Ere long than these soft fingers will?
A lovely palm!—how delicate
Its veined and wandering lines are drawn!
Yet each are prophets of thy fate—
Ha—this is sure a fearful one!
That sudden cross—that blank beneath—
What may these evil signs betoken?
Passion and sorrow, fear and death—
A human spirit crushed and broken!
Oh, thine hath been a pleasant dream.
But darker shall its waking seem!”
Something between a sigh and groan
Burst from the list’ner’s panting heart
How was her cherished secret known
To that dark woman’s art?
She strove to smile—and one might mark
A sudden dimple trembling, where
A moment after cold despair
Rested beneath her tresses dark,
As if the hue of death were there.
A human smile!—how beautiful
Sometimes its blissful presence seems,
Sweet as the gentle airs which lull
To sleep the holy flowers of Gul
Which blossoms in the Persian’s dreams
A lovely light whene’er it beams
On beauty’s brow—on beauty’s eye
And not one token lingers nigh
On lip, or eye, or cheek unbidden
To tell of anguish vainly hidden!
But oh there is a smile which steals
Sometimes upon the brow of care
And like the North’s cold light reveals
But gathering darkness there.
You’ve seen the lightning flash at night
Play briefly o’er its cloudy pile—
The moonshine trembling on the height
Where winter glistens cold and white,
And like that flash, and like that light,
Is sorrow’s vain and heartless smile.
Like a cold hand upon her heart
The dark words of the sorceress lay,
Something to scare her spirit’s rest
Forevermore away.
Each word had seemed so strangely true,
Calling her inmost thoughts in view.
And pointing to the form which came
Before her in her dreary sleep,
Whose answered love—whose very name,
Though naught of breathing life was near,
She scarce had given the winds to keep,
Or murmured in a sister’s ear.
Her secret love!—oh, she had kept
Its fire within her heart unseen,
And tears, in silent musing wept,
Its sacrifice had been.
In public gaze—in loneliness—
In fashion’s gay and wild excess—
In every change of scene or lot
Its cherished name was uttered not.
For early had she learned to keep
Her gift of love enshrined and deep—
Pure as the vestal’s altar-stone
Known and familiar but to one—
A harp whose chords might only move
In answer to its idol love,
Like Memnon’s music heard alone
When sunlight on its statue shone!
Like the mimosa shrinking from
The blight of some familiar finger—
Like flowers which but in secret bloom,
Where age the sheltering shadows linger.
And which, beneath the hot noon ray
Would fold their leaves and fade away—
The flowers of Love, in secret cherished,
In loneliness and silence nourished,
Shrink backward from the searching eye,
Until the stem whereon they flourished,
Their shrine, the human heart, has perished,
Although themselves may never die.
Of woe—of deep and nameless grief.
That wild and evil hag had spoken—
Of agony which mocks relief—
Of human spirits broken.
And in her mutterings vague and dim
How strangely had she pictured HIM!
The dark eye and the darker hair—
The manly form and features fair—
A weeping girl—a wild dark sea—
A storm—a wreck—and “WHERE IS HE?”
Ay, where WAS he!—long months before,
His boat was rocking on the shore
His ship was tossing in the bay:
And she was folded to his heart—
Her fair cheek on her lover’s lay.
While Love forgot the veil of art;
And softly blushed through falling tears,
The natural glow of virgin shame,
That feelings held apart for years,
And cherished hopes she scarce might name
To her own pillow’s loneliness,
Had burned upon her answering kiss.
And thrilled upon her lip of flame!
And she had found herself alone,
Beneath the twilight cold and gray.
When heavily pealed the signal gun
And the proud vessel swept away—
Watching her lover’s broad sail fade,
Like a white wing in upper air.
And leaving neither track nor shade
On the blue waste of waters there!
Smile not that on the maiden’s heart.
The sybil’s dark and cunning art
Had power to picture future ill,
And tinge the present darker still.
Life’s sunniest hours are not without
The shadow of some lingering doubt—
Amidst its brightest joys will steal
Spectres of evil yet to feel;
Its warmest love is blent with fears,
Its confidence—a trembling one—
Its smile—the harbinger of tears—
Its hope—the change of April’s sun
A weary lot,—in mercy given,
To fit the chastened soul for Heaven,
Prompting with change and weariness,
Its yearning for that better sky,
Which, as the shadows close on this,
Grows brighter to the longing eye.
