GEORGE MARTIN’S
POEMS.

MARGUERITE;
OR, THE ISLE OF DEMONS
AND OTHER POEMS

BY
GEORGE MARTIN.

MONTREAL:
DAWSON BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
1887.

Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada in the year 1886,
by George Martin, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.

GAZETTE PRINT, MONTREAL.

TO
A TRUE WOMAN, IN WHOM ARE UNITED THE
MANY VIRTUES WHICH ADORN HER SEX,
WITH A STRENGTH OF INTELLECT
RARELY SURPASSED,

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
BY HER HUSBAND

PREFACE.

The poems in this volume have been written at various periods of a busy life, and are widely separated in date of composition. Most of the minor poems have appeared in Canadian periodicals, and some of them have the local colour of the city in which they were written. The poem most recent in date is Marguerite, which has been written under conditions more favourable than the rest, and which appears now for the first time. The poems have been inspired by the history and the scenery of Canada, and in collecting them, and in issuing and publishing them, the author hopes to put in permanent literary form some of the natural and social aspects which are peculiar to this country.

Montreal, Nov., 1886.

CONTENTS.

MARGUERITE.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The story narrated in the following poem is one of the most touching of the many romantic legends of the early history of Canada. Some foundation in fact it undoubtedly has, for it forms the basis of one of the stories in the collection of Queen Margaret of Navarre, written while the chief actors in the tragedy were alive. The version of Queen Margaret differs from that of Thevet in many respects. He gives for his authorities Roberval and the unfortunate Marguerite herself.

Parkman, in the first volume of his admirable series of histories—the Pioneers of New France—gives the story as related by Thevet. The subject readily lends itself to poetical treatment, and, if the heroine in the poem is made to put a more favourable construction upon her conduct than the chronicler, it is surely no more than, as the narrator of her own story, she might have a right to do. The harsh and tyrannical character of Roberval is drawn in dark lines by Parkman. His cruelties, in the short lived colony at Cap Rouge, were such than even the Indians were moved to pity for his victims. On his return to France he was assassinated at night in the streets of Paris, probably by the hand of one who had suffered from his tyranny.

In these prosaic days of ocean steamers, cable telegraphs and light-houses, it is difficult to realize the mystery which, in old days, enshrouded the shores of the Western continent. The imaginations of the daring sailors who in their little vessels explored the stormy seas of the West, teemed with stories of dangers, spiritual as well as physical. In those days of supernaturalism, Satan might well stand guard over the great world, where, until then, he had held undivided sway. This Isle of Demons was one of his outposts. On Wytfliet’s Map (1597), I. de las Demonios is laid down to the North of Newfoundland, but too far out of Roberval’s course to be the island of our story. It is necessary to the narrative that the island in question should be in the regular route of vessels, and, as the earliest course of sailors to the Gulf of St. Lawrence was by the straits of Belle Isle, some of the islands which shelter the harbours of Labrador would probably have been the scene of the events narrated. Jean Alphonse of Saintonge, who was Roberval’s first pilot, no doubt indicates the island of our heroine’s trials under the name of Isles de la Demoiselle in latitude 50° 45′, and he says there is a good harbour there. This name clung for a long time to the locality and is found on many old maps. To-day the most important of the group is known as Grand Meccatina Island.

SONNET.

O Love! thou art the soul’s fixed star, whose light— A rapture felt through all the rolling years,— Absorbs with silent touch the mourner’s tears, A guide, a glory through our mortal night;— All other passions, be they dark or bright, All high desires are but thy subject spheres, And captive servitors, whose pathway veers, Obedient to thine all-pervading might;— And therefore I no hesitation make In choosing thee, a theme accounted old, Yet ever young, and for poor Marguerite’s sake I trust some kind remembrance to awake That shall in tenderest clasp her story hold, Even as a rose a drop of dew doth fold.

MARGUERITE
OR THE ISLE OF DEMONS.

The interior of a Convent in France: Group of Nuns listening to Marguerite narrating her adventure.

1545.

Part I.

You ask me, Sisters, to relate The story of the wanton fate That over sea, with dole and strife And love and hate enthralled my life, Entwined with his, whose gentle eyes, That never lost their winsome smile, Illumed for me those sullen skies Which canopy the haunted Isle, A tale so wild, I pray you think, May ill beseem and prove amiss For such a hallowed place as this; A chain it is whose every link Is rusted with some earthly stain, The which you may esteem profane And from its hapless wearer shrink, I would not, Heaven knows, offend The sanctity of sinless ears, Nor vex the pious soul that hears Good angels on soft wings descend, Illumined, from the starry spheres, To tread these cloistered aisles and bend O’er dreaming couches lily pure. But since your suffrance makes secure, And since you kindly deign assent, And graciously with eager look Dispel the fluttering fears that shook My contrite heart, I am content.

Ave Maria.

Mystic Mother! who erewhile Sought me on the Demons’ Isle, Sought, and with compassion mild Shielded thy afflicted child; Shielded, and with vengeance new Scattered the Satanic crew: Blest Madonna! aid me now, Lift the pressure from my brow; Bid the thunder-cloud depart From my overladen heart; Tune my tongue, my lips inspire, Touch them with celestial fire; Shape the lay as meet to set, Like a modest violet, In Saint Cecilia’s coronet.

Three gallant ships that owned command Of Roberval’s imperial hand Thundered to France a proud farewell And sailed away from brusque Rochelle; Sailed on a breezy April day, Sailed westward for a land that lay, I heard the people wisely tell, Betwixt the ocean and Cathay. From shore to ship, from ship to shore A thousand parting signals flew; Ah! hopeful hearts, they little knew That many were there who never more Must see those faces that faded away, And were lost in the distance cold and gray. With troubled breast and tearful eye, In fear and doubt, I knew not why— Unheedful of the sea-winds chill— I watched the land recede until The mountain peaks had passed from sight, Like clouds absorbed in morning’s light, And ocean’s border touched the sky.

Long backward, over leagues of foam, My greyhound gazed,—poor Fida knew That he was borne afar from home, But not from friends, albeit few, His still, for better days or worse, His mistress and her Norman nurse. Far, out beyond the shining bay, The sister vessels held their way, Where, gifted with superior speed, The “Royal Griffin” takes the lead, As if she felt and understood The stern old Viceroy’s hasty mood. A man of courteous mien was he, And smooth as any summer sea When winds are laid; he could be so When naught befell to rouse the flow Of passions that with scanty rest Lay lava-like within his breast. But Heaven fend or man or woman Who set that fiery flood in motion;— His anger, like a storm-tossed ocean, Was fearful in its rage; no human Expostulation, no appeal Of speech, or tears, could make him feel The benediction that is felt By one whose soul, if prone to error, Will yield at last and kindly melt, And lay aside its robe of terror. He could be calm, could well repress His evil nature’s fierce excess, But only when upon him fell The shadow of superior power, Then like all tyrants he would cower And play the courtier passing well. But no superior save the king Had he in all the land of France; In Picardy, his single glance Was law, religion, everything.

His vassals prized his slightest nod, And feared him more than fiend or God. The modest maid, the peasant’s bride His foul approaches must not chide; I blush, as if it were a sin, To own him all too near of kin. Seven sunny years had barely flown When I, an only child, was left, Of sire and happy home bereft, To wipe a mother’s tears alone. A leader in the wars with Spain, The hero whom we wept was slain. Oh! I remember well his look, His stature tall and noble brow, Remember how he often strook And praised my long dark hair, and how On that last morn of clouded bliss He woke me with a parting kiss; His hurried prayer, his slow farewell, The window flowers, the little room, The dangling sword, the nodding plume, The long top-boots and shining spurs;— O, let this pass! O, let me quell A memory shot through years of gloom.

My comely mother from the hour That chronicled his honoured death Wilted and drooped, a pale sweet flower, And three years gone I saw her breath Grow faint and fail. Dear sainted mother! ’Twas just before her spirit fled She did beseech her lordly brother To shield her orphaned Marguerite’s head. He promised with a ready grace And in his rude capricious way Thenceforth assigned me fitting place;— But I was volatile and gay, Ready of wit, of skilful hands, And minded not his curt commands.

Thus came to pass that on his ship,— A ringdove in a falcon’s grip,— I sailed the surging seas afar. But one was there, Eugene Lamar, My bliss, my bane—I cared not what, Who worshipped me, beside me sat, And with me paced the giddy deck, What time we watched the sea-mews peck The foam that fringed the crested wave. For me he ventured all, and gave His fortune to the winds; then why Should aught disturb, or cause one sigh To prophesy of lurking harm?

Exultant in their new-found charm, A motley throng of either sex, Of divers rank and variant age Now promenade the oaken decks, Proud of an ocean pilgrimage. We heeded not their boisterous glee, Their merry songs and dancing feet, Our happiness was too complete. The azure sky and emerald sea, And free-born winds their magic wrought, Till every feeling, every thought, Involved in tremulous ecstacy Made no account of sight or sound;— We twain another world had found, Whose warm excess of drowsing bliss Excluded all the chills of this.

Our ship sped on, fresh blew the wind, Her plodding mates lagged far behind; Like two white cloudlets waxing dim They hung on the horizon’s rim For many days, but hull and mast All wholly disappeared at last.

Mid-ocean crossed, the wind blew strong And like a Nereid’s dolorous song Wailed through the rigging; rose and fell The billows with portentous swell. Swift night came down, cold, wild and black, Red lightnings lit the inky rack Of hostile clouds; a storm it grew, And such a storm as men might rue. The prince of air his bondage broke, And loud in horrent thunder spoke; Our staunch craft felt the perilous strain, And like a thing in mortal pain Groaned audibly; strong sails, though furled, Were rent in shreds From their ash spar beds And wafted to some calmer world.

Two seamen from the yards were blown: An instant mid the tempest’s roar, Above the rattling thunder’s tone, A double shriek was heard—no more!— Their names, their fate, no stone records, For them no consecrated words, Nor bell, nor candle;—only this, “Two mortals, to the world unknown Were blown into the salt abyss.” All night the elements beset Our hapless bark; the mad waves leaped Like krakens on the deck, and reaped A harvest which they garner yet. Fierce down the hatchways snarled the sea, I heard the shout of Roberval Command them closed; ah me! ah me! What prayers! what shrieks! I never shall, While memory marks the flight of years, Forget that storm of phrenzied fears. Think not our sex alone gave way To craven doubt and blanched despair;— Great burly men, whose heads were gray, Gave wildest wings to desperate prayer. I dare believe they felt ashamed,— The blessed Saints whose names were named In phrase that seemed impiety.

