“O sanctissima, O purissima!
Dulcis Virgo Maria!
Mater amata, intemerata,
Ora, ora pro nobis.” Sicilian Mariner’s Hymn.
In the deep hour of dreams,
Through the dark woods, and past the moaning sea,
And by the starlight gleams,
Mother of sorrows! lo, I come to thee!
Unto thy shrine I bear
Night-blowing flowers, like my own heart, to lie
All, all unfolded there,
Beneath the meekness of thy pitying eye.
For thou, that once didst move
In thy still beauty through an early home—
Thou know’st the grief, the love,
The fear of woman’s soul;—to thee I come!
Many, and sad, and deep,
Were the thoughts folded in thy silent breast;
Thou, too, couldst watch and weep—
Hear, gentlest mother! hear a heart oppress’d!
There is a wandering bark
Bearing one from me o’er the restless wave:
Oh, let thy soft eye mark
His course! Be with him, holiest! guide and save!
My soul is on that way;
My thoughts are travellers o’er the waters dim;
Through the long weary day
I walk, o’ershadow’d by vain dreams of him.
Aid him—and me, too, aid!
Oh! ’tis not well, this earthly love’s excess!
On thy weak child is laid
The burden of too deep a tenderness.
Too much o’er him is pour’d
My being’s hope—scarce leaving heaven a part;
Too fearfully adored,
Oh! make not him the chastener of my heart!
I tremble with a sense
Of grief to be; I hear a warning low—
Sweet mother! call me hence!
This wild idolatry must end in woe.
The troubled joy of life,
Love’s lightning happiness, my soul hath known;
And, worn with feverish strife,
Would fold its wings: take back, take back thine own!
Hark! how the wind swept by!
The tempest’s voice comes rolling o’er the wave—
Hope of the sailor’s eye,
And maiden’s heart, blest mother! guide and save.

TO A DEPARTED SPIRIT.

From the bright stars, or from the viewless air,
Or from some world unreach’d by human thought,
Spirit, sweet spirit! if thy home be there,
And if thy visions with the past be fraught,
Answer me, answer me!
Have we not communed here of life and death?
Have we not said that love, such love as ours,
Was not to perish as a rose’s breath,
To melt away, like song from festal bowers?
Answer, oh! answer me!
Thine eye’s last light was mine—the soul that shone
Intensely, mournfully, through gathering haze—
Didst thou bear with thee to the shore unknown,
Naught of what lived in that long, earnest gaze?
Hear, hear and answer me!
Thy voice—its low, soft, fervent, farewell tone
Thrill’d through the tempest of the parting strife,
Like a faint breeze: oh! from that music flown,
Send back one sound, if love’s be quenchless life!
But once, oh! answer me!
In the still noontide, in the sunset’s hush,
In the dead hour of night, when thought grows deep,
When the heart’s phantoms from the darkness rush,
Fearfully beautiful, to strive with sleep—
Spirit! then answer me!
By the remembrance of our blended prayer;
By all our tears, whose mingling made them sweet;
By our last hope, the victor o’er despair;—
Speak! if our souls in deathless yearnings meet;
Answer me, answer me!
The grave is silent: and the far-off sky,
And the deep midnight—silent all, and lone!
Oh! if thy buried love make no reply,
What voice has earth? Hear, pity, speak, mine own!
Answer me, answer me!

THE CHAMOIS HUNTER’S LOVE.

“For all his wildness and proud fantasies,
I love him.” Croly.
Thy heart is in the upper world, where fleet the chamois bounds,
Thy heart is where the mountain-fir shakes to the torrent-sounds;
And where the snow-peaks gleam like stars, through the stillness of the air,
And where the Lauwine’s[369] peal is heard—hunter! thy heart is there!
I know thou lov’st me well, dear friend! but better, better far,
Thou lovest that high and haughty life, with rocks and storms at war;
In the green, sunny vales with me, thy spirit would but pine—
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
And I will not seek to woo thee down from those thy native heights,
With the sweet song, our land’s own song, of pastoral delights;
For thou must live as eagles live, thy path is not as mine—
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine.
And I will leave my blessed home, my father’s joyous hearth,
With all the voices meeting there in tenderness and mirth,
With all the kind and laughing eyes, that in its firelight shine,
To sit forsaken in thy hut, yet know that thou art mine!
It is my youth, it is my bloom, it is my glad free heart,
That I cast away for thee—for thee, all reckless as thou art!
With tremblings and with vigils lone I bind myself to dwell—
Yet, yet I would not change that lot; oh no! I love too well!
A mournful thing is love which grows to one so wild as thou,
With that bright restlessness of eye, that tameless fire of brow!
Mournful!—but dearer far I call its mingled fear and pride,
And the trouble of its happiness, than aught on earth beside.
To listen for thy step in vain, to start at every breath,
To watch through long, long nights of storm, to sleep and dream of death,
To wake in doubt and loneliness—this doom I know is mine;
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
That I may greet thee from thine Alps, when thence thou com’st at last,
That I may hear thy thrilling voice tell o’er each danger past,
That I may kneel and pray for thee, and win thee aid divine—
For this I will be thine, my love! for this I will be thine!

