Mazelli, and Other Poems - George W. Sands (great novels TXT) 📗

to whom
My soul was wedded in an early love,--
'Twas in my boyhood; but the insatiate tomb
Claimed her fair form, and for the realms above
Her spirit fled the earth; oh! how I wept
That mine should in its bondage still be kept.

I mind the hour I stood beside the clay
I had so loved in life--it still was fair,
Surpassing fair, in death; and as she lay
With the thick tresses of her long dark hair
Gathered above the brow whence feeling's ray
Had fled, because death's shadow darkened there,
Her more than earthly beauty made her seem
The incarnation of some pure bright dream.

I stood and gazed: the pale grave sheet was wound
About the form from which life's spark was fled,
For ever fled,--wet eyes were weeping round,
And voices full of sorrow mourned the dead;
I could not weep; a sadness more profound
Than that from which those heart-drops, tears, are shed,
Was in my soul,--for then the icy spell
Of desolation freezing o'er me fell.

And from that hour I have been alone,
Alone when crowds were round me. May thy fate
Be coloured with a brighter hue, and strown
With flowers where mine is thorns;--where mine is hate,
And strife, and bitter discord, may thine own
Be love, and hope, and peace--for these create
The sunshine of existence; may their light
Beam ever round thee, warm, and glad, and bright.


THE LOCK OF HAIR.

It is in sooth a lovely tress,
Still curled in many a ring,
As glossy as the plumes that dress
The raven's jetty wing.
And the broad and soul-illumined brow,
Above whose arch it grew,
Was like the stainless mountain snow,
In its purity of hue.

I mind the time 'twas given to me,
The night, the hour, the spot;
And the eye that pleaded silently,
"Forget the giver not."
Oh! myriads of stars, on high,
Were smiling sweetly fair,
But none was lovely as the eye
That shone beside me there!

Above our heads an ancient oak
Its strong, wide arms held out,
And from its roots a fountain broke,
With a tiny laughing shout;
And the fairy people of the wild
Were bending to their rest,
As trustingly as sleeps the child
Upon its mother's breast.

Soft, silvery cloudlets, pure and white,
Along the sky were hung,
As if the spirits of the night
Their mantles there had flung;
And then the night-breeze pensively
Sighed from its unseen throne,
And far o'er field, and flower, and tree,
A hallowed light came down.

But in our breasts was springing up
A something lovelier far,
Than field, or tree, or flow'ret's cup,
Or sun, or moon, or star!
We heeded not the fountain near,
Its song of gladness singing,
For in our hearts a fount more dear,
And pure, and sweet, was springing.

And she was one whom fortune's smile
Had gladdened from her birth,
Yet her high spirit knew no guile,
No blot nor stain of earth;
And I was but a friendless boy,
And yet her heart was mine;
I knew it, and the thought was joy,
A joy all, all divine!

From out a braided mass she took
This single lock of jet,
And gave it with that pleading look
Which, said, "Do not forget."
Forget! as soon the waves that roll
The ocean's caves above,
May tell their secrets, as the soul
Forget its earliest love.

It has been with me now for years,
Long years of care and strife,
And shall be with me till time wears
Away my web of life.
And when death's keen, resistless dart,
Shall bid its sorrows cease,
This tress shall rest upon my heart,
Its talisman of peace.


"'Twas little she thought that I stood breathless by her side
listening to the song she sang as she sat by the sea's edge,
pondering so deeply, upon me too perhaps, that the white foam
glimmered on her brow unheeded."
Onagh, The Pale Child of the Brehon King.

She stood beside the wide wild sea,
The winds howled hoarse and high,
And dark clouds, drifting drearily,
Swept o'er the starless sky.

Her breast was white as mountain snow,
Her locks hung loose and free,
The foam that glimmered on her brow,
Was scarce so pale as she.

She sang a mournful song of love,
Of trusting love betrayed;
Ah, why did he who won her, prove
So faithless to the maid?

"Why pines my heart so wearily,
Why heaves my aching breast,
And why is sleep so far from me,
When others are at rest?

"Thou, truant wanderer o'er the deep,
The cause of all my cares;
For thee at night I wake and weep,
When none may mark my tears.

"I seek the festive hall no more,
Its mirth no more I crave;
My heart is lonely as the shore,
And restless as the wave.

"My soul has struggled to forget
Its sleepless, fatal flame;
I know thy vows were false, and yet
My love is still the same.

"Still o'er the dream I nursed too well,
My bursting heart will yearn;
For ever with me must it dwell,--
Oh, wanderer, return!"

