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Percy Bysshe Shelley - Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue
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ROSALIND, HELEN, and her Child.

SCENE. The Shore of the Lake of Como.

HELEN
      Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.
      `T is long since thou and I have met;
      And yet methinks it were unkind
      Those moments to forget.
      Come, sit by me. I see thee stand
      By this lone lake, in this far land,
      Thy loose hair in the light wind flying,
      Thy sweet voice to each tone of even
      United, and thine eyes replying
      To the hues of yon fair heaven.         
      Come, gentle friend! wilt sit by me?
      And be as thou wert wont to be
      Ere we were disunited?
      None doth behold us now; the power
      That led us forth at this lone hour
      Will be but ill requited
      If thou depart in scorn. Oh, come,
      And talk of our abandoned home!
      Remember, this is Italy,
      And we are exiles. Talk with me     
      Of that our land, whose wilds and floods,
      Barren and dark although they be,
      Were dearer than these chestnut woods;
      Those heathy paths, that inland stream,
      And the blue mountains, shapes which seem
      Like wrecks of childhood`s sunny dream;
      Which that we have abandoned now,
      Weighs on the heart like that remorse
      Which altered friendship leaves. I seek
      No more our youthful intercourse.    
      That cannot be! Rosalind, speak,
      Speak to me! Leave me not! When morn did come,
      When evening fell upon our common home,
      When for one hour we parted,—do not frown;
      I would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken;
      But turn to me. Oh! by this cherished token
      Of woven hair, which thou wilt not disown,
      Turn, as `t were but the memory of me,
      And not my scornèd self who prayed to thee!

ROSALIND
      Is it a dream, or do I see       
      And hear frail Helen? I would flee
      Thy tainting touch; but former years
      Arise, and bring forbidden tears;
      And my o`erburdened memory
      Seeks yet its lost repose in thee.
      I share thy crime. I cannot choose
      But weep for thee; mine own strange grief
      But seldom stoops to such relief;
      Nor ever did I love thee less,
      Though mourning o`er thy wickedness   
      Even with a sister`s woe. I knew
      What to the evil world is due,
      And therefore sternly did refuse
      To link me with the infamy
      Of one so lost as Helen. Now,
      Bewildered by my dire despair,
      Wondering I blush, and weep that thou
      Shouldst love me still—thou only!—There,
      Let us sit on that gray stone
      Till our mournful talk be done.     

HELEN
      Alas! not there; I cannot bear
      The murmur of this lake to hear.
      A sound from there, Rosalind dear,
      Which never yet I heard elsewhere
      But in our native land, recurs,
      Even here where now we meet. It stirs
      Too much of suffocating sorrow!
      In the dell of yon dark chestnut wood
      Is a stone seat, a solitude
      Less like our own. The ghost of peace   
      Will not desert this spot. To-morrow,
      If thy kind feelings should not cease,
      We may sit here.

ROSALIND
                        Thou lead, my sweet,
      And I will follow.

HENRY
                          `T is Fenici`s seat
      Where you are going? This is not the way,
      Mamma; it leads behind those trees that grow
      Close to the little river.

HELEN
                                  Yes, I know;
      I was bewildered. Kiss me and be gay,
      Dear boy; why do you sob?

HENRY
                                 I do not know;
      But it might break any one`s heart to see         
      You and the lady cry so bitterly.

HELEN
      It is a gentle child, my friend. Go home,
      Henry, and play with Lilla till I come.
      We only cried with joy to see each other;
      We are quite merry now. Good night.

                                           The boy
      Lifted a sudden look upon his mother,
      And, in the gleam of forced and hollow joy
      Which lightened o`er her face, laughed with the glee
      Of light and unsuspecting infancy,
      And whispered in her ear, `Bring home with you    
      That sweet strange lady-friend.` Then off he flew,
      But stopped, and beckoned with a meaning smile,
      Where the road turned. Pale Rosalind the while,
      Hiding her face, stood weeping silently.