PART II
Nahant, thy beach is beautiful!—
A dim line through the tossing waves,
Along whose verge the spectre gull
Her thin and snowy plumage laves—
What time the Summer’s greenness lingers
Within thy sunned and sheltered nooks,
And the green vine with twining fingers
Creeps up and down thy hanging rocks!
Around—the blue and level main—
Above—a sunshine rich, as fell,
Bright’ning of old, with golden rain,
The isle Apollo loved so well!—
And far off, dim and beautiful
The snow-white sail and graceful hull,
Slow, dipping to the billow’s swell.
Bright spot!—the Isles of Greece may share
A flowery earth—a gentle air;
The orange-bough may blossom well
In warm Bermuda’s sunniest dell;—
But fairer shores and brighter waters,
Gazed on by purer, lovelier daughters,
Beneath the light of kindlier skies,
The wanderer to the farthest bound
Of peopled Earth hath never found
Than thine—New England’s Paradise!
Land of the forest and the rock—
Of dark blue lake, and mighty river—
Of mountains reared aloft to mock
The storm’s career—the lightning’s shock—
My own, green land, forever!
Land of the beautiful and brave—
The freeman’s home—the martyr’s grave—
The nursery of giant men,
Whose
deeds have linked with every glen,
And every hill and every stream,
The romance of some warrior-dream!
Oh—never may a son of thine,
Where’er his wandering steps incline,
Forget the sky which bent above
His childhood like a dream of love—
The stream beneath the green hill flowing—
The broad-armed trees above it growing—
The clear breeze through the foliage blowing
Or, hear unmoved, the taunt of scorn
Breathed o’er the brave New-England born;—
Or mark the stranger’s Jaguar hand
Disturb the ashes of thy dead—
The buried glory of a land
Whose soil with noble blood is red,
And sanctified in every part,
Nor feel resentment, like a brand,
Unsheathing from his fiery heart!
Oh—greener hills may catch the sun
Beneath the glorious heaven of France;
And streams, rejoicing as they run
Like life beneath the day-beam’s glance,
May wander where the orange-bough
With golden fruit is bending low;—
And there may bend a brighter sky
O’er green and classic Italy—
And pillared fane and ancient grave
Bear record of another time,
And over shaft and architrave
The green luxuriant ivy climb;—
And far towards the rising sun
The palm may shake its leaves on high,
Where flowers are opening, one by one,
Like stars upon the twilight sky,
And breezes soft as sighs of love
Above the broad banana stray.
And through the Brahmin’s sacred grove
A thousand bright-hued pinions play!
Yet, unto thee, New-England, still
Thy wondering sons shall stretch their arms,
And thy rude chart of rock and hill
Seem dearer than the land of palms!
Thy massy oak and mountain pine
More welcome than the banyan’s shade,
And every free, blue stream of thine
Seem richer than the golden bed
Of Oriental waves, which glow
And sparkle with the wealth below!
A frail, fair form is stealing out
Upon the long and sandy bar,
With wild glance, wandering all about
Uncertain and irregular.
The sea-gull screams aloud above her—
The thin waves circle at her feet,
Beyond, the white and timid plover
Is stooping its embrace to meet.
What doth she there?—her head is bare—
And backward streams her wild, dark hair;
Damp with the moist sea-atmosphere
It shades a neck as white and clear,
As pearls which shed their pure, pale glow,
Where in their crimson beauty sleep
The coral blossoms of the deep
A thousand fathoms down below.
Beautiful one!—her cheek is pale,
Even as the foam the wave hath lent
To rocks whereon its wrath is spent,
Like that which lingers on the rein
Which some fierce steed hath spurned in vain;
And ever and anon a wail
Soft as some grieving spectre’s moan.
Plaintively low—a dreamer’s tone.
Blends faintly with the rising gale.
She stands upon a rock that lifts
Its bleak brow to the chilling waters—
The thin gray mist above it drifts,
And dim within its fold, she seems
Like something of our early dreams—
A messenger from Ocean’s daughters!
Her thin hand pointing to the sea
As eager—as imploringly—
As if across that blue expanse,
Her eye had caught some answering glance
And sadly now she turns aside,
With slow and weary step returning
Drooping her head as if to hide
The tearful traces of her mourning.
The morn will find her there again
—GOD’S PITY ON THE STRICKEN BRAIN!—
It is a fearful thing to turn
The heart’s warm current icy chill
To bid the brain with madness burn,
And freeze the torpid bosom still,
Fearful to cloud the spiritual light
Which shines upon our mortal night—
To jar apart those chords of mind
Which God’s mysterious hand hath twined
And for the music once their own
Call out a harsh and maniac tone.