A white sail fluttered in the wind,
A light bark skimmed the sea,--
It came like hope across the mind,
As swift and silently.

The shell-strewn beach that edged the main,
A manly footstep pressed;
The wanderer had returned again,--
The maiden's heart was blessed!


THE DESERTED.

"Come, sit thee by my side once more,
'Tis long since thus we' met;
And though our dream of love is o'er,
Its sweetness lingers yet.
Its transient day has long been past,
Its flame has ceased to burn,--
But Memory holds its spirit fast,
Safe in her sacred urn.

"I will not chide thy wanderings,
Nor ask why thou couldst flee
A heart whose deep affection's springs
Poured forth such love for thee!
We may not curb the restless mind,
Nor teach the wayward heart
To love against its will, nor bind
It with the chains of art.

"I would but tell thee how, in tears
And bitterness, my soul
Has yearned with dreams, through long, long, years,
Which it could not control.
And how the thought that clingeth to,
And twineth round the past,
For ever in my heart shall glow,
And be save one my last.

"They say thou hast another's love,--
Well, cherish it, but thou
Its lack of strength and depth wilt prove,
Should sorrow cloud thy brow.
Though she may own a statelier form,
A fairer cheek than mine,
Her heart cannot so well and warm,
Respond each throb of thine."

Her words were gentle, but their tone
Was sad as sorrow's sigh,--
A tear-drop trembled in his own
As he sought her downcast eye.
A chord was struck within his breast
That long untouched had lain,
Old memories started from their rest,--
The maid was loved again.

Stanzas.

On! there are hours of sadness, when the soul,
Torn from its every stay, and crushed beneath
Its many griefs, and spurning faith's control,
Pants with an earnest longing for the death
Which would for ever close its dark career,
With the pale shroud and the remorseless bier;
When the harsh, sterile nothingness of life,
First breaks upon the hope-deluded breast,
And the heart sickens with the bootless strife
That wrings its chords, and longs to be at rest;
Ev'n if the blow that frees it from distress,
Should strike it into utter nothingness.

Ah, nothingness! The thought at times will come,
The mind will wrestle with the mystery
That clouds its being! from its clay-made home,
Its dwelling of a m6ment, it will flee
Into the far depths of the vast UNKNOWN,
In its vain searchings for th' eternal throne
Of that Omnipotence which gave it birth,
And, giving it a nature which might suit
A seraph, bound its destiny to earth!
And a few years, in which to eat the fruit
Of life's strange tree, so bitter at its core,
Then death, the quiet grave, sleep, and--what more?

Whence came we? whither go we? All is still
And voiceless in the past! A veil is drawn
Across the future! by life's mystic rill
We sit and ponder, watching for the dawn
Of some yet unconceived, far-reaching thought,
By which our nature's secret shall be taught!
Why sorrow is our element--why sin
Is native in us--by what curse we bear
An ever aching, crushing void within
Our secret souls! and why the little share
Of happiness that mingles with our fate,
Is of such fleeting, transitory date 1

Our loves! our hopes! what are they? fruits which turn
To ashes on our lips! illusive lights
That cast a moment's brightness while they burn,
Then die, and leave a darkness which affrights
Our spirits with its thrice redoubled gloom,
Making the sky a pall--the earth a tomb!
And yet these are the all of life for which
'Tis worth the wearing of its chain to know,
Wealth, fame, and power are but toys! the rich,
The high and mighty, with the base and low,
Alike before the reaper Death must fall,--
So be it! in the grave is rest for all.

Stanzas.

When the leaf is on the tree,
And the bird is in the bower,
And the butterfly and bee,
Bear its treasures from the flower;
When the fields put on the sheen,
That to young-eyed Spring belongs;
When the groves and forests green,
Echo with a thousand songs;

When wild Beauty wanders forth,
Giving, with no stinted care,
All her loveliness to earth,
All her sweetness to the air:
Then the heart, with gladness stirred,
Mindful of its griefs no more,
Mounts and carols, like a bird
When the pearly shower is o'er!

But the summer's sunny hours,
As we count them, pass away;
And its fairest fruits and flowers,
Are but food for stern decay.
Then with wailings, deep and loud,
Like the sea's in its unrest,
Winter spreads his icy shroud,
O'er the bare earth's frozen breast.

Thus the spirit's early gladness,
Sorrow chills or time removes;
And the soul, in tears and sadness,
Mourns its perished joys and loves.
Hope will lose its trusting boldness,
One by one its beams depart,
And Despair, with icy, coldness,
Winds