The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Death-Wake

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Death-WakeThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Death-WakeAuthor: Thomas Tod StoddartCommentator: Andrew LangRelease date: August 27, 2005 [eBook #16601]Most recently updated: December 12, 2020Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sankar Viswanathan and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEATH-WAKE ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Death-WakeAuthor: Thomas Tod StoddartCommentator: Andrew LangRelease date: August 27, 2005 [eBook #16601]Most recently updated: December 12, 2020Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sankar Viswanathan and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

Title: The Death-Wake

Author: Thomas Tod StoddartCommentator: Andrew Lang

Author: Thomas Tod Stoddart

Commentator: Andrew Lang

Release date: August 27, 2005 [eBook #16601]Most recently updated: December 12, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sankar Viswanathan and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEATH-WAKE ***

Is't like that lead contains her?...It were too grossTo rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.Shakespeare

An angler to an angler here,To one who longed not for the bays,I bring a little gift and dear,A line of love, a word of praise,A common memory of the ways,By Elibank and Yair that lead;Of all the burns, from all the braes,That yield their tribute to the Tweed.His boyhood found the waters clean,His age deplored them, foul with dye;But purple hills, and copses green,And these old towers he wandered by,Still to the simple strains replyOf his pure unrepining reed,Who lies where he was fain to lie,Like Scott, within the sound of Tweed.A. L.

His boyhood found the waters clean,His age deplored them, foul with dye;But purple hills, and copses green,And these old towers he wandered by,Still to the simple strains replyOf his pure unrepining reed,Who lies where he was fain to lie,Like Scott, within the sound of Tweed.A. L.

The extreme rarity ofThe Death-Wakeis a reason for its republication, which may or may not be approved of by collectors. Of the original edition the Author says that more than seventy copies were sold in the first week of publication, but thereafter the publisher failed in business. Mr. Stoddart recovered the sheets of his poem, and his cook gradually, and perhaps not injudiciously, expended them for domestic purposes.

Apart from its rarity,The Death-Wakehas an interest of its own for curious amateurs of poetry. The year of its composition (1830) was the great year ofRomanticismein France, the year ofHernani, and of Gautier'sgilet rouge. In France it was a literary agegiven to mediæval extravagance, to the dagger and the bowl, the cloak and sword, the mad monk and the were-wolf; the age of Pétrus Borel and MacKeat, as well as of Dumas and Hugo. Now the official poetry of our country was untouched by and ignorant of the virtues and excesses of 1830. Wordsworth's bolt was practically shot; Sir Walter was ending his glorious career; Shelley and Byron and Keats were dead, and theannus mirabilisof Coleridge was long gone by. Three young poets of the English-speaking race were producing their volumes, destined at first to temporary neglect. The year 1830 was the year of Mr. Tennyson'sPoems, chiefly Lyrical, his first book, not countingPoems by Two Brothers. It was also the year of Mr. Browning'sPauline(rarer even thanThe Death-Wake); and it was the year which followed the second, and perhaps the most characteristic, poetical venture of Edgar Allan Poe. In Mr.Tennyson's early lyrics, and in Mr. Poe's, any capable judge must have recognised new notes of romance. Their accents are fresh and strange, their imaginations dwell in untrodden regions. Untouched by the French romantic poets, they yet unconsciously reply to their notes, as if some influence in the mental air were at work on both sides of the Channel, on both sides of the Atlantic. Now, in my opinion, this indefinite influence was also making itself felt, faintly and dimly, in Scotland.The Death-Wakeis the work of a lad who certainly had read Keats, Coleridge and Shelley, but who is no imitator of these great poets. He has, in a few passages, and at his best, an accent original, distinct, strangely musical, and really replete with promise. He has a fresh unborrowed melody and mastery of words, the first indispensable sign of a true poet. His rhymed heroic verse is no more the rhymed heroic verse ofEndymion, than it is that of Mr. Pope, or of Mr. William Morris. He is a new master of the old instrument.

His mood is that of Scott when Scott was young, and was so anxious to possess a death's head and cross-bones. The malady is "most incident" to youth, but Mr. Stoddart wears his rue with a difference. The mad monkish lover of the dead nun Agathé has hit on precisely the sort of fantasy which was about to inspire Théophile Gautier'sComédie de la Mort, or the later author ofGaspard de la Nuit, or Edgar Poe. There is here no "criticism of life;" it is a criticism of strange death; and, so far, may recall Beddoes'sDeath's Jest-Book, unpublished, of course, in 1830. Naturally this kind of poetry is "useless," as Mr. Ruskin says about Coleridge, but, in itsbizarreway, it may be beautiful.

