The murderer's eye glares wildly bright!
Whither shall I fly the gleaming
Of the Future's lurid light?
All in vain I turn my glances--
Still the vision's ghastly hand
Points my doom as it advances:
Death within the stranger's land."
XVI.
Does the prophet-maiden falter?
Hark! those wild disordered cries!
Slain before the sacred altar,
Dead the son of Thetis lies.
Eris shakes her wreathed serpents--
All the Gods their temples shun--
And a thunder-cloud is resting
Heavily on Ilion!
UNDINÉ.
FROM THE DANISH.
I.
Undiné by the lonely shore,
In lonely grief, is pacing;
The vows her perjured lover swore
No more with hope retracing.
Yet none in beauty could compare
With ocean's bright-haired daughter.
Her cheek is like the lotus fair
That lieth on the water;
II.
Her eye is like the azure sky,
The azure deep reflecteth;
Her smile, the glittering lights on high,
The glittering wave collecteth.
Her robe of green with many a gem
And pearl of ocean shineth,
And round her brow a diadem
Of rosy coral twineth.
III.
Like diamonds scattered here and there,
The crystal drops are glistening
Amid her flowing golden hair,
As thus she paceth listening--
Listening through the silver light,
The light that lover loveth;
Listening through the dark midnight,
But still no lover cometh.
IV.
An earthly love her heart enthralls,
She loves with earth's emotion;
For him she left her crystal halls
Beneath the crystal ocean.
Abjured them since he placed that day
The gold ring on her finger,
Though still the sparkling diamond spray
Around her robe would linger.
V.
And she hath gained a human soul,
The soul of trusting woman;
But love hath only taught her dole,
Through tears she knows the human.
So from her sisters far apart,
Her lonely path she taketh,
With human sorrow in the heart
That human love forsaketh.
VI.
She weaves a crown of dripping reeds,
On which the moon shines ghastly--
"A wedding crown my lover needs,
My pale hands weave it fastly."
She treads a strange and solemn dance,
The waves around her groaning,
And mingles, with prophetic sense,
Her singing with their moaning.
VII.
"My bridegroom, nought can save thee now,
Since plighted troth is broken--
The fatal crown awaits thy brow,
The fatal spell is spoken.
Thou'rt standing by another bride,
Before the holy altar--
A shadowy form at thy side
Will make thy strong heart falter.
VIII.
"To her, within the holy church,
Thy perjured vows art giving;
But never shalt thou cross the porch
Again amidst the living.
I wait thee 'neath the chill cold waves,
While marriage-bells are tolling;
Our bridal chant, 'neath ocean's caves,
Be ocean's billows rolling."
IX.
The bridegroom, in his pride of youth,
Beside the fair bride standeth--
"Now take her hand to plight thy troth,"
The solemn Priest commandeth.
But lo! a shadowy form is seen
Betwixt the bridal greeting,
A shadowy hand is placed between,
To hinder theirs from meeting.
X.
The priest is mute, the bridegroom pale--
He knows the sea-nymph's warning;
The fair bride trembles 'neath her veil,
The bridal's turned to mourning.
No more within the holy church,
Love's holy vows are giving;
They bear the bridegroom from the porch--
The dead amidst the living!
+NOTE TO UNDINÉ.+
These Undinés, or Ocean Nymphs, according to the Northern Mythology,
are gentle, beautiful, harmless creations in the form of woman, but
without a soul. They can attain this only by union with a mortal,
and as they have a passionate desire to ascend into the higher life
of humanity, they seek such earthly unions, not guilefully, like
the Sirens, but lovingly, aspiringly, as the human might aspire to
the angel. It is a beautiful mythus, and veils a deep and profound
meaning. De La Motte Fouqué has made it familiar to all readers by
his exquisite romance of "Undiné," and Bulwer has revealed some of
the hidden truths shadowed forth by the fable, in his two novels
of "Ernest Maltravers" and "Alice"--namely, the power of love
to create an intellect, in fact, a _soul_ in woman. For, to the
deep-thinking, close-observing psychologist, there is no truth more
evident than that, under the influence of love, a woman's intellect,
genius, energy, all the powers of her mind seem capable of infinite
expansion. And just in proportion as love has need of them, do the
particular qualities start into life and unimagined vigour; be it
fortitude, heroism, mental energy, even physical courage, love seems
to have the power to create them all. Nothing is impossible to a
woman that loves, as nothing is impossible to a man who _wills_.
