The sterner spirits who beheld that meeting
Were not unmoved; who are, when hearts are
greeting?
Even Christian gazed upon the maid and boy
With tearless eye, but yet a gloomy joy
Mix'd with those bitter thoughts the soul arrays
In hopeless visions of our better days,
When all's gone-to the rainbow's latest ray.
And but for me!' he said, and turn'd away;
Then gazed upon the pair, as in his den
A lion looks upon his cubs again;
And then relapsed into his sullen guise,
As heedless of his further destinies.
But brief their time for good or evil thought;
The billows round the promontory brought
The plash of hostile oars.-Alas! who made
That sound a dread? All around them seem'd
array'd
Against them, save the bride of Toobonai :
She, as she caught the first glimpse o'er the bay
Of the arm'd boats, which hurried to complete
The remnant's ruin with their flying feet,
Beckon'd the natives round her to their prows,
Embark'd their guests and launch'd their light
canoes;
In one placed Christian and his comrades twain;
She fix'd him in her own.-Away! away!
But she and Torquil must not part again.
They clear the breakers, dart along the bay,
And towards a group of islets, such as bear
The sea-bird's nest and seal's surf-hollow'd lair,
They skim the blue tops of the billows; fast
They flew, and fast their fierce pursuers chased.
They gain upon them-now they lose again,
Again make way and menace o'er the main;
And now the two canoes in chase divide,
And follow different courses o'er the tide,
To baffle the pursuit.-Away! away!
A life is on each paddle's flight to day,
And more than life or lives to Neuha: Love
Freights the frail bark and urges to the cove;
And now the refuge and the foe are nigh
Yet, yet a moment: Fly, thou light ark, fly!
WHITE as a white sail on a dusky sea,
When half the horizon's clouded and half free,
Fluttering between the dun wave and the sky,
Is hope's last gleam in man's extremity.
Her anchor parts! but still her snowy sail
Attracts our eye amidst the rudest gale:
Though every wave she climbs divides us more,
The heart still follows from the loneliest shore.
Not distant from the isle of Toobonai,
A black rock rears its bosom o'er the spray,
The haunt of birds, a desert to mankind,
Where the rough seal reposes from the wind,
And sleeps unwieldy in his cavern dun,
Or gambols with huge frolic in the sun :
There shrilly to the passing oar is heard
The startled echo of the ocean bird,
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The rest upon herself for Torquil's sake.
They parted with this added aid; afar
The proa darted like a shooting star,
And gain'd on the pursuers, who now steer'd
Right on the rock which she and Torquil near ú
They pull'd; her arm, though delicate, was fr
And firm as ever grappled with the sea.
And yielded scarce to Torquil's manlier strengt
The prow now almost lay within its length
Of the crag's steep, inexorable face,
Within a hundred boats' length was the foe,
And now what refuge but their frail canoe?
This Torquil ask'd with half-upbraiding eye,
Which said-Has Neuha brought me here !
Is this a place of safety, or a grave,
And yon huge rock the tombstone of the wave
Who rears on its bare breast her callow brood, With nought but soundless waters for its base.
The feather'd fishers of the solitude.
A narrow segment of the yellow sand
On one side forms the outline of a strand;
Here the young turtle, crawling from his shell,
Steals to the deep wherein his parents dwell;
Chipp'd by the beam, a nursling of the day,
But hatch'd for ocean by the fostering ray;
The rest was one bleak precipice, as e'er
Gave mariners a shelter and despair;
A spot to make the saved regret the deck
Which late went down, and envy the lost wreck.
Such was the stern asylum Neuha chose
To shield her lover from his following foes;
But all its secret was not told; she knew
In this a treasure hidden from the view.
They rested on their paddles, and uprose
Neuha, and pointing to the approaching foes
Cried, Torquil, follow me, and fearless follow
Then plunged at once into the ocean's holes.
There was no time to pause the foes art
Chains in his eye, and menace in his ear;
With vigour they pull'd on, and as they came,
Hail'd him to yield, and by his forfeit name.
Headlong he leapt to him the swimmer's skill
Was native, and now all his hope from ill :
But how, or where? He dived, and rose no
[shore.
The boat's crew look'd amazed o'er sea and
There was no landing on that precipice,
Steep, harsh, and slippery as a berg of ice.
