Hurled o’er me by some dreadful power,—
That I should carry thus a hell,
Within my bosom from that hour?
I know not—nor shall care to know;
For e’en Repentance will not dart
From her pure realm, a light below,
Upon my agony of heart;
Nor hath Remorse—that mad’ning fire—
That final minister of pain
And deadliest offspring of deep ire—
E’er flashed across my tortured brain:
Yet! yet there is a something here
Of hideous vacancy and fear,
(Not fear which cowards merely feel,
Who hear the damnèd’s thunder peal,)
A trembling—which the brave confess
In this their last and worst distress—
Part of the soul it burns a spell,
And like her indestructible—
Which only those who feel _that_ woe,
Brought by an unrepented deed,
Can in its fiercest aching know—
_For only they are doomed to bleed_.
Go thou, whose cunning spirit hears
The mystic music of the spheres—
Who gazest with unquailing eye
Through this star-isled immensity—
Whose soul would feed on brighter flowers
Than earth’s—and sit with pinion furl’d
Where in its lonely grandeur towers
The outside pillar of your world—
Go! go with all thy boasted art—
And read _one_ mystery of the _Heart_.
What! think creation in a _sphere_!
The real universe is here—
_Here! here_ eternally enshrined
Within the secret caves of Mind.
Blood! blood is reddening on these hands!
The blood of more than _one_ is here;
Unfaded too its crimson brands
Despite of many a weary year,
Whose tides of flame and darkness gloom
Amid the spirit’s stagnant air—
More fearful than the damn’d one’s tomb
And withering as despair.
Oh! God why was I chos’n for such?
I who until that fearful hour—
Ah! would not e’en too wildly touch
The summer’s very humblest flower.
The little bird whose rain-bow wing
I saw, in spring time’s roseate eves,
With its own beauty quivering
Amid the golden orange leaves,
I made a friend—as if for me
It held its sinless revelry:
And e’en I’ve watched within the hall
The deadly spider weave his pall,
And smiled in very joy to see
The cunning workman’s tracery.
The minstrel-breeze which struck by hours
Its tender instrument of flowers—
The moon that held her march alone
At midnight ’round th’ Eternal Throne—
The sullen thunder whose red eyes
Flashed angrily within our skies—
All! all to me were but the chain
Along whose wond’rous links there came
Unceasingly to head and brain
Love’s own electric flame.
Yes! when the Harp of Nature roll’d
Its midnight hymn from chords of gold,
And awful silence seemed to own,
Throughout the world, its wizard tone,
I’ve stood and wildly wished to float
Into that music’s liquid strain—
Oh! heavenly as its sweetest note—
Nor ever walk the earth again.
What change is this? Hate, fiercest Hate,
Where once these angel-yearnings burned
Like torches set by Heaven’s bright gate,
Hath all to deadly poison turned.
The Best can only feel the fire,
But once, which flashes from the clime
Where love sits beaming o’er the lyre
That strikes the mystic march of Time.
The tree of most luxuriant stem
Whose every leaflet glows a gem
Beneath its oriental sky,
When once its emerald diadem
Hath felt the simoon sweeping by.
Can never more in southern bowers
Renew its fragrant idol-flowers.
So with the great in soul—whose bloom
Of Heart hath felt the thunder-doom
Which mankind, trusted, may bestow
On him who little dreamed the blow—
Theirs be the joy!—But ours the woe!
I was my father’s only child—
(The cherished scion of a race
Whose monuments of fame are piled
On glory’s mighty dwelling-place)
I need not tell how oft he smiled
When counting o’er to me each deed,
In gallant barque, on champing steed,
Of ancestors in battle wild;
Nor how he gazed upon my face
And there by hours would fondly trace
The lines which as they manlier grew,
He deemed the signs of Glory, too.
I saw at last the sable pall
Gloom in our lordly castle’s hall,
And heard the Friar’s burial rite
Keeping the watches of the night.
