Chapter III: Part 3

Slight fleeces of denser mist are collecting in columns and squadrons across the sky, giving it a mottled aspect. They are still too thin materially to check the full-flooding of the moonlight; but, as they gradually enlarge themselves, a slow, gliding motion is perceived among them. They are wafted gently southward; but the breeze—if breeze there be to-night—will come from the opposite quarter; for the higher and lower currents of our atmosphere are almost invariably found thus at variance with each other. The signs of the weather augur nothing favorable to our success in speedily reaching the southern trades.

Mark! How the broad glare of the moon-beams on the water fades away as the vapors in the upper air increase in density! The starlight reflection has disappeared; and the bright little orb from which it was derived, still struggling hard to make itself conspicuous, shines on with fitful ray.—And now, it is extinct.—Even the waters have lost their azure hue, and all things above and below are rapidly becoming gray.

The swell is momentarily rising, though you discover no cause for the change. Though we feel not a puff of wind the sails flap less heavily against the mast, and occasionally they are buoyed up and bellied out for many seconds, as if lifted by the breath of some unseen spirit.

Listen to the voice of the waves!—For the sea has a voice as well as the winds—not only where it speaks in thunders, booming upon the level beach, or roars among the time-worn rocks of an iron-bound coast, but far off in its loneliness, also, where no barrier opposes its will. Who knows not the mild tone of the breeze of spring from the melancholy moan of the autumnal gale?—As different is the dull plash of the lazy billow in a settled calm from the threatening sound that precedes a storm.

But the steward is ringing his supper-bell. Let us go below, and if I mistake not, you will find all nature dressed in another garb when we return on deck.

* * * * *

An hour has passed,—and what a change!—The ship close hauled on a wind, no longer rolls listlessly over the swell; but, laboring slowly up each coming wave, she staggers and shivers from stem to stern, as the crest of the watery mountain dashes against the weather bow,—then, rushing down into the trough of the sea and plunging deep into the succeeding billow, she strains every shroud and back-stay with the sudden jerk of the masts, and sends a broad sheet of crackling foam to leeward from beneath the bows.

How different is this disagreeable motion from that which we enjoy when the wind is on the beam or the quarter!—Then, we glide gently over the sea-hills, and every wave seems playfully bent on urging us forward:—Now, we are opposed unceasingly by wind and swell, and must contest laboriously each foot of the battle-ground, till the strength of our enemies is exhausted—conscious the while, that every league we loose in this strange, fitful region, may cost us a week’s delay in the recovery.

This is “a young gale” that bids fair to prove precocious; for it is rapidly advancing towards maturity. But it cannot last. Nothing but a calm displays much tendency to permanence between the trades.

The heavens are dark as midnight:—no star or planet penetrates the gloom with a friendly ray:—yet the color of the overhanging vault is by no means uniform. Broad tracts or patches of intense obscurity cover the chief part of the field of view; but, at intervals, you may perceive long, moving, dusky lines dividing these heavy masses, made visible by a strange and unaccountable half illumination. As they sweep hurriedly by, on their northward course, seemingly almost within reach from the mast head, we are made painfully conscious that the wings of the tempest are hovering over us in dangerous proximity.

Except the lamps in the binnacle, there is no obvious source of light above or around us: yet the outlines of the vessel, with all the labyrinth of spars and rigging, are dimly traceable in the murky air. Whence do we derive this power of vision? you will naturally inquire.—A glance at the surface of the water will explain it.

Every wave, as it combs and breaks, bears on its summit a high crest of foam, visible at a great distance by its own moonlight, or soft silvery radiation. Each little ripple carries its tiny lantern. Wherever the sea is disturbed by the motion of the vessel, and especially at the bow, where the waters are rudely disparted, or in the wake, where they rush together violently as she shoots along, a gentle, milky light is broadly diffused; and here and there a brilliant spark is seen beneath the surface shining distinct and permanent, like a star submerged, or gleaming and disappearing alternately, like the fire-flies of June.

The phosphorescence of the sea is unusually feeble at present, but it is sufficient to prevent a total darkness, and by its aid we trace the dim forms of surrounding objects, while a slight reflection from the clouds betrays the threatening aspect of the weather.

Do you observe those singular luminous appearances resembling masses of pale fire, or torch lights, hurrying from place to place, turning and meandering in all directions, some feet beneath the waves, like comets liberated from their proper spheres, and wandering without rule in the abyss of waters? They are produced by fish that are playing about the vessel, and were we adepts in the sport we might chance to strike one with the grains by the glare of his own torch. But this requires the skill and long experience of many voyages. To strike a fish by day is difficult enough; for, even then, he is not to be found where he appears. When you look obliquely from the vessel’s side at any object in the water, refraction changes its apparent place to a much greater distance than the real one, and brings the image nearer to the surface. Success in reaching such an object requires your aim to be directed towards a point considerably below the spot at which your game is seen. At night the difficulty is much enhanced;—for it is not the fish itself that emits the light. The agitation produced by his rapid motions awakens the thousands of luminous animalcules swarming in every cubic foot of water, and, as they fire their little tapers in succession, they fall into the rear, while the fish darts onward under cover of the obscurity, leaving a brilliant wake which serves but to deceive, or sometimes to guide, his enemies, and to attract his prey.

