Rosalind and Helen
A Modern Eclogue

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The story of Rosalind and Helen is, undoubtedly, not an attempt in the highest style of poetry. It is in no degree calculated to excite profound meditation; and if, by interesting the affections and amusing the imagination, it awaken a certain ideal melancholy favourable to the reception of more important impressions, it will produce in the reader all that the writer experienced in the composition. I resigned myself, as I wrote, to the impulse of the feelings which moulded the conception of the story; and this impulse determined the pauses of a measure, which only pretends to be regular inasmuch as its corresponds with, and expresses, the irregularity of the imaginations which inspired it.

I do not know which of the few scattered poems I left in England will be selected by my bookseller to add to this collection. One ["Lines written among the Euganean Hills"--ed.], which I sent from Italy, was written after a day's excursion among those lovely mountains which surround what was once the retreat, and where is now the sepulchre, of Petrarch. If any one is inclined to condemn the insertion of the introductory lines, which image forth the sudden relief from a state of deep despondency by the radiant visions disclosed by the sudden burst of an Italian sunrise in autumn on the highest peak of those delightful mountains, I can only offer as my excuse, that they were not erased at the request of a dear friend, with whom added years of intercourse only add to my apprehension of its value, and who would have had more right than any one to complain, that she has not been able to extinguish in me the very power of delineating sadness.

NAPLES, Dec. 20, 1818.

Rosalind, Helen and her Child
Scene, the Shore of the Lake of Como

Helen.

Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.

'Tis long since thou and I have met;

And yet methinks it were unkind

Those moments to forget.

Come sit by me. I see thee stand

By this lone lake, in this far land,

Thy loose hair in the light wind flying,

Thy sweet voice to each tone of even

United, and thine eyes replying

To the hues of yon fair heaven.

Come, gentle friend: wilt sit by me?

And be as thou wert wont to be

Ere we were disunited?

None doth behold us now: the power

That led us forth at this lone hour

Will be but ill requited

If thou depart in scorn: oh! come,

And talk of our abandoned home.

Remember, this is Italy,

And we are exiles. Talk with me

Of that our land, whose wilds and floods,

Barren and dark although they be,

Were dearer than these chestnut woods:

Those heathy paths, that inland stream,

And the blue mountains, shapes which seem

Like wrecks of childhood's sunny dream:

Which that we have abandoned now,

Weighs on the heart like that remorse

Which altered friendship leaves. I seek

No more our youthful intercourse.

That cannot be! Rosalind, speak.

Speak to me. Leave me not. -- When morn did come,

When evening fell upon our common home,

When for one hour we parted, -- do not frown:

I would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken:

But turn to me. Oh! by this cherished token,

Of woven hair, which thou wilt not disown,

Turn, as 'twere but the memory of me,

And not my scornèd self who prayed to thee.

Rosalind.

Is it a dream, or do I see

And hear frail Helen? I would flee

Thy tainting touch; but former years

Arise, and bring forbidden tears;

And my o'erburthened memory

Seeks yet its lost repose in thee.

I share thy crime. I cannot choose

But weep for thee: mine own strange grief

But seldom stoops to such relief:

Nor ever did I love thee less,

Though mourning o'er thy wickedness

Even with a sister's woe. I knew

What to the evil world is due,

And therefore sternly did refuse

To link me with the infamy

Of one so lost as Helen. Now

Bewildered by my dire despair,

Wondering I blush, and weep that thou

Should'st love me still, -- thou only! -- There,

Let us sit on that gray stone,

Till our mournful talk be done.

Helen.

Alas! not there; I cannot bear

The murmur of this lake to hear.

A sound from there, Rosalind dear,

Which never yet I heard elsewhere

But in our native land, recurs,

Even here where now we meet. It stirs

Too much of suffocating sorrow!

In the dell of yon dark chestnut wood

Is a stone seat, a solitude

Less like our own. The ghost of Peace

Will not desert this spot. To-morrow,

If thy kind feelings should not cease,

We may sit here.

Rosalind.

Thou lead, my sweet,

And I will follow.

Henry.

'Tis Fenici's seat

Where you are going? This is not the way,

Mamma; it leads behind those trees that grow

Close to the little river.

Helen.

Yes: I know:

I was bewildered. Kiss me, and be gay,

Dear boy: why do you sob?

Henry.

I do not know:

But it might break any one's heart to see

You and the lady cry so bitterly.

Helen.

It is a gentle child, my friend. Go home,

Henry, and play with Lilla till I come.

We only cried with joy to see each other;

We are quite merry now: Good-night.

The boy

Lifted a sudden look upon his mother,

And in the gleam of forced and hollow joy

Which lightened o'er her face, laughed with the glee

Of light and unsuspecting infancy,

And whispered in her ear, "Bring home with you

That sweet strange lady-friend." Then off he flew,

But stopped, and beckoned with a meaning smile,

Where the road turned. Pale Rosalind the while,

Hiding her face, stood weeping silently.

In silence then they took the way

Beneath the forest's solitude.

It was a vast and antique wood,

Thro' which they took their way;

And the gray shades of evening

O'er that green wilderness did fling

Still deeper solitude.

Pursuing still the path that wound

The vast and knotted trees around

Through which slow shades were wandering,

To a deep lawny dell they came,

To a stone seat beside a spring,

O'er which the columned wood did frame

A roofless temple, like the fane

Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain,

Man's early race once knelt beneath

The overhanging deity.

O'er this fair fountain hung the sky,

Now spangled with rare stars. The snake,

The pale snake, that with eager breath

Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake,

Is beaming with many a mingled hue,

Shed from yon dome's eternal blue,

When he floats on that dark and lucid flood

In the light of his own loveliness;

And the birds that in the fountain dip

Their plumes, with fearless fellowship

Above and round him wheel and hover.

