There are two Fountains in the Vale of Life,

That flow for lovers—one with nectar runs,

The other poison! One with joy is rife,

The other with a deadly gurgle stuns.

Their stream commingles for all Eva’s sons

And daughters who with mutual passion thrill.

None, none may drink the nectar pure, which shuns

All human lips till with the poison-rill

’Tis mixed, and happiest they whose cups the least may fill!

And Young Love sits upon a flowery knoll

Where those two streamlets mix, his shafts he dips

In their joint flow, and ceaseless twangs at all

Who pass his ivory bow with wanton quips.

But in the honeyest kiss of human lips

There lurks a poison—ay, when hearts most mingle,

Doth Fate perchance prepare his scorpion whips;

And nerves that with the keenest rapture tingle

Shall haply curse the hour when ceased they to be single!

’Twas a delicious, soft autumnal eve;

Salustian through his lovely garden strayed,

By Isabel supported. Mountains heave

Their giant forms to Heaven, Pyrene’s shade

Thrown to the Frenchward side. His bulwarks made

A fence the westering sunbeam to reflect,

And balmy gales from many an opening glade

Came soft the old man’s forehead to protect

From fiercer rays, while moved his form no more erect.

And, as on Isabel’s sustaining arm

He passed ’neath trellised vine that dropt its load

Of blooming clusters near their heads, the charm

Of youthful beauty in that fair abode

More interest took from sorrows that corrode

The old man’s brow beside her. Ne’er was seen

A lovelier picture than the pains bestowed

On that ripe senior by that maiden green—

No sire more grave, no maid more dutiful I ween.

Between the apple-trees with loaded boughs

Peeped ever and anon Ernani’s towers,

And Haya tops them with his craggy brows,

And distant Jaizquibel where tempest lours

So oft serenely smiles. Through scented bowers

Of orange, jasmine, myrtle, balm, they pass,

And Isabel now tends, now plucks the flowers,

A nosegay for her sire, while dew like glass

In beads begins to strew the eve-reviving grass.

Not fairer opened in Alcina’s isle

Upon Ruggiero’s wild, enchanted view

The magic garden, mightiest wings the while

Furled the aËrial steed on which he flew.

Not fairer that to which Armida drew

The Christian Knight whom fatal toils ensnared,

Where side by side the fruit and blossoms grew,

The bough green apples with the golden shared,

And the full ripened with the nascent fig compared.

Salustian to the sheltering house returned

For twilight’s bland repose, and Isabel

Amongst the flowers she loved till night sojourned,

Then to a bower retired in distant dell

Upon the garden’s verge she cherished well,

For there full oft with Nial joyous seated

She deep had drunk of Love’s delicious spell,

And many a Vascon legend oft repeated,

And now with thought of him the tedious hours she cheated.

Sudden a tall gaunt man before her stood,

With hat broad-flapping slouched upon his face,

XaquÉta and buckled shoon: in masking mood

He seemed, half-monk and half of worldlier race.

He raised his head, his features showed apace.

Screamed Isabel who saw ’twas Fray BeltrÁn,

Don Carlos’ brother who a rival place

Had sought in Isidora’s heart, and ran,

When Carlos he had smote, to cloisters fenced from man.

Now glared his eye with fearful purpose—swift

He caught her wrist—she screamed again: “Thou’lt come

“With me!” he said—she struggled—he did lift

Her in his arms, where swooned the maid struck dumb

With terror—to a steed he bore her from

The bower, upon its shoulder laid her form,

Then sprang to the saddle ere her senses numb

Revived, and galloped swift his courser warm,

Till on an ocean-cliff he stood ’neath gathering storm.

Here by steep paths he led the maid perforce

Adown the cliff amid the seamew’s wail.

Terrific were the perils of their course,

And Isabel with sobs outsighed the gale.

Oh, dire to see that beauty lorn and pale!

