The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 19

--"He urged the suit--it is for ever o'er; Dead with the folly youth's crude fancies bore, One word, nay less, one gesture" (and she blush'd) "Struck dumb the suit, the scorn'd presumption crush'd."

--"What! and yon portrait curtain'd with such care?"

"There did I point and say '_My heart is there_!'"

Amazed, bewilder'd--struggling half with fear And half delight--his steps the curtain near.

He lifts the veil: that face--It is his own!

But not the face her later gaze had known; Not stern, nor sad, nor cold,--but in those eyes, The wooing softness love unmix'd supplies; The fond smile beaming the glad lips above, Bright as when radiant with the words "I love."

An instant mute--oh, canst thou guess the rest?

The next his Constance clinging to his breast; All from the proud reserve, at once allied To the girl's modesty, the woman's pride, Melting in sobs and happy tears--and words Swept into music from long-silent chords.

Then came the dear confession, full at last.

Then stream'd life's Future on the fading Past; And as a sudden footstep nears the door, As a third shadow dims the threshold floor-- As Seaton, entering in his black despair, Pauses the tears, the joy, the heaven to share-- The happy Ruthven raised his princely head, "Give her again--this day in truth we wed!"

And when the spring the earth's fresh glory weaves In merry sunbeams and green quivering leaves, A joy-bell ringing through a cloudless air Knells Harcourt's hopes and welcomes Ruthven's heir.

MILTON.

IN FOUR PARTS.

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT TO THE READER.

This Poem was originally composed in very early youth. It was first published in 1831, and though unfortunately coupled with a very jejune and puerile burlesque called 'The Siamese Twins' (which to my great satisfaction has been long since forgotten), it was honoured by a very complimentary notice in the _Edinburgh Review_, and found general favour with those who chanced to read it. In the present edition, although the conception and the general structure remain the same, many pa.s.sages have been wholly re-written, and the diction throughout carefully revised, and often materially altered. I have sought, in short, from an affection for the subject (too partial it may be) to give to the ideas which visited me in the freshness of youth, whatever aid from expression they could obtain in the taste and culture of mature manhood. No doubt, however, faults of exuberance in form, as in fancy, still remain, and betray the age in which we scarcely look beyond the Spring that delights us, nor comprehend that the mult.i.tude of the blossoms can be injurious to the bearing of the tree. Nevertheless, such faults may find more indulgence among my younger readers than those of an opposite nature, incident to the style, closer and more compressed, which my present theories of verse have led me to adopt in most of the poems I have composed of late years.

It will be observed that the design of this poem is that of a picture.

It is intended to portray the great Patriot Poet in the three cardinal divisions of life--Youth, Manhood, and Age. The first part is founded upon the well-known, though ill-authenticated, tradition of the Italian lady or ladies seeing Milton asleep under a tree in the gardens of his college, and leaving some tributary verses beside the sleeper. Taking full advantage of this legend, and presuming to infer from Milton's Italian verses (as his biographers have done before me) that in his tour through Italy he did not escape the influence of the master pa.s.sion, I have ventured to connect, by a single thread of romantic fiction, the segments of a poem in which narrative after all is subservient to description. This idea belongs to the temerity of youth, but I trust it has been subjected to restrictions more reverent than those ordinarily imposed on poetic licence.

PART THE FIRST.

"Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eve by haunted stream."--L'ALLEGRO.

I.

It was the Minstrel's merry month of June; Silent and sultry glow'd the breezeless noon; Along the flowers the bee went murmuring; Life in its myriad forms was on the wing; Play'd on the green leaves with the quiv'ring beam, Sang from the grove, and sparkled from the stream, When, where yon beech-tree veil'd the soft'ning ray, On violet-banks young Milton dreaming lay.

For him the Earth below, the Heaven above, Doubled each charm in the clear gla.s.s of youth; And the vague spirit of unsettled love Roved through the visions that precede the truth, While Poesy's low voice so hymn'd through all That ev'n the very air was musical.

II.

The sunbeam rested, where it pierced the boughs, On locks whose gold reflected back the gleaming; On Thought's fair temple in majestic brows On Love's bright portal--lips that smiled in dreaming.

Dreams he of Nymph half hid in sparry cave?

Or of his own Sabrina chastely "sitting Under the gla.s.sy cool translucent wave,"

The loose train of her amber tresses knitting?

Or that far shadow, yet but faintly view'd, Where the Four Rivers take their parent springs, Which shall come forth from starry solitude, In the last days of angel-visitings, When, soaring upward from the nether storm, The Heaven of Heavens shall earthly guest receive, And in the long-lost Eden smile thy form, Fairer than all thy daughters, fairest Eve?