      In silence then they took the way
      Beneath the forest`s solitude.
      It was a vast and antique wood,
      Through which they took their way;
      And the gray shades of evening
      O`er that green wilderness did fling   
      Still deeper solitude.
      Pursuing still the path that wound
      The vast and knotted trees around,
      Through which slow shades were wandering,
      To a deep lawny dell they came,
      To a stone seat beside a spring,
      O`er which the columned wood did frame
      A roofless temple, like the fane
      Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain,
      Man`s early race once knelt beneath      
      The overhanging deity.
      O`er this fair fountain hung the sky,
      Now spangled with rare stars. The snake,
      The pale snake, that with eager breath
      Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake,
      Is beaming with many a mingled hue,
      Shed from yon dome`s eternal blue,
      When he floats on that dark and lucid flood
      In the light of his own loveliness;
      And the birds, that in the fountain dip     
      Their plumes, with fearless fellowship
      Above and round him wheel and hover.
      The fitful wind is heard to stir
      One solitary leaf on high;
      The chirping of the grasshopper
      Fills every pause. There is emotion
      In all that dwells at noontide here;
      Then through the intricate wild wood
      A maze of life and light and motion
      Is woven. But there is stillness now—   
      Gloom, and the trance of Nature now.
      The snake is in his cave asleep;
      The birds are on the branches dreaming;
      Only the shadows creep;
      Only the glow-worm is gleaming;
      Only the owls and the nightingales
      Wake in this dell when daylight fails,
      And gray shades gather in the woods;
      And the owls have all fled far away
      In a merrier glen to hoot and play,     
      For the moon is veiled and sleeping now.
      The accustomed nightingale still broods
      On her accustomed bough,
      But she is mute; for her false mate
      Has fled and left her desolate.

      This silent spot tradition old
      Had peopled with the spectral dead.
      For the roots of the speaker`s hair felt cold
      And stiff, as with tremulous lips he told
      That a hellish shape at midnight led   
      The ghost of a youth with hoary hair,
      And sate on the seat beside him there,
      Till a naked child came wandering by,
      When the fiend would change to a lady fair!
      A fearful tale! the truth was worse;
      For here a sister and a brother
      Had solemnized a monstrous curse,
      Meeting in this fair solitude;
      For beneath yon very sky,
      Had they resigned to one another      
      Body and soul. The multitude,
      Tracking them to the secret wood,
      Tore limb from limb their innocent child,
      And stabbed and trampled on its mother;
      But the youth, for God`s most holy grace,
      A priest saved to burn in the market-place.

      Duly at evening Helen came
      To this lone silent spot,
      From the wrecks of a tale of wilder sorrow
      So much of sympathy to borrow     
      As soothed her own dark lot.
      Duly each evening from her home,
      With her fair child would Helen come
      To sit upon that antique seat,
      While the hues of day were pale;
      And the bright boy beside her feet
      Now lay, lifting at intervals
      His broad blue eyes on her;
      Now, where some sudden impulse calls,
      Following. He was a gentle boy  
      And in all gentle sorts took joy.
      Oft in a dry leaf for a boat,
      With a small feather for a sail,
      His fancy on that spring would float,
      If some invisible breeze might stir
      Its marble calm; and Helen smiled
      Through tears of awe on the gay child,
      To think that a boy as fair as he,
      In years which never more may be,
      By that same fount, in that same wood,  
      The like sweet fancies had pursued;
      And that a mother, lost like her,
      Had mournfully sate watching him.
      Then all the scene was wont to swim
      Through the mist of a burning tear.
      For many months had Helen known
      This scene; and now she thither turned
      Her footsteps, not alone.
      The friend whose falsehood she had mourned
      Sate with her on that seat of stone.  
      Silent they sate; for evening,
      And the power its glimpses bring,
      Had with one awful shadow quelled
      The passion of their grief. They sate
      With linkèd hands, for unrepelled
      Had Helen taken Rosalind`s.
      Like the autumn wind, when it unbinds
      The tangled locks of the nightshade`s hair
      Which is twined in the sultry summer air
      Round the walls of an outworn sepulchre,       
      Did the voice of Helen, sad and sweet,
      And the sound of her heart that ever beat
      As with sighs and words she breathed on her,
      Unbind the knots of her friend`s despair,
      Till her thoughts were free to float and flow;
      And from her laboring bosom now,
      Like the bursting of a prisoned flame,
      The voice of a long-pent sorrow came.

