Led by that troop of youthful innocence,
A hall he traversed, up whose heaven-topp'd dome Thick vapours of delightful influence
From gold and alabaster altars clomb,
And through a range of pillar'd chambers pass'd, Each one more full of faërie than the last.
To his vague gaze those peopled walls disclosed Graces and grandeurs more to feel than seeCelestial and heroic forms composed
In many a frame of antique poesy;
But wheresoe'er the scene or tale might fall,
Still Venus was the theme and crown of all.
There young Adonis scorn'd to yield to her,
Soon by a sterner nature overcome;
There Paris, happy hapless arbiter,
For beauty barter'd kingdom, race, and home;
Save what Æneas rescued by her aid,
As the Didonian wood-nymph there portrayed.
But ere he scanned them long, a lady enter'd,
In long white robes majestical array'd,
Though on her face alone his eyes were center'd,
Which weird suspicion to his mind convey'd,
For every feature he could there divine
Of the old marble in the sylvan shrine.
On his bewilderment she gently smiled,
To his confusion she benignly spoke ;
And all the fears that started up so wild
Lay down submissive to her beauty's yoke:
It was with him as if he saw through tears
A countenance long-loved and lost for years.
She ask'd, "if so he willed," the stranger's name,
And, when she heard it, said, "the gallant sound
Had often reach'd her on the wing of fame,
Though long recluse from fortune's noisy round;
Her lot was cast in loneliness, and yet
On noble worth her woman-heart was set."
Rare is the fish that is not mesh'd amain,
When Beauty tends the silken net of praise;
Thus little marvel that in vaunting strain,
He spoke of distant deeds and brave affrays,
Till each self-glorious thought became a charm
For her to work against him to his harm.
Such converse of melodious looks and words
Paused at the call of other symphonies,
Invisible agencies, that draw the cords
Of massive curtains, rising as they rise,
So that the music's closing swell reveal'd
The paradise of pleasure there conceal'd.
It was a wide alcove, thick wall'd with flowers,
Gigantic blooms, of aspect that appear'd
Beyond the range of vegetative powers,
A flush of splendour almost to be fear'd,
A strange affinity of life between
Those glorious creatures and that garden's Queen.
Luminous gems were weaving from aloft
Fantastic rainbows on the fountain spray,-
Cushions of broider'd purple, silken-soft,
Profusely heap'd beside a table lay,
Whereon all show of form and hue increas'd
The rich temptation of the coming feast.
There on one couch, and served by cherub hands,
The knight and lady banqueted in joy :
With freshest fruits from scarce discover'd lands,
Such as he saw in pictures when a boy,
And cates of flavours excellent and new,
That to the unpalled taste still dearer grew.
Once, and but once, a spasm of very fear
Went through him, when a breeze of sudden cold
Sigh'd, like a dying brother, in his ear,
And made the royal flowers around upfold
Their gorgeous faces in the leafy band,
Like the mimosa touch'd by mortal hand.
Then almost ghastly seem'd the tinted sheen,
Saltless and savourless those luscious meats,
Till quick the Lady rose, with smile serene,
As one who could command but still entreats,
And, filling a gold goblet, kiss'd the brim,
And pass'd it bubbling from her lips to him.
At once absorbing that nectareous draught,
And the delicious radiance of those eyes,
At doubt and terror-fit he inly laugh'd,
And grasp'd her hand as 'twere a tourney's prize;
And heard this murmur, as she nearer drew,
"Yes, I am Love, and Love was made for you!"
They were alone: th' attendants, one by one,
Had vanish'd: faint and fainter rose the air
Oppress'd with odours: through the twilight shone
The glory of white limbs and lustrous hair,
Confusing sight and spirit, till he fell,
The will-less, mindless creature of the spell.
In the dull deep of satisfied desire
Not long a prisoner lay that knightly soul,
But on his blood, as on a wave of fire,
Uneasy fancies rode without control,
Voices and phantoms that did scarcely seem
To take the substance of an order'd dream.
At first he stood beside a public road,
Hedged in by myrtle and embower'd by plane,
While figures, vested in old Grecian mode,
Drew through the pearly dawn a winding train,
So strangely character'd, he could not know
Were it of triumph or funereal woe.
For crowns of bay enwreath'd each beauteous head,
Beauty of perfect maid and perfect man ;
Slow paced the milk-white oxen, garlanded;
Torch-bearing children mingled as they ran
Gleaming amid the elder that uphold
Tripods and cups, and plates of chased gold.
But then he marked the flowers were colourless,
Crisp-wither'd hung the honourable leaves,
And on the faces sat the high distress
Of those whom Self sustains when Fate bereaves:
So gazed he, wondering how that pomp would close,
When the dream changed, but not to his repose.
For now he was within his father's hall,
No tittle changed of form or furniture,
But all and each a grave memorial
Of youthful days, too careless to endure,-
There was his mother's housewife-work, and there,
Beside the fire, his grandame's crimson chair:
Where, cowering low, that ancient woman sat,
Her bony fingers twitching on her knee,
Her dry lips mutt'ring fast he knew not what,
Only the sharp convulsion could he see ;
But, as he look'd, he felt a conscience dim
That she was urging God in prayer for him.
Away in trembling wretchedness he turned,
And he was in his leman's arms once more;
Yet all the jewell'd cressets were out-burned;
And all the pictured walls, so gay before,
Show'd, in the glimmer of one choking lamp,
Blotch'd with green mould and torn by filthy damp.
