Or pen within our penance cell
Should doom him there for aye to dwell.
Much in his visions mutters he
Of maiden whelm'd beneath the sea;
Of sabres clashing, foemen flying,
Wrongs avenged, and Moslem dying.
On cliff he hath been known to stand,
And rave as to some bloody hand
Fresh sever'd from its parent limb,
Invisible to all but him,

Which beckons onward to his grave,
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
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,
A spirit yet unquell'd and high,
That claims and keeps ascendancy;
And like the bird whose pinions quake,
But cannot fly the gazing snake,
Will others quail beneath his look,

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 :
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;
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
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
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:
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
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,
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 colum'd aisle:

With dread beheld, with gloom beholding
The rights that sanctify the pile.
But when the anthem shakes the choir
And kneel the monks, his steps retire;
By yonder lone and wavering torch
His aspect glares within the porch;
There will he 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,
That pale brow widely 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,
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.
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
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,

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;
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,
It bends and melts-though still the same;
Then temper'd to thy want, or will,
"Twill serve thee to defend or kill;
A breastplate for thine hour of need,
Or blade to bid thy foemen bleed;
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,
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
Might thank the pang that made it less.
We loathe what none are left to share;
Even bliss-'twere wo alone to bear;
The heart once left thus desolate
Must fly at last for ease-to hate.
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
The cold consumers of their clay!

It is as if the desert-bird,39

Whose beak unlocks her bosom's stream
To still her famish'd nestlings' scream,
Nor mourns a life to them transferr'd,
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,

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-
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
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,
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,
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 wo;
Yet still in hours of love or strife,
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,
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
For rest-but not to feel 'tis 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;
My memory now is but the tomb

Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom:
Though better to have died with those
Than bear a life of lingering woes.
My spirits shrunk not to sustain
The searching throes of ceaseless pain
Nor sought the self-accorded grave
Of ancient fool and modern knave:
Yet death I have not fear'd to meet;
And in the field it had been sweet,
Had danger woo'd me on to move
The slave of glory, not of love.
I've braved it-not for honor's boast;
I smile at laurels won or lost;
To such let others carve their way,
For high renown, or hireling pay:
But place again before my eyes
Aught that I deem a worthy prize,

The maid I love, the man I hate ;
And I will hunt the steps of fate,
To save or slay, as these require,
Through rending steel, and rolling fire;
Nor need'st thou doubt this speech from one
Who would but do-what he hath done.
Death is but what the haughty brave,
The weak must bear, the wretch must crave;
Then let life go to him who gave:

I have not quail'd to danger's brow
When high and happy-need I now!

"I loved her, friar! nay adored

But these are words that all can use→→
I proved it more in deed than word:
There's blood upon that dinted sword,
A stain its steel can never lose;
'Twas shed for her, who died for me,

It warm'd the heart of one abhorr'd:
Nay, start not-no-nor bend thy knee,
Nor midst my sins such act record;
Thou wilt absolve me from the deed,
For he was hostile to thy creed!
The very name of Nazarene
Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen.
Ungrateful fool! since but for brands
Well welded in some hardy hands,
And wounds by Galileans given,
The surest pass to Turkish heaven,
For him his Houris still might wait
Impatient at the prophet's gate:
I loved her-love will find its way
Through paths where wolves would fear to pray
And if it dares enough, 'twere hard
If passion met not some reward-
No matter how, or where, or why
I did not vainly seek, nor sigh;

Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain

I wish she had not loved again.
She died-I dare not tell thee how;
But look-'tis written on my brow;
There read of Cain the curse and crime,
In characters unworn by time:
Still, ere thou dost condemn me, pause;
Not mine the act, though I the cause
Yet did he but what I had done
Had she been false to more than one.
Faithless to him, he gave the blow;
But true to me, I laid him low:
Howe'er deserved her doom might be,
Her treachery was truth to me;
To me she gave her heart, that all
Which tyranny can ne'er enthrall;
And I, alas! too late to save!
Yet all I then could give, I gave,
'Twas some relief, our foe a grave.
His death sits lightly; but her fate
Has made me-what thou well may'st hate.
His doom was seal'd-he knew it well,
Warn'd by the voice of stern Taheer,
Deep in whose darkly boding ear 40
The death-shot peal'd of murder near,

As filed the troop to where they fell'
He died too in the battle broil,
A time that heeds nor pain nor toil;
One cry to Mahomet for aid,
One prayer to Alla all he made

He knew and cross'd me in the fray-
I gazed upon him where he lay.
And watch'd his spirit ebb away;
Though pierc'd like pard by hunters' steel,
He felt not half that now I feel.

