Æolus’s Harp

In yon mansion of ages
Lives Morven’s famed chieftain, the valiant Ordāl;
Where the wild billow rages,
And scatters its foam on the time-hallowed wall;
Like a mountain in glory,
It towers o’er the wave,
And its oaks, old and hoary,
Come down to the shores which the white waters lave.

The stag-hound, the beagle,
With voices re-echoed, the wide forest fill;
To the throne of the eagle
They chase the wild boar and the goat up the hill;
And the stag from the heather:--
The valleys resound;
Horns, shoutings together,
Are mingled in rapid vibrations around.

All, all are invited--
And joy is let loose at the board of Ordāl;
The guests are united
Where wide-spreading antlers adorn the rude hall:
Of ages departed
The glories are told;
And memory, full-hearted,
Sends back all its thoughts to the great ones of old.

Their helmets in order,
Their bucklers, and harness, and hauberks are hung
On the roof’s antique border:
And there, while the deeds and the victories are sung
Of the heroes of story,
Ordāl proudly stands;
And a flash of their glory
Shines out from the cup which he waves in his hands.

He looks to the armour;
’Tis all that destruction hath left of their name;--
His bosom beats warmer,
His spirit is roused with the touch of their fame:
Though the helmets before them
Are broken and dim,
He remembers who wore them--
And, O, they are splendid and sacred to him.

Milvana the bright one
The hall of her father resplendently fills;
As, with garments of light on,
A morning of summer walks up the fresh hills;
As from nature’s recesses
A free golden stream,
So her fine flowing tresses
O’er her soft-heaving bosom in luxury gleam.

Far fairer than morning.
She scatters around the soft lustre of soul;
Dark glances adorning
The flashes of fire from her eye-balls that roll;
Like the song of the fountain
Her mild accents fall;
Like the rose of the mountain
Her breath;--but her spirit is sweeter than all.

Her beauty’s gay splendour
has beamed in its brightness through far-distant lands:
What heroes attend her--
The castle of Morven is filled with their bands.
Its chieftain delighted
Weaves visions of pride;
But his daughter has plighted
Her hand to a bard with no glory allied.

Young, lovely, and lonely
As the rose in its freshness, he tuned his soft lays
In the deep valley only:
To him all unheard was the music of praise.
Milvana descended
From luxury’s throne:
Affection had blended
Her heart with a heart as unstained as her own.

In the black arch of heaven,
Like the shield of a warrior, the pale moon is hung;
Through the gloomy clouds driven,
Its light-streams o’er ocean’s wide surface are flung;
The dark shadows spreading,
From castle and grove,
Their giant forms shedding
Sublimely the waves and the waters above.

Where the mountain-cocks rally,
Where the waterfall bursts from the storm-cover’d rock
Ere it rush to the valley;
The oak was her witness, her shelter the oak:
Milvana retreating
To solitude there,
Her minstrel awaiting:--
She breathed not--her breath was suspended by fear.

His harp sounded lightly--
He came to the oak-tree--blest moments of love!
The moon glimmered brightly:
All stillness beneath and all beauty above.
What a temple for loving
For bosoms so bland!
And the waves, softly moving,
Convey their low music along the smooth strand.

They looked on the ocean;
With their soft pensive sadness it seemed to attune;
The waves’ gentle motion
Was silvered and marked by the rays of the moon.
“How brightly, how fleetly
The waters roll on!
So swiftly, so sweetly
Come pleasures and love--they smile and are gone.”

“Why sigh then, my fair one!
Though the waters may ebb and the years may decay?
My beloved! my dear one!
Can time on its wings bear affection away?
To a bard unbefriended
O say canst thou bow;
Thou, from monarchs descended,
And heroes, whom Morven is honouring now?”

“What is honour or glory?
What garlands so sacred as love’s holy wreath?
What hero-bright story
Has an utterance so sweet as affection’s young breath?
No fears shall confound us,
No sorrow, no gloom;
Joy is sparkling around us,
And let years follow years till life sinks in the tomb.”

“Come, joys that smile o’er us,
Ye sweets of a moment, come hither and stay!
For who can assure us
They will not be scattered by morning’s bright ray?
For morn will not linger,
Nor rapture remain;
I, again a poor singer,
And thou, a bright queen in thy splendour again.”

“Let the glance of day brighten,
Let its radiance be shed o’er the mountain and sea;
Thy smiles shall enlighten
All nature, while living, to love and to me;
With hope and with heaven,
With love and with thee,
What joys are not given?
For life has no transports that beam not on me.”

