PERDITI.[1]

PERDITI.^[1]

———

BY WM. WALLACE, ESQ. AUTHOR OF “BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE,” “MARCHES FOR THE DEAD,” ETC., ETC.

———

The following poem is respectfully dedicated to the Hon. Elisha M. Huntington, as a tribute of respect to his head and heart, by the

Author.

PART FIRST—ITALY.

Oh! Land of the Beautiful! Land of the Bright!

Where the echoless feet of the Hours

Are gliding forever in soft, dreamy light

Through their mazes of sunshine and flow’rs;

Fair clime of the Laurel—the Sword and the Lyre!

There the souls are all genius—the hearts are all fire;

There the Rivers—the Mountains—the lowliest sods

Were hallowed, long since, by the bright feet of Gods;

There Beauty and Grandeur their wonders of old

Like a bridal of star-light and thunder unroll’d;

There the air seems to breathe of a music sent out

From the rose-muffled lips of invisible streams,

Oh! sweet as the harmony whispered about

The Night’s moon-beaming portal of exquisite Dreams.

’Though Beauty and Grandeur, magnificent clime!

Have walked o’er thy Vallies and Mountains sublime,

With a port as majestic—unfading as Time⁠—

A death-pall is on Thee! The funeral glare

Of a grave-torch, Oh! Italy, gleams on the air!

Lo! the crimes of whole ages roll down on thy breast!

Hark! Hark to the fierce thunder-troops of the Storm!

Ah! soon shall they stamp on thy beautiful crest,

And riot unchecked o’er thy loveliest form!

Oh! Land of the Beautiful! Land of the Bright!

’Though the day of thy glory is o’er,

And the time-hallowed mountains are mantled in night

Where thy Liberty flourished before;

’Though the black brow of Bigotry scowls on thy race

Which are kissing the chains of their brutal disgrace;

’Though the torches of Freedom so long hurled about

By thy heroes of old are forever gone out;

Yet! yet shall thy Beauty shine out from the gloom,

Oh! Land of the Harp and the Wreath and the Tomb!

The seal has been set! Immortality beams

Like a time-daring star o’er thy temples and streams;

And still as whole tribes from the weird future dart,

They shall kneel at thine altar, Oh! clime of the Heart!

More splendid art thou, with thy banners all furl’d

And thy brow in the dust, than the rest of the world,

For the MIGHTY—the Dead who have hallowed our earth,

In thee have their rest and from thee took their birth.

Oh! alas that we live—we the boastful who leap

Like mere rills where the sun-pillar’d Truth is enshrined

Where those broad-rolling rivers no longer may sweep

With their billows of light to the Ocean of Mind.

It was a clime where mortal form

Hath never pressed the blasted soil⁠—

Where tempest-fires and surging storm

Are struggling ever in their coil:

A sunless clime, whose dreary night

Gleams dimly with that doubtful light

Which men have seen—when Darkness threw

Around their homes its sombre hue⁠—

The fearful herald of the wrath

That blazes on the Whirlwind’s path

Ere he has tossed his banners out

Like sable draperies o’er the Dead,

And with a wild, delirious shout

Struck his deep thunder-drum of dread;

A clime where e’en the fountains fall

With tone and step funereal:

And ever through the dark, old trees

A melancholy music rolls

Along the faintly-chiming breeze⁠—

Sad as the wail of tortured souls.

There ghastly forms were hurrying past

Like weird clouds through the ether driven,

In fear, before the HUNTER-BLAST,

Whose vengeance purifies the heaven.

And some were pale, as if with woe,

And ever cast their eyes below;

And some were quivering with a fear

In this their dreary sepulchre;

And some, whose awful aspects wore

A look where sat the seal of age,

On their convulsèd foreheads bore

The phrenzied agony of rage;

On some a dreadful beauty shone

Like rays received from fallen stars⁠—

So dim, so mournful and so lone,

Yet brave, despite of all their scars.

Far from the throng two sat apart

Beneath a forest’s darkling plume⁠—

In that communion of the heart

Which but the wretched can assume.

