The Exile
I
They bore her to the northern snows
Whose floods down ice-domed caverns run,
From lands where that calm river flows
Whose depths decoy the vagrant sun,
Where palms o'er latticed shadows rise
With boughs that web the sultry skies.
II
Where roses climb the scent-steeped hills
And channelled leaves with dew-drops flash,
Bending beneath the trickled rills
That fall and the pink clusters splash;
Where aloe-flowers, all flaming red,
Like watch-fires o'er the summit spread.
III
They bore her to a desert plain
Where the dry, creviced mosses cling,
Sand-sprinkled as by drizzling rain;
Where dark and ragged pine-boughs swing,
And the free cygnet in its flight
Darts with a meteor's winged light.
IV
Her father, last of mighty lords
Whose deeds the war-like peasants tell,
Fearless had met the northern hordes
And in the battle's frenzy fell.
Full-armed he sleeps, and still the brave
Salute him as they pass his grave.
V
Now young, she thinks not of her race
But feels its glory and its pride.
She still recalls her mother's face
Who in her stately sorrow died,
And those large eyes her image keep,
And dream beside it in love's sleep.
VI
Eyes that are of the sultry zone —
That ofttimes in their musing moods
See rosy banks that seem their own
Where lies the waste: her olive-woods,
Her sky with cypress-skirted folds,
All that she loves, her heart remoulds.
VII
As in a desert one red rose
Seems like a garden full of bloom,
She charms the wilderness, and throws
Her own bright colours o'er its gloom;
Then at the falling cone's rebound
Pomegranates gild the enchanted ground.
VIII
And lest when dear illusions come
They melt o'er-fast, she hides her eyes,
And feigns to see her native home,
And shouts in play her soul's surprise.
So while the southern glory burns
The haunting vision still returns.
IX
When spring bursts o'er the wintry plain
And violet skies dissolve in spray,
And marsh-pools echo drops of rain
That o'er the bud's new secret play,
Her soul seems darting from her eyes
To snatch at nature's rhapsodies.
X
The serf who toils upon the road
From waste to waste with back that bears
Across the steppes another's load, —
With eyes that homeward gaze in tears, —
Chills not for long a heart that glows
In its own fire 'mid northern snows.
XI
Where plough may delve or harrow graze,
She tramps beside the sluggish team
As fain to urge its tardy pace:
And when she drifts into some dream
Her laugh, her look of childish glee,
Is still the joy of memory.
XII
But fears flash o'er her mellow eyes
When gaunt sand-fountains, side by side,
Like giants in the distance rise,
Pass slowly by and onward glide,
Like shadows from her father's land
That seek some rumoured icy strand.
XIII
Then day breaks through a sullen sky;
The keen air shivers; — doth she know
The blackened clouds now sailing by
Are freighted with the virgin snow?
Dark ships of winter that unload
The widespread famine they forbode.
XIV
The snow-flakes build a prison-wall
That slants high o'er her window sill;
She watches while they slowly fall,
Till heaven appears a sinking hill,
And darkness gathers o'er her mind:
Home is too far for hope to find.
XV
In new despair she sees heaven's sand
Has drifted o'er her cottage gate!
She fears that now her native land
Is like the desert desolate.
The snow still falls and still it clings,
Soft dropped like insects' broken wings.
XVI
Through the strange dusk she hears the shriek
Of trees snapped by the dreaded wind;
The casements shake, the rafters creak;
Ah! could she now her mother find!
With timid wings too weak for flight
She hangs upon the edge of night.
XVII
A wind's moan utters, " Stir and go":
Upon its gust she seems to glide
Towards lands beyond the falling snow
But reaches not its further side.
She drops on the cold hilly steeps
And in her distant reverie sleeps.
XVIII
No longer now the large-eyed child,
Who draws her charm so fresh from heaven,
Gives up its beauty to the wild;
The spell of infant faith is riven:
Where the sun's tender rays were sown
Stones have sprung up and ice-fields grown.
XIX
The spring still comes, when shallow snows
Melt o'er a crisping flame of green
Wherein the nestled herbage glows
Through its white shell, — but there is seen
A heart that still unthawed remains;
An exile of the loveless plains.
XX
When winter's sun through summer shines,
The joys are banished that she brought:
For home, not dreams' of home, she pines;
Thought is the food of famished thought.
It is her heart-corroding hour:
The rose-tree is without a flower.