Another noble form was laid
Where Lorro’s dead together meet—
And I, in ducal robes arrayed,
Took Lorro’s castled seat.
I need not tell how passed the days,
I need not tell of pleasure’s ways—
Where bright-eyed mirth flung dewy flowers
Beneath the silver-feet of hours,
While Time himself o’er music’s strings
Lean’d panting on his weary wings.
At last there came unto our gate
One looking worn and desolate,
Who asked compassion for his fate.
He said he was an orphan lad;
In sooth my lonely heart was glad—
For I was weary of my state
Where only courtiers crowded round;
I wished some fair and gentle mate,
And such I fondly hoped I found.
Months rolled away and still he grew,
Beneath my care a lovely boy
And day by day I found anew
In him a very father’s joy.—
And eighteen summers now have died
Since thou cam’st here my own heart’s pride:
And still thy voice of silver seems
Sweet as sweet music heard in dreams;
And still thy softly radiant eye
Looks innocent as yonder sky,
And all as fair—when rainbows rest
Like angel-plumes upon its breast;
And still thy soul seems richly set
Within its form, like some bright gem
Which might by worshippers be met
In Purity’s own diadem.
In Lorro’s hall the tone of lutes
And harp is wafted through the air,
Such as the glad most fitly suits
When mirth and rosy wine are there.
In Lorro’s castle, wreathed in light
And flowers, I ween a holy rite,
Most cherished with the young and bright,
By cowlèd Priest, is done to-night.
And who art thou around whose brow
The bridal chaplet sparkled now?
That form!—Oh, Heaven! and is it she
Thus standing there so radiantly?—
With bright curls floating on the air
And glorious as the cherubs wear;
An eye where love and virtue beam
Like spirits of an Angel’s dream!
Away! away! thou maddening sight!
Away! what dost thou, Laura, here?
Thus standing by my side to-night,
And long since in thy sepulchre?
What! will the grave its events tell?
The iron tomb dissolve its spell?
It has! it has! And there she stands
Mocking me with her outstretched hands;
And oft her icy fingers press
My hot brow through the long, long night;
And voices as of deep distress,
Like prisoned wind, whose wailing sound
Seems madly struggling under ground,
Peal dirge-like on my ear: away!
Nor wait, oh! horrid shape, for day
Such as these gloomy realms display—
E’er thou shalt quit my tortured sight.—
And we were wed! I need not say
How heavenly came and went each day,
Enough! our souls together beat
Like two sweet tunes that wandering meet,
Then so harmoniously they run
The hearer deems they are but one.
There are mailed forms in Lorro’s halls,
And rustling banners on its walls,
And nodding plumes o’er many a brow,
That moulders on the red field now.
The wave of battle swells around!
Shall Lorro’s chieftain thus be found
In revelry or idlesse bound,
When Glory hangs her blood-red sign
Above the castellated Rhine?
Away! away, I flew in pride
With those who mustered by my side:
But not, I ween, did Lorro miss
The ruler from its ducal throne,
’Till many a wild and burning kiss
Of woman’s sweet lips warmed his own.
And Julio, too, (for such the name
I gave the orphan boy,) with tears
And choking sob, and trembling came
To whisper me his rising fears.
That I his father—I whose love
Had sheltered long his feeble form
E’en as some stronger bird the dove
All mateless wandering in the storm,—
That I borne down amid the stern
And bloody shapes of battle wild,
Would never from its wreck return
To sooth his lonely orphan child;
And then on bended knees he prayed—
(God! why availed not his prayer?)
That I would give him steed and blade,
So he might in my dangers share.
I left him for I could not bare
That tender brow to war’s wild air.
Away! away on foaming steed,
For two long years my sword was out;
And I had learned (a soldier’s need,)
—Almost without a groan to bleed—
Aye! gloried in the battle’s shout;
For it gave presage of a fame
Such as the brave alone may claim.
For two long years, as I have told,
The storm of war around me roll’d;
But never more, by day or night
In sunshine or in shower,
Did I forget my castle’s light—
Love’s only idol-flower!