I search'd, but vainly search'd, to find
The workings of a wounded mind;
Each feature of that sullen corse
Betray'd his rage, but no remorse.
Oh, what had vengeance given to trace
Despair upon his dying face?
The late repentance of that hour,
When penitence hath lost her power
To tear one terror from the grave,
And will not soothe, and cannot save.

"The cold in clime are cold in blood, Their love can scarce deserve the name; But mine was like the lava flood

That boils in Etna's breast of flame.
I cannot prate in puling strain
Of ladye-love, and beauty's chain;

If changing cheek, and scorching vein,
Lips taught to writhe, but not complain,
If bursting, heart, and madd'ning brain,
And daring deed, and vengeful steel,
And all that I have felt, and feel,
Betoken love-that love was mine,
And shown by many a bitter sign.
"Tis true, I could not whine nor sigh,
I knew but to obtain or die.

I die-but first I have possess'd,
And, come what may, I have been blest.
Shall I the doom I sought upbraid?
No-reft of all, yet undismay'd
But for the thought of Leila slain,
Give me the pleasure with the pain,
So would I live and love again.
I grieve, but not, my holy guide!
For him who dies, but her who died:
She sleeps beneath the wandering wave-
Ah! had she but an earthly grave,
This breaking heart and throbbing head
Should seek and share her narrow bed.
She was a form of life and light,
That, seen, became a part of sight;
And rose, where'er I turned mine eye,
The morning-star of memory!

"Yes, love indeed is light from heaven;
A spark of that immotal fire
With angels shared, by Alla given,

To lift from earth our low desire.
Devotion wafts the mind above,
But heaven itself descends in love;
A feeling from the Godhead caught,
To wean from self each sordid thought;
A ray of him who form'd the whole;
A glory circling round the soul!
I grant my love imperfect, all
That mortals by the name miscall;
Then deem it evil, what thou wilt;
But

say, oh say, hers was not guilt! She was my life's unerring light:

That quench'd, what beam shall break my night? Oh! would it shone to lead me still,

Although to death or deadliest ill!

Why marvel ye, if they who lose

This present joy, this future hope,
No more with sorrow meekly cope;
In frenzy then their fate accuse:
In madness do those fearful deeds

That seem to add but guilt to wo?
Alas! the breast that inly bleeds

Hath nought to dread from outward blɔw
Who falls from all he knows of bliss,
Cares little into what abyss.
Fierce as the gloomy vulture's now
To thee, old man, my deeds appear:
I read abhorrence on thy brow,

And this too was I born to bear!
'Tis true that, like that bird of prey,
With havoc have I mark'd the way:
But this was taught me by the dove,
To die and know no second love.
This lesson yet hath man to learn,
Taught by the thing he dares to spurn:
The bird that sings within the brake,
The swan that swims upon the lake
One mate, and one alone, will take
And let the fool still prone to range.
And sneer on all who cannot change.
Partake his jest with boasting boys.
I envy not his varied joys,

But deem such feeble, heartless man,
Less than yon solitary swan;
Far, far beneath the shallow maid
He left believing and betray'd.
Such shame at least was never mine-
Leila! each thought was only thine'
My good, my guilt, my weal, my wo,
My hope on high-my all below.
Earth holds no other like to thee,
Or, if it doth, in vain for me:
For worlds I dare not view the dame
Resembling thee, yet not the same.
The very crimes that mar my youth,
This bed of death-attest my truth!
"Tis all too late-thou wert, thou art
The cherish'd madness of my heart!

"And she was lost-and yet I breathed,
But not the breath of human life;
A serpent round my heart was wreathed,
And stung my every thought to strife.
Alike all time, abhorr'd all place,
Shuddering I shrunk from nature's face,
Where every hue that charm'd before
The blackness of my bosom wore.
The rest thou dost already know,
And all my sins, and half my wo.
But talk no more of penitence;
Thou see'st I soon shall part from hence,
And if thy holy tale were true,

The deed that's done can'st thou undo?
Think me not thankless-but this grief
Looks not to priesthood for relief.4
My soul's estate in secret guess:
But wouldst thou pity more, say less.
When thou canst bid my Leila live,
Then will I sue thee to forgive:
Then plead my cause in that high place
Where purchased masses proffer grace.
Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung
From forest-cave her shrieking young,

And calm the lonely lioness:
But sooth not-mock not my distress.

