Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE WANDERING JEW, by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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First Line: The brilliant orb of parting day
Last Line: Come! For thy doom is misery.'
Subject(s): Wandering Jew


CANTO I

'Me miserable, which way shall I fly?
Infinite wrath and infinite despair --
Which way I fly is hell -- myself am hell;
And in this lowest deep a lower deep,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.'
Paradise Lost.

THE brilliant orb of parting day
Diffused a rich and mellow ray
Above the mountain's brow;
It tinged the hills with lustrous light,
It tinged the promontory's height,
Still sparkling with the snow;
And, as aslant it threw its beam,
Tipped with gold the mountain stream
That laved the vale below;
Long hung the eye of glory there,
And lingered as if loth to leave
A scene so lovely and so fair.

'T were luxury even, there to grieve.
So soft the clime, so balm the air,
So pure and genial were the skies,
In sooth 't was almost Paradise,
For ne'er did the sun's splendor close
On such a picture of repose.
All, all was tranquil, all was still,
Save when the music of the rill,
Or distant waterfall,
At intervals broke on the ear,
Which Echo's self was charmed to hear,
And ceased her babbling call.
With every charm the landscape glowed
Which partial Nature's hand bestowed;
Nor could the mimic hand of art
Such beauties or such hues impart.

Light clouds in fleeting livery gay
Hung, painted in grotesque array,
Upon the western sky;
Forgetful of the approaching dawn,
The peasants danced upon the lawn,
For the vintage time was nigh.
How jocund to the tabor's sound
O'er the smooth, trembling turf they bound,
In every measure light and free,
The very soul of harmony!
Grace in each attitude, they move,
They thrill to amorous ecstasy,
Light as the dewdrops of the morn,
That hang upon the blossomed thorn,
Subdued by the power of resistless Love.
Ah! days of innocence, of joy,
Of rapture that knows no alloy,
Haste on, -- ye roseate hours,
Free from the world's tumultuous cares,
From pale distrust, from hopes and fears,
Baneful concomitants of time, --
'T is yours, beneath this favored clime,
Your pathway strewn with flowers,
Upborne on pleasure's downy wing,
To quaff a long unfading spring,
And beat with light and careless step the ground;
The fairest flowers too soon grow sere,
Too soon shall tempests blast the year,
And sin's eternal winter reign around.

But see, what forms are those,
Scarce seen by glimpse of dim twilight,
Wandering o'er the mountain's height?
They swiftly haste to the vale below.
One wraps his mantle around his brow,
As if to hide his woes;
And as his steed impetuous flies,
What strange fire flashes from his eyes!
The far-off city's murmuring sound
Was borne on the breeze which floated around;
Noble Padua's lofty spire
Scarce glowed with the sunbeam's latest fire,
Yet dashed the travellers on;
Ere night o'er the earth was spread,
Full many a mile they must have sped,
Ere their destined course was run.
Welcome was the moonbeam's ray,
Which slept upon the towers so gray.
But, hark! a convent's vesper bell --
It seemed to be a very spell!
The stranger checked his courser's rein,
And listened to the mournful sound;
Listened -- and paused -- and paused again;
A thrill of pity and of pain
Through his inmost soul had passed,
While gushed the tear-drops silently and fast.

A crowd was at the convent gate,
The gate was opened wide;
No longer on his steed he sate,
But mingled with the tide.
He felt a solemn awe and dread,
As he the chapel entered
Dim was the light from the pale moon beaming,
As it fell on the saint-cyphered panes,
Or, from the western window streaming,
Tinged the pillars with varied stains.
To the eye of enthusiasm strange forms were gliding
In each dusky recess of the aisle;
And indefined shades in succession were striding
O'er the coignes of the Gothic pile.
The pillars to the vaulted roof
In airy lightness rose;
Now they mount to the rich Gothic ceiling aloof
And exquisite tracery disclose.

The altar illumined now darts its bright rays,
The train passed in brilliant array;
On the shrine Saint Pietro's rich ornaments blaze,
And rival the brilliance of day.
Hark! -- now the loud organ swells full on the ear --
So sweetly mellow, chaste, and clear;
Melting, kindling, raising, firing,
Delighting now, and now inspiring,
Peal upon peal the music floats;
Now they list still as death to the dying notes;
Whilst the soft voices of the choir,
Exalt the soul from base desire,
Till it mounts on unearthly pinions free,
Dissolved in heavenly ecstasy.

Now a dead stillness reigned around,
Uninterrupted by a sound;
Save when in deadened response ran
The last faint echoes down the aisle,
Reverberated through the pile,
As within the pale the holy man,
With voice devout and saintly look,
Slow chanted from the sacred book,
Or pious prayers were duly said
For spirits of departed dead.
With beads and crucifix and hood,
Close by his side the abbess stood;
Now her dark penetrating eyes
Were raised in suppliance to heaven,
And now her bosom heaved with sighs,
As if to human weakness given.
Her stern, severe, yet beauteous brow
Frowned on all who stood below;
And the fire which flashed from her steadgaze,
As it turned on the listening crowd its rays,
Superior virtue told, --
Virtue as pure as heaven's own dew,
But which, untainted, never knew
To pardon weaker mould.
The heart though chaste and cold as snow --
'T were faulty to be virtuous so.

Not a whisper now breathed in the pillared aisle.
The stranger advanced to the altar high --
Convulsive was heard a smothered sigh!
Lo! four fair nuns to the altar draw near,
With solemn footstep, as the while
A fainting novice they bear;
The roses from her cheek are fled
But there the lily reigns instead;
Light as a sylph's, her form confessed
Beneath the drapery of her vest,
A perfect grace and symmetry;
Her eyes, with rapture formed to move,
To melt with tenderness and love,
Or beam with sensibility,
To Heaven were raised in pious prayer,
A silent eloquence of woe;
Now hung the pearly tear-drop there:
Sate on her cheek a fixed despair;
And now she beat her bosom bare,
As pure as driven snow.

Nine graceful novices around
Fresh roses strew upon the ground;
In purest white arrayed,
Nine spotless vestal virgins shed
Sabaean incense o'er the head
Of the devoted maid.

They dragged her to the altar's pale,
The traveller leant against the rail,
And gazed with eager eye, --
His cheek was flushed with sudden glow,
On his brow sate a darker shade of woe,
As a transient expression fled by.

