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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Death-Wake, by Thomas T Stoddart
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Death-Wake
+       or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras
+
+Author: Thomas T Stoddart
+
+Commentator: Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: August 27, 2005 [EBook #16601]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEATH-WAKE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sankar Viswanathan and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            THE DEATH-WAKE
+                               OR LUNACY
+
+                             A NECROMAUNT
+                           IN THREE CHIMERAS
+
+
+                         BY THOMAS T. STODDART
+
+
+                         WITH AN INTRODUCTION
+                            BY ANDREW LANG
+
+
+
+         Is't like that lead contains her?...
+                           It were too gross
+         To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.
+
+                                        SHAKESPEARE
+
+
+
+
+                           LONDON: JOHN LANE
+                        CHICAGO: WAY & WILLIAMS
+                                 1895
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO
+THE DEATH-WAKE
+
+
+
+
+
+_Piscatori Piscator_
+
+
+
+    _An angler to an angler here,
+      To one who longed not for the bays,
+    I bring a little gift and dear,
+      A line of love, a word of praise,
+    A common memory of the ways,
+      By Elibank and Yair that lead;
+    Of all the burns, from all the braes,
+      That yield their tribute to the Tweed.
+
+    His boyhood found the waters clean,
+      His age deplored them, foul with dye;
+    But purple hills, and copses green,
+      And these old towers he wandered by,
+    Still to the simple strains reply
+      Of his pure unrepining reed,
+    Who lies where he was fain to lie,
+      Like Scott, within the sound of Tweed._
+
+    A.L.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The extreme rarity of _The Death-Wake_ is a reason for its
+republication, which may or may not be approved of by collectors. Of
+the original edition the Author says that more than seventy copies
+were sold in the first week of publication, but thereafter the
+publisher failed in business. Mr. Stoddart recovered the sheets of his
+poem, and his cook gradually, and perhaps not injudiciously, expended
+them for domestic purposes.
+
+Apart from its rarity, _The Death-Wake_ has an interest of its own for
+curious amateurs of poetry. The year of its composition (1830) was the
+great year of _Romanticisme_ in France, the year of _Hernani_, and of
+Gautier's _gilet rouge_. In France it was a literary age given to
+mediaeval extravagance, to the dagger and the bowl, the cloak and
+sword, the mad monk and the were-wolf; the age of Petrus Borel and
+MacKeat, as well as of Dumas and Hugo. Now the official poetry of our
+country was untouched by and ignorant of the virtues and excesses of
+1830. Wordsworth's bolt was practically shot; Sir Walter was ending
+his glorious career; Shelley and Byron and Keats were dead, and the
+_annus mirabilis_ of Coleridge was long gone by. Three young poets of
+the English-speaking race were producing their volumes, destined at
+first to temporary neglect. The year 1830 was the year of Mr.
+Tennyson's _Poems, chiefly Lyrical_, his first book, not counting
+_Poems by Two Brothers_. It was also the year of Mr. Browning's
+_Pauline_ (rarer even than _The Death-Wake_); and it was the year
+which followed the second, and perhaps the most characteristic,
+poetical venture of Edgar Allan Poe. In Mr. Tennyson's early lyrics,
+and in Mr. Poe's, any capable judge must have recognised new notes of
+romance. Their accents are fresh and strange, their imaginations dwell
+in untrodden regions. Untouched by the French romantic poets, they yet
+unconsciously reply to their notes, as if some influence in the mental
+air were at work on both sides of the Channel, on both sides of the
+Atlantic. Now, in my opinion, this indefinite influence was also
+making itself felt, faintly and dimly, in Scotland. _The Death-Wake_
+is the work of a lad who certainly had read Keats, Coleridge and
+Shelley, but who is no imitator of these great poets. He has, in a few
+passages, and at his best, an accent original, distinct, strangely
+musical, and really replete with promise. He has a fresh unborrowed
+melody and mastery of words, the first indispensable sign of a true
+poet. His rhymed heroic verse is no more the rhymed heroic verse of
+_Endymion_, than it is that of Mr. Pope, or of Mr. William Morris. He
+is a new master of the old instrument.
+
+His mood is that of Scott when Scott was young, and was so anxious to
+possess a death's head and cross-bones. The malady is "most incident"
+to youth, but Mr. Stoddart wears his rue with a difference. The mad
+monkish lover of the dead nun Agathe has hit on precisely the sort of
+fantasy which was about to inspire Theophile Gautier's _Comedie de la
+Mort_, or the later author of _Gaspard de la Nuit_, or Edgar Poe.
+There is here no "criticism of life;" it is a criticism of strange
+death; and, so far, may recall Beddoes's _Death's Jest-Book_,
+unpublished, of course, in 1830. Naturally this kind of poetry is
+"useless," as Mr. Ruskin says about Coleridge, but, in its _bizarre_
+way, it may be beautiful.
+
+The author, by a curious analogy with Theophile Gautier, was, in these
+days, a humourist as well as a poet. In the midst of his mad fancies
+and rare melodies he is laughing at himself, as Theophile mocked at
+_Les Jeunes France_. The psychological position is, therefore, one of
+the rarest. Mr. Stoddart was, first of all and before all, a hardy and
+enthusiastic angler. Between 1830 and 1840 he wrote a few beautiful
+angling songs, and then all the poetry of his character merged itself
+in an ardent love of Nature: of hill, loch and stream--above all, of
+Tweed, the fairest of waters, which he lived to see a sink of
+pollution. After 1831 we have no more romanticism from Mr. Stoddart.
+The wind, blowing where it listeth, struck on him as on an AEolian
+harp, and "an uncertain warbling made," in the true Romantic manner.
+He did write a piece with the alluring name of _Ajalon of the Winds_,
+but not one line of it survives. The rest is not silence, indeed, for,
+in addition to his lays of trout and salmon, of Tweed and Teviot, Mr.
+Stoddart wrote a good deal of prose, and a good deal of perfectly
+common and uninspired verse. The Muse, which was undeniably with him
+for an hour, abandoned him, or he deserted her, being content to whip
+the waters of Tweed, and Meggat, and Yarrow. Perhaps unfavourable and
+unappreciative criticism, acting on a healthy and contented nature,
+drove him back into the common paths of men. Whatever the cause, the
+_Death-Wake_ alone (save for a few angling songs) remains to give
+assurance of a poet "who died young." It is needless to rewrite the
+biography, excellently done, in _Angling Songs_, by Miss Stoddart, the
+poet's daughter (Blackwoods, Edinburgh, 1889). Mr. Stoddart was born
+on St. Valentine's Day 1810, in Argyll Square, Edinburgh, nearly on
+the site of the Kirk of Field, where Darnley was murdered. He came of
+an old Border family. Miss Stoddart tells a painful tale of an aged
+Miss Helen who burned family papers because she thought she was
+bewitched by the seals and decorated initials. Similar follies are
+reported of a living old lady, on whose hearth, after a night of
+destruction, was once found the impression of a seal of Mary of
+Modena. I could give only too good a guess at the _provenance_ of
+_those_ papers, but nobody can interfere. Beyond 1500 the family
+memories rely on tradition. The ancestors owned lands in the Forest of
+Ettrick, and Williamhope, on the Tweed hard by Ashestiel. On the
+Glenkinnon burn, celebrated by Scott, they hid the prophets of the
+Covenant "by fifties in a cave." One Williamhope is said to have been
+out at Drumclog, or, perhaps, Bothwell Brig. This laird, of enormous
+strength, was called the Beetle of Yarrow, and was a friend of Murray
+of Philiphaugh. His son, in the Fifteen, was out on the Hanoverian
+side, which was _not_ in favour with the author of _The Death-Wake_.
+He married a daughter of Veitch of The Glen, now the property of Sir
+Charles Tennant. In the next generation but one, the Stoddarts sold
+their lands and took to commerce, while the poet's father won great
+distinction in the Navy. The great-great-grandfather of the poet
+married a Miss Muir of Anniston, the family called cousins (on which
+side of the blanket I know not) with Robert II. of Scotland, and, by
+another line, were as near as in the sixth degree of James III.
+
+As a schoolboy, Mr. Stoddart was always rhyming of goblin, ghost,
+fairy, and all Sir Walter's themes. At Edinburgh University he was a
+pupil of Christopher North (John Wilson), who pooh-poohed _The
+Death-Wake_ in _Blackwood_. He also knew Aytoun, Professor Ferrier, De
+Quincey, Hartley Coleridge, and Hogg, and was one of the first guests
+of Tibbie Sheils, on the spit of land between St. Mary's and the Loch
+of the Lowes. In verses of this period (1827) Miss Stoddart detects
+traces of Keats and Byron, but the lines quoted are much better in
+_technique_ than Byron usually wrote.
+
+The summer of 1830 Mr. Stoddart passed in Hogg's company on Yarrow,
+and early in 1831 he published _The Death-Wake_. There is no trace of
+James Hogg in the poem, which, to my mind, is perfectly original.
+Wilson places it "between the weakest of Shelley and the strongest of
+Barry Cornwall." It is really nothing but a breath of the spirit of
+romance, touching an instrument not wholly out of tune, but never to
+be touched again.
+
+It is unnecessary to follow Mr. Stoddart through a long and happy life
+of angling and of literary leisure. He only blossomed once. His poem
+was plagiarised and inserted in _Graham's Magazine_, by a person named
+Louis Fitzgerald Tasistro (vol. xx.). Mr. Ingram, the biographer of
+Edgar Poe, observes that Poe praised the piece while he was exposing
+Tasistro's "barefaced robbery."
+
+The copy of _The Death-Wake_ from which this edition is printed was
+once the property of Mr. Aytoun, author of _Lays of the Scottish
+Cavaliers_, and, I presume, of _Ta Phairshon_. Mr. Aytoun has written
+a prefatory sonnet which will be found in its proper place, a set of
+rhymes on the flyleaf at the end, and various cheerful but unfeeling
+notes. After some hesitation I do not print these frivolities.
+
+The copy was most generously presented to me by Professor Knight of
+St. Andrews, and I have only seen one other example, which I in turn
+contributed to fill the vacant place in the shelves of Mr. Knight. His
+example, however, is far the more curious of the twain, by virtue of
+Aytoun's annotations.
+
+I had been wanting to see _The Death-Wake_ ever since, as a boy, I
+read the unkind review of it in an ancient volume of _Blackwood's
+Magazine_. In its "pure purple mantle" of glazed cloth, with paper
+label, it is an unaffectedly neat and well-printed little volume.
+
+It would be unbecoming and impertinent to point out to any one who has
+an ear for verse, the charm of such lines as--
+
+    "A murmur far and far, of those that stirred
+    Within the great encampment of the sea."
+
+Or--
+
+    "A love-winged seraph glides in glory by,
+    Striking the tent of its mortality."
+
+(An idea anticipated by the as yet unknown Omar Khayyam).
+
+Or--
+
+    "Dost thou, in thy vigil, hail
+    Arcturus in his chariot pale,
+    Leading him with a fiery flight
+    Over the hollow hill of night?"
+
+These are wonderful verses for a lad of twenty-one, living among
+anglers, undergraduates, and, if with some society of the lettered,
+apparently with none which could appreciate or applaud him.
+
+For the matter of the poem, the wild voyage of the mad monkish lover
+with the dead Bride of Heaven, it strikes, of course, on the common
+reef of the Romantic--the ridiculous. But the recurring contrasts of a
+pure, clear peace in sea and sky, are of rare and atoning beauty. Such
+a passage is--
+
+    "And the great ocean, like a holy hall,
+    Where slept a seraph host maritimal,
+    Was gorgeous with wings of diamond."
+
+Once more, when the mad monk tells the sea-waves
+
+    "That ye have power and passion, and a sound
+    As of the flying of an angel round,
+    The mighty world, that ye are one with Time,"
+
+we recognise genuine imagination.
+
+A sympathetic reader of _The Death-Wake_ would perhaps have expected
+the leprosies and lunacies to drop off, and the genius, purged of its
+accidents, to move into a pure transparency. The abnormal, the
+monstrous, the boyish elements should have been burned away in the
+fire of the genius of poetry. But the Muses did not so will it, and
+the mystic wind of the spirit of song became of less moment to Mr.
+Stoddart than the breeze on the loch that stirs the trout to feed.
+Perhaps his life was none the less happy and fortunate. Of the many
+brilliant men whom he knew intimately--Wilson, Aytoun, Ferrier,
+Glassford Bell, and others--perhaps none, not even Hogg, recognised
+the grace of the Muse which (in my poor opinion) Mr. Stoddart
+possessed. His character was not in the least degree soured by neglect
+or fretted by banter. Not to over-estimate oneself is a virtue very
+rare among poets, and certainly does not lead to public triumphs.
