Sate on her cheek a fixed despair ; And now she beat her bosom bare, As pure as driven snow.

Nine graceful novices around

Fresh roses strew upon the ground;
In purest white arrayed,

Nine spotless vestal virgins shed
Sabæan incense o'er the head
Of the devoted maid.

They dragged her to the altar's pale,
The traveller leant against the rail,
And gazed with eager eye,

His cheek was flushed with sudden glow,
On his brow sate a darker shade of woe,
As a transient expression fled by.

The sympathetic feeling flew
Through every breast, from man to man ;
Confused and open clamors ran —
Louder and louder still they grew;
When the abbess waved her hand,
A stern resolve was in her eye,
And every wild tumultuous cry
Was stilled at her command.

Hark! Hark! the demon of the storm!

I see his vast expanding form

Blend with the strange and sulphurous glare Of comets through the turbid air.

Yes, 't was his voice, I heard its roar,

The wild waves lashed the caverned shore
In angry murmurs hoarse and loud,
Higher and higher still they rise;
Red lightnings gleam from every cloud
And paint wild shapes upon the skies;
The echoing thunder rolls around,

Convulsed with earthquake rocks the ground.

The traveller yet undaunted stood,
He heeded not the roaring flood;
Yet Rosa slept, her bosom bare,
Her cheek was deadly pale,

The ringlets of her auburn hair
Streamed in a lengthened trail,
And motionless her seraph form;
Unheard, unheeded raved the storm;
Whilst, borne on the wing of the gale,
The harrowing shriek of the white sea-mew
As o'er the midnight surge she flew,
The howlings of the squally blast,
As o'er the beetling cliffs it passed,
Mingled with the peals on high,
That, swelling louder, echoed by,
Assailed the traveller's ear.

He heeded not the maddened storm
As it pelted against his lofty form;
He felt no awe, no fear;

In contrast, like the courser pale 1
That stalks along Death's pitchy.vale
With silent, with gigantic tread,
Trampling the dying and the dead.

Rising from her deathlike trance,
Fair Rosa met the stranger's glance;
She started from his chilling gaze,
Wild was it as the tempest's blaze,
It shot a lurid gleam of light,
A secret spell of sudden dread,
A mystic, strange, and harrowing fear,
As when the spirits of the dead,
Dressed in ideal shapes appear,
And hideous glance on human sight;
Scarce could Rosa's frame sustain

The chill that pressed upon her brain.

Anon, that transient spell was o'er;
Dark clouds deform his brow no more,
But rapid fled away;

Sweet fascination dwelt around,
Mixed with a soft, a silver sound,
As soothing to the ravished ear,
As what enthusiast lovers hear;
Which seems to steal along the sky,
When mountain mists are seen to fly
Before the approach of day.

He seized on wondering Rosa's hand,
6 And, ah!' cried he, be this the band
Shall join us, till this earthly frame
Sinks convulsed in bickering flame —
When around the demons yell,
And drag the sinful wretch to hell,
Then, Rosa, will we part-

Then fate, and only fate's decree,
Shall tear thy lovely soul from me,
And rend thee from my heart.
Long has Paulo sought in vain
A friend to share his grief;

Never will he seek again,

For the wretch has found relief,

Till the Prince of Darkness bursts his chain, Till death and desolation reign.

Rosa, wilt thou then be mine?

Ever fairest, I am thine!'

He ceased, and on the howling blast,

Which wildly round the mountain passed,

1 'Behold a pale horse, and his name that sate upon him was Death, and Hell followed with him.' - Reve lation, vi. 8.

Died his accents low;

Yet fiercely howled the midnight storm,
As Paulo bent his awful form,
And leaned his lofty brow.

ROSA

'Stranger, mystic stranger, rise;
Whence do these tumults fill the skies?
Who conveyed me, say, this night,
To this wild and cloud-capped height?
Who art thou? and why am I
Beneath Heaven's pitiless canopy?

For the wild winds roar around my head;
Lightnings redden the wave;

Was it the power of the mighty dead,
Who live beneath the grave?

Or did the Abbess drag me here
To make yon swelling surge my bier ??

PAULO

'Ah, lovely Rosa! cease thy fear,
It was thy friend who bore thee here
I, thy friend, till this fabric of earth
Sinks in the chaos that gave it birth;
Till the meteor-bolt of the God above
Shall tear its victim from his love,
That love which must unbroken last,
Till the hour of envious fate is past,
Till the mighty basements of the sky
In bickering hell-flames heated fly.
E'en then will I sit on some rocky height,
Whilst around lower clouds of eternal night;
E'en then will I loved Rosa save
From the yawning abyss of the grave;
Or, into the gulf impetuous hurled

If sinks with its latest tenants the world,
Then will our souls in union fly

Throughout the wide and boundless sky;
Then, free from the ills that envious fate
Has heaped upon our mortal state,
We'll taste ethereal pleasure;
Such as none but thou canst give,
Such as none but I receive,
And rapture without measure.'

