eyes; The borrow'd prop arrests the house's fall, And one rich chance may yet reconquer all." There on his priest the earth-god lost control, And from the wreck the merchant saved his soul "Alone, I rose," he said; "I fall alone-- Nor one man's ruin shall accuse mine own." And so, life passing from the gorgeous stage, The curtain fell on Poverty and Age.

III.

Yet one fair flower survived the common dearth, And one sweet voice gave music still to earth; On Fortune's victim Nature pitying smiled; "Still rich!" the father cried, and clasp'd his child.

Beautiful Constance!--As the icy air Congeals the earth, to make more clear the star, So the meek soul look'd lovelier from thine eyes, Through the sharp winter of the alter'd skies. Yet the soft child had memories unconfess'd, And griefs that wept not on a father's breast. In brighter days, such love as fancy knows (That youngest love whose couch is in the rose) Had sent the shaft, which, when withdrawn in haste, Leaves not a scar by which the wound is traced; But if it rest, more fatal grows the smart, And deepening from the surface, gains the heart; In truth, young Harcourt had the gifts that please,-- Wit without effort, beauty worn with ease; The courtier's mien to veil the miser's soul, And that self-love which brings such self-control. High-born, but poor, no Corydon was he To dream of love and cots in Arcady; His tastes were like the Argonauts of old, And only pastoral if the fleece was gold. The less men feel, the better they can feign-- To act a Romeo, needs it Romeo's pain? No, the calm master of the Histrio's art Keeps his head coolest while he storms your heart; Thus, our true mime no boundary overstept, Charm'd when he smiled, and conquer'd when he wept.

Meanwhile, what pass'd the father had not guess'd, Nor learn'd the courtship till the suit was press'd; Then prudence woke, and judgment, grown austere, } Join'd trade's slow caution with affection's fear, } And whisper'd this wise counsel--"Wait a year!" } In vain the lover pleaded to the maid; "A year soon passes," Constance smiling said. Just then--for Harcourt's service was the sword-- Duty ordain'd what gentle taste abhorr'd; Cursed by a country which at times forgets It boasts an empire where the sun ne'er sets, Some isle, resentful of our lax control, Rebels on purpose to distract his soul. A month had scorch'd him on that hateful shore, When paled those charms to which such faith he swore; News came that left to Constance not a grace, The sire's reverses changed the daughter's face;-- "Oh heavens!--so handsome! Gone in one short hour!" "What," quoth a friend, "The Lady?"

"No, the dower."

IV.

Yet still, fair Constance in her lone retreat Cheer'd the dull hours with faithful self-deceit; What though no tidings came to brighten time, To doubt of Harcourt seem'd less grief than crime. Easier to blame the elements unkind, The distant clime, the ocean, and the wind, Think them all leagued to intercept the scroll, Than place distrust where soul confides in soul. But ever foremost in her wish was yet To hide remembrance lest it seem'd regret; That in her looks this comfort still might be, "Father, I smile--and joy yet lives for thee!" Thus Seaton deem'd her childish fancy flown; To the worn mind fresh hearts are realms unknown; As we live on, the finer tints of truth Fade from the landscape.--Age is blind to youth.

PART THE SECOND.

I.

Oft to a creek, in Shakspeare's haunted stream, What time the noon invites of song to dream, Where stately oak with silver poplar weaves The hospitable shade of amorous leaves, And, lightly swerved by winding shores askance, The limpid river wreathes its flying dance,[A] Young Constance came;--a bank with wild flowers drest As for a fairy's sleep, her sylvan rest. Behind, the woodlands, opening, left a glade, With swards all sunshine in the midst of shade; Save where pale lilacs droop'd against the ray Around the cot which meekly shunn'd the day: But stern and high, above the deep repose Of vale and wave, the towers of Ruthven rose; Like souls unshelter'd because high they are, The nearer heaven the more from peace afar; Built by the mighty Architect, to form Bulwarks for man, and battle with the storm; To soar and suffer with defying crest, And guard the humble, not partake their rest.

A lonely spot! at times a passing oar Dash'd the wave quicker to the gradual shore; But swift, as, when some footfall nears her lair, Starts the fond cushat from her tender care, SILENCE came back, with wings that seem'd to brood In watch more loving over solitude.

II.

Thus Constance sate, by some sweet sorcerer's rhyme Charm'd into worlds beyond the marge of Time, When a dim shadow o'er the herbage stole, And light boughs stirr'd above the violet knoll; In vain the shadow stole, the light bough stirr'd, Her sense yet spell-bound by the magic word; Spell-bound no less, his steps the stranger stay'd-- And gazed as Cymon on the sleeping Maid.-- And, oh! that brow so angel-clear from guile, That childlike lip unconscious of its smile, That virgin bloom where blushes went and came From deeps of feeling never stirr'd by shame, Seem'd like the Una of the Poet's page Charm'd into life by some bright Archimage. Not till each gaudier Venus crowds adore, And desecrate adoring--dupes no more, Comes the true Goddess, by her blushes known-- The dove her symbol, innocence her zone! At the first glance her birth the Urania proves. Heaven smiles, and Nature blossoms where she moves.

III.

The virgin rose; the gazer quick withdrew; The favouring thicket closed her form from view. Slow went she homeward up the sunlit ground; Unseen he followed, where the woodlands wound; The spell that first arrested now lured on, And in that spell a frown from earth seem'd gone. As in the languid noon of summer day Birds fold the pinion and suspend the lay-- So hopes lie silent in the human heart Till all at once the choirs to music start, From the long hush rejoicing wings arise, Sport round the blooms, or glance into the skies.

IV.

She gain'd the cot; irresolute he stood, Where the wall ceased amidst the circling wood, When voices rude and sudden jarr'd his ear, And thro' the din came woman's wail of fear; Then all grew silent as he gain'd the door Which gaped ajar;--he cross'd the threshold floor: Now sounds more low;--he still pass'd on and saw, Track'd to its covert, Want at bay with Law.-- The Daughter clinging to the Father's breast; The Father's struggle from the clasp that press'd; The hard officials, with familiar leer And ribald comfort barb'd with cynic sneer; On these, the Lord of lavish thousands glanced, Law louted lowly as that Wealth advanced. "And what this old Man's crime?"--"My orders say," Quoth Law, and smiled--"a debt he cannot pay!" Then from his child the poor proud captive broke-- Sign'd to the door--raised moistening eyes, and spoke-- "I thank thee, Heaven! that in my prosperous time I was not harsh to others--for this crime; Sirs, I am ready!"--Ere the word was o'er, The parchment fell in fragments on the floor. "The crime is rased!" cried Wealth.--"My Lord," said Law, "I humbly thank your Lordship, and withdraw."

V.

Hat'st thou the world, O Misanthrope, austere? Do one kind act, and all the world grows dear! Say'st thou--"Alas, kind acts requited ill, Made me loathe men!"--I answer, "Do them still." On its own wings should Good itself upbuoy; Rejoicing heaven, because it feels but joy.--

Oft from that date did Ruthven gaily come, Where hope, revived, with Constance found a home; Well did he soothe the griefs his host had known, But well--too proud for pity--veil'd his own. Silent, he watch'd the gentle daughter's soul, Scann'd every charm, and peerless found the whole, He spoke not love; and if his looks betray'd, The anxious Sire was wiser than the Maid. Still, ever listening, on her lips he hung, Hush'd when she spoke--enraptured when she sung; And when the hues her favourite art bestow'd, Like a new hope from the fair fancy glow'd, As the cold canvas with the image warms, As from the blank start forth the breathing forms, So would he look within him, and compare With those mute shapes the new-born phantoms there. Upon the mind, as on the canvas rose, The young fresh world the Ideal only knows; The world of which both Art and Passion are Builders;--to this so near--from this so far. What music charm'd the verse on which she gazed!-- How doubly dear the poet that she praised! And when he spoke, and from the affluent mind That books had stored, and intercourse refined, Pour'd forth the treasures,--still his choice addrest To her mild heart what seem'd to please it best; And yet the maiden dream'd not that he loved Who flatter'd never, and at times reproved-- Reproved--but, oh, so tenderly! and ne'er But for such faults as soils the purest bear; A trust too liberal in our common race, Dividing scarce the noble from the base, A sight too dazzled by the outward hues-- A sense though clear, too timid to refuse; Yielding the course that it would fain pursue, Still to each guide that proffer'd it the clue; And that soft shrinking into self--allied, If half to Diffidence--yet half to Pride. He loved her, and she loved him not; revered His lofty nature, and in reverence fear'd. The glorious gifts--the kingly mind she saw, Yet seeing felt not tenderness, but awe. And the dark beauty of his musing eye Chill'd back the heart, from which it woo'd reply: Harcourt--the gay--the prodigal of youth, Still charm'd her fancy, while he chain'd her truth.

VI.

Seaton, meanwhile, the heart of Ruthven read, With hopes which robb'd the future of its dread; Could he but live to see his child the bride Of one so wise, so kind, lover at once and guide! Silent at first, at last the deeps o'er-flow'd. One eve they sate without their calm abode, Father and Child, and mark'd the vermeil glow Of clouds that floated where the sun set slow; But on the opposing towers of Ruthven shone The last sweet splendour, and when gradual gone, Left to the space above that grand decay The rosiest tints, and last to fade away. The Father mused; then with impulsive start Turn'd and drew Constance closer to his heart, Murmuring--"Ah, there, let but thy lot be cast, And Fate withdraws all sadness from the past. Blest be the storm that wreck'd us, here to find One whom my soul had singled from mankind If mine the palace still, and his the cot,-- For that sweet prize which Fortune withers not." Then, wrapt too fondly in his tender dream To note his listener, he pursues the theme. Pale as the dead, she hears his gladness speak, Sees the rare smile illume the careworn cheek; Dear if the lover in her sunny day, More dear the Sire since sunshine pass'd away. How dare to say,--"No, let thy smile depart, And take back sorrow from a daughter's heart?"

VII.

And while they sate, along the sward below Came Ruthven's stately form, and footstep slow; She saw--she fled--her chamber gain'd--and there Sobb'd out that grief which youth believes despair. Thenceforth her solitude was desolate; Forebodings chill'd her as a shade from Fate. At Ruthven's step her colour changed--and dread Hush'd her low voice: such signs his hope misled. Hope, to its own vain dreams the idle seer, Whisper'd--"First love comes veil'd in virgin fear!" And now, o'er Harcourt's image, as the rust O'er the steel mirror, crept at length distrust. The ordeal year already pass'd away, And still no voice came o'er the dreary sea; No faithful joy to cry--"The ordeal's past, And loved as ever, thou art mine at last."

VIII.

But Ruthven's absence now, if not to grief, At least to one vague terror, gave relief: For days, for weeks, some cause, unknown to all, Had won the lonely Master from his hall.-- Much Seaton marvell'd! half disposed to blame; } "Gone, and no word ev'n absence to proclaim!" } When, sudden as he went, the truant came. } Franker his brow, and brighter was his look, And with a warmer clasp his host's wan hand he took: "Joy to thee, friend, thy race is not yet o'er, Thy fortunes still thy genius shall restore: Thy house from ruin reascends, to stand Firm as of old, a column of the land.-- Joy, Seaton, joy!"--"O mock me not--Explain! The bark once sunk beneath the obdurate main, No tide throws up!"--"New galleons Fortune gives. Fortune ne'er dies for him whose honour lives."-- "Is fortune not the usurer?--Kind while yet The hand that borrows may repay the debt; When all is lavish'd, she hath nought to lend!" "But can she give not? Hast thou call'd me Friend?" He paused, and glanced on Constance--while his breast Heaved with the tumult which the lip represt. Till she, but looking on her father's face, In his joy joyous,--sprang from his embrace, Before the Benefactor paused, and bow'd; Falter'd a blessing, knelt, and wept aloud: "Not there, not there, O Constance," Ruthven cried, "Here be thy place--for ever side by side! Thanks--and to me!--Ah no! the boon be thine, Thy heart the generous, and the grateful mine. Oh pardon--if my soul its suit delay'd Till the world's dross the worldly equal made; And left to thee to grant and me receive Man's earliest treasures--Paradise and Eve! Beloved one, speak! Not mine the silver tongue, And toil leaves manhood nought that lures the young; But in these looks is truth--these accents, love: And in thy faith all that survive above The graves of Time, as in Elysium meet!-- Hope flies to thee as to its last retreat." Speechless she heard--till, as he paused, the voice Of the fond Sire usurp'd and doom'd the choice: "May she repay thee!" In his own he drew Her hand and Ruthven's, smiled and join'd the two-- "Ah! could I make thee happy,"--thus she said And ceased:--her sentence in his eyes she read-- Eyes that the rashness of delight reveal: Love gave the kiss, and Fate received the seal.