ROSALIND
      I saw the dark earth fall upon
      The coffin; and I saw the stone     
      Laid over him whom this cold breast
      Had pillowed to his nightly rest!
      Thou knowest not, thou canst not know
      My agony. Oh! I could not weep.
      The sources whence such blessings flow
      Were not to be approached by me!
      But I could smile, and I could sleep,
      Though with a self-accusing heart.
      In morning`s light, in evening`s gloom,
      I watched—and would not thence depart—    
      My husband`s unlamented tomb.
      My children knew their sire was gone;
      But when I told them, `He is dead,`
      They laughed aloud in frantic glee,
      They clapped their hands and leaped about,
      Answering each other`s ecstasy
      With many a prank and merry shout.
      But I sate silent and alone,
      Wrapped in the mock of mourning weed.

      They laughed, for he was dead; but I    
      Sate with a hard and tearless eye,
      And with a heart which would deny
      The secret joy it could not quell,
      Low muttering o`er his loathèd name;
      Till from that self-contention came
      Remorse where sin was none; a hell
      Which in pure spirits should not dwell.

      I `ll tell thee truth. He was a man
      Hard, selfish, loving only gold,
      Yet full of guile; his pale eyes ran        
      With tears which each some falsehood told,
      And oft his smooth and bridled tongue
      Would give the lie to his flushing cheek;
      He was a coward to the strong;
      He was a tyrant to the weak,
      On whom his vengeance he would wreak;
      For scorn, whose arrows search the heart,
      From many a stranger`s eye would dart,
      And on his memory cling, and follow
      His soul to its home so cold and hollow.  
      He was a tyrant to the weak,
      And we were such, alas the day!
      Oft, when my little ones at play
      Were in youth`s natural lightness gay,
      Or if they listened to some tale
      Of travellers, or of fairyland,
      When the light from the wood-fire`s dying brand
      Flashed on their faces,—if they heard
      Or thought they heard upon the stair
      His footstep, the suspended word    
      Died on my lips; we all grew pale;
      The babe at my bosom was hushed with fear
      If it thought it heard its father near;
      And my two wild boys would near my knee
      Cling, cowed and cowering fearfully.

      I `ll tell thee truth: I loved another.
      His name in my ear was ever ringing,
      His form to my brain was ever clinging;
      Yet, if some stranger breathed that name,
      My lips turned white, and my heart beat fast.     
      My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame,
      My days were dim in the shadow cast
      By the memory of the same!
      Day and night, day and night,
      He was my breath and life and light,
      For three short years, which soon were passed.
      On the fourth, my gentle mother
      Led me to the shrine, to be
      His sworn bride eternally.
      And now we stood on the altar stair,    
      When my father came from a distant land,
      And with a loud and fearful cry
      Rushed between us suddenly.
      I saw the stream of his thin gray hair,
      I saw his lean and lifted hand,
      And heard his words—and live! O God!
      Wherefore do I live?—`Hold, hold!`
      He cried, `I tell thee `t is her brother!
      Thy mother, boy, beneath the sod
      Of yon churchyard rests in her shroud so cold;    
      I am now weak, and pale, and old;
      We were once dear to one another,
      I and that corpse! Thou art our child!`
      Then with a laugh both long and wild
      The youth upon the pavement fell.
      They found him dead! All looked on me,
      The spasms of my despair to see;
      But I was calm. I went away;
      I was clammy-cold like clay.
      I did not weep; I did not speak;   
      But day by day, week after week,
      I walked about like a corpse alive.
      Alas! sweet friend, you must believe
      This heart is stone—it did not break.

      My father lived a little while,
      But all might see that he was dying,
      He smiled with such a woful smile.
      When he was in the churchyard lying
      Among the worms, we grew quite poor,
      So that no one would give us bread;      
      My mother looked at me, and said
      Faint words of cheer, which only meant
      That she could die and be content;
      So I went forth from the same church door
      To another husband`s bed.
      And this was he who died at last,
      When weeks and months and years had passed,
      Through which I firmly did fulfil
      My duties, a devoted wife,
      With the stern step of vanquished will 
      Walking beneath the night of life,
      Whose hours extinguished, like slow rain
      Falling forever, pain by pain,
      The very hope of death`s dear rest;
      Which, since the heart within my breast
      Of natural life was dispossessed,
      Its strange sustainer there had been.

