Indian Legends and Other Poems | Page 9

wakening,--?Half thanksgiving and half prayer.?But no white hand drew the curtain?From the vine-clad panes before,?No light form, with buoyant footstep,?Hastened to fling wide the door.
Moments numbered hours in passing?'Mid that silence, till a fear?Of some unseen ill crept slowly?Through the trembling minstrels near,?Then with many a dark foreboding,?They, the threshold hastened o'er,?Paused not where a stain of crimson?Curdled on the oaken floor;
But sought out the bridal chamber.?God in Heaven! could it be?Madeline who knelt before them?In that trance of agony??Cold, inanimate beside her,?By the ruthless Cow-boys slain?In the night-time whilst defenceless,?He she loved so well was lain;
O'er her bridal dress were scattered,?Stains of fearful, fearful dye,?And the soul's light beamed no longer?From her tearless, vacant eye.?Round her slight form hung the tresses?Braided oft with pride and care,?Silvered by that night of madness?With its anguish and despair.
She lived on to see the roses?Of another summer wane,?But the light of reason never?Shone in her sweet eyes again.?Once where blue and sparkling waters?Through a quiet valley run,?Fertilizing field and garden,?Wandered I at set of sun;
Twilight as a silver shadow?O'er the softened landscape lay,?When amid a straggling village?Paused I in my rambling way.?Plain and brown the church before me?In the little graveyard stood,?And the laborer's axe resounded?Faintly, from the neighboring wood.
Through the low, half-open wicket?Deeply worn, a pathway led:?Silently I paced its windings?Till I stood among the dead.?Passing by the grave memorials?Of departed worth and fame,?Long I paused before a record?That no pomp of words could claim:
Simple was the slab and lowly,?Shaded by a fragrant vine,?And the single name recorded,?Plainly writ, was "Madeline."?But beneath it through the clusters?Of the jessamine I read,?"_Spes_," engraved in bolder letters,--?This was all the marble said.
THE DEFORMED ARTIST.
The twilight o'er Italia's sky?Had spread a shadowy veil,?And one by one the solemn stars?Looked forth, serene and pale;?As quietly the waning light?Through a high casement stole,?And fell on one with silver hair,?Who shrived a passing soul.
No costly pomp or luxury?Relieved that chamber's gloom,?But glowing forms, by limner's art?Created, thronged the room:?And as the low winds carried far?The chime for evening prayer,?The dying painter's earnest tones?Fell on the languid air.
"The spectral form of Death is nigh,?The thread of life is spun:?Ave Maria! I have looked?Upon my latest sun.?And yet 't is not with pale disease?This frame is worn away;?Nor yet--nor yet with length of years;--?A child but yesterday,"
"I found within my father's hall?No fervent love to claim,?The curse that marked me at my birth?Devoted me to shame.?I saw that on my brother's brow?Angelic beauty lay;?The mirror gave me back a form?That thrilled me with dismay."
"And soon I learned to shrink from all,?The lowly and the high;?To see but scorn on every lip,?Contempt in every eye.?And for a time e'en Nature's smile?A bitter mockery wore,?For beauty stamped each living thing?The wide creation o'er,"
"And I alone was cursed and loathed:?'T was in a garden bower?I mused one eve, and scalding tears?Fell fast on many a flower;?And when I rose, I marked, with awe?And agonizing grief,?A frail mimosa at my feet?Fold close each fragile leaf."
"Alas! how dark my lot, if thus?A plant could shrink from me!?But when I looked again, I saw?That from the honey-bee,?The falling leaf, the bird's gay wing.?It shrank with pain or fear:?A kindred presence I had found,--?Life waxed sublimely clear."
"I climbed the lofty mountain height,?And communed with the skies,?And felt within my grateful heart?New aspirations rise.?Then, thirsting for a higher lore,?I left my childhood's home,?And stayed not till I gazed upon?The hills of fallen Rome."
"I stood amid the glorious forms?Immortal and divine,?The painter's wand had summoned from?The dim Ideal's shrine;?And felt within my fevered soul?Ambition's wasting fire,?And seized the pencil, with a vague?And passionate desire"
"To shadow forth, with lineaments?Of earth, the phantom throng?That swept before my sight in thought,?And lived in storied song.?Vain, vain the dream;--as well might I?Aspire to light a star,?Or pile the gorgeous sunset-clouds?That glitter from afar."
"The threads of life have worn away;?Discordantly they thrill;?And soon the sounding chords will be?For ever mute and still.?And in the spirit-land that lies?Beyond, so calm and gray,?I shall aspire with truer aim:--?Ave Maria! pray!"
THE CHILD'S APPEAL.
AN INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND REIGN OF ROBESPIERRE.
Day dawned above a city's mart,?Yet not 'mid peace and prayer:?The shouts of frenzied multitudes?Were on the thrilling air.
A guiltless man to death was led,?Through crowded streets and wide,?And a fairy child, with waving curls,?Was clinging to his side.
The father's brow with pride was calm,?But, trusting and serene,?The child's was like the Holy One's?In Raphael's paintings seen.
She shrank not from the heartless throng,?Nor from the scaffold high;?But now and then, with beaming smile,?Addressed her parent's eye.
Athwart the golden flood of morn?Was poised the wing of Death,?As 'neath the fearful guillotine?The doomed one drew his breath.
Then all of fiercest agony?The human heart can bear,?Was suffered in the brief caress,?The wild, half-uttered prayer.
Then she, the child, beseechingly?Upraised her eyes