But she must lay her conscious head A husband's trusting heart beside. But fever'd in her sleep she seems, And red her cheek with troubled dreams, And mutters she in her unrest A name she dare not breathe by day, And clasps her Lord unto the breast Which pants for one away:
And he to that embrace awakes, And happy in the thought, mistakes That dreaming sigh, and warm caress, For such as he was wont to bless; And could in very fondness weep
O'er her who loves him even in sleep.
He clasp'd her sleeping to his heart, And listen'd to each broken word: He hears-Why doth Prince Azo start, A if the Archangel's voice he heard? And well he may-a deeper doom Could scarcely thunder o'er his tomb, When he shall wake to sleep no more, And stand the eternal throne before. And well he may-his earthly peace [pen that sound is doom'd to cease. That sleeping whisper of a name speaks her guilt and Azo's shame. whose that name? that o'er his pillow Sunds fearful as the breaking billow, Which rolls the plank upon the shore, And dashes on the pointed rock
The retch who sinks to rise no more,— his soul the shock.
The guilt-the shame-the doom to her: Concealment is no more-they speak All circumstance which may compel Full credence to the tale they tell : And Azo's tortured heart and ear Have nothing more to feel or hear.
And whose that name? 'tis Hugo's,-his- Ith he had not deem'd of this!- Ta Hago's-he, the child of one He loved his own all-evil son- The offspring of his wayward youth, The he betray'd Bianca's truth, The maid whose folly could confide him who made her not his bride,
He was not one who brook'd delay: Within the chamber of his state, The chief of Este's ancient sway Upon his throne of judgment sate; His nobles and his guards are there,— Before him is the sinful pair;
Both young, and one how passing fair! With swordless belt, and fetter'd hand, Oh, Christ! that thus a son should stand Before a father's face!
He pluck'd his poniard in its sheath, heathed it ere the point was bare- er unworthy now to breathe, ould not slay a thing so fair- ast, not smiling-sleeping there-
Yet thus must Hugo meet his sire, And hear the sentence of his ire, The tale of his disgrace!
And yet he seems not overcome, Although, as yet, his voice be dumb.
he did not wake her then, Bu gazed upon her with a glance Which, had she roused her from her trance, Had frozen her sense to sleep againder his brow the burning lamp Brand on the dew-drops big and damp. pake no more-but still she slumber'd
And still, and pale, and silently Did Parisina wait her doom; How changed since last her speaking eye Where high-born men were proud to wait Glanced gladness round the glittering room, Where Beauty watch'd to imitate Her gentle voice-her lovely mien- And gather from her air and gait The graces of its queen:
A thousand warriors forth had leapt, Then, had her eye in sorrow wept, A thousand swords had sheathless shone, And made her quarrel all their own. Now, what is she? and what are they? Can she command, or these obey? All silent and unheeding now, With downcast eyes and knitting brow, And folded arms, and freezing air, And lips that scarce their scorn forbear, Her knights and dames, her court—is there: And he, the chosen one, whose lance Had yet been couch'd before her glance, Who were his arm a moment free- Had died or gain'd her liberty; The minion of his father's bride,- He, too, is fetter'd by her side; Nor sees her swoln and full eye swim Less for her own despair than him: Those lids-o'er which the violet vein
Wandering, leaves a tender stain, Shining through the smoothest white
We in his thought, her days are That e'er did softest kiss invite
And with the morn he sought, and found,
any a tale from those around,
The proof of all he fear'd to know,
present guilt, his future woe;
The long-conniving damsels seek
save themselves, and would transfer
Now seem'd with hot and livid glow To press, not shade, the orbs below; As tear on tear grows gathering still. Which glance so heavily, and fill,
And he for her had also wept, But for the eyes that on him gazed: His sorrow, if he felt it, slept;
Stern and erect his brow was raised. Whate'er the grief his soul avow'd, He would not shrink before the crowd; But yet he dared not look on her: Remembrance of the hours that were- His guilt his love-his present state- His father's wrath-all good men's hate— His earthly, his eternal fate- And hers, oh, hers! he dared not throw One look upon that deathlike brow! Else had his rising heart betray'd Remorse for all the wreck it made.
