Oh, pause, relentless Time! nor strike the hour,
The fatal hour that shall ingulf the fair
And sweet delights of years, with baleful power
To cast them forth again, dark shapes of care;
Shadows that oft shall people the still air
And haunt the childless mother's lonely ways;
For Joy's bright flowers bitter seeds oft bear,
And on the heart in absence heavier weights
Than present pain the memory of once happy days.
But no! life's saddest word is said, "Farewell!"
The bleeding fibres of Dolores' heart
With anguish quiver as she hears the knell
Of peace and sweet content; and salt tears start
And hide from her dim eyes, as they depart,
Ormond and Violet; then o'er the smiling face
Of Earth a veil seems drawn; no warmth impart
To her chill breast the sun's bright beams that grace
With fadeless splendor Nature's fairest dwelling-place.
And all glad sights and pleasant sounds that reach
Her deadened senses seem to mock her woe—
The slender palm that crowns the long, low beach;
The gleaming waters' gentle ebb and flow;
The bright-hued birds like living gems that glow
'Mid the primeval forests' gloom, and make
Vocal its solitudes, as to and fro
They flit; the bloom that skirts the tangled brake;—
All, all another pang in her torn bosom wake.
For she who had shared with her this paradise,
Whose joy and grief its sunshine and its shade,
Since on its beauty first her infant eyes
Had opened, for Dolores' heart had made—
She of whom some fond memory each glade
And blooming dell, each hill and stream endears,
With her shall wander there were late they strayed
No more till thrice the slow-revolving spheres
Shall weave the mystic chain that binds the rounded years.
And Earth, indifferent to her child's despair,
Serenely bright, in cruel beauty smiles;
Content to shine with charms divinely fair,
Though none of all those glowing charms beguiles
Dolores' heart of grief, or reconciles
Her soul with joy; for joy, alas! is dead.
And in her loneliness those summer isles
A wild and dreary waste lie round her spread;
For Nature wooes in vain the heart whence peace has fled.
Meanwhile the little boat that bore away
Ormond and Violet had reached the proud
And stately vessel anchored in the bay,
Like some great white-winged bird that seemed, endowed
With conscious grace, against the hills, black-browed
And silent, as it stood defined; but sealed
To beauty were their senses, for with bowed
And troubled hearts their being did they yield
To sorrow, whose black veil all joyous things concealed.
But soon the freshening breeze that filled the sails,
As slowly faded from their gaze the land.
Though far it bore her from her native vales,
Where late she saw in voiceless anguish stand
The friend and guardian whose untiring hand
Had smoothed life's pathway for her tender feet,
Revived Violet's languid pulse with bland
Caressing murmurs that her senses greet
Like voices from the far-off Future, strange and sweet.
For Grief's dark shape, although she enters oft
The enchanted halls of Youth and lingers there,
A guest unbidden, paralyzing soft
And gentle natures with Medusa stare,
The magic, wondrous radiance yet doth share
Shining within those portals, mild and bright,
Until her sombre features take a fair
And friendly seeming in the charmed sight,
As some gray ruin smiles in Dawn's transfiguring light.
Swift on the waves the shades of night descend,
And on the purple splendor of the hills,
Whose outlines with the dusky ambient blend,
Then disappear. No northern twilight fills
The solemn pause 'twixt night and day and stills
To pensive rest the bosom passion-tost;
And with swift pain Violet's being thrills,
As, in the darkness and the distance lost,
Fades from her eager gaze the last faint line of coast.
Morning on tropic seas! Ardent the Sun
Springs from his couch beneath the eastern wave,
Shakes his bright locks, ascends his car anon;
His steeds impatient spurn the sands that pave
With amber light the ocean-roofed cave;
Their nostrils breathe forth flames; their manes on high
Are tossed; the waves their glittering hoofs that lave,
They dash in foam through the awakening sky,
Then through the Gates of Dawn, wide open, swift they fly.
And Violet the spell unconscious owns
With glad expectance Nature's balmy rest
That breaks; the hymn of joy the deep intones
An echo finds within her pensive breast;
And all her soul contains of purest, best,
The vital influence of the hour feels;
Albeit the while her kindling looks attest
The gracious power her young heart's wound that heals,
The tear unbidden starts and down her bright cheek steals.
