Wanderings through European Literature.
LE RÉVEILLE.
IT was the lark—not the nightingale—
Poured forth her notes of warning;
Upwards she flew from the sun‐lit vale,
Awoke by the light of the morning.
The day, the day is bright!
The night
Hath fled that in darkness bound ye;
Fling ye the myrtle of love aside,
And grasp the sword whate’er may betide—
For the Foemen are gathering round ye!
It was the lark—not the nightingale—
Arouse ye from apathy’s slumber!
Few and dull do your watchfires pale,
But they soon shall the stars outnumber.
Awake, awake to life!
The strife
For God and your right advances;
Leave the white arms of weeping beauty,
The van of the battle’s your post of duty,
Where glitter the Foeman’s lances!
It was the lark—not the nightingale—
The gate of the morning uncloses;
She sings of the thundering cannon’s hail—
She sings of the battle’s roses;
On the warrior’s breast
They rest—
The crimson roses that free the world!
Up, then, in Liberty’s cause ye are sent—
Let the wide heavens be but one warrior’s tent
When the banner of Freedom’s unfurled.
It was the lark—not the nightingale—
Leave, then, O youth, thy dreaming!
As dashes the torrent adown the vale,
O’er all barriers wildly streaming,
So of thy young heart’s blood,
The flood
Pour down on the thirsty land;
And Liberty’s cause, that would else have died,
Will bloom afresh from that crimson tide;
So pledge ye your heart and hand.
It was the lark—not the nightingale—
Who chanted a Nation’s rise;
Borne on the wings of the morning gale,
It peals through the azure skies.
Liberty’s torch is bright!
The light
May mock our tyrant’s scorning,
For millions of hearts will be kindled ere noon;
And the freedom we dream’d of in darkness, full soon
We’ll achieve in the light of the morning!
OUR FATHERLAND.
I.
WHY pour the ruby wine,
For glad carousal, brothers mine,
In the sparkling glass that flashes
In your hand,
When, mourning, sits in dust and ashes
Our Fatherland?
II.
What means the joyous song
Of the festive bridal throng?
Oh! let music no more waken
The echoes of our strand,
For the bridegroom hath forsaken
Our Fatherland!
III.
No more your masses falter,
Trembling priests, before the altar.
Can prayer avail the dead or dying?
Oh! vain demand!
Prostrate, trodden on the ground, is lying
Our Fatherland!
IV.
Ye princes, fling ye down
Your blood‐bought jewelled crown—
Bear the circlet on your brow no more,
Nor signet on your hand;
For, shivering, stands before your door
Our Fatherland!
V.
Woe to ye rich; in gloom
Hath toll’d your hour of doom—
There, reck’ning up your gold, ye sit in state
In palace grand,
While Lazarus is dying at your gate,
Our Fatherland!
VI.
And woe to you, ye poor—
Want and scorn ye must endure;
Yet before ye many noble jewels shine
In the sand.
Ah! they are patriots’ tears—even mine—
For Fatherland!
VII.
But the Poet’s mission
Is but prophetic vision;
To him the daring heart is granted—
Not the hand.
He may cease—the death‐song has been chanted
For Fatherland!
THE KNIGHT’S PLEDGE.
THE tedious night at length hath pass’d;
To horse! to horse! we’ll ride as fast
As ever bird did fly.
Ha! but the morning air is chill;
Frau Wirthin, one last goblet fill,
We’ll drain it ere we die!
Thou youthful grass, why look’st so green?
Soon dyed in blood of mine I ween,
With damask rose thou’lt vie.
The goblet here! with sword in hand
I pledge thee first, my Fatherland,
Oh! blessed for thee to die!
Again our mailed hands raise the cup:
Freedom, to thee we drink it up.
Low may that coward lie
Who fails to pledge, with heart and hand,
The freedom of our glorious Land—
Her Freedom, ere we die!
Our wives—but, ah! the glass is clear,
The cannon thunders—grasp the spear,
We’ll pledge them in a sigh.
Now, on the Foe like thunder crash!
We’ll scathe them as a lightning flash,
And conquer, though we die!
OPPORTUNITY.[*](#wilde-note08)
FROM THE ITALIAN OF MACHIAVELLI.
“Chi sei tu, che non par Donna mortale?”
WHO art thou, glorious Form, flashing by me,
So beautiful, so Godlike—wilt thou fly me?
Why o’er thy face and bosom fall thy tresses streaming?
And why the airy pinions on thy white feet gleaming?
My name is Opportunity. Pause or rest I never:
Mortals rarely know me till I’m gone for ever.
To seize me passing on to few is granted;
Therefore one foot upon a wheel is planted—
Therefore the light wings bound on them, to make me
So quick in flight that none shall overtake me.
Down fall my tresses, face and bosom veiling,
That none may know me ’till to know be unavailing;
Then, mockingly, I fling aside the veil, and please me
With their vain hope, and vainer haste to seize me.
And who is this dark form that follows thee with weeping,
Ever as a shadow on thy bright track keeping?
Her name’s Repentance. When I fleet quickly by them,
She stoppeth weeping, vainly weeping nigh them.
But thou, poor mortal, precious moments wasting,
Idly thou dreamest while I’m onwards hasting.
Wilt thou not wake? Alas! weep now, I’ve passed for ever.
Weep, for Repentance henceforth leaves thee never.
“Thoughts come again, convictions perpetuate themselves
opportunities pass by irrecoverably.”
—GOETHE.
KING ERICK’S FAITH.
I.
IN Upsal’s stately Minster, before the altar, stands
The Swedish King, brave Erick, with high uplifted hands—
His royal robes are round him, the crown upon his head,
And thus, before his people, right sovranly he said:—
II.
“God! whoso trusteth in Thee will never rue his trust;
If God the Lord be with us, our foes shall flee like dust.”
He spake—from priests and people rose up the answering cry—
“If God the Lord be with us, all danger we defy!”
III.
II.
Scarce through the aisles is dying their mingled voices’ din,
A pallid slave, disordered, comes rushing wildly in.
“Now God us aid!—Skalater, the Dane, has come agen,
Fast pouring down the mountains with seven hundred men!”
IV.
King Erick heard him calmly, then strong in faith replied—
“What man can fight against us, with God upon our side?”
A second slave comes rushing all breathless as the first—
“The gate is down—Skalater each bar and bolt hath burst!”
V.
King Erick’s brow grew paler, but still he looked on high—
“If God the Lord be with us, no danger need we fly!”
In comes another, trembling, but ere he uttered sound
The Danish axes glisten—they cleave him to the ground.
VI.
Then rose a fearful tumult—then rose a wildered cry—
Skalater comes in fury—defenceless we must die—
Skalater comes in fury, with all his pagan hordes,
And Priest, and King, and Altar must fall beneath their swords.
VII.
King Erick’s glance grew prouder; he grasp’d the golden rood—
He held it high to Heaven, as on Skalater strode:
Lo! from each wound, the seven, pours forth a thousand rays,
And down to earth Skalater sinks dazzled by the blaze.
VIII.
They’re prostrate on their foreheads, the seven hundred Danes,
Praying the God to spare them who guards the Christian fanes;
But Erick and his people lift up the joyful cry—
Our God, the Lord, has conquered; all praise to Him on high!
“FOR NORGE!”
FROM THE DANISH.
I.
FOR NORWAY, Freedom’s fatherland,
Fill up the wine‐cup flowing,
And pledge it, brothers, hand in hand,
To keep the hot blood glowing.
By gyves and fetters rent we swear,
No tyrant’s hand shall ever dare
To chain our souls, while swords we bear
To guard old Norway’s Freedom!
II.
Again the wine‐cup passes round;
We’ll drain it to the glory
Of all the Chiefs and names renowned
In Norway’s ancient story.
Across our gloomy northern night
Their clashing arms flashed the light,
And won for us, in hero fight,
The prize of Norway’s Freedom.
III.
And now to all the brave ones here,
And to the maids that love us—
To men who never knew a fear,
Maids pure as saints above us.
The Norway maidens! fill on high—
The Norsemen, brave to do and die!
And shame to him who passes by
The pledge to Love and Freedom!
IV.
And yet one cup to Norway’s land,
Her snow and icy fountains,
The rocks that guard her stormy strand,
The pines upon her mountains!
Aye—three times three fill up the wine,
Pledge mountain, torrent, rock, and pine—
Pledge all that marks the snowy line
Where Norsemen guard their Freedom!
THE FOUNTAIN IN THE FOREST.
FROM LAMARTINE.
I.
LONELY stream of rushing water,
From the rock that gave thee birth,
Hast thou fallen, O Naiad’s daughter!
Mingling with the common earth?
Shall Carrara’s snowy marble
Never more thy waves inurn;
That with wild and plaintive warble,
By their broken temple mourn?
II.
Nor thy dolphins lying shattered,
Fling their columns up again,
That in radiant glory scattered,
Fell to the earth a jewelled rain
Must the bending beeches only,
Veil thy desolate decay,
Spreading solemnly and lonely
O’er thy waters, dark as they?
III.
Pallid Autumn‐leaves are lying
On thy hollow marble tomb,
And the willows round it sighing,
Wave their bannerets of gloom.
Still thou flowest ever, ever—
Like a loving heart that gives
Smiles and blessings, though it never
Meeteth smile from one who lives.
IV.
Roughest rocks to polished beauty
Changing as thou flowest on;
Such the Poet’s heaven‐taught duty,
Mid the stony‐hearted throng!
Thus thy voice to me hath spoken,
Falling, falling from on high,
As a chord in music, broken
By a gently‐murmured sigh.
V.
Ah! what sad yet glorious vision
Of my youth thy scenes unroll,
When I felt the Poet’s mission
Kindling first within my soul;
When the passion and the glory
Of the far‐off future years,
Shone in radiant light before me,
Through the present dimm’d by tears.
VI.
Can thy stream recall the shadow
Of the spirit‐haunted boy,
Who in sunlight, through the meadow,
Roamed in deep and
wondrous
woundrous
joy?
Yet bright memory still reaches,
All athwart thy glistening beams,
Where, beneath the shading beeches,
Lay the sunny child of dreams;
VII.
Weaving fancies bright as morning,
With its purple and its gold;
Strong to trample down earth’s scorning
With the faith of men of old.
Ready life itself to render
At the shrine to which he bowed,
Knowing not the transient splendour
Gilded but the tempest‐cloud.
VIII.
On my heart was still’d the laughter,
Cold the clay around the dead,
When I came in years long after
Here to rest my weary head.
Waked the sad tears fast and warm,
Once again the ancient place,
Till, like droppings of the storm,
They fell heavy on thy face.
IX.
Human voice was none to hear me
In that silence of the tomb;
But thy waters, sobbing near me,
Seemed responsive to the gloom;
And I flung my thoughts all idly
On thy current in a dream,
Like the pale leaves scattered widely
On thy autumn‐drifted stream.
X.
Yet ’twas in that mournful hour
Rose the spirit’s mighty words;
Never soul could know its power
Until sorrow swept the chords—
Blended with each solemn feature
Of the lonely scenes I trod,
For the sacred love of Nature
Is the Poet’s hymn to God.
XI.
Did He hear the words imploring
Of a strong heard tempest‐riven?
Did the tears of sorrow pouring
Rise like incense up to Heaven?
Ah! the heart that mutely prayeth
From the ashes of the past,
Finds the strength that ever stayeth,
Of the Holy, round it cast!
XII.
But the leaf in winter fadeth,
And the cygnet drops her plumes:
Time in passing ever shadeth
Human life in deeper glooms;
So, perchance, with white hair streaming,
In my age to thee I’ll turn—
Muse on life, with softened dreaming,
By thy broken marble urn.
XIII.
While thy murmuring waters falling
Drop by drop upon the plain,
Seem like spirit‐voices calling—
Spirit‐voices not in vain;
For life’s fleeting course they teach me,
With life’s endless source on high,
Past and future thus may reach me,
While I learn from thee to die.
