Part II.
The tale continued in the Convent grounds; the same group of Nuns listening.
How softly have my limbs reposed! Nor stormy sea, nor haunted land, Nor sorcerer’s unhallowed wand, Disturbed the opiate shades that closed The sleepy avenues of sense; And therefore I, without pretence Of weariness or dream-wrought gloom, My tale of yester-eve resume.
Together o’er the mystic Isle We wandered many a sinuous mile. ’Twas midway in the month of June, And rivulets with lisping rune, And bowering trees of tender green, And flowering shrubs their trunks between Enticed our steps till gloaming gray Upon the pathless forest lay. Think not I journeyed void of fear; Sir Roberval’s hot malediction Like hurtling thunder sounded near; Our steps the envious demons haunted, And peeped, or seemed to peep and leer, From rocky clefts and caverns drear. But still defiantly, undaunted, Eugene averred it had been held By wise philosophers of eld That all such sights and sounds are mere Fantastic tricks of eye and ear, And only meet for tales of fiction. “Heed not,” he said, “the vicious threat, ’Twas but a ruffian’s empty talk, The which I pray thou may’st forget And half his evil purpose baulk.” A silent doubt and grateful kiss Was all I could oppose to this. But firmer grew my steps. The air Was laden with delicious balm; Rich exhalations everywhere, From pine and spruce and cedar grove, And over all a dreamy calm, An affluence of brooding love, A palpable, beneficent Sufficiency of blest content.
Amid the hours, in restful pause We loitered on the moss-clad rocks, And listened to the sober caws Of lonely rooks, and watched thick flocks Of pigeons passing overhead; Or where the scarlet grosbeak sped, A wingéd fire, through clumps of pine Sent chasing looks of joy and wonder. Blue violets and celandine, And modest ferns that glanced from under Gray-hooded boulders, seemed to say— “O, tarry, gentle folk; O, stay, For we are lonely in this wood, And sigh for human sympathy To cheer our days of solitude.” Meek forest flowers, how dear to me! I loved them, kissed them on the stem, And felt that I must ever be Secluded from the world like them.
The long-drawn shadows, eastward cast, Admonished us that day was fast Dissolving, and would soon be past; And we must needs regain the spot Where waited good Nanette our coming. The chattering squirrel we heeded not, Nor paused to list the partridge drumming. The wedded bird was in her nest, And knew from the suspended song (A tribute to her listening ear) That from the green boughs rustling near Had trilled and warbled all day long, A brief space only must she wait The fondling of her chirping mate. With some wise meaning, wise and deep That from her eyes was fain to peep, And wealth of words and lifted hands Our thoughtful servitor, Nanette, Gave kindly greeting ere we met. “Come, children, follow me,” she said, And silently the way she led An arpent from the ocean sands, Directly to a piny grove, Where she with wondrous skill had wove A double bower of evergreen, Meet for a fairy king and queen.— “There, tell your rosaries and take A sabbath slumber; till you wake, Nanette, hard by, will watchful stand, With loaded arquebuse in hand, Your trusty sentinel, for here Some prowling beast may chance appear On no good neighbour’s lawful quest; To-morrow I can doze and rest.”— Thus, voluble, my faithful Nurse. Amazed, I stood and could not speak, But kissed her on the brow and cheek, And wept to think my Uncle’s curse Should fall on her, so worn and bent, So moved with every good intent.
A flushing joy it was to see That double-chambered arbour fair, Re-calling to my memory The storied lore of things that were My childhood’s moonlit witchery. Next morn we sought the circling strand And question made of wind and sea If such a thing might ever be, That, soon or late, from any land Some friendly sail would come that way And waft us thence: in vain, in vain! The hollow wind had nought to say, But, like a troubled ghost, passed by;— The waste illimitable main And awful silence of the sky Vouchsafed no sign, made no reply.— Oft times upon some lifted rock That overhung the waves, we sate And listened to the undershock Whose sad persistency, like fate, Made land and sea more desolate.
Again in lighter mood we trod The yellow sands and pale-green sod Strewn with innumerable shells, In whose pink whorls and breathing cells Beauty and wonder slept enshrined, Like holy thoughts in a dreamer’s mind. Of these sea-waifs an ample store We gathered, and at twilight bore The treasure to our sylvan home.
