The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 24

VII.

THE HERMIT.

Years fly; beneath the yew-tree shade Thy father's holy dust is laid; The brook glides on, the jasmine blows; But where art thou, the wandering wife, And what the bliss, and what the woes, Gla.s.s'd in the mirror-sleep of life?

For whether life may laugh or weep, Death the true waking--life the sleep.

None know! afar, unheard, unseen-- The present heeds not what has been; This herded world together press'd, Can miss no straggler from the rest-- Not so! Nay, all _one_ heart may find, Where Memory lives, a saint enshrined-- Some altar-hearth, in which our shade The Household-G.o.d of Thought is made, And each slight relic h.o.a.rded yet With faith more solemn than regret.

Who tenants thy forsaken cot-- Who tends thy childhood's favourite flowers-- Who wakes, from every haunted spot, The Ghosts of buried Hours?

'Tis He whose sense was doom'd to borrow From thee the Vision and the Sorrow-- To whom the Reason's golden ray, In storms that rent the heart was given; The peal that burst the clouds away Left clear the face of heaven!

And wealth was his, and gentle birth, A form in fair proportions cast; But lonely still he walk'd the earth-- The Hermit of the Past.

It was not love--that dream was o'er!

No stormy grief, no wild emotion; For oft, what once was love of yore, The memory soothes into devotion!

He bought the cot:--The garden flowers-- The haunts his Eva's steps had trod, Books--thought--beguiled the lonely hours, That flow'd in peaceful waves to G.o.d.

VIII.

DESERTION.

She sits, a Statue of Despair, In that far land, by that bright sea; She sits, a Statue of Despair, Whose smile an Angel seem'd to be-- An angel that could never die, Its home the heaven of that blue eye!

The smile is gone for ever there-- She sits, the Statue of Despair!

She knows it all--the hideous tale-- The wrong, the perjury, and the shame;-- Before the bride had left her vale, Another bore the nuptial name; Another lives to claim the hand Whose clasp, in thrilling, had defiled: Another lives, O G.o.d, to brand The b.a.s.t.a.r.d's curse upon her child!

ANOTHER!--through all s.p.a.ce she saw The face that mock'd th' unwedded mother's!

In every voice she heard the Law, That cried, "Thou hast usurp'd another's!"

And who the horror first had told?-- From _his_ false lips in scorn it came-- "Thy charms grow dim, my love grows cold; My sails are spread--Farewell."

Rigid in voiceless marble there-- Come, sculptor, come--behold Despair!

The infant woke from feverish rest-- Its smiles she sees, its voice she hears-- The marble melted from the breast, And all the Mother gush'd in tears.

IX.

THE INFANT-BURIAL

To and fro the bells are swinging, Heavily heaving to and fro; Sadly go the mourners, bringing Dust to join the dust below.

Through the church-aisle, lighted dim, Chanted knells the ghostly hymn, _Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla!_ Mother! flowers that bloom'd and perish'd, Strew'd thy path the bridal day; Now the bud thy grief has cherish'd, With the rest has pa.s.s'd away!

Leaf that fadeth--bud that bloometh, Mingled there, must wait the day When the seed the grave entombeth Bursts to glory from the clay.

_Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla!_ Happy are the old that die, With the sins of life repented; Happier he whose parting sigh Breaks a heart, from sin prevented!

Let the earth thine infant cover From the cares the living know; Happier than the guilty lover-- Memory is at rest below!

Memory, like a fiend, shall follow, Night and day, the steps of Crime; Hark! the church-bell, dull and hollow, Shakes another sand from time!

Through the church-aisle, lighted dim, Chanted knells the ghostly hymn; Hear it, False One, where thou fliest, Shriek to hear it when thou diest-- _Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla!_

X.

THE RETURN.

The cottage in the peaceful vale, The jasmine round the door, The hill still shelters from the gale, The brook still glides before.

Without the porch, one summer noon, The Hermit-dweller see!

