C I L LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA \f. PRESENTED BY Herbert S. Woodward LIBRARY X- H - M * CALDWELL- CO NEW-YORK- ic : 'tis (is it not so /) for the man who has trifled before, wantonly, A nd now trifles again with the heart you deny To myself. But he shall not / By man's last wild law, I will seize on the right (the right, Due de Luvois ! ) To avenge for you, woman, the past, and to give To the future its freedom. That man shall not live To make you as wretched as you have made me!" Luvois. Well, madam, in those words what words do you see That threatens the honor of woman? LUCILE. See ! . . . what, What word, do you ask ? Every word ! would you not, Had I taken your hand thus, have felt that your name Was soil'd and dishonor'd by more than mere shame If the woman that bore it had first been the cause Of the crime which in these words is menaced ? You pause ! Woman's honor, you ask? Is there, sir, no dis- honor In the smile of a woman, when men, gazing on her, Can shudder, and say, " In that smile is a grave?" 134 LUCILE. No ! you can have no cause, Duke, for no right you have In the contest you menace. That contest but draws Every right into ruin. By all human laws Of man's heart I forbid it, by all sanctities Of man's social honor ! The Duke droop'd his eyes. " I obey you," he said, " but let woman beware How she plays fast and loose thus with human de- spair, And the storm in man's heart. Madam, yours was the right, When you saw that I hoped, to extingush hope quite. But you should from the first have done this, for I feel That you knew from the first that I loved you." Lucile This sudden reproach seem'd to startle. She raised A slow, wistful regard to his features, and gazed On them silent awhile. His own looks were down- cast. Through her heart, whence its first wild alarm was now pass'd, Pity crept, and perhaps o'er her conscience a tear, Falling softly, awoke it. However severe, Were they unjust, these sudden upbraidings, to her? Had she lightly misconstrued this man's character, LUCILE. 135 Which had seem'd, even when most impassion'd it seem'd, Too self-conscious to lose all in love ? Had she deem'd That this airy, gay, insolent man of the world, So proud of the place the world gave him, held furl'd In his bosom no passion which once shaken wide Might tug, till it snapped, that erect lofty pride? Were those elements in him, which once roused to strife Overthrow a whole nature, and change a whole life ? There are two kinds of strength. One, the strength of the river Which through continents pushes its pathway for- ever To fling its fond heart in the sea; if it lose This, the aim of its life, it is lost to its use, It goes mad, is diffused into deluge, and dies. The other, the strength of the sea ; which supplies Its deep life from mysterious sources, and draws The river's life into its own life, by laws Which it heeds not. The difference in each case is this : The river is lost, if the ocean it miss ; If the sea miss the river, what matter ? The sea Is the sea still, forever. Its deep heart will be Self-sufficing, unconscious of loss as of yore ; Its sources are infinite ; still to the shore, With no diminution of pride, it will say, 136 LUCILE. "I am here ; I, the sea ! stand aside, and make way ! " Was his love, then, the love of the river ? and she, Had she taken that love for the love of the sea ? v. At that thought, from her aspect whatever had been Stern or haughty departed ; and, humbled in mien, She approach'd him and brokenly murmur'd, as though To herself more than him, " Was I wrong ? is it so ? Hear me, Duke ! you must feel that, whatever you deem Your right to reproach me in this, your esteem I may claim on one ground I at least am sincere. You say that to me from the first it was clear That you loved me. But what if this knowledge were known At a moment in life when I felt most alone, And least able to be so ? a moment, in fact, When I strove from one haunting regret to retract And emancipate life, and once more to fulfil Woman's destinies, duties, and hopes? would you still So bitterly blame me, Eugene de Luvois, If I hoped to see all this, or deem'd that I saw For a moment the promise of this in the plighted Affection of one who, in nature, united So much that from others affection might claim, If only affection were free ? Do you blame The hope of that moment? I deem'd my heart free From all, saving sorrow. I deem'd that in me LUCILE. 137 There was yet strength to mould it once more to my will, To uplift it once more to my hope. Do you still Blame me, Duke, that I did not then bid you refrain From hope ? alas ! I too then hoped ! " Luvois. Oh, again. Yet again, say that thrice blessed word ! say, Lucile, That you then deign'd to hope LUCILE. Yes ! to hope I could feel, And could give to you, that without which all else given Were but to deceive, and to injure you even : A heart free from thoughts of another. Say, then, Do you blame that one hope ? , Luvois. O Lucile ! " Say again," She resumed, gazing down, and with faltering tone, " Do you blame me that, when I at last had to own To my heart that the hope it had cherislvd was o'er, And forever, I said to you then, ' Hope no more ? ' I myself hoped no more ! " With but ill-suppressed wrath The Duke answer'd ..." What, then ! he re- crosses your path, This man, and you have but to see him, despite 138 LUCILE. Of his troth to another, to take back that light Worthless heart to your own, which he wrong'd years ago ! " Lucile faintly, brokenly murmur'd ..." No ! no ! Tis not that but alas ! but I cannot conceal That I have not forgotten the past but I feel That I cannot accept all these gifts on your part, In return for what . . . ah, Duke, what is it ? ... a heart Which is only a ruin ! " With words warm and wild, ** Though a ruin it be, trust me yet to rebuild And restore it," Luvois cried ; " though ruin'd it be, Since so dear is that ruin, ah, yield it to me ! " He approach'd her. She shrank back. The grief in her eyes Answer'd, " No ! " An emotion more fierce seem'd to rise And to break into flame, as though fired by the light Of that look, in his heart. He exclaim'd, " Am I right ? You reject me .' Accept him ? " " 1 have not done so," She said firmly. He hoarsely resumed, " Not yet no ! But can you with accents as firm promise me That you will not accept him?" "Accept? Is he free? Free to offer ? " she said. " You evade me, Lucile," LUCILE. 139 He replied ; " ah, you will not avow what you feel ! He might make himself free? Oh, you blush turn away ! Dare you openly look in my face, lady, say ! While you deign to reply to one question from me ? I may hope not, you tell me : but tell me, may he ? What! silent? I alter my question. If quite Freed in faith from this troth, might he hope then ? " " He might," She said softly. VI. Those two whisper'd words, in his breast, As he heard them, in one maddening moment releast All that's evil and fierce in man's nature, to crush And extinguish in man all that's good. In the rush Of wild jealousy, all the fierce passions that waste And darken and devastate intellect, chased From its realm human reason. The wild animal In the bosom of man was set free. And of all Human passions the fiercest, fierce jealousy, fierce As the fire, and more wild than the whirlwind, to pierce And to rend, rush'd upon him ; fierce jealousy, swell'd By all passions bred from it, and ever impell'd To involve all things else in the anguish within it, And on others inflict its own pangs ! At that minute What pass'd through his mind, who shall say? who may tell 140 LUCILE. The dark thoughts of man's heart, which the red glare of hell Can illumine alone ? He stared wildly around That lone place, so lonely ! That silence ! no sound Reach'd that room, through the dark evening air, save drear Drip and roar of the cataract ceaseless and near ! It was midnight all round on the weird silent weather ; Deep midnight in him ! They two, alone and together, Himself, and that woman defenceless before him ! The triumph and bliss of his rival flash'd o'er him. The abyss of his own black despair seem'd to ope At his feet, with that awful exclusion of hope Which Dante read over the city of doom. All the Tarquin pass'd into his soul in the gloom, And uttering words he dared never recall, Words of insult and menace, he thunder'd down all The brew'd storm-cloud within him : its flashes scorch'd .blind His own senses. His spirit was driven on the wind Of a reckless emotion beyond his control ; A torrent seem'd loosen'd within him. His soul Surged up from that caldron of passion that hiss'd And seeth'd in his heart. VII. He had thrown, and had miss'd His last stake. LUCJLE. 141 VIII. For, transfigured, she rose from the place Where he rested o'erawed : a saint's scorn on her face ; Such a dread i>ade retro was written in light On her forehead, the fiend would himself, at that sight, Have sunk back abash'd to perdition. I know If Lucretia at Tarquin but once had looked so, She had needed no dagger next morning. She rose And swept to the door, like that phantom the snows Feel at nightfall sweep o'er them, when daylight is gone. And Caucasus is with the moon all alone. There she paused ; and, as though from immeas- urable, Insurpassable distance, she murmur'd " Farewell ! We, alas! have mistaken each other. Once mo're Illusion, to-night, in my lifetime is o'er. Due de Luvois, adieu ! '' From the heart-breaking gloom Of that vacant, reproachful, and desolate room, He felt she was gone gone forever! IX. No word, The sharpest that ever was edged like a sword, Could have pierced to his heart with such keen accusation 142 LUCILE. As the silence, the sudden profound isolation, In which he remain'd. " O return ; I repent ! " He exclaimed ; but no sound through the stillness was sent, Save the roar of the water, in answer to him, And the beetle that, sleeping, yet humm'd her night-hymn : An indistinct anthem, that troubled the air With a searching, and wistful, and questioning prayer. " Return," sung the wandering insect. The roar Of the waters replied, " Nevermore ! nevermore ! " He walked to the window. The spray on his brow Was flung cold from the whirlpools of water be- low; The frail wooden balcony shook in the sound Of the torrent. The mountains gloom'd sullenly round. A candle one ray from a closed casement flung. O'er the dim balustrade all bewilder'd he hung, Vaguely watching the broken and shimmering blink Of the stars on the veering and vitreous brink Of that snake-like prone column of water ; and list- ing Aloof o'er the languors of air the persisting Sharp horn of the gray gnat. Before he relinquish 'd His unconscious employment, that light was extin- guish'd. Wheels at last, from the inn door aroused him. He ran LUCILE. 143 Down the stairs ; reached the door just to see her depart. Down the mountain the carnage was speeding. x. His heart Peal'd the knell of its last hope. He rush'd on ; but whither He knew not on, into the dark cloudy weather The midnight the mountains on, over the shelf Of the precipice on, still away from himself! Till exhausted, he sank 'mid the dead leaves and moss At the mouth of the forest. A glimmering cross Of gray stone stood for prayer by the woodside. He sank Prayerless, powerless, down at its base, 'mid the dank Weeds and grasses ; his face hid amongst them. He knew That the night had divided his whole life in two. Behind him a past that was over forever; Before him a future devoid of endeavor And purpose. He felt a remorse for the one. Of the other a fear. What remained to be done? Whither now should he turn ? Turn again, as before, To his old easy, careless existence of yore He could not. He felt that for better or worse A change had passed o'er him; an angry remorse Of his own f;^ntic failure and error had marr'd Such a refuge forever. The future seem'd barr'd I 4 4 LUCILE. By the corpse of a dead hope o'er which he must tread To attain it. Life's wilderness round him was spread, What clew there to cling by ? He clung by a name To a dynasty fallen forever. He came Of an old princely house, true through change to the race And the sword of Saint Louis a faith 'twere dis- grace To relinquish, and folly to live for ! Nor less Was his ancient religion (once potent to bless Or to ban ; and the crozier his ancestors kneel'd To adore, when they fought for the Cross, in hard field With the Crescent) become, ere it reach'd him, tradition ; A mere faded badge of a social position ; A thing to retain and say nothing about, Lest, if used, it should draw degradation from doubt. Thus, the first time he sought them, the creeds of his youth Wholly fail'd the strong needs of his manhood, in truth ! And beyond them, what region of refuge ? what field For employment, this civilized age, did it yield, In that civilized land ? or to thought ? or to action ? Blind deliriums, bewilder'd and endless distraction ! LUCILE. 145 Not even a desert, not even the cell Of a hermit to flee to, wherein he might quell The wild devil-instincts which now, unreprest, Ran riot through that ruin'd world in his breast. XI. So he lay there, like Lucifer, fresh from the sight Of a heaven scaled and lost ; in the wide arms of night O'er the howling abysses of nothingness! There As he lay, Nature's deep voice was teaching him prayer ; But what had he to pray to? The winds in the woods, The voices abroad o'er those vast solitudes, Were in commune all round with the invisible Power That walk'd the dim world by Himself at that hour. But their language he had not yet learn'd in despite Of the much he had learn'd or forgotten it quite, With its once native accents. Alas ! what had he To add to that deep-toned sublime symphony Of thanksgiving ? . . . A fiery finger was still Scorching into his heart some dread sentence. His will, Like a wind that is put to no purpose, was wild At its work of destruction within him. The child Of an infidel age, he had been his own god, His own devil. He sat on the damp mountain sod, And stared sullenly up at the dark sky. 146 LUCILE. The clouds Had heap'd themselves over the bare west in crowds Of misshapen, incongruous potents. A green Streak of dreary, cold, luminous ether, between The base of their black barricades, and the ridge Of the grim world, gleanrd ghastly, as under some bridge, Cyclop-sized, in a city of ruins o'erthrown By sieges forgotten, some river, unknown And unnamed, widens on into desolate lands. While he gazed, that cloud-city invisible hands Dismantled and rent : and reveal'd, through a loop In the breach'd dark, the blemish'd and half- broken hoop Of the moon, which soon silently sank ; and anon The whole supernatural pageant was gone. The wide night, discomforted, conscious of loss, Darken'd round him. One object alone that gray cross Glimmer'd faint on the dark. Gazing up, he de- scried, Through the void air, its desolate arms outstretch'd, wide, As though to embrace him. He turn'd from the sight, Set his face to the darkness, and fled. XII. When the light Of the dawn grayly flickerd and glared on the spent W T earied ends of the night, like a hope that is sent LUCJLE. 147 To the need of some grief when its need is the sorest, He was sullenly riding across the dark forest Toward Luchon. Thus riding, with eyes of defiance Set against the young day, as disclaiming alliance With aught that the day brings to man, he per- ceived Faintly, suddenly, fleetingly, through the damp- leaved Autumn branches that put forth gaunt arms on his way, The face of a man pale and wistful, and gray With the gray glare of morning. Eugene de Luvois, With the sense of a strange second sight, when he saw That phantom-like face, could at once recognize, By the sole instinct now left to guide him, the eyes Of his rival, though fleeting the vision and dim, With a stern, sad inquiry fix'd keenly on him, And, to meet it, a lie leap'd at once to his own : A lie born of that lying darkness now grown Over all in his nature ! He answer'd that gaze With a look which, if ever a man's look conveys More intensely than words what a man means, convey'd Beyond doubt in its smile an announcement which said. '' / have triumph" d. The question your eyes would imply Comes too late, Alfred Vargrai -e ! " 148 LUCILE. And so he rode by, And rode on, and rode gayly, and rode out of sight, Leaving that look behind him to rankle and bite. XIII. And it bit, and it rankled. XIV. Lord Alfred, scarce knowing, Or choosing, or heeding the way he was going, By one wild hope impell'd, by one wild fear pur- sued, And led by one instinct, which seem'd to exclude From his mind every human sensation, save one The torture of doubt had stray'd moodily on, Down the highway deserted, that evening in which With the Duke he had parted ; stray'd on, through rich Haze of sunset, or into the gradual night, Which darken'd, unnoticed, the land from his sight, Toward Saint Saviour ; nor did the changed aspect of all The wild scenery around him avail to recall To his senses their normal perceptions, until, As he stood on the black shaggy brow of the hill At the mouth of the forest, the moon, which had hung Two dark hours in a cloud, slipp'd on fire from among The rent vapors, and sunk o'er the ridge of the world. LUCILE. 149 Then he lifted his eyes, and saw round him un- furl'd, In one moment of splendor, the leagues of dark trees, And the long rocky line of the wild Pyrenees. And he knew by the milestone scored rough on the face Of the bare rock, he was but two hours from the place Where Lucile and Luvois must have met. This same track The Duke must have traversed, perforce, to get back To Luchon; not yet then the Duke had returned! He listen'd, he look'd up the dark, but discern'd Not a trace, not a sound of a horse by the way. He knew that the night was approaching to day. He resolved to proceed to Saint Saviour. The morn, Which, at last, through the forest broke chill and forlorn, Reveal'd to him, riding toward Luchon, the Duke. 'Twas then that the two men exchanged look for look. XV. And the Duke's rankled in him. XVI. He rush'd on. He tore His path through the thicket. He reach'd the inn door 150 LUCILE. Roused the yet drowsing porter, reluctant to rise, And inquired for the Countess. The man rubb'd his eyes, The Countess was gone. And the Duke ? The man stared A sleepy inquiry. With accents that scared The man's dull sense awake, " He, the stranger," he cried, " Who had been there that night ! " The man grinn'd and replied, With a vacant intelligence, "He, oh, ay, ay! He went after the lady." No further reply Could he give. Alfred Vargrave demanded no more, Flung a coin to the man, and so turn'd from the door. "What! the Duke, then, the night in that lone inn had pass'd ? In that lone inn with her!" Was that look he had cast When they met in the forest, that look which re- main'd On his mind with its terrible smile, thus explained? XVII. The day was half turn'd to the evening, before He re-entered Luchon, with a heart sick and sore. In the midst of a light crowd of babblers, his look, By their voices attracted, distinguished the Duke, LUCILE. 151 Gay, insolent, noisy, with eyes sparkling bright, With laughter, shrill, airy, continuous. Right Through the throng Alfred Vargrave, with swift sombre stride, Glided on. The Duke noticed him, turn'd, stepp'd aside, And, cordially grasping his hand, whisper'd low, " O, how right have you been ! There can never be no, Never any more contest between us! Milord, Let us henceforth be friends ! " Having uttered that word, He turn'd lightly round on his heel, and again His gay laughter was heard, echoed loud by that train Of his young imitators. Lord Alfred stood still, Rooted, stunn'd, to the spot. He felt weary and ill, Out of heart with his own heart, and sick to the soul With a dull, stifling anguish he could not control. Does he hear in a dream, through the buzz of the crowd, The Duke's blithe associates, babbling aloud Some comment upon his gay humor that day? He never was gayer: what makes him so gay? 'Tis. no doubt, say the flatterers, flattering in tune, Some vestal whose virtue no tongue dare impugn Has at last found a Mars who, of course, shall be nameless, 152 LUCILE. That vestal that yields to Mars only is blamless ! Hark! hears he a name which, thus syllabled, stirs All his heart into tumult? . . . Lucile de Nevers With the Duke's coupled gayly, in some laughing, light, Free allusion? Not so as might give him the right To turn fiercely round on the speaker, but yet To a trite and irreverent compliment set ! XVIII. Slowly, slowly, usurping that place in his soul Where the thought of Lucile was enshrined, did there roll Back again, back again, on its smooth downward course O'er his nature, with gather'd momentum and force, THE WORLD. XIX. " No ! " he mutter'd, " she cannot have sinn'd ! True ! women there are (self-named women of mind ! ) Who love rather liberty liberty, yes ! To chose and to leave than the legalized stress Of the lovingest marriage. But she is she so? I will not believe it. Lucile ! O no, no ! Not Lucile ! " But the world ? and, ah, what would it say? LUC1LE. 153 O the look of that man, and his laughter, to-day ! The gossip's light question! the slanderous jest! She is right! no, we could not be happy. 'Tis best As it is. I will write to her write, O my heart! And accept her farewell. Our farewell ! must we part Part thus, then forever, Lucile? Is it so? Yes ! I feel it. We could not be happy, I know. 'Twas a dream ! we must waken ! " xx. With head bow'd, as though By the weight of the heart's resignation, and slow, Moody footsteps, he turned to his inn. Drawn apart From the gate, in the courtyard, and ready to start, Postboys mounted, portmanteaus packed up and made fast, A travelling-carriage, unnoticed, he pass'd. He order'd his horse to be ready anon : Sent, and paid, for the reckoning, and slowly pass'd on, And ascended the staircase, and enter'd his room. It was twilight. The chamber was dark in the gloom Of the evening. He listlessly kindled a light On the mantel-piece ; there a large card caught his sight 154 LUCJLE. A large card, a stout card, well-printed and plain, Nothing flourishing, flimsy, affected, or vain. It gave a respectable look to the slab That it lay on. The name was SIR RIDLEY MACNAB. Full familiar to him was the name that he saw, For 'twas that of his own future uncle-in-law. Mrs. Darcy's rich brother, the banker, well known As wearing the longest philacteried gown Of all the rich Pharisees England can boast of, A shrewd Puritan Scot, whose sharp wits made the most of This world and the next ; having largely invested Not only where treasure is never molested By thieves, moth, or rust ; but on this earthly ball Where interest was high, and security small. Of mankind there was never a theory yet Not by some individual instance upset: And so to that sorrowfnl verse of the Psalm Which declares that the wicked expand like the palm In a world where the righteous are stunted and pent, A cheering exception did Ridley present. Like the worthy of Uz. Heaven prosper'd his piety. The leader of every religious society, LUCILE. 