And upon me, close to the waters where
I stooped 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.
No living thing was there beside one woman,
Whom I found wandering in the streets, and she
Was withered from a likeness of aught human
Into a fiend, by some strange misery:
Soon as she heard my steps she leaped on me,
And glued her burning lips to mine, and laughed
With a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee,
And cried, "Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffed
The Plague's blue kisses-soon millions shall pledge
draught!
My name is Pestilence-this bosom dry Once fed two babes-a sister and a brother
When 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 kissed must surely wither,
But Death's-if thou art he, we'll go to work together!
"What seek'st thou here? the moonlight comes in flashes,
The dew is rising dankly from the dell
"Twill 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
Thou shalt have food. Famine, my paramour,
Waits for us at the feast-cruel and fell
Is Famine, but he drives not from his door
Those whom these lips have kissed alone.
As thus she spake, she grasped me with the strength
Of madness, and by many a ruined 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.
She eaped 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 spurned 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 offered me.
And, vainly having with her madness striven,
If I might win her to return with me,
Departed. In the eastern beams of Heaven
The lightning now grew pailid-rapidly,
As by the shore of the tempestuous sea
The dark steed bore me, and the mountain grey
Soon echoed to his hoofs, and I could see
Cythna among the rocks, where she alway
Had sate, with anxious eyes fixed on the lingering day.
And joy was ours to meet: she was most pale,
Famished, 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 seemed 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 unhind
Night's latest veil, and on our bridal couch reclu
Her chilled heart having cherished in my bosom,
And sweetest kisses past, we two did share
Our peaceful meal;-as an autumnal blossom
Which spreads its shrunk leaves in the sunny air,
After cold showers, like rainbows woven there,
Thus in her lips and cheeks the vital spirit
Mantled, and in her eyes an atmosphere
Of health and hope; and sorrow languished near it,
And fear, and all that dark despondence doth inherit.
So we sate joyous as the morning ray
Which fed upon the wrecks of night and storm,
Now lingering on the winds; light airs did play
Among the dewy weeds; the sun was warm,
And we sate linked in the inwoven charm
Of converse and caresses sweet and deep.-
Speechless caresses, talk that might disarm
Time, tho' he wield the darts of death and sleep,
And those thrice mortal barbs in his own poison steep
I told her of my sufferings and my madness,
And how, awakened from that dreamy mood
By Liberty's uprise, the strength of gladness
Came to my spirit in my solitude;
And all that now I was, while tears pursued
Each other down her fair and listening cheek
Fast as the thoughts which fed them, like a flood
From sunbright dales; and when I ceased to speak,
Her accents soft and sweet the pausing air did wake.
She told me a strange tale of strange endurance,
Like broken memories of many a heart
Woven into one; to which no firm assurance,
So wild were they, could her own faith impart.
She said that not a tear did dare to start
From the swoln brain, and that her thoughts were firm When from all mortal hope she did depart,
Borne by those slaves across the Ocean's term,
And that she reached the port without one fear infirm
One was she among many there, the thralls
Of the cold tyrant's cruel lust and they
Laughed mournfully in those polluted halls;
But she was calm and sad, musing alway
On loftiest enterprise, till on a day
The Tyrant heard her singing to her lute
A wild, and sad, and spirit-thrilling lay,
Like winds that die in wastes-one moment mute
The evil thoughts it made, which did his breast pollute.
Even when he saw her wondrous loveliness,
One moment to great Nature's sacred power
He bent, and was no longer passionless;
But, when he bade her to his secret bower
Be borne, a loveless victim, and she tore
Her locks in agony, and her words of flame
And mightier looks availed not, then he bore
Again his load of slavery, and became
A king, a heartless beast, a pageant, and a name.
She told me what a loathsome agony
Is that when selfishness mocks love's delight,
Foul as in dreams most fearful imagery
To dally with the mowing dead-that night
All torture, fear, or horror, made seem light
Which the soul dreams or knows, and when the day
Shone on her awful frenzy, from the sight,
Where like a Spirit in fleshy chains she lay
Struggling, aghast and pale the Tyrant fled away.
Her madness was a beam of light, a power
Which dawned thro' the rent soul; and words it gave Gestures and looks, such as in whirlwinds bore
Which might not be withstood, whence none could save
All who approached their sphere, like some calm wave
Vexed into whirlpools by the chasms beneath;
And sympathy made each attendant slave
Fearless and free, and they began to breathe
Deep curses, like the voice of flames far underneath
The King felt pale upon his noonday throne:
At night two slaves he to her chamber sent,
One was a green and wrinkled eunuch, grown
From human shape into an instrument
Of all things ill-distorted, bowed, and bent,
The other was a wretch from infancy
Made dumb by poison, who nought knew or meant
But to obey from the fire-isles came he,
A diver lean and strong, of Oman's coral sea.
They bore her to a bark, and the swift stroke
Of silent rowers clove the blue moonlight seas,
Until upon their path the morning broke ;
They anchored then, where, be there calm or breeze,
The gloomiest of the drear Symplegades
Shakes with the sleepless surge:-the Ethiop there
Wound his long arms around her, and with knees
Like iron clasped her feet, and plunged with her
Among the closing waves out of the boundless air.
"Swift as an angel stooping from the plain
Of morning light, into some shadowy wood
He plunged thro' the green silence of the main
Thro' many a cavern which the eternal flood
Had scooped, as dark lairs for its monster brood;
And among mighty shapes which fled in wonder,
And among mightier shadows which pursued
His heels, he wound, until the dark rocks under
He touched a golden chain-a sound arose like thunder
"A stunning clang of massive bolts redoubling
Beneath the deep-a burst of waters driven
As from the roots of the sea, raging and bubbling:
And in that roof of crags a space was riven
Thro' which there shone the emerald beams of heaven,
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