There is a deeper passion known
For those in love, when left alone;
Then busy fancy ponders o’er
Some kindness never prized before:
And we can almost turn with tears
And deep upbraiding (as distress
Comes with the holy light of years)
And kneeling ask forgiveness.
And so I felt—and Laura beamed
Still lovelier than she ever seemed,
E’en when the dew of childhood’s hours
Along her heart’s first blossoms clung,
And I amid my native bowers
In sinless worship o’er them hung.
Oh! are not feelings such as these
Like splendid rainbow-glories caught
(To cheer our voyage o’er life’s seas)
From Heaven’s own holy Land of Thought?
And yet, oh, God! how soon may they
Like those bright glories flee away,
And leave the heart an unlit sea,
Where piloted by dark despair
The spirit-wreck rolls fearfully
Within the night of sullen air?
At last the eye of battle closed—
Its lurid fires no longer burned—
The warrior on his wreath reposed,
And I unto my halls returned.
Oh! who can tell the joys that start
Like angel-wings within the heart,
When wearied with war’s toil, the chief
In home’s dear light would seek relief!
Not he who has no loved one there
Left in his absence lonely—
Whose heart he fondly hopes shall beat
For him and for him only.
And such my Laura’s heart I deemed;
For me alone I thought she beamed
Like some pure lamp on hermit’s shrine,
Which only glows for him, divine
And beauteous as the spirit-eyes
That light the bow’rs of Paradise.
It was a lovely eve, but known
Unto the South’s voluptuous zone;
An eve whose shining vesture hung
Like Heaven’s own rosy flags unfurl’d,
And by some star-eyed cherub flung
In sport around our gloomy world;
An eve in which the coldest frame
And heart must feel a warming flame,
When light and soul no longer single,
But in a bridal glory mingle:
Then think how I whose spirit bowed
Whene’er the dimmest light was sent
From twinkling star or rosy cloud
In God’s blue, glorious firmament—
How I in that ethereal time,
Standing beside my native rill
And shadowed by such hues sublime,
Felt unseen lightning through me thrill.
I stood within my own domain—
Once more upon my birth-right soil,
Free’d from the gory battle-plain
And weary with its toil.
“Laura!” my step is in the hall!
My sword suspended on the wall!
My standard-sheet once more uprolled
Where it has lain for years untold!
“Laura!”—In vain I stood for her
To meet the long-lost worshipper.
“Ho, Julio!” What? No answer yet?
It rung from base to parapet!
I mounted up the marble stair!—
I rushed into the olden room!
It shone beneath the evening’s glare
As silent as the tomb,—
Save that a slave with wond’ring eye
Looked from the dreary vacancy.
“Your Lady, Serf?”
“She’s in the bower.”
“In sooth I should have sought her there!”
For oft we passed the twilight hour
In its delicious air.
I rushed with lightning steps—Oh, God!
Why flashed not then thy blasting flame—
That it might wither from the sod
The one who madly called Thy name?
My poniard grasped, left not its sheath—
I had nor hope—nor life—nor breath;
I only felt the ice of death
Slowly congealing o’er my heart—
And on my eye a dizzy cloud
Swam round and round, a sickening part
Of that which seemed a closing shroud
The one might feel whom burial gave
All prematurely to the grave.
But soon that deadly trance was o’er;
The foliage hid as yet; and I
Retraced the path I trod before
With such a heart-wild ecstasy.
For as I gazed upon their guilt,
A thought flashed out of demon-hue;
And I resigned my dagger’s hilt
As deadlier then my vengeance grew.
Small torture satisfies the _weak_—
For they but slightly feel a wrong;
I would by hours my vengeance wreak!
The deep revenge is for the _strong_.
In Lorro’s castle is a cell
(Where Cruelty has sat in state,
I ween that some have known it well,)
Which is divided by a grate.
