INVERAWE.
Does death cleanse the stains of the spirit
When sundered at last from the clay,
Or keep we thereafter till judgment,
Desires that on earth had their way?
Bereft of the strength which was given
To use for our good or our bane,
Shall yearnings vain, impotent, endless,
Be ours with their burden of pain?
Though flesh does not clothe them, what anguish
Must be known in the world of the dead,
If the future lies open before them,
And fate has no secret unread.
And yet, oh how rarely our vision
May know the lost presence is nigh;
How seldom its purpose be gathered,
Be it comfort, or warning to die!
With mute or half breathed supplication
Permitted to utter their prayer,
Demanding earth's justice, but ever
Poor phantoms of mist and of air;
If in aught our belief may be certain
Where founded on witness of man,
They come; and no tomb e'er imprisoned
The shade when corruption began.
They come: and oh swiftly they follow
The track of the murderer vile;
He is haunted for ever; his refuge
A hell on far ocean or isle!
Though he fly as once fled from Barcaldine
Young Donald's assassin, to claim
Guest-right, where all mercy a treason
To kinship and justice became.
"Inverawe, Inverawe, give me shelter,
I have shed a man's blood in a fray;
Oh swear that you will not betray me,
By your dirk, by the dear light of day!"
And the prayer in his kindness he answered,
But aghast heard the voices that cried;
"Your cousin lies slain! Can a stranger
Have passed by the steep river side?"
Then bound by his oath he deceived them;
But night brought a dream full of fear,
His cousin's pale image stood o'er him,
Came a voice he had loved to his ear:
"Inverawe, Inverawe, give no shelter
To the man by whom blood has been shed:"
And he went to his guest, saying, "Leave me,
I obey the dear voice of the dead."
"By your oath, by the light of God's heaven
Your word has been passed for your guest"
"Then sleep in the cave in the mountain,
If Donald allow you to rest!"
Again shone the vision more awful,
Ere the hours of the darkness had fled;
"Inverawe, Inverawe, give no shelter
To the man by whom blood has been shed."
But empty the cave was at morning,
When searched for the murderer's trace,
And the ghost came again in the darkness,
The gore on its breast and its face.
"Inverawe, Inverawe," again whispered
The shade of the echoless feet,
"My blood has been shed, I await thee,
At Ticonderoga we meet."
And often in wonder repeated
That warning to many was known,
The strangely named place for the trysting
Men said was in dreamland alone;
"Why cherish a dismal illusion?
War summons gay hearts to the strife:
All share in the prizes of glory,
The chances of death or of life."