But hark!—How the wind howls through the shrouds and whistles around the slender rigging!—The gale increases, and another change comes over the night scene. Do you observe how pitchy the gloom has grown to windward?—All traces of the clouds in that direction are lost.—Ha!—A flash of lightning!—Here it comes in earnest!—The pouring rain obscures even the phosphoric glimmering of the waves, and now we have “night and storm and darkness,” in all their terrible beauty! Who dares attempt to paint the scene in words!—On every hand,—above—around—within—all is confusion! The crew spring to their stations, while the loud command and the scarce audible response are mingled with the dash of waves, the roar of the blast, and the creaking of the wracked timbers in one discordant, unintelligible burst of sound.

You stand, or rather _hang_ by the mizzen shrouds, the centre of an invisible world where the maddened elements and hardy men contend for life or conquest. You hear them, but you see them not,—save when the electric flash tinges sea and cloud with momentary brilliance. Your eye detects the foot of the nearest mast, but you endeavor in vain to trace the tall spar upwards towards the lofty perch of those brave fellows on the yard, whose shrill voices—heard as if from a mile in the distance, in answer to the trumpet of the captain,—just reach the ear amid the din of a thousand unearthly voices, and add to the wizard wildness of the scene.

The storm swells loud and more loudly; but the yielding ship has risen from the first awful impression of its force and now careers furiously before it. The brailed but unfurled topsails flap with a dull and hollow thunder, as they whirl and rebound under the restraint of the clue-lines and the iron hands of the desperate crew. See that ghastly ball of purple flame leaping from spar to spar, like the visible spirit of the tempest![3]—Now it is on the foremast head,—now it glares on the bowsprit,—and again, it springs to the mainyard and flashes full in the face of you startled reefer, casting the hue of death over his boyish features, rendered clearly visible for a moment in the demon torchlight.

The first flurry of the squall is passed;—we are again on a wind!—but still wave follows wave, rolling on with an angry roar;—and each in turn, as it reaches the vessel, strikes the bow with a resounding crash. Every plank in the firmly-bolted hull trembles beneath the blow, while the billow sweeps off under the lea, hissing and frothing in baffled rage to find the gallant bark invulnerable to its power.—Ever and anon the vivid lightning gilds the wide circle of a boiling sea, covered with broad streaks of foam driven onward for miles in narrow belts before the wind, while the sharp, sudden thunder follows on the instant, with a single detonation, like the discharge of an enormous cannon. Here are no hills and valleys to awake the long reverberating echoes—no solid earth to fling back the war-note of the storm in proud defiance to the clouds!

The binnacle lamps are shining on a portion of the quarter-deck, and light up the form of the helmsman at the wheel. Firm and unmoved amid the elemental jar, he stands like a guardian spirit in the centre of an illuminated sphere, contrasted so strongly with the palpable darkness around, that the imponderable air itself is made to appear material and tangible. On him depends our fate. One error!—one instance of momentary neglect, and the mountain swell might overtop our oaken bulwarks, leaving us a shattered and unmanagable wreck upon the desert waste of waters!

But listen!—what mean those indescribable sounds making themselves audible at intervals above the roar of the gale? Look out into the gloom, and strive to penetrate the mingled rain and spray!

Do you not see from time to time, those undefined and monstrous shapes,—blacker than night itself,—rising from the deep and giving utterance to noises like the puff of a steam engine combined with the snorting of some mammoth beast? Even here, while winds and waves are raging—in this chaos of air and ocean, where the barriers of heaven and earth seem broken down, and spray and foam—the sea—the rain—the clouds—are whirled together in one wide mass of inextricable confusion—_even here_, there are beings whose joy is in the tempest, sporting their ungainly gambols—fearless of the scathing bolt and glorying in the pealing thunder!

We are surrounded by an army of the grampus whales. Their breathing adds a fiend-like wildness to the voices of the night,—and their dusky forms looming through the obscurity as they thrust their misshapen backs above the surface of the sea, give an almost infernal aspect to the scene, _if scene that may be called which is but half perceived_ in dimness that appears,

“Not light, but rather darkness visible.”

But come below!—We are happily exempt from the necessity of dangerous exposure, and the force of the salt spray that has been driven in our faces with stinging effect for the last half hour begins to weaken the impression of this magnificent display of Omnipotence. Man would find room for selfishness and vanity amid “the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.”—Your complexion is in danger! So if you would avoid the hard looks of a weather-beaten tar, it is time to seek the shelter of the cabin. There I can amuse you with pictures of other night scenes by sea and land, until this short-lived tropical squall is over, or you feel inclined to retire to your state room. In another hour we shall probably be bounding along merrily, with all sail set, and the moon beams sparkling and playing _hide-and-go-seek_ among the little rippling waves with which a six-knot breeze roughens a subsiding swell!

-----

[2] The scene of this sketch is laid in the tropical Atlantic, between the northern and southern trade-winds;—a region of calms and baffling winds.

[3] The corposant, an electric ball or brush of light, sometimes witnessed during storms at sea.

* * * * *

AGATHÈ.—A NECROMAUNT.

IN THREE CHIMERAS.

BY LOUIS FITZGERALD TASISTRO.

Chimera III.

Another moon! And over the blue night
She bendeth, like a holy spirit bright,
Through stars that veil them in their wings of gold;
As on she floateth with her image cold
Enamell’d on the deep, a sail of cloud
Is to her left, majestically proud!
Trailing its silver drapery away
In thin and fairy webs, that are at play
Like stormless waves upon a summer sea,
Dragging their length of waters lazily.

