Читать книгу The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Various - Страница 6

The judges have met in the council-hall,

A strange and a motley pageant, all:

What seek they? to win for their land a name

The brightest and best in the lists of fame?

The light of Mercy’s all-hallowed ray

To look with grief on the culprit’s way?

Nay! watch the smile and the flushing brow,

And in that crowd what read ye now?

The daring spirit and purpose high,

The fiery glance of the eagle eye

That marked the Roman’s haughty pride,

In the days of yore by the Tiber’s side?

The stern resolve of the patriot’s breast,

When the warrior’s zeal has sunk to rest?

No! Mercy has fled from the hardened heart,

And Justice and Truth in her steps depart,

And the fires of hell rage fierce and warm

Mid the fitful strife of the spirit’s storm.

But a wail is borne on the troubled air:

What victim comes those frowns to dare?

’Tis woman’s form and woman’s eye,

That Time hath passed full lightly by;

The limner’s art in vain might trace

The glorious beauty and winning grace

Of that fair girl; youth’s sunny day

Flings its radiance over life’s changing way:

Why has she left her princely home,

Why to that hall a suppliant come?

Her heart is sad with a deepening gloom,

For Hope has found in her heart a tomb.

With quiv’ring lip, and eye whose light

Is faint as the moon in a cloudy night,

And with cheek as pale as the crimson glow

That the sunset casts on the spotless snow;

Nerved with the strength of wild despair,

Low at their feet she pours her prayer:

    ‘My home! my home! is desolate,

        For ye have slain them all,

    And cast upon the light of Love

        Death’s cold and fearful pall.

    We knelt in agony to save

        My father’s silver hair,

    Ye would not mark the bitter tears,

        Nor list the frantic prayer!

    ‘And then ye took my mother too:

        Ye must remember now

    The words that lingered on her lip,

        The grief upon her brow;

    My sister wept in bitter wo—

        Her dark and earnest eyes

    Asked for the mercy ye will seek

        In vain in yonder skies!

    ‘But your hearts were like the flinty rock,

        And cold as ocean’s foam;

    You tore them from my clasping arms,

        And bore them from our home:

    And now my brothers ye will slay!

        But they are proud and high,

    And come with spirits brave and true,

        Your tortures to defy.

    ‘I will not ask from you their lives,

        I will not seek to roll

    The clouds of midnight from your hearts;

        Ye cannot touch the soul!

    But grant my prayer, and I will pray

        For you in yonder sky;

    Oh, God! I ask a little thing—

        I ask with them to die!’

But the burning words fell cold and lone,

As the sun’s warm rays on a marble stone;

Life was a curse too bitter and wild

For the broken heart of Earth’s weary child;

And the stricken one found a self-sought grave

’Neath the crystal light of the foaming wave.