What marvel if at such a time My lover groped his way to where My couch was spread, and tarried there? Was such devotedness a crime? Together on the floor we knelt In quiet hopefulness, and felt Assurance in our souls that He, Who walked the waves of Galilee, When, weak of faith and sore afraid, The sinking Peter cried for aid, Would manifest His sacred will; Would stretch His saving hand and bind The fury of the maddened wind, And bid the savage waves be still. My greyhound, ever near me, took A painful and bewildered look; All that dread night the narrow space He traversed with unwearied pace. The imminent danger well he knew, And watched the changes of my face, And moaned at its unwonted hue.

The morn broke fair but other storm, More dreadful than the wrath of heaven, Or rage of hell, began to form; The high-bred gossips, envy-driven Did look askance, and whisper blame, And young Lamar’s and Marguerite’s name Were caught at, with but slight excuse, As playthings for their wanton use. Soon drifting round my uncle’s ears The idle tale in wrath he hears, And starting from his proud repose His fury like a whirlwind rose And suddenly upon us burst. I heard my name most foully curst And coupled with a word of shame; My tear-drenched cheeks grew all aflame; Beside me, where I trembling stood, My watchful Fida whined and growled; The glaring maniac on him scowled, His eyes two throbbing balls of blood, And choking with some fiery word, Drew forth and waved his gleaming sword, Then smote the faithful brute;—his neck Received the edge; athwart the deck The severed head the slayer spurned: O God! I saw a sea of gore, From which my eyes in horror turned;— I swooned and wrecked of nothing more. When from that death-like sleep I woke Lamar’s moist eyes were near my face, Some tender words he softly spoke,— My languid arms his neck embrace, My lips their wonted banquet share, And breathe again the vital air. Ah! never since that hour when whirled Around with me a crimson world Have I forgot or ceased to mourn The playmate of my childhood’s years; (Pardon, I pray, these silly tears.) His long slim neck had often borne My cheek, when tired with romping play Under a chestnut’s shade we lay, His taper head flexed backward, till His loving eyes had gazed their fill.

Harsh prelude this! a warning fit Of coming woes. The brow hard-knit, The curling lip and heaving chest Of Roberval presaged the rest. But what his dark design might be Eluded anxious scrutiny; We only knew some purpose dire, Like a swollen adder cirqued with fire, Lay coiled within his vengeful heart, Ready against our lives to dart. “Fear not, my love!” Eugene exclaimed, “Faint not, true heart! whose peace is spilt; The evil tongues that have defamed Thy innocence shall own their guilt. If blame there be ’tis I alone Have erred, nor do I shrink to bear Thy kinsman’s wrath, but how atone For wrong committed unaware? Let unjust Roberval decree What punishment his ire may crave; However tends his evil course, He cannot, dearest one, divorce My constant soul from thine—from thee, For even from the silent grave I verily believe my love Would issue through the cope above, And mingling with the volant air Pursue thy beauty always, where On any spot of land or sea My Marguerite might chance to be.” His voice failed—tremulous, his eyes Such passion held as well might save A world from wreck; our wedded sighs Made interlude to honied speech, And bound us closer, each to each.

On flew the ship; a bounteous gale Fed to repletion every sail, And Tethys, turbulent no more, Advanced her banners, green and white, (In sooth it was a goodly sight) Toward the wild Hesperian shore. At length glad signs of land were seen, Strange birds, a friendly escort, came And perched upon the spars, so tame, So numbed and wearied with the keen Cold journey it had been no feat To clasp their wings; but who could treat Those little rovers of the sea, That claimed our hospitality, With less than Christian charity?

Westward across the ridgy waste My uncle gazed as if in haste To reach the promised port, but no!— His thought to other ends was set, As soon the traitor meant to show. With sudden stride, his hot brow wet In oozing wrath, he gave command: “Steer north-by-west!” The wonderland Of Nurumbega hove in sight, And outlined in a purple light The dreaded Isle of Demons lay; Thither the Griffin bore away. I saw the treacherous villain smile, And as the ship was drawing near The marge of that unholy Isle I saw the sailors quake with fear. A boat was launched, provisioned, stored With arms and ammunition, oared And quickly manned;—for what? for where Let my false guardian’s tongue declare. “Go! wretched girl,” he fiercely said, As, from the ship, myself and nurse He hurried, “go, and take my curse, All evil light upon thy head!

Hence to the Demons’ Isle, a place Than which, save hell, there is no worse, And ponder o’er thy rank disgrace; There only foul-faced devils dwell, As every seaman here can tell. Hence! and prefer thy dainty charms To glad some princely demon’s arms. Dishonour on my house, my name, Confusion, everlasting shame, Thou and thy paramour have wrought; For him, I swear he shall be taught What torture means;—the crippled crone Who all your secret sins has known And pandered to, let her partake The punishment assigned to you, A penance to such service due. And when your threads of life shall break, Then may you both for ages ache, Conjoined in purgatorial fires, Sure antidote to lewd desires.” His insults pierced like barbs of steel; My patience I no longer nursed, I bade the tyrant do his worst:— O, if he thought to see me kneel, And for his mercy humbly sue, ’Twas little of his niece he knew; His curse, his terrors, I defied, And told him in his teeth, he lied! I even dared predict his fate;[1] “Foredoomed,” I said, “to all men’s hate, Like Cain or Judas thou shalt die Unhoused, where none will pause to sigh Denied the pity you deny.” He winced and wondered, powerless To check such unexpected scorn. A strength miraculous, new born In uncontrollable excess, From God or fiend I questioned not, Through all my rigid being shot. The boat received and swiftly bore Its convicts to the fearful shore. There all my fortitude departed, And lorn and lost and broken-hearted I stood upon the windy beach, And stretched my hands as if to reach The idol of my widowed soul. “Farewell! dear friend Eugene, farewell! Those breakers that between us roll Shall sound for me a fitting knell When thou art borne I know not where.” Thus did my sorrow load the air. He saw, he seemed to hear my wail, And springing from the forward rail Leapt in the sea, and bravely smote With lusty arms the foamy flood, Oh! how my hot impetuous blood Surged through my veins; while still remote He battled shoreward gallantly; Now borne upon a toppling wave, And blinded by the surfy spray, Now lost to sight, now seen again, While on the ship some fearless men Loud shouts of exultation gave; Then others into tumult broke, Whose cheers the Island echoes woke. But Roberval, whose stormy face Flamed like a furnace, fiendish, base, With levelled arquebuse took aim Straight at the swimmer, shrieks of “Shame!” He heeded not; the bullets sped, And whistled past my hero’s head. A few more strokes and he is safe!

The jagged rocks his strong limbs chafe, But soon the slippery sands are gained And I am to his bosom strained. Their coifs the women, wild with gladness, Stripped from their heads and, in their madness, Flung to the waves, an offering fair In witness of the Virgin’s care, My solace in the gulphs of sadness. From stem to stern the furor ruled, And Roberval, chagrined, befooled, His sails reset, and sailed away, But half avenged; and we were left Of all the peopled world bereft, To hell’s dark brood a helpless prey. But for that he I loved was still Linked to my fate, for good or ill, My thanks to gracious Heaven I wept. The poor old nurse behind us crept, And kneeling on the salty ground, A benediction even there, In answer to her silent prayer, Deep in her withered heart she found. The ship was gone, and with it went All hope of ever seeing more The glory of our native shore; I knew our cruel banishment Was purposed for a lingering death, A dirige of painful breath. Was it in mercy he bestowed The food and arms, a goodly load? Nay, these were meant to stretch the doom That made the Isle an open tomb. “Mourn not—sweetheart!” Eugene began, “Here where the sea-winds rudely fan Thy queenly brow, a queen to me Henceforward thou shalt truly be; And if thou choose to reign alone I’ll be thy faithful paladin, And many a noble trophy win In honour of thy virgin throne. Then come, while yet the lord of day Dispenses light and gentle heat, And let us hand and hand survey The wonders of our new retreat. This little kingdom, Marguerite! Encircled by the shining sea, Is large enough for thee and me.” ’Twas thus in cheerful mood he sought To lure the current of my thought From cypress shades to run abroad In pleasant ways, approved of God; Nor sought in vain: my spirit caught The hue, the blessedness, the glow That love’s endearing words bestow, And like a lark that sudden springs From barren lands and soaring sings, Rose heavenward on hopeful wings.

But hark! the vesper angelus In holy accents, tremulous, Now calls us to the Virgin’s shrine. If still your wishes fair incline To follow this capricious clue To-morrow after open dawn I’ll join you on the eastern lawn, Under the lindens, and pursue My story to its tragic close.

Part II.

The tale continued in the Convent grounds; the same group of Nuns listening.

How softly have my limbs reposed! Nor stormy sea, nor haunted land, Nor sorcerer’s unhallowed wand, Disturbed the opiate shades that closed The sleepy avenues of sense; And therefore I, without pretence Of weariness or dream-wrought gloom, My tale of yester-eve resume.

Together o’er the mystic Isle We wandered many a sinuous mile. ’Twas midway in the month of June, And rivulets with lisping rune, And bowering trees of tender green, And flowering shrubs their trunks between Enticed our steps till gloaming gray Upon the pathless forest lay. Think not I journeyed void of fear; Sir Roberval’s hot malediction Like hurtling thunder sounded near; Our steps the envious demons haunted, And peeped, or seemed to peep and leer, From rocky clefts and caverns drear. But still defiantly, undaunted, Eugene averred it had been held By wise philosophers of eld That all such sights and sounds are mere Fantastic tricks of eye and ear, And only meet for tales of fiction. “Heed not,” he said, “the vicious threat, ’Twas but a ruffian’s empty talk, The which I pray thou may’st forget And half his evil purpose baulk.” A silent doubt and grateful kiss Was all I could oppose to this. But firmer grew my steps. The air Was laden with delicious balm; Rich exhalations everywhere, From pine and spruce and cedar grove, And over all a dreamy calm, An affluence of brooding love, A palpable, beneficent Sufficiency of blest content.

Amid the hours, in restful pause We loitered on the moss-clad rocks, And listened to the sober caws Of lonely rooks, and watched thick flocks Of pigeons passing overhead; Or where the scarlet grosbeak sped, A wingéd fire, through clumps of pine Sent chasing looks of joy and wonder. Blue violets and celandine, And modest ferns that glanced from under Gray-hooded boulders, seemed to say— “O, tarry, gentle folk; O, stay, For we are lonely in this wood, And sigh for human sympathy To cheer our days of solitude.” Meek forest flowers, how dear to me! I loved them, kissed them on the stem, And felt that I must ever be Secluded from the world like them.

