14
Subjects for Pictures.179
II.—The Death of Camoens.
Pale comes the moonlight thro' the lattice gleaming,
Narrow is the lattice, scanty is the ray,
Yet on its white wings the fragrant dews are streaming—
Dews—oh how sweet after August's sultry day!
Narrow is the lattice—oh let night's darkness cover
Chamber so wretched from any careless eye—
Over yon pallet whatever shadows hover,
They are less dark than the shadow drawing nigh—
Death, it is thy shadow
Let the weary one now die!
Beautiful, how beautiful!—the heavy eyes now closing
Only with the weight of the moonlight's soothing smile—
Or do they recall another hour's reposing,
When the myrtle and the moonlight were comrades the while?
Yes; for, while memory languidly is fetching
Her treasures from the depths which they have lain among,
A fragile hand—how thin—how weak—is sadly sketching
Figures and fancies that cell's white walls along.
On the lip there is a murmur—
It is the swan's last song.
Dark order of St. Dominick! thy shelter to the weary
Is like thy rule—cold, stern, unpitying in its aid;
Cold is general charity, lorn the cell and dreary—
Yet there the way-worn wretched one may rest the dying head;
Who would remember him—ah, who does remember—
He the ill-fated, yet the young and gifted one?
Grief and toil have quench'd life's once aspiring ember:
High heaven may have pity—but man for man has none!
Close thine eyes, Camoens;
Life's task is nearly done.
Feebly his hand upon the wall is tracing
One lovely face and one face alone,
E'en the coming hour—other memories effacing—
Leaves that as fresh as when it first was known;
Faintly he traces with white and wasted fingers
What was once so lovely—what is still so dear:
Life's latest look—like its earliest one yet lingers
On the large soft eyes that seem to meet him here;
Love's ethereal vision
Is not of Earth's dim sphere!
Large, soft, and dark, the eyes, where he has blended
So much of the soul are somewhat like his own;
So in their youth the auburn hair descended,
Such the sad sweet smile to either red lip known.
Like were they in beauty, so the heart's light trembled
On the flushing cheek and in the kindling eye;
Yet more clearly like—the inward world resembled—
In its sweet communion—the tender and the high;
Our cold world is cruel
To rend so sweet a tie.
Thro' a weary world-path known to care and sorrow,
Still was her influence o'er his being cast;
She was the hope that whispered of to-morrow,
She was the memory music of the past—