Ay! to the rocks! and thou wilt see, I wist,
A lonely one, that bendeth in the mist
Of moonlight, with a wide and raven pall
Flung round him.—Is he mortal man at all?
For, by the meagre firelight that is under
Those eyelids, and the vision shade of wonder
Falling upon his features, I would guess
Of one that wanders out of blessedness!
Julio! raise thee! By the holy mass!
I wot not of the fearless one would pass
Thy wizard shadow. Where the raven hair
Was shorn before, in many a matted layer
It lieth now; and on a rock beside
The sea, like merman at the ebb of tide,
Feasting his wondrous vision on decay,
So art thou gazing over Agathè!

Ah me! but this is never the fair girl,
With brow of light, as lovely as a pearl,
That was as beautiful as is the form
Of sea-bird at the breaking of a storm.
The eye is open, with convulsive strain—
A most unfleshly orb! the stars that wane
Have nothing of its hue; for it is cast
With sickly blood, and terribly aghast!
And sunken in its socket like the light
Of a red taper in the lonely night!

And there is not a braid of her bright hair
But lieth floating in the moonlight air,
Like the long moss beside a silver spring,
In elfin tresses, sadly murmuring.
The worm hath ’gan to crawl upon her brow—
The living worm! and with a ripple now,
Like that upon the sea, are heard below
The slimy swarms all ravening as they go,
Amid the stagnate vitals, with a crush;
And one might hear them echoing the hush
Of Julio, as he watches by the side
Of the dead ladye, his betrothéd bride!

And ever and anon a yellow group
Was creeping on her bosom, like a troop
Of stars, far up amid the galaxy,
Pale, pale, as snowy showers, and two or three
Were mocking the cold finger, round and round
With likeness of a ring; and, as they wound
About its bony girth, they had the hue
Of pearly jewels glistening in the dew.
That deathly stare! it is an awful thing
To gaze upon; and sickly thoughts will spring
Before it to the heart: it telleth how
There must be waste where there is beauty now.
The chalk! the chalk! where was the virgin snow
Of that once heaving bosom? even so,
The cold, pale dewy chalk, with yellow shade
Amid the leprous hues; and o’er it play’d
The straggling moonlight and the merry breeze,
Like two fair elves that by the murmuring seas
Woo’d smilingly together; but there fell
No life-gleam on the brow, all terrible
Becoming, through its beauty, like a cloud
That waneth paler even than a shroud,
All gorgeous and all glorious before;
For waste, like to the wanton night, was o’er
Her virgin features, stealing them away—
Ah me! ah me! and this is Agathè?

“Enough! enough! oh God! but I have pray’d
To thee, in early daylight and in shade,
And the mad-curse is on me still—and still!
I cannot alter the eternal will—
But—but—I hate thee Agathè! I hate
What lunacy hath made me consecrate:
I am _not_ mad!—_not now!_—I do not feel
That slumberous and blessed opiate steal
Up to my brain—oh! that it only would,
To people this eternal solitude
With fancies, and fair dreams, and summer-mirth,
Which is not now—and yet my mother earth
I would not love to lie above thee so
As Agathè lies there—Oh! no! no! no!
To have these clay worms feast upon my heart!
And all the light of being to depart
Into a dismal shadow! I could die
As the red lightnings, quenching amid sky
Their wild and wizard breath; I could away
Like a blue billow bursting into spray:
But never—never have corruption here
To feed her worms and let the sunlight jeer
Above me so. ’Tis thou! I owe thee, moon,
To-night’s fair worship; so be lifting soon
Thy veil of clouds, that I may kneel as one
That seeketh for thy virgin benison!”

He gathers the cold limpets as they creep
On the gray rocks beside the lonely deep,
And with a flint breaks through into the shell,
And feeds him—by the mass! he feasteth well.
And he hath lifted water in a clam
And tasted sweetly from a stream that swam
Down to the sea; and now is turn’d away
Again, again, to gaze on Agathè!
There is a cave upon that isle—a cave
Where dwelt a hermit-man: the winter wave
Roll’d to its entrance, casting a bright mound
Of snowy shells and fairy pebbles round;
And over were the solemn ridges strewn
Of a dark rock, that, like the wizard throne
Of some sea-monarch, stood, and from it hung
Wild thorn and bramble in confusion flung
Amid the startling crevices—like sky
Through gloom of clouds, that sweep in thunder by.
A cataract fell over, in a streak
Of silver, playing many a wanton freak;
Midway, and musical, with elfin glee
It bounded in its beauty to the sea,
Like dazzling angel vanishing away.
In sooth, ’twas pleasant in the moonlight gray
To see that fairy fountain leaping so,
Like one that knew not wickedness nor woe!

The hermit had his cross and rosary:
I ween like other hermits so was he,
A holy man and frugal, and at night
He prayed, or slept, or, sometimes, by the light
Of the fair moon went wandering beside
The lonely sea, to hear the silver tide
Rolling in gleesome music to the shore;
The more he heard he loved to hear the more.
And there he is, his hoary beard adrift
To the night winds, that sportingly do lift
Its snow-white tresses; and he leaneth on
A rugged staff, all weakly and alone,
A childless, friendless man!

