The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 31

Whose evil beauty look'd to death the brave;-- Discrowned Queen, around whose pa.s.sionate shame Terror and Grief the palest flowers entwine, That ever veil'd the ruins of a Name With the sweet parasites of song divine!-- Arise, sad Ghost, arise, And if Revenge outlive the Tomb, Behold the Doomer brought to doom!

Lo, where thy mighty Murderess lies, The sleepless couch--the sunless room,-- Through the darkness darkly seen Rests the shadow of a Queen; Ever on the lawns below Flit the shadows to and fro, Quick at dawn, and slow at noon, Halving midnight with the moon: In the palace, still and dun, Rests that shadow on the floor; All the changes of the sun Move that shadow nevermore.

II.

Yet oft she turns from face to face, A keen and wistful gaze, As if the memory seeks to trace The sign of some lost dwelling-place Beloved in happier days;-- Ah, what the clue supplies In the cold vigil of a hireling's eyes?

Ah, sad in childless age to weep alone, Look round and find no grief reflect our own!-- O Soul, thou speedest to thy rest away, But not upon the pinions of the dove; When death draws nigh, how miserable they Who have outlived all love!

As on the solemn verge of Night Lingers a weary Moon, Thou wanest last of every glorious light That bathed with splendour thy majestic noon:-- The stately stars that cl.u.s.tering o'er the isle Lull'd into glittering rest the subject sea;-- Gone the great Masters of Italian wile, False to the world beside, but true to thee!-- Burleigh, the subtlest builder of thy fame,-- The serpent craft of winding Walsingham;-- They who exalted yet before thee bow'd: And that more dazzling chivalry--the Band That made thy Court a Faery Land, In which thou wert enshrined to reign alone-- The Gloriana of the Diamond Throne;-- All gone,--and left thee sad amidst the cloud.

III.

To their great sires, to whom thy youth was known, Who from thy smile, as laurels from the sun Drank the immortal greenness of renown, Succeeds the cold lip-homage scantly won From the new race whose hearts already bear The Wise-man's offerings to th' unworthy Heir.

Watching the gla.s.s in which the sands run low,-- Hovers keen Cecil with his falcon eyes, And musing Bacon[F] bends his marble brow.-- But deem not fondly there To weep the fate or pour th' averting prayer Attend those solemn spies!

Lo, at the Regal Gate The impatient couriers wait; To speed from hour to hour the nice account That registers the grudged unpitied sighs Vexing the friendless void, before The Stuart's step shall reeling mount Tudor's steep throne, red with his Mother's gore!

IV.

O piteous mockery of all pomp thou art, Poor Child of Clay, worn out with toil and years!

As, layer by layer, the granite of the heart Dissolving, melteth to the weakest tears That ever Village Maiden shed above The grave that robb'd her quiet world of love.

Ten days and nights upon that floor Those weary limbs have lain; And every hour has added more Of heaviness to pain.

As gazing into dismal air She sees the headless phantom there, The victim round whose image twined The last wild love of womankind; That lightning flash'd from stormy hearts, Which now reveals the deeps of Heaven, And now remorseless, earthward darts, Rives, and expires on what its stroke hath riven!

'Twere sad to see from those stern eyes Th' unheeded anguish feebly flow; And hear the broken word that dies In moanings faint and low;-- But sadder still to mark the while, The vacant stare--the marble smile, And think, that goal of glory won.

How slight a shade between The idiot moping in the sun And England's giant Queen![G]

V.

Call back the joyous Past!

Lo, England white-robed for a holyday!

While, choral to the clarion's kingly blast, Shout peals on shout along the Virgin's way, As through the swarming streets rolls on the long array.

Mary is dead!--Look from your fire-won homes, Exulting Martyrs!--on the mount shall rest Truth's ark at last! th' avenging Lutheran comes And clasps THE BOOK ye died for to her breast![H]

With her, the flower of all the Land, The high-born gallants ride, And ever nearest of the band, With watchful eye and ready hand, Young Dudley's form of pride![I]

Ah, ev'n in that exulting hour, Love half allures the soul from Power,-- To that dread brow in bending down Throbs up, beneath the manlike crown, The woman's heart wild beating, While steals the whisper'd worship, paid Not to the Monarch, but the Maid, Through tromps and stormy greeting.

VI.

Call back the gorgeous Past!

The lists are set, the trumpets sound, Still as the stars, when to the breeze Sway the proud crests of stately trees, Bright eyes, from tier on tier around, Look down, where on its famous ground Murmurs and moves the bristling life Of antique Chivalry!

"Forward!"[J]--the signal word is given-- Like cloud on cloud by tempest driven; Steel lightens, and arm'd thunders close!

How plumes descend in flakes of snows; How the ground reels, as reels a sea, Beneath the inebriate rapture-strife Of jocund Chivalry!

Who is the Victor of the Day?

Thou of the delicate form and golden hair And Manhood glorious in its midst of May;-- Thou who, upon thy shield of argent, bearest The bold device, "The Loftiest is the Fairest!"

