And should the twilight darken into night,
And sorrow grow to anguish, be thou strong;
Thou art in God, and nothing can go wrong
Which a fresh life-pulse cannot set aright.
That thou dost know the darkness, proves the light.
Weep if thou wilt, but weep not all too long;
Or weep and work, for work will lead to song.
But search thy heart, if, hid from all thy sight,
There lies no cause for beauty's slow decay;
If for completeness and diviner youth,
And not for very love, thou seek'st the truth;
If thou hast learned to give thyself away
For love's own self, not for thyself, I say:
Were God's love less, the world were lost, in sooth!
Love me, beloved; the thick clouds lower;
A sleepiness filleth the earth and air;
The rain has been falling for many an hour;
A weary look the summer doth wear:
Beautiful things that cannot be so;
Loveliness clad in the garments of woe.
Love me, beloved; I hear the birds;
The clouds are lighter; I see the blue;
The wind in the leaves is like gentle words
Quietly passing 'twixt me and you;
The evening air will bathe the buds
With the soothing coolness of summer floods.
Love me, beloved; for, many a day,
Will the mist of the morning pass away;
Many a day will the brightness of noon
Lead to a night that hath lost her moon;
And in joy or in sadness, in autumn or spring,
Thy love to my soul is a needful thing.
Love me, beloved; for thou mayest lie
Dead in my sight, 'neath the same blue sky;
Love me, O love me, and let me know
The love that within thee moves to and fro;
That many a form of thy love may be
Gathered around thy memory.
Love me, beloved; for I may lie
Dead in thy sight, 'neath the same blue sky;
The more thou hast loved me, the less thy pain,
The stronger thy hope till we meet again;
And forth on the pathway we do not know,
With a load of love, my soul would go.
Love me, beloved; for one must lie
Motionless, lifeless, beneath the sky;
The pale stiff lips return no kiss
To the lips that never brought love amiss;
And the dark brown earth be heaped above
The head that lay on the bosom of love.
Love me, beloved; for both must lie
Under the earth and beneath the sky;
The world be the same when we are gone;
The leaves and the waters all sound on;
The spring come forth, and the wild flowers live,
Gifts for the poor man's love to give;
The sea, the lordly, the gentle sea,
Tell the same tales to others than thee;
And joys, that flush with an inward morn,
Irradiate hearts that are yet unborn;
A youthful race call our earth their own,
And gaze on its wonders from thought's high throne;
Embraced by fair Nature, the youth will embrace.
The maid beside him, his queen of the race;
When thou and I shall have passed away
Like the foam-flake thou looked'st on yesterday.
Love me, beloved; for both must tread
On the threshold of Hades, the house of the dead;
Where now but in thinkings strange we roam,
We shall live and think, and shall be at home;
The sights and the sounds of the spirit land
No stranger to us than the white sea-sand,
Than the voice of the waves, and the eye of the moon,
Than the crowded street in the sunlit noon.
I pray thee to love me, belov'd of my heart;
If we love not truly, at death we part;
And how would it be with our souls to find
That love, like a body, was left behind!
Love me, beloved; Hades and Death
Shall vanish away like a frosty breath;
These hands, that now are at home in thine,
Shall clasp thee again, if thou still art mine;
And thou shall be mine, my spirit's bride,
In the ceaseless flow of eternity's tide,
If the truest love that thy heart can know
Meet the truest love that from mine can flow.
Pray God, beloved, for thee and me,
That our souls may be wedded eternally.
[He closes the book, and is silent for some moments.]
Ah me, O Poet! did thy love last out
The common life together every hour?
The slumber side by side with wondrousness
Each night after a day of fog and rain?
Did thy love glory o'er the empty purse,
And the poor meal sometimes the poet's lot?
Is she dead, Poet? Is thy love awake?
Alas! and is it come to this with me?
I might have written that! where am I now?
Yet let me think: I love less passionately,
But not less truly; I would die for her—
A little thing, but all a man can do.
O my beloved, where the answering love?
Love me, beloved. Whither art thou gone?
* * * * *
SCENE II.—Lilia's room. LILIA.
Lilia.
He grows more moody still, more self-withdrawn.
Were it not better that I went away,
And left him with the child; for she alone
Can bring the sunshine on his cloudy face?
Alas, he used to say to me, my child!
Some convent would receive me in my land,
Where I might weep unseen, unquestioned;
And pray that God in whom he seems to dwell,
To take me likewise in, beside him there.
Had I not better make one trial first
To win again his love to compass me?
Might I not kneel, lie down before his feet,
And beg and pray for love as for my life?
Clasping his knees, look up to that stern heaven,
That broods above his eyes, and pray for smiles?
What if endurance were my only meed?
He would not turn away, but speak forced words,
Soothing with kindness me who thirst for love,
And giving service where I wanted smiles;
Till by degrees all had gone back again
To where it was, a slow dull misery.
No. 'Tis the best thing I can do for him—
And that I will do—free him from my sight.
In love I gave myself away to him;
And now in love I take myself again.
He will not miss me; I am nothing now.
* * * * *
SCENE III.—Lord Seaford's garden. LILIA; LORD SEAFORD.
Lord S.
How the white roses cluster on the trellis!
They look in the dim light as if they floated
Within the fluid dusk that bathes them round.
One could believe that those far distant tones
Of scarce-heard music, rose with the faint scent,
Breathed odorous from the heart of the pale flowers,
As the low rushing from a river-bed,
Or the continuous bubbling of a spring
In deep woods, turning over its own joy
In its own heart luxuriously, alone.
'Twas on such nights, after such sunny days,
The poets of old Greece saw beauteous shapes
Sighed forth from out the rooted, earth-fast trees,
With likeness undefinable retained
In higher human form to their tree-homes,
Which fainting let them forth into the air,
And lived a life in death till they returned.
The large-limbed, sweepy-curved, smooth-rounded beech
Gave forth the perfect woman to the night;
From the pale birch, breeze-bent and waving, stole
The graceful, slight-curved maiden, scarcely grown.
The hidden well gave forth its hidden charm,
The Naiad with the hair that flowed like streams,
And arms that gleamed like moonshine on wet sands.
The broad-browed oak, the stately elm, gave forth
Their inner life in shapes of ecstasy.
All varied, loveliest forms of womanhood
Dawned out in twilight, and athwart the grass
Half danced with cool and naked feet, half floated
Borne on winds dense enough for them to swim.
O what a life they lived! in poet's brain—
Not on this earth, alas!—But you are sad;
You do not speak, dear lady.
Lilia.
Pardon me.
If such words make me sad, I am to blame.
Lord S.
Ah, no! I spoke of lovely, beauteous things:
Beauty and sadness always go together.
Nature thought Beauty too golden to go forth
Upon the earth without a meet alloy.
If Beauty had been born the twin of Gladness,
Poets had never needed this dream-life;
Each blessed man had but to look beside him,
And be more blest. How easily could God
Have made our life one consciousness of joy!
It is denied us. Beauty flung around
Most lavishly, to teach our longing hearts
To worship her; then when the soul is full
Of lovely shapes, and all sweet sounds that breathe,
And colours that bring tears into the eyes—
Steeped until saturated with her essence;
And, faint with longing, gasps for some one thing
More beautiful than all, containing all,
Essential Beauty's self, that it may say:
"Thou art my Queen—I dare not think to crown thee,
For thou art crowned already, every part,
With thy perfection; but I kneel to thee,
The utterance of the beauty of the earth,
As of the trees the Hamadryades;
I worship thee, intense of loveliness!
Not sea-born only; sprung from Earth, Air, Ocean,
Star-Fire; all elements and forms commingling
To give thee birth, to utter each its thought
Of beauty held in many forms diverse,
In one form, holding all, a living Love,
Their far-surpassing child, their chosen queen
By virtue of thy dignities combined!"—
And when in some great hour of wild surprise,
She floats into his sight; and, rapt, entranced,
At last he gazes, as I gaze on thee,
And, breathless, his full heart stands still for joy,
And his soul thinks not, having lost itself
In her, pervaded with her being; strayed
Out from his eyes, and gathered round her form,
Clothing her with the only beauty yet
That could be added, ownness unto him;—
Then falls the stern, cold No with thunder-tone.
Think, lady,—the poor unresisting soul
Clear-burnished to a crystalline abyss
To house in central deep the ideal form;
Led then to Beauty, and one glance allowed,
From heart of hungry, vacant, waiting shrine,
To set it on the Pisgah of desire;—
Then the black rain! low-slanting, sweeping rain!
Stormy confusions! far gray distances!
And the dim rush of countless years behind!
[He sinks at her feet.]
Yet for this moment, let me worship thee!
Lilia
(agitated).
Rise, rise, my lord; this cannot be, indeed.
I pray you, cease; I will not listen to you.
Indeed it must not, cannot, must not be!
[Moving as to go.]
Lord S.
(rising).
Forgive me, madam. Let me cast myself
On your good thoughts. I had been thinking thus,
All the bright morning, as I walked alone;
And when you came, my thoughts flowed forth in words.
It is a weakness with me from my boyhood,
That if I act a part in any play,
Or follow, merely intellectually,
A passion or a motive—ere I know,
My being is absorbed, my brain on fire;
I am possessed with something not myself,
And live and move and speak in foreign forms.
Pity my weakness, madam; and forgive
My rudeness with your gentleness and truth.
That you are beautiful is simple fact;
And when I once began to speak my thoughts,
The wheels of speech ran on, till they took fire,
And in your face flung foolish sparks and dust.
I am ashamed; and but for dread of shame,
I should be kneeling now to beg forgiveness.
Lilia.
Think nothing more of it, my lord, I pray.
—What is this purple flower with the black spot
In its deep heart? I never saw it before.
Julian.
I see her as I saw her then. She sat
On a low chair, the child upon her knees,
Not six months old. Radiant with motherhood,
Her full face beamed upon the face below,
Bent over it, as with love to ripen love;
Till its intensity, like summer heat,
Gathered a mist across her heaven of eyes,
Which grew until it dropt in large slow tears,
The earthly outcome of the heavenly thing!
[He walks toward the window, seats himself at a
little table, and writes.]
THE FATHER'S HYMN FOR THE MOTHER TO SING.
My child is lying on my knees;
The signs of heaven she reads:
My face is all the heaven she sees,
Is all the heaven she needs.
And she is well, yea, bathed in bliss,
If heaven is in my face—
Behind it, all is tenderness,
And truthfulness and grace.
I mean her well so earnestly.
Unchanged in changing mood;
My life would go without a sigh
To bring her something good.
I also am a child, and I
Am ignorant and weak;
I gaze upon the starry sky,
And then I must not speak;
For all behind the starry sky,
Behind the world so broad,
Behind men's hearts and souls doth lie
The Infinite of God.
If true to her, though troubled sore,
I cannot choose but be;
Thou, who art peace for evermore,
Art very true to me.
If I am low and sinful, bring
More love where need is rife;
Thou knowest what an awful thing
It is to be a life.
Hast thou not wisdom to enwrap
My waywardness about,
In doubting safety on the lap
Of Love that knows no doubt?
Lo! Lord, I sit in thy wide space,
My child upon my knee;
She looketh up unto my face,
And I look up to thee.
Lady Gertrude.
How kind of you to come! And you will stay
And be my beautiful nurse till I grow well?
I am better since you came. You look so sweet,
It brings all summer back into my heart.
Lilia.
I am very glad to come. Indeed, I felt
No one could nurse you quite so well as I.
Lady Gertrude.
How kind of you! Do call me sweet names now;
And put your white cool hands upon my head;
And let me lie and look in your great eyes:
'Twill do me good; your very eyes are healing.
Lilia.
I must not let you talk too much, dear child.
Lady Gertrude.
Well, as I cannot have my music-lesson,
And must not speak much, will you sing to me?
Sing that strange ballad you sang once before;
'Twill keep me quiet.
Lilia.
What was it, child?
Lady Gertrude.
It was
Something about a race—Death and a lady—
Lilia.
Oh! I remember. I would rather sing
Some other, though.
Lady Gertrude.
No, no, I want that one.
Its ghost walks up and down inside my head,
But won't stand long enough to show itself.
You must talk Latin to it—sing it away,
Or when I'm ill, 'twill haunt me.
Lilia.
Well, I'll sing it.
Death and a lady rode in the wind,
In a starry midnight pale;
Death on a bony horse behind,
With no footfall upon the gale.
The lady sat a wild-eyed steed;
Eastward he tore to the morn.
But ever the sense of a noiseless speed,
And the sound of reaping corn!
All the night through, the headlong race
Sped to the morning gray;
The dew gleamed cold on her cold white face—
From Death or the morning? say.
Her steed's wide knees began to shake,
As he flung the road behind;
The lady sat still, but her heart did quake,
And a cold breath came down the wind.
When, Lo! a fleet bay horse beside,
With a silver mane and tail;
A knight, bareheaded, the horse did ride,
With never a coat of mail.
He never lifted his hand to Death,
And he never couched a spear;
But the lady felt another breath,
And a voice was in her ear.
He looked her weary eyes through and through,
With his eyes so strong in faith:
Her bridle-hand the lady drew,
And she turned and laughed at Death.
And away through the mist of the morning gray,
The spectre and horse rode wide;
The dawn came up the old bright way,
And the lady never died.
Lord Seaford
(who has entered during the song).
Delightful! Why, my little pining Gertrude,
With such charm-music you will soon be well.
Madam, I know not how to speak the thanks
I owe you for your kindness to my daughter:
She looks as different from yesterday
As sunrise from a fog.
Lilia.
I am but too happy
To be of use to one I love so much.
Oh, my love is like a wind of death,
That turns me to a stone!
Oh, my love is like a desert breath,
That burns me to the bone!
Oh, my love is a flower with a purple glow,
And a purple scent all day!
But a black spot lies at the heart below,
And smells all night of clay.
Oh, my love is like the poison sweet
That lurks in the hooded cell!
One flash in the eyes, one bounding beat,
And then the passing bell!
Oh, my love she's like a white, white rose!
And I am the canker-worm:
Never the bud to a blossom blows;
It falls in the rainy storm.
"And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me."
[He closes the book and kneels.]
Lilia.
It may be true. I am bewildered, though.
I know not what to answer.
Lord S.
Let me answer:—
You would it were so—you would love me then?
[A sudden crash of music from a brass band in the street,
melting away in a low cadence.]
Lilia
(starting up).
Let me go, my lord!
Lord S.
(retaining her hand).
Why, sweetest! what is this?
Lilia
(vehemently, and disengaging her hand).
Let me go. My husband! Oh, my white child!
[She hurries to the door, but falls.]
Lord S.
(raising her).
I thought you trusted me, yes, loved me, Lilia!
Lilia.
Peace! that name is his! Speak it again—I rave.
He thought I loved him—and I did—I do.
Open the door, my lord!
[He hesitates. She draws herself up erect, with flashing eyes.]
Once more, my lord—
Open the door, I say.