For lo! before her fancy, pale and sad
The image rises of her earliest friend,
Whose eyes reproachful ask, "Canst thou be glad
While to my grief new joys no ease can lend?
Thy voice with Nature's symphony doth blend
While mine is mute? The flame of love that burned,
My hope and joy, in darkness hath an end,
Within my breast its ashes cold inurned;—
Alas! thine eyes look on while mine arc backward turned."
And then her gentle spirit feels the sting
Of love's sweet service slighted, or undone,
Oh, could she now restore the past, and bring
Remorse, new-born, to rule the moments gone!
Too late! to late! the winds bear swiftly on
Her fate appointed to stern northern shores;
The balmy morn with the joy-giving sun
Shall still return, but all her soul adores
No dewy morning's light to her sad sight restores.
Yet on those shores no exile cold awaits
The cherished daughter of a land more fair;
The filial piety that consecrates
Her pilgrimage, shall find its guerdon there
Among her father's kindred, to whose care
Dolores yields her till her mind expand
And hardy fruit of northern culture bear;—
This fond desire the sanctifying hand
Of Death has sealed, transforming it to a command.
Loyal to Nature's bond had Ormond come
Across the waves his sacred trust to bear
Back to the haven of his northern home
And the safe shelter of his Anna's care;
But far, alas, from her whose heart despair
Now fills, as on her sick and weary sight
The rosy morning dawns, the balmy air
Her senses greets, henceforth that no delight
In dewy morn shall find, still noon, or starry night.
Swiftly the vessel glides along the waves
That bears Violet to the early home
Of him who gave her being; in his caves
Old Ocean slumbers; the resplendent dome
That canopies his majesty the beams illume,
Serenely bright, of cloudless suns by day;
By night its stars with the phosphoric foam
Mingle their light, whose fires, swift-gleaming, play
Round the auspicious keel that onward cleaves its way.
And all Violet's heart unbid went forth
In childlike love to Ormond, while the hours
He would beguile with stories of the North,
That like a bride the blossoming year with flowers
Adorns that, frail as fair, die while the showers
And suns of Autumn back to life in vain
Woo them, when Nature, from her fragrant bowers
Exiled, sees all the glory, with the wane
Of the departing year, depart, of her brief reign.
Her loyal servitors, the while, prepare
A regal banquet free to all who yield
Allegiance to her, and with garlands fair
Her courts adorn; fruits that, in store, concealed,
Ripened 'mid sheltering greenery, revealed
To view, delight the sense on every side.
And hill and valley, forest, bending field
And grove, in gold and crimson splendors dyed,
Glow with a brighter bloom than in her young reign's pride.
But brief, alas, as bright. As fulgent clouds,
Rosy and purple, from the setting sun
Their hues that borrow, in the gloom that shrouds
The horizon fade when his last rays are gone,
So all the pomp of Nature, her green throne
Abandoned, vanishes in swift decay—
Swiftest when fairest; and the saddest tone
That swells her requiem, of the joyous lay
Is but the echo that rang in her natal day.
Her sceptre yielding to the icy clasp
Of hoary Winter, rude and stern of mien,
Her blooming crown, that withers in his grasp,
And her fair vestments of embroidered green,
Descending from her throne, discrowned, a queen,
She wraps her ermine mantle, soft and white,
Around her, that no vestige may be seen
Beneath its glittering splendor of the blight
That lies upon her beauty, spoiled of every dear delight.
Then Ormond paints, when life again returns
To Nature's breast, her tender vernal bloom.
Within her veins ethereal fire burns
Again, and rising from her frozen tomb,
Swift she dispels with magic smile the gloom
That round her loyal realm erewhile had hung;
Her gracious Sire's rekindling beams consume
The icy damps that round her brow had clung,
And she, a goddess, blooms with charms forever young.
Thus does she now in glowing beauty stand,
Fair as a dream of youthful revery born,
To greet them smiling on the distant strand
To which their eager thoughts too constant turn.
Behold! at length dawns the auspicious morn,
Serene and bright, that to Violet's dreams
Gives form and substance. Fancy's golden bourne,
A line of light along the horizon gleams,
That Fairy's magic realm to her charmed vision seems.
