"WOE! woe is me! the centuries pass away,
The mortal seasons run their ceaseless rounds,
While here I wither for the sunbright day,
Its genial sights and sounds.
Woe! woe is me!
"One summer night, in ages long agone,
I saw my woodland lover leave the brake;
I heard him plaining on the peaceful lawn
A plaint 'for my sweet sake.'
Woe! Woe is me!
"My heart upsprang to answer that fond lay,
But suddenly the star-girt planets paled,
And high into the welkin's glimmering gray
Majestic Dian sailed!
Woe! woe is me!
"She swept aloft, bold almost as the sun,
And wrathful red as fiery-crested Mars;
Ah! then I knew some fearful deed was done
On earth, or in the stars.
Woe! woe is me!
With ghastly face upraised, and shuddering throat,
I watched the omen with a prescient pain;
When, lightning-barbed, a beamy arrow smote,
Or seemed to smite, my brain.
Woe! woe is me!
"Oblivion clasped me, till I woke forlorn,
Fettered and sorrowing on this lonely bed,
Shut from the mirthful kisses of the morn--
Earth's glories overhead.
Woe! woe is me!
"The south wind stirs the sedges into song,
The blossoming myrtles scent the enamored air;
But still, sore moaning for another's wrong,
I pine in sadness here.
Woe! woe is me!
"Alas! alas! the weary centuries flee,
The waning seasons perish, dark or bright;
My grief alone, like some charmed poison-tree,
Knows not an autumn blight.
Woe! woe is me!"
The mournful sounds swooned off, but Echo rose,
And bore them up divinely to a close
Of rare mysterious sweetness; nevermore
Shall mortal winds to listening wood and shore
Waft such heart-melting music. "Where, oh! where,"
Avolio murmured--"to what haunted sphere--
Has fate at length my errant footsteps brought?"
Launched on a baffling sea of mystic thought,
His reason in a whirling chaos, lost
Compass and chart and headway, vaguely tossed
'Mid shifting shapes of wingèd fantasies.
Just then, uplifting his bewildered eyes,
He saw, half hid in shade, on either hand,
Twin pillars of a massive gateway grand
With gold and carvings; close behind it stood
A sombre mansion in a beech tree wood.
Long wreaths of ghostly ivy on its walls
Quivered like goblin tapestry, or palls,
Tattered and rusty, mildewed in the chill
Of dreadful vaults; across each window sill
Curtains of weird device and fiery hue
Hung moveless,--only when the glanced through
The gathering gloom, the hieroglyphs took form
And life and action, and the whole grew warm
With meanings baffling to Avolio's sense;
He stood expectant, trembling, with intense
Dread in his eyes, and yet a struggling faith,
Vital at heart. A sudden passing breath--
Was it the wind?--thrilled by his tingling ear,
Waving the curtains inward, and his fear
Uprose victorious, for a serpent shape,
Tall, supple, writhing, with malignant gape
Which showed its cruel fangs--hissed in the gleam
Its own fell eyeballs kindled! Oh! supreme
The horror of that vision!--as he gazed,
Irresolute, all wordless, and amazed,
The monster disappeared--a moment sped!
The next it fawned before him on a bed
Of scarlet poppies. "Speak," Avolio said;
"What art thou? Speak! I charge thee in God's name!"
A death-cold shudder seized the serpent's frame,
Its huge throat writhed, whence bubbling with a throe
Of hideous import, a voice thin and low
Broke like a muddied rill: "Bethink thee well,
This isle of Cos, of which old legends tell
Such marvels. Hast thou never heard of me,
The island's fated queen?" "Yea, verily,"
Avolio cried, "thou art that thing of dread--"
Sharply the serpent raised its glittering head
And front tempestuous: "Hold! no tongue save mine
Must of these miseries tell thee! Then incline
Thine ear to the dark story of my grief,
And with thine ear yield, yield me thy belief.
