THE TROUBADOUR; CATALOGUE OF PICTURES,
AND
HISTORICAL SKETCHES.

BY

L. E .L.

The age of chivalry is gone.
BURKE.

1825.

TO
WILLIAM JERDAN, ESQ.

THIS WORK
SO MUCH INDEBTED TO HIS KIND SURVEILLANCE,
IS INSCRIBED,
BY
THE OBLIGED AUTHOR, L. E. L.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Poem of The TROUBADOUR is founded upon an ancient custom of Provence, according to which a festival was held, and the minstrel who bore away the prize from his competitors was rewarded, by the lady chosen to preside, with a Golden Violet . It is hardly necessary to say, that this makes only the conclusion of the tale,--all the earlier parts being given to chivalrous adventure and to description characteristic of the age. L. E. L.

CONTENTS.

• THE TROUBADOUR   1

• PORTRAIT OF A LADY    257
• JULIET AFTER THE MASQUERADE   260
• THE COMBAT   265
• THE FAIRY QUEEN SLEEPING   267
• THE ORIENTAL NOSEGAY   273
• A CHILD SCREENING A DOVE FROM A HAWK   278
• THE ENCHANTED ISLAND   280
• CUPID AND SWALLOWS FLYING FROM WINTER   284
• LOVE NURSED BY SOLITUDE   289
• FAIRIES ON THE SEA SHORE   292
• A GIRL AT HER DEVOTIONS   297
• NYMPH AND ZEPHYR   301

• THE SULTANA'S REMONSTRANCE   305
• HANNIBAL'S OATH   309
• ALEXANDER AND PHILLIP   312
• THE RECORD   317

THE TROUBADOUR.

THE TROUBADOUR.
CANTO I.

CALL to mind your loveliest dream,--
When your sleep is lull'd by a mountain stream,
When your pillow is made of the violet,
And over your head the branches are met
Of a lime-tree cover'd with bloom and bees,
When the roses' breath is on the breeze,
When odours and light on your eyelids press
With summer's delicious idleness;

And upon you some shadowy likeness may glance
Of the faery banks of the bright Durance;
Just where at first its current flows
'Mid willows and its own white rose,--
Its clear and early tide, or ere
A shade, save trees, its waters bear.

    The sun, like an Indian king, has left
To that fair river a royal gift
Of gold and purple; no longer shines
His broad red disk o'er that forest of pines
Sweeping beneath the burning sky
Like a death-black ocean, whose billows lie
Dreaming dark dreams of storm in their sleep
When the wings of the tempest shall over them sweep.
--And with its towers cleaving the red
Of the sunset clouds, and its shadow spread

Like a cloak before it, darkening the ranks
Of the light young trees on the river's banks,
And ending there, as the waters shone
Too bright for shadows to rest upon,
A castle stands; whose windows gleam
Like the golden flash of a noon-lit stream
Seen through the lily and water-flags' screen:
Just so shine those panes through the ivy green,
A curtain to shut out sun and air,
Which the work of years has woven there.
--But not in the lighted pomp of the west
Looks the evening its loveliest;
Enter yon turret, and round you gaze
On what the twilight east displays:
One star, pure, clear, as if it shed
The dew on each young flower's head;

And, like a beauty of southern clime,
Her veil thrown back for the first time,
Pale, timid as she feared to own
Her claim upon the midnight throne,
Shows the fair moon her crescent sign.
--Beneath, in many a serpentine,
The river wanders; chesnut trees
Spread their old boughs o'er cottages
Where the low roofs and porticoes
Are cover'd with the Provence rose.
And there are vineyards: none might view
    The fruit o'er which the foliage weaves;
And olive groves, pale as the dew
    Crusted its silver o'er the leaves.
And there the castle garden lay
With tints in beautiful array:

Its dark green walks, its fountains falling,
Its tame birds to each other calling;
The peacock with its orient rings,
The silver pheasant's gleaming wings;
And on the breeze rich odours sent
Sweet messages, as if they meant
To rouse each sleeping sense to all
The loveliness of evening's fall.--
That lonely turret, is it not
A minstrel's own peculiar spot?
Thus with the light of shadowy grey
To dream the pleasant hours away.

    Slight columns were around the hall
With wreathed and fluted pedestal
Of green Italian marble made,
In likeness of the palm-trees' shade;

And o'er the ceiling starry showers
Mingled with many-colour'd flowers,
With crimson roses o'er her weeping,
There lay that royal maiden sleeping--
DANAE , she whom gold could move--
How could it move her heart to love?
Between the pillars the rich fold
Of tapestry fell, inwrought with gold,
And many-colour'd silks which gave,
Strange legends of the fair and brave.
And there the terrace covered o'er
With summer's fair and scented store;
As grateful for the gentle care
That had such pride to keep it fair.

    And, gazing, as if heart and eye
Were mingled with that lovley sky,

There stood a youth, slight as not yet
With manhood's strength and firmness set;
But on his cold, pale cheek were caught
The traces of some deeper thought,
A something seen of pride and gloom,
Not like youth's hour of light and bloom:
A brow of pride, a lip of scorn,--
    Yet beautiful in scorn and pride--
A conscious pride, as if he own'd
    Gems hidden from the world beside;
And scorn, as he cared not to learn
Should others prize those gems or spurn.
He was the last of a proud race
    Who left him but his sword and name,
And boyhood past in restless dreams
Of future deeds and future fame.

But there were other dearer dreams
Than the light'ning flash of these war gleams
That fill'd the depths of RAYMOND'S heart;
For his was now the loveliest part
Of the young poet's life, when first,
In solitude and silence nurst,
His genius rises like a spring
Unnoticed in its wandering;
Ere winter cloud or summer ray
Have chill'd, or wasted it away,
When thoughts with their own beauty fill'd
    Shed their own richness over all,
As waters from sweet woods distill'd
    Breathe perfume out where'er they fall.
I know not whether Love can fling
A deeper witchery from his wing

Than falls sweet Power of Song from thine.
Yet, ah! the wreath that binds thy shrine,
Though seemingly all bloom and light,
Hides thorn and canker, worm and blight.
Planet of wayward destinies
Thy victims are thy votaries!
Alas! for him whose youthful fire
Is vowed and wasted on the lyre,--
Alas! for him who shall essay,
The laurel's long and dreary way!
Mocking will greet, neglect will chill
His spirit's gush, his bosom's thrill;
And, worst of all, that heartless praise
Echoed from what another says.
He dreams a dream of life and light,
    And grasps the rainbow that appears

Afar all beautiful and bright,
    And finds it only formed of tears.
Ay, let him reach the goal, let fame
Pour glory's sunlight on his name,
Let his songs be on every tongue,
And wealth and honours round him flung:
Then let him show his secret thought,
Will it not own them dearly bought?
See him in weariness fling down
The golden harp, the violet crown;
And sigh for all the toil, the care,
The wrong that he has had to bear;
Then wish the treasures of his lute
Had been, like his own feelings, mute,
And curse the hour when that he gave
To sight that wealth, his lord and slave.

    But RAYMOND was in the first stage
Of life's enchanted pilgrimage:
'Tis not for Spring to think on all
The sear and waste of Autumn's fall:--
Enough for him to watch beside
The bursting of the mountain tide,
To wander through the twilight shade
By the dark, arching pine-boughs made,
And at the evening's starlit hour
To seek for some less shadowy bower,
Where dewy leaf, and flower pale,
Made the home of the nightingale.
Or he would seek the turret hall,
And there, unheard, unseen of all,
When even the night winds were mute,
His rich tones answer'd to the lute;

And in his pleasant solitude
He would forget his wayward mood,
And pour his spirit forth when none
Broke on his solitude, save one.

    There is a light step passing by
Like the distant sound of music's sigh;
It is that fair and gentle child,
Whose sweetness has so oft beguiled,
Like sunlight on a stormy day,
His almost sullenness away.

    They said she was not of mortal birth,
And her face was fairer than face of earth:
What is the thing to liken it to?
A lily just dipp'd in the summer dew--

Parian marble--snow's first fall?--
Her brow was fairer than each and all.
And so delicate was each vein's soft blue,
'Twas not like blood that wander'd through.
Rarely upon that cheek was shed,
By health or by youth, one tinge of red;
And never closest look could descry,
In shine, or in shade, the hue of her eye:
But as it were made of light, it changed,
With every sunbeam that over it ranged;
And that eye could look through the long dark lash,
With the moon's dewy smile, or the lightning's flash.
Her silken tresses, so bright and so fair,
Stream'd like a banner of light on the air,
And seldom its sunny wealth around
Was chaplet of flowers or ribbon bound;

But amid the gold of its thousand curls
Was twisted a braid of snow-white pearls,--
They said 'twas a charmed spell; that before,
This braid her nameless mother wore;
And many were the stories wild
Whisper'd of the neglected child.

    LORD AMIRALD , (thus the tale was told),
The former lord of the castle-hold,--
LORD AMIRALD had followed the chase
Till he was first and last in the race;
The blood-dy'd sweat hung on his steed,
Each breath was a gasp, yet he stay'd not his speed.
Twice the dust and foam had been wash'd
By the mountain torrent that over them dash'd;
But still the stag held on his way,
Till a forest of pine trees before them lay,

And bounding and crashing boughs declare
The stag and the hunter have enter'd there.
On, on they went, till a greenwood screen
Lay AMIRALD and his prey between:
He has heard the creature sink on the ground,
And the branches give way at his courser's bound.

    The spent stag on the grass is laid;
But over him is leant a maid,
Her arms and fair hair glistening
With the bright waters of the spring;
And AMIRALD paused, and gazed, as seeing
Were grown the sole sense of his being.

    At first she heard him not, but bent
Upon her pitying task intent;

The summer clouds of hair that hung
Over her brow were backwards flung,
She saw him! Her first words were prayer
Her gasping favourite's life to spare;
But her next tones were soft and low,
And on her cheek a mantling glow
Play'd like a rainbow; and the eye
That raised in pleading energy,
Shed, starlike, its deep beauty round,
Seem'd now as if to earth spell-bound.--
They parted: but each one that night
Thought on the meeting at twilight.

    It matters not, how, day by day,
Love made his sure but secret way.
Oh, where is there the heart but knows
Love's first steps are upon the rose!

