Monody of the Countess of Nettlestede

Oh vernal sun, how cold thy beams to me! Since they can never more illume His face, my heart’s idolatry, That now, alas! immersed in urnal gloom, Far, far below thy golden glances lies, Wrapt from these yearning arms and weeping eyes! In vain for me, sweet flowers, ye reassume Your vestments rare of oriental dyes; Your subtle fragrance and your glorious bloom But call to mind a sweeter far than you— My Prince and Lord, my Beautiful and True, Whose cheek was burnished with as bright a hue As decks your leaves, whose eyes were wont to shine Upon my glowing face like stars benign. Again I hear the South wind’s murmurs low Making the earth with life and beauty glow, But now more icy than the Sarsar’s breath, In deserts old the minister of death, Around my worn and wasted frame it sighs, Recalling soft Elysian memories. How oft engraven in the oaken rind, My hapless name with his I see entwined. Dear hand, that carved these love knots, ’neath the mould Thou now alas! art shrunken, pulseless, cold! And has he left the world forevermore, That still contains his ill-starred paramour? Oh, woe is me! Oh sickening, keen distress! Oh solemn, strange, and mighty loneliness! That makes to issue from my riven breast Sob after sob of anguish unrepressed And irrepressible, till, nerveless down My cold limbs sink upon the sun-warm ground.— Thence up aloft I gaze with yearning eyes Into the vast and azure-flowing skies, Far, far beyond whose airy curtains stand The many mansions of the angel land. There, girt with seraphs sits the mother mild, And there in glory reigns her sinless child. Oh, Holy One! Thy countenance benign Unto thy weary worshipper incline! My lonely spirit quickly call away From earth, and its pale tenement of clay! The sunlit hills, woods, vales, and waters clear, And home and household faces once so dear— All these fair sights since his departure seem Mournful and strange,—a vision and a dream. Oh, Saviour merciful! whate’er his fate Beyond the grave, let me participate. If garmented in light, he walks serene By thy still waters, through thy pastures green, My soul make pure so long by sin defiled, And, raised to heaven, acknowledge me thy child! But if, Erinnys-like, the bloody Doom, That here on earth pursued him to the tomb, Lured by his sins relentless pass beyond, And hunt him to the gulfs of woe profound, Together let our erring sprites be hurled Afar into some sad autumnal world— Some land of withered leaves and sighing winds, Where twined in one we may bewail our sins! Father in Heaven, forgive this impious prayer! Thou know’st it rises from my deep despair, Be merciful unto my wretched state— Indeed, indeed, I am unfortunate! Far, far from me the loved one buried lies— His sepulchre unknown to these dim eyes— In that sad chapel, whose dark aisles contain Full many a haughty heart and guilty brain, Beauty and strength resolved to dust again. There languish now henceforth in dull decay Those eyes, that glistened with a star-like ray. From his blanched lip and cheek forevermore Fades the fresh rose which blossomed there before. Gory and dank, bereft of all their grace His tresses hang about his marble face— Not as of old, when flowing unconfined, Their odors wooed the amorous summer wind. Livid and blue those beauteous lips, whose kiss, The seal of love, imparted perfect bliss. The rosy twilights and the moons of May, Beneath whose beams we loved the hours away, Are gone—and gone the ruddy ember-gloom, That filled with lurid light our silent room, When o’er our hall the wintry tempest flew, And love our yearning hearts together drew. My stay, my life, my hope, my star is gone— And I am left in sorrow and alone; The oak is stricken from the vine’s embrace, And on the earth its tendrils run to waste!

Close, close by Aidenn’s happy portals My tent is pitched forevermore, Through which to join the bright immortals, My loved and lost have gone before.

In noontide trance and starry dream Their forms transfigured oft I see; Though Death’s cold river flows between, Their gentle whispers come to me.

And Aidenn’s walls I see in dreams, Its shining turrets golden-tiled; But swiftly fade their lovely gleams, And leave behind a longing wild.

There cleansed and pure from earthly stain, Full many a martyred spirit dwells, Through fire and wrong that did attain Those far celestial citadels.

Ye white-robed warders, strong and bright, That on those shining summits stand, Entreat for me the Prince of Light, That I may reach his happy land.