Classic Poem

And when you left me what thoughts had I then
Percy I would not tell you to your face
But out of sight & thought of living men
Wandering away on the lone ocean's face
I may say what I think & how & when
The mood comes on me I may give it space
Confessing like a dying man to heaven
Anxious alone to have his sins forgiven

Not caring what the world he leaves may say
Heedless of its forgotten hate & scorn
But giving full & free & fearless way
To secrets that the fear of death has torn
From his concealing bosom where they lay
Scorching the soul in which their sparks were born
Aye Alexander just so recklessly
I give my dreams to the wild wind & sea

You are a fiend, I've told you that before
I've told it half in earnest half in jest
I've sworn it when the very furnace roar
Of hell was rising fiercely in my breast
And calmly I confirm the oath once more
Adding however as becomes me best
That I'm no better & we two united
Each other's happiness have fiend-like blighted

Let us consider, let us just look back
And trace the pleasant path we've trod together
The retrospect is dreary, cold & black
And threatens rain our own grim Angrian weather
There are some slips of greensward on the track
Glorious with sunshine, but dark slopes of heather
Copses of night-shade, thickets void of flowers
These are the chief types of those by-past hours

How oft we rung each other's callous hearts
Conscious none else could so effectively
Waken the pain or venom the keen darts
We shot so thickly so unsparingly
Into those sensitive & tender parts
That veiled from all besides ourselves could see
like eating cankers pains that heaven had dealt
On devotees to crime, sworn slaves of guilt

And still our mutual doom accomplishing
Blind as the Damned our anti-types if one
Had in his treasures, some all priceless thing
Some jewel that he deeply doated on
Dearer to him than life, the fool would fling
That rich gem to his friend, he could not shun
The influence of his star, though well he knew
His friend that treasure to the winds would strew

Percy your daughter was a lovely being
Truly you must have loved her, her sweet eyes
Showed in their varied lustre changing fleeing
Such warm & intense passion, that which lies
In your own breast & save to the All-seeing
Not fully known to any could not rise
To stronger inspiration, than their ray
Revealed when I had waked her nature's wildest play

When Mary was grown up an open rose
A western girl, just ripe for woman-hood
With those Milesian eyes whose lids disclose
Spirits that only glad the Gambia's flood
Glowing like sunlight on the stream which flows
Hesperia through thy land of lake & wood
I tell thee Percy not one Nation's breast
Bears women like our own infernal West

But then they're mostly hasty soon excited
To wrath with little reason, theres thy wife
She's just the clear dark skin, the glance uplighted
With thoughts that always fill the soul with strife
The gait the form the fervent mind benighted
Which might suit Italy, or else the knife
That eastern ladies, crowned sultanas wear
A glittering sign to bid their lords beware!

However I'll return again to Mary
There's something sweet & soothing in that word
A dreamy charm as if some wandering fairy
Had breathed it or some little spirit bird
Had warbled it unseen for soft & airy
And oft divinely holy it is heard
I know my dark speech does not need explaining
For Percy well thou knowest it hath a meaning

Well sir when Mary on some pleasant even
Has sat beside you perhaps at Percy-Hall
And in the richest purest light of heaven
You've seen the curls around her temples fall
And when the coming gloom of Dusk has given
A tone of such sad loveliness to all
Could you look on her sir & think that she
Must sometime be a prey to such as me

I well remember on our marriage-day
An hour or two after the bridal rite
She & I somehow chanced to find our way
Into a large & empty hall whose light
Streaming through painted windows shed its ray
On nothing save our-selves, the floor of stone
And the pure fountain falling there alone

I gazed on her Ionian face, so fair
In all its lines so classically straight
Her marble forehead with the haloing hair
Sunnily cluster[ed] round it, whereon sate
A shade that soon might deepen into care
Even such dark care as has gloomed there of late
Though then t'was but the sadness said to lie
On the fair brows of those who early die

I asked her if she loved me and she said
That she would die for me with such a glance
Talk of the fiery arrowy lustre bred
By the hot southern suns of Spain & France
I say again as I before have said
Our western tenderness does so enhance
The ardour of our women's souls & spirits
That nought on earth such fire divine inherits

She said she'd die for me & now she's keeping
Her word far off at Alnwick, o'er the sea
The very wind around this vessel sweeping
Will steal unto her pillow whisperingly
And murmur o'er her form which shall be sleeping
Ere-long beneath some quiet pall-like tree
I would she were within my reach just now
Not long that shade should haunt her Grecian brow

