URIEL.

———

BY HENRY B. HIRST.

———

A haughty, high-born maiden was the Lady Uriel,

With stately step, majestic mien and royal falcon eyes,

Whose glory scintillated like auroras in the skies.

She sat her steed, and held her hawk, and ruled her father’s board,

Among her maidens, like a queen; and all her noble guests

Swore fealty to her beauty, and obeyed her least behests.

From East to West, from North to South, the wonder of her charms

Had been the theme of troubadours, who sang, with many sighs,

The splendor of her beauty and the grandeur of her eyes.

From East and West, from North and South, came many a gay gallánt,

Like pilgrims to Jerusalem, to worship at her shrine;

And each one swore that song did wrong to beauty so divine.

All day in panoply of steel these young chivalrous knights

Strove gracefully and gallantly in deeds of bold emprise,

Seeking to call down sunny smiles from her imperial eyes.

All night, beneath the icy orbs of the unheeding moon,

The invisible breath of music filled the castle’s gray arcades;

But Uriel’s heart replied not to her lovers’ serenades.

Some sought her father—paladins, whose names for centuries

Had sparkled, like a necklace, on the snowy bust of fame,

With hosts of anxious aspirants who struggled for a name.

And haughty merchant-princes, who, in countless argosies,

Possessed the wealth of Orient Ind, sued humbly at her feet;

And monarchs put aside command and followed in her suite.

But all in vain, for Uriel loved none, nor cared to love;

She only prized her sire and home; she sought no other ties;

So not a single suitor saw his image in her eyes.

More beautiful with every moon became the maiden’s face,

More queenly still her stately step, more luminous her eyes,

Until her lovers thought her charms translations from the skies.

One day, perchance attracted by the maiden’s marvelous fame,

An unknown knight, in humble guise, rode slowly to her gate.

No page, no man-at-arms had he; he came in simple state.

His armor was as dark as night, his tossing plumes were black,

As was his gaunt gigantic steed;—no arms were on his shield —

Only a deadly night-shade shone upon its ebon field.

Next day the tournament gave birth to doughty deeds of arms,

For down before the Nameless Knight the lady’s suitors went;

And, strange to say, that Uriel’s eyes now sparkled with content.

Next night a mournful melody swept from the plain below,

And from her oriel, bright as stars, peered Uriel’s luminous eyes:

Her heart made echoes to the strain, and answered it with sighs.

Hunting, or hawking, in the dance when jewels made the hall

Shine like the heavens on starry evens, the tall and shadowy knight

Followed her form from place to place, as darkness follows light.

And Uriel’s cheek grew crimson, and Uriel’s glorious eyes

Shone brighter when his step was heard in palace, or on plain,

Though her other guests shrunk from him with expressions of disdain.

For all her father’s titled friends—the lords who sought her hand —

Hated the bold adventurer; but no one spoke a word —

They only looked their anger;—they knew he wore a sword.

And sadly as he came he went, and Uriel’s anxious eyes

Followed him, step by step, until the distance closed their view;

And when her guests came once more round, they saw them moist with dew.

And Uriel’s cheek grew pallid, and Uriel’s eyes grew dim,

And Uriel’s form grew slender, and her beauty, day by day,

Seemed stricken like the morning moon, and sinking to decay.

Her father called her to him, and he kissed her icy brow,

And gave her gentle names; for he saw her mother’s eyes

Looking pleadingly upon him from her daïs in the skies.

A warm and rosy brightness, like the bloom upon a peach,

Blossomed on Uriel’s marble cheek, and the light in Uriel’s eyes

Came back at once, like light to stars, when clouds have left the skies.

For Uriel’s sire, forgetting his long ancestral line,

Consented that his gentle child should wed the nameless knight:

What wonder, then, that Uriel’s eyes resumed their olden light!

—The chapel bells were ringing; the priest was in his place,

And the incense clomb in clouds from the censers by his side,

While the organ’s billowy melodies breathed a welcome to the bride.

The princely train came slowly in, for Uriel’s satin feet

Fell fainter on the pavement than the snow-flake on the stream,

As she walked, in silence, by her groom, like a vision in a dream.

But when she reached the altar, grandly, and like a sun,

Shone out the marvelous brightness of her supernatural eyes

So vividly, the aged priest stepped back in mute surprise!

But the groom—his eyes shone brighter still, like lightning in the night.

As he motioned to the monk to expedite the rite;

But Uriel’s cheek grew pale again, and her eyes became less bright.

Slowly the priest proceeded, while the organ’s swan-like song

Swept toward the gilded dome and died, and lived and died again,

As the monk in mellow monotones chanted his deep refrain.

The priest was silent: with a sigh the bride sunk on the breast

Of him she loved so wildly, as a bird sinks on its nest,

As her sire, her bridemaids and her friends around the couple prest.

Suddenly, like an expiring lamp, her large, unusual eyes

Flashed, and went out, as forward, with a simple rustling sound,

The noble Lady Uriel fell lifeless to the ground!

The maidens shrieked in terror when she sunk, as through a mist,

For where the bridegroom stood was space—his form was gone in air;

And the lonely sire embraced his child in agonies of despair!

From his place behind the railing came the shorn and shaven priest,

And quoth he, while the expectant crowd stood mute and held their breath —

“Take up the dead: its Nameless Groom was the Invisible Death.”