+Modesty is apt to accompany the sense of humour which alleviates
+life, while it is an almost insuperable bar to success.
+
+Mr. Stoddart died on November 22nd, 1880. His last walk was to Kelso
+Bridge "to look at the Tweed," which now murmurs by his grave the
+self-same song that it sings beside Sir Walter's tomb in Dryburgh
+Abbey. We leave his poem to the judgment of students of poetry, and to
+him we say his own farewell--
+
+    Sorrow, sorrow speed away
+      To our angler's quiet mound,
+    With the old pilgrim, twilight grey,
+      Enter thou the holy ground.
+
+    There he sleeps, whose heart was twined
+      With wild stream and wandering burn,
+    Wooer of the western wind,
+      Watcher of the April morn.
+
+A.L.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEATH-WAKE
+
+OR LUNACY
+
+
+
+
+_Sonnet to the Author_
+
+    _O wormy Thomas Stoddart who inheritest
+      Rich thoughts and loathsome, nauseous words, & rare!
+    Tell me, my friend, why is it that thou ferretest
+      And gropest in each death-corrupted lair?
+    Seek'st thou for maggots, such as have affinity
+      With those in thine own brain? or dost thou think
+      That all is sweet which hath a horrid stink?
+    Why dost thou make Hautgout thy sole divinity?
+      Here is enough of genius to convert
+        Vile dung to precious diamonds, and to spare,
+      Then why transform the diamond into dirt,
+        And change thy mind w^h. sh^d. be rich & fair
+    Into a medley of creations foul,
+    As if a Seraph would become a Goul?_
+
+                             _W.E.A._
+
+_1834_
+
+
+
+
+CHIMERA I
+
+
+    An anthem of a sister choristry!
+    And like a windward murmur of the sea,
+    O'er silver shells, so solemnly it falls!
+    A dying music shrouded in deep walls,
+    That bury its wild breathings! And the moon,
+    Of glow-worm hue, like virgin in sad swoon,
+    Lies coldly on the bosom of a cloud,
+    Until the elf-winds, that are wailing loud,
+    Do minister unto her sickly trance,
+    Fanning the life into her countenance;
+    And there are pale stars sparkling, far and few
+    In the deep chasms of everlasting blue,
+    Unmarshall'd and ungather'd, one and one,
+    Like outposts of the lunar garrison.
+
+    A train of holy fathers windeth by
+    The arches of an aged sanctuary,
+    With cowl, and scapular, and rosary
+    On to the sainted oriel, where stood,
+    By the rich altar, a fair sisterhood--
+    A weeping group of virgins! one or two
+    Bent forward to a bier, of solemn hue,
+    Whereon a bright and stately coffin lay,
+    With its black pall flung over:--Agathe
+    Was on the lid--a name. And who?--No more!
+    'Twas only Agathe.
+
+                       'Tis o'er, 'tis o'er,--
+    Her burial! and, under the arcades,
+    Torch after torch into the moonlight fades;
+    And there is heard the music, a brief while,
+    Over the roofings of the imaged aisle,
+    From the deep organ panting out its last,
+    Like the slow dying of an autumn blast.
+
+    A lonely monk is loitering within
+    The dusky area, at the altar seen,
+    Like a pale spirit kneeling in the light
+    Of the cold moon, that looketh wan and white
+    Through the deviced oriel; and he lays
+    His hands upon his bosom, with a gaze
+    To the chill earth. He had the youthful look
+    Which heartfelt woe had wasted, and he shook
+    At every gust of the unholy breeze,
+    That enter'd through the time-worn crevices.
+
+    A score of summers only o'er his brow
+    Had pass'd--and it was summer, even now,
+    The one-and-twentieth--from a birth of tears,
+    Over a waste of melancholy years!
+    And _that_ brow was as wan as if it were
+    Of snowy marble, and the raven hair
+    That would have cluster'd over, was all shorn,
+    And his fine features stricken pale as morn.
+
+    He kiss'd a golden crucifix that hung
+    Around his neck, and in a transport flung
+    Himself upon the earth, and said, and said
+    Wild, raving words, about the blessed dead:
+    And then he rose, and in the moonshade stood,
+    Gazing upon its light in solitude;
+    And smote his brow, at some idea wild
+    That came across: then, weeping like a child,
+    He falter'd out the name of Agathe;
+    And look'd unto the heaven inquiringly,
+    And the pure stars.
+
+                       "Oh shame! that ye are met,
+    To mock me, like old memories, that yet
+    Break in upon the golden dream I knew,
+    While she--_she_ lived: and I have said adieu
+    To that fair one, and to her sister Peace,
+    That lieth in her grave. When wilt thou cease
+    To feed upon my quiet!--thou Despair!
+    That art the mad usurper, and the heir,
+    Of this heart's heritage! Go, go--return,
+    And bring me back oblivion, and an urn!
+    And ye, pale stars, may look, and only find,
+    The wreck of a proud tree, that lets the wind
+    Count o'er its blighted boughs; for such was he
+    That loved, and loves, the silent Agathe!"
+    And he hath left the sanctuary, like one
+    That knew not his own purpose--The red sun
+    Rose early over incense of bright mist,
+    That girdled a pure sky of amethyst.
+    And who was he? A monk. And those who knew
+    Yclept him Julio; but they were few:
+    And others named him as a nameless one,--
+    A dark, sad-hearted being, who had none
+    But bitter feelings, and a cast of sadness,
+    That fed the wildest of all curses--madness!
+
+    But he was, what _none_ knew, of lordly line,
+    That fought in the far land of Palestine,
+    Where, under banners of the cross, they fell,
+    Smote by the armies of the infidel.
+    And Julio was the last; alone, alone!
+    A sad, unfriended orphan, that had gone
+    Into the world, to murmur and to die,
+    Like the cold breezes that are passing by!
+
+    And few they were that bade him to their board;
+    His fortunes now were over, and the sword
+    Of his proud ancestry dishonour'd--left
+    To moulder in its sheath--a hated gift!
+
+    Ay! it was so; and Julio had fain
+    Have been a warrior; but his very brain
+    Grew fever'd at the sickly thought of death,
+    And to be stricken with a want of breath!--
+    To be the food of worms--inanimate,
+    And cold as winter,--and as desolate!
+    And then to waste away, and be no more
+    Than the dark dust!--The thought was like a sore
+    That gather'd in his heart; and he would say,--
+    "A curse be on their laurels!" and decay
+    Came over them; the deeds that they had done
+    Had fallen with their fortunes; and anon
+    Was Julio forgotten, and his line--
+    No wonder for this frenzied tale of mine!
+
+    Oh! he was wearied of this passing scene!
+    But loved not death: his purpose was between
+    Life and the grave; and it would vibrate there,
+    Like a wild bird that floated far and fair
+    Betwixt the sun and sea!
+
+                             He went, and came,
+    And thought, and slept, and still awoke the same,--
+    A strange, strange youth; and he would look all night
+    Upon the moon and stars, and count the flight
+    Of the sea waves, and let the evening wind
+    Play with his raven tresses, or would bind
+    Grottoes of birch, wherein to sit and sing:
+    And peasant girls would find him sauntering,
+    To gaze upon their features, as they met,
+    In laughter, under some green arboret.
+
+    At last, he became monk, and, on his knees,
+    Said holy prayers, and with wild penances
+    Made sad atonement; and the solemn whim,
+    That, like a shadow, loiter'd over him,
+    Wore off, even like a shadow. He was cursed
+    With none of the mad thoughts that were at first
+    The poison of his quiet; but he grew
+    To love the world and its wild laughter too,
+    As he had known before; and wish'd again
+    To join the very mirth he hated then!
+
+    He durst not break the vow--he durst not be
+    The one he would--and his heart's harmony
+    Became a tide of sorrow. Even so,
+    He felt hope die,--in madness and in woe!
+    But there came one--and a most lovely one
+    As ever to the warm light of the sun
+    Threw back her tresses,--a fair sister girl,
+    With a brow changing between snow and pearl,
+    And the blue eyes of sadness, fill'd with dew
+    Of tears,--like Heaven's own melancholy blue,--
+    So beautiful, so tender; and her form
+    Was graceful as a rainbow in a storm,
+    Scattering gladness on the face of sorrow--
+    Oh! I had fancied of the hues that borrow
+    Their brightness from the sun; but she was bright
+    In her own self,--a mystery of light!
+    With feelings tender as a star's own hue,
+    Pure as the morning star! as true, as true;
+    For it will glitter in each early sky,
+    And her first love be love that lasteth aye!
+
+    And this was Agathe, young Agathe,
+    A motherless, fair girl: and many a day
+    She wept for her lost parent. It was sad
+    To see her infant sorrow; how she bade
+    The flow of her wild spirits fall away
+    To grief, like bright clouds in a summer day
+    Melting into a shower: and it was sad
+    Almost to think she might again be glad,
+    Her beauty was so chaste, amid the fall
+    Of her bright tears. Yet, in her father's hall,
+    She had lived almost sorrowless her days:
+    But he felt no affection for the gaze
+    Of his fair girl; and when she fondly smiled,
+    He bade no father's welcome to the child,
+    But even told his wish, and will'd it done,
+    For her to be sad-hearted--and a nun!
+
+    And so it was. She took the dreary veil,
+    A hopeless girl! and the bright flush grew pale
+    Upon her cheek: she felt, as summer feels
+    The winds of autumn and the winter chills,
+    That darken his fair suns.--It was away,
+    Feeding on dreams, the heart of Agathe!
+
+    The vesper prayers were said, and the last hymn
+    Sung to the Holy Virgin. In the dim,
+    Gray aisle was heard a solitary tread,
+    As of one musing sadly on the dead--
+    'Twas Julio; it was his wont to be
+    Often alone within the sanctuary;
+    But now, not so--another: it was she!
+    Kneeling in all her beauty, like a saint
+    Before a crucifix; but sad and faint
+    The tone of her devotion, as the trill
+    Of a moss-burden'd, melancholy rill.
+
+    And Julio stood before her;--'twas as yet
+    The hour of the pale twilight--and they met
+    Each other's gaze, till either seem'd the hue
+    Of deepest crimson; but the ladye threw
+    Her veil above her features, and stole by
+    Like a bright cloud, with sadness and a sigh!
+
+    Yet Julio still stood gazing and alone,
+    A dreamer!--"Is the sister ladye gone?"
+    He started at the silence of the air
+    That slumber'd over him--she is not there.
+
+    And either slept not through the live-long night,
+    Or slept in fitful trances, with a bright,
+    Fair dream upon their eyelids: but they rose
+    In sorrow from the pallet of repose;
+    For the dark thought of their sad destiny
+    Came o'er them, like a chasm of the deep sea,
+    That was to rend their fortunes; and at eve
+    They met again, but, silent, took their leave,
+    As they did yesterday: another night,
+    And neither spake awhile--A pure delight
+    Had chasten'd love's first blushes: silently
+    Gazed Julio on the gentle Agathe--
+    At length, "Fair Nun!"--She started, and held fast
+    Her bright hand on her lip--"the past, the past,
+    And the pale future! There be some that lie
+    Under those marble urns--I know not why,
+    But I were better in that only calm,
+    Than be as I have been, perhaps, and am.
+    The past!--ay! it hath perish'd; never, never,
+    Would I recall it to be blest for ever:
+    The future it must come--I have a vow"--
+    And his cold hand rose trembling to his brow.
+    "True, true, I have a vow. Is not the moon
+    Abroad, fair Nun?"--"Indeed! so very soon?"
+    Said Agathe, and "I must then away."--
+    "Stay, love! 'tis early yet; stay, angel, stay!"
+    But she was gone:--yet they met many a time
+    In the lone chapel, after vesper chime--
+    They met in love and fear.
+
+                               One weary day,
+    And Julio saw not his loved Agathe;
+    She was not in the choir of sisterhood
+    That sang the evening anthem, and he stood
+    Like one that listen'd breathlessly awhile;
+    But stranger voices chanted through the aisle.
+    She was not there; and, after all were gone,
+    He linger'd: the stars came--he linger'd on,
+    Like a dark fun'ral image on the tomb
+    Of a lost hope. He felt a world of gloom
+    Upon his heart--a solitude--a chill.
+    The pale morn rose, and still, he linger'd still.
+    And the next vesper toll'd; nor yet, nor yet--
+    "Can Agathe be faithless, and forget?"
+
+    It was the third sad eve, he heard it said,
+    "Poor Julio! thy Agathe is dead,"
+    And started. He had loiter'd in the train
+    That bore her to the grave: he saw her lain
+    In the cold earth, and heard a requiem
+    Sung over her--To him it was a dream!