No sunbeam ever pierced its night;
Nor aught save lamp there shed its light;
No sound save sound of wild despair
Hath ever vexed its heavy air.
Upon its walls so grim and old
Have gathered centuries of mould.
It seems that with the birth of time
That cell was hollowed out by crime,
And there, her hateful labor o’er,
She took her first sweet draught of gore.
Ha! Ha! I see them! See them now—
The cold damp dripping from each brow,
With hands oustretched they mercy sue—
(Ye know not how my vengeance grew,)
While I stood by with sullen smile—
The only answer to their grief—
For wearied in that dungeon aisle,
In smiles _I_ even found relief.
I watched them in that dreary gloom,
(To me a heaven—to them a tomb,)
For hours—for days—and joyed to hear
Their pleadings fill that sepulchre.
At first they tried to lull their state
By cheering each thro’ that dull grate,
(For this they lingered separate;
I could not bear e’en then to see
Them closer in their agony.)
And this they did for days! at last
A change upon them came—
For each to each reproaches cast,
In which I heard my name.
I spake no word—their dread replies
Were only read within my eyes,
Which as they glared upon the pair,
Like scorpions writhing in their pain
When wounded in the loathsome lair,
Seemed burning to my very brain.
I shall not tell how hunger grew
In that dread time upon the two—
When each would vainly try to break
The bars an earthquake scarce could shake.
Nor how they gnawed, in their great pain,
Their dungeon’s rusted iron chain;
Nor how their curses, deep and oft,
From parching lips were rung aloft;
Nor how like babbling fiends they would
Together vex the solitude;
Nor how the wasting crimson tide
Of withered life their wants supplied;
Nor how—enough! enough they died
Aye! and I saw the red worm creep
Upon their slumbers, dark and deep,
And felt with more of joy than dread
The grim eyes of the fleshless dead.
Long years have passed away, since then
And I have mixed with fellow men;
On land and wave my flag unfurl’d
Streamed like a storm above the world;
For Lorro was a soldier born;
His music was the battle-horn.
E’en when a boy—his playthings were
Such deadly toys as sword and spear.
I did not pant for fame or blood,
But thus in agony I sought
To strangle in their birth the brood
Of serpents cradled in my thought.
I’ve tried to pray: In vain! In vain!
The very words seem brands of fire
By demons hurled into my brain—
The burning ministers of ire.
How Spirit, mid such fearful strife
I left the hated mortal life,
I need not say; it matters not
How we may break that earthly spell;
Enough! enough! I knew my lot
And feel its agony too well.
My frame beside its father rests—
The same old banner o’er their breasts
Which they with all their serfs, of yore,
To battle and to triumph bore.
No chieftain sways the castle’s wall,
No chieftain revels in its hall.
And on each bastion’s leaning stone
Grim desolation sits alone,
While organ winds their masses roll
Around each lonely turret’s head,
And seem to chant, “Rest troubled soul!
Mercy! Oh! mercy for the dead!”
The spirit bent his brow—and tears
The first which he had shed for years,
Fell burning from his eyes, for THOUGHT
Had oped their overflowing cells,
Like wakened lightning which has sought
The cloud with all its liquid spells.
He wept—as he had wept of old—
When sudden through the gloomy air
A glorious gush of music roll’d
Around those wretched spirits there;—
They started up with frantic eyes
Wild-glancing to their sullen skies:
And still the angel-anthem went
Rejoicing ’round that firmament;
And shining harps were sparkling through
The cloud-rifts—held by seraph-forms
Oh! lovely as the loveliest hue
Of rainbows curled on buried storms.
Faint and more faint the music grows—
Yet how entrancing in its close—
Sweeter! oh sweeter than the hymn
Of an enthusiast who has given
His anthem forth, at twilight dim,
And hopes with it to float to heaven.
And see, where yonder tempests meet,
The rapid glance of silver feet—
The last of that refulgent train
Who leave this desolated sphere;
Oh! not for them such realms of Pain
Where Crime stands tremblingly by Fear:—
They’re gone, AND ALL IS DARK AGAIN.
