Part 5

"Thou shaft seek the beach of sand Where the water bounds the elfin land; Thou shaft watch the oozy brine Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine; Then dart the glistening arch below, And catch a drop from his silver bow. The water-sprites will wield their arms, And dash around with roar and rave; And vain are the woodland spirits' charms-- They are the imps that rule the wave. Yet trust thee in thy single might: If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right, Thou shalt win the warlock fight." . . .

The goblin marked his monarch well; He spake not, but he bowed him low; Then plucked a crimson colen-bell, And turned him round in act to go. The way is long, he cannot fly, His soiled wing has lost its power; And he winds adown the mountain high For many a sore and weary hour Through dreary beds of tangled fern, Through groves of nightshade dark and dern, Over the grass and through the brake, Where toils the ant and sleeps the snake; Now over the violet's azure flush He skips along in lightsome mood; And now he thrids the bramble-bush, Till its points are dyed in fairy blood; He has leaped the bog, he has pierced the brier, He has swum the brook, and waded the mire, Till his spirits sank and his limbs grew weak, And the red waxed fainter in his cheek. He had fallen to the ground outright, For rugged and dim was his onward track, But there came a spotted toad in sight, And he laughed as he jumped upon her back; He bridled her mouth with a silkweed twist, He lashed her sides with an osier thong; And now through evening's dewy mist With leap and spring they bound along, Till the mountain's magic verge is past, And the beach of sand is reached at last.

Soft and pale is the moony beam, Moveless still the glassy stream; The wave is clear, the beach is bright With snowy shells and sparkling stones; The shore-surge comes in ripples light, In murmurings faint and distant moans; And ever afar in the silence deep Is heard the splash of the sturgeon's leap, And the bend of his graceful bow is seen-- A glittering arch of silver sheen, Spanning the wave of burnished blue, And dripping with gems of the river-dew.

The elfin cast a glance around, As he lighted down from his courser toad, Then round his breast his wings he wound, And close to the river's brink he strode; He sprang on a rock, he breathed a prayer, Above his head his arms he threw, Then tossed a tiny curve in air, And headlong plunged in the waters blue.

Up sprung the spirits of the waves, from the sea-silk beds in their coral caves; With snail-plate armor snatched in haste, They speed their way through the liquid waste. Some are rapidly borne along On the mailed shrimp or the prickly prong, Some on the blood-red leeches glide, Some on the stony star-fish ride, Some on the back of the lancing squab, Some on the sideling soldier-crab, And some on the jellied quarl that flings At once a thousand streamy stings. They cut the wave with the living oar, And hurry on to the moonlight shore, To guard their realms and chase away The footsteps of the invading Fay.

Fearlessly he skims along; His hope is high and his limbs are strong; He spreads his arms like the swallow's wing, And throws his feet with a frog-like fling; His locks of gold on the waters shine, At his breast the tiny foam-beads rise, His back gleams bright above the brine, And the wake-line foam behind him lies. But the water-sprites are gathering near To check his course along the tide; Their warriors come in swift career And hem him round on every side: On his thigh the leech has fixed his hold, The quad's long arms are round him rolled, The prickly prong has pierced his skin, And the squab has thrown his javelin, The gritty star has rubbed him raw, And the crab has struck with his giant claw. He howls with rage, and he shrieks with pain; He strikes around, but his blows are vain; Hopeless is the unequal fight Fairy, naught is left but flight.

He turned him round and fled amain, With hurry and dash, to the beach again; He twisted over from side to side, And laid his cheek to the cleaving tide; The strokes of his plunging arms are fleet, And with all his might he flings his feet. But the water-sprites are round him still, To cross his path and work him ill: They bade the wave before him rise; They flung the sea-fire in his eyes; And they stunned his ears with the scallop-stroke, With the porpoise heave and the drum-fish croak. Oh, but a weary wight was he When he reached the foot of the dog-wood tree. Gashed and wounded, and stiff and sore, He laid him down on the sandy shore; He blessed the force of the charmed line, And he banned the water-goblins spite, For he saw around in the sweet moonshine Their little wee faces above the brine, Giggling and laughing with all their might At the piteous hap of the Fairy wight.

Soon he gathered the balsam dew From the sorrel-leaf and the henbane bud; Over each wound the balm he drew, And with cobweb lint he stanched the blood. The mild west wind was soft and low; It cooled the heat of his burning brow, And he felt new life in his sinews shoot As he drank the juice of the calamus root. And now he treads the fatal shore As fresh and vigorous as before.

