qass_BB^??i* 
 BookJ^ . 
 

 — c± t 
 
 S^^^Ce^^^^^^ 
 
THE 
 
 NEW T I M N. 
 
 A ROMANCE OF LONDON. 
 
 FIRST AMERICAN, 
 
 FKOM THE THIRD LONDON EDITION. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 CAREY AND HART. 
 
 1846. 
 
pi? H-U*.. 
 
 If! Hxr^ 
 
 PHILADELPHIA*. 
 
 T. K. AND P. &• COLLINS, 
 
 PRINTERS. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 I. 
 
 O'er royal London, in luxuriant May, 
 
 While lamps yet twinkled, dawning crept the day. 
 
 Home from the hell the pale-eyed gamester steals ; 
 
 Home from the ball flash jaded Beauty's wheels; 
 
 The lean grimalkin, who, since night began, 
 
 Hath hymn'd to love amidst the wrath of man, 
 
 Scared from his raptures by the morning star, 
 
 Flits finely by, and threads the area bar ; 
 
 From fields suburban rolls the early cart; 
 
 As rests the revel, so awakes the mart. 
 
 Transfusing Mocha from the beans within, 
 
 Bright by the crossing gleams the alchemic tin, — 
 
 There halts the craftsman; — there, with envious sigh, 
 
 The houseless vagrant looks, and limps foot-weary by. 
 
4 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Behold that street; — the Omphalos of Town!* 
 Where the grim palace wears the prison's frown, 
 As mindful still, amidst a gaudier race, 
 Of the veil'd Genius of the mournful Place- — 
 Of floors no majesty but Grief's had trod, 
 And weary limbs that only knelt to God'.t 
 
 What tales — what morals of the elder day— 
 
 If stones had language — could that street convey ! 
 
 Along that space the blood-hound crowd array'd 
 
 Howl'cl round the shrine where last the Stuart pray'd;J 
 
 See to that space the self-same blood-hounds run 
 
 To lick the feet of Stuart's viler son ! 
 
 * A phrase respectfully suggested to the classic taste of Mr. 
 George Robins, as a substitute for the more prosaic synonym 
 — " a central situation." 
 
 f Where now stands St. James's palace stood the hospital 
 dedicated to St. James, for the reception of fourteen leprous 
 maidens. 
 
 t Charles the First attended divine service in the Royal 
 Chapel immediately before he walked through the park to his 
 scaffold at Whitehall. In the palace of St. James's, Monk and 
 Sir John Granville schemed for the restoration of Charles II. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 There, through the dusk-red towers — amidst his ring 
 Of Vans and Mynheers — rode the Dutchman king; 
 And there — did England's Goneril thrill to hear 
 The shouts that triumphed o'er her crownless Lear? 
 There, where the gas-light streams on Crockford's door, 
 Bluff Henry chuckled at the jests of More. 
 There, where you gaze upon the last H. B., 
 Swift paused, and muttered, " Shall I have that see ?" 
 There, where yon pile, for party's common weal, 
 Knits votes that serve, with hearts abhorring, Peel, 
 Blunt Walpole seized, and roughly bought his man ; — 
 Or, tired of Polly, St. John lounged to Anne. 
 
 Well, let the world change on, — still must endure 
 
 While Earth is Earth — one changeless race — the Poor! 
 
 Within that street, on yonder threshold stone, 
 
 What sits as stone-like ? — Penury claim thine own ! 
 
 She sate the homeless wanderer, — with calm eyes 
 
 Looking thro' tears, yet lifted to the skies ; 
 
 Wistful but patient — sorrowful but mild, 
 
 As asking God when He would claim his child. 
 
 A face too young for such a tranquil grief, 
 
 The worm that gnawed the core had spared the leaf; 
 
6 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Tho' worn the cheek, with hunger or with care, 
 Yet still the soft fresh child-like bloom was there- 
 And each might touch you with an equal gloom, 
 The youth, the care, the hunger, and the bloom ;- 
 As if, when round the cradle of the child 
 With lavish gifts the gentler fairies smiled, 
 One vengeful sprite, forgotten as the guest, 
 Had breathed a spell to disenchant the rest, 
 And prove how slight each favour, else divine, 
 If wroth the Urganda of the Golden Mine ! 
 
 Now as the houseless sate, and up the sky 
 Dawn to day strengthened, pass'd a stranger by : 
 He saw and halted ; — she beheld him not — 
 All round them slept, and silence wrapt the spot. 
 To this new comer Nature had denied 
 The gifts that graced the outcast crouch'd beside : 
 With orient suns his cheek was swarth and grim, 
 And low the form, tho' lightly shaped the limb ; 
 Yet life glowed vigorous in that deep-set eye, 
 With a calm force that dared you to defy; 
 And the small foot was planted on the stone 
 Firm as a gnome's upon his mountain throne ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Simple his garb, yet what the wealthy wear, 
 And conscious power gave lordship to his air. 
 
 Lone in the Babel thus the maid and man ; 
 
 Long he gazed silent, and at last began : — 
 
 " Poor, homeless outcast — dost thou see me stand 
 
 Close by thy side^— yet beg not? Stretch thy hand." 
 
 The voice was stern, abrupt, yet full and deep — 
 
 The outcast heard, and started as from sleep, 
 
 And meekly rose, and stretched the hand, and sought 
 
 To murmur thanks — the murmur fail'd the thought. 
 
 He took the slight thin hand within his own : 
 
 " This hand hath nought of honest labour known ; 
 
 And yet methinks thou'rt honest! — speak, my child." 
 
 And his face broke to beauty as it smiled. 
 
 But her unconscious eyes, cast down the while, 
 Met not the heart that opened in that smile : 
 Again the murmur rose, and died in air. 
 "Nay, what thy mother and her home, and where?" 
 Lo, with those words the rigid ice, that lay 
 Layer upon layer within, dissolves away ; 
 
8 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 And tears come rushing from o'ercharged eyes : — 
 "There is my mother — there her home — the skies!" 
 Oh, in that burst, what deeps of lone distress ! 
 O desolation of the motherless ! 
 Yet through the anguish how survived the trust, 
 Home in the skies, though in the grave the dust ! 
 The man was moved, and silence fell again ; 
 Upsprung the sun — Light reassumed the reign ; — 
 Love ruled on high ! Below, the twain that share 
 Men's builded empires — Mammon and Despair ! 
 
 At length, with pitying eye and soothing tone, 
 The stranger spoke : " Thy bitterer grief mine own ; 
 Mine the full coffers, but the beggared heart, 
 Amidst the million, lonely as thou art. 
 But Gold — earth's demon, when unshared — receives 
 God's breath, and grows a God, when it relieves. 
 Thou trust' st our common Father, orphan one, 
 And He shall guide thee, if thou trust the son. 
 Nay, follow, child." And on, with passive feet, 
 Ghost-like, she followed through the death-like street. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 They paused at last a stately pile before ; 
 The drowsy porter oped the noiseless door ; 
 The girl stood wistful still without; — the pause 
 The guide divined, and thus rebuked the cause : — 
 " Enter, no tempter let thy penury fear, 
 We have a sister, and her home is here." 
 
 II. 
 
 And who the wanderer that hath shelter won 
 
 Beneath the roof of Fortune's favoured son? 
 
 Ill stars predoomed her, and she stole to birth 
 
 Fresh from the Heaven, — Law's outcast on the earth. 
 
 The child of Love, betraying and betrayed, 
 
 The blossom opened in the Upas shade ; — 
 
 So ran the rumour ; if the rumour lied, 
 
 The humble mother wept, but not denied : 
 
 Ne'er had the infant's slumber known a rest 
 
 On childhood's native shield — a father's breast. 
 
 Dead or neglectful, 't was to her the same : 
 
 But oh how dear — yea, dearer for the shame, 
 
 All that God hallows in a mother's name ! 
 
10 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Here, one proud refuge from a world's disdain, 
 Here, the lost empress half resumes her reign ; — 
 Here the deep-fallen Eve sees Eden's skies 
 Smile on the desert from the cherub's eyes ! 
 Sweet to each human heart the right to love ; 
 But 't is the deluge consecrates the dove ; 
 And haply scorn yet more the child endears, 
 Cradled in misery, and baptized with tears. 
 
 Each then the all on earth unto the other, — 
 The smiling infant and the erring mother : 
 The one soon lost the smile which childhood wears, 
 Chill'd by the gloom it marvels at — but shares ; 
 The other, by that purest love made pure, 
 Learn' d to redeem, by labouring to endure : 
 Patience in penance, more than pain for deeds, 
 Draws the hiv'd music from the bruised reeds. 
 
 Hard was their life, and lonely was their hearth ; 
 
 There, kindness brought no holiday of mirth ; 
 
 No kindred visited, no playmate came ; 
 
 Joy — the proud worldling — shunned the child of shame ! 
 
.THE NEW TIMON. 11 
 
 Yet in the lesson which, at stolen whiles, 
 
 'Twixt care and care, the respite-hour beguiles, 
 
 The mother's mind the polished trace betrays 
 
 Of early culture and serener days ; 
 
 And gentle birth still moulds the delicate phrase. 
 
 By converse, more than books, (for books too poor,) 
 
 Learn'd Lucy more than books themselves ensure; 
 
 For if, in truth, the mother's heart had err'd, 
 
 Pure now the life, and holy was the word : 
 
 The fallen state no grovelling change had wrought ; 
 
 Meek if the bearing, lofty was the thought ; 
 
 So much of noble in the lore instill'd, 
 
 You felt the soul had ne'er the error will'd ; — 
 
 That fraud alone had duped its wings astray 
 
 From their true instincts to empyreal day. 
 
 Thus life itself, if sad'ning, still refined, 
 
 And through the heart the culture reach'd the mind. 
 
 As to the moon the tides attracted move, 
 
 So wakes the intellect beneath the love. — 
 
 To nurse the sickness, to assuage the care, 
 
 To change the sigh into the happier prayer ; 
 
12 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Forestall the unuttered wish with ready guess ; 
 Wise in the exquisite tact of tenderness ; 
 These Lucy's study; — and, in grateful looks, 
 Seraphs write lessons more divine than books. 
 
 So Lucy's April opened into May — 
 Fair time, to Life frank Nature's holiday ! 
 When unto most the imagined future seems 
 The ivory gate whence glide to shape the dreams ; 
 When Love first trembles on the prison-bar 
 Of clay ; and Hope flies fearless to the far — 
 Blest time, to most the ideal heaven of man — 
 With her the Golden ceased, the Iron Age began. 
 
 Behold her by the couch, on bended knees ! 
 
 There the wan mother — there the last disease ! 
 
 Dread to the poor the least suspense of health,-— 
 
 Their hands their friends,— their labour all their wealth; 
 
 Let the wheel rest from toil a single sun, 
 
 And all the humble clock-work is undone. 
 
 The custom lost, the drain upon the hoard, 
 
 The debt that sweeps the fragment from the board, 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 13 
 
 How mark the hunger round thee, and be brave — 
 
 Foresee thy orphan, and not fear the grave ? 
 
 Lower and ever lower in the grade 
 
 Of penury fell the mother and the maid, 
 
 Till the grim close ; when, as the midnight rain 
 
 Drove to the pallet through the broken pane, 
 
 The dying murmured : " Near, — thy hand, — more near ! 
 
 I am not what scorn deem'd, — yet not severe 
 
 The doom which leaves me in the hour of death 
 
 The right to bless thee with my parting breath — 
 
 These, worn till now, wear thou, his daughter. Live 
 
 To see thy Sire, and tell him — I forgive!" 
 
 Cold the child thrills beneath the hands that press 
 
 Her bended neck — slow slackens the caress — 
 
 Loud the roof rattles with the stormy gust ; — 
 
 The grief is silent, and the love is dust ; — 
 
 From the spent fuel God's bright spark is flown ; 
 
 And there the Motherless, and Death — alone ! 
 
 Then fell a happy darkness o'er the mind ; — 
 
 That trance, that pause, the tempest leaves behind : 
 
 Still, with a timid step, around she crept, 
 
 And sighed " she sleeps," and smiled. Too well she slept! 
 2 
 
14 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Dark strangers entered in the squalid cell; 
 
 Rude hirelings placed the pauper in the shell ; 
 
 Harsh voices questioned of the name and age ; 
 
 Ev'n paupers live upon the parish page. 
 
 She answers not, or sighs, and smiles, and keeps 
 
 The same meek language : — "Hush! my mother sleeps." 
 
 They thrust some scanty pence into her palm, 
 
 And led her forth, scarce marv'ling at her calm ; 
 
 And bade her work, not beg — be good, and shun 
 
 All bad companions — so their work was done ; 
 
 And the wreck left to drift amidst the roar 
 
 Of the Great Ocean with the rocky shore. 
 
 And thou hast found a shelter, hapless one ! 
 Not yet too late breaks on thy morn the sun ; 
 Not yet deferr'd till Hope hath drooped too long 
 To plume the pinion, and to pour the song : 
 Hope — the sweet bird ! — while that the air can fill, 
 Let earth be ice — the soul has summer still ! 
 
 Yet o'er that house there hung a solemn gloom ; 
 The step fell timid in each gorgeous room, 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 15 
 
 Vast, sumptuous, dreary as some Eastern pile, 
 
 Where mutes keep watch — a home without a smile. 
 
 Noiseless as silence reigned there, like a law, 
 
 And the cold luxury saddened into awe ; 
 
 Save when, the swell of sombre festival 
 
 Jarr'd into joy the melancholy hall, 
 
 As some chance wind in mournful autumn wrings 
 
 Discordant notes, although from music-strings. 
 
 Wild were the wealthy master's moods and strange, 
 
 As one whose humour found its food in change, 
 
 Now for whole days content apart to dwell 
 
 With books and thought — his world the student's cell. 
 
 And now with guests around the glittering board, 
 
 The hermit-Timon shone the Athenian lord ; 
 
 There, bloomed the bright Ephemerals of the Hour, 
 
 Whom the fierce ferment forces into flower, — 
 
 The gorgeous nurslings of the social life, 
 
 Sprung from our hotbeds, — Vanity and Strife ! 
 
 Lords of the Senate, wrestlers for the state, 
 
 Gray -haired in youth, exhausted, worn,— and great ; 
 
 Pale Book-men, — charming only in their style ; 
 
 And Poets, jaundiced with eternal bile; — 
 
16 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 All the poor Titans our Cocytus claims, 
 
 With tortured livers, and immortal names :— 
 
 Such made the guests, Amphitryons well may boast, 
 
 But still the student travailed in the host ;— 
 
 These were the living books, he loved to read, — 
 
 Keys to his lore, and comments on his creed. 
 
 From them he rose with more confirmed disdain 
 
 Of the thorn-chaplet, and the gilded chain. 
 
 Oft, from such statelier revels, to the shed 
 
 Where Hunger couch' d, the same dark impulse led ; 
 
 Intent, the Babel Art has built to trace, 
 
 Here scan the height, and there explore the base; 
 
 That structure call'd " The Civilized," as vain 
 
 As its old symbol on the Shinar plain, 
 
 Where Pride collects the bricks and slime, and then 
 
 But builds the city to divide the men ; 
 
 Swift comes the antique curse, — smites one from one, 
 
 Rends the great bond, and leaves the pile undone. 
 
 Man will o'er muse — when musing on mankind — 
 The vast expanse defeats the searching mind, 
 Blent in one mass each varying height and hue : — 
 Wouldst thou seize Nature, Artist — bound the view ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 17 
 
 But He, in truth, was banish' d from the ties 
 That curb the ardent, and content the wise ; 
 From the pent heart the bubbling passions sweep, 
 To spread in aimless circles o'er the deep. 
 
 Still in extremes — in each extreme betray'd 
 
 A soul at discord with the part it play'd; 
 
 A soul in social elements misplaced, 
 
 Bruised by the grate and yearning for the waste, 
 
 And wearing custom, as a Pard the chain, 
 
 Now with dull torpor, now with fierce disdain. 
 
 All who approached him by that spell were bound, 
 Which nobler natures weave themselves around ; 
 Those stars which make their own charm' d atmosphere ; 
 Not wholly love, but yet more love than fear, 
 A mystic influence, which, we know not why, 
 Makes some on earth seem portions of our sky. 
 
 In truth, our Morvale (such his name) could boast 
 Those kinglier virtues, which subject us most; 
 
 2* 
 
18 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 The ear inclined to every voice of grief, 
 
 The hand that oped spontaneous to relief, 
 
 The heart, whose impulse stay'd not for the mind 
 
 To freeze to doubt what charity enjoin'd, 
 
 But sprang to man's warm instinct for mankind; 
 
 The antique honour, with its nameless power, 
 
 Which is to virtue, as to plants the flower ; 
 
 And that true daring not alone to those 
 
 Whom fault or fate has marshall'd into foes ; 
 
 But the rare valour that confronts with scorn 
 
 The monster shape, of Vice and Folly born, 
 
 Which some " the World," and some " Opinion," call, 
 
 Own'd by no heart, and yet enslaving all; 
 
 The bastard charter of the social state, 
 
 Which crowns the base to ostracize the great; 
 
 The eternal quack upon the itinerant stage, 
 
 This the "good Public," that "the enlightened Age," 
 
 Ready alike to worship and revile, 
 
 To build the altar, or to light the pile ; 
 
 Now " Down with Stuart and the Reign of Sin," 
 
 Now " Long live Charles the Second and Nell Gwynne," 
 
 Now mad for patriots — hot for revolution, 
 
 Now all for hanging and the Constitution; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 19 
 
 Honour to him, who self-complete and brave 
 In scorn, can carve his pathway to the grave, 
 And heeding nought of what men think or say, 
 Make his own heart his world upon the way ! 
 
 Such was the better nature Morvale show'd. 
 
 Now view the contrast which the worse bestow'd. 
 
 Much had he read — yet all confused and mix'd, 
 
 No polar truth the wandering reason fix'd; 
 
 The fiery impulse and the kingly will, 
 
 If prompt to good, no judgment check'd from ill; 
 
 Quick in revenge, and passionately proud, 
 
 His brightest hour still shone forth from a cloud, 
 
 And none conjecture on the next could form — 
 
 So play'd the sunbeam on the verge of storm. 
 
 Still young — not youthful — life had pass'd thro' all — 
 Age sighs, and smiles, and trembles to recall. 
 From childhood fatherless and lone begun 
 His fiery race, beneath as fierce a sun, 
 Where all extremes of Love and Horror are, 
 Soft Camdeo's lotos bark, grim Moloch's gory car. 
 
20 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Where basks the noonday luminously calm, 
 
 O'er eldest grot and immemorial palm ; 
 
 And in the grot, the Goddess of the Dead 
 
 And the couch'd strangler, list the wanderer's tread, 
 
 And where the palm leaves stir with breeze-like sigh, 
 
 Sports the fell serpent with his deathful eye. 
 
 'Midst the exurberant life of that fierce zone, 
 Uncurb'd, self-will' d, to man had Morvale grown. 
 His sire, (the offspring of an Indian maid 
 And English chief,) whose orient hues betrayed 
 The Varna Sankara* of the mix'd embrace, 
 Carved by his sword a charter from disgrace; — 
 Assumed the father's name, the Christian's life, 
 And his sins cursed him with an English wife ; 
 A haughty dame, whose discontented charms 
 That merchant, Hymen, bargained to his arms. 
 
 * The Sanscrit term ? (familiar to those \vho ; like the writer, 
 have resided in the vast Empire we govern and forget, ) denoting 
 the mixture or confusion of classes ; applied to that large portion 
 of the Indian population excluded from the four pure Castes. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 21 
 
 In war he fell: his wife— tHe bondage o'er, 
 Loathed the dark pledge the abhorred nuptials bore — 
 Yet young, her face more genial wedlock won, 
 And one bright daughter made more loath'd the son. 
 Widowed anew, for London's native air, 
 And two tall footmen, sigh'd the jointured fair: 
 Wealth hers, why longer from its use exiled ?— 
 She fled the land and the abandoned child ; 
 Yet oft the first-born, 'midst the swarthier race, 
 Gazed round, and miss'd the fair unloving face. 
 In vain the coldness, nay, the hate had been, 
 Hate, by the eyes that love, is rarely seen. 
 
 Yet more he miss'd the playmate, sister-child, 
 With looks that ever on his own had smiled ; 
 With rosy lips, caressing and carest ; 
 Led by his hand and cradled on his breast : 
 But, as the cloud conceals and breaks in flame, 
 The gloom of youth the fire of man became. 
 Not his the dreams that studious life allows, 
 " Under the shade of melancholy boughs," — 
 
22 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Dreams that to lids the Muse anoints belong, — 
 Rocking the Passions on soft waves of song ; 
 No poet he ; adventure, wandering, strife, 
 War and the chase, wrung poetry from life. 
 
 One day a man who call'd his father friend, 
 Told o'er his rupees and perceived his end. 
 Life's business done — a million made — what still 
 Remained on earth? Wealth's last caprice — a Will! 
 The man was childless — but the world was wide- 
 He thought on Morvale, made his will, — and died. 
 They sought and found the unsuspecting heir, 
 Couch'd in the shade that near'd the tiger's lair, 
 His gun beside, the jungle round him, — wild, 
 Lawless and fierce as Hagar's wandering child : — 
 To this fresh nature the sleek life deceast 
 Left the bright plunder of the ravaged East. 
 Much wealth brings want, — that hunger of the heart 
 Which comes when Nature man deserts for Art: 
 His northern blood, his English name, create 
 Strife in the soul, till then resigned to fate ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 23 
 
 The social world with blander falsehood graced, 
 Smiles on his hopes, and lures him from the waste. 
 Alas ! the taint that sun-burnt brow bespeaks, 
 Divides the Half-Caste from the world he seeks: 
 In him proud Europe sees the Paria's birth, 
 And haughty Juno spurns his barren hearth. 
 Half heathen, and half savage, — all estranged 
 Amidst his kind, the Ishmael roved unchanged — 
 
 Small need to track his course from year to year — 
 
 Till wearied passion paused in its career : 
 
 Travel, experience, lore of things and men, 
 
 Brought thought — thought books — books quiet ; well, and 
 
 then? 
 Alas ! we move but in the Hebrews' ring ;* 
 Our onward steps but back the landmarks bring, 
 Until some few at least escape the thrall, 
 And breathe the space beyond the naming walk 
 
 * According to some Eastern commentators, the march of the 
 Israelites in the Desert was in a charmed circle ; every morning 
 they set out on their journey, and every night found themselves 
 on the same spot as that from which the journey had commenced. 
 
24 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Feel the large freedom which in faith is given, 
 And plume the wings that shall possess the heaven. 
 
 He search'd his mother. She, intent to shun, 
 
 Closed that last refuge on the homeless Son, 
 
 Till Death approach'd, and Conscience, that sad star 
 
 Which heralds night, and plays but on the bar 
 
 Of the Eternal Gate, — laid bare the crime, 
 
 And woke the soul upon the brink of time. 
 
 Happy if close, too closely, we would read 
 
 That sybil page, the Motive of the Deed. 
 
 Remorse for him her life abandoned, weaves 
 
 Fear for the dearer one her death bereaves ; 
 
 And penitent lines consign'd, with eager prayer, 
 
 The lorn Calantha to a brother's care. 
 
 Not till long moons had waned in distant skies, 
 
 O'er the last mandate wept the Indian's eyes ; 
 
 But life was sweet once more, — that grave above 
 
 Bloom'd back youth's flower : — he had a thing to love ! 
 
 Fair Florence holds the heart he yearns to meet; 
 
 Swift, when heart yearns to heart, how swift the feet! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 25 
 
 Well, and those arms have clasp' d a sister now ! 
 Thy tears have fallen on a sister's brow ! 
 Alas ! thy doom a sister's heart forbade ; 
 Thy lot as lonely, and thy hearth as sad. 
 Is that pale shade the Peri-child in truth, 
 Who shone, like Morning, on the hills of Youth ? 
 Is that cold voice the same that rang through air, 
 Blithe as the bird sings in rebuke of care ? 
 
 Certes, to those who might more closely mark, 
 That dove brought nought of gladness to his ark ; 
 No loving step, to meet him homeward, flew ; 
 Still at his voice her pale cheek paler grew. 
 The greeting kiss, the tender, trustful talk,— 
 Arm linked in arm — the dear familiar walk ; 
 The sweet domestic interchange of cares, 
 Memories and hopes — this union was not theirs. 
 Partly, perchance, the jealous laws that guard 
 The Eastern maids, their equal commune barr'd ; 
 For still, in much the antique creed retain' d 
 Its hold, and India in the Alien reign'd, 
 3 
 
26 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 That superstitious love which would secure 
 What the heart worships, for the world too pure ; 
 And wrap with solemn mystery and divine, 
 From the crowd's gaze, the idol and the shrine, 
 In him was instinct, — generous if austere ; 
 More priestly reverence, than dishonouring fear. 
 Yet wherefore shun no less, if this were all, 
 His lonely chamber as his crowded hall ? 
 For days, for weeks, perchance, unseen, aloof 
 Far as the poles, beneath one common roof, 
 She drew around her the cold spells, which part 
 From forward sympathies the unsocial heart. 
 Yet, strange to say, each seemed to each still dear ; 
 And love in her but curb'cl by stronger fear; 
 And love in him by some mysterious pride, 
 That sought the natural tenderness to hide : 
 Did she but name him, you beheld her raise 
 Moist eyes to heaven, as one who inly prays. 
 News of her varying health he daily sought, 
 And his mood altered with the tidings brought: 
 If worse than wonted, it was sad to view 
 That stern man's trembling lip and waning hue, — 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 27 
 
 Sad, yet the sadness with an awe was blent, — 
 No words e'er gave the struggling passion vent; 
 And still that passion seem'd not grief alone, 
 Some curse seem'd labouring in the stifled groan: 
 Some angrier chord the mixed emotion wrench'd; 
 The brow was darken'd, and the hand was clench'd. 
 
 There was a mystery that defied the guess, 
 In so much love, and so much tenderness. 
 What sword, invisible to human eyes, 
 So sternly severed Nature's closest ties : 
 To leave each yearning unto each— apart — 
 All ice the commune, and all warmth the heart ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Now, for some weeks had she, the stranger guest, 
 Found in that cheerless home her grateful rest : 
 Her task no menial's, — privileged to share 
 Calantha's hours, to soothe them was her care. 
 Scarce told her loss, than what untold remain'd 
 Calantha hush' d— her heart already gain'd 
 
28 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 And delicate pity shunn'd anew to bare 
 The wounds yet quivering to the faintest air; 
 That chastened speech, the grace so simply worn, 
 Bespoke the nurture of the gentle-born ; 
 And, as an equal might an equal woo, 
 Calantha sigh'd — " I am an orphan too, 
 Both mourners and both lonely — be to me, 
 Sister, and friend— I, sister, friend to thee." 
 And day by day the new-born influence stole, 
 As steals the summer, o'er that frozen soul ; 
 Calantha brightened in her presence — broke 
 Into faint smiles when the young Soother spoke ; 
 Wept tears, that seem'd to sweet founts to belong, 
 At Lucy's bird-like and untutored song ; 
 And felt as some poor captive, when from far 
 The mavis nestles on the dungeon bar, 
 And sings him back, forgetful of his chain, 
 To home and hope, and happy hours again. 
 The very menials lingered as they went, 
 To spy the fairy to their dwelling sent, 
 To list her light step on the stair, or hark 
 Her song ; — yes, now the dove was in the ark ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 29 
 
 Ev'n the cold Morvale, spell'd at last, was found 
 
 Within the circle drawn his guest around ; 
 
 Less rare his visits to Calantha grew, 
 
 Less pale the cheek, his eyes grown softer, view ; 
 
 The presence of this gentle third one, brought 
 
 Respite to memory, gave fresh play to thought ; 
 
 And as some child to strifeful parents sent, 
 
 Laps the long discord in its own content, 
 
 This happy creature seem'd to reach that home, 
 
 To say — " Love enters where the guileless come!" 
 
 It was not mirth, for mirth she was too still, 
 It was not wit, wit leaves the heart more chill ; 
 But that continuous sweetness, which with ease 
 Pleases all round it, from the wish to please, — 
 This was the charm that Lucy's smile bestowed ; 
 The waves' fresh ripple from deep fountains flowed:- — 
 Below exhaustless gratitude, — above 
 Woman's meek temper — childhood's ready love. 
 
