Mazelli, and Other Poems
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George W. Sands >> Mazelli, and Other Poems
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"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 its mantle round the heart.
AFTER WITNESSING A DEATH-SCENE.
Press close your lips,
And bow your heads to earth, for Death is here!
Mark ye not how across that eye so clear,
Steals his eclipse?
A moment more,
And the quick throbbings of her heart shall cease,
Her pain-wrung spirit will obtain release,
And all be o'er!
Hush! Seal ye up
Your gushing tears, for Mercy's hand hath shaken
Her earth-bonds off, and from her lip hath taken
Grief's bitter cup.
Ye know the dead
Are they who rest secure from care and strife,--
That they who walk the thorny way of life,
Have tears to shed.
Ye know her pray'r,
Was for the quiet of the tomb's deep rest,--
Love's sepulchre lay cold within her breast,
Could peace dwell there?
A tale soon told,
Is of her life the story; she had loved,
And he who won her heart to love, had proved
Heartless and cold.
Lay her to rest,
Where shines and falls the summer's sun and dew;
For these should shine and fall where lies so true
And fond a breast!
A full release
From every pang is given to the dead,--
So on the stone ye place above her head,
Write only "Peace."*
When Spring comes back,
With music on her lips,--joy in her eye,--
Her sunny banner streaming through the sky,--
Flow'rs in her track--
Then come ye here,
And musing from the busy world apart,
Drop on the turf that wraps her mouldering heart,
Sweet Pity's tear.
* The most touchingly beautiful epitaph I have ever read, was
written in that one word, "Peace." It seemed like the last sigh
of a departing spirit, over the clay which it was about to
abandon for ever.
LOVE AND FANCY.
"Whenever, amid bow'rs of myrtle,
Love, summer-tressed and vernal-eyed,
At morn or eve is seen to wander,
A dark-haired girl is at his side."
De La Hogue.
One morn, just as day in the far east was breaking,
Young Love, who all night had been roving about,
A charming siesta was quietly taking,
His strength, by his rambles, completely worn out.
Round his brow a wreath, woven of every flower
That springs from the hillside, or valley, was bound;
In his hand was a rose he had stol'n from some bower,
While his bow and his quiver lay near on the ground.
Wild Fancy just came from her kingdom of dreams,
The breath of the opening day to enjoy,
And to catch the warm kiss of its first golden beams
On her cheek, caught a glimpse of the slumbering boy!
With a light, noiseless step she drew near to the sleeper,
And gazed till her snowy-breast heaved a soft sigh;
Then she bade sleep's dull god bring a sounder and deeper
And heavier trance for Love's beautiful eye.
Then back to her shadowy kingdom she flow,
And called up the bright mystic forms she has there;
And filling an urn from a fountain of dew,
She bade them all straight to Love's couch-side repair.
They came, and stood round, as her hand, o'er his pillow,
From a chalice of pearl, poured its magical stream:
While his red rosy lips, that now sighed like a billow
At play with the breeze, told how sweet was his dream.
He dreamed that he sat on a shining throne, wrought
Of the purest of gold that the earth could supply,
While a trio of beautiful maids, who each brought
A gift for his shrine, in succession past by.
First Fame, with the step and the glance of a queen,
Came up, and before him bent down her proud knee,
And held up a garland, whereon played the sheen
Of the beams which insure immortality!
Next Wealth, the stern mistress of men, for whose smile
They toil like the galley slave,--brought in her hand
The fair gems of many an ocean isle,
And the diamonds of many a far off land.
And Beauty came too, with her blue, laughing eye,
Her fair flowing locks, and her soft rosy cheek,
And red lips, whose sweet smile told silently
The tale which they seemed ashamed to speak.
'Neath the shade of a palm branch a fourth one stood by,
With locks like in hue to the tresses of Night,
With a pale, pensive brow, and a dark dreamy eye,
Where the soul of sweet softness lay gleaming in light!
It was Fancy: Love gazed, and his eager eye shone
With a lustre of feeling, deep, fervent, and sweet;
And he thought it were better to give up his throne
For a place, on his knees, at the coy maiden's feet.
And from that bright hour, through calm and through storm,
Through the sunlight of summer, and winter's dark reign,
These twain have been bound by ties, tender and warm,
Which ne'er through all time shall be severed again.
And ever where Love weaves his fond witchery,
Will Fancy the aid of her brightness bestow,
And give the loved object, whatever it be,
A purer, a dearer, a heavenlier glow!
LINES WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM
'Tis not in youth, when life is new, when but to live is sweet,
When Pleasure strews her starlike flow'rs beneath our careless feet,
When Hope, that has not been deferred, first waves its golden wings,
And crowds the distant future with a thousand lovely things;--
When if a transient grief o'ershades the spirit for a while,
The momentary tear that falls is followed by a smile;
Or if a pensive mood, at times, across the bosom steals,
It scarcely sighs, so gentle is the pensiveness it feels
It is not then the, restless soul will seek for one with whom
To share whatever lot it bears, its gladness or its gloom,--
Some trusting, tried, and gentle heart, some true and faithful breast,
Whereon its pinions it may fold, and claim a place of rest.