155 Christian knowledge he labor'd through life to promote With personal profit, and knew how to quote Both the Stocks and the Scripture, with equal ad- vantage To himself and admiring friends, in this Cant-Age. XXI. Whilst over this card Alfred vacantly brooded, A waiter his head through the doorway protruded ; " Sir Ridley MacNab with Milord wish'd to speak." Alfred Vargrave could feel there were tears on his cheek; He brush'd them away with a gesture of pride. He glanced at the glass ; when his own face he eyed, He was scared by its pallor. Inclining his head, He with tones calm, unshaken, and silvery, said, "Sir Ridley may enter." In three minutes more That benign apparition appeared at the door. Sir Ridley, released for a while from the cares Of business, and minded to breathe the pure airs Of the blue Pyrenees, and enjoy his release, In company there with his sister and niece, Found himself now at Luchon distributing tracts, Sowing seed by the way, and collecting new facts For Exeter Hall ; he was starting that night For Bigorre : he had heard, to his cordial delight, That Lord Alfred was there, and, himself, setting out For the same destination : impatient, no doubt ! 156 LUCILE. Here some commonplace compliments as to " the marriage " Through his speech trickled softly, like honey: his carriage Was ready. A storm seem'd to threaten the weather ; If his young friend agreed, why not travel together? With a footstep uncertain and restless, a frown Of perplexity, during this speech, up and down Alfred Vargrave was striding ; but, after a pause And a slight hesitation, the which seem'd to cause Some surprise to Sir Ridley, he answer'd " My dear Sir Ridley, allow me a few moments here Half an hour at the most to conclude an affair Of a nature so urgent as hardly to spare My presence (which brought me, indeed, to this spot), Before I accept your kind offer." Why not ? " Said Sir Ridley, and smiled. Alfred Vargrave, before Sir Ridley observed it, had pass'd through the door, A few moments later, with footsteps revealing Intense agitation of uncontrolPd feeling. He was rapidly pacing the garden below. What pass'd through his mind then is more than I know. But before one half-hour into darkness had fled, In the courtyard he stood with Sir Ridley. His tread LUCILE. 157 Was firm and composed. Not a sign on his face Betrayed there the least agitation. " The place You so kindly have offer'd," he said, " I accept," And he stretch'd out his hand. The two travellers stepp'd Smiling into the carriage. And thus, out of sight, They drove down the dark road, and into the night XXII. Sir Ridley was one of those wise men who, so far As their power of saying it goes, say with Zophar, " We, no doubt, are the people, and wisdom shall die with us! " Though of wisdom like theirs there is no small supply with us. Side by side in the carriage ensconced, the two men Began to converse somewhat drowsily, when Alfred suddenly thought " Here's a man of ripe age At my side, by his fellows reputed as sage, Who looks happy, and therefore who must have been wise ; Suppose I with caution reveal to his eyes Some few of the reasons which make me believe That I neither am happy nor wise ? 'twould relieve And enlighten, perchance, my own darkness and doubt." For which purpose a feeler he softly puts out. It was snapp'd up at once. 158 LUCILE. " What is truth ? " jesting Pilate Ask'd, and pass'd from the question at once with a smile at Its utter futility. Had he address'd it To Ridley McNab, he at least had confess'd it Admitted discussion ! and certainly no man Could more promptly have answer'd the sceptical Roman Than Ridley. Hear some street astronomer talk! Grant him two or three hearers, a morsel of chalk, And forthwith on the pavement he'll sketch you the scheme Of the heavens. Then hear him enlarge on his theme ! Not afraid of La Place, nor of Arago, he ! He'll prove you the whole plan in plain ABC. Here's your sun call him A ; B'S the moon; it is clear How the rest of the alphabet brings up the rear Of the planets. Now ask Arago, ask La Place, (Your sages, who speak with the heavens face to face ! ) Their science in plain A B c to accord To your point-blank inquiry, my friends ! not a word Will you get for your pains from their sad lips. Alas! Not a drop from the bottle that's quite full will pass. 'Tis the half-empty vessel that freest emits The water that's in it. 'Tis thus with men's wits: LUCILE. 159 Or at least with their knowledge. A man's capa- bility Of imparting to others a truth with facility Is proportion'd forever with painful exactness To the portable nature, the vulgar compactness, The minuteness in size, or the lightness in weight, Of the truth he imparts. So small coins circulate More freely than large ones. A beggar asks alms, And we fling him a sixpence, nor feel any qualms; But if every street charity shook an investment, Or each beggar to clothe we must strip of a vest- ment, The length of the process would limit the act ; And therefore the truth that's summ'd up in a tract Is most lightly dispensed. As for Alfred, indeed, On what spoonfuls of truth he was suffer'd to feed By Sir Ridley, I know not. This only I know, That the two men thus talking continued to go Onward somehow, together on into the night The midnight in which they escape from our sight. XXIII. And meanwhile a world has been changed in its place, And those glittering chains that o'er blue balmy space Hang the blessing of darkness, had drawn out of sight To solace unseen hemispheres, the soft night : And the dew of the dayspring benignly descended, 160 LUCILE. And the fair morn to all things new sanction ex- tended, In the smile of the East. And the lark soaring on, Lost in light, shook the dawn with a song from the sun. And the world laugh'd. It wanted but two rosy hours From the noon, when they pass'd through the thick passion flowers Of the little wild garden that dimpled before The small house where their carriage now stopp'd, at Bigorre. And more fair than the flowers, more fresh than the dew, With her white morning robe flitting joyously through The dark shrubs with which the soft hillside was clothed, Alfred Vargrave perceived, where he paused, his betrothed. Matilda sprang to him, at once, with a face Of such sunny sweetness, such gladness, such grace, And radiant confidence, childlike delight, That his whole heart upbraided itself at that sight. And he murmur'd, or sigh'd, " O, how could I have stray'd From this sweet child, or suffer'd in aught to in- vade Her young claim on my life, though it were for an hour, The thought of another? " LUCILE. 161 " Look up, my sweet flower ! " He whisper'd her softly, " my heart unto thee Is return'd, as returns to the rose the wild bee ! " " And will wander no more ? " laughed Matilda. " No more," He repeated. And, low to himself, " Yes, 'tis o'er ! My course, too, is decided, Lucile ! Was I blind To have dream'd that these clever Frenchwomen of mind Could satisfy simply a plain English heart, Or sympathize with it?" XXIV. And here the first part Of the drama is over. The curtain falls furl'd On the actors within it the Heart and the World. Woo'd and wooer have play'd with the riddle of life, - Have they solved it? Appear ! answer, Husband and Wife ? XXV. Yet, ere bidding farewell to Lucile de Nevers, Hear her own heart's farewell in this letter of hers. THE COMTESSE DE NEVERS TO A FRIEND IN INDIA. " Once more, O my friend, to your arms and your heart, And the places of old . . . never, never to part ! 1 62 LUCILE. Once more to the palm, and the fountain ! Once more To the land of my birth, and the deep skies of yore From the cities of Europe, pursued by the fret Of their turmoil wherever my footsteps are set ; From the children that cry for the birth, and behold, There is no strength to bear them old Time is so old! From the world's weary masters, that come upon earth Sapp'd and mined by the fever they bear from their birth : From the men of small stature, mere parts of a crowd, Born too late, when the strength of the world hath been bow'd ; Back, back to the Orient, from whose sunbright womb Sprang the giants which now are no more, in the bloom And the beauty of times that are faded forever ! To the palms ! to the tombs ! to the still Sacred River ! Where I too, the child of a day that is done, First leaped into life, and look'd up at the sun, Back again, back again, to the hill-tops of home I come, O my friend, my consoler, I come ! Are the three intense stars, that we watch'd night by night Burning broad on the band of Orion, as bright ? LUCILE. 163 Are the large Indian moons as serene as of old, When, as children, we gather'd the moonbeams for gold ? Do you yet recollect me, my friend ? Do you still Remember the free games we play'd on the hill, 'Mid those huge stones up-heav'd, where we reck- lessly trod O'er the old ruin'd fane of the old ruin'd god ? How he frown'd while around him we carelessly play'd ! That frown on my life ever after hath stay'd, Like the shade of a solemn experience upcast From some vague supernatural grief in the past. For the poor god, in pain, more than anger, he frown'd, To perceive that our youth, though so fleeting, had found, In its transient and ignorant gladness, the bliss Which his science divine seem'd divinely to miss. Alas ! you may haply remember me yet The free child, whose glad childhood myself I for- get. I come a sad woman, defrauded of rest : I bear to you only a laboring breast : My heart is a storm-beaten ark, wildly hurl'd O'er the whirlpools of time, with the wrecks of a world : The dove from my bosom hath flown far away : It is flown and returns not, though many a day Have I watch'd from the windows of life for its coming. 164 LUCILE. Friend, I sigh for repose, I am weary of roaming. I know not what Ararat rises for me Far away, o'er the waves of the wandering sea : I know not what rainbow may yet, from far hills, Lift the promise of hope, the cessation of ills : But a voice, like the voice of my youth, in my breast Wakes and whispers me on to the East ! to the East! Shall I find the child's heart that I left there ? or find The lost youth I recall with its pure peace of mind ? Alas ! who shall number the drops of the rain ? Or give to the dead leaves their greenness again ? Who shall seal up the caverns the earthquake hath rent? Who shall bring forth the winds that within them are pent? To a voice who shall render an image ? or who From the heats of the noontide shall gather the dew? I have burn'd out within me the fuel of life. Wherefore lingers the flame ? Rest is sweet after strife. I would sleep for a while. I am weary. " My friend I had meant in these lines to regather, and send To our old home, my life's scatter'd links. But 'tis vain ! Each attempt seems to shatter the chaplet again ; LUCILE, 165 Only fit now for fingers like mine to run o'er, Who return, a recluse, to those cloisters of yore Whence too far I have wander'd. " How many long years Does it seem to me now since the quick, scorch- ing tears, While I wrote to you, splash'd out a girl's premature Moans of pain at what women in silence endure ! To your eyes, friend of mine, and to your eyes alone, That now long-faded page of my life hath been shown Which recorded my heart's birth, and death, as you know, Many years since, how many! " A few months ago I seem'd reading it backward, that page ! Why explain Whence or how? The old dream of my life rose again. The old superstition ! the idol of old ! It is over. The leaf trodden down in the mould Is not to the forest more lost than to me That emotion. I bury it here by the sea Which will bear me anon far away from the shore Of a land which my footsteps will visit no more And a heart's requiescat I write on that grave. Hark ! the sigh of the wind, and the sound of the wave. Seem like voices of spirits that whisper me home! I come, O you whispering voices. I come ! 1 66 LUCILE. My friend, ask me nothing. " Receive me alone As a Santon receives to his dwelling of stone In silence some pilgrim the midnight may bring: It may be an angel that, weary of wing, Hath paused in his flight from some city of doom, Or only a wayfarer stray'd in the gloom. This only I know : that in Europe at least Lives the craft or the power that must master our East. Wherefore strive where the gods must themselves yield at last? Both they and their altars pass by with the Past. The gods of the household Time thrusts from the shelf ; And I seem as unreal and weird to myself As those idols of old. "Other times, other men, Other men, other passions ! "So be it! yet again I turned to my birthplace, the birthplace of morn, And the light of those lands where the great sun is born ! .Spread your arms, O my friend ! on your breast let me feel The repose which hath fled from my own. "Your LUCILE." LUCILE. 167 PART II. CANTO I. I. HAIL, Muse ! But each Muse by this time has, I know, Been used up, and Apoljo has bent his own bow All too long ; so I leave unassaulted the portal Of Olympus, and only invoke here a mortal. Hail, Murray! not Lindley, but Murray and Son. Hail, omniscient, beneficent, great Two-in-One ! In Albemarle Street may thy temple long stand! Long enlighten'd and led by thine erudite hand, May each novice in science nomadic unravel Statistical mazes of modernized travel ! May each inn-keeper knave long thy judgment revere, And the postboys of Europe regard thee with fear; While they feel, in the silence of baffled extortion, That knowledge is power ! Long, long, like that portion Of the national soil which the Greek exile took In his baggage wherever he went, may thy book 1 68 LUCILE. Cheer each poor British pilgrim, who trusts to thy wit Not to pay through his nose just for following it ! May'st thou long, O instructor ! preside o'er his way, And teach him alike what to praise and to pay ! Thee, pursuing this pathway of song, once again I invoke, lest, unskill'd, I should wander in vain. To my call be propitious, nor, churlish, refuse Thy great accents to lend to the lips of my Muse ; For I sing of the Naiads who dwell 'mid the stems Of the green linden-trees by the waters of Ems. Yes ! thy spirit descends upon mine,O John Murray ! And I start with thy book for the Baths in a hurry. n. " At Coblentz a bridge of boats crosses the Rhine ; And from thence the road, winding by Ehrenbreit- stein, Passes over the frontier of Nassua. (" N. B. No custom-house here since the Zollverein." See Murray, paragraph 30.) " The route, at each turn, Here the lover of nature allows to discern, In varying prospect, a rich wooded dale: The vine and acacia-tree mostly prevail In the foliage observable here: and. moreover, The soil is carbonic. The road, under cover Of the grape-clad and mountainous upland that hems LUCILE. 169 Round this beautiful spot, brings the traveller to -"EMS. A Schnellpost from Frankfort arrives every day. At the Kurhaus (the old Ducal mansion) you pay Eight florins for lodgings. A Restaurateur Is attach'd to the place; but most travellers prefer (Including, indeed, many persons of note) To dine at the usual-priced table d'hote. Through the town runs the Lahn, the steep green banks of which Two rows of white picturesque houses enrich ; And between the high road and the river is laid Out a sort of a garden, call'd, ' THE Promenade.' Female visitors here, who may make up their mind To ascend to the top of these mountains, will find On the banks of the stream, saddled all the day long, Troops of donkeys sure-footed proverbially strong ; '' And the traveller at Ems may remark, as he passes, Here, as elsewhere, the women run after the asses. III. 'Mid the world's weary denizens bound for these springs In the month when the merle on the maple-bough sings, Pursued to the place from dissimilar paths By a similar sickness, there came to the Baths Four sufferers each stricken deep through the heart. Or the head, bv the self-same invisible dart 170 LUCILE. Of the arrow that flieth unheard in the noon, From the sickness that walketh unseen in the moon, Through this great lazaretto of life, wherein each Infects with his own sores the next within reach. First of these were a young English husband and wife, Grown weary ere half through the journey of life. O Nature, say where, thou gray mother of earth, Is the strength of thy youth ? that thy womb brings to birth Only old men to-day ! On the winds, as of old, Thy voice in its accent is joyous and bold ; Thy forests are green as of yore ; and thine oceans Yet move in the might of their ancient emotions : But man thy last birth and thy best is no more Life's free lord,that look'd up to the starlight of yore, With the faith on the brow, and the fire in the eyes, The firm foot on the earth, the high heart in the skies ; But a gray-headed infant, defrauded of youth, Born too late or too early. The lady, in truth, Was young, fair, and gentle ; and never was given To more heavenly eyes the pure azure of heaven. Never did the sun touch to ripples of gold Tresses brighter than those which her soft hand unroll'd From her noble and innocent brow, when she rose, An Aurora, at dawn, from her balmy repose, And into the mirror the bloom and the blush Of her beauty broke, glowing; like light in a gush LUCILE, i-ji From the sunrise in summer. Love, roaming, shall meet But rarely a nature more sound or more sweet Eyes brighter brows whiter a figure more fair Or lovelier lengths of more radiant hair Than thine, Lady Alfred ! And here I aver (May those that have seen thee declare if I err) That not all the oysters in Britain contain A pearl pure as thou art. Let some one explain, Who may know more than I of the intimate life Of the pearl with the oyster, why yet in his wife, In despite of her beauty and most when he felt His soul to the sense of her loveliness melt Lord Alfred missed something he sought for : indeed, The more that he miss'd it the greater the need ; Till it seem'd to himself he could willingly spare All the charms that he found for the one charm not there. IV. For the blessings Life lends us, it strictly demands The worth of their full usufruct at our hands. And the value of all things exists, not indeed In themselves, but man's use of them, feeding man's need. Alfred Vargrave, in wedding with beauty and youth, Had embraced both Ambition and Wealth. Yet in truth Unfulfill'd the ambition, and sterile the wealth (In a life paralyzed by a moral ill-health), 172 LUCILE. Had remain'd, while the beauty and youth, unre- deem'd From a vague disappointment at all things, but seem'd Day by day to reproach him in silence for all That lost youth in himself they had fail'd to recall. No career had he follow'd, no object obtain'd, In the world by those worldly advantages gain'd From nuptials beyond which once seem'd to appear, Lit by love, the broad path of a brilliant career. All that glitter'd and gleam'd through the moon- light of youth With a glory so fair, now that manhood in truth Grasp'd and gather'd it, seem'd like that false fairy gold Which leaves in the hand only moss, leaves, and mould ! v. Fairy gold ! moss and leaves ! and the young Fairy Bride? Live there yet fairy-lands in the face at his side '<: Say, O friend, if at evening thou ever has watch'd Some pale and impalpable vapor, detach'd From the dim and disconsolate earth, rise and fall O'er the light of a sweet serene star, until all The chill'd splendor reluctantly waned in the deep Of its own native heaven ? Even so seem'd to creep O'er that fair and ethereal face, day by day, While the radiant vermeil, subsiding away, Hid its light in the heart, the faint gradual veil Of a sadness unconscious. LUCILE^. 173 The lady grew pale As silent her lord grew ; and both, as they eyed Each the other askance, turn'd, and secretly sigh'd. Ah, wise friend, what avails all experience can give ? True, we know what life is but, alas ! do we live ? The grammar of life we have gotten by heart, But life's self we have made a dead language an art, Not a voice. Could we speak it, but once, as 'twas spoken When the silence of passion the first time was broken ! Cuvier knew the world better than Adam, no doubt ; But the last man, at best, was but learned about What the first, without learning, enjoyed. What art thou To the man of to-day, O Leviathan, now ? A science. What wert thou to him that from ocean First beheld thee appear ? A surprise, an emo- tion ! When life leaps in the veins, when it beats in the heart, When it thrills as it fills every animate part, Where lurks it ? how works it ? ... We scarcely detect it. But life goes ; the heart dies : haste, O leech, and dissect it ! This accursed, aesthetical, ethical age Hath so finger'd life's hornbook, so blurr'd every page, 174 LUCILE. That the old glad romance, the gay chivalrous story With its fables of faery, its legends of glory, Is turn'd to a tedious instruction, not new To the children that read it insipidly through. We know too much of Love ere we love. We can trace Nothing new, unexpected, or strange in his face When we see it at last. 'Tis the same little Cupid, With the same dimpled cheek, and the smile al- most stupid, We have seen in our pictures, and stuck on our shelves, And copied a hundred times over, ourselves, And wherever we turn, and whatever we do, Still, that horrible sense of the deja connu ! VI. Perchance 'twas the fault of the life that they led; Perchance 'twas the fault of the novels they read ; Perchance 'twas a fault in themselves ; I am bound not To say : this I know that these two creatures found not In each other some sign they expected to find Of a something unnamed in the heart or the mind ; And, missing it, each felt a right to complain Of a sadness which each found no word to explain. Whatever it was, the world noticed not it In the light-hearted beauty, the light-hearted wit. Still, as once with the actors in Greece, 'tis the case, Each must speak to the crowd with a mask on his face. LUCILE. 175 Praise follow'd Matilda wherever she went. She was flatter'd. Can flattery purchase content? Yes. While to its voice for a moment she listen'd, The young cheek still bloom'd and the soft eyes still glisten'd ; And her lord, when, like one of those light vivid things That glide down the gauzes of summer with wings Of rapturous radiance, unconscious she moved Through that buzz of inferior creatures, which proved Her beauty, their envy, one moment forgot, 'Mid the many charms there, the one charm that was not : And when o'er her beauty enraptured he bow'd, (As they turn'd to each other, each flush'd from the crowd,) And murmur'd those praises which yet seem'd more dear Than the praises of others had grown to her ear, She, too, ceased awhile her own fate to regret : " Yes ! ... he loves me," she sigh'd ; " this is love, then and yet ! " VII. Ah, ihztyet.' fatal word ! 'tis the moral of all Thought and felt, seen or done, in this world since the Fall ! It stands at the end of each sentence we learn; It flits in the vista of all we discern ; It leads us, forever and ever, away If 6 LUCILE. To find in to-morrow what flies with to-day. 