[A] Imitated from Horace (Lib. ii., Od. 3).

Qua pinus ingens albaque populus Umbram hospitalem consociare amant Ramis, et obliquo laborat Lympha fugax trepidare rivo.--Horat. Carm., ii. 3.

PART THE THIRD.

I.

Between two moments in the life of man An airy bridge divided worlds may span; Fine as the hair which sways beneath a soul By Azrael summon'd to the spectre goal, It springs abrupt from that sharp point in time Where, soft behind us in its orient clime, Lies the lost garden-land of young Romance: Beyond, with cloud upon the cold expanse, Looms rugged Duty;--and betwixt them swell Abysmal deeps, in which to fall were hell. O thou, who tread'st along that trembling line, The stedfast step, the onward gaze be thine! Dread Memory most!--the light thou leav'st would blind, Thy foot betrays thee if thou look behind!

If Constance yet escaped not from the past, At least she strove:--the chain may break at last. Veil'd by the smile, Grief can so safely grieve: Love that confides, a smile can so deceive: And Ruthven kneeling at the altar's base Guess'd not the idol which profaned the place; But smiles forsake when secret hours bestow The angry self-confessional of woe; When trembling thought and stern-eyed conscience meet, And truth rebukes ev'n duty for deceit. Ah! what a world were this if all were known, And smiles on others track'd to tears alone! Oft, had he seem'd less lofty to her eye, Her soul had spoken and confess'd its lie: But sometimes natures least obscured by clay Shine through an awe that scares the meek away; And, near as life may seem to life,--alas! Each hath closed portals, nought but love can pass. Thus the resolve, in absence nursed, forsook Her lip, and died, abash'd, before his look; His foes his virtues--honour seem'd austere, And all most reverenced most provoked the fear.

II.

Pass by some weeks: to London Seaton went, His genius glorying in its wonted vent; New props are built, and new foundations laid, And once more rose thy crowded temple--Trade! Then back the sire and daughter bent their way, There, where the troth was pledged, let Hymen claim the day! With Constance came a friend of earlier years, Partner of childhood's smiles and pangless tears; Leaf intertwined with leaf, their youth together Ripen'd to bloom through life's first April weather. To Juliet Constance had no care untold, Here grief found sympathy and wept consoled; On woman's pitying heart could woman here Mourn perish'd hope, or pour remorseful fear; And breathe those prayers which woman breathes for one, Who fading from her world is still its sun. These made their commune, when from darkening skies, Pale as lost joys, stars gleam'd on tearful eyes. They guess'd not how the credulous gaze of love Dwelt on the moon that rose their roof above, Saw as on Latmos fall the enchanted beams-- And bless'd the Dian for Endymion's dreams.

III.

Meanwhile, to England Harcourt's steps return'd, And Seaton's new-born state the earliest news he learn'd: What the emotions of this injured man? He had a friend--and thus his letter ran: "Back to this land, where merit starves obscure, Where wisdom says--'Be anything but poor,' Return'd, my eyes the path to wealth explore, And straight I hear--'Constance is rich once more!' Thou know'st, my friend, with what a dexterous craft I 'scaped the cup a tenderer dupe had quaff'd; For in the chalice misery holds to life, What drop more nauseous than a dowerless wife? Yet she was fair, and gentle, charming--all That man would make his partner at a ball! And, for the partner of a life, what more? Plate at the board, a porter at the door! Cupid and Plutus, though they oft divide, If bound to Hymen should walk side by side; A boon companion halves the longest way,-- When Plutus join'd, I own that Love was gay; But Plutus left, where Hymen did begin, The way look'd dreary and the God gave in: Now his old comrade once more is bestow'd, And Cupid starts refresh'd upon the road. 'But how,' thou ask'st, 'how dupe again the ear, In which thy voice slept silent for a year? And how explain, how'--Why impute to thee Questions whose folly thy quick glance can see? Who loves is ever glad to be deceived, Who lies the most is still the most believed. Somewhat I trust to Eloquence and Art, And where these fail--thank Heaven she has a heart! More it disturbs me that some rumours run, That Constance, too, can play the faithless one; That, where round pastoral meads blue streamlets purl, Chloe has found a Thyrsis--in an Earl! And oh! that Ruthven! Hate is not for me; Who loves not, hates not,--both bad policy! Yet could I hate, through all the earth I know But that one man my soul would honour so. Through ties remote--by some Scotch grand-dam's side, We are, if scarce related, yet allied; And had his mother been a barren dame, Mine were those lands, and mine that lordly name: Nay, if he die without an heir, ev'n yet-- Oh, while I write, perchance the seal is set! Farewell! a letter speeds to her retreat, The prayer that wafts her Harcourt to her feet; There to explain the past--his faith defend, And claim, et cetera--Yours, in haste, my friend!"

IV.

To Constance came a far less honest scroll, Yet oh, each word seem'd vivid from the soul! Fear, hope--reports that madden'd, yet could stir No faith in one who ne'er could doubt of her: Wild vows renew'd--complaints of no replies To lines unwrit; the eloquence of lies! And more than all, the assurance still too dear, Of Love surviving that vast age--a year! Such were the tidings to the maiden borne, And--woe the day--upon her Bridal Morn!

V.

It was the loving twilight's rosiest hour, The Love-star trembled on the ivied tower, As through the frowning archway pass'd the bride, With Juliet, whispering courage, by her side; For Ruthven went before, that first of all His voice might welcome to his father's hall: There, on the antique walls, the lamp from high Show'd the stern wrecks of battle-storms gone by. Gleam'd the blue mail, indented with the glaive, Droop'd the dull banner, breezeless, on the stave; Below the Gothic masks, grotesque and grim, Carved from the stonework, like a wizard's whim, Hung the accoutrements that lent a grace To the old warrior-pastime of the chase. Cross-bows by hands, long dust, once deftly borne; The Hawker's glove, the Huntsman's soundless horn; On the huge hearth the hospitable flame Lit the dark portrait in its mouldering frame; Statesmen in senates, knights in fields, renown'd, On their new daughter ominously frown'd; To the young Stranger, shivering to behold, The Home she enter'd seem'd the tomb of old.

VI.

"Doth it so chill thee, Constance? Dare I own, The charm that haunts what childhood's years have known, How many dreams of fame beyond my sires, Wing'd the proud thought that now no more aspires! Here, while I paced, at the dusk twilight time, As the deep church-bell toll'd the curfew chime; In the dim Past my spirit seem'd to live, To every relic some weird legend give; And muse such hopes of glorious things to be, As they, the Dead, mused once;--wild dreams--fulfill'd in thee! Ah, never 'mid those early visions shone, A face so sweet, my Constance, as thine own! And what if all that charm'd me then, depart? Clear, through the fading mists, smiles my soft heav'n--thy heart! What, drooping still! Nay love, we are not all So sad within, as this time-darken'd hall. Come!"--and they pass'd (still Juliet by her side) To a fair chamber, deck'd to greet the bride. There, all of later luxury lent its smile, To cheer, yet still beseem, the reverend pile. What though the stately tapestry met the eyes, Gay were its pictures, brilliant were its dyes; There, graceful cressets from the gilded roof, In mirrors glass'd the landscapes of the woof. There, in the Gothic niche, the harp was placed, There ranged the books most hallow'd by her taste; Through the half-open casement you might view The sweet soil prank'd with flowers of every hue; And on the terrace, crowning the green mountain, Gleam'd the fair statue, play'd the sparkling fountain: Within, without, all plann'd, all deck'd to greet The Queen of all--whose dowry was deceit! Soft breathed the air, soft shone the moon above-- All save the bride's sad heart, whispering Earth's Hymn to Love! As Ruthven's hand sought hers, on Juliet's breast She fell; and passionate tears, till then supprest, Gush'd from averted eyes. To him the tears Betray'd no secret that could rouse his fears-- For joy, as grief, the tender heart will melt-- The tears but proved how well his love was felt. And, with the delicate thought that shunn'd to hear Thanks for the cares, which cares themselves endear, He whisper'd, "Linger not!" and closed the door, And Constance sobbed--"Thank Heaven, alone with thee once more!"

VII.

Across his threshold Ruthven lightly strode, And his glad heart from its full deeps o'erflow'd, Pass'd is the Porch--he gains the balmy air, Still crouch the night winds in their forest lair. The moonlight silvers the unrustling pines, On the hush'd lake the tremulous glory shines. A stately shadow o'er the crystal brink, Reflects the shy stag as its halt to drink; And the slow cygnet, where it midway glides, Breaks into sparkling rings the faintly heaving tides. Wandering along his boyhood's haunts, he mused; The hour, the heaven, the bliss his soul suffused; It seem'd all hatred from the world had flown, And left to Nature, Love and God alone! Ev'n holiest passion holier render'd there, His every thought breathed gentle as a prayer.

VIII.

Thus, as the eve grew mellowing into night, Still from yon lattice stream'd the unwelcome light-- "Why loitering yet, and wherefore linger I?" And at that thought ev'n Nature pall'd his eye; He miss'd that voice, which with low music fill'd The starry heaven of the rapt thoughts it thrill'd; He gain'd the hall--the lofty stair he wound-- Behold, the door of his heart's fairy-ground! The tapestry veil'd him, as its folds, half-raised, Gave to his eye the scene on which it gazed: Still Constance wept--and hark what sounds are those What awful secret those wild sobs disclose!-- "No, leave me not!--I cannot meet his eyes! O Heaven! must life be ever one disguise! What seem'd indifference when we pledged the troth, Now grown--O wretch!--to terrors that but loathe! Oh that the earth might swallow me!" Again Gush forth the sobs, while Juliet soothes in vain. "Nay, nay, be cheer'd--we must not more delay; Cease these wild bursts till I his steps can stay; No, for thy sake--for thine--I must begone." She 'scaped the circling arms, and Constance wept alone.

IX.

By the opposing door, from that unseen, Where Ruthven stood behind the arras-screen, Pass'd Juliet. Suddenly the startled bride Look'd up, and lo, the Wrong'd One by her side! They gazed in silence face to face: his own, Sad, stern, and awful, chill'd her heart to stone. At length the low and hollow accents stirr'd His blanching lip, that writhed with every word: "Hear me a moment, nor recoil to hear; A love so hated wounds no more thine ear. I thank thee--I--!" His lips would not obey His pride,--and all the manly heart gave way. Low at his feet she fell: the alter'd course Of grief ran deep'ning into vain remorse; "Forgive me!--O forgive!" "Forgive!" he cried, And passion rush'd in speech, till then denied. "Vile mockery! Bid me in the desert live Alone with treason--and then say 'Forgive!' Thou dost not know the ruins thou hast made, Faith in all things thy falsehood has betray'd! Thou, the last refuge, where my baffled youth Dream'd its safe haven, murmuring--'Here is Truth!' Thou in whose smile I garner'd up my breast, Exult! thy fraud surpasses all the rest. No! close, my heart--grow marble! Human worth Is not; and falsehood is the name for earth!"

X.