She'd feel the stream of life run strong again
If I could only take her to my breast
She'd feel a balm poured on her aching pain
Her day-long weariness would know a rest
But then there's the profound wide, thundering main
Tossing between us its triumphant crest
Of snow-white foam, & then I've pledged my faith
To break her father's heart by Mary's death

A holy resolution and it will
Be visited upon me thirty-fold
For human-nature feels a shuddering chill
To hear of life for bloody vengeance sold
An animal passion when unmoved & still
And vulture-like it fixes its stern hold
Deep, in the very vitals of its slave
Making his bosom but a hungry grave

And so my lord if you have ruined me
And ruined all the hopes I ever cherished
I've paid you back & that abundantly
You'll feel it when that flower of yours has perished
And dark & desolate that hour shall be
When the place where my dazzling lily flourished
Shall know no more its past magnificence
Death having gathered it & borne it hence

I'm walking on the Deck & King is leaning
O'er the ship's rails & communing with me
Would you could hear the bloody tales he's gleaning
From the dark harvest of his memory
Would you could see his eye's ferocious meaning
Bent gloatingly upon the surging sea
He says that monarch of exhaustless founts
Is the best balancer of men's accounts

He say's if I'd been wise I should have taken
My lady with me on this distant sail
And kindly tenderly have striven to waken
That bliss again which had begun to fail
And that I should defyingly have shaken
My fist in fortune's face & made her quail
The old blind jade, & turned my hand like thee
To blood & pillage on the rolling sea

And some sweet night the hoary saint is saying
Some heavenly, holy tropic summer night
When dying gales upon the deep are straying
As soft as if they came down with the light
The moon diffuses while the stars decaying
Before her beam imperial, still may yield
A radiant tremor o'er that deep, blue field

Then says the Mentor when my Mary's sleeping
Wrapt blissfully in dreams of love & me
Quietly ghost-like to her cabin creeping
I should have brought her up all tenderly
And while the lulling waves were past us sweeping
Have given her to the bosom of the sea
As she still slumbered, & no sob or moan
Was wakened to tell which way the bird had flown

It would look well says Sdeath to see her sinking
All in white raiment through the placid deep
From the pure limpid water never shrinking
Calmly subsiding to eternal sleep
Dreaming of him that's drowning her, not thinking
She's soon to be where sharks & sword-fish leap
And if she rose again a few days hence
Looking like death it would but stand to sense

To common sense, a corpse laid in the water
Must putrify whosever corpse it be
And neither Adrian's wife nor Percy's daughter
Can be left out in Nature's great decree
He'd seen stout men who'd fallen by pirate slaughter
A few days after float up buoyantly
And laughed to watch the light & fleet career
They held upon the water's surface clear

He'd seen you stand upon the Rover's deck
As calm as if t'were sea-weed floating by
Order a weight to be tied round their neck
Cool as a cucumber, for proud & high
You'd too much sense to suffer such a speck
To dim a moment your rejoicing sky
Your spirit was a sun which drove away
Such slight obscurers of the light of day.

Of late our ship along the coast of France
Was gliding in the gentle gales which blow
Of from the storied hills of old Provence
We saw Marseilles frown on the waves below
It's pleasant when the sunny billows dance
All gladsomely around the vessel's prow
And when a town & shore before you lie
The home of thousands neath their native sky

It's pleasant then to think that you are hasting
As fast as wind & flowing sail can fleet
To a black jail of rocks & keen & wasting
Are the strong impulses & pangs that eat
At that thought through the heart & were they lasting
They'd soon infold you in your winding sheet
But they pass off in sickness, sometimes tears
And then again the dim sky coldly clears

I stood upon the deck, the vessel's rails
I was convulsive grasping, for around
The life & gaiety of Proud Marseilles
Were poured upon its harbour, not a sound
Rung o'er the deep but glad as chiming bells
It spoke of life & made my bosom bound
With a wild wish for freedom, worse than vain
My breast but struck the stronger 'gainst a chain

At that dark moment something spoke my name
My title rather which ought now to die
'Twas from a female that the soft sound came
She said in French “zamorna will you buy?”
I turned it was like the kindling of a flame
To utter that word 'neath an alien sky
I saw a girl beside me dark & tall
Her face all shaded by her tresses' fall

The curls as black & bright as jet descended
From under the Provencal hat she wore
A basket full of grapes & vine leaves blended
With roses all in Gallic taste she bore
And as on her my silent gaze I bended
She offered me her rich corbeille once more
Murmuring in the soft tone of sympathy
You shall not buy them, you shall have them free

I took a rosebud dropping in its stead
A coin of my own ruined kingdom graced
With the wreathed impress of my own wise head
And then, you know my ways, however placed
Were it upon the scaffold flashing red
With noble blood & forms all death defaced
Or were it underneath the gallows tree
I'd kiss the lovely lips that pitied me

