House by the sea : a poem / Thomas Buchanan Read [electronic text]

Part First.

I.

ON a little, seaward-sloping lawn,The first bright half-hour after dawn— With golden hair and cheeks as red As the hue in the brightening orient spread, The child and the light of the fisherman's home, Bearing a pail that dript its foam Like snowflakes on the wayside grass, Went singing as if her soul would pass Into the air, and o'ertake that bird Which sang in the sky less seen than heard.

Her path was along the sweetbrier lane, Dividing the sea from the clover plain:

Below the billows inland bore, And threw their foam-wreaths on the shore: Above, the orchards, lightly blown, Scattered their snowy garlands down, As if the very trees would spread A pure white path for her virgin tread.

She plucked a violet from the hedge, And then a flower from the perilous edge Of a cliff where foamed the sea's white ire,— And now a bloom from the wayside brier; Then placed them in her russet vest, To sway to the heaving of her breast.

Descending the steep of the seaside rocks, In pathways worn by the shepherd's flocks, She saw the Stranger, whose cliff-perched home Stood higher than ever the wild sea-foam Could leap; and only the gust of spray, Seeking the cloud, passed up that way.

It might be a moon of dawns, perchance, Since first the stranger met her glance, And never at any later time Than the crimson flush of the morning's prime, With the latest star he walked the shore, And when that failed was seen no more.

They grew acquainted—yet did not speak: There was a sadness on his cheek His smile made sadder; and his look Seemed to reflect some parchment book Writ in a cave by a wizard gray To spirit both body and soul away. Her heart's deep instinct read in his eye How he had sought that height to die; And, as one bears flowers of sweetest bloom To brighten a sick man's twilight room, When now they met, with resistless grace She stood before him—scarce looked in his face, Tendered the blossoms, then quickened her pace.

He pressed them to his lips, and then Strolled round to his cloudy home again.

He climbed to his gusty balcony, That overbrowed the eastern sea: Like a spirit in a dusky cloud, O'erleaning the world in wonder bowed, Pale Roland leaned, and gazed below Into the gulfs — until on the flow Of the billows his fancies seemed to go: And thus to the air and the spirits of air, Those delicate listeners everywhere, He winged his thoughts with careless words, Till they sailed the ocean like sea-born birds.

II.

"My house is built on the cliff's tall crest,As high as an eagle might choose her nest: The builders have descended the hill, Like spirits who have done their master's will. Below, the billows in endless reach Commune in uncomprehended speech— A language still—there is no sound But symbols something though unfound.

"Here from the world I can safely lean And feel, if not hear, what the billows mean; And dropping this flower, I can watch it sway Till it diminishes into the spray. The little alien from its hillside home Is clasped and whirled in the heartless foam!

Oh, reckless hand! it was the flowerThe peasant-girl gave me this very hour! Well, it is gone—so let it be: Not Indus could restore to me, With all its dew and odour fine, Fresh and free from the bitter brine, That victim of a heedless hand! But it must be fretted along the sand Till drowned and crushed, a noisome thing At last, where the foulest seaweeds cling!

"Thus with the maid it may be, perchance, Borne away from her vernal haunts To make some heartless breast look bright, Then carried to some dizzy height And dropt from a hand relentlessly Into the gulfs of a pitiless sea— Into the tumultuous fret and foam To perish—an alien far from home!

"Here I stand, like a Persian priest, Gazing forever into the east, And bow my head before the sun, The symbol of a mightier One.

"Beheld from here, with march unending, By night and by day the sky is ascending; This is the vision of youth—the scope Where rises the golden scale of Hope,— When the heart in its freshness stout and hale Reeks not of the opposing scale, Which, though unseen in the future air, Sinks and sinks with its weight of despair.

"Nothing sets save yonder sail Chased away by an outward gale, And every hour to my straining gaze Some new bark issues through the haze,— Fresh perchance from the Orient, Its sails with spicy breezes bent,

Like that barge on the Cydnus seen Laden with odours that veiled a queen. It comes from what mysterious land? With freight of Bagdat or Samarcand? From under the guns of Arabian forts, Or out of Al-Raschid's golden ports? From India, or the barbarous isles Where the Pacific summer smiles? I envy the sea-bird sailing there In the trackless ocean of blue air; It can see and it can hear What may never meet my eye or ear.

"I look to the east—all things ascend, And with them the eye and the heart must tend,— Only the heavy earth opprest, Turning forever out of the west, Rolls down and down: the fancy feels The sinking, and the spirit reels!

What was the east an hour ago Even while I gaze is no longer so— I am plunging now through its azure veil, While another rises dim and pale, And this must shortly sink afar To hold in the west the evening-star.

"Here clinging we are daily cast Into the future, out of the past— Through the sunshine into the night,— Through the darkness into the light. Thus we whirl in the noiseless stream, And the sky glides over us like a dream, Full of stars and mystery And prophecy of things to be.

"This very moment we hold a place Never filled before in space— Where never again the world shall reel— The same wave never revisits the wheel.

