John Banim

The Celt’s Paradise. Second Duan

I went and came. The wild--wood tree,
Again spread out my canopy.
I could not sleep. I sat in grief
And listened to the rustling leaf.
She came not o'er me as before--
No murmuring breeze her whispers bore--
No timid touch of her soft lip
From mine its kisses now would sip.
A far--off sigh alone I heard
Like the night--wind thro' the thistle's beard.--
``Why wilt thou shun me, child of bliss?--
I come to claim thy promis'd kiss.''

``Thou com'st to claim, but hast not done
Thy promise like a faithful one.
This morn thy sister, who hath wept
Because thy soft sleep was unslept,
In Allen's stately hall held up,
With sighs and smiles the parting cup,
And thou didst taste the blushing wine
And therefore art no love of mine.
Come, back again and with thee bring,
A lip unstain'd by earthly thing.''

Sad I returned. That night I slept,
And eat and drank and wildly wept--
But thence three days and nights I waked,
My feast untouched--my thirst unslaked,
And again beneath the wild--tree's shade,
I called in sighs my ariel maid.
And farther off her voice replied--
``Tho' thou hast neither smiled nor sighed,
Nor furled in sleep thy sorrow's wing,
Nor eat nor drank of earthly thing,
Yet, as this morning at the gate
Thy sister stood all desolate,
And prayed of thee a parting kiss--
Thou--all unmindful of the bliss
That warms a purer cheek and breast,
Didst yield the girl her fond request.
Come, back again and with thee bring,
A lip unstained by earthly thing.''--

I did return and with me brought
The unstained lip the spirit sought.
I sat in sleep beneath that tree,
Sweet sleep that came on suddenly--
Her warm wild sigh stole o'er me then,
And woo'd me to my thought again--
I felt a cheek of tenderest touch
Laid gently to the burning blush,
That mantled mine--I felt young arms
Steal round and round me--and all the charms
Of a fond,--fluttering, loving breast,
To mine in murmuring raptures prest.

``From this fond and free caress,
Wake Son of Earth thy sleep to bless--
Wake to the joy of breathing free,
The breath of immortality!''

It was too much--too keen a pleasure
For a mere mortal heart to measure!--
My sinews thrilled--my breathing went--
My labouring pulse its throbbings spent,
And my soul faded into night,
Darkening in its own delight.

I woke as men from doubtful dreams,
In the broad sun's real beams,
Oft waken to look back with fright
Upon their phantoms of the night.
The life I led--the days gone by,
I thought of, dark and doubtingly--
It was not an action or a scene,
In which I felt I might have been,
Rather some unsubstantial play,
Of fancy in her holiday.
A brighter thought came to my tongue--
A livelier life within me sprung--
A fresher current of young blood,
Sent to my heart its thrilling flood,
And my lightened limbs disdained to rest,
On the cold earth's cloddy breast.

I woke upon a wild sea shore,
The waste was round the sky was o'er--
My head was cradled on her knee--
And there she watched me silently,
Like the sun shining on a flower,
That all alone lives thro' its hour,
In some forsaken wilderness.
I woke and woo'd her heart's caress,
And she did give it wild and free
As her kiss beneath the forest tree.
And I felt with her and she with me--
My thoughts were hers, and mutually
I had her thinkings--heart in heart
And mind in mind together blended,
Like streams that cannot live apart,
But in one glassy lake have ended.

And shining and soft was her virgin form,
In full--blown beauty wild and warm!
I know not if aught of earthly blood,
Mingled with the magic flood
That fed her veins--but you might see
A rich vein wandering sportively,
Beneath the bright transparent skin,
That kept its sparkling essence in.
'Twas an earthly shape but polish'd too high
For an earthly touch or an earthly eye--
'Twas an earthly shape!--What else could be
Moulded or made to rapture me?
What other form could loveliness take
To bid my doating eye--balls ache,
And boil my blood and fire my brain
In agonies of blissful pain?--
Nay, Saint, I pass thy word of scorn--
Thyself hath sung this very morn,
Of beautiful and blushing things,
With golden hair and snowy wings,
Fair beyond minstrel's fancyings,
Who, moulded like to forms of earth
Even in thy own heaven have birth,
Tho' basking in such holy light,
Hath made them look more soft and white--

I tell thee there she sat with me,
Fairer than earthly woman may be--
And she floated before my fainting glance,
Like the shapes of air that softly dance
Round the glorious evening sun,
In joy that his daily task is done.
Her eye was large and soft and dark,
Floating in fondness--often a spark,
Of mild and chastened light shone thro',
And it was even as a drop of dew
Half seen within a darkened bower,
In the morning misty hour,
And you might know that underneath
All of her that did look or breathe,
There was a spirit pure and chaste,
As ice upon the unsunned waste,
Or silver waters underground,
That the searching day has never found.''

