Liberal he was of soul, and frank of heart,And to his many friends—all loved him well—Whate’er he knew or felt he would impart,
If words he found those inmost thoughts to tell;If not, he smiled or wept; and his weak foes _50He neither spurned nor hated—though with fell
And mortal hate their thousand voices rose,They passed like aimless arrows from his ear—Nor did his heart or mind its portal close
To those, or them, or any, whom life’s sphere _55May comprehend within its wide array.What sadness made that vernal spirit sere?—
He knew not. Though his life, day after day,Was failing like an unreplenished stream,Though in his eyes a cloud and burthen lay, _60
Through which his soul, like Vesper’s serene beamPiercing the chasms of ever rising clouds,Shone, softly burning; though his lips did seem
Like reeds which quiver in impetuous floods;And through his sleep, and o’er each waking hour, _65Thoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes,
Were driven within him by some secret power,Which bade them blaze, and live, and roll afar,Like lights and sounds, from haunted tower to tower
O’er castled mountains borne, when tempest’s war _70Is levied by the night-contending winds,And the pale dalesmen watch with eager ear;—
Though such were in his spirit, as the fiendsWhich wake and feed an everliving woe,—What was this grief, which ne’er in other minds _75
A mirror found,—he knew not—none could know;But on whoe’er might question him he turnedThe light of his frank eyes, as if to show
He knew not of the grief within that burned,But asked forbearance with a mournful look; _80Or spoke in words from which none ever learned
The cause of his disquietude; or shookWith spasms of silent passion; or turned pale:So that his friends soon rarely undertook
To stir his secret pain without avail;— _85For all who knew and loved him then perceivedThat there was drawn an adamantine veil
Between his heart and mind,—both unrelievedWrought in his brain and bosom separate strife.Some said that he was mad, others believed _90
That memories of an antenatal lifeMade this, where now he dwelt, a penal hell;And others said that such mysterious grief
From God’s displeasure, like a darkness, fellOn souls like his, which owned no higher law _95Than love; love calm, steadfast, invincible
By mortal fear or supernatural awe;And others,—‘’Tis the shadow of a dreamWhich the veiled eye of Memory never saw,
‘But through the soul’s abyss, like some dark stream _100Through shattered mines and caverns underground,Rolls, shaking its foundations; and no beam
‘Of joy may rise, but it is quenched and drownedIn the dim whirlpools of this dream obscure;Soon its exhausted waters will have found _105
‘A lair of rest beneath thy spirit pure,O Athanase!—in one so good and great,Evil or tumult cannot long endure.
So spake they: idly of another’s stateBabbling vain words and fond philosophy; _110This was their consolation; such debate
Men held with one another; nor did he,Like one who labours with a human woe,Decline this talk: as if its theme might be
Another, not himself, he to and fro _115Questioned and canvassed it with subtlest wit;And none but those who loved him best could know
That which he knew not, how it galled and bitHis weary mind, this converse vain and cold;For like an eyeless nightmare grief did sit _120
Upon his being; a snake which fold by foldPressed out the life of life, a clinging fiendWhich clenched him if he stirred with deadlier hold;—And so his grief remained—let it remain—untold. [1]
Prince Athanase had one beloved friend, _125An old, old man, with hair of silver white,And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend
With his wise words; and eyes whose arrowy lightShone like the reflex of a thousand minds.He was the last whom superstition’s blight _130
Had spared in Greece—the blight that cramps and blinds,—And in his olive bower at OenoeHad sate from earliest youth. Like one who finds
A fertile island in the barren sea,One mariner who has survived his mates _135Many a drear month in a great ship—so he
With soul-sustaining songs, and sweet debatesOf ancient lore, there fed his lonely being:—‘The mind becomes that which it contemplates,’—
And thus Zonoras, by for ever seeing _140Their bright creations, grew like wisest men;And when he heard the crash of nations fleeing
A bloodier power than ruled thy ruins then,O sacred Hellas! many weary yearsHe wandered, till the path of Laian’s glen _145
Was grass-grown—and the unremembered tearsWere dry in Laian for their honoured chief,Who fell in Byzant, pierced by Moslem spears:—
And as the lady looked with faithful griefFrom her high lattice o’er the rugged path, _150Where she once saw that horseman toil, with brief
And blighting hope, who with the news of deathStruck body and soul as with a mortal blight,She saw between the chestnuts, far beneath,
An old man toiling up, a weary wight; _155And soon within her hospitable hallShe saw his white hairs glittering in the light
Of the wood fire, and round his shoulders fall;And his wan visage and his withered mien,Yet calm and gentle and majestical. _160
And Athanase, her child, who must have beenThen three years old, sate opposite and gazedIn patient silence.
Such was Zonoras; and as daylight findsOne amaranth glittering on the path of frost, _165When autumn nights have nipped all weaker kinds,
Thus through his age, dark, cold, and tempest-tossed,Shone truth upon Zonoras; and he filledFrom fountains pure, nigh overgrown and lost,
The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child, _170With soul-sustaining songs of ancient loreAnd philosophic wisdom, clear and mild.
And sweet and subtle talk they evermore,The pupil and the master, shared; until,Sharing that undiminishable store, _175
The youth, as shadows on a grassy hillOutrun the winds that chase them, soon outranHis teacher, and did teach with native skill
Strange truths and new to that experienced man;Still they were friends, as few have ever been _180Who mark the extremes of life’s discordant span.