'Twas the same little fatal and mystical word That now, like a mirage, led my lady and lord To the waters of Ems from the waters of Marah; Drooping Pilgrims in Fashion's blank, arid Sahara ! VIII. At the same time, pursued by a spell much the same, To these waters two other worn pilgrims there came : One a man, one a woman : just now, at the latter, As the Reader I mean by and by to look at her And judge for himself, I will not even glance. IX. Of the self-crown'd young kings of the Fashion in France Whose resplendent regalia so dazzled the sight, Whose horse was so perfect, whose boots were so bright, Who so hail'd in the salon, so mark'd in the Bois, Who so welcomed by all, as Eugene de Luvois? Of all the smooth-brow'd premature debauchees In that town of all towns, where Debauchery sees On the forehead of youth her mark everywhere graven, In Paris I mean, where the streets are all paven By those two fiends whom Milton saw bridging the way From Hell to this planet, who, haughty and gay, The free rebel of life, bound or led by no law, Walk'd that causeway as bold as Eugene de Luvois ? LUCILE. 177 Yes ! he march'd through the great masquerade, loud of tongue, Bold of brow : but the motley he mask'd in, it hung So loose, trail'd so wide, and appear'd to impede So strangely at times the vex'd effort at speed, That a keen eye might guess it was made not for him, But some brawler more stalwart of stature and limb. That it irk'cl him, in truth, you at times could divine, For when low was the music, and spilt was the wine, He would clutch at the garment, as though it op- press'd And stifled some impulse that choked in his breast. x. What ! he, . . . the light sport of his frivolous ease 1 Was he, too, a prey to a mortal disease ? My friend, hear a parable : ponder it well: For a moral there is in the tale that I tell. One evening I sat in the Palais Royal, And there, while I laugh'd at Grassot and Arnal, My eye fell on the face of a man at my side ; Every time that he laugh'd I observed that hesigh'd, As though vex ? d to be pleased. I remark'd that he sat 111 at ease on his seat, and kept twirling his hat In his hand, with a look of unquiet abstraction. I inquired the cause of his dissatisfaction. " Sir," he said, " if what vexes me here you would know, 178 LUCILE. Learn that, passing this way some few half-hours ago, I walk'd into the Fran$ais, to look at Rachel. (Sir, that woman in Phedre is a miracle ! ) Well, I ask'd for a box : they were occupied all : For a seat in the balcony : all taken ! a stall : Taken too : the whole house was as full as could be,- Not a hole for a rat ! I had just time to see The lady I love tete-a-tete with a friend In a box out of reach at the opposite end: Then the crowd push'd me out. What was left me to do ? I tried for the tragedy . . . que voulez-vous? Everyplace for the tragedy book'd ! . . mon ami. The farce was close by : . . . at the farce me void! The piece is a new one : and Grassot plays well : There is drollery, too, in that fellow Ravel: And Hyacinth's nose is superb : . . . yet I meant My evening elsewhere, and not thus to have spent. Fate orders these things by her will, not by ours ! Sir, mankind is the sport of invisible powers." I once met the Due de Luvois for a moment ; And I mark'd, when his features I fix'd in my comment, O'er those features the same vague disquietude stray I had seen on the face of my friend at the play ; And I thought that he too, very probably, spent His evenings not wholly as first he had meant- LUCILE. 179 XI. O source of the noliest joys we inherit, O Sorrow, thou solemn, invisible spirit ! Ill fares it with man when, through life's desert sand, Grown impatient too soon for the long-promised land, He turns from the worship of thee, as thou art, An expressless and imageless truth in the heart, And takes of the jewels of Egypt, the pelf And the gold of the Godless, to make to himself A gaudy, idolatrous image of thee, And then bows to the sound of the cymbal the knee. The sorrows we make to ourselves are false gods : Like the prophets of Baal, our bosom's with rods We may smite, we may gash at our hearts till they bleed, But these idols are blind, deaf, and dumb to our need. The land is athirst, and cries out ! . . . 'tis in vain ; The great blessing of Heaven descends not in rain. XII. It was night; and the lamps were beginning to gleam Through the long linden-trees, folded each in his dream, From that building which looks like a temple . . . and is The Temple of Health? Nay, but enter ! I wis That never the rosy-hued deity knew l8o LUCILE. One votary out of that sallow-cheek'd crew Of Courlanders, Wallacs, Greeks, affable Russians, Explosive Parisians, potato-faced Prussians ; Jews Hamburghers chiefly; pure patriots, Suabians ; " Cappadocians and Elamites, Cretes and Arabians, And the dwellers in Pontus" . . . My muse will not weary More lines with the list of them . . . curfrenmere? What is it they murmur, and mutter, and hum? Into what Pandemonium is Pentecost come? Oh, what is the name of the god at whose fane Every nation is mix'd in so motley a train? What weird Kabala lies on those tables outspread? To what oracle turns with attention each head? What holds these pale worshippers each so devout, And what are those hierophants busied about? Here passes, repasses, and flits to and fro, And rolls without ceasing the great Yes and No: Round this altar alternate the weird Passions dance, And the God worshipp'd here is the old God of Chance. Through the wide-open doors of the distant saloon Flute, hautboy, and fiddle are squeaking in tune ; And an indistinct music forever is roll'd, That mixes and chimes with the chink of the gold, From a vision, that flits in a luminous haze, Of figures forever eluding the gaze ; It fleets through the doorway, it gleams on the glass, LUCILE. 181 And the weird words pursue it Rouge, Impair, et Passe / Like a sound borne in sleep through such dreams as encumber With haggard emotions the wild wicked slumber Of some witch when she seeks, through a night- mare, to grab at The hot hoof of the fiend, on her way to the Sab- bat. XIV. The Due de Luvois and Lord Alfred had met Some few evenings ago (for the season as yet Was but young) in this selfsame Pavilion of Chance. The idler from England, the idler from France, Shook hands, each, of course, with much cordial pleasure: An acquaintance at Ems is to most men a treasure, And they both were too well-bred in aught to betray One discourteous remembrance of things pass'd away. 'Twas a sight that was pleasant, indeed, to be seen, These friends exchange greetings ; the men who had been Foes so nearly in days that were past. This, no doubt, Is why. on the night I am speaking about, My Lord Alfred sat down by himself at roulette, Without one suspicion his bosom to fret, Although he had left, with his pleasant French friend, Matilda, half vex'd, at the room's farthest end. l82 LUCILE. XV. Lord Alfred his combat with Fortune began With a few modest thalers away they all ran The reserve follow'd fast in the rear. As his purse Grew lighter his spirits grew sensibly worse. One needs not a Bacon to find a cause for it : 'Tis an old law in physics Natura abhorret Vacuum and my lord, as he watch'd his last crown Tumble into the bank, turn'd away with a frown Which the brows of Napoleon himself might have deck'd On that day of all days when an empire was wreck'd On thy plain, Waterloo, and he witness'd the last Of his favorite Guard cut to pieces, aghast ! Just then Alfred felt, he could scarcely tell why, Within him the sudden strange sense that some eye Had long been intently regarding him there, That some gaze was upon him too searching to bear. He rose and look'd up. Was it fact ? Was it fable ? Was it dream ? Was it waking ? Across the green table, That face, with its features so fatally known Those eyes, whose deep gaze answer'd strangely his own What was it ? Some ghost from its grave come again ? Some cheat of a feverish, fanciful brain ? Or was it herself with those deep eyes of hers, And that face unforgotten ? Lucile de Nevers ! LUCILE. 183 XVI. Ah, well that pale woman a phantom might seem, Who appear'd to herself but the dream of a dream ! 'Neath those features so calm, that fair forehead so hush'd, That pale cheek forever by passion unflush'd, There yawn'd an insatiate void, and there heaved A tumult of restless regrets unrelieved. The brief noon of beauty was passing away, And the chill of the twilight fell, silent and gray, O'er that deep, self-perceived isolation of soul. And now, as all around her the dim evening stole, With its weird desolations, she inwardly grieved For the want of that tender assurance received From the warmth of a whisper, the glance of an eye, Which should say, or should look, " Fear thou naught, / am by ! " And thus, through that lonely and self-fix'd exist- ence, Crept a vague sense of silence, and horror, and distance : A strange sort of faint-footed fear like a mouse That comes out, when 'tis dark, in some old ducal house Long deserted, where no one the creature can scare. And the forms on the arras are all that move there. In Rome, in the Forum, there open'd one night A gulf. All the augurs turn'd pale at the sight. In this omen the anger of Heaven they read. Men consulted the gods: then the oracle said : -- 1 84 LUCILE. " Ever open this gulf shall endure, till at last That which Rome hath most precious within it be cast." The Romans threw in it their corn and their stuff, But the gulf yawn'd as wide. Rome seem'd likely enough To be ruin'd ere this rent in her heart she could choke. Then Curtius, revering the oracle, spoke : " O Quirites ! to this Heaven's question is come : What to Rome is most precious? The manhood of Rome." He plunged, and the gulf closed. The tale is not new ; But the moral applies many ways, and is true. How, for hearts rent in twain, shall the curse be destroy'd ? 'Tis a warm human one that must fill up the void. Through many a heart runs the rent in the fable ; But who to discover a Curtius is able ? XVII. Back she came from her long hiding-place, at the source Of the sunrise ; where, fair in their fabulous course, Run the rivers of Eden : an exile again. To the cities of Europe the scenes, and the men, And the life, and the ways, she had left : still op- press'd With the same hungry heart, and unpeaceable breast. LUCILE. 185 The same, to the same things ! The world she had quitted With a sigh, with a sigh she re-enter'd. Soon flitted Through the salons and clubs, to the great satisfac- tion Of Paris, the news of a novel attraction. The enchanting Lucile, the gay Countess, once more. To her old friend. theWorld, had reopen'd her door ; The World came, and shook hands, and was pleased and amused With what the World then went away and abused. From the woman's fair fame it in naught could detract : 'Twas the woman's free genius it vex'd and attack'd With a sneer at her freedom of action and speech. But its light careless cavils, in truth, could not reach The lone heart they aim'd at. Her tears fell beyond The world's limit, to feel that the world could respond To that heart's deepest, innermost yearning, in naught, 'Twas no longer this earth's idle inmates she sought : The wit of the woman sufficed to engage In the woman's gay court the first men of the age. Some had genius ; and all. wealth of mind to confer On the world : but that wealth was not lavish'd for her. 1 86 LUCILE. For the genius of man, though so human indeed, When call'd out to man's help by some great human need, The right to a man's chance acquaintance refuses To use what it hoards for mankind's nobler uses. Genius touches the world at but one point alone Of that spacious circumference, never quite known To the world ; all the infinite number of lines That radiate thither a mere point combines, But one only, some central affection apart From the reach of the world, in which Genius is Heart, And love, life's fine centre, includes heart and mind, And therefore it was that Lucile sigh'd to find Men of genius appear, one and all in her ken, When they stoop'd themselves to it, as mere clever men; Artists, statesmen, and they in whose works are unfurl'd Worlds new-fashioned for man, as mere men of the world. And so, as alone now she stood, in the sight Of the sunset of youth, with her face from the light, And watch'd her own shadow grow long at her feet, As though stretch'd out, the shade of some other to meet, The woman felt homeless and childless : in scorn She seem'd mock'd by the voices of children unborn ; And when from these sombre reflections away She turn'd, with a sigh, to that gay world, more gay LUCILE. 187 For her presence within it, she knew herself friend- less; That her path led from peace, and that path appear'd endless! That even her beauty had been but a snare, And her wit sharpen'd only the edge of despair. XVIII. With a face all transfigured and flush'd by sur- prise, Alfred turn'd to Lucile. With those deep search- ing eyes She look'd into his own. Not a word that she said, Not a look, not a blush, one emotion betray 'd. She seem'd to smile through him, at something beyond : When she answer'd his questions, she seem'd to respond To some voice in herself. With no trouble de- scried, To each troubled inquiry she calmly replied. Not so he. At the sight of that face back again To his mind came the ghost of a long-stifled pain, A remember'd resentment, half check'd by a wild And relentful regret like a motherless child Softly seeking admittance, with plaintive appeal, To the heart which resisted its entrance. Lucile And himself thus, however, with freedom allow'd To old friends, talking still side by side, left the crowd 1 88 LUCILE. By the crowd unobserved. Not unnoticed, however, By the Duke and Matilda. Matilda had never Seen her husband's new friend. She had follow'd by chance, Or by instinct, the sudden half-menacing glance Which the Duke, when he witness'd their meeting, had turn'd On Lucile and Lord Alfred ; and, scared, she dis- cern'd On his feature the shade of a gloom so profound That she shudder'd instinctively. Deaf to the sound Of her voice, to some startled inquiry of hers He replied not, but murmur'd, " Lucile de Nevers Once again then ? so be it ! " In the mind of that man, At that moment, there shaped itself vaguely the plan Of a purpose malignant and dark, such alone (To his own secret heart but imperfectly shown) As could spring from the cloudy, fierce chaos of thought By which all his nature to tumult was wrought, XIX. " So ! " he thought, " they meet thus : and reweave the old charm ! And she hangs on his voice, and she leans on his arm, And she heeds me not, seeks me not, recks not of me ! Oh, what if I show'd her that I, too, can be LUCILE. 189 Love.! by one her own rival more fair and more young ? " The serpent rose in him : a serpent which, stung, Sought to sting. Each unconscious, indeed, of the eye, Fix'd upon them, Lucile and my lord saunter'd by, In converse which seem'd to be earnest. A smile Now and then seem'd to show where their thoughts touch'd. Meanwhile The muse of this story, convinced that they need her, To the Duke and Matilda returns, gentle Reader. xx. The Duke with that sort of aggressive false praise Which is meant a resentful remonstrance to raise From a listener (as sometimes a judge, just before He pulls down the black cap, very gently goes o'er The case for the prisoner, and deals tenderly With the man he is minded to hang by and by), Had referr'd to Lucile, and then stopp'd to detect In the face of Matilda the growing effect Of the words he had dropp'd. There's no weapon that slays Its victim so surely (if well aim'd) as praise. Thus, a pause on their converse had fallen : and now Each was silent, preoccupied, thoughtful. You know There are moments when silence, prolong'd and unbroken, More expressive may be than all words ever spoken. 190 LUCILE. It is when the heart has an instinct of what In the heart of another is passing. And that In the heart of Matilda, what was it? Whence came To her cheek on a sudden that tremulous flame ? What weighed down her head? All your eye could discover Was the fact that Matilda was troubled. Moreover That trouble the Duke's presence seem'd to renew. She, however, broke silence, the first of the two. The Duke was too prudent to shatter the spell Of a silence which suited his purpose so well. She was plucking the leaves from a pale blush rose blossom Which had fall'n from the nosegay she wore in her bosom. " This poor flower," she said, " seems it not out of place In this hot, lamplit air, with its fresh, fragile grace ? " She bent her head low as she spoke. With a smile The Duke watch'd her caressing the leaves all the while, And continued on his side the silence. He knew This would force his companion their talk to renew At the point that he wish'd ; and Matilda divined The significant pause with new trouble of mind. She lifted one moment her head ; but her look Encounter'd the ardent regard of the Duke, And dropp'd back on her floweret abash'd. Then, still seeking LUC1LE. 191 The assurance she fancied she show'd him by speaking, She conceived herself safe in adopting again The theme she should most have avoided just then. XXI. " Duke," she said, . . . and she felt, as she spoke, her cheek burn'd, " You know, then, this . . . lady ? " " Too well ! " he return'd. MATILDA. True ; you drew with emotion her portrait just now. Luvois. With emotion ? MATILDA. Yes, yes ! you described her, I know, As possess'd of a charm all unrivall'd. Luvois. Alas! You mistook me completely! You, madam, sur- pass This lady as moonlight does lamplight ; as youth' Surpasses its best imitations ; as truth The fairest of falsehood surpasses; as nature Surpasses art's masterpiece ; ay, as the creature Fresh and pure in its native adornment surpasses All the charms got by heart at the world's looking- glasses ! 192 LUCILE. "Yet you said," she continued with some trepi- dation, " That you quite comprehended "... a slight hesitation Shook the sentence, ..." a passion so strong as" ... Luvois. True, true ! But not in a man that had once look'd at you. Nor can I conceive, or excuse, or ... "Hush, hush!" She broke in, all more fair for one innocent blush. ii Between man and woman these things differ so ! It maybe that the world pardons . . . (how should I know ? ) In you what it visits on us: or 'tis true, It may be that we women are better than you." Luvois. Who denies it ? Yet, madam, once more you mis- take. The world, in its judgment, some difference may make 'Twixt the man and the woman, so far as respects Its sotial enchantments ; but not as affects The one sentiment which it were easy to prove, Is the sole law we look to the moment we love. MATILDA. That may be. Yet I think I should be less severe. Although so inexperienced in such things, I fear LUCILE. 193 I have learn'd that the heart cannot always repress Or account for the feelings which sway it. " Yes ! yes ! That is too true, indeed ! " . . . the Duke sigh'd. And again For one moment in silence continued the twain. XXII. At length the Duke slowly, as though he had needed All this time to repress his emotions, proceeded : " And yet ! . . . what avails, then, to woman the gift Of a beauty like yours, if it cannot uplift Her heart from the reach of one doubt, one despair, One pang of wrong'd love, to which women less fair Are exposed, when they love?" With a quick change of tone, As though by resentment impell'd, he went on : " The name that you bear, it is whisperd, you took From love, not convention. Well, lady, . . . that look So excited, so keen, on the face you must know Throughout all its expressions, that rapturous glow, Those eloquent features significant eyes Which that pale woman sees, yet betrays no sur- prise," (He pointed his hand, as he spoke, to the door, Fixing with it Lucile and Lord Alfred) . . . u be- fore, 194 LUCILE. Have you ever once seen what just now you may view In that face so familiar? . . . no, lady, 'tis new. Young, lovely, and loving, no doubt, as you are, Are you loved ? " . . . XXIII. He look'd at her paused felt if thus far The ground held yet. The ardor with which he had spoken, This close, rapid question, thus suddenly broken, Inspired in Matilda a vague sense of fear, As though some indefinite danger were near. With composure, however, at once she replied : " 'Tis three years since the day when I first was a bride, And my husband I never had cause to suspect ; Nor ever have stoop'd, sir, such cause to detect. Yet if in his looks or his acts I should see See. or fancy some moment's oblivion of me, I trust that I too should forget it, for you Must have seen that my heart is my husband's." The hue On her cheek, with the effort wherewith to the Duke She had uttered this vague and half-frightened rebuke, Was white as the rose in her hand. The last word Seem'd to die on her lip. and could scarcely be heard. There was silence again. A great step had been made By the Duke in the words he that evening had said. LUCILE. 195 There, half-drown 'd by the music, Matilda, that night, Had listen'd long listen'd no doubt, in despite Of herself, to a voice she should never have heard, And her heart by that voice had been troubled and stirr'd. And so having suffer'd in silence his eye To fathom her own, he resumed with a sigh : XXIV. " Will you suffer me, lady, your thoughts to invade By disclosing my own ? The position," he said, "In which we so strangely seem placed may excuse The frankness and force of the words which I use. You say that your heart is your husband's : You say That you love him. You think so, of course, lady . . . nay, Such a love, I admit, were a merit, no doubt. But, trust me, no true love there can be without Its dread penalty jealousy. " Well, do not start ! Until now, either thanks to a singular art Of supreme self-control, you have held them all down Unreveal'd in your heart, or you never have known Even one of those fierce, irresistible pangs Which deep passion engenders ; that anguish which hangs On the heart like a nightmare, by jealousy bred. But if, lady, the love you describe, in the bed Of a blissful security thus hath reposed 196 LUCILE. Undisturb'd, with mild eyelids on happiness closed, Were it not to expose to a peril unjust, And most cruel, that happy repose you so trust, To meet, to receive, and, indeed, it may be, For how long I know not, continue to see A woman whose place rivals yours in the life And the heart which not only your title of wife, But also (forgive me !) your beauty alone, Should have made wholly yours? You, who gave all your own ! Reflect! 'tis the peace of existence you stake On the turn of a die. And for whose for his sake? While you witness this woman, the false point of view From which she must now be regarded by you Will exaggerate to you, whatever they be, The charms I admit she possesses. To me They are trivial indeed ; yet to your eyes, I fear And foresee, they will true and intrinsic appear. Self-unconscious, and sweetly unable to guess How more lovely by far is the grace you possess, You will wrong your own beauty. The graces of art, You will take for the natural charm of the heart; Studied manners, the brilliant and bold repartee, Will too soon in that fatal comparison be To your fancy more fair than the sweet timid sense Which, in shrinking, betrays its own best eloquence. O then, lady, then, you will feel in your heart The poisonous pain of a fierce jealous dart ! While you see her. yourself you no longer will see, LUCILE. 