Wildly, with long disorder'd strides, he paced The floor to feel the world indeed a waste; For as the earth if God were not above, Man's hearth without the Lares--Faith and Love! But what his woe to hers?--for him at least Conscience was calm, though ev'ry hope had ceased. But she!--all sorrow for herself had paused, To live in that worse anguish she had caused: "No, Ruthven, no! Thy pardon not for me; But oh that Heaven may shed its peace on thee So worthless I, so worthless thy regret; Oh that repentance could requite thee yet! Oh that a life that henceforth ne'er shall own, One thought, one wish, one hope, but to atone,-- Obedience, honour----"

"These may make the wife A faultless statue:--love but breathes the life! Poor child! Nay, weep not; bitterer far, in truth, Than mine, the fate to which thou doom'st thy youth: For manhood's pride the love at last may quell, But when could Woman with Indifference dwell? No sorrow soothed, no joy enhanced since shared. O Heaven--the solitude thy soul has dared! But thou hast chosen! Vain for each regret; All that is left--to seem that we forget. No word of mine my wrongs shall e'er recall; Thine, wealth and pomp, and reverence--take them all! May they console thee, Constance, for a heart That--but enough! So let the loathed depart; These chambers thine, my step invades them not; Sleep, if thou canst, as in thy virgin cot. Henceforth all love has lost its hated claim; If wed, be cheer'd; our wedlock but a name. Much as thou scorn'st me, know this heart above The power of beauty, when disarm'd of love. And so, may Heaven forgive thee!"

"Ruthven, stay! Generous--too noble: can no distant day Win thy forgiveness also, and restore Thy trust, thy friendship, even though love be o'er?" He paused a moment with a soften'd eye;-- "Alas! thou dreadest, while thou ask'st, reply: If ever, Constance, that blest day should come, When crowds can teach thee what the loss of Home; If ever, when with those who court thee there, The love that chills thee now, thou canst compare, And feel that if thy choice thou couldst recall, Him now unloved, thy love would choose from all Why then, one word, one whisper!--oh, no more--" And fearful of himself, he closed the door!

PART THE FOURTH.

I.

Ah, yes, Philosopher, thy creed is true! 'Tis our own eyes that give the rainbow's hue: What we call Matter, in this outer earth, Takes from our senses, those warm dupes, its birth. How fair to sinless Adam Eden smiled; But sin brought tears, and Eden was a wild! Man's soul is as an everlasting dream, Glassing life's fictions on a phantom stream: To-day, in glory all the world is clad-- Wherefore, O Man?--because thy heart is glad. To-morrow, and the self-same scene survey-- The same! Oh no--the pomp hath pass'd away! Wherefore the change? Within, go, ask reply-- Thy heart hath given its winter to the sky! Vainly the world revolves upon its pole;-- Light--Darkness--Seasons--these are in the soul!

II.

"Trite truth," thou sayest--well, if trite it be, Why seek we ever from ourselves to flee? Pleased to deceive our sight, and loath to know, We bear the climate with us where we go!

To that immense Bethesda, whither still Each worse disease seeks cures for every ill; To that great well, in which the Heart at strife, Merges its own amidst the common life,-- Whatever name it take, or Public Zeal, Or Self-Ambition, still as sure to heal,-- From his sad hearth his sorrows Ruthven bore; Long shunn'd the strife of men, now sought once more. Flock'd to his board the Magnates of the Hour Who clasp for Fame its spectre-likeness--Power! The busy, babbling, talking, toiling race-- The Word-besiegers of the Fortress--Place! Waves, each on each, in sunlight hurrying on, A moment gilded--in a moment gone; For Honours fool but with deluding light-- The place it glides through, not the wave, is bright![B] The means, if not his ends, with these the same, In Ruthven, Party hail'd a Leader's name! Night after night the listening Senate hung On that roused mind, by Grief to Action stung! Night after night, when Action, spent and worn, Left yet more sad the soul it had upborne; The sight of Home the frown of Life renew'd-- The World gave Fame and Home a Solitude!

III.

And Constance? sever'd from a husband's side, No heart to cherish, and no hand to guide, Still, as if ev'n the very name of wife Drew her soul upward into loftier life, The solemn sense of woman's holiest tie Arm'd every thought against the memory. 'Mid shatter'd Lares stood the Marriage Queen-- As on a Roman's hearth, with marble smile serene: New to her sight that galaxy of mind Which moves round men who light and guide their kind, Where all shine equal in their joint degrees And rank's harsh outlines vanish into ease. As Power and Genius interchange their hues So genial life the classic charm renews; Some Scipio's wit a Terence may refine, Some Caesar's pomp exalt a Maro's line-- The polish'd have their flaws, but least espied Amongst the polish'd is the angle pride; And, howsoever Envy grudge their state, Their own bland laws democratize the great.

IV.

With those fair orbs which lit her common air } That which should be her guardian planet there } Now cold if radiant did the wife compare? } If so, alas we lose the Chaldee's power To shape the life if we neglect the hour. And in the crowd was now their only meeting-- They who from crowds should so have hail'd retreating. But in the crowd if eye encounter'd eye, Whence came her blush, or wherefore heaved his sigh? Ah! woe when lost the Heavenly confidence, Man's gentle right, and woman's strong defence!-- Like the frank sunflower, Household Love to-day Must ope its leaves;--what shades it, brings decay.

V.

The world look'd on, and construed, as it still Interprets, all it knows not into ill. "Man's home is sacred," flattering proverbs say; Yes, if you give the home to men's survey, But if that sanctum be obscured or screen'd, In every shadow doubt suggests a fiend: So churchyards seen beneath a daylight sky Are holy to the clown who saunters by; But vex his vision by the glimmering light, And straight the holiness expires in fright; He hears a goblin in the whispering grass, And cries "Heaven save us!"--at the Parson's ass! "Was ever Lord so newly wed so cold? Poor thing!--forsaken ere a year be told! Doubtless some wanton--whom we know not, true, But those proud sinners are so wary too! Oh! for the good old days--one never heard Of men so shocking under George the Third!" So ran the gossip. With the gossip came The brood it hatch'd--consolers to the dame. The soft and wily wooers, who begin Through sliding pity, the smooth ways to sin. My lord is absent at the great debate, Go, soothe his lady's unprotected state; Go, gallant,--go, and wish the cruel Heaven To thee such virtue, now so wrong'd, had given! Yes, round her flock'd the young world's fairest ones, The soft Rose-Garden's incense-breathing sons: Roused from his calm, Lord Ruthven's watchful eye Mark'd the new clouds that darken'd round his sky; And raptured saw--though for his earth too far-- How fleets and fades each cloud before that stainless Star.

VI.

Now came the graver trial, though unseen By him who knew not where the grief had been-- He knew not that an earlier love had steel'd Her heart to his--that curse, at least conceal'd; Enough of sorrow in his lonely lot-- The why, what matter--that she loved him not?

One night, when Revel was in Ruthven's hall, He near'd the brilliant cynosure of all: "Deign" (thus he whisper'd) "to receive with grace Him who may hold the honours of my race:-- When the last Ruthven dies, behold his heir!" He said, she turn'd--O Heaven!--and Harcourt there! Harcourt the same as when her glance he charm'd, For surer conquest by compassion arm'd-- The same, save where a softer shadow, cast O'er his bright looks, reflected the sad Past! Now, when unguarded and in crowds alone, The Future dark--the household gods o'erthrown; Now, when those looks (that seem, the while they grieve, Ne'er to reproach)--can pity best deceive; The sole affection she of right can claim-- Now, Virtue, tremble not--the Tempter came!

VII.

He came, resolved to triumph and avenge-- Sure of a heart whose sorrow spoke no change; Pleased at the thought to bind again the chain-- For they who love not still can love to reign; Calm in the deeper and more fell design To sever those whom outward fetters join-- To watch the discord Scandal rumours round, Fret every sore, and fester every wound; Could he but make Dissension firm and sure, Success would render larger schemes secure; "Let Ruthven die but childless!" ran his prayer, And in the lover's sigh cold avarice prompts the heir. He came and daily came, and daily schemed-- Soft, grave, and reverent, but the friend he seem'd. These distant cousins, from their earliest days, To different goals had trod their varying ways: If Ruthven oft with generous hand supplied What were call'd luxuries, did Shoreditch decide, But what no Jury of Mayfair could doubt Are just the things life cannot live without; Yet gifts are sometimes as offences view'd, And envy is the mean man's gratitude; And, truth to own, whate'er the one bestow'd, More from his own large, careless nature flow'd Than through the channels tenderer sources send, When Favour equals--since it asks a Friend. But Ruthven loved not, in the days gone by, The cold, quick shrewdness of that stealthy eye, That spendthrift recklessness, which still was not The generous folly which itself forgot. You love the prodigal; the miser loathe, Yet oft the clockwork is the same in both: Ope but the works--the penury and excess Chime from one point--the central selfishness:-- And though men said (for those, who wear with ease The vulgar vices, seldom much displease), "His follies injure but himself alone!" His follies spared no welfare but his own: Mankind he deem'd the epitome of self, And never laid that volume on the shelf. Somewhat of this, had Ruthven mark'd before-- Now he was less acute, or Harcourt more: The first absorb'd in sorrow or in thought; The last in craft's smooth lessons deeper taught. Not over anxious to be undeceived Ruthven reform in what was rot believed; They held the same opinions on the state, And were congenial--in the last debate; Harcourt had wish'd to join the patriot crew Who botch our old laws with a patch of new; Ruthven the wish approved; and found the seat-- And so the Cousins' union grew complete.

Well then at board behold the constant guest, With love as yet by eyes alone exprest: From the past vows he dared not yet invoke The ancient Voice;--yet of the past he spoke. Whene'er expected least, he seem'd to glide A faithful shadow to her haunted side. But why relate how men their victims woo!-- He left undone no art that can undo.

VIII.

And what deem'd Constance now, that, face to face, She could the contrast of the Portraits trace?-- Could see the image of the soul in each By thought reflected on the waves of speech-- Could listen here (as when the Master's ease Glides with light touch along melodious keys) To those rich sounds which, flung to every gale, Genius awakes from Wisdom's music scale; And there admire when lively Fashion wound Its toy of small talk into jingling sound. Like those French trifles, elegant enough, Which serve at once for music and for snuff, Some minds there are which men you ask to dine Take out, wind up, and circle with the wine. Two tunes they boast; this Flattery--Scandal that; The one A sharp--the other something flat: Such was the mind that for display and use Cased in ricoco, Harcourt could produce-- Touch the one spring, an air that charm'd the town Tripp'd out and jigg'd some absent virtue down; Touch next the other, and the bauble plays "Fly from the world" or "Once in happier days." For Flattery, when a Woman's heart its aim, Writes itself Sentiment--a prettier name. And to be just to Harcourt and his art, Few Lauzuns better play'd a Werter's part; He dress'd it well, and Nature kindly gave His brow the paleness and his locks the wave. Mournful his smile, unconscious seem'd his sigh; You'd swear that Goethe had him in his eye. Well these had duped when young Romance surveys Life's outlines--lost amid its own soft haze. Compared with Ruthven still doth Harcourt seem The true Hyperion of the Delian dream. Ah, ofttimes Love its own wild choice will blame, Slip the blind bondage, yet doat on the same. Was it thus wilful, Constance, still with thee, Or did the reason set the fancy free?

[B] Schiller.

PART THE FIFTH.

I.

The later summer in that second spring When the turf glistens with the fairy ring, When oak and elm assume a livelier green, And starry buds on water-flowers are seen; When parent nests the new-fledged goldfinch leaves, And earliest song in airiest meshes weaves; When fields wave undulous with golden corn, And August fills his Amalthaean horn-- The later summer shone on Ruthven's towers, And Lord and wife (with guests to cheer the hours, Not faced alone) to that grey pile return'd; Harcourt with these, and Seaton, who had learn'd Eno' to call him from his world of strife, To watch that Home which makes the Woman's life. Not ev'n to Juliet Constance had betray'd Those griefs the House-gods if they cause should shade, Nor friendship now in truth the grief could share-- } A dying parent needed Juliet's care, } In climes where Death comes soft--in Tuscan air. } And least to Seaton would his child have shown One hidden wound; her heart still spared his own. But when the father trembling at her side Saw the smooth tempter, not the watchful guide,-- Saw through the quicksands flow each sever'd life, Here the cold Lord and there the courted wife, Then fearful, wrathful--yet uncertain still; For warning ofttimes makes more sure the ill, Or fires suspicion to believe the worst, Or bids temptation be more fondly nurst;-- Nought ripens evil like too prompt a blame, And virtue totters if you sap its shame;-- Uncertain thus came Seaton, with the rest, His prudence watchful, and his fears supprest, Resolved to learn what fault, if fault were there, Had outlaw'd Constance from a husband's care, And left the heart (the soul's frail fort) unbarr'd, For youth to storm. "Well age," he sigh'd, "shall guard."