The fitful wind is heard to stir

One solitary leaf on high;

The chirping of the grasshopper

Fills every pause. There is emotion

In all that dwells at noontide here:

Then, through the intricate wild wood,

A maze of life and light and motion

Is woven. But there is stillness now:

Gloom, and the trance of Nature now:

The snake is in his cave asleep;

The birds are on the branches dreaming:

Only the shadows creep:

Only the glow-worm is gleaming:

Only the owls and the nightingales

Wake in this dell when daylight fails,

And gray shades gather in the woods:

And the owls have all fled far away

In a merrier glen to hoot and play,

For the moon is veiled and sleeping now.

The accustomed nightingale still broods

On her accustomed bough,

But she is mute; for her false mate

Has fled and left her desolate.

This silent spot tradition old

Had peopled with the spectral dead.

For the roots of the speaker's hair felt cold

And stiff, as with tremulous lips he told

That a hellish shape at midnight led

The ghost of a youth with hoary hair,

And sate on the seat beside him there,

Till a naked child came wandering by,

When the fiend would change to a lady fair!

A fearful tale! The truth was worse:

For here a sister and a brother

Had solemnized a monstrous curse,

Meeting in this fair solitude:

For beneath yon very sky,

Had they resigned to one another

Body and soul. The multitude,

Tracking them to the secret wood,

Tore limb from limb their innocent child,

And stabbed and trampled on its mother;

But the youth, for God's most holy grace,

A priest saved to burn in the market-place.

Duly at evening Helen came

To this lone silent spot,

From the wrecks of a tale of wilder sorrow

So much of sympathy to borrow

As soothed her own dark lot.

Duly each evening from her home,

With her fair child would Helen come

To sit upon that antique seat,

While the hues of day were pale;

And the bright boy beside her feet

Now lay, lifting at intervals

His broad blue eyes on her;

Now, where some sudden impulse calls

Following. He was a gentle boy

And in all gentle sports took joy;

Oft in a dry leaf for a boat,

With a small feather for a sail,

His fancy on that spring would float,

If some invisible breeze might stir

Its marble calm: and Helen smiled

Through tears of awe on the gay child,

To think that a boy as fair as he,

In years which never more may be,

By that same fount, in that same wood,

The like sweet fancies had pursued;

And that a mother, lost like her,

Had mournfully sate watching him.

Then all the scene was wont to swim

Through the mist of a burning tear.

For many months had Helen known

This scene; and now she thither turned

Her footsteps, not alone.

The friend whose falsehood she had mourned,

Sate with her on that seat of stone.

Silent they sate; for evening,

And the power its glimpses bring

Had, with one awful shadow, quelled

The passion of their grief. They sate

With linkèd hands, for unrepelled

Had Helen taken Rosalind's.

Like the autumn wind, when it unbinds

The tangled locks of the nightshade's hair,

Which is twined in the sultry summer air

Round the walls of an outworn sepulchre,

Did the voice of Helen, sad and sweet,

And the sound of her heart that ever beat,

As with sighs and words she breathed on her,

Unbind the knots of her friend's despair,

Till her thoughts were free to float and flow;

And from her labouring bosom now,

Like the bursting of a prisoned flame,

The voice of a long pent sorrow came.

Rosalind.

I saw the dark earth fall upon

The coffin; and I saw the stone

Laid over him whom this cold breast

Had pillowed to his nightly rest!

Thou knowest not, thou canst not know

My agony. Oh! I could not weep:

The sources whence such blessings flow

Were not to be approached by me!

But I could smile, and I could sleep,

Though with a self-accusing heart.

In morning's light, in evening's gloom,

I watched, -- and would not thence depart --

My husband's unlamented tomb.

My children knew their sire was gone,

But when I told them, -- "he is dead," --

They laughed aloud in frantic glee,

They clapped their hands and leaped about,

Answering each other's ecstasy

With many a prank and merry shout.

But I sate silent and alone,

Wrapped in the mock of mourning weed.

They laughed, for he was dead: but I

Sate with a hard and tearless eye,

And with a heart which would deny

The secret joy it could not quell,

Low muttering o'er his loathèd name;

Till from that self-contention came

Remorse where sin was none; a hell

Which in pure spirits should not dwell.

I'll tell thee truth. He was a man

Hard, selfish, loving only gold,

Yet full of guile: his pale eyes ran

With tears, which each some falsehood told,

And oft his smooth and bridled tongue

Would give the lie to his flushing cheek:

He was a coward to the strong:

He was a tyrant to the weak,

On whom his vengeance he would wreak:

For scorn, whose arrows search the heart,

From many a stranger's eye would dart,

And on his memory cling, and follow

His soul to its home so cold and hollow.

He was a tyrant to the weak,

And we were such, alas the day!

Oft, when my little ones at play,

Were in youth's natural lightness gay,

Or if they listened to some tale

Of travellers, or of fairy land, --

When the light from the wood-fire's dying brand

Flashed on their faces, -- if they heard

Or thought they heard upon the stair

His footstep, the suspended word

Died on my lips: we all grew pale:

The babe at my bosom was hushed with fear

If it thought it heard its father near;

And my two wild boys would near my knee

Cling, cowed and cowering fearfully.

I'll tell thee truth: I loved another.

His name in my ear was ever ringing,

His form to my brain was ever clinging:

Yet if some stranger breathed that name,

My lips turned white, and my heart beat fast:

My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame,

My days were dim in the shadow cast

By the memory of the same!

Day and night, day and night,

He was my breath and life and light,

For three short years, which soon were passed.

On the fourth, my gentle mother

Led me to the shrine, to be

His sworn bride eternally.

And now we stood on the altar stair,

When my father came from a distant land,

And with a loud and fearful cry

Rushed between us suddenly.

I saw the stream of his thin gray hair,

I saw his lean and lifted hand,

And heard his words, -- and live! Oh God!

