Part I

A SPIRIT fallen from the realms of light
Above this dim world winged his weary flight,
For memories came crowding thick and fast
Of vanished splendours and delights long past. —
How erst, a Cherub bright, he loved to race
With fiery comets through the fields of space ;
No mists could blind, no clouds his progress bar,
He followed knowledge on from star to star.
Creation's heir, the first-born of all time,
He loved, he trusted in that happy prime.
Ah, little recked he safe from doubts and fears,
The sad monotony of coming years,
Trouble on trouble, pain succeeding pain —
Tortures that racked his ever-teeming brain.
Long had he wandered without goal or aim
Through the dull round of centuries still the same,
Ruling this puny world, and sowing ill,
Ceaseless, resistless, unenjoying still.
Now o'er Caucasian heights with pinions slow
The outcast spirit steered his course ; below,
Gleamed like a diamond facet Kasbek's snow,
And, in the deep-cleft gorge, where dragons hide,
He saw the Darial like a serpent glide ;
The Terek foamed, a lion with bristling mane.
Plunging in cataracts to the distant plain,
And beasts and birds, that high in ether soar,
Quailed, as they caught the mighty torrent's roar.
Clouds from the golden south his course attend,
The giant rocks in dreamy slumber bend
Their heads, and muse where all these waves can tend.
To ward the entrance, as he hurries down.
Through mists he sees majestic castles frown.
Thus at his feet in all its beauty lay
God's earth ; — contemptuous he looked away.
It moved him not ; of beauty recked he nought ;
He passed, nor gave the scene a second thought.

III

The landscape changed ; as on his way he sped,
Grusien's broad valley far beneath was spread
With richest colours, like a carpet, shot,
Of earth the choicest, fairest, happiest spot.
Enchanted castles, crystal streams, that strayed
Mid jewelled pebbles and sweet music made ;
Bowers of roses, where the nightingale
Sings to his mate unheeding of love's tale,
The sycamores with ivy crowned, the glade
Where timid hinds at noontide seek the shade.
The rustling leaves, the breath of myriad flowers.
Murmurous with bees, the glow of sultry hours.
Alternating each eve with dewy showers ;
And stars that shine like Grusien maiden's eyes, —
All this the Demon in his flight descries,
Yet, the fair prospect no fresh feeling moved
In his seared heart, that neither joyed nor loved ;
Touched by no passion save contempt and spite,
He gazed on loveliness and loathed the sight.

IV

A lofty castle and a high-walled court
His toiling serfs long years ago had wrought
For Gudal.
The broad shadow of the walls
At noon across the rocky platform falls,
A rock-hewn stairway to the stream descends,
Down which at morn wrapped in white tschadra wends
Gudal's fair child, Tamara, sent to draw
Water from out the limpid Aragwa.

V

For years in silence the dark house had frowned
Above the valley, but to-day the sound
Of revelry was heard and surnas bray,
For Gudal holds a wedding feast to-day,
Bids kith and kindred. On the roof were laid
Tables with wine and dainties. There the maid
With her bride-maidens idly sang and played.
Still sang they clapping hands in time, till now
The sun was sinking 'neath the mountain's brow.
But lo, the bride, fired by a sudden thought,
A tambourine, that lay beside her, caught.
Waved it aloft and, moving to the sound,
Fled like a swallow that just skims the ground ;
Sudden she paused and stood with dewy eyes.
Upturned as one communing with the skies.
Now knit her brows and frowned, now bending o'er
Her tambourine, she tripped across the floor,
And as she danced she smiled with childish glee,
Like a wild moonbeam flashing o'er the sea.

VI

Witness, thou star of midnight, witness, sun,
Rising and setting, king upon his throne.
Nor Shah of golden Persia, e'er did kiss
A face so bright, so beautiful as this,
No houri in the noontide heat did lave
A form so perfect in the fountain's wave,
And lover's hand, since Eden days, I trow,
Ne'er smoothed the wrinkles from so fair a brow.

VII

For the last time she danced. Alas that she,
Gudal's sole heir, a maid unfettered, free
As her own mountain breezes, should await
With the next dawn the imprisoned harem's fate.
Of those strange faces and that alien home
Musing, a cloud would o'er her features come,
Yet neither cloud could hide nor gloom efface
Her artless witchery, her native grace,
Which, if the Demon in his flight had spied,
He sure had turned away for ruth and sighed.

VIII

And he has seen her. Through his bosom shot
A spark, a thrill of feeling long forgot,
As if across his spirit parched and bare,
Had passed a breath of paradisal air.
Long gazed he ravished as the vision's spell
Recalled the happy days before he fell ;
Like star on star they passed before his eyes.
The train of long evanished memories.
And recollection brought new sense of pain
When his heart whispered to him once again,
In his own tongue. Was conscience inly stirred ?
No, his lips murmured no repentant word
Should he forget ? That gift had God denied,
Proffered, he would have scorned it in his pride.