And here were all which still should be
Nurses to Love's sweet infancy,--
Hope, mystery, absence:--then each thought
A something holy with it brought.
Their sighs were breathed, their vows were given
Before the face of the high Heaven,
Link'd not with courtly vanities,
But birds and blossoms, leaves and trees:--
Love was not made for palace pride,
For halls and domes--they met beside
A marble fountain, overgrown
With moss, that made it nature's own,
Though through the green shone veins of snow,
    Like the small Fairy's paved ways,
As if a relic left to show
    The luxury of departed days,

And show its nothingness. The wave
That princely brows was wont to lave
Was left now for the wild bird's bill,
And the red deer to drink their fill.
Yet still it was as fair a spot
As in its once more splendid lot:
Around, the dark sweep of the pine
Guarded it like a wood-nymph's shrine,
And the gold-spotted moss was set
With crowds of the white violet.
One only oak grew by the spring,
The forest's patriarch and king;
A nightingale had built her nest
In the green shadow of its rest;
And in its hollow trunk the bees
Dwelt in their honey palaces;

And underneath its shelter stood,
Leant like a beauty o'er the flood
Watching each tender bud unclose,
A beautiful white Provence rose;--
Yet wan and pale as that it knew
What changing skies and sun could do;
As that it knew, and, knowing, sigh'd,
The vanity of summer pride;
As watching could put off the hour
When falls the leaf and fades the flower.
Alas! that every lovely thing
Lives only but for withering,--
That spring rainbows and summer shine
End but in autumn's pale decline.

    And here the lovers met, what hour
The bee departed from the flower,

And droop'd the bud at being left,
Or as ashamed of each sweet theft,
What hour the soft wind bore along
The nightingale's moonlighted song.

    And AMIRALD heard her father's name,
He whose it was, was link'd with fame:
Though driven from his heritage,
A hunted exile in his age,
For that he would not bend the knee,
And draw the sword at Rome's decree.

    She led him to the lonely cot,
And almost AMIRALD wish'd his lot
Had been cast in that humbler life,
Over whose peace the hour of strife

Passes but like the storm at sea
That wakes not earth's tranquillity.

    In secret were they wed, not then
Had AMIRALD power to fling again
The banner of defiance wide
To priestly pomp and priestly pride;
But day by day more strong his hand,
And more his friends, and soon the brand
That in its wrongs and silence slept
Had from its blood-stain'd scabbard leapt.
But here are told such varying tales
That none may know where truth prevails;
For there were hints of murder done,
And deeds of blood that well might shun
All knowledge; but the wildest one

Was most believed: 'twas whisper'd round
Lord AMIRALD in hunting found
An evil spirit, but array'd
In semblance of a human maid;
That 'twas some holy word whose force
Broke off their sinful intercourse.
But this is sure, one evening late
Lord AMIRALD reach'd his castle gate,
And blood was on his spurs of gold,
And blood was on his mantle's fold,--
He flung it back, and on his arm
A fair young child lay pillow'd warm;
It stretch'd its little hands and smiled,
And AMIRALD said it was his child,
And bade the train their aid afford
Suiting the daughter of their Lord.

Then sought his brother, but alone;
Yet there were some who heard a tone
Of stifled agony, a prayer
His child should meet a father's care;
And as he past the hall again
He call'd around his vassal train,
And bade them own his brother's sway.
Then past himself like a dream away,--
And from that hour none heard his name,
No tale, no tidings of him came,
Save a vague murmur, that he fell
In fighting with the Infidel.

    But his fair child grew like a flower
Springing in March's earlier hour,
'Mid storm and chill, yet loveliest--
Though somewhat paler than the rest.

    Perhaps it was her orphan'd state,
So young, so fair, so desolate,--
Somewhat of likeness in their fate
Made RAYMOND'S heart for her confess
Its hidden depths of tenderness.
Neglected both; and those that pine
In love's despair and hope's decline,
Can love the most when some sweet spell
Breaks the seal on affection's well,
And bids its waters flow like light
Returning to the darken'd sight.
And while his fallen fortunes taught
RAYMOND'S proud solitude of thought,
His spirit's cold, stern haughtiness
In her was gentle mournfulness.
The cold north wind which bows to earth
The lightness of the willow's birth

Bends not the mountain cedar trees;
Folding their branches from the breeze,
They stand as if they could defy
The utmost rage of storm and sky.
And she, she would have thought it sin
To harbour one sweet thought within,
In whose delight he had no part,--
He was the world of her young heart.
A childish fondness, yet revealing
Somewhat of woman's deeper feeling,--
Else wherefore is that crimson blush,
As her cheek felt her bosom's rush
Upon her face, while pausing now
Her eyes are raised to RAYMOND'S brow,
Who, lute-waked to a ballad old,
A legend of the fair and bold.

BALLAD.

HE raised the golden cup from the board,
    It sparkled with purple wealth,
He kist the brim her lip had prest,
    And drank to his ladye's health.

Ladye, to-night I pledge thy name,
    To-morrow thou shalt pledge mine;
Ever the smile of beauty should light
    The victor's blood-red wine.

There are some flowers of brightest bloom
    Amid thy beautiful hair,
Give me those roses, they shall be
    The favour I will wear.

For ere their colour is wholly gone,
    Or the breath of their sweetness fled,
They shall be placed in thy curls again,
    But dy'd of a deeper red.

The warrior rode forth in the morning light,
    And beside his snow-white plume
Were the roses wet with the sparkling dew,
    Like pearls on their crimson bloom.

The maiden stood on her highest tower,
    And watch'd her knight depart;
She dash'd the tear aside, but her hand
    Might not still her beating heart.

All day she watch'd the distant clouds
    Float on the distant air,

A crucifix upon her neck,
    And on her lips a prayer.

The sun went down, and twilight came
    With her banner of pearlin grey,
And then afar she saw a band
    Wind down the vale their way.

They came like victors, for high o'er their ranks
    Were their crimson colours borne;
And a stranger penon droop'd beneath,
    But that was bow'd and torn:

But she saw no white steed first in the ranks,
    No rider that spurr'd before;
But the evening shadows were closing fast,
    And she could see no more.

She turn'd from her watch on the lonely tower
    In haste to reach the hall,
And as she sprang down the winding stair
    She heard the drawbridge fall.

A hundred harps their welcome rung,
    Then paused as if in fear;
The ladye enter'd the hall, and saw
    Her true knight stretch'd on his bier!

    THE song ceased, yet not with its tone
Is the minstrel's vision wholly flown;
But there he stood as if he had sent
His spirit to rove on the element.

But EVA broke on his trance, and the while
Play'd o'er her lip a sigh and a smile;--
"Now turn thee from that evening sky,
And the dreaming thoughts that are passing by,
And give me those buds, thou hast pluck'd away
The leaves of the rose round which they lay;
Yet still the boon thrice fair will be,
And give them for my tidings to me.
A herald waits in the court to claim
Aid in the Lady of Clarin's name;
And well you know the fair CLOTILDE
Will have her utmost prayer fulfill'd.
Go to the hall at once, and ask
That thine may be the glorious task
To spread the banner to the day
And lead the vassals to the fray."--

    He rush'd to the crowded hall, and there
He heard the herald's words declare
The inroad on her lands, the wrong
The lonely Countess suffer'd long,
And now SIR HERBERT'S arm'd array
Before her very castle lay;
But surely there was many a knight
Whose sword would strike for lady's right;
And surely many a lover's hand
In such a cause would draw the brand.

    And rush'd the blood, and flash'd the light
To RAYMOND'S cheek, from RAYMOND'S eye,
    When he stood forth and claim'd the fight,
And spoke of death and victory,

Those words that thrill the heart when first
Forth the young warrior's soul has burst.
And smiled the castle lord to see
His ward's impetuous energy.

    "Well! get thy sword, the dawning day
Shall see thee lead my best array;
Suits it young warrior well to fight
For lady's cause and lady's right?
'Tis just a field for knight to win
His maiden spurs and honours in."

    And RAYMOND felt as if a gush
Of thousand waters in one rush
Were on his heart, as if the dreams
Of what, alas! life only seems,

Wild thoughts and noontide revelries,
Were turn'd into realities.
Impatient, restless, first his steed
Was hurried to its utmost speed:
And next his falchion's edge was tried,
Then waved the helmet's plume of pride,
Then wandering through the courts and hall,
He paused in none yet pass'd through all.

    But there was one whose gentle heart
Could ill take its accustom'd part
In RAYMOND'S feelings, one who deem'd
That almost unkind RAYMOND seem'd:--
If thus the very name of war,
    Could fill so utterly each thought,

How durst she hope, that when afar
    EVA would be to memory brought.
Oh, she had yet the task to learn
How often woman's heart must turn
To feed upon its own excess
Of deep yet passionate tenderness!
How much of grief the heart must prove
That yields a sanctuary to love!

    And ever since the crimson day
Had faded into twilight grey,
She had been in the gallery, where
Hung, pictured, knight and lady fair,
Where haughty brow, and lovely face,
Show'd youth and maiden of her race.

    With both it was a favourite spot,
And names and histories which had not
A record save in the dim light
Tradition throws on memory's night
To them were treasures; they could tell
What from the first crusade befell.

    There could not be a solitude
More fitted for a pensive mood
Than this old gallery,--the light
Of the full moon came coldly bright--
A silvery stream, save where a stain
Fell from the pictured window pane,--
A ruby flush, a purple dye,
Like the last sun-streak on the sky,
And lighted lip, and cheek of bloom
Almost in mockery of the tomb.

How sad, how strange to think the shade,
The copy faint of beauty made,
Should be the only wreck that death
Shall leave of so much bloom and breath.
The cheek, long since the earth-worm's prey,
Beside the lovely of to-day
Here smiles as bright, as fresh, as fair,
As if of the same hour it were.

    There pass'd a step along the hall,
And EVA started as if all
Her treasures, secret until now,
Burnt in the blush upon her brow.
There was a something in their meeting,
A conscious trembling in her greeting,
As coldness from his eye might hide
The struggle of her love and pride;

Then fears of all too much revealing
Vanish'd with a reproachful feeling.

    What, coldness! when another day
And RAYMOND would be far away,
When that to-morrow's rising sun
Might be the last he look'd upon!

    "Come, EVA , dear! by the moonlight
We'll visit all our haunts to night.
I could not lay me down to rest,
For, like the feathers in my crest,
My thoughts are waving to and fro.
Come, EVA , dear! I could not go
Without a pilgrimage to all
Of garden, nook, and waterfall,--

Where, amid birds, and leaves, and flowers,
And gales that cool'd the sunny hours,
With legend old, and plaining song,
We found not summer's day too long."

