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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mazelli, and Other Poems, by Sands
+#1 in our series by George W. Sands
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+Mazelli, and Other Poems
+
+by George W. Sands
+
+December, 1999  [Etext #2008]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mazelli, and Other Poems, by Sands
+*******This file should be named mzlli10.txt or mzlli10.zip******
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+This Etext prepared by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer.
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+
+
+Mazelli, and Other Poems
+
+By George W. Sands
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+Under this head, I desire to say a few words upon three subjects,
+--my friends, my book, and myself.
+
+My friends, though not legion in number, have been, in their
+efforts in my behalf, disinterested, sincere, and energetic.
+
+My book: I lay it, as my first offering, at the shrine of my
+country's fame. "Would it were worthier." While our soldiers
+are first in every field where they meet our enemies, and while
+the wisdom of our legislators is justified before all the world,
+in the perfection of our beloved institutions, our literature
+languishes. This should not be so; for literature, with its
+kindred arts, makes the true glory of a nation. We bow in spirit
+when Greece is named, not alone because she was the mother of
+heroes and lawgivers, but because her hand rocked the cradle of
+a literature as enduring as it is beautiful and brilliant, and
+cherished in their infancy those arts which eventually repaid her
+nursing care in a rich harvest of immortal renown.
+
+For myself I have little to say. I have not written for fame, and
+if my life had been a happy one I should never have written at all.
+As it was, I early came to drink of the bitter cup; and sorrow,
+whilst it cuts us off from the outer, drives us back upon the inner
+world;-- and then the unquiet demon of ceaseless thought is roused,
+and the brain becomes "a whirling gulf of phantasy and flame," and
+we rave and--write! Yes, write! And men read and talk about genius,
+and, God help them! Often envy its unhappy possessors the fatal gift
+which lies upon heart and brain like molten lead! Of all who have
+gained eminence among men as poets, how few are there of whom it may
+not be justly said, "They have come up through much tribulation."
+
+G. W. S.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+Mazelli,
+  Canto I.,
+  Canto II.,
+  Canto III.,
+The Misanthrope Reclaimed,
+  Act I.,
+  Act II.,
+  Act III.,
+  Act IV.,
+Miscellaneous Poems,
+
+
+
+Dedication.
+
+Frederick City, September 7th, 1849.
+
+Dear Sir,--
+
+In humble testimony of my gratitude for your services as a friend,
+and my admiration and respect for your character and worth as an
+author and a man, permit me to dedicate to you the poem of "Mazelli."
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+George W. Sands.
+
+To Samuel Tyler, Esq.,
+Of the Maryland Bar.
+
+
+
+MAZELLI
+
+Canto I.
+
+I.
+
+"Stay, traveller, stay thy weary steed,
+  The sultry hour of noon is near,
+Of rest thy way-worn limbs have need,
+  Stay, then, and, taste its sweetness here.
+The mountain path which thou hast sped
+Is steep, and difficult to tread,
+And many a farther step 'twill cost,
+Ere thou wilt find another host;
+But if thou scorn'st not humble fare,
+Such as the pilgrim loves to share,--
+Not luxury's enfeebling spoil,
+But bread secured by patient toil--
+Then lend thine ear to my request,
+And be the old man's welcome guest.
+Thou seest yon aged willow tree,
+  In all its summer pomp arrayed,
+'Tis near, wend thither, then, with me,
+My cot is built beneath its shade;
+And from its roots clear waters burst
+To cool thy lip, and quench thy thirst:--
+I love it, and if harm should, come
+  To it, I think that I should weep;
+'Tis as a guardian of my home,
+So faithfully it seems to keep
+Its watch above the spot where I
+Have lived so long, and mean to die.
+Come, pardon me for prating thus,
+But age, you know, is garrulous;
+And in life's dim decline, we hold
+Thrice dear whate'er we loved of old,--
+The stream upon whose banks we played,
+The forest through whose shades we strayed,
+The spot to which from sober truth
+We stole to dream the dreams of youth,
+The single star of all Night's zone,
+Which we have chosen as our own,
+Each has its haunting memory
+Of things which never more may be."
+
+II.
+
+Thus spake an aged man to one
+Who manhood's race had just begun.
+His form of manhood's noblest length
+Was strung with manhood's stoutest strength,
+And burned within his eagle eye
+The blaze of tameless energy--
+Not tameless but untamed--for life
+Soon breaks the spirit with its strife
+And they who in their souls have nursed
+The brightest visions, are the first
+To learn how Disappointment's blight
+Strips life of its illusive light;
+How dreams the heart has dearest held
+Are ever first to be dispelled;
+How hope, and power, and love, and fame,
+Are each an idly sounding name,
+A phantom, a deceit, a wile,
+That woos and dazzles to beguile.
+But time had not yet tutored him,
+The youth of hardy heart and limb,
+Who quickly drew his courser's bit;
+For though too haughty to submit,
+In strife for mastery with men,
+  Yet to a prayer, or a caress,
+  His soul became all gentleness,--
+An infant's hand might lead him then:
+So answered he,--"In sooth the way
+My steed and I have passed to-day,
+Is of such weary, winding length,
+As sorely to have tried our strength,
+And I will bless the bread and salt
+Of him who kindly bids me halt."
+Then springing lightly to the ground,
+His girth and saddle he unbound,
+And turning from the path aside,
+The steed and guest, the host and guide,
+Sought where the old man's friendly door
+Stood ever open to the poor:
+The poor--for seldom came the great,
+Or rich, the apers of their state,
+That simple, rude abode to see,
+Or claim its hospitality.
+
+III.
+
+From where the hermit's cottage stood,
+  Beneath its huge old guardian tree,
+  The gazer's wand'ring eye might see,
+Where, in its maze of field and wood,
+And stretching many a league away,
+A broad and smiling valley lay:--
+Lay stilly calm, and sweetly fair,
+As if Death had not entered there;
+As if its flowers, so bright of bloom,
+  Its birds, so gay of song and wing,
+Would never lose their soft perfume,
+  Would never, never cease to sing.
+Fat flocks were in its glens at rest,
+Pure waters wandered o'er its breast,
+The sky was clear, the winds were still,
+Rich harvests grew on every hill,
+The sun in mid-day glory smiled,
+And nature slumbered as a child.
+
+IV.
+
+And now, their rustic banquet done,
+And sheltered from the noontide sun
+By the old willow's pleasant shade,
+The guest and host the scene surveyed;
+Marked how the mountain's mighty base
+The valley's course was seen to trace;
+Marked how its graceful azure crest
+Against the sky's blue arch was pressed,
+And how its long and rocky chain
+Was parted suddenly in twain,
+Where through a chasm, wide and deep,
+Potomac's rapid waters sweep,
+While rocks that press the mountain's brow,
+Nod o'er his waves far, far below;(1)
+Marked how those waves, in one broad blaze,
+Threw back the sun's meridian rays,
+And, flashing as they rolled along,
+Seemed all alive with light and song;
+Marked how green bower and garden showed
+Where rose the husbandman's abode,
+And how the village walls were seen
+To glimmer with a silvery sheen,
+Such as the Spaniard saw, of yore,
+  Hang over Tenuchtitlan's walls,
+When maddened with the lust of gore,
+  He came to desecrate her halls;
+To fire her temples, towers, and thrones,
+And turn her songs of peace to groans.
+They gazed, till from the hermit's eye
+A tear stole slow and silently;
+A tear, which Memory's hand had taken
+  From a deep fountain long congealed;
+A tear, which showed how strongly shaken
+  The heart must be, which thus revealed,
+Through time's dim shadows, gathering fast,
+Its recollections of the past;
+Then, as a sigh escaped his breast,
+Thus spake the hermit to his guest.
+
+V.
+
+"Thou seest how fair a scene is here;
+  It seems as if 'twere planned above,
+And fashioned from some happier sphere,
+  To be the home of peace and love.
+Yet man, too fond of strife, to dwell
+  In meek contentment's calm repose,
+Will turn an Eden to a hell,
+  And triumph in his brother's woes!
+And passion's lewd and lawless host,
+Delight to rave and revel most
+Where generous Nature stamps and strews
+Her fairest forms, and brightest hues:
+And Discord here has lit her brand,
+  And Hatred nursed her savage brood,
+And stern Revenge, with crimson hand,
+  Has written his foul deeds in blood.
+But those who loved and suffered then,
+Have given place to other men:
+Of all who live, to me alone
+The story, of their fate is known;
+Give heed, and I will tell it thee,
+Tho' mournful must the story be.
+
+VI.
+
+I mind as if 'twere yesterday,
+  The hour when first I stood beside
+  The margin of yon rushing tide,
+And watched its wild waves in their play;
+These locks that now are thin and gray,
+Then clustered thick and dark as thine,
+And few had strength of arm like mine.
+Thou seest how many a furrow now
+Time's hand hath ploughed athwart my brow:
+Well, then it was without a line;--
+And I had other treasures too,
+  Of which 'tis useless now to vaunt;
+Friends, who were kind, and warm, and true;
+  A heart, that danger could not daunt;
+A soul, with wild dreams wildly stirred;
+And hope that had not been deferred.
+I cannot count how many years
+Have since gone by, but toil and tears,
+And the lone heart's deep agony,
+I feel have sadly altered me;--
+Yet mourn I not the change, for those
+I loved or scorned, my friends or foes,
+Have fallen and faded, one by one,
+  As time's swift current hurried by,
+Till I, of all my kith alone,
+  Am left to wait, and wish to die.
+
+VII.
+
+How strong a hand hath Time! Man rears,
+And names his work immortal; years
+Go by. Behold! where dwelt his pride,
+Stern Desolation's brood abide;
+The owl within his bower sits,
+The lone bat through his chamber flits;
+Where bounded by the buoyant throng,
+With measured step, and choral song,
+The wily serpent winds along;
+While the Destroyer stalketh by,
+And smiles, as if in mockery.
+  How strong a band hath Time! Love weaves
+His wreath of flowers and myrtle leaves,
+(Methinks his fittest crown would be
+A chaplet from the cypress tree;)
+With hope his breast is swelling high,
+And brightly beams his laughing eye;
+But soon his hopes are mixed with fears,
+And soon his smiles are quenched in tears:
+Then Disappointment's blighting breath
+Breathes o'er him, and he droops to death;
+While the Destroyer glideth by,
+And smiles, as if in mockery.
+How strong a hand hath Time! Fame wins
+  The eager youth to her embrace;
+With tameless ardour he begins,
+  And follows up the bootless race;
+Ah! bootless--for, as on he hies,
+With equal speed the phantom flies,
+Till youth, and strength, and vigour gone,
+He faints, and sinks, and dies unknown;
+While the Destroyer passeth by,
+And smiles, as if in mockery.
+Gaze, stranger, on the scene below;
+'Tis scarce a century ago,
+  Since here abode another race,
+The men of tomahawk and bow,
+  The savage sons of war and chase;
+Yet where, ah! where, abide they now?
+Go search, and see if thou canst find,
+One trace which they have left behind,
+A single mound, or mossy grave,
+That holds the ashes of the brave;
+A single lettered stone to say
+That they have lived, and passed away.
+Men soon will cease to name their name,
+Oblivion soon will quench their fame,
+And the wild story of their fate,
+Will yet be subject of debate,
+'Twixt antiquarians sage and able,
+Who doubt if it be truth or fable.
+
+VIII.
+
+I said I minded well the time,
+  When first beside yon stream I stood;
+  Then one interminable wood,
+In its unbounded breadth sublime,
+  And in its loneliness profound,
+Spread like a leafy sea around.
+To one of foreign land and birth,
+Nursed 'mid the loveliest scenes of earth,
+But now from home and friends exiled,
+Such wilderness were doubly wild;--
+I thought it so, and scarce could I
+My tears repress, when standing by
+The river's brink, I thought of mine
+Own native stream, the glorious Rhine!
+For, near to it, with loving eye,
+My mother watched my infancy;
+Along its banks my childhood strayed,
+With its strong waves my boyhood played.
+And I could see, in memory, still
+My father's cottage on the hill,
+With green vines trailing round and o'er
+Wall, roof and casement, porch and door:
+Yet soon I learned yon stream to bless,
+And love the wooded wilderness.
+I could not then have told thee how
+The change came o'er my heart, but now
+I know full well the charm that wrought,
+Into my soul, the spell of thought--
+Of tender, pensive thought, which made
+Me love the forest's deepest shade,
+And listen, with delighted ear,
+To the low voice of waters near,
+As gliding, gushing, gurgling by,
+They utter their sweet minstrelsy.
+I scarce need give that _charm_ a name;
+Thy heart, I know, hath felt the same,--
+Ah! where is mind, or heart, or soul,
+That has not bowed to its control?
+
+IX.
+
+See, where yon towering, rocky ledge,
+Hangs jutting o'er the river's edge,
+There channelled dark, and dull, and deep,
+The lazy, lagging waters sleep;
+Thence follow, with thine eagle sight,
+A double stone's cast to the right,
+Mark where a white-walled cottage stands,
+Devised and reared by cunning hands,
+A stately pile, and fair to see!
+  The chisel's touch, and pencil's trace,
+  Have blent for it a goodly grace;
+And yet, it much less pleaseth me,
+Than did the simple rustic cot,
+Which occupied of yore that spot.
+For, 'neath its humble shelter, grew
+The fairest flower that e'er drank dew;
+A lone exotic of the wood,
+The fairy of the solitude,
+Who dwelt amid its loneliness
+To brighten, beautify, and bless.
+The summer sky's serenest blue,
+Would best portray her eye's soft hue;
+From her white brow were backward rolled
+Long curls of mingled light and gold;
+The flush upon her cheek of snow,
+Had shamed the rose's harsher glow;
+And haughty love had, haughtier grown,
+To own her breast his fairest throne.
+The eye that once behold her, ne'er
+  Could lose her image;--firm and bright,
+All-beautiful, and pure, and clear,
+'Twas stamped upon th' enamoured sight;
+Unchangeable, for ever fair,
+Above decay, it lingered there!
+As it has lingered on mine own,
+These many years, till it has grown,
+In its mysterious strength, to be
+A portion of my soul and me.
+
+X.
+
+Not in the peopled solitude
+  Of cities, does true love belong;
+For it is of A thoughtful mood,
+  And thought abides not with the throng.
+Nor is it won by glittering wealth,
+  By cunning, nor device of art,
+Unheralded, by silent stealth,
+  It wins its way into the heart.
+And once the soul has known its dream,
+Thenceforth its empire is supreme,
+For heart, and brain, and soul, and will,
+Are bowed by its subduing thrill.
+My love, alas! not born to bless,
+Had birth in nature's loneliness;
+And held, at first, as a sweet spell,
+  It grew in strength, till it became
+A spirit, which I could not quell,--
+  A quenchless--a volcanic flame,
+Which, without pause, or time of rest,
+Must burn for ever in my breast.
+Yet how ecstatically sweet,
+Was its first soft tumultuous beat!
+I little thought that beat could be
+The harbinger of misery;
+And daily, when the morning beam
+Dawned earliest on wood and stream,
+When, from each brake and bush were heard,
+The hum of bee, and chirp of bird,
+From these, earth's matin songs, my ear
+Would turn, a sweeter voice to hear--
+A voice, whose tones the very air
+Seemed trembling with delight to bear;
+From leafy wood, and misty stream,
+From bush, and brake, and morning beam,
+Would turn away my wandering eye,
+A dearer object to descry,
+Till voice so sweet, and form so bright,
+Grew part of hearing and of sight.
+
+X1.
+
+Yet my fond love I never told,
+  But kept it, as the miser keeps,
+  In his rude hut, his hoarded heaps
+Of gleaming gems, and glittering gold:
+Gloating in secret o'er the prize,
+He fears to show to other eyes;
+And so passed many months away,
+Till once I heard a comrade say:--
+"To-morrow brings her bridal day;
+Mazelli leaves the greenwood bower,
+Where she has grown its fairest flower,
+To bless, with her bright, sunny smile,
+A stranger from a distant isle,
+Whom love has lured across the sea,
+  O'er hill and glen, through wood and wild,
+Far from his lordly home, to be
+  Lord of the forest's fairest child."
+It was as when a thunder peal
+  Bursts, crashing from a cloudless sky,
+It caused my brain and heart to reel
+  And throb, with speechless agony:
+Yet, when wild Passion's trance was o'er,
+And Thought resumed her sway once more,
+I breathed a prayer that she might be
+Saved from the pangs that tortured me;
+That her young heart might never prove
+The sting of unrequited love.
+My task I then again began,
+But ah! how much an altered man,--
+A single hour, a few hot tears,
+Had done the wasting work of years.
+
+XII.
+
+Nor was it I alone, to whom
+Those words had been as words of doom,
+  By some malicious fiend rehearsed:
+Another one was standing by,
+With princely port, and piercing eye,
+Of dusky cheek, and brow, and plume;
+  I thought his heaving heart would burst,
+His labouring bosom's heave and swell,
+So strongly, quickly, rose and fell!
+A long, bright blade hung at his side,
+Its keen and glittering edge he tried;
+He bore a bow, and this he drew,
+To see if still its spring were true;
+But other sign could none be caught,
+Of what he suffered, felt, or thought.
+And then with firm and haughty stride,
+He turned away, and left my side;
+I watched him, as with rapid tread,
+Along the river's marge he sped,
+Till the still twilight's gathering gloom
+Hid haughty form, and waving plume.
+
+
+Canto II.
+
+I.
+
+He stood where the mountain moss outspread
+  Its smoothness beneath his dusky foot;
+The chestnut boughs above his head,
+  Hung motionless and mute.
+There came not a voice from the wooded hill,
+  Nor a sound from the shadowy glen,
+Save the plaintive song of the whip-poor-will,(2)
+  And the waterfall's dash, and now and then,
+    The night-bird's mournful cry.
