Rogers to Hemans

And mighty and magnificent, for he

Had seen the bright sun worshipp'd like a god
Upon that land where first Columbus trod;
And travelled by the deep Saint Lawrence' tide,
And by Niagara's cataracts of foam,
And seen the wild deer roam

Amongst interminable forests, where
The serpent and the savage have their lair
Together. Nature there in wildest guise
Stands undebased and nearer to the skies;
And 'midst her giant trees and water wide
The bones of things forgotten, buried deep,
Give glimpses of an elder world, espied
By us but in that fine and dreamy sleep,
When Fancy, ever the mother of deep truth,

When all the woods, and all the winds were still, Breathes her dim oracles on the soul of youth.

Kiss'd with the kiss of immortality.

And in his eye where love and pride contended,
His dark, deep-seated eye, there was a spell
Which they who love and have been loved can
tell.

Her sleep that night was fearful,-O, that night!
If it indeed was sleep: for in her sight
A form (a dim and waving shadow) stood,
And pointed far up the great Etna's side,
Where, from a black ravine, a dreary wood
Peeps out and frowns upon the storms below,
And bounds and braves the wilderness of snow.
It gazed awhile upon the lonely bride
With melancholy air and glassy eye,
And spoke-Awake, and search yon dell, for I,

And she—but what of her, his chosen bride,
His own, on whom he gazed in secret pride,
And loved almost too much for happiness?
Enough to say that she was born to bless,
She was surpassing fair: her gentle voice
Came like the fabled music that beguiles
The sailor on the waters, and her smiles
Shone like the light of heaven, and said "Re- Though risen above my old mortality,

joice."

VIII.

That morn they sat upon the sea-beach green;
For in that land the sward springs fresh and free
Close to the ocean, and no tides are seen
To break the glassy quiet of the sea:
And Guido, with his arm 'round Isabel,
Unclasp'd the tresses of her chesnut hair,
Which in her white and heaving bosom fell
Like things enamour'd, and then with jealous air
Bade the soft amorous winds not wanton there:
And then his dark eye sparkled, and he wound
The fillets like a coronet around

Her brow, and bade her rise, and rise a queen.
And oh! 'twas sweet to see her delicate hand

Have left my mangled and unburied limbs
A prey for wolves hard by the waters there,
And one lock of my black and curled hair,
That one I vowed to thee, my beauty, swims
Like a mere weed upon the mountain river;
And those dark eyes you used to love so well
(They loved you dearly, my own Isabel)
Are shut, and now have lost their light for ever.
Go then into yon far ravine, and save
Your husband's heart for some more quiet grave
Than what the stream and withering winds may

lend,

And 'neath the basil-tree we planted, give
The fond heart burial, so that tree shall live
And shed a solace on thy after days;
And thou-but oh! I ask thee not to tend

Press'd 'gainst his parted lips, as though to check The plant on which thy Guido loved to gaze,

In mimic anger all those whispers bland
He knew so well to use, and on his neck
Her round arm hung, while half as in command
And half entreaty did her swimming eye
Speak of forbearance, till from her pouting lip
He snatch'd the honey-dews that lovers sip,
And then, in crimsoning beauty, playfully
She frown'd, and wore that self-betraying air
Which women loved and flatter'd love to wear.

IX.

Oft would he, as on that same spot they lay
Beneath the last light of a summer's day,
Tell (and would watch the while her steadfast
eye)

How on the lone Pacific he had been,
When the Sea Lion on his watery way
Went rolling through the billows green,
And shook that ocean's dead tranquillity:
And he would tell her of past times, and where
He rambled in his boyhood far away,

And spoke of other worlds and wonders fair

For with a spirit's power I see thy heart."
He said no more, but with the dawning day
Shrunk, as the shadows of the clouds depart
Before the conquering sunbeams, silently.
Then sprung she from the pillow where she
lay,

To the wild sense of doubtful misery:
And when she woke she did obey the dream,
And journey'd onward to the mountain stream,
Tow'rd which the phantom pointed, and she

drew

The thorns aside which there luxuriant grew,
The waters wash'd, it said, its floating hair.
And with a beating heart descended, where

XI.

