Lady Jane Wilde: Verses about Sleep

It was the lark—not the nightingale
Poured forth her notes of warning;
Upwards she flew from the sun‐lit vale,
Awoke by the light of the morning.
The day, the day is bright!

The night
Hath fled that in darkness bound ye;
Fling ye the myrtle of love aside,
And grasp the sword whate'er may betide
For the Foemen are gathering round ye!
It was the lark—not the nightingale
Arouse ye from apathy's slumber!
Few and dull do your watchfires pale,
But they soon shall the stars outnumber.
Awake, awake to life!

The strife
For God and your right advances;
Leave the white arms of weeping beauty,
The van of the battle's your post of duty,
Where glitter the Foeman's lances!
It was the lark—not the nightingale
The gate of the morning uncloses;
She sings of the thundering cannon's hail
She sings of the battle's roses;
On the warrior's breast

They rest
The crimson roses that free the world!
Up, then, in Liberty's cause ye are sent
Let the wide heavens be but one warrior's tent
When the banner of Freedom's unfurled.
It was the lark—not the nightingale
Leave, then, O youth, thy dreaming!
As dashes the torrent adown the vale,
O'er all barriers wildly streaming,
So of thy young heart's blood,

The flood
Pour down on the thirsty land;
And Liberty's cause, that would else have died,
Will bloom afresh from that crimson tide;
So pledge ye your heart and hand.
It was the lark—not the nightingale
Who chanted a Nation's rise;
Borne on the wings of the morning gale,
It peals through the azure skies.
Liberty's torch is bright!

The light
May mock our tyrant's scorning,
For millions of hearts will be kindled ere noon;
And the freedom we dream'd of in darkness, full soon
We'll achieve in the light of the morning!

Was sorrow ever like to our sorrow?
Oh, God above!
Will our night never change into a morrow
Of joy and love?
A deadly gloom goom is on us waking, sleeping,
Like the darkness at noontide,
That fell upon the pallid mother, weeping
By the Crucified.

Before us die our brothers of starvation:
Around are cries of famine and despair
Where is hope for us, or comfort, or salvation—
Where—oh! where?
If the angels ever hearken, downward bending,
They are weeping, we are sure,
At the litanies of human groans ascending
From the crushed hearts of the poor.

When the human rests in love upon the human,
All grief is light;
But who bends one kind glance to illumine
Our life‐long night?
The air around is ringing with their laughter—
God has only made the rich to smile;
But we—in our rags, and want, and woe—we follow after,
Weeping the while.

And the laughter seems but uttered to deride us.
When—oh! when
Will fall the frozen barriers that divide us
From other men?
Will ignorance for ever thus enslave us?
Will misery for ever lay us low?
All are eager with their insults, but to save us,
None, none, we know.

We never knew a childhood’s mirth and gladness,
Nor the proud heart of youth, free and brave;
Oh! a deathlike dream of wretchedness and sadness,
Is life’s weary journey to the grave.
Day by day we lower sink and lower,
Till the Godlike soul within,
Falls crushed, beneath the fearful demon power
Of poverty and sin.

So we toil on, on with fever burning
In heart and brain;
So we toil on, on through bitter scorning,
Want, woe, and pain:
We dare not raise our eyes to the blue heaven,
Or the toil must cease—
We dare not breathe the fresh air God has given
One hour in peace.
VII.
We must toil, though the light of life is burning,
Oh, how dim!
We must toil on our sick bed, feebly turning
Our eyes to Him,
Who alone can hear the pale lip faintly saying,
With scarce moved breath
While the paler hands, uplifted, aid the praying—
“Lord, grant us Death!”

Secretly by night returning,
Jealous fears within him burning,
The Waiwode seeks his young wife’s bed,
And with trembling hand, uncertain,
Backward draws the silken curtain
Death and vengeance—she has fled!