They watch'd awhile to see him float again,
Bat not a trace rebubbled from the main :
The wave roll'd on, no ripple on its face,
Since their first plunge recall'd a single trace;
The little whirl which eddied, and slight foam,
That whiten'd o'er what seem'd their latest home,
White as a sepulchre above the pair
Who left no marble (mournful as an heir);
The quiet proa wavering o'er the tide
Was all that told of Torquil and his bride;
And but for this alone the whole might seem
The vanish'd phantom of a seaman's dream.
They paused and search'd in vain, then pull'd
away;
Every superstition now forbade their stay.
Some said he had not plunged into the wave,
Put vanish'd like a corpse-light from a grave;
Others, that something supernatural
Gured in his figure, more than mortal tall;
While all agreed that in his cheek and eye
There was a dead hue of eternity.
Sall as their oars receded from the crag,
Brand every weed a moment would they lag,
Expectant of some token of their prey;
But no-he had melted from them like the spray.
And where was he, the pilgrim of the deep, Following the nereid? Had they ceased to weep For ever? or, received in coral caves, Vrung life and pity from the softening waves? d they with ocean's hidden sovereigns dwell, And sound with mermen the fantastic shell? d Neuha with the mermaids comb her hair wing o'er ocean as it stream'd in air? Lad they perish'd, and in silence slept eneath the gulf wherein they boldly leapt ?
ung Neuha plunged into the deep, and he low'd: her track beneath her native sea as as a native's of the element,
> smoothly, bravely, brilliantly she went, Baving a streak of light behind her heel,
.ch struck and flash'd like an amphibious ely, and scarcely less expert to trace [steel.
They had gain'd a central realm of earth again,
But look'd for tree, and field, and sky, in vain.
Around she pointed to a spacious cave,
Whose only portal was the keyless wave,
(A hollow archway by the sun unseen,
Save through the billows' glassy veil of green,
In some transparent ocean holiday,
When all the finny people are at play,)
Wiped with her hair the brine from Torquil's
eyes,
And clapp'd her hands with joy at his surprise;
Led him to where the rock appear'd to jut,
And form a something like a Triton's hut;
For all was darkness for a space, till day
Through clefts above let in a sober'd ray;
As in some old cathedral's glimmering aisle
The dusty monuments from light recoil,
Thus sadly in their refuge submarine
The vault drew half her shadow from the scene.
Forth from her bosom the young savage drew
A pine torch, strongly girded with gnatoo;
A plantain-leaf o'er all, the more to keep
Its latent sparkle from the sapping deep.
This mantle kept it dry; then from a nook
Of the same plantain-leaf a flint she took,
A few shrunk wither'd twigs, and from the
blade
Of Torquil's knife struck fire, and thus array'd
The grot with torchlight. Wide it was and high,
And show'd a self-born Gothic canopy;
The arch uprear'd by nature's architect,
The architrave some earthquake might erect;
The buttress from some mountain's bosom hurl'd,
When the Poles crash'd, and water was the
world;
Or harden'd from some earth-absorbing fire,
While yet the globe reek'd from its funeral pyre;
The fretted pinnacle, the aisle, the nave +
Were there, all scooped by Darkness from her
There, with a little tinge of phantasy, [cave.
Fantastic faces moped and mow'd on high,
And then a mitre or a shrine would fix
The eye upon its seeming crucifix.
Thus Nature play'd with the stalactites,
And built herself a chapel of the seas.
And Neuha took her Torquil by the hand,
And waved along the vault her kindled brand,
And led him into each recess, and show'd
The secret places of their new abode.
e depths where divers hold the pearl in chase, in the ninth chapter of Mariner's Account of the Tonga Is
quil, the nursling of the northern seas, rsued her liquid steps with heart and ease. xp-deeper for an instant Neuha led
e way then upward soar'd and as she spread
arms, and flung the foam from off her locks, gh'd, and the sound was answer'd by the rocks,
• Of this cave (which is no fiction) the original will be found lands. I have taken the poetical liberty to transplant it to Toobonai, the last island where any distinct account is left of Christian and his comrades.
This may seem too minute for the general outline (in Mariner's Account) from which it is taken. But few men have travelled without seeing something of the kind-on land, that is. Without adverting to Ellora, in Mungo Park's last journal (if my memory do not err, for there are eight years since I read the book) he mentions having met with a rock or mountain so exactly resembling a Gothic cathedral, that only minute in. spection could convince him that it was a work of Nature.
