Why came I?—oh! the heart’s deep mystery!—Why
In man’s last hour doth vain affection’s gaze
Fix itself down on struggling agony,
To the dimm’d eyeballs freezing as they glaze?
It might be—yet the power to will seem’d o’er—
That my soul yearn’d to hear his voice once more!
But mine was fetter’d!—mute in strong amaze,
I watch’d his features as the night-wind blew,
And torch-light or the moon’s pass’d o’er their marble hue.

LV.

The trampling of a steed! A tall white steed,
Rending his fiery way the crowds among—
A storm’s way through a forest—came at speed,
And a wild voice cried “Inez!” Swift she flung
The mantle from her face, and gazed around,
With a faint shriek at that familiar sound;
And from his seat a breathless rider sprung.
And dash’d off fiercely those who came to part,
And rush’d to that pale girl, and clasp’d her to his heart.

LVI.

And for a moment all around gave way
To that full burst of passion! On his breast,
Like a bird panting yet from fear, she lay,
But blest—in misery’s very lap—yet blest!
O love, love, strong as death!—from such an hour
Pressing out joy by thine immortal power;
Holy and fervent love! had earth but rest
For thee and thine, this world were all too fair
How could we thence be wean’d to die without despair?

LVII.

But she—as falls a willow from the storm,
O’er its own river streaming—thus reclined
On the youth’s bosom hung her fragile form,
And clasping arms, so passionately twined
Around his neck—with such a trusting fold,
A full deep sense of safety in their hold,
As if naught earthly might th’ embrace unbind!
Alas! a child’s fond faith, believing still
Its mother’s breast beyond the lightning’s reach to kill?

LVIII.

Brief rest! upon the turning billow’s height
A strange sweet moment of some heavenly strain,
Floating between the savage gusts of night,
That sweep the seas to foam! Soon dark again
The hour—the scene; th’ intensely present rush’d
Back on her spirit, and her large tears gush’d
Like blood-drops from a victim—with swift rain
Bathing the bosom where she lean’d that hour,
As if her life would melt into th’ o’erswelling shower.

LIX.

But he whose arm sustain’d her!—oh, I knew
’Twas vain!—and yet he hoped—he fondly strove
Back from her faith her sinking soul to woo,
As life might yet be hers! A dream of love
Which could not look upon so fair a thing,
Remembering how like hope, like joy, like spring,
Her smile was wont to glance, her step to move,
And deem that men indeed, in very truth,
Could mean the sting of death for her soft flowering youth!

LX.

He woo’d her back to life. “Sweet Inez, live!
My blessed Inez!—visions have beguiled
Thy heart; abjure them! thou wert form’d to give
And to find joy; and hath not sunshine smiled
Around thee ever? Leave me not, mine own!
Or earth will grow too dark!—for thee alone,
Thee have I loved, thou gentlest! from a child,
And borne thine image with me o’er the sea,
Thy soft voice in my soul. Speak! Oh! yet live for me!”

LXI.

She look’d up wildly; there were anxious eyes
Waiting that look—sad eyes of troubled thought,
Alvar’s—Theresa’s! Did her childhood rise,
With all its pure and home-affections fraught,
In the brief glance? She clasp’d her hands—the strife
Of love, faith, fear, and that vain dream of life,
Within her woman’s breast so deeply wrought,
It seem’d as if a reed so slight and weak
Must, in the rending storm not quiver only—break!

LXII.

And thus it was. The young cheek flush’d and faded,
As the swift blood in currents came and went,
And hues of death the marble brow o’ershaded,
And the sunk eye a watery lustre sent
Through its white fluttering lids. Then tremblings pass’d
O’er the frail form, that shook it as the blast
Shakes the sere leaf, until the spirit rent
Its way to peace—the fearful way unknown.
Pale in love’s arms she lay—she!—what had loved was gone!

LXIII.

