And the warm visions of a wayward mind,
Whose transient splendour left a gloom behind,
Frail as the clouds of sunset, and as fair,
Pageants of light resolving into air.
The world, whose charms his young affections stole,
He found too mean for an immortal soul;
Wound with his life, through all his feelings wrought,
Death and eternity possess'd his thought;
Remorse impell'd him, unremitting care
Harass'd his path, and stung him to despair.
Still was the secret of his griefs unknown,
Amidst the universe he sigh'd alone;
The fame he follow'd and the fame he found,
Heal'd not his heart's immedicable wound;
Admired, applauded, crown'd where'er he roved,
The Bard was homeless, friendless, unbeloved.
All else that breath'd below the circling sky
Were link'd to earth by some endearing tie;
He only, like the ocean-weed uptorn,
And loose along the world of waters borne,
Was cast companionless, from wave to wave,
On life's rough sea,-and there was none to save.
The Giant King, who led the hosts of Cain,
Delighted in the Minstrel and his vein;
No hand, no voice, like Javan's could control,
With soothing concords, his tempestuous soul,
With him the wandering Bard, who found no rest
Through ten years' exile, sought his native west;
There from the camp retiring, he pursued
His journey to the Patriarchs' solitude.
This son of peace no martial armour wore,
A scrip for food, a staff in hand he bore;
Flaxen his robe; and o'er his shoulder hung,
Broad as a warrior's shield, his harp unstrung,
A shell of tortoise, exquisitely wrought
With hieroglyphics of embodied thought:
Jubal himself enchased the polish'd frame;
And Javan won it in the strife for fame
Among the sons of Music, when their Sire
To his victorious skill adjudged the lyre.
'Twas noon, when Javan climb'd the bordering kill
By many an old remembrance hallow'd still,
Whence he beheld, by sloping woods enclosed,
The hamlet where his Parent's dust reposed,
His home of happiness in early years,
And still the home of all his hopes and fears,
When from ambition struggling to break free,
He mused on joys and sorrows yet to be.
Awhile he stood, with rumination pale,
Casting an eye of sadness o'er the vale,
When, suddenly abrupt, spontaneous prayer
Burst from his lips for One who sojourn'd there;
For One, whose cottage, far appearing, drew,
Even from his Mother's grave, his transient view:
One, whose unconscious smiles were wont to dart
Ineffable emotion through his heart;
A nameless sympathy, more sweet, more dear
、Than friendship, solaced him when she was near,
And well he guess'd, while yet a timorous boy,
That Javan's artless songs were Zillah's joy.
But when ambition, with a fiercer flame
Than untold love, had fired his soul for fame,
This infant passion, cherish'd yet represt,
Lived in his pulse, but died within his breast;
For oft in distant lands, when hope beat high,
Westward he turn'd his eager glistening eye,
And gazed in spirit on her absent form,
Fair as the moon emerging through the storm,
Till sudden, strange, bewildering horrors cross'd
His thought, and every glimpse of joy was lost
Even then, when melancholy numb'd his brain,
And life itself stood still in every vein,
While his cold, quivering lips sent vows above,
-Never to curse her with his bitter love!
His heart, espoused with hers, in secret sware
To hold its truth unshaken by despair:
The vows dispersed that from those lips were borne,
But never, never was that heart forsworn ;
Throughout the world, the charm of Zillah's name
Repell'd the touch of every meaner flame.
Jealous and watchful of the sex's wiles,
He trembled at the light of woman's smiles!
So turns the mariner's mistrusting eye
From proud Orion bending through the sky,
Beauteous and terrible, who shines afar,
At once the brightest and most baneful star.
Where Javan from that eastern hill survey'd
The circling forest and embosom'd glade,
Earth wore one summer-robe of living green,
In heaven's blue arch the sun alone was seen;
Creation slumber'd in the cloudless light,
And noon was silent as the depth of night.
Oh what a throng of rushing thoughts oppress'd,
In that vast solitude, his anxious breast!
-To wither in the blossom of renown,
And unrecorded to the dust go down,
Or for a name on earth to quit the prize
Of immortality beyond the skies,
Perplex'd his wavering choice:when Conscience fail'd,
Love rose against the World, and Love prevail'd;
Passion, in aid of Virtue, conquer'd Pride,
And Woman won the heart to Heaven denied.
Javan, descending through the Forest, arrives at the Place where he had formerly parted with Zillah, when he withdrew from the Patriarchs' Glen-There he again discovers her in a Bower formed on the Spot-Their strange Interview, and abrupt Separation.
STEEP the descent, and wearisome the way;
The twisted boughs forbade the light of day;
No breath from heaven refresh'd the sultry gloom,
The arching forest seem'd one pillar'd tomb,
Upright and tall the trees of ages grow,
While all is loneliness and waste below:
There, as the massy foliage, far aloot
Display'd a dark impenetrable roof,
So, gnarl'd and rigid, claspt and interwound,
An uncouth maze of roots emboss'd the ground:
Midway beneath, the sylvan wild assumed
A milder aspect, shrubs and flowerets bloom'd;
Openings of sky, and little plots of green,
And showers of sunbeams through the leaves were seen.
Awhile the traveller halted at the place
Where last he caught a glimpse of Zillah's face,
One lovely eve, when in that calm retreat
They met, as they were often wont to meet,
And parted, not as they were wont to part,
With gay regret, but heaviness of heart;
Though Javan named for his return the night,
When the new moon had roll'd to full-orbed light.
She stood and gazed through tears, that forced their way, Oft as from steep to steep, with fond delay,
Lessening at every view, he turn'd his head,
Hail'd her with weaker voice, then forward sped.
From that sad hour she saw his face no more
In Eden's woods, or on Euphrates' shore;
Moons wax'd and waned; to her no hope appear'd,
Who much his death but more his falsehood fear'd.
Now, while he paused, the lapse of years forgot,
Remembrance eyed her lingering near the spot.
Onward he hasten'd; all his bosom burn'd,
As if that eve of parting were return'd;
And she, with silent tenderness of wo,
Clung to his heart, and would not let him go.
Sweet was the scene! apart the cedars stood,
A sunny islet open'd in the wood;
With vernal tints the wild-brier thicket glows,
For here the desert flourish'd as the rose;
From sapling trees, with lucid foliage crown'd,
Gay lights and shadows twinkled on the ground;
Up the tall stems-luxuriant creepers run,
To hang their silver blossoms in the sun;
Deep velvet verdure clad the turf beneath,
Where trodden flowers their richest odours breathe:
O'er all the bees, with murmuring music, flew
From bell to bell, to sip the treasured dew;
While insect myriads, in the solar gleams,
Glanced to and fro, like intermingling beams;
So fresh, so pure, the woods, the sky, the air,
It seem'd a place where angels might repair,
And tune their harps beneath those tranquil shades,
To morning songs, or moonlight serenades.
He paused again, with memory's dream entranced, Again his foot unconsciously advanced,
For now the laurel-thicket caught his view,
Where he and Zillah wept their last adieu.
Some curious hand, since that bereaving hour,
Had twined the copse into a covert bower,
With many a light and fragrant shrub between,
Flowering aloft amidst perennial green.
As Javan search'd this blossom-woven shade,
He spied the semblance of a sleeping maid;
'Tis she; 'tis Zillah, in her leafy shrine;
O'erwatch'd in slumber by a power divine,
In cool retirement from the heat of day,
Alone, unfearing, on the moss she lay,
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