In the midnight still by the taper dim,
Up rose the wings of their heavenward hymn To the ears of the listening seraphim ;— Oh! 'twas a melting sight to see The old man's tremulous exstacy, And the upturned eyes of Aladine,
That beamed with such a wondrous shine, Her spirit seemed to be sitting there, And panting for its heavenly air,
Yet both to leave-e'en heaven to share- A home already so divine.
In the dun midnight a fire was bright
For the wandering sail on that perilous sea, That gleamed on the sand of her stormy strand, When vain was labour and knightly pride, In the thundering breakers, wild and wide, In the whirlwind's howling obscurity. Many a homebound red-cross kinght, Many a palmer with travel grey, Had blessed, Aladine! thy beacon height. On many a captive's lone decay, She poured the beams of Freedom's light; Restored the children to the sire,
The husband to the trembling wife; Sought out men ready to expire, And smiled them back again to life.
Across the land, across the sea,
Her fame on many a shore they tell.
Echoing church and monastery
Shape to the chaunt and the pealing bell,
As they pray that her soul may be shielded well. On Rudel's ear the story fell
With the thrill of a heavenly harmony,
No joy, no rest, henceforth had he
Till he goes like a monk to a sainted shrine
To worship the beauty of Aladine,
With her image in thought for his company.
But love is eager, and long the way,
And the days rolled, oh! so wearily! And the midnight waned with a slow decay,
(For she ever is slowest to pass away From those who sigh for her rival Day) Till reason darkened, and on his eyes Sat crowds of lovesick fantasies, And the feverish web of a filmy maze, Such as the shadowy robe of haze That rests on burning summer skies.
Like the half-heard sigh of a leafless bough For a rivulet frozen and dead below,
Or the whisper of clouds to a wind, that call To moan for a moonbeam's funeral,- Passed the sigh from Bertrand's breast, His faithful friend, who o'er this rest, This speechless trance of dreaming madness, Ever bends with tireless eye,
As bends some angel's sculptured sadness O'er a warrior's effigy.
Oft his rote he would awaken
To some air all joy-forsaken, To some old and love-lorn ditty, Some sigh-woven melody, Breathing round the eyes of Pity, Undulating mournfully.
Shades of clouds, the dim eyelashes Of the silver looks of night,- Waves, and countless moonlight flashes, Echoes, faint in their affright, Startled, hailed the unwonted lay, That upon the wakened breeze, Drifting, wandered far away, Like a snow-wreath, whirling o'er Its tempest-paved and glistening floor, Above the hushed Borysthenes.
The dreariest woe at length will die, And sleep among the things that were, The beam of Hope's awakening eye Will melt at last the touch of care; Though every wave upon Life's sea
* The musical instrument of the Troubadours,
Goes by us with a chilling sigh, Yet now and then we spy a haven Of windless waters, calmness-paven, And then it seems less sad to be A sharer of mortality!
But Rudel's sickness waned not, E'en when the weary vessel shot Within the smooth Egyptian bay; Senseless, voiceless, hushed he lies Wan with his withering soul's decay; Till-gently as after a sorrowing day Tears into dreamings melt away, With low, sad step, with heavenly eyes, O'er which angelic Sympathies A misty veil of tears had wrought; The lady Aladine draws nigh, And, weeping gazes on the eye, That sunken, fireless, woe-distraught, Wanders so unconsciously.
She took his hand, she o'er him bent With a loving look on his love-woe, As the mournful moon from the firmament
On her image looks in a stream below. Then the mist fell off his glancing eyes, Like the mist from a soul's when it espies Its guardian angel waiting nigh, Oh the morn of its immortality. And in her touch such virtue lay, That gentle thoughts, long fled away, It brought once more into his breast,- As April clouds to the sea restore The glistering drops they stole before. And hope and joy flew back to will Some moments more of their unrest Within their long forsaken nest. Then ardent words beneath her smile, Yet sadly boding, 'gan to rise, As vapours that have sleeping lain Upon the night-encurtained plain, Melt upwards into morning skies.
“O weep not, weep not,―e'en thy grief is vain, I shall sleep now, though a tumultuous flood Of wildest dreams whelmed my delightless brain When last (how sick at heart!) calm sleep I wooed. A shadow of thee was all the weary while Flitting among the dreams, and now, at last, Thyself beholding, I fall from thy smile
Into cold Death. O days! O nights gone past! O misery-laden hours! O Sea! O Time! Why was I borne so long upon your might, Borne to this heaven-to this wished-for clime, Then flung down, wrecked beneath the beacon-light, Moaning to lie, till some upflowing tide Sweeps me to nothing? O must I abide Unresting in dim realms, down, far away, Beneath the wings of the forgotten past,
And miss the light of thee, and Earth, and Day, For swarming ages? Clasp! O clasp me fast! For Death will be afraid to look this way,
O bend down those eyes
To fix the wavering spirit of my life!
Ah! look! What see I? Ye old fantasies—
Out! out! with your dark wild of shadowy strife— I'm here-spell-fenced. I am your food no more!— Thou hast thou slain, and canst thou not restore? In whirling thousands on my brain they pour. Save me! they glare more wildly than before. Thou art not with them! Now I cannot see thee:- Phantoms-nothing but phantoms, endlessly! I sink! I fail! They press like billows on me. There rises one, whose desolating breath Beats to and fro a path his feet before.- Ah! now I cannot feel thee any more! How wintry cold I am! Methinks my brow Should be some ice-girt mountain. Now! O now! I well know who it is-tis Death-chill Death! Death tearing me from thee-uch -dreaded Death! Nay-not so dread in the reality-
Farewell! Farewell! My spirit will love thee!"
On the sad breast of a last autumn leaf, Whereon it sighed to fall from wintry skies, That lingers for a little while, and soon With wandering weary, melts in lonely grief;- His love he found, and finding sinks and dies.
Pale and low, stiff and cold,
Lies the highborn Norman knight;
In the shroud his limbs they fold,
And they bear him down to the chapel grey, Winding, winding, far away
From the gaisome light and air, Down beside the dungeon-stair-
And beneath the torch's light, Many a mass and many a prayer Said the weeping Aladine.
There his armour hung, and there, Close below, in touching line By the trembling hermit hoary Was engraved his name and story; And beside that sacred spot Aladine loved best to pray, When the world, far far away, In the midnight slumber lay, Deeming that his soul in heaven
Had not all Earth's love forgot, And might watch from thence, or even Hovering bear her prayer of love,
And with it fly to worlds above.
ART. VII. LETTERS OF ISMENE.
ALL lovers of classic literature must be familiar with the story of Edipus and his ill-fated race. Who cannot recall with pleasure the time when the character of the heroic Antigone was first unfolded to him?
Firm of purpose, undaunted in her filial love, tender towards others, unsparing of herself, a true heroine, yet displaying throughout enough of the distinguishing marks of female character, and some of its weak
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