[He still hesitates. She walks swiftly to the window, flings it
wide, and is throwing herself out.]
Lord S.
Stop, madam! I will.
[He opens the door. She leaves the window, and walks slowly
out. He hears the house-door open and shut, flings himself
on the couch, and hides his face.]
Enter LADY GERTRUDE.
Lady Gertrude.
Dear father, are you ill? I knocked
three times; You did not speak.
Lord S.
I did not hear you, child.
My head aches rather; else I am quite well.
Lady Gertrude.
Where is the countess?
Lord S.
She is gone. She had
An urgent message to go home at once.
But, Gertrude, now you seem so well, why not
Set out to-morrow? You can travel now;
And for your sake the sooner that we breathe
Italian air the better.
Lady Gertrude.
This is sudden!
I scarcely can be ready by to-morrow.
Lord S.
It will oblige me, child. Do what you can.
Just go and order everything you want.
I will go with you. Ring the bell, my love;
I have a reason for my haste. We'll have
The horses to at once. Come, Gertrude, dear.
Lilia.
The first pale star! braving the rear of Day!
And all heaven waiting till the sun has drawn
His long train after him! then half creation
Will follow its queen-leader from the depths.
O harbinger of hope! O star of love!
Thou hast gone down in me, gone down for ever;
And left my soul in such a starless night,
It has not love enough to weep thy loss.
O fool! to know thee once, and, after years,
To take a gleaming marsh-light for thy lamp!
How could I for one moment hear him speak!
O Julian! for my last love-gift I thought
To bring that love itself, bound and resigned,
And offering it a sacrifice to thee,
Lead it away into the wilderness;
But one vile spot hath tainted this my lamb;
Unoffered it must go, footsore and weary,
Not flattering itself to die for thee.
And yet, thank God, it was one moment only,
That, lapt in darkness and the loss of thee,
Sun of my soul, and half my senses dead
Through very weariness and lack of love,
My heart throbbed once responsive to a ray
That glimmered through its gloom from other eyes,
And seemed to promise rest and hope again.
My presence shall not grieve thee any more,
My Julian, my husband. I will find
A quiet place where I will seek thy God.
And—in my heart it wakens like a voice
From him—the Saviour—there are other worlds
Where all gone wrong in this may be set right;
Where I, made pure, may find thee, purer still,
And thou wilt love the love that kneels to thee.
I'll write and tell him I have gone, and why.
But what to say about my late offence,
That he may understand just what it was?
For I must tell him, if I write at all.
I fear he would discover where I was;
Pitiful duty would not let him rest
Until he found me; and I fain would free
From all the weight of mine, that heart of his.
[Sound of a coach-horn.]
It calls me to rise up and go to him,
Leading me further from him and away.
The earth is round; God's thoughts return again;
And I will go in hope. Help me, my God!
Julian.
Me! My wife! Insect, didst thou say my wife?
[Hurriedly turning the letter on the table to see the address.]
Why, if she love him more than me, why then
Let her go with him!—Gone to Italy!
Pursue, says he? Revenge?—Let the corpse crush
The slimy maggot with its pulpy fingers!—
What if I stabbed—
[Taking his dagger, and feeling its point.]
Whom? Her—what then?—Or him—
What yet? Would that give back the life to me?
There is one more—myself! Oh, peace! to feel
The earthworms crawling through my mouldering brain!—
But to be driven along the windy wastes—
To hear the tempests, raving as they turn,
Howl Lilia, Lilia—to be tossed about
Beneath the stars that range themselves for ever
Into the burning letters of her name—
'Twere better creep the earth down here than that,
For pain's excess here sometimes deadens pain.
[He throws the dagger on the floor.]
Have I deserved this? Have I earned it? I?
A pride of innocence darts through my veins.
I stand erect. Shame cannot touch me. Ha!
I laugh at insult. I? I am myself—
Why starest thou at me? Well, stare thy fill;
When devils mock, the angels lend their wings:—
But what their wings? I have nowhere to fly.
Lilia! my worship of thy purity!
Hast thou forgotten—ah! thou didst not know
How, watching by thee in thy fever-pain,
When thy white neck and bosom were laid bare,
I turned my eyes away, and turning drew
With trembling hand white darkness over thee,
Because I knew not thou didst love me then.
Love me! O God in heaven! Is love a thing
That can die thus? Love me! Would, for thy penance,
Thou saw'st but once the heart which thou hast torn—
Shaped all about thy image set within!
But that were fearful! What rage would not, love
Must then do for thee—in mercy I would kill thee,
To save thee from the hell-fire of remorse.
If blood would make thee clean, then blood should flow;
Eager, unwilling, this hand should make thee bleed,
Till, drop by drop, the taint should drop away.
Clean! said I? fit to lie by me in sleep,
My hand upon thy heart!—not fit to lie,
For all thy bleeding, by me in the grave!
[His eye falls on that likeness of Jesus said to be copied from an
emerald engraved for Tiberius. He gazes, drops on his knees, and
covers his face; remains motionless a long time; then rises very pale,
his lips compressed, his eyes filled with tears.]
O my poor Lilia! my bewildered child!
How shall I win thee, save thee, make thee mine?
Where art thou wandering? What words in thine ears?
God, can she never more be clean? no more,
Through all the terrible years? Hast thou no well
In all thy heaven, in all thyself, that can
Wash her soul clean? Her body will go down
Into the friendly earth—would it were lying
There in my arms! for there thy rains will come,
Fresh from the sky, slow sinking through the sod,
Summer and winter; and we two should lie
Mouldering away together, gently washed
Into the heart of earth; and part would float
Forth on the sunny breezes that bear clouds
Through the thin air. But her stained soul, my God!
Canst thou not cleanse it? Then should we, when death
Was gone, creep into heaven at last, and sit
In some still place together, glory-shadowed.
None would ask questions there. And I should be
Content to sorrow a little, so I might
But see her with the darling on her knees,
And know that must be pure that dwelt within
The circle of thy glory. Lilia! Lilia!
I scorn the shame rushing from head to foot;
I would endure it endlessly, to save
One thought of thine from his polluting touch;
Saying ever to myself: this is a part
Of my own Lilia; and the world to me
Is nothing since I lost the smiles of her:
Somehow, I know not how, she faded from me,
And this is all that's left of her. My wife!
Soul of my soul! my oneness with myself!
Come back to me; I will be all to thee:
Back to my heart; and we will weep together,
And pray to God together every hour,
That he would show how strong he is to save.
The one that made is able to renew—
I know not how.—I'll hold thy heart to mine,
So close that the defilement needs must go.
My love shall ray thee round, and, strong as fire,
Dart through and through thy soul, till it be cleansed.—
But if she love him? Oh my heart—beat! beat!
Grow not so sick with misery and life,
For fainting will not save thee.—Oh no! no!
She cannot love him as she must love me.
Then if she love him not—oh horrible!—oh God!
[He stands in a stupor for some minutes.]
What devil whispered that vile word, unclean?
I care not—loving more than that can touch.
Let me be shamed, ay, perish in my shame,
As men call perishing, so she be saved.
Saved! my beloved! my Lilia!—Alas,
Would she were here! oh, I would make her weep,
Till her soul wept itself to purity!
Far, far away! where my love cannot reach.
No, no; she is not gone!
[Starting and facing wildly through the room.]
It is a lie—
Deluding blind revenge, not keen-eyed love.
I must do something.—
[Enter LILY.]
Ah! there's the precious thing
That shall entice her back.
[Kneeling and clasping the child to his heart.]
My little Lily,
I have lost your mother.
Lily.
Oh!
[Beginning to weep.]
She was so pretty,
Somebody has stolen her.
Julian.
Will you go with me,
And help me look for her?
Lily.
O yes, I will.
[Clasping him round the neck.]
But my head aches so! Will you carry me?
Julian.
Yes, my own darling. Come, we'll get your bonnet.
Lily.
Oh! you've been crying, father. You're so white!
[Putting her finger to his cheek.]
1st Gentleman.
Why, Bernard, you look heated! what's the matter?
Bernard.
Hot work, as looked at; cool enough, as done.
2nd G.
A good antithesis, as usual, Bernard,
But a shell too hard for the vulgar teeth
Of our impatient curiosity.
Bernard.
Most unexpectedly I found myself
Spectator of a scene in a home-drama
Worth all stage-tragedies I ever saw.
All.
What was it? Tell us then. Here, take this seat.
[He sits at the table, and pours out a glass of wine.]
Bernard.
I went to call on Seaford, and was told
He had gone to town. So I, as privileged,
Went to his cabinet to write a note;
Which finished, I came down, and called his valet.
Just as I crossed the hall I heard a voice—
"The Countess Lamballa—is she here to-day?"
And looking toward the door, I caught a glimpse
Of a tall figure, gaunt and stooping, drest
In a blue shabby frock down to his knees,
And on his left arm sat a little child.
The porter gave short answer, with the door
For period to the same; when, like a flash,
It flew wide open, and the serving man
Went reeling, staggering backward to the stairs,
'Gainst which he fell, and, rolling down, lay stunned.
In walked the visitor; but in the moment
Just measured by the closing of the door,
Heavens, what a change! He walked erect, as if
Heading a column, with an eye and face
As if a fountain-shaft of blood had shot
Up suddenly within his wasted frame.
The child sat on his arm quite still and pale,
But with a look of triumph in her eyes.
He glanced in each room opening from the hall,
Set his face for the stair, and came right on—
In every motion calm as glacier's flow,
Save, now and then, a movement, sudden, quick,
Of his right hand across to his left side:
'Twas plain he had been used to carry arms.
3rd G.
Did no one stop him?
Bernard.
Stop him? I'd as soon
Have faced a tiger with bare hands. 'Tis easy
In passion to meet passion; but it is
A daunting thing to look on, when the blood
Is going its wonted pace through your own veins.
Besides, this man had something in his face,
With its live eyes, close lips, nostrils distended,
A self-reliance, and a self-command,
That would go right up to its goal, in spite
Of any no from any man. I would
As soon have stopped a cannon-ball as him.
Over the porter, lying where he fell,
He strode, and up the stairs. I heard him go—
I listened as it were a ghost that walked
With pallid spectre-child upon its arm—
Along the corridors, from door to door,
Opening and shutting. But at last a sting
Of sudden fear lest he should find the lady,
And mischief follow, shot me up the stairs.
I met him at the top, quiet as at first;
The fire had faded from his eyes; the child
Held in her tiny hand a lady's glove
Of delicate primrose. When he reached the hall,
He turned him to the porter, who had scarce
Recovered what poor wits he had, and saying,
"The count Lamballa waited on lord Seaford,"
Turned him again, and strode into the street.
1st G.
Have you learned anything of what it meant?
Bernard.
Of course he had suspicions of his wife:
For all the gifts a woman has to give,
I would not rouse such blood. And yet to see
The gentle fairy child fall kissing him,
And, with her little arms grasping his neck,
Peep anxious round into his shaggy face,
As they went down the street!—it almost made
A fool of me.—I'd marry for such a child!
Julian.
Look at the monkey, Lily.
Lily.
No, dear father;
I do not like monkeys.
Julian.
Hear the poor boy sing.
[They listen. He sings.]
SONG.
Wenn ich höre dich mir nah',
Stimmen in den Blättern da;
Wenn ich fühl' dich weit und breit,
Vater, das ist Seligkeit.
Nun die Sonne liebend scheint,
Mich mit dir und All vereint;
Biene zu den Blumen fliegt,
Seel' an Lieb' sich liebend schmiegt.
So mich völlig lieb du hast,
Daseyn ist nicht eine Last;
Wenn ich seh' und höre dich,
Das genügt mir inniglich.
Lily.
It sounds so curious. What is he saying, father?
Julian.
My boy, you are not German?
Boy.
No; my mother
Came from those parts. She used to sing the song.
I do not understand it well myself,
For I was born in Genoa.—Ah! my mother!
[Weeps.]
Julian.
My mother was a German, my poor boy;
My father was Italian: I am like you.
[Giving him money.]
You sing of leaves and sunshine, flowers and bees,
Poor child, upon a stone in the dark street!
Boy.
My mother sings it in her grave; and I
Will sing it everywhere, until I die.
Lily.
Father does all things for his little Lily.
Julian.
My own dear Lily! Go to sleep, my pet.
[Sitting by her.]
"Wenn ich seh' und höre dich,
Das genügt mir inniglich."
[Falling on his knees.]
I come to thee, and, lying on thy breast,
Father of me, I tell thee in thine ear,
Half-shrinking from the sound, yet speaking free,
That thou art not enough for me, my God.
Oh, dearly do I love thee! Look: no fear
Lest thou shouldst be offended, touches me.
Herein I know thy love: mine casts out fear.
O give me back my wife; thou without her
Canst never make me blessed to the full.
[Silence.]
O yes; thou art enough for me, my God;
Part of thyself she is, else never mine.
My need of her is but thy thought of me;
She is the offspring of thy beauty, God;
Yea of the womanhood that dwells in thee:
Thou wilt restore her to my very soul.
[Rising.]
It may be all a lie. Some needful cause
Keeps her away. Wretch that I am, to think
One moment that my wife could sin against me!
She will come back to-night. I know she will.
I never can forgive my jealousy!
Or that fool-visit to lord Seaford's house!
[His eyes fall on the glove which the child still holds in her
sleeping hand. He takes it gently away, and hides it in
his bosom.]
It will be all explained. To think I should,
Without one word from her, condemn her so!
What can I say to her when she returns?
I shall be utterly ashamed before her.
She will come back to-night. I know she will.
[He throws himself wearily on the bed.]
1st Student.
Edward, you see that long, lank, thread-bare man?
There is a character for that same novel
You talk of thunder-striking London with,
One of these days.
2nd St.
I scarcely noticed him;
I was so taken with the lovely child.
She is angelic.
3rd St.
You see angels always,
Where others, less dim-sighted, see but mortals.
She is a pretty child. Her eyes are splendid.
I wonder what the old fellow is about.
Some crazed enthusiast, music-distract,
That lingers at the door he cannot enter!
Give him an obol, Frank, to pay old Charon,
And cross to the Elysium of sweet sounds.
Here's mine.
1st St.
And mine.
2nd St.
And mine.
[3rd Student offers the money to JULIAN.]
Julian
(very quietly).
No, thank you, sir.
Lily.
Oh! there is mother!
[Stretching-her hands toward a lady stepping out of a carriage.]
Julian.
No, no; hush, my child!
[_The lady looks round, and _LILY clings to her father.
Women talking.]
1st W.
I'm sure he's stolen the child. She can't be his.
2nd W.
There's a suspicious look about him.
3rd W
True;
But the child clings to him as if she loved him.
[JULIAN moves on slowly.]
Julian.
Though I am lonely, yet this little child—
She understands me better than the Twelve
Knew the great heart of him they called their Lord.
Ten times last night I woke in agony,
I knew not why. There was no comforter.