Wrapped in musing stands the sprite 'Tis the middle wane of night; His task is hard, his way is far, But he must do his errand right Ere dawning mounts her beamy car, And rolls her chariot wheels of light; And vain are the spells of fairy-land, He must work with a human hand.

He cast a saddened look around; But he felt new joy his bosom swell, When glittering on the shadowed ground He saw a purple mussel-shell; Thither he ran, and he bent him low, He heaved at the stern and he heaved at the bow, And he pushed her over the yielding sand Till he came; to the verge of the haunted land. She was as lovely a pleasure-boat As ever fairy had paddled in, For she glowed with purple paint without, And shone with silvery pearl within A sculler's notch in the stern he made, An oar he shaped of the bootle-blade; Then sprung to his seat with a lightsome leap, And launched afar on the calm, blue deep.

The imps of the river yell and rave They had no power above the wave, But they heaved the billow before the prow, And they dashed the surge against her side, And they struck her keel with jerk and blow, Till the gunwale bent to the rocking tide. She wimpled about to the pale moonbeam, Like a feather that floats on a wind-tossed stream; And momently athwart her track The quad upreared his island back, And the fluttering scallop behind would float, And patter the water about the boat; But he bailed her out with his colon-bell, And he kept her trimmed with a wary tread, While on every side like lightning fell The heavy strokes of his Bootle-blade.

Onward still he held his way, Till he came where the column of moonshine lay, And saw beneath the surface dim The brown-backed sturgeon slowly swim. Around him were the goblin train; But he sculled with all his might and main, And followed wherever the sturgeon led, Till he saw him upward point his head; "Mien he dropped his paddle-blade, And held his colen-goblet up To catch the drop in its crimson cup.

With sweeping tail and quivering fin Through the wave the sturgeon flew, And like the heaven-shot javelin He sprung above the waters blue. Instant as the star-fall light, He plunged him in the deep again, But left an arch of silver bright, The rainbow of the moony main. It was a strange and lovely sight To see the puny goblin there: He seemed an angel form of light, With azure wing and sunny hair, Throned on a cloud of purple fair, Circled with blue and edged with white, And sitting at the fall of even Beneath the bow of summer heaven.

A moment, and its lustre fell; But ere it met the billow blue He caught within his crimson bell A droplet of its sparkling dew. Joy to thee, Fay! thy task is done; Thy wings are pure, for the gem is won. Cheerly ply thy dripping oar, And haste away to the elfin shore!

He turns, and to on either side The ripples on his path divide; And the track o'er which his boat must pass Is smooth as a sheet of polished glass. Around, their limbs the sea-nymphs lave, With snowy arms half swelling out, While on the glossed and gleamy wave Their sea-green ringlets loosely float: They swim around with smile and song; They press the bark with pearly hand, And gently urge her course along, Toward the beach of speckled sand; And as he lightly leaped to land They bade adieu with nod and bow, Then gaily kissed each little hand, And dropped in the crystal deep below.

A moment stayed the fairy there: He kissed the beach and breathed a prayer; Then spread his wings of gilded blue, And on to the elfin court he flew. As ever ye saw a bubble rise, And shine with a thousand changing dyes, Till, lessening far, through ether driven, It mingles with the hues of heaven; As, at the glimpse of morning pale, The lance-fly spreads his silken sail And gleams with bleedings soft and bright Till lost in the shades of fading night; So rose from earth the lovely Fay, So vanished far in heaven away!

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK

MARCO BOZZARIS

At midnight, in his guarded tent, The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, Should tremble at his power; In dreams, through camp and court he bore. The trophies of a conqueror; In dreams his song of triumph heard; Then wore his monarch's signet ring; Then pressed that monarch's throne--a king: As wild his thoughts and gay of wing As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight, in the forest shades, Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band, True as the steel of their tried blades, Heroes in heart and hand. There had the Persian's thousands stood, There had the glad earth drunk their blood On old Plataea's day; And now there breathed that haunted air The sons of sires who conquered there, With arm to strike, and soul to dare, As quick, as far as they.

An hour passed on--the Turk awoke; That bright dream was his last; He woke--to hear his sentries shriek, "To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!" He woke--to die midst flame and smoke, And shout and groan and sabre-stroke, And death-shots falling thick and fast As lightnings from the mountain-cloud; And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, Bozzaris cheer his band: Strike--till the last armed foe expires! Strike--for your altars and your fires! Strike--for the green graves of your sires, God, and your native land!"