      When flowers were dead, and grass was green
      Upon my mother`s grave—that mother
      Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make  
      My wan eyes glitter for her sake,
      Was my vowed task, the single care
      Which once gave life to my despair—
      When she was a thing that did not stir,
      And the crawling worms were cradling her
      To a sleep more deep and so more sweet
      Than a baby`s rocked on its nurse`s knee,
      I lived; a living pulse then beat
      Beneath my heart that awakened me.
      What was this pulse so warm and free?  
      Alas! I knew it could not be
      My own dull blood. `T was like a thought
      Of liquid love, that spread and wrought
      Under my bosom and in my brain,
      And crept with the blood through every vein,
      And hour by hour, day after day,
      The wonder could not charm away
      But laid in sleep my wakeful pain,
      Until I knew it was a child,
      And then I wept. For long, long years    
      These frozen eyes had shed no tears;
      But now—`t was the season fair and mild
      When April has wept itself to May;
      I sate through the sweet sunny day
      By my window bowered round with leaves,
      And down my cheeks the quick tears ran
      Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves,
      When warm spring showers are passing o`er.
      O Helen, none can ever tell
      The joy it was to weep once more!     

      I wept to think how hard it were
      To kill my babe, and take from it
      The sense of light, and the warm air,
      And my own fond and tender care,
      And love and smiles; ere I knew yet
      That these for it might, as for me,
      Be the masks of a grinning mockery.
      And haply, I would dream, `t were sweet
      To feed it from my faded breast,
      Or mark my own heart`s restless beat        
      And watch the growing soul beneath
      Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath,
      Half interrupted by calm sighs,
      And search the depth of its fair eyes
      For long departed memories!
      And so I lived till that sweet load
      Was lightened. Darkly forward flowed
      The stream of years, and on it bore
      Two shapes of gladness to my sight;     
      Two other babes, delightful more,
      In my lost soul`s abandoned night,
      Than their own country ships may be
      Sailing towards wrecked mariners
      Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea.
      For each, as it came, brought soothing tears;
      And a loosening warmth, as each one lay
      Sucking the sullen milk away,
      About my frozen heart did play,
      And weaned it, oh, how painfully—     
      As they themselves were weaned each one
      From that sweet food—even from the thirst
      Of death, and nothingness, and rest,
      Strange inmate of a living breast,
      Which all that I had undergone
      Of grief and shame, since she who first
      The gates of that dark refuge closed
      Came to my sight, and almost burst
      The seal of that Lethean spring—
      But these fair shadows interposed.  
      For all delights are shadows now!
      And from my brain to my dull brow
      The heavy tears gather and flow.
      I cannot speak—oh, let me weep!

      The tears which fell from her wan eyes
      Glimmered among the moonlight dew.
      Her deep hard sobs and heavy sighs
      Their echoes in the darkness threw.
      When she grew calm, she thus did keep
      The tenor of her tale:—

                                He died;        
      I know not how; he was not old,
      If age be numbered by its years;
      But he was bowed and bent with fears,
      Pale with the quenchless thirst of gold,
      Which, like fierce fever, left him weak;
      And his strait lip and bloated cheek
      Were warped in spasms by hollow sneers;
      And selfish cares with barren plough,
      Not age, had lined his narrow brow,
      And foul and cruel thoughts, which feed     
      Upon the withering life within,
      Like vipers on some poisonous weed.
      Whether his ill were death or sin
      None knew, until he died indeed,
      And then men owned they were the same.

      Seven days within my chamber lay
      That corse, and my babes made holiday.
      At last, I told them what is death.
      The eldest, with a kind of shame,
      Came to my knees with silent breath,      
      And sate awe-stricken at my feet;
      And soon the others left their play,
      And sate there too. It is unmeet
      To shed on the brief flower of youth
      The withering knowledge of the grave.
      From me remorse then wrung that truth.
      I could not bear the joy which gave
      Too just a response to mine own.
      In vain. I dared not feign a groan;
      And in their artless looks I saw,      
      Between the mists of fear and awe,
      That my own thought was theirs; and they
      Expressed it not in words, but said,
      Each in its heart, how every day
      Will pass in happy work and play,
      Now he is dead and gone away!

      After the funeral all our kin
      Assembled, and the will was read.
      My friend, I tell thee, even the dead
      Have strength, their putrid shrouds within,   
      To blast and torture. Those who live
      Still fear the living, but a corse
      Is merciless, and Power doth give
      To such pale tyrants half the spoil
      He rends from those who groan and toil,
      Because they blush not with remorse
      Among their crawling worms. Behold,
      I have no child! my tale grows old
      With grief, and staggers; let it reach
      The limits of my feeble speech,   
      And languidly at length recline
      On the brink of its own grave and mine.

      Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty
      Among the fallen on evil days.
      `T is Crime, and Fear, and Infamy,
      And houseless Want in frozen ways
      Wandering ungarmented, and Pain,
      And, worse than all, that inward stain,
      Foul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers
      Youth`s starlight smile, and makes its tears   
      First like hot gall, then dry forever!
      And well thou knowest a mother never
      Could doom her children to this ill,
      And well he knew the same. The will
      Imported that, if e`er again
      I sought my children to behold,
      Or in my birthplace did remain
      Beyond three days, whose hours were told,
      They should inherit nought; and he,
      To whom next came their patrimony,     
      A sallow lawyer, cruel and cold,
      Aye watched me, as the will was read,
      With eyes askance, which sought to see
      The secrets of my agony;
      And with close lips and anxious brow
      Stood canvassing still to and fro
      The chance of my resolve, and all
      The dead man`s caution just did call;
      For in that killing lie `t was said—
      `She is adulterous, and doth hold   
      In secret that the Christian creed
      Is false, and therefore is much need
      That I should have a care to save
      My children from eternal fire.`
      Friend, he was sheltered by the grave,
      And therefore dared to be a liar!
      In truth, the Indian on the pyre
      Of her dead husband, half consumed,
      As well might there be false as I
      To those abhorred embraces doomed,     
      Far worse than fire`s brief agony.
      As to the Christian creed, if true
      Or false, I never questioned it;
      I took it as the vulgar do;
      Nor my vexed soul had leisure yet
      To doubt the things men say, or deem
      That they are other than they seem.

      All present who those crimes did hear,
      In feigned or actual scorn and fear,
      Men, women, children, slunk away,   
      Whispering with self-contented pride
      Which half suspects its own base lie.
      I spoke to none, nor did abide,
      But silently I went my way,
      Nor noticed I where joyously
      Sate my two younger babes at play
      In the courtyard through which I passed;
      But went with footsteps firm and fast
      Till I came to the brink of the ocean green,
      And there, a woman with gray hairs,     
      Who had my mother`s servant been,
      Kneeling, with many tears and prayers,
      Made me accept a purse of gold,
      Half of the earnings she had kept
      To refuge her when weak and old.
      With woe, which never sleeps or slept,
      I wander now. `T is a vain thought—
      But on yon Alp, whose snowy head
      `Mid the azure air is islanded,
      (We see it—o`er the flood of cloud,     
      Which sunrise from its eastern caves
      Drives, wrinkling into golden waves,
      Hung with its precipices proud—
      From that gray stone where first we met)
      There—now who knows the dead feel nought?—
      Should be my grave; for he who yet
      Is my soul`s soul once said: ``T were sweet
      `Mid stars and lightnings to abide,
      And winds, and lulling snows that beat
      With their soft flakes the mountain wide,    
      Where weary meteor lamps repose,
      And languid storms their pinions close,
      And all things strong and bright and pure,
      And ever during, aye endure.
      Who knows, if one were buried there,
      But these things might our spirits make,
      Amid the all-surrounding air,
      Their own eternity partake?`
      Then `t was a wild and playful saying
      At which I laughed or seemed to laugh.    
      They were his words—now heed my praying,
      And let them be my epitaph.
      Thy memory for a term may be
      My monument. Wilt remember me?
      I know thou wilt; and canst forgive,
      Whilst in this erring world to live
      My soul disdained not, that I thought
      Its lying forms were worthy aught,
      And much less thee.

HELEN
                           Oh, speak not so!
      But come to me and pour thy woe   
      Into this heart, full though it be,
      Aye overflowing with its own.
      I thought that grief had severed me
      From all beside who weep and groan,
      Its likeness upon earth to be—
      Its express image; but thou art
      More wretched. Sweet, we will not part
      Henceforth, if death be not division;
      If so, the dead feel no contrition.
      But wilt thou hear, since last we parted,   
      All that has left me broken-hearted?

ROSALIND
      Yes, speak. The faintest stars are scarcely shorn
      Of their thin beams by that delusive morn
      Which sinks again in darkness, like the light
      Of early love, soon lost in total night.