I stretched my arm to find her, and her place
Was empty as my heart. Sometimes my pain
Forgets its cause, benumbed by its own being;
Then would I lay my aching, weary head
Upon her bosom, promise of relief:
I lift my eyes, and Lo, the vacant world!
[He looks up and sees the child playing with his dagger.]
You'll hurt yourself, my child; it is too sharp.
Give it to me, my darling. Thank you, dear.
[He breaks the hilt from the blade and gives it her.]
'Here, take the pretty part. It's not so pretty
As it was once!
[Thinking aloud.]
I picked the jewels out
To buy your mother the last dress I gave her.
There's just one left, I see, for you, my Lily.
Why did I kill Nembroni? Poor saviour I,
Saving thee only for a greater ill!
If thou wert dead, the child would comfort me;—
Is she not part of thee, and all my own?
But now——
Lily
(throwing down the dagger-hilt and running up to him).
Father, what is a poetry?
Julian.
A beautiful thing,—of the most beautiful
That God has made.
Lily.
As beautiful as mother?
Julian.
No, my dear child; but very beautiful.
Lily.
Do let me see a poetry.
Julian
(opening a book).
There, love!
Lily
(disappointedly).
I don't think that's so very pretty, father.
One side is very well—smooth; but the other
[Rubbing her finger up and down the ends of the lines.]
Is rough, rough; just like my hair in the morning,
[Smoothing her hair down with both hands.]
Before it's brushed. I don't care much about it.
Julian
(putting the book down, and taking her on his knee).
You do not understand it yet, my child.
You cannot know where it is beautiful.
But though you do not see it very pretty,
Perhaps your little ears could hear it pretty.
[He reads.]
Lily
(looking pleased).
Oh! that's much prettier, father. Very pretty.
It sounds so nice!—not half so pretty as mother.
Julian.
There's something in it very beautiful,
If I could let you see it. When you're older
You'll find it for yourself, and love it well.
Do you believe me, Lily?
Lily.
Yes, dear father.
[Kissing him, then looking at the book.]
I wonder where its prettiness is, though;
I cannot see it anywhere at all.
[He sets her down. She goes to her corner.]
Julian
(musing).
True, there's not much in me to love, and yet
I feel worth loving. I am very poor,
But that I could not help; and I grow old,
But there are saints in heaven older than I.
I have a world within me; there I thought
I had a store of lovely, precious things
Laid up for thinking; shady woods, and grass;
Clear streams rejoicing down their sloping channels;
And glimmering daylight in the cloven east;
There morning sunbeams stand, a vapoury column,
'Twixt the dark boles of solemn forest trees;
There, spokes of the sun-wheel, that cross their bridge,
Break through the arch of the clouds, fall on the earth,
And travel round, as the wind blows the clouds:
The distant meadows and the gloomy river
Shine out as over them the ray-pencil sweeps.—
Alas! where am I? Beauty now is torture:
Of this fair world I would have made her queen;—
Then led her through the shadowy gates beyond
Into that farther world of things unspoken,
Of which these glories are the outer stars,
The clouds that float within its atmosphere.
Under the holy might of teaching love,
I thought her eyes would open—see how, far
And near, Truth spreads her empire, widening out,
And brooding, a still spirit, everywhere;
Thought she would turn into her spirit's chamber,
Open the little window, and look forth
On the wide silent ocean, silent winds,
And see what she must see, I could not tell.
By sounding mighty chords I strove to wake
The sleeping music of her poet-soul:
We read together many magic words;
Gazed on the forms and hues of ancient art;
Sent forth our souls on the same tide of sound;
Worshipped beneath the same high temple-roofs;
And evermore I talked. I was too proud,
Too confident of power to waken life,
Believing in my might upon her heart,
Not trusting in the strength of living truth.
Unhappy saviour, who by force of self
Would save from selfishness and narrow needs!
I have not been a saviour. She grew weary.
I began wrong. The infinitely High,
Made manifest in lowliness, had been
The first, one lesson. Had I brought her there,
And set her down by humble Mary's side,
He would have taught her all I could not teach.
Yet, O my God! why hast thou made me thus
Terribly wretched, and beyond relief?
[He looks up and sees that the child has taken the book
to her corner. She peeps into it; then holds it to her ear;
then rubs her hand over it; then puts her tongue on it.]
Julian (bursting into tears).
Father, I am thy child.
Forgive me this:
Thy poetry is very hard to read.
Lily.
Wish we could find her somewhere. 'Tis so sad
Not to have any mother! Shall I ask
This gentleman if he knows where she is?
Julian.
No, no, my love; we'll find her by and by.
BERNARD. and another Gentleman talking together.
Bernard.
Have you seen Seaford lately?
Gentleman.
No. In fact,
He vanished somewhat oddly, days ago.
Sam saw him with a lady in his cab;
And if I hear aright, one more is missing—
Just the companion for his lordship's taste.
You've not forgot that fine Italian woman
You met there once, some months ago?
Bern.
Forgot her!
I have to try though, sometimes—hard enough:
Her husband is alive!
Lily.
Mother was Italy, father,—was she not?
Julian.
Hush, hush, my child! you must not say a word.
Gentleman.
Oh, yes; no doubt!
But what of that?—a poor half-crazy creature!
Bern.
Something quite different, I assure you, Harry.
Last week I saw him—never to forget him—
Ranging through Seaford's house, like the questing beast.
Gentleman.
Better please two than one, he thought—and wisely.
'Tis not for me to blame him: she is a prize
Worth sinning for a little more than little.
Lily
(whispering).
Why don't you ask them whether it was mother?
I am sure it was. I am quite sure of it.
Gentleman.
Look what a lovely child!
Bern.
Harry! Good heavens!
It is the Count Lamballa. Come along.
Julian.
I thank thee. Thou hast comforted me, thou,
To whom I never lift my soul, in hope
To reach thee with my thinking, but the tears
Swell up and fill my eyes from the full heart
That cannot hold the thought of thee, the thought
Of him in whom I live, who lives in me,
And makes me live in him; by whose one thought,
Alone, unreachable, the making thought,
Infinite and self-bounded, I am here,
A living, thinking will, that cannot know
The power whereby I am—so blest the more
In being thus in thee—Father, thy child.
I cannot, cannot speak the thoughts in me.
My being shares thy glory: lay on me
What thou wouldst have me bear. Do thou with me
Whate'er thou wilt. Tell me thy will, that I
May do it as my best, my highest joy;
For thou dost work in me, I dwell in thee.
Wilt thou not save my wife? I cannot know
The power in thee to purify from sin.
But Life can cleanse the life it lived alive.
Thou knowest all that lesseneth her fault.
She loves me not, I know—ah, my sick heart!—
I will love her the more, to fill the cup;
One bond is snapped, the other shall be doubled;
For if I love her not, how desolate
The poor child will be left! he loves her not.
I have but one prayer more to pray to thee:—
Give me my wife again, that I may watch
And weep with her, and pray with her, and tell
What loving-kindness I have found in thee;
And she will come to thee to make her clean.
Her soul must wake as from a dream of bliss,
To know a dead one lieth in the house:
Let me be near her in that agony,
To tend her in the fever of the soul,
Bring her cool waters from the wells of hope,
Look forth and tell her that the morn is nigh;
And when I cannot comfort, help her weep.
God, I would give her love like thine to me,
Because I love her, and her need is great.
Lord, I need her far more than thou need'st me,
And thou art Love down to the deeps of hell:
Help me to love her with a love like thine.
How shall I find her? It were horrible
If the dread hour should come, and I not near.
Yet pray I not she should be spared one pang,
One writhing of self-loathing and remorse,
For she must hate the evil she has done;
Only take not away hope utterly.
Lily (in her sleep).
Lily means me—don't throw it over the wall.
Julian (going to her).
She is so flushed! I fear the child is ill.
I have fatigued her too much, wandering restless.
To-morrow I will take her to the sea.
[Returning.]
If I knew where, I would write to her, and write
So tenderly, she could not choose but come.
I will write now; I'll tell her that strange dream
I dreamed last night: 'twill comfort her as well.
[He sits down and writes.]
My heart was crushed that I could hardly breathe.
I was alone upon a desolate moor;
And the wind blew by fits and died away—
I know not if it was the wind or me.
How long I wandered there, I cannot tell;
But some one came and took me by the hand.
I gazed, but could not see the form that led me,
And went unquestioning, I cared not whither.
We came into a street I seemed to know,
Came to a house that I had seen before.
The shutters were all closed; the house was dead.
The door went open soundless. We went in,
And entered yet again an inner room.
The darkness was so dense, I shrank as if
From striking on it. The door closed behind.
And then I saw that there was something black,
Dark in the blackness of the night, heaved up
In the middle of the room. And then I saw
That there were shapes of woe all round the room,
Like women in long mantles, bent in grief,
With long veils hanging low down from their heads,
All blacker in the darkness. Not a sound
Broke the death-stillness. Then the shapeless thing
Began to move. Four horrid muffled figures
Had lifted, bore it from the room. We followed,
The bending woman-shapes, and I. We left
The house in long procession. I was walking
Alone beside the coffin—such it was—
Now in the glimmering light I saw the thing.
And now I saw and knew the woman-shapes:
Undine clothed in spray, and heaving up
White arms of lamentation; Desdemona
In her night-robe, crimson on the left side;
Thekla in black, with resolute white face;
And Margaret in fetters, gliding slow—
That last look, when she shrieked on Henry, frozen
Upon her face. And many more I knew—
Long-suffering women, true in heart and life;
Women that make man proud for very love
Of their humility, and of his pride
Ashamed. And in the coffin lay my wife.
On, on, we went. The scene changed, and low hills
Began to rise on each side of the path
Until at last we came into a glen,
From which the mountains soared abrupt to heaven,
Shot cones and pinnacles into the skies.
Upon the eastern side one mighty summit
Shone with its snow faint through the dusky air;
And on its sides the glaciers gave a tint,
A dull metallic gleam, to the slow night.
From base to top, on climbing peak and crag,
Ay, on the glaciers' breast, were human shapes,
Motionless, waiting; men that trod the earth
Like gods; or forms ideal that inspired
Great men of old—up, even to the apex
Of the snow-spear-point. Morning had arisen
From Giulian's tomb in Florence, where the chisel
Of Michelangelo laid him reclining,
And stood upon the crest.
A cry awoke
Amid the watchers at the lowest base,
And swelling rose, and sprang from mouth to mouth,
Up the vast mountain, to its aerial top;
And "Is God coming?" was the cry; which died
Away in silence; for no voice said No.
The bearers stood and set the coffin down;
The mourners gathered round it in a group;
Somewhat apart I stood, I know not why.
So minutes passed. Again that cry awoke,
And clomb the mountain-side, and died away
In the thin air, far-lost. No answer came.
How long we waited thus, I cannot tell—
How oft the cry arose and died again.
At last, from far, faint summit to the base,
Filling the mountain with a throng of echoes,
A mighty voice descended: "God is coming!"
Oh! what a music clothed the mountain-side,
From all that multitude's melodious throats,
Of joy and lamentation and strong prayer!
It ceased, for hope was too intense for song.
A pause.—The figure on the crest flashed out,
Bordered with light. The sun was rising—rose
Higher and higher still. One ray fell keen
Upon the coffin 'mid the circling group.
What God did for the rest, I know not; it
Was easy to help them.—I saw them not.—
I saw thee at my feet, my wife, my own!
Thy lovely face angelic now with grief;
But that I saw not first: thy head was bent,
Thou on thy knees, thy dear hands clasped between.
I sought to raise thee, but thou wouldst not rise,
Once only lifting that sweet face to mine,
Then turning it to earth. Would God the dream
Had lasted ever!—No; 'twas but a dream;
Thou art not rescued yet.
Earth's morning came,
And my soul's morning died in tearful gray.
The last I saw was thy white shroud yet steeped
In that sun-glory, all-transfiguring;
The last I heard, a chant break suddenly
Into an anthem. Silence took me like sound:
I had not listened in the excess of joy.
Lord S.
Tis for your sake, my Gertrude, I am sorry.
If you could go alone, I'd have you go.
Lady Gertrude.
And leave you ill? No, you are not so cruel.
Believe me, father, I am happier
In your sick room, than on a glowing island
In the blue Bay of Naples.
Lord S.
It was so sudden!
'Tis plain it will not go again as quickly.
But have your walk before the sun be hot.
Put the ice near me, child. There, that will do.
Lady Gertrude.
Good-bye then, father, for a little
while.
[Goes.]
Lord S.
I never knew what illness was before.
O life! to think a man should stand so little
On his own will and choice, as to be thus
Cast from his high throne suddenly, and sent
To grovel beast-like. All the glow is gone
From the rich world! No sense is left me more
To touch with beauty. Even she has faded
Into the far horizon, a spent dream
Of love and loss and passionate despair!
Is there no beauty? Is it all a show
Flung outward from the healthy blood and nerves,
A reflex of well-ordered organism?
Is earth a desert? Is a woman's heart
No more mysterious, no more beautiful,
Than I am to myself this ghastly moment?
It must be so—it must, except God is,
And means the meaning that we think we see,
Sends forth the beauty we are taking in.
O Soul of nature, if thou art not, if
There dwelt not in thy thought the primrose-flower
Before it blew on any bank of spring,
Then all is untruth, unreality,
And we are wretched things; our highest needs
Are less than we, the offspring of ourselves;
And when we are sick, they are not; and our hearts
Die with the voidness of the universe.
But if thou art, O God, then all is true;
Nor are thy thoughts less radiant that our eyes
Are filmy, and the weary, troubled brain
Throbs in an endless round of its own dreams.
And she is beautiful—and I have lost her!
O God! thou art, thou art; and I have sinned
Against thy beauty and thy graciousness!
That woman-splendour was not mine, but thine.
Thy thought passed into form, that glory passed
Before my eyes, a bright particular star:
Like foolish child, I reached out for the star,
Nor kneeled, nor worshipped. I will be content
That she, the Beautiful, dwells on in thee,
Mine to revere, though not to call my own.
Forgive me, God! Forgive me, Lilia!
My love has taken vengeance on my love.
I writhe and moan. Yet I will be content.
Yea, gladly will I yield thee, so to find
That thou art not a phantom, but God's child;
That Beauty is, though it is not for me.
When I would hold it, then I disbelieved.
That I may yet believe, I will not touch it.
I have sinned against the Soul of love and beauty,
Denying him in grasping at his work.
Julian.
O soft place of the earth! down-pillowed couch,
Made ready for the weary! Everywhere,
O Earth, thou hast one gift for thy poor children—
Room to lie down, leave to cease standing up,
Leave to return to thee, and in thy bosom
Lie in the luxury of primeval peace,
Fearless of any morn; as a new babe
Lies nestling in his mother's arms in bed:
That home of blessedness is all there is;
He never feels the silent rushing tide,
Strong setting for the sea, which bears him on,
Unconscious, helpless, to wide consciousness.
But thou, thank God, hast this warm bed at last
Ready for him when weary: well the green
Close-matted coverlid shuts out the dawn.