Once more the star encumbered dome Of heaven its thrilling story told, And Dian, lovely as of old, Poured lavishly her pallid sheen Upon that tranquil world of green; Whose cool and dewy depths, now rife With luminous and noiseless life, Responded wide; the fire-fly race In myriads lit their tiny lamps; As an army’s countless camps The warder in some woody place At nightfall on his watch may trace; So gleamed and flashed those mimic lamps.
The third day came. From shore to shore, Adventurous ever more and more, Our penal Isle we wandered o’er.— Which way our roving fancy led, A wilding beauty largely spread Rewarded our ambitious feet, And made our banishment too sweet For further censure or repining. Now culling flowers of dainty dyes, Now chasing gaudy butterflies, And now on herbaged slopes reclining, Where purple blooms of lilac trees, And sultry hum of hermit bees Disarmed the hours of weariness.— Nor can you fail, dear friends, to guess That time for dalliance we found,— And if we loved to an excess In many a long involved caress, O think how we were cribbed and bound.— Lush nature and necessity, As witnessed by the Saints above, In one delicious circle wove The pulsings of our destiny.
The great rude world was far away, And like a troubled vision lay Outside our thoughts; its cold deceits, The babble of its noisy streets, And all the selfish rivalry That courts and castles propagate Were alien to our new estate.— A fragment of propitious sky, Whereon a puff of cloud might lie, Through verdured boughs o’er-arching seen, And glimpses of the sea between Far stretches of majestic trees, Such peaceful sanctities as these Were our abiding joyance now.
Cheerily and with lifted brow Eugene led on, where tamaracs grew, And where tall elms their shadows threw Athwart a little glen wherein A virgin brook seemed glad to win The pressure of our thirsty lips. Pleasant it was to linger there And cool our fevered finger-tips In that pellucid stream and share The solace of the ocean breeze. For summer heats were now aglow, The fox sat down and took his ease, The hare moved purposeless and slow; But louder rang the blue jay’s scream, The woodpeck tapped the naked tree, Nor ceased the simple chickadee To twitter in the noonday beam.— My lover, wheresoe’er we strayed, Made search in every charmed nook, And angled in the winding brook For all sweet flowers that love the shade To twine for me a bridal braid. Pale yellow lilies, nursed by rocks Rifted and scarred by lightning shocks, Or earthquake; river buds and pinks, And modest snow-drops, pearly white, And lilies of the vale unite Their beauty in close-loving links Around a scented woodbine fair To coronate my dark brown hair. The fragile fern and clover sweet On that enchanted circlet meet; Young roses lent their blushing hues, Nor could the cedar leaf refuse With helmet flowers to intertwine Its glossy amplitude divine.— Emerging from that solemn wood, High on a rocky cliff we stood At set of sun; far, far away The splendors of departing day Upon the barren ocean lay.— There on that lone sea-beaten height, Investured in a golden light, Eugene, with looks half sad, whole sweet, Upon my brow the garland set, At once a chaplet and aigrette, And said: “Be crowned, my Marguerite! My own true soul, my ever dear Companion in this wilderness. Though hopeful still, I sometimes fear That days of darkness and distress May come to thee when woods are sere,— When it may baffle all my skill To guard thee from white winter’s chill;— But hence all raven-thoughts of ill, Let me believe that Nature will Relax her rigour, having caught The soft infection of those eyes In whose blue depths my image lies, Even as my soul, with love distraught, Like a lone star drowned in the sea, Is wholly drowned and lost in thee.— Love is our own essential being, Sole sovereign over utmost fate, Its own sufficient laws decreeing, Immortal and immaculate; And when this mild ethereal flame To mortal man was kindly given ’Twas surely meant by highest Heaven That never aught of evil name Should dare attempt to thwart its power.— Then let us, dearest, from this hour Defy the future, and pursue The unimagined pleasure due To such surpassing love as ours. One moment in thy folding arms Alone in these sequestered bowers; One throb of thy impassioned heart, Now speaking audibly to mine, And saying, ‘It were death to part;’ One honey-dew caress of thine, Out-sums a million rude alarms, Out-lives whole centuries that weigh On loveless souls, on sordid clay, That gravitate to ways of shame, And know love’s magic but by name.— These roseate skies will change their hue; This pomp of leaves when autumn lowers The windy ways of earth will strew; This aromatic crown of flowers, Made sacred now since worn by you, To-morrow will begin to fade.— But love, sweet spirit, linked as ours, By sad vicissitude o’erlaid, Endures, unchanged by any breath Of adverse fate, and surely will Life’s last inevitable chill Survive, and triumph over death.”— Thus, eloquent, the radiant youth, Like one inspired with sacred truth, Fair as Adonis, o’er me breathed The incense of pure love, and wreathed My heart in dewy dreams of bliss. Consenting Nature, pleased the while, Bestowed upon her outcast Isle The magic of a mother’s smile. Spent Sol impressed his warmest kiss On ocean’s brow; the wanton wind Went sighing up and down to find Meet objects for his soft embrace All things to amity inclined; Fierce bird and beast forebore to chase Their feeble prey, as if they felt Love’s universal breathings melt Their savage instincts; everywhere, Like mute enchantment in the air, This subtle permeating power Reigned sole. O, blest ambrosial hour! O, halcyon days that followed after, With music from my lute, and laughter, And song and jest, and such full measure Of secret love’s exhaustless treasure As gave to pain the wings of pleasure!—