Year by year our course is run In a voyage around the sun; In million circlings forth and back We never retrace a once gone track. Did the countless earths abroad, like snails, Leave behind them shining trails, What a web of strange design Through the eternal space would shine! And such a web of marvellous lines Left by each satellite and sun, Though by us unseen, still clearly shines To the observant eye of One.

"And did the countless souls of men Leave life-trails visible to the ken, Each hued with colour to betray The character which passed that way, How intricate and variously hued Would seem the woof of pathways rude

Across the world's great surface laid! And so inwoven with lines of shade, Of vice and cruelty, anger and hate, That darkness would preponderate! And such a woof of tangled trailsLies o'er the world and never pales— Never varies. On earth's great page Each soul records its pilgrimage, And under the eye of God each shines As visible in eternal lines, As on the cliff I see from here The various strata lines appear.

"Thank Heaven! my path shall no longer run With the common highways under the sun! From the ways of men it shall lie apart, On a new and a separate chart; No other foot shall e'er intrude In my skiey holds of solitude.

Henceforth alone I walk afar In the dream which death shall scarcely mar, Far above the obtrusive ken And idle inquiry of men. Already I can here rehearse The higher life of the universe, Commune with those spirits whose white tents Are never stirred by these elements, Camped on the dim ethereal fields With meteor banners and starry shields!

"Henceforth my sole companion shall be My sorrow embodied; and, hermit-like, we Will renounce the world and rest at ease, Content with our own sweet sympathies. Tell me no more of that larger plan, The charity for and the faith in man: I have tried it well, and ever found The seven sins filling its utmost bound!

And they who live in the world must beOne with the world, or content to see Their dearest rights and their holiest trust With heels of steel trampled into the dust! All this I have suffered, and scarcely restrained At times the revenge whose swift blow would have gained The bad world's respect, and left me exempt A little from all save my soul's self-contempt. I was as a weed that is chafed on the beach; But, Heaven be praised! being thrown out of reach, I have taken firm root in the cliff, where no more The billows affright with their roll and their roar. I have tasted the best which the world can bestow, But friendship turned bitter—love ended in wo!

"In the school of envy, and malice, and strife, I have studied and learned the lesson of life; Studied it well from that dreary hour When the dark-hearted Fates had power,

Ministering at my birth—who threw Upon my brow their black baptismal dew! From that sad night what time my spirit's bark, Sailing over the sea of space, In a moment ominous and dark, Was stranded on this desert place,— This treacherous reef of time, This rank and poisonous clime Called earth, where savage men In hut or palace make their hateful den,— I have known little peace and less of joy! And even when a pleasure-seeking boy, Unlovely faces with distempered tongue Were my attendants, and they ever hung Inseparably about me, like the shades From a baleful torchlight flung, Which the torch-bearer not evades Until the light be drenched, And in the oblivious sea of death and darkness quenched.

And I have borne this torch— This flickering life—and still must bear, Watching it flaunt and flare, Where all my hopes, like night-moths, fly and scorch Their airy pinions, till their writhing forms Drop round my feet a mass of wingless worms!

"But, lo! the tempest of the world is past! Its passion-bolts are no longer cast About me, and I feel as one Who stands to gaze when life is done!Even the peasant with her bright blue eye Seemed but the remnant of a cloud gone by; Or rather let me deem her form The farewell rainbow of the storm. I am glad that in leaving this gallery Of horrors that have frowned on me, A living thing so pure and bright Should have closed the hateful place from sight.

"How sweet it is to find release In this aerial tower of peace! In this antechamber of the sky Next to the halls of eternity— With only one thin door between This and the outer world serene, Waiting to take that one step more When opens the celestial door, And then, with the sudden splendour blind, Hear the great portals close behind!"

III.

'TWAS evening, and he mounted high Up to the terrace that faced the sky. The fisherman, in his boat below Swinging to the billows' flow, Beheld him like a guard of old On a dusky tower—a shadow bold Standing against the sundown gold.

There Roland watched the dome of day In a conflagration fall away, And saw the first white star that sped To gaze at the sunset ere it fled. Westward he saw the spires and domes Overtopping the noisy homes Of toil and trade, but all so far He felt no tremor of the jar

That like a daily earthquake rolls Through the world of dust-bound souls.

Out of the east the moon arose Red as Mont Blanc at morning glows; Over the sea, like a ship on fire, She sailed with her one star sailing by her. Long, long he gazed, till he felt the might And glory that pervade the night.

Awhile he looked upon the seas,Then gazed to the shadowy orchard trees, And saw the fisherman's quiet home Sitting under the vernal dome Of one great elm, where the fireflies played With their feast of lanterns nightly made.

He saw the various shadows pass Over the illumined glass,—

Saw tapers, moving to and fro, From window to window come and go, Like those lights which phantom hands Wave at night o'er marshy lands,— Saw the maid at her casement lean, And her shade steal into the night serene. "Thus from the casements of life," he mused, "Our shadows are outward cast, confused Into a greater shade. What eye Shall trace these phantoms where they fly? None:—And it much behooves us all That the lights from whence these shadows fall Should be guarded well and trimmed with care, That the flame shall neither sink nor flare, Protected from the fitful gusts Blown from the lips of Caliban lusts."

