Oh! had we never loved nor met, For the gay and heedless throng, the air had no memory, and the words no meaning. But it fell on the ear of the princess like a voice from the dead, as fancy knelt by the tomb of her lover, whose depths returned solemn and holy answers to the heart whose passion death could not chill. And, stricken, as in the presence of a spirit, who returned to earth on a mission of warning or revenge; and bewildered with the thoughts and memories which crowded on her mind as she listened to the minstrel, she started from her seat. The light of frenzy was in her eye-a ghastly pallor settled on her brow and features-she trembled fearfully, as though each moment gave strength to the horrible thought, that a tenant of the tomb stood amid a scene of mirth like the present. The superstition gradually assumed the hideous aspect of its object; she raised her hands to her head, and, uttering a wild and heart-rending shriek, sank back upon her seat. The revellers gathered around her"He is not here," she said, as she scanned the group with a keen and kindling eye-" not here, not here." "Who?" broke simultaneously from the astonished and terrified by-standers. "He-the dead," she replied, in a deep tone, which froze the listeners with horror; and, darting from their presence with the speed of thought, she rushed from the hall. He observed her departure, and, unnoticed by the rest, glided away in pursuit of her. After following her for some time through a passage, she fled before him with such rapidity as made him suspect the terrible impression which weighed on her, that she was haunted by the dead. He gently spoke her name. She neither answered nor turned, but still pursued her flight with such a fearful speed, as made him shudder for the safety of her mind. A small summer-house terminated the passage, whose flowers, as they climbed the walls, or were trained in festoons, so as almost to represent an artificial ceiling, were interwoven with lamps of rich and varied hues, which fell on them with the mellow lustre of sunset, As Morni entered the bower, the form he sought was before him. Exhausted and breathless with terror, she had sunk upon the floor, her arms extended on a couch, to which she clung for support, while the cressets poured down their warm light upon a face, tintless, ghost-like, and ashy. He knelt to her-he pressed his lips to her cheek-'twas cold;-he clasped her hand in his-it felt pulseless and claylike. "Dead, dead," he murmured, as he bent over her, parted her hair from her pale brow, and felt that while he looked on that dead image, he poured out the last tributes of a blasted love, and breathed forth the last remaining impulse of an expiring nature. "That voice! that voice!" said the princess, slowly reviving; "it sounds in mine ear-the very reality of that hideous dream-graves and skeletons !" she added, with a violent shudder; "it falls upon my cheek, and curdles its very blood-oh! if it be my last hour; mercy, mercy, heaven!" 66 My bride! my love! my long-sought Ethnea!" exclaimed Morni, passionately. "Oh, God! art thou man or spirit?" cried the princess, as she sank at his feet. "Nay, hear me, Ethnea," said Morni, kneeling by her side, and moiste ning with his tears the cold hand he pressed to his lips; hear me. It is not the dead who clasps thee;-I breathe-I move-I speak. Nay, these are idle fears. Is not this hand as soft as thine! and presseth not this lip upon thy cheek with all the living, fevered agony of thine? Speak, speak, Ethnea ! be it but to say, this fearful hour carries death to both." "Art thou indeed Morni-the buried Morni?" replied the princess, as she felt the vital pressure of his lip, and heard the human tone which breathed in every word;—" He whom I saw buried in the wave forever?" "Not forever," rejoined the prince, checking, as it rose to his lip, the limit of his earthly visit, and the dreadful conditions which, on his return, would part them forever; "I am, as once thou knew'st me, living, and to love thee." 1846.] Morni and Ethnea. "And wherefore hast thou wandered so long without seeking thy bride? And wherefore this minstrel disguise, as though thou sought'st to play a part, and deceive me?" answered the princess, as she fondly hung on him, and traced those lineaments, on which memory had so often dwelt, "Ask me not now," replied Morni, as the hour of midnight rushed to his mind, and he felt that though years were granted to his nature as man, yet would they waste away, unnoticed and unfelt, amid the burning emotions which swelled within his heart like lava. I cannot tell thee now. The moon presseth high to her noon. Nay, stay me not," he exclaimed, disentangling her grasp from his mantle ;-"I would not bring down ruin on us both. There is a power-Nay, unhand me, Ethnea, I dare not disobey-for death" "Death!" reiterated the princess, in a tone which spake the endurance of martyrdom, and defied its tortures; while her eye flashed with the proud energy to resist and brave all things for him she loved, which makes the character of woman godlike in the hour of peril and distress. "Death! and fearest thou death for my sake, and in these arms? Oh! thou know'st not yet