She answered not! yet sorrow there Has held a bridal with despair, And pale her cheek as if with wo Which none but she must ever know. In vain I questioned—her reply A sad reproachfulness of eye, So firm yet tender in its look, It ever, sorrowing, seemed to say “Why torture me!”—I could not brook Such gaze, but gladly turned away, Leaving my Ila to her mood In our old castle’s solitude. Days rolled away!—And who art thou With princely step and lofty brow? What dost thou here within our halls, Sir knight! unwelcome to these walls? Days roll’d away!—I sought my sire; He met me but with glance of ire, And freezing mystery of air, Which seemed to say—“Ila?—beware!” And then he cried, “away! away! Mad boy, she weds the knight to-day!” I spoke not; slowly round me came A wavering sheet of cloud and flame, Which seem’d to sear my very brain: How long ’twas thus I cannot say, Nor when I woke to life again. They called me mad: I heard the chain Clanking around my limbs, and near The hum of voices meet my ear, And eyes amid the darkness shone So bright, so angry and so lone— Methought they were the eyes of those Whom men have named their demon-foes, Drawing a life from human woes. Yes! I was mad, and in my strength I spurned the dungeon’s hated ground, Hurled from my limbs the chain, at length, And thus my birth-right freedom found. I saw the glorious stars again— Once more I gazed upon the main Whose billows e’en in boyhood were My playmates, when their crested forms Rushed up like ministers of Fear Amid their temple of the storms. Once more I heard the Ocean’s shock Against the castellated rock; And saw, oh! gallant, blessed sight! My barque along the heaving tide, Like lover resting through the night Upon the bosom of his bride. The sail’s unfurl’d! How free! How brave! On! on my vessel, o’er the wave! The night-winds kiss thee, as in joy To meet once more their ocean-boy. Oh! I had loved thee, glorious sea, And oft thy waters laved my brow, But never have I gazed on thee With such a bounding heart as now. Roll on! Roll on! thy dark blue foam Shall henceforth be to me a home. For days I skimmed the ocean blue, And deeper still my gladness grew; And oft my joy was uttered out To heaven in that delirious shout Which only he can swell whose life Is passed amid the ocean’s strife. And others soon around me came; And men soon shook before my name. What trophies glittered on our deck, How foemen sank with many a wreck, Let that old ocean’s caverns tell,— In sooth our spirits loved them well— They lay beneath us like a spell.