+Deep silence hung round him; the misty light
+Of the young moon silvered the brow of Night,
+  Whose quiet spirit had flung her spell
+O'er the valley's depth, and the mountain's height,
+  And breathed on the air, till its gentle swell
+Arose on the ear like some loved one's call;
+And the wide blue sky spread over all
+    Its starry canopy.
+And he seemed as the spirit of some chief,
+  Whose grave could not give him rest;
+So deep was the settled hue of grief,
+  On his manly front impressed:
+Yet his lips were compressed with a proud disdain,
+  And his port was erect and high,
+Like the lips of a martyr who mocks at pain,
+  As the port of a hero who scorns to fly,
+    When his men have failed in fight;
+  Who rather a thousand deaths would die,
+    Than his fame should suffer blight.
+
+II.
+
+And who by kith, and who by name,
+  Is he, that lone, yet haughty one?
+By his high brow, and eye of flame,
+  I guess him old Ottalli's son.
+Ottalli! whose proud name was here
+In other times, a sound of fear!
+The fleet of foot, and strong of hand,
+Chief of his tribe, lord of the land,
+The forest child, of mind and soul
+Too wild and free to brook control!
+In chase was none so swift as he,
+  In battle none so brave and strong;
+To friends, all love and constancy,--
+  But we to those who wrought him wrong!
+His arm would wage avenging strife,
+With bow, and spear, and bloody knife,
+Till he had taught his foes to feel,
+How true his aim, how keen his steel.
+Now others hold the sway he held,--
+  His day and power have passed away;
+His goodly forests all are felled,
+  And songs of mirth rise, clear and gay,
+Chaunted by youthful voices, where
+His battle-hymn once filled the air--
+Where blazed the lurid council fire,
+The village church erects its spire;
+And where the mystic war-dance rang,
+With its confused, discordant clang,
+While stern, fierce lips, with many a cry
+For blood and vengeance, filled the sky,
+Mild Mercy, gentle as the dove,
+Proclaims her rule of peace and love.
+And of his true and faithful clan,
+Of child and matron, maid and man,
+Of all he loved, survives but one--
+His earliest, and his only son!
+That son's sole heritage his fame,
+His strength, his likeness, and his name.
+
+III.
+
+And thus from varying year to year,
+The youthful chief has lingered here;
+Chief!--why is he so nobly named?
+How many warriors at his call,
+By Arcouski's breath inflamed,
+  Would with him fight, and for him fall?
+Of all his father's warrior throng,
+  Remains not one whose lip could now
+Rehearse with him the battle song,
+  Whose hand could bend the hostile bow.
+And yet, no weak, complaining word,
+From his stern lip is ever heard;
+And his bright eye, so black and clear,
+Is never moistened by a tear;
+Of quiet mien, and mournful mood,
+He lives, a stoic of the wood;
+Gliding about from place to place,
+With noiseless step, and steady pace,
+Haunting each fountain, glen, and grot,
+Like the lone Genius of the spot.
+
+IV.
+
+And this was he who, standing there,
+Seemed as an image of Despair,
+Which agony's convulsive strife,
+Had quickened into breathing life.
+The writhing lip, the brow all wet
+With Pain's cold, clammy, deathlike sweat;
+The hand, that with unconscious clasp,
+Strained his keen dagger in its grasp;
+The eye, that lightened with the blaze
+Of frenzied Passion's maniac gaze;
+The nervous, shuddering thrill, which came
+At intervals along his frame;
+The tremulously heaving breast,--
+These signs the inward storm confessed:
+Yet, through those signs of wo, there broke
+Flashes of fearless thought, which spoke
+A soul within, whose haughty will
+Would wrestle with immortal ill,
+And only quit the strife, when fate
+Its being should annihilate.
+Silent he stood, until the breeze
+Bore from his lips some words like these.
+
+V.
+
+"The words I speak are no complaint
+  And if I breathe out my despair,
+It is not that my heart grows faint,
+  Or shrinks from what 'tis doomed to bear.
+Though every sorrow which may shake
+  Or rend man's heart, should pierce my own,
+Their strength united, should not make
+  My lip breathe one complaining tone.
+If I must suffer, it shall be
+  With a firm heart, a soul elate,
+A wordless scorn, which silently
+  Shall mock the stern decrees of fate.
+The weak might bend, the timid shrink,
+  Until misfortune's storm blew by,
+But I, a chieftain's son, should drink
+  Its proffered cup without a sigh.
+And it will scarcely, to my lip,
+  Seem harsher than yon fountain's flow,
+For I have held companionship
+  With Misery, from my youth till now--
+Have felt, by turns, each pang, each care,
+Her hapless sons are doomed, to bear;--
+I caught my mother's parting breath,
+  When passed she to the spirit land;
+And from the fatal field of death,
+  Where, leading on his fearless band,
+With fiery and resistless might,
+He fell, though victor in the fight,
+Pierced by the arrow of some foe,
+I saw my father's spirit go.
+And I have seen his warrior men,
+From mountain, valley, hill, and glen,
+Departing one by one, since then,
+As from the dry and withered spray,
+The wilted leaves are blown away,
+Upon some windy autumn day:
+I, only I, am left to be
+The last leaf of the blighted tree,
+Which the first wind that through the sky
+Goes carelessly careering by,
+Will, in its wild, unheeded mirth,
+Rend from its hold, and dash to earth:
+Thus, here alone have I remained,
+An outcast, where I should have reigned.
+
+VI.
+
+"How shall I to myself alone,
+The weakness of my bosom own?
+Why, mindful of my fame and pride,
+When my brave brethren had died;
+Why, with my friendly, ready knife,
+Drew I not forth my useless life?
+Was it a coward fear of death,
+That bade me treasure up my breath?
+Or had life yet some genial ray,
+That wooed me in its warmth to stay?
+Had earth yet one whose smile could stir,
+My spirit with deep love for her?
+Yes, though within me hope was dead,
+And wild Ambition's dreams were fled;
+Though o'er my blighted heart, Despair
+Desponded, love still nestled there;
+Love! how the pale-faced scorner's lip
+  Would sneer, to hear me name that name;
+Yet was it deep within my soul
+  A secret but consuming flame;
+Whose overruling mastership,
+Defied slow Reason's dull control!
+And felt for one of that vile race,
+To whom my tribe had given place;
+  Was nursed in silence and in shame!
+Shame, for the weakness of a heart,
+  Yet bleeding from th' oppressor's blow,
+Which could bestow its better part
+  Upon the offspring of a foe!
+They, the mean delvers of the soil,
+The wielders of the felling axe,--
+Because we will not stoop to toil,
+  Nor to its burdens bond our backs;
+Because we scorn Seduction's wiles,
+Her lying words and forged smiles,
+They, the foul slaves of lust and gold,
+Say that our blood and hearts are cold.(3)
+But ere the morrow's dawning light
+Has climbed yon eastern craggy height,
+One, whose fierce eye and haughty brow,
+Are lit with pride and pleasure now,
+Shall learn, at point of my true steel,
+How much the Red man's heart may feel,--
+How fearlessly he strikes the foe,
+When love and vengeance prompt the blow!
+Though scorned by him, I know an art
+Could stop the beatings of his heart,
+Ere his own lips could say, 'Be still!'
+  A single arrow from my bow,
+Bathed in the poisonous manchenille,(4)
+  Would in an instant lay him low;
+So deadly is the icy chill,
+With which the life-blood it congeals,
+The wounded warrior scarcely feels
+Its fatal touch ere he expire:
+But, when Revenge would glut his ire,
+He stops not with immediate death
+The current of his victim's breath;
+With gasp, and intervening pause,
+The lifeblood from its source he draws,
+Marks, in the crimson stream that flows,
+How near life verges to its close,--
+And its last soul-exhaling groan,
+To him is music's sweetest tone!
+And he, whose fate it is to die,
+Ere Morning's banner flouts the sky,
+The eye shall see, the arm shall know,
+That guides and deals th' avenging blow;
+And ere his spirit goes to rest,
+  Right well his scornful heart shall learn,
+How fiercely, in a savage breast,
+  The flames of love and hate may burn."
+He spake, and down the mountain's side,
+With quick, impatient step, he hied,
+Threading the forest's lonely gloom,
+A ruthless minister of doom.
+
+VII.
+
+'Twas midnight; calmly slept the Earth,
+  And the mysterious eyes above,
+  Gazed down with chastened looks of love,
+Not, as when first they hymned her birth,
+With ardent songs of holy mirth,
+But mournfully serene and clear;--
+  As on some erring one we gaze,
+  Whose feet have strayed from wisdom's ways,
+But who, in error, still is dear.
+Far o'er yon swiftly flowing stream
+Fair fell the young moon's silver beam,
+And gazing on its restless sheen,
+Stood one whose garb, and port, and mien,
+Bespoke him of a foreign land,
+One born to win, and hold command;
+The master mind, the leading one,
+Where deeds of manly might were done.
+Yet, by the hallowed glow, that came
+  O'er lip and cheek, o'er eye and brow,
+  He who beheld, might guess that now
+His thoughts were not of wealth and fame:
+Whence could that veiling radiance shine,
+Save from Affection's holy shrine?
+And this was he, who from afar,
+  Had come to bear away his bride;
+And love had been the guiding star,
+  That lit him o'er the trackless tide;
+"To-morrow, on its sunny wing,
+My bridal hour soon shall bring;
+And those bright orbs which o'er me shed
+  Such gentle radiance from on high,
+Shall shine upon my nuptial bed,
+  When next they walk along the sky.
+0! what are all the pomps of earth,
+Of honour, glory, greatness, worth,
+Beside the bliss which Love confers
+Upon his humblest followers!"
+He said, and from the river turned;--
+An eye, that with fierce hatred burned,
+Met his, and this reply was made:
+"Thou, haughty one, shalt be a shade
+Ere dawns the coming morrow's sun."
+Then, ere the point he could evade,
+  He felt the sharp steel pierce his breast,
+While he, who the foul deed had done
+Stood calmly by, and saw him sink
+In death, beside the water's brink,
+Saw, gush by gush, the crimson blood
+Pour out, and mingle with the flood;
+  Then drew his dagger from its rest,
+And gazing on its fearful hue,
+Said, "Thou hast yet one task to do.
+He who, death-wounded, welters there,
+Came hither, o'er the deep to bear
+  Far off from her paternal nest,
+The white dove I have watched so long.
+The falcon's wing was bold and strong,
+Yet thou hast stayed him in his flight;
+Strike one more blow, and thou to-night
+May'st rest;" then laid his bosom bare,
+And buried deep the dagger there,
+And by his victim's lifeless trunk,
+Without a sigh or groan he sunk.
+
+Canto III.
+
+I.
+
+With plumes to which the dewdrops cling,
+Wide waves the morn her golden wing;
+With countless variegated beams
+The empurpled orient glows and gleams;
+A gorgeous mass of crimson clouds
+The mountain's soaring summit shrouds;
+Along the wave the blue mist creeps,
+  The towering forest trees are stirred
+By the low wind that o'er them sweeps,
+  And with the matin song of bird,
+  The hum of early bee is heard,
+Hailing with his shrill, tiny horn,
+The coming of the bright-eyed morn;
+And, with the day-beam's earliest dawn,
+  Her couch the fair Mazelli quits,
+And gaily, fleetly as a fawn,
+  Along the wildwood paths she flits,
+Hieing from leafy bower to bower,
+Culling from each its bud and flower,
+Of brightest hue and sweetest breath,
+To weave them in her bridal wreath.
+Now, pausing in her way, to hear
+The lay of some wild warbler near,
+Repaying him, in mocking tone,
+With music sweeter than his own;
+Now, o'er some crystal stream low bending,
+  Her image in its waves to see,
+With its sweet, gurgled music blending,
+  A song of tenfold melody;
+Now, chasing the gay butterfly,
+That o'er her pathway passed her by,
+With grace as careless, glee as wild,
+As though she were some thoughtless child;
+Now, seated on some wayside stone,
+With time's green, messy veil o'ergrown,
+In silent thoughtfulness, she seems
+  To hold communion with her heart,
+Beguiling fancy with the dreams
+  That from its Pure recesses start.
+
+II.
+
+There is a silent power, that o'er
+  Our bosoms wields a wizard might,
+  Restoring bygone years to light,
+With the same vivid glow they wore,
+Ere time had o'er their features cast
+The shadowy shroud that veils the past:--
+To those who walk in wisdom's way,
+  'Tis welcome as an angel's smile;
+But those who from her counsels stray,
+  Whose hearts are full of craft and guile,
+To them 'tis as a constant goad--
+A weight that doubles Sorrow's load,--
+A silent searcher of the breast,
+Which will not let the guilty rest.
+In childhood's pleasant -season born,
+  It haunts us in all after time;
+From youth's serene and sunny morn
+  To manhood's stern meridian prime.
+From manhood, till the weight of years,
+And life's dull constant toil, and tears,
+And passion's ever raging storm,
+Have dimmed the eye and bowed the form.
+True, youth, of hope and love possessed,
+By friends--youth has no foes--caressed,
+Finds in the present--happy boy!--
+Enough of gaiety and joy;
+And man, whose visionary brain
+Begets that idle phantom train
+Of shadows--Power, Wealth, and Fame,--
+A scourge--a bubble--and a name--
+So often and so vainly sought--
+Has little time for peaceful thought;
+And so they turn not back to gaze,
+Where faithful memory displays
+Her record of departed days;
+But oh! how loves the eye of age,
+To move along its pictured page,
+To scan and number, o'er and o'er,
+The joys that may return no more;
+The hopes that, blighted in their bloom,
+By disappointment's chilly gloom,
+Were given sadly to the tomb;
+The loves so wildly once enjoyed,
+By time's unsparing hand destroyed;
+The bright imaginative dreams,
+Portrayed by restless fancy's beams,
+By restless fancy's beams portrayed,
+Alas! but to delude and fade!
+To count these o'er and o'er again
+Is age's sole resort from pain.
+Then, stranger, marvel not that I
+  Have claimed so long thy listening ear;
+I could not pass in silence by
+  Themes to my memory so dear,
+As those which make my story's close--
+  Mazelli's love, Mazelli's woes.
+
+III.
+
+Ascending from the golden east,
+The sun had gained his zenith height,
+The guests were gathered to the feast,
+Prepared to grace the marriage rite;
+The youthful and the old were there,
+The rustic swain and bashful fair;
+The aged, reverend and gray,
+Yet hale, and garrulous, and gay,
+Each told, to while the time away,
+Some tale of his own wedding day;
+The youthful, timorous and shy,
+Spoke less with lip than tell-tale eye,
+That, in its stolen glances, sends
+The language Love best, comprehends.
+The noontide hour goes by, and yet
+  The bridegroom tarries--why? and where?
+Sure he could not his vows forget,
+  When she who loves him is so fair!
+And then his honour, faith, and pride,
+Had bound him to a meaner bride,
+  If once his promise had been given;
+But she, so pure, so far above
+  The common forms of earthly mould,
+So like the incarnate shapes of love,
+  Conceived, and born, and nursed in heaven,
+  His love for her could ne'er grow cold!
+And yet he comes not. Half way now,
+  From where, at his meridian height,
+  He pours his fullest, warmest light,
+To where, at eve, in his decline,
+The day-god sinks into the brine,
+When his diurnal task is done,
+Descends his ever burning throne,
+And still the bridegroom is not, there--
+Say, why yet tarries he, and where?
+
+IV.
+
+Within an arbour, rudely reared,
+But to the maiden's heart endeared
+By every tie that binds the heart,
+By hope's, and love's, and memory's art,--
+For it was here he first poured out
+In words, the love she could not doubt,--
+Mazelli silent sits apart.
+Did ever dreaming devotee,
+  Whose restless fancy, fond and warm,
+  Shapes out the bright ideal form
+To which he meekly bends the knee,
+Conceive of aught so fair as she?
+The holiest seraph of the sphere
+Most holy, if by chance led here,
+  Might drink such light from those soft eyes,
+That he would hold them far more dear
+  Than all the treasures of the skies.
+Yet o'er her bright and beauteous brow
+Shade after shade is passing now,
+Like clouds across the pale moon glancing,
+As thought on rapid thought advancing,
+Thrills through the maiden's trembling breast,
+Not doubting, and yet not at rest.
+Not doubting! Man may turn away
+And scoff at shrines, where yesterday 
+He knelt, in earnest faith, to pray,
+And wealth may lose its charm for him,
+And fame's alluring star grow dim,
+Devotion, avarice, glory, all
+The pageantries of earth may pall;
+But love is of a higher birth
+Than these, the earth-born things of earth,--
+A spark from the eternal flame,
+Like it, eternally the same,
+It is not subject to the breath
+Of chance or change, of life or death.
+And so doubt has no power to blight
+Its bloom, or quench its deathless light,--
+A deathless light, a peerless bloom,
+That beams and glows beyond the tomb!
+Go tell the trusting devotee,
+His worship is idolatry;
+Say to the searcher after gold,
+The prize he seeks is dull and cold;
+Assure the toiler after fame,
+That, won, 'tis but a worthless name,
+A mocking shade, a phantasy,--
+And they, perchance, may list to thee;
+But say not to the trusting maid,
+Her love is scorned, her faith betrayed,--
+As soon thy words may lull the gale,
+As gain her credence to the tale!
+And still the bridegroom is not there--
+Oh! why yet tarries he, and where?
+
+V.
+
+It was the holy vesper hour,
+  The time for rest, and peace, and prayer,
+When falls the dew, and folds the flower
+  Its petals, delicate and fair,
+  Against the chilly evening air;
+  And yet the bridegroom was not there.