II.

Meantime, the cheek of Constance lost its rose, Food brought no relish, slumber no repose: The wasted form pined hour by hour away, But still the proud lip struggled to be gay; And Ruthven still the proud lip could deceive, Till the proud man forgot the proud in smiling grieve!

III.

In that old pile there was a huge square tower, Whence look'd the warder in its days of power; Still, in the arch below, the eye could tell Where on the steel-clad van the grim portcullis fell; And from the arrow-headed casements, deep Sunk in the walls of the abandon'd keep, The gaze look'd kingly in its wide command O'er all the features of the subject land; From town and hamlet, copse and vale, arise The hundred spires of Ruthven's baronies; And town and hamlet, copse and vale, around, Its arms of peace the azure Avon wound.

IV.

A lonely chamber in this rugged tower, The lonely lady made her favourite bower-- From her more brilliant chambers crept a stair, That, through a waste of ruin, ended there; And there, unseen, unwitness'd, none intrude, Nor vex the spirit from the solitude. How, in what toil or luxury of mind, Could she the solace or the Lethe find? Music or books?--nay, rather, might be guess'd The art her maiden leisure loved the best; For there the easel and the hues were brought, Though all unseen the fictions that they wrought. Harcourt more bold the change in Constance made; Sure, love lies hidden in that depth of shade! That cheek how hueless, and that eye how dim,-- "Wherefore," he thought and smiled, "if not for him?" More now his manner and his words, disarm'd Of their past craft, the anxious sire alarm'd. True, there was nought in Constance to reprove, But still what hypocrite like lawless love? One eve, as in the oriel's arch'd recess Pensive he ponder'd, linking guess with guess, Words reach'd his ear--if indistinct--yet plain Enough to pierce the heart and chill the vein. 'Tis Constance, answering in a faltering tone Some suit; and what--was by the answer shown "Yes!--in an hour," it said.--"Well, be it so."-- "The place?"--"Yon keep."--"Thou wilt not fail me!"--"No!" 'Tis said;--she first, then Harcourt, quits the room. "Would," groan'd the Sire, "my child were in the tomb!" He gasp'd for breath, the fever on his brow-- "Was it too late?--What boots all warning now? If saved to-day--to-morrow, and the same } Danger and hazard! had he spared the shame } To leave the last lost Virtue but a name." }

V.

Sickening and faint, he gain'd the outer air, Reach'd the still lake, and saw the master there; Listless lay Ruthven, droopingly the boughs Veil'd from the daylight melancholy brows; Listless he lay, and with indifferent eye Watch'd the wave darken as the cloud swept by. The father bounded to the idler's side-- } "Awake, cold guardian of a soul!" he cried; } "Why, sworn to cherish, fail'st thou ev'n to guide?" } "Why?" echoed Ruthven's heart--his eye shot flame-- "Dare she complain, or he presume to blame?" Thus ran the thought, he spoke not;--silent long As Pride kept back the angry burst of wrong. At length he rose, shook off the hand that prest, And calmly said, "I listen for the rest-- Whatever charge be in thy words convey'd, Speak;--I will answer when the charge is made!"

VI.

Like many an offspring of our Saxon clime, Who makes one seven-day labour-week of time, Who deems reprieve a sloth, repose a dearth, And strikes the Sabbath of the soul from earth; In Seaton's life the Adam-curse was strong; He loved each wind that whirl'd the sails along; He loved the dust that wrapt the hurrying wheel; And, form'd to act, but rarely paused to feel. Thus men who saw him move among mankind, Saw the hard purpose and the scheming mind, And the skill'd steering of a sober brain, Prudence the compass and the needle gain. But now, each layer of custom swept away, The Man's great nature leapt into the day: He stretch'd his arms, and terrible and wild, His voice went forth--"I gave thee, Man, my child; I gave her young and innocent--a thing Fresh from the Heaven, no stain upon its wing; One form'd to love, and to be loved, and now (Few moons have faded since the solemn vow) How do I find thou hast discharged the trust? Account!--nay, frown not--to thy God thou must, Pale, wretched, worn, and dying: Ruthven, still These lips should bless thee, couldst thou only kill. But is that all?--Death is a holy name, Tears for the dead dishonour not!--but Shame! O blind, to bid her every hour compare With thine his love--with thy contempt his care! Yea, if the light'ning blast thee, I, the Sire, Tell thee thy heart of steel attracts the fire; Hadst thou but loved her, that meek soul I know-- Know all"--His passion falter'd in its flow; He paused an instant, then before the feet Of Ruthven fell. "Have mercy! Save her yet! Take back thy gold: say, did I not endure, And can again, the burthen of the poor? But she--the light, pride, angel, of my life-- God speaks in me--O husband, save thy wife!"

VII.

"Save! and from whom, old Man?" Yet, as he spoke, A gleam of horror on his senses broke; "From whom? What! know'st thou not who made the first, Though fading fancy, youth's warm visions nurst? This Harcourt--this"--he stopp'd abrupt--appall'd! Those words how gladly had his lips recall'd; For at the words--the name--all life seem'd gone From Ruthven's image:--as a shape of stone, Speechless and motionless he stood! At length The storm suspended burst in all its strength: "And this to me--at last to me!" he cried, "Thine be the curse, who hast love to hate allied: Why, when my life on that one hope I cast, Why didst thou chain my future to her past-- Why not a breath to say, 'She loved before; Pause yet to question, if the love be o'er!' Didst thou not know how well I loved her--how Worthy the Altar was the holy vow? That in the wildest hour my suit had known, Hadst thou but said, 'Her heart is not her own,' Thou hadst left the chalice with a taste of sweet? I--I had brought the Wanderer to her feet-- Had seen those eyes through grateful softness shine, Nor turn'd--O God!--with loathing fear from mine; And from the sunshine of her happy breast Drawn one bright memory to console the rest!-- But now, thy work is done--till now, methought, There was one plank to which the shipwreck'd caught. Forbearance--patience might obtain at last The distant haven--see! the dream is past-- She loves another! In that sentence--hark The crowning thunder!--the last gleam is dark; Time's wave on wave can but the more dissever; The world's vast space one void for ever and for ever!"

VIII.

Humbled from all his anger, and too late Convinced whose fault had shaped the daughter's fate, The father heard; and in his hands he veil'd His face abash'd, and voice to courage fail'd; For how excuse--and how console? And so, As when the tomb shuts up the ended woe, Over that burst of anguish closed the drear Abyss of silence--sound's chill sepulchre! At length he dared the timorous looks to raise, But gone the form on which he fear'd to gaze. Calm at his feet the wave crept murmuring; Calm sail'd the cygnet with its folded wing; Gently above his head the lime-tree stirr'd, The green leaves rustling to the restless bird; But he who, in the beautiful of life, Alone with him should share the heart at strife, Had left him there to the earth's happy smile-- Ah! if the storms within earth's calmness could beguile!

IX.

With a swift step, and with disorder'd mind, Through which one purpose still its clue could find, Lord Ruthven sought his home. "Yes, mine no more," So mused his soul, "to hope or to deplore; No more to watch the heart's Aurora break O'er that loved face, the light to life to speak-- No more, without a weakness that degrades, Can Fancy steal from Truth's eternal shades! Yes, we must part! But if one holier thought Still guards that shrine my fated footstep sought, Perchance, at least, I yet her soul may save, And leave her this one hope--a husband's grave!"

X.

Home gain'd, he asks--they tell him--her retreat: He winds the stairs, and midway halts to meet His rival passing from that mystic room, With a changed face, half sarcasm and half gloom. Writhed Ruthven's lip--his hands he clench'd;--his breast Heaved with man's natural wrath; the wrath the man supprest. "Her name, at least, I will not make the gage Of that foul strife whose cause a husband's rage." So, with the calmness of his lion eye, He glanced on Harcourt, and he pass'd him by.

XI.

And now he gains, and pauses at the door-- } Why beats so loud the heart so stern before? } He nerved his pride--one effort, and 'tis o'er. } Thus, with a quiet mien, he enters:--there Kneels Constance yonder--can she kneel in prayer? What object doth that meek devotion chain In yon dark niche? Before his steps can gain Her side, she starts, confused, dismay'd, and pale, And o'er the object draws the curtain veil. But there the implements of art betray What thus the conscience dare not give to day. A portrait? whose but his, the loved and lost, Of a sweet past the melancholy ghost? So Ruthven guess'd--more dark his visage grown, And thus he spoke:--"Once more we meet alone. Once more--be tranquil--hear me! not to upbraid, And not to threat, thy presence I invade; But if the pledge I gave thee I have kept, If not the husband's rights the wife hath wept, If thou hast shared whatever gifts be mine-- Wealth, honour, freedom, all unbought, been THINE, Hear me--O hear me, for thy father's sake! For the full heart that thy disgrace would break! By all thine early innocence--by all The woman's Eden--wither'd with her fall-- I, whom thou hast denied the right to guide, Implore the daughter, not command the bride; Protect--nor only from the sin and shame, Protect from slander--thine, my Mother's--name! For hers thou bearest now! and in her grave Her name thou honourest, if thine own thou save! I know thou lov'st another! Dost thou start? From him, as me--the time hath come to part; And ere for ever I relieve thy view-- The one thou lov'st must be an exile too. Be silent still, and fear not lest my voice Betray thy secret--Flight shall seem his choice; A fair excuse--a mission to some clime, Where--weep'st thou still? For thee there's hope in time! This heart is not of iron, and the worm That gnaws the thought, soon ravages the form; And then, perchance, thy years may run the course Which flows through love undarken'd by remorse. And now, farewell for ever!" As he spoke, From her cold silence with a bound she broke, And clasp'd his hand. "Oh, leave me not! or know, Before thou goest, the heart that wrong'd thee so, But wrongs no more."

"No more?--Oh, spurn the lie; Harcourt but now hath left thee! Well--deny!" "Yes, he hath left me!" "And he urged the suit That--but thou madden'st me! false lips, be mute!" --"He urged the suit--it is for ever o'er; Dead with the folly youth's crude fancies bore, One word, nay less, one gesture" (and she blush'd) "Struck dumb the suit, the scorn'd presumption crush'd." --"What! and yon portrait curtain'd with such care?" "There did I point and say 'My heart is there!'"

Amazed, bewilder'd--struggling half with fear And half delight--his steps the curtain near. He lifts the veil: that face--It is his own! But not the face her later gaze had known; Not stern, nor sad, nor cold,--but in those eyes, The wooing softness love unmix'd supplies; The fond smile beaming the glad lips above, Bright as when radiant with the words "I love." An instant mute--oh, canst thou guess the rest? The next his Constance clinging to his breast; All from the proud reserve, at once allied To the girl's modesty, the woman's pride, Melting in sobs and happy tears--and words Swept into music from long-silent chords. Then came the dear confession, full at last. Then stream'd life's Future on the fading Past; And as a sudden footstep nears the door, As a third shadow dims the threshold floor-- As Seaton, entering in his black despair, Pauses the tears, the joy, the heaven to share-- The happy Ruthven raised his princely head, "Give her again--this day in truth we wed!"

And when the spring the earth's fresh glory weaves In merry sunbeams and green quivering leaves, A joy-bell ringing through a cloudless air Knells Harcourt's hopes and welcomes Ruthven's heir.

MILTON.

IN FOUR PARTS.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER.

