Narrative Poems, part 3, Barclay of Ury etc | Page 3

his mother's? did she watch
beside her child?

All his stranger words with meaning her woman's
heart supplied;

With her kiss upon his forehead, "Mother!"
murmured he, and died!
"A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee
forth,
From some
gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely,
in the North!"
Spake the
mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him
with her dead,
And turned
to soothe the living, and bind the
wounds which bled.
"Look forth once more, Ximena!" Like a cloud
before the wind

Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood
and death behind;

Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the
wounded strive;

"Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ of
God, forgive!"
Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool,
gray shadows fall;

Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain
over all!

Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart
the battle rolled,

In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's
lips grew cold.
But the noble Mexic women still their holy task
pursued,
Through
that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and
faint and lacking food.

Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender
care they hung,

And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange
and Northern

tongue.
Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of
ours;
Upward,
through its blood and ashes, spring afresh
the Eden flowers;
From
its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity
send their prayer,
And still
thy white-winged angels hover dimly in
our air!
1847.
THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK.
"This legend [to which my attention was called by my friend Charles
Sumner], is the subject of a celebrated picture by Tintoretto, of which
Mr. Rogers possesses the original sketch. The slave lies on the ground,
amid a crowd of spectators, who look on, animated by all the various
emotions of sympathy, rage, terror; a woman, in front, with a child in
her arms, has always been admired for the lifelike vivacity of her
attitude and expression. The executioner holds up the broken
implements; St. Mark, with a headlong movement, seems to rush down
from heaven in haste to save his worshipper. The dramatic grouping in
this picture is wonderful; the coloring, in its gorgeous depth and
harmony, is, in Mr. Rogers's sketch, finer than in the picture."--MRS.
JAMESON'S Sacred and Legendary Art, I. 154.
THE day is closing dark and cold,
With roaring blast and sleety
showers;
And through the dusk the lilacs wear
The bloom of snow,
instead of flowers.
I turn me from the gloom without,
To ponder o'er a tale of old;
A
legend of the age of Faith,
By dreaming monk or abbess told.
On Tintoretto's canvas lives
That fancy of a loving heart,
In
graceful lines and shapes of power,
And hues immortal as his art.
In Provence (so the story runs)
There lived a lord, to whom, as slave,

A peasant-boy of tender years
The chance of trade or conquest
gave.

Forth-looking from the castle tower,
Beyond the hills with almonds
dark,
The straining eye could scarce discern
The chapel of the good
St. Mark.
And there, when bitter word or fare
The service of the youth repaid,

By stealth, before that holy shrine,
For grace to bear his wrong, he
prayed.
The steed stamped at the castle gate,
The boar-hunt sounded on the
hill;
Why stayed the Baron from the chase,
With looks so stern, and
words so ill?
"Go, bind yon slave! and let him learn,
By scath of fire and strain of
cord,
How ill they speed who give dead saints
The homage due
their living lord!"
They bound him on the fearful rack,
When, through the dungeon's
vaulted dark,
He saw the light of shining robes,
And knew the face
of good St. Mark.
Then sank the iron rack apart,
The cords released their cruel clasp,

The pincers, with their teeth of fire,
Fell broken from the torturer's
grasp.
And lo! before the Youth and Saint,
Barred door and wall of stone
gave way;
And up from bondage and the night
They passed to
freedom and the day!
O dreaming monk! thy tale is true;
O painter! true thy pencil's art;

in tones of hope and prophecy,
Ye whisper to my listening heart!
Unheard no burdened heart's appeal
Moans up to God's inclining ear;

Unheeded by his tender eye,
Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear.
For still the Lord alone is God
The pomp and power of tyrant man

Are scattered at his lightest breath,
Like chaff before the winnower's

fan.
Not always shall the slave uplift
His heavy hands to Heaven in vain.

God's angel, like the good St. Mark,
Comes shining down to break
his chain!
O weary ones! ye may not see
Your helpers in their downward flight;

Nor hear the sound of silver wings
Slow beating through the hush
of night!
But not the less gray Dothan shone,
With sunbright watchers bending
low,
That Fear's dim eye beheld alone
The spear-heads of the
Syrian foe.
There are, who, like the Seer of old,
Can see the helpers God has sent,

And how life's rugged mountain-side
Is white with many an angel
tent!
They hear the heralds whom our Lord
Sends down his pathway to
prepare;
And light, from others hidden, shines
On their high place
of faith and prayer.
Let such, for earth's despairing ones,
Hopeless, yet