In musing silence bending down, The book upon his knee.

Who stands between thee and the sun?-- A cloud herself,--the Wand'ring One!-- A vacant sadness in the eyes, The mind a razed, defeatured scroll; The light is in the laughing skies, And darkness, Eva, in thy soul!

The beacon shaken in the storm, Had struggled still to gleam above The last sad wreck of human love, Upon the dying child to shed One ray--extinguish'd with the dead: O'er earth and heaven then rush'd the night!

A wandering dream, a mindless form-- A Star hurl'd headlong from its height, Guideless its course, and quench'd its light.

Yet still the native instinct stirr'd The darkness of the breast-- She flies, as flies the wounded bird Unto the distant nest.

O'er hill and waste, from land to land, Her heart the faithful instinct bore; And there, behold the Wanderer stand Beside her Childhood's Home once more!

XI.

LIGHT AND DARKNESS.

When earth is fair, and winds are still, When sunset gilds the western hill, Oft by the porch, with jasmine sweet, Or by the brook, with noiseless feet, Two silent forms are seen; So silent they--the place so lone-- They seem like souls when life is gone, That haunt where life has been: And his to watch, as in the past Her soul had watch'd his soul.

Alas! _her_ darkness waits the last, The grave the only goal!

It is not what the leech can cure-- An erring chord, a jarring madness: A calm so deep, it must endure-- So deep, thou scarce canst call it sadness; A summer night, whose shadow falls On silent hearths in ruin'd halls.

Yet, through the gloom, she seem'd to feel His presence like a happier air, Close by his side she loved to steal, As if no ill could harm her there!

And when her looks his own would seek, Some memory seem'd to wake the sigh, Strive for kind words she could not speak, And bless him in the tearful eye.

O sweet the jasmine's buds of snow, In mornings soft with May, And silver-clear the waves that flow To sh.o.r.eless deeps away; But heavenward from the faithful heart A sweeter incense stole;-- The onward waves their source desert, But Soul returns to Soul!

THE FAIRY BRIDE.

A TALE[A]

PART I.

"And how canst thou in tourneys s.h.i.+ne, Or tread the glittering festal floor?

On chains of gold and cloth of pile, The looks of high-born Beauty smile; Nor peerless deeds, nor stainless line, Can lift to fame the Poor!"

His Mother spoke; and Elvar sigh'd-- The sigh alone confess'd the truth; He curb'd the thoughts that gall'd the breast-- High thoughts ill suit the russet vest; Yet Arthur's Court, in all its pride, Ne'er saw so fair a youth.

Far, to the forest's stillest shade, Sir Elvar took his lonely way; Beneath an oak, whose gentle frown Dimm'd noon's bright eyes, he laid him down And watch'd a Fount that through the glade, Sang, sparkling up to day.

"As sunlight to the forest tree"-- 'Twas thus his murmur'd musings ran-- "And as amidst the sunlight's glow, The freshness of the fountain's flow-- So--(ah, they never mine may be!)-- Are Gold and Love to Man."

And while he spoke, a gentle air Seem'd stirring through the crystal tides; A gleam, at first both dim and bright, Trembled to shape, in limbs of light, Gilded to sunbeams by the hair That glances where IT glides;[B]

Till, clear and clearer, upward borne, The Fairy of the Fountain rose: The halo quivering round her, grew More steadfast as the shape shone through-- O sure, a second, softer Morn The Elder Daylight knows!

Born from the blue of those deep eyes, Such love its happy self betray'd As only haunts that tender race, With flower or fount, their dwelling-place-- The darling of the earth and skies She rose--that Fairy Maid!

"Listen!" she said, and wave and land Sigh'd back her murmur, murmurously-- "A love more true than minstrel sings, A wealth that mocks the pomp of kings, To him who wins the Fairy's hand A Fairy's dower shall be.

"But not to those can we belong Whose sense the charms of earth allure?