"I bent, in agony and awe, above
The broken idol of my boyhood's love.
Echo'd each groan and writhed with every throe,
And cried, 'Live yet! O dove, but brood below,
Hide with thy wings the vengeance and the guilt,
And give my soul thy softness if thou wilt!'
And, as I spoke, the heavy eye unclosed,
The hand press'd mine, and in the clasp reposed,
The wan lip smiled, the weak frame seem'd to win
Strange power against the torture-fire within;
The leach's skill the heart's strong impulse sped,
She lived—she lived:—And my revenge was dead!
"She lived!—and, clasp'd within my arms, I vow'd
To leave the secret in its thunder-shroud,
To shun all question, to refuse all clue,
And close each hope that honour deems its due;
But while she lived!—the weak vow halted there,
Her life the shield to that it tainted mine to spare!
"But to have walk'd into the thronging street,
But to have sought the haunt where babblers meet,
But to have pluck'd one idler by the sleeve,
And asked, 'who woo'd yon fairhair'd bride, to leave?'
And street, and haunt, and every idler's tongue,
Had given the name with which the slander rung—
To me alone,—to me of all the throng,
The unnatural silence mask'd the face of wrong.
But I had sworn! and, of myself in dread,
From the loath'd scene, from mine own wrath, I fled.
"We left the land, in this a home we find.
Home! by our hearth the cleaving curse is shrined!
Distrust in her—and shame in me; and all
The unspoken past cold present hours recal;
And unconfiding hearts, and smiles but rife
With the bland hollowness of formal life!
In vain my sacrifice, she fears me still!
Vain her reprieve;—grief barr'd from vent can kill.
And then, and then (O joy through agony!)
My oath absolves me, and my arm is free!
The lofty soul may oft forgive, I own,
The lighter wrong that smites itself alone;
But vile the nature, that when wrong hath marr'd
All the rich life it was our boast to guard
But weeps the broken heart and blasted name;—
Here the mean pardon were the manhood's shame;
And I were vilest of the vile, to live
To see Calantha's grave—and to forgive:
Forgive!"
There hung such hate upon that word,
The weeping listener shudder'd as she heard,
And sobb'd—
"Hush, hush! lest Man's eternal Foe }
Hear thee, and tempt! Oh, never may'st thou know }
Beside one deed of Guilt—how blest is guiltless Woe!" }
Then, close, and closer, clinging to his side,
Frank as the child, and tender as the bride,
Words—looks—and tears themselves combine the balm,
Lull the fierce pang, and steal the soul to calm!
As holy herbs (that rocks with verdure wreathe,
And fill with sweets the summer air they breathe,)
In winter wither, only to reveal
Diviner virtues—charged with powers to heal,
So are the thoughts of Love!—if Heaven is fair,
Blooms for the earth, and perfumes for the air;—
Is the Heaven dark?—doth sorrow sear the leaf?
They fade from joy to anodynes for grief!
From theme to theme she lures his thought afar,
From the dark haunt in which its demons are;
And with the gentle instinct which divines
Interest more strong than aught which Self entwines
With its own suffering—changed the course of tears,
And led him, child-like, through her own young years.
The silent sorrows of a patient mind—
Grief's loveliest poem, a soft soul resign'd,
Charm'd and aroused——
"O tell me more!" he cried;
"Ev'n from the infant let me trace the bride.
Of thy dear life I am a miser grown,
And grudge each smile that did not gild my own;
Look back—thy Father? Canst thou not recal
His kiss, his voice? Fair orphan! tell me all."
"My Father? No!" sigh'd Lucy; "at that name
Still o'er my mother's cheek the fever came;
Thus, from the record of each earlier year,
That household tie moved less of love than fear;
Some wild mysterious awe, some undefined
Instinct of woe was with the name entwined.
Lived he?—I knew not; knew not till the last
Sad hours, when Memory struggled to the Past,
And she—my dying mother—to my breast
Clasp'd these twain relics—let them speak the rest!"
With that, for words no more she could command,
She placed a scroll—a portrait—in his hand;
And overcome by memories that could brook
Not ev'n love's comfort,—veil'd her troubled look,
And glided swiftly thence. Nor he detain'd:
Spell bound, his gaze upon the portrait strain'd:
That brow—those features! that bright lip, which smiled
Forth from the likeness!—Found Lord Arden's child!
The picture spoke as if from Mary's tomb,
Death in the smile and mockery in the bloom.
The scroll, unseal'd—address'd the obscurer name
That Arden bore, ere lands and lordship came;
And at the close, to which the Indian's eyes }
Hurried, these words:— }
"In peace thy Mary dies; }
Forgive her sternness in her sacrifice! }
It had one merit—that I loved! and till
Each pulse is hush'd shall love, yet fly, thee still.
Now take thy child! and when she clings with pride
To the strong shelter of a father's side,
Tell her, a mother bought the priceless right
To bless unblushing her she gave to light;
Bought it as those who would redeem a past
Must buy—by penance, faithful to the last.
Thorns in each path, a grave the only goal,
Glides mine, atoning, to my father's soul!"
What at this swift revealment—dark and fast
As fleets the cloud-wrack, o'er the Indian past?
No more is Lucy free with her sweet dower }
Of love and youth! Another has the power }
To bar the solemn rite, to blast the marriage bower. }
"Will this proud Saxon of the princely line
Yield his heart's gem to alien hands like mine?
What though the blot denies his rank its heir: }
The more his pride will bid his love repair }
By loftiest nuptials—O supreme despair! }
Shall I divulge the secret! shall I rear,
Myself, the barrier,—and the bliss so near?"
He scorn'd himself, and raised his drooping crest:
"Mine be Man's honour—leave to God the rest!"
As thus his high resolve, a sudden cry }
Startled his heart. He turn'd: Calantha by! }
Why on the portrait glares her haggard eye? }
"Whose likeness this? Thou know'st not, brother? speak!
What mean that clouded brow—that changing cheek?
Thou know'st not!"
"Yes!"
And as the answer came,
With Death's strong terror shook the sister's frame,
A bitterer pang, an icier shudder, ran
Through his fierce nature—
"Dost thou know the man?
Ha! his own tale! O dull and blinded! how,
Flash upon flash, descends the lightning now!
Thou, his forsaken—his! And I—who—nay!
Look up Calantha; for, befal what may,
He shall——"
The promise, or the threat, was said
To ears already deafen'd as the dead!
His arm but breaks the fall: the panting breast
Yet heaves convulsive through the stifling vest.
The robe, relax'd, bids doubt—if doubt yet be—
Merge the last gleam in starless certainty!
Lo there, the fatal gift of love and woe
Miming without the image graved below—
The same each likeness by each sufferer worn,
Or differing but as noonday from the morn.
In Lucy's portrait, manhood's earliest youth
Shone from the clear eye with a light like truth.
There, play'd that fearless smile with which we meet
The sward that hides the swamp before our feet;
The bright on-looking to the Future, ere
Our sins reflect their own dark shadows there:—
Calantha's portrait spoke of one in whom,
Young yet in years; the heart had lost its bloom;
The lip of joy the lip of pride had grown;
It smiled—the smile we love to trust had flown.
In the collected eye and lofty mien
The graver power experience brings was seen;
Beautiful both; and if the manlier face
Had lost youth's candid and luxuriant grace,
A charm as fatal as the first it wore,
Pleased less—and yet enchain'd and haunted more.