``And she looked on me, and I on her,
Each glance the other's worshipper--
A long, long look--an endless stream
Of ever--gushing love--a beam,
Unbroken as the lonely one
For ever flowing from the sun.
And I know not how--for years come on,
And mind and memory half are gone:
And things that in our morning youth,
Seemed strong and durable as truth,
In age's twilight fade away
To shapeless shades and will not stay--
I know not how--but we have broke
The chains of that dear dream, and woke,
And left that solitary shore,
To laugh amid the billow's roar!

Yes!--swift as the wild wind that gives it its motion,
We travelled the waste of the desolate ocean--
And how proudly I rode on the back of the billow,
With her lip for my kiss and her breast for my pillow!

We came to a land where the light of the world,
Hath brightest his standard of summer unfurled,--
We touch it--we pass it--we traverse its scope
Like the glancing of thought or the gleamings of hope!

I have no memory of the things,
I saw or met in that fearful flight--
They only make strange visitings,
To my sleeping thoughts in a dream of night--
Yet half I remember as we past
A desert of sand outstripping its blast,
Of savage shapes and forms of fear
That came to look on us too near--
And the hungry glaring of their cyes
Half yielded to a stern surprise,
To see such rapid travellers there,
Or hear us hurrying thro' the air.

And on!--The blue hills backward fly
Trees, rocks, and the world and all glance by!--
And once as I gave a farewell look
To the old sun I had forsook,
He seemed as if rushing down the sky,
To drink the depths of the ocean dry,
And finish his long and lonely reign,
And never light up the world again.

On, on! And we came to the last cold shore
That aged sun is shining o'er.--
It was a scene of feature wild--
Its rocks in random ruin piled--
And towers of ice and hills of snow,
Mocking the wither'd waste below.
Yet there all beautiful and bright
The sun was shedding his chastened light--
It seemed as if faithless trees and flowers,
That vary with the varying hours,
And eyes and cheeks that change at will,
And worldly hearts more fickle still,
Had tired him with their dull deceit,
And he no more would lend them heat,
Or light or life--but hither came,
To shine on things that, cold and tame,
And shapeless, and strange as they might be,
Smiled always in white constancy.
And there away from house and tower
He spent his silent noon--tide hour,
All sportively: his soft beam fell
On many a glancing icicle,
And kindled up each crystal height,
With rainbow hue and chequered light.
And I thought he wished no other eye
To gladden at a scene so high,
But all in solitude smiled to see
The play of his own pleasantry.

On, on!--That spangling scene is past,
And we have left the world at last!
I cannot tell you if we went,
Upward or down--thro' firmament,
Or wind or water--air or light--
It was even as a vision of night,
When youthful hearts that pant for heaven,
Dream of some rich and rosy even,
Upon whose perfumed breeze they rise,
Like the mist of the hill in summer skies.--
I saw not, touch'd not aught but her,
Who was my bosom's comforter,
In that rash flight--enough for me,
To feel her clasp me tenderly,
And with her kisses call from death
The flutterings of my failing breath--
O then! in what a keen delight,
We shot upon our airy flight--
Like the lone comet calm and fair,
Cleaving the silent realms of the air!--
I said I knew not aught was there--
Nor saw a shape, nor heard a sound
In all the voiceless space around--
Yet have I thought--a half--dreamt thought,
That far and doubtingly I caught,
While in our rush of silence hurled
A parting glance of my native world--

The stars were up--and weak and small,
They twinkled round a darkened ball--
I strove to fix them on my sight--
And as I looked their points of light
Lengthened to lines, that quick and slight
Traversed each other, and entwined
Like a maiden's tresses in the wind--
And still I look and still they glance,
And mingle in their misty dance--
And faint and fainter, and now they fly--
And now they fail, and now they die--
And they and the spot they woke to light
Have melted from my swimming sight!--
One earthly sigh I gave to part,
From the world that warmed my youthful heart.--

And on, and on!--But how or where?
I felt no motion in the air,
And I think no breeze was busy there--
But I was swathed as in a mist,
That the morning sun--beam has not kiss'd--
And I was hurled as in a wind,
That all but leaves a thought behind--

On, on!--and have we not touch'd at last,
Some gentle substance as we passed?--
I thought our flight less fearful now,
And I looked upon my Spirit's brow
To read its smile--O well I knew
My own heart's thought reflected true!--
And smoother still we glide along--
Smooth as the gushing flow of song--
The velvet sod we press at last--
The gathered mist aside is cast--
And arm in arm, and hand in hand,
We wander thro' her own bright land!