XXI
She feeds in broken reveries
On her chilled soul: within the light
Of those black lashes, those dark eyes,
The paling cheek seems over-bright,
With lips, like hanging fruit, whose hue
Is ruby 'neath a bloom of blue.
XXII
The friends who love her as their own
Stir self-upbraidings in her breast,
For in their midst she is alone
And in their peace is without rest.
Is there some home by them forgot?
Exiles they seem and suffer not.
XXIII
Their native games to her impart
A fitful joy, that sad appears,
Only because her eyes and heart
Are vacant, and have room for tears.
She knows not yet 'tis love's first throe:
The snowdrop breaking through the snow.
XXIV
At length comes one whose love ere told
Seems wafted o'er a flowery plain,
And brings her back that charm of old:
The days of childhood live again;
Griefs softened into joys return;
In love's new-kindled incense burn.
XXV
In silver-crimson trappings gay,
His tinkling barbs with billowy manes
Toss their strong necks before his sleigh —
And he has crossed the snowy plains.
She hails him, and, with heart aflame,
She wonders how such passion came.
XXVI
Beauty and man's strong soul are his.
Be the earth bare, paved o'er with ice,
'Tis full even to its dome in bliss:
The desert is her paradise,
Where now the hourly deepening sky
Rains down on her love's mystery.
XXVII
She hears his love and hears no more.
As waves might cease to beat, as winds
Might drop away on some charmed shore,
The word a soul-deep echo finds —
All her fond life is without breath,
And sinks away in rapturous death.
XXVIII
New paths to home are overlaid
With such deep sunshine, not a tree
In densest woods can cast a shade.
Her glorious soul again is free, —
Free in those bonds of love that wind
In bliss about the heart they bind.
XXIX
Warmer than in its childhood's flush
Her cheek in this new passion glows;
Not softer is the fitful blush
Of lily 'neath the swaying rose.
Her head droops not as when she pined,
Now bowed in love's own southern wind.
XXX
A sun of passion is above;
Her home is here, — in cloudless eyes
She sees the birth-place of her love,
And snows dissolve in burning skies.
Palm-leaves above her seem to bow
When bridal roses wreathe her brow.
They bore her to the northern snows
Whose floods down ice-domed caverns run,
From lands where that calm river flows
Whose depths decoy the vagrant sun,
Where palms o'er latticed shadows rise
With boughs that web the sultry skies.
II
Where roses climb the scent-steeped hills
And channelled leaves with dew-drops flash,
Bending beneath the trickled rills
That fall and the pink clusters splash;
Where aloe-flowers, all flaming red,
Like watch-fires o'er the summit spread.
III
They bore her to a desert plain
Where the dry, creviced mosses cling,
Sand-sprinkled as by drizzling rain;
Where dark and ragged pine-boughs swing,
And the free cygnet in its flight
Darts with a meteor's winged light.
IV
Her father, last of mighty lords
Whose deeds the war-like peasants tell,
Fearless had met the northern hordes
And in the battle's frenzy fell.
Full-armed he sleeps, and still the brave
Salute him as they pass his grave.
V
Now young, she thinks not of her race
But feels its glory and its pride.
She still recalls her mother's face
Who in her stately sorrow died,
And those large eyes her image keep,
And dream beside it in love's sleep.
VI
Eyes that are of the sultry zone —
That ofttimes in their musing moods
See rosy banks that seem their own
Where lies the waste: her olive-woods,
Her sky with cypress-skirted folds,
All that she loves, her heart remoulds.
VII
As in a desert one red rose
Seems like a garden full of bloom,
She charms the wilderness, and throws
Her own bright colours o'er its gloom;
Then at the falling cone's rebound
Pomegranates gild the enchanted ground.
VIII
And lest when dear illusions come
They melt o'er-fast, she hides her eyes,
And feigns to see her native home,
And shouts in play her soul's surprise.
So while the southern glory burns
The haunting vision still returns.
IX
When spring bursts o'er the wintry plain
And violet skies dissolve in spray,
And marsh-pools echo drops of rain
That o'er the bud's new secret play,
Her soul seems darting from her eyes
To snatch at nature's rhapsodies.
X
The serf who toils upon the road
From waste to waste with back that bears
Across the steppes another's load, —
With eyes that homeward gaze in tears, —
Chills not for long a heart that glows
In its own fire 'mid northern snows.