The author, by a curious analogy with Théophile Gautier, was, in these days, ahumourist as well as a poet. In the midst of his mad fancies and rare melodies he is laughing at himself, as Théophile mocked atLes Jeunes France. The psychological position is, therefore, one of the rarest. Mr. Stoddart was, first of all and before all, a hardy and enthusiastic angler. Between 1830 and 1840 he wrote a few beautiful angling songs, and then all the poetry of his character merged itself in an ardent love of Nature: of hill, loch and stream—above all, of Tweed, the fairest of waters, which he lived to see a sink of pollution. After 1831 we have no more romanticism from Mr. Stoddart. The wind, blowing where it listeth, struck on him as on an Æolian harp, and "an uncertain warbling made," in the true Romantic manner. He did write a piece with the alluring name ofAjalon of the Winds, but not one line of it survives. The rest is not silence, indeed, for, in addition to his lays of trout and salmon, of Tweed and Teviot, Mr. Stoddart wrote agood deal of prose, and a good deal of perfectly common and uninspired verse. The Muse, which was undeniably with him for an hour, abandoned him, or he deserted her, being content to whip the waters of Tweed, and Meggat, and Yarrow. Perhaps unfavourable and unappreciative criticism, acting on a healthy and contented nature, drove him back into the common paths of men. Whatever the cause, theDeath-Wakealone (save for a few angling songs) remains to give assurance of a poet "who died young." It is needless to rewrite the biography, excellently done, inAngling Songs, by Miss Stoddart, the poet's daughter (Blackwoods, Edinburgh, 1889). Mr. Stoddart was born on St. Valentine's Day 1810, in Argyll Square, Edinburgh, nearly on the site of the Kirk of Field, where Darnley was murdered. He came of an old Border family. Miss Stoddart tells a painful tale of an aged Miss Helen who burned family papers because shethought she was bewitched by the seals and decorated initials. Similar follies are reported of a living old lady, on whose hearth, after a night of destruction, was once found the impression of a seal of Mary of Modena. I could give only too good a guess at theprovenanceofthosepapers, but nobody can interfere. Beyond 1500 the family memories rely on tradition. The ancestors owned lands in the Forest of Ettrick, and Williamhope, on the Tweed hard by Ashestiel. On the Glenkinnon burn, celebrated by Scott, they hid the prophets of the Covenant "by fifties in a cave." One Williamhope is said to have been out at Drumclog, or, perhaps, Bothwell Brig. This laird, of enormous strength, was called the Beetle of Yarrow, and was a friend of Murray of Philiphaugh. His son, in the Fifteen, was out on the Hanoverian side, which wasnotin favour with the author ofThe Death-Wake. He married a daughter ofVeitch of The Glen, now the property of Sir Charles Tennant. In the next generation but one, the Stoddarts sold their lands and took to commerce, while the poet's father won great distinction in the Navy. The great-great-grandfather of the poet married a Miss Muir of Anniston, the family called cousins (on which side of the blanket I know not) with Robert II. of Scotland, and, by another line, were as near as in the sixth degree of James III.

As a schoolboy, Mr. Stoddart was always rhyming of goblin, ghost, fairy, and all Sir Walter's themes. At Edinburgh University he was a pupil of Christopher North (John Wilson), who pooh-poohedThe Death-WakeinBlackwood. He also knew Aytoun, Professor Ferrier, De Quincey, Hartley Coleridge, and Hogg, and was one of the first guests of Tibbie Sheils, on the spit of land between St. Mary's and the Loch of the Lowes. In verses of this period (1827)Miss Stoddart detects traces of Keats and Byron, but the lines quoted are much better intechniquethan Byron usually wrote.

The summer of 1830 Mr. Stoddart passed in Hogg's company on Yarrow, and early in 1831 he publishedThe Death-Wake. There is no trace of James Hogg in the poem, which, to my mind, is perfectly original. Wilson places it "between the weakest of Shelley and the strongest of Barry Cornwall." It is really nothing but a breath of the spirit of romance, touching an instrument not wholly out of tune, but never to be touched again.

It is unnecessary to follow Mr. Stoddart through a long and happy life of angling and of literary leisure. He only blossomed once. His poem was plagiarised and inserted inGraham's Magazine, by a person named Louis Fitzgerald Tasistro (vol. xx.). Mr. Ingram, the biographer of Edgar Poe, observes that Poe praised the piece whilehe was exposing Tasistro's "barefaced robbery."

The copy ofThe Death-Wakefrom which this edition is printed was once the property of Mr. Aytoun, author ofLays of the Scottish Cavaliers, and, I presume, ofTa Phairshon. Mr. Aytoun has written a prefatory sonnet which will be found in its proper place, a set of rhymes on the flyleaf at the end, and various cheerful but unfeeling notes. After some hesitation I do not print these frivolities.

The copy was most generously presented to me by Professor Knight of St. Andrews, and I have only seen one other example, which I in turn contributed to fill the vacant place in the shelves of Mr. Knight. His example, however, is far the more curious of the twain, by virtue of Aytoun's annotations.

I had been wanting to seeThe Death-Wakeever since, as a boy, I read the unkind review of it in an ancient volume ofBlackwood'sMagazine. In its "pure purple mantle" of glazed cloth, with paper label, it is an unaffectedly neat and well-printed little volume.

It would be unbecoming and impertinent to point out to any one who has an ear for verse, the charm of such lines as—

"A murmur far and far, of those that stirredWithin the great encampment of the sea."

Or—

"A love-winged seraph glides in glory by,Striking the tent of its mortality."

(An idea anticipated by the as yet unknown Omar Khayyam).

Or—

"Dost thou, in thy vigil, hailArcturus in his chariot pale,Leading him with a fiery flightOver the hollow hill of night?"

These are wonderful verses for a lad of twenty-one, living among anglers,undergraduates, and, if with some society of the lettered, apparently with none which could appreciate or applaud him.

For the matter of the poem, the wild voyage of the mad monkish lover with the dead Bride of Heaven, it strikes, of course, on the common reef of the Romantic—the ridiculous. But the recurring contrasts of a pure, clear peace in sea and sky, are of rare and atoning beauty. Such a passage is—

"And the great ocean, like a holy hall,Where slept a seraph host maritimal,Was gorgeous with wings of diamond."

Once more, when the mad monk tells the sea-waves

"That ye have power and passion, and a soundAs of the flying of an angel round,The mighty world, that ye are one with Time,"

we recognise genuine imagination.