He is beside
The ghastly Julio and his ghastlier bride.
’Twas wond’rous strange to gaze upon the two!
And the old hermit felt a throbbing through
His pulses—“Holy Virgin! save me, save!”
He deem’d of spectre from the midnight wave,
And cross’d him thrice, and pray’d and pray’d again:
“Hence! hence!” and Julio started as the strain
Of exorcisms fell faintly on his ear:
“I knew thee, father, that thou beest here
To gaze upon this girl, as I have been.
By yonder moon! it was a frantic sin
To worship so an image of the clay;
It was like beauty—but is now away—
What lived upon her features, like the light
On yonder cloud, all tender and all bright;
But it is faded as the other must,
And she that was all beauty is all dust.

“Father! thy hand upon this brow of mine
And tell me is it cold? But she will twine
No wreath upon these temples—never, never!
For there she lieth like a streamless river
That stagnates in its bed. Feel, feel me here,
If I be madly throbbing in the fear
For that cold slimy worm. Ay! look and see
How dotingly it feeds, how pleasantly!
And where it is have been the living hues
Of beauty, purer than the very dews.
So, father! seest thou that yonder moon
Will be on wane to-morrow, soon and soon?
And I, that feel my being wear away,
Shall droop beside to darkness: so, but say
A prayer for the dead, when I am gone
And let the azure tide that floweth on
Cover us lightly with its murmuring surf,
Like a green sward of melancholy turf;
Thou mayest, if thou wilt, thou mayest rear
A cenotaph on this lone island here,
Of some rude mossy stone, below a tree,
And carve an olden rhyme for her and me
Upon its brow.”

He bends, and gazes yet
Before his ghastly bride! the anchoret
Sate by him, and hath press’d a cross of wood
To his wan lips * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
“My son! look up and tell thy dismal tale.
Thou seemest cold, and sorrowful, and pale.
Alas! I fear that thou hast strangely been
A child of curse, and misery, and sin.
And this,—is she thy sister?”—“nay! my bride.”
“Anon! and thou?”—“True, true! but then she died,
And was a virgin, and is virgin still,
Chaste as the moon, that taketh her pure fill
Of light from the great sun. But now, go by,
And leave me to my madness, or to die!
This heart, this brain are sore.—Come, come, and fold
Me round, ye hydra billows! wrapt in gold,
That are so writhing your eternal gyres
Before the moon, which, with a myriad tiars
Is crowning you, as ye do fall and kiss
Her pearly feet, that glide in blessedness!
Let me be torture-eaten, ere I die!
Let me be mangled sore with agony!
And be so cursed; so stricken by the spell
Of my heart’s frenzy, that a living hell
Be burning there!—back! back if thou art mad—
Methought thou wast, but thou art only sad.
Is this thy child, old man? look, look, and see!
In truth it is a piteous thing for thee
To become childless—well a-well, go by!
Is there no grave? The quiet sea is nigh,
And I will bury her below the moon:
It may be but a trance or midnight swoon.
And she may wake. Wake, Ladye! ha! methought
It was like _her_.—Like her! and is it not?
My angel girl? my brain, my stricken brain!—
I know thee now!—I know myself again.”

He flings him on the ladye, and anon,
With loathly shudder, from that wither’d one
Hath torn him back. “Oh me! no more—no more!
Thou virgin mother! is the dream not o’er,
That I have dreamt, but I must dream again
For moons together, till this weary brain
Become distemper’d as the winter sea!
Good father! give me blessing; let it be
Upon me as the dew upon the moss.
Oh me! but I have made the holy cross
A curse; and not a blessing! let me kiss
The sacred symbol; for, by this—by this!
I sware, and sware again, as now I will—
Thou Heaven! if there be bounty in thee still,
If thou wilt hear, and minister, and bring
The light of comfort, on some angel wing
To one that lieth lone; do—do it now;
By all the stars that open on thy brow
Like silver flowers! and by the herald moon
That listeth to be forth at nightly noon,
Jousting the clouds, I swear! and be it true,
As I have perjured me, that I renew
Allegiance to thy God, and bind me o’er
To this same penance, I have done before!
That night and day I watch, as I have been
Long watching, o’er the partner of my sin!
That I taste never the delight of food,
But these wild shell-fish, that may make the mood
Of madness stronger, till it grapple death—
Despair—eternity!”

He saith, he saith,
And, on the jaundiced bosom of the corse,
Lieth all frenzied; one would see remorse,
And hopeless love, and hatred, struggling there,
And lunacy, that lightens up despair,
And makes a gladness out of agony.
Pale phantom! I would fear and worship thee,
That hast the soul at will, and givest it play,
Amid the wildest fancies far away;
That thronest reason, on some wizard throne
Of fairy land, within the milky zone,—
Some spectre star, that glittereth beyond
The glorious galaxies of diamond.

Beautiful lunacy! that shapest flight
For love to blessed bowers of delight,
And buildest holy monarchies within
The fancy, till the very heart is queen
Of all her golden wishes. Lunacy!
Thou empress of the passions! though they be,
A sister group of wild, unearthly forms,
Like lightnings playing in their home of storms!
I see thee, striking at the silver strings
Of the pure heart, and holy music springs
Before thy touch, in many a solemn strain,
Like that of sea-waves rolling from the main!
But say, is melancholy by thy side,
With tresses in a raven shower, that hide
Her pale and weeping features? Is she never
Flowing before thee, like a gloomy river,
The sister of thyself? But cold and chill,
And winter-born, and sorrowfully still,
And not like thee, that art in merry mood,
And frolicsome amid thy solitude?

