With lips of love, and a brow serene,
Meet for the soul of the deep wood-scene:
—Bring wine, bring odours!—the board is spread—
Bring roses! a chaplet for every head!
The wine-cups foam'd, and the rose was shower'd
On the young and fair from the world embower'd,
The sun look'd not on them in that sweet shade,
The winds amid scented boughs were laid,
But there came by fits, through some whispery tree,
A sound and a gleam of the moaning sea!
—Hush! be still!—was that no more
Than the murmur from the shore?
Silence!—did thick rain-drops beat
On the grass, like trampling feet?
—Fling down the goblet, and draw the sword!
The groves are fill'd with a pirate-horde!
Through the dim olives their sabres shine,
Now must the red blood stream, for wine!
The youths from the banquet to battle sprang,
The woods with the shriek of the maidens rang;
Under the golden-fruited boughs
There were flashing poniards, and darkening brows,
Footsteps, o'er garland and lyre that fled,
And the dying soon, on a greensward-bed!
—Eudora, Eudora! thou dost not fly!
—She saw but Ianthis before her lie,
With the blood from his breast in a gushing flow,
Like a child's large tears in its hour of woe,
And the gathering film o'er his lifted eye,
That sought his young bride out mournfully!
—She knelt down beside him, her arms she wound,
Like tendrils, his drooping neck around,
As if the passion of that fond grasp
Might chain in life with its ivy-clasp!
But they tore her thence in her wild despair,
The sea's fierce rovers—they left him there;
They left to the fountain a dark-red vein,
And on the wet violets a pile of slain,
And a hush of fear through the summer grove—
—So closed the triumph of youth and love!
III.
Gloomy lay the shore that night,
When the moon with sleeping light
Bathed each purple Sciote hill,
Gloomy lay the shore, and still.
O'er the wave no gay guitar
Sent its floating music far,
No glad sound of dancing feet
Woke the starry hours to greet;
But a voice of mortal woe,
In its changes wild or low,
Through the midnight's blue repose,
From the sea-beat rocks arose,
As Eudora's mother stood
Gazing o'er th' Egean flood,
With a fix'd and straining eye—
—Oh! was the spoiler's vessel nigh?