The sympathetic feeling flew
Through every breast, from man to man;
Confused and open clamors ran --
Louder and louder still they grew;
When the abbess waved her hand,
A stern resolve was in her eye,
And every wild tumultuous cry
Was stilled at her command.

The abbess made the well-known sign --
The novice reached the fatal shrine,
And mercy implored from the power divine;
At length she shrieked aloud,
She dashed from the supporting nun,
Ere the fatal rite was done,
And plunged amid the crowd.
Confusion reigned throughout the throng --
Still the novice fled along,
Impelled by frantic fear,
When the maddened traveller's eager grasp
In firmest yet in wildest clasp
Arrested her career.
As fainting from terror she sank on the ground,
Her loosened locks floated her fine form around;
The zone which confined her shadowy vest
No longer her throbbing bosom pressed,
Its animation dead;
No more her feverish pulse beat high,
Expression dwelt not in her eye,
Her wildered senses fled.

Hark! Hark! the demon of the storm!
I see his vast expanding form
Blend with the strange and sulphurous glare
Of comets through the turbid air.
Yes, 't was his voice, I heard its roar,
The wild waves lashed the caverned shore
In angry murmurs hoarse and loud, --
Higher and higher still they rise;
Red lightnings gleam from every cloud
And paint wild shapes upon the skies;
The echoing thunder rolls around,
Convulsed with earthquake rocks the ground.

The traveller yet undaunted stood,
He heeded not the roaring flood;
Yet Rosa slept, her bosom bare,
Her cheek was deadly pale,
The ringlets of her auburn hair
Streamed in a lengthened trail,
And motionless her seraph form;
Unheard, unheeded raved the storm;
Whilst, borne on the wing of the gale,
The harrowing shriek of the white sea-mew
As o'er the midnight surge she flew, --
The howlings of the squally blast,
As o'er the beetling cliffs it passed,
Mingled with the peals on high,
That, swelling louder, echoed by, --
Assailed the traveller's ear.
He heeded not the maddened storm
As it pelted against his lofty form;
He felt no awe, no fear;
In contrast, like the courser pale
That stalks along Death's pitchy vale
With silent, with gigantic tread,
Trampling the dying and the dead.

Rising from her deathlike trance,
Fair Rosa met the stranger's glance;
She started from his chilling gaze, --
Wild was it as the tempest's blaze,
It shot a lurid gleam of light,
A secret spell of sudden dread,
A mystic, strange, and harrowing fear,
As when the spirits of the dead,
Dressed in ideal shapes appear,
And hideous glance on human sight;
Scarce could Rosa's frame sustain
The chill that pressed upon her brain.

Anon, that transient spell was o'er;
Dark clouds deform his brow no more,
But rapid fled away;
Sweet fascination dwelt around,
Mixed with a soft, a silver sound,
As soothing to the ravished ear,
As what enthusiast lovers hear;
Which seems to steal along the sky,
When mountain mists are seen to fly
Before the approach of day.
He seized on wondering Rosa's hand,
'And, ah!' cried he, 'be this the band
Shall join us, till this earthly frame
Sinks convulsed in bickering flame --
When around the demons yell,
And drag the sinful wretch to hell,
Then, Rosa, will we part --
Then fate, and only fate's decree,
Shall tear thy lovely soul from me,
And rend thee from my heart.
Long has Paulo sought in vain
A friend to share his grief;
Never will he seek again,
For the wretch has found relief,
Till the Prince of Darkness bursts his chain,
Till death and desolation reign.
Rosa, wilt thou then be mine?
Ever fairest, I am thine!'
He ceased, and on the howling blast,
Which wildly round the mountain passed,
Died his accents low;
Yet fiercely howled the midnight storm,
As Paulo bent his awful form,
And leaned his lofty brow.

ROSA

'Stranger, mystic stranger, rise;
Whence do these tumults fill the skies?
Who conveyed me, say, this night,
To this wild and cloud-capped height?
Who art thou? and why am I
Beneath Heaven's pitiless canopy?
For the wild winds roar around my head;
Lightnings redden the wave;
Was it the power of the mighty dead,
Who live beneath the grave?
Or did the Abbess drag me here
To make yon swelling surge my bier?'

PAULO

'Ah, lovely Rosa! cease thy fear,
It was thy friend who bore thee here --
I, thy friend, till this fabric of earth
Sinks in the chaos that gave it birth;
Till the meteor-bolt of the God above
Shall tear its victim from his love, --
That love which must unbroken last,
Till the hour of envious fate is past,
Till the mighty basements of the sky
In bickering hell-flames heated fly.
E'en then will I sit on some rocky height,
Whilst around lower clouds of eternal night;
E'en then will I loved Rosa save
From the yawning abyss of the grave;
Or, into the gulf impetuous hurled
If sinks with its latest tenants the world,
Then will our souls in union fly
Throughout the wide and boundless sky;
Then, free from the ills that envious fate
Has heaped upon our mortal state,
We'll taste ethereal pleasure;
Such as none but thou canst give,
Such as none but I receive, --
And rapture without measure.'

As thus he spoke, a sudden blaze
Of pleasure mingled in his gaze.
Illumined by the dazzling light,
He glows with radiant lustre bright;
His features with new glory shine,
And sparkle as with beams divine.
'Strange, awful being,' Rosa said,
'Whence is this superhuman dread.
That harrows up my inmost frame?
Whence does this unknown tingling flame
Consume and penetrate my soul?
By turns with fear and love possessed,
Tumultuous thoughts swell high my breast;
A thousand wild emotions roll,
And mingle their resistless tide;
O'er thee some magic arts preside;
As by the influence of a charm,
Lulled into rest, my griefs subside,
And, safe in thy protecting arm,
I feel no power can do me harm.
But the storm raves wildly o'er the sea, --
Bear me away! I confide in thee!'

CANTO II

'I could a tale unfold, whose slightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.'
Hamlet.

THE horrors of the mighty blast,
The lowering tempest clouds, were passed --
Had sunk beneath the main;
Light baseless mists were all that fled
Above the weary traveller's head,
As he left the spacious plain.

Fled were the vapors of the night,
Faint streaks of rosy tinted light
Were painted on the matin gray;
And as the sun began to rise
To pour his animating ray,
Glowed with his fire the eastern skies,
The distant rocks, the far-off bay,
The ocean's sweet and lovely blue,
The mountain's variegated breast,
Blushing with tender tints of dawn,
Or with fantastic shadows dressed;
The waving wood, the opening lawn,
Rose to existence, waked anew,
In colors exquisite of hue;
Their mingled charms Victorio viewed,
And lost in admiration stood.