Another truth is symbolised in this ocean hieroglyphic--namely, that
it is the instinct of a woman's nature to aspire, while the instinct
of a man's nature is to deteriorate--to gravitate towards the animal,
to a lower sphere of existence. Woman always loves heavenward; she
has the instinct of ascension like flame and ether. Man always loves
earthward; he gravitates to earth, not to spirit: so that we may
formulize thus:--Love gives soul to a woman, but takes it from a
man. This is assuming what, indeed, is true, that man always bestows
his love, by preference, on fair Undinés without souls. When united
to such he necessarily divides his soul with her, for all things in
nature tend to an equalization, and as he gives half so he loses
half. What the result would be if a man of genius wedded a priestess
of the eternal fire we have no means of ascertaining; for history
contains no solitary instance of a man of genius becoming united to
his equal: that true correlative of his soul, of which Plato speaks,
but which no one, so destiny seems to decree, shall ever find on
earth.
We may imagine, indeed, the possibility of a beautiful, lofty,
soaring spirit, standing ever beside man in the combat of life. A
serene influence, almost as invisible, yet as sustaining as the ether
of heaven, filling him with all divine impulses, strengthening all
his noble aspirations, exciting his spirit upwards by all rich and
radiant foreshadowings of glory, as Minerva stood, bright in deity,
yet loving as humanity, beside her favourite warrior on the plains
of Troy. But this is but a fabulous hypothesis; for, as we have
said, man always loves earthward, and when united to the soulless
Undiné, quickly vanishes with her into the ocean of inanity. Here
is another cryptic meaning in the myth--the union is represented as
indissoluble. He leaves the human, and descends to her sphere--to
a lower state of existence. A man without the influence of love
may rise to any height; love is not the absolute requirement for
his elevation, as it is for woman's; but, bound to an inferior
nature, he must fall, and does fall invariably, irrecoverably,
precisely down to her level. There is no hope for him. He cannot
resist the fatal miasma of commonplace. He falls for ever into the
dull abyss of mediocrity. We are not proof against any of the daily
influences, however trivial, that surround us. Always there is a
tendency to assimilation, either by ascension or deterioration, and
Tennyson's proposition is as true in the converse, as in the original
statement:--
As the wife is so the husband--_he_ will sink down day by day,
What is fine within him growing coarse to sympathise with clay.
And now, as every fable must have a moral, what shall we learn
from this mythus of the fatal termination of men who "herd with
narrow foreheads?" The moral is obvious. Let all genius remain
unwed--
All unmated--all unmated,
Because so consecrated.
THE PAST.
From the far off time of my youthful prime
A light comes evermore;
Oh! it seems so bright in its far-off light,
The glory I had of yore.
What the swallow sang with its silvery clang,
When autumn and spring were near;
What the church bells rung and the choristers sung,
The chant and the song I hear.
Oh! that parting day when I went away,
How my heart to joy awoke!
And again I came, but ah! not the same,
For the trusting heart was broke.
Since that parting day--that parting day--
Through the fair bright world I've ranged,
And the world is there still as bright and fair--
But I--'tis I have changed.
Oh! childhood's truth, with its words of sooth,
And its lips as pure as gold,
Like a bird it sung, and its untaught tongue
Was wise as the prophets of old.
Bright home and hearth, in this joyless dearth,
Could thy holy vision gleam
But once, once more from the far-off shore
Of the past, as a heavenly dream!
Oh! the swallow may come from her southern home,
The spendthrift regain his gold,
The church bells ring, and the choristers sing
Again as they did of old;
But the hopes of youth and its trusting truth,
And bright sunny laughter gleams,
Once passed and o'er, can return no more,
Except in the land of dreams.