Nor these alone, for all had been prepared
Before, to soothe the lover's lot she shared :
The mat for rest; for dress the fresh gnatoo,
And sandal oil to fence against the dew;
For food, the cocoa-nut, the yam, the bread
Born of the fruit; for board the plantain spread
With its broad leaf, or turtle-shell which bore
A banquet in the flesh it cover'd o'er;
The gourd with water recent from the rill,
The ripe banana from the mellow hill;
A pine-torch pile to keep undying light,
And she herself, as beautiful as night,
To fling her shadowy spirit o'er the scene,
And make their subterranean world serene.
She had foreseen, since first the stranger's sail
Drew to their isle, that force or flight might fail,
And form'd a refuge of the rocky den
For Torquil's safety from his countrymen.
Each dawn had wafted there her light canoe,
Laden with all the golden fruits that grew;
Each eve had seen her gliding through the hour
With all could cheer or deck their sparry bower;
And now she spread her little store with smiles,
The happiest daughter of the loving isles.
She, as he gazed with grateful wonder, press'd
Her shelter'd love to her impassion'd breast;
And suited to her soft caresses, told
An olden tale of love,-for love is old,
Old as eternity, but not outworn
With each new being born or to be born:
How a young chief, a thousand moons ago,
Diving for turtle in the depths below,
Had risen, in tracking fast his ocean prey,
Into the cave which round and o'er them lay;
How in some desperate feud of aftertime
He shelter'd there a daughter of the clime,
A foe beloved, and offspring of a foe,
Saved by his tribe but for a captive's woe;
How, when the storm of war was still'd, he led
His island clan to where the waters spread
Their deep-green shadow o'er the rocky door,
Then dived-it seem'd as if to rise no more:
His wondering mates, amazed within their bark,
Or deem'd him mad, or prey to the blue shark;
Row'd round in sorrow the sea-girded rock,
Then paused upon their paddles from the shock;
When, fresh and springing from the deep, they
A goddess rise-so deem'd they in their awe;
And their companion, glorious by her side,
Proud and exulting in his Mermaid bride :
And how, when undeceived, the pair they bore
With sounding conchs and joyous shouts to
How they had gladly lived and calmly died,-
And why not also Torquil and his bride?
Not mine to tell the rapturous caress
Which follow'd wildly in that wild recess
This tale; enough that all within that cave
Was love, though buried, strong as in the grave
Where Abelard, through twenty years of death,
When Eloïsa's form was lower'd beneath
Their nuptial vault, his arms outstretch'd and
press'd
The kindling ashes to his kindled breast.*
The waves without sang round their couch,
their roar
As much unheeded as if life were o'er;
Within, their hearts made all their harmory,
Love's broken murmur and more broken sigt.
X.
And they, the cause and sharers of the shock
Which left them exiles of the hollow rock,
Where were they? O'er the sea for life they
plied,
To seek from Heaven the shelter men denied.
Another course had been their choice-
where?
ber
The wave which bore them still their foes woud
Who, disappointed of their former chase,
In search of Christian now renew'd their race.
Eager with anger, their strong arms made was.
Like vultures baffled of their previous prey.
They gain'd upon them, all whose safety lay
In some bleak crag or deeply-hidden bay:
No further chance or choice remain'd; and right
For the first further rock which met their sight
They steer'd, to take their latest view of land,
And yield as victims, or die sword in hand;
Dismiss'd the natives and their shallop, who
Would still have battled for that scanty crew -
But Christian bade them seek their shore aga
Nor add a sacrifice which were in vain ;
For what were simple bow and savage spear
Against the arms which must be wielded here1
XI.
They landed on a wild but narrow scene,
Where few but Nature's footsteps yet had been.
Prepared their arms, and with that gloomy es
Stern and sustain'd, of man's extremity,
When hope is gone, nor glory's self remains
To cheer resistance against death or chains-
They stood, the three, as the three hundred stoul
Who dyed Thermopyle with holy blood.
But, ah! how different! 'tis the cause makes a
Degrades or hallows courage in its fall.
O'er them no fame, eternal and intense,
Blazed through the clouds of death and be
on'd hence;
No grateful country, smiling through her tears
Begun the praises of a thousand years;
No nation's eyes would on their tomb be beat
No heroes envy them their monument;
However boldly their warm blood was spilt
The reader will recollect the epigram of the Greek Their life was shame, their epitaph was gut
anthology, or its translation into most of the modern languages:
'Whoe'er thou art, thy master see-
He was, or is, or is to be.'