Fair Lunacy! I see thee, with a crown
Of hawthorn and sweet daisies, bending down
To mirror thy young image in a spring:
And thou wilt kiss that shadow of a thing
As soulless as thyself. ’Tis tender, too,
The smile that meeteth thine! the holy hue
Of health! the pearly radiance of the brow!
All, all as tender,—beautiful as thou!
And wilt thou say, my sister, there is none
Will answer thee? Thou art—thou art alone,
A pure, pure being! but the God on high
Is with thee ever, as thou goest by.

Thou Poetess! that harpest to the moon,
And, in soft concert to the silver tune,
Of waters play’d on by the magic wind,
As he comes streaming, with his hair untwined,
Dost sing light strains of melody and mirth,—
I hear thee, hymning on thy holy birth,
How thou wert moulded of thy mother Love,
That came, like seraph, from the stars above.
And was so sadly wedded unto Sin,
That thou wert born, and Sorrow was thy twin.
Sorrow with mirthful Lunacy! that be
Together link’d for time, I deem of ye
That ye are worshipped as none others are,—
One as a lonely shadow,—one a star!

Is Julio glad, that bendeth, even now,
To his wild purpose, to his holy vow?
He seeth only in his ladye-bride
The image of the laughing girl, that died
A moon before—the same, the very same—
The Agathè that lisp’d her lover’s name,
To him and to her heart: that azure eye,
That shone through sunny tresses, waving by:
The brow, the cheek, that blush’d of fire and snow,
Both blending into one ethereal glow:
And the same breathing radiancy, that swam
Around her, like a pure and blessed calm
Around some halcyon bird. And, as he kiss’d
Her wormy lips, he felt that he was blest!
He felt her holy being stealing through
His own, like fountains of the azure dew,
That summer mingles with his golden light;
And he would clasp her, till the weary night,
Was worn away.
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
And morning rose in form
Of heavy clouds, that knitted into storm
The brow of Heaven, and through her lips the wind
Came rolling westward, with a tract behind
Of gloomy billows, bursting on the sea,
All rampant, like great lions terribly,
And gnashing on each other: and anon,
Julio heard them, rushing one by one,
And laugh’d and turn’d. The hermit was away
For he was old and weary, and he lay
Within his cave, and thought it was a dream,
A summer’s dream! and so the quiet stream
Of sleep came o’er his eyelids, and in truth
He dreamt of that strange ladye and the youth
That held a death-wake on her wasting form;
And so he slept and woke not till the storm
Was over.

But they came—the wind, and sea,
And rain and thunder, that in giant glee,
Sang o’er the lightnings pale, as to and fro
They writhed, like stricken angels!—white as snow
Roll’d billow after billow, and the tide
Came forward as an army deep and wide,
To charge with all its waters. There was heard
A murmur far and far, of those that stirr’d
Within the great encampment of the sea,
And dark they were, and lifted terribly
Their water-spouts like banners. It was grand
To see the black battalions, hand in hand
Striding to conflict, and their helmets bent
Below their foamy plumes magnificent!

And Julio heard and laugh’d. “Shall I be king
To your great hosts, that ye are murmuring
For one to bear you to your holy war?
There is no sun, or moon, or any star,
To guide your iron footsteps as ye go,
But I, your king, will marshal you to flow
From shore to shore. Then bring my car of shell,
That I may ride before you terrible;
And bring my sceptre of the amber weed,
And Agathè, my virgin bride, shall lead
Your summer hosts, when these are ambling low,
In azure and in ermine, to and fro.”

He said, and madly, with his wasted hand
Swept o’er the tuneless harp, and fast he spanned
The silver chords, until a rush of sound
Came from them, solemn—terrible—profound;
And then he dash’d the instrument away
Into the waters, and the giant play
Of billows threw it back unto the shore,
A shiver’d, stringless frame—its day of music o’er!
The tide, the rolling tide! the multitude
Of the sea surges, terrible and rude,
Tossing their chalky foam along the bed
Of thundering pebbles, that are shoring dread.
And fast retreating to the gloomy gorge
Of waters, sounding like a Titan forge!
It comes! it comes! the tide, the rolling tide!
But Julio is bending to his bride,
And making mirthful whispers to her ear,
A cataract! a cataract is near,
Of one stupendous billow, and it breaks
Terribly furious, with a myriad flakes
Of foam, that fly about the haggard twain;
And Julio started, with a sudden pain,
That shot into his heart; his reason flew
Back to her throne: he rose, and wildly threw
His matted tresses over on his brow.
Another billow came, and even now
Was dashing at his feet. There was no shade
Of terror, as the serpent waters play’d
Before him, but his eye was calm as death.
Another, yet another! and the breath
Of the weird wind was with it, like a rock
Unriveted it fell—a shroud of smoke
Pass’d over—there was heard, and died away,
The voice of one shrill-shrieking “Agathè!”

The sea-bird sitteth lonely by the side
Of the far waste of waters, flapping wide
His wet and weary wings; but he is gone,
The stricken Julio! a wave-swept stone
Stands there, on which he sat, and nakedly
It rises looking to the lonely sea;
But Julio is gone, and Agathè!
The waters swept them madly to their core—
The dead and living with a frantic roar!
And so he died, his bosom fondly set
On hers; and round her clay-cold waist were met
His bare and wither’d arms, and to her brow
His lips were press’d. Both, both are perish’d now!

