Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/192

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Seemed shaken by his low, wild, aching tones:
The flowers bent down, and drooped, and fainting, died;
A harp-string snapped and broke, and a lute sighed;
Dark shadows shivered in the fitful light,
And all the crystals in the shining lamp
Shut up their sparkling eyes, and looked no more
Upon his prostrate anguish—all was dark.
Still struggled through the gloom his passionate voice!

"Oh! mocking memories! why haunt me now?
Oh! phantoms of the past, that round me rise,
Ye know not how your presence burns my brow
And taunts to agony my shrinking eyes!
Leave me! oh, leave me! ye reproachful band,
Why do you stand and gaze on my despair?
Why do you circle round me, hand-in-hand,
Pale, saddened spirits, once so bright and fair ?

"I know ye all! I know who wrought your fate—
This retribution is too great to bear!
If ye are pale, and sad, and desolate—
Look on! and shudder at my great despair!
Ye will not pity me! such as I gave
Of cold, false, hollow pretense, give you me!
Away! away! pale phantoms of the grave!
Taunt not the wildness of my misery.

"Oh, Ina! Ina! vision white and fair!
How pale and sweet thou dost before me rise;
I hear the pleading that thy lip doth bear—
I see the agony in those soft eyes!
And now I see thee mute and still in death,
Thy golden curls dark with the dripping wave
Thy young, sweet lip robbed of its loving breath,
Thy fairy form in a dishonored grave!

"And thou, proud, broken-hearted Isidore!
Thy wild reproach, thy scorn, and thy strange curse—