[369] Lauwine, the avalanche.

THE INDIAN WITH HIS DEAD CHILD.[370]

In the silence of the midnight
I journey with my dead;
In the darkness of the forest boughs
A lonely path I tread.
But my heart is high and fearless,
As by mighty wings upborne;
The mountain eagle hath not plumes
So strong as love and scorn.
I have raised thee from the grave-sod,
By the white man’s path defiled;
On to th’ ancestral wilderness,
I bear thy dust, my child!
I have ask’d the ancient deserts
To give my dead a place,
Where the stately footsteps of the free
Alone should leave a trace.
And the tossing pines made answer—
“Go, bring us back thine own!”
And the streams from all the hunters’ hills,
Rush’d with an echoing tone.
Thou shalt rest by sounding waters
That yet untamed may roll;
The voices of that chainless host
With joy shall fill thy soul.
In the silence of the midnight
I journey with the dead,
Where the arrows of my father’s bow
Their falcon-flight have sped.
I have left the spoilers’ dwellings
For evermore behind;
Unmingled with their household sounds,
For me shall sweep the wind.
Alone, amidst their hearth-fires,
I watch’d my child’s decay,
Uncheer’d I saw the spirit-light
From his young eyes fade away.
When his head sank on my bosom,
When the death-sleep o’er him fell,
Was there one to say, “A friend is near?”
There was none!—pale race, farewell!
To the forests, to the cedars,
To the warrior and his bow,
Back, back!—I bore thee laughing thence,
I bear thee slumbering now!
I bear thee unto burial
With the mighty hunters gone;
I shall hear thee in the forest breeze,
Thou wilt speak of joy, my son!
In the silence of the midnight
I journey with the dead;
But my heart is strong, my step is fleet,
My fathers’ path I tread.

[370] An Indian, who had established himself in a township of Maine, feeling indignantly the want of sympathy evinced towards him by the white inhabitants, particularly on the death of his only child, gave up his farm soon afterwards, dug up the body of his child, and carried it with him two hundred miles through the forests to join the Canadian Indians.—See Tudor’s Letters on the Eastern States of America.

SONG OF EMIGRATION.

There was heard a song on the chiming sea.
A mingled breathing of grief and glee;
Man’s voice, unbroken by sighs, was there,
Filling with triumph the sunny air;
Of fresh, green lands, and of pastures new,
It sang, while the bark through the surges flew.
But ever and anon
A murmur of farewell
Told, by its plaintive tone,
That from woman’s lip it fell.
“Away, away o’er the foaming main!”
This was the free and the joyous strain,
“There are clearer skies than ours, afar,
We will shape our course by a brighter star;
There are plains whose verdure no foot hath press’d,
And whose wealth is all for the first brave guest.”
“But, alas! that we should go,”
Sang the farewell voices then,
“From the homesteads, warm and low,
By the brook and in the glen!”
“We will rear new homes under trees that glow
As if gems were the fruitage of every bough;
O’er our white walls we will train the vine,
And sit in its shadow at day’s decline;
And watch our herds, as they range at will
Through the green savannas, all bright and still.
“But woe for that sweet shade
Of the flowering orchard-trees,
Where first our children play’d
Midst the birds and honey-bees!
“All, all our own shall the forests be,
As to the bound of the roebuck free!
None shall say, ‘Hither, no further pass!’
We will track each step through the wavy grass
We will chase the elk in his speed and might,
And bring proud spoils to the hearth at night.”
“But, oh! the gray church-tower,
And the sound of Sabbath bell,
And the shelter’d garden-bower,
We have bid them all farewell!
“We will give the names of our fearless race
To each bright river whose course we trace;
We will leave our memory with mounts and floods,
And the path of our daring in boundless woods;
And our works unto many a lake’s green shore,
Where the Indians’ graves lay, alone, before.”
“But who shall teach the flowers,
Which our children loved, to dwell
In a soil that is not ours?
Home, home and friends, farewell!”