The long-drawn shadows, eastward cast, Admonished us that day was fast Dissolving, and would soon be past; And we must needs regain the spot Where waited good Nanette our coming. The chattering squirrel we heeded not, Nor paused to list the partridge drumming. The wedded bird was in her nest, And knew from the suspended song (A tribute to her listening ear) That from the green boughs rustling near Had trilled and warbled all day long, A brief space only must she wait The fondling of her chirping mate. With some wise meaning, wise and deep That from her eyes was fain to peep, And wealth of words and lifted hands Our thoughtful servitor, Nanette, Gave kindly greeting ere we met. “Come, children, follow me,” she said, And silently the way she led An arpent from the ocean sands, Directly to a piny grove, Where she with wondrous skill had wove A double bower of evergreen, Meet for a fairy king and queen.— “There, tell your rosaries and take A sabbath slumber; till you wake, Nanette, hard by, will watchful stand, With loaded arquebuse in hand, Your trusty sentinel, for here Some prowling beast may chance appear On no good neighbour’s lawful quest; To-morrow I can doze and rest.”— Thus, voluble, my faithful Nurse. Amazed, I stood and could not speak, But kissed her on the brow and cheek, And wept to think my Uncle’s curse Should fall on her, so worn and bent, So moved with every good intent.

A flushing joy it was to see That double-chambered arbour fair, Re-calling to my memory The storied lore of things that were My childhood’s moonlit witchery. Next morn we sought the circling strand And question made of wind and sea If such a thing might ever be, That, soon or late, from any land Some friendly sail would come that way And waft us thence: in vain, in vain! The hollow wind had nought to say, But, like a troubled ghost, passed by;— The waste illimitable main And awful silence of the sky Vouchsafed no sign, made no reply.— Oft times upon some lifted rock That overhung the waves, we sate And listened to the undershock Whose sad persistency, like fate, Made land and sea more desolate.

Again in lighter mood we trod The yellow sands and pale-green sod Strewn with innumerable shells, In whose pink whorls and breathing cells Beauty and wonder slept enshrined, Like holy thoughts in a dreamer’s mind. Of these sea-waifs an ample store We gathered, and at twilight bore The treasure to our sylvan home.

Once more the star encumbered dome Of heaven its thrilling story told, And Dian, lovely as of old, Poured lavishly her pallid sheen Upon that tranquil world of green; Whose cool and dewy depths, now rife With luminous and noiseless life, Responded wide; the fire-fly race In myriads lit their tiny lamps; As an army’s countless camps The warder in some woody place At nightfall on his watch may trace; So gleamed and flashed those mimic lamps.

The third day came. From shore to shore, Adventurous ever more and more, Our penal Isle we wandered o’er.— Which way our roving fancy led, A wilding beauty largely spread Rewarded our ambitious feet, And made our banishment too sweet For further censure or repining. Now culling flowers of dainty dyes, Now chasing gaudy butterflies, And now on herbaged slopes reclining, Where purple blooms of lilac trees, And sultry hum of hermit bees Disarmed the hours of weariness.— Nor can you fail, dear friends, to guess That time for dalliance we found,— And if we loved to an excess In many a long involved caress, O think how we were cribbed and bound.— Lush nature and necessity, As witnessed by the Saints above, In one delicious circle wove The pulsings of our destiny.

The great rude world was far away, And like a troubled vision lay Outside our thoughts; its cold deceits, The babble of its noisy streets, And all the selfish rivalry That courts and castles propagate Were alien to our new estate.— A fragment of propitious sky, Whereon a puff of cloud might lie, Through verdured boughs o’er-arching seen, And glimpses of the sea between Far stretches of majestic trees, Such peaceful sanctities as these Were our abiding joyance now.

Cheerily and with lifted brow Eugene led on, where tamaracs grew, And where tall elms their shadows threw Athwart a little glen wherein A virgin brook seemed glad to win The pressure of our thirsty lips. Pleasant it was to linger there And cool our fevered finger-tips In that pellucid stream and share The solace of the ocean breeze. For summer heats were now aglow, The fox sat down and took his ease, The hare moved purposeless and slow; But louder rang the blue jay’s scream, The woodpeck tapped the naked tree, Nor ceased the simple chickadee To twitter in the noonday beam.— My lover, wheresoe’er we strayed, Made search in every charmed nook, And angled in the winding brook For all sweet flowers that love the shade To twine for me a bridal braid. Pale yellow lilies, nursed by rocks Rifted and scarred by lightning shocks, Or earthquake; river buds and pinks, And modest snow-drops, pearly white, And lilies of the vale unite Their beauty in close-loving links Around a scented woodbine fair To coronate my dark brown hair. The fragile fern and clover sweet On that enchanted circlet meet; Young roses lent their blushing hues, Nor could the cedar leaf refuse With helmet flowers to intertwine Its glossy amplitude divine.— Emerging from that solemn wood, High on a rocky cliff we stood At set of sun; far, far away The splendors of departing day Upon the barren ocean lay.— There on that lone sea-beaten height, Investured in a golden light, Eugene, with looks half sad, whole sweet, Upon my brow the garland set, At once a chaplet and aigrette, And said: “Be crowned, my Marguerite! My own true soul, my ever dear Companion in this wilderness. Though hopeful still, I sometimes fear That days of darkness and distress May come to thee when woods are sere,— When it may baffle all my skill To guard thee from white winter’s chill;— But hence all raven-thoughts of ill, Let me believe that Nature will Relax her rigour, having caught The soft infection of those eyes In whose blue depths my image lies, Even as my soul, with love distraught, Like a lone star drowned in the sea, Is wholly drowned and lost in thee.— Love is our own essential being, Sole sovereign over utmost fate, Its own sufficient laws decreeing, Immortal and immaculate; And when this mild ethereal flame To mortal man was kindly given ’Twas surely meant by highest Heaven That never aught of evil name Should dare attempt to thwart its power.— Then let us, dearest, from this hour Defy the future, and pursue The unimagined pleasure due To such surpassing love as ours. One moment in thy folding arms Alone in these sequestered bowers; One throb of thy impassioned heart, Now speaking audibly to mine, And saying, ‘It were death to part;’ One honey-dew caress of thine, Out-sums a million rude alarms, Out-lives whole centuries that weigh On loveless souls, on sordid clay, That gravitate to ways of shame, And know love’s magic but by name.— These roseate skies will change their hue; This pomp of leaves when autumn lowers The windy ways of earth will strew; This aromatic crown of flowers, Made sacred now since worn by you, To-morrow will begin to fade.— But love, sweet spirit, linked as ours, By sad vicissitude o’erlaid, Endures, unchanged by any breath Of adverse fate, and surely will Life’s last inevitable chill Survive, and triumph over death.”— Thus, eloquent, the radiant youth, Like one inspired with sacred truth, Fair as Adonis, o’er me breathed The incense of pure love, and wreathed My heart in dewy dreams of bliss. Consenting Nature, pleased the while, Bestowed upon her outcast Isle The magic of a mother’s smile. Spent Sol impressed his warmest kiss On ocean’s brow; the wanton wind Went sighing up and down to find Meet objects for his soft embrace All things to amity inclined; Fierce bird and beast forebore to chase Their feeble prey, as if they felt Love’s universal breathings melt Their savage instincts; everywhere, Like mute enchantment in the air, This subtle permeating power Reigned sole. O, blest ambrosial hour! O, halcyon days that followed after, With music from my lute, and laughter, And song and jest, and such full measure Of secret love’s exhaustless treasure As gave to pain the wings of pleasure!—

So fled our summer dream, as flies An angel through cerulean skies On some good errand swiftly bent, So brief its stay that ere we wist, Gruff Autumn, garmented in mist. His courier winds before him sent, The which, equipped with sleet and hail, Beat down as with an iron flail The grandeur of the woods, and left Their naked solitudes bereft Of bird and flower. The trees stood stark And desolate against the dark Chaotic sky. The mighty sea Its billows hurled upon the shore As if resolved to over-pour And gulph our prison-house. Ah, me! All roofless now, save here and there A tall pine stretched its spear-shaped head Aloft into the gelid air; The hemlock, too, its beauty spread, A tent-like pyramid of green, Symbols of hope amid a scene Where hope grew pale at winter’s tread.

No more, along the sounding shore, In hushed voluptuous dells, no more, Nor on the perilous rock which gave Rude welcome to the climbing wave, Might we, in amplitude of joy, Our paradisal hours employ,— From green to gray, from gray to white, So rapidly the change came on, It seemed but the work of a single night And all our faery world was gone.— Down came the snow, compact, hard-driven By all the scourging blasts of heaven, Until, like clouds, dethroned and hurled Tumultuous to this nether world, Around the desert isle it lay, A rampart to the ocean’s spray.

Half hid where friendly pine trees spread Perpetual shelter overhead, Hugging a hillside lifted high Betwixt us and the arctic sky, Our cabin stood; a poor defence Against the mute omnipotence Of searching and insidious frost, Which, like a ghoul condemned and lost, The closeness of an inmate claimed;— But on the rustic hearthstone flamed Dry wood and pine-knots resinous: A ready and abundant hoard When days were long our hands had stored Against the season perilous; And good Nanette, ’twas her desire To feed the bickering tongues of fire That warned the dumb intruder hence.

When night fell thick, I loved to sit And watch the fire-gleams fall and flit On wooden walls and birch-bark ceiling, Among the densest shadows stealing, Till these, in folds and festoons golden, Like tapestry of castles olden, Shifted and fluttered free, revealing To fancy’s charmed and wiser vision Such fabrics as in looms elysian The angels weave; and thus our hut A palace seemed; and was it not More beautiful, illumed the while By dear Eugene’s adoring smile, Than many a royal chamber where, Concealed amid the gloss and glare, A thousand hateful evils are?—

Such fare as woodland wilds afford, Supplied our ever-cheerful board; Nor such alone; the salt sea wave Its tributary largess gave, All that our lenten wants might crave.

Slow crept the whitened months, so slow— I sometimes felt I never more Should see the pretty roses blow, Or tread on aught but endless snow, And listen to the nightly roar Of tempest and the ocean flow. Weird voices, woven with the wind, Riding on darkness often came And syllabled the buried name Of Roberval, which, like a hearse, Bore inward to my palsied mind The ghost of his inhuman curse.