O Lilia, would it were our wedding bed
To which I bore thee with a nobler joy!
—Alas! there's no such rest: I only dream
Poor pagan dreams with a tired Christian brain.
How couldst thou leave me, my poor child? my heart
Was all so tender to thee! But I fear
My face was not. Alas! I was perplexed
With questions to be solved, before my face
Could turn to thee in peace: thy part in me
Fared ill in troubled workings of the brain.
Ah, now I know I did not well for thee
In making thee my wife! I should have gone
Alone into eternity. I was
Too rough for thee, for any tender woman—
Other I had not loved—so full of fancies!
Too given to meditation. A deed of love
Is stronger than a metaphysic truth;
Smiles better teachers are than mightiest words.
Thou, who wast life, not thought, how couldst thou help it?
How love me on, withdrawn from all thy sight—
For life must ever need the shows of life?
How fail to love a man so like thyself,
Whose manhood sought thy fainting womanhood?
I brought thee pine-boughs, rich in hanging cones,
But never white flowers, rubied at the heart.
O God, forgive me; it is all my fault.
Would I have had dead Love, pain-galvanized,
Led fettered after me by gaoler Duty?
Thou gavest me a woman rich in heart,
And I have kept her like a caged seamew
Starved by a boy, who weeps when it is dead.
O God, my eyes are opening—fearfully:
I know it now—'twas pride, yes, very pride,
That kept me back from speaking all my soul.
I was self-haunted, self-possessed—the worst
Of all possessions. Wherefore did I never
Cast all my being, life and all, on hers,
In burning words of openness and truth?
Why never fling my doubts, my hopes, my love,
Prone at her feet abandonedly? Why not
Have been content to minister and wait;
And if she answered not to my desires,
Have smiled and waited patient? God, they say,
Gives to his aloe years to breed its flower:
I gave not five years to a woman's soul!
Had I not drunk at last old wine of love?
I shut her love back on her lovely heart;
I did not shield her in the wintry day;
And she has withered up and died and gone.
God, let me perish, so thy beautiful
Be brought with gladness and with singing home.
If thou wilt give her back to me, I vow
To be her slave, and serve her with my soul.
I in my hand will take my heart, and burn
Sweet perfumes on it to relieve her pain.
I, I have ruined her—O God, save thou!
[His bends his head upon his knees. LILY comes running up
to him, stumbling over the graves.]
Lily.
Why do they make so many hillocks, father?
The flowers would grow without them.
Julian.
So they would.
Lily.
What are they for, then?
Julian (aside).
I wish I had not brought her;
She will ask questions. I must tell her all.
(Aloud).
'Tis where they lay them when the story's done.
Lily.
What! lay the boys and girls?
Julian.
Yes, my own child—
To keep them warm till it begin again.
Lily.
Is it dark down there?
[Clinging to JULIAN, and pointing down.]
Julian.
Yes, it is dark; but pleasant—oh, so sweet!
For out of there come all the pretty flowers.
Lily.
Did the church grow out of there, with the long stalk
That tries to touch the little frightened clouds?
Julian.
It did, my darling.—There's a door down there
That leads away to where the church is pointing.
[She is silent far some time, and keeps looking first down and
then up. JULIAN carries her away.]
Lady Gertrude.
I have found an old friend, father. Here he is!
Lord S.
Bernard! Who would have thought to see you here!
Bern.
I came on Lady Gertrude in the street.
I know not which of us was more surprised.
[LADY GERTRUDE goes.]
Bern.
Where is the countess?
Lord S.
Countess! What do you mean? I do not know.
Bern.
The Italian lady.
Lord S.
Countess Lamballa, do you mean? You frighten me!
Bern.
I am glad indeed to know your ignorance;
For since I saw the count, I would not have you
Wrong one gray hair upon his noble head.
[LORD SEAFORD covers his eyes with his hands.]
You have not then heard the news about yourself?
Such interesting echoes reach the last
A man's own ear. The public has decreed
You and the countess run away together.
'Tis certain she has balked the London Argos,
And that she has been often to your house.
The count believes it—clearly from his face:
The man is dying slowly on his feet.
Lord S. (starting up and ringing the bell).
O God! what am I? My love burns like hate,
Scorching and blasting with a fiery breath!
Bern.
What the deuce ails you, Seaford? Are you raving?
Enter Waiter.
Lord S.
Post-chaise for London—four horses—instantly.
[He sinks exhausted in his chair.]
Lily.
O father, take me on your knee, and nurse me.
Another story is very nearly done.
[He takes her on his knees.]
I am so tired! Think I should like to go
Down to the warm place that the flowers come from,
Where all the little boys and girls are lying
In little beds—white curtains, and white tassels.
—No, no, no—it is so dark down there!
Father will not come near me all the night.
Julian.
You shall not go, my darling; I will keep you.
Lily.
O will you keep me always, father dear?
And though I sleep ever so sound, still keep me?
Oh, I should be so happy, never to move!
'Tis such a dear well place, here in your arms!
Don't let it take me; do not let me go:
I cannot leave you, father—love hurts so.
Julian.
Yes, darling; love does hurt. It is too good
Never to hurt. Shall I walk with you now,
And try to make you sleep?
Lily.
Yes—no; for I should leave you then. Oh, my head!
Mother, mother, dear mother!—Sing to me, father.
[He tries to sing.]
Oh the hurt, the hurt, and the hurt of love!
Wherever the sun shines, the waters go.
It hurts the snowdrop, it hurts the dove,
God on his throne, and man below.
But sun would not shine, nor waters go,
Snowdrop tremble, nor fair dove moan,
God be on high, nor man below,
But for love—for the love with its hurt alone.
Thou knowest, O Saviour, its hurt and its sorrows;
Didst rescue its joy by the might of thy pain:
Lord of all yesterdays, days, and to-morrows,
Help us love on in the hope of thy gain;
Hurt as it may, love on, love for ever;
Love for love's sake, like the Father above,
But for whose brave-hearted Son we had never
Known the sweet hurt of the sorrowful love.
[She sleeps at last. He sits as before, with the child
leaning on his bosom, and falls into a kind of stupor, in
which he talks.]
Julian.
A voice comes from the vacant, wide sea-vault:
Man with the heart, praying for woman's love,
Receive thy prayer; be loved; and take thy choice:
Take this or this. O Heaven and Earth! I see—What
is it? Statue trembling into life
With the first rosy flush upon the skin?
Or woman-angel, richer by lack of wings?
I see her—where I know not; for I see
Nought else: she filleth space, and eyes, and brain—
God keep me!—in celestial nakedness.
She leaneth forward, looking down in space,
With large eyes full of longing, made intense
By mingled fear of something yet unknown;
Her arms thrown forward, circling half; her hands
Half lifted, and half circling, like her arms.
O heavenly artist! whither hast thou gone
To find my own ideal womanhood—
Glory grown grace, divine to human grown?
I hear the voice again: Speak but the word:
She will array herself and come to thee.
Lo, at her white foot lie her daylight clothes,
Her earthly dress for work and weary rest!
—I see a woman-form, laid as in sleep,
Close by the white foot of the wonderful.
It is the same shape, line for line, as she.
Long grass and daisies shadow round her limbs.
Why speak I not the word?———Clothe thee, and come,
O infinite woman! my life faints for thee.
Once more the voice: Stay! look on this side first:
I spake of choice. Look here, O son of man!
Choose then between them. Ah! ah!
[Silence.]
Her I knew
Some ages gone; the woman who did sail
Down a long river with me to the sea;
Who gave her lips up freely to my lips,
Her body willingly into my arms;
Came down from off her statue-pedestal,
And was a woman in a common house,
Not beautified by fancy every day,
And losing worship by her gifts to me.
She gave me that white child—what came of her?
I have forgot.—I opened her great heart,
And filled it half-way to the brim with love—
With love half wine, half vinegar and gall—
And so—and so—she—went away and died?
O God! what was it?—something terrible—
I will not stay to choose, or look again
Upon the beautiful. Give me my wife,
The woman of the old time on the earth.
O lovely spirit, fold not thy parted hands,
Nor let thy hair weep like a sunset-rain
If thou descend to earth, and find no man
To love thee purely, strongly, in his will,
Even as he loves the truth, because he will,
And when he cannot see it beautiful—
Then thou mayst weep, and I will help thee weep.
Voice, speak again, and tell my wife to come.
'Tis she, 'tis she, low-kneeling at my feet!
In the same dress, same flowing of the hair,
As long ago, on earth: is her face changed?
Sweet, my love rains on thee, like a warm shower;
My dove descending rests upon thy head;
I bless and sanctify thee for my own:
Lift up thy face, and let me look on thee.
Heavens, what a face! 'Tis hers! It is not hers!
She rises—turns it up from me to God,
With great rapt orbs, and such a brow!—the stars
Might find new orbits there, and be content.
O blessed lips, so sweetly closed that sure
Their opening must be prophecy or song!
A high-entranced maiden, ever pure,
And thronged with burning thoughts of God and Truth!
Vanish her garments; vanishes the silk
That the worm spun, the linen of the flax;—
O heavens! she standeth there, my statue-form,
With the rich golden torrent-hair, white feet,
And hands with rosy palms—my own ideal!
The woman of my world, with deeper eyes
Than I had power to think—and yet my Lilia,
My wife, with homely airs of earth about her,
And dearer to my heart as my lost wife,
Than to my soul as its new-found ideal!
Oh, Lilia! teach me; at thy knees I kneel:
Make me thy scholar; speak, and I will hear.
Yea, all eternity—
[He is roused by a cry from the child.]
Lily.
Oh, father! put your arms close round about me.
Kiss me. Kiss me harder, father dear.
Now! I am better now.
[She looks long and passionately in his face. Her
eyes close; her head drops backward. She is dead.]
Lilia.
Now I have told him all; no word kept back
To burn within me like an evil fire.
And where I am, I have told him; and I wait
To know his will. What though he love me not,
If I love him!—I will go back to him,
And wait on him submissive. Tis enough
For one life, to be servant to that man!
It was but pride—at best, love stained with pride,
That drove me from him. He and my sweet child
Must miss my hands, if not my eyes and heart.
How lonely is my Lily all the day,
Till he comes home and makes her paradise!
I go to be his servant. Every word
That comes from him softer than a command,
I'll count it gain, and lay it in my heart,
And serve him better for it.—He will receive me.
Julian.
The light of setting suns be on thee, child!
Nay, nay, my child, the light of rising suns
Is on thee! Joy is with thee—God is Joy;
Peace to himself, and unto us deep joy;
Joy to himself, in the reflex of our joy.
Love be with thee! yea God, for he is Love.
Thou wilt need love, even God's, to give thee joy.
Children, they say, are born into a world
Where grief is their first portion: thou, I think,
Never hadst much of grief—thy second birth
Into the spirit-world has taught thee grief,
If, orphaned now, thou know'st thy mother's story,
And know'st thy father's hardness. O my God,
Let not my Lily turn away from me.
Now I am free to follow and find her.
Thy truer Father took thee home to him,
That he might grant my prayer, and save my wife.
I thank him for his gift of thee; for all
That thou hast taught me, blessed little child.
I love thee, dear, with an eternal love.
And now farewell!
[Kissing her.]
—no, not farewell; I come.
Years hold not back, they lead me on to thee.
Yes, they will also lead me on to her.
Enter a Jew.
Jew.
What is your pleasure with me? Here I am, sir.
Julian.
Walk into the next room; then look at this,
And tell me what you'll give for everything.
[Jew goes.]
My darling's death has made me almost happy.
Now, now I follow, follow. I'm young again.
When I have laid my little one to rest
Among the flowers in that same sunny spot,
Straight from her grave I'll take my pilgrim-way;
And, calling up all old forgotten skill,
Lapsed social claims, and knowledge of mankind,
I'll be a man once more in the loud world.
Revived experience in its winding ways,
Senses and wits made sharp by sleepless love,
If all the world were sworn to secrecy,
Will guide me to her, sure as questing Death.
I'll follow my wife, follow until I die.
How shall I face the Shepherd of the sheep,
Without the one ewe-lamb he gave to me?
How find her in great Hades, if not here
In this poor little round O of a world?
I'll follow my wife, follow until I find.
Re-enter Jew.
Well, how much? Name your sum. Be liberal.
Jew.
Let me see this room, too. The things are all
Old-fashioned and ill-kept. They're worth but little.
Julian.
Say what you will—only make haste and go.
Jew.
Say twenty pounds?
Julian.
Well, fetch the money at once,
And take possession. But make haste, I pray.
Julian.
Now I can leave thee safely to thy sleep;
Thou wilt not wake and miss me, my fair child!
Nor will they, for she's fair, steal this ewe-lamb
Out of this fold, while I am gone to seek
And find the wandering mother of my lamb.
I cannot weep; I know thee with me still.
Thou dost not find it very dark down there?
Would I could go to thee; I long to go;
My limbs are tired; my eyes are sleepy too;
And fain my heart would cease this beat, beat, beat.
O gladly would I come to thee, my child,
And lay my head upon thy little heart,
And sleep in the divine munificence
Of thy great love! But my night has not come;
She is not rescued yet. Good-bye, little one.
[He turns, but sinks on the grave. Recovering and rising.]
Now for the world—that's Italy, and her!
Enter JULIAN.
Julian.
How am I here? Alas! I do not know.
I should have been at sea.—Ah, now I know!
I have come here to die.
[Lies down on the floor.]
Where's Lilia?
I cannot find her. She is here, I know.
But oh these endless passages and stairs,
And dreadful shafts of darkness! Lilia!
Lilia! wait for me, child; I'm coming fast,
But something holds me. Let me go, devil!
My Lilia, have faith; they cannot hurt you.
You are God's child—they dare not touch you, wife.
O pardon me, my beautiful, my own!
[Sings.]
Wind, wind, thou blowest many a drifting thing
From sheltering cove, down to the unsheltered sea;
Thou blowest to the sea ray blue sail's wing—
Us to a new, love-lit futurity:
Out to the ocean fleet and float—
Blow, blow my little leaf-like boat.
[While he sings, enter LORD SEAFORD, pale and haggard.]
JULIAN descries him suddenly.
What are you, man? O brother, bury me—
There's money in my pocket—
[Emptying the Jew's gold on the floor.]
by my child.
[Staring at him.]
Oh! you are Death. Go, saddle the pale horse—
I will not walk—I'll ride. What, skeleton!
I cannot sit him! ha! ha! Hither, brute!
Here, Lilia, do the lady's task, my child,
And buckle on my spurs. I'll send him up
With a gleam through the blue, snorting white foam-flakes.
Ah me! I have not won my golden spurs,
Nor is there any maid to bind them on:
I will not ride the horse, I'll walk with thee.
Come, Death, give me thine arm, good slave!—we'll go.
Lord Seaford (stooping over him).
I am Seaford, Count.
Julian.
Seaford! What Seaford?
[Recollecting.]
—Seaford!
[Springing to his feet.]
Where is my wife?
[He falls into SEAFORD'S arms. He lays him down.]