XIV.
O stream! hath thy lonely torrent
Many ages yet to run?
O life! will thy mournful current
See many a setting sun?
I know not; but both are passing
From the sunlight into gloom—
Yet the light we left will meet us
Once again beyond the tomb!
SALVATION.
WHEN the gloom is deepest round thee;
When the bands of grief have bound thee,
And in loneliness and sorrow,
By the poisoned springs of life
Thou sittest, yearning for a morrow,
That will free thee from the strife;
Look not upward, for above thee
Never sun or star is gleaming;
Look not round for one to love thee;
Put not faith in mortal seeming;
Lightly would they scorn, then leave thee.
Trust not man—he will deceive thee.
But in the depths of thy own soul
Descend; mysterious powers unroll—
Energies that long had slumbered
In its mystic depths unnumbered.
Speak the word!—the power divinest
Will awake, if thou inclinest.
Thou art lord in thine own kingdom;
Rule thyself—thou rulest all!
Smile, when from its proud dominion
Earthly joy will rudely fall.
Be true unto thyself and hear not
Evil thoughts, that would enslave thee.
God is in thee! Mortal, fear not;
Trust in Him, and He will save thee!
MISERY IS MYSTERY.
I.
MISERY his heart hath broken—
Misery is mystery!
Let the sad one lonely be;
As the Ancients shunned the token
Of a lightning‐blasted tree.
II.
Breathe no word, his doom is spoken—
Misery is
mystery
mistery
!
By its scathing lightning fated,
Human hearts are consecrated,
For a higher destiny.
FAREWELL!
LET mine eyes the parting take,
Which my faint lips never can;
Moments such as these might break
Even the sternest heart of man.
Mournfully doth Joy’s eclipse,
Shroud in grief Love’s sweetest sign;
Cold the pressure of thy lips,
Cold the hand that rests in mine.
Once the slightest stolen kiss—
O, what rapture did it bring!
Like a violet’s loveliness,
Found and plucked in early spring.
Now, no more my hand shall twine,
Rose wreaths, sweetest love, for thee;
Without, is summer’s glorious prime,
Within, weird autumn’s misery.
CATARINA.
FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF CAMOENS.
“Um mover d’olhos brando e piadoso.”
A MOVEMENT of the soft eyes, slow and eloquent,
A smile of sweet, yet of such chastened joy,
’Twere easy to transform it to a tear.
A gentle, timid motion, like young flowers
Beneath the murmuring west wind undulating.
A graceful, modest ardour—yet at times
Most grave and quiet majesty, as one
Who knows—that rarest knowledge—her own worth.
A childlike nature, index of a soul
Where goodness is intuitive—not put on
To gain false praises for a falser virtue.
A bashful softness when she tells her love—
A tremour as of guilt, with low‐drooped eyes
And red‐rose cheek, did not her brow serene,
Like to a temple of all holy things,
Forbid the thought. A patient power of sufferance,
Enduring all with angel smiles of love.
This, the celestial beauty of my Circé—
This is the magic potion which has changed
Earth and all earthly sorrows to a Heaven!
THE POET AT COURT.
I.
HE stands alone in the lordly hall—
He, with the high, pale brow;
But never a one at the festival
Was half so great, I trow.
They kiss the hand, and they bend the knee,
Slaves to an earthly king!
But the heir of a loftier dynasty
May scorn that courtly ring.
II.
They press, with false and flattering words,
Around the blood‐bought throne;
But the homage never yet won by swords
Is his—the Anointed One!
His sway over every nation
Extendeth from zone to zone;
He reigns as a god o’er creation—
The universe is his own.
III.
No star on his breast is beaming,
But the light of his flashing eye
Reveals, in its haughtier gleaming,
The conscious majesty.
For the Poet’s crown is the godlike brow—
Away with that golden thing!
Your fealty was never yet due till now—
Kneel to the God‐made King!
THE MYSTIC TREE.
FROM ÖLENSCHLÄGER.
ITS branches up to Heaven a tree is sending,
Rare to see,
For with flowers, fruit, and seed at once is bending
That mystic tree.
Round the giant stem, all rugged, rude, and mossy,
Roses twine,
And the young flowers veil it with their glossy
Hues divine.
The leaves rustle thickly, many‐formed,
So green and bright;
The branches spread out broadly to be warmed
In Heaven’s light.
Now curve they down, all drooping, to the meadows
And cool springs;
Now upwards on the blue air fling their shadows
Like seraphs’ wings.
Pause ye beneath its golden avalanches—
Well it’s worth;
For when the breath of Heaven stirs the branches,
The fruit falls to earth.
Mocking apes all day there, in their folly,
Play antic wiles;
All night rest the branches, still and holy
As cathedral aisles.
The nightingale, soft in the moonlight singing,
Stops her grief;
For the magic tones of Oreads seem ringing
From every leaf.
The tree is loved by all, but comprehended
Scarce by one;
Yet each basketh in its glory, many‐blended,
As ’neath a sun.
Many pause, the bright fruit harvest reaping,
Of golden gleam;
But he who loveth shadow saith in weeping—
Here let me dream.
Lighter spirits, passing, stop where glisten
Brightest flowers;
While others pause, enchanted, but to listen
The music of its bowers.
And he who nothing loveth goes his way,
Unheeding all;
But they who love the universe will say—
Sing on, JEAN PAUL!
’TIS NOT UPON EARTH.
WHY comest thou here, so pale and clear,
Thou lone and shadowy child?
“I come from a clime of eternal sun,
Tho’ my mother’s home is a dreary one;
But Love hath stolen my heart away,
And to seek it through the world I stray.”
Oh, turn thee back to thy native land—
Turn, ere thy heart is blighted;
For, alas! upon this desert strand
True love has never alighted.
“My native land is beyond the skies,
Where the perfumed bowers of Eden rise.
But my mother’s home is the spectral tomb;
Yet I’ll back and rest in its shadowy gloom,
For the grave is still and Heaven is fair,
And the myrtle of love fadeth never there!”
THE ITINERANT SINGING GIRL.
FROM THE DANISH.
FATHERLESS and motherless, no brothers have I,
And all my little sisters in the cold grave lie;
Wasted with hunger I saw them falling dead—
Lonely and bitter are the tears I shed.
Friendless and loverless, I wander to and fro,
Singing while my faint heart is breaking fast with woe,
Smiling in my sorrow, and singing for my bread—
Lonely and bitter are the tears I shed.
Harp clang and merry song by stranger door and board,
None ask wherefore tremble my pale lips at each word;
None care why the colour from my wan cheek has fled—
Lonely and bitter are the tears I shed.
Smiling and singing still, tho’ hunger, want, and woe,
Freeze the young life‐current in my veins as I go;
Begging for my living, yet wishing I were dead—
Lonely and bitter are the tears I shed.
IGNEZ DE CASTRO.
FROM THE PORTUGUESE.
“Longe de caro esposo Ignez formosa.”
I.
FAR from her Royal lover, by Mondego’s sunny tide,
Does the Lady Inez wander, Don Pedro’s lovely bride;
Her long hair fell around her, like a veil of a golden light,
And the jewelled zone that bound her in the noontide sparkled
bright.
II.
But heavy showers are falling fast adown her azure eyes,
As on Heaven with anguish calling, she lifts them to the skies.
Where is her princely lover? Is there none to save her nigh?
Does he know that King Alonzo hath sworn that she shall die?
III.
She trembles at each murmured sound that’s wafted on the breeze:
It is the murderer’s footstep that rustles through the trees;
But wearily, all wearily, with watching and with weeping,
She sank in troubled slumber, while her maidens guard were
keeping.
IV.
She dream’d that in the palace, by her Royal lover’s side,
She sat upon the high throne, as his crownéd Queen and bride;
And words of love he murmured, and the crowd knelt down to
praise,
And she proudly took their homage, but blushed beneath his gaze.
V.
Fair cloth of silver brighter than the sunbeam’s woven light,
And marble pillars whiter than the pale queen of night—
Flowers and odours blending, all
loveliest
lovliest
things were there,
Incense‐clouds upsending, for her—the beautiful, the fair!
VI.
Her robes of tissue golden outvied her golden tresses,
As she lay enfolden in her lover’s soft caresses;
But brighter than the diamonds that circled round her brow,
Were the flashing eyes beneath them—he murmured with a vow.
VII.
And redder than the rubies that enclasped her jewelled zone,
Were the roses on her cheek when he whispered—Thou’rt mine own.
And he stooped his plumed head gently to kiss her—so she dreamed—
But his lips were icy cold, like the touch of death it seemed.
VIII.
And she started from her slumber all tearfully and pale,
For hurrying steps and voices were heard, and woman’s wail—
“O God! the hour has come,” they cried—“the murderers are near!
Why weep ye so, my maidens, now?—your cheeks are blanched with
fear.
IX.
XI.
“I see—I see their shadows—down the marble steps they run;
I see their daggers gleaming in the red light of the sun—
O Pedro! Pedro! save me!”—help from God nor man is nigh:
All vainly to her murderers for mercy did she cry.
X.
Then she raised her eyes to Heaven, and threw back her golden
hair,
And in the streaming sunlight calm and saintly stood she there;
While upon her snowy bosom she meekly crossed her hands—
You’d take her for an Angel as she there in beauty stands.
XI.
What! shrink ye now, false cravens!—do ye fear yon pale‐faced
girl?
Tigers, traitors, as ye are, dare ye touch one golden curl?
King Alonzo’s gold is tempting, yet fain ye now would fly
From the calm and holy glance of that tearful azure eye.
XII.
It was but for a moment’s pause—the next their daggers gleam,
And she falls, the young and lovely, by Mondego’s fated stream;
Like red rain on the young flowers, pours forth life’s crimson
tide—
And softly murmuring, Pedro! she looked to Heaven, and died.
THE WAIWODE.
FROM THE RUSSIAN.
SECRETLY by night returning,
Jealous fears within him burning,
The Waiwode seeks his young wife’s bed,
And with trembling hand, uncertain,
Backward draws the silken curtain—
Death and vengeance—she has fled!
With a frown like tempest weather,
Fierce he knits his brows together,
Tears his beard in wrathful mood—
Roars in thunder through the castle,
Summoning each trembling vassal,
“Ho there! slaves—ye devil’s brood!
“Who left the castle gate unguarded,
And slew the hound?—some hand unbarr’d it!
Quick! prepare ye sack and cord!
My arms here, fellows—loaded, ready!
Now, slave, your pistols, follow—steady—
Ha, traitress! thou shalt feel this sword
Close in the murky shadows hiding,
Slave and master, onward gliding,
Reach the garden. There, indeed,
Listening to the soft appealing
Of a youth before her kneeling,
Stands she in her white naridd.
Through the marble fountain’s playing,
Passion’s words they hear him saying—
“How I love thee, yet thou’st sold
All thy beauty’s glowing treasures,
All this soft hand’s tender pressures,
For the Waiwode’s cursed gold.
“How I loved, as none can love thee;
Waited, wept—if tears could move thee—
Ah! and is it thus we meet?
He ne’er strove through tears and troubles,
Only clang’d his silver roubles,
And thou fallest at his feet.
Yet once more, through night and storm,
I ride to gaze upon thy form,
Touch again that thrilling hand;
Pray that peace may rest upon thee
In the home that now has won thee,
Then for ever fly this land.”
Low she bendeth o’er him weeping,
Heeds not stealthy footsteps creeping,
Sees not jealous eye‐balls glare—
“Now, slave, steady,—Fool, thou tremblest
Vengeance if thy heart dissemblest—
Kill her as she standeth there.”
“Oh, my Lord and master, hear me—
Patience yet, or much I fear me
I shall never aim aright.
See, the bitter night wind’s blowing
Numbs my hand, and brings these flowing
Icy tears to dim my sight.”