So fled our summer dream, as flies An angel through cerulean skies On some good errand swiftly bent, So brief its stay that ere we wist, Gruff Autumn, garmented in mist. His courier winds before him sent, The which, equipped with sleet and hail, Beat down as with an iron flail The grandeur of the woods, and left Their naked solitudes bereft Of bird and flower. The trees stood stark And desolate against the dark Chaotic sky. The mighty sea Its billows hurled upon the shore As if resolved to over-pour And gulph our prison-house. Ah, me! All roofless now, save here and there A tall pine stretched its spear-shaped head Aloft into the gelid air; The hemlock, too, its beauty spread, A tent-like pyramid of green, Symbols of hope amid a scene Where hope grew pale at winter’s tread.
No more, along the sounding shore, In hushed voluptuous dells, no more, Nor on the perilous rock which gave Rude welcome to the climbing wave, Might we, in amplitude of joy, Our paradisal hours employ,— From green to gray, from gray to white, So rapidly the change came on, It seemed but the work of a single night And all our faery world was gone.— Down came the snow, compact, hard-driven By all the scourging blasts of heaven, Until, like clouds, dethroned and hurled Tumultuous to this nether world, Around the desert isle it lay, A rampart to the ocean’s spray.
Half hid where friendly pine trees spread Perpetual shelter overhead, Hugging a hillside lifted high Betwixt us and the arctic sky, Our cabin stood; a poor defence Against the mute omnipotence Of searching and insidious frost, Which, like a ghoul condemned and lost, The closeness of an inmate claimed;— But on the rustic hearthstone flamed Dry wood and pine-knots resinous: A ready and abundant hoard When days were long our hands had stored Against the season perilous; And good Nanette, ’twas her desire To feed the bickering tongues of fire That warned the dumb intruder hence.
When night fell thick, I loved to sit And watch the fire-gleams fall and flit On wooden walls and birch-bark ceiling, Among the densest shadows stealing, Till these, in folds and festoons golden, Like tapestry of castles olden, Shifted and fluttered free, revealing To fancy’s charmed and wiser vision Such fabrics as in looms elysian The angels weave; and thus our hut A palace seemed; and was it not More beautiful, illumed the while By dear Eugene’s adoring smile, Than many a royal chamber where, Concealed amid the gloss and glare, A thousand hateful evils are?—
Such fare as woodland wilds afford, Supplied our ever-cheerful board; Nor such alone; the salt sea wave Its tributary largess gave, All that our lenten wants might crave.
Slow crept the whitened months, so slow— I sometimes felt I never more Should see the pretty roses blow, Or tread on aught but endless snow, And listen to the nightly roar Of tempest and the ocean flow. Weird voices, woven with the wind, Riding on darkness often came And syllabled the buried name Of Roberval, which, like a hearse, Bore inward to my palsied mind The ghost of his inhuman curse.
Was it sick fancy, sore misled, That to my shuddering spirit said?— “Those sounds that shake the midnight air, Are threats of Shapes that will not spare Your trespass on their fief accurst.” “Hush, hush, my love,” Eugene would say, “That cry which o’er our cabin burst, Came from the owls, perched royally Among the pine-tops; you but heard The language of some beast or bird; The mooing of a mother bear, An hungered in her frozen lair; The laugh and mooing of the loon That welcometh the rising moon. The howling of the wolves you hear, In chase of some unhappy deer, Impeded in its desperate flight By deep and thickly crusted snows, O’er which its lighter-footed foes Pursue like shadows of the night. That lengthened groan, that fearful shriek Was but the grinding stress and creak Of aged trees; they seem to feel The wrench of storms, and make appeal For mercy; in their ducts and cells The sap, which is their life-blood, swells When frosts prevail and bursts asunder With sharp report its prison walls; Then cease, beloved, to fear and wonder For all these harmless peals and calls. In sweet assurance rest, love, rest Thy head on this devoted breast, And dream sweet dreams; the gentle spring Will come anon, and birds will sing As sweetly as they sang last year; And shall I not be ever near To share with thee the murmuring Of waking life? the humble bee Will drone again as blissfully As when from flower to flower he went And to the choral symphony His basso horn serenely lent.”— My fears were laid; I ceased to think; Athirst and eager still to drink The nectar of his speech.
