For I had sworn (could faith, could honour less?)
My hearth at least to priestly loneliness;
To wed no other while she lived, and be,
If found at last, for late atonement free.
I kept the vow, till this ambiguous doom,
Half wed, half widow'd, took a funeral gloom;
So many years had pass'd, no tidings gain'd,
The chance so slight that yet the earth retain'd,
At length, though doubtful, I believed that time
Had from the altar ta'en the ban of crime.
Impulse, occasion, what you will, at last
Seized one warm moment to abjure the past.
XII.
"Far other, she, who charm'd me thus awhile,
Thought in each glance, and mind in every smile;
Genius was hers, with all the Iris dyes
That paint on cloud the arch that spans the skies;
Wild in caprice, impassion'd, and yet coy,
Woman when mournful, a frank child in joy;
The Phidian dream, in one concentring all }
The thousand spells with which the charmers thrall, }
And pleasing most the eye which years begin to pall. }
I do not say I loved her as, in truth,
We only love when life is in its youth;
But here at least I thought to fix my doom,
And from the weary waste reclaim a home.
Enough I loved, to woo, to win, to bind
To her my fate, if Heaven had so assign'd!
The nuptial day was fix'd, the plighting kiss
Glow'd on my lips;—that moment the abyss,
Which, hid by moss-grown time, yet yawn'd as wide
Beneath my feet, divorced me from her side.
A letter came—Clanalbin's hand; what made
Treason so bold to brave the man betray'd?
I break the seal—O Heaven! my Mary yet
Lived; in want's weeds the wretch his victim met;
Track'd to her home (a beggar's squalid cell!), }
Told all the penitence that lips could tell: }
'Come back and plead thyself, and all may yet be well!' }
Had I a choice? could I delay to choose?—
Here conscience dragg'd me, there it might excuse.
"Few hurried lines, obscurely dark with all
The war within, my later vows recall,
Breathe passionate prayer—for hopeless pardon sue,
And shape soft words to soothe the stern adieu.
So, as some soul the beckoning ghost obeys,
The haunting shadow of the vanish'd days
Lures to the grave of Youth my charmèd tread,
And sighs, 'At length thou shalt appease the Dead!'
"Scarce had I reach'd the shores of England, ere
New pomps spring round me—I am Arden's heir!
The last pretender to the princely line,
Whose flag had waved from towers in Palestine,
Borne to our dark Walhalla—left me poor
In all which sheds a blessing on the boor.—
Yes, thou art right! how, at each sickening grasp
For the heart's food, had gold befool'd my clasp!
Gorged with a satrap's treasure, the soul's dearth
Envied the pauper crawling to his hearth."
"But Mary—she—thy wife before Heaven's eye?"
"Lost as before!" was Arden's anguish-cry;
"Not beggary, famine—not her child (for whom,
What could she hope from earth?—as stern a doom!)
Could bow the steel of that proud chastity,
Which scorn'd as alms the atonement due from me!
Out of the sense of wrong her grandeur grown,
She look'd on shame from Sorrow as a throne.
Once more more she fled;—no sign!—again the same
Vain track—vain chase!—Not here was I to blame!"
"Thou track the outcast!" mutter'd Morvale!—"No!
Too far from Luxury lies the world of Woe!"
"Henceforth," sigh'd Arden, "hope, aim, end, confined
To one—my heart, if tortured, is resign'd;
So lately seen, oh! sure she liveth yet!
Once found—oh! strong thine eloquence, Regret!
The palace and the coronal, the gauds
With which our vanity our will defrauds—
These may not tempt her, but the simple words
'I love thee still,' will touch on surer chords,
And youth rush back with that young melody,
To the lone moonlight and the trysting-tree!"
As the tale ceased, the fields behind them lay—
The huge town once more open'd on the way;
The whir of wheels, the galliard cavalcade;
The crowd of pleasure, and the roar of trade;
The solemn abbey soaring through the dun
And reeking air, in which sunk slow the sun;
The dusky trees, the sultry flakes of green;
The haunts where Fashion yawns away the spleen;—
Vista on vista widens to reveal
Ease on the wing, and Labour at the wheel!
The friends grew silent in that common roar,
The Real around them, the Ideal o'er;
So the peculiar life of each, the unseen
Core of our being—what we are, have been—
The spirit of our memory and our soul
Sink from the sight, when merged amidst the whole;
Yet atom atom never can absorb,
Each drop moves rounded in its separate orb.
PART THE THIRD.
I.
Lord Arden's tale robb'd Morvale's couch of sleep,
The star still trembled on the troubled deep,
O'er the waste ocean gleam'd its chilling glance,
To make more dark the desolate expanse.
This contrast of a fate, but vex'd by gales
Faint with too full a balm from Rhodian Vales;[O] This light of life all squander'd upon