ARTHUR AND CONSTANCE: OR, THE POWER OF LOVE. BY J. F. D. CORNELL. *' *'2putdr' cK Sailoto, TipEv KaTa dicpv Xiovaa. NEW YORK: WILEY & HALSTED, 351 BROADWAY. 1858. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by J. F. D. CORNELL, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PHAIR & CO, PRINTERS,. 22 BEEEMAN STREET, NEW YORK. ARTHUR AND CONSTANCE; OR, THE POWER OF LOVE. THE fire-darting king of day Moved stately up on high, From glimmering clouds, pavilion fail Stretched on the boundless sky. Far off the mountains in his sight With numerous shades shone gay Their sable heads his brilliant beams Sat on, like crowns of day. Now happy hearts are filled with praise, It swells from hill and vale; And nature's sounds of tuneful joy Salute the morning, hail! 4 ARTETUR AND CONSTANCE, Now golden rays the castle gild Whose proud height, rock-built, towers; But smiles von humble cottage too, While there'mong bright blue flowers Two cherubs sport; so childhood sports, Shut out from all that's ill, With only scenes of purest joy His little world to fill. 0! oft the cherub's dreamy eye Which looks those thoughts of love, His curled locks and winsome ways Remind of those above. WVith soft, delaying hand, the boy Her fairer hand slow drew, While the little maid came gently on Amid the sparkling dew. O! life than this is sweeter ne'er! When the dreamer Hope is yToung, And the trying evils yet to be, Are never truly sung. THE POWER OF LOVE. 5 But little Constance' outlawed sire, Say, will he never come? The cold tomb's naked marble walls, Make all her mother's home. O! fatal hour of bannered might! Those dark brows happy are Who wear thy changeless battle frown; Constance, her sire's not there. See, where the lurid desert wide Looks deaths of burning thirst! That one, does Constance call him sire, Who wanders here accurst? See, where Siberia, heartless wild! To beasts denies to live, Here,'neath the cold north lights, does he The hope of life outlive! The good-souled shepherd sire is kind, But the hermit is not he, Ah! who folds in his arms and gazes long On her bright, her dark, clark eve. 6 ARTHUR AND CONSTANCE, The time of weeping now is past; All grief is hushed to rest; Now Constance culls the fragrant flowers, A simple shepherd's guest. His boy with Constance wiles the hours, Fair, fleeting, swift their speed, Like shades of clouds in rapid flight Over the sunny mead. Yet still alone for them the song Of wild bird carolled clear, Or pert, upon them unawares, The squirrel chattered near. Oft stood they hand in hand entranced, While they feasted on the view With eye fixed on the mount's proud front, Serene amid the blue. Anon, beneath the hoar sad shade Of burial trees they roam, To visit cave, near sacred faneThe peaceful hermit's home. The third line from the bottom of the fifth page should read thus: But not like the hermit is he THE POWER OF LOVE. 7 That airy sky of clear calm blue, It cannot long survive; Upon the mountains' ridgy tops The frequent tempests drive. Whose gloomy brows of blackest nigrht Look arrowy lightnings fell, So battle rides the pleasant fields, With cruel eyes of hell. When louder roll the rattling peals, Then closer draw the pair, More lovely far thus hastening on Beneath the lightning's glare. Or if long-shadowed sunset sank Unnoted into night, Though far from home, was Arthur there, To Constance all was light. Oft o'er the story of a ghost They both in terror shook, While their tiny barks unheeded danced Far down the fretful brook. 8 ARTHUR AND CONSTANCE, Round guileless hearts thus, day by day, Were twined love's golden bands, Themselves unconscious of the links Thus bound by angel hands. All goodly graces gild young love When beauty reigns supreme! The warmest, gentlest, softest flame, Is when young lovers dream. Now noiseless time that changes all Wakes Constance every charm; Beside the manly Arthur sits, In true love-silence calm. Right cheerly blaze the curling flames In many a curious form, I-ark! loudly wails the surly blastOld Winter rides the storm. Both eyes are resting on that flame, Both bent heads muse the day Of heart-lived childhood's shadowy joys, That knew nor feared decay. TIHE PO-WER OF LOVE. 9 When hand in hand, and cheek to cheek, O'er the same page they bent, One kerchief dried each mingled tear, Each sigh both bosoms sent. E'en now, unconscious to themselves, The sigh unbidden falls, While memory lifts her fairy veil, And all the past recals. Why rove to other days, when youtll, Joy-browed, seeks not the past? Days of my youth rise to my view! Would such days were my last! Home of my childhood! when I leave Thy memory-sainted bowers, Will not regretful murmurs sigh For childhood's rosy hours?'Tis this that makes the young thoughts steal Up from their silent home, And rouses up the sleeping tears, Those tears that still will come. 10 AARTItUR AND CONSTANCE, IHe takes her little hand in his, Reads all the ineltingr eye, Then heart to heart, in transport wildl, Rush, heave, throb silently. Now lip to lip, now lip on neck, No word can sorrow find, Grief-drooping lids the while rain tears, That leave all words behind. Yet ere he leaves his gentle heart, To seek a distant shore, lie