THE KING OF ARRAGON’S LAMENT FOR HIS BROTHER.[371]

“If I could see him, it were well with me!”
Coleridge’s “Wallenstein.”
There were lights and sounds of revelling in the vanquish’d city’s halls,
As by night the feast of victory was held within its walls;
And the conquerors fill’d the wine-cup high, after years of bright blood shed;
But their lord, the King of Arragon, midst the triumph wail’d the dead.
He look’d down from the fortress won, on the tents and flowers below,
The moonlit sea, the torchlit streets—and a gloom came o’er his brow:
The voice of thousands floated up, with the horn and cymbal’s tone;
But his heart, midst that proud music, felt more utterly alone.
And he cried, “Thou art mine, fair city! thou city of the sea!
But, oh! what portion of delight is mine at last in thee?—
I am lonely midst thy palaces, while the glad waves past them roll,
And the soft breath of thine orange bowers is mournful to my soul.
“My brother! O my brother! thou art gone—the true and brave,
And the haughty joy of victory hath died upon thy grave.
There are many round my throne to stand, and to march where I lead on;
There was one to love me in the world—my brother! thou art gone!
“In the desert, in the battle, in the ocean-tempest’s wrath,
We stood together, side by side—one hope was ours, one path;
Thou hast wrapp’d me in thy soldier’s cloak, thou hast fenced me with thy breast;
Thou hast watch’d beside my couch of pain—oh! bravest heart, and best!
“I see the festive lights around,—o’er a dull, sad world they shine;
I hear the voice of victory—my Pedro! where is thine?
The only voice in whose kind tone my spirit found reply!—
O brother! I have bought too dear this hollow pageantry!
“I have hosts and gallant fleets, to spread my glory and my sway,
And chiefs to lead them fearlessly,—my friend hath pass’d away!
For the kindly look, the word of cheer, my heart may thirst in vain;
And the face that was as light to mine—it cannot come again!
“I have made thy blood, thy faithful blood, the offering for a crown;
With love, which earth bestows not twice, I have purchased cold renown;
How often will my weary heart midst the sounds of triumph die,
When I think of thee, my brother! thou flower of chivalry!
“I am lonely—I am lonely! this rest is even as death!
Let me hear again the ringing spears, and the battle-trumpet’s breath;
Let me see the fiery charger foam, and the royal banner wave—
But where art thou, my brother? where? In thy low and early grave!”
And louder swell’d the songs of joy through that victorious night,
And faster flow’d the red wine forth, by the stars’ and torches’ light:
But low and deep, amidst the mirth, was heard the conqueror’s moan—
“My brother! O my brother! best and bravest! thou art gone!”

[371] The grief of Ferdinand, King of Arragon, for the loss of his brother, Don Pedro, who was killed during the siege of Naples, is affectingly described by the historian Mariana. It is also the subject of one of the old Spanish Ballads in Lockhart’s beautiful collection.

THE RETURN.

“Hast thou come with the heart of thy childhood back;
The free, the pure, the kind?”
—So murmur’d the trees in my homeward track,
As they play’d to the mountain wind.
“Hath thy soul been true to its early love”
Whisper’d my native streams;
“Hath the spirit nursed amidst hill and grove
Still revered its first high dreams?”
“Hast thou borne in thy bosom the holy prayer
Of the child in his parent-halls?”
Thus breathed a voice on the thrilling air,
From the old ancestral walls.
“Hast thou kept thy faith with the faithful dead,
Whose place of rest is nigh?
With the father’s blessing o’er thee shed,
With the mother’s trusting eye?”
Then my tears gush’d forth in sudden rain,
As I answer’d—“O ye shades!
I bring not my childhood’s heart again
To the freedom of your glades.
“I have turn’d from my first pure love aside,
O bright and happy streams!
Light after light, in my soul have died
The day-spring’s glorious dreams.
“And the holy prayer from my thoughts hath pass’d—
The prayer at my mother’s knee;
Darken’d and troubled I come at last,
Home of my boyish glee!
“But I bear from my childhood a gift of tears,
To soften and atone;
And oh! ye scenes of those bless’d years,
They shall make me again your own.”