How oft, If he but chanced to hear me sigh When wild winds blew, or when the soft And flaky harvest of the sky Descended silent, he would sit Under that snow-thatched roof and tell Such marvellous tales of mirth and wit, They held me like a wizard’s spell. Or else some poet’s plaintive verse That breathed soft vows of youth and maiden, With love-begotten sorrow laden, In twilight tones he would rehearse; And whilst the rhythmic measure flowed From those attuned lips, my breast With trepidation heaved and glowed, For in such guise was well expressed The master-passion’s undertone, Or happy or disconsolate, Of many a lover’s wayward fate That bore some semblance to our own.
’Twere over-much to pause and tell How slid the weeks, and all befell Ere we could to the heavens say, “The terror of your rage is past, The gnawing frost, the biting blast, And life is in the matin ray.”— The swallow came, the heron’s scream Athwart the marsh-lands, through the woods, Sped resonant; I ceased to dream Of demons, and my waking moods The radiance of the morning took. Upon the bare brown leaves I stood, And saw and heard with raptured look The gleam and murmur of the brook, Which we in summer’s plenitude Had traced to many an arbored nook.
’Twas midmost in the budding May, Whilst on my couch of cedar boughs, Perturbed with nameless fears I lay, And breathed to Heaven my silent vows,— A cloud-like cope of purple hue Descended o’er me, hid me quite, And seemed a soft wind round it blew, And from the mystic wind a voice Spoke low: “Poor child of darkened light! The pure of heart are Heaven’s choice; The Virgin who hath seen thy tears, In pity for thy tender years, Will aid thee in thine utmost plight.” A hallowed tremor o’er me crept, And in that purple cloud I slept Enshrined, how long I never knew;— And through my dreams the soft wind blew Like music heard at dusk or dawn, And when I woke and found it gone, In fullness of great joy I wept.
’Twas thus a new revealment came, A something out of nothingness, To which we gave the simple name Of Lua. O, the first caress A mother to her first-born gives!— Methinks the angels must confess, Through all the after ages’ lives, An influence so pure and holy, That human hearts, the proud and lowly, Are touched thereby. I kissed, and kissed My pretty babe, and through the mist Of happy tears upon it gazed In silent thankfulness, and praised The Empress of the skies, whose grace Had glorified that humble place.
The sandy marge again we trod Round the green Isle, and felt that God Was very near,—in ocean’s roar, And in the zephyr’s scented breath, In summer green, in winter hoar, In joy, in grief, in life, in death, Our Friend and Father evermore.
Again across the naked sea,— In tumult or in blank repose, At morn and noon, and evening close,— Sick yearnings from our souls were sent. But bootless still the hungry sigh, A southward sail still southward went, If any such we might descry,— As twice or thrice it chanced to be, We saw or fancied shimmering, Like a white eagle’s outstretched wing, Hiding the strait and dubious space That separates the lifted face Of ocean from the stooping sky. The sail would melt, the hollow dome Above us and our prison home, And girdling waves, and sobbing rain, And winds full-fledged,—all things that were Of earth and sky, of sea and air, Strangled sweet Hope, and in the pit Of outer darkness buried it. Yet seemed it sinful to complain, When to our feast of love was given The fairest fruit that gracious Heaven Had e’er for human joyance shed. Sweet Innocence! the small hands spread, Dimpled and white, catching at things Viewless to us, but clearly seen By those wide-open eyes; the wings Of heavenly guests it must have been Fluttering near the sinless child, Azure and golden, till she smiled And shrank from their excessive sheen.