197 You will hear her, and hear not yourself, you will be Unhappy; unhappy, because you will deem Your own power less great than her power will seem. And I shall not be by your side, day by day, In despite of your noble displeasure, to say ' You are fairer than she, as the star is more fair Than the diamond, the brightest that beauty can wear!'" XXV. This appeal, both by looks and by language, in- creased The trouble Matilda felt grow in her breast. Still she spoke with what calmness she could " Sir, the while I thank you," she said, with a faint scornful smile, " For your fervor in painting my fancied distress : Allow me the right some surprise to express At the zeal you betray in disclosing to me The possible depth of my own misery." " That zeal would not startle you, madam," he said, " Could you read in my heart, as myself I have read, The peculiar interest which causes that zeal " Matilda her terror no more could conceal. " Duke," she answer'd in accents short, cold and severe, As she rose from her seat, " I continue to hear; But permit me to say, I no more understand." 198 LUCILE. " Forgive ! " with a nervous appeal of the hand, And a well-feign'd confusion of voice and of look, " Forgive, oh, forgive me ! " at once cried the Duke. " I forgot that you know me so slightly. Your leave I entreat (from your anger those words to retrieve) For one moment to speak of myself, for I think That you wrong me His voice, as in pain, seem'd to sink; And tears in his eyes, as he lifted them, glisten'd. XXVI. Matilda, despite of herself, sat and listen'd. xxvn. " Beneath an exterior which seems, and may be, Worldly, frivolous, careless, my heart hides in me," He continued, "a sorrow which draws me to side With all things that suffer. Nay, laugh not," he cried, " At so strange an avowal. " I seek at a ball, For instance, the beauty admired by all ? No ! some plain, insignificant creature, who sits Scorn'd of course by the beauties, and shunn'd by the wits. All the world is accustom'd to wound, or neglect, Or oppress, claims my heart and commands my re- spect. No Quixote, I do not affect to belong, I admit, to those charterd redressers of wrong ; But I seek to console, where I can. 'Tis a part Not brilliant, I own, yet its joys bring no smart." LUCILE. 199 These trite words, from the tone which he gave them, received An appearance of truth which might well be be- lieved By a heart shrewder yet than Matilda's. And so He continued . . . " O lady ! alas, could you know What injustice and wrong in this world I have seen ! How many a woman, believed to have been Without a regret, I have known turn aside To burst into heartbroken tears undescried ! On how many a lip have I witness'd the smile Which but hid what was breaking the poor heart the while ! " Said Matilda, " Your life, it would seem, then, must be One long act of devotion." " Perhaps so," said he ; " But at least that devotion small merit can boast, For one day may yet come, if one day at the most, When, perceiving at last all the difference how great ! 'Twixt the heart that neglects, and the heart that can wait, Twixt the natures that pity, the natures that pain, Some woman, that else might have pass'd in disdain Qr indifference by me, in passing that day Might pause with a word or a smile to repay This devotion, and then "... 200 LUCILE. XXVIII. To Matilda's relief At that moment her husband approach'd. With some grief I must own that her welcome, perchance, was ex- press'd The more eagerly just for one twinge in her breast Of a conscience disturb'd, and her smile not less warm, Though she saw the Comtesse de Nevers on his arm. The Duke turn'd and adjusted his collar. Thought he, " Good ! the gods fight my battle to-night. 1 foresee That the family doctor's the part I must play. Very well ! but the patients my visits shall pay." Lord Alfred presented Lucile to his wife ; And Matilda, repressing with effort the strife Of emotions which made her voice shake, mur- mur'd low Some faint, troubled greeting. The Duke, with a bow Which betoken'd a distant defiance, replied To Lucile's startled cry, as surprised she descried Her former gay wooer. Anon, with the grace Of that kindness which seeks to win kindness, her place She assumed by Matilda, unconscious, perchance, Or resolved not to notice the half-frightn'd glance, That follow'd that movement. The Duke to his feet Arose; and, in silence, relinquish'd his seat. LUCILE. 201 One must own that the moment was awkward for all; But nevertheless, before long, the strange thrall Of Lucile's gracious tact was by every one felt, And from each the reserve seem'd, reluctant, to melt ; Thus, conversing together, the whole of the four Thro' the crowd saunter'd smiling. XXIX. Approaching the door, Eugene de Luvois, who had fallen behind, By Lucile, after some hesitation, was join'd. With a gesture of gentle and kindly appeal, Which appear'd to imply, without words, " Let us feel That the friendship between us in years that are fled, Has survived one mad moment forgotten," she said : "You remain, Duke, at Ems?" He turn'd on her a look Of frigid, resentful, and sullen rebuke ; And then, with a more than significant glance At Matilda, maliciously answer'd, " Perchance. I have here an attraction. And you ? " he return'd. Lucile's eyes had follow'd his own, and discern'd The boast they implied. He repeated, " And you ? " And, still watching Matilda, she answer'd, " I too." And he thought, as with that word she left him, she sigh'd. 202 LUCILE. The next moment her place she resumed by the side Of Matilda ; and they soon shook hands at the gate Of the selfsame hotel. XXX. One depress'd, one elate, The Duke and Lord Alfred again, thro' the glooms Of the thick linden alley, return'd to the Rooms. His cigar each had lighted, a moment before, At the inn, as they turn'd, arm-in-arm, from the door. Ems cigars do not cheer a man's spirits, experto {Me miserum quoties /) crede Roberto. In silence, awhile, they walk'd onward. At last Yhe Duke's thoughts to language half consciously pass'd. Luvois. Once more ! yet once more ! ALFRED. What? Luvois. We meet her, once more, The woman for whom we two madmen of yore (Laugh, mon cher Alfred, laugh!) were about to destroy Each other ! ALFRED. It is not with laughter that I Raise the ghost of that once troubled time. Say ! can you Recall it with coolness and quietude now ? LUCILE. 203 Luvois. Now? yes! I, man cher, am a true Parisien: Now, the red revolution r the tocsin, and then The dance and the play. I am now at the play. ALFRED. At the play, are you now ? Then perchance I now may Presume, Duke, to aek you what, ever until Such a moment, I waited . . . Luvois. Oh ! ask what you will. Franc jeu ! on the table my cards I spread out. Ask! ALFRED. Duke, you were called to a meeting (no doubt You remember it yet) with Lucile. It was night When you went ; and before you return'd it was light. We met : you accosted me then with a brow Bright with triumph : your words (you remember them now ! ) Were " Let us be friends ! " Luvois. Well? ALFRED. How then, after that Can you and she meet as acquaintances ? 204 LUCILE. Luvois. What ! Did she not then, herself, the Comtesse de Nevers, Solve your riddle to-night with those soft lips of hers? ALFRED. In our converse to-night we avoided the past. But the question I ask should be answer'd at last : By you, if you will ; if you will not, by her. Luvois. Indeed? but that question, milord, can it stir Such an interest in you, if your passion be o'er ? ALFRED. Yes. Esteem may remain, although love be no more. Lucile ask'd me, this night, to my wife (under- stand, To my wife ! ) to present her. I did so. Her hand Has clasp'd that of Matilda. We gentlemen owe Respect to the name that is ours : and, if so, To the woman that bears it a twofold respect. Answer, Due de Luvois ! Did Lucile then reject The proffer you made of your hand and your name ? Or did you on her love then relinquish a claim Urged before ? I ask bluntly this question, because My title to do so is clear by the laws That all gentlemen honor. Make only one sign That you know of Lucile de Nevers aught, in fine, For which, if your own virgin sister were by, LUCILE. 205 From Lucile you would shield her acquaintance, and I And Matilda leave Ems on the morrow. XXXI. The Duke Hesitated and paused. He could tell, by the look Of the man at his side, that he meant what he said, And there flash'd in a moment these thoughts through his head : " Leave Ems ! would that suit me ? no ! that were again To mar all. And besides, if I do not explain, She herself will . . . et puis, il a raison : on est Gentilhomme avant tout /" He replied therefore, " Nay ! Madame de Nevers had rejected me. I, In those days, I was mad ; and in some mad reply I threatened the life of the rival to whom That rejection was due, I was led to presume. She fear'd for his life ; and the letter which then She wrote me, I show'd you ; we met : and again My hand was refused, and my love was denied. And the glance you mistook was the vizard which Pride Lends to Humiliation. " And so," half in jest, He went on, " in this best world, 'tis all for the best ; You are wedded (bless'd Englishman !) wedded to one 2o6 LUCILE. Whose past can be called into question by none : And I (fickle Frenchman ! ) can still laugh to feel I am lord of myself, and the Mode : and Lucile Still shines from her pedestal, frigid and fair As yon German moon o'er the linden-tops there ! A Dian in marble that scorns, any troth With the little love gods, whom I thank for us both, While she smiles from her lonely Olympus apart. That her arrows are marble as well as her heart. Stay at Ems, Alfred Vargrave ! " XXXII. The Duke, with a smilt Turn'd and enter'd the Rooms which, thus talking meanwhile, They had reach'd. XXXIII. Alfred Vargrave strode on (overthrown Heart and mind ! ) in the darkness bewilder'd, alone : " And so," to himself did he mutter, " and so 'Twas to rescue my life, gentle spirit ! and, oh, For this did I doubt her? . . . a light word a look The mistake of a moment! . . . for this I forsook For this? Pardon, pardon, Lucile! O Lucile!" Thought and memory rang, like a funeral peal, Weary changes on one dirge-like note through his brain, As he stray'd down the darkness. LUC ILL. 207 XXXIV. Re-entering again The Casino, the Duke smiled. He turned to roulette, And sat down, and play'd fast, and lost largely, and yet He still smiled : night deepen'd : he play'd his last number : Went home : and soon slept : and still smil'd in his slumber. XXXV. In his desolate Maxims, La Rochefoucauld wrote, "In the grief or mifchancn of a friend you may- note, There is something nhich always gives pleasure." Alas \ That reflection fell short of the truth as it was. La Rochefoucauld might have as truly set down " No misfortune, but what some one turns to his- own Advantage its mischief : no sorrow, but of it There ever is somebody ready to profit : No affliction without its stock-jobbers, who all Gamble, speculate, play on the rise and the fall Of another man's heart, and make traffic in it." Burn thy book, O La Rochefoucauld! Fool ! one man's wit All men's selfishness how should it fathom? O sage. Dost thou satirize Nature ? She laughs at thy page. 208 LUCILE. CANTO II. i. COUSIN JOHN TO COUSIN ALFRED. " London, 18 " My dear Alfred, Your last letters put me in pain. This contempt of existence, this listless disdain Of your own life, its joys and its duties, the deuce Take my wits if they find for it half an excuse ! I wish that some Frenchman would shoot off your leg, And compel you to stump through the world on a peg- I wish that you had, like myself (more's the pity ! ), To sit seven hours on this cursed committee. I wish that you knew, sir, how salt is the bread Of another (what is it that Dante has said?) And the trouble of other men's stairs. In a word, I wish fate had some real affliction conferr'd On your whimsical self, that, at least, you had cause For neglecting life's duties, and damning its laws ! This pressure against all the purpose of life, This self-ebullition, and ferment, and strife, Betoken'd, I grant that it may be in truth, The richness and strength of the new wine of youth. LUCJLE. 209 But if, when the wine should have mellow'd with time, Being bottled and binn'd, to a flavor sublime, It retains the same acrid, incongruous taste, Why, the sooner to throw it away that we haste The better, I take it. And this vice of snarling, Self-love's little lapdog, the overfed darling Of a hypochondriacal fancy appears, To my thinking, at least, in a man of your years, At the midnoon of manhood with plenty to do, And every incentive for doing it too, With the duties of life just sufficiently pressing For prayer, and of joys more than most men for blessing ; With a pretty young wife, and a pretty full purse, Like poltroonery, puerile truly, or worse ! I wish I could get you at least to agree To take life as it is, and consider with me, If it be not all smiles, that it is not all sneers ; It admits honest laughter, and needs honest tears. Do you think none have known but yourself all the pain Of hopes that retreat, and regrets that remain? And all the wide distance fate fixes, no doubt, 'Twixt the life that's within, and the life that's without ? What one of us finds the world just as he likes ? Or gets what he wants when he wants it ? Or strikes Without missing the thing that he strikes at the first? Or walks without stumbling ? Or quenches his thirst 2io LUCILE. At one draught ? Bah ! I tell you ! I, bachelor John, Have had griefs of my own. But what then ? I push on All the faster perchance that I yet feel the pain Of my last fall, albeit I may stumble again. God means every man to be happy, be sure. He sends us no sorows that have not some cure. Our duty down here is to do, not to know. Live as though life were earnest, and life will be so. Let each moment, like Time's last ambassador come : It will wait to deliver its message ; and some Sort of answer it merits. It is not the deed A man does, but the way that he does it, should plead For the man's compensation in doing it. " Here, My next neighbor's a man with twelve thousand a year, Who deems that life has not a pastime more pleasant Than to follow a fox, or to slaughter a pheasant. Yet this fellow goes through a contested election, Lives in London, and sits, like the soul of dejection, All the day through upon a committee, and late To the last, every night, through the dreary debate, As though he were getting each speaker by heart, Though amongst them he never presumes to take part. One asks himself why without murmur or question, He foregoes all his tastes, and destroys his diges- tion, LUCILE. 211 For a labor of which the result seems so small. 'The man is ambitious,' you say. Not at all. He has just sense enough to be fully aware That he never can hope to be Premier, or share The renown of a Tully ; or even to hold A subordinate office. He is not so bold As to fancy the House for ten minutes would bear With patience his modest opinions to hear. ' But he wants something ! ' "What! with twelve thousand a year? What could Government give him would be half so dear To his heart as a walk with a dog and a gun Through his own pheasant woods, or a capital run ? ' No ; but vanity fills out the emptiest brain ; The man would be more than his neighbor, 'tis plain ; And the drudgery drearily gone through in town Is more than repaid by provincial renown. Enough if some Marchioness, lively and loose, Shall have eyed him with passing complaisance ; the goose, If the Fashion to him open one of its doors, As proud as a sultan returns to his boors.' Wrong again ! if you think so, " For, primo ; my friend Is the head of a family known from one end Of his shire to the other as the oldest ; and there- fore He despises fine lords and fine ladies. He care for A peerage ? no, truly ! Sccondo ; he rarely 212 LUCILE. Or never goes out : dines at Bellamy's sparely, And abhors what you call the gay world. " Then I ask, What inspires, and consoles, such a self-imposed task As the life of this man, but the sense of its duty ? And I swear that the eyes of the haughtiest beauty Have never inspired in my soul that intense, Reverential, and loving, and absolute sense Of heart-felt admiration I feel for this man, As I see him beside me; there, wearing the wan London daylight away, on his humdrum committee, So unconscious of all that awakens my pity, And wonder and worship, I might say? " To mt There seems something nobler than genius to be In that dull patient labor no genius relieves, That absence of all joy which yet never grieves; The humility of it ! the grandeur withal ! The sublimity of it ! And yet, should you call The man's own very slow apprehension to this, He would ask, with a stare, what sublimity is ! His work is the duty to which he was born ; He accepts it, without ostentation or scorn : And this man is no uncommon type (I thank Heaven !) Of this land's common men. In all other lands, even The type's self is wanting. Perchance, 'tis the reason That Government oscillates ever 'twixt reason And tyranny elsewhere. LL'CTLE. 213 ' I wander away Too far, though, from what I was wishing to say. You, for instance, read Plato. You know that the soul Is immortal ; and put this in rhyme, on the whole, Very well, with sublime illustration. Man's heart Is a mystery, doubtless. You trace it in art : The Greek Psyche, that's beauty, the perfect ideal. But then comes the imperfect, perfectible real, With its pain'd aspiration and strife. In those pale Ill-drawn virgins of Giotto you see it prevail. You have studied all this. Then, the universe, too, Is not a mere house to be lived in, for you. Geology opens the mind. So you know Something also of strata and fossils; these show The bases of cosmical structure : some mention Of the nebulous theory demands your attention; And so on. "In short, it is clear the interior Of your brain, my dear Alfred, is vastly superior In fibre, and fulness, and function, and fire, To that of my poor parliamentary squire ; But your life leaves upon me (forgive me this heat Due to friendship) the sense of a thing incomplete. You fly high. But what is it, in truth, you fly at? My mind is not satisfied quite as to that. An old illustration's as good as a new, Provided the old illustration be true. We are children. Mere kites are the fancies we fly, Though we marvel to see them ascending so high ; 214 LUCILE. Things slight in themselves, long-tail'd toys, and no more : What is it that makes the kite steadily soar Through the realms where the cloud and the whirl- wind have birth But the tie that attaches the kite to the earth ? I remember the lessons of childhood, you see, And the hornbook I learn'd on my poor mother's knee. In truth, I suspect little else do we learn From this great book of life, which so shrewdly we turn, Saving how to apply, with a good or bad grace, What we learn'd in the hornbook of childhood. " Your case Is exactly in point. " Fly your kite, if you please, Out of sight : let it go where it will, on the breeze; But cut not the one thread by which it is bound, Be it never so high, to this poor human ground. No man is the absolute lord of his life. You, my friend, have a home, and a sweet and dear wife. If I often have sigh'd by my own silent fire, With the sense of a sometimes recurring desire For a voice sweet and low, or a face fond and fair, Some dull winter evening to solace and share With the love which the world its good children allows To shake hands with, in short, a legitimate spouse, LUC1LE. 215 This thought has consoled me : 'At least I have given For my own good behavior no hostage to heaven.' You have, though. Forget it not ! faith, if you do, I would rather break stones on a road than be you. If any man wilfully injured, or led That little girl wrong, I would sit on his head, Even though you yourself were the sinner ! " And this Leads me back ( do not take it, dear cousin, amiss ! ) To the matter I meant to have mention'd at once, But these thoughts put it out of my head for the nonce. Of all the preposterous humbugs and shams, Of all the old wolves ever taken for lambs, The wolf best received by the flock he devours Is that uncle-in-law, my dear Alfred, of yours. At least, this has long been my unsettled convic- tion, And I almost would venture at once the prediction That before very long but no matter ! I trust, For his sake and our own, that I may be unjust. But Heaven forgive me, if cautious I am on The score of such men as with both God and Mammon Seem so shrewdly familiar. " Neglect not this warning. There were rumors afloat in the City this morning Which I scarce like the sound of. Who knows? would he fleece At a pinch, the old hypocrite, even his own niece? 2i6 LUCILE. For the sake of Matilda I cannot importune Your attention too early. If all your wife's fortune Is yet in the hands of that specious old sinner, Who would dice with the devil, and yet rise up winner, I say, lose no time ! get it out of the grab Of her trustee and uncle, Sir Ridley McNab. I trust those deposits, at least, are drawn out, And safe at this moment from danger or doubt. A wink is as good as a nod to the wise. Verbum sap. I admit nothing yet justifies My mistrust ; but I have in my own mind a notion That old Ridley's white waistcoat, and airs of devotion, Have long been the only ostensible capital On which he does business. If so, time must sap it all, Sooner or later. Look sharp. Do not wait, Draw at once. In a fortnight it may be too late. I admit I know nothing. I can but suspect ; I give you my notions. Form yours and reflect. My love to Matilda. Her mother looks well. I saw her last week. I have nothing to tell Worth your hearing. We think that the Govern- ment here Will not last our next session. Fitz Funk is a peer, You will see by the Times. There are symptoms which show That the ministers now are preparing to go, And finish their feast of the loaves and the fishes. It is evident that they are clearing the dishes. LUCILE. 217 And cramming their pockets with bonbons. Your news Will be always acceptable. Vere, of the Blues, Has bolted with Lady Selina. And so You have met with that hot-headed Frenchman? I know That the man is a sad mauvais sujet. Take care Of Matilda. I wish I could join you both there; But before I am free, you are sure to be gone. Good-by, my dear fellow. Yours, anxiously, JOHN." II. This is just the advice I myself would have given To Lord Alfred, had I been his cousin, which, Heaven Be praised, I am not. But it reach'd him indeed In an unlucky hour, and received little heed. A half-languid glance was the most that he lent at That time to these homilies. Priinnni dementat Quern Deus vult perdere. Alfred in fact Was behaving just then in a way to distract Job's self had Job known him. The more you'd have thought The Duke's court to Matilda his eye would have caught, The more did his aspect grow listless to hers, And the more did it beam to Lucile de Nevers. And Matilda, the less she found love in the look Of her husband, the less did she shrink from the Duke. 2i8 LUCILE. With each day that pass'd o'er them, they each heart from heart, Woke to feel themselves further and further apart. More and more of his time Alfred pass'd at the table ; Played high; and lost more than to lose he was able. He grew feverish, querulous, absent, perverse, And here I must mention, what made matters worse, That Lucile and the Duke at the selfsame hotel With the Vargraves resided. It needs not to tell That they all saw too much of each other. The weather Was so fine that it brought them each day all to- gether In the garden, to listen, of course, to the band. The house was a sort of phalanstery; and Lucile and Matilda were pleased to discover A mutual passion for music. Moreover, The Duke was an excellent tenor; could sing "Ange si pure " in a way to bring down on the wing All the angels St. Cicely play'd to. My lord Would also, at times, when he was not too bored Play Beethoven, and Wagner's new music, not ill ; With some little things of his own, showing skill. For which reason, as well as for some others too, Their rooms were a pleasant enough rendezvous. Did Lucile, then, encourage (the heartless coquette !) .All the mischief she could not but mark? Patience yet! LUCILE. 