[End of Part First.]
-----
[1] The tale of Lorro is founded on an actual occurrence: one of the
incidents has already been turned to advantage by a prose writer. This
poem will be followed by another, in which I have attempted to show the
rewards of virtue.
* * * * *
THE CHEVALIER GLUCK.
BY W. W. STORY.
During the latter part of the autumn in Berlin there are usually some
fine days. The cloudless sun shines pleasantly out and evaporates the
moisture from the warm air which blows through the streets. Mingling
together in motley groups, you may see a long row of fashionables,
citizens with their wives, little children in Sunday clothes, priests,
Jewesses, young counsellors, professors, milliners, dancers, officers,
&c. walking among the lindens in the Park. All the seats in Klaus &
Weber’s coffee-house are soon occupied; the coffee throws off its steam.
The fashionables light their cigars; everywhere persons are talking;
here an argument is going on about war and peace, there about Madame
Bethman’s shoes, whether the last ones she wore were green or gray, or
about the state of the market and the bad money, &c., until all is
hushed by an Aria from “Tanchon,” with which an untuned harp, a pair of
ill-tuned violins, a wheezing flute, and a spasmodic bassoon torment
themselves and their audience. Upon the balustrade which separates
Weber’s place from the high-way, several little round tables and garden
chairs are placed; here one can breathe in the free air and observe the
comers and goers, at a distance from the monotonous noises of the
accursed orchestra. There I sat down, and, abandoning myself to the
light play of my fancy, conversed with the imaginary forms of friends
who came around me, upon science and art, and all that is dearest to
man. The mass of promenaders passing by me grows more and more motley,
but nothing disturbs me, nothing can drive away my imaginary company.
Now the execrable Trio of an intolerable waltz draws me out of my world
of dreams. The high, squeaking tones of the violins and flutes, and the
growling ground bass of the bassoon are all that I can hear; they follow
each other up and down in octaves, which tear the ear, until, at last,
like one who is seized with a burning pain, I cry out involuntarily,
“What mad music! Those detestable octaves!”—Near me some one mutters.
“Cursed Fate! Here is another octave-hunter!” I look up and perceive now
for the first time that imperceptibly to me a man has taken a place at
the same table, who is looking intently at me, and from whom I cannot
take my eyes away again. Never did I see any head or figure which made
so sudden and powerful an impression upon me. A slightly crooked nose
was joined to a broad open brow, with remarkable prominences over the
bushy, half-gray eyebrows, under which the eyes glanced forth with an
almost wild, youthful fire, (the age of the man might be about fifty;)
the white and well-formed chin presented a singular contrast to the
compressed mouth, and a satirical smile breaking out in the curious play
of muscles in the hollow cheeks, seemed to contradict the deep
melancholy earnestness which rested upon the brow; a few gray locks of
hair lay behind the ears, which were large and prominent; over the tall,
slender figure was wrapped a large modern overcoat. As soon as I looked
at the man he cast down his eyes and gave his whole attention to the
occupation from which my outcry had probably aroused him. He was
shaking, with apparent delight, some snuff from several little paper
horns into a large box which stood before him, and moistening it with
red wine from a quarter-flask. The music had ceased and I felt an
irresistible desire to address him.
“I am glad that the music is over,” said I, “it was really intolerable.”
The old man threw a hasty glance at me and shook out the contents from
the last paper horn.
“It would be better not to play at all,” I began again, “Don’t you think
so?”
“I don’t think at all about it,” said he, “you are a musician and
connoisseur by profession”—
“You are wrong, I am neither. I once took lessons upon the harpsichord
and in thorough-bass, because I considered it something which was
necessary to a good education, and among other things I was told that
nothing produced a more disagreeable effect than when the bass follows
the upper notes in octaves. At first I took this upon authority, and
have ever since found it to be a fact.”