As bending low thy stainless crest, "The Vestal throned by the West"

Accords the old Provencal crown Which blends her own with thy renown;-- Arcadian Sidney--Nursling of the Muse, Flower of divine Romance,[K] whose bloom was fed By daintiest Helicon's most silver dews, Alas! how soon thy lovely leaves were shed-- Thee lost, no more were Grace and Force united, Grace but some flaunting Buckingham unmann'd, And Force but crush'd what Freedom vainly righted-- Behind, lo Cromwell looms, and dusks the land With the swart shadow of his giant hand.

VII.

Call back the Kingly Past!

Where, bright and broadening to the main, Rolls on the scornful River,-- Stout hearts beat high on Tilbury's plain,-- Our Marathon for ever!

No breeze above, but on the mast The pennon shook as with the blast.

Forth from the cloud the day-G.o.d strode; Flash'd back from steel, the splendour glow'd,-- Leapt the loud joy from Earth to Heaven, As through the ranks asunder riven, The Warrior-Woman rode!

Hark, thrilling through the armed Line The martial accents ring, "Though mine the Woman's form--yet mine, "The Heart of England's King!"[L]

Woe to the Island and the Maid!

The Pope has preach'd the New Crusade,[M]

His sons have caught the fiery zeal; The Monks are merry in Castile; Bold Parma on the Main; And through the deep exulting sweep The Thunder-Steeds of Spain.-- What meteor rides the sulphurous gale?

The Flames have caught the giant sail!

Fierce Drake is grappling prow to prow; G.o.d and St. George for Victory now!

Death in the Battle and the Wind-- Carnage before and Storm behind-- Wild shrieks are heard above the hurtling roar By Orkney's rugged strands, and Erin's ruthless sh.o.r.e.

Joy to the Island and the Maid!

Pope s.e.xtus wept the Last Crusade!

His sons consumed before his zeal,-- The Monks are woeful in Castile; Your Monument the Main, The glaive and gale record your tale, Ye Thunder-Steeds of Spain!

VIII.

Turn from the idle Past; Its lonely ghost thou art!

Yea, like a ghost, whom charms to earth detain (When, with the dawn, its kindred phantom train Glide into peaceful graves)--to dust depart Thy shadowy pageants; and the day unblest, Seems some dire curse that keeps thee from thy rest.

Yet comfort, comfort to thy longing woe, Thou wistful watcher by the dreary portal; Now when most human, since most feeble, know, That in the Human struggles the Immortal.

Flash'd from the steel of the descending shears, Oft sacred light illumes the parting soul; And our last glimpse along the woof of years, First reads the scheme that disinvolves the whole.

Yet, then, recall the Past!

Is reverence not the child of sympathy?

To feel for Greatness we must hear it sigh: On mortal brows those halos longest last Which blend for one the rays that verge from all.

Few reign, few triumph; millions love and grieve: Of grief and love let some high memory leave One mute appeal to life, upon the stone-- That tomb from Time shall votive rites receive When History doubts what ghost once fill'd a throne.

So,--indistinct while back'd by sunlit skies-- But large and clear against the midnight pall, Thy human outline awes our human eyes.

Place, place, ye meaner royalties below, For Nature's holiest--Womanhood and Woe!

Let not vain youth deride the age that still Loves as the young,--loves on unto the last; Grandest the heart when grander than the will-- Bow we before the soul, which through the Past, Turns no vain glance towards fading heights of Pride, But strains its humbled tearful gaze to see, Love and Remorse--near Immortality, And by the yawning Grave, stand side by side.

The Parcae.--Leaf the Sixth.

CROMWELL'S DREAM.

The conception of this Ode originated in a popular tradition of Cromwell's earlier days. It is thus strikingly related by Mr. Forster, in his very valuable Life of Cromwell:--"He laid himself down, too fatigued in hope for sleep, when suddenly the curtains of his bed were slowly withdrawn by a gigantic figure, which bore the aspect of a woman, and which, gazing at him silently for a while, told him that he should, before his death, be the greatest man in England. He remembered when he told the story, and the recollection marked the current of his thoughts, _that the figure had not made mention of the word King_." Alteration has been made in the scene of the vision, and the age of Cromwell.

I.

The Moor spread wild and far, In the sharp whiteness of a wintry shroud; Midnight yet moonless; and the winds ice-bound: And a grey dusk--not darkness--reign'd around, Save where the phantom of a sudden star Peer'd o'er some haggard precipice of cloud:-- Where on the wold, the triple pathway cross'd, A st.u.r.dy wanderer wearied, lone, and lost, Paused and gazed round; a dwarf'd but aged yew O'er the wan rime its gnome-like shadow threw; The spot invited, and by sleep oppress'd, Beneath the boughs he laid him down to rest.

A man of stalwart limbs and hardy frame, Meet for the ruder time when force was fame, Youthful in years--the features yet betray Thoughts rarely mellow'd till the locks are grey: Round the firm lips the lines of solemn wile Might warn the wise of danger in the smile; But the blunt aspect spoke more sternly still That craft of craft--THE STUBBORN WILL: That which,--let what may betide-- Never halts nor swerves aside; From afar its victim viewing, Slow of speed, but sure-pursuing; Through maze, up mount, still hounding on its way, Till grimly couch'd beside the conquer'd prey!