Lord S.
Had I seen him, she had been safe for me.
[Goes.]
[JULIAN lies motionless. Insensibility passes into sleep. He
wakes calm, in the sultry dusk of a summer evening.]
Julian.
Still, still alive! I thought that I was dead.
I had a frightful dream. 'Tis gone, thank God!
[He is quiet a little.]
So then thou didst not take the child away
That I might find my wife! Thy will be done.
Thou wilt not let me go. This last desire
I send away with grief, but willingly.
I have prayed to thee, and thou hast heard my prayer:
Take thou thine own way, only lead her home.
Cleanse her, O Lord. I cannot know thy might;
But thou art mighty, with a power unlike
All, all that we know by the name of power,
Transcending it as intellect transcends
'The stone upon the ground—it may be more,
For these are both created—thou creator,
Lonely, supreme.
Now it is almost over,
My spirit's journey through this strange sad world;
This part is done, whatever cometh next.
Morning and evening have made out their day;
My sun is going down in stormy dark,
But I will face it fearless.
The first act Is over of the drama.—Is it so?
What means this dim dawn of half-memories?
There's something I knew once and know not now!—
A something different from all this earth!
It matters little; I care not—only know
That God will keep the living thing he made.
How mighty must he be to have the right
Of swaying this great power I feel I am—
Moulding and forming it, as pleaseth him!
O God, I come to thee! thou art my life;
O God, thou art my home; I come to thee.
Can this be death? Lo! I am lifted up
Large-eyed into the night. Nothing I see
But that which is, the living awful Truth—
All forms of which are but the sparks flung out
From the luminous ocean clothing round the sun,
Himself all dark. Ah, I remember me:
Christ said to Martha—"Whosoever liveth,
And doth believe in me, shall never die"!
I wait, I wait, wait wondering, till the door
Of God's wide theatre be open flung
To let me in. What marvels I shall see!
The expectation fills me, like new life
Dancing through all my veins.
Once more I thank thee
For all that thou hast made me—most of all,
That thou didst make me wonder and seek thee.
I thank thee for my wife: to thee I trust her;
Forget her not, my God. If thou save her,
I shall be able then to thank thee so
As will content thee—with full-flowing song,
The very bubbles on whose dancing waves
Are daring thoughts flung faithful at thy feet.
My heart sinks in me.—I grow faint. Oh! whence
This wind of love that fans me out of life?
One stoops to kiss me!—Ah, my lily child!
God hath not flung thee over his garden-wall.
[Re-enter LORD SEAFORD with the doctor. JULIAN takes no
heed of them. The doctor shakes his head.]
My little child, I'll never leave thee more;
We are both children now in God's big house.
Come, lead me; you are older here than I
By three whole days, my darling angel-child!
[A letter is brought in. LORD SEAFORD holds it before
JULIAN'S eyes. He looks vaguely at it.]
Lord S.
It is a letter from your wife, I think.
Julian (feebly).
A letter from my Lilia! Bury it with me—
I'll read it in my chamber, by and by:
Dear words should not be read with others nigh.
Lilia, my wife! I am going home to God.
Lord S. (pending over him).
Your wife is innocent. I know she is.
JULIAN gazes at him blankly. A light begins to grow in his
eyes. It grows till his face is transfigured. It vanishes.
He dies.
AND do not fear to hope. Can poet's brain
More than the Father's heart rich good invent?
Each time we smell the autumn's dying scent,
We know the primrose time will come again;
Not more we hope, nor less would soothe our pain.
Be bounteous in thy faith, for not mis-spent
Is confidence unto the Father lent:
Thy need is sown and rooted for his rain.
His thoughts are as thine own; nor are his ways
Other than thine, but by pure opulence
Of beauty infinite and love immense.
Work on. One day, beyond all thoughts of praise,
A sunny joy will crown thee with its rays;
Nor other than thy need, thy recompense.
SCENE I.—"A world not realized." LILY. To her JULIAN.
Lily.
O father, come with me! I have found her—mother!
Julian.
Angel, thy part is done; leave her to me.
Angel.
Sorrowful man, to thee I must give place;
Thy ministry is stronger far than mine;
Yet have I done my part.—She sat with him.
He gave her rich white flowers with crimson scent,
The tuberose and datura ever burning
Their incense to the dusky face of night.
He spoke to her pure words of lofty sense,
But tinged with poison for a tranced ear.
He bade low music sound of faint farewells,
Which fixed her eyes upon a leafy picture,
Wherein she wandered through an amber twilight
Toward a still grave in a sleepy nook.
And ever and anon she sipped pale wine,
Rose-tinged, rose-odoured, from a silver cup.
He sang a song, each pause of which closed up,
Like a day-wearied daisy for the night,
With these words falling like an echo low:
"Love, let us love and weep and faint and die."
With the last pause the tears flowed at their will,
Without a sob, down from their cloudy skies.
He took her hand in his, and it lay still.—
blast of music from a wandering band
Billowed the air with sudden storm that moment.
The visible rampart of material things
Was rent—the vast eternal void looked in
Upon her awe-struck soul. She cried and fled.
It was the sealing of her destiny.
A wild convulsion shook her inner world;
Its lowest depths were heaved tumultuously;
Far unknown molten gulfs of being rushed
Up into mountain-peaks, rushed up and stood.
The soul that led a fairy life, athirst
For beauty only, passed into a woman's:
In pain and tears was born the child-like need
For God, for Truth, and for essential Love.
But first she woke to terror; was alone,
For God she saw not;—woke up in the night,
The great wide night alone. No mother's hand,
To soothe her pangs, no father's voice was near.
She would not come to thee; for love itself
Too keenly stung her sad, repentant heart,
Giving her bitter names to give herself;
But, calling back old words which thou hadst spoken,
In other days, by light winds borne afar,
And now returning on the storm of grief,
Hither she came to seek her Julian's God.
Farewell, strange friend! My care of her is over.
Julian.
A heart that knows what thou canst never know,
Fair angel, blesseth thee, and saith, farewell.
[The Angel goes. JULIAN and LILY take his place.
LILIA is praying, and they hear parts of her prayer.]
Lilia.
O Jesus, hear me! Let me speak to thee.
No fear oppresses me; for misery
Fills my heart up too full for any fear.
Is there no help, O Holy? Am I stained
Beyond release?
Julian.
Lilia, thy purity
Maketh thy heart abuse thee. I, thy husband,
Sinned more against thee, in believing ill,
Than thou, by ten times what thou didst, poor child,
Hadst wronged thy husband.
Lilia.
Pardon will not do:
I need much more, O Master. That word go
Surely thou didst not speak to send away
The sinful wife thou wouldst not yet condemn!
Or was that crime, though not too great for pardon,
Too great for loving-kindness afterward?
Might she not too have come behind thy feet,
And, weeping, wiped and kissed them, Mary's son,
Blessed for ever with a heavenly grief?
Ah! she nor I can claim with her who gave
Her tears, her hair, her lips, her precious oil,
To soothe feet worn with Galilean roads:—
She sinned against herself, not against—Julian.
My Lord, my God, find some excuse for me.
Find in thy heart something to say for me,
As for the crowd that cried against thee, then,
When heaven was dark because thy lamp burned low.
Julian.
Not thou, but I am guilty, Lilia.
I made it possible to tempt thee, child.
Thou didst not fall, my love; only, one moment,
Beauty was queen, and Truth not lord of all.
Lilia.
O Julian, my husband, is it strange,
That, when I think of Him, he looks like thee?
That, when he speaks to comfort me, the voice
Is like thy voice, my husband, my beloved?
Oh! if I could but lie down at thy feet,
And tell thee all—yea, every thought—I know
That thou wouldst think the best that could be thought,
And love and comfort me. O Julian,
I am more thine than ever.—Forgive me, husband,
For calling me, defiled and outcast, thine.
Yet may I not be thine as I am His?
Would I might be thy servant—yes, thy slave,
To wash thy feet, and dress thy lovely child,
And bring her at thy call—more wife than I.
But I shall never see thee, till the earth
Lies on us both—apart—oh, far apart!
How lonely shall I lie the long, long years!
Lily.
O mother, there are blue skies here, and flowers,
And blowing winds, and kisses, mother dear!
And every time my father kisses me,
It is not father only, but another.
Make haste and come. My head never aches here.
Lilia.
Can it be that they are dead? Is it possible?
I feel as if they were near me!—Speak again,
Beloved voices; comfort me; I need it.
Julian (singing).
Come to us: above the storm
Ever shines the blue.
Come to us: beyond its form
Ever lies the True.
Lily (singing).
Mother, darling, do not weep—
All I cannot tell:
By and by you'll go to sleep,
And you'll wake so well.
Julian (singing).
There is sunshine everywhere
For thy heart and mine:
God, for every sin and care,
Is the cure divine.
Lily (singing).
We're so happy all the day,
Waiting for another!
All the flowers and sunshine stay,
Watching for my mother.
Julian.
My maiden! for true wife is always maiden
To the true husband: thou art mine for ever.
Lilia.
What gentle hopes keep passing to and fro!
Thou shadowest me with thine own rest, my God;
A cloud from thee stoops down and covers me.
[She falls asleep on her knees]
Julian (gazing upward).
And thou wast with me all the time, my God,
Even as now! I was not far from thee.
Thy spirit spoke in all my wants and fears,
And hopes and longings. Thou art all in all.
I am not mine, but thine. I cannot speak
The thoughts that work within me like a sea.
When on the earth I lay, crushed down beneath
A hopeless weight of empty desolation,
Thy loving face was lighted then, O Christ,
With expectation of my joy to come,
When all the realm of possible ill should lie
Under my feet, and I should stand as now
Heart-sure of thee, true-hearted, only One.
Was ever soul filled to such overflowing
With the pure wine of blessedness, my God!
Filled as the night with stars, am I with joys;
Filled as the heavens with thee, am I with peace;
For now I wait the end of all my prayers—
Of all that have to do with old-world things:
What new things come to wake new prayers, my God,
Thou know'st; I wait on thee in perfect peace.
[He turns his gaze downward.—From the fog-sea
below half-rises a woman-form, which floats toward him.]
Lo, as the lily lifts its shining bosom
From the lone couch of waters where it slept,
When the fair morn toucheth and waketh it;
So riseth up my lily from the deep
Where human souls are vexed in awful dreams!
[LILY spies her mother, darts down, and is caught in
her arms. They land on JULIAN'S peak, and
climb, LILY leading her mother.]
Lily.
Come faster, mother dear; father is waiting.
Lilia.
Have patience with me, darling. By and by,
I think, I shall do better.—Oh my Julian!
Julian.
I may not help her. She must climb and come.
[He reaches his hand, and the three are clasped in
an infinite embrace.]
O God, thy thoughts, thy ways, are not as ours:
They fill our longing hearts up to the brim.
[The moon and the stars and the blue night close
around them; and the poet awakes from his dream.]
TO MY FATHER:
with my second volume of verse.
Take of the first fruits, father, of thy care,
Wrapped in the fresh leaves of my gratitude,
Late waked for early gifts ill understood;
Claiming in all my harvests rightful share,
Whether with song that mounts the joyful air
I praise my God, or, in yet deeper mood,
Sit dumb because I know a speechless good,
Needing no voice, but all the soul for prayer.
Thou hast been faithful to my highest need;
And I, thy debtor, ever, evermore,
Shall never feel the grateful burden sore.
Yet most I thank thee, not for any deed,
But for the sense thy living self did breed
Of fatherhood still at the great world's core.
All childhood, reverence clothed thee, undefined,
As for some being of another race;
Ah, not with it, departing—growing apace
As years did bring me manhood's loftier mind,
Able to see thy human life behind—
The same hid heart, the same revealing face—
My own dim contest settling into grace,
Of sorrow, strife, and victory combined!
So I beheld my God, in childhood's morn,
A mist, a darkness, great, and far apart,
Moveless and dim—I scarce could say Thou art:
My manhood came, of joy and sadness born;—
Full soon the misty dark, asunder torn,
Revealed man's glory, God's great human heart.
G.M.D. jr.
ALGIERS, April, 1857.
Proudly the youth, sudden with manhood crowned,
Went walking by his horses, the first time,
That morning, to the plough. No soldier gay
Feels at his side the throb of the gold hilt
(Knowing the blue blade hides within its sheath,
As lightning in the cloud) with more delight,
When first he belts it on, than he that day
Heard still the clank of the plough-chains against
His horses' harnessed sides, as to the field
They went to make it fruitful. O'er the hill
The sun looked down, baptizing him for toil.
A farmer's son, a farmer's grandson he;
Yea, his great-grandsire had possessed those fields.
Tradition said they had been tilled by men
Who bore the name long centuries ago,
And married wives, and reared a stalwart race,
And died, and went where all had followed them,
Save one old man, his daughter, and the youth
Who ploughs in pride, nor ever doubts his toil;
And death is far from him this sunny morn.
Why should we think of death when life is high?
The earth laughs all the day, and sleeps all night.
The daylight's labour and the night's repose
Are very good, each better in its time.
The boy knew little; but he read old tales
Of Scotland's warriors, till his blood ran swift
As charging knights upon their death-career.
He chanted ancient tunes, till the wild blood
Was charmed back into its fountain-well,
And tears arose instead. That poet's songs,
Whose music evermore recalls his name,
His name of waters babbling as they run,
Rose from him in the fields among the kine,
And met the skylark's, raining from the clouds.
But only as the poet-birds he sang—
From rooted impulse of essential song;
The earth was fair—he knew not it was fair;
His heart was glad—he knew not it was glad;
He walked as in a twilight of the sense—
Which this one day shall turn to tender morn.
Long ere the sun had cleared the feathery tops
Of the fir-thicket on the eastward hill,
His horses leaned and laboured. Each great hand
Held rein and plough-stilt in one guiding grasp—
No ploughman there would brook a helper. Proud
With a true ploughman's pride—nobler, I think,
Than statesman's, ay, or poet's, or painter's pride,
For little praise will come that he ploughs well—
He did plough well, proud of his work itself,
And not of what would follow. With sure eye,
He saw his horses keep the arrow-track;
He saw the swift share cut the measured sod;
He saw the furrow folding to the right,
Ready with nimble foot to aid at need:—
Turning its secrets upward to the sun,
And hiding in the dark the sun-born grass,
And daisies dipped in carmine, lay the tilth—
A million graves to nurse the buried seed,
And send a golden harvest up the air.
When the steep sun had clomb to his decline,
And pausing seemed, at edge of slow descent,
Upon the keystone of his airy bridge,
They rested likewise, half-tired man and horse,
And homeward went for food and courage new.
Therewith refreshed, they turned again to toil,
And lived in labour all the afternoon;
Till, in the gloaming, once again the plough
Lay like a stranded bark upon the lea,
And home with hanging neck the horses went,
Walking beside their master, force by will:
Then through the lengthening shades a vision came.
