Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell Part 11

In the dungeon-crypts idly did I stray, Reckless of the lives wasting there away; "Draw the ponderous bars! open, Warder stern!"

He dared not say me nay--the hinges harshly turn.

"Our guests are darkly lodged," I whisper'd, gazing through The vault, whose grated eye showed heaven more gray than blue; (This was when glad Spring laughed in awaking pride;) "Ay, darkly lodged enough!" returned my sullen guide.

Then, G.o.d forgive my youth; forgive my careless tongue; I scoffed, as the chill chains on the damp flagstones rung: "Confined in triple walls, art thou so much to fear, That we must bind thee down and clench thy fetters here?"

The captive raised her face; it was as soft and mild As sculptured marble saint, or slumbering unwean'd child; It was so soft and mild, it was so sweet and fair, Pain could not trace a line, nor grief a shadow there!

The captive raised her hand and pressed it to her brow; "I have been struck," she said, "and I am suffering now; Yet these are little worth, your bolts and irons strong; And, were they forged in steel, they could not hold me long."

Hoa.r.s.e laughed the jailor grim: "Shall I be won to hear; Dost think, fond, dreaming wretch, that I shall grant thy prayer?

Or, better still, wilt melt my master's heart with groans?

Ah! sooner might the sun thaw down these granite stones.

"My master's voice is low, his aspect bland and kind, But hard as hardest flint the soul that lurks behind; And I am rough and rude, yet not more rough to see Than is the hidden ghost that has its home in me."

About her lips there played a smile of almost scorn, "My friend," she gently said, "you have not heard me mourn; When you my kindred's lives, MY lost life, can restore, Then may I weep and sue,--but never, friend, before!

"Still, let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear Year after year in gloom, and desolate despair; A messenger of Hope comes every night to me, And offers for short life, eternal liberty.

"He comes with western winds, with evening's wandering airs, With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars.

Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire, And visions rise, and change, that kill me with desire.

"Desire for nothing known in my maturer years, When Joy grew mad with awe, at counting future tears.

When, if my spirit's sky was full of flashes warm, I knew not whence they came, from sun or thunder-storm.

"But, first, a hush of peace--a soundless calm descends; The struggle of distress, and fierce impatience ends; Mute music soothes my breast--unuttered harmony, That I could never dream, till Earth was lost to me.

"Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals; My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels: Its wings are almost free--its home, its harbour found, Measuring the gulph, it stoops and dares the final bound,

"Oh I dreadful is the check--intense the agony-- When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see; When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again; The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.

"Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less; The more that anguish racks, the earlier it will bless; And robed in fires of h.e.l.l, or bright with heavenly s.h.i.+ne, If it but herald death, the vision is divine!"

She ceased to speak, and we, unanswering, turned to go-- We had no further power to work the captive woe: Her cheek, her gleaming eye, declared that man had given A sentence, unapproved, and overruled by Heaven.

HOPE.

Hope Was but a timid friend; She sat without the grated den, Watching how my fate would tend, Even as selfish-hearted men.

She was cruel in her fear; Through the bars one dreary day, I looked out to see her there, And she turned her face away!

Like a false guard, false watch keeping, Still, in strife, she whispered peace; She would sing while I was weeping; If I listened, she would cease.

False she was, and unrelenting; When my last joys strewed the ground, Even Sorrow saw, repenting, Those sad relics scattered round;

Hope, whose whisper would have given Balm to all my frenzied pain, Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven, Went, and ne'er returned again!

A DAY DREAM.

On a sunny brae alone I lay One summer afternoon; It was the marriage-time of May, With her young lover, June.

From her mother's heart seemed loath to part That queen of bridal charms, But her father smiled on the fairest child He ever held in his arms.

The trees did wave their plumy crests, The glad birds carolled clear; And I, of all the wedding guests, Was only sullen there!

There was not one, but wished to shun My aspect void of cheer; The very gray rocks, looking on, Asked, "What do you here?"

And I could utter no reply; In sooth, I did not know Why I had brought a clouded eye To greet the general glow.

So, resting on a heathy bank, I took my heart to me; And we together sadly sank Into a reverie.

We thought, "When winter comes again, Where will these bright things be?

All vanished, like a vision vain, An unreal mockery!

"The birds that now so blithely sing, Through deserts, frozen dry, Poor spectres of the perished spring, In famished troops will fly.

"And why should we be glad at all?

The leaf is hardly green, Before a token of its fall Is on the surface seen!"

Now, whether it were really so, I never could be sure; But as in fit of peevish woe, I stretched me on the moor,

A thousand thousand gleaming fires Seemed kindling in the air; A thousand thousand silvery lyres Resounded far and near:

Methought, the very breath I breathed Was full of sparks divine, And all my heather-couch was wreathed By that celestial s.h.i.+ne!

And, while the wide earth echoing rung To that strange minstrelsy The little glittering spirits sung, Or seemed to sing, to me:

"O mortal! mortal! let them die; Let time and tears destroy, That we may overflow the sky With universal joy!

"Let grief distract the sufferer's breast, And night obscure his way; They hasten him to endless rest, And everlasting day.

"To thee the world is like a tomb, A desert's naked sh.o.r.e; To us, in unimagined bloom, It brightens more and more!

"And, could we lift the veil, and give One brief glimpse to thine eye, Thou wouldst rejoice for those that live, BECAUSE they live to die."

The music ceased; the noonday dream, Like dream of night, withdrew; But Fancy, still, will sometimes deem Her fond creation true.

TO IMAGINATION.