THE FISHERMAN.
I.
The water rushes--the water foams--
A fisherman sat on the bank,
And calmly gazed on his flowing line,
As it down in the deep wave sank,
The water rushes--the water foams--
The bright waves part asunder,
And with wondering eyes he sees arise
A nymph from the caverns under.
II.
She sprang to him--she sang to him--
Ah! wherefore dost thou tempt
With thy deadly food, my bright-scaled brood
From out their crystal element?
Could'st thou but know our joy below,
Thou would'st leave the harsh, cold land,
And dwell in our caves 'neath the glittering waves,
As lord of our sparkling band.
III.
See you not now the bright sun bow
To gaze on his form here;
And the pale moon's face wears a softer grace
In the depths of our silver sphere.
See the fleecy shroud of the azure cloud
In the heaven beneath the sea;
And look at thine eyes, what a glory lies
In their lustre. Come, look with me.
IV.
The water rushes--the water foams--
The cool wave kiss'd his feet.
The maiden's eyes were like azure skies,
And her voice was low and sweet.
She sung to him--she clung to him--
O'er the glittering stream they lean;
Half drew she him, half sunk he in,
And never more was seen.
THE IDEAL.
FROM SCHILLER.
I.
So wilt thou, Faithless! from me sever,
With all thy brilliant phantasy?
With all thy joys and sorrows never
For prayers or tears come back to me?
Oh, golden time of youthful life!
Can nothing, Swift One, stay thy motion?
In vain! thy waves, with ruthless strife,
Flow on to the eternal ocean.
II.
Quenched are the glorious suns that glowing
Bright o'er my youthful pathway shone,
And thoughts the prescient heart o'erflowing
With burning inspirations, gone.
For ever fled the trusting faith
In visions of my youthful dreaming,
Reality has risen to scathe
Their all too fair and godlike gleaming.
III.
As once with wild desire entreating,
Pygmalion the stone enclasped,
'Till o'er the marble pale lips fleeting
Life, hope, and passion glowed at last;
So, around Nature's cold form weaving
My youthful arms, her lips I pressed,
Until her lifeless bosom heaving,
Throbbed life-like on my poet-breast.
IV.
An answering chord to passion's lyre
Within her silent frame I woke;
She gave me back my kiss of fire,
And in my heart's deep language spoke.
Then lived for me the tree, the flower,
The silver streams in music sang;
All soulless things in that bright hour,
With echoes of my spirit rang.
V.
The while it sought with eager strife,
To clasp Creation with its arm,
And spring incarnated to life
In deed, or word, or sound, or form.
How glorious then the world upfolded,
Within its shrouding calyx seen!
How little when Time's hand unroll'd it!
That little, oh! how poor and mean!
VI.
But, as the wayward, rippling motion
Of some bright rock-stream gathers strength,
Until, in kingly waves of ocean,
It dashes down the height at length:
With storm, and sound, and power, crushing
The granite rock, or giant tree;
Proud in its chainless fury rushing,
To mingle with the rolling sea.
VII.
So, filled with an immortal daring,
No chains of care around his form,
Hope's impress on his forehead bearing,
The youth sprang forth amid Life's storm.
Ev'n to dim ether's palest star
Wing'd fancy bore him on untiring;
Nought was too high, and nought too far,
For those strong pinions' wild aspiring!
VIII.
How swiftly did they bear him, dashing
Through all youth's fiery heart could dare!
How danced before life's chariot flashing
Bright aërial visions there!
Love in her sweetest beauty gleaming,
Fortune with golden diadem crown'd,
Truth like the glittering sunlight streaming,
Fame with her starry circlet bound!
IX.
Alas! those bright companions guided
Through only half of life's dark way;
All false and fleeting, none abided
With the lone wanderer to stray.
First light, capricious Fortune vanished--
Still love of lore consumed his youth;
But doubt's dark tempest rose and banished
The sun-bright form of radiant Truth.