XI
Where plough may delve or harrow graze,
She tramps beside the sluggish team
As fain to urge its tardy pace:
And when she drifts into some dream
Her laugh, her look of childish glee,
Is still the joy of memory.
XII
But fears flash o'er her mellow eyes
When gaunt sand-fountains, side by side,
Like giants in the distance rise,
Pass slowly by and onward glide,
Like shadows from her father's land
That seek some rumoured icy strand.
XIII
Then day breaks through a sullen sky;
The keen air shivers; — doth she know
The blackened clouds now sailing by
Are freighted with the virgin snow?
Dark ships of winter that unload
The widespread famine they forbode.
XIV
The snow-flakes build a prison-wall
That slants high o'er her window sill;
She watches while they slowly fall,
Till heaven appears a sinking hill,
And darkness gathers o'er her mind:
Home is too far for hope to find.
XV
In new despair she sees heaven's sand
Has drifted o'er her cottage gate!
She fears that now her native land
Is like the desert desolate.
The snow still falls and still it clings,
Soft dropped like insects' broken wings.
XVI
Through the strange dusk she hears the shriek
Of trees snapped by the dreaded wind;
The casements shake, the rafters creak;
Ah! could she now her mother find!
With timid wings too weak for flight
She hangs upon the edge of night.
XVII
A wind's moan utters, " Stir and go":
Upon its gust she seems to glide
Towards lands beyond the falling snow
But reaches not its further side.
She drops on the cold hilly steeps
And in her distant reverie sleeps.
XVIII
No longer now the large-eyed child,
Who draws her charm so fresh from heaven,
Gives up its beauty to the wild;
The spell of infant faith is riven:
Where the sun's tender rays were sown
Stones have sprung up and ice-fields grown.
XIX
The spring still comes, when shallow snows
Melt o'er a crisping flame of green
Wherein the nestled herbage glows
Through its white shell, — but there is seen
A heart that still unthawed remains;
An exile of the loveless plains.
XX
When winter's sun through summer shines,
The joys are banished that she brought:
For home, not dreams' of home, she pines;
Thought is the food of famished thought.
It is her heart-corroding hour:
The rose-tree is without a flower.
XXI
She feeds in broken reveries
On her chilled soul: within the light
Of those black lashes, those dark eyes,
The paling cheek seems over-bright,
With lips, like hanging fruit, whose hue
Is ruby 'neath a bloom of blue.
XXII
The friends who love her as their own
Stir self-upbraidings in her breast,
For in their midst she is alone
And in their peace is without rest.
Is there some home by them forgot?
Exiles they seem and suffer not.
XXIII
Their native games to her impart
A fitful joy, that sad appears,
Only because her eyes and heart
Are vacant, and have room for tears.
She knows not yet 'tis love's first throe:
The snowdrop breaking through the snow.
XXIV
At length comes one whose love ere told
Seems wafted o'er a flowery plain,
And brings her back that charm of old:
The days of childhood live again;
Griefs softened into joys return;
In love's new-kindled incense burn.
XXV
In silver-crimson trappings gay,
His tinkling barbs with billowy manes
Toss their strong necks before his sleigh —
And he has crossed the snowy plains.
She hails him, and, with heart aflame,
She wonders how such passion came.
XXVI
Beauty and man's strong soul are his.
Be the earth bare, paved o'er with ice,
'Tis full even to its dome in bliss:
The desert is her paradise,
Where now the hourly deepening sky
Rains down on her love's mystery.
XXVII
She hears his love and hears no more.
As waves might cease to beat, as winds
Might drop away on some charmed shore,
The word a soul-deep echo finds —
All her fond life is without breath,
And sinks away in rapturous death.
XXVIII
New paths to home are overlaid
With such deep sunshine, not a tree
In densest woods can cast a shade.
Her glorious soul again is free, —
Free in those bonds of love that wind
In bliss about the heart they bind.
XXIX
Warmer than in its childhood's flush
Her cheek in this new passion glows;
Not softer is the fitful blush
Of lily 'neath the swaying rose.
Her head droops not as when she pined,
Now bowed in love's own southern wind.
XXX
A sun of passion is above;
Her home is here, — in cloudless eyes
She sees the birth-place of her love,
And snows dissolve in burning skies.
Palm-leaves above her seem to bow
When bridal roses wreathe her brow.
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