From yesternight how changed the scene,
When howled the blast o'er the dark cliff's side
And mingled with the maddened roar
Of the wild surge that lashed the shore.
To-day -- scarce heard the whispering breeze,
And still and motionless the seas,
Scarce heard the murmuring of their tide;
All, all is peaceful and serene;
Serenely on Victorio's breast
It breathed a soft and tranquil rest,
Which bade each wild emotion cease,
And hushed the passions into peace.

Along the winding Po he went;
His footsteps to the spot were bent
Where Paulo dwelt, his wandered friend,
For thither did his wishes tend.
Noble Victorio's race was proud,
From Cosmo's blood he came;
To him a wild untutored crowd
Of vassals in allegiance bowed,
Illustrious was his name;
Yet vassals and wealth he scorned to go
Unnoticed with a man of woe;
Gay hope and expectation sate
Throned in his eager eye,
And, ere he reached the castle gate,
The sun had mounted high.

Wild was the spot where the castle stood
Its to wers embosomed deep in wood;
Gigantic cliffs, with craggy steeps,
Reared their proud heads on high, --
Their bases were washed by the foaming deeps,
Their summits were hid in the sky;
From the valley below they excluded the day,
That valley ne'er cheered by the sunbeam's ray;
Nought broke on the silence drear,
Save the hungry vultures darting by,
Or eagles yelling fearfully,
As they bore to the rocks their prey;
Or when the fell wolf ravening prowled,
Or the gaunt wild boar fiercely howled
His hideous screams on the night's dull ear.
Borne on pleasure's downy wing,
Downy as the breath of spring,
Not thus fled Paulo's hours away,
Though brightened by the cheerful day.
Friendship or wine, or softer love,
The sparkling eye, the foaming bowl,
Could with no lasting rapture move,
Nor still the tumults of his soul.
And yet there was in Rosa's kiss
A momentary thrill of bliss;
Oft the dark clouds of grief would fly
Beneath the beams of sympathy;
And love and converse sweet bestow,
A transient requiem from woe. --

Strange business, and of import vast,
On things which long ago were past
Drew Paulo oft from home;
Then would a darker, deeper shade,
By sorrow traced, his brow o'erspread
And o'er his features roam.
Oft as they spent the midnight hour,
And heard the wintry wild winds rave
Midst the roar and spray of the dashing wave,
Was Paulo's dark brow seen to lower.
Then, as the lamp's uncertain blaze
Shed o'er the hall its partial rays,
And shadows strange were seen to fall,
And glide upon the dusky wall,
Would Paulo start with sudden fear.
Why then unbidden gushed the tear,
As he muttered strange words to the ear?
Why frequent heaved the smothered sigh?
Why did he gaze on vacancy,
As if some strange form was near?
Then would the fillet of his brow
Fierce as a fiery furnace glow,
As it burned with red and lambent flame;
Then would cold shuddering seize his frame,
As gasping he labored for breath.
The strange light of his gorgon eye,
As, frenzied and rolling dreadfully,
It glared with terrific gleam,
Would chill like the spectre gaze of death,
As, conjured by feverish dream,
He seems o'er the sick man's couch to stand,
And shakes the dread lance in his skeleton hand.

But when the paroxysm was o'er,
And clouds deformed his brow no more,
Would Rosa soothe his tumults dire,
Would bid him calm his grief,
Would quench reflection's rising fire,
And give his soul relief.
As on his form with pitying eye
The ministering angel hung,
And wiped the drops of agony,
The music of her siren tongue
Lulled forcibly his griefs to rest;
Like fleeting visions of the dead,
Or midnight dreams, his sorrows fled;
Waked to new life, through all his soul
A soft delicious languor stole,
And lapped in heavenly ecstasy
He sank and fainted on her breast.

'T was on an eve, the leaf was sere,
Howled the blast round the castle drear,
The boding night-bird's hideous cry
Was mingled with the warning sky;
Heard was the distant torrent's dash,
Seen was the lightning's dark red flash,
As it gleamed on the stormy cloud;
Heard was the troubled ocean's roar,
As its wild waves lashed the rocky shore;
The thunder muttered loud,
As wilder still the lightnings flew;
Wilder as the tempest blew,
More wildly strange their converse grew.

They talked of the ghosts of the mighty dead, --
If, when the spark of life were fled,
They visited this world of woe?
Or, were it but a fantasy,
Deceptive to the feverish eye,
When strange forms flashed upon the sight,
And stalked along at the dead of night?
Or if, in the realms above,
They still, for mortals left below,
Retained the same affection's glow,
In friendship or in love? --
Debating thus, a pensive train,
Thought upon thought began to rise;
Her thrilling wild harp Rosa took;
What sounds in softest murmurs broke
From the seraphic strings!
Celestials borne on odorous wings
Caught the dulcet melodies;
The life-blood ebbed in every vein,
As Paulo listen'd to the strain.

SONG

What sounds are those that float upon the air,
As if to bid the fading day farewell, --
What form is that so shadowy, yet so fair,
Which glides along the rough and pathless dell?

Nightly those sounds swell full upon the breeze,
Which seems to sigh as if in sympathy;
They hang amid yon cliff-embosomed trees,
Or float in dying cadence through the sky.

Now rests that form upon the moonbeam pale,
In piteous strains of woe its vesper sings;
Now -- now it traverses the silent vale,
Borne on transparent ether's viewless wings.

Oft will it rest beside yon abbey's tower,
Which lifts its ivy-mantled mass so high;
Rears its dark head to meet the storms that lower,
And braves the trackless tempests of the sky.

That form, the embodied spirit of a maid,
Forced by a perjured lover to the grave;
A desperate fate the maddened girl obeyed,
And from the dark cliffs plunged into the wave.

There the deep murmurs of the restless surge,
The mournful shriekings of the white seamew,
The warring waves, the wild winds, sang her dirge,
And o'er her bones the dark red coral grew.

Yet though that form be sunk beneath the main,
Still rests her spirit where its vows were given;
Still fondly visits each loved spot again,
And pours its sorrows on the ear of Heaven.

That spectre wanders through the abbey dale,
And suffers pangs which such a fate must share;
Early her soul sank in death's darkened vale,
And ere long all of us must meet her there.