With a frown like tempest weather,
Fierce he knits his brows together,
Tears his beard in wrathful mood
Roars in thunder through the castle,
Summoning each trembling vassal,
“Ho there! slaves—ye devil’s brood!
“Who left the castle gate unguarded,
And slew the hound?—some hand unbarr’d it!
Quick! prepare ye sack and cord!
My arms here, fellows—loaded, ready!
Now, slave, your pistols, follow—steady
Ha, traitress! thou shalt feel this sword
Close in the murky shadows hiding,
Slave and master, onward gliding,
Reach the garden. There, indeed,
Listening to the soft appealing
Of a youth before her kneeling,
Stands she in her white naridd.
Through the marble fountain’s playing,
Passion’s words they hear him saying
“How I love thee, yet thou’st sold
All thy beauty’s glowing treasures,
All this soft hand’s tender pressures,
For the Waiwode’s cursed gold.
“How I loved, as none can love thee;
Waited, wept—if tears could move thee
Ah! and is it thus we meet?
He ne’er strove through tears and troubles,
Only clang’d his silver roubles,
And thou fallest at his feet.
Yet once more, through night and storm,
I ride to gaze upon thy form,
Touch again that thrilling hand;
Pray that peace may rest upon thee
In the home that now has won thee,
Then for ever fly this land.”

Low she bendeth o’er him weeping,
Heeds not stealthy footsteps creeping,
Sees not jealous eye‐balls glare
“Now, slave, steady,—Fool, thou tremblest
Vengeance if thy heart dissemblest
Kill her as she standeth there.”
“Oh, my Lord and master, hear me
Patience yet, or much I fear me
I shall never aim aright.
See, the bitter night wind’s blowing
Numbs my hand, and brings these flowing
Icy tears to dim my sight.”
“Silence! thou accurséd Russian.
Hold—I’ll guide the pistol’s motion;
See’st thou not her gleaming brow?
So, steady—straight before thee—higher
When I give gave the signal, fire
Darker doom awaits him—Now!”
A shot, a groan, and all is over;
Still she standeth by her lover
’Tis the Waiwode falleth dead!
Was ever known such sad disaster?
The bungling slave hath shot his master
Straight and steady through the head.

Full seven times the summer sun
Had waked the dreaming summer flowers,
And seven times they slept again
Beneath the winter snow and showers;
And still, through summer’s parching heat,
Through winter’s storm, and rain, and snow,
Had Thekla dragged her weary feet
In one long pilgrimage of woe.
The beasts fled back at her approach,
The sunshine shunshine ceased to flicker round,
The flowers withered at her touch,
And fell like corpses to the ground.
Where’er she passed there lay a gloom,
The young birds shivered in the nest,
All nature echoed back her doom,
And spurned the sinner from her breast.
She flung her sighs out to the wind:
The peasants heard that mournful wail,
And, crouching down by winter fires,
Said: “’Tis the witch‐fiend in the vale.”
They laid down food beneath the trees,
And waited, trembling, till she came,
Then fled away, for none would speak
To one so bann’d by sin and shame.

She gathered autumn leaves and moss,
Within a cavern lone and deep,
And there she crept each night to rest,
To rest, but never more to sleep.
No human voice came near to soothe,
Her anguish dimm’d no human eye,
The bond of sisterhood was rent
Between her and Humanity.
But ever when the moon was full,
All in the moonlight weird and still
Came evermore upon her ear
The moanings by the lonely mill;
And seven dread shadows entered in
And gathered round her lowly bed,
The ghastly witnesses of sin,
A silent freezing sight of dread.
All night they stayed, those phantoms pale,
Those formless phantoms phantons dim and drear,
And looked at her with fixed cold eyes,
That chilled her very blood with fear.
In vain she tried to hide her face;
She felt their presence still around,
And well she knew no pitying grace
From these dread beings could be found.
She could not weep, she dare not pray,
But lay like one in coffined clay,
Till those weird phantoms, one by one,
Melted away in the morning sun,
Which fell like the light of the judgement‐day,
When the doom of the Lord is done.
Oft wandering round the ancient church,
The ruined church where they were wed,
She vainly tried to cross the porch,
And lay therein her weary head;
And her weary load of shame and sin
Upon the altar steps within.

