He scorn'd himself, and raised his drooping crest:
"Mine be Man's honour—leave to God the rest!"
As thus his high resolve, a sudden cry }
Startled his heart. He turn'd: Calantha by! }
Why on the portrait glares her haggard eye? }
"Whose likeness this? Thou know'st not, brother? speak!
What mean that clouded brow—that changing cheek?
Thou know'st not!"
"Yes!"
And as the answer came,
With Death's strong terror shook the sister's frame,
A bitterer pang, an icier shudder, ran
Through his fierce nature— "Dost thou know the man? Ha! his own tale! O dull and blinded! how, Flash upon flash, descends the lightning now! Thou, his forsaken—his! And I—who—nay! Look up Calantha; for, befal what may, He shall——" The promise, or the threat, was said To ears already deafen'd as the dead! His arm but breaks the fall: the panting breast Yet heaves convulsive through the stifling vest. The robe, relax'd, bids doubt—if doubt yet be— Merge the last gleam in starless certainty! Lo there, the fatal gift of love and woe Miming without the image graved below— The same each likeness by each sufferer worn, Or differing but as noonday from the morn. In Lucy's portrait, manhood's earliest youth Shone from the clear eye with a light like truth. There, play'd that fearless smile with which we meet The sward that hides the swamp before our feet; The bright on-looking to the Future, ere Our sins reflect their own dark shadows there:— Calantha's portrait spoke of one in whom, Young yet in years; the heart had lost its bloom; The lip of joy the lip of pride had grown; It smiled—the smile we love to trust had flown. In the collected eye and lofty mien The graver power experience brings was seen; Beautiful both; and if the manlier face Had lost youth's candid and luxuriant grace, A charm as fatal as the first it wore, Pleased less—and yet enchain'd and haunted more.
And this the man to whom his heart had moved!
Whose hand he had clasp'd, whose child he loved!—he loved!
This, out of all the universe—O Fate!
This, the dark orb, round which revolved his hate;
This, the swart star malign, whose baleful ray
Ruled in his House of Life; and day by day,
And hour by hour, upon the tortured past
One withering, ruthless, demon influence cast!
There writhes the victim—there, unmasking, now
The invoked Alecto frowns from Arden's brow.
O'er that fierce nature, roused so late from sleep,
Course the black thoughts, and lash to storm the deep.
Love flies dismay'd—the sweet delusions, drawn
By Hope, fade ghost-like in the lurid dawn;
As when along the parch'd Arabian gloom
Life prostrate falls before the dread Simoom,
No human mercy the strong whirlwind faced,
And its wrath reign'd sole monarch of the waste!
IV.
The Hours steal on. Like spectres, to and fro
Hurry hush'd footsteps through the house of woe.
That nameless chill, which tells of life that dies,
Broods o'er the chamber where Calantha lies.
The Hours steal on—and o'er the unquiet might
Of the great Babel—reigns, dishallow'd, Night.
Not, as o'er Nature's world, She comes, to keep
Beneath the stars her solemn tryst with Sleep,
When move the twin-born Genii side by side,
And steal from earth its demons where they glide;
Lull'd the spent Toil—seal'd Sorrow's heavy eyes,
And dreams restore the dews of Paradise;
But Night, discrown'd and sever'd from her twin,
No pause for Travail, no repose for Sin,
Vex'd by one chafed rebellion to her sway,
Flits o'er the lamp-lit streets—a phantom day!
Alone sat Morvale in the House of Gloom,
Alone—no! Death was in the darken'd room;
All hush'd save where, at distance faintly heard,
Lucy's low sob the depth of silence stirr'd;
Or where, without, the swift wheels hurrying by,
Bear those who live—as if life could not die.
Alone he sat! and in his breast began
Earth's deadliest strife—the Angel with the Man!
Not his the light war with its feeble rage
Which prudent scruples with faint passions wage,
(The small heart-conflicts which disturb the wise,
Whom reason succours when the anger tries,
Such as to this meek social ring belong,
In conscience weak, but in discretion strong;)
But that known only to man's franker state,
In love a demigod—a fiend in hate,
Him, not the reason but the instincts lead,
Prompt in the impulse, ruthless in the deed.
And if the wrong might seem too weak a cause
For the fell hate—not his were Europe's laws.—
Some think dishonour, if it halt at crime,
A stingless asp—what injury in the slime?
As if but this poor clay—this crumbling coil
Of dust for graves—were all the foul can soil!
As if the form were not the type (nor more
Than the mere type) of what chaste souls adore!
That Woman-Royalty, a spotless name,
For sires to boast—for sons unborn to claim,
That heavenly purity of thought—as free
From shame as sin, the soul's virginity,
If these be lost—why what remains?—the form?
Has that such worth?—Go, envy then the worm!
And well to him may such belief belong,
And India's memories blacken more the wrong;
In Eastern lands, by tritest tales convey'd,
How Honour guards from sight itself the maid;
Home's solemn mystery, jealous of a breath,
Screen'd by religion, and begirt with death:—
Again he cower'd beneath the hissing tongue,
Again the gibe of scurril laughter rung,
Again the Plague-breath air itself defiled,
And Mockery grinn'd upon his mother's child!
All the heart's chaste religion overthrown,
And slander scrawl'd upon the altar-stone!
And if that memory pause, what shapes succeed?
The martyr leaning on the broken reed!
The life slow-poison'd in the thoughts that shed