by Thomas Hood
She bore her treasure, with a face too nigh
To mark how life was alter’d in its mien,
Or how the light grew torpid in his eye,
Or how his pearly breath, unprison’d there,
Flew up to join the universal air.
LIV.
She could not miss the throbbings of his heart,
Whilst her own pulse so wanton’d in its joy;
She could not guess he struggled to depart,
And when he strove no more, the hapless boy!
She read his mortal stillness for content,
Feeling no fear where only love was meant.
LV.
Soon she alights upon her ocean-floor,
And straight unyokes her arms from her fair prize;
Then on his lovely face begins to pore,
As if to glut her soul; — her hungry eyes
Have grown so jealous of her arms’ delight;
It seems she hath no other sense but sight.
LVI.
But O sad marvel! O most bitter strange!
What dismal magic makes his cheek so pale?
Why will he not embrace, — why not exchange
Her kindly kisses; — wherefore not exhale
Some odorous message from life’s ruby gates,
Where she his first sweet embassy awaits?
LVII.
Her eyes, poor watchers, fix’d upon his looks,
Are grappled with a wonder near to grief,
As one, who pores on undecipher’d books,
Strains vain surmise, and dodges with belief;
So she keeps gazing with a mazy thought,
Framing a thousand doubts that end in nought.
LVIII.
Too stern inscription for a page so young,
The dark translation of his look was death!
But death was written in an alien tongue,
And learning was not by to give it breath;
So one deep woe sleeps buried in its seal,
Which Time, untimely, hasteth to reveal.
LIX.
Meanwhile she sits unconscious of her hap,
Nursing Death’s marble effigy, which there
With heavy head lies pillow’d in her lap,
And elbows all unhinged; — his sleeking hair
Creeps o’er her knees, and settles where his hand
Leans with lax fingers crook’d against the sand;
LX.
And there lies spread in many an oozy trail,
Like glossy weeds hung from a chalky base,
That shows no whiter than his brow is pale;
So soon the wintry death had bleach’d his face
Into cold marble, — with blue chilly shades,
Showing wherein the freezy blood pervades.
LXI.
And o’er his steadfast cheek a furrow’d pain
Hath set, and stiffened like a storm in ice,
Showing by drooping lines the deadly strain
Of mortal anguish; — yet you might gaze twice
Ere Death it seem’d, and not his cousin, Sleep,
That through those creviced lids did underpeep.
LXII.
But all that tender bloom about his eyes,
Is Death’s own violets, which his utmost rite
It is to scatter when the red rose dies;
For blue is chilly, and akin to white:
Also he leaves some tinges on his lips,
Which he hath kiss’d with such cold frosty nips.
LXIII.
“Surely,” quoth she, “he sleeps, the senseless thing,
Oppress’d and faint with toiling in the stream!”
Therefore she will not mar his rest, but sing
So low, her tune shall mingle with his dream;
Meanwhile, her lily fingers task to twine
His uncrispt locks uncurling in the brine.
LXIV.
“O lovely boy!” — thus she attuned her voice, —
“Welcome, thrice welcome, to a sea-maid’s home,
My love-mate thou shalt be, and true heart’s choice;
How have I long’d such a twin-self should come, —
A lonely thing, till this sweet chance befell,
My heart kept sighing like a hollow shell.”
LXV.
“Here thou shalt live, beneath this secret dome,
An ocean-bow’r, defended by the shade
Of quiet waters, a cool emerald gloom
To lap thee all about. Nay, be not fray’d,
Those are but shady fishes that sail by
Like antic clouds across my liquid sky!”
LXVI.
“Look how the sunbeam burns upon their scales,
And shows rich glimpses of their Tyrian skins;
They flash small lightnings from their vigorous tails,
And winking stars are kindled at their fins;
These shall divert thee in thy weariest mood,
And seek thy hand for gamesomeness and food.”
LXVII.
“Lo! those green pretty leaves with tassel bells,
My flow’rets those, that never pine for drouth;
Myself did plant them in the dappled shells,
That drink the wave with such a rosy mouth, —
Pearls wouldst thou have beside? crystals to shine?
I had such treasures once, — now they are thine.”
LXVIII.
“Now, lay thine ear against this golden sand,
And thou shalt hear the music of the sea,
Those hollow tunes it plays against the land, —
Is’t not a rich and wondrous melody?
I have lain hours, and fancied in its tone
I heard the languages of ages gone!”
LXIX.