 Oft, after all the cheerful smiles of day, 
 
 When by her couch she knelt at night to pray ; 
 
 3* 
 
30 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 As some fair lake reflects, when day is o'er, 
 With stiller deeps and clearer tide the shore, 
 So, Night and calm the lengthening memory glass'd ; 
 And from the silence rose distinct the past. 
 Again she sees her mother's gentle face ; 
 Again she feels the mother's soft embrace; 
 Again the mother's sigh of pain she hears, 
 And starts — and lo, the spell dissolves in tears ! 
 Tears that too well that faithful grief reveal, 
 Which smiles, by day made duties, would conceal. 
 So droop the flowers, when lonely eve renews 
 Earth's and heaven's union in baptizing dews. 
 
 It was a noon of summer in its glow, 
 And all was life, but London's life, below ; 
 As by the open casement half reclined 
 Calantha's languid form; — a gentle wind 
 Brought to her cheek a bloom unwonted there, 
 And stirred the light wave of the golden hair. 
 Hers was a beauty that made sad the eye, 
 Bright, but fast fading, like a twilight sky ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 31 
 
 The shape so finely, delicately frail, 
 
 As form'd for climes unruffled by a gale ; 
 
 The lustrous eye, through which look'd forth the soul, 
 
 Bright and more brightly as it neared the goal ; 
 
 The fatal clearness of the varying hue, 
 
 Where life the quick lamp shines, in flickering, through ; 
 
 The waning beauty, the funereal charms 
 
 With which Death steals his bride into his arms. 
 
 What made more sad the outward form's decay, 
 
 A soul of genius glimmer'd through the clay; 
 
 Oft through the languor of disease would break 
 
 That life of light Parnassian dreamers seek ; 
 
 And music trembled on each aspen leaf 
 
 Of the boughs drooping o'er the fount of grief. 
 
 Genius has so much youth no care can kill ; 
 
 Death seems unnatural when it sighs — " Be still." 
 
 That wealth, which Nature prodigally gave, 
 
 Shall Life but garner for its heir the Grave ? 
 
 What noble hearts that treasure might have blest ! 
 
 How large the realm that mind should have possest ! 
 
 Love in the wife, and wisdom in the friend, 
 
 And earnest purpose for a generous end, 
 
32 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 And glowing sympathy for thoughts of power, 
 And playful fancy for the lighter hour ; 
 All lost, all caverned in the sunless gloom 
 Of some dark memory, beetling o'er the tomb ;— 
 Like bright wing'd fairies, whom the hostile gnome 
 Has spell'd and dungeon'd in his rocky home, 
 The wanderer hears the solitary moan, 
 Nor dreams the fairy in the sullen stone. 
 
 Contrasting this worn frame and weary breast, 
 Fresh as a morn of April bloom' d the guest. 
 April has tears, and mists the morn array ; 
 The mists, the sun, — the tears foretell the May. 
 Lo, as from care to care the soother glides, 
 How the home brightens where the heart presides ! 
 Now hovering, bird-like, o'er the flowers, — at times 
 Pausing to chant Calantha's favourite rhymes, 
 Or smooth the uneasy pillow with light hand ; 
 Or watch the eye, forestalling the demand, 
 Complete in every heavenly art — above 
 All, save the genius of inventive love. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 33 
 
 The window opened on that breadth of green, 
 
 To half the pomp of elder days the scene. 
 
 Gaze to thy left — there the Plantagenet 
 
 Look'd on the lists for Norman knighthood set;* 
 
 Bright issued forth, where yonder archway glooms, 
 
 Banner and trump and steed, and waves of plumes, 
 
 As with light heart rides wanton Anne to brave 
 
 Tudor's grim love, the purple and the grave. 
 
 Gaze to the right, where now — neat, white, and low, 
 
 The modest Palace looks like Brunswick Row ; 
 
 There, echoed once the merriest orgies known, 
 
 Since the frank Norman won grave Harold's throne ; 
 
 There, bloom'd the mulberry groves, beneath whose shade 
 
 His easy loves the royal Rowley made ; 
 
 Where Villiers flaunted, and where Sedley sung, 
 
 And wit's loose diamonds dropp'd from Wilmot's tongue ! 
 
 All at rest now — all dust ! — wave flows on wave ; 
 
 But the sea dries not !— what to us the grave ? 
 
 It brings no real homily ; we sigh, 
 
 Pause for awhile and murmur, "all must die !" 
 
 * The Tilt-yard. 
 
34 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Then rush to pleasure, action, sin once more, 
 Swell the loud tide, and fret unto the shore. 
 
 And o'er the altered scene Calantha's eye 
 Roves listless — yet Time's Great the passers by ! 
 Along the road still fleet the men, whose names 
 Live in the talk the Moment's glory claims. 
 There, for that storm or stagnor, " The Debate," 
 Pass to their post the helmsmen of the state. 
 Now, " on his humble but his faithful steed," 
 Sir Robert rides — he never rides at speed — 
 Careful his seat, and circumspect his gaze; 
 And still the cautious trot the cautious mind betrays. 
 Wise is thy heed !— how stout soe'er his back, 
 Thy weight has oft proved fatal to thy hack ! 
 
 Next, with loose rein and careless canter view 
 Our man of men, the Prince of Waterloo ; 
 O'er the firm brow the hat as firmly prest, 
 The firm shape rigid in the button'd vest; 
 Within — the iron which the fire has proved, 
 And the close Sparta of a mind unmoved ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 35 
 
 Not his the wealth to some large natures lent, 
 Divinely lavish, even where mispent, 
 That liberal sunshine of exuberant soul, 
 Thought, sense, affection, warming up the whole ; 
 The heat and affluence of a genial power, 
 Rank in the weed as vivid in the flower ; 
 Hush'd at command his veriest passions halt, 
 Drill'd is each virtue, disciplined each fault; 
 Warm if his blood — he reasons while he glows, 
 Admits the pleasure — ne'er the folly knows ; 
 If for our Mars his snare had Vulcan set, 
 He had won the Venus, but escaped the net; 
 His eye ne'er wrong, if circumscribed the sight, 
 Widen the prospect and it ne'er is right, 
 Seen through the telescope of habit still, 
 States seem a camp, and all the world — a drill ! 
 
 Yet oh, how few his faults, how pure his mind, 
 
 Beside his fellow-conquerors of mankind; 
 
 How knightly seems the iron image, shown 
 
 By Marlborough's tomb, or lost Napoleon's throne ! 
 
 Cold if his lips, no smile of fraud they wear, 
 
 Stern if his heart, still "Man" is graven there; 
 
36 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 No guile — no crime his step to greatness made, 
 No freedom trampled, and no trust betray'd ; 
 The eternal "I" was not his law — he rose 
 Without one art that honour might oppose, 
 And leaves a human, if a hero's name, 
 To curb ambition while it lights to fame. 
 
 But who, scarce less by every gazer eyed, 
 
 Walks yonder, swinging with a stalwart stride ? 
 
 With that vast bulk of chest and limb assign' d 
 
 So oft to men who subjugate their kind; 
 
 So sturdy Cromwell push'd broad shoulder'd on; 
 
 So burly Luther breasted Babylon ; 
 
 So brawny Cleon bawl'd his Agora down ; 
 
 And large-limb'd Mahmoud clutch'd a Prophet's crown ! 
 
 Ay, mark him well ! the schemer's subtle eye, 
 
 The stage-mime's plastic lip your search defy — 
 
 He, like Lysander, never deems it sin 
 
 To eke the lion's with the fox's skin; 
 
 Vain every mesh this Proteus to enthrall, 
 
 He breaks no statute, and he creeps through all ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 37 
 
 First to the mass that valiant truth to tell, 
 
 " Rebellion's art is never to rebel, — 
 
 Elude all danger but defy all laws," — 
 
 He stands himself the Safe Sublime he draws ! 
 
 In him behold all contrasts which belong 
 
 To minds abased, but passions rous'd, by wrong ; 
 
 The blood all fervour, and the brain all guile, — 
 
 The patriot's bluntness, and the bondsman's wile. 
 
 One after one the lords of time advance, — 
 
 Here Stanley meets,— how Stanley scorns, the glance ! 
 
 The brilliant chief, irregularly great, 
 
 Frank, haughty, rash, — the Rupert of Debate ! 
 
 Nor gout, nor toil, his freshness can destroy, 
 
 And Time still leaves all Eton in the boy; 
 
 First in the class, and keenest in the ring, 
 
 He saps like Gladstone, and he fights like Spring ! 
 
 Ev'n at the feast, his pluck pervades the board, 
 
 And dauntless game-cocks symbolize their lord.* 
 
 * Every one knows that his lordship inherits the amiable pas- 
 sion of his grandfather, and occasionally relieves the dullness of 
 the desert by the introduction of those warlike birds, for the pure 
 breed of which the House of Stanley is so justly renowned, 
 4 
 
38 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Lo where atilt at friend — if barr'd from foe — 
 He scours the ground, and volunteers the blow, 
 And, tired with conquest over Dan and Snob, 
 Plants a sly bruiser on the nose of Bob ; 
 Decorous Bob, too friendly to reprove, 
 Suggests fresh fighting in the next remove, 
 And prompts his chum, in hopes the vein to cool, 
 To the prim benches of the Upper School : 
 
 Yet who not listens, with delighted smile, 
 To the pure Saxon of that silver style ; 
 In the clear style a heart as clear is seen, 
 Prompt to the rash — revolting from the mean. 
 
 Next cool, and all unconscious of reproach, 
 Comes the calm "Johnny who upset the coach."* 
 How formed to lead, if not too proud to please, — 
 His fame would fire you, but his manners freeze. 
 
 * Lord Stanley's memorable exclamation on a certain occa- 
 sion which now belongs to history , — " Johnny's upset the coach !" 
 Never was coach upset with sugh perfect sang froid on the part 
 of the driver. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 39 
 
 Like or dislike, he does not care a jot; 
 
 He wants your vote, but your affection not ; 
 
 Yet human hearts need sun, as well as oats, — 
 
 So cold a climate plays the deuce with votes. — 
 
 And while its doctrines ripen day by day, 
 
 His frost-nipp'd party pines itself away; — 
 
 From the starved wretch its own loved child we steal — 
 
 And "Free Trade" chirrups on the lap of Peel! — 
 
 But see our statesman when the steam is on, 
 
 And languid Johnny glows to glorious John ! 
 
 When Hampden's thought, by Falkland's muses drest, 
 
 Lights the pale cheek, and swells the generous breast; 
 
 When the pent heat expands the quickening soul,— 
 
 And foremost in the race the wheels of genius roll ! 
 
 What gives the Past the haunting charms that please 
 Sage, scholar, bard ? — The shades of men like these ! 
 Seen in our walks ; — with vulgar blame or praise, 
 Reviled or worship'd as our faction sways : 
 Some centuries hence, and from that praise or blame,— 
 As light from vapour breaks the steady name, 
 And the trite Present which, while acted, seems 
 Time's dullest prose, — fades in the land of dreams, 
 
40 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Gods spring from dust, and Hero-Worship wakes 
 Out of that Past the humble Present makes. 
 And yet, what matter to ourselves the Great? 
 What the heart touches- — that controls our fate ? 
 From the full galaxy we turn to one, 
 Dim to all else, but to ourselves the sun ; 
 And still, to each, some poor, obscurest life, 
 Breathes all the bliss, or kindles all the strife. 
 Wake up the countless dead ! — ask every ghost 
 Whose influence tortured or consoled the most: 
 How each pale spectre of the host would turn 
 From the fresh laurel and the glorious urn, 
 To point, where rots beneath a nameless stone, 
 Some heart in which had ebb'd and flow'd its own ! 
 
 What marvel then that sad Calantha's eye 
 Roved listless o'er the nobler passers-by ? 
 History in vain records them in her line : — 
 O, heart ! a nation's history is not thine ! 
 But now, why sudden that electric start? 
 She stands — the pale lips soundless, yet apart ! 
 She stands, with clasped hands and strained eye — 
 A moment's silence — one convulsive cry, 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 41 
 
 And sinking to the earth, a seeming death 
 
 Smote into chill suspense the senses and the breath : 
 
 Quick by the unconscious hostess knelt the guest, — 
 
 Bathed the wan brows, and loosed the stifling vest; 
 
 As loosed the vest, — like one whose sleep of fear 
 
 Is keen with dreams that warn of danger near, — 
 
 Calantha's hand repell'd the friendly care, 
 
 And faintly clasp'd some token hoarded there, — 
 
 Perchance some witness of the untold grief, — 
 
 Some sainted relic of a lost belief, 
 
 Some mournful talisman, whose touch recalls 
 
 The ghost of time, in Memory's desolate halls, 
 
 And like the vessels that, of old, enshrined 
 
 The soil of lands the exile left behind, — 
 
 Holds all youth rescues from that native shore 
 
 Of hope and passion, life shall tread no more. 
 
 Calantha wakes, but not to sense restored, 
 
 The mind still trembled on the jarred chord, 
 
 And troubled reason nickered in the eye, 
 
 As gleams and wanes a star in some perturbed sky ; 
 
 4* 
 
 
42 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Yet still, through all the fever of the brain, 
 Terror, more strong, can Frenzy's self restrain. 
 Few are her words, and if at times they seem 
 To touch the dark truths shadowed on her dream, 
 She starts, with whitening lip — looks round in fear, 
 And murmurs "Nay! my brother did not hear!" 
 Then smiles, as if the fear were laid at rest, 
 And clasps the token treasured at her breast, 
 And whispers, " Lucy, guard my sleep ; — they say 
 That sleep is faithless, and that dreams betray !" 
 
 Yet oft the while — to watch without the door, 
 The brother's step creeps noiseless o'er the floor, — 
 There meekly waits, until the welcome ray 
 Of Lucy's smile gives comfort to the day, — 
 Till Lucy's whisper murmurs, "Be of cheer," 
 And Pity dupes Affection's willing ear. 
 Once, and but once, within the room he crept, 
 When all was silent, and they deemed she slept, 
 Not softer to the infant's cradle steals 
 The mother's step ; — she hears not, yet she feels, 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 43 
 
 As by strange instinct, the approach ; — her frame 
 
 Convulsed and shuddering as he nearer came; 
 
 Till the wild cry, — the waving hand convey 
 
 The frantic prayer, so bitter to obey, 
 
 And with stern brow, belying the wrung heart, 
 
 And voiceless lips comprest, he turns him to depart, i 
 
 Wondering, mused Lucy, the dark cause to find, 
 
 Which made Calantha sting a soul so kind; 
 
 Awe that had chill'd the gratitude she felt 
 
 For Morvale, now in pity seem'd to melt : 
 
 This patient tenderness in one so stern, 
 
 Perchance so wrong' d — this love without return, 
 
 This rough exterior, with this gentle breast, 
 
 Awoke a sympathy that would not rest; 
 
 That wistful eye, that changing lip, that tone, 
 
 Whose accents droop'd, or gladden'd, from her own, 
 
 Haunted the woman's heart, which ever heaves 
 
 Its echo back to every sound that grieves. 
 
 Light as the gossamer its tissue spins 
 
 O'er freshet dews when summer morn begins, 
 
 Will Fancy weave its airy web above 
 
 The dews of Pity, in the dawn of Love ! — 
 
44 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 At length, Calantha's reason wakes; — the strife 
 Calms back, — the soul re-settles to the life. 
 Freed from her post, flies Lucy to rejoice 
 The anxious heart, so wistful for her voice ; 
 Not at his wonted watch the brother found, 
 She seeks his door — no answer to her sound, 
 She halts in vain, till, eager to begin 
 The joyous tale, the bright shape glides within; 
 For the first time beheld, she views the lone 
 And gloomy rooms the master calls his own ; 
 Not there the luxury elsewhere, which enthralls 
 With pomp the gazer in the rich man's halls ; 
 Strange arms of Eastern warfare, grimly piled, 
 Betray' d the man's fierce memory of the child, — 
 And littered books, in mystic scrolls enshrined 
 The solemn Sybil of the elder Ind. 
 The girl treads fearful on the dismal floors, 
 And with amazed eye the gloomy lair explores; 
 Thus, as some Peri strays where, couch'd in cells, 
 With gods dethroned, the brooding Afrite dwells, 
 From room to room her fairy footsteps glide, 
 Till, lo ! she starts to see him by her side. — 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 45 
 
 With crimson cheek, and downcast eyes, that quail 
 
 Beneath his own, she hurries the glad tale, 
 
 Then turns to partn— but as she turns, still round 
 
 She looks, — and lingers on the magic ground, 
 
 And eyes each antique relic with the wild 
 
 Half pleased, half timorous, wonder of a child ; 
 
 And as a child the lonely inmate saw, 
 
 And smiled to see, the pleasure and the awe ; 
 
 And softened into kindness his deep tone, 
 
 And drew her hand, half shrinking, in his own, 
 
 And said, " Nay, pause and task the showman's skill 
 
 What moves thee most?— come, question me at will." 
 
 Listening she lingered, and, she knew not why, 
 Time's wing so swiftly never seemed to fly ; 
 Never before unto her gaze reveal'd 
 The Eastern fire, the Eastern calm conceal'd: 
 Child of the sun, and native of the waste, 
 Cramp'd in the formal chains it had embraced, 
 His heart leapt back to its old haunts afar, 
 As leaps the lion from the captive-bar ; 
 
46 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 And, as each token flash' d upon the mind 
 
 Young dreams, bold deeds, with memory intertwined, 
 
 The dark eye blazed, the rich words roll'd along, 
 
 Vivid as light, and eloquent as song; 
 
 At length, with sudden pause, he check'd the stream, 
 
 And his soul darkened from the gorgeous dream. 
 
 " So," with sad voice he said, " my youth went by, 
 
 Fresh was the wave, if fitful was the sky ; 
 
 What is my manhood? — curdled and congealed, 
 
 A stagnant water, in a barren field : — 
 
 Gall'd with strange customs, — in the crowd, alone ! 
 
 And courting bloodless hearts that freeze my own ! 
 
 In the far lands, where first I breathed the air, — 
 
 Smile if thou wilt, — this rugged form was fair, 
 
 For the swift foot, strong arm, bold heart give grace 
 
 To man, when danger girds man's dwelling place, — 
 
 Thou seest the daughter of my mother, now, 
 
 Shrinks from the outcast branded on my brow ; 
 
 My boyhood tamed the lion in his den, 
 
 The wild beast feels men's kindness more than men. 
 
 Like with its like, they say, will intertwine, — 
 
 I have not tamed one human heart to mine !" — 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 47 
 
 He paused abruptly. Thrice his listener sought 
 To shape consoling speech from soothing thought, 
 But thrice she failed, and thrice the colour came 
 And went, as tenderness was check'd by shame ; 
 At length her dove-like eyes to his she raised, 
 And all the comfort words forbade, she gazed ; 
 Mov'd by her child-like pity, but too dark 
 In hopeless thought than pity more to mark ; 
 " Infant," he murmured, " not for others flow 
 The tears the wise, how hard soe'er, must know; 
 As yet, the Eden of a guileless breast, 
 Opes a frank home to every angel guest ; 
 Soft Eve, look round ! — The world in which thou art 
 Distrusts the angel, nor unlocks the heart — 
 Thy time will come!" — 
 
 He spoke, and from her side 
 Was gone, — the heart his wisdom wronged replied ! 
 
 END OF PART THE FIRST. 
 
 
THE NEW TIMON, 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 I. 
 
 London, I take thee to a Poet's heart ! 
 For those that seek a Helicon thou art ! 
 Let schoolboy Strephons bleat of flocks and fields, 
 Each street of thine a loftier Idyl yields ; 
 Fed by all life, and fann'd by every wind, 
 There, burns the quenchless Poetry — Mankind ! 
 Yet not for me the Olympiad of the gay, 
 The reeking Season's dusty holiday : — 
 Soon as its odour-pomp the mead assumes, 
 And Flora wanders through her world of blooms, 
 Vain the hot field-days of the vex'd debate, 
 When Sirius reigns, — let Borthwick rule the state ! 
 5 
 
50 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Vain Jersey's cards, and Lansdowne's social feast, 
 Wit but fatigues, and Beauty's reign hath ceased! 
 His mission done, the monk regains his cell ; 
 Nor even Douro's matchless face can spell ! 
 Far from Man's works, escaped to God's> I fly, 
 And breathe the luxury of a smokeless sky ! 
 Me, the still " London," not the restless " Town," 
 (The light plume fluttering o'er Cybele's crown,) 
 Delights ; — for there, the grave Romance hath shed 
 Its hues ; and air grows solemn with the Dead. 
 If, where the Lord of Rivers parts the throng, 
 And eastward glides by buried halls along, 
 My steps are led, I linger, and restore 
 To the changed wave the poet-shapes of yore ; 
 See the gilt barge, and hear the fated king 
 Prompt the first mavis of our Minstrel spring ;* 
 
 * " One of the most remarkable pictures of ancient manners 
 which has been transmitted to us, is that in which the poetGower 
 describes the circumstances under which he was commanded by 
 King Richard II. — 
 
 ' To make a book after his hest.' 
 
 The good old rhymer .... had taken boat, and upon the 
 
 broad river he met the king in his stately barge The 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 51 
 
 Or mark, with mitred Nevile,* the array 
 Of arms and craft alarm " the Silent Way," 
 The Boar of Gloucester, hungering, scents his prey ! 
 Or, landward, trace where thieves their festive hall 
 Hold by the dens of Law, (worst thief of all !) 
 The antique Templet of the armed Zeal 
 That wore the cross a mantle to the steel ; 
 Time's dreary void the kindling dream supplies, 
 The walls expand, the shadowy towers arise, 
 
 monarch called him on board his own vessel, and desired him 
 to book l some new thing.' — This was the origin of the Confessio 
 A mantis." — Knight's London^ vol. i. art. Tlie Silent Highway. 
 
 * " What a picture Hall gives us of the populousness of the 
 Thames, in the story which he tells us of the Archbishop of York 
 (Brother to the Kingmaker), after leaving the widow of Ed- 
 ward IV. in the sanctuary of Westminster, l sitting below on 
 the rushes all desolate and dismayed,' and when he opened his 
 windows and looked on the Thames, he might see the river full 
 of boats of the Duke of Gloucester his servants, watching that 
 no person should go to sanctuary, nor none should pass un- 
 searched." — Ibid. Ibid. 
 
 f A favourite rendezvous a few years since (and probably even 
 still) for the Heroes of that Fraternity, more dear to Mercury 
 than to Themis, was held at Devereux Court, occupying a part 
 of the site on which stood the residence of the Knights Templars. 
 
 
52 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 And forth, as when by Richard's lion side, 
 For Christ and Fame, the Warrior-Phantoms ride ! 
 Or if, less grave with thought, less rich with lore, 
 The later scenes, the lighter steps explore, 
 If through the haunts of living splendour led — 
 Has the quick Muse no empire but the Dead ?— 
 In each keen face, by Care or Pleasure worn, 
 Grief claims her sigh, or Vice invites her scorn ; 
 And every human brow that veils a thought 
 Conceals the Castaly which Shakspeare sought ! 
 
 Me Life hath skill'd !— to me, from woe and wrong, 
 
 By Passion's tomb leapt forth the source of Song. 
 
 The " Quiequid agunt Homines" — whate'er 
 
 Our actions teach us, and our natures share, 
 
 Life and the World, our City and our Age, 
 
 Have tried my spirit to inform my page ; 
 
 I seek no purfled prettiness of phrase, — 
 
 A soul in earnest scorns the tricks for praise. 
 
 If to my verse denied the Poet's fame, 
 
 This merit, rare to verse that wins, I claim ; 
 
 No tawdry grace shall womanize my pen ! 
 
 Ev'n in a love-song, man should write for men! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 53 
 
 Not mine, not mine, (0 Muse forbid !) the boon 
 
 Of borrowed notes, the mock-bird's modish tune, 
 
 The jingling medley of purloin'd conceits, 
 
 Outbabying Wordsworth, and outglittering Keates, 
 
 Where all the airs of patchwork-pastoral chime 
 
 To drowsy ears in Tennysonian rhyme ! 
 
 Am I enthrall' d but by the sterile rule, 
 
 The formal pupil of a frigid school, 
 
 If to old laws my Spartan tastes adhere, 
 
 If the old vigorous music charms my ear, 
 
 Where sense with sound, and ease with weight combine, 
 
 In the pure silver of Pope's ringing line; 
 
 Or where the pulse of man beats loud and strong 
 
 In the frank flow of Dryden's lusty song ? 
 
 Let School-Miss Alfred vent her chaste delight 
 
 On " darling little rooms so warm and bright !"* 
 
 * "0 darling room, my heart's deligh 1 ", 
 
 There is no room so exquisite, 
 No little room so warm and bright, 
 Wherein to read, wherein to write." Tennyson. 
 The whole of this Poem (! ! !) is worth reading, in order to 
 see to what depth of silliness the human intellect can descend. 
 5* 
 
54 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Chaunt, " I'm aweary,"* in infectious strain, 
 And catch her " blue fly singing i' the pane."t 
 Tho' praised by Critics, tho' adored by Blues, 
 Tho' Peel with pudding plump the puling Muse, 
 Tho' Theban taste the Saxon's purse controls, 
 And pensions Tennyson, while starves a Knowles,| 
 
 * " She said, l I'm aweary, aweary, 
 I would that I were dead V ;? 
 
 Mariana, Tennyson. 
 
 t " The blue fly sung i' the pane." 
 
 Ibid. Ibid. 
 t I have no blind enthusiasm for Mr. Knowles, and I allow 
 both the grave faults of his diction, and the somewhat narrow 
 limits within which is contracted his knowledge of character and 
 life ; but no one can deny that he has nobly supported the British 
 Drama — that he has moved the laughter and tears of thousands; 
 that he forms an actual, living, and imperishable feature in the 
 loftier literature of his time — that the History of the English 
 Stage can never be rewritten hereafter, without long and honour- 
 able mention of the author of Virginius and the Hunchback. The 
 most that can be said of Mr. Tennyson is, that he is the favourite 
 of a small circle; to the mass of the Public little more than his 
 name is known — he has moved no thousands — he has created no 
 world of characters — he has laboured out no deathless truths, nor 
 enlarged our knowledge of the human heart by the delineation of 
 various and elevating passions — he has lent a stout shoulder to no 
 sinking but manly cause, dear to the Nation and to Art; yet, if the 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 55 
 
 Rather, be thou, my poor Pierian Maid, 
 Decent at least, in Hayley's weeds array'd, 
 Than patch with frippery every tinsel line, 
 And flaunt admired, the Rag Fair of the Nine ! 
 
 Amidst the crowd, (what time the glowing Hours 
 Strew, as they glide, the summer fields with flowers,) 
 Who fly the solitude of sweets to drown 
 Nature's still whisper in the roar of Town ; 
 Who tread with jaded step the weary mill — 
 Grind at the wheel, and call it "Pleasure" still; — 
 Gay without mirth, fatigued without employ, — 
 Slaves to the joyless phantom of a Joy;— 
 Amidst this crowd, was one who, absent long, 
 And late returned, outshone the meaner throng; 
 And, truth to speak, in him were blent the rays 
 Which form a halo in the vulgar gaze ; 
 
 uncontradicted statement in the journals be true, this Gentleman 
 has been quartered on the public purse ; he, in the prime of life ; 
 belonging to a wealthy family, without. I believe, wife or children; 
 at the very time that Mr. Knowles was lecturing for bread in 
 foreign lands, verging towards old age, unfriended even by the 
 public he has charmed ! — such is the justice of our ministers, such 
 the national gratitude to those whom we thank and — starve ! 
 
56 THE NEW T1M0N. 
 
 Howden's fair beauty, Beaufort's princely grace — 
 Hertford's broad lands, and Courtney's vaunted race ; 
 And Pembroke's learning in that polished page, 
 Writ by the Grace, "the Manners and the Age!" 
 Still with sufficient youth to please the heart, 
 But old enough for mastery in the art; — 
 Renown' d for conquests in those isles which lie 
 In rosy seas beneath a Cnidian sky, 
 Where the soft Goddess yokes her willing doves, 
 And meets invasion with a host of loves ; 
 Yet not unlaurel'd in the war of wile 
 Which won Ulysses grave Minerva's smile, 
 For those deep arts the diplomat was known 
 Which mould the lips that whisper round a throne. 
 