219 in. In that garden, an arbor, withdrawn from the sun, By laburnum and lilac with blooms overrun, Form'd a vault of cool verdure, which made, when the heat Of the noontide hung heavy, a gracious retreat. And here, with some friends of their own little world, In the warm afternoons, till the shadows uncurl'd From the feet of the lindens, and crept through the grass, Their blue hours would this gay little colony pass. The men loved to smoke, and the women to bring, Undeterr'd by tobacco, their work there, and sing Or converse, till the dew fell, and homeward the bee Floated, heavy with honey. Towards eve there was tea (A luxury due to Matilda), and ice, Fruit and coffee. ~Sl " EaneQ?, n&vTa cptgeig ! Such an evening it was, while Matilda presided O'er the rustic arrangements thus daily provided, With the Duke, and a small German Prince with a thick head, And an old Russian Countess both witty and wicked, And two Austrian Colonels, that Alfred, who yet Was lounging alone with his last cigarette, Saw Lucile de Nevers by herself pacing slow 'Neath the shade of the cool linden-trees to and fro, And joining her, cried, " Thank the good stars we meet! 220 LUCJLE. I have so much to say to you ! " " Yes ? " ... with her sweet Serene voice, she replied to him. ..." Yes ? and I too Was wishing, indeed, to say somewhat to you." She was paler just then than her wont was. The sound Of her voice had within it a sadness profound. " You are ill ? " he exclaim'd. " No ! " she hurriedly said. " No, no ! " "You alarm me ! " She droop'd down her head. " If your thoughts have of late sought, or cared, to divine The purpose of what has been passing in mine, My farewell can scarcely alarm you." ALFRED. Lucile ! Your farewell ! you go ! LUCILE. Yes, Lord Alfred. ALFRED. Reveal The cause of this sudden unkindness. LUCILE. Unkind ? ALFRED. Yes ! what else is this parting? LUCILE. 221 LUCILE. No, no ! are you blind ? Look into your own heart and home. Can you see No reason for this, save unkindness in me ? Look into the eyes of your wife those true eyes, Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise The sweet soul shining through them. ALFRED. Lucile ! (first and last Be the word, if you will ! ) let me speak of the past. I know now, alas ! though I know it too late, What pass'd at that meeting which settled my fate. Nay, nay, interrupt me not yet ! let it be ! I but say what is due to yourself due to me, And must say it. He rushed incoherently on, Describing how, lately, the truth he had known, To explain how, and whence, he had wrong'd her before, All the complicate coil wound about him of yore, All the hopes that had flown with the faith that was fled, " And then, O Lucile, what was left me," he said, " When my life was defrauded of you, but to take That life, as 'twas left, and endeavor to make Unobserved by another, the void which remain'd Unconceal'd to myself? If I have not attain'd, I have striven. One word of unkindness has never Pass'd my lips to Matilda. Her least wish has ever Received my submission. And if, of a truth, 322 LUCILE. I have fail'd to renew what I felt in my youth, I at least have been loyal to what I do feel, Respect, duty, honor, affection. Lucile, I speak not of love now, nor love's long regret : I would not offend you, nor dare I forget The ties that are round me. But may there not be A friendship yet hallowed between you and me ? May we not be yet friends friends the dearest ?" " Alas ! " She replied, " for one moment, perchance, did it pass Through my own heart, that dream which forever hath brought To those who indulge it in innocent thought So fatal an evil awaking ! But no. For in lives such as ours are, the Dream-tree would grow On the borders of Hades: beyond it, what lies? The wheel of Ixion, alas ! and the cries Of the lost and tormented. Departed, for us, Are the days when with innocence we could discuss Dreams like these. Fled, indeed, are the dreams of my life ! Oh trust me, the best friend you have is your wife. And I in that pure child's pure virtue, I bow To the beauty of virtue. I felt on my brow Not one blush when I first took her hand. With no blush Shall I clasp it to-night, when I leave you. "Hush! hush! I would say what I wish'd to have said when you came. LUCILE. 22$ Do not think that years leave us and find us the same ! The woman you knew long ago, long ago, Is no more. You yourself have within you, I know, The germ of a joy in the years yet to be, Whereby the past years will bear fruit. As for me, I go my own way, onward, upward! " O yet, Let me thank you for that which ennobled regret When it came, as it beautified hope ere it fled, The love I once felt for you. True, it is dead, But it is not corrupted. I too have at last Lived to learn that love is not such love as is past, Such love as youth dreams of at least the sole part Of life, which is able to fill up the heart; Even that of a woman. " Between you and me Heaven fixes a gulf, over which you must see That our guardian angels can bear us no more. We each of us stand on an opposite shore. Trust a woman's opinion for once. Women learn, By an instinct man never attains, to discern Each other's true natures. Matilda is fair, Matilda is young see her now, sitting there ! How tenderly fashion'd (oh, is she not? say,) To love and be loved ! " IV. He turn'd sharply away " Matilda is young, and Matilda is fair; 224 LUC1LE Of all that you tell me pray deem me aware; But Matilda's a statue, Matilda's a child ; Matilda loves not " Lucile quietly smiled As she answer'd him : " Yesterday, all that you say Might be true; it is false, wholly false, though, to- day." *' How ? what mean you ? " " I mean that to-day," she replied, "The statue with life has become vivified: I mean that the child to a woman has grown : And that woman is jealous." " What, she ! " with a tone Of ironical wonder, he answer'd what, she! She jealous ! Matilda ! of whom, pray ? not me ! " 41 My lord, you deceive yourself; no one but you Is she jealous of. Trust me. And thank Heaven, too, That so lately this passion within her hath grown. For who shall declare, if for months she had known What for days she has known all too keenly, I fear, That knowledge perchance might have cost you more dear ? " " Explain ! explain, madam ! " he cried, in surprise ; And terror and anger enkindled his eyes. " How blind are you men ! " she replied. " Can you doubt That a woman, young, fair, and neglected " LUCILE. 225 " Speak out ! " He gasp'd with emotion. " Lucile ! you mean what! Do you doubt her fidelity ? " " Certainly not. Listen to me, my friend. What I wish to explain Is so hard to shape forth. I could almost refrain From touching a subject so fragile. However, Bear with me a while, if I frankly endeavor To invade for one moment your innermost life. Your honor, Lord Alfred, and that of your wife, Are dear to me, most dear ! And I am con- vinced That you rashly are risking that honor." He winced, And turn'd pale, as she spoke. She had aim'd at his heart, And she saw, by his sudden and terrified start, That her aim had not miss'd. " Stay, Lucile ! " he exclaim'd, "What in truth do you mean by these words, vaguely framed To alarm me? Matilda? my wife? do you know? " " I know that your wife is as spotless as snow. But I know not how far your continued neglect Her nature, as well as her heart, might affect. Till at last, by degrees, that serene atmosphere Of her unconscious purity, faint and yet clear, Like the indistinct golden and vaporous fleece 226 I.UCILR. Which surrounded and hid the celestials in Greece From the glances of men, would disperse and depart At the sighs of a sick and delirious heart, For jealousy is to a woman, be sure, A disease heal'd too oft by a criminal cure ; And the heart left too long to its ravage in time May find weakness in virtue, reprisal in crime." v. " Such thoughts could have never," he falter'd, " I know, Reach'd the heart of Matilda." " Matilda? oh no! But reflect ! when such thoughts do not come of themselves To the heart of a woman neglected, like elves That seek lonely places, there rarely is wanting Some voice at her side, with an evil enchanting To conjure them to her." " O lady, beware ! At this moment, around me I search everywhere For a clew to your words " " You mistake them," she said. Half fearing, indeed, the effect they had made. " I was putting a mere hypothetical case." With a long look of trouble he gazed in her face. " Woe to him," ... he exclaim'd ..." woe to him that shall feel Such a hope ! for I swear, if he did but reveal One glimpse, it should be the last hope of his life ! " LUCILE. 227 The ciench'd hand and bent eyebrow betoken'd the strife She had roused in his heart. " You forget," she began, " That you menace youself. You yourself are the man That is guilty. Alas ! must it ever be so ? Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go, And fight our own shadows forever ? O think ! The trial from which you, the stronger ones, shrink, You ask woman, the weaker one, still to endure ; You bid her be true to the laws you abjure ; To abide by the ties you yourselves rend asunder, With the force that has fail'd you ; and that too, when under The assumption of rights which to her you refuse, The immunity claim'd for yourselves you abuse ! Where the contract exists, it involves obligation To both husband and wife, in an equal relation. You unloose, in asserting your own liberty, A knot, which, unloosed, leaves another as free. Then, O Alfred! be juster at heart: and thank Heaven That Heaven to your wife such a nature has given That you have not wherewith to reproach her, albeit You have cause to reproach your own self, could you see it ! " VI. In the silence that follow'd the last word she said, In the heave of his chest, and the droop of his head, 228 LUCILE. Poor Lucile mark'd her words had sufficed to im part A new germ of motion and life to that heart Of which he himself had so recently spoken As dead to emotion exhausted, or broken ! New fears would awaken new hopes in his life. In the husband indifferent no more to the wife She already, as she had forseen, could discover That Matilda had gain'd at her hands, a new lover. So after some moments of silence, whose spell They both felt, she extended her hand to him. . . . VII. " Well ? " VIII. " Lucile," he replied, as that soft quiet hand In his own he clasp'd warmly, " I both understand And obey you." " Thank Heaven ! " she murmur'd. " O yet, One word, I beseech you ! I cannot forget/' He exclaim'd, " we are parting for life. You have shown My pathway to me : but say, what is your own ? " The calmness with which until then she had spoken In a moment seeni'd strangely and suddenly broken. She turned from him nervously, hurriedly. " Nay, I know not," she murmur'd, " I follow the way Heaven leads me ; I cannot foresee to what end. I know only that far, far away it must tend LUCILE. 229 From all places in which we have met, or might meet. Far away ! onward upward ! " A smile strange and sweet As the incense that rises from some sacred cup And mixes with music, stole forth, and breathed up Her whole face, with those words. " Wheresoever it be, May all gentlest angels attend you ! " sighed he, " And bear my heart's blessing wherever you are ! '* And her hand, with emotion, he kiss'd. IX. From afar That kiss was, alas ! by Matilda beheld With far other emotions : her young bosom swell'd, And her young cheek with anger was crimson'd. The Duke Adroitly attracted towards it her look By a faint but significant smile. x. Much ill-construed, Renown'd Bishop Berkeley has fully, for one, strew'd With arguments page upon page to teach folks That the world they inhabit is only a hoax. But it surely is hard, since we can't do without them, That our senses should make us so oft wish to doubt them 1 230 LUCILE. CANTO III. I. WHEN first the red savage call'd Man strode, a king, Through the wilds of creation the very first thing That his naked intelligence taught him to feel Was the shame of himself ; and the wish to conceal Was the first step in art. From the apron which Eve In Eden sat down out of fig-leaves to weave, To the furbelow'd flounce and the broad crinoline Of my lady you all know of course whom I mean This art of concealment has greatly increas'd. A whole world lies cryptic in each human breast ; And that drama of passions as old as the hills, Which the moral of all men in each man fulfils, Is only reveal'd now and then to our eyes In the newspaper-files and the courts of assize. ii. In the group seen so lately in sunlight assembled, 'Mid those walks over which the laburnum-bough trembled, And the deep-bosom'd lilac, emparadising The haunts where the blackbird and thursh flit and sing, The keenest eye could but have seen, and seen only, LUCILE. 231 A circle of friends, minded not to leave lonely The bird on the bough, or the bee on the blossom; Conversing at ease in the garden's green bosom, Like those who, when Florence was yet in her glories, Cheated death and kill'd time with Boccaccian stories. But at length the long twilight more deeply grew shaded, And the fair night the rosy horizon invaded. And the bee in the blossom, the bird on the bough, Through the shadowy garden were slumbering now. The trees only, o'er every unvisited walk, Began on a sudden to whisper and talk. And, as each little sprightly and garrulous leaf Woke up with an evident sense of relief, They all seem'd to be saying ..." Once more we're alone, And, thank Heaven, those tiresome people are gone ! " in. Through the deep blue concave of the luminous air, Large, loving, and languid, the stars here and there, Like the eyes of shy passionate women, look'd down O'er the dim world whose sole tender light was their own, When Matilda, alone, from her chamber descended, And enter'd the garden, unseen, unattended. Her forehead was aching and parch'd, and her breast By a vague inexpressible sadness oppress'd : 232 LUCILE. A sadness which led her, she scarcely knew how, And she scarcely knew why . . . ( save, indeed, that just now The house, out of which with a gasp she had fled Half stifled, seem'd ready to sink on her head) . . Out into the night air, the silence, the bright Boundless starlight, the cool isolation of night ! Her husband that day had look'd once in her face, And press'd both her hands in a silent embrace, And reproachfully noticed her recent dejection With a smile of kind wonder and tacit affection. He, of late so indifferent and listless ! ... at last Was he startled and awed by the change which had pass'd O'er the once radiant face of his young wife? Whence came That long look of solicitous fondness? . . . the same Look and language of quiet affection the look And the language, alas ! which so often she took For pure love in the simple repose of its purity Her own heart thus lull'd to a fatal security ! Ha ! would he deceive her again by this kindness? Had she been, then, O fool ! in her innocent blindr ness, The sport of transparent illusion ? ah, folly ! And that feeling, so tranquil, so happy, so holy, She had taken, till then, in the heart, not alone Of her husband, but also, indeed, in her own, For true love, nothing else, after all, did it prove But a friendship profanely familiar? LUCILE. 233; " And love? ... What was love, then? . . . not calm, not secure scarcely kind, But in one, all intensest emotions combined : Life and death : pain and rapture." Thus wandering astray, Led by doubt, through the darkness she wander'd away. All silently crossing, recrossing the night. With faint, meteoric, miraculous light, The swift-shooting stars through the infinite burn'd, And into the infinite ever return'd. And silently o'er the obscure and unknown In the heart of Matilda there darted and shone Thoughts, enkindling like meteors the deeps, to expire, Leaving traces behind them of tremulous fire. IV. She enter'd that arbor of lilacs, in which The dark air with odors hung heavy and rich, Like a soul that grows faint with desire. 'Twas the place In which she so lately had sat face to face, With her husband, and her, the pale stranger detested Whose presence her heart like a plague had in- fested. The whole spot with evil remembrance was haunted. Through the darkness there rose on the heart which it daunted, 234 LUCILE. Each dreary detail of that desolate day, So full, and yet so incomplete. Far away The acacias were muttering, like mischievous elves, The whole story over again to themselves, Each word, and each word was a wound ! By degrees Her memory mingled its voice with the trees. v. Like the whisper Eve heard, when she paused by the root Of the sad tree of knowledge, and gazed on its fruit, To the heart of Matilda the trees seem'd to hiss Wild instructions, revealing man's last right, which is The right of reprisals. An image uncertain, And vague, dimly shaped itself forth on the curtain Of the darkness around her. It came, and it went ; Through her senses a faint sense of peril it sent : It pass'd and repass'd her; it went and it came, Forever returning ; forever the same ; And forever more clearly denned ; till her eyes In that outline obscure could at last recognize The man to whose image, the more and the more That her heart, now aroused from its calm sleep of yore, From her husband detach'd itself slowly, with pain. Her thoughts had return'd, and return'd to, again, As though by some secret indefinite law, The vigilant Frenchman Eugene de Luvois! LUCILE. 235 VI. A light sound behind her. She trembled. By some Night- witch craft her vision a fact had become. On a sudden she felt, without turning to view, That a man was approaching behind her. She knew By the fluttering pulse which she could not restrain, And the quick-beating heart, that this man was Eugene. Her first instinct was'flight ; but she felt her slight foot As heavy as though to the soil it had root. And the Duke's voice retain'd her, like fear in a dream. VII. "Ah, lady! in life there are meetings which seem Like a fate. Dare I think like a sympathy too? Yet what else can I bless for this vision of you ? Alone with my thoughts, on this starlighted lawn, By an instinct resistless, I felt myself drawn To revisit the memories left in the place Where so lately this evening I look'd in your face. And I find, you, yourself, my own dream ! " Can there be In this world one thought common to you and to me? If so, . . . I, who deem'd but a moment ago My heart uncompanion'd, save only by woe, Should indeed be more bless'd than I dare to believe Ah, but one word, but one from your lips to receive " . 236 IUCILE. Interrupting him quickly, she murmur'd, " I sought, Here, a moment of solitude, silence, and thought. Which I needed." . . . 4i Lives solitude only for one ? Must its charm by my presence so soon be undone ? Ah, cannot two share it? What needs it for this? The same thought in both hearts, be it sorrow or bliss ; If my heart be the reflex of yours, lady you, Are you not yet alone, even though we be two?" " For that," . . . said Matilda, ..." needs were, you should read What I have in my heart "... " Think you, lady, indeed, You are yet of that age when a woman conceals In her heart so completely whatever she feels From the heart cf the man whom it interests to know And find out what that feeling may be ? Ah, not so, Lady Alfred ! Forgive me that in it I look, But I read in your heart as I read in a book." " Well, Duke ! and what read you within it ? unless It be, of a truth, a profound weariness, And some sadness ? " " No doubt. To all facts there are laws. The effect has its cause, and I mount to the cause.'* LUCILE. 237 VIII. Matilda shrank back ; for she suddenly found That a finger was press'd on the yet bleeding wound She, herself, had but that day perceived in her breast. " You are sad," . . . said the Duke (and that finger yet press'd With a cruel persistence the wound it made bleed) " You are sad, Lady Alfred, because the first need Of a young and a beautiful woman is to be Beloved, and to love. You are sad : for you see That you are not beloved, as you deem'd that you were : You are sad: for that knowledge hath left you aware That you have not yet loved, though you thoughf that you had. " Yes, yes ! . . . you are sad because knowledge is sad ! " He could not have read more profoundly her heart. " What gave you," she cried, with a terrified start, " Such strange power ? " " To read in your thoughts? " he exclaim'd, " O lady, a love, deep, profound be it blamed Or rejected, a love, true, intense such, at least, As you, and you only, could wake in my breast ! " " Hush, hush ! . . . I beseech you . . . for pity ! " she gasp'd, 238 LUCILE. Snatching hurriedly from him the hand he had clasp'd, In her effort instinctive to fly from the spot. " For pity ? "... he echoed, " for pity ! and what Is the pity you owe him ? his pity for you ! He, the lord of a life, fresh as new-fallen dew ! The guardian and guide of a woman, young, fair, And matchless ! (whose happiness did he not swear To cherish through life ? ) he neglects her for whom? For a fairer than she ? No ! the rose in the bloom Of that beauty which, even when hidd'n, can prevail To keep sleepless with song the aroused nightin- gale, Is not fairer ; for even in the pure world of flowers Her symbol is not, and this pure world of ours Has no second Matilda ! For whom ? Let that pass ! 