Mathilde Blind: Verses about Thunderstorm

JUNE, 1866.

BREATHE thro' me in music,
Spirit of the time!
Pregnant with the future,
Spirit of the time!

As the west wind sougheth,
Through the swaying pine,
Sweep tho' all my branches
With thy song divine.

Nations now are rolling
Onward, as the sea
Which the moon upheaveth,
Thus upheaved by thee.

Muffled mutt'ring groweth
Louder on the air!
Like a lion roaring,
Rising from his lair.

As the anthem surgeth
Through cathedral aisles,
Swells the voice of nations
Over miles of miles.

As the thunder growleth
In yon cloud afar,
In their bosoms broodeth
The black bolt of war.

Snap in twain your fetters,
Cleave your ancient yoke,
Burst the gloom of ages
With the lightning stroke.

Clap on clap, down-crashing,
Clatter crowd on crowd,
From Venetia's dungeons,
From the Roman shroud;

From the graves of Poland,
From Germania's plains,
From the death-pollution
Of imperial chains.

Feel yourselves as brothers,
Dare to think ye free;
And in dust will shiver
Thrones of tyranny.

Like night's phantoms, with'ring
'Neath the glance of dawn,
Kings and priests dissolveth
Your full-flashing frown.

Forward, sons of morning,
With a sacred ire!
Lead ye, like Jehovah,
In a pillar of fire.

Through the dreary desert,
Through the burning sand
Till, on shores of promise
And of peace, ye land.

Where a purer people,
Led by laws innate,
Shall, towards the heavens,
Tower in grander state.

Breathe and blow in music;
On, from clime to clime;
Baptize, with the Holy Spirit
Spirit of the time.

OH come, thou power divine,
Thou lovely spirit with the wings of light,
And let thy dewy eyes
Shed their sweet influences on my soul;
Oh let me hear thy voice,
Whose sound thrills with a keener, deeper bliss,
Than the shrill jubilance the bird of joy
Pours on the air!
Or the child babblings of the gladsome rill
When, issuing first from out its mossy couch
In venturesome delight, it frisks in glee
Adown the hoary mountain, silver-fraught.

Oh come!
Where I do lie drenched in my bitter tears,
And drowning in dejection: haunted by
The pale gaunt fears that spectre-like rush forth
In shadowy swarms from out the brains's black cells,
Like glaring madmen in confusion 'scaped
From out their dens, whirling with shambling limbs
In whooping dances through the startled dusk,
And pouncing wildly on my shiv'ring soul,
Where in her hour of weakness prostrate she
Doth palpitate in terror, like a deer,
That hunted by the swift pursuing hounds,
Wounded and bleeding, sinks upon the ground,
While with hoarse croaks the ravening birds of prey
Wheel close and closer, darkening all the air.
But thou--
Come breathe upon me with thy balmy breath,
Like a young wind, born in the rosèd east,
That leapeth boy-like from the lap of morn,
To blow the land all clear from crouching fogs:

Thus drive thou hence the phantoms; cleanse my soul!
Thou sweet enchantress, with the magic spells!
Wails there a heart, lone on the populous earth,--
Like a weak infant lost within the night
That crieth piteously in helplessness,
And pusheth its blind limbs with gestures scared
Against the gloom,--
Then with an airy footfall glidest thou
Gently anigh, as softly as a cloud,
When one alone in crimson glory slides
Along the twilight sky: tak'st the bewildered thing
Into thine arms, thy fair and downy arms,
And rock'st it on thy bosom--singing low
An old, old song, old as the flowers that bloom,
And like them ever young; till dreams rise up,
Like cool white mists from out the heart of hills,
And lie dew-sweet upon it in its sleep!

Sits there an orphan girl with sunken cheeks,
And red-rimmed eyes, high up beneath the leads,
Stitching with aching fingers all the night
Beside the meagre flame, to earn her bread,
And feed with scanty fuel the low fire
Of life, while the shrill blast
Dashes the rain against the rattling panes,
And down the chimney roars with smoke and wet;--
Then comest thou, with memories all dim
And faint, with beauty from the childish years,
Transposing them into the time to come
With a new lustre of the full-grown heart.
Where the bare walls stood with a hungry stare,
The golden cornfields, weighed down by their wealth,
Sway to and fro; purling the brook flows on;
And, like a bit of sky drawn down by love,
Wilds of forget-me-nots run riot round;
And meadows scent the air; and lowing kine
Are driven home; and silver geese hiss loud
Within the pools; and childhood's silver laughs
Ring o'er the green like chimes of silver bells
In the clear atmosphere; and through green boughs
Curls up the smoke from many a thatchèd roof,
Flushed all the land with roseate floods of eve,
While large and full glows low the harvest moon,
There as through homely fields she lightly walks,
And one is by her side, and whispers low,
And thine, oh hope! the future's kindling glow.

