Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his ways? by taking beed Then entered Satan into Judas, surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the Twelve, and he went his way, and communed with the Chief Priests and Captains how he might betray Him Behold as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work, rising betimes for a prey; the wilderness yieldeth food for them, Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. David saith, Let their table be made a snare and a trap, and a EDWARD WORTLEY MONTAGU. CHAPTER XIV. "But a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira his wife, straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost; and the young men came in and found her dead, and carrying her forth, buried her by her husband." FAIR and beautiful art thou, O, Morning Star! Thou gleamest high in the blue heaven; the purple waves awaken into light, and watch thy golden brightness on their crests. I sit within my moveless gondola, and gaze aloft; I think me of the olden days when she also shone; when she, who was fairer to my soul than all the host of heaven, lived and beamed, and shed her lustre on my heart. O, days! O, long lost days! never once to be forgotten-limned in splendour, yet in darkness and in grief upon my spirit, to perish only when that spirit perishes, if die it ever should. How shall I recall ye? How shall I endure to live again in the blank past, and awaken memories that should repose for aye? How shall I retrace the bitter woe, the agony of recollection, the frenzy of my love, despair and madness; and yet survive to pen them down on paper, and calmly read them in my solitude? Yet must the effort be made-a pang, and resolution comes; the iron-cased and conquering resolution that never yet forsook me in my need; and my hand and heart are nerved alike, and cold and firm as steel. O, star of beauty, shine upon me with propitious light! For well I know that in thy luminous sphere she now abides and looks upon the lone recluse, the weary wanderer-the Ishmael of men, whom once she loved. And often in the dawn she visits me in dream-visits me, and fills me with the music of the spheres. She comes to me from thee; she descends from thy silver orb; she presses my lips and whispers hope into my heart. She says, "I am not dead; I am but gone before. In the Morning Star we yet shall meet, and in our union, think not of the melancholy earth.” Thou art gone mine own; thou art lost to me indeed. For a brief space only didst thou gild my darkness. We heard the songs of Paradise; we heard them but for a moment, and all was chaos. Yet, oh how vividly that moment lives within, around, and through me. Other wandering lights have flitted on my path-other false fires have dazzled and misled the pilgrim of misfortune. But never once wert thou erased from my soul; never once was thy celestial image hurled from the altar on which, as in some sacred temple, thou wert all enshrined. O, Francesca, angel of my life, this at least is true, that never once wert thou forgotten. In the burning conflict, when foe clashed with foe, in the tumult of the tempest, in the turmoil of ambition, in the corrupt war of courts and senates, in the whirlpool of fashionable madness, in the far and silent wilderness, in the thought-uplifting mountains of the Orient, and on the whirling billows of the ocean, still, still was I thine own; and when the last moment of my life draws near, and the death pang quivers through my frame, and my heart throbs again faintly in the mortal agony, still, still, shall one image beam before me, conjoined with that of God; and that image shall be thine. Do I rave, or do I see thee now? The Morning Star opens her golden gates; she sends thee forth a beautiful winged spirit; thou glidest downwards over the silver tracks, over the blue waters. I see thee, and now thou art beside me. An ethereal light overshadows me. I feel thy presence; my heart is in an ecstacy. It is thouit is thou, my Francesca, who art come again, who art come again to cheer me in my desolation; to whisper happiness, and breathe endurance and content. The Yes, she was indeed most beautiful! pencil of Raffaele-I have seen its masterpiecesbut none was fair as she. The forms of Titian and Giorgione, the bright creations of Rubens and Lely, the life-like women of Vandyke, ah! they please, indeed, the passing eye; but to me they typify a loveliness far inferior to that of Francesca. She was but thirteen when first I sought protection among the Gitanos. I saw her not for upwards of a year after. She was secluded from all vulgar observation; the sun was not permitted to shine upon her. Some strange, dark mystery seemed to hang around her very tent. My friend and tutor knew nothing of her; the old Queen of the Encampment was silent as the grave on all that appertained to the lone recluse. She was guarded like the apple of the eye. Accident alone revealed her to me, and it happened in this way. |