Unknown

“ That only sings amid the orange-flowers.
What have I still?—thy spirit, which is Thou.
What have I lost?—thy body, which I loved
But as the garment which adorned thy soul.
Thou art my Bertho still! I, thy fond Olive,
Who comes to share thy banishment with thee.
Be of good cheer. Only one century
Can Oene thrall thee. In the meanwhile, I
Shall die, and be a spirit, as thou art.
Until that time I will abide with thee;
We will on one another patient wait,
Till, hand in hand we leave these dismal shores
And celebrate our marriage-day in heaven. ”

“ When a fierce growl smote on her frightened ear,
As, from the shadows bounding, came a beast,
Grizzly, ferocious, snapping its sharp tusks:—
So close it came she felt the hungry breath
Rushing in fiery vapor from its mouth,
She sprang aside, then fled; but steep the path,
And sinking fainting, to the ground, she sighed—
"This is the last! Bertho! Ah, me! farewell!"
"Nay, not the last! thou'rt not dead yet, my dear!
Look up, thou fairy, or thou mortal child—
I scarce know which—assure thyself of life.
Look up! look up! ”

“ But since I for my Bertho went in search,
Nought stays my footsteps long. Where'er I go,
Whether I be successful in my search,
Or perish by the way, I trust again
We shall in spirit, if not in body, meet.
I have seen this witching Pole-Queen; I have passed
This circling cold and stood in the warm heart
Of her domains—have pressed her magic isle
With my poor human feet, and with my voice
Have plead the cause of two young, eager souls. ”

“ Peering through heaven's roof upon its God.
"Ah, Bertho! Bertho!" the young traveller cried,
While rapid tears ran down her grief-touched cheeks:—
"Is there no way save this? My feet refuse
To do the bidding of my heart; no more
This faithful bosom thy delight shall be—
No more thine eyes shall smile into mine own
Till both swim full of bliss—no more thy mouth
Breathe its soft words and kisses on my cheek,
Naming me thine—thine only—thine forever!
Where art thou, Bertho? Bertho! Cruel Thug;
Sink thyself in the sea, presumptuous mount,
Till I can pluck my lover from thy breast!" ”

“ Peep from her cheeks, and hide themselves again—
Feeling her soft breath warming o'er my brow—
Yet be this bodiless ghost of what I was!
O, Queen! wilt thou not give me back that shape—
Which thou dids't cruelly bereave me of—
That I, again, may feel my bounding heart
Throbbing against the bosom of my bride?
Then thou shalt find what grateful souls can do.
For I will court invention, study art,
To decorate this favorite cave anew;
And she I love will serve thee patiently
Unnumbered years, till we our freedom earn. ”

“ Unnipped by daintiest frosts, in every field
Flowers crowded thick; and trees, not tall nor rude,
With slender stems upholding feathery shade,
Nodded their heads and hung their pliant limbs
In natural bowers, sweet with delicious gloom.
Queen Oene sent her luminous glance afar:
Fine rays of tintless light played round her head,
Crowning her beauty with mysterious glory.
She gazed away, beyond the tranquil sea,
To distant mountains of unchanging snow,
And still beyond, to where full many a tower
And fortress reared their walls of gleaming ice
On the dim verges of her vast domains. ”

“ No more—no more! Kolona! take thy place!"
As a soft flower shrinks from the coming night,
Amid protecting leaves, Kolona shrank,
Amid her tresses, from her sovereign's eyes,
So gloomy yet so kind; and mutely stood
Amid the bright and coyly wondering train.
A band of sprites, armed with sharp, silver spears,
With pearl-encrusted garb and gleaming sandals,
Dwelling low down the land, even amid men,
The Queen's advance guard, giving due alarm
Of all attacks, taking short flights by night,
And reconnoitering the southern world,—
Had sent a group to counsel with their Queen. ”

“ Bertho!—that scornful Queen did tell me this.
And yet I did not comprehend her words.
There is no warmth nor beauty in this land!
Its people have no hearts—know not of love—
Their thoughts are colder than their beds of snow.
Indeed, this is no world!—but some vain dream,
Troubling my sleep, and I cannot awake.
Love then, is a deceitful fantasy—
Bertho is dead—is dead—and yet not dead!
Life is not life"—
Her wild, distrustful words
Here ended, as she saw the bitterness
Which stormed across the spirit's anguished face:—
"Forbear, poor child! ”