“Silence! thou accurséd Russian.
Hold—I’ll guide the pistol’s motion;
See’st thou not her gleaming brow?
So, steady—straight before thee—higher—
When I
give
gave
the signal, fire—
Darker doom awaits him—Now!”
A shot, a groan, and all is over;
Still she standeth by her lover—
’Tis the Waiwode falleth dead!
Was ever known such sad disaster?
The bungling slave hath shot his master
Straight and steady through the head.
THE COMPARISON.
FROM THE PORTUGUESE.
I.
LOVELIEST of flowers
That in the garden grows,
Brightest, sweetest, fairest,
Crimson blushing rose.
Envy of all others,
No charm thy beauty misses,
Favourite of Phœbus,
Blushing at his kisses.
II.
Yet as he outshineth,
Glorying in his might,
The pale, uncertain spendour
Of Luna’s silver light—
So does Amarilla,
When compared unto thee,
Heedless wanton, careless
Of the thousand lips that woo thee.
III.
Thou has cruel thorns
Beneath thy rich leaves lying,
But she is soft and gentle
As Æolian music sighing;
Thou heedest not the murmur
Of Zephyr when he sings,
But see her dark eyes flashing
When I touch my golden strings.
IV.
In the month of flowers,
When flaunting in thy pride,
Crimson‐robéd Queen,
I shall place thee side by side;
Then, Cupid, come and tell me,
On thy judgment I’ll repose,
Which is fairest, brightest,
Amarilla or the Rose?
Stay! here is Venus coming,
The goddess will decide—
Ah! tis not the Paphian Queen,
But Amarilla, my young Bride!
BUDRIS AND HIS SONS.
FROM THE RUSSIAN.
I.
SPRING to your saddles, and spur your fleet horses;
Time for ye, children, to seek your life courses.
(Thus spake old Budris, the Lithuan brave.)
Never your father’s sword rusted in leisure,
Never his hand failed to grasp the rich treasure;
But now my feeble frame sinks to the grave.
II.
Three paths from Wilna to plunder will lead ye;
Ride forth, my sons—each a path I aread ye—
Thus will your booty be varied and rare.
Olgard, go thou and despoil the proud Prussian;
Woiwod, Kiestut, be thy prey the Russian—
Vitald the lances of Poland may dare.
III.
From Novgorod Veliki[*](#wilde-note09) come back to
me never
Without the rich dust of the Tartar’s gold river;
Bring the sables of Yakutsk, so costly and fine,
And the silver of Argun they dig from the mine,
The gems of Siberia and far Koliván—
So saints speed the ride of the bold Lithuán!
IV.
In the cursed Prussian land there is wealth for the bold:
Ha, boy! never shrink from their ducats of gold;
Take their costly brocades, where the golden thread flashes,
The amber that lies where the Baltic wave dashes,
Be the prize but as rich as your forefathers won,
And the gods of old Litwa[*](#wilde-note10) will
guard thee, my son.
Novgorod the
Great.
Lithuania.
V.
No gold, my young Vitald, will fall to thy share,
Where the plains of the Polac lie level and bare;
But their lances are bright, and their sabres are keen,
And their maidens the loveliest ever were seen:
So speed forth, my son, and good luck to the ride
That brings a fair Polenese home for thy bride.
VI.
Not the azure of ocean, or stars of the sky,
Can rival the colour or light of her eye;
Like the lily in hue, when its first leaves unfold,
Is the bosom on which fall her tresses of gold;
Fine and slender her form as the pines of the grove,
And her cheek and her lips glow with beauty and love.
VII.
By three paths from Wilna, the young men are roaming,
Day after day Budris looks for their coming—
But day after day he watcheth in vain.
No steed from the high‐road, no lance from the forest,
He watcheth and waiteth in anguish the sorest—
“Alas! for my brave sons, I fear they are slain!”
VIII.
The snow in the valley falls heavy and fast—
Through the forest a horseman comes dashing at last,
With his mantle wrapped closely to guard from the cold:
“Ha, Olgard! hast brought me the ducats of gold?
Let’s see—is it amber thou’st won for thy ride?”
“Oh, father—no, father— a young Polish bride!”
IX.
The snow on the valley falls heavier still,
A horseman is seen rushing down from the hill;
Wrapped close in his mantle some rich treasure lies—
“How now, my brave son—hast thou brought me a prize?
Is it silver of Argun thou’st won for thy ride?
Come show me!” “No, father—a young Polish bride!”
X.
Faster and thicker the snow‐showers fall—
A horseman rides fiercely through snow‐flakes and all;
Budris sees how his mantle is clasped to his breast—
“Ho, slaves! ’tis enough, bid our friends to the feast!
I’ll ask no more questions, whatever betides,
We’ll drain a full cup to the three Polish brides!”
THE LADY BEATRIZ.
ROMANCE.
FROM THE SPANISH.—THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
“Bodas hacian en Francia.”
THERE were stately nuptials in France,
In the royal town of Paris:
Who is it leads the dance?
The lovely Lady Beatriz.
Who is it gazes on her,
With looks so earnest and bright?
’Tis her noblest Page of Honour,
Don Martin, Count and Knight.
The bride and her maidens advance—
Young Count, why lookest thou so?
Are thy dark eyes fixed on the dance,
Or on me? Oh! I fain would know.
I gaze not upon the dance,
Sweet Beatriz, lady mine;
For many a galliard I’ve seen in France,
But never such beauty as thine.
Then if thou lovest me so, young Count,
Oh! take me away with thee;
For nor gay nor young, though a prince’s son,
Is the bridegroom they’d wed with me.
There was mourning in France, I ween,
In the royal town of Paris;
For no more was seen either Count Martín
Or the lovely Lady Beatriz.
A SERVIAN SONG.
I.
WHEREFORE neighest thou so sadly?
Stampest with the hoof so madly?
Speak my steed—why at the tent
With thy stately neck down bent?
II.
Have not my own hands caress’d thee?
Proudly in gay trappings dress’d thee?
Yet thou com’st not as of old,
Champing at thy curb of gold.
III.
Hast thou not, in bright hues glowing,
Silken shabrack downward flowing,
Silver hoof and broidered rein.
Gemm’d with trophies from the slain?
IV.
And the horse, he answered sadly—
Stamp I with the hoof so madly?
Tramp of steed I hear afar,
Trumpet clang and din of war.
V.
But soon a stranger will bestride me,
Other hand than thine will guide me,
Never more by thee caress’d,
Or proudly in gay trappings dress’d.
VI.
See, the foe, with fury glowing,
Rends my glittering shabrack flowing,
Curb of gold and broidered rein
Fiercely does he cleave in twain.
VII.
And my stately neck is drooping,
’Neath a fearful burthen stooping—
There a dead man lies supine,
Cold as ice—the Form is thine!
INSTABILITY.
FROM THE SPANISH.—SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
“Como estoy alegre
Tristezas temo.”
WHEN the day is brightest,
Darkness draweth near;
When the heart is lightest,
Coming grief I fear.
Eyes of heavenly splendour,
Radiance o’er me fling;
But when their light’s most tender
I fear its vanishing.
Lips, where passion keepeth
Holiest incense, bend to mine;
But when woman speaketh,
Who would trust so false a shrine?
Even in twined caresses
Where love has woven his spells,
Of the mutual love that blesses,
I hear a voice which tells.
As light with darkness weddeth,
So must pleasure with annoy,
And sorrow ever treadeth
On the doomed path of joy.
A WARNING.
FROM THE DANISH.
I.
FAIR GUNIVER roam’d in the sunset light,
Through wood and wold,
In sweet dreams of love, but her heart was bright
As proven gold.
Yet ever a voice to the maiden spoke,
Beware—beware of the false men‐folk!
II.
Fair Guniver fished by a lonely stream,
With silken line,
And smiled to see in the silvery gleam
Her image shine.
Yet ever a voice still whispered there,
My child, of the
false men‐folk
false-men folk
beware!
III.
Lo! a Merman rose from the sedgy reeds,
With glittering eyes,
And a mantle of pale‐green ocean weeds
Draped kingly‐wise;
And wreath’d with the mist of his flowing hair,
Was a crown of the river‐lotus fair.
IV.
Sweet Guniver, said he, in tones that fell
So low and clear,
Like music that breathes from the caverned shell
In the listner’s ear:
I’ve gazed on thy beauty down deep in the sea,
And my heart pines away for the love of thee.
V.
Yet I ask thee to grant but one demand,
Oh! let me rest
My burning lips on thy snow‐white hand,
One instant blest:
And dream not of harm, for a Merman’s truth
Is pure as a maiden’s in stainless youth.
VI.
Fair Guniver, heed not the tongues that tell
Of man’s vain wile,
For our artless souls, thou knowest full well,
Disdain all guile.
Is it much to ask for thy hand to rest
One moment, in love, on thy throbbing breast?
VII.
’Tis a gentle prayer, she answered, to sue
For one alone;
So, beautiful Merman, here take the two
Within thine own;
And if, as thou sayest, my hand can bless,
Place both to thy lips in one love caress.
VIII.
He took her white hands, and he drew her down,
With laughter hoarse;
But the fishermen weep, for they look upon
Fair Guniver’s corse.
And still, by her lone grave, the same voice spoke,
Beware—oh! beware of the false men‐folk!
CASSANDRA.
FROM SCHILLER.
I.
JOY in Ilion’s hall resoundeth,
Ere the mighty city fell;
Festive hymns of triumph sounded
With the gold harp’s richest swell.
Each stern warrior rests at last
From that strife of direst slaughter;
For the brave Pelides weds
Royal Priam’s loveliest daughter.
II.
Troop on troop, with laurel garlands,
Slowly swept the bridal train
Onward to the sacred temple
Where arose the Thymbrian’s fane.
By them ran, with long hair streaming,
Ivy‐crownéd Mænades;
One alone, of sorrow dreaming,
Wandered in her wretchedness.
III.
Joyless, while they chant their praises—
None to soothe her, none to love—
Did Cassandra tread the mazes
Of Apollo’s laurel grove;
To the wild wood’s deepest shadow
Fled the mystic maiden now,
And she dashed the priestess‐fillet
Wildly from her throbbing brow.
IV.
“Everywhere are sounds of gladness,
From each happy heart awoke;
I alone must rove in sadness,
I alone must grief invoke.
Joy illumes my father’s features,
Garlanded my sisters stand—
Yet I hear the rushing pinions
Of Destruction o’er our land.
V.
“Wildly high a torch is flashing,
But ’tis not from Hymen’s hand;
Upward see the red stream dashing,
But ’tis not an altar brand.
Costly viands, festal dances,
Wait the bridegroom and the bride—
Yet the Avenger’s step advances,
Who will crush them in their pride.
VI.
“And they mock my prophet wailing,
And they scorn my words of woe;
Fatal gift and unavailing—
Still I’ve wandered to and fro,
Shunn’d by all the happy round me,
Scorned by all where’er I trod;
Heavily thou hast foredoomed me,
Oh! thou mighty Pythian God!
VII.
“Why on me was laid the mission:
Lift the future’s mystic shroud?
Why to me the seer’s vision
’Mid a spirit‐darkened crowd?
When the mortal arm is weak,
Wherefore give the prophet’s power?
Can it turn the stream, or break
Clouds of woe that darkly lower?
VIII.
“Wherefore lift the pall o’ershading
Dark and dread Futurity?
Ignorance is joy unfading—
Knowledge, death and misery.
Oh! recall thy mournful mission—
Take the future from my sight:
Fatal is the prophet’s vision
To the form that shrines its light.
IX.
“Give me back the happy blindness,
Ere my childhood felt thy spell;
Never sang I in joy’s wildness
Since I heard thy oracle.
Clear the future lies before me,
But the present veiled away;
Oh! to life and joy restore me—
Take thy cruel gift away!
X.