Here and there a meteor fleet Struck from the invisible feet

Of Night's wild coursers, fierce and black, Streamed over the star-paven track: Or it may be this voiceless leven, Launched from the unseen clouds of heaven, Are bolts by spirit-tempests hurled Into a purgatorial world Or they may be in the fields of blue Offsprings of nameless damps and dew,— Celestial will-o'-wisps at play, Leading benighted souls astray

Midnight was near. With a look divine He saw the maid at her chamber shrine. Two little tapers with flaming wicks Burned beside a crucifix. And while she prayed, it seemed Over her face a splendour beamed,— A light of purity and grace Shed from the suffering Saviour's face.

Her angel look was upward turned; Her white breast heaved as if it yearned To breathe her very soul away In a prayer which words had failed to say. Her upturned face—her fallen hair, Her hands clasped on her bosom fair, Her heaving breast but half concealed, The fulness of her prayer revealed.

As the watcher gazed, he felt his brain Branded with a forgotten pain; And thoughts he had deemed frozen, dead, Warmed snakelike, by his heart's flame fed, Till thus the voice of a demon guest With scornful laugh its joy expressed:— "The hawk looks down on the ring-dove's nest; He loves her meek voice and her smooth meek breast! And the beautiful bird shall still be as meek When her red heart quivers in the falcon's beak!"

"Horrible fiend!" he cried, in pain, "Back to your baneful den again! Oh, Death, stand by me in this hour, And strike me ere the fiend have power! Have I not, with a terrible oath On the breast of the dying sworn my troth? Did I not swear when Death was at strife, In the white dome of her bosom, with life,— Though I had wronged her living trust,— To be true, ay, as true as the tomb to her dust? For this she forgave the great wrong I had wrought, And mingled my name in her last sweet thought, And promised that, in an hour of fear, Her soul should be as a guardian near!"

As he spoke, the great tears swam over his gaze, Till the white moon reeled in delirious haze, And the stars were unsteady as gust-winnowed chaff— Still his innermost soul heard the mad demon laugh.

"Look! look again!" Thus cried the fiend, "One look before the vision is screened— Oh, never was Pariah so fair to the sight! Oh, never such beauty pulsed love through the night!"

But still the pale man, like some martyr who dies, Looked into the sky with fixed agonized eyes, Sighing, "Ida! dear Ida! The hour of fear, Like a tiger in wait for its prey, crouches here! I see its red eyes and I feel its hot breath:— Come forth, thou sweet friend, from the gateways of Death! Press me close—side to side—soul to soul—mind to mind— Or lead through that path thou too early didst find!"

As he spoke, soft lips, like sunshine warm, Kissed from his brow the late alarm— Pale delicate arms his neck caressed, And the head of a spirit was laid on his breast!

The silken hair that fell unfurled Still gleamed with the hue of another world: So soft were her tresses, each breath of the gale Caressed them in air like a gossamer veil; And her garments still breathed of ethereal dew In fields where no mortal has ever passed through.

Then the fiend exclaimed with louder jeers— While the spirit pressed her hands to her ears, And gazed with that imploring look Which only a demon's eye could brook— "This hour, thou wretched ghost! is thine— But the next and the next shall all be mine! The cup is brewing which he shall quaff, While the angels shall weep and the fiends shall laugh! Then thou shalt be scourged away with scorn Into the outer dark forlorn, And a mortal head usurp the breast Which late thy phantom cheek has prest!

Blood warms to blood—dust cleaves to dust—And in that hour depart thou must, Thou dead leaf on a midnight gust!"

Then even as a pale dead leaf Still clinging where its hour is brief, The spirit-lady in her grief Shuddered and sighed, as if even now The wind was plucking her from the bough.

"O Roland!" she cried, "there's one hour of dread, Blackening like that cloud o'erhead; A bitter wind is rising fast, Like this which brings the ocean blast!" "It shall not be!" the bold man cried; "No wind shall bear thee from my side! Let us descend to the altar shrine, And kneel before the cross divine. 'Tis an altar by repentance built, In memory of my former guilt,

That a daily prayer might there be made, To ransom thy departed shade."

Then they descended. The east winds came, Trampling the sea into phosphor flame, Which filled the black arch of the night With sheeted flashings of spectral light. And every maniac ocean-gust Scattered the feathery foam, like dust, Into the air—again and again Flinging on the window pane White briny flakes, in rage and spite, As if to drown the altar light.

IV.

STILL leaning on her lover's breast, The spirit thus her crime confessed:—

"O Roland! from too much loving thee, From fear thou wert not wholly mine, My lips partook of misery, And left for thee that bitter wine Pressed in the dark from wo's black vine!

"I drained the cup that kills with sleep,And pillowed my head on the breast of Death: He closed the lids that ceased to weep, And kissed the lips at their latest breath! That moment I had untimely birth Out of the chrysalis of earth!

