Canto IV
I.
LETTER FROM COUSIN JOHN TO COUSIN ALFRED.
“BIGORRE, THURSDAY.“Time up, you rascal! Come back, or be hang’d.Matilda grows peevish. Her mother haranguedFor a whole hour this morning about you. The deuce!What on earth can I say to you?—nothing’s of use.And the blame of the whole of your shocking behaviorFalls on ME, sir! Come back,—do you hear?—or I leave yourAffairs, and, abjure you forever. Come backTo your anxious betroth’d; and perplexed“COUSIN JACK.”
II.
Alfred needed, in truth, no entreaties from JohnTo increase his impatience to fly from Luchon.All the place was now fraught with sensations of painWhich, whilst in it, he strove to escape from in vain.A wild instinct warn’d him to fly from a placeWhere he felt that some fatal event, swift of pace,Was approaching his life. In despite his endeavorTo think of Matilda, her image foreverWas effaced from his fancy by that of Lucile.From the ground which he stood on he felt himself reel.Scared, alarm’d by those feelings to which, on the dayJust before, all his heart had so soon given way,When he caught, with a strange sense of fear, for assistance,And what was, till then, the great fact in existence,’Twas a phantom he grasp’d.
III.
Having sent for his guide,He order’d his horse, and determin’d to rideBack forthwith to Bigorre.Then, the guide, who well knewEvery haunt of those hills, said the wild lake of OoLay a league from Luchon; and suggested a trackBy the lake to Bigorre, which, transversing the backOf the mountain, avoided a circuit betweenTwo long valleys; and thinking, “Perchance change of sceneMay create change of thought,” Alfred Vargrave agreed,Mounted horse, and set forth to Bigorre at full speed.
IV.
His guide rode beside him.The king of the guides!The gallant Bernard! ever boldly he rides,Ever gayly he sings! For to him, from of old,The hills have confided their secrets, and toldWhere the white partridge lies, and the cock o’ the woods;Where the izard flits fine through the cold solitudes;Where the bear lurks perdu; and the lynx on his preyAt nightfall descends, when the mountains are gray;Where the sassafras blooms, and the bluebell is born,And the wild rhododendron first reddens at morn;Where the source of the waters is fine as a thread;How the storm on the wild Maladetta is spread;Where the thunder is hoarded, the snows lie asleep,Whence the torrents are fed, and the cataracts leap;And, familiarly known in the hamlets, the valesHave whisper’d to him all their thousand love-tales;He has laugh’d with the girls, he has leap’d with the boys;Ever blithe, ever bold, ever boon, he enjoysAn existence untroubled by envy or strife,While he feeds on the dews and the juices of life.And so lightly he sings, and so gayly he rides,For BERNARD LE SAUTEUR is the king of all guides!
V.
But Bernard found, that day, neither song not love-tale,Nor adventure, nor laughter, nor legend availTo arouse from his deep and profound reveryHim that silent beside him rode fast as could be.
VI.
Ascending the mountain they slacken’d their pace,And the marvellous prospect each moment changed face.The breezy and pure inspirations of mornBreathed about them. The scarp’d ravaged mountains, all wornBy the torrents, whose course they watch’d faintly meander,Were alive with the diamonded shy salamander.They paused o’er the bosom of purple abysses,And wound through a region of green wildernesses;The waters went whirling above and around,The forests hung heap’d in their shadows profound.Here the Larboust, and there Aventin, Castellon,Which the Demon of Tempest, descending upon,Had wasted with fire, and the peaceful CazeauxThey mark’d; and far down in the sunshine below,Half dipp’d in a valley of airiest blue,The white happy homes of the valley of Oo,Where the age is yet golden.And high overheadThe wrecks of the combat of Titans were spread.Red granite, and quartz; in the alchemic sun,Fused their splendors of crimson and crystal in one;And deep in the moss gleam’d the delicate shells,And the dew linger’d fresh in the heavy harebells;The large violet burn’d; the campanula blue;And Autumn’s own flower, the saffron, peer’d throughThe red-berried brambles and thick sassafras;And fragrant with thyme was the delicate grass;And high up, and higher, and highest of all,The secular phantom of snow!O’er the wallOf a gray sunless glen gaping drowsy below,That aerial spectre, reveal’d in the glowOf the great golden dawn, hovers faint on the eyeAnd appears to grow in, and grow out of, the skyAnd plays with the fancy, and baffles the sight.Only reach’d by the vast rosy ripple of light,And the cool star of eve, the Imperial Thing,Half unreal, like some mythological kingThat dominates all in a fable of old,Takes command of a valley as fair to beholdAs aught in old fables; and, seen or unseen,Dwells aloof over all, in the vast and sereneSacred sky, where the footsteps of spirits are furl’d‘Mid the clouds beyond which spreads the infinite worldOf man’s last aspirations, unfathom’d, untrod,Save by Even and Morn, and the angels of God.