The tradition is attached to the story of Eloisa, that wom her body was lowered into the grave of Abelard ret been buried twenty years), he opened his arms to receT BAL
And this they knew and felt, at least the one,
The leader of the band he had undone;
Who, born perchance for better things, had set
His life upon a cast which linger'd yet:
But now the die was to be thrown, and all
The chances were in favour of his fall :
And such a fall! But still he faced the shock,
Obdurate as a portion of the rock
Whereon he stood, and fix'd his levell'd gun,
Dark as a sullen cloud before the sun.
The boat drew nigh, well arm'd, and firm the
To act whatever duty bade them do ; [crew
Careless of danger, as the onward wind
Is of the leaves it strews, nor looks behind,
And yet perhaps they rather wish'd to go
Against a nation's than a native foe,
And felt that this poor victim of self-will,
Briton no more had once been Britain's still.
They hail'd him to surrender-no reply;
Their arms were poised, and glitter'd in the sky.
They hail'd again-no answer; yet once more
They offer'd quarter louder than before.
The echoes only, from the rock's rebound,
Took their last farewell of the dying sound.
Then flash'd the flint, and blazed the volleying
flame,
And the smoke rose between them and their aim,
While the rock rattled with the bullets' knell,
Which peal'd in vain, and flatten'd as they fell:
Then flew the only answer to be given [ven.
By those who had lost all hope in earth or hea-
After the first fierce peal, as they pull'd nigher,
They heard the voice of Christian shout, Now,
And ere the word upon the echo died, [fire!
Two fell; the rest assail'd the rock's rough side,
And, furious at the madness of their foes,
Disdain'd all further efforts, save to close.
But steep the crag, and all without a path,
Each step opposed a bastion to their wrath,
While, placed 'midst clefts the least accessible,
Which Christian's eye was train'd to mark full
well,
[yield,
The three maintain'd a strife which must not
In spots where eagles might have chosen to
build.
Their every shot told: while the assailant fell,
Dash'd on the shingles like the limpet shell;
But still enough survived, and mounted still,
Scattering their numbers here and there, until
Surrounded and commanded, though not nigh
Enough for seizure, near enough to die,
I be desperate trio held aloof their fate [bait; But by a thread, like sharks who've gorged the Yet to the very last they battled well,
And not a groan inform'd their foes who fell. Christian died last-twice wounded; and once
Mercy was offer'd when they saw his gore;
Too late for life, but not too late to die,
Vith, though a hostile hand, to close his eye.
A limb was broken, and he droop'd along
The crag, as doth a falcon reft of young.
The sound revived him, or appear'd to wake
Some passion which a weakly gesture spake :
He beckon'd to the foremost, who drew nigh,
But, as they near'd, he rear'd his weapon high---
His last ball had been aim'd, but from his breast
He tore the topmost button from his vest,
Down the tube dash'd it, levell'd, fired, and
smiled
As his foe fell; then, like a serpent, coil'd
His wounded, weary form, to where the steep
Look'd desperate as himself along the deep;
Cast one glance back, and clench'd his hand,
and shook
His last rage 'gainst the earth which he forsook ;
Then plunged the rock below received like
His body crush'd into one gory mass, [glass
With scarce a shred to tell of human form,
Or fragment for the sea-bird or the worm;
A fair-hair'd scalp, besmear'd with blood and
weeds,
Yet reek'd, the remnant of himself and deeds;
Some splinters of his weapons (to the last,
As long as hand could hold, he held them fast)
Yet glitter'd, but at distance--hurl'd away
To rust beneath the dew and dashing spray.
The rest was nothing-save a life mis-spent,
And soul-but who shall answer where it went?
'Tis ours to bear, not judge the dead; and they
Who doom to hell, themselves are on the way,
Unless these bullies of eternal pains
Are pardon'd their bad hearts for their worse
brains.
The deed was over! All were gone or ta'en,
The fugitive, the captive, or the slain.
Chain'd on the deck, where once, a gallant crew,
They stood with honour, were the wretched few
Survivors of the skirmish on the isle ;
But the last rock left no surviving spoil.
