INEZ. BY T. K. HERVEY, ESQ. I. No more, within her marble halls,-to listen to the breeze, When evening, like a spirit, falls, among the orange trees; No more, to watch, around her bower, each shadow as it flits, With love's own eye, at love's own hour,-the lady Inez sits! II. And never more, at morning time,-as at the touch of spells, Shall Inez wake, beneath the chime of far Valencia's bells; Valencia's lofty tower hath flung another voice around, And she, alone, for whom it rung, arose not at the sound! III. The lady of a thousand hearts!—the tended and carest! And guarded by a thousand arts-that could not guard her breast; And many answered at her call, and watched her steps, in vain, For she has wandered from them all,-never to come again! IV. An old man sits within the home that she had made so bright, Whose brow is dreary as a tomb, and his eye is like its light; And page and squire, within its walls, keep up an idle state, For there are weepers in its halls, and weepers at its gate! V. 'Tis eve!—and, through her lattice high, looks in the quiet moon, And scents-like sweet thoughts--wander by, upon the breath of June; There sits the lady Inez, pale, and with a fevered eye, But not to watch the cloud-boats sail, nor hear the roses sigh! VI. Light as a moonbeam through the leaves, a white plume plays, afar, And louder scarce than silence-grieves a lone and low guitar; Well Inez knows it, by the tears that, at its waving, start, And, faint as are the tones, she hears, and hears them with her heart! VII. And all that melancholy night, that melancholy tune, Sweet as it floated on that light, and murmured from that moon, Sad as it came from distant lands, and spoke of distant years, Falls loud upon her listening heart, though low upon her ears! VIII. As 't were a song that she had heard,-oh! many an age agone, That voice of some remembered bird that from her bower had flown! But silent-never more to rise!-the dim and dream-like strain, And morning shews her heavy eyes a ship upon the main ! IX. She withered from that day, her bloom grew beautifully faint, And her murmurs took a tone, whose voice was sadder than complaint. Oh! never more, to her, the moon flung beauty on the wave, And night fell down as if the sun were going to its grave! X. And to her eye there came a light more bright than that of mirth; And o'er her brow a loveliness that was not of the earth; And as her wasting form went by, its motion gave no sound, And her foot-fall was so soft it drew no echo from the ground! XI. The earth, to-day, is like a grave,—the air is like a shroud, There is no pulse upon the wave,-no motion in the cloud; The morning like a mourner comes,-the sky is like a pall, And sounds, as if they stole from tombs, go wailing over all! XII. Before the shrine,-her forehead bowed upon her thin, white hands, Still as she were a sculptured thing, the lady Inez stands, And when, among the long, dim aisles, the holy anthem dies, They raise her face,-but she is gone, in music, to the skies! XIII. Upon her brow there is no sign that death had struggled there, No pang to make her all divine, who, ever, was so fair! The stars had faded, one and all, before the dull, grey light, But Inez saw them once, again, long ere another night! XIV. The lark had risen, at her feet, upon her morning way, But she shall be before him, yet, amid the purer day; And half way up at heaven's gate, from earth, she heard him sing, But Inez passed him, in his flight,—and with a lighter wing! |