+    A marble stone stood by the sepulchre;
+    He look'd, and saw, and started--she was there!
+    And Agathe had died; she that was bright--
+    She that was in her beauty! a cold blight
+    Fell over the young blossom of her brow.
+    And the life-blood grew chill--She is not, now.
+
+    She died, like zephyr falling amid flowers!
+    Like to a star within the twilight hours
+    Of morning--and she was not! Some have thought
+    The Lady Abbess gave her a mad draught,
+    That stole into her heart, and sadly rent
+    The fine chords of that holy instrument,
+    Until its music falter'd fast away,
+    And she--she died,--the lovely Agathe!
+
+    Again, and through the arras of the gloom
+    Are the pale breezes moaning: by her tomb
+    Bends Julio, like a phantom, and his eye
+    Is fallen, as the moon-borne tides, that lie
+    At ebb within the sea. Oh! he is wan,
+    As winter skies are wan, like ages gone,
+    And stars unseen for paleness; it is cast,
+    As foliage in the raving of the blast,
+    All his fair bloom of thoughts! Is the moon chill,
+    That in the dark clouds she is mantled still?
+    And over its proud arch hath Heaven flung
+    A scarf of darkness? Agathe was young!
+    And there should be the virgin silver there,
+    The snow-white fringes delicately fair!
+
+    He wields a heavy mattock in his hands,
+    And over him a lonely lanthorn stands
+    On a near niche, shedding a sickly fall
+    Of light upon a marble pedestal,
+    Whereon is chisel'd rudely, the essay
+    Of untaught tool, "Hic jacet Agathe!"
+    And Julio hath bent him down in speed,
+    Like one that doeth an unholy deed.
+
+    There is a flagstone lieth heavily
+    Over the ladye's grave; I wist of three
+    That bore it, of a blessed verity!
+    But he hath lifted it in his pure madness,
+    As it were lightsome as a summer gladness,
+    And from the carved niche hath ta'en the lamp,
+    And hung it by the marble flagstone damp.
+
+    And he is flinging the dark, chilly mould
+    Over the gorgeous pavement: 'tis a cold,
+    Sad grave, and there is many a relic there
+    Of chalky bones, which, in the wasting air,
+    Fell smouldering away; and he would dash
+    His mattock through them, with a cursed clash,
+    That made the lone aisle echo. But anon
+    He fell upon a skull,--a haggard one,
+    With its teeth set, and the great orbless eye
+    Revolving darkness, like eternity--
+    And in his hand he held it, till it grew
+    To have the fleshy features and the hue
+    Of life. He gazed, and gazed, and it became
+    Like to his Agathe--all, all the same!
+    He drew it nearer,--the cold, bony thing!--
+    To kiss the worm-wet lips. "Ay! let me cling--
+    Cling to thee now, for ever!" but a breath
+    Of rank corruption from its jaws of death
+    Went to his nostrils, and he madly laugh'd,
+    And dash'd it over on the altar shaft,
+    Which the new risen moon, in her gray light,
+    Had fondly flooded, beautifully bright!
+
+                                      Again he went
+    To his wild work, beside the monument.
+    "Ha! leave, thou moon! where thy footfall hath been
+    In sorrow amid heaven! there is sin
+    Under thy shadow, lying like a dew;
+    So come thou, from thy awful arch of blue,
+    Where thou art even as a silver throne
+    For some pale spectre-king; come thou alone,
+    Or bring a solitary orphan star
+    Under thy wings! afar, afar, afar,
+    To gaze upon this girl of radiancy,
+    In her deep slumbers--Wake thee, Agathe!"
+
+    And Julio hath stolen the dark chest
+    Where the fair nun lay coffin'd, in the rest
+    That wakes not up at morning: she is there,
+    An image of cold calm! One tress of hair
+    Lingereth lonely on her snowy brow;
+    But the bright eyes are closed in darkness now;
+    And their long lashes delicately rest
+    On the pale cheek, like sun-rays in the west,
+    That fall upon a colourless, sad cloud.
+    Humility lies rudely on the proud,
+    But she was never proud; and there she is,
+    A yet unwither'd flower the autumn breeze
+    Hath blown from its green stem! 'T is pale, 't is pale,
+    But still unfaded, like the twilight veil
+    That falleth after sunset; like a stream
+    That bears the burden of a silver gleam
+    Upon its waters; and is even so,--
+    Chill, melancholy, lustreless, and low!
+
+    Beauty in death! a tenderness upon
+    The rude and silent relics, where alone
+    Sat the destroyer! Beauty on the dead!
+    The look of being where the breath is fled!
+    The unwarming sun still joyous in its light!
+    A time--a time without a day or night!
+    Death cradled upon Beauty, like a bee
+    Upon a flower, that looketh lovingly!--
+    Like a wild serpent, coiling in its madness,
+    Under a wreath of blossom and of gladness!
+
+    And there she is; and Julio bends o'er
+    The sleeping girl,--a willow on the shore
+    Of a Dead Sea! that steepeth its far bough
+    Into the bitter waters,--even now
+    Taking a foretaste of the awful trance
+    That was to pass on his own countenance!
+
+    Yes! yes! and he is holding his pale lips
+    Over her brow; the shade of an eclipse
+    Is passing to his heart, and to his eye,
+    That is not tearful; but the light will die,
+    Leaving it like a moon within a mist,--
+    The vision of a spell-bound visionist!
+
+    He breathed a cold kiss on her ashy cheek,
+    That left no trace--no flush--no crimson streak,
+    But was as bloodless as a marble stone,
+    Susceptible of silent waste alone.
+    And on her brow a crucifix he laid--
+    A jewel'd crucifix, the virgin maid
+    Had given him before she died. The moon
+    Shed light upon her visage--clouded soon,
+    Then briefly breaking from its airy veil,
+    Like warrior lifting up his aventayle.
+
+    But Julio gazed on, and never lifted
+    Himself to see the broken clouds, that drifted
+    One after one, like infant elves at play
+    Amid the night-winds, in their lonely way--
+    Some whistling and some moaning, some asleep,
+    And dreaming dismal dreams, and sighing deep
+    Over their couches of green moss and flowers,
+    And solitary fern, and heather bowers.
+
+    The heavy bell toll'd two, and, as it toll'd,
+    Julio started, and the fresh-turn'd mould
+    He flung into the empty chasm with speed,
+    And o'er it dropt the flagstone. One could read
+    That Agathe lay there; but still the girl
+    Lay by him, like a precious and pale pearl,
+    That from the deep sea-waters had been rent--
+    Like a star fallen from the firmament!
+    He hides the grave-tools in an aged porch,
+    To westward of the solitary church;
+    And he hath clasp'd around the melting waist
+    The beautiful, dead girl: his cheek is press'd
+    To hers--Life warming the cold chill of Death!
+    And over his pale palsy breathing breath
+    His eye is sunk upon her--"Thou must leave
+    The worm to waste for love of thee, and grieve
+    Without thee, as I may not. Thou must go,
+    My sweet betrothed, with me--but not below,
+    Where there is darkness, dream, and solitude,
+    But where is light, and life, and one to brood
+    Above thee till thou wakest--Ha! I fear
+    Thou wilt not wake for ever, sleeping here,
+    Where there are none but winds to visit thee,
+    And convent fathers, and a choristry
+    Of sisters, saying, 'Hush!'--But I will sing
+    Rare songs to thy pure spirit, wandering
+    Down on the dews to hear me; I will tune
+    The instrument of the ethereal moon,
+    And all the choir of stars, to rise and fall
+    In harmony and beauty musical."
+
+    He is away--and still the sickly lamp
+    Is burning next the altar; there's a damp,
+    Thin mould upon the pavement; and, at morn,
+    The monks do cross them in their blessed scorn
+    And mutter deep anathemas, because
+    Of the unholy sacrilege, that was
+    Within the sainted chapel,--for they guess'd,
+    By many a vestige sad, how the dark rest
+    Of Agathe was broken,--and anon
+    They sought for Julio. The summer sun
+    Arose and and set, with his imperial disc
+    Toward the ocean-waters, heaving brisk
+    Before the winds,--but Julio came never:
+    He that was frantic as a foaming river--
+    Mad as the fall of leaves upon the tide
+    Of a great tempest, that have fought and died
+    Along the forest ramparts, and doth still
+    In its death-struggle desperately reel
+    Round with the fallen foliage--he was gone,
+    And none knew whither. Still were chanted on
+    Sad masses, by pale sisters, many a day,
+    And holy requiems sung for Agathe!
+
+
+
+
+CHIMERA II
+
+
+    A curse! a curse! the beautiful pale wing
+    Of a sea-bird was worn with wandering,
+    And, on a sunny rock beside the shore,
+    It stood, the golden waters gazing o'er;
+    And they were heaving a brown amber flow
+    Of weeds, that glitter'd gloriously below.
+
+    It was the sunset, and the gorgeous hall
+    Of heaven rose up on pillars magical
+    Of living silver, shafting the fair sky
+    Between dark time and great eternity.
+    They rose upon their pedestal of sun,
+    A line of snowy columns! and anon
+    Were lost in the rich tracery of cloud
+    That hung along, magnificently proud,
+    Predicting the pure star-light, that beyond
+    The east was armouring in diamond
+    About the camp of twilight, and was soon
+    To marshal under the fair champion moon,
+    That call'd her chariot of unearthly mist,
+    Toward her citadel of amethyst.
+
+    A curse! a curse! a lonely man is there
+    By the deep waters, with a burden fair
+    Clasp'd in his wearied arms--'Tis he; 'tis he
+    The brain-struck Julio, and Agathe!
+    His cowl is back--flung back upon the breeze,
+    His lofty brow is haggard with disease,
+    As if a wild libation had been pour'd
+    Of lightning on those temples, and they shower'd
+    A dismal perspiration, like a rain,
+    Shook by the thunder and the hurricane!
+
+    He dropt upon a rock, and by him placed,
+    Over a bed of sea-pinks growing waste,
+    The silent ladye, and he mutter'd wild,
+    Strange words, about a mother, and no child.
+    "And I shall wed thee, Agathe! although
+    Ours be no God-blest bridal--even so!"
+    And from the sand he took a silver shell,
+    That had been wasted by the fall and swell
+    Of many a moon-borne tide into a ring--
+    A rude, rude ring; it was a snow-white thing,
+    Where a lone hermit limpet slept and died,
+    In ages far away. "Thou art a bride,
+    Sweet Agathe! Wake up; we must not linger."
+    He press'd the ring upon her chilly finger,
+    And to the sea-bird, on its sunny stone,
+    Shouted, "Pale priest! thou liest all alone
+    Upon thy ocean altar, rise away
+    To our glad bridal!" and its wings of gray
+    All lazily it spread, and hover'd by
+    With a wild shriek--a melancholy cry!
+    Then swooping slowly o'er the heaving breast
+    Of the blue ocean, vanish'd in the west.
+
+    And Julio is chanting to his bride,
+    A merry song of his wild heart, that died
+    On the soft breeze through pinks beside the sea,
+    All rustling in their beauty gladsomely.
+
+
+SONG
+
+    A rosary of stars, love! we'll count them as we go
+    Upon the laughing waters, that are wandering below,
+    And we'll o'er the pearly moon-beam, as it lieth in the sea,
+    In beauty and in glory, like a shadowing of thee!
+
+    A rosary of stars, love! a prayer as we glide,
+    And a whisper in the wind, and a murmur on the tide!
+    And we'll say a fair adieu to the flowers that are seen,
+    With shells of silver sown in radiancy between.
+
+    A rosary of stars, love! the purest they shall be,
+    Like spirits of pale pearls, in the bosom of the sea;
+    Now help thee, virgin mother! with a blessing as we go,
+    Upon the laughing waters, that are wandering below!
+
+    He lifted the dead girl, and is away
+    To where a light boat, in its moorings lay,
+    Like a sea-cradle, rocking to the hush
+    Of the nurse waters. With a frantic rush
+    O'er the wild field of tangles he hath sped,
+    And through the shoaling waves that fell and fled
+    Upon the furrow'd beach.
+
+                             The snowy sail
+    Is hoisted to the gladly gushing gale,
+    That bosom'd its fair canvass with a breast
+    Of silver, looking lovely to the west;
+    And at the helm there sits the wither'd one,
+    Gazing and gazing on the sister nun,
+    With her fair tresses floating on his knee--
+    The beautiful, death-stricken Agathe!