Again the forest’s green arcades Gladly we paced; their sun-lit shades Investured us; the laughing brook That solaced us the year before, Mirrored again my lingering look; In that clear glass I could not fail To see my face grown somewhat pale, But not less fair; we trod once more The lofty cliff whereon Eugene Had crowned me his bride and queen. Pleasant those summer days to walk Where no intrusive step could baulk Our happiness; no tongue to dare Whisper disparagement, and bare The mysteries of Love’s free-will, Approved of Heaven to strive for still, The liberty that angels share.— Another summer’s beauty dead, Another winter’s cerements wound On tree and shrub; the sheeted ground, The cruel storm-land overhead, The scream of frightened birds, the wind That in its teeth the tree-tops took And worried all day long and shook, These and the monstrous ocean blind With foamy wrath, were ours once more;— Once more within our cabin mewed Under the pine-tops, crisp and hoar, My fears their old alarms pursued.
Four times the moon had waxed and waned Since summer blooms, so bright and brief, Were mourned for by the falling leaf, And winter winds were all unchained, When came the direful, fatal day. The Spectre of the wide world came In league with winter’s fierce array, In league with fiends that hissed the name Of Death around the ruined Isle.
Deep lay the snow, pile heaped on pile, When food fell scant, and on a morn, Ere yet the infant light was born, Eager-thus always to provide, Eugene forsook my drowsy side, And lavished on my happy lips His silent love; then gently slips, Upon the little callow heap That lay embalmed in downy sleep His softest kisses: happy child! She made a little stir and smiled, As if in soothest dreams she knew Whence came that quiet fond adieu. Then pausing at the windy door, His arquebuse on shoulder laid, And in his belt a shining blade, His brow a troubled shadow wore;— Or was it but my own blurred thought A semblance of foreboding wrought? Backward he moved, a tardy pace, And toward me turned his comely face And said: “Dear love, I thought to go Ere thou shouldst wake, for well I know These frequent partings, though but brief, Aye touch thy tender heart with grief.” “Loud blows the nor-wind,” I replied. “Surely thou needst not haste away Before the leaden eyes of Day On our small world are opened wide; For all these partings, my Eugene, Are bitter drops that fall between Our honied draughts of happiness; Ah! well I know what dangerous toil, What weary hours companionless, Are thine in quest of needful spoil, Be-wrenched, from stubborn wood and wave, Wherein—Oh God!—an early grave May compass thee; and I remain A wretched mourner, doomed to bear The burning curse and bitter bane Bequeathed me by Sir Roberval;— O stay, Eugene, stay yet awhile! Just now I dreamt I saw thee borne By Shapes unshapely, stark and shorn, Three times around the darkened Isle; Then did the heavens o’er thee bend, And in a cloud thou didst ascend, Lost to the world and me forever.” “Twas but a dream,” he said, “no more,” But saying which, a painful quiver His lips betrayed, then cheerily bore His manly head, and thus made end.
“No evil can such dreams portend:— Nor need I, dearest, say farewell; For love and faith cannot deceive, And hence I cannot but believe, What holy whispers round me tell, That though thou tarriest here behind, Thy spirit journeyeth with me, Clasping me round whereso I be, A shelter from the bruising wind, A covert from the drenching sea. Then rest, my own brave Marguerite, Rest thee in trust; ’tis meet that I The savage elements defy For thy loved sake, and for the sweet, Sweet sake of her who slumbers there, Pillowed upon her golden hair, Her beauty, love, so like thine own;— Sweet babe! dear wife!” Ere I could speak He kissed the tear-drop from my cheek, And ere I wist I was alone, The door stood wide, and he had passed Into the dusky void, and vast Uncertainties concealed by Fate. Ah, me! I could but watch and wait
For his return. For his return? I felt my heart within me burn, Then sicken to an icy dread, For seemed a sad voice near me said, “Thou ne’er shall see his face again!” The paragon of noblest men! It could not be; I would not own A prophecy that turned to stone All joys that I had ever known.
The wind increased, the day wore on, And ere the hour was half-way gone That follows noon, a storm of snow Blinded the heavens, and denser grew, And fiercer still the fierce wind blew As night approached, a night of woe, Such as no fiend might add thereto.
The double darkness walled us in, The blackness of the storm and night, And still he came not! O, what sin, What blasphemy against the light Of Heaven had my soul committed? Never before had eventide Once found him absent from my side. Eugene came not! deceived, outwitted, Sore tempest-tossed and lured astray. By demons, when the night-owl flitted Across his face at close of day, Groping for home, exhausted, faint, No angel near, no pitying saint To aid his steps and point the way.
