Narrative Poems, part 5, Among Hill etc | Page 6

see than that desire?Should wander?' Burning with a hidden fire?That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee?For pity and for help, as thou to me.?Pray for me, O my friend!" But Nathan cried,?"Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!"
Side by side?In the low sunshine by the turban stone?They knelt; each made his brother's woe his own,?Forgetting, in the agony and stress?Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness;?Peace, for his friend besought, his own became;?His prayers were answered in another's name;?And, when at last they rose up to embrace,?Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face!
Long after, when his headstone gathered moss,?Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos?In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words were read:?"/Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead;?Forget it in love's service, and the debt?Thou, canst not pay the angels shall forget;?Heaven's gate is shut to him who comes alone;?Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!/"?1868.
NOREMBEGA.
Norembega, or Norimbegue, is the name given by early French fishermen and explorers to a fabulous country south of Cape Breton, first discovered by Verrazzani in 1524. It was supposed to have a magnificent city of the same name on a great river, probably the Penobscot. The site of this barbaric city is laid down on a map published at Antwerp in 1570. In 1604 Champlain sailed in search of the Northern Eldorado, twenty-two leagues up the Penobscot from the Isle Haute. He supposed the river to be that of Norembega, but wisely came to the conclusion that those travellers who told of the great city had never seen it. He saw no evidences of anything like civilization, but mentions the finding of a cross, very old and mossy, in the woods.
THE winding way the serpent takes?The mystic water took,?From where, to count its beaded lakes,?The forest sped its brook.
A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore,?For sun or stars to fall,?While evermore, behind, before,?Closed in the forest wall.
The dim wood hiding underneath?Wan flowers without a name;?Life tangled with decay and death,?League after league the same.
Unbroken over swamp and hill?The rounding shadow lay,?Save where the river cut at will?A pathway to the day.
Beside that track of air and light,?Weak as a child unweaned,?At shut of day a Christian knight?Upon his henchman leaned.
The embers of the sunset's fires?Along the clouds burned down;?"I see," he said, "the domes and spires?Of Norembega town."
"Alack! the domes, O master mine,?Are golden clouds on high;?Yon spire is but the branchless pine?That cuts the evening sky."
"Oh, hush and hark! What sounds are these?But chants and holy hymns?"?"Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees?Though all their leafy limbs."
"Is it a chapel bell that fills?The air with its low tone?"?"Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills,?The insect's vesper drone."
"The Christ be praised!--He sets for me?A blessed cross in sight!"?"Now, nay, 't is but yon blasted tree?With two gaunt arms outright!"
"Be it wind so sad or tree so stark,?It mattereth not, my knave;?Methinks to funeral hymns I hark,?The cross is for my grave!
"My life is sped; I shall not see?My home-set sails again;?The sweetest eyes of Normandie?Shall watch for me in vain.
"Yet onward still to ear and eye?The baffling marvel calls;?I fain would look before I die?On Norembega's walls.
"So, haply, it shall be thy part?At Christian feet to lay?The mystery of the desert's heart?My dead hand plucked away.
"Leave me an hour of rest; go thou?And look from yonder heights;?Perchance the valley even now?Is starred with city lights."
The henchman climbed the nearest hill,?He saw nor tower nor town,?But, through the drear woods, lone and still,?The river rolling down.
He heard the stealthy feet of things?Whose shapes he could not see,?A flutter as of evil wings,?The fall of a dead tree.
The pines stood black against the moon,?A sword of fire beyond;?He heard the wolf howl, and the loon?Laugh from his reedy pond.
He turned him back: "O master dear,?We are but men misled;?And thou hast sought a city here?To find a grave instead."
"As God shall will! what matters where?A true man's cross may stand,?So Heaven be o'er it here as there?In pleasant Norman land?
"These woods, perchance, no secret hide?Of lordly tower and hall;?Yon river in its wanderings wide?Has washed no city wall;
"Yet mirrored in the sullen stream?The holy stars are given?Is Norembega, then, a dream?Whose waking is in Heaven?
"No builded wonder of these lands?My weary eyes shall see;?A city never made with hands?Alone awaiteth me--
"'Urbs Syon mystica;' I see?Its mansions passing fair,?'/Condita caelo/;' let me be,?Dear Lord, a dweller there!"
Above the dying exile hung?The vision of the bard,?As faltered on his failing tongue?The song of good Bernard.
The henchman dug at dawn a grave?Beneath the hemlocks brown,?And to the desert's keeping gave?The lord of fief and town.
Years after, when the Sieur Champlain?Sailed up the unknown stream,?And Norembega proved again?A shadow and a dream,
He found the Norman's nameless grave?Within the hemlock's shade,?And, stretching