+The guests, who lingered through the day,
+Had glided, one by one, away,
+And then, with pale and pensive ray,
+  The moon began to climb the sky,
+As from the forest, dim and green,
+A small and silent band was seen
+  Emerging slow and solemnly;
+With cautious step, and measured tread,
+They moved as those who bear the dead;
+And by no lip a word was spoke,
+Nor other sound the silence broke,
+Save when, low, musical, and clear,
+The voice of waters passing near,
+Was softly wafted to the ear,
+And the cool, fanning twilight breeze,
+That lightly shook the forest trees,
+And crept from leaf to trembling leaf,
+Sighed, like to one oppressed with grief.
+Why move they with such cautious care?
+What precious burden do they bear?
+Hush, questioner! the dead are there;--
+The victim of revenge and hate,
+  Of fierce Ottali's fiery pride,
+With that stern minister of fate,
+  As cold and lifeless by his side.
+
+VI.
+
+Still onward, solemnly and slow,
+And speaking not a word, they go,
+Till pausing in their way before
+Mazelli's quiet cottage door,
+They gently lay their burden down.
+  Whence comes that shriek of wild despair
+  That rises wildly on the air?
+Whose is the arm so fondly thrown
+Around the cold, unconscious clay,
+That cannot its caress repay?
+Such wordless wo was in that cry,
+Such pain, such hopeless agony,
+No soul, excluded from the sky,
+  Whom unrelenting justice hath
+  Condemned to bear the second death,
+E'er breathed upon the troubled gale
+A wilder or a sadder wail;--
+It rose, all other sounds above,
+The dirge of peace, and hope, and love!
+
+VII.
+
+And day on weary day went by,
+And like the drooping autumn leaf,
+She faded slow and silently,
+  In her deep, uncomplaining grief;
+For, sick of life's vacuity,
+  She neither sought nor wished relief.
+And daily from her cheek, the glow
+Departed, and her virgin brow
+Was curtained with a mournful gloom,--
+A shade prophetic, of the tomb;
+And her clear eyes, so blue and bright,
+Shot forth a keen, unearthly light,
+As if the soul that in them lay,
+Were weary of its garb of clay,
+And prayed to pass from earth away;
+Nor was that prayer vain, for ere
+The frozen monarch of the year,
+Had blighted, with his icy breath,
+A single bud in summer's wreath,
+They shrouded her, and made her grave,
+  And laid her down at Lodolph's side;
+And by the wide Potomac's wave,
+Repose the bridegroom and the bride.
+
+'Tis said, that, oft at summer midnight, there,
+When all is hushed and voiceless, and the air,
+Sweet, soothing minstrel of the viewless hand,
+Swells rippling through the aged trees, that stand
+With their broad boughs above the wave depending,
+With the low gurgle of the waters blending
+The rustle of their foliage, a light boat,
+Bearing two shadowy forms, is seen to float
+Adown the stream, without or oar or sail,
+To break the wave, or catch the driving gale;
+Smoothly and steadily its course is steered,
+Until the shadow of yon cliff is neared,
+And then, as if some barrier, hid below
+The river's breast, had caught its gliding prow,
+Awhile, uncertain, o'er its watery bed,
+It hangs, then vanishes, and in its stead,
+A wan, pale light burns dimly o'er the, wave
+That rolls and ripples by Mazelli's grave.
+
+
+Notes To Mazelli
+
+Note 1.
+
+"And how its long and rocky chain
+Was parted suddenly in twain,
+Where through a chasm, wide and deep,
+Potomac's rapid waters sweep,
+While rocks that press the mountain's brow
+Nod O'er his waves far, far below."
+
+"The passage of the Potomac, through the Blue Ridge, is perhaps,
+one of the most stupendous scenes in nature. You stand on a very
+high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having
+ranged along the foot of the mountain a hundred miles to seek a
+vent. On your left approaches the Potomac, seeking a vent also.
+In the moment of their junction, they rush together against the
+mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the sea.
+
+"The first glance at this scene hurries our senses into the opinion
+that this earth has been created in time; that the mountains were
+formed first; that the rivers began to flow afterwards; that, in
+this place particularly, they have been dammed up by the Blue Ridge
+Mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley;
+that, continuing to rise, they have at length broken over at this
+spot, and have torn the mountain down from its summit to its base.
+
+"The piles of reckon each hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah,
+the evident marks of their disrupture and avulsion from their beds
+by the most powerful agents of nature, corroborate the impression.
+But the distant finishing which nature has given to this picture,
+is of a very different character. It is a true contrast to the
+foreground. It is as Placid and delightful as that is wild and
+tremendous.
+
+"For, the mountain being cloven asunder, she presents to the eye,
+through the cleft, a small catch of smooth blue horizon, at   an
+infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were,
+from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach,
+and participate of the calm below."--Jefferson's Notes on Virginia.
+
+Note 2.
+
+"Save the plaintive song of the whip-poor-will."
+
+That the Indian mind and language are not devoid of poetry,   
+the names they have given to this bird (the whip-poor-will)
+sufficiently evidence. Some call it the "Muckawis," others
+the "Wish-ton-wish," signifying "the voice of a sigh," and
+"the plaint for the lost." Those, who in its native glens at
+twilight, have listened to its indescribably melancholy song,
+will know how beautifully appropriate these names are.        
+
+Note 3.
+
+"They, the foul slaves' of lust and gold,
+Say that our blood and hearts are cold."
+
+It has been advanced by some writers, that the almost miraculous
+fortitude often displayed by Indians, under the most intense
+suffering, is to be accounted for by their insensibility to pain,
+resulting, they allege, from a defective nervous organization. From
+the absence of a display of gallantry and tenderness between the
+sexes, they argue also, in them, the nonexistence of love, and
+its kindred passions. This we think unjust, as it robs them of
+the honours of a system of education, which is life-long, and whose
+sole object is to attain the mastery of all feeling, physical or
+mental. The view taken of this subject by Robertson, in his History
+of America, to us, seems most accordant with truth. He says: "The
+amazing steadiness with which the Americans endure the most exquisite
+torments, has induced some authors to suppose that, from the peculiar
+feebleness of their frame, their sensibility is not so acute as
+that of other people; as women, and persons of a relaxed habit, are
+observed to be robust men, whose nerves are more firmly braced. But
+the constitution of the Americans is not so different in its texture,
+from that of the rest of the human species, as to account for this
+diversity in their behaviour. It flows from a principle of honour,
+instilled early and cultivated with such care, as to inspire him
+in his rudest state with a heroic magnanimity, to which philosophy
+hath endeavoured in vain to form him, when more highly improved and
+polished. This invincible constancy he has been taught to consider
+as the chief distinction of a man, and the highest attainment of
+a warrior. The ideas which influence his conduct, and the passions
+which take possession of his heart, are few. They operate of course
+with more decisive effect, than when the mind is crowded with a
+multiplicity of objects, or distracted by the variety of its
+pursuits; and when every motive that acts with any force in forming
+the sentiments of a savage, prompts him to suffer with dignity, he
+will bear what might seem impossible for human patience to sustain.
+But whenever the fortitude of the Americans is not roused to exertion
+by their ideas of honour, their feelings of pain are the same with
+those of the rest of mankind."
+
+Note 4.
+
+"Bathed in the poisonous manchenille."
+
+The slightest wound from an arrow dipped in the juice of the
+Manchenille, causes certain and speedy death. "If they only pierce
+the skin, the blood fixes and congeals in a moment, and the strongest
+animal falls motionless to the ground."--Robertson's America.
+
+
+
+S. L. Sawtelle.
+
+Dear Sir:
+
+To you, who have given me friendship in adversity, counsel in
+perplexity, and hope in despondency, permit me, as an expression
+of my deep and lasting gratitude, to inscribe the "Misanthrope."
+
+With sentiments of the highest respect,
+
+Your obt. servt.,
+
+George W. Sands.
+
+Frederick City, September 1849.
+
+
+Dramatis Personae.
+Werner--Misanthrope.
+Manuel--a cottager.
+Albert--his son.
+Rebecca--wife to Manuel.
+Rose--his daughter.
+Spirits.
+An aerial chorus.
+
+
+THE MISANTHRAPE RECLAIMED
+A Dramatic Poem
+
+ACT I.
+
+A fountain near the summit of a mountain, from which, through a
+deep glen, a stream descends to the valley below. A city seen in
+the distance. Time, midnight. Werner standing near the fountain.
+
+Werner (solus).
+
+Eternal rocks and hills!
+Mighty and vast; and you, ye giant oaks,
+Whose massy branches have for centuries
+Played with the breeze and battled with the storm,
+He, who so oft has trod your rugged paths,
+And laid him down beneath your shades to rest,
+Returns to be your dweller once again.
+I sooner far would make your wilds my home,
+With nought but your rude eaves to shield me from
+The winter's cold or summer's heat, than be
+One of the hundred thousand human flies
+That swarm within yon filthy city's walls.
+Here, I at least may live in solitude,
+Free from a forced communion with a race,
+Whose presence makes me feel that I am bound,
+By nature, to the thing I loathe the most,
+Earth's stateliest, proudest, meanest reptile, man!
+The beauty of a god adorns his form,
+The foulness of a fiend is in his heart;
+The viper's, or the scorpion's filthy nest
+Nurses a far less deadly, poisonous brood
+Than are the hellish lusts, the avarice,--
+The pride--the hate--the double-faced deceits--
+That make his breast their dwelling.
+If he be not beneath hell's wish to damn,
+Too lost for even fiends to meddle with,
+How must they laugh to hear him, in his pride,
+Baptize his vices, virtues; making use
+Of holy names to designate his crimes;
+Giving his lust the sacred name of love;
+Calling his avarice a goodly sin,
+Care for his household; naming his deceit
+Praiseworthy caution; boasting of his hate,
+When be no more can cloak it, as a proof
+Of strength of mind and honesty of heart.
+For all of goodness that remains on earth,
+The name of virtue might be banished from it.
+Fathers, who waste in shameful riotings
+The bread for which their children cry at home;
+Mothers, who put aside th' unconscious babe
+That they may wrong its father; children, who
+Grow old in crime ere they have spent their youth;
+These are its habitants.
+I cannot brook the thought, that I belong
+To their vile race. My sufferings have been great,
+And keen enough to prove my immortality;
+For dust could not have borne what I have suffered.
+My mind has pierced far, far beyond the length
+Of mortal vision, and discovered things
+Of which men scarcely dream, and paid in pain,
+The price of what it learned and bought with pangs
+By which a thousand ages were compressed
+Into one hour of agony: a power
+Which is a terror to possess, and yet
+This one thought only irks me.
+Methinks the peaceful earth will scarcely give
+My dust a resting-place within its bosom,
+But cast it forth as if too vile, to mingle
+With clay that ne'er has been the slave of sin.
+What! other watchers here at this lone hour?
+
+[An evil spirit enters, singing.
+     The world is half hidden,
+     By midnight's dark shadow;
+     The filly, witch-ridden,
+     Skims over the meadow;
+     The house-dog is barking,
+     The night-owl is hooting,
+     The glow-worm is sparkling,
+     The meteor is shooting;
+     And forms, which lie
+     So stiff and still,
+     In their shrouds so chill,
+     Through the live-long day,
+     Now burst their clay,
+     And flit through the sky,
+     On their dusky pinions:
+     Hell's dominions
+       Keep holiday.
+Sisters, sisters, wherever your watches
+  Are kept, fleet hither to me,
+Fleet hither, fleet hither, and leave earth's wretches
+  Alone to their misery.
+
+[A chorus of evil spirits answer as they enter from different
+parts of the mountain.
+       We come!
+     Vice needs no assistance,
+     She meets no resistance,
+     Virtue's existence
+       Is only in name;
+     Drinking and eating,
+     Intriguing and cheating,
+     Carousing, completing
+     Their ruin and shame;
+     Old age unrepenting,
+     Manhood unrelenting,
+     Youth sighing and winning,
+     Deceiving and sinning,
+     Deserting, repining,
+       All men are the same.
+         Ho! ho!
+Earth quakes with the weight of the anguish she bears,
+Her plains and her valleys are deluged with tears,
+And her sighs, if united, were deeper by far,
+Than the thunderbolt's peal, when the clouds are at war.
+There is, not a bosom, that bears not within
+Its chambers, the blot and the burden of sin;
+Not a mind, but in many an hour bath felt
+The curse of its nature, the pangs of its guilt.
+
+These earth-worms! whose sire would have had us to bow
+To his dust-moulded Godship! what--what are they now?
+In the scale of true goodness, they sink far below
+The poor, patient ox, that they yoke to the plough.
+Let them revel awhile, in the false glaring light
+Of deception, that blindness but seems to make bright;
+Let them gather awhile of time's perishing flowers;
+The revenge of eternity! This shall be ours!
+Ho! ho!
+
+[They settle near the fountain. The first Spirit addresses them.
+
+The night is advancing,
+Come, let us, dancing
+In dewy circles deftly tread;
+And while we dance round,
+New schemes shall be found,
+To ruin the living, and trouble the dead.
+
+[They form a circle on the margin of the stream, and dance round
+singing.
+
+I.
+
+Life is but a fleeting day,
+Half of which man dreams away;
+Night! we follow in thy train--
+Sleep! supreme o'er thee we reign;
+Ours the dreams that come when thou
+Sit'st upon the unconscious brow;
+Reason then deserts her throne,
+We then reign, and we alone.
+
+II.
+
+Then seek we, for the maiden's pillow,
+Far beyond the Atlantic's billow,
+Love's apple, and when we have found it,
+Draw the magic circle round it;(1)
+Fearless pluck it, then no charm
+That it bears may do us harm;
+Place it near the sleeper's head,
+  It will bring love's visions nigh,
+And when the pleasing, dreams are fled,
+  The waking, pensive maid will sigh,
+Till her bosom has possessed,
+The form that made her dreams so blest.
+And when a maiden finds a lover,
+Her happy days are nearly over:
+Nature hath unchaste desires,
+Love awakes her slumbering fires,
+And the bosom that is true in
+Love is ever near its ruin;
+Passion's pleading melts the frost
+Of chilliest hearts, and all is lost:
+For, once vice blots a maiden's name,
+She soon forgets her maiden shame.
+
+III.
+
+Haunt the debauchee with dreams,
+Of the victim of his schemes;
+Paint her with dishevelled hair,
+Streaming eyes, and bosom bare,
+And with aspect pale and sad,
+As a spectre's from the dead,
+Weeping o'er her new-born, child,
+Her name reproached, her fame despoiled:
+Let her groanings reach his ear,
+Pierce his heart, and rouse his fear
+Of the retribution given,
+To such deeds as his, by Heaven.
+
+IV.
+
+Around the drunkard's tattered couch,
+Let pale-faced want and misery crouch,
+His children shivering o'er the hearth,
+Cheered by no sound of social mirth,
+Upbraiding, with their timid glances,
+The author of their sad mischances;
+And she to whom the holy vow
+Of the altar bound him, now
+With sunken eye, and beauty faded,
+Tresses silvered, brow o'ershaded,
+Clinging to him fondly still,
+With a love that mocks each ill,
+Which would vainly strive to tear
+Her soul from one who once was dear.
+  Now haste we, each our task to do,
+  Ere the starry hours wane through!
+
+[They fly off, singing as they disappear.
+
+Ere the Morning's rosy wing,
+  Has brushed the damp night-shades away,
+Ere the birds their matins sing,
+Choiring to the new-born day,
+Though its bright birth-hour be near,
+Many a sigh, and many a tear,
+Shall attest the mystic might,
+Of those who walk the world by night.
+
+Werner (solus).
+
+The ruin of the living!   if that be
+Your only task, you have a poor employ.
+Give man his three score years, and he will make
+A wreck, the skill of hell might show forth as
+A sample of its handiwork, and then,
+Exult at the completeness of its ruin.
+The troubling of the dead!--if memory lives
+In that far world, to which the spirit hastens,
+When she casts off the clay that clogs her wings,
+E'en there ye are forestalled, for man will need
+No curse, to make his second life a hell,
+If be retains the memory of his first.
+Had the clear waters of this gurgling brook,
+The pow'r to wash time's blots from th' mind's page,
+And all earth's mountains were compact of gold,
+Her rivers nectar, and her oceans wine,
+Her hills all fruitful, and her valleys fresh,
+And full of loveliness as Eden was,
+Ere sin's sad blight fell on its living bow'rs,
+And all were mine, I'd give them but to lay
+My weary limbs along this streamlet's bed,
+And sleep in full forgetfulness awhile.
+But, I forget my task--now let me to it!
+
+[He takes a vial from his bosom, and flings its contents into the
+air, chanting,
+
+Spirit
+Wherever be thy home,
+In earth or air,
+My message hear,
+And fear it.
+By the power which I have earned,
+  To which thy knee has knelt,
+By the spell which I have learned,
+  A spell which thou, hast felt,
+    I bid thee hither come !
+
+[A white cloud appears in the distance, floating up the glen, and
+a voice is heard, singing as it approaches,
+
+I.
+
+I saw from port a vessel steer,
+The skies were clear, the winds were fair,
+More swiftly than the hunted deer,
+Upon her snowy wings of air,
+She flew along the silv'ry water,
+As fearlessly as if some sprite,
+Familiar with the deep, had taught her,
+A spell by which to rule the might
+Of winds and waves, when met to try
+Their strength, up midway in the sky.
+
+II.
+
+Along her trackless watery way,
+With unabated speed she flew,
+Still gay and careless, till the day
+Waned past: night came: the heavens grew
+Black, dread and threat'ning. Then the storm
+Came forth in its devouring wrath;
+Before it fled Fear's pallid form;
+Destruction followed in its path;
+It passed: the morning came: in vain,
+I look for that lost bark again.
