His own senses. His spirit was driven on the wind Of a reckless emotion beyond his control;

A torrent seem'd loosen'd within him.

His soul

Surged up from that caldron of passion that hiss'd
And seeth'd in his heart.

His last stake.

VII.

He had thrown, and had miss'd

VIII.

For, transfigured, she rose from the place

Where he rested o'er-awed: a saint's scorn on her face : Such a dread vade retro was written in light

On her forehead, the fiend would himself, at that sight,
Have sunk back abash'd to perdition. I know

If Lucretia at Tarquin but once had look'd so,
She had needed no dagger next morning.

She rose

And swept to the door, like that phantom the snows Feel at nightfall sweep o'er them, when daylight is

gone,

And Caucasus is with the moon all alone.

There she paused; and, as though from immeasurable, Insurpassable distance, she murmur'd

We, alas! have mistaken each other. Illusion, to-night, in my lifetime is o'er. 'Duc de Luvois, adieu!'

'Farewell! Once more

From the heartbreaking gloom

Of that vacant, reproachful, and desolate room,
He felt she was gone-gone for ever!

IX.

No word,

The sharpest that ever was edged like a sword,
Could have pierced to his heart with such keen accusa-

tion

As the silence, the sudden profound isolation,

In which he remain'd.

O return; I repent!'

He exclaim'd; but no sound through the stillness was

sent,

Save the roar of the water, in answer to him,

And the beetle that, sleeping, yet humm'd her nighthymn :

An indistinct anthem, that troubled the air

With a searching, and wistful, and questioning prayer.
'Return,' sung the wandering insect. The roar
Of the waters replied, 'Nevermore! nevermore!
He walk'd to the window. The spray on his brow
Was flung cold from the whirlpools of water below;
The frail wooden balcony shook in the sound
Of the torrent. The mountains gloom'd sullenly

round.

A candle one ray from a closed casement flung.
O'er the dim balustrade all bewilder'd he hung,
Vaguely watching the broken and shimmering blink
Of the stars on the veering and vitreous brink

Of that snake-like prone column of water; and listing
Aloof o'er the languors of air the persisting
Sharp horn of the grey gnat.
Before he relinquish'd

His unconscious employment, that light was

tinguish'd.

ex

Wheels, at last, from the inn door aroused him. He

ran

Down the stairs; reach'd the door-just to see her depart.

Down the mountain the carriage was speeding.

X.

His heart

Pealed the knell of its last hope. He rush'd on; but whither

He knew not-on, into the dark cloudy weather-
The midnight—the mountains—on, over the shelf
Of the precipice-on, still-away from himself!
Till, exhausted, he sank mid the dead leaves and moss
At the mouth of the forest. A glimmering cross
Of grey stone stood for prayer by the woodside.

He

sank Prayerless, powerless, down at its base, 'mid the dank Weeds and grasses; his face hid amongst them.

knew

That the night had divided his whole life in two.
Behind him a Past that was over for ever;
Before him a Future devoid of endeavour
And purpose. He felt a remorse for the one,
Of the other a fear. What remain'd to be done?
Whither now should he turn? turn again, as before,
To his old easy, careless existence of yore

He could not. He felt that for better or worse
A change had pass'd o'er him; an angry remorse
Of his own frantic failure and error had marr'd

He

Such a refuge for ever. The future seem'd barr'd
By the corpse of a dead hope o'er which he must tread
To attain it. Life's wilderness round him was spread.
What clue there to cling by?

To a dynasty fallen for ever.

He clung by a name
He came

Of an old princely house, true through change to the

race

And the sword of Saint Louis-a faith 'twere disgrace
To relinquish, and folly to live for! Nor less
Was his ancient religion (once potent to bless
Or to ban; and the crozier his ancestors kneel'd
To adore, when they fought for the Cross, in hard field.
With the Crescent) become, ere it reach'd him, tradition;
A mere faded badge of a social position;

A thing to retain and say nothing about,

Lest, if used, it should draw degradation from doubt. Thus, the first time he sought them, the creeds of his youth

Wholly fail'd the strong needs of his manhood, in truth!

And beyond them, what region of refuge? what field
For employment, this civilized age, did it yield,
In that civilized land? or to thought? or to action?
Blind deliriums, bewilder'd and endless distraction!
Not even a desert, not even the cell

Of a hermit to flee to, wherein he might quell
The wild devil-instincts which now, unreprest,
Ran riot through that ruin'd world in his breast.

XI.

So he lay there, like Lucifer, fresh from the sight

Of a heaven scaled and lost; in the wide arms of

night

O'er the howling abysses of nothingness! There

As he lay, Nature's deep voice was teaching him

prayer;

But what had he to pray to?

The winds in the woods, The voices abroad o'er those vast solitudes,

Were in commune all round with the invisible Power
That walk'd the dim world by Himself at that hour.
But their language he had not yet learn'd-in despite
Of the much he had learn'd-or forgotten it quite,
With its once native accents. Alas! what had he
To add to that deep-toned sublime symphony
Of thanksgiving? . . . A fiery finger was still
Scorching into his heart some dread sentence.

will,

Like a wind that is put to no purpose, was wild
At its work of destruction within him. The child
Of an infidel age, he had been his own god,
His own devil.

His

He sat on the damp mountain sod, And stared sullenly up at the dark sky.

The clouds Had heap'd themselves over the bare west in crowds Of misshapen, incongruous portents. A green Streak of dreary, cold, luminous ether, between The base of their black barricades, and the ridge

Of the grim world, gleam'd ghastly, as under some

bridge,

Cyclop-sized, in a city of ruins o'erthrown

By sieges forgotten, some river, unknown