Its freight of human hearts? The o'ermastering wave! Who shall tell how it rushed-and none to save?
Thou hast forsaken me! I feel, I know—
There would be rescue if this were not so.
Thou'rt at the chase, thou'rt at the festive board,
Thou'rt where the red wine free and high is poured,
Thou'rt where the dancers meet! A magic glass
Is set within my soul, and proud shapes pass,
Flushing it o'er with pomp from bower and hall:
I see one shadow, stateliest there of all—
Thine! What dost thou amidst the bright and fair,
Whispering light words, and mocking my despair?
It is not well of thee! My love was more
Than fiery song may breathe, deep thought explore;
And there thou smilest, while my heart is dying,
With all its blighted hopes around it lying:
Even thou, on whom they hung their last green leaf!
Yet smile, smile on! too bright art thou for grief!
Death! What! is death a locked and treasured thing, Guarded by swords of fire? a hidden spring,
A fabled fruit, that I should thus endure,
As if the world within me held no cure? *
Wherefore not spread free wings?—Heaven, heaven! control
These thoughts !—they rush-I look into my soul
As down a gulf, and tremble at the array
Of fierce forms crowding it! Give strength to pray!
So shall their dark host pass.
*"And if you remember of old, I dare die. Consider what the world would conceive if I should be violently enforced to do it."-Fragments of Lady Arabella's Letters.
Father in Heaven! thou, only thou, canst sound
The heart's great deep, with floods of anguish filled,
For human line too fearfully profound.
Therefore forgive, my Father! if thy child,
Rocked on its heaving darkness, hath grown wild,
And sinned in her despair! It well may be
That thou wouldst lead my spirit back to thee,
By the crushed hope too long on this world poured-
The stricken love which hath perchance adored
A mortal in thy place! Now let me strive
With thy strong arm no more!
Take me to peace!
And peace at last is nigh.
A sign is on my brow, a token sent
The o'erwearied dust from home. No breeze flits by,
But calls me with a strange sweet whisper, blent
Deepens-its word is Death! Alone, alone,
And sad in youth, but chastened, I depart,
Bowing to heaven. Yet, yet my woman's heart
Shall wake a spirit and a power to bless,
Even in this hour's o'ershadowing fearfulness,
Thee, its first love! O tender still, and true!
Be it forgotten if mine anguish threw
Drops from its bitter fountain on thy name,
Though but a moment !-Now, with fainting frame,
With soul just lingering on the flight begun,
To bind for thee its last dim thoughts in one,
I bless thee! Peace be on thy noble head,
Years of bright fame, when I am with the dead!
I bid this prayer survive me, and retain
Its might, again to bless thee, and again!
Thou hast been gather'd into my dark fate
Too much; too long, for my sake, desolate
Hath been thine exiled youth: but now take back,
From dying hands, thy freedom, and retrack
(After a few kind tears for her whose days
Went out in dreams of thee) the sunny ways
Of hope, and find thou happiness! Yet send
Even then, in silent hours, a thought, dear friend!
Down to my voiceless chamber; for thy love
Hath been to me all gifts of earth above,
Though bought with burning tears! It is the sting
Of death to leave that vainly-precious thing
In this cold world! What were it, then, if thou,
With thy fond eyes, wert gazing on me now?
Too keen a pang! Farewell! and yet once more,
Farewell! The passion of long years I pour
Into that word! Thou hear'st not-but the woe
And fervour of its tones may one day flow
To thy heart's holy place; there let them dwell.
We shall o'ersweep the grave to meet. Farewell!
THE BRIDE OF THE GREEK ISLE*
"Fear! I'm a Greek, and how should I fear death?
A slave, and wherefore should I dread my freedom?
I will not live degraded."-SARDANAPALUS.
COME from the woods with the citron-flowers,
Come with your lyres for the festal hours,
Maids of bright Scio ! They came, and the breeze
Bore their sweet songs o'er the Grecian seas;
They came, and Eudora stood robed and crowned
The bride of the morn, with her train around.
Jewels flashed out from her braided hair,
Like starry dews midst the roses there:
Pearls on her bosom quivering shone,
Heaved by her heart through its golden zone.
But a brow, as those gems of the ocean pale,
Gleamed from beneath her transparent veil;
Changeful and faint was her fair cheek's hue,
Though clear as a flower which the light looks through;
And the glance of her dark resplendent eye,
For the aspect of woman at times too high,
Lay floating in mists, which the troubled stream
Of the soul sent up o'er its fervid beam.
*Founded on a circumstance related in the Second Series of
the Curiosities of Literature.
THE BRIDE OF THE GREEK ISLE
She looked on the vine at her father's door,
Like one that is leaving his native shore ;
She hung o'er the myrtle once call'd her own,
As it greenly waved by the threshold stone;
She turned-and her mother's gaze brought back
Each hue of her childhood's faded track.
Oh! hush the song, and let her tears
Flow to the dream of her early years!
Holy and pure are the drops that fall
When the young bride goes from her father's hall;
She goes unto love yet untried and new,
She parts from love which hath still been true:
Mute be the song and the choral strain,
Till her heart's deep well-spring is clear again!
She wept on her mother's faithful breast,
Like a babe that sobs itself to rest;
She wept-yet laid her hand awhile
In his that waited her dawning smile-
Her soul's affianced, nor cherished less
For the gush of nature's tenderness!
She lifted her graceful head at last-
The choking swell of her heart was past;
And her lovely thoughts from their cells found way
In the sudden flow of a plaintive lay.*
WHY do I weep? To leave the vine
Whose clusters o'er me bend;
*A Greek bride, on leaving her father's house, takes leave of her friends and relatives frequently in extemporaneous verses.See FAURIEL's Chants Populaires de la Grèce Moderne.
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