THE VAUDOIS WIFE.[372]

“Clasp me a little longer, on the brink
Of fate! while I can feel thy dear caress;
And when this heart hath ceased to beat, oh! think—
And let it mitigate thy woe’s excess—
That thou hast been to me all tenderness,
And friend, to more than human friendship just.
Oh! by that retrospect of happiness,
And by the hopes of an immortal trust,
God shall assuage thy pangs, when I am laid in dust.”
Gertrude of Wyoming.
Thy voice is in mine ear, beloved!
Thy look is in my heart,
Thy bosom is my resting-place,
And yet I must depart.
Earth on my soul is strong—too strong—
Too precious is its chain,
All woven of thy love, dear friend,
Yet vain—though mighty—vain!
Thou see’st mine eye grow dim, beloved!
Thou see’st my life-blood flow—
Bow to the Chastener silently,
And calmly let me go!
A little while between our hearts
The shadowy gulf must lie,
Yet have we for their communing
Still, still Eternity!
Alas! thy tears are on my cheek,
My spirit they detain;
I know that from thine agony
Is wrung that burning rain.
Best! kindest! weep not—make the pang,
The bitter conflict less—
Oh! sad it is, and yet a joy,
To feel thy love’s excess!
But calm thee! let the thought of death
A solemn peace restore!
The voice that must be silent soon
Would speak to thee once more,
That thou may’st bear its blessing on
Through years of after life—
A token of consoling love,
Even from this hour of strife.
I bless thee for the noble heart,
The tender and the true,
Where mine hath found the happiest rest
That e’er fond woman’s knew;
I bless thee, faithful friend and guide!
For my own, my treasured share
In the mournful secrets of thy soul,
In thy sorrow, in thy prayer.
I bless thee for kind looks and words
Shower’d on my path like dew,
For all the love in those deep eyes,
A gladness ever new!
For the voice which ne’er to mine replied
But in kindly tones of cheer;
For every spring of happiness
My soul hath tasted here!
I bless thee for the last rich boon
Won from affection tried—
The right to gaze on death with thee,
To perish by thy side!
And yet more for the glorious hope
Even to these moments given—
Did not thy spirit ever lift
The trust of mine to heaven?
Now be thou strong! Oh, knew we not
Our path must lead to this?
A shadow and a trembling still
Were mingled with our bliss!
We plighted our young hearts when storms
Were dark upon the sky,
In full, deep knowledge of their task
To suffer and to die!
Be strong! I leave the living voice
Of this, my martyr’d blood,
With the thousand echoes of the hills,
With the torrent’s foaming flood,—
A spirit midst the caves to dwell,
A token on the air,
To rouse the valiant from repose,
The fainting from despair.
Hear it, and bear thou on, my love!
Ay, joyously endure!
Our mountains must be altars yet,
Inviolate and pure;
There must our God be worshipp’d still
With the worship of the free:
Farewell!—there’s but one pang in death,
One only,—leaving thee!

[372] The wife of a Vaudois leader, in one of the attacks made on the Protestant hamlets, received a mortal wound, and died in her husband’s arms, exhorting him to courage and endurance.

THE GUERILLA LEADER’S VOW.

“All my pretty ones!
Did you say all?
...
Let us make medicine of this great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief!” Macbeth.
My battle-vow!—no minster walls
Gave back the burning word,
Nor cross nor shrine the low deep tone
Of smother’d vengeance heard:
But the ashes of a ruin’d home
Thrill’d as it sternly rose,
With the mingling voice of blood that shook
The midnight’s dark repose.
I breathed it not o’er kingly tombs,
But where my children lay,
And the startled vulture at my step
Soar’d from their precious clay.
I stood amidst my dead alone—
I kiss’d their lips—I pour’d,
In the strong silence of that hour,
My spirit on my sword.
The roof-tree fallen, the smouldering floor,
The blacken’d threshold-stone,
The bright hair torn, and soil’d with blood,
Whose fountain was my own—
These, and the everlasting hills,
Bore witness that wild night;
Before them rose th’ avenger’s soul
In crush’d affection’s might.
The stars, the searching stars of heaven,
With keen looks would upbraid
If from my heart the fiery vow,
Sear’d on it then, could fade.
They have no cause! Go, ask the streams
That by my paths have swept,
The red waves that unstain’d were born—
How hath my faith been kept?
And other eyes are on my soul,
That never, never close,
The sad, sweet glances of the lost—
They leave me no repose.
Haunting my night-watch midst the rocks,
And by the torrent’s foam,
Through the dark-rolling mists they shine,
Full, full of love and home!
Alas! the mountain eagle’s heart,
When wrong’d, may yet find rest;
Scorning the place made desolate,
He seeks another nest.
But I—your soft looks wake the thirst
That wins no quenching rain;
Ye drive me back, my beautiful!
To the stormy fight again.

THEKLA AT HER LOVER’S GRAVE.

“Thither where he lies buried!
That single spot is the whole world to me.”
Coleridge’s “Wallenstein.”
Thy voice was in my soul! it call’d me on;
O my lost friend! thy voice was in my soul.
From the cold, faded world whence thou art gone,
To hear no more life’s troubled billows roll,
I come! I come!
Now speak to me again! we loved so well—
We loved!—oh! still, I know that still we love!
I have left all things with thy dust to dwell,
Through these dim aisles in dreams of thee to rove:
This is my home!
Speak to me in the thrilling minster’s gloom!
Speak! thou hast died, and sent me no farewell!
I will not shrink—oh! mighty is the tomb,
But one thing mightier, which it cannot quell—
This woman’s heart!
This lone, full, fragile heart!—the strong alone
In love and grief—of both the burning shrine!
Thou, my soul’s friend! with grief hast surely done,
But with the love which made thy spirit mine,
Say, couldst thou part?
I hear the rustling banners; and I hear
The wind’s low singing through the fretted stone.
I hear not thee; and yet I feel thee near—
What is this bound that keeps thee from thine own?
Breathe it away.
I wait thee—I adjure thee! Hast thou known
How I have loved thee? couldst thou dream it all?
Am I not here, with night and death alone,
And fearing not? And hath my spirit’s call
O’er thine no sway?
Thou canst not come! or thus I should not weep!
Thy love is deathless—but no longer free!
Soon would its wing triumphantly o’ersweep
The viewless barrier, if such power might be,
Soon, soon, and fast!
But I shall come to thee! our souls’ deep dreams,
Our young affections, have not gush’d in vain;
Soon in one tide shall blend the sever’d streams,
The worn heart break its bonds—and death and pain
Be with the past!

THE SISTERS OF SCIO.

“As are our hearts, our way is one,
And cannot be divided. Strong affection
Contends with all things, and o’ercometh all things.
Will I not live with thee? will I not cheer thee?
Wouldst thou be lonely then? wouldst thou be sad?”
Joanna Baillie.
“Sister, sweet sister! let me weep awhile!
Bear with me—give the sudden passion way!
Thoughts of our own lost home, our sunny isle,
Come as a wind that o’er a reed hath sway;
Till my heart dies with yearnings and sick fears—
Oh! could my life melt from me in these tears!
“Our father’s voice, our mother’s gentle eye,
Our brother’s bounding step—where are they, where?
Desolate, desolate our chambers lie!
—How hast thou won thy spirit from despair?
O’er mine swift shadows, gusts of terror, sweep:
I sink away—bear with me—let me weep!”
“Yes! weep my sister! weep, till from thy heart
The weight flow forth in tears; yet sink thou not.
I bind my sorrow to a lofty part,
For thee, my gentle one! our orphan lot
To meet in quenchless trust. My soul is strong:
Thou, too, wilt rise in holy might ere long.
“A breath of our free heavens and noble sires,
A memory of our old victorious dead—
These mantle me with power; and though their fires
In a frail censer briefly may be shed,
Yet shall they light us onward, side by side—
Have the wild birds, and have not we, a guide?
“Cheer, then, beloved! on whose meek brow is set
Our mother’s image—in whose voice a tone,
A faint, sweet sound of hers is lingering yet,
An echo of our childhood’s music gone.
Cheer thee! thy sister’s heart and faith are high:
Our path is one—with thee I live and die!”

