ページの画像
PDF
ePub

66

Then with a smile, that fill'd the house with light,
My errand is not Death, but Life," he said;
And ere I answer'd, passing out of sight,

On his celestial embassy he sped.

'Twas at thy door, O friend! and not at mine,
The angel with the amaranthine wreath
Pausing descended, and with voice divine
Whisper'd a word that had a sound like Death.

Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,
A shadow on those features fair and thin;
And softly, from that hush'd and darken'd room,
Two angels issued, where but one went in.

All is of God! If He but wave his hand

The mists collect, the rain falls thick and loud, Till with a smile of light on sea and land,

Lo! He looks back from the departing cloud.

Angels of Life and Death alike are his;

Without his leave they pass no threshold o'er; Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this, Against his messengers to shut the door?

REMORSE.

This fine scene, so full of dramatic power and gloomy with poetic imagery, is from ALEXANDER SMITH'S Life Drama.

Good men have said

That sometimes God leaves sinners to their sin,—
He has left me to mine, and I am changed;
My worst part is insurgent, and my will
Is weak and powerless as a trembling king
When millions rise up hungry. Woe is me!
My soul breeds sins as a dead body_worms!
They swarm and feed upon me. Hear me, God!
Sin met me and embraced me on my way:
Methought her cheeks were red, her lips had bloom;
I kiss'd her bold lips, dallied with her hair:
She sang me into slumber. I awoke-
It was a putrid corse that clung to me,
That clings to me like memory to the damn'd,

408

That rots into my being. Father! God!
I cannot shake it off! It clings, it clings!—
I soon will grow as corrupt as itself.
God sends me back my prayers, as a father
Returns unoped the letters of a son
Who has dishonour'd him.

Have mercy, Fiend!
Thou Devil, thou wilt drag me down to hell!
Oh, if she had proclivity to sin

Who did appear so beauteous and so pure,
Nature may leer behind a gracious mask
And God himself may be--I'm giddy, blind;
The world reels from beneath me.

[Catches hold of the parapet. (An Outcast approaches.) Wilt pray for me?

GIRL (shuddering).

'Tis a dreadful thing to pray.

WALTER.

Why is it so?

Hast thou, like me, a spot upon thy soul,
That neither tears can cleanse, nor fires eterne ?

GIRL.

But few request my prayers.

WALTER.

I request them.

For ne'er did a dishevell'd woman cling
So earnest-pale to a stern conqueror's knees,
Pleading for a dear life, as did my prayer
Cling to the knees of God. He shook it off,
And went upon

His way.

Wilt pray

GIRL.

for me?

Sin crusts me o'er as limpets crust the rocks.
I would be thrust from every human door;
I dare not knock at Heaven's.

WALTER.

Poor homeless one!

There is a door stands wide for thee and me

The door of hell. Methinks we are well met.
I saw a little girl three years ago,

With eyes of azure and with cheeks of red-
A crowd of sunbeams hanging down her face;
Sweet laughter round her; dancing like a breeze.—
I'd rather lair me with a fiend in fire

Than look on such a face as hers to night.

But I can look on thee, and such as thee!

[ocr errors]

I'll call thee "Sister; do thou call me "Brother."
A thousand years hence, when we both are damn'd,
We'll sit like ghosts upon the wailing shore,

And read our lives by the red light of hell.
Will we not, Sister?

GIRL.

O thou strange wild man, Let me alone: what would you seek with me?

WALTER.

Your ear, my Sister. I have that within

Which urges me to utterance. I could accost
A pensive angel, singing to himself
Upon a hill in heaven, and leave his mind
As dark and turbid as a trampled pool,
To purify at leisure. I have none
To listen to me, save a sinful woman
Upon a midnight bridge. She was so fair,-
God's eye could rest with pleasure on her face.
Oh God, she was so happy! Her short life
As full of music as the crowded June

Of an unfallen orb. What is it now?
She gave me her young heart, full, full of love;
My return-was to break it. Worse, far worse;
I crept into the chambers of her soul,

Like a foul toad, polluting as I went.

GIRL.

I pity her--not you. Man trusts in God;
He is eternal. Woman trusts in man;
And he is shifting sand.

WALTER.

Poor child,

poor

child!

We sat in dreadful silence with our sin,

Looking each other wildly in the eyes;
Methought I heard the gates of heaven close;
She flung herself against me, burst in tears,
As a wave bursts in spray. She cover'd me
With her wild sorrow, as an April cloud
With dim dishevell'd tresses hides the hill
On which its heart is breaking. She clung to me
With piteous arms, and shook me with her sobs :
For she had lost her world, her heaven, her God,
And now had nought but me and her great wrong.
She did not kill me with a single word,

But once she lifted her tear-dabbled face-
Had hell gaped at my feet I would have leapt
Into its burning throat, from that pale look.
Still it pursues me like a haunting fiend;
It drives me out to the black moors at night,
Where I am smitten by the hissing rain;
And ruffian winds, dislodging from their troops,
Hustle me shrieking, then with sudden turn
Go laughing to their fellows. Merciful God;
It comes-that face again, that white, white face,
Set in a night of hair; reproachful eyes,

That make me mad. Oh, save me from those eyes!
They will torment me even in the grave,
And burn on me in Tophet!

GIRL.

Where are you going?

WALTER.

My heart's on fire by hell, and on I drive
To outer blackness, like a blazing ship.

[He rushes away.

ON THE DEATH OF THE POET DRAKE.

By HALLECK, an American poet.

GREEN be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days:
None knew thee but to love thee,
None named thee but to praise.

Tears fell when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep;
And long where thou art lying

Will tears the cold turf steep.

When hearts whose truth was proven
Like thine are laid on earth,
There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth;

And I, who woke each morrow
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and woe were thine-

It should be mine to braid it
Around thy faded brow :
But I've in vain essay'd it,
And feel I cannot now.

While memory bids me weep thee,
Nor thoughts nor words are free :-

The grief is fix'd too deeply

That mourns a man like thee.

AUTUMN-AND LIFE'S AUTUMN.

Extracted from a volume of poems published a few years ago, called The Mountain Decameron.

SEPTEMBER woods, September skies, so soft and sunny all! Unfaded and unfallen your leaves, and yet so soon to fall: Ah, what avails that dying smile which gilds your fading green?

White Winter peeps, like Death, behind, to shut the farewell scene!

Stretch'd beautiful the landscape lies, a mockery of May, Like some fair corpse, yet beautiful, laid out but for decay; Howl, ye wild winds! beat, wintry rains!-Heaven's groans and tears!-more meet

Than such a smile o'er Summer dead,-so green a winding-sheet!

« 前へ次へ »