The Baron rose, and while he prest
His gentle daughter to his breast,
With cheerful wonder in his eyes
The lady Geraldine espics,
And gave such welcome to the same,
As might beseem so bright a dame!
But when he heard the lady's tale,
And when she told her father's name,
Why wax'd Sir Leoline so pale,
Murmuring o'er the name again,
Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine?
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Cach spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted, ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining;
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliff's which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between; -
But either heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shal wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.
Bir Leoline, a moment's space,
tood gazing on the damsel's face; And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine Came back upon his heart again.
, then, the Baron forgot his age, His noble heart swell'd high with rage; He swore by the wounds in Jesu's side, He would proclaim it far and wide With trump and solemn heraldry, That they who thus had wrong'd the dame Were base as spotted infamy! "And if they dare deny the same, My herald shall appoint a week, And let the recreant traitors seek My tourney court, that there and then I may dislodge their reptile souls From the bodies and forms of men!" He spake his eye in lightning rolls! For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenn'd
And now the tears were on his face,
And fondly in his arms he took
Fair Geraldine, who met the embrace,
Prolonging it with joyous look.
Which when she view'd, a vision fell
Upon the soul of Christabel,
The vision of fear, the touch and pain!
She shrunk and shudder'd, and saw again,
(Ah, woe is me! was it for thee,
Thou gentle maid! such sights to see?)
Again she saw that bosom old,
Again she felt that bosom cold,
And drew in her breath with a hissing
Whereat the Knight turn'd wildly round,
And nothing saw but his own sweet maid
With eyes upraised, as one that pray'd.
The touch, the sight, had pass'd away,
And in its stead that vision blest
Which comforted her after-rest,
While in the lady's arms she lay,
Had put a rapture in her breast,
And on her lips and o'er her eyes
Spread smiles like light!
With new surprise, "What ails then my beloved child?” The Baron said. — His daughter mild Made answer, "All will yet be well!" I ween, she had no power to tell Aught else: so mighty was the spell. Yet he, who saw this Geraldine, Had deem'd her sure a thing divine; Such sorrow with such grace she blended, As if she fear'd she had offended Sweet Christabel, that gentle maid! And with such lowly tones she pray'd She might be sent without delay Home to her father's mansion.
Nay, by my soul!" said Leoline.
"Ho! Bracy the bard, the charge be thine!
Go thou, with music sweet and loud,
| And take two steeds with trappings proud,
And take the youth whom thou lov'st best
To bear thy harp, and learn thy song,
And clothe you both in solemn vest,
And over the mountains haste along,
Lest wandering folk, that are abroad,
Detain you on the valley road.
And when he has cross'd the Irthing flood,
My merry bard! he hastes he hastes
Up Knorren Moor, through Halegarth
And reaches soon that castle good, [Wood,
In the beautiful lady the child of his Which stands and threatens Scotland's
"Bard Bracy! bard Bracy! your horses are When, lo! I saw a bright green snake
fleet,
Coil'd around its wings and neck,
Ye must ride up the hall, your music so Green as the herbs on which it couch'd,
Close by the dove's its head it crouch'd;
And with the dove it heaves and stirs,
Swelling its neck as she swell'd hers!
I woke; it was the midnight hour,
The clock was echoing in the tower;
But, though my slumber was gone by,
This dream it would not pass away,-
It seems to live upon my eye!
And thence I vow'd this self-same day
With music strong and saintly song
To wander through the forest hare,
Lest aught unholy loiter there."
More loud than your horses' echoing feet!
And loud and loud to Lord Roland call,
Thy daughter is safe in Langdale hall!
Thy beautiful daughter is safe and free:
Sir Leoline grects thee thus through me.
He bids thee come without delay
With all thy numerous array;
And take thy lovely daughter home:
And he will meet thee on the way
With all his numerous array
White with their panting palfreys' foam:
And, by mine honour! I will say,
That I repent me of the day
When I spake words of fierce disdain
To Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine!-
For, since that evil hour hath flown,
Many a Summer's Sun hath shone;
Yet ne'er found I a friend again
Like Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine."
