Delphi complete works of.., p.283
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth, page 283
Drooped and pined till life was spent,
Now before the gates of Stolberg
My Deliverer would present
For a crowning recompence, the precious grace
Of her who in my heart still holds her ancient place.
XX
Make it known that my Companion
Is of royal eastern blood,
Thirsting after all perfection,
Innocent, and meek, and good,
Though with misbelievers bred; but that dark night
Will holy Church disperse by means of gospel-light.”
XXI
Swiftly went that grey-haired Servant,
Soon returned a trusty Page
Charged with greetings, benedictions,
Thanks and praises, each a gage
For a sunny thought to cheer the Stranger’s way,
Her virtuous scruples to remove, her fears allay.
XXII
And how blest the Reunited,
While beneath their castle-walls,
Runs a deafening noise of welcome!—
Blest, though every tear that falls
Doth in its silence of past sorrow tell,
And makes a meeting seem most like a dear farewell.
XXIII
Through a haze of human nature,
Glorified by heavenly light,
Looked the beautiful Deliverer
On that overpowering sight,
While across her virgin cheek pure blushes strayed,
For every tender sacrifice her heart had made.
XXIV
On the ground the weeping Countess
Knelt, and kissed the Stranger’s hand;
Act of soul-devoted homage,
Pledge of an eternal band:
Nor did aught of future days that kiss belie,
Which, with a generous shout, the crowd did ratify.
XXV
Constant to the fair Armenian,
Gentle pleasures round her moved,
Like a tutelary spirit
Reverenced, like a sister, loved,
Christian meekness smoothed for all the path of life,
Who, loving most, should wiseliest love, their only strife.
XXVI
Mute memento of that union
In a Saxon church survives,
Where a cross-legged Knight lies sculptured
As between two wedded wives—
Figures with armorial signs of race and birth,
And the vain rank the pilgrims bore while yet on earth.
1830.
THE RUSSIAN FUGITIVE
PART I
ENOUGH of rose-bud lips, and eyes
Like harebells bathed in dew,
Of cheek that with carnation vies,
And veins of violet hue;
Earth wants not beauty that may scorn
A likening to frail flowers;
Yea, to the stars, if they were born
For seasons and for hours.
Through Moscow’s gates, with gold unbarred,
Stepped One at dead of night, 10
Whom such high beauty could not guard
From meditated blight;
By stealth she passed, and fled as fast
As doth the hunted fawn,
Nor stopped, till in the dappling east
Appeared unwelcome dawn.
Seven days she lurked in brake and field,
Seven nights her course renewed,
Sustained by what her scrip might yield,
Or berries of the wood; 20
At length, in darkness travelling on,
When lowly doors were shut,
The haven of her hope she won,
Her Foster-mother’s hut.
“To put your love to dangerous proof
I come,” said she, “from far;
For I have left my Father’s roof,
In terror of the Czar.”
No answer did the Matron give,
No second look she cast, 30
But hung upon the Fugitive,
Embracing and embraced.
She led the Lady to a seat
Beside the glimmering fire,
Bathed duteously her wayworn feet,
Prevented each desire:—
The cricket chirped, the house-dog dozed,
And on that simple bed,
Where she in childhood had reposed,
Now rests her weary head. 40
When she, whose couch had been the sod,
Whose curtain, pine or thorn,
Had breathed a sigh of thanks to God,
Who comforts the forlorn;
While over her the Matron bent
Sleep sealed her eyes, and stole
Feeling from limbs with travel spent,
And trouble from the soul.
Refreshed, the Wanderer rose at morn,
And soon again was dight 50
In those unworthy vestments worn
Through long and perilous flight;
And “O beloved Nurse,” she said,
“My thanks with silent tears
Have unto Heaven and You been paid:
Now listen to my fears!
“Have you forgot”—and here she smiled—
“The babbling flatteries
You lavished on me when a child
Disporting round your knees? 60
I was your lambkin, and your bird,
Your star, your gem, your flower;
Light words, that were more lightly heard
In many a cloudless hour!
The blossom you so fondly praised
Is come to bitter fruit;
A mighty One upon me gazed;
I spurned his lawless suit,
And must be hidden from his wrath:
You, Foster-father dear, 70
Will guide me in my forward path;
I may not tarry here!
I cannot bring to utter woe
Your proved fidelity.”—
“Dear Child, sweet Mistress, say not so!
For you we both would die.”
