The Death-Wake | Page 4

a virtue very rare among poets, and certainly does not lead to public triumphs. Modesty is apt to accompany the sense of humour which alleviates life, while it is an almost insuperable bar to success.
Mr. Stoddart died on November 22nd, 1880. His last walk was to Kelso Bridge "to look at the Tweed," which now murmurs by his grave the self-same song that it sings beside Sir Walter's tomb in Dryburgh Abbey. We leave his poem to the judgment of students of poetry, and to him we say his own farewell--
Sorrow, sorrow speed away?To our angler's quiet mound,?With the old pilgrim, twilight grey,?Enter thou the holy ground.
There he sleeps, whose heart was twined?With wild stream and wandering burn,?Wooer of the western wind,?Watcher of the April morn.
A.L.
THE DEATH-WAKE
OR LUNACY
Sonnet to the Author
_O wormy Thomas Stoddart who inheritest?Rich thoughts and loathsome, nauseous words, & rare!?Tell me, my friend, why is it that thou ferretest?And gropest in each death-corrupted lair??Seek'st thou for maggots, such as have affinity?With those in thine own brain? or dost thou think?That all is sweet which hath a horrid stink??Why dost thou make Hautgout thy sole divinity??Here is enough of genius to convert?Vile dung to precious diamonds, and to spare,?Then why transform the diamond into dirt,?And change thy mind w^h. sh^d. be rich & fair?Into a medley of creations foul,?As if a Seraph would become a Goul?_
W.E.A.
1834
CHIMERA I
An anthem of a sister choristry!?And like a windward murmur of the sea,?O'er silver shells, so solemnly it falls!?A dying music shrouded in deep walls,?That bury its wild breathings! And the moon,?Of glow-worm hue, like virgin in sad swoon,?Lies coldly on the bosom of a cloud,?Until the elf-winds, that are wailing loud,?Do minister unto her sickly trance,?Fanning the life into her countenance;?And there are pale stars sparkling, far and few?In the deep chasms of everlasting blue,?Unmarshall'd and ungather'd, one and one,?Like outposts of the lunar garrison.
A train of holy fathers windeth by?The arches of an aged sanctuary,?With cowl, and scapular, and rosary?On to the sainted oriel, where stood,?By the rich altar, a fair sisterhood--?A weeping group of virgins! one or two?Bent forward to a bier, of solemn hue,?Whereon a bright and stately coffin lay,?With its black pall flung over:--Agath��?Was on the lid--a name. And who?--No more!?'Twas only Agath��.
'Tis o'er, 'tis o'er,--?Her burial! and, under the arcades,?Torch after torch into the moonlight fades;?And there is heard the music, a brief while,?Over the roofings of the imaged aisle,?From the deep organ panting out its last,?Like the slow dying of an autumn blast.
A lonely monk is loitering within?The dusky area, at the altar seen,?Like a pale spirit kneeling in the light?Of the cold moon, that looketh wan and white?Through the deviced oriel; and he lays?His hands upon his bosom, with a gaze?To the chill earth. He had the youthful look?Which heartfelt woe had wasted, and he shook?At every gust of the unholy breeze,?That enter'd through the time-worn crevices.
A score of summers only o'er his brow?Had pass'd--and it was summer, even now,?The one-and-twentieth--from a birth of tears,?Over a waste of melancholy years!?And that brow was as wan as if it were?Of snowy marble, and the raven hair?That would have cluster'd over, was all shorn,?And his fine features stricken pale as morn.
He kiss'd a golden crucifix that hung?Around his neck, and in a transport flung?Himself upon the earth, and said, and said?Wild, raving words, about the blessed dead:?And then he rose, and in the moonshade stood,?Gazing upon its light in solitude;?And smote his brow, at some idea wild?That came across: then, weeping like a child,?He falter'd out the name of Agath��;?And look'd unto the heaven inquiringly,?And the pure stars.
"Oh shame! that ye are met,?To mock me, like old memories, that yet?Break in upon the golden dream I knew,?While she--she lived: and I have said adieu?To that fair one, and to her sister Peace,?That lieth in her grave. When wilt thou cease?To feed upon my quiet!--thou Despair!?That art the mad usurper, and the heir,?Of this heart's heritage! Go, go--return,?And bring me back oblivion, and an urn!?And ye, pale stars, may look, and only find,?The wreck of a proud tree, that lets the wind?Count o'er its blighted boughs; for such was he?That loved, and loves, the silent Agath��!"?And he hath left the sanctuary, like one?That knew not his own purpose--The red sun?Rose early over incense of bright mist,?That girdled a pure sky of amethyst.?And who was he? A monk. And those who knew?Yclept him Julio; but they were few:?And others named him as a nameless one,--?A dark, sad-hearted being, who had none?But bitter feelings, and a cast of sadness,?That fed the wildest of all curses--madness!
But he was, what none knew, of lordly line,?That fought in the far land of Palestine,?Where, under banners of the cross, they fell,?Smote by the armies of the infidel.?And Julio was the last; alone, alone!?A