traced these lines upon her bookOne last embrace,'tis o'er. The tolling bell with rising knell, Tells of loved one far away, His blosom burns as mourner turns, Sighing for friend that's far away. Bell-like, my love, this line may prove To reader's heart for one away, Bosom may burn, as sad she'll turn To words, thle sighs of friend away. Like mrourner's tear, that falls o'er bier Her pearly tear'11 fall gently here, And dew the sighs of friend away. TIlE POWER OF LOVE. 11 Now proudly swells the snowy sail Above the crested wave, And nobly rides the gallant bark That bears the good and brave. Old England's loved and merry world, Now trembles on the sight, Fair as the golden king's last beam Just sinking into night.'Tis gone, a soldier must not grieve, Thy griefs and cares disband, Hark! martial music, wildly sweet, Rolls backward to the strand. Now haste we o'er the slow sad years That sweep their gloomy train, Now haste we to the happy hour When lovers meet again. Stay not to count the thousand hopes, And dreams, and fears, and prayers, The happy hour seems on the wing That shall redeem their cares. 12 ARTHUR AND CONSTANCE, E'en now the warrior's straining eye Peers anxious o'er the sea, His look is toward his longed-for home — Old England,'tis for thee! Now wind's and tide's and battle's roar Are hushed, a single note, The solitary wood bird's lay Renews the past remote. Painted within his breaking heart That home was still the same: The tree, the vine, the cot were there, But ah! no Constance came. This steals away the light from heaven; Rifles the floweret's bloom, This stills the sweetest songster's note, This hangs each tree in gloom. Can sable garb or priestly robe Or steel the heart from woe? Can gloom of mossy cave efface A father's fond love? No! THE POWER OF LOVE. 13 Haste soldier! Hie thee to this cell, Hiere is a home for thee, Meet for the one whose days must now With love and sorrow be. Yet, Constance lives! the quick thoughts speak Voiceless, yet heart to heart, The soldier writes, the hermit vows Her eye shall read; they part. Her gentle form he saw within The castle's frowning wall; And to his tears, as she were crazed She answered not his call! As when the dark cloud folds the lightning red gleaming, So lover's sad brow hides the fire of love, When that lightning has shivered the lord of the forest, So love rends the soul that with Constance is wove. As when the soft rain wears away with its drippings Those fragments that tell the wild lightning's career, So sorrow, slow brooding, destroys all the tokens Which tell the rude lightning has even been here. 14 ARTHUR AND CONSTANCE, A rainbow thy smile is; but ah'tis another's, The serpentine lightning more pleases my sight, Let it bury myself and my woes in oblivion, Sorrow weeps not in the calm of death's niglht. Perchance, then I'll dream that oft times in the even There'11 come a fair form to bend over my grave, The bow in the cloud, and the sun veiled in glory, No storm, no lightning, no tempest to brave. But softly as melt the fair colors of Iris, Their beauties will seem to unite in my love, As the rainbow which erst bent all lovely in heaven, She'll bend o'er my grave, as the rainbow above. And the stars one by one shall look down in their pity, And Cynthia's beam shall fall lightly and pale, And the bird of the even shall pour forth its sorrow, The winds and the far distant waters shall wail. My spirit shall drink in the sighs that are breaking, Shall treasure unseen the blue tear of her eye, Shall fold round the bosom that heaves in its sorrow, With Constance return to its home in the sky. Now ills and sorrows lightly press, His slumbers ne'er they'll break, No sound is there save the light hum The wavy branches make. THE POWER OF LOVE. 15 She read whom stony walls confined, And all her heart springs wept; And all her love ran out to meetThe cold bars intercept. Can walls of stone and iron bars Repress love's gentle flame? Are these the arms that lovers use To win the Cyprian dame? So thinks this lord of many a mead And many a wavy wood, Whose proud possessions cross the mount And many a running flood. Can the bold eagle love his cage, The dove forget her mate? Nor love they, nor forget they e'er,'Till death-the lover's fate. Soon calm the eagle's black wings fold, The dove, soft nestling, dies, His fiery eye, her tender gaze. All change of love defies. 16 ARTHUR AND CONSTANCE, NXow fling aside the bars and bolts, Back roll each massy door, Now surely love will come and bideThe rival is no more. See how yon golden sun descends Fast from the realms of light, Like some good man's last gaze which beams Most beauteous in death's night.'Tis eve-behold a haughty form Within a lonely room, One hears —" Thy soldier's dead, this night Thine eye shall read his tomb!" That sun doled forth her grief's last day, His latest ray has fled, Now may she read the dismal stone Which speaks her soldier dead.'Twas near the time of falling leaves. When summer sweetly diesShe folds herself in softest shades, And melts away in sighs. THE POWER OF LOVE. 17 Her vesture was the faintest hue That decks the dying flower, Her breath was roses perishing In every wild wood bower. Above, night's thousand golden lights, Soft beaming, did illume, The horned moon in gentle rays Stole through the forest gloom. A lone hoar chapel guards the wood Where the ivy nods in gloom And the statues mourn in marble pride O'er many a grassy tomb. At the gleam of morn, at the dusk of eve, Here a holy hermit strays, His thoughts are fixed on better things, He lives in prayer and praise. How calmly lives whose hopes whose joys Are all beyond the tomb, How happy hastes that parting soul Which fears no final doonm. 