And calm, till murmuring death gasp’d hoarsely near: | |
But from his visage little could we guess, | |
So unrepentant, dark, and passionless, | |
Save that when struggling nearer to his last, | |
465 | Upon that page his eye was kindly cast; |
And once, as Kaled’s answering accents ceased, | |
Rose Lara’s hand, and pointed to the East: | |
Whether (as then the breaking sun from high | |
Roll’d back the clouds) the morrow caught his eye, | |
470 | Or that ’twas chance, or some remember’d scene, |
That raised his arm to point where such had been, | |
Scarce Kaled seem’d to know, but turn’d away, | |
As if his heart abhorr’d that coming day, | |
And shrunk his glance before that morning light, | |
475 | To look on Lara’s brow – where all grew night. |
Yet sense seem’d left, though better were its loss; | |
For when one near display’d the absolving cross, | |
And proffer’d to his touch the holy bead, | |
Of which his parting soul might own the need, | |
480 | He look’d upon it with an eye profane, |
And smiled – Heaven pardon! if ’twere with disdain: | |
And Kaled, though he spoke not, nor withdrew | |
From Lara’s face his fix’d despairing view, | |
With brow repulsive, and with gesture swift, | |
485 | Flung back the hand which held the sacred gift, |
As if such but disturb’d the expiring man, | |
Nor seem’d to know his life but | |
That life of Immortality, secure | |
To none, save them whose faith in Christ is sure. | |
XX | |
490 | But gasping heaved the breath that Lara drew, |
And dull the film along his dim eye grew; | |
His limbs stretch’d fluttering, and his head droop’d o’er | |
The weak yet still untiring knee that bore; | |
He press’d the hand he held upon his heart - | |
495 | It beats no more, but Kaled will not part |
With the cold grasp, but feels, and feels in vain, | |
For that faint throb which answers not again. | |
‘It beats!’ – Away, thou dreamer! he is gone – | |
It once was Lara which thou look’st upon. | |
XXI | |
500 | He gazed, as if not yet had pass’d away |
The haughty spirit of that humble clay; | |
And those around have roused him from his trance, | |
But cannot tear from thence his fixed glance; | |
And when, in raising him from where he bore | |
505 | Within his arms the form that felt no more, |
He saw the head his breast would still sustain, | |
Roll down like earth to earth upon the plain; | |
He did not dash himself thereby, nor tear | |
The glossy tendrils of his raven hair, | |
510 | But strove to stand and gaze, but reel’d and fell, |
Scarce breathing more than that he loved so well. | |
Than that | |
The breast of man such trusty love may breathe! | |
That trying moment hath at once reveal’d | |
515 | The secret long and yet but half conceal’d; |
In baring to revive that lifeless breast, | |
Its grief seem’d ended, but the sex confess’d; | |
And life return’d, and Kaled felt no shame – | |
What now to her was Womanhood or Fame? | |
XXII | |
520 | And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep, |
But where he died his grave was dug as deep; | |
Nor is his mortal slumber less profound, | |
Though priest nor bless’d nor marble deck’d the mound, | |
And he was mourn’d by one whose quiet grief, | |
525 | Less loud, outlasts a people’s for their chief. |
Vain was all question ask’d her of the past, | |
And vain e’en menace – silent to the last; | |
She told nor whence, nor why she left behind | |
Her all for one who seem’d but little kind. | |
530 | Why did she love him? Curious fool! — be still – |
Is human love the growth of human will? | |
To her he might be gentleness; the stern | |
Have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern, | |
And when they love, your smilers guess not how | |
535 | Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow. |
They were not common links, that form’d the chain | |
That bound to Lara Kaled’s heart and brain; | |
But that wild tale she brook’d not to unfold, | |
And seal’d is now each lip that could have told. | |
XXIII | |
540 | They laid him in the earth, and on his breast, |
Besides the wound that sent his soul to rest, | |
They found the scatter’d dints of many a scar, | |
Which were not planted there in recent war; | |
Where’er had pass’d his summer years of life, | |
545 | It seems they vanish’d in a land of strife; |
But all unknown his glory or his guilt, | |
These only told that somewhere blood was spilt, | |
And Ezzelin, who might have spoke the past, | |
Return’d no more – that night appear’d his last. | |
XXIV | |
550 | Upon that night (a peasant’s is the tale) |
A Serf that cross’d the intervening vale, | |
When Cynthia’s light almost gave way to morn, | |
And nearly veil’d in mist her waning horn; | |
A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood, | |
555 | And hew the bough that bought his children’s food, |
Pass’d by the river that divides the plain | |
Of Otho’s lands and Lara’s broad domain: | |
He heard a tramp – a horse and horseman broke | |
From out the wood – before him was a cloak | |
560 | Wrapt round some burthen at his saddle-bow, |
Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow. | |
Roused by the sudden sight at such a time, | |
And some foreboding that it might be crime, | |
Himself unheeded watch’d the stranger’s course, | |
565 | Who reach’d the river, bounded from his horse, |
And lifting thence the burthen which he bore, | |
Heaved up the bank, and dash’d it from the shore, | |
Then paused, and look’d, and turn’d, and seem’d to watch, | |
And still another hurried glance would snatch, | |
570 | And follow with his step the stream that flow’d, |
As if even yet too much its surface show’d: | |
At once he started, stoop’d, around him strown | |
The winter floods had scatter’d heaps of stone; | |
Of these the heaviest thence he gather’d there, | |
575 | And slung them with a more than common care. |
Meantime the Serf had crept to where unseen | |
Himself might safely mark what this might mean; | |
He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast, | |
And something glitter’d starlike on the vest; | |
580 | But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk, |
A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk: | |
It rose again, but indistinct to view, | |
And left the waters of a purple hue, | |
Then deeply disappear’d: the horseman gazed | |
585 | Till ebb’d the latest eddy it had raised; |
Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed, | |
And instant spurr’d him into panting speed. | |
His face was mask’d – the features of the dead, | |
If dead it were, escaped the observer’s dread; | |
590 | But if in sooth a star its bosom bore, |
Such is the badge that knighthood ever wore, | |
And such ’tis known Sir Ezzelin had worn | |
Upon the night that led to such a morn. | |
If thus he perish’d Heaven receive his soul! | |
595 | His undiscover’d limbs to ocean roll; |
And charity upon the hope would dwell | |
It was not Lara’s hand by which he fell. | |
XXV | |
And Kaled – Lara – Ezzelin, are gone, | |
Alike without their monumental stone! | |
600 | The first, all efforts vainly strove to wean |
From lingering where her chieftain’s blood had been; | |
Grief had so tamed a spirit once too proud, | |
Her tears were few, her wailing never loud; | |
But furious would you tear her from the spot | |
605 | Where yet she scarce believed that he was not, |
Her eye shot forth with all the living fire | |
That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire; | |
But left to waste her weary moments there, | |
She talk’d all idly unto shapes of air, | |
610 | Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints, |
And woos to listen to her fond complaints: |