    Through many a shadowy spot they past,
Looking its loveliest and its last,
Until they paused beneath the shade
Of cypress and of roses made,--
The one so sad, the one so fair,
Just blent as love and sorrow are.
And RAYMOND prayed the maiden gather,
And twine in a red wreath together
The roses. "No," she sigh'd "not these
Sweet children of the sun and breeze,
Born for the beauty of a day,
Dying as all fair things decay

When loveliest,--these may not be,
RAYMOND , my parting gift to thee."
From next her heart, where it had lain,
She took an amber scented chain,
To which a cross of gold was hung,
And round the warrior's neck she flung
The relique, while he kiss'd away
The warm tears that upon it lay.
And mark'd they not the pale, dim sky
Had lost its moonlit brilliancy,
When suddenly a bugle rang,--
Forth at its summons RAYMOND sprang,
But turn'd again to say farewell
To her whose gushing teardrops fell
Like summer rain,--but he is gone!
And EVA weeps, and weeps alone.

    Dark was the shade of that old tower
In the grey light of morning's hour;
And cold and pale the maiden leant
Over the heavy battlement,
And look'd upon the armed show
That hurrying throng'd the court below:
With her white robe and long bright hair,
A golden veil flung on the air,
Like Peace prepared from earth to fly,
Yet pausing, ere she wing'd on high,
In pity for the rage and crime
That forced her to some fairer clime.
When suddenly her pale cheek burn'd,
For RAYMOND'S eye to her's was turn'd;
But like a meteor past its flame--
She was too sad for maiden shame.

She heard the heavy drawbridge fall,
And RAYMOND rode the first of all;
But when he came to the green height
Which hid the castle from his sight,
With useless spur and slacken'd rein,
He was the laggard of the train.
They paused upon the steep ascent,
And spear, and shield, and breast-plate sent
A light, as if the rising day
Upon a mirror flash'd its ray.
They pass on, EVA only sees
A chance plume waving in the breeze,
And then can see no more--but borne
Upon the echo, came the horn;
At last nor sight nor sound declare
Aught of what pass'd that morning there.

Sweet sang the birds, light swept the breeze,
And play'd the sunlight o'er the trees,
And roll'd the river's depths of blue
Quiet as they were wont to do.
And EVA felt as if of all
Her heart were sole memorial.

THE TROUBADOUR.
CANTO II.

THE TROUBADOUR.

THE first, the very first; oh! none
Can feel again as they have done;
In love, in war, in pride, in all
The planets of life's coronal,
However beautiful or bright,--
What can be like their first sweet light?

    When will the youth feel as he felt,
When first at beauty's feet he knelt?

As if her least smile could confer
A kingdom on its worshipper;
Or ever care, or ever fear
Had cross'd love's morning hemisphere.
And the young bard, the first time praise
Sheds its spring sunlight o'er his lays,
Though loftier laurel, higher name,
May crown the minstrel's noontide fame,
They will not bring the deep content
Of his lure's first encouragement.
And where the glory that will yield
The flush and glow of his first field
To the young chief? Will RAYMOND ever
Feel as he now is feeling?--Never.

    The sun wept down or ere they gain'd
The glen where the chief band remain'd.

It was a lone and secret shade,
As nature form'd an ambuscade
For the bird's nest and the deer's lair,
Though now less quiet guests were there.
On one side like a fortress stood
A mingled pine and chesnut wood;
Autumn was falling, but the pine
Seem'd as it mock'd all change; no sign
Of season on its leaf was seen,
The same dark gloom of changeless green.
But like the gorgeous Persian bands
'Mid the stern race of northern lands,
The chesnut boughs were bright with all
That gilds and mocks the autumn's fall.

    Like stragglers from an army's rear
Gradual they grew, near and less near,

Till ample space was left to raise,
Amid the trees, the watch-fire's blaze;
And there, wrapt in their cloaks around,
The soldiers scatter'd o'er the ground.

    One was more crowded than the rest,
And to that one was RAYMOND prest;--
There sat the chief: kind greetings came
At the first sound of RAYMOND'S name.
"Am I not proud that this should be,
Thy first field to be fought with me:
Years since thy father's sword and mine
Together dimm'd their maiden shine.
We were sworn brothers; when he fell
'Twas mine to hear his last farewell:
And how revenged I need not say,
Though few were left to tell that day.--

Thy brow is his, and thou wilt wield
A sword like his in battle-field.
Let the day break, and thou shalt ride
Another RAYMOND by my side;
And thou shalt win and I confer,
To-morrow, knightly brand and spur."

    With thoughts of pride, and thoughts of grief,
Sat RAYMOND by that stranger chief,
So proud to hear his father's fame,
So sad to hear that father's name,
And then to think that he had known
That father by his name alone;
And aye his heart within him burn'd
When his eye to DE VALENCE turn'd,

Mark'd his high step, his warlike mien,--
"And such my father would have been!"

    A few words of years past away,
A few words of the coming day,
They parted, not that night for sleep;
RAYMOND had thoughts that well might keep
Rest from his pillow,--memory, hope,
In youth's horizon had full scope
To blend and part each varied line
Of cloud and clear, of shade and shine.
--He rose and wander'd round, the light
Of the full moon fell o'er each height;
Leaving the wood behind in shade,
O'er rock, and glen, and rill it play'd.

He follow'd a small stream whose tide
Was bank'd by lilies on each side,
And there, as if secure of rest,
A swan had built her lonely nest;
And spread out was each lifted wing,
Like snow or silver glittering.
Wild flowers grew around the dale,
Sweet children of the sun and gale;
From every crag the wild vine fell,
To all else inaccessible;
And where a dark rock rose behind,
Their shelter from the northern wind,
Grew myrtles with their fragrant leaves,
Veil'd with the web the gossamer weaves,
So pearly fair, so light, so frail,
Like beauty's self more than her veil.--

And first to gaze upon the scene,
Quiet as there had never been
Heavier step than village maid
With flowers for her nuptial braid,
Or louder sound than hermit's prayer,
To crush its grass or load its air.
Then to look on the armed train,
The watch-fire on the wooded plain,
And think how with the morrow's dawn,
Would banner wave, and blade be drawn;
How clash of steel, and trumpet's swell,
Would wake the echoes of each dell.
--And thus it ever is with life,
Peace sleeps upon the breast of Strife,
But to be waken'd from its rest,
Till comes that sleep the last and best.

    And RAYMOND paused at last, and laid
Himself beneath a chesnut's shade,
A little way apart from all,
That he might catch the waterfall,
Whose current swept like music round,--
When suddenly another sound
Came on the ear; it was a tone,
    Rather a murmur than a song,
As he who breathed deem'd all unknown
    The words, thoughts, echo bore along.
Parting the boughs which hung between,
Close, thick, as if a tapestried screen,
RAYMOND caught sight of a white plume
Waving o'er brow and cheek of bloom;
And yet the song was sad and low,
As if the chords it waked were woe.

SONG OF THE YOUNG KNIGHT.

YOUR scarf is bound upon my breast,
Your colours dance upon my crest,--
They have been soil'd by dust and rain,
And they must wear a darker stain.

I mark'd thy tears as fast they fell,
I saw but heard not thy farewell,
I gave my steed the spur and rein,--
I dared not look on thee again.

My cheek is pale, but not with fears,
And I have dash'd aside my tears;
This woman's softness of my breast
Will vanish when my spear's in rest.

I know that farewell was our last,
That life and love from me are past;
For I have heard the fated sign
That speaks the downfall of our line.

I slept the soldier's tired sleep;
But yet I heard the music sweep,
Dim, faint, as when I stood beside
The bed whereon my father died.

Farewell, sweet love! never again
Will thine ear listen to the strain
With which so oft at midnight's hour
I've waked the silence of thy bower.

Farewell! I would not tears should stain
Thy fair cheek with their burning rain:

Tears, sweet! would an ill offering be
To one whose death was worthy thee.

    RAYMOND thought on that song next day
When bleeding that young warrior lay,
While his hand, in its death-pang, prest
A bright curl to his wounded breast.

    AND waning stars, and brightening sky,
And on the clouds a crimson dye,
And fresher breeze, and opening flowers,
Tell the approach of morning hours.

Oh, how can breath, and light, and bloom,
Herald a day of death and doom!
With knightly pennons, which were spread
Like mirror's for the morning's red,
Gather the ranks, while shout and horn
Are o'er the distant mountains borne.

    'Twas a fair sight, that arm'd array
Winding through the deep vale their way,
Helmet and breast-plate gleaming in gold,
Banners waving their crimson fold,
Like clouds of the day-break: hark to the peal
Of the war-cry, answer'd by clanging steel!
The young chief strokes his courser's neck,
The ire himself had provoked to check,

Impatient for that battle plain
He may reach but never leave again;
And with flashing eye and sudden start,
    He hears the trumpet's stately tone,
Like the echo of his beating heart,
    And meant to rouse his ear alone.
And by his side the warrior grey,
With hair as white as the plumes that play
Over his head, yet spurs he as proud,
As keen as the youngest knight of the crowd:
And glad and glorious on they ride
In strength and beauty, power and pride.
And such the morning, but let day
Close on that gallant fair array,
The moon will see another sight
Than that which met the dawning light.--

Look on that field,--'tis the battle field!
Look on what harvest victory will yield!
There the steed and his rider o'erthrown,
Crouch together, their warfare is done:
The bolt is undrawn, the bow is unbent,
And the archer lies like his arrow spent.
Deep is the banner of crimson dyed,
But not with the red of its morning pride;
Torn and trampled with soil and stain,
When will it float on the breeze again;--
And over the ghastly plain are spread,
Pillow'd together, the dying and dead.

    There lay one with an unclosed eye
Set in bright, cold vacancy,
While on its fix'd gaze the moonbeam shone,
Light mocking the eye whose light was gone;

And by his side another lay,
The life-blood ebbing fast away,
But calm his cheek and calm his eye,
As if leant on his mother's bosom to die.
Too weak to move, he feebly eyed
A wolf and a vulture close to his side,
Watching and waiting, himself the prey,
While each one kept the other away.

    Little of this the young warrior deems
When, with heart and head all hopes and dreams,
He hastes for the battle:--The trumpet's call
Waken'd RAYMOND the first of all;
His the first step that to stirrup sprung,
His the first banner upwards flung;
And brow and cheek with his spirit glow'd,
When first at DE VALENCE'S side he rode.