So in the caverns of the forest green,Or on the rocks of echoing ocean hoar,Zonoras and Prince Athanase were seen
By summer woodmen; and when winter’s roar _185Sounded o’er earth and sea its blast of war,The Balearic fisher, driven from shore,
Hanging upon the peaked wave afar,Then saw their lamp from Laian’s turret gleam,Piercing the stormy darkness, like a star _190
Which pours beyond the sea one steadfast beam,Whilst all the constellations of the skySeemed reeling through the storm…They did but seem—
For, lo! the wintry clouds are all gone by,And bright Arcturus through yon pines is glowing, _195And far o’er southern waves, immovably
Belted Orion hangs—warm light is flowingFrom the young moon into the sunset’s chasm.—‘O, summer eve! with power divine, bestowing
‘On thine own bird the sweet enthusiasm _200Which overflows in notes of liquid gladness,Filling the sky like light! How many a spasm
‘Of fevered brains, oppressed with grief and madness,Were lulled by thee, delightful nightingale,—And these soft waves, murmuring a gentle sadness,— _205
‘And the far sighings of yon piny daleMade vocal by some wind we feel not here.—I bear alone what nothing may avail
‘To lighten—a strange load!’—No human earHeard this lament; but o’er the visage wan _210Of Athanase, a ruffling atmosphere
Of dark emotion, a swift shadow, ran,Like wind upon some forest-bosomed lake,Glassy and dark.—And that divine old man
Beheld his mystic friend’s whole being shake, _215Even where its inmost depths were gloomiest—And with a calm and measured voice he spake,
And, with a soft and equal pressure, pressedThat cold lean hand:—‘Dost thou remember yetWhen the curved moon then lingering in the west _220
‘Paused, in yon waves her mighty horns to wet,How in those beams we walked, half resting on the sea?’Tis just one year—sure thou dost not forget—
‘Then Plato’s words of light in thee and meLingered like moonlight in the moonless east, _225For we had just then read—thy memory
‘Is faithful now—the story of the feast;And Agathon and Diotima seemedFrom death and dark forgetfulness released…’
And when the old man saw that on the greenLeaves of his opening … a blight had lighted _230He said: ‘My friend, one grief alone can wean
A gentle mind from all that once delighted:—Thou lovest, and thy secret heart is ladenWith feelings which should not be unrequited.’ _235
And Athanase … then smiled, as one o’erladenWith iron chains might smile to talk (?) of bandsTwined round her lover’s neck by some blithe maiden,And said…
’Twas at the season when the Earth upsprings _240From slumber, as a sphered angel’s child,Shadowing its eyes with green and golden wings,
Stands up before its mother bright and mild,Of whose soft voice the air expectant seems—So stood before the sun, which shone and smiled _245
To see it rise thus joyous from its dreams,The fresh and radiant Earth. The hoary groveWaxed green—and flowers burst forth like starry beams;—
The grass in the warm sun did start and move,And sea-buds burst under the waves serene:— _250How many a one, though none be near to love,
Loves then the shade of his own soul, half seenIn any mirror—or the spring’s young minions,The winged leaves amid the copses green;—
How many a spirit then puts on the pinions _255Of fancy, and outstrips the lagging blast,And his own steps—and over wide dominions
Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast,More fleet than storms—the wide world shrinks below,When winter and despondency are past. _260
’Twas at this season that Prince AthanasePassed the white Alps—those eagle-baffling mountainsSlept in their shrouds of snow;—beside the ways
The waterfalls were voiceless—for their fountainsWere changed to mines of sunless crystal now, _265Or by the curdling winds—like brazen wings
Which clanged along the mountain’s marble brow—Warped into adamantine fretwork, hungAnd filled with frozen light the chasms below.
Vexed by the blast, the great pines groaned and swung _270Under their load of [snow]—……Such as the eagle sees, when he dives downFrom the gray deserts of wide air, [beheld] _275[Prince] Athanase; and o’er his mien (?) was thrown
The shadow of that scene, field after field,Purple and dim and wide…
Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is allWe can desire, O Love! and happy souls, _280Ere from thy vine the leaves of autumn fall,
Catch thee, and feed from their o’erflowing bowlsThousands who thirst for thine ambrosial dew;—Thou art the radiance which where ocean rolls
Investeth it; and when the heavens are blue _285Thou fillest them; and when the earth is fairThe shadow of thy moving wings imbue
Its deserts and its mountains, till they wearBeauty like some light robe;—thou ever soarestAmong the towers of men, and as soft air _290
In spring, which moves the unawakened forest,Clothing with leaves its branches bare and bleak,Thou floatest among men; and aye implorest
That which from thee they should implore:—the weakAlone kneel to thee, offering up the hearts _295The strong have broken—yet where shall any seek
A garment whom thou clothest not? the dartsOf the keen winter storm, barbed with frost,Which, from the everlasting snow that parts
The Alps from Heaven, pierce some traveller lost _300In the wide waved interminable snowUngarmented,…
Yes, often when the eyes are cold and dry,And the lips calm, the Spirit weeps withinTears bitterer than the blood of agony _305
Trembling in drops on the discoloured skinOf those who love their kind and therefore perishIn ghastly torture—a sweet medicine
Of peace and sleep are tears, and quietlyThem soothe from whose uplifted eyes they fall _310But…
Her hair was brown, her sphered eyes were brown,And in their dark and liquid moisture swam,Like the dim orb of the eclipsed moon;
Yet when the spirit flashed beneath, there came _315The light from them, as when tears of delightDouble the western planet’s serene flame.