VII.
Meanwhile, as they journey’d, that serpentine road,Now abruptly reversed, unexpectedly show’dA gay cavalcade some few feet in advance.Alfred Vargrave’s heart beat; for he saw at a glanceThe slight form of Lucile in the midst. His next lookShow’d him, joyously ambling beside her, the DukeThe rest of the troop which had thus caught his kenHe knew not, nor noticed them (women and men).They were laughing and talking together. Soon afterHis sudden appearance suspended their laughter.
VIII.
“You here!… I imagined you far on your wayTo Bigorre!”… said Lucile. “What has caused you to stay?”“I AM on my way to Bigorre,” he replied,“But since MY way would seem to be YOURS, let me rideFor one moment beside you.” And then, with a stoopAt her ear,… “and forgive me!”
IX.
By this time the troopHad regather’d its numbers.Lucile was as paleAs the cloud ’neath their feet, on its way to the vale.The Duke had observed it, nor quitted her side,For even one moment, the whole of the ride.Alfred smiled, as he thought, “he is jealous of her!”And the thought of this jealousy added a spurTo his firm resolution and effort to please.He talk’d much; was witty, and quite at his ease.
X.
After noontide, the clouds, which had traversed the eastHalf the day, gather’d closer, and rose and increased.The air changed and chill’d. As though out of the ground,There ran up the trees a confused hissing sound,And the wind rose. The guides sniff’d, like chamois, the air,And look’d at each other, and halted, and thereUnbuckled the cloaks from the saddles. The whiteAspens rustled, and turn’d up their frail leaves in fright.All announced the approach of the tempest.Erelong,Thick darkness descended the mountains among,And a vivid, vindictive, and serpentine flashGored the darkness, and shore it across with a gash.The rain fell in large heavy drops. And anonBroke the thunder.The horses took fright, every one.The Duke’s in a moment was far out of sight.The guides whoop’d. The band was obliged to alight;And, dispersed up the perilous pathway, walk’d blindTo the darkness before from the darkness behind.
XI.
And the Storm is abroad in the mountains!He fillsThe crouch’d hollows and all the oracular hillsWith dread voices of power. A roused million or moreOf wild echoes reluctantly rise from their hoarImmemorial ambush, and roll in the wakeOf the cloud, whose reflection leaves vivid the lake.And the wind, that wild robber, for plunder descendsFrom invisible lands, o’er those black mountain ends;He howls as he hounds down his prey; and his lashTears the hair of the timorous wan mountain-ash,That clings to the rocks, with her garments all torn,Like a woman in fear; then he blows his hoarse hornAnd is off, the fierce guide of destruction and terror,Up the desolate heights, ‘mid an intricate errorOf mountain and mist.
XII.
There is war in the skies!Lo! the black-winged legions of tempest ariseO’er those sharp splinter’d rocks that are gleaming belowIn the soft light, so fair and so fatal, as thoughSome seraph burn’d through them, the thunderbolt searchingWhich the black cloud unbosom’d just now. Lo! the lurchingAnd shivering pine-trees, like phantoms, that seemTo waver above, in the dark; and yon stream,How it hurries and roars, on its way to the whiteAnd paralyzed lake there, appall’d at the sightof the things seen in heaven!
XIII.
Through the darkness and aweThat had gather’d around him, Lord Alfred now saw,Reveal’d in the fierce and evanishing glareOf the lightning that momently pulsed through the airA woman alone on a shelf of the hill,With her cheek coldly propp’d on her hand,—and as stillAs the rock that she sat on, which beetled aboveThe black lake beneath her.All terror, all loveAdded speed to the instinct with which he rush’d on.For one moment the blue lightning swathed the whole stoneIn its lurid embrace: like the sleek dazzling snakeThat encircles a sorceress, charm’d for her sakeAnd lull’d by her loveliness; fawning, it play’dAnd caressingly twined round the feet and the headOf the woman who sat there, undaunted and calmAs the soul of that solitude, listing the psalmOf the plangent and laboring tempests roll slowFrom the caldron of midnight and vapor below.Next moment from bastion to bastion, all round,Of the siege-circled mountains, there tumbled the soundOf the battering thunder’s indefinite peal,And Lord Alfred had sprung to the feet of Lucile.
