The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 9

"Hush, hus.h.!.+ lest Man's eternal Foe } Hear thee, and tempt! Oh, never may'st thou know } Beside one deed of Guilt--how blest is guiltless Woe!" } Then, close, and closer, clinging to his side, Frank as the child, and tender as the bride, Words--looks--and tears themselves combine the balm, Lull the fierce pang, and steal the soul to calm!

As holy herbs (that rocks with verdure wreathe, And fill with sweets the summer air they breathe,) In winter wither, only to reveal Diviner virtues--charged with powers to heal, So are the thoughts of Love!--if Heaven is fair, Blooms for the earth, and perfumes for the air;-- Is the Heaven dark?--doth sorrow sear the leaf?

They fade from joy to anodynes for grief!

From theme to theme she lures his thought afar, From the dark haunt in which its demons are; And with the gentle instinct which divines Interest more strong than aught which Self entwines With its own suffering--changed the course of tears, And led him, child-like, through her own young years.

The silent sorrows of a patient mind-- Grief's loveliest poem, a soft soul resign'd, Charm'd and aroused---- "O tell me more!" he cried; "Ev'n from the infant let me trace the bride.

Of thy dear life I am a miser grown, And grudge each smile that did not gild my own; Look back--thy _Father?_ Canst thou not recal _His_ kiss, _his_ voice? Fair orphan! tell me all."

"My Father? No!" sigh'd Lucy; "at that name Still o'er my mother's cheek the fever came; Thus, from the record of each earlier year, That household tie moved less of love than fear; Some wild mysterious awe, some undefined Instinct of woe was with the name entwined.

Lived he?--I knew not; knew not till the last Sad hours, when Memory struggled to the Past, And she--my dying mother--to my breast Clasp'd these twain relics--let them speak the rest!"

With that, for words no more she could command, She placed a scroll--a portrait--in his hand; And overcome by memories that could brook Not ev'n love's comfort,--veil'd her troubled look, And glided swiftly thence. Nor he detain'd: Spell bound, his gaze upon the portrait strain'd: That brow--those features! that bright lip, which smiled Forth from the likeness!--Found Lord Arden's child!

The picture spoke as if from Mary's tomb, Death in the smile and mockery in the bloom.

The scroll, unseal'd--address'd the obscurer name That Arden bore, ere lands and lords.h.i.+p came; And at the close, to which the Indian's eyes } Hurried, these words:-- } "In peace thy Mary dies; } Forgive her sternness in her sacrifice! } It had one merit--_that I loved!_ and till Each pulse is hush'd shall love, yet fly, thee still.

Now take thy child! and when she clings with pride To the strong shelter of a father's side, Tell her, a mother bought the priceless right To bless unblus.h.i.+ng her she gave to light; Bought it as those who would redeem a past Must buy--by penance, faithful to the last.

Thorns in each path, a grave the only goal, Glides mine, atoning, to my father's soul!"

What at this swift revealment--dark and fast As fleets the cloud-wrack, o'er the Indian past?

No more is Lucy free with her sweet dower } Of love and youth! Another has the power } To bar the solemn rite, to blast the marriage bower. } "Will this proud Saxon of the princely line Yield his heart's gem to alien hands like mine?

What though the blot denies his rank its heir: } The more his pride will bid his love repair } By loftiest nuptials--O supreme despair! } Shall I divulge the secret! shall I rear, Myself, the barrier,--and the bliss so near?"

He scorn'd himself, and raised his drooping crest: "Mine be Man's honour--leave to G.o.d the rest!"

As thus his high resolve, a sudden cry } Startled his heart. He turn'd: Calantha by! } Why on the portrait glares her haggard eye? }

"Whose likeness this? Thou know'st not, brother? speak!

What mean that clouded brow--that changing cheek?

Thou know'st not!"

"Yes!"

And as the answer came, With Death's strong terror shook the sister's frame, A bitterer pang, an icier shudder, ran Through _his_ fierce nature-- "Dost _thou_ know the man?