“Never round my perfumed tresses
May the bridal wreath entwine;
’Mid thy temple’s drear recesses
Doomed in loneliness to pine.
Never o’er my youth of weeping
Did one happy moment rise—
Never aught but sorrow reaping
From thy fatal mysteries.
XI.
“See my gay companions round me,
Blessed with all that love can give;
I alone, my youth consuming,
Live to weep, and weep to live.
Vain to me the sun, the skies,
The flowers on the green earth bending;
Who the joys of life would prize
That could know their bitter ending?
XII.
“Thou, Polyxena, art happy
In thy love’s first deep excess,
Hellas gives her bravest hero
To thy young heart’s fond caress.
Proudly is her bosom heaving,
Conscious of her bridegroom’s love,
Whilst her dreams of pleasure weaving,
Envies not the Gods above.
XIII.
“And I, too, have trembled gazing
Upon one my heart adored—
In his deep eyes’ soft appraising
Reading love’s unspoken word.
Bridal vows I’d fain have uttered,
Oh, to him how willingly!
But there stepped a Stygian spectre
Nightly between him and me.
XIV.
“Pale and hideous phantoms haunt me,
From the realms of Proserpine;
Ghastly shades of gloom confront me,
Everywhere my steps incline;
Even in festive scenes of pleasure,
Stifling bright youth’s careless glee—
Oh! that I could know the treasure
Of a young heart’s gaiety!
XV.
“Ha! the murderer’s steel is beaming!
The murderer’s eye glares wildly bright!
Whither shall I fly the gleaming
Of the Future’s lurid light?
All in vain I turn my glances—
Still the vision’s ghastly hand
Points my doom as it advances:
Death within the stranger’s land.”
XVI.
Does the phophet‐maiden falter?
Hark! those wild disordered cries!
Slain before the sacred altar,
Dead the son of Thetis lies.
Eris shakes her wreathed serpents—
All the Gods their temples shun—
And a thunder‐cloud is resting
Heavily on Ilion!
UNDINÉ.
FROM THE DANISH.
I.
UNDINÉ by the lonely shore,
In lonely grief, is pacing;
The vows her perjured lover swore
No more with hope retracing.
Yet none in beauty could compare
With ocean’s bright‐haired daughter.
Her cheek is like the lotus fair
That lieth on the water;
II.
Her eye is like the azure sky,
The azure deep reflecteth;
Her smile, the glittering lights on high,
The glittering wave collecteth.
Her robe of green with many a gem
And pearl of ocean shineth,
And round her brow a diadem
Of rosy coral twineth.
III.
Like diamonds scattered here and there,
The crystal drops are glistening
Amid her flowing golden hair,
As thus she paceth listening—
Listening through the silver light,
The light that lover loveth;
Listening through the dark midnight,
But still no lover cometh.
IV.
An earthly love her heart enthralls,
She loves with earth’s emotion;
For him she left her crystal halls
Beneath the crystal ocean.
Abjured them since he placed that day
The gold ring on her finger,
Though still the sparkling diamond spray
Around her robe would linger.
V.
And she hath gained a human soul,
The soul of trusting woman;
But love hath only taught her dole,
Through tears she knows the human.
So from her sisters far apart,
Her lonely path she taketh,
With human sorrow in the heart
That human love forsaketh.
VI.
She weaves a crown of dripping reeds,
On which the moon shines ghastly—
“A wedding crown my lover needs,
My pale hands weave it fastly.”
She treads a strange and solemn dance,
The waves around her groaning,
And mingles, with prophetic sense,
Her singing with their moaning.
VII.
“My bridegroom, nought can save thee now,
Since plighted troth is broken—
The fatal crown awaits thy brow,
The fatal spell is spoken.
Thou’rt standing by another bride,
Before the holy altar—
A shadowy form at thy side
Will make thy strong heart falter.
VIII.
“To her, within the holy church,
Thy perjured vows art giving;
But never shalt thou cross the porch
Again amidst the living.
I wait thee ’neath the chill cold waves,
While marriage‐bells are tolling;
Our bridal chant, ’neath ocean’s caves,
Be ocean’s billows rolling.”
IX.
The bridegroom, in his pride of youth,
Beside the fair bride standeth—
“Now take her hand to plight thy troth,”
The solemn Priest commandeth.
But lo! a shadowy form is seen
Betwixt the bridal greeting,
A shadowy hand is placed between,
To hinder theirs from meeting.
X.
The priest is mute, the bridegroom pale—
He knows the sea‐nymph’s warning;
The fair bride trembles
’neath
'neth
her veil,
The bridal’s turned to mourning.
No more within the holy church,
Love’s holy vows are giving;
They bear the bridegrom from the porch—
The dead amidst the living!
NOTE TO UNDINÉ
These Undinés, or Ocean Nymphs, according to the Northern Mythology,
are gentle, beautiful, harmless creations in the form of woman, but
without a soul. They can attain this only by union with a mortal,
and as they have a passionate desire to ascend into the higher life
of humanity, they seek such earthly unions, not guilefully, like the
Sirens, but lovingly, aspiringly, as the human might aspire to the
angel. It is a beautiful mythus, and veils a deep and profound
meaning. De La Motte Fouqué has made it familiar to all readers by
his exquisite romance of “Undiné,” and Bulwer has revealed some of
the hidden truths shadowed forth by the fable, in his two novels of
“Ernest Maltravers” and “Alice”—namely, the power of love to create
an intellect, in fact, a soul in woman. For,
to the deep‐thinking, close‐observing psychologist, there is no
truth more evident than that, under the influence of love, a woman’s
intellect,
genius
genuis
, energy, all the powers of her mind seem capable of
infinite expansion. And just in proportion as love has need of them,
do the particular qualities start into life and unimagined vigour;
be it fortitude, heroism, mental energy, even physical courage, love
seems to have the power to create them all. Nothing is impossible to
a woman that loves, as nothing is impossible
to a man who wills. Another truth is
symbolised in this ocean hieroglyphic—namely, that it is the
instinct of a woman’s nature to aspire, while the instinct of a
man’s nature is to deteriorate—to gravitate towards the animal, to a
lower sphere of existence. Woman always loves heavenward; she has
the instinct of ascension like flame and ether. Man always loves
earthward; he gravitates to earth, not to spirit: so that we may
formulize thus:—Love gives soul to a woman, but takes it from a man.
This is assuming what, indeed, is true, that man always bestows his
love, by preference, on fair Undinés without souls. When united to
such he necessarily divides his soul with her, for all things in
nature tend to an equalization, and as he gives half so he loses
half. What the result would be if a man of genius wedded a priestess
of the eternal fire we have no means of ascertaining; for history
contains no solitary instance of a
man of genius becoming united to his equal: that true correlative of
his soul, of which Plato speaks, but which no one, so destiny seems
to decree, shall ever find on earth.
We may imagine, indeed, the possibility of a beautiful, lofty,
soaring spirit, standing ever beside man in the combat of life. A
serene influence, almost as invisible, yet as sustaining as the
ether of heaven, filling him with all divine impulses, strengthening
all his noble aspirations, exciting his spirit upwards by all rich
and radiant foreshadowings of glory, as Minerva stood, bright in
deity, yet loving as humanity, beside her favourite warrior on the
plains
plalns
of Troy. But this is but a fabulous hypothesis; for, as we
have said, man always loves earthward, and when united to the
soulless Undiné, quickly vanishes with her into the ocean of
inanity. Here is another cryptic meaning in the myth—the union is
represented as indissoluble. He leaves the human, and descends to
her sphere—to a lower state of existence. A man without the
influence of love may rise to any height; love is not the absolute
requirement for his elevation, as it is for woman’s; but, bound to
an inferior nature, he must fall, and does fall invariably,
irrecoverably, precisely down to her level. There is no hope for
him. He cannot resist the fatal miasma of commonplace. He falls for
ever into the dull abyss of mediocrity. We are not proof against any
of the daily influences, however trivial, that surround us. Always
there is a tendency to assimilation, either by ascension or
deterioration, and Tennyson’s proposition is as true in the
converse, as in the original statement:—
As the wife is so the husband—he will sink down
day by day,
What is fine within him growing coarse to sympathise with
clay.
And now, as every fable must have a moral, what shall we learn
from this mythus of the fatal termination of men who “herd with
narrow foreheads?” The moral is obvious. Let all genius remain unwed—
All unmated—all unmated
Because so consecrated.
THE PAST.
FROM the far off time of my youthful prime
A light comes evermore;
Oh! it seems so bright in its far‐off light,
The glory I had of yore.
What the swallow sang with its silvery clang,
When autumn and spring were near;
What the church bells rung and the choristers sung,
The chant and the song I hear.
Oh! that parting day when I went away,
How my heart to joy awoke!
And again I came, but ah! not the same,
For the trusting heart was broke.
Since that parting day—that parting day—
Through the fair bright world I’ve ranged,
And the world is there still as bright and fair—
But I—’tis I have changed.
Oh! childhood’s truth, with its words of sooth,
And its lips as pure as gold,
Like a bird it sung, and its untaught tongue
Was wise as the prophets of old.
Bright home and hearth, in this joyless dearth,
Could thy holy vision gleam
But once, once more from the far‐off shore
Of the past, as a heavenly dream!
Oh! the swallow may come from her southern home,
The spendthrift regain his gold,
The church bells ring, and the choristers sing
Again as they did of old;
But the hopes of youth and its trusting truth,
And bright sunny laughter gleams,
Once passed and o’er, can return no more,
Except in the land of dreams.
THE FISHERMAN.
I.
THE water rushes—the water foams—
A fisherman sat on the bank,
And calmly gazed on his flowing line,
As it down in the deep wave sank,
The water rushes—the water foams—
The bright waves part asunder,
And with wondering eyes he sees arise
A nymph from the caverns under.
II.
She sprang to him—she sang to him—
Ah! wherefore dost thou tempt
With thy deadly food, my bright‐scaled brood
From out their crystal element?
Could’st thou but know our joy below,
Thou would’st leave the harsh, cold land,
And dwell in our caves ’neath the glittering waves,
As lord of our sparkling band.
III.
See you not now the bright sun bow
To gaze on his form here;
And the pale moon’s face wears a softer grace
In the depths of our silver sphere.
See the fleecy shroud of the azure cloud
In the heaven beneath the sea;
And look at thine eyes, what a glory lies
In their lustre. Come, look with me.
IV.
The water rushes—the water foams—
The cool wave kiss’d his feet.
The maiden’s eyes were like azure skies,
And her voice was low and sweet.
She sung to him—she clung to him—
O’er the glittering stream they lean;
Half drew she him, half sunk he in,
And never more was seen.
THE IDEAL.
FROM SCHILLER.
I.
SO wilt thou, Faithless! from me sever,
With all thy brilliant phantasy?
With all thy joys and sorrows never
For prayers or tears come back to me?
Oh, golden time of youthful life!
Can nothing, Swift One, stay thy motion?
In vain! thy waves, with ruthless strife,
Flow on to the eternal ocean.
II.
Quenched are the glorious suns that glowing
Bright o’er my youthful pathway shone,
And thoughts the prescient heart o’erflowing
With burning inspirations, gone.
For ever fled the trusting faith
In visions of my youthful dreaming,
Reality has risen to scathe
Their all too fair and godlike gleaming.
III.
As once with wild desire entreating,
Pygmalion the stone enclasped,
’Till o’er the marble pale lips fleeting
Life, hope, and passion glowed at last;
So, around Nature’s cold form weaving
My youthful arms, her lips I pressed,
Until her lifeless bosom heaving,
Throbbed life‐like on my poet‐breast.
IV.
An answering chord to passion’s lyre
Within her silent frame I woke;
She gave me back my kiss of fire,
And in my heart’s deep language spoke.
Then lived for me the tree, the flower,
The silver streams in music sang;
All soulless things in that bright hour,
With echoes of my spirit rang.
