Volume 20 — Antar And Zara; Or, “The Only True Lovers.”

An Eastern Romance Narrated In SONGS.

By Aubrey De Vere.

Part VI.

They Sang.

I.

The people met me at the rescued gate,

On streaming in the immeasurable joy,

Warriors with wounds, gray priests, old men sedate,

The wife, the child, the maiden, and the boy.

Then followed others—some as from a tomb,

Their face a blank, and vacant; blinded some;

Some that had whitened in the dungeon's gloom;

Some, from long years of lonely silence, dumb.

Anatomies of children with wild glare,

Like beasts new caught; and man-like spectres pale;

And shapes like women, fair, or one time fair

(Unhappiest these), that would not lift the veil.

Then saw I what is wrought on man by men:

Then saw I woman's glory and her shame:

Then learned I that which freedom is—till then

The soldier, not of her, but of her name.

The meaning then of Country, Virtue, Faith,

Flashed on me, lightning-like: I pressed my brow

Down on the wayside dust, and vowed till death

My life to these. That was my bridal vow.

II.

A dream was mine that not for long

Our joy should have its home on earth;

That love, by anguish winged, and wrong,

Should early seek its place of birth;

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That all thy hand hath done and dared

Should scantlier serve our country's need

Than some strange suffering 'twixt us shared

Her last great harvest's sanguine seed.

I saw false friends their treaties snap

Like osiers in a giant's hand;

Saw sudden flames our cities wrap;

Saw, drowned in blood, our Christian land.

I saw from far the nations come

To avenge the lives they scorned to save,

Till, ransomed by our martyrdom

Our country carolled o'er our grave!

III.

Still to protect the lowly in their place,

The power unjust to meet, defiant still,

Is ours; and ours to subjugate the base

In our own hearts to God's triumphant will.

We, playmates once amid the flowers and rills,

Are now two hunters chasing hart and hind,

Two shepherds guarding flocks on holy hills,

Two eaglets launched along a single wind.

What next? Two souls—a husband and a wife—

Bearing one cross o'er heights the Saviour trod;—

What last? Two spirits in the life of life

Singing God's love-song under eyes of God.

IV.

I dreamed a dream when six years old:—

Against my mother's knee one day,

Protected by her mantle's fold,

All weary, weak, and wan I lay.

Then seemed it that in caverns drear

I roamed forlorn. The weeks went by

From month to month, from year to year:

At last I laid me down to die.

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An angel by me stood, and smiled;

He wrapt me round; aloft he bore;

He wafted me o'er wood and wild;

He laid me at my mother's door.

How oft in sleep with heart that yearned

Have I not seen that face! Ah! me,

How slowly, seeing, I discerned

That likeness strange it bears to thee!

V.

If some great angel thus bespake,

“Near, and thy nearest, he shall be,

Yet thou—a dreamer though awake—

But thine own thought in him shalt see”;

If some great angel thus bespake,

“Near, and his nearest, thou shalt be,

Yet still his fancy shall mistake

That beauty he but dreams, for thee”;

If, last, some pitying angel spake,

“Through life unsevered ye shall be,

And fancy's dreams suffice to slake

Your thirst for immortality”;

Then would I cry for love's great sake,

“O Death! since truth but dwells with thee,

Come quick, and semblance substance make—

In heaven abides Reality.”

VI.

Upon my gladness fell a gloom:

Thee saw I—on some far-off day—

My husband, by thy loved one's tomb:

I could not help thee where I lay.

Ah! traitress I, to die the first!

Ah! hapless thou, to mourn alone!

Sudden that truth upon me burst,

Confessed so oft; till then unknown.

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There lives Who loves him!—loves and loved

Better a million-fold than I!

That Love with countenance unremoved

Looked on him from eternity.

That Love, all Wisdom and all Power,

Though I were dust, would guard him still,

And, faithful at the last dread hour,

Stand near him, whispering, “Fear no ill!”

VII.

“Fear not to love; nor deem thy soul too slight

To walk in human love's heroic ways:

Great Love shall teach thee how to love aright,

Though few the elect of earth who win his praise.

“Fear not, O maid! nor doubt lest wedded life

Thy childhood's heavenward yearnings blot or blur;

There needs the vestal heart to make the wife;

The best that once it hoped survives in her.

“All love is Sacrifice—a flame that still

Illumes, yet cleanses as with fire, the breast:

It frees and lifts the holier heart and will;

A heap of ashes pale it leaves the rest.”

Thus spake the hermit from his stony chair;

Then long time watched her speeding towards her home,

As when a dove through sunset's roseate air

Sails to her nest o'er crag and ocean's foam.

