Ulla; Or, the Adjuration

“Yet speak to me! I have outwatch’d the stars,And gazed o’er heaven in vain, in search of thee.Speak to me! I have wander’d o’er the earth,And never found thy likeness. Speak to me!This once--once more!” Manfred.

“Thou’rt gone!--thou’rt slumbering low,With the sounding seas above thee:It is but a restless woe,But a haunting dream to love thee!Thrice the glad swan has sungTo greet the spring-time hours,Since thine oar at parting flungThe white spray up in showers.There’s a shadow of the grave on thy hearth and round thy home;Come to me from the ocean’s dead!--thou’rt surely of them--come!”

’Twas Ulla’s voice! Alone she stoodIn the Iceland summer night,Far gazing o’er a glassy floodFrom a dark rock’s beetling height.

“I know thou hast thy bedWhere the sea-weed’s coil hath bound thee;The storm sweeps o’er thy head,But the depths are hush’d around thee.What wind shall point the wayTo the chambers where thou’rt lying?Come to me thence, and sayIf thou thought’st on me in dying?I will not shrink to see thee with a bloodless lip and cheek.Come to me from the ocean’s dead!--thou’rt surely of them--speak!”

She listen’d--’twas the wind’s low moan,’Twas the ripple of the wave,’Twas the wakening osprey’s cry aloneAs it startled from its cave.

“I know each fearful spellOf the ancient Runic lay,Whose mutter’d words compelThe tempest to obey.But I adjure not theeBy magic sign or song;My voice shall stir the seaBy love--the deep, the strong!By the might of woman’s tears, by the passion of her sighs,Come to me from the ocean’s dead!--by the vows we pledged, arise!”

Again she gazed with an eager glance,Wandering and wildly bright;--She saw but the sparkling waters danceTo the arrowy northern-light.

“By the slow and struggling deathOf hope that loathed to part,By the fierce and withering breathOf despair on youth’s high heart--By the weight of gloom which clingsTo the mantle of the night,By the heavy dawn which bringsNaught lovely to the sight--By all that from my weary soul thou hast wrung of grief and fear,Come to me from the ocean’s dead! Awake, arise, appear!”

Was it her yearning spirit’s dream?Or did a pale form rise,And o’er the hush’d wave glide and gleam,With bright, still, mournful eyes?

“Have the depths heard? They have!My voice prevails: thou’rt there,Dim from thy watery grave--O thou that wert so fair!Yet take me to thy rest!There dwells no fear with love;Let me slumber on thy breast,While the billow rolls above!Where the long-lost things lie hid, where the bright ones have theirhome,We will sleep among the ocean’s dead. Stay for me, stay!--I come!”

There was a sullen plunge below,A flashing on the main;And the wave shut o’er that wild heart’s woe--Shut, and grew still again.