"Pardon," said Morvale; "and my taunt to shame,
Know me thus weak,—I envy while I blame;
Thou hast been loved! And had I err'd like thee;
Mine had been crime, from which thy soul is free,
Thy gentler breast the traitor could forgive——"
"Never!" cried Arden—
"Does the Traitor live?"
And as the ear that hissing whisper thrill'd,
That calm stern eye the very life-blood chill'd;
For there, the instinct Cain bequeath'd us spoke,
And from the chain the wild's fierce savage broke.
"O yes!" the fiery Alien thus renew'd;
"I know how holy life by law is view'd;
I know how all life's glory may be marr'd,
If safe the clay, which, as life's all, ye guard.
Law—Law! what is it but the word for gold?
Revenge is crime, if taken—Law if sold!
Vile tongues, vile scribes, may rot your name away,
But Law protects you,—with a fine to pay!
The child dishonour'd, the adulterous wife,
Gold requites all, save this base garment—life!
So, life alone is sacred!—so, your law
Hems the worm's carcass with a godhead's awe:
So, if some mighty wrong with black despair
Blots out your sun, and taints to plague the air;
If with a human impulse shrinks the soul
Back from the dross which compensates the whole;
If from the babbling court, the legal toil,
And the lash'd lackey's guerdon, ye recoil,
And seize your vengeance with your own right arm,
How every dastard quivers with alarm!
Mine be the heart, that can itself defend—
Hate to the foe, devotion to the friend!—
The fearless trust, and the relentless strife:
Honour unsold, and wrong avenged with life!"
He ceased, with trembling lip and haughty crest,
The native heathen labouring in the breast!
As waves some pine, with all its storm of boughs,
O'er the black gulf Norwegian winds arouse,
Shook that strong spirit, gloomy and sublime,
Bending with troubled thought above the abyss of crime!
XI.
Long was the silence, till to calm restored
The moody Indian and the startled lord.
"And yet," resumed the first, with softer mien,
And lip that smiled, half mocking, yet serene,
"Not long thy sorrow dimm'd thy life;—unless
Men's envy wrong thee, thou mightst more confess
Of loves, perchance as true and as deceived;
Of rose-wreaths wither'd in the hands that weaved.
Talk to the world of Arden's dazzling lord, }
And tales of joyous love go round the board; }
Who, though adoring less, by beauty more adored?" }
"Ill dost thou read the human heart, my friend,
If bounding man's life with the novel's end;
Where lovers married, ever after love—
To birds alone the turtle and the dove!
Where wicked men (if I be of the gang)
Repent, turn hermits, or cut throats and hang!
Our souls repent,—our lives but rarely change;
Grief halts awhile, then goads us on to range.
More woo'd than wooing, scarce I feign'd to feel—
What magic to the magnet draws the steel?
Wealth soon grew mine, the parasital fame
Conceal'd the nature while it deck'd the name;
Kinsman on kinsman died, each death brought gold;
In birth, wealth, fame, strange charms the sex behold!
The outward grace the life of courts bestows,
The tongue that learns unconsciously to gloze,
All drew to mine the fates I could but mar;
And Aphroditè was my native star!
Forgive the boast, not blessings these, but banes,
If spring sows only flowers, small fruit the autumn gains!
I mark my grave coevals gather round
Their harvest-home, with sheaves for garners bound;
And I, that planted but the garden, see
How the blooms fade! no harvest waits for me!"
"Yet didst thou never love again? as o'er
The soft stream, gliding by the enamell'd shore,
Didst thou ne'er pause, and in some lovelier vale
Moor thy light prow, and furl thy silken sail?"
"But once," said Arden; "years on years had fled,
And half it soothed to think my Mary dead.
For I had sworn (could faith, could honour less?)
My hearth at least to priestly loneliness;
To wed no other while she lived, and be,
If found at last, for late atonement free.
I kept the vow, till this ambiguous doom,
Half wed, half widow'd, took a funeral gloom;
So many years had pass'd, no tidings gain'd,
The chance so slight that yet the earth retain'd,
At length, though doubtful, I believed that time
Had from the altar ta'en the ban of crime.
Impulse, occasion, what you will, at last
Seized one warm moment to abjure the past.
XII.
"Far other, she, who charm'd me thus awhile,
Thought in each glance, and mind in every smile;
Genius was hers, with all the Iris dyes
That paint on cloud the arch that spans the skies;
Wild in caprice, impassion'd, and yet coy,
Woman when mournful, a frank child in joy;
The Phidian dream, in one concentring all }
The thousand spells with which the charmers thrall, }
And pleasing most the eye which years begin to pall. }
I do not say I loved her as, in truth,
We only love when life is in its youth;
But here at least I thought to fix my doom,
And from the weary waste reclaim a home.
Enough I loved, to woo, to win, to bind
To her my fate, if Heaven had so assign'd!
The nuptial day was fix'd, the plighting kiss
Glow'd on my lips;—that moment the abyss,
Which, hid by moss-grown time, yet yawn'd as wide
Beneath my feet, divorced me from her side.
A letter came—Clanalbin's hand; what made
Treason so bold to brave the man betray'd?
I break the seal—O Heaven! my Mary yet
Lived; in want's weeds the wretch his victim met;
Track'd to her home (a beggar's squalid cell!), }
Told all the penitence that lips could tell: }
'Come back and plead thyself, and all may yet be well!' }
Had I a choice? could I delay to choose?—
Here conscience dragg'd me, there it might excuse.
"Few hurried lines, obscurely dark with all
The war within, my later vows recall,
Breathe passionate prayer—for hopeless pardon sue,
And shape soft words to soothe the stern adieu.
So, as some soul the beckoning ghost obeys,
The haunting shadow of the vanish'd days
Lures to the grave of Youth my charmèd tread,
And sighs, 'At length thou shalt appease the Dead!'
"Scarce had I reach'd the shores of England, ere
New pomps spring round me,—I am Arden's heir!
The last pretender to the princely line,
Whose flag had waved from towers in Palestine,
Borne to our dark Walhalla,—left me poor
In all which sheds a blessing on the boor.—
Yes, thou art right! how, at each sickening grasp
For the heart's food, had gold befool'd my clasp!
Gorged with a satrap's treasure, the soul's dearth
Envied the pauper crawling to his hearth."
"But Mary—she—thy wife before Heaven's eye?"
"Lost as before!" was Arden's anguish-cry;
"Not beggary, famine—not her child (for whom,
What could she hope from earth?—as stern a doom!)
Could bow the steel of that proud chastity,
Which scorn'd as alms the atonement due from me!
Out of the sense of wrong her grandeur grown,
She look'd on shame from Sorrow as a throne.
Once more more she fled;—no sign!—again the same
Vain track—vain chase!—Not here was I to blame!"
"Thou track the outcast!" mutter'd Morvale!—"No!
Too far from Luxury lies the world of Woe!"