As thus he spoke, a sudden blaze
Of pleasure mingled in his gaze.
Illumined by the dazzling light,
He glows with radiant lustre bright;
His features with new glory shine,
And sparkle as with beams divine.
'Strange, awful being,' Rosa said,

6

Whence is this superhuman dread, That harrows up my inmost frame? Whence does this unknown tingling flame Consume and penetrate my soul? By turns with fear and love possessed, Tumultuous thoughts swell high my breast; A thousand wild emotions roll, And mingle their resistless tide; O'er thee some magic arts preside; As by the influence of a charm, Lulled into rest, my griefs subside, And, safe in thy protecting arm, I feel no power can do me harm. But the storm raves wildly o'er the sea, Bear me away! I confide in thee !'

CANTO II

'I could a tale unfold, whose slightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.'

THE horrors of the mighty blast,

Hamlet.

The lowering tempest clouds, were passed-
Had sunk beneath the main ;

Light baseless mists were all that fled
Above the weary traveller's head,
As he left the spacious plain.

Fled were the vapors of the night,
Faint streaks of rosy tinted light
Were painted on the matin gray;
And as the sun began to rise
To pour his animating ray,
Glowed with his fire the eastern skies,
The distant rocks, the far-off bay,
The ocean's sweet and lovely blue,
The mountain's variegated breast,
Blushing with tender tints of dawn,
Or with fantastic shadows dressed;
The waving wood, the opening lawn,
Rose to existence, waked anew,
In colors exquisite of hue;

Their mingled charms Victorio viewed,
And lost in admiration stood.

From yesternight how changed the scene,
When howled the blast o'er the dark cliff's side
And mingled with the maddened roar
Of the wild surge that lashed the shore.
To-day scarce heard the whispering breeze,
And still and motionless the seas,
Scarce heard the murmuring of their tide;
All, all is peaceful and serene;
Serenely on Victorio's breast

It breathed a soft and tranquil rest,
Which bade each wild emotion cease,
And hushed the passions into peace.

Along the winding Po he went;
His footsteps to the spot were bent
Where Paulo dwelt, his wandered friend,
For thither did his wishes tend.
Noble Victorio's race was proud,
From Cosmo's blood he came ;
To him a wild untutored crowd
Of vassals in allegiance bowed,
Illustrious was his name;

Yet vassals and wealth he scorned to go
Unnoticed with a man of woe;

Gay hope and expectation sate
Throned in his eager eye,

And, ere he reached the castle gate,
The sun had mounted high.

Wild was the spot where the castle stood
Its towers embosomed deep in wood;
Gigantic cliffs, with craggy steeps,
Reared their proud heads on high, -

Their bases were washed by the foaming deeps,
Their summits were hid in the sky;
From the valley below they excluded the day,
What valley ne'er cheered by the sunbeam's ray;
Nought broke on the silence drear,
Save the hungry vultures darting by,
Or eagles yelling fearfully,

As they bore to the rocks their prey;
Or when the fell wolf ravening prowled,
Or the gaunt wild boar fiercely howled
His hideous screams on the night's dull ear.
Borne on pleasure's downy wing,
Downy as the breath of spring,
Not thus fled Paulo's hours away,
Though brightened by the cheerful day.
Friendship or wine, or softer love,
The sparkling eye, the foaming bowl,
Could with no lasting rapture move,
Nor still the tumults of his soul.
And yet there was in Rosa's kiss
A momentary thrill of bliss ;

Oft the dark clouds of grief would fly
Beneath the beams of sympathy;
And love and converse sweet bestow,
A transient requiem from woe.-

Strange business, and of import vast,
On things which long ago were past
Drew Paulo oft from home;
Then would a darker, deeper shade,
By sorrow traced, his brow o'erspread
And o'er his features roam.

Oft as they spent the midnight hour,
And heard the wintry wild winds rave

Midst the roar and spray of the dashing wave,
Was Paulo's dark brow seen to lower.
Then, as the lamp's uncertain blaze
Shed o'er the hall its partial rays,
And shadows strange were seen to fall,
And glide upon the dusky wall,
Would Paulo start with sudden fear.
Why then unbidden gushed the tear,
As he muttered strange words to the ear?
Why frequent heaved the smothered sigh?
Why did he gaze on vacancy,

As if some strange form was near?
Then would the fillet of his brow
Fierce as a fiery furnace glow,

As it burned with red and lambent flame;
Then would cold shuddering seize his frame,
As gasping he labored for breath.
The strange light of his gorgon eye,
As, frenzied and rolling dreadfully,
It glared with terrific gleam,

Would chill like the spectre gaze of death,
As, conjured by feverish dream,

He seems o'er the sick man's couch to stand, And shakes the dread lance in his skeleton hand.