“ The people of the Arctics knew their Queen
Summoned her subjects to the Presence then
By wavering tints which played beneath the Star,
And the great speed with which the North-Lights flew.
They hurried even to the Temperate Zone.
A band of phantom spirits took wings and flew
Far to the southern sky, a fluttering crowd.
A warrior, yellow garbed, with fiery spear,
Bestrode a frantic steed, and looked not back
Till he alighted on a distant hill. ”

“ Murmuring shores, caverns, and surging deeps—
There flew, midway between the roof and floor,
A band of sprites which lived in air or sea;
With eyes like twinkling stars, and winged feet,
And sparkling fins down either shoulder-blade,
And cheeks puffed out and flushing with their toil.
Announced by these, the courtly train approached
The spot where Bertho and his Olive stood,
Close by an emrald rock, within whose breast
A living spring slept like a smiling child.
Around the brim Bertho had sculptured moss
And rare similitudes of southern flowers ”

“ Swift rushing down the sky, those phantasms wild,
Flushing, and paling in their measureless speed.
"At length I drifted into a new sea,
Where all was calm and warm, and where no tower
Of ragged ice upreared itself. On, on
I floated, while some lovely fantasy
Seemed stealing my true sense—so fair the scene.
Huge lillies, which no tropic land might boast,
Slept on the water—like embodied moonlight;
A mellow lustre bathed all things; sweet birds
With rainbow plumage fluttered through the air,
And this fair island dawned upon my sight. ”

“ Doting on honeyed flowers to fill their mouths;
Chilling the saucy birds within their nests;
Ruining the rainbow hues of many a garden;
Pricking the insect world with their fine spears,
And disappointing mortals of their wish.
Their somewhat boastful discourse these had ceased,
When came in hosts a crowd around the Pole,
Parting on each side to make way for one,
A stranger, craving audience of their Queen. ”

“ Thy Bertho, from a thousand shades of men
Who roam the prisons of our underworld,
Pray, how can we distinguish? Would'st thou search?
Thou hast the liberty. We will not lay
The slightest new obstruction in thy way;
And this is mercy which we did not deem
We should extend towards an enemy.
We do not comprehend that strange excess
Of passion which hath made thee venture here.
But love, at least, is harmless. Go thy ways."
The innocent maidens, gathered round their Queen,
Looked on with interest, as the southern girl
Turned with a mute and trembling lip, away. ”

“ Thy spirit to my will in bondage is;
Thou hast no wherewithal to make ado—
No weapon at thy service—art a slave,—
And shall I give to thee a master's place?
Yet, thou hast wakened in me a new thought.
What is this love of which you mortals tell?—
Which puts such tender sweetness in your tones
Such brightness in your looks, and makes you turn
Upon each other such delighted eyes?
Your words have stirred strange pleasure in my heart:
I, too, would know what love is. I command
That thou shalt teach me, Bertho. Let the girl
Return, uninjured, to her southern bowers ”

“ Held by invisible hands, whirled high o'erhead.
Pale mortals in the far off Torrid Zone
Saw wonders in the Northern air with fear;
And when an inward trembling shook the Pole
Central through all the earth, in distant lands
The mountains belched forth fire on fated cities.
Behind the throne suddenly arose a shower,
As 'twere of phosphorescent flakes of snow,
Straight upward like a fountain, and then fell
In glowing sparks wide over all the land.
The surging sea dashed its bewildered waves
Against the foreheads of gigantic bergs,
Walking, like drunken men, the noisy deep. ”

“ In thy rare presence, Queen," Kolona said,—
"Yet I would dare to tell thee what I saw
Only a moon ago, when a wild freak
Possessed me to go voyaging alone,
Across the sea, to find what curious things
The other shore might hold. My lily bark,
Being too frail for such a venturous cruise
I borrowed Gondor's boat of nautilus' shells,
Put up my lua-leaf sail and swiftly sped
Across the ocean, till this level isle
Grew smaller than a star. The air grew cold:—
I almost shivered in my bird's-down mantle;
But when I neared the opposing shore, the sight
Of all its snowy scenery, repaid me. ”