“Really?” interrupted he, and stood up and strode thoughtfully towards
the musicians, often casting his eyes upwards and striking upon his brow
with the palm of his hand, as if he wished to awaken some particular
remembrance. I saw him speak to the musicians whom he treated with a
dignified air of command—He returned and scarcely had he regained his
seat, before they began to play the overture to “Iphigenia in Aulis.”
With his eyes half-closed and his folded arms resting on the table he
listened to the Andante; all the while slightly moving his foot to
indicate the falling in of the different parts; now he reversed his
head—threw a swift glance about him—the left hand, with fingers apart,
resting upon the table, as though he were striking a chord upon the
Piano Forte, and the right raised in the air; he was certainly the
conductor who was indicating to the orchestra the entrance of the
various Tempos—The right hand falls and the Allegro begins—a burning
blush flew over his pale cheeks; his eyebrows were raised and drawn
together; upon his wrinkled brow an inward rage flashed through his bold
eyes, with a fire, which by degrees changed into a smile that gathered
about his half-open mouth. Now he leaned back again, his eyebrows were
drawn up, the play of muscles again swept over his face, his eyes
glanced, the deep internal pain was dissolved in a delight which seized
and vehemently agitated every fibre of his frame—he heaved a deep sigh,
and drops stood upon his brow. He now indicated the entrance of the
Tutti and the other principal parts; his right hand never ceased beating
the time, and with his left he drew a handkerchief from his pocket, and
wiped his face—Thus he animated with flesh and color the skeleton of
the Overture, formed by the two violins. I heard the soft plaintive
lament breathed out by the flutes, after the storm of the violins and
basses died away, and the thunder of the kettle drums had ceased; I
heard the lightly touched tones of the violoncello and the bassoon,
which fill the heart with irrepressible yearning—again the Tutti enters
treading along the unison like a towering huge giant and the hollow
lamenting expires beneath his crushing footsteps.
The overture was finished; the man suffered both his arms to drop, and
sat with closed eyes, like one who was exhausted by excessive exertion.
This bottle was empty; I filled his glass with the Burgundy, which in
the meantime I had procured. He heaved a deep sigh, and seemed to awaken
out of his dream. I motioned him to drink; he did so without hesitation,
and swallowing the contents of the glass at one draught, exclaimed,
“I am well pleased with the performance! The orchestra did bravely!”
“And yet,” added I, “yet it was only a feeble outline of a master-piece
finished in living colors.”
“Am I right? You are not a Berliner.”
“Perfectly right; I only reside here occasionally.”
“The Burgundy is good; but it is growing cold here.”
“Let us go into the house and finish the flask.”
“A good proposal—I do not know you; neither do you know me. We will not
ask each other’s names. Names are sometimes in the way. Here am I
drinking Burgundy without it costing me anything. Our companionship is
agreeable to both, and so far so good.”
All this he said with good-humored frankness. We entered the house
together. As soon as he sat down and threw open his overcoat, I
perceived with astonishment, that under it he wore an embroidered vest
with long lappels, black velvet breeches, and a very small silver-hilted
dagger. He again buttoned up his coat carefully.
“Why did you ask me if I was a Berliner?” I resumed.
“Because in such a case it would be necessary for me to leave you.”
“That sounds like a riddle.”
“Not in the least, when I tell you that I—that I am a composer.”
“I have no idea of your meaning.”
“Well then excuse me for my exclamation just now. I see that you
understand yourself thoroughly and nothing of Berlin and Berliners.”
He rose and walked once hastily up and down; then went to the window,
and in a scarcely audible voice hummed the chorus of Priestesses from
the Iphigenia in Tauris, while at intervals he struck upon the window at
the entrance of the Tutti. To my great astonishment I observed that he
made several modifications of the melody, which struck me with their
power and originality. I let him go on without interruption. He finished
and returned to his seat. Surprised by the extraordinary bearing of the
man, and by this fantastic expression of his singular musical talent—I
remained silent. After some time he began—
“Have you never composed?”