+
+III.
+
+Far down beneath the deep blue waves,
+Within some merman's coral hall,
+Her fated crew have found their graves;
+Above them, for their burial pall,
+The mermaids spread their flowing tresses;
+The waters chant their requiem;
+From many an eyelid, Pity presses
+Her tender, dewy tears for them:
+The natives of the ocean weep,
+To view them sleeping death's pale sleep.
+
+IV.
+
+Thou, mortal, wast the bark I saw;
+The waters, were the sea of life;
+And thou, alas! too well dost know,
+What storms were imaged in the strife
+Of winds and waves. The hopes of youth,
+Thou, in that bark's lost crew, may'st see,--
+All buried now within that smooth,
+Vast, boundless deep,--eternity:--
+And I, a spirit though I be,
+Can pity still, and weep for thee.
+
+[The cloud settles near the fountain, and, unclosing, discovers
+a beautiful form looking steadily at Werner.
+
+WERNER (addressing it).
+
+How beautiful!
+If intercourse between all living worlds,
+Had not been barr'd by Him who gave them life,
+I should believe thou wert the guardian spirit,
+Of that which men have named the Queen of Night.
+Like her, thou art majestic, pale and sad,
+And of a tender beauty: those bright curls
+That press thy brow, and cling about thy neck,
+Seem made of sunbeams, caught upon their way
+To earth, by some creative hand, and woven
+Into a fairy web, of light and life,
+Conscious of its high source, and proud to be
+A part of aught so beautiful as thou.
+I have seen many full, bright mortal eyes,
+That were a labyrinth of witching charms,
+In which the heart of him who looked was lost;
+But none like thine; their light is not of earth;
+Their loveliness not like what man calls lovely.
+Beside the smoothness of thy brow and cheek,
+The lily's lip were rough; each of thy limbs,
+Is, in itself, a being and a beauty.
+If that the orb thou didst inhabit, ere
+Thou wert a portion of eternity,
+Was worthy of such dwellers, oh! how fair
+And glorious, must have been its fields and bow'rs!
+How clear its streams! how pure and fresh its airs!
+How mellow were its fruits! how bright its flow'rs!
+How strong and brave the beings, fit to share
+It with thee! 'Tis most strange that He, whose hand
+Fashions such wondrous things, should take delight
+In striking them to nothingness again!
+Perchance the author of all evil had
+Invaded it, and made it quite unfit
+To be a part of God's great universe.
+And yet thou lookest as if thou wert beyond
+The power of temptation to assail.
+Hast thou too sinned?
+
+Spirit.
+
+I have lived as thou livest, died as thou
+Wilt have to die, and am what thou shalt be.
+
+Werner
+
+  I have not questioned thee of life or death,
+Nor of the state which shall succeed them both;
+I care not for the first, nor fear the second;
+The last I leave to Him who gave to man
+Eternity for his inheritance.
+  But I would know if the unceasing war,
+Which good and evil wage upon the earth,
+Has reached beyond, its confines.
+
+Spirit.
+
+  Have I not answered thee?
+The Begetter of worlds, stars, suns, and systems!
+The Father of Creation! the Bridegroom
+Of the Spirit! hath He not written that
+Death has dominion only over sin?
+And thou would'st know if other worlds have felt
+The curse that fell upon, and blighted thine.
+Poor simple child of clay! no doubt thou know'st
+The story of the Eden of thy sire,
+And think'st that there, in its fresh, stainless breast,
+The baleful seeds of evil first were sown,
+Which since have spread so fearfully abroad,--
+When the sad doom, that came on him and his,
+Was but the spray, cast from the wave of fate,
+Which just then reached thy newly finished orb.
+Where it first started--whither tends its course--
+Where it shall stop--how many wrecks of worlds--
+Once fairer far than thine was at its birth--
+Shall strew its desolate way,--is not for things
+Brought forth from dust to know.
+What wouldst thou of me?
+
+Werner.
+
+  The sole remaining good, if good it be,
+That yet is mine to share. I have tried all
+That earthly hope holds out to satisfy
+The longings of man's nature. I have loved,
+And made an idol of the thing I loved,
+And worshipped it with all my soul's intensity;
+And, for awhile, the frenzy of my dream
+Shut out all other thoughts. But it was short;
+Death plucked my lovely flower from my grasp,
+And then, the icy chill of desolation
+Came, like a snowy avalanche, upon
+My heart, and froze the fountains of its feeling.
+  I was ambitious. I have striven for,
+And worn, the gaudiest wreath of fame, and when
+I would have placed it on my brow, it grew
+A mountain in its weight. I courted much
+The notice of the world, and when men praised,
+The very breath that bore their praise to me,
+Seemed clogged with pestilence.
+
+Wealth, too, I coveted,
+And heaped its shining dust in hoards around me,
+And yet it was but dust, as barren of
+Enjoyment as the ground we tread upon.
+I clad myself in purple--heaped my board
+With all the fairest, sweetest fruits of earth,
+And filled my golden goblets with bright juice,
+Pressed from the goodliest grapes, and made my couch
+Of down, and yet, I was most wretched still.
+My garments were but cumbersome; my couch
+Could give no rest, and e'en my generous wines
+Could not remove the crushing weight that sat,
+Nightmare-like, on my heart, until it grew
+A palpable and keenly aching pang.
+  There is, one path which yet remains untrod;
+To be my guide in it, I called thee hither,--
+'Tis that of knowledge.
+
+Spirit.
+
+The same
+In which the mother of thy race was lost,
+With e'en a wiser, mightier guide than I.
+She thirsted, too, for knowledge, and she gave
+Her innocence--her home in Paradise--
+The happiness of him--who shared her lot--
+To know--what? That her wn rebellious hand
+Had raised the flood-gates of a sea of crime,
+Which would for ever pour its bitter waves
+Upon the helpless unprotected race,
+Which her rash deed had ruined.
+Think of the sighs--the groans--the floods of tears--
+The woes--too deep for these--which have no end,
+Save but in heart-breaks! Think upon the toil--
+The sweat--the pain--the strife--the crime--the blood--
+The myriads of souls with which this one
+Sad lesson was obtained! whose price is yet
+Not fully paid, nor shall be so, until
+The last poor son of earth mingles with dust!
+Dost thou not fear to tread a path like this?
+
+Werner.
+
+I have no fear;
+It is so long since I have felt its thrill
+That 'twere a pleasure now to feel it.
+
+Spirit.
+
+What wouldst thou know?
+Thou art familiar with all earthly lore.
+More: Thou hast gained, and wield'st a power, to which
+The rulers of the elements do bow;
+The hurricane, at thy command goes forth,
+Walking where'er thou bid'st it, and the storm
+Ceases to howl when thou hast said,--"Be still!"
+Thine anger stirs the ocean, and thy wrath
+Finds out the deep foundations of the mountains,
+And shakes them with its strength; the subtle fire,
+That lights the tempest on its gloomy way,
+Starts from its cloud-rocked slumber, at thy call,
+To be thy messenger.
+Canst thou not be content when thou art feared
+By those who rule a world? What is there yet
+Which thy insatiate mind desires to know?
+Would'st learn immortal mysteries? Reflect
+Thou art but mortal.
+
+Werner.
+
+Spirit, why dost thou
+Taunt me with my mortality? "Weak things,
+Brought forth from earth,"--"Poor simple child of clay,"--
+These are thy words, when well thou knows't that I,
+Though bound to earth by bonds made of its mire,
+Am mightier than thou. Were it not so,
+Thou would'st not now be face to face with one
+Of mortal birth. Thou, too, canst feel revenge,
+And knowest how to wreak it; but, take heed,--
+The power which brought thee hither, can, and may
+Deal harshly with thee. If thou knowest aught
+Worthy of an immortal mind to know,
+To which I have not pierced, reveal thy knowledge.
+
+Spirit.
+
+We may not tell the secrets of eternity;
+But I can show thee things thou hast not seen,
+And they may profit thee, although 'twill shake
+Even thy proud heart to look upon them.
+Would'st see them?
+
+Werner.
+
+It is my wish.
+
+Spirit.
+
+Come then.
+
+Werner.
+
+Lead on;
+Although thy path be through hell's gloomy gate,
+I too will pass its portals at thy back.
+Thou canst not enter where I dare not pass.
+
+[The cloud closes around them, and moves away, and a voice sings
+as it disappears.
+
+To the region of shadow,
+The region of death,
+Where dust is a stranger,
+And life has no breath;
+Where darkness and silence
+Their dim shrouds have cast
+Round the phantoms of worlds
+That belong to the past;
+Spirits who sit on
+The thrones of the air,
+Guide ye our chariot,
+Waft ye us there.
+
+[Exeunt.
+
+
+Act II.
+
+The verge of Creation. Enter Werner and Spirit.
+
+Werner.
+
+We have outtravelled light and sound:
+The harmonies that pealed around us, as
+Through yon array of dim and distant worlds
+We winged our flight, have wholly died away,
+Or come to us so faintly echoed, that
+Our ears must watch and wait to catch them.
+Those stars are now like watch-fires, which though seen
+Blazing afar, send not their light to make
+The path of the benighted wanderer
+More plain and cheerful.
+Before us stretches one vast field of gloom,
+So dense as to appear impenetrable:--
+Darkness, that has a body and a form,
+Both palpable to touch and sight, across
+Our path a barrier rears that seems to bar
+Our farther progress. If there be, beyond
+This wall of blackness, aught of mystery,
+What power shall guide us to it?
+
+Spirit.
+
+Thy mind
+Which, from the influence of matter, free
+As it is now and shall be till again
+Though art returned unto thy native orb,
+Is its own master, and its will is now
+Its only needed guide.
+Strange things are hidden by that ebon veil,
+To which a single wish of thine may bear us.
+
+Werner.
+
+Then let us on:
+Since we our search for knowledge have begun,
+Wherever there is aught that Power has made,
+Which Time has ruined, or which Fate has damned,
+There let us go, that we may look on it,
+And learn its history. What intense glooms
+We now are passing through! I feel them part
+Before, and close behind us, as we fly,
+As plainly as the swimmer feels the waves
+That lave his gliding limbs. This sure must be
+The home of Death--no voice, no sound, no sigh,
+Not ev'n so much of breath as would suffice
+To make a lily tremble!
+
+Spirt.
+
+Though say'st true,
+This is indeed the realm of Death,--at least
+It has no more of life than what though hast
+Brought here with thee,--I speak of mortal life:
+We now are near the Hades of past worlds,
+Whose spirits have a life which cannot die.
+You laugh! and show the haughty arrogance
+Which in your mortal brethren you cotemn.
+  Think you that he who gave to man his mind,
+The undying spark that quickens his clay frame,
+Would fashion from the same material
+Such mighty wonders as the spheres which go
+Hymning around his everlasting throne!
+Giving to them a beauty which alone
+Could be conceived by him, which has great hand
+Alone could mould into reality,
+And yet deny them what he gave to thee,
+Intelligence! a thing that knows not death?
+Hast though not seen thine earth put forth her leaves,
+Clothing her rugged mountain tops and sides,
+Her forests in the vale, each tree and shrub,
+With a fair foliage? hast though not beheld
+Her weaving, in the sunny springtide hours,
+A fairy web of emerald-bladed grass
+To robe her valleys in? With every flow'r
+Of graceful form, and soft and downy leaf,
+And tender hue, and tint, that Beauty owns,
+To deck her gentle breast? When Autumn came,
+With its rich gifts of pleasant, mellow fruits,
+Hast though not seen her wipe her sunburnt brow,
+And shake her yellow locks from every hill?
+Hast though not heard her holy songs of peace
+And plenty warbled from each vocal grove,
+And murmured by her myriads of streams?
+Hast though not seen her, when the hollow winds,
+Which moan the requiem of the dying year,
+Raved through her leafless bowers, wrap about
+Her breast a mantle, wherewith to protect
+And nurse the seed, the trusting husbandman
+Hath given to her keeping? Are thine acts
+As full of wisdom, and as free from blame?
+If not, then why deny to her the life
+And spirit you possess?
+
+Werner.
+
+I did not laugh
+In disbelief of what thy words declare,
+But they stir such strange thoughts within my mind,
+That, as I will not weep, I can but smile.
+Methinks the darkness has grown less profound,--
+A heavy, dim, and shadowy light, like that
+Which, when the storm has chosen midnight's hour
+Of stilly gloom, to hold its revel in,
+First glimmers through the clouds which have been rent,
+And torn by their own fierceness, hands about us.
+  The light increases still, and in the distance,
+Enormous shadows, wearing distinct shapes,
+Since seemingly immovable, and others
+Like mighty, mastless, sailless, vessels, moved
+By magic o'er a tideless, waveless ocean,
+In calm, majestic silence float along!
+
+Spirit.
+Let us go nearer,
+Now what seest though?
+
+Werner.
+
+Worlds like to that I live on, save that these
+Seem made of living shades instead of dust;
+Vast mountains, with tall trees and mighty rocks,
+And fountains, gushing from their very summits;
+Huge, towering cliffs, and deep and lonely glens,
+And wide-mouthed caves that hold a deeper gloom,--
+With precipices from whose edges soft
+And silvery cataracts are leaping down;
+Swift streams, that rush adown their rugged sides,
+And quiet lakelets, that appear to sleep
+In the embrace of the surrounding hills;
+The cottage of the hardy hunter, perched
+High on the rocks, like to an eagle's nest:
+The shepherd's humble shieling, and his fold,
+And, half-way up, broad vineyards, with their vines
+Bending with purple clusters of ripe fruit;--
+Wide valleys, with green meadows, and pure streams,
+And gentle hills, where ripening harvests stand;
+Majestic rivers, with their verdant banks
+Studded with towns, and rural villages;
+Motionless lakes, and seas without a wave,
+And oceans pulseless as a dead man's heart!
+And mighty cities, standing on their coasts,
+With vasty walls and gilded palaces,
+And giant tow'rs, and tapering spires, that seem
+The guardians of all they overlook.
+Churchyards, with their pale gravestones, that appear
+Like watchers of the dead whose names they bear!
+All these are there, but not a sign of life,
+No living thing that creeps along the ground,
+Or flies the air, or swims the wave, is seen.
+It seems as if on all things some strong spell
+Had in the twinkling of a star came down
+And rocked them to an everlasting sleep!
+Spirit! tell me if what I see is more
+Than a delusion; if it be, whence came
+These shades?
+
+Spirit.
+
+And have I not already said
+That these things are, that they are quick with life,--
+Such life as disembodied spirits have,--
+That they are deathless? Thou need'st not inquire
+Of me whence they are come, for thou hast seen
+One of their number on its journey hither.
+  The period may not be far remote
+When thine own planet, starting from its sphere,
+Shall fright the dwellers of the stars that skirt
+Its destined pathway to these silent realms!
+  Thou'st seen the comet rushing through the sky,
+And, gazing on the glowing track which it
+Had branded on the azure breast of space,
+Thinking thy words were wisdom, thou hast said,
+"When its full term of years has been fulfilled,
+It shall return again." Not knowing that
+The light thou sawest was reflected from
+That sacred fire, which, in the end, shall purge
+The spirit essence which pervades creation,
+From the dull dust with which a wayward fate
+Has clogged its being! Question me no more--
+Remember what I said--I dare not tell
+The secrets of Eternity. Look on
+And learn whate'er thou canst.
+
+Werner.
+
+  There is one thing which I at last have learned,--
+To feel that with the increase of our knowledge
+Our sorrows must increase. I oft have heard,
+But never before have felt the truth of this.
+  To know that were it not for this clay mask,
+I even now might pierce the shadowy veil
+That wraps in mystery the things I see,
+And comprehend their secret principle,
+Will make life doubly hard to bear, and tempt
+Me much to shake it prematurely off,
+And snatch wings for my spirit ere its time.
+A total ignorance were better than
+The flash which from its slumber wakes the mind,
+And then, departing, leaves it to itself,
+In the wide maze of error, darkly groping.
+  Wisdom is not the medicine to heal
+A discontented mind. I now know more
+Than when I left the earth, but feel that I
+Have bought my knowledge with increase of sorrow.
+
+Spirit.
+
+  Did I not tell thee that its path were steep,
+And hard to climb, and thick beset with thorns,--
+And that its tempting, longed-for fruit, tho' bought
+With a great price, is full of bitterness?
+If though art satisfied, let us retrace
+Our way to earth again; wert thou to go
+Yet farther on, thou might'st regret the more
+Our coming hither.
+
+Werner.
+
+  What! is there aught still more remote than these
+From the great centre of the universe,--
+The fair domain of life and living things?
+
+Spirit.
+
+There is,--
+A kingdom tenanted with such dark shapes,
+That angels shudder when they look on them!
+Thou surely dost not wish to visit it.
+
+Werner.
+
+  Why not? There is within my mind a void
+Whose vacant weight is harder to be borne
+Than the keen stingings of more active pangs;
+When it has traced the mystic chain of being
+To its last link, it may perchance shake off
+The misery of restless discontent,--
+Its fulness then may sink it into rest.
+
+Spirit.
+
+  I have no power to disobey thy word;
+If thou wilt on, I must proceed with thee,
+Even though in looking on I share the pangs
+Of those who suffer.
+
+Werner.
+
+  Come, then, I too must see them, tho' it cost
+Me years of pain to gaze but for a moment.
+
+Spirit.
+
+  'Twere harder now to find Eve's' buried dust,
+Than to declare who has inherited
+The largest portion of her prying spirit.
+
+(Sings.)
+
+Where Pain keepeth vigil
+  With Sorrow and Care,
+And Horror sits watching
+  By dull-eyed Despair,--
+Where the Spirit accurst
+  Maketh moan in its wo,
+Thy wishes direct us,
+  And thither we go.