NOTES: _19 strange edition 1839; deep edition 1824. _74 feed an Bodleian manuscript; feed on editions 1824, 1839.
_124 [1. The Author was pursuing a fuller development of the ideal character of Athanase, when it struck him that in an attempt at extreme refinement and analysis, his conceptions might be betrayed into the assuming a morbid character. The reader will judge whether he is a loser or gainer by this diffidence. [Shelley’s Note.] Footnote diffidence cj. Rossetti (1878); difference editions 1824, 1839.]
_154 beneath editions 1824, 1839; between Bodleian manuscript. _165 One Bodleian manuscript edition 1839; An edition 1824. _167 Thus thro’ Bodleian manuscript (?) edition 1839; Thus had edition 1824. _173 talk they edition 1824, Bodleian manuscript; talk now edition 1839. _175 that edition 1839; the edition 1824. _182 So edition 1839; And edition 1824. _183 Or on Bodleian manuscript; Or by editions 1824, 1839. _199 eve Bodleian manuscript edition 1839; night edition 1824. _212 emotion, a swift editions 1824, 1839; emotion with swift Bodleian manuscript. _250 under edition 1824, Bodleian manuscript; beneath edition 1839. _256 outstrips editions 1824, 1839; outrides Bodleian manuscript. _259 Exulting, while the wide Bodleian manuscript. _262 mountains editions 1824, 1839; crags Bodleian manuscript. _264 fountains editions 1824, 1839; springs Bodleian manuscript. _269 chasms Bodleian manuscript; chasm editions 1824, 1839. _283 thine Bodleian manuscript; thy editions 1824, 1839. _285 Investeth Bodleian manuscript; Investest editions 1824, 1839. _289 light Bodleian manuscript; bright editions 1824, 1839.
***
[Begun at Marlow, 1817 (summer); already in the press, March, 1818; finished at the Baths of Lucca, August, 1818; published with other poems, as the title-piece of a slender volume, by C. & J. Ollier, London, 1819 (spring). See “Biographical List”. Sources of the text are (1) editio princeps, 1819; (2) “Poetical Works”, edition Mrs. Shelley, 1839, editions 1st and 2nd. A fragment of the text is amongst the Boscombe manuscripts. The poem is reprinted here from the editio princeps; verbal alterations are recorded in the footnotes, punctual in the Editor’s Notes at the end of Volume 3.]
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 awakens 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 impulses 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 it 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”.—Editor.), 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 of 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, December 20, 1818.
HELEN:Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.’Tis long since thou and I have met;And yet methinks it were unkindThose moments to forget.Come, sit by me. I see thee stand _5By this lone lake, in this far land,Thy loose hair in the light wind flying,Thy sweet voice to each tone of evenUnited, and thine eyes replyingTo the hues of yon fair heaven. _10Come, gentle friend: wilt sit by me?And be as thou wert wont to beEre we were disunited?None doth behold us now; the powerThat led us forth at this lone hour _15Will be but ill requitedIf thou depart in scorn: oh! come,And talk of our abandoned home.Remember, this is Italy,And we are exiles. Talk with me _20Of 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 _25Like wrecks of childhood’s sunny dream:Which that we have abandoned now,Weighs on the heart like that remorseWhich altered friendship leaves. I seekNo more our youthful intercourse. _30That 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: _35But 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 scorned self who prayed to thee.