We talk of death—we shudder o’er
The cold, pale form—the rayless eye,
As if that fearful change were more,
Than the mind’s hour of liberty—
The opening of its prison-door.
Yet look upon the maniac’s form
Whence reason’s holy light hath fled;
Where being lingers wild and warm,
Even when its very soul is dead.
Look on the snaky eye of madness—
And hear that laugh—but not of gladness—
That shriek at midnight, shrilly blending
With the dull clanking of the chain—
And pluck away those fingers rending
From the hot cheek its bursting vein!—
Alas—the quiet sepulchre
Than such a state were welcomer.
Yet hers is not that fiercer mood—
Gentle and lovely even in madness,
She only asks for solitude
To nurse her most unearthly sadness.
Oh! it is painful to behold
Her pale face on her hand reclining,
Or buried in her ’kerchief’s fold,
With hot tears through her fingers shining.
And then to mark her ’wildered start,
Her quick glance in the vacant air,
Her thin hand pressing on her heart,
As if a sudden pang were there:
And then to list her murmured words
Sad as a mate-forsaken bird’s,
Telling a wild and moving tale
Of voices shrieking in the blast—
Of wreathing arms on spar and mast—
Of one dark eye above the billow
Up glancing to the storm-fire’s gleam;—
And that long sleep which hath no dream—
With ocean’s weedy rock its pillow,
Down where the sea-plant’s green arms cover
The cold, unwaking sleeper over.
She seeks the spot where she has strayed
Upon HIS arm in fondness leaning—
When by the trembling light which played,
Amidst the leafy summer shade,
The kindling eye of either lover
In silent fondness told each rover,
The hidden heart’s unwhispered meaning.
Beneath the old, familiar oak,
A carpet of the living green
Is round her; and from out a rock
Like that which felt the Prophet’s stroke
Its mossed and yawning clefts between,
PART III
A tall ship tossing in the bay!—
How glorious the stranger seems—
With tapering masts and streamers gay,
Rejoicing in the glad sunbeams!
Beautiful voyager!—she has been,
Unshrinking upon God’s high sea—
Bearing right onward bravely when
The storm-wind followed free!
There’s one upon her seamy deck,
With keen eye fastened on the shore,
A
s if some faithful loved one’s beck
Were welcoming once more
From toil and fear to love and her
The worn and weary mariner.
Oh! he hath been a wanderer
Beneath Magellan’s moveless cloud,
And where in murmurs hoarse and loud
The Demon of the Cape was heard;
And where the tropic sunset came
O’er the rich bowers of Indostan,
And many a strange and brilliant bird
Shone brighter in the western flame:
And through the bending jungle ran
The boa for his nightly food,
The tiger slumbering in the wood.
He sought for gold—for yellow gold—
His dreams were full of wealth untold;
Of stately barks that hailed to him;
Of gorgeous halls and grottos dim,
Of streams rejoicing in the shade,
By bower and trelliced arbor made,
Of smiling servants gathered near
In grateful love, but not in fear;
And more than these—his own loved one—
With her white brow and soft dark eyes,
Fair as the new-born flower, whereon
Never hath looked the noon-day sun,
The Houri of his Paradise!
Yet his was not a sordid heart.
He did not love the merchant’s mart,
His finer soul revolted when
He mingled thus with selfish men—
Yet long and wearily he bore
The burthen of incessant care,
Unfriended, on a stranger shore,
While Hope still hovered dimly o’er
One object which he valued more
Than all the wealth he gathered there;
The loved one in his native land,
More dear than gems of Sarmacand.
Welcome as the voice of kindness,
To him, who in some dungeon dim
Moves slow with pain his fettered limb,
Or light to those who sit in blindness,
Is home’s green shore to him.
He stands upon his native earth—
Voices of greeting and of mirth
Are round him,—but his anxious eye
Turns from the throng impatiently—
One hurried word—one clasp of hand
And he has bounded from the strand!
On, swiftly on—even now he sees
Her white-walled dwelling through the trees!
Quick, from behind a leafy screen—
The gateway wreathed in creeping green,
With wild flowers twined in every curl—
And flashing from her brilliant eye
The wildness of insanity.
Darted the maniac girl.
“MY OWN ADELA! ”—At his tone
She started—and as memory went
Back to the joys her youth had known,
Over each vacant lineament,
One gleam of banished reason shone!
Briefly it shone—a smile as chill