Rocks there a sailor on a reeling ship,
That staggers blindly like a brain-struck man,
Around the staring cliffs!
While the wild blast, the fiddler of the deep,
Wakes such mad music on his shrieking strings
That the fierce elements in huge delight
Vault from their torpor, rearing giant heights!
Ha! The maned billows from abysmal deeps
Leap like live Alps, and catch the tearing clouds
That dizzy haste along the wilds of sky;
Tossing them round in labyrinthic whirls
To the witch light of lightning, and the roar
Of thunder, in its crashing clattering fall.
Yea, while the ocean yawneth for its prey,
Yelling with starvèd jaws around the hull,
Man's sole frail guardian from the fangs of death,--
Thou softly float'st,
Like to the dove that bore the olive branch
Across the waste of waters, to his side. . . .
No longer sees he then the wide wild sea,
No longer hears he the tempestuous blast:
But where the cottage leans against the cliff,
The evening star shedding its peace adown,
He lifts the latch, and with one bound of joy
He stands in the low room, beside the hearth,
Where sits his winsome wife, and rocks her babe
With lullabies; and heaving one big sob
He strains her to his breast, her whom he thought
On this side of the grave to see no more!
Then does she take him by the hand, and leads
Him round from cot to cot, where with round cheeks
His children lie, sleep-flushed, 'twixt snow-white sheets,
And snatching up the youngest in his arms,
With an untameable emotion, weeps
His kisses on him, till it opens wide
Large dream-dew'd eyes, and lisps with cherry mouth,
'Oh, Dada, Dada!'----That thou dost for him!

Wanders the patriot on a stranger shore,
And exile from the land he loved too well:
Within his heart
The festering wound a thankless nation strikes,
When cloud-capp'd by its ignorance and fear,
And goaded on by spurring king and priest,
Like a mad dog it turns and bites the hand
Stretched out to heal.
He sees his friends fall off like rotten leaves
That scrambling flee the tempest-girted oak;
He sees the enemies he boldly braved,
Forging the red-hot slanders wherewithal
To scorch his writhing soul!
Alone in the wide world, alone he stands;
Alone, save where beyond the roaring seas
His mother weeps, and weeps, oh God! through him.
Then, blowing from dead deserts the simoom
Of doubt breathes on him, with its killing breath,
With'ring the flowers of faith, the groves of youth,
And buffeting his heart on cruel waves
Of wind, e'en like a quiv'ring autumn leaf.
Oh, is it strange?
That in the midnight, on the dark there grow
Pale faces sweating blood, and wrapped in shrouds,
Turning reproachful eyes upon his eyes,
And asking dumbly, 'Wherefore did we die,
And spill the wine-filled goblets of our youth
On barren soil that will not teem with birth?'
That brides, like broken lilies whirled along
By arrowy streams, glide past and sadly sob,
'Thou'st mowed us down, and mowed us down in vain!'
That infants thrill the silence with their wail,
'Why are we fatherless, if fatherland
Is still denied?' And that his heartstrings quake
With sobs of mothers' hearts that hopeless break?
Strange that his purpose, that did seem so fair,
With a white blaze of light around her head,
Which fell like orient beams on nations' brows,
Should wane before his terror-stricken eyes?
And that in direst agony of soul
His noble nature tott'ring on her base,
Should question if his deeds were rightful deeds?
Stirred up by God's own living breath, or pushed
By hot ambition's ravenous desire?
And if the aim that drew were but a dream
By which his visionary youth was mocked,
As travellers in the desert by the shine
Of fair false waters?--At that torturing thought
Smells of cold graves struck damp upon his brow,
Till his wilds eyes grew void, and limp his limbs,
And he had dropped resistless in the jaws
Of madness or of death!
Hadst thou not come, perennial presence! bright
As Phosphorus in the dim morning skies!
And poured thy morning sunbeams on his heart,
And blown thy morning breezes on his soul,
Till freshly born the world, and on him smiled
With eyes as tender as his mother's were,
When sowing love upon his cradled self.
Then back plucked he his purpose, fixed it firm
In iron steadfastness upon his soul,
And called on faith, where with upturnèd eyes
Above the clouds she treads the mountain peaks,
And on that love, which boundless as the sky,
Stretches o'er all mankind its azured vault.
Then rose he, set his trustful eyes on high,
And set his heart among the lowly born:
For in the vasty glimmerings of the dawn
He saw such visions of the things to be,
Such heights of being ascended, and such love
And justice throning on the seats of men,
That with unflagging steps he calmly trod
The walks of martyrdom! Oh, crown his brows
With buds of those full summers of the race!