And Azo spake :-"But yesterday 1 gloried in a wife and son; That dream this morning pass'd away; Ere day declines, I shall have none. My life must linger on alone; Well, let that pass, there breathes not one
Who would not do as I have done: Those ties are broken-not by me; Let that too pass:- the doom's prepared! Hugo, the priest awaits on thee, And then-thy crime's reward! Away! address thy prayers to Heaven, Before its evening-stars are met- Learn if thou there canst be forgiven; Its mercy may absolve thee yet. But here, upon the earth beneath, There is no spot where thou and I Together, for an hour, could breathe: Farewell! I will not see thee die- But thou, frail thing! shalt view his head - Away! I cannot speak the rest : Go! woman of the wanton breast; Not I, but thou his blood dost shed: Go! if that sight thou canst outlive, And joy thee in the life I give."
And here stern Azo hid his faceFor on his brow the swelling vein Throbb'd as if back upon his brain The hot blood ebb'd and flow'd again; And therefore bow'd he for a space And pass'd his shaking hand along His eye, to veil it from the throng; While Hugo raised his chained hands, And for a brief delay demands His father's ear: the silent sire Forbids not what his words require.
"It is not that I dread the deathFor thou hast seen me by thy side All redly through the battle ride, And that not once a useless brand Thy slaves have wrested from my hand, Hath shed more blood in cause of thine Than e'er can stain the axe of mine: Thou gavest, and mayst resume my breath, A gift for which I thank thee not; Nor are my mother's wrongs forgot, Her slighted love and ruin'd name, Her offspring's heritage of shame ;
But she is in the grave, where he, Her son, thy rival, soon shall be. Her broken heart--my sever'd head- Shall witness for thee from the dead How trusty and how tender were Thy youthful love-paternal care. 'Tis true, that I have done thee wrong- But wrong for wrong-this deem'd th bride, The other victim of thy pride,
Thou knowst for me was destined long. Thou sawst, and covetedst her charms - And with thy very crime-my birth, Thou tauntedst me-as little worth; A match ignoble for her arms, Because, forsooth, I could not claim The lawful heirship of thy name, Nor sit on Este's lineal throne: Yet, were a few short summers mine,
My name should more than Este's shin With honours all my own.
I had a sword-and have a breast
That should have won as haught a cre As ever waved along the line Of all these sovereign sires of thine. Not always knightly spurs are worn The brightest by the better born; And mine have lanced my courser's fla Before proud chiefs of princely rank, When charging to the cheering cry Of "Este and of Victory!"
I will not plead the cause of crime, Nor sue thee to redeem from time A few brief hours or days that must At length roll o'er my reckless dust;- Such maddening moments as my past. They could not, and they did not, last Albeit my birth and name be base, And thy nobility of race
Disdain'd to deck a thing like me- Yet in my lineaments they trace Some features of my father's face, And in my spirit-all of thec. From thee this tamelessness of heart- From thee nay, wherefore dost th
From thee in all their vigour came My arm of strength, my soul of flame Thou didst not give me life alone, But all that made me more thine own. See what thy guilty love hath done' Repaid thee with too like a son! I am no bastard in my soul, For that, like thine, abhorr'd controul: And for my breath, that hasty boon Thou gavest and wilt resume so soon, I valued it no more than thou, When rose thy casque above thy brow, And we, all side by side, have striven, And o'er the dead our coursers driven: The past is nothing- and at last The future can but be the past; Yet would I that I then had died:
For though thou work'dst my mother's il And made thy own my destined bride,
eyes unmoved, but full and wide, Not once had turn'd to either side - for once did those sweet eyelids close,
Or shade the glance o'er which they rose, Bu round their orbs of deepest blue The circling white dilated grew - there with glassy gaze she stood ice were in her curdled blood; every now and then a tear
large and slowly gather'd slid
She had forgotten: - did she breathe? Could this be still the earth beneath? The sky above, and men around; Or were they fiends who now so frown'd On one, before whose eyes each eye Till then had smiled in sympathy? All was confused and undefined, To her all-jarr'd and wandering mind ; A chaos of wild hopes and fears: And now in laughter, now in tears, But madly still in each extreme, She strove with that convulsive dream; For so it seem'd on her to break: Oh! vainly must she strive to wake!
