Gebir | Page 8

at the throne?Of mercy, when clouds shut it from mankind,?They fall bare-bosomed, and indignant Jove?Drops at the soothing sweetness of their voice?The thunder from his hand; let us arise?On these high places daily, beat our breast,?Prostrate ourselves and deprecate his wrath."
The people bowed their bodies and obeyed:?Nine mornings with white ashes on their heads,?Lamented they their toil each night o'erthrown.?And now the largest orbit of the year,?Leaning o'er black Mocattam's rubied brow,?Proceeded slow, majestic, and serene,?Now seemed not further than the nearest cliff,?And crimson light struck soft the phosphor wave.?Then Gebir spake to Tamar in these words:?"Tamar! I am thy elder and thy king,?But am thy brother too, nor ever said,?'Give me thy secret and become my slave:'?But haste thee not away; I will myself?Await the nymph, disguised in thy attire."
Then starting from attention Tamar cried:?"Brother! in sacred truth it cannot be!?My life is yours, my love must be my own:?Oh, surely he who seeks a second love?Never felt one, or 'tis not one I feel."
But Gebir with complacent smile replied:?"Go then, fond Tamar, go in happy hour--?But ere thou partest ponder in thy breast?And well bethink thee, lest thou part deceived,?Will she disclose to thee the mysteries?Of our calamity? and unconstrained??When even her love thy strength had to disclose.?My heart indeed is full, but witness heaven!?My people, not my passion, fills my heart."
"Then let me kiss thy garment," said the youth,?"And heaven be with thee, and on me thy grace."
Him then the monarch thus once more addressed:?"Be of good courage: hast thou yet forgot?What chaplets languished round thy unburnt hair,?In colour like some tall smooth beech's leaves?Curled by autumnal suns?"
How flattery?Excites a pleasant, soothes a painful shame!
"These," amid stifled blushes Tamar said,?"Were of the flowering raspberry and vine:?But, ah! the seasons will not wait for love;?Seek out some other now."
They parted here:?And Gebir bending through the woodlands culled?The creeping vine and viscous raspberry,?Less green and less compliant than they were;?And twisted in those mossy tufts that grow?On brakes of roses when the roses fade:?And as he passes on, the little hinds?That shake for bristly herds the foodful bough,?Wonder, stand still, gaze, and trip satisfied;?Pleased more if chestnut, out of prickly husk?Shot from the sandal, roll along the glade.
And thus unnoticed went he, and untired?Stepped up the acclivity; and as he stepped,?And as the garlands nodded o'er his brow,?Sudden from under a close alder sprang?Th' expectant nymph, and seized him unaware.?He staggered at the shock; his feet at once?Slipped backward from the withered grass short-grazed;?But striking out one arm, though without aim,?Then grasping with his other, he enclosed?The struggler; she gained not one step's retreat,?Urging with open hands against his throat?Intense, now holding in her breath constrained,?Now pushing with quick impulse and by starts,?Till the dust blackened upon every pore.?Nearer he drew her and yet nearer, clasped?Above the knees midway, and now one arm?Fell, and her other lapsing o'er the neck?Of Gebir swung against his back incurved,?The swoll'n veins glowing deep, and with a groan?On his broad shoulder fell her face reclined.?But ah, she knew not whom that roseate face?Cooled with its breath ambrosial; for she stood?High on the bank, and often swept and broke?His chaplets mingled with her loosened hair.
Whether while Tamar tarried came desire,?And she grown languid loosed the wings of love,?Which she before held proudly at her will,?And nought but Tamar in her soul, and nought?Where Tamar was that seemed or feared deceit,?To fraud she yielded what no force had gained -?Or whether Jove in pity to mankind,?When from his crystal fount the visual orbs?He filled with piercing ether and endued?With somewhat of omnipotence, ordained?That never two fair forms at once torment?The human heart and draw it different ways,?And thus in prowess like a god the chief?Subdued her strength nor softened at her charms--?The nymph divine, the magic mistress, failed.?Recovering, still half resting on the turf,?She looked up wildly, and could now descry?The kingly brow, arched lofty for command.
"Traitor!" said she, undaunted, though amaze?Threw o'er her varying cheek the air of fear,?"Thinkest thou thus that with impunity?Thou hast forsooth deceived me? dar'st thou deem?Those eyes not hateful that have seen me fall??O heaven! soon may they close on my disgrace.?Merciless man, what! for one sheep estranged?Hast thou thrown into dungeons and of day?Amerced thy shepherd? hast thou, while the iron?Pierced through his tender limbs into his soul,?By threats, by tortures, torn out that offence,?And heard him (oh, could I!) avow his love??Say, hast thou? cruel, hateful!--ah my fears!?I feel them true! speak, tell me, are they true?"
She blending thus entreaty with reproach?Bent forward, as though falling on her knee?Whence she had hardly risen, and at this pause?Shed from her large dark eyes a shower of tears.
Th' Iberian king her sorrow thus consoled.?"Weep no more, heavenly damsel, weep no more:?Neither by force withheld, or choice estranged?Thy Tamar lives,