Ha! his own tale! O dull and blinded! how, Flash upon flash, descends the lightning now!

_Thou_, his forsaken--_his_! And I--who--nay!

Look up Calantha; for, befal what may, He shall----"

The promise, or the threat, was said To ears already deafen'd as the dead!

His arm but breaks the fall: the panting breast Yet heaves convulsive through the stifling vest.

The robe, relax'd, bids doubt--if doubt yet be-- Merge the last gleam in starless certainty!

Lo there, the fatal gift of love and woe Miming without the image graved below-- The same each likeness by each sufferer worn, Or differing but as noonday from the morn.

In Lucy's portrait, manhood's earliest youth Shone from the clear eye with a light like truth.

There, play'd that fearless smile with which we meet The sward that hides the swamp before our feet; The bright on-looking to the Future, ere Our sins reflect their own dark shadows there:-- Calantha's portrait spoke of one in whom, Young yet in years; the heart had lost its bloom; The lip of joy the lip of pride had grown; It smiled--the smile we love to trust had flown.

In the collected eye and lofty mien The graver power experience brings was seen; Beautiful both; and if the manlier face Had lost youth's candid and luxuriant grace, A charm as fatal as the first it wore, Pleased less--and yet enchain'd and haunted more.

And this the man to whom his heart had moved!

Whose hand he had clasp'd, whose child he loved!--he loved!

This, out of all the universe--O Fate!

This, the dark orb, round which revolved his hate; This, the swart star malign, whose baleful ray Ruled in his House of Life; and day by day, And hour by hour, upon the tortured past One withering, ruthless, demon influence cast!

There writhes the victim--there, unmasking, now The invoked Alecto frowns from Arden's brow.

O'er that fierce nature, roused so late from sleep, Course the black thoughts, and lash to storm the deep.

Love flies dismay'd--the sweet delusions, drawn By Hope, fade ghost-like in the lurid dawn; As when along the parch'd Arabian gloom Life prostrate falls before the dread Simoom, No human mercy the strong whirlwind faced, And its wrath reign'd sole monarch of the waste!

IV.

The Hours steal on. Like spectres, to and fro Hurry hush'd footsteps through the house of woe.

That nameless chill, which tells of life that dies, Broods o'er the chamber where Calantha lies.

The Hours steal on--and o'er the unquiet might Of the great Babel--reigns, dishallow'd, Night.

Not, as o'er Nature's world, She comes, to keep Beneath the stars her solemn tryst with Sleep, When move the twin-born Genii side by side, And steal from earth its demons where they glide; Lull'd the spent Toil--seal'd Sorrow's heavy eyes, And dreams restore the dews of Paradise; But Night, discrown'd and sever'd from her twin, No pause for Travail, no repose for Sin, Vex'd by one chafed rebellion to her sway, Flits o'er the lamp-lit streets--a phantom day!

Alone sat Morvale in the House of Gloom, Alone--no! Death was in the darken'd room; All hush'd save where, at distance faintly heard, Lucy's low sob the depth of silence stirr'd; Or where, without, the swift wheels hurrying by, Bear those who live--as if life could not die.

Alone he sat! and in his breast began Earth's deadliest strife--the Angel with the Man!

Not his the light war with its feeble rage Which prudent scruples with faint pa.s.sions wage, (The small heart-conflicts which disturb the wise, Whom reason succours when the anger tries, Such as to this meek social ring belong, In conscience weak, but in discretion strong;) But that known only to man's franker state, In love a demiG.o.d--a fiend in hate, Him, not the reason but the instincts lead, Prompt in the impulse, ruthless in the deed.

And if the wrong might seem too weak a cause For the fell hate--not his were Europe's laws.-- Some think dishonour, if it halt at crime, A stingless asp,--what injury in the slime?

As if but this poor clay--this crumbling coil Of dust for graves--were all the foul can soil!

As if the form were not the type (nor more Than the mere type) of what chaste souls adore!