X.
I saw the sacred crown degraded,
Of Fame, upon a common brow--
And, ah! 'ere yet life's summer faded,
I saw Love's sweetest spring-flowers bow.
And ever silenter, and ever
Lonelier grew the dreary way--
Scarce even could hope, with frail endeavour
Shed o'er the gloom a ghastly ray.
XI.
But who, amid the train false-hearted,
Stayed lovingly with me to roam--
Still from my side remains unparted,
And follows to my last dark home?
Thou, who with joys and sorrows blending,
Thy gentle hand to soothe each wound,
And bear life's burdens, ever lending,
Thou, Friendship, early sought and found.
XII.
And thou, with Friendship wedded ever,
To calm the tempest of the soul--
Exhaustless study! wearying never,
Creating while the ages roll.
Still the world-temple calm uprearing,
Tho' grain on grain thou can'st but lay,
And striking, with a ceaseless daring,
Time's minutes, days, and years away.
THE EXILE.
I.
Spring's sweet odours from the meadow
Fling their fragrance far and wide,
And the tall trees cast the shadow
Of the winter's gloom aside;
But for me no spring is bearing
Gladness to my heart despairing;
Comes no more with soothing power
Kindly voice, or friendly hand,
Song of home, or breath of flower,
From my own dear native land.
II.
High in Heaven, circling nightly,
Moon and stars shine overhead;
Mighty rivers rush on brightly
To the ocean's distant bed;
But for me, in sorrow pining,
Star and stream in vain are shining,
Foreign skies are drear above me,
By a foreign shore I stand,
Thinking of the friends that love me,
In my own dear far-off land.
DEATH WISHES.
Oh! might I pass as the evening ray
Melts in the deep'ning twilight away;
Calmly and gently thus would I die,
Untainted by ills of mortality.
Oh! might I pass as the silver star
That glitters in radiant light afar.
Thus silent and sorrowless fade from sight,
Lost in the deep blue ether of night.
Oh! might I pass as the fragrant breath
Springing from violets crushed to death,
And rise from the dull, cold earthly sod,
As an incense-cloud to the throne of God.
Oh! might I pass as the morning showers
Drank by the sun from the cups of flowers:
Would that the fire of eternal love
Thus exhaled my life-weary soul above!
Oh! might I pass as Æolian notes,
When over the chords the soft wind floats:
But ere the silver strings are at rest,
Find an echo within the Creator's breast.
"Thou wilt not pass in music or light,
Nor silently sink in the ether of night,
Nor die the gentle death of the flower,
Nor be drank by the sun like a morning shower.
"Thou wilt pass, but not till thy beauty is withered,
Not till thy powers and hopes lie shivered:
Silence and beauty are Nature's death-token;
But the poor human heart, ere it die--must be broken!"
HYMN TO THE CROSS
SAVONAROLA.
Jesus, refuge of the weary,
Object of the spirit's love,
Fountain in life's desert dreary,
Saviour from the world above!
Oh, how oft Thine eyes, offended,
Gazed upon the sinner's fall;
Yet, Thou on the Cross extended,
Bore the penalty of all!
For our human sake enduring
Tortures infinite in pain;
By Thy death our life assuring,
Conquerors through Thee we reign.
Still we passed the Cross in scorn,
Breathing no repentant vow,
Though from 'neath the circling thorn,
Dropped the blood-sweat off Thy brow.
Yet, Thy sinless death hath brought us
Life eternal, peace and rest;
What Thy grace alone hath taught us,
Calms the sinner's stormy breast.
Jesus, would my heart were burning
With more vivid love for Thee!
Would mine eyes were ever turning
To Thy Cross of agony!
Would that on that Cross suspended
I the martyr's palm might win--
Where the Lord, the heaven-descended,
Sinless suffered for my sin!
Cross of torture! may'st thou rend me
With thy fierce, unearthly dole;
Welcome be the pangs that lend me
Strength to crush sin in my soul.
