With loathly shudder, from that wither’d one
Hath torn him back. “Oh me! no more—no more!
Thou virgin mother! is the dream not o’er,
That I have dreamt, but I must dream again
For moons together, till this weary brain
Become distemper’d as the winter sea!
Good father! give me blessing; let it be
Upon me as the dew upon the moss.
Oh me! but I have made the holy cross
A curse; and not a blessing! let me kiss
The sacred symbol; for, by this—by this!
I sware, and sware again, as now I will—
Thou Heaven! if there be bounty in thee still,
If thou wilt hear, and minister, and bring
The light of comfort, on some angel wing
To one that lieth lone; do—do it now;
By all the stars that open on thy brow
Like silver flowers! and by the herald moon
That listeth to be forth at nightly noon,
Jousting the clouds, I swear! and be it true,
As I have perjured me, that I renew
Allegiance to thy God, and bind me o’er
To this same penance, I have done before!
That night and day I watch, as I have been
Long watching, o’er the partner of my sin!
That I taste never the delight of food,
But these wild shell-fish, that may make the mood
Of madness stronger, till it grapple death—
Despair—eternity!”
He saith, he saith,
And, on the jaundiced bosom of the corse,
Lieth all frenzied; one would see remorse,
And hopeless love, and hatred, struggling there,
And lunacy, that lightens up despair,
And makes a gladness out of agony.
Pale phantom! I would fear and worship thee,
That hast the soul at will, and givest it play,
Amid the wildest fancies far away;
That thronest reason, on some wizard throne
Of fairy land, within the milky zone,—
Some spectre star, that glittereth beyond
The glorious galaxies of diamond.
Beautiful lunacy! that shapest flight
For love to blessed bowers of delight,
And buildest holy monarchies within
The fancy, till the very heart is queen
Of all her golden wishes. Lunacy!
Thou empress of the passions! though they be,
A sister group of wild, unearthly forms,
Like lightnings playing in their home of storms!
I see thee, striking at the silver strings
Of the pure heart, and holy music springs
Before thy touch, in many a solemn strain,
Like that of sea-waves rolling from the main!
But say, is melancholy by thy side,
With tresses in a raven shower, that hide
Her pale and weeping features? Is she never
Flowing before thee, like a gloomy river,
The sister of thyself? But cold and chill,
And winter-born, and sorrowfully still,
And not like thee, that art in merry mood,
And frolicsome amid thy solitude?
Fair Lunacy! I see thee, with a crown
Of hawthorn and sweet daisies, bending down
To mirror thy young image in a spring:
And thou wilt kiss that shadow of a thing
As soulless as thyself. ’Tis tender, too,
The smile that meeteth thine! the holy hue
Of health! the pearly radiance of the brow!
All, all as tender,—beautiful as thou!
And wilt thou say, my sister, there is none
Will answer thee? Thou art—thou art alone,
A pure, pure being! but the God on high
Is with thee ever, as thou goest by.
Thou Poetess! that harpest to the moon,
And, in soft concert to the silver tune,
Of waters play’d on by the magic wind,
As he comes streaming, with his hair untwined,
Dost sing light strains of melody and mirth,—
I hear thee, hymning on thy holy birth,
How thou wert moulded of thy mother Love,
That came, like seraph, from the stars above.
And was so sadly wedded unto Sin,
That thou wert born, and Sorrow was thy twin.
Sorrow with mirthful Lunacy! that be
Together link’d for time, I deem of ye
That ye are worshipped as none others are,—
One as a lonely shadow,—one a star!
Is Julio glad, that bendeth, even now,
To his wild purpose, to his holy vow?
He seeth only in his ladye-bride
The image of the laughing girl, that died
A moon before—the same, the very same—
The Agathè that lisp’d her lover’s name,
To him and to her heart: that azure eye,
That shone through sunny tresses, waving by:
The brow, the cheek, that blush’d of fire and snow,
Both blending into one ethereal glow:
And the same breathing radiancy, that swam
Around her, like a pure and blessed calm
Around some halcyon bird. And, as he kiss’d
Her wormy lips, he felt that he was blest!
He felt her holy being stealing through
His own, like fountains of the azure dew,
That summer mingles with his golden light;
And he would clasp her, till the weary night,
Was worn away.
