One stops his ears,-another close beholder
Whispers unto the next his grave surmise;
This crouches down,-and just above his shoulder,
A woman's pity saddens in her eyes,
And prompts her to befriend that lonely grief,
With all sweet helps of sisterly relief.
And down the sunny beach she paces slowly,
With many doubtful pauses by the way;
Grief hath an influence so hush'd and holy-
Making her twice attempt, ere she can lay
Her hand upon that sea-maid's shoulder white,
Which makes her startle up in wild affright.
And, like a seal, she leaps into the wave
That drowns the shrill remainder of her scream;
Anon the sea fills up the watery cave,
And seals her exit with a foamy seam,-
Leaving those baffled gazers on the beach,
Turning in uncouth wonder each to each.
Some watch, some call, some see her head emerge,
Wherever a brown weed falls through the foam;
Some point to white eruptions of the surge :—
But she is vanished to her shady home,
Under the deep, inscrutable,—and there
Weeps in a midnight made of her own hair.
Now here, the sighing winds, before unheard,
Forth from their cloudy caves begin to blow,
Till all the surface of the deep is stirr'd,
Like to the panting grief it hides below;
And heav'n is cover'd with a stormy rack,
Soiling the waters with its inky black.
The screaming fowl resigns her finny prey,
And labours shoreward with a bending wing,
Rowing against the wind her toilsome way;
Meanwhile, the curling billows chafe, and fling
Their dewy frost still further on the stones,
That answer to the wind with hollow groans.
And here and there a fisher's far-off bark
Flies with the sun's last glimpse upon its sail,
Like a bright flame amid the waters dark,
Watch'd with the hope and fear of maidens pale;
And anxious mothers that upturn their brows,
Freighting the gusty wind with frequent vows,
For that the horrid deep has no sure track
To guide love safe into his homely haven.
And lo! the storm grows blacker in its wrath,
O'er the dark billow brooding like a raven,
That bodes of death and widow's sorrowing,
Under the dusky covering of his wing.
And so day ended. But no vesper spark
Hung forth its heavenly sign; but sheets of flame
Play'd round the savage features of the dark,
Making night horrible. That night, there came
A weeping maiden to high Sestos' steep,
And tore her hair, and gaz'd upon the deep.
And wav'd aloft her bright and ruddy torch,
Whose flame the boastful wind so rudely fann'd,
That oft it would recoil, and basely scorch
The tender covert of her sheltering hand;
Which yet, for love's dear sake, disdain'd retire,
And, like a glorying martyr, brav'd the fire.
For that was love's own sign and beacon guide
Across the Hellespont's wide weary space,
Wherein he nightly struggled with the tide ;
Look what a red it forges on her face,
As if she blush'd at holding such a light,
Ev'n in the unseen presence of the night!
Whereas her tragic cheek is truly pale,
And colder than the rude and ruffian air
That howls into her ear a horrid tale
Of storm, and wreck, and uttermost despair,
Saying, Leander floats amid the surge,
And those are dismal waves that sing his dirge.'
And harka grieving voice, trembling and faint,
Blends with the hollow sobbings of the sea;
Like the sad music of a siren's plaint,
But shriller than Leander's voice should be,
Unless the wintry death had changed its tone,-
Wherefore she thinks she hears his spirit moan.
For now, upon each brief and breathless pause,
Made by the raging winds, it plainly calls
On Hero! Hero!-whereupon she draws
Close to the dizzy brink, that ne'er appals
Her brave and constant spirit to recoil,
However the wild billows toss and toil.
'Oh! dost thou live under the deep deep sea? I thought such love as thine could never die ; If thou hast gain'd an immortality,
From the kind pitying sea-god, so will I;
And this false cruel tide that used to sever
Our hearts, shall be our common home for ever!
'There we will sit and sport upon one billow,
And sing our ocean ditties all the day,
And lie together on the same green pillow,
That curls above us with its dewy spray;
And ever in one presence live and dwell,
Like two twin pearls within the selfsame shell.'
One moment, then, upon the dizzy verge
She stands ;-with face upturn'd against the sky;
A moment more, upon the foamy surge
She gazes, with a calm despairing eye;
Feeling that awful pause of blood and breath
Which life endures when it confronts with death;-
Then from the giddy steep she madly springs,
Grasping her maiden robes, that vainly kept
Panting abroad, like unavailing wings,
To save her from her death.-The sea-maid wept,
And in a crystal cave her corse enshrin'd,
No meaner sepulchre should Hero find!
FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CURIUS
Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Water Nymph, who desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorceress. Circe gives her an incantation to pronounce, which should turn Lycus into a horse; but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur.
WHO hath ever been lured and bound by a spell
To wander, fore-doom'd, in that circle of hell
Where Witchery works with her will like a god,
Works more than the wonders of time at a nod,—
At a word, at a touch,-at a flash of the eye,
But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a lie,
Things born of a wish-to endure for a thought,
Or last for long ages-to vanish to nought,
Or put on new semblance? O Jove, I had given
The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven,
And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether
They kept the world's birth-day and brighten'd together!
For I lov'd them in terror, and constantly dreaded
That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I
bedded,
The face I might dote on, should live out the lease
Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease:
And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream
To another each horrid and drank of the stream
Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quaff'd
Swift poison, and never should breathe from the
draught,-
Such drink as her own monarch husband drain'd up When he pledg'd her, and Fate clos'd his eyes in the cup. And I pluck'd of the fruit with held breath, and a fear That the branch would start back and scream out in my
For once, at my suppering, I pluck'd in the dusk
An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk;
But by daylight my fingers were crimson'd with gore,
And the half-eaten fragment was flesh at the core;
And once-only once-for the love of its blush,
I broke a bloom bough, but there came such a gush
On my hand, that it fainted away in weak fright,
While the leaf-hidden woodpecker shriek'd at the sight;
And oh! such an agony thrill'd in that note,
That my soul, startling up, beat its wings in my throat,
As it long'd to be free of a body whose hand
Was doom'd to work torments a Fury had plann'd !
There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee,
As if rooted and horror-turn'd into a tree,-
Oh! for innocent death,-and to suddenly win it,
I drank of the stream, but no poison was in it;
I plung'd in its waters, but ere I could sink,
Some invisible fate pull'd me back to the brink;
I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height,
But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight;
I ran at my fears-they were fears and no more,
For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar,
But moan'd,—all their brutaliz❜'d flesh could not smother,
The horrible truth,-
,-we were kin to each other!
They were mournfully gentle, and group'd for relief, All foes in their skin, but all friends in their grief: The leopard was there,-baby-mild in its feature; And the tiger, black barr'd, with the gaze of a creature That knew gentle pity; the bristle-back'd boar, His innocent tusks stain'd with mulberry gore; And the laughing hyena-but laughing no more; And the snake, not with magical orbs to devise Strange death, but with woman's attraction of eyes; The tall ugly ape, that still bore a dim shine Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine; And the elephant stately, with more than its reason, How thoughtful in sadness! but this is no season To reckon them up from the lag-bellied toad
To the mammoth, whose sobs shook his ponderous load.
|