Are prayers and tears, which chase denial

From the fierce savage, nursed in hate?
What the knit soul that pleading and pale
Makes wan the quivering cheek, which late
It painted with its own delight?

We were divided. As I could,
I stilled the tingling of my blood,
And followed him in their despite,
As a widow follows, pale and wild,
The murderers and corse of her only child;
And when we came to the prison door
And I prayed to share his dungeon floor
With prayers which rarely have been spurned,
And when men drove me forth and I
Stared with blank frenzy on the sky,
A farewell look of love he turned,
Half calming me; then gazed awhile,
As if thro' that black and massy pile,
And thro' the crowd around him there,
And thro' the dense and murky air,
And the thronged streets, he did espy
What poets know and prophecy;

And said, with voice that made them shiver

And clung like music in my brain,

And which the mute walls spoke again,
Prolonging it with deepened strain :
"Fear not, the tyrants shall rule for ever,
Or the priests of the bloody faith;
They stand on the brink of that mighty river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death;
It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams, and rages, and swells,
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
Like wrecks in the surge of eternity."

I dwelt beside the prison gate,

And the strange crowd that out and in
Passed, some, no doubt, with mine own fate,
Might have fretted me with its ceaseless din,

But the fever of care was louder within.

Soon, but too late, in penitence

Or fear, his foes released him thence;
I saw his thin and languid form,

As leaning on the jailer's arm,

Whose hardened eyes grew moist the while,
To meet his mute and faded smile,

And hear his words of kind farewell,

He tottered forth from his damp cell.

Many had never wept before,

From whom fast tears then gushed and fell;

Many will relent no more,

Who sobbed like infants then aye, all

Who thronged the prison's stony hall,
The rulers or the slaves of law,
Felt with a new surprise and a we
That they were human, till strong shame
Made them again become the same.
The prison blood-hounds, huge and grim,
From human looks the infection caught,
And fondly crouched and fawned on him:
And men have heard the prisoners say,
Who in their rotting dungeons lay,
That from that hour, throughout one day,
The fierce despair and hate which kept
Their trampled bosoms almost slept :
When, like twin vultures, they hung feeding
On each heart's wound, wide torn and bleeding,

Because their jailers' rule, they thought,
Grew merciful, like a parent's sway.

I know not how, but we were free:
And Lionel sate alone with me,

As the carriage drove thro' the streets apace;

And we looked upon each other's face;
And the blood in our fingers intertwined
Ran like the thoughts of a single mind,
As the swift emotions went and came
Thro' the veins of each united frame.
So thro' the long long streets we past
Of the million-peopled City vast;
Which is that desert, where each one
Seeks his mate yet is alone,

Beloved and sought and mourned of none;
Until the clear blue sky was seen,

And the grassy meadows bright and green,
And then I sunk in his embrace,
Enclosing there a mighty space

Of love and so we travelled on

By woods, and fields of yellow flowers,
And towns, and villages, and towers,
Day after day of happy hours.

It was the azure time of June,

When the skies are deep in the stainless noon, And the warm and fitful breezes shake

The fresh green leaves of the hedge-row briar, And there were odours then to make

The very breath we did respire

A liquid element, whereon

Our spirits, like delighted things

That walk the air on subtile wings,
Floated and mingled far away,

'Mid the warm winds of the sunny day.
And when the evening star came forth
Above the curve of the new bent moon,

And light and sound ebbed from the earth,
Like the tide of the full and weary sea
To the depths of its tranquillity,

Our natures to its own repose

Did the earth's breathless sleep attune:
Like flowers, which on each other close
Their languid leaves when day-light's gone,
We lay, till new emotions came,

Which seemed to make each mortal frame
One soul of interwoven fame,

A life in life, a second birth

In worlds diviner far than earth,
Which, like two strains of harmony
That mingle in the silent sky
Then slowly disunite, past by
And left the tenderness of tears,
A soft oblivion of all fears,
A sweet sleep: so we travelled on
Till we came to the home of Lionel,
Among the mountains wild and lone,
Beside the hoary western sea,

Which near the verge of the echoing shore

The massy forest shadowed o'er.

The ancient steward, with hair all hoar,

As we alighted, wept to see

His master changed so fearfully;
And the old man's sobs did waken me

From my dream of unremaining gladness;
The truth flashed o'er me like quick madness
When I looked, and saw that there was death
On Lionel yet day by day

He lived, till fear grew hope and faith,

And in my soul I dared to say,
Nothing so bright can pass away:
Death is dark, and foul, and dull,
But he is-O how beautiful!

Yet day by day he grew more weak,
And his sweet voice, when he might speak,
Which ne'er was loud, became more low;

And the light which flashed through his waxen cheek

Grew faint, as the rose-like hues which flow

From sunset o'er the Alpine snow:

And death seemed not like death in him,

For the spirit of life o'er every limb

Lingered, a mist of scene and thought.

When the summer wind faint odours brought
From mountain flowers, even as it passed

His cheek would change, as the noon-day sea
Which the dying breeze sweeps fitfully.
If but a cloud the sky o'ercast,

You might see his colour come and go,
And the softest strain of music made
Sweet smiles, yet sad, arise and fade
Amid the dew of his tender eyes:
And the breath, with intermitting flow,
Made his pale lips quiver and part.
You might hear the beatings of his heart,
Quick, but not strong, and with my tresses
When oft he playfully would bind
In the bowers of mossy lonelinesses
His neck, and win me so to mingle
In the sweet depth of woven caresses,
And our faint limbs were intertwined,
Alas! the unquiet life did tingle

From mine own heart through every vein,
Like a captive in dreams of liberty,