Page 18SONG.O! YOUR eyes are deep and tender,O! your charmèd voice is low,But I've found your beauty's splendorAll a mockery and a show;Slighted heart and broken promiseFollow wheresoe'er you go.All your words are fair and golden,All your actions false and wrong,Not the noblest soul's beholdenTo your weak affections long;Only true in--lover's fancy,Only constant in--his song.ON A PORTRAIT.A widower muses over the likeness of his dead wife.THE face, the beautiful face,In its living flush and glow,The perfect face in its peerless graceThat I worshipped long ago;That I worshipped when youth was strong and bold,That I worship now,Though the pulse of youth grows faint and low,And the ashes of hope are cold.The face, the beautiful face,Ever haunting my heart and brain,Bringing ofttimes a dream of heaven,Ofttimes the pang of a painWhich darteth down like a lightning flashTo the dreadful deeps,Where the gems of a shipwrecked life are cast,And its dead cold promise sleeps.Sweet face! shall I meet thee again,In the passionless land of palms,By the verge of Heaven's enchanted streamsIn the hush of its perfect calms;Or, forever and ever, and evermore,While the years depart,While the ages roll,Walk the glooms of a ghostly shore,Made wild by a phantom-haunted brain,And a cloud-encircled soul; By a haunted brain and a cheerless heart,While the years and the ages roll?No answer comes to my cry,Though out of the depths I call:Not the faintest gleam of a hopeful beamShines over the shroud and pall. My soul is clothed with sackcloth and dust,And I look from my widowed hearthWith a vacant eye on the tumult and stirOf this weary, dreary earth;For my soul is dead and its hopes are dust,And the joy of passion, the strength of trust,These passed from the world with her.THE SHADOW.THE pathway of his mortal life hath woundBeneath a shadow; just beyond it play The genial breezes, and the cool brooks strayInto melodious gushings of sweet sound,Whilst ample floods of mellow sunshine fallLike a mute rain of rapture over all.Oft hath he deemed the spell of darkness lost,And shouted to the dayspring; a full glowHath rushed to clasp him; but the subtle woe, Unvanquished ever, with the might of frost,Regains its sad realm, and with voice malign Saith to the dawning joy: "This life is mine!" Page 19Still smiles the brave soul, undivorced from hope!And, with unwavering eye and warrior mien,Walks in the shadow, dauntless and serene,To test, through hostile years, the utmost scopeOf man's endurance--constant to essayAll heights of patience free to feet of clay.Still smiles the brave soul, undivorced from hope!But now, methinks, the pale hope gathers strength;Glad winds invade the silence; streams, at length,Flash through the desert; 'neath the sapphire copeOf deepening heavens he hails a happier day,And the spent shadow mutely wanes away.THE WINTER WINDS MAY WILDLY RAVE.THE winter winds may wildly rave,How wildly o'er thy place of rest!But, love! thou hast a holier graveDeep in a faithful human breast.There, the embalmer, Memory, bends,Watching, with softly-breathed sighs,The mystic light her genius lendsTo fadeless cheeks and tender eyes.There in a fathomless calm, serene,Thy beauty keeps its saintly trace,The radiance of an angel mien,The rapture of a heavenly grace.And there, O gentlest love! remain(No stormy passion round thee raves),Till, soul to soul, we meet again.Beyond this ghostly realm of graves.UNDER SENTENCE. PLACE--Scotland. TIME--Thirteenth Century.OFF! off! no treacherous priest for me!What's Heaven? what's Hell? Eternity!It hath no meaning to mine ear.Unless--Stay, father! Canst thou swearBy holy Rood, that I shall meetHim there, whose crime made murder sweet?Him whose black soul I've hurled before?He's gone! How cold my dungeon floor!And the rack wrenches still! This hand,Which stiffened to a fire-hot bandOf steel, crushing his base breath out,They've foully mangled! See that goutOf blood there--there, too! What care I?It did its work well: let it lie!I'd give ten mortal lives, I trow,As full of sweets as mine of woe,To feel that quivering throat once more;To view the blue-tinged, strangling goreSpout from his lips! To watch the dimFilm o'er those cruel eyeballs swim,And the black anguish of his stare,Dashed blind with horror! Lords! bewareMuch trifling! We are dogs, ye ken,Who yet may rise, and smite like men.What's this? Ah, yes! the flower I tookFrom her! I think her dying lookBaptized it, for it keeps so fair.I wonder if they decked her hairWith other flowers like this, ere yetThey lowered her beauty to the wet,Dark mould? If maiden dust to flowers(Some say