Selected Poems (39 page)

And lures to leap into the wave.’

* * * * *

* * * * *

Dark and unearthly is the scowl

That glares beneath his dusky cowl:

The flash of that dilating eye

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Reveals too much of times gone by;

Though varying, indistinct its hue,

Oft will his glance the gazer rue,

For in it lurks that nameless spell,

Which speaks, itself unspeakable,

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A spirit yet unquell’d and high,

That claims and keeps ascendency;

And like the bird whose pinions quake,

But cannot fly the gazing snake,

Will others quail beneath his look,

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Nor ‘scape the glance they scarce can brook.

From him the half-affrighted Friar

When met alone would fain retire,

As if that eye and bitter smile

Transferr’d to others fear and guile:

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Not oft to smile descendeth he,

And when he doth ’tis sad to see

That he but mocks at Misery.

How that pale lip will curl and quiver!

Then fix once more as if for ever;

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As if his sorrow or disdain

Forbade him e’er to smile again.

Well were it so - such ghastly mirth

From joyaunce ne’er derived its birth.

But sadder still it were to trace

860

What once were feelings in that face:

Time hath not yet the features fix’d,

But brighter traits with evil mix’d;

And there are hues not always faded,

Which speak a mind not all degraded

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Even by the crimes through which it waded:

The common crowd but see the gloom

Of wayward deeds, and fitting doom;

The close observer can espy

A noble soul, and lineage high:

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Alas! though both bestow’d in vain,

Which Grief could change, and Guilt could stain,

It was no vulgar tenement

To which such lofty gifts were lent,

And still with little less than dread

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On such the sight is riveted.

The roofless cot, decay’d and rent,

Will scarce delay the passer by;

The tower by war or tempest bent,

While yet may frown one battlement,

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Demands and daunts the stranger’s eye;

Each ivied arch, and pillar lone,

Pleads haughtily for glories gone!

‘His floating robe around him folding,

Slow sweeps he through the column’d aisle;

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With dread beheld, with gloom beholding

The rites that sanctify the pile.

But when the anthem shakes the choir,

And kneel the monks, his steps retire;

By yonder lone and wavering torch

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His aspect glares within the porch;

There will be pause till all is done –

And hear the prayer, but utter none.

See – by the half-illumined wall

His hood fly back, his dark hair fall,

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That pale brow wildly wreathing round,

As if the Gorgon there had bound

The sablest of the serpent-braid

That o’er her fearful forehead stray’d:

For he declines the convent oath,

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And leaves those locks unhallow’d growth,

But wears our garb in all beside;

And, not from piety but pride,

Gives wealth to walls that never heard

Of his one holy vow nor word.

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Lo! – mark ye, as the harmony

Peals louder praises to the sky,

That livid cheek, that stony air

Of mix’d defiance and despair!

Saint Francis, keep him from the shrine!

910

Else may we dread the wrath divine

Made manifest by awful sign.

If ever evil angel bore

The form of mortal, such he wore:

By all my hope of sins forgiven,

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Such looks are not of earth nor heaven!’

To love the softest hearts are prone,

But such can ne’er be all his own;

Too timid in his woes to share,

Too meek to meet, or brave despair;

920

And sterner hearts alone may feel

The wound that time can never heal.

The rugged metal of the mine

Must burn before its surface shine,

But plunged within the furnace-flame,

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It bends and melts – though still the same;

Then temper’d to thy want, or will,

‘Twill serve thee to defend or kill;

A breast-plate for thine hour of need,

Or blade to bid thy foeman bleed;

930

But if a dagger’s form it bear,

Let those who shape its edge, beware!

Thus passion’s fire, and woman’s art,

Can turn and tame the sterner heart;

From these its form and tone are ta’en,

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And what they make it, must remain,

But break – before it bend again.

* * * * *

* * * * *

If solitude succeed to grief,

Release from pain is slight relief;

The vacant bosom’s wilderness

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Might thank the pang that made it less.

We loathe what none are left to share:

Even bliss – ’t were woe alone to bear;

The heart once left thus desolate

Must fly at last for ease – to hate.

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It is as if the dead could feel

The icy worm around them steal,

And shudder, as the reptiles creep

To revel o’er their rotting sleep,

Without the power to scare away

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The cold consumers of their clay!

It is as if the desert-bird,
¹

Whose beak unlocks her bosom’s stream

To still her famish’d nestlings’ scream,

Nor mourns a life to them transferr’d,

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Should rend her rash devoted breast,

And find them flown her empty nest.

The keenest pangs the wretched find

Are rapture to the dreary void,

The leafless desert of the mind,

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The waste of feelings unemploy’d.

Who would be doom’d to gaze upon

A sky without a cloud or sun?

Less hideous far the tempest’s roar

Than ne’er to brave the billows more -

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Thrown, when the war of winds is o’er,

A lonely wreck on fortune’s shore,

‘Mid sullen calm, and silent bay,

Unseen to drop by dull decay; –

Better to sink beneath the shock

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Than moulder piecemeal on the rock!

* * * * *

‘Father! thy days have pass’d in peace,

‘Mid counted beads, and countless prayer;

To bid the sins of others cease,

Thyself without a crime or care,

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Save transient ills that all must bear,

Has been thy lot from youth to age;

And thou wilt bless thee from the rage

Of passions fierce and uncontroll’d,

Such as thy penitents unfold,

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Whose secret sins and sorrows rest

Within thy pure and pitying breast.

My days, though few, have pass’d below

In much of joy, but more of woe;

Yet still in hours of love or strife,

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I’ve ’scaped the weariness of life:

Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes,

I loathed the languor of repose.

Now nothing left to love or hate,

No more with hope or pride elate,

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I’d rather be the thing that crawls

Most noxious o’er a dungeon’s walls,

Than pass my dull, unvarying days,

Condemn’d to meditate and gaze.

Yet, lurks a wish within my breast

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For rest – but not to feel ’t is rest.

Soon shall my fate that wish fulfil;

And I shall sleep without the dream

Of what I was, and would be still,

Dark as to thee my deeds may seem:

1000

My memory now is but the tomb