V.
The while it sought with eager strife,
To clasp Creation with its arm,
And spring incarnated to life
In deed, or word, or sound, or form.
How glorious then the world upfolded,
Within its shrouding calyx seen!
How little when Time’s hand unroll’d it!
That little, oh! how poor and mean!
VI.
But, as the wayward, rippling motion
Of some bright rock‐stream gathers strength,
Until, in kingly waves of ocean,
It dashes down the height at length:
With storm, and sound, and power, crushing
The granite rock, or giant tree;
Proud in its chainless fury rushing,
To mingle with the rolling sea.
VII.
So, filled with an immortal daring,
No chains of care around his form,
Hope’s impress on his forehead bearing,
The youth sprang forth amid Life’s storm.
Ev’n to dim ether’s palest star
Wing’d fancy bore him on untiring;
Nought was too high, and nought too far,
For those strong pinions’ wild aspiring!
VIII.
How swiftly did they bear him, dashing
Through all youth’s fiery heart could dare!
How danced before life’s chariot flashing
Bright aërial visions there!
Love in her sweetest beauty gleaming,
Fortune with golden diadem crown’d,
Truth like the glittering sunlight streaming,
Fame with her starry circlet bound!
IX.
Alas! those bright companions guided
Through only half of life’s dark way;
All false and fleeting, none abided
With the lone wanderer to stray.
First light, capricious Fortune vanished—
Still love of lore consumed his youth;
But doubt’s dark tempest rose and banished
The sun‐bright form of radiant Truth.
X.
I saw the sacred crown degraded,
Of Fame, upon a common brow—
And, ah! ’ere yet life’s summer faded,
I saw Love’s sweetest spring‐flowers bow.
And ever silenter, and ever
Lonelier grew the dreary way—
Scarce even could hope, with frail endeavour
Shed o’er the gloom a ghastly ray.
XI.
But who, amid the train false‐hearted,
Stayed lovingly with me to roam—
Still from my side remains unparted,
And follows to my last dark home?
Thou, who with joys and sorrows blending,
Thy gentle hand to soothe each wound,
And bear life’s burdens, ever lending,
Thou, Friendship, early sought and found.
XII.
And thou, with Friendship wedded ever,
To calm the tempest of the soul—
Exhaustless study! wearying never,
Creating while the ages roll.
Still the world‐temple calm uprearing,
Tho’ grain on grain thou can’st but lay,
And striking, with a
ceaseless
ceasless
daring,
Time’s minutes, days, and years away.
THE EXILE.
I.
SPRING’S sweet odours from the meadow
Fling their fragrance far and wide,
And the tall trees cast the shadow
Of the winter’s gloom aside;
But for me no spring is bearing
Gladness to my heart despairing;
Comes no more with soothing power
Kindly voice, or friendly hand,
Song of home, or breath of flower,
From my own dear native land.
II.
High in Heaven, circling nightly,
Moon and stars shine overhead;
Mighty rivers rush on brightly
To the ocean’s distant bed;
But for me, in sorrow pining,
Star and stream in vain are shining,
Foreign skies are drear above me,
By a foreign shore I stand,
Thinking of the friends that love me,
In my own dear far‐off land.
DEATH WISHES.
OH! might I pass as the evening ray
Melts in the deep’ning twilight away;
Calmly and gently thus would I die,
Untainted by ills of mortality.
Oh! might I pass as the silver star
That glitters in radiant light afar.
Thus silent and sorrowless fade from sight,
Lost in the deep blue ether of night.
Oh! might I pass as the fragrant breath
Springing from violets crushed to death,
And rise from the dull, cold earthly sod,
As an incense‐cloud to the throne of God.
Oh! might I pass as the morning showers
Drank by the sun from the cups of flowers:
Would that the fire of eternal love
Thus exhaled my life‐weary soul above!
Oh! might I pass as Æolian notes,
When over the chords the soft wind floats:
But ere the silver strings are at rest,
Find an echo within the Creator’s breast.
“Thou wilt not pass in music or light,
Nor silently sink in the ether of night,
Nor die the gentle death of the flower,
Nor be drank by the sun like a morning shower.
“Thou wilt pass, but not till thy beauty is withered,
Not till thy powers and hopes lie shivered:
Silence and beauty are Nature’s death‐token;
But the poor human heart, ere it die—must be broken!”
HYMN TO THE CROSS.
SAVONAROLA.
JESUS, refuge of the weary,
Object of the spirit’s love,
Fountain in life’s desert dreary,
Saviour from the world above!
Oh, how oft Thine eyes, offended,
Gazed upon the sinner’s fall;
Yet, Thou on the Cross extended,
Bore the penalty of all!
For our human sake enduring
Tortures infinite in pain;
By Thy death our life assuring,
Conquerors through Thee we reign.
Still we passed the Cross in scorn,
Breathing no repentant vow,
Though from ’neath the circling thorn,
Dropped the blood‐sweat off Thy brow.
Yet, Thy sinless death hath brought us
Life eternal, peace and rest;
What Thy grace alone hath taught us,
Calms the sinner’s stormy breast.
Jesus, would my heart were burning
With more vivid love for Thee!
Would mine eyes were ever turning
To Thy Cross of agony!
Would that on that Cross suspended
I the martyr’s palm might win—
Where the Lord, the heaven‐descended,
Sinless suffered for my sin!
Cross of torture! may’st thou rend me
With thy fierce, unearthly dole;
Welcome be the pangs that lend me
Strength to crush sin in my soul.
So, in pain and rapture blending,
Might my fading eyes grow dim,
While the freed heart rose, ascending
To the circling Seraphim.
Then in glory, parted never
From the blessed Saviour’s side,
Graven on my heart for ever
Be the Cross, and Crucified!
JESUS TO THE SOUL.
SAVONAROLA.
FAIR SOUL, created in the primal hour,
Once pure and grand,
And for whose sake I left my throne and power
At God’s right hand—
By this sad heart, pierced through because I love thee
Let love and mercy to contrition move thee.
Cast off the sins thy holy beauty veiling,
Spirit divine!
Vain against thee the host of hell assailing—
My strength is thine.
Drink from my side the wine of life immortal,
And love will lead thee back to Heaven’s portal.
Quench in my light the flame of low desire,
Crush doubt and fear;
Even to my glory may each soul aspire,
If victor here.
Die now to earth, with earthly vanity,
And live for evermore in Heaven with me.
I, for thy sake, was pierced with many sorrows,
And bore the Cross;
Yet heeding not the galling of the arrows,
The shame or loss.
So, faint not thou, whate’er the burden be,
Bear with it bravely, even to Calvary.
Still shall my spirit urge if thou delayest,
My hand sustain;
My blood wash out thy errors if thou strayest—
Plead I in vain?
An hour is coming when the judgment loometh;
Repent, fair soul, ere yet that hour cometh.
[The Italian original of these two
beautiful Hymns will be found in Doctor Madden’s most admirable and
interesting life of Savonarola.]
TRISTAN AND ISOLDE.
THE LOVE SIN.
NONE, unless the saints above,
Knew the secret of their love;
For with calm and stately grace
Isolde held her queenly place,
Tho’ the courtiers’ hundred eyes
Sought the lovers to surprise,
Or to read the mysteries
Of a love—so rumour said—
By a magic philtre fed,
Which for ever in their veins
Burn’d with love’s consuming pains.
Yet their hands would twine unseen,
In a clasp ’twere hard to sever;
And whoso watched their glances meet,
Gazing as they’d gaze for ever,
Might have marked the sudden heat
Crims’ning on each flushing cheek,
As the tell‐tale blood would speak
Of love that never should have been—
The love of Tristan and his Queen.
But, what hinders that the two,
In the spring of their young life,
Love each other as they do?
Thus the tempting thoughts begin—
Little recked they of the sin;
Nature joined them hand in hand,
Is not that a truer band
Than the formal name of wife?
Ah! what happy hours were theirs!
One might note them at the feast
Laughing low to loving airs,
Loving airs that pleased them best;
Or interchanging the swift glance
In the mazes of the dance.
So the sunny moments rolled,
And they wove bright threads of gold
Through the common web of life;
Never dreaming of annoy,
Or the wild world’s wicked strife;
Painting earth and heaven above
In the light of their own joy,
In the purple light of love.
Happy moments, which again
Brought sweet torments in their train:
All love’s petulance and fears,
Wayward doubts and tender tears;
Little jealousies and pride,
That can loving hearts divide:
Murmured vow and clinging kiss,
Working often bane as bliss;
All the wild, capricious changes
Through which lovers’ passion ranges.
Yet would love, in every mood,
Find Heaven’s manna for its food;
For love will grow wan and cold,
And die ere ever it is old,
That is never assailed by fears,
Or steeped in repentant tears,
Or passed through the fire like gold.
So loved Tristan and Isolde,
In youth’s sunny, golden time,
In the brightness of their prime;
Little dreaming hours would come,
Like pale shadows from the tomb,
When an open death of doom
Had been still less hard to bear,
Than the ghastly, cold despair
Of those hidden vows, whose smart
Pale the cheek, and break the heart.
THEKLA.
A SWEDISH SAGA.
THE TEMPTATION.
ON the green sward Thekla’s lying,
Summer winds are round her sighing,
At her feet the ocean plays;
In that mirror idly gazing
She beholds, with inward praising,
Her own beauty in amaze.
And with winds and waves attuning
Her low voice, in soft communing
Said: “If truly I’m so fair,
Might the best in our Swedish land
Die all for love of my white hand,
Azure eyes and golden hair.”
And fair Thekla bent down gazing,
Light her golden curls upraising
From her bosom fair to see,
Which, within the azure ocean,
Glittered
back
hack
in soft commotion,
Like a lotus tremblingly.
Saying soft, with pleasure trembling,
“If so fair is the resembling,
How much fairer I must be!
Rose‐lipped shadow, smiling brightly,
Are we angels floating lightly
Through the azure air and sea?
“Oh! that beauty never faded,
That years passing never shaded
Youthful cheek with hues of age!
Oh! thou fairest crystal form,
Can we not time’s hand disarm?”
Hark! the winds begin to rage;
And with onward heaving motion
Rise the waves in wild commotion—
Spirits mournfullest they seem
Round the crystal shadow plaining,
Shivered, shattered, fades it waning
From the maiden like a dream.
And from midst the drooping oziers
Of the sunny banks’ enclosures
Rose a woman weird to see:
Strange her
mien
mein
and antique vesture,
Yet with friendly look and gesture
To the trembling girl spake she.
“As the cruel winds bereft thee
Of the shadow that hath left thee,
Maiden, will thy children steal
One by one these treasures from thee,
Till all beauty hath foregone thee:
Mother’s woe is children’s weal.
“For the beauty of the mother
Is the children’s—sister, brother,
As she fades away, will bloom.
Mother’s eyes grow dim by weeping,
Wan her
cheek
cheak
, lone vigils keeping:
Youthful virgin, ’ware your doom!
“Wifely name is sweet from lover,
Yet ere many years are over,
From the fatal day you wed,
Sore you’ll rue the holy altar,
And the salt sea will grow salter
For the bitter tears you’ll shed.
“See the pallid cheek reflected,
Hollow, sunken eyes dejected,
Look of weary, wasting pain;
All changed for thy beauty rarest:
Maiden, tell me, if thou darest
Then come here, and look again.
“But should lovers’ pleading gain thee,
Haste thee quick and I will sain thee
Ere the marriage vows are said;
By the might of magic power,
I can save thee from the hour
Of a mother’s anguish dread.”
Answered Thekla:: “Save me! save me!
Witch or woman, then I crave thee,
From a mother’s fated doom!
So my beauty never fading
Thou canst make with magic aiding,
Fatal Mother, I shall come.”
THE SIN.