They seemed in earnest converse there,

As if with words to quench despair;

And one, along whose features grew,

A withering, deathly, demon-hue,

Wore that high, dread, defying look

Which but the Lost can dare to brook;

The other milder seemed—but he

Was shrouded, too, in mystery,

And ever threw along the sky

A fearful spiritual eye

Which in its gloomy light sublime⁠—

Seemed half of virtue, half of crime,

Like lightning when you see its glow

Soft as a moonbeam flashed below⁠—

And then in blasting brightness sent

Wild-quivering through the firmament.

So sat they in that dreary light,

Upon the blasted darkling mould⁠—

Fit watchers of such awful night⁠—

As thus the last his story told.

LORRO.

The many only look to years;

The many think they only roll

The tides of happiness or tears

Around the human soul:

I know a single hour for me⁠—

A minute—was Eternity,

That seemed with its fierce, lidless eye

Fixed—fixed forever in the sky

Which, circling round the Italian shore,

Was only made for bliss before:

But now it darkled like a shroud

By demon-hands in warning shaken,

From their lone, scowling thunder-cloud

Ere yet its elements awaken.

Oh! was it Fancy? or a spell

Hurled o’er me by some dreadful power,⁠—

That I should carry thus a hell,

Within my bosom from that hour?

I know not—nor shall care to know;

For e’en Repentance will not dart

From her pure realm, a light below,

Upon my agony of heart;

Nor hath Remorse—that mad’ning fire⁠—

That final minister of pain

And deadliest offspring of deep ire⁠—

E’er flashed across my tortured brain:

Yet! yet there is a something here

Of hideous vacancy and fear,

(Not fear which cowards merely feel,

Who hear the damnèd’s thunder peal,)

A trembling—which the brave confess

In this their last and worst distress⁠—

Part of the soul it burns a spell,

And like her indestructible⁠—

Which only those who feel that woe,

Brought by an unrepented deed,

Can in its fiercest aching know⁠—

For only they are doomed to bleed.

Go thou, whose cunning spirit hears

The mystic music of the spheres⁠—

Who gazest with unquailing eye

Through this star-isled immensity⁠—

Whose soul would feed on brighter flowers

Than earth’s—and sit with pinion furl’d

Where in its lonely grandeur towers

The outside pillar of your world⁠—

Go! go with all thy boasted art⁠—

And read one mystery of the Heart.

What! think creation in a sphere!

The real universe is here⁠—

Here! here eternally enshrined

Within the secret caves of Mind.

Blood! blood is reddening on these hands!

The blood of more than one is here;

Unfaded too its crimson brands

Despite of many a weary year,

Whose tides of flame and darkness gloom

Amid the spirit’s stagnant air⁠—

More fearful than the damn’d one’s tomb

And withering as despair.

Oh! God why was I chos’n for such?

I who until that fearful hour⁠—

Ah! would not e’en too wildly touch

The summer’s very humblest flower.

The little bird whose rain-bow wing

I saw, in spring time’s roseate eves,

With its own beauty quivering

Amid the golden orange leaves,

I made a friend—as if for me

It held its sinless revelry:

And e’en I’ve watched within the hall

The deadly spider weave his pall,

And smiled in very joy to see

The cunning workman’s tracery.

The minstrel-breeze which struck by hours

Its tender instrument of flowers⁠—

The moon that held her march alone

At midnight ’round th’ Eternal Throne⁠—

The sullen thunder whose red eyes

Flashed angrily within our skies⁠—

All! all to me were but the chain

Along whose wond’rous links there came

Unceasingly to head and brain

Love’s own electric flame.

Yes! when the Harp of Nature roll’d

Its midnight hymn from chords of gold,

And awful silence seemed to own,

Throughout the world, its wizard tone,

I’ve stood and wildly wished to float

Into that music’s liquid strain⁠—

Oh! heavenly as its sweetest note⁠—

Nor ever walk the earth again.

What change is this? Hate, fiercest Hate,

Where once these angel-yearnings burned

Like torches set by Heaven’s bright gate,

Hath all to deadly poison turned.

The Best can only feel the fire,

But once, which flashes from the clime

Where love sits beaming o’er the lyre

That strikes the mystic march of Time.

The tree of most luxuriant stem

Whose every leaflet glows a gem

Beneath its oriental sky,

When once its emerald diadem

Hath felt the simoon sweeping by.

Can never more in southern bowers

Renew its fragrant idol-flowers.