Then I saw that by the horrible deedThe chain was sundered, yet I was not freed; I had burst away from a windowed cell Into a dungeon unfathomable— Into utter night—where I could only hear The sighing of cold phantoms near! I shrank with dread; but soon I knew They also shrank with dread from me; And presently I began to see Thin shapes of such a ghastly hue That sudden agues thrilled me through!

"Some bore in their hands, as sign of guilt, Keen poinards crimson to the hilt, Which, ever and anon, in wild despair They struck into their breasts of air: Some pressed to their pale lips empty vials Till frenzied with their fruitless trials: Some with their faces to the sky, Walked ever searching for a beam:

Some leaped from shadowy turrets high, And fell, as in a nightmare dream, Halfway, and stopped, as some mad rill, That leaps from the top of an alpine hill, Ere it reaches the rocks it hoped to win, Is borne away in a vapour thin: Some plunged them into counterfeit pools— Into water that neither drowns nor cools The horrible fever that burns the brain, Then climbed despairing to plunge again: And there were lovers together clasped, O'er fumeless brazures, who sighed and gasped, Staring wonder in each other's eye, And tantalized that they did not die.

"Then as I passed, with marvelling stare They gazed, forgetting their own despair. Oh, horrible! their eyes did gloat Upon me, till at my ashen throat

I felt the fiery viper thirst Which ever in that dry air is nurst. And ere I was aware I had raised the cup it was mine to bear: My pale lips cleaved to the goblet dim, And found but dust on the heated rim; And then I knew—oh, misery!— It was the same I had pledged to thee— To absent thee, and to present Death, Pledged and drained at one long-drawn breath— Drained to the dregs! Then a hot wind sighed Close in my ear—"THOU SUICIDE!" And those two words flew Into my heart, and pierced it through; And my eyes grew blind with pain As a serpent which, with rage insane, Strikes himself with venomed fangs, And writhes in the dust with self-dealt pangs.— Then in my agony's wild excess I partly swooned, and the pain grew less;

While a form, not all devoid of kindness, Seemed leaning o'er me in my blindness; And whispered in my aching ear Words which then were sweet to hear.

"'Hast thou no friend?' the spirit said, 'Who would rejoice wert thou not dead? Who in his heart would call thee back Into the world's green, visible track? If such an one there be, Whose soul yearns constantly for thee, Hearken, and when his voice is heard Breathing one recalling word, Arise and hasten, the veil is then Lifted, and thou mayst return again! And it shall be thy fate, perchance, To see the long dull years advance, And still a bloodless ghost to be For many a weary century,

When all whom thou hast loved are fled Into the regions overhead. Then drearier far that world will be, With its homes and haunts reminding thee Of the loved and lost, than even this, Where the vampire Pain enthronéd is. But be thou ever wary and wise, Gazing with unsleeping eyes, And thou, perchance, shalt find ere long Some spirit, racked with sin or wrong, A-weary of Life's daily goad And sinking under her dusty load, Who, with rash and desperate hand, Is about to sever the mortal band Which binds her down, as once didst thou, To be the shadow which thou art now. At such an hour be thou then near, And when the spirit shall disappear, And the deserted form Lies beside thee, silent, warm,

Like a suit of mail in hot disdain Discarded on a battle plain; Don thou that heated armour then, And strive with the striving world again! And through long struggling it may be, Thou mayst regain thy liberty."

"Thus spake the spirit. Then it seemed A sudden light within me beamed; And I arose and earthward sped With a cautious, noiseless tread, Hearkening ever for that voice To make my phantom heart rejoice.

"Through fields of twilight first I passed, Then through a sunset—till at last I heard the roar Of ocean jargoning with the shore,— The sea-like voice of Humanity, And the tongue-like shouting of the sea!

Then as the night's wide track Under my feet rolled dim and black, I heard the voice which summoned me, 'Ida!' it cried, and I came to thee!"

V.

WHO that has heard the billows roar On the rocky bastions of the shore, Could restrain the sense of sublimity Which drew him to overlook the sea— One sea with the terror of many seas! And held him with the mysterious law Of wonder and soul-pervading awe, And sympathy, the child of these?

Out to the foamy balcony, Where the phosphor light And the black of the night Struggled in gloomy rivalry, Strode Roland—his cloak and hair Twitched by the briny hands of air,

And all his dusk garb instantly Made white with the insult of the sea!

Burning through the eastern dark, At the bow of a perilous bark, Rising with alternate leap Out of the valleys of the deep, He beheld a crimson lightDriving shoreward through the night,— Watched it as the lurid flame Straight to its destruction came! On it drove before the gale,With empty mast or shivered sail; And Roland shuddered in his fear As he saw it neither tack nor veer, And trembled to think of a crowded deck Dashed at his feet a shapeless wreck!

A shock! A shriek! The light was drowned! And the billows leaped with a higher bound!

And the skyward spray the instant after Was stunned with the ocean's scornful laughter!