But never, since the fatal night
She fled away from Erick’s sight,
Curs’d with his ban of deepest hate,
Had human hand unbarred the gate;
Nor priest nor chorister was there,
Nor sacred rite nor holy prayer:
Foredoom’d and desolate it stood
All in the lonely beechen wood.
God’s curse it is a bitter thing
To fall on a human soul,
Alone with its awful suffering,
With its deadly sin and dole;
’Mid the ghastly wrecks of a human life,
And memories of shame,
When thoughts of a past that would not sleep,
Like barbèd arrows came.

We stand in the light of a dawning day,
With its glory creation flushing;
And the life‐currents up from the pris’ning clay
Through the world’s great heart are rushing.
While from peak to peak of the spirit land
A voice unto voice is calling:
The night is over, the day is at hand,
And the fetters of earth are falling!

Yet, faces are pale with a mystic fear
Of the strife and trouble looming;
And we feel that mighty changes are near,
Tho’ the Lord delayeth his coming.

For the rent flags hang from each broken mast,
And down in the ocean’s surges
The shattered wreck of a foundering Past
Sinks mid the night wind’s dirges.

But the world goes thundering on to the light,
Unheeding our vain presages;
And nations are cleaving a path to Right
Through the mouldering dust of ages.
Are we, then, to rest in a chill despair,
Unmoved by these new elations;
Nor carry the flag of our Island fair
In the onward march of nations?

Shall our hands be folded in slumber, when
The bonds and the chains are shattered;
As stony and still as enchanted men,
In a cave of darkness fettered?
The cave may be dark, but we’ll flash bright gleams
Of the morning’s radiance on it,
And tread the New Path, tho’ the noontide beams,
As yet, fall faintly upon it.

For souls are around us, with gifts divine,
Unknown and neglected dying;
Like the precious ore in a hidden mine,
Unworked and as useless lying.
We summon them forth to the banded war,
The sword of the Spirit using,
To come with their forces from near and far,
New strength with our strength infusing.

Let each bear a torch with the foremost bands,
Through the Future’s dark outgoing;
Or stand by the helm, mid the shoals and sands
Of the river of life fast flowing.

Or as guides on the hills, with a bugle note,
Let us warn the mountain ranger
Of the chasms that cross and the mists that float
O’er his upward path of danger.

For the chasms are deep, and the river is strong,
And the tempest is wildly waking;
We have need of brave hands to guide us along
The path which the Age is taking.
With our gold and pearls let us build the State;
Faith, courage, and tender pity
Are the gems that shine on the golden gate
Of the Angels’ Heavenly city.

O People! so richly endowed with all
The splendours of spirit power,
With the poet’s gift and the minstrel‐soul,
And the orator’s glorious dower;
Are hearts not amongst us, or lips to vow,
With patriot fervour breathing,
To crown with their lustre no alien brow
While the thorn our own is wreathing.

Ev’n lovelier gifts on our lowly poor,
Kind Nature lavishly showers,
As the gold rain falls on the cottage door,
Of the glowing laburnam flowers;
The deathless love for their Country and God
Undimmed through the ages keeping,
Tho’ the fairest harvests that grew on our sod
Were left for the stangers’ reaping.

The gentle grace that to commonest words
Gives a rare and tender beauty;
With the zeal that would face a thousand swords
For their Country, home and duty.

Still breathing the prayer for their Motherland
Her wrongs and her sorrows taught them;
Tho’ the scaffold’s doom, or the felon‐brand,
Were the only gifts she brought them.

But we, let us bring her—as eastern kings,
At the foot of Christ low kneeling
The gold that symbols our costliest things,
And myrrh for the spirit’s healing
Oh, Brothers! be with us, our aim is high,
The highest of man’s vocation:
With these priceless jewels, that round us lie,
To build up a noble Nation.