Wherefore do I live? -- "Hold, hold!"

He cried, -- "I tell thee 'tis her brother!

Thy mother, boy, beneath the sod

Of yon churchyard rests in her shroud so cold:

I am now weak, and pale, and old:

We were once dear to one another,

I and that corpse! Thou art our child!"

Then with a laugh both long and wild

The youth upon the pavement fell:

They found him dead! All looked on me,

The spasms of my despair to see:

But I was calm. I went away:

I was clammy-cold like clay!

I did not weep: I did not speak:

But day by day, week after week,

I walked about like a corpse alive!

Alas! sweet friend, you must believe

This heart is stone: it did not break.

My father lived a little while,

But all might see that he was dying,

He smiled with such a woeful smile!

When he was in the churchyard lying

Among the worms, we grew quite poor,

So that no one would give us bread:

My mother looked at me, and said

Faint words of cheer, which only meant

That she could die and be content;

So I went forth from the same church door

To another husband's bed.

And this was he who died at last,

When weeks and months and years had passed,

Through which I firmly did fulfil

My duties, a devoted wife,

With the stern step of vanquished will,

Walking beneath the night of life,

Whose hours extinguished, like slow rain

Falling for ever, pain by pain,

The very hope of death's dear rest;

Which, since the heart within my breast

Of natural life was dispossessed,

Its strange sustainer there had been.

When flowers were dead, and grass was green

Upon my mother's grave, -- that mother

Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make

My wan eyes glitter for her sake,

Was my vowed task, the single care

Which once gave life to my despair, --

When she was a thing that did not stir

And the crawling worms were cradling her

To a sleep more deep and so more sweet

Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee,

I lived: a living pulse then beat

Beneath my heart that awakened me.

What was this pulse so warm and free?

Alas! I knew it could not be

My own dull blood: 'twas like a thought

Of liquid love, that spread and wrought

Under my bosom and in my brain,

And crept with the blood through every vein;

And hour by hour, day after day,

The wonder could not charm away,

But laid in sleep, my wakeful pain,

Until I knew it was a child,

And then I wept. For long, long years

These frozen eyes had shed no tears:

But now -- 'twas the season fair and mild

When April has wept itself to May:

I sate through the sweet sunny day

By my window bowered round with leaves,

And down my cheeks the quick tears fell

Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves,

When warm spring showers are passing o'er:

O Helen, none can ever tell

The joy it was to weep once more!

I wept to think how hard it were

To kill my babe, and take from it

The sense of light, and the warm air,

And my own fond and tender care,

And love and smiles; ere I knew yet

That these for it might, as for me,

Be the masks of a grinning mockery.

And haply, I would dream, 'twere sweet

To feed it from my faded breast,

Or mark my own heart's restless beat

Rock it to its untroubled rest,

And watch the growing soul beneath

Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath,

Half interrupted by calm sighs,

And search the depth of its fair eyes

For long departed memories!

And so I lived till that sweet load

Was lightened. Darkly forward flowed

The stream of years, and on it bore

Two shapes of gladness to my sight;

Two other babes, delightful more

In my lost soul's abandoned night,

Than their own country ships may be

Sailing towards wrecked mariners,

Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea.

For each, as it came, brought soothing tears,

And a loosening warmth, as each one lay

Sucking the sullen milk away

About my frozen heart, did play,

And weaned it, oh how painfully! --

As they themselves were weaned each one

From that sweet food, -- even from the thirst

Of death, and nothingness, and rest,

Strange inmate of a living breast!

Which all that I had undergone

Of grief and shame, since she, who first

The gates of that dark refuge closed,

Came to my sight, and almost burst

The seal of that Lethean spring;

But these fair shadows interposed:

For all delights are shadows now!

And from my brain to my dull brow

The heavy tears gather and flow:

I cannot speak: Oh let me weep!

The tears which fell from her wan eyes

Glimmered among the moonlight dew:

Her deep hard sobs and heavy sighs

Their echoes in the darkness threw.

When she grew calm, she thus did keep

The tenor of her tale:

He died:

I know not how: he was not old,

If age be numbered by its years:

But he was bowed and bent with fears,

Pale with the quenchless thirst of gold,

Which, like fierce fever, left him weak;

And his strait lip and bloated cheek

Were warped in spasms by hollow sneers;

And selfish cares with barren plough,

Not age, had lined his narrow brow,

And foul and cruel thoughts, which feed

Upon the withering life within,

Like vipers on some poisonous weed.

Whether his ill were death or sin

None knew, until he died indeed,

And then men owned they were the same.

Seven days within my chamber lay

That corse, and my babes made holiday:

At last, I told them what is death:

The eldest, with a kind of shame,

Came to my knees with silent breath,

And sate awe-stricken at my feet;

And soon the others left their play,

And sate there too. It is unmeet

To shed on the brief flower of youth

The withering knowledge of the grave;

From me remorse then wrung that truth.

I could not bear the joy which gave

Too just a response to mine own.

In vain. I dared not feign a groan;

And in their artless looks I saw,

Between the mists of fear and awe,

That my own thought was theirs; and they

Expressed it not in words, but said,

Each in its heart, how every day

Will pass in happy work and play,

Now he is dead and gone away.

After the funeral all our kin

Assembled, and the will was read.

My friend, I tell thee, even the dead

Have strength, their putrid shrouds within,

To blast and torture. Those who live

Still fear the living, but a corse

Is merciless, and power doth give

To such pale tyrants half the spoil

He rends from those who groan and toil,

Because they blush not with remorse

Among their crawling worms. Behold,

I have no child! my tale grows old

With grief, and staggers: let it reach

The limits of my feeble speech,

And languidly at length recline

On the brink of its own grave and mine.

Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty

Among the fallen on evil days:

'Tis Crime, and Fear, and Infamy,

And houseless Want in frozen ways

Wandering ungarmented, and Pain,

And, worse than all, that inward stain

Foul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers

Youth's starlight smile, and makes its tears

First like hot gall, then dry for ever!

And well thou knowest a mother never

Could doom her children to this ill,

And well he knew the same. The will

Imported, that if e'er again

I sought my children to behold,

Or in my birthplace did remain

Beyond three days, whose hours were told,

They should inherit nought: and he,

To whom next came their patrimony,

A sallow lawyer, cruel and cold,

Aye watched me, as the will was read,

With eyes askance, which sought to see

The secrets of my agony;

And with close lips and anxious brow

Stood canvassing still to and fro

The chance of my resolve, and all

The dead man's caution just did call;

For in that killing lie 'twas said --

"She is adulterous, and doth hold

In secret that the Christian creed

Is false, and therefore is much need

That I should have a care to save

My children from eternal fire."

Friend, he was sheltered by the grave,

And therefore dared to be a liar!

In truth, the Indian on the pyre

Of her dead husband, half consumed,

As well might there be false, as I

To those abhorred embraces doomed,

Far worse than fire's brief agony.

As to the Christian creed, if true

Or false, I never questioned it:

I took it as the vulgar do:

Nor my vexed soul had leisure yet

To doubt the things men say, or deem

That they are other than they seem.

All present who those crimes did hear,

In feigned or actual scorn and fear,

Men, women, children, slunk away,

Whispering with self-contented pride,

Which half suspects its own base lie.

I spoke to none, nor did abide,

But silently I went my way,

Nor noticed I where joyously

Sate my two younger babes at play,

In the court-yard through which I passed;

But went with footsteps firm and fast

Till I came to the brink of the ocean green,

And there, a woman with gray hairs,

Who had my mother's servant been,

Kneeling, with many tears and prayers,

Made me accept a purse of gold,

Half of the earnings she had kept

To refuge her when weak and old.

With woe, which never sleeps or slept,

I wander now. 'Tis a vain thought --

But on yon alp, whose snowy head

'Mid the azure air is islanded,

(We see it o'er the flood of cloud,

Which sunrise from its eastern caves

Drives, wrinkling into golden waves,

Hung with its precipices proud,

From that gray stone where first we met)

There -- now who knows the dead feel nought? --

Should be my grave; for he who yet

Is my soul's soul, once said: "'Twere sweet

'Mid stars and lightnings to abide,

And winds and lulling snows, that beat

With their soft flakes the mountain wide,

Where weary meteor lamps repose,

And languid storms their pinions close:

And all things strong and bright and pure,

And ever during, aye endure:

Who knows, if one were buried there,

But these things might our spirits make,

Amid the all-surrounding air,

Their own eternity partake?"

Then 'twas a wild and playful saying

At which I laughed, or seemed to laugh:

They were his words: now heed my praying,

And let them be my epitaph.

Thy memory for a term may be

My monument. Wilt remember me?

I know thou wilt, and canst forgive

Whilst in this erring world to live

My soul disdained not, that I thought

Its lying forms were worthy aught

And much less thee.

Helen.

O speak not so,

But come to me and pour thy woe

Into this heart, full though it be,

Ay, overflowing with its own:

I thought that grief had severed me

From all beside who weep and groan;

Its likeness upon earth to be,

Its express image; but thou art

More wretched. Sweet! we will not part

Henceforth, if death be not division;

If so, the dead feel no contrition.

But wilt thou hear since last we parted

All that has left me broken hearted?

Rosalind.

Yes, speak. The faintest stars are scarcely shorn

Of their thin beams by that delusive morn

Which sinks again in darkness, like the light

Of early love, soon lost in total night.

Helen.

Alas! Italian winds are mild,

But my bosom is cold -- wintry cold --

When the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves,

Soft music, my poor brain is wild,

And I am weak like a nursling child,

Though my soul with grief is gray and old.

Rosalind.

Weep not at thine own words, though they must make

Me weep. What is thy tale?

Helen.

I fear 'twill shake

Thy gentle heart with tears. Thou well

Rememberest when we met no more,

And, though I dwelt with Lionel,

That friendless caution pierced me sore

With grief; a wound my spirit bore

Indignantly, but when he died

With him lay dead both hope and pride.

Alas! all hope is buried now.

But then men dreamed the agèd earth

Was labouring in that mighty birth,

Which many a poet and a sage

Has aye foreseen -- the happy age

When truth and love shall dwell below

Among the works and ways of men;

Which on this world not power but will

Even now is wanting to fulfil.

Among mankind what thence befell

Of strife, how vain, is known too well;

When Liberty's dear paean fell

'Mid murderous howls. To Lionel,

Though of great wealth and lineage high,

Yet through those dungeon walls there came

Thy thrilling light, O Liberty!

And as the meteor's midnight flame

Startles the dreamer, sun-like truth

Flashed on his visionary youth,

And filled him, not with love, but faith,

And hope, and courage mute in death;

For love and life in him were twins,

Born at one birth: in every other

First life then love its course begins,

Though they be children of one mother;

And so through this dark world they fleet

Divided, till in death they meet:

But he loved all things ever. Then

He passed amid the strife of men,

And stood at the throne of armèd power

Pleading for a world of woe:

Secure as one on a rock-built tower

O'er the wrecks which the surge trails to and fro,

'Mid the passions wild of human kind

He stood, like a spirit calming them;

For, it was said, his words could bind

Like music the lulled crowd, and stem

That torrent of unquiet dream,

Which mortals truth and reason deem,

But is revenge and fear and pride.

Joyous he was; and hope and peace

On all who heard him did abide,

Raining like dew from his sweet talk,

As where the evening star may walk

Along the brink of the gloomy seas,

Liquid mists of splendour quiver.