So, in pain and rapture blending,
Might my fading eyes grow dim,
While the freed heart rose, ascending
To the circling Seraphim.
Then in glory, parted never
From the blessed Saviour's side,
Graven on my heart for ever
Be the Cross, and Crucified!
JESUS TO THE SOUL.
SAVONAROLA.
Fair soul, created in the primal hour,
Once pure and grand,
And for whose sake I left my throne and power
At God's right hand--
By this sad heart, pierced through because I love thee,
Let love and mercy to contrition move thee.
Cast off the sins thy holy beauty veiling,
Spirit divine!
Vain against thee the host of hell assailing--
My strength is thine.
Drink from my side the wine of life immortal,
And love will lead thee back to Heaven's portal.
Quench in my light the flame of low desire,
Crush doubt and fear;
Even to my glory may each soul aspire,
If victor here.
Die now to earth, with earthly vanity,
And live for evermore in Heaven with me.
I, for thy sake, was pierced with many sorrows,
And bore the Cross;
Yet heeding not the galling of the arrows,
The shame or loss.
So, faint not thou, whate'er the burden be,
Bear with it bravely, even to Calvary.
Still shall my spirit urge if thou delayest,
My hand sustain;
My blood wash out thy errors if thou strayest--
Plead I in vain?
An hour is coming when the judgment loometh;
Repent, fair soul, ere yet that hour cometh.
[The Italian original of these two beautiful Hymns will be
found in Doctor Madden's most admirable and interesting life of
Savonarola.]
TRISTAN AND ISOLDE.
THE LOVE SIN.
None, unless the saints above,
Knew the secret of their love;
For with calm and stately grace
Isolde held her queenly place,
Tho' the courtiers' hundred eyes
Sought the lovers to surprise.
Or to read the mysteries
Of a love--so rumour said--
By a magic philtre fed,
Which for ever in their veins
Burn'd with love's consuming pains.
Yet their hands would twine unseen,
In a clasp 'twere hard to sever;
And whoso watched their glances meet,
Gazing as they'd gaze for ever,
Might have marked the sudden heat
Crims'ning on each flushing cheek,
As the tell-tale blood would speak
Of love that never should have been--
The love of Tristan and his Queen.
But, what hinders that the two,
In the spring of their young life,
Love each other as they do?
Thus the tempting thoughts begin--
Little recked they of the sin;
Nature joined them hand in hand,
Is not that a truer band
Than the formal name of wife?
Ah! what happy hours were theirs!
One might note them at the feast
Laughing low to loving airs,
Loving airs that pleased them best;
Or interchanging the swift glance
In the mazes of the dance.
So the sunny moments rolled,
And they wove bright threads of gold
Through the common web of life;
Never dreaming of annoy,
Or the wild world's wicked strife;
Painting earth and heaven above
In the light of their own joy,
In the purple light of love.
Happy moments, which again
Brought sweet torments in their train:
All love's petulance and fears,
Wayward doubts and tender tears;
Little jealousies and pride,
That can loving hearts divide:
Murmured vow and clinging kiss,
Working often bane as bliss;
All the wild, capricious changes
Through which lovers' passion ranges.
Yet would love, in every mood,
Find Heaven's manna for its food;
For love will grow wan and cold,
And die ere ever it is old,
That is never assailed by fears,
Or steeped in repentant tears,
Or passed through the fire like gold.
So loved Tristan and Isolde,
In youth's sunny, golden time,
In the brightness of their prime;
Little dreaming hours would come,
Like pale shadows from the tomb,
When an open death of doom
Had been still less hard to bear,
Than the ghastly, cold despair
Of those hidden vows, whose smart
Pale the cheek, and break the heart.
THEKLA.
A SWEDISH SAGA.
THE TEMPTATION.
On the green sward Thekla's lying,
Summer winds are round her sighing,
At her feet the ocean plays;
In that mirror idly gazing
She beholds, with inward praising,
Her own beauty in amaze.
And with winds and waves attuning
Her low voice, in soft communing
Said: "If truly I'm so fair,
Might the best in our Swedish land
Die all for love of my white hand,
Azure eyes and golden hair."