Vain the love that looketh upward; we may worship, may adore;
From the heart's o'erflowing chalice all the tide of feeling pour;
Dash our souls against the barriers that divide us from the shrine;
Fling the incense; pour libations—aye, of life's own ruddy wine;
But, the angel we gaze up to, calm as form of pictured saint,
From its golden mist of glory bendeth never to our plaint plant;
Heedeth not if crushed the temple where the altar fires burned,
For the doom runs through the ages—Love was never yet returned.
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II.
Thus it was he loved a lady: never priest in Ispahàn
So adored when mount and ocean morning's flashing glories span.
Never sun‐god in its glory, marching stately from the east,
Crimson‐robed and cloud‐attended, heeded less the praying priest,
Than the lady that pale lover, while her lonely path she took
O'er the spirit's glittering summits, with her proud and queenly look;
Like that Roman Sybil bearing in her hands the mystic scroll,
And her large eyes looking onward where the future ages roll.

So, in lone and lofty beauty, she stood high above the world,
Never heeding, dashing neathward, how life's stormy billows curled;
As a pine upon the mountain, warring tempests raging round,
As an island peak of ocean, with the starry midnight crowned.
How could she who trod the pathway of the spirit's starry zones
Stoop to listen, bending earthward, to a lover's murmuring tones? —
While her ear was gathering music from Creation's golden chords,
List the human tears low falling, with the pleading human words?

And could he, who tracked the eagle borne on through cloud and light,
With her glorious regnant beauty filling soul and sense and sight,

Stoop to gaze on me, half‐blasted by fierce Passion's fiery skies,
Only Love, the love of woman, burning strangely in my eyes?
Oh! I've watched his glance dilating, as it rested where afar
Rose her lofty brow, as riseth the pale glory of a star;
Heard the world's praise hymning round her, saw his cheek of flushing pride,
Whilst I, writhing in heart‐agony, all calmly sat beside.

No rays of genius crowning, such as brows like hers enrol,
With no flashing thoughts, like North‐lights, rushing up my darkened darkned soul;
Waking but his earnest feelings with, perchance, my graver words,
While her spirit, like a tempest, swept the range of Passion's chords.
Oh, Woman! calmest sufferer! what deep agony oft lies
In thy low, false‐hearted laughter, glancing bright through tearless eyes!
And how little deemed he truly that the calmest eyes he met
Were but Joy's funereal torches, on Life's ruined altar set.

How could I light up his nature, with no glory in my own?
Soul like his, that throbbed and glittered in the radiance of her throne.
Bitter came the words of plaining:—Why should fate to me deny
All the beauty of the mortal, all the soul to deify?
What had she done, then, for Heaven, so that Heaven should confer
Every gift, to make man prostrate at her feet as worshipper?

Raised her high enough to scorn him—aye, to trample in disdain
On the heart flung down before her—heart that I had died to gain!

Trod his love down calmly, queenly, like a mantle 'neath her feet,
While with lordly spirit‐monarchs she moved proudly to her seat,
Grand as eagle in the zenith, with the noonday radiance crowned
Lone and icy as an Alp‐peak, with the circling glaciers round.
But an echo of all beauty through her fine‐toned spirit rang,
As a golden harp re‐echoes to each passing music clang,
Till in thrilling, clear vibrations rang her poet‐words in air,
Summoning souls to lofty duties, as an Angelus to prayer.

Oh! she flung abroad her fancies, free as waves dash off the foam
As the palm‐tree flings its branches on the blue of Heaven's dome,
With a genius‐shadow dark'ning in the stillness of her eyes
With her rainbow‐spirit arching half the circle of the skies,
Like a dark‐browed Miriam chanting songs of triumph on the foe,
As the rushing waters bore them to the Hades halls below,
Till up through the startled ether, down the far horizon's rim,
Clashed the swords of men in music to her lofty prophet‐hymn.