His very gestures touched to tears

The unpersuaded tyrant, never

So moved before: his presence stung

The torturers with their victim's pain,

And none knew how; and through their ears,

The subtle witchcraft of his tongue

Unlocked the hearts of those who keep

Gold, the world's bond of slavery.

Men wondered, and some sneered to see

One sow what he could never reap:

For he is rich, they said, and young,

And might drink from the depths of luxury.

If he seeks Fame, Fame never crowned

The champion of a trampled creed:

If he seeks Power, Power is enthroned

'Mid ancient rights and wrongs, to feed

Which hungry wolves with praise and spoil,

Those who would sit near Power must toil;

And such, there sitting, all may see.

What seeks he? All that others seek

He casts away, like a vile weed

Which the sea casts unreturningly.

That poor and hungry men should break

The laws which wreak them toil and scorn,

We understand; but Lionel

We know is rich and nobly born.

So wondered they: yet all men loved

Young Lionel, though few approved;

All but the priests, whose hatred fell

Like the unseen blight of a smiling day,

The withering honey dew, which clings

Under the bright green buds of May,

Whilst they unfold their emerald wings:

For he made verses wild and queer

On the strange creeds priests hold so dear,

Because they bring them land and gold.

Of devils and saints and all such gear,

He made tales which whoso heard or read

Would laugh till he were almost dead.

So this grew a proverb: "Don't get old

Till Lionel's 'Banquet in Hell' you hear,

And then you will laugh yourself young again."

So the priests hated him, and he

Repaid their hate with cheerful glee.

Ah, smiles and joyance quickly died,

For public hope grew pale and dim

In an altered time and tide,

And in its wasting withered him,

As a summer flower that blows too soon

Droops in the smile of the waning moon,

When it scatters through an April night

The frozen dews of wrinkling blight.

None now hoped more. Gray Power was seated

Safely on her ancestral throne;

And Faith, the Python, undefeated,

Even to its blood-stained steps dragged on

Her foul and wounded train, and men

Were trampled and deceived again,

And words and shows again could bind

The wailing tribes of human kind

In scorn and famine. Fire and blood

Raged round the raging multitude,

To fields remote by tyrants sent

To be the scornèd instrument

With which they drag from mines of gore

The chains their slaves yet ever wore:

And in the streets men met each other,

And by old altars and in halls,

And smiled again at festivals.

But each man found in his heart's brother

Cold cheer; for all, though half deceived,

The outworn creeds again believed,

And the same round anew began,

Which the weary world yet ever ran.

Many then wept, not tears, but gall

Within their hearts, like drops which fall

Wasting the fountain-stone away.

And in that dark and evil day

Did all desires and thoughts, that claim

Men's care -- ambition, friendship, fame,

Love, hope, though hope was now despair --

Indue the colours of this change,

As from the all-surrounding air

The earth takes hues obscure and strange,

When storm and earthquake linger there.

And so, my friend, it then befell

To many, most to Lionel,

Whose hope was like the life of youth

Within him, and when dead, became

A spirit of unresting flame,

Which goaded him in his distress

Over the world's vast wilderness.

Three years he left his native land,

And on the fourth, when he returned,

None knew him: he was stricken deep

With some disease of mind, and turned

Into aught unlike Lionel.

On him, on whom, did he pause in sleep,

Serenest smiles were wont to keep,

And, did he wake, a wingèd band

Of bright persuasions, which had fed

On his sweet lips and liquid eyes,

Kept their swift pinions half outspread,

To do on men his least command;

On him, whom once 'twas paradise

Even to behold, now misery lay:

In his own heart 'twas merciless,

To all things else none may express

Its innocence and tenderness.

'Twas said that he had refuge sought

In love from his unquiet thought

In distant lands, and been deceived

By some strange show; for there were found,

Blotted with tears as those relieved

By their own words are wont to do,

These mournful verses on the ground,

By all who read them blotted too.

"How am I changed! my hopes were once like fire:

I loved, and I believed that life was love.

How am I lost! on wings of swift desire

Among Heaven's winds my spirit once did move.

I slept, and silver dreams did aye inspire

My liquid sleep: I woke, and did approve

All nature to my heart, and thought to make

A paradise of earth for one sweet sake.

"I love, but I believe in love no more.

I feel desire, but hope not. O, from sleep

Most vainly must my weary brain implore

Its long lost flattery now: I wake to weep,

And sit through the long day gnawing the core

Of my bitter heart, and, like a miser, keep,

Since none in what I feel take pain or pleasure,

To my own soul its self-consuming treasure."

He dwelt beside me near the sea:

And oft in evening did we meet,

When the waves, beneath the starlight, flee

O'er the yellow sands with silver feet,

And talked: our talk was sad and sweet,

Till slowly from his mien there passed

The desolation which it spoke;

And smiles, -- as when the lightning's blast

Has parched some heaven-delighting oak,

The next spring shows leaves pale and rare,

But like flowers delicate and fair,

On its rent boughs, -- again arrayed

His countenance in tender light:

His words grew subtile fire, which made

The air his hearers breathed delight:

His motions, like the winds, were free,

Which bend the bright grass gracefully,

Then fade away in circlets faint:

And wingèd Hope, on which upborne

His soul seemed hovering in his eyes,

Like some bright spirit newly born

Floating amid the sunny skies,

Sprang forth from his rent heart anew.

Yet o'er his talk, and looks, and mien,

Tempering their loveliness too keen,

Past woe its shadow backward threw,

Till like an exhalation, spread

From flowers half drunk with evening dew,

They did become infectious: sweet

And subtile mists of sense and thought:

Which wrapped us soon, when we might meet,

Almost from our own looks and aught

The wide world holds. And so, his mind

Was healed, while mine grew sick with fear:

For ever now his health declined,

Like some frail bark which cannot bear

The impulse of an altered wind,

Though prosperous: and my heart grew full

'Mid its new joy of a new care:

For his cheek became, not pale, but fair,

As rose-o'ershadowed lilies are;

And soon his deep and sunny hair,

In this alone less beautiful,

Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare.