the love of woman;-deep as the grave; as firm and immortal as the ties of adamant which bind thee to death forever. "Not death! No-no-not death I fear," murmured the distracted prince, as he clasped her in agony to his trembling, exhausted frame, and felt that each moment of delay might involve the innocent and the loving in the tremendous doom which menaced him. "It is not death I shun, Ethnea, but an everlasting curse, which peals in mine ear like the trump of doom, and rises around me, even now, to my very lips; an ocean, mad, chafed, inexorable-its dark bosom blazing with the lightning. "Tis there! look-there," he muttered, as he heard the yell of the wave around him, and bore the terrified Ethnea from the spot. Gracious heaven!" exclaimed the princess, bewildered and breathless with fear, as she heard his wild ravings; "if thou lovest me still, speak not so madly. I am true to thee-true as the moon to her bright heaven. I have loved thee with a strength which death could not conquer, nor time rend from my heart. In the lone, deep hour of midnight, I've No more-no more," cried Morni; "To the love I bear thee there is a spell neither in the lightning nor the tempest," answered the faithful maiden, as with a force desperate from terror and despair, she held him in her grasp. "Let the lightning stream above us,it but canopies the bright heaven as it opens to receive us. Let the wild thunder peal,-it utters not one tone more terrible or fearful than the frenzy which quivers on thy lip. Let the water rise and roar around us, death cresting every wave, and speaking his dread summons in the deep and awful yell of the element-Morni, for thee I defy all; for thee the lightning of heaven is dim, the thunder hath lost its mysterious voice of doom, and the wave that power which dragged thee down to register thee with the dead." "It's dead!" iterated Morni, stung to madness with the conflicting thoughts which dashed and ebbed, like the waves of which she spake ;-"It's dead! Ethnea, I cannot see thee longer kneel in this agony of prayer to one, who can neither aid nor answer thee. My lip burns with the secret, and it must burst its fiery prison, and bury thee and me in its fearful and avenging desolation. Thou kneel'st and pray'st as a woman; thou speak'st the strong love which glows within thine heart, and kindles in thine eye, as a bright gem guarded in the bosom of the earth. Ethnea! thy love lingers on a flower, which the tempest threatens momently to rend from its stem. Thine eye rests but on the crested foam, which, while Can'st thou then thou gazest, the black wave extinguished forever. love?" "Rave as "Thee, and for ever," replied the devoted maiden, while her arms, like ivy circling the ruin, were still clasped around his heaving form. thou wilt, thou canst not tear me from thee; we have loved-so let us die. Should not the death of those who love be, in an hour like this-the last embrace of heart to heart?" "Yet hear me, rash girl, who would'st make the doom of one that of both"-and as he spake, his lofty form towered with a grandeur which partook the dignity of the nature to which he felt himself returning, "Hear me one moment, ere the word of doom go forth, and it be too late to arrest its flight of vengeance-Hear me. The form to which thou clingest in the mad devotion of thy love, is not of earth-'tis Spirit; and bound to return to its subtle and invisible nature by an oath registered in a far and unknown world. Midnight must witness the fulfilment of that oath, or I am the eternal slave of a mysterious power, which human eloquence cannot turn from its purpose, or its prayer of agony change or soften. Why wilt thou cling thus, bride of misery and perdition? Even now the lightnings blaze above us, and around us rise the black and suffocating waters to engulph their victims ?" "Because I love thee," answered the maiden, rushing once more to his embrace, and burying her face in his bosom. Look on me-speak to me again, spirit though thou art, and I bless the blow which lays me cold at thy feet?" Silent and irresolute he pressed her to his beating heart,-his burning lip rested upon hers, and the warm tears, like dew upon the lily, flowed on her white, cold cheek. A deep and hollow sound rolled through the castle. It was the peal of midnight. The appointed hour for his return had arrived, and he yet lingered in the embrace of Ethnea. A weight, as that of a mountain, rested on him, pressing him and the helpless burthen he bore to the earth. He was rooted to the spot, as by chains of adamant, which bind together the barriers of creation. In a moment a shock, like that of the thunderbolt, rushed between himself and Ethnea, rending them asunder, and dashing her prostrate to the ground. The vengeance of the Naiad was upon him, the hour had passed for the fulfilment of his oath, the resumption of his spiritual nature was forbidden,-the doom had been pronounced which made him dust for ever; and a cold sensation, like that of approaching death, which brought with it the humbling consciousness that he was but a thing of clay, shot through his veins, curdling up each drop it touched. But the deep peal of midnight was a whisper, compared