A bitterer pang, an icier shudder, ran
Through his fierce nature
Ha! his own tale! O dull and blinded! how,
Flash upon flash, descends the lightning now!
Thou, his forsaken his! And I who
The promise, or the threat, was said
To ears already deafen'd as the dead!
His arm but breaks the fall: the panting breast
Yet heaves convulsive through the stifling vest.
The robe, relax'd, bids doubt—if doubt yet be·
Merge the last gleam in starless certainty!
Lo there, the fatal gift of love and woe
Miming without the image graved below
The same each likeness by each sufferer worn,
Or differing but as noonday from the morn.
In Lucy's portrait, manhood's earliest youth
Shone from the clear eye with a light like truth.
There, play'd that fearless smile with which we meet
The sward that hides the swamp before our feet;
The bright on-looking to the Future, ere
Calantha's portrait spoke of one in whom,
Young yet in years, the heart had lost its bloom;
The lip of joy the lip of pride had grown;
It smiled the smile we love to trust had flown.
In the collected eye and lofty mien
The graver power experience brings was seen;
Beautiful both; and if the manlier face
Had lost youth's candid and luxuriant grace,
A charm as fatal as the first it wore,
And this the man to whom his heart had moved!
Whose hand he 'd clasp'd, whose child he loved!
This, out of all the universe, O Fate!
This, the dark orb round which revolved his hate;
This, the swart star malign, whose baleful ray
Ruled in his House of Life; and day by day,
And hour by hour, upon the tortured past
One withering, ruthless, demon influence cast!
There writhes the victim there, unmasking, now
The invoked Alecto frowns from Arden's brow.
O'er that fierce nature, roused so late from sleep, Course the black thoughts, and lash to storm the deep.
Love flies dismay'd — the sweet delusions, drawn
By Hope, fade ghost-like in the lurid dawn;
As when along the parch'd Arabian gloom
Life prostrate falls before the dread Simoom,
No human mercy the strong whirlwind faced,
And its wrath reigned sole monarch of the waste!
The Hours steal on. Like spectres, to and fro Hurry hush'd footsteps through the house of woe. That nameless chill, which tells of life that dies, Broods o'er the chamber where Calantha lies.
The Hours steal on- and o'er the unquiet might
Of the great Babel-reigns, dishallowed, Night!
Not, as o'er Nature's world, She comes, to keep
Beneath the stars her solemn tryst with Sleep,
When move the twin-born Genii side by side,
And steal from earth its demons where they glide;
Lull'd the spent Toil seal'd Sorrow's heavy eyes,
And dreams restore the dews of Paradise;
But Night, discrown'd and sever'd from her twin,
No pause for Travail, no repose for Sin,
Vex'd by one chafed rebellion to her sway,
Flits o'er the lamp-lit streets - a phantom-day!
Alone sate Morvale in the House of Gloom,
Alone-no! Death was in the darken'd room;
All hush'd save where, at distance faintly heard,
Lucy's low sob the depth of silence stirr'd;
Or where, without, the swift wheels hurrying by,
Bear those who live as if life could not die.
Alone he sate! and in his breast began
the Angel with the Man!
Not his the light war with its feeble rage
Which prudent scruples with faint passions wage,
(The small heart-conflicts which disturb the wise,
Whom reason succours when the anger tries,
Such as to this meek social ring belong,
In conscience weak, but in discretion strong;)
But that known only to man's franker state,
In love a demigoda fiend in hate,
Him, not the reason but the instincts lead,
Prompt in the impulse, ruthless in the deed.
And if the wrong might seem too weak a cause
Some think dishonour, if it halt at crime,
what injury in the slime?
As if but this poor clay — this crumbling coil
were all the foul can soil!
As if the form were not the type (nor more
Than the mere type) of what chaste souls adore!
That Woman-Royalty, a spotless name,
For sires to boast - for sons unborn to claim,
That heavenly purity of thought
And well to him may such belief belong,
And India's memories blacken more the wrong;
In Eastern lands, by tritest tales convey'd,
How Honour guards from sight itself the maid;
Home's solemn mystery, jealous of a breath,
Screen'd by religion, and begirt with death:
Again he cower'd beneath the hissing tongue,
Again the gibe of scurril laughter rung,
Again the Plague-breath air itself defiled,
And Mockery grinn'd upon his mother's child!
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