Poems | Page 7

many a bitter day and night?Have pour'd their storms upon her breast,?And chill'd her in her long, long rest,?With foul corruption's icy blight;?Earth's dews are freezing round the heart,?Where love alone so late had part;?And evermore the frost and snow?Are burrowing downward through the clay,?In the God's-acre far away,?Where she, O God! lies cold below,--
Cold, cold below!
Those eyes so full of light are dim;?And the clear chalice of her youth,?All sparkling up with love and truth,?Hath Death drain'd keenly from the brim;--?No more can mortal ear rejoice?In the soft music of her voice;?No wistful eye, through tears of woe,?Can pierce down through the heavy clay,?In the God's-acre far away,?Where she, O God! lies cold below,--
Cold, cold below.
A star shines, sudden, from the sky--?God's angel cometh, pure and bright,?Making a radiance through the night,?Unto the place where, mute, I lie,?Gazing up in rapt devotion,?Shaken by a deep emotion;?And my thoughts no longer go?Wandering o'er the plashy clay,?In the God's-acre far away,?Where she, O God! lay cold below--
Cold, cold below!
God's angel! ah I divinely bright!?But still the olden grace is there--?The soft brown eyes--the raven hair--?The gentle smile of calm delight,?That could such peace and joy impart--?The veil is rent from off my heart,?And gazing upward, well I know?The rain may beat upon the clay?In the God's-acre far away;?But she no longer lies below,?Enshrouded by the frost and snow--
Cold, cold below!
BEATRICE DI TENDA.
1.
It was too sweet--such dreams do ever fade?When Sorrow shakes the sleeper from his rest--?Life still to me hath been a masquerade,?Woe in Mirth's wildest, gayest mantle drest,?With the heart hidden--but the face display'd.
But now the vizard droppeth, crush'd and torn,?And there is nought left but some tinsell'd rags,?To mock the wearer in the face of morn,?As through the gaping world she feebly drags?Her day-born measure of reproach and scorn.
But that his hand should pluck the dream away--?And thus--and thus--O Heaven! it strikes too deep!?The knife that wounds me, if not meant to slay,?Stumbles upon my heart the while I weep:?So be it; no hand of mine its course shall stay.
False? false to him? Release me--let me go?Before Heaven's judgment-seat to make appeal;?Unfold the records of this life, and show?All that the secret pages can reveal,?That Heaven and Earth the inmost truth may know!
He cannot think it in his heart of hearts;?He cannot wear this falsehood in his soul,?Or deem me perjur'd; no delusive arts?Can make him blot my name from honour's scroll:?The sun will shine forth when the cloud departs.
Patience, my heart! Error is quick, but Truth?Moves slowly, but moves surely up the earth,?Wiping from age the heresies of youth,?And kindling warmth on the once blasted hearth:?Patience, my heart! and rage will turn to ruth.
There is no blush upon my brow, though tears?Are in mine eyes, and sorrow in my heart;?This sobbing breast heaves not with traitor fears:?No sighs for sin are these that sadly start,?And bear their bitter burden to thine ears.
And though my woman's strength bend like a reed?Before the flowing of Affliction's river,?Not, not for shame, nor for one strumpet deed?Doth this weak frame bow down, or faintly quiver,?As I stand forth alone in deadly need.
No! before thee, Filippo, and the world,?Cased in its petty panoply of scorn,?With myriad slavish lips in mocking curl'd,?Spotless and innocent, though most forlorn,?Here stand I, 'gainst the shafts Falsehood hath hurl'd.
2.
Confess'd! Confess'd the guilty act! What act??What act, my Lord, that cometh home to me?Closer than each hot word, by torment rack'd,?Flies at the bidding of false tyranny,?That makes at will the pain-wrung falsehood fact?
There are full many sins confess'd, my Lord,?In pain of body and in pain of soul;?Some from the heart unearth'd by fire and sword,?And stealing forth amid the spirit's dole,?With fiery pain-sweat seething every word;
But none, my Lord, that riseth to the sky,?Bears guilt of mine upon its blister'd tongue;?Though torture's fire is quick to forge a lie,?None from these woman's lips could ere be wrung;?No! none, though on the rack-bed bound to die.
Poor youth! This poison from his writhing throat,?Those hellish instruments have haply drawn,?And pain hath conn'd the aspish lies by rote;?But to my heart no poison'd tooth hath gnawn,?For in its pulses lies Truth's antidote.
These limbs, my Lord, can do their task no more;?The rack hath crush'd them in its wild embrace,?So that Truth's firm-set attitude is o'er,?Else had I met my judges face to face,?And challenged justice, as in days of yore.
Yet is the spirit strong within me still,?And bears me up though manhood's strength succumb,?Unbent by any blighting blast of ill,?Through fiery trials, to all false witness dumb;?They cannot stain me, though perchance they kill!
I am a woman--weak to combat wrong,?But innocent, my Lord, I live or die;?And silent, though my God doth tarry long,?He sees me throughly with His holy eye,?And in my sore, sore need, doth make me strong.
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