Page:The complete poems of Emily Bronte.djvu/351

Rh And from his lips in Percy's ear

Flow tones his blood congeals to hear.

Those tones were softer than the moan

Of echo when the sound is flown,

And sweeter than a flute's reply

To skylark's song, or wild wind's sigh.

Yet Percy heard them as they fell,

Like the dull toll of a passing bell.

Sternly they summoned him back again

To a dark world of woe and pain.

The blood from his visage fell away

And left it as pallid as coffined clay.

Like clouds the charmèd visions broke,

From his daylong dream at once he woke;

He woke to feel and see at his side

The very man who dared to roll

This dark unsounded briny tide

Over the Eden of his soul;

Who dared to pluck his last fair flower,

To quench his last star's cheering beam,

The last sweet drop of bliss to sour

That mingled with his being's stream.

Up rose he, and stretched forth his hand,

In mingled menace and command;

With voice subdued and steady look,

Thus to the man of sin he spoke:

'What brought you hear? I called you not;

You've tracked me to a lonely spot.

Are you a hawk to follow the prey,

When mangled it flutters feebly away?