Cold lay they where they fell, and weltering,
While o'er them flapp'd the sea-birds' dewy
wing,
[surge,
Now wheeling nearer from the neighbouring
And screaming high their harsh and hungry
dirge:
But calm and careless heaved the wave below,
Eternal with unsympathetic flow;
Far o'er its face the dolphins sported on,
And sprung the flying fish against the sun,
Till its dried wing relapsed from its brief height,
To gather moisture for another flight.
• In Thibault's account of Fredesick the Second of Prussia, there is a singular relation of a young Frenchman, who with his mistress appeared to be of some rank. He enlisted and deserted at Schweidnitz; and after a desperate resistance was retaken, having killed an officer, who attempted to seize him after he was wounded, by the discharge of his musket loaded with a button of his uniform. Some circumstances on his court-martial raised a great interest amongst his judges, who wished to discover his real situation in life, which he offered to disclose, but to the king only, to whom he requested permission to write. This was refused, and Frederick was filled with the greatest indignation, from baffled curiosity or some other motive, when he understood that his request had been denied.
But when these vanish'd, she pursued her pro»,
Regain'd, and urged to where they found it now
Nor ever did more love and joy embark,
Than now were wafted in that slender ark.
Again their own shore rises on the view,
No more polluted with a hostile hue;
No sullen ship lay bristling o'er the foam,
A floating dungeon :-all was hope and hom
A thousand proas darted o'er the bay,
With sounding shells, and heralded their wa
The chiefs came down, around the p
pour'd,
'Twas morn; and Neuha, who by dawn of day
Swam smoothly forth to catch the rising ray,
And watch if aught approach'd the amphibious
Where lay her lover, saw a sail in air : [lair
It flapp'd, it fill'd, and to the growing gale
Bent its broad arch; her breath began to fail
With fluttering fear, her heart beat thick and
high,
[lie:
While yet a doubt sprung where its course might
But no! it came not; fast and far away
The shadow lessen'd as it clear'd the bay.
She gazed, and flung the sea-foam from her eyes,
To watch as for a rainbow in the skies.
On the horizon verged the distant deck,
And welcomed Torquil as a son restored;
Diminish'd, dwindled to a very speck-
The women thronged, embracing and embri
Then vanish'd. All was ocean, all was joy! By Neuha, asking where they had been chase
Down plunged she through the cave to rouse And how escaped? The tale was told; and the
her boy;
[all One acclamation rent the sky again;
Told all she had seen, and all she hoped, and And from that hour a new tradition gave
That happy love could augur or recall;
Their sanctuary the name of 'Neuha's Cave
Sprung forth again, with Torquil following free A hundred fires, far flickering from the bush.
His bounding nereid over the broad sea ;
Blazed o'er the general revel of the night,
Swam round the rock, to where a shallow cleft The feast in honour of the guest, return'd
Hid the canoe that Neuha there had left
To peace and pleasure, perilously earn'd;
Drifting along the tide, without an oar, [shore; A night succeeded by such happy days
That eve the strangers chased them from the As only the yet infant world displays.
AT Ferrara, in the Library, are preserved the original MSS. of Tasso's Gierusalemme and Guarini's Pastor Fido, with letters of Tasso, one from Titian to Ariosto, and the inkstand 2 chair, the tomb and the house, of the latter. But as misfortune has a greater interest for p terity, and little or none for the contemporary, the cell where Tasso was confined in the host of St Anna attracts a more fixed attention than the residence or the monument of Arioste least it had this effect on me. There are two inscriptions, one on the outer gate, the second ex the cell itself, inviting unnecessarily the wonder and the indignation of the spectator. Ferra is much decayed and depopulated: the castle still exists entire; and I saw the court wien Parisina and Hugo were beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon.
Works through the throbbing eyeball to the tr
LONG years! It tries the thrilling frame to With a hot sense of heaviness and pain;
bear,
And eagle-spirit of a child of Song--
Long years of outrage, calumny, and wrong;
Imputed madness, prison'd solitude,
And the mind's canker in its savage mood,
When the impatient thirst of light and air
Parches the heart; and the abhorred grate,
Marring the sunbeams with its hideous shade,
And bare, at once, Captivity display'd
Stands scoffing through the never-open'd gat
Which nothing through its bars admits, save t
And tasteless food, which I have eat alone
Till its unsocial bitterness is gone;
And I can banquet like a beast of prey,
Sullen and lonely, couching in the cave
Which is my lair, and-it may be-my grave.
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