+
+[Exeunt.
+
+
+ACT III.
+
+Scene I. Near the place of the damned. Enter Werner and Spirit.
+
+Werner.
+
+  What piercing, stunning sounds assail my ear!
+Wild shrieks and wrathful curses, groans and prayers,
+A chaos of all cries! making the space
+Through which they penetrate to flutter like
+The heart of a trapped hare,--are revelling round us.
+  Unlike the gloomy realm we just have quitted,
+Silent and solemn, all is restless here,
+All wears the ashy hue of agony.
+Above us bends a black and starless vault,
+Which ever echoes back the fearful voices
+That rise from the abodes of wo beneath.
+Around us grim-browed desolation broods,
+While, far below, a sea of pale gray clouds,
+Like to an ocean tempest beaten, boils.
+Whither shall we direct our journey now?
+
+Spirit.
+
+  Right down through yon abyss of boiling clouds,
+If though hast courage to attempt the plunge,
+Our pathless way must be. A moment more
+And we shall stand where angels seldom stand,
+And devils almost pity when they stand,--
+Behold!
+
+Werner.
+
+  Eternal God!
+Whose being, is of love, whose band is pow'r,
+Whose breath is life, whose noblest attribute,--
+The one most worthy of thyself~-is mercy!
+Were these of thine immortal will conceived?
+Has thy hand shaped them out the forms they wear?
+Has thy breath made them quick with, breathing life?
+And is thy mercy to their wailings deaf?
+Poor creatures! I bad deemed that in my breast
+Grief had congealed the hidden fount of tears,
+But ye have drawn them from their frozen source
+And I do weep for you!
+
+Spirit.
+
+  What moves thee thus?
+I thought thy heart so steeled in hardihood
+Of universal hate, and pride, and scorn,
+That even were the woes, which thou dost here
+Behold endured by others, heaped on thee,
+Thy haughty soul unmoved would feel them all;
+Accounting its development of strength
+To bear the worst decrees of ruthless fate,
+Sufficient recompense!
+
+Werner.
+
+Misdeem me not,
+If I have wept involuntary tears
+O'er pangs beyond my pow'r to mitigate,
+Believe me, 'twas in pity, not in fear.
+But tell me, Spirit! is all hope extinct
+In those who here sojourn, or do they look
+Yet forward to some blest millennial day,
+Which shall redeem them from this horrid place.
+
+Spirit.
+
+Best ask your theologians that question.
+Some say that there are places purgatorial,
+Where Error pays the price of her transgressions
+In sufferings that efface the effects of sin.
+And other some declare that when the soul
+And clay are parted, heaven seals the doom
+Of both, beyond repeal. Let thy own mind
+Sit arbiter 'twixt these, and choose the truth.
+Mark what approaches us, and mark it well.
+
+Werner.
+
+  I cannot turn my gaze from it, and yet
+It makes the warm blood curdle in my veins.
+Than it, hell cannot hold a fouler form--
+A thing of more unholy loathsomeness!
+Its heavy eyes are dim and bleared with blood,
+Its jaws, by strong convulsions fiercely worked,
+Are clogged and clotted with mixed gore and foam!
+A nauseous stench its filthy shape exhales,
+And through its heaving bosom you may mark
+The constant preying of a quenchless flame
+That gnaws its heartstrings! while a harsh quick moan
+Of mingled wrath, and madness, and despair,
+Perpetually issues from its lips;--
+And with unequal but unceasing steps,
+It chases through the hot, sulphureous gloom,
+A mocking phantom,--fair as it is foul!
+  With naked arms, white breast, and ebon locks,
+And big black eyes that dart the humid flame
+Which sets the heart ablaze; and red moist lips,
+And checks as spotless as the falling flake
+Ere it has touched the earth, and supple form
+Wherein is knit each grace of womanhood
+In its perfection! and with wanton looks
+That speak the burning language of desire,
+It seems to woo its loathsome follower,--
+Yet ever from his foul embraces flies.
+And on his brow his name is written, "Lust!"
+  Dismiss the spectre, for it blasts my sight,
+And sears my brain with its dark hideousness!
+
+Spirit.
+
+'Tis gone; look up and see what next appears.
+
+Werner.
+
+  A frame which may be that of Hercules,
+It hath such giant members! and its port
+Is martial as e'er marked a Caesar's moving.
+Its sandals are of brass, its massive brow
+Is helmeted in steel, and in its hand
+It bears a sword with which, in idle strokes,
+It vainly beats the unresisting air,
+As if in battle with some phantom foe;
+And at each blow it deals, a strong fatality
+Turns back its sword's keen point on its own breast,
+Which deep it gashes,--then in mournful tone,
+It mutters o'er and o'er again these words,--
+"I fought for fame and won unending wo."
+His agonies seem like himself, immortal.
+
+Spirit.
+
+  Justice is blameless of his sufferings:
+For many years his busy, plotting brain,
+Made discord out of union, strife from peace,
+And set the nations warring till the earth
+Was crimson with the blood poured out for him!
+He bears what he inflicted,--let him pass
+And mark what follows him.
+
+Werner.
+
+A goodly shape,
+More fit to string and strike Apollo's lyre,
+Than bear the shield or wield the sword of Mars!
+A broken harp, suspended at his side,
+A faded garland, wreathed about his brow,
+Tell what he was, and still employ his care.
+With thin white hand, that trembles at its task,
+In vain he strives to bind the broken chords,
+And to their primal melody attune them;--
+In vain,--for to his efforts still replies
+A boding strain of harsh, discordant sound.
+And then, with hot tears coursing down his cheeks,
+He lifts his faded wreath from his pale brow,
+And gazing on its withered leaves, exclaims,--
+"For earthly fame I sung the songs of earth,
+Forgetful of all higher, holier themes,--
+'Tis meet the meed I won should perish thus."
+Is not the justice which confines him here
+Akin to cruelty? for his sad heart
+Seems, as his earthly strains were, full of softness.
+
+Spirit.
+
+  Each thought, and word, and deed of mortal man,
+Is but a moral seed, which, in due season,
+Must bring forth fruit according to its kind.
+The soil wherein those seeds are sown is Time,--
+
+Death is the reaper of the ripened harvest,--
+The fruits are garnered in Eternity,
+To be, or good or bad, the spirit's food!
+If then our thoughts, and words, and deeds have been
+Of corrupt tendency, or evil nature,--
+What marvel if we feed on bitterness?--
+What shadow next appears?
+
+Werner.
+
+An aged man,
+Lean-framed and haggard-visaged, bowed beneath
+The weight of years, or worldly cares that press
+Still heavier than the iron hand of time.
+His tottering form is fearful to behold!
+If the fierce scourge which men on earth call famine,
+Could incarnate itself, methinks 'twould choose
+Just such a shape, so worn and grim and gaunt,
+And wo-begone of aspect. Groping round
+He gathers from the burning floor of hell
+Some shining pebbles, which his fond conceit
+Transmutes to gold, and these with constant care
+He watches, counting and recounting them,
+Till suddenly a whirlwind, sweeping by,
+Bears with it all his fancied hoards away,
+Leaving him to renew his bootless task,
+Which ever he renews with this complaint,--
+"Alas! how speedily may wealth take wing."
+And on his front his name is written, "Avarice."
+
+Spirit.
+
+  There yet is, in this shadowy land of shades,
+One form which I would have thee look upon.
+Behold it cometh! mark and scan it well.
+
+Werner.
+
+  Never before in all my wanderings
+Through earth, or other regions, where abide
+Things now no more of earth, have I beheld
+Aught so profoundly mournful or so lone!
+So dark a cloud o'erhangs his haggard brow,
+That where he turns a dunner, murkier gloom
+Prevails along hell's blasting atmosphere!
+  Surrounded by some goodly forms he moves,
+Forms bright as his is dark, who each in turn
+Woo his acceptance of the gifts they proffer.
+Love stretches out his dimpled band, wherein
+He holds his emblematic rose, and Hope,
+Bright Hope, that might renew again the pulse
+Of life within the frozen veins of Death!
+Beckons him to the future,--and calm Faith
+Kindles beneath his eye her beacon blaze;
+Yet, with such anguish as hell only holds,
+He turns him from all these, and will not take
+Love's proffered rose, lest 'neath its blushing leaves
+Should lurk the stinging thorn of sly deceit.
+
+Hope's smile to him is disappointment's signal,--
+And the bright beacon Faith so kindly lights
+To guide us o'er the treacherous sea of life,
+To him is but a cheat, a mockery,
+An ignis fatuus, kindled to mislead.
+  And yet he seems as one who in his life
+Had nursed bright dreams, and cherished lofty aims,--
+Had dreamed of love, or wooed Ambition's smiles,
+Or to the sway of empires had aspired,
+Or, higher still, the sway of human hearts!
+  Why gazest thou on me and not on him?
+
+Spirit.
+
+  To mark if in thine aspect I might not
+Detect a consciousness that I thy own soul
+Claimed brotherhood with his! Thou too hast scoffed
+At human love, and hope, and faith, and truth,
+Nursing within thy bosom pride, and scorn,
+And rankling hate, I till these at length became
+Fiends which thou could'st not master! Thou art warned,
+Be wise and heed the warning. Let us now
+Return unto thy far off, native orb,
+O'er which the rosy smile of morn is breaking,
+Waking its teeming millions to renew
+Their daily rounds of toil and strife and crime.
+
+[Exeunt.
+
+
+ACT IV.
+
+Scene I. A peak of the Alps. Werner alone. Time, morning.
+
+Werner.
+
+  How gloriously beautiful is earth!
+In these her quiet, unfrequented haunts,
+To which, except the timid chamois' foot,
+Or venturous hunter's, or the eagle's wing,
+Naught from beneath ascends. As yet the sun
+But darts his earliest rays of golden light
+Upon the summits of the tallest peaks,
+Which robed in clouds and capped with glittering ice,
+Soar proudly up, and beam and blaze aloft,
+As if they would claim kindred with the stars!
+And they may claim such kindred, for there is
+Within, around, and over them, the same
+Supreme, eternal, all-creating spirit
+Which glows and burns in every beaming orb
+That circles in immeasurable space!
+  Far as the eye can trace the mountain's crest
+On either hand, a gorgeous, varied mass
+Of glowing, cloud-formed ranges are at rest,
+Reflecting back in every hue and tint,
+
+Purple and crimson, orange and bright gold,
+The sunny smile with which Morn hails the world.
+  Beneath me all is quiet yet and calm,
+For the dim shadow of the silent night
+Still rests upon the valley, still the flock
+Sleeps undisturbed within the guarded fold,
+The lark yet slumbers in her lowly nest,
+The dew hangs heavy upon leaf and blade,
+The gray mist still o'erveils the unruffled lake,
+And all is tranquil as an infant's sleep;
+Tranquil around me, but not so within,
+For in my breast a thousand restless thoughts
+Conflict in wild, chaotical confusion.
+Thoughts of long bygone years, and things that were
+But are no more, and thoughts that sternly strive
+To grapple with the mysteries I late
+Have looked upon; for I, since yesternight,
+Have traversed the wide sea of space that rolls
+Between the shores of this and other worlds;
+Have gazed upon and scanned those worlds, or shades
+That wear the lineaments of such; have seen
+The damned in their own place, and marked the deep,
+Terrific retribution Error brings
+To such as are her votaries in life.
+  And now I feel how baseless was my hope
+That Peace, the solitary boon I crave,
+Might spring from knowledge. Tis a fatal tree,
+Which ever hath borne bitter fruit, since first
+'Twas set in Paradise. But I must seek
+The cottage of some honest mountaineer,
+Who may afford me nurture and repose,
+For I am weary, both in mind and frame.
+[Exit.
+
+Scene II. A chamber in the cottage of Manuel. Albert asleep.
+Rebecca standing by his couch.
+
+Rebecca.
+
+  My boy! my beautiful, my dearest hope!
+The garner where my trust of future joy
+Is treasured. Heaven bless thee! May thy life,
+If it seem good to Him who gave it, be
+Blest to the fulness of a mother's prayer!
+
+[She stoops to kiss him, and continues.
+
+How well his sleep portrays a quiet mind,
+The embodied image of a sunny day,
+A day without a cloud, whose only voices
+Arise from sighing airs, and whispering leaves,
+And tell-tale brooks that of their banks beseech
+A gift, a wreath of their sweet flowers, wherewith
+To soothe the angry Geni of the deep!
+And free, glad birds that flit from bough to bough,
+And ring their songs of love in the clear air,
+Till heaven is filled with gushing melody,
+And the all-glowing horizon becomes
+A thing of life, whose breath is sweetest music!
+
+[Kisses him again, and continues.
+
+His brow to me is as a spotless page,
+Whereon is traced the story of my first
+And only love, the bright and holy dream
+That stole into my bosom, when beside
+The crystal stream that threads a neighbouring vale,
+I and his father watched our fathers' flocks,
+And he would lay aside his shepherd's pipe,
+And in low words, far sweeter than its music,
+Talk of the sun and stars and gentle moon,
+The earth and all its loveliness, the trees
+And shrubs and flowers; how these were all pervaded
+And quickened by the spirit of deep love;
+Till, by the frequent blush that tinged my cheek,
+The light that would break from my downcast eyes,
+And the quick beat of my too happy heart,
+Emboldened, he poured out his own pure passion,
+On my enchanted ear! Since then my life
+Has had no eras,--days, and months, and years,
+Have all gone by uncounted, in the full,
+Deep, fervent, soul-sufficing happiness,
+Of all I prayed for, panted for, obtained!
+But I must rouse him, it is time his flock
+Should leave the fold, and--
+
+[The boy starts and murmurs in his sleep.
+
+Down by yonder stream,
+Where the green willows cluster thickest, there
+They dwell. 'Tis scarce so far as I could cast
+A pebble from my sling. Seek it, and they
+Will minister to thee what thou mayest need.
+
+[He awakes, and recognising his mother, exclaims--
+
+Ah, mother! I have dreamed so strange a dream,
+So strange, and yet so palpable, that I
+Believed it a reality. Methought
+As closely followed by my bleating flock,
+I climbed the rugged mountain side where spring
+Our greenest pastures, singing as I went,
+I met a lonely wanderer in my way,
+Of brow so pale, and eye so darkly sad,
+That my own heart, to sadness little used,
+Grew heavy at the sight; and he seemed worn
+And very weary, not so much with toil
+As by some hidden, inward strife of soul,
+Which even then seemed raging in his breast.
+  He stayed to question me where he might find
+The cottage of some honest mountaineer,
+Where he might crave the boons of rest and food,--
+And mindful of the lesson taught by thee,
+To give the hungry bread, the weary rest,
+I pointed him to where our cottage stands,
+Assuring him that thou and my sweet sister,--
+Fair as aught earthly, and as pure as fair,--
+Would entertain him as a welcome guest:
+And so we parted.
+
+Rebecca.
+  Thou didst well to mind
+The lesson I so often have repeated.
+It is our first of duties to give aid
+To those who beg for succour at our hands;
+For we ourselves, whatever we possess,
+Are but the stewards of the bounteous Lord
+Who giveth to his creatures all good gifts.
+But it is time that thou shouldst seek the hills,
+So take thy crook and pipe and hie away.
+
+[Exeunt.
+
+Scene III. The side of a mountain. Werner descending.
+Enter a shepherd boy, followed by his flock, singing.
+
+I.
+
+When the Morning starts up from her couch on the deep,
+Where through the dim night hours, she pillows her sleep,
+I start from my slumbers, and hie me away
+Where the white torrent dashes its feathery spray,--
+I quaff the fresh stream as it bursts from the hill,--
+I pluck the fresh flowers that spring by the rill,--
+I watch the gray clouds as they curl round the peak
+That rises high over them, barren and bleak;
+And I think how the worldling who courts fortune's smile,
+In his heart, like that peak, may be lonely the while;
+And then my own heart sings aloud in its joy,
+That Heaven has made me a free shepherd boy!
+
+II.
+
+When the horn of the hunter resounds from on high,
+Where the tall giant ice-cliffs ire piled to the sky,
+Where, shunning the verdure of valleys and dells,
+The brave eagle builds, and the shy chamois dwells,--
+I list to its gay tones, as by me they float,
+And I echo them merrily back, note for note;
+With the wild bird a song full as gladsome I sing,
+I crown me with flowers, and sit a crowned king,--
+My flock are my subjects, my dog my vizier,
+And my sceptre--a mild one--the crook that I bear;
+No wants to perplex me, no cares to annoy,
+I live an unenvying, free shepherdhoy!
+
+Werner (meets and addresses him).
+
+Thou'rt merry, lad.
+
+Albert.
+
+Ay, I have cause to be so.
+(Aside.)
+It is the wanderer of my last night's dream,
+The same pale brow, and darkly mournful eye,
+And weary gait, and melancholy voice,--
+If he seeks friendly guidance, food, or shelter,
+He shall not want them long.
+
+Werner.
+
+So thou hast cause
+For merriment,--then thou perchance hast wealth,
+Broad, fruitful lands, and tenements, and all
+Which wealth confers.
+
+Albert.
+
+Nay, I have none of these,
+And yet have more than all which thou hast named.
+I have a father, whose unsullied name
+No tongue has ever spoken with reproach,
+A mother, whose idea is with me
+A holy thing, and a dear sister, who
+Is fair as pure, and pure as is the snow
+Upon the summit of the tallest peak
+Of these my native mountains. I have health,
+And strength, and food, and raiment, and employ,
+And should I not then have a joyous heart?
+
+Werner.
+
+Yea, verily thou shouldst.
+
+Albert.
