The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 28

One tear bedew'd the Ladye's eyes, No tears beseem the day.

The dead can ne'er to life return "A marble tomb shall grace the Urn,"

She said, and turn'd away.

The marble rose the Urn above, The World went on the same; The Ladye smiled. Count Raimond's bride, And flowers, like hers, that bloom'd and died, Each May returning came.

The faded flower, the dream of love, The poison and the dart, The tearful trust, the smiling wrong, The tomb,--behold, O Child of Song, The History of thy Heart!

Narrative Lyrics.

OR,

THE PARCae;

IN SIX LEAVES FROM THE SIBYL'S BOOK.

The Parcae.--Leaf the First.

NAPOLEON AT ISOLA BELLA.

In the Isola Bella, upon the Lago Maggiore, where the richest vegetation of the tropics grows in the vicinity of the Alps, there is a lofty laurel-tree (the bay), tall as the tallest oak, on which, a few days before the battle of Marengo, Napoleon carved the word "BATTAGLIA." The bark has fallen away from the inscription, most of the letters are gone, and the few left are nearly effaced.

I.

O fairy island of a fairy sea, Wherein Calypso might have spell'd the Greek, Or Flora piled her fragrant treasury, Cull'd from each sh.o.r.e her Zephyr's wings could seek.-- From rocks, where aloes blow.

Tier upon tier, Hesperian fruits arise; The hanging bowers of this soft Babylon; An India mellows in the Lombard skies, And changelings, stolen from the Lybian sun, Smile to yon Alps of snow.

II.

Amid this gentlest dream-land of the wave, Arrested, stood the wondrous Corsican; As if one glimpse the better angel gave Of the bright garden-life vouschafed to man Ere blood defiled the world.

He stood--that grand Sesostris of the North-- While paused the car to which were harness'd kings; And in the airs, that lovingly sigh'd forth The balms of Araby, his eagle-wings Their sullen thunder furl'd.

III.

And o'er the marble hush of those large brows, Dread with the awe of the Olympian nod, A giant laurel spread its breathless boughs, The prophet-tree of the dark Pythian G.o.d, Shadowing the doom of thrones!

What, in such hour of rest and scene of joy, Stirs in the cells of that unfathom'd brain?

Comes back one memory of the musing boy, Lone gazing o'er the yet unmeasured main, Whose waifs are human bones?

IV.

To those deep eyes doth one soft dream return?

Soft with the bloom of youth's unrifled spring, When Hope first fills from founts divine the urn, And rapt Ambition, on the angel's wing, Floats first through golden air?

Or doth that smile recall the midnight street, When thine own star the solemn ray denied, And to a stage-mime,[A] for obscure retreat From hungry Want, the destined Caesar sigh'd?-- Still Fate, as then, asks prayer.

V.

Under that prophet tree, thou standest now; Inscribe thy wish upon the mystic rind; Hath the warm human heart no tender vow Link'd with sweet household names?--no hope enshrined Where thoughts are priests of Peace.

Or, if dire Hannibal thy model be, Dread lest, like him, thou bear the thunder _home_!

Perchance ev'n now a Scipio dawns for thee, Thou doomest Carthage while thou smitest Rome-- Write, write "Let carnage cease!"

VI.

Whispers from heaven have strife itself inform'd;-- "Peace" was our dauntless Falkland's latest sigh, Navarre's frank Henry fed the forts he storm'd.

Wild Xerxes wept the Hosts he doom'd to die!

Ev'n War pays dues to Love!

Note how harmoniously the art of Man Blends with the Beautiful of Nature! see How the true Laurel of the Delian Shelters the Grace!--Apollo's peaceful tree Blunts ev'n the bolt of Jove.

VII.

Write on the sacred bark such votive prayer, As the mild Power may grant in coming years, Some word to make thy memory gentle there;-- More than renown, kind thought for men endears A Hero to Mankind.

Slow moved the mighty hand--a tremour shook The leaves, and hoa.r.s.e winds groan'd along the wood; The Pythian tree the d.a.m.ning sentence took, And to the sun the battle-word of blood Glared from the gas.h.i.+ng rind.

VIII.

So thou hast writ the word, and sign'd thy doom: Farewell, and pa.s.s upon thy gory way, The direful skein the pausing Fates resume!

Let not the Elysian grove thy steps delay From thy Promethean goal.

The fatal tree the abhorrent word retain'd, Till the last Battle on its b.l.o.o.d.y strand Flung what were n.o.bler had no life remain'd,-- The crownless front and the disarmed hand And the' foil'd t.i.tan Soul;

IX.

Now, year by year, the warrior's iron mark Crumbles away from the majestic tree, The indignant life-sap ebbing from the bark Where the grim death-word to Humanity Profaned the Lord of Day.

High o'er the pomp of blooms, as greenly still, Aspires that tree--the Archetype of Fame, The stem rejects all chronicle of ill; The bark shrinks back--the _tree_ survives the same-- The _record_ rots away.

BAVENO, Oct. 8, 1845.