The blood in his translucent veins

Beat, not like animal life, but love

Seemed now its sullen springs to move,

When life had failed, and all its pains:

And sudden sleep would seize him oft

Like death, so calm, but that a tear,

His pointed eyelashes between,

Would gather in the light serene

Of smiles, whose lustre bright and soft

Beneath lay undulating there.

His breath was like inconstant flame,

As eagerly it went and came;

And I hung o'er him in his sleep,

Till, like an image in the lake

Which rains disturb, my tears would break

The shadow of that slumber deep:

Then he would bid me not to weep,

And say with flattery false, yet sweet,

That death and he could never meet,

If I would never part with him.

And so we loved, and did unite

All that in us was yet divided:

For when he said, that many a rite,

By men to bind but once provided,

Could not be shared by him and me,

Or they would kill him in their glee,

I shuddered, and then laughing said --

"We will have rites our faith to bind,

But our church shall be the starry night,

Our altar the grassy earth outspread,

And our priest the muttering wind."

'Twas sunset as I spoke: one star

Had scarce burst forth, when from afar

The ministers of misrule sent,

Seized upon Lionel, and bore

His chained limbs to a dreary tower,

In the midst of a city vast and wide.

For he, they said, from his mind had bent

Against their gods keen blasphemy,

For which, though his soul must roasted be

In hell's red lakes immortally,

Yet even on earth must he abide

The vengeance of their slaves: a trial,

I think, men call it. What avail

Are prayers and tears, which chase denial

From the fierce savage, nursed in hate?

What the knit soul that pleading and pale

Makes wan the quivering cheek, which late

It painted with its own delight?

We were divided. As I could,

I stilled the tingling of my blood,

And followed him in their despite,

As a widow follows, pale and wild,

The murderers and corse of her only child;

And when we came to the prison door

And I prayed to share his dungeon floor

With prayers which rarely have been spurned,

And when men drove me forth and I

Stared with blank frenzy on the sky,

A farewell look of love he turned,

Half calming me; then gazed awhile,

As if thro' that black and massy pile,

And thro' the crowd around him there,

And thro' the dense and murky air,

And the thronged streets, he did espy

What poets know and prophesy;

And said, with voice that made them shiver

And clung like music in my brain,

And which the mute walls spoke again

Prolonging it with deepened strain:

"Fear not the tyrants shall rule for ever,

Or the priests of the bloody faith;

They stand on the brink of that mighty river,

Whose waves they have tainted with death:

It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,

Around them it foams, and rages, and swells,

And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,

Like wrecks in the surge of eternity."

I dwelt beside the prison gate,

And the strange crowd that out and in

Passed, some, no doubt, with mine own fate,

Might have fretted me with its ceaseless din,

But the fever of care was louder within.

Soon, but too late, in penitence

Or fear, his foes released him thence:

I saw his thin and languid form,

As leaning on the jailor's arm,

Whose hardened eyes grew moist the while,

To meet his mute and faded smile,

And hear his words of kind farewell,

He tottered forth from his damp cell.

Many had never wept before,

From whom fast tears then gushed and fell:

Many will relent no more,

Who sobbed like infants then: aye, all

Who thronged the prison's stony hall,

The rulers or the slaves of law,

Felt with a new surprise and awe

That they were human, till strong shame

Made them again become the same.

The prison blood-hounds, huge and grim,

From human looks the infection caught,

And fondly crouched and fawned on him;

And men have heard the prisoners say,

Who in their rotting dungeons lay,

That from that hour, throughout one day,

The fierce despair and hate which kept

Their trampled bosoms almost slept:

Where, like twin vultures, they hung feeding

On each heart's wound, wide torn and bleeding, --

Because their jailors' rule, they thought,

Grew merciful, like a parent's sway.

I know not how, but we were free:

And Lionel sate alone with me,

As the carriage drove thro' the streets apace;

And we looked upon each other's face;

And the blood in our fingers intertwined

Ran like the thoughts of a single mind,

As the swift emotions went and came

Thro' the veins of each united frame.

So thro' the long long streets we passed

Of the million-peopled City vast;

Which is that desert, where each one

Seeks his mate yet is alone,

Beloved and sought and mourned of none;

Until the clear blue sky was seen,

And the grassy meadows bright and green,

And then I sunk in his embrace,

Enclosing there a mighty space

Of love: and so we travelled on

By woods, and fields of yellow flowers,

And towns, and villages, and towers,

Day after day of happy hours.

It was the azure time of June,

When the skies are deep in the stainless noon,

And the warm and fitful breezes shake

The fresh green leaves of the hedge-row briar,

And there were odours then to make

The very breath we did respire

A liquid element, whereon

Our spirits, like delighted things

That walk the air on subtle wings,

Floated and mingled far away,

'Mid the warm winds of the sunny day.

And when the evening star came forth

Above the curve of the new bent moon,

And light and sound ebbed from the earth,

Like the tide of the full and weary sea

To the depths of its tranquillity,

Our natures to its own repose

Did the earth's breathless sleep attune:

Like flowers, which on each other close

Their languid leaves when daylight's gone,

We lay, till new emotions came,

Which seemed to make each mortal frame

One soul of interwoven flame,

A life in life, a second birth

In worlds diviner far than earth,

Which, like two strains of harmony

That mingle in the silent sky

Then slowly disunite, passed by

And left the tenderness of tears,

A soft oblivion of all fears,

A sweet sleep: so we travelled on

Till we came to the home of Lionel,

Among the mountains wild and lone,

Beside the hoary western sea,

Which near the verge of the echoing shore

The massy forest shadowed o'er.