Was it sick fancy, sore misled, That to my shuddering spirit said?— “Those sounds that shake the midnight air, Are threats of Shapes that will not spare Your trespass on their fief accurst.” “Hush, hush, my love,” Eugene would say, “That cry which o’er our cabin burst, Came from the owls, perched royally Among the pine-tops; you but heard The language of some beast or bird; The mooing of a mother bear, An hungered in her frozen lair; The laugh and mooing of the loon That welcometh the rising moon. The howling of the wolves you hear, In chase of some unhappy deer, Impeded in its desperate flight By deep and thickly crusted snows, O’er which its lighter-footed foes Pursue like shadows of the night. That lengthened groan, that fearful shriek Was but the grinding stress and creak Of aged trees; they seem to feel The wrench of storms, and make appeal For mercy; in their ducts and cells The sap, which is their life-blood, swells When frosts prevail and bursts asunder With sharp report its prison walls; Then cease, beloved, to fear and wonder For all these harmless peals and calls. In sweet assurance rest, love, rest Thy head on this devoted breast, And dream sweet dreams; the gentle spring Will come anon, and birds will sing As sweetly as they sang last year; And shall I not be ever near To share with thee the murmuring Of waking life? the humble bee Will drone again as blissfully As when from flower to flower he went And to the choral symphony His basso horn serenely lent.”— My fears were laid; I ceased to think; Athirst and eager still to drink The nectar of his speech.

How oft, If he but chanced to hear me sigh When wild winds blew, or when the soft And flaky harvest of the sky Descended silent, he would sit Under that snow-thatched roof and tell Such marvellous tales of mirth and wit, They held me like a wizard’s spell. Or else some poet’s plaintive verse That breathed soft vows of youth and maiden, With love-begotten sorrow laden, In twilight tones he would rehearse; And whilst the rhythmic measure flowed From those attuned lips, my breast With trepidation heaved and glowed, For in such guise was well expressed The master-passion’s undertone, Or happy or disconsolate, Of many a lover’s wayward fate That bore some semblance to our own.

’Twere over-much to pause and tell How slid the weeks, and all befell Ere we could to the heavens say, “The terror of your rage is past, The gnawing frost, the biting blast, And life is in the matin ray.”— The swallow came, the heron’s scream Athwart the marsh-lands, through the woods, Sped resonant; I ceased to dream Of demons, and my waking moods The radiance of the morning took. Upon the bare brown leaves I stood, And saw and heard with raptured look The gleam and murmur of the brook, Which we in summer’s plenitude Had traced to many an arbored nook.

’Twas midmost in the budding May, Whilst on my couch of cedar boughs, Perturbed with nameless fears I lay, And breathed to Heaven my silent vows,— A cloud-like cope of purple hue Descended o’er me, hid me quite, And seemed a soft wind round it blew, And from the mystic wind a voice Spoke low: “Poor child of darkened light! The pure of heart are Heaven’s choice; The Virgin who hath seen thy tears, In pity for thy tender years, Will aid thee in thine utmost plight.” A hallowed tremor o’er me crept, And in that purple cloud I slept Enshrined, how long I never knew;— And through my dreams the soft wind blew Like music heard at dusk or dawn, And when I woke and found it gone, In fullness of great joy I wept.

’Twas thus a new revealment came, A something out of nothingness, To which we gave the simple name Of Lua. O, the first caress A mother to her first-born gives!— Methinks the angels must confess, Through all the after ages’ lives, An influence so pure and holy, That human hearts, the proud and lowly, Are touched thereby. I kissed, and kissed My pretty babe, and through the mist Of happy tears upon it gazed In silent thankfulness, and praised The Empress of the skies, whose grace Had glorified that humble place.

The sandy marge again we trod Round the green Isle, and felt that God Was very near,—in ocean’s roar, And in the zephyr’s scented breath, In summer green, in winter hoar, In joy, in grief, in life, in death, Our Friend and Father evermore.

Again across the naked sea,— In tumult or in blank repose, At morn and noon, and evening close,— Sick yearnings from our souls were sent. But bootless still the hungry sigh, A southward sail still southward went, If any such we might descry,— As twice or thrice it chanced to be, We saw or fancied shimmering, Like a white eagle’s outstretched wing, Hiding the strait and dubious space That separates the lifted face Of ocean from the stooping sky. The sail would melt, the hollow dome Above us and our prison home, And girdling waves, and sobbing rain, And winds full-fledged,—all things that were Of earth and sky, of sea and air, Strangled sweet Hope, and in the pit Of outer darkness buried it. Yet seemed it sinful to complain, When to our feast of love was given The fairest fruit that gracious Heaven Had e’er for human joyance shed. Sweet Innocence! the small hands spread, Dimpled and white, catching at things Viewless to us, but clearly seen By those wide-open eyes; the wings Of heavenly guests it must have been Fluttering near the sinless child, Azure and golden, till she smiled And shrank from their excessive sheen.

Again the forest’s green arcades Gladly we paced; their sun-lit shades Investured us; the laughing brook That solaced us the year before, Mirrored again my lingering look; In that clear glass I could not fail To see my face grown somewhat pale, But not less fair; we trod once more The lofty cliff whereon Eugene Had crowned me his bride and queen. Pleasant those summer days to walk Where no intrusive step could baulk Our happiness; no tongue to dare Whisper disparagement, and bare The mysteries of Love’s free-will, Approved of Heaven to strive for still, The liberty that angels share.— Another summer’s beauty dead, Another winter’s cerements wound On tree and shrub; the sheeted ground, The cruel storm-land overhead, The scream of frightened birds, the wind That in its teeth the tree-tops took And worried all day long and shook, These and the monstrous ocean blind With foamy wrath, were ours once more;— Once more within our cabin mewed Under the pine-tops, crisp and hoar, My fears their old alarms pursued.

Four times the moon had waxed and waned Since summer blooms, so bright and brief, Were mourned for by the falling leaf, And winter winds were all unchained, When came the direful, fatal day. The Spectre of the wide world came In league with winter’s fierce array, In league with fiends that hissed the name Of Death around the ruined Isle.

Deep lay the snow, pile heaped on pile, When food fell scant, and on a morn, Ere yet the infant light was born, Eager-thus always to provide, Eugene forsook my drowsy side, And lavished on my happy lips His silent love; then gently slips, Upon the little callow heap That lay embalmed in downy sleep His softest kisses: happy child! She made a little stir and smiled, As if in soothest dreams she knew Whence came that quiet fond adieu. Then pausing at the windy door, His arquebuse on shoulder laid, And in his belt a shining blade, His brow a troubled shadow wore;— Or was it but my own blurred thought A semblance of foreboding wrought? Backward he moved, a tardy pace, And toward me turned his comely face And said: “Dear love, I thought to go Ere thou shouldst wake, for well I know These frequent partings, though but brief, Aye touch thy tender heart with grief.” “Loud blows the nor-wind,” I replied. “Surely thou needst not haste away Before the leaden eyes of Day On our small world are opened wide; For all these partings, my Eugene, Are bitter drops that fall between Our honied draughts of happiness; Ah! well I know what dangerous toil, What weary hours companionless, Are thine in quest of needful spoil, Be-wrenched, from stubborn wood and wave, Wherein—Oh God!—an early grave May compass thee; and I remain A wretched mourner, doomed to bear The burning curse and bitter bane Bequeathed me by Sir Roberval;— O stay, Eugene, stay yet awhile! Just now I dreamt I saw thee borne By Shapes unshapely, stark and shorn, Three times around the darkened Isle; Then did the heavens o’er thee bend, And in a cloud thou didst ascend, Lost to the world and me forever.” “Twas but a dream,” he said, “no more,” But saying which, a painful quiver His lips betrayed, then cheerily bore His manly head, and thus made end.

“No evil can such dreams portend:— Nor need I, dearest, say farewell; For love and faith cannot deceive, And hence I cannot but believe, What holy whispers round me tell, That though thou tarriest here behind, Thy spirit journeyeth with me, Clasping me round whereso I be, A shelter from the bruising wind, A covert from the drenching sea. Then rest, my own brave Marguerite, Rest thee in trust; ’tis meet that I The savage elements defy For thy loved sake, and for the sweet, Sweet sake of her who slumbers there, Pillowed upon her golden hair, Her beauty, love, so like thine own;— Sweet babe! dear wife!” Ere I could speak He kissed the tear-drop from my cheek, And ere I wist I was alone, The door stood wide, and he had passed Into the dusky void, and vast Uncertainties concealed by Fate. Ah, me! I could but watch and wait

For his return. For his return? I felt my heart within me burn, Then sicken to an icy dread, For seemed a sad voice near me said, “Thou ne’er shall see his face again!” The paragon of noblest men! It could not be; I would not own A prophecy that turned to stone All joys that I had ever known.

The wind increased, the day wore on, And ere the hour was half-way gone That follows noon, a storm of snow Blinded the heavens, and denser grew, And fiercer still the fierce wind blew As night approached, a night of woe, Such as no fiend might add thereto.

The double darkness walled us in, The blackness of the storm and night, And still he came not! O, what sin, What blasphemy against the light Of Heaven had my soul committed? Never before had eventide Once found him absent from my side. Eugene came not! deceived, outwitted, Sore tempest-tossed and lured astray. By demons, when the night-owl flitted Across his face at close of day, Groping for home, exhausted, faint, No angel near, no pitying saint To aid his steps and point the way.

From ebb of day till noon of night, And onward till return of light, The signal horn, Nanette and I, Alternate blew, but for reply The wind’s unprecedented roar, And ocean thundering round the shore Our labor mocked; and other sounds, Nor of the land, nor sea, nor sky, Our ears profaned; the unleashed hounds Of spleenful hell were all abroad, And round our snow-bound cabin trod, And stormed on clashing wings aloof, And stamped upon the yielding roof, And all our lamentation jeered.

Down the wide chimney-gorge they peered With great green eye-balls fringed with flame;— The holy cross I kissed and reared, And in sweet Mary’s blessed name, Who erst had buoyed my sinking heart, Conjured the foul-faced fiends depart. Their shriekings made a storm more loud Than that before whose fury bowed The hundred-ringéd oaken trees; More fearful, more appalling these Than thunder from the thunder-cloud; But trembling at the sacred sign, And mention of the Name divine, They dared not, could not disobey, But fled in baffled rage away.—

The morrow came, and still the morrow, But neither time, nor pain, nor sorrow, Nor any evil thing could make My stricken soul advisement take Of aught that in the world of sense The fiat of Omnipotence Might choose prescribe; I only know That fever came, whose fiery flow Surged through the temple-gates of thought, Till merciful delirium wrought Release from knowledge, from a world Where Death’s black banner stood unfurled.—

Restored—condemned—to conscious life, The parting hour, the storm, the strife, Rose from their tombs and dimly passed, But on my spirit only cast A feeble shade. When known the worst, When every joy that love has nursed Lies cold and dead, a sullen calm Sheds on the bleeding heart a balm That is not peace, and does not heal, But makes it half content to feel The frost upon the withered leaf, To see love’s lifeboat rock and reel And founder on the stormy reef.