At length so difficult the rude descent,

That in his arms he lifted her;—no jail

She dreaded like those arms, and shuddering bent

Away and shrieked, but none to aid the maiden went.

Within a lofty cave and wide they now

Together stood, the ocean-wave before,

Stalactites pendent from its rocky brow,

And moon-lit shells and shingle strewed the floor.

Little of these thought Isabel, though more

Delighted none with Nature’s works than she,

In calmer hours. BeltrÁn she doth implore

On bended knees with tears full sad to see,

And prayers and passionate sobs, to set her stainless free.

He shook his head: “Oh dread, mysterious man,

“What would’st thou with me here?”—“Not harm a hair

“Of thine, most beauteous maiden.” Curdling ran

Her blood, for she did think he mocked her prayer.

“If just thy purpose, why felonious tear

“Me from my father’s side—my father ailing?”

She wept again: “My innocence, oh, spare——

“Release me”—but her prayers were unavailing,

And loud resounded all the cavern with her wailing.

“Now hear me,” said BeltrÁn, while flashed his eye

With supernatural light, and instant flushed

His pale and haggard cheek. “My destiny

“Thou know’st is terrible as e’er hath hushed

The heart of man, or youthful spirit crushed.

I loved, and in a brother found, oh God!

A rival—all unconsciously I rushed

And stabbed him—then a cloister’s pavement trod,

And sought relief in prayer, in monkish fast, and rod.

“But vain the toil. Thy image, Isidor,

For ever haunted thus my troubled brain.

The prisoned lion doth the fiercer roar,

And chafed my tortured spirit ’neath its chain.

The thought that Isidora”—’Twas in vain

He checked the tears that here began to flow,

Tears that like molten fire adown did rain.—

“The thought that she could not be mine—the wo

Unutterable racked my brain to madness—so!

“The sack of San Sebastian came to ope

My convent-door which War’s dread fire consumed.

Kindled that fire in me a ray of hope.

I rushed to your house—but found its Lar entombed

In smouldering ashes. Like a spirit doomed,

I wandered then GuipÚscoa’s confines through,

When chance another ray of Hope illumed.

I found the garden, saw your sire and you,

But nought of Isidor could learn, nor e’er could view.

“All thought of her I checked—but while my soul

Shook with its mortal agony I sought

Relief in the design to this rude goal

To bear thee, maiden, as I now have brought,

And gaze upon thy face where Nature wrought

Such likeness unto her—but fear not harm

From me! Thou’rt as a sister dear, whom nought

Shall dare to injure. Let me drink the charm

Of thy sweet face i’ the Moon—nay, curb thy vain alarm!

“’Tis her’s I see in thine—her angel face

In thee depictured. In the moonlight stand,

I pray thee, Isabel.”—On that lone place

The sound of oars and voices from the strand

Fell—’tis the Basque barqueras come to land;

And straight they fill the cave, where from the storm

They seek retreat. Amazed the Nereid band

Behold the frayle’s and the maiden’s form;

But soon the mystery solved uproused their spirits warm.

“Go, Frayle, to thy book and to thy beads;

With dame or damsel nought concerns thee more.

Off to thy cloister, breviary, and weeds,

Or straight we’ll drive thee forth with lusty oar,

Laid on thy shoulders till no bull shall roar

On GuetarÍa’s plain more loud than thou.

The peerless lily, DoÑa Isidor,

Whom thou so madly lov’dst, is buried now

In Santiago’s green, where lilies o’er her bow.”

Dire was the change in all his face, when heard

This fatal news he ne’er before had learned.

He gasped with horror—nor could e’en a word

Put forth—his jawbone fell—as pale he turned

As monumental marble, for inurned

His hopes lay in her tomb. Upon his face

Grief stamped a fearful image. He sojourned

But for an instant more—“’Tis lilies grace

“Her grave?” he said—they nod—he roelike fled the place!

Soon found the blithe Barqueras dry old wood,

And kindled fire i’ the centre of the cave.