It was a lady mounted on a horse,
A slender girl upon a mighty steed,
That bore her with the pride horses must feel
When they submit to women. Home she went,
Alone, or else her groom lagged far behind.
Scarce had she bent simple acknowledgment
Of the hand in silent salutation lifted
To the bowed head, when something faithless yielded:
The saddle slipped, the horse stopped, and the girl
Stood on her feet, still holding fast the reins.
Three paces bore him bounding to her side;
Her radiant beauty almost fixed him there;
But with main force, as one that grapples fear,
He threw the fascination off, and saw
The work before him. Soon his hand and knife
Had set the saddle firmer than before
Upon the gentle horse; and then he turned
To mount the maiden. But bewilderment
A moment lasted; for he knew not how,
With stirrup-hand and steady arm, to throne,
Elastic, on her steed, the ascending maid:
A moment only; for while yet she thanked,
Nor yet had time to teach her further will,
About her waist he put his brawny hands,
That all but zoned her round; and like a child
Lifting her high, he set her on the horse;
Whence like a risen moon she smiled on him,
Nor turned aside, although a radiant blush
Shone in her cheek, and shadowed in her eyes.
And he was never sure if from her heart
Or from the rosy sunset came the flush.
Again she thanked him, while again he stood
Bewildered in her beauty. Not a word
Answered her words that flowed, folded in tones
Round which dissolving lambent music played,
Like dropping water in a silver cup;
Till, round the shoulder of the neighbouring hill,
Sudden she disappeared. And he awoke,
And called himself hard names, and turned and went
After his horses, bending like them his head.
Ah God! when Beauty passes from the door,
Although she came not in, the house is bare:
Shut, shut the door; there's nothing in the house!
Why seems it always that she should be ours?
A secret lies behind which thou dost know,
And I can partly guess.
But think not then,
The holder of the plough sighed many sighs
Upon his bed that night; or other dreams
Than pleasant rose upon his view in sleep;
Nor think the airy castles of his brain
Had less foundation than the air admits.
But read my simple tale, scarce worth the name,
And answer, if he had not from the fair
Beauty's best gift; and proved her not, in sooth,
An angel vision from a higher world.
Not much of her I tell. Her glittering life,
Where part the waters on the mountain-ridge,
Ran down the southern side, away from his.
It was not over-blessed; for, I know,
Its tale wiled many sighs, one summer eve,
From her who told, and him who, in the pines
Walking, received it from her loving lips;
But now she was as God had made her, ere
The world had tried to spoil her; tried, I say,
And half succeeded, failing utterly.
Fair was she, frank, and innocent as a child
That looks in every eye; fearless of ill,
Because she knew it not; and brave withal,
Because she led a simple country life,
And loved the animals. Her father's house—
A Scottish laird was he, of ancient name—
Was distant but two miles among the hills;
Yet oft as she had passed his father's farm,
The youth had never seen her face before,
And should not twice. Yet was it not enough?
The vision tarried. She, as the harvest moon
That goeth on her way, and knoweth not
The fields of corn whose ripening grain she fills
With strength of life, and hope, and joy for men,
Went on her way, and knew not of the virtue
Gone out of her; yea, never thought of him,
Save at such times when, all at once, old scenes
Return uncalled, with wonder that they come.
Soon was she orphaned of her sheltering hills,
And rounded with dead glitter, not the shine
Of leaves and waters dancing in the sun;
While he abode in ever breaking dawns,
Breathed ever new-born winds into his soul;
And saw the aurora of the heavenly day
Still climb the hill-sides of the heapy world.
Again I say, no fond romance of love,
No argument of possibilities,
If he were some one, and she sought his help,
Turned his clear brain into a nest of dreams.
As soon he had sat down and twisted cords
To snare, and carry home for household help,
Some woman-angel, wandering half-seen
On moonlight wings, o'er withered autumn fields.
But when he rose next morn, and went abroad,
(The exultation of his new-found rank
Already settling into dignity,)
Behold, the earth was beautiful! The sky
Shone with the expectation of the sun.
Only the daisies grieved him, for they fell
Caught in the furrow, with their innocent heads
Just out, imploring. A gray hedgehog ran,
With tangled mesh of rough-laid spikes, and face
Helplessly innocent, across the field:
He let it run, and blessed it as it ran.
Returned at noon-tide, something drew his feet
Into the barn: entering, he gazed and stood.
For, through the rent roof lighting, one sunbeam
Blazed on the yellow straw one golden spot,
Dulled all the amber heap, and sinking far,
Like flame inverted, through the loose-piled mound,
Crossed the keen splendour with dark shadow-straws,
In lines innumerable. 'Twas so bright,
His eye was cheated with a spectral smoke
That rose as from a fire. He had not known
How beautiful the sunlight was, not even
Upon the windy fields of morning grass,
Nor on the river, nor the ripening corn!
As if to catch a wild live thing, he crept
On tiptoe silent, laid him on the heap,
And gazing down into the glory-gulf,
Dreamed as a boy half sleeping by the fire—
Half dreaming rose, and got his horses out.
God, and not woman, is the heart of all.
But she, as priestess of the visible earth,
Holding the key, herself most beautiful,
Had come to him, and flung the portals wide.
He entered: every beauty was a glass
That gleamed the woman back upon his view.
Shall I not rather say: each beauty gave
Its own soul up to him who worshipped her,
For that his eyes were opened now to see?
Already in these hours his quickened soul
Put forth the white tip of a floral bud,
Ere long to be a crown-like, aureole flower.
His songs unbidden, his joy in ancient tales,
Had hitherto alone betrayed the seed
That lay in his heart, close hidden even from him,
Yet not the less mellowing all his spring:
Like summer sunshine came the maiden's face,
And in the youth's glad heart the seed awoke.
It grew and spread, and put forth many flowers,
Its every flower a living open eye,
Until his soul was full of eyes within.
Each morning now was a fresh boon to him;
Each wind a spiritual power upon his life;
Each individual animal did share
A common being with him; every kind
Of flower from every other was distinct,
Uttering that for which alone it was—
Its something human, wrapt in other veil.
And when the winter came, when thick the snow
Armed the sad fields from gnawing of the frost,
When the low sun but skirted his far realms,
And sank in early night, he drew his chair
Beside the fire; and by the feeble lamp
Read book on book; and wandered other climes,
And lived in other lives and other needs,
And grew a larger self by other selves.
Ere long, the love of knowledge had become
A hungry passion and a conscious power,
And craved for more than reading could supply.
Then, through the night (all dark, except the moon
Shone frosty o'er the heath, or the white snow
Gave back such motes of light as else had sunk
In the dark earth) he bent his plodding way
Over the moors to where the little town
Lay gathered in the hollow. There the student
Who taught from lingering dawn to early dark,
Had older scholars in the long fore-night;
For youths who in the shop, or in the barn,
Or at the loom, had done their needful work,
Came gathering there through starlight, fog, or snow,
And found the fire ablaze, the candles lit,
And him who knew waiting for who would know.
Here mathematics wiled him to their heights;
And strange consent of lines to form and law
Made Euclid a profound romance of truth.
The master saw with wonder how he seized,
How eagerly devoured the offered food,
And longed to give him further kinds. For Knowledge
Would multiply like Life; and two clear souls
That see a truth, and, turning, see at once
Each the other's face glow in that truth's delight,
Are drawn like lovers. So the master offered
To guide the ploughman through the narrow ways
To heights of Roman speech. The youth, alert,
Caught at the offer; and for years of nights,
The house asleep, he groped his twilight way
With lexicon and rule, through ancient story,
Or fable fine, embalmed in Latin old;
Wherein his knowledge of the English tongue,
Through reading many books, much aided him—
For best is like in all the hearts and tongues.
At length his progress, through the master's pride
In such a pupil, reached the father's ears.
Great gladness woke within him, and he vowed,
If caring, sparing might accomplish it,
He should to college, and there have his fill
Of that same learning.
To the plough no more,
All day to school he went; and ere a year,
He wore the scarlet gown with the closed sleeves.
Awkward at first, but with a dignity
Soon finding fit embodiment in speech
And gesture and address, he made his way,
Unconscious all, to the full-orbed respect
Of students and professors; for whose praise
More than his worth, society, so called,
To its rooms in that great city of the North,
Invited him. He entered. Dazzled at first
By brilliance of the shining show, the lights,
The mirrors, gems, white necks, and radiant eyes,
He stole into a corner, and was quiet
Until the vision too had quieter grown.
Bewildered next by many a sparkling word,
Nor knowing the light-play of polished minds,
Which, like rose-diamonds cut in many facets,
Catch and reflect the wandering rays of truth
As if they were home-born and issuing new,
He held his peace, and silent soon began
To see how little fire it needs to shimmer.
Hence, in the midst of talk, his thoughts would wander
Back to the calm divine of homely toil;
While round him still and ever hung an air
Of breezy fields, and plough, and cart, and scythe—
A kind of clumsy grace, in which gay girls
Saw but the clumsiness—another sort
Saw the grace too, yea, sometimes, when he spoke,
Saw the grace only; and began at last,
For he sought none, to seek him in the crowd,
And find him unexpected, maiden-wise.
But oftener far they sought him than they found,
For seldom was he drawn away from toil;
Seldomer stinted time held due to toil;
For if one night his panes were dark, the next
They gleamed far into morning. And he won
Honours among the first, each session's close.
Nor think that new familiarity
With open forms of ill, not to be shunned
Where many youths are met, endangered much
A mind that had begun to will the pure.
Oft when the broad rich humour of a jest
With breezy force drew in its skirts a troop
Of pestilential vapours following—
Arose within his sudden silent mind
The maiden face that once blushed down on him—
That lady face, insphered beyond his earth,
Yet visible as bright, particular star.
A flush of tenderness then glowed across
His bosom—shone it clean from passing harm:
Should that sweet face be banished by rude words?
It could not stay what maidens might not hear!
He almost wept for shame, that face, such jest,
Should meet in his house. To his love he made
Love's only worthy offering—purity.
And if the homage that he sometimes met,
New to the country lad, conveyed in smiles,
Assents, and silent listenings when he spoke,
Threatened yet more his life's simplicity;
An antidote of nature ever came,
Even Nature's self. For, in the summer months,
His former haunts and boyhood's circumstance
Received him to the bosom of their grace.
And he, too noble to despise the past,
Too proud to be ashamed of manly toil,
Too wise to fancy that a gulf gaped wide
Betwixt the labouring hand and thinking brain,
Or that a workman was no gentleman
Because a workman, clothed himself again
In his old garments, took the hoe, the spade,
The sowing sheet, or covered in the grain,
Smoothing with harrows what the plough had ridged.
With ever fresher joy he hailed the fields,
Returning still with larger powers of sight:
Each time he knew them better than before,
And yet their sweetest aspect was the old.
His labour kept him true to life and fact,
Casting out worldly judgments, false desires,
And vain distinctions. Ever, at his toil,
New thoughts would rise, which, when God's night awoke,
He still would seek, like stars, with instruments—
By science, or by truth's philosophy,
Bridging the gulf betwixt the new and old.
Thus laboured he with hand and brain at once,
Nor missed due readiness when Scotland's sons
Met to reap wisdom, and the fields were white.
His sire was proud of him; and, most of all,
Because his learning did not make him proud:
He was too wise to build upon his lore.
The neighbours asked what he would make his son:
"I'll make a man of him," the old man said;
"And for the rest, just what he likes himself.
He is my only son—I think he'll keep
The old farm on; and I shall go content,
Leaving a man behind me, as I say."
So four years long his life swung to and fro,
Alternating the red gown and blue coat,
The garret study and the wide-floored barn,
The wintry city and the sunny fields:
In every change his mind was well content,
For in himself he was the growing same.
In no one channel flowed his seeking thoughts;
To no profession did he ardent turn:
He knew his father's wish—it was his own.
"Why should a man," he said, "when knowledge grows,
Leave therefore the old patriarchal life,
And seek distinction in the noise of men?"
He turned his asking face on every side;
Went reverent with the anatomist, and saw
The inner form of man laid skilful bare;
Went with the chymist, whose wise-questioning hand
Made Nature do in little, before his eyes,
And momently, what, huge, for centuries,
And in the veil of vastness and lone deeps,
She labours at; bent his inquiring eye
On every source whence knowledge flows for men:
At some he only sipped, at others drank.
At length, when he had gained the master's right—
By custom sacred from of old—to sit
With covered head before the awful rank
Of black-gowned senators; and each of those,
Proud of the scholar, was ready at a word
To speed him onward to what goal he would,
He took his books, his well-worn cap and gown,
And, leaving with a sigh the ancient walls,
Crowned with their crown of stone, unchanging gray
In all the blandishments of youthful spring,
Chose for his world the lone ancestral farm.
With simple gladness met him on the road
His gray-haired father—elder brother now.
Few words were spoken, little welcome said,
But, as they walked, the more was understood.
If with a less delight he brought him home
Than he who met the prodigal returned,
It was with more reliance, with more peace;
For with the leaning pride that old men feel
In young strong arms that draw their might from them,
He led him to the house. His sister there,
Whose kisses were not many, but whose eyes
Were full of watchfulness and hovering love,
Set him beside the fire in the old place,
And heaped the table with best country-fare.
When the swift night grew deep, the father rose,
And led him, wondering why and where they went,
Thorough the limpid dark, by tortuous path
Between the corn-ricks, to a loft above
The stable, where the same old horses slept
Which he had guided that eventful morn.
Entering, he saw a change-pursuing hand
Had been at work. The father, leading on
Across the floor, heaped high with store of grain
Opened a door. An unexpected light
Flashed on him cheerful from a fire and lamp,
That burned alone, as in a fairy-tale:
Behold! a little room, a curtained bed,
An easy chair, bookshelves, and writing-desk;
An old print of a deep Virgilian wood,
And one of choosing Hercules! The youth
Gazed and spoke not. The old paternal love
Had sought and found an incarnation new!
For, honouring in his son the simple needs
Which his own bounty had begot in him,
He gave him thus a lonely thinking space,
A silent refuge. With a quiet good night,
He left him dumb with love. Faintly beneath,
The horses stamped, and drew the lengthening chain.
Three sliding years, with slowly blended change,
Drew round their winter, summer, autumn, spring,
Fulfilled of work by hands, and brain, and heart.
He laboured as before; though when he would,
And Nature urged not, he, with privilege,
Would spare from hours of toil—read in his room,
Or wander through the moorland to the hills;
There on the apex of the world would stand,
As on an altar, burning, soul and heart—
Himself the sacrifice of faith and prayer;
Gaze in the face of the inviting blue
That domed him round; ask why it should be blue;
Pray yet again; and with love-strengthened heart
Go down to lower things with lofty cares.
When Sundays came, the father, daughter, son
Walked to the church across their own loved fields.
It was an ugly church, with scarce a sign
Of what makes English churches venerable.
Likest a crowing cock upon a heap
It stood—but let us say—St. Peter's cock,
Lacking not many a holy, rousing charm
For one with whose known self it was coeval,
Dawning with it from darkness of the unseen!
