XII.

"Far other, she, who charm'd me thus awhile, Thought in each glance, and mind in every smile; Genius was hers, with all the Iris dyes That paint on cloud the arch that spans the skies; Wild in caprice, impassion'd, and yet coy, Woman when mournful, a frank child in joy; The Phidian dream, in one concentring all } The thousand spells with which the charmers thrall, } And pleasing most the eye which years begin to pall. } I do not say I loved her as, in truth, We only love when life is in its youth; But here at least I thought to fix my doom, And from the weary waste reclaim a home. Enough I loved, to woo, to win, to bind To her my fate, if Heaven had so assign'd! The nuptial day was fix'd, the plighting kiss Glow'd on my lips;--that moment the abyss, Which, hid by moss-grown time, yet yawn'd as wide Beneath my feet, divorced me from her side. A letter came--Clanalbin's hand; what made Treason so bold to brave the man betray'd? I break the seal--O Heaven! my Mary yet Lived; in want's weeds the wretch his victim met; Track'd to her home (a beggar's squalid cell!), } Told all the penitence that lips could tell: } 'Come back and plead thyself, and all may yet be well!' } Had I a choice? could I delay to choose?-- Here conscience dragg'd me, there it might excuse.

"Few hurried lines, obscurely dark with all The war within, my later vows recall, Breathe passionate prayer--for hopeless pardon sue, And shape soft words to soothe the stern adieu. So, as some soul the beckoning ghost obeys, The haunting shadow of the vanish'd days Lures to the grave of Youth my charmed tread, And sighs, 'At length thou shalt appease the Dead!'

"Scarce had I reach'd the shores of England, ere New pomps spring round me,--I am Arden's heir! The last pretender to the princely line, Whose flag had waved from towers in Palestine, Borne to our dark Walhalla,--left me poor In all which sheds a blessing on the boor.-- Yes, thou art right! how, at each sickening grasp For the heart's food, had gold befool'd my clasp! Gorged with a satrap's treasure, the soul's dearth Envied the pauper crawling to his hearth." "But Mary--she--thy wife before Heaven's eye?" "Lost as before!" was Arden's anguish-cry; "Not beggary, famine--not her child (for whom, What could she hope from earth?--as stern a doom!) Could bow the steel of that proud chastity, Which scorn'd as alms the atonement due from me! Out of the sense of wrong her grandeur grown, She look'd on shame from Sorrow as a throne. Once more more she fled;--no sign!--again the same Vain track--vain chase!--Not _here_ was I to blame!"

"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 circumstances 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 pass 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 gods.

[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.