+
+    Fast, fast, and far away, the bark hath stood
+    Out toward the great heaving solitude,
+    That gurgled in its deeps, as if the breath
+    Went through its lungs, of agony and death!
+
+    The sun is lost within the labyrinth
+    Of clouds of purple and pale hyacinth,
+    That are the frontlet of the sister Sky
+    Kissing her brother Ocean; and they lie
+    Bathing in blushes, till the rival queen
+    Night, with her starry tiar, floateth in--
+    A dark and dazzling beauty! that doth draw
+    Over the light of love a shade of awe
+    Most strange, that parts our wonder not the less
+    Between her mystery and loveliness!
+
+    And she is there, that is a pyramid
+    Whereon the stars, the statues of the dead,
+    Are imaged over the eternal hall,
+    A group of radiances majestical!
+    And Julio looks up, and there they be,
+    And Agathe, and all the waste of Sea,
+    That slept in wizard slumber, with a shroud
+    Of night flung o'er his bosom, throbbing proud
+    Amid its azure pulses; and again
+    He dropt his blighted eye-orbs, with a strain
+    Of mirth upon the ladye:--Agathe!
+    Sweet bride! be thou a queen, and I will lay
+    A crown of sea-weed on thy royal brow;
+    And I will twine these tresses, that are now
+    Floating beside me, to a diadem;
+    And the sea foam will sprinkle gem on gem,
+    And so will the soft dews. Be thou the queen
+    Of the unpeopled waters, sadly seen
+    By star-light, till the yet unrisen moon
+    Issue, unveiled, from her anderoon,
+    To bathe in the sea fountains: let me say,
+    "Hail--hail to thee! thrice hail, my Agathe!"
+
+    The warrior world was lifting to the bent
+    Of his eternal brow magnificent,
+    The fiery moon, that in her blazonry
+    Shone eastward, like a shield. The throbbing sea
+    Felt fever on his azure arteries,
+    That shadow'd them with crimson, while the breeze
+    Fell faster on the solitary sail.
+    But the red moon grew loftier and pale,
+    And the great ocean, like the holy hall,
+    Where slept a seraph host maritimal,
+    Was gorgeous, with wings of diamond
+    Fann'd over it, and millions beyond
+    Of tiny waves were playing to and fro,
+    All musical, with an incessant flow
+    Of cadences, innumerably heard
+    Between the shrill notes of a hermit bird,
+    That held a solemn paean to the moon.
+
+    A few devotional fair clouds were soon
+    Breathed o'er the living countenance of Heaven,
+    And under the great galaxies were driven
+    Of stars that group'd together, and they went
+    Like voyagers along the firmament,
+    And grew to silver in the blessed light
+    Of the moon alchymist. It was not night,
+    Not the dark deathly shadow, that falls o'er
+    The eye-lid like a curse, but far before
+    In splendour, struggling through a fall of gloom,
+    In many a myriad gushes, that do come
+    Direct from the eternal stars beyond,
+    Like holy fountains pouring diamond!
+
+    A sail! awake thee, Julio! a sail!
+    And be not bending to thy trances pale.
+    But he is gazing on the moonlit brow
+    Of his dead Agathe, and fondly now,
+    The light is silvering her bloodless face
+    And the cold grave-clothes. There is loveliness
+    As in a marble image, very bright!
+    But stricken with a phantasy of light
+    That is not given to the mortal hue,
+    To life and breathing beauty: and she too
+    Is more of the expressless lineament,
+    Than of the golden thoughts that came and went
+    Over her features like a living tide
+    No while before.
+
+                    A sail is on the wide
+    And moving waters, and it draweth nigh
+    Like a sea-cloud. The elfin billows fly
+    Before it, in their armories enthrall'd
+    Of radiant and moon-breasted emerald;
+    And many is the mariner that sees
+    The lone boat in the melancholy breeze,
+    Waving her snowy canvass, and anon
+    Their stately vessel with a gallant run
+    Crowds by in all her glory; but the cheer
+    Of men is pass'd into a sudden fear,
+    And whisperings, and shakings of the head--
+    The moon was streaming on a virgin dead,
+    And Julio sat over her insane,
+    Like a sea demon! O'er and o'er again,
+    Each cross'd him, as the stately vessel stood
+    Far out into the murmuring solitude!
+
+    But Julio saw not; he only heard
+    A rushing, like the passing of a bird,
+    And felt him heaving on the foam, that flew
+    Along the startled billows; and he knew
+    Of a strange sail, by broken oaths that fell
+    Beside him, on the coming of the swell.
+
+    They knew thou wert a queen, my royal bride!
+    And made obeisance at thy holy side.
+    They saw thee, Agathe! and go to bring
+    Fair worshippers, and many a poet-king,
+    To utter music at thy pearly feet.--
+    Now, wake thee! for the moonlight cometh sweet,
+    To visit in thy temple of the sea;
+    Thy sister moon is watching over thee!
+    And she is spreading a fair mantle of
+    Pure silver, in thy lonely palace, love!--
+    Now, wake thee! for the sea-bird is aloof,
+    In solitude, below the starry roof;
+    And on its dewy plume there is a light
+    Of palest splendour, o'er the blessed night.
+    Thy spirit, Agathe!--and yet, thou art
+    Beside me, and my solitary heart
+    Is throbbing near to thee: I must not feel
+    The sweet notes of thy holy music steal
+    Into my feverous and burning brain,--
+    So wake not! and I'll hush thee with a strain
+    Of my wild fancy, till thou dream of me,
+    And I be loved as I have loved thee:--
+
+
+SONG
+
+    'Tis light to love thee living, girl, when hope is full and fair,
+    In the springtide of thy beauty, when there is no sorrow there--
+    No sorrow on thy brow, and no shadow on thy heart!
+    When, like a floating sea-bird, bright and beautiful thou art!
+
+    'Tis light to love thee living, girl--to see thee ever so,
+    With health, that, like a crimson flower, lies blushing in the snow;
+    And thy tresses falling over, like the amber on the pearl--
+    Oh! true it is a lightsome thing, to love thee living, girl!
+
+    But when the brow is blighted, like a star of morning tide,
+    And faded is the crimson blush upon the cheek beside;
+    It is to love, as seldom love, the brightest and the best,
+    When our love lies like a dew upon the one that is at rest.
+
+    Because of hopes, that, fallen, are changing to despair,
+    And the heart is always dreaming on the ruin that is there,
+    Oh, true! 'tis weary, weary, to be gazing over thee,
+    And the light of thy pure vision breaketh never upon me!
+
+    He lifts her in his arms, and o'er and o'er,
+    Upon the brow of chilliness and hoar,
+    Repeats a silent kiss;--along the side
+    Of the lone bark, he leans that pallid bride,
+    Until the waves do image her within
+    Their bosom, like a spectre--'Tis a sin
+    Too deadly to be shadow'd or forgiven,
+    To do such mockery in the sight of Heaven!
+    And bid her gaze into the startled sea,
+    And say, "Thy image, from eternity,
+    Hath come to meet thee, ladye!" and anon,
+    He bade the cold corse kiss the shadowy one,
+    That shook amid the waters, like the light
+    Of borealis in a winter night!
+
+    And after, he did strain her sea-wet hair
+    Between his chilly fingers, with a stare
+    Of mystery, that marvell'd how that she
+    Had drench'd it so amid the moonlit sea.
+    The morning rose, with breast of living gold,
+    Like eastern phoenix, and his plumage roll'd
+    In clouds of molted brilliance, very bright!
+    And on the waste of waters floated light.--
+
+    In truth, 'twas strange to see that merry bark
+    Skimming the silver ocean, like a shark
+    At play amid the beautiful sea-green,
+    And all so sadly desolate within.
+
+    And hours flew after hours, a weary length,
+    Until the sunlight, in meridian strength,
+    Threw burning floods upon the wasted brow
+    Of that sea-hermit mariner; and now
+    He felt the fire-light feed upon his brain,
+    And started with intensity of pain,
+    And wash'd him in the sea; it only brought
+    Wild reason, like a demon, and he thought
+    Strange thoughts, like dreaming men--he thought how those
+    Were round him he had seen, and many rose
+    His heart had hated; every billow threw
+    Features before him, and pale faces grew
+    Out of the sea by myriads:--the self-same
+    Was moulded from its image, and they came
+    In groups together, and all said, like one,
+    "Be cursed!" and vanish'd in the deep anon.
+    Then thirst, intolerable as the breath
+    Of Upas, fanning the wild wings of death,
+    Crept up his very gorge,--like to a snake,
+    That stifled him, and bade the pulses ache
+    Through all the boiling current of his blood.
+    It was a thirst, that let the fever flood
+    Fall over him, and gave a ghastly hue
+    To his cramp'd lips, until their breathing grew
+    White as a mist, and short, and like a sigh,
+    Heaved with a struggle, till it falter'd by.
+
+    And ever he did look upon the corse
+    With idiot visage, like the hag Remorse
+    That gloateth over on a nameless deed
+    Of darkness and of dole unhistoried.
+    And were there that might hear him, they would hear
+    The murmur of a prayer in deep fear,
+    Through unbarr'd lips, escaping by the half,
+    And all but smother'd by a maniac laugh,
+    That follow'd it, so sudden and so shrill,
+    That swarms of sea-birds, wandering at will
+    Upon the wave, rose startled, and away
+    Went flocking, like a silver shower of spray!
+    And aye he called for water, and the sea
+    Mock'd him with his brine surges tauntingly,
+    And lash'd them over on his fev'rous brow,
+    Volleying roars of curses:--"Stay thee, now,
+    Avenger! lest I die; for I am worn
+    Fainter than star-light at the birth of morn;
+    Stay thee, great angel! for I am not shriven,
+    But frantic as thyself: Oh Heaven! Heaven!
+    But thou hast made me brother of the sea,
+    That I may tremble at his tyranny;
+    Or am I slave? a very, very jest
+    To the sarcastic waters? let me breast
+    The base insulters, and defy them so,
+    In this lone little skiff--I am your foe!
+    Ye raving, lion-like, and ramping seas,
+    That open up your nostrils to the breeze,
+    And fain would swallow me! Do ye not fly,
+    Pale, sick, and gurgling, as I pass you by?"
+
+    "Lift up! and let me see, that I may tell
+    Ye can be mad, and strange, and terrible;
+    That ye have power, and passion, and a sound
+    As of the flying of an angel round
+    The mighty world; that ye are one with time,
+    And in the great primordium sublime
+    Were nursed together, as an infant-twain,--
+    A glory and a wonder! I would fain
+    Hold truce, thou elder brother! for we are,
+    In feature, as the sun is to a star,
+    So are we like, and we are touch'd in tune
+    With lunacy as music; and the moon,
+    That setteth the tides sentinel before
+    Thy camp of waters, on the pebbled shore,
+    And measures their great footsteps to and fro,
+    Hath lifted up into my brain the flow
+    Of this mad tide of blood.--Ay! we are like
+    In foam and frenzy; the same winds do strike,
+    The same fierce sun-rays, from their battlement
+    Of fire! so, when I perish impotent
+    Before the night of death, they'll say of me,
+    He died as mad and frantic, as the sea!"
+
+    A cloud stood for the east, a cloud like night,
+    Like a huge vulture, and the blessed light
+    Of the great sun grew shadow'd awfully:
+    It seem'd to mount up from the mighty sea,
+    Shaking the showers from its solemn wings,
+    And grew, and grew, and many a myriad springs,
+    Were on its bosom, teeming full of rain.
+    There fell a terrible and wizard chain
+    Of lightning, from its black and heated forge,
+    And the dark waters took it to their gorge,
+    And lifted up their shaggy flanks in wonder
+    With rival chorus to the peal of thunder,
+    That wheel'd in many a squadron terrible
+    The stern black clouds, and as they rose and fell
+    They oozed great showers; and Julio held up
+    His wasted hands, in likeness of a cup,
+    And drank the blessed waters, and they roll'd
+    Upon his cheeks like tears, but sadly cold!--
+    'Twas very strange to look on Agathe!
+    How the quick lightnings, in their elfin play,
+    Stream'd pale upon her features, and they were
+    Sickly, like tapers in a sepulchre!
+
+    The ship! that self same ship, that Julio knew
+    Had pass'd him, with her panic-stricken crew,
+    She gleams amid the storm, a shatter'd thing
+    Of pride and lordly beauty: her fair wing
+    Of sail is wounded--the proud pennon gone:
+    Dark, dark she sweepeth like an eagle, on
+    Through waters that are battling to and fro,
+    And tossing their great giant shrouds of snow
+    Over her deck. Ahead, and there is seen
+    A black, strange line of breakers, down between
+    The awful surges, lifting up their manes,
+    Like great sea lions. Quick and high she strains
+    Her foaming keel--that solitary ship!
