Poems, first period | Page 5

the gay time when many a young rose
glowing,
Blushed through the loose train of the amber hair.
Woe,
woe! as white the robe that decks me now--
The shroud-like robe
hell's destined victim wears;
Still shall the fillet bind this burning
brow--
That sable braid the Doomsman's hand prepares!
Weep ye, who never fell-for whom, unerring,
The soul's white lilies
keep their virgin hue,
Ye who when thoughts so danger-sweet are
stirring,
Take the stern strength that Nature gives the few!
Woe, for
too human was this fond heart's feeling--
Feeling!--my sin's avenger
[3] doomed to be;
Woe--for the false man's arm around me stealing,

Stole the lulled virtue, charmed to sleep, from me.

Ah, he perhaps shall, round another sighing
(Forgot the serpents
stinging at my breast),
Gayly, when I in the dumb grave am lying,

Pour the warm wish or speed the wanton jest,
Or play, perchance,
with his new maiden's tresses,
Answer the kiss her lip enamored
brings,
When the dread block the head he cradled presses,
And high
the blood his kiss once fevered springs.
Thee, Francis, Francis [4], league on league, shall follow The
death-dirge of the Lucy once so dear;
From yonder steeple dismal,
dull, and hollow,
Shall knell the warning horror on thy ear.
On thy
fresh leman's lips when love is dawning,
And the lisped music glides
from that sweet well--
Lo, in that breast a red wound shall be
yawning,
And, in the midst of rapture, warn of hell!
Betrayer, what! thy soul relentless closing
To grief--the
woman-shame no art can heal--
To that small life beneath my heart
reposing!
Man, man, the wild beast for its young can feel!
Proud
flew the sails--receding from the land,
I watched them waning from
the wistful eye,
Round the gay maids on Seine's voluptuous strand,

Breathes the false incense of his fatal sigh.
And there the babe! there, on the mother's bosom,
Lulled in its sweet
and golden rest it lay,
Fresh in life's morning as a rosy blossom,
It
smiled, poor harmless one, my tears away.
Deathlike yet lovely,
every feature speaking
In such dear calm and beauty to my sadness,

And cradled still the mother's heart, in breaking,
The softening
love and the despairing madness.
"Woman, where is my father?" freezing through me,
Lisped the mute
innocence with thunder-sound;
"Woman, where is thy
husband?"--called unto me,
In every look, word, whisper, busying
round!
Alas, for thee, there is no father's kiss;--
He fondleth other
children on his knee.
How thou wilt curse our momentary bliss,

When bastard on thy name shall branded be!

Thy mother--oh, a hell her heart concealeth,
Lone-sitting, lone in
social nature's all!
Thirsting for that glad fount thy love revealeth,

While still thy look the glad fount turns to gall.
In every infant cry my
soul is hearkening,
The haunting happiness forever o'er,
And all the
bitterness of death is darkening
The heavenly looks that smiled mine
eyes before.
Hell, if my sight those looks a moment misses--
Hell, when my sight
upon those looks is turned--
The avenging furies madden in thy kisses,

That slept in his what time my lips they burned.
Out from their
graves his oaths spoke back in thunder! The perjury stalked like murder
in the sun--
Forever--God!--sense, reason, soul, sunk under--
The
deed was done!
Francis, O Francis! league on league shall chase thee
The shadows
hurrying grimly on thy flight--
Still with their icy arms they shall
embrace thee,
And mutter thunder in thy dream's delight!
Down from the soft stars, in their tranquil glory,
Shall look thy dead
child with a ghastly stare;
That shape shall haunt thee in its cerements
gory,
And scourge thee back from heaven--its home is there!
Lifeless--how lifeless!--see, oh see, before me
It lies cold--stiff--O
God!--and with that blood
I feel, as swoops the dizzy darkness o'er
me
Mine own life mingled--ebbing in the flood--
Hark, at the door they knock--more loud within me--
More awful
still--its sound the dread heart gave!
Gladly I welcome the cold arms
that win me--
Fire, quench thy tortures in the icy grave!
Francis--a God that pardons dwells in heaven--
Francis, the
sinner--yes--she pardons thee--
So let my wrongs unto the earth be
given
Flame seize the wood!--it burns--it kindles--see!
There--there
his letters cast--behold are ashes--
His vows--the conquering fire

consumes them here
His kisses--see--see--all are only ashes--
All,
all--the all that once on earth were dear!
Trust not the roses which your youth enjoyeth,
Sisters, to man's faith,
changeful as the moon!
Beauty to me brought guilt--its bloom
destroyeth
Lo, in the judgment court I curse the boon
Tears in the
headsman's gaze--what tears?--'tis spoken! Quick, bind mine eyes--all
soon shall be forgot--
Doomsman--the lily hast thou never broken?

Pale Doomsman--tremble not!
THE GREATNESS OF THE WORLD.
Through the world which the Spirit creative and kind
First formed out
of chaos, I fly like the wind,
Until on the strand
Of its billows I land,
My anchor cast forth where the breeze blows no more,
And
Creation's last boundary stands on the shore.
I saw infant stars into
being