HELEN
      Alas! Italian winds are mild,
      But my bosom is cold—wintry cold;
      When the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves,
      Soft music, my poor brain is wild,
      And I am weak like a nursling child,    
      Though my soul with grief is gray and old.

ROSALIND
      Weep not at thine own words, though they must make
      Me weep. What is thy tale?

HELEN
                                  I fear `t will shake
      Thy gentle heart with tears. Thou well
      Rememberest when we met no more;
      And, though I dwelt with Lionel,
      That friendless caution pierced me sore
      With grief; a wound my spirit bore
      Indignantly—but when he died,
      With him lay dead both hope and pride.  

      Alas! all hope is buried now.
      But then men dreamed the aged earth
      Was laboring in that mighty birth
      Which many a poet and a sage
      Has aye foreseen—the happy age
      When truth and love shall dwell below
      Among the works and ways of men;
      Which on this world not power but will
      Even now is wanting to fulfil.

      Among mankind what thence befell     
      Of strife, how vain, is known too well;
      When Liberty`s dear pæan fell
      `Mid murderous howls. To Lionel,
      Though of great wealth and lineage high,
      Yet through those dungeon walls there came
      Thy thrilling light, O Liberty!
      And as the meteor`s midnight flame
      Startles the dreamer, sun-like truth
      Flashed on his visionary youth,
      And filled him, not with love, but faith,    
      And hope, and courage mute in death;
      For love and life in him were twins,
      Born at one birth. In every other
      First life, then love, its course begins,
      Though they be children of one mother;
      And so through this dark world they fleet
      Divided, till in death they meet;
      But he loved all things ever. Then
      He passed amid the strife of men,
      And stood at the throne of armèd power   
      Pleading for a world of woe.
      Secure as one on a rock-built tower
      O`er the wrecks which the surge trails to and fro,
      `Mid the passions wild of humankind
      He stood, like a spirit calming them;
      For, it was said, his words could bind
      Like music the lulled crowd, and stem
      That torrent of unquiet dream
      Which mortals truth and reason deem,
      But is revenge and fear and pride.   
      Joyous he was; and hope and peace
      On all who heard him did abide,
      Raining like dew from his sweet talk,
      As where the evening star may walk
      Along the brink of the gloomy seas,
      Liquid mists of splendor quiver.
      His very gestures touched to tears
      The unpersuaded tyrant, never
      So moved before; his presence stung
      The torturers with their victim`s pain,  
      And none knew how; and through their ears
      The subtle witchcraft of his tongue
      Unlocked the hearts of those who keep
      Gold, the world`s bond of slavery.
      Men wondered, and some sneered to see
      One sow what he could never reap;
      For he is rich, they said, and young,
      And might drink from the depths of luxury.
      If he seeks fame, fame never crowned
      The champion of a trampled creed;      
      If he seeks power, power is enthroned
      `Mid ancient rights and wrongs, to feed
      Which hungry wolves with praise and spoil
      Those who would sit near power must toil;
      And such, there sitting, all may see.
      What seeks he? All that others seek
      He casts away, like a vile weed
      Which the sea casts unreturningly.
      That poor and hungry men should break
      The laws which wreak them toil and scorn   
      We understand; but Lionel,
      We know, is rich and nobly born.
      So wondered they; yet all men loved
      Young Lionel, though few approved;
      All but the priests, whose hatred fell
      Like the unseen blight of a smiling day,
      The withering honey-dew which clings
      Under the bright green buds of May
      Whilst they unfold their emerald wings;
      For he made verses wild and queer   
      On the strange creeds priests hold so dear
      Because they bring them land and gold.
      Of devils and saints and all such gear
      He made tales which whoso heard or read
      Would laugh till he were almost dead.
      So this grew a proverb: `Don`t get old
      Till Lionel`s Banquet in Hell you hear,
      And then you will laugh yourself young again.`
      So the priests hated him, and he
      Repaid their hate with cheerful glee.    

