Classic Poem

I .

On grey Amboise's rocks and keep
The early shades of evening sleep,
And veils of mist, white-folded, fall
Round his long range of iron wall;
O'er the last line of withering light
The quick bats cut with angled flight,
And the low breathing fawns that rest
 The twilight forest through,
Each on his starry flank and stainless breast
 Can feel the coolness of the dew
Soothing his sleep with heavenly weight:
Who are these who tread so late
Beyond Amboise's castle gate,
 And seek the garden shade?
The flowers are closed, the paths are dark,
Their marble guards look stern and stark,
The birds are still, the leaves are stayed,
On windless bough, and sunless glade.
Ah! who are these that walk so late,
Beyond Amboise's castle gate?

II .

Steep down the river's margin sink
 The gardens of Amboise,
And all their inmost thickets drink
 The wide, low water-voice.
By many a bank whose blossoms shrink
 Amidst sweet herbage young and cold,
Through many an arch and avenue,
That noontide roofs with checkered blue,
 And paves with fluctuating gold,
Pierced by a thousand paths that guide
Grey echo-haunted rocks beside,
And into caves of cool recess,
Which ever-falling fountains dress
With emerald veils, dashed deep in dew,
And through dim thickets that subdue
 The crimson light of flowers afar,
As sweet rain doth the sunset, decked
 Themselves with many a living star,
Which music winged bees detect
By the white rays and ceaseless odor shed
Over the scattered leaves that every day lays dead.

III .

But who are these that pass so late
Beneath Amboise's echoing gate,
And seek the sweet path, poplar-shaded,
By breeze and moonbeam uninvaded?
They are two forms, that move like one,
 Each to the music of the other's lips,
The cold night thrilling with the tone
 Of their low words—the grey eclipse,
Cast from the tangled boughs above.
Their dark eyes penetrate with love;
 Two forms, one crested, calm, and proud,
Yet with bowed head, and gentle ear inclining
 To her who moves as in a sable cloud
Of her own waving hair—the star-flowers shining
 Through its soft waves, like planets when they keep
 Reflected watch beneath the sunless deep.

IV .

Her brow is pure and pale, her eyes
 Deep as the unfathomed sky,
Her lips, from which the sweet words rise
Like flames from incensed sacrifice,
 Quiver with untold thoughts, that lie
 Burning beneath their crimson glow,
As mute and deathless lightnings sleep
At sunset, where the dyes are deep
 On Rosa's purple snow;
She moves all beautiful and bright,
With little in that form of light
To set the seal of mortal birth,
Or own her earthy—of the earth,
Unless it be one strange quick trace
That checks the glory of her face,
A wayward meaning, dimly shed,
A shadow, scarcely felt, ere fled;
A spot upon the brow, a spark
Under those eyes subdued and dark;
A low short discord in the tone
Of music round her being thrown;
A mystery more conceived than seen;
A wildness of the word and mien;
The sign of wilder work within,
Which may be sorrow—must be sin.

V .

Slowly they moved that knight and dame,
Where hanging thickets quench and tame
 The rivers flash and cry;
Mellowed among the leafage came
Its thunder voice—its flakes of flame
 Drifted undisturbing by,
 Sunk to a twilight and a sigh.
Their path was o'er the entangled rest
 Of dark night flowers that underneath
Their feet as their dim bells were pressed,
 Sent up warm pulses of soft breath.
Ranged in sepulchral ranks above,
Grey spires of shadowy cypress clove,
With many a shaft of sacred gloom,
The evening heaven's mysterious dome;
Slowly above their columns keen
Rolled on its path that starred serene;
A thousand fountains soundless flow
With imaged azure moved below;
And through the grove and o'er the tide
Pale forms appeared to watch, to glide,
O'er whose faint limbs the evening sky
Had cast like life its crimson dye;
Was it not life—so bright—so weak—
That flushed the bloodless brow and cheek,
And bade the lips of wreathed stone
Kindle to all but breath and tone?
It moved—it heaved—that stainless breast!
Ah! what can break such marble rest?
It was a shade that passed—a shade,
It was not bird nor bough that made,
Nor dancing leaf, nor falling fruit,
 For where it moves—that shadow, gray and chill,
The birds are lulled—the leaves are mute—
 The air is cold and still.

