"Intruder, thou shalt hear my tale," the solitary said,
While far adown beneath our feet the fiery levin played;
The thunder-clouds our carpet were--we gazed upon the
storm,
Which swept along the mountain sides in many a fearful
form.
I sat beside the lonely man, on Cheviot's cloudless height;
Above our heads was glory, but beneath more glorious night;
For the sun was shining over us, but lightnings flashed
below,
Like the felt and burning darkness of unutterable woe.
"I love, in such a place as this," the desolate began,
"To gaze upon the tempests wild that separate me from man;
To muse upon the passing things that agitate the world--
View myself as by a whirlwind to hopeless ruin hurled.
"My heart was avaricious once, like yours the slave of
feeling--
Perish such hearts! vile dens of crime! man's selfishness
concealing;
For self! damned self's creation's lord!--man's idol and
his god!
Twas torn from me, a blasted, bruised, a cast off,
worthless load.
"Some say there's wildness in my eyes, and others deem me
crazed,
They, trembling, turn and shun my path--for which let
Heaven be praised!
They say my words are blasphemy--they marvel at my fate,
When 'tis my happiness to know they pity not, but
hate.
"My father fell from peace and wealth the day that I was
born--
My mother died, and he became his fellow-gambler's scorn;
I know not where he lived or died--I never heard his name--
An orphan in a workhouse, I was thought a child of shame.
"Some friend by blood had lodged me there, and
bought my keeper too,
Who pledged his oath he would conceal what of my tale he
knew.
Death came to him--he called on me the secret to unfold,
But died while he was uttering the little I have told.
"My soul was proud, nor brooked restraint--was proud, and I
was young;
And with an eager joyancy I heard his flattering tongue
Proclaim me not of beggars born--yea, as he speaking died,
I--greedy--mad to know the rest--stood cursing by his side.
"I looked upon the homely garb that told my
dwelling-place--
It hung upon me heavily--a token of disgrace!
I fled the house--I went to sea--was by a wretch impressed,
The stamp of whose brutality is printed on my breast.
"Like vilest slave he fettered me, my flesh the irons
tore--
Scourged, mocked, and worse than buried me upon a lifeless
shore,
Where human foot had never trod--upon a barren rock,
Whose caves ne'er echoed to a sound save billows as they
broke.
"'Twas midnight; but the morning came. I looked upon the
sea,
And a melancholy wilderness its waters were to me;
The heavens were black as yonder cloud that rolls beneath
our feet,
While neither land nor living thing my eager eyes could
meet.
"I naked sat upon the rock; I trembled--strove to pray;
Thrice did I see a distant sail, and thrice they bore away.
My brain with hunger maddening, as the steed the battle
braves,
Headlong I plunged from the bare rock and buffeted the
waves.
"Methought I saw a vessel near, and bitter were my screams,
But they died within me echoless as voices in our dreams;
For the winds were howling round me, and the suffocating
gush
Of briny horrors rioted, the cry of death to crush.
"My senses fled. I lifelessly upon the ocean slept;
And when to consciousness I woke, a form before me wept.
Her face was beautiful as night; but by her side there
stood
A group, whose savage glances were more dismal than the
flood.
"They stood around exultingly; they snatched me from the
wave--
Stole me from death--to torture me, to sell me as a slave.
She who stood o'er me weeping was a partner of my chains.
We were sold, and separation bled my heart with deeper
pains.
"I knew not what her birth had been, but loved her with a
love
Which nor our tyrant's cruelty nor mockery could move.
I saw her offered to a Moor--another purchased me;
But, Heavens! my arms once fetterless, ere midnight I was
free!
"Memory, with eager eye, had marked her master's hated
door--
I grasped a sabre, reached the house, and slew the opposing
Moor.
I bore her rapidly away; a boat was on the beach--
We put to sea--saw morning dawn 'yond our pursuers' reach
"I gazed upon her silently--I saw her sink to sleep,
As darkness gathered over us upon the cheerless deep;
I saw her in her slumber start--unconsciously she spoke--
Oh death!--she called upon his name who left me on
the rock!
"Then there was madness in my breast and fury in my brain--
She never heard that name from me, yet uttered it
again!
I started forth and grasped her hand--'Are we pursued?' she
cried--
I trembled in my agony, and speechless o'er her sighed.
"I ventured not to speak of love in such an awful hour,
For hunger glistened in our eyes, and grated to devour
The very rags that covered us! My pangs I cannot tell,
But in that little hour I felt the eternity of hell.
"For the transport of its tortures did in that hour
surround
Two beings on the bosom of a shoreless ocean found;
As we gazed upon each other, with a dismal longing look,
And jealousy, but not from love, our tortured bosoms shook.
"I need but add that we were saved, and by a vessel borne
Again toward our native land to be asunder torn.
The maiden of my love was rich--was rich--and I was poor;
A soulless menial shut on me her wealthy guardian's door.
"She knew it not, nor would I tell--tell! by the host of
heaven,
My tongue became the sepulchre of sound!--my heart was
riven.
I fled society and hope; the prison of my mind
A world of inexpressible and guilty thoughts confined.
"She was not wed--my hope returned; ambition my soul,
Sweeping round me like a fury, while the beacon and the
goal
Of desire, ever turbulent and sleepless, was to have
The hand that mine had rescued from the fetters of a slave.
"I was an outcast on the earth, but braved my hapless lot;
And while I groaned impatiently, weak mortals heard it not.
A host of drear, unholy dreams did round my pillow haunt,
While my days spent in loneliness were darkened o'er with
want.
"At length blind fortune favoured me--my breast to joy
awoke;
And then he who had left me on the isolated rock,
I met within a distant land; nor need I further tell,
But that we met as equals there, and my antag'nist
fell.
"Awhile I brooded on his death; and gloomily it brought
A desolateness round me, stamping guilt on every thought.
I trembling found how bloodily my vengeance was appeased,
At what vile price my bosom was of jealousy
released.
"For still the breathing of his name by her I lov'd had
rung
In remembrance, like the latest sound that falleth from the
tongue
Of those best loved and cherished, when upon the bed of
death
They bequeath to us their injuries to visit in our wrath.
"But soon these griefs evanished, like a passing summer
storm,
And a gush of hope like sunshine flashed around me, to
deform
The image of repentance, while the darkness of remorse
Retreated from its presence with a blacker with'ring curse.
"I hurried home in eagerness---the leaden moments fled;
My burning tale of love was told--was told--and we were
wed.
A tumult of delightfulness had rapt my soul in flame,
But on that day--my wedding day--a mourning letter came.
"Joy died on ev'ry countenance--she, trembling, broke the
seal--
Screamed--glanced on me! and lifeless fell, unable to
reveal
The horrid tale of death that told her new-made husband's
guilt--
The hand which she that day had wed, her brother's blood
had spilt.
"That brother in his mother's right another name did bear:
Twas him I slew--all shrank from me in horror and in fear;
They seized me in my bridal dress--my bride still senseless
lay--
I spoke not while they pinioned me and hurried me away.
"They lodged me in a criminal cell, by iron gratings
barred,
And there the third day heavily a funeral bell I heard.
A sable crowd my prison passed--they gazed on it with
gloom:
It was my bride--my beautiful--they followed to the tomb!
"I was acquitted; but what more had I with life to do?
I cursed my fate--my heart--the world--and from its
creatures flew.
Intruder, thou hast heard my tale of wretchedness and
guilt--
Go, mingle with a viler world, and tell it if thou wilt."
