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 daysChasing each other o’er a flowery plain,Like fairy lovers; all thy modest waysFell on fond hearts as falls the summer rainOn 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 strifeFlitted betwixt us and futurity.IX.“The woods our secret knew; their quivering lipsUttered it audibly; the conscious flowersBlushed as we passed them to their throbbing tips,And all the blissful warblers of green bowersTold 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-cloudThat 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 sparkOf loved Lysander; Oh! his peerless eyesHeld 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 illumedHer incorporeal features, and the thawOf 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 gazedUp the sheer heights where climbed Napoleon’s host,And saw the towering peaks where crashed and blazedThe 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 redeemFrom 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 bentOn 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 grieveAwaits our coming in the firmament?XIX.“Dear to the people dwelling in the skiesIs he who for his country copes with death,And, vanquished or victorious, nobly dies;The air that gives and takes his latest breathIs thence inhaled by souls of feeble faith,And freedom flashes from their lifted eyes.XX.“Come! dear Eudora, while the waning lightBurns 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 hairFor us to tread upon; we need not fearProud Leo wakeful in his azure lair,Nor Taurus’ rampant horns and brow severe,Nor all the glittering terrors that appearIn 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 humOf 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 WardBecame 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.
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 daysChasing each other o’er a flowery plain,Like fairy lovers; all thy modest waysFell on fond hearts as falls the summer rainOn 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 strifeFlitted betwixt us and futurity.IX.“The woods our secret knew; their quivering lipsUttered it audibly; the conscious flowersBlushed as we passed them to their throbbing tips,And all the blissful warblers of green bowersTold 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-cloudThat 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 sparkOf loved Lysander; Oh! his peerless eyesHeld 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 illumedHer incorporeal features, and the thawOf 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 gazedUp the sheer heights where climbed Napoleon’s host,And saw the towering peaks where crashed and blazedThe 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 redeemFrom 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 bentOn 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 grieveAwaits our coming in the firmament?XIX.“Dear to the people dwelling in the skiesIs he who for his country copes with death,And, vanquished or victorious, nobly dies;The air that gives and takes his latest breathIs thence inhaled by souls of feeble faith,And freedom flashes from their lifted eyes.XX.“Come! dear Eudora, while the waning lightBurns 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 hairFor us to tread upon; we need not fearProud Leo wakeful in his azure lair,Nor Taurus’ rampant horns and brow severe,Nor all the glittering terrors that appearIn 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 humOf 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 WardBecame 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.
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 daysChasing each other o’er a flowery plain,Like fairy lovers; all thy modest waysFell on fond hearts as falls the summer rainOn 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 strifeFlitted betwixt us and futurity.
IX.“The woods our secret knew; their quivering lipsUttered it audibly; the conscious flowersBlushed as we passed them to their throbbing tips,And all the blissful warblers of green bowersTold 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-cloudThat 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 sparkOf loved Lysander; Oh! his peerless eyesHeld 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 illumedHer incorporeal features, and the thawOf 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 gazedUp the sheer heights where climbed Napoleon’s host,And saw the towering peaks where crashed and blazedThe 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 redeemFrom 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 bentOn 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 grieveAwaits our coming in the firmament?
XIX.“Dear to the people dwelling in the skiesIs he who for his country copes with death,And, vanquished or victorious, nobly dies;The air that gives and takes his latest breathIs thence inhaled by souls of feeble faith,And freedom flashes from their lifted eyes.
XX.“Come! dear Eudora, while the waning lightBurns 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 hairFor us to tread upon; we need not fearProud Leo wakeful in his azure lair,Nor Taurus’ rampant horns and brow severe,Nor all the glittering terrors that appearIn 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 humOf 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 WardBecame 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.