A sympathetic reader ofThe Death-Wakewould perhaps have expected the leprosies and lunacies to drop off, and the genius, purged of its accidents, to move into a pure transparency. The abnormal, the monstrous, the boyish elements should have been burned away in the fire of the genius of poetry. But the Muses did not so will it, and the mystic wind of the spirit of song became of less moment to Mr. Stoddart than the breeze on the loch that stirs the trout to feed. Perhaps his life was none the less happy and fortunate. Of the many brilliant men whom he knew intimately—Wilson, Aytoun, Ferrier, Glassford Bell, and others—perhaps none, not even Hogg, recognised the grace of the Muse which (in my poor opinion) Mr. Stoddart possessed. His character was not in the least degree soured by neglect or fretted by banter. Not to over-estimate oneself is a virtue very rare among poets, and certainly does not lead to public triumphs. Modestyis apt to accompany the sense of humour which alleviates life, while it is an almost insuperable bar to success.

Mr. Stoddart died on November 22nd, 1880. His last walk was to Kelso Bridge "to look at the Tweed," which now murmurs by his grave the self-same song that it sings beside Sir Walter's tomb in Dryburgh Abbey. We leave his poem to the judgment of students of poetry, and to him we say his own farewell—

Sorrow, sorrow speed awayTo our angler's quiet mound,With the old pilgrim, twilight grey,Enter thou the holy ground.There he sleeps, whose heart was twinedWith wild stream and wandering burn,Wooer of the western wind,Watcher of the April morn.A. L

Sorrow, sorrow speed awayTo our angler's quiet mound,With the old pilgrim, twilight grey,Enter thou the holy ground.

There he sleeps, whose heart was twinedWith wild stream and wandering burn,Wooer of the western wind,Watcher of the April morn.A. L

O wormy Thomas Stoddart who inheritestRich thoughts and loathsome, nauseous words, & rare!Tell me, my friend, why is it that thou ferretestAnd gropest in each death-corrupted lair?Seek'st thou for maggots, such as have affinityWith those in thine own brain? or dost thou thinkThat all is sweet which hath a horrid stink?Why dost thou make Hautgout thy sole divinity?Here is enough of genius to convertVile dung to precious diamonds, and to spare,Then why transform the diamond into dirt,And change thy mind wh. shd. be rich & fairInto a medley of creations foul,As if a Seraph would become a Goul?