VIII.

“We knew thee from thy childhood, princely maid;

We watched thy growing greatness hour by hour:

Palm-like thy Faith uprose: beneath its shade

Successive every virtue came to flower.

“Good-will was thine, like fount that overflows

Its marge, and clothes with green the thirsty sod:

Good thoughts, like angels, from thy bosom rose,

And winged through golden airs their way to God.

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“To Goodness, Reverence, Honor, from the first

Thy soul was vowed. It was that spiritual troth

That fitted maid for wife, and in her nursed

The woman's heart—not years nor outward growth.

“Walk with the holy women praised of old

Who served their God and sons heroic bore:—”

Thus sang the minstrels, touching harps of gold

While maidens wreathed with flowers the bridal door.

IX.

“Holy was love at first, all true, all fair,

Virtue's bright crown, and Honor's mystic feast,

Purer than snows, more sweet than morning air,

More rich than roses in the kindling east.

“Then were the hearts of lovers blithe and glad,

And steeped in freshness like a dew-drenched fleece:

Then glittered marriage like a cloud sun-clad

Or flood that feeds the vale with boon increase

“Then in its innocence great love was strong—

Love that with innocence renews the earth:

Then Faith was sovran, Right supreme o'er wrong:

Then sacred as the altar was the hearth.

“With hope's clear anthem then the valleys rang;

With songs celestial thrilled the household bowers:—”

Thus to the newly wed the minstrels sang

As home they paced, while children scattered flowers.

X.

Circling in upper airs we met,

Singing God's praise, and spring-tide new:—

On two glad spirits fell one net

Inwoven of sunbeams and of dew.

One song we sang; at first I thought

Thy voice the echo of mine own;

We looked for nought; we met unsought:

We met, ascending toward the Throne.

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XI.

Life of my better life! this day with thee

I stand on earthly life's supremest tower;

Heavenward across the far infinity

With thee I gaze in awe, yet gaze in power.

Love first, then Fame, illumed that bygone night:

How little knew I then of God or man!

Now breaks the morn eternal, broad and bright;

My spirit, franchised, bursts its narrow span.

Sweet, we must suffer! Joys, thou said'st, like these

Make way for holy suffering. Let it come.

Shall that be suffering named which crowns and frees?

The happiest death man dies is martyrdom.

Never were bridal rites more deeply dear

Than when of old to bridegroom and to bride

That Pagan Empire cried, “False gods revere!”—

They turned; they kissed each other; and they died.

XII.

Fair is this land through which we ride

To that far keep, our bridal bower:

A sacred land of strength and pride,

A land of beauty and of power.

A mountain land through virtue bold,

High built, and bordering on the sun;

A prophet-trodden land, and old;

Our own unvanquished Lebanon!

The hermit's grot her gorges guard—

The patriarch's tomb. There snowy dome

And granite ridges sweet with nard

O'er-gaze and fence the patriot's home.

No realm of river-mouth and pelf;

No traffic realm of corn and wine;

God keeps, and lifts her, to Himself:—

His bride she is, as I am thine.

When down that Moslem deluge rolled,

The Faith, enthroned 'mid ruins, sat

Here, in her Lebanonian hold,

Firm as the ark on Ararat.

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War still is hers, though loving peace;

War—not for empire, but her Lord;—

A lion land of slow increase;

For trenchant is the Moslem sword.

XIII.

Alas! that sufferer weak and wan

Whom, yester-eve, our journey o'er,

Deserted by the caravan,

We found upon our gallery floor!

How long she gasped upon my breast!

We bathed her brows in wine and myrrh;—

How death-like sank at last to rest

While rose the sun! I feared to stir.

All night I heard our bridal bells

That chimed so late o'er springing corn:

Half changed they seemed to funeral knells—

She, too, had had her bridal morn!

Revived she woke. The pang was past:

She woke to live, to smile, to breathe:

Oh! what a look was that she cast,

Awaking, on my nuptial wreath

XIV.

High on the hills the nuptial feast was spread:

Descending, choir to choir the maidens sang,

“Safe to her home our beauteous bride is led,”

While, each to each, the darkening ledges rang.

From vale and plain came up the revellers' shout:

Maidens with maidens danced, and men with men;

Till, one by one, the festal fires burned out

By lonely waters. There was silence then.

Keen flashed the stars, with breath that came and went,

Through mountain chasms:—around, beneath, above,

They whispered, glancing through the bridal tent,

“We too are lovers: heaven is naught but love!”

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