18 ARTHUR AND CONSTANCE, The silent airs stealing among These arches green of pine, Remind of better, earlier hoursSweet hours that once were mine. Hours when with heart untaught to scan The treacherous ways of men, Methought as true as beautiful The world.'Tis changed from then. But fairer than each form of stone, And softer than each stilly air, Yet like the trembling ivy sad, Stands pale, pure, lovely Constance there. See through her beauteous locks how shines That face of peerless light, So heaven's pure diamond eyes look down To cheer the moonless night. Oh not the limner's curious shade Can paint the good and fair, That pale brow marks the spirit good Which sits enthron6d there. THE POWER OF LOVE. 19 Plays round that beauty-arching mouth, Beams from that pensive eye That tells a world of love now dead, And Constance, too, must die! She stood the moonlight graves among,'Neath the old arching wood, As angel watchers stand to guard The last sleep of the good. But hark! how swells the midnight air With heavy-tolling bell, Hlark! poor heart breaking at the sound! She drooped as it solemnly fell. She starts, she sighs, with her small hands raised To the still heaven she uttered a prayer Amid the dismal deathy shades Why strays an angel there? Why trickles down a silent tear At every tolling bell? Why mock the winds a grief so fair In the lone forest dell? 20 ARTHUR AND CONSTANCE, Sad sisters! solitude and grief Yours are full many a sigh And many a tear, too good to meet The world's cold tearless eye. Then angels from the better world Descend on wings of love, And treasure up your crystal tears, And bear your sighs above. The same old haunts of playful hours In every hedge she sees, The same old solemn whispers ring Round yellow autumn's trees. Softly and sad the hermit sleeps In yon rude cheerless cell, Thtse rain-worn stones she often read, But wild the letters spell. Young Arthur starts from every hedge, His name the still airs call, Each time-worn letter starting out Writes Arthur over all. THE PONWER OF LOVE. 21 Still strays the last, long, ecloing knell Upon the waiting ear. That vainly lists the dying sound Repeated still to hear.'Twas then as though her task were o'er, She sank on the dewy bed, Where the long grass waved dreamily Above the sleeper's head. Again the deep-mouthed curfew tolled, Nor sigh, nor tear, nor groan, How placid sweet a face death bowed Upon that marble stone. Grim death-bell toll not, she is gone, Dead are all Constance' woesA land of pure love greets the eye Which death thus sweetly closed. The thoughtless winds her raven locks Float careless streaming by, While the moonbeam's shadow-flitting light Looks on in revery. 22 ARTHUR AND CONSTANCE, The naked boughs their thin shade wave Across that face how slow, Where the long, still, silken lashes rest Upon a seam of snow. In vain death's iron seal may press, To crush each beauteous trace, Still may you read an imaged heaven Upon that silent face.'Tis Arthur's lines, the last he traced Who lies beneath her feet, Still clasps them yet that thin white hand, Though life has ceased to beat. Only the noiseless rabbit came, Gazed up in her still fair face, Crept to the small foot that moves no more A leaf stirred he fled the place. The night-blue heaven looks cold and pure, The golden stars look peace,That heaven bends down o'er lover deadStars whisper happiness! TIlE POWER OF LOVE. 23 It is a life that angels lead In a land of endless love, The soul's pure feelings are the breath The angels breathe above. Next eve the mossy mantling sod Closed lightly o'er a pair, The hermit sire and Constance lay With gentle Arthur there. That outcast sire, his lot no more The cavern drear and wildSweet realm of bliss return him all, A home, his wife, his child. I love to linger when the sun Dies in the golden west, Among the solemn silent dead, To think upon the blest. I love the yellow rustling leaf, And autumn's gentlest breath, For then I think that heaven is hid Beneath the garb of death. 24 ARTHUR AND CONSTANCE, The spirit then recals its loves, When round us beauty dies, For dying beauty leads the mind To beauty's home-the skies. Hast ever seen a lovely tomb? Hast ever heard dead love? Hast ever felt the holy thrill The grave brings from above? Then come with me to yonder tomb Sad with the willow's shade, There thou shalt see, hear, feel dead love, For there is Constance laid. Bring cypress-here the good is laid, Here sleep the wise and fair; Let death-flowers, white and beautiful, Float on this mournful air. Bring cypress, cypress! What so soon Has the young life fled away? This is love's power,-it palls with night, Sweet morn's most brilliant ray!