It was a spot like those romancers paint,
Or painted when of dusky knights they told

I have ventured to substitute heart for the head of the lover. The latter appeared to ine to be a ghastly object to preserve.

Wandering about in forests old,

When the last purple colour was waxing faint
And day was dying in the west :-the trees
(Dark pine and chesnut, and the dwarfed oak
And cedar) shook their branches till the shade
Look'd like a living spirit, and as it played
Seem'd holding dim communion with the breeze.
Below, a tumbling river roll'd along

(Its course by lava rocks and branches broke)
Singing for aye its fierce and noisy song;
And there on shatter'd trunks the lichens grew
And covered, with their golden garments,
Death:

And when the tempest of November blew
The Winter trumpet, till its failing breath
Went moaning into silence, every green
And loose leaf of the piny boughs did tell
Some trembling story of that mountain dell.
XII.

That spirit is never idle that doth 'waken*
The soul to sights and contemplations deep,
Even when from out the desert's seeming sleep
A sob is heaved that but the leaves are shaken;
But when across its frozen wastes there comes
A rushing wind, that chills the heart and bears
Tidings of ruin from those icy domes,
The cast and fashion of a thousand years,
It is not for low meanings that the soul
Of Nature, starting from her idlesse long,
Doth walk abroad with Death, and sweep among
The valleys where the avalanches roll.

That smiled as it was wont; and he was found
His young limbs mangled on the rocky ground,
And, 'midst the weltering weeds and shallows
cold,

His black hair floated as the phantom told,
And like the very dream his glassy cyc
Spoke of gone mortality.

XIV.

She stared and laugh'd aloud like one whose brain

Is shock'd o' the sudden : then she looked again :
And then she wept. At last-but wherefore ask
How-tremblingly, she did her bloody task?
She took the heart and washed it in the wave,
And bore it home and placed it 'midst wild
flowers,

Such as he loved to scent in happier hours,
And 'neath the basil-tree she scoop'd a grave,
And therein placed the heart, to common earth
Doom'd, like a thing that owned not human
birth.

XV.

And the tree grew and grew, and brighter green
Shot from its boughs than she before had seen,
And softly with its leaves the west winds played:
And she did water it with her tears, and talk
As to a living spirit, and in the shade
Would place it gently when the sun did walk
High in his hot meridian, and she prest
The boughs (which fell like balm) upon her breast.

'Tis not to speak of "Doubt" that her great She never pluck'd a leaf nor let a weed

And catching at the brambles, as her feet
Sunk in the crumbling earth, the poor girl trod;
And there she saw-Oh! till that moment none
Could tell (not she) how much of hope the sun
And cheerful morning, with its noises, brought,
And how she from each glance a courage caught;
For light and life had scattered half her fright,
And she could almost smile on the past night;
So, with a buoyant feeling, mixed with fear
Lest she might scorn heav'n's missioned minister,
She took her weary way and searched the dell,
And there she saw him-dead. Poor desolate

child

Of sixteen summers, had the waters wild
No pity on the boy you loved so well!
There stiff and cold the dark-eyed Guido lay,
His pale face upwards to the careless day,

Within a shadow of its branches feed,
But nursed it as a mother guards her child,
And kept it shelter'd from the "winter wild:"
And so it grow beyond its fellows, and
Tow'red in unnatural beauty, waving there
And whispering to the moon and midnight air,
And stood a thing unequalled in the land.

XVI.

But never more along her favourite vale,
Or by the village paths or hurrying river,
Or on the beach, when clouds are seen to sail
Across the setting sun, while waters quiver
And breezes rise to bid the day farewell-
No more in any bower she once loved well,
Whose sound or silence to the ear could tell
Aught of the passionate past, the pale girl trod :
Yet Love himself, like an invisible god,
Haunted each spot, and with his own rich breath
Fill'd the wide air with music sweet and soft,
Such as might calm or conquer Death (if Death
Could e'er be conquered,) and from aloft
Sad airs, like those she heard in infancy,
Fell on her soul and filled her eyes with tears;
And recollections came of happier years
Thronging from all the cells of memory.
All her heart's follies she remember'd then,
How coy and rash-how scornful she had been,
And then how tender, and how coy again,
And ever shifting of the burning scene
That sorrow stamps upon the helpless brain.