Joy for thee, trembler!—thou redeem’d one, joy!
Young dove set free!—earth, ashes, soulless clay,
Remain’d for baffled vengeance to destroy.
Thy chain was riven! Nor hadst thou cast away
Thy hope in thy last hour!—though love was there
Striving to wring thy troubled soul from prayer,
And life seem’d robed in beautiful array,
Too fair to leave!—but this might be forgiven,
Thou wert so richly crown’d with precious gifts of heaven!

LXIV.

But woe for him who felt the heart grow still,
Which, with its weight of agony, had lain
Breaking on his! Scarce could the mortal chill
Of the hush’d bosom, ne’er to heave again,
And all the silence curdling round the eye,
Bring home the stern belief that she could die—
That she indeed could die!—for, wild and vain
As hope might be, his soul had hoped: ’twas o’er—
Slowly his failing arms dropp’d from the form they bore.

LXV.

They forced him from that spot. It might be well,
That the fierce reckless words by anguish wrung
From his torn breast, all aimless as they fell,
Like spray-drops from the strife of torrents flung,
Were mark’d as guilt. There are who note these things
Against the smitten heart; its breaking strings
—On whose low thrills once gentle music hung—
With a rude hand of touch unholy trying,
And numbering then as crimes, the deep, strange tones replying.

LXVI.

But ye in solemn joy, O faithful pair!
Stood gazing on your parted sister’s dust;
I saw your features by the torch’s glare,
And they were brightening with a heavenward trust!
I saw the doubt, the anguish, the dismay,
Melt from my Alvar’s glorious mien away;
And peace was there—the calmness of the just!
And, bending down the slumb’rer’s brow to kiss,
“Thy rest is won,” he said, “sweet sister! Praise for this!”

LXVII.

I started as from sleep;—yes!—he had spoken—
A breeze had troubled memory’s hidden source!
At once the torpor of my soul was broken—
Thought, feeling, passion, woke in tenfold force.
There are soft breathings in the southern wind,
That so your ice-chains, O ye streams! unbind,
And free the foaming swiftness of your course!
I burst from those that held me back, and fell
Even on his neck, and cried—“Friend! brother! fare thee well!”

LXVIII.

Did he not say “Farewell?” Alas! no breath
Came to mine ear. Hoarse murmurs from the throng
Told that the mysteries in the face of death
Had from their eager sight been veil’d too long.
And we were parted as the surge might part
Those that would die together, true of heart.
His hour was come—but in mine anguish strong,
Like a fierce swimmer through the midnight sea,
Blindly I rush’d away from that which was to be.

LXIX.

Away—away I rush’d; but swift and high
The arrowy pillars of the firelight grew,
Till the transparent darkness of the sky
Flush’d to a blood-red mantle in their hue;
And, phantom-like, the kindling city seem’d
To spread, float, wave, as on the wind they stream’d,
With their wild splendour chasing me! I knew
The death-work was begun—I veil’d mine eyes,
Yet stopp’d in spell-bound fear to catch the victims’ cries.

LXX.

What heard I then?—a ringing shriek of pain,
Such as for ever haunts the tortured ear?
I heard a sweet and solemn-breathing strain
Piercing the flame, untremulous and clear!
The rich, triumphal tones!—I knew them well,
As they came floating with a breezy swell!
Man’s voice was there—a clarion-voice to cheer
In the mid-battle—ay, to turn the flying;
Woman’s—that might have sung of heaven beside the dying!

LXXI.

It was a fearful, yet a glorious thing
To hear that hymn of martyrdom, and know
That its glad stream of melody could spring
Up from th’ unsounded gulfs of human woe!
Alvar! Theresa!—what is deep? what strong?
—God’s breath within the soul! It fill’d that song
From your victorious voices! But the glow
On the hot air and lurid skies increased:
Faint grew the sounds—more faint: I listen’d—they had ceased!

LXXII.

