my breath, that hasty boon
Thou gavest and wilt resume so soon,
I valued it no more than thou,
When rose thy casque above thy brow,
And we, all side by side, have striven,
And o'er the dead our coursers driven.
The past is nothing—and at last
The future can but be the past;
Yet would I that I then had died:
For though thou work'dst my mother's ill,
And made thy own my destined bride,
I feel thou art my father still;
And, harsh as sounds thy hard decree,
'T is not unjust, although from thee.
Begot in sin, to die in shame,
My life began and ends the same:
As err'd the sire, so err'd the son,
And thou must punish both in one.
My crime seems worst to human view,
But God must judge between us two!"
He ceased-and stood with folded arms,
On which the circling fetters sounded;
And not an ear but felt as wounded,
Of all the chiefs that there were ranked,
When those dull chains in meeting clank'd:
Till Parisina's fatal charms
Again attracted every eye
Would she thus hear him doom'd to die?
She stood, I said, all pale and still,
The living cause of Hugo's ill:
Her eyes unmoved, but full and wide,
Not once had turn'd to either side-
Nor once did those sweet eyelids close,
Or shade the glance o'er which they rose.
But round their orbs of deepest blue
The circling white dilated grew—
And there with glassy gaze she stood
As ice were in her curdled blood;
every now and then a tear
So large and slowly gather'd, slid
From the long dark fringe of that fair lid,
It was a thing to see, not hear!
And those who saw, it did surprise,
Such drops could fall from human eyes.
To speak she thought-the imperfect note
Was choked within her swelling throat,
Yet seemed in that low hollow groan
Her whole heart gushing in the tone.
It ceased-again she thought to speak,
Then burst her voice in one long shriek,
And to the earth she fell like stone,
Or statue from its base o'erthrown,
More like a thing that ne'er had life,—
A monument of Azo's wife-
Than her, that living guilty thing,
Whose every passion was a sting,
Which urged to guilt, but could not bear
That guilt's detection and despair;
But yet she lived-and all too soon
Recovered from that death-like swoon-
But scarce to reason-every sense
Had been o'erstrung by pangs intense;
And each frail fibre of her brain
(As bow-strings, when relax'd by rain,
The erring arrow launch aside)
Sent forth her thoughts all wild and wide
The past a blank, the future black,
With glimpses of a dreary track,
Like lightning on the desert path,
When midnight storms are mustering wrath.
She fear'd-she felt that something ill
Lay on her soul, so deep and chill—
That there was sin and shame she knew,.
That some one was to die-but who?
She had forgotten;-did she breathe?
Could this be still the earth beneath?
The sky above, and men around?
Or were they fiends who now so frown'd
before whose eyes each eye
Till then had smiled in sympathy?
All was confused and undefined,
To her all-jarr'd and wandering mind;
A chaos of wild hopes and fears :
And now in laughter, now in tears,
But madly still in each extreme,
She strove with that convulsive dream-
For so it seem'd on her to break :
Oh! vainly must she strive to wake.
The convent bells are ringing,
But mournfully and slow;
In the grey square turret swinging,
With a deep sound, to and fro.
Heavily to the heart they go! Hark! the hymn is singingThe song for the dead below,
Or the living who shortly shall be so! For a departing being's soul
The death-hymn peals and the hollow bells knoll : He is near his mortal goal;
Kneeling at the friar's knee;
Sad to hear and piteous to see-
Kneeling on the bare cold ground,
With the block before and the guards around-
And the headsman with his bare arm ready,
That the blow may be both swift and steady,
Feels if the axe be sharp and true-
Since he set its edge anew:
While the crowd in a speechless circle gather
To see the son fall by the doom of the father.
It is a lovely hour as yet
Before the summer sun shall set,
Which rose upon that heavy day,
And mock'd it with his steadiest ray;
And his evening beams are shed
Full on Hugo's fated head,
As, his last confession pouring
To the monk his doom deploring,
In penitential holiness,
He bends to hear his accents bless
With absolution such as may
Wipe our mortal stains away.
That high sun on his head did glisten
As he there did bow and listen,
And the rings of chesnut hair
Curl'd half down his neck so bare;
But brighter still the beam was thrown
Upon the axe which near him shone
With a clear and ghastly glitter.-
Oh! that parting hour was bitter!
Even the stern stood chill'd with awe.
Dark the crime, and just the law—
Yet they shudder'd as they saw.
The parting prayers are said and over
Of that false son-and daring lover!
His beads and sins are all recounted,
His hours to their last minute mounted-
His mantling cloak before was stripd'd,
His bright brown locks must now be clipp'd;
'T is done all closely are they shorn-
The vest which till this moment worn-
The scarf which Parisina gave-
Must not adorn him to the grave.
Even that must now be thrown aside,
And o'er his eyes the kerchief tied ;
But no- -that last indignity
Shall ne'er approach his haughty eye.
All feelings seemingly subdued,
In deep disdain were half renew'd,
When headsman's hands prepared to bind Those eyes which would not brook such blind : As if they dared not look on death.
No-yours my forfeit blood and breath—
These hands are chain'd-but let me die
At least with an unshackled eye-
Strike:"-and as the word he said,
Upon the block he bow'd his head ;
These the last accents Hugo spoke :
"Strike"-and flashing fell the stroke-
Roll'd the head—and, gushing, sunk
Back the stain'd and heaving trunk,
In the dust, which each deep vein
Slaked with its ensanguined rain;
His eyes and lips a moment quiver,
Convulsed and quick-then fix for ever.
He died, as erring man should die,
Without display, without parade;
Meekly had he bow'd and pray'd,
As not disdaining priestly aid,
Nor desperate of all hope on high.
And while, before the prior kneeling,
His heart was wean'd from earthly feeling,
His wrathful sire—his paramour-
What were they in such an hour?
No more reproach—no more despair;
No thought but heaven-no word but prayer
Save the few which from him broke,
When bared to meet the headsman's stroke,
He claim'd to die with eyes unbound,
His sole adieu to those around.
Still as the lips that closed in death,
Each gazer's bosom held his breath :
But yet, afar, from man to man,
A cold electric shiver ran,
As down the deadly blow descended
On him whose life and love thus ended;
And with a hushing sound comprest,
A sigh shrunk back on every breast;
But no more thrilling noise rose there,
Beyond the blow that to the block
Pierced through with forced and sullen shock,
Save one-what cleaves the silent air
So madly shrill-so passing wild?
That, as a mother's o'er her child,
Done to death by sudden blow,
To the sky these accents go,
Like a soul's in endless woe.
Through Azo's palace-lattice driven,
That horrid voice ascends to heaven,
And
every eye is turn'd thereon;
But sound and sigh alike are gone!
It was a woman's shriek- and ne'er
In madlier accents rose despair;
And those who heard it as it past,
In mercy wish'd it were the last.
Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour,
No more in palace, hall, or bower,
Was Parisina heard or seen.
Her name as if she ne'er had been-
Was banish'd from each lip and ear,
Like words of wantonness or fear;
And from Prince Azo's voice, by none
Was mention heard of wite or son;
No tomb-no memory had they;
Theirs was unconsecrated clay;
At least the knight's who died that day.
But Parisina's fate lies hid
Like dust beneath the coffin lid:
Whether in convent she abode,
And won to heaven her dreary road,
By blighted and remorseful
Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears;
Or if she fell by bowl or steel,
For that dark love she dared to feel;
Or if, upon the moment smote,
She died by tortures less remote,
Like him she saw upon the block,
With heart that shared the headsman's shock,
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