Classic Poem

The outlaw's cavern was a lonely place
And wild, deep set within the mountain side;
Whose rocks, clean-swept by summer torrents, hung,
Toppling, about its mouth, and strewed the vale,
Through which a river glided lazily,
Gleaming through openings in its verdurous bounds.

Upon the sward that sloped below the cave.
Where Syrian date-trees dropped their isles of shade,
Were grouped the habitants of this rude realm:
A hardy, reckless race, of motley garb
And varied arms, and visages that told
Of fiery, vengeful natures, now relaxed
To merriment and ease, as round the jest,
Or tale of danger braved or booty won,
Or darker recital of olden wrongs,
Not unredressed, though unforgotten, passed.

Apart from all the noisy crowd he sat
Where a cool springlet issued from the earth,
Half leaning with his elbow on a stone,
His head upon his hand. His garb, though soiled,
Still showed its former richness, and the gold
Which graced a year agone a city's chief
Still shone in tarnished lustre on his scarf.
A turban torn from off a desert prince
(The work of distant Cashmere's matchless looms)
Rested upon his brow; and in his belt
A jewelled dagger of Sidonian make
As brightly shone as ere it left the girdle
Of its Philistian master.
Huge in form
And fitted to endure endless fatigue
He seemed; and in his firm-set mouth and beard
Of wiry iron-gray you well might read
The dauntless resolution of the man
And tireless energy. His massive forehead
Rose clear and high above his well-arched brows,
And the deep branching lines that gathered there
Told of the life-long struggle, and the pride
That could not easily forgive a wrong,
And would not stoop to mean servility.
But in his eyes a dull abiding pain
Seemed to look forth, as though there glowed and glowed,
Deep in his inmost soul, the thought of all
He might have been: for surely there he felt
The innate stamp and seal of majesty.
But driven forth from native land and friends,
Branded with ignominy not his own
(And a hard bitterness seized on his soul
At the thought), barred all social intercourse,
And, worse than all, ambition's noblest aims,
Was it a wonder that his patriotism
Had turned to direst hatred, and his love
Of all mankind to scorn and wrath, until,
Like Ishmael of old, he only knew
His race as enemies?
Yet in this wild
Unfettered life he had found a kind of joy,
As the freed eagle finds, when from his cage
He soars up proudly to his native heaven.
This and the charm of gratified revenge,
Wherein fierce minds like his take strange delight,
And the great fame, though bad, which he had won
(For far and wide through all the Syrian lands
Were Jephthah's daring deeds of prowess told,
And the tired warders of the caravan
Scarce dared to rest without the city's walls
For fear of that bold robber of the hills),
Had made him oft the merriest of the crew,
And loved the more for mingling with them thus.

This in his earlier years. But as he grew
In age, the romance seemed to leave his life,
And the hard labor and the strife remained.
And he could see the black unblessed end,
When those who feared could safely scoff at him,
And those who loved would fain deny his name.
Nor had time failed to bring its load of grief:
Yonder upon the hill-side lay the grave
Of his wife Amra, loveliest of the land,
Who followed him in his sad exodus
Into the desert, shared his hardships there,
Joined in his plans, but checked his cruelty:
And losing whom he had lost half his soul.

No kindred now remained to him save those
Whose ties were burst by long-continued hate,
And one beside, a fair and fragile flower,
Fearless as fair, of soft persuasive voice
And merry mien though gentle: hating wrong,
And loving good for its own holy sake:
Pure-souled as the far mountain lake, whose breast,
Unchanged itself, reflects the changing heaven, —
Nestling the fleecy cloudlet, or the storm
Sublimely painting, or the starry night
In its sweet melancholy rivalling.