+    As if, in all her frenzy, she would leap
+    The cursed barrier; forward, fast and fast--
+    Back, back she reels; her timbers and her mast
+    Split in a thousand shivers! A white spring
+    Of the exulted sea rose bantering
+    Over her ruin; and the mighty crew,
+    That mann'd her decks, were seen, a straggling few,
+    Far scatter'd on the surges. Julio felt
+    The impulse of that hour, and low he knelt,
+    Within his own light bark--a prayful man!
+    And clasp'd his lifeless bride; and to her wan,
+    Cold cheek did lay his melancholy brow.--
+    "Save thou a mariner!" He starteth now
+    To hear that dying cry; and there is one,
+    All worn and wave-wet, by his bark anon,
+    Clinging, in terror of the ireful sea,
+    A fair hair'd mariner! But suddenly
+    He saw the pale dead ladye, by a flame
+    Of blue and livid lightning, and there came
+    Over his features blindness, and the power
+    Of his strong hands grew weak,--a giant shower
+    Of foam rose up, and swept him far along;
+    And Julio saw him buffeting the throng
+    Of the great eddying waters, till they went
+    Over him--a wind-shaken cerement!
+
+    Then terribly he laugh'd, and rose above
+    His soul-less bride--the ladye of his love
+    Lifting him up, in all his wizard glee;
+    And he did wave, before the frantic sea,
+    His wasted arm. "Adieu! adieu! adieu!
+    Thou sawest how we were; thou sawest, too,
+    Thou wert not so; for in the inmost shrine
+    Of my deep heart are thoughts that are not thine.
+    And thou art gone, fair mariner! in foam
+    And music-murmurs, to thy blessed home--
+    Adieu! adieu! Thou sawest how that she
+    Sleeps in her holy beauty, tranquilly;
+    And when the fair and floating vision breaks
+    From her pure brow, and Agathe awakes--
+    Till then, we meet not; so adieu, adieu!"
+    Still on before the sullen tempest flew,
+    Fast as a meteor star, the lonely bark:
+    And Julio bent over to the dark,
+    The solitary sea, for close beside
+    Floated the stringed harp of one that died
+    In that wild shipwreck, and he drew it home,
+    With madness, to his bosom: the white foam
+    Was o'er its strings; and on the streaming sail
+    He wiped them, running, with his fingers pale,
+    Along the tuneless notes, that only gave
+    Seldom responses to his wandering stave!
+
+
+
+
+    TO THE HARP
+
+
+    I
+
+    Jewel! that lay before the heart
+      Of some romantic boy,
+    And startled music in her home,
+      Of mystery and joy!
+
+
+    II
+
+    The image of his love was there;
+      And, with her golden wings,
+    She swept her tone of sorrow from
+      Thy melancholy strings!
+
+
+    III
+
+    We drew thee, as an orphan one,
+      From waters that had cast
+    No music round thee, as they went
+      In their pale beauty past.
+
+
+    IV
+
+    No music but the changeless sigh--
+      That murmur of their own,
+    That loves not blending in the thrill
+      Of thine aerial tone.
+
+
+    V
+
+    The girl that slumbers at our side
+      Will dream how they are bent,
+    That love her even as they love
+      Thy blessed instrument.
+
+
+    VI
+
+    And music, like a flood, will break
+      Upon the fairy throne
+    Of her pure heart, all glowing, like
+      A morning star, alone!
+
+
+    VII
+
+    Alone, but for the song of him
+      That waketh by her side,
+    And strikes thy chords of silver to
+      His fair and sea-borne bride.
+
+
+    VIII
+
+    Jewel! that hung before the heart
+      Of some romantic boy;
+    Like him, I sweep thee with a storm
+      Of music and of joy!
+
+    And Julio placed the trembling harp before
+    The ladye, till the minstrel winds came o'er
+    Its moisten'd strings, and tuned them with a sigh.
+    "I hear thee, how thy spirit goeth by,
+    In music and in love. Oh Agathe!
+    Thou sleepest long, long, long; and they will say
+    That seek thee,--'She is dead--she is no more!'
+    But thou art cold, and I will throw before
+    Thy chilly brow the pale and snowy sheet."
+    And he did lift it from her marble feet,
+    The sea-wet shroud! and flung it silently
+    Over her brow--the brow of Agathe!
+
+    But, as a passion from the mooded mind,
+    The storm had died, and wearily the wind
+    Fell fast asleep at evening, like one
+    That hath been toiling in the fiery sun.
+    And the white sail dropt downward, as the wing
+    Of wounded sea-bird, feebly murmuring
+    Unto the mast. It was a deathly calm,
+    And holy stillness, like a shadow, swam
+    All over the wide sea, and the boat stood.
+    Like her of Sodom, in the solitude,
+    A snowy pillar, looking on the waste.
+    And there was nothing but the azure breast
+    Of ocean and the sky--the sea and sky,
+    And the lone bark; no clouds were floating by
+    Where the sun set, but his great seraph light,
+    Went down alone, in majesty and might;
+    And the stars came again, a silver troop,
+    Until, in shame, the coward shadows droop
+    Before the radiance of these holy gems,
+    That bear the images of diadems!
+
+    And Julio fancied of a form that rose
+    Before him from the desolate repose
+    Of the deep waters--a huge ghastly form,
+    As of one lightning-stricken in a storm;
+    And leprosy cadaverous was hung
+    Before his brow, and awful terror flung
+    Around him like a pall--a solemn shroud!--
+    A drapery of darkness and of cloud!
+    And agony was writhing on his lip,
+    Heart-rooted, awful agony and deep,
+    Of fevers, and of plagues, and burning blain,
+    And ague, and the palsy of the brain--
+    A wierd and yellow spectre! And his eyes
+    Were orbless and unpupil'd, as the skies
+    Without the sun, or moon, or any star:
+    And he was like the wreck of what men are,--
+    A wasted skeleton, that held the crest
+    Of Time, and bore his motto on his breast!
+
+    There came a group before of maladies,
+    And griefs, and Famine empty as a breeze,--
+    A double monster, with a gloating leer
+    Fix'd on his other half. They drew them near,
+    One after one, led onward by Despair,
+    That like the last of winter glimmer'd there,--
+    A dismal prologue to his brother Death,
+    Which was behind, and, with the horrid breath
+    Of his wide baneful nostrils, plied them on.
+    And often as they saw the skeleton
+    Grisly beside them, the wild phantasies
+    Grew mad and howl'd; the fever of disease
+    Became wild frenzy--very terrible!
+    And, for a hell of agony--a hell
+    Of rage, was there, that fed on misty things,
+    On dreams, ideas, and imaginings.
+
+    And some were raving on philosophy,
+    And some on love, and some on jealousy,
+    And some upon the moon; and these were they
+    That were the wildest; and anon alway
+    Julio knew them by a something dim
+    About their wasted features like to him!
+
+    But Death was by, like shell of pyramid
+    Among old obelisks, and his eyeless head
+    Shook o'er the wiery ribs, where darkness lay
+    The image of a heart--He is away!
+    And Julio is watching, like Remorse,
+    Over the pale and solitary corse!
+
+    Shower soft light, ye stars, that shake the dew
+    From your eternal blossoms! and thou, too,
+    Moon! minded of thy power, tide-bearing queen!
+    That hast a slave and votary within
+    The great rock-fetter'd deeps, and hearest cry
+    To thee the hungry surges, rushing by
+    Like a vast herd of wolves,--fall full and fair
+    On Julio as he sleepeth, even there,
+    Amid the suppliant bosom of the sea!--
+    Sleep! dost thou come, and on thy blessed knee
+    With hush and whisper lull the troubled brain
+    Of this death-lover?--Still the eyes do strain
+    Their orbs on Agathe--those raven eyes!
+    All earnest on the ladye as she lies
+    In her white shroud. They see not, though they are
+    As if they saw; no splendour like a star
+    Is under their dark lashes: they are full
+    Of dream and slumber--melancholy, dull!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A wide, wide sea! and on its rear and van
+    Amid the stars, the silent meteors ran
+    All that still night, and Julio with a cry
+    Woke up, and saw them flashing fiercely by.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Full three times three, its awful veil of night
+    Hath Heaven hung before the blessed light;
+    And a fair breeze falls o'er the sleeping sea,
+    Where Julio is watching Agathe!
+    By sun and darkness hath he bent him over--
+    A mad, moon-stricken, melancholy lover!
+
+    And hardly hath he tasted, night or day,
+    Of drink or food, because of Agathe!
+    He sitteth in a dull and dreary mood,
+    Like statue in a ruin'd solitude,
+    Bearing the brent of sunlight and of shade
+    Over the marble of some colonnade.
+
+    The ladye, she hath lost the pearly hue
+    Upon her gorgeous brow, where tresses grew
+    Luxuriantly as thoughts of tenderness,
+    That once were floating in the pure recess
+    Of her bright soul. These are not as they were,
+    But are as weeds above a sepulchre,
+    Wild waving in the breeze: her eyes are now
+    Sunk deeply under the discolour'd brow,
+    That is of sickly yellow, and pale blue,
+    Unnaturally blending. The same hue
+    Is on her cheek: it is the early breath
+    Of cold Corruption, the ban dog of Death,
+    Falling upon her features.--Let it be,
+    And gaze awhile on Julio, as he
+    Is gazing on the corse of Agathe!
+
+    In truth, he seemeth like no living one,
+    But is the image of a skeleton:
+    A fearful portrait from the artist tool
+    Of Madness--terrible and wonderful!
+
+    There was no passion there--no feeling traced
+    Under those eyelids, where had run to waste,
+    All that was wild, or beautiful, or bright;
+    A very cloud was cast upon their light,
+    That gave to them the heavy hue of lead;
+    And they were lorn, and lustreless, and dead!
+    He sate like vulture from the mountains gray,
+    Unsated, that had flown full many a day
+    O'er distant land and sea, and was in pride
+    Alighted by the lonely ladye's side.
+
+    He sate like winter o'er the wasted year--
+    Like melancholy winter, drawing near
+    To its own death.--"Oh me! the worm, at last,
+    Will gorge upon me, and the autumn blast
+    Howl by!--Where?--where?--there is no worm to creep
+    Amid the waters of the lonely deep;
+    But I will take me Agathe upon
+    This sorrowful, sore bosom, and anon,
+    Down, down, through azure silence, we shall go,
+    Unepitaph'd, to cities far below;
+    Where the sea triton, with his winding shell,
+    Shall sound our blessed welcome. We shall dwell
+    With many a mariner in his pearly home,
+    In bowers of amber weed and silver foam,
+    Amid the crimson corals; we shall be
+    Together, Agathe! fair Agathe!--
+    But thou art sickly, ladye--thou art sad;
+    And I am weary, ladye--I am mad!
+    They bring no food to feed us, and I feel
+    A frost upon my vitals, very chill,
+    Like winter breaking on the golden year
+    Of life. This bark shall be our floating bier,
+    And the dark waves our mourners; and the white,
+    Pure swarm of sunny sea birds, basking bright
+    On some far isle, shall sorrowfully pour
+    Their wail of melancholy o'er and o'er,
+    At evening, on the waters of the sea,--
+    While, with its solemn burden, silently,
+    Floats forward our lone bark.--Oh, Agathe!
+    Methinks that I shall meet thee far away,
+    Within the awful centre of the earth,
+    Where, earliest, we had our holy birth--
+    In some huge cavern, arching wide below,
+    Upon whose airy pivot, years ago,
+    The world went round: 'tis infinitely deep,
+    But never dismal; for above it sleep,
+    And under it, blue waters, hung aloof,
+    And held below,--an amethystine roof,
+    A sapphire pavement; and the golden sun,
+    Afar, looks through alternately, like one
+    That watches round some treasure: often, too,
+    Through many a mile of ocean, sparkling through,
+    Are seen the stars and moon, all gloriously,
+    Bathing their angel brilliance in the sea!"
+
+    "And there are shafted pillars, that beyond,
+    Are ranged before a rock of diamond,
+    Awfully heaving its eternal heights,
+    From base of silver strewn with chrysolites;
+    And over it are chasms of glory seen,
+    With crimson rubies clustering between,
+    On sward of emerald, with leaves of pearl,
+    And topazes hung brilliantly on beryl.