“ No frost shall nip the redness of her cheeks,
And no rude wind shall bluster round her feet."
"The frost of fear already nips her cheeks
At thought of living separate from me;
At the mere word she droops, a blighted flower.
Nay, gracious Queen? accept of both our hearts,
And our united service," Bertho plead. ”

“ While far beyond were paths of printless snow.
The ocean lay behind; and yet my boat
Moved ever onward, up a watery isle,
Opening, like a deep river, through the ice.
A shadowy land spread out on either side,
Where, moveless as some black and brooding bird,
Night hovered, silent, vast, and wonderful. ”

“ I sailed away from the great three-linked isle,
Under my fair Queen's sovereign patronage,
For the far Frigid Zone—the wild, the fierce,
The unknown Arctic seas—through their cold depths,
Their intricate, unmarked, majestic ways,
To find a North-West Passage: which wise men
And skillful mariners, learned of the sea,
Suspected, through the navigator's art
Might to the world be opened. High my heart
With courage and ambition swelled its tides,
Knowledge I had and skill, with enterprise ”

“ He can undo. My sweetest! it is I:—
Thy living, breathing Bertho stands before thee!
This happiness, at least, I owe the Queen,
Who, since repentant, may her gift resume,
Should Heaven not grant us now a quick escape.
But once—this once—though death should press me next—
Come to my arms—to thy dear bosom draw me,
So fondly close!—and feed my famished lips
With kisses worth a life of wo to gain!
Nay, pause not to inquire—'tis better thus
To feel the throbbing of thy timid heart,
Than to waste breath in words.—
"How did it come? ”

“ And shining floors, as wearied human sight;
That fountains filled them with a slumberous sound;
And curtains, wrought of silver-threaded frost,
Were looped with priceless pearls from room to room;—
A home for all the spirits of the Good
Lost in the pitiless sea,—where they would bathe
Their thoughts in heaven's splendor, looking out
The golden windows towards the constant sun,
Shining, unceasing, slant against their brows.
"But, as I nearer drew, I lost that dream
In one more gloomy. They did seem to shape
Themselves to living giants ”

“ There breathe the passionate breath of orange-flowers—
Walk in the sunlight till thy brows are flushed
With its warm kisses—plunge thy snowy feet
In the embracing waves and silver sand—
Shake down magnolia-blossoms on thy hair—
Answer the nightingales' delicious song
With thy sweet cries—and, on bright eves, look up
And charm the moon upon her lingering way
With that soft fire of thine entrancing eyes!
Thou wilt not for regret or tears find time. ”

“ Brief time it was, 'till, with bewildered eyes,
She saw her fairies vanish in a mist,
Floating away in music, while she stood
Alone, far down the mountain opposite
The side that with such toil she just had climbed.
She stood alone—and where? the roses shrank
From her wan cheeks to view her new distress,—
Before her a dark chasm, and above her
A crowd of close and overhanging rocks,
All dripping, black, and hopelessly down-leant. ”

“ But stupor and a drowsy sweetness came
Over our eyes, and we lay down to sleep—
Waking to hear the mocking laugh of ghouls,
To find us chained, enslaved,—and, worse than all!
Lost from our corporal bodies—spirits—dead! ”

“ Comes kneeling at thy feet, to ask him back?
Thou'lt give him her, I know, since to achieve
Renown like thine there must be generous heart."
"Look!" cried the warrior and outstretched his spear—
"'Tis not auspicious hour for such a plea." ”

“ These ominous words of the enamored Queen,
Spoken as though she knew not what it was
That one should think of disobedience,
Poor Olive heard, with looks of agony
Fixed on the speaker's face—that Northern face,
Wild in its power and in its beauty weird.
The starry halo of that tintless crown,
The midnight blackness of her plentiful hair,
Set off the splendor of the countenance
On which the maiden bent her pale regard.
A jealous terror urged her on to say—
"Love is not taught, Queen Oene ”