Sorrow and shame, to see with their own kind Our human brethren mix, like beasts of blood To mutual ruin arm'd by one behind Who sits and scoffs!-That friend so mild and good, Who like its shadow near my youth had stood, Was stabb'd!-my old preserver's hoary hair, With the flesh clinging to its roots, was strew'd Under my feet!-I lost all sense or care, And like the rest I grew desperate and unaware. XVI. The battle became ghastlier-in the midst I paused, and saw, how ugly and how fell, O Hate! thou art, even when thy life thou shedd'st For love. The ground in many a little dell Was broken, up and down whose steeps befell Alternate victory and defeat, and there The combatants with rage most horrible Strove, and their eyes started with cracking stare, And impotent their tongues they loll'd into the air. XVII. Flaccid and foamy, like a mad dog's hanging; Want, and Moon-madness, and the Pest's swift bane; When its shafts smite-while yet its bow is twanging Have each their mark and sign-some ghastly stain; And this was thine, O War! of hate and pain Thou lothed slave. I saw all shapes of death And minister'd to many, o'er the plain, While carnage in the sunbeam's warmth did seethe, Till twilight o'er the east wove her serenest wreath. XVIII. The few who yet survived, resolute and firm I felt, and saw on high the glare of falling brands: XIX. When on my foes a sudden terror came, And they fled, scattering-lo! with reinless speed A black Tartarian horse of giant frame Comes trampling o'er the dead, the living bleed Beneath the hoofs of that tremendous steed, On which, like to an Angel, robed in white, Sate one waving a sword;-the hosts recede And fly, as through their ranks with awful might, Sweeps in the shadow of eve that Phantom swift and bright; XX. And its path made a solitude.-I rose And mark'd its coming: it relax'd its course As it approach'd me, and the wind that flows Through night, bore accents to mine ear whose force Might create smiles in death-the Tartar horse Paused, and I saw the shape its might which sway'd, And heard her musical pants, like the sweet source Of waters in the desert, as she said, Mount with me, Laon, now."-I rapidly obey'd XXI. Then: "Away! away!" she cried, and stretch'd her sword As 't were a scourge over the courser's head, And lightly shook the reins:-We spake no word, But like the vapor of the tempest fled Over the plain; her dark hair was dispread Like the pine's locks upon the lingering blast; Over mine eyes its shadowy strings it spread, Fitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast, As o'er their glimmering forms the steed's broad shadow past. XXII. And his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust, Of the obscure stars gleam'd;-its rugged breast The steed strain'd up, and then his impulse did arrest. XXIII. A rocky hill which overhung the Ocean:- By the choicest winds of Heaven, which are enchanted To music, by the wand of Solitude, That wizard wild, and the far tents implanted Upon the plain, be seen by those who stood Thence marking the dark shore of Ocean's curved flood. XXIV. One moment these were heard and seen-another Past; and the two who stood beneath that night, Each only heard, or saw, or felt the other; As from the lofty steed she did alight, Cythna (for, from the eyes whose deepest light Of love and sadness made my lips feel pale With influence strange of mournfullest delight, My own sweet Cythna look'd), with joy did quail, And felt her strength in tears of human weakness fail. XXV. And, for a space in my embrace she rested, The battle, as I stood before the King In bonds.-I burst them then, and swiftly choosing The time, did seize a Tartar's sword, and spring Upon his horse, and swift as on the whirlwind's wing, XXVI. "Have thou and I been borne beyond pursuer, And we are here."-Then turning to the steed, She press'd the white moon on his front with pure And rose-like lips, and many a fragrant weed From the green ruin pluck'd, that he might feed;But I to a stone seat that Maiden led, And kissing her fair eyes, said, "Thou hast need Of rest," and I heap'd up the courser's bed In a green mossy nook, with mountain flowers dispread. XXVII. Within that ruin, where a shatter'd portal Looks to the eastern stars, abandon'd now By man, to be the home of things immortal, Memories, like awful ghosts which come and go. And must inherit all he builds below, When he is gone, a hall stood; o'er whose roof Fair clinging weeds with ivy pale did grow, Clasping its gray rents with a verdurous woof, A hanging dome of leaves, a canopy moon-proof. XXVIII. The autumnal winds, as if spell-bound, had made Made music wild and soft that fill'd the listening air XXIX. We know not where we go, or what sweet dream May pilot us through caverns strange and fair Of far and pathless passion, while the stream Of life our bark doth on its whirlpools bear, Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air; Nor should we seek to know, so the devotion Of love and gentle thoughts be heard still there Louder and louder from the utmost Ocean Of universal life; attuning its commotion. XXX. To the pure all things are pure! Oblivion wrapt Our spirits, and the fearful overthrow Of public hope was from our being snapt, Though linked years had bound it there; for now A power, a thirst, a knowledge, which