+    So Agathe!--but thou art sickly sad,
+    And tellest me, poor Julio is mad--
+    Ay, mad!--was he not madder when he sware
+    A vow to Heaven? was there no madness there,
+    That he should do--for why?--a holy string
+    Of penances? No penances will bring
+    The stricken conscience to the blessed light
+    Of peace,--Oh! I am lost, and there is night,
+    Despair and darkness, darkness and despair,
+    And want, that hunts me to the lion-lair
+    Of wild perdition: and I hear them all--
+    All cursing me! The very sun-rays fall
+    In curses, and the shadow of the moon,
+    And the pale star light, and the winds that tune
+    Their voices to the music of the sea,--
+    And thou,--yes, thou! my gentle Agathe!--
+    All curse me!--Oh! that I were never, never!--
+    Or but a breathless fancy, that was ever
+    Adrift upon the wilderness of Time,
+    That knew no impulse, but was left sublime
+    To play at its own will!--that I were hush'd
+    At night by silver cataracts, that gush'd
+    Through flowers of fairy hue, and then to die
+    Away, with all before me passing by,
+    Like a fair vision I had lived to see,
+    And died to see no more!--It cannot be!
+    By this right hand! I feel it is not so,
+    And by the beating of a heart below,
+    That strangely feareth for eternity!"
+
+    He said, and gazing on the lonely sea,
+    Far off he saw, like an ascending cloud,
+    To westward, a bright island, lifted proud
+    Amid the struggling waters, and the light
+    Of the great sun was on its clifted height,
+    Scattering golden shadow, like a mirror;
+    But the gigantic billows sprung in terror
+    Upon its rock-built and eternal shore,
+    With silver foams that fell in fury o'er
+    A thousand sunny breakers. Far above,
+    There stood a wild and solitary grove
+    Of aged pines, all leafless but their brows,
+    Where a green group of tempest-stricken boughs
+    Was waving now and then, and to and fro,
+    And the pale moss was clustering below.
+
+    Then Julio saw, and bent his head away
+    To the cold wasted corse of Agathe,
+    And sigh'd; but ever he would turn again
+    A gaze to that green island on the main.
+
+    The bark is drifting through the surf, beside
+    Its rocks of gray upon the coming tide;
+    And lightly is it stranded on the shore
+    Of pure and silver shells, that lie before,
+    Glittering in the glory of the sun;
+    And Julio hath landed him, like one
+    That aileth of some wild and weary pest;
+    And Agathe is folded on his breast,--
+    A faded flower! with all the vernal dews
+    From its bright blossom shaken, and the hues
+    Become as colourless as twilight air--
+    I marvel much, that she was ever fair!
+
+
+
+
+    CHIMERA III
+
+
+    Another moon! and over the blue night
+    She bendeth, like a holy spirit bright,
+    Through stars that veil them in their wings of gold;
+    As on she floateth with her image cold
+    Enamell'd on the deep. A sail of cloud
+    Is to her left, majestically proud!
+    Trailing its silver drapery away
+    In thin and fairy webs, that are at play
+    Like stormless waves upon a summer sea
+    Dragging their length of waters lazily.
+
+    Ay! to the rocks! and thou wilt see, I wist,
+    A lonely one, that bendeth in the mist
+    Of moonlight, with a wild and raven pall
+    Flung round him. Is he mortal man at all?
+    For, by the meagre fire-light that is under
+    Those eyelids, and the vizor shade of wonder
+    Falling upon his features, I would guess,
+    Of one that wanders out of blessedness!
+    Julio! raise thee!--By the holy mass!
+    I wot not of the fearless one would pass
+    Thy wizard shadow. Where the raven hair
+    Was shorn before, in many a matted layer
+    It lieth now; and on a rock beside
+    The sea, like merman at the ebb of tide,
+    Feasting his wondrous vision on Decay,
+    So art thou gazing over Agathe!
+
+    Ah me! but this is never the fair girl,
+    With brow of light, as lovely as a pearl,
+    That was as beautiful as is the form
+    Of sea-bird at the breaking of a storm.
+    The eye is open, with convulsive strain--
+    A most unfleshly orb! the stars that wane
+    Have nothing of its hue; for it is cast
+    With sickly blood, and terribly aghast!
+    And sunken in its socket, like the light
+    Of a red taper in the lonely night!
+    And there is not a braid of her bright hair
+    But lieth floating in the moonlight air,
+    Like the long moss, beside a silver spring,
+    In elfin tresses, sadly murmuring.
+    The worm hath 'gan to crawl upon her brow--
+    The living worm! and with a ripple now,
+    Like that upon the sea, are heard below,
+    The slimy swarms all ravening as they go,
+    Amid the stagnate vitals, with a rush;
+    And one might hear them echoing the hush
+    Of Julio, as he watches by the side
+    Of the dead ladye, his betrothed bride!
+
+    And, ever and anon, a yellow group
+    Was creeping on her bosom, like a troop
+    Of stars, far up amid the galaxy,
+    Pale, pale, as snowy showers; and two or three
+    Were mocking the cold finger, round and round,
+    With likeness of a ring; and, as they wound
+    About its bony girth, they had the hue
+    Of pearly jewels glistering in dew.
+    That deathly stare! it is an awful thing
+    To gaze upon; and sickly thoughts will spring
+    Before it to the heart: it telleth how
+    There must be waste where there is beauty now.
+    The chalk! the chalk! where was the virgin snow
+    Of that once heaving bosom!--even so,--
+    The cold pale dewy chalk, with yellow shade
+    Amid the leprous hues; and o'er it played
+    The straggling moonlight, and the merry breeze,
+    Like two fair elves, that, by the murmuring seas,
+    Woo'd smilingly together; but there fell
+    No life-gleam on the brow, all terrible
+    Becoming, through its beauty, like a cloud
+    That waneth paler even than a shroud,
+    All gorgeous and all glorious before;
+    For waste, like to the wanton night, was o'er
+    Her virgin features, stealing them away--
+    Ah me! ah me! and this is Agathe?
+
+    "Enough! enough! Oh God! but I have pray'd
+    To thee, in early daylight and in shade,
+    And the mad curse is on me still--and still!
+    I cannot alter the Eternal will--
+    But--but--I hate thee, Agathe! I hate
+    What lunacy hath bade me consecrate:
+    I am _not_ mad!--_not now!_--I do not feel
+    That slumberous and blessed opiate steal
+    Up to my brain--Oh! that it only would,
+    To people this eternal solitude
+    With fancies, and fair dreams, and summer mirth,
+    Which is not now--And yet, my mother earth,
+    I would not love to lie above thee so,
+    As Agathe lies there--oh! no! no! no!
+    To have these clay-worms feast upon my heart!
+    And all the light of being, to depart
+    Into a dismal shadow! I could die
+    As the red lightnings, quenching amid sky
+    Their wild and wizard breath; I could away,
+    Like a blue billow, bursting into spray;
+    But, never--never have corruption here,
+    To feed her worms, and let the sunlight jeer
+    Above me so.--'Tis thou!--I owe thee, Moon,
+    To-night's fair worship; so be lifting soon
+    Thy veil of clouds, that I may kneel, as one
+    That seeketh for thy virgin benison!"
+
+    He gathers the cold limpets, as they creep
+    On the grey rocks beside the lonely deep;
+    And with a flint breaks through into the shell,
+    And feeds him--by the mass! he feasteth well.
+    And he hath lifted water in a clam,
+    And tasted sweetly, from a stream that swam
+    Down to the sea; and now is turn'd away,
+    Again, again, to gaze on Agathe!
+
+    There is a cave upon that isle--a cave
+    Where dwelt a hermit man; the winter wave
+    Roll'd to its entrance, casting a bright mound
+    Of snowy shells and fairy pebbles round;
+    And over were the solemn ridges strewn
+    Of a dark rock, that, like the wizard throne
+    Of some sea-monarch, stood, and from it hung
+    Wild thorn and bramble, in confusion flung
+    Amid the startling crevices--like sky,
+    Through gloom of clouds, that sweep in thunder by.
+    A cataract fell over, in a streak
+    Of silver, playing many a wanton freak;
+    Midway, and musical, with elfin glee
+    It bounded in its beauty to the sea,
+    Like dazzling angel vanishing away.
+    In sooth, 'twas pleasant in the moonlight gray
+    To see that fairy fountain leaping so,
+    Like one that knew not wickedness nor woe!
+
+    The hermit had his cross and rosary;
+    I ween like other hermits, so was he;
+    A holy man, and frugal, and at night
+    He prayed, or slept, or, sometimes, by the light
+    Of the fair moon, went wandering beside
+    The lonely sea, to hear the silver tide
+    Rolling in gleesome music to the shore:
+    The more he heard, he loved to hear the more.
+    And there he is, his hoary beard adrift
+    To the night winds, that sportingly do lift
+    Its snow-white tresses; and he leaneth on
+    A rugged staff, all weakly and alone,
+    A childless, friendless man!
+
+                                 He is beside
+    The ghastly Julio, and his ghastlier bride.
+    'Twas wondrous strange to gaze upon the two!
+    And the old hermit felt a throbbing through
+    His pulses:--"Holy virgin! save me, save!"
+    He deem'd of spectre from the midnight wave,
+    And cross'd him thrice, and pray'd, and pray'd again:--
+    "Hence! hence!" and Julio started, as the strain
+    Of exorcisms fell faintly on his ear:--
+    "I knew thee, father, that thou beest here,
+    To gaze upon this girl, as I have been.
+    By yonder moon! it was a frantic sin
+    To worship so an image of the clay;
+    It was like beauty--but is now away--
+    What lived upon her features, like the light
+    On yonder cloud, all tender and all bright;
+    But it is faded as the other must,
+    And she that was all beauty, is all dust."
+
+    "Father! thy hand upon this brow of mine,
+    And tell me, is it cold?--But she will twine
+    No wreath upon these temples,--never, never!
+    For there she lieth, like a streamless river
+    That stagnates in its bed. Feel, feel me, here,
+    If I be madly throbbing in the fear
+    For that cold slimy worm. Ay! look and see
+    How dotingly it feeds, how pleasantly!
+    And where it is, have been the living hues
+    Of beauty, purer than the very dews.
+    So, father! seest thou that yonder moon
+    Will be on wane to-morrow, soon and soon?
+    And I, that feel my being wear away,
+    Shall droop beside to darkness; so, but say
+    A prayer for the dead, when I am gone,
+    And let the azure tide that floweth on
+    Cover us lightly with its murmuring surf
+    Like a green sward of melancholy turf.
+    Thou mayest, if thou wilt, thou mayest rear
+    A cenotaph on this lone island here,
+    Of some rude mossy stone, below a tree,
+    And carve an olden rhyme for her and me
+    Upon its brow."
+
+                   He bends, and gazes yet
+    Before his ghastly bride! the anchoret
+    Sate by him, and hath press'd a cross of wood
+    To his wan lips.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "My son! look up and tell thy dismal tale.
+    Thou seemest cold, and sorrowful, and pale.
+    Alas! I fear but thou hast strangely been
+    A child of curse, and misery, and sin.
+    And this--is she thy sister?"--"Nay! my bride."
+    "A nun! and thou:"--"True, true! but then she died,
+    And was a virgin, and is virgin still,
+    Chaste as the moon, that taketh her pure fill
+    Of light from the great sun. But now, go by,
+    And leave me to my madness, or to die!
+    This heart, this brain are sore.--Come, come, and fold
+    Me round, ye hydra billows! wrapt in gold,
+    That are so writhing your eternal gyres
+    Before the moon, which, with a myriad tiars
+    Is crowning you, as ye do fall and kiss
+    Her pearly feet, that glide in blessedness!
+    Let me be torture-eaten, ere I die!
+    Let me be mangled sore with agony!
+    And be so cursed, so stricken by the spell
+    Of my heart's frenzy, that a living hell
+    Be burning there!--Back! back! if thou art mad--
+    Methought thou wast, but thou art only sad.
+    Is this thy child, old man? look, look, and see!
+    In truth it is a piteous thing for thee
+    To become childless--Well-a-well, go by!
+    Is there no grave? The quiet sea is nigh,
+    And I will bury her below the moon;
+    It may be but a trance or midnight swoon,
+    And she may wake. Wake, ladye! ha! methought
+    It was like _her_--Like her! and is it not?
+    My angel girl! my brain, my stricken brain!--
+    I know thee now!--I know myself again."
+
+    He flings him on the ladye, and anon,
+    With loathly shudder, from that wither'd one
+    Hath torn him back. "Oh me! no more--no more!
+    Thou virgin mother! Is the dream not o'er,
+    That I have dreamt, but I must dream again
+    For moons together, till this weary brain
+    Become distemper'd as the winter sea?
+    Good father! give me blessing; let it be
+    Upon me as the dew upon the moss.
+    Oh me! but I have made the holy cross
+    A curse, and not a blessing! let me kiss
+    The sacred symbol; for, by this--by this!
