VII.

"Next day, the sire my noble kinsman sought; One ruling senates must be just, he thought. What chanced, untold--what follow'd may declare: } Behold me summon'd to my uncle's chair! } See his cold eye--_I_ saw my ruin there! } I saw and shrunk not, for a sullen pride Embraced alike the kinsman and the bride: Scorn'd here, the seeming snare by cunning set; And there, coarse thraldom, with rebellion met.

"Brief was my Lord--

'An old man tells me, sir, You woo his child, to wed her you demur; Who knows, perhaps (and such his shrewd surmise), The noose is knit--you but conceal the ties! Please to inform me, ere I go to court, How stands the matter?--sir, my time is short.'

"'My Lord,' I answer'd, with unquailing brow, 'Not to such ears should youth its faults avow; And grant me pardon if I boldly speak, Youth may have secrets honour shuns to seek. I own I love, proclaim that love as pure! If this be sin--its sentence I endure. All else belongs unto that solemn shrine, In the veil'd heart, which manhood holds divine. Men's hearths are sacred, so our laws decree; Are hearts less sacred? mine at least is free. Suspect, disown, forsake me, if thou wilt; I prize the freedom where thou seest the guilt.' My kinsman's hand half-shaded the keen eye, Which glanced askant;--he paused in his reply. At length, perchance, his practised wit foresaw Threats could not shake where interest fail'd to awe; And judged it wise to construe for the best The all I hid, the little I confess'd; Calmly he answer'd--

'Sir, I like this heat; Duper or duped, a well-bred man's discreet; Take but this hint (one can't have all in life), You lose the uncle if you win the wife. In this, you choose Rank, Station, Power, Career; In that, Bills, Babies,--and the Bench, I fear. Hush;--'the least said' (old proverb, sir, but true!)-- As yet your fault indulgently I view. Words,--notes (sad stuff!)--some promise rashly made--

## Action for breach--_that_ scandal must be stay'd.

I trust such scrapes will teach you to beware; 'Twill cost some hundreds--that be my affair. Depart at once--to-morrow--nay, to-day: When fairly gone, there will be less to pay!' So spoke the Statesman, whom experience told The weight of passion in the scales of gold. Pleased I escape, but how reprieve enjoy? One word from her distrusted could destroy! Yet that distrust the whispering heart belied, Self ceased, and anger into pity died; I thought of Mary in her desolate hour, And shudder'd at the blast, and trembled for the flower. Why not go seek her?--chide the impatient snare; } Or if faith linger'd, win it to forbear? } Now was the time, no jealous father there! } Swift as the thought impell'd me, I obey'd! 'Tis night; once more I greet the moonlit shade; Once more I see the happy murmuring rill; The white cot bower'd beneath the pastoral hill! An April night, when, after sparkling showers, The dewy gems betray the cradled flowers, As if some sylphid, startled from her bed In the rath blossom by the mortal's tread, Had left behind her pearly coronal.-- Bright shone the stars on Earth's green banquet-hall; You seem'd, abroad, to see, to feel, to hear The new life flushing through the virgin year; The visible growth--the freshness and the balm; The pulse of Nature throbbing through the calm; As wakeful, over every happy thing, Watch'd through the hush the Earth's young mother--Spring! Calm from the lattice shot a steady ray; } Calm on the sward its silvery lustre lay; } And reach'd, to glad the glancing waves at play. } I stood and gazed within the quiet room;-- Gazed on her cheek;--_there_, spring had lost its bloom! Alone she sate! _Alone!_--that worn-out word, So idly spoken, and so coldly heard; Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known, Of hope laid waste, knells in that word--ALONE!

"Who contemplates, aspires, or dreams, is not Alone: he peoples with rich thoughts the spot. The only loneliness--how dark and blind!-- Is that where fancy cannot dupe the mind; Where the heart, sick, despondent, tired with all, Looks joyless round, and sees the dungeon wall; When even God is silent, and the curse Of torpor settles on the universe; When prayer is powerless, and one sense of dearth Abysses all, _save_ solitude, on earth! So sate the bride!--the drooping form, the eye Vacant, yet fix'd,--that air which Misery, The heart's Medusa, hardens into stone, Sculptured the Death which dwelleth in the lone! Oh, the wild burst of joy,--the life that came } Swift, brightening, bounding through the lips and frame, } When o'er the floors I stole, and whisper'd soft her name! } 'Come--come at last! Oh, rapture!' Who can say Why meaner natures hold mysterious sway Over the nobler? Why mine orb malign Ruled as a fate a spirit so divine; Giving or light or darkness all its own Unto a star so near the Sapphire Throne?

"'So thou art come!' 'Hush! say whose lips reveal'd All _these_ soft traitors swore to guard conceal'd-- Our love--my name?' 'Not I--not I--thy wife! No, truth to thee more dear than fame, than life: A friend, my father's friend, the secret told; How guess'd I know not. Oh! if Love controll'd My heart that hour--that bitter hour--when, there Bent that old man who----Husband, hear my prayer Have mercy on my father!--break, oh, break This crushing silence!--bid his daughter speak, And say, Thou'rt not dishonour'd?'

'If thou wilt, Tell all;--dishonour not alone in guilt! Men's eyes dishonour in the fallen see;-- Speak, and dishonour thou inflict'st on me: The debt, the want, the beggary, and the shame,-- The pauper branded on the noble's name! Speak and inflict--I still can spurn--the doom; Unveil the altar to prepare the tomb! I, who already in my grasp behold, Bright from Hesperian fields, the fruit of gold, By which alone the glorious prize we gain, Foil'd of the goal will die upon the plain. I own two brides, both dear alike, and see In one Ambition--in the other Thee: Destroy thy rival, and to her destroy'd Succeeds despair to make the world a void.' Then, with stern frankness to that shrinking ear, I told my hopes,--in her my only fear; Told, with a cheek no humbling blushes dyed, How met the sire--how unavow'd the bride! 'Thus have I wrong'd--this cruel silence mine; And now be truth, and truth is vengeance, thine!' I ceased to speak; lo, she had ceased to weep; Her white lips writhed, as Suffering in its sleep; And o'er the frame a tremulous shudder went, As every life-stream to the source was sent: The very sense seem'd absent from the look, And with the Heart, its temple, Reason shook! So there was silence; such a silence broods In winter nights, o'er frost-bound solitudes, Darkness, and ice, and stillness all in one,-- The silence without life, the withering without sun. But o'er that silence, as at night's full noon, Through breathless cloud, shimmers the sudden moon; A sad but heavenly smile a moment stirr'd, And heralded the martyr's patient word: 'Fear not; pursue thy way to fortune, fame; I will not soil thy glory with my shame. Betray! avenge!--For ever, until thou Proclaim the bond and ratify the vow, Closed in this heart, as lamps within the tomb, Shall waste the light, that lives amidst the gloom,-- That lives, for oh! the day _shall_ come at length, Though late, though slow,--(give hope, for hope is strength!)-- When, from a father's breast no more exiled, The wife may ask forgiveness for the child?'"