The Convent-bells are ringing, But mournfully and slow,
In the gray square turret swinging, With a deep sound, to and fro. Heavily to the heart they go! Hark! the hymn is singing- The song for the dead below,
Or the living who shortly shall be so! For a departing being's soul
The death-hymn peals and the hollow bells knoll:
He is near his mortal goal; Kneeling at the Friar's knee; Sad to hear-and piteous to see- Kneeling on the bare cold ground,
the long dark fringe of that fair lid, With the block before and the guard around—
Iva a thing to see, not hear!
And those who saw, it did surprise, Soch drops could fall from human eyes. To speak she thought-the imperfect note choked within her swelling throat, Vet seem'd in that low hollow groan whole heart gushing in the tone. Based-again she thought to speak, The burst her voice in one long shriek, A to the earth she fell like stone Or statue from its base o'erthrown, More like a thing that ne'er had life,— menament of Azo's wife,- The her, that living guilty thing, We every passion was a sting, Which urged to guilt, but could not bear The guilt's detection and despair. Bas yet she lived--and all too soon Recover'd from that death-like swoon— But scarce to reason-every sense Had been o'erstrung by pangs intense; And each frail fibre of her brain (As bow-strings, when relax'd by rain, The erring arrow launch aside)
And the headsman with his bare arm
It is a lovely hour as yet Before the summer-sun shall set, Which rose upon that heavy day, And mock'd it with his steadiest ray; And his evening-beams are shed Full on Hugo's fated head,
As his last confession pouring To the monk, his doom deploring In penitential holiness,
He bends to hear his accents bless With absolution such as may Wipe our mortal stains away.
That high sun on his head did glisten As he there did bow and listen-
her thoughts all wild and wide-And the rings of chesnut hair
The past a blank, the future black,
With glimpses of a dreary track,
on the desert-path,
She fear'd-she felt that something ill
bra midnight storms are mustering wrath.
That there was sin and shame she knew; That some one was to die-but who?
Curled half down his neck so bare; But brighter still the beam was thrown Upon the axe which near him shone With a clear and ghastly glitter Oh! that parting-hour was bitter! Even the stern stood chill'd with awe : Dark the crime, and just the law- Yet they shudder'd as they saw,
The parting prayers are said and over Of that false son-and daring lover! His beads and sins are all recounted, His hours to their last minute mountedHis mantling cloak before was stripp'd, His bright brown locks must now be clipp'd; "Tis done all closely are they shornThe vest which till this moment wornThe scarf which Parisina gaveMust not adorn him to the grave. Even that must now be thrown aside, And o'er his eyes the kerchief tied; But no-that last indignity Shall ne'er approach his haughty eye. All feelings seemingly subdued, In deep disdain were half renew'd, When headman's hands prepared to bind Those eyes which would not brook such
As if they dared not look on death. "No-yours my forfeit blood and breath- These hands are chain'd-but let me die At least with an unshackled eye- Strike:" and as the word he said, Upon the block he bow'd his head; These the last accents Hugo spoke: "Strike"--and flashing fell the stroke- Roll'd the head-and, gushing, sunk Back the stain'd and heaving trunk, In the dust, which each deep vein Slaked with its ensanguined rain; His eyes and lips a moment quiver, Convulsed and quick—then fix for ever.
He died, as erring man should die, Without display, without parade; Meekly had he bow'd and pray'd, As not disdaining priestly aid, Nor desperate of all hope on high. And while before the Prior kneeling,
His heart was wean'd from earthly feeling; His wrathful sire-his paramour--
What were they in such an hour? No more reproach—no more despair;
That, as a mother's o'er her child, Done to death by sudden blow, To the sky these accents go, Like a soul's in endless woe. Through Azo's palace-lattice driven, That horrid voice ascends to heaven, And every eye is turn'd thereon; But sound and sight alike are gone! It was a woman's shriek--and ne'er In madlier accents rose despair; And those who heard it, as it past, In mercy wish'd it were the last.
Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour, No more in palace, hall, or bower, Was Parisina heard or seen:
Her name as if she ne'er had been
Was banish'd from each lip and ear,
Like words of wantonness or fear; And from Prince Azo's voice, by none Was mention heard of wife or son; No tomb-no memory had they; Theirs was unconsecrated clay; At least the knight's who died that day But Parisina's fate lies hid Like dust beneath the coffin-lid: Whether in convent she abode, And won to heaven her dreary road, By blighted and remorseful years Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears Or if she fell by bowl or steel, For that dark love she dared to feel; Or if, upon the moment smote, She died by tortures less remote; Like him she saw upon the block, With heart that shared the headman's sh In quicken'd brokenness that came, In pity, o'er her shatter'd frame, None knew-and none can ever know: But whatsoe'er its end below, Her life began and closed in woe!
And Azo found another bride, And goodly sons grew by his side;
No thought but heaven-no word but prayer-But none so lovely and so brave
Save the few which from him broke, When, bared to meet the headman's stroke, He claim'd to die with eyes unbound, His sole adieu to those around.
Still as the lips that closed in death, Each gazer's bosom held his breath: But yet, afar, from man to man, A cold electric shiver ran, As down the deadly blow descended On him whose life and love thus ended; And with a hushing sound comprest, A sigh shrunk back on every breast; But no more thrilling noise rose there, Beyond the blow that to the block
As him who wither'd in the grave; Or if they were on his cold eye Their growth but glanced unheeded by, Or noticed with a smother'd sigh. But never tear his cheek descended, And never smile his brow unbended; And o'er that fair broad brow were wron The intersected lines of thought; Those furrows which the burning share Of sorrow ploughs untimely there; Scars of the lacerating mind Which the soul's war doth leave behind He was past all mirth or woe: Nothing more remain'd below But sleepless nights and heavy days,
Pierced through with forced and sullen A mind all dead to scorn or praise,
Save one: --what cleaves the silent air
So madly shrill-so passing wild?
A heart which shunn'd itself—and yet That would not yield-nor could forget; Which when it least appear'd to melt,
Intently thought-intensely felt : The deepest ice which ever froze Can only o'er the surface close- The living stream lies quick below, And flows and cannot cease to flow. Still was his seal'd-up bosom haunted By thoughts which Nature hath implanted; Too deeply rooted thence to vanish, Howe'er our stifled tears we banish; When, struggling as they rise to start, We check those waters of the heart, They are not dried-those tears unshed But flow back to the fountain-head, And resting in their spring more pure, For ever in its depth endure, Unseen, unwept, but uncongeal'd,
And cherish'd most where least reveal'd. With inward starts of feeling left,
To throb o'er those of life bereft; Without the power to fill again The desert gap which made his pain; Without the hope to meet them where United souls shall gladness share, With all the consciousness that he Had only pass'd a just decree; That they had wrought their doom of ill;
Yet Azo's age was wretched still. The tainted branches of the tree, If lopp'd with care, a strength may give, By which the rest shall bloom and live All greenly fresh and wildly free: But if the lightning, in its wrath, The waving boughs with fury scathe, The massy trunk the ruin feels. And never more a leaf reveals.
That father perish'd at the stake For tenets he would not forsake; And for the same his lineal race In darkness found a dwelling-place ; We were seven-who now are one, Six in youth, and one in age, Finish'd as they had begun. Proud of Persecution's rage;
One in fire, and two in field, Their belief with blood have seal'd; Dying as their father died, For the God their foes denied ; Three were in a dungeon cast, Of whom this wreck is left the last.
There are seven pillars of gothic mold, In Chillon's dungeons deep and old; There are seven columns, massy and gray, Dim with a dull imprison'd ray, A sunbeam which hath lost its way, And through the crevice and the cleft Of the thick wall is fallen and left; Creeping o'er the floor so damp, Like a marsh's meteor-lamp: And in each pillar there is a ring, And in each ring there is a chain; That iron is a cankering thing, 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 o'er, I lost their long and heavy score, When my last brother droop'd and died, And I lay living by his side.
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