      Ah, smiles and joyance quickly died,
      For public hope grew pale and dim
      In an altered time and tide,
      And in its wasting withered him,
      As a summer flower that blows too soon
      Droops in the smile of the waning moon,
      When it scatters through an April night
      The frozen dews of wrinkling blight.
      None now hoped more. Gray Power was seated
      Safely on her ancestral throne; 
      And Faith, the Python, undefeated
      Even to its blood-stained steps dragged on
      Her foul and wounded train; and men
      Were trampled and deceived again,
      And words and shows again could bind
      The wailing tribes of humankind
      In scorn and famine. Fire and blood
      Raged round the raging multitude,
      To fields remote by tyrants sent
      To be the scornèd instrument     
      With which they drag from mines of gore
      The chains their slaves yet ever wore;
      And in the streets men met each other,
      And by old altars and in halls,
      And smiled again at festivals.
      But each man found in his heart`s brother
      Cold cheer; for all, though half deceived,
      The outworn creeds again believed,
      And the same round anew began
      Which the weary world yet ever ran.  

      Many then wept, not tears, but gall,
      Within their hearts, like drops which fall
      Wasting the fountain-stone away.
      And in that dark and evil day
      Did all desires and thoughts that claim
      Men`s care—ambition, friendship, fame,
      Love, hope, though hope was now despair—
      Indue the colors of this change,
      As from the all-surrounding air
      The earth takes hues obscure and strange,  
      When storm and earthquake linger there.

      And so, my friend, it then befell
      To many,—most to Lionel,
      Whose hope was like the life of youth
      Within him, and when dead became
      A spirit of unresting flame,
      Which goaded him in his distress
      Over the world`s vast wilderness.
      Three years he left his native land,
      And on the fourth, when he returned, 
      None knew him; he was stricken deep
      With some disease of mind, and turned
      Into aught unlike Lionel.
      On him—on whom, did he pause in sleep,
      Serenest smiles were wont to keep,
      And, did he wake, a wingèd band
      Of bright Persuasions, which had fed
      On his sweet lips and liquid eyes,
      Kept their swift pinions half outspread
      To do on men his least command—  
      On him, whom once `t was paradise
      Even to behold, now misery lay.
      In his own heart `t was merciless—
      To all things else none may express
      Its innocence and tenderness.

      `T was said that he had refuge sought
      In love from his unquiet thought
      In distant lands, and been deceived
      By some strange show; for there were found,
      Blotted with tears—as those relieved   
      By their own words are wont to do—
      These mournful verses on the ground,
      By all who read them blotted too.

      `How am I changed! my hopes were once like fire;
        I loved, and I believed that life was love.
      How am I lost! on wings of swift desire
        Among Heaven`s winds my spirit once did move.
      I slept, and silver dreams did aye inspire
        My liquid sleep; I woke, and did approve
      All Nature to my heart, and thought to make  
      A paradise of earth for one sweet sake.

      `I love, but I believe in love no more.
        I feel desire, but hope not. Oh, from sleep
      Most vainly must my weary brain implore
        Its long lost flattery now! I wake to weep,
      And sit through the long day gnawing the core
        Of my bitter heart, and, like a miser, keep—
      Since none in what I feel take pain or pleasure—
      To my own soul its self-consuming treasure.`

      He dwelt beside me near the sea; 
      And oft in evening did we meet,
      When the waves, beneath the starlight, flee
      O`er the yellow sands with silver feet,
      And talked. Our talk was sad and sweet,
      Till slowly from his mien there passed
      The desolation which it spoke;
      And smiles—as when the lightning`s blast
      Has parched some heaven-delighting oak,
      The next spring shows leaves pale and rare,
      But like flowers delicate and fair,    
      On its rent boughs—again arrayed
      His countenance in tender light;
      His words grew subtle fire, which made
      The air his hearers breathed delight;
      His motions, like the winds, were free,
      Which bend the bright grass gracefully,
      Then fade away in circlets faint;
      And wingèd Hope—on which upborne
      His soul seemed hovering in his eyes,
      Like some bright spirit newly born    
      Floating amid the sunny skies—
      Sprang forth from his rent heart anew.
      Yet o`er his talk, and looks, and mien,
      Tempering their loveliness too keen,
      Past woe its shadow backward threw;
      Till, like an exhalation spread
      From flowers half drunk with evening dew,
      They did become infectious—sweet
      And subtle mists of sense and thought,
      Which wrapped us soon, when we might meet,    
      Almost from our own looks and aught
      The wild world holds. And so his mind
      Was healed, while mine grew sick with fear;
      For ever now his health declined,
      Like some frail bark which cannot bear
      The impulse of an altered wind,
      Though prosperous; and my heart grew full,
      `Mid its new joy, of a new care;
      For his cheek became, not pale, but fair,
      As rose-o`ershadowed lilies are;     
      And soon his deep and sunny hair,
      In this alone less beautiful,
      Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare.
      The blood in his translucent veins
      Beat, not like animal life, but love
      Seemed now its sullen springs to move,
      When life had failed, and all its pains;
      And sudden sleep would seize him oft
      Like death, so calm,—but that a tear,
      His pointed eye-lashes between,   
      Would gather in the light serene
      Of smiles whose lustre bright and soft
      Beneath lay undulating there.
      His breath was like inconstant flame
      As eagerly it went and came;
      And I hung o`er him in his sleep,
      Till, like an image in the lake
      Which rains disturb, my tears would break
      The shadow of that slumber deep.
      Then he would bid me not to weep,   
      And say, with flattery false yet sweet,
      That death and he could never meet,
      If I would never part with him.
      And so we loved, and did unite
      All that in us was yet divided;
      For when he said, that many a rite,
      By men to bind but once provided,
      Could not be shared by him and me,
      Or they would kill him in their glee,
      I shuddered, and then laughing said—   
      `We will have rites our faith to bind,
      But our church shall be the starry night,
      Our altar the grassy earth outspread,
      And our priest the muttering wind.`