She ceased, and on the listening ear
Her pensive accents died;
So sad they were, so softly clear,
It seemed as if some angel's sigh
Had breathed the plaintive symphony;
So ravishingly sweet their close,
The tones awakened Paulo's woes;
Oppressive recollections rose,
And poured their bitter tide.
Absorbed awhile in grief he stood;
At length he seemed as one inspired,
His burning fillet blazed with blood --
A lambent flame his features fired.
'The hour is come, the fated hour;
Whence is this new, this unfelt power? --
Yes, I've a secret to unfold,
And such a tale as ne'er was told,
A dreadful, dreadful mystery!
Scenes, at whose retrospect e'en now,
Cold drops of anguish on my brow,
The icy chill of death I feel:
Wrap, Rosa, bride, thy breast in steel,
Thy soul with nerves of iron brace,
As to your eyes I darkly trace
My sad, my cruel destiny.

'Victorio, lend your ears, arise,
Let us seek the battling skies,
Wild o'er our heads the thunder crashing,
And at our feet the wild waves dashing,
As tempest, clouds, and billows roll,
In gloomy concert with my soul.
Rosa, follow me --
For my soul is joined to thine,
And thy being 's linked to mine --
Rosa, list to me.'

CANTO III

'His form had not yet lost
All its original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined, and the excess
Of glory obscured; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care
Sate on his faded cheek.'
Paradise Lost.

PAULO

'T IS sixteen hundred years ago,
Since I came from Israel's land;
Sixteen hundred years of woe! --
With deep and furrowing hand
God's mark is painted on my head;
Must there remain until the dead
Hear the last trump, and leave the tomb,
And earth spouts fire from her riven womb.

How can I paint that dreadful day,
That time of terror and dismay,
When, for our sins, a Saviour died,
And the meek Lamb was crucified!
As dread that day, when, borne along
To slaughter by the insulting throng,
Infuriate for Deicide,
I mocked our Saviour, and I cried,
'Go, go,' 'Ah! I will go,' said he,
'Where scenes of endless bliss invite;
To the blest regions of the light
I go, but thou shalt here remain --
Thou diest not till I come again.' --
E'en now, by horror traced, I see
His perforated feet and hands;
The maddened crowd around him stands;
Pierces his side the ruffian spear,
Big rolls the bitter anguished tear.
Hark, that deep groan! -- he dies -- he dies, --
And breathes, in death's last agonies,
Forgiveness to his enemies.
Then was the noonday glory clouded,
The sun in pitchy darkness shrouded.
Then were strange forms through the darkness gleaming,
And the red orb of night on Jerusalem beaming;
Which faintly, with ensanguined light,
Dispersed the thickening shades of night.

Convulsed, all nature shook with fear,
As if the very end was near;
Earth to her centre trembled;
Rent in twain was the temple's veil;
The graves gave up their dead;
Whilst ghosts and spirits, ghastly pale,
Glared hideous on the sight,
Seen through the dark and lurid air,
As fiends arrayed in light
Threw on the scene a frightful glare,
And, howling, shrieked with hideous yell --
They shrieked in joy, for a Saviour fell!
'T was then I felt the Almighty's ire;
Then full on my remembrance came
Those words despised, alas! too late!
The horrors of my endless fate
Flashed on my soul and shook my frame;
They scorched my breast as with a flame
Of unextinguishable fire;
An exquisitely torturing pain
Of frenzying anguish fired my brain.
By keen remorse and anguish driven,
I called for vengeance down from Heaven.
But, ah! the all-wasting hand of Time
Might never wear away my crime!
I scarce could draw my fluttering breath --
Was it the appalling grasp of death?
I lay entranced, and deemed he shed
His dews of poppy o'er my head;
But, though the kindly warmth was dead,
The self-inflicted torturing pangs
Of conscience lent their scorpion fangs,
Still life prolonging after life was fled.

Methought what glories met my sight,
As burst a sudden blaze of light
Illumining the azure skies, --
I saw the blessed Saviour rise.
But how unlike to him who bled!
Where then his thorn-encircled head?
Where the big drops of agony
Which dimmed the lustre of his eye?
Or deathlike hue that overspread
The features of that heavenly face?
Gone now was every mortal trace;
His eyes with radiant lustre beamed --
His form confessed celestial grace,
And with a blaze of glory streamed.
Innumerable hosts around,
Their brows with wreaths immortal crowned,
With amaranthine chaplets bound,
As on their wings the cross they bore,
Deep dyed in the Redeemer's gore,
Attune their golden harps, and sing
Loud hallelujahs to their King.

But in an instant from my sight
Fled were the visions of delight.
Darkness had spread her raven pall;
Dank, lurid darkness covered all.
All was as silent as the dead;
I felt a petrifying dread,
Which harrowed up my frame;
When suddenly a lurid stream
Of dark red light, with hideous gleam,
Shot like a meteor through the night,
And painted Hell upon the skies --
The Hell from whence it came.
What clouds of sulphur seemed to rise!
What sounds were borne upon the air!
The breathings of intense despair --
The piteous shrieks -- the wails of woe --
The screams of torment and of pain --
The red-hot rack -- the clanking chain!
I gazed upon the gulf below,
Till, fainting from excess of fear,
My tottering knees refused to bear
My odious weight. I sink -- I sink!
Already had I reached the brink.
The fiery waves disparted wide
To plunge me in their sulphurous tide;
When, racked by agonizing pain,
I started into life again.
Yet still the impression left behind
Was deeply graven on my mind
In characters whose inward trace
No change or time could ere deface;
A burning cross illumed my brow,
I hid it with a fillet gray,
But could not hide the wasting woe
That wore my wildered soul away,
And ate my heart with living fire.
I knew it was the avenger's sway,
I felt it was the avenger's ire!

A burden on the face of earth,
I cursed the mother who gave me birth;
I cursed myself -- my native land.
Polluted by repeated crimes,
I sought in distant foreign climes
If change of country could bestow
A transient respite from my woe.
Vain from myself the attempt to fly,
Sole cause of my own misery.

Since when, in deathlike trance I lay,
Passed, slowly passed, the years away
That poured a bitter stream on me;
When once I fondly longed to see
Jerusalem, alas! my native place,
Jerusalem -- alas! no more in name --
No portion of her former fame
Had left behind a single trace.
Her pomp, her splendor, was no more.
Her towers no longer seem to rise
To lift their proud heads to the skies, --
Fane and monumental bust
Long levelled even with the dust.
The holy pavements were stained with gore,
The place where the sacred temple stood
Was crimson-dyed with Jewish blood.
Long since my parents had been dead,
All my posterity had bled
Beneath the dark Crusader's spear,
No friend was left my path to cheer,
To shed a few last setting rays
Of sunshine on my evening days!

