Alas! to mend the breaches wide He made for these poor ninnies, They all must work, whate'er betide, Both days and months, and pay beside (Sad news for Avarice and for Pride) A sight of golden guineas.
But here once more to view did pop
The man that kept his senses.
And now he cried-" Stop, neighbors! stop! The Ox is mad! I would not swop, No, not a school-boy's farthing top For all the parish fences.
"The Ox is mad! Ho! Dick, Bob, Mat! What means this coward fuss? Ho! stretch this rope across the plat"T will trip him up-or if not that, Why, damme! we must lay him flatSee, here's my blunderbuss!"
"A lying dog! just now he said, The Ox was only glad, Let's break his Presbyterian head!""Hush!" quoth the sage, "you've been misled, No quarrels now-let's all make head
You drove the poor Ox mad!"
As thus I sat in careless chat,
With the morning's wet newspaper, In eager haste, without his hat, As blind and blundering as a bat, In came that fierce aristocrat, Our pursy woollen draper.
And so my Muse perforce drew bit,
And in he rush'd and panted :
"Well, have you heard?". -"No! not a whit." "What! han't you heard?"-Come, out with it!" "That Tierney votes for Mister Pitt,
And Sheridan's recanted."
Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in ævo." Perlegis hic lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acutâ Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus, Omnia paulatim consumit longior ætas, Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo. Ispe mihi collatus enim non ille videbor: Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago, Voxque aliud sonat-
Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes, Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus Mens horret relegensque alium putat ista locutum.
INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE DARK LADIE.
The following Poem is intended as the introduction to a somewhat longer one. The use of the old Ballad word Ladie for Lady, is the only piece of obsoleteness in it; and as it is professedly a tale of ancient times, I trust that the affectionate lovers of venerable antiquity [as Camden says] will grant me their pardon, and perhaps may be induced to admit a force and propriety in it A heavier objection may be adduced against the author, that in these times of fear and expectation, when novelties explode around us in all directions, he should
presume to offer to the public a silly tale of old-fashioned love and five years ago, I own I should have allowed and felt the force of this objection. But, alas! explosion has succeeded explosion so rapidly, that novelty itself ceases to appear new; and it is possible that now even a simple story, wholly uninspired with politics or personality, may find some attention amid the hubbub of revolutions, as to those who have remained a long time by the falls of Niagara, the lowest whispering becomes distinct ly audible. S. T. C
O LEAVE the lily on its stem;
O leave the rose upon the spray;
O leave the elder bloom, fair maids! And listen to my lay.
A cypress and a myrtle-bough
This morn around my harp you twined Because it fashion'd mournfully
Its murmurs in the wind.
And now a Tale of Love and Woe, A woful Tale of Love I sing; Hark, gentle maidens, hark! it sighs And trembles on the string.
But most, my own dear Genevieve,
It sighs and trembles most for thee! O come, and hear what cruel wrongs Befell the Dark Ladie.
Few Sorrows hath she of her own, My hope, my joy, my Genevieve! She loves me best, whene'er I sing The songs that make her grieve.
All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stir this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his 'sacred flame.
Oh! ever in my waking dreams, I dwell upon that happy hour, When midway on the mount I sate, Beside the ruin'd tower.
The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, Had blended with the lights of eve And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve!
She lean'd against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight, She stood and listen'd to my harp, Amid the ling'ring light.
I play'd a sad and doleful air.
I sang an old and moving storyAn old rude song, that fitted well That ruin wild and hoary.
She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace, For well she knew, I could not choose But gaze upon her face.
I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand; And how for ten long years he woo'd The Ladie of the Land:
I told her how he pined: and ah! The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sung another's love, Interpreted my own.
She listen'd with a flitting blush;
With downcast eyes, and modest grace; And she forgave me, that I gazed Too fondly on her face!
But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed this bold and lonely Knight, And how he roam'd the mountain-woods, Nor rested day or night;
And how he cross'd the woodman's paths, Through briers and swampy mosses beat; How boughs rebounding scourged his limbs, And low stubs gored his feet;
That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade;
There came and look'd him in the face An Angel beautiful and bright; And how he knew it was a Fiend, This miserable Knight!
And how, unknowing what he did, He leapt amid a lawless band,
And saved from outrage worse than death The Ladie of the Land!
And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees; And how she tended him in vain
And meekly strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain:
And how she nursed him in a cave; And how his madness went away, When on the yellow forest-leaves A dying man he lay;
His dying words-but when I reach'd That tend'rest strain of all the ditty, My falt'ring voice and pausing harp Disturb'd her soul with pity!
All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrill'd my guiltless Genevieve; The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;
And hopes and fears that kindle hope, An undistinguishable throng, And gentle wishes long subdued, Subdued and cherish'd long!