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
And morning rose in form
Of heavy clouds, that knitted into storm
The brow of Heaven, and through her lips the wind
Came rolling westward, with a tract behind
Of gloomy billows, bursting on the sea,
All rampant, like great lions terribly,
And gnashing on each other: and anon,
Julio heard them, rushing one by one,
And laugh’d and turn’d. The hermit was away
For he was old and weary, and he lay
Within his cave, and thought it was a dream,
A summer’s dream! and so the quiet stream
Of sleep came o’er his eyelids, and in truth
He dreamt of that strange ladye and the youth
That held a death-wake on her wasting form;
And so he slept and woke not till the storm
Was over.
But they came—the wind, and sea,
And rain and thunder, that in giant glee,
Sang o’er the lightnings pale, as to and fro
They writhed, like stricken angels!—white as snow
Roll’d billow after billow, and the tide
Came forward as an army deep and wide,
To charge with all its waters. There was heard
A murmur far and far, of those that stirr’d
Within the great encampment of the sea,
And dark they were, and lifted terribly
Their water-spouts like banners. It was grand
To see the black battalions, hand in hand
Striding to conflict, and their helmets bent
Below their foamy plumes magnificent!
And Julio heard and laugh’d. “Shall I be king
To your great hosts, that ye are murmuring
For one to bear you to your holy war?
There is no sun, or moon, or any star,
To guide your iron footsteps as ye go,
But I, your king, will marshal you to flow
From shore to shore. Then bring my car of shell,
That I may ride before you terrible;
And bring my sceptre of the amber weed,
And Agathè, my virgin bride, shall lead
Your summer hosts, when these are ambling low,
In azure and in ermine, to and fro.”
He said, and madly, with his wasted hand
Swept o’er the tuneless harp, and fast he spanned
The silver chords, until a rush of sound
Came from them, solemn—terrible—profound;
And then he dash’d the instrument away
Into the waters, and the giant play
Of billows threw it back unto the shore,
A shiver’d, stringless frame—its day of music o’er!
The tide, the rolling tide! the multitude
Of the sea surges, terrible and rude,
Tossing their chalky foam along the bed
Of thundering pebbles, that are shoring dread.
And fast retreating to the gloomy gorge
Of waters, sounding like a Titan forge!
It comes! it comes! the tide, the rolling tide!
But Julio is bending to his bride,
And making mirthful whispers to her ear,
A cataract! a cataract is near,
Of one stupendous billow, and it breaks
Terribly furious, with a myriad flakes
Of foam, that fly about the haggard twain;
And Julio started, with a sudden pain,
That shot into his heart; his reason flew
Back to her throne: he rose, and wildly threw
His matted tresses over on his brow.
Another billow came, and even now
Was dashing at his feet. There was no shade
Of terror, as the serpent waters play’d
Before him, but his eye was calm as death.
Another, yet another! and the breath
Of the weird wind was with it, like a rock
Unriveted it fell—a shroud of smoke
Pass’d over—there was heard, and died away,
The voice of one shrill-shrieking “Agathè!”
The sea-bird sitteth lonely by the side
Of the far waste of waters, flapping wide
His wet and weary wings; but he is gone,
The stricken Julio! a wave-swept stone
Stands there, on which he sat, and nakedly
It rises looking to the lonely sea;
But Julio is gone, and Agathè!
The waters swept them madly to their core—
The dead and living with a frantic roar!
And so he died, his bosom fondly set
On hers; and round her clay-cold waist were met
His bare and wither’d arms, and to her brow
His lips were press’d. Both, both are perish’d now!
He died upon her bosom in a swoon:
And fancied of the pale and silver moon,
That went before him in her hall of blue;
He died like golden insect in the dew,
Calm, calm and pure; and not a chord was wrung
In his deep heart—but love. He perish’d young,
But perish’d wasted by some fatal flame
That fed upon his vitals: and there came
Lunacy, sweeping lightly, like a stream,
Along his brain—he perish’d in a dream!
In sooth I marvel not
If death be only a mysterious thought,
That cometh on the heart and turns the brow
Brightless and chill, as Julio’s is now;
For only had the wasting struggle been
Of one wild feeling, till it rose within
Into the form of death, and nature felt
The light of the immortal being melt
Into its happier home beyond the sea,
And moon, and stars, into eternity!
The sun broke through his dungeon, long enthrall’d
By dismal clouds, and on the emerald
Of the great living sea was blazing down
To gift the lordly billows with a crown
Of diamond and silver. From his cave
The hermit came, and by the dying wave
Lone wander’d, and he found upon the sand,
Below a truss of sea-weed, with his hand
Around the silent waist of Agathè
The corse of Julio! Pale, pale, it lay
Beside the wasted girl. The fireless eye
Was open, and a jewell’d rosary
Flung round the neck; but it was gone—the cross
That Agathè had given.