This Poem was originally composed in very early youth. It was first published in 1831, and though unfortunately coupled with a very jejune and puerile burlesque called 'The Siamese Twins' (which to my great satisfaction has been long since forgotten), it was honoured by a very complimentary notice in the Edinburgh Review, and found general favour with those who chanced to read it. In the present edition, although the conception and the general structure remain the same, many passages have been wholly re-written, and the diction throughout carefully revised, and often materially altered. I have sought, in short, from an affection for the subject (too partial it may be) to give to the ideas which visited me in the freshness of youth, whatever aid from expression they could obtain in the taste and culture of mature manhood. No doubt, however, faults of exuberance in form, as in fancy, still remain, and betray the age in which we scarcely look beyond the Spring that delights us, nor comprehend that the multitude of the blossoms can be injurious to the bearing of the tree. Nevertheless, such faults may find more indulgence among my younger readers than those of an opposite nature, incident to the style, closer and more compressed, which my present theories of verse have led me to adopt in most of the poems I have composed of late years.

It will be observed that the design of this poem is that of a picture. It is intended to portray the great Patriot Poet in the three cardinal divisions of life--Youth, Manhood, and Age. The first part is founded upon the well-known, though ill-authenticated, tradition of the Italian lady or ladies seeing Milton asleep under a tree in the gardens of his college, and leaving some tributary verses beside the sleeper. Taking full advantage of this legend, and presuming to infer from Milton's Italian verses (as his biographers have done before me) that in his tour through Italy he did not escape the influence of the master passion, I have ventured to connect, by a single thread of romantic fiction, the segments of a poem in which narrative after all is subservient to description. This idea belongs to the temerity of youth, but I trust it has been subjected to restrictions more reverent than those ordinarily imposed on poetic licence.

PART THE FIRST.

"Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eve by haunted stream."--L'ALLEGRO.

I.

It was the Minstrel's merry month of June; Silent and sultry glow'd the breezeless noon; Along the flowers the bee went murmuring; Life in its myriad forms was on the wing; Play'd on the green leaves with the quiv'ring beam, Sang from the grove, and sparkled from the stream, When, where yon beech-tree veil'd the soft'ning ray, On violet-banks young Milton dreaming lay.

For him the Earth below, the Heaven above, Doubled each charm in the clear glass of youth; And the vague spirit of unsettled love Roved through the visions that precede the truth, While Poesy's low voice so hymn'd through all That ev'n the very air was musical.

II.

The sunbeam rested, where it pierced the boughs, On locks whose gold reflected back the gleaming; On Thought's fair temple in majestic brows On Love's bright portal--lips that smiled in dreaming.

Dreams he of Nymph half hid in sparry cave? Or of his own Sabrina chastely "sitting Under the glassy cool translucent wave," The loose train of her amber tresses knitting? Or that far shadow, yet but faintly view'd, Where the Four Rivers take their parent springs, Which shall come forth from starry solitude, In the last days of angel-visitings, When, soaring upward from the nether storm, The Heaven of Heavens shall earthly guest receive, And in the long-lost Eden smile thy form, Fairer than all thy daughters, fairest Eve?

III.

Has the dull Earth a being to compare With those that haunt that spirit-world--the brain? Can shapes material vie with forms of air, Nature with Phantasy?--O question vain! Lo, by the Dreamer, fresh from heavenly hands, Youth's dream-inspirer--Virgin Woman stands. She came, a stranger from the Southern skies, And careless o'er the cloister'd garden stray'd, Till, pausing, violets on the bank to cull, Over the Dreamer bent the Beautiful.

Silent, with lifted hand and lips apart, Silent she stood, and gazed away her heart. Like purple Maenad fruits, when down the glade Shoots the warm sunbeam,--into darksome glow Light kiss'd the ringlets wreathing brows of snow; And softer than the rosy hues that flush Her native heaven, when Tuscan morns arise, The sweet cheek brighten'd with the sweeter blush, As virgin love from out delighted eyes Dawn'd as Aurora dawns.--

Thus look'd the maid, And still the sleeper dream'd beneath the shade.

Image of Soul and Love! So Psyche crept To the still chamber where her Eros slept; While the light gladden'd round his face serene,[A] As light doth ever,--when Love first is seen.

Felt he the touch of her dark locks descending, Or with his breath her breathing fused and blending, That, like a bird we startle from the spray, Pass'd the light Sleep with sudden wings away? Sighing he woke, and waking he beheld; The sigh was silenced, as the look was spell'd; Look charming look, the love that ever lies In human hearts, like light'ning in the air, Flash'd in the moment from those meeting eyes, And open'd all the Heaven!

O Youth, beware! For either, light should but forewarn the gaze; Woe follows love, as darkness doth the blaze!

IV.

And their eyes met--one moment and no more; Moment in time that centred years in feeling. As when to Thetis, on her cavern'd shore, Knelt her young King,--he rose, and murmur'd, kneeling. Low though the murmur, it dissolved the charm Which had in silence chain'd the modest feet; And maiden shame and woman's swift alarm Crimson'd her cheek and in her pulses beat: She turn'd, and, as a spell that leaves the place It fill'd with phantom beauty cold and bare, She fled;--and over disenchanted space Rush'd back the common air!

V.

Time waned--and thoughts intense, and grave and high, With sterner truths foreshadow'd Minstrel dreams; Yet never vanish'd from the Minstrel's eye That meteor blended with the morning beams. Time waned, and ripe became the long desire, Which, nursed in youth, with restless manhood grew A passion--to behold that heart of Earth, Yet trembling with the silver Mantuan lyre, To knightly arms by Tasso tuned anew:-- So the fair Pilgrim left his father's hearth. Into his soul he drunk the lofty lore, Floating like air around the clime of song; Beheld the starry sage,[B] what time he bore For truth's dear glory the immortal wrong; Communed majestic with majestic minds; And all the glorious wanderer heard or saw Or felt or learn'd or dream'd, were as the winds That swell'd the sails of his triumphant soul; As then, ev'n then, with ardour yet in awe, It swept Time's ocean to its distant goal.

VI.

It was the evening--and a group were strewn O'er such a spot as ye, I ween, might see, When basking in the summer's breathless noon, With upward face beneath the drowsy tree; While golden dreams the willing soul receives, And Elf-land glimmers through the checkering leaves.

It was the evening--still it lay, and fair, Lapp'd in the quiet of the lulling air; Still, but how happy! like a living thing All love itself--all love around it seeing; And drinking from the earth, as from a spring, The hush'd delight and essence of its being. And round the spot (a wall of glossy shade) The interlaced and bowering trees reposed; And through the world of foliage had been made Green lanes and vistas, which at length were closed By fount, or fane, or statue white and hoar, Startling the heart with the fond dreams of yore. And near, half-glancing through its veil of leaves, An antique temple stood in marble grace; Where still, if fondly wise, the heart conceives Faith in the lingering Genius of the Place: Seen wandering yet perchance at earliest dawn Or greyest eve--with Nymph or bearded Faun. Dainty with mosses was the grass you press'd, Through which the harmless lizard glancing crept. And--wearied infants on Earth's gentle breast-- In every nook the little field-flowers slept. But ever when the soft air draws its breath (Breeze is a word too rude), with half-heard sigh, From orange-shrubs and myrtles--wandereth The Grove's sweet Dryad borne in fragrance by. And aye athwart the alleys fitfully Glanced the fond moth enamour'd of the star; And aye, from out her watch-tower in the tree, The music which a falling leaf might mar, So faint--so faery seem'd it--of the bird Transform'd at Daulis thrillingly was heard. And in the centre of that spot, which lay A ring embosom'd in the wood's embrace, A fountain, clear as ever glass'd the day, Breathed yet a fresher luxury round the place; But now it slept, as if its silver shower, And the wide reach of its aspiring sound, Were far too harsh for that transparent hour:-- Yet--like a gnome that mourneth underground-- You caught the murmur of the rill which gave The well's smooth calm the passion of its wave; Ev'n as man's heart that still, with secret sigh, Stirs through each thought that would reflect the sky.

VII.

And, group'd around the fountain, forms were seen, Shaped as for courts in loving Chivalry, Such as Boccacio placed, 'mid alleys green, Listening to tales in careless Fiesole! Dress'd as for nymphs, the classic banquet there Was spread on grassy turfs, with coolest fruit And drinks Falernian--while the mellow air Heaved to the light swell of the amorous lute; And by the music lovers grew more bold, And Beauty blush'd to secrets, murmuring told.

VIII.

But 'mid that graceful meeting, there were none Who yielded not to him--that English guest. Nor by sweet lips, half wooing to be won, Were words that thrill and smiles that sigh suppress'd; And fair with lofty brow, and locks of gold, And manhood stately with a Dorian grace, He seem'd like some young Spartan, when of old The simple sons of thoughtful Hercules On Elis stood, and look'd the lords of Greece. Oh! little dream'd those flatterers as they gazed On him--the radiant cynosure of all, While on their eyes his youth's fresh glory blazed, What that bright heart was destined to befall! That worst of wars--the Battle of the Soil-- Which leaves but Crime unscath'd on either side! The daily fever, and the midnight toil; The hope defeated, and the name belied; Wrath's fierce attack, and Slander's slower art, The watchful viper of the evil tongue;-- The sting which pride defies, but not the heart-- The noblest heart is aye the easiest wrung: The flowers, the fruit, the summer of rich life, Cast on the sands and weariest paths of earth; The march--but not the action--of the strife Without;--and Sorrow coil'd around his hearth: The film, the veil, the shadow, and the night, Along those eyes which now in all survey A tribute and a rapture;--the despite Of Fortune wreak'd on his declining day; The clouds slow-labouring upward round his heart;-- Oh! little dream'd they this!--nor less what light Should through those clouds--a new-born glory--start; And from the spot man's mystic Father trod, Circling the round Earth with a solemn ray, Cast its great shadow to the Throne of God!

IX.

The festive rite was o'er--the group was gone, Yet still our wanderer linger'd there alone-- For round his eye, and in his heart, there lay The tender spells which cleave to solitude. Who, when some gay delight hath pass'd away, Feels not a charmed musing in his mood, A poesy of thought, which yearns to pour Still worship to the Spirit of the Hour? Ah! they who bodied into deity The rosy Hours, I ween, did scarcely err. Sweet hours, ye have a life, and holily That life is worn! and when no rude sounds stir The quiet of our hearts--we inly hear The hymnlike music of your floating voices, Telling us mystic tidings of the sphere Where hand in hand your linked choir rejoices, And filling us with calm and solemn thought, Diviner far than all our earth-born lore hath taught.

With folded arms and upward brow, he leant Against the pillar of a sleeping tree; When, hark! the still boughs rustled, and there went A murmur and a sigh along the air, And a light footstep, like a melody, Pass'd by the flowers. He turn'd;--What Nymph is there? What Hamadryad from the green recess Emerging into beauty like a star?-- He gazed--sweet Heaven! 'tis she whose loveliness Had in his England's gardens first (and far From these delicious groves) upon him beam'd, And look'd to life the wonders he had dream'd.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

X.

They met again and oft! what time the Star Of Hesperus hung his rosy lamp on high; Love's earliest beacon, from our storms afar, Lit in the loneliest watch-tower of the sky, Perchance by souls that, ere this world was made, Were the first lovers the first stars survey'd. And Mystery o'er their twilight meeting threw The charm that nought like mystery doth bestow: Her name--her birth--her home he never knew; And she--his love was all she sought to know. And when in anxious or in tender mood He pray'd her to disclose at least her name, A look from her the unwelcome prayer subdued So sad the cloud that o'er her features came: Her lip grew blanch'd, as with an ominous fear, And all her heart seem'd trembling in her tear. So worshipp'd he in silence and sweet wonder, Pleased to confide, contented not to know; And Hope, life's checkering moonlight, smiled asunder Doubts, which, like clouds, rise ever from below. And thus his love grew daily, and perchance Was all the stronger circled by romance. He found a name for her, if not her own, Haply as soft, and to her heart as dear-- "Zoe"--name stolen from the tuneful Greek, It meaneth 'life,' when common lips do speak-- And more on those that love;--sweet language known To lovers, sacred to themselves alone; Words, like Egyptian symbols, set apart For the mysterious Priesthood of the Heart.

Creep slowly on, O charm'd reluctant Time-- Rarely so hallow'd, Time, creep slowly on-- Ev'n I would linger in my truant rhyme, Nor tell too soon how soon those hours were gone. Flowers bloom again--leaves glad once more the tree-- Poor life, there comes no second Spring to thee!

