And Marian's love, and Marian's pride, Have crushed the heart that would
have died. To save my Marian's tears--A brother's hand has struck the
blow Oh! may that brother never know Such madly sorrowing years!
But hush my griefs--and hush my song, I've mourned in vain--I've mourned
too long; When none have come to soothe--And dark's the path, that lies
before, And dark have been the days of yore, And all was dark in youth.
The maids employed around the person of their comfortless mistress, the
valet of Denbigh engaged in arranging a dry coat for his master--all
suspended their employments to listen in breathless silence to the
mournful melody of the song.
But Denbigh himself had started from his seat at the first notes, and he
continued until the voice ceased, gazing in vacant horror in the
direction of the sounds. A door opened from the parlor to the room of
the musician; he rushed through it, and there, in a kind of shed to the
building, which hardly sheltered him from the fury of the tempest, clad
in the garments of the extremest poverty, with an eye roving in madness,
and a body rocking to and fro from mental inquietude, he beheld seated
on a stone the remains of his long lost brother, Francis.
The language of the song was too plain to be misunderstood. The truth
glared around George with a violence that dazzled his brain; but he saw
it all, he felt it all, and rushing to the feet of his brother, he
exclaimed in horror, pressing his hands between his own,--
"Francis--my own brother--do you not know me?"
The maniac regarded him with a vacant gaze, but the voice and the person
recalled the compositions of his more reasonable moments to his
recollection; pushing back the hair of George, so as to expose his fine
forehead to view, he contemplated him for a few moments, and then
continued to sing, in a voice still rendered sweeter than before by his
faint impressions:
His raven locks, that richly curled, His eye, that proud defiance
hurled. Have stol'n my Marian's love! Had I been blest by nature's
grace, With such a form, with such a face, Could I so treacherous prove?
And what is man--and what is care--That he should let such passions tear
The bases of the soul! Oh! you should do, as I have done--And having
pleasure's summit won, Each bursting sob control!
On ending the last stanza, the maniac released his brother, and broke
into the wildest laugh of madness.
"Francis!--Oh! Francis, my brother," cried George, in bitterness. A
piercing shriek drew his eye to the door he had passed through--on its
threshold lay the senseless body of his wife. The distracted husband
forgot everything in the situation of his Marian, and raising her in his
arms, he exclaimed,--
"Marian--my Marian, revive--look up--know me."
Francis had followed him, and now stood by his side, gazing intently on
the lifeless body; his looks became more soft--his eye glanced less
wildly--he too cried,--
"Marian--My Marian."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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