But oh! when comes the icy chill that freezes o'er the heart,
When, one by one, the joys we shared, the hopes we held, depart;
When friends, like autumn's withered leaves, have fallen by our side,
And life, so pleasant once, becomes a desert wild and wide;--
As for her olive branch the dove swept o'er the sullen wave,
That rolled above the olden world--its death-robe and its grave!--
So will the spirit search the earth for some kind, gentle one,
With it to share her destiny, and make it all her own!
TO A LADY.
Suggested By Hearing Her Voice During Services At Church.
At night, in visions, when my soul drew near
The shadowy confines of the spirit land,
Wild, wondrous notes of song have met my ear,
Wrung from their harps by many a seraph's hand;
And forms of light, too, more divinely fair
Than Mercy's messenger to hearts that mourn,
On wings that made sweet music in the air,
Have round me, in those hours of bliss, been borne,
And, filled with joy unutterable, I
Have deemed myself a born child of the sky.
And often, too, at sunset's magic hour,
When musing by some solitary stream,
While thought awoke in its resistless pow'r,
And restless Fancy wove her brightest dream:
Mysterious tongues, that were not of the earth,
Have whispered words which I may not repeat,--
But Thought or Fancy ne'er have given birth
To form and voice like thine,--so fair and sweet!
Nor have I found them when my spirit's flight
Had borne me to the far shores of delight.
Above the murmurs of an hundred lips,
They rose, those silvery tones of praise and pray'r,
Soft as the light breeze, when Aurora trips
The earth, and, lighting up the darkened air,
Carols her greetings to the waking flow'rs!
They fell upon my heart like summer rain
Upon the thirsting fields,--and earlier hours,
When I too breathed th' adoring pray'r and strain,
Came back once more; the present was beguiled
Of half its gloom, and my worn spirit smiled.
Pray, lady, that the sad, soul-searing blight,
Which comes upon us when we tread the ways
Of sin, may not be suffered to alight
On thy pure spirit in its youthful days;
Or like the fruitage of the Dead Sea shore,
Tho' outward bloom and freshness thou may'st be,
Stern bitterness and death will gnaw thy core,
And thou wilt be a heart-scathed thing like me,
Bearing the weight of many years, ere thou
Hast lost youth's rosy cheek and lineless brow.
IMPROMPTU,
On The Reception Of A Letter.
I would love to have thee near me,
But when I think how drear
Is each hope that used to cheer me,
I cease to wish thee here.
I know that thou, wouldst not shrink from
The storms that burst on me,
But the bitter chalice I drink from,
I will not pass to thee.
I would share the world with thee, were it
With all its pleasures mine,
But the sorrows which I inherit,
I never will make thine!
THE OLD MAN AND THE BOY.
"Glenara, Glenara, now read me my dream."
Campbell.
Father, I have dreamed a dream,
When the rosy morning hour
Poured its light on field and stream,
Kindling nature with its pow'r;--
O'er the meadow's dewy breast,
I had chased a butterfly,
Tempted by its gaudy vest,
Still my vain pursuit to ply,--
Till my limbs were weary grown,
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 ivy twine
Its wreaths about each ruined arch,
Till Time shall crush them in the brine,
Beneath its all-triumphant march!
Then let the swelling waters close
Above the sea-child's sinking frame,
And hide for ever from her foes,
Each trace and vestige of her shame.
Shall we at last less calmly sleep,
When in the narrow death-house pent,
Because the bosom of the deep
Shall be our only monument?
No! by the waste of waters bid,
Our tombs as well shall keep their trust,
As tho' a marble pyramid
Were piled above our mangled dust!
Written in the National Gallery, at the city of Washington, on
looking at a Mummy, supposed to have belonged to a race extinct
before the occupation of the Western Continent by the people in
whose possession the Europeans found it.
Sole and mysterious relic of a race
That long has ceased to be, whose very name,
Time, ever bearing on with steady pace,
Has swept away from earth, leaving thy frame,
Darkened by thirty centuries, to claim,
Among the records of the things that were,
Its place,--Tradition has forgot thee--Fame,
If ever fame was thine, has ceased to bear
Her record of thee,--say, what dost thou here?
Three thousand years ago a mother's arms
Were wrapped about that dark and ghastly form,
And all the loveliness of childhood's charms
Glowed on that cheek, with life then flushed and warm;
Say, what preserved thee from the hungry worm
That haunts with gnawing tooth the gloomy bed
Spread for the lifeless? Tell what could disarm
Decay of half its power, and while it fed
On empires--races--make it spare the dead!
How strange to contemplate the wondrous story,
When those deep sunken eyes first saw the light,
Lost Babylon was in her midday glory,--
Upon her pride and power had fall'n no blight;
And Tyre, the ancient mariner's delight,
Whose merchantmen were princes, and whose name
Was theme of praise to all, has left her site
To utter barren nakedness and shame,--
Yet thou, amid all change, art still the same.
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