And its low mounds of monumental grass
Were far more solemn than great marble tombs;
For flesh is grass, its goodliness the flower.
Oh, lovely is the face of green churchyard
On sunny afternoons! The light itself
Nestles amid the grass; and the sweet wind
Says, I am here,—no more. With sun and wind
And crowing cocks, who can believe in death?
He, on such days, when from the church they Came,
And through God's ridges took their thoughtful way,
The last psalm lingering faintly in their hearts,
Would look, inquiring where his ridge would rise;
But when it gloomed or rained, he turned aside:
What mattered it to him?
And as they walked
Homeward, right well the father loved to hear
The fresh rills pouring from his son's clear well.
For the old man clung not to the old alone,
Nor leaned the young man only to the new;
They would the best, they sought, and followed it.
"The Pastor fills his office well," he said,
In homely jest; "—the Past alone he heeds!
Honours those Jewish times as he were a Jew,
And Christ were neither Jew nor northern man!
He has no ear for this poor Present Hour,
Which wanders up and down the centuries,
Like beggar-boy roaming the wintry streets,
With witless hand held out to passers-by;
And yet God made the voice of its many cries.
Mine be the work that comes first to my hand!
The lever set, I grasp and heave withal.
I love where I live, and let my labour flow
Into the hollows of the neighbour-needs.
Perhaps I like it best: I would not choose
Another than the ordered circumstance.
This farm is God's as much as yonder town;
These men and maidens, kine and horses, his;
For them his laws must be incarnated
In act and fact, and so their world redeemed."
Though thus he spoke at times, he spake not oft;
Ruled chief by action: what he said, he did.
No grief was suffered there of man or beast
More than was need; no creature fled in fear;
All slaying was with generous suddenness,
Like God's benignant lightning. "For," he said,
"God makes the beasts, and loves them dearly well—
Better than any parent loves his child,
It may be," would he say; for still the may be
Was sacred with him no less than the is—
"In such humility he lived and wrought—
Hence are they sacred. Sprung from God as we,
They are our brethren in a lower kind,
And in their face we see the human look."
If any said: "Men look like animals;
Each has his type set in the lower kind;"
His answer was: "The animals are like men;
Each has his true type set in the higher kind,
Though even there only rough-hewn as yet.
The hell of cruelty will be the ghosts
Of the sad beasts: their crowding heads will come,
And with encircling, slow, pain-patient eyes,
Stare the ill man to madness."
When he spoke,
His word behind it had the force of deeds
Unborn within him, ready to be born;
But, like his race, he promised very slow.
His goodness ever went before his word,
Embodying itself unconsciously
In understanding of the need that prayed,
And cheerful help that would outrun the prayer.
When from great cities came the old sad news
Of crime and wretchedness, and children sore
With hunger, and neglect, and cruel blows,
He would walk sadly all the afternoon,
With head down-bent, and pondering footstep slow;
Arriving ever at the same result—
Concluding ever: "The best that I can do
For the great world, is the same best I can
For this my world. What truth may be therein
Will pass beyond my narrow circumstance,
In truth's own right." When a philanthropist
Said pompously: "It is not for your gifts
To spend themselves on common labours thus:
You owe the world far nobler things than such;"
He answered him: "The world is in God's hands,
This part of it in mine. My sacred past,
With all its loves inherited, has led
Hither, here left me: shall I judge, arrogant,
Primaeval godlike work in earth and air,
Seed-time and harvest—offered fellowship
With God in nature—unworthy of my hands?
I know your argument—I know with grief!—
The crowds of men, in whom a starving soul
Cries through the windows of their hollow eyes
For bare humanity, nay, room to grow!—
Would I could help them! But all crowds are made
Of individuals; and their grief and pain,
Their thirst and hunger—all are of the one,
Not of the many: the true, the saving power
Enters the individual door, and thence
Issues again in thousand influences
Besieging other doors. I cannot throw
A mass of good into the general midst,
Whereof each man may seize his private share;
And if one could, it were of lowest kind,
Not reaching to that hunger of the soul.
Now here I labour whole in the same spot
Where they have known me from my childhood up
And I know them, each individual:
If there is power in me to help my own,
Even of itself it flows beyond my will,
Takes shape in commonest of common acts,
Meets every humble day's necessity:
—I would not always consciously do good,
Not always work from full intent of help,
Lest I forget the measure heaped and pressed
And running over which they pour for me,
And never reap the too-much of return
In smiling trust and beams from kindly eyes.
But in the city, with a few lame words,
And a few wretched coins, sore-coveted,
To mediate 'twixt my cannot and my would,
My best attempts would never strike a root;
My scattered corn would turn to wind-blown chaff;
I should grow weak, might weary of my kind,
Misunderstood the most where almost known,
Baffled and beaten by their unbelief:
Years could not place me where I stand this day
High on the vantage-ground of confidence:
I might for years toil on, and reach no man.
Besides, to leave the thing that nearest lies,
And choose the thing far off, more difficult—
The act, having no touch of God in it,
Who seeks the needy for the pure need's sake,
Must straightway die, choked in its selfishness."
Thus he. The world-wise schemer for the good
Held his poor peace, and went his trackless way.
What of the vision now? the vision fair
Sent forth to meet him, when at eve he went
Home from his first day's ploughing? Oft he dreamed
She passed him smiling on her stately horse;
But never band or buckle yielded more;
Never again his hands enthroned the maid;
He only worshipped with his eyes, and woke.
Nor woke he then with foolish vain regret;
But, saying, "I have seen the beautiful,"
Smiled with his eyes upon a flower or bird,
Or living form, whate'er, of gentleness,
That met him first; and all that morn, his face
Would oftener dawn into a blossomy smile.
And ever when he read a lofty tale,
Or when the storied leaf, or ballad old,
Or spake or sang of woman very fair,
Or wondrous good, he saw her face alone;
The tale was told, the song was sung of her.
He did not turn aside from other maids,
But loved their faces pure and faithful eyes.
He may have thought, "One day I wed a maid,
And make her mine;" but never came the maid,
Or never came the hour: he walked alone.
Meantime how fared the lady? She had wed
One of the common crowd: there must be ore
For the gold grains to lie in: virgin gold
Lies in the rock, enriching not the stone.
She was not one who of herself could be;
And she had found no heart which, tuned with hers,
Would beat in rhythm, growing into rime.
She read phantasmagoric tales, sans salt,
Sans hope, sans growth; or listlessly conversed
With phantom-visitors—ladies, not friends,
Mere spectral forms from fashion's concave glass.
She haunted gay assemblies, ill-content—
Witched woods to hide in from her better self,
And danced, and sang, and ached. What had she felt,
If, called up by the ordered sounds and motions,
A vision had arisen—as once, of old,
The minstrel's art laid bare the seer's eye,
And showed him plenteous waters in the waste;—
If the gay dance had vanished from her sight,
And she beheld her ploughman-lover go
With his great stride across a lonely field,
Under the dark blue vault ablaze with stars,
Lifting his full eyes to the radiant roof,
Live with our future; or had she beheld
Him studious, with space-compelling mind
Bent on his slate, pursue some planet's course;
Or reading justify the poet's wrath,
Or sage's slow conclusion?—If a voice
Had whispered then: This man in many a dream,
And many a waking moment of keen joy,
Blesses you for the look that woke his heart,
That smiled him into life, and, still undimmed,
Lies lamping in the cabinet of his soul;—
Would her sad eyes have beamed with sudden light?
Would not her soul, half-dead with nothingness,
Have risen from the couch of its unrest,
And looked to heaven again, again believed
In God and life, courage, and duty, and love?
Would not her soul have sung to its lone self:
"I have a friend, a ploughman, who is wise.
He knows what God, and goodness, and fair faith
Mean in the words and books of mighty men.
He nothing heeds the show of worldly things,
But worships the unconquerable truth.
This man is humble and loves me: I will
Be proud and very humble. If he knew me,
Would he go on and love me till we meet!"?
In the third year, a heavy harvest fell,
Full filled, before the reaping-hook and scythe.
The heat was scorching, but the men and maids
Lightened their toil with merry jest and song;
Rested at mid-day, and from brimming bowl,
Drank the brown ale, and white abundant milk.
The last ear fell, and spiky stubble stood
Where waved the forests of dry-murmuring corn;
And sheaves rose piled in shocks, like ranged tents
Of an encamping army, tent by tent,
To stand there while the moon should have her will.
The grain was ripe. The harvest carts went out
Broad-platformed, bearing back the towering load,
With frequent passage 'twixt homeyard and field.
And half the oats already hid their tops,
Their ringing, rustling, wind-responsive sprays,
In the still darkness of the towering stack;
When in the north low billowy clouds appeared,
Blue-based, white-crested, in the afternoon;
And westward, darker masses, plashed with blue,
And outlined vague in misty steep and dell,
Clomb o'er the hill-tops: thunder was at hand.
The air was sultry. But the upper sky
Was clear and radiant.
Downward went the sun,
Below the sullen clouds that walled the west,
Below the hills, below the shadowed world.
The moon looked over the clear eastern wall,
And slanting rose, and looked, rose, looked again,
And searched for silence in her yellow fields,
But found it not. For there the staggering carts,
Like overladen beasts, crawled homeward still,
Sped fieldward light and low. The laugh broke yet,
That lightning of the soul's unclouded skies—
Though not so frequent, now that toil forgot
Its natural hour. Still on the labour went,
Straining to beat the welkin-climbing heave
Of the huge rain-clouds, heavy with their floods.
Sleep, old enchantress, sided with the clouds,
The hoisting clouds, and cast benumbing spells
On man and horse. One youth who walked beside
A ponderous load of sheaves, higher than wont,
Which dared the lurking levin overhead,
Woke with a start, falling against the wheel,
That circled slow after the slumbering horse.
Yet none would yield to soft-suggesting sleep,
And quit the last few shocks; for the wild storm
Would catch thereby the skirts of Harvest-home,
And hold her lingering half-way in the rain.
The scholar laboured with his men all night.
He did not favour such prone headlong race
With Nature. To himself he said: "The night
Is sent for sleep; we ought to sleep in the night,
And leave the clouds to God. Not every storm
That climbeth heavenward overwhelms the earth;
And when God wills, 'tis better he should will;
What he takes from us never can be lost."
But the father so had ordered, and the son
Went manful to his work, and held his peace.
When the dawn blotted pale the clouded east,
The first drops, overgrown and helpless, fell
On the last home-bound cart, oppressed with sheaves;
And by its side, the last in the retreat,
The scholar walked, slow bringing up the rear.
Half the still lengthening journey he had gone,
When, on opposing strength of upper winds
Tumultuous borne, at last the labouring racks
Met in the zenith, and the silence ceased:
The lightning brake, and flooded all the world,
Its roar of airy billows following it.
The darkness drank the lightning, and again
Lay more unslaked. But ere the darkness came,
In the full revelation of the flash,
Met by some stranger flash from cloudy brain,
He saw the lady, borne upon her horse,
Careless of thunder, as when, years agone,
He saw her once, to see for evermore.
"Ah, ha!" he said, "my dreams are come for me!
Now shall they have me!" For, all through the night,
There had been growing trouble in his frame,
An overshadowing of something dire.
Arrived at home, the weary man and horse
Forsook their load; the one went to his stall,
The other sought the haven of his bed—
There slept and moaned, cried out, and woke, and slept:
Through all the netted labyrinth of his brain
The fever shot its pent malignant fire.
'Twas evening when to passing consciousness
He woke and saw his father by his side:
His guardian form in every vision drear
That followed, watching shone; and the healing face
Of his true sister gleamed through all his pain,
Soothing and strengthening with cloudy hope;
Till, at the weary last of many days,
He woke to sweet quiescent consciousness,
Enfeebled much, but with a new-born life—
His soul a summer evening after rain.
Slow, with the passing weeks, he gathered strength,
And ere the winter came, seemed half restored;
And hope was busy. But a fire too keen
Burned in his larger eyes; and in his cheek
Too ready came the blood at faintest call,
Glowing a fair, quick-fading, sunset hue.
Before its hour, a biting frost set in.
It gnawed with icy fangs his shrinking life;
And that disease bemoaned throughout the land,
The smiling, hoping, wasting, radiant death,
Was born of outer cold and inner heat.
One morn his sister, entering while he slept,
Spied in his listless hand a handkerchief
Spotted with red. Cold with dismay, she stood,
Scared, motionless. But catching in the glass
The sudden glimpse of a white ghostly face,
She started at herself, and he awoke.
He understood, and said with smile unsure,
"Bright red was evermore my master-hue;
And see, I have it in me: that is why."
She shuddered; and he saw, nor jested more,
But smiled again, and looked Death in the face.
When first he saw the red blood outward leap,
As if it sought again the fountain-heart
Whence it had flowed to fill the golden bowl,
No terror seized—an exaltation swelled
His spirit: now the pondered mystery
Would fling its portals wide, and take him in,
One of the awful dead! Them, fools conceive
As ghosts that fleet and pine, bereft of weight,
And half their valued lives: he otherwise;—
Hoped now, and now expected; and, again,
Said only, "I await the thing to come."
So waits a child the lingering curtain's rise,
While yet the panting lamps restrained burn
At half-height, and the theatre is full.
But as the days went by, they brought sad hours,
When he would sit, his hands upon his knees,
Drooping, and longing for the wine of life.
For when the ninefold crystal spheres, through which
The outer light sinks in, are cracked and broken,
Yet able to keep in the 'piring life,
Distressing shadows cross the chequered soul:
Poor Psyche trims her irresponsive lamp,
And anxious visits oft her store of oil,
And still the shadows fall: she must go pray!
And God, who speaks to man at door and lattice,
Glorious in stars, and winds, and flowers, and waves,
Not seldom shuts the door and dims the pane,
That, isled in calm, his still small voice may sound
The clearer, by the hearth, in the inner room—
Sound on until the soul, fulfilled of hope,
Look undismayed on that which cannot kill;
And saying in the dark, I will the light,
Glow in the gloom the present will of God:
Then melt the shadows of her shaken house.
He, when his lamp shot up a spiring flame,
Would thus break forth and climb the heaven of prayer:
"Do with us what thou wilt, all-glorious heart!
Thou God of them that are not yet, but grow!
We trust thee for the thing we shall be yet;
We too are ill content with what we are."
And when the flame sank, and the darkness fell,
He lived by faith which is the soul of sight.
Yet in the frequent pauses of the light,
When all was dreary as a drizzling thaw,
When sleep came not although he prayed for sleep,
And wakeful-weary on his bed he lay,
Like frozen lake that has no heaven within;
Then, then the sleeping horror woke and stirred,
And with the tooth of unsure thought began
To gnaw the roots of life:—What if there were
No truth in beauty! What if loveliness
Were but the invention of a happier mood!
"For, if my mind can dim or slay the Fair,
Why should it not enhance or make the Fair?"
"Nay," Psyche answered; "for a tired man
May drop his eyelids on the visible world,
To whom no dreams, when fancy flieth free,
Will bring the sunny excellence of day.