W.E.A1834

An anthem of a sister choristry!And like a windward murmur of the sea,O'er silver shells, so solemnly it falls!A dying music shrouded in deep walls,That bury its wild breathings! And the moon,Of glow-worm hue, like virgin in sad swoon,Lies coldly on the bosom of a cloud,Until the elf-winds, that are wailing loud,Do minister unto her sickly trance,Fanning the life into her countenance;And there are pale stars sparkling, far and fewIn the deep chasms of everlasting blue,Unmarshall'd and ungather'd, one and one,Like outposts of the lunar garrison.A train of holy fathers windeth byThe arches of an aged sanctuary,With cowl, and scapular, and rosaryOn to the sainted oriel, where stood,By the rich altar, a fair sisterhood—A weeping group of virgins! one or twoBent forward to a bier, of solemn hue,Whereon a bright and stately coffin lay,With its black pall flung over:—AgathèWas on the lid—a name. And who?—No more!'Twas only Agathè.'Tis o'er, 'tis o'er,—Her burial! and, under the arcades,Torch after torch into the moonlight fades;And there is heard the music, a brief while,Over the roofings of the imaged aisle,From the deep organ panting out its last,Like the slow dying of an autumn blast.A lonely monk is loitering withinThe dusky area, at the altar seen,Like a pale spirit kneeling in the lightOf the cold moon, that looketh wan and whiteThrough the deviced oriel; and he laysHis hands upon his bosom, with a gazeTo the chill earth. He had the youthful lookWhich heartfelt woe had wasted, and he shookAt every gust of the unholy breeze,That enter'd through the time-worn crevices.A score of summers only o'er his browHad pass'd—and it was summer, even now,The one-and-twentieth—from a birth of tears,Over a waste of melancholy years!Andthatbrow was as wan as if it wereOf snowy marble, and the raven hairThat would have cluster'd over, was all shorn,And his fine features stricken pale as morn.He kiss'd a golden crucifix that hungAround his neck, and in a transport flungHimself upon the earth, and said, and saidWild, raving words, about the blessed dead:And then he rose, and in the moonshade stood,Gazing upon its light in solitude;And smote his brow, at some idea wildThat came across: then, weeping like a child,He falter'd out the name of Agathè;And look'd unto the heaven inquiringly,And the pure stars."Oh shame! that ye are met,To mock me, like old memories, that yetBreak in upon the golden dream I knew,While she—shelived: and I have said adieuTo that fair one, and to her sister Peace,That lieth in her grave. When wilt thou ceaseTo feed upon my quiet!—thou Despair!That art the mad usurper, and the heir,Of this heart's heritage! Go, go—return,And bring me back oblivion, and an urn!And ye, pale stars, may look, and only find,The wreck of a proud tree, that lets the windCount o'er its blighted boughs; for such was heThat loved, and loves, the silent Agathè!"And he hath left the sanctuary, like oneThat knew not his own purpose—The red sunRose early over incense of bright mist,That girdled a pure sky of amethyst.And who was he? A monk. And those who knewYclept him Julio; but they were few:And others named him as a nameless one,—A dark, sad-hearted being, who had noneBut bitter feelings, and a cast of sadness,That fed the wildest of all curses—madness!But he was, whatnoneknew, of lordly line,That fought in the far land of Palestine,Where, under banners of the cross, they fell,Smote by the armies of the infidel.And Julio was the last; alone, alone!A sad, unfriended orphan, that had goneInto the world, to murmur and to die,Like the cold breezes that are passing by!And few they were that bade him to their board;His fortunes now were over, and the swordOf his proud ancestry dishonour'd—leftTo moulder in its sheath—a hated gift!Ay! it was so; and Julio had fainHave been a warrior; but his very brainGrew fever'd at the sickly thought of death,And to be stricken with a want of breath!—To be the food of worms—inanimate,And cold as winter,—and as desolate!And then to waste away, and be no moreThan the dark dust!—The thought was like a soreThat gather'd in his heart; and he would say,—"A curse be on their laurels!" and decayCame over them; the deeds that they had doneHad fallen with their fortunes; and anonWas Julio forgotten, and his line—No wonder for this frenzied tale of mine!Oh! he was wearied of this passing scene!But loved not death: his purpose was betweenLife and the grave; and it would vibrate there,Like a wild bird that floated far and fairBetwixt the sun and sea!He went, and came,And thought, and slept, and still awoke the same,—A strange, strange youth; and he would look all nightUpon the moon and stars, and count the flightOf the sea waves, and let the evening windPlay with his raven tresses, or would bindGrottoes of birch, wherein to sit and sing:And peasant girls would find him sauntering,To gaze upon their features, as they met,In laughter, under some green arboret.At last, he became monk, and, on his knees,Said holy prayers, and with wild penancesMade sad atonement; and the solemn whim,That, like a shadow, loiter'd over him,Wore off, even like a shadow. He was cursedWith none of the mad thoughts that were at firstThe poison of his quiet; but he grewTo love the world and its wild laughter too,As he had known before; and wish'd againTo join the very mirth he hated then!He durst not break the vow—he durst not beThe one he would—and his heart's harmonyBecame a tide of sorrow. Even so,He felt hope die,—in madness and in woe!But there came one—and a most lovely oneAs ever to the warm light of the sunThrew back her tresses,—a fair sister girl,With a brow changing between snow and pearl,And the blue eyes of sadness, fill'd with dewOf tears,—like Heaven's own melancholy blue,—So beautiful, so tender; and her formWas graceful as a rainbow in a storm,Scattering gladness on the face of sorrow—Oh! I had fancied of the hues that borrowTheir brightness from the sun; but she was brightIn her own self,—a mystery of light!With feelings tender as a star's own hue,Pure as the morning star! as true, as true;For it will glitter in each early sky,And her first love be love that lasteth aye!And this was Agathè, young Agathè,A motherless, fair girl: and many a dayShe wept for her lost parent. It was sadTo see her infant sorrow; how she badeThe flow of her wild spirits fall awayTo grief, like bright clouds in a summer dayMelting into a shower: and it was sadAlmost to think she might again be glad,Her beauty was so chaste, amid the fallOf her bright tears. Yet, in her father's hall,She had lived almost sorrowless her days:But he felt no affection for the gazeOf his fair girl; and when she fondly smiled,He bade no father's welcome to the child,But even told his wish, and will'd it done,For her to be sad-hearted—and a nun!And so it was. She took the dreary veil,A hopeless girl! and the bright flush grew paleUpon her cheek: she felt, as summer feelsThe winds of autumn and the winter chills,That darken his fair suns.—It was away,Feeding on dreams, the heart of Agathè!The vesper prayers were said, and the last hymnSung to the Holy Virgin. In the dim,Gray aisle was heard a solitary tread,As of one musing sadly on the dead—'Twas Julio; it was his wont to beOften alone within the sanctuary;But now, not so—another: it was she!Kneeling in all her beauty, like a saintBefore a crucifix; but sad and faintThe tone of her devotion, as the trillOf a moss-burden'd, melancholy rill.And Julio stood before her;—'twas as yetThe hour of the pale twilight—and they metEach other's gaze, till either seem'd the hueOf deepest crimson; but the ladye threwHer veil above her features, and stole byLike a bright cloud, with sadness and a sigh!Yet Julio still stood gazing and alone,A dreamer!—"Is the sister ladye gone?"He started at the silence of the airThat slumber'd over him—she is not there.And either slept not through the live-long night,Or slept in fitful trances, with a bright,Fair dream upon their eyelids: but they roseIn sorrow from the pallet of repose;For the dark thought of their sad destinyCame o'er them, like a chasm of the deep sea,That was to rend their fortunes; and at eveThey met again, but, silent, took their leave,As they did yesterday: another night,And neither spake awhile—A pure delightHad chasten'd love's first blushes: silentlyGazed Julio on the gentle Agathè—At length, "Fair Nun!"—She started, and held fastHer bright hand on her lip—"the past, the past,And the pale future! There be some that lieUnder those marble urns—I know not why,But I were better in that only calm,Than be as I have been, perhaps, and am.The past!