He died upon her bosom in a swoon:
And fancied of the pale and silver moon,
That went before him in her hall of blue;
He died like golden insect in the dew,
Calm, calm and pure; and not a chord was wrung
In his deep heart—but love. He perish’d young,
But perish’d wasted by some fatal flame
That fed upon his vitals: and there came
Lunacy, sweeping lightly, like a stream,
Along his brain—he perish’d in a dream!

In sooth I marvel not
If death be only a mysterious thought,
That cometh on the heart and turns the brow
Brightless and chill, as Julio’s is now;
For only had the wasting struggle been
Of one wild feeling, till it rose within
Into the form of death, and nature felt
The light of the immortal being melt
Into its happier home beyond the sea,
And moon, and stars, into eternity!

The sun broke through his dungeon, long enthrall’d
By dismal clouds, and on the emerald
Of the great living sea was blazing down
To gift the lordly billows with a crown
Of diamond and silver. From his cave
The hermit came, and by the dying wave
Lone wander’d, and he found upon the sand,
Below a truss of sea-weed, with his hand
Around the silent waist of Agathè
The corse of Julio! Pale, pale, it lay
Beside the wasted girl. The fireless eye
Was open, and a jewell’d rosary
Flung round the neck; but it was gone—the cross
That Agathè had given.

Amid the moss
The hermit scoop’d a solitary grave
Below the pine-trees, and he sang a stave,
Or two, or three, of some old requiem
As in their narrow home he buried them;
And many a day before that blessed spot
He sate, in lone and melancholy thought,
Gazing upon the grave; and one had guess’d
Of some dark secret shadowing his breast.
And yet, to see him, with his silver hair
Adrift and floating in the sea-borne air,
And features chasten’d in the tears of woe,
In sooth, ’twas merely sad to see him so!
A wreck of nature floating far and fast,
Upon the stream of Time—to sink at last!

And he is wandering by the shore again,
Hard leaning on his staff; the azure main
Lies sleeping far before him, with his seas
Fast folded in the bosom of the breeze,
That like the angel Peace, hath dropt his wings
Around the warring waters. Sadly sings
To his own heart that lonely hermit-man,
A tale of other days when passion ran
Along his pulses like a troubled stream,
And glory was a splendor and a dream!
He stoop’d to gather up a shining gem
That lay amid the shells, as bright as them,
It was a cross, the cross that Agathè
Had given to her Julio; the play
Of the fierce sunbeams fell upon its face,
And on the glistening jewels—but the trace
Of some old thought came burning to the brain
Of the pale hermit, and he shrunk in pain
Before the holy symbol. It was not
Because of the eternal ransom wrought
In ages far away, or he had bent
In pure devotion, sad and reverent;
But now, he startled as he look’d upon
That jewell’d thing, and wildly he is gone
Back to the mossy grave, away, away:
“My child, my child! my own, own Agathè!”

It is her father,—he,—an alter’d man!
His quiet had been wounded, and the ban
Of misery came over him, and froze
The bright and holy tides, that fell and rose
In joy amid his heart. To think of her,
That he had injured so, and all so fair,
So fond, so like the chosen of his youth,—
It was a very dismal thought, in truth,
That he had left her hopelessly, for aye,
Within the cloister-wall to droop, and die!
And so he could not bear to have it be;
But sought for some lone island in the sea,
Where he might dwell in doleful solitude,
And do strange penance in his mirthful mood,
For this same crime, unnaturally wild,
That he had done unto his saintly child.
And ever he did think, when he had laid
These lovers in the grave, that, through the shade
Of ghostly features melting to decay,
He saw the image of his Agathè.

And now the truth had flash’d into his brain:
And he has fallen, with a shriek of pain,
Upon the lap of pale and yellow moss;
For long ago he gave that blessed cross
To his fair girl, and knew the relic still,
By many a thousand thoughts, that rose at will
Before it of the one that was not now,
But, like a dream, had floated from the brow
Of time, that seeth many a lovely thing
Fade by him, like a sea-wave murmuring.

The heart is burst!—the heart that stood in steel
To woman’s earnest tears, and bade her feel
The curse of virgin solitude,—a veil;
And saw the gladsome features growing pale
Unmoved: ’tis rent like some eternal tower
The sea hath shaken, and its stately power
Lies lonely, fallen, scatter’d on the shore;
’Tis rent like some great mountain, that before
The Deluge stood in glory and in might,
But now is lightning-riven, and the night
Is clambering up its sides, and chasms lie strewn,
Like coffins, here and there: ’tis rent! the throne
Where passions, in their awful anarchy,
Stood sceptred! There was heard an inward sigh,
That took the being, on its troubled wings,
Far to the land of deep imaginings!

All three are dead! that desolate green isle
Is only peopled by the passing smile
Of sun and moon, that surely have a sense,
They look so radiant with intelligence,—
So like the soul’s own element,—so fair!
The features of a God lie veiled there!

And mariners that have been toiling far
Upon the deep, and lost the polar star,
Have visited that island, and have seen
That lover’s grave: and many there have been
That sat upon the grey and crumbling stone,
And started as they saw a skeleton
Amid the long sad moss, that fondly grew
Through the white wasted ribs: but never knew
Of those who slept below, or of the tale
Of that brain-stricken man, that felt the pale
And wandering moonlight steal his soul away,—
Poor Julio, and the Ladye Agathè!