Foul as I am, there was a time, O youth,
When these fierce eyes were founts of love and truth;
There was a time when woman's blooming grace
Glowed through the flush of roses in my face;
When--but I sinned a deep and damning sin,
The fruit of lustful pride nurtured within
By weird, forbidden knowledge--I defied
The night's immaculate goddess, purest eyed,
And holiest of immortals; I denied
The eternal Power that looks so cold and calm;
Therefore, O stranger, am I what I am,
A monster meet for Tartarus, a thing
Whereon men gaze with awe and shuddering,
And stress of inward terror; through all time,
Down to the last age, my abhorrèd crime
Must hold me prisoner in this vile abode,
Unless some man, large-hearted as a God,
Bolder than Ajax, mercifully deign
To kiss me on the mouth!"
She towered amain,
With sparkling crest, and universal thrill
Of frenzied eagerness, that seemed to fill
Her cavernous eyes with jets of lurid fire,
Pulsed from the burning core of unappeased desire.
Back stepped Avolio with a loathing fear,
Sick to the inmost soul; then did he hear
The awful creature vent a tortured groan,
Her frantic neck and dragon's forehead thrown
Madly to earth, whereon awhile she lay,
Her glances veiled, her dark crest turned away.
As thus she grovelled, quivering on the ground,
Stole through the brooding silence a faint sound
As 'twere of hopeless grief--it seemed to be
A human voice weeping how piteously!
Yet its deep passion striving to subdue.
Just then the serpent writhed her folds anew,
And while from earth her horrent crest she rears,
The loathly creature's face is bathed in tears!
"Lady!" the knight said, "if in sooth thou art
A maid and human, wherefore thus depart
From truth's plain path to blind me? well I know
This Dian, famed and worshipped long ago
By heathen folk, was as the idle fume
Formed into shifting shapes of vaporous bloom
O'er her vain altars. Ah!" (he shuddered now,
Growing death-pale from tremulous chin to brow)
"Ah, God! I cannot kiss thee! Ne'ertheless,
Fain am I in the true God's name to bless
And even to mark thee with His sacred Cross!"
As one weighed down by anguish and the loss
Of one last hope, in faltering tones and sad
The serpent spake: "Deem'st thou that Dian had
No life but that wherewith her votaries vain
Invested a vague image of the brain?
Nay, she both was and was not, as on earth,
Even to this day, full many a thing from birth
To death lapses alike through bane and bliss;
Full many a thing, which is not and yet is,
Save to man's purblind vision;--in the end
Some clearer spirits may rise to comprehend
This strange enigma! but meanwhile, meanwhile
The sure heavens change not, star and sunbeam smile
Fair as of yore; eternal nature keeps
Her strength and beauty, though the mortal weeps
In desolation! Oh! wert thou but true
And brave enow this thing I ask to do,
Then human, happy, beauteous would I be,
Ye merciful Gods! once more!"
Then suddenly
She writhed her vast neck round, her glittering crest
Cast backward o'er the fierce, tumultuous breast,
Red as a stormy sunset--with a moan,
"Pass on, weak soul!" she said, "leave me alone;"
Then, wildly, "Go! I would not catch thine eye;
Go, and be safe! for swiftly, furiously,
Surges a cruel thought through all my blood,
And the brute instincts turn to hardihood
Of vengeful impulse all my gentler frame;
Go! for I would not harm thee; yet a flame
Of blasting torments have I power to raise
Through all thy being, and mine eyes could gaze,
Gloating on pain. Is this not horrible?"
And therewithal the wretched monster fell
To open weeping, with sad front, and bowed.
Something in such base cruelty avowed,
Blent with the softer will which disallowed
Its exercise, so on Avolio wrought,
That sore perplexed, revolving many a thought,
He lingered still, lost in a spiritual mist;
But when the mouth that waited to be kissed,
Fringed with a yellow foam, malignly rose
Before him, his first fear its terrible throes
Renewed. "And how, O baleful shape!" said he--
Striving to speak in passionless tones, and free
"How can I tell, what certain gage have I,
That this strange kiss thine awful destiny
Hath not ordained--the least elaborate plan
Whereby to snare and slay me?" "O man! man!"