Amid the moss
The hermit scoop’d a solitary grave
Below the pine-trees, and he sang a stave,
Or two, or three, of some old requiem
As in their narrow home he buried them;
And many a day before that blessed spot
He sate, in lone and melancholy thought,
Gazing upon the grave; and one had guess’d
Of some dark secret shadowing his breast.
And yet, to see him, with his silver hair
Adrift and floating in the sea-borne air,
And features chasten’d in the tears of woe,
In sooth, ’twas merely sad to see him so!
A wreck of nature floating far and fast,
Upon the stream of Time—to sink at last!
And he is wandering by the shore again,
Hard leaning on his staff; the azure main
Lies sleeping far before him, with his seas
Fast folded in the bosom of the breeze,
That like the angel Peace, hath dropt his wings
Around the warring waters. Sadly sings
To his own heart that lonely hermit-man,
A tale of other days when passion ran
Along his pulses like a troubled stream,
And glory was a splendor and a dream!
He stoop’d to gather up a shining gem
That lay amid the shells, as bright as them,
It was a cross, the cross that Agathè
Had given to her Julio; the play
Of the fierce sunbeams fell upon its face,
And on the glistening jewels—but the trace
Of some old thought came burning to the brain
Of the pale hermit, and he shrunk in pain
Before the holy symbol. It was not
Because of the eternal ransom wrought
In ages far away, or he had bent
In pure devotion, sad and reverent;
But now, he startled as he look’d upon
That jewell’d thing, and wildly he is gone
Back to the mossy grave, away, away:
“My child, my child! my own, own Agathè!”
It is her father,—he,—an alter’d man!
His quiet had been wounded, and the ban
Of misery came over him, and froze
The bright and holy tides, that fell and rose
In joy amid his heart. To think of her,
That he had injured so, and all so fair,
So fond, so like the chosen of his youth,—
It was a very dismal thought, in truth,
That he had left her hopelessly, for aye,
Within the cloister-wall to droop, and die!
And so he could not bear to have it be;
But sought for some lone island in the sea,
Where he might dwell in doleful solitude,
And do strange penance in his mirthful mood,
For this same crime, unnaturally wild,
That he had done unto his saintly child.
And ever he did think, when he had laid
These lovers in the grave, that, through the shade
Of ghostly features melting to decay,
He saw the image of his Agathè.
And now the truth had flash’d into his brain:
And he has fallen, with a shriek of pain,
Upon the lap of pale and yellow moss;
For long ago he gave that blessed cross
To his fair girl, and knew the relic still,
By many a thousand thoughts, that rose at will
Before it of the one that was not now,
But, like a dream, had floated from the brow
Of time, that seeth many a lovely thing
Fade by him, like a sea-wave murmuring.
The heart is burst!—the heart that stood in steel
To woman’s earnest tears, and bade her feel
The curse of virgin solitude,—a veil;
And saw the gladsome features growing pale
Unmoved: ’tis rent like some eternal tower
The sea hath shaken, and its stately power
Lies lonely, fallen, scatter’d on the shore;
’Tis rent like some great mountain, that before
The Deluge stood in glory and in might,
But now is lightning-riven, and the night
Is clambering up its sides, and chasms lie strewn,
Like coffins, here and there: ’tis rent! the throne
Where passions, in their awful anarchy,
Stood sceptred! There was heard an inward sigh,
That took the being, on its troubled wings,
Far to the land of deep imaginings!
All three are dead! that desolate green isle
Is only peopled by the passing smile
Of sun and moon, that surely have a sense,
They look so radiant with intelligence,—
So like the soul’s own element,—so fair!
The features of a God lie veiled there!
And mariners that have been toiling far
Upon the deep, and lost the polar star,
Have visited that island, and have seen
That lover’s grave: and many there have been
That sat upon the grey and crumbling stone,
And started as they saw a skeleton
Amid the long sad moss, that fondly grew
Through the white wasted ribs: but never knew
Of those who slept below, or of the tale
Of that brain-stricken man, that felt the pale
And wandering moonlight steal his soul away,—
Poor Julio, and the Ladye Agathè!
* * * * *
We found them,—children of toil and tears,
Their birth of beauty shaded;
We left them in their early years
Fallen and faded.