 Long in the numbing hands of Law had lain 
 Arden's proud earldom — Arden's wide domain. 
 Kinsman with kinsman, race with race had vied 
 To snatch the prize, and in the struggle died ; 
 Till all the rights the crowd of heirs made dim, 
 Death cleared — and solved the tangled skein in him. 
 There was but one who in the bastard fame 
 Wealth gives its darlings, rival'd Arden's name : 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 57 
 
 A rival rarely seen— felt everywhere, 
 With soul that circled bounty like the air, 
 Simple himself, but regal in his train- 
 Lavish of stores he seem'd but to disdain ; 
 To art a Medici — to want a God, 
 Life's rougher paths grew level where he trod. 
 Yet are those rougher paths by sages prized, 
 For where least equal — there most civilized ; 
 And modern wisdom, but delusion sees 
 In the warm code of antique charities. 
 Let the world run upon its own sure wheel — 
 Ye check its progress if ye pause to feel. 
 Art thou sincere, poor Lazarus to aid? 
 Then help plump Dives to expand his trade : 
 He best the doctrines Christ bequeathed fulfils, 
 Who slays most children, and employs most mills ! 
 So, o'er the crush'd the social car proceeds — 
 Ind has its Moloch — boast thy Marshall, Leeds ! * 
 
 * See the hideous revelations of the Factory Commission. — 
 The reports for 1835 inform us ; that 56,500 children, between 
 the ages of eight to thirteen, are employed in the cotton, woollen, 
 silk, and flax factories, at wages not exceeding 2s. 6d. a-week. 
 See, above all, the evidence of Mr. Marshall's own operatives : 
 
58 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Much Arden (Arden had a subtle mind, 
 Which sought in all philosophy to find), 
 Loved to compare the different means by which 
 Enjoyment yields a harvest to the rich. — 
 
 — " We worked/' says the child, Charles Burns, " from six in the 
 morning to seven at night. We had forty minutes allowed for 
 dinner; no time for breakfast or other meals. If we sat down 
 at the mill we were beaten — it is a common thing for the 
 children to be beaten. I had a sister who worked at Mr. Mar- 
 shall's — she got killed there " — " We have a vast number 
 
 of cripples," says Jonathan Downe ; " many from standing too 
 long." — "The masters," says Mark Best (himself an over- 
 looker), "know very well that the children are beaten — they 
 encourage the overlookers to do it. Unless they are driven or 
 flogged up, they cannot get the quantity of work they want from 
 them." Amidst the starvation and the misery — amidst the 
 slaughter of these innocents, Mr. Marshall dies a millionnaire ! 
 And clergymen have written pamphlets, and factory overseers 
 still quote Scripture, in denunciation of healthful labour, as less 
 productive of national wealth ; while legislation lends all its 
 efforts to increase the store of the Marshalls, and divert yet more 
 the mass of the Population into the Lazar House and the Char- 
 nel. The Lords of the land have their sins, and the Poor of the 
 soil their sufferings; but we have no Marshall amongst our 
 squirearchy — no overlooker with the lifted thong stands over the 
 Children of the Plough. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 59 
 
 Himself already marveled to behold 
 
 How soon trite custom wears the gleam from gold ; 
 
 Well, was his rival happier from its use 
 
 Than he (his candour whispered) from abuse ? 
 
 He long'd to know this Morvale, and to learn : 
 
 They met — grew friends — the Sybarite and the stern. 
 
 Each had some points in common: mostly those 
 From which the plant of human friendship grows. 
 Each had known strong vicissitudes in life; 
 The present ease, and the remembered strife. 
 Each, though from differing causes, nursed a mind 
 At war with Fate, and chafed against his kind. 
 Each with a searching eye had sought to scan 
 The solemn Future, soul predicts to man ; 
 And each forgot how, cloud-like, passions mar, 
 In the vex'd wave, the mirror of the star; — 
 How all the unquiet thoughts which life supplies 
 May swell the ocean but to veil the skies ; 
 And dark to Manhood grow the heaven that smiled 
 On the clear vision Nature gave the Child. 
 
60 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Each, too, in each, where varying most they seem, 
 Found that which fed half envy, half esteem. 
 If all which Europe's new Lucullus grac'd 
 But made more rude the Stoic of the Waste, 
 Show'd clear the gulf, and clear the shadow gave 
 Of the dark exile mourning by the wave, 
 Still by the contrast more delightful seem 
 The bowers that lie beyond the barrier stream ; — 
 Though Morvale's manhood in its native power, 
 If won the Armida, soon had scorn'd the bower; 
 Yet, as some monk, whom holier cloisters shade, 
 Glimpses afar the glittering cavalcade, 
 And sighs, as sense against his will recalls 
 Fame's knightly lists and Pleasure's festive halls, 
 So, while the conscience chid, the charm enchain'd, 
 And the heart envied what the soul disdained. 
 
 While Arden's nature in his friend's could find 
 An untaught force that awed his subtler mind- 
 Awed, yet allured; — that Eastern calm of eye 
 And mien — a mantle and a majesty, 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 61 
 
 At once concealing all the strife below, 
 It shames the pride of lofty hearts to show ; 
 And robing Art's lone outlaw with the air 
 Of nameless state the lords of Nature wear. 
 This kingly mien contrasting this mean form — 
 This calm exterior with this heart of storm 
 Touch'd with vague interest, undefined and strange, 
 The world's quick pupil whose career was change. 
 
 Forth from the crowded streets one summer day, 
 Rode the new friends ; and cool and silent lay 
 Through shadowy lanes the chance-directed way. 
 As with slow pace and slackened rein they rode, 
 Men's wonted talk to deeper converse flowed. 
 
 "Think'st thou," said Arden, "that the Care, whose speed 
 Climbs the tall bark and mounts the rider's steed, 
 And (still to quote old Horace) hovers round 
 Our fretted roofs, forbears yon village ground ?— 
 Think'st thou that Toil drives trouble from the door ; 
 And does God's sun shine brightest on the Poor?" 
 6 
 
62 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 "I know not," answered Morvale, "but I know 
 Each state feels envy for the state below ; 
 Kings for their subjects — for the obscure the great; 
 The smallest circle guards the happiest state. 
 Earth's real wealth is in the heart; — in truth 
 As life looks brightest in the eyes of youth, 
 So simple wants — the simple state most far 
 From that entangled maze in which we are, 
 Seem unto nations what youth is to man, — " 
 
 " 'When wild in woods the noble savage ran,' " 
 
 Said Arden, smiling. " Well, we disagree ; 
 
 Even youth itself reflects no charms for me ; 
 
 And all the shade upon my life bestowed 
 
 Spreads from the myrtle which my boyhood sowed." 
 
 His bright face fell, — he sighed. " And canst thou guess 
 
 Why all once coveted now fails to bless ? — 
 
 Why all around me palls upon the eye, 
 
 And the heart saddens in the summer sky ? 
 
 It is that youth expended life too soon : 
 
 A morn too glowing sets in storm at noon." 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 63 
 
 " Nay," answered Morvale, gently, " hast thou tried 
 That second youth, to which ev'n follies guide ; 
 Which to the wanderer Sense, when tired and spent, 
 Proclaims the fount by which to fix the tent ? 
 The Heart but rests when Sense forbears to roam ; 
 We win back freshness when Love smiles on Home ; — 
 Home not to thee, O happy one! denied." 
 
 " To me of all," the impatient listener cried, 
 " Thy words but probe the wounds I vainly hide i 
 That which I pine for thou hast pictured now ; — 
 The hearth, the home, the altar, and the vow; 
 The tranquil love, unintertwined with shame ; 
 The child's sweet kiss ; — the Father's holy name ; 
 The link to lengthen a time-honoured line ; — 
 These not for me, and yet these should be mine." 
 
 " If," said the Indian, " counsel could avail, 
 Or pity soothe, a friend invites thy tale." 
 
 " Alas !" sighed Arden, " nor confession's balm 
 Can heal, nor wisdom^whisper back to calm. 
 
64 THEJSEW TIMON. 
 
 Yet hear the tale — thou wilt esteem me less — 
 But Grief, the Egoist, yearneth to confess. 
 I tell of guilt, — and guilt all men must own, 
 Who but avow the loves their youth has known. 
 Preach as we will, in this wrong world of ours, 
 Man's fate and woman's are contending powers ; 
 Each strives to dupe the other in the game, — 
 Guilt to the victor — to the vanquished shame !" 
 He paused, and noting how austerely gloom'd 
 His friend's dark visage, blush' d, and thus resumed. 
 " Nay, I approve not of the code I find, 
 Not less the wrong to which the world is kind. 
 But, to be frank, how oft with praise we scan 
 Men's actions only when they deal with man ; 
 Lo, gallant Lovelace, free from every art 
 That stains the honour or defiles the hearty — 
 With men; — but how, if woman the pursuit? 
 What lies degrade him, and what frauds pollute ; 
 Yet still to Lovelace either sex is mild ; 
 And new Clarissas only sigh — ' How wild!' " 
 
 "Enough," said Morvale; "I perforce believe ! 
 Strong Adam owns no equal in his Eve ; 
 

 THE NEW TIMON. 65 
 
 But worse the bondage in your bland disguise ; 
 
 Europe destroys, — kind Asia only buys ! 
 
 If dull the Harem, yet its roof protects, 
 
 And Power, when sated, still its slave respects. 
 
 With you, ev'n pity fades away with love,— 
 
 No gilded cage gives refuge to the dove ; 
 
 Worse than the sin the curse it leaves behind : 
 
 Here the crushed heart, or there the poison' d mind, — 
 
 Your streets a charnel or a market made, 
 
 For the lorn hunger, or the loathsome trade. 
 
 Pardon, — Pass on !" 
 
 "Behold, the Preface done," 
 Arden resumed, "now opens Chapter One !" 
 
 LORD ARDEN'S TALE. 
 
 " Reared in a court, a man while yet a boy, 
 Hermes said ' Rise,' and Venus sigh'd ' Enjoy;' 
 My earlier dreams, like tints in rainbows given, 
 Caught from the Muse, glowed but in clasping heaven ; 
 6* 
 
66 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 The bird-like instinct of a sphere afar 
 
 Pined for the air, and chafed against the bar. 
 
 But can to Guelphs Augustan tastes belong? 
 
 Or Georgium Sidus look benign on song ? 
 
 My short-lived Muse the ungenial climate tried, 
 
 Breathed some faint warbles, caught a cold, and died ! 
 
 Wise kinsmen whispered ' Hush ! forewarned in time ; 
 
 The feet that rise are not the feet of Rhyme ; 
 
 Your cards are good, but all is in the lead, — 
 
 Play out the heart, and you are lost indeed : 
 
 Leave verse, my boy, to unaspiring men — 
 
 The eagle's pinion never sheds a pen!' 
 
 " So fled the Muse ! What left the Muse behind ? 
 The aimless fancy and the restless mind ; 
 The eyes, still won by whatsoe'er was bright, 
 But lost the star's to prize the diamond's light. 
 Man, like the child, accepts the bauble-boon, 
 And clasps the coral where he ask'd the moon. 
 Forbid the pomp and royalty of heaven, — 
 To the born Poet still the earth is given ; 
 Duped by each glare in which Corruption seems 
 To give the glory imaged on his dreams : 
 
THE NEW TIMON, 67 
 
 Thus, what had been the thirst for deathless fame, 
 
 Grew the fierce hunger for the Moment's name ; 
 
 Ambition placed its hard desires in Power, 
 
 And saw no Jove but in the Golden Shower. 
 
 No miser I — no niggard of the store — 
 
 The end Olympus, but the means the ore : 
 
 I looked below — there, Lazarus crawl* d disdained ; 
 
 I looked aloft — there, who but Dives reigned? 
 
 He who would make the steeps of power his home, 
 
 Must mask the Titan till he rules the Gnome. 
 
 "If I insist on this, my soul's disease, 
 Excuse for fault thy practised sight foresees : 
 It makes the moral of my tale, in truth, 
 And boyhood sowed the poison of my youth! 
 
 " Meanwhile men praised, and women smil'd ; — the wing, 
 
 Bowed from the height, still bask'd beneath the spring! 
 
 Pass by the Paphian follies of that day, — 
 
 When true love comes, it is to close our May. 
 
 Well, ere my boyish holiday was o'er, 
 
 The grim god came, and mirth was mine no more : 
 
68 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 A well-born pauper, I seemed doom'd to live 
 
 By what great men to well-born paupers give : 
 
 I had an uncle high in power and state, 
 
 Who ruled three kingdoms' and one nephew's fate. 
 
 This uncle loved, as English thanes will all, 
 
 An autumn's respite in his rural hall; 
 
 In slaughtering game, relax'd his rigid breast; 
 
 And so,- — behold me martyred to his guest ! 
 
 " One day, beside a brooklet, as my own 
 Free steps as devious, wandering and alone, 
 Chance or fate led me to a scene which spell' d 
 The foot that paused, the charm'd eye that beheld, — 
 Bright from the woodland, to the western beam 
 Glass'd on its bosom, shot the sparkling stream, 
 Lull'd where a pastoral home its shadow gave 
 To the clear quiet of the halting wave : 
 With many a flower (the year's last infants) gay, 
 Sloped to the marge, a modest garden lay. 
 
 " Along the banks, beneath the bowering tree, 
 Young fairies play'd — young voices laugh'd in glee; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 69 
 
 One voice more mellowed in its silver sound, 
 Yet blithe as rang the gladdest on the ground ; 
 One shape more ripened, one sweet face more fair, 
 Yet not less happy, the Titania there ! 
 Soft voice, fair face, I hear, I see ye still ! 
 Shades and dim echoes from the blissful hill 
 Behind me left, to cast but darkness o'er 
 The waste slow-lengthening to the grave before ! 
 
 " So Love was born ! with love invention came ; 
 
 I won my entrance, but concealed my name. 
 
 As the poor herb, when all that pomp could bring 
 
 Were vain to charm, admits to Oberon's ring, 
 
 So in the guise earth least esteems, I found 
 
 A fearless welcome on that fairy ground. 
 
 The sire, a village pastor, poor and wise, 
 
 In aught that clears to mortal sight the skies, 
 
 But blind and simple as a child to all 
 
 The things that pass upon the earth we crawl ; 
 
 The mask'd Lothario to his eyes appeared 
 
 A student youth, by Alma Mater reared 
 
70 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 The word to preach — the hunger to endure, 
 And see Ambition close upon a Cure ; — 
 A modest youth, who owned his learning slight, 
 And brought his taper to the master's light. 
 This tale believed, the good man's harmless pride 
 Was pleased the bashful neophyte to guide : 
 Spread out his books, and, moved to pity, prest 
 The backward pupil to the daily guest. 
 
 " So from a neighbouring valley, where they deem 
 
 My home, each noon I cross the happy stream, 
 
 And hail the eyes already watchful grown, 
 
 And clasp the hand that trembles in my own ; 
 
 But not for guilt had! conceal'd my name, 
 
 The young warm passion nursed no thought of shame ; 
 
 The spell that bound ennobled while it charm'd, 
 
 And Romeo's love Lothario's guile disarmed; 
 
 And vain the guile had been !— impure desire 
 
 Round that chaste light but hover'd to expire; 
 
 Her angel nature found its own defence, 
 
 Ev'n in the instincts of its innocence ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 71 
 
 As that sweet flower which opens every hue 
 
 Of its frank heart to eyes content to view, 
 
 But folds its leaves and shrinks in sweet disdain 
 
 From the least touch that would the bloom profane. 
 
 That meekest temper, which all proof defied, 
 
 But flowed in calm above a heart of pride, 
 
 A pride like that the antique knighthood own'd, 
 
 In spotless thought, yet humble mind, enthron'd. 
 
 O'er all the Woman did the Virgin reign, 
 
 And love the heart might break — it could not stain. 
 
 " Yet in the light of day to win and wed, 
 
 To boast a bride, yet not to own a shed ; 
 
 To doom the famine, yet proclaim the bliss, 
 
 And seal the ruin in the nuptial kiss ; — 
 
 Love shunn'd such madness for the loved one's sake; 
 
 "What course could Prudence sanction Love to take ? 
 
 Lenient I knew my kinsman to a vice ; 
 
 But, 0, for folly Cato less precise! 
 
 And all my future, in my kinsman bound, 
 
 Shadow'd his humours — smil'd in him or frown'd ; 
 
72 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 But Uncles still, however high in state, 
 Are mortal men — and Youth has hope to wait, 
 And Love a conqueror's confidence in Fate. — 
 A secret Hymen reconciled in one 
 Caution and Bliss — if Mary could be won? 
 Hard task ! yet what will pleading love not win ? 
 Silence might shame, but still it cloaked no sin. 
 To her I told my name, rank, doubts, and fears, 
 And urged the prayer too long denied with tears— 
 'Reject'st thou still,' I plead, 'well, then to me 
 The pride to offer all life holds to thee ; 
 I go to tell my love, proclaim my choice — 
 Clasp want, mar fate, meet ruin, and rejoice, 
 So that, at least, when next we meet, thy sigh 
 Shall own this truth — "He better loved than I."' 
 
 "With that, her hand upon my own she laid, 
 Look'd in my eyes— the sacrifice was made ; 
 And blame her not, if love that hour beguiled 
 Into fond fault, the impulse of the child- 
 Alas, she had no mother !— Nature moved 
 Her heart to mine — she trusted, for she loved ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 73 
 
 I had a friend of lowlier birth than mine, 
 
 The sunnier spot allured the trailing vine. 
 
 My rising fortunes had the southern air, 
 
 And fruit might bless the plant that clamber'd there. 
 
 My smooth Clanalbin ! — shrewd, if smooth, was he, 
 
 His soul was prudent, though his life was free ; 
 
 Scapin to serve, and Machiavel to plot, 
 
 Red-hair' d, thin-lipp'd, sly, supple, — and a Scot! 
 
 To him the double project I confide, 
 
 To cloke the rite, and yet to clasp the bride ; 
 
 Long he resisted — solemnly he warned, 
 
 And urged the perils love had seen and scorned. 
 
 At length subdued, he groaned a slow consent, 
 
 And pledged a genius practised to invent. 
 
 A priest was found — a license was procured, 
 
 Due witness hired, and secrecy secured ; 
 
 All this his task: — 'tis o'er; — and Mary's life 
 
 Bound up in one who dares not call her wife ! 
 
 "Alas — alas, why on the fatal brink 
 Of the abyss — doth not the instinct shrink? 
 7 
 
74 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 The meaner tribe the coming storm foresees — 
 
 In the still calm the bird divines the breeze — 
 
 The ox that grazes shuns the poison-weed — 
 
 The unseen tiger frights afar the steed — 
 
 To man alone no kind foreboding shows 
 
 The latent horror or the ambush' d foes ; 
 
 O'er each blind moment hangs the funeral pall, 
 
 Heaven shines — earth smiles — and night descends on all. 
 
 " But I ! — fond reader of imagined skies, 
 Foretold my future in those stars — her eyes ! 
 O heavenly Moon, circling with magic hues 
 And mystic beauty all thy beams suffuse, 
 Is not in love thine own fair secret seen? 
 Love smooths the rugged — love exalts the mean ! 
 Love in each ray inspires the hush'd alarm, 
 Love silvers every shadow into charm ! 
 
 " O lonely beach, beneath whose bowering shade 
 
 The tryst, encircling Paradise, was made, 
 
 How the heart heard afar the hurrying feet, 
 
 And swell'd to breathless words — 'At last we meet!' 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 75 
 
 But Autumn fades — dark Winter comes, and then 
 Fate from Elysium calls me back to men ; 
 We part ! — not equal is the anguish ; — she 
 Parts with all earth in that farewell to me ; 
 For not the grate more bars the veiled nun 
 From the fair world with which her soul has done, 
 Than love the heart, that vows, without recall, 
 To one, fame, honour, memory, hope, and all ! 
 But I ! — behold me in the dazzling strife, 
 The gaud, the pomp, the joyous roar of life, — 
 Man, with man's heart insatiate, ever stirr'd 
 By the crowd's breath to conflict with the herd ; 
 Which never long one thought alone can sway, — 
 The dream fades from us when we leap to day, — 
 New scenes surround me — new ambitions seize, — 
 The world one fever, — who defy disease ? — 
 Each touch contagion : — living with the rest, 
 The world's large pulse keeps time in every breast. 
 Yet still for her — for her alone, methought, 
 Its web of schemes the vulgar labour wrought — 
 To ransom fate — to soar, from serfdom, free, 
 Snap the strong chains of high-born penury ; 
 
76 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 And, grown as bold to earth as to the skies, 
 
 Proclaim the bliss of happy human ties : — 
 
 So, ever scheming, the soothed conscience deem'd ! 
 
 Fate smiled, and speeded all for which I schem'd. 
 
 My noble kinsman saw with grave applause 
 
 My sober'd moods, too wise to guess the cause. 
 
 1 'Tis well,' said he, one evening; ' you have caught 
 
 From me the ardour of the patriot's thought; 
 
 No more distinguished in the modes of vice, 
 
 Forsworn the race-course, and disdained the dice : 
 
 A nobler race, a mightier game await 
 
 The soul that sets its cast upon the state. 
 
 Thoughtful, poor, calm, yet eager; such, in truth, 
 
 He who is great in age should be in youth. 
 
 Lo, your commencement!' 
 
 And my kinsman set 
 Before the eyes it brightened — the Gazette! 
 
 " 0, how triumphant, Calendar of Fame ! 
 Halo'd in type, emerged the aspirant's name ! 
 1 We send you second to a court, 'tis true ; 
 Small, as befits a diplomat so new,' 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 77 
 
 Quoth my wise kinsman : ' but requiring all 
 Your natural gifts ; — to rise not is to fall ! 
 And harkye, stripling, you are handsome, young, 
 Active, ambitious, and from statesmen sprung ! 
 Wed well — add wealth to power by me possest, 
 And sleep on roses, — I will find the rest ! 
 But one false step, — pshaw, boy! I do not preach 
 Of saws and morals, his own code to each, — 
 By one false step, I mean one foolish thing, 
 And the wax melts, my Icarus, from your wing! 
 Let not the heart the watchful mind betray, — 
 Enough! — no answer! — sail the First of May!' 
 
 " Here, then, from vapour broke at last the sun ! 
 Station, career, fame, fortune, all begun ! 
 Now, greater need than ever to conceal 
 The holy spring that moved the onward wheel ; 
 And half forgetting what I wish'd forgot, 
 Each thought divides the absent from my lot. 
 One night, escaped my kinsman's hall, which blazed 
 With dames who smiled, and gartered peers who praised, 
 7* 
 
78 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 I seek my lonely home, — ascend the stair, — 
 
 Gain my dim room, — what stranger daunts me there ? 
 
 A gray old man !• — I froze his look before ; 
 
 The Gorgon's eye scarce fixed its victim more, — 
 
 The bride's sad father on the bridegroom's floor! 
 
 In the brief pause, how terrible and fast, 
 
 As on the drowning seaman, rush'd the past! 
 
 How had he learn'd my name, — abode,— the tie 
 
 That bound? — for all spoke lightning in his eye. 
 
 Lo, on the secret in whose darkness lay 
 
 Power, future, fortune, poured the hateful ray ! 
 
 Thus silence ceased. 
 
 " ' When first my home you deign' d 
 To seek, what found you?— cheeks no tears had stain'd! 
 Untroubled hearts, and conscience cleaj* as day ; 
 And lips that loved where now they fear to pray : 
 'Twixt kin and kin, sweet commune undefiled — 
 The grateful father — the confiding child ! 
 What now that home? — behold! its change may speak 
 In hair thus silvered — in the furrowed cheek ! 
 My child' — (he paused, and in his voice, not eyes, 
 Tears seek the vent indignant pride denies) 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 79 
 
 'My child — God pardon me — I was too proud 
 To call her daughter ! — what shall call the crowd ? 
 Man — man, she cowers beneath a Father's eye, 
 And shuns his blessing — with one wish to die, 
 And I that death-bed will resigned endure 
 If — speak the word — the soul that parts is pure V 
 
 " ' Who dares deny it?' I began, but check't 
 In the warm burst— cold wisdom hiss'd — ' Reflect, 
 Thy fears had outstripp'd truth — as yet unknown, 
 The vows, the bond! — are these for thee to own?' 
 The father mark'd my pause, and changing cheek, 
 ' Go on ! — why falter if the truth thou speak ? 
 "Who dares deny it?" — Thou! — thy lip — thine eye — 
 Thy heart — thy conscience — these are what deny ! 
 O Heaven, that I were not thy priest !' 
 
 His look 
 Grew stern and dark — the natural Adam shook 
 The reverend form an instant; — like a charm 
 The pious memory stay'd the lifted arm ; 
 And shrunk to self-rebuke the threatening word, 
 'Man's not my weapons — I thy servant, Lord!' 
 
80 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Moved, I replied — 'Could love suffice alone 
 
 In this hard world, — the love to thee made known, 
 
 A bliss to cherish, 'twere a pride to own : 
 
 And if I pause, and if I falter — yet 
 
 I hide no shame, I strive with no regret. 
 
 Believe mine honour— wait the ripening hour, 
 
 Time hides the germ — the season brings the flower.' 
 
 Wildly he cried — ' What words are these ? — but one 
 
 Sentence I ask — her sire should call thee son! 
 
 Hist, let the heavens but hear us ! — in her life 
 
 Another lives — if pure she is thy wife ! — 
 
 Now answer !' 
 
 I had answered, as became 
 The franker manhood and the knightly name ; 
 But shall I own it ? the suspicious chill, 
 The world-wise know, froze up the arrested will, 
 Whose but her lips sworn never to betray, 
 Had failed their oath, and dragged my name to day ? 
 True she had left the veil upon the shrine, 
 But set the snare to make confession mine. 
 Thus half resentment, half disdain, repell'd 
 The man's frank justice, and the truth withheld. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 81 
 
 Yet, so invoked, I scorn'd at least the lie, 
 And met the question with this proud reply — 
 ' If thou dost doubt thy child, depart secure, 
 My love is sinless and her soul is pure. 
 This by mine honour, and to Heaven, I swear ! 
 Dost thou ask more 1 — then bid thy child declare ; 
 What she proclaims as truth, myself will own; 
 What she withholds, alike I leave unknown; 
 What she demands, I am prepared to yield ; 
 Now doubt or spurn me — but my lips are sealed.' 
 I ceased, and stood with haughty mien and eye, 
 That seemed all further question to defy ; 
 He gazed, as if still spell'd in hope or fear, 
 And hungering for the word that failed the ear. 
 At last, and half unconscious, in the thrall 
 Of the cold awe, he groaned — 
 
 ' And is this all ? 
 Courage, poor child — there may be justice yet — 
 Justice, Heaven, justice?' 
 
 With that doubtful threat 
 He turn'd, was gone ! — that look of stern despair, 
 That slow step trembling, heavy, on the stair, 
 
82 THE NEW TIMON, 
 
 The clapping door — and then that void and chill, 
 That aching silence, save the heart, all still — 
 That sense of something gone, which yet behind 
 Has left a ghost, a nightmare of the mind, 
 The larva of the brain, that wizard keep, 
 The spectral memory gleaming through our sleep ! 
 
 " Next day, the sire my noble kinsman sought, 
 One ruling senates must be just he thought. 
 What chanced, untold — what followed may declare, 
 Behold me summoned to my uncle's chair ! 
 See his cold eye — / saw my ruin there ! 
 I saw and shrunk not, for a sullen pride 
 Embraced alike the kinsman and the bride ; 
 Scorn'd here, the seeming snare by cunning set, 
 And there, coarse thraldom, with rebellion met. 
 
 " Brief was my Lord — 
 
 'An old man tells me, sir, 
 You woo his child, to wed her you demur; 
 Who knows ; perhaps— (and such his shrewd surmise) 
 The noose is knit- — you but conceal the ties ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 83 
 
 Please to inform me, ere I go to court, 
 
 How stands the matter? — sir, my time is short.' 
 
 " ' My lord,' I answered, with unquailing brow, 
 
 ' Not to such ears should youth its faults avow ; 
 
 And, grant me pardon if I boldly speak, 
 
 Youth may have secrets honour shuns to seek. 
 
 I own I love, proclaim that love as pure ; 
 
 If this be sin — its sentence I endure. 
 
 All else belongs unto that solemn shrine, 
 
 In the veil'd heart, which manhood holds divine. 
 