Racked by the tortures of the mind,
How have I longed to plunge beneath
The mansions of repelling death!
And strove that resting place to find
Where earthly sorrows cease!
Oft, when the tempest-fiends engaged,
And the warring winds tumultuous raged,
Confounding skies with seas,
Then would I rush to the towering height
Of the gigantic Teneriffe,
Or some precipitous cliff,
All in the dead of the silent night.

I have cast myself from the mountain's height
Above was day -- below was night;
The substantial clouds that lowered beneath
Bore my detested form;
They whirled it above the volcanic breath
And the meteors of the storm;
The torrents of electric flame
Scorched to a cinder my fated frame.
Hark to the thunder's awful crash --
Hark to the midnight lightning's hiss!
At length was heard a sullen dash,
Which made the hollow rocks around
Rebellow to the awful sound;
The yawning ocean opening wide
Received me in its vast abyss,
And whelmed me in its foaming tide.
Though my astounded senses fled,
Yet did the spark of life remain;
Then the wild surges of the main
Dashed and left me on the rocky shore.
Oh! would that I had waked no more!
Vain wish! I lived again to feel
Torments more fierce than those of hell!
A tide of keener pain to roll,
And the bruises to enter my inmost soul!

I cast myself in Etna's womb,
If haply I might meet my doom
In torrents of electric flame;
Thrice happy had I found a grave
'Mid fierce combustion's tumults dire,
'Mid oceans of volcanic fire
Which whirled me in their sulphurous wave,
And scorched to a cinder my hated frame,
Parched up the blood within my veins,
And racked my breast with damning pains, --
Then hurled me from the mountain's entrails dread.
With what unutterable woe
Even now I feel this bosom glow --
I burn -- I melt with fervent heat --
Again life's pulses wildly beat --
What endless throbbing pains I live to feel!
The elements respect their Maker's seal, --
That seal deep printed on my fated head.
Still like the scathed pine-tree's height,
Braving the tempests of the night,
Have I 'scaped the bickering fire.
Like the scathed pine which a monument stands
Of faded grandeur, which the brands
Of the tempest-shaken air
Have riven on the desolate heath,
Yet it stands majestic even in death,
And rears its wild form there.
Thus have I 'scaped the ocean's roar
The red-hot bolt from God's right hand,
The flaming midnight meteor brand,
And Etna's flames of bickering fire.
Thus am I doomed by fate to stand,
A monument of the Eternal's ire;
Nor can this being pass away,
Till time shall be no more.

I pierce with intellectual eye,
Into each hidden mystery;
I penetrate the fertile womb
Of nature; I produce to light
The secrets of the teeming earth,
And give air's unseen embryos birth;
The past, the present, and to come,
Float in review before my sight;
To me is known the magic spell,
To summon e'en the Prince of Hell;
Awed by the Cross upon my head,
His fiends would obey my mandates dread,
To twilight change the blaze of noon
And stain with spots of blood the moon --
But that an interposing hand
Restrains my potent arts, my else supreme command. --

He raised his passion-quivering hand,
He loosed the gray encircling band,
A burning Cross was there;
Its color was like to recent blood,
Deep marked upon his brow it stood,
And spread a lambent glare.
Dimmer grew the taper's blaze,
Dazzled by the brighter rays,
Whilst Paulo spoke -- 't was dead of night --
Fair Rosa shuddered with affright;
Victorio, fearless, had braved death
Upon the blood-besprinkled heath;
Had heard, unmoved, the cannon's roar,
Echoing along the Wolga's shore.
When the thunder of battle was swelling,
When the birds for their dead prey were yelling,
When the ensigns of slaughter were streaming,
And falchions and bayonets were gleaming,
And almost felt death's chilling hand,
Stretched on ensanguined Wolga's strand,
And, careless, scorned for life to cry,
Yet now he turned aside his eye,
Scarce could his death-like terror bear,
And owned now what it was to fear.

[PAULO]

Once a funeral met my aching sight,
It blasted my eyes at the dead of night,
When the sightless fiends of the tempests rave,
And hell-birds howl o'er the storm-blackened wave.
Nought was seen, save at fits, but the meteor's glare
And the lightnings of God painting hell on the air;
Nought was heard save the thunder's wild voice in the sky,
And strange birds who, shrieking, fled dismally by.
'T was then from my head my drenched hair that I tore,
And bade my vain dagger's point drink my life's gore;
'T was then I fell on the ensanguined earth,
And cursed the mother who gave me birth!
My maddened brain could bear no more --
Hark! the chilling whirlwind's roar;
The spirits of the tombless dead
Flit around my fated head, --
Howl horror and destruction round,
As they quaff my blood that stains the ground,
And shriek amid their deadly stave, --
'Never shalt thou find the grave!
Ever shall thy fated soul
In life's protracted torments roll,
Till in latest ruin hurled,
And fate's destruction, sinks the world!
Till the dead arise from the yawning ground,
To meet their Maker's last decree,
Till angels of vengeance flit around,
And loud yelling demons seize on thee!'
Ah! would were come that fated hour,
When the clouds of chaos around shall lower;
When this globe calcined by the fury of God
Shall sink beneath his wrathful nod! --

As thus he spake, a wilder gaze
Of fiend-like horror lit his eye
With a most unearthly blaze,
As if some phantom-form passed by.
At last he stilled the maddening wail
Of grief, and thus pursued his tale: --

Oft I invoke the fiends of hell,
And summon each in dire array --
I know they dare not disobey
My stern, my powerful spell.
Once on a night, when not a breeze
Ruffled the surface of the seas,
The elements were lulled to rest,
And all was calm save my sad breast, --
On death resolved -- intent,
I marked a circle round my form;
About me sacred relics spread,
The relics of magicians dead,
And potent incantations read --
I waited their event.

All at once grew dark the night,
Mists of swarthiness hung o'er the pale moonlight.
Strange yells were heard, the boding cry
Of the night raven that flitted by,
Whilst the silver-winged mew,
Startled with screams, o'er the dark wave flew.
'T was then I seized a magic wand,
The wand by an enchanter given,
And deep dyed in his heart's red blood.
The crashing thunder pealed aloud;
I saw the portentous meteor's glare
And the lightnings gleam o'er the lurid air;
I raised the wand in my trembling hand,
And pointed Hell's mark at the zenith of Heaven.