ROSALIND:Is it a dream, or do I see _40And hear frail Helen? I would fleeThy tainting touch; but former yearsArise, and bring forbidden tears;And my o’erburthened memorySeeks yet its lost repose in thee. _45I share thy crime. I cannot chooseBut weep for thee: mine own strange griefBut seldom stoops to such relief:Nor ever did I love thee less,Though mourning o’er thy wickedness _50Even with a sister’s woe. I knewWhat to the evil world is due,And therefore sternly did refuseTo link me with the infamyOf one so lost as Helen. Now _55Bewildered by my dire despair,Wondering I blush, and weep that thouShould’st love me still,—thou only!—There,Let us sit on that gray stoneTill our mournful talk be done. _60
HELEN:Alas! not there; I cannot bearThe murmur of this lake to hear.A sound from there, Rosalind dear,Which never yet I heard elsewhereBut in our native land, recurs, _65Even here where now we meet. It stirsToo much of suffocating sorrow!In the dell of yon dark chestnutwoodIs a stone seat, a solitudeLess like our own. The ghost of Peace _70Will 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 seatWhere you are going? This is not the way, _75Mamma; it leads behind those trees that growClose 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 _80You 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 _85Lifted a sudden look upon his mother,And in the gleam of forced and hollow joyWhich lightened o’er her face, laughed with the gleeOf light and unsuspecting infancy,And whispered in her ear, ‘Bring home with you _90That 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 _95Beneath the forest’s solitude.It was a vast and antique wood,Thro’ which they took their way;And the gray shades of eveningO’er that green wilderness did fling _100Still deeper solitude.Pursuing still the path that woundThe vast and knotted trees aroundThrough which slow shades were wandering,To a deep lawny dell they came, _105To a stone seat beside a spring,O’er which the columned wood did frameA roofless temple, like the faneWhere, ere new creeds could faith obtain,Man’s early race once knelt beneath _110The overhanging deity.O’er this fair fountain hung the sky,Now spangled with rare stars. The snake,The pale snake, that with eager breathCreeps here his noontide thirst to slake, _115Is beaming with many a mingled hue,Shed from yon dome’s eternal blue,When he floats on that dark and lucid floodIn the light of his own loveliness;And the birds that in the fountain dip _120Their plumes, with fearless fellowshipAbove and round him wheel and hover.The fitful wind is heard to stirOne solitary leaf on high;The chirping of the grasshopper _125Fills every pause. There is emotionIn all that dwells at noontide here;Then, through the intricate wild wood,A maze of life and light and motionIs woven. But there is stillness now: _130Gloom, 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: _135Only the owls and the nightingalesWake in this dell when daylight fails,And gray shades gather in the woods:And the owls have all fled far awayIn a merrier glen to hoot and play, _140For the moon is veiled and sleeping now.The accustomed nightingale still broodsOn her accustomed bough,But she is mute; for her false mateHas fled and left her desolate. _145
This silent spot tradition oldHad peopled with the spectral dead.For the roots of the speaker’s hair felt coldAnd stiff, as with tremulous lips he toldThat a hellish shape at midnight led _150The 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: _155For here a sister and a brotherHad solemnized a monstrous curse,Meeting in this fair solitude:For beneath yon very sky,Had they resigned to one another _160Body 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, _165A priest saved to burn in the market-place.
Duly at evening Helen cameTo this lone silent spot,From the wrecks of a tale of wilder sorrowSo much of sympathy to borrow _170As soothed her own dark lot.Duly each evening from her home,With her fair child would Helen comeTo sit upon that antique seat,While the hues of day were pale; _175And the bright boy beside her feetNow lay, lifting at intervalsHis broad blue eyes on her;Now, where some sudden impulse callsFollowing. He was a gentle boy _180And in all gentle sorts 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 _185Its marble calm: and Helen smiledThrough 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, _190The like sweet fancies had pursued;And that a mother, lost like her,Had mournfully sate watching him.Then all the scene was wont to swimThrough the mist of a burning tear. _195
For many months had Helen knownThis scene; and now she thither turnedHer footsteps, not alone.The friend whose falsehood she had mourned,Sate with her on that seat of stone. _200Silent they sate; for evening,And the power its glimpses bringHad, with one awful shadow, quelledThe passion of their grief. They sateWith linked hands, for unrepelled _205Had Helen taken Rosalind’s.Like the autumn wind, when it unbindsThe tangled locks of the nightshade’s hair,Which is twined in the sultry summer airRound the walls of an outworn sepulchre, _210Did 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; _215And 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 uponThe coffin; and I saw the stone _220Laid over him whom this cold breastHad pillowed to his nightly rest!Thou knowest not, thou canst not knowMy agony. Oh! I could not weep:The sources whence such blessings flow _225Were 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— _230My 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, _235Answering each other’s ecstasyWith 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 _240Sate with a hard and tearless eye,And with a heart which would denyThe secret joy it could not quell,Low muttering o’er his loathed name;Till from that self-contention came _245Remorse where sin was none; a hellWhich in pure spirits should not dwell.
I’ll tell thee truth. He was a manHard, selfish, loving only gold,Yet full of guile; his pale eyes ran _250With tears, which each some falsehood told,And oft his smooth and bridled tongueWould give the lie to his flushing cheek;He was a coward to the strong:He was a tyrant to the weak, _255On 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 followHis soul to its home so cold and hollow. _260He 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 _265Of travellers, or of fairy land,—When the light from the wood-fire’s dying brandFlashed on their faces,—if they heardOr thought they heard upon the stairHis footstep, the suspended word _270Died on my lips: we all grew pale:The babe at my bosom was hushed with fearIf it thought it heard its father near;And my two wild boys would near my kneeCling, cowed and cowering fearfully. _275
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: _280My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame,My days were dim in the shadow castBy the memory of the same!Day and night, day and night,He was my breath and life and light, _285For three short years, which soon were passed.On the fourth, my gentle motherLed me to the shrine, to beHis sworn bride eternally.And now we stood on the altar stair, _290When my father came from a distant land,And with a loud and fearful cryRushed between us suddenly.I saw the stream of his thin gray hair,I saw his lean and lifted hand, _295And 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 sodOf yon churchyard rests in her shroud so cold: _300I 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 wildThe youth upon the pavement fell: _305They 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: _310But day by day, week after week,I walked about like a corpse alive!Alas! sweet friend, you must believeThis heart is stone: it did not break.My father lived a little while, _315But all might see that he was dying,He smiled with such a woeful smile!When he was in the churchyard lyingAmong the worms, we grew quite poor,So that no one would give us bread: _320My mother looked at me, and saidFaint words of cheer, which only meantThat she could die and be content;So I went forth from the same church doorTo another husband’s bed. _325And this was he who died at last,When weeks and months and years had passed,Through which I firmly did fulfilMy duties, a devoted wife,With the stern step of vanquished will, _330Walking beneath the night of life,Whose hours extinguished, like slow rainFalling for ever, pain by pain,The very hope of death’s dear rest;Which, since the heart within my breast _335Of natural life was dispossessed,Its strange sustainer there had been.