’Neath the casement stood a Ritter,
Sings by night with sweetest tone:
“Thekla, dearest Thekla, listen,
Wilt thou be my bride, mine own?
“Castles have I, parks and forests,
Mountains veined with the red gold;
And a heart that pineth for thee,
With a wealth of love untold.
“I will deck my love in jewels,
Gold and
pearl
peril
on brow and hand,
Broidered robes and costly girdles,
From the far‐off Paynim land.
“Here I hang upon the rose‐tree,
Love, a little golden ring;
Wilt thou take it? wilt thou wear it,
Love?” Thus did the Ritter sing.
Then upon his black steed mounting,
Kissed his hand and doffed his plume.
Lovely Thekla stole down gently,
Sought the gold ring in the gloom.
“Little ring, wilt thou deceive me?
Like the rose dost hide a thorn?”
As she takes it, close beside her
Sounds a ringing laugh of scorn.
And the fatal Mother, mocking,
Points her finger to the ring:
“What, my maiden! sold thy beauty
For that paltry glittering thing?
“Plucked the bauble from a rose‐tree?
Ring and rose and doom in all;
Roses bright from cheek of beauty,
Roses bright must fade and fall.
“Wilt thou follow me?” They glided
Over heath, through moor and wood,
Till beside an ancient windmill,
In the lone, dark night they stood.
All the mighty wheels were silent,
All the giant arms lay still—
“Bride and wife, but never mother,
Maiden, swear, is such thy will?
“Dost swear?” “I swear!” They glided
Up the stairs and through the door,
With her wand the magic Mother
Draws a circle on the floor.
Grains of yellow corn, seven,
Takes she from a sack beside,
Draws the gold ring of her lover
From the finger of the bride.—
“Seven children would have stolen
Light and beauty from thine eyes,
But as I cast the yellow corn
Through thy gold ring, each one dies.
Slowly creaked the mill, then faster
Whirled the giant arms on high;
Shuddering, hears the trembling maiden
Crushing bones, and infant’s cry.
Now there is a deathlike silence,
Thekla hears her heart alone—
Again the weird one flings the corn,
Again that
plaintive
plantive
infant’s moan.
Two—three—four—the mill goes faster,
Whirling, crushing.—Ah! those cries!
“Bride, thou’lt never be a mother;
Thy beauty’s saved—the seventh dies!”
Seven turns the mill hath taken,
Seven moans hath Thekla heard:
Then all is still. The moon from Heaven
Shines down calm upon the sward.
“Now take back thy ring in safety;
Mother’s joy or mother’s woe,
Wasting pain or fading beauty,
Maiden, thou shalt never know!
“Home, before the morning hour!”
Home in terror Thekla flies,
Shuddering, she hears behind her
Laugh of scorn, infants’ cries.
THE BRIDAL.
The guests have met in the castle hall.
Who rides through the castle gate,
With banner and plume? The young bridegroom
And a hundred knights in state.
The guests have met in procession fair,
Around the bride they stand;
The myrtle wreath on her golden hair,
The bride ring on her hand.
So bright her beauty she dazed men’s eyes,
Like the blinding, glorious sun.
“Never knight,” they murmured, “gained such prize
Since ever the world begun.”
Seven maidens held up her train of white,
Inwrought with the precious gold,
And over it flowed in a stream of light
Her long, bright hair unrolled.
Seven pages, each with a lighted torch,
Precede her as she moves
With the long array to the ancient church
Within the beechen groves.
The priest stood mute with the holy book,
And scarce could utter a prayer,
As that lovely vision of light and youth
Knelt down before him there.
She vows the vows. Erick bends to place
The gold ring on her hand,
Prouder then, as he gazed on her face,
Than if King of the Swedish land.
The lights were bright in the hall that night,
But brighter Thekla’s glance,
As in wedded pride, by Erick’s side,
She led the bridal dance.
“Drink! and wave high the flaming pines;
God bless the bride so fair!
May a goodly race, like clustering vines,
Twine round the wedded pair!”
The “vivas” rung for the noble race,
Till they stirred the banners of gold,
And the bridegroom bow’d with a stately grace;
But the bride sat mute and cold—
For the air seemed heavy as that of graves,
And the lights burned lurid and chill;
And she hears the dash of the far‐off waves,
And the creak of the mighty mill.
The “vivas” sound like an infant’s wail,
Or a demon’s laugh of scorn.
“Oh! would to God,” she murmured, all pale,
“That I had never been born!”
THE PUNISHMENT.
Full seven years have passed and flown—
But years o’er Thekla lightly pass,
As rose leaves, falling one by one,
From roses on the summer grass.
“It is our bridal day,” she said;
“We’re bidden to a christ’ning feast
I’ll wear the robe I had when wed,
The robe I love of all the best.
“I’ll wear my crown of jewels rare:
On brow and bosom let them shine;
Yet diamonds in my golden hair
Were dull beside these eyes of mine!”
She laughed aloud before the glass.
“Some women’s hair would turn to grey
With cares, ere half the years did pass
I’ve numbered since my wedding day.
“But they were mothers—fools, I trow.
Life’s current all too quickly runs;
I would not give my beauty now
For all their goodly race of sons.”
She sprang upon her palfrey white,
While Erick held the
broidered
broiderd
rein,
And showered down her veil of light
Upon the flowing, silky mane.
The guests rose up in wonderment—
Such beauty never had been seen—
And bowed before her as she went,
As if she were a crownéd queen.
The knights pressed round with words of praise,
And murmured homage in her ear,
And swore to serve her all their days,
E’en die for her—would she but hear.
But vainly, all in vain they sought
One answering smile of love to win.
Upon her soul there lieth nought
Save that one only, deadly sin.
“I pray you now I fain would have
So fair an angel hold my child,”
The mother said; and
smiling
smilling
, gave
To Thekla’s arms her infant mild.
Advancing slow, with stately air,
Beside the font she took her place,
The infant, like a rosebud fair,
Nestling amid her bosom’s lace.
She lays it on the bishop’s arm,
The while he makes the blessed sign,
And sains it safe from ghostly harm
By Father, Spirit, Son Divine.
Then reaches out her hands again
To take it—but with moaning sound,
Like one distraught with sudden pain,
Falls pale and fainting to the ground.
“She has no children,” Erick said,
As pleading for the strange mischance;
“This only grief since we were wed
Has saddened sore her life, perchance.”
“She has no children!” murmured low
The happy mothers, gathered near;
“No child to love her—bitter woe;
No child to kiss her on her bier!”
But graver matrons shook the head:
“That witchlike beauty bodes no good;
Witch hands can never hold, ’tis said,
A child just blessed by holy rood.”
They raised her up; she spake no word,
But slowly drooped her tearful eyes;
The rushing wave was all she heard,
The whirling wheels, the infants’ cries.
And Erick said, with bitter smile:
“You play the mother all too ill;
Madonnas do not suit your style.”
Her thoughts were by the lonely mill.
They set her on her palfrey white;
She heeds not all their taunting sneers,
But showers down her veil of light,
To hide the conscious, guilty tears.
They rode through all his vast estate,
But rode in silence—he behind,
Sore pondering on his childless fate,
With ruffled brow and moody mind.
They rode through shadowy forest glades,
By meadows filled with lowing kine,
By streams that ran like silver threads
Down from the dark‐fringed hills of pine.
“Alas!” he thought, “no child of mine
When I am dead shall take my place;
Must all the wealth of all my line
Pass to a hated kinsman’s race?
“Now, by my sword, I’d give up all,
Wealth, fame, and glory, all I’ve won,
So that within my father’s hall
Beside me stood a noble son!”
He saw her white veil floating back
Along the twilight gray and still,
Like ghostly shadows on her track—
Her thoughts were by the lonely mill.
And now they neared the ancient church,
The ancient church where they were wed!
The moonlight full upon the porch
Shone bright, and Erick raised his head.
O Heaven! There upon the lawn
The palfrey’s shadow stands out clear,
But Thekla’s shadow—it is gone!
Nor form nor floating veil is there.
He spurred his steed with bitter cry:
“Could she have fallen in deathly swoon?”
But no, there, slowly riding by,
He sees her by the bright full moon.
With gesture fierce he seized her rein:
“
Woman or fiend! Look, if you dare,
The palfrey casts a shadow plain,
But yours—O horror!—is not there!”
She gathered close her silken veil,
And wrung her hands, and prayed for grace,
While down from Heaven the calm moon pale
Looked like God’s own accusing face.
He flung aside the broidered rein:
“O woe the day that we were wed!
A witch bride to my arms I’ve ta’en,
Branded by God’s own finger dread.”
She followed, weeping, step by step,
Led by the unseen hand of Fate,
Still keeping in the shadows deep,
Until they reached the castle gate.
He strode across the corridor,
And rolling back upon its ring
The
curtain
curtan
of her chamber door,
He motioned her to enter in.
She laid aside her silken veil,
The golden circlet from her head,
And waited, motionless and pale,
Like one uprisen from the dead.
Could she deny, e’en if she would?
The moonlight wrapped her like a sheet.
And in the accusing light she stood,
As if before God’s judgment‐seat.
Brief were his questions, stern his wrath;
A doom seemed laid on her to tell,
How, with the ring of plighted troth,
Her hand had wrought the murd’rous spell.
How she had marred his ancient line,
And broke the life‐chord that should bless,
And sent the seven fair souls to pine
Back to the shades of nothingness—
That so her beauty might not wane,
Her glorious beauty—fatal good;
Yet one she would not lose to gain
The rights of sacred motherhood.
And still she told the tale as cold—
The witch‐fire burning in her eyes—
As if it were some legend old,
Drawn from a poet’s memories.
He cursed her in his bitter wrath,
He cursed her by her children dead,
He cursed the ring of plighted troth,
He cursed the day when they were wed.
Fierce and more fierce his accents rose:
“Away!” he cried, “false hag of sin:
I see through all this painted gloze
The black and hideous soul within.
“Oh! false and foul, thou art to me
A devil—not a woman fair!
Like coiling snakes I seem to see
Each twisted tress of golden hair.
“I hate thee, as I hate God’s foe.
Forth from my castle halls this night:
I could not breathe the air, if so
Thy poison breath were here to blight.”
She cowered, shivered, spake no word,
But fell before him at his feet,
As if an angel of the Lord
Had smote her at the judgment‐seat.
And on her heart there came at last
The dread, deep consciousness of sin,
That ghastly spectre which had cast
Upon her life this suffering.
And from her hand the gold ring fell—
Her wedding ring—and broke in twain;
The fatal ring that wrought the spell,
The accursed ring of love and pain.
The spell seemed broken then: the word
Came, softly breath’d: “Oh, pardon! grace!”
And pleadingly to her dread lord
She lifted up her angel face—
With golden tresses all unbound,
Still lovely through her shame and loss,
Around his feet her arms she wound,
As sinner might around the cross.
He dashed her twining hands aside,
He spurned her from him as she knelt.
“O hateful beauty!” Erick cried,
“The source of all thy hellish guilt.
“Pray for a cloud that can eclipse
That long, white streak of moonlight pale.
No word of grace from mortal lips
Can bring a ruined soul from Hell.
“Away! I would not pardon, not
(I swear it by the holy rood)
Unless upon that hated spot
An angel with a lily stood!”
She shuddered in the moonlight pale,
That doomed and banned her from his sight,
Then rose up with a bitter wail,
And fled away into the night!
THE EXPIATION.
Full seven times the summer sun
Had waked the dreaming summer flowers,
And seven times they slept again
Beneath the winter snow and showers;
And still, through summer’s parching heat,
Through winter’s storm, and rain, and snow,
Had Thekla dragged her weary feet
In one long pilgrimage of woe.
The beasts fled back at her approach,
The
sunshine
shunshine
ceased to flicker round,
The flowers withered at her touch,
And fell like corpses to the ground.
Where’er she passed there lay a gloom,
The young birds shivered in the nest,
All nature echoed back her doom,
And spurned the sinner from her breast.