 Men's hearths are sacred, so our laws decree ; 
 
 Are hearts less sacred ? mine at least is free. 
 
 Suspect, disown, forsake me, if thou wilt, 
 
 I prize the freedom where thou seest the guilt.' 
 
 My kinsman's hand half shaded the keen eye, 
 
 Which glanced askant; he paused in his reply. 
 
 At length, perchance, his practised wit foresaw 
 
 Threats could not shake where interest failed to awe ; 
 
 And judged it wise to construe for the best 
 
 The all I hid, the little I confest ; 
 
84 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Calmly he answered — 
 
 ' Sir, I like this heat, 
 Duper or duped, a well-bred man's discreet; 
 Take but this hint — (one can't have all in life,) 
 You lose the uncle if you win the wife. 
 In this you choose — Rank, Station, Power, Career; 
 In that, Bills, Babies, and the Bench, I fear. 
 Hush! — "the least said" — (old proverb, sir, but true !) 
 As yet your fault indulgently I view- 
 Words, — notes (sad stuff!) — some promise rashly made — 
 Action for breach— that scandal must be stay'd. 
 I trust such scrapes will teach you to beware ; 
 'Twill cost some hundreds — that be my affair. 
 Depart at once — to-morrow — nay, to-day, 
 "When fairly gone, there will be less to pay!' 
 So spoke the Statesman, whom experience told 
 The weight of passion in the scales of gold. 
 Pleased I escape, but how reprieve enjoy? 
 One word from her distrusted could destroy ! 
 Yet that distrust the whispering heart belied, 
 Self ceased, and anger into pity died, 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 85 
 
 I thought of Mary in her desolate hour, 
 And shuddered at the blast, and trembled for the flower. 
 Why not go seek her ? — chide the impatient snare, 
 Or if faith lingered, win it to forbear ; 
 Now was the time, no jealous father there! 
 Swift as the thought impell'd me, I obey'd! 
 'Tis night; once more I greet the moonlit shade; 
 Once more I see the happy murmuring rill ; 
 The white cot bowered beneath the pastoral hill ! 
 An April night, when, after sparkling showers, 
 The dewy gems betray the cradled flowers, 
 As if some sylphid, startled from its bed 
 In the rathe blossom by the mortal's tread, 
 Had left behind its pearly coronal. — 
 Bright shone the stars on Earth's green banquet hall; 
 You seem'd, abroad, to see, to feel, to hear 
 The new life flushing through the virgin year ; 
 The visible growth — the freshness and the balm ; 
 The pulse of Nature throbbing through the calm ; 
 As wakeful, over every happy thing, 
 Watch'd, through the hush, the Earth's young mother- 
 Spring ! 
 8 
 
86 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Calm from the lattice shot a steady ray; 
 
 Calm on the sward its silvery lustre lay; 
 
 And reach' d, to glad, the glancing waves at play. 
 
 I stood and gazed within the quiet room ;— 
 
 Gazed on her cheek ; — there, spring had lost its bloom ! 
 
 Alone she sate! — Alone!— that worn-out word, 
 
 So idly spoken, and so coldly heard; 
 
 Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known, 
 
 Of hope laid waste, knells in that word — Alone ! 
 
 " Who contemplates, aspires, or dreams, is not 
 Alone: he peoples with rich thoughts the spot. 
 The only loneliness — how dark and blind ! — 
 Is that where fancy cannot dupe the mind ; — 
 Where the heart, sick, despondent, tired with all, 
 Looks joyless round and sees the dungeon wall; — 
 When even God is silent, and the curse 
 Of stagnor settles on the universe ; — 
 When prayer is powerless, and one sense of dearth 
 Abysses all, save solitude, on earth ! 
 So sat the bride ! — the drooping form, the eye 
 Vacant, yet fixed, — that air which Misery, 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 87 
 
 The heart's Medusa, hardens into stone, 
 Sculptured the Death which dwelleth in the lone ! 
 
 " O, the wild burst of joy,—- the life that came 
 Swift, brightening, bounding through the lips and frame, 
 When o'er the floors I stole, and whispered soft her name ! 
 ' Come — come at last ! O, rapture !' 
 
 Wherefore, Heaven, 
 Is such strange power o'er earth's best spirits given 
 To earth's worst clay ? — What was there in my coarse 
 Saturnian planet, to become the source 
 Of light, the sun dispensing all that shone 
 On that pure star so near the sapphire throne ? 
 
 " * So thou art come !' 
 
 1 Hush ! say whose lips revealed 
 All these soft traitors swore to guard concealed — 
 Our love — my name ?' 
 
 ' Not I — not I — thy wife ! 
 Oh, truth to thee more dear than fame — than life : 
 A friend — my father's friend — the secret told; 
 How guess'd I know not: — Oh! if Love controll'd 
 
88 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 My heart that hour — that bitter hour — when, there 
 
 Bent that old man, who Husband, hear my prayer !- 
 
 Have mercy on my father ! — break, Oh, break 
 This crushing silence ! — bid his daughter speak, 
 And say " Thou'rt not dishonour'd?" ' 
 
 ' If thou wilt 
 Tell all ; — dishonour not alone in guilt ! 
 Men's eyes dishonour in the fallen see ; — 
 Speak, and dishonour thou inflict'st on me ! 
 The debt, the want, the beggary, and the shame,— 
 The pauper branded on the high-born name ! 
 Speak and inflict, — I still can spurn, — the doom ! 
 Unveil the altar to prepare the tomb ! 
 I, who already in my grasp behold, 
 Bright from Hesperian fields, the fruit of gold, 
 By which alone the glorious prize we gain, 
 Foil'd of the goal will die upon the plain! 
 I own two brides, both dear alike, and see 
 In one Ambition — in the other Thee ! 
 Destroy thy rival, and to her destroyed 
 Succeeds despair to make the world a void.' 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 89 
 
 Then, with stern frankness to that shrinking ear, 
 I told my hopes, — in her my only fear; 
 Told, with a cheek no humbling blushes dyed, 
 How met the sire — how unavowed the bride ! 
 1 Thus have I wrong'd — this cruel silence mine ; 
 And now be truth, and truth is vengeance, thine!' 
 I ceased to speak ; lo, she had ceased to weep ; 
 Her white lips writhed, as Suffering in its sleep ; 
 And o'er the frame a tremulous shudder went, 
 As every life-vein to the source was sent: 
 The very sense seemed absent from the look, 
 And with the Heart, its temple, Reason shook ! 
 So there was silence; such a silence broods 
 In winter-nights, o'er frost-bound solitudes, 
 Darkness, and ice, and stillness, all in one, — 
 The silence without life — the withering without sun. 
 But o'er that silence, as at night's full noon, 
 Through breathless cloud, shimmers the sudden moon, 
 A sad but heavenly smile a moment stirr'd, 
 And heralded the martyr's patient word. 
 * Fear not, pursue thy way to fortune, fame, 
 I will not haunt thy glory with my shame. 
 8* 
 
90 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Betray ! avenge ! — For ever, until thou 
 Proclaim the bond and ratify the vow, 
 Closed in this heart, as lamps within the tomb, 
 Shall waste the light, that lives amidst the gloom— « 
 That lives, for oh ! the day shall come at length, 
 Though late, though slow, — (give hope, for hope is 
 
 strength !) — 
 When, from a father's breast no more eXil'd, 
 The wife may ask forgiveness for the child !' " 
 
 " And so you parted?" with a moistened eye, 
 Said Morvale, " Nay, man, spare me the reply ; 
 
 Too much the Eve has moved me" 
 
 " Not to feel 
 That for the serpent which thy looks reveal," 
 Said Arden, sadly smiling; " Yet, in truth, 
 See how the gray world grafts its age on youth ; 
 See how we learn to prize the bullion Vice, 
 Coined in all shapes, yet still but Avarice; 
 The stamp may vary, — you the coin may call 
 ' Ambition,' ' Power,' ' Success,' — but Gold is all. 
 Mine is the memoir of a selfish age,— - 
 Turn every leaf — slight difference in the page — 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 91 
 
 Through each, the same fierce struggle, to secure 
 Earth's one great end — distinction from the Poor; 
 All our true wealth, like alchemists of old, 
 Fused in the furnace — for a grain of gold." 
 
 III. 
 
 LORD ARDEN's TALE CONTINUED. 
 
 " Well, then, we parted, — to make brief the tale, 
 
 I take my orders, and my leave, set sail; 
 
 For weeks, for months, fond letters, long nor few, 
 
 Keep hope alive with love for ever new : 
 
 If she had suffered, she betray'd it not; 
 
 All save one sweetness — ' that we loved' — forgot. 
 
 She never named her father ; — once indeed 
 
 The name was writ — but blurr'd ; — it was decreed 
 
 That she should fill the martyr-measure, — hide, 
 
 Not the dart only, but the bleeding side, 
 
 And, wholly generous in the offering made, 
 
 Veil even sorrow lest it should upbraid. 
 
 " At length one letter came — the last ; more blest 
 In faith, in love, false hope, than all the rest, 
 
92 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 But at the close some hastier lines appear, 
 Tremblingly writ, and stain'd with many a tear, 
 In which, less said than timorously implied, 
 (The maid still blushing through the secret bride) — 
 I heard her heart through that far distance beat — 
 The hour Eve's happiest daughter dreads to meet, — 
 The hour of Nature's agony was nigh,-— 
 Husband and father, false one, where was I ? 
 Slow day on slow day, unrevealing, crept, 
 And still its ice the freezing silence kept: 
 Fear seized my soul, I could no longer brook 
 The voiceless darkness which the daylight took, — 
 I feigned excuse for absence ;— left the shore, — 
 Fair blow the winds : — Behold her home once more ! 
 Her home ! a desert ! — still, though rank and wild, 
 On the rank grass the heedless floweret smil'd; 
 Still by the porch you heard the ungrateful bee ; 
 Still brawl' d the brooklet's unremembering glee ; 
 But they — the souls of the sweet pastoral ground ! — 
 Green o'er the father rose the sullen mound! 
 Amidst his poor he slept ; his end was known, — 
 Life's record rounded with the funeral stone : 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 93 
 
 But she? — but Mary? — but my child? — what dews 
 
 Fall on their graves ?— what herbs which Heaven renews 
 
 Pall their pure clay ? — Oh ! were it mine at least 
 
 To weep, beloved, where your relics rest ! — 
 
 Bear with me, Morvale, — pity if you can — 
 
 These thoughts unman me — no, they prove me man !" 
 
 " Man of the Cities," with a muttered scorn, 
 
 Groaned the stern Nomad from the lands of Morn, — 
 
 " Man of the sleek, far-looking prudence, which 
 
 Beggars life's May, life's Autumn to enrich ; 
 
 That, the deed doing, halts not in its course, 
 
 But, the deed done, finds comfort in remorse. 
 
 Man, in whom sentiment, the bloodless shade 
 
 Of noble passion, alternates with trade, — 
 
 Hard in his error — feeble in his tears, 
 
 And huckstering love, yet prattling of the spheres !" 
 
 So mused the sombre savage, till the pale 
 
 And self-gnawed worldling nerved him to his tale : — 
 
 " The hireling watch'd the bed where Mary lay, 
 
 In stranger arms my first-born saw the day. 
 
 Below, — unseen his travail, all unknown 
 
 His war with Nature,— sate the sire alone : 
 
94 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 He had not thrust the one he still believed 
 If silent, sinless, — or in sin deceived, 
 He had not thrust her from a father's door, — 
 So Shame came in, and cowered upon the floor, 
 And face to face with Shame, he sat to hear 
 The groan above bring torture to his ear. 
 
 " In that sad night, when the young mother slept, 
 
 Forth from his door the elder mourner crept ; 
 
 Absent for days, none knowing whither bent, 
 
 Till back returned abruptly as he went. 
 
 With a swift tremulous stride he climb'd the stair, 
 
 Through the closed chamber gleam' d his silver hair, 
 
 And Mary heard his voice soft — pitying — as in prayer ! 
 
 * Child, child, I was too hard ! — But woe is wild ; 
 
 Now I know all! — again I clasp my child!' 
 
 Within his arms, upon his heart again 
 
 His Mary lay, and strove for words in vain ; 
 
 She strove for words, but better spoke through tears 
 
 The love, the heart, through silence, vents and hears. 
 
 " All this I gathered from the nurse, who saw 
 
 The scene, which dews from hireling eyes could draw ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 95 
 
 So far; — her sob the pastor heard, and turn'd, 
 
 Waved his wan hand, nor what more chanced she learned. 
 
 " Next morn in death the happier father lay, 
 
 From sleep to Heaven his soul had pass'd away ; 
 
 He had but lived to pardon and to bless 
 
 His child ; — emotion kills in its excess, — 
 
 And that task done, why longer on the rack 
 
 Stretch the worn frame? — God's mercy call'd him back! 
 
 " The day they buried him, while yet the strife 
 Of sense and memory raged for death and life 
 In Mary's shattered brain, her father's friend, 
 Whose hand perchance had sped him to his end, 
 Whose zeal officious had explored, revealed 
 My name, the half, worse half, of all concealed, 
 Sought her, and saw alone : When gone, a change 
 Came o'er the victim terrible and strange; 
 All grief seem'd hush'd — a stern tranquillity 
 Calm'd the wan brow and fixed the glassy eye ; 
 She spoke not, moved not, wept not, — on her breast 
 Slept Earth's new stranger — not more deep its rest. — 
 
96 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 They feared her in that mood — with noiseless tread 
 Stole from the room, and, ere the morn, she fled— 
 Mother and babe were gone ! no track was seen, 
 As the wind goes — she vanish'd from the scene; 
 They search'd the darkness of the wood, they pried 
 Into the secrets of the tempting tide 
 In vain, — unseen on earth as in the wave, 
 Where life found refuge or despair a grave." 
 "And is this all?" said Morvale — 
 
 " No, my thought 
 Guess' d at the clue ; her father's friend I sought, 
 A stern hard man, of Calvin's iron mould, 
 And yet I moved him, and his tale he told. 
 It seemed, (by me unmarked,) amidst the rest, 
 My uncle's board had known this homely guest. 
 Our evil star had led the guest one day, 
 Where through the lone glade wound our lover's way, 
 To view with Age's hard, suspecting eyes, 
 The highborn courtier in the student's guise. 
 Thus, when the father, startled to vague fears, 
 By his child's waning cheek and unrevealing tears, 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 97 
 
 First to his brother priest for counsel came, 
 
 He urged stern question — track' d the grief to shame, 
 
 Guess'd the undoer, and disclosed the name. 
 
 " Time went — the priest had still a steady trust 
 In Mary's honour, but to mine unjust, 
 Divined some fraud — explored, and found a clue, 
 There had been marriage, if the rites were due ; 
 Had learned Clanalbin's name, as one whose eye 
 Had seen, whose witness might attest the tie. 
 This news to Mary's father was convey'd 
 The eve her infant on her heart was laid. 
 
 " That night he left his home, he did not rest 
 
 Till found Clanalbin-—' Well, and he confest?' 
 
 I cried impatient — my informer's eye 
 
 Flash'd fire—' Confess'd the fraud,' was his reply. 
 
 'The fraud!' — 'The impious form, the vile disguise! 
 
 Mock priest, false marriage, hell's whole woof of lies !' 
 
 Lies ! — had the sound earth opened its abyss 
 
 Beneath my feet, my soul had shuddered less. 
 
 ' Lies — but not mine !— his own ! — not mine such ill, 
 
 O wife, I fly — to right, — avenge, and claim thee still !' " 
 9 
 
98 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 "Thy hand — I wrong'd thee," Morvale faltered, while 
 
 His strong heart heaved — " Thou didst avenge the guile ? 
 
 Thou found'st thy friend — thy witness — well ! and he ?"— 
 
 " Had spoken truth, the truth of perfidy. 
 
 This man had loved me in his own dark way, 
 
 Loved for past kindness in our wilder day, 
 
 Loved for the future which, obscure for him, 
 
 Link'd with my fate, with that grew bright or dim. 
 
 I told thee how he warred with my intent, 
 
 The strong dissuasion, and the slow consent, 
 
 The slow cfonsent but veiled the laboured wile, 
 
 That I might yet be great, he groveled to be vile. 
 
 ' Twas a false hymen — a mock priest — and she 
 
 The pure, dishonoured — the dishonourer free ! 
 
 "This then the tale that, while it snapp'd the chord, 
 Still to the father's heart the child restored, 
 This told to her by the hard zealot's tongue, 
 Had the last hope from spoiled existence wrung ; 
 Had driven the outcast through the waste to roam, 
 And with the altar shattered ev'n the home. 
 No ! trust ev'n then, — ev'n then, hope was not o'er : 
 One morn the wanderer reach'd Clanalbin's door. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 99 
 
 steadfast saint ! amidst the lightning's scathe, 
 Still to the anchor clung the lingerer Faith ; 
 Still through the tempest of a darkened brain, 
 Where misery gnawed and memory racked in vain, 
 The last lone angel that deserts the grief 
 
 Of noble souls, survived and smiled, — Belief ! 
 
 There had she come, herself myself to know, 
 
 And bowed the head, and waited for the blow ! 
 
 What matter how the villain soothed, or sought 
 
 To mask the crime, — enough that it was wrought ; 
 
 She heard in silence, — when all said, all learned, 
 
 Still silent lingered ; then a flush returned 
 
 To the pale cheek, — the Woman and the Wrong 
 
 Reared the light form, — the voice came clear and strong. 
 
 4 Tell him ray father's grave is closed; the dread 
 
 Of shame sleeps with him — dying with the dead ; 
 
 Tell him on earth we meet no more ; — in vain 
 
 Would he redress the wrong, and clear the stain, — 
 
 His child is nameless ; and his bride — what now 
 
 To her, too late, the mockery of the vow ? — 
 
 1 was his wife — his equal — to endure 
 
 Earth's slander ? Yes ! — because my soul was pure ! 
 
 LofC. 
 
100 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Now, were he kneeling here, — fame, fortune won, — 
 My pride would bar him from the fallen one ! 
 Say this ; if more he seek my fate, reply — 
 " Once stain the ermine, and its fate — to die !" ' 
 
 " I need not tell thee if my fury burst 
 
 Against the wretch — the accuser — the accurst! 
 
 I need not tell thee if I sought each trace 
 
 That lured false hope to woe's lorn resting place ; 
 
 If, when all vain, gold, toil, and art essayed, 
 
 Still in my sunlight stalked the avenging shade, 
 
 Lost to my life for ever ; — on the ground 
 
 Where dwell the spectres — Conscience — ever found !" 
 
 " True was the preface to thy gloomy tale ; 
 Pity can soothe not — counsel not avail," 
 Said Morvale, moodily. " What bliss foregone ! 
 What years of rich life wasted ! What a throne 
 In the arch heaven abandoned! And for what? 
 Darkness and gold ! — the slave's most slavish lot ! 
 Thy choice forsook the light — the day divine — 
 God's loving air — for bondage and the mine ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 101 
 
 O ! what delight to struggle side by side 
 
 With one loved soother ! — up the steep to guide 
 
 Her faithful steps — unshrinking from the thorn ; 
 
 And front, with manly breast, the biting winds of scorn ! 
 
 And when stout will and gallant heart had won, 
 
 The hill-top opening to the steadfast sun, 
 
 Look o'er the perils of the vanquished way, 
 
 And bless the toil through which the victory lay, 
 
 And murmur — ' Which the sweeter fate, to dare 
 
 With thee the evil, or with thee to share 
 
 The good?' Nay, haunting must thine error be, 
 
 Thee, Camdeo gave the blest Amrita tree,* 
 
 The ambrosia of the gods, — to scorn the prize, 
 
 And choose the Champact for its golden dies : 
 
 * The Amrita is the name given by the mythologists of Thibet, 
 (as Sir William Jones truly informs us,) to the heavenly tree 
 which yields its ambrosial fruits to the gods. 
 
 t The Champac, a flower of a bright gold colour, with which 
 the Indian women are fond of adorning their hair. Moore al- 
 ludes to the custom in the " Veiled Prophet." 
 " The maid of India blest again to hold 
 In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold," &c. 
 9* • 
 
102 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Thou hast forsaken — (thou must bear the grief) — 
 The immortal fruitage for the withering leaf!" 
 " Nay," answered Arden, writhing, " cease to chide ; 
 Who taunts the ordeal should the fire have tried. 
 If Fortune's priests had trained thy soul, like mine, 
 To worship Fortune's as the holiest shrine, 
 Perchance my error, cynic, had been thine!" 
 
 "Pardon," said Morvale; " and, my taunt to shame, 
 Know me thus weak, — I envy while I blame; 
 Thou hast been loved! And had I erred like thee, 
 Mine one dark deed, from which thy soul is free, 
 
 Thy gentler breast the traitor could forgive " 
 
 " Never !" cried Arden — 
 
 "Does the traitor live?" 
 And as the ear that hissing whisper thrill'd, 
 That calm stern eye the very life-blood chill'd ; 
 For there, the instinct Cain bequeathed us, spoke, 
 And from the chain the wild's fierce savage broke. 
 "O yes!" the fiery Alien thus renewed; 
 " I know how holy life by law is viewed ; 
 I know how all life's glory may be marr'd, 
 If safe the clay, which, as life's all, ye guard. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 103 
 
 Law — Law ! what is it but the word for gold 1 
 
 Revenge is crime, if taken — Law, if sold ! 
 
 Vile tongues, vile scribes, may rot your name away, 
 
 But Law protects you, — with a fine to pay ! 
 
 The child dishonoured — the adulterous wife — 
 
 Gold requites all, save this base garment — life ! 
 
 So, life alone is sacred ! — so, your law 
 
 Hems the worm's carcass with a godhead's awe ; 
 
 So, if some mighty wrong with black despair 
 
 Blots out your sun, and taints to plague the air, 
 
 If, with a human impulse shrinks the soul 
 
 Back from the dross, which compensates the whole ; 
 
 If from the babbling court, the legal toil, 
 
 And the lashed lackey's guerdon, ye recoil, 
 
 And seize your vengeance with your own right arm, 
 
 How every dastard quivers with alarm ! 
 
 Mine be the heart, that can itself defend — 
 
 Hate to the foe, devotion to the friend! — 
 
 The fearless trust, and the relentless strife ; 
 
 Honour unsold, and wrong avenged with life !" 
 
 He ceased, with trembling lip and haughty crest, 
 The native heathen labouring in the breast ! 
 
104 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 As waves some pine, with all its storm of boughs, 
 
 O'er the black gulf Norwegian winds arouse, 
 
 Shook that strong spirit, gloomy and sublime, 
 
 Bending with troubled thought above the abyss of crime ! 
 
 Long was the silence, till, to calm restor'd, 
 The moody Indian and the startled lord. 
 "And yet," resumed the first with softer mien, 
 And lip that smiled, half mocking, yet serene, 
 " Not long thy sorrow dimm'd thy life ; — unless 
 Men's envy wrong thee, thou might'st more confess 
 Of loves, perchance as true and as deceived ; 
 Of rose-wreaths withered in the hands that weaved. 
 Talk to the world of Arden's dazzling lord, 
 And tales of joyous love go round the board; 
 Who, if adoring less, by beauty more adored?" 
 
 "Ill dost thou read the human heart, my friend, 
 If bounding man's life with the novel's end ; 
 Where lovers married, ever after love — 
 To birds alone the turtle and the dove ! 
 Where wicked men, (if I be of the gang,) 
 Repent, turn hermits, or cut throats and hang! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 105 
 
 Our souls repent, — our lives but rarely change ; 
 
 Grief halts awhile, then goads us on to range. 
 
 More wooed than wooing, scarce I feigned to feel — 
 
 What magic draws the magnet to the steel? 
 
 Wealth soon grew mine, the parasital fame 
 
 Concealed the nature while it deck'd the name; 
 
 Kinsman on kinsman died, each death brought gold ; 
 
 In birth, wealth, fame, strange charms the sex behold ! 
 
 The outward grace the life of courts bestows, 
 
 The tongue that learns unconsciously to gloze, 
 
 All drew to mine the fates I could but mar ; 
 
 And Aphrodite was my native star ! 
 
 Forgive the boast, not blessings these, but banes, 
 
 If spring sows only flowers, small fruit the autumn gains ! 
 
 I mark my grave coaevals gather round 
 
 Their harvest-home, their sheaves for garners bound ; 
 
 And I, that planted but the garden, see 
 
 How the blooms fade ! no harvest waits for me!" 
 
 " Yet, didst thou never love again ? as o'er 
 The soft stream, gliding by the enameled shore, 
 Didst thou ne'er pause, and in some lovelier vale 
 Moor thy light prow, and furl thy silken sail?" 
 
106 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 "But once," said Arden: "Years on years had fled, 
 
 And half it soothed to think my Mary dead. 
 
 For I had sworn, (could faith, could honour less?) 
 
 My hearth, at least, to priestly loneliness ; 
 
 To wed no other while she lived, and be, 
 
 If found at last, for late atonement free. 
 
 I kept the vow, till this ambiguous doom, 
 
 Half wed, half widowed, took a funeral gloom ; 
 
 So many years had passed, no tidings gained, 
 
 The chance so slight that yet the earth retained, 
 
 At length, though doubtful, I believed that time 
 
 Had from the altar ta'en the ban of crime. 
 
 Impulse, occasion — what you will, at last 
 
 Seized one warm moment to abjure the past. 
 
 " Far other, she, who charmed me thus awhile, 
 Thought in each glance, and mind in every smile ; 
 Hers power and genius, and the Iris dyes 
 Of fancy glistening through swift shifting skies ; 
 Wild in caprice, impassioned, and yet coy, 
 Woman when mournful, a frank child in joy; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 107 
 
 The Phidian dream in one concent'ring all 
 
 The thousand spells with which the charmers thrall, 
 
 And pleasing most the eye which years begin to pall ! 
 
 I do not say I loved her as, in truth, 
 
 We only love when life is in its youth ; 
 
 But here at least I thought to fix my doom, 
 
 And from the weary waste reclaim a home ! 
 
 Enough I loved, to woo, to win, to bind 
 
 To her my fate, if Heaven had so assigned ! 
 
 The nuptial day was fix'd, the plighting kiss 
 
 Glowed on my lips ; — that moment the abyss, 
 
 Which hid by moss-grown time yet yawned as wide 
 
 Beneath my feet, divorced me from her side. 
 
 A letter came — Clanalbin's hand; what made 
 
 Treason so bold to brave the man betray' d ? 
 
 I break the seal — O Heaven ; my Mary yet 
 
 Lived ; in want's weeds — the wretch his victim met. 
 
 Track'd to her home, (a beggar's squalid cell !) 
 
 Told all the penitence that lips could tell. 
 
 ' Come back and plead thyself, and all may yet be well !' 
 
 Had I a choice ? could I delay to choose ? — 
 
 Here conscience dragg'd me, there it might excuse ! 
 
108 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Few hurried lines, obscurely dark with all 
 The war within, my later vows recall, 
 Blame the harsh fates that sever and subdue, 
 Breathe passionate prayer, — for hopeless pardon sue, 
 And shape each healing word to soothe the stern adieu. 
 So, as some soul the beckoning ghost obeys, 
 The haunting shadow of the vanish' d days 
 Lures to the Grave of Youth my charmed tread, 
 And sighs, ' At length thou shalt appease the Dead !' 
 
 " Scarce had I reached the shores of England, ere 
 New pomps spring round me, — I am Arden's heir ! 
 The last pretender to the princely line, 
 Whose scutcheon'd lions waved at Palestine, 
 Borne to our dark Walhalla,— left me poor 
 In all which sheds a blessing on the boor. — 
 Yes, thou art right ! how, at each sickening grasp, 
 For the heart's food, had gold befool'd my clasp ! 
 Gorg'd with a satrap's treasure, the soul's dearth 
 Envied the pauper crawling to his hearth." 
 "But Mary— she — thy wife before Heaven's eye?" 
 " Lost as before !" was Arden's anguish-cry ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 109 
 
 " Not beggary, famine — not her child (for whom, 
 
 What could she hope from earth ? — as stern a doom !) 
 
 Could bow the steel of that proud chastity, 
 
 Which scorn' d as alms the atonement due from me ! 
 
 What had been pride, a kind of madness grown, 
 
 She hugg'd her wrongs — her sorrow was her throne. 
 
