And that pale woman, suddenly subdued By some strong passion, in its gushing mood, From the heart's urn; and with her white lips press'd Isaure had pray'd for that lost mother; wept But never breathed in human ear the name She sank, while o'er her castle's threshold stone, Her child bent o'er her—call'd her—'t was too lateDead lay the wanderer at her own proud gate! The joy of courts, the star of knight and bardHow didst thou fall, O bright-hair'd Ermengarde! THE MOURNER FOR THE BARMECIDES. "O good old man! how well in thee appears As You Like It. FALLEN was the House of Giafar; and its name, A sound forbidden on its own bright shores, 'Twas desolate Where Giafar's halls, beneath the burning sun, Had ceased; the guests were gone. Yet still one voice courts, Over the broken marble and the grass, And still another voice!-an aged man, A tone that shook them with its answering thrill To his deep accents. Many a glorious tale The ivy of its ruins, unto which His fading life seem'd bound. Day roll'd on day, And he was changed!-and thus, in rapid words, Th' o'ermastering thoughts more strong than death found way. “And shall I not rejoice to go, when the noble and the brave, With the glory on their brows, are gone before me to the grave ? What is there left to look on now, what brightness in the land? I hold in scorn the faded world, that wants their princely band! 66 My chiefs! my chiefs! the old man comes that in your halls was nursed That follow'd you to many a fight, where flash'd your sabres first That bore your children in his arms, your name upon his heart: Oh! must the music of that name with him from earth depart? "It shall not be! a thousand tongues, though human voice were still, With that high sound the living air trumphantly shall fill; The wind's free flight shall bear it on as wandering seeds are sown, And the starry midnight whisper it, with a deep and thrilling tone. "For it is not as a flower whose scent with the dropping leaves expires, And it is not as a household lamp, that a breath should quench its fires; It is written on our battle-fields with the writing of the sword, It hath left upon our desert sands a light in blessings pour'd. "The founts, the many gushing founts, which to the wild ye gave, Of you, my chiefs, shall sing aloud, as they pour a joyous wave! And the groves, with whose deep lovely gloom ye hung the pilgrim's way, Shall send from all their sighing leaves your praises on the day. "The very walls your bounty rear'd for the stranger's homeless head, Shall find a murmur to record your tale, my glorious dead! Though the grass be where ye feasted once, where lute and cittern rung, And the serpent in your palaces lie coil'd amidst its young. "It is enough! mine eye no more of joy or splendour sees I leave your name in lofty faith, to the skies and to the breeze! I go, since earth her flower hath lost, to join the bright and fair, And call the grave a kingly house, for ye, my chiefs, are there!" |