A languid stupor, chill and gray, Upon my listless being lay— I knew and felt Eugene was not;— I saw that in the osier cot, Constructed by his cunning skill, My babe lay sleeping, very still: So very still and pale was she, That when I questioned, quietly, How long since she had fallen asleep, Nanette could only moan and weep, And rock her body to and fro.— With cautious step, and stooping low, I took the little dimpled hand In mine, and felt the waxen brow. O, Queen of Heaven! clearly now, ’Twas given me to understand That all the warmth of life had fled; My babe, my pretty babe, was dead!— In stupefaction fixed I stood Smitten afresh; a wailing cry, The wounded love of motherhood, Rose from my heart; mine eyes were dry Denied the blessed drops that give A little ease, that we may live— Live on, to feel with every breath That life is but the mask of death.

Regardful of my frozen gaze, Hard set upon the frozen face, Nanette, at length, in halting phrase, Her painful pass essayed to trace: Told how, when hot the fever ran Along my veins, and when the wan And wasted moonshine fringed the hearth, And voices that were not of earth Came through the gloom, the famished child, With pouting lips and eyelids mild, Her wonted nourishment did crave; And how, O God forgive! she gave The little mouth its wish. She told How dismal were the nights and cold, Her haunted hours of rest how few, And how my precious darling drew From the distempered fevered fount The malady that raged in me. How long it was, the tangled count, One week or two, or maybe three— Her head astray, she could not tell, When rang, she said, a silvery bell, A-tolling softly far away. So softly tolling, faint and far, When quiet as the morning star, That cannot brook the glare of day, And seeks the upper azure deep, My Lua (pardon if I weep), Pure nestling of this sinful breast, Had struggled into gracious rest.

Unhappy nurse! that hallowed knell Which on her pious fancy fell Through midnight dreams was solace meet For one whose slow, uncertain feet Their journey’s end had well-nigh gained; Whose meagre face drooped, pinched and pained, From ague-fits that lately shook All gladness from its kindly look. No longer in those furrows played The gleams of mirth that erst had made Her gossip by the cabin fire, A pleasing hum; for she had store Of gruesome tales and faery lore, Which suited with the elfin quire Of winds that on the waste of night. Their voices spent; ’twas her delight, In calmer hours, her voice to strain With lays of roving Troubadour That from her girlhood’s bloom had lain Mid memory’s tuneful cords secure. How changed she was! soon, soon I felt My pity for her dolour melt. My friend and sole companion now,— I brushed the gray hairs from her brow And kissed it; then came back to me The days when on that palsied knee I perched, a happy child; where late My babe, my second self had sate:— Strange orbiting of time and fate. Hid in the upheaved scarp of rock That screened our hut from winter’s shock A cave there was of spacious bound, Wherein no wave of human sound Had ever rolled; imprisoned there, Like a grey penitent at prayer, Hoar Silence wept, and from the tears Embroidered hangings, fold on fold, And silver tassels tinct with gold The fingering of the voiceless years Had deftly wrought, and on the walls In sumptuous breadth of foamy falls The product of their genius hung. From floor to ceiling, arched and high— A counterfeited cloudy sky,— Smooth alabaster pillars sprung. On either side might one espy What seemed hushed oratories rare Inviting sinful knees to prayer.

Into that chapel-like retreat, Untrod before by human feet, The wicker cot, wherein still lay My Lua’s uncorrupted clay We bore, and in an alcove’s shade Our tear-dewed burthen softly laid. Long muffled in my heavy woe, I knelt beside the little bed And many a tearful Ave said. At length, at length, I rose to go, But kneeling still, my poor Nanette, Her crucifix and beads of jet Clasped in her praying hands, stirred not, Nor spoke;—our flickering lamp Through the sepulchral gloom and damp Made sickly twilight round the cot. Orbed in her upturned hollow eyes Two tear-drops gleamed. I said, “Arise! Come, come away. Good sister, come!” Still motionless as death and dumb,— I shook her gently, spoke again, When sudden horror and affright Laid hold upon my reeling brain; Her soul, unshrived, had winged its flight!— I sank upon the clammy stone, The lamp died out and all was night. “Mother of God! alone! alone!” I cried in agonized despair, “O pity me! O Mary spare! A mother’s anguish hast thou known, O pity me! alone! alone!” A thousand startled echoes sprang Forth from their stony crypts, and rang A ghostly miserere round The cavern’s dread Cimmerian bound, Till sinking to a dying moan They answered back, “alone! alone!”

“Nay, not alone, poor Marguerite!” I heard a voice divinely sweet, And in a moment’s awful space That silent subterranean place Was filled with light;—I did not dream: In beauty and in love supreme, Before me shone our Lady’s face. (O would I could behold it now) The coronal upon her brow, With star-like jewels thickly set, The Sovereign presence certified. Pure as the snow that lingered yet On solemn heights, with sunrise dyed, Her raiment gleamed. “Weep not,” she said, And toward me stretched her sacred hands As if to raise my drooping head; “Be comforted! the triple bands Of grief and pain Which Death around thy heart has coiled Shall part in twain; If secret sin thy soul hath soiled, If thou thy lover loved too well, The Seraphs say in high debate, ‘Better excessive love than hate, Save hate of hell.’ If fiends infest this desert Isle Regard them not; the soul whose trust On Heaven leans, may calmly smile At Satan’s utmost stretch of guile And tread down evil things like dust. The working of the wicked curse Branded upon thyself and nurse Shall cease with dawn of hallowed days; She fitting sepulture hath found Under and yet not under ground; Here leave her kneeling by the child, Here, where the power thy God displays Shall keep their bodies undefiled, Shall change to marble, flesh and bone. Then come, and leave the dead alone; Come hence!—thy round of days complete, Thy babe and lover shalt thou meet In Paradise. Look up, arise! My hands will guide thy fainting feet.” She led me to the outer light, And ere a second breath I drew, Ere I could fix my dazzled view, She vanished from my misted sight.

Resigned, uplifted, forth I went, But, oh! ’tis hard to nurse content In silent walls; to ever meet With filling eyes the vacant seat; To tread from day to day alone The silent ways, familiar grown, Where dear companionship has shed A glory and a rapture fled; Where every hillock, tree and stone Are memories of a loved one, dead!

Again the flowering springtime came, The wedding-time of happy birds, But not, oh! not for me the same; To whom could I address fond words? The violet and maple leaf, Had they but known my wintry grief, They would not have appeared so soon. I could not bear to look upon The beauty of the kindling dawn, Nor sunset, nor the rising moon, Nor listen to the wooing notes That warbled from a thousand throats, From cool of morn till heat of noon. My soul was with the wind that sighed Among the tree-tops; all the wide Waste desolation of the sea Possessed me; I could not agree With aught of earth or firmament. Where could I go? which way I went His melancholy shade did glide Behind the rocks, among the trees, And whispered in the twilight breeze Endearments whispered long ago. In constancy of love and fear My sick heart bore his heavy bier, How lovingly the angels know.

I knew not of my lost love’s tomb, Whether amid the shrouding gloom Of some tenebrous yawning chasm, Or in the watery world’s abysm, He met those spectres of my dream; No trace, no sign, no faintest gleam Did all my questing ever show. ’Twas well, perchance, that this was so; But may I not believe that yet, Long after we again have met, I shall know all? shall hear him tell What on that dreadful night befell, And how when in the toils of death He called me with his latest breath And blessed me? It will magnify The joys of that dear home on high If memory keep our bygone woe, Our grievings of this world below.

A huntress of the woods I grew, Necessity my frailty taught To track the fleetest quarry through The forest, wet with morning dew, Unheedful of the bruises wrought On tender feet; the wounds received From thorns whose leafy garb deceived My glowing limbs. My loosened hair I freely gave to every wind, Content to feel it stream behind, Or drift across my bosom bare.

So passed the uneventful days, The sad monotony of weeks, Till August suns had ceased to blaze; Till o’er the forest’s hectic cheeks A languishing and slumbering haze, The mellow Indian Summer crept; It was as if chaste Dryads wept At sign of Winter’s coming tread, Till from their falling tears was spread Those exhalations o’er the woods Amid whose greenest solitudes Their festivals of joy they kept.

So came the Autumn’s ruddy prime, And all my hopes, which had no morrow, Like sea-weed cast upon the beach, Like drift-wood barely out of reach Of waves that were attuned to sorrow, Lay lifeless on the strand of time.

So ebbed my life till beamed the hour When burst in sudden bloom the flower Of merciful deliverance. That day I walked as in a trance, My dismal round, as was my wont, To many a joy forsaken haunt Where oft upon my lover’s breast My head had lain in blissful rest, Till coming to that sea-beat height Where erst, enrobed in golden light, His hands, aglow with love, conferred Upon my brow the spousal wreath, Whilst heaven and all things underneath His words of sweet adorement heard. There failed my limbs, and long I sate At one with thoughts grown desperate. Two winters had I known since first I stood upon that Isle accurst, The third a near, and how could I Its killing frosts and snows defy? Surely ’twere better now to die. So ran my thoughts, and fair in sight The breakers tossed their plumes of white, The same as on that fearful day When bravely through their blinding spray My menaced lover fought his way. I listened to their luring speech Till lost in lornest fantasy; Till toward me they did seem to reach White jewelled hands to join with mine. I rose and answered: “I am thine, Thou desolate and widowed Sea, That late hath come to pity me. My lost Eugene! ’neath yonder wave Oh should thy faithful Marguerite Thy lonely corse in darkness meet How calm, how blest will be my grave! Sweet babe, adieu! and thou, Nanette, With tearful eyes on Heaven set, Thy watch beside my Lua keep.” Forward I stepped, prepared to leap;— One loving thought, one hasty glance Sent o’er the deep to sunny France, When hove directly into view A sail, a ship! could it be true? Or but a phantom sent to mock My madness on that lonely rock? Agape I stood with staring eyes An instant, then my frantic cries Went o’er the deep, they heard, they saw, Those mariners, and from the maw Of Death my timely rescue made. My Country’s flag the good ship bore, And just as day began to fade We parted from that fatal shore, And long ere moonrise many a mile To northward loomed the Demon’s Isle. Soon, homeward bound, again I trod My native soil, and thanked my God For that on me he deigned to smile.

Here ends my tale. And now, I pray, If I have stumbled on the way, Have shown but little tuneful skill In this wild chant of good and ill, My faults, my frowardness forgive. Here, a sad vestal, let me live, And share with you the peaceful bliss That points a better world than this; Here shall I seek from Heaven to win Forgiveness for my days of sin; Here shall my soul in prayer ascend For him I loved; my godlike friend, My Husband! if that honored name Is due to one who naught of blame, No falsehood, no unmanly art Ere harbored in his open heart, Then truly can nor ban nor bar Deny it to the lost Lamar. And if at times his spirit flits, Even here within this holy place, With mournful eyes before my face, And by my couch in silence sits Till blooms the morn, I dare not pray The gentle shade to haste away.

