XI.

Long was the silence, till to calm restored The moody Indian and the startled lord. "And yet," resumed the first, with softer mien, And lip that smiled, half mocking, yet serene, "Not long thy sorrow dimm'd thy life;--unless Men's envy wrong thee, thou mightst more confess Of loves, perchance as true and as deceived; Of rose-wreaths wither'd in the hands that weaved. Talk to the world of Arden's dazzling lord, } And tales of joyous love go round the board; } Who, though adoring less, by beauty more adored?" }

"Ill dost thou read the human heart, my friend, If bounding man's life with the novel's end; Where lovers married, ever after love-- To birds alone the turtle and the dove! Where wicked men (if I be of the gang) Repent, turn hermits, or cut throats and hang! Our souls repent,--our lives but rarely change; Grief halts awhile, then goads us on to range. More woo'd than wooing, scarce I feign'd to feel-- What magic to the magnet draws the steel? Wealth soon grew mine, the parasital fame Conceal'd the nature while it deck'd the name; Kinsman on kinsman died, each death brought gold; In birth, wealth, fame, strange charms the sex behold! The outward grace the life of courts bestows, The tongue that learns unconsciously to gloze, All drew to mine the fates I could but mar; And Aphrodite was my native star! Forgive the boast, not blessings these, but banes, If spring sows only flowers, small fruit the autumn gains! I mark my grave coevals gather round Their harvest-home, with sheaves for garners bound; And I, that planted but the garden, see How the blooms fade! no harvest waits for me!"

"Yet didst thou never love again? as o'er The soft stream, gliding by the enamell'd shore, Didst thou ne'er pause, and in some lovelier vale Moor thy light prow, and furl thy silken sail?" "But once," said Arden; "years on years had fled, And half it soothed to think my Mary dead. For I had sworn (could faith, could honour less?) My hearth at least to priestly loneliness; To wed no other while she lived, and be, If found at last, for late atonement free. I kept the vow, till this ambiguous doom, Half wed, half widow'd, took a funeral gloom; So many years had pass'd, no tidings gain'd, The chance so slight that yet the earth retain'd, At length, though doubtful, I believed that time Had from the altar ta'en the ban of crime. Impulse, occasion, what you will, at last Seized one warm moment to abjure the past.