'Tis not I, 'tis not you, that can name her, alas ! And / dare not question or judge her. But why, Why cherish the cause of your own misery? Why think of one, lady, who thinks not of you? Why be bound by a chain which himself he breaks through ? And why, since you have but to stretch forth your hand, The love which you need and deserve to command, Why shrink? Why repel it?" " O hush, sir ! O hush ! " Cried Matilda, as though her whole heart were one blush. LUC1LE. 239 " Cease, cease, I conjure you, to trouble my life ! Is not Alfred your friend ? and am I not his wife ? " IX. "And have I not, lady," he answer'd, ... "re- spected His rights as a friend, till himself he neglected Your rights as a wife? Do you think 'tis alone For three days I have loved you? My love may have grown, I admit, day by day, since I first felt your eyes, In watching their tears, and in sounding your sighs. But, O lady ! I loved you before I believed That your eyes ever wept, or your heart ever grieved. Then I deem'd you were happy I deem'd you possess'd All the love you deserved, and I hid in my breast My own love, till this hour when I could not but feel Your grief gave me the right my own grief to reveal ! I knew, years ago, of the singular power Which Lucile o'er your husband possess'd. Till the hour In which he reveal'd it himself, did I, say! By a word, or a look, such a secret betray ? No ! no ! do me justice. I never have spoken Of this poor heart of mine, till all ties he had broken. Which bound your heart to him. And now now, that his love 240 LUCILE. For another hath left your own heart free to rove. What is it, even now, that I kneel to implore you? Only this, Lady Alfred ! ... to let me adore you Unblamed : to have confidence in me : to spend On me not one thought, save to think me your friend. Let me speak to you, ah, let me speak to you still ! Hush to silence my words in your heart if you will. I ask no response : I ask only your leave To live yet in your life, and to grieve when you grieve ! " x. " Leave me, leave me ! " . . . she gasp'd, with a voice thick and low From emotion. " For pity's sake, Duke, let me go ! I feel that to blame we should both of us be, Did I linger." " To blame ? yes, no doubt ! " . . . answer'd he, 41 If the love of your husband, in bringing you peace, Had forbidden you hope. But he signs your re- lease By the hand of another. One moment ! but one ! Who knows when, alas ! I may see you alone As to-night 1 have seen you? or when we may meet As to-night we have met ? when, entranced at your feet, As in this blessed hour. I may ever avow The thoughts which are pining for utterance now? " LUCILE. , 241 ' Duke ! Duke ! " . . . she exclaim'd, ..." for Heaven's sake let me go ! It is late. In the house they will miss me, I know. We must not be seen here together. The night Is advancing. I feel overwhelm'd with affright ! It is time to return to my lord." " To your lord ? " He repeated, with lingering reproach on the word. " To your lord ? do you think he awaits you in truth ? Is he anxiously missing your presence, forsooth? Return to your lord ! . . . his restraint to renew ? And hinder the glances which are not for you ? No, no! . . . at this moment his looks seek the face Of another ! another is there in your place ! Another consoles him ! another receives The soft speech which from silence your absence relieves ! " XI. " You mistake, sir ! " . . . responded a voice, calm, severe, And sad, ..." You mistake, sir ! that other is here." Eugene and Matilda both started. " Lucile ! " With a half-stifled scream as she felt herself reel From the place where she stood, cried Matilda. " Ho, oh ! What ! eaves-dropping, madam ? " . . . the Duke cried. . . . " And so You were listening?" 242 LUCILE. " Say, rather," she said, " that I heard, Without wishing to hear it, that infamous word, Heard and therefore reply." " Belle Comtesse," said the Duke, With concentrated wrath in the savage rebuke, Which betray'd that he felt himself baffled . . . " you know That your place is not here." " Duke," she answer'd him slow, " My place is wherever my duty is clear ; And therefore my place, at this moment, is here. lady, this morning my place was beside Your husband, because (as she said this she sigh'd) 1 felt that from folly fast growing to crime The crime of self-blindness Heaven yet spared me time To save for the love of an innocent wife All that such love deserved in the heart and the life Of the man to whose heart and whose life you alone Can with safety confide the pure trust of your own." She turn'd to Matilda, and lightly laid on her Her soft quiet hand . . . " 'Tis, O lady, the honor Which that man has confided to you, that, in spite Of his friend, I now trust I may yet save to-night Save for both of you, lady ! for yours I revere ; Due de Luvois, what say you ? my place is not here?" LUCILE. 243 XII. And, so saying, the hand of Matilda she caught, Wound one arm round her waist unresisted and sought Gently, softly, to draw her away from the spot. The Duke stood confounded, and follow'd them not, But not yet the house had they reach'd when Lu- cile Her tender and delicate burden could feel Sink and falter beside her. Oh, then she knelt down, Flung her arms round Matilda, and press'd to her own The poor bosom beating against her. The moon, Bright, breathless, and buoyant, and brimful of June, Floated up from the hillside, sloped over the vale, And poised herself loose in mid-heaven, with one pale, Minute, scintillescent, and tremulous star Swinging under her globe like a wizard-lit car, Thus to each of those women revealing the face Of the other. Each bore on her features the trace Of a vivid emotion. A deep inward shame The cheek of Matilda had flooded with flame. With her enthusiastic emotion Lucile Trembled visibly yet; for she could not but feel That a heavenly hand was upon her that night, And it touch'd her pure brow to a heavenly light. 244 LUCILE. " In the name of your husband, dear lady," she said, In the name of your mother, take heart! Lift your head, For those blushes are noble. Alas ! do not trust To that maxim of virtue made ashes and dust, That the fault of the husband can cancel the wife's. Take heart ! and take refuge and strength in your life's Pure silence, there, kneel, pray, and hope, weep, and wait ! " " Saved, Lucile ! " sobb'd Matilda, " but saved to what fate? Tears, prayers, yes! not hopes." " Hush ! " the sweet voice replied. " Fool'd away by a fancy, again to your side Must your husband return. Doubt not this. And return For the love you can give, with the love that you yearn To receive, lady. What was it chill'd you both now? Not the absence of love, but the ignorance how Love is nourish'd by love. Well ! henceforth you will prove Your heart worthy of love, since it knows how to love." XIII. " What gives you such power over me, that I feel Thus drawn to obey you ? What are you, Lucile ? " Sigh'd Matilda, and lifted her eyes to the face Of Lucile. LUCILE, 245 There pass'd suddenly through it the trace Of deep sadness ; and o'er that fair forehead came down A shadow which yet was too sweet for a frown. " The pupil of sorrow, perchance," . . . she re- plied. " Of sorrow?" Matilda exclaim'd . . . " O confide To my heart your affliction. In all you made known I should find some instruction, no doubt, for my own!" " And I some consolation, no doubt ; for the tears Of another have not flow'd for me many years." It was then that Matilda herself seized the hand Of Lucile in her own, and uplifted her; and Thus together they enter'd the house. XIV. ,-, Twas the room Of Matilda. The languid and delicate gloom Of a lamp of pure white alabaster, aloft From the ceiling suspended, around it slept soft. The casement oped into the garden. The pale Cool moonlight stream'd through it. One lone nightingale Sung aloof in the laurels. And here, side by side, Hand in hand, the two women sat down undescried, Save by guardian angels. As when, sparkling yet From the rain, that, with drops that are jewels, leaves wet ^ 246 LUCILE. The bright head it humbles, a young rose inclines To some pale lily near it, the fair vision shines As one flower with two faces, in hush'd, tearful speech, Like the showery whispers of flowers, each to each Link'd, and leaning together, so loving, so fair, So united, yet diverse, the two women there Look'd, indeed, like two flowers upon one droop- ing stem, In the soft light that tenderly rested on them. All that soul said to soul in that chamber, who knows ? All that heart gain'd from heart ? Leave the lily, the rose, Undisturb'd with their secret within them. For who To the heart of the floweret can follow the dew? A night full of stars ! O'er the silence, unseen, The footsteps of sentinel angels between The dark land and deep sky were moving. You heard Pass'd from earth up to heaven the happy watch- word Which brighten'd the stars as amongst them it fell From earth's heart, which it eased ..." All is well ! all is well ! " LUCILE. 247 CANTO IV. I. THE Poets pour wine; and, when 'tis new, all decry it; , But, once let it be old, every trifler must try it. And Polonius, who praises no wine that's not Massic, Complains of my verse, that my verse is not classic. And Miss Tilburina, who sings, and not badly, My earlier verses, sighs " Commonplace sadly ! " As for you, O Polonius, you vex me but slightly ; But you, Tilburina, your eyes beam so brightly In despite of their languishing looks, on my word, That to see you look cross I can scarcely afford. Yes ! the silliest woman that smiles on a bard Better far than Longinus himself can reward The appeal to her feelings of which she approves ; And the critics I most care to please are the Loves. Alas, friend ! what boots it, a stone at his head And a brass on his breast, when a man is once dead? Ay ! were fame the sole guerdon, poor guerdon were then Theirs who, stripping life bare, stand forth models for men. 248 LUCILE. The reformer's? a creed by posterity learnt A century after its author is burnt ! The poet's? a laurel that hides the bald brow It hath blighted! The painter's? ask Raphael now Which Madonna's authentic ! The statesman's? a name For parties to blacken, or boys to declaim ! The soldier's? three lines on the cold Abbey pavement ! Were this all the life of the wise and the brave meant, All it ends in, thrice better, Neaera, it were Unregarded to sport with thine odorous hair, Untroubled to lie at thy feet in the shade And be loved, while the roses yet bloom overhead, Than to sit by the lone hearth, and think the long thought, A severe, sad, blind schoolmaster, envied for naught Save the name of John Milton ! For all men, in- deed, Who in some choice edition may graciously read, With fair illustration, and erudite note, The song which the poet in bitterness wrote, Beat the poet, and notably beat him, in this The joy of the genius is theirs, whilst they miss The grief of the man: Tasso's song not his madness ! Dante's dreams not his waking to exile and sadness ! LUCJLE. 249 Milton's music but not Milton's blindness ! . . . Yet rise, My Milton, and answer, with those noble eyes Which the glory of heaven hath blinded to earth ! Say the life, in the living it, savors of worth : That the deed, in the doing it, reaches its aim : That the fact has a value apart from the fame : That a deeper delight, in the mere labor, pays Scorn of lesser delights, and laborious days : And Shakespeare, though all Shakespeare's writ- ings were lost, And his genius, though never a trace of it cross'd Posterity's path, not the less would have dwelt In the isle with Miranda, with Hamlet have felt All that Hamlet hath uttered, and haply where, pure On its death-bed, wrong'd Love lay, have moan'd with the Moor ! n. When Lord Alfred that night to the salon return'd He found it deserted. The lamp dimly burn'd As though half out of humor to find itself there Forced to light for no purpose a room that was bare. He sat down by the window alone. Never yet Did the heavens a lovelier evening beget Since Latona's bright childbed that bore the new moon ! The dark world lay still, in a sort of sweet swoon, Wide open to heaven ; and the stars on the stream Were trembling like eyes that are loved on the dream 250 LUCILE. Of a lover ; and all things were glad and at rest Save the unquiet heart in his own troubled breast. He endeavor'd to think an unwonted employ- ment, Which appeared to afford him no sort of enjoyment. in. " Withdraw into yourself. But, if peace you seek there for, Your reception, beforehand, be sure to prepare for," Wrote the tutor of Nero ; who wrote, be it said, Better far than he acted but peace to the dead ! He bled for his pupil : what more could he do ? But Lord Alfred, when into himself he withdrew, Found all there in disorder. For more than an hour He sat with his head droop'd like some stubborn flower Beaten down by the rush of the rain with such force Did the thick, gushing thoughts hold upon him the course Of their sudden descent, rapid, rushing, and dim, From the cloud that had darken'd the evening for him. At one moment he rose rose and open'd the door, And wistfully look'd down the dark corridor Toward the room of Matilda. Anon, with a sigh Of an incomplete purpose, he crept quietly Back again to his place in a sort of submission To doubt, and returned to his former position, LUCILE. 251 That loose fall of the arms, that dull droop of the face, And the eye vaguely fix'd on impalpable space. The dream, which till then had been lulling his life, As once Circe the winds, had seal'd thought ; and his wife And his home for a time he had quite, like Ulysses, Forgotten ; but now 'o'er the troubled abysses Of the spirit within him, aeolian, forth leapt To their freedom new-found, and resistlessly swept All his heart into tumult, the thoughts which had been Long pent up in their mystic recesses unseen. IV. How long he thus sat there, himself he knew not, Till he started, as though he were suddenly shot, To the sound of a voice too familiar to doubt, Which was making some noise in the passage with- out. A sound English voice, with a round English accent, Which the scared German echoes resentfully back sent; The complaint of a much disappointed cab-driver Mingled with it, demanding some ultimate stiver; Then, the heavy and hurried approach of a boot Which reveal'd by its sound no diminutive foot : And the door was flung suddenly open, and on The threshold Lord Alfred by bachelor John Was seized in that sort of affectionate rage or 252 LUCILE. Frenzy of hugs which some stout Ursa Major On some lean Ursa Minor would doubtless besto\v With a warmth for which only starvation and snow Could render one grateful. As soon as he could, Lord Alfred contrived to escape, nor be food Any more for those somewhat voracious embraces. Then the two men sat down and scann'd each other's faces : And Alfred could see that his cousin was taken With unwonted emotion. The hand that had shaken His own trembled somewhat. In truth he descried, At a glance, something wrong. v. " What's the matter ? " he cried. " What have you to tell me? " JOHN. What ! have you not heard? ALFRED. Heard what? JOHN. This sad business ALFRED. I ? no, not a word. JOHN. You received my last letter? LUC1LE. 253 ALFRED. I think so. If not, What then ? JOHN. You have acted upon it? ALFRED. On what? , JOHN. The advice that I gave you ALFRED. Advice ? let me see ? You always are giving advice, Jack, to me. About Parliament, was it? JOHN. Hang Parliament! no, The Bank, the Bank, Alfred ! ALFRED. What Bank? JOHN. Heavens ! I know Vou are careless ; but surely you have not for- gotten, Or neglected ... I warn'd you the whole thing was rotten. You have drawn those deposits at least? 254 LUCILE. ALFRED. No, I meant To have written to-day ; but the note shall be sent To-morrow, however. JOHN. To-morrow ? too late ! Too late! oh, what devil bewitch'd you to wait? ALFRED. Mercy save us ! you don't mean to say . . . JOHN. Yes, I do. ALFRED. What ! Sir Ridley ? . . . JOHN. Smash'd, broken, blown up, bolted too r ALFRED. But his own niece ? ... In Heaven's name, Jack . . JOHN. Oh, I told you The old hypocritical scoundrel would . . . ALFRED. Hold ! you Surely can't mean we are ruin'd? LUCILE. 255 JOHN. Sit down ! A fortnight ago a report about town Made me most apprehensive. Alas, and alas! I at once wrote and warn'd you. Well, now let that pass. A run on the Bank about five days ago Confirm'd my forebodings too terribly, though. I drove do.wn to the oity at once ; found the door Of the Bank close : the Bank had stopp'd payment at four. Next morning the failure was known to be fraud : Warrant out for McNab : but McNab was abroad : Gone we cannot tell where. I endeavor'd to get Information : have learn'd nothing certain as yet Not even the way that old Ridley was gone : Or with those securities what he had done : Or whether they had been already call'd out : If they are not, their fate is, I fear, past a doubt. Twenty families ruin'd, they say : what was left, Unable to find any clew to the cleft The old fox ran to earth in, but join you as fast As I could, my dear Alfred ? * * These events, it is needless to say, Mr. Morse, Took place when Bad News as yet travell'd by horse ; Ere the world, like a cockchafer, buzz'd on a wire, Or Time was calcined by electrical fire ; Ere a cable went under the hoary Atlantic, Or the word Telegram drove grammarians frantic. 2 56 LUCILE. VI. He stopp'd here, aghast At the change in his cousin, the hue of whose face Had grown livid ; and glassy his eyes fix'd on space. " Courage, courage ! " . . . said John, ..." bear the blow like a man ! " And he caught the cold hand of Lord Alfred. There ran Through that hand a quick tremor. " I bear it," he said, " But Matilda? the blow is to her ! " And his head Seem'd forced down, as he said it. JOHN. Matilda ? Pooh, pooh ! I half think I know the girl better than you. She has courage enough and to spare. She cares less Than most women for luxury, nonsense, and dress. ALFRED. The fault has been mine. JOHN. Be it yours to repair it: If you did not avert, you may help her to bear it ALFRED. J might have averted. LUCILE. 257 JOHN. Perhaps so. But now There Is clearly no use in considering how, Or whence, came the mischief. The mischief is here. Broken shins are not mended by crying that's clear ! One has but to rub them, and get up again, And push on and notthink too much of the pain. And at least it is much that you see that to her You owe too much to think of yourself. You must stir And arouse yourself, Alfred, for her sake. Who knows ? Something yet may be saved from this wreck. I suppose We shall make him disgorge all he can, at the least. " O Jack, I have been a brute idiot ! a beast ! A fool ! I have sinn'd, and to her I have sinn'd ! I have been heedless, blind, inexcusably blind ! And now, in a flash, I see all things ! " As though To shut out the vision, he bow'd his head low On his hands ; and the great tears in silence roll'd on And fell momently, heavily, one after one. John felt no desire to find instant relief For the trouble he witness'd. He guess'd, in the grief Of his cousin, the broken and heartfelt admission Of some error demanding a heartfelt contrition : 258 LUCILE. Some oblivion perchance which could plead less excuse To the heart of a man re-aroused to the use Of the conscience God gave him, than simply and merely The neglect for which now he was paying so dearly. So he rose without speaking, and paced up and down The long room, much afflicted, indeed, in his own Cordial heart for Matilda. Thus, silently lost In his anxious reflections, he cross'd and re-cross'd The place where his cousin yet hopelessly hung O'er the table ; his fingers entwisted among The rich curls they were knotting and dragging : and there, That sound of all sounds the most painful to hear, The sobs of a man ! Yet so far in his own Kindly thoughts was he plunged, he already had grown Unconscious of Alfred. And so for a space There was silence between them. VII. At last, with sad face He stopp'd short, and bent on his cousin awhile A pain'd sort of wistful, compassionate smile, Approach'd him, stood o'er him, and suddenly laid One hand on his shoulder " Where is she ? " he said. LUC1LE. 259? Alfred lifted his face all disfigured with tears And gazed vacantly at him, like one that appears In some foreign language to hear himself greeted, Unable to answer. " Where is she ? " repeated His cousin. He motion'd his hand to the door; " There, I think," 'he replied. Cousin John saidi no mere, And appear'd to relapse to his own cogitations, Of which not a gesture vouchsafed indications. So again there was silence. A timepiece at last Struck the twelve strokes of midnight. Roused by them, he cast A half-look to the dial ; then quietly threw His arm round the neck of his cosiiin, and drew The hands down from his face. " It is time she should know What has happen'd," he said, ..." let us go to. her now." Alfred started at once to his feet. Drawn and wan. Though his face, he look'd more than his wont was a man. Strong for once, in his weakness. Uplifted, fill'd through With a manly resolve. If that axiom be true Of the " Sum quid cogito" I must opine That " id sum quod cogito : " that which, in fine, 260 LUCILE. A man thinks and feels, with his whole force of thought And feeling, the man is himself. He had fought With himself, and rose up from his self-overthrow The survivor of much which th at strife h ad laid low. At his feet, as he rose at the name of his wife, Lay in ruins the brilliant unrealized life Which, though yet unfulfill'd, seem'd till then, in that name, To be his, had he claim'd it. The man's dream of fame And of power fell shatter'd before him ; and only There rested the heart of the woman, so lonely In all save the love he could give her. The lord Of that heart he arose. Blush not, Muse, to record That his first thought, and last, at that moment was not Of the power and fame that seemed lost to his lot, But the love that was left to it ; not of the pelf He had cared for, yet squander'd ; and not of him- self, But of her ; as he murmur'd, " One moment, dear Jack ! We have grown up from boyhood together. Our track Has been through the same meadows in child- hood : in youth Through the same silent gateways, to manhood. In truth, LUCILE. 261 There is none that can know me as you do ; and none To whom I more wish to believe myself known. Speak the truth ; you are not wont to mince it, I know. Nor I, shall I shirk it, or shrink from it now. In despite of a wanton behavior, in spite Of vanity, folly, and pride, Jack, which might Have turn'd from me many a heart strong and true As your own, I have never turn'd round and miss'd YOU From my side in one hour of affliction or doubt By my own blind and heedless self-will brought about. Tell me truth. Do I owe this alone to the sake Of those old recollections of boyhood that make In your heart yet some clinging and crying appeal From a judgment more harsh, which I cannot but 'feel Might have sentenced our friendship to death long ago? Or is it ... (I would I could deem it were so !) That, not all overlaid by a listless exterior, Your heart has divined in me something superior To that which I seem ; from my innermost nature Not wholly expell'd by the world's usurpature ? Some instinct of earnestness, truth, or desire For truth ? Some one spark of the soul's native fire Moving under the ashes, and cinders, and dust Which life hath heap'd o'er it ? Some one fact to trust 262 LUCILE. And to hope in ? Or by you alone am I deem'd The mere frivolous fool I so often have seem'd To my own self ? JOHN. No, Alfred ! you will, I believe, Be true, at the last, to what now makes you grieve For having belied your true nature so long. Necessity is a stern teacher. Be strong ! " Do you think," he resumed, ..." what I feel while I speak Is no more than a transient emotion, as weak -As these weak tears would seem to betoken it ? " JOHN. No! ALFRED. Thank you, cousin ! your hand, then. And now I will go -Alone Jack. Trust to me. VIII. JOHN. I do. But 'tis late. If she sleeps, you'll not wake her? ALFRED. No, no ! it will wait (Poor infant ! ) too surely, this mission of sorrow ; If she sleeps, I will not mar her dreams of to- morrow. LUCILE. 