—ay! it hath perish'd; never, never,Would I recall it to be blest for ever:The future it must come—I have a vow"—And his cold hand rose trembling to his brow."True, true, I have a vow. Is not the moonAbroad, fair Nun?"—"Indeed! so very soon?"Said Agathè, and "I must then away."—"Stay, love! 'tis early yet; stay, angel, stay!"But she was gone:—yet they met many a timeIn the lone chapel, after vesper chime—They met in love and fear.One weary day,And Julio saw not his loved Agathè;She was not in the choir of sisterhoodThat sang the evening anthem, and he stoodLike one that listen'd breathlessly awhile;But stranger voices chanted through the aisle.She was not there; and, after all were gone,He linger'd: the stars came—he linger'd on,Like a dark fun'ral image on the tombOf a lost hope. He felt a world of gloomUpon his heart—a solitude—a chill.The pale morn rose, and still, he linger'd still.And the next vesper toll'd; nor yet, nor yet—"Can Agathè be faithless, and forget?"It was the third sad eve, he heard it said,"Poor Julio! thy Agathè is dead,"And started. He had loiter'd in the trainThat bore her to the grave: he saw her lainIn the cold earth, and heard a requiemSung over her—To him it was a dream!A marble stone stood by the sepulchre;He look'd, and saw, and started—she was there!And Agathè had died; she that was bright—She that was in her beauty! a cold blightFell over the young blossom of her brow.And the life-blood grew chill—She is not, now.She died, like zephyr falling amid flowers!Like to a star within the twilight hoursOf morning—and she was not! Some have thoughtThe Lady Abbess gave her a mad draught,That stole into her heart, and sadly rentThe fine chords of that holy instrument,Until its music falter'd fast away,And she—she died,—the lovely Agathè!Again, and through the arras of the gloomAre the pale breezes moaning: by her tombBends Julio, like a phantom, and his eyeIs fallen, as the moon-borne tides, that lieAt ebb within the sea. Oh! he is wan,As winter skies are wan, like ages gone,And stars unseen for paleness; it is cast,As foliage in the raving of the blast,All his fair bloom of thoughts! Is the moon chill,That in the dark clouds she is mantled still?And over its proud arch hath Heaven flungA scarf of darkness? Agathè was young!And there should be the virgin silver there,The snow-white fringes delicately fair!He wields a heavy mattock in his hands,And over him a lonely lanthorn standsOn a near niche, shedding a sickly fallOf light upon a marble pedestal,Whereon is chisel'd rudely, the essayOf untaught tool, "Hic jacet Agathè!"And Julio hath bent him down in speed,Like one that doeth an unholy deed.There is a flagstone lieth heavilyOver the ladye's grave; I wist of threeThat bore it, of a blessed verity!But he hath lifted it in his pure madness,As it were lightsome as a summer gladness,And from the carved niche hath ta'en the lamp,And hung it by the marble flagstone damp.And he is flinging the dark, chilly mouldOver the gorgeous pavement: 'tis a cold,Sad grave, and there is many a relic thereOf chalky bones, which, in the wasting air,Fell smouldering away; and he would dashHis mattock through them, with a cursed clash,That made the lone aisle echo. But anonHe fell upon a skull,—a haggard one,With its teeth set, and the great orbless eyeRevolving darkness, like eternity—And in his hand he held it, till it grewTo have the fleshy features and the hueOf life. He gazed, and gazed, and it becameLike to his Agathè—all, all the same!He drew it nearer,—the cold, bony thing!—To kiss the worm-wet lips. "Ay! let me cling—Cling to thee now, for ever!" but a breathOf rank corruption from its jaws of deathWent to his nostrils, and he madly laugh'd,And dash'd it over on the altar shaft,Which the new risen moon, in her gray light,Had fondly flooded, beautifully bright!Again he wentTo his wild work, beside the monument."Ha! leave, thou moon! where thy footfall hath beenIn sorrow amid heaven! there is sinUnder thy shadow, lying like a dew;So come thou, from thy awful arch of blue,Where thou art even as a silver throneFor some pale spectre-king; come thou alone,Or bring a solitary orphan starUnder thy wings! afar, afar, afar,To gaze upon this girl of radiancy,In her deep slumbers—Wake thee, Agathè!"And Julio hath stolen the dark chestWhere the fair nun lay coffin'd, in the restThat wakes not up at morning: she is there,An image of cold calm! One tress of hairLingereth lonely on her snowy brow;But the bright eyes are closed in darkness now;And their long lashes delicately restOn the pale cheek, like sun-rays in the west,That fall upon a colourless, sad cloud.Humility lies rudely on the proud,But she was never proud; and there she is,A yet unwither'd flower the autumn breezeHath blown from its green stem! 'T is pale, 't is pale,But still unfaded, like the twilight veilThat falleth after sunset; like a streamThat bears the burden of a silver gleamUpon its waters; and is even so,—Chill, melancholy, lustreless, and low!Beauty in death! a tenderness uponThe rude and silent relics, where aloneSat the destroyer! Beauty on the dead!The look of being where the breath is fled!The unwarming sun still joyous in its light!A time—a time without a day or night!Death cradled upon Beauty, like a beeUpon a flower, that looketh lovingly!—Like a wild serpent, coiling in its madness,Under a wreath of blossom and of gladness!And there she is; and Julio bends o'erThe sleeping girl,—a willow on the shoreOf a Dead Sea! that steepeth its far boughInto the bitter waters,—even nowTaking a foretaste of the awful tranceThat was to pass on his own countenance!Yes! yes! and he is holding his pale lipsOver her brow; the shade of an eclipseIs passing to his heart, and to his eye,That is not tearful; but the light will die,Leaving it like a moon within a mist,—The vision of a spell-bound visionist!He breathed a cold kiss on her ashy cheek,That left no trace—no flush—no crimson streak,But was as bloodless as a marble stone,Susceptible of silent waste alone.And on her brow a crucifix he laid—A jewel'd crucifix, the virgin maidHad given him before she died. The moonShed light upon her visage—clouded soon,Then briefly breaking from its airy veil,Like warrior lifting up his aventayle.But Julio gazed on, and never liftedHimself to see the broken clouds, that driftedOne after one, like infant elves at playAmid the night-winds, in their lonely way—Some whistling and some moaning, some asleep,And dreaming dismal dreams, and sighing deepOver their couches of green moss and flowers,And solitary fern, and heather bowers.The heavy bell toll'd two, and, as it toll'd,Julio started, and the fresh-turn'd mouldHe flung into the empty chasm with speed,And o'er it dropt the flagstone. One could readThat Agathè lay there; but still the girlLay by him, like a precious and pale pearl,That from the deep sea-waters had been rent—Like a star fallen from the firmament!He hides the grave-tools in an aged porch,To westward of the solitary church;And he hath clasp'd around the melting waistThe beautiful, dead girl: his cheek is press'dTo hers—Life warming the cold chill of Death!And over his pale palsy breathing breathHis eye is sunk upon her—"Thou must leaveThe worm to waste for love of thee, and grieveWithout thee, as I may not. Thou must go,My sweet betrothed, with me—but not below,Where there is darkness, dream, and solitude,But where is light, and life, and one to broodAbove thee till thou wakest—Ha! I fearThou wilt not wake for ever, sleeping here,Where there are none but winds to visit thee,And convent fathers, and a choristryOf sisters, saying, 'Hush!'—But I will singRare songs to thy pure spirit, wanderingDown on the dews to hear me; I will tuneThe instrument of the ethereal moon,And all the choir of stars, to rise and fallIn harmony and beauty musical."He is away—and still the sickly lampIs burning next the altar; there's a damp,Thin mould upon the pavement; and, at morn,The monks do cross them in their blessed scornAnd mutter deep anathemas, becauseOf the unholy sacrilege, that wasWithin the sainted chapel,—for they guess'd,By many a vestige sad, how the dark restOf Agathè was broken,—and anonThey sought for Julio. The summer sunArose and and set, with his imperial discToward the ocean-waters, heaving briskBefore the winds,—but Julio came never:He that was frantic as a foaming river—Mad as the fall of leaves upon the tideOf a great tempest, that have fought and diedAlong the forest ramparts, and doth stillIn its death-struggle desperately reelRound with the fallen foliage—he was gone,And none knew whither. Still were chanted onSad masses, by pale sisters, many a day,And holy requiems sung for Agathè!