below All thoughts, like light beyond the atmosphere, Clothing its clouds with grace, doth ever flow, Came on us, as we sate in silence there, Beneath the golden stars of the clear azure air. XXXI. In silence which doth follow talk that causes The baffled heart to speak with sighs and tears, When wildering passion swalloweth up the pauses Of inexpressive speech-the youthful years Which we together past, their hopes and fears, The blood itself which ran within our frames, That likeness of the features which endears The thoughts express'd by them, our very names, And all the winged hours which speechless memory claims, XXXII. Had found a voice-and ere that voice did pass, The night grew damp and dim, and through a rent Of the ruin where we sate, from the morass, A wandering meteor by some wild wind sent, Hung high in the green dome, to which it lent A faint and pallid lustre; while the song Of blasts, in which its blue hair quivering bent, Strew'd strangest sounds the moving leaves among A wondrous light, the sound as of a spirit's tongue XXXIII. The meteor show'd the leaves on which we sate, And Cythna's glowing arms, and the thick ties Of her soft hair, which bent with gather'd weight My neck near hers, her dark and deepening eyes, Which, as twin phantoms of one star that lies O'er a dim well, move, though the star reposes, Swam in our mute and liquid ecstasies, Her marble brow, and eager lips, like roses, XXXIX. There we unheeding sate, in the communion Of faith most sweet and sacred, stamp'd our union.- With their own fragrance pale, which spring but half Which common hopes and fears made, like a tempest, uncloses. XLV. I dreaded not the tempest, nor did he Mock the fierce peal with neighings;-thus we sped There was a desolate village in a wood, Whose bloom-inwoven leaves now scattering fed The hungry storm; it was a place of blood, A heap of hearthless walls;-the flames were dead Within those dwellings now,-the life had fled From all those corpses now,-but the wide sky Flooded with lightning was ribb'd overhead By the black rafters, and around did lie Women, and babes, and men, slaughter'd confusedly. XLVII. Beside the fountain in the market-place Dismounting, I beheld those corpses stare With horny eyes upon each other's face, And on the earth and on the vacant air, And upon me, close to the waters where I stoop'd to slake my thirst;-I shrank to taste, For the salt bitterness of blood was there; But tied the steed beside, and sought in haste If any yet survived amid that ghastly waste. XLVIII. No living thing was there beside one woman, Whom I found wandering in the streets, and she Was wither'd from a likeness of aught human Into a fiend, by some strange misery : Soon as she heard my steps she leap'd on me, And glued her burning lips to mine, and laugh'd With a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee, And cried, "Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaff'd The Plague's blue kisses-soon millions shall pledge the draught! XLIX. "My name is Pestilence-this bosom dry, Once fed two babes-a sister and a brotherWhen I came home, one in the blood did lie Of three death-wounds-the flames had ate the other! Since then I have no longer been a mother, But I am Pestilence ;-hither and thither I flit about, that I may slay and smother;— All lips which I have kiss'd must surely wither, But Death's-if thou art he, we'll go to work together! L. "What seek'st thou here? the moonlight comes in flashes, The dew is rising dankly from the dell "T will moisten her! and thou shalt see the gashes In my sweet boy, now full of worms—but tell First what thou seek'st."-"I seek for food."—""Tis well, Thou shalt have food; Famine, my paramour, Is Famine, but he drives not from his door Those whom these lips have kiss'd, alone. No more, no more!" LI. As thus she spake, she grasp'd me with the strength Of madness, and by many a ruin'd hearth She led, and over many a corpse :—at length We came to a lone hut, where on the earth Which made its floor, she in her ghastly mirth Gathering from all those homes now desolate, Had piled three heaps of loaves, making a dearth Among the dead-round which she set in state A ring of cold, stiff babes; silent and stark they sate. LII. She leap'd upon a pile, and lifted high Her mad looks to the lightning, and cried: "Eat! Share the great feast-to-morrow we must die!" And then she spurn'd the loaves with her pale feet, Towards her bloodless guests;-that sight to meet, Mine eyes and my heart ached, and but that she Who loved me, did with absent looks defeat Despair, I might have raved in sympathy; But now I took the food that woman offer'd me; LIII. And vainly having with her madness striven Had sate, with anxious eyes fix'd on the lingering day LIV. And joy was ours to meet: she was most pale, Famish'd, and wet and weary, so I cast My arms around her, lest her steps should fail As to our home we went, and thus embraced, Her full heart seem'd a deeper joy to taste Than e'er the prosperous know; the steed behind Trod peacefully along the mountain waste. We reached our home ere morning could unbind Night's latest veil, and on our bridal couch reclined. LV. Her chill'd heart having cherish'd in my bosom, Of health, and hope; and sorrow languish'd near it And fear, and all that dark despondence doth inherit. 278 |