[“But who are they that sit, mourning in their loveliness, beneath the shadow of a rock on the surf-beaten shore? The Sisters of Scio ... by Felicia Dorothea Hemans sung. Die—rather let them die in famine amongst sea-sand shells, than ere their virgin charms be polluted in the harem of the barbarian who has desolated their native isle. Bowed down and half dead, beneath what a load of anguish hangs the orphan’s dishevelled head on the knee of a sister, in pensive resignation, and holy faith triumphant over despair, as Felicia happily singeth!”—Professor Wilson, Blackwood’s Magazine. Dec. 1829.]

BERNARDO DEL CARPIO.

[The celebrated Spanish champion, Bernardo del Carpio, having made many ineffectual efforts to procure the release of his father, the Count Saldana, who had been imprisoned by King Alfonso of Asturias, almost from the time of Bernardo’s birth, at last took up arms in despair. The war which he maintained proved so destructive, that the men of the land gathered round the King, and united in demanding Saldana’s liberty. Alfonso, accordingly, offered Bernardo immediate possession of his father’s person in exchange for his castle of Carpio. Bernardo, without hesitation, gave up his stronghold, with all his captives; and being assured that his father was then on his way from prison, rode forth with the King to meet him. “And when he saw his father approaching, he exclaimed,” says the ancient chronicle, “‘Oh, God! is the Count of Saldana indeed coming?’—‘Look where he is,’ replied the cruel King; ‘and now go and greet him whom you have so long desired to see.’” The remainder of the story will be found related in the ballad. The chronicles and romances leave us nearly in the dark as to Bernardo’s history after this event.]

The warrior bow’d his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire,
And sued the haughty king to free his long-imprison’d sire:
“I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my captive train,
I pledge thee faith, my liege, my lord!—oh, break my father’s chain!”
“Rise, rise! even now thy father comes, a ransom’d man this day:
Mount thy good horse, and thou and I will meet him on his way.”
Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his steed,
And urged, as if with lance in rest, the charger’s foamy speed.
And lo! from far, as on they press’d, there came a glittering band,
With one that midst them stately rode, as a leader in the land;
“Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very truth, is he,
The father whom thy faithful heart hath yearn’d so long to see.”
His dark eye flash’d, his proud breast heaved, his cheek’s blood came and went;
He reach’d that gray-hair’d chieftain’s side, and there, dismounting, bent;
A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father’s hand he took,—
What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit shook?
That hand was cold—a frozen thing—it dropp’d from his like lead:
He look’d up to the face above—the face was of the dead!
A plume waved o’er the noble brow—the brow was fix’d and white;
He met at last his father’s eyes—but in them was no sight!
Up from the ground he sprang, and gazed, but who could paint that gaze?
They hush’d their very hearts, that saw its horror and amaze;
They might have chain’d him, as before that stony form he stood,
For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his lip the blood.
“Father!” at length he murmur’d low, and wept like childhood then—
Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike men!—
He thought on all his glorious hopes, and all his young renown,—
He flung the falchion from his side, and in the dust sat down.
Then covering with his steel-gloved hands his darkly mournful brow,
“No more, there is no more,” he said, “to lift the sword for now.—
My king is false, my hope betray’d, my father—oh! the worth,
The glory and the loveliness, are pass’d away from earth!
“I thought to stand where banners waved, my sire! beside thee yet—
I would that there our kindred blood on Spain’s free soil had met!
Thou wouldst have known my spirit then—for thee my fields were won,—
And thou hast perish’d in thy chains, as though thou hadst no son!”
Then, starting from the ground once more, he seized the monarch’s rein,
Amidst the pale and wilder’d looks of all the courtier train;
And with a fierce, o’ermastering grasp, the rearing war-horse led,
And sternly set them face to face—the king before the dead!—
“Came I not forth upon thy pledge, my father’s hand to kiss?—
Be still, and gaze thou on, false king! and tell me what is this!
The voice, the glance, the heart I sought—give answer, where are they?—
If thou wouldst clear thy perjured soul, send life through this cold clay!
“Into these glassy eyes put light——Be still! keep down thine ire,—
Bid these white lips a blessing speak—this earth is not my sire!
Give me back him for whom I strove, for whom my blood was shed,—
Thou canst not—and a king! His dust be mountains on thy head!”
He loosed the steed; his slack hand fell—upon the silent face
He cast one long, deep, troubled look—then turn’d from that sad place:
His hope was crush’d, his after-fate untold in martial strain,—
His banner led the spears no more amidst the hills of Spain.

THE TOMB OF MADAME LANGHANS.