IX

On wearied steed the impatient bridegroom rode.
And, as the sun went down, Aragwa showed
Her banks of emerald green. Behind, a train
Of laden camels wind along the plain,
Jingling their bells ; unnumbered bales they bear, —
So Synodal's great chieftain dowers his fair.
Tall is the prince and lissom, and beneath
His girdle flashed a dagger's jewelled sheath,
At his left hand a glittering rapier hung.
And from his back his damasked gun was slung.
Round his long caftan ran a golden braid,
With its broad flapping sleeves the breezes played.
The selle was stitched with many a silken thread.
And silken tassels decked his charger's head,
In Karabach, a fiery chestnut, bred.
Now as he passed the mountain brow, he stood
And gazed upon Aragwa's foaming flood,
He pricked his ears and shivering pawed the ground,
The path is steep, and darkness closes round,
The mists are rising, from the heights is gone
The glow — the caravan must hurry on.

X

A little chapel rose beside the sward
Where rest the ashes of a murdered lord.
Now canonised. Here every traveller prayed,
Whether to feast he hied or border raid ;
Such prayer preserved him from the Moslem's dirk,
But the young wooer laughed at priest and kirk,
Unholy thoughts the cunning Fiend inspired,
Visions of bridal bliss his fancy fired.
So as he dreams, up start two men, and, hark !
A shot — what means it ? Others from the dark
Spring up. He rises in his stirrup, glares
As a lion taken in the hunter's snares,
Then clutched his Turkish rifle, fiercely lashed
His steed, and down into the melee dashed.
A second shot — a scream, a long-drawn wail,
Startles the slumbers of the dreaming vale.
Then all again is silent ; short the fight.
Soon are the coward Grusiens put to flight.

XI

Again 'twas silence all. The camels, scared,
Now huddling close, at their dead master stared.
Only, from time to time, a tinkling bell
Broke on the deathlike stillness of the dell.
Spoiled the rich caravan, night vultures dread
Circled and wheeled above the Christian dead,
No place for them, where, 'neath the sacred sod.
The ashes of their grandsires rest with God.
No white-robed train will come from far to weep
Beside the grave where husbands, brothers sleep ;
Yet some kind hand a rude-carved cross will rear
To mark the spot, and with the early year
The ivy round its emerald shoots will wind,
And the wayfarer grateful shadow find.

XII

Fast sped the gallant steed, as if below
The fight were raging, swifter than a roe.
Now stopped and sniffed the air and shook his mane,
And stamped, then fled precipitous ; again
The hillside heard the thunder of his feet.
While his mute rider, swaying in his seat.
With feet pressed home in stirrup, drooping head.
Slack reins, and unresisting as the dead,
Was carried onward by his faithful horse ;
A trail of purple marked his headlong course,
Thus had a brigand Ossetin's random ball
Laid in the dust the pride of Synodal.

XIII

In Gudal's house arose a sound of woe,
And in the court men hurried to and fro.
What means this foam-flecked horse? who rides so late ?
Why did it stumble at the very gate,
And fall death-stricken ? Who this rider pale ? —
That settled frown, those blood-stains tell a tale
Of battle stour, and his stiff fingers, see,
Still clutch the mane in mortal agony.
On her dead lover's face Tamara cast
One horror-stricken look — the first, the last ;
He had kept tryst and ridden to find his bride,
But ne'er again to feast or fray shall ride.

XIV

O'er Gudal's house the wrath of Heaven had broke,
And sweet Tamara cowered beneath the stroke ;
With heaving breast she lay, while tear chased tear
Down her pale cheeks . . .
Sudden she starts, for, near,
A spirit seemed to whisper in her ear :
Weep not, maiden, tears are vain,
Tears will never bring again
Back to life a lover slain.
Idle tears will only stain
Beauty's cheeks ; thy lover's gone
Far from ken of mortal moan,
Dim to mortal light, his eyes
Drink the beauty of the skies ;
Eden's music in his ears,
What to him are maiden's tears.
Human hopes or human fears ?
Trust me, angel, nought to thee
Mortals' shifting destiny,
'Tis not worth a passing sigh.
O'er the ocean depths of sky
Mark the shining orbs that roll
Sailless, helmless, to their goal,
Ever quiring sphere on sphere.
Over boundless fields of air
Roam the fleecy clouds at will,
Nought know they of human ill,
Shifts of change and rack of time,
Funeral knell and marriage chime,
Budding hopes that age will blast,
Yearnings after joy long past.
In thine hour of agony
Think of them, my child, and be,
Like them, passionless and free.
When the garments of the night
Muffle each Caucasian height,
When the tranced world is dumb,
And the winds that nightly roam
'Mid the rustling beech-leaves, creep,
Startling the little birds asleep,
When shy flowers that shun the light
Ope to drink the dews of night.
When moonlight sheds her mellowest ray,
Then will I fly to thee and stay
Beside thee, till the break of day,
Slide into all thy dreams, and steep
Thy blue-veined lids with golden sleep.
Far off, and farther still, the whispers sound —
Then cease. She started up and gazed around,
Thrilled by a strange emotion, a new sense
Of trouble, terror, rapture too intense
For utterance, a tumult of the soul,
A fire that raged and ravaged past control.
Haunted by that strange voice awake she lay
All night, and ere she slept the morn was grey.
Nor with broad daylight fled the magic spell,
Waking, a presence still invisible.
Clad in celestial light beside her moved
As one that pitied, sympathised, and loved.
'Twas not her guardian angel, heaven-sped,
No rainbow-woven aureole crowned his head,
'Twas not a goblin damned, a tempter. No,
His looks were like the evening's after-glow —
Not day, not night, not darkness, and not light.