“Nay, nay, I come with semblance feigned
And cheek embrowned by art;
Yet, being inwardly unstained,
With courage will depart.”80
“But whither would you, could you, flee?
A poor Man’s counsel take;
The Holy Virgin gives to me
A thought for your dear sake;
Rest, shielded by our Lady’s grace,
And soon shall you be led
Forth to a safe abiding-place,
Where never foot doth tread.”
PART II
THE dwelling of this faithful pair
In a straggling village stood, 90
For One who breathed unquiet air
A dangerous neighbourhood;
But wide around lay forest ground
With thickets rough and blind;
And pine-trees made a heavy shade
Impervious to the wind.
And there, sequestered from the sight,
Was spread a treacherous swamp,
On which the noonday sun shed light
As from a lonely lamp; 100
And midway in the unsafe morass,
A single Island rose
Of firm dry ground, with healthful grass
Adorned, and shady boughs.
The Woodman knew, for such the craft
This Russian vassal plied,
That never fowler’s gun, nor shaft
Of archer, there was tried;
A sanctuary seemed the spot
From all intrusion free; 110
And there he planned an artful Cot
For perfect secrecy.
With earnest pains unchecked by dread
Of Power’s far-stretching hand,
The bold good Man his labour sped
At nature’s pure command;
Heart-soothed, and busy as a wren,
While, in a hollow nook,
She moulds her sight-eluding den
Above a murmuring brook. 120
His task accomplished to his mind,
The twain ere break of day
Creep forth, and through the forest wind
Their solitary way;
Few words they speak, nor dare to slack
Their pace from mile to mile,
Till they have crossed the quaking marsh
And reached the lonely Isle.
The sun above the pine-trees showed
A bright and cheerful face; 130
And Ina looked for her abode,
The promised hiding-place;
She sought in vain, the Woodman smiled;
No threshold could be seen,
Nor roof, nor window;—all seemed wild
As it had ever been.
Advancing, you might guess an hour,
The front with such nice care
Is masked, “if house it be or bower,”
But in they entered are; 140
As shaggy as were wall and roof
With branches intertwined,
So smooth was all within, air-proof,
And delicately lined:
And hearth was there, and maple dish,
And cups in seemly rows,
And couch—all ready to a wish
For nurture or repose;
And Heaven doth to her virtue grant
That here she may abide 150
In solitude, with every want
By cautious love supplied.
No queen, before a shouting crowd,
Led on in bridal state,
E’er struggled with a heart so proud,
Entering her palace gate:
Rejoiced to bid the world farewell,
No saintly anchoress
E’er took possession of her cell
With deeper thankfulness. 160
“Father of all, upon thy care
And mercy am I thrown;
Be thou my safeguard!”—such her prayer
When she was left alone,
Kneeling amid the wilderness
When joy had passed away,
And smiles, fond efforts of distress
To hide what they betray!
The prayer is heard, the Saints have seen,
Diffused through form and face 170
Resolves devotedly serene;
That monumental grace
Of Faith, which doth all passions tame
That Reason ‘should’ control;
And shows in the untrembling frame
A statue of the soul.
PART III
‘TIS sung in ancient minstrelsy
That Phoebus wont to wear
The leaves of any pleasant tree
Around his golden hair; 180
Till Daphne, desperate with pursuit
Of his imperious love,
At her own prayer transformed, took root,
A laurel in the grove.
Then did the Penitent adorn
His brow with laurel green;
And ‘mid his bright locks never shorn
No meaner leaf was seen;
And poets sage, through every age,
About their temples wound 190
The bay; and conquerors thanked the Gods,
With laurel chaplets crowned.
Into the mists of fabling Time
So far runs back the praise
Of Beauty, that disdains to climb
Along forbidden ways;
That scorns temptation; power defies
Where mutual love is not;
And to the tomb for rescue flies
When life would be a blot. 200
To this fair Votaress, a fate
More mild doth Heaven ordain
Upon her Island desolate;
And words, not breathed in vain,
Might tell what intercourse she found,
Her silence to endear;
What birds she tamed, what flowers the ground
Sent forth her peace to cheer.
To one mute Presence, above all,
Her soothed affections clung, 210
A picture on the cabin wall
By Russian usage hung—
The Mother-maid, whose countenance bright
With love abridged the day;
And, communed with by taper light,
Chased spectral fears away.
And oft, as either Guardian came,
The joy in that retreat
Might any common friendship shame,
So high their hearts would beat; 220
And to the lone Recluse, whate’er
They brought, each visiting
Was like the crowding of the year
With a new burst of spring.