She wept with pity and delight,
She blush'd with love and maiden-shame; And, like the murmurs of a dream, I heard her breathe my name.
saw her bosom heave and swell, Heave and swell with inward sighs
I could not choose but love to see Her gentle bosom rise.
Her wet cheek glow'd: she stept aside, As conscious of my look she stepp'd; Then suddenly, with tim'rous eye, She flew to me and wept.
She half inclosed me with her arms,
She press'd me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, look'd up, And gazed upon my face.
"T was partly love, and partly fear, And partly 't was a bashful art, That I might rather feel than see The swelling of her heart.
I calm'd her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous bride.
And now once more a tale of woe, A woeful tale of love I sing: For thee, my Genevieve! it sighs,
And trembles on the string.
When last I sang the cruel scorn
That crazed this bold and lonely Knight, And how he roam'd the mountain-woods Nor rested day or night;
I promised thee a sister tale
Of man's perfidious cruelty:
Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong Befell the Dark Ladie.
LEWTI, OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHAUNT.
AT midnight by the stream I roved, To forget the form I loved. Image of Lewti! from my mind Depart; for Lewti is not kind.
The moon was high, the moonlight gleam And the shadow of a star Heaved upon Tarnaha's stream;
But the rock shone brighter far, The rock half-shelter'd from my view By pendent boughs of tressy yew- So shines my Lewti's forehead fair, Gleaming through her sable hair. Image of Lewti! from my mind Depart; for Lewti is not kind.
I saw a cloud of palest hue, Onward to the moon it pass'd; Still brighter and more bright it grew, With floating colors not a few,
Till it reach'd the moon at last: Then the cloud was wholly bright With a rich and amber light! And so with many a hope I seek
And with such joy I find my Lewti:
And even so my pale wan cheek
Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty! Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind, If Lewti never will be kind.
The little cloud-it floats away,
Away it goes; away so soon? Alas! it has no power to stay: Its hues are dim, its hues are gray- Away it passes from the moon! How mournfully it seems to fly,
Ever fading more and more,
To joyless regions of the sky
And now 't is whiter than before! As white as my poor cheek will be,
When, Lewti! on my couch I lie, A dying man for love of thee.
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mindAnd yet thou didst not look unkind.
O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot Crushing the purple whorts; while oft unseen, Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves, The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil, I know not, ask not whither! A new joy, Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust, And gladsome as the first-born of the spring, Beckons me on, or follows from behind, Playmate, or guide! The master-passion quell'd, I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak, Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake Soar up, and form a melancholy vault High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea.
Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse, Here too the lovelorn man who, sick in soul, And of this busy human heart aweary, Worships the spirit of unconscious life In tree or wild-flower.-Gentle Lunatic! If so he might not wholly cease to be, He would far rather not be that, he is; But would be something, that he knows not of, In winds or waters, or among the rocks!
But hence, fond wretch! breathe not contagior here!
No myrtle-walks are these: these are no groves Where Love dare loiter! If in sullen mood He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore His dainty feet, the brier and the thorn Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs, Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades!
And you, ye Earth-winds! you that make at morn The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs! You, O ye wingless Airs! that creep between The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze, Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon, The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed- Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp, Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb. Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes! With prickles sharper than his darts bemock His little Godship, making him perforce
Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's back
Close by this river, in this silent shade, As safe and sacred from the step of man As an invisible world-unheard, unseen, And list'ning only to the pebbly brook That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound Or to the bees, that in the neighboring trunk Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me Was never Love's accomplice, never raised The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow, And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek; Ne'er play'd the wanton-never half-disclosed The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence Eye-poisons for some love-distemper'd youth, Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-grove
Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.
Sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright, Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast, That swells its little breast, so full of song, Singing above me, on the mountain-ash. And thou too, desert Stream! no pool of thine, Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve, Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe, The face, the form divine, the downcast look Contemplative! Behold! her open palm Presses her cheek and brow! her elbow rests On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree, That leans towards its mirror! Who erewhile
Had from her countenance turn'd, or look'd
Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun Throbbing within them, Heart at once and Eye! With its soft neighborhood of filmy clouds, The stains and shadings of forgotten tears, Dimness o'erswum with lustre! Such the hour Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds, And hark, the noise of a near waterfall! I pass forth into light-I find myself Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful Of forest-trees, the Lady of the woods), Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock That overbrows the cataract. How bursts The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hills Fold in behind each other, and so make A circular vale, and land-lock'd, as might seem, by With brook and bridge, and gray stone cottages, Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet, The whortle-berries are bedew'd with spray, Dash'd upwards by the furious waterfall. How solemnly the pendent ivy mass Swings in its winnow: all the air is calm.