So with the great in soul—whose bloom

Of Heart hath felt the thunder-doom

Which mankind, trusted, may bestow

On him who little dreamed the blow⁠—

Theirs be the joy!—But ours the woe!

I was my father’s only child⁠—

(The cherished scion of a race

Whose monuments of fame are piled

On glory’s mighty dwelling-place)

I need not tell how oft he smiled

When counting o’er to me each deed,

In gallant barque, on champing steed,

Of ancestors in battle wild;

Nor how he gazed upon my face

And there by hours would fondly trace

The lines which as they manlier grew,

He deemed the signs of Glory, too.

I saw at last the sable pall

Gloom in our lordly castle’s hall,

And heard the Friar’s burial rite

Keeping the watches of the night.

Another noble form was laid

Where Lorro’s dead together meet⁠—

And I, in ducal robes arrayed,

Took Lorro’s castled seat.

I need not tell how passed the days,

I need not tell of pleasure’s ways⁠—

Where bright-eyed mirth flung dewy flowers

Beneath the silver-feet of hours,

While Time himself o’er music’s strings

Lean’d panting on his weary wings.

At last there came unto our gate

One looking worn and desolate,

Who asked compassion for his fate.

He said he was an orphan lad;

In sooth my lonely heart was glad⁠—

For I was weary of my state

Where only courtiers crowded round;

I wished some fair and gentle mate,

And such I fondly hoped I found.

Months rolled away and still he grew,

Beneath my care a lovely boy

And day by day I found anew

In him a very father’s joy.⁠—

And eighteen summers now have died

Since thou cam’st here my own heart’s pride:

And still thy voice of silver seems

Sweet as sweet music heard in dreams;

And still thy softly radiant eye

Looks innocent as yonder sky,

And all as fair—when rainbows rest

Like angel-plumes upon its breast;

And still thy soul seems richly set

Within its form, like some bright gem

Which might by worshippers be met

In Purity’s own diadem.

In Lorro’s hall the tone of lutes

And harp is wafted through the air,

Such as the glad most fitly suits

When mirth and rosy wine are there.

In Lorro’s castle, wreathed in light

And flowers, I ween a holy rite,

Most cherished with the young and bright,

By cowlèd Priest, is done to-night.

And who art thou around whose brow

The bridal chaplet sparkled now?

That form!—Oh, Heaven! and is it she

Thus standing there so radiantly?⁠—

With bright curls floating on the air

And glorious as the cherubs wear;

An eye where love and virtue beam

Like spirits of an Angel’s dream!

Away! away! thou maddening sight!

Away! what dost thou, Laura, here?

Thus standing by my side to-night,

And long since in thy sepulchre?

What! will the grave its events tell?

The iron tomb dissolve its spell?

It has! it has! And there she stands

Mocking me with her outstretched hands;

And oft her icy fingers press

My hot brow through the long, long night;

And voices as of deep distress,

Like prisoned wind, whose wailing sound

Seems madly struggling under ground,

Peal dirge-like on my ear: away!

Nor wait, oh! horrid shape, for day

Such as these gloomy realms display⁠—

E’er thou shalt quit my tortured sight.⁠—

And we were wed! I need not say

How heavenly came and went each day,

Enough! our souls together beat

Like two sweet tunes that wandering meet,

Then so harmoniously they run

The hearer deems they are but one.

There are mailed forms in Lorro’s halls,

And rustling banners on its walls,

And nodding plumes o’er many a brow,

That moulders on the red field now.

The wave of battle swells around!

Shall Lorro’s chieftain thus be found

In revelry or idlesse bound,

When Glory hangs her blood-red sign

Above the castellated Rhine?

Away! away, I flew in pride

With those who mustered by my side:

But not, I ween, did Lorro miss

The ruler from its ducal throne,

’Till many a wild and burning kiss

Of woman’s sweet lips warmed his own.

And Julio, too, (for such the name

I gave the orphan boy,) with tears

And choking sob, and trembling came

To whisper me his rising fears.

That I his father—I whose love

Had sheltered long his feeble form

E’en as some stronger bird the dove

All mateless wandering in the storm,⁠—

That I borne down amid the stern

And bloody shapes of battle wild,

Would never from its wreck return

To sooth his lonely orphan child;

And then on bended knees he prayed⁠—

(God! why availed not his prayer?)

That I would give him steed and blade,

So he might in my dangers share.