My slaughtered, hunted Angrians, shall I ever
Your Ransomer, your Conquering King return
Your brutal Taskmasters will never never
Rule you as I have ruled you, they will burn
The slave mark on your brows & they will sever
The last domestic ties & make you mourn
Wildly & hopelessly, while I am lying
Far in yon dreary Isle alone it may be dying

And what made me speak thus, why I recalled
The times Bright East when I was King in thee
And when thy wildest mountains heather-palled
With all their iron vassalage knew me
And my land's daughters now with bondage galled
Were as the Gordon red deer chainless free
And thousands of their ruby lips have known
The touch of Adrian's when he claimed his own

Well when I lifted up the fruit-girl's head
To give her that salute the black curls parted
And the revealed & flashing eye-balls shed
A ray upon me not unknown, I started
And half indignantly I would have said
“This must not be,” but then so broken-hearted
So full of dying hope was that dark eye
I could not put its mute petition bye

And so I turned again towards the town
And looked down on its vast & busy quay
And meekly obstinate the Girl sat down
Beside me on the deck & murmuringly
She said, “Zamorna I have borne your frown
Often before & now I dare not be
Delicate in my duties; those must dwell
In gloom habitual, who would serve you well

I stayed in Angria sire until the hour
Was past when I could serve my master their
Until they had dug up the cherished flower
He gave unto my sleepless, deathless care
Until they'd broken his own domestic bower
Shivered his shrine & scattered in the air
The relics he loved well, & this task done
I rose & followed where my lord was gone

I will be with you Sire you'll want me soon
In that lone, dreary Island where you go
You'll sicken of the melancholy tune
The waves will play around you in their flow
And wandering on its shore with ship-wrecks strewn
You'll feel its solitude full well & I know
Go to your heart & then a wretch like me
Might serve you still in that extremity

She spoke I made no answer we were now
Leaving the harbour of Marseilles behind
Sdeath had weighed anchor & the Rover's prow
Was flashing through the wave before the wind
The gleaming walls & towers began to grow
Dim in the distance, scarce the eye might find
More than the misty outlines of their forms
Shadowy as rocks obscured by coming storms

Our captain came & swore that she should stay
He'd have no boats sent off to land not he
She might have known the ship was under weigh
She saw it moving through the severed sea
And by his soul & by the light of day
He'd never stir a step to pleasure me
And Mina smiled to see her end was gained
Fortune had favoured her & she remained

Now for my Mary's sake I have not given
One smile or glance of love to that poor slave
And I have seen her woman's feelings riven
With pangs that made her look down on the wave
As if it were her home her hope her heaven
Because a semblance of repose it gave
She sees I do not want her, none can tell
What torments from that chill conviction swell

I cannot spurn her, though my wife is dying
Cheerless & desolate in solitude
This moment like a faithful dog she's lying
Crouched at my feet, for with a sad subdued
Untiring constancy she's ever trying
To gain one word or even one look embued
With some slight touch of kindness, there then take
A brief caress, for all thy labour's sake

I did but grasp her little hand & press
The taper fingers as a brother might
And she looked upward in her meek distress
While such a glad adoring ray of light
Shot from her large black eyes as if to bless
A God for mercies given & full & bright
The gathered tear ran over, then again
They bent their radiance on the solemn main

Last night she told me all the dreary tale
Of what has happened Percy to my son
How all her watchful care could not avail
How she had struggled how her prize was won
And the departing blood left cold & pale
The cheek that lately it glowed so brightly on
As she revealed what floating rumour said
That the young lord of Avon-dale was dead

That my brave Angrians to the rescue flew
Urged on by Warner, that the boy they found
Alive but as their noble leader true
A bloody bandage from his eyes unbound
Lo he was sightless! & a faintness grew
Over her as she told of many a wound
In his young frame & she fell down & prayed
That I would bear with what was still unsaid

E're I could speak, the impetuous words came gushing
Forth from her lips, It was by night she cried
The tryst was on a moor & there came rushing
The thousand serfs to Warner's house allied
He stood up in the midst, the red blood flushing
His face & brow, his voice rung far & wide
As in that hour he bade them look upon
The mangled relics of their monarch's son

And out into the ghastly moonlight holding
A sheet all stained with blood he turned aside
The drapery a gory corpse infolding
A corpse though still the blood in gentle tide
Crept through its veins, but death the face was moulding
Rightly for that home which the earth shall hide
Oh sire dread was that midnight's staring gloom
Which saw thy flower so blighted in its bloom

Men's hearts were toned to horror & thei