 She fled and left no sign ! — again the same 
 
 Vain track — vain chase! — Not here was /to blame !" 
 
 "/should have found her," muttered Morvale ; — " Thon, 
 Thou track the outcast ! — luxury knows not how !" 
 
 " Henceforth," sigh'd Arden, " hope, aim, end confined 
 To one — my heart if tortured is resign' d ; 
 So lately seen, oh ! sure, she liveth yet, 
 Once found — Oh ! strong thine eloquence, Regret ! 
 The palace and the coronal, the gauds 
 With which our vanity our will defrauds, — 
 These may not tempt her, but the simple words 
 ' I love thee still,' will touch on surer chords, 
 And youth rush back with that young melody, 
 To the lone moonlight and the try sting tree !" 
 10 
 
110 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 As the tale ceased, the fields behind them lay,— 
 
 The huge town once more opened on the way ; 
 
 The whir of wheels, the galliard cavalcade ; 
 
 The crowd of pleasure, and the roar of trade ; 
 
 The solemn abbey soaring through the dun 
 
 And reeking air, in which sunk slow the sun ; 
 
 The dusky trees, the sultry flakes of green ; 
 
 The haunts where Fashion yawns away the spleen ;— 
 
 Vista on vista widens to reveal 
 
 Ease on the wing, and Labour at the wheel! 
 
 The friends grew silent in that common roar, 
 
 The Real round them, the Ideal o'er; 
 
 So the peculiar life of each, the unseen 
 
 Core of our being — what we are, have been — 
 
 The spirit of our memory and our soul 
 
 Sink from the sight, when merg'd amidst the whole ; 
 
 Yet atom, atom never can absorb, 
 
 Each drop moves rounded in its separate orb. 
 
 END OF PART II. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 PART THE THIRD. 
 
 I. 
 
 Lord Arden's tale robb'd Morvale's couch of sleep, 
 The star still trembled on the troubled deep, 
 O'er the waste ocean gleam'd its chilling glance, 
 To make more dark the desolate expanse. 
 
 This contrast of a fate, but vex'd by gales, 
 Faint with too full a balm from Rhodian Vales ;* 
 This light of life all squander'd upon one 
 Round whom hearts moved, as planets round a sun, 
 Mock'd the lone doom his barren years endure, 
 As wasted treasure but insults the poor. 
 
 * The perfumes from the island of Rhodes, — to which the 
 roses that still bloom there gave the ancient name ; — are wafted 
 for miles over the surrounding seas. 
 
112 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Back on his soul no faithful echo cast 
 
 Those tones which make the Music of the Past. 
 
 No memories hallow, and no dreams restore 
 
 Love's lute, far-heard from Youth's Hesperian shore ; — 
 
 The flowers that Arden trampled on the sod, 
 
 Still left the odour where the step had trod ; 
 
 Those flowers, so wasted ; — had for him, but smil'd 
 
 One bud, — its breath had perfumed all the wild ! — 
 
 He own'd the moral of the reveler's life,— 
 
 So Christian warriors own the sin of strife, — 
 
 But oh ! how few can lift the soul above 
 
 Earth's twin-born rulers, — Fame and Woman's Love ! 
 
 Just in that time, of all most drear, upon 
 
 Fate's barren hill-tops, gleamed the coming sun ; 
 
 From Nature's face the veil of night withdrawn, 
 
 Earth smiled, and Heaven was opened, in the dawn ! 
 
 How chanced this change ? — how chances all below ? 
 What sways the life the moment doth bestow : 
 An impulse — instinct — look — touch — word — or sigh — 
 Unlocks the Hades, or reveals the sky. 
 
THE NEW .TIMON. 113 
 
 'T was eve ; Calantha had resumed again 
 The wonted life, recaptured to its chain ; 
 In the calm chamber, Morvale sat, and eyed 
 Lucy's lithe shape, that seem'd on air to glide ; 
 Eyed with complacent, not impassioned, gaze ; 
 So Age looks on, where some fair Childhood plays ; 
 Far, as soars Childhood from dim Age's scope, 
 Beauty to him who links it not with Hope ! 
 
 "Sing me, sweet Lucy," said Calantha, "sing 
 Our favourite song — ' The Maiden and the King.'' 
 Thou lov'st not music, Morvale, or, at least, 
 Nought save some war-song that recalls the East. 
 Who loves not music, still may pause to hark 
 Nature's free gladness hymning in the lark. 
 As sings the ]?ird sings Lucy ! all her art 
 A voice in which you listen to a heart." 
 
 A blush of fear — a coy, reluctant nay, 
 Avail her not — thus ran the simple lay : — 
 10* 
 
114 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 THE MAIDEN AND THE KING. 
 
 i. 
 
 "And far as sweep the seas below, 
 My sails are on the deep; 
 And far as yonder eagles go, 
 My flag on every keep. 
 
 " Why o'er the rebel world within 
 Extendeth not the chart ? 
 No sail can reach— no arms can win 
 The kingdom of a heart!" 
 
 So sigh'd the King — the linden near; 
 
 A listener heard the sigh, 
 And thus the heart he did not hear, 
 
 Breathed back the soft reply. 
 
 ii. 
 "And far as sweep the seas below, 
 His sails are on the deep ; 
 And far as yonder eagles go, 
 His flag on every keep ; 
 
 "Love, thou art not a king alone, 
 Both slave and king thou art! 
 Who seeks to sway must stoop to own 
 The kingdom of a heart!" 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 115 
 
 So sigh'd the Maid, the linden near, 
 
 Beneath the lonely sky; 
 Oh, lonely not! — for angels hear 
 
 The humblest human sigh ! 
 
 in. 
 
 His ships are vanish'd from the main, 
 
 His banners from the keep ; 
 The carnage triumphs on the plain ; 
 
 The tempest on the deep. 
 
 " The purple and the crown are mine," 
 An Outlaw sigh'd — " no more ; 
 But still as greenly grows the vine 
 Around the cottage door ! 
 
 "A shelter from the hunter, Maid, 
 And water from the spring!" 
 Before the humble cottage pray'd 
 The Man that was a King. 
 
 Oh, was the threshold that he crost 
 
 The gate to fairy ground ? 
 He would not for the kingdom lost, 
 
 Have changed the kingdom found ! 
 
116 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Divine interpreter thou art, O song ! 
 
 To thee all secrets of all hearts belong ! 
 
 How had the lay, as in a mirror, glass' d, 
 
 The sullen present and the joyless past, 
 
 Lock'd in the cloister of that lonely soul ! — 
 
 Ere the song ceased, to Lucy's side he stole, 
 
 Stole, as in sleep unconsciously we glide, 
 
 Hush'd was the voice, and still he dream'd by Lucy's side ! 
 
 Dream'd, till too sweet the vision : Mournfully 
 
 He raised his looks, and met the virgin's eye, 
 
 It fix'd his own, nor droop'd; — so gaze met gaze, 
 
 And heart saw heart, translucid through the rays. 
 
 In that electric link we do but prove 
 
 The power by which the wheels of glory move ; 
 
 One same, harmonious, universal law, 
 
 Atom to atom, star to star, can draw, 
 
 And heart to heart! — swift, darts, as from the sun, 
 
 The strong attraction, and the charm is done ! 
 
 Whoe'er thou art, look back, when on thy tame 
 
 Expanse of life first flash'd Love's heavenly flame, 
 
 And own the date the holy kalend took 
 
 Rose from the worship kindled in a look. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 117 
 
 A look! and suddenly they felt alone! 
 
 Calantha's place was void — the witness gone; 
 
 They had not mark'd her sad step glide away, 
 
 When in sweet silence sank, less sweet, the lay ; 
 
 For unto both abruptly came the hour 
 
 When springs the rose-fence round the fairy bower; 
 
 When earth shut out, all life transferred to one, 
 
 Each other life seems cloud before the sun ; 
 
 It comes, it goes, we know if it depart 
 
 But by the warmer light and quickened heart. 
 
 And what then chanced ? Oh, leave not told but guest ; 
 
 Is Love a God ? — a Temple, then, the breast ! 
 
 Not to the crowd in cold detail allow 
 
 Its delicate worship, its mysterious vow ! 
 
 Around the first sweet homage in the shrine ^ 
 
 Let the veil fall, and but the Pure divine ! 
 
 Coy as the violet shrinking from the sun, 
 
 The blush of Virgin Youth first woo'd and won ; 
 
 And scarce less holy from the vulgar ear 
 
 The tone that trembles but with noble fear : 
 
118 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Near to God's throne the solemn stars that move 
 The proud to meekness, and the pure to love ! 
 
 Let days pass on ; nor count how many swell 
 
 Th' episode of Life's hack chronicle ! 
 
 Changed the abode, of late so stern and drear, 
 
 How doth the change speak? — " Love hath entered here !" 
 
 How lightly sounds the footfall on the floor ! 
 
 How jocund rings sweet laughter, hush'd no more ! 
 
 Wide from two hearts made happy, wide and far, 
 
 Circles the light in which they breathe and are ! 
 
 Liberal as noontide streams the ambient ray, 
 
 And fills each crevice in the world with day ! 
 
 And changed is Lucy ! where the downcast eye, 
 And the meek fear, when that dark man was by ? 
 Lo ! as young Una thrall'd the forest-king, 
 She leads the savage in her silken string; 
 Plays with the strength to her in service shown, 
 And mounts with infant whim the woman's throne ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 119 
 
 Charm'd from his lonely moods and brooding mind, 
 And bound by one to union with his kind, 
 No more the wild man thirsted for the waste ; 
 No more, mid joy, a joyless one, misplaced; 
 His very form assumed unwonted grace, 
 And bliss gave more than beauty to his face ; 
 Let but delighted thought from all things cull 
 Sweet food and fair — hiving the Beautiful, 
 And lo ! the form shall brighten with the soul ! 
 The gods bloom only by joy's nectar bowl; 
 Bright as Apollo, when his toils were done, 
 Shone in heaven's court Alcmsena's rugged son, 
 But not till Hebe, the ambrosial bride, 
 Poured to the parched lips the immortal golden tide ! 
 
 Nor deem it strange that Lucy failed to trace 
 In that dark grandeur, but the birth's disgrace, 
 And Europe's ban on Earth's primeval race. 
 Were she less pure, less harmless, less the child, 
 Not on the savage had the soft one smiled. 
 Ev'n as the young Venetian loved the Moor, 
 Pity refines to reverence in the Pure ; 
 
120 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Touch'd with a finer sense, its eye surveys 
 The mine, where wastes appall the common gaze : 
 Love in such hearts, like some sweet poet, where 
 Round it the Homely dwells, invents the Fair; 
 To rudest forms, its own bright splendour given, 
 It shapes the seraph and creates the heaven. 
 
 And both were children in this world of ours, 
 Maiden and savage ! the same mountain flowers, 
 Not trimmed in gardens, not exchanged their hues, 
 Fresh from the natural sun and hardy dews, 
 For the sick fragrance and the delicate dies 
 Which Art calls forth by walling out the skies ! 
 
 So children both, each seemed to have forgot 
 How poor the maid's — how rich the lover's lot ; 
 Ne'er did the ignorant Indian pause in fear, 
 Lest friends should pity, and lest foes should sneer. 
 "What will the world say?" — question safe and sage; 
 The parrot's world should be his gilded cage ; 
 But fly, frank wilding, with free wings unfurl' d, 
 Where thy mate carols — there, behold thy world ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 121 
 
 And stranger still that no decorous pride 
 
 Warned her, the beggar, from the rich man's side. 
 
 Sneer, ye world-wise, and deem her ignorance art ; 
 
 She saw her wealth (and blush'd not) in her heart ! — 
 
 Saw through the glare of gold his lonely breast ; 
 
 He had but gold, and hers was all the rest ; 
 
 Who is the richer say — the blesser or the blest? 
 
 Pleased in the bliss to her, alas ! denied, 
 
 Calantha hail'd her brother's plighted bride : 
 
 " Glad thou the heart which I made sad," she sighed. 
 
 Since Arden's tale, but once the friends had met, 
 Nor known to one the other's rapture yet ; 
 Some fancied clue, some hope awhile restored, 
 Had from the Babel lured the brilliant lord. 
 The wonted commune Morvale failed to miss, — 
 We want no confidant in happiness. 
 Baffled, and sick of hope, wealth, life and all, 
 One night returned the noble to his hall ; 
 He found some lines, stern, brief, in Morvale's hand, — 
 Brief with dark meaning, — stern with rude command, — 
 11 
 
122 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Bidding his instant presence. Arden weighed 
 
 Each word; some threat was in each word convey'd; 
 
 A chill shot through his heart — foreboding he obey'd. 
 
 II. 
 
 What caused the mandate ? — wherefore do I shrink ? 
 
 The stream runs on, — why tarry on the brink ? 
 
 On to my task ; yet in the pause between 
 
 Sorrow and joy, behold the quiet scene; — 
 
 The chamber stately in that calm repose, 
 
 "Which Art, the god whose life is calm, bestows ; 
 
 There, gleam the shapes in which, immortal, still, 
 
 Live the bright exiles from the Olympian Hill ; 
 
 Still mooned Dian from the breathing stone 
 
 Haunts, with pure eyes, thy dreams, Endymion ; 
 
 Still on the vast brow of the Father-god, 
 
 Hangs the hush'd thunder of the awful nod; 
 
 Still fair, as when on Ida's mountain seen, 
 
 By Troy's young shepherd, Beauty's bashful Queen ; 
 
 Still Ind's divine Iacchus laughing weaves 
 
 His crown of clustering grapes and glossy leaves ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 123 
 
 Still thou, Arch-type of Song,* whose task to soothe 
 The rest of Heroes, and with deathless youth 
 Crown the Celestial Brotherhood — dost hold, 
 Brimm'd with the drink of gods, the urn of gold ! 
 
 All live again ! for this most pure, most high 
 Of Art's link'd choir, this chastener of the eye, 
 This heightener of the soul, that symbols all 
 The thoughts that fire us, and the toils that thrall, 
 Hewing from mine and rock its airy throne, 
 And quickening shapes for gods to wear, from stone, 
 Charm'd Morvale's niind, — which, simple and austere, 
 Ev'n in relaxing, yearned but to revere. 
 
 'Twas noon, and broken by the gentle gloom 
 Of coolest draperies, through the shadowy room, 
 In moted shaft aslant, the golden ray 
 Forced lingering in, through tiers of flowers, its way, 
 Glanced on the lute, (just hush'd, to leave behind 
 Elysian dreams, the music of the mind,) 
 Play'd round the songstress, and with warmer flush 
 Steep' d the young cheek, unconscious of its blush, 
 * Hebe. 
 
124 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 And fell, as if in worship, at thy base, 
 
 O sculptured Psyche* of the soul-lit face, 
 
 Bending to earth resign' d the mournful eye, 
 
 Since earth must prove the pathway to the sky ; 
 
 Doomed here, below, Love's foot-print to explore, 
 
 Till Jove relents, the destined wandering o'er, 
 
 And in immortal groves, Soul meets with Love once more.t 
 
 And, side by side, the lovers sat, — their words 
 
 Low mix'd with notes from Lucy's joyous birds, 
 
 ^The Psyche of Naples ; the most intellectual and (so to speak) 
 the most Christian of all the dreams of beauty which Grecian art 
 has embodied in the marble. This triumph of modern Italy and 
 ancient Hellas, which in the highest order of beauty, (the ideal,) 
 far exceeds the Florentine Venus, has never obtained from the 
 caprice of connoisseurs the fame that it deserves. Sir Edward 
 Bulwer Lytton appears first to have called the public attention to 
 this, the greatest, treasure of which the Museum of Naples can 
 boast, and first, thoroughly to have comprehended and appre- 
 ciated in the mutilated relic (which served a knife-grinder for a 
 whet-stone) the genius, perhaps the master-piece, of Phidias. 
 
 t Every one knows, through the version of Mrs. Tighe, the 
 lovely allegory of Eros and Psyche, which Apuleius — the neg- 
 lected original, to whom all later romance writers are uncon- 
 sciously indebted — has bequeathed to the delight of poets and 
 the recognition of Christians. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 125 
 
 Sole witnesses and fit — those airy things, 
 That, midst the bars, can still unfold the wings, 
 And soothe the cell with language learn' d above ; 
 As the caged bird — so on the earth is love ! 
 
 Their talk was of the future ; from the height 
 
 Of Hope, they saw the landscape bath'd in light, 
 
 And, where the golden dimness veil'd the gaze, 
 
 Guess'd out the spot, and marked the sites of happy days ; 
 
 Till silence came, and the full sense and power 
 
 Of the blest Present, — the rich-laden Hour 
 
 That overshadowed them, as some hushed tree 
 
 With mellow fruitage bending heavily, — 
 
 What time, beneath the tender gloom reclined, 
 
 Dies on the lap of summer noon the wind ! 
 
 'Twas Lucy's voice, that first unto the hush 
 Restored its music, — with averted blush 
 She stole her hand from his, and to a third, 
 Love's egoist interests in the loved transferr'd. 
 
 " Tell me," she said, " if not too near the gloom 
 
 Of some sad tale, the rash desire presume ; 
 11* 
 
126 THE NEW T1M0N. 
 
 What severs so the chords that should entwine 
 With one warm bond our sister's heart and thine? 
 Why does she love yet dread thee ? what the grief 
 That shrinks from utterance and disdains relief? 
 Hast thou not been too stern ? — nay, pardon ! nay, 
 Let thy words chide me,— not thy looks dismay!" 
 
 " Not unto thee, beneath whose starry eye 
 Smoothes every billow, did my looks reply ; 
 They were the answer to mine own dark thought, 
 Which back the gloom, thy smile had banish'd, brought. 
 
 " Well ; — to the secrets of my soul thy love 
 
 Hath such sweet right, I lift the veil above 
 
 Home's shattered gods, and show what wounds belong 
 
 To writhing honour and revengeless wrong. — 
 
 " Reared in the desert, round its rugged child, 
 All we call life, grouped, menacing and wild ; 
 But to man's soul there is an inner life ; — 
 There, one soft vision smiled away the strife ! 
 A fairy shape, an infant's face of glee, 
 An angel from that heaven, young Memory, 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 127 
 
 A voice that called me brother; — years had fled 
 Since my rough breast had pillowed that sweet head, 
 Yet still my heart throbb'd with the pressure ; still 
 Tears, such as mothers know, my eyes would fill ; 
 Prayers, such as fathers pray, my soul would breathe ; — 
 The oak were sere but for that jasmine-wreath! 
 At length, wealth came ; my footsteps left the wild, — 
 Again we met ; — to woman grown the child ! 
 How did we meet ? — that heart to me was dead ! 
 The bird, far heard amidst the waste was fled ! 
 With earthlier fires that breast had learned to burn ; 
 And what yet left 1 but ashes in the urn : 
 Wooed and abandoned ! all of love, hope, soul 
 Lavish' d — now lifeless ! — well, were this the whole ! 
 But the good name — the virgin's pure renown — 
 Woman's white robe, and Honour's starry crown, 
 Lost, lost, for ever!" 
 
 O'er his visage past 
 His trembling hand, — then, hurriedly and fast, 
 As one who from the knife of torture swerves, 
 Then spurns the pang, as pride the human weakness nerves, 
 Resumed — " As yet that secret was withheld, 
 All that I saw, was sorrow that repelled, — 
 
128 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 A dreary apathy— a death-like chill, 
 
 That froze the yearning back and left us severed still. 
 
 " One night I fled that hard indifferent eye ; 
 
 To crowds, the heart that Home rejects, will fly ! — 
 
 Gay glides the dance, soft music fills the hall, 
 
 I fled, to find the loneliness through all ! 
 
 Thou know'st but half a brother's bond I claim, — 
 
 My mother's daughter bears her father's name ; 
 
 My mother's heart had long denied her son, 
 
 And loathed the tie that pride had taught to shun, 
 
 My sister's lips, forbid the bond to own, 
 
 Left the scorn' d life, a brother breathed, unknown !* 
 
 Not even yet the alien blood confest; — 
 
 Who, in the swart hues of the Eastern guest 
 
 * The Reader will bear in mind these lines, important to the 
 clearness of the story ; and remember that Calantha bore a dif- 
 ferent name from her half brother — that her mother's unnatural 
 prejudice or pride of race ; had forbidden her ever to mention 
 that brother's name ; and that, therefore, her relationship, until 
 he sought her out, was wholly unknown to all: the Reader will 
 remember, also, that during Calantha's subsequent residence in 
 Morvale's house, she lived as a woman lives in the East, and 
 was consequently never seen by her brother's guests. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 129 
 
 And unfamiliar name, could kindred trace 
 
 With the young Beauty of the Northern Race? — 
 
 Calm in the crowd I stood, when hark, a word 
 
 Smote on my ear, and stunn'd the soul that heard! 
 
 A sound, with withering laughter muttered o'er, 
 
 Blistering the name — O God !— a sister bore ; 
 
 Nought clear, and nought denned, save scorn alone, — 
 
 Not heard the name scorn coupled with her own ; 
 
 Somewhat of nuptials fix'd, of broken ties, 
 
 The foul cause hinted in the vile surmise, 
 
 The gallant's fame for conquests, lightly won, 
 
 For homes dishonoured, and for hearts undone ! 
 
 Not one alone on whom my wrath could seize, 
 
 From lip to lip the dizzying slander flees ; 
 
 No, not one ribald separate from the herd ! 
 
 Through the blent hum one stinging tumult stirr'd ; 
 
 One felt, unseen, infection circling there, 
 
 A bodiless venom in the common air, 
 
 And as the air impalpable ! — so seem 
 
 The undistinguished terrors of a dream, 
 
 Now clear, now dim, transformed from shape to shape, 
 
 The gibbering spectres scare us and escape ! 
 
130 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 "Fearful the commune, in that dismal night, 
 Between the souls which could no more unite, — 
 The lawful anger and the shaming fears, — 
 Man's iron question, woman's burning tears ; 
 All that once pass'd, divide for aye the ties 
 Of the close bond God fashioned in the skies. 
 I learned at last, for midst my wrath, deep trust 
 In all once loved, left even passion just; 
 And I believed the word, the lip, the eye, 
 That to my horrid question flash'd reply; 
 I learned at last that but the name was stain'd, 
 Honour was wreck'd, but Purity remain'd. 
 O pardon, pardon ! — if a doubt that sears, 
 A word that stains profane such holy ears ! 
 So, oft amidst my loneliness, my heart 
 Hath communed with itself, and groaned apart, — 
 Recalled that night, and in its fierce despair, 
 Shaped some full vengeance from the desert air, — 
 That I forgot what angel, new from Heaven, 
 Sweet spotless listener, to my side was given ! 
 
 " But who the recreant lover ? — this, in vain 
 My question sought ; that truth not hard to gain ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 131 
 
 And my brow darkened as I breathed the threat 
 
 Fierce yi her shrinking ear, ■ that wrath should reach him 
 
 yet!' 
 I left her speechless ; when the morning came, 
 With the fierce pang, writhed the self-tortured frame, 
 The poison hid by Woe, drained by despairing Shame. 
 
 " Few words, half blurr'd by shame, the motive cleared, 
 For the false wooer, not herself, she feared ; 
 1 Accept,' she wrote ' O brother, sternly just, 
 The life I yield, — but holy be my dust ! 
 Hear my last words, for, them Death sanctify ! 
 Forbear his life for whom it soothes to die ; 
 And let my thought, the memory of old time, 
 The soul that flees the stain, nor knew the crime, 
 Strike down thine arm ! and see me in the tomb, 
 Stand, like a ghost, between Revenge and Doom !' 
 
 " I bent, in agony and awe, above 
 The broken idol of my boyhood's love ! 
 Echoed each groan and writhed with every throe, 
 And cried, ' Live yet ! O dove, but brood below, 
 
132 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Hide with thy wings the vengeance and the guilt, 
 And mould, disarm, unman me as thou wilt !' # 
 And, as I spoke, the heavy eye unclosed, 
 The hand press'd mine, and in the clasp reposed, 
 The wan lip smiled, the weak frame seem'd to win 
 Strange power against the torture-fire within ; 
 The leach's skill the heart's strong impulse sped, 
 She lived — she lived — and my revenge was dead ! 
 
 " She lived — and, clasp'd within my arms, I vowed 
 
 To leave the secret in its thunder shroud, 
 
 To shun all question, to refuse all clue, 
 
 And close each hope that honour deems its due ; 
 
 But, while she lived!— the weak vow halted there* 
 
 Her life the shield to that it tainted mine to spare I 
 
 " But to have walked into the thronging street, 
 
 But to have sought the haunt where babblers meet, 
 
 But to have plucked one idler by the sleeve, 
 
 And asked, ' who woo'd yon fairhaired bride, to leave V 
 
 And street and haunt, and every idler's tongue, 
 
 Had given the name with which the slander rung — 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 133 
 
 To me alone, — to me of all the throng, 
 
 The unnatural silence masked the face of wrong ! 
 
 But I had sworn ! and, of myself in dread, 
 
 From the loathed scene, from mine own wrath, I fled. 
 
 " We left the land, in this a home we find, 
 Home ! by our hearth the cleaving curse is shrined ! 
 Distrust in her — and shame in me ; and all 
 The unspoken past cold present hours recall ; 
 And unconfiding hearts, and smiles but rife, 
 In the bland hollowness of formal life ! 
 In vain my sacrifice, she fears me still ! 
 Vain her reprieve — grief barr'd from vent will kill. 
 And then, and then, (0 joy through agony !) 
 My oath absolves me, and my arm is free ! 
 The lofty soul may oft forgive, I own, 
 The lighter wrong that smites itself alone , 
 But vile the wretch who sheds but tears above 
 The wrong that breaks the heart he boasts to love — 
 That breaks the heart, and desecrates the name, 
 And steeps the injury in the gall of shame ! 
 12 
 
134 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 And I were vilest of the vile, to live 
 To see Calantha's grave — and to forgive: 
 Forgive /" 
 
 There hung such hate upon that word, 
 The weeping listener shuddered as she heard, 
 And sobb'd — 
 
 " Hush, hush ! lest Man's eternal Foe 
 Hear thee, and tempt ! Oh, never may'st thou know 
 Beside one deed of Guilt — how blest is guiltless Woe!" 
 
 Then, close, and closer, clinging to his side, 
 
 Frank as the child, and tender as the bride, 
 
 Words — looks — and tears themselves combine the balm, 
 
 Lull the fierce pang, and steal the soul to calm ! 
 
 As holy herbs the rock with verdure wreathe, 
 
 And fill with sweets the summer air they breathe, 
 
 In winter wither, only to reveal 
 
 Diviner virtues — charged with powers to heal, 
 
 So are the thoughts of Love ! — if Heaven is fair, 
 
 Blooms for the earth, and perfumes for the air; — 
 
 Is the Heaven dark? — doth sorrow sear the leaf? 
 
 They fade from joy to anodynes for grief! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 135 
 
 From theme to theme she lures his thought afar, 
 From the dark haunt in which its demons are ; 
 And with the gentle instinct which divines 
 Interest more strong than aught which Self entwines 
 "With its own suffering — changed the course of tears, 
 And led him, child-like, through her own young years. 
 The silent sorrows of a patient mind — 
 Grief's loveliest poem, a soft soul resign'd, 
 
 Charm'd and aroused 
 
 " tell me more!" he cried; 
 " Ev'n from the infant let me trace the bride. 
 Of thy dear life so fond a miser grown, 
 I grudge each smile that did not gild my own ; 
 Look back — thy Father ? Canst thou not recall 
 His kiss, his voice? Fair orphan ! tell me all." 
 
 " My father ? No !" sigh'd Lucy ; " at that name 
 Still o'er my mother's cheek the fever came ; 
 Thus from the record of each earlier year, 
 That household tie moved less of love than fear ; 
 Some wild mysterious awe, some undefined 
 Instinct of woe, was with the name entwined. 
 
136 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Lived he ? — I knew not ; knew not till the last 
 
 Sad hours, when Memory struggled to the Past, 
 
 And she— my dying mother — to my breast 
 
 Clasp'd these twain relics — let them speak the rest!" 
 
 With that, for words no more she could command, 
 
 She placed a scroll — a portrait — in his hand; 
 
 And overcome by memories that could brook 
 
 Not ev'n love's comfort, — veil'd her troubled look, 
 
 And glided swiftly thence. Nor he detain'd: 
 
 Spell bound, his gaze upon the portrait strain'd: 
 
 That brow — those features ! that bright lip, which smil'd 
 
 Forth from the likeness ! — Found Lord Arden's child ! 
 