But when the paroxysm was o'er,

And clouds deformed his brow no more,
Would Rosa soothe his tumults dire,
Would bid him calm his grief,
Would quench reflection's rising fire,
And give his soul relief.

As on his form with pitying eye

The ministering angel hung,
And wiped the drops of agony,
The music of her siren tongue
Lulled forcibly his griefs to rest;
Like fleeting visions of the dead,
Or midnight dreams, his sorrows fled;
Waked to new life, through all his soul
A soft delicious languor stole,
And lapped in heavenly ecstasy
He sank and fainted on her breast.

'T was on an eve, the leaf was sere,
Howled the blast round the castle drear,
The boding night-bird's hideous cry
Was mingled with the warning sky;
Heard was the distant torrent's dash,
Seen was the lightning's dark red flash,
As it gleamed on the stormy cloud;
Heard was the troubled ocean's roar,
As its wild waves lashed the rocky shore;
The thunder muttered loud,

As wilder still the lightnings flew ;
Wilder as the tempest blew,

More wildly strange their converse grew.

They talked of the ghosts of the mighty

dead,

If, when the spark of life were fled,

They visited this world of woe?

Or, were it but a fantasy,

Deceptive to the feverish eye,

When strange forms flashed upon the sight,

And stalked along at the dead of night?

Or if, in the realms above,

They still, for mortals left below,
Retained the same affection's glow,
In friendship or in love?

Debating thus, a pensive train,
Thought upon thought began to rise;
Her thrilling wild harp Rosa took;
What sounds in softest murmurs broke
From the seraphic strings!
Celestials borne on odorous wings
Caught the dulcet melodies;
The life-blood ebbed in every vein,
As Paulo listen'd to the strain.

That spectre wanders through the abbey dale, And suffers pangs which such a fate must share;

Early her soul sank in death's darkened vale,
And ere long all of us must meet her there.

She ceased, and on the listening ear
Her pensive accents died;

So sad they were, so softly clear,
It seemed as if some angel's sigh

Had breathed the plaintive symphony;
So ravishingly sweet their close,
The tones awakened Paulo's woes;
Oppressive recollections rose,
And poured their bitter tide.
Absorbed awhile in grief he stood;
At length he seemed as one inspired,
His burning fillet blazed with blood-
A lambent flame his features fired.
'The hour is come, the fated hour;
Whence is this new, this unfelt power?-
Yes, I've a secret to unfold,
And such a tale as ne'er was told,

A dreadful, dreadful mystery!
Scenes, at whose retrospect e'en now,
Cold drops of anguish on my brow,
The icy chill of death I feel:

Wrap, Rosa, bride, thy breast in steel,
Thy soul with nerves of iron brace,
As to your eyes I darkly trace
My sad, my cruel destiny.

'Victorio, lend your ears, arise,
Let us seek the battling skies,

Wild o'er our heads the thunder crashing, And at our feet the wild waves dashing,

As tempest, clouds, and billows roll,

In gloomy concert with my soul.

Rosa, follow me

For my soul is joined to thine, And thy being 's linked to mine Rosa, list to me.'

CANTO III

'His form had not yet lost

All its original brightness, nor appeared Less than archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured; but his face

Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care Sate on his faded cheek.' Paradise Lost.

PAULO

"T IS sixteen hundred years ago,
Since I came from Israel's land;
Sixteen hundred years of woe!
With deep and furrowing hand
God's mark is painted on my head;
Must there remain until the dead
Hear the last trump, and leave the tomb,
And earth spouts fire from her riven womb.

How can I paint that dreadful day,
That time of terror and dismay,
When, for our sins, a Saviour died,
And the meek Lamb was crucified!
As dread that day, when, borne along
To slaughter by the insulting throng,
Infuriate for Deicide,

I mocked our Saviour, and I cried,

Go, go,'' Ah! I will go,' said he,
'Where scenes of endless bliss invite;
To the blest regions of the light
I go, but thou shalt here remain-
Thou diest not till I come again.'
E'en now, by horror traced, I see
His perforated feet and hands;

The maddened crowd around him stands ;
Pierces his side the ruffian spear,
Big rolls the bitter anguished tear.
Hark, that deep groan ! - he dies

dies,

And breathes, in death's last agonies, Forgiveness to his enemies.

Then was the noonday glory clouded,

The sun in pitchy darkness shrouded.

- he

Then were strange forms through the darkness gleaming,

And the red orb of night on Jerusalem beam

ing;

Which faintly, with ensanguined light,

Dispersed the thickening shades of night.

