But if thou goest, I follow-" "Peace," he said'She looked upon him and was calmed and cheered ; The ghastly colour from his lips had fled; In his deportment, shape, and mien, appear'd Brought from a pensive though a happy place. "He spake of love, such love as spirits feel Of all that is most beauteous--imaged there 95 100 105 And fields invested with purpureal gleams, Climes which the sun, who shed: the brightest day Yet there the soul shall enter which hath earned That privilege by virtue." Ill," said he, "The end of man's existence I discerned, 110 Who from ignoble games and revelry Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight, 1 "And while my youthful peers, before my eyes, Chieftains and kings in council were detained, "The wished-for wind was given :-I then revolved The oracle upon the silent sea; 115 120 And, if no worthier led the way, resolved 125 Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand. "Yet bitter, ofttimes bitter, was the pang When of thy loss I thought, beloved wife; On thee too fondly did my memory hang, And on the joys we shared in mortal life,— 130 The paths which we had trod—these fountains,--flowers; "But should suspense permit the foe to cry, 'Behold, they tremble !-haughty their array, Yet of their number no one dares to die' ? 135 In soul I swept the indignity away: Old frailties then recurred :—but lofty thought, In act embodied, my deliverance wrought. "And thou, though strong in love, art all too weak That self might be annulled; her bondage prove 150 Aloud she shrieked!-for Hermes reappears! Round the dear shade she would have clung-'tis vain : The hours are past,—too brief had they been years; Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly day, 155 He through the portal takes his silent way, Thus, all in vain exhorted and reproved, 160 Yet tears to human suffering are due; 165 Are mourned by man, and not by man alone, As fondly he believes.-Upon the side From out the tomb of him for whom she died; 170 As men's have grown from sudden fears: My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil, For they have been a dungeon's spoil, And mine has been the fate of those To whom the goodly earth and air Six in youth, and one in age, For the God their foes denied ; Of whom this wreck is left the last. II. There are seven pillars of Gothic mould There are seven columns, massy and grey, A sunbeam which hath lost its way, And in each ring there is a chain; For in these limbs its teeth remain, With marks that will not wear away, Till I have done with this new day, Which now is painful to these eyes, Which have not seen the sun so rise For years-I cannot count them c'er, I lost their long and heavy score 30 35 40 45 |