"So be it, law—and the world's rights are thine
Lost the stern comfort, Nature's law and mine!
She calls thee 'Father,' and the long deferr'd,
Long-look'd for vengeance, withers at the word!
Take back thy child! Earth's gods to thee belong! }
To me the iron of the sense of wrong }
Heaven makes the heart which Earth oppresses—strong!" }
"Not so,—not so we part! O husband!" cried
The Girl's full soul—"Divorce not thus thy bride!
Yes, Father, yes!—in woe thy Lucy won
This generous heart; shall joy not leave us one?"
A moment Arden paused in mute surprise
(How charm'd that outcast Beauty's blinded eyes?)
Then, with the impulse of the human thought,
Prompt to atonement for the evil wrought,
"Hear her!" he said—"her words her father's heart
Echoes.—Not so—nor ever, may ye part!
Nobly, hast thou an elder right than mine
Won to this treasure;—still its care be thine;
Withhold thy pardon if thou wilt,—but take
The holiest offering wrong to man can make!"
Slowly the Indian lifts his joyless head,
Pointing with slow hand to the present dead,
And from slow lips comes heavily the breath:
"Behold, between us evermore—is Death!"
"Maiden, recal my tale;—thou clasp'st the hand
Which shuts the Exile from the promised land;
Can the dead victim's brother, undefiled,
From him who slew the sister take the child!"
With that, he bent him o'er the shuddering maid,
On her fair looks a solemn hand he laid;
Lifted eyes, tearless still—but dark with all
The cloud, that not in such soft dews can fall:
"If to the Dead an offering still must be,
All vengeance calls for be fulfill'd in me!
I make myself the victim!—Thou dread Power
Guiding to guilt the slow chastising hour,
Far from the injurer's hearth by her made pure,
Let this lone roof thy thunder-stroke allure!—
"Go hence—(nay, near me not!) behold!—the kind
Oblivion closes round her darken'd mind;
If, when she wake, it be awhile for grief,
Soon dries the rain-drop on the April leaf!"
He said, and vanish'd, with a noiseless tread,
Within the folds which curtain'd round the dead!
So, the stern Dervish of the East inters
His sullen soul with Death in sepulchres!
His new-found prize, while yet th' unconscious sense
Sleeps in the mercy of the brief suspense,
With gliding feet, the Father steals away.
Grief bends alone above the lonely clay;
But over grief and death th' Eternal Eye
Shines down,—and Hope lives ever in the sky.
PART THE FOURTH.
I.