They fought like brave men, long and well; They piled that ground with Moslem slain; They conquered--but Bozzaris fell, Bleeding at every vein. His few surviving comrades saw His smile when rang their proud hurrah, And the red field was won; Then saw in death his eyelids close Calmly, as to a night's repose, Like flowers at set of sun.

Come to the bridal chamber, Death! Come to the mother's when she feels, For the first time, her first-horn's breath; Come when the blessed seals That close the pestilence are broke, And crowded cities wail its stroke; Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake shock, the ocean storm; Come when the heart beats high and warm With banquet-song and dance and wine; And thou art terrible--the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, And all we know or dream or fear Of agony, are thine.

But to the hero, when his sword Has won the battle for the free, Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word, And in its hollow tones are heard The thanks of millions yet to be. Come when his task of fame is wrought, Come with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought, Come in her crowning hour, and then Thy sunken eye's unearthly light To him is welcome as the sight Of sky and stars to prisoned men; Thy grasp is welcome as the hand Of brother in a foreign land; Thy summons welcome as the cry That told the Indian isles were nigh To the world-seeking Genoese, When the land-wind, from woods of palm And orange-groves and fields of balm, Blew oer the Haytian seas.

Bozzaris, with the storied brave Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee--there is no prouder gave. Even in her own proud clime. She wore no funeral-weeds for thee, Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume, Like torn branch from death's leafless tree, In sorrow's pomp and pageantry, The heartless luxury of the tomb. But she remembers thee as one Long loved and for a season gone; For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birthday bells; Of thee her babes' first lisping tells; For throe her evening prayer is said At palace-couch and cottage-bed; Her soldier, closing with the foe, Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow; His plighted maiden, when she fears For him, the joy of her young years, Thinks of thy fate and checks her tears; And she, the mother of thy boys, Though in her eye and faded cheek Is read the grief she will not speak, The memory of her buried joys, And even she who gave thee birth, Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth, Talk of thy doom without a sigh, For thou art Freedom's now and Fame's, One of the few, the immortal names, That were not born to die.

ON THE DEATH OF JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE

Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days! None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise.

Tears fell, when thou went dying, From eyes unused to weep, And long where thou art lying, Will tears the cold turf steep.

When hearts, whose truth was proven, Like throe, are laid in earth, There should a wreath be woven To tell the world their worth;

And I, who woke each morrow To clasp thy hand in mine, Who shared thy joy and sorrow, Whose weal and woe were thine;

It should be mine to braid it Around thy faded brow, But I've in vain essayed it, And I feel I cannot now.

While memory bids me weep thee, Nor thoughts nor words are free, The grief is fixed too deeply That mourns a man like thee.

JOHN HOWARD PAYNE

HOME, SWEET HOME

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home; A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there, Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home! There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain; O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again! The birds singing gayly, that came at my call,-- Give me them,--and the peace of mind, dearer than all! Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home! There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!

How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile, And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile! Let others delight mid new pleasures to roam, But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home! Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home! There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!

To thee I'll return, overburdened with care; The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there; No more from that, cottage again will I roam; Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home! There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!

EDGAR ALLAN POE

TO HELEN

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy-Land!

ISRAFEL

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell "Whose heart-strings are a lute;" None sing so wildly well As the angel Israel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell) Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above In her highest noon, The enamoured moon Blushes with love, While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Which were seven,) Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings-- The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty-- Where Love's a grown-up God-- Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we worship in a star.

Therefore, thou art not wrong, Israfeli, who despisest An unimpassioned song; To thee the laurels belong, Best bard, because the wisest! Merrily live, and long!

The ecstasies above With thy burning measures suit-- Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervour of thy lute-- Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thin-e; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely--flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.

LENORE

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever! Let the bell toll!--a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; And, Guy De Vere, halt thou no tear?--weep now or never more! See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore! Come! let the burial rite be read--the funeral song be sung!-- An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-- A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride, "And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her--that she died! "How shall the ritual, then, be read?--the requiem how be sung "By you--by yours, the evil eye,--by yours, the slanderous tongue "That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong! The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside, Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies, The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes-- The life still there, upon her hair--the death upon her eyes. "Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven-- "From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven-- "From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven." Let no bell toll then!--lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth, Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth! And I!--to-night my heart is light! No dirge will I upraise, But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!

THE COLISEUM