With such wrong and wo exhausted—what I suffered and occasioned,—
As a wild horse through a city runs with lightning in his eyes.
And then dashing at a church's cold and passive wall, impassioned.
Strikes the death into his burning brain, and blindly drops and dies—
So I fell, struck down before her! Do you blame me friend, for weakness?
'Twasmy strength of passion slew me !—fell before her like a stone;
Fast the dreadful world rolled from me, on its roaring wheels of blackness I
When the light came I was lying in this chamber—and alone.
Oh, of course, she charged her lacqueys to bear out the sickly burden.
And to cast it from her scornful sight—but not beyond the gate—
Such a man as I—'twere something to be level to her hate.
But for me—you now are conscious wby, my friend, I write this letter,
How my life is read all backward, and the charm of life undone!
I shall leave her house at dawn—I would to-night, if I were better—
And I charge my soul to hold my body strengthened for the sun.
When the sun has dyed the oriel, I depart with no last gazes,
No weak moanings—one word only left in writing for her hands,
To make front against this anguish in the far and foreign lands.
Blame me not, I would not squander life in grief—I am abstemious:
I but nurse my spirit's falcon, that its wings may soar again:
There's no room for tears of weakness in the blind eyes of a Phemius:
Into work the poet kneads them,—and he does not die till then.
Bertram finished the last pages, while along the silence ever
Still in hot and heavy splashes, fell the tears on every leaf:
Having ended, he leans backward in his chair, with lips that quiver
From the deep unspoken, ay, and deep unwritten thoughts of grief.
Soh I how still the lady standeth! 'tis a dream !—a dream of mercies!
'Twixt the purple lattice-curtains, how she standeth still and pale!
'Tis a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to soften his self-curses—
Sent to sweep a patient quiet o'er the tossing of his wail.
'Eyes,' he said, ' now throbbing through me! are ye eyes that did undo me 2
Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone!
Underneath that calm white forehead, are ye ever burning torrid
O'er the desolate sand-desert of my heart and life undone?"
With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain
Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows;
While the gliding of the river sends a rippling noise for ever
Through the open casement whitened by the moonlight's slant repose.