Classic Poem

Was it the sound of a human cry,
Or wail of a night-bird driven by?
The lady started and halfway rose,
With that look the walking sleeper shows, —
With large eyes staring vacantly,
That seem to listen and not to see.
Then, with a tongue of pitiful glee,
She cried, " O Roland, if that should be
The voice of my friend so old and gray,
Struggling among the rocks and spray!

" There, did you not hear? that wild cry through the roar!
Hark again! It is his! Wave the torch at the door
And beacon him in! Oh, I faint as I think,
Perchance how he clings to some terrible brink! "
Even while she spoke, as if at her will,
The door swung wide, and over the sill
The gust and the roar and the spray swept in,
Like a crew of wild pirates, with insolent din:
And suddenly a group of three
Toiled breathlessly after, all dripping the sea.

There came the monk in his robe of brown,
Over his breast his white beard blown
And sparkling like a burst of foam;
As if old Neptune should leave his home,
To traverse the dry land up and down
Disguised in a friar's hood and gown.

And bearing a lantern, so covered with spray
That the light could scarcely emit a ray,
Came the fisherman, whose sturdy arm
Had rescued the pious man from harm.
There, too, was the maiden, the fisherman's child,
With her glowing cheeks and eyelids mild.
For many a mile about the coast,
That father and child were the country's boast
And many a sailor on a far-off deck
Remembered Agatha and the wreck.
Fame fondly pictured their struggling forms
Battling against the blackest storms.
Through day or dark they might be found
Braving the tempest in their round;
And thus to-night they had met the storm,
And rescued from death this saintly form.

That moment there
Was a living picture bold and rare,
With its massive lights and shadows thrown
From the torch in the hands of the withered crone,
Exalted above her own wild hair
Which streamed like the shreds of a banner in air,
Tattered, confused, as if torn in the strife
Of the seventy years' war waged by Death against Life.

The lady arose with joy and ran
And fell on the breast of the ancient man;
And wept such tears as a child might shed
On the breast of a parent just saved from the dead.
Then from her heart of gratitude
She thanked the fisherman, where he stood
Gazing on her with marvelling face,
As if in some enchanted place
He stood, with uncontrolled sight,
Chained to a vision of delight.

And then she seized the daughter's hand.
A moment her large eyes softly scanned
The modest maid, with look as mild
As a mother casts on her beauteous child,
Conscious that its face confers
A ray of splendour back to hers.
Then drawing her near with a smile of bliss,
Pronounced her thanks in a tender kiss.
Suddenly pale grew the maiden's lips,
And her soul was veiled with a deep eclipse;
And she sunk at the old monk's feet with dread,
Begging his blessing to rest on her head.
And cried, " Oh, let me see and touch
The CROSS , which we cannot kiss too much!
And count one prayer on the beads divine! "
And the old monk murmured, — " My blessing is thine. "
While he laid his hand on her shining hair;
But it seemed like a fiery gauntlet there!

Then tracing his girdle and fumbling his dress,
He cried, with a visage of deep distress,
" Oh, wo is me! They are lost in the sea —
That miracle cross and rosary!
Torn from my side in those desperate shocks
When the billows were lifting me over the rocks
Oh, wo is me! They were made from a tree
In the garden of holy Geth — — "
Here the sea,
Through the open door, hurled into the place
Such a cloud of spray that the old man's face
Was smothered with brine. The white torch hissed,
And all the room was blind with the mist.

Then thrice the maiden, with look distressed,
Signed the cross on her brow and breast,
And thus to the friar her fear confessed: —
" I feel in my soul what I cannot say;
But something so wicked has blown this way,
That I cannot choose but shudder and shrink,
As if I were dragged to a horrible brink.
A demon is breathing this very air,
Which can only be banished afar with prayer! "

The monk bent soothingly over her form,
And said, " Be calm, my child, it is only the storm;
Take cheer, take cheer!
It is only the loud wind shrieking near.
The wind and the night and the sea
Are all that be
Abroad to fill the soul with fear. "