And thou indeed hadst perish’d, my soul’s friend!
I might form other ties—but thou alone
Couldst with a glance the veil of dimness rend,
By other years o’er boyhood’s memory thrown!
Others might aid me onward: thou and I
Had mingled the fresh thoughts that early die,
Once flowering—never more! And thou wert gone!
Who could give back my youth, my spirit free,
Or be in aught again what thou hadst been to me?

LXXIII.

And yet I wept thee not, thou true and brave!
I could not weep—there gather’d round thy name
Too deep a passion. Thou denied a grave!
Thou, with the blight flung on thy soldier’s fame!
Had I not known thy heart from childhood’s time?
Thy heart of hearts?—and couldst thou die for crime?
No! had all earth decreed that death of shame,
I would have set, against all earth’s decree,
Th’ inalienable trust of my firm soul in thee!

LXXIV.

There are swift hours in life—strong, rushing hours,
That do the work of tempests in their might!
They shake down things that stood as rocks and towers
Unto th’ undoubting mind; they pour in light
Where it but startles—like a burst of day
For which th’ uprooting of an oak makes way;
They sweep the colouring mists from off our sight;
They touch with fire thought’s graven page, the roll
Stamp’d with past years—and lo! it shrivels as a scroll!

LXXV.

And this was of such hours! The sudden flow
Of my soul’s tide seem’d whelming me; the glare
Of the red flames, yet rocking to and fro,
Scorch’d up my heart with breathless thirst for air,
And solitude, and freedom. It had been
Well with me then, in some vast desert scene,
To pour my voice out, for the winds to bear
On with them, wildly questioning the sky,
Fiercely the untroubled stars, of man’s dim destiny.

LXXVI.

I would have call’d, adjuring the dark cloud;
To the most ancient heavens I would have said—
“Speak to me! show me truth!”[295]—through night aloud
I would have cried to him, the newly dead,
“Come back! and show me truth!” My spirit seem’d
Gasping for some free burst, its darkness teem’d
With such pent storms of thought! Again I fled,
I fled, a refuge from man’s face to gain,
Scarce conscious when I paused, entering a lonely fane.

LXXVII.

A mighty minster, dim, and proud, and vast!
Silence was round the sleepers whom its floor
Shut in the grave; a shadow of the past,
A memory of the sainted steps that wore
Erewhile its gorgeous pavement, seem’d to brood
Like mist upon the stately solitude;
A halo of sad fame to mantle o’er
Its white sepulchral forms of mail-clad men;
And all was hush’d as night in some deep Alpine glen.

LXXVIII.

More hush’d, far more!—for there the wind sweeps by,
Or the woods tremble to the streams’ loud play;
Here a strange echo made my very sigh
Seem for the place too much a sound of day!
Too much my footsteps broke the moonlight, fading,
Yet arch through arch in one soft flow pervading.
And I stood still: prayer, chant had died away;
Yet past me floated a funereal breath
Of incense. I stood still—as before God and death.

LXXIX.

For thick ye girt me round, ye long departed![296]
Dust—imaged forms—with cross, and shield, and crest;
It seem’d as if your ashes would have started
Had a wild voice burst forth above your rest!
Yet ne’er, perchance, did worshipper of yore
Bear to your thrilling presence what I bore
Of wrath, doubt, anguish, battling in the breast!
I could have pour’d out words, on that pale air,
To make your proud tombs ring. No, no! I could not there!

LXXX.

Not midst those aisles, through which a thousand years,
Mutely as clouds, and reverently, had swept;
Not by those shrines, which yet the trace of tears
And kneeling votaries on their marble kept!
Ye were too mighty in your pomp of gloom
And trophied age, O temple, altar, tomb!
And you, ye dead!—for in that faith ye slept,
Whose weight had grown a mountain’s on my heart,
Which could not there be loosed. I turn’d me to depart.

LXXXI.

I turn’d: what glimmer’d faintly on my sight—
Faintly, yet brightening as a wreath of snow
Seen through dissolving haze? The moon, the night,
Had waned, and down pour’d in—gray, shadowy, slow,
Yet dayspring still! A solemn hue it caught,
Piercing the storied windows, darkly fraught
With stoles and draperies of imperial glow;
And, soft and sad, that colouring gleam was thrown
Where, pale, a pictured form above the altar shone.

