And yet to _her_ this sad caress
Gives hope--so fondly hope can err!
'Twas joy, she thought, joy's mute excess--
Their happy flight's dear harbinger;
'Twas warmth--assurance--tenderness--
'Twas any thing but leaving her.
"Haste, haste!" she cried, "the clouds grow dark,
"But still, ere night, we'll reach the bark;
"And by to-morrow's dawn--oh bliss!
"With thee upon the sun-bright deep,
"Far off, I'll but remember this,
"As some dark vanisht dream of sleep;
"And thou"--but ah!--he answers not--
Good Heaven!--and does she go alone?
She now has reached that dismal spot,
Where some hours since his voice's tone
Had come to soothe her fears and ills,
Sweet as the angel ISRAFIL'S,[264]
When every leaf on Eden's tree
Is trembling to his minstrelsy--
Yet now--oh, now, he is not nigh.--
"HAFED! my HAFED!--if it be
"Thy will, thy doom this night to die
"Let me but stay to die with thee
"And I will bless thy loved name,
"Till the last life-breath leave this frame.
"Oh! let our lips, our cheeks be laid
"But near each other while they fade;
"Let us but mix our parting breaths,
"And I can die ten thousand deaths!
"You too, who hurry me away
"So cruelly, one moment stay--
"Oh! stay--one moment is not much--
"He yet may come--for _him_ I pray--
"HAFED! dear HAFED!"--all the way
In wild lamentings that would touch
A heart of stone she shrieked his name
To the dark woods--no HAFED came:--
No--hapless pair--you've lookt your last:--
Your hearts should both have broken then:--
The dream is o'er--your doom is cast--
You'll never meet on earth again!
Alas for him who hears her cries!
Still half-way down the steep he stands,
Watching with fixt and feverish eyes
The glimmer of those burning brands
That down the rocks with mournful ray,
Light all he loves on earth away!
Hopeless as they who far at sea
By the cold moon have just consigned
The corse of one loved tenderly
To the bleak flood they leave behind,
And on the deck still lingering stay,
And long look back with sad delay
To watch the moonlight on the wave
That ripples o'er that cheerless grave.
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