Mourns there an aged mother, lying low
Upon the lowly grave,
Round which the autumn moans her mournful dirge,
And shivering cadence of the shrunken leaves
Keeps saddest measure with the wailing wind;
While the pale glimm'rings of the waning moon
Fall in cold tears upon the unknown tomb,
Beneath whose sod, washed by the ghastly mists,
Lies he, her one sole flower, that on the breast
Of life bloomed for her all the days and nights;
In the midsummer of his lusty life
Devoured by that grim beast, whose reeking breath
Is saturated with the blood of man--
The twin of pestilence--the foul firstborn
Of her who spinneth in the nether gloom
The phantasms that turn mad the brains of men,
And him whose savage lusts and greedy soul
Would make his footstool on the necks of men!
Oh here, even here like a stray beam of light
That glides unscared in sacred tenderness
Across the heavy vapours, brooding blind
In shapeless masses o'er a joyless tarn
Deep sunk in mountains,--even here the gleam
Of thy gold hair makes music in the dark,
Cradlest the head of grief on thy warm breast,
Whisperest in tones sweeter than honeycomb
Of that new heaven where death shall be no more,
Nor grief, nor crying, neither shall there be
More pain; for former things have passed away.
And with thy wings of light around her soul,
And with thy dewy eyes upon her heart,
Death takes her gently like a cherubim
By the shrunk hand, and leads her to her rest.
* * * * *
Oh Hope! thou consolation of the soul!
Flash forth, and like a sun strike on the clouds
Of dull despondency, that pour their rain
In showers upon the sad heart's shivering soil;
Flash forth, and force each drop e'en as it falls
To glass thy loveliness, and on the cloud
Frowning in dumb defiance, paint such bloom
Etherial, that its blackness but becomes
A foil on which thy brightness brighter beams,
Till spanned with rainbow-glory the sad soul
Glistens in glimmering smiles through all her tears,
And life shone through by white eternity,
Circled with calm as by a covenant,
Is born in beauty of the bitter tears,
Like Aphrodite from the salt sea waves.

I.
'A CURSE is on this work!' Columba cried;
And with their dark robes flapping in the gale,
The frightened monks came hurrying to his side,
And looked at one another turning pale;
For every night the work done in the day
Strewn on the ground in wild confusion lay.


II.
'A curse is on this work!' he cried again
As his keen glances swept each face in turn:
'Behold, God smites us in the hurricane,
And in the lightning doth His anger burn.
Brethren, some secret deadly sin there is
Known to the Lord for which we suffer this.


III.
'Why is it that the elements combine
Against us, raging in relentless ire
Against our humble wave-encircled shrine?
That air, that water, that consuming fire
Inveterately war against this fane
Which we would build, but ever build in vain?


IV.
'Why is it that the billows of the deep
Rise in revolt against the rock-bound shore,
Lashing themselves to fury on each steep,
Till inland lakes, awakening at the roar,
Now roar in mad response, and swell amain,
Till broadening waters hide the drowning plain?


V.
'One night, ye know, from out the imminent gloom,
Shrouding the firmament as in a pall,
The levin, like a spirit from the tomb,
Leaped with a ghastly glare, and in its fall
Struck the new roof-tree with reverberate crash,
And left a little heap of shrivelled ash.


VI.
'Another night--why need I tell the tale?--
The winds in legions thundered through the air,
Battering the walls with sudden gusts of hail,
They rushed with piercing shrieks and strident blare
Athwart the cloisters and the roofless hall,
Till stone by stone fell from the rocking wall.