The ancient steward, with hair all hoar,

As we alighted, wept to see

His master changed so fearfully;

And the old man's sobs did waken me

From my dream of unremaining gladness;

The truth flashed o'er me like quick madness

When I looked, and saw that there was death

On Lionel: yet day by day

He lived, till fear grew hope and faith,

And in my soul I dared to say,

Nothing so bright can pass away:

Death is dark, and foul, and dull,

But he is -- O how beautiful!

Yet day by day he grew more weak,

And his sweet voice, when he might speak,

Which ne'er was loud, became more low;

And the light which flashed through his waxen cheek

Grew faint, as the rose-like hues which flow

From sunset o'er the Alpine snow:

And death seemed not like death in him,

For the spirit of life o'er every limb

Lingered, a mist of sense and thought.

When the summer wind faint odours brought

From mountain flowers, even as it passed

His cheek would change, as the noonday sea

Which the dying breeze sweeps fitfully.

If but a cloud the sky o'ercast,

You might see his colour come and go,

And the softest strain of music made

Sweet smiles, yet sad, arise and fade

Amid the dew of his tender eyes;

And the breath, with intermitting flow,

Made his pale lips quiver and part.

You might hear the beatings of his heart,

Quick, but not strong; and with my tresses

When oft he playfully would bind

In the bowers of mossy lonelinesses

His neck, and win me so to mingle

In the sweet depth of woven caresses,

And our faint limbs were intertwined,

Alas! the unquiet life did tingle

From mine own heart through every vein,

Like a captive in dreams of liberty,

Who beats the walls of his stony cell.

But his, it seemed already free,

Like the shadow of fire surrounding me!

On my faint eyes and limbs did dwell

That spirit as it passed, till soon,

As a frail cloud wandering o'er the moon,

Beneath its light invisible,

Is seen when it folds its gray wings again

To alight on midnight's dusky plain,

I lived and saw, and the gathering soul

Passed from beneath that strong control,

And I fell on a life which was sick with fear

Of all the woe that now I bear.

Amid a bloomless myrtle wood,

On a green and sea-girt promontory,

Not far from where we dwelt, there stood

In record of a sweet sad story,

An altar and a temple bright

Circled by steps, and o'er the gate

Was sculptured, "To Fidelity";

And in the shrine an image sate,

All veiled: but there was seen the light

Of smiles, which faintly could express

A mingled pain and tenderness

Through that ethereal drapery.

The left hand held the head, the right --

Beyond the veil, beneath the skin,

You might see the nerves quivering within --

Was forcing the point of a barbèd dart

Into its side-convulsing heart.

An unskilled hand, yet one informed

With genius, had the marble warmed

With that pathetic life. This tale

It told: A dog had from the sea,

When the tide was raging fearfully,

Dragged Lionel's mother, weak and pale,

Then died beside her on the sand,

And she that temple thence had planned;

But it was Lionel's own hand

Had wrought the image. Each new moon

That lady did, in this lone fane,

The rites of a religion sweet,

Whose god was in her heart and brain:

The seasons' loveliest flowers were strewn

On the marble floor beneath her feet,

And she brought crowns of sea-buds white,

Whose odour is so sweet and faint,

And weeds, like branching chrysolite,

Woven in devices fine and quaint,

And tears from her brown eyes did stain

The altar: need but look upon

That dying statue fair and wan,

If tears should cease, to weep again:

And rare Arabian odours came,

Through the myrtle copses steaming thence

From the hissing frankincense,

Whose smoke, wool-white as ocean foam.

Hung in dense flocks beneath the dome --

That ivory dome, whose azure night

With golden stars, like heaven, was bright --

O'er the split cedar's pointed flame;

And the lady's harp would kindle there

The melody of an old air,

Softer than sleep; the villagers

Mixed their religion up with hers,

And as they listened round, shed tears.

One eve he led me to this fane:

Daylight on its last purple cloud

Was lingering gray, and soon her strain

The nightingale began; now loud,

Climbing in circles the windless sky,

Now dying music; suddenly

'Tis scattered in a thousand notes,

And now to the hushed ear it floats

Like field smells known in infancy,

Then failing, soothes the air again.

We sate within that temple lone,

Pavilioned round with Parian stone:

His mother's harp stood near, and oft

I had awakened music soft

Amid its wires: the nightingale

Was pausing in her heaven-taught tale:

"Now drain the cup," said Lionel,

"Which the poet-bird has crowned so well

With the wine of her bright and liquid song!

Heardst thou not sweet words among

That heaven-resounding minstrelsy?

Heardst thou not, that those who die

Awake in a world of ecstasy?

That love, when limbs are interwoven,

And sleep, when the night of life is cloven,

And thought, to the world's dim boundaries clinging,

And music, when one beloved is singing,

Is death? Let us drain right joyously

The cup which the sweet bird fills for me."

He paused, and to my lips he bent

His own: like spirit his words went

Through all my limbs with the speed of fire;

And his keen eyes, glittering through mine,

Filled me with the flame divine,

Which in their orbs was burning far,

Like the light of an unmeasured star,

In the sky of midnight dark and deep:

Yes, 'twas his soul that did inspire

Sounds, which my skill could ne'er awaken;

And first, I felt my fingers sweep

The harp, and a long quivering cry

Burst from my lips in symphony:

The dusk and solid air was shaken,

As swift and swifter the notes came

From my touch, that wandered like quick flame,

And from my bosom, labouring

With some unutterable thing:

The awful sound of my own voice made

My faint lips tremble; in some mood

Of wordless thought Lionel stood

So pale, that even beside his cheek

The snowy column from its shade

Caught whiteness: yet his countenance

Raised upward, burned with radiance

Of spirit-piercing joy, whose light,

Like the moon struggling through the night

Of whirlwind-rifted clouds, did break

With beams that might not be confined.