She flung her sighs out to the wind:
The peasants heard that mournful wail,
And, crouching down by winter fires,
Said: “’Tis the witch‐fiend in the vale.”
They laid down food beneath the trees,
And waited, trembling, till she came,
Then fled away, for none would speak
To one so bann’d by sin and shame.
She gathered autumn leaves and moss,
Within a cavern lone and deep,
And there she crept each night to rest,
To rest, but never more to sleep.
No human voice came near to soothe,
Her anguish dimm’d no human eye,
The bond of sisterhood was rent
Between her and Humanity.
But ever when the moon was full,
All in the moonlight weird and still
Came evermore upon her ear
The moanings by the lonely mill;
And seven dread shadows entered in
And gathered round her lowly bed,
The ghastly witnesses of sin,
A silent freezing sight of dread.
All night they stayed, those phantoms pale,
Those formless
phantoms
phantons
dim and drear,
And looked at her with fixed cold eyes,
That chilled her very blood with fear.
In vain she tried to hide her face;
She felt their presence still around,
And well she knew no pitying grace
From these dread beings could be found.
She could not weep, she dare not pray,
But lay like one in coffined clay,
Till those weird phantoms, one by one,
Melted away in the morning sun,
Which fell like the light of the judgement‐day,
When the doom of the Lord is done.
Oft wandering round the ancient church,
The ruined church where they were wed,
She vainly tried to cross the porch,
And lay therein her weary head;
And her weary load of shame and sin
Upon the altar steps within.
But never, since the fatal night
She fled away from Erick’s sight,
Curs’d with his ban of deepest hate,
Had human hand unbarred the gate;
Nor priest nor chorister was there,
Nor sacred rite nor holy prayer:
Foredoom’d and desolate it stood
All in the lonely beechen wood.
God’s curse it is a bitter thing
To fall on a human soul,
Alone with its awful suffering,
With its deadly sin and dole;
’Mid the ghastly wrecks of a human life,
And memories of shame,
When thoughts of a past that would not sleep,
Like barbèd arrows came.
GOD’S JUSTICE.
And Erick roamed in distant lands,
But cannot fly his weary fate;
Before him in the lonely night,
Before him in the noonday bright,
His guilty wife for ever stands,
A thing of loathing and of hate.
Alone, as under blight and ban,
He roams, a saddened, weary man.
Yet yearnings came to him at last,
And, drawn as by a spirit hand,
He homeward turned, his wanderings past,
To his own distant Swedish land;
And rose up with a spirit grace,
As pleading to him for her life,
Before him, with her angel face,
His beautiful, his sinning wife.
The ship sailed fast through storm and wrack,
The ship sailed slow the Isles between,
And Erick, watching on the deck,
Saw rise before him, low and green,
The
Swedish
Sweedish
shores in level lines,
The fringèd shores of lordly pines:
A spirit’s touch, a spirit’s power,
Seemed on him at that magic hour.
* * * * * *
He stood within his castle halls,
The grass grew rank around the gate,
The weeds hung from the mouldering walls,
And all around was desolate.
The bridal room was closed from sight,
For none had dared to enter in,
Since by God’s awful, searching light
The sinner had confessed her sin.
Her golden ring of hellish ban
Still lay upon the marble floor,
Her broken ring—the fatal sign
Of love that could return no more.
And nought the purple curtains stirred
Save the drear night‐wind’s mournful gust,
And golden crown and silken veil
Lay mouldering in the silent dust.
A bitter cry, a mournful cry,
Was wrung by grief from Erick’s breast.
She sinned, he said, but suffered, too,
Could penitence the sin undo,
Her sinning soul had rest.
If God can pity, why should I
Relentless doom a soul to die
Unpardoned, and unblest?
Christ did not scorn the sinner’s touch:
Shall man avenge sin overmuch,
And crush the heart‐woe riven?
Fain would I say one word of grace
Ere yet I meet her face to face,
Before the throne in Heaven.
Then led as by a spirit’s might,
He wandered forth into the night,
And rested not till he stood
By the lone Chapel in the wood.
And she that night in bitter woe,
Low kneeling by the closèd gate,
Poured out the grief those only know
By God and man left desolate.
Nought but the sacred owl heard her moan
Of inarticulate agony,
As down upon the threshold stone
She sank, and prayed that she might die.
O piteous sound of vain despair,
That mournful wailing by the gate;
That wailing of a ruined soul,
Downfallen from its high estate!
She wrung her wasted hands the while,
And pressed her forehead to the bar,
As if within that holy aisle
God’s pardon yet might come to her.
The cruel moon lit up the sward,
And pierced the guilty soul within,
That blighted form, all seared and marred
With deadly consciousness of sin;
The form that threw no shadow more
Besides God’s holy temple door;
And the awful moon, sharp, cold, and clear,
Struck through her like the Avenger’s spear.
O saddest sight beneath its light,
That humbled, suffering creature!
For all too heavy lay the doom
Upon her human nature.
The curse of sin that none forego,
The agony, the pain, the strife,
The sullied soul, the wasted life,
Sin’s endless heritage of woe.
She prayed as only those can pray
Who pray to be forgiven;
She wept as only those can weep
Who fear to forfeit Heaven.
With outstretched hands and streaming eyes
She pleads to Heaven, imploring,
As if her cries could pierce the skies,
Where angels stand adoring.
O writhing hands! O wasted hands!
Flung out with frenzied gesture,
As if they fain would touch the hem
Of Christ’s fair flowing vesture.
Bitter the dole of that sinning soul,
Outcast of Earth and Heaven;
And her cry went up like a wail from Hell,
Across the night‐wind driven.
GOD’S MERCY.
A form stood by her in the night,
A human presence near her
Spoke one low word of pitying grace,
A name once uttered face to face,
When none was ever dearer—
Like oil upon the raging flame
That burned within her heart, it came,
That word of soft approving;
The first soft word that struck her ears,
Through all the long and dreary years,
Of human or of loving.
At once the barred gate opens wide,
They pass within it, side by side—
The human hand still leading;
Up through the ruined aisle they go,
When from the altar, still and slow,
Like angels onward treading,
Came seven fair spirits robed in white,
Each holding high a torch, whose light
Lit all the dark with splendour;
And the heavy air around was stirred,
As if from an Æolian chord,
With music low and tender.
“We come from God,” they murmured low,
“Thy unborn children, seven,
To break the bonds of thy bitter woe
And lead thee back to Heaven.
Thy tears have washed away thy crime,
Thou hast repented while ’tis time,
The sinner is forgiven!
“The bond is loosed, the doom is done,
We come to thee, thou sinning one,
With words of peace and pardon;
And as a sign of mercy lay
Upon thee on thy dying day
A lily as God’s guerdon.”
She sank before them on the ground,
With folded palms and hair unbound,
And eyes upraised to Heaven.
Her pale lips moved as if to pray,
But one low murmured word they say—
“Forgiven! oh, forgiven!”
And lo! while yet the shadows speak,
A dove with lily in its beak,
A snow‐white dove, came floating in,
Along the silver line of light,
And laid upon that breast of sin
A spotless lily, pure and white.
Then bending low at Erick’s feet,
As if before the Mercy‐seat,
“Pardon!” she said, “by God’s own sign,
I claim from thee that word divine
Before the Judgment‐day;
Bend lower down, and yet more low,
That I may feel thy soft tears flow
To wash my sin away.”
He took her hand as an angel might,
A dying soul to save,
And his tears fell fast as a holy chrism,
Anointing her for the grave—
He kissed her brow to still her fears,
Ere yet her eyes grew dim:
The curse is broken, she but hears
His pardon—sees but him.
The damp of death is on her brow,
The last death‐strain is over now,
The suffering soul hath fled.
The solemn shadows slowly wane,
And nought within the church remain
Save Erick and the dead.
* * * * * *
They laid her ’neath the altar stair—
Thus Erick gave command—
Wrapped in her shroud of golden hair,
The lily in her hand.
And standing in the Holy place,
With solemn voice he said:
I do recall the bitter curse
I poured upon her head.
Let the dead bells toll for the sinning soul,
Repentant, saved, forgiven;
By the dread remorse of that pallid corpse,
We feel that her sin is shriven.
She stands before the Mercy‐seat,
If human prayers can waft her,
And by that angel sign ’tis meet
We trust in God’s Hereafter.
MORAL.
God give us grace, each in his place,
To keep from sin and sinning:
Our souls we sell for gifts from Hell,
That are not worth the winning.
False smiles that lure but to betray,
False gold some demon flashes,
False hopes that lead from Heaven astray,
False fruit that turns to ashes.
WHY WEEPEST THOU?
WHY weepest thou?
A few more hours dreary,
And thy spirit, the world weary
Beneath the icy hand of death must bow;
But the fetters then will fall,
And the soul redeemed from thrall,
Will upwards mount in joy, tho’ chainéd now—
Why weepest thou?
The great Eternal One,
Round whom the planets roll,
Beholds each suffering soul
Prostrate in mortal grief before His Throne;
He numbers every tear,
He stills the throb of fear,
He guides us to our heavenly native zone—
The great Eternal One.
Then still thy fears!
Behold thy glorious home,
Yon star‐roofed azure dome—
How infinite thy Father’s house appears!
There, ah! there we’ll rest,
Poor weak ones, on His breast;
Then, mourner, let thy frail heart break in tears,
But still thy fears!
SULEIMA TO HER LOVER.
FROM THE TURKISH
THOU reck’nest seven Heavens; I but one:
And thou art it, Beloved! Voice and hand,
And eye and mouth, are but the angel band
Who minister around that highest throne—
Thy godlike heart. And there I reign supreme,
And choose, at will, the angel who I deem
Will sing the sweetest, words I love to hear—
That short, sweet song, whose echo clear
Will last throughout eternity:
“I love thee!
How I love thee!”
LA SOMBRA DE MIS CABELLOS.
FROM THE SPANISH.—SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
MY love lay there,
In the shadow of my hair,
As my glossy raven tresses downard flow;
And dark as midnight’s cloud,
The fell o’er him like a shroud:
Ah! does he now remember it or no?
With a comb of gold each night
I combed my tresses bright;
But the sportive zephyr tossed them to and fro;
So I pressed them in a heap,
For my love whereon to sleep:
Ah! does he now remember it or no?
He said he loved to gaze
On my tresses’ flowing maze,
And the midnight of my dark Moorish eyes;
And he vowed ’twould give him pain
Should his love be all in vain;
So he won me with his praises and his sighs.
Then I flung my raven hair
As a mantle o’er him there,
Encircling
Encirling
him within its mazy flow;
And pillowed on my breast,
He lay in sweet unrest:
Ah! does he now remember it or no?
CONSTANCY.
FROM THE RUSSIAN.
I.
A RAVEN on a branch is sitting;
By him comes another flitting—
Brother, where so quickly flying?
Hast thou scented dead or dying?
II.
Food and plenty sent to cheer us,
Croaks the other, we have near us.
Yonder there, amid the gorse,
Lies the murdered Baron’s corse.
III.
Who slew him? Wherefore? Woe the day!
Did the Baron’s falcon say?
Or the Baron’s steed so wild—
Or the Baron’s wife so mild?
IV.
Her flight far off the falcon’s winging;
On the steed a slave is springing;
And she?—by the pale moonlight hath fled
With the living from the dead.
THE FATE OF THE LYRIST.
THE soul is ever clinging unto form;
Action, not abstract thought, alone can warm
The great heart of Humanity—in life’s fierce storm
Pass they the Lyrist by.
The Dramatist may wear triumphant bays;
And see the wondering people’s tranc’d amaze,
The while unrolls great Homer to their gaze,
His gorgeous, many‐coloured tapestry.
But lofty Pindar’s heaven‐directed flight,
Petrarca’s song, mystic and sad as night,
Fall dull upon the common ear—their might
Is to the world a mystery.