And fair Thekla bent down gazing,
Light her golden curls upraising
From her bosom fair to see,
Which, within the azure ocean,
Glittered back in soft commotion,
Like a lotus tremblingly.
Saying soft, with pleasure trembling,
"If so fair is the resembling,
How much fairer I must be!
Rose-lipped shadow, smiling brightly,
Are we angels floating lightly
Through the azure air and sea?
"Oh! that beauty never faded,
That years passing never shaded
Youthful cheek with hues of age!
Oh! thou fairest crystal form,
Can we not time's hand disarm?"
Hark! the winds begin to rage;
And with onward heaving motion
Rise the waves in wild commotion--
Spirits mournfullest they seem
Round the crystal shadow plaining,
Shivered, shattered, fades it waning
From the maiden like a dream.
And from midst the drooping oziers
Of the sunny banks' enclosures
Rose a woman weird to see:
Strange her mein and antique vesture,
Yet with friendly look and gesture
To the trembling girl spake she.
"As the cruel winds bereft thee
Of the shadow that hath left thee,
Maiden, will thy children steal
One by one these treasures from thee,
Till all beauty hath foregone thee:
Mother's woe is children's weal.
"For the beauty of the mother
Is the children's--sister, brother,
As she fades away, will bloom.
Mother's eyes grow dim by weeping,
Wan her cheek, lone vigils keeping:
Youthful virgin, 'ware your doom!
"Wifely name is sweet from lover,
Yet ere many years are over,
From the fatal day you wed,
Sore you'll rue the holy altar,
And the salt sea will grow salter
For the bitter tears you'll shed.
"See the pallid cheek reflected,
Hollow, sunken eyes dejected,
Look of weary, wasting pain;
All changed for thy beauty rarest:
Maiden, tell me, if thou darest
Then come here, and look again.
"But should lovers' pleading gain thee,
Haste thee quick and I will sain thee
Ere the marriage vows are said;
By the might of magic power,
I can save thee from the hour
Of a mother's anguish dread."
Answered Thekla: "Save me! save me!
Witch or woman, then I crave thee,
From a mother's fated doom!
So my beauty never fading
Thou canst make with magic aiding,
Fatal Mother, I shall come."
THE SIN.
'Neath the casement stood a Ritter,
Sings by night with sweetest tone.
"Thekla, dearest Thekla, listen,
Wilt thou be my bride, mine own?
"Castles have I, parks and forests,
Mountains veined with the red gold;
And a heart that pineth for thee,
With a wealth of love untold.
"I will deck my love in jewels,
Gold and peril on brow and hand,
Broidered robes and costly girdles,
From the far-off Paynim land.
"Here I hang upon the rose-tree,
Love, a little golden ring;
Wilt thou take it? wilt thou wear it,
Love?" Thus did the Ritter sing.
Then upon his black steed mounting,
Kissed his hand and doffed his plume.
Lovely Thekla stole down gently,
Sought the gold ring in the gloom.
"Little ring, wilt thou deceive me?
Like the rose dost hide a thorn?"
As she takes it, close beside her
Sounds a ringing laugh of scorn.
And the fatal Mother, mocking,
Points her finger to the ring:
"What, my maiden! sold thy beauty
For that paltry glittering thing?
"Plucked the bauble from a rose-tree?
Ring and rose and doom in all;
Roses bright from cheek of beauty,
Roses bright must fade and fall.
"Wilt thou follow me?" They glided
Over heath, through moor and wood,
Till beside an ancient windmill,
In the lone, dark night they stood.
All the mighty wheels were silent,
All the giant arms lay still--
"Bride and wife, but never mother,
Maiden, swear, is such thy will?
"Dost swear?" "I swear!" They glided
Up the stairs and through the door,
With her wand the magic Mother
Draws a circle on the floor.
Grains of yellow corn, seven,
Takes she from a sack beside,
Draws the gold ring of her lover
From the finger of the bride.--