But sadder still it were to trace What once were feelings in that face: Time hath not yet the features fix'd; But brighter traits with evil mix'd; And there are hues not always faded, Which speak a mind not all degraded Even by the crimes through which it waded : The common crowd but see the gloom Of wayward deeds, and fitting doom; The close observer can espy
A noble soul, and lineage high:
Alas! though both bestow'd in vain,
Which Grief could change, and Guilt could stain,
It was no vulgar tenement
To which such lofty gifts were lent, And still with little less than dread On such the sight is riveted. The roofless cot, decay'd and rent, Will scarce delay the passer by; The tower by war or tempest bent, While yet may frown one battlement, Demands and daunts the stranger's eye;
Each ivied arch, and pillar lone,
Pleads haughtily for glories gone!
"His floating robe around him folding,
"Slow sweeps he through the column'd aisle; "With dread beheld, with gloom beholding "The rites that sanctify the pile.
"But when the anthem shakes the choir,
"By yonder lone and wavering torch His aspect glares within the porch;
"There will he pause till all is done
And hear the prayer, but utter none. 'See-by the half-illumined wall
"His hood fly back, his dark hair fall,
'That pale brow wildly wreathing round, As if the Gorgon there had bound
"The sablest of the serpent-braid
That o'er her fearful forehead stray'd: "For he declines the convent oath,
"And leaves those locks unhallow'd growth,
"But wears our garb in all beside;
And, not from piety but pride,
Gives wealth to walls that never heard “Of his one holy vow nor word.
Lo!-mark ye, as the harmony
Peals louder praises to the sky, "That livid cheek, that stony air
"Of mix'd defiance and despair!
"Saint Francis, keep him from the shrine! "Else may we dread the wrath divine
"Made manifest by awful sign.
"If ever evil angel bore
"The form of mortal, such he wore:
By all my hope of sins forgiven,
"Such looks are not of earth nor heaven !"
To love the softest hearts are prone, But such can ne'er be all his own; Too timid in his woes to share, Too meek to meet, or brave despair;
And sterner hearts alone may feel The wound that time can never heal. The rugged metal of the mine
Must burn before its surface shine, But plunged within the furnace-flame, It bends and melts-though still the same; Then temper'd to thy want, or will, "Twill serve thee to defend or kill; A breast-plate for thine hour of need, Or blade to bid thy foeman bleed; But if a dagger's form it bear, Let those who shape its edge, beware! Thus passion's fire, and woman's art, Can turn and tame the sterner heart; From these its form and tone are ta'en, And what they make it, must remain, But break-before it bend again.
If solitude succeed to grief, Release from pain is slight relief; The vacant bosom's wilderness
Might thank the pang that made it less. We loathe what none are left to share: Even bliss-'twere woe alone to bear; The heart once left thus desolate Must fly at last for ease-to hate. It is as if the dead could feel The icy worm around them steal, And shudder, as the reptiles creep To revel o'er their rotting sleep,
Without the power to scare away The cold consumers of their clay! It is as if the desert-bird, (39)
Whose beak unlocks her bosom's stream To still her famish'd nestlings' scream, Nor mourns a life to them transferr'd, Should rend her rash devoted breast, And find them flown her empty nest. The keenest pangs the wretched find Are rapture to the dreary void, The leafless desert of the mind,
The waste of feelings unemploy'd. Who would be doom'd to gaze upon A sky without a cloud or sun? Less hideous far the tempest's roar Than ne'er to brave the billows more- Thrown, when the war of winds is o'er, A lonely wreck on fortune's shore, 'Mid sullen calm, and silent bay, Unseen to drop by dull decay; Better to sink beneath the shock Than moulder piecemeal on the rock!
"Father! thy days have pass'd in peace, ""Mid counted beads, and countless prayer; "To bid the sins of others cease,
"Thyself without a crime or care,
"Save transient ills that all must bear, "Has been thy lot from youth to age; "And thou wilt bless thee from the rage
"Of passions fierce and uncontroll'd, "Such as thy penitents unfold, "Whose secret sins and sorrows rest "Within thy pure and pitying breast. "My days, though few, have pass'd below "In much of joy, but more of woe; "Yet still in hours of love or strife,
"I've 'scaped the weariness of life:
"Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes, "I loathed the languor of repose.
"Now nothing left to love or hate, "No more with hope or pride elate, "I'd rather be the thing that crawls "Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls, "Than pass my dull, unvarying days, "Condemn'd to meditate and gaze. "Yet, lurks a wish within my breast "For rest-but not to feel 'tis rest. "Soon shall my fate that wish fulfil;
"And I shall sleep without the dream "Of what I was, and would be still, "Dark as to thee my deeds may seem: "My memory now is but the tomb "Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom: "Though better to have died with those "Than bear a life of lingering woes. "My spirit shrunk not to sustain "The searching throes of ceaseless pain; "Nor sought the self-accorded grave "Of ancient fool and modern knave: "Yet death I have not fear'd to meet; "And in the field it had been sweet,
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