III.

Has the dull Earth a being to compare With those that haunt that spirit-world--the brain?

Can shapes material vie with forms of air, Nature with Phantasy?--O question vain!

Lo, by the Dreamer, fresh from heavenly hands, Youth's dream-inspirer--Virgin Woman stands.

She came, a stranger from the Southern skies, And careless o'er the cloister'd garden stray'd, Till, pausing, violets on the bank to cull, Over the Dreamer bent the Beautiful.

Silent, with lifted hand and lips apart, Silent she stood, and gazed away her heart.

Like purple Maenad fruits, when down the glade Shoots the warm sunbeam,--into darksome glow Light kiss'd the ringlets wreathing brows of snow; And softer than the rosy hues that flush Her native heaven, when Tuscan morns arise, The sweet cheek brighten'd with the sweeter blush, As virgin love from out delighted eyes Dawn'd as Aurora dawns.--

Thus look'd the maid, And still the sleeper dream'd beneath the shade.

Image of Soul and Love! So Psyche crept To the still chamber where her Eros slept; While the light gladden'd round his face serene,[A]

As light doth ever,--when Love first is seen.

Felt he the touch of her dark locks descending, Or with his breath her breathing fused and blending, That, like a bird we startle from the spray, Pa.s.s'd the light Sleep with sudden wings away?

Sighing he woke, and waking he beheld; The sigh was silenced, as the look was spell'd; Look charming look, the love that ever lies In human hearts, like light'ning in the air, Flash'd in the moment from those meeting eyes, And open'd all the Heaven!

O Youth, beware!

For either, light should but forewarn the gaze; Woe follows love, as darkness doth the blaze!

IV.

And their eyes met--one moment and no more; Moment in time that centred years in feeling.

As when to Thetis, on her cavern'd sh.o.r.e, Knelt her young King,--he rose, and murmur'd, kneeling.

Low though the murmur, it dissolved the charm Which had in silence chain'd the modest feet; And maiden shame and woman's swift alarm Crimson'd her cheek and in her pulses beat: She turn'd, and, as a spell that leaves the place It fill'd with phantom beauty cold and bare, She fled;--and over disenchanted s.p.a.ce Rush'd back the common air!

V.

Time waned--and thoughts intense, and grave and high, With sterner truths foreshadow'd Minstrel dreams; Yet never vanish'd from the Minstrel's eye That meteor blended with the morning beams.

Time waned, and ripe became the long desire, Which, nursed in youth, with restless manhood grew A pa.s.sion--to behold that heart of Earth, Yet trembling with the silver Mantuan lyre, To knightly arms by Ta.s.so tuned anew:-- So the fair Pilgrim left his father's hearth.

Into his soul he drunk the lofty lore, Floating like air around the clime of song; Beheld the starry sage,[B] what time he bore For truth's dear glory the immortal wrong; Communed majestic with majestic minds; And all the glorious wanderer heard or saw Or felt or learn'd or dream'd, were as the winds That swell'd the sails of his triumphant soul; As then, ev'n then, with ardour yet in awe, It swept Time's ocean to its distant goal.

VI.

It was the evening--and a group were strewn O'er such a spot as ye, I ween, might see, When basking in the summer's breathless noon, With upward face beneath the drowsy tree; While golden dreams the willing soul receives, And Elf-land glimmers through the checkering leaves.

It was the evening--still it lay, and fair, Lapp'd in the quiet of the lulling air; Still, but how happy! like a living thing All love itself--all love around it seeing; And drinking from the earth, as from a spring, The hush'd delight and essence of its being.

And round the spot (a wall of glossy shade) The interlaced and bowering trees reposed; And through the world of foliage had been made Green lanes and vistas, which at length were closed By fount, or fane, or statue white and h.o.a.r, Startling the heart with the fond dreams of yore.

And near, half-glancing through its veil of leaves, An antique temple stood in marble grace; Where still, if fondly wise, the heart conceives Faith in the lingering Genius of the Place: Seen wandering yet perchance at earliest dawn Or greyest eve--with Nymph or bearded Faun.

Dainty with mosses was the gra.s.s you press'd, Through which the harmless lizard glancing crept.

And--wearied infants on Earth's gentle breast-- In every nook the little field-flowers slept.

But ever when the soft air draws its breath (Breeze is a word too rude), with half-heard sigh, From orange-shrubs and myrtles--wandereth The Grove's sweet Dryad borne in fragrance by.

And aye athwart the alleys fitfully Glanced the fond moth enamour'd of the star; And aye, from out her watch-tower in the tree, The music which a falling leaf might mar, So faint--so faery seem'd it--of the bird Transform'd at Daulis thrillingly was heard.