A train of holy fathers windeth byThe arches of an aged sanctuary,With cowl, and scapular, and rosaryOn to the sainted oriel, where stood,By the rich altar, a fair sisterhood—A weeping group of virgins! one or twoBent forward to a bier, of solemn hue,Whereon a bright and stately coffin lay,With its black pall flung over:—AgathèWas on the lid—a name. And who?—No more!'Twas only Agathè.

'Tis o'er, 'tis o'er,—Her burial! and, under the arcades,Torch after torch into the moonlight fades;And there is heard the music, a brief while,Over the roofings of the imaged aisle,From the deep organ panting out its last,Like the slow dying of an autumn blast.

A lonely monk is loitering withinThe dusky area, at the altar seen,Like a pale spirit kneeling in the lightOf the cold moon, that looketh wan and whiteThrough the deviced oriel; and he laysHis hands upon his bosom, with a gazeTo the chill earth. He had the youthful lookWhich heartfelt woe had wasted, and he shookAt every gust of the unholy breeze,That enter'd through the time-worn crevices.

A score of summers only o'er his browHad pass'd—and it was summer, even now,The one-and-twentieth—from a birth of tears,Over a waste of melancholy years!Andthatbrow was as wan as if it wereOf snowy marble, and the raven hairThat would have cluster'd over, was all shorn,And his fine features stricken pale as morn.

He kiss'd a golden crucifix that hungAround his neck, and in a transport flungHimself upon the earth, and said, and saidWild, raving words, about the blessed dead:And then he rose, and in the moonshade stood,Gazing upon its light in solitude;And smote his brow, at some idea wildThat came across: then, weeping like a child,He falter'd out the name of Agathè;And look'd unto the heaven inquiringly,And the pure stars.

"Oh shame! that ye are met,To mock me, like old memories, that yetBreak in upon the golden dream I knew,While she—shelived: and I have said adieuTo that fair one, and to her sister Peace,That lieth in her grave. When wilt thou ceaseTo feed upon my quiet!—thou Despair!That art the mad usurper, and the heir,Of this heart's heritage! Go, go—return,And bring me back oblivion, and an urn!And ye, pale stars, may look, and only find,The wreck of a proud tree, that lets the windCount o'er its blighted boughs; for such was heThat loved, and loves, the silent Agathè!"And he hath left the sanctuary, like oneThat knew not his own purpose—The red sunRose early over incense of bright mist,That girdled a pure sky of amethyst.And who was he? A monk. And those who knewYclept him Julio; but they were few:And others named him as a nameless one,—A dark, sad-hearted being, who had noneBut bitter feelings, and a cast of sadness,That fed the wildest of all curses—madness!

But he was, whatnoneknew, of lordly line,That fought in the far land of Palestine,Where, under banners of the cross, they fell,Smote by the armies of the infidel.And Julio was the last; alone, alone!A sad, unfriended orphan, that had goneInto the world, to murmur and to die,Like the cold breezes that are passing by!

And few they were that bade him to their board;His fortunes now were over, and the swordOf his proud ancestry dishonour'd—leftTo moulder in its sheath—a hated gift!

Ay! it was so; and Julio had fainHave been a warrior; but his very brainGrew fever'd at the sickly thought of death,And to be stricken with a want of breath!—To be the food of worms—inanimate,And cold as winter,—and as desolate!And then to waste away, and be no moreThan the dark dust!—The thought was like a soreThat gather'd in his heart; and he would say,—"A curse be on their laurels!" and decayCame over them; the deeds that they had doneHad fallen with their fortunes; and anonWas Julio forgotten, and his line—No wonder for this frenzied tale of mine!

Oh! he was wearied of this passing scene!But loved not death: his purpose was betweenLife and the grave; and it would vibrate there,Like a wild bird that floated far and fairBetwixt the sun and sea!

He went, and came,And thought, and slept, and still awoke the same,—A strange, strange youth; and he would look all nightUpon the moon and stars, and count the flightOf the sea waves, and let the evening windPlay with his raven tresses, or would bindGrottoes of birch, wherein to sit and sing:And peasant girls would find him sauntering,To gaze upon their features, as they met,In laughter, under some green arboret.

At last, he became monk, and, on his knees,Said holy prayers, and with wild penancesMade sad atonement; and the solemn whim,That, like a shadow, loiter'd over him,Wore off, even like a shadow. He was cursedWith none of the mad thoughts that were at firstThe poison of his quiet; but he grewTo love the world and its wild laughter too,As he had known before; and wish'd againTo join the very mirth he hated then!