VII.
'And then the very water turned our foe,
For in the dead of night it slowly crept,
Soft wave on wave, till in its overflow
It deluged all the basement while we slept;
And where the convent yesterday did stand,
There spreads the lake as level as my hand.


VIII.
'And then, when slowly after many days
The waters had subsided to the main,
And through the toilsome hours we sought to raise
Our ever-shattered structure once again,
Behold! the earth herself with stone and block
Shudders convulsive and begins to rock.


IX.
'For lo, the fiends let loose at God's command
Burrow and delve in subterranean gloom,
Till like the troubled ocean all the land
Heaves to and fro as tottering to its doom:
The quiet graves themselves now bursting yawn,
God's holy house once more lies overthrown!


X.
'And now hath come the hour of darkest need--
The people have abandoned us! They wail
That their dead fathers rage against our creed,
That in dark rushing cloud and roaring gale
The houseless spirits ride and fill the air
With lamentations for the gods that were!


XI.
'The Lord rebukes us in His wrath! I ask,
Again I ask, what man among you all
Living in deadly sin, yet wears the mask
Of sanctity? Yea, let him cleanse his soul,
Confessing all the crying guilt of it,
Or go for ever to the burning pit!'


XII.
Again his eagle glances swept each face,
While the assembled monks, with anxious sigh,
Asked with a thrill of horror and amaze,
'Was it indeed a judgment from on high?'
As with one voice then cried the saintly throng,
'Not I--not I--know of that hidden wrong.'


XIII.
And with uplifted arms they loudly prayed,
'Oh Lord, if in our midst the traitor bides
Who breaks the sacramental vow he made,
And takes Thy name in vain, and basely hides
His wicked ways from every eye save Thine--
Let his dark sin stand forth, and make a sign.'


XIV.
All day expectant, waiting on His will,
The monks in reverential silence stand
Beneath the rustling pine-trees of the hill,
Whence their eyes sweep across the level land:
Lo, from afar the vision of a maid
Comes o'er the shining pools the flood has made.


XV.
Swiftly she came across the devious track,
With glimmering waterways on either hand;
Against the luminous vapour at her back
Her dusky form looms mystically grand;
While in the liquid crystal by her side
The phantom of herself seems still to glide.


XVI.
Was she a spirit risen from the grave
When its foul depths lay open to the sky,
Or ghost of Druid priestess wont to rave
Her blasphemous oracles in times gone by,
Who ventured thus upon the sacred isle
For ever barred against a woman's wile?


XVII.
But no! as nearer and more near she draws,
They see a maiden with the wild deer's grace
Bounding from stone to stone, whose beauty awes
These Christian fathers, riveting their gaze;
For like the full moon framed in amber air
Her face shone mid the glory of her hair.


XVIII.
Then in their midst all breathless did she stand,
But paused bewildered and as one affrayed,--
Even as a swift wave making for the strand
With all its waters gathering to a head
Delays, suspended with back-fluttering locks,
Then breaks in showers of brine upon the rocks.


XIX.
So for a moment motionless she stood,
From monk to monk her wildered glances stray;
Immovable, like figures carved in wood,
These waited what their master's lips would say,
But ever and anon, in mute appeal,
Her piteous eyes to Oran's face would steal.


XX.
Only for one brief moment she delayed,
Struck speechless at his cold averted mien,
Then with a long low moan she blindly swayed
With her fair arms towards him, and in keen
Unutterable anguish cried aghast--
'Is this a dream, or am I mad at last?


XXI.
'Dost thou not know me, Oran--Oran mine?
Look on me; I am Mona, I am she
For whom thy soul so thirstily did pine!
Nay, turn not from me! Say, art thou not he
Whose mouth to my mouth yearningly was pressed,
Whose dearest head lay pillowed on my breast?


XXII.
'Dear, be not wroth with me in that I came;
For our love's sake look not so stern and grave;
Ah, surely thou wilt think me free from blame
For having dared to break the word I gave,
When I have told thee what has brought me here,
How sore distraught I was with grief and fear.


XXIII.
Oh love, when night came swooping o'er the sea,
And on the poor folk's tired eyelids sleep
Fell like a seabird's feather, stealthily
I climbed the jagged overhanging steep
Whose giddy summit looks towards thy home,
Wondering if haply I might see thee come.