[A] In the story of Cupid and Psyche, told in Apuleius, it is said that the lamp itself gladdened at the aspect of the god.--"Cujus aspectu lucernae quoque lumen hilaratum increbuit."

[B] Galileo--according to the popular legend of Milton's visit to him.

PART THE SECOND.

"Protinus insoliti subierunt corda furores, Uror amans intus, flammaque totus eram. Interea misero quae jam mihi sola placebat Ablata est oculis non reditura meis."--MILT. ELEG. VII.

I.

Who shall dispart the Poet's golden threads, From the fine tissues of Philosophy?-- Mounts to one goal, each guess that upward leads, Whether it soar in some impassion'd sigh Or some still thought; alike, it doth but tend To Light that draws it heavenward.--'Tis but one Great law that from the violet lifts the dew At dawn and twilight to the amorous sun, Or calls the mist, which navies glimmer through, From the vast hush of an unfathom'd sea. The Athenian guess'd that when our souls descend From some lost realm (sad aliens here to be), Dim broken memories of the state before Form what we call our 'reason';[C]--nothing taught But all remember'd;--gleams from elder lore, Pallid revivals of sublimer thought, Which, though by fits and dreamily recall'd, Make all the light our sense receives below; Like the vague hues down-floating--disenthrall'd From their bright birthplace, the lost Iris-bow.

Is this Philosophy or Song? Why ask? How judge?--The instant that we leave the ground Of the hard Positive, who saith "I know?" Conjecture, fancy, faith--'tis these we task, When Reason passes but an inch the bound In which our senses draw the captive's breath. And never yet Philosopher severe Strove for a glimpse beyond the Bridge of Death, But straight he enter'd on that atmosphere Poets illume:--Let Logic prove the Known; Truths that we know not, if we would explore, We must imagine! Link, then, evermore Together--each so desolate alone, O Poesy, O Knowledge!--

Is not Love, Of all those memories which to parent skies Mount struggling back--(as to their source above, In upward showers, imprison'd founts arise;) Oh, is not Love the strongest and the clearest? Love, and thine eyes instinctive seek the Heaven; Love, and a hymn from every star thou hearest; Love, and a world beyond the sense is given; Love, and how many a glorious sleeping power Wakes in thy breast and lifts thyself from thee; Love, and, till then so wedded to the Hour, Thy thoughts go forth and ask Eternity!

Lose what thou lovest, and the life of old Is from thine eyes, O soul, no more conceal'd; Look beyond Death, and through thy tears behold There, where Love goes--thine ancient home reveal'd.

II.

The lovers met in twilight and in stealth. Like to the Roc-bird in the Orient Tale, That builds its nest in pathless pinnacles, And there collects and there conceals the wealth, Which paves the surface of the Diamond Vale, Love hoards aloof the glories that it stealeth; And gems, but found in life's enchanted dells, On airy heights that kiss the heaven concealeth.

All nature was a treasury which their hearts Rifled and coin'd in passion; the soft grass, The bee's blue palace in the violet's bell; The sighing leaves which, as the day departs, The light breeze stirreth with a gentle swell; The stiller boughs blent in one emerald mass, Whence, rarely floating liquid Eve along, Some unseen linnet sent its vesper song; All furnish'd them with images and words, And thoughts which spoke not, but lay hush'd like prayer; Their love made life one melody, like birds, And circled earth with its own rosy air. What in that lovely climate doth the breast Interpret not into some sound of love? Canst thou ev'n gaze upon the hues that rest, Like the god's smile, upon the pictured dream Limn'd on mute canvas by the golden Claude, Nor feel thy pulses as to music move?-- Nor feel thy soul by some sweet presence awed? Nor know that presence by its light,--and deem The Landscape breathing with a Voice Divine, "Love, for the land on which ye gaze is mine?"

III.

But all round them was life--the living scene, The real sky, and earth, and wave, and air: The turf on which Egeria's steps had been, The shade, stream, grotto, which had known her care. Still o'er them floated an inspiring breath-- The fragrance and the melody of song-- The legend--glory--verse--that vanquish'd death Still through the orange glades were borne along, And sunk into their souls to swell the hoard Of those rich thoughts the miser Passion stored!

IV.

But they required no fuel to the flame Which burn'd within them, all undyingly; No scene to steep their passion in romance, No spell from outward nature to enhance The nature at their bosoms: all the same Their love had been if cast upon a rock, And frown'd on from the Arctic's haggard sky. Nay, ev'n the vices and the cares, which move Like waves o'er that foul ocean of dull life, That rolls through cities in a sullen strife With heaven, had raged on them, nor in the shock Crumbled one atom from their base of love. And, like still waters, poesy lay deep Within the hush'd yet haunted soul of each; And the fair moon, and all the stars that steep Heaven's silence and its spirit in delight, Had with that tide a sympathy and speech! For them there was a glory in the night, A whisper in the forest, and the air; Love is the priest of Nature, and can teach A world of mystery to the few that share, With self-devoted faith, the winged Flamen's care.

V.

In each lay poesy--for Woman's heart Nurses the stream, unsought, and oft unseen; And if it flow not through the tide of art, Nor woo the glittering daylight--you may ween It slumbers, but not ceases; and, if check'd The egress of rich words, it flows in thought, And in its silent mirror doth reflect Whate'er Affection to its banks has brought. This makes her love so glowing and so tender, Dyeing it in such deep and dreamlike hues; Earth--Heaven--creative Genius--all that render, In man, their wealth and homage to the muse; Do but, in her, enrich the heart, and throng To centre there what men disperse in song. O treasure! which awhile the world outweighs That blessed human heart Youth calls its own! Measure the space some envied Caesar sways With that which stretches from the heavenly throne Into the Infinite;--and then compare All after-conquests in the dim and dull Bounds of the Real, with the realms that were Youth's, when its reign was o'er the Beautiful! He who loves nobly and is nobly loved Is lord of the Ideal. Could it last! It doth--it doth! lasts mournful but unmoved, In the still Ghost-land that reflects the Past. Age will forget its wintry yesterday, But not one sunbeam that rejoiced its May; Showing, perchance, that all which we resume Of this hard life, beyond the Funeral River, Are the fair blossoms of the age of bloom; And hearts mourn most the things that live for ever.

VI.

Twice glided through her course the wandering Queen Who rules the stars and deeps, since first they met. 'Tis eve once more, that earliest hour, serene With the last light, before the sun hath set; And Zoe waits her lover on the hill, Waits, looking forth afar:--The parting ray Of the reluctant Day-god linger'd still; Aslant it glinted through the pinewood boughs, Broadly to rest upon the ruins grey, That at her feet in desolate glory lay. Through chasm and chink, the myrtle's glossy green, Votive of old to Cytheraea's brows-- Rose over wrecks, and smiled: And there, like Grief Close-neighbouring Love, the aloe forced between Myrtle with myrtle clasp'd--its barbed leaf. Where Zoe stands, the Caesar's Palace stood, And from that lofty terrace ye survey, Naked within their thunder-riven tomb, The bones of that dead Titaness call'd Rome. Beyond, the Tiber, through the Latian Plain With many a lesser sepulchre bestrew'd, Mourn'd songless onward to the Tyrrhene main; Around, in amphitheatre afar The hills lay basking in the purple sky; Till all grew grey, and Maro's shepherd-star Look'd through the silence with a loving eye. And soft from silver clouds stole forth the Moon, Hush'd as if still she watch'd Endymion.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

VII.

They sate them on a fallen column, where The wild acanthus clomb the shatter'd stone, Mocking the sculptured mimicry--which there Was graven on the pillar'd pomp o'erthrown,[D] Flowerless, if green, the herbage type-like decks Art that will flower not over Glory's wrecks.

"Ah, doth not Heaven seem near us when alone? How air and moonbeam interchange delight! How like the homeward bird my soul hath flown Unto its rest!--O glorious is the night, Glorious with stars, and starry thoughts, and Thee!" Her sweet voice paused; then from the swelling heart Sigh'd--"Joy to meet, but O despair to part!"

"And wherefore part? Out of all time to me Thou cam'st emerging from the depth of dreams, As rose the Venus from her native sea; And at thy coming, Light with all his beams Illumed Creation's golden Jubilee. What, if my life be wrench'd from youth too soon To find in duty Manhood's troubled doom,-- Lo, where yon star clings ever through the gloom Fast by the labouring melancholy moon, So shine, unsever'd from thy pilgrim's side, And gift his soul with an immortal bride." Trembling she heard--no answer but a sigh-- Sighing, still trembled; tenderly he raised Her downcast cheek, and sought the wish'd-for eye. On the long lashes hung slow-gathering tears: And that subdued, despondent thought which wears Woe, as a Nun the fatal funeral veil, Silent and self-consuming--cast its gloom O'er the sad face yet sadder for its bloom. He gazed, and felt within him, as he gazed, His heart beneath the dire foreboding quail, Ev'n as the gifted melancholy seer Knows by his shudder when a grief is near. "Thou answerest not--yet my soul trusts in thee; Albeit--as if for child of earth too fair Thy love vouchsafed, thy life conceal'd from me, Nymph-like, thou comest out of starry air,-- And I, content the Beautiful to see, Presumed till now no hardier human prayer. But now, the spell the hour appointed breaks, Now in these lips a power that thralls me speaks; I seek mine England, canst thou leave thy Rome? Start not--but let this hand still rest in thine; Canst thou not say 'thy home shall be my home,' Canst thou not say 'thy People shall be mine?'"

VIII.

Wildly she falter'd, starting from his breast, "What dost thou ask--must it all end in this! Art thou not happy, Ingrate? Rest, O, rest, England has toil--Italia happiness!" And as she spoke--a loftier light than pride Flash'd from his eye, and thus the MAN replied,-- "Hear and approve me--In my father's land Age-long have men, as Heathens, bow'd the knee To the dire Statue with the sceptred hand, Which Force enthrones for Thought's idolatry. But now I hear the signal-sound afar, Like the first clarion waking sleep to war, When slumbering armies gird a doomed town. Dread with the whirlwind, glorious with the light, Strong with the thunderbolt, comes rushing down TRUTH:--Let the mountains reel beneath her might! Vigour and health her angry wings dispense, And speed the storm, to clear the pestilence. For this, at morn, when through the gladd'ning air Larks rise to heaven--arose my freeman's prayer. For this, has Night in solemn prophet-dreams Limn'd Time's great morrow--now its day-star gleams! Yea, ere I loved thee, ere a sigh had ask'd Ev'n if the love of woman were for me, A Shape of queenlier grief than ever task'd The votive hearts of antique Chivalry, Born to command the sword, inspire the song, Unveil'd her beauty, and reveal'd her wrong. The Cause she pleads for with the world began; The realm torn from her is the Soul of Man-- And her great name despoil'd is--Liberty! And now she calls me with imperial voice Homeward o'er land and ocean to her cause; Sworn to her service at mine own free choice, Shall I be recreant when the sword she draws?"

IX.

She look'd upon that brow so fair and high, Too bright for sorrow as too bold for fear; She look'd upon the depth of that large eye Whence (ev'n when lost to daylight) starry clear Shone earth's sublimest soul;--then tremblingly On his young arm her gentle hand she laid, And in the simple movement more was said Of the weak woman's heart, than ever yet Of that sweet mystery man's rude speech hath told. The touch rebuked him as he thrill'd to it; Back to their deep the stormier passions roll'd, And left his brow (as when the heaven above Smiles through departing cloud) serene with love. "Come then--companion in this path sublime; Link life with life, and strengthen soul with soul; If vain the hope that lights the onward time; If back to darkness fade the phantom goal; If Dreams, that now seem prophet-visions, be Dreams, and no more--still let me cling to thee! Still, seeing thee, have faith in human worth, And feel the Beautiful yet lives for earth! Come, though from marble domes and myrtle bowers, Come, though to lowly roofs and northern skies; In its own fancies Love has regal towers, And orient sunbeams in beloved eyes. Trust me, whatever fate my soul may gall, Thou at thy woman-choice shalt ne'er repine; Trust me, whatever storm on me may fall, This man's true breast shall ward the bolt from thine. Hark, where the bird from yon dark ilex breathes Soul into night,--so be thy love to me! Look, where around the bird the ilex wreathes Still, sheltering boughs,--so be my love to thee! O dweller in my heart, the music thine! And the deep shelter--wilt thou scorn it? mine!" He ceased, and drew her closer to his breast; Soft from the ilex sang the nightingale: Thy heart, O woman, in its happy rest Hush'd a diviner tale! And o'er her bent her lover; and the gold Of his rich locks with her dark tresses blended; And still, and calm, and tenderly, the lone And mellowing night upon their forms descended; And thus, amid the ghostly walls of old, Seen through that silvery, moonlit, lucent air, They seem'd not wholly of an earth-born mould, But suited to the memories breathing there-- Two Genii of the mix'd and tender race, Their charmed homes in lonely coverts singling, Last of their order, doom'd to haunt the place, And bear sweet being interfused and mingling, Draw through their life the same delicious breath, And fade together into air in death. Oh! what then burn'd within her, as her fond And pure lips yearn'd to breathe the enduring vow? All was forgot, save him before her now-- A blank, a non-existence, lay beyond-- All was forgot--all feeling, thought, but this-- For ever parted, or for ever his!

