The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 6

Thus, when the father, startled to vague fears, By his child's waning cheek and unrevealing tears, First to his brother priest for counsel came, He urged stern question--track'd the grief to shame, Guess'd the undoer, and disclosed the name.

"Time went--the priest had still a steady trust In Mary's honour; but, to mine unjust, Divined some fraud--explored, and found a clue, There had been marriage, if the rites were due; Had learn'd Cla.n.a.lbin's name, as one whose eye Had seen, whose witness might attest the tie.

This news to Mary's father was convey'd The eve her infant on her heart was laid.

"That night he left his home, he did not rest Till found Cla.n.a.lbin--'Well, and he confess'd?'

I cried impatient;--my informer's eye Flash'd fire--'Confess'd the fraud,' was his reply.

'The fraud!'--'The impious form, the vile disguise!

Mock priest, false marriage, h.e.l.l's whole woof of lies!'

'Lies!--had the sound earth open'd its abyss Beneath my feet, my soul had shudder'd less.

Lies!--but not mine!--his own!--not mine such ill.

O wife, I fly--to right, avenge, and claim thee still!'"

"Thy hand--I wrong'd thee," Morvale falter'd, while His strong heart heaved--"Thou didst avenge the guile?

Thou found'st thy friend--thy witness--well! and he?"-- "Had spoken truth, the truth of perfidy.

This man had loved me in his own dark way, Loved for past kindness in our wilder day, Loved for the future, which, obscure for him, Link'd with my fate, with that grew bright or dim.

I told thee how he warr'd with my intent, The strong dissuasion, and the slow consent: The slow consent but veil'd the labour'd wile; That I might yet be great, he grovell'd to be vile.

_'Twas_ a false Hymen--a mock priest--and she The pure, dishonour'd--the dishonourer free!

"This then the tale that, while it snapp'd the chord, Still to the father's heart the child restored; This told to her by the hard zealot's tongue, Had the last hope from spoil'd existence wrung; Had driven the outcast through the waste to roam, And with the altar shatter'd ev'n the home.

No! trust ev'n then,--ev'n then, hope, was not o'er: One morn the wanderer reach'd Cla.n.a.lbin's door.

O steadfast saint! amidst the lightning's scathe, Still to the anchor clung the lingerer Faith; Still through the tempest of a darken'd brain, Where misery gnaw'd and memory rack'd in vain, The last lone angel that deserts the grief Of n.o.ble souls, survived and smiled,--BELIEF!

There had she come, herself myself to know, And bow'd the head, and waited for the blow!

What matter how the villain soothed, or sought To mask the crime?--enough that it was wrought; She heard in silence,--when all said, all learn'd, Still silent linger'd; then a flush return'd To the pale cheek,--the Woman and the Wrong Rear'd the light form,--the voice came clear and strong.

'Tell him my father's grave is closed; the dread Of shame sleeps with him--dying with the dead: Tell him on earth we meet no more;--in vain Would he redress the wrong, and clear the stain, His child is nameless; and his bride--what now To her, too late, the mockery of the vow?

I was his wife--his equal;--to endure Earth's slander? Yes!--because my soul was pure!

Now, were he kneeling here,--fame, fortune won,-- My pride would bar him from the fallen one.

Say this; if more he seek my fate, reply-- 'Once stain the ermine, and its fate--to die!'

I need not tell thee if my fury burst Against the wretch--the accurser--the accurst!

I need not tell thee if I sought each trace That lured false hope to woe's lorn resting-place; If, when all vain,--gold, toil, and art essay'd, Still in my sunlight stalk'd the avenging shade, Lost to my life for ever;--on the ground Where dwell the spectres,--Conscience--ever found!"

X.

"True was the preface to thy gloomy tale; Pity can soothe not--counsel not avail,"

Said Morvale, moodily. "What bliss foregone!

What years of rich life wasted! What a throne In the arch-heaven abandon'd! And for what?