+    I sware, and sware again, as now I will--
+    Thou Heaven! if there be bounty in thee still,
+    If thou wilt hear, and minister, and bring
+    The light of comfort on some angel wing
+    To one that lieth lone, do--do it now;
+    By all the stars that open on thy brow
+    Like silver flowers! and by the herald moon
+    That listeth to be forth at nightly noon,
+    Jousting the clouds, I swear! and be it true,
+    As I have perjured me, that I renew
+    Allegiance to thy God, and bind me o'er
+    To this same penance, I have done before!
+    That night and day I watch, as I have been
+    Long watching, o'er the partner of my sin!
+    That I taste never the delight of food,
+    But these wild shell-fish, that may make the mood
+    Of madness stronger, till it grapple Death--
+    Despair--Eternity!"
+
+                        He saith, he saith,
+    And, on the jaundiced bosom of the corse,
+    Lieth all frenzied; one would see Remorse,
+    And hopeless Love, and Hatred, struggling there,
+    And Lunacy, that lightens up Despair,
+    And makes a gladness out of agony.
+    Pale phantom! I would fear and worship thee,
+    That hast the soul at will, and gives it play,
+    Amid the wildest fancies far away;
+    That thronest Reason, on some wizard throne
+    Of fairy land, within the milky zone,--
+    Some spectre star, that glittereth beyond
+    The glorious galaxies of diamond.
+
+    Beautiful Lunacy! that shapest flight
+    For love to blessed bowers of delight,
+    And buildest holy monarchies within
+    The fancy, till the very heart is queen
+    Of all her golden wishes. Lunacy!
+    Thou empress of the passions! though they be
+    A sister group of wild, unearthly forms,
+    Like lightnings playing in their home of storms!
+    I see thee, striking at the silver strings
+    Of the pure heart, and holy music springs
+    Before thy touch, in many a solemn strain,
+    Like that of sea-waves rolling from the main!
+
+    But say, is Melancholy by thy side,
+    With tresses in a raven shower, that hide
+    Her pale and weeping features? Is she never
+    Flowing before thee, like a gloomy river,
+    The sister of thyself? but cold and chill,
+    And winter-born, and sorrowfully still,
+    And not like thee, that art in merry mood,
+    And frolicksome amid thy solitude!
+
+    Fair Lunacy! I see thee, with a crown
+    Of hawthorn and sweet daisies, bending down
+    To mirror thy young image in a spring;
+    And thou wilt kiss that shadow of a thing
+    As soul-less as thyself. 'Tis tender, too,
+    The smile that meeteth thine! the holy hue
+    Of health! the pearly radiance of the brow!
+    All, all as tender--beautiful as thou!
+
+    And wilt thou say, my sister, there is none
+    Will answer thee? Thou art--thou art alone,
+    A pure, pure being! but the God on high
+    Is with thee ever, as thou goest by.
+
+    Thou poetess! that harpest to the moon,
+    And, in soft concert to the silver tune
+    Of waters, play'd on by the magic wind,
+    As he comes streaming, with his hair untwined,
+    Dost sing light strains of melody and mirth,--
+    I hear thee, hymning on thy holy birth,
+    How thou wert moulded of thy mother Love,
+    That came, like seraph, from the stars above,
+    And was so sadly wedded unto Sin,
+    That thou wert born, and Sorrow was thy twin.
+    Sorrow and mirthful Lunacy! that be
+    Together link'd for time, I deem of ye
+    That ye are worshipp'd as none others are,--
+    One as a lonely shadow, one a star!
+
+    Is Julio glad, that bendeth, even now,
+    To his wild purpose, to his holy vow?
+    He seeth only in his ladye-bride
+    The image of the laughing girl, that died
+    A moon before--The same, the very same--
+    The Agathe that lisp'd her lover's name,
+    To him and to her heart: that azure eye,
+    That shone through sunny tresses, waving by;
+    The brow, the cheek, that blush'd of fire and snow,
+    Both blending into one ethereal glow;
+    And that same breathing radiancy, that swam
+    Around her, like a pure and blessed calm
+    Around some halcyon bird. And, as he kiss'd
+    Her wormy lips, he felt that he was blest!
+    He felt her holy being stealing through
+    His own, like fountains of the azure dew,
+    That summer mingles with his golden light;
+    And he would clasp her, till the weary night
+    Was worn away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                    And morning rose in form
+    Of heavy clouds, that knitted into storm
+    The brow of Heaven, and through her lips the wind
+    Came rolling westward, with a track behind
+    Of gloomy billows, bursting on the sea,
+    All rampant, like great lions terribly,
+    And gnashing on each other: and anon,
+    Julio heard them, rushing one by one,
+    And laugh'd and turn'd.--The hermit was away,
+    For he was old and weary, and he lay
+    Within his cave, and thought it was a dream,
+    A summer's dream? and so the quiet stream
+    Of sleep came o'er his eyelids, and in truth
+    He dreamt of that strange ladye, and the youth
+    That held a death-wake on her wasting form;
+    And so he slept and woke not, till the storm
+    Was over.
+
+               But they came,--the wind and sea,
+    And rain and thunder, that in giant glee,
+    Sang o'er the lightnings pale, as to and fro
+    They writhed, like stricken angels!--White as snow
+    Roll'd billow after billow, and the tide
+    Came forward as an army deep and wide,
+    To charge with all its waters. There was heard
+    A murmur far and far, of those that stirr'd
+    Within the great encampment of the sea,
+    And dark they were, and lifted terribly
+    Their water-spouts like banners. It was grand
+    To see the black battalions, hand in hand
+    Striding to conflict, and their helmets bent
+    Below their foamy plumes magnificent!
+
+    And Julio heard and laugh'd, "Shall I be king
+    To your great hosts, that ye are murmuring
+    For one to bear you to your holy war?
+    There is no sun, or moon, or any star,
+    To guide your iron footsteps as ye go;
+    But I, your king, will marshal you to flow
+    From shore to shore. Then bring my car of shell,
+    That I may ride before you terrible;
+    And bring my sceptre of the amber weed,
+    And Agathe, my virgin bride, shall lead
+    Your summer hosts, when these are ambling low,
+    In azure and in ermine, to and fro."
+    He said, and madly, with his wasted hand,
+    Swept o'er the tuneless harp, and fast he spann'd
+    The silver chords, until a rush of sound
+    Came from them, solemn--terrible--profound;
+    And then he dash'd the instrument away
+    Into the waters, and the giant play
+    Of billows threw it back unto the shore,
+    A shiver'd, stringless frame--its day of music o'er!
+    The tide, the rolling tide! the multitude
+    Of the sea surges, terrible and rude,
+    Tossing their chalky foam along the bed
+    Of thundering pebbles, that are shoring dread,
+    And fast retreating to the gloomy gorge
+    Of waters, sounding like a Titan forge!
+
+    It comes! it comes! the tide, the rolling tide!
+    But Julio is bending to his bride,
+    And making mirthful whispers to her ear.
+    A cataract! a cataract is near,
+    Of one stupendous billow, and it breaks
+    Terribly furious, with a myriad flakes
+    Of foam, that fly about the haggard twain;
+    And Julio started, with a sudden pain,
+    That shot into his heart; his reason flew
+    Back to its throne; he rose, and wildly threw
+    His matted tresses over on his brow.
+    Another billow came, and even now
+    Was dashing at his feet. There was no shade
+    Of terror, as the serpent waters play'd
+    Before him, but his eye was calm as death.
+    Another, yet another! and the breath
+    Of the weird wind was with it; like a rock
+    Unriveted it fell--a shroud of smoke
+    Pass'd over--there was heard, and died away,
+    The voice of one, shrill shrieking, "Agathe!"
+
+    The sea-bird sitteth lonely by the side
+    Of the far waste of waters, flapping wide
+    His wet and weary wings; but _he_ is gone,
+    The stricken Julio!--a wave-swept stone
+    Stands there, on which he sat, and nakedly
+    It rises looking to the lonely sea;
+    But Julio is gone, and Agathe!
+    The waters swept them madly to their core,--
+    The dead and living with a frantic roar!
+    And so he died, his bosom fondly set
+    On her's; and round her clay-cold waist were met
+    His bare and wither'd arms, and to her brow
+    His lips were press'd. Both, both are perish'd now!
+
+    He died upon her bosom in a swoon;
+    And fancied of the pale and silver moon,
+    That went before him in her hall of blue:
+    He died like golden insect in the dew,
+    Calm, calm, and pure; and not a chord was rung
+    In his deep heart, but love. He perish'd young,
+    But perish'd, wasted by some fatal flame
+    That fed upon his vitals; and there came
+    Lunacy sweeping lightly, like a stream,
+    Along his brain--He perish'd in a dream!
+
+                      In sooth, I marvel not,
+    If death be only a mysterious thought,
+    That cometh on the heart, and turns the brow
+    Brightless and chill, as Julio's is now;
+    For only had the wasting struggle been
+    Of one wild feeling, till it rose within
+    Into the form of death, and nature felt
+    The light of the immortal being melt
+    Into its happier home, beyond the sea,
+    And moon, and stars, into eternity!
+
+    The sun broke through his dungeon long enthrall'd
+    By dismal cloud, and on the emerald
+    Of the great living sea was blazing down,
+    To gift the lordly billows with a crown
+    Of diamond and silver. From his cave
+    The hermit came, and by the dying wave
+    Lone wander'd, and he found upon the sand,
+    Below a truss of sea-weed, with his hand
+    Around the silent waist of Agathe,
+    The corse of Julio! Pale, pale, it lay
+    Beside the wasted girl. The fireless eye
+    Was open, and a jewell'd rosary
+    Hung round the neck; but it was gone,--the cross
+    That Agathe had given.
+
+                            Amid the moss,
+    The hermit scoop'd a solitary grave
+    Below the pine-trees, and he sang a stave,
+    Or two, or three, of some old requiem
+    As in their narrow home he buried them.
+    And many a day, before that blessed spot
+    He sate, in lone and melancholy thought,
+    Gazing upon the grave; and one had guess'd
+    Of some dark secret shadowing his breast.
+    And yet, to see him, with his silver hair
+    Adrift and floating in the sea-borne air,
+    And features chasten'd in the tears of woe,
+    In sooth 'twas merely sad to see him so!
+    A wreck of nature, floating far and fast,
+    Upon the stream of Time--to sink at last!
+
+    And he is wandering by the shore again,
+    Hard leaning on his staff; the azure main
+    Lies sleeping far before him, with his seas
+    Fast folded in the bosom of the breeze,
+    That like the angel Peace hath dropt his wings
+    Around the warring waters. Sadly sings
+    To his own heart that lonely hermit man,
+    A tale of other days, when passion ran
+    Along his pulses, like a troubled stream,
+    And glory was a splendour, and a dream!
+    He stoop'd to gather up a shining gem,
+    That lay amid the shells, as bright as them,--
+    It was a cross, the cross that Agathe
+    Had given to her Julio: the play
+    Of the fierce sunbeams fell upon its face,
+    And on the glistering jewels--But the trace
+    Of some old thought came burning to the brain
+    Of the pale hermit, and he shrunk in pain
+    Before the holy symbol. It was not
+    Because of the eternal ransom wrought
+    In ages far away, or he had bent
+    In pure devotion sad and reverent;
+    But now, he started, as he look'd upon
+    That jewell'd thing, and wildly he is gone
+    Back to the mossy grave, away, away:--
+    "My child! my child! my own, own Agathe!"
+
+    It is her father,--he,--an alter'd man!
+    His quiet had been wounded, and the ban
+    Of misery came over him, and froze
+    The bright and holy tides, that fell and rose
+    In joy amid his heart. To think of her,
+    That he had injured so, and all so fair,
+    So fond, so like the chosen of his youth,--
+    It was a very dismal thought, in truth,
+    That he had left her hopelessly, for aye,
+    Within the cloister-wall to droop, and die!
+    And so he could not bear to have it be;
+    But sought for some lone island in the sea,
+    Where he might dwell in doleful solitude,
+    And do strange penance in his mirthless mood,
+    For this same crime, unnaturally wild,
+    That he had done unto his saintly child.
+    And ever he did think, when he had laid
+    These lovers in the grave, that, through the shade
+    Of ghastly features melting to decay,
+    He saw the image of his Agathe.
+
+    And now the truth had flash'd into his brain:
+    And he is fallen, with a shriek of pain,
+    Upon the lap of pale and yellow moss;
+    For long ago he gave that blessed cross
+    To his fair girl, and knew the relic still,
+    By many a thousand thoughts, that rose at will
+    Before it, of the one that was not now,
+    But, like a dream, had floated from the brow
+    Of Time, that seeth many a lovely thing
+    Fade by him, like a sea-wave murmuring.
