Poems (Trask)/Croften Tower

by Clara Augusta Jones Trask

CROFTEN TOWER.

I pass it oft at nightfall,
 And I think the sunset gold
Is loath to touch with kindly light
 That mansion dark and old;
And it seems as if the heavens
 That hang above its roof
Are not so blue as other skies,
 And further keep aloof.

The birds build not their airy nests
 Within the shadowing trees;
A dead calm holds its dreary court
 Within the mouldy leaves;
Wild roses spring where once in pride
 Rare tropic blossoms grew,
But not a human eye is glad
 To meet their modest hue.

The garden-walks are overgrown
 With brambles and with weeds,—
Only the squirrel or the jay
 On the rich fruitage feeds;
The mellow peach and nectarine
 Hang ripely from the bough,
And, all untouched, the purple grapes
 The trellises endow.

Death and decay are everywhere!
 The mansion once so gay
Stands lone and silent, all its pride
 And glory fled away:
Its high-arched doors, and windows tall,
 Are closed and locked fore'er,—
For not the poorest child of want
 Would seek a dwelling there.

The schoolboy chokes his merry song,
 Quickens his lagging pace,
And glances back with fearsome eye
 At this deserted place;
The weary laborer shuns the path
 That passes by its door,
And takes the long and toilsome track
 Across the distant moor.

I mind me of a vanished time,
 When this old house was bright
With life and joy, and festive mirth
 Rang out upon the night;
When graceful forms and faces fair
 Brightened the stately halls,
And lamps of gold and ormolu
 Lit up the polished walls.

A dark and haughty man was he,
 The master of the tower,—
The people owned for miles around
 The magic of his power!
Handsome, and proud, and arrogant,
 His soul self-cursed with scorn,—
They said his Spanish mother died
 The night her child was born.

He wooed and won a gentle girl,
 Pure as the saints above!
She gave him all her sweet young trust,
 Her confidence and love;
She glorified the tower awhile,
 Like a stray sunlight beam,—
Then pallid grew; her face lost light,
 Her eye its happy gleam.

One dreary night, when tempests roared,
 And thunder shrieked in pain,
And sheets of livid lightning flashed
 Their flame-tongues through the rain,—
Red blood was spilt! a right to Heaven
 One weary soul had won!
But ah! the other? God be just!
 When there's a murder done!

He lived unpunished; but he died
 In torments none can tell!
The anguish of his tortured soul
 A foretaste was of hell.
His own hand cut the thread of life
 At last; and all alone
Through the dark Silence he went forth,
 Forth to the dread Unknown.

The tower is left to solitude,—
 But oft, on stormy nights,
The awe-struck people say the windows
 Blaze with festive lights;
And sometimes on the murky air
 Rings out a wailing dirge,
Like the sea's moaning when it bears
 Dead men upon its surge.