263 He open'd the door, and pass'd out. Cousin John Watch'd him wistful, and left him to seek her alone. IX. His heart beat so loud when he knock'd at her door, He could hear no reply from within. Yet once more He knock'd lightly. No answer. The handle he tried : The door open'd : he enter'd the room undescried. x. No brighter than is that dim circlet of light Which enhaloes the moon when rains form on the night, The pale lamp an indistinct radiance shed Round the chamber, in which at her pure snowy bed Matilda was kneeling; so wrapt in deep prayer That she knew not her husband stood watching her there. With the lamplight the moonlight had mingled a faint And unearthly effulgence which seem'd to acquaint The whole place with a sense of deep peace made secure By the presence of something angelic and pure. And not purer some angel Grief carves o'er the tomb 264 LUCILE. Where Love lies, than the lady that kneel'd in that gloom. She had put off her dress ; and she look'd to his eyes Like a young soul escaped from its earthly disguise ; Her fair neck and innocent shoulders were bare, And over them rippled her soft golden hair ; Her simple and slender white bodice unlaced Confined not one curve of her delicate waist. As the light that, from water reflected, forever, Trembles up through the tremulous reeds of a river, So the beam of her beauty went trembling in him, Through the thoughts it suffused with a sense soft and dim. Reproducing itself in the broken and bright Lapse and pulse of a million emotions. That sight Bow'd his heart, bow'd his knee. Knowing scarce what he did, To her side through the chamber he silently slid, And knelt down beside her and pray'd at her side. XI. Upstarting, she then for the first time descried That her husband was near her; suffused with the blush Which came o'er her soft pallid cheek with a gush Where the tears sparkled yet. As a young fawn uncouches, Shy with fear from the fern where some hunter approaches, LUCILE. 265 She shrank back ; he caught her, and circling his arm Round her waist, on her brow press'd one kiss long and warm. Then her fear changed in impulse ; and hiding her face On his breast, she hung lock'd in a clinging em- brace With her soft arms wound heavily round him, as though She fear'd, if their clasp was relaxed, he would go : Her smooth, naked shoulders, uncared for, con- vulsed By sob after sob, while her bosom yet pulsed In its pressure on his, as the effort within it Lived and died with each tender tumultuous min- ute. " O Alfred, O Alfred ! forgive me," she cried * Forgive me ! " " Forgive you, my poor child ! " he sigh'd ; But I never have blamed you for aught that I know, And I have not one thought that reproaches you now." From her arms he unwound himself gently. And so He forced her down softly beside him. Below The canopy shading their couch, they sat down. And he said, clasping firmly her hand in his own, "When a proud man, Matilda, has found out at length, 266 LUCILE. That he is but a child in the midst of his strength, But a fool in his wisdom, to whom can he own The weakness which thus to himself hath been shown ? From whom seek the strength which his need of is sore, Although in his pride he might perish, before He could plead for the one, or the other avow 'Mid his intimate friends? Wife of mine, tell me now, Do you join me in feeling, in that darken'd hour, The sole friend that can have the right or the power To be at his side, is the woman that shares His fale, if he falter ; the woman that bears The name dear for her sake, and hallows the life She has mingled her own with, in short, that man's wife ? " Yes," murmur'd Matilda, " O yes ! " " Then," he cried, " This chamber in which we two sit, side by side, (And his arm, as he spoke, seem'd more softly to press her), Is now a confessional ~you, my confessor ! " " I ? " she falter'd, an read From the dame who had care of Constance (it was. one To whom, when at Paris, the boy had been known, A Frenchman, and friend of the Faubourg), which said That Constance, although never a murmur be- tray'd LUCILE. What she suffer'd, in silence grew paler each day, And seem'd visibly drooping and dying away. It was then he sought death. XVII. Thus the tale ends. 'Twas told With such broken, passionate words, as unfold In glimpses alone, a coil'd grief. Through each pause Of its fitful recital, in raw gusty flaws, The rain shook the canvas, unheeded ; aloof, And unheeded, the night-wind around the tent-roof At intervals wirbled. And when all was said, The sick man, exhausted, droop'd backward his. head, And fell into a feverish slumber. Long while Sat the Soeur Seraphine, in deep thought. The still smile That was wont, angel-wise, to inhabit her face And make it like heaven, was fled from its place In her eyes, on her lips ; and a deep sadness there Seem'd to darken the lines of long sorrow and care, As low to herself she sigh'd . . . " Hath it, Eugene, Been so long, then, the struggle? . . . and yet, all in vain ! Nay, not all in vain ! Shall the world gain a man, And yet Heaven lose a soul ? Have I done all I can? Soul to soul, did he say? Soul to soul, be it so ! j And then soul of mine, whither? whither? " LUCILE. 321 xviir. Large, slow. Silent tears in those deep eyes ascended, and fell. " Here, at least, I have fail'd not "... she mused ..." this is well ! " She drew from her bosom two letters. In one, A mother's heart, wild with alarm for her son, Breathed bitterly forth its despairing appeal. "The pledge of a love'owed to thee, O Lucile! The hope of a home saved by thee of a heart Which hath never since then (thrice endear'd as thou art ! ) Ceased to bless thee, to pray for thee, save ! . . . save my son ! And if not "... the letter went brckenly on, " Heaven help us! " Then follow'd from Alfred, a few Blotted heart-broken pages. He mournfully drew, With pathos, the picture of that earnest youth, So unlike his own ; how in beauty and truth He had nurtured that nature, so simple and brave ! And how he had striven his son's youth to save From the errors so sadly redeem'd in his own, And so deeply repented : how thus, in that son, In whose youth he had garnered his age, he had seem'd To be blessed by a pledge that the past was re- deem'd And forgiven. He bitterly went on to speak 322 LUCILL. Of the boy's baffled love ; in which fate seem'd to break Unawares on his dreams with retributive pain, And the ghosts of the past rose to scourge back again The hopes of the future. To sue for consent Pride forbade : and the hope his old foe might relent Experience rejected ..." My life for the boy's ! " (He exclaim'd) ; " for I die with my son, if he dies I Lucile ! Heaven bless you for all you have done ! Save him, save him, Lucile ! save my son ! save my son ! " XIX. ' Ay ! " murmur'd the Soeur Seraphine ..." heart to heart ! There, at least, I have fail'd not ! Fulfill'd is my part? Accomplish'd my mission? One act crowns the whole. Do I linger ? Nay, be it so, then ! . . . Soul to soul! " She knelt down, and pray'd. Still the boy slum- ber'd on, Dawn broke. The pale nun from the bedside was gone. XX. Meanwhile, 'mid his aides-de-camp, busily bent O'er the daily reports in his well-order'd tent There sits a French General bronzed by the sun And sear'd by the sands of Algeria. One LUCILE, 323 Who forth from the wars of the wild Kabylee Had strangely and rapidly risen to be The idol, the darling, the dream and the star Of the younger French chivalry ; daring in war, And wary in council. He enter'd, indeed, Late in life (and discarding his Bourbonite creed) The Army of France : and had risen, in part From a singular aptitude proved for the art Of that wild desert warfare of ambush, surprise, And stratagem, which to the French camp supplies Its subtlest intelligence ; partly from chance ; Partly, too, from a name and position which Franc* Was proud to put forward ; but mainly, in fact, From the prudence to plan, and the daring to act, In frequent emergencies startlingly shown, To the rank which he now held, intrepidly won With many a wound, trench'd in many a scar, From fierce Milianah and Sidi-Sakhdar. XXI. All within and without, that warm tent seems to bear Smiling token of provident order and care. All about, a well-fed, well-clad soldiery stands In groups round the music of mirth-breathing bands. In and out of the tent, all day long, to and fro, The messengers come and the messengers go, Upon missions of mercy, or errands of toil : To report how the sapper contends with the soil In the terrible trench, how the sick man is faring 324 LUCILE. In the hospital tent: and, combining, comparing. Constructing, within moves the brain of one man. Moving all. He is bending his brow o'er some plan For the hospital service, wise, skilful, humane. The officer standing behind him is fain To refer to the angel solicitous cares Of the Sisters of Charity : one he declares To be known through the camp as a seraph of grace; He has seen, all have seen her indeed, in each place Where suffering is seen, silent, active the Sceur . . . Sceur . . . how do they call her ? " Ay, truly, of her I have heard much," the General, musing, replies; " And we owe her already (unless rumor lies) The lives of not few of our bravest. You mean . . . Ay, how do they call her? . . . the Soeur Seraphine (Is it not so?). I rarely forget names once heard." "Yes; the Soeur Seraphine. Her I meant." " On my word, I have much wish'd to see her. I fancy I trace, In some facts traced to her, something more than the grace Of an angel; I mean an acute human mind, Ingenious, constructive, intelligent. Find LUCILE, 325 And if possible, let her come to me. We shall, I think, aid each other." " Out, man Gtntral : I believe she has lately obtained the permission To tend some sick man in the Second Division Of our Ally : they say a relation." " Ay, so ? A relation ? " " 'T.is said so." " The name do you know ? " "A^, mon GJnfral." While they spoke yet, there went A murmur and stir round the door of the tent. " A Sister of Charity craves, in a case Of urgent and serious importance, the grace Of brief private speech with the General there. Will the General speak with her?" " Bid her declare Her mission." " She will not. She craves to be seen And be heard." "Well, her name, then?" " The Sosur Seraphine." " Clear the tent. She may enter." XXII. The tent has been clear'd, The chieftain stroked moodily somewhat his beard, A sable long silver'd : and press'd down his brow On his hand, heavy vein'd. All his countenance, now 326 LUCILE. Unwitness'd, at once fell dejected, and dreary, As a curtain let fall by a hand that's grown weary, Into puckers and folds. From his lips, unrepress'd, Steals th' impatient sigh which reveals in man's breast A conflict conceal'd, and experience at strife With itself, the vex'd heart's passing protest on life. He turn'd to his papers. He heard the light tread Of a faint foot behind him : and, lifting his head, Said, " Sit, Holy Sister ! your worth is well known To the hearts of our soldiers ; nor less to my own. I have much wish'd to see you. I owe you some thanks ; In the name of all those you have saved to our ranks I record them. Sit! Now then, your mission?" The nun Paused silent. The General eyed her anon More keenly. His aspect grew troubled. A change Darken'd over his features. He mutter'd . . . " Strange ! strange ! Any face should so strongly remind me of her ! Fool ! again the delirium, the dream ! does it stir ? Does it move as of old ? Psha ! " Sit, Sister ! I wait Your answer, my time halts but hurriedly. State The cause why you seek me." " The cause ? ay, the cause ! " She vaguely repeated. Then, after a pause, As one who, awaJ"*d unawares, would put back LUCILE. 327 The sleep that forever returns in the track Of dreams which, though scared and dispersed, not the less Settle back to faint eyelids that yield 'neath their stress, Like doves to a penthouse, a movement she made, Less toward him than away from herself ; droop'd hep head And folded her hands on her bosom : long, spare, Fatigued, mournful hands ! Not a stream of stray hair Escaped the pale bands ; scarce more pale than the face Which they bound and lock'd up in a rigid white case. She fix'd her eyes on him. There crept a vague awe O'er his sense, such as ghosts cast. " Eugene de Luvois, The cause which recalls me again to your side Is a promise that rests unfulfill'd," she replied. I come to fulfil it." He sprang from the place Where he sat, press'd his hand, as in doubt, o'er his face ; And, cautiously feeling each step o'er the ground That he trod on (as one who walks fearing the sound Of his footstep may startle and scare out of sight Some strange sleeping creature on which he would 'light 328 LUCILE. Unawares), crept towards her ; one heavy hand laid On her shoulder in silence; bent o'er her his head, Search'd her face with a long look of troubled appeal Against doubt : stagger'd backward, and murmur'd ..." Lucille ? Thus we meet, then? . . . here ! . . . thus?" " Soul to soul, ay, Eugene, As I pledged you my word that we should meet again. Dead," . . . she murmur'd, " long dead ! all that lived in our lives Thine and mine saving that which ev'n life's self survives, The soul ! 'Tis my soul seeks thine own. What may reach From my life to thy life (so wide each from each ! ) Save the soul to the soul ? To thy soul I would speak. May I do so? " He said (work'd and white was his cheek As he raised it), " Speak to me ! " Deep, tender, serene, And sad was the gaze which the Sceur Seraphine Held on him. She spoke. XXIII. As some minstrel may fling, Preluding the music yet mute in each string, A swift hand athwart the hush'd heart of the whole, " A clear, chilly chime from a church turret broke. LUCILE. 329 Seeking which note most fitly must first move the soul ; And, leaving untroubled the deep chords below, Move pathetic in numbers remote ; even so The voice which was moving the heart of that man Far away from its yet voiceless purpose began, Far away in the pathos remote of the past ; Until, through her words, rose before him at last,. Bright and dark in' their beauty, the hopes that were gone Unaccomplished from life. He was mute. XXIV. She went oa And still further down the dim past did she lead Each yielding remembrance, far, far off, to feed 'Mid the pleasures of youth, in the twilight of hope,. And the valleys of boyhood, the fresh-flower'd slope Of life's dawning land ! 'Tis the heart of a boy, With its indistinct passionate prescience of joy ! The unproved desire the unaim'd aspiration The deep conscious life that forestalls consumma- tion With ever a flitting delight one arm's length In advance of the august inward impulse. The strength Of the spirit which troubles the seed in the sand With the birth of the palm-tree ! Let ages expand The glorious creature ! The ages lie shut 330 LUCILE. (Safe, see ! ) in the seed, at time's signal to put Forth their beauty and power, leaf by leaf, layer on layer, Till the palm strikes the sun, and stands broad in blue air. So the palm in the palm-seed ! so, slowly so, wrought Year by year unperceived, hope on hope, thought by thought, Trace the growth of the man from its germ in the boy. Ah, but Nature, that nurtures, may also destroy ! Charm the wind and the sun, lest some chance in- tervene ! While the leaf's in the bud, while the stem's in the green, A light bird bends the branch, a light breeze breaks the bough, Which, if spared by the light breeze, the light bird, may grow To baffle the tempest, and rock the high nest, And take both the bird and the breeze to its breast. Shall we save a whole forest in sparing one seed ? Save the man in the boy ? in the thought save the deed ? Let the whirlwind uproot the grown tree, if it can ! Save the seed from the north wind. So let the grown man Face our fate. Spare the man-seed in youth. He was dumb. She went one step further. LUCILE. 331 XXV. Lo ! manhood is come. And love, the wild song-bird, hath flown to the tree. And the whirlwind comes after. Now prove we, and see : What shade from the leaf? what support from the branch ? Spreads the leaf br&ad and fair? holds the bough strong and staunch ? There, he saw himself dark, as he stood on that night, The last when they met and they parted : a sight For heaven to mourn o'er, for hell to rejoice ! An ineffable tenderness troubled her voice ; It grew weak, and a sigh broke it through. Then he said (Never looking at her, never lifting his head, As though, at his feet, there lay visibly hurl'd Those fragments), " It was not a love, 'twas a world, 'Twas a life that lay ruin'd, Lucile ! " XXVI. She went on, ** So be it ! Perish Babel, arise Babylon ! From ruins like these rise the fanes that shall last, And to build up the future heaven shatters the past." " Ay," he moodily murmur'd, and who cares to scan The heart's perish'd world, if the world gains a man? 332 LUCILE. From the past to the present, though late, I appeal ; To the nun Seraphine, from the woman Lucile ! " XXVII. Lucile ! . . . the old name the old self ! silenced long: Heard once more ! felt once more ! As some soul to the throng Of invisible spirits admitted, baptized By death to a new name and nature surprised 'Mid the songs of the seraphs, hears faintly, and far, Some voice from the earth, left below a dim star, Calling to her forlornly ; and (sadd'ning the psalms Of the angels, and piercing the Paradise palms !) The name borne 'mid earthly beloveds on earth Sigh'd above some lone grave in the land of her birth ; So that one word . . . Lucile ! . . . stirr'd the Sceur Seraphine, For a moment. Anon she resumed her serene And concentrated calm. " Let the Nun, then, retrace The life of the soldier ! " . . . she said, with a face That glow'd, gladdening her words. " To the present I come : Leave the Past ! " There her voice rose, and seem'd as when some Pale Priestess proclaims from her temple the praise Of her hero whose brows she is crowning with bays. LUCILE. 333 Step by step did she follow his path from the place Where their two paths diverged. Year by year did she trace (Familiar with all) his, the soldier's existence. Her words were of trial, endurance, resistance ; Of the leaguer around this besieged world of ours : And the same sentinels that ascend the same towers And report the same foes, the same fears, the same strife, , Waged alike to the limits of each human life. She went on to speak of the lone moody lord, Shut up in his lone moody halls : every word Held the weight of a tear: she recorded the good He had patiently wrought through a whole neigh- borhood ; And the blessing that lived on the lips of the poor, By the peasant's hearthstone, or the cottager's door. There she paused: and her accents seem'd dipp'd in the hue Of his own sombre heart, as the picture she drew Of the poor, proud, sad spirit, rejecting love's wages, Yet working love's work ; reading backward life's pages For penance ; and stubbornly, many a time, Both missing the moral, and marring the rhyme. Then she spoke of the soldier ! . . . the man's work and fame, The pride of a nation, a world's just acclaim ! Life's inward approval ! 334 LUCILE. XXVIII. Her voice reach'd his heart, And sank lower. She spoke of herself : how, apart And unseen, far away, she had watch'd, year by year, With how many a blessing, how many a tear, And how many a prayer, every stage in the strife : Guessed the thought in the deed : traced the love in the life : Bless'd the man in the man's work ! " Thy work . . . oh, not mine ! Thine, Lucile ! "... he exclaim'd ..." all the worth of it thine, If worth there be in it ! " Her answer convey'd His reward, and her own : joy that cannot be said Alone by the voice . . . eyes face spoke silently : All the woman, one grateful emotion! And she A poor Sister of Charity ! hers a life spent In one silent effort for others ! . . . She bent Her divine face above him, and fill'd up his heart With the look that glow'd from it. Then slow, with soft art, Fix'd her aim, and moved to it. XXIX. He, the soldier humane, He, the hero ; whose heart hid in glory the pain LUCILE. 335 Of a youth disappointed; whose life had made known The value of man's life ! . . . that youth over- thrown And retrieved, had it left him no pity for youth In another? his own life of strenuous truth Accomplish'd in act, had it taught him no care For the life of another ? . . . oh, no ! everywhere In the camp which she moved through, she came face to face With some noble token, some generous trace Of his active humanity . . . Well," he replied, " If it be so ? " " I come from the solemn bedside Of a man that is dying," she said. " While we speak, A life is in jeopardy." " Quick then ! you seek Aid or medicine, or what?" " 'Tis not needed," she said. " Medicine ? yes, for the mind ! 'Tis a heart that needs aid! You, Eugene de Luvois, you (and you only) can Save the life of this man. Will you save it ? " " What man ? How? . . . where? . . . can you ask?" She went rapidly on To her object in brief, vivid words . . . The young son Of Matilda and Alfred the boy lying there 336 LUCILE. Half a mile from that tent door the father's de- spair, The mother's deep anguish the pride of the boy In the father the father's one hope and one joy In the son: the son now wounded, dying! She told Of the father's stern struggle with life : the boy's bold, Pure and beautiful nature : the fair life before him If that life were but spared . . . yet a word might restore him ! The boy's broken love for the niece of Eugene ! Its pathos : the girl's love for him ; how, half slain In his tent, she had found him : won from him the tale; Sought to nurse back his life ; found her efforts still fail ; Beaten back by a love that was stronger than life ; Of how bravely till then he had stood in that strife Wherein England and France in their best blood, at last, Had bathed from remembrance the wounds of the past. And shall nations be nobler than men ? Are not great Men the models of nations? For what is a state But the many's confused imitation of one ? Shall he, the fair hero of France, on the son Of his ally seek vengeance, destroying perchance An innocent life, here, when England and France LUCILE. 337 Have forgiven the sins of their fathers of yore, And baptized a new hope in their sons' recent gore ? She went on to tell how the boy had clung still To life, for the sake of life's uses, until From his weak hand the strong effort dropp'd, stricken down By the news that the heart of Constance, like his own, Was breaking beneath . . . But there " Hold ! " he exclaim'd, Interrupting, "forbear!" . . . his whole face was inflamed With the heart's swarthy thunder which yet, while she spoke, Had been gathering silent at last the storm broke In grief or in wrath . . . "Tis to him, then," he cried, . . . Checking suddenly short the tumultuous stride, " That I owe these late greetings for him you are here For his sake you seek me for him, It is clear, You have deign'd at the last to bethink you again Of this long-forgotten existence ! " " Eugene ! " " Ha ! fool that I was ! "... he went on, . . . " and just now, While you spoke yet, my heart was beginning to grow Almost boyish again, almost sure of one friend ! Yet this was the meaning of all this the end! 338 LUCILE. Be it so ! There's a sort of slow justice (admit ! ) In this that the word that man's finger hath writ In fire on my heart, I return him at last. Let him learn that word Never ! " " Ah, still to the past Must the present be vassal?" she said. " In the hour We last parted I urged you to put forth the power Which I felt to be yours, in the conquest of life. Yours, the promise to strive : mine to watch o'er the strife. I foresaw you would conquer ; you have conquer'd much, Much, indeed, that is noble ! I hail it as such, And am here to record and applaud it. I saw Not the less in your nature, Eugene de Luvois, One peril one point where I feared you would fail To subdue that worst foe which a man can assail, Himself: and I promised that, if I should see My champion once falter, or bend the brave knee, That moment would bring me again to his side. That moment is come ! for that peril was pride, And you falter. I plead for yourself, and an- other, For that gentle child without father or mother, To whom you are both. I plead, soldier of France, For your own nobler nature and plead for Cons- tance ! " At the sound of that name he averted his head. LUCILE. 