[1] Note to p. 24.—The settlement of Roberval at Quebec was a disastrous failure. It is said that the King, in great need of Roberval, sent Cartier to bring him home. It is said, too, that, in after years, the Viceroy essayed to repossess himself of his transatlantic domain, and lost his life in the attempt. Thevet, on the other hand, with ample means of learning the truth, affirms that Roberval was slain at night, near the Church of the Innocents, in the heart of Paris.—Parkman, Pioneers of France.

EUDORA.

I. Like a white blossom in a shady place, Upon her couch the pure Eudora lay, Lovely in death; and on her comely face,— So soon to make acquaintance with the clay,— Fell faint the languid light of evening gray, Flecked with the pea-blooms at the window case.

II. Deep sobbings echoed in the outer hall, And all things in the chamber seemed to mourn;— The pictures, which she loved, along the wall, The cherubs on the frescoed ceiling, lorn, Looked downward on the face so wan and worn, And sad each wavy curtain’s foamy fall.

III. Born with the last, the long laborious sigh, Her soul, expanding upward, wondrous fair, Lingered regretful, loath to seek the sky, Loath to forsake its sister-semblance there; And, hovering in the chamber’s dusky air, Gazed on its blank abode with piteous eye.

IV. There, too, glad-winged, impatient to depart,— Betwixt the fragrant window and the maid,— The Angel-Guardian of her gentle heart, And now the escort of her trembling shade, Pointed to where the day-beams never fade, Pointed their path on the celestial chart.

V. Then spoke Eudora’s Soul: “My comely shell, Bleached with a silent grief which we alone, Which only thou and I have known too well, In cities and in solitudes have known,— Poor pallid tenement! no more my own, I grieve, and yet rejoice to say farewell!

VI. “Rejoice that all thine agony is past, That never more on thee, my down-blown tent, Will beat wild sorrow’s suffocating blast;— And grieve that thou, with whom some years I’ve spent, Albeit in latter days with discontent, Must now into the nether night be cast.

VII. “Once thou wert happy; cheery nights and days Chasing each other o’er a flowery plain, Like fairy lovers; all thy modest ways Fell on fond hearts as falls the summer rain On heat-rived earth, on thirsty fields of grain, And thine the golden harvest of their praise.

VIII. “Half woman grown, half lost in reverie, Love’s marvel came, and I, thine inner life, Was calm and tempest-tossed alternately; For though my fluttering heart with joy was rife, Some premonition of impending strife Flitted betwixt us and futurity.

IX. “The woods our secret knew; their quivering lips Uttered it audibly; the conscious flowers Blushed as we passed them to their throbbing tips, And all the blissful warblers of green bowers Told it each morning to the waking hours;— Old ocean knew it, and the queenly ships.

X. “O dream of dreams, too exquisite to stay! In which I sailed as in a rosy-cloud That floats around the heavens a summer’s day, And when at eve the drowsy woods are bowed, Responsive to the wind that calls aloud, Is rent in fragments and dissolves away.

XI. “So fled my dream when fled the vital spark Of loved Lysander; Oh! his peerless eyes Held all the light that piloted my bark, All the warm sunshine of entrancing skies.— ‘Cold on the battle-field the hero lies,’ So sang the bards, and all the world grew dark!”

XII. At this her tender yearnings, all unplumed, Fluttered and faltered into silent awe, And gasping pause; two gleamy drops illumed Her incorporeal features, and the thaw Of frozen love-throbs, true to mercy’s law, Gave solace, and her heart-tale she resumed.—

XIII. “A foreign despot dared invade our coast, And brave Lysander sped to meet the foe; His was the voice that led the patriot host, And his the arm that laid the tyrant low; Thine own fond lips, Eudora, bade him go, For love of country was thy girlish boast.

XIV. “With triumph crowned our gallant warrior fell! And other suitors sought to win thy hand, And kindred strove to break the evil spell, And deemed that travel in a distant land,— The Orient’s classic vales and mountains grand,— Might calm thy secret sorrow’s turbid swell.

XV. “In vain the Alps arose, in vain we gazed Up the sheer heights where climbed Napoleon’s host, And saw the towering peaks where crashed and blazed The war of storms that pleased Childe Harold most, Where now with Jura sits his gloomy ghost, Above the world he loathed sublimely raised.

XVI. “Nor Como’s lovely lake, nor Arno’s stream, Nor wonders of the Adriatic shore, Nor those immortal cities which redeem From time and death a venerated lore, Whose spell the world confesses evermore, Could shake the winter torpor of our dream.

XVII. “O how my supplications eve and morn, Wrestled for him! how frantic my appeal!— And when he was not, I, a thing forlorn! Waylaid and robbed of hope, did cease to kneel, For Heaven no balsam had my hurt to heal, And oft I wished that thou hadst ne’er been born.”

XVIII. The Spirit ceased, her humid eyes still bent On the prone form to which she fain would cleave; Then thus the Angel: “Weak is thy lament! The joys of earth but sparkle to deceive,— And know you not that he for whom you grieve Awaits our coming in the firmament?

XIX. “Dear to the people dwelling in the skies Is he who for his country copes with death, And, vanquished or victorious, nobly dies; The air that gives and takes his latest breath Is thence inhaled by souls of feeble faith, And freedom flashes from their lifted eyes.

XX. “Come! dear Eudora, while the waning light Burns on the lakes and on the mountain tops; My arm shall aid thee in thy upward flight:— Soon shall we pass beyond those shining drops, Where utmost telescopic vision stops, The limit of a Herschel’s baffled sight.

XXI. “See! chaste Andromeda unbinds her hair For us to tread upon; we need not fear Proud Leo wakeful in his azure lair, Nor Taurus’ rampant horns and brow severe, Nor all the glittering terrors that appear In Ursa’s stormy mouth and hungry glare.

XXII. “Come! every star now beckons us to come, O timid sister! spread thy budded wings. Dost thou not hear the sanctifying hum Of airy voices? precious whisperings? List! on the verge of heaven a seraph sings:— ‘Come home, come hither, weary wanderers, come!’”

XXIII. No more she spoke, but tremulous, amazed, With hands upon her panting bosom crost, Far, far away abstractedly she gazed, As if in beatific vision lost,— As one just freed from earth’s sepulchral frost, And suddenly to ’wildering glories raised.

XXIV. Only an instant thus, for now her Ward Became transfigured, robed in awful light; Too beautiful for mortal man’s regard; And swift through cloudy rifts, with moonbeams bright, These two immortals winged their starry flight, Their home revealed, the golden gates unbarred.

THE VOICE OF THE AGES.

The years roll on, and with them roll The burden of the human soul, The ache and pain Of heart and brain, That hear far off a solemn night-bell toll.

List! ringing clear, another sound Reverberates the world around. The rapt Soul listens; A tear-drop glistens Down her pale cheek and trickles to the ground:—

A tear of joy, for she hath heard The promise of the ancient Word Over the dark Prevailing: hark! “All thy hopes, wan Soul, now sere and blurred,

Shall surely yet rebud and bloom; Discard thy self-spun robe of gloom, Awake! arise! More just and wise, Thy failing lamp with higher life relume.

The prophecy of ages past Shall be fulfilled at last;— Lo! man shall rise With fadeless glory in his eyes, His knowledge clarified, illumed and vast.

Thou wert of old, thou art, shalt be, A thing unbound and ever free To work, and will,— A throb, a thrill,— A joyous breath of immortality.”

THE WOODLAND WALK.

Through the murk of the night, thou rememberest well, The year and the month and the day of the week, When we slipped away from that great hotel, To escape the Babel of tongues that fell, With wearisome sameness of sound and swell, On ears that had wiser employ to seek. The night was as calm as a child’s first prayer, And we did not venture one word to speak Till we entered the path of the cool green wood, And felt in our whispering hearts it was good, For thee and me to be there.

Thy hand on my arm, we held our way Till we came to the mountain lake, The dear little woodland lake, Where together we sat on its margin gray, And queried on all they meant to say, The batrachian people that round it spake;— And the peace of the skies, with stars o’erstrown, Passed into our souls, my life! my own! And I loved the universe more for thy sake.

Gladly we watched the full-orbéd moon Rising behind the shimmering trees, Till she kissed their slumbering brows, when soon In a silvery sea they sank in swoon. When over them ran a tremulous breeze,— While they dreamt of joy and murmured their love To the Lady who laughed at their worship above,— Making a mimic noon.

Down over the rim of the forest she looked, So chaste her beauty, all evil things, With or without or feet or wings, In the might of her purity felt rebuked.— She looked in her mirror, the lake, to behold Her image once more:— “It was lovely of yore, And cannot grow charmless, cannot grow old, No wrinkle the malice of years hath wrought On that envied brow, which is fair to-night As when the first pair of true lovers sought My friendly smiles to aid their flight, And hallow the vows their twin-hearts taught.”

This to her image the chaste moon said;— And such, my beloved, is thy face to me, (Nay, do not shake that skeptical head,) Ever as fair, ever as young, As when first thy beauty inspired my tongue To pray the Fates that our names might be Together engraved, and the tablet hung On the love-lit walls of eternity.

Athwart the white tablet if shadows are cast, As clouds the face of the moon perplex, It is wiser to think they will not last, However prolonged, and cold, and vast, Shadow and cloud will cease to vex.

These we will strive to forget, but not Our woodland walk on that July night, When the craze of the world was quite forgot, And heaven came down to the arbored spot, Where we bathed in Dian’s crystal light.

The happy musicians around the lake, Who kept all the infant echoes awake, The bull-frogs bellow, the tree-toads trill, The plaintive cry of the whip-poor-will, And the hawk’s alarm—I hear them still.

One hour of rest in the forest shade, Where delicate mosses on rocks are laid, And violets peep from under a stone, Is a blissful exchange for the city’s parade, Its prodigal shows and masquerade, Where mammon is king, and rest there is none.

Better than all the philosophy taught By sages famed in the realm of thought;— Truer than sermons, wiser than books, And honester far than the solemnest looks Of parson or priest, was the ancient lore That back from the woods in our hearts we bore, The woods, and the lake and the lisping brooks, To a world that is weary, yet rests nevermore.

STREET WAIF.

I. From morn till noon, from noon till night, Pacing the sidewalk, always in sight, Who has not seen the mysterious wight? Is he man or ghost? Is he crazed or lost? Does he walk with the fiends or the spirits of light?

II. Answer, ye flagstones that echo his tread;— Answer, ye cold winds that buffet his head;— Tell us, ye clouds, that with pinions outspread Smite him with fire, And mock at his ire, Shuns he the living for love of the dead?

Through the long lapse of the changing year His crumbling garments unchanged appear, The old drab coat, and the thing so queer Stuck to his pate! All out of date, Tempting the urchins to point and jeer.— “Poor waif!”