From ebb of day till noon of night, And onward till return of light, The signal horn, Nanette and I, Alternate blew, but for reply The wind’s unprecedented roar, And ocean thundering round the shore Our labor mocked; and other sounds, Nor of the land, nor sea, nor sky, Our ears profaned; the unleashed hounds Of spleenful hell were all abroad, And round our snow-bound cabin trod, And stormed on clashing wings aloof, And stamped upon the yielding roof, And all our lamentation jeered.
Down the wide chimney-gorge they peered With great green eye-balls fringed with flame;— The holy cross I kissed and reared, And in sweet Mary’s blessed name, Who erst had buoyed my sinking heart, Conjured the foul-faced fiends depart. Their shriekings made a storm more loud Than that before whose fury bowed The hundred-ringéd oaken trees; More fearful, more appalling these Than thunder from the thunder-cloud; But trembling at the sacred sign, And mention of the Name divine, They dared not, could not disobey, But fled in baffled rage away.—
The morrow came, and still the morrow, But neither time, nor pain, nor sorrow, Nor any evil thing could make My stricken soul advisement take Of aught that in the world of sense The fiat of Omnipotence Might choose prescribe; I only know That fever came, whose fiery flow Surged through the temple-gates of thought, Till merciful delirium wrought Release from knowledge, from a world Where Death’s black banner stood unfurled.—
Restored—condemned—to conscious life, The parting hour, the storm, the strife, Rose from their tombs and dimly passed, But on my spirit only cast A feeble shade. When known the worst, When every joy that love has nursed Lies cold and dead, a sullen calm Sheds on the bleeding heart a balm That is not peace, and does not heal, But makes it half content to feel The frost upon the withered leaf, To see love’s lifeboat rock and reel And founder on the stormy reef.
A languid stupor, chill and gray, Upon my listless being lay— I knew and felt Eugene was not;— I saw that in the osier cot, Constructed by his cunning skill, My babe lay sleeping, very still: So very still and pale was she, That when I questioned, quietly, How long since she had fallen asleep, Nanette could only moan and weep, And rock her body to and fro.— With cautious step, and stooping low, I took the little dimpled hand In mine, and felt the waxen brow. O, Queen of Heaven! clearly now, ’Twas given me to understand That all the warmth of life had fled; My babe, my pretty babe, was dead!— In stupefaction fixed I stood Smitten afresh; a wailing cry, The wounded love of motherhood, Rose from my heart; mine eyes were dry Denied the blessed drops that give A little ease, that we may live— Live on, to feel with every breath That life is but the mask of death.
Regardful of my frozen gaze, Hard set upon the frozen face, Nanette, at length, in halting phrase, Her painful pass essayed to trace: Told how, when hot the fever ran Along my veins, and when the wan And wasted moonshine fringed the hearth, And voices that were not of earth Came through the gloom, the famished child, With pouting lips and eyelids mild, Her wonted nourishment did crave; And how, O God forgive! she gave The little mouth its wish. She told How dismal were the nights and cold, Her haunted hours of rest how few, And how my precious darling drew From the distempered fevered fount The malady that raged in me. How long it was, the tangled count, One week or two, or maybe three— Her head astray, she could not tell, When rang, she said, a silvery bell, A-tolling softly far away. So softly tolling, faint and far, When quiet as the morning star, That cannot brook the glare of day, And seeks the upper azure deep, My Lua (pardon if I weep), Pure nestling of this sinful breast, Had struggled into gracious rest.
Unhappy nurse! that hallowed knell Which on her pious fancy fell Through midnight dreams was solace meet For one whose slow, uncertain feet Their journey’s end had well-nigh gained; Whose meagre face drooped, pinched and pained, From ague-fits that lately shook All gladness from its kindly look. No longer in those furrows played The gleams of mirth that erst had made Her gossip by the cabin fire, A pleasing hum; for she had store Of gruesome tales and faery lore, Which suited with the elfin quire Of winds that on the waste of night. Their voices spent; ’twas her delight, In calmer hours, her voice to strain With lays of roving Troubadour That from her girlhood’s bloom had lain Mid memory’s tuneful cords secure. How changed she was! soon, soon I felt My pity for her dolour melt. My friend and sole companion now,— I brushed the gray hairs from her brow And kissed it; then came back to me The days when on that palsied knee I perched, a happy child; where late My babe, my second self had sate:— Strange orbiting of time and fate. Hid in the upheaved scarp of rock That screened our hut from winter’s shock A cave there was of spacious bound, Wherein no wave of human sound Had ever rolled; imprisoned there, Like a grey penitent at prayer, Hoar Silence wept, and from the tears Embroidered hangings, fold on fold, And silver tassels tinct with gold The fingering of the voiceless years Had deftly wrought, and on the walls In sumptuous breadth of foamy falls The product of their genius hung. From floor to ceiling, arched and high— A counterfeited cloudy sky,— Smooth alabaster pillars sprung. On either side might one espy What seemed hushed oratories rare Inviting sinful knees to prayer.