    The quiet glen is left behind,
The dark wood lost in the blue sky;
    When other sounds come on the wind,
And other pennons float on high.
With snow-white plumes and glancing crest,
And standard raised, and spear in rest,
On a small river's farther banks
Wait their approach Sir HERBERT'S ranks.--
One silent gaze, as if each band
Could slaughter both with eye and hand.
Then peals the war-cry! then the dash
Amid the waters! and the crash
Of spears,--the falchion's iron ring,--
The arrow hissing from the string,
Tell they have met. Thus from the height
The torrent rushes in its might.

With the lightning's speed, the thunder's peal,
Flashes the lance, and strikes the steel.
Many a steed to the earth is borne,
Many a banner trampled and torn;
Or ever its brand could strike a blow,
Many a gallant arm lies low;--
Many a scarf, many a crest,
Float with the leaves on the river's breast;
And strange it is to see how around
Buds and flowers strew the ground,
For the banks were cover'd with wild rose trees,
Oh! what should they do amid scenes like these.

    In the blue stream, as it hovered o'er,
A hawk was mirror'd, and before
Its wings could reach yon pine, which stands
A bow-shot off from the struggling bands,

The stain of death was on the flood,
And the red waters roll'd dark with blood.--
RAYMOND'S spear was the first that flew,
He the first who dash'd the deep river through;
His step the first on the hostile strand,
And the first that fell was borne down by his hand.

    The fight is ended:--the same sun
Has seen the battle lost and won;
The field is cover'd with dying and dead,
With the valiant who stood, and the coward who fled.
And a gallant salute the trumpets sound,
As the warriors gather from victory around.

    On a hill that skirted the purple flood,
With his peers around, DE VALENCE stood,

And with bended knee, and forehead bare,
Save its cloud of raven hair,
And beautiful as some wild star
Come in its glory and light from afar,
With his dark eyes flashing stern and bright,
And his cheek o'erflooded with crimson light,
And the foeman's banner over his head,
His first field's trophy proudly spread,
Knelt RAYMOND down his boon to name,--
The knightly spurs he so well might claim:
And a softness stole to DE VALENCE'S eyes,
As he bade the new-made knight arise.--
From his own belt he took the brand,
And gave it into RAYMOND'S hand,
And said it might a memory yield
Of his father's friend, and his own first field.

    Pleasant through the darkening night
Shines from Clarin's towers the light.
Home from the battle the warriors ride,
In the soldiers' triumph, and soldiers' pride:
The drawbridge is lower'd, and in they pour,
Like the sudden rush of a summer shower,
While the red torch-light bursts through the gloom,
Over banner and breast-plate, helm and plume.

    Sudden a flood of lustre play'd
Over a lofty ballustrade,
Music and perfume swept the air,
Messengers sweet for the spring to prepare;
And like a sunny vision sent
For worship and astonishment,
Aside a radiant ladye flung
The veil that o'er her beauty hung.

With stately grace to those below,
She bent her gem encircled brow,
And bade them welcome in the name
Of her they saved, the castle's dame,
Who had not let another pay
Thanks, greeting to their brave array,--
But she had vow'd the battle night
To fasting, prayer, and holy rite.

    On the air the last tones of the music die,
The odour passes away like a sigh,
The torches flash a parting gleam,
And she vanishes as she came, like a dream.
But many an eye dwelt on the shade,
Till fancy again her form display'd,
And still again seem'd many an ear
The softness of her voice to hear.

And many a heart had a vision that night,
Which future years never banish'd quite.

    And sign and sound of festival
Are ringing through that castle hall;
Tapers, whose flame send a perfumed cloud,
Flash their light o'er a gorgeous crowd;
With a thousand colours the tapestry falls
Over the carved and gilded walls,
And, between, the polish'd oak pannels hear,
Like dark mirrors, the image of each one there.
At one end the piled up hearth is spread
With sparkling embers of glowing red:
Above the branching antlers have place,
Sign of many a hard won chase;
And beneath, in many a polish'd line,
The arms of the hunter and warrior shine;

And around the fire, like a laurell'd arch,
Raised for some victor's triumphal march,
The wood is fretted with tracery fair,
And green boughs and flowers are waving there.
Lamps, like faery planets shine,
O'er massive cups of the genial wine,
And shed a ray more soft and fair
Than the broad red gleam of the torch's glare;
And, flitting like a rainbow, plays
In beautiful and changing rays,
When from the pictured windows fall
The colour'd shadows o'er the hall;
As every pane some bright hue lent
To vary the lighted element.

    The ladye of the festive board
Was ward to the castle's absent lord;

The Ladye ADELINE ,--the same
Bright vision that with their greeting came
Maidens four stood behind her chair,
Each one was young, and each one fair;
Yet they were but as the stars at night
When the mood shines forth in her fullness of light
On the knot of her wreathed hair was set
A blood-red ruby coronet;
But among the midnight cloud of curls
That hung o'er her brow were eastern pearls,
As if to tell their wealth of snow,
How white her forehead could look below.
Around her floated a veil of white,
Like the silvery rack round the star of twilight;
And down to the ground her mantle's fold
Spread its length of purple and gold;

And sparkling gems were around her arm,
That shone like marble, only warm,
With the blue veins wandering tide,
And the hand with its crimson blush inside.
A zone of precious stones embraced
The graceful circle of her waist,
Sparkling as if they were proud
Of the clasp to them allow'd.
But yet there was 'mid this excess
Of soft and dazzling loveliness,
A something in the eye, and hand,
And forehead, speaking of command:
An eye whose dark flash seem'd allied
To even more than beauty's pride,--
A hand as only used to wave
Its sign to worshipper and slave,--

A forehead, but that was too fair
To read of aught but beauty there!

    And RAYMOND had the place of pride,
The place so envied by her side,--
The victor's seat,--and overhead
The banner he had won was spread.
His health was pledged!--he only heard
The murmur of one silver word;
The pageant seem'd to fade away,
Vanish'd the board and glad array,
The gorgeous hall around grew dim,
There shone one only light for him,
That radiant form, whose brightness fell
In power upon him like a spell,

Laid in its strength by Love to reign
Despotic over heart and brain.
Silent he stood amid the mirth,
Oh, love is timid in its birth!
Watching her lightest look or stir,
As he but look'd and breathed with her.
Gay words were passing, but he leant
In silence; yet, one quick glance sent,--
His secret is no more his own,
When has woman her power not known?

    The feast broke up:--that midnight shade
Heard many a gentle serenade
Beneath the ladye's lattice. One
Breathed after all the rest were gone.

SERENADE.

    SLEEP , ladye! for the moonlit hour,
    Like peace, is shining on thy bower;
    It is so late, the nightingale
    Has ended even his love tale.

    Sleep, ladye! 'neath thy turret grows,
    Cover'd with flowers, one pale white rose;
    I envy its sweet sighs, they steep
    The perfumed airs that lull thy sleep.

    Perchance, around thy chamber floats
    The music of my lone lute notes,--
    Oh, may they on thine eyelids fall,
    And make thy slumbers musical!

    Sleep, ladye! to thy rest be given
    The gleamings of thy native heaven,
    And thoughts of early paradise,
    The treasures of thy sleeping eyes.

    I NEED not say whose was the song
The sighing night winds bore along.
RAYMOND had left the maiden's side
As one too dizzy with the tide
To breast the stream, or strive, or shrink,
Enough for him to feel, not think;
Enough for him the dim sweet fear,
The twilight of the heart, or ere
Awakening hope has named the name
Of love, or blown its spark to flame.

Restlessness, but as the winds range
    From leaf to leaf, from flower to flower;
Changefulness, but as rainbows change,
    From colour'd sky to sunlit hour.
Ay, well indeed may minstrel sing,--
What have the heart and year like spring?

    Her vow was done: the castle dame
Next day to join the revellers came;
And never had a dame more gay
O'er hall or festival held sway.
And youthful knight, and ladye fair,
And juggler quaint, and minstrel rare,
And mirth, and crowds, and music, all
Of pleasure gather'd at her call.

    And RAYMOND moved as in a dream
Of song and odour, bloom and beam,
As he dwelt in a magic bower,
Charm'd from all by fairy power.
--And ADELINE rode out that morn,
With hunting train, and hawk, and horn;
And broider'd rein, and curb of gold,
And housings with their purple fold
Decked the white steed o'er which she leant
Graceful as a young cypress, bent
By the first summer wind: she wore
A cap the heron plume waved o'er,
And round her wrist a golden band,
Which held the falcon on her hand.
The bird's full eye, so clear, so bright,
Match'd not her own's dark flashing light.

And RAYMOND , as he watch'd the dyes
Of her cheek rich with exercise,
Could almost deem her beauty's power
Was now in its most potent hour;
But when at night he saw her glance
The gayest of the meteor dance,
The jewels in her braided hair,
Her neck, her arms of ivory bare,
The silver veil, the broider'd vest,--
Look'd she not then her loveliest?
Ah, every change of beauty's face
And beauty's shape has its own grace!
That night his heart throbb'd when her hand
Met his touch in the saraband:
That night her smile first bade love live
On the sweet life that hope can give.--

Beautiful, but thrice wayward, wild,
Capricious as a petted child,
She was all chance, all change; but now
A smile is on her radiant brow,--
A moment and that smile is fled,
Coldness and scorn are there instead.

    Ended the dance, and ADELINE
Flung herself, like an eastern queen,
Upon the cushions which were laid
    Amid a niche of that gay hall,
Hid from the lamps; around it play'd
    The softness of the moonlight fall.
And there the gorgeous shapes past by
But like a distant pageantry,
In which you have yourself no share,
For all its pride, and pomp, and care.

    She pass'd her hand across the chords
Of a lute near, and with soft words
Answer'd; then said, "no, thou shalt sing
Some legend of the fair and brave."
To RAYMOND'S hand the lute she gave,
Whose very soul within him burn'd
When her dark eye on his was turn'd:
One moment's pause, it slept not long,--
His spirit pour'd itself in song.

ELENORE.

    THE lady sits in her lone bower,
    With cheek wan as the white rose flower
    That blooms beside, 'tis pale and wet
    As that rose with its dew pearls set.