“The sun is returning;
The orient is pale with the promise of day;
The zephyrs of morning
Awakened, like waves on the mountain-tops play;”
“’Tis the northern light glancing
Across the dark sky,
Not the morning advancing;
Sweet winds! bring no morn from the mountains on high.”

“But list! to the bustling
Of voices; they wake in the castle ere now.”
“O no! ’tis the rustling
Of half-slumbering birds as they dream on the bough.”
“The orient is lighted,
Milvana! O why
Do my spirits, benighted
In doubt and foreboding, desert me and die?”

The youth has suspended,
In silence, his harp on the time-hallowed oak:--
“Unseen, unattended,
Let thy soft music speak, my sweet harp! as it spoke
In the luxury of sadness,
The fervour of truth,
The bright tones of gladness,
The songs and the smiles and the sunshine of youth.

“The bloom of the singer
Shall fade with the grief-blast, like flowers of the grove;
But here there shall linger,
The spirit, the youth and the fervour of love.
An angel here speaking,
Shall often be seen,
All those raptures awaking,
Which in days of our early devotion have been.

“My spirit shall hover
Like a light airy shade o’er the track of thy way;
Milvana! thy lover
Shall speak through his harp at the close of the day.
The grief that alarmed us,
Uncertainty’s fear,
The tears that disarmed us,
All, all of life’s sorrows shall fly from us here.

“When his life-term is ended,
Affection immortal shall live in his soul;
Our spirits there blended,
Shall love and be blest while eternities roll.
Thou oak-tree! wide-spreading,
O’ershadow the fair;--
Ye zephyrs! here shedding
Your fragrance, the freshness of sympathy bear.”

The big tears were falling:--
He ceased:--his eye fixed, but within, like a knell,
A low voice was calling--
“Farewell! my Milvana! for ever farewell.”
His hand, damp and burning,
Had wildly seized hers:
Then hurriedly turning,
Like a phantom of fancy, the youth disappears.

The moon shone unclouded--
The maiden was there, but the minstrel was fled:
Like a silent tree shrouded
In darkness, she stood in the wilderness dread.
The chieftain his daughter
Had traced to the grove:
And now o’er the water
To exile, a bark is conveying her love.

At morn and at even
Milvana retires to the oak-tree to mourn;
And the stream that is driven
Adown the steep hill, seems her sighs to return.
“’Tis all dark and dreary,
Milvana! to thee,
Thy spirit is weary--
And thy minstrel shall never return to the tree.”

The evening wind waking,
Called up their soft sounds from the leaves as it roved:
The green branches shaking,
It kisses the harp--but the harp is unmoved.
Spring came, sweetly bringing
Her eloquent train,
And nature was ringing
With rapture, enkindling gay smiles through her reign.

On the emerald meadows,
And hills in the distance, are gold streams of light;
And soft silent shadows
Seem to spread over eve the calm stillness of night.
The stars are in motion
Across the blue deep:
Like a mirror, the ocean:
And the winds, hushed to silence, among the leaves sleep.

Milvana sat weeping
Beneath the old tree, but her thoughts were not there.
All nature lay sleeping,
When accents unearthly were heard in the air:
The green leaves are shaken--
It was not the wind--
The silent strings waken:
Some ghost hurries by and leaves music behind.

The harp’s secret spirit
Breathed forth a long, sorrowful, heart-rending sound:
She trembled to hear it,
’Twas softer than zephyrs when whispering around;
’Twas the voice of her lover;--
Her soul sunk in night:
“’Tis over--’tis over--
The earth is a waste--he has taken his flight.”

In desolate madness
Milvana had fall’n in the dust: but the tone
Still breathed its sweet sadness!
More sad as the soul that inspired it was gone.
Its music she heard not;
She woke faint and chill;
The star-lights appeared not--
’Twas morning--’twas morning, damp, dewy, and still.

From morrow to morrow,
She visited still the old oak of the wood;
There that music of sorrow
Still broke on her ear from the realms of the good.
While thus disunited,
On earth could she stay,
By her minstrel invited
To the heaven where her thoughts and her hopes led the way?

Thou harp of my bosom,
Be still--let thy voice drown the summons of death;
The delicate blossom,
Unopened, shall fade in the valley beneath:
The wanderer roaming
To-morrow will come--
“My floweret, where blooming?”
“Thy floweret!--’tis withered--it sleeps in the tomb.”

She is dead--but whenever
A black, starless mantle is hung o’er the skies;
When from fountain, and river,
And hill, the cold mists like the dark billows rise,
Two shades are seen blending,
United as when
In their youth-tide attending;--
And the oak waves its boughs, and the chords speak again.