Then, bewildered with pain and fright, Roland descended the stormy height, Finding his way by the phosphor light, To seek amid the wild uproar The drowning bodies thrown on shore. Suddenly at his feet a form Lay like an offering from the storm! White as a stranded wreath of foam, White as a ghost from its charnel home, It lay where the gust with blinding flight Strove to hide the thing from sight, Like a maniac murderer, to and fro Raving and flinging the scattering snow Over the victim that mocks his despair With its unveiled face and tell-tale stare! A moment the brave man's heart recoiled, Then he lifted the body and upward toiled.

VI.

IT was a sight both wild and dread To see the living for the dead— One stubborn and unaided form— Battling with an ocean storm,— Toiling up the jagged path, Chased by the billows in their wrath, Bearing the dripping shape away Which the sea had deemed its prey.

Thus laden, Roland among the rocks Strove upward mid the desperate shocks Of gust and foam—climbing a track As crooked as that on the tempest's wrack, Where the arméd Thunder in his ire Descends in a zigzag path of fire:

The long black hair Of the drownéd form he strove to bear, Flashed abroad on the wet sea air, Wild as the tresses of Despair: And he thought, as he gazed on the drooping head Where the writhing locks were so wildly spread, Of the twisted horrors Medusa wore— And a shudder pierced him to the core.

But now he heard, or deemed he heard, The sound of that most piteous word, That only word the full heart knows To syllable its joys and woes,— A sigh! Like a night-bird sweeping near, Its soft wing fluttered past his ear, And he felt the heave of the rounded breast Which close against his own was prest: Then through his frame he took new strength, And with upward toiling gained at length

The gusty height! A moment there, While the lightning lent its sheeted glare, That group stood in the misty air Like statues on a terrace high, Relieved on a dusky wall of sky.

VII.

INTO the care of a gray-haired crone, The sybil who tended his dull hearth-stone, He yielded the body. A couch was spread, And the lady was laid as she were not dead; And the dame from off the swooning face Smoothed the wet locks into their place; And Roland, when the salt sea-spray Which blurred his vision was cleared away, Holding a white torch, bent to trace The features of that sleeping face. His heart stood still! His blood ran chill! His wide eyes could not gaze their fill! And as his marvelling face was drawn Nearer and nearer to stare thereon—

Slowly—slowly as a veil Lifted from a phantom's visage pale, The lady's delicate lids were raised, And in Roland's face the soft orbs gazed With all that touching tenderness Which only loving eyes express.

He had clasped the ghost of his beloved, And not a tremor in his soul was moved,— From lips of air had taken the kiss With not a fear to mar the bliss,— And heard what the threatening demon said, With a pang of pain but not of dread!

But now an icy horror stole Through the deepest depths of his inmost soul; For here indeed was the risen dead For whom the funeral tears were shed! A spectre of dust!—a ghost of clay!— That lived when the spirit had passed away.

He trembled, but could not move or speak: He had gazed in those eyes till his will was weak.

Then the lady sighed, and her bosom heaved,And she faintly smiled as her heart was grieved; While the thought of pain which shadowed her brow Said, "Roland, ah! Roland, thou lovest me not now!" Then a great tear stole from under her lid, And rebukingly over her white cheek slid: Then Roland cried as he clasped her hand, "'Tis a dream that I cannot understand! Forgive me, dear Ida, if even I seem To wrong thy sweet shade in the dark of a dream!"

" Oh, joy! Thou hast called me 'dear Ida,'" she cried, And she lovingly drew him more close to her side. That voice—'twas the same he had heard in gone days, While she poured in his eyes as of old her soft gaze.

Then she sighed—"Ah! dear Roland, a vision it seems?— To me 'tis the sweetest of all waking dreams! And let me recount in this hour of bliss How I fled out of the past into this, Escaping from Death's black precipice."

VIII.

"FAR back in that dark desperate hour, When the swart mandragore had power,— While the suicidal draught, like flame, Through all the galleries of my frame Spread its malignant fire—even then I repented and prayed for life again— Not from the torture; but that I knew, When it seemed too late, that thou wert true.

"And then I swooned, and heard the tread Of muffled feet—while sad hearts said, In sighs and whispers—'She is dead! is dead!' And then I knew,—oh, wo was me!— That word was a shaft of pain to thee,

A shaft which I had winged with flame And sped—and yet could not reclaim! I saw thy high soul with the blow Struck to the dreary plains of wo, Yet struggling in its fall, as when An eagle, sailing with sunward ken, Receives from the heartless archer's bow The envious arrow winged from below.

"Then I felt thy hasty farewell kiss,— A touch of mingled torture and bliss; And my soul within me writhed with pain That I could not return that kiss again. And then you fled! I heard the door Swing loud behind—and heard no more. My very soul then swooned—and all Was blacker than midnight's starless pall. And more I know not—till a long cool breath Came into my breast and chased out Death— Or that dark sleep which did counterfeit

Black Death so well, that I scarcely yet Can realize the miracle Which finds me freed from his dreamless spell.

