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Ranolf and Amohia

IV

IV.

Night came at last; at last ev'n midnight came.
How wearily the hours for Ranolf passed—
On tenterhooks of expectation cast—
Such incomplete and tantalising joy!
But even the noisy natives sunk at last
To rest—the earlier for their day's employ.
The flittings to and fro, from hut to hut,
Ceased by degrees, and every door was shut;
The laughter loud and lazy chat were o'er;
The smouldering firesticks on each earthen floor
Had for the last time been together raked,
And blown with lips far-pouted, to a flame;
The last pipe smoked; and the consuming thirst
For gossip haply for the moment slaked.
page 466 The large-limbed lounging men upon the ground,
Naked whene'er the heat too great was found;
And every active, restless, wrinkled dame,—
Crowded in some convenient house at first,
Had to their separate homes retired to sleep;
And all the 'pah' was wrapt in silence deep.

Then Ranolf, with a quicker-throbbing heart,
Watched in the cot consigned to him apart;
With door ajar, and sharp attentive ear
Watched—listened for the faint delicious sound—
The footstep that he felt must now be near.—
A rustle … No?—'twas fancy!—then more clear
Another!—'Tis herself! with that wan face,
Locked in his almost fiercely fond embrace!—
Yes, 'tis herself! and never, come what may,
Shall she be torn from that fond heart away!
And She—into his arms herself she flung
With what a burst of passionate sobs! and hung
Upon his neck with moans of happiness;
And felt once more his vehement caress,
With what an ecstacy of soothing tears!
And revelled in the burning kiss on kiss,
With such intense relief from doubts and tears;
Such sense of infinite agony supprest.
Swallowed, like night in lightning-sheets—in this,
This full fruition of exceeding bliss—
As if upon the heaven of that breast
Her soul had reached its everlasting rest!

But when the Sea of their emotion's ran
In less tumultuous billows, and began
In gentler agitation to subside,
page 467 So that clear Thought and Speech articulate
Above the tide unwrecked could ride;
Then Ranolf, holding at arms' length awhile
His new-found treasure, his recovered bride,
Gazes with mournful gladness in his smile—
Gazes with fond and pitying tenderness—
At those thin pallid features, which the weight
And anguish of despair no more depress—
Into those eyes which happy tears beteem—
As to make sure it was not all a dream!

"No Spirit then!—my own
Own Amo, loving and alive again!
O God! can such delight indeed be mine!"—

"No Spirit—no—nor dead; but with the pain
To lose thy love; and thought of that alone
Would kill me any time—"

"Then never think
The thought; the thing itself, my dearest, best.
Shall never be a grief of thine!"

"What! you will never be distrest
For want of all that sunset-tinted snow
And hair, such as the moonbeams link …
What was it?"
"Amo!—"
"Nay, then nay—
Not that upbraiding look to-day!
See! O'er these dear, dear features, worn with care,
page 468 See, see! my murmuring lips must stray
With flying faint hair-kisses, so
To brush all that reproach away!
No, I will never doubt again—
Do not these features, pale with grief,
Do they not say ray Stranger-Chief
My lord, my life, will never choose
His poor wild maiden's love to lose?—
But how then could you be so sad
When I was with you?"

"I was mad—
An idiot, dearest! just to shun
A small misfortune, so to run
The risk of that o'erwhelming one
By which I were indeed undone!—
But small and great shall soon be o'er,
And neither shall afflict us more,
If you will leave this land with me,
And dare to cross yon starlit sea!"

"What is to me land, sea, or sky
So that with you, I live and die!"—

Then soon a plan for their escape
Was moulded into practicable shape:
Only the pressing, first, immediate need
Was that before these natives they should be
Absolute strangers, nor each other heed.
This need did Amo when she first caught sight
Of Ranolf, feel—this, somehow could foresee;
And this perception made her first wild cry,
page 469 That sudden cry of wonder and delíght
Die off in such a strange unmeaning moan.