The Mysteries of Udolpho, Ann Ward Radcliffe [good story books to read .txt] 📗
- Author: Ann Ward Radcliffe
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For fern-crown’d nymphs of lake, or brook, Through winding woods and pastures wide, And many a wild, romantic nook.
For this the nymphs, at fall of eave, Oft dance upon the flow’ry banks,
And sing my name, and garlands weave To bear beneath the wave their thanks.
In coral bow’rs I love to lie,
And hear the surges roll above,
And through the waters view on high
The proud ships sail, and gay clouds move.
And oft at midnight’s stillest hour, When summer seas the vessel lave,
I love to prove my charmful pow’r
While floating on the moonlight wave.
And when deep sleep the crew has bound, And the sad lover musing leans
O’er the ship’s side, I breathe around Such strains as speak no mortal means!
O’er the dim waves his searching eye Sees but the vessel’s lengthen’d shade; Above—the moon and azure sky;
Entranc’d he hears, and half afraid!
Sometimes, a single note I swell,
That, softly sweet, at distance dies; Then wake the magic of my shell,
And choral voices round me rise!
The trembling youth, charm’d by my strain, Calls up the crew, who, silent, bend O’er the high deck, but list in vain; My song is hush’d, my wonders end!
Within the mountain’s woody bay,
Where the tall bark at anchor rides, At twilight hour, with tritons gay,
I dance upon the lapsing tides:
And with my sister-nymphs I sport,
Till the broad sun looks o’er the floods; Then, swift we seek our crystal court, Deep in the wave, ‘mid Neptune’s woods.
In cool arcades and glassy halls
We pass the sultry hours of noon,
Beyond wherever sunbeam falls,
Weaving sea-flowers in gay festoon.
The while we chant our ditties sweet To some soft shell that warbles near; Join’d by the murmuring currents, fleet, That glide along our halls so clear.
There, the pale pearl and sapphire blue, And ruby red, and em’rald green,
Dart from the domes a changing hue,
And sparry columns deck the scene.
When the dark storm scowls o’er the deep, And long, long peals of thunder sound, On some high cliff my watch I keep
O’er all the restless seas around:
Till on the ridgy wave afar
Comes the lone vessel, labouring slow, Spreading the white foam in the air, With sail and top-mast bending low.
Then, plunge I ‘mid the ocean’s roar, My way by quiv’ring lightnings shewn, To guide the bark to peaceful shore, And hush the sailor’s fearful groan.
And if too late I reach its side
To save it from the ‘whelming surge, I call my dolphins o’er the tide,
To bear the crew where isles emerge.
Their mournful spirits soon I cheer, While round the desert coast I go,
With warbled songs they faintly hear, Oft as the stormy gust sinks low.
My music leads to lofty groves,
That wild upon the sea-bank wave;
Where sweet fruits bloom, and fresh spring roves, And closing boughs the tempest brave.
Then, from the air spirits obey
My potent voice they love so well,
And, on the clouds, paint visions gay, While strains more sweet at distance swell.
And thus the lonely hours I cheat,
Soothing the shipwreck’d sailor’s heart, Till from the waves the storms retreat, And o’er the east the day-beams dart.
Neptune for this oft binds me fast
To rocks below, with coral chain,
Till all the tempest’s over-past,
And drowning seamen cry in vain.
Whoe’er ye are that love my lay,
Come, when red sun-set tints the wave, To the still sands, where fairies play; There, in cool seas, I love to lave.
He is a great observer, and he looks Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays, he hears no music;
Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort, As if he mock’d himself, and scorn’d his spirit that could be mov’d to smile at any thing.
Such men as he be never at heart’s ease, While they behold a greater than themselves.
JULIUS CAESAR
Montoni and his companion did not return home, till many hours after the dawn had blushed upon the Adriatic. The airy groups, which had danced all night along the colonnade of St. Mark, dispersed before the morning, like so many spirits. Montoni had been otherwise engaged; his soul was little susceptible of light pleasures. He delighted in the energies of the passions; the difficulties and tempests of life, which wreck the happiness of others, roused and strengthened all the powers of his mind, and afforded him the highest enjoyments, of which his nature was capable. Without some object of strong interest, life was to him little more than a sleep; and, when pursuits of real interest failed, he substituted artificial ones, till habit changed their nature, and they ceased to be unreal. Of this kind was the habit of gaming, which he had adopted, first, for the purpose of relieving him from the languor of inaction, but had since pursued with the ardour of passion. In this occupation he had passed the night with Cavigni and a party of young men, who had more money than rank, and more vice than either. Montoni despised the greater part of these for the inferiority of their talents, rather than for their vicious inclinations, and associated with them only to make them the instruments of his purposes. Among these, however, were some of superior abilities, and a few whom Montoni admitted to his intimacy, but even towards these he still preserved a decisive and haughty air, which, while it imposed submission on weak and timid minds, roused the fierce hatred of strong ones. He had, of course, many and bitter enemies; but the rancour of their hatred proved the degree of his power; and, as power was his chief aim, he gloried more in such hatred, than it was possible he could in being esteemed. A feeling so tempered as that of esteem, he despised, and would have despised himself also had he thought himself capable of being flattered by it.