I paused, but soon his gestures kindled

New power, as by the moving wind

The waves are lifted, and my song

To low soft notes now changed and dwindled,

And from the twinkling wires among,

My languid fingers drew and flung

Circles of life-dissolving sound,

Yet faint; in aëry rings they bound

My Lionel, who, as every strain

Grew fainter but more sweet, his mien

Sunk with the sound relaxedly;

And slowly now he turned to me,

As slowly faded from his face

That awful joy: with looks serene

He was soon drawn to my embrace,

And my wild song then died away

In murmurs: words I dare not say

We mixed, and on his lips mine fed

Till they methought felt still and cold:

"What is it with thee, love?" I said:

No word, no look, no motion! yes,

There was a change, but spare to guess,

Nor let that moment's hope be told.

I looked, and knew that he was dead,

And fell, as the eagle on the plain

Falls when life deserts her brain,

And the mortal lightning is veiled again.

O that I were now dead! but such

(Did they not, love, demand too much,

Those dying murmurs?) he forbade.

O that I once again were mad!

And yet, dear Rosalind, not so,

For I would live to share thy woe.

Sweet boy, did I forget thee too?

Alas, we know not what we do

When we speak words.

Is in my mind of that sea shore.

Madness came on me, and a troop

Of misty shapes did seem to sit

Beside me, on a vessel's poop,

And the clear north wind was driving it.

Then I heard strange tongues, and saw strange flowers,

And the stars methought grew unlike ours,

And the azure sky and the stormless sea

Made me believe that I had died,

And waked in a world, which was to me

Drear hell, though heaven to all beside:

Then a dead sleep fell on my mind,

Whilst animal life many long years

Had rescue from a chasm of tears;

And when I woke, I wept to find

That the same lady, bright and wise,

With silver locks and quick brown eyes,

The mother of my Lionel,

Had tended me in my distress,

And died some months before. Nor less

Wonder, but far more peace and joy

Brought in that hour my lovely boy;

For through that trance my soul had well

The impress of thy being kept;

And if I waked, or if I slept,

No doubt, though memory faithless be,

Thy image ever dwelt on me;

And thus, O Lionel, like thee

Is our sweet child. 'Tis sure most strange

I knew not of so great a change,

As that which gave him birth, who now

Is all the solace of my woe.

That Lionel great wealth had left

By will to me, and that of all

The ready lies of law bereft

My child and me, might well befall.

But let me think not of the scorn,

Which from the meanest I have borne,

When, for my child's belovèd sake,

I mixed with slaves, to vindicate

The very laws themselves do make:

Let me not say scorn is my fate,

Lest I be proud, suffering the same

With those who live in deathless fame.

She ceased. -- "Lo, where red morning thro' the woods

Is burning o'er the dew"; said Rosalind.

And with these words they rose, and towards the flood

Of the blue lake, beneath the leaves now wind

With equal steps and fingers intertwined:

Thence to a lonely dwelling, where the shore

Is shadowed with deep rocks, and cypresses

Cleave with their dark green cones the silent skies,

And with their shadows the clear depths below,

And where a little terrace from its bowers,

Of blooming myrtle and faint lemon-flowers,

Scatters its sense-dissolving fragrance o'er

The liquid marble of the windless lake;

And where the agèd forest's limbs look hoar,

Under the leaves which their green garments make,

They come: 'tis Helen's home, and clean and white,

Like one which tyrants spare on our own land

In some such solitude, its casements bright

Shone through their vine-leaves in the morning sun,

And even within 'twas scarce like Italy.

And when she saw how all things there were planned,

As in an English home, dim memory

Disturbed poor Rosalind: she stood as one

Whose mind is where his body cannot be,

Till Helen led her where her child yet slept,

And said, "Observe, that brow was Lionel's,

Those lips were his, and so he ever kept

One arm in sleep, pillowing his head with it.

You cannot see his eyes, they are two wells

Of liquid love: let us not wake him yet."

But Rosalind could bear no more, and wept

A shower of burning tears, which fell upon

His face, and so his opening lashes shone

With tears unlike his own, as he did leap

In sudden wonder from his innocent sleep.

So Rosalind and Helen lived together

Thenceforth, changed in all else, yet friends again,

Such as they were, when o'er the mountain heather

They wandered in their youth, through sun and rain.

And after many years, for human things

Change even like the ocean and the wind,

Her daughter was restored to Rosalind,

And in their circle thence some visitings

Of joy 'mid their new calm would intervene:

A lovely child she was, of looks serene,

And motions which o'er things indifferent shed

The grace and gentleness from whence they came.

And Helen's boy grew with her, and they fed

From the same flowers of thought, until each mind

Like springs which mingle in one flood became,

And in their union soon their parents saw

The shadow of the peace denied to them.

And Rosalind, for when the living stem

Is cankered in its heart, the tree must fall,

Died ere her time; and with deep grief and awe

The pale survivors followed her remains

Beyond the region of dissolving rains,

Up the cold mountain she was wont to call

Her tomb; and on Chiavenna's precipice

They raised a pyramid of lasting ice,

Whose polished sides, ere day had yet begun,

Caught the first glow of the unrisen sun,

The last, when it had sunk; and thro' the night

The charioteers of Arctos wheelèd round

Its glittering point, as seen from Helen's home,

Whose sad inhabitants each year would come,

With willing steps climbing that rugged height,

And hang long locks of hair, and garlands bound

With amaranth flowers, which, in the clime's despite,

Filled the frore air with unaccustomed light:

Such flowers, as in the wintry memory bloom

Of one friend left, adorned that frozen tomb.

Helen, whose spirit was of softer mould,

Whose sufferings too were less, Death slowlier led

Into the peace of his dominion cold:

She died among her kindred, being old.

And know, that if love die not in the dead

As in the living, none of mortal kind

Are blest, as now Helen and Rosalind.