"Then I awoke and saw the room Tricked out with all the pompous gloom Of funeral weeds—the air was sick With incense fumes suspended thick And blue, as at morn o'er a stagnant lake Swings the venomous mist ere the winds awake. There I saw two tapers with fiendish glare Burning in the ghastly air; And my breast with horrible pain was weighed, As if by the weight of a black dream made. I found it was a cross of gold Which lay on my bosom so heavy and cold— A cross entwined with lily-bells, And framed in a wreath of immortelles. A garland of flame—a cross of fire— And I outstretched on a martyr's pyre

Had been less terrible!—So at last, By struggling I grew strong, and cast These emblems of death from off my breast, And, breathing, felt no more opprest.

"Then you should have heard the shriek Of Death's stout wardress!—Pale and weak, She reeled and tottered beyond the door, And fell in a fit on the marble floor. She awoke a maniac—her hair turned gray— And a maniac she goes to this very day.

"Then the household and the priest came in— The priest in his robe as black as sin!— All shuddered and shrank; till I rose and smiled, When they rushed to my side with wonder wild, And cried, in their mingled joy and dread— 'She lives! Our Ida is not dead!'

IX.

"DAYS past, and daily I asked for thee,Till at last they pointed over the sea,And said, in the madness of thy despairThy bark had followed the red sun there.For hours they had watched the westward sail Growing in the distance pale, And sinking till beyond the line Of the flaming, sunset-gilded brine It set, like a star,—and never moreCame tidings of that bark to shore.

"Then with a grief too great for speech,I wandered daily to the beach

With one companion gray and old, A reverend friar—who hourly told His 'Aves' as we walked the sand— And the pious tears, on his sunbrown hand His old eyes dropped, outcounted the beads As he thought of my sorrow! My poor heart bleeds That these tearful eyes shall no more win A sight of that saintly Capuchin!

"At last we foundA little shallop westward bound; The daintiest thing that ever yet Was on the treacherous ocean set. Under the prow we read her name Written in ciphers of golden flame,— 'THE FIRE BEARER.' Each letter did make, The semblance of a twisted snake,— One with the other all intervolved, Like a riddle that is slowly solved.

"What ails the dame? What thus can make Her eyes so wide and her limbs to quake?" The crone replied, with a look of awe, "Forgive me, lady, I thought I saw— My sight is dim,— 'Twas a foolish whim,— But I thought I saw a fiery snake, A little streak of flame just there Writhing through your tangled hair!" The lady smiled, and gathered in Her tresses betwixt her breast and chin; And thus pursued the delirious theme, While Roland listened like one in a dream.

"So near the shallop tacked and sailed, That in a desperate moment I hailed The skipper, who leaned against the helm, Looking the lord of the watery realm. Round went the rudder,—the sail went round; And the light bark neared like a leaping hound;

Then, seeing what I had done, I sank And swooned on the breast of the dear old monk!

"Then, half-awaking, I felt the motion Beneath me of a summer ocean, And dimly heard a voice of glee Singing some ballad about the sea!— 'Twas the skipper's voice, as the helm he prest, Heading the shallop out to the west!

"The Capuchin was at my side, Or else for very fear I had died. There we sat on deck, in the breezy shade By the one tall lateen canvas made,— Still flashing on in our track of foam When the venturous sea-gull turned for home.

"Thus dreamily sitting, for many a day Under the bow we heard the spray,

And watched our backward path of white, And gazed on its liquid fire by night.

"Under us eastward the sea went by, Over us westward went the sky— The sun and the moon and those silver barks, Those soul-freighted celestial arks, The starry fleets of the shoreless night, Were the only things that surpassed our flight! As a swallow chases the summer, we sped, Chasing the days that before us fled."

X.

"THEN came the calm—we called it so— But the skipper knew, as now we know, That it was only the hungry Storm, Crouching back with his awful form, The better that he might spring and light Down on the unsuspecting night!

"The sail was furled,—the hatch made fast,— And the friar and I sat close to the mast, Then came the dark and the roaring gale, And we sailed as an autumn leaf might sail, Blown by a loud-tornado gust— And the spray was like a blinding dust.

"Then to the shivering mast we clung Still closer—while the friar's tongue

Over his paternosters ran As only a pious friar's can; And my trembling lips, again and again, Strove vainly to respond 'amen.'

"The hard old skipper laughed outrightTo behold us clinging to the mast in flight. Then suddenly he cried—'land! ho!' And we saw in the west the crimson glow Of a lighthouse—or what we deemed was so!

"Fiercer and fiercer the loud gale came, Driving us onward towards the flame. The skipper strove to change our course, Pressing the helm with giant force:—Battling a moment 'twixt rudder and gale, The light ark shuddered like a veering sail—Then a crash!—and a curse!—o'er the stern of the bark The helm and the helmsman plunged into the dark!

And the shallop leaped forth to the black unknown, With the joy of a steed when his rider is thrown! Spurning the waves and the wind's control, On, on it sped to its direful goal! I hid my face in the old man's breast: And then—and then—you know the rest!

"Oh, Roland, a fearful dream was mine— Those swooning moments among the brine! I saw thee stand in a midnight tower, And a beautiful fiend had thee in her power. I saw her pale lips pressed to thine; I saw ye kneel at an altar-shrine; And then I heard your mingled prayer, That, like a raven croaking in air, Hung black and ominous, but did not soar! And then you named her by my name, And that hot word clung to my heart like flame Slung from a torch! And I heard no more!