    Her cheek burns with a redder dye,
    Flashes light from her tearful eye;
    She has heard pinions beat the air,
    She sees her white dove floating there;
    And well she knows its faithful wing,
    The treasure of her heart will bring;
    And takes the gentle bird its stand
    Accustom'd on the maiden's hand,
    With glancing eye and throbbing breast,
    As if rejoicing in its rest.
    She read the scroll,--"dear love, to-night
    By the lake, all is there for flight
    What time the moon is down;--oh, then
    My own life shall we meet again!"
    One upward look of thankfulness,
    One pause of joy, one fond caress

    Of her soft lips, as to reward
    The messenger of EGINHARD .

        That night in her proud father's hall
    She shone the fairest one of all;
    For like the cloud of evening came
    Over her cheek the sudden flame,
    And varying as each moment brought
    Some hasty change of secret thought;
    As if its colour would confess
    The conscious heart's inmost recess.
    And the clear depths of her dark eye
    Were bright with troubled brilliancy,
    Yet the lids droop'd as with the tear
    Which might oppress but not appear.
    And flatteries, and smile and sigh
    Loaded the air as she past by.

    It sparkled, but her jewell'd vest
    Was crost above a troubled breast:
    Her curls, with all their sunny glow,
    Were braided o'er an aching brow:
    But well she knew how many sought
    To gaze upon her secret thought;--
    And Love is proud,--she might not brook
    That other's on her heart should look.
    But there she sate, cold, pale, and high,
    Beneath her purple canopy;
    And there was many a mutter'd word,
    And one low whisper'd name was heard,--
    The name of EGINHARD ,--that name
    Like some forbidden secret came.

        The theme went, that he dared to love
    One like a star his state above;

    Here to the princess turn'd each eye,--
    And it was said, he did not sigh
    With love that pales the pining cheek,
    And leaves the slighted heart to break.
    And then a varying tale was told,
    How a page had betray'd for gold;
    But all was rumour light and vain,
    That all might hear, but none explain.

        Like one that seeks a festival,
    Early the princess left the hall;
    Yet said she, sleep dwelt on her eyes,
    That she was worn with revelries.
    And hastily her maidens' care
    Unbinds the jewels from her hair.
    Odours are round her chamber strown,
    And ELENORE is left alone.

        With throbbing heart, whose pulses beat
    Louder than fall her ivory feet,
    She rises from her couch of down;
    And, hurriedly, a robe is thrown
    Around her form, and her own hand
    Lets down her tresses golden band.
    Another moment she has shred
    Those graceful tresses from her head.
    There stands a plate of polish'd steel,
    She folds her cloak as to conceal
    Her strange attire, for she is drest
    As a young page in dark green vest.
    Softly she steps the balustrade,
    Where myrtle, rose, and hyacinth made
    A passage to the garden shade.

        It was a lovely summer night,
    The air was incense-fill'd, the light
    Was dim and tremulous, a gleam,
    When a star, mirror'd on the stream,
    Sent a ray round just to reveal
    How gales from flower to flower steal.
    "It was on such a night as this,
    When even a single breath is bliss,
    Such a soft air, such a mild heaven,
    My vows to EGINHARD were given."
    Sigh'd ELENORE , "Oh, might it be
    A hope, a happy augury!"

        She reach'd the lake,--a blush, a smile,
    Contended on her face the while;

    And safely in a little cove,
    Shelter'd by willow trees above,
    An ambuscade from all secured,
    Her lover's little boat lay moor'd.--
    One greeting word, with muffled oar,
    And silent lip, they left that shore.

        It was most like a phantom dream
    To see that boat flit o'er the stream,
    So still, that but yet less and less
    It grew, it had seem'd motionless.
    And then the silent lake, the trees
    Visible only when the breeze
    Aside the shadowy branches threw,
    And let one single star shine through,
    While the faint glimmer scarcely gave
    To view the wanderers of the wave.

        The breeze has borne the clouds away
    That veil'd the blushes of young day;
    The lark has sung his morning song;--
    Surely the princess slumbers long.
    And now it is the accustom'd hour
    Her royal father seeks her bower,
    When her soft voice and gentle lute,
    The snowfall of her fairy foot,
    The flowers she has cull'd, with dew
    Yet moist upon each rainbow hue;
    The fruits with bloom upon their cheek,
    Fresh as the morning's first sun streak;
    Each, all conspired to wile away
    The weariness of royal sway.

        But she is gone: there hangs her lute,
    And there it may hang lone and mute:

    The flowers may fade, for who is there
    To triumph now if they are fair:
    There are her gems,--oh, let them twine
    An offering round some sainted shrine!
    For she who wore them may not wear
    Again those jewels in her hair.

        At first the monarch's rage was wild;
    But soon the image of his child,
    In tenderness rose on his heart,
    How could he bear from it to part?
    And anger turn'd to grief: in vain
    Ambition had destroy'd the chain
    With which love had bound happiness.
    In vain remorse, in vain redress,--
    Fruitless all search. And years past o'er,
    No tidings came of ELENORE ,

    Although the king would have laid down
    His golden sceptre, purple crown,
    His pomp, his power, but to have prest
    His child one moment to his breast.

        And where was ELENORE ? her home
    Was now beneath the forest dome;--
    A hundred knights had watch'd her hall,
    Her guards were now the pine trees tall:
    For harps waked with the minstrel tale,
    Sang to her sleep the nightingale:
    For silver vases, where were blent
    Rich perfumes from Arabia sent,
    Were odours when the wild thyme flower
    Wafted its sweets on gale and shower:
    For carpets of the purple loom
    The violets spread their cloud of bloom,

    Starr'd with primroses; and around
    Boughs like green tapestry swept the ground.
    --And there they dwelt apart from all
    That gilds and mocks ambition's thrall;
    Apart from cities, crowds, and care,
    Hopes that deceive, and toils that wear;
    For they had made themselves a world
    Like that or ever man was hurl'd
    From his sweet Eden, to begin
    His bitter course of grief and sin.--
    And they were happy; EGINHARD
    Had won the prize for which he dared
    Dungeon and death; but what is there
    That the young lover will not dare?
    And she, though nurtured as a flower,
    The favourite bud of a spring bower,

    Daughter of palaces, yet made
    Her dwelling place in the green shade;
    Happy, as she remember'd not
    Her royal in her peasant lot,--
    With gentle cares, and smiling eyes
    As love could feel no sacrifice.
    Happy her ivory brow to lave
    Without a mirror but the wave,
    As one whose sweetness could dispense
    With all save its own excellence;--
    A fair but gentle creature, meant
    For heart, and hearth, and home content.

        It was at night the chase was over,
    And ELENORE sat by her lover,--
    Her lover still, though years had fled
    Since their first word of love was said,--

    When one sought, at that darksome hour,
    The refuge of their lonely bower,
    A hunter, who, amid the shade,
    Had from his own companions stray'd.
    And ELENORE gazed on his face,
    And knew her father! In the chase
    Often the royal mourner sought
    A refuge from his one sad thought.
    He knew her not,--the lowly mien,
    The simple garb of forest green,
    The darken'd brow, which told the spoil
    The sun stole from her daily toil,
    The cheek where woodland health had shed
    The freshness of its morning red,--
    All was so changed. She spread the board,
    Her hand the sparkling wine cup pour'd;

    And then around the hearth they drew,
    And cheerfully the woodfire threw
    Its light around.--Bent o'er her wheel
    Scarcely dared ELENORE to steal
    A look, half tenderness, half fear,
    Yet seem'd he as he loved to hear
    Her voice, as if it had a tone
    Breathing of days and feelings gone.

        "Ah! surely," thought she, "Heaven has sent
    My father here, as that it meant,
    Our years of absence ended now!"
    She gazed upon his soften'd brow;
    And the next moment, all revealing,
    ELENORE at his feet is kneeling!--

        Need I relate that, reconciled,
    The father bless'd his truant child.

    WHERE is the heart that has not bow'd
A slave, eternal Love, to thee:
    Look on the cold, the gay, the proud,
And is there one among them free?
The cold, the proud,--oh! Love has turn'd
The marble till with fire it burn'd;
The gay, the young,--alas that they
Should ever bend beneath thy sway!
Look on the cheek the rose might own,
The smile around like sunshine thrown;
The rose, the smile, alike are thine,
To fade and darken at thy shrine.

And what must love be in a heart
    All passion's fiery depths concealing,
Which has in its minutest part
    More than another's whole of feeling.

    And RAYMOND'S heart; love's morning sun
On fitter altar never shone;
Loving with all the snow-white truth,
That is found but in early youth;
Freshness of feeling as of flower,
That lives not more than spring's first hour;
And loving with that wild devotion,
That deep and passionate emotion,
With which the minstrel soul is thrown
On all that it would make its own.

    And RAYMOND loved; the veriest slave
That e'er his life to passion gave:
Upon his ear no murmur came
That seem'd not echoing her name;
The lightest colour on her cheek
Was lovelier than the morning break.
He gazed upon her as he took
His sense of being from her look:--
Sometimes it was idolatry,
    Like homage to some lovely star,
Whose beauty though for hope too high,
    He yet might worship from afar.
At other times his heart would swell
With tenderness unutterable:
He would have borne her to an isle
Where May and June had left their smile;

And there, heard but by the lone gale,
He would have whisper'd his love tale;
And without change, or cloud, or care,
Have kept his bosom's treasure there.
And then, with all a lover's pride,
He thought it shame such gem to hide:
And imaged he a courtly scene
Of which she was the jewell'd queen,--
The one on whom each glance was bent,
The beauty of the tournament,
The magnet of the festival,
The grace, the joy, the life of all,--
But she, alas for her false smile!
ADELINE loved him not the while.

    And is it thus that woman's heart
Can trifle with its dearest part,

Its own pure sympathies?--can fling
The poison'd arrow from the string
In utter heartlessness around,
And mock, or think not of the wound?
And thus can woman barter all
That makes and gilds her gentle thrall,--
The blush which should be like the one
White violets hide from the sun,--
The soft, low sighs, like those which breathe
In secret from a twilight wreath,--
The smile like a bright lamp, whose shine
Is vow'd but only to one shrine;
All these sweet spells,--and can they be
Weapons of reckless vanity?
And woman, in whose gentle heart
From all save its sweet self apart,

Love should dwell with that purity
Which but in woman's love can be:
A sacred fire, whose flame was given
To shed on earth the light of heaven,--
That she can fling her wealth aside
In carelessness, or sport, or pride!