Convulsed, all nature shook with fear,

As if the very end was near;

Earth to her centre trembled';
Rent in twain was the temple's veil;
The graves gave up their dead;
Whilst ghosts and spirits, ghastly pale,
Glared hideous on the sight,

Seen through the dark and lurid air,
As fiends arrayed in light

Threw on the scene a frightful glare,
And, howling, shrieked with hideous yell·
They shrieked in joy, for a Saviour fell!
'Twas then I felt the Almighty's ire;

Then full on my remembrance came
Those words despised, alas! too late!
The horrors of my endless fate

Flashed on my soul and shook my frame;
They scorched my breast as with a flame
Of unextinguishable fire;
An exquisitely torturing pain

Of frenzying anguish fired my brain.
By keen remorse and anguish driven,

I called for vengeance down from Heaven.
But, ah! the all-wasting hand of Time
Might never wear away my crime!

I scarce could draw my fluttering breath-
Was it the appalling grasp of death?
I lay entranced, and deemed he shed
His dews of poppy o'er my head;

But, though the kindly warmth was dead,
The self-inflicted torturing pangs
Of conscience lent their scorpion fangs,
Still life prolonging after life was fled.

Methought what glories met my sight,
As burst a sudden blaze of light
Illumining the azure skies,-
I saw the blessed Saviour rise.
But how unlike to him who bled!
Where then his thorn-encircled head?
Where the big drops of agony
Which dimmed the lustre of his eye?
Or deathlike hue that overspread
The features of that heavenly face?
Gone now was every mortal trace;
His eyes with radiant lustre beamed -
His form confessed celestial grace,
And with a blaze of glory streamed.
Innumerable hosts around,

Their brows with wreaths immortal crowned,
With amaranthine chaplets bound,
As on their wings the cross they bore,
Deep dyed in the Redeemer's gore,
Attune their golden harps, and sing
Loud hallelujahs to their King.

But in an instant from my sight
Fled were the visions of delight.
Darkness had spread her raven pall;
Dank, lurid darkness covered all.
All was as silent as the dead;
I felt a petrifying dread,
Which harrowed up my frame;
When suddenly a lurid stream

Of dark red light, with hideous gleam,
Shot like a meteor through the night,
And painted Hell upon the skies
The Hell from whence it came.
What clouds of sulphur seemed to rise!
What sounds were borne upon the air!
The breathings of intense despair-
The piteous shrieks the wails of woe-
The screams of torment and of pain
The red-hot rack -the clanking chain !
I gazed upon the gulf below,
Till, fainting from excess of fear,
My tottering knees refused to bear
My odious weight. I sink- I sink!
Already had I reached the brink.
The fiery waves disparted wide

To plunge me in their sulphurous tide;
When, racked by agonizing pain,
I started into life again.

Yet still the impression left behind
Was deeply graven on my mind
In characters whose inward trace
No change or time could ere deface;
A burning cross illumed my brow,
I hid with a fillet gray,

But could not hide the wasting woe
That wore my wildered soul away,
And ate my heart with living fire.
I knew it was the avenger's sway,
I felt it was the avenger's ire!

A burden on the face of earth,
I cursed the mother who gave me birth;
I cursed myself-my native land.
Polluted by repeated crimes,

I sought in distant foreign climes
If change of country could bestow
A transient respite from my woe.
Vain from myself the attempt to fly,
Sole cause of my own misery.

Since when, in deathlike trance I lay,
Passed, slowly passed, the years away
That poured a bitter stream on me ;
When once I fondly longed to see
Jerusalem, alas ! my native place,
Jerusalem alas! no more in name
No portion of her former fame
Had left behind a single trace.
Her pomp, her splendor, was no more.
Her towers no longer seem to rise

To lift their proud heads to the skies, Fane and monumental bust

Long levelled even with the dust.

The holy pavements were stained with

gore,

The place where the sacred temple stood
Was crimson-dyed with Jewish blood.
Long since my parents had been dead,
All my posterity had bled

Beneath the dark Crusader's spear,
No friend was left my path to cheer,
To shed a few last setting rays
Of sunshine on my evening days!

Racked by the tortures of the mind,
How have I longed to plunge beneath
The mansions of repelling death!
And strove that resting place to find
Where earthly sorrows cease!
Oft, when the tempest-fiends engaged,
And the warring winds tumultuous raged,
Confounding skies with seas,

Then would I rush to the towering height
Of the gigantic Teneriffe,
Or some precipitous cliff,

All in the dead of the silent night.

I have cast myself from the mountain's height. Above was day—below was night;

The substantial clouds that lowered beneath
Bore my detested form;

They whirled it above the volcanic breath
And the meteors of the storm ;

The torrents of electric flame

Scorched to a cinder my fated frame.