Part 9

They melt and die, but ever darken As night comes on and hides the day, Till all is black; then, brothers, hearken, And if ye can write down my lay.

In yon long loaf my knife is gleaming, Like one black sail above the boat; As once at Pesth I saw it beaming, Half through a dark Croatian throat.

Now faster, faster, whirls the ceiling, And wilder, wilder, turns my brain; And still I'll drink, till, past all feeling, My soul leaps forth to light again.

Whence come these white girls wreathing round me? Barushka!--long I thought thee dead; Katchenka!--when these arms last bound thee Thou laid'st by Rajrad, cold as lead.

And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling, And wilder, wilder, turns my brain; And from afar a star comes stealing Straight at me o'er the death-black plain.

Alas! I sink. My spirits miss me. I swim, I shoot from shore to shore! Klara! thou golden sister--kiss me! I rise--I'm safe--I'm strong once more.

And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling, And wilder, wilder, whirls my brain; The star!--it strikes my soul, revealing All life and light to me again.

* * * * *

Against the waves fresh waves are dashing, Above the breeze fresh breezes blow; Through seas of light new light is flashing, And with them all I float and flow.

Yet round me rings of fire are gleaning,-- Pale rings of fire, wild eyes of death! Why haunt me thus, awake or dreaming? Methought I left ye with my breath!

Ay, glare and stare, with life increasing, And leech-like eyebrows, arching in; Be, if ye must, my fate unceasing, But never hope a fear to win.

He who knows all may haunt the haunter, He who fears naught hath conquered fate; Who bears in silence quells the daunter, And makes his spoiler desolate.

O wondrous eyes, of star-like lustre, How have ye changed to guardian love! Alas! where stars in myriads cluster, Ye vanish in the heaven above.

* * * * *

I hear two bells so softly ringing; How sweet their silver voices roll! The one on distant hills is ringing, The other peals within my soul.

I hear two maidens gently talking, Bohemian maids, and fair to see: The one on distant hills is walking, The other maiden,--where is she?

Where is she? When the moonlight glistens O'er silent lake or murmuring stream, I hear her call my soul, which listens, "Oh, wake no more! Come, love, and dream!"

She came to earth, earth's loveliest creature; She died, and then was born once more; Changed was her race, and changed each feature, But yet I loved her as before.

We live, but still, when night has bound me In golden dreams too sweet to last, A wondrous light-blue world around me, She comes,--the loved one of the past.

I know not which I love the dearest, For both the loves are still the same: The living to my life is nearest, The dead one feeds the living flame.

And when the sun, its rose-wine quaffing, Which flows across the Eastern deep, Awakes us, Klara chides me, laughing, And says we love too well in sleep.

And though no more a Voivode's daughter, As when she lived on earth before, The love is still the same which sought her, And I am true, and ask no more.

* * * * *

Bright moonbeams on the sea are playing, And starlight shines upon the hill, And I should wake, but still delaying In our old life I linger still.

For as the wind clouds flit above me, And as the stars above them shine, My higher life's in those who love me, And higher still, our life's divine.

And thus I raise my soul by drinking, As on the tavern floor I lie; It heeds not whence begins our thinking If to the end its flight is high.

E'en outcasts may have heart and feeling, The blackest wild Tsigan be true, And love, like light in dungeons stealing, Though bars be there, will still burst through.

It is the reecho of more than one song of those strange lands, of more than one voice, and of many a melody; and those who have heard them, though not more distinctly than Francois Villon when he spoke of flinging the question back by silent lake and streamlet lone, will understand me, and say it is true to nature.