WALTER R. CASSELS
POEMS
BY
WALTER R. CASSELS
LONDON
1856
CONTENTS.
MABEL
HEBE
SPRING
THE BITTERN
GONE
BEATRICE DI TENDA
SERENADE
THE EAGLE
WHITHER?
THE MORNING STAR
THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS
THE DARK RIVER
WYTHAM WOODS
THE STAR IN THE EAST
UNDER THE SEA
WIND
A CHALLENGE
AT PARTING
A WITHERED ROSE-BUD
DE PROFUNDIS
THE MOTHER
SONNET--DATUR HORA QUIETI
SEA MARGINS
SONG--"LOVE TOOK ME SOFTLY BY THE HAND"
THE BELL
LLEWELLYN
A SHELL
THE RAVEN
SONNETS ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON
THE PASSAGE-BIRDS
MEMNON
A CONCEIT
THE LAND'S END
THE OLDEN TIME
FATHER AND SON
ORION
THE GOLDEN WATER
YEARS AGO
VULCAN
SONG--"THE DAYS ARE PAST"
GUY OF WARWICK
AT EVENTIDE
A DIRGE
TO MY DREAM-LOVE
A NIGHT SCENE
SONNET--"O CLOUD SO GOLDEN"
FLOATING DOWN THE RIVER
ORPHEUS
THE SCULPTOR
M A B E L,
A Sketch.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
ORAN, _a Speculative Philosopher._
MABEL, _his Wife._
HER FATHER.
MAURICE, }
ROGER, } _her brothers._
MABEL.
SCENE I--_A Study. Books, pictures, and sculpture
about the room, interspersed with chemical and other
instruments, globes, &c.; a singular blending of science
with art, indicating a delicate and speculative organization
in the arranger_.
ORAN, MAURICE, _and_ ROGER.
ORAN.
Well, well! and so ye deem I love her not,
Ye and the world that love so passing well?--
That still I trifle with her bright young life,
As the wind plays with some frail water-bell,
Wafting it wantonly about the sky,
Till at some harsher breath it breaks and dies?
MAURICE.
Nay, not thus far would our reflections go.
Friendship paints not with the foul brush of Conscience!
But thou, a man of dark and mystic aims,
Tracking out Science through forbidden ways,
Leaving the light and trodden paths to grope
'Mid fearful speculations and wild dreams,
May'st hunt thy Will-o'-the-wisp until thou lead'st
Our sister, all unwitting, to her death.
ROGER.
That shalt thou answer unto us. Thy life
Shall be to her life like the sun and shade,
Lost in one setting.
ORAN.
Ay! thou sayest well--
Thou sayest well. How oft a random shaft
Striketh King Truth betwixt the armour-joints!--
One life, one sun, one setting for us both.
Which way, then, tend your fears? What certain aim
Have all these strokes you level at my ways?
ROGER.
We say that you, against all light received,
Against all laws of prudence and of love,
Practise dark magic on our sister's soul--
That by strange motions, incantations, spells,
So work you on her spirit that strange sleep,
Sombre as Death's dark shadow, presently
Steals o'er her fragile body, dulls her sense,
And wraps her wholly in its chill embrace;
That thus, spell-bound, lost to the living world,
She lies till thou again unwind her chain,
And wak'st her feebly to this life of earth.
Thus dost thou peril her, thou blinded man!
Sett'st her dear life against thy moonstruck thought,
And slay'st thy dove on Folly's altar-steps.
MAURICE.
Ay! if you loved her, would your eyes have miss'd
The moonish faintness that o'erlaps her now,
Melting the fresh, full, ruddy glow of health
To loveliness most heavenly, yet most sad?
Her cheeks, where youth once summer'd into roses,
Glow now with faint exotic loveliness,
Not native to this harsh and gusty earth;
And from her large dark eyes there seems to gaze
Some angel with mute, melancholy looks,
As from a casement at this jarring world.
ORAN.
Ha! then you too have seen it; it is not,
O Heaven!--is not delusion, this fond dream,
But even now it works, works bliss for her.
Proceed, Sir ... you were saying ... Sir, I list ...
That in her eyes you saw angelic fire,
Pure from the dross, the dimming clouds of earth,
Deem'd now her frame ethereal, unakin
To earth's clay-moulded fabrics--such, perchance,
As entering heaven, might have left its dust
At the bright folding portals, sandal-like,
And thence, repassing in seraphic trance,
Still left unclaim'd the vesture at the gate!
ROGER.
You glory in her weakness!