Such spirits dwell but with the spiritual—
Their godlike souls disdaining to enthrall;
Within the limits of the actual,
Men pass, unheeding the divinity.
Their name, indeed, is echoed by the crowd;
But from amidst the masses earthward bowed,
Few lift the head, with kindred soul endowed,
To list their Orphic melody.
THE POET’S DESTINY.
THE Priest of Beauty, the Anointed One,
Through the wide world passes the Poet on.
All that is noble by his word is crown’d,
But on his brow th’ Acanthus wreath is bound.
Eternal temples rise beneath his hand,
While his own griefs are written in the sand;
He plants the blooming gardens, trails the vine—
But others wear the flowers, drink the wine;
He plunges in the depths of life to seek
Rich joys for other hearts—his own may break.
Like the poor diver beneath Indian skies,
He flings the pearl upon the shore—and dies;
DÉILLUSION.
TOO soon, alas! too soon I plunged into the world with tone and
clang,
And they scarcely comprehended what the Poet wildly sang.
Not the spirit‐glance deep gazing into nature’s inmost soul,
Not the mystic aspirations that the Poet’s words unroll.
Cold and spiritless and silent—yea, with scorn received they me,
Whilst on meaner brows around me wreath’d the laurel crown I see.
And I, who in my bosom felt the godlike nature glow,
I wore the mask of folly while I sang of deepest woe.
But, courage! years may pass—this mortal frame be laid in earth,
But my spirit reign triumphant in the country of my birth!
THE PRISONERS.
CHRISTMAS, 1869.
I.
HAS not vengeance been sated at last?
Will the holy and beautiful chimes
Ring out the old wrongs of the past,
Ring in the new glories and times?
Will the eyes of the pale prisoners rest
Once again on their loved mountain scenes,
When the crimson of East or of West
Falls o’er them as mantles on Queens?
Will they muse once again by the sea,
List the thunder of waves on the strand,
As exultant, as fearless and free
As the foam‐flakes that dash on the land?
Will they lift their wan faces to God
In the radiant, bright, infinite air,
Press their lips to the old native sod
In a rapture of praise and of prayer?
II.
Ah, the years of their young lives pass over,
Still wept out in dungeons alone,
Where the lips of a wife, child, or mother
Were never yet pressed to their own;
Years of torture and sorrow and trials,
In the gloom of the desolate cell,
Where the wrath of the sevenfold vials
Seem poured to turn Earth to a Hell;
Where strong brains are seared into madness,
And burning hearts frozen to stone,
And despair surges over life’s gladness,
And young life goes out with a moan.
Go, kneel as at graves, weeping woman—
When the last fatal sentence was said,
All ties that are tender and human
Were rent as from those that are dead.
III.
They were young then, in youth’s glorious fashion
With a pulse‐throb of fire in each vein,
And the glow and the splendours of passion
Flashing up from the heart to the brain.
Sharp as falchions their keen words reproving—
Great words moved by no coward breath—
And no crime on their souls save of loving
Their Country with love strong as death.
Oh, their hearts, how they leaped to the surface,
As a sword from the scabbard unsheathed,
Their pale faces stern with a purpose,
Their brows with Fate’s cypress enwreathed.
Grave, earnest, the judgment unheeding,
Or the wreck of their lives lying prone,
From these doomed lips the strong spirits’ pleading
Soared up from man’s bar to God’s Throne.
IV.
“We but taught men,” they said, “from the pages
Graven deep in our history and soil,
From the Litanies poured through the ages
Of sorrow, and torture, and toil;
By the insults, the mockings, the scornings,
The bondage on body and soul;
By the ruin, the slaughters, the burnings,
When death was the patriot’s goal;
By the falsehood enthroned in high places,
By the feeble hearts cowering within,
By the slave‐brand read plain on their faces,
Though the ermine might cover the sin.
We were broken and sundered and shattered,
Made thrall by the tyrant’s strong arm,
To the wild waves and fierce winds were scattered
As dead leaves swept on by the storm.
For each age gave a traitor or tyrant
To build up the wrongs that we see,
But each age, too, gives heroes aspirant
Of the Fame or the death of the Free!”
V.
Oh, Chimes ringing out in our city,
Oh, Angels that walk to and fro,
Oh, Christ‐words of pardon and pity,
Can ye speak to those souls lying low
In a sorrow no festal chime scatters,
In a night where no Angel appears,
The wasted limbs heavy with fetters,
The weary heart heavy with tears;
With the ghost of dead youth crushing on them,
And the gloom of the years yet to be,
With a blackness of darkness upon them
As of night when it falls on the sea?
VI.
When the Christmas bells ring out at even
The song of the Angels’ bright spheres,
Their sad eyes will strain up to Heaven,
Their bread will be bitter with tears.
Through our laughter will come that sad vision,
Through the ivy‐wreathed wine‐cup’s red glow,
Through our wassail the wail from their prison,
Lamentation and mourning and woe.
With sorrow wrapped round like a garment,
With ashes for joy as their crown,
With bonds tight’ning close as a cerement
They wait till God’s morning comes down;
Yet no echo from their lips will falter
Of the solemn, sweet carol or song,
But a cry, as of souls ’neath the Altar,
“How long! oh, our Lord God, how
long?”
THE DAWN.
WHAT of the night, O Watcher on the Tower?
Is the Day dawning through the golden bars?
Comes it through the midnight, over clouds that lower,
Trailing robes of crimson mid the fading stars?
“Through the rent clouds I see a splendour gleaming,
Rolling down the darkness to the far Heaven’s rim,
While through the mist the glorious Dawn upstreaming
Rises like the music of a grand choral hymn.”
From the deep valleys where the whirlwind passes,
Hear you the tramp of the coming hosts of men,
Strong in their manhood, mighty in their masses,
Swift as rushing torrents down a mountain glen?
“Far as eye can reach, where purple mists are lifted,
Thousands upon thousands are gathering in might,
Powerful as tempests when giant sails are rifted,
Beautiful as ocean in the sun’s silver light.”
See you their Banner in the free air proudly
Waving, as an oriflamme a king might bear,
Has it no legend—dare we utter loudly
All that a people may have written there?
“I see their Banner in the red dawn flashing—
Haughty is the legend, plain to all men’s sight,
Traced in their heart’s blood, which the breeze upcatching,
Flings out in flame‐words—Liberty and Right!
“Onward they come, still gathering in power,
Serried ranks of men o’er the crimson‐clouded lawn;
Banners glisten brightly in the golden shower
Pouring through the portals of the golden Dawn.
“Each bears a symbol, glorious in its meaning,
Holy as the music of the crown’d Bard’s Psalm:
Faith gazing upward, on her Anchor leaning,
Peace with the Olive, and Mercy with the Palm.”
Long have we waited, O Watcher, for the vision,
Splendid in promise we now can see it rise,
Scattering the darkness, while with hero‐mission
Brave hands uplift Hope’s banner to the skies.
Not with vain clamour, but the soul’s strength revealing
In the golden silence of all great true deeds,
Banded in strength for human rights appealing,
Banded in love for our poor human needs.
Bitter was the Past; let it rest, a new Æon
Preaches a new Gospel to man not in vain,
Earth through all her kingdoms echoes back the Pæan
Chanted once by Angels on the star‐lit plain.
Brotherhood of Nations, disdaining ancient quarrel,
Brotherhood of Peoples, flushed with a nobler rage,
Palm branch and Olive let us mingle with the Laurel
In the radiant future of the coming Age!
AN APPEAL TO IRELAND.
I.
THE sin of our race is upon us,
The pitiless, cruel disdain
Of brother for brother, tho’ coiling
Round both is the one fatal chain;
And aimless and reckless and useless
Our lives pass along to the grave
In tumults of words that bewilder,
And the conflicts of slave with slave.
II.
Yet shadows are heavy around us,
The darkness of sin and of shame,
While the souls of the Nation to slumber
Are lulled by vain visions of fame;
True hearts, passion‐wasted, and breaking
With sense of our infinite wrong,
Oh! wake them, nor dread the awaking,
We need all the strength of the strong.
III.
For we rage with senseless endeavours
In a fever of wild unrest,
While glory lies trampled, dishonoured,
Death‐pale, with a wound in her breast;
Had we loosened one chain from the spirit,
Had we strove from the ruin of things
To build up a Temple of Concord,
More fair than the palace of Kings;
IV.
Our name might be heard where the Nations
Press on to the van of the fight,
Where Progress makes war upon Evil,
And Darkness is scattered by Light.
They have gold and frankincense and myrrh
To lay at the feet of their King,
But we—what have we but the wine‐cup
Of wrath and of sorrow to bring?
V.
Let us ask of our souls, lying under
The doom of this bondage and ban,
Why we, made by God high as Angels,
Should fall so much lower than man;
Some indeed have been with us would scale
Heav’n’s heights for life‐fire if they dare—
But the vultures now gnaw at their hearts
Evermore on the rocks of Despair.
VI.
Let us think, when we stand before God,
On the Day of the Judgment roll,
And He asks of the work we have done
In the strength of each God‐like soul;
Can we answer—“Our prayers have gone up
As light from the stars and the sun,
And Thy blessing came down on our deeds
As a crown when the victory’s won.
VII.
“We fought with wild beasts, wilder passions,
As of old did the saints of God,
Tho’ our life‐blood ran red in the dust
Of the fierce arena we trod;
We led up Thy people triumphant
From Egypt’s dark bondage of sin,
And made the fair land which Thou gavest
All glorious without and within.
VIII.
“We changed to a measure of music
The discord and wail of her days,
For sorrow gave garments of gladness,
For scorn of her enemies praise;
We crowned her a Queen in the triumph
Of noble and beautiful lives,
While her chariot of Freedom rolled on
Through the crash of her fallen gyves.”
IX.
I ask of you, Princes, and Rulers,
I ask of you, Brothers around,
Can ye thus make reply for our people
When the Nations are judged or crowned?
If not, give the reins of the chariot
To men who can curb the wild steeds—
They are nearing the gulf, in this hour
We appeal by our wrongs and our needs.
X.
Stand back and give place to new leaders;
We need them—some strong gifted souls,
From whose lips, never touched by a falsehood,
The heart’s richest eloquence rolls.
True Patriots by grandeur of purpose,
True men by the power of the brain:
The chosen of God to lift upward
His Ark with hands clear of all stain.
XI.
We need them to tend the Lord’s vineyard,
As shepherds to watch round His fold,
With brave words from pure hearts outpouring,
As wine from a chalice of gold;
That the souls of the Nation uplifted,
May shine in new radiance of light,
As of old stood the Prophets transfigured
In glory with Christ on the height.
XII.
Far out where the grand western sunsets
Flush crimson the mountain and sea,
And the echoes of Liberty mingle
With the roar of the waves on the lea;
Where over the dim shrouded passes
The clouds fling a rainbow‐hued arch,
And through giant‐rent portals a people
Go forth on their sad, solemn march:
XIII.
I had dreams of a future of glory
For this fair motherland of mine,
When knowledge would bring with its splendours
The Human more near the Divine.
And as flash follows flash on the mountains,
When lightnings and thunders are hurled,
So would throb in electrical union
Her soul with the soul of the world.
XIV.
For we stand too apart in our darkness,
As planets long rent from the sun,
And the mystical breath of the spirit
Scarce touches our hearts sweeping on.
I appeal from this drear isolation
To earth, to the mountains, and sky—
Must we die as of thirst in a desert,
While full tides of life pass us by?
XV.
Yet still, through the darkness and sorrow,
I dream of a time yet to be,
When from mountain and ocean to Heaven
Will rise up the Hymn of the Free.
When our Country, made perfect through trial,
White‐robed, myrtle‐crowned, as a Bride,
Will stand forth, “a Lady of Kingdoms,”
Through Light and through Love glorified.