When flowers were dead, and grass was greenUpon my mother’s grave,—that motherWhom to outlive, and cheer, and make _340My wan eyes glitter for her sake,Was my vowed task, the single careWhich once gave life to my despair,—When she was a thing that did not stirAnd the crawling worms were cradling her _345To a sleep more deep and so more sweetThan a baby’s rocked on its nurse’s knee,I lived: a living pulse then beatBeneath my heart that awakened me.What was this pulse so warm and free? _350Alas! I knew it could not beMy own dull blood: ’twas like a thoughtOf liquid love, that spread and wroughtUnder my bosom and in my brain,And crept with the blood through every vein; _355And 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 _360These frozen eyes had shed no tears:But now—’twas the season fair and mildWhen April has wept itself to May:I sate through the sweet sunny dayBy my window bowered round with leaves, _365And down my cheeks the quick tears fellLike twinkling rain-drops from the eaves,When warm spring showers are passing o’er.O Helen, none can ever tellThe joy it was to weep once more! _370
I wept to think how hard it wereTo kill my babe, and take from itThe sense of light, and the warm air,And my own fond and tender care,And love and smiles; ere I knew yet _375That these for it might, as for me,Be the masks of a grinning mockery.And haply, I would dream, ’twere sweetTo feed it from my faded breast,Or mark my own heart’s restless beat _380Rock it to its untroubled rest,And watch the growing soul beneathDawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath,Half interrupted by calm sighs,And search the depth of its fair eyes _385For long departed memories!And so I lived till that sweet loadWas lightened. Darkly forward flowedThe stream of years, and on it boreTwo shapes of gladness to my sight; _390Two other babes, delightful moreIn my lost soul’s abandoned night,Than their own country ships may beSailing towards wrecked mariners,Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea. _395For each, as it came, brought soothing tears;And a loosening warmth, as each one laySucking the sullen milk awayAbout my frozen heart, did play,And weaned it, oh how painfully— _400As they themselves were weaned each oneFrom that sweet food,—even from the thirstOf death, and nothingness, and rest,Strange inmate of a living breast!Which all that I had undergone _405Of grief and shame, since she, who firstThe gates of that dark refuge closed,Came to my sight, and almost burstThe seal of that Lethean spring;But these fair shadows interposed: _410For all delights are shadows now!And from my brain to my dull browThe heavy tears gather and flow:I cannot speak: Oh, let me weep!
The tears which fell from her wan eyes _415Glimmered among the moonlight dew:Her deep hard sobs and heavy sighsTheir echoes in the darkness threw.When she grew calm, she thus did keepThe tenor of her tale:He died: _420I 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; _425And his strait lip and bloated cheekWere 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 _430Upon the withering life within,Like vipers on some poisonous weed.Whether his ill were death or sinNone knew, until he died indeed,And then men owned they were the same. _435
Seven days within my chamber layThat 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, _440And sate awe-stricken at my feet;And soon the others left their play,And sate there too. It is unmeetTo shed on the brief flower of youthThe withering knowledge of the grave; _445From me remorse then wrung that truth.I could not bear the joy which gaveToo just a response to mine own.In vain. I dared not feign a groan,And in their artless looks I saw, _450Between the mists of fear and awe,That my own thought was theirs, and theyExpressed it not in words, but said,Each in its heart, how every dayWill pass in happy work and play, _455Now he is dead and gone away.
After the funeral all our kinAssembled, and the will was read.My friend, I tell thee, even the deadHave strength, their putrid shrouds within, _460To blast and torture. Those who liveStill fear the living, but a corseIs merciless, and power doth giveTo such pale tyrants half the spoilHe rends from those who groan and toil, _465Because they blush not with remorseAmong their crawling worms. Behold,I have no child! my tale grows oldWith grief, and staggers: let it reachThe limits of my feeble speech, _470And languidly at length reclineOn the brink of its own grave and mine.