Bright flashed the blaze, and sparkling keener stood

The dark-eyed daughters of the ocean-wave,

But brighter flashed, that thus they came to save

In peril’s hour, the eyes of Isabel.

Her glances eloquent the tribute gave

Of gratitude, nor looked she e’er so well

As when the o’erflowing heart threw Beauty’s softer spell.

Her mobile face with play of sweetest smiles

Gives forth her innocent thoughts and nought conceals:

An aspect changeful still that ne’er beguiles,

For every change a beauty new reveals,

Its form vibrating as her bosom feels.

As some fair lake reflects each passing cloud,

Each sun-bright ray that o’er its bosom steals,

So were her looks with mirror truth endowed,

Nor could she, if she would, emotion’s play enshroud.

“Oh, Isidor’s and Blanca’s blessing fall

“From Heaven upon your heads!” she weeping cried.

At Blanca’s name the maidens kist her all,

In memory of their Armadilla’s pride.

From Contrabandist stores, the cavern wide

Embosomed, then refreshment meet they drew;

And while the flickering blaze, as nightwinds sighed,

In light or shade their beauties lambent threw,

They waited till more calm the Ocean grow to view.

’Twas after Sunset but the second hour,

When Nial from the Bidasoa came,

Glowing with valour’s pride and passion’s power,

And eager to recount the army’s fame

To Isabel—for sealed a blushing shame

His lips to his own daringness of deed,

And to conceal it e’en was oft his aim.

Swift lit the hero from his foaming steed,

And met Salustian wild distracted, borne at speed:

“Hast seen her? Hast thou seen my daughter? Say,

“Know’st thou aught of my girl?”—“Great Heaven, what means

“Thy question?”—“They have ta’en my girl away—

“One, one was not enough. Oh, Hell-born scenes

“Of War!” An instant’s breathing-time he leans

On Nial. “Isabel—.” “Who dared to harm?”

Quoth Nial, flashing terrible wrath, then gleans

From the old man, how, sleeping, the alarm

Reached him that she was torn away by a stranger’s arm,

And then to horse, and galloped out of sight,

But none knew whither—none who dared aspire.

Swift to his steed leapt Nial airy light,

His nostril panting with excitement dire,

His lips compressed with fearful purpose—ire

And vengeance from his eagle glances fly.

“Stay—stay; I join thee,” cried the plundered sire.

“Stir not for love of Heaven!” was the reply.

Salustian screamed: “I go! Who so bereaved as I?”

Vain Nial’s words—Salustian would to horse:

“Then let your ailing master be your care,”

Quoth Nial to Salustian’s men. “Remorse

“Be his who shall neglect my fervent prayer,

“That, if he still will follow, slow ye fare!”

He spurred his generous charger—at a bound

Crost half the court-yard, learnt the route to bear

Upon the robber’s track, and soon the sound

Of his steed’s hoofs was lost upon the mountain-ground.

Vain his long gallop, vain his bird-like speed,

Vain every turn and venture far and near.

Sad, sad grew Nial’s heart, and ’gan to bleed,

While from his eye fell many a bitter tear.

O’er leagues of mountain heath did nought appear,

Save his own shadow and his steed’s i’ the Moon

Reflected long and dreary as the year

It seemed since he had parted, vowing soon

To meet, from Isabel thus lost in Beauty’s noon!

He sickened at the thought of what might be,

And let his weary charger pace at will,

While o’er the heath Salustian rapidly

At peril of his life through dale and hill

Careered, grief’s energy sustaining still.

“Oh Nial, know’st thou aught?”—A tear he shed,

More speaking Silence than might volumes fill.

The old man tore his hair. His steed they led

By the rein, and held his hands in pity for his head.

Thus by the far-resounding shore they past,

High o’er the bosom of the heaving main,

When reached their ears upon the lulling blast

A chorus sweet that seemed to ease their pain.

