Poem by Anne Bannerman

Basil

THE sobbings of the ocean waves
Were all the notes that Basil knew;
He lov'd them since his ear could dwell
With gladness on their first low swell,
When the soft south-wind blew:

Like a wild flow'r of the wilderness,
He grew, amid the mountain air;
The rock had been his cradle-bed,
And never were his slumbers made
The holier for a mother's pray'r !

The skies, the woods, the winding shore,
Were imag'd on his desert breast;
His deep, dark eye was stern and keen,
It was the fire of soul unseen,
Unknown, untutor'd, unrepress'd ....

The rude sea-boy was all the name
That every tongue to Basil gave;
The rude sea wind had marr'd his face,
But his heart !...'twas Pity's resting place.
And he sung dirges for the dead,
In music like the mournful wave:

Young Basil wrought the fisher's nets,
And plied the heavy oar;
A lonely home he had ! but oh !
That aught, that bore the human form,
Should bear the night, and nightly storm,
In that hut, on the wild sea-shore !

Yet there were hearts that beat and heav'd,
With flutt'ring love and tender joy,
To hear th' unprison'd tempest rise,
When all were safe from wind and skies,
And winter's keen inclemency !

But there was none whose eye pursu'd
This youth's unfollow'd footsteps home;
And he had steel'd his heart to bear,
Till the pulse, that should have quiver'd there,
Was feelingless and numb!...

The tones, that sooth'd this lonely heart
Came not from human kind!
He watch'd the breeze that sigh'd along,
To him it was the even-song
Of some hallow'd seraph-mind;

And then the sun would leave behind
Such lovely tints on cloud and tree;
O, how unlike this jarring world
That silentness of place and hour !
As if a breath would overpow'r
The murmur of the sea:

And from the stars of Heaven he drew
His picture of a place of rest !
Their sacred light was so serene,
It settled on his soul like love,
When he number'd every orb above
As the brothers of his breast ....

But one drear night the stars withdrew
As Basil reach'd his shed ;
The drifting torrent rattled rude
On the creaking rafts of shatter'd wood,
That stretch'd above his head.

Basil had heard the mountain storm
And the winter tempest beat;
Night after night he had slept, when shut,
Alone, within that rocking hut,
With the snow-wreaths at his feet;

But the awe, the dread that o'er him came,
This fateful night he quak'd to feel!
It was not fear of tide or wind ,...
'Twas that low breathlessness of mind,
When the heart-veins congeal.

Whether it was the billow's sob,
Or the wild sea-eagle's cry,
He heard a moan that seem'd to come
From some lost wretch, that made his home
Of the desert and the sky !

It nearer came, till it sunk at once
Close to his unfasten'd door,...
The stifled groan was a voice in death,
And he could count the ebbing breath,
Till his own would note no more !

Then he heard footsteps rattling run
Across the frozen hill;
Their least, last sound, his stunned ear
Would measure, as if coming near,
They rung around him still !

But the weight that fell without, the corse,
As he had heard it die,
Thro' the spaces of his window-bars,
By the dawn-light he just could trace,
Where it lay along upon its face,
As life did never lie!...

Poor Basil wrench'd the feeble bar
To leave that dreary shed,
'Twas all too narrow for his flight,
And it robb'd his starting eyes of sight,
That he must cross the dead ....

With frantic arm he burst the door,
That shiver'd to to his blow;
One step,...but oh ! that one to take,
He wish'd that life had been the stake,
That he might have giv'n it now:

And on that long, dread night, he thought,
Till it settled on his brain;
And his heart grew bold,...for, at break of morn,
He had reach'd a rock, where a cave was worn
By the surges of the main ....

The hours went on till fall of eve,
And the stars arose again !
Basil must make the rock his bed,
For his mountain-home is tenanted
By the spirit of the slain ....

He wanders on the desert beach,
Like some lone ghost of air,
Scarce human like,...but then, his eye
Retains the keen and fiery dye
That wont to kindle there !

His dreams ! the hopes that o'er his soul
Had wander'd of a brighter scene !
They sometimes come to soothe him still,
Such as he imag'd them at even,
When his joy was in the light of Heaven,
Where all was so serene.

But wilder fits and drearier dreams
Will oft upon him come;
And, when his brain is most perturb'd,
He drags his worn and naked feet
Across the crag, whose chasms meet,
To gaze on his forsaken home !...

The harsh sea-birds inhabit it
With the spirit of the slain!
And close beside, a heap of stones,
Is laid above these hollow bones,
That the mariner can see afar,
As a beacon, on the main.

1. The Fisherman of Lapland
2. The Murcian Cavalier
3. The Perjured Nun
4. The Penitent's Confession
5. Prologue

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