He durst not break the vow—he durst not beThe one he would—and his heart's harmonyBecame a tide of sorrow. Even so,He felt hope die,—in madness and in woe!But there came one—and a most lovely oneAs ever to the warm light of the sunThrew back her tresses,—a fair sister girl,With a brow changing between snow and pearl,And the blue eyes of sadness, fill'd with dewOf tears,—like Heaven's own melancholy blue,—So beautiful, so tender; and her formWas graceful as a rainbow in a storm,Scattering gladness on the face of sorrow—Oh! I had fancied of the hues that borrowTheir brightness from the sun; but she was brightIn her own self,—a mystery of light!With feelings tender as a star's own hue,Pure as the morning star! as true, as true;For it will glitter in each early sky,And her first love be love that lasteth aye!

And this was Agathè, young Agathè,A motherless, fair girl: and many a dayShe wept for her lost parent. It was sadTo see her infant sorrow; how she badeThe flow of her wild spirits fall awayTo grief, like bright clouds in a summer dayMelting into a shower: and it was sadAlmost to think she might again be glad,Her beauty was so chaste, amid the fallOf her bright tears. Yet, in her father's hall,She had lived almost sorrowless her days:But he felt no affection for the gazeOf his fair girl; and when she fondly smiled,He bade no father's welcome to the child,But even told his wish, and will'd it done,For her to be sad-hearted—and a nun!

And so it was. She took the dreary veil,A hopeless girl! and the bright flush grew paleUpon her cheek: she felt, as summer feelsThe winds of autumn and the winter chills,That darken his fair suns.—It was away,Feeding on dreams, the heart of Agathè!

The vesper prayers were said, and the last hymnSung to the Holy Virgin. In the dim,Gray aisle was heard a solitary tread,As of one musing sadly on the dead—'Twas Julio; it was his wont to beOften alone within the sanctuary;But now, not so—another: it was she!Kneeling in all her beauty, like a saintBefore a crucifix; but sad and faintThe tone of her devotion, as the trillOf a moss-burden'd, melancholy rill.

And Julio stood before her;—'twas as yetThe hour of the pale twilight—and they metEach other's gaze, till either seem'd the hueOf deepest crimson; but the ladye threwHer veil above her features, and stole byLike a bright cloud, with sadness and a sigh!

Yet Julio still stood gazing and alone,A dreamer!—"Is the sister ladye gone?"He started at the silence of the airThat slumber'd over him—she is not there.

And either slept not through the live-long night,Or slept in fitful trances, with a bright,Fair dream upon their eyelids: but they roseIn sorrow from the pallet of repose;For the dark thought of their sad destinyCame o'er them, like a chasm of the deep sea,That was to rend their fortunes; and at eveThey met again, but, silent, took their leave,As they did yesterday: another night,And neither spake awhile—A pure delightHad chasten'd love's first blushes: silentlyGazed Julio on the gentle Agathè—At length, "Fair Nun!"—She started, and held fastHer bright hand on her lip—"the past, the past,And the pale future! There be some that lieUnder those marble urns—I know not why,But I were better in that only calm,Than be as I have been, perhaps, and am.The past!—ay! it hath perish'd; never, never,Would I recall it to be blest for ever:The future it must come—I have a vow"—And his cold hand rose trembling to his brow."True, true, I have a vow. Is not the moonAbroad, fair Nun?"—"Indeed! so very soon?"Said Agathè, and "I must then away."—"Stay, love! 'tis early yet; stay, angel, stay!"But she was gone:—yet they met many a timeIn the lone chapel, after vesper chime—They met in love and fear.

One weary day,And Julio saw not his loved Agathè;She was not in the choir of sisterhoodThat sang the evening anthem, and he stoodLike one that listen'd breathlessly awhile;But stranger voices chanted through the aisle.She was not there; and, after all were gone,He linger'd: the stars came—he linger'd on,Like a dark fun'ral image on the tombOf a lost hope. He felt a world of gloomUpon his heart—a solitude—a chill.The pale morn rose, and still, he linger'd still.And the next vesper toll'd; nor yet, nor yet—"Can Agathè be faithless, and forget?"

It was the third sad eve, he heard it said,"Poor Julio! thy Agathè is dead,"And started. He had loiter'd in the trainThat bore her to the grave: he saw her lainIn the cold earth, and heard a requiemSung over her—To him it was a dream!A marble stone stood by the sepulchre;He look'd, and saw, and started—she was there!And Agathè had died; she that was bright—She that was in her beauty! a cold blightFell over the young blossom of her brow.And the life-blood grew chill—She is not, now.

She died, like zephyr falling amid flowers!Like to a star within the twilight hoursOf morning—and she was not! Some have thoughtThe Lady Abbess gave her a mad draught,That stole into her heart, and sadly rentThe fine chords of that holy instrument,Until its music falter'd fast away,And she—she died,—the lovely Agathè!

Again, and through the arras of the gloomAre the pale breezes moaning: by her tombBends Julio, like a phantom, and his eyeIs fallen, as the moon-borne tides, that lieAt ebb within the sea. Oh! he is wan,As winter skies are wan, like ages gone,And stars unseen for paleness; it is cast,As foliage in the raving of the blast,All his fair bloom of thoughts! Is the moon chill,That in the dark clouds she is mantled still?And over its proud arch hath Heaven flungA scarf of darkness? Agathè was young!And there should be the virgin silver there,The snow-white fringes delicately fair!

He wields a heavy mattock in his hands,And over him a lonely lanthorn standsOn a near niche, shedding a sickly fallOf light upon a marble pedestal,Whereon is chisel'd rudely, the essayOf untaught tool, "Hic jacet Agathè!"And Julio hath bent him down in speed,Like one that doeth an unholy deed.