Into that chapel-like retreat, Untrod before by human feet, The wicker cot, wherein still lay My Lua’s uncorrupted clay We bore, and in an alcove’s shade Our tear-dewed burthen softly laid. Long muffled in my heavy woe, I knelt beside the little bed And many a tearful Ave said. At length, at length, I rose to go, But kneeling still, my poor Nanette, Her crucifix and beads of jet Clasped in her praying hands, stirred not, Nor spoke;—our flickering lamp Through the sepulchral gloom and damp Made sickly twilight round the cot. Orbed in her upturned hollow eyes Two tear-drops gleamed. I said, “Arise! Come, come away. Good sister, come!” Still motionless as death and dumb,— I shook her gently, spoke again, When sudden horror and affright Laid hold upon my reeling brain; Her soul, unshrived, had winged its flight!— I sank upon the clammy stone, The lamp died out and all was night. “Mother of God! alone! alone!” I cried in agonized despair, “O pity me! O Mary spare! A mother’s anguish hast thou known, O pity me! alone! alone!” A thousand startled echoes sprang Forth from their stony crypts, and rang A ghostly miserere round The cavern’s dread Cimmerian bound, Till sinking to a dying moan They answered back, “alone! alone!”
“Nay, not alone, poor Marguerite!” I heard a voice divinely sweet, And in a moment’s awful space That silent subterranean place Was filled with light;—I did not dream: In beauty and in love supreme, Before me shone our Lady’s face. (O would I could behold it now) The coronal upon her brow, With star-like jewels thickly set, The Sovereign presence certified. Pure as the snow that lingered yet On solemn heights, with sunrise dyed, Her raiment gleamed. “Weep not,” she said, And toward me stretched her sacred hands As if to raise my drooping head; “Be comforted! the triple bands Of grief and pain Which Death around thy heart has coiled Shall part in twain; If secret sin thy soul hath soiled, If thou thy lover loved too well, The Seraphs say in high debate, ‘Better excessive love than hate, Save hate of hell.’ If fiends infest this desert Isle Regard them not; the soul whose trust On Heaven leans, may calmly smile At Satan’s utmost stretch of guile And tread down evil things like dust. The working of the wicked curse Branded upon thyself and nurse Shall cease with dawn of hallowed days; She fitting sepulture hath found Under and yet not under ground; Here leave her kneeling by the child, Here, where the power thy God displays Shall keep their bodies undefiled, Shall change to marble, flesh and bone. Then come, and leave the dead alone; Come hence!—thy round of days complete, Thy babe and lover shalt thou meet In Paradise. Look up, arise! My hands will guide thy fainting feet.” She led me to the outer light, And ere a second breath I drew, Ere I could fix my dazzled view, She vanished from my misted sight.
Resigned, uplifted, forth I went, But, oh! ’tis hard to nurse content In silent walls; to ever meet With filling eyes the vacant seat; To tread from day to day alone The silent ways, familiar grown, Where dear companionship has shed A glory and a rapture fled; Where every hillock, tree and stone Are memories of a loved one, dead!
Again the flowering springtime came, The wedding-time of happy birds, But not, oh! not for me the same; To whom could I address fond words? The violet and maple leaf, Had they but known my wintry grief, They would not have appeared so soon. I could not bear to look upon The beauty of the kindling dawn, Nor sunset, nor the rising moon, Nor listen to the wooing notes That warbled from a thousand throats, From cool of morn till heat of noon. My soul was with the wind that sighed Among the tree-tops; all the wide Waste desolation of the sea Possessed me; I could not agree With aught of earth or firmament. Where could I go? which way I went His melancholy shade did glide Behind the rocks, among the trees, And whispered in the twilight breeze Endearments whispered long ago. In constancy of love and fear My sick heart bore his heavy bier, How lovingly the angels know.
