alone
To make the lonely wanderer's fortunes known;
And now, in plain but faithful colours dressed,
To paint the feelings of his hopeless breast.

XIX.

His withered prospects blacken—wounds await—
The grave grows sunlight to his darker fate.
All now is gall and bitterness within,
And thoughts, once sternly pure, half yield to sin.
His sickened soul, in all its native pride,
Swells 'neath the breast that tattered vestments hide
Disdained, disdaining; while men flourish, he
Still stands a stately though a withered tree.
But, Heavens! the agony of the moment when
Suspicion stamped the smiles of other men;
When friends glanced doubts, and proudly prudent grew,
His counsellors, and his accusers too!

XX.

Picture his pain, his misery, when first
His growing wants their proud concealment burst;
When the first tears start from his stubborn soul.
Big, burning, solitary drops, that roll
Down his pale cheek—the momentary gush
Of human weakness—till the whirlwind rush
Of pride, of shame, had dashed them from his eye,
And his swollen heart heaved mad with agony!
Then, then the pain—the infinity of feeling—
Words fail to paint its anguish. Reason, reeling,
Staggered with torture through his burning brain,
While his teeth gnashed with bitterness and pain;
Reflection grew a scorpion, speech had fled,
And all but madness and despair were dead.

XXI.

He slept to dream of death, or worse than death;
For death were bliss, and the convulsive wrath
Of living torture peace, to the dread weight
That pressed upon sensation, while the light
Of reason gleamed but horror, and strange hosts
Of hideous phantasies, like threatening ghosts.
Grotesquely mingled, preyed upon his brain:
Then would he dream of yesterdays again,
Or view to-morrow's terrors thick surround
His fancy with forebodings. While the sound
Of his own breath broke frightful on his ear,
He, bathed in icy sweat, would start in fear,
Trembling and pale; then did his glances seem
Sad as the sun's last, conscious, farewell gleam
Upon the eve of judgment. Such appear
His days and nights whom hope has ceased to cheer
But grov'llers know it not. The supple slave
Whose worthiest record is a nameless grave,
Whose truckling spirit bends and bids him kneel,
And fawn and vilely kiss a patron's heel—
Even he can cast the cursed suspicious eye,
Inquire the cause of this—the reason why?
And stab the sufferer. Then, the tenfold pain
To feel a gilded butterfly's disdain!—
A kicking ass, without an ass's sense,
Whose only virtue is, pounds, shillings, pence;
And now, while ills on ills beset him round,
The scorn of such the hopeless Edmund found.

XXII.

But hope returned, and on the wanderer's ear
Breathed its life-giving watchword, Persevere!
And torn by want, and struggling with despair,
These were his words, his fixed resolve and prayer,
"Hail perseverance, rectitude of heart,
Through life thy aid, thy conquering power impart;
Repulsed and broken, blasted, be thou ever
A portion of my spirit! Leave me never;
Firm, fixed in purpose, watchful, unsubdued,
Until my hand hath grasped the prize pursued."

CANTO SECOND.

I.

Now, list thee, love, again, and I will tell
Of other scenes, and changes which befell
The hero of our tale. A wanderer still,
Like a lost sheep upon a wintry hill—
Wild through his heart rush want and memory now,
Like whirlwinds meeting on a mountain's brow;
Slow in his veins the thin blood coldly creeps;
He starts, he dreams, and as he walks, he sleeps!
He is a stranger—houseless, fainting, poor,
Without the shelter of one friendly door;
The cold wind whistles through his garments bare,
And shakes the night dew from his freezing hair.
You weep to hear his woes, and ask me why,
When sorrows gathered and no aid was nigh,
He sought not then the cottage of his birth,
The peace and comforts of his father's hearth?
That also thou shalt hear. Scarce had he left
His parents' home, ere ruthless fortune reft
His friend and father of his little all.
Crops failed, and friends proved false; but, worse than all,
The wife of his young love, bowed down with grief
For her sole child, like an autumnal leaf
Nipped by the frosts of night, drooped day by day,
As a fair morning cloud dissolves away.
Her eyes were dimmed with tears, and o'er her cheek,
Like a faint rainbow, broke a fitful streak,
Coming and vanishing. She weaker grew,
And scarce the half of their misfortunes knew,
Until the law's stern minions, as their prey,
Relentless seized the bed on which she lay.
"My husband! Oh my son!" she faintly cried;
Sank on her pillow, and before them died.
Even they shed tears. The widowed husband, there,
Stood like the stricken ghost of dumb despair;
Then sobbed aloud, and, sinking on the bed,
Kissed the cold forehead of his sainted dead.
Then went he forth a lone and ruined man;
But, ere three moons their circling journeys ran,
Pride, like a burning poison in his breast,
Scorched up his life, and gave the ruined rest;
Yet not till he, with tottering steps and slow,
Regained the vale where Tweed's fair waters flow,
And there, where pines around the churchyard wave,
He breathed his last upon his partner's grave!

II.

I may not tell what ills o'er Edmund passed;
Enough to say that fortune smiled at last.
In the far land where the broad Ganges rolls;
Where nature's bathed in glory, and the souls
Of me alone dwell in a starless night,
While all around them glows and lives in light:
There now we find him, honoured, trusted, loved,
For from the humblest stations he had proved
Faithful in all, and trust on trust obtained,
Till, if not wealth, he independence gained—
Earth's noblest blessing, and the dearest given
To man beneath the sacred hope of heaven.
And still, as time on silent pinions flew,
His fortunes flourished and his honours grew;
But as they grew, an anxious hope, that long
Had in his bosom been but as the song
Of viewless echo, indistinct, and still
Receding from us, grew as doth a rill
Embraced by others and increasing ever,
Till distant plains confess the sweeping river.
And, need I say, that hope referred alone
To her who in his heart had fixed her throne,
And reigned within it still, the sovereign queen.
Yet darkest visions oft would flit between
His fondest fancies, as the thought returned
That she for whom his soul still restless burned,
Would be another's now, while haply he,
Lost to her heart, would to her memory be
As the remembrance of a pleasing dream,
Vague and forgotten half, but which we deem
Worthy no waking thought. Thus years rolled by;
Hope wilder glowed and brightened in his eye.
Nor knew he why he hoped; but though despair
The Enthusiast's heart may madly grasp, and glare
Even on his soul, it may not long remain
A dweller on his breast, for hope doth reign
There as o'er its inheritance; and he
Lives in fond