III. Poor waif!—’tis the murmur of angels who grieve; ’Tis a voice from the clouds which my soul must receive. Tell me the secret whose whispers bereave His eyelids of joy; Preserve or destroy, Crush him in mercy, or grant a reprieve.

IV. Has he been guilty of some dark deed? Surely no crime in that brow could breed! So lofty, so mild in its terrible need? Has he betrayed An innocent maid? Or plundered the poor to surfeit his greed?

V. Has he, for sake of a crumb and a sip, With loyalty’s cry evermore on his lip, Counselled the use of a merciless whip When failure brought blame On the Patriot’s name, And tyrants their hot-sided beagles let slip?

VI. Has he been cruel to nearest of kin? The mother who loved him, and pleaded to win Her prodigal back from the desert of sin? Has he struck in base ire The cheek of his sire? Then plunge him in Acheron up to the chin.— “Poor waif!”

VII. That tender refrain which the angels repeat, The angels who hover o’er alley and street, Let me interpret its sound as is meet. ’Tis a pitiful cry! ’Tis the sob of the sky!— Is he the victim of woman’s deceit?

VIII. O, ye invisible shapes of the air— Ye watchers that wait upon heaven—declare, Sees he naught else but a face that is fair? Murmur again The tender refrain, If that and that only, hath wrought his despair.— “Poor waif!”

IX. Then have I wronged him! and grieve at his fate; But love’s load of sorrow no love can abate, Naming, still naming her, early and late. A dim dream of bliss, The soft light of a kiss, Only may enter through memory’s gate.

X. Within, what a ruin! arch, column and cope, The palace of wisdom, ambition, and hope, All broken and blasted! what spectres now grope Through the blue charnel gloom Of each desolate room! Blind, shrivelled and maimed, they but mumble and mope.— “Poor waif!”

XI. Now am I certain that beauty’s false art, A maid’s broken promise hath broken his heart No other evil such look could impart To manhood’s fair brow; Only speak of her now, And mark how the eye-drowning sorrow will start

XII. Wild-eyed, but erect as a soldier-king, Through the Rue St. Jacques, with a tireless swing, Onward he strides; let the fire-bells ring, And their terror outpour, While the red flames roar, Nothing cares he for the summons they fling.

XIII. And why should he care? why linger, or start? The fierce-hissing tongues that the fire-fiends dart From window and roof, from the square to the mart, Are harmless and mild, As the laugh of a child, Compared to the tempest of flame in his heart.

XIV. Why care? when the thousands who sweep through the city, The judge with black cap, and the maid with her ditty, Bestow on love’s ruin no question of pity. The crowds that he meets On the merciless streets Only smite him anew with some word that is witty.

XV. Kind ghosts, whose compassionate voices I hear High up in the air, come hither, come near! Close down his eyelids and fashion his bier; O let him pass Under flower and grass! Men are too busy to grant him a tear.

XVI. Good angels! stoop earthward and bear him away Out of the city’s tumultuous fray; Tenderly kiss his parched lips, and then lay His body to rest On the mountain’s lone breast, Where shadows and sunbeams in happiness play!

THE SONG OF A GLORIFIED SPIRIT

A youth knelt down by a new made grave Unseen by the world, and wept;— A sister whose beauty no love could save Beneath in the darkness slept.

’Twas a calm, sweet eve, and on hill and plain The summer had lavished her dower; But the full sad heart of the youth could gain No solace from sun or flower.

The big warm tears he wiped from his cheek, As he said with a struggling faith, “O God, if I could but hear her speak!— My sister! now thine, O death!”

In silence and sorrow he lingered long, And just as he rose to depart, In the heavens was warbled this saintly song, Which fell like a balm on his heart:

“Beautiful are my walks in the sky, Beautiful, beautiful! Here the amaranths never die, Here the sweet winds murmur and sigh, Beautiful, beautiful!

“Joyfully glide my golden hours, Joyfully, joyfully! Here the leaves of the hyacinth flowers Whisper around my love-lit bowers: Joyfully, joyfully!

“Lovingly smile my comrades here, Lovingly, lovingly! All the bright shapes of this blissful sphere Tell how that each unto each is dear, Lovingly, lovingly!

“Merciful is my Father, my all, Merciful, merciful! Here the white-cheeked lilies, so tall, Sing in their place by the jasper wall: Merciful, merciful!”

Note.—The origin of this lyric may possibly be of interest. A young friend had lost an only sister and, in an outburst of passionate sorrow, had exclaimed “O God if I could hear her speak.” Brooding over his sorrow, I retired to rest one evening and without attempting to embody my sympathy in words, I fell into a quiet slumber which lasted until day light. On waking, I had a vivid recollection of having seen in dream the youth kneeling by his sister’s grave and of having heard the words of his sister’s spirit chanted from the empyrean with inexpressible sweetness as if responding to his yearning exclamation. The words I heard in my dream I wrote down immediately lest their exactness and coherency might be lost. I was not at that time aware that Kubla Khan originated in a somewhat similar manner. As the occurrence, if standing alone, might seem difficult to believe, I refer to Coleridge’s poem merely to justify in some degree the publication of such a freak of the imagination.

BOUND TO THE WHEEL.

I. Must I grind in this prison for ever? No respite from morn till night; Shall I never again, oh, never! Commune with the spirits of light That dwell by the crystalline river Which flows by the Sibylline height?— Which sings near the Sibylline height?

II. I sigh for that region romantic, Far away from the turmoil and strife Of cities that render men frantic In a desperate struggle for life; For ’tis here that ambition gigantic Cuts into the heart like a knife,— Lies cold on the heart like a knife.

III. There Beauty sits thronéd in glory, The bards kiss her brow and adore, Then tell to the world the sweet story That millions repeat evermore; The youth and the patriarch hoary Bend over the musical lore,— Never tire of the mystical lore.

IV. It is there the perpetual graces, Inhabiting bowers of bliss, Give welcome to wearisome faces That ’scape from a region like this, A world in whose gaudiest places The serpent is sure to hiss,— The black-crested serpent will hiss.

V. I know now the fate of Ixion As I never could know it before; And under the eyes of Orion,— Storm-bound on a desolate shore,— Or under the paws of the Lion, I sigh for the sorrows he bore;— I know, too, what Sisyphus bore.

VI. Must I grind in this dungeon for ever! Will the day of release never dawn? Come, spirits of light, and deliver My soul which I ventured to pawn; Oh, bear her away to the river That flows by the Sibylline lawn,— The sylph-haunted Sibylline lawn.

THE APPLE WOMAN.

(From life.)

I. She often comes, a not unwelcome guest, With her old face set in a marble smile, And bonnet ribbonless—it is her best,— And little cloak—and blesses you the while, And cracks her joke, ambitious to beguile Your heart to something human, Then sets her basket down—a little rest! The Apple Woman.

II. Her stock in trade that basket doth contain; It is her wholesale and her retail store, Her goods and chattels,—all that doth pertain To her estate, a daughter of the Poor; O ye who tread upon a velvet floor, Whose walls rich lights illumine, Wound not, with word or look of high disdain, The Apple Woman.

III. She is thy sister, jewelled Lady Clare, “My sister! fling this insult in my face?” How dare you then, when in the house of prayer, Utter, Our Father? difference of place Nulls not the consanguinity of race, And every creature human Is kin to that poor mother, shivering there, The Apple Woman.

IV. She sits upon the sidewalk in the cold, And with her scraggy hand, hard, shrunk and blue, And corded with the cordage of the old, She reaches forth a fameuse, sir, to you, And begs her ladyship will take one, too, And if you are a true man Your pence will out; she never thinks of gold, The Apple Woman.

V. She tells me—and I know she tells me true, “My good man,—God be kind!—had long been sick, And one cold morning when the snow-storm blew, He said, dear Bess, it grieves me to the quick To see you venture out,—give me my stick, I’ll come to you at gloamin,’ And bide you home,”—she paused, the rest I knew.— Poor Apple Woman!

VI. Behold her then, a type of all that’s good, Honest in poverty, in suffering kind; And large must be that love which strains for food, Through wind and rain, through frost and snows that blind, For a sick burden that is left behind; Call her but common; God’s commonest things are little understood, Poor Apple Woman!

VII. Two April weeks I missed her, only two, Missed her upon the sidewalk, everywhere, And when again she chanced to cross my view, The marble smile was changed, it still was there, But darkly veined, an emblem of despair; A God-knit union Grim death had struck, whose dark shock shivered through The Apple Woman.

VIII. A widow now, she tells the bitter tale, Tells how she sat within their little room In yon dark alley, till she saw him fail, Sat all alone through night’s oppressive gloom, Sat by her Joe, as in a desert tomb, No candle to illumine His cold dead face! God only heard her wail.— Poor Apple Woman.

IX. Now, when you meet her of the basket-store, Her of the little cloak and bonnet bare, Reach forth a friendly hand, and something more, When your portmonnaie has a coin to spare. Dear are the hopes that mitigate thy care, Dear the unbought communion Whose tall vine reaches to the golden shore.— Poor Apple Woman!

ON MOUNT ROYAL.

I. They sat in the woods together, On the mountain’s tranquil height, And spoke of the Autumn weather, Of the purplish-golden light That played on the distant river, And robed the mountains afar In a robe more rich than ever Was worn by Caliph or Czar.

II. The wine of the beauty around them They drank till the sun hung low, Till the scene like a spell had bound them; For the forest was all aglow With the countless tints that follow Spent Summer’s retiring tread, When freely on height and hollow All beautiful colours are shed.

III. All hues that the rainbow showeth, All opulent dyes that flush The western sky when goeth The Lord of Day, and the blush Of river and lake and ocean Betrays that his last caress Their life-blood keeps in motion Till he cometh again to bless.

IV. No valley of famed Cashmere Such exquisite tints puts on As the woods that crown the year, When hot-footed Summer is gone When every tree is a flower, Gigantic, superbly aflame With ruby and scarlet,—a dower Of beauty no tongue can name.

V. They sat and communed together; She spoke of this dream of life, And quietly questioned whether ’Tis worth all the sorrow and strife That burden the hearts of many, That tangle the steps of all; For truly there is not any Who ’scapeth the serpent’s thrall.

VI. He said: “Such a thought but troubles The good that in life we find, Distorts fair truth, and doubles The anguish that clouds the mind. Surely, this cirque of beauty, And that blue heaven above, Make love of life a duty, And life a thing to love.”

VII. She said: “The winter cometh; These splendors will cease to be, Like the joy in the heart that hummeth An hour for you and me, Then suddenly sinks to ashes, So perish all beautiful things; So love for an instant flashes, Then folds his languid wings.”

