The Death-Wake | Page 8

beautiful pale wing
Of a sea-bird was worn with
wandering,
And, on a sunny rock beside the shore,
It stood, the
golden waters gazing o'er;
And they were heaving a brown amber
flow
Of weeds, that glitter'd gloriously below.
It was the sunset, and the gorgeous hall
Of heaven rose up on pillars
magical
Of living silver, shafting the fair sky
Between dark time
and great eternity.
They rose upon their pedestal of sun,
A line of
snowy columns! and anon
Were lost in the rich tracery of cloud

That hung along, magnificently proud,
Predicting the pure star-light,
that beyond
The east was armouring in diamond
About the camp of
twilight, and was soon
To marshal under the fair champion moon,

That call'd her chariot of unearthly mist,
Toward her citadel of
amethyst.
A curse! a curse! a lonely man is there
By the deep waters, with a
burden fair
Clasp'd in his wearied arms--'Tis he; 'tis he
The
brain-struck Julio, and Agathè!
His cowl is back--flung back upon the
breeze,
His lofty brow is haggard with disease,
As if a wild libation
had been pour'd
Of lightning on those temples, and they shower'd

A
dismal perspiration, like a rain,
Shook by the thunder and the
hurricane!

He dropt upon a rock, and by him placed,
Over a bed of sea-pinks
growing waste,
The silent ladye, and he mutter'd wild,
Strange
words, about a mother, and no child.
"And I shall wed thee, Agathè!
although
Ours be no God-blest bridal--even so!"
And from the sand
he took a silver shell,
That had been wasted by the fall and swell
Of
many a moon-borne tide into a ring--
A rude, rude ring; it was a
snow-white thing,
Where a lone hermit limpet slept and died,
In
ages far away. "Thou art a bride,
Sweet Agathè! Wake up; we must
not linger."
He press'd the ring upon her chilly finger,
And to the
sea-bird, on its sunny stone,
Shouted, "Pale priest! thou liest all alone

Upon thy ocean altar, rise away
To our glad bridal!" and its wings
of gray
All lazily it spread, and hover'd by
With a wild shriek--a
melancholy cry!
Then swooping slowly o'er the heaving breast
Of
the blue ocean, vanish'd in the west.
And Julio is chanting to his bride,
A merry song of his wild heart,
that died
On the soft breeze through pinks beside the sea,
All
rustling in their beauty gladsomely.
SONG
A rosary of stars, love! we'll count them as we go
Upon the laughing
waters, that are wandering below,
And we'll o'er the pearly
moon-beam, as it lieth in the sea, In beauty and in glory, like a
shadowing of thee!
A rosary of stars, love! a prayer as we glide,
And a whisper in the
wind, and a murmur on the tide!
And we'll say a fair adieu to the
flowers that are seen, With shells of silver sown in radiancy between.
A rosary of stars, love! the purest they shall be,
Like spirits of pale
pearls, in the bosom of the sea;
Now help thee, virgin mother! with a
blessing as we go, Upon the laughing waters, that are wandering below!
He lifted the dead girl, and is away
To where a light boat, in its

moorings lay,
Like a sea-cradle, rocking to the hush
Of the nurse
waters. With a frantic rush
O'er the wild field of tangles he hath sped,

And through the shoaling waves that fell and fled
Upon the
furrow'd beach.
The snowy sail
Is hoisted to the gladly gushing gale,
That bosom'd
its fair canvass with a breast
Of silver, looking lovely to the west;

And at the helm there sits the wither'd one,
Gazing and gazing on the
sister nun,
With her fair tresses floating on his knee--
The beautiful,
death-stricken Agathè!
Fast, fast, and far away, the bark hath stood
Out toward the great
heaving solitude,
That gurgled in its deeps, as if the breath
Went
through its lungs, of agony and death!
The sun is lost within the labyrinth
Of clouds of purple and pale
hyacinth,
That are the frontlet of the sister Sky
Kissing her brother
Ocean; and they lie
Bathing in blushes, till the rival queen
Night,
with her starry tiar, floateth in--
A dark and dazzling beauty! that doth
draw
Over the light of love a shade of awe
Most strange, that parts
our wonder not the less
Between her mystery and loveliness!
And she is there, that is a pyramid
Whereon the stars, the statues of
the dead,
Are imaged over the eternal hall,
A group of radiances
majestical!
And Julio looks up, and there they be,
And Agathè, and
all the waste of Sea,
That slept in wizard slumber, with a shroud
Of
night flung o'er his bosom, throbbing proud
Amid its azure pulses;
and again
He dropt his blighted eye-orbs, with a strain
Of mirth
upon the ladye:--Agathè!
Sweet bride! be thou a queen, and I will lay

A crown of sea-weed on thy royal brow;
And I will twine these
tresses, that are now
Floating beside me, to a diadem;

And the sea
foam will sprinkle gem on gem,
And so will the soft dews. Be thou
the queen
Of the unpeopled waters, sadly seen
By star-light, till the
yet unrisen moon
Issue, unveiled, from her anderoon,
To bathe in

the sea fountains: let me say,
"Hail--hail to thee! thrice hail,