Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 70, No. 433, November 1851. Various
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СКАЧАТЬ nature cheats this world in keeping count:

      There's some men pass for old men who ne'er lived —

      These monks, to wit: they count the time, not spend it;

      They reckon moments by the tick of beads,

      And ring the hours with psalmody: clocks, clocks;

      If one of these had gone a century,

      I would not say he'd lived. My brother's age

      Has spanned the matter of too many lives;

      He's full of years though young."

      Comnenus, we have said, is on ill terms with the church. Speaking of the sanctuary he says: —

      "I have a safer refuge. Mother church

      Hath no such holy precinct that my blood

      Would not redeem all sin and sacrilege

      Of slaughter therewithin. But there's a spot

      Within the circle my good sword describes,

      Which by God's grace is sanctified for me."

      On quitting his cousin Anna, she says: —

      "Go, and good angels guard thee is my prayer.

      Comnenus.– Good soldiers, Anna. In the arm of flesh

      Are we to trust. The Mother of the Gods,

      Prolific Mother, holiest Mother church,

      Hath banded heaven upon the side opposed.

      No matter, when such supplicants as thou

      Pray for us, other angels need we none."

      It is plain that we have no dutiful son of the Church here; and that her hostility, in this instance, is not altogether without cause. We find that his scepticism has gone farther than to dispute the miraculous virtues of the holy image of St Basil, the eye of which he is reputed to have knocked out with his lance: —

      "Just as you came

      I moralised the matter of that change

      Which theologians call – how aptly, say —

      The quitting of a tenement."

      And his moralising is overcast with the shadow of doubt. The addresses, for such they are, of Theodora, the daughter of the emperor, he receives and declines with the greatest calmness, though they are of that order which it is manifestly as dangerous to reject as to accept.

      "Germanus. My noble lord, the Cæsarissa waits

      With infinite impatience to behold you:

      She bids me say so. Ah! most noble count!

      A fortunate man – the sunshine is upon you —

      Comnenus. Ay, sir, and wonderfully warm it makes me.

      Tell her I'm coming, sir, with speed."

      With speed, however, he does not go, nor makes a better excuse for his delay than that he was "sleeping out the noontide." In the first interview he escapes from her confidence, and when subsequently she will not be misunderstood, he says —

      "Nor now, nor ever,

      Will I make bargains for a lady's love."

      In a dialogue with his brother Alexius, his temper and way of thinking, and the circumstance which has mainly produced them, are more fully developed. We make a few extracts without attempting very closely to connect them. Alexius has been remarking the change in Comnenus since they last met.

      "Comnenus. Change is youth's wonder:

      Such transmutations have I seen on man

      That fortune seemed a slow and stedfast power

      Compared with nature.

      Alexius. There is nought thou'st seen

      More altered than art thou.

      I speak not of thy change in outward favour,

      But thou art changed in heart.

      Comnenus. Ay, hearts change too:

      Mine has grown sprightly, has it not, and hard?

      I ride it now with spurs; else, else, Alexius —

      Well is it said the best of life is childhood.

      Life is a banquet where the best's first served,

      And when the guest is cloyed comes oil and garlick.

      Alexius. Hast thou forgotten how it was thy wont

      To muse the hours away along this shore —

      These very rippled sands?

      Comnenus. The sands are here,

      But not the foot-prints. Wouldst thou trace them now?

      A thousand tides and storms have dashed them out.

      … I have no care for beauty.

      Seest thou yon rainbow based and glassed on ocean?

      I look on that as on a lovely thing,

      But not a thing of promise."

      Comnenus has wandered with his brother unawares to a spot which of all others on earth was the most dear or the most painful to him – the spot where his Irene had been buried. He recognises it whilst he is in the full tide of his cynicism: —

      "Alexius. What is this carved upon the rock?

      Comnenus. I know not:

      But Time has ta'en it for a lover's scrawl;

      He's razed it, razed it.

      Alexius. No, not quite; look here.

      I take it for a lover's.

      Comnenus. What! there's some talk

      Of balmy breath, and hearts pierced through and through

      With eyes' miraculous brightness – vows ne'er broken,

      Until the church had sealed them – charms loved madly,

      Until it be a sin to love them not —

      And kisses ever sweet, till they be innocent —

      But that your lover's not put down?

      Alexius. No, none of it.

      There are but two words.

      Comnenus. That's succinct; what are they?

      Alexius. 'Alas, Irene!' Why thy looks are now —

      Comnenus parries the question of his brother, contrives to dismiss him, and remains alone upon the spot.

      "This is the very earth that covers her,

      And lo! we trample it like common clay!

      … When I last stood here

      Disguised, to see a lowly girl laid down

      Into her early grave, there was such light

      As now doth show it, but a bleaker air,

      Seeing it was December. 'Tis most strange;

      I can remember now each circumstance

      Which then I scarce was conscious of; like words

      That leave upon the still susceptive sense

      A message undelivered till the mind

      Awakes to apprehensiveness and takes it.

      'Twas o'er – the muttered unattended rite,

      And the few friends she had beside myself

      Had СКАЧАТЬ