+
+    The heart is burst!--the heart that stood in steel
+    To woman's earnest tears, and bade her feel
+    The curse of virgin solitude,--a veil;
+    And saw the gladsome features growing pale
+    Unmoved: 'tis rent, like some eternal tower
+    The sea hath shaken, and its stately power
+    Lies lonely, fallen, scatter'd on the shore:
+    'Tis rent, like some great mountain, that, before
+    The Deluge, stood in glory and in might,
+    But now is lightning-riven, and the night
+    Is clambering up its sides, and chasms lie strewn,
+    Like coffins, here and there: 'tis rent! the throne
+    Where passions, in their awful anarchy,
+    Stood sceptred! There was heard an inward sigh,
+    That took the being, on its troubled wings,
+    Far to the land of dim imaginings!
+
+    All three are dead; that desolate green isle
+    Is only peopled by the passing smile
+    Of sun and moon, that surely have a sense,
+    They look so radiant with intelligence,--
+    So like the soul's own element,--so fair!
+    The features of a God lie veiled there!
+
+    And mariners that have been toiling far
+    Upon the deep, and lost the polar star,
+    Have visited that island, and have seen
+    That lover's grave: and many there have been
+    That sat upon the gray and crumbling stone,
+    And started, as they saw a skeleton
+    Amid the long sad moss, that fondly grew
+    Through the white wasted ribs; but never knew
+    Of those who slept below, or of the tale
+    Of that brain-stricken man, that felt the pale
+    And wandering moonlight steal his soul away,--
+    Poor Julio, and the ladye Agathe!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    We found them,--children of toil and tears,
+      Their birth of beauty shaded;
+    We left them in their early years
+                      Fallen and faded.
+
+    We found them, flowers of summer hue:
+      Their golden cups were lighted
+    With sparkles of the pearly dew--
+                      We left them blighted!
+
+    We found them,--like those fairy flowers;
+      And the light of morn lay holy
+    Over their sad and sainted bowers--
+                      We left them, lowly.
+
+    We found them,--like twin stars, alone,
+      In brightness and in feeling;
+    We left them,--and the curse was on
+                      Their beauty stealing.
+
+    They rest in quiet, where they are:
+      Their lifetime is the story
+    Of some fair flower--some silver star,
+                      Faded in glory!
+
+
+
+
+POEMS
+
+
+
+
+THE IRIS
+
+    A pale and broken Iris in the mirror
+      Of a gray cloud,--as gray as death,
+      Slow sailing in the breath
+    Of thunder! Like a child, that lies in terror
+      Through the dark night, an Iris fair
+      Trembled midway in air.
+    The blending of its elfin hues
+      Was as the pure enamel on
+    The early morning dews;
+      And gloriously they shone,
+    Waving everyone his wing,
+    Like a young aerial thing!
+      That Iris came
+    Over the shells of gold, beside
+    The blue and waveless tide;
+      Its girdle, of resplendent flame,
+    Met shore and sea, afar,
+    Like angel that shall stand
+    On flood and land,
+    Crown'd with a meteor star.
+
+    The sea-bird, from her snowy stone,
+    Beheld it floating on,
+      Like a bride that bent her way
+    To the altar, standing lone,
+      In some cathedral gray.
+      The melancholy wave
+      Started at the cry she gave,
+    Hailing the lovely child
+      Of the immortal sun,--
+      A tender and a tearful one,
+    Bounding away, with footsteps wild!
+
+    Old Neptune on his silver bed
+      The dazzling image threw;
+      It laid like sunbeam on the dew,
+    Its young tress-waving head.
+      The god upon the shadow gazed,
+      And silently upraised
+    A gentle wave, that came and kiss'd
+    Fair Iris in her holy rest.
+      Her pearly brow grew pale:
+    It felt the sinful fire,
+    And from her queenly tiar
+      She drew the veil.
+    The sun-wing'd steeds her sacred car
+    Wheel'd to her throne of star.
+
+
+
+
+TO A SPIRIT
+
+
+    Spirit! in deathless halo zoned,
+    A chain of stars with wings of diamond,--
+    Is music blended into thee
+    With holy light and immortality?
+      For, as thy shape of glory swept
+    Through seas of darkness, magic breathings fell
+      Around it, like the notes that slept
+    In the wild caverns of a silver shell.
+
+    Thou camest, as a lightning spring
+    Through chasms of horrid cloud, on scathless wing;
+    Old Chaos round him, like a tiar,
+    Swathed the long rush of immaterial fire;
+      As thou, descending from afar,
+    Wast canopied with living arch of light,
+      Pale pillars of immortal star,
+    Burst through the curtains of the moonless night.
+
+    Phantom of wonder! over thee,
+    Trembles the shadow of the Deity;
+    For face to face, on lifted throne,
+    Thou gazest to the glory-shrouded One,
+      Where highest in the azure height
+    Of universe, eternally he turns
+      Myriads of worlds; with blaze of light
+    Filling the hollow of their golden urns.
+
+    Why comest thou, with feelings bound
+    On thy birth-shore, the long unenter'd ground?
+    To visit where thy being first,
+    Through the pale shell of embryo nothing, burst?
+      Or, on celestial errand bent,
+    To win to faith a sin enraptured son,
+      And point the angel lineament
+    Of mercy on a cross,--the Bleeding One?
+
+    Spirit! I breathe no sad adieu:
+    The altars where thou bendest never knew
+    Sigh, tear, or sorrow, and the night
+    No chariot drives behind the wheel of light;
+      Where every seraph is a sun,
+    And every soul an everlasting star.--
+      Go to thy home, thou peerless one!
+    Where glory and the Great Immortal are!
+
+
+
+
+HER, A STATUE
+
+
+    Her life is in the marble! yet a fall
+    Of sleep lies on the heart's fair arsenal,
+    Like new shower'd snow. You hear no whisper through
+    Those love-divided lips; no pearly dew
+    Trembles on her pale orbs, that seem to be
+    Bent on a dream of immortality!
+
+    She sleeps: her life is sleep,--a holy rest!
+    Like that of wing-borne cloud, that, in the west
+    Laves his aerial image, till afar
+    The sunlight leaves him, melting into star.
+    Did Phidias from her brow the veil remove,
+    Uncurtaining the peerless queen of love?
+    The fluent stone in marble waves recoil'd,
+    Touch'd by his hand, and left the wondrous child,
+    A Venus of the foam! How softly fair
+    The dove-like passion on the sacred air
+    Floats round her, nesting in her wreathed hair,
+    That tells, though shadeless, of its auburn hue,
+    Bathed in a hoar of diamond-dropping dew!
+
+    How beautiful!--Was this not one of eld,
+    That Chaos on his boundless bosom held,
+    Till Earth came forward in a rush of storm,
+    Closing his ribs upon her wingless form?
+    How beautiful!--The very lips do speak
+    Of love, and bid us worship: the pale cheek
+    Seems blushing through the marble--through the snow!
+    And the undrap'ried bosom feels a flow
+    Of fever on its brightness; every vein
+    At the blue pulse swells softly, like a chain
+    Of gentle hills. I would not fling a wreath
+    Of jewels on that brow, to flash beneath
+    Those queenly tresses; for itself is more
+    Than sea-born pearl of some Elysian shore!
+
+    Such, with a heart like woman! I would cast
+    Life at her foot, and, as she glided past,
+    Would bid her trample on the slavish thing--
+    Tell her, I'd rather feel me withering
+    Under her step, than be unknown for aye:
+      And, when her pride had crush'd me, she might see
+    A love-wing'd spirit glide in glory by
+      Striking the tent of its mortality!
+
+
+
+
+TO A STORM-STAID BIRD
+
+
+    Trembler! a month is past, and thou
+      Wert singing on the thorn,
+    And shaking dew-drops from the bough
+      In the golden haze of morn!
+
+    My heart was just as thou, as light--
+      As loving of the breeze,
+    That kiss'd thee in its elfin flight,
+      Through the green acacia trees.
+
+    And now the winter snow-flakes lie
+      All on thy widow'd wing;
+    Trembler! methinks I hear thee sigh
+      For the silver days of spring.
+
+    But shake thy plume--the world is free
+      Before thee--warbler, fly!
+    Blest by a sunbeam and by me,
+      Bird of my heart! good-bye!
+
+
+
+
+THE WOLF-DROVE
+
+
+    No night-star in the welkin blue! no moonshade round the trees
+    That grew down to the sea-swept foot of the ancient Pyrenees!
+    The cold gray mantle of the mist, along the shoulders cast
+    Of those wild mountains, to and fro, hung waving in the blast.
+
+    A snow-crown rising on their brows, in royalty they stood,
+    As if they vice-reign'd on a throne of winter solitude;
+    Those hills that rose far upward, till in majesty they bent
+    Their world's great eye-orb on her own immortal lineament!
+
+    The howl, the long deep howl was heard, the rushing like a wave
+    Of the wolf train from their forest haunt, in some old mountain cave;
+    Like a sea-wave, when the wind is horsed behind its foamy crest,
+    And it lifts upon the shell-built shore, its azure-spotted breast.
+
+    They came with war-whoop, following each other, like a thread,
+    Through the long labyrinth of trees, in sunless archway spread;
+    Their gnarled trunks in shadowy lines rose dimly, few by few,
+    Mail'd in their mossy armouring,--a pathless avenue!
+
+    In sooth, there was a shepherd girl by her aged father's side;
+    He gazed upon her deep dark eyes, in glory and in pride;
+    The mother's soul was living there,--the image full and wild,
+    Of one he loved--of one no more, was beaming in her child.
+
+    And she was at her father's side, her raven tresses felt
+    Upon his care-worn cheek, as gay and joyfully she knelt,
+    Kissing the old man's tears away, by the embers burning faint,
+    While she sung the holy aves, and a vesper to her saint.
+
+    "Now bar the breezy lattice, love!--but hist! how fares the night?
+    Methought I heard the wolf abroad. Heaven help! I heard aright--
+    My mantle!--By the Mother Saint! our flock is in the fold?
+    How think you, love? wake up the hound, I ween the wolf is bold."
+
+    "Stay, stay; 'tis past!" "I hear it still; to rest, I pray, to rest."
+    "Nay, father! hold; thou must not go;" and silently she press'd
+    The old man's arm, and bade him stay, for love of Heaven and her:
+    His danger was too wild a thought, for so fond a girl to bear.
+
+    He kiss'd her, and they parted then; but, through the lattice low,
+    She gazed amid the vine-twigs pale, all cradled to and fro;
+    The holy whisper of the wind stole lightly by the eaves,--
+    A sad dirge, sighing to the fall of the winter-blighted leaves.
+
+    He comes not! 'Tis a dreadful thing to hear them as they rave,
+    The savage wolf-train howling, like the near burst of a wave.
+    She thought it was a father's cry she heard--a father's cry!
+    And she flung her from the cottage door, in startled agony.
+
+    Good Virgin save thee, gentle girl! they are no knightly train
+    That mark thee for their sinless prey--thou wilt not smile again;
+    The blood is streaming on thy cheek; the heart it ceases slow;
+    A father gazes on his child--God help a father's woe!
+
+
+
+
+HYMN TO ORION
+
+
+    Orion! old Orion! who dost wait
+    Warder at heaven's star-studded gate,
+    On a throne where worlds might meet
+    At thy silver sandal'd feet,
+    All invisible to thee,
+    Gazing through immensity;
+    For thy crowned head is higher
+    Than the ramparts of earth-searching fire,
+    And the comet his blooded banner, there
+    Flings back upon the waveless air.
+
+    Old Orion! holy hands
+    Have knit thy everlasting bands,
+    Belted by the King of kings,
+    Under thy azure-sheathed wings,
+    With a zone of living light,
+    Such as bound the Apostate might,
+    When from highest tower of heaven,
+    His vaunting shape was wrathly driven
+    To its wane, woe-wall'd abode,
+    Rended from the eye of God!
+
+    Dost thou, in thy vigils, hail
+    Arcturus on his chariot pale,
+    Leading his sons--a fiery flight--
+    Over the hollow hill of night?
+    Or tellest of their watches long,
+    To the sleepless, nameless throng,
+    Shoaling in a wond'rous gleam,
+    Like channel through the azure stream
+    Of life reflected, as it flows,
+    In one broad ocean of repose,
+    Gushing from thy lips, Orion!
+    To the holy walls of Zion?
+
+
+
+    _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+    _London & Edinburgh_
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Death-Wake, by Thomas T Stoddart
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