VIII. “Ah! now I suspect you dissemble,” He presently made reply; “You need not fear or tremble, For surely you and I Have faith in love’s endurance And know that beauty abides For souls that in blest assurance Discern where it haply hides.”

IX. In silent and solemn abstraction She gazed on the pictured trees, Through which a pale reflection Of light and a friendly breeze Shimmered and sighed so kindly,— She dreamily said: “Maybe Too coldly, perchance too blindly, I’ve judged of this world—and thee!”

X. A tear in her bright eye glistened, The soft breeze wafted her hair Adrift on his face, when she listened As if to a voice in the air; But neither by word nor token Behooves it the world to know How the chain of her doubt was broken, Whilst the sun in the West hung low.

XI. The low wind hastened to utter A message of joyful sound; Like flakes of fire a-flutter Some red leaves fell to the ground; A chorus of bells in the city Rose mournfully mellow and clear, Like voices of infinite pity For lives that were saddened and sere.

XII. They rose and descended the mountain, So happy and hallowed in thought, Charmed nature to them was a fountain Of tender emotion that wrought A longing for nobler endeavour To make life to others a boon As peaceful and blessed forever As their dream of that afternoon.

MAIDEN LONGINGS.

Sitting, thinking, all alone, Listening to the beetle’s drone, And the night-hawk’s monotone; Sitting, sighing, thus alone, How my heart is longing!

Yet I could not tell you why Tears will gather in my eye When the night-winds tread the sky; No, I could not answer why, Or for what, I’m longing.

Solemn as the rapid’s roar, Sounding on my native shore, Is my heart’s dream evermore; Oh! for some old wizard’s lore To ease this weary longing.

Vague the cause that moves me so;— Is it love? Ah no! no! no!! It can’t be love that shakes me so, When the stars in regal show Around their Queen are thronging.

ASPIRATION.

I. “What Cyclopean force is this I feel, Heaving the central fires within my heart? While full-orbéd splendors round my spirit wheel, And, gazing into vacant space, I start, For seems a fair hand beckons me apart. Oh! I will try, Before I die, To find a voice this mystery to reveal.

II. “Why do I seem to sit upon a cloud, Wearing the crimson mantle of the sun, Delighted when the wind-god shrieks aloud, And raptured when the midnight thunder-gun Tells where the nimble-footed lightnings run? Shall I not try Ere age draw nigh Some world-enticing poem to unshroud?

III. “Why do the bygone years, with accents cold, Call to me through the darkness from their grave, Till thinking on their dowry, tears are rolled Down my wan cheeks? I think of all they gave, And all they stole from me, their fool and slave. Earnestly I, Henceforth will try To sublimate my life to purest gold.

IV. “And often while I dally with the Night, Running my fingers through her raven hair, There floats up to my shocked and tearful sight An angel’s face, transformed with pain and care O, maiden! long beloved, I see you there, But you and I May never try To braid our love into a zone of light.

V. “The organ of the Universe is played By bards who strike the keys with master sweep, Upon its music-waves I float, afraid, Yet joyous, doubtful if to smile or weep, And haunted by its sea of sound in sleep, I wake to try A purpose high— To earn the poet’s crown before I fade.

VI. “O, Heaven! while my spirit gladly sings, Shape her vague tremblings to some useful end, And purify my strange imaginings, That when the better years which hither tend, Pass on, I may be called Man’s poet-friend, Thus will I try, Before I die To shake the earth-dregs from my soaring wings.”

VII. So sang a poet by the harping sea, And thick as white shells strewn upon the beach, Fancies came thronging to him, wild and free, And bade him limn their airy forms in speech: But still he only sang with aimless reach, “All things do cry Pilgrim, try! Thrill the tame world with sun-lit poesy.”

VIII. Years rolled away, and by the sea-licked shore The moonbeams quivered on a lonely mound; The pilgrim-poet’s turbulence was o’er, And that secluded spot was holy ground; For he with songs of wondrous love had crowned Insulted Right; And pure and bright His verse illumed the sorrows of the poor.

IX. He left behind him, though he knew it not, A trail of glory on the world’s highway, And loving fingers now denote the spot Where he was wont to build the witching lay, And champions of mind, admiring, say, “Grandly he tried, Before he died, To teach dull earth the majesty of thought.”

THE HAWK AND THE SPARROW.

I. To-day, upon the public square, I saw a hawk in fury tear A sparrow: hapless little thing, The tyrant rent it wing from wing And limb from limb, and on the snow Its life-drops made a crimson glow.

II. I drove the feathered fiend away, And gathered up the mangled prey; And pondering o’er the fragments red, I thought of what is writ and said: “The Omnipresent Lord of all Has knowledge of a sparrow’s fall.”

III. I thought,—if the omnific Lord Commiserates a dying bird, If all things act by his design, And swerve not from his plumb and line, Why did he arm with murderous beak That hawk to slay a thing so weak And harmless as our little friend?

IV. No more the maple twig will bend Beneath his feet; his life’s swift end One faithful mourner, one at least,— His sexton now and reverent priest,— Deplores; does He who gave him life, And walled him round with tragic strife, Feel equal pity? Why, O why This outrage under all His sky?

V. Is He too weak the weak to save? To His own laws is He a slave? If not, then wherefore were the laws Permitted with such fatal flaws? Surely the heavy curse that fell On Adam, sloping down to hell, Cannot in justice overtake Aught less than human, save the snake?

VI. A soft voice answered, soft and still: “This mystery of earthly ill ’Tis well to probe, ’tis well to seek All knowledge, and to freely speak, Since love of truth thy soul impels, And love of goodness in thee dwells. Well, too, the sympathetic tear Bestowed upon the sparrow here; But scarcely was it well to balk, Or rudely blame the famished hawk.

VII. “High knowledge is not ready-made, And darker grows the mental shade, If you pursue your curious quest; Why with the hawk and sparrow rest? How many of thy boastful race Would spare the hawk in any case— Would spare or pity, though his need Your lordly sportsman could not plead. Moreover this poor bird whose doom Has touched thy feeling heart with gloom, No tender scruple ever made With creatures of an humbler grade, So, puzzling o’er these knots of fate, Life’s riddle grows more intricate.

VIII. “Who seeks will rarely fail to find The thing to which he’s most inclined. If thorns instead of roses suit,— If leaves instead of luscious fruit,— If turbid waters more than clear,— If doleful sounds in place of cheer,— Those will respect the cynic’s right, While these elude his senses quite.

IX. “Doubt if thou wilt, but reverently, And heed not what the owls may say, Who from their gloomy perch give out That sin is foster-child of Doubt. Doubt is the silent needful night, The womb of intellectual might; But who can wisely choose to dwell Forever in that darksome shell?

X. “The fearless soul emerging thence Feels something of omnipotence;— Upon the mountain tops his feet Will tread in joy, and gladly beat The golden shores of summer seas; And he will hear in every breeze Divinest music; even the storm That bends the proud oak’s stubborn form, And howls athwart the naked land, Will bring to him an utterance grand, Engendering noble thoughts, and power To serve him in some trying hour.

XI. “Revere fair Nature’s balanced laws, Nor rashly deem them framed with flaws; The discord which thou seem’st to find In them is part of thine own mind. Put that in tune, and, for the sake Of darkened faces, strive to make The world more happy; do this thing, And thy despondent muse shall wring Sweet nectar out of weed and cloud.”

XII. Silent, though unconvinced, I bowed My head abashed; with firmer trust, And higher faith, I shook the dust Of utter doubt from reason’s plume; And through small openings in the gloom I half discerned a meaning new In that which seemed before untrue: The ever-present Lord of all Compassionates a sparrow’s fall.

CELESTINE.

I. I must not look on you nor think of you,— Must seek close kinship with forgetfulness; Such looks as thine but make a strong man rue That ever in his heart’s devout excess The shadow of thy soul he did pursue Through many a golden hour for one caress; ’Twas but a noontide dream, A phantom fire, a gleam Of heaven wasted in a wilderness.

II. I wake and wonder at the vision gone, Sweet music borne upon a winter blast, A beauty filched from sunset and the dawn, A marvel too ethereal to last; And now a heavy sadness falls upon My spirit and the world, both overcast With thunderstorm and gloom, In which there is no room For any ray of the enchanted past.

III. I chide the fond delirium of my brow, And only pray that you forgive, forget The homage of a man who doth avow His folly with a penitent’s regret; Such adoration even the gods allow, For thou art as a star divinely set In heaven’s perfect blue, I can but sigh for you In lonely ways with night dews chilled and wet.

TO A YOUNG LADY.

When Morn, in spring glory, Salutes the dull earth, How sweet is her story Of music and mirth.

The happy leaves glisten And tremble around, The young blossoms listen With joy to the sound.

They tell by their blushes, Their soft breathing proves, That night’s dewy hushes Promoted their loves.

The murmur of grasses, The singing of birds, In sweetness surpasses The compass of words.

Far away on the mountain The mist is on fire, And the joy of the fountain Can soar up no higher.

A tremor of gladness Pervadeth the air, And no touch of sadness Can rest anywhere.

We cease to be mortal In moments like this, And enter the portal Of absolute bliss.

At noon, and at even, We think of the morn, In the midst of whose heaven Such beauty is born.

’Tis thus I shall cherish Till life’s gloaming end, And never let perish The face of a friend.

Then come, gentle maiden, And dwell with the few That in my soul’s Aidenn I know to be true;—

Some distant, some sleeping The sleep of the just, Are here in the keeping Of memory’s trust.

With these let thy spirit Abide in its place, So shall I inherit New goodness and grace.

BETRAYED.

These verses embody the last thoughts recorded in the Journal of a young lady of a village on the banks of the St. Lawrence, who was found dead in her chamber on a bright June morning of 186—, and was supposed to have committed suicide during the night.

Henceforth a wanderer, Hie thee, my soul, Over life’s frozen waste, Haste to thy goal.

O never again Shall the down of sweet rest Pillow thy weariness, Spirit unblest!

No fair land of promise Thy vision can reach; No sunshine, no music, No glory of speech.

Regrets and reproaches Are idle and weak, And the insult of pity Brings shame to the cheek.

Farewell, ruined world!— In the depth of star spaces There may be sweet slumber, And love-beaming faces.

There must be some spot In this Universe wide, Where a poor wounded dovelet May haste to and hide.

The raven has flown To his perch through the gloom, And the death-watch is calling His mate in my room.

The wail of the winds, And the rapid’s loud roar, Have a weirdness and terror Felt never before.

A gray mist has settled On land and on sea, And night dews are falling, My spirit, on thee!

When daylight is gone, And the glimmer of stars, Like a ghost at the casement, Looks in through the bars,

It is time to disrobe, And to kneel down and weep, To forgive and forget,— It is time now to sleep!