In earlier days, and calmer hours, When heart with heart delights to blend, Where bloom my native valley's bowers, I had-ah! have I now ?-a friend! To him this pledge I charge thee send, Memorial of a youthful vow;

I would remind him of my end:

Though souls absorbed like mine allow Brief thought to distant friendship's claim, Yet dear to him my blighted name. 'Tis strange-he prophesied my doom,

And I have smiled-I then could smileWhen prudence would his voice assume, And warn-I reck'd not what-the while: But now remembrance whispers o'er Those accents scarcely mark'd before. Say-that his bodings came to pass,

And he will start to hear their truth, And wish his words had not been sooth: Tell him, unheeding as I was,

Through many a busy bitter scene
Of all our golden youth had been,
In pain, my faltering tongue had tried
To bless his memory ere I died;
But Heaven in wrath would turn away,
If guilt should for the guiltless pray.
I do not ask him not to blame,
Too gentle he to wound my name;
And what have I to do with fame?
I do not ask him not to mourn,

Such cold request might sound like scorn;
And what than friendship's manly tear
May better grace a brother's bier?
But bear this ring, his own of old,
And tell him-what thou dost behold:
The wither'd frame, the ruin'd mind,
The wrack by passion left behind,
A shrivell'd scroll, a scatter'd leaf,
Sear'd by the autumn blast of grief!

"Tell me no more of fancy's gleam,
No, father, no, 'twas not a dream;
Alas! the dreamer first must sleep,
I only watch'd, and wish'd to weep;
But could not, for my burning brow
Throbb'd to the very brain as now:
I wish'd but for a single tear,

As something welcome, new, and dear:
I wish'd it then, I wish it still;
Despair is stronger than my will.
Waste not thine orison, despair
Is mightier than thy pious prayer
I would not, if I might, be blest;
I want no paradise, but rest.
"Twas then, I tell thee, father! then
I saw her; yes, she lived again;
And shining in her white symar,
As through yon pale gray cloud the star

Which now I gaze on, as on her,
Who look'd and looks far lovelier;
Dimly I view its trembling spark,
To-morrow's night shall be more dark
And I, before its rays appear,
That lifeless thing the living fear.
I wander, father! for my soul
Is fleeting towards the final goal.
I saw her, friar! and I rose
Forgetful of our former woes;
And rushing from my couch, I dart,
And clasp her to my desperate heart;
I clasp-what is it that I clasp?
No breathing form within my grasp,
No heart that beats reply to mine,
Yet, Leila! yet the form is thine!
And art thou, dearest, changed so much,
As meet my eye, yet mock my touch?
Ah! were thy beauties e'er so cold,
I care not; so my arms enfold
The all they ever wish to hold.
Alas! around a shadow prest,

They shrink upon my lonely breast;
Yet still 'tis there! in silence stands,
And beckons with beseeching hands!
With braided hair, and bright-black eye-
I knew 'twas false-she could not die!
But he is dead! within the dell

I saw him buried where he fell;

He comes not, for he cannot break
From earth; why then art thou awake?
They told me wild waves roll'd above
The face I view, the form I love;
They told me-'twas a hideous tale!
I'd tell it, but my tongue would fail:
If true, and from thine ocean-cave
Thou com'st to claim a calmer grave,
Oh! pass thy dewy fingers o'er
This brow that then will burn no more;
Or place them on my hopeless heart:
But, shape or shade! whate'er thou art,
In mercy ne'er again depart!
Or farther with thee bear my soul,
Than winds can waft or waters roll!

"Such is my name, and such my tale. Confessor to thy secret ear

I breathe the sorrows I bewail,

And thank thee for the generous tear
This glazing eye could never shed.
Then lay me with the humblest dead,
And, save the cross above my head,
Be neither nane nor emblem spread,
By prying stranger to be read,
Or stay the passing pilgrim's tread."

He pass'd-nor of his name and race
Hath left a token or a trace,
Save what the father must not say
Who shrived him on his dying day:
This broken tale was all we knew
Of her he loved, or him he slew.