 The picture spoke as if from Mary's tomb, 
 
 Death in the smile and mockery in the bloom. 
 
 The scroll, unseal' d — address'd the obscurer name 
 
 That Arden bore, ere lands and lordship came ; 
 
 And at the close, to which the Indian's eyes 
 
 Hurried, these words : — 
 
 " In peace thy Mary dies ; 
 Forgive her sternness in her sacrifice ! 
 It had one merit — that I loved! and till 
 Each pulse is hush'd shall love y yet fly, thee still. 
 
. THE NEW TIMON. 137 
 
 Now take thy child! and when she clings with pride 
 To the strong shelter of a father's side, 
 Tell her, a mother bought the priceless right 
 To bless unblushing her she gave to light; 
 Bought it as those who would redeem a past 
 Must buy — by penance, faithful to the last. 
 Thorns in each path, a grave the only goal, 
 Glides mine, atoning, to my father's soul!" 
 
 What at this swift revealment — dark and fast 
 As fleets the cloud-wrack, o'er the Indian past ? 
 No more is Lucy free with her sweet dower 
 Of love and youth ! Another has the power 
 To bar the solemn rite, to blast the marriage bower. 
 " Will this proud Saxon of the princely line 
 Yield his heart's gem to alien hands like mine ? 
 What though the blot denies his rank its heir : 
 The more his pride will bid his love repair 
 By loftiest nuptials— Oh supreme despair ! 
 Shall I divulge the secret? shall I rear, 
 Myself, the barrier, and the bliss so near?" 
 12* 
 
138 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 He scorn'd himself, and raised his drooping crest: 
 "Mine be Man's honour — leave to God the rest!" 
 As thus his high resolve, a sudden cry- 
 Startled his heart. He turn'd: Calantha by! 
 Why on the portrait glares her haggard eye ? 
 " Whose likeness this ? Thou know'st not, brother? speak ! 
 What mean that clouded brow — that changing cheek ? 
 Thou know'st not!" 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 And as the answer came, 
 With Death's strong terror shook the sister's frame, 
 A bitterer pang, an icier shudder, ran 
 Through his fierce nature — 
 
 " Dost thou know the man ? 
 Ha ! his own tale ! O dull and blinded ! how, 
 Flash upon flash, descends the lightning now ! 
 Thou, his forsaken — his! And I — who — nay! 
 Look up, Calantha; for, befall what may, 
 
 He shall " 
 
 The promise, or the threat, was said 
 To ears already deafen'd as the dead ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 139 
 
 His arm but breaks the fall : the panting breast 
 
 Yet heaves convulsive through the stifling vest. 
 
 The robe, relax' d, bids doubt — if doubt yet be — 
 
 Merge the last gleam in starless certainty ! 
 
 Lo there, the fatal gift of love and woe 
 
 Miming without the image graved below — 
 
 The same each likeness by each sufferer worn, 
 
 Or differing but as noonday from the morn. 
 
 In Lucy's portrait, manhood's earliest youth 
 
 Shone from the clear eye with a light like truth. 
 
 There, play'd that fearless smile with which we meet 
 
 The sward that hides the swamp before our feet; 
 
 The bright on-looking to the Future, ere 
 
 Our sins reflect their own dark shadows there : — 
 
 Calantha's portrait spoke of one in whom, 
 
 Young yet in years, the heart had lost its bloom ; 
 
 The lip of joy the lip of pride had grown ; 
 
 It smiled — the smile we love to trust had flown. 
 
 In the collected eye and lofty mien 
 
 The graver power experience brings was seen ; 
 
 Beautiful both ; and if the manlier face 
 
 Had lost youth's candid and luxuriant grace, 
 
140 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 A charm as fatal as the first it wore ; 
 
 Pleased less — and yet enchain'd and haunted mare. 
 
 And this the man to whom his heart had moved! 
 
 Whose hand he had clasp' d, whose child he loved! — he 
 
 loved ! 
 This, out of all the universe, O Fate ! 
 This, the dark orb round which revolved his hate ; 
 This, the swart star malign, whose baleful ray 
 Ruled in his House of Life ; and day by day, 
 And hour by hour, upon the tortured past 
 One withering, ruthless, demon influence cast! 
 There writhes the victim — there, unmasking, now 
 The invoked Alecto frowns from Arden's brow, 
 O'er that fierce nature, roused so late from sleep, 
 Course the black thoughts, and lash to storm the deep. 
 Love flies dismay'd — the sweet delusions, drawn 
 By Hope, fade ghost-like in the lurid dawn; 
 As when along the parched Arabian gloom 
 Life prostrate falls before the dread Simoom, 
 No human mercy the strong whirlwind faced, 
 And its wrath reigned sole monarch of the waste ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 141 
 
 III. 
 
 The Hours steal on. Like spectres, to and fro 
 Hurry hush'd footsteps through the house of woe. 
 That nameless chill, which tells of life that dies, 
 Broods o'er the chamber where Calantha lies. 
 
 The Hours steal on — and o'er the unquiet might 
 Of the great Babel — reigns, dishallowed, Night! 
 Not, as o'er Nature's world, She comes, to keep 
 Beneath the stars her solemn tryst with Sleep, 
 When move the twin-born Genii side by side, 
 And steal from earth its demons where they glide ; 
 Lull'd the spent Toil — seal'd Sorrow's heavy eyes, 
 And dreams restore the dews of Paradise ; 
 But Night, discrown'd and sever'd from her twin, 
 No pause for Travail, no repose for Sin, 
 Vex'd by one chafed rebellion to her sway, 
 Flits o'er the lamp-lit streets — a phantom-day ! 
 
 Alone sat Morvale in the House of Gloom, 
 Alone- — no ! Death was in the darken'd room ; 
 
142 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 All hush'd save where, at distance faintly heard, 
 
 Lucy's low sob the depth of silence stirr'd; 
 
 Or, where, without, the swift wheels hurrying by, 
 
 Bear those who live as if life could not die. 
 
 Alone he sat ! and in his breast began 
 
 Earth's deadliest strife — the Angel with the Man ! 
 
 Not his the light war with its feeble rage 
 
 Which prudent scruples with faint passions wage, 
 
 (The small heart conflicts which disturb the wise, 
 
 "Whom Reason succours when the anger tries, 
 
 Such as to this meek social ring belong, 
 
 In conscience weak, but in discretion strong ;) 
 
 But that known only to man's franker state, 
 
 In love a demigod — a fiend in hate, 
 
 Him not the Reason but the Instincts lead, 
 
 Prompt in the impulse, ruthless in the deed. 
 
 And if the wrong might seem too weak a cause 
 For the fell hate — not his were Europe's laws. — 
 Some think dishonour, if it halt at crime, 
 A stingless asp, — what injury in the slime? 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 143 
 
 As if but this poor clay — this crumbling coil 
 Of dust for graves — where all the foul can soil ! 
 As if the form were not the type (nor more 
 Than the mere type) of what chaste souls adore ! 
 That Woman-Royalty, a spotless name, 
 For sires to boast — for sons unborn to claim, 
 That heavenly purity of thought — as free 
 From shame as sin, the soul's virginity, 
 If these be lost — why what remains ? — the form ! 
 Has that such worth ? — Go, envy then the worm ! 
 
 And well to him may such belief belong, 
 And India's memories blacken more the wrong ; 
 In Eastern lands, by tritest tales convey' d 
 How Honour guards from sight itself the maid ; 
 Home's solemn mystery, jealous of a breath, 
 Screen'd by religion, and begirt with death : — 
 Again he cower' d beneath the hissing tongue, 
 Again the gibe of scurril laughter rung, 
 Again the Plague-breath air itself denied, 
 And Mockery grinn'd upon his mother's child ! 
 
144 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 All that his heart had templed overthrown, 
 
 And slander scrawl'd upon the altar-stone ! 
 
 And if that memory pause, what shapes succeed ? 
 
 The martyr leaning on the broken reed ! 
 
 The slow decay, the wound that inly bled, 
 
 And, there, the present and accusing dead ! 
 
 Marvel not ye, the soft, the fair, the young, 
 
 Whose thoughts are chords to Love's sweet music strung, 
 
 Whose life the sterner genius — Hate, has spared, 
 
 If on his soul no torch but Ate's glared ! 
 
 If in the foe was lost to sight the bride, 
 
 The foe's meek child ! — that memory was denied! 
 
 The face, the tale, the sorrow, and the love, 
 
 All fled — all blotted from the breast; above 
 
 The Deluge not one refuge for the Dove ! 
 
 There is no Lethe like one guilty dream ! 
 
 It drowns all life that nears the leaden stream ; 
 
 And if the guilt seem sacred to the creed, 
 
 Between the stars and earth, but glooms the Deed ! 
 
 So in his breast the Titan feud began : 
 
 Which shall prevail — the Angel or the Man ? 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 145 
 
 He comes ! the lone light faintly breaking o'er 
 
 The gloom, waves flickering to the open door, 
 
 And Arden's step is on the fatal floor ! 
 
 Around he gazed, and hush'd his breath, — for Fear 
 
 Cast its own shadow on the wall, — a drear 
 
 And ominous prescience of the Death-king there 
 
 Breathed its chill horror to the heavy air ; 
 
 O'er yon recess — which bars with draperied pall 
 
 The baffled gaze — the unbroken shadows fall. 
 
 The lurid embers on the hearth burn low ; 
 
 The clicking time-piece sounds distinct and slow ; 
 
 And the roused instinct hate's suspense foreshows 
 
 In the pale Indian's lock'd and grim repose. 
 
 So Arden enter'd, and thus spoke ; the while 
 His restless eye belied his ready smile : 
 " Return'd, I find thy mandate, and attend 
 To hear a mystery, or to serve a friend." 
 "Or front a foe!" 
 
 A stifled voice replied. 
 O'er Arden's temples flash'd the knightly pride. 
 13 
 
146 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 "What means that word, which jars, not daunts, the ear? 
 I own no foe, — if foe there be, — no fear." 
 
 " Pause and take heed — then with as firm a sound 
 Disdain the danger — when the foe is found! 
 What, if thou hadst a sister, whom the grave 
 To thy sole charge—a sacred orphan — gave ; 
 What, if a traitor had, with mocking vows, 
 Won the warm heart, and woo'd the plighted spouse, 
 Then left — a scoff; — what if his evil fame, 
 Alone sufficed to blast the virgin name, 
 What — hourly gazing on a life forlorn, 
 Amidst a solitude wall'd round with scorn, 
 Shame at the core — death gnawing at the cheek — 
 What, from the suitor, would the brother seek?" 
 
 "Wert thou that brother," with unsteady voice, 
 Arden replied, " not doubtful were thy choice : 
 
 Were I that suitor " 
 
 "Ay?" 
 
 " I would prepare 
 To front the vengeance, or — the wrong repair." 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 147 
 
 " Yes" — hiss'd the Indian — "front that mimic strife 
 
 That coward's die, which leaves to chance the life ; 
 
 That mockery of all justice, framed to cheat 
 
 Right of its due — that vengeance thou wouldst meet ! — 
 
 Be Europe's justice blind and insecure ! 
 
 Stern Ind asks more — her son's revenge is sure ! 
 
 Repair the wrong — Ay, in the Grave be wed ! 
 
 Hark ! the Ghost calls thee to the bridal bed ! 
 
 Come (nay, this once thy hand !) — come ! — from the 
 
 shrine 
 I draw the veil! — Calantha, he is thine! 
 Man, see thy victim !— dust ! — Joy — Peace and Fame, 
 These murder'd first — the blow that smote the frame 
 Was the most merciful ! — at length it came. 
 Here, by the corpse to which thy steps are led, 
 Beside thee, Murderer, stands the Brother of the Dead!" 
 
 Brave was Lord Arden — brave as ever be 
 Thor's northern sons — the Island Chivalry ; 
 But in that hour strange terror froze his blood, 
 Those fierce eyes mark'd him shiver as he stood ; 
 
148 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 But oh ! more awful than the living foe 
 That frown'd beside — the Dead that smiled below ! 
 That smile which greets the shadow-peopled shore, 
 Which says to Sorrow — " Thou canst wound no more!" 
 Which says to Love that would rejoin — "Await!" 
 That says to wrong that would redeem — "Too late !" 
 That lingering halo of our closing skies 
 Cold with the sunset never more to rise ! 
 
 Though his gay conscience many a heavier crime 
 Than this had borne, and drifted off to Time ; 
 Though this but sport with a fond heart which Fate 
 Had given to master, but denied to mate, 
 Yet seem'd it as in that least sin arose 
 The shapes of all the opening deeps disclose ; 
 The general phantom of a life whose waste 
 Ravaged each bloom by which its path was traced, 
 Sporting at will, and moulding sport to art, 
 With that sad holiness — the Human Heart ! 
 Upon his lip the vain excuses died, 
 In vain his manhood struggled for its pride ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 149 
 
 Up from the dead, with one convulsive throe, 
 
 He turn'd his gaze, and voiceless faced his foe ; 
 
 A horrid glamour fix'd his shape to stone, 
 
 He felt those eyes glare doom upon his own ; 
 
 He saw that clench'd and quivering hand glide slow 
 
 To the bright steel the robe half hid below, — 
 
 Near, and more near, he felt the fiery breath 
 
 Breathe on his cheek ; the air was hot with death, 
 
 And yet he sought nor flight- — nor strove for prayer, — 
 
 As one, stray'd — chance-led, in a lion's lair, 
 
 Who sees his fate, nor deems submission shame, — 
 
 Unarm' d to wrestle, and unskilFd to tame, 
 
 Nerved for each strife that social life recalls, 
 
 But here the strangeness crushes and appalls, 
 
 And the brave worldling dwarf 'd into a child, 
 
 Beside the roused Nemaean of the wild ! 
 
 A lifted arm — a gleaming steel — a cry 
 Of savage vengeance ! — swiftly — suddenly, 
 As through two clouds a star — on the dread time 
 Shone forth an angel face and check'd the startled crime ! 
 13* 
 
150 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 She stood, the maiden guest, the plighted bride, 
 The victim's daughter by the madman's side, 
 Her airy clasp upon the murtherer's arm, 
 Her pure eyes chaining with a solemn charm, 
 Like some blest thought of mercy, on a soul 
 Brooding on blood — the holy Image stole ! 
 The lifted steel fell guiltless on the floor, 
 The gulf that yawn'd as down to hell, before, 
 Abruptly closed — the demon-spell was o'er; 
 And, as a maniac in his fellest hour 
 Lull'd by a look whose calmness is its power, 
 Backward the Indian quail'd ! yet even less 
 Him moved that vision's sudden holiness 
 Than Arden ! — startled from his trance of death, 
 A newer awe with wonder strove for breath ; 
 Kneeling he clasp'd the robe — 
 
 " Com'st thou to save 
 Thine own ? — O God ! comes Mary from the grave ?" 
 Then with a bound he reach'd the Indian — 
 
 "Lo! 
 I tempt thy fury, and I court thy blow; 
 
THE NEW T1M0N. 151 
 
 But, by men's rights o'er men, — nian, speak ! whose eyes 
 Ope on life's brink my youth's lost paradise ? 
 The same — the same— look, look ! — the same — lip, brow, 
 Form, aspect, — all and each — fresh, fair as now, 
 Bloom'd my heart's bride!" — 
 
 Silent the Indian heard, 
 Nor seem'd to feel the grasp, or heed the word ! 
 Slowly, — as when some storm-beat bark glides free 
 From its vain wrath, — subsides the baffled sea,— 
 His heaving breast calms back to cold repose, 
 And veils the hell o'er which the surface flows ; — 
 Yet the eye, resting on the wondering maid, 
 Somewhat of woe, perchance remorse, betray'd, 
 And grew to doubtful trouble — as it saw 
 Her aspect brightening slowly from the awe, 
 Gazing on Arden till shone out commix'd, 
 Fear, hope, and joy, in the sweet eyes thus flx'd! 
 Instinctively her hand within her vest 
 Seeks the sad talisman that fails the breast, 
 Her mother's death-gift !— No ! — to Morvale's side 
 She rush'd; one trembling hand repell'd the bride, 
 
152 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 And one (for well the question he divined) 
 
 Drew from his robe the relic it resign' d ; — 
 
 She heeded not his gesture, not the groan 
 
 That stirr'd his lips — the Daughter reign'd alone: 
 
 One glance ! — oh, yes ! — no erring hope beguiled, 
 
 " Father!" she sobb'd ; "look, look — and bless thy child !" 
 
 As from the rock the bright wave leaps to-day, 
 
 The mighty instinct forced its living way : 
 
 No need of farther words ; — all clear — all told ; 
 
 A father's arms the happy child enfold : 
 
 Nature alone was audible ! — and air 
 
 Stirr'd with the gush of tears, and gasps of murmur'd prayer ! 
 
 Motionless stood the Indian; on his breast, 
 
 As one the death-shaft pierces, droop'd his crest; 
 
 His hands were clasp' d — one moment the sharp thrill 
 
 Shook the strong limbs; — then all once more was still; 
 
 And form and aspect the firm calmness take 
 
 Which clothes his kindred savage at the stake ! 
 
 So — as she turn'd her looks — the woe behind 
 
 That quiet mask, the girl's quick heart divined, — 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 153 
 
 And with fear — pity — and the soft remorse, 
 The love rush'd back to its suspended course. 
 " Father!" Lucy cried-—" Not first on me 
 Pour out thy blessings ! — Him, who saved me, see ! 
 Him who from want — from famine — from a doom, 
 Frowning with terrors darker than the tomb, 
 Preserved thy child!" 
 
 Before the Indian's feet 
 She fell, and murmur'd — " Bliss is incomplete 
 Unless thy heart can share— thy lips can greet!" 
 Again the firm frame quiver'd; — roused again, 
 The bruised eagle struggled from the chain; 
 Till words found way, and with the effort grew 
 Man's crowning strength — Man's evil to subdue. 
 
 "Foeman — 'tis past! — lo, in the strife between 
 Thy world and mine, the eternal victory seen ! 
 Thou, with light arts, my realm hast overthrown, 
 And, see, revenge but threats to bless thine own ! 
 My home is desolate — my hearth a grave — 
 The Heaven one hour that seem'd like justice gave, 
 
154 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 The arm is raised, the sacrifice prepared — 
 The altar kindles, and the victim's — spared ! 
 Free as before to smite and to destroy, 
 Thou com'st to slaughter to depart in joy! 
 
 " From the way-side — yon drooping flower I bore ; 
 Warm'd at my heart — its root grew to the core, 
 Dear as its kindred bloom — seen through the bar 
 By some long-thrall' d, and loneliest prisoner — 
 Now comes the garden's Lord, transplants the flower, 
 And spoils the dungeon to enrich the bower — 
 Yea, the same hand that sentenced to the bond, 
 Plucks from the scene, the all that soothed beyond ! 
 
 " So be it, law — and the world's rights are thine ; 
 
 Lost the stern comfort, Nature's law and mine ! 
 
 She calls thee ' Father,' and the long-deferr'd, 
 
 Long-look'd for vengeance, withers at the word ! 
 
 Take back thy child ! Earth's gods to thee belong! 
 
 To me the iron of the sense of wrong 
 
 Heaven makes the heart which Earth oppresses — strong!" 
 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 155 
 
 " Not so, — not so we part! O husband!" cried 
 The Girl's full soul — " Divorce not thus thy bride ! 
 Yes, Father, yes ! — in woe thy Lucy won 
 This generous heart; — shall joy not leave us one ?" 
 
 A moment Arden paused in mute surprise, 
 (How charm'd that outcast Beauty's blinded eyes ?) 
 Then, with the impulse of the human thought, 
 Which smiled atonement for the evil wrought, 
 "Hear her !" he said — " her words her father's heart 
 Echoes. — Not so — nor ever, may ye part! 
 Nobly, hast thou an elder right than mine 
 Won to this treasure ; — still its care be thine ; 
 Withhold thy pardon if thou wilt, — but take 
 The holiest offering wrong to man can make !" 
 
 Slowly the Indian lifts his joyless head, 
 Pointing with slow hand to the present dead, 
 And from slow lips comes heavily the breath : 
 " Behold between us evermore — is Death ! 
 " Maiden, recall my tale — thou clasp'st the hand 
 Which shuts the Exile from the promised land; 
 
156 THE NEW TIMON, 
 
 Go — ask thy heart in which still guide, if grieve, 
 The fresh, pure instincts of Earth's virgin Eve, 
 If the Dead victim's brother, undefiled, 
 Could ask his blessing and could wed his child!" 
 
 With that, he bent him o'er the shuddering maid, 
 On her fair locks a solemn hand he laid ; 
 Lifted eyes, tearless still — but dark with all 
 The cloud, that not in such soft dews can fall : 
 " And so, beloved one — life's all — farewell ! 
 Still by my hearth thy gentle shade shall dwell ! 
 Still, shall my soul, when Night the dreariest seem, 
 Fly back to thee, O soft — vanish'd dream! 
 If to the Dead an offering still must be, 
 All vengeance calls for be fulfill' d in me ! 
 I make myself the victim ! — thou dread Power 
 Guiding to guilt the slow chastising hour, 
 Let — from the injurer's hearth, by her made pure, 
 Thy thunder-stroke this shatter' d roof allure ! — 
 Go hence — (nay, near me not.') behold! — the kind 
 Oblivion closes round her darken'd mind ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 157 
 
 If, when she wake, it be awhile for grief, 
 Soon dries the dew-drop on the April leaf!" 
 
 He said, and vanish' d, with a noiseless tread, 
 
 Within the folds which curtain' d round the dead ! 
 
 So, the stern Dervish of the East inters 
 
 His sullen soul with Death in sepulchres ! 
 
 His new-found prize, while yet entranced she lay, 
 
 With gliding feet, the Father steals away. 
 
 O'er the wrung Heart — from Midnight's breathless sky 
 
 Lone looks the pity of the Eternal Eye ! 
 
 END OF PART THE THIRD. 
 
 14 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 PART THE FOURTH. 
 
 I. 
 
 To Hope's brisk ear there's music in the throng ; 
 Glorious the life of cities to the strong! 
 What myriad charms, all differing, smile for all 
 The hardier Masks in the Great Carnival! 
 Amidst the vast disguise, some sign betrays 
 To each the appointed pleasure in the maze ; 
 Ambition, pleasure, love, applause, and gold, 
 Allure the young, and baby* yet the old. 
 For here, the old, if nerves and stubborn will 
 Defy Experience, linger, youthful still, 
 Haunt the same rounds of idlesse — or of toil 
 That lure the freshest footsteps to the soil, 
 
 * " At best it babies us." — Young. 
 
160 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Still sway the Fashion or control the State, 
 
 Gay at the ball, or fierce at the debate. 
 
 It is not youth, it is the zest of life 
 
 Surviving youth — in age itself as rife, 
 
 That fits the Babel and enjoys the strife; 
 
 But not for you our world's bright tumults are 
 
 Soft natures, born beneath the Hesperus star, — 
 
 To us, the storm is but the native breath ; 
 
 To you, the quickening of the gale is death ; 
 
 Fly from each change our varying sky bestows, — 
 
 The clime that suits the tender is — Repose ! 
 
 Your's Nature's world, not man's ! — the stillest shade 
 
 Where, all unseen, the cushat's nest is made, 
 
 Less lone to you than pomps which but bestow 
 
 The tinkling cymbal and the painted show. 
 
 The lights of revel flash from Arden's halls ; 
 
 There, throng the shapes that troop where Comus calls; 
 
 But not Sabrina more apart and lone 
 
 From the loud joy, on her pure coral throne, 
 
 Than thou, sad maiden ! — round the holy tide 
 
 Swell the gay notes, the airy dancers glide ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 161 
 
 But o'er the shadowy grot the waters roll, 
 
 And shut the revel from the hidden soul ! 
 
 What rank has noblest, manhood's grace most fair, 
 
 Bend low to her now hail'd as Arden's heir; 
 
 If rumour doubts the birthright to his name, 
 
 The father's wealth redeems the mother's shame ; 
 
 O'er sires, as sons, meek charity prevail'd, 
 
 " His Yorkshire lands, at least, are not entail'd !" 
 
 How Arden loved his child ! — how spoke that love 
 
 Of those dead worlds the light herb waves above ; 
 
 Layer upon layer — those strata of the past, 
 
 Those gone creations buried in the last ! 
 
 Their bloom, their life, their glory past away, 
 
 Speak in this relic of a vanish'd day. 
 
 There, in that guileless face, revived anew 
 
 The visions glistening through life's morning dew, 
 
 Fair Hope, pure Honour, undefiled Truth — 
 
 The young shape stood before him as his youth ! * 
 
 * " For, oh! he stood before me as my youth." 
 
 Coleridge's Wallcnstein. 
 14* 
 
162 THE NEW TIMON-. 
 
 And in this love his chastisement was found — ' 
 The thorns he had planted, here enclosed him round ; 
 He, whom to see had been to love, — in vain 
 Here loved; that heart no answer gave again — 
 It lived upon the past, — it dwelt afar, 
 This new-found bond from what it loved the bar ! 
 Her conscience chid, yet, while it chid, her thought 
 Still the cold past, to freeze the present, brought; 
 How love the sire round whom such shadows throng, 
 The mother's death-bed and the lover's wrong ! 
 The dazzling gifts, which had through life beguil'd 
 All other souls, are powerless with his child. 
 Vain the melodious tongue, and vain the mind, 
 Sparkling and free as wavelets in the wind; 
 The roseate wreath the handmaid Graces twine 
 Round sternest hearts, soft infant, breaks on thine ! 
 
 Child, candid, simple, frank, to her allied, 
 Far more, the nature sever'd from her side, 
 With its fresh instincts and wild verdure, fann'd 
 By fragrant winds from haunted Fable-land ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 163 
 
 Then all the garden graces which betray 
 By the bough's riches the worn tree's decay. 
 What charms the ear of Childhood? — not the page 
 Of that romance which wins the sober sage ; 
 Not the dark truths, like warning ghosts, which pass 
 Along the pilgrim path of Rasselas ; 
 Not wit's wrought crystal which, so coldly clear, 
 Reflects, in Zadig, learning's icy sneer; 
 Unreasoning, wandering, stronger far the thrall 
 Of Aimee's cave,* or young Aladdin's hall; 
 And so the childhood of the heart will find 
 Charms in the poem of a child-like mind, 
 To which the vision of the world is blind ! 
 Ev'n as the savage 'midst the desert's gloom, 
 Sees, hid from us, the golden fruitage bloom, 
 And, where the parched silence wraps us all, 
 Lists the soft lapse of the glad waterfall ! 
 
 So Lucy loved not Arden ? — vainly yearn 
 
 His moisten'd eyes ; — his glance has no return. 
 
 * The beautiful story of Aimee — the delight of all children — 
 is in the collection entitled "The Temple of the Fairies." 
 
164 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 That soul how gentle ! but that smile how cold ! 
 
 A marble shape the parent arms enfold ; 
 
 No hurrying footstep bounds his own to meet. 
 
 No joyous smiles with morning's welcome greet, 
 
 Not him that heart — so bless'd with love — can bless, 
 
 Lost the pure Eden of a child's caress ; 
 
 He saw — he felt, and suffer'd, powerless ! 
 
 Remorse seiz'd on him; — his gay spirit quail'd; 
 
 The cloud crept on, — it gather'd, — it prevail'd. 
 
 The spectre of the past — the martyr bride, 
 
 Sat at his board, and glided by his side ; 
 
 Sigh'd, " With the dead, Love the Consoler dies," 
 
 And spoke his sentence in his child's cold eyes ! 
 
 And now a strange and strong desire was born, 
 
 With the young instinct of life's credulous morn, 
 
 In that long-skeptic breast, so world-corrupt and worn. 
 