LXXXII.

Thy form, thou Son of God!—a wrathful deep,
With foam, and cloud, and tempest round Thee spread,
And such a weight of night!—a night, when sleep
From the fierce rocking of the billows fled.
A bark show’d dim beyond Thee, with its mast
Bow’d, and its rent sail shivering to the blast;
But, like a spirit in thy gliding tread,
Thou, as o’er glass, didst walk that stormy sea
Through rushing winds, which left a silent path for Thee.

LXXXIII.

So still thy white robes fell!—no breath of air
Within their long and slumb’rous folds had sway.
So still the waves of parted, shadowy hair
From thy clear brow flow’d droopingly away!
Dark were the heavens above thee, Saviour!—dark
The gulfs, Deliverer! round the straining bark!
But Thou!—o’er all thine aspect and array
Was pour’d one stream of pale, broad, silvery light:
Thou wert the single star of that all-shrouding night!

LXXXIV.

Aid for one sinking! Thy lone brightness gleam’d
On his wild face, just lifted o’er the wave,
With its worn, fearful, human look, that seem’d
To cry, through surge and blast—“I perish—save!”
Not to the winds—not vainly! Thou wert nigh,
Thy hand was stretch’d to fainting agony,
Even in the portals of th’ unquiet grave!
O Thou that art the life! and yet didst bear
Too much of mortal woe to turn from mortal prayer!

LXXXV.

But was it not a thing to rise on death,
With its remember’d light, that face of thine,
Redeemer! dimm’d by this world’s misty breath,
Yet mournfully, mysteriously divine?
Oh! that calm, sorrowful, prophetic eye,
With its dark depths of grief, love, majesty!
And the pale glory of the brow!—a shrine
Where power sat veil’d, yet shedding softly round
What told that Thou couldst be but for a time uncrown’d!

LXXXVI.

And, more than all, the heaven of that sad smile!
The lip of mercy, our immortal trust!
Did not that look, that very look, erewhile
Pour its o’ershadow’d beauty on the dust?
Wert thou not such when earth’s dark cloud hung o’er Thee?—
Surely thou wert! My heart grew hush’d before Thee,
Sinking, with all its passions, as the gust
Sank at thy voice, along its billowy way:
What had I there to do but kneel, and weep, and pray?

LXXXVII.

Amidst the stillness rose my spirit’s cry,
Amidst the dead—“By that full cup of woe,
Press’d from the fruitage of mortality,
Saviour! for Thee—give light! that I may know
If by thy will, in thine all-healing name,
Men cast down human hearts to blighting shame,
And early death; and say, if this be so,
Where, then, is mercy? Whither shall we flee,
So unallied to hope, save by our hold on Thee?

LXXXVIII.

“But didst Thou not, the deep sea brightly treading,
Lift from despair that struggler with the wave?
And wert Thou not, sad tears, yet awful, shedding,
Beheld a weeper at a mortal’s grave?
And is this weight of anguish, which they bind
On life—this searing to the quick of mind,
That but to God its own free path would crave—
This crushing out of hope, and love, and youth,
Thy will, indeed? Give light! that I may know the truth!

LXXXIX.

“For my sick soul is darken’d unto death,
With shadows from the suffering it hath seen;
The strong foundations of mine ancient faith
Sink from beneath me—whereon shall I lean?
Oh! if from thy pure lips was wrung the sigh
Of the dust’s anguish! if like man to die—
And earth round him shuts heavily—hath been
Even to Thee bitter, aid me! guide me! turn
My wild and wandering thoughts back from their starless bourne!”

XC.