+
+And there is yet,
+Among the blessings Heaven has given to me,
+One which I have not named to thee; it is
+An humble home, whose hospitable door
+Was never closed against the wayfarer,--
+If thou hast need of aught which it affords,
+Seek it, my mother and my sister will
+Delight to minister unto thy wants.
+There where the wide-armed willows cluster thickest
+Upon the green banks of yon crystal stream,
+Our cottage stands. The path to it is short
+And easily traversed,--so, now, farewell.
+
+Werner.
+
+  Stay yet a moment. That which thou hast proffered,
+Is what I sought. Thou hast a noble heart,
+One fit to fill the bosom of a king,--
+I fain would give thee guerdon,--here is gold.
+
+Albert.
+
+  Keep it for those who covet it. If ever
+Thou meet'st with one, bowed down by suffering,
+Who calls on thee for pity and relief,
+Then if thou heed'st his prayer for my sake,
+I shall be well repaid. Again, farewell.
+
+{Exeunt.
+
+Scene IV. After a lapse of time. A rustic arbour near the
+cottage of Manuel. Enter Rose and Werner.
+
+Rose.
+
+  Nay, let my silent blushes plead with thee
+That thou wilt be as silent.
+
+Werner.
+
+Rather let
+My ardent love, which will not be repressed,
+Plead with thee for acceptance of my suit;
+For I do love thee with such passionate love,
+That life itself, if weighed against that love,
+Were scarce a feather in the scale.
+
+Rose.
+
+Alas!
+I'm but a simple shepherd's simple child,
+Unused to courtly speeches, and they say
+That in the world thy name and rank are high,
+And that when such as thou do proffer love
+And faith to lowly maidens, 'tis a jest,--
+And that when they have won our honest love,
+They cast it from them with unpitying hands,
+As idly as they would a withered flower.
+
+Werner.
+
+Nay, maiden, let me tell thee of the past,
+Let me lay bare my heart beneath thy gaze,
+And thou wilt pity if thou canst not love.
+  I loved in youth with love as fond and deep
+As ever made the heart of man its slave,
+But, ere my hopes could ripen to fruition,
+Death came and made my worshipped one his prize;
+And though my peace departed when she died,
+Yet I was proud, and would not bond to sorrow,
+But with calm brow and eye, and smiling lip,
+I mingled with the giddy thoughtless world,
+Seeking from out its varied realms to wring
+Some recompense for that which I had lost.
+Wealth, fame, and power, I sought for and obtained,
+Yet found them only gilded mockeries.
+The paths of hidden knowledge I essayed,
+And trod their mazy windings till they led
+My footsteps--whither I may not disclose,--
+But all availed me nothing, still my heart
+Ached with the dreary void lost love had made,
+Ached ever till that void was filled by thee!
+  Since first fate led me to your kindly door,
+Three times the moon with full-orbed light hath shone,
+Thrice thirty times, with song of merry birds
+And breath of fragrance, Morn has blest the earth
+And all its dwellers with her radiant presence;
+Thrice thirty times, with star-bound brow, dim Night
+Hath kept her tearful watch above the earth;
+And every time the full-orb'd moon hath shone,
+And every time the merry Morn hath smiled,
+And every time dim Night with star-bound brow
+Above the earth hath kept her tearful watch,
+My heart has added to its store of love,
+Its pure, deep, fervent, passionate love for thee!
+  By all my hopes of heaven, my words are true.
+Dost thou not pity now?
+
+Rose.
+
+Ay, more! My heart,
+And its full treasury of maiden love,
+Never before surrendered to another,
+I pledge to thee, as thine, for evermore!
+
+[Exeunt.
+
+An Aerial Chorus.
+
+Seek the dell and seek the bower,
+Pluck the bud and pluck the flower,
+  Search for buds of sweetest breath,
+Search for flowers of brightest hue;
+  Fit to weave the bridal wreath,
+Of a maid so fair and true.
+
+She has bowed the haughty heart,
+  Won the stubborn will from guile,
+With no aid of other art
+  Than the sweet spell of her smile!
+
+Seek the dell and seek the bower,
+Pluck the bud and pluck the flower,
+  Search for buds of sweetest breath,
+Search for flowers of brightest hue;
+  Fit to weave the bridal wreath,
+Of a maid so fair and true!
+
+[Exeunt.
+
+
+Note to the Misanthrope
+
+"Then seek we, for the maiden's pillow,
+Far beyond the Atlantic's billow,
+Love's apple,--and when we have found it,
+Draw the magic circles round it."
+
+Considering the Mandrake, many fabulous notions were entertained
+by the ancients; and they never attempted to extract it from the
+earth, without the previous performance of such ceremonies as they
+considered efficacious in preventing the numerous accidents, dangers,
+and diseases, to which they believed the person exposed who was
+daring enough to undertake its extraction. The usual manner of
+obtaining it was this:--When found, three times a circle was drawn
+around it with the point of a naked sword, and a dog was then
+attached to it and beaten, until by his struggles it was disengaged
+from the earth.
+
+It was supposed to be useful in producing dreams, philters, charms
+&c.; and also to possess the faculties of exciting love, and
+increasing population.
+
+The Emperor Adrian, in a letter to Calexines, writes that he is
+drinking the juice of the Mandrake to render him amorous: hence
+it was called Love-apple.
+
+It grows in Italy, Spain, and the Levant.
+
+
+
+MISCELLANEOUS POEMS
+
+TO ISABEL
+A Beautiful Little Girl.
+
+Fair as some sea-child, in her coral bower,
+  Decked with the rare, rich treasures of the deep;
+Mild as the spirit of the dream whose power
+  Bears back the infant's soul to heaven, in sleep
+Brightens the hues of summer's first-born flower
+  Pure as the tears repentant mourners weep
+O'er deeds to which the siren, Sin, beguiled,--
+Art thou, sweet, smiling, bright-eyed cherub child.
+
+Thy presence is a spell of holiness,
+  From which unhallowed thoughts shrink blushing back,--
+Thy smile is a warm light that shines to bless,
+  As beams the beacon o'er the wanderer's track,--
+Thy voice is music, at whose sounds Distress
+  Unbinds her writhing victim from the rack
+Of misery, and charmed by what she hears,
+Forgets her woes, and smiles upon her tears.
+
+And when I look upon thee, bearing now
+  The promise of such loveliness, I ask
+If time will blight, that promise; if thy brow,
+  So sunny now, will learn to wear the mask
+Of hollow smiles, or cold deceit, whilst thou
+  Art learning in thy soul the bitter task
+Time teaches to all bosoms, when the glow
+Of hope is o'er--but this I may not know.
+
+My path will not be near to thine through life,--
+  Kind ones will guard and fondly shelter thee;
+Me bitterness awaits, and care and strife,
+  And all that sorrow has of agony;
+My future, as my past was, will be rife
+  With heartaches, and the pangs that "pass not by;"
+Each hour shall give thee some new pleasure; years,
+Long years can bring me only toil 'and tears.
+
+'Tis meet that it should be so,--I have made
+  A wreck of my own happiness, and cast
+Across my heart, in youth, the dull, deep shade
+  That wrinkled age flings over all at last
+But let it go,--I have too long delayed
+  The remedy, and what is past is past;--
+And could I live those vanished moments o'er,
+My heart would wander as it strayed before.
+
+I know not how it is,--my heart is stern,
+  And little giv'n to thoughts of tenderness;
+Yet looking on thy young brow it will yearn,
+  And in my bosom's innermost recess,
+Thoughts that have slumbered long awake and burn
+  With a wild strength which nothing can repress!
+Be still, worn heart, be still; does not the cold
+And heavy clay--clod mingle with her mould?
+
+Yes, 'tis that in thy soft check's tender bloom,
+  Thy black eyes' brightness, in each graceful move,
+I trace the lineaments of one to whom
+  My soul was wedded in an early love,--
+'Twas in my boyhood; but the insatiate tomb
+  Claimed her fair form, and for the realms above
+Her spirit fled the earth; oh! how I wept
+  That mine should in its bondage still be kept.
+
+I mind the hour I stood beside the clay
+  I had so loved in life--it still was fair,
+Surpassing fair, in death; and as she lay
+  With the thick tresses of her long dark hair
+Gathered above the brow whence feeling's ray
+  Had fled, because death's shadow darkened there,
+Her more than earthly beauty made her seem
+The incarnation of some pure bright dream.
+
+I stood and gazed: the pale grave sheet was wound
+  About the form from which life's spark was fled,
+For ever fled,--wet eyes were weeping round,
+  And voices full of sorrow mourned the dead;
+I could not weep; a sadness more profound
+  Than that from which those heart-drops, tears, are shed,
+Was in my soul,--for then the icy spell
+Of desolation freezing o'er me fell.
+
+And from that hour I have been alone,
+  Alone when crowds were round me. May thy fate
+Be coloured with a brighter hue, and strown
+  With flowers where mine is thorns;--where mine is hate,
+And strife, and bitter discord, may thine own
+  Be love, and hope, and peace--for these create
+The sunshine of existence; may their light
+Beam ever round thee, warm, and glad, and bright.
+
+
+THE LOCK OF HAIR.
+
+It is in sooth a lovely tress,
+  Still curled in many a ring,
+As glossy as the plumes that dress
+  The raven's jetty wing.
+And the broad and soul-illumined brow,
+  Above whose arch it grew,
+Was like the stainless mountain snow,
+  In its purity of hue.
+
+I mind the time 'twas given to me,
+  The night, the hour, the spot;
+And the eye that pleaded silently,
+  "Forget the giver not."
+Oh! myriads of stars, on high,
+  Were smiling sweetly fair,
+But none was lovely as the eye
+  That shone beside me there!
+
+Above our heads an ancient oak
+  Its strong, wide arms held out,
+And from its roots a fountain broke,
+  With a tiny laughing shout;
+And the fairy people of the wild
+  Were bending to their rest,
+As trustingly as sleeps the child
+  Upon its mother's breast.
+
+Soft, silvery cloudlets, pure and white,
+  Along the sky were hung,
+As if the spirits of the night
+  Their mantles there had flung;
+And then the night-breeze pensively
+  Sighed from its unseen throne,
+And far o'er field, and flower, and tree,
+  A hallowed light came down.
+
+But in our breasts was springing up
+  A something lovelier far,
+Than field, or tree, or flow'ret's cup,
+  Or sun, or moon, or star!
+We heeded not the fountain near,
+  Its song of gladness singing,
+For in our hearts a fount more dear,
+  And pure, and sweet, was springing.
+
+And she was one whom fortune's smile
+  Had gladdened from her birth,
+Yet her high spirit knew no guile,
+  No blot nor stain of earth;
+And I was but a friendless boy,
+  And yet her heart was mine;
+I knew it, and the thought was joy,
+  A joy all, all divine!
+
+From out a braided mass she took
+  This single lock of jet,
+And gave it with that pleading look
+  Which, said, "Do not forget."
+Forget! as soon the waves that roll
+  The ocean's caves above,
+May tell their secrets, as the soul
+  Forget its earliest love.
+
+It has been with me now for years,
+  Long years of care and strife,
+And shall be with me till time wears
+  Away my web of life.
+And when death's keen, resistless dart,
+  Shall bid its sorrows cease,
+This tress shall rest upon my heart,
+Its talisman of peace.
+
+
+"'Twas little she thought that I stood breathless by her side
+listening to the song she sang as she sat by the sea's edge,
+pondering so deeply, upon me too perhaps, that the white foam
+glimmered on her brow unheeded."
+Onagh, The Pale Child of the Brehon King.
+
+She stood beside the wide wild sea,
+  The winds howled hoarse and high,
+And dark clouds, drifting drearily,
+  Swept o'er the starless sky.
+
+Her breast was white as mountain snow,
+  Her locks hung loose and free,
+The foam that glimmered on her brow,
+  Was scarce so pale as she.
+
+She sang a mournful song of love,
+  Of trusting love betrayed;
+Ah, why did he who won her, prove
+  So faithless to the maid?
+
+"Why pines my heart so wearily,
+  Why heaves my aching breast,
+And why is sleep so far from me,
+  When others are at rest?
+
+"Thou, truant wanderer o'er the deep,
+  The cause of all my cares;
+For thee at night I wake and weep,
+  When none may mark my tears.
+
+"I seek the festive hall no more,
+  Its mirth no more I crave;
+My heart is lonely as the shore,
+  And restless as the wave.
+
+"My soul has struggled to forget
+  Its sleepless, fatal flame;
+I know thy vows were false, and yet
+  My love is still the same.
+
+"Still o'er the dream I nursed too well,
+  My bursting heart will yearn;
+For ever with me must it dwell,--
+  Oh, wanderer, return!"
+
+A white sail fluttered in the wind,
+  A light bark skimmed the sea,--
+It came like hope across the mind,
+  As swift and silently.
+
+The shell-strewn beach that edged the main,
+  A manly footstep pressed;
+The wanderer had returned again,--
+  The maiden's heart was blessed!
+
+
+THE DESERTED.
+
+"Come, sit thee by my side once more,
+  'Tis long since thus we' met;
+And though our dream of love is o'er,
+  Its sweetness lingers yet.
+Its transient day has long been past,
+  Its flame has ceased to burn,--
+But Memory holds its spirit fast,
+  Safe in her sacred urn.
+
+"I will not chide thy wanderings,
+  Nor ask why thou couldst flee
+A heart whose deep affection's springs
+  Poured forth such love for thee!
+We may not curb the restless mind,
+  Nor teach the wayward heart
+To love against its will, nor bind
+  It with the chains of art.
+
+"I would but tell thee how, in tears
+  And bitterness, my soul
+Has yearned with dreams, through long, long, years,
+  Which it could not control.
+And how the thought that clingeth to,
+  And twineth round the past,
+For ever in my heart shall glow,
+  And be save one my last.
+
+"They say thou hast another's love,--
+  Well, cherish it, but thou
+Its lack of strength and depth wilt prove,
+  Should sorrow cloud thy brow.
+Though she may own a statelier form,
+  A fairer cheek than mine,
+Her heart cannot so well and warm,
+  Respond each throb of thine."
+
+Her words were gentle, but their tone
+  Was sad as sorrow's sigh,--
+A tear-drop trembled in his own
+  As he sought her downcast eye.
+A chord was struck within his breast
+  That long untouched had lain,
+Old memories started from their rest,--
+  The maid was loved again.
+
+Stanzas.
+
+On! there are hours of sadness, when the soul,
+  Torn from its every stay, and crushed beneath
+Its many griefs, and spurning faith's control,
+  Pants with an earnest longing for the death
+Which would for ever close its dark career,
+  With the pale shroud and the remorseless bier;
+When the harsh, sterile nothingness of life,
+  First breaks upon the hope-deluded breast,
+And the heart sickens with the bootless strife
+  That wrings its chords, and longs to be at rest;
+Ev'n if the blow that frees it from distress,
+  Should strike it into utter nothingness.
+
+Ah, nothingness! The thought at times will come,
+  The mind will wrestle with the mystery
+That clouds its being! from its clay-made home,
+  Its dwelling of a m6ment, it will flee
+Into the far depths of the vast UNKNOWN,
+  In its vain searchings for th' eternal throne
+Of that Omnipotence which gave it birth,
+  And, giving it a nature which might suit
+A seraph, bound its destiny to earth!
+  And a few years, in which to eat the fruit
+Of life's strange tree, so bitter at its core,
+  Then death, the quiet grave, sleep, and--what more?
+
+Whence came we? whither go we? All is still
+  And voiceless in the past! A veil is drawn
+Across the future! by life's mystic rill
+  We sit and ponder, watching for the dawn
+Of some yet unconceived, far-reaching thought,
+By which our nature's secret shall be taught!
+Why sorrow is our element--why sin
+  Is native in us--by what curse we bear
+An ever aching, crushing void within
+  Our secret souls! and why the little share
+Of happiness that mingles with our fate,
+Is of such fleeting, transitory date 1
+
+Our loves! our hopes! what are they? fruits which turn
+  To ashes on our lips! illusive lights
+That cast a moment's brightness while they burn,
+  Then die, and leave a darkness which affrights
+Our spirits with its thrice redoubled gloom,
+Making the sky a pall--the earth a tomb!
+And yet these are the all of life for which
+  'Tis worth the wearing of its chain to know,
+Wealth, fame, and power are but toys! the rich,
+  The high and mighty, with the base and low,
+Alike before the reaper Death must fall,--
+So be it! in the grave is rest for all.
+
+Stanzas.
+
+When the leaf is on the tree,
+  And the bird is in the bower,
+And the butterfly and bee,
+  Bear its treasures from the flower;
+When the fields put on the sheen,
+  That to young-eyed Spring belongs;
+When the groves and forests green,
+  Echo with a thousand songs;
+
+When wild Beauty wanders forth,
+  Giving, with no stinted care,
+All her loveliness to earth,
+  All her sweetness to the air:
+Then the heart, with gladness stirred,
+  Mindful of its griefs no more,
+Mounts and carols, like a bird
+  When the pearly shower is o'er!
+
+But the summer's sunny hours,
+  As we count them, pass away;
+And its fairest fruits and flowers,
+  Are but food for stern decay.
+Then with wailings, deep and loud,
+  Like the sea's in its unrest,
+Winter spreads his icy shroud,
+  O'er the bare earth's frozen breast.
+
+Thus the spirit's early gladness,
+  Sorrow chills or time removes;
+And the soul, in tears and sadness,
+  Mourns its perished joys and loves.
+Hope will lose its trusting boldness,
+  One by one its beams depart,
+And Despair, with icy, coldness,
+  Winds its mantle round the heart.
+
+
+AFTER WITNESSING A DEATH-SCENE.
+
+            Press close your lips,
+And bow your heads to earth, for Death is here!
+Mark ye not how across that eye so clear,
+            Steals his eclipse?