Thou knowest what a thing is PovertyAmong the fallen on evil days:’Tis Crime, and Fear, and Infamy, _475And houseless Want in frozen waysWandering ungarmented, and Pain,And, worse than all, that inward stainFoul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneersYouth’s starlight smile, and makes its tears _480First like hot gall, then dry for ever!And well thou knowest a mother neverCould doom her children to this ill,And well he knew the same. The willImported, that if e’er again _485I sought my children to behold,Or in my birthplace did remainBeyond three days, whose hours were told,They should inherit nought: and he,To whom next came their patrimony, _490A sallow lawyer, cruel and cold,Aye watched me, as the will was read,With eyes askance, which sought to seeThe secrets of my agony;And with close lips and anxious brow _495Stood canvassing still to and froThe chance of my resolve, and allThe dead man’s caution just did call;For in that killing lie ’twas said—‘She is adulterous, and doth hold _500In secret that the Christian creedIs false, and therefore is much needThat I should have a care to saveMy children from eternal fire.’Friend, he was sheltered by the grave, _505And therefore dared to be a liar!In truth, the Indian on the pyreOf her dead husband, half consumed,As well might there be false, as ITo those abhorred embraces doomed, _510Far worse than fire’s brief agonyAs to the Christian creed, if trueOr false, I never questioned it:I took it as the vulgar do:Nor my vexed soul had leisure yet _515To doubt the things men say, or deemThat 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, _520Whispering 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 _525Sate my two younger babes at play,In the court-yard through which I passed;But went with footsteps firm and fastTill I came to the brink of the ocean green,And there, a woman with gray hairs, _530Who 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 keptTo refuge her when weak and old. _535
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, _540Which sunrise from its eastern cavesDrives, 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?— _545Should be my grave; for he who yetIs my soul’s soul, once said: ‘’Twere sweet‘Mid stars and lightnings to abide,And winds and lulling snows, that beatWith their soft flakes the mountain wide, _550Where 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, _555But these things might our spirits make,Amid the all-surrounding air,Their own eternity partake?’Then ’twas a wild and playful sayingAt which I laughed, or seemed to laugh: _560They were his words: now heed my praying,And let them be my epitaph.Thy memory for a term may beMy monument. Wilt remember me?I know thou wilt, and canst forgive _565Whilst in this erring world to liveMy soul disdained not, that I thoughtIts lying forms were worthy aughtAnd much less thee.
HELEN:O speak not so,But come to me and pour thy woe _570Into this heart, full though it be,Ay, overflowing with its own:I thought that grief had severed meFrom all beside who weep and groan;Its likeness upon earth to be, _575Its express image; but thou artMore wretched. Sweet! we will not partHenceforth, if death be not division;If so, the dead feel no contrition.But wilt thou hear since last we parted _580All that has left me broken hearted?
ROSALIND:Yes, speak. The faintest stars are scarcely shornOf their thin beams by that delusive mornWhich sinks again in darkness, like the lightOf early love, soon lost in total night. _585
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, _590Though my soul with grief is gray and old.
ROSALIND:Weep not at thine own words, though they must makeMe weep. What is thy tale?
HELEN:I fear ‘twill shakeThy gentle heart with tears. Thou wellRememberest when we met no more, _595And, though I dwelt with Lionel,That friendless caution pierced me soreWith grief; a wound my spirit boreIndignantly, but when he died,With him lay dead both hope and pride. _600Alas! all hope is buried now.But then men dreamed the aged earthWas labouring in that mighty birth,Which many a poet and a sageHas aye foreseen—the happy age _605When truth and love shall dwell belowAmong the works and ways of men;Which on this world not power but willEven now is wanting to fulfil.
Among mankind what thence befell _610Of 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 _615Thy thrilling light, O Liberty!And as the meteor’s midnight flameStartles the dreamer, sun-like truthFlashed on his visionary youth,And filled him, not with love, but faith, _620And hope, and courage mute in death;For love and life in him were twins,Born at one birth: in every otherFirst life then love its course begins,Though they be children of one mother; _625And so through this dark world they fleetDivided, till in death they meet;But he loved all things ever. ThenHe passed amid the strife of men,And stood at the throne of armed power _630Pleading for a world of woe:Secure as one on a rock-built towerO’er the wrecks which the surge trails to and fro,‘Mid the passions wild of human kindHe stood, like a spirit calming them; _635For, it was said, his words could bindLike music the lulled crowd, and stemThat torrent of unquiet dreamWhich mortals truth and reason deem,But is revenge and fear and pride. _640Joyous he was; and hope and peaceOn all who heard him did abide,Raining like dew from his sweet talk,As where the evening star may walkAlong the brink of the gloomy seas, _645Liquid mists of splendour quiver.His very gestures touched to tearsThe unpersuaded tyrant, neverSo moved before: his presence stungThe torturers with their victim’s pain, _650And none knew how; and through their earsThe subtle witchcraft of his tongueUnlocked the hearts of those who keepGold, the world’s bond of slavery.Men wondered, and some sneered to see _655One 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 crownedThe champion of a trampled creed: _660If he seeks Power, Power is enthroned‘Mid ancient rights and wrongs, to feedWhich hungry wolves with praise and spoil,Those who would sit near Power must toil;And such, there sitting, all may see. _665What seeks he? All that others seekHe casts away, like a vile weedWhich the sea casts unreturningly.That poor and hungry men should breakThe laws which wreak them toil and scorn, _670We understand; but LionelWe know, is rich and nobly born.So wondered they: yet all men lovedYoung Lionel, though few approved;All but the priests, whose hatred fell _675Like the unseen blight of a smiling day,The withering honey dew, which clingsUnder the bright green buds of May,Whilst they unfold their emerald wings:For he made verses wild and queer _680On 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 readWould laugh till he were almost dead. _685So this grew a proverb: ‘Don’t get oldTill Lionel’s “Banquet in Hell” you hear,And then you will laugh yourself young again.’So the priests hated him, and heRepaid their hate with cheerful glee. _690
Ah, smiles and joyance quickly died,For public hope grew pale and dimIn an altered time and tide,And in its wasting withered him,As a summer flower that blows too soon _695Droops in the smile of the waning moon,When it scatters through an April nightThe frozen dews of wrinkling blight.None now hoped more. Gray Power was seatedSafely on her ancestral throne; _700And Faith, the Python, undefeated,Even to its blood-stained steps dragged onHer foul and wounded train, and menWere trampled and deceived again,And words and shows again could bind _705The wailing tribes of human kindIn scorn and famine. Fire and bloodRaged round the raging multitude,To fields remote by tyrants sentTo be the scorned instrument _710With which they drag from mines of goreThe 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. _715But each man found in his heart’s brotherCold cheer; for all, though half deceived,The outworn creeds again believed,And the same round anew began,Which the weary world yet ever ran. _720
Many then wept, not tears, but gallWithin their hearts, like drops which fallWasting the fountain-stone away.And in that dark and evil dayDid all desires and thoughts, that claim _725Men’s care—ambition, friendship, fame,Love, hope, though hope was now despair—Indue the colours of this change,As from the all-surrounding airThe earth takes hues obscure and strange, _730When storm and earthquake linger there.