'Tis easy to destroy; God only makes.
Could my invention sweep the lucid waves
With purple shadows—next create the joy
With which my life beholds them? Wherefore should
One meet the other without thought of mine,
If God did not mean beauty in them and me,
But dropped them, helpless shadows, from his sun?
There were no God, his image not being mine,
And I should seek in vain for any bliss!
Oh, lack and doubt and fear can only come
Because of plenty, confidence, and love!
Those are the shadow-forms about the feet
Of these—because they are not crystal-clear
To the all-searching sun in which they live:
Dread of its loss is Beauty's certain seal!"
Thus reasoned mourning Psyche. Suddenly
The sun would rise, and vanish Psyche's lamp,
Absorbed in light, not swallowed in the dark.
It was a wintry time with sunny days,
With visitings of April airs and scents,
That came with sudden presence, unforetold,
As brushed from off the outer spheres of spring
In the great world where all is old and new.
Strange longings he had never known till now,
Awoke within him, flowers of rooted hope.
For a whole silent hour he would sit and gaze
Upon the distant hills, whose dazzling snow
Starred the dim blue, or down their dark ravines
Crept vaporous; until the fancy rose
That on the other side those rampart walls,
A mighty woman sat, with waiting face,
Calm as that life whose rapt intensity
Borders on death, silent, waiting for him,
To make him grand for ever with a kiss,
And send him silent through the toning worlds.
The father saw him waning. The proud sire
Beheld his pride go drooping in the cold,
Like snowdrop on its grave; and sighed deep thanks
That he was old. But evermore the son
Looked up and smiled as he had heard strange news
Across the waste, of tree-buds and primroses.
Then all at once the other mood would come,
And, like a troubled child, he would seek his father
For father-comfort, which fathers all can give:
Sure there is one great Father in the world,
Since every word of good from fathers' lips
Falleth with such authority, although
They are but men as we! This trembling son,
Who saw the unknown death draw hourly nigher,
Sought solace in his father's tenderness,
And made him strong to die.
One shining day,
Shining with sun and snow, he came and said,
"What think you, father—is death very sore?"
"My boy," the father answered, "we will try
To make it easy with the present God.
But, as I judge, though more by hope than sight,
It seems much harder to the lookers on
Than to the man who dies. Each panting breath
We call a gasp, may be in him the cry
Of infant eagerness; or, at worst, the sob
With which the unclothed spirit, step by step.
Wades forth into the cool eternal sea.
I think, my boy, death has two sides to it—
One sunny, and one dark—as this round earth
Is every day half sunny and half dark.
We on the dark side call the mystery death;
They on the other, looking down in light,
Wait the glad birth, with other tears than ours."
"Be near me, father, when I die," he said.
"I will, my boy, until a better Father
Draws your hand out of mine. Be near in turn,
When my time comes—you in the light beyond,
And knowing well the country—I in the dark."
The days went by, until the tender green
Shone through the snow in patches. Then the hope
Of life, reviving faintly, stirred his heart;
For the spring drew him—warm, soft, budding spring,
With promises, and he went forth to meet her.
But he who once had strode a king on the fields,
Walked softly now; lay on the daisied grass;
And sighed sometimes in secret, that so soon
The earth, with all its suns and harvests fair,
Must lie far off, an old forsaken thing.
But though I lingering listen to the old,
Ere yet I strike new chords that seize the old
And lift their lost souls up the music-stair—
Think not he was too fearful-faint of heart
To look the blank unknown full in the void;
For he had hope in God—the growth of years,
Of ponderings, of childish aspirations,
Of prayers and readings and repentances;
For something in him had ever sought the peace
Of other something deeper in him still—
A faint sound sighing for a harmony
With other fainter sounds, that softly drew
Nearer and nearer from the unknown depths
Where the Individual goeth out in God:
The something in him heard, and, hearing, listened,
And sought the way by which the music came,
Hoping at last to find the face of him
To whom Saint John said Lord with holy awe,
And on his bosom fearless leaned the while.
As his slow spring came on, the swelling life,
The new creation inside of the old,
Pressed up in buds toward the invisible.
And burst the crumbling mould wherein it lay.
Not once he thought of that still churchyard now;
He looked away from earth, and loved the sky.
One earthly notion only clung to him:—
He thanked God that he died not in the cold;
"For," said he, "I would rather go abroad
When the sun shines, and birds are singing blithe.—It
may be that we know not aught of place,
Or any sense, and only live in thought;
But, knowing not, I cling to warmth and light.
I may pass forth into the sea of air
That swings its massy waves around the earth,
And I would rather go when it is full
Of light, and blue, and larks, than when gray fog
Dulls it with steams of old earth winter-sick.
Now in the dawn of summer I shall die—
Sinking asleep ere sunset, I will hope,
And going with the light. And when they say,
'He's dead; he rests at last; his face is changed;'
I shall be saying: Yet, yet, I live, I love!'"
The weary nights did much to humble him;
They made the good he knew seem all ill known:
He would go by and by to school again!
"Father," he said, "I am nothing; but Thou art!"
Like half-asleep, whole-dreaming child, he was,
Who, longing for his mother, has forgot
The arms about him, holding him to her heart:
Mother he murmuring moans; she wakes him up
That he may see her face, and sleep indeed.
Father! we need thy winter as thy spring;
We need thy earthquakes as thy summer showers;
But through them all thy strong arms carry us,
Thy strong heart bearing large share in our grief.
Because thou lovest goodness more than joy
In them thou lovest, thou dost let them grieve:
We must not vex thee with our peevish cries,
But look into thy face, and hold thee fast,
And say O Father, Father! when the pain
Seems overstrong. Remember our poor hearts:
We never grasp the zenith of the time!
We have no spring except in winter-prayers!
But we believe—alas, we only hope!—That
one day we shall thank thee perfectly
For every disappointment, pang, and shame,
That drove us to the bosom of thy love.
One night, as oft, he lay and could not sleep.
His spirit was a chamber, empty, dark,
Through which bright pictures passed of the outer world:
The regnant Will gazed passive on the show;
The magic tube through which the shadows came,
Witch Memory turned and stayed. In ones and troops,
Glided across the field the things that were,
Silent and sorrowful, like all things old:
Even old rose-leaves have a mournful scent,
And old brown letters are more sad than graves.
At length, as ever in such vision-hours,
Came the bright maiden, high upon her horse.
Will started all awake, passive no more,
And, necromantic sage, the apparition
That came unbid, commanded to abide.
Gathered around her form his brooding thoughts:
How had she fared, spinning her history
Into a psyche-cradle? With what wings
Would she come forth to greet the aeonian summer?
Glistening with feathery dust of silver? or
Dull red, and seared with spots of black ingrained?
"I know," he said, "some women fail of life!
The rose hath shed her leaves: is she a rose?"
The fount of possibilities began
To gurgle, threatful, underneath the thought:
Anon the geyser-column raging rose;—
For purest souls sometimes have direst fears
In ghost-hours when the shadow of the earth
Is cast on half her children, and the sun
Is busy giving daylight to the rest.
"Oh, God!" he cried, "if she be such as those!—
Angels in the eyes of poet-boys, who still
Fancy the wavings of invisible wings,
But, in their own familiar, chamber-thoughts,
Common as clay, and of the trodden earth!—
It cannot, cannot be! She is of God!—
And yet things lovely perish! higher life
Gives deeper death! fair gifts make fouler faults!—
Women themselves—I dare not think the rest!"
Such thoughts went walking up and down his soul
But found at last a spot wherein to rest,
Building a resolution for the day.
The next day, and the next, he was too worn
To clothe intent in body of a deed.
A cold dry wind blew from the unkindly east,
Making him feel as he had come to the earth
Before God's spirit moved on the water's face,
To make it ready for him.
But the third
Morning rose radiant. A genial wind
Rippled the blue air 'neath the golden sun,
And brought glad summer-tidings from the south.
He lay now in his father's room; for there
The southern sun poured all the warmth he had.
His rays fell on the fire, alive with flames,
And turned it ghostly pale, and would have slain—
Even as the sunshine of the higher life,
Quenching the glow of this, leaves but a coal.
He rose and sat him down 'twixt sun and fire;
Two lives fought in him for the mastery;
And half from each forth flowed the written stream
"Lady, I owe thee much. Stay not to look
Upon my name: I write it, but I date
From the churchyard, where it shall lie in peace,
Thou reading it. Thou know'st me not at all;
Nor dared I write, but death is crowning me
Thy equal. If my boldness yet offend,
Lo, pure in my intent, I am with the ghosts;
Where when thou comest, thou hast already known
God equal makes at first, and Death at last."
"But pardon, lady. Ere I had begun,
My thoughts moved toward thee with a gentle flow
That bore a depth of waters: when I took
My pen to write, they rushed into a gulf,
Precipitate and foamy. Can it be
That Death who humbles all hath made me proud?"
"Lady, thy loveliness hath walked my brain,
As if I were thy heritage bequeathed
From many sires; yet only from afar
I have worshipped thee—content to know the vision
Had lifted me above myself who saw,
And ta'en my angel nigh thee in thy heaven.
Thy beauty, lady, hath overflowed, and made
Another being beautiful, beside,
With virtue to aspire and be itself.
Afar as angels or the sainted dead,
Yet near as loveliness can haunt a man,
Thy form hath put on each revealing dress
Of circumstance and history, high or low,
In which, from any tale of selfless life,
Essential womanhood hath shone on me."
"Ten years have passed away since the first time,
Which was the last, I saw thee. What have these
Made or unmade in thee?—I ask myself.
O lovely in my memory! art thou
As lovely in thyself? Thy glory then
Was what God made thee: art thou such indeed?
Forgive my boldness, lady—I am dead:
The dead may cry, their voices are so small."
"I have a prayer to make thee—hear the dead.
Lady, for God's sake be as beautiful
As that white form that dwelleth in my heart;
Yea, better still, as that ideal Pure
That waketh in thee, when thou prayest God,
Or helpest thy poor neighbour. For myself
I pray. For if I die and find that she,
My woman-glory, lives in common air,
Is not so very radiant after all,
My sad face will afflict the calm-eyed ghosts,
Unused to see such rooted sorrow there.
With palm to palm my kneeling ghost implores
Thee, living lady—justify my faith
In womanhood's white-handed nobleness,
And thee, its revelation unto me."
"But I bethink me:—If thou turn thy thoughts
Upon thyself, even for that great sake
Of purity and conscious whiteness' self,
Thou wilt but half succeed. The other half
Is to forget the former, yea, thyself,
Quenching thy moonlight in the blaze of day,
Turning thy being full unto thy God.
Be thou in him a pure, twice holy child,
Doing the right with sweet unconsciousness—
Having God in thee, thy completing soul."
"Lady, I die; the Father holds me up.
It is not much to thee that I should die;
It may be much to know he holds me up."
"I thank thee, lady, for the gentle look
Which crowned me from thine eyes ten years ago,
Ere, clothed in nimbus of the setting sun,
Thee from my dazzled eyes thy horse did bear,
Proud of his burden. My dull tongue was mute—
I was a fool before thee; but my silence
Was the sole homage possible to me then:
That now I speak, and fear not, is thy gift.
The same sweet look be possible to thee
For evermore! I bless thee with thine own,
And say farewell, and go into my grave—
No, to the sapphire heaven of all my hopes."
Followed his name in full, and then the name
Of the green churchyard where his form should lie.
Back to his couch he crept, weary, and said:
"O God, I am but an attempt at life!
Sleep falls again ere I am full awake.
Light goeth from me in the morning hour.
I have seen nothing clearly; felt no thrill
Of pure emotion, save in dreams, ah—dreams!
The high Truth has but flickered in my soul—
Even at such times, in wide blue midnight hours,
When, dawning sudden on my inner world,
New stars came forth, revealing unknown depths,
New heights of silence, quelling all my sea,
And for a moment I saw formless fact,
And knew myself a living lonely thought,
Isled in the hyaline of Truth alway!
I have not reaped earth's harvest, O my God;
Have gathered but a few poor wayside flowers,
Harebells, red poppies, daisies, eyebrights blue—
Gathered them by the way, for comforting!
Have I aimed proudly, therefore aimed too low,
Striving for something visible in my thought,
And not the unseen thing hid far in thine?
Make me content to be a primrose-flower
Among thy nations, so the fair truth, hid
In the sweet primrose, come awake in me,
And I rejoice, an individual soul,
Reflecting thee—as truly then divine
As if I towered the angel of the sun.
Once, in a southern eve, a glowing worm
Gave me a keener joy than the heaven of stars:
Thou camest in the worm nearer me then!
Nor do I think, were I that green delight,
I would change to be the shadowy evening star.
Ah, make me, Father, anything thou wilt,
So be thou will it! I am safe with thee.
I laugh exulting. Make me something, God—
Clear, sunny, veritable purity
Of mere existence, in thyself content.
And seeking no compare. Sure I have reaped
Earth's harvest if I find this holy death!—
Now I am ready; take me when thou wilt."
He laid the letter in his desk, with seal
And superscription. When his sister came,
He told her where to find it—afterwards.
As the slow eve, through paler, darker shades,
Insensibly declines, until at last
The lordly day is but a memory,
So died he. In the hush of noon he died.
The sun shone on—why should he not shine on?
Glad summer noises rose from all the land;
The love of God lay warm on hill and plain:
'Tis well to die in summer.
When the breath,
After a hopeless pause, returned no more,
The father fell upon his knees, and said:
"O God, I thank thee; it is over now!
Through the sore time thy hand has led him well.
Lord, let me follow soon, and be at rest."
Therewith he rose, and comforted the maid,
Who in her brother had lost the pride of life,
And wept as all her heaven were only rain.
Of the loved lady, little more I know.
I know not if, when she had read his words,
She rose in haste, and to her chamber went,
And shut the door; nor if, when she came forth,
A dawn of holier purpose gleamed across
The sadness of her brow. But this I know,
That, on a warm autumnal afternoon,
When headstone-shadows crossed three neighbour graves,
And, like an ended prayer, the empty church
Stood in the sunshine, or a cenotaph,
A little boy, who watched a cow near by
Gather her milk where alms of clover-fields
Lay scattered on the sides of silent roads,
All sudden saw, nor knew whence she had come,
A lady, veiled, alone, and very still,
Seated upon a grave. Long time she sat
And moved not, weeping sore, the watcher said—
Though how he knew she wept, were hard to tell.
At length, slow-leaning on her elbow down,
She hid her face a while in the short grass,
And pulled a something small from off the mound—
A blade of grass it must have been, he thought,
For nothing else was there, not even a daisy—
And put it in a letter. Then she rose,
And glided silent forth, over the wall,
Where the two steps on this side and on that
Shorten the path from westward to the church.—
The clang of hoofs and sound of light, swift wheels
Arose and died upon the listener's ear.
Let your tears flow; let your sad sighs have scope;
Only take heed they fan, they water Hope.