    It was not form'd for length of bliss,
A dream so fond, so false as this;
Enough for ADELINE to win
The heart she had no pleasure in,--
Enough that bright eyes turn'd in vain
On him who bow'd beneath her chain:--
Then came the careless word and look,
All the fond soul so ill can brook,
The jealous doubt, the burning pain,
That rack the lover's heart and brain;

The fear that will not own it fear,
The hope that cannot disappear;
Faith clinging to its visions past,
And trust confiding to the last.
And thus it is: ay, let Love throw
Aside his arrows and his bow;
But let him not with one spell part,
The veil that binds his eyes and heart.
Woe for Love when his eyes shall be
Open'd upon reality!

    One day a neighbouring baron gave
A revel to the fair and brave,--
And knights upon their gallant steeds,
    And ladies on their palfreys gray,
All shining in their gayest weeds,
    Held for the festival their way.

A wanderer on far distant shores,
That baron, had brought richest stores
To his own hall, and much of rare
And foreign luxury was there:
Pages, with colour'd feathers, fann'd
The odours of Arabia's land;
The carpets strewn around each room
Were all of Persia's purple loom;
And dark slaves waited on his guests,
Each habited in Moorish vests,
With turbann'd brows, and bands of gold
Around their arms and ancles roll'd.
And gazed the guests o'er many a hoard,
Like Sinbad's, from his travel stored.
They look'd upon the net work dome,
Where found the stranger birds a home,

With rainbow wings and gleaming eyes,
Seen only beneath Indian skies.
At length they stood around the ring,
Where stalk'd, unchain'd, the forest king,
With eyes of fire and mane erect,
As if by human power uncheck'd.

    Full ill had RAYMOND'S spirit borne
The wayward mood, the careless scorn,
With which his mistress had that day
Trifled his happiness away.--
His very soul within him burn'd,
When, as in chance, her dark eye turn'd
On him, she spoke in reckless glee,--
''Is there a knight who, for love of me,
Into the court below will spring,
And bear from the lion the glove I fling?"

    A shriek!--a pause,--then loud acclaim
Rose to the skies with RAYMOND'S name.
Oh, worthy of a lady's love!
RAYMOND has borne away the glove.
He laid the prize at the maiden's feet,
Then turn'd from the smile he dared not meet:
A moment more he is on the steed,
The spur has urged to its utmost speed,
As that he could fly from himself, and all
The misery of his spirit's thrall.

    The horse sank down, and RAYMOND then
Started to see the foaming rein,
The drops that hung on the courser's hide,
And the rowel's red trace on its panting side;
And deep shame mingled with remorse,
As he brought the cool stream to his fallen horse.

    The spot where he paused was a little nook,
Like a secret page in nature's book,--
Around were steeps where the wild vine
Hung, wreathed in many a serpentine,
Wearing each the colour'd sign
Of the autumn's pale decline.
Like a lake in the midst was spread
    A grassy sweep of softest green,
Smooth, flower-dropt, as no human tread
    Upon its growth had ever been.
Limes rose around, but lost each leaf,
Like hopes luxuriant but brief;
And by their side the sycamore
Grew prouder of its scarlet store:
The air was of that cold clear light
That heralds in an autumn night,--

The amber west had just a surge
Of crimson on its utmost verge;
And on the east were piled up banks
Where darkness gather'd with her ranks
Of clouds, and in the midst a zone
Of white with transient brightness shone
From the young moon, who scarcely yet
Had donn'd her lighted coronet.

    With look turn'd to the closing day,
As he watch'd every hue decay,
Sat RAYMOND ; and a passer by
Had envied him his reverie;--
But nearer look had scann'd his brow,
And started at its fiery glow,
As if the temples' burning swell
Had made their pulses visible.

Too glazed, too fix'd, his large eyes shone
To see aught that they gazed upon.
Not his the paleness that may streak
The lover's or the minstrel's cheek,
As it had its wan colour caught
From moods of melancholy thought;
'Twas that cold, dark, unearthly shade,
But for a corpse's death look made;
Speaking that desperateness of pain,
As one more pang, and the rack'd brain
Would turn to madness; one more grief,
And the swoln heart breaks for relief.

    Oh, misery! to see the tomb
Close over all our world of bloom;
To look our last in the dear eyes
Which made our light of paradise;

To know that silent is the tone
Whose tenderness was all our own;
To kiss the cheek which once had burn'd
At the least glance, and find it turn'd
To marble; and then think of all
Of hope, that memory can recall.
Yes, misery! but even here
There is a somewhat left to cheer,
A gentle treasuring of sweet things
    Remembrance gathers from the past,
The pride of faithfulness, which clings
    To love kept sacred to the last.
And even if another's love
Has touch'd the heart to us above
The treasures of the east, yet still
There is a solace for the ill.

Those who have known love's utmost spell
Can feel for those who love as well;
Can half forget their own distress,
To share the loved one's happiness.
Oh, but to know our heart has been,
Like the toy of an Indian queen,
Torn, trampled, without thought or care,--
Where is despair like this despair!--

    All night beneath an oak he lay,
Till nature blush'd bright into day;
When, at a trumpet's sudden sound,
Started his courser from the ground:
And his loud neigh waked RAYMOND'S dream,
And, gazing round, he saw the gleam
Of arms upon a neighbouring height,
Where helm and cuirass stream'd in light.

As RAYMOND rose from his unrest
He knew DE VALENCE'S falcon crest;
And the red cross that shone like a glory afar,
Told the warrior was vow'd to the holy war.

    "Ay, this," thought RAYMOND , "is the strife
To make my sacrifice of life;
What is it now to me that fame
Shall brighten over RAYMOND'S name;
There is no gentle heart to bound,
No cheek to mantle at the sound:
Lady's favour no more I wear,--
My heart, my helm--oh! what are there?
A blighted hope, a wither'd rose.
Surely this warfare is for those
Who only of the victory crave
A holy but a nameless grave."

    Short greeting past; DE VALENCE read
All that the pale lip left unsaid;
On the wan brow, in the dimm'd eye,
The whole of youth's despondency,
Which at the first shock it has known
Deems its whole world of hope o'erthrown.
And it was fix'd, that at Marseilles,
Where the fleet waited favouring gales,
RAYMOND should join the warrior train,
Leagued 'gainst the infidels of Spain.

    They parted:--Over RAYMOND'S thought
Came sadness mingled too with shame;
    When suddenly his memory brought
The long forgotten EVA'S name.
Oh! Love is like the mountain tide,
Sweeping away all things beside,

Till not another trace appears
But its own joys, and griefs, and fears.
He took her cross, he took her chain
From the heart where they still had lain;
And that heart felt as if its fate
Had sudden grown less desolate,
In thus remembering love that still
Would share and sooth in good and ill.

    He spurr'd his steed; but the night fall
Had darken'd ere he reach'd the hall;
And gladly chief and vassal train
Welcomed the youthful knight again.
And many praised his stately tread,
His face with darker manhood spread;
But of those crowding round him now,
Who mark'd the paleness of his brow,

But one, who paused till they were past,
Who look'd the first but spoke the last:
Her welcome in its timid fear
Fell almost cold on RAYMOND'S ear;
A single look,--he felt he gazed
    Upon a gentle child no more,
The blush that like the lightning blazed,
    The cheek then paler than before,
A something of staid maiden grace,
A cloud of thought upon her face;
She who had been, in RAYMOND'S sight,
A plaything, fancy, and delight,--
Was changed: the depth of her blue eye
Spoke to him now of sympathy,
And seem'd her melancholy tone
A very echo of his own;

And that pale forehead, surely care
Has graved an early lesson there.

    They roved through many a garden scene,
Where other, happier days had been;
And soon had RAYMOND told his all
Of hopes, like stars but bright to fall;
Of feelings blighted, changed, and driven
Like exiles from their native heaven;
And of an aimless sword, a lute
Whose chords were now uncharm'd and mute.
But EVA'S tender blandishing
Was as the April rays, that fling
A rainbow till the thickest rain
Melts into blue and light again.

    There is a feeling in the heart
Of woman which can have no part
In man; a self devotedness,
As victims round their idols press,
And asking nothing, but to show
How far their zeal and faith can go.
Pure as the snow the summer sun
Never at noon hath look'd upon,--
Deep as is the diamond wave,
Hidden in the desart cave,--
Changeless as the greenest leaves
Of the wreath the cypress weaves,--
Hopeless often when most fond,
Without hope or fear beyond
Its own pale fidelity,--
And this woman's love can be!

    And RAYMOND although not again
Dreaming of passion's burning chain,
Yet felt that life had still dear things
To which the lingering spirit clings.
More dear, more lovely EVA shone
In thinking of that faithless one;
And read he not upon the cheek
All that the lip might never speak,
All the heart cherish'd yet conceal'd,
Scarce even to itself reveal'd.
And RAYMOND , though with heart so torn
By anger, agony, and scorn,
Might ill bear even with love's name,
Yet felt the maiden's hidden flame
Come like the day-star in the east,
When every other light has ceased;

Sent from the bosom of the night
To harbinger the morning light.

    Again they parted: she to brood
O'er dreaming hopes in solitude,
And every pitying saint to pray
For RAYMOND on the battle day.
And he no longer deem'd the field
But death to all his hopes could yield.
To other, softer dreams allied,
He thought upon the warrior's pride.
But as he pass'd the castle gate
He left so wholly desolate,
His throbbing pulse, his burning brain,
The sudden grasp upon the rein,
The breast and lip that gasp'd for air,
Told Love's shaft was still rankling there.

    That night, borne o'er the bounding seas,
The vessel swept before the breeze,
Loaded the air, the war-cry's swell,
Woe to the Moorish infidel;
And raising their rich hymn, a band
Of priests were kneeling on the strand,
To bless the parting ship, and song
Came from the maidens ranged along
The sea wall, and who incense gave,
And flowers, like offerings to the wave
That bore the holy and the brave.

    And RAYMOND felt his spirit rise,
And burn'd his cheek, and flash'd his eyes
With something of their ancient light,
While plume and pennon met his sight;

While o'er the deep swept the war-cry,
And peal'd the trumpet's voice on high,
While the ship rode the waves as she
Were mistress of their destiny.
And muster'd on the deck the band,
Till died the last shout from the strand;
But when the martial pomp was o'er,
And, like the future, dim the shore
On the horizon hung, again
Closed RAYMOND'S memory, like a chain
The spirit struggles with in vain.