+
+            A moment more,
+And the quick throbbings of her heart shall cease,
+Her pain-wrung spirit will obtain release,
+            And all be o'er!
+
+            Hush! Seal ye up
+Your gushing tears, for Mercy's hand hath shaken
+Her earth-bonds off, and from her lip hath taken
+            Grief's bitter cup.
+
+            Ye know the dead
+Are they who rest secure from care and strife,--
+That they who walk the thorny way of life,
+            Have tears to shed.
+
+            Ye know her pray'r,
+Was for the quiet of the tomb's deep rest,--
+Love's sepulchre lay cold within her breast,
+            Could peace dwell there?
+
+            A tale soon told,
+Is of her life the story; she had loved,
+And he who won her heart to love, had proved
+            Heartless and cold.
+
+            Lay her to rest,
+Where shines and falls the summer's sun and dew;
+For these should shine and fall where lies so true
+            And fond a breast!
+
+            A full release
+From every pang is given to the dead,--
+So on the stone ye place above her head,
+            Write only "Peace."*
+
+            When Spring comes back,
+With music on her lips,--joy in her eye,--
+Her sunny banner streaming through the sky,--
+            Flow'rs in her track--
+
+            Then come ye here,
+And musing from the busy world apart,
+Drop on the turf that wraps her mouldering heart,
+            Sweet Pity's tear.
+
+* The most touchingly beautiful epitaph I have ever read, was
+written in that one word, "Peace." It seemed like the last sigh
+of a departing spirit, over the clay which it was about to
+abandon for ever.
+
+
+LOVE AND FANCY.
+
+     "Whenever, amid bow'rs of myrtle,
+       Love, summer-tressed and vernal-eyed,
+     At morn or eve is seen to wander,
+       A dark-haired girl is at his side."
+     De La Hogue.
+
+One morn, just as day in the far east was breaking,
+  Young Love, who all night had been roving about,
+A charming siesta was quietly taking,
+  His strength, by his rambles, completely worn out.
+
+Round his brow a wreath, woven of every flower
+  That springs from the hillside, or valley, was bound;
+In his hand was a rose he had stol'n from some bower,
+  While his bow and his quiver lay near on the ground.
+
+Wild Fancy just came from her kingdom of dreams,
+  The breath of the opening day to enjoy,
+And to catch the warm kiss of its first golden beams
+  On her cheek, caught a glimpse of the slumbering boy!
+
+With a light, noiseless step she drew near to the sleeper,
+  And gazed till her snowy-breast heaved a soft sigh;
+Then she bade sleep's dull god bring a sounder and deeper
+  And heavier trance for Love's beautiful eye.
+
+Then back to her shadowy kingdom she flow,
+  And called up the bright mystic forms she has there;
+And filling an urn from a fountain of dew,
+  She bade them all straight to Love's couch-side repair.
+
+They came, and stood round, as her hand, o'er his pillow,
+  From a chalice of pearl, poured its magical stream:
+While his red rosy lips, that now sighed like a billow
+  At play with the breeze, told how sweet was his dream.
+
+He dreamed that he sat on a shining throne, wrought
+  Of the purest of gold that the earth could supply,
+While a trio of beautiful maids, who each brought
+  A gift for his shrine, in succession past by.
+
+First Fame, with the step and the glance of a queen,
+  Came up, and before him bent down her proud knee,
+And held up a garland, whereon played the sheen
+  Of the beams which insure immortality!
+
+Next Wealth, the stern mistress of men, for whose smile
+  They toil like the galley slave,--brought in her hand
+The fair gems of many an ocean isle,
+  And the diamonds of many a far off land.
+
+And Beauty came too, with her blue, laughing eye,
+  Her fair flowing locks, and her soft rosy cheek,
+And red lips, whose sweet smile told silently
+  The tale which they seemed ashamed to speak.
+
+'Neath the shade of a palm branch a fourth one stood by,
+  With locks like in hue to the tresses of Night,
+With a pale, pensive brow, and a dark dreamy eye,
+  Where the soul of sweet softness lay gleaming in light!
+
+It was Fancy: Love gazed, and his eager eye shone
+  With a lustre of feeling, deep, fervent, and sweet;
+And he thought it were better to give up his throne
+  For a place, on his knees, at the coy maiden's feet.
+
+And from that bright hour, through calm and through storm,
+  Through the sunlight of summer, and winter's dark reign,
+These twain have been bound by ties, tender and warm,
+  Which ne'er through all time shall be severed again.
+
+And ever where Love weaves his fond witchery,
+  Will Fancy the aid of her brightness bestow,
+And give the loved object, whatever it be,
+  A purer, a dearer, a heavenlier glow!
+
+
+LINES WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM
+
+'Tis not in youth, when life is new, when but to live is sweet,
+When Pleasure strews her starlike flow'rs beneath our careless feet,
+When Hope, that has not been deferred, first waves its golden wings,
+And crowds the distant future with a thousand lovely things;--
+
+When if a transient grief o'ershades the spirit for a while,
+The momentary tear that falls is followed by a smile;
+Or if a pensive mood, at times, across the bosom steals,
+It scarcely sighs, so gentle is the pensiveness it feels
+
+It is not then the, restless soul will seek for one with whom
+To share whatever lot it bears, its gladness or its gloom,--
+Some trusting, tried, and gentle heart, some true and faithful breast,
+Whereon its pinions it may fold, and claim a place of rest.
+
+But oh! when comes the icy chill that freezes o'er the heart,
+When, one by one, the joys we shared, the hopes we held, depart;
+When  friends, like autumn's withered leaves, have fallen by our side,
+And life, so pleasant once, becomes a desert wild and wide;--
+
+As for her olive branch the dove swept o'er the sullen wave,
+That rolled above the olden world--its death-robe and its grave!--
+So will the spirit search the earth for some kind, gentle one,
+With it to share her destiny, and make it all her own!
+
+
+TO A LADY.
+Suggested By Hearing Her Voice During Services At Church.
+
+At night, in visions, when my soul drew near
+  The shadowy confines of the spirit land,
+Wild, wondrous notes of song have met my ear,
+  Wrung from their harps by many a seraph's hand;
+And forms of light, too, more divinely fair
+  Than Mercy's messenger to hearts that mourn,
+On wings that made sweet music in the air,
+  Have round me, in those hours of bliss, been borne,
+And, filled with joy unutterable, I
+Have deemed myself a born child of the sky.
+
+And often, too, at sunset's magic hour,
+  When musing by some solitary stream,
+While thought awoke in its resistless pow'r,
+  And restless Fancy wove her brightest dream:
+Mysterious tongues, that were not of the earth,
+  Have whispered words which I may not repeat,--
+But Thought or Fancy ne'er have given birth
+  To form and voice like thine,--so fair and sweet!
+Nor have I found them when my spirit's flight
+Had borne me to the far shores of delight.
+
+Above the murmurs of an hundred lips,
+  They rose, those silvery tones of praise and pray'r,
+Soft as the light breeze, when Aurora trips
+  The earth, and, lighting up the darkened air,
+Carols her greetings to the waking flow'rs!
+  They fell upon my heart like summer rain
+Upon the thirsting fields,--and earlier hours,
+  When I too breathed th' adoring pray'r and strain,
+Came back once more; the present was beguiled
+Of half its gloom, and my worn spirit smiled.
+
+Pray, lady, that the sad, soul-searing blight,
+  Which comes upon us when we tread the ways
+Of sin, may not be suffered to alight
+  On thy pure spirit in its youthful days;
+Or like the fruitage of the Dead Sea shore,
+  Tho' outward bloom and freshness thou may'st be,
+Stern bitterness and death will gnaw thy core,
+  And thou wilt be a heart-scathed thing like me,
+Bearing the weight of many years, ere thou
+Hast lost youth's rosy cheek and lineless brow.
+
+
+IMPROMPTU,
+On The Reception Of A Letter.
+
+I would love to have thee near me,
+  But when I think how drear
+Is each hope that used to cheer me,
+  I cease to wish thee here.
+
+I know that thou, wouldst not shrink from
+  The storms that burst on me,
+But the bitter chalice I drink from,
+  I will not pass to thee.
+
+I would share the world with thee, were it
+  With all its pleasures mine,
+But the sorrows which I inherit,
+  I never will make thine!
+
+
+THE OLD MAN AND THE BOY.
+
+"Glenara, Glenara, now read me my dream."
+Campbell.
+
+Father, I have dreamed a dream,
+  When the rosy morning hour
+Poured its light on field and stream,
+  Kindling nature with its pow'r;--
+
+O'er the meadow's dewy breast,
+  I had chased a butterfly,
+Tempted by its gaudy vest,
+  Still my vain pursuit to ply,--
+
+Till my limbs were weary grown,
+  With the distance I had strayed,
+Then to rest I laid me down,
+  Where a beech tree cast its shade,
+
+Soon a heaviness came o'er me,
+  And a deep sleep sealed my eyes;
+And a vision past before me,
+  Full of changing phantasies.
+
+First I stood beside a bower,
+  Green as summer bow'r could be;
+Vine and fruit, and leaf and flower,
+  Mixed to weave its canopy.
+
+And within reclined a form,
+  As embodied moonlight fair,
+With a soft cheek, fresh and warm,
+  Deep blue eye and sunny hair.
+
+By her side a goblet stood,
+  Such as bacchanalians brim;
+High the rich grape's crimson blood,
+  Sparkled o'er its gilded rim.
+
+As I gazed, she bowed her head,
+  With a gay and graceful move,
+And in words of music said,
+  "Drink, and learn the lore of love!"
+
+Next I stood beside a mountain,
+  Of majestic form and height;
+Cliff and crag, and glen and fountain,
+  Mingled to make up its might.
+
+On its lofty brow were growing
+  Flowers never chilled by gloom,
+For the sky above them glowing,
+  Dyed them with a deathless bloom.
+
+And I saw the crystal dome,
+  Wondrous in its majesty,
+Where earth's great ones find a home,
+  When their spirits are set free.
+
+By its portals, I espied
+  One who kept the courts within;
+High he waved a wreath and cried,
+  "Come up hither,--strive and win!"
+
+Then my vision changed again:
+  In a fairy-coloured shell,
+O'er the wide sea's pathless plain,
+  I was speeding, fast and well.
+
+Suddenly, beneath its prow,
+  Parted were the azure waves,
+And I saw where, far below,
+  Yawn the vast deep's secret caves.
+
+Where the Syren sings her song,
+  To old Ocean's sons and daughters;
+And the mermaids dance along,
+  To the music of the waters.
+
+Where the coral forest o'er,
+  Storm or tempest ne'er is driven
+And the gems that strew its floor,
+  Sparkle like the stars in heaven.
+
+Treasures, such as never eye
+  Of the earth has looked upon,
+Gold and pearls of many a dye,
+  There in rich profusion shone.
+
+And a voice came to my ear,
+  Saying, in a stern, cold tone,
+Such as chills the heart with fear,
+  "Seize and make the prize thine own."
+
+Then across a clouded wild,
+  Lone and drear and desolate,
+Where no cheerful cottage smiled,
+  I pursued the steps of fate.
+
+Ever bearing in my breast,
+  Thoughts almost to madness wrought;
+Ever, ever seeking rest,
+  Never finding what I Sought--
+
+Till I gave my wanderings o'er,
+  By a black and icy stream,--
+Deep I plunged and knew no more:--
+  Father, read me now my dream.
+
+The old man bowed his head,
+And pressed his thin hand to his withered brow,
+As if he struggled with some rising thought
+Which should have kept its place in memory's urn
+Till he had cast the shadow from his soul,
+Which for a while had bound it in a spell
+Born of the bygone years,--then thus he spoke:
+
+Now listen, boy, and I will show to thee
+  The import of thy vision,--I will tell
+Thee what its scenes and shapes of mystery
+  Foreshadow of the future,--for full well
+I know the wizard lore, whose witchery
+  Binds e'en the time to come in its wild spell!
+And from approaching years a knowledge wrings
+Of what they bear upon their viewless wings.
+
+Along life's weary way of pain and care,
+  From earliest infancy to eldest age,
+Forms, viewless as the soft-breathed summer air,
+  Attend man's footsteps in his pilgrimage;
+And if his destiny be dark or fair,
+  If Pleasure gilds, or Sorrow blots the page
+Whereon is traced his history, still his ear
+Will ever catch their warning voices near.
+
+And they--those guardian ones, who, while thy sleep
+  Hung o'er thee like a curtain, came around
+And fanned thee till thy slumber grew more deep,--
+  Flung o'er thy rest, so perfect and profound,
+A dream whose mem'ry thou sbouldst ever keep
+  Bound to thy spirit, for altho' it wound,
+Thy young heart now, perchance, in after years,
+  'Twill save thee much of toil, and many tears.
+
+It was a dream of life: of boyhood's strong
+  And soul-consuming yearnings after love!
+His eager search to find, amid the throng,
+  Some heart to give him thought for thought--to move
+And mingle with his own, as twines the song
+  From Beauty's lyre and lips! to know and prove
+The dearest joy to care-cursed mortals given,
+The one with least of earth, and most of heaven
+
+Of manhood's ceaseless strivings after fame,--
+  The veriest phantom of all phantasies--
+For which he wields the sword, or lights the flame
+  Whose red glare mocks a nation's agonies,--
+Or by his star-outwatching taper, plies
+  His pen or pencil, to gain--what? a name,
+A passing sound--an echo--a mere breath,
+Which he, vain fool, dreams mightier than death!
+
+And of a later period, when the soul
+  Forsakes its high resolves and wild desires,
+When stern Ambition can no more control,
+  And Love has shrouded o'er its smothered fires;
+When Expectation ceases to console,
+  And Hope, the last kind comforter, expires;
+And Avarice, monster of the gilded vest,
+Creeps in and occupies the vacant breast.
+
+And then the last sad scene: The sick heart, sore
+  And fainting from its wounds--the palsied limb--
+The brow whose death-sweat peeps from every pore--
+  The eye with its long, weary watch grown dim--
+The withered, wan cheek, that shall bloom no more--
+  The last dregs dripping slowly from the brim
+Of life's drained cup,--behind all gloom, before
+A deep, dark gulf--we plunge, and all is o'er!
+
+
+ACLE AT THE GRAYE OF NERO.
+
+It is a circumstance connected with the history of Nero, that
+every spring and summer, for many years after his death, fresh
+and beautiful flowers were nightly scattered upon his grave by
+some unknown hand.
+
+Tradition relates that it was done by a young maiden of Corinth,
+named Acle, whom Nero had brought to Rome from her native city,
+whither he had gone in the disguise of an artist, to contend in
+the Nemean, Isthinian, and Floral games, celebrated there; and
+whence he returned conqueror in the Palaestra, the chariot race,
+and the song; bearing with him, like Jason of old, a second Medea,
+divine in form and feature as the first, and who like her had left
+father, friends, and country, to follow a stranger.
+
+Even the worse than savage barbarity of this sanguinary tyrant,
+had not cut him off from all human affection; and those flowers
+were doubtless the tribute of that young girl's holy and enduring
+love!
+
+Whose name is on yon lettered stone? whose ashes rest beneath?
+That thus you come with flowers to deck the mournful home of death;
+And thou--why darkens so thy brow with grief's untimely gloom?
+Thou art fitter for a bride than for a watcher by the tomb!
+
+"It is the name of one whose deeds made men grow pale with fear,
+And Nero's, stranger, is the dust that lies sepulchred here;
+That name may be a word of harsh and boding sound to thee,
+But oh! it has a more than mortal melody for me!
+
+"And I,--my heart has grown to age in girlhood's fleeting years,
+And has one only task--to bathe its buried love in tears;
+The all of life that yet remains to me is but its breath;
+Then tell me, is it meet that I should seek the bridal wreath?"
+
+But maiden, he of whom yon speak was of a savage mood,
+That took its joy alone in scenes, of carnage, tears and blood;
+His dark, wild spirit bore the stain of crime's most loathsome hue,
+And love is for the high of soul--the gentle and the true.
+
+"The voice that taught an abject world to tremble at its words,
+To me was mild and musical, and mellow as a bird's--
+A bird's--that couched among the green, broad branches of the date,
+Tells, in its silvery songs, its gushing gladness to its mate.
+
+"I saw him first beside the sea; near to ray father's home,
+When like an ocean deity he bounded from the foam;
+Ev'n then a glory seemed to breathe around him as he trod,
+And my haughty soul was bowed, as in the presence of a God.
+
+I knew not, till my heart was his, the darkness of his own,
+Nor dreamed that he who knelt to me was master of a throne!
+And when the fearful knowledge came, its coming was in vain,--
+I had forsaken all for him, and would do so again."
+
+Is love the offspring of the will? or is it, like a flower,
+So frail that it may fade and be forgotten in an hour?
+No, no! it springs unbidden where the heart's deep fountains play,
+And cherished by their hallowed dew, it cannot pass away!
+
+
+THE VENETIAN GIRL'S EVENING SONG.
+
+Unmoor the skiff,--unmoor the skiff,--
+  The night wind's sigh is on the air,
+And o'er the highest Alpine cliff,
+  The pale moon rises, broad and clear.
+The murmuring waves are tranquil now,
+  And on their breast each twinkling star
+With which Night gems her dusky brow,
+  Flings its mild radiance from afar.
+
+Put off upon the deep blue sea,
+  And leave the banquet and the ball;
+For solitude, when shared with thee,
+  Is dearer than the carnival.
+And in my heart are thoughts of love,
+  Such thoughts as lips should only breathe,
+When the bright stars keep watch above,
+  And the calm waters sleep beneath!
+
+The tale I have for thee, perchance,
+  May to thine eye anew impart
+The long-lost gladness of its glance,
+  And soothe the sorrows of thy heart;
+Come, I will sing for thee again,
+  The songs which once our mothers sung,
+Ere tyranny its galling chain
+  On them, and those they loved, had hung.
