The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 7

"Thou track the outcast!" mutter'd Morvale!--"No!

Too far from Luxury lies the world of Woe!"

"Henceforth," sigh'd Arden, "hope, aim, end, confined To one--my heart, if tortured, is resign'd; So lately seen, oh! sure she liveth yet!

Once found--oh! strong thine eloquence, Regret!

The palace and the coronal, the gauds With which our vanity our will defrauds,-- These may not tempt her, but the simple words 'I love thee still,' will touch on surer chords, And youth rush back with that young melody, To the lone moonlight and the trysting-tree!"

As the tale ceased, the fields behind them lay,-- The huge town once more open'd on the way; The whir of wheels, the galliard cavalcade; The crowd of pleasure, and the roar of trade; The solemn abbey soaring through the dun And reeking air, in which sunk slow the sun; The dusky trees, the sultry flakes of green; The haunts where Fashion yawns away the spleen;-- Vista on vista widens to reveal Ease on the wing, and Labour at the wheel!

The friends grew silent in that common roar, The Real around them, the Ideal o'er; So the peculiar life of each, the unseen Core of our being--what we are, have been-- The spirit of our memory and our soul Sink from the sight, when merged amidst the whole; Yet atom atom never can absorb, Each drop moves rounded in its separate orb.

[J] "One of the most remarkable pictures of ancient manners which has been transmitted to us, is that in which the poet Gower describes the circ.u.mstances under which he was commanded by King Richard II.--

'To make a book after his hest.'

The good old rhymer---- ... had taken boat, and upon the broad river he met the king in his stately barge.... The monarch called him on board his own vessel, and desired him to book 'some new thing.'--This was the origin of the Confessio Amantis."--KNIGHT'S _London_, vol. i. art. _The Silent Highway._

[K] "What a picture Hall gives us of the populousness of the Thames, in the story which he tells us of the Archbishop of York (brother to the King-maker), after leaving the widow of Edward IV. in the sanctuary of Westminster, 'sitting below on the rushes all desolate and dismayed,' and when he opened his windows and looked on the Thames, he might see the river full of boats of the Duke of Gloucester his servants, watching that no person should go to sanctuary, nor none should pa.s.s unsearched."--Id. ibid.

[L] A favourite rendezvous a few years since (and probably even still) for the heroes of that fraternity, more dear to Mercury than to Themis, was held at Devereux Court, occupying a part of the site on which stood the residence of the Knights Templars.

[M] The Amrita is the name given by the mythologists of Thibet to the heavenly tree which yields its ambrosial fruits to the G.o.ds.

[N] The Champac, a flower of a bright gold-colour, with which the Indian women are fond of adorning their hair. Moore alludes to the custom in the "Veiled Prophet."

"The maid of India blest again to hold In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold," &c.

PART THE THIRD.

I.

Lord Arden's tale robb'd Morvale's couch of sleep, The star still trembled on the troubled deep, O'er the waste ocean gleam'd its chilling glance, To make more dark the desolate expanse.

This contrast of a fate, but vex'd by gales Faint with too full a balm from Rhodian Vales;[O]

This light of life all squander'd upon one Round whom hearts moved, as planets round a sun, Mocks the lone doom _his_ barren years endure, As wasted treasure but insults the poor.

Back on his soul no faithful echoes cast Those tones which make the music of the past.

No memories hallow, and no dreams restore Love's lute, far heard from Youth's Hesperian sh.o.r.e;-- The flowers that Arden trampled on the sod, Still left the odour where the step had trod; Those flowers, so wasted!--had for _him_ but smiled One bud,--its breath had perfumed all the wild!

He own'd the moral of the reveller's life, So Christian warriors own the sin of strife,-- But, oh! how few can lift the soul above Earth's twin-born rulers,--Fame and Woman's Love!

Just in that time, of all most drear, upon Fate's barren hill-tops, gleam'd the coming sun; From nature's face the veil of night withdrawn, Earth smiled, and Heaven was open'd in the dawn!

How chanced this change?--how chances all below?

What sways the life the moment doth bestow: An impulse, instinct, look, touch, word, or sigh-- Unlocks the Hades, or reveals the sky.

II.

'Twas eve; Calantha had resumed again The wonted life, recaptured to its chain; In the calm chamber, Morvale sat, and eyed Lucy's lithe shape, that seem'd on air to glide; Eyed with complacent, not impa.s.sion'd, gaze; So Age looks on, where some fair Childhood plays: Far as soars Childhood from dim Age's scope, Beauty to him who links it not with hope!

"Sing me, sweet Lucy," said Calantha, "sing Our favourite song--'_The Maiden and the King_.'

Brother, thou lov'st not music, or, at least, But some wild war-song that recalls the East.

Who loves not music, still may pause to hark Nature's free gladness hymning in the lark: As sings the bird sings Lucy! all her art A voice in which you listen to a heart."

A blush of fear, a coy reluctant "nay"

Avail her not--thus ran the simple lay:--

THE MAIDEN AND THE KING.

I.

"And far as sweep the seas below, My sails are on the deep; And far as yonder eagles go, My flag on every keep.

"Why o'er the rebel world within Extendeth not the chart?

No sail can reach--no arms can win The kingdom of a heart!"

So sigh'd the king--the linden near; A listener heard the sigh, And thus the heart he did not hear, Breathed back the soft reply:--

II.

"And far as sweep the seas below, His sails are on the deep; And far as yonder eagles go, His flag on every keep;

"LOVE, _thou_ art not a king alone, Both slave and king thou art!

Who seeks to sway, must stoop to own The kingdom of a heart!"

So sigh'd the Maid, the linden near, Beneath the lonely sky; Oh, lonely _not_!--for angels hear The humblest human sigh!

III.

His ships are vanish'd from the main, His banners from the keep; The carnage triumphs on the plain; The tempest on the deep.

"The purple and the crown are mine"-- An Outlaw sigh'd--"no more; But still as greenly grows the vine Around the cottage door!

"Rest for the weary pilgrim, Maid, And water from the spring!"

Before the humble cottage pray'd The Man that was a King.

Oh, was the threshold that he cross'd The gate to fairy ground?

He would not for the kingdom lost, Have changed the kingdom found!

Divine interpreter thou art, O Song!

To thee all secrets of all hearts belong!

How had the lay, as in a mirror, gla.s.s'd The sullen present and the joyless past, Lock'd in the cloister of that lonely soul!-- Ere the song ceased, to Lucy's side he stole, And, with the closing cadence, mournfully Lifted his doubtful gaze:--so eye met eye.

If thou hast loved, re-ope the magic book; Say, do its annals date not from a look?

In which two hearts, unguess'd perchance before, Rush'd each to each, and were as two no more; While all thy being--by some Power, above Its will constrain'd--sigh'd, trembling, "This is Love."

A look! and lo! they knew themselves alone!

Calantha's place was void--the witness gone; They had not mark'd her sad step glide away, When in sweet silence sank, less sweet, the lay; For unto both abruptly came the hour When springs the rose-fence round the fairy bower; When earth shut out, all life transferr'd to one, Each _other_ life seems cloud before the sun; It comes, it goes, we know if it depart But by the warmer light and quicken'd heart.