Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse | Page 9

surely I can never match

This lily glint!
"So pure, so innocent, and bright,
So charming free, without
endeavour,
So fancy-touched with pensive light I
I think that I
could gaze for ever,
With new delight
"And now that rose-bud in my hair,
Perhaps it should be placed
above--
And yet, I will not change it, love,
Since mou hast set it
there.
XV
"Vain Eve, why glory thus in Eve?
What matter Tor thy form or face?

Thy beauty is, if love believe
Thee worthy of that treasured place

Thou ne'er shalt leave.
"Oh, husband; mine and mine alone,
Take back my faith that dared to
wander;
Forgive my joy to have thee shown
Not transient, as thine
image yonder,
But all my own.
"And, love, if this be vain of me,
This pleasure, and the pride I take;

Tis only for thy dearer sake,
To be so fair to thee."

XVI
No more she said; but smiling fell,
And lost her sorrow on his breast;

Her love-bright eyes upon him dwell,
Like troubled waters laid at
rest
In comfort's well:
Tis nothing more, an' if she weep,
Than joy she cannot else reveal;

As onyx-gems of Pison keep
A tear-vein, where the sun may steal

Throughout their deep.
May every Adam's fairer part
Thus, only thus, a rival find--
The
image of herself, enshrined
Within the faithful heart!
[Illustration: 092.]
[Illustration: 095.]
MOUNT ARAFA
IN TWO PARTS
"Mount Arafa, situated about a mile from Mecca, is held in great
veneration by the Mussulmans, as a place very proper for penitence. Its
fitness in this respect is accounted for by a tradition that Adam and Eve,
on being banished out of Paradise, in order to do penance for their
transgression were parted from each other, and after a separation of six
score years, met again upon this mountain." Ockley's "_History of the
Saracens_," p. 60
THE PARTING
I
Driven away from Eden's gate
With biasing falchions fenced about,

Into a desert desolate,
A miserable pair came out,
To meet their
fate.

To wander in a world of woe,
To ache and starve, to burn and shiver,

With every living thing their foe--
The fire of God above, the river

Of death below.
Of home, of hope, of Heaven bereft;
It is the destiny of man
To
cower beneath his Maker's ban,
And hide from his own theft!
II
The father of a world unborn--
Who hath begotten death, ere life--

In sullen silence plods forlorn;
His love and pride in his fair wife

Are rage and scorn.
Instead of Angel ministers,
What hath he now but fiends devouring;

Instead of grapes and melons, burs;
In lieu of manna, crab and
souring--
By whose fault? Hers!
Alack, good sire of feeble knees,
New penance waits thee;
since--when thus
Thou shouldst have wept for all of us--
Thou
mournest thine own ease I
III
The mother of all loving wives
(Condemned unborn to many a tear)

Is fain to take his hand, and strives
In sorrow to be doubly dear--

But shame deprives.
[Illustration: 098.]
The shame, the woe, the black surprise,
That love's first dream should
have such ending,
To weep, and wipe neglected eyes I
Oh loss of
true love, far transcending
Lost Paradise!
For is it faith, that cannot live
One gloomy hour, and soar above

The clouds of fate? And is it love,
That will not e'en forgive?

IV
The houseless monarch of the earth
Hath quickly found what empire
means;
For while he scoffs with bitter mirth,
And curses, after
Eden's scenes,
This dreary dearth.
A snake, that twined in playful zeal,
But yester morn, around his
ankle,
Now driven along the dust to steal,
Steals up, and leaves its
venom'd rankle
Deep in his heel.
He groans awhile. He seeks anon
For comfort to this first of pain,

Where all his sons to-day are fain;
He seeks--but Eve is gone!
PART I--ADAM
_O'er hill, and highland, moor, and plain,
A hundred years, he seeks
in vain;
Oer hill and plain, a hundred years,
He pours the sorrow no
one hears;
Yet finds, as wildest mourners find,
Some ease of heart
in toil of mind._
I
"YE mountains, that forbid the day,
Ye glens, that are the steps of
night,
How long amid you must I stray,
Deserted, banished from
God's sight,
And castaway?
"Ye trees and flowers the Lord hath made,
Ye beasts, to my good-will
committed--
Although your trust hath been betrayed--
Not long ago
ye would have pitied
Your old comrade.
"Oh, nature, noblest when alone,
Albeit I love your outward part;

The nature that enthrals my heart
Must be more like my own.
II
"The Maker once appointed me--
I know not, and I care not why--


The lord of everything I see,
Or if they walk, or swim, or fly,

Whate'er they be.
"And all the earth whereon they dwell,
And all the heavens they are
inhaling,
And powers, whereof I cannot tell--
Dark miscreants,
supine and wailing,
Until I fell.
"Twas good and glorious to believe;
But now mv majesty is o'er;

And I would give it all, and more,
For one sweet glimpse of Eve.
III
"For what is glory, what is power?
And what the pride of standing
first?
A twig struck down by a thunder shower,
A crown of thistle
to quench the thirst,
A sun-scorched flower.
"God grant the men who spring from me,
As