What skill so fondly tends the soul's eclipse,
Chafes the stiff limb, and breathes in breathless lips?
Wooes back the flickering life, and when, once more,
The ebbing blood the wan cheek mantles o'er;
When stirs the pulse, when opes the glazing eye,
What voice of joy finds listeners in the sky?
"Bless thee, my God!—this mercy thine!—he lives:
Look in my heart, forgive, for it forgives!"
Then, while yet clear the heaven, he flies—he gains
The nearest roof—prompt aid his prayer obtains;
Well known the noble stranger's mien—they bear
To the rude home, and ply the zealous care;
Life with the dawn comes sure, if faint and slow,
And all night long the foeman watch'd the foe!
Day dawns on earth, still darkness wraps the mind;
Sleep pass'd, the waking is a veil more blind:
The soul, scared roughly from its mansion, glides
O'er mazy wastes through which the meteor guides.
The startled menial, who, alone of all
The hireling pomp that swarms in Arden's hall,
Attends his lord—dismay'd lest one so high,
A rural Galen should permit to die,
Departs in haste to seek the subtler skill
Which from the College takes the right to kill;
And summon Lucy to the solemn room
To watch the father's life—fast by the mother's tomb.
Meanwhile such facile arts as nature yields,
Draughts from the spring and simples from the fields,
Learn'd in his savage youth, the Indian plies;
The fever slakes, the cloudy darkness flies;
O'er the vex'd vision steals the lulling rest,
And Arden wakes to sense on Morvale's breast!
On Morvale's breast!—and through the noiseless door
A fearful footfall creeps, and lo! once more
Thou look'st, pale daughter, on thy father's foe!
Not with the lurid eye and menaced blow;
Not as when last, between the murtherous blade
And the proud victim, gleam'd the guardian maid—
Thy post is his!—that breast the prop supplies
That thine should yield;—as thine so watch those eyes,
Wistful and moist, that waning life above;
Recal the Heathen's hate!—behold the Christian's love!
The learned leech proclaims the danger o'er;
When life is safe, can Fate then harm no more?
The danger past for Arden, but for you
Who watch the couch, what danger threats anew?
How meet in pious duty and fond care,
In hours when through the eye the heart is bare?
How join in those soft sympathies, and yet
The earlier link, the tenderer bond forget?
How can the soul the magnet-charm withstand,
When chance brings look to look, and hand to hand!
No, Indian, no—if yet the power divine
Above the laws of our low world be thine;
If yet the Honour which thy later creed
Softens, not quells, revere the injured dead,
Fly, ere the full heart cries, "I love thee still"—
And find thy guardian in the angel—WILL!
That power was his!
Along the landscape lay
The hazy rime of winter's dawning day:
Snake-like the curving mists betray'd the rill,
The last star gleam'd upon the Eastern hill,
Still slept beneath the leafless trees the herd;
Still mute the sharp note of the sunless bird;
No sound, no life; as to some hearth, bereft
By death, of welcome, since his wanderings left,
Comes back the traveller;—so to earth, forlorn
Returns the ungreeted melancholy Morn.
Forth from the threshold stole the Indian!—far
Spread the dim land beneath the waning star.
Alas! how wide the world his heart will find
Who leaves one spot—the heart's true home, behind!
He paused—one upward look upon the gloom
Of the closed casement, the love-hallow'd room,
Where yet, perchance, while happier Suffering slept
Its mournful vigil tender Duty kept;
One prayer! What mercy taught us prayer?—as dews
On drooping herbs—as sleep tired life renews,
As dreams that lead, and lap our griefs in Heaven,
To souls through Prayer, dew, sleep, and dream, are given!
So bow'd, not broken, and with manly will,
Onwards he strode, slow up the labouring hill!
If Lucy mourn'd his absence, not before
Her sire's dim eyes the face of grief she wore;
Haply her woman heart divined the spell
Of her own power, by flight proclaim'd too well;
And not in hours like these may self control
The generous empire of a noble soul:
Lo, her first thought, first duty—the soft reign
Of Woman—patience by the bed of pain!
As mute the father, yet to him made clear
The cause of flight untold to Lucy's ear;
Thus ran the lines that met, at morn, his eyes:—
"Farewell! my place a daughter now supplies!—
Thou hast pass'd the gates of Death, and bright once more
Smile round thy steps the sunlight and the shore.
Farewell; and if a soul, where hatred's gall
Melts into pardon that embalmeth all,
Can with forgiveness bless thee;—from remorse
Can pluck the stone which interrupts the course
Of thought to God;—and bid the waters rest
Calm in Heaven's smile—poor fellow-man, be blest!
I, that can aid no more, now need an aid
Against myself; by mine own thoughts dismay'd:
I dare not face thy child—I may not dare
To commune with my heart—thy child is there!
I hear a voice that whispers hope, and start
In shame, to shun the tempter and depart.
How vile the pardon that I yield would seem,