XXIV.
When, lo! the solid cliff began to shake
As in an ague fit, and while I stood
Trembling, methought the maddening sea would break
Its everlasting limits, for the flood
Came crashing in loud thunder o'er the land,
And swept our huts like seaweed from the sand.


XXV.
Then a great horror seized me, and I reeled
And fell upon my face, and knew no more.
When from that trance I woke, the sun had wheeled
Far up the sky and shone upon the shore,
And there beneath the bright and cloudless sky
I saw a heap of mangled corpses lie.


XXVI.
Shrieking I fled, and paused not in my fright
Fleeing I knew not whither, but my feet
Flew swift as ever arrow in its flight
To thee, my love! Hast thou no smile to greet
Thy Mona with,--no kiss? For pity's sake,
Speak to me, Oran, or my heart will break.'


XXVII.
All held their breath when she had made her moan:
All eyes were fixed on that pale monk, who stood
Unnaturally quiet--like a stone
Whose flinty sides are fretted by the flood--
When St. Columba turned on him, and said,
'I bid thee speak,--man, knowest thou this maid?'


XXVIII.
Then answered him the other, but his words
Rang hollow like the toll of funeral bell,
And on his humid brows like knotted cords
The livid veins and arteries seemed to swell,
Facing the accusation of his eyes,
'Master, I know her not--the woman lies!'


XXIX.
A hum of indignation, doubt, alarm,
Ran through their circle, but none durst to speak
Before the Master, who with lifted arm
And eyes whence fiery flashes seemed to break,
Cried very loudly, 'Is it even so,--
Then help me God but I will rout this foe!


XXX.
'Look, brethren, on this lovely maiden, fair
As virginal white lilies newly blown,
Fresh as the first breath of the vernal air,
Pure as an incarnation of the dawn;
Look on that golden glory of her hair,--
It is a man-trap, Satan's deadliest snare.


XXXI.
'Brethren, let the two eldest of you seize
This fiend in angel's garb, this beast of prey
Which lies in wait behind that snowy fleece
Lusting to take our brother's name away,
And blast his fame for purest sanctity
With lies forged by our common enemy!


XXXII.
'Seize her, and bear her to that frightful steep
Where, bristling with huge pier and jagged spire,
The spectre rock which overhangs the deep
Pierces the ghastly clouds like frozen fire;
There standing, fling her from its giddiest cone--
Into the ocean fling her, like a stone.'


XXXIII.
The sentence had gone forth; the monks obeyed;
Two venerable brothers, deep in years,
First crossed themselves, then seized the struggling maid
In their stout arms; despite her prayers and tears,
And wild appears on him she called her love,
They with their burden now began to move.


XXXIV.
But he, whose human flesh seemed petrified
To marble, started from that rigid mood,
And blindly running after them, he cried,
'Hold! hold! stain not your hands with innocent blood;
I broke my vow, I am the sinner, I
Seduced the maid,--spare her, and let me die.'


XXXV.
They halted midway, marvelling, aghast,
When St. Columba thundered to them 'Stay!'
His voice was like a dreadful battle-blast,
And startled coveys rose and whirred away:
'He broke his vow, he is the sinner; aye
Do as he says--spare her, and let him die!


XXXVI.
'Yea, well I saw the gnawing worm within,
But wished to tear the mask from off his soul,
That in the naked hideousness of sin
He might stand pilloried before you all:
This is a judgment on me from above
For loving him with more than woman's love.'


XXXVII.
His voice here failed him and he hid his face;
And as before some imminent storm all sound
In earth, air, ocean ceases for a space,
There fell a breathless silence on that mound;
But when Columba raised his voice once more,
It seemed the muffled thunder's boding roar.


XXXVIII.
'Oh perjured one! oh breaker of thy vow!
Oh base, apostate monk, whose guilt abhorred
Weighed down our walls and laid our chapel low!
Thy life shall be an offering to the Lord,
And with thy blood we will cement the fane
Which for thy sin's sake still was built in vain.


XXXIX.
'Seize him, and bear him to that dolorous site
Where mid our ruined cells the chapel stands
Whose holy walls and columns every night
Have fallen beneath the blow of dæmon hands;
There, living, bury him beneath its sod,
And so propitiate the Lord our God.'