XIV.
She started. Once more, with its flickering wand,The lightning approach’d her. In terror, her handAlfred Vargrave had seized within his; and he feltThe light fingers, that coldly and lingeringly dweltIn the grasp of his own, tremble faintly.“See! see!Where the whirlwind hath stricken and strangled yon tree!”She exclaim’d,… “like the passion that brings on its breath,To the being it embraces, destruction and death!Alfred Vargrave, the lightning is round you!”“Lucile!I hear—I see—naught but yourself. I can feelNothing here but your presence. My pride fights in vainWith the truth that leaps from me. We two meet again’Neath yon terrible heaven that is watching aboveTo avenge if I lie when I swear that I love,—And beneath yonder terrible heaven, at your feet,I humble my head and my heart. I entreatYour pardon, Lucile, for the past—I imploreFor the future your mercy—implore it with moreOf passion than prayer ever breathed. By the powerWhich invisibly touches us both in this hour,By the rights I have o’er you, Lucile, I demand—”“The rights!”… said Lucile, and drew from him her hand.
“Yes, the rights! for what greater to man may belongThan the right to repair in the future the wrongTo the past? and the wrong I have done you, of yore,Hath bequeath’d to me all the sad right to restore,To retrieve, to amend! I, who injured your life,Urge the right to repair it, Lucile! Be my wife,My guide, my good angel, my all upon earth,And accept, for the sake of what yet may give worthTo my life, its contrition!”
XV.
He paused, for there cameO’er the cheek of Lucile a swift flush like the flameThat illumined at moments the darkness o’erhead.With a voice faint and marr’d by emotion, she said,“And your pledge to another?”
XVI.
“Hush, hush!” he exclaim’d,“My honor will live where my love lives, unshamed.‘Twere poor honor indeed, to another to giveThat life of which YOU keep the heart. Could I liveIn the light of those young eyes, suppressing a lie?Alas, no! YOUR hand holds my whole destiny.I can never recall what my lips have avow’d;In your love lies whatever can render me proud.For the great crime of all my existence hath beenTo have known you in vain. And the duty best seen,And most hallow’d—the duty most sacred and sweet,Is that which hath led me, Lucile, to your feet.O speak! and restore me the blessing I lostWhen I lost you—my pearl of all pearls beyond cost!And restore to your own life its youth, and restoreThe vision, the rapture, the passion of yore!Ere our brows had been dimm’d in the dust of the world,When our souls their white wings yet exulting unfurl’d!For your eyes rest no more on the unquiet man,The wild star of whose course its pale orbit outran,Whom the formless indefinite future of youth,With its lying allurements, distracted. In truthI have wearily wander’d the world, and I feelThat the least of your lovely regards, O Lucile,Is worth all the world can afford, and the dreamWhich, though follow’d forever, forever doth seemAs fleeting, and distant, and dim, as of yoreWhen it brooded in twilight, at dawn, on the shoreOf life’s untraversed ocean! I know the sole pathTo repose, which my desolate destiny hath,Is the path by whose course to your feet I return.And who else, O Lucile, will so truly discern,And so deeply revere, all the passionate strength,The sublimity in you, as he whom at lengthThese have saved from himself, for the truth they revealTo his worship?”
XVII.
She spoke not; but Alfred could feelThe light hand and arm, that upon him reposed,Thrill and tremble. Those dark eyes of hers were half closed.But, under their languid mysterious fringe,A passionate softness was beaming. One tingeOf faint inward fire flush’d transparently throughThe delicate, pallid, and pure olive hueOf the cheek, half averted and droop’d. The rich bosomHeaved, as when in the heart of a ruffled rose-blossomA bee is imprison’d and struggles.
XVIII.