The lady fell, and clasp'd his knees,
Her face upraised, her eyes o'erflowing;
And Bracy replied, with faltering voice,
His gracious hail on all bestowing:
"Thy words, thou sire of Christabel,
Are sweeter than my harp can tell;
Yet, might I gain a boon of thee,
This day my journey should not be,
So strange a dream hath come to me;
That I had vow'd with music loud
To clear yon wood from thing unblest,
Warn'd by a vision in my rest!
For in my sleep I saw that dove,
That gentle bird whom thou dost love,
And call'st by thy own daughter's name,
Sir Leoline! I saw the same,
Fluttering, and uttering fearful moan,
Among the green herbs in the forest alone.
Which when I saw and when I heard,
I wonder'd what might ail the bird:
For nothing near it could I see,
Thus Bracy said: the Baron, the while,
Half-list'ning heard him with a smile;
Then turn'd to Lady Geraldine,
His eyes made up of wonder and love;
And said in courtly accents fine,
"Sweet maid, Lord Roland's beauteous
dove,
[soug,
With arms more strong than harp of
Thy sire and I will crush the snake!"
He kiss'd her forehead as he spake,
And Geraldine, in maiden wise,
Casting down her large bright eyes,
With blushing cheek and courtesy fine,
She turn'd her from Sir Leoline;
Softly gather'd up her train,
That o'er her right arm fell again;
And folded her arms across her chest,
And couch'd her head upon her breast,
And look'd askance at Christabel, —
Jesu, Maria, shield her well!
A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy,
And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her
head,
Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye,
And with somewhat of analice, and more
of dread,
At Christabel she look'd askance!
One moment, and the sight was fled!
Save the grass and green herbs under. But Christabel in dizzy trance,
"And in my dream methought I went
To search out what might there be found;
And what the sweet bird's trouble meant,
That thus lay fluttering on the ground.
I went and peer'd, and could descry
No cause for her distressful cry;
But yet for her dear lady's sake
I stoop'd, methought, the dove to take,
Stumbling on the unsteady ground,
Shudder'd aloud, with a hissing sound;
And Geraldine again turn'l round,
And, like a thing that sought relief,
Full of wonder and full of grief,
She roll'd her large bright eyes divine
Wildly on Sir Leoline.
The maid, alas! her thoughts are gone,
She nothing sees,-
- no sight but one!
The maid, devoid of guile and sin,
I know not how, in fearful wise
So deeply had she drunken in
That look, those shrunken serpent eyes,
That all her features were resign'd
To this sole image in her mind;
And passively did imitate
That look of dull and treacherous hate!
And thus she stood, in dizzy trance,
Still picturing that look askance,
With forced unconscious sympathy
Full before her father's view,-
As far as such a look could be,
In eyes so innocent and blue!
| And, turning from his own sweet maid, The aged knight, Sir Leoline, Led forth the lady Geraldine!
THE CONCLUSION TO PART II. A LITTLE child, a limber elf, Singing, dancing to itself,
A fairy thing with red round cheeks,
That always finds, and never seeks,
Makes such a vision to the sight
As fills a father's eyes with light;
And pleasures flow in so thick and fast
Upon his heart, that he at last
And, when the trance was o'er, the maid Must needs express his love's excess
Why is thy cheek so wan and wild,
Sir Leoline? Thy only child
Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride,
So fair, so innocent, so mild;
The same for whom thy lady died!
O, by the pangs of her dear mother,
Think thou no evil of thy child!
For her, and thee, and for no other,'
She pray'd the moment cre she died:
Pray'd that the babe for whom she died
Might prove her dear lord's joy and pride!
That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled,
With words of numeant bitterness.
Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty
At each wild word to feel within
A sweet recoil of love and pity.
And what if, in a world of sin,
(O, sorrow and shame should this be true!)