"Oh, Roland, wherefore tremble so?Or wherefore stoops your brow so low? Oh, dreary hour! oh, wo is me! If this terrible dream should prove to be The shadow of mad reality! Look up, and assure me it is not so— Or let me die with the sudden blow Of the horrible truth! At thy command Death shall strike with most welcome hand.

"Oh, wo is me! Oh, wo is me! Would I were lying under the sea! Or would that dear old friend were here Who sleeps so low on his briny bier, To mount with thee to that sinful place To meet the demon face to face; With exorcism and with prayer To scourge her into the utmost air!

XI.

WAS it the sound of a human cry, Or wail of a night-bird driven by? The lady started and halfway rose, With that look the walking sleeper shows,— With large eyes stating vacantly, That seem to listen and not to see. Then, with a tongue of pitiful glee, She cried, "O Roland, if that should be The voice of my friend so old and gray, Struggling among the rocks and spray!

"There, did you not hear? that wild cry through the roar! Hark again! It is his! Wave the torch at the door,

And beacon him in! Oh, I faint as I think, Perchance how he clings to some terrible brink!" Even while she spoke, as if at her will, The door swung wide, and over the sill The gust and the roar and the spray swept in, Like a crew of wild pirates, with insolent din; And suddenly a group of three Toiled breathlessly after, all dripping the sea.

There came the monk in his robe of brown, Over his breast his white beard blown And sparkling like a gust of foam; As if old Neptune should leave his home, To traverse the dry land up and down Disguised in a friar's hood and gown.

And beating a lantern, so covered with spray That the light could scarcely emit a ray, Came the fisherman, whose sturdy arm Had rescued the pious man from harm.

There, too, was the maiden, the fisherman's child, With her glowing cheeks and eyelids mild. For many a mile about the coast, That father and child were the country's boast. And many a sailor on a far-off deck Remembered Agatha and the wreck. Fame fondly pictured their struggling forms Battling against the blackest storms. Through day or dark they might be found Braving the tempest in their round; And thus to-night they had met the storm, And rescued from death this saintly form.

That moment there Was a living picture bold and rare, With its massive lights and shadows thrown From the torch in the hands of the withered crone, Exalted above her own wild hair Which streamed like the shreds of a banner in air,

Tattered, confused, as if torn in the strife Of the seventy years' war waged by Death against Life.

The lady arose with joy and ran And fell on the breast of the ancient man; And wept such tears as a child might shed On the breast of a parent just saved from the dead. Then from her heart of gratitude She thanked the fisherman, where he stood Gazing on her with marvelling face, As if in some enchanted place He stood, with uncontrolled sight, Chained to a vision of delight.

And then she seized the daughter's hand: A moment her large eyes softly scanned The modest maid, with look as mild As a mother casts on her beauteous child, Conscious that its face confers A ray of splendour back to hers.

Then drawing her near with a smile of bliss, Pronounced her thanks in a tender kiss. Suddenly pale grew the maiden's lips, And her soul was veiled with a deep eclipse; And she sunk at the old monk's feet with dread, Begging his blessing to rest on her head. And cried, "Oh, let me see and touch The CROSS, which we cannot kiss too much! And count one prayer on the beads divine!" And the old monk murmured,—"My blessing is thine." While he laid his hand on her shining hair; But it seemed like a fiery gauntlet there!

Then tracing his girdle and fumbling his dress, He cried, with a visage of deep distress, "Oh, wo is me! They are lost in the sea— That miracle cross and rosary! Torn from my side in those desperate shocks When the billows were lifting me over the rocks.

Oh, wo is me! They were made from a tree In the garden of holy Geth——" Here the sea, Through the open door, hurled into the place Such a cloud of spray that the old man's face Was smothered with brine. The white torch hissed, And all the room was blind with the mist.

Then thrice the maiden, with look distressed, Signed the cross on her brow and breast, And thus to the friar her fear confessed:— '"I feel in my soul what I cannot say; But something so wicked has blown this way, That I cannot choose but shudder and shrink, As if I were dragged to a horrible brink. A demon is breathing this very air, Which can only be banished afar with prayer!"

The monk bent soothingly over her form, And said, "Be calm, my child, it is only the storm;

Take cheer, take cheer!It is only the loud wind shrieking near. The wind and the night and the sea. Are all that be Abroad to fill the soul with fear."

XII.

THE lady, who heard what the maiden had said, As dizzy with pain, clasped her hands to her head; While her white bosom heaved as with heart-broken sighs, And she turned upon Roland her pitiful eyes; And he read in her visage of pallid dismay, Far more than her language of sorrow could say.

"Oh, the terrible dream! It is true—it is true! And a beautiful demon there waiteth for you!For you! Roland, you! and I to be leftIn a poisonous world of all comfort bereft!'

