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

With the distance I had strayed,
Then to rest I laid me down,
Where a beech tree cast its shade,

Soon a heaviness came o'er me,
And a deep sleep sealed my eyes;
And a vision past before me,
Full of changing phantasies.

First I stood beside a bower,
Green as summer bow'r could be;
Vine and fruit, and leaf and flower,
Mixed to weave its canopy.

And within reclined a form,
As embodied moonlight fair,
With a soft cheek, fresh and warm,
Deep blue eye and sunny hair.

By her side a goblet stood,
Such as bacchanalians brim;
High the rich grape's crimson blood,
Sparkled o'er its gilded rim.

As I gazed, she bowed her head,
With a gay and graceful move,
And in words of music said,
"Drink, and learn the lore of love!"

Next I stood beside a mountain,
Of majestic form and height;
Cliff and crag, and glen and fountain,
Mingled to make up its might.

On its lofty brow were growing
Flowers never chilled by gloom,
For the sky above them glowing,
Dyed them with a deathless bloom.

And I saw the crystal dome,
Wondrous in its majesty,
Where earth's great ones find a home,
When their spirits are set free.

By its portals, I espied
One who kept the courts within;
High he waved a wreath and cried,
"Come up hither,--strive and win!"

Then my vision changed again:
In a fairy-coloured shell,
O'er the wide sea's pathless plain,
I was speeding, fast and well.

Suddenly, beneath its prow,
Parted were the azure waves,
And I saw where, far below,
Yawn the vast deep's secret caves.

Where the Syren sings her song,
To old Ocean's sons and daughters;
And the mermaids dance along,
To the music of the waters.

Where the coral forest o'er,
Storm or tempest ne'er is driven
And the gems that strew its floor,
Sparkle like the stars in heaven.

Treasures, such as never eye
Of the earth has looked upon,
Gold and pearls of many a dye,
There in rich profusion shone.

And a voice came to my ear,
Saying, in a stern, cold tone,
Such as chills the heart with fear,
"Seize and make the prize thine own."

Then across a clouded wild,
Lone and drear and desolate,
Where no cheerful cottage smiled,
I pursued the steps of fate.

Ever bearing in my breast,
Thoughts almost to madness wrought;
Ever, ever seeking rest,
Never finding what I Sought--

Till I gave my wanderings o'er,
By a black and icy stream,--
Deep I plunged and knew no more:--
Father, read me now my dream.

The old man bowed his head,
And pressed his thin hand to his withered brow,
As if he struggled with some rising thought
Which should have kept its place in memory's urn
Till he had cast the shadow from his soul,
Which for a while had bound it in a spell
Born of the bygone years,--then thus he spoke:

Now listen, boy, and I will show to thee
The import of thy vision,--I will tell
Thee what its scenes and shapes of mystery
Foreshadow of the future,--for full well
I know the wizard lore, whose witchery
Binds e'en the time to come in its wild spell!
And from approaching years a knowledge wrings
Of what they bear upon their viewless wings.

Along life's weary way of pain and care,
From earliest infancy to eldest age,
Forms, viewless as the soft-breathed summer air,
Attend man's footsteps in his pilgrimage;
And if his destiny be dark or fair,
If Pleasure gilds, or Sorrow blots the page
Whereon is traced his history, still his ear
Will ever catch their warning voices near.

And they--those guardian ones, who, while thy sleep
Hung o'er thee like a curtain, came around
And fanned thee till thy slumber grew more deep,--
Flung o'er thy rest, so perfect and profound,
A dream whose mem'ry thou sbouldst ever keep
Bound to thy spirit, for altho' it wound,
Thy young heart now, perchance, in after years,
'Twill save thee much of toil, and many tears.

It was a dream of life: of boyhood's strong
And soul-consuming yearnings after love!
His eager search to find, amid the throng,
Some heart to give him thought for thought--to move
And mingle with his own, as twines the song
From Beauty's lyre and lips! to know and prove
The dearest joy to care-cursed mortals given,
The one with least of earth, and most of heaven

Of manhood's ceaseless strivings after fame,--
The veriest phantom of all phantasies--
For which he wields the sword, or lights the flame
Whose red glare mocks a nation's agonies,--
Or by his star-outwatching taper, plies
His pen or pencil, to gain--what? a name,
A passing sound--an echo--a mere breath,
Which he, vain fool, dreams mightier than death!

And of a later period, when the soul
Forsakes its high resolves and wild desires,
When stern Ambition can no more control,
And Love has shrouded o'er its smothered fires;
When Expectation ceases to console,
And Hope, the last kind comforter, expires;
And Avarice, monster of the gilded vest,
Creeps in and occupies the vacant breast.