Such giddiness of heart and brain
Comes seldom save from rage and pain,
So talks as it's most used to do.3
3 Much regret, as was natural, has been felt, that this strange poem was not finished; and various conjectures have been thrown out, as to how it would have ended, had the author carried through his design. Some have rather thought the poem naturally incapable of being com pleted, and that an instinct of genins to this effect was what really kept the author
And would'st thou wrong thy only child, from going on, though without his being
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aware of it. But there appears no sufficient reason to question that he had a definite plan in his mind, and saw his way clearly to a completion of the story; and it is said that, sometimes, on being asked how the poem was to end, he answered substantially as follows: "Geraldine, who was wholly evil and supernatural by some alliance with the Devil, was to aim at the ruin of Christabel by taking various shapes; first, as we see her in the poem, afterwards as Christabel's absent lover, but without the power of doing entirely away with a certain hideousness which she concealed under her dress. The wed. ding night was to draw on, and the poem. to conclude happily by the advent of the real lover returning home."-The mysterious witchery that hangs about this piece wholly fascinates and somewhat bewilders the mind; while the limber and finely-modulated rhythm of the verse fill · the atmosphere of the poem with uncloy |ing delectation.
ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR.1
ARGUMENT.—The Ode commences with an Address to the Divine Providence, that regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, however calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a while to the cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks of the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November, 1796; having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined against France. The first and second Antistrophe describe the Image of the Departing Year, &c., as in a vision. The second prophesies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country.
SPIRIT who sweepest the wild harp of Time,
It is most hard, with an untroubled ear
Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!
Yet, mine eye fix'd on Heaven's unchanging clime,
Long had I listen'd, free from mortal fear,
With inward stillness, and a bowed mind;
When, lo! its folds far waving on the wind,
I saw the train of the departing year!
Starting from my silent sadness
Then with no unholy madness,
Ere yet the enter'd cloud foreclosed my sight,
I raised th' impetuous song, and solemnized his flight.
Hither, from the recent tomb,
From the prison's direr gloom,
From distemper's midnight anguish ;
And thence, where poverty doth waste and languish;
Or where, his two bright torches blending,
Love illumines manhood's maze;
Or where o'er cradled infants bending
Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze;
Hither, in perplexèd dance,
Ye Woes, ye young-eyed Joys, advance!
By Time's wild harp, and by the hand
Whose indefatigable sweep
Raises its fateful strings from sleep,
I bide you haste, a mix'd tumultuous band!
From every private bower,
And cach domestic hearth,
Haste for one solemn hour;
And with a loud and yet a louder voice,
O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth,
Weep and rejoice!
Still echoes the dread name that o'er the Earth
Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell:
4 This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796; and was first published on the last day of that year.
And now advance in saintly jubilee
Justice and Truth! They too have heard thy spell,
They too obey thy name, divinest Liberty!"
I mark'd Ambition in his war-array!
I heard the mailèd Monarch's troublous cry,
"Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay?
Groans not her chariot on its onward way?"
Fly, mailed Monarch, fly!
Stunn'd by Death's twice mortal mace,
No more on murder's lurid face
Th' insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye!
Manes of th' unnumber'd slain!
Ye that gasp'd on Warsaw's plain!
Ye that erst at Ismail's tower,
When human ruin choked the streams,
Fell in conquest's glutted hour,
'Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams!
Spirits of th' uncoffin'd slain,
Sudden blasts of triumph swelling,
Oft, at night, in misty train,
Kush around her narrow dwelling!
Th' exterminating fiend is fled,-
(Foul her life, and dark her doom,)
Mighty armies of the dead
Dance like death-fires round her tomb!
Then with prophetic song relate
Each some tyrant-murderer's fate!
Departing Year, 'twas on no earthly shore
My soul beheld thy vision! Where alone,
Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,
Aye Memory sits, thy robe inscribed with gore,
With many an unimaginable groan
Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued,
Deep silence o'er th' ethereal multitude,
Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone.
Then, his eye wild ardours glancing,
From the choirèd Gods advancing,
The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet,
And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.
Throughout the blissful throng,
Hush'd were harp and song:
Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven (The mystic Words of Heaven)
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