The serpent answered, with a loftier mien--
A voice grown clear, majestic and serene--
"Shall matter always triumph? the base mould
Mask the immortal essence, uncontrolled
Save by your grovelling fancies mean and cold?
O green and happy woods, breathing like sleep!
O quiet habitants of places deep
In leafy shades, that draw your peaceful breaths,
Passing fair lives to rest in tranquil deaths!
O earth! O sea! O heavens! forever dumb
To man, while ages go and ages come
Mysterious, have the dark Fates willed it so
That nevermore the sons of men shall know
The secret of your silence? the wide scope
Granted your basking pleasures, and sweet hope,
Revived in vernal warmth and spring-tide rains,
Your long, long pleasures, and your fleeting pains?
And must the lack of what is brave and true,
From other souls, callous or blind thereto,
From what themselves beauteous and truthful are,
Differ for aye is glow-worms from a star?
Is such our life's decretal? Shall the faith
Which even, perchance, the clearest spirit hath
In good within us, always prove less bold
Than keen suspicions, nursed by craven doubt,
Of treacherous ills, and evil from without?"
Then, after pause, with passion: "O etern
And bland benignities, that breathe and burn
Throughout creation, are we but the motes
In some vague dream that idly sways and floats
To nothingness? or are your glories pent
Within ourselves, to rise omnipotent
In bloom and music, when we bend above,
And wake them by the kisses of our love?
I yearn to be made beautiful. Alas!
Beauty itself looks on, prepared to pass,
In hardened disbelief! one action kind
Would free and save me--why art thou so blind,
Avolio?" While she spoke, a timorous hare,
Scared by a threatening falcon from its lair,
Rushed to the serpent's side. With fondling tongue
She soothed it as a mother soothes her young.
Avolio mused: "Can innocent things like this
Take refuge by her? then, perchance, some good,
Some tenderness, if rightly understood,
Lurks in her nature. I will do the deed!
Christ and the Virgin save me at my need."
He signed the monster nearer, closed his eyes,
And with some natural shuddering, some deep sighs!
Gave up his pallid lips to the foul kiss!
What followed then? a traitorous serpent hiss,
Sharper for triumph? Ah! not so--he felt
A warm, rich, yearning mouth approach and melt
In languid, loving sweetness on his own,
And two fond arms caressingly were thrown
About his neck, and on his bosom pressed
Twin lilies of a snow white virgin breast.
He raised his eyes, released from brief despair;
They rested on a maiden tall and fair--
Fair as the tropic morn, when morn is new--
And her sweet glances smote him through and through
With such keen thrilling rapture that he swore
His willing heart should evermore adore
Her loveliness, and woo her till he died.
"I am thine own," she whispered, "thy true bride,
If thou wilt take me!"
Hand in hand they strayed
Adown the shadows through the woodland glade,
Whence every evil influence shrank afraid,
And round them poured the golden eventide.
Swiftly the tidings of this strange event
Abroad on all the garrulous winds were sent,
Rousing an eager world to wonderment!
Now 'mid the knightly companies that came
To visit Cos, was that brave chief, by fame
Exalted for bold deeds and faith divine,
So nobly shown erewhile in Palestine--
Tancred Salerno's Prince--he came in state,
With fourscore gorgeous barges, small and great,
With pomp and music, like an ocean Fate;
His blazoned prows along the glimmering sea
Spread like an eastern sunrise gloriously.
Him and his followers id Avolio feast
Right royally, but when the mirth increased,
And joyous-wingèd jests began to pass
Above the sparkling cups of Hippocras,
Tancred arose, and in his courtly phrase
Invoked delight and length of prosperous days
To crown that magic union; one vague doubt
The Prince did move, and this he dared speak out,
But with serene and tempered courtesy:
"It could not be that their sweet hostess still
Worshipped Diana and her heathen will?"
"Ah sir! not so!" Avolio flushing cried,
"But Christ the Lord!"
No single word replied
The beauteous lady, but with gentle pride,
And a quick motion to Avolio's side
She drew more closely by a little space,
Gazing with modest passion in his face,
As one who yearned to whisper tenderly:
"O, brave kind heart! I worship only thee!"