* * * * *

We found them,—children of toil and tears,
Their birth of beauty shaded;
We left them in their early years
Fallen and faded.

We found them, flowers of summer hue,
Their golden cups were lighted,
With sparkles of the pearly dew—
We left them blighted!

We found them,—like those fairy flowers
And the light of morn lay holy
Over their sad and sainted bowers—
We left them lonely.

We found them,—like twin stars, alone,
In brightness and in feeling;
We left them,—and the curse was on
Their beauty stealing.

They rest in quiet, where they are:
Their life time is the story
Of some fair flower—some silver star,
Faded in glory!

* * * * *

TO A SPIRIT.

BY JAMES ALDRICH.

Not the effulgent light
Of that bright realm where live the blest departed,
Nor the grave’s gloom, Oh! loved one, and true hearted,
Can hide thee from thy sight.

Thy sweet angelic smile
Beams on my sleep. I see thee, hear thy voice,
Thou say’st unto my fettered soul, “Rejoice!
Wait but a little while.”

Sometimes ’mid cloudlets bright,
The sunset splendors of a summer’s day,
An instant thou’lt appear, then pass away
From my entranced sight.

Up in the blue heavens clear
A never-setting star hast thou become,
Pouring a silvery ray, from thy far home,
Upon my pathway here.

Where tears ne’er dim the eyes,
Shall we not meet in some far blessed land?
Shall we not walk together, hand in hand,
In bowers of Paradise?

My soul, though chained and pent,
Sore of a future glorious career,
In all its God-appointed labor here,
Toils on in calm content.

* * * * *

ST. AGNES’ EVE.

A CHIT-CHAT ABOUT KEATS.

God bless you, Oliver, don’t think of such a thing! _I_ join the temperance society!—why, you old curmudgeon, would you murder me outright? Not that temperance societies haven’t done good—many a poor wife and weeping mother have they made happy—but, then, ever since I read Anacreon at college and shot buffalos at the Black Hills, I’ve had a fellow feeling for the good things of this life, especially for beef-steaks and port wine. I’m an Epicurean, sir—you needn’t talk to me of glory—I despise the whole cant about posthumous renown. The great end of life is happiness, and happiness is best secured by gratifying our physical as well as our intellectual nature. I go in, sir, for enjoying existence, and when I was in my prime, I flatter myself that few could beat me at a dinner or had a more delicate way of making love to the girls. But alas! we have fallen on troublous times. The wine of these days—I say it with tears in my eyes—isn’t the wine of my youth; and the girls—here’s a health to the sweet angels—have sadly deteriorated from what their grandmothers were. _Eheu! Eheu!_ The world is getting upside down, and I shouldn’t wonder if an earthquake or epidemic or some other calamity should overtake us yet to fill up the catalogue of our ills.

I have just been reading Keats—shame on the wretches who tortured him to death! He is a practical argument, sir, for my creed. Genius he had unquestionably, yet he never enjoyed a happy hour. Why was this? Born in humble life, he thirsted for distinction, and trusting to his genius to achieve renown, found himself assailed by hostile critics, who dragged his private life before the public eye, and sneered at his poetry with the bitter scorn of fiends. He was naturally of a delicate constitution—of a proud and aspiring character; but of a modesty as shrinking as the sensitive plant; and when he found himself slighted, abused, maligned—when he saw that he was thrust back at every attempt to elevate himself, his delicate nature gave way, and he died of a broken heart, requesting that his epitaph might be, “Here lies one whose name was writ on water.” The world, since then, has done tardy justice to his genius—but this did not soothe his sorrows, nor will it reach him in his silent grave. What to him is posthumous renown?—what the tears of this generation or the plaudits of the next? Had he been less sensitive, had he thirsted less after glory, he might still have been living, with matured powers, extorting even from his enemies deserved commendation. But he fell in his youthful prime, an eaglet pierced before it had learnt to soar. I have shed tears over his grave at Rome—let us drink to his memory in solemn silence.

Keats would have made a giant had he lived, sir. Everything he wrote evinced high genius. Each successive poem he published displayed increased merit. His sonnets remind me of Milton—his shorter pieces breathe of Lycidas or Venus and Adonis. He had little artistical skill, but then what an exuberant fancy! Few men had a finer perception of the beautiful, the το καλον of poetry. He is one of the most Grecian—if I may use the expression—of our poets. Shelley, perhaps, was more deeply imbued with the Attic spirit, but then, although his heart was always right, his intellect was always wrong, and thus it happens that his poetry is often mystic, obscure, and even confused. Keats was not so. He had this freshness without its mysticism. He delighted in themes drawn from classic fountains, in allusions breathing of Thessaly and the gods. There was in many of his poems a voluptuousness approaching to effeminacy, reminding one of the Aphrodite in her own fragrant bowers. In others of his poems there was an Arcadian sweetness. What is finer than his ode to the Grecian Urn? Do you remember the opening?

“Thou still unravished bride of quietness!
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities, or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstacy?”

Delicious, is it not? You seem to be in classic Greece itself, amid the groves of Academus, by the fountain of Castaly, beneath the god-encircled Olympus. You can hear the Dorian flutes, you can see the daughters of Ionia. There are the priest and his assistants leading the flower-decked heifer to the altar—lo! a group of bacchantes singing and dancing through the vale. And high up yonder is the snowy temple of Jove—a picture for the gods!

