Classic Poem

Sebastian gazed: " Where roves th' unhappy one? "
" She roves no more; her earthly wandering's done. "
" Aye, the loose, outflung follower of some camp,
Blighted by burning noon, and nightly damp;
Her heart a ruin, and her cheek a flame;
Fever or famine closed her course of shame.
Such is the tale; deny it not; 't is proved.
If false, why shun the father that she loved?
Why break her convent vows? She chose her chain. " —
" No ear, save Heaven's, has heard her heart complain;
Oh, had you seen too late repentance heap
The ashes on her dying head! " — " You weep;
She might be pitied — must not be forgiven;
Compassion 's human, pardon rests with Heaven;
There let her make her peace: her heart is stain'd;
The step is made that never was regain'd. "
" Yet, if you loved her — " — " Her! presumptuous boy,
Venture no more: love her! — At once destroy
All honour, live in open shame, or fly,
Scared, — wolf-like — from the glance of human eye!
This thwarts and troubles me! — no more of love. " —
He fix'd his look upon the mount above,
From whose bold forehead in the moonlight beam,
Th' Alhambra rose, — a silver diadem.
" Passion of passions, sovereign, sole, sublime!
Earth's only one that scorns to yield to time;
There is thy temple, and this heart of mine
Shall perish into dust upon thy shrine.
Fabian, this eve I 've seen within those walls
A form, a mystery, that enchants, appals —
That has hung o'er me like a summer-cloud,
Till my heart burn'd, my feeble reason bow'd;
Made the day's thought, the vision of my bed;
Met me and shunn'd, — been in my grasp and fled,
Till I have dream'd it of the shapes that come
To train the thoughtless for the early tomb.
There Fabian wilt thou see thy master laid? "
The page replied not — his droop'd cheek was stay'd
Heavy upon his knee, as over-wept. —