MeanwhileThe sun, in his setting, sent up the last smileOf his power, to baffle the storm. And, behold!O’er the mountains embattled, his armies, all gold,Rose and rested: while far up the dim airy crags,Its artillery silenced, its banners in rags,The rear of the tempest its sullen retreatDrew off slowly, receding in silence, to meetThe powers of the night, which, now gathering afar,Had already sent forward one bright, signal starThe curls of her soft and luxuriant hair,From the dark riding-hat, which Lucile used to wear,Had escaped; and Lord Alfred now cover’d with kissesThe redolent warmth of those long falling tresses.Neither he, nor Lucile, felt the rain, which not yetHad ceased falling around them; when, splash’d, drench’d, and wet,The Duc de Luvois down the rough mountain courseApproached them as fast as the road, and his horse,Which was limping, would suffer. The beast had just nowLost his footing, and over the perilous browOf the storm-haunted mountain his master had thrown;But the Duke, who was agile, had leap’d to a stone,And the horse, being bred to the instinct which fillsThe breast of the wild mountaineer in these hills,Had scrambled again to his feet; and now masterAnd horse bore about them the signs of disaster,As they heavily footed their way through the mist,The horse with his shoulder, the Duke with his wrist,Bruised and bleeding.
XIX.
If ever your feet, like my own,O reader, have traversed these mountains alone,Have you felt your identity shrink and contractAt the sound of the distant and dim cataract,In the presence of nature’s immensities? Say,Have you hung o’er the torrent, bedew’d with its spray,And, leaving the rock-way, contorted and roll’d,Like a huge couchant Typhon, fold heaped over fold,Track’d the summits from which every step that you treadRolls the loose stones, with thunder below, to the bedOf invisible waters, whose mistical soundFills with awful suggestions the dizzy profound?And, laboring onwards, at last through a breakIn the walls of the world, burst at once on the lake?If you have, this description I might have withheld.You remember how strangely your bosom has swell’dAt the vision reveal’d. On the overwork’d soilOf this planet, enjoyment is sharpen’d by toil;And one seems, by the pain of ascending the height,To have conquer’d a claim of that wonderful sight.
XX.
Hail, virginal daughter of cold Espingo!Hail, Naiad, whose realm is the cloud and the snow;For o’er thee the angels have whiten’d their wings,And the thirst of the seraphs is quench’d at thy springs.What hand hath, in heaven, upheld thine expanse?When the breath of creation first fashion’d fair France,Did the Spirit of Ill, in his downthrow appalling,Bruise the world, and thus hollow thy basin while falling?Ere the mammoth was born hath some monster unnamedThe base of thy mountainous pedestal framed?And later, when Power to Beauty was wed,Did some delicate fairy embroider thy bedWith the fragile valerian and wild columbine?
XXI.
But thy secret thou keepest, and I will keep mine;For once gazing on thee, it flash’d on my soul,All that secret! I saw in a vision the wholeVast design of the ages; what was and shall be!Hands unseen raised the veil of a great mysteryFor one moment. I saw, and I heard; and my heartBore witness within me to infinite art,In infinite power proving infinite love;Caught the great choral chant, mark’d the dread pageant move—The divine Whence and Whither of life! But, O daughterOf Oo, not more safe in the deep silent waterIs thy secret, than mine in my heart. Even so.What I then saw and heard, the world never shall know.
XXII.
The dimness of eve o’er the valleys had closed,The rain had ceased falling, the mountains reposed.The stars had enkindled in luminous coursesTheir slow-sliding lamps, when, remounting their horses,The riders retraversed that mighty serrationOf rock-work. Thus left to its own desolation,The lake, from whose glimmering limits the lastTransient pomp of the pageants of sunset had pass’d,Drew into its bosom the darkness, and onlyAdmitted within it one image—a lonelyAnd tremulous phantom of flickering lightThat follow’d the mystical moon through the night.
XXIII.
It was late when o’er Luchon at last they descended.To her chalet, in silence, Lord Alfred attendedLucile. As they parted, she whispered him low,“You have made to me, Alfred, an offer I knowAll the worth of, believe me. I cannot replyWithout time for reflection. Good night!—not good by.”“Alas! ’tis the very same answer you madeTo the Duc de Luvois but a day since,” he said.“No, Alfred! the very same, no,” she replied.Her voice shook. “If you love me, obey me. AbideMy answer to-morrow.”
XXIV.
Alas, Cousin Jack!You Cassandra in breeches and boots! turn your backTo the ruins of Troy. Prophet, seek not for gloryAmongst thine own people.I follow my story.