+
+Thou'rt sad; thou say'st that in the halls
+  Which echoed once our father's tread,
+The stranger's idle footstep falls,
+  With sound that might awake the dead!
+The mighty dead! whose dust around
+  An atmosphere of reverence sheds;
+If aught of earthly voice or sound,
+  Might reach them in their marble beds.
+
+That she to whom the deep gave birth,--
+  Fair Venice! to whose queenly stores
+The wealth and beauty of the earth
+  Were wafted from an hundred shores!
+Now on her wave-girt site, forlorn,
+  Sits shrouded in affliction's night,--
+The object of the tyrant's scorn,
+  Sad monument of fallen might.
+
+Well, tho' in her deserted halls
+  The fire on Freedom's shrine is dead,
+Tho' o'er her darkened, crumbling walls,
+  Stern Desolation's pall is spread;
+Is not the second better part,
+  To that which rends the despot's chain,
+To wear it with a dauntless heart,
+  To feel yet shrink not from its pain?
+
+Then let the creeping ivy twine
+  Its wreaths about each ruined arch,
+Till Time shall crush them in the brine,
+  Beneath its all-triumphant march!
+Then let the swelling waters close
+  Above the sea-child's sinking frame,
+And hide for ever from her foes,
+  Each trace and vestige of her shame.
+
+Shall we at last less calmly sleep,
+  When in the narrow death-house pent,
+Because the bosom of the deep
+  Shall be our only monument?
+No! by the waste of waters bid,
+  Our tombs as well shall keep their trust,
+As tho' a marble pyramid
+  Were piled above our mangled dust!
+
+Written in the National Gallery, at the city of Washington, on
+looking at a Mummy, supposed to have belonged to a race extinct
+before the occupation of the Western Continent by the people in
+whose possession the Europeans found it.
+
+Sole and mysterious relic of a race
+That long has ceased to be, whose very name,
+Time, ever bearing on with steady pace,
+Has swept away from earth, leaving thy frame,
+Darkened by thirty centuries, to claim,
+Among the records of the things that were,
+Its place,--Tradition has forgot thee--Fame,
+If ever fame was thine, has ceased to bear
+Her record of thee,--say, what dost thou here?
+
+Three thousand years ago a mother's arms
+Were wrapped about that dark and ghastly form,
+And all the loveliness of childhood's charms
+Glowed on that cheek, with life then flushed and warm;
+Say, what preserved thee from the hungry worm
+That haunts with gnawing tooth the gloomy bed
+Spread for the lifeless? Tell what could disarm
+Decay of half its power, and while it fed
+On empires--races--make it spare the dead!
+
+How strange to contemplate the wondrous story,
+When those deep sunken eyes first saw the light,
+Lost Babylon was in her midday glory,--
+Upon her pride and power had fall'n no blight;
+And Tyre, the ancient mariner's delight,
+Whose merchantmen were princes, and whose name
+Was theme of praise to all, has left her site
+To utter barren nakedness and shame,--
+Yet thou, amid all change, art still the same.
+
+And she who, by the "yellow Tiber's" side,
+Sits wrapped in her dark veil of widowhood,
+With scarce a glimmer of her ancient pride,
+To cheer the gloom of that deep solitude
+Which o'er the seat of vanquished pow'r doth brood,
+Since thou wast born has seen her glories rise,
+Burn, and expire! quenched by the streams of blood
+Which her slaves drew from her own veins, the price
+Of usurpation, proud Ambition's sacrifice!
+
+And darker in her fate, and sadder still,
+The sacred city of the minstrel king,
+That proudly sat on Zion's holy hill,
+The wonder of the world! Destruction's wing
+Hath from her swept each fair and goodly thing;
+Her palaces and temples! where are they?
+Her walls and marble tow'rs lie mouldering,
+Her glory to the spoiler's hand a prey,--
+And yet time spares a portion of thy clay!
+
+And thou art here amid a stranger race,
+To whom these shores four centuries ago,
+Tho' now proud Freedom's boasted dwelling-place,
+Were all unknown; the wide streams that now flow
+Where Cultivation's hand has steered her plough,
+Had then but seen the forest huntsman guide
+His light canoe across the waves which now
+Reflect the snowy sails that waft in pride
+The stately ship along their rippling tide.
+
+Thou art the silent messenger of ages,
+Sent back to tread with Time his constant way,
+To shame the wisdom of conceited sages,
+Whose lore is but a thing of yesterday;
+What would their best, their brightest visions weigh
+Beside the fearful truths thou couldst reveal?
+The secrets of eternity now lay
+Unveiled before thee, and for we or weal,
+Thy doom is fixed beyond ev'n heaven's repeal.
+
+I will not ask thee of the mysteries
+That lie beyond Death's shadowy vale; but thou
+Mayst tell us of the fate the Destinies
+Wove for thine earthly sojourn. Was thy brow
+Graced with the poet's, hero's garland? How
+Dealt Fortune with thee? Did she curse or bless
+Thee with her frown or smile? Speak! thou art now
+Among the living,--they around thee press.
+Still silent? Then thy lot we can but guess.
+
+Perhaps thou wast a monarch, and hast worn
+The sceptre of some real El Dorado!
+Perhaps a warrior, and those arms have borne
+The foremost shield, and dealt the deadliest blow
+That drew the life-blood of a warring foe!
+Perhaps thou wor'st the courtier's gilded thrall,--
+Some glittering court's gay, proud papilio!
+Perchance a clown, the jester of some hall,
+The slave of one man, and the fool of all!
+
+Oh life! and pride! and honour! come and see
+To what a depth your visions tumble down!
+Behold your wearer,--who shall say if he
+Were monarch, warrior, parasite, or clown!
+And ye, who talk of glory and renown,
+And call them bright and deathless! and who break
+Each dearer tie to grasp fame's gilded crown,
+Come, hear instruction from this shadow speak,
+And learn how valueless the prize ye seek!
+
+See where ambition's loftiest flight doth tend,
+Behold the doom perhaps of blood-bought fame,
+And know that all which earth can give must end,
+In dust and ashes, and an empty name!
+Ye passions! which defy our pow'r to tame
+Or curb your headlong tides, behold your home!
+Love! see the breast where thou didst light thy flame!
+Immortal spirit! see thy shattered dome!
+When shall its hour of renovation come?
+
+Shall life possess, and beauty deck again
+That withered form, and foul and dusky cheek?
+Will Death resign his dull and frozen reign,
+And the immortal soul return to seek
+Her long-deserted dwelling, and to break
+The bondage which has held in icy chains
+All that was mortal of thee? will she make
+Her home in thee, and shall these poor remains
+Share with her heaven's pleasures or hell's pains?
+
+Wonder of wonders! who could look on thee
+And afterward survey with curious eye
+The mouldering shrines where dupes have bent the knee,
+Where superstition, by hypocrisy
+Nurtured and fed with tales of mystery,
+Has oft with timid footstep trembling trod,--
+All these are worse than nothing; come and see
+Where once a deathless soul held its abode,--
+The wrecked and ruined palace of a God!
+
+Farewell! Not idly has this hour been spent.
+Thy silent teachings I may not forget,--
+More deeply, strangely, truly eloquent,
+Than all the babbled words which ever yet
+Have fall'n from living lips,--they shall be set
+With the bright gems which Wisdom loves to keep;
+And when my spirit against fate would fret,
+My eyes shall turn to thee and cease to weep,
+Till I too sleep death's deep and dreamless sleep!
+
+
+TO ISABEL.
+
+Come near me with thy lips, and, breathe o'er mine
+  Their breath, for I consume with love's desire,--
+Thine ivory arms about me clasp and twine,
+  And beam upon mine eye thine eye's soft fire;
+Clasp me yet closer, till my heart feels thine
+  Thrill, as the chords of Memnon's mystic lyre
+Thrilled at the sun's uprising! thou who art
+The lone, the worshipped idol of my heart!
+
+There! balmier than the south wind, when it brings
+  The scent of aromatic shrub and tree,
+And tropic flower on ifs glowing wings,
+  Thine odorous breath is wafted over me;
+How to thy dewy lips mine own lip clings,
+  And my whole being is absorbed in thee;
+And in my breast thine eyes have lit a fire
+That never, never, never shall expire!
+
+Eternal--is it not eternal--this
+ Our passionate love? what pow'r shall part us twain?
+Not even Death! Life could bestow no bliss
+  Like death with thee, and I would rend its chain
+If thou shouldst perish, for my heaven is
+  To gaze upon thee! I could bear all pain
+Unsighing, so not parted from thy side,
+My beautiful! my spirit's chosen bride!
+
+They try to woo me from thy fond embrace,
+  To lure me from the light of those dear eyes;
+They tell me that in fortune's arduous chase,
+  I have such fleetness as would win the prize;--
+But all the pomps of circumstance and place,
+  A glance, a word, a smile of thine outvies!
+Leave Fortune to her parasites! mine be
+The blessed lot to dwell with love and thee.
+
+To lead thee on through life, and to enlarge
+  Thy soul with added knowledge, day by day,
+To guard thee, as an angel guards his charge,
+  From every ill that lurks along the way!
+To smooth that rugged way, and strew its marge
+  With the bright flowrs that never can decay,--
+This were a lot too glorious, too divine,
+And yet Hope whispers that it shall be mine.
+
+Now listen, love,--this plan shall rule my life
+  And thine:--In some remote and sunny dell,
+Far from the crowded city's silly strife,
+  My hands shall rear the home where we will dwell;
+Shall till the soil, with fertile fruitage rife,
+  And teach the golden ear to shoot and swell;
+And my sole wished for recompense shall be
+My ever growing, deep'ning love for thee.
+
+Thy task shall be to train the trailing vine,
+  To watch, and cherish in its growth, the flow'r
+Whose breath and cheek are sweet and fair as thine;
+  To bless and brighten the domestic bow'r
+Where we will build to Love a hallowed shrine,
+  And bow us, in his worship, every hour;
+Till, chastened by thy smile, my heart has grown
+As pure, and soft, and sinless as thine own.
+
+Oh, hasten, love! to realize the dream,--
+  Come from the world,--the crowd is not for thee;
+Forsake it then, ere the contagious steam
+  Of its foul breath has soiled thy purity;--
+Come, for my heart would burst could I but deem
+  That such as they are, thou couldst ever be!
+Come, for my soul adores thee with a love
+As burning as the seraphs feel above.
+
+
+These lines are inscribed to the memory of John Q. Carlin, killed
+at Buena Vista.
+
+Warrior of the youthful brow,
+  Eager heart and eagle eye!
+Pants thy soul for battle now?
+  Burns thy glance with victory?
+Dost thou dream of conflicts done,
+Perils past and trophies won?
+And a nation's grateful praise
+Given to thine after days?
+
+Bloodless is thy cheek, and cold
+  As the clay upon it prest;
+And in many a slimy fold,
+  Winds the grave-worm round thy breast.
+Thou wilt join the fight no more,--
+Glory's dream with thee is o'er,--
+And alike are now to thee
+Greatness and obscurity.
+
+But an ever sunny sky,
+  O'er thy place of rest is bending;
+And above thy grave, and nigh,
+  Flowers ever bright are blending.
+O'er thy dreamless, calm repose,
+Balmily the south wind blows,--
+With the green turf on thy breast,
+Rest thee, youthful warrior, rest!
+
+When the alarum first was sounded,
+  Marshalling in arms the brave,
+Forth thy fearless spirit bounded,
+  To obtain thee--what? A grave!
+Fame had whispered in thine ear,
+Words the high-souled love to hear,--
+But the ruthless hand of death
+From thee snatched the hero's wreath.
+
+Often will the grief-shade start
+  O'er thy sister's mood of joy,
+Vainly will thy mother's heart
+  Yearn to greet her absent boy;
+Never sister's lip shall press
+On thine own its fond caress,--
+Never more a mother's eye
+Flash in pride when thou art by!
+
+Where the orange, bending lowly
+  With its golden fruit, is swaying;
+And the Indian maiden, slowly
+  By her native stream is straying;
+O'er thy dreamless, calm repose,
+Balmily the South wind blows,--
+With the green turf on thy breast,
+Rest thee, youthful warrior, rest!
+
+
+A LEGEND OF THE HARTZ.
+
+Many ages ago, near the high Hartz, there dwelt
+A rude race of blood-loving giants, who felt
+No joy but the fierce one which Carnage bestows,
+When her foul lips are clogged with the blood of her foes.
+
+And fiercer and bolder than all of the rest
+Was Bohdo,(1) their chieftain;--'twas strange that a breast,
+Which nothing like kindness or pity might move,
+Should glow with the warmth and the rapture of love.
+
+Yet he loved, and the pale mountain-monarch's fair child
+Was the maid of his heart; but tho' burning and wild
+Was the love that he bore her, it won no return,
+And the flame that consumed him was answered with scorn.
+
+Now the lady is gone with her steed to the plain,--
+Save the falcon and hound there is none in her train;
+She needs none to guide, or to guard her from harm
+There's no fear in her heart, there is strength in her arm.
+
+From her white wrist unhooded her falcon she threw,
+Her bow like Diana, the huntress, she drew;
+And fleet as the fetterless bird swept the sky,
+So on her proud steed swept the fair lady by.
+
+See how her eye sparkles, and how her cheek glows,
+As onward so fearless and proudly she goes,
+With her locks streaming back like a banner of gold,
+Were she not, say, a bride meet for Nimrod(2) of old?
+
+And he saw her--the chief, from his tower afar--
+As she glanced o'er the earth like some wandering star;
+And he swore she should come in that tower to dwell,
+Or his soul be a prize to the spirits of hell.
+
+His war-horse he mounted, and, swift as the shoot
+Of the night-gathered meteor, he sped in pursuit,--
+Breathing out, as he went, mad with love and with hate,
+Bitter curse upon curse against heaven and fate.
+
+Urging on his fleet courser with spur and with rein,
+He swept o'er the earth as the storm sweeps the plain,--
+And the fair lady knew, by the gleam of his shield,
+It was Bohdo, the scourge of the red battle field!
+
+Then spurred she her steed over valley and hill,
+Over rock, marsh and moor, over river and rill,
+Yet still her eye sparkled, and still her cheek glowed,
+As onward so fleetly and bravely she rode.
+
+Thus over Thuringia sped she away,
+With the speed of the hawk when he darts on his prey,--
+Or an arrow let loose from a warrior's bow,
+When it speeds with sure aim to the heart of his foe.
+
+Then the Hartz, the wild Hartz--the terrific--the proud!
+Where the mist-spirit dwells in his palace of cloud!
+Where the evil ones gather in envious wrath,
+To blight and to blast,--towered up in her path.
+
+Still her cheek kept its glow, still her eye flashed in pride,
+As onward she flew up the steep mountain side;
+And fierce as the tempest, and fleet as the wind,
+Stern Bohdo, the ruthless, still followed behind.
+
+To a fearful abyss, whose unhallowed name(3)
+By the powers of darkness was given, she came,
+And the whirlpool's wild voice, from the dark gulf below,
+Came up like the wail of a soul in its we.
+
+Beyond rose the rocky shelf, barren and bare,
+Beneath lay the whirlpool, around her despair,
+Behind her came one, sweeping on in the chase,
+Whose grasp was more dreaded than death's cold embrace.
+
+Then she called on the spirits who watch round the brave,
+In peril to nerve, to assist and to save,
+Closed calmly her eyes, as one sinking in sleep,
+And urged her proud steed to the terrible leap!
+
+A moment it paused on the high precipice,
+Then sprang, boldly sprang, o'er the frightful abyss!
+And struck its firm hoof in the rock till the sound
+Shook the hills, and the sparks flew like lightning around!
+
+And the foot-print it left has remained to this day,
+And no rain-flood or tempest shall wear it away;
+She was saved--the brave Emma was saved--but her crown,
+From her fair brow unloosed, in the whirlpool sank down.
+
+On, on came the chief, in his fierceness and wrath,
+Nor saw he the wide gulf that yawned in his path,--
+And soon, in the depths of its fathomless tide,
+The warrior and war-steed were laid side by side.
+
+And the mountaineer tells how in sullen despair,
+His ghost, imannealed of its sins, lingers there;
+Ever watching, pale, silent, untiring, unmoved,
+The bright golden crown of the maiden he loved.
+
+A diver once, lured by the wealth of the prize,
+Sought out the deep cave where it lay, and still lies,
+And where, chained by a spirit-breathed spell, it shall stay,
+Till the whirlpool and mountain alike pass away.
+
+Twice he rose with the crown, till its gleaming points blazed
+On the eyes of the wondering thousands who gazed,
+Twice it fell from his grasp, and sank quickly again
+To the bed where for years undisturbed it had lain.
+
+He followed,--this effort the treasure may earn--
+But vainly they watch who await his return;
+A red hue of blood tinged the deep waters o'er,
+But the diver came up from their dark depths no more.
+
+1. Bohdo. This hero, as his character is drawn in the original
+legend, or tradition, from which the material of these verses
+was taken (a tradition which gives the popular account of the
+formation of an immense mark or cavity in a rock, called the
+"Rosstrappe" or "Horse's footstep,") is worthy of being enrolled
+among Odin's Berserker.
+
+2. Nimrod. "A mighty hunter before the Lord." He built Babylon
+and founded that royal line which terminated with the death of
+Sardanapalus; whose gentleness and aversion to blood spilling,
+together with his passion for his "Ionian Myrrha," cost him an
+empire, and gained him an immortality.
+
+3. "It was named," says the tradition, "The Devil's dancing-place,
+from the triumph there of the spirits of hell."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mazelli, and Other Poems, by Sands
+
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