We found them, flowers of summer hue,
Their golden cups were lighted,
With sparkles of the pearly dew—
We left them blighted!
We found them,—like those fairy flowers
And the light of morn lay holy
Over their sad and sainted bowers—
We left them lonely.
We found them,—like twin stars, alone,
In brightness and in feeling;
We left them,—and the curse was on
Their beauty stealing.
They rest in quiet, where they are:
Their life time is the story
Of some fair flower—some silver star,
Faded in glory!
* * * * *
TO A SPIRIT.
BY JAMES ALDRICH.
Not the effulgent light
Of that bright realm where live the blest departed,
Nor the grave’s gloom, Oh! loved one, and true hearted,
Can hide thee from thy sight.
Thy sweet angelic smile
Beams on my sleep. I see thee, hear thy voice,
Thou say’st unto my fettered soul, “Rejoice!
Wait but a little while.”
Sometimes ’mid cloudlets bright,
The sunset splendors of a summer’s day,
An instant thou’lt appear, then pass away
From my entranced sight.
Up in the blue heavens clear
A never-setting star hast thou become,
Pouring a silvery ray, from thy far home,
Upon my pathway here.
Where tears ne’er dim the eyes,
Shall we not meet in some far blessed land?
Shall we not walk together, hand in hand,
In bowers of Paradise?
My soul, though chained and pent,
Sore of a future glorious career,
In all its God-appointed labor here,
Toils on in calm content.
* * * * *
ST. AGNES’ EVE.
A CHIT-CHAT ABOUT KEATS.
God bless you, Oliver, don’t think of such a thing! _I_ join the
temperance society!—why, you old curmudgeon, would you murder me
outright? Not that temperance societies haven’t done good—many a poor
wife and weeping mother have they made happy—but, then, ever since I
read Anacreon at college and shot buffalos at the Black Hills, I’ve had
a fellow feeling for the good things of this life, especially for
beef-steaks and port wine. I’m an Epicurean, sir—you needn’t talk to me
of glory—I despise the whole cant about posthumous renown. The great
end of life is happiness, and happiness is best secured by gratifying
our physical as well as our intellectual nature. I go in, sir, for
enjoying existence, and when I was in my prime, I flatter myself that
few could beat me at a dinner or had a more delicate way of making love
to the girls. But alas! we have fallen on troublous times. The wine of
these days—I say it with tears in my eyes—isn’t the wine of my youth;
and the girls—here’s a health to the sweet angels—have sadly
deteriorated from what their grandmothers were. _Eheu! Eheu!_ The world
is getting upside down, and I shouldn’t wonder if an earthquake or
epidemic or some other calamity should overtake us yet to fill up the
catalogue of our ills.
I have just been reading Keats—shame on the wretches who tortured him
to death! He is a practical argument, sir, for my creed. Genius he had
unquestionably, yet he never enjoyed a happy hour. Why was this? Born in
humble life, he thirsted for distinction, and trusting to his genius to
achieve renown, found himself assailed by hostile critics, who dragged
his private life before the public eye, and sneered at his poetry with
the bitter scorn of fiends. He was naturally of a delicate
constitution—of a proud and aspiring character; but of a modesty as
shrinking as the sensitive plant; and when he found himself slighted,
abused, maligned—when he saw that he was thrust back at every attempt
to elevate himself, his delicate nature gave way, and he died of a
broken heart, requesting that his epitaph might be, “Here lies one whose
name was writ on water.” The world, since then, has done tardy justice
to his genius—but this did not soothe his sorrows, nor will it reach
him in his silent grave. What to him is posthumous renown?—what the
tears of this generation or the plaudits of the next? Had he been less
sensitive, had he thirsted less after glory, he might still have been
living, with matured powers, extorting even from his enemies deserved
commendation. But he fell in his youthful prime, an eaglet pierced
before it had learnt to soar. I have shed tears over his grave at
Rome—let us drink to his memory in solemn silence.
Keats would have made a giant had he lived, sir. Everything he wrote
evinced high genius. Each successive poem he published displayed
increased merit. His sonnets remind me of Milton—his shorter pieces
breathe of Lycidas or Venus and Adonis. He had little artistical skill,
but then what an exuberant fancy! Few men had a finer perception of the
beautiful, the το καλον of poetry. He is one of the most Grecian—if I
may use the expression—of our poets. Shelley, perhaps, was more deeply
imbued with the Attic spirit, but then, although his heart was always
right, his intellect was always wrong, and thus it happens that his
poetry is often mystic, obscure, and even confused. Keats was not so. He
had this freshness without its mysticism. He delighted in themes drawn
from classic fountains, in allusions breathing of Thessaly and the gods.