    The sky with its delicious blue,
The stars like visions wandering through:
Surely, if Fate had treasured there
Her rolls of life, they must be fair;

The mysteries their glories hide
Must be but of life's brightest side;
It cannot be that Fate would write
Her dark decrees in lines of light.
And RAYMOND mused upon the hour
When, comrade of the star and flower,
He watch'd beside his lady's bower;
He number'd every hope and dream,
Like blooms that threw upon life's stream
Colours of beauty, and then thought
On knowledge, all too dearly bought;
Feelings lit up in waste to burn,
    Hopes that seem but shadows fair,
All that the heart so soon must learn,
    All that it finds so hard to bear.

    The young moon's vestal lamp that hour
Seem'd pale as that it pined for love;
    No marvel such a night had power,
So calm below, so fair above,
To wake the spirit's finest chords
Till minstrel thoughts found minstrel words.

THE LAST SONG.

IT is the latest song of mine
    That ever breathes thy name,
False idol of a dream-raised shrine,
    Thy very thought is shame,--
Shame that I could my sprit bow
To one so very false as thou.

I had past years where the green wood
    Makes twilight of the noon,
And I had watch'd the silver flood
    Kiss'd by the rising moon;
And gazed upon the clear midnight
In all its luxury of light.

And, thrown where the blue violets dwell,
    I would pass hours away,
Musing o'er some old chronicle
    Fill'd with a wild love lay;
Till beauty seem'd to me a thing
Made for all nature's worshipping.

I saw thee, and the air grew bright
    In thy clear eyes' sunshine;

I oft had dream'd of shapes of light,
    But not of shape like thine.
My heart bow'd down,--I worshipp'd thee,
A woman and a deity.

I may not say how thy first look
    Turn'd my whole soul to flame,
I read it as a glorious book
    Fill'd with high deeds of fame;
I felt a hero's spirit rise,
Unknown till lighted at thine eyes.

False look, false hope, and falsest love!
    All meteors sent to me
To show how they the heart could move,
    And how deceiving be:

They left me, darken'd, crush'd, alone,
My bosom's household gods o'erthrown.

The world itself was changed, and all
    That I had loved before
Seem'd as if gone beyond recall,
    And I could hope no more;
The sear of fire, the dint of steel,
Are easier than Love's wounds to heal.

But this is past, and I can cope
    With what I'd fain forget;
I have a sweet, a gentle hope
    That lingers with me yet,--
A hope too fair, too pure to be
Named in the words that speak of thee.

Henceforth within the last recess
    Of my heart shall remain
Thy name in all its bitterness,
    But never named again;
The only memory of that heart
Will be to think how false thou art.

And yet I fain would name thy name,
    My heart's now gentle queen,
E'en as they burn the perfumed flame
    Where the plague spot has been;
Methinks that it will cleanse away
The ills that on my spirit prey.

Sweet EVA ! the last time I gazed
    Upon thy deep blue eyes,

The cheek whereon my look had raised
    A blush's crimson dyes,
I marvell'd, love, this heart of mine
Had worshipp'd at another shrine.

I will think of thee when the star,
    That lit our own fair river,
Shines in the blue sky from afar,
    As beautiful as ever;
That twilight star, sweet love, shall be
A sign and seal with thee and me!

THE TROUBADOUR.
CANTO III.

THE TROUBADOUR.

LAND of the olive and the vine,
The saint and soldier, sword and shrine!
How glorious to young RAYMOND'S eye
Swell'd thy bold heights, spread thy clear sky,
When first he paused upon the height
Where, gather'd, lay the Christian might.
Amid a chesnut wood were raised
Their white tents, and the red cross blazed

Meteor-like, with its crimson shine,
O'er many a standard's scutcheon'd line.

    On the hill opposite there stood
The warriors of the Moorish blood,--
With their silver crescents gleaming,
And their horse-tail pennons streaming;
With cymbals and the clanging gong,
The muezzin's unchanging song,
The turbans that like rainbows shone,
The coursers' gay caparison,
As if another world had been
Where that small rivulet ran between.

    And there was desperate strife next day:
The little vale below that lay

Was like a slaughter-pit, of green
Could not one single trace be seen;
The Moslem warrior stretch'd beside
The Christian chief by whom he died;
And by the broken falchion blade
The crooked scymeter was laid.

    And gallantly had RAYMOND borne
The red cross through the field that morn,
When suddenly he saw a knight
Oppress'd by numbers in the fight:
Instant his ready spear was flung,
Instant amid the band he sprung;--
They fight, fly, fall,--and from the fray
He leads the wounded knight away!
Gently he gain'd his tent, and there
He left him to the leech's care;

Then sought the field of death anew,--
Little was there for knight to do.

    That field was strewn with dead and dying;
And mark'd he there DE VALENCE lying
Upon the turbann'd heap, which told
How dearly had his life been sold.
And yet on his curl'd lip was worn
The impress of a soldier's scorn;
And yet his dark and glazed eye
Glared its defiance stern and high:
His head was on his shield, his hand
Held to the last his own red brand.
Felt RAYMOND all too proud for grief
In gazing on the gallant chief:
So, thought he, should a warrior fall,
A victor dying last of all.

But sadness moved him when he gave
DE VALENCE to his lowly grave,--
The grave where the wild flowers were sleeping,
And one pale olive-tree was weeping,--
And placed the rude stone cross to show
A Christian hero lay below.

    With the next morning's dawning light
Was RAYMOND by the wounded knight.
He heard strange tales,--none knew his name,
And none might say from whence he came;
He wore no cognizance, his steed
Was raven black, and black his weed.
All owned his fame, but yet they deem'd
More desperate than brave he seem'd;
Or as he only dared the field
For the swift death that it might yield.

    Leaning beside the curtain, where
Came o'er his brow the morning air,
He found the stranger chief; his tone,
Surely 'twas one RAYMOND had known!
He knew him not, what chord could be
Thus waken'd on his memory?

    At first the knight was cold and stern,
As that his spirit shunn'd to learn
Aught of affection; as it brought
To him some shaft of venom'd thought:
When one eve RAYMOND chanced to name
Durance's castle, whence he came;
And speak of EVA , and her fate,
So young and yet so desolate,
So beautiful! Then heard he all
Her father's wrongs, her mother's fall:

For AMIRALD was the knight whose life
RAYMOND had saved amid the strife;
And now he seem'd to find relief
In pouring forth his hidden grief,
Which had for years been as the stream
Cave-lock'd from either air or beam.

LORD AMIRALD'S HISTORY.

    I LOVED her! ay, I would have given
    A death-bed certainty of heaven
    If I had thought it could confer
    The least of happiness on her!
    How proudly did I wait the hour
    When hid no more in lowly bower,
    She should shine, loveliest of all,
    The lady of my heart and hall;--

    And soon I deem'd the time would be,
    For many a chief stood leagued with me.

        It was one evening we had sate
    In my tower's secret council late,
    Our bands were number'd, and we said
    That the pale moon's declining head
    Should shed her next full light o'er bands
    With banners raised, and sheathless brands.
    We parted; I to seek the shade
    Where my heart's choicest gem was laid;
    I flung me on my fleetest steed,
    I urged it to its utmost speed,--
    On I went, like the hurrying wind,
    Hill, dale, and plain were left behind,
    And yet I thought my courser slow--
    Even when the forest lay below.

    As my wont, in a secret nook
        I left my horse,--I may not tell
    With what delight my way I took
        Till I had reach'd the oak-hid dell.
    The trees which hitherto had made
    A more than night, with lighten'd shade
    Now let the stars and sky shine through,
    Rejoicing, calm, and bright, and blue.

        There did not move a leaf that night
    That I cannot remember now,
        Nor yet a single star whose light
    Was on the royal midnight's brow:
    Wander'd no cloud, sigh'd not a flower,
    That is not present at this hour.
    No marvel memory thus should press
    Round its last light of happiness!

    I paused one moment where I stood,
    In all a very miser's mood,
    As if that thinking of its store
    Could make my bosom's treasure more.
    I saw the guiding lamp which shone
    From the wreath'd lattice, pale and lone;
    Another moment I was there,
    To pause, and look--upon despair.

        I saw her!--on the ground she lay,
    The life blood ebbing fast away;
    But almost as she could not die
    Without my hand to close her eye!
    When to my bosom press'd, she raised
    Her heavy lids, and feebly gazed,
    And her lip moved: I caught its breath,
    Its last, it was the gasp of death!

    I leant her head upon my breast,
    As I but soothed her into rest;--
    I do not know what time might be
    Past in this stony misery,
    When I was waken'd from my dream
    By my forgotten infant's scream.
    Then first I thought upon my child.
    I took it from its bed, it smiled,
    And its red cheek was flush'd with sleep:
    Why had it not the sense to weep?
    I laid its mother on the bed,
    O'er her pale brow a mantle spread,
    And left the wood. Calm, stern, and cold,
    The tale of blood and death I told;
    Gave my child to my brother's care
    As his, not mine were this despair.

    I flung me on my steed again,
    I urged him with the spur and rein,--
    I left him at the usual tree,
    But left him there at liberty.

        With madd'ning step I sought the place,
    I raised the mantle from her face,
    And knelt me down beside, to gaze
    On all the mockery death displays,
    Until it seem'd but sleep to me.
    Death,--oh, no! death it could not be.

        The cold grey light the dawn had shed,
    Changed gradual into melting red;
    I watch'd the morning colour streak
    With crimson dye her marble cheek;

    The freshness of the stirring air
    Lifted her curls of raven hair;
    Her head lay pillow'd on her arm,
    Sweetly, as if with life yet warm;--
    I kiss'd her lips: oh, God, the chill!
    My heart is frozen with it still:--
    It was as suddenly on me
    Open'd my depths of misery.
    I flung me on the ground, and raved,
    And of the wind that past me craved
    One breath of poison, till my blood
    From lip and brow gush'd in one flood.
    I watch'd the warm stream of my veins
    Mix with the death wounds clotted stains;
    Oh! how I pray'd that I might pour
    My heart's tide, and her life restore!

        And night came on:--with what dim fear
    I mark'd the darkling hours appear,--
    I could not gaze on the dear brow,
    And seeing was all left me now.
    I grasp'd the cold hand in mine own,
    Till both alike seem'd turn'd to stone.
    Night, morn, and noontide pass'd away,
    Then came the tokens of decay.