Darkness and gold!--the slave's most slavish lot!

Thy choice forsook the light--the day divine-- G.o.d's loving air--for bondage and the mine!

Oh! what delight to struggle side by side With one loved soother!--up the steep to guide Her steps--as clinging to thy hardier form, She treads the thorn and smiles upon the storm!

And when firm will and gallant heart had won The hill-top opening to the steadfast sun, Look o'er the perils of the vanquish'd way, And bless the toil through which the victory lay, And murmur--'Which the sweeter fate, to dare With thee the evil, or with thee to share The good?' Nay, haunting must thine error be; Thee Camdeo gave the blest Amrita tree,[M]

The ambrosia of the G.o.ds,--to scorn the prize, And choose the Champac[N] for its golden dyes: Thou hast forsaken--(thou must bear the grief)-- The immortal fruitage for the withering leaf!"

"Nay," answer'd Arden, writhing, "cease to chide; Who taunts the ordeal should the fire have tried.

If Fortune's priests had train'd thy soul, like mine, } To wors.h.i.+p Fortune's as the holiest shrine, } Perchance my error, cynic, had been thine!" }

"Pardon," said Morvale; "and my taunt to shame, Know me thus weak,--I envy while I blame; _Thou hast been loved!_ And had I err'd like thee; Mine had been crime, from which thy soul is free, Thy gentler breast the traitor could forgive----"

"Never!" cried Arden-- "_Does the Traitor live?_"

And as the ear that hissing whisper thrill'd, That calm stern eye the very life-blood chill'd; For there, the instinct Cain bequeath'd us spoke, And from the chain the wild's fierce savage broke.

"O yes!" the fiery Alien thus renew'd; "I know how holy life by law is view'd; I know how all life's glory may be marr'd, If safe the clay, which, as life's all, ye guard.

Law--Law! what is it but the word for gold?

Revenge is crime, if taken--Law if sold!

Vile tongues, vile scribes, may rot your name away, But Law protects you,--with a fine to pay!

The child dishonour'd, the adulterous wife, Gold requites all, save this base garment--life!

So, _life_ alone is sacred!--_so_, your law Hems the worm's carca.s.s with a G.o.dhead's awe: So, if some mighty wrong with black despair Blots out your sun, and taints to plague the air; If with a human impulse shrinks the soul Back from the dross which compensates the whole; If from the babbling court, the legal toil, And the lash'd lackey's guerdon, ye recoil, And seize your vengeance with your own right arm, How every dastard quivers with alarm!

Mine be the heart, that can itself defend-- Hate to the foe, devotion to the friend!-- The fearless trust, and the relentless strife: Honour unsold, and wrong avenged with life!"

He ceased, with trembling lip and haughty crest, The native heathen labouring in the breast!

As waves some pine, with all its storm of boughs, O'er the black gulf Norwegian winds arouse, Shook that strong spirit, gloomy and sublime, Bending with troubled thought above the abyss of crime!

XI.

Long was the silence, till to calm restored The moody Indian and the startled lord.

"And yet," resumed the first, with softer mien, And lip that smiled, half mocking, yet serene, "Not long thy sorrow dimm'd thy life;--unless Men's envy wrong thee, thou mightst more confess Of loves, perchance as true and as deceived; Of rose-wreaths wither'd in the hands that weaved.

Talk to the world of Arden's dazzling lord, } And tales of joyous love go round the board; } Who, though adoring less, by beauty more adored?" }

"Ill dost thou read the human heart, my friend, If bounding man's life with the novel's end; Where lovers married, ever after love-- To birds alone the turtle and the dove!

Where wicked men (if I be of the gang) Repent, turn hermits, or cut throats and hang!

Our souls repent,--our lives but rarely change; Grief halts awhile, then goads us on to range.

More woo'd than wooing, scarce I feign'd to feel-- What magic to the magnet draws the steel?

