Each harder sense of the mere human mind180
Merged into some protective prescience;
Calm gladness, conscious of a charge consign'd
To the pure ward of guardian innocence;
And the felt presence, in that charge, of one
Whose smile to life is as to flowers the sun.
Go on, thou troubled Memory, wander on!181
Dull, o'er the bounds of the departing trance,
Droops the lithe wing the airier life hath known;
Yet on the confines of the dream, the glance
Sees—where before he stood—the Enchanter stand,
Bend the vast brow and stretch the shadowy hand.
And, human sense reviving, on the ear182
Fall words ambiguous, now with happy hours
And plighted love,—and now with threats austere
Of demon dangers—of malignant Powers
Whose force might yet the counter charm unbind,
If loosed the silence to her lips enjoin'd.
Then, as that Image faded from the verge183
Of life's renew'd horizon—came the day;
Yet, ere the last gleams of the vision merge
Into earth's common light, their parting ray
On Arthur's brow the faithful memories leave,
And the Dove's heart still beats in Genevieve!
Still she the presence feels,—resumes the guide,184
Till slowly, slowly waned the prescient power
That gave the guardian to the pilgrim's side;—
And only rested, with her human dower
Of gifts sublime to soothe, but weak to save,
And blind to warn,—the Daughter of the Grave.
Yet the lost dream bequeathed for evermore185
Thoughts that did, like a second nature, make
Life to that life the Dove had hover'd o'er
Cling as an instinct,—and, for that dear sake,
Danger and Death had found the woman's love
In realms as near the Angels as the Dove.
And now and now is she herself the one186
To launch the bolt on that beloved life?
Shuddering she starts, again she hears the nun
Denounce the curse that arms the awful strife;
Again her lips the wild cry stifle,—"See
Crida's lost child, thy country's curse, in me!"
Or—if along the world of that despair187
Fleet other spectres—from the ruin'd steep
Points the dread arm, and hisses through the air
The avenger's sentence on the father's sleep!
The dead seem rising from the yawning floor,
And the shrine steams as with a shamble's gore.
Sudden she springs, and, from her veiling hands,188
Lifts the pale courage of her calmèd brow;
With upward eyes, and murmuring lips, she stands,
Raising to heaven the new-born hope:—and now
Glides from the cell along the galleried caves,
Mute as a moonbeam flitting over waves.
Now gain'd the central grot; now won the stair;189
The lamp she bore gleam'd on the door of stone;
Why halt? what hand detains?—she turn'd, and there,
On the nun's serge and brow rebuking, shone
The tremulous light; then fear her lips unchain'd
From that stern silence by the Dream ordain'd,