And then the last sad scene: The sick heart, sore
And fainting from its wounds--the palsied limb--
The brow whose death-sweat peeps from every pore--
The eye with its long, weary watch grown dim--
The withered, wan cheek, that shall bloom no more--
The last dregs dripping slowly from the brim
Of life's drained cup,--behind all gloom, before
A deep, dark gulf--we plunge, and all is o'er!


ACLE AT THE GRAYE OF NERO.

It is a circumstance connected with the history of Nero, that
every spring and summer, for many years after his death, fresh
and beautiful flowers were nightly scattered upon his grave by
some unknown hand.

Tradition relates that it was done by a young maiden of Corinth,
named Acle, whom Nero had brought to Rome from her native city,
whither he had gone in the disguise of an artist, to contend in
the Nemean, Isthinian, and Floral games, celebrated there; and
whence he returned conqueror in the Palaestra, the chariot race,
and the song; bearing with him, like Jason of old, a second Medea,
divine in form and feature as the first, and who like her had left
father, friends, and country, to follow a stranger.

Even the worse than savage barbarity of this sanguinary tyrant,
had not cut him off from all human affection; and those flowers
were doubtless the tribute of that young girl's holy and enduring
love!

Whose name is on yon lettered stone? whose ashes rest beneath?
That thus you come with flowers to deck the mournful home of death;
And thou--why darkens so thy brow with grief's untimely gloom?
Thou art fitter for a bride than for a watcher by the tomb!

"It is the name of one whose deeds made men grow pale with fear,
And Nero's, stranger, is the dust that lies sepulchred here;
That name may be a word of harsh and boding sound to thee,
But oh! it has a more than mortal melody for me!

"And I,--my heart has grown to age in girlhood's fleeting years,
And has one only task--to bathe its buried love in tears;
The all of life that yet remains to me is but its breath;
Then tell me, is it meet that I should seek the bridal wreath?"

But maiden, he of whom yon speak was of a savage mood,
That took its joy alone in scenes, of carnage, tears and blood;
His dark, wild spirit bore the stain of crime's most loathsome hue,
And love is for the high of soul--the gentle and the true.

"The voice that taught an abject world to tremble at its words,
To me was mild and musical, and mellow as a bird's--
A bird's--that couched among the green, broad branches of the date,
Tells, in its silvery songs, its gushing gladness to its mate.

"I saw him first beside the sea; near to ray father's home,
When like an ocean deity he bounded from the foam;
Ev'n then a glory seemed to breathe around him as he trod,
And my haughty soul was bowed, as in the presence of a God.

I knew not, till my heart was his, the darkness of his own,
Nor dreamed that he who knelt to me was master of a throne!
And when the fearful knowledge came, its coming was in vain,--
I had forsaken all for him, and would do so again."

Is love the offspring of the will? or is it, like a flower,
So frail that it may fade and be forgotten in an hour?
No, no! it springs unbidden where the heart's deep fountains play,
And cherished by their hallowed dew, it cannot pass away!


THE VENETIAN GIRL'S EVENING SONG.

Unmoor the skiff,--unmoor the skiff,--
The night wind's sigh is on the air,
And o'er the highest Alpine cliff,
The pale moon rises, broad and clear.
The murmuring waves are tranquil now,
And on their breast each twinkling star
With which Night gems her dusky brow,
Flings its mild radiance from afar.

Put off upon the deep blue sea,
And leave the banquet and the ball;
For solitude, when shared with thee,
Is dearer than the carnival.
And in my heart are thoughts of love,
Such thoughts as lips should only breathe,
When the bright stars keep watch above,
And the calm waters sleep beneath!

The tale I have for thee, perchance,
May to thine eye anew impart
The long-lost gladness of its glance,
And soothe the sorrows of thy heart;
Come, I will sing for thee again,
The songs which once our mothers sung,
Ere tyranny its galling chain
On them, and those they loved, had hung.

Thou'rt sad; thou say'st that in the halls
Which echoed once our father's tread,
The stranger's idle footstep falls,
With sound that might awake the dead!
The mighty dead! whose dust around
An atmosphere of reverence sheds;
If aught of earthly voice or sound,
Might reach them in their marble beds.

That she to whom the deep gave birth,--
Fair Venice! to whose queenly stores
The wealth and beauty of the earth
Were wafted from an hundred shores!
Now on her wave-girt site, forlorn,
Sits shrouded in affliction's night,--
The object of the tyrant's scorn,
Sad monument of fallen might.

Well, tho' in her deserted halls
The fire on Freedom's shrine is dead,
Tho' o'er her darkened, crumbling walls,
Stern Desolation's pall is spread;
Is not the second better part,
To that which rends the despot's chain,
To wear it with a dauntless heart,
To feel yet shrink not from its pain?

Then let the creeping