Among the few whom he distinguished, were the Signors Bertolini, Orsino, and Verezzi. The first was a man of gay temper, strong passions, dissipated, and of unbounded extravagance, but generous, brave, and unsuspicious. Orsino was reserved, and haughty; loving power more than ostentation; of a cruel and suspicious temper; quick to feel an injury, and relentless in avenging it; cunning and unsearchable in contrivance, patient and indefatigable in the execution of his schemes. He had a perfect command of feature and of his passions, of which he had scarcely any, but pride, revenge and avarice; and, in the gratification of these, few considerations had power to restrain him, few obstacles to withstand the depth of his stratagems. This man was the chief favourite of Montoni. Verezzi was a man of some talent, of fiery imagination, and the slave of alternate passions. He was gay, voluptuous, and daring; yet had neither perseverance or true courage, and was meanly selfish in all his aims. Quick to form schemes, and sanguine in his hope of success, he was the first to undertake, and to abandon, not only his own plans, but those adopted from other persons. Proud and impetuous, he revolted against all subordination; yet those who were acquainted with his character, and watched the turn of his passions, could lead him like a child.
Such were the friends whom Montoni introduced to his family and his table, on the day after his arrival at Venice. There were also of the party a Venetian nobleman, Count Morano, and a Signora Livona, whom Montoni had introduced to his wife, as a lady of distinguished merit, and who, having called in the morning to welcome her to Venice, had been requested to be of the dinner party.
Madame Montoni received with a very ill grace, the compliments of the Signors. She disliked them, because they were the friends of her husband; hated them, because she believed they had contributed to detain him abroad till so late an hour of the preceding morning; and envied them, since, conscious of her own want of influence, she was convinced, that he preferred their society to her own. The rank of Count Morano procured him that distinction which she refused to the rest of the company. The haughty sullenness of her countenance and manner, and the ostentatious extravagance of her dress, for she had not yet adopted the Venetian habit, were strikingly contrasted by the beauty, modesty, sweetness and simplicity of Emily, who observed, with more attention than pleasure, the party around her. The beauty and fascinating manners of Signora Livona, however, won her involuntary regard; while the sweetness of her accents and her air of gentle kindness awakened with Emily those pleasing affections, which so long had slumbered.
In the cool of the evening the party embarked in Montoni’s gondola, and rowed out upon the sea. The red glow of sun-set still touched the waves, and lingered in the west, where the melancholy gleam seemed slowly expiring, while the dark blue of the upper aether began to twinkle with stars. Emily sat, given up to pensive and sweet emotions. The smoothness of the water, over which she glided, its reflected images—a new heaven and trembling stars below the waves, with shadowy outlines of towers and porticos, conspired with the stillness of the hour, interrupted only by the passing wave, or the notes of distant music, to raise those emotions to enthusiasm. As she listened to the measured sound of the oars, and to the remote warblings that came in the breeze, her softened mind returned to the memory of St. Aubert and to Valancourt, and tears stole to her eyes.
The rays of the moon, strengthening as the shadows deepened, soon after threw a silvery gleam upon her countenance, which was partly shaded by a thin black veil, and touched it with inimitable softness.
Hers was the CONTOUR of a Madona, with the sensibility of a Magdalen; and the pensive uplifted eye, with the tear that glittered on her cheek, confirmed the expression of the character.
The last strain of distant music now died in air, for the gondola was far upon the waves, and the party determined to have music of their own. The Count Morano, who sat next to Emily, and who had been observing her for some time in silence, snatched up a lute, and struck the chords with the finger of harmony herself, while his voice, a fine tenor, accompanied them in a rondeau full of tender sadness. To him, indeed, might have been applied that beautiful exhortation of an English poet, had it then existed: Strike up, my master,
But touch the strings with a religious softness!
Teach sounds to languish through the night’s dull ear Till Melancholy starts from off her couch, And Carelessness grows concert to attention!
With such powers of expression the Count sung the following RONDEAU
Soft as yon silver ray, that sleeps
Upon the ocean’s trembling tide;
Soft as the air, that lightly sweeps Yon said, that swells in stately pride: Soft as the surge’s stealing note,
That dies along the distant shores,
Or warbled strain, that sinks remote—
So soft the sigh my bosom pours!
True as the wave to Cynthia’s ray,
True as the vessel to the breeze,
True as the soul to music’s sway,
Or music to Venetian seas:
Soft as yon silver beams, that sleep Upon the ocean’s trembling breast;
So soft, so true, fond Love shall weep, So soft, so true, with THEE shall rest.
The cadence with which he returned from the last stanza to a repetition of the first; the fine modulation in which his voice stole upon the first line, and the pathetic energy with which it pronounced the last, were such as only exquisite taste could give. When he had concluded, he gave the lute with a sigh to Emily, who, to avoid any appearance
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