339 " Constance ! . . . Ay, she enter'd my lone life " (he said) " When its sun was long set ; and hung over its night Her own starry childhood. I have but that light, In the midst of much darkness ! Who names me but she With titles of love ? And what rests there for me In the silence of age save the voice of that child ? The child of my own better life, undefiled ! My creature, carved out of my heart of hearts ! " " Say," Said the Soeur Seraphine " are you able to lay Your hand as a knight on your heart as a man And swear that, whatever may happen, you can Feel assured for the life you thus cherish ? " "How so?" He look'd up. " If the boy should die thus ? " " Yes, I know What your look would imply . . . this sleek stranger forsooth ! Because on his cheek was the red rose of youth The heart of my niece must break for it ? " She cried, " Nay, but hear me yet further ! " With slow heavy stride, Unheeding her words, he was pacing the tent, He was muttering low to himself as he went. " Ay, these young things lie safe in our heart just so long As their wings are in growing ; and when these are strong 340 LUCILE. They break it, and farewell ! the bird flies ! " . . . The nun Laid her hand on the soldier, and murmur'd, " The sun Is descending, life fleets while we talk thus ! oh, yet Let this day upon one final victory set, And complete a life's conquest ! " He said, " Understand ! If Constance wed the son of this man, by whose hand My heart hath been robbed, she is lost to my life ! Can her home be my home ? Can I claim in the wife Of that man's son the child of my age ? At her side Shall he stand on my hearth ? Shall I sue to the bride Of . . . enough ! " Ah, and you immemorial halls Of my Norman forefathers, whose shadow yet falls On my fancy, and fuses hope, memory, past, Present, all, in one silence ! old trees to the blast Of the North Sea repeating the tale of old days, Nevermore, nevermore in the wild bosky ways Shall I hear through your umbrage ancestral the wind Prophesy as of yore, when it shook the deep mind Of my boyhood, with whispers from out the far years Of love, fame, the raptures life cools down with tears ! Henceforth shall the tread of a Vargrave alone Rouse your echoes ? " LUCILE. 341 " O think not," she said, " of the son Of the man whom unjustly you hate ; only think Of this young human creature, that cries from the brink Of a grave to your mercy ! " Recall your own words (Words my memory mournfully ever records ! ) How with love may be wreck'd a whole life ! then, Eugene, Look with me (still those words in our ears ! ) once again At this young soldier sinking from life here dragg'd down By the weight of the love in his heart : no renown, No fame comforts him ! nations shout not above The lone grave down to which he is bearing the love Which life has rejected! Will you stand apart? You, with such a love's memory deep in your heart ! You the hero, whose life hath perchance been led on Through the deeds it hath wrought to the fame it hath won, By recalling the visions and dreams of a youth, Such as lies at your door now : who have but, in truth, To stretch forth a hand, to speak only one word, And by that word you rescue a life ! " He was stirr'd. Still he sought to put from him the cup, bow'd his face On his hand; and anon, as though wishing to chase With one angry gesture his own thoughts aside, 342 LUCILE. He sprang up, brush'd past her, and bitterly cried, ** No ! Constance wed a Vargrave ! I cannot consent ! " Then up rose the Soeur Seraphine. The low tent In her sudden uprising, seem'd dwarf 'd by the height From which those imperial eyes pour'd the light Of their deep silent sadness upon him. No wonder He felt, as it were, his own statue shrink under The compulsion of that grave regard ! For between The Due de Luvois and the Soeur Seraphine At that moment there rose all the height of one soul O'er another; she look'd down on him from the whole Lonely length of a life. There were sad nights and days, There were long months and years in that heart- searching gaze ; And her voice, when she spoke, with sharp pathos thrill'd through And transfix'd him. " Eugene de Luvois, but for you, I might have been now not this wandering nun, But a mother, a wife pleading, not for the son Of another, but blessing some child of my own, His, the man's that I once loved! . . . Hush! that which is done I regret not. I breathe no reproaches. That's best Which. God sends. 'Twas his will : it is mine. And the rest LUCILE. 343 Of that riddle I will not look back to. He reads In your heart He that judges of all thoughts and deeds. With eyes, mine forestall not ! This only I say : You have not the right (read it, you, as you may ! ) To say . . . ' I am the wrong'd.' " " Have I wrong'd thee? wrong'd thee /" He falter'd, " Lucile, ah, Lucile ! " " Nay, not me," She murmur'd, " but man ! The lone nun standing here Has no claim upon earth, and is pass'd from the sphere Of earth's wrongs and earth's reparations. But she, The dead woman, Lucile, she whose grave is in me, Demands from her grave reparation to man, Reparation to God. Heed, O heed, while you can, This voice from the grave ! " " Hush ! " he moan'd, " I obey The Sosur Seraphine. There, Lucile ! let this pay Every debt that is due to that grave. Now lead on : I follow you, Sceur Seraphine ! . . . To the son Of Lord Alfred Vargrave . . . and then," . . . As he spoke He lifted the tent-door, and down the dun smoke Pointed out the dark bastions, with batteries crown'd, Of the city beneath them . . . " Then, there, underground, And valete et plaudite, soon as may be ! Let the old tree go down to the earth the old tree 344 LUCILE. With the worm at its heart ! Lay the axe to the root ! Who will miss the old stump, so we save the young shoot ? A Vargrave ! . . . this pays all . . . Lead on! . . . In the seed Save the forest! . . . I follow . . . forth, forth ! where you lead." XXX. The day was declining : a day sick and damp. In a blank ghostly glare shone the bleak ghostly camp Of the English. Alone in his dim, spectral tent (Himself the wan spectre of youth), with eyes bent On the daylight departing, the sick man was sitting Upon his low pallet. These thoughts, vaguely flit- ting, Cross'd the silence between him and death, which seem'd near, " Pain o'erreaches itself, so is balk'd ! else, how bear This intense and intolerable solitude, With its eye on my heart and its hand on my blood ? Pulse by pulse ! Day goes down : yet she comes not again. Other suffering,doubtles& ; where hope is more plain, Claims her elsewhere. I die, strange ! and scarcely feel sad. Oh, to think of Constance thus, and not to go ' LUCILE. 345: But Death, it would seem, dulls the sense to his own Dull doings . . ." XXXI. Between those sick eyes and the sum A shadow fell thwart. XXXII. 'Tis the pale nun once more ! But who stands at her side, mute and dark in the door ? How oft had he watch'd through the glory and; gloom Of the battle, with long, longing looks, that dim- plume Which now (one stray sunbeam upon it) shook, stoop'd To where the tent-curtain, dividing was loop'd ! How that stern face had haunted and hover'd* about The dreams it still scared ! through what fond fear and doubt Had the boy yearn'd in heart to the hero. (What's like A boy's love for some famous man ? ) . . . Oh, to strike A wild path through the battle, down striking per- chance Some rash foeman too near the great soldier of. France, 346 LUCILE. And so fall in his glorious regard ! . . . Oft, how oft, Had his heart flashed this hope out, whilst watch- ing aloft The dim battle that plume dance and dart never seen So near till this moment ! how eager to glean Every stray word, dropp'd through the camp-babble in praise Of his hero each tale of old venturous days In the desert ! And now . . . could he speak out his heart Face to face with the man ere he died ! XXXIII. With a start The sick soldier sprang up : the blood sprang up in him, To his throat, and o'erthrew him : he reel'd back : a dim Sanguine haze fill'd his eyes ; in his ears rose the din And rush, as of cataracts loosen'd within, Through which he saw faintly, and heard, the pale nun (Looking larger than life, where she stood in the sun) Point to him and murmur, " Behold ! " Then that plume Seem'd to wave like a fire, and fade off in the gloom Which momently put out the world. LUCILE. 347 XXXIV. To his side Moved the man the boy dreaded yet loved . . . " Ah ! "... he sigh'd, " The smooth brow, the fair Vargrave face ! and those eyes, All the mother's ! The old things again ! " Do not rise. You suffer, young man ? " THE BOY. Sir, I die. THE DUKE. Not so young ! THE BOY. So young ? yes ! and yet I have tangled among The fray'd warp and woof of this brief life of mine Other lives than my own. Could my death but un- twine The vext skein . . . but it will not. Yes, Duke, young so young ! And I knew you not ? yet I have done you a wrong Irreparable ! . . . late, too late to repair. If I knew any means . . . but I know none ! . . . I swear, If this broken fraction of time could extend Into infinite lives of atonement, no end Would seem too remote for my grief (could that be!) To include it ! Not too late, however, for me To entreat : is it too late for you to forgive ? 348 LUC1LE. THE DUKE. You wrong my forgiveness explain. THE BOY. Could I live t Such a very few hours left to life, yet I shrink, I falter . . . Yes, Duke, your forgiveness I think Should free my soul hence. Ah ! you could not surmise That a boy's beating heart, burning thoughts, long- ing eyes Were following you evermore (heeded not ! ) While the battle was flowing between us : nor what Eager, dubious footsteps at nightfall oft went With the wind and the rain, round and round your blind tent, Persistent and wild as the wind and the rain, Unnoticed as these, weak as these, and as vain 1 Oh, how obdurate then look'd your tent ! The waste air Grew stern at the gleam which said ..." Off ! he is there ! " I know not what merciful mystery now Brings you here, whence the man whom you see lying low Other footsteps (not those ! ) must soon bear to the grave. But death is at hand, and the few words I have Yet to speak, I must speak them at once. Duke, I swear, As I lie here, (Death's angel too close not to hear ! ) LUCILE. That I meant not this wrong to you. Due de Luvois, I loved your niece loved? why, I love her ! I saw, And, seeing, how could I but love her ? I seem'd Born to love her. Alas, were that all ! Had I dream'd Of this love's cruel consequence as it rests now Ever fearfully present before me, I vow That the "secret, unknown, had gone down to the tomb Into which I descend . . . Oh why, whilst there was room In life left for warning, had no one the heart To warn me ? Had any one whisper'd ..." De- part ! " To the hope the whole world seem'd in league then to nurse ! Had any one hinted ..." Beware of the curse Which is coming ! " There was not a voice raised to tell, Not a hand moved to warn from the blow ere it fell, And then . . . then the blow fell on both / This is why I implore you to pardon that great injury Wrought on her, and, through her, wrought on you. Heaven knows How unwittingly ! THE DUKE. Ah ! . . . and, young soldier, suppose That 1 came here to seek, not grant, pardon ? 350 LUCILE. THE BOY. Of whom ? THE DUKE. Of yourself. THE BOY. Duke, I bear in my heart to the tomb No boyish resentment ; not one lonely thought That honors you not. In all this there is naught, 'Tis for me to forgive. Every glorious act Of your great life starts forward, an eloquent fact, To confirm in my boy's heart its faith in your own And have I not hoarded, to ponder upon, A hundred great acts from your life ? Nay, all these, Were they so many lying and false witnesses, Does there rest not one voice which was never untrue ? I believe in Constance, Duke, as she does in you ! In this great world around us, wherever we turn, Some grief irremediable we discern ; And yet there sits God, calm in Heaven above \ Do we trust one whit less in his justice or love ? I judge not. THE DUKE. Enough ! Hear at last, then, the truth Your father and I foes we were in our youth. It matters not why. Yet thus much understand : The hope of my youth was sign'd out by his hand. I was not of those whom the buffets of fate Tame and teach ; and my heart buried slain love in hate. LUCILE. 351 If your own frank young heart, yet unconscious of all Which turns the heart's blood in its springtide to gall, And unable to guess even aught that the furrow Across these gray brows hides of sin or of sorrow. Comprehends not the evil and grief of my life, 'Twill at least comprehend how intense was the strife Which is dosed in this act of atonement, whereby I seek in the son of my youth's enemy The friend of my age. Let the present release Here acquitted the past ! In the name of my niece, Whom for my life in yours as a hostage I give, Are you great enough, boy, to forgive me, and live? Whilst he spoke thus, a doubtful tumultuous joy Chased its fleeting effects o'er the face of the boy : As when some stormy moon, in a long cloud con- fined, Struggles outward through shadows, the varying wind Alternates, and bursts, self-surprised, from her prison, So that slow joy grew clear in his face. He had risen To answer the Duke ; but strength fail'd every limb ; A strange, happy feebleness trembled through him. .'352 LUCILE. With a faint cry of rapturous wonder, he sank On the breast of the nun, who stood near. " Yes, boy ! thank This guardian angel," the Duke said. " I you, 'We owe all to her. Crown her work. Live ! be true 'To your young life's fair promise, and live for her sake ! " "Yes, Duke: I will live. I must live live to make My whole life the answer you claim," the boy said, '" For joy does not kill ! " Back again the faint head Declined on the nun's gentle bosom. She saw His lips quiver, and motion'd the Duke to withdraw -And leave them a moment together. He eyed 'Them both with a wistful regard ; turn'd and sigh'd, -And lifted the tent-door, and pass'd from the tent. XXXV. Like a furnace, the fervid, intense Occident From its hot seething levels a great glare struck up On the sick metal sky. And, as out of a cup Some witch watches boiling wild portents arise, Monstrous clouds, mass'd, misshapen, and ting'd with strange dyes, Hover'd over the red fume, and changed to weird shapes LUCILE. 353 As of snakes, salamanders, efts, lizards, storks, apes, Chimeras, and hydras: whilst ever the same In the midst of all these (creatures fused by his flame, And changed by his influence!) changeless, as when, Ere he lit down to death generations of men, O'er that crude and ungainly creation, which there With wild shapes this cloud-world seem'd to mimic in air, The eye of Heaven's all-judging witness, he shone, And shall shine on the ages we reach not the sun ! XXXVI. Nature posted her parable thus in the skies, And the man's heart bore witness. Life's vapors arise And fall, pass and change, group themselves and revolve Round the great central life, which is love : these dissolve And resume themselves, here assume beauty, there terror ; And the phantasmagoria of infinite error, And endless complexity, lasts but a while ; Life's self, the immortal, immutable smile Of God, on the soul in the deep heart of Heaven Lives changeless, unchanged : and our morning and even Are earth's alternations, not Heaven's. 354 LUCILE. XXXVII. While he yet Watched the skies with this thought in his heart; while he set Thus unconsciously all his life forth in his mind, Summ'd it up, search'd it out, proved it vapor and wind, And embraced the new life which that hour had reveal'd, Love's life, which earth's life had defaced and con- ceal'd ; Lucile left the tent and stood by him. Her tread Aroused him ; and, turning towards her, he said : " O Sceur Seraphine, are you happy ? " " Eugene, What is happier than to have hoped not in vain ? " She answer'd, " And you ? " "Yes." " You do not repent ? " No." " Thank Heaven ! " she murmur'd. He musingly bent His looks on the sunset, and somewhat apart Where he stood, sigh'd, as though to his inner- most heart, " O bless'd are they, amongst whom I was not, Whose morning unclouded, without stain or spot, Predicts a pure evening ; who, sunlike, in light Have traversed, unsullied, the w^rld, and set bright ! " LUCILE. 355 But she in response, " Mark yon ship far away, Asleep on the wave, in the last light of day, With all its hush'd thunders shut up ! Would you know A thought which came to me a few days ago, Whilst watching those ships ? . . . When the great Ship of Life Surviving, though shatter'd, the tumult and strife Of earth's angry element, masts broken short, Docks drench'd, bulwarks beaten drives safe into port ; When the Pilot of Galilee, seen on the strand, Stretches over the waters a welcoming hand ; When, heeding no longer the sea's baffled roar, The mariner turns to his rest evermore ; What will then be the answer the helmsman must give? Will it be . . , ' Lo our log-book ! Thus once did we live In the zones of the South ; thus we traversed the seas Of the Orient ; there dwelt with the Hesperides ; Thence follow'd the west wind ; here, eastward we turn'd ; The stars fail'd us there ; just here land we dis- cern' d On our lee ; there the storm overtook us at last ; That day went the bowsprit, the next day the mast ; There the mermen came round us, and there we- saw bask A siren ? ' The Captain of Port will he ask 35 6 LUCILE. Any one of such questions ? I cannot think so ! But . . . ' What is the last Bill of Health you can show ? ' Not How fared the soul through the trials she pass'd ? But What is the state of that soul at the last ? " "" May it be so ! " he sigh'd. " There the sun drops, behold ! " And indeed, whilst he spoke all the purple and gold In the west had turn'd ashen, save one fading strip Of light that yet gleam'd from the dark nether lip Of a long reef of cloud : and o'er sullen ravines And ridges the raw damps were hanging white screens Of melancholy mist. " Nimc dimittis ? " she said. " O God of the living ! whilst yet 'mid the dead And the dying we stand here alive, and thy days Returning, admit space for prayer and for praise, In both these confirm us ! "The helmsman, Eugene, Needs the compass to steer by. Pray always. Again We two part ; each to work out Heaven's will : you, I trust, In the world's ample witness ; and I, as I must, In secret and silence : you, love, fame, await ; Me, sorrow and sickness. We meet at one gate When all's over. The ways they are many and wide, And seldom are two ways the same. Side by side LUCILE. 357 May we stand at the same little door when all's done ! The ways they are many, the end it is one. He that knocketh shall enter: who asks shall obtain : And who seeketh, he findeth. Remember, Eu- gene ! " She turn'd to depart. "Whither? whither?" . . . he said. She stretch'd forth her hand where, already out- spread On the darken'd horizon, remotely they saw The French camp-fires kindling. " See yonder vast host, with its manifold heart Made as one man's by one hope ! The hope 'tis your part To aid towards achievement, to save from reverse : Mine, through suffering to sooth, and through sickness to nurse. I go to my work : you to yours." XXXVIII. Whilst she spoke, On the wide wasting evening there distantly broke The low roll of musketry. Straightway, anon, From the dim Flag-staff Battery bellow'd a gun. " Our chasseurs are at it ! " he mutter'd. She turn'd, Smiled, and pass'd up the twilight. He faintly discern'd Her form, now and then, on the flat lurid sky 358 LUCILE. Rise, and sink, and recede through the mists : by and by The vapors closed round, and he saw her no more. XXXIX. Nor shall we. For her mission, accomplish'd, is o'er. The mission of genius on earth ! To uplift, Purify, and confirm by its own gracious gift, The world, in despite of the world's dull endeavor To degrade, and drag down, and oppose it for- ever. The mission of genius : to watch, and to wait, To renew, to redeem, and to regenerate. The mission of woman on earth ! to give birth To the mercy of Heaven descending on earth. The mission of woman : permitted to bruise The head of the serpent, and sweetly infuse, Through the sorrow and sin of earth's register'd curse, The blessing which mitigates all : born to nurse, And to soothe, and to solace, to help and to heal The sick world that leans on her. This was Lucile. XL. A power hid in pathos ; a fere veil'd in cloud : Yet still burning outward : a branch which, thougL bow'd By a bird in its passage, sprihgs upward gain : Through all symbols I search for her swettness -^ in vain ! LUCILE. 359 Judge her love by her life. For our life is but love In act. Pure was hers: and the dear God above, Who knows what His creatures have need of for life, And whose love includes all loves, through much patient strife Led her soul into peace. Love, though love may be given In vain, is yet lovely. Her own native heaven More clearly, she mirror'd, as life's troubled dream Wore away ; and love sigh'd into rest, like a stream That breaks its heart over wild rocks toward the shore Of the great sea which hushes it up evermore With its little wild wailing. No stream from its source Flows seaward, how lonely soever its course, But what some land is gladden'd. No star ever rose And set, without influence somewhere. Who knows What earth needs from earth's lowest creature ? No life Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife And all life not be purer and stronger thereby. The spirits of just men made perfect on high, The army of martyrs who stand by the Throne And gaze into the face that makes glorious their own, Know this, surely, at last. Honest love, honest sorrow, 360 LUCILE. Honest work for the day, honest hope for the morrow, Are these worth nothing more than the hand they make weary, The heart they have sadden'd, the life they leave dreary ? Hush ! the sevenhold heavens to the voice of the Spirit Echo : He that o'ercometh shall all things inherit XLL The moon was, in fire, carried up through the fog; The loud fortress bark'd at her like a chained dog. The horizon pulsed flame, the air sound. AH without, War and winter, and twilight, and terror, and doubt ; All within, light, warmth, calm ! In the twilight, longwhile Eugene de Luvois with a deep, thoughtful smile Linger'd, looking, and listening, lone by the tent. At last ne withdrew, and night closed as he went UV/dB LIBKAKT X- from which it was borrowed. ''Vy " ___