She sits, a Statue of Despair,
In that far land, by that bright sea;
She sits, a Statue of Despair,
Whose smile an Angel seem'd to be—
An angel that could never die,
Its home the heaven of that blue eye!
The smile is gone for ever there—
She sits, the Statue of Despair!
She knows it all—the hideous tale—
The wrong, the perjury, and the shame;—
Before the bride had left her vale,
Another bore the nuptial name;
Another lives to claim the hand
Whose clasp, in thrilling, had defiled:
Another lives, O God, to brand
The Bastard's curse upon her child!
Another!—through all space she saw
The face that mock'd th' unwedded mother's!
In every voice she heard the Law,
That cried, "Thou hast usurp'd another's!"
And who the horror first had told?—
From his false lips in scorn it came—
"Thy charms grow dim, my love grows cold;
My sails are spread—Farewell."
Rigid in voiceless marble there—
Come, sculptor, come—behold Despair!
The infant woke from feverish rest—
Its smiles she sees, its voice she hears—
The marble melted from the breast,
And all the Mother gush'd in tears.
IX.
THE INFANT-BURIAL
To and fro the bells are swinging,
Heavily heaving to and fro;
Sadly go the mourners, bringing
Dust to join the dust below.
Through the church-aisle, lighted dim,
Chanted knells the ghostly hymn,
Dies iræ, dies illa,
Solvet sæclum in favillâ!
Mother! flowers that bloom'd and perish'd,
Strew'd thy path the bridal day;
Now the bud thy grief has cherish'd,
With the rest has pass'd away!
Leaf that fadeth—bud that bloometh,
Mingled there, must wait the day
When the seed the grave entombeth
Bursts to glory from the clay.
Dies iræ, dies illa,
Solvet sæclum in favillâ!
Happy are the old that die,
With the sins of life repented;
Happier he whose parting sigh
Breaks a heart, from sin prevented!
Let the earth thine infant cover
From the cares the living know;
Happier than the guilty lover—
Memory is at rest below!
Memory, like a fiend, shall follow,
Night and day, the steps of Crime;
Hark! the church-bell, dull and hollow,
Shakes another sand from time!
Through the church-aisle, lighted dim,
Chanted knells the ghostly hymn;
Hear it, False One, where thou fliest,
Shriek to hear it when thou diest—
Dies iræ, dies illa,
Solvet sæclum in favillâ!
X.
THE RETURN.
The cottage in the peaceful vale,
The jasmine round the door,
The hill still shelters from the gale,
The brook still glides before.
Without the porch, one summer noon,
The Hermit-dweller see!
In musing silence bending down,
The book upon his knee.
Who stands between thee and the sun?—
A cloud herself,—the Wand'ring One!—
A vacant sadness in the eyes,
The mind a razed, defeatured scroll;
The light is in the laughing skies,
And darkness, Eva, in thy soul!
The beacon shaken in the storm,
Had struggled still to gleam above
The last sad wreck of human love,
Upon the dying child to shed
One ray—extinguish'd with the dead:
O'er earth and heaven then rush'd the night!
A wandering dream, a mindless form—
A Star hurl'd headlong from its height,
Guideless its course, and quench'd its light.
Yet still the native instinct stirr'd
The darkness of the breast—
She flies, as flies the wounded bird
Unto the distant nest.
O'er hill and waste, from land to land,
Her heart the faithful instinct bore;
And there, behold the Wanderer stand
Beside her Childhood's Home once more!