XVII.

This paragraph is obscure; it was written to repel an assertion (made in a poem to which I cannot recur) that the fall of an avalanche spoke "Doubt and Death." The reader can, if he pleases, pass it over altogether. By her who knew alone her brother's guilt,)

Leoni-(for this tale had ne'er been told

Leoni, timorous lest the blood he spilt
Should rise in vengeance from its secret hold,
And come abroad and claim a sepulchre ;

Or, haplier, fancying that the lie he swore

That Guido sailed and would return no more" Was disbelieved and not forgot by her; Or that she had discover'd where he lay Before his limbs had wither'd quite away, Or-but whate'er it was that moved him then, He dug and found the heart, unperish'd; For she, to keep it unlike the common dead, Had wound it round with many a waxen line, And bathed it with a curious medicine: He found it where, like a dark spell, it lay, And cursed and cast it to the waves away.

XVIII.

That day the green tree wither'd, and she knew
The solace of her mind was stol'n and gone:
And then she felt that she was quite alone

In the wide world; so to the distant woods
And caverned haunts, and where the mountain
floods

Thunder into the silent air, she flew.
She flew away, and left the world behind,
And all that man doth worship, in her flight;
All that around the beating heart is twined;
Yet, as she looked farewell to human kind,
One quivering drop arose and dimm'd her sight,
The last that frenzy gave to poor distress.
And then into the dreary wilderness
She went alone, a crazed, heart-broken thing:
And in the solitude she found a cave
Half hidden by the wild-brier blossoming,
Whereby a black and solitary pine,
Struck by the fiery thunder, stood, and gave
Of pow'r and death a token and a sign:

And there she lived for months: She did not heed

The seasons or their change, and she would feed
On roots and berries, as the creatures fed
Which had in woods been born and nourished.

XIX.

Once, and once only was she seen, and then
The chamois hunter started from his chase,
And stopped to look a moment on her face,
And could not turn him to his sports again.
Thin Famine sate upon her hollow cheek,
And settled Madness in her glazed eye
Told of a young heart wrong'd and nigh to break,
And, as the spent winds waver ere they die,
She to herself a few wild words did speak,
And sung a strange and broken melody;
And ever as she sung she strew'd the ground
With yellow leaves that perish'd ere their time,
And well their fluttering fall did seem to chime
With the low music of her song:-the sound
Came like a dirge filling the air around,
And this (or like) the melancholy rhyme.

There is a spirit stands by me:

It comes by night, it comes by day,

And when the glittering lightnings play, .
Its look is pale and sad to see.
Tis he to whom my brother gave

A red unconsecrated grave.

I hear him when the breezes moan,
And, when the rattling thunders talk,
I hear him muttering by me walk,
And tell me I am "quite alone."
It is the dæmon of the dead,
For all that's good hath upwards fled

It is a dæmon which the wave
Hath cast abroad to scare my soul;
Yet wherefore did the waters roll
So idly o'er his hasty grave?
Was the sad prayer I uttered then
Unheard, or is it due again?

Is't not enough that I am here, Brainstruck and cold and famished, A mean remove above the dead,But must my soul be wild with fear As sorrow, now that hope is gone, And I am lost and left alone?

They told me, when my days were young,
That I was fair and born to reign,
That hands and hearts were my domain,
And witchery dwelt upon my tongue:
And now-but what is this to me,
Struck on the rock of memory?

And yet at times I dream-ay yet,
Of vanish'd scenes and golden hours,
And music heard in orange bowers
(For madness cannot quite forget,)
And love, breathed once to me alone,
In sighs, and many a melting tone.

Then curious thoughts, and floating things
Saved from the deluge of the brain,

Pass with perplexity and pain;
Then darkness, deaths, and murderings,-
And then unto my den I hie,
And vainly, vainly pray to die.

XX.