There is a flagstone lieth heavilyOver the ladye's grave; I wist of threeThat bore it, of a blessed verity!But he hath lifted it in his pure madness,As it were lightsome as a summer gladness,And from the carved niche hath ta'en the lamp,And hung it by the marble flagstone damp.

And he is flinging the dark, chilly mouldOver the gorgeous pavement: 'tis a cold,Sad grave, and there is many a relic thereOf chalky bones, which, in the wasting air,Fell smouldering away; and he would dashHis mattock through them, with a cursed clash,That made the lone aisle echo. But anonHe fell upon a skull,—a haggard one,With its teeth set, and the great orbless eyeRevolving darkness, like eternity—And in his hand he held it, till it grewTo have the fleshy features and the hueOf life. He gazed, and gazed, and it becameLike to his Agathè—all, all the same!He drew it nearer,—the cold, bony thing!—To kiss the worm-wet lips. "Ay! let me cling—Cling to thee now, for ever!" but a breathOf rank corruption from its jaws of deathWent to his nostrils, and he madly laugh'd,And dash'd it over on the altar shaft,Which the new risen moon, in her gray light,Had fondly flooded, beautifully bright!

Again he wentTo his wild work, beside the monument."Ha! leave, thou moon! where thy footfall hath beenIn sorrow amid heaven! there is sinUnder thy shadow, lying like a dew;So come thou, from thy awful arch of blue,Where thou art even as a silver throneFor some pale spectre-king; come thou alone,Or bring a solitary orphan starUnder thy wings! afar, afar, afar,To gaze upon this girl of radiancy,In her deep slumbers—Wake thee, Agathè!"

And Julio hath stolen the dark chestWhere the fair nun lay coffin'd, in the restThat wakes not up at morning: she is there,An image of cold calm! One tress of hairLingereth lonely on her snowy brow;But the bright eyes are closed in darkness now;And their long lashes delicately restOn the pale cheek, like sun-rays in the west,That fall upon a colourless, sad cloud.Humility lies rudely on the proud,But she was never proud; and there she is,A yet unwither'd flower the autumn breezeHath blown from its green stem! 'T is pale, 't is pale,But still unfaded, like the twilight veilThat falleth after sunset; like a streamThat bears the burden of a silver gleamUpon its waters; and is even so,—Chill, melancholy, lustreless, and low!

Beauty in death! a tenderness uponThe rude and silent relics, where aloneSat the destroyer! Beauty on the dead!The look of being where the breath is fled!The unwarming sun still joyous in its light!A time—a time without a day or night!Death cradled upon Beauty, like a beeUpon a flower, that looketh lovingly!—Like a wild serpent, coiling in its madness,Under a wreath of blossom and of gladness!

And there she is; and Julio bends o'erThe sleeping girl,—a willow on the shoreOf a Dead Sea! that steepeth its far boughInto the bitter waters,—even nowTaking a foretaste of the awful tranceThat was to pass on his own countenance!

Yes! yes! and he is holding his pale lipsOver her brow; the shade of an eclipseIs passing to his heart, and to his eye,That is not tearful; but the light will die,Leaving it like a moon within a mist,—The vision of a spell-bound visionist!

He breathed a cold kiss on her ashy cheek,That left no trace—no flush—no crimson streak,But was as bloodless as a marble stone,Susceptible of silent waste alone.And on her brow a crucifix he laid—A jewel'd crucifix, the virgin maidHad given him before she died. The moonShed light upon her visage—clouded soon,Then briefly breaking from its airy veil,Like warrior lifting up his aventayle.

But Julio gazed on, and never liftedHimself to see the broken clouds, that driftedOne after one, like infant elves at playAmid the night-winds, in their lonely way—Some whistling and some moaning, some asleep,And dreaming dismal dreams, and sighing deepOver their couches of green moss and flowers,And solitary fern, and heather bowers.

The heavy bell toll'd two, and, as it toll'd,Julio started, and the fresh-turn'd mouldHe flung into the empty chasm with speed,And o'er it dropt the flagstone. One could readThat Agathè lay there; but still the girlLay by him, like a precious and pale pearl,That from the deep sea-waters had been rent—Like a star fallen from the firmament!He hides the grave-tools in an aged porch,To westward of the solitary church;And he hath clasp'd around the melting waistThe beautiful, dead girl: his cheek is press'dTo hers—Life warming the cold chill of Death!And over his pale palsy breathing breathHis eye is sunk upon her—"Thou must leaveThe worm to waste for love of thee, and grieveWithout thee, as I may not. Thou must go,My sweet betrothed, with me—but not below,Where there is darkness, dream, and solitude,But where is light, and life, and one to broodAbove thee till thou wakest—Ha! I fearThou wilt not wake for ever, sleeping here,Where there are none but winds to visit thee,And convent fathers, and a choristryOf sisters, saying, 'Hush!'—But I will singRare songs to thy pure spirit, wanderingDown on the dews to hear me; I will tuneThe instrument of the ethereal moon,And all the choir of stars, to rise and fallIn harmony and beauty musical."

He is away—and still the sickly lampIs burning next the altar; there's a damp,Thin mould upon the pavement; and, at morn,The monks do cross them in their blessed scornAnd mutter deep anathemas, becauseOf the unholy sacrilege, that wasWithin the sainted chapel,—for they guess'd,By many a vestige sad, how the dark restOf Agathè was broken,—and anonThey sought for Julio. The summer sunArose and and set, with his imperial discToward the ocean-waters, heaving briskBefore the winds,—but Julio came never:He that was frantic as a foaming river—Mad as the fall of leaves upon the tideOf a great tempest, that have fought and diedAlong the forest ramparts, and doth stillIn its death-struggle desperately reelRound with the fallen foliage—he was gone,And none knew whither. Still were chanted onSad masses, by pale sisters, many a day,And holy requiems sung for Agathè!

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