THE INTERVIEW.
BY T. HEMPSTEAD.
THERE are oracles true in the depths of the mind,
There are prophecies borne on the wings of the wind,
There are omens that dwell in a flower or a leaf,
To unbosom the future, its rapture and grief;
There are voices of night with a language as plain
As the accents of love or the moanings of pain,
And I turn from the glare and the murmur of day,
To the warnings and woes which their whispers betray.
There is gloom on thy brow, there is grief in thine eye,
There is night in thy heart, on thy lip is a sigh,
And thy summer of beauty has faded away,
Like a dream from the brain, like a leaf from the spray
Oh! dark must the cloud of thy sorrow have been,
And mighty the fetter that bound thee, and keen
As the fangs of despair, as the arrows of Death,
As the terrors that rain from the hurricane's breath,
Thus to wilder thy brain, thus to wither thy brow,
As thou standest before me all tremblingly now.
Thou art come to my hall with the sound of the storm;
Oh, the tears of his pity flow fast from thy form,
And the beams on thy face but a shadow impart
Of the strength of the woe that is wringing thy heart.
In the silence that midnight around me hath thrown,
In moments the brightest my bosom hath known,
In the gloom of the tomb, on the slope of the wave,
Where the green hills grew red with the life of the brave,
In its desert of sorrow, its garden of bliss,
My heart hath dreamed never of meeting like this!
My Inez, the love of my manhood, my bride,
Who art won from the arms of the grave to my side,
From the last hour thy brow to my bosom was prest,
Have thy tones and thy form been a shrine in my breast;
Thou hast haunted my steps when the breathings of spring,
The light swallow and bee to the water-brink bring;
In the calm of the hills, by the blue rushing streams,
I have gazed in thine eye through the mist of my dreams;
Thou art come with the storm and the banners of night,
Pale Inez, the love of my youth, my delight!
Like a wreck from the wave, like a shade from the tomb,
Thou art now at my side, and thy step in my room,
But the glory that beamed 'neath thy lashes is gone,
There is woe in thy mien, there is grief in thy tone,
And the beauty that fed on those sweet lips of thine
Has died with the lustre that made it divine.
Where the dim-whispered sounds that gave ear to our vows
Were the audible steppings of God in the boughs;
By the beaming of stars through the tremulous vine,
Thou didst pledge through the rolling of years to be mine!
Let oblivion steal from my bosom that hour—
May the frosts of forgetfulness wither that bower;
They have darkened my soul, they have furrowed my brow,
But my manhood no more to that sceptre shall bow!
Thou wast won by the perishing glitter of gold,
From my heart to the arms of another wast sold,
Who hath cast thee away as a scorn, as a weed,
On the love of a world that hath doomed thee to bleed.
Like a palace whose feasting and music are ended,
Whose lights to the dim gulf of death are descended,
Whose footfalls are silent, whose arches lie strown,
Where the cold wind of night makes a desolate moan,
Thy trusted hath left thee, deserted, alone,
To the rains and the ivy, sad, beautiful one!
Had thy heart been as true—ah, no! never my tongue
May add gall to the grief that thy spirit hath wrung;
'Tis enough that I gaze on thee here as thou art,
On the wreck of thy hope, in thy ruin of heart,
Who art drifting right on to that desolate shore
Where the storm of thy sorrow shall chase thee no more.
As I slept, o'er my spirit strange terrors there came,
Wrought with drapery of midnight, in crimson and flame,
Dread as death-fires that burn on the fear-smitten eye,
When the far-shaking thunder-tramp reels through the sky.
On a fragment that flew from the van of the blast,
Like a leaf on the stream of the hurricane cast,
Now spurned from their bosom, now hid in the abyss
Of black waves that sparkle, crack, thunder, and hiss,
It was thou on my breast through the war of the storm,
Pale, pale as the shroud that shall compass thy form.
There was death on the gale, there was night on the sea,
Where I sat on that wreck with the tempest and thee;
Through darkness and thunder, flash, shriek, din, and foam,
Now deep-clasped in the vale, and now rocked on the dome
Of the wave, I was borne o'er the windy expanse
Of chill vapor and spray by the terrible glance
Of the lightning; I pressed thy cold cheek unto mine;
From thy locks fast down-trickled the luminous brine;
By thy breath on my brow, by the serpentine path
Of the death-flame that blazed on its journey of wrath,
I knew thee; I knew, my beloved, thou wast there,
In the battle of waves, through my night of despair.
Lips of blood through the gloom, and pale phantoms of fear
Howled the peals of their horrible glee in my ear;
The thin fingers of demons stooped round me to clasp,
To wring thy cold form from the strength of my grasp;
With their dim eyes upturned, newly torn from the grave,
Glared the dead from their weltering shrouds on the wave;
Oh! dark was the struggle and fearful and vain
Thy cold limbs from their place in the deep to restrain;
Dread as Death the black bulk of a surge rumbled o'er,
I clasped thee, I felt thee, I saw thee no more!
That vision of woe, that wild dream of the sea,
Is fulfilled, O pale, desolate weeper, in thee;
No more shall the joy of thy glance on me shine;
While the sun on me beams, I may never be thine;
Yet know in thy sorrow, sad Inez, my love,
Thou art mine in the Eden that blossoms above!
Ah, the pent tears, at last, 'neath thy dark lashes start,
And the words that would heal it have broken thy heart.