And so, my friend, it then befellTo many, most to Lionel,Whose hope was like the life of youthWithin him, and when dead, became _735A spirit of unresting flame,Which goaded him in his distressOver the world’s vast wilderness.Three years he left his native land,And on the fourth, when he returned, _740None knew him: he was stricken deepWith some disease of mind, and turnedInto aught unlike Lionel.On him, on whom, did he pause in sleep,Serenest smiles were wont to keep, _745And, did he wake, a winged bandOf bright persuasions, which had fedOn his sweet lips and liquid eyes,Kept their swift pinions half outspreadTo do on men his least command; _750On him, whom once ’twas paradiseEven to behold, now misery lay:In his own heart ’twas merciless,To all things else none may expressIts innocence and tenderness. _755
’Twas said that he had refuge soughtIn love from his unquiet thoughtIn distant lands, and been deceivedBy some strange show; for there were found,Blotted with tears as those relieved _760By 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. _765How am I lost! on wings of swift desireAmong Heaven’s winds my spirit once did move.I slept, and silver dreams did aye inspireMy liquid sleep: I woke, and did approveAll nature to my heart, and thought to make _770A paradise of earth for one sweet sake.
‘I love, but I believe in love no more.I feel desire, but hope not. O, from sleepMost vainly must my weary brain imploreIts long lost flattery now: I wake to weep, _775And sit through the long day gnawing the coreOf 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; _780And oft in evening did we meet,When the waves, beneath the starlight, fleeO’er the yellow sands with silver feet,And talked: our talk was sad and sweet,Till slowly from his mien there passed _785The desolation which it spoke;And smiles,—as when the lightning’s blastHas parched some heaven-delighting oak,The next spring shows leaves pale and rare,But like flowers delicate and fair, _790On its rent boughs,—again arrayedHis countenance in tender light:His words grew subtile fire, which madeThe air his hearers breathed delight:His motions, like the winds, were free, _795Which bend the bright grass gracefully,Then fade away in circlets faint:And winged Hope, on which upborneHis soul seemed hovering in his eyes,Like some bright spirit newly born _800Floating 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, _805Till like an exhalation, spreadFrom flowers half drunk with evening dew,They did become infectious: sweetAnd subtle mists of sense and thought:Which wrapped us soon, when we might meet, _810Almost from our own looks and aughtThe wild world holds. And so, his mindWas healed, while mine grew sick with fear:For ever now his health declined,Like some frail bark which cannot bear _815The 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; _820And soon his deep and sunny hair,In this alone less beautiful,Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare.The blood in his translucent veinsBeat, not like animal life, but love _825Seemed now its sullen springs to move,When life had failed, and all its pains:And sudden sleep would seize him oftLike death, so calm, but that a tear,His pointed eyelashes between, _830Would gather in the light sereneOf smiles, whose lustre bright and softBeneath lay undulating there.His breath was like inconstant flame,As eagerly it went and came; _835And I hung o’er him in his sleep,Till, like an image in the lakeWhich rains disturb, my tears would breakThe shadow of that slumber deep:Then he would bid me not to weep, _840And 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 uniteAll that in us was yet divided: _845For 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— _850‘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 _855Had scarce burst forth, when from afarThe ministers of misrule sent,Seized upon Lionel, and boreHis chained limbs to a dreary tower,In the midst of a city vast and wide. _860For he, they said, from his mind had bentAgainst their gods keen blasphemy,For which, though his soul must roasted beIn hell’s red lakes immortally,Yet even on earth must he abide _865The vengeance of their slaves: a trial,I think, men call it. What availAre prayers and tears, which chase denialFrom the fierce savage, nursed in hate?What the knit soul that pleading and pale _870Makes wan the quivering cheek, which lateIt painted with its own delight?We were divided. As I could,I stilled the tingling of my blood,And followed him in their despite, _875As a widow follows, pale and wild,The murderers and corse of her only child;And when we came to the prison doorAnd I prayed to share his dungeon floorWith prayers which rarely have been spurned, _880And when men drove me forth and IStared 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, _885And thro’ the crowd around him there,And thro’ the dense and murky air,And the thronged streets, he did espyWhat poets know and prophesy;And said, with voice that made them shiver _890And clung like music in my brain,And which the mute walls spoke againProlonging it with deepened strain:‘Fear not the tyrants shall rule for ever,Or the priests of the bloody faith; _895They 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, _900Like wrecks in the surge of eternity.’