I left him for I could not bare

That tender brow to war’s wild air.

Away! away on foaming steed,

For two long years my sword was out;

And I had learned (a soldier’s need,)

—Almost without a groan to bleed⁠—

Aye! gloried in the battle’s shout;

For it gave presage of a fame

Such as the brave alone may claim.

For two long years, as I have told,

The storm of war around me roll’d;

But never more, by day or night

In sunshine or in shower,

Did I forget my castle’s light⁠—

Love’s only idol-flower!

There is a deeper passion known

For those in love, when left alone;

Then busy fancy ponders o’er

Some kindness never prized before:

And we can almost turn with tears

And deep upbraiding (as distress

Comes with the holy light of years)

And kneeling ask forgiveness.

And so I felt—and Laura beamed

Still lovelier than she ever seemed,

E’en when the dew of childhood’s hours

Along her heart’s first blossoms clung,

And I amid my native bowers

In sinless worship o’er them hung.

Oh! are not feelings such as these

Like splendid rainbow-glories caught

(To cheer our voyage o’er life’s seas)

From Heaven’s own holy Land of Thought?

And yet, oh, God! how soon may they

Like those bright glories flee away,

And leave the heart an unlit sea,

Where piloted by dark despair

The spirit-wreck rolls fearfully

Within the night of sullen air?

At last the eye of battle closed⁠—

Its lurid fires no longer burned⁠—

The warrior on his wreath reposed,

And I unto my halls returned.

Oh! who can tell the joys that start

Like angel-wings within the heart,

When wearied with war’s toil, the chief

In home’s dear light would seek relief!

Not he who has no loved one there

Left in his absence lonely⁠—

Whose heart he fondly hopes shall beat

For him and for him only.

And such my Laura’s heart I deemed;

For me alone I thought she beamed

Like some pure lamp on hermit’s shrine,

Which only glows for him, divine

And beauteous as the spirit-eyes

That light the bow’rs of Paradise.

It was a lovely eve, but known

Unto the South’s voluptuous zone;

An eve whose shining vesture hung

Like Heaven’s own rosy flags unfurl’d,

And by some star-eyed cherub flung

In sport around our gloomy world;

An eve in which the coldest frame

And heart must feel a warming flame,

When light and soul no longer single,

But in a bridal glory mingle:

Then think how I whose spirit bowed

Whene’er the dimmest light was sent

From twinkling star or rosy cloud

In God’s blue, glorious firmament⁠—

How I in that ethereal time,

Standing beside my native rill

And shadowed by such hues sublime,

Felt unseen lightning through me thrill.

I stood within my own domain⁠—

Once more upon my birth-right soil,

Free’d from the gory battle-plain

And weary with its toil.

“Laura!” my step is in the hall!

My sword suspended on the wall!

My standard-sheet once more uprolled

Where it has lain for years untold!

“Laura!”—In vain I stood for her

To meet the long-lost worshipper.

“Ho, Julio!” What? No answer yet?

It rung from base to parapet!

I mounted up the marble stair!⁠—

I rushed into the olden room!

It shone beneath the evening’s glare

As silent as the tomb,⁠—

Save that a slave with wond’ring eye

Looked from the dreary vacancy.

“Your Lady, Serf?”

“She’s in the bower.”

“In sooth I should have sought her there!”

For oft we passed the twilight hour

In its delicious air.

I rushed with lightning steps—Oh, God!

Why flashed not then thy blasting flame⁠—

That it might wither from the sod

The one who madly called Thy name?

My poniard grasped, left not its sheath⁠—

I had nor hope—nor life—nor breath;

I only felt the ice of death

Slowly congealing o’er my heart⁠—

And on my eye a dizzy cloud

Swam round and round, a sickening part

Of that which seemed a closing shroud

The one might feel whom burial gave

All prematurely to the grave.

But soon that deadly trance was o’er;

The foliage hid as yet; and I

Retraced the path I trod before

With such a heart-wild ecstasy.

For as I gazed upon their guilt,

A thought flashed out of demon-hue;

And I resigned my dagger’s hilt

As deadlier then my vengeance grew.

Small torture satisfies the weak⁠—

For they but slightly feel a wrong;

I would by hours my vengeance wreak!

The deep revenge is for the strong.

In Lorro’s castle is a cell

(Where Cruelty has sat in state,

I ween that some have known it well,)

Which is divided by a grate.

No sunbeam ever pierced its night;

Nor aught save lamp there shed its light;

No sound save sound of wild despair

Hath ever vexed its heavy air.

Upon its walls so grim and old

Have gathered centuries of mould.

It seems that with the birth of time

That cell was hollowed out by crime,

And there, her hateful labor o’er,

She took her first sweet draught of gore.

Ha! Ha! I see them! See them now⁠—

The cold damp dripping from each brow,

With hands oustretched they mercy sue⁠—

(Ye know not how my vengeance grew,)

While I stood by with sullen smile⁠—

The only answer to their grief⁠—

For wearied in that dungeon aisle,

In smiles I even found relief.

I watched them in that dreary gloom,

(To me a heaven—to them a tomb,)

For hours—for days—and joyed to hear

Their pleadings fill that sepulchre.

At first they tried to lull their state

By cheering each thro’ that dull grate,

(For this they lingered separate;

I could not bear e’en then to see

Them closer in their agony.)

And this they did for days! at last

A change upon them came⁠—

For each to each reproaches cast,

In which I heard my name.

I spake no word—their dread replies

Were only read within my eyes,

Which as they glared upon the pair,

Like scorpions writhing in their pain

When wounded in the loathsome lair,

Seemed burning to my very brain.

I shall not tell how hunger grew

In that dread time upon the two⁠—

When each would vainly try to break

The bars an earthquake scarce could shake.

Nor how they gnawed, in their great pain,

Their dungeon’s rusted iron chain;

Nor how their curses, deep and oft,

From parching lips were rung aloft;

Nor how like babbling fiends they would

Together vex the solitude;

Nor how the wasting crimson tide

Of withered life their wants supplied;

Nor how—enough! enough they died

Aye! and I saw the red worm creep

Upon their slumbers, dark and deep,

And felt with more of joy than dread

The grim eyes of the fleshless dead.

Long years have passed away, since then

And I have mixed with fellow men;

On land and wave my flag unfurl’d

Streamed like a storm above the world;

For Lorro was a soldier born;

His music was the battle-horn.

E’en when a boy—his playthings were

Such deadly toys as sword and spear.

I did not pant for fame or blood,

But thus in agony I sought

To strangle in their birth the brood

Of serpents cradled in my thought.

I’ve tried to pray: In vain! In vain!

The very words seem brands of fire

By demons hurled into my brain⁠—

The burning ministers of ire.

How Spirit, mid such fearful strife

I left the hated mortal life,

I need not say; it matters not

How we may break that earthly spell;

Enough! enough! I knew my lot

And feel its agony too well.

My frame beside its father rests⁠—

The same old banner o’er their breasts

Which they with all their serfs, of yore,

To battle and to triumph bore.

No chieftain sways the castle’s wall,

No chieftain revels in its hall.

And on each bastion’s leaning stone

Grim desolation sits alone,

While organ winds their masses roll

Around each lonely turret’s head,

And seem to chant, “Rest troubled soul!

Mercy! Oh! mercy for the dead!”

The spirit bent his brow—and tears

The first which he had shed for years,

Fell burning from his eyes, for THOUGHT

Had oped their overflowing cells,

Like wakened lightning which has sought

The cloud with all its liquid spells.

He wept—as he had wept of old⁠—

When sudden through the gloomy air

A glorious gush of music roll’d

Around those wretched spirits there;⁠—

They started up with frantic eyes

Wild-glancing to their sullen skies:

And still the angel-anthem went

Rejoicing ’round that firmament;

And shining harps were sparkling through

The cloud-rifts—held by seraph-forms

Oh! lovely as the loveliest hue

Of rainbows curled on buried storms.

Faint and more faint the music grows⁠—

Yet how entrancing in its close⁠—

Sweeter! oh sweeter than the hymn

Of an enthusiast who has given

His anthem forth, at twilight dim,

And hopes with it to float to heaven.

And see, where yonder tempests meet,

The rapid glance of silver feet⁠—

The last of that refulgent train

Who leave this desolated sphere;

Oh! not for them such realms of Pain

Where Crime stands tremblingly by Fear:⁠—

They’re gone, AND ALL IS DARK AGAIN.

[End of Part First.]