For fear is true love's cruel nurse), he now With stedfast gaze and unoffending eye, Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain, E'en as that phantom-world on which he gazed, But not unheeded gazed: for see, ah! see, The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow, Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells: And suddenly, as one that toys with time, Scatters them on the pool! Then all the charm Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each misshapes the other. Stay awhile, Poor youth, who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes! The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon The visions will return! And lo! he stays: And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms Come trembling back, unite, and now once more The pool becomes a mirror; and behold Each wild-flower on the marge inverted there, And there the half-uprooted tree-but where, O where the virgin's snowy arm, that lean'd On its bare branch? He turns, and she is gone! Homeward she steals through many a woodland
Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth! Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook, Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou Behold'st her shadow still abiding there, The Naiad of the Mirror!
O wild and desert Stream! belongs this tale : Gloomy and dark art thou-the crowded firs Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed, Making thee doleful as a cavern-well: Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream!
This be my chosen haunt-emancipate From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone, I rise and trace its devious course. O lead, Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms. Lo stealing through the canopy of firs, How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock, Isle of the river, whose disparted waves Dart off asunder with an angry sound, How soon to reunite! And see! they meet, Each in the other lost and found: and see
The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with light,
Rises in columns; from this house alone, Close by the waterfall, the column slants,
And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this? That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke, And close beside its porch a sleeping child, His dear head pillow'd on a sleeping dog- One arm between its fore-legs, and the hand Holds loosely its small handful of wild-flowers, Unfilleted, and of unequal lengths.
A curious picture, with a master's haste Sketch'd on a strip of pinky-silver skin, Peel'd from the birchen bark! Divinest maid! Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berries Her pencil! See, the juice is scarcely dried On the fine skin! She has been newly here; And lo! yon patch of heath has been her couch- The pressure still remains! O blessed couch! For this mayst thou flower early, and the Sun, Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long Upon thy purple bells! O Isabel!. Daughter of genius! stateliest of our maids! More beautiful than whom Alcæus wooed, The Lesbian woman of immortal song! O child of genius! stately, beautiful, And full of love to all, save only me, And not ungentle e'en to me! My heart, Why beats it thus? Through yonder coppice-wood Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straightway On to her father's house. She is alone! The night draws on-such ways are hard to hit- And fit it is I should restore this sketch, Dropt unawares, no doubt. Why should I yearn To keep the relic? 't will but idly feed The picture in my hand which she has left, The passion that consumes me. Let me haste! She cannot blame me that I follow'd her; And I may be her guide the long wood through
You loved the daughter of Don Manrique ?
Ah! was that bliss Fear'd as an alien, and too vast for man? For suddenly, impatient of its silence,
Did Oropeza, starting, grasp my forehead. I caught her arms; the veins were swelling on them sire,Through the dark bower she sent a hollow voice, Oh! what if all betray me? what if thou?
Oh! I were most base, Not loving Oropeza. True, I woo'd her, Hoping to heal a deeper wound; but she Met advances with impassion'd pride, That kindled love with love. And when her Who in his dream of hope already grasp'd The golden circlet in his hand, rejected My suit with insult, and in memory
Of ancient feuds pour'd curses on my head, Her blessings overtook and baffled them!
But thou art stern, and with unkindly countenance Art inly reasoning whilst thou listenest to me.
Anxiously, Henry! reasoning anxiously. But Oropeza
Blessings gather round her!
Within this wood there winds a secret passage, Beneath the walls, which opens out at length Into the gloomiest covert of the garden
The night ere my departure to the army,
I swore, and with an inward thought that seem'd The purpose and the substance of my being, I swore to her, that were she red with guilt, I would exchange my unblench'd state with hers.- Friend! by that winding passage, to that bower I now will go-all objects there will teach me Unwavering love, and singleness of heart. Go, Sandoval! I am prepared to meet her- Say nothing of me-I myself will seek her- Nay, leave me, friend! I cannot bear the torment And keen inquiry of that scanning eye-
[EARL HENRY retires into the wood
O Henry! always strivest thou to be great. By thine own act-yet art thou never great But by the inspiration of great passion. The whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up
She, nothing trembling, led me through that gloom, And shape themselves: from Earth to Heaven they
And to that covert by a silent stream,
Which, with one star reflected near its marge, Was the sole object visible around me. No leaflet stirr'd; the air was almost sultry; So deep, so dark, so close, the umbrage o'er us! No leaflet stirr'd ;-yet pleasure hung upon The gloom and stillness of the balmy night-air. A little further on an arbor stood,
Fragrant with flowering trees-I well remember What an uncertain glimmer in the darkness Their snow-white blossoms made-thither she led me,
To that sweet bower! Then Oropeza trembled― I heard her heart beat-if 't were not my own.
A rude and scaring note, my friend!
I have small memory of aught but pleasure. The inquietudes of fear, like lesser streams Still flowing, still were lost in those of love: So love grew mightier from the fear, and Nature, Fleeing from Pain, shelter'd herself in Joy. The stars above our heads were dim and steady, Like eyes suffused with rapture. Life was in us: We were all life, each atom of our frames A living soul-I vow'd to die for her: With the faint voice of one who, having spoken,
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