Thence to a lonely dwelling, where the shore Is shadowed with rocks, and cypresses
Cleave with their dark green cones the silent skies And with their shadows the clear depths below, And where a little terrace from its bowers Of blooming myrtle and faint lemon flowers, Scatters its sense-dissolving fragrance o'er The liquid marble of the windless lake, And where the aged forest's limbs look hoar Under the leaves which their green garments make, They come: 'tis Helen's home, and clean and white, Like one which tyrants spare on our own land In some such solitude, its casements bright Shone through their vine-leaves in the morning sun; And even within 'twas scarce like Italy.
And when she saw how all things there were planned
As in an English home, dim memory Disturbed poor Rosalind: she stood as one Whose mind is where his body cannot be, Till Helen led her where her child yet slept, And said, "Observe, that brow was Lionel's, Those lips were his, and so he ever kept One arm in sleep, pillowing his head with it. You cannot see his eyes, they are two wells Of liquid love: let us not wake him yet." But Rosalind could bear no more, and wept A shower of burning tears, which fell upon His face, and so his opening lashes shone With tears unlike his own, as he did leap In sudden wonder from his innocent sleep.
So Rosalind and Helen live together
Thenceforth, changed in all else, yet friends again, Such as they were, when o'er the mountain heather They wandered in their youth, through sun and rain.
And after many years, for human things Change even like the ocean and the wind, Her daughter was restored to Rosalind, And in their circle thence some visitings Of joy 'mid their new calm would intervene : A lovely child she was, of looks serene, And motions which o'er things indifferent shed The grace and gentleness from whence they came. And Helen's boy grew with her, and they fed From the same flowers of thought, until each mind Like springs which mingle in one flood became, And in their union soon their parents saw The shadow of the peace denied to them. And Rosalind, for when the living stem Is cankered in its heart, the tree must fall,- Died ere her time; and with deep grief and awe The pale survivors followed her remains
Beyond the region of dissolving rains,
Up the cold mountain she was wont to call Her tomb; and on Chiavenna's precipice
They raised a pyramid of lasting ice, Whose polished sides, ere day had yet begun, Caught the first glow of the unrisen sun,
The last, when it had sunk; and through the night The charioteers of Arctos wheeled round
Its glittering point, as seen from Helen's home, Whose sad inhabitants each year would come, With willing steps climbing that rugged height, And hang long locks of hair, and garlands bound With amaranth flowers, which, in the clime's despite,
Filled the frore air with unaccustomed light: Such flowers, as in the wintry memory bloom Of one friend left, adorned that frozen tomb.
Helen, whose spirit was of softer mould, Whose sufferings too were less, death slowlier led Into the peace of his dominion cold:
She died among her kindred, being old; And know, that if love die not in the dead As in the living, none of mortal kind Are blest, as now Helen and Rosalind.
LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS.
MANY a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on Day and night, and night and day, Drifting on his dreary way.
With the solid darkness black Closing round his vessel's track; Whilst above, the sunless sky, Big with clouds, hangs heavily; And behind, the tempest fleet Hurries on with lightning feet, Riving sail, and cord, and plank, Till the ship has almost drank Death from the o'er-brimming deep, And sinks down, down, like that sleep When the dreamer seems to be Weltering through eternity; And the dim low line before Of a dark and distant shore Still recedes, as ever still Longing with divided will, But no power to seek or shun, He is ever drifted on O'er the unreposing wave To the haven of the grave.
What, if there no friends will greet; What, if there no heart will meet His with love's impatient beat; Wander wheresoe'er he may, Can he dream before that day To find refuge from distress
In friendship's smile, in love's caress? Then 'twill wreak him little woe Whether such there be or no:
Senseless is the breast, and cold,
Which relenting love would fold; Bloodless are the veins and chill Which the pulse of pain did fill: Every little living nerve
That from bitter words did swerve Round the tortured lips and brow, Are like sapless leaflets now Frozen upon December's bough.
On the beach of a northern sea Which tempests shake eternally, As once the wretch there lay to sleep, Lies a solitary heap,
One white skull and seven dry bones, On the margin of the stones, Where a few gray rushes stand, Boundaries of the sea and land: Nor is heard one voice of wail But the sea-mews, as they sail O'er the billows of the gale; Or the whirlwind up and down Howling, like a slaughtered town, When a king in glory rides Through the pomp of fratricides: Those unburied bones around
There is many a mournful sound,
There is no lament for him,
Like a sunless vapour, dim,
Who once clothed with life and thought
What now moves nor murmurs not.
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