That Woman-Royalty, a spotless name, For sires to boast--for sons unborn to claim, That heavenly purity of thought--as free From shame as sin, the soul's virginity, If these be lost--why what remains?--the form?

Has _that_ such worth?--Go, envy then the worm!

And well to him may such belief belong, And India's memories blacken more the wrong; In Eastern lands, by tritest tales convey'd, How Honour guards from sight itself the maid; Home's solemn mystery, jealous of a breath, Screen'd by religion, and begirt with death:-- Again he cower'd beneath the hissing tongue, Again the gibe of scurril laughter rung, Again the Plague-breath air itself defiled, And Mockery grinn'd upon his mother's child!

All the heart's chaste religion overthrown, And slander scrawl'd upon the altar-stone!

And if that memory pause, what shapes succeed?

The martyr leaning on the broken reed!

The life slow-poison'd in the thoughts that shed Shame o'er the joyless earth;--and there, the dead!

Marvel not ye, the soft, the fair, the young, Whose thoughts are chords to Love's sweet music strung, Whose life the sterner genius--Hate, has spared, If on his soul no torch but Ate's glared!

If in the foe was lost to sight the bride, The foe's meek child!--that memory was denied!

The face, the tale, the sorrow, and the love, } All fled--all blotted from the breast: Above } The Deluge not one refuge for the Dove! } There is no Lethe like one guilty dream, It drowns all life that nears the leaden stream; And if the guilt seem sacred to the creed, Between the stars and earth, but stands the Deed!

So in his breast the t.i.tan feud began: Which shall prevail--the Angel or the Man?

The Injurer comes! the lone light breaking o'er } The gloom, waves flickering to the open door, } And Arden's step is on the fatal floor! } Around he gazed, and hush'd his breath,--for Fear Cast its own shadow on the wall,--a drear And ominous prescience of the Death-king there Breathed its chill horror to the heavy air; O'er yon recess--which bars with draperied pall The baffled gaze--the unbroken shadows fall.

The lurid embers on the hearth burn low; The clicking time-piece sounds distinct and slow; And the roused instinct hate's suspense foreshows In the pale Indian's lock'd and grim repose.

So Arden enter'd, and thus spoke; the while His restless eye belied his ready smile: "Return'd, I find thy mandate, and attend To hear a mystery, or to serve a friend."

"Or front a foe!"

A stifled voice replied.

O'er Arden's temples flush'd the knightly pride.

"What means that word, which jars, not daunts, the ear?

I own no foe,--if foe there be, no fear."

"Pause and take heed--then with as firm a sound Disdain the danger--when the foe is found!

What, if thou had'st a sister, whom the grave To thy sole charge--a sacred orphan--gave-- What, if a traitor had, with mocking vows, Won the warm heart, and woo'd the plighted spouse, Then left--a scoff;--what, if his evil fame, Alone sufficed to blast the virgin name, What--hourly gazing on a life forlorn, Amidst a solitude wall'd round with scorn, Shame at the core--death gnawing at the cheek-- What, from the suitor, would the brother seek?"

"Wert _thou_ that brother," with unsteady voice, Arden replied: "not doubtful were thy choice: Were I that Suitor----"

"Ay?"

"I would prepare To front the vengeance, or--the wrong repair."

"Yes"--hiss'd the Indian--"front that mimic strife, That coward's die, which leaves to chance the life; That mockery of all justice, framed to cheat Right of its due--such vengeance thou wouldst meet!-- Be Europe's justice blind and insecure!

Stern Ind asks more--her son's revenge is sure!

'Repair the wrong!'--Ay, in the Grave be wed!

Hark! the Ghost calls thee to the bridal bed!

Come (nay, this once thy hand!)--come!--from the shrine I draw the veil!--Calantha, he is thine!

Man, see thy victim!--dust!--Joy--Peace and Fame, } _These_ murder'd first--the blow that smote the frame } Was the most merciful!--at length it came. } Here, by the corpse to which thy steps are led, Beside thee, murderer, stands the brother of the Dead!"