Enormous bats their insolent long wings
Whirl'd o'er his head, and swung against his brow,
And shriek'd-" We cozen'd with our minist'rings
The foolish knight, and have our revel now:"
And worms bestrew'd the weeds that overspread
The floor with silken flowers late carpeted.
His sick astonish'd looks he straight address'd
To her whose tresses lay around his arm,
And fervent breath was playing on his breast,
To seek the meaning of this frightful charm;
But she was there no longer, and instead
He was the partner of a demon's bed,
That, slowly rising, brought the lurid glare
Of its fix'd eyes close opposite to his ;
One scaly hand laced in his forehead hair,
Threat'ning his lips with pestilential kiss,
And somewise in the fiendish face it wore,
He traced the features he did erst adore.
With one instinctive agony he drew
His sword, that Palestine remember'd well,
And, quick recoiling, dealt a blow so true,
That down the devilish head in thunder fell :-
The effort seem'd against a jutting stone
To strike his hand, and then he woke-alone!
Alone he stood amid those ruins old,
His treasury of sweet care and pleasant pain;
The hemlock crush'd defined the body's mould
Of one who long and restless there had lain;
His vest was beaded with the dew of dawn,
His hand fresh blooded, and his sword fresh drawn!
The eastern star, a crystal eye of gold,
Full on the statued form of beauty shone,
Now prostrate, powerless, featureless and cold,
A simple trunk of deftly carven stone:
Deep in the grasses that dismembered head
Lay like the relics of the ignoble dead.
But Beauty's namesake and sidereal shrine,
Now glided slowly down that pallid sky,
Near and more near the thin horizon line,
In the first gust of morning, there to die,-
While the poor knight, with wilder'd steps and brain,
Hasten'd the glimmering village to regain.
With few uncertain words and little heed
His followers' anxious questions he put by,
Bidding each one prepare his arms and steed,
For "they must march before the sun was high,
And neither Apennine nor Alp should stay,
Though for a single night, his homeward way."
On, on, with scanty food and rest he rode,
Like one whom unseen enemies pursue,
Urging his favourite horse with cruel goad,
So that the lagging servants hardly knew
Their master of frank heart and ready cheer,"
In that lone man who would not speak or hear.
Till when at last he fairly saw behind
The Alpine barrier of perennial snow,
He seem'd to heave a burthen off his mind,-
His blood in calmer current seemed to flow,
And like himself he smiled once more, but cast
No light or colour on that cloudy past.
From the old Teuton forests, echoing far,
Came a stern welcome, hailing him, restored
To the true health of life in peace or war,
Fresh morning toil, that earns the generous board;
And waters, in the clear unbroken voice
Of childhood, spoke-" Be thankful and rejoice!"
Glad as the dove returning to his ark,
Over the waste of universal sea,
He heard the huge house-dog's familiar bark,
He traced the figure of each friendly tree,
And felt that he could never part from this,
His home of daily love and even bliss.
And in the quiet closure of that place,
He soon his first affection link'd anew,
In that most honest passion finding grace,
His soul with primal vigour to endue,
And crush the memories that at times arose,
To stain pure joy and trouble high repose.
Never again that dear and dangerous land,
So fresh with all her weight of time and story,
Its winterless delights and slumbers bland,
On thrones of shade, amid a world of glory,
Did he behold: the flashing cup could please
No longer him who knew the poison lees.
So lived he, pious, innocent, and brave,
The best of friends I ever saw on earth:
And now the uncommunicable grave
Has closed on him, and left us but his worth;
I have revealed this strange and secret tale,
Of human fancy and the powers of bale.
He told it me, one autumn evening mild,
Sitting, greyhair'd, beneath an old oak tree,
His dear true wife beside him, and a child,
Youngest of many, dancing round his knee,-
And bade me, if I would, in fragrant rhymes
Embalm it, to be known in after-times.
Of a similar character to the above is the tale of the young knight, who, unconsciously or daringly, placed his ring on the finger of a statue of Venus, and returning to repossess himself of it, found the finger bent, and the hand closed. In the old version of this, which is to be seen in Book iii. sect. 8, of the Jesuit del Rio's Magical Disquisitions (Venetiis, 1616), the phantom goddess ever comes between him and the bride he takes soon after this adventure, and is only banished through the mediation of a priest, named Palumnus, himself most skilled in necromancy. The knight receives a parchment from
him, which, at midnight, in a meeting of cross roads, he forces upon Venus, who passes by with a solemn but hurrying train of attendants, and when she receives it, cries-" Cruel Priest Palumnus! art thou never content with the harm thou hast done? but the end of thy persecutions cometh, cruel Priest Palumnus." The knight recovers his ring, and is freed from the enchantment; but the priest dies in dreadful agony the third day afterward. Eichendorf in German, and Lord Nugent in English, have built stories on this foundation, and the plot of the familiar Opera of Zampa, by Herold, is slightly varied from it.
ENGLAND has felt of old a tyrant's sway.
The rightful blood of long-descended kings
Has trodden underfoot as abject things
A people's liberties. Through dark dismay
Where chaos brooded, Cromwell won his way
To power supreme, uplifted on the wings
Of a bold spirit; nor dishonour brings
His rule, who taught the factious to obey
And foes to fear us. But O! when till now
Was England mastered by a low-born slave
False and faint-hearted; on whose sordid brow
Shame sits enamoured; who would dig a grave
For all she venerates, and has breathed a vow
To hate her sons as cowards hate the brave?
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