Wealth soon grew mine, the parasital fame Conceal'd the nature while it deck'd the name; Kinsman on kinsman died, each death brought gold; In birth, wealth, fame, strange charms the s.e.x behold!

The outward grace the life of courts bestows, The tongue that learns unconsciously to gloze, All drew to mine the fates I could but mar; And Aphrodite was my native star!

Forgive the boast, not blessings these, but banes, If spring sows only flowers, small fruit the autumn gains!

I mark my grave coevals gather round Their harvest-home, with sheaves for garners bound; And I, that planted but the garden, see How the blooms fade! no harvest waits for me!"

"Yet didst thou never love again? as o'er The soft stream, gliding by the enamell'd sh.o.r.e, Didst thou ne'er pause, and in some lovelier vale Moor thy light prow, and furl thy silken sail?"

"But once," said Arden; "years on years had fled, And half it soothed to think my Mary dead.

For I had sworn (could faith, could honour less?) My hearth at least to priestly loneliness; To wed no other while she lived, and be, If found at last, for late atonement free.

I kept the vow, till this ambiguous doom, Half wed, half widow'd, took a funeral gloom; So many years had pa.s.s'd, no tidings gain'd, The chance so slight that yet the earth retain'd, At length, though doubtful, I believed that time Had from the altar ta'en the ban of crime.

Impulse, occasion, what you will, at last Seized one warm moment to abjure the past.

XII.

"Far other, she, who charm'd me thus awhile, Thought in each glance, and mind in every smile; Genius was hers, with all the Iris dyes That paint on cloud the arch that spans the skies; Wild in caprice, impa.s.sion'd, and yet coy, Woman when mournful, a frank child in joy; The Phidian dream, in one concentring all } The thousand spells with which the charmers thrall, } And pleasing most the eye which years begin to pall. } I do not say I loved her as, in truth, We only love when life is in its youth; But here at least I thought to fix my doom, And from the weary waste reclaim a home.

Enough I loved, to woo, to win, to bind To her my fate, if Heaven had so a.s.sign'd!

The nuptial day was fix'd, the plighting kiss Glow'd on my lips;--that moment the abyss, Which, hid by moss-grown time, yet yawn'd as wide Beneath my feet, divorced me from her side.

A letter came--Cla.n.a.lbin's hand; what made Treason so bold to brave the man betray'd?

I break the seal--O Heaven! my Mary yet Lived; in want's weeds the wretch his victim met; Track'd to her home (a beggar's squalid cell!), } Told all the penitence that lips could tell: } 'Come back and plead thyself, and all may yet be well!' } Had I a choice? could I delay to choose?-- Here conscience dragg'd me, there it might excuse.

"Few hurried lines, obscurely dark with all The war within, my later vows recall, Breathe pa.s.sionate prayer--for hopeless pardon sue, And shape soft words to soothe the stern adieu.

So, as some soul the beckoning ghost obeys, The haunting shadow of the vanish'd days Lures to the grave of Youth my charmed tread, And sighs, 'At length thou shalt appease the Dead!'

"Scarce had I reach'd the sh.o.r.es of England, ere New pomps spring round me,--I am Arden's heir!

The last pretender to the princely line, Whose flag had waved from towers in Palestine, Borne to our dark Walhalla,--left me poor In all which sheds a blessing on the boor.-- Yes, thou art right! how, at each sickening grasp For the heart's food, had gold befool'd my clasp!

Gorged with a satrap's treasure, the soul's dearth Envied the pauper crawling to his hearth."

"But Mary--she--thy wife before Heaven's eye?"

"Lost as before!" was Arden's anguish-cry; "Not beggary, famine--not her child (for whom, What could she hope from earth?--as stern a doom!) Could bow the steel of that proud chast.i.ty, Which scorn'd as alms the atonement due from me!

Out of the sense of wrong her grandeur grown, She look'd on shame from Sorrow as a throne.

Once more more she fled;--no sign!--again the same Vain track--vain chase!--Not _here_ was I to blame!"