At last she wandered home. She came by night
The pale moon shot a sad and troubled light
Amidst the mighty clouds that moved along.
The moaning winds of Autumn sang their song,
And shook the red leaves from the forest trees;
And subterranean voices spoke. The seas
Did rise and fall, and then that fearful swell
Came silently which seamen know so well;
And all was like an Omen. Isabel
Passed to the room where, in old times, she lay,
And there they found her at the break of day;
Her look was smiling, but she never spoke
Or motioned, even to say-her heart was broke:
Yet, in the quiet of her shining eye

Lay death, and something we are wont to deem
(When we discourse of some such mournful

theme)

Beyond the look of mere mortality.

Particularly for a young bard like me,

XXI.

She died yet scarcely can we call it Death
When Heaven so softly draws the parting breath;
She was translated to a finer sphere,

For what could match or make her happy here?
She died, and with her gentle death there came
Sorrow and ruin, and Leoni fell

A victim to that unconsuming flame,
That burns and revels on the heart of man;
Remorse. This is the tale of Isabel,
And of her love the young Italian.

DIEGO DE MONTILLA;

A SPANISH TALE.

THE Octave rhyme (Ital. ottava rima)

Is a delightful measure, made of ease
Turn'd up with epigram, and, though it seem a

Not to stick quite so closely to the letter;
One's verse as well as fancy should be free,

The last indeed hates every sort of fetter:
So, as each man may call what maid he chooses
By way of Muse, I'll e'en call all the Muses.

VI.

Hearken! ye gentle sisters (eight or nine,)
Who haunted in old time Parnassus' hill,
If that so worshipp'd mount be yet divine,
And ye there meet your mighty master still,
And still for poet heads the laurel twine,

And dip your pitchers in the famous rill,
I'll trouble ye for a leaf or two; though first I
'll just try the jug, for 'faith, I'm somewhat
thirsty.

VII.

And now, great lyrist, fain would I behold
Thee in thy glory-Lord and Life of day!
Sun-bright Apollo! with thy locks of gold,
As thou art wont to tread heav'n's starry way,
Not marbled and reduced to human mould,
As thou didst stand, one of a rich array
(Yet even there distinct and first of all,)

Verse that a man may scribble when he please, In the vast palace of the conquer'd Gaul.

Is somewhat difficult: indeed, I deem a

Stanza like Spenser's will be found to teaze
Less, or heroic couplet; there, the pen
May touch and polish, and touch up again.

II.

But, for the octave measure-it should slip
Like running water o'er its pebbled bed,
Making sweet music (here I own I dip

In Shakspeare for a simile,) and be fed
Freely, and then the poet must not nip
The line, nor square the sentence, nor be led
By old, approved, poetic canons; no,
But give his words the slip, and let 'em go.

III.

I mean to give in this same pleasant rhyme
Some short account of Don Diego de
Montilla, quite a hero in his time,

Who conquer'd captain Cupid, as you'll see :
My tale is sad in part, in part sublime,

With here and there a smack of pleasantry:
As to the moral,-why-'tis under cover,
I leave it for the reader to discover.

IV.

"Arms and"-but I forget. Love and the man I sing, that's Virgil's method of beginning, Alter'd a little just to suit my plan.

I own the thing, and so there's not much sin
ning:

Most writers steal a good thing when they can,
And when 'tis safely got 'tis worth the winning.
The worst of 'tis we now and then detect 'em,
Before they ever dream that we suspect 'em.

Love and the man I sing-and yet 'twould be
As well methinks, nay perhaps it may be
better,

VIII.

But, if thy radiant forehead be too bright
For me to look upon with earthly eye,
Ah! send some little nymph of air or light,
Whom love has touch'd and taken to the sky,
And bid her, till the inspiration quite

O'erwhelms, show'r kisses on my lip, and sigh
Such songs (and I will list to her for hours)
As once were sung in amaranthine bowers.

IX.

And I will lie pillow'd upon her breast,

And drink the music of her words, and dream
(When sleep shall bring at last a pleasant rest)
Haply of many a high immortal theme;
And, in the lightning of her beauty blest,

My soul may catch perhaps one thrilling beam
From her dark eyes-but, ah! your glorious day,
Ye nymphs and deities, now hath passed away.