Their eyes cast downward o’er the Ocean-plain

Beheld the Basque barqueras distant ply

Their shallops in the moonlight, like a chain

Of jet o’er sparkling emerald. Both drew nigh

To the cliff’s edge, amazed a sight so strange to espy.

Sudden the chorus ceased—the shallops stopt—

The oars arose like spear-shafts in the air;

“Parad!” a voice exclaimed, like music dropt

Upon the gale that hastened swift to bear

The summons to the victims of Despair.

Down fell the oars again, and swift each hand

The green wave lashed, till urged those Nereids fair

Their prows with rival speed upon the strand,

And soon in beauteous file upon the beach they land.

Great Heaven! what is’t? ’Tis she, ’tis Isabel,

That from the midst takes rapidly the lead,

With eager cry of transport. Each full well

Of each the features recognized. His steed

Soon Nial left, and sprang with headlong speed

Adown the cliff, of Isabel’s alarms

And imminent perils taking little heed.

His magnet strong was her recovered charms,

Nor drew he foot nor breath till clasped within his arms!

Oh, rapturous embrace! oh, tenfold joy,

All sweeter for the racking grief sustained.

Salustian shook with transport to destroy,

Upon the cliff where he perforce remained,

By iron bonds of age and sickness chained.

But swift sweet Isabel to cheer him flew,

Like beauteous fawn, and soon the summit gained,

And wept with bliss, and on her bosom true

The old man’s weary head sustained, and kist anew.

And soon her story wondrous strange was told,

BeltrÁn’s devoted frenzy, harmless all,

And how the Basque barqueras, even though bold

And criminal his passion, seemed to fall

From Heaven to her relief. From Vascon tall,

Salustian’s servitor, doth Nial here

Take well-trained steed, then lift her wrapt in shawl;

And, homeward wending, Heaven received a tear

Of gratitude for her who now was doubly dear.

And many a noble gift Salustian sent

With old Hidalgo lavishment to mark

His grateful spirit to the maids who went

To aid his daughter when the sky was dark,

And safely bore to his arms in gallant bark.

But what of San Sebastian ’mid this play

Of grief and joy alternate? Is no ark

Of saving launched upon the torrent spray,

That swept her homes? Alas, still desolate are they!

In Santiago’s burial-green, while fall

The struggling moonbeams from a stormy sky,

With brilliance now unclouded, now with pall

Of darkness shadowed intermittingly,

A haggard, gaunt, and ghostly form doth try

Each mound of earth for some peculiar sign,

With preternatural strides and gleaming eye

Doth pass from grave to grave, from line to line,

With eye more fearful bright then halt and cry: “’Tis thine!”

’Twas Fray BeltrÁn, who ’mongst the graves had found,

With instinct’s fatal truth and frenzy’s lore,

The lilies planted o’er the new-raised mound,

That hid the Vascon lily, Isidor!

And as some mariner a rock-bound shore

Doth find in shipwreck, where his limbs are cast

And dashed to pieces with the saving oar,

So baleful was this sight of earth that passed

Before BeltrÁn’s red eyes, and like to prove their last!

With nerves mad-strung he knelt upon the sod,

And deeply groaned, and raised a fervent prayer.

That prayer, ah me, it was not breathed to God;

It seemed the very echo of Despair!

Nor yet the name of Heaven invoked he there,

But loud at first he called the Fiend and Hell,

Till breathed the name of Isidora fair,

All ’midst his anguish dire it was a spell,

Melting his heart to tears that now in torrents fell!

“Oh, lily torn and crushed,” he said, “thou art gone!

Mine—mine—though Fate had given thee to another.

Let cold, weak hearts condemn the love whose dawn

Was ere the altar bound thee to a brother.

I sought that world-condemnÉd love to smother—

As well might stifle a volcano, bind

The ocean-wave, or bid the yearning mother

Curse her first-born. The cloister more enshrined

Thy image—Solitude the gold but more refined!

