Was moulded to such features as declared That pity there had oft and strongly worked, And sometimes indignation. Bold her mien, And like a haughty huntress of the woods She moved yet sure she was a gentle maid! And in each motion her most innocent soul Beamed forth so brightly, that who saw would say Guilt was a thing impossible in her !
Nor idly would have said-for she had lived In this bad World, as in a place of tombs, And touched not the pollutions of the dead.
'Twas the cold season when the rustic's eye From the drear desolate whiteness of his fields Rolls for relief to watch the skyey tints
And clouds slow varying their huge imagery; When now, as she was wont, the healthful Maid Had left her pallet ere one beam of day Slanted the fog-smoke. She went forth alone Urged by the indwelling angel-guide, that oft, With dim inexplicable sympathies
Disquieting the heart, shapes out Man's course To the predoomed adventure. Now the ascent She climbs of that steep upland, on whose top The Pilgrim-man, who long since eve had watched The alien shine of unconcerning stars, Shouts to himself, there first the Abbey-lights Seen in Neufchatel's vale; now slopes adown The winding sheep-track vale-ward: when, behold In the first entrance of the level road
An unattended team! The foremost horse Lay with stretched limbs; the others, yet alive But stiff and cold, stood motionless, their manes Hoar with the frozen night dews. Dismally The dark-red dawn now glimmered; but its gleams Disclosed no face of man. The maiden paused, Then hailed who might be near. No voice replied. From the thwart wain at length there reached her ear A sound so feeble that it almost seemed
Distant and feebly, with slow effort pushed,
A miserable man crept forth his limbs The silent frost had eat, scathing like fire. Faint on the shafts he rested. She, mean time, Saw crowded close beneath the coverture A mother and her children-lifeless all,- Yet lovely! not a lineament was marred-- Death had put on so slumber-like a form! It was a piteous sight; and one, a babe, The crisp milk frozen on its innocent lips, Lay on the woman's arm, its little hand Stretched on her bosom
The Maid gazed wildly at the living wretch. He, his head feebly turning, on the group Looked with a vacant stare, and his eye spoke The drowsy calm that steals on worn-out anguish. She shuddered; but, each vainer pang subdued, Quick disentangling from the foremost horse The rustic bands, with difficulty and toil
The stiu cramped team forced homeward. There arrived, Anxiously tends him she with healing herbs,
And weeps and prays—but the numb power of Death Spreads o'er his limbs; and ere the noontide hour, The hovering spirits of his wife and babes Hail him immortal! Yet amid his pangs, With interruptions long from ghastly throes, His voice had faltered out this simple tale.
The village, where he dwelt a husbandman, By sudden inroad had been seized and fired Late on the yester-evening. With his wife And little ones he hurried his escape.
They saw the neighboring hamlets flame, they heard Uproar and shrieks! and terror-struck drove on Through unfrequented roads a weary way!
But saw nor house nor cottage. All had quenched Their evening hearth-fire for the alarm had spread. The air clipped keen, the night was fanged with frost, And they provisionless! The weeping wife
Ill hushed her children's moans; and still they moaned, Till fright and cold and hunger drank their life.
They closed their eyes in sleep, nor knew 'twas death. He only, lashing his o'er-wearied team,
Gained a sad respite, till beside the base
Of the high hill his foremost horse dropped dead. Then hopeless, strengthless, sick for lack of food, He crept beneath the coverture, entranced, Till wakened by the maiden.--Such his tale.
Ah! suffering to the height of what was suffered Stung with too keen a sympathy, the Maid Brooded with moving lips, mute, startful, dark! And now her flushed tumultuous features shot Such strange vivacity, as fires the eye
Of misery fancy-crazed! and now once more Naked, and void, and fixed, and all within The unquiet silence of confused thought And shapeless feelings. For a mighty hand Was strong upon her, till in the heat of soul To the high hill-top tracing back her steps, Aside the beacon, up whose smouldered stones The tender ivy-trails crept thinly, there, Unconscious of the driving element,
Yea, swallowed up in the ominous dream, she sate Ghastly as broad-eyed Slumber! a dim anguish Breathed from her look! and still with pant and sob, Inly she toil'd to flee, and still subdued, Felt an inevitable Presence near.
Thus as she toiled in troublous ecstasy,
A horror of great darkness wrapt her round,
And a voice uttered forth unearthly tones,
Calming her soul,-" O Thou of the Most High
Chosen, whom all the perfected in Heaven Behold expectant
[The following fragments were intended to form part of the poem when finished.]
(To her the tutelary Power exclaimed)
Of Chaos the adventurous progeny Thou seest; foul missionaries of foul sire, Fierce to regain the losses of that hour
When Love rose glittering, and his gorgeous wings Over the abyss fluttered with such glad noise, As what time after long and pestful calms, With slimy shapes and miscreated life Poisoning the vast Pacific, the fresh breeze Wakens the merchant-sail uprising. Night A heavy unimaginable moan
Sent forth, when she the Protoplast beheld Stand beauteous on confusion's charmed wave. Moaning she fled, and entered the Profound That leads with downward windings to the cave Of darkness palpable, desert of Death Sunk deep beneath Gehenna's massy roots. There many a dateless age the beldam lurked And trembled; till engendered by fierce Hate, Fierce Hate and gloomy Hope, a Dream arose, Shaped like a black cloud marked with streaks of file. It roused the Hell-Hag: she the dew damp wiped From off her brow, and through the uncouth maze Retraced her steps; but ere she reached the mouth Of that drear labyrinth, shuddering she paused, Nor dared re-enter the diminished Gulf.
As through the dark vaults of some mouldered tower (Which, fearful to approach, the evening hind Circles at distance in his homeward way)
The winds breathe hollow, deemed the plaining groan Of prisoned spirits; with such fearful voice Night murmured, and the sound thro' Chaos went. Leaped at her call her hideous-fronted brood! A dark behest they heard, and rushed on earth; Since that sad hour, in camps and courts adored, Rebels from God, and tyrants o'er Mankind!"
From his obscure haunt
Shrieked Fear, of Cruelty the ghastly dam, Feverous yet freezing, eager-paced yet slow,
As she that creeps from forth her swampy reeds, Ague, the biform hag! when early Spring Beams on the marsh-bred vapors.
"Even so (the exulting Maiden said)
The sainted heralds of good tidings fell,
And thus they witnessed God! But now the clouds Treading, and storms beneath their feet, they soar Higher, and higher soar, and soaring sing Loud songs of triumph! O ye spirits of God, Hover around my mortal agonies!"
She spake, and instantly faint melody Melts on her ear, soothing and sad, and slow, Such measures, as at calmest midnight heard By aged hermit in his holy dream,
Foretell and solace death; and now they rise Louder, as when with harp and mingled voice The white-robed* multitude of slaughtered saints At Heaven's wide-opened portals gratulant Receive some martyr'd patriot. The harmony Entranced the Maid, till each suspended sense Brief slumber seized, and confused ecstasy.
At length awakening slow, she gazed around: And through a mist, the relique of that trance Still thinning as she gazed, an Isle appeared, Its high, o'er-hanging, white, broad-breasted cliffs, Glassed on the subject ocean. A vast plain Stretched opposite, where ever and anon The plough-man following sad his meagre team Turned up fresh skulls unstartled, and the bones Of fierce hate-breathing combatants, who there All mingled lay beneath the common earth, Death's gloomy reconcilement ! O'er the fields
* Revelations, vi. 9, 11. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And white robes were given unto every one of them, and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
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