"Though I die, it shall vanish!" the desperate man cried, "No demon shall hold me away from thy side!" The torch halfway dwindled—the crone muttered and moaned— The maid hid her face and her deep bosom groaned! Then seizing the monk, like one in despair, Roland led through the hall to the shadowy stair; And said, while ascending, "Let thy holy words be A scourge which shall drive this fiend into the sea! Ay, into its own native sea of black pain, So deep it shall never turn earthward again!"

Then the monk's pious pleasure burst to laughter aloud, Like a hot gust that blows the red leaves in a cloud, And he cried—"By the Pope, whose brown livery I wear, It shall frighten the night with its shriek of despair!

And when my Pope hears the good deed I have done, He will call me to kneel at his great crimson throne; And knowing the height of all priestly desire, He will crown this old brow with the sacred attire Of a cardinal's hat—flaming scarlet as fire!

"No monarch is half so sublime as our Pope!You will visit our Rome and behold him, I hope;— You will find him enthroned in magnificent state,— His brow overweighed with the burthensome weight Of care for the souls of mankind; You will see The great of all nations there bending the knee—Proud kings and their courts in their splendour replete, Like an ocean of flame, surging up to his feet;— All so eagerly crowding to press on his shoe The kiss of allegiance, that the place through and through Grows oppressively heated—besides, as you know, Our Rome's a warm climate—excessively so!

"You will probably go there in carnival time,— And see what no pencil, however sublime, Could picture with justice. If one did not know That the thing was a sanctioned and sanctified show, One might deem he had passed into Lucifer's regions, And think he saw Hell pouring out its red legions! Indeed, they do say, that beneath his black dome The Devil does try to imitate Rome! But this is rank scandal—you see what I mean— In no place but Rome can you find such a scene.

"And then, oh! those gorgeous great festival nights, When the huge dusky dome is one fabric of lights, Done with marvellous skill, which naught baffles or mars,— A temple of flame!—a mosaic of stars!

"Believe me, nowhere are such fireworks known, As you'll find in our Rome. Quite distinct and alone They stand; for the artist who plans them is one In that line of business not easily outdone!"

XIII.

THEY gained the gusty balcony Where the light from the chamber streamed out to the sea. What ailed the friar that he seemed to fail And grasped for support on the shadowy rail? Why did he shiver and seem so faint? Was it that, like a beautiful saint, He beheld the spirit-lady kneeling With mild eyes full of tears and feeling, Clasping on her bosom fair The crucifix, which piously there Rose and fell on the tide of prayer?

"I am very old and nigh to death,And climbing that stairway has taken my breath!" He murmured at last:— "Ah, me! ah, me! I am very weak from the abuse of the sea! And the chilly wet is piercing me through As if I had slept in a poisonous dew, And awoke with all the horrible pains Which death can inflict with chills and blains!

"It will pass anon:— meantime do thou Secure the precious moment now— Go seize on that polluted cross, And into the sea, with a curse and a toss, Fling it afar, as you would fling Some black, dead offensive thing, Hurled away with fierce disdain, Never to be reclaimed again! And then—and then—oh! this terrible chill, Piercing me like an electric thrill

In a cavern of ice!—The punishing ire Of—our abbot, though wielding great lashes of fire, Were easier to bear than this shiver intense, Like icicles piercing the innermost sense! Then take thou this girdle, which grasp like a scourge, And wield through the room!—It hath power to purge The air from such envious spirits as this, Who would rob even hell of its last ray of bliss!"

Then Roland, with averted head,Strode in and did as the friar said; He seized the cross—through the open door It spun to the dark and the wild uproar!

The spirit arose with a shriek of wo, Crying, "This is the storm! It must be so! The same I foretold thee an hour ago!

Though thou comest, O Roland! as one in swift ire,And armed with those red hissing scourges of fire: Oh! know, Roland, know that the fiends of the pit, The Arachnes of wo, are all weaving their wit In webs to ensnare thee! Already thy will Is tangled, confused in the threads of their skill: Ere thou strike I depart—yet again and again My hand shall be laid on thy forehead of pain. And when thou hast passed through this fiery test, When reason and calm have re-entered thy breast, Again will I sit by thy side, and renew The chain which the demons have sundered in two."

Ere the red scourge was lifted, the spirit had flown With a sigh in the air, and then followed a groan, And Roland dropt down with the weight of a stone. And the monk, leaning o'er him, breathed into his ear Thoughts without words, which his spirit in fear

Beheld as black tangible visions at strife, Struggling which should be foremost to poison his life.

Down in the shadowy hall below, The maid and the fisher were turning to go, When the lady with a mild command, With language sweet and countenance bland, Recalled the maiden, and seizing her hand, Pressed it to her bosom white And cold as a marble tomb at night; And murmured in accents sweet and mild— "We must be friends—dear friends—my child! And in token of this, this little ring, Quite a simple yet sacred thing, I place on your finger. It is, you see, The emblem of wisdom and eternity; And a symbol of what our love must be— Wise, watchful, unending—that hereafter we,

Even in a future clime, May look backward to the realms of time, And say it was upon that night When the heavens were black and the seas were white, We plighted the faith that shall never grow cold, And linked our two souls with this serpent of gold!"