O Flower enchanted! whose perfumed breath
With heaven-descended charm transports the soul,
That Earth no sorrows and no terrors Death
May hold, and Happiness is life's bright goal;
The Fates themselves do bend to our control;
Fame lends to Hope's fond speech a willing ear,
Beckoning to heights serene, though storm-clouds roll
Between; her secrets to our vision clear
The Universe shall yield, even to heaven's highest sphere—
Bright Flower of Youth! alas, thou dost dissolve
And vanish into nothingness before
The Milky Way of Truth we may resolve
Into the stars to which bold Thought would soar
To people them with her creations. The vain lore
We thirsted for with ardent soul obscures the fair,
Alluring goal with doubt-born mists, that bore
The prize our eager hands would grasp. Despair,
Remorse and Death and Woe thy seeds too often bear.
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Near and more near that distant line of light
Now draws, expanding to their eager gaze;
Till from its depths emerging to their sight
The towers of a stately city raise
To heaven their slender height. The golden haze
Of morning lies, a magic veil, around
The city's base, but dome and turret blaze
With ruddy light; while to its farthest bound
With woods of growth primeval the low coast lies crowned.
What wild emotions thrill Violet's breast,
As on her bodily vision breaks the scene
That oft had risen at Fancy's charmed behest
Before her mind in hues forever green;
Her swiftly-varying color and rapt mien
Tell Ormond all her lips refuse to say;—
He who the idol of her youth had been
Had trod with childhood's feet that hallowed clay;
There first his eyes beheld the light of earth's brief day.
Then swift her thoughts with sudden impulse flow
Back to the solitary home where waits
A mourner desolate, whose cup of woe
From the same source is filled whence emanates
The draught intoxicating that creates
For her a magic world; and vague remorse
A keener strength the grief that agitates
Her bosom lends, until with gathering force
It sweeps the barriers down that stay its headlong course.
******
The tranquil beauty of a soft May eve
Had crowned the fulness of the day's content;
And mystic shadows had begun to weave
A mantle of repose for Nature, sprent
With stars pale glimmering in the firmament,
When Violet within the ancestral walls
Stood of her fathers, joy, with sorrow blent,
Stirring her pulses—'midst memorials
Time-honored of her race a stranger in their halls.
But on her troubled soul when softly fell
Caressing accents, fondly to her breast
When Anna clasped her, to the gracious spell
Her sad and weary heart that longed for rest
She yielded up. Inconstant Fancy dressed
The future in bright hues. The cloud was gone
Whose gloom Youth's natural buoyance had oppressed,
By the soft glow of Love's unrisen sun
Dispelled; and Memory resigned to Hope her throne.
The cloud was gone; alas, to be replaced
By ardors that should scorch her young life's bloom,
Its beauty turning to a barren waste—
Bright harbingers of darkness and the tomb.
Even now within the secret halls of Doom
The thunderbolt is forged whose might shall rend
Her being to its foundations, and consume
Hope's every promise; but no signs portend
The gathering storm whose wings black o'er her life impend.
"And thou, my Julian," Ormond said to one
Who stood within the curtain's crimson shade,
"Our Violet, child of a more ardent sun,
To shield from chilling northern airs shalt aid,
That no young bud or tender leaf may fade
Of Youth's fresh garland, till her heart forget
The pain of exile by its hopes repaid."—
Then drew him smiling to the spot where yet
In Anna's fond embrace close held stood Violet.
And Violet, turning, places in the hand
Her hand, that, with the threads of destiny,
Her life shall with another's bind—a band
Whose strength the conquering power shall defy
Of fate and death; for as her glance the eye
Of Julian meets, in her awakening heart
A flame is kindled that shall never die,
Though fate and death their mortal lives dispart,
But of her deathless being form a deathless part.
And Julian, as from Violet Ormond claims
For him the affection of a sister, gives
Kind words of greeting, while his heart proclaims
The sacred advent of a power that rives
To its centre being, yet death itself survives.
The seal to Destiny's decree is set,
Henceforward that unites their fated lives,
For in that glance two kindred souls have met
And mingled, made by Love victorious over Fate.