A superhuman sound
Broke faintly on the listening air;
Like to a silver harp the notes,
And yet they were more soft and clear.
I wildly strained my eyes around --
Again the unknown music floats.
Still stood Hell's mark above my head --
In wildest accents I summoned the dead --
And through the unsubstantial night
It diffused a strange and fiendish light;
Spread its rays to the charnel-house air,
And marked mystic forms on the dark vapors there.
The winds had ceased -- a thick dark smoke
From beneath the pavement broke;
Around ambrosial perfumes breathe
A fragrance, grateful to the sense,
And bliss, past utterance, dispense.

The heavy mists, encircling, wreathe,
Disperse, and gradually unfold
A youthful female form; -- she rode
Upon a rosy-tinted cloud;
Bright streamed her flowing locks of gold;
She shone with radiant lustre bright,
And blazed with strange and dazzling light;
A diamond coronet decked her brow,
Bloomed on her cheek a vermeil glow;
The terrors of her fiery eye
Poured forth insufferable day,
And shed a wildly lurid ray.
A smile upon her features played,
But there, too, sate portrayed
The inventive malice of a soul
Where wild demoniac passions roll;
Despair and torment on her brow,
Had marked a melancholy woe
In dark and deepened shade.
Under these hypocritic smiles,
Deceitful as the serpent's wiles,
Her hate and malice were concealed;
Whilst on her guilt-confessing face,
Conscience the strongly printed trace
Of agony betrayed,
And all the fallen angel stood revealed.
She held a poniard in her hand,
The point was tinged by the lightning's brand;
In her left a scroll she bore,
Crimsoned deep with human gore;
And, as above my head she stood,
Bade me smear it with my blood.
She said that when it was my doom
That every earthly pang should cease,
The evening of my mortal woe
Would close beneath the yawning tomb,
And, lulled into the arms of death.
I should resign my laboring breath,
And in the sightless realms below
Enjoy an endless reign of peace.
She ceased -- O, God, I thank thy grace,
Which bade me spurn the deadly scroll;
Uncertain for a while I stood --
The dagger's point was in my blood.
Even now I bleed! -- I bleed!
When suddenly what horrors flew,
Quick as the lightnings, through my frame;
Flashed on my mind the infernal deed,
The deed which would condemn my soul
To torments of eternal flame.
Drops colder than the cavern dew
Quick coursed each other down my face,
I labored for my breath;
At length I cried, 'Avaunt! thou fiend of Hell,
Avaunt! thou minister of death!'
I cast the volume on the ground,
Loud shrieked the fiend with piercing yell,
And more than mortal laughter pealed around.
The scattered fragments of the storm
Floated along the Demon's form,
Dilating till it touched the sky;
The clouds that rolled ath wart his eye,
Revealed by its terrific ray,
Brilliant as the noontide day,
Gleamed with a lurid fire;
Red lightnings darted around his head,
Thunders hoarse as the groans of the dead
Pronounced their Maker's ire;
A whirlwind rushed impetuous by,
Chaos of horror filled the sky;
I sunk convulsed with awe and dread.
When I waked the storm was fled.
But sounds unholy met my ear,
And fiends of hell were flitting near.

Here let me pause -- here end my tale,
My mental powers begin to fail;
At this short retrospect I faint;
Scarce beats my pulse -- I lose my breath,
I sicken even unto death.
Oh! hard would be the task to paint
And gift with life past scenes again;
To knit a long and linkless chain,
Or strive minutely to relate
The varied horrors of my fate.
Rosa! I could a tale disclose,
So full of horror -- full of woes,
Such as might blast a demon's ear,
Such as a fiend might shrink to hear --
But, no --

Here ceased the tale. Convulsed with fear,
The tale yet lived in Rosa's ear --
She felt a strange mysterious dread,
A chilling awe as of the dead;
Gleamed on her sight the Demon's form?
Heard she the fury of the storm?
The cries and hideous yells of death?
Tottered the ground her feet beneath?
Was it the fiend before her stood?
Saw she the poniard drop with blood?
All seemed to her distempered eye
A true and sad reality.

CANTO IV


'What are ye
So withered and so wild in your attire,
That look not like th'inhabitants of earth,
And yet are on't? -- Live you, or are you aught
That man may question?'
Macbeth.
AH! why does man, whom God has sent
As the Creation's ornament,
Who stands amid his works confessed
The first -- the noblest -- and the best,
Whose vast -- whose comprehensive eye,
Is bounded only by the sky,
O'erlook the charms which Nature yields,
The garniture of woods and fields,
The sun's all vivifying light,
The glory of the moon by night,
And to himself alone a foe,
Forget from whom these blessings flow?
And is there not in friendship's eye,
Beaming with tender sympathy,
An antidote to every woe?
And cannot woman's love bestow
An heavenly paradise below?
Such joys as these to man are given,
And yet you dare to rail at Heaven;
Vainly oppose the Almighty Cause,
Transgress His universal laws;
Forfeit the pleasures that await
The virtuous in this mortal state;
Question the goodness of the Power on high,
In misery live, despairing die.
What then is man, how few his days,
And heightened by what transient rays;
Made up of plans of happiness,
Of visionary schemes of bliss;
The varying passions of his mind
Inconstant, varying as the wind;
Now hushed to apathetic rest,
Now tempested with storms his breast;
Now with the fluctuating tide
Sunk low in meanness, swoln with pride;
Thoughtless, or overwhelmed with care,
Hoping, or tortured by despair!

The sun had sunk beneath the hill.
Soft fell the dew, the scene was still;
All nature hailed the evening's close.
Far more did lovely Rosa bless
The twilight of her happiness.
Even Paulo blessed the tranquil hour
As in the aromatic bower,
Or wandering through the olive grove,
He told his plaintive tale of love;
But welcome to Victorio's soul
Did the dark clouds of evening roll!
But, ah! what means his hurried pace,
Those gestures strange, that varying face;
Now pale with mingled rage and ire,
Now burning with intense desire;
That brow where brood the imps of care,
That fixed expression of despair,
That haste, that laboring for breath --
His soul is madly bent on death.
A dark resolve is in his eye,
Victorio raves -- I hear him cry,
'Rosa is Paulo's eternally.'