“I too can sing when it shall please thy choice,
And breathe soft tunes through a melodious shell,
Though heretofore I have but set my voice
To some long sighs, grief-harmonized, to tell
How desolate I fared; — but this sweet change
Will add new notes of gladness to my range!”
LXX.
“Or bid me speak, and I will tell thee tales,
Which I have framed out of the noise of waves;
Ere now I have communed with senseless gales,
And held vain colloquies with barren caves;
But I could talk to thee whole days and days,
Only to word my love a thousand ways.”
LXXI.
“But if thy lips will bless me with their speech,
Then ope, sweet oracles! and I’ll be mute;
I was born ignorant for thee to teach,
Nay all love’s lore to thy dear looks impute;
Then ope thine eyes, fair teachers, by whose light
I saw to give away my heart aright!”
LXXII.
But cold and deaf the sullen creature lies
Over her knees, and with concealing clay,
Like hoarding Avarice, locks up his eyes,
And leaves her world impoverish’d of day;
Then at his cruel lips she bends to plead,
But there the door is closed against her need.
LXXIII.
Surely he sleeps, — so her false wits infer!
Alas! poor sluggard, ne’er to wake again!
Surely he sleeps, yet without any stir
That might denote a vision in his brain;
Or if he does not sleep, he feigns too long,
Twice she hath reach’d the ending of her song.
LXXIV.
Therefore ’tis time she tells him to uncover
Those radiant jesters, and disperse her fears,
Whereby her April face is shaded over,
Like rainy clouds just ripe for showering tears;
Nay, if he will not wake, so poor she gets,
Herself must open those lock’d-up cabinets.
LX
XV.
With that she stoops above his brow, and bids
Her busy hands forsake his tangled hair,
And tenderly lift up those coffer-lids,
That she may gaze upon the jewels there,
Like babes that pluck an early bud apart,
To know the dainty color of its heart.
LXXVI.
Now, picture one, soft creeping to a bed,
Who slowly parts the fringe-hung canopies,
And then starts back to find the sleeper dead;
So she looks in on his uncover’d eyes,
And seeing all within so drear and dark,
Her own bright soul dies in her like a spark.
LXXVII.
Backward she falls, like a pale prophetess,
Under the swoon of holy divination:
And what had all surpass’d her simple guess,
She now resolves in this dark revelation;
Death’s very mystery, — oblivious death; —
Long sleep, — deep night, and an entranced breath.
LXXVIII.
Yet life, though wounded sore, not wholly slain,
Merely obscured, and not extinguish’d, lies;
Her breath that stood at ebb, soon flows again,
Heaving her hollow breast with heavy sighs,
And light comes in and kindles up the gloom,
To light her spirit from its transient tomb.
LXXIX.
Then like the sun, awaken’d at new dawn,
With pale bewilder’d face she peers about,
And spies blurr’d images obscurely drawn,
Uncertain shadows in a haze of doubt;
But her true grief grows shapely by degrees, —
A perish’d creature lying on her knees.
LXXX.
And now she knows how that old Murther preys,
Whose quarry on her lap lies newly slain:
How he roams all abroad and grimly slays,
Like a lean tiger in Love’s own domain;
Parting fond mates, — and oft in flowery lawns
Bereaves mild mothers of their milky fawns.
LXXXI.
O too dear knowledge! O pernicious earning!
Foul curse engraven upon beauty’s page!
Ev’n now the sorrow of that deadly learning
Ploughs up her brow, like an untimely age,
And on her cheek stamps verdict of death’s truth
By canker blights upon the bud of youth!
LXXXII.
For as unwholesome winds decay the leaf,
So her cheeks’ rose is perish’d by her sighs,
And withers in the sickly breath of grief;
Whilst unacquainted rheum bedims her eyes,
Tears, virgin tears, the first that ever leapt
From those young lids, now plentifully wept.
LXXXIII.
Whence being shed, the liquid crystalline
Drops straightway down, refusing to partake
In gross admixture with the baser brine,
But shrinks and hardens into pearls opaque,
Hereafter to be worn on arms and ears;
So one maid’s trophy is another’s tears!
LXXXIV.
“O foul Arch-Shadow, thou old cloud of Night,”
(Thus in her frenzy she began to wail,)
“Thou blank Oblivion — blotter-out of light,
Life’s ruthless murderer, and dear love’s bale!
Why hast thou left thy havoc incomplete,
Leaving me here, and slaying the more sweet?”
LXXXV.
“Lo! what a lovely ruin thou hast made!
Alas! alas! thou hast no eye to see,
And blindly slew’st him in misguided shade.