I dwelt beside the prison gate;And the strange crowd that out and inPassed, some, no doubt, with mine own fate,Might have fretted me with its ceaseless din, _905But the fever of care was louder within.Soon, but too late, in penitenceOr fear, his foes released him thence:I saw his thin and languid form,As leaning on the jailor’s arm, _910Whose 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, _915From whom fast tears then gushed and fell:Many will relent no more,Who sobbed like infants then; aye, allWho thronged the prison’s stony hall,The rulers or the slaves of law, _920Felt with a new surprise and aweThat they were human, till strong shameMade them again become the same.The prison blood-hounds, huge and grim,From human looks the infection caught, _925And 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 _930Their trampled bosoms almost slept:Where, like twin vultures, they hung feedingOn each heart’s wound, wide torn and bleeding,—Because their jailors’ rule, they thought,Grew merciful, like a parent’s sway. _935
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 _940Ran like the thoughts of a single mind,As the swift emotions went and cameThro’ the veins of each united frame.So thro’ the long long streets we passedOf the million-peopled City vast; _945Which is that desert, where each oneSeeks 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, _950And then I sunk in his embrace,Enclosing there a mighty spaceOf love: and so we travelled onBy woods, and fields of yellow flowers,And towns, and villages, and towers, _955Day 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 shakeThe fresh green leaves of the hedgerow briar, _960And there were odours then to makeThe very breath we did respireA liquid element, whereonOur spirits, like delighted thingsThat walk the air on subtle wings, _965Floated and mingled far away,‘Mid the warm winds of the sunny day.And when the evening star came forthAbove the curve of the new bent moon,And light and sound ebbed from the earth, _970Like the tide of the full and the weary seaTo the depths of its own tranquillity,Our natures to its own reposeDid the earth’s breathless sleep attune:Like flowers, which on each other close _975Their languid leaves when daylight’s gone,We lay, till new emotions came,Which seemed to make each mortal frameOne soul of interwoven flame,A life in life, a second birth _980In worlds diviner far than earth,Which, like two strains of harmonyThat mingle in the silent skyThen slowly disunite, passed byAnd left the tenderness of tears, _985A soft oblivion of all fears,A sweet sleep: so we travelled onTill we came to the home of Lionel,Among the mountains wild and lone,Beside the hoary western sea, _990Which near the verge of the echoing shoreThe massy forest shadowed o’er.
The ancient steward, with hair all hoar,As we alighted, wept to seeHis master changed so fearfully; _995And the old man’s sobs did waken meFrom my dream of unremaining gladness;The truth flashed o’er me like quick madnessWhen I looked, and saw that there was deathOn Lionel: yet day by day _1000He 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! _1005Yet 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 cheekGrew faint, as the rose-like hues which flow _1010From sunset o’er the Alpine snow:And death seemed not like death in him,For the spirit of life o’er every limbLingered, a mist of sense and thought.When the summer wind faint odours brought _1015From mountain flowers, even as it passedHis cheek would change, as the noonday seaWhich the dying breeze sweeps fitfully.If but a cloud the sky o’ercast,You might see his colour come and go, _1020And the softest strain of music madeSweet smiles, yet sad, arise and fadeAmid the dew of his tender eyes;And the breath, with intermitting flow,Made his pale lips quiver and part. _1025You might hear the beatings of his heart,Quick, but not strong; and with my tressesWhen oft he playfully would bindIn the bowers of mossy lonelinessesHis neck, and win me so to mingle _1030In the sweet depth of woven caresses,And our faint limbs were intertwined,Alas! the unquiet life did tingleFrom mine own heart through every vein,Like a captive in dreams of liberty, _1035Who 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 dwellThat spirit as it passed, till soon, _1040As a frail cloud wandering o’er the moon,Beneath its light invisible,Is seen when it folds its gray wings againTo alight on midnight’s dusky plain,I lived and saw, and the gathering soul _1045Passed from beneath that strong control,And I fell on a life which was sick with fearOf all the woe that now I bear.
Amid a bloomless myrtle wood,On a green and sea-girt promontory, _1050Not far from where we dwelt, there stoodIn record of a sweet sad story,An altar and a temple brightCircled by steps, and o’er the gateWas sculptured, ‘To Fidelity;’ _1055And in the shrine an image sate,All veiled: but there was seen the lightOf smiles which faintly could expressA mingled pain and tendernessThrough that ethereal drapery. _1060The 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 barbed dartInto its side-convulsing heart. _1065An unskilled hand, yet one informedWith genius, had the marble warmedWith that pathetic life. This taleIt told: A dog had from the sea,When the tide was raging fearfully, _1070Dragged 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 handHad wrought the image. Each new moon _1075That 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 strewnOn the marble floor beneath her feet, _1080And she brought crowns of sea-buds whiteWhose 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 _1085The altar: need but look uponThat dying statue fair and wan,If tears should cease, to weep again:And rare Arabian odours came,Through the myrtle copses steaming thence _1090From the hissing frankincense,Whose smoke, wool-white as ocean foam,Hung in dense flocks beneath the dome—That ivory dome, whose azure nightWith golden stars, like heaven, was bright— _1095O’er the split cedar’s pointed flame;And the lady’s harp would kindle thereThe melody of an old air,Softer than sleep; the villagersMixed their religion up with hers, _1100And, as they listened round, shed tears.