But whence is that soul-harrowing moan,
Deep drawn and half suppressed --
A low and melancholy tone,
That rose upon the wind?
Victorio wildly gazed around,
He cast his eyes upon the ground,
He raised them to the spangled air,
But all was still -- was quiet there.
Hence, hence, this superstitious fear;
'T was but the fever of his mind
That conjured the ideal sound,
To his distempered ear.

With rapid step, with frantic haste,
He scoured the long and dreary waste;
And now the gloomy cypress spread
Its darkened umbrage o'er his head;
The stately pines above him high
Lifted their tall heads to the sky;
Whilst o'er his form, the poisonous yew
And melancholy nightshade threw
Their baleful deadly dew.
At intervals the moon shone clear;
Yet, passing o'er her disk, a cloud
Would now her silver beauty shroud.
The autumnal leaf was parched and sere;
It rustled like a step to fear.
The precipice's battled height
Was dimly seen through the mists of night,
As Victorio moved along.
At length he reached its summit dread,
The night-wind whistled round his head
A wild funereal song.
A dying cadence swept around
Upon the waste of air;
It scarcely might be called a sound,
For stillness yet was there,
Save when the roar of the waters below
Was wafted by fits to the mountain's brow.
Here for a while Victorio stood
Suspended o'er the yawning flood,
And gazed upon the gulf beneath.
No apprehension paled his cheek,
No sighs from his torn bosom break,
No terror dimmed his eye.
'Welcome, thrice welcome, friendly death,'
In desperate harrowing tone he cried,
'Receive me, ocean, to your breast,
Hush this ungovernable tide,
This troubled sea to rest.
Thus do I bury all my grief --
This plunge shall give my soul relief,
This plunge into eternity!'
I see him now about to spring
Into the watery grave:
Hark! the death angel flaps his wing
O'er the blackened wave.
Hark! the night-raven shrieks on high
To the breeze which passes on;
Clouds o'ershade the moonlight sky --
The deadly work is almost done --
When a soft and silver sound,
Softer than the fairy song
Which floats at midnight hour along
The daisy-spangled ground,
Was borne upon the wind's soft swell.
Victorio started -- 't was the knell
Of some departed soul;
Now on the pinion of the blast,
Which o'er the craggy mountain passed,
The lengthened murmurs roll --
Till, lost in ether, dies away
The plaintive, melancholy lay.
'Tis said congenial sounds have power
To dissipate the mists that lower
Upon the wretch's brow --
To still the maddening passions' war --
To calm the mind's impetuous jar --
To turn the tide of woe.
Victorio shuddered with affright,
Swam o'er his eyes thick mists of night;
Even now he was about to sink
Into the ocean's yawning womb,
But that the branches of an oak,
Which, riven by the lightning's stroke,
O'erhung the precipice's brink,
Preserved him from the billowy tomb;
Quick throbbed his pulse with feverish heat,
He wildly started on his feet,
And rushed from the mountain's height.

The moon was down, but through the air
Wild meteors spread a transient glare;
Borne on the wing of the swelling gale,
Above the dark and woody dale,
Thick clouds obscured the sky.
All was now wrapped in silence drear,
Not a whisper broke on the listening ear,
Not a murmur floated by.

In thought's perplexing labyrinth lost
The trackless heath he swiftly crossed.
Ah! why did terror blanch his cheek?
Why did his tongue attempt to speak,
And fail in the essay?
Through the dark midnight mists an eye,
Flashing with crimson brilliancy,
Poured on his face its ray.
'What sighs pollute the midnight air?
What mean those breathings of despair?'
Thus asked a voice, whose hollow tone
Might seem but one funereal moan.
Victorio groaned, with faltering breath,
'I burn with love, I pant for death!'

Suddenly a meteor's glare,
With brilliant flash illumed the air;
Bursting through clouds of sulphurous smoke,
As on a Witch's form it broke,
Of herculean bulk her frame
Seemed blasted by the lightning's flame;
Her eyes that flared with lurid light,
Were now with bloodshot lustre filled.
They blazed like comets through the night,
And now thick rheumy gore distilled;
Black as the raven's plume, her locks
Loose streamed upon the pointed rocks;
Wild floated on the hollow gale,
Or swept the ground in matted trail;
Vile loathsome weeds, whose pitchy fold
Were blackened by the fire of Hell,
Her shapeless limbs of giant mould
Scarce served to hide -- as she the while
'Grinned horribly a ghastly smile,'
And shrieked with demon yell.

Terror unmanned Victorio's mind,
His limbs, like lime leaves in the wind,
Shook, and his brain in wild dismay
Swam -- vainly he strove to turn away.
'Follow me to the mansions of rest,'
The weird female cried;
The life-blood rushed through Victorio's breast
In full and swelling tide.
Attractive as the eagle's gaze,
And bright as the meridian blaze,
Led by a sanguine stream of light,
He followed through the shades of night --
Before him his conductress fled,
As swift as the ghosts of the dead,
When on some dreadful errand they fly,
In a thunderblast sweeping the sky.

They reached a rock whose beetling height
Was dimly seen through the clouds of night;
Illumined by the meteor's blaze,
Its wild crags caught the reddened rays
And their refracted brilliance threw
Around a solitary yew,
Which stretched its blasted form on high,
Braving the tempests of the sky.
As glared the flame, a caverned cell,
More pitchy than the shades of hell,
Lay open to Victorio's view.
Lost for an instant was his guide;
He rushed into the mountain's side.
At length with deep and harrowing yell
She bade him quickly speed,
For that ere again had risen the moon
'T was fated that there must be done
A strange -- a deadly deed.

Swift as the wind Victorio sped;
Beneath him lay the mangled dead;
Around dank putrefaction's power
Had caused a dim blue mist to lower.
Yet an unfixed, a wandering light
Dispersed the thickening shades of night;
Yet the weird female's features dire
Gleamed through the lurid yellow air,
With a deadly livid fire,
Whose wild, inconstant, dazzling light
Dispelled the tenfold shades of night,
Whilst her hideous fiendlike eye,
Fixed on her victim with horrid stare,
Flamed with more kindled radiancy;
More frightful far than that of Death,
When exulting he stalks o'er the battle heath;
Or of the dread prophetic form,
Who rides the curled clouds in the storm,
And borne upon the tempest's wings,
Death, despair, and horror brings.
Strange voices then and shrieks of death
Were borne along the trackless heath;
Tottered the ground his steps beneath;
Rustled the blast o'er the dark cliff's side,
And their works unhallowed spirits plied,
As they shed their baneful breath.
Yet Victorio hastened on --
Soon the dire deed will be done.
'Mortal,' the female cried, 'this night
Shall dissipate thy woe;
And, ere return of morning light,
The clouds that shade thy brow
Like fleeting summer mists shall fly
Before the sun that mounts on high.
I know the wishes of thy heart --
A soothing balm I could impart:
Rosa is Paulo's -- can be thine,
For the secret power is mine.'