        'Twas the third night that I had kept
    My watch, and, like a child, had wept
    Sorrow to sleep, and in my dream
    I saw her as she once could seem,
    Fair as an angel: there she bent
    As if sprung from the element,
    The bright clear fountain, whose pure wave
    Her soft and shadowy image gave.

    Methought that conscious beauty threw
    Upon her cheek its own sweet hue,
    Its loveliness of morning red;
    I woke, and gazed upon the dead.
    I mark'd the fearful stains which now
    Were dark'ning o'er the once white brow,
    The livid colours that declare
    The soul no longer dwelleth there.
    The gaze of even my fond eye,
    Seem'd almost like impiety,
    As it were sin for looks to be
    On what the earth alone should see.
    I thought upon the loathsome doom
    Of the grave's cold, corrupted gloom;--
    Oh, never shall the vile worm rest
    A lover on thy lip and breast!

    Oh, never shall a careless tread
    Soil with its step thy sacred bed!
    Never shall leaf or blossom bloom
    With vainest mockery o'er thy tomb!

        And forth I went, and raised a shrine
    Of the dried branches of the pine,--
    I laid her there, and o'er her flung
    The wild flowers that around her sprung;
    I tore them up, and root and all,
    I bade them wait her funeral,
    With a strange joy that each fair thing
    Should, like herself, be withering.
    I lit the pyre,--the evening skies
    Rain'd tears upon the sacrifice;
    How did its wild and awful light
    Struggle with the fierce winds of night;

    Red was the battle, but in vain
    Hiss'd the hot embers with the rain.
    It wasted to a single spark;
    That faded, and all round was dark:
    Then, like a madman who has burst
    The chain which made him doubly curst,
    I fled away. I may not tell
    The agony that on me fell:--
    I fled away, for fiends were near,
    My brain was fire, my heart was fear!

        I was borne on an eagle's wing,
    Till with the noon-sun perishing;
    Then I stood in a world alone,
    From which all other life was gone,
    Whence warmth, and breath, and light were fled,
    A world o'er which a curse was said:

    The trees stood leafless all, and bare,
    The sky spread, but no sun was there:
    Night came, no stars were on her way,
    Morn came without a look of day,--
    As night and day shared one pale shroud,
    Without a colour or a cloud.
    And there were rivers, but they stood
    Without a murmur on the flood,
    Waveless and dark, their task was o'er,--
    The sea lay silent on the shore,
    Without a sign upon its breast
    Save of interminable rest:
    And there were palaces and halls,
    But silence reign'd amid their walls,
    Though crowds yet fill'd them; for no sound
    Rose from the thousands gather'd round;

    All wore the same white, bloodless hue,
    All the same eyes of glassy blue,
    Meaningless, cold, corpse-like as those
    No gentle hand was near to close.
    And all seem'd, as they look'd on me,
    In wonder that I yet could be
    A moving shape of warmth and breath
    Alone amid a world of death.

        'Tis strange how much I still retain
    Of these wild tortures of my brain,
    Though now they but to memory seem
    A curse, a madness, and a dream;
    But well I can recall the hour
    When first the fever lost its power;
    As one whom heavy opiates steep,
    Rather in feverish trance than sleep,

    I waken'd scarce to consciousness,--
    Memory had fainted with excess:
    I only saw that I was laid
    Beneath an olive tree's green shade;
    I knew I was where flowers grew fair,
    I felt their balm upon the air,
    I drank it as it had been wine;
    I saw a gift of red sunshine
    Glittering upon a fountain's brim;
    I heard the small birds' vesper hymn,
    As they a vigil o'er me kept,--
    I heard their music, and I wept.
    I felt a friendly arm upraise
    My head, a kind look on me gaze!

        RAYMOND , it has been mine to see
    The godlike heads which Italy

    Has given to prophet and to saint,
    All of least earthly art could paint!
    But never saw I such a brow
    As that which gazed upon me now;--
    It was an aged man, his hair
    Was white with time, perhaps with care;
    For over his pale face were wrought
    The characters of painful thought;
    But on that lip and in that eye
    Were patience, peace, and piety,
    The hope which was not of this earth,
    The peace which has in pangs its birth,
    As if in its last stage the mind,
    Like silver seven times refined
    In life's red furnace, all its clay,
    All its dross purified away,

    Paused yet a little while below,
    Its beauty and its power to show.
    As if the tumult of this life,
    Its sorrow, vanity, and strife,
    Had been but as the lightning's shock
    Shedding rich ore upon the rock,
    Though in the trial scorch'd and riven,
    The gold it wins is gold from heaven.
    He watch'd, he soothed me day to day,
    How kindly words may never say:
    All angel ministering could be
    That old man's succour was to me;
    I dwelt with him; for all in vain
    He urged me to return again
    And mix with life:--and months past on
    Without a trace to mark them gone;

    I had one only wish, to be
    Left to my grief's monotony.
    There is a calm which is not peace,
    Like that when ocean's tempests cease,
    When worn out with the storm, the sea
    Sleeps in her dark tranquillity,
    As dreading that the lightest stir
    Would bring again the winds on her.
    I felt as if I could not brook
    A sound, a breath, a voice, a look,
    As I fear'd they would bring again
    Madness upon my heart and brain.
    It was a haunting curse to me,
    The simoom of insanity.
    The links of life's enchanted chain,
    Its hope, its pleasure, fear or pain,

    Connected but with what had been,
    Clung not to any future scene.
    There is an indolence in grief
    Which will not even seek relief:
    I sat me down, like one who knows
    The poison tree above him grows,
    Yet moves not; my life-task was done
    With that hour which left me alone.

        It was one glad and glorious noon,
    Fill'd with the golden airs of June,
    When leaf and flower look to the sun
    As if his light and life were one,--
    A day of those diviner days
    When breath seems only given for praise,
    Beneath a stately tree which shed
    A cool green shadow over-head;

    I listen'd to that old man's words
    Till my heart's pulses were as chords
    Of a lute waked at the command
    Of some thrice powerful master's hand.
    He paused: I saw his face was bright
    With even more than morning's light,
    As his cheek felt the spirit's glow;
    A glory sate upon his brow,
    His eye flash'd as to it were given
    A vision of his coming heaven.
    I turn'd away in awe and fear,
    My spirit was not of his sphere;
    Ill might an earthly care intrude
    Upon such high and holy mood:
    I felt the same as I had done
    Had angel face upon me shone,

    When sudden, as sent from on high,
    Music came slowly sweeping by.
    It was not harp, it was not song,
    Nor aught that might to earth belong!
    The birds sang not, the leaves were still,
    Silence was sleeping on the rill;
    But with a deep and solemn sound
    The viewless music swept around.
    Oh never yet was such a tone
    To hand or lip of mortal known!
    It was as if a hymn were sent
    From heaven's starry instrument,
    In joy, such joy as seraphs feel
    For some pure soul's immortal weal,
    When that its human task is done,
    Earth's trials past, and heaven won.

    I felt, before I fear'd, my dread,
    I turn'd and saw the old man dead!
    Without a struggle or a sigh,
    And is it thus the righteous die?
    There he lay in the sun, calm, pale,
    As if life had been like a tale
    Which, whatsoe'er its sorrows past,
    Breaks off in hope and peace at last.

        I stretch'd him by the olive tree,
    Where his death, there his grave should be;
    The place was a thrice hallowed spot,
    There had he drawn his golden lot
    Of immortality; 'twas blest,
    A green and holy place of rest.

        But ill my burthen'd heart could bear
    Its after loneliness of care;
    The calmness round seem'd but to be
    A mockery of grief and me,--
    The azure flowers, the sunlit sky,
    The rill, with its still melody,
    The leaves, the birds,--with my despair,
    The light and freshness had no share:
    The one unbidden of them all
    To join in summer's festival.

        I wander'd first to many a shrine
    By zeal or ages made divine;
    And then I visited each place
    Where valour's deeds had left a trace;
    Or sought the spots renown'd no less
    For nature's lasting loveliness.

    In vain that all things changed around,
    No change in my own heart was found.
    In sad or gay, in dark or fair,
    My spirit found a likeness there.

        At last my bosom yearn'd to see
    My EVA'S blooming infancy;
    I saw, myself unseen the while,
    Oh, God! it was her mother's smile!
    Wherefore, oh, wherefore had they flung
    The veil just as her mother's hung!--
    Another look I dared not take,
    Another look my heart would break!
    I rush'd away to the lime grove
    Where first I told my tale of love;
    And leaves and flowers breathed of spring
    As in our first sweet wandering.

    I look'd towards the clear blue sky,
    I saw the gem-like stream run by;
    How did I wish that, like these, fate
    Had made the heart inanimate.
    Oh! why should spring for others be,
    When there can come no spring to thee.

        Again, again, I rush'd away;
    Madness was on an instant's stay!
    And since that moment, near and far,
    In rest, in toil, in peace, in war,
    I've wander'd on without an aim
    In all, save lapse of years the same.
    Where was the star to rise and shine
    Upon a night so dark as mine?--
    My life was as a frozen stream,
    Which shares but feels not the sun-beam,

    All careless where its course may tend,
    So that it leads but to an end.
    I fear my fate too much to crave
    More than it must bestow--the grave.

    AND AMIRALD from that hour sought
A refuge from each mournful thought
In RAYMOND'S sad but soothing smile;
And listening what might well beguile
The spirit from its last recess
Of dark and silent wretchedness.
He spoke of EVA , and he tried
To rouse her father into pride
Of her fair beauty; rather strove
To waken hope yet more than love.

    He saw how deeply AMIRALD fear'd
To touch a wound not heal'd but sear'd:
His gentle care was not in vain,
And AMIRALD learn'd to think again
Of hope, if not of happiness;
And soon his bosom pined to press
The child whom he so long had left
An orphan doubly thus bereft.
He mark'd with what enamour'd tongue
RAYMOND on EVA'S mention hung,--
The softened tone, the downward gaze,
All that so well the heart betrays;
And a reviving future stole
Like dew and sunlight on his soul.

    Soon the Crusaders would be met
Where winter's rest from war was set;

And then farewell to arms and Spain;--
Then for their own fair France again.

    One morn there swell'd the trumpet's blast,
Calling to battle, but the last;
And AMIRALD watch'd the youthful knight
Spur his proud courser to the fight:
Tall as the young pine yet unbent
By strife with its mountain element,--
His vizor was up, and his full dark eye
Flash'd as its flashing were victory;