 From the rank soil in which grim London shrouds 
 Her dead,-— the green halls of the ghostly crowds — 
 To bear his Mary's dust; the dust to lay 
 By the clear rill, beside her father's clay. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 165 
 
 Amidst those scenes which saw the rapture-strife 
 And growth of passion — life's sweet storm of life, 
 Consign the silent pulse, the mouldering heart, 
 Deaf to the joy to meet — the woe to part; 
 Rounding and binding there, as into one 
 Sad page, the tale of all beneath the sun ; 
 And there, before that grave — beneath the beam 
 Of the lone stars, and by that starlit-stream, 
 To lead the pledge of that fresh morn of love, 
 And while the pardoning skies seem'd soft above, 
 Murmur, " For her sake, her, who, reconcil'd, 
 Hears us in heaven, give me thy heart, my child!" 
 But first — before his conscious soul could dare 
 For the consoling balm to pour the prayer, 
 Alone the shadows of the past to brave, 
 Alone to commune with the accusing grave, 
 And shrive repentance of its haunting gloom 
 Before Life's true Confessional — the Tomb ! 
 Such made his dream ! — Oh ! not in vain the creed 
 Of old that knit atonement with the dead ! 
 The penitent offering, the lustrating tide, 
 The wandering, haunted, hopeful homicide. 
 
166 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Who sees the spot to which the furies urge, 
 
 Where .halt the hell-hounds, and where drops the scourge, 
 
 And the appeased Manes pitying sigh— 
 
 ** Thou hast atoned! once more enjoy the sky!" 
 
 Such made the dream he rushes to fulfil ! 
 
 Round the new mound babbles the living rill ; 
 
 A name, the name that Arden's wife should bear, 
 
 Sculptures the late and vain repentance there. 
 
 O'er the same bridge which once to rapture led, 
 
 Glide the same steps their pathway to the dead ; 
 
 Night after night the same lone shadow gave 
 
 A tremulous darkness to the hurrying wave ; 
 
 Lost — and then, lengthening from the neighbouring yews, 
 
 Dims the wan shimmer of the moon-lit dews, 
 
 Then gains a grave ; and from the mound is thrown 
 
 Still as the shadow of its funeral stone ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 167 
 
 II. 
 
 Meanwhile to Morvale ! — Sorrow, like the wind 
 
 O'er trees, stirs varying o'er each human mind; 
 
 Uprooting some, from some it doth but strew 
 
 Blossom and leaf, which spring restores anew ; 
 
 From some, but shakes rich powers unknown in calm, 
 
 And wakes the trouble to extract the balm. 
 
 Let weaker natures suffer and despair, 
 
 Great souls snatch vigour from the stormy air ; 
 
 Grief not the languor but the action brings ; " 
 
 And clouds the horizon but to nerve the wings. 
 
 Up from his heavy thought, one dawning day, 
 The Indian, silent, rose, and went his way ; 
 Palace and pomp and wealth and ease resign'd, 
 As one new-born, he plunged amidst his kind, 
 Whither, with what intent he scarce divined. 
 He turn'd to see, through mists obscure and dun, 
 The domes and spires of the wan Babylon ; 
 Before him smiled the mead and waved the corn, 
 And Nature's music swell'd the hymns of Morn ! 
 
168 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 A sense of freedom, of the large escape 
 From the pent walls our customs round us shape ; 
 The imperfect sympathies which curse the few, 
 Who not the chase the many join pursue; 
 The trite convention, with its cold control, 
 Which thralls the habit, yet not links the soul ; — 
 — The sense of freedom pass'd into his breast, 
 But found no hope it flatter'd and caressed ; 
 So the sad captive, when at length made free, 
 Shrinks from the sunlight he had pined to see ; 
 Feels on the limb the custom of the chain, 
 Each step a struggle and each breath a pain, 
 And knows — return'd unto the world too late, 
 His youth is o'er, his home is desolate, 
 And none survive of all who watch' d and wept ; 
 The world he knew has vanish'd while he slept I 
 
 He wander'd on, alone, on foot, — alone, 
 As in the waste his earlier steps had known. 
 Forth went the peasant — Adam's curse begun ; — 
 Home went the peasant in the western sun ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 169 
 
 He heard the bleating fold, the lowing herd, 
 The last shrill carol of the nestling bird ! 
 He saw the rare lights of the hamlet gleam 
 And fade ; — the stars grow stiller on the stream ; 
 Swart, by the woodland, cowers the gipsy tent 
 Whence peer dark eyes that watch'd him as he went — 
 He paused and turned : — Him more the outlaws charm 
 Than the trim hostel and the happy farm. 
 Strangers, like him, from antique lands afar, 
 Aliens untamed where'er their wanderings are, 
 High Syrian sires of old ;* — dark fragments torn 
 From the great creed of Isis, — now forlorn 
 In rags — all earth their foe, and day by day 
 Worn in the strife with social Jove, away — 
 Wretched 'tis true, yet less enslaved, their war, 
 Than the life's peace with things our souls abhor; 
 
 * According to the hypothesis of Voltaire, that the Gipsies are 
 a Syrian tribe, the remains of the long scattered fraternity of 
 Isis, — an hypothesis which has more in its favour than at first 
 appears — against the recent and now popularly received opinion 
 which deduces their vagrant origin from India.* 
 15 
 
170 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Convention's lies — the league with Custom made, 
 The crimes of glory, and the frauds of trade. 
 Rest and rude food the lawless Nomads yield ; 
 The dews rise ghost-like from the whitening field, 
 And ghost-like on the wanderer glides the sleep 
 Through which the phantom Dreams, their witching Sabbat 
 keep! 
 
 At dawn, while yet, around the Indian, lay 
 
 The dark fantastic groups, — resumed the way ; 
 
 Before his steps the landscape spreads more free 
 
 And fresh from Man : — ev'n as a broadening sea, 
 
 When, more and more the harbour left behind, 
 
 The lone sail drifts before the strengthening wind. 
 
 Behold the Sun ! — how stately from the East, 
 
 Bright from God's presence, comes the glorious Priest ! 
 
 Deck'd as beseems the Mighty One to whom 
 
 Heaven gives the charge to hallow and illume ! 
 
 How, as he comes, — through the Great Temple, Earth, 
 
 Peals the rich Jubilee of grateful mirth ! 
 
 The infant flowers their odour-censers swinging, 
 
 Through aisled glades Air's Anthem-Chorus ringing; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 171 
 
 While, like some soul lifted aloft by love, 
 High and alone the sky-lark halts above, 
 High, o'er the sparkling dews, the glittering corn, 
 Hymns his frank happiness and hails the morn ! 
 He stands upon the green hill's lighted brow, 
 And sees the world at smiling peace below, 
 Hamlet and farm, and thy best type, Desire 
 Of the sad Heart, — the Heaven-ascending spire ! 
 
 He stood and mused, and thus his musing ran : — 
 " How strong, how feeble, O vain Art of Man ! 
 Thou coverest Earth with wonders — at thy hand 
 Curbs the meek water, blooms the subject land : 
 Why halts thy magic here ? — Why only deck'd 
 Earth's sterile surface, mournful Architect? 
 Why art thou powerless o'er the world within ? 
 Why raise the Eden, yet retain the sin? 
 Why, while the earth, thou but enjoy'st an hour, 
 Betrays thy splendour and attests thy power, 
 Why o'er the spirit does thy sorcery cease ? — 
 Lo the sweet landscape round thee lull'd in peace ! 
 
172 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Why wakes each heart to sorrow, care, and strife ? 
 Why with yon temple so at war the life ? 
 Why all so slight the variance, or in grief 
 Or guilt, — the sum of suffering and relief, 
 Between the desert's son whose wild content 
 Redeems no waste and charms no element 
 And ye the Magians ? — ye the giant birth 
 Of Lore and Science — Brahmins of the Earth? 
 Behold the calm herd drinking in the stream, 
 Behold the glad bird glancing in the beam ; 
 Say, know ye pleasure, — ye, the Eternal Heirs 
 Of stars and spheres — life's calm content, like theirs ? 
 Your stores enrich, your powers exalt the few, 
 And curse the millions wealth and power subdue ; 
 And ev'n the few — what lord of luxury knows 
 The joy in strife, the sweetness in repose, 
 Which bless the houseless Arab 1 — Still behind 
 Ease waits Disgust, and with the falling wind 
 Droop the dull sails ordained to wing the mind. 
 Increasing wants the sum of care increase, 
 The piled up knowledge but sepulchres peace, 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 173 
 
 Ye quell the instincts, the free love, frank hate, 
 
 And bid hard Reason hold the scales of Fate — 
 
 What is your gain ? — from each slain instinct springs 
 
 A hydra passion, poisoning while it stings ; 
 
 Free love foul lust; — the frank hate's manly strife 
 
 A plotting mask'd dissimulating life ; — 
 
 Truth flies the world — one falsehood taints the sky, 
 
 Each form a phantom, and each word a lie ! 
 
 " Yet what am 1 1 — the crush'd and baffled foe, 
 Who dared the strife, yet would denounce the blow. 
 What arms had I against this world to wield ? 
 What mail the naked savage heart to shield? 
 To this hoar world I brought the trusts of youth, 
 Warm zeal for men, and fix'd repose in truth — 
 Amongst the young I look'd for young desires, 
 Love which adores, and Honour which aspires—. 
 Amongst the old, for souls set free from all 
 The earthlier chains which young desires enthrall, 
 Serene and gentle both to soothe and chide, 
 The sires to pity, yet the seers to guide — 
 15* 
 
174 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 And lo ! this civilized and boasted plan, 
 
 This order' d ring and harmony of man, 
 
 One hideous, cynic, levelling orgy, where 
 
 Youth Age's ice, and Age Youth's fever share — 
 
 The unwrinkled brow, the calculating brain, 
 
 The passion balanced with the weights of gain, 
 
 And age more hotly clutching than the boy 
 
 At the lewd bauble and the gilded toy. 
 
 Why should I murmur ? — why accuse the strong ? 
 
 I own Earth's law — the conquer' d are the wrong. 
 
 Am I ambitious? — in this world I stand 
 
 Closed from the race, an Alien in the land. 
 
 Dare I to love — O soul, heart, forget 
 
 That dream, that frenzy! — what is left me yet? 
 
 Revenge !" — His dark eyes flash'd — yet straightway died 
 
 The passionate lightning- — " No ! — revenge denied ! 
 
 All the wild man in the tame slave is dead, 
 
 The currents stagnate in the girded bed ! 
 
 Back to my desert ! — yet, O sorcerer's draught, 
 
 O smooth false world, — what soul that once has quaff'd, 
 
 Renounces not the ancient manliness ? 
 
 Now, could the Desert the charm'd victim bless ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 175 
 
 Can the caged bird, escaped from bondage, share 
 
 As erst the freedom of the hardy air, 
 
 Can the poor peasant lured by Wealth's caprice 
 
 To marts and domes, find the old native peace 
 
 In the old hut ? — on-rushing is the mind : 
 
 It ne'er looks back on what it leaves behind. 
 
 Once cut the cable and unfurl the sail, 
 
 And spreads the boundless sea, and drifts the fatal gale ! 
 
 " Come then, my Soul, thy thoughts thy desert be ! 
 
 Thy dreams thy comrades !• — I escape to thee ! 
 
 Within, the gates unbar, the airs expand, 
 
 No bound but Heaven confines the Spirit's Land ! 
 
 Such luxury yet as what of Nature lives 
 
 In Art's lone wreck, the lingering instinct gives ; 
 
 Joy in the Sun, and mystery in the Star, 
 
 Light of the Unseen, commune with the Far ; 
 
 Man's law his fellow, ev'n in scorn, to save, 
 
 And hope in some just World beyond the Grave!" 
 
 So went he on, and day succeeds to day, 
 
 And still untired the step, and track'd the way ; 
 
176 THE NEW T1M0N. 
 
 At night his pause was at the lowliest door, 
 
 The beggar' d heart makes brothers of the Poor ; 
 
 They who most writhe beneath Man's social wrong, 
 
 But love the feeble when they hate the strong. 
 
 Laud not to me the optimists who call 
 
 Each knave a brother- — Parasites of all — 
 
 Praise not as genial his indifferent eye, 
 
 Who lips the cant of mock philanthropy. 
 
 He who loathes ill must more than half which lies 
 
 In this ill world with generous scorn despise ; 
 
 Yet of the wrong he hates, the grief he shares, 
 
 His lip rebuke, his soul compassion, wears ; 
 
 The Hermit's wrath bespeaks the Preacher's hope ; 
 
 Who loves men most — men call the Misanthrope ! 
 
 At times with honest toil reposed — at times 
 Where gnawing wants beset despairing crimes, 
 Both still betray'd the sojourn of his soul, 
 Here wise to cheer, there fearless to control. 
 His that strange power the Church's Fathers had 
 To awe the fierce and to console the sad ; 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 177 
 
 For he, like them, had sinn'd; — like them had known 
 
 Life's wild extremes ; — their trials were his own ! 
 
 Were we as rich in charity of deed 
 
 As gold — what rock would bloom not with the seed ? 
 
 We give our alms, and cry — " What can we more?" 
 
 One hour of time were worth a load of ore ! 
 
 Give to the ignorant our own wisdom ! — give 
 
 Sorrow our comfort ! — lend to those who live 
 
 In crime, the counsels of our virtue ! — share 
 
 With souls our souls, and Satan shall despair ! 
 
 Alas, what converts one man, who would take 
 
 The cross and staff, and house with Guilt, could make ! 
 
 Still, in his breast, 'midst much that well might shame 
 The virtues Christians in themselves proclaim, 
 There dwelt the Ancient Heathen ; — still as strong 
 Doubts in Heaven's justice, — curses for man's wrong. 
 Revenge denied in deed — still rankled deep 
 In thought — and dimm'd the day, and marr'd the sleep; 
 And there were hours when from the hell within 
 Fades the mild angel that had saved from sin ; 
 
178 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 When the fell Fury, beckoning through the gloom, 
 Cries "Life for life — thou hast betray'd the tomb!" 
 For the grim honour of the ancient time, 
 Deem'd vengeance duty and forgiveness crime ; 
 And the stern soul fanatic conscience scared, 
 For blood not shed, and injury weakly spared ; — 
 Woe, if in hours like these, O more than woe, 
 Had the roused tiger met the pardoned foe ! 
 
 Nor when his instinct of the life afar 
 
 Soar'd from the soil and task'd the unanswering star, 
 
 Came more than Hope — that reflex-beam of Faith — 
 
 That fitful moonlight on the unknown path ; 
 
 And not the glory of the joyous sun, 
 
 That fills with light whate'er it shines upon; 
 
 In which the smiles of God as brightly fall 
 
 On the lone charnel as the festive hall ! 
 
 Now Autumn closes on the fading year, 
 The chill wind moaneth through the woodlands sere ; 
 At morn the mists lie mournful on the hill, — 
 The hum of summer's populace is still ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 179 
 
 Hush'd the rife herbage, mute the choral tree, 
 
 The blithe cicala, and the murmuring bee ; 
 
 The plashing reed, the furrow on the glass 
 
 Of the calm wave, as by the bank you pass 
 
 Scaring the glistening trout, — delight no more ; 
 
 The god of fields is dead — Pan's lusty reign is o'er ! 
 
 Solemn and earnest — yet to holier eyes 
 
 Not void of glory, arch the sober'd skies 
 
 Above the serious earth! — ev'n as the age 
 
 When fades the sunlight from the poet's page, 
 
 When all Creation is no longer rife, 
 
 As Jove's lost creed, with deity and life — 
 
 And where Apollo hymn'd, where Venus smil'd; 
 
 Where laugh'd from every rose the Paphian child; 
 
 Where in each wave the wanton nymph was seen ; 
 
 Where in each moonbeam shone Endymion's queen ; 
 
 Where in each laurel, from the eternal bough 
 
 Daphne wreathed chaplets for a dreamy brow ; 
 
 To the wreck'd thrones of the departed creeds 
 
 A solemn Faith, a lonely God succeeds ; 
 
 And o'er the heathen altars of our youth, 
 
 Reigns, 'mid a silence disenchanted, — Truth! 
 
180 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Beneath the still boughs of the yellowing beech, 
 
 An old man sat — whose mission was to teach 
 
 God's saving Word ; — no hierarch of the Fane 
 
 Who sounds the Jordan for the golden grain; 
 
 But the calm dweller by the Streams of Life ; 
 
 Unknown to fame, for what is fame but strife ? — 
 
 Heaven's own true priest, from earth's worst tempters pure, 
 
 Gold and Ambition ;— sainted and obscure ! 
 
 Before his knee, (the Gospel in his hands, 
 
 And sunshine at his heart,) a youthful listener stands ! 
 
 The old man spoke of Christ — of Him who bore 
 
 Our form, our woes ; — that man might evermore 
 
 In succouring woe-worn man, the God, made Man, adore ! 
 
 " My child," he said, " in the far-heathen days, 
 
 Hope was a dream, Belief an endless maze ; 
 
 The wise perplex' d, yet glimpsing still sublime 
 
 Views of a port beyond the waves of Time ; 
 
 Guess'd Him untempled yet — the Power above, 
 
 Or Dorian Phoebus, or Pelasgic Jove ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 181 
 
 Guess'd the far realm, not won by Charon's oar, 
 
 Not the pale joys the brave who gain abhor; 
 
 No cold Elysium where the very Blest 
 
 Envy the living and deplore the rest ;* 
 
 Where ev'n the spirit, as the form, a ghost, 
 
 Dreams back life's conflicts on the shadowy coast, 
 
 Hears but the clashing steel, the armed train, 
 
 And waves the airy spear, and murders hosts again ! 
 
 More just the prescience of the eternal goal, 
 
 Which gleam'd, 'mid Cyprian shades, on Zeno's soul, 
 
 Or shone to Plato in the lonely cave ; 
 
 God in all space, and life in every grave ! 
 
 Wise lore and high, — but for the few conceived; 
 
 By schools discussed, but not by crowds believed. 
 
 * Whoever is well acquainted with the heathen learning, must 
 often have been deeply impressed with the mournful character 
 of the mythological Elysium. Even the few admitted to the 
 groves of asphodel ; unpurified by death, retain the passions and 
 pine with the griefs of life; they envy the mortal whom the poet 
 brings to their moody immortality j and, amidst the disdained 
 repose, sigh for the struggle and the storm. 
 16 
 
182 THE NEW T1M0N. 
 
 The angel-ladder clomb the heavenly steep, 
 But at its foot the patriarchs did but sleep ; 
 They did not preach to nations ' Lo your God V 
 No thousands follow'd where their footsteps trod ; 
 Not to the fisherman they said ' Arise !' 
 Not to the lowly they reveal' d the skies ; 
 Wisdom was theirs — alas ! what men most need, 
 Not the sect's wisdom, but the people's creed !* 
 
 * Not only were the lofty and cheering notions of the soul 
 cherished by the more illustrious philosophers of Greece, con- 
 fined to a few, but even the grosser and dimmer belief in a future 
 state which the vulgar mythology implied, was not entertained 
 by the multitude. Plato remarked that few, even in his day, 
 had faith in the immortality of the soul : and indeed the Hades 
 of the ancients was not for the Many. Amongst those con- 
 demned, we find few criminals, except the old Titans, and such 
 as imitated them in the one crime — blasphemy to the fabled gods: 
 And the dwellers of Elysium are chiefly confined to the poets 
 and the heroes, the oligarchy of earth. That all men should 
 live again — whether for weal or woe : that slave and hero had 
 the same birthright, and should be judged by an impartial law, 
 was a more unfamiliar doctrine than one who has read Tully 
 and Plato, without surveying the general darkness of the co- 
 temporaneous populace, might readily believe. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 183 
 
 Then, not for schools — but for the human kind — 
 
 The uncultured reason, the unletter'd mind; 
 
 The poor, the oppressed, the labourer, and the slave, 
 
 God said, 'Be light!' — and light was on the Grave! 
 
 No more alone to sage and hero given, 
 
 Ope for all life, the impartial Gates of Heaven ! 
 
 Enough hath Wisdom dream'd, and Reason erred, 
 
 All they would seek is found! — O'er Nature sleeps the 
 
 Word! 
 Thou ask'st why Christ, so lenient to the deed, 
 So sternly claims the faith which founds the creed; 
 Because, reposed in faith the soul has calm; 
 The hope a haven and the wound a balm ; 
 Because the light, dim seen in Reason's dream, 
 On all alike, through faith alone, could stream. 
 God will'd support to Weakness, joy to Grief, 
 And so descended from his throne — Belief ! 
 Nor this alone — Have faith in things above, 
 The unseen Beautiful of Heavenly Love ; 
 And from that faith what virtues have their birth, 
 What spiritual meanings gird, like air, the Earth ! 
 
184 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 A deeper thought inspires the musing sage ; 
 
 To youth what visions — what delights to age ! 
 
 A loftier genius wakens in the world, 
 
 To starrier heights more vigorous wings unfuri'd. 
 
 No more the outward senses reign alone, 
 
 The Soul of Nature glides into our own. 
 
 To reason less is to imagine more ; 
 
 They most aspire who meekly most adore ! — 
 
 "Therefore the God-like Comforter's decree — 
 'His sins be loosen'd who hath faith in me.' 
 Therefore he shunn'd the cavils of the wise, 
 And made no schools the threshold of the skies; 
 Therefore he taught no Pharisee to preach 
 His Word — the simple let the simple teach. 
 Upon the infant on his knee he smiled, 
 And said to Wisdom, 'Be once more a child!'" 
 
 The boughs behind the old man gently stirr'd, 
 By one unseen those Gospel accents heard ; 
 Before the preacher bow'd the pilgrim's head: 
 " Heaven to this bourne my rescued steps hath led, 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 185 
 
 Grieving 1 , perplex'd — benighted, yet with dim 
 Hopes in God's justice — be my guide to Him : 
 In vain made man, I mourn and err ! — restore 
 Childhood's pure soul, and ready trust, once more !" 
 The old man on the stranger gazed ; — unto 
 The stranger's side the young man softly drew, 
 And gently clasp' d his hand ; — and on the three 
 The western sun shone still and smilingly ; 
 But, round — behind them — dark and lengthening lay 
 The massive shadow of the closing day. 
 " See," said the preacher, " Darkness hurries on, 
 But Man, toil-wearied, grieves not for the Sun ; 
 He knows the light that leaves him shall return, 
 And hails the night because he trusts the morn ! 
 Believe in God as in the sun,— and, lo ! 
 Along thy soul, morn's youth restored shall glow ! 
 As rests the earth, so rest, O troubled heart, 
 Rest, till the burden of the cloud depart ; 
 Rest, till the gradual veil from Heaven withdrawn, 
 Renews thy freshness as it yields the dawn!" 
 16* 
 
186 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Behold the storm-beat wanderer in repose ! 
 
 He lists the sounds at which the Heavens unclose, 
 
 Gleam, through expanding bars, the angel-wings, 
 
 And floats the music borne from seraph-strings. 
 
 Holy the oldest creed which Nature gives, 
 
 Proclaiming God where'er Creation lives ; 
 
 But there the doubt will come ! — the clear design 
 
 Attests the Maker and suggests the Shrine ; 
 
 Bat in that visible harmonious plan, 
 
 What present shows the future world to man? 
 
 What lore detects, beneath our crumbling clay, ' 
 
 A soul exiled, and journeying back to day; 
 
 What knowledge, in the bones of charnel urns, 
 
 The ethereal spark, the undying thought, discerns ? 
 
 How from the universal war, the prey 
 
 Of life on life, can love explore the way ? 
 
 Search the material tribes of earth, sea, air, 
 
 And the fierce Self that strives and slays is there. 
 
 What but that Self to Man doth Nature teach ? 
 
 Where the charm'd link that binds the all to each? 
 
 Where the sweet Law — (doth Nature boast its birth ?) — 
 
 "Good will to man, and charity to earth?" 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 187 
 
 Not in the world without, but that within, 
 
 Revealed, not instinct — soul from sense can win ! 
 
 And where the Natural halts, where cramp'd, confined, 
 
 The seen horizon bounds the baffled mind, 
 
 The Inspired begins — the onward march is given ; 
 
 Bridging all space, nor ending ev'n in Heaven ! 
 
 There, veil'd on earth, we mark divinely clear, 
 
 Duty and end — the There explains the Here ! 
 
 We see the link that binds the future band, 
 
 Foeman with foeman gliding hand in hand ; 
 
 And feel that Hate is but an hour's — the son 
 
 Of earth, to perish when the earth is done— 
 
 But Love eternal ; and we turn below, 
 
 To hail the brother where we loathed the foe : 
 
 There, in the soft and beautiful Belief, 
 
 Flows the true Lethe for the lips of Grief; 
 
 There, Penury, Hunger, Misery, cast their eyes, 
 
 How soon the bright Republic of the Skies ! 
 
 There, Love, heart-broken, sees prepared the bower, 
 
 And hears the bridal step, and waits the nuptial hour! 
 
 There, smiles the mother we have wept! there bloom 
 
 Again the buds asleep within the tomb ; 
 
188 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 There, o'er bright gates inscribed, "No more to part," 
 Soul springs to soul, and heart unites to heart ! — 
 
 Refresh'd in that soft baptism, and reborn, 
 
 The Indian woke, and on the world was morn ! 
 
 All things seem'd new — rose-colour'd in the skies 
 
 Shone the hoar peaks of the old memories ; 
 
 No more enshrouded with unbroken gloom 
 
 Calantha's injured name and early tomb — 
 
 No more with woe, (how ill-suppressed by pride !) 
 
 Thought sounds the gulf that parts the promised bride ! 
 
 Faithful no less to Death, and true to Love, 
 
 This blooms again — that shall rejoin, above! 
 
 The Stoic courage had the wound conceal'd ; 
 
 The Christian hope the wound's sharp torture heal'd. 
 
 As rude the waste, but now before him shone 
 
 The star; — he rose, and cheerful journey'd on, 
 
 Full of the God most with us when alone ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 189 
 
 III. 
 
 'Tis night, — a night by fits, now foul, now fair, 
 
 As speed the cloud- wracks through the gusty air : 
 
 At times the wild blast dies — and fair and far, 
 
 Through chasms of cloud, looks down the solemn star- 
 
 Or the majestic moon; — as watchfires mark 
 
 Some sleeping War dim-tented in the dark ; 
 
 Or as, through antique Chaos and the storm 
 
 Of Matter, whirl' d and writhing into form 
 
 Pale angels peer'd ! 
 
 Anon, from brief repose 
 The winds leap forth, the cloven deeps reclose ; 
 Mass upon mass the hurtling vapours driven, 
 As one huge blackness walls the earth from heaven ! — 
 
 In one of these brief lulls — you see, serene, 
 The village church spire 'mid its mounds of green, 
 The scatter'd roof-tops of the hamlet round, 
 And the swoln rill that girds the holy ground. — 
 
 A plank, that rocks above the rushing wave, 
 The dizzy pathway to a wanderer gave ; 
 
190 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 There, as he paused, from the lone churchyard, slow 
 Emerged a form the wanderer's eyes should know ! 
 It gains the opposing margent of the stream, 
 Full on the face shines calm the crescent beam ; 
 It halts upon the bridge ! — Now, Indian, learn 
 If in thy soul the heathen yet can yearn ! 
 Swift runs the wave, the instinct and the hour, 
 The lonely night, when evil thoughts have power, 
 The foe before thee and no things that live 
 To witness vengeance !— Canst thou still forgive? 
 
 Scarce seen by each the face of each — when, deep 
 
 O'er the lost moon, the cloud's loud surges sweep ; 
 
 Yea, as a sea devours the fated bark, 
 
 Vanish'd the heaven, and closed the abyss of dark ! 
 
 You heard the roaring of the mighty blast, 
 
 The groaning trees uprooted as it pass'd, 
 
 The wrath and madness of the starless rill, 
 
 Swell'd by each torrent rushing from the hill. 
 
 The slight plank creaks — high mount the waves and high, 
 
 Hark ! with the tempest's shrieks the human cry ! 
 
 Upon the bridge but one man now ! — below, 
 
 The night of waters and the drowning foe ! 
 
THE NEW T1M0N. 191 
 
 The Indian heard the death-cry and the fall; 
 Still o'er the wild scene hung the funeral pall ! 
 What eye can pierce the darkness of 'the wave ? 
 What hand guide rescue through the roaring grave ? 
 Not for such craven questions pause the brave ! 
 Again the moon ! — again the churchyard's green, 
 Spire, hamlet, mead, and rill re-clothe the scene ! — 
 But on the bridge no form, no life ! — The beam 
 Shoots wan and broken on the tortured stream ; 
 Vague, indistinct, what, yonder, moveth o'er 
 The troubled tide, and struggles to the shore ? 
 Hark, where the sere bough of the tossing tree 
 Snaps in the grasp of some strong agony, 
 And the dull plunge, and stifled cry betray 
 Where the grim water-fiend reclasps his prey ! 
 