The voice just stirs her lip--what sound is there? The cleft stone sighing to the curious air? The night-bird rustling, or the fragment's fall, Soft amid weeds, from Caesar's ruin'd wall?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

From his embrace abrupt the maiden sprang With low wild cry despairing:--In the shade Of that dark tree where still the night-bird sang, Stood a stern image statue-like, and made A shadow in the shadow;--locks of snow Crown'd, with the awe of age, the solemn brow; Lofty its look with passionless command, As some old chief's of grand inhuman Rome: Calm from its stillness moved the beckoning hand, And low from rigid lips it murmur'd "Come!"--

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

[C] Plato.

[D] The foliage of the Corinthian capital is borrowed from the acanthus.

PART THE THIRD.

"I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope, but still bear up, and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience, friend."--MILTON'S Sonnet to Cyriack Skinner.

I.

Years have flown by;--and Strife hath raged and ceased; Still on the ear the halted thunder rings; And still in halls, where purple tyrants feast, Glares the red warning to inebriate kings. Midnight is past: the lamp with steadfast light A silent cell, a mighty toil illumes; And hot and lurid on the student's sight Flares the still ray which, like himself, consumes Its life in gilding darkness. Damp and chill Gather the dews on aching temples wan, Wrung from the frame which fails the unconquer'd will In the fierce struggle between soul and man.

II.

Alas! no more to golden palaces, To starlit founts and dryad-haunted trees, The SWEET DELUSION wafts the dreamy soul; But with slow step and steadfast eyes that strain Dazzled and scathed, towards the far-flaming goal He braved the storm, and labour'd up the plain O doubtful labour, but O glorious pain! On the doom'd sight the gradual darkness steals Bates he a jot of heart and hope?--he feels But in his loss a world's eternal gain.[E] Blame we or laud the Cause, all human life Is grander by one grand self-sacrifice; While earth disputes if righteous be the strife, The martyr soars beyond it to the skies. Yes, though when Freedom had her temple won She rear'd a scaffold to obscure a shrine; And, by the human sacrifice of one, Sullied the million,--who could then define The subtle tints where good and evil blend?-- There comes no rainbow when the floods descend! Who, just escaped the chain and prison-bar, Halts on the bridge to guess where glides the stream; Who plays the casuist 'mid the roar of war; Or in the arena builds the Academe? Whate'er their errors, lightly those condemn Who, had they felt not, fought not, glow'd and err'd, Had left us what their fathers left to them-- Either the thraldom of the passive herd Stall'd for the shambles at the master's word, Or the dread overleap of walls that close, And spears that bristle:--And the last they chose. Calm from the hills their children gaze to-day, And breathe the airs to which they forced the way.

III.

And thou, of whom I sing--what should we all, Whate'er our state-creed, venerate in thee? Purpose heroic; and majestical Disdain of self;--the soul in which we see Conviction, welding, from the furnace-zeal, Duty, the iron mainspring of the mind; Ardour, if fierce, yet fired for England's weal; And man's strong heart-throb beating for mankind. These move our homage, doubtful though we be If ev'n thy pen acquits the headman's steel, When thy page cites the crownless Dead--and pleads Defence for nations in a judgeless cause: Judgeless, for time shall ne'er decide what deeds Damn or absolve the hosts whom Freedom leads O'er the pale border-land of dying laws Into the vague world of Necessity.

IV.

He lifts his look where on the lattice bar, Through clouds fast gathering, shines a single star; Large on the haze of his receding sight It spreads, and spreads, and floods all space with light; Nature's last glorious mournful smile on him Ev'n while on earth so near the Seraphim. Now from the blaze he veils with tremulous hand The scorching eyes:--and now the starlight fades: Midnight and cloud resettle on the Land, And o'er her champion's vision rush the shades.

What rests to both?--the inner light that glows Out from the gloom that Fate on each bestows; There is no PRESENT to a hope sublime; Man has eternity, and Nations time!

[E] The Council of State ordered, January 1649-50, "That Mr. Milton do prepare something in answer to the book of Salmasius, and when he hath done itt, bring itt to the Council." He was present, says his biographer, at the discussion which led to the order, and though warned that the loss of sight would be the certain consequence of obeying it, did so.--He called to mind, to use his own image, the two destinies the oracle announced to Achilles:--"If he stay before Troy, he will return to his land no more, but have everlasting glory--if he withdraw, long will be his life and short his fame."

PART THE FOURTH.

"Thus With The Year Seasons Return, But Not To Me Returns Day, Or The Sweet Approach Of Even Or Morn, Or Sight Of Vernal Bloom, Or Summer's Rose, Or Flocks, Or Herds, Or Human Face Divine; But Cloud Instead, And Ever-during Dark Surrounds Me."--paradise Lost, Book III.

"Though Fall'n On Evil Days, In Darkness, And With Danger Compass'd Round, And Solitude; Yet Not Alone, While Thou Visit'st My Slumbers Nightly, Or When Morn Purples The East."--paradise Lost, Book VII.

I.

Its gay farewell to hospitable eaves The swallow twitter'd in the autumn heaven; Dumb on the crisp earth fell the yellowing leaves, Or, in small eddies, fitfully were driven Down the bleak waste of the remorseless air. Out, from the widening gaps in dreary boughs, Alone the laurel smiled,--as freshly fair As its own chaplet on immortal brows, When Fame, indifferent to the changeful sun, Sees waning races wither, and lives on.-- An old man sate before that deathless tree Which bloom'd his humble dwelling-place beside; The last pale rose which lured the lingering bee To the low porch it scantly blossom'd o'er, Nipp'd by the frost-air had that morning died. The clock faint-heard beyond the gaping door, Low as a death-watch, click'd the moments' knell; And through the narrow opening you might see Uncertain foot-prints on the sanded floor (Uncertain foot-prints which of blindness tell); The rude oak board, the morn's untasted fare; The scatter'd volumes and the pillow'd chair, In which, worn out with toil and travel past, Life, the poor wanderer, finds repose at last.

II.

The old man felt the fresh air o'er him blowing Waving thin locks from musing temples pale; Felt the quick sun through cloud and azure going, And the light dance of leaves upon the gale, In that mysterious symbol-change of earth Which looks like death, though but restoring birth. Seasons return; for him shall not return Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn. Whatever garb the mighty mother wore, Nature to him was changeless evermore.-- List, not a sigh!--though fall'n on evil days, With darkness compass'd round--those sightless eyes Need not the sun; nightly he sees the rays, Nightly he walks the bowers of Paradise. High, pale, still, voiceless, motionless, alone, Death-like in calm as monumental stone, Lifting his looks into the farthest skies, He sate: And as when some tempestuous day Dies in the hush of the majestic eve, So on his brow--where grief has pass'd away, Reigns that dread stillness grief alone can leave.

III.

And while he sate, nor saw, nor sigh'd,--drew near A timorous trembling step;--from the far clime The Pilgrim Woman came: long year on year, In brain-sick thought that takes no heed of time, How had she pined to gaze upon that brow Last seen in youth, when she was young:--AND NOW! And now! O words that make the sepulchre Of all our Past! Life sheds no sadder tear Than, when recalling what the Hours inter Of hopes, of passions, of the things that made Our hearts once quicken with tumultuous bliss, We feel what worlds within ourselves can fade, Sighing "And now!"--Alas the nothingness Even of love--had it no life but this!

IV.

Thus as she stood and gazed, and noiseless wept, Two young slight forms across the threshold crept And reach'd the blind grey man, and kiss'd his hand, And then a moment o'er his lips there stray'd The old, familiar, sweet yet stately smile. On either side the children took their stand, And all the three were silent for awhile: Till one, the gentler, whisper'd some soft word, Mingling her young locks with that silvery hair; And the old man the child's meek voice obey'd, Rose,--lingering yet to breathe the gladsome air-- Or catch the faint note of the neighbouring bird; Then leaning on the two, his head he bow'd, And from the daylight pensive pass'd away. Sharp swept the wind, the thrush forsook the spray, And the poor Pilgrim wept at last aloud.

V.

Hark, from within, slow and sonorous stole Deep organ-tones; with solemn pomp of sound Meet to bear up the disimprison'd soul From mortal homage in material piles, To blend with Angel Halleluiahs!--Round The charmed place the notes melodious roll As with a visible flood: adown the aisles Of Nature's first cathedrals (vistas dim, Through leafless woodlands), far and farther float On to the startled haunts of toiling men, The marching music-tides: the heavenly note Thrills through the reeking air of alleys grim; Awes wolf-eyed Guilt close skulking in its den; Lulls Childhood, wailing with white lips for bread, On the starved breast of nerveless Penury; Fever lies soothed upon its burning bed: Indignant Worth stills its world-weary sigh; The widow'd bride looks upward from the dead, And deems she hears his welcome to the sky. On, the grand music, more and more remote, Bore the grey blind man's soul, itself a hymn, Till lost in air amid the Seraphim.

VI.

Our life is as a circle, and our age Back to our youth returns at last in dreams; The intermediate restless pilgrimage Vexing the earth with toils, the air with schemes, Pays our hard tribute to the work-day world. That done, as some storm-shatter'd argosy Puts to the port from whence its sail unfurl'd, The soul regains the first familiar shore, And greets the quiet it disdain'd before. He who in youth from purple poetry Flush'd the grey clouds in this cold common sky, After his shadeless undelusive noon Shall mark the roseate hues, which morning wore, Herald the eve, and gird his setting sun; And the last Hesperus shine on Helicon. O long (yet nobly, since for man) resign'd Nature's most sovereign, care's most soothing boon; Again, again, with vervain fillets bind Anointed brows--O Mage supreme of song! Again before the enchanted crystal glass Let the celestial phantoms glide along-- Thou, whose sweet tears yet hallow Lycidas; Thou, who the soul of Plato didst unsphere, By chaste Sabrina's beryl-paven cell! If now no more thou deign'st to charm the ear "With measures ravish'd from Apollo's shell," Re-wake the harp which mournful willows hide Left by the captives of Jerusalem; For thou hast thought of Sion, and beside The streams of Babylon, hast wept--like them!

VII.

Aged, forsaken--to the crowd below (As to the Priest[F] who chronicled the time), "One Milton!--The blind Teacher"--be it so. Neglect and ruin make but more sublime The last lone column which survives the dearth Of a lost city,--when it lifts on high. Above the waste and solitude of earth Its front: and soars, the Neighbour of the Sky.

To him a Voice floats down from every star; An Angel bends from every cloud that rolls; Life has no mystery from our sight more far Than the still joy in solemn Poet-souls. As some vast river, fresh'ning lands unknown Where never yet a human footstep trod, Leave the grand Song to flow majestic on And hymn delight, from all its waves, to God.

VIII.