with the roar of the elements, which battled without like a resistless and numberless foe, contending for entrance. The fatal truth darted to his mind, as he heard the yell of the tempest, and the dash of the wave. The castle rocked to its foundation, and the ground trembled beneath him. He tore the senseless Ethnea from the ground, and was about to rush from the bower, when, through the dim and misty light which filled the passage, he saw the waves rushing towards him with a speed and strength which impel their flight in the hour of vengeance. Desperate with the thought that the rashness of Ethnea left her to share his terrible doom, he fell on his knee "Almighty spirit!" he exclaimed, "let not the innocent and the loving fall with the guilty and disobedient. Even while I pray, strike me while I kneel. I reck not for myself. Death were better than this agony-this deep and burning shame of dragging her down to share my fate, and feel thy vengence. -Great spirit, hear me !-Spare, oh! spare my bride." The waves still dashed on, deep, black and impenetrable. No spell stayed the progress of the element; no answer was given to his agonized prayer. He looked upon Ethnea; cold, pale and heavy she lay upon his arm, like one rescued from the death to which each moment hurried her.He felt there was no hope of safety for him. To rescue her, was the resolution which rallied the last energies terror and exhaustion had left him.Through the passage, egress was impossible. The waves were now on the very threshold of the summer-house. While he lingered, bent on the preservation of Ethnea, yet uncertain how to accomplish it, cries of agony, horror and prayer, reached him. "Oh God!" exclaimed the wretched Morni, staggering beneath his burthen, pale and helpless as itself "these hideous sounds are from the dead and dying. The crime of the mortal and vengeance of the spirit have piled an altar upon which thousands must suffer and die. Doomed!-doomed!" he cou tinued, "no flight! no rescue!-Be'st thou spirit of water or hell," he cried, furious with despair, and glancing, as he looked around, on a small door, which, partially covered with the foliage of plants, had remained unnoticed"I defy thee-Ha! ha!-I'll baffle thee!" As he spoke, pressing Ethnea still closer to his breast, he darted from the spot; and dashing his whole weight against the door, it burst open. A dark and precipitous path led from the door downward to the lake. The wind blew with the rage of a hurricane, which threatened each moment to dash himself and Ethnea to the earth. The moon was dark, and almost invisible; how changed from that orb, whose radiance seemed to welcome his return to earth! The clouds swept in black, disordered masses through the heavens, while their thick shadows floated along the earth like spectres. A towering and massive tree, whose strength had been nursed by the tempest, and which stood at a short distance from the door, bent to the strong blast, and with a mighty crash, rent from its roots, fell to the earth. He tried to advance -his garments were torn to atoms, and, save for the desperate might with which he drew Ethnea to his breast, the tempest threatened momently to tear her from him. Like boughs of cypress upon the shroud of the dead, her hair lay scattered upon her marble features, as she lay, like a drooping flower, bending to the breath of the storm. Still from behind rolled on the waves with a rapidity which now filled half the summer-house. Desperate, though faint the hope which urged him down the bank, amid the fury which burst around him, and the desolation which filled his path. Blind and headlong he plunged forward; but farther advance was checked by the waters which boiled up from the lake, swelling as with the pride of their destructive power, and making those rich gardens, through which he had that night wandered, a mass of hideous ruin. Heaven and earth seemed linked for the punishment of the victim, and their strength, as of one mighty host, sent forth to chain the perjurer to his bed of torture. The waves were at his feet-still higher and higher they advanced.— Those before and behind him were now joined. He stirred not. With the last struggle of exhausted strength he raised Ethnea-it was vain-her garments were dripping, and her long hair streamed upon the waters. 66 "One word-one word," he cried, as he felt a faint shudder thrill through his frame, and bending over her, he heard a sigh from her lip; one word, Ethnea-our time is brief. The doom rings in our ear-one word; that thou forgivest me." 46 I love thee," murmured Ethnea, as her head sank back upon the wave, and she dropped dead from his arms. "Ethnea, I follow thee !" exclaimed the frantic Morni, twining his fingers in his matted hair, while the waves rose fearfully around him, choaking his utterance; "the grave unites us forever." He grasped the body, and folding it to his breast, they sank together. The vengeance of the Naiad was not sated with the life of her victim alone. The island was one scene of suffering and death. Every tenant of the castle was destroyed, and the castle itself buried that fatal night in the element, which made their tomb for Morni and Ethnea. |