VICTORIO

Give me that secret power -- Oh! give
To me fair Rosa -- I will live
To bow to thy command.
Rosa but mine -- and I will fly
E'en to the regions of the sky,
Will traverse every land.

WITCH

Calm then those transports and attend,
Mortal, to one, who is thy friend --
The charm begins. --

An ancient book

Of mystic characters she took;
Her loose locks floated on the air;
Her eyes were fixed in lifeless stare;
She traced a circle on the floor,
Around dank chilling vapors lower;
A golden cross on the pavement she threw,
'T was tinged with a flame of lambent blue,
From which bright scintillations flew;
By it she cursed her Saviour's soul;
Around strange fiendish laughs did roll,
A hollow, wild, and frightful sound,
At fits was heard to float around.
She uttered then, in accents dread,
Some maddening rhyme that wakes the dead,
And forces every shivering fiend
To her their demon-forms to bend;
At length a wild and piercing shriek,
As the dark mists disperse and break,
Announced the coming Prince of Hell --
His horrid form obscured the cell.
Victorio shrunk, unused to shrink,
E'en at extremest danger's brink;
The witch then pointed to the ground
Infernal shadows flitted around
And with their Prince were seen to rise;
The cavern bellows with their cries,
Which, echoing through a thousand caves,
Sound like as many tempest waves.

Inspired and wrapped in bickering flame,
The strange, the awful being stood.
Words unpremeditated came
In unintelligible flood
From her black tumid lips, arrayed
In livid fiendish smiles of joy;
Lips, which now dropped with deadly dew
And now, extending wide, displayed
Projecting teeth of mouldy hue,
As with a loud and piercing cry
A mystic, harrowing lay she sang;
Along the rocks a death-peal rang;
In accents hollow, deep and drear,
They struck upon Victorio's ear.
As ceased the soul-appalling verse,
Obedient to its power grew still
The hellish shrieks; the mists disperse;
Satan -- a shadeless, hideous beast --
In all his horrors stood confessed!
And as his vast proportions fill
The lofty cave, his features dire
Gleam with a pale and sulphurous fire;
From his fixed glance of deadly hate
Even she shrunk back, appalled with dread --
For there contempt and malice sate,
And from his basiliskine eye
Sparks of living fury fly,
Which wanted but a being to strike dead.
A wilder, a more awful spell
Now echoed through the long-drawn cell;
The demon bowed to its mandates dread.
'Receive this potent drug,' he cried,
'Whoever quaffs its fatal tide,
Is mingled with the dead.'
Swept by a rushing sulphurous blast,
Which wildly through the cavern passed,
The fatal word was borne.
The cavern trembled with the sound,
Trembled beneath his feet the ground;
With strong convulsions torn,
Victorio, shuddering, fell;
But soon awakening from his trance,
He cast around a fearful glance,
Yet gloomy was the cell,
Save where a lamp's uncertain flare
Cast a flickering, dying glare.

WITCH

Receive this dear-earned drug -- its power
Thou, mortal, soon shalt know:
This drug shall be thy nuptial dower,
This drug shall seal thy woe.
Mingle it with Rosa's wine,
Victorio -- Rosa then is thine.

She spake, and, to confirm the spell,
A strange and subterranean sound
Reverberated long around
In dismal echoes -- the dark cell
Rocked as in terror -- through the sky
Hoarse thunders murmured awfully,
And, winged with horror, darkness spread
Her mantle o'er Victorio's head.
He gazed around with dizzy fear,
No fiend, no witch, no cave, was near;
But the blasts of the forest were heard to roar,
The wild ocean's billows to dash on the shore.
The cold winds of Heaven struck chill on his frame;
For the cave had been heated by hell's blackening flame,
And his hand grasped a casket -- the philtre was there!

Sweet is the whispering of the breeze
Which scarcely sways yon summer trees;
Sweet is the pale moon's pearly beam,
Which sleeps upon the silver stream,
In slumber cold and still:
Sweet those wild notes of harmony,
Are wafted from yon hill;
Which on the blast that passes by,
So low, so thrilling, yet so clear,
Which strike enthusiast fancy's ear, --
Which sweep along the moonlight sky,
Like notes of heavenly symphony.

SONG

See yon opening flower
Spreads its fragrance to the blast;
It fades within an hour,
Its decay is pale, is fast.
Paler is yon maiden;
Faster is her heart's decay;
Deep with sorrow laden,
She sinks in death away.

'T is the silent dead of night --
Hark! hark! what shriek so low yet clear,
Breaks on calm rapture's pensive ear
From Lara's castled height?
'T was Rosa's death-shriek fell!
What sound is that which rides the blast,
As onward its fainter murmurs passed?
'T is Rosa's funeral knell!
What step is that the ground which shakes?
'T is the step of a wretch, Nature shrinks from his tread;
And beneath their tombs tremble the shuddering dead;
And while he speaks the churchyard quakes

PAULO

Lies she there for the worm to devour,
Lies she there till the judgment hour,
Is then my Rosa dead!
False fiend! I curse thy futile power!
O'er her form will lightnings flash,
O'er her form will thunders crash,
But harmless from my head
Will the fierce tempest's fury fly,
Rebounding to its native sky. --
Who is the God of Mercy? -- where
Enthroned the power to save?
Reigns he above the viewless air?
Lives he beneath the grave?
To him would I lift my suppliant moan,
That power should hear my harrowing groan; --
Is it then Christ's terrific Sire?
Ah! I have felt his burning ire,
I feel, -- I feel it now, --
His flaming mark is fixed on my head,
And must there remain in traces dread;
Wild anguish glooms my brow;
Oh! Griefs like mine that fiercely burn
Where is the balm can heal!
Where is the monumental urn
Can bid to dust this frame return,
Or quench the pangs I feel!

As thus he spoke grew dark the sky,
Hoarse thunders murmured awfully,
'O Demon! I am thine!' he cried.
A hollow fiendish voice replied,
'Come! for thy doom is misery.'




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