You shake your head—you have no taste for classic allusions. Egad! I remember, you are a devotee of the German literature, and admire nothing which is not of the romantic school, Well, well—have you ever read “The Eve of St. Agnes?” It is—let me tell you—the poem for which Keats will be loved, and you ought to walk barefooted a thousand miles, like an ancient pilgrim to Loretto, for having neglected to peruse this poem. It is not so fine as Hyperion, but then the latter is a fragment. It is as superior to Endymion as a star to a satellite. It pleases me more than Lamia or Isabella. It has the glow of a landscape seen through a rosy glass—it is warm and blushing, yet pure as a maiden in her first exceeding beauty. As Burgundy is to other wines, as a bride blushing to her lover’s side is to other virgins, so is “The Eve of St. Agnes” to other poems. What luxuriance of fancy, what scope of language, what graphic power it displays! It is a love story, and right witchingly told. How exquisite the description of Madeline, her moonlit chamber, her awakening from her dream, and the delicious intoxicating emotions which break on her when she learns that she loves and is beloved. Ah! sir, we are old now, but I never read this poem without thinking of the time when I first pressed my own Mary to my side, and felt her little warm heart beating against my own. Egad, I will just skip over “The Eve of St. Agnes,” to pass the time away while we finish this bottle.

The poem opens with a graphic picture of a winter’s night. Draw closer to the grate, for—by my ancestry!—it is a freezing theme. I will read.

“St. Agnes’ eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.”

The poet then proceeds to describe a festive scene, amid which is one fair lady, whose heart had throbbed all day on love, she having heard old dames tell that maidens might, on St. Agnes’ eve, behold their lovers in dreams, if they observed certain mystic ceremonies. The lovely Madeline has resolved to follow the old legend, and she sighs, amid her suitors, for midnight to arrive. Then goes the story thus:

“Meantime, across the moors,
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and implores
All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
But for one moment in the tedious hours,
That he might gaze and worship all unseen;
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such things have
been.”

In that vast mansion, amid all that gay party, young Porphyro has but one friend, an old beldame, for all the rest are athirst for his blood and that of his line. While watching thus, the beldame discovers him and beseeches him to fly. He refuses. In her garrulous entreaty she reveals to Porphyro that his mistress intends playing the conjurer to discover who shall be her lover. He eagerly makes a proposition, to which the old dame objects in horror, but after many protestations on his part and a rash declaration that otherwise he will reveal himself to his foes, she finally consents. And what was his proposition? Let the poet tell. It was

——“To lead him, in close secrecy,
Even to Madeline’s chamber, and there hide
Him in a closet, of such privacy
That he might see her beauty unespied,
And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,
While legion’d fairies paced the coverlet,
And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.”

The old dame accordingly leads the lover, through many a dusky gallery, to the maiden’s chamber, and then, hurriedly hiding him in a closet, is feeling in the dark on the landing for the stair,

“When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid,
Rose, like a missioned spirit unaware:
With silver taper’s light, and pious care,
She turn’d, and down the aged gossip led
To a safe level matting.”

Ah! we have few Madelines now-a-days. I love her for that act, as I would love an only daughter. Well may the poet exultingly say after this—

“Now prepare,
Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove frayed and fled.”

The whole picture that follows is purity itself. We wish the wind would whistle less loudly without—there! it dies away as if in homage to this maiden soft. Shut your eyes and dream, while I read in whispers.

“Out went the taper as she hurried in;
Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
She closed the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.

A casement high and triple-arched there was,
All garlanded with carven imageries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger moth’s deep damask’d wings.
And in the midst, ’mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded ’scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and kings.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon:
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory like a saint:
She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven:—Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
Half hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex’d she lay,
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress’d
Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain;
Clasp’d like a missal where swart Paynims pray,
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a rose again.”

And now, when the maiden is all asleep, her lover steals from his hiding place, and mixing a charm, kneels by her bedside, and while his warm unnerved arm sinks in her pillow, he whispers to her that he is her eremite, and beseeches her for sweet Agnes’ sake to open her eyes. But the maiden, lying there in her holy sleep, awakes not. At length he takes her lute, and kneeling by her ear, plays an ancient ditty. She utters a soft moan. He ceases—she pants quick—and suddenly her blue eyes open in affright, while her lover sinks again on his knees, pale as a sculptured statue. And Madeline awakening, and thinking that her blissful dream is over, begins to weep. At length she finds vent for her words, and are they not sweet as the complainings of a dove?

“Ah! Porphyro!” said she “but even now
Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,
Made tunable with every sweetest vow;
And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:
How changed thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!
Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,
Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!
O leave me not in this eternal woe,
For if thou diest, my love, I know not where to go.”

If you have ever been young, and heard, for the first time, the blushing confession of her you loved in doubt and danger, you can form some conception of the bewildering joy which seized Porphyro at this. Egad! sir, I would give ten years of my life—old as I am—to enjoy such rapture. But no tongue except that of the poet can even shadow forth his ecstacy. Ah! to be loved is bliss, but to be loved by a Madeline—!

“Beyond a mortal man impassioned far
At these voluptuous accents, he arose,
Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing star
Seen ’mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose;
Into her dream he melted, as the rose
Blendeth its odor with this violet,—
Solution sweet:”