Ye Lesbian virgins, and ye Lesbian dames,
Themes of my verse, and objects of my flames,
No more your groves with my glad songs shall ring,
No more these hands shall touch the trembling string:
My Phaon 's fled, and I those arts resign-
(Wretch that I am, to call that Phaon mine!)
Return, fair youth, return, and bring along
Joy to my soul, and vigour to my song:
Absent from thee, the poet's flame expires;
But ah! how fiercely burn the lover's fires!
Gods! can no prayers, no sighs, no numbers move
One savage heart, or teach it how to love?
The winds my prayers, my sighs, my numbers bear,
The flying winds have lost them all in air!
Or when, alas! shall more auspicious gales
To these fond eyes restore thy welcome sails!
If you return-ah why these long delays?
Poor Sappho dies while careless Phaon stays.
O launch the bark, nor fear the watery plain;
Venus for thee shall smooth her native main.
O launch thy bark, secure of prosperous gales;
Cupid for thee shall spread the swelling sails.
If you will fly-(yet ah! what cause can be,
Too cruel youth, that you should fly from me?)
If not from Phaon I must hope for ease,
Ah let me seek it from the raging seas:
To raging seas unpitied I'll remove,
And either cease to live or cease to love!
ABELARD, one of the most celebrated teachers of the twelfth century, both for his extraordinary talents and his misfortunes, was born at Palais, in the neighbourhood of Nantes, in the year 1079. After surpassing many of the greatest scholars of his age, he became a professor of divinity in Paris with great success. He cast his eyes on the fair Heloise, the niece of Fulbert, a canon in the cathedral of Paris, and, determined to gratify his passion, he proposed to Fulbert to receive him into his house as a boarder, and promised to give, in exchange, all the instruction which he might consider his niece might require. The canon, being rather parsimonious, and anxious to see his niece among the stars of her time, agreed to the proposal. Among the things taught by Abelard to his ardent pupil, the art of love was the chief, and in which she soon surpassed her master. The consequence was
soon visible, and Fulbert insisted on their marriage. This Abelard, although ordained, consented to; but Heloise, considering that it would be the destruction of Abelard's glory, in a letter tried to dissuade him from it. However, they were married, with the understanding that it was to be kept from the knowledge of the public. Fulbert, jealous of the honour of his family, soon made the fact known, upon which Heloise, in the firmest manner, denied it. Fulbert's unkind treatment of his niece caused Abelard to remove her to the convent of Argenteuil; and Fulbert, fancying that it was intended to make her a nun, in revenge contrived to get introduced into Abelard's bed-room, in the dead of night, two wretches, who mutilated him in a most atrocious manner. The miscreants were punished, the canon disgraced; Heloise took the veil, and Abelard buried his grief and shame under the monastic garment, in the abbey of St. Denis. After some years had passed, the nuns of Argenteuil were expelled, Heloise among them. Abelard, who had built the oratory of Paraclet, gave it to Heloise, whose exemplary conduct procured her universal praise. Abelard died in 1142, and was buried at Paraclet, in a beautiful gothic tomb erected by Heloise, whose remains were interred in the same receptacle twenty-one years after. The tomb was removed to Paris, and placed where it is now to be seen, in the cemetery of Père la Chaise. From the letters which passed between this unfortunate pair, the author was indebted for the sentiments expressed in the poem.
In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heavenly-pensive Contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing Melancholy reigns;
What means this tumult in a vestal's veins?
Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
Yet, yet I love!-From Abelard it came,
And Eloïsa yet must kiss the name.
Dear fatal name! rest ever unreveal'd,
Nor pass these lips, in holy silence seal'd:
Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise,
Where, mix'd with God's, his loved idea lies:
O write it not, my hand-the name appears
Already written-wash it out, my tears!
In vain lost Eloïsa weeps and prays,
Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeys.
Relentless walls! whose darksome round contains
Repentant sighs, and voluntary pains:
Ye rugged rocks, which holy knees have worn:
Ye grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid thorn!
Shrines! where their vigils pale-eyed virgins keep,
And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep!
Tho' cold like you, unmoved and silent grown,
I have not yet forgot myself to stone.
All is not Heaven's while Abelard has part,
Still rebel nature holds out half my heart;
Nor prayers nor fasts its stubborn pulse restrain,
Nor tears for ages taught to flow in vain.
Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose,
That well-known name awakens all my woes.
O name, for ever sad! for ever dear!
Still breathed in sighs, still usher'd with a tear.
I tremble, too, whene'er my own I find;
Some dire misfortune follows close behind.
Line after line my gushing eyes o'erflow,
Led through a sad variety of woe:
Now warm in love, now withering in my bloom,
Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!