      `T was sunset as I spoke. One star
      Had scarce burst forth, when from afar
      The ministers of misrule sent
      Seized upon Lionel, and bore
      His chained limbs to a dreary tower,
      In the midst of a city vast and wide.   
      For he, they said, from his mind had bent
      Against their gods keen blasphemy,
      For which, though his soul must roasted be
      In hell`s red lakes immortally,
      Yet even on earth must he abide
      The vengeance of their slaves: a trial,
      I think, men call it. What avail
      Are prayers and tears, which chase denial
      From the fierce savage nursed in hate?
      What the knit soul that pleading and pale    
      Makes wan the quivering cheek which late
      It painted with its own delight?
      We were divided. As I could,
      I stilled the tingling of my blood,
      And followed him in their despite,
      As a widow follows, pale and wild,
      The murderers and corse of her only child;
      And when we came to the prison door,
      And I prayed to share his dungeon floor
      With prayers which rarely have been spurned,    
      And when men drove me forth, and I
      Stared with blank frenzy on the sky,—
      A farewell look of love he turned,
      Half calming me; then gazed awhile,
      As if through that black and massy pile,
      And through the crowd around him there,
      And through the dense and murky air,
      And the thronged streets, he did espy
      What poets know and prophesy;
      And said, with voice that made them shiver    
      And clung like music in my brain,
      And which the mute walls spoke again
      Prolonging it with deepened strain—
      `Fear not the tyrants shall rule forever,
      Or the priests of the bloody faith;
      They stand on the brink of that mighty river,
      Whose waves they have tainted with death;
      It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,
      Around them it foams, and rages, and swells,
      And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,   
      Like wrecks, in the surge of eternity.`

      I dwelt beside the prison gate;
      And the strange crowd that out and in
      Passed, some, no doubt, with mine own fate,
      Might have fretted me with its ceaseless din,
      But the fever of care was louder within.
      Soon but too late, in penitence
      Or fear, his foes released him thence.
      I saw his thin and languid form,
      As leaning on the jailor`s arm,  
      Whose hardened eyes grew moist the while
      To meet his mute and faded smile
      And hear his words of kind farewell,
      He tottered forth from his damp cell.
      Many had never wept before,
      From whom fast tears then gushed and fell;
      Many will relent no more,
      Who sobbed like infants then; ay, all
      Who thronged the prison`s stony hall,
      The rulers or the slaves of law,     
      Felt with a new surprise and awe
      That they were human, till strong shame
      Made them again become the same.
      The prison bloodhounds, huge and grim,
      From human looks the infection caught,
      And fondly crouched and fawned on him;
      And men have heard the prisoners say,
      Who in their rotting dungeons lay,
      That from that hour, throughout one day,
      The fierce despair and hate which kept   
      Their trampled bosoms almost slept,
      Where, like twin vultures, they hung feeding
      On each heart`s wound, wide torn and bleeding,—
      Because their jailors` rule, they thought,
      Grew merciful, like a parent`s sway.
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