VI .

Slowly they moved, that dame and knight,
As one by one the stars grew bright;
Fondly they moved—they did not mark
They had a follower strange and dark.
Just where the leaves their feet disturbed
 Sunk from their whispering tune,
(It seemed beneath a fear that curbed
 Their motion very soon),
A shadow fell upon them, cast
By a less visible form that passed
 Between them and the moon.
Was it a fountain's falling shiver?
 It moveth on—it will not stay—
Was it a mist wreath of the river?
 The mist hath melted all away,
And the risen moon is full and clear,
And the moving shadow is marked and near.
See! where the dead leaves felt it pass,
There are footsteps left on the bended grass—
Footsteps as of an armed heel,
Heavy with links of burning steel.

VII .

Fondly they moved, that dame and knight,
 By the gliding river's billow light,
Their lips were mute, their hands were given,
 Their hearts did hardly stir,
The maid had raised her eyes to heaven,
 But his were fallen on her.
They did not heed, they did not fear
That follower strange that trod so near,
An armed form whose cloudy mail
Flashed as it moved with radiance pale;
So gleams the moonlit torrent through
It's glacier's deep transparent blue;
Quivering and keen its steps of pride
Shook the sheathed lightning at its side,
And waved its dark and drifted plume,
Like fires that haunt the unholy tomb
Where cursed with crime the mouldering dead,
Lie restless in their robes of lead.
What eye shall seek, what soul can trace
The deep death-horror of its face?
The trackless, livid smile that played
Beneath the casque's concealing shade;
The angered eye's unfathomed glare,
(So sleep the fountains of despair,
Beneath the soul whose sins unseal,
The wells of all it fears to feel.)
The sunk, unseen, all-seeing gloom,
Scarred with the ravage of the tomb,
The passions that made life their prey,
Fixed on the feature's last decay,
The pangs that made the human heart their slave,
Frozen on the changeless aspect of the grave.

VIII .

And still it followed where they went,
 That unregarding pair;
It kept on them its eyes intent,
 And from their glance the sickened air
Shrank, as if tortured. Slow, how slow,
 The knight and lady trod;
You had heard their hearts beat just as loud
 As their footsteps on the sod.
They paused at length in a leafless place,
Where the moonlight shone on the maiden's face;
Still as an image of stone she stood,
Though the heave of her breath, and the beat of her blood
Murmured and mantled to and fro,
Like the billows that heave on a hill of snow,
When the midnight winds are short and low.
The words of her lover came burning and deep,
 And his hand was raised to the holy sky;
Can the lamps of the universe bear or keep,
 False witness or record on high?
He starts to his feet from the spot where he knelt,
What voice hath he heard, what fear hath he felt?
His lips in their silence are bloodless and dry,
And the love-light fails from his glazed eye.

IX .

Well might he quail, for full displayed
Before him rose that dreadful shade,
And o'er his mute and trembling trance
Waved its pale crest and quivering lance;
And traced, with pangs of sudden pain,
The form of words upon his brain;
“Thy vows are deep, but still thou bears't the chain,
Cast on thee by a deeper—vowed in vain;
Thy love is fair, but fairer forms are laid,
Cold and forgotten, in the cypress shade;
Thy arm is strong, but arms of stronger trust,
Repose unnerved, undreaded in the dust;
Around thy lance shall bend the living brave,
Then arm thee for the challenge of the grave.”

X .

The sound had ceased, the shape had passed away,
Silent the air and pure the planet's ray.
They stood beneath the lonely breathing night,
The lovely lady and the lofty knight;
He moved in shuddering silence by her side,
Or wild and wandering to her words replied,
Shunning her anxious eyes on his that bent:
“Thou didst not see it, 'twas to me 'twas sent.
To me,—but why to me?—I knew it not,
It was no dream, it stood upon the spot,
Where”—Then with lighter tone and bitter smile,
“Nothing, beloved,—a pang that did beguile
My spirit of its strength, a dream, a thought,
A fancy of the night.” And though she sought
More reason of his dread, he heard her not,
For, mingling with those words of phantom fear,
There was another echo in his ear,
An under murmur deep and clear,
 The faint low sob of one in pain,
“May the faith thou hast forgotten
 Bind thee with its broken chain.”