There stern Religion quench'd the unwilling flame,
There died the best of passions, Love and Fame.
Yet write, oh! write me all, that I may join
Griefs to thy griefs, and echo sighs to thine.
Nor foes nor fortune take this power away;
And is my Abelard less kind than they?
Tears still are mine, and those I need not spare,
Love but demands what else were shed in prayer;
No happier task these faded eyes pursue;
To read and weep is all they now can do.
Then share thy pain, allow that sad relief;
Ah, more than share it! give me all thy grief.
Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid;
They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspire
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires,
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart,
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.
Thou know'st how guiltless first I met thy flame, When Love approach'd me under friendship's name; My fancy form'd thee of angelic kind,
Some emanation of the all-beauteous Mind.
Those smiling eyes, attempering every ray,
Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day.
Guiltless I gazed, Heaven listen'd while you sung,
And truths divine came mended from that tongue.
From lips like those what precept fail'd to move!
Too soon they taught me 'twas no sin to love:
Back through the paths of pleasing sense I ran,
Nor wish'd an angel whom I loved a man.
Dim and remote the joys of saints I see;
Nor envy them that heaven I lose for thee.
How oft, when press'd to marriage, have I sail.
Curse on all laws but those which love has made?
Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.
Let wealth, let honour, wait the wedded dame,
August her deed, and sacred be her fame;
Before true passion all those views remove;
Fame, wealth, and honour! what are you to Love?
The jealous god, when we profane his fires,
Those restless passions in revenge inspires,
And bids them make mistaken mortals groan,
Who seek in love for aught but love alone.
Should at my feet the world's great master fall,
Himself, his throne, his world, I'd scorn 'em all;
Nor Cæsar's empress would I deign to prove;
No, make me mistress to the man I love:
If there be yet another name more free,
More fond than mistress, make me that to thee!
Oh! happy state! when souls each other draw,
When love is liberty, and nature law:
All then is full, possessing and possess'd,
No craving void left aching in the breast:
Ev'n thought meets thought, ere from the lips it part,
And each warm wish springs mutual from the heart.
This sure is bliss (if bliss on earth there be),
And once the lot of Abelard and me.
Alas, how changed! what sudden horrors rise!
A naked lover bound and bleeding lies!
Where, where was Eloïse? her voice, her hand,
Her poniard had opposed the dire command.
Barbarian, stay! that bloody stroke restrain;
The crime was common, common be the pain.
I can no more, by shame, by rage suppress'd―
Let tears and burning blushes speak the rest.
Canst thou forget that sad, that solemn day,
When victims at yon altar's foot we lay?
Canst thou forget what tears that moment fell,
When, warm in youth, I bade the world farewell?
As with cold lips I kiss'd the sacred veil,
The shrines all trembled, and the lamps grew pule :
Hea en scarce believed the conquest it survey'd,
And saints with wonder heard the vows I made.
Yet then, to those dread altars as I drew,
Not on the cross my eyes were fix'd, but you:
Not grace, or zeal, love only was my call,
And if I lose thy love, I lose my all.
Come with thy looks, thy words relieve my wɔe,
Those still at least are left thee to bestow.
Still on that breast enamoured let me lie,
Still drink delicious poison from thy eye,
Pant on thy lip, and to thy heart be press'd;
Give all thou canst-and let me dream the rest.
Ah no! instruct me other joys to prize,
With other beauties charm my partial eyes,
Full in my view set all the bright abode,
And make my soul quit Abelard for God.
Ah think at least thy flock deserves thy care, Plants of thy hand, and children of thy prayer; From the false world in early youth they fled, By thee to mountains, wilds, and deserts led. You raised these hallow'd walls; the desert smiled, And Paradise was open'd in the Wild. No weeping orphan saw his father's stores Our shrines irradiate, or emblaze the floors; No silver saints, by dying misers given, Here bribed the rage of ill-requited Heaven: But such plain roofs as piety could raise, And only vocal with the Maker's praise. In these lone walls (their days' eternal bound) These moss-grown domes with spiry turrets crown'd Where awful arches make a noon-day night, And the dim windows shed a solemn light; Thy eyes diffused a reconciling ray, And gleams of glory brighten'd all the day. But now no face divine contentment wears, 'Tis all blank sadness, or continual tears. See how the force of others' prayers I try, (O pious fraud of amorous charity!) But why should I on others' prayers depend? Come thou, my father, brother, husband, friend! Ah let thy handmaid, sister, daughter, move, And all those tender names in one, thy love! The darksome pines that o'er yon rocks reclined Wave high, and rurmur to the hollow wind,
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