Would I had lent my doting sense to thee!
But now I turn to thee, a willing mark,
Thine arrows miss me in the aimless dark!”
LXXXVI.
“O doubly cruel! — twice misdoing spite,
But I will guide thee with my helping eyes,
Or — walk the wide world through, devoid of sight, —
Yet thou shalt know me by my many sighs.
Nay, then thou should’st have spared my roses, false Death,
And known Love’s flow’r by smelling his sweet breath;”
LXXXVII.
“Or, when thy furious rage was round him dealing,
Love should have grown from touching of his skin;
But like cold marble thou art all unfeeling.
And hast no ruddy springs of warmth within,
And being but a shape of freezing bone,
Thy touching only turn’d my love to stone!”
LXXXVIII.
“And here, alas! he lies across my knees,
With cheeks still colder than the stilly wave.
The light beneath his eyelids seems to freeze;
Here then, since Love is dead and lacks a grave,
O come and dig it in my sad heart’s core —
That wound will bring a balsam for its sore!”
LXXXIX.
“For art thou not a sleep where sense of ill
Lies stingless, like a sense benumb’d with cold,
Healing all hurts only with sleep’s good-will?
So shall I slumber, and perchance behold
My living love in dreams, — O happy night,
That lets me company his banish’d spright!”
XC.
“O poppy Death! — sweet poisoner of sleep;
Where shall I seek for thee, oblivious drug,
That I may steep thee in my drink, and creep
Out of life’s coil? Look, Idol! how I hug
Thy dainty image in this strict embrace,
And kiss this clay-cold model of thy face!”
XCI.
“Put out, put out these sun-consuming lamps,
I do but read my sorrows by their shine;
O come and quench them with thy oozy damps,
And let my darkness intermix with thine;
Since love is blinded, wherefore should I see?
Now love is death, — death will be love to me!”
XCII.
“Away, away, this vain complaining breath,
It does but stir the troubles that I weep;
Let it be hush’d and quieted, sweet Death;
The wind must settle ere the wave can sleep, —
Since love is silent, I would fain be mute;
O death, be gracious to my dying suit!”
XCIII.
Thus far she pleads, but pleading nought avails her,
For Death, her sullen burthen, deigns no heed;
Then with dumb craving arms, since darkness fails her,
She prays to heaven’s fair light, as if her need
Inspired her there were Gods to pity pain,
Or end it, — but she lifts her arms in vain!
XCIV.
Poor gilded Grief! the subtle light by this
With mazy gold creeps through her watery mine,
And, diving downward through the green abyss,
Lights up her palace with an amber shine;
There, falling on her arms, — the crystal skin
Reveals the ruby tide that fares within.
XCV.
Look how the fulsome beam would hang a glory
On her dark hair, but the dark hairs repel it;
Look how the perjured glow suborns a story
On her pale lips, but lips refuse to tell it;
Grief will not swerve from grief, however told
On coral lips, or character’d in gold;
XCVI.
Or else, thou maid! safe anchor’d on Love’s neck,
Listing the hapless doom of young Leander,
Thou would’st not shed a tear for that old wreck,
Sitting secure where no wild surges wander;
Whereas the woe moves on with tragic pace,
A
nd shows its sad reflection in thy face.
XCVII.
Thus having travell’d on, and track’d the tale,
Like the due course of an old bas-relief,
Where Tragedy pursues her progress pale,
Brood here awhile upon that sea-maid’s grief,
And take a deeper imprint from the frieze
Of that young Fate, with Death upon her knees.
XCVIII.
Then whilst the melancholy Muse withal
Resumes her music in a sadder tone,
Meanwhile the sunbeam strikes upon the wall,
Conceive that lovely siren to live on,
Ev’n as Hope whisper’d, the Promethean light
Would kindle up the dead Leander’s spright.
XCIX.
“’Tis light,” she says, “that feeds the glittering stars,
And those were stars set in his heavenly brow;
But this salt cloud, this cold sea-vapor, mars
Their radiant breathing, and obscures them now;
Therefore I’ll lay him in the clear blue air,
And see how these dull orbs will kindle there.”
C.
Swiftly as dolphins glide, or swifter yet,
With dead Leander in her fond arms’ fold,
She cleaves the meshes of that radiant net
The sun hath twined above of liquid gold,
Nor slacks till on the margin of the land
She lays his body on the glowing sand.
CI.
There, like a pearly waif, just past the reach
Of foamy billows he lies cast. Just then,