A death-bell ceased;--beneath the vault were laid A great man's bones;--and when the rest were gone, Veil'd, and in sable widow-'d weeds array'd, An aged woman knelt upon the stone. Low as she pray'd, the wailing notes were sweet With the strange music of a foreign tongue: Thrice to that spot came feeble, feebler feet, Thrice on that stone were humble garlands hung. On the fourth day some formal hand in scorn The flowers that breathed of priestcraft cast away; But the poor stranger came not with the morn, And flowers forbidden deck'd no more the clay. A heart was broken!--and a spirit fled! Whither--let those who love and hope decide-- But in the faith that Love rejoins the dead, The heart was broken ere the garland died.

[F] Burnett.

EVA.

A TRUE STORY.

I.

THE MAIDEN'S HOME.

A cottage in a peaceful vale; A jasmine round the door; A hill to shelter from the gale; A silver brook before. Oh, sweet the jasmine's buds of snow, In mornings soft with May; Oh, silver-clear the waves that flow, Reflecting heaven, away! A sweeter bloom to Eva's youth Rejoicing Nature gave; And heaven was mirror'd in her truth More clear than on the wave. Oft to that lone sequester'd place My boyish steps would roam, There was a look in Eva's face That seem'd a smile of home. And oft I paused to hear at noon A voice that sang for glee; Or mark the white neck glancing down,-- The book upon the knee.--

II.

THE IDIOT BOY.

Who stands between thee and the sun?-- A cloud himself,--the Wandering One! A vacant wonder in the eyes,-- The mind, a blank, unwritten scroll;-- The light was in the laughing skies, And darkness in the Idiot's soul. He touch'd the book upon her knee-- He look'd into her gentle face-- "Thou dost not tremble, maid, to see Poor Arthur by thy dwelling-place. I know not why, but where I pass The aged turn away; And if my shadow vex the grass, The children cease from play. My only playmates are the wind, The blossom on the bough! "Why are thy looks so soft and kind? Thou dost not tremble--thou!" Though none were by, she trembled not-- Too meek to wound, too good to fear him; And, as he linger'd on the spot, She hid the tears that gush'd to hear him.--

III.

PRAYER OF ARTHUR'S FATHER.

"O Maiden!"--thus the sire begun-- "O Maiden, do not scorn my prayer: I have a hapless idiot son, To all my wealth the only heir; And day by day, in shine or rain, He wanders forth, to gaze again Upon those eyes, whose looks of kindness Still haunt him in his world of blindness; A sunless world!--all arts to yield Light to the mind from childhood seal'd Have been explored in vain. Few are his joys on earth;--above, For every ill a cure is given-- God grant me life to cheer with love The wanderer's guileless path to Heaven." He paused--his heart was full--"And now, What brings the suppliant father here? Yes, few the joys that life bestows On him whose life is but repose-- One night, from year to year;-- Yet not so dark, O maid, if thou Couldst let his shadow catch thy light, Couldst to his lip that smile allow Which comes but at thy sight; Couldst--(for the smile is still so rare, And oh, so innocent the joy!) His presence, though it pain thee, bear, Nor fear the harmless idiot boy!" Then Eva's father, from her brow Parted the golden locks, descending To veil the sweet face, downwards bending:-- And, pointing to the swimming eyes, The dew-drops glist'ning on the cheek, "Mourner!" the happier father cries, "These tears her answer speak!"

Oh, sweet the jasmine's buds of snow, In mornings soft with May; Oh, silver-clear the waves that flow In summer skies away;-- But sweeter looks of kindness seem O'er human trouble bow'd, And gentle hearts reflect the beam Less truly than the cloud.

IV.

THE YOUNG TEACHER.

Of wonders on the land and deeps She spoke, and glories in the sky-- The Eternal life the Father keeps, For those who learn from Him to die. So simply did the maiden speak-- So simply and so earnestly, You saw the light begin to break, And Soul the Heaven to see; You saw how slowly, day by day, The darksome waters caught the ray Confused and broken--come and gone-- The beams as yet uncertain are, But still the billows murmur on, And struggle for the star.

V.

THE STRANGER SUITOR.

There came to Eva's maiden home A Stranger from a sunnier clime; The lore that Hellas taught to Rome, The wealth that Wisdom works from Time, Which ever, in its ebb and flow, Heaves to the seeker on the shore The waifs of glorious wrecks below, The argosies of yore;-- Each gem that in that dark profound The Past,--the Student's soul can find; Shone from his thought, and sparkled round The Enchanted Palace of the Mind. In man's best years, his form was fair, Broad brow with hyacinth locks of hair; A port, though stately, not severe; An eye that could the heart control; A voice whose music to the ear, Became a memory to the soul. It seem'd as Nature's hand had done Her most to mould her kingly son; But oft beneath the sunlit Nile The grim destroyer waits its prey, And dark, below that fatal smile, The lurking demon lay.

How trustful in the leafy June, She roved with him the lonely vale; How trustful by the tender moon, She blushed to hear a tenderer tale. O happy Earth! the dawn revives, Day after day, each drooping flower-- Time to the heart once only gives The joyous Morning Hour. "To him--oh, wilt thou pledge thy youth, For whom the world's false bloom is o'er? My heart shall haven in thy truth, And tempt the faithless wave no more. In my far land, a sun more bright Sheds rose-hues o'er a tideless sea; But cold the wave, and dull the light, Without the sunshine found in thee. Say, wilt thou come, the Stranger's bride, To that bright land and tideless sea? There is no sun but by thy side-- My life's whole sunshine smiles in thee!"

Her hand lay trembling on his arm, Averted glow'd the happy face; A softer hue, a mightier charm, Grew mellowing o'er the hour--the place; Along the breathing woodlands moved A PRESENCE dream-like and divine-- How sweet to love and be beloved, To lean upon a heart that's thine! Silence was o'er the earth and sky-- By silence Love is answer'd best-- Her answer was the downcast eye, The rose-cheek pillow'd on his breast. What rustles through the moonlit brake? What sudden spectre meets their gaze? What face, the hues of life forsake, Gleams ghost-like in the ghostly rays? You might have heard his heart that beat, So heaving rose its heavy swell-- No more the Idiot--at her feet, The Dark One, roused to reason, fell. Loosed the last link that thrall'd the thought, The lightning broke upon the blind-- The jealous love the cure had wrought, The Heart in waking woke the Mind.

VI.

THE MARRIAGE.

To and fro the bells are swinging, Cheerily, clearly, to and fro; Gaily go the young girls, bringing Flowers the fairest June may know. Maiden, flowers that bloom'd and perish'd Strew'd thy path the bridal day; May the Hope thy soul has cherish'd, Bloom when these are pass'd away!

The Father's parting prayer is said, The daughter's parting kiss is given; The tears a happy bride may shed, Like dews ascend to heaven; And leave the earth from which they rise, But balmier airs, and rosier dyes.

VII.

THE HERMIT.

Years fly; beneath the yew-tree shade Thy father's holy dust is laid; The brook glides on, the jasmine blows; But where art thou, the wandering wife, And what the bliss, and what the woes, Glass'd in the mirror-sleep of life? For whether life may laugh or weep, Death the true waking--life the sleep. None know! afar, unheard, unseen-- The present heeds not what has been; This herded world together press'd, Can miss no straggler from the rest-- Not so! Nay, all one heart may find, Where Memory lives, a saint enshrined-- Some altar-hearth, in which our shade The Household-god of Thought is made, And each slight relic hoarded yet With faith more solemn than regret. Who tenants thy forsaken cot-- Who tends thy childhood's favourite flowers-- Who wakes, from every haunted spot, The Ghosts of buried Hours? 'Tis He whose sense was doom'd to borrow From thee the Vision and the Sorrow-- To whom the Reason's golden ray, In storms that rent the heart was given; The peal that burst the clouds away Left clear the face of heaven! And wealth was his, and gentle birth, A form in fair proportions cast; But lonely still he walk'd the earth-- The Hermit of the Past. It was not love--that dream was o'er! No stormy grief, no wild emotion; For oft, what once was love of yore, The memory soothes into devotion! He bought the cot:--The garden flowers-- The haunts his Eva's steps had trod, Books--thought--beguiled the lonely hours, That flow'd in peaceful waves to God.

VIII.

DESERTION.

She sits, a Statue of Despair, In that far land, by that bright sea; She sits, a Statue of Despair, Whose smile an Angel seem'd to be-- An angel that could never die, Its home the heaven of that blue eye! The smile is gone for ever there-- She sits, the Statue of Despair! She knows it all--the hideous tale-- The wrong, the perjury, and the shame;-- Before the bride had left her vale, Another bore the nuptial name; Another lives to claim the hand Whose clasp, in thrilling, had defiled: Another lives, O God, to brand The Bastard's curse upon her child! ANOTHER!--through all space she saw The face that mock'd th' unwedded mother's! In every voice she heard the Law, That cried, "Thou hast usurp'd another's!" And who the horror first had told?-- From his false lips in scorn it came-- "Thy charms grow dim, my love grows cold; My sails are spread--Farewell." Rigid in voiceless marble there-- Come, sculptor, come--behold Despair!

The infant woke from feverish rest-- Its smiles she sees, its voice she hears-- The marble melted from the breast, And all the Mother gush'd in tears.

IX.

THE INFANT-BURIAL

To and fro the bells are swinging, Heavily heaving to and fro; Sadly go the mourners, bringing Dust to join the dust below. Through the church-aisle, lighted dim, Chanted knells the ghostly hymn, _Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla!_ Mother! flowers that bloom'd and perish'd, Strew'd thy path the bridal day; Now the bud thy grief has cherish'd, With the rest has pass'd away! Leaf that fadeth--bud that bloometh, Mingled there, must wait the day When the seed the grave entombeth Bursts to glory from the clay. _Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla!_ Happy are the old that die, With the sins of life repented; Happier he whose parting sigh Breaks a heart, from sin prevented! Let the earth thine infant cover From the cares the living know; Happier than the guilty lover-- Memory is at rest below! Memory, like a fiend, shall follow, Night and day, the steps of Crime; Hark! the church-bell, dull and hollow, Shakes another sand from time! Through the church-aisle, lighted dim, Chanted knells the ghostly hymn; Hear it, False One, where thou fliest, Shriek to hear it when thou diest-- _Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla!_

X.

THE RETURN.

The cottage in the peaceful vale, The jasmine round the door, The hill still shelters from the gale, The brook still glides before.

Without the porch, one summer noon, The Hermit-dweller see! In musing silence bending down, The book upon his knee.

Who stands between thee and the sun?-- A cloud herself,--the Wand'ring One!-- A vacant sadness in the eyes, The mind a razed, defeatured scroll; The light is in the laughing skies, And darkness, Eva, in thy soul! The beacon shaken in the storm, Had struggled still to gleam above The last sad wreck of human love, Upon the dying child to shed One ray--extinguish'd with the dead: O'er earth and heaven then rush'd the night! A wandering dream, a mindless form-- A Star hurl'd headlong from its height, Guideless its course, and quench'd its light. Yet still the native instinct stirr'd The darkness of the breast-- She flies, as flies the wounded bird Unto the distant nest. O'er hill and waste, from land to land, Her heart the faithful instinct bore; And there, behold the Wanderer stand Beside her Childhood's Home once more!

XI.

LIGHT AND DARKNESS.

When earth is fair, and winds are still, When sunset gilds the western hill, Oft by the porch, with jasmine sweet, Or by the brook, with noiseless feet, Two silent forms are seen; So silent they--the place so lone-- They seem like souls when life is gone, That haunt where life has been: And his to watch, as in the past Her soul had watch'd his soul. Alas! her darkness waits the last, The grave the only goal! It is not what the leech can cure-- An erring chord, a jarring madness: A calm so deep, it must endure-- So deep, thou scarce canst call it sadness; A summer night, whose shadow falls On silent hearths in ruin'd halls. Yet, through the gloom, she seem'd to feel His presence like a happier air, Close by his side she loved to steal, As if no ill could harm her there! And when her looks his own would seek, Some memory seem'd to wake the sigh, Strive for kind words she could not speak, And bless him in the tearful eye. O sweet the jasmine's buds of snow, In mornings soft with May, And silver-clear the waves that flow To shoreless deeps away; But heavenward from the faithful heart A sweeter incense stole;-- The onward waves their source desert, But Soul returns to Soul!

THE FAIRY BRIDE.

A TALE[A]

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