English

13.

How like the beauteous awfulness
That moulders into clay,
And humbles man's hard-heartedness
With its sublime decay,
Upon her couch of death she lay!
Nor limb, nor feature stirr'd.
But when lord Konig's foot she heard,
Like one arising from the dead,
She started, she lean'd up in bed;
(Oh, Love is strong!) she rose to greet him;
(Oh, Love is strength!) she went to meet him;
She met him — met his dear embrace;
And in his bosom hid her face.

14.

12.

Lord Konig in his bark is gone,
Over the lake of Dar and Don,
To lonely Waterside,
Where everplayful Telmarine,
With looks that sweetly chide,
Wonders at silent Etheline!
" Why will not mother speak? "
She says, with saddening cheek,
And still-enquiring eyes,
To which no voice, no look replies!
While Adwick, watching near,
And scarcely seeming ought to hear,
Or feel, or know,
(Yet too, too conscious,) stands,

11.

As light, when noon puts darkness on,
Gilds a wan rose, and disappears;
So Telma, smiling on his tears,
Turns from her Konig — and is gone.
He gasps, he bids the vision stay;
His heart hath years of thought to say.
What would'st thou clasp? and whom address
Here smiles no lov'd one's loveliness.
The stirless air, the lake at rest,
The light and silence on its breast,
The sleeping cloud, the sleeping tree,
The music of the busy bee,
The tremble of the lifted leaf;

10.

" Konig! " in speech that was not song,
Yet sweeter far, she said,
Or whispered,
" The hours of God seem long
To man's impatience, and to me;
For slowly, mercifully still,
Ev'n to the freed of death,
Himself and his unerring will
The All-wise discovereth.
We are not fitted yet to be
Where dwell the painless, where the pure
Live with the pure in purity.
Much must thou dare, and more endure,
Ere we can wed as spirits wed.

9.

While, thus, she spoke, lord Konig pac'd
His castle and the lake between,
With cold hand on his hot brow plac'd,
And blood-shot eyeballs, in despair
Fix'd wildly on the Wizard's chair,
Far over wood and water seen.
Earth, and the clear heav'n overhead,
Were tranquil as the sinless dead;
They might have sooth'd and tranquilliz'd
A heart less torn and agoniz'd;
But the mute clouds, the stirless air,
The silent light, the lake at rest,
All, mock'd the tumult in his breast,
The tempest raging there;

8

" The little hand of Telmarine
Presses thy bosom, Etheline!
The soft warm cheek of Telmarine
Rests on thy cold face, Etheline.
Konig's blue eyes, in Telmarine
Smile on the softer blue of thine
Is it not well? " said Adwick, sighing;
" Art thou not happy? " " Yes, and dying,
My Adwick! " pressing with her own
His hand, she said, in sweetest tone, Her eyes on his o'erflowing eyes
Fix'd, " I am dying. Be not thou
(My Friend! my Love!) offended now,
That my soul yearns again to see

7

Then came o'er Adwick's frenzied min
A change, like coulour to the blind. Oh, deem not him a cruel man,
That victim of a ruthless ban,
And of compassionate sympathy,
Which suffers in his destiny,
And darkly, dreadly shares the fate
That made him desolate!
If thou would'st see the gentle sky
Its tortur'd waves forsake;
Then shall the banks, the whispering trees
The cloud, the herd, the rock, the hill
The foxglove, ay, the birds and bees,
Live in that mirror bright and still.

6.

When rose the heron in the wind,
His legs outstretch'd his flight behind,
In search of warmer skies;
She gaz'd on him, with upturn'd eyes.
And said, " Oh, thou, the fleet, the wild!
Stay! tell me — Hast thou seen my child? "
When after him the eagle pass'd,
And over her his shadow cast,
She said, " Thou strong of eye and wing!
Far can'st thou fly, and widely see;
Oh, King-bird, seek her, find her, bring
My Telmarine to me!
Or I must die in misery. "

4.

To slumber lull'd by wailings faint,
Awak'd by moanings of complaint,
From his high seat, in sportive glee
Down looking on her misery,
The squirrel, morrow after morrow,
Heard speech that sigh'd.
The sun, at morn, still found her weeping;
The sun, at eve, beheld her weeping,
And bow'd his beamy head in sorrow;
And when, at night, the otter stole
From his root-roof'd and fishy hole
Beneath the moon-lit tree —
The sound that mingled with the beam

2.

In solitude, yet not alone,
She liv'd, with nought to do but weep:
Oh, better had she been a stone
O'er whose old age old mosses creep!
For emerald shadows with them dwell,
And lonely sunbeams love them well.
Ever, " My child! my child! " she said,
And loath'd her food, her hearth, her bed;
And could not bear to keep
Within her cot, by day or night;
But, like a cloud that cannot sleep,
Abroad, with darkness dwelt and light,
And with the dews that pitied her.