 Still shines the moon — still halts the panting storm, 
 It moves again — the shadow shapes to form, 
 Lo ! where yon bank shelves gradual, and the ray 
 Silvers the reed, it cleaves its vigorous way ; — 
 
192 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Saved from the deep, but happier far to save, 
 The foeman wrests the foeman from the grave ! 
 Still shines the moon — still halts the storm ! — above 
 His sons, looks down divine the Father-love ! 
 Upon the Indian's breast droops Arden's head, 
 Its marble beauty rigid as the dead. 
 What skill so fondly tends the soul's eclipse, 
 Chafes the stiff limb, and breathes in breathless lips ? 
 Woos back the flickering life, and when, once more, 
 The ebbing blood the wan cheek mantles o'er; 
 When stirs the pulse, when opes the glazing eye, 
 What voice of joy finds listeners in the sky? 
 " Bless thee, my God — this mercy thine ! — he lives ; 
 Look in my heart, forgive — for it forgives !" 
 
 Then, while yet clear the heaven, he flies — he gains 
 The nearest roof — prompt aid his prayer obtains ; 
 Well known the noble stranger's mien — they bear 
 To the rude home, and ply the zealous care ; 
 Life with the dawn comes sure, if faint and slow, 
 And all night long the foeman watched the foe ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 193 
 
 Day came to earth, not light unto the mind ; 
 Sleep pass'd, the waking is a veil more blind ; 
 The soul, scared roughly from its mansion, glides 
 O'er mazy wastes through which the meteor guides. 
 
 The startled menial, who alone of all 
 
 The hireling pomp that swarms in Arden's hall 
 
 Attends his lord, — dismay 'd lest one so high, 
 
 Without all arts that fawn on death, should die, 
 
 Departs in haste to seek the subtler skill 
 
 Which Fashion charters with the right to kill, 
 
 And summon Lucy to the solemn room 
 
 To watch the father's life, — fast by the mother's tomb. 
 
 Meanwhile such facile arts as nature yields, 
 
 Draughts from the spring and simples from the fields, 
 
 Learned in his savage youth, the Indian plies ; 
 
 The fever slakes, the cloudy darkness flies ! 
 
 O'er the vexed vision steals the lulling rest, 
 
 And Arden wakes to sense on Morvale's breast ! 
 
 On Morvale's breast! — and through the noiseless door 
 A fearful footfall creeps — and, lo ! once more 
 17 
 
194 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Thou look'st, pale daughter, on thy father's foe ! 
 
 Not with the lurid eye and lifted blow ; 
 
 Not as when erst, between the murtherous blade 
 
 And the proud victim gleam' d the guardian maid — 
 
 Thy post is his !-— that breast the prop supplies 
 
 That thine should yield ! — as thine so watch those eyes, 
 
 Wistful and moist, that waning life above ; 
 
 Recall the Heathen's hate ! — behold the Christian's love. 
 
 The learned leech proclaims the danger past; 
 
 Fast had he sped — he must return as fast. 
 
 No fee can bribe — three Dukes have got the gout; 
 
 The leech is lost if Dukes can do without ! 
 
 What hosts of brethren, envious of his hordes, 
 
 May drench, and — thought of horror ! — cure his lords ! 
 
 The danger past for Arden, but for you 
 
 Who watch the couch — what danger threats anew ? 
 
 How meet in pious duty and fond care, 
 
 In hours when through the eye the heart is bare ? 
 
 How join in those soft sympathies — and yet 
 
 The earlier link, the tenderer bond forget ? 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 195 
 
 • 
 
 How can the soul the magnet-charm withstand, 
 When chance brings look to look, and hand to hand ! 
 No, Indian, no — if yet the power divine 
 Above the laws of our low world be thine ; 
 If yet the Honour which thy later creed 
 Softens, not quells, revere the injured dead, 
 Fly, ere the full heart cries, " I love thee still" — 
 And find thy guardian in the angel — will ! 
 
 That power was his ! 
 
 Along tlie landscape lay 
 The hazy rime of winter's dawning day; 
 Snake-like the curving mists betray the rill, 
 The last star gleams upon the Eastern hill, 
 Still sleep beneath the leafless trees the herd ; 
 Still mute the sharp note of the sunless bird; 
 No sound, no life ; — as to some hearth, bereft 
 By death, of welcome, since his wanderings left, 
 Comes back the traveler; — so to earth, forlorn 
 And hushed, and sad, returns the ungreeted Morn ! 
 
 Forth from the threshold steals the Indian ! — far 
 Spreads the dim land beneath the waning star. 
 
196 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 I 
 
 Alas ! how wide the world his heart will find 
 
 Who leaves one spot — the heart's true home, behind ! 
 
 He paused — one upward look upon the gloom 
 
 Of the closed casement, the love-hallowed room, 
 
 Where yet, perchance, while happier Suffering slept, 
 
 Its mournful vigil tender Duty kept, 
 
 One prayer!— what mercy taught us prayer? — as dews 
 
 On drooping herbs — as sleep tired life renews, 
 
 As dreams that lead and lap our griefs in Heaven, 
 
 Prayer to the Soul, dew, sleep, and dream, is given ! 
 
 So bowed, not broken, and with manly will, 
 
 Onwards he strode, slow up the labouring hill ! 
 
 If Lucy mourned his absence, not before 
 
 Her sire's dim eyes the face of grief she wore ; 
 
 Haply her woman heart divined the spell 
 
 Of her own power, by flight proclaimed too well ; 
 
 And not in hours like these may self control 
 
 The generous empire of a noble soul: 
 
 Lo, her first thought, first duty — the soft reign 
 
 Of woman — patience by the bed of pain ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 197 
 
 As mute the father, yet to him made clear 
 The cause of flight untold to Lucy's ear ; 
 Thus ran the lines that met, at morn, his eyes : — 
 " Farewell ! my place a daughter now supplies ! — 
 Thou hast pass'd the gates of Death, and bright once more 
 Smile round thy steps the sunlight and the shore! 
 Farewell; and if a soul where hatred's gall 
 Melts into pardon, that embalmeth all, 
 Can with forgiveness bless thee; — from remorse 
 Can pluck the stone which interrupts the course 
 Of thought to God ; — and bid the waters rest 
 Calm in Heaven's smile, — poor fellow-man, be blest! 
 I, that can aid no more, now need an aid 
 Against myself; by mine own thoughts dismay'd ; 
 I dare not face thy child — -I may not dare 
 To commune with my heart — thy child is there ! 
 I hear a voice that whispers hope, and start 
 In shame, to shun the tempter and depart! 
 Haw vile the pardon that I yield would seem, 
 If shap'd and colour'd from the egoist's dream : 
 A barter'd compromise with thoughts that take 
 The path of conscience but for passion's sake— 
 17* 
 
198 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 If with the pardon I could say — ' The Tomb 
 
 Devours the Past, so let the Moment bloom, 
 
 And see Calantha's brother reconcil'd, 
 
 Kneel to Calantha's lover, for his child!' 
 
 It may not be ; sad sophists were our vain 
 
 Desires, if Right were not a code so plain ; 
 
 In good or ill leave casuists on the shelf, 
 
 1 He never errs who sacrifices self!' " 
 
 Great Natures, Arden, thy strange lot to know 
 
 And lose ! — twin souls thy mistress and thy foe ! 
 
 How flash'd they, high and starry, through the dull 
 
 World's reeking air — earnest and beautiful ! 
 
 Erring perchance, and yet divinely blind, 
 
 Such Hero errors purify our kind ! 
 
 One noble fault that springs from Self's disdain 
 
 May oft more grace in Angel eyes obtain, 
 
 Than a whole life, without a seeming flaw, 
 
 Which served but Heaven, because of Earth in awe, 
 
 Which in each act has loss or profit weigh' d, 
 
 And kept with Virtue the accounts of Trade ! 
 
 He too was born, lost Idler, to be great, 
 
 The sins that dwarf'd, he had a soul to hate. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 199 
 
 Ambition, Ease, Example had beguiled, 
 
 And our base world in fawning had denied ; 
 
 Yet still, contrasting all he did, he dream 'd ; 
 
 And through the Worldling's life the Poet gleam'd. 
 
 His eye not blind to Virtue ; to his ear 
 
 Still spoke the music of the banished sphere ; 
 
 Still in his thought the Ideal, though obscured, 
 
 Sham'd the rank meteor which his sense allur'd. 
 
 Wreck if he was, the ruin yet betray'd 
 
 The shatter'd fane for gods departed made ; 
 
 And still, through weeds neglected andVerthrown, 
 
 The blurr'd inscription show'd the altar stone ! 
 
 So scorn'd he not, as folly or as pride, 
 
 The lofty code which made the Indian's guide ; 
 
 But from that hour a subtle change came o'er 
 
 The thoughts he veil'd, the outward mien he wore ; 
 
 A mournful, weary gloom, a pall'd distaste 
 
 Of all the joys so warmly once embraced. 
 
 His eye no more looked onward ; but its gaze 
 
 Rests where Remorse a life misspent surveys ; 
 
 What costly treasures strew that waste behind ; 
 
 What whirlwinds daunt the soul that sows the wind ! 
 
200 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 By the dark shape of what he is, serene 
 Stands the bright ghost of what he might have been : 
 Here the vast lost, and there the worthless gain — 
 Vice scorn'd, yet woo'd, and Virtue lov'd in vain ! 
 
 'Tis said, the Nightingale, who hears the thrill 
 Of some rich lute, made vocal by sweet skill, 
 To match the music strains its wild essay, 
 Feels its inferior art, and envying, pines away : 
 So, waked at last, and scarcely now confest, 
 Pined the still Poet in the Worldling's breast! 
 So with the Harmony of Good, compared 
 Its lesser self — so languish'd and despaired. 
 
 Awhile, from land to land he idly roved, 
 And join'd life's movement with a heart unmoved. 
 No more loud cities ring with Arden's name, 
 Applaud his faults, and call his fashion " Fame !" 
 Disgust with all things robes him as he goes, 
 In that pale Virtue, Vice, when weary, knows ! 
 Yet his, at least, one rescue from the past ; 
 His one pure gem; his Lucy's love at last! . 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 201 
 
 That bed of pain o'er which she had watch'd and wept — 
 That grave where Love forgot its wrongs and slept ! 
 That touching sorrow and that still remorse 
 Unlock'd her heart, and gave the stream its course. 
 From her own grief, by griefs more dark beguiled, 
 Rose the consoling Angel in the Child ! 
 Yet still the calm disease, whose mute decay 
 No leech arrests, creeps gradual round its prey ! 
 Death came, came gently, on his daughter's breast, 
 Murm'ring, "Remember where this dust should rest." 
 They bear the last Lord of that haughty race 
 Where winds the wave round Mary's dwelling-place ; 
 And side by side (oh, be it in the sky 
 As in the earth !) — the long-divided lie ! 
 
 Doth life's last act one wrong at least repair — 
 His nameless child to wealth at least the heir ? 
 So Arden's will decreed — so signed the hand ; 
 So ran the text — not so Law rules the land : 
 "I do bequeath unto my child,''''* — that word 
 Alone on strangers has the wealth conferr'd. 
 
 * If a man wishes to leave a portion to his natural child, his 
 
202 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 O'erjoy'd, Law's heirs the legal blunder read, 
 And Justice cancels Nature from the deed. 
 O moral world ! deal sternly if thou wilt 
 With the warm weakness as the wily guilt ! 
 But spare the harmless ! Wherefore shall the child 
 Be from the pale which shelters Crime exiled? 
 Why heap such barriers round the sole redress 
 Which sin can give to sinless wretchedness ? 
 
 lawyer will tell him to name the child, as if it were a stranger to 
 his blood. If he says, lc I leave to John Thompson, of Baker- 
 street, 10,000?.," John Thompson may probably get the legacy; 
 if he says, " I leave to my son, John Thompson, of Baker-street, 
 10,000Z., ;J and the said John Thompson is his son, (a natural 
 one,) it is a hundred to one if John Thompson ever touches a 
 penny ! Up springs the Inhuman Law, with its multiform obsta- 
 cles, quibbles, and objections — proof of identity — evidence of 
 birth ! — Many and many a natural child has thus been robbed and 
 swindled out of his sole claim upon redress — his sole chances of 
 subsistence. In most civilized countries a Father is permitted to 
 own the offspring, whom, unless he do so, he has wronged at its 
 veiy birth — whom, if he do not so, he wrongs irremedially; with 
 us the error is denied reparation, and the innocence is sentenced 
 to outlawry. Our Laws, with relation to illegitimate children, 
 are the most infamous violation of Humanity, of Justice, of Chris- 
 tian Piety, which Hypocrisy has yet inflicted upon the rights of 
 Nature, and the Heart of Man. 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 203 
 
 Why must the veriest stranger thrust aside 
 Our flesh — our blood, because a name's denied ? 
 Give all thou hast to whomsoe'er thou please, 
 Foe, alien, knave, as whim so Law decrees ; 
 But if thy heart speaks, if thy conscience cries — 
 "I give my child" — the Law thy voice belies; 
 All meshes balk all effort that atones, 
 And Justice robs the wretch that Nature owns ! 
 
 So abject, so despoil'd, so penniless, 
 
 Stood thy love-born in the world's wilderness, 
 
 O Lord of lands and towers, and princely sway ! 
 
 O Dust, from whom with breath has pass'd away ! 
 
 The humblest privilege the beggar finds 
 
 In rags that wrap his infant from the winds ! 
 
 In the poor hamlet where her grandsire died, 
 Where sleeps her mother by the magnate's side, 
 The orphan found a home. Her story known, 
 Men's hearts allow the right men's laws disown. 
 No shelter won from Arden's lofty name, 
 Her pastor-grandsire's virtues shield from shame ; 
 
204 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 As flowers, which night, when day is o'er, perfume, 
 Breathes the sweet memory from a good man's tomb. 
 Pity seeks kind pretext to pour its balms, 
 And yields light toils that saves the pride from alms. 
 A soft respect the orphan's steps attends, 
 And the sharp thorn at least the rose defends ; 
 So flow'd o'ershadowed, but not darksome, by, 
 Her life's lone stream — the banks admit the sky. 
 Day's quiet taskwork o'er, when ev'ning gray 
 Lists the last carol on the quivering spray, 
 When lengthening shadows glass the distant hill, 
 And the near spire, upon the lulled rill ; 
 Her sole delight with pensive step to glide 
 Along the path that winds the wave beside, 
 A moment pausing on the bridge, to mark 
 Perchance the moonlight vista through the dark ; 
 Or watch the eddy where the wavelets play 
 Round the chafed stone that checks their happy way, 
 Then onward stealing, vanish from the view, 
 Where the star shimmers on the solemn yew, 
 And dim boughs broadening o'er the mystic sod, 
 Clasp the blind caves, which are the paths to God ! 
 
• THE NEW TIMON. 205 
 
 Moons pass'd — and May is in the earth and sky ; 
 May, Time's young darling with the mirthful eye ; 
 With whose light locks, flower-crown' d, the Graybeard 
 
 toys, 
 And half forgets his mission in her joys; 
 May, with her choir of happy birds above ; 
 May, whose least whisper wakes the world to love; 
 May, when the Young see hope and pleasure flower 
 Out of each leaf that weaves her bridal bower, 
 And Age itself, made young, — through amorous boughs, 
 Sees the lost smile, and lists the silenced vows ! 
 And does not May, lone Child, revive in thee, 
 Blossom and bud and mystic melody ? 
 Does not the heart, like earth, imbibe the ray ? 
 Does not the year's recall thy life's sweet May ? 
 When like an altar to some happy bride, 
 Shone all creation by the loved one's side ? 
 
 Yes, Exile, yes — that Empire is thine own, 
 Rove where thou wilt, awaits thee still thy throne ! 
 Lo, where the paling cheek, the unconscious sigh, 
 The slower footstep, and the heavier eye, 
 
 18 
 
206 THE NEW TIMON. • 
 
 Betray the burden of sweet thoughts and mute, 
 The slight tree bows beneath the golden fruit ! 
 
 'Tis eve. The orphan gains the holy ground, 
 And halts and harks ; — the boughs that circle round 
 Vex'd by no wind, yet rustle with a sound, 
 As if that gentle foot had scared some lone 
 Unwonted foot more timid than her own ! 
 All still once more ; perchance some daunted bird, 
 That loves the night, the funeral branches stirr'd ? 
 She nears the tomb — amaze ! — what hand unknown 
 Has placed those pious flowers upon the stone? 
 Why beats her heart ? why doth the electric mind, 
 Whose act, whose hand, whose presence there, divined? 
 Why dreading, yearning, turn those eyes to meet 
 The adored, the lost ? — Behold him at her feet ! 
 His, those dark eyes that seek her own through tears, 
 His hand that clasps, and his the voice she hears, 
 Broken and faltering — "Is the trial past? 
 Here, by the dead, art thou made mine at last? 
 Far-— in far lands I heard thy tale ! — And thou 
 Orphan and lone ! — no bar between us now ! 
 
THE NEW TIMON. 207 
 
 No Arden now calls up the wrong'd and lost; 
 Lo, in this grave appeas'd the upbraiding ghost! 
 Orphan, I am thy father now ! — Bereft 
 Of all beside, — this heart at least is left. 
 Forgive, forgive — Oh, canst thou yet bestow 
 One thought on him, to whom thou art all below ? 
 Who could desert but to remember more ? 
 Canst thou the Heaven, the exile lost, restore? 
 
 Canst thou " 
 
 The orphan bow'd her angel head; 
 Breath blent with breath — her soul her silence said ; 
 Eye unto eye, and heart to heart reveal'd ; — 
 And lip on lip the eternal nuptials seal'd! 
 Fair was the deepening heaven — serene, if far, 
 On Death's hush'd presence look'd the stainless star, 
 And Heaven and Death, and the calm star (perchance 
 The land we wake in from life's stormy trance) 
 Not too august to smile on instincts given 
 To cheer the charnel and predict the heaven ! 
 
 Softly she stole from his embrace ; — apart 
 Strove with the happy fullness of her heart, 
 
208 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Then murmuring, said : — 
 
 " Two years ago this clay — 
 Dost thou remember? — 'twas a morn of May — 
 An outcast in the city sat and wept ! — 
 That day, the birth-day of her soul, be kept! 
 That day, thy stranger-hand outstretch' d to save, 
 Thy home the roof, thy heart the shelter gave, 
 And from that day sun never rose nor set, 
 But with one prayer — nay, hush and hear me yet — 
 This morn light smiled to earth but not to me, 
 The fair world saddened with one want of thee ! 
 All, as when first thou cam'st to comfort, drear ; — 
 For earth day fades, for me day comes ! — Thou'rt here ! 
 Oh, if my prayer be heard ! — bliss divine 
 If Heaven this grateful life devotes, at last, to thine !" 
 
 Sudden rose up, above the funeral yews, 
 
 The moon ; her beams the funeral shade suffuse ! 
 
 Thus in that light the tender accents cease, 
 
 And by the grave was Love, and o'er creation Peace ! 
 
THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 LONGFELLOW'S 
 
 POETICAL WORKS, 
 
 INCLUDING HIS RECENT 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 WITH TEN SUPERB PLATES, 
 
 Designed expressly for this Edition "by 
 
 I>. HUNTINOTON, 
 
 And Engraved on Steel by 
 
 CHENEY, HUMPHREYS, &c. 
 
 WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 In One Volume Octavo, 
 
 Cloth Extra, Gilt Edges. Price $5. 
 
 " We should rank the many illustrations of the volume among 
 the brightest productions of the American burin." — U. S. Gazetted 
 
 "It is one of the very finest volumes ever issued in the country. 
 It can compete with English editions of the same class of publica- 
 tions." — Boston Courier. 
 
 " We hazard nothing in saying, that it is altogether more honor- 
 able to the country than any single volume that has ever before 
 appeared. The frontispiece of ' Preciosa' is equal to anything 
 ever produced by Heath or Finden." — North American. 
 
 "Which in its material elements, and the size and beauty of its 
 engravings, surpasses even the costly edition of Rogers, on which 
 that banker-poet has lavished so much of his money. We do not 
 hesitate to say thai they (the pictures and engravings) could not 
 be excelled by the first artist of London in the same style. The 
 type, paper, binding and external embellishments are all of the 
 very first class, and seem to indicate that the publishers were bent 
 on producing a gift-book for the holidays, as well as for all other 
 times and seasons, with which no 'Annual,' properly so called, 
 might enter into comparison." — N. Y. Com. Adv. 
 
 1 
 
MOORE'S 
 
 LALLA ROOKH. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY THIRTEEN ENGRAVINGS 
 
 FROM STEEL PLATES. 
 
 "How much more impressive must be its perusal from the mag- 
 nificent volume just issued by Carey & Hart, of this city, in 'An- 
 nual' style, its snowy leaves printed in the perfection of the art, 
 and the matter illustrated by masters of the pencil and graver." — 
 Saturday Courier. 
 
 THE DIADEM, 
 
 WITH TEN ENGRAVINGS BY SARTAIN, 
 
 FROM. PICTURES BY LANDSEER, INMAN. POOLE, 
 LEUTZE ; &c. 
 
 "Very superior engravings, and would do credit to any English 
 annual, while they far excel the great majority of the embellish- 
 ments in those publications." — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 THE POETS 
 AND POETRY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 BY 
 
 RUFUS W. GRISWOLD. 
 
 IN ONE LARGE OCTAVO VOLUME. 
 
 Price $3 SO. 
 
 With a Splendid Portrait of BITIIOjW in the 
 jllbaniam Costume, 
 
 "The selections are made with much judgment and taste, and 
 show the editor knows how to appreciate the beautiful gems of 
 thought and language which come from the rich mine of English 
 literature." — Ledger. 
 
 "Such is the critical acumen discovered in these selections, that 
 scarcely a page is to be found, but is redolent with beauties, and 
 the volume itself may be regarded as a galaxy of literary pearls." 
 — Democratic Review. 
 2 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 HUFUS W. GRISWOLD. 
 
 IN ONE VOLUME, OCTAVO. 
 
 With Portraits of Dana, Bryant, Sprague % 
 HallecH and Longfellow, 
 
 AND MANY OTHER BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATIONS, 
 
 Cloth Extra. Price $3. 
 
 " No better selection from the poetry of our native bards has ever 
 been made, and no person could do better with the materials than Mr. 
 Griswold has done." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 "We trust the 'Poets and Poetry of America' will find a nook in the 
 shelf of every man of letters in the country." — N. 0. Bee. 
 
 " From such ample materials, he has prepared a work entirely with- 
 out a rival in its department." — National Intelligencer. 
 
 THE POETS AND POETRY OF EUROPE. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 H. W. LONGFELLOW, ESQ. 
 
 With a Portrait of Schiller, and a Beautifully 
 Engraved Title-page, 
 
 One Volume, 8vo. ; 780 Pages. Price $5. 
 
 "It is altogether the most complete work of the kind ever undertaken 
 in this country. It is a library itself." — Boston Courier. 
 
 "He that can buy one such work in five years, will never be out of 
 excellent reading. No better editor for such a work could be found the 
 world over. It is a library. It is an inexhaustible mine." — Cincinnati 
 Gazette. 
 
 "Mr. Longfellow has performed his task with his usual excellent taste 
 and judgment, and it was one for which no person can be better quali- 
 fied." — The Tribune. 
 
 " Every one will be proud to show this as a specimen, both of the 
 mind and matter of our authors and publishers." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 3 
 
THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 
 
 A Superb Edition, in One Volume, 8vo. size, 
 WITH TEN ELEGANT ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 Beautifully bound in Morocco Cloth. Price $5. 
 
 "The 'getting up' of this edition is creditable in the highest de- 
 gree to the publishers, and the fine arts of the country. The paper, 
 binding, and engravings are all of the very best kind." — Inquirer 
 and Courier. 
 
 " We rejoice to see editions of this stamp from the American 
 press." — North American. 
 
 THE TASK AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM COWPER. 
 WITH TEN STEEL, ENGRAVINGS, 
 
 BY CHENEY, CTJSHMAN, &c. 
 
 In One Volume, 8vo. Cloth, Gilt Edges, $2 50. 
 
 "This is really a splendid book. It contains the poems of Wil- 
 liam Cowper, elegantly illustrated by Cheney, Cushman and others;' 
 while the embellishments throughout, as well as the binding, typo- 
 graphy and paper, are of the choicest kind. Suited as it is to grace 
 alike the library and the centre-table; presenting much that cannot 
 but win admiration ; and embodying, as the writings of Cowper do, 
 diamonds of genius and pearls of lofty sentiment. In all respects, 
 the edition of Cowper is deserving a place with the handsomest of 
 annuals." — U. S. Gazette. 
 
 "The illustrations are ten in number, fine, spirited and tasteful; 
 and the work would form both an elegant and intrinsically valu- 
 able present for the coming holidays." — Saturday Courier. 
 4 
 
THE GIFT. 
 
 WITH SUPERB ENGRAVINGS 
 
 BY 
 CHENEY, PEASE, HUMPHREYS AND DODSON. 
 
 FROM PICTURES BY 
 LESLIE, HUNTINGTON, MOUNT, &c. &c. 
 
 SPLENDIDLY POUND. 
 
 Price $3. 
 
 "The most superb Annual ever published in this country.' — 
 Lady's Booh. 
 
 " May, without hesitation, be pronounced by far the most elegant 
 work of the kind ever issued on this side of the Atlantic, if, indeed, 
 it has been surpassed anywhere. It is superb in all respects." — 
 Pennsylvartian. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED EDITION 
 
 OF 
 
 CHILDE HAROLD. 
 
 WITH TEN SUPERB STEEL ENGRAVINGS. 
 ELEGANTLY PRINTED. 
 
 Uniform with Carey & Hart's Elegant Illustrated Works. 
 
 One Vol. Small 8vo. ? Gilt Edges. 
 
NEW WORKS 
 
 Preparing for Publication 
 
 By CAREY & HART, Philadelphia. 
 
 THE LIFE OF LORD CLIVE. 
 
 BY J. G. LOCKHART, Esq. 
 In One Volume, 16mo. 
 
 ii. 
 
 VISITS TO THE BIRTH PLACES OF EMINENT ENGLISH POETS. 
 
 BY WILLIAM HOWITT, 
 Author of " Rural Life of England," &c. &c. 
 
 in. 
 
 The History of the Consulate and the Empire 
 UNDER NAPOLEON. 
 
 BY M. A. THIERS. 
 Vol. VI. Price 12£ Cents. 
 
 IV. 
 
 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. 
 
 BY THACKERAY. 
 Complete in One Volume. 
 
 v. 
 
 THREE YEARS' RESIDENCE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 BY J. WHITE. 
 
 REVELATIONS OF SPAIN, 1845. 
 
 6 
 
VII. 
 
 THE NEW TIMON. 
 
 Complete in One Volume. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 DIARY AND LIFE OF BLANCO WHITE, D.D. 
 
 IX. 
 
 LIFE OF SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 THE LIVES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHANCELLORS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 BY THE RT. HON. LORD CAMPBELL. 
 
 XI. 
 
 LEGENDS OF SAINTS AND MARTYRS. 
 
 BY MRS. JAMESON. 
 
 XII. 
 
 POETS AND POETRY OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 EDITED BY W. PETER, ESQ. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE PROSE WRITERS OF AMERICA. 
 
 BY RUFUS W. GRISWOLD, 
 
7f V^7- 
 
 XIV. 
 
 LIVES OF LITERARY MEN 
 DURING THE TIME OF GEORGE III. 
 
 BY LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 SECOND SERIES, 
 xv. 
 
 THE PROSE WRITERS OF GERMANY. 
 
 BY F. HEDGE. 
 
 DM® ©F AMMEB0U 
 
 BY MISS BENGER. 
 
 BRYANT'S POEMS. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY LEUTZE. 
 Uniform with "Lion §• fellow 9 s Poems." 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE DIADEM FOR 1847. 
 
 The Engravings from Original Pictures. 
 
 A NEW ANNUAL FOR 1847. 
 
 Octavo size. 
 
 XX. 
 
 CAREY & HART'S 
 LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 8 
 
Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: April 2009 
 
 PreservationTechnoloqies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 
 
 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724)779-2111