I knew not of my lost love’s tomb, Whether amid the shrouding gloom Of some tenebrous yawning chasm, Or in the watery world’s abysm, He met those spectres of my dream; No trace, no sign, no faintest gleam Did all my questing ever show. ’Twas well, perchance, that this was so; But may I not believe that yet, Long after we again have met, I shall know all? shall hear him tell What on that dreadful night befell, And how when in the toils of death He called me with his latest breath And blessed me? It will magnify The joys of that dear home on high If memory keep our bygone woe, Our grievings of this world below.
A huntress of the woods I grew, Necessity my frailty taught To track the fleetest quarry through The forest, wet with morning dew, Unheedful of the bruises wrought On tender feet; the wounds received From thorns whose leafy garb deceived My glowing limbs. My loosened hair I freely gave to every wind, Content to feel it stream behind, Or drift across my bosom bare.
So passed the uneventful days, The sad monotony of weeks, Till August suns had ceased to blaze; Till o’er the forest’s hectic cheeks A languishing and slumbering haze, The mellow Indian Summer crept; It was as if chaste Dryads wept At sign of Winter’s coming tread, Till from their falling tears was spread Those exhalations o’er the woods Amid whose greenest solitudes Their festivals of joy they kept.
So came the Autumn’s ruddy prime, And all my hopes, which had no morrow, Like sea-weed cast upon the beach, Like drift-wood barely out of reach Of waves that were attuned to sorrow, Lay lifeless on the strand of time.
So ebbed my life till beamed the hour When burst in sudden bloom the flower Of merciful deliverance. That day I walked as in a trance, My dismal round, as was my wont, To many a joy forsaken haunt Where oft upon my lover’s breast My head had lain in blissful rest, Till coming to that sea-beat height Where erst, enrobed in golden light, His hands, aglow with love, conferred Upon my brow the spousal wreath, Whilst heaven and all things underneath His words of sweet adorement heard. There failed my limbs, and long I sate At one with thoughts grown desperate. Two winters had I known since first I stood upon that Isle accurst, The third a near, and how could I Its killing frosts and snows defy? Surely ’twere better now to die. So ran my thoughts, and fair in sight The breakers tossed their plumes of white, The same as on that fearful day When bravely through their blinding spray My menaced lover fought his way. I listened to their luring speech Till lost in lornest fantasy; Till toward me they did seem to reach White jewelled hands to join with mine. I rose and answered: “I am thine, Thou desolate and widowed Sea, That late hath come to pity me. My lost Eugene! ’neath yonder wave Oh should thy faithful Marguerite Thy lonely corse in darkness meet How calm, how blest will be my grave! Sweet babe, adieu! and thou, Nanette, With tearful eyes on Heaven set, Thy watch beside my Lua keep.” Forward I stepped, prepared to leap;— One loving thought, one hasty glance Sent o’er the deep to sunny France, When hove directly into view A sail, a ship! could it be true? Or but a phantom sent to mock My madness on that lonely rock? Agape I stood with staring eyes An instant, then my frantic cries Went o’er the deep, they heard, they saw, Those mariners, and from the maw Of Death my timely rescue made. My Country’s flag the good ship bore, And just as day began to fade We parted from that fatal shore, And long ere moonrise many a mile To northward loomed the Demon’s Isle. Soon, homeward bound, again I trod My native soil, and thanked my God For that on me he deigned to smile.
Here ends my tale. And now, I pray, If I have stumbled on the way, Have shown but little tuneful skill In this wild chant of good and ill, My faults, my frowardness forgive. Here, a sad vestal, let me live, And share with you the peaceful bliss That points a better world than this; Here shall I seek from Heaven to win Forgiveness for my days of sin; Here shall my soul in prayer ascend For him I loved; my godlike friend, My Husband! if that honored name Is due to one who naught of blame, No falsehood, no unmanly art Ere harbored in his open heart, Then truly can nor ban nor bar Deny it to the lost Lamar. And if at times his spirit flits, Even here within this holy place, With mournful eyes before my face, And by my couch in silence sits Till blooms the morn, I dare not pray The gentle shade to haste away.
[1] Note to p. 24.—The settlement of Roberval at Quebec was a disastrous failure. It is said that the King, in great need of Roberval, sent Cartier to bring him home. It is said, too, that, in after years, the Viceroy essayed to repossess himself of his transatlantic domain, and lost his life in the attempt. Thevet, on the other hand, with ample means of learning the truth, affirms that Roberval was slain at night, near the Church of the Innocents, in the heart of Paris.—Parkman, Pioneers of France.