so) turns, not all the bowersThis spring shall warm will equal those To blossom from her pure repose!My nuptial night! God's blood! what rightHad I to nuptials? To the bright Page 20Keen joy that burns on wedded lips?My life-star could not break the eclipseWherein 'twas born! So that dark doomWhich hounds me to a shameful tomb,Ordained that the fiend's trick they usedShould trap me! Faith, love, peace abusedI woke to find my heart bereftOf its one treasure! What was left?What, but that mandate Vengeance, hissedWith hot, tongue thro' a seething mist,Of passion; the fierce mandate, "Kill?"Aye! but she, too, lay blanched and still.Blanched on the couch I dreamed would beMy wedding couch! Oh, infamy!His outrage smote her to the heart;It crashed the gates of life apart,Where through her shuddering soul took flight!But ere the death-dew dimmed her sight,She gave me, as I said, this flower,And--one long smile! To my last hourI've shrined her smile! If, if somewhereThere be a heaven, benign and fair,Its saints, I feel, must smile so there!Dread God! couldst thou have marked my wrong,Yet sheathed thy lightning? I was strongAnd lusty as the hillside roe;Could wield the brand and bend the bowSo deftly, that his lordship deignedTo show me favor! Was it feigned?I know not! His last kindness tookA strange shape truly; for it shookMy hopes to atoms! Yet he fellProne with them! Shall we meet in hell?I ask again. Ha! if we doAnd there's a single nerve, or thew,Or muscle left to naked soul,I'll strangle him once more; enrollMy ruthless arms round breast and throat,And wring from out his gorge that noteOf palsied fear! I'll do 't, tho' allThe devils should pull me back, and callFresh torments on my anguished head:Doubtless they'll take his part instead.Of mine, being devils, and he the worst;A prince amongst their tribes accurstBy this time; for a month has sped,Beshrew me, since he joined the dead,The damned dead! Full time I trow,For all the bounds of hell to knowThat Satan's rivalled! Hark without!The gathering tramp, the approaching shoutOf thousands! Well, their scaffold's high;Fair chance for all to see me die!THE VILLAGE BEAUTY.THE glowing tints of a tropic eve,Burn on her radiant cheek,And we know that her voice is rich and low,Though we never have heard her speak;So full are those gracious eyes of light,That the blissful flood runs o'er,And wherever her tranquil pathway tendsA glory flits on before!O! very grand are the city belles,Of a brilliant and stately mien, As they walk the steps of the languid dance,And flirt in the pauses between;But beneath the boughs of the hoary oak,When the minstrel fountains play,I think that the artless village girlIs sweeter by far than they. Page 21O! very grand are the city belles,But their hearts are worn awayBy the keen-edged world, and their lives have lostThe beauty and mirth of May;They move where the sun and the starry dewsReign not; they are haughty and bold,And they do not shrink from the cursed mart,Where faith is the slave of gold.But the starry dews and the genial sunHave gladdened her guileless youth;And her brow is bright with the flush of hope,Her soul with the seal of truth;Her steps are beautiful on the hillsAs the steps of an Orient morn,And Ruth was never more fair to seeIn the midst of the autumn corn.AFTER DEATH.THE passionate sobs of the dear friends that cameTo look their last upon my living frame,And catch the fainting accents of my breath,That fluttered in the atmosphere of death,Were hushed to silence, and the uncertain light,That flickered o'er the arras to my sight,Grew paler and more tremulous, as lifeSunk 'neath the power of that unequal strife,Which pits humanity against the spellOf one all flesh hath found invincible!I could not see my foe: but the whole spaceWas redolent of pestilence, and graceOf all things beautiful, and grand and free,Seemed lost in darkness evermore to me:I struggled with the invisible arm that woundSo sternly round me, but could give no soundTo the great agony that whelmed my soulIn surges wilder than the eternal rollOf a world's waters, thundering round the Pole.Downward, still downward, the relentless handPressed on my being, and the iron wandOf his malign enchantment struck my heartWith a dull force that made the life-blood startForever from its courses; then a senseOf coming rest, more dreamless and intenseThan ever wrapped mortality in stillAnd throbless freedom from all thoughts of ill,Stole o'er the vanquished form and glimmering sight,Till silence ruled, with nothingness and night! Page 23SONNETS. Page 25SONNETS.
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