But no beauty thrill'd my nature, noon, or night or sunset skies;
For the only heaven I gazed on was the heaven of his eyes—

I'd have bartered Freedom, Justice, People's rights, or native Land,
All the island homes of Ocean, for one pressure of his hand;
Trembling, weak, a coward spirit, only wishing low to lie,
As a flower beneath his footstep, breathe my life out, and so die.
Yet he liked me—aye, he liked me—'twas the phrase—O saints above!
Cold and cruel sounds this liking from the lips of one we love.

They said that he was dying; could I longer silence keeping,
Only pour forth my deep passion in my chamber lonely weeping?
I reck'd not if 'twere womanly, cold convention little heeding,
But in mine his hand enfolding, said, with tearful raised eyes pleading
"She hath left you, left you lonely—sorrow's harvest death may reap;
I say not—love me; let me only watch here by you and weep! "
Then he said, his pale brow raising, with a faint, unquiet smile,
And with saddest eyes upgazing upon mine for all the while

"Sweetest friend, this sorrow‐blighted, faded form, and searéd heart,
To pale death, I fear, are plighted, yet 'twere bitter now to part;
For the chords of life are shaken by a sympathy so true,
And they tremble, in vibration, with a pleasure strange and new.

Still, no love‐dream may be cherished—ah! the time of love is o'er
Youthful heart, by passion blighted, can be kindled never more;
But if sympathy thou darest with a heart so wrecked as mine,
I will give thee back the rarest kindred souls can inter twine."

And so bending coldly, gently, on my brow he placed his lips;
While, I trembling in the shadow of that faint and brief eclipse,
Murmur'd:—"Tell me, tell me truly, do you love her then so well? "
And the hot tears, all unruly, through my twinèd fingers fell,
And I sank down there unheeding so of maidenhood or wrong,
While I told him, weeping, pleading, how I'd loved him, loved him long;
Seen my hopes all faded, perished, spread around in pale dismay,
Wept their pallid corses over—I alone, like Niobe!

Thank God, that no cruel scorning dimm'd his starry eyes divine,
Softly, tender, earnest gazing down the tearful depths of mine—
But with warmest splendours resting on the paleness of his cheek,
As the roseate tinted sunset on a snowy Alpine peak,
Bent he down upon my shoulder, murmuring loverlike and low,
While his breathing softly trembled on my pale lips lying so:

"Ah! such deep and tender loving hath recall'd me from the grave
And this heart with soft approving bids you keep the life you gave;

"Woman's soothing grief to lighten hath a mystic healing power,
And their sympathy can brighten man's most dark and destined hour.
Let the holy words be spoken that bind soul to soul for life;
Let me place the symbol token on this hand—my wedded wife! "
Oh! never yet did an angel breathe diviner words of bliss,
Never mortal heard evangel of a joy like unto this;
In my gladness, smiling, weeping, knelt I down before him there,
Blessing God with wild words leaping from my full heart's inward prayer;

And a glory, ruddy, golden‐hued, streamed down on me from high,
As with lifted hands enfolden gazed I up into the sky
Ever brighter, flashing downward, till my pained eyes ached with light,
And I turned from gazing sunward back to earth's more calm delight.
But—was it spell, or was it charm? —when I turned me to the room,
Fading seem'd the loved one's form, half in light and half in gloom
Throbb'd my brain in wild confusion, slowly died his words in air,
All around me seemed illusion, save that streaming golden glare.


On my fevered eyelids aching, madly press'd my hands I keep
Then arose like one awaking from a strange and magic sleep;
Round I gazed in wild amazement for the glorious light that shone,
Was morn streaming through my casement, but it shone on me alone!
The last cold words he had written still lay there beside my bed;
The last flowers he had given lay beside them, faded, dead;
Life's lonely bitter desolation was true, for aye, I deem,
But, joy's blessed revelations, that—oh, that—was but a dream!