And calm’d I rose: but how the while had risen
Morn’s orient sun, dissolving mist and shade!
Could there indeed be wrong, or chain, or prison,
In the bright world such radiance might pervade?
It fill’d the fane, it mantled the pale form
Which rose before me through the pictured storm,
Even the gray tombs it kindled, and array’d
With life!—How hard to see thy race begun,
And think man wakes to grief, wakening to thee, O Sun!

XCI.

I sought my home again; and thou, my child,
There at thy play beneath yon ancient pine,
With eyes, whose lightning laughter[297] hath beguiled
A thousand pangs, thence flashing joy to mine;
Thou in thy mother’s arms, a babe, didst meet
My coming with young smiles, which yet, though sweet,
Seem’d on my soul all mournfully to shine,
And ask a happier heritage for thee,
Than but in turn the blight of human hope to see.

XCII.

Now sport, for thou art free! the bright birds chasing,
Whose wings waft star-like gleams from tree to tree;
Or with the fawn, thy swift wood-playmate, racing,
Sport on, my joyous child! for thou art free!
Yes, on that day I took thee to my heart,
And inly vow’d, for thee a better part
To choose; that so thy sunny bursts of glee
Should wake no more dim thoughts of far-seen woe,
But, gladdening fearless eyes, flow on—as now they flow.

XCIII.

Thou hast a rich world round thee—mighty shades
Weaving their gorgeous tracery o’er thy head,
With the light melting through their high arcades
As through a pillar’d cloister’s;[298] but the dead
Sleep not beneath; nor doth the sunbeam pass
To marble shrines through rainbow-tinted glass;
Yet thou, by fount and forest-murmur led
To worship, thou art blest! to thee is shown
Earth in her holy pomp, deck’d for her God alone.

[290] “I recollect hearing a traveller, of poetical temperament, expressing the kind of horror which he felt on beholding, on the banks of the Missouri, an oak of prodigious size, which had been in a manner overpowered by an enormous wild-grape vine. The vine had clasped its huge folds round the trunk, and from thence had wound about every branch and twig, until the mighty tree had withered in its embrace. It seemed like Laocoon struggling ineffectually in the hideous coils of the monster Python.”—Bracebridge Hall. Chapter on Forest-Trees.

[291] For a most interesting account of the Spanish Protestants, and the heroic devotion with which they met the spirit of persecution in the sixteenth century, see the Quarterly Review, No. 57, Art. “Quin’s Visit to Spain.”

[292] “A priest named Gonzalez had, among other proselytes, gained over two young females, his sisters, to the Protestant faith. All three were confined in the dungeons of the Inquisition. The torture, repeatedly applied, could not draw from them the least evidence against their religious associates. Every artifice was employed to obtain a recantation from the two sisters, since the constancy and learning of Gonzalez precluded all hopes of a theological victory. Their answer, if not exactly logical, is wonderfully simple and affecting:—‘We will die in the faith of our brother: he is too wise to be wrong, and too good to deceive us.’ The three stakes on which they died were near each other. The priest had been gagged till the moment of lighting up the wood. The few minutes that he was allowed to speak he employed in comforting his sisters, with whom he sung the 109th Psalm, till the flames smothered their voices.”—Ibid.

[293] The names, not only of the immediate victims of the Inquisition were devoted to infamy, but those of all their relations were branded with the same indelible stain, which was likewise to descend as an inheritance to their latest posterity.

[294] The piles erected for these executions were without the towns, and the final scene of an Auto da Fe was sometimes, from the length of the preceding ceremonies, delayed till midnight.

[295] For one of the most powerful and impressive pictures perhaps ever drawn, of a young mind struggling against habit and superstition in its first aspirations after truth, see the admirable Letters from Spain by Don Leucadio Doblado.

[296] “You walk from end to end over a floor of tombstones, inlaid in brass with the forms of the departed, mitres, and crosiers, and spears, and shields, and helmets, all mingled together—all worn into glass-like smoothness by the feet and the knees of long-departed worshippers. Around, on every side, each in their separate chapel, sleep undisturbed from age to age the venerable ashes of the holiest or the loftiest that of old came thither to worship—their images and their dying prayers sculptured among the resting-places of their remains.”—From a beautiful description of ancient Spanish Cathedrals, in Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk.