Oh! ye delicious fables, where the wave

And woods were peopled and the air with
things

So lovely-why, ah! why has science grave,
Scatter'd afar your sweet imaginings?
Why sear'd the delicate flow'rs that genius gave,
And dash'd the diamond drops from fancy's
wings?

Alas! the spirit languishes, and lies
At mercy of life's dull realities.

XI.

No more by well or bubbling fountain clear
The Naiad dries her tresses in the sun,
Nor longer may we in the branches hear

The Dryad talk, nor see the Oread run
Along the mountains, nor the Nereid steer

Her way amongst the waves when day is done

Shadow nor shape remains-But I am prating While th' reader and Diego, both, are waiting.

XII.

Diego was a knight, but more enlighten'd
Than knights were then, or are, in his countree,
Young--brave-(at least, he'd never yet been
frighten'd,)

Well-bred, and gentle, as a knight should be: He play'd on the guitar, could read and write, and Had seen some parts of Spain, and (once) the

sea.

That sort of man one hopes to meet again, And the most amorous gentleman in Spain.

XIII.

There was a languor in his Spanish eye

XVIII.

Beneath the power of that passion he

Shrank like a leaf of summer, which the sun Has scorch'd ere yet in green maturityHe was a desperate gamester who ne'er won A single stake, but saw the chances flee,

And still kept throwing on till-all was done. A rose on which the worm had rioted

[All this was what his friends and others said.} XIX.

And yet, but one short year ago, his cheek

Dimpled and shone, and o'er it health had flung A colour, like the Autumn evening's streak, Which flushing through the darker olive, clung Like a rich blush upon him. In a freak

Men will, I'm told, or when their pride is stung

That almost touched on softness; had he been Call up that deepening crimson in girls' features:

Instead of man a woman, by the bye,

His languish had done honour to a queen!

For there was in it that regality

Of look, which says the owner must have been Something in former days, whatever now: And his hair curl'd (or was curl'd) o'er his brow.

XIV.

The Don Diego (mind this, Don Diego:
Pronounce it rightly,) fell in love. He saw
The daughter of a widow from Tobago,

Whose husband fell with honour: i. e. War
Ate up the lord of this same old virago,
Who straight return'd to Spain, and went to
law

With the next heir, but wisely first bespoke
The smartest counsel, for that's half the joke.

XV.

The lady won her cause; then suitors came
To woo her and her daughters: she had two:
Aurelia was the elder, and her naine,

Grace, wit, and so forth, through the country flew

Quicker than scandal: young Aurora's fame

She had no fame, poor girl, and yet she grew And brighten'd into beauty, as a flower Shakes off the rain that dims its earlier hour.

XVI.

Aurelia had some wit, and, as I've said,
Grace, and Diego loved her like his life;
Offer'd to give her half his board and bed,

In short he woo'd the damsel for a wife.
But she turned to the right about her head,

And gave some tokens of (not love but) strife; And bade him wait, be silent, and forget

Some people swear it makes 'em different cres.

tures.

XX.

For me, I always have an awkward feeling

When that vermilion tide comes flooding o'er The brows and breast, instead of gently stealing On, and then fading till 'tis seen no more; The first proceeds too from unhandsome dealing, And sudden leaves a paleness, if no more, Perhaps a frown. The last is born of pleasure, Or springs from praise, and comes and goes at leisure.

XXI.

His mistress-Shall I paint Aurelia's frown? Her proud and regal look, her quick black eye, Through whose dark fringes such a beam shot

down

On men (yet touch'd at times with witchery) As when Jove's planet, distant and alone,

Flashes from out the sultry summer sky And bids each lesser star give up its place. -This was exactly Miss Aurelia's case.

XXII.

Her younger sister,-she was meek and pale, And scarcely noticed when Aurelia near; None e'en had thought it worth their while to rai! On her, and in her young unpractised ear Those soft bewitching tones that seldom fail

To win had ne'er been utter'd. She did steer Her gentle course along life's dangerous sea For sixteen pleasant summers quietly.

XXIII.

Her shape was delicate: her motion free
As his, that " charter'd libertine" the air,

Such nonsense: He heard this, and-loved her Or Dian's, when upon the mountains she

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