Dashing the spray-drops, cold and white,
O'er the glossy leaves, in his young delight,
And bowing his locks to the waters clear-
Alas! he dreamt not that fate was near.
His mother look'd from her tent the while,
O'er heaven and earth, with a quiet smile:
She, on her way unto Mecca's fane,
Had stay'd the march of her pilgrim-train,
Calmly to linger a few brief hours,
In the Bramin city's glorious bowers;
For the pomp of the forest, the wave's bright fall, The red gold of sunset-she loved them all.
The moon rose clear in the splendour given
To the deep-blue night of an Indian heaven;
The boy from the high-arch'd woods came back-
Oh! what had he met in his lonely track?
The serpent's glance, thro' the long reeds bright?
The arrowy spring of the tiger's might?
No!-yet as one by a conflict worn,
With his graceful hair all soil'd and torn,
And a gloom on the lids of his darken'd eye,
And a gash on his bosom he came to die!
He look'd for the face to his young heart sweet,
And found it, and sank at his mother's feet.
"Speak to me!-whence doth the swift blood run?
What hath befall'n thee, my child, my son?"
The mist of death on his brow lay pale,
But his voice just linger'd to breathe the tale,
Murmuring faintly of wrongs and scorn,
And wounds from the children of Brahma borne:
This was the doom for a Moslem found
With foot profane on their holy ground,
This was for sullying the pure waves, free
Unto them alone-'t was their God's decree.
A change came over his wandering look-
The mother shriek'd not then, nor shook:
Breathless she knelt in her son's young blood,
Rending her mantle to stanch its flood:
But it rush'd like a river which none may stay,
Bearing a flower to the deep away.
That which our love to the earth would chain,
Fearfully striving with Heaven in vain,
That which fades from us, while yet we hold,
Clasp'd to our bosoms, its mortal mould,
Was fleeting before her, afar and fast;
One moment-the soul from the face had pass'd!
Are there no words for that common woe
-Ask of the thousands, its depth that know!
The boy had breathed, in his dreaming rest,
Like a low-voiced dove, on her gentle breast:
He had stood, when she sorrow'd, beside her knee,
Painfully stilling his quick heart's glee;
He had kiss'd from her cheek the widow's tears,
With the loving lip of his infant years;
He had smiled o'er her path like a bright spring day-
Now in his blood on the earth he lay!
Murder'd!-Alas! and we love so well
In a world where anguish like this can dwell!
She bow'd down mutely o'er her dead-
They that stood round her watch'd in dread;
They watch'd-she knew not they were by-
Her soul sat veil'd in its agony.
On the silent lip she press'd no kiss,
Too stern was the grasp of her pangs for this;
She shed no tear as her face bent low,
O'er the shining hair of the lifeless brow;
She look'd but into the half-shut eye,
With a gaze that found there no reply,
And, shrieking, mantled her head from sight,
And fell, struck down by her sorrow's might!
And what deep change, what work of power,
Was wrought on her secret soul that hour?
How rose the lonely one?-She rose
Like a prophetess from dark repose!
And proudly flung from her face the veil,
And shook the hair from her forehead pale,
And 'midst her wondering handmaids stood,
With the sudden glance of a dauntless mood.
Ay, lifting up to the midnight sky
A brow in its regal passion high,
With a close and rigid grasp she press'd
The blood-stain'd robe to her heaving breast,
And said "Not yet-not yet
I weep,
Not yet my spirit shall sink or sleep,
Not till yon city, in ruins rent,
Be piled for its victim's monument.
-Cover his dust! bear it on before!
It shall visit those temple-gates once more."
And away in the train of the dead she turn'd,
The strength of her step was the heart that burn'd;
And the Bramin groves in the starlight smiled,
As the mother pass'd with her slaughter'd child.
Hark! a wild sound of the desert's horn
Through the woods round the Indian city borne,
A peal of the cymbal and tambour afar-
War! 'tis the gathering of Moslem war!
The Bramin look'd from the leaguer'd towers-
He saw the wild archer amidst his bowers;
And the lake that flash'd thro' the plantain shade,
As the light of the lances along it play'd;
And the canes that shook as if winds were high,
When the fiery steed of the waste swept by;
And the camp as it lay, like a billowy sea,
Wide round the sheltering Banian tree.
There stood one tent from the rest apart-
That was the place of a wounded heart.
-Oh! deep is a wounded heart, and strong
A voice that cries against mighty wrong;
And full of death, as a hot wind's blight,
Doth the ire of a crush'd affection light.
Maimuna from realm to realm had pass'd,
And her tale had rung like a trumpet's blast.
There had been words from her pale lips pour'd,
Each one a spell to unsheathe the sword.
The Tartar had sprung from his steed to hear,
And the dark chief of Araby grasp'd his spear,
Till a chain of long lances begirt the wall,
And a vow was recorded that doom'd its fall.
Back with the dust of her son she came,
When her voice had kindled that lightning flame;
She came in the might of a queenly foe,
Banner, javelin,. and bended bow;
But a deeper power on her forehead sate-
There sought the warrior his star of fate;
Her eye's wild flash through the tented line
Was hail'd as a spirit and a sign,
And the faintest tone from her lip was caught,
As a Sibyl's breath of prophetic thought.
Vain, bitter glory!-the gift of grief,
That lights up vengeance to find relief.
Transient and faithless!-it cannot fill
So the deep void of the heart, nor still
The yearning left by a broken tie,
That haunted fever of which we die.
Sickening she turn'd from her sad renown,
As a king in death might reject his crown;
Slowly the strength of the walls gave way—
She wither'd faster from day to day.
All the proud sounds of that banner'd plain,
To stay the flight of her soul were vain;
Like an eagle caged, it had striven, and worn
The frail dust ne'er for such conflicts born,
Till the bars were rent, and the hour was come
For its fearful rushing through darkness home.
The bright sun set in his pomp and pride,
As on that eve when the fair boy died;
She gazed from her couch, and a softness fell
O'er her weary heart with the day's farewell;
She spoke, and her voice in its dying tone
Had an echo of feelings that long seem'd flown.
She murmur'd a low sweet cradle song,
Strange 'midst the din of a warrior throng,
VOL. V. 17
|