Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

From that sweet food,-even from the thirst
Of death, and nothingness, and rest,

Strange inmate of a living breast:
Which all that I had undergone

Of grief and shame, since she, who first
The gates of that dark refuge closed,
Came to my sight, and almost burst
The seal of that Lethean spring;
But these fair shadows interposed:
For all delights are shadows now!
And from my brain to my dull brow
The heavy tears gather and flow;
I cannot speak; Oh let me weep!
The tears which fell from her wan eyes
Glimmered among the moonlight dew:
Her deep hard sobs, and heavy sighs,
Their echoes in the darkness threw.
When she grew calm, she thus did keep
The tenor of her tale:

He died:

I know not how: he was not old,
If age be numbered by its years:
But he was bowed and bent with fears,
Pale with the quenchless thirst of gold,
Which, like fierce fever left him weak;
And his strait lip and bloated cheek
Were warped in spasms by hollow sneers;
And selfish cares with barren plough,
Not age, had lined his narrow brow,
And foul and cruel thoughts, which feed
Upon the withering life within,
Like vipers on some poisonous weed.
Whether his ill were death or sin
None knew, until he died indeed,
And then men owned they were the same.
Seven days within my chamber lay
That corse, and my babes made holiday
At last, I told them what is death;
The eldest, with a kind of shame.

Came to my knees with silent breath,
And sate awe-stricken at my feet:
And soon the others left their play,
And sate there too. It is unmeet
To shed on the brief flower of youth
The withering knowledge of the grave;
From me remorse then wrung that truth.
I could not bear the joy which gave
Too just a response to mine own,
In vain. I dared not feign a groan;
And in their artless looks I saw,
Between the mists of fear and awe,
That my own thought was theirs; and they
Expressed it not in words, but said,
Each in its heart, how every day
Will pass in happy work and play,
Now he is dead and gone away.

After the funeral all our kin
Assembled, and the will was read.
My friend, I tell thee, even the dead
Have strength, their putrid shrouds within,
To blast and torture. Those who live
Still fear the living, but a corse

Is merciless, and power doth give
To such pale tyrants half the spoil
He rends from those who groan and toil,
Because they blush not with remorse
Among their crawling worms. Behold,
I have no child! my tale grows old
With grief, and daggers: let it reach
The limits of my feeble speech,
And languidly at length recline
On the brink of its own grave and mine,

Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty
Among the fallen on evil days;
'Tis Crime, and Fear, and Infamy,
And houseless Want in frozen years
Wandering ungarmented, and Pain,
And, worse than all, that inward stain

Foul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers
Youth's star-light smile, and makes it, tears
First like hot gall, then dry for ever!
And well thou knowest a mother never
Could doom her children to this ill,
And well he knew the same. The will
Imported, that if e'er again

I sought my children to behold,
Or in my birth-place did remain

Beyond three days, whose hours were told,
They should inherit nought: and he,
To whom next came their patrimony,
A sallow lawyer, cruel and cold,
Aye watched me, as the will was read,
With eyes askance, which sought to see
The secrets of my agony;

And with close lips and anxious brow
Stood canvasing still to and fro
The chance of my resolve, and all
The dead man's caution just did call;
For in that killing lie 'twas said-
"She is adulterous, and doth hold
In secret that the Christian creed
Is false, and therefore is much need
That I should have a care to save
My children from eternal fire."
Friend, he was sheltered by the grave,
And therefore dared to be a liar!
In truth, the Indian on the pyre
Of her dead husband, half consumed,
As well might there be false, as I
To those abhorred embraces doomed,
Far worse than fire's brief agony.
As to the Christian creed, if true
Or false, I never questionea it;
I took it as the vulgar do:

Nor my vext soul had leisure yet
To doubt the things men say, or deem
That they are other than they seem,

All present who those crimes did hear,
In feigned or actual scorn and fear,

Men, women, children, slunk away
Whispering with self-contented pride
Which half suspects its own base lie
I spoke to none, nor did abide,
But silently I went my way,
Nor noticed I, where joyously
Sate my two younger babes at play,
In the court-yard through which I past;
But went with footsteps firm and fast
Till I came to the brink of the ocean green,
And there, a woman with grey hairs,
Who had my mother's servant been,
Kneeling, with many tears and prayers,
Made me accept a purse of gold,
Half of the earnings she had kept
To refuge her when weak and old.

With woe, which never sleeps or slept
I wander now. 'Tis a vain thought
But on yon alp, whose snowy head
'Mid the azure air is islanded,
(We see it o'er the flood of cloud,
Which sunrise from its eastern caves
Drives, wrinkling into golden waves
Hung with its precipices proud,

From that grey stone where first we met)
There, now who knows the dead feel nought?
Should be my grave; for he who yet

Is my soul's soul, once said: ""Twere sweet 'Mid stars and lightnings to abide,

And winds and lulling snows, that beat
With their soft flakes the mountain wide,
When weary meteor lamps repose,

And languid storms their pinions close:
And all things strong and bright and pure,

And ever during, aye endure:

Who knows, if one were buried there,

But these things might our spirits make,

Amid the ail-surrounding air,

Their own eternity partake?"

Then't was a wild and playful saying
At which I laughed r seamed to laugh;

They were his words: now heed my praying,
And let them be my epitaph.

Thy memory for a term may be

My monument. Wilt remember me?
I know thou wilt, and canst forgive
Whilst in this erring world to live
My soul disdained not, that I thought
Its lying forms were worthy aught
And much less thee.

Helen.

Oh speak not so,
But come to me and pour thy woe
Into this heart, full though it be,
Aye overflowing with its own;
I thought that grief had severed me
From all beside who weep and groan;
Its likeness upon earth to be,

Its express image; but thou art

More wretched. Sweet! we will not part
Henceforth, if death be not division;

If so, the dead feel no contrition.

But wilt thou hear since last we parted

All that has left me broken hearted?

Ros. Yes, speak. The faintest stars are scarcely shorn Of their thin beams by that delusive morn

Which sinks again in darkness, like the light
Of early love, soon lost in total night.

Helen. Alas! Italian winds are mild,

But my boson is cold-wintry cold

When the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves, Soft music, my poor brain is wild,

And I am weak like a nursling child,

Though my soul with grief is grey and old.

Ros. Weep not at thine own words, tho' they must

make

Me weep.

Helen.

What is thy tale?

I fear 'twill shake

Thy gentle heart with tears. Thou well

Rememberest when we met no more

« PoprzedniaDalej »