[297] “El’ lampeggiar de l’angelico riso.”—Petrarch.

[298] “Sometimes their discourse was held in the deep shades of moss-grown forests, whose gloom and interlaced boughs first suggested that Gothic architecture beneath whose pointed arches, where they had studied and prayed, the parti-coloured windows shed a tinged light; scenes which the gleams of sunshine, penetrating the deep foliage, and flickering on the variegated turf below, might have recalled to their memory.”—Webster’s Oration on the Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England.—See Hodgson’s Letters from North America, vol. ii. p. 305.

PART II.

Wie diese treue liebe seele
Von ihrem Glauben Voll,
Der ganz allein
Ihr selig machend ist, sich heilig quale,
Das sie den liebsten Mann verloren halten soll.—Faust.
I never shall smile more—but all my days
Walk with still footsteps and with humble eyes,
An everlasting hymn within my soul.—Wilson.

I.

Bring me the sounding of the torrent-water,
With yet a nearer swell! Fresh breeze, awake![299]
And river, darkening ne’er with hues of slaughter
Thy wave’s pure silvery green,—and shining lake,
Spread far before my cabin, with thy zone
Of ancient woods, ye chainless things and lone!
Send voices through the forest aisles, and make
Glad music round me, that my soul may dare,
Cheer’d by such tones, to look back on a dungeon’s air!

II.

O Indian hunter of the desert’s race!
That with the spear at times, or bended bow,
Dost cross my footsteps in thy fiery chase
Of the swift elk or blue hill’s flying roe;
Thou that beside the red night-fire thou heapest,
Beneath the cedars and the starlight sleepest,
Thou know’st not, wanderer—never may’st thou know!—
Of the dark holds wherewith man cumbers earth,
To shut from human eyes the dancing seasons’ mirth.

III.

There, fetter’d down from day, to think the while
How bright in heaven the festal sun is glowing,
Making earth’s loneliest places, with his smile,
Flush like the rose; and how the streams are flowing
With sudden sparkles through the shadowy grass,
And water-flowers, all trembling as they pass;
And how the rich, dark summer trees are bowing
With their full foliage: this to know, and pine
Bound unto midnight’s heart, seems a stern lot—’twas mine!

IV.

Wherefore was this? Because my soul had drawn
Light from the Book whose words are graved in light!
There, at its well-head, had I found the dawn,
And day, and noon of freedom: but too bright
It shines on that which man to man hath given,
And call’d the truth—the very truth, from heaven!
And therefore seeks he in his brother’s sight
To cast the mote; and therefore strives to bind,
With his strong chains, to earth what is not earth’s—the mind!

V.

It is a weary and a bitter task
Back from the lip the burning word to keep,
And to shut out heaven’s air with falsehood’s mask,
And in the dark urn of the soul to heap
Indignant feelings—making e’en of thought
A buried treasure, which may but be sought
When shadows are abroad—and night—and sleep.
I might not brook it long—and thus was thrown
Into that grave-like cell, to wither there alone.

VI.

And I, a child of danger, whose delights
Were on dark hills and many-sounding seas—
I, that amidst the Cordillera heights
Had given Castilian banners to the breeze,
And the full circle of the rainbow seen
There, on the snows;[300] and in my country been
A mountain wanderer, from the Pyrenees
To the Morena crags—how left I not
Life, or the soul’s life, quench’d on that sepulchral spot?

VII.

Because Thou didst not leave me, O my God!
Thou wert with those that bore the truth of old
Into the deserts from th’ oppressor’s rod,
And made the caverns of the rock their fold;
And in the hidden chambers of the dead,
Our guiding lamp with fire immortal fed;
And met when stars met, by their beams to hold
The free heart’s communing with Thee,—and Thou
Wert in the midst, felt, own’d—the Strengthener then as now!

VIII.