But, when she of her Parents thought,
The pang was hard to bear;
And, if with all things not enwrought,
That trouble still is near.
Before her flight she had not dared
Their constancy to prove, 230
Too much the heroic Daughter feared
The weakness of their love.
Dark is the past to them, and dark
The future still must be,
Till pitying Saints conduct her bark
Into a safer sea—
Or gentle Nature close her eyes,
And set her Spirit free
From the altar of this sacrifice,
In vestal purity. 240
Yet, when above the forest-glooms
The white swans southward passed,
High as the pitch of their swift plumes
Her fancy rode the blast;
And bore her toward the fields of France
Her Father’s native land,
To mingle in the rustic dance,
The happiest of the band!
Of those beloved fields she oft
Had heard her Father tell 250
In phrase that now with echoes soft
Haunted her lonely cell;
She saw the hereditary bowers,
She heard the ancestral stream;
The Kremlin and its haughty towers
Forgotten like a dream!
PART IV
THE ever-changing Moon had traced
Twelve times her monthly round,
When through the unfrequented Waste
Was heard a startling sound; 260
A shout thrice sent from one who chased
At speed a wounded deer,
Bounding through branches interlaced,
And where the wood was clear.
The fainting creature took the marsh,
And toward the Island fled,
While plovers screamed with tumult harsh
Above his antlered head;
This, Ina saw; and, pale with fear,
Shrunk to her citadel; 270
The desperate deer rushed on, and near
The tangled covert fell.
Across the marsh, the game in view,
The Hunter followed fast,
Nor paused, till o’er the stag he blew
A death-proclaiming blast;
Then, resting on her upright mind,
Came forth the Maid—”In me
Behold,” she said, “a stricken Hind
Pursued by destiny! 280
From your deportment, Sir! I deem
That you have worn a sword,
And will not hold in light esteem
A suffering woman’s word;
There is my covert, there perchance
I might have lain concealed,
My fortunes hid, my countenance
Not even to you revealed.
Tears might be shed, and I might pray,
Crouching and terrified, 290
That what has been unveiled to day,
You would in mystery hide;
But I will not defile with dust
The knee that bends to adore
The God in heaven;—attend, be just;
This ask I, and no more!
I speak not of the winter’s cold,
For summer’s heat exchanged,
While I have lodged in this rough hold,
From social life estranged; 300
Nor yet of trouble and alarms:
High Heaven is my defence;
And every season has soft arms
For injured Innocence.
From Moscow to the Wilderness
It was my choice to come,
Lest virtue should be harbourless,
And honour want a home;
And happy were I, if the Czar
Retain his lawless will, 310
To end life here like this poor deer,
Or a lamb on a green hill.”
“Are you the Maid,” the Stranger cried,
“From Gallic parents sprung,
Whose vanishing was rumoured wide,
Sad theme for every tongue;
Who foiled an Emperor’s eager quest?
You, Lady, forced to wear
These rude habiliments, and rest
Your head in this dark lair!”320
But wonder, pity, soon were quelled;
And in her face and mien
The soul’s pure brightness he beheld
Without a veil between:
He loved, he hoped,—a holy flame
Kindled ‘mid rapturous tears;
The passion of a moment came
As on the wings of years.
“Such bounty is no gift of chance,”
Exclaimed he; “righteous Heaven, 330
Preparing your deliverance,
To me the charge hath given.
The Czar full oft in words and deeds
Is stormy and self-willed;
But, when the Lady Catherine pleads,
His violence is stilled.
Leave open to my wish the course,
And I to her will go;
From that humane and heavenly source,
Good, only good, can flow.”340
Faint sanction given, the Cavalier
Was eager to depart,
Though question followed question, dear,
To the Maiden’s filial heart.
Light was his step,—his hopes, more light,
Kept pace with his desires;
And the fifth morning gave him sight
Of Moscow’s glittering spires.
He sued:—heart-smitten by the wrong,
To the lorn Fugitive 350
The Emperor sent a pledge as strong
As sovereign power could give.
O more than mighty change! If e’er
Amazement rose to pain,
And joy’s excess produced a fear
Of something void and vain;
‘Twas when the Parents, who had mourned
So long the lost as dead,
Beheld their only Child returned,
The household floor to tread. 360
Soon gratitude gave way to love
Within the Maiden’s breast;
Delivered and Deliverer move
In bridal garments drest;
Meek Catherine had her own reward;
The Czar bestowed a dower;
And universal Moscow shared