“Sack-cloth, the fast, the scourge could not o’ercome

The force of passion tyrant-strong like this;

Heart-rooted, it can ne’er be torn but from

My heart with life. Grief, anguish, Death e’en, miss

The aim to mar it. Memory’s self is bliss—

An anguished bliss—the only I can know.

My love hath fed on agony. A kiss,

Stol’n from thee once unwilling, soothed my wo,

When after days of fast had laid me fainting low!

“Cloisters are not for me. Ascetic bands,

Although of iron, chain not souls like mine.

Withes bind not giants, twirled by pigmy hands.

Earth’s hidden fires the globe cannot confine.

They burst in lava torrents! Shade divine

Of Isidor, the fires within my breast

Consume me—for a sight of thee I pine.

Thy lovely lips must yet once more be prest,

Even though in death, or ere I find eternal rest!”

Then with a frantic energy he tore

The earth light-piled upon the new-made grave;

Digging with kite-like nails till they were sore,

But slow his progress, dire the toil he gave.

Ill brooked his soul of time to be the slave.

Again he tore the earth, till stiff and numb

His hands refuse the task. Not demons rave

More wild than he; he shrieked and howled o’ercome;

And tears like molten lead descend till he is dumb!

Sudden a thought flashed o’er him—he is gone,

Swift as the antelope, and soon returns

With spade and mattock—unto Heaven ’tis known

Where found, but frantic energy that burns

Like his the will that shapes a way inurns;

And rapid his career the churchyard ’mid.

Now, now the clay to either side he spurns

With swift-plied implements in earth deep hid,

And now his mattock strikes upon a coffin-lid!

He yelled for joy! In vain his fingers flew

To loose the firm new lid—it mocks his art.

His toil with ten-fold zeal he doth renew,

And clear the earth away from every part.

Oh now, how glare his eyes, how bounds his heart!

Gently his mattock’s pressure is applied

’Twixt lid and coffin till the strong nails start;

Gently, for all is sacred by her side,

Loveliest of Vascon maids, who Virtue’s martyr died!

The lid is moved—the beauteous face unveiled,

Whose beauty not e’en violent death could mar.

That instant forth the Moon sublimely sailed

From darkest cloud that long its stormy bar

To her light opposed, and shone o’er every star,

Peerless in Heaven as Isidor on earth.

Heart-piercing was the cry that pealed afar,

As threw BeltrÁn his form on hers, in mirth

Hysteric mixed with sobs, and clasped her frozen girth,

And kist her icy lips—ah me, ’twas cold

Reply to love that like a furnace glowed;

Love that all lawless and forbidden told

Its tale more fierce that o’er such bounds it strode—

The solemn bounds ’twixt Life and Death’s abode,

’Twixt Transience and Eternity! Her form

Was fresh and pure, Decay could not corrode

So soon its loveliness. BeltrÁn i’ the storm

Still kist as if his breath her lifeless clay could warm.

But vain his kisses, vain his burning tears,

Though poured in showers like those that left the sky.

Man cannot weep for aye—his brain it sears

To feel such anguish as BeltrÁn made cry

Beneath the withering stroke of Destiny!

Up from the grave he sprang, and fiercely bore

The coffin-lid—its parts asunder fly—

With spade and mattock into lengths he tore

The stubborn wood, and thus the grave he laid them o’er.

And from the churchyard near he gathered stones,

And deftly filled the spaces ’twixt the wood;

Then took what came to hand,—or clay or bones—

And wedged each interstice with worm’s old food,

And when the work was done pronounced it good!

Then o’er the deathful pit thus covered in

He heaped the earth beside the margins strewed,

Leaving but at the head a fissure thin

For meagre body worn by sorrow and by sin!

He entered worming through the aperture

With cautious care lest all his toil should fail,

And smiled he last to see the work so sure,

Then drew his head within the covert frail.

He laid him down beside that beauty pale,

And with his hands the boards he turned aside,

Destroying the slight arch that propt his gaol.

The earth-fall smothered the last words he cried:

“Though severed in our lives, yet Death could not divide!”