There was in many of his poems a voluptuousness approaching to
effeminacy, reminding one of the Aphrodite in her own fragrant bowers.
In others of his poems there was an Arcadian sweetness. What is finer
than his ode to the Grecian Urn? Do you remember the opening?
“Thou still unravished bride of quietness!
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities, or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstacy?”
Delicious, is it not? You seem to be in classic Greece itself, amid the
groves of Academus, by the fountain of Castaly, beneath the
god-encircled Olympus. You can hear the Dorian flutes, you can see the
daughters of Ionia. There are the priest and his assistants leading the
flower-decked heifer to the altar—lo! a group of bacchantes singing and
dancing through the vale. And high up yonder is the snowy temple of
Jove—a picture for the gods!
You shake your head—you have no taste for classic allusions. Egad! I
remember, you are a devotee of the German literature, and admire nothing
which is not of the romantic school, Well, well—have you ever read “The
Eve of St. Agnes?” It is—let me tell you—the poem for which Keats will
be loved, and you ought to walk barefooted a thousand miles, like an
ancient pilgrim to Loretto, for having neglected to peruse this poem. It
is not so fine as Hyperion, but then the latter is a fragment. It is as
superior to Endymion as a star to a satellite. It pleases me more than
Lamia or Isabella. It has the glow of a landscape seen through a rosy
glass—it is warm and blushing, yet pure as a maiden in her first
exceeding beauty. As Burgundy is to other wines, as a bride blushing to
her lover’s side is to other virgins, so is “The Eve of St. Agnes” to
other poems. What luxuriance of fancy, what scope of language, what
graphic power it displays! It is a love story, and right witchingly
told. How exquisite the description of Madeline, her moonlit chamber,
her awakening from her dream, and the delicious intoxicating emotions
which break on her when she learns that she loves and is beloved. Ah!
sir, we are old now, but I never read this poem without thinking of the
time when I first pressed my own Mary to my side, and felt her little
warm heart beating against my own. Egad, I will just skip over “The Eve
of St. Agnes,” to pass the time away while we finish this bottle.
The poem opens with a graphic picture of a winter’s night. Draw closer
to the grate, for—by my ancestry!—it is a freezing theme. I will read.
“St. Agnes’ eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.”
The poet then proceeds to describe a festive scene, amid which is one
fair lady, whose heart had throbbed all day on love, she having heard
old dames tell that maidens might, on St. Agnes’ eve, behold their
lovers in dreams, if they observed certain mystic ceremonies. The lovely
Madeline has resolved to follow the old legend, and she sighs, amid her
suitors, for midnight to arrive. Then goes the story thus:
“Meantime, across the moors,
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and implores
All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
But for one moment in the tedious hours,
That he might gaze and worship all unseen;
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such things have
been.”
In that vast mansion, amid all that gay party, young Porphyro has but
one friend, an old beldame, for all the rest are athirst for his blood
and that of his line. While watching thus, the beldame discovers him and
beseeches him to fly. He refuses. In her garrulous entreaty she reveals
to Porphyro that his mistress intends playing the conjurer to discover
who shall be her lover. He eagerly makes a proposition, to which the old
dame objects in horror, but after many protestations on his part and a
rash declaration that otherwise he will reveal himself to his foes, she
finally consents. And what was his proposition? Let the poet tell. It
was
——“To lead him, in close secrecy,
Even to Madeline’s chamber, and there hide
Him in a closet, of such privacy
That he might see her beauty unespied,
And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,
While legion’d fairies paced the coverlet,
And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.”
The old dame accordingly leads the lover, through many a dusky gallery,
to the maiden’s chamber, and then, hurriedly hiding him in a closet, is
feeling in the dark on the landing for the stair,
“When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid,
Rose, like a missioned spirit unaware:
With silver taper’s light, and pious care,
She turn’d, and down the aged gossip led
To a safe level matting.”
Ah! we have few Madelines now-a-days. I love her for that act, as I
would love an only daughter. Well may the poet exultingly say after
this—
“Now prepare,
Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove frayed and fled.”
The whole picture that follows is purity itself. We wish the wind would
whistle less loudly without—there! it dies away as if in homage to this
maiden soft. Shut your eyes and dream, while I read in whispers.