Selected Poems (67 page)

And calm, till murmuring death gasp’d hoarsely near:

But from his visage little could we guess,

So unrepentant, dark, and passionless,

Save that when struggling nearer to his last,

465

Upon that page his eye was kindly cast;

And once, as Kaled’s answering accents ceased,

Rose Lara’s hand, and pointed to the East:

Whether (as then the breaking sun from high

Roll’d back the clouds) the morrow caught his eye,

470

Or that ’twas chance, or some remember’d scene,

That raised his arm to point where such had been,

Scarce Kaled seem’d to know, but turn’d away,

As if his heart abhorr’d that coming day,

And shrunk his glance before that morning light,

475

To look on Lara’s brow – where all grew night.

Yet sense seem’d left, though better were its loss;

For when one near display’d the absolving cross,

And proffer’d to his touch the holy bead,

Of which his parting soul might own the need,

480

He look’d upon it with an eye profane,

And smiled – Heaven pardon! if ’twere with disdain:

And Kaled, though he spoke not, nor withdrew

From Lara’s face his fix’d despairing view,

With brow repulsive, and with gesture swift,

485

Flung back the hand which held the sacred gift,

As if such but disturb’d the expiring man,

Nor seem’d to know his life but
then
began,

That life of Immortality, secure

To none, save them whose faith in Christ is sure.

XX

490

But gasping heaved the breath that Lara drew,

And dull the film along his dim eye grew;

His limbs stretch’d fluttering, and his head droop’d o’er

The weak yet still untiring knee that bore;

He press’d the hand he held upon his heart -

495

It beats no more, but Kaled will not part

With the cold grasp, but feels, and feels in vain,

For that faint throb which answers not again.

‘It beats!’ – Away, thou dreamer! he is gone –

It once was Lara which thou look’st upon.

XXI

500

He gazed, as if not yet had pass’d away

The haughty spirit of that humble clay;

And those around have roused him from his trance,

But cannot tear from thence his fixed glance;

And when, in raising him from where he bore

505

Within his arms the form that felt no more,

He saw the head his breast would still sustain,

Roll down like earth to earth upon the plain;

He did not dash himself thereby, nor tear

The glossy tendrils of his raven hair,

510

But strove to stand and gaze, but reel’d and fell,

Scarce breathing more than that he loved so well.

Than that
he
loved! Oh! never yet beneath

The breast of man such trusty love may breathe!

That trying moment hath at once reveal’d

515

The secret long and yet but half conceal’d;

In baring to revive that lifeless breast,

Its grief seem’d ended, but the sex confess’d;

And life return’d, and Kaled felt no shame –

What now to her was Womanhood or Fame?

XXII

520

And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep,

But where he died his grave was dug as deep;

Nor is his mortal slumber less profound,

Though priest nor bless’d nor marble deck’d the mound,

And he was mourn’d by one whose quiet grief,

525

Less loud, outlasts a people’s for their chief.

Vain was all question ask’d her of the past,

And vain e’en menace – silent to the last;

She told nor whence, nor why she left behind

Her all for one who seem’d but little kind.

530

Why did she love him? Curious fool! — be still –

Is human love the growth of human will?

To her he might be gentleness; the stern

Have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern,

And when they love, your smilers guess not how

535

Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow.

They were not common links, that form’d the chain

That bound to Lara Kaled’s heart and brain;

But that wild tale she brook’d not to unfold,

And seal’d is now each lip that could have told.

XXIII

540

They laid him in the earth, and on his breast,

Besides the wound that sent his soul to rest,

They found the scatter’d dints of many a scar,

Which were not planted there in recent war;

Where’er had pass’d his summer years of life,

545

It seems they vanish’d in a land of strife;

But all unknown his glory or his guilt,

These only told that somewhere blood was spilt,

And Ezzelin, who might have spoke the past,

Return’d no more – that night appear’d his last.

XXIV

550

Upon that night (a peasant’s is the tale)

A Serf that cross’d the intervening vale,
¹

When Cynthia’s light almost gave way to morn,

And nearly veil’d in mist her waning horn;

A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood,

555

And hew the bough that bought his children’s food,

Pass’d by the river that divides the plain

Of Otho’s lands and Lara’s broad domain:

He heard a tramp – a horse and horseman broke

From out the wood – before him was a cloak

560

Wrapt round some burthen at his saddle-bow,

Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow.

Roused by the sudden sight at such a time,

And some foreboding that it might be crime,

Himself unheeded watch’d the stranger’s course,

565

Who reach’d the river, bounded from his horse,

And lifting thence the burthen which he bore,

Heaved up the bank, and dash’d it from the shore,

Then paused, and look’d, and turn’d, and seem’d to watch,

And still another hurried glance would snatch,

570

And follow with his step the stream that flow’d,

As if even yet too much its surface show’d:

At once he started, stoop’d, around him strown

The winter floods had scatter’d heaps of stone;

Of these the heaviest thence he gather’d there,

575

And slung them with a more than common care.

Meantime the Serf had crept to where unseen

Himself might safely mark what this might mean;

He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast,

And something glitter’d starlike on the vest;

580

But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk,

A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk:

It rose again, but indistinct to view,

And left the waters of a purple hue,

Then deeply disappear’d: the horseman gazed

585

Till ebb’d the latest eddy it had raised;

Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed,

And instant spurr’d him into panting speed.

His face was mask’d – the features of the dead,

If dead it were, escaped the observer’s dread;

590

But if in sooth a star its bosom bore,

Such is the badge that knighthood ever wore,

And such ’tis known Sir Ezzelin had worn

Upon the night that led to such a morn.

If thus he perish’d Heaven receive his soul!

595

His undiscover’d limbs to ocean roll;

And charity upon the hope would dwell

It was not Lara’s hand by which he fell.

XXV

And Kaled – Lara – Ezzelin, are gone,

Alike without their monumental stone!

600

The first, all efforts vainly strove to wean

From lingering where her chieftain’s blood had been;

Grief had so tamed a spirit once too proud,

Her tears were few, her wailing never loud;

But furious would you tear her from the spot

605

Where yet she scarce believed that he was not,

Her eye shot forth with all the living fire

That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire;

But left to waste her weary moments there,

She talk’d all idly unto shapes of air,

610

Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints,

And woos to listen to her fond complaints: