A   - ) I 
 
 
 J:f 
 
 K..--^ 
 
 
B E R '^ ^ L F Y>i 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UN.'VERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNlAy' 
 
 l> 
 
GERALDINE 
 
 A SOUVENIR OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 Cbe S^itur^iDe pres^, CamlinDfle 
 i8q2 
 
Copyright, 1881, 
 By JAMES R. OSGOOD S5 CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Company. 
 

 STo (But 
 
 715 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Yeabs ago I resolved to write a romance in the style 
 of verse which follows. I chose this style as specially 
 well adapted to a wide variety of expression, and be- 
 cause at that time, so far as I knew, no author had 
 employed it at such length and for such purpose. 
 "When it was similarly made use of by an English 
 poet, at a date much more recent than my resolve, his 
 poem's popularity confirmed my choice as wise ; but I 
 have refrained persistently from reading that poem, or 
 hearing it read, or in any way learning of its character, 
 spirit, and scope, lest unconsciously I might borrow of 
 its style or thought. Having now taken leave, as far 
 as probably I ever can, of my own " Geraldine,** I shall 
 devote the earliest leisure accorded me to beix*ming 
 acquainted with Owen Meredith's " Lucile." 
 
GERALDINE. 
 
 There is something of poetry bom in us each, 
 Though in many, perhaps, it is born without speech, — 
 An existence but dumb and uncertain, that strives 
 For expression in vain through the whole of their lives ; 
 That is glad when the spring wears its beautiful smile, 
 Ajid is sad when all nature to tears would beguile ; 
 That can feel in the summer a glory divine 
 Thrilling on through the days in their silvery shine ; 
 That can drink in delight in its radiance rare 
 When the mellow-hued autumn breathes peace like a 
 
 prayer ; 
 That can weep with the world m its woe of to-day, 
 And to-morrow take part in its merriest play ; 
 That can stand on the mountain-tops often, and see 
 \yhere the far-away gardens of paradise be ; 
 That can sound with its plummet of feeling the deeps 
 Where despair in the darkness of destiny sleeps ; 
 That can feel, and can be, yet can never express 
 All the feeling and being its life may possess, 
 
8 QEBALDINE. 
 
 But that yearns with a yearning no poet e'c* knew 
 \n its silence of years for the speech of the few. 
 
 He was barely a poet, this friend of my verse, 
 
 Though the singers not seldom at measure are worse, 
 
 And at rhyme ; for his ear was so delicate strung 
 
 That it caught the clear music, whatever was sung. 
 
 And was deaf to all discord, or listened as one 
 
 For whom time of tormenting had early begun : 
 
 He was less than a poet, if poetry means 
 
 To bewilder the senses with fanciful scenes ; 
 
 To envelop each thought with such mystery round 
 
 As to leave it a marvel of meaning profound ; 
 
 To make pretence of passion, and tragedy act 
 
 As if love were a lie, and all fiction were fact ; 
 
 To be chiefly unreal, yet ever to seem 
 
 As if always the real came dressed in a dream. 
 
 Yet men spoke of his poems with praise, though they said 
 
 " He is playing at verse," as delighted they read : 
 
 ^' He was meant for a poet in earnest, but waits 
 
 For a storm-flood of feeling to open the gates 
 
 Of his soul, till the song that is hidden shall rise 
 
 Over hearts that are hushed with a sudden surprise.*' 
 
 It is true that he took to occasional rhymes 
 With an art that was rather instinctive at times : 
 You might call it a genius ; but what, in the test, 
 U a genius for doing, but doing it best? 
 
OERALDINE. » 
 
 And although at poetic expression he caught 
 Half the grace of a poet, and added the thought 
 And the sentiment often, and many could praise 
 With a flattery honest his lyrics and lays, 
 He was not at his best in this work of his pen ; 
 For his speech was a power to move upon men : 
 And he held that the work of his life was to speak 
 As he might for the right, be it humble and weak ; 
 And his words were unfaltering, fearless, and strong 
 In the ears of the world in complaint of the wrong. 
 He was better at prose than at verse ; for he made 
 Every sentence to cut like the stroke of a blade 
 Never dull : he was quick to discover the sense 
 Of all sophistries subtle ; and every pretence 
 He would riddle and scathe with an irony bom 
 Of his genuine honor, his marvellous scorn. 
 
 They had faith in his future, who frequently heard 
 His defence of the true ringing out till it stirred 
 Every heart to keen sympathy. But, as for him, 
 It was little he thought of the years that were dim 
 In the distance ahead. He was living to-day 
 With its needs and its gifts; and no cynic could 
 
 say 
 He was laggard of life. Full abreast of the hour 
 Did he keep, never sparing of work or of power. 
 He was spendthrift of being, without any heed 
 For the want of the morrow, its duty or need. 
 
10 GERALBINE. 
 
 *'Let the future take care of itself," was his thought: 
 " If I care for the present, as every man ought, 
 Do the work of a man with the will of a man, 
 "lis enough." 
 
 So he made neither purpose nor plan 
 For the future : he held no ambitious desire 
 To mount up on his deed to a deed that was higher. 
 No ideal he worshipped, of work or reward. 
 As if he were a servant, and labor his lord, 
 He would do every task that before him was set 
 With his might, and the wages of work would forget 
 In the pleasure of work, never counting it vain 
 That he wearied his body, and wasted his brain, 
 Without recompense fit ; since instinctive he knew 
 That the best compensation for service most true 
 '^'=j but had in the seizing ; that wages are small, 
 Be they measureless even, if wages are all. 
 
 Yet he wondered sometimes, in a curious way. 
 How to-morrow would differ in work from to-day ; 
 What its spirit would be ; what its impulse and scope ; 
 What its faith and its feeling, its heart and its hope : 
 And so wondering often, he stood, as it seemed. 
 At the door of a duty of which he had dreamed 
 In some dream of great doing, — a something so broac? 
 That it reached from his hand to the hand of his God, 
 Taking in by its infinite measure and span 
 The upholding of truth, the uplifting of man, 
 
GERALBINE. 11 
 
 In espo al degree ; but lie shrank as with fear 
 From th . possible future, unsought and too near. 
 He was conscious that on in the years he would find 
 More of life than might add to the peace of his mind ; 
 Y'et so vaguely he felt it, so faint did it seem, 
 That he counted his consciousness only a dream, 
 And gave heed to it rarely. 
 
 One evening he wrote 
 In such mood to the friend of his heart, — just a note, 
 When the veil of his vision half lifted to show 
 A few glimpses beyond : — 
 
 " That you love me, I know; 
 That I love you, my darling, you feel just as sure. 
 And that both of our loves to the end will endure. 
 But the end? I am here face to face with the dread 
 That in pathways unlooked for my feet must be led ; 
 That your life and my own are to drift far apart 
 As the true from the false. There's a cry in my heart 
 Df regret and dismay ; f jr you measure the sum 
 Of my wishes and wants, and your love has become 
 The one thing of my craving, — none other so sweet 
 And so strong and so helpful. None other could meet 
 Just the need of my soul as you meet it. I feel 
 That you feel this and know it ; and I should conceal 
 Such a fancy as here I have named, but that you 
 Have a faith that is strong, and a heart that is true, 
 4jid will say I am morbid, and need but your kiss 
 To return me the hope and the cheer that I miss. 
 
12 OEBALDINE: 
 
 *' I have told you before of the fancy I hold, 
 That my work is to be by some duty controlled 
 Which I may not discover till years have gone by ; 
 And perhaps through some wilds of experience I 
 Must pass in to my clear field of labor. My way 
 Has been sunny and bright all along till to-day ; 
 Bat I know, as I know that I live, that there are 
 Heights and depths in my nature transcending by far 
 All that yet I have measured. No gift is for nought, 
 Be it even to suffer ; and sorrow unsought 
 May bear fruit that is sweet from the bitterest seed. 
 You will see where this logic must certainly lead : 
 Any gift is for ultimate use. We may wait 
 All unknowing, unheeding, capacity great 
 To enjoy or to suffer ; dead levels of life 
 May reach onward before us ; the wearying strife 
 Of the days may go on without increase or rest ; 
 We may seem of but commonplace being possessed, 
 With its commonplace ends to be met : but in time 
 To some great height of gladness we sudden ms^ 
 
 climb, 
 Or go down to some valley of grief, where the dark 
 Never knows a sun's rising or song of a lark 
 Singing straight into heaven, or amid all the din 
 Of the e very-day battle some peace may begin. 
 Like the silence of God in its regal content, 
 Till we learn what the lesson of yesterday meant. 
 
GERALDINE, 18 
 
 " But forgive me, my darling, for hinting of tears 
 
 Ln the possible future. What comes with the years 
 
 We'll accept as we may, never dreaming of pain 
 
 In the present ; believing God's morrows are gain, \ ^Z^^u 
 
 Be they cloudy or bright, let them hold what they will 
 
 We are wedded to life, if for good or for ill, / 
 
 Or for better or worse ; and its issues must be ' 
 
 As is best and is wisest for you and for me, 
 
 If to-day we are faithful and trustful and true. 
 
 And so love me, my darling, as 1 must love you." 
 
14 QSSALDINS. 
 
 n. 
 
 *' SnAXL we go and hear Trent to-night, Bell, at the 
 Hall?'' 
 
 Major Mellen was making his afternoon call 
 On the witty and beautiful Isabel Lee, 
 Whom so often in leisure he dropped in to see. 
 They were cousins, by kin or by common consent : 
 If the former, 'twas distant. 
 
 " You've heard about Trent? " 
 
 ** He who wrote that sweet thing in the last magazine. 
 Which you read me one night, — ' In my Passion 
 Serene'?" 
 
 " Yes, the same. We were friends, he and I, long ago, 
 As I told you, I think. He's a man you should know, — . 
 Can talk poetry, prose, metaphysics, or sing 
 His own songs to you even, with pathos to bring 
 The quick tears to your cheek. He has sentiment strong 
 As you'll see by and by, when you weep at his song ; 
 But reform is his hobby : he'll go for the Right 
 With a capital R, in his lecture to-night ; 
 
GERALDINE. 16 
 
 And they say as a speaker his powers are rare — 
 I've not heard him in years. But, good coz, have a cai*e ! 
 He's engaged to a lovely brunette, with dark hair 
 And pmk cheeks, like yourself : were her beauty but 
 
 blonde, 
 You might win him away with the contrast." 
 
 ''Beyond 
 Any question he's safe, my dear major. The man 
 Who can sing of a passion serene, as he can, 
 Must have little of passion to stir. I'm afraid 
 That your paragon wouldn't just suit me, — too staid 
 And too deep. His philosophy matches not mine ; 
 For love isn't as water. You sip it like wine. 
 And grow giddy and wild with the tasting. His words, 
 As you read them, were sweet as the singing of birds ; 
 But I lilvc not his faith." And her finely cut face 
 Had a look that was puzzling. The very least trace 
 Of surprise had the major's. 
 
 '' You do not suppose," 
 He remarked, " that the rhyme of a verse-maker showa 
 His true feeling ? You never would take him to task 
 For philosophy, sentiment, worn as a mask 
 To conceal what is under? A woman will veil 
 What she feels in expression each lover must fail 
 To unriddle ; and poets are privileged, too. 
 As to much that they say, if not all that they do, 
 If a poet pretend to write out of his heart, 
 It is mainly pretence ; and the very best art 
 
16 GEBALDINE. 
 
 That he has is in making men weep while he grieves 
 Over fiction he never one moment believes, 
 But they swallow as fact.*' 
 
 She looked up at him then 
 With a smile that he read as a sort of amen. 
 
 ' ' And so be it, what then ? * ' he continued. ' ' Why, this : 
 All the woes of a poet are idle ; his bliss 
 Never blisters the paper he pours out his life on ; 
 His pen's not a patent, particular siphon 
 To run off the liquid of love, in his verse, 
 From his soul. If ecstatic, he's simply unreal : 
 His sonnets of love are to something ideal. 
 As the love that he sings." 
 
 " You are bitter, now, majoi • 
 Sarcastic and bitter and foolish. I'll wager 
 You once took to sonnets yourself, when more callow. 
 Don't let any talent you've buried lie fallow ; 
 Turn poet again, since the trick of deceit 
 You have learned (if the sum of all poetry sweet 
 Be pretence) , which a poet must practise, and cover 
 Your faith and your feeling when you are a lover." 
 
 She laughed, — just a ripple of music from lips 
 That too often put pearly white teeth in eclipse ; 
 And he echoed her mirth rather languidly. 
 
 ''WeU, 
 I ip certain I never plied you, Madame Bell, 
 
GERALBINE. 17 
 
 With my sonnets," he parried ; '' and no other glances 
 
 Than yours could allure me to making advances 
 
 Afoot or on Pegasus then, I'll not say 
 
 By the light of whose look and whose smile 1 might stray 
 
 From my loyalty now. I confess I am grown 
 
 Rather fickle to love and to truth, as is known 
 
 To the most of my friends." 
 
 And a smile half-sarcastic 
 Ran over his features so mobile and plastic. 
 *' But this fellow Trent, he's as true, on my soul, 
 As the needle, much boasted, is true to the pole ; 
 Not but that a bright woman like you, cousin dear, 
 With an iron heart in her, if coming too near. 
 Might attract him and win him, and hold him a while ; 
 But he'd turn by and by from her lessening smile 
 To his star in the north.'* 
 
 *' To his passion serene, 
 He would say, I suppose. That remains to be seen " — 
 
 "And be tested? Perhaps. You must hear hun to- 
 night. 
 And then let me present him. His theme may be trite ; 
 But he'll say what he says in so pleasing a diction, 
 You'll think to be fact, philosophical fiction 
 Che blankest, — at least for a little. No doubt, 
 When the ring of his words into silence dies out, 
 V'ou will question your faith, and will count it absuixi. 
 And be freed from it quite. But the song of a bird 
 
18 GERALDINE. 
 
 You believe when you hear it (though hs ply it sing 
 Of some hope whose fruition no morrow may bring) 
 For the music that's in it ; and Trent has a voice 
 That may even your sensitive hearing rejoice. 
 You will go if 1 call for you early? " 
 
 *'I*m free 
 To confess I would like this young poet to see, 
 Since you paint him so warmly. Invite him to sup 
 With us after the lecture. I'll brew him a cup 
 Of sweet compliments, if he deserve it, and learn 
 What he thirsts for the most from the world in return 
 For his gifts to the world, — whether praises or pence ; 
 Whether garlands of roses, or blossoms of sense ; 
 Whether wooing or worship. Your geniuses crave 
 Very much of their friends : you must serve them as slave 
 Or cajole them as equal, with flattery sweet 
 To their taste ; you must fawningly lie at their feet, 
 Or devotedly feed them with b(»nbons. The more 
 You bestow, will they ask. They're a terrible bore 
 To your patience, and make a most liberal drain 
 On your pity." 
 
 *' Be merciful. Bell ! It is plain 
 That you're jealous of genius. Such comments as those 
 [ must flatly resent." And he, laughing, arose. 
 '* For we should not be blamed, who are pets of the stara 
 And the heirs of the gods. Any failing that mars 
 Our strict beauty of life is a fault half divine." 
 An<l with playful assumption, and graceful incline 
 Of tlie head in adieu, lie departed. 
 
GERALDINE, 19 
 
 Her look 
 Of amusement departed as well, and she took 
 From the table a volume of verse that a friend 
 For her reading had lately been thoughtful to send, — • 
 A. collection of poems as varied in tone 
 As in merit. But one of its pages alone, 
 As she absently turned them, arrested her thought, — 
 A few stanzas of sentiment, common, but fraught 
 With a passionate longing some time to be met 
 In the hope of the poet. The name that was set 
 At the end caught her eye ere attention she lent 
 To the poem itself : it was Percival Trent; 
 And the title prefixed to the verse chanced to be 
 But suggestive of meaning. It ran : — 
 
 BY THE SEA. 
 
 I stood one day beside the sounding sea, 
 Amid a treeless waste of barren sand ; 
 
 The billowy breezes soft blew over me, 
 And wooed me sweetly with their kisses bland. 
 
 A subtle something lingered in their breath, 
 And charmed me long to glad f orgetfulness • 
 
 I thought no more of failure, pain, and death, 
 No more I dreaded weakness and distress. 
 
 Par, far away the glistening billows gleamed, 
 A-«plendor with the sunmier's silver light: 
 
20 GERALDINE. 
 
 And, looking seaward, blissfully I dreamed 
 Of balmy islands somewhere out of sight. 
 
 And fondly still, with kisses warm .Jid sweet, 
 The breezes wooed me to a calm content; 
 
 While ocean, sounding softly at my feet, 
 Its tuneful charm to the half-silence lent. 
 
 So with me ever, as I weary stand, 
 And look far out upon the waters wide, 
 
 I catch some hint, in all the breezes bland, 
 Of shady isles that somewhere yonder hide. 
 
 Where now I wait, a dreary waste may be, 
 With no green thing to glad my longing eyes: 
 
 Far, far before, across the sounding sea. 
 Are hid the balmy isles of Paradise. 
 
 As she read, her quick soul caught the cry of unrest 
 Welling up through the words, from a hungering breast 
 And went answering out : for she stood, as it seemed, 
 By a waste of wild water whose billows ne'er gleamed 
 With the light of a sail bringing gladness and peace ; 
 And she longed, with a longing that never might cease 
 Till she neared their glad haven of infinite calm 
 And content, for the Paradise Islands of Baim. 
 Could it be that across the wide deep, and beyond 
 All its possible shipwreck, there waited the fond 
 Wooing breezes of faith and of love ? Would they seen 
 To her ever as more than a vanishinor dream? 
 
GEBALDINE, 21 
 
 Would she find in their lingering kisses a quiet 
 From doubt and distrust that forever ran riot 
 Within her? Would hunger of heart, and the pain 
 Of unsatisfied want, and the wearisome reign 
 Of i egret, have an end? 
 
 So she questioned, and read 
 Yet again and again the brief stanzas that led 
 To a vision of loneliness dreary : — 
 
 A man 
 Standing there by the sea where the sand-reaches ran 
 To slip under its waves and be hidden from view ; 
 Far before him the shimmering billows of blue 
 Blending on with the tint of the sky ; not a sail 
 In the distance to hint of a cheer-giving hail ; 
 Not a bird flying over, with glint of its wings 
 To recall the sweet song that some dear singer sing8 .' 
 And behind him no hills with their glories of green, 
 And a ribbon of silver soft winding between ; 
 Only dull, level reaches of dry, barren sand 
 Sloping up from the sea, with no sign of the hand 
 Of a fellow in sight, not a house, nor a tree, 
 Only solitude, silence, and dreariness ; he. 
 With his hungering eyes, looking out on the main, 
 With a longing of soul like the passionate pain 
 Of a lover unloved, — looking out to behold 
 Far away in the future, whose billows have rolled 
 VVeary years at his feet, the fulfilment of life, 
 The incoming of love, like a peace after strife 
 
22 GERALBINE. 
 
 Of long lasting, the ultimate gladness of time 
 WJierc the gladness and peace are forever sublime. 
 
 Ycu may read all she read without seeing as much 
 A.S she saw : it may be that the delicate touch 
 Of her fancy is wanting ; the mood that was hers 
 May not move you with sensitive impulse that stirs 
 To each breath of expression ; no absolute need 
 May possess you, and hold you, till all that you read, 
 While you thrill in its holding, gives hint of reply 
 And revealing. The fact matters not. 
 
 By and by 
 She arose from her vision, came back to herself, 
 And the volume laid carelessly by on a shelf. 
 " It is idle," she thought, " to make pretence of woe 
 In this fashion. No rhymes of a verse-maker show 
 His true feeling: the major was right." And she 
 
 smiled. 
 " This new poet my sympathy quick has beguiled 
 Without any deserving. It may be he missed 
 For a moment the touch of some lips he had kissed 
 Long ago ; or it may be he felt but a blind. 
 Common craving for something beyond ; or his mind 
 May have taken the most of its dolorous tone 
 Biom a liver disordered ; or even my own 
 V^ital organs may suffer," — but, looking across 
 To the opposite mirror, she noted no loss 
 
GERALDINE. 28 
 
 Of the coior of health in her beautiful face, 
 And she laughed at the fanciful thought. 
 
 For the space 
 Of a half -hour she sat there alone in the room, 
 rill the shadows of twilight had gathered to gloom, 
 ^.n a reverie deep. The rare smile faded out, 
 Griving place to a look as of questioning doubt ; 
 And the eyes that had warmed many hearts with theii 
 
 glow 
 Had a tenderer light, as if tear-drops could flow 
 W"ithout warning. Again she was living the past, 
 "With no cloud of regret o*er its loveliness cast ; 
 But just ready to bloom were her roses of youth : 
 She had faith in herself, she believed in the truth. 
 She could trust in her kind. 
 
 To be true to the best 
 That is in us, nor falter nor fail in the test. 
 Let whatever may come, — this is measurement just 
 Of the sum ot our life ; to keep safely in trust 
 All the good that we have, and to answer at length 
 For our being and doing, the weakness or strength 
 Of our hope and our help in the varying strife, — 
 There is nothing beside in this problem of life. 
 
 Had she faltered and failed in the test we have named! 
 If she had, by the perfect alone be she blamed. 
 It is easy to falter and stumble and fall ; 
 But a pitif'il God is the Father of all. 
 
24 GEBALDINX. 
 
 m. 
 
 "My Own Geraldinb Hope, — 
 
 " It is far in the night 
 I5ut I'm wakeful and restless, and so I will write 
 A few words for your reading before I retire. 
 I have had a long evening, yet short. 
 
 "My desire 
 For an audience large and attentive was met ; 
 I have never faced one more inspmting yet. 
 When I rose to my feet, the same tremor possessed me, 
 The same idle terrors inthralled and oppressed me, 
 That often I feel in the face of a crowd ; 
 But they vanished, so soon as I, trembling, had bowed, 
 And had uttered a word. 
 
 "It is regal to stand 
 And to sway every will with a wave of your hand. 
 Or a shade of your voice. It is gladness supreme 
 To be thrilled for a time to the final extreme 
 Of your consciousness, through the quick tin-ill of yom 
 
 speecii, 
 And to know of a certainty strong that you reach 
 And take hold of the hearts of your hearers ; to feel 
 Their quick thrilling responsive ; to know they are lea. 
 To the kingship within you. 
 
GERALDINE. 25 
 
 '' The gift that is mine, 
 To a certain extent, is a dower divine, 
 And I shrink from its use, I confess, now and then. 
 It is such a grand mission, — to move upon men. 
 To determine their thought and their faith, to impel 
 Them to action, to guide and direct them, to tell 
 Where they miss the true path, where the pitfalls maj 
 
 wait. 
 To beget stronger love for the right, stronger hate 
 For the wrong. And, however we work, at the best 
 It is little we do that is well ; for the rest, 
 May we lightly be judged ! 
 
 ' ' I began to recite 
 The events of the evening. Pray pardon the flight 
 Of my pen in this manner. 
 
 " The lecture was long, 
 But was brief to my thinking. I found in the throng 
 Of intelligent faces a few like your own, — 
 Of the answering sort, that one seems to have known 
 A long time ; that respond to whatever you say 
 In a hearty and very encouraging way ; 
 That a speaker soon learns to pick out here and there, 
 And to give them, perhaps, an unduly large share 
 Of his special attention. He reads the effect 
 Of his argument in them ; he comes to expect 
 For his favorite thoughts recognition from these 
 That the mass may not give: it would seem that he 
 
 sees 
 
£6 GERALDINE, 
 
 Not the many who hear hun, but only the few 
 Who respond. 
 
 " By the side of a man whom 1 knew 
 Years ago was a face of this type (not a face 
 To be quickly forgotten when met) , with a grace 
 As of sorrow outgrown, but remembered, — a glow 
 Of unconscious expression illuming it so 
 As almost to transfigure it often. It had 
 A half -hungering look in repose, as if sad 
 Were the soul underneath it. 'Tis needless to add 
 'Twas a woman's, — a wife's or a widow's you'd guesa 
 Without reasoning why ; not because there is less 
 Of the sweetness of girlhood within it, but more 
 Of the woman's completeness of beauty. 
 
 ''Before 
 I had finished my lecture, I half comprehended 
 The secret hid under the face, and befriended 
 The womanly need, that so eagerly cried 
 In a speechless appeal to be soul-satisfied, 
 In ray thought. When the lecture had come to an end, 
 And the people were slowly departing, her friend 
 Major Mellen presented me to her. 
 
 "I've mentioned 
 The major, perhaps? He's a clever-intentioned. 
 Uncertain, erratic, and cynical man, 
 Wlio will ridicule always whatever he can ; 
 Wlio is recreant, either in word or in fact, 
 To all truth ; who can never make up what he lacked 
 
GERALDINE 527 
 
 A.8 a boy, when I knew him at first, — a true sense 
 Of respect for things holy ; who sees a pretence 
 In all earnestness, looks for deceit or a lie 
 In all candor, and laughs, with a tear in his eye, 
 At all sentiment sober ; a man whom I shrink 
 From at times, yet who often compels me to think 
 That I like him, so shrewd are his comments, so keen 
 Is the wit that he flashes. I never have seen 
 Any human enigma more puzzling than he, 
 And I'm glad you don't know him, my dear. 
 
 ''Mrs. Lee 
 Is a woman of wit and of rare repartee. 
 With a lightness of speech that quite often belies 
 The suggestion of sorrow that lurks in her eyes. 
 They insisted that I should go with them to supper, 
 (She lives, let me say, in the style of the Upper 
 Ten Thousand, who dine very late, and sit down 
 To their tea at a time when the rest of the town 
 Is asleep :) I accepted, in hopes that a walk 
 In the chilly night air, and the major's blight talk 
 For an hour afterward, would beguile me to sleep. 
 And the major was witty and droll, if not deep. 
 Making odd little turns of the points of my speech, 
 A.nd applying them oddly and keenly, till each 
 Of us laughed to the echo. 
 
 " The widow laughs well,- 
 (She's a widow, I know, though I couldn't quite tell 
 How I know it ;) has read the best anthers in prose 
 
28 GERALDINE. 
 
 And in poetry, current and classic, and knows 
 
 When to quote them and how, which is rather uncommon, 
 
 I*m tempted to say, nowadays, in a woman. 
 
 *' A right merry season we had at the table : 
 I know 'twould amuse you in turn, were I able 
 To write out the many bright things that were said. 
 But all wit loses sparkle and glow when it's read, 
 And I'm not very good, I confess, at repeating 
 The many hon mots that I hear at a meeting 
 Like this, of a few who have sharpened their wits 
 By long practice. 
 
 '' I fancy the god of mirth sits 
 With his soul in the shadow, just ready to weep ; 
 For so many I know, who in company keep ' 
 The whole roomful a-roar, are yet closest akin 
 To the pathos of being, and oft enter in 
 To the innermost temple of sorrow, where tears 
 Never gather and fall, and no grief of the years 
 Ever voices itself to the world. The great woe 
 Of a life (or I sometimes have reasoned it so) 
 May not be a great loss that it ever has known, 
 But a very great want that has silently grown 
 From an undefined need to the mastering strength 
 Of a hunger unfed, and that sways one at length 
 With an absolute will, — not a grief to be told 
 To a friend with a sigh, but to have and to hold 
 All unshared to the end. 
 
GEBALDINE, 29 
 
 " But enough of my fancies. 
 Tou'll come to believe that a hidden romance is 
 Beneath this new face I have met, if suggestion 
 Of son*ow be followed up thus. Beyond question 
 The woman has suffered, — a quite common case, 
 Very likely, though hers is an uncommon face ; 
 And it may be her life has known nothing of lack 
 But in losing. I've promised to call, going back 
 From the West, and may more of her history learn. 
 
 *' It is far in the night, and to sleep I must turn, 
 
 For my eyelids are heavy at last. May my dreams . 
 
 Be of you and your love ! Amid much that but seems ^/^ 
 
 WTiat it is not, I know that my darling is true 
 
 As the truth I believe and proclaim ; and to you 
 
 The umest of my heart ever turns for content : 
 
 So be tender and true to 
 
 *'Your 
 
 "Pkbcival Tbbmt.* 
 
30 GEBALDINX. 
 
 IV. 
 
 So he called, as he promised, again and again ; 
 
 And she met him with grace very charming. Few men 
 
 Ever failed to be won by the winning repose 
 
 Of her manner, to strong admiration. The close 
 
 Of each call came too soon. He would gladly have 
 
 staid 
 Even longer, although it is true he delayed 
 His departure to etiquette's limits extreme. 
 He had met many women ; had thought one supreme 
 O'er them all for her beauty, her sweetness, and grace i 
 But a charm quite elusive shone out of this face 
 That so puzzled his reading ; a winsomeness new 
 In its every expression his interest drew ; 
 And the touch of her hand as she bade him adieu 
 Was magnetic. 
 
 Their talk was of places and books 
 At the first. He had been in some half -hidden nooks 
 Of the world, and, describing their beauties, would 
 
 glow 
 With their memories rare. *Twas his fortune to know 
 Men and women who write what the rest of us read ; 
 And a word about books would so easily lead 
 
GERALDINE. 31 
 
 To some personal gossip, they finally fell 
 Into serious thought as to what the books tell 
 Of the life and the love of their authors. 
 
 " I doubt 
 If woman or man ever wrote much without 
 Weaving in their own story/* she said. *' I believe 
 In reality rather than fiction. Deceive 
 As some may the great public, who readily yield 
 To fictitious profession, there must be concealed 
 In each novel or poem that touches the heart, 
 And takes hold of the sympathies strongest, a part 
 Of the writer's own being and doing.*' 
 
 "I hold 
 To another opinion. The poet is bold 
 In his fancy ; the novelist free in the flight 
 Of imaginings many,** he answered with quite 
 An emphatic expression, yet speaking as one 
 Who was weighing his words. " And, when you havf 
 
 begun 
 To determine where poet and novelist blend 
 With the persons they picture, there's never an end 
 To the questions arising ; for either may be 
 As prolific in different pictures as he 
 Who is painting the crowd as they come. So diverse 
 Are the characters shown, that it couldn't be worse — 
 As a failure, I mean — if the painter should try 
 To be each of the persons lie*s painted. And why 
 Should we single out one of the many poitrayed, 
 
32 GERALDINE. 
 
 And declare that this one of the many is made 
 Of the poet's own life, or the novelist's? '* 
 
 "Now 
 You have taken to argument, I must allow 
 That my view appears weak," she returned with a 
 
 laugh. 
 *' But a woman ought never to argue ; for half 
 That she knows is beyond demonstration. She feels 
 It M be, and so knows it to be ; and conceals 
 Or confesses her meagre resources for knowing, 
 As moved by her whim. Yet there may be a show- 
 ing 
 Of reason in what I have felt to be so. 
 Out of nothing no thing has been made, as we know, 
 That is good. Can a poet produce out of nought 
 What is living and real? " 
 
 She paused. 
 
 " But his thought 
 Is a something," he said, '' and from this he produces 
 The beings that live and that love. In the uses 
 Of forms he is led to make copy of men 
 And of women he sees round about him : but, when 
 He puts soul into these, it is never the soul 
 Of another, not even his own." 
 
 '^ Then the whole 
 Of his work is from fancy alone ? If he write 
 With a heartache that throbs into words, 'tis the flight 
 Of his fancy-led thought, not a passionate cry 
 
GERALDINE. 82J 
 
 Out of sorrow he feels ? And the many who sigh 
 As they read him are wasteful of sympathy? " 
 
 Less 
 Of doubt did her words than her manner express, 
 And he felt that she studied him, striving to learn 
 Rather more than his answers might yield, in return 
 For her questions. 
 
 " Perhaps I should hardly declare 
 Wliat you say to be true altogether. A share 
 Of the woe of the world may creep into its verse 
 Or its prose ; but I doubt if a man will rehearse 
 Any grief of his own while a grief it remains. 
 He may journey beyond it, may think of its pains 
 As a thing of the past, and may write of it then 
 With a sort of contempt for its sacredness. When 
 It is part of to-day, he will shut it away 
 From the gaze of the crowd I admit that he may 
 Seem to write of what is in the present, that urges 
 The blood in his heart to impetuous surges : 
 The heart may be throbbing, perchance, while he writes 
 What your sympathy moves, your emotion excites. 
 But from sympathy just like your own. He may feel, 
 When he writes with a heartache he does not conceal, 
 To the full the deep sorrow he breathes ; but be sure 
 'Tis a grief that is fleeting, that will not endure. 
 That is bom of his fancy, — the same as your own 
 While you read. And why not ? Is the reader alone 
 To be moved by the syllables tender, the sobs 
 
S4 GERALDINE. 
 
 Welling up? I am certain the writer's heart throbs 
 Over sorrows of fancy as if tliey were true 
 And intense as the bitterest life ever knew.*' 
 
 ''And how, then, may it be with his longings? Aie 
 
 these 
 But the sigh of a moment, the breath of a breeze 
 Of desire blowing over him ? Nothing he holds 
 Until it into beauty of being unfolds, 
 And makes glad some great need of his heart? ** 
 
 Then he smiled. 
 
 " Are you striving with logical an 
 Thus to prove me all wrong? It is in my beliefs 
 That the sorrow of sorrows, the grief of all griefs, 
 Is the sorrow, the grief, of a mastering need, 
 ret a poet may syllable this ; and indeed 
 I've no doubt that the longings of poets are real 
 As things that they long for are vague and ideal. 
 'Tis here that they reach after beauty and light 
 Far beyond and above all that gladdens their sight 
 In the present ; and thus they uplift the whole race 
 With their longing and hoping and striving." 
 
 His face 
 Growing earnest, she waited expectant. 
 
 ''To long 
 For some good that we have not is noble. The song 
 That incites to proud doing was penned with some hill 
 
GEEALDINE. 36 
 
 Of endeavor uprising before ; and the will 
 To win glory and crowning sprang out of desire : 
 They only grow helpful and strong who aspire. 
 There is only one road to the mountains of bliss, 
 And it leads from the levels of longing. ' * 
 
 '' But this 
 Is a general view you are taking,'* she said, 
 InteiTupting him here with a smile. '' I have read 
 Of some longings more special ; their voice, like a call 
 From a hungenng soul, on my heart seemed to fall, 
 And to wake a response. It was want crying jut 
 To the plenty of life to be filled." 
 
 *' Beyond doubt 
 Y"ou have heard such a cry. Every soul not ascetic 
 Does hear it. The want of the world, so pathetic, 
 So broad, comprehends and embraces all needs. 
 Individual, hidden, and silent. The greeds 
 Of the world are past naming ; the hunger and thirst 
 By which men are so often and sorely accursed 
 Are as legion : yet some one shall cry of his lack. 
 And at once the sad voices come echoing back. 
 As if ti-uly this one had thus spoken for each, 
 "When he wants something, maybe, that hangs within reach 
 Of the rest, and they think it is nought." 
 
 " But there vawj 
 Be a want that is common to many. The sway 
 Of one mastering need, as you term it, may be 
 As supreme within you as ii is within me * 
 
86 GERALDINE. 
 
 xt may hold just as firmly all sensitive souls. 
 We walk different paths ; but the very same goals 
 Are to gladden us all by and by." 
 
 ''But no twain 
 Are exactly alike in their longing. The pain 
 Of a wearing unrest in each heart is a thing 
 By itself, as by self to be borne. One may sing 
 A glad paean of praise that the many outring 
 In re-echoing notes ; but the song they are ringing 
 Had something his own, while his gladness was singing,, 
 It lacks from the lips of another. 
 
 "I stand 
 By the oneness of each in himself. As the hand 
 That I hold to the world is my own, though it bear 
 A good gift of which all may claim portion and share ; 
 So the poet may bring of his riches to such 
 As are needy, and each may be richer by much, 
 In the taking of what was his right, as it seems, 
 Out of common bestowal. But longings and dreams 
 That embody the gift are the poet's alone : 
 They are harvest, perhaps, of some seed he has sown 
 In the past. And no life may be like his so near 
 As to gainer the same from its sowing." 
 
 ''I fear 
 You are thinking too broadly to touch the one thought 
 I have had, and to answer it now. I have sought 
 To be sure of too much," she replied. '' Let it go 
 Till I've pondered it further. You certainly know 
 
GERALDINK. H 
 
 Of my right as a woman to have the last word. 
 
 What you say may be true : if it be, I have erred 
 
 In conceding to poets the commoner woes 
 
 That afflict and make sad. I am bound to suppose 
 
 That you know of the facts.'* And he saw she had tired 
 
 Of their soberer talk, and so simply desired 
 
 By her badinage mild to glide off from the theme. 
 
 He but laughed, and made merry. 
 
 '' To-night, if I dream 
 Of some hunger of heart,*' he remarked, as he said 
 His adieu, " I shall know an invisible thread 
 From the heart of another my hungering thrills ; 
 That my want is the twin of your own ; that our wills 
 Are akin, and our needs? ** 
 
 He was reading her eyes 
 As he, bantering, questioned her thus for replies 
 That her tongue might not syllable. Nothing outshone 
 From their depths that gave answer complete. 
 
 '• I have known 
 What it is to be hungry of soul,*' she replied. 
 Speaking gravely again : '' so have you, and, beside 
 Us, a host of the men and the women who greet 
 The gay world with a smile. It is easy to cheat 
 The blind mass into thinking we're glad and content. 
 I is hard to walk on with what fate may have sent 
 For your company, — hunger and doubt and unrest, — 
 A.nd yet keep the heart steady that beats in your breast ; 
 
58 GERALDINE, 
 
 It is hard to feel lonesome for love that is kind 
 To the uttermost, tender and trustful, and blind 
 To your ugliness, quick to discover your need, 
 And a spendthrift in giving itself." 
 
 " May I plead 
 For one boon?" said he eargerly: "this, — be my friend^ 
 As I'd like to be yours. Let me make some amend, 
 If I may, for the lack that you feel now and then. 
 And regret. I'll be frank: there is much that some men 
 Could bestow that I have not; the all I can give 
 Is but little, — a friendship that pledges to live 
 While you care for it, sympathy certain and strong, 
 And perchance here and there the glad note of a song 
 In your life as you find the way weary and sore. 
 I would give nothing less : I can give nothing more." 
 
 " It is much," she responded, " far more than you think. 
 
 When a wayfarer thirsty is given to drink 
 
 From a brook where the many may come and be filled. 
 
 He is glad as if never another were thrilled 
 
 By its current of blessing." 
 
 She held out her hand, 
 And the pressure he gave it returned. 
 
 " Understand, 
 We are friends while you wish it. Good-night." 
 
 For what came 
 In the track of all this, they were hardly to blame. 
 There's a logic in life that is stubborn as fate : 
 We must learn it, each one, though our study be late. 
 
OEBALDUfE. 99 
 
 V. 
 
 That Geraldine Hope was indeed a coquette, 
 
 Not a few were persuaded who met her, and yet 
 
 Without reason sufficient. Her smile, it is true. 
 
 Was bewitching, and freely bestowed. Then she knevr 
 
 How to charm in those delicate ways that suggest 
 
 A particular feeling of interest. Pressed 
 
 For some cause for their thought as concerning her, these 
 
 Who esteemed her the least were at fault. By degrees 
 
 As they knew her the better, they came to see under 
 
 The manner so winning at times, and to wonder 
 
 At womanly graces disclosed, at the will 
 
 To be helpful and brave ; and they wondered until 
 
 They were champions strong of her truth. 
 
 She had been 
 Greatly flattered and praised ; and to please, and to win 
 Admiration, was easy. She studied no arts. 
 But was just her own natural self. If the hearts 
 Of men yielded her homage unsought, none could say 
 That she won it to scorn, or that he was the prey 
 Of deceit and delusion. No love? was pained 
 By the loss of a love that he never had gained 
 But in idle profession. 
 
40 OEBALDINE. 
 
 The woman's soul in her 
 Was noble and true. To be won, he must win her 
 With truth and nobility equal, who brought 
 Her his heart and his life, and her heart and life sought 
 And, beside, she must feel that he stood just above 
 Her in being and doing, whose life and whose love 
 Could be worthful and sweet, and in nothing below. 
 So she waited in faith, not unwilling to go 
 Through the years quite alone, if instead she must lean 
 On an arm that was lower. 
 
 And thus Geraldine 
 By her suitors abundant had failed to be won. 
 Until Percival Trent, who had lately begun 
 To be known of the world, came to know her, and hold 
 Her supreme among women. His loving controlled 
 Her as never another's had done. He was king 
 Among men, in her sight, from the first ; and the ring 
 That he gave her at last she would wear to the end. 
 Never doubting. 
 
 If love could forever but lend 
 To its object the glow of perfection, how sure 
 Would all pledges of constancy be to endure ! 
 ''Love is blind," men have said; but they gravely 
 
 mistake 
 Who believe so. Alas that it is not ! The ache 
 That is born of regret would not vex and make sad, 
 If true love could not see ; and a world would be glad 
 ff no loving looked through the too common disguise 
 
GERALDINE. 41 " 
 
 Of the thing winning love, and with grief- welling eye8 
 Saw the faults that lie under. We sorrow to find 
 That our friends are unworthy ; and love is unkind 
 For revealing the fact, with its vision so clear, 
 That each life has its blemishes. Love may appear 
 A.S unseeing as marble, yet quiver with pain 
 From beholding so much ; and the bitterest bane 
 Of the years will be found, as we learn what they teach, 
 In the knowledge that love gave a glamour to each ; 
 That the beauty we saw could not always abide, 
 Nor the veil of our faith all deformity hide. 
 
 Had she trusted too much in this man who so held 
 All her life in his hand ? who so surely compelled 
 Her to trust him and love him? Not hers was the 
 
 question : 
 No doubt troubled her, nor the faintest suggestion 
 Of doubt. He was hers ; she was his. Before God 
 They were wedded forever. Their way might be broad 
 In the future, or narrow : it could not prevent 
 Them from walking together in happy content 
 To the gate that leads out of this being. Beyond 
 There should dawn an eternity, never less fond 
 In its faith and its love ; and the bliss of her dream 
 Should be endless at last where all love is supreme. 
 
 So she thought. To his questiomng letter she made 
 An ULqaestioning answer : — 
 
42 GERALDINE. 
 
 " Dear heart, I'm afraid 
 You are working too hard, and need rest. By and by 
 You will smile at the dread you have named, as do I. 
 There is nothing to fear in a love that is strong 
 And content as is ours. If the time should be long 
 Ere I see you again, I should never once doubt ; 
 If long years should roll by us uncertain, without 
 Bi iuging word of remembrance from you, I should know 
 There were reason for silence, and patiently go 
 Up and down at my duties, in trust. If a living, 
 Abiding affection is formed, the up-giving 
 Is perfect, of life and of faith : there can be 
 Neither question nor fear. As for you and for me, 
 We rely on a love that is higher by much 
 Than our own to mould ours, and to keep it. The touch 
 Of this love so divine adds a quality rare 
 To our own ; makes it pure beyond any compare 
 With the commoner loves ; makes it lasting and sweet 
 And immortal. 
 
 '' I think there can be no defeat 
 For a love that is guarded by trust. It withstantls 
 Every effort of cruel and violent hands 
 To dethrone it ; it rules with a wonderful might, 
 liom of weakness and yielding ; it strives for no right 
 But the right to bestow of its largess ; it speaks 
 With an eloquent tongue, in a silence that seeks 
 But to hear the dear words of bestowal ; it waits 
 '^'or the gladness of time that its faith antedates, 
 
GEEALDINE. 43 
 
 A.nti is glad in its waiting ; it patiently bears 
 Every strain of the years, all the grief and the caies 
 They may bring ; it is faithful and true to the end : 
 And we know such a love, I am certain, my friend. 
 
 *' As for duty, that's God speaking plainly to each 
 Of his work in the world ; and the wider the reach 
 Of your effort, the more you are doing for men, 
 Then the sweeter will be your reward. So what, theo, 
 Does it matter concerning a duty to come ? 
 Every morrow grows out of to-day ; and the sum 
 Of the future is made from the present. Whatever 
 The morrow may bring will depend on endeavor 
 Put forth by us now. If to-day we are strong 
 In the right, need we fear that a possible wrong 
 In the future will find us unwilling and weak ? 
 
 *' Let the way that we journey be rugged and bleak 
 By and by : we may smile as we wander to-day 
 Where the roses are blowing, and fancy the way 
 Is forever to lead amid beauty and bloom. 
 \f we know that the sunshine will vanish in gloom, 
 V^et's be glad till the shadows are on us. 
 
 *'No maa 
 And no woman of right should the coming days scan 
 With foreboding. The present is ours ; and the rest — 
 That is God* 8. He will care for his own as Is best ; 
 Aj J our watching is worthless, our dread if in vain. 
 
44 GEBALDINE. 
 
 Are we moulded to suffer ? The possible pain 
 Will not easier seem for expecting it. Waits 
 Any wretchedness for us ? The hardest of fates 
 May be sweetened by love and a song of good cheer, 
 Like a psalm in the night. 
 
 '' There is nothing so cleai 
 To me ever, dear heart, as that strength will be lent, 
 If we ask it, to bear what the Lord shall have sent ; 
 And that every hard duty will find us with strength 
 To attempt, and indeed overcome it, at length. 
 If we cling to the Giver of strength, nor let go 
 When the weakest we feel. For I'm certain, I know, 
 That the weakest may hold to God's hand with a grip 
 That is ever unyielding, if only the lip 
 Can say, ' Help me, O Father ! ' so quickly he hears, 
 And so soon is he touched by our need and our tears.* 
 
 Such a faith is a treasure of blessing : it yields 
 The sweet waters of peace in the barrenest fields 
 She will need all the help that it offers to cope 
 With the want of her morrow — poor Geraldine Hope ! 
 
BEBALDINE. 45 
 
 VL 
 
 Major Mellen had business in Rivermet ; leisure, 
 When business was done, to bethink him of pleasure. 
 He called upon Geraldine Hope, — 
 
 ''Just to show 
 That I have not forgotten that summer, you know, 
 When we met at the Hills,'* he remarked. 
 
 With a trifle 
 Of speech she replied, as if willing to stifle 
 His thought of the past. 
 
 '' It is ages since then," 
 He resumed. *' I have waited for fate once again 
 To be kind, but in vain — until n6w.** 
 
 ''You believe, 
 Then, in fate?" she abruptly inquired. 
 
 "Yes, I grieve 
 To admit that I do," was the answer, a touch 
 Of distrust in his manner ; " that is, quite as much 
 As I'm apt to believe in things ever. They say 
 I*m a heretic bom, and have wandered away 
 From all faith in the good and the true. It's a libel 
 Of course." And he laughed. " I've a beautiful Bible 
 I read every day — when the weather is fine. 
 
46 GERALDINE. 
 
 (You may oi)en your eyes at this statement of mine 
 In mute wonder.) The book is as broad as the sky, 
 And as old as the world. If a poet, I'd try 
 To repeat the sweet promises in it, to tell 
 What it says to me often, so wondrously well 
 That I listen enrapt ; but I haven't the gift 
 Of expression. There's Trent " — 
 
 At this mention the swilt- 
 Com-sing blood from her heart, leaping into her cheek, 
 Told him more than all words that her loving might 
 
 speak ; 
 But he seemed not to heed the quick witness. 
 
 '' His tongue 
 Or his pen, for the sweetest of songs ever sung, 
 Could find words in my Bible, I'm certain. The book 
 Is the richest I know ; and who wishes can look 
 At it even as I do, with longing to learn 
 All its lessons and secrets. I turn and return 
 To its pages each summer with pleasure intense.'* 
 
 They were often beset with perplexing suspense 
 Of his meaning and purpose, who listened to him ; 
 And she heard him run on, with a consciousness dim 
 That he might have a motive in speaking, not quite 
 To be seen at the outset. 
 
 "That week of delight 
 In the mountains, when fate was so winningly kind 
 As to show me your face, I was never less blind 
 
GEBALDINE. 47 
 
 To th,j beauties the great book of Nature revealed, 
 
 A.nd I revelled in loveliness. Forest and iBeld 
 
 Had a charm for me new. Every mountain-top snone 
 
 With a marvellous glory. I think, had I known 
 
 *Twas the very last week of my life, I'd have caretl 
 
 Not at all. I am seldom ecstatic ; I've fared 
 
 At the best and the poorest so often, I hold 
 
 By philosophy cool, as a rule ; but the gold 
 
 Of that summer week's gilding is bright even ytt: 
 
 I must live through a lingering age to forget 
 
 AJl the glamour and glow of those days that went past 
 
 Like a dream of content." 
 
 *' Was that summer the last 
 That you saw of the Hills? " 
 
 She was puzzled to tell 
 VYhat to think of his words and his manner. So well 
 She remembered his cynical smile and his sneer, 
 Half-disguised, at all sentiment tender, and dear 
 To the sensitive heart, she could hardly accept 
 What he uttered as earnest. 
 
 '' I could not have kept 
 My first love for the Hills, — for those Hills, — lad 1 
 
 been 
 There again. The one visit was all. It's a sin 
 To defraud any pleasure, of sight or of deed. 
 By repeating it. One of the rules that I heed 
 Is to go only once to a place, if I go 
 For mere pleasure alone ; and, remembering «o 
 
48 GERALDINE, 
 
 But the freshness and zest of my pleasure most ^een, 
 There is nothing to me that is common, I mean, 
 In the matter of scenic delight. ' ' 
 
 " You forget 
 That last evening we waited to see the sun set 
 On the top of Mount Vision," she said in reply. 
 " You were silent a while ; but the glow of the sky 
 Was reflected, I thought, in the glow of your face. 
 You had seen the same picture ; the very same grace 
 Of superlative beauty in color and tone 
 Had beguiled you again and again " — 
 
 " But it shon€ 
 In a different light ; it was not the same view ; 
 It had different tints, and a differ^^nt hue 
 Over all from the sunsets we commonly see. 
 And, moreover, two sunsets are never to me 
 Just alike. They are even diverse as the features 
 Of men in expression. The creeds of the preachers 
 Can vary no more. But your lakes and your hills. 
 Your meadows and mountains, your rivers and rills, 
 Are the same to the end of the chapter : they yield 
 Nothing fresh for,renewed admiration ; revealed 
 Is the sum of their beauty at first to your eyes : 
 They are changeless, in short. But the sea and the 
 
 skies, — 
 These are changeful as man, and, because of theii 
 
 change, 
 ^ bewitching as woman.'' 
 
OERALDINE. 49 
 
 *' Such talk would seem strange 
 From another than you, Major Mellen, indeed. 
 I am puzzled by logic that lightly can lead 
 To conclusion like yours. You would find 3^our delight 
 In the face of a stranger ; and even the sight 
 Of a friend would be wearisome, just in degree 
 As the friend were familiar to you." 
 
 ''It might le 
 As you say," he responded, " if 'twere not the fact, 
 As I've hinted, that faces do change ; and an act. 
 Or a thought, or a hope, or a feeling, may bring 
 A new face in the old. But your bird there may sing 
 A new song, though he change not a feather ; and tiius 
 May our friend, though he change not the smile he 
 
 gives us. 
 Be as changeful in words as the sky is in looks. 
 Have as varying moods as the sea, or the books 
 Of the poets." 
 
 "Perhaps" (and she paused, as if shimking 
 From saying too much) — "it may be we are thinking 
 Diversely. I never am positive whether 
 Your words and your thouglits run exactly together. 
 You like to combat and discuss, and draw out 
 The beliefs and the fancies of others. I doubt 
 If you fully accept all you freely imply. 
 Now, to me every mountain takes glow from the sky 
 That it kisses, or sombreness wears like a frown 
 When the mists and the shadows fall heavily down ; 
 
60 OERALDINE. 
 
 Every meadow lights up by the sun, as a face 
 Might be glorified, seen in some radiant place ; 
 Every lake but reflects what the sky above shows, — 
 Either sunlight or shadow ; it sparkles and glows. 
 Or is angry from touch of the winds, or is still 
 As the sprmg that begets yonder musical rill 
 In its home in the wild. 1 see changes in all 
 That are beautiful. None of these ever can pall 
 On my vision." 
 
 He often had seen her as now. 
 With the pink of her cheek and the white of her brow 
 Yet the stronger in contrast, from feeling that urged 
 The quick blood through her veins till it rippled and 
 
 surged 
 In her face. He had often beguiled her to think 
 In expression as earnest, that thus he might drink 
 Of her glowing delight in the lovely and true : 
 'Twas a pleasure surprising, peculiar, and new, 
 Thus to put her in eager defence of her thought, 
 Till her beauty, with something mysterious fraught, 
 Had a charm that was rare. He had wearied of muck 
 That men fancy is pleasant ; but here was a touch 
 Of delight that he could not explain. He could smile 
 At the commoner pleasures with which men beguile 
 The dull days. But some influence hidden, unguesaed, 
 Was upon him, and gave to each moment a zest 
 That was fresh and unfailing, as, scanning her face, 
 He could study her feeling and thought, and could trace 
 
GERALDINE. 61 
 
 Every turn of her fancy, each questioDing doubt 
 He had keen intuition, and saw much without 
 Any efifort at seeing ; was quick to divine 
 Kvery meaning that lurked in a glance or a sign 
 And made use of his sceptical questions and snt^ra 
 To uncover the souls of his friends. 
 
 '*It appears 
 To me certain you've read in my Bible," he said. 
 With a laugh not too mocking, '*• although you have lead 
 With a thought of your own running on with the theme 
 Of the text. You can linger and listen and dream 
 In the woods and the fields like a poet, — or, yes, 
 Like a man of the world who forever finds less 
 In ths world to his fancy, except it be far 
 From the din — and the dinners. You certainly are 
 Of the order of poeta yourself, to behold 
 Such a glow of the new in a shade of the old. 
 You should marry a poet. Miss Hope, who could see 
 With such eyes as your own — if there happen to be 
 Any man of so wealthy endowment." 
 
 She blushed 
 At the words and the look, and unconsciously crushed 
 A wild rose she had held in her hand. Had he heard 
 What one poet was to her ? 
 
 " It never ocAJurred 
 To me, major," she said, '' that the ultimate missioo 
 A pof't may know is to bring the fruition 
 Of life to one woman he honors with marriage. 
 
62 OERALDINE. 
 
 I may not be right, — and I would not disparage 
 The poets, I'm certain, — but poets, as poets, 
 Belong, I believe, to all women. I know it's 
 A fact that they marry ; but isn't it fact 
 That they wed not as poets ? that women attract 
 Not the poet, but only a man among men? '* 
 
 He was puzzled, in turn, for a moment, and then, 
 Comprehending that she was but parrying, laughed^ 
 And let fly, as he fancied, a Parthian shaft. 
 
 '* No, they dow'^ wed as poets : connubial ties 
 Would be idle to bind all the passion that lies 
 In the heart of a poet. The man may be bound ; 
 But the poet is free, and wherever is found 
 Any blossoming sweet he may gather it in. 
 They are lucky — these poets : they've only to win 
 As the men, like us all, and have freedom accorded 
 To woo and to win, then, as poets, rewarded 
 By beauty and love in most bountiful measure. 
 A poet, it seems, has an infinite leisure 
 For love, and capacity equal. There's Trent, 
 Whom I've named : the good fellow was meant 
 For a knight in heroic and chivalrous times 
 Quite as much as a minstrel to maunder his rhymes. 
 He's the soul of a poet, as all will confess 
 Who have heard him and read him ; likewise (and not 
 less) 
 
GERALBINE. 68 
 
 Is (he liberal heart of the poet his own. 
 
 We were intimate friends years ago ; but I've known 
 
 Very little about him since then, till of late. 
 
 As a boy in his teens, he'd a singular fate 
 
 For sporadic affection : before he was twenty 
 
 He'd loves half a dozen ; it's probable plenty 
 
 Have gladdened him since. It was thought he would 
 
 wed 
 A young lady in Somers ; and I have heard said 
 He would marry some one in this town. ' ' 
 
 ^'Didyouheai 
 Who the young lady was? " she inquired with a queer 
 Little tremor of voice. 
 
 *' Now I really forgot 
 To inquire," he replied ; '' but the fact matters not. 
 He's a passion much later than that, I am sure, 
 And it may prove more difficult even to cure. 
 I have known more than one to meet Isabel Lee 
 To his lasting regret. She's a marvel to me 
 (And a cousin, which means that I know her quite well) 
 For her mastery over the men. I could tell. 
 When I mtroduced Trent, what would follow. Sh« 
 
 knew 
 How to rouse his whole interest in her. She drew 
 Him again and again, and will draw him, despite 
 Any previous fancy, until her delight 
 In his presence and passion is over. The hurt 
 Will not kill him." 
 
4 OERALBINE. 
 
 *' This woman is, then, but — a — flirt/' 
 ihe remarked, hesitating, to cover the pause 
 FHien he stopped. 
 
 '' I may say she has given some cause 
 To be called so," he answered, a cynical ring 
 In his voice ; '' but she may not intend any thing 
 That is certain to breed very positive harm. 
 She believes in the right of each woman to charm 
 As she can. She regards it the duty of each 
 To do discipline-work on all hearts within reach. 
 She's a woman of women, in short, with a will 
 To be wooed for the wooing, not won ; to instil 
 As much love as she may in the hearts of mankind, 
 Which is quite evangelical truly. We find 
 That the preachers preach love, of a sort ; and the best 
 Should be fruiting itself in humanity's breast, 
 If occasion there be for the poorest." 
 
 He talked 
 In a tone that was usual with him, and mocked 
 All the meaning his cynical words might have held ; 
 And she listened with curious feelings, compelled 
 To seem anxious as only a woman who heard 
 Such allusion to one of her sex as but stirred 
 Her own pity indignant. Her face was aflame, 
 And she dared not to venture on speaking his name 
 Who was more to her even than life. 
 
 ''It's a shame," 
 \>he made answer, " for women to be as you say. 
 
OERALDINE. 56 
 
 And you libel us all when you speak in thai way, 
 As if women were all mere coquettes. There are more 
 V^Tio give love than are loved ; and, if all men but bore 
 The respect that they ought for all women, the sex 
 Would be nobler and better. You talk but to vex 
 Me to earnest defence of my kind : you don*t mean 
 What you utter.'* 
 
 He smiled, the same smile she had seen 
 On his face in the past, — half a sneer, half assent 
 To a fact he would gladly refute. 
 
 "I'm content 
 Not to argue the question," he answered, " with one 
 Who might pomt to herself, ere we well had begun, 
 As a proof for all women. I gladly cry quits 
 At the outset. I never could measure my wits 
 With a woman's in argument. Even to try. 
 In this instance, would lose me my train : so good-by." 
 And he rose, and extended his hand. 
 
 "Must you go?" 
 She replied ; not too eager, he fancied. ' ' I know 
 The young woman — you heard about — here, whom 
 
 your friend 
 Was to marry," she went on to say, " and will lend 
 Her my ears for the news you have brought, should it 
 
 seem 
 To 1)0 worth any while.* 
 
 And like one in a dream 
 She went up to her room, and sat down with her grief 
 
56 GEBALDINE. 
 
 Over-brooding and weighing upon her. Belief 
 
 In the story to which she had listened was fii'st 
 
 A necessity. All it implied, and the worst, 
 
 She accepted, and tortured herself into pain 
 
 Of the keenest. When day came again, she had lain 
 
 On a bed of unrest a long night through ; her throbbing 
 
 Heart weary and tempted, and sore with its sobbmg ; 
 
 For the woman within her was quick to take up 
 
 Any bitterness offered, and drink till the cup 
 
 Had been drained to its dregs. 
 
 Then some gladness shone in : 
 She was wicked to yield to her doubt ; it was sin 
 Thus to sorrow and grieve ; if some love she had lost, 
 There was God, — he would profit her, even at cost 
 That was dear. So she reasoned at length ; and she 
 
 prayed 
 With a tender upgiving that must have delayed 
 More than one of God's angels to listen and hear. 
 And at last, through the clouds, came a radiance clear, 
 Till she saw mid her tears the glad rainbow of trust. 
 
 When believing came back, — as to some hearts it 
 
 must, 
 Though it leave for a little, — she felt she had done 
 A great wrong to her love and to God ; and, as one 
 Who has grievously sinned, she repented in tears 
 Of her sin, till they blinded her doubts and her fears. 
 And made way for the sunshine that came. 
 
QEBALBINE, f%1 
 
 And how sweet 
 Is the sunlight that falls on our wandering feet, 
 When the morning dawns clear after night of distress 
 And we look on a land that our hope may possess 
 By and by ! Blessed morrow to gladden us all, 
 If to-day not a shadow of sunset could fall I 
 
!>8 QEBALDINE. 
 
 VIL 
 
 When Geraldine Hope met her lover again, 
 
 She was tenderer even than common. To men 
 
 Of his mould it is easy for women to yield 
 
 Their caresses and trust. She had always revealed 
 
 Her whole soul to him freely ; and now she expressed 
 
 With sweet emphasis, sweeter than any possessed 
 
 In articulate language of love, how she rested 
 
 Herself in his heart. It was not that she tested 
 
 His love and his faith : she was certain of these ; 
 
 She had walked from her wilderness dark on her knees. 
 
 It was not that she thought to make certain her strength 
 
 Over him, as of old ; it might happen at length 
 
 That she seem to him weaker than late she had been 
 
 In the sight of herself. It was not that she win 
 
 A. new fervor of love. It was simply that he 
 
 Had been wronged in her thought and belief ; and so she 
 
 Made amends as she could. 
 
 There are wives who have doubtea 
 The faith of their husbands for less, and have shouted 
 Their doubts to the world, as if virtue must claim 
 Its reward on the house-tops, or ally with shame ; 
 But this woman, as wedded by love, in the eyes 
 
GERALBINE. 69 
 
 Of the angels, she knew, as her sister that sighs 
 Over vows, and a bridal ring empty of bliss, 
 Could seal close into silence her pain with a kiss. 
 And remember it only to smile at. She would not 
 So much as make question to him ; and she could not 
 Again feel a question concerning his love. 
 She was trustingly sure. And henceforth, far above 
 Every statement of cynical doubt, she would bear 
 Her belief in his honor and truth. He should share 
 The full trust that she gave to her God. 
 
 You may know 
 How she loved, to stand fast and unfaltering so ; 
 Ton may guess what her love must have meant to her life, 
 When she fought out alone such a wearying strife 
 With distrust, and then put it all back in the past. 
 That no shadow of conscious unfaith might be cast 
 On their future. 
 
 Had Percival Trent at this time 
 Felt a doubt of his love in return, some sublune 
 And unselfish intent must have moved him to hold 
 It in check. He was tenderer, too, than of old. 
 He looked down in her eyes with his own brimming ovei 
 With truth, and was glad. 
 
 *' I've so long been a rover," 
 He said to her soon, *' that I hunger for home 
 Of my own. Only vagabonds always can roam 
 Up and down, as a decade or more I have done, 
 Without wearying of it. There's much to be won 
 
60 GEBALDINE, 
 
 In the broad world of being I've studied so long ; 
 But I'd rather be singing some ingleside song 
 For your heart to be happy in hearing alone, 
 Than to win all the praises of men I have known. 
 I've another long season of labor ahead, 
 That will amply provide me with means to buy bread 
 For us both afterward. You'll be ready to sit 
 And preside for us two at the breaking of it? " 
 She could be very merry indeed, if she chose, 
 And the spmt was on her just now. 
 
 " I suppose 
 We may have something more," she remarked with a 
 
 laugh, 
 "Than you've mentioned? For me, I must say, even 
 
 half 
 Of a loaf would not answer. A little of meat 
 And potatoes might make our provision complete." 
 
 *' It is meet we shall be at our own little board 
 By and by," he rejoined, " when my slow-growing hoard 
 Is increased to the proper proportions. We'll live 
 On the peaches and cream of existence, and give 
 Of the commoner good to who wants it." 
 
 She smiled 
 At his liberal purpose. She seemed like a child 
 In her simple acceptance of pleasures to be. 
 And she listened with joy that was winsome to see 
 As he glowingly pictured the happy content 
 Of some morrow to come. 
 
OEBALDINE. 61 
 
 Surely Percival Trent 
 Was a fortunate man. With his mood at its best, 
 He was glad as are they in the Valley of Rest 
 Who have never a sorrow, and never are sad ; 
 He could stand on the Mountains of Beulah, as glad 
 As if never he groped in the shadows below. 
 And the glories of being as truly could know 
 On their heights as if down in the depth there were none 
 Of its midnight and gloom when the gladness was done. 
 Yes, a fortunate man, but more fortunate here, 
 On this day of delight, than in many a year, 
 If forever, he might be again ; for he stood 
 On the edge of his Edom, unknowing. The good 
 Of the Uplands of Promise could only be gained 
 By a w Jderness way that was rugged, and stained 
 With the blood of its wandering, wearying souls. 
 He must go as they journey who seek for the goals 
 That are hardest to gain, with no kindness or care 
 For himself, only patient, and willing to bear 
 All the pam of the days, all their famishing heat. 
 May God help him, if ever the manna sent sweet 
 From the generous hea\ en should fail in his need ! 
 God help all who are seeking their Canaan, and lead 
 As he can, with his merciful hand of release. 
 By and by, to its infinite plenty and peace ! 
 
 When they parted at last, Geraldine and her lover, 
 The angels of hope seemed to heed them, and hove/ 
 
B2 GERALDINE. 
 
 About them with whispers of cheer. It was June ; 
 And the air, with its murmurous music in tune 
 With their sentiments tender, was sweet as a breeze 
 From some island of bloom, blowing over the seas 
 To a mariner homesick for land. 'Twas a time 
 To be wed, and not parted. The year in its prime 
 Was a redolent glory ; the thrill of lis bliss 
 Added ecstasy rare to the thrill of their kiss 
 As he said his farewell. 
 
 There are days that are kind 
 As a mother to men, showing pathways that wind 
 Out and in, like a dream, by some stream of delight ; 
 Never hinting of aught that they hold to affright ; 
 Only luring us on, since the way must be trod, 
 Over meadows of green with their velvety sod. 
 To the steeps, that are harder to climb, far before. 
 There are nights so enchanting, they seem to restore 
 The original beauty of Eden ; so tender, 
 They woo every soul to a willing surrender 
 Of feverish longing ; so holy, withal, 
 That a broad benediction seems sweetly to fall 
 On the world. 
 
 And these followed with magical sheen, 
 The rare sunsets aflame the rich mornings between, 
 G iving Percival Trent a new relish for life, 
 A new spirit and grace for the struggle and strife 
 Of the years. For he went for his summer's brief res* 
 Down a river of beauty to Isles of the Blest. 
 
GEBALDINE. 63 
 
 vm. 
 
 Fair St. Lawrence ! What poet has sung of its grace 
 As it sleeps in the sun, with its smile-dimpled face 
 Beaming up to the sky that it mirrors ? What brush 
 Has e*er pictured the charm of the marvellous hush 
 Of its silence, or caught the warm glow of its tints 
 As the afternoon wanes, and the even-star glints 
 In its beautiful depths ? and what pen shall betray 
 The sweet secrets that hide from man's vision away 
 In its solitudes wild? 'Tis the river of dreams. 
 You may float in your boat on the bloom-bordered 
 
 streams. 
 Where its islands like emeralds matchless are set, 
 And forget that you live, and as quickly forget 
 That they die in that world you have left ; for the 
 
 calm 
 Of content is within you, the blessing of balm 
 Is upon 3"ou forever. Mortality sleeps 
 While you dream, an immortal : some mistiness creeps 
 Like a veil of forgetf ulness over your past, 
 And it is not. Your day is eternal, to last 
 Without darkness, or chang-^, or the shadow of dread 
 Blessed isles where to-day and to-morrow are wed 
 
64 GEBALBINE, 
 
 In such fulness of bliss ! Blessed river that smiles 
 In such beauty and peace by the beautiful isles ! 
 
 He had dreamed for a week at the Islands, content 
 Without company, glad of each lonely day spent. 
 And shunning the groups that each evening convened 
 At the house where he stopped. But one night, aj hs 
 
 leaned 
 Looking out of his <vindow, some fair sailors singing 
 Far over the water, their sweet echoes ringing 
 But faintly across the dim distance, he heard 
 A clear voice in the portico under, that stirred 
 Him to interest sudden and strong. Could it be 
 That he listened aright ? He would walk down and see. 
 There was only one woman who had such a tone, 
 Among all the women he ever had known ; 
 Such a mellow out-gushing of melody clear 
 As made music of commonplace speech to the ear. 
 When he passed to the portico broad, there was none 
 To be seen whom he knew ; for the band had begun 
 Its accustomed performance within the great room 
 Wl.ere the gay ones had gathered : outside was the gloonj 
 l)f an evening whose moon was unrisen. The shout 
 Of some fishermen smote the soft air, and died out 
 Into silence. The song from the opposite shore 
 Had been sung to the end. The soft dip of an oar 
 In the water so still was thd sum of all sound 
 From without. Disappointed, he went the whole rouiid 
 
QERALBINE. 66 
 
 Of the ample verandas, expectant, but met 
 
 No reward for his searchmg, and turned with regret 
 
 To the place where the dancers were waiting. 
 
 A bright 
 Scene it was that he saw, — the large room all alight, 
 Ilappy groups here and there gaj'ly chatting -and laugh- 
 ing, 
 Here and there a coquette her blind followers chaffing, 
 Some silent ones simply observing or dreaming, 
 The glitter of fashion and radiance gleaming 
 Throughout. It was strange he had willingly staid 
 From such music and glow as here met him. He 
 
 made 
 His way quietly into the room, and sat down 
 To look over the faces, — some sun-burned and brown 
 From the water and wind, and a few that were tinted 
 With color so vivid and strong, that they hinted 
 Of rouge. There were none he had seen, save at table ; 
 And out of the tumult, the blare, and the babel 
 The band and the people were making, he caught 
 Not the one single tone that his listening ear sought : 
 Yet he waited, and listened, and almost forgot 
 What he came for, and missed. 'Twas his fortunate lot 
 To like music so well, that it counted for much 
 That he want«;;d ; at times making up, with its touch 
 As of magic, the lack and the need 
 
 By and by. 
 When the dancers were weary and still, with a sigh 
 
66 GEBALDINE. 
 
 He weDt out, and strolled down to the tv harf , where the 
 
 boats 
 Lay awaiting the morrow. Some late singer's notes 
 Came across to him there from the shadows beyond 
 The broad cliannel, and wooed him to dreams that were 
 
 fond. 
 But just over the tree- tops the meek moon was hung, 
 Its soft lustre illuming the. stream ; and he swung 
 A light skiff from its place, and laid grip on the oars. 
 He could handle them well. In a moment the shores 
 Faded out into dimness ; the mammoth hotel 
 Was a glittering spot in the night ; and he fell 
 Into musing profound. 
 
 From his boat far away 
 To the slow-sailing moon, on the waters there lay 
 A broad pathway of gold, for his fancy to take, 
 And go up to the region of dawn, and there make 
 A new morning ideal. The wash of the waves 
 On the boatsides was like the low-murmuring staves 
 Of a Mendelssohn's Song without Words, and inclined 
 Him to utter forgetfulness. Patient, and blind 
 To the sins of the world, the pale stars shone above him ; 
 The balmy night-breezes seemed shyly to love him. 
 And kiss him with clinging, affectionate grace ; 
 And unmindful of time, and unheeding of space, 
 He was borne down the current. Some strains of a song 
 Floated over him, echoing faintly along 
 On the silence ; but heard (if at all they were heard), 
 
QERALDINR. 67 
 
 A^ you hear the loud carolling call of your bird 
 Without heeding. His soul had companionless gone 
 To the realm of the silent, the land of the dawn. 
 
 So he mused and he dreamed ; but a-sudden his dreami 
 Were all shattered and sunk by the shivering screams 
 Of a little steam-yacht that was running him down 
 In the stillness and dark. 
 
 '' He will certainly drown ! ** 
 Said a voice in affright, as the vessel's light bow. 
 Deftly cutting the deep, slid along on the prow 
 Of his boat, and upset it. Dismay seized on all 
 In the yacht, and a common and terrified call 
 Woke the echoes around. 
 
 " Ship ahoy ! '* said the man 
 From his bath in the night. " Lend a line, if you can, 
 And I'll right up my boat, and make fast for a tow." 
 
 As he swam to his craft that had floated below, 
 He recalled the one voice that had spoken at first. 
 And was certain a friend must be near. At the worst, 
 He could count on a cold for his droll escapade : 
 There was nothing of danger. 
 
 The yachtsmen obeyed 
 His request, flung a line, and bore round to him quick. 
 
 " Come on board I *' said the captain.. *' A very pool 
 trick 
 
68 QEBALDINE, 
 
 We have played you, whoever you are. Can' t be mended 
 
 As / see, however : so don't be offended, 
 
 But give us your hand." And he lifted him up 
 
 To the rail all a-dripping. " A good brimming cup 
 
 Of my brandy will keep you from taking a chill. 
 
 Let me bring you a drink." 
 
 '' No, I thank you : I will, 
 If an overcoat be at command, accept that ; 
 And, if some one had only the twin of my hat 
 That I left in the water, I think I might wear it." 
 
 " It hadn't a brick m to sink it, I'll swear it ! " 
 Said one of those nearest, outreaching his hand. 
 
 * Is it you^ Major Mellen? I quite understand 
 My disaster at once. Melancholy the place 
 And occurrence, indeed." 
 
 " But you put a good face 
 On it, all must admit, Mr. Trent," said the voice 
 He had heard. '' We must all of us keenly rejoice 
 That it ends no more sadly." 
 
 " And you, Mrs. Lee? 
 To bping up in such circle, I'd e'en go to sea. 
 As the Wise Men set sail, in a bowl." And he took 
 The white hand that she offered him warmly. It shook 
 With the faintest of tremors. 
 
 ' ' Pray pardon me, each, 
 For the fright I have caused you. I miglit make a 
 speech 
 
GEBALDINE. 69 
 
 To the party, without the least possible fear 
 Of (foi once) being dry.'* 
 
 ** Then pray make it right here 
 And just now," said the major. '^ Don't let it go past.] 
 Such a chance should be met, for it may be the last. 
 1 present to you, ladies and gentlemen, one 
 Who appears on the scene like a genuine son 
 Of the sea, Mr. Percival Trent. You have read 
 Him in prose and in verse. It has often been said 
 That his measures are liquid, the reason is plain : 
 He inclines to the liquid himself.** 
 
 So the vein 
 Of good humor was worked till they landed, and said 
 Their good-nights, and betook them to silence and bed 
 
70 QK&ALDINS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 It was late the next morDing when Percival Trent 
 Took his breakfast. At table a message was sent 
 To him, asking that he would make one of a number 
 To seek the Canadian channel. Sweet slumber 
 Had rendered but idle all fears of his friends 
 With regard to his health, as with humor that lends 
 A rare aid to digestion, he sauntered below 
 To the landing. The party was ready to go, — 
 A gay group whom he hardly had noted last night, 
 And for whom he cared little to-day. But the sight 
 Of his friend Mrs. Lee gave him pleasure afresh. 
 
 " Is it, then, really you whom I see in the flesh,'* 
 She inquired with a smile, '' and not simply your spirit, 
 That startled us there from the river? *' 
 
 ''I fear it 
 Was I in tlie flesh who so frightened you all. 
 As this certainly is ; tliough I seem to recall 
 As a very vague dream my unpleasant relapse 
 Of last evening. I've met with more wretched mis- 
 haps, 
 But not often. The fault was my own, and the scare 
 
GERALDINE. Tl 
 
 You all kindly took part in. I'll use better care 
 The next time I go dreaming alone, Mrs. Lee.** 
 
 '' IJut pray tell, Mr. Trent, how you happened to be 
 Solitary and far, as you were, and so late. 
 I have never supposed you a tempter of fate 
 In such manner unsocial.*' 
 
 ''I'm here quite alone,** 
 He made answer. " No soul whom I ever have knovii 
 Have I seen for a week, till last night I met you 
 And the major. I like to be captain and crew 
 Now and then, and go drifting wherever the stream 
 May incline me. The moonlight invites me to dream. 
 And a dreamer is ever unsocial. But pray. 
 Are you here for the season, or only a day? " 
 
 " For a month, Mr. Trent ; and I hope you will stay 
 While we tarry. My friends would not take a denial, 
 And brought me along nolens volens. My vial 
 Of wrath at their folly is empty at last ; 
 For I think I could bear it a while to be cast 
 On a desert indeed, with both you and the major 
 To cheer me." 
 
 " You're talking of me, I will wagei, 
 In ways that you should not," that gentleman said, 
 Coming up. " But no matter, I've been for tlie bread 
 And the butter, and pickles, and no\T we are going 
 Aboard.** 
 
72 GEBALDINE, 
 
 The small steamer her whistle was blowiDg 
 In littlo shrill screams that suggested his waking 
 From reverie deep the night previous. Taking 
 Their way to the yacht, they were off very soon 
 For a morning's delight, and a long afternoon 
 Mid the islands that skirt the Canadian shore. 
 It was one of those days to stand out evermore 
 In your memory, after you live them, divine 
 From the Maker's own hand, with a shimmer and 
 
 shine, 
 And a marvellous glow that are rare as the mornings 
 Of God. And all Nature had donned the adorninga 
 Of beauty, and wore them with grace like a queen. 
 Every islet seemed glad in its garments of green ; 
 And the far-away'hills of the mainland were beaming 
 With brightness against the blue sky. 
 
 Slowly steaming 
 Adown the wide channel for two or three miles. 
 They then rounded their course for the Lake of the 
 
 Isles. 
 How it sleeps, with the islands embracing it round, 
 In its beautiful, silvery silence profound ! 
 The sweet charm of content is upon it, unbroken 
 By sound of unrest, or the presence or token 
 Of man. There is nothing to trouble the dreams 
 That are born of its beauty, save haply the screams 
 Of some hawk as he greedily chases his prey, 
 Or the plash of a fish in the water. 
 
QERALDINE. 78 
 
 *' Some day 
 I would die in a beautiful silence like this, 
 And go out of the world with the world's tender kiss 
 Sweet upon me," said Trent, in a low underbreath, 
 To the friend at his side. 
 
 '* Don't remind me of death 
 Id the midst of such beauty and peace," she replied. 
 " I would live on forever within it ! " 
 
 She sighed ; 
 But her face wore a smile as she spoke. 
 
 ''I'm a heatlien 
 You'll think, Mr. Trent ; but no fancy to me than 
 The fancy of death is more dreadful. I can't 
 Overcome it. It's foolish, I'm ready to grant ; 
 But I shrink from all thought of just dying — just 
 
 giving 
 Up breath, and so — stopping forever. My living 
 Don't count for so much, I admit, as it might. 
 For myself and my friends ; and I value it light 
 As you possibly could do. It isn't that I 
 Am so anxious to live ; but I don't want — to die." 
 
 They were sitting, it chanced, just a trifle apart, 
 And unheard by the rest. 
 
 ''It is not in the art 
 Of the preacher to make such a commonplace thing 
 Of this dying as some would fain make it. The sting 
 Of mortality is and must be th^.*. it perishes. 
 
74 GERALDINE, 
 
 Nothing can last that the heart fondly cherishes 
 Here" — and he paused. 
 
 " Yes, of course. And 1 know 
 That this body of mine, and this being, must go 
 Very soon the one way of all flesh ; yet the thought 
 Is a horror to me — that our bodies are brought 
 Into life for a little, to trouble and care for, 
 To keep, and at times, perchance, put up a prayer for , 
 And loving them much, it may be, from such caring, 
 We then must accept for them only the faring 
 Of death and the grave. We were made, I believe, 
 Yov a destiny better." 
 
 ' ' Some error of Eve 
 Played the mischief with destiny, I have been told, 
 If to answer your comment I may be so bold," 
 Said the major, approaching, who heard the last sentence. 
 *' The whim of a woman, the lasting repentance 
 Of man, — that's the way it has, been ever since. 
 While the whims amuse you, they may cause us to wince 
 Pretty often. I'm ' posted,' — I carry the scars." 
 And he laughed as he spoke. 
 
 ' ' But not one of them mars 
 Your abounding conceit, Major Mellen. Your pride 
 In subduing the feminine heart will abide 
 Any stabs you are likely to feel." 
 
 "Such sarcasm 
 Demands from somebody a fit cataplasm. 
 r go, Mrs. Lee, to receive it." 
 
QERALBINE. 76 
 
 He bowed 
 Very dumbly, and turned on his heel. 
 
 '' IVe allowed 
 Major Mellen to say such unmerited things 
 Of my sex, that I really must silence his flings 
 In the future, I fancy,'* she laughing remarked. 
 
 They were silent a little ; th'^.n all disembarked 
 
 For their dinner. A cool, grassy point that projected 
 
 Froin one of the islands was wisely selected, 
 
 In sight of the Lake of the Isles. There the trees 
 
 Made a murmurous music as stirred by the breeze ; 
 
 The half-silence was sweet with the odor of flowers ; 
 
 And pretty green islets, like shyly hid bowers, 
 
 Slept there in the sun, with their green garments 
 
 trailing 
 The water that kissed them, and seemed as if sailing 
 Adowu a green river to seas undiscovered 
 By mortal. Some saint of the beautiful hovered 
 About the rare spot, and enchanted it. 
 
 Verily 
 Dinner out-doors should be eaten quite merrily 
 Ever ; for half of the pleasure you take in it 
 Lies in the jovial mirth that you make in it. 
 Always some flies will get into the cream of it ; 
 Fish that are frying will burn e'er you dream of it ; 
 Milk that at morning was sweet has been learning 
 The secret of Nature that hints of a churning ; 
 
76 GEUALBINE. 
 
 The butter that's *' come " may have hastened by ruD- 
 
 ning; 
 Mosquitos, persistent with bills, keep a-dunning ; 
 The table is always a doubtful thing under 
 Its showy pretences, and causes a wonder 
 If crockery rests in a state of security ; 
 Coffee goes down with a fear for its purity ; 
 Seats are uncertain, and spiders abundant, 
 The ladies complain : there is nothing redundant — 
 That's quite beyond question — except it be fun ; 
 But you almost regret when the dinner is done ; 
 For the atmosphere tones up your nerves like a tonic ; 
 The winds and the waves make a murmur harmonic ; 
 You sit in the shadows, and see the wide world. 
 All its streamers of sunlight in splendor unfurled, 
 Roll along in glad glory to-morrow to meet. 
 And there's more in your dinner than merely to eat. 
 
 When this dinner was ended, they idled a while 
 
 On the banks of the beautiful evergreen isle. 
 
 Mr. Percival Trent, idling dreamily, laid 
 
 Himself down, like the dreamer he was, in the shade 
 
 Of a tree but a step from the others. To him 
 
 Was the cup of delight even full to its brim. 
 
 He had laughed and made merry this hour with the re&t 
 
 He would taste now the apples of gold that were pressed 
 
 To his hungering lips, — the sweet fancies that flitted 
 
 So blight through his brain. 
 
OEBALDINE. 77 
 
 " He has saddled and bitted 
 His Pegasus, certain, the major declared, 
 "And is off on a gallop. If any here dared 
 Overhaul him at present, I fear they would find 
 It a hard road to travel that's aJways inclined - 
 To the Pisgah of dreams." 
 
 " I must say it were fitter 
 Tc speak of yourself, seems to me, as the bitter — 
 The bitter reviler of genius at times. 
 Did you try to reach heaven by a ladder of rhymes 
 Years ago, Major Mellen, and fail? " 
 
 *'Mrs. Lee, 
 You are always a mild inquisition to me. 
 A few people were born with an interrogation 
 Curled up on the end of their tongue. Moderation 
 In questioning might be a virtue with these. 
 They are slow with their statements, but busy as bees 
 With conundrums.'* 
 
 " Some men never make a repi) 
 To the plainest of questions," she said, "• but decry 
 Every question that misses their lips. I was seeking 
 A reason why you should forever be speakmg 
 So lightly of rhyme and its spirit. Success 
 In pursuit of a thing seldom gives to one less 
 Of respect for it." 
 
 ** Well, you are free to impute 
 Tc me failure in wooing the Muse. To refute 
 Any false implication were idle indeed. 
 
78 GERALBINE, 
 
 If my Pegasus proved but a slow-going steed, 
 
 And I early dismounted in common disgust, 
 
 I've a host of good company plodding the dust 
 
 Of our highway afoot. And I fancy the way 
 
 Of the rhymer, wherever his fancy may stray. 
 
 Is like that of the wicked : I think, my dear madam, 
 
 The path of the poet has known its McAdam." 
 
 *' McAdam made hard what each Eve has made easy 
 Then, truly," she answered, with laugh that wag 
 
 breezy 
 And light. '' I incline to the common belief 
 That the mother of poets is love, and the chief 
 Inspiration of rhyme is the sensitive heart. — 
 Is it so, Mr. Trent?" 
 
 *' You have guessed it, in part, 
 Mrs. Lee. If the rhyme be inspired in the least. 
 Then the heart or the fancy, by aid of a priest 
 Of the pen, must have wedded itself to the thought. 
 And some glow of true feeling is certainly caught 
 In the verse of the rhymer, when once it be found 
 With the laurel of true immortality crowned. 
 I believe there are volumes of rhyme written out, 
 As to which we may harbor a lenient doubt 
 If they ever were born of a true inspiration. 
 The art of mechanics has blind consecration 
 In person of some who would wear the green bays 
 Of the world's gonerosity." 
 
QEBALBINE. 79 
 
 '' One cif these days/* 
 Said tliC major with pride, *• you may look for a poet 
 In me. When my heart is full swept, you will know it 
 By melody rare from its quivering strings. 
 As the swan must be dying when sweetest he sings, 
 You may know I have come to my absolute fate 
 When I utter the notes that are sweetest.** 
 
 "ThemaU 
 Of the swan is the goose, Major Mellen, that misses 
 The music of better bred birds in its hisses 
 So sibilant. He that irreverent mocks 
 The rich note of a swan may produce a few squawks. 
 And betray his true species.** 
 
 She took a delight, 
 As it seemed, in sarcastic allusion. 
 
 "I might 
 Pick a quarrel with you, my good cousin, for words 
 So sarcastic and cruel. Our mention of birds 
 Has evoked a whole flock of the turbulent daws 
 Over yonder, that utter their parrot-like ' caws * 
 Like a woman hard pressed for a sensible reason. 
 To give you back torment in kind would be treason 
 To gallantry, sore as I*m tempted. Alas 
 That a man is compelled to let ridicule pass 
 From a woman unanswered ! To wish I were one 
 Of the privileged sex I could often have done. 
 Had I never remembered what one of them said, — 
 That, because as a woman she never must wed 
 
80 GERALDINE. 
 
 Any woman, she even could feel reconciled 
 To her lot.*' 
 
 " The good Montague pamted it mild, 
 My dear major, for her. She was talking for men 
 To be pleased, and to quote her thereafter. And then 
 Lady Mary was vexed that the men should fare better 
 In marriage than women could fare." 
 
 ''I'm your debtoi 
 Again, Mrs. Lee. Don't increase the large debt 
 By some stroke of your tongue more sarcastical yet. 
 Let us take to the water, like ducks, with a quack ; " 
 And he nudged a good doctor near by. '* To be back 
 At a sensible hour, we must speedily start.'* 
 
 All at once went aboard, and prepared to depart. 
 The main channel is narrow, that leads from the lake ; 
 But a dozen make off from it soon, and partake 
 Of the tint of the little green islets. So deep 
 Is the hue of the streams, that the islands, asleep 
 On their bosom with verdure luxuriant, seem 
 To be part of them ever. You *sail in a dream. 
 Winding in, winding out, in a labyrinth sweet 
 With the wood-blossoms thick in their silent retreat : 
 And you fancy that here, in its beauty supernal, 
 This calm afternoon is unending, eternal. 
 
 At length, when emerged from the river's glad maze, 
 They were on a broad channel, lit up by the rays 
 
OEBALDINE, 81 
 
 Of the down-going sun. Across yonder, Canadian 
 Hills sbped away in a beauty Arcadian ; 
 Down the wide stream unobstructed, the view 
 Reached afar to the low-bending canopy blue ; 
 On the right, close at hand, were the Paradise Isles, 
 With their loveliness spanning the magical miles ; 
 Over all, the soft glamour of sunset, as calm 
 And serene as the peace of a hallowing psalm. 
 
 ** The St. Lawrence is waiting its laureate yet, 
 Mr. Trent. With your words to its melody set, 
 It might come to its own by and by.'" 
 
 There was evei 
 In Mrs. Lee's tone a mild flattery. 
 
 '' Never 
 Can measure and melody happier wed, 
 I'm afraid, Mrs. Lee," hesitating, he said. 
 *' Than in Moore's little lyric of days long ago, 
 When he echoed the musical ' Row, brothers, row,* 
 Of Canadian boatmen. Its mellowing flow 
 I recall very often at twilight. He penned it 
 Not far down the river, whose placid waves lend it 
 A charm I shall never forget." 
 
 " How could MoorOf 
 Having seen the St. Lawrence, return to the poor. 
 Meagre life he had known ? If you happen to leam 
 Why those poets who visit here ever return 
 
82 OERALDINE, 
 
 To the feverish towns, will you tell me ? It seems 
 To me certain that this is the river of dreams.'* 
 
 *' Do men die in their dreams, Mrs. Lee? If they did 
 
 Then the ruin and wreck of some lives would be bid 
 
 In a merciful way from their heeding. We live 
 
 As we must. 'Tis not all a receiving. We give 
 
 Of ourselves to the world, in return for its gifts. 
 
 Every hindrance or help that in some manner lifts 
 
 Us up nearer the ideal life should be held 
 
 For the good of our fellows. The hermit, impelled 
 
 To a lonely and selfish career, only cheats 
 
 His own being. His life is a canker, that eats 
 
 Out his soul. We may dream now and then by the w£k i 
 
 But to take on the armor, and fight as we may 
 
 When our respite is over." 
 
 *' All poets, I thought 
 Till I knew you, were dreamers forever, and fought 
 But in fancy. You seem to be double : you carry 
 An active and passive that will not quite marrj^ 
 In one ; for you work and you dream, and do each 
 To the uttermost. What a magnificent reach 
 There must be and there is to your life ! Do you feel 
 How much broader it is than the most? '' 
 
 ''Don't reveaU 
 My conceit, Mrs. Lee, with your questions,'* he parried. 
 *' I think that myself is quite happily married 
 To all that is in me. My labor and rest 
 
G ERA L DINE. 88 
 
 Never trouble '^jach other My vigor and zest 
 
 With my indolence ever are fully agreed : 
 
 l*m as willing to stop as I am to proceed, 
 
 When a good time for stopping has come. And the 
 
 scope 
 Of all life is the same, — from the fear to the hope, 
 From the doubt of the mortal, far on, till it holds 
 By the Infinite, where the immortal unfolds 
 Into trust. There is never a being more broad 
 Than to reach from itself to the mercifid God.*' 
 
 After that, they were thoughtful and silent a while. 
 
 A rare flush on the sky held the grace of a smile. 
 
 As if heaven, bending over the earth in its sleep. 
 
 Saw a beauty to win it, ere pausing to weep 
 
 In the dews of the night, over sadness and sorrow 
 
 That darkened to-day, and must sadden to-morrow. 
 
 The evenmg wore on with much laughter and jest 
 
 From the others. The glow faded out of the west : 
 
 A.nd the stars, in their marvellous shimmer and sheen. 
 
 Like a glimmer of glory, fell softly between 
 
 The old day and the new. *Twas a time to be glad 
 
 [n some quiet of soul such as he must have had. 
 
 Who, asleep on the plain, saw a ladder of light. 
 
 And the angels of God bringing peace through the night. 
 
 By and by they swung round, and across the broad 
 sweep 
 
84 GEBALBINE, 
 
 Of the river below, as along the soft steep 
 Of the sky the late moon slowly climbed. 
 
 ''It has been 
 A rare day, Mrs. Lee. If one never could win 
 His lost paradise back, had he known days like this 
 He could make for himself a few ages of bliss 
 Out of memory.*' 
 
 '' Woman lost Eden to man ; 
 But he finds it again in her love.*' 
 
 "If he can," 
 Said the major, near by, who had half overheard. 
 
 ''If he will^ I suggest as the much truer word," 
 Mrs. Lee quick retorted. 
 
 " Oh, well, he is willing 
 Forever, good cousin," he answered, " and thrilling 
 Quite often with sense of a paradise new. 
 But as often thrust out of it. Eves have been true 
 To their early example always." 
 
 "Mr. Trent, 
 Is there nothing can make Major Mellen repent 
 Such heretical speeches? " 
 
 But Trent only smiled. 
 " He has nothing, in fact, to repent of. Such wild 
 And erratic assertions serve nought from his lips, 
 But to put for a moment his thought in eclipse. 
 As we all are aware. He's a genius for saying 
 What nobody doubts more thaa he does." 
 
GERALDINE. 85 
 
 *'But praying 
 The purdou of poets for trespassing thus 
 As a poacher upon their dominion, and plus 
 The humility even / feel to be found 
 By a poet himself on the privileged ground 
 Without proper consent, I would emphasize keenly 
 The right of all men to what poets serenely 
 Accept for themselves, — to exaggerate feeling, 
 Dissemble the thought they profess to revealing. 
 Make statements as fact that are half absurd fancies, 
 And build upon fiction their idle romances.*' 
 
 The major talked smoothly at times, with that flavor 
 Satirical still in his words. 
 
 '' There are graver 
 And guiltier crimes, Major Mellen, than one 
 You accuse yourself of, and then hasten to run 
 To excuses for ever committing it. Stay 
 In the poets' preserves quite as long as you may, 
 I can promise that they will forgive the affront, 
 [f you bring us some game at the end of your hunt,** 
 Mrs. Lee made him answer. 
 
 " Don't make game of me 
 In such cold-blooded fashion, I beg, Mrs. Lee. 
 We are near to the landing, let all disembark 
 Before you shall crueUy fire the whole park 
 Of artillery light which is hid in your speech : 
 Vbcrc are others, yon know, who might be within reach." 
 
86 GERALBINE. 
 
 So with laughter and jest the clay came to its close 
 For them all far along in the evening. Repose 
 Was as sweet as the day had been rare, and the vision 
 Of dreams that it brought had a beauty Elvsian. * 
 
OEBALDINE. 87 
 
 A.PTRA chis, there were days upon days of delight 
 Unalloyed. Percy Trent wrote to Geraldine quite 
 An unselfish account of his generous pleasure. 
 ** I find in mere being/* he said, '' such a measure 
 Of happy content as I never have dreamed 
 When away from your side. Never gladness so gleamed 
 In the sunlight, as simply perennial seems 
 To one lingering here on the River of Dreams, 
 As the bright Mrs. Lee christens it. It is queer 
 That herself and the major should chance to be here 
 The same season with me. I am glad that they came, 
 Though their purpose and mine are not nearly the same. 
 They are here just to lose a few weeks out of life : 
 I am dreaming, the better to bear in the strife 
 A man's part by and by. It is well to recruit 
 For the battle to be. It is well that the lute 
 Should hang silent a while, that to-morrow its song 
 May be clearer and truer, more certain and strong. 
 Major Mellen is much as he was long ago, 
 Only bitterer grown in his speech ; but we know, 
 Who have known him tie longest, how much that h« 
 feigns 
 
iS GEBALDINE. 
 
 To be earnest is said for effect. That he pains 
 Me at times with his cynical sneers, I admit, 
 Notwithstanding ; and often I laugh at his wit, 
 "When I grieve with a hurt that is sudden and keen, 
 For he spares not the holiest things. He has seen 
 Some experience sad, I'm persuaded, — more sad 
 That its influence seems to be lastingly bad. 
 He was always a doubter of every th.ng true. 
 As a fact, or in word. ' Give the devil his due,' 
 After all ; and the major has many good traits. 
 He is capital company often, and hates 
 Every sham with a hatred that urges assault 
 Of the fiercest. I fancy, at times, that his fault 
 Of condemning the right has grown out of long seeing 
 So much of the wrong and the false, and of being 
 So keenly alive to pretence. 
 
 "Mrs. Lee 
 And myself are the best of good friends, if to be 
 Always frank and outspoken together, to find 
 Satisfaction in similar moods of the mind*. 
 To have sympathies somewhat in common, may make 
 Us all that. She has known, I am certain, the ache 
 Of a heart that is strong in its passion, unfolding 
 Its riches with never a thought of withholding, — 
 The pain that I fancy some women must keep 
 Throughout life, in a poverty wretched and deep 
 That was born of their prodigal love. Is there balm 
 For such aching of soul ? In the liberal palm 
 
GEBALDINE. 89 
 
 Of the white htind of Peace, is there quiet and rest 
 For such throbbings of pain in so troubled a breast ? 
 I am syllabling questions I only have thought 
 Hitherto. Though quite often with her, I have sought 
 In no manner to learn what her sorrow has been — 
 What it has been, perchance what it is. I begin 
 To be reverent even in presence of souls 
 That have hidden away in their silence the scrolls 
 Of their own revelation. No idle perusal 
 May learn of the secrets they hold in refusal 
 From men. 
 
 '' I suspect Mrs. Lee knew the arts 
 Of a finished coquette, and made playthings of hearts, 
 In some earlier time : there's no hinting, however, 
 Of conquest to-day in her social endeavor. 
 She treats all her friends in a courteous way 
 That is pleasant to see ; but I think she could play 
 A sad havoc with feelings the tenderest still, 
 If to times opportune she but added the will. 
 Do I hold her the less in respect for believing 
 She may have been guilty of ruthless receiving, 
 Aware that she could not give back in return? 
 It is true that I might, if I yet had to learn 
 That a woman wrongs man just to gratify her 
 l^esent mood, not to scarify him. I demur 
 Hut the least to her pleasing herself, if the hurt 
 She inflict be not truly malicious. A flirt 
 WTic should send a man off into grimmest despair. 
 
90 GERALDINE. 
 
 Just to see him writhe on in his agony there, 
 I would simply despise ; but a woman delighting 
 Herself with the winning of love, and inviting 
 Its largess for pleasure it gives her alone — 
 "Why, her motive might partly, in my view, atone 
 For Ihe harm growing out of her deed. For of right 
 A man owes to your sex all the wealth of delight 
 He is able to pay. 
 
 ' ' Do you smile at my reasoning ? 
 Well, you will pardon a moderate seasoning 
 Of the absurd in my argument. Those 
 "Who are victims of feminine art, I suppose, 
 Judge more harshly than I do concerning it. You, 
 Who so easily might have made many to rue 
 Your attractiveness, ought with compassion to look 
 On another who possibly some time forsook 
 The true heights of her womanhood, found the low plane 
 Of coquetry, and made of her beauty a vain 
 Ignis fatuus, leading some men to their grief. 
 I have half been inclined to the foolish belief 
 That the major has suffered from Mrs. Lee's lack 
 Of requital in fullest degree ; that far back 
 In his younger young manhood he loved her, as men 
 Like himself are not apt to love ever again. 
 And why not? They were friends long ago, it appears 
 In a friendship that not very seldom endears 
 'I'o the uttermost one or the other who feels it. 
 If sensitive yet from the hurt, he conceals it 
 
GEBALDINE. 91 
 
 Remarkably well, it is true ; yet a stoical 
 Nature like his may be truly heroical, 
 Smiling despite of its pain. 
 
 " But you care 
 Very little for him or his past, I'm aware : 
 m not speak of them further. And as to my present, 
 I own that I find it so wondrously pleasant, 
 I would not consign it to yesterday soon. 
 The fair land of the Future may yield as its boon 
 Such another rare season of beauty and bliss ; 
 But I doubt if I find it hereafter in this.** 
 
 So he gave himself up to his rhapsodies mild 
 When he wrote of the river. Its beauties beguiled 
 Him to frequent extravagant speech. That his eyes 
 Saw no every-day beauty with aught of surprise 
 She knew well. Was there loveliness for him so rare 
 As alone to enchant him thus utterly ? Fair 
 As the River of Dreams might appear in his sight, 
 Could it thrill him to keenest ecstatic delight 
 With its beauty alone ? Did no presence apart 
 From inanimate things take a hold on his heart 
 As with masterful sweetness ? 
 
 If quesfions like these 
 Were in Geraldine's thought, by the slowest degrees 
 Did they syllables take, and then ask to be heard 
 Of her love. And no query of wonder, no word 
 Of inquiry," escaped her to him. It was well 
 
92 GEBALDINE. 
 
 That he linger thus long at the Islands to tell 
 Her of beauty and blessing they yielded him. So 
 She made answer in brief, and was glad in the glow 
 Of his gladness, without a foreboding or dread. 
 She could trust, and would trust to the end, she had said 
 A.nd the end must be well, let it bring what it would, 
 Since a Father so loving and tender and good 
 Had its shaping and care. 
 
 There are natures that keef 
 Such a faith in such wise ; but, if moved to the deep 
 Of their possible doubting, the tempest that rages 
 Within them so wild there is nothing assuages 
 But words of the Master, with tenderest thrill 
 Speaking out through the darkness their "Peace!" 
 and " Be still I '* 
 
aXBALhlNB. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The/ had dined at Deer Island, a dozen or more 
 Of tb seekers for pleasure. A half -shaded shore 
 Gave tbeui welcome ; its turf, that was mossy and sweet, 
 Running town to the water to welcome their feet ; 
 And its trees, that were sentinels faithful and strong 
 Of the years, breathing out a monotonous song 
 Of old summers departed, half song and half sigh, 
 And inviting them listless and dreamy to lie 
 In the quivering shadows when dinner was done : 
 So they lingered in happy abandon. The sun. 
 When they took to their boats, had sunk low in the west, 
 And the night would be moonless ; the river's fair breast 
 Was resplendent with ripples of silver and gold 
 As the breezes sprang up, and, with dalliance bold 
 And with passionate kisses, beguiled its repose 
 Into sighing unrest. They were near to the close 
 Of a glad day together, — these two we have traced 
 In their tallf and their feeling a while. 
 
 "It's a waste 
 Of fine weather to think of returning so soon," 
 Mrs. Lee made remark. '' And this whole afternoon 
 Has gone by like a dream. Do I live, Mr. Trent ? 
 
94 GEBALDINE. 
 
 Do I verily sip the sweet cup of content 
 
 As it seems that I do ? Is regret but a thing 
 
 Of the past?'' 
 
 " Into seasons like this not a sting 
 Of old memories ever should enter," he said. 
 * Let the dead of your yesterdays bury its dead ; 
 Drink the cup of content with no lingering glances 
 Behind. There is joy in the present. Romances 
 Forever abide in the future. Look out 
 On the shall-be as I do, with never a doubt 
 Of its bringing the best of your being." 
 
 He lifted 
 The oars as he spoke, and they silently drifted 
 Adown the still stream. 
 
 *' Do you never feel fear 
 Of the future? " she asked. '' Do you never seem neai 
 To some terrible tragedy? Are you so certain 
 Of good you coulcj lift the invisible curtain 
 Of years with no tremor of heart? " 
 
 With surprise 
 He looked deep in the depths of her beautiful eyes 
 Ere he answered, — 
 
 " My friend, you are keen at divining 
 Some thoughts unexpressed ; for I have been inclining 
 To fear of my morrows of late. And I stand, 
 As I fancy at times, on debatable land, 
 Between gladness and grief. In these days of delight 
 I am far up the mountains of being, in sight 
 
GEBALBINE. 95 
 
 Of that Beulah where grief is unknown ; but I know 
 There are valleys of Baca through which men must 
 
 go 
 Ere they climb to the summits of blessing. I wait 
 With a painful expectancy, early or late, 
 The upwellings of fountains of bitterness. When 
 They appear, I must drink, as do all other men." 
 
 *' And some women,'* she added : " indeed, you might 
 
 say 
 And all women. The waters that flow by the way 
 Are as Marah sometimes." 
 
 '* There are few, I believi , 
 Who drink only the sweetness of life. But to grieve 
 Over sorrow gone by is not worse than to shrink 
 From some possible sorrow before. We must drink 
 The full cup of to-morrow, whatever the draught ; 
 But, or bitter or sweet, it is not to be quafifed 
 Till to-moiTow presents it. Sufficient indeed 
 To the day is the evil thereof ; and the need 
 Of us all is a present of glad satisfaction. 
 Where nought of the past makes unhappy exaction, 
 And nought of the future repels or dismays." 
 
 " And you live in the present? " returning his gaze, 
 " Altogether, I mean, with no pain of the past 
 Throbbing up, and no glamour of happiness cast 
 On the days that are coming ? ' ' 
 
96 GERALDINE. 
 
 He smiled a reply 
 Before speaking. 
 
 *' My patient confessor, if I 
 Should admit that I look for some gladness supreme 
 In the future, that, doing to-day, I but dream 
 Of endeavor the proudest to-morrow, 'twould seem 
 Contradictory. I have admitted the truth. 
 That I fear in the future some possible ruth 
 Full of peril to peace ; that I shrink from my morrows 
 In doubt. But the future is broad ; and it borrows 
 A radiance often from glories that crown 
 Us with gladness to-day. And I never look down 
 The long vista of years, without seeing beyond 
 All their possible gloom an illuming as fond 
 As the kisses of dawn on the world. I am glad 
 Of some day that's to be. If one morrow prove sad, 
 I shall come to another, please God ! " 
 
 *' A glad faith,*' 
 She responded. ''But what of the past? Does no 
 
 wraith 
 Of some buried desire ever enter your room. 
 As you sit in the silence of solitude's gloom. 
 And torment you with words of regret ? You have said, 
 ' Let the dead of your yesterdays bury its dead.' 
 Do your dead never walk ? Is there never a ghost 
 Of dead love or dead hope to intrude when you most 
 Would forget that you ever had hollowed a grave? 
 Does ytur past sink away, as this shell in the wave, 
 
GERALDINE. 97 
 
 Out of sight, out of mind ? ' ' and she tossed a bright shell 
 She had held, in the water. 
 
 " No funeral knell 
 Has been rung in my past,'* he responded with feeling. 
 His sympathy touched by her sudden revealing 
 Of hidden emotion. '' I've stood by no bier 
 Of my love or my hope. I can sit with you here. 
 And can say that my past has been pleasant and gooi ; 
 That my present you make, as but one other could, 
 Satisfying, complete." And he noted the glow 
 Of a tenderer light in her eyes, and the flow 
 Of a deeper tint into her face. '' I regret 
 Only duty ill done. I can never forget 
 What is gone, let it be whatsoever it may ; 
 Not the less would I live as I should in to-day, 
 But remembering yesterday only for smiles 
 That it gave" — 
 
 ** Seeing somewhere the paradise islc8 
 Of your dream by the sea?" interrupting him. 
 
 *'Ye8, 
 Looking out on the billows before, I confess 
 In the faith that beyond their unrest there is calm 
 For us all in the infinite islands of balm." 
 
 '' Will you teach me your faith ? I am hungry for hope 
 In the years. With the greatest of griefs I could cope, 
 Could I only believe that beyond it is bliss. 
 You have much to make glad : there is much that I miss, 
 
98 QERALDINE. 
 
 And but little I hold, and of this you have given 
 The most. On the wings of your friendship I've striven 
 To mount where the lark of your happiness sings : 
 I am weighted too heavy, I fear, for the wings. 
 Since I cannot fly far, and each flight only brings 
 Its discouragement." 
 
 '* Would I could lift you with me 
 To the heights of a happy content, JVIi's. Lee ! 
 To do this, my dear friend, I would cheerfully give 
 Half a year of the life that is left me to live.*' 
 
 She but smiled at his words. 
 
 " I doubt not, my dear friend, 
 You would give, quite as freely as others would lend, 
 All you have — but the one thing you cannot." 
 
 *' And that?" 
 
 She was silent a little, and motionless sat, 
 Looking into the depths of the shimmering deep. 
 
 " Is a love that is tender and strong, that can sweep 
 Me up out of the gloom with its passionate grasp, 
 And then hold me content in the quickening clasp 
 Of its sunlight, — the love of a masterful heart 
 Full of power, most learned in the delicate art 
 Of its loving, most tender and loving indeed 
 When its pity could see there was bitterest need — 
 Sacli a love as a man gives one woman in life." 
 
QERALDJNE. 99 
 
 •^ And God pity him, then if she be not his wife. 
 Or may not be ! " he said with quick fervor. 
 
 "And she 
 Who so needs such a love, in whose heart there can be 
 Such a hunger without it?'* 
 
 '* God pity her too, 
 In his infinite love, as all loving souls do ! " 
 
 There were tears in her eyes as she questioned : each word 
 
 Had a thrill that was strange as he answered. She heard, 
 
 And was silent again for a moment, averting 
 
 Her face from his gaze. Sudden passion asserting 
 
 Itself in his breast, like a prisoner beating 
 
 Against the hard bars of his prison, entreating 
 
 For liberty, moved him beyond his control. 
 
 He was swayed by a tempest undreamed of. His soul, 
 
 Looking out of its windows of feeling, saw only 
 
 Another soul, helpless and hopeless and lonely, 
 
 And groping so after some path to the light 
 
 And the cheer he could give as he must. In his sight 
 
 She was near to the heights he had named. He could 
 
 lift 
 Her to i)eace and content by the plenteous gift 
 Of his love, that was giving itself as if now 
 It had first love's sweet charity learned, — to endow 
 Needy being with riches untold. 
 
 Ere he broke 
 Into utterance wild and vehement, she spoke. 
 
J.OO CrEBALDINE. 
 
 " I'm but one of a thousand who hunger and thirst 
 For their manna in Egypt ; .who wander accursed 
 In a wilderness dreary, forever unblest 
 By the gift of that land which they should have possessed 
 But for doubting and fears. I shall die in my Edom, 
 And know not the gladness of faith that is freedom, 
 And service of heart that is scripture the sweetest. 
 My lot with the heathen Egyptian were meetest, 
 Unled by the Moses of love toward a land 
 I may never behold.*' 
 
 ' ' When I gave you my hand 
 As your friend, Mrs* Lee, I had little to offer 
 Of worth, as I said ; and, if now I should proffer 
 Such love as you speak of, it might seem as meagre 
 To you." lie spoke low, with an emphasis eager 
 And quick. " Gould I lead to the plenty that lies 
 Beyond Edom ? My soul in its solitude cries 
 For companionship such as it never has missed 
 Till this hour. In the silence I tremble and list 
 For your answer." 
 
 She looked in his eloquent face 
 With a hungering look that will ever have place 
 In his memory, tears overflowing her cheeks. 
 
 *' You must hear how my heart in its gratitude speaks 
 A reply that my lips cannot utter. Its throbs 
 Are so strong, they would shape all my words into sobs, 
 Did I try. As the call of a bird to its mate 
 
GEBALDINE. 101 
 
 That lias lingered too long, and is home-flying late, 
 Even winning and tender as this is the cry 
 Of your soul unto mine ; and as glad would it fly, — 
 This poor shivering soul that is silent so long, — 
 Full as glad would it mount to the summits of song 
 With your own by its side, as when, night-shadows gone, 
 The glad warblers will wing themselves up to the dawn 
 In a sunburst of music. My comrade and friend. 
 Could you walk with me now, from this day to the end, 
 You could be — ah, how keenly I feel it and know it ! — 
 Both heaven and the way. But you cannot. The poet 
 Within you may pity my need ; and the man. 
 In his passion of feeling that generous ran 
 To my help, may give all that he hath, even this 
 That is treasure the greatest of all : but the bliss 
 Of possession can never be mine. Do not ask 
 Any reason. For you I have lifted the mask 
 Of my heart, and you see it all quivering here. 
 As none other has seen or will see it." 
 
 '' So near 
 Have I come, as you say, my dear friend, to your side, 
 To be put thus away ? Let whatever betide. 
 You must linger a while in my love. Y'ou have waited 
 Too lonely and long for the comrade belated 
 By fate, to repel him, or bid him farewell 
 With a half- recognition. My passion must tell 
 Its sweet story yet over and over again 
 In your ears. I must give you with lips and with pen, 
 
102 GERALDINE. 
 
 As a prodigal gives, of the wealth of my heart, 
 Till you go from your poverty gladly apart, 
 And I wander a pauper forever, unless 
 You are prodigal too in return. I would bless 
 And be blest. May I not ? ' ' 
 
 So he pleaded, the strength 
 Of his passion possessing him quite, till at length 
 It had mastered him utterly. Could she withstand 
 Such entreaty? 
 
 " My friend, when you gave me your hand 
 As my friend, you gave much to a beggar for much, 
 And your friendship had in it a hallowing touch 
 That uplifted. My life had been swept passion-clean, 
 As I thought. In my desert no budding of green 
 Could give beauty again, I believed. You have shown 
 My mistake ; but not less must I wander alone 
 Through the wilderness ever. Some manna is mine 
 By the way ; and this day's is the nearest divine. 
 And the sweetest, that ever my hungering soul 
 Has made feast of. If only such generous dole 
 Could be mine through the years ! " with a passionate 
 
 thrill 
 Overflowing her speech. 
 
 *' As it can, if you will,** 
 lie persisted. 
 
 She shook her head sadly. 
 
 '^ No more^ 
 If you love me. But see ! we are far from the shore, 
 
OERALBINE. 10^ 
 
 Aiid A storm is approaching.'* And as she ihus spoke, 
 On tLe twilight's dim silence a thunder-peal broke, 
 And aroused him. 
 
 Quick over the north there !iad spread 
 A black gathering mass, that grew dense overhead 
 While he looked.^ A dull moan was borne out on the air 
 From the pines in the distance. The day, that was fair 
 As. a vision of peace, had departed in wrath 
 That would quickly envelop them. Straight in the path 
 Of the storm they were floating, as stoutly he bent 
 To his oars without answer, and rapidly sent 
 The light craft o'er the water. 
 
 '' Some shelter we'll find 
 Over j'onder, I think, if we do not much mind 
 "What it is," by and by he remarked. " It is pUin 
 That the deluge will come very soon. We mnst gain 
 Any harbor that offers." 
 
 He rowed with his might, 
 While the storm, sweeping on with the speed of the night 
 That it deepened too early, was nearing them fast. 
 And they heard the wild shriek of its trumpeting Mast 
 
104 GEBALDINK 
 
 xn. 
 
 A MAGNIFICENT picture he saw as he rowed : 
 
 On his left, in the west, there yet lingered and gloTved 
 
 The last rays of the sun, in a light that was yellow 
 
 As gold, and suffusing the sky with their mellow 
 
 Effulgence ; the clouds coming nearest were red 
 
 As the crimson that flows from the battle-field's dead, 
 
 And above them were opal and purple and gray ; 
 
 To the north, moving forward in martial array, 
 
 "Were dense masses of darkness, and through them the 
 
 flame 
 Of the lightning burned swift ere the thunder-peals came 
 With their torrent of sound. Far away, where the 
 
 sky 
 In the lap of the hills appeared closest to lie, 
 The black mass became silvern ; for rain had begun 
 In the valley beyond, where the lingering sun 
 Threw its light on a lower horizon. 
 
 On swept 
 The dark masses above, while the silvern sheet kept 
 Its way slower and gentler below, like a veil 
 Slipping down o'er the world in compassion. The gale 
 Would be on them before they could land, ro it seemed 
 
QEBALBINE. 105 
 
 More intense grew the darkness o' erheacl ; brighter 
 
 gleamed 
 The mad lightning, more frequent its flame ; all the west 
 In a moment was shrouded in shadow. The crest 
 Of each wave, as the water grew wilder apace, 
 Led the swift-flying boat on a wearying race 
 For the shore. Yet the strokes of the rower were strong, 
 Though he wearied. The storm was at hand ; but the 
 
 long 
 Way was over at last, as he lifted the skiff 
 Half its length on the sand, at the base of a cliff 
 Not too steep for their climbing. 
 
 "I'll draw up the boat, 
 So the waves cannot easily wash it afloat,'* 
 Nearly breathless he said, as he helped her alight. 
 *' There's a cottage here somewhere, I'm certain, which 
 
 might 
 Give us shelter the best, could we find it. The island 
 Is small, I imagine. We'll climb to the highland 
 And see." 
 
 So they bent their steps upward, her hand 
 In his own. On the highest uplift of the land. 
 In the midst of a grove rather scanty, appeared 
 A low cabin untenanted. Even this cheered 
 Their endeavor, and led them a welcome to seek 
 From its shelter uncertain. The door offered weak 
 And quick-conquered resistance. They entered as dowr 
 Fell the rain in a flood. 
 
106 GEBALDINE. 
 
 *' We're not likely to arown, 
 Anyhow, Mrs. Lee, though the prospect is dark 
 As when old Father Noah set sail in his ark. 
 How the floods of our deluge unsparingly pour ! 
 Hear the winds and the rain as they bellow and roar 
 Through the trees ! See the lightning that blazea 
 
 above us, 
 As if the dear Lord had forgotten to love us, 
 And came to us now in his wrath ! It is worth 
 A day's wetting to witness him visit the earth 
 In the might of his power." 
 
 She shuddered, and*drew 
 Herself nearer in dread. A fierce thunderbolt flew 
 Past their sight, and a crash, as if worlds in collision 
 Had met, fairly stunned them. An instant their 
 
 vision 
 Saw nothing ; their senses had gone with the glare 
 Of the lightning that vanished in gloom. 
 
 ''Let me care 
 For you tenderly once, as I can," he appealed, 
 As he felt her form tremble. " There must be concealed 
 In the cabin some helps to your comfort." 
 
 He made 
 His way round in the darkness, now deep, till he laid 
 Eager hold on a rickety chair, which he brought 
 For her use ; and, on searching still further; he caught 
 By the gleam of the lightning a glhnpse of a cot 
 And a campstool. 
 
GERALDINE. 107 
 
 " I own that tbtse quarters are not 
 WTiat they might be for cheerfulness,'* gajiy he said ; 
 '* But there could be worse fortune than this that has 
 
 led 
 L's to shelter so dismal. Imagine us yet 
 In the tempest out yonder ! We never should get 
 To the land with our lives." 
 
 '' 'Twould have seemed little mattei 
 To me only yesterday. Life did not flatter 
 Me much with its promise, although I confessed 
 To a horror of death. There was nought I possessed 
 Of a value worth counting. God's beggars have riches 
 Far greater than mine. I had torn from their niches 
 My idols of cost ; and my heart's wide Valhalla 
 Was empty." 
 
 ^' And now?" 
 
 " You have seen the white calla 
 Unfold all its treasure of purity soon 
 As the morning blooms full in the sweetness of noon? 
 Even so has my love for you burst into bloom 
 From its bud in the dark. It would seem as if gloom 
 Must forever be brightened, indeed, with its light ; 
 And to-day I have riches untold in the sight 
 Of this love that is mine." 
 
 She was speaking in low, 
 8appressed accents, that took indescribable glow 
 From the feeling that moved her. He knelt by her side« 
 A.S a reed in the breath of her speech. 
 
108 GERALD IN E 
 
 "Tou denied 
 Me the right any longer,*' he answered, '•'- to plead 
 For the sweet privilege of supplying your need 
 To the uttermost. All that I am is your own 
 To do with as you may. Will you give me a stone 
 Of denial again, when I ask for the bread 
 Of possession complete ? " 
 
 She but rested her head 
 On his shoulder in silence, her heart throbbing fast 
 As did his. In possession too perfect to last 
 He was hers, she was his, for the moment. He held 
 Her supremely his own ; and his passion compelled 
 Her glad kisses in answer to his. 
 
 '' But a taste 
 Of the honey of Canaan is mine in the waste 
 Of my wilderness barren," she whispered at length. 
 *' It has marvellous sweetness.** 
 
 ' ' And marvellous strength 
 Has this love that I give you," he said in return. 
 " I believed I had nothing of passion to learn " — 
 
 " As did I ; and the ratio of this that I feel 
 Fairly frightens me. Many a wife would conceal 
 Such a fervor of love from her husband ; and I 
 Can be never your wife, Heaven pity me ! " 
 
 "Why? 
 What shall keep us apart ? You were made for my 
 holding," 
 
GERALDINE. 109 
 
 He passionate said, almost fiercely infolding 
 
 Elcr close in his arms. " You are mine by the claim 
 
 Of my love, and your ample return. You became 
 
 WhoUy mine when confession you made of that love ; 
 
 And I hold you by right and by title above 
 
 All beside.'* 
 
 " It is madness to let you forget 
 Your own ties in this manner. Before we had met, 
 You no longer belonged to yourself. Could I keep 
 What another might prove to be hers, and so creep 
 By and by between me and my claim? '* 
 
 Not a word 
 Of reply for a little escaped him. She heard 
 In the stillness between the loud thunder his heart 
 Beating heavy and quick, saw the color depart 
 From his face as the lightning shone on it, and felt 
 That he suffered. He rose to his feet where he knelt, 
 Put her tenderly from him, and strode to the door 
 As if panting for air. It was minutes before 
 He made answer in fact ; then his voice sounded brokea 
 And tremulous. 
 
 ''Yes : I am glad you have spoken 
 Of what I should first have remembered. I thank 
 You for doing it, since I so wickedly drank 
 Of the cup of forgetfulness. Ever its flow 
 Must entice me, I fear 
 
 " A few moments ago," 
 Coming to her again, '' my dear friend, I was mad 
 
110 GERALDINE. 
 
 A.6 the veriest lunatic. Passion has had 
 Its free run for a season. It may not outlive me. 
 It may, to my sorrow. No matter. Forgive me 
 For offering what was not mine to deliver. 
 Forget, if you can, what was said — on the river 
 And here. Let us be the same friends we have beet 
 In these days of delight, if we can. Let me win 
 My good comrade once more." 
 
 And she gave him her hand 
 With a clasp that was warm. 
 
 " You are noble and grand 
 As no other man living could be," she declared. 
 *' In your madness, if madness it were, I have shared : 
 Let me share in your penitence, too, Mr. Trent ; 
 Though I doubt if indeed I do truly repent. 
 It was such a sweet madness ! it thrilled heart and bram 
 With such gladness of being ! it stilled all the vain 
 And unsatisfied longings that trouble my breast. 
 With such tremulant stilling to such a glad rest ! 
 I shall love you— I must — though I never may tell you 
 Again of my love ; and could loving compel you 
 To leave all the world, and to cleave unto me, 
 I should never indulge the compulsion, but flee 
 From your presence at once. For again let me say, 
 I must journey through Edom alone. If the way 
 Be so rough that I stumble and fall, you may pray 
 In the strength of your faith for my faltering feet, 
 That they carry me soon to some rest that is sweet ; 
 
GEBALDINE 111 
 
 And if prayer can avail one whose faith, hi eclipse 
 By her doubt, is lost sight of, I'm certain your lips 
 Could efliciency lend it for me. But alas 
 For the wilderness lonesome through which I must pass 
 From this day to the end ! " 
 
 In the darkness he knew 
 There were tears on her face, and he tenderly drew 
 Her again to his arms. 
 
 '' I can be to you much. 
 Though I may not be all," he responded. '' And such 
 As I freely can give you must freelj^ accept. 
 Let what loving has sown, in the future be reaped 
 In our friendship. To walk by your side as your friend 
 Now and then, you must grant me from this till the 
 end." 
 
 *' Between you and my life," she made answer, ** there 
 
 lies 
 A great gulf that is deep as the ocean : our cries 
 For companionship cross it. You hold me, as here, 
 In the arms of your love, with your heart beating ne*u* , 
 But we stand far apart on the opposite steeps. 
 And between us there bide the impassable deeps. 
 Do not ask me my riddle to read. Let me hide 
 It away from you now and forever." 
 
 She sighed, 
 And he answered her but with caresses, then rose, 
 And in silence peered out in the dark. 
 
il2 QEBALDINE. 
 
 '' I suppose 
 We must manage to stay here till morning. The rage 
 Of the storm is subsiding ; but I can't engage 
 To return you in safety before. We are far 
 F-om tlie Bay, and there's not the first gleam of a 
 
 star 
 Through the gloom. 'Twould be folly to think of my 
 
 finding 
 Our way up these channels so many and winding 
 In darkness like this. I can make you a bed 
 On the cot yonder somehow, it may be," he said 
 By and by. 
 
 Then he busied himself at his task, 
 With some show of success. 
 
 '''Tisn'talllcbuldask 
 For your comfort," he briefly explained, as he made 
 His way cautiously back to her side. ' ' With the aid 
 Of a blanket or two, and a pillow, I think 
 You could rest very well. As it is, do not shrink 
 From accepting the best present poverty yields ; 
 And be certain my tenderness watches, and shields 
 You from harm." 
 
 " I am weary, ' ' she answered, ' ' and glad 
 Of whatever you offer. No fair lady had 
 Truer knight for her service in chivalry's time 
 Than will guard me, I know. You should weave into 
 
 rhyme 
 So romantic an episode truly as this is. 
 
OERALBINE. 113 
 
 He pointed her words with some lingering kissea 
 By way of good-night, and then led her across 
 To the couch. 
 
 " No : the world must submit to the loss 
 Of our living romance altogether. I hold 
 It a thing far too sacred for pen to unfold, 
 Even under the veiling of fiction. And then 
 You remember my thought, — that the poets don*t pen 
 Their experience often." 
 
 ' ' Oh, yes ! I remember. 
 You make of each poet a perfect dissembler, 
 Pretending to what is unfelt, and denying 
 The feeling he has any voice, only sighing 
 In secret perhaps. If I state it too strong, 
 Pray forgive me." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 '' But I own that the song 
 May be real to him while he sings, though in fact 
 It is fiction the veriest. Singers have lacked 
 Less in feeling, indeed, than in fancy. Poetical 
 Genius the finest, I fear, is heretical 
 Most with regard to the truth, rather shaping 
 What might be than telling what is ; sooner draping 
 A. dream in the garments of beauty, and making 
 Men think it of bone and of muscle, than taking 
 A skeleton out of the past, and with aching 
 Remembrance so robing it round as to show 
 What perfection of form fell to dust long ago." 
 
114 GERALBINE. 
 
 '' But I don't half believe in your theory, though 
 
 You do talk so conviucingly sometimes about it. 
 
 One day, I am certain, you'll even half doubt it 
 
 Yourself. For you poets are men of rare feeling : 
 
 You must be, iudt^.ed ; and to think of concealing 
 
 It always is mockery. Even the claim 
 
 That your feeling flows out in some fiction the same 
 
 As in positive sorrow I cannot believe. 
 
 Men may weep at some fancy of grief ; but they grieve 
 
 To the uttermost only when sorrow cuts deep 
 
 Tg the quick of their souls. And we know, when we 
 
 weep 
 At their words, what the hurt is. The mass of us feel 
 The same hurt, it may be, but can never reveal 
 Its keen torment because we are dumb. Why is speech 
 So denied to the many ? Why is it that each 
 Of us has not the gift of expression ? And why 
 Must some hearts gc through life with a hungering cry 
 For the good that they miss, and unable to tell 
 What their need is, their hunger, their thirst? Is it well 
 For the world that so many are mutes? " 
 
 "I'm unable 
 To answer, my friend," he replied. " What a Babel 
 Indeed it would be, though, if all were endowed 
 With a gift as of tongues, and at once the whole crowd 
 Should begin to communicate ! Angels defend us 
 From fate so disturbing ! May kind fortune send us 
 A quieter morrow to die in ! 
 
OERALDINE. 115 
 
 ** Complaint, — 
 Si)eakiDg soberly now, as in fear of some saint 
 Of the silent departed, — complaint might be all 
 That from lips of the many incessant would fall, 
 Were they dowered with speech. They might uevei 
 
 give voice 
 To their hope or their faith ; they might never rejoice 
 In some paean of gladness to lift the heart up ; 
 They might never in song press a cheer-giving cup 
 To the lips of those fainting and worn in the strife. 
 And the best of all song is the song that is life 
 To the dying, it may be, and strength to the weak, 
 And sure faith to the helpless, who onl}^ can seek 
 For some help far beyond them.'* 
 
 " Yet song that is mellow 
 With tenderest feeling, that shows us a fellow- 
 Heart throbbing with ours in our need or our pain, 
 Has its mission, though born of complaint that was vain 
 And unworthy. Our sufferings syllables take 
 Of the words of the poets, and solace their ache 
 With a half-revelation in language our own 
 As we make it so only. No soul sings alone 
 In its loneliness truly ; no other soul sighs 
 In its bitter regret, without hushing the cries 
 Of some near one unseen, but who pauses to hear^ 
 And In silence is comforted ** 
 
 '' Doubtful, my dear 
 Mrs. Lee. It's a pretty conceit ; but I fear 
 
116 OERALBINE. 
 
 It is rather too fanciful. Song maj uplift ; 
 But complaint is depressing. The tiue singing gift 
 Should be his who will sing in the world but to gladden it ; 
 Dirges, indeed, may be sweet ; but they sadden it. 
 All I could ask for my Muse would be this : 
 That it cheerily sing till some being shall miss, 
 When it ceases, a hope and a help, and shall long 
 For the singer's return, his renewal of song." 
 
 *' But the sweetest of singing has ever a sigh in it ; 
 Loving seems always to linger and die in it ; 
 All that we catch in the syllables clearest 
 Is just a remembrance of what was the dearest 
 And nearest to some heart in days long departed.*' 
 
 *' You've listened, no doubt, till the foolish tears started, 
 When he who so tenderly sang was but grieving 
 In fancy alone." 
 
 '' Is there, then, no believing 
 The word of a poet? " 
 
 " Well, now, J suppose 
 If the word be spelled out in good truth- telling prose, 
 You may take it," he answered with laugh that waa 
 
 light. 
 " But I beg of you stop your conundrums. Good-night i 
 &et such rest as you can." 
 
 " Will you give me a word 
 For my dreams that is sweetest the aii ever stirred ? 
 
OERALDINE. 117 
 
 Say you Icve me, and say it in prose, that I never 
 May doubt it." 
 
 '' I love you, shall love you forever,* 
 He said with low emphasis. 
 
 '* Thanks! I could rest 
 Anywhere, anyhow, by such benison blest.** 
 
 Then in silence he sat till the morning, his mind 
 All a tumult of troubled emotion. Be blind 
 To his wretched position no longer could he. 
 There was Geraldine Hope : here was Isabel Lee. 
 He was far from them both as the night from the day. 
 He was far from his faith as forever are they 
 "Who forever are faithless. And so self -accusing, 
 Unspared of his conscience, and grimly refusing 
 To smother the stings that it gave, looking out 
 On his future with only a harrowing doubt 
 Of what might be in store, he awaited the breaking 
 Of day. 
 
 Mrs. Lee was asleep ; and forsaking 
 The cabin when on the horizon a priest 
 Of the dawn began incense to burn in the east, 
 He walked down to the water his boat to prepare 
 For departure. No traces remained anywhere 
 Of their landing. Till sunrise had silvered the dawn 
 He made search without finding: the frail craft waa 
 gone. 
 
118 QESALDINX. 
 
 xm. 
 
 When the rest of the party returned to the Bay, 
 Hurried on by the tempest that threatened them, thpy 
 "Were surprised and alarmed to discover that two 
 Of their number were missing. But nought could thej 
 
 do 
 To determine what fate had befallen the twain. 
 To go out and make search in the storm would be vain 
 As unsafe. 
 
 " They have landed, and there must remain 
 In such shelter as chances, wherever it be. 
 Until morning," the major remarked. " Mrs. Lee 
 Will regard it romantic. It may be that Trent 
 Will consider the storm as an episode sent 
 For his special advantage. He likes the dramatic 
 In life, and was always a trifle erratic 
 In love. He may die a true Romeo yet 
 In some desperate strait for the last Juliet 
 Of his fancy." 
 
 And so Major Mellen, satirical, 
 Spoke of his friend. 
 
 '' If love shows us a miracle 
 Ever," he went on to say, *' it is when 
 
QEBALLINE. 119 
 
 It renews itself over and over again 
 In the bnaast of a poet. So often it rises 
 Afresh from the dead, it no longer surprises 
 With new revelations of being. Besides, 
 ft so largely increases itself, and divides 
 Of its multiplied measure so freely, it shows 
 A: ithmetical qualities few would suppose 
 Could belong to a thing sentimental.** 
 
 The sneer 
 Of the cynic half hid, half revealed itself here 
 In his words. 
 
 '' Percy Trent is in love with my cousin 
 As madly as ever he's been with a dozen 
 Before ; but he hasn't discovered the fact 
 Altogether, I think. AVhen he does, he will act 
 Very much as if he had committed the sin 
 That has never forgiveness. He never would win 
 For the sake of the winning : he never would share 
 Of his love where he ought not, if caution or care 
 Could prevent it. His creed is the best ; but the fact is, 
 His principle doesn't quite wed with his practice. 
 Don't blame him ! I can't. Every man for his creed 
 Is responsible. Let that be right, let it read 
 Parallel with the preaching that seems to be best ; 
 And society answers for him for the rest. 
 WTitib he is, what he does, is small matter, so long 
 As the thing he believes is not glaringly wrong. 
 Then the heart is indeed a free agent : the head 
 
120 GERALDINE. 
 
 Cannot hold it in humble subjection. If led 
 Into ways that are wicked, no part of the blame 
 Should be thrust upon him who gives only his name 
 To the agent, and does not control it. Whose love 
 Is within his discretion ? Whose will is above 
 His affection, directing and guiding it? Better 
 That hearts should love often than always be debtoi 
 To prudence for perfect restraint." 
 
 So he ran 
 To his flippant, irreverent speech, that began 
 To be reckless at times. 
 
 The next morning shone cleai 
 As the mornings that dawn in the blush of the year. 
 Major Mellen, denying his habit, forsook 
 The seduction of sleep. Rising early, he took 
 His way down to the wharf, thinking haply to meet 
 The belated pair on their return, and to greet 
 Them with playful reproach. But his keen vision scanned 
 All the channels in vain, to the dim-lying land • 
 
 On the Canada side, far away down the stream. 
 The wide waters were tinted with morn's rosy gleam, 
 And unflecked by a sail. The white flash of -an oar 
 In the sun was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 Long before 
 His late breakfast, the major was anxious, but laughed 
 At the fears of the rest. 
 
 " He can manage his craft 
 Like a riverman bom," so the major contended. 
 
GEBALDINE. 121 
 
 * '■ If out in it when the quick tempest descended, 
 lle*d safely enough make the shore. He's expert 
 With the rod and the line. They have come to no hurt. 
 But are breaking their fast in poetical leisure, 
 Perfecting a bass in a broil. There's a pleasure 
 For poets in cooking the fruit of their lines, 
 As in eating it, under the odorous pines 
 Of a solitude wild. Trent would hardly desire 
 To be known as a monk ; but a very good frier 
 He is, I am certain — of fish. They will fare 
 Well enough till we see them again as a pair 
 Of meek truants returning to school." 
 
 Yet he mad© 
 Sudden haste to secure the small yacht, nor delayed 
 To set out on a mission of quest, when at noon 
 The twain missing were still unreported. As soon 
 As the search had been fairly begun, he confessed 
 To himself an untimely delay, and, impressed 
 With a fear undefined, he kept watch as they sailed, 
 Half in hope, when they came near the shore, to b« 
 
 hailed 
 By the ones whom they sought. Every island they 
 
 rounded, 
 Each headland they scanned, until hope was confounded 
 With keen apprehension in all. Not a trace 
 Of the boat or its burden appeared. The broad space 
 Of the river below the last islands was crossed 
 And recrossed yet again, to make sure that the lost 
 
122 GERALDINE, 
 
 Were not hinted of there in some manner ; and then 
 They went farther above. As they rounded again 
 A small island that could not a shelter have given, 
 The major caught sight of a skiff that had driven 
 Itself on the rocks. 
 
 " It is Trent's ! " he declared, 
 With excitement that each of the company shared 
 As they neared it. " And stove to a wreck ! "We have 
 
 found 
 All we shall for the present. They must have been 
 
 drowned 
 By upsetting last night in the storm.'* 
 
 And he grew 
 Quickly pale as he spoke. When they landed, he flew 
 In hot haste to the boat ; but it offered no clew 
 To their seeking, beyond its bare presence. It lay 
 Without oars, bottom up, badly broken. 
 
 The day 
 Was far spent when they gave up the search, and re 
 
 turned. 
 Bearing with them the cast-away skiff, having learned 
 Nothing more. No one doubted the common conclusioa 
 Expressed. They had perished. To hope was delusion 
 Their bodies, if found in a day or a week. 
 The sad truth could not even more certainly speak. 
 
 The gay world at the Islands made proper lament 
 For the hour ; and a thrill of trie sorrow was sent 
 
GERALDINE. 123 
 
 Through some hearts when the story was told. Before 
 
 night 
 The quick lightning had spread it abroad ; and its flight 
 Was a message of sadness to many. 
 
 One read 
 In the papers next day, with a black-letter head, 
 J ast a brief paragraph ; and it soberly said, 
 "Mr. Percival Trent, as a speaker well known, 
 And his friend Mrs. Isabel Lee, out alone 
 On the River St. Lawrence last night in a squall. 
 Were capsized, and were both of them drowned.** 
 
 That waa all. 
 
124 OEBALDINX. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The one reader knelt down in the pitiless gloom 
 That came over her soul, as if sudden a tomb 
 Had enveloped her there, and in syllables broken 
 Besought the All-Father to send her some token 
 Of love and compassion to show her that still 
 She could bow to his power, and suffer his will, 
 Though it crush her, because for the best. 
 
 It was long 
 In the dark of her doubt, ere she caught the faint song 
 Of her faith once again, like a bird that sings low 
 In the shadows, before all the world is aglow 
 With another glad morning. At first she gave up 
 To her grief unrestrained. Of the tear-tasting cup 
 She drank deep, till its bitterness flooded her hope. 
 Overwhelming it. Lgng as a life did she grope. 
 So it seemed, like a person struck blind in the sun. 
 Seeing nothing. 
 
 " O Lord ! if thy will must be done," 
 She could only beseech, " in this terrible way. 
 Take me also to thee in thy mercy, I pray. 
 I am wicked and weak and unworthy, but hear 
 To my pleading, O Lord, I implore 1 " 
 
GERALBINE. 125 
 
 If the ear 
 Of the Infinite ever were open to all 
 Who in sorrow* s unreason thus bitterly call 
 For the end, or if, hearing, he answered the cry 
 Because merciful only, full many would die 
 With their life in the bloom of its purpose. But God 
 Is as wise as paternal. He spares not the rod 
 Of affliction, however he loves us. Denying 
 The answer we seek, he is touched by our crying, 
 And gives, in the time of his wiser replying, 
 The answer to profit us most. 
 
 Yet we plead 
 In the midst of our want for some possible need 
 We believe to be ours ; and we hold empty palms 
 Up to God, while we cry for particular alms 
 At his hand ; and the boon that we seek might bi 
 
 worse 
 For us ever than poverty's bitterest curse. 
 Very blessed indeed are the poor, when they crave 
 What would hinder and hurt, if the All-Father gave 
 Without stint to their asking. More blessed are those 
 Who in praying remember the All-Father knows 
 Of their need even better than they, and bestows 
 With a wisdom divine. 
 
 It was pitiful, first, 
 To see Geraldine clinging to all that was worst 
 In her grief. He was dead, her one lover, — as true 
 A.8 the heart that so bitterly mourned him, she knew. 
 
126 GEBALDINE. 
 
 He was dead, and thus ended her dream. She could 
 
 never 
 Again feel his tender caresses. Forever, 
 Till death gave him back, so her sorrowing said, 
 She must hunger for love, and be ever unfed. 
 
 By and by — she could hardly have told if a week 
 Or a day had been passed in the gloom — she could seek 
 For disguising of comfort. 
 
 Death gives us some things 
 For our absolute holding, that might have found wings, 
 And been wafted beyond us ; and so Death is kind. 
 What he gives us, we keep ; and if tears make us blind 
 To the gift, and we see but a grave or a bier 
 For a little, we come to a vision more clear 
 Later on. Then we know that this token of Death 
 Is immortal ; that never of this can the breath 
 Of regret say with sighing, " O change of the years ! " 
 That we never shall go with lamentings and tears 
 On a wearisome search for the lost. What we hide 
 In the peace of the grave will forever abide 
 In its promise and grace, in its beauty and truth 
 For the mortal is age. Immortality's youth 
 Can know nothing of age, or of change, or decay 
 It has never a morrow of fear. Its to-day 
 Of content is eternal. 
 
 A glimmer of light 
 f'ame to Geraldine out of the dark of her night. 
 
CrERALDINE. 127 
 
 He was dead, her one lover ; but thus he w^as hers 
 Beyond shadow of doubting. No dimness that blurs 
 Any distance could come between her and her own. 
 They should never be separate. Weary and lone 
 As her future might seem, he could never be far 
 From her life and her love. No distrusting could mar 
 Their companionship now evermore. Not a hint 
 Of unfaith could be heard through the years. Without 
 
 stint 
 She might give of her heart to his memory fond, 
 And forever be glad in the giving beyond 
 Any possible shade of regret. Death had set 
 The great seal of its silence on lips that were yet 
 Full of utterance tender and true, and had stilled 
 With its marvellous hush the heart-throbbings that 
 
 thrilled. 
 And must thrill to the end, for herself. 
 
 Could it be 
 That this woman of women, this Isabel Lee, 
 Witli her heart in her face, and her love in her hand, 
 Might have won him away with her witchery bland ? 
 Could it be that some passion to flame might have f anned^ 
 That he never had dreamed of, asleep in his breast? 
 Could it be that his love for herself, in the test 
 Of some crucible heat in his life, might have burned 
 Into nothingness ? Might he some lesson have learnec? 
 With the wisdom of love making wiser his heart, 
 [n which previous knowledge had never a part? 
 
128 GERALBINE. 
 
 If a question like these sought reply in her grief, 
 In its possible doubt was a certain relief. 
 If the sorrow so keen had been sent but to save 
 From a sorrow far keener, the hurt that it gave 
 Was the touch of a hand hurting only to shield : 
 In the pain of its purpose there lingered concealed 
 A sweet comfort to gladden and bless. 
 
 The aUies 
 Of our happiness come to us oft in disguise, 
 And we think they are foes. They are not as they seem, 
 And we welcome them not to their mission supreme ; 
 But we turn in despair from besetting so sore, 
 And would flee, if the way were but open before. 
 Then we wait, as we must, in the struggles that keep 
 All our being in terror, and out of the deep 
 Of our peril we call for the succor delayed. 
 In some day of clear vision we see there was aid 
 Where we knew but assailing ; and then, in surprise, 
 With our gaze lifted up to the peaceable skies, 
 We behold from our perU and pain a release, 
 And are glad and content in the triumph of peace. 
 
GSSALDINX. 129 
 
 XV. 
 
 A <rEK searching in vain the small island around, 
 V^ here no hint of the object he sought could be found, 
 M r. Trent to the cabin returned. ]Mrs. Lee 
 \^'as awaiting him. 
 
 " Breakfast for you and for me 
 Must bb late,*' he remarked but half anxiously. " "We 
 Are two castaways now, without means of support. 
 For a little we promise to be but the sport 
 Of such fortune as comes to us.** 
 
 Then he explained 
 How their boat had been drifted away. It remained 
 For them only to wait for some vessel in sight 
 Or in hail, to be signalled, or told of their plight, 
 When deliverance quickly would come ; and meanwhile 
 They must comfort themselves in the comforting smile 
 Of the day, that gave sunlight to follow the rain. 
 As the morrow will always. 
 
 He smothered the pain 
 At his heart, and made merry with laugh and with jest 
 As if never a dread of the future oppressed 
 Or appalled him. His passion he met with resistance 
 Begotten of struggle with self ; and a distance 
 
130 OERALDTNE. 
 
 Tnde inile, infimt(!, widened and grew 
 
 Like a desert between tbiem. Instinctive she knew 
 
 He b ad conquered himself for the time. No regret 
 
 Ftr the past or the present his scrutiny met 
 
 As h'-*, gazed in her beautiful face ; but serene 
 
 She looked out on the blue of the sky, and the green 
 
 Of the islands, and moulded her mood to his own. 
 
 So tbey waited and watched till the morning had grown 
 Into mid-day, and patience with waiting had flown. 
 They were out of the track of the steamers that plied 
 The American channel : it happened, beside. 
 That no boat from the Canada ports came along 
 Until noon. When it came, on its decks were a throng 
 FuU of riotous mirth, on a pleasure-trip bent 
 To the village some miles from the Bay ; but they lent 
 Reudy ears to the call for assistance, and sent 
 Speody means of relief. 
 
 " I can land you at Berne,'* 
 Said the captain, who hastened their story to learn. 
 When they stood by his side. '^ You can dine there, 
 
 and go 
 To the Bay when you please. It's a moderate row 
 Of three hours, and the boatmen are plenty." 
 
 And faint 
 With their fasting, no longer inclined to complaint, 
 They but languidly noted the beauties abounding, 
 The merriment over the still water sounding, 
 
OEBALDINE. 131 
 
 Aiid heeded but little the comment they caused. 
 When at length the slow steamer reluctantly paused 
 At a rickety wharf, they went gladly ashore, 
 While the vessel backed off, and its proper course bore 
 Failher on. 
 
 Man is mortal. There's nothing so tells 
 Of mortality, nothing so certain repels 
 The romance of our being, the essence and spirit 
 Of life, as the hunger that feeds it. Men fear it, 
 And flee it ; and yet in their folly they nurse it 
 With spices and tonics, till wretched they curse it, 
 And die of dyspepsia and doctors. The greed 
 Of the animal dominates over the need 
 Of the heart and the brain. And all sentiment waits 
 Upon hunger ; is happy or hurt as the fates 
 Of the stomach decree. The day's measure is dinner. 
 Man loves like a saint ; but he eats like a sinner, 
 Forgetting his love till his appetite flies. 
 But remembering well when capacity cries 
 To be spared. 
 
 At a quaint little inn they were greeted 
 By fare not too fine, when at last they were seated 
 Before it. But hunger for diet the meanest 
 Gives sauce that is lively, and relish the keenest. 
 They ate as if love were a manna untasted 
 In wilderness ways ; as if hearts had but hasted 
 Their good to forget, or the lingering pain 
 Of their sorrowful hur*. in a marvellous gain. 
 
132 GEBALDINE. 
 
 By and by they, were ready to leave. Sweetly slept 
 The wide reaches of water, unstirred, as they stepped 
 In the skiff Mr. Trent had obtained. Like a mirror, 
 The river reflected the sky, that seemed nearer 
 I'han ever to brood o'er the world. As serene 
 As a picture of peace was the beautiful scene. 
 The mid-afternoon sun, swinging low in its place, 
 With an autumn-like glory suffused all the space 
 Round about them. The far-away hill-tops were crowned 
 As with silver. '' Be still ! '' said the silence profound 
 In suggestiveness sweet to the ear of the soul : 
 ' ' For the troubled in heart there is always a goal 
 Of content. Mother Nature, with tenderness blind 
 To the faults of her children, and ever inclined 
 To give gladness for sorrow, invites them to lie 
 In her arms while the tumults of being surge by. 
 She invites them in quiet and comfort to rest. 
 From all weariness free, on her pitying breast ; 
 And Jehovah, in loving and tender accord. 
 Says, ' Be still ! and discover that I am the Lord.' '* 
 
 There are tunes to be silent, — sweet seasons of calm, 
 
 When the soul seems to catch the soft breath of a psalm 
 
 When the Infinite lifts up the finite, and bears 
 
 It away from the lowland of troubles and cares ; 
 
 When we rise to a holier being, supernal 
 
 In good and in blessing, with fields ever vernal, 
 
 Where bloom the dear blossoms of beauty that hide 
 
GEBALBINE. 183 
 
 From our happiness lower, where vistas are wide 
 
 As a world for enchantxng our rapturous gaze, 
 
 Ajid we look from our height with delight and amaze, 
 
 [t was little they said as they floated away 
 
 Through the silence serene on their course to the 
 
 Bay. 
 £f the mood of the scene had not swayed them, the 
 
 feeling 
 Ot each must have counselled to pai-tial concealing ; 
 But above their own moods was the mood of the hour. 
 And it silenced their speech with a mystical power 
 That they could not divine. Yet for Percival Trent, 
 Though the time was so full of supernal content, 
 There was under it all, half unheeded, the ache 
 Of a heart that has made the one bitter mistake 
 That must ruin its peace evermore. When he rested 
 His eyes on her face, he would gladly have breasted 
 The billows of fate but to win it and hold it 
 His own, to look into it ever, to fold it 
 Henceforth in his loving embrace. But a boat's 
 Length between them, the limitless ocean that floats 
 The threat treasure of continents, sundered them fa" 
 By its pitiless waves ; and Hope flung not a spar 
 For his seizing, on which he might drift till he held 
 Her to him, unresisting, forever. Impelled 
 By the currents swift rushing around him, he knew 
 He must call to her through the wide reach his '' adieu." 
 
134 GERALDINE, 
 
 He must float wheresoever the wild waters bore, 
 Though no haven he find on a rock-bordered shore. 
 
 The short, slow, lazy strokes of their boatman were 
 
 swift 
 To their longing desire. . 'Twould have pleased them 
 
 to drift 
 In this quiet so tranquil forever. No haste 
 Of the world was upon them. To linger, and taste 
 Of the lotos-blooms thus, till forgetfulness came 
 With its blessing of peace, who could chide them, or 
 
 blame ? 
 The long day was approaching its close when they 
 
 neared 
 The hotel. To a few who there sat, they appeared 
 As if raised from the deep ; but before the news spread 
 To the many, that these were alive whom as dead 
 They were mourning, they both slipped away out of 
 
 sight. 
 
 From a sleep that was restful and soothing that night 
 Into which he had sunk upon reaching his room, 
 Percy Trent awoke late, and arose in the gloom 
 To look out on the river's broad bosom. The glimmei 
 Of moonlight, just gilding the trees with its shimmer 
 And sheen, gare a color and glow to the dark ; 
 And when, later, the moon had ascended the arc 
 Till her beams fell in fulness, as soothing and tender 
 
GEBALDINE. 135 
 
 A.S sleep was the glow of her affluent splendor. 
 Yet restless and troubled did Trent linger there 
 By the casement to gaze on a picture more fair 
 Than the day, to be bathed in a glory more rare 
 Than the noon's, but with bitterness thrilling his heart 
 Then he sat himself down, and besought the shy art 
 Of the pr^et to soothe. Thus he pencilled 
 
 APART. 
 
 Beyond the sea, beyond the sea, 
 In some fair land to dream of thee 
 To-night, my darling, would I be 1 
 
 No softer breezes there might blow; 
 No sweeter music there might flow; ' 
 No moonlight there more tender glow. 
 
 My dreams might find no rarer bliss 
 Than here they yield on nights like this, 
 Wherein no richness do they miss. 
 
 Throughout the glory and the sheen. 
 The sunset and the dawn between, 
 No fairer picture might be seen. 
 
 On all the evening's quiet rare 
 
 No benediction, as of prayer. 
 
 More sweet and calm might linger therei 
 
 But waking, when the night was done. 
 To dawn of day and rise of sun, 
 To life and thought again begun. 
 
1.36 GEBALBINE. 
 
 Methinks 'twould comfort bring to me 
 To know between my love and thee 
 Were reaching leagues and leagues of eea; 
 
 To feel that distance real and wide 
 Were keeping me from thy dear side, 
 The sunlight of thy smiles to hide; 
 
 To know that days must come and go, 
 And moons must wax in cycles slow. 
 Before thy presence I could know. 
 
 But here to-night the moonlight glows. 
 And while the breeze so balmy blows, 
 I seek in dreams a sweet repose. 
 
 It comes with restf ulness and peace ; 
 It brings my soul a glad release, 
 While all my doubt and tumult cease. 
 
 Yet waking, with the dawn of day, 
 My heart will see thee near, and say 
 "Good-morning, love! " and bid thee stay. 
 
 Then, as through distance, thy reply 
 Will come, like breathings of a sigh, 
 Or accents of a sad good-by. 
 
 " Grood-morning, love! " thou'lt answer me| 
 But more than leagues and leagues of sea 
 Will separate my life and thee. 
 
aXBALDINE. 187 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The next morning he copied his verses, and sent 
 Them to Isabel Lee with this message : — 
 
 ''I meant 
 To take leave of the Islands to-day — and of you : 
 To depart from your presence without an adieu 
 Or a word of farewell was my purpose. I've staid 
 Far too long as it is. But some talk will be made 
 On account of our recent survival : I'll tarry 
 A day or two longer, and help you to parry 
 The gossiping comment I helped to create. 
 Thus I give my excuse for delay to the fate 
 That would force me away from your side. 
 
 ''When I go, 
 It will be to a future of struggles. I know 
 What is duty. I know I should say my farewell 
 To this month of delight with no feeling to tell 
 Of my treason to love so long plighted. Distrust 
 3f my manhood may come when I see, as I must, 
 To what pitiful weakness I early am brought. 
 1 may wonder, perhaps, if when I shall have fought 
 Thi hard battle, and won, this poor sham of a life 
 Will be worth all the effort, the struggle, and strife. 
 
138 GERALDINE. 
 
 Yet I know what is duty, and, knowing, shall walk 
 In the line of it steady and brave, though it mock 
 Me with bitter denial of strength. For we grope 
 To the altitudes highest when being and hope 
 A.re in deepest eclipse by some fate unforeseen : 
 So I comfort myself with the shadows between 
 My blind path and the sunlight shut out. 
 
 "A defendei 
 Of right should not wave the white flag of surrender 
 When wrong his position assails, though the wrong 
 Come beguiling to peace with some snatch of a song 
 That is pleasant to hear. And the wrong of this passior 
 Of mine, that has come in such innocent fashion 
 To capture and hold me a captive, must feel 
 The quick arming of conscience within me, the leal 
 And unyielding resistance of manhood, to meet 
 And make combat against it. I know, I repeat, 
 What is duty, — my duty, — and, knowing, abide 
 By the knowledge. Henceforth in the past I will hidf 
 What is past ; and my present shall be — what it can. 
 For the future — well, being is brief ; and the man 
 Who gets through it the soonest in manliest way 
 Has the happiest ending. 
 
 '' The major might say 
 something very like that, to be sure ; but his quarreJ 
 With life l^han my own is more ancient : the moral 
 Of which rather pertinent fact is, that he 
 Should be reconciled rather, and leave now to me 
 
GEBALBINE. 189 
 
 The most bitter complaints about being. If I 
 Am inclined to turn cynic, and utterance try 
 That is doubtful and reckless, remember the stroke 
 That is stabbing my soul to its quick. If I spoke 
 As I feel, I should shock you with bitterest speech 
 That a sane man could utter. • But lips that can preach 
 Wise philosophy e'er must be careful, and frame 
 Only language discreet, though the heart be aflame 
 Just below.'* 
 
 To which message she speedily gave 
 A complaining, pathetic response : — 
 
 "You would save 
 Me the pain of farewell. Let it be so ; and when 
 You depart on the morrow, as commoner men 
 Hold my hand for a moment in theirs while they speak 
 Their adieux, you shall clasp it as if in a week 
 You might take it again in your own. And return 
 When you will, soon or late, — be it soon ! — you shall 
 
 learn 
 How my heart has been keeping its tenderest things 
 For your welcome; shall find with what gladness it 
 
 brings 
 The poor offering up to your altar, and waits 
 For some look warm with loving to cheer the hard fates, 
 And to kindle the ashes to flame. With your pledge 
 To remain as my friend, I can stand on the edge 
 Of this wilderness where I am walking, and seem 
 To catch glimpses across to the land of my dream ; 
 
140 GEBALDINE. 
 
 Can forget for a time with what bitterness all 
 Who are shut out of Canaan must hunger and call, 
 Mid the flesh-pots of Egypt, for good that they miss. 
 You are not to deny me your friendship ; and this, 
 If it tenderer be than the many could give. 
 If it nurture itself at love's fountain, and live 
 Thus a life that is warmer than others may see. 
 Shall be beauty and brightness and blessing to me. 
 
 " Duty takes you away for a while, so we'll phrase it. 
 
 And duty — we're given to foster and praise it ; 
 
 But ugly enough it can be, and as hateful 
 
 As sin. There is nothing in life quite as fateful, 
 
 Or so I believe. I am sick in my soul 
 
 Of its bitter exactions. The costliest toll 
 
 That we yield on the highway of being is paid 
 
 To these, whether we will it or no. We are laid 
 
 Under tribute, indeed, to a Caesar who claims 
 
 All we have, all the best of our longing and aims ; 
 
 And we give without hope of appeal. Do not wondei 
 
 I put the case plain and with feehug ; for under 
 
 This cruel oppression of duty I cry 
 
 [n a poverty wretched for riches gone by, 
 
 And no answer. 
 
 * ' To-day we shall meet as do those 
 In whose soberer veins never surges an d glows 
 The warm current of passion ; shall trifle with speech 
 As if never the heart underneath could beseech 
 
QERALDINE. 141 
 
 For a clear revelation in word, as if lips 
 
 Were commissioned, indeed, to put tliought in eclipse ; 
 
 Shall be careless, untroubled, and gay with the rest, 
 
 Though a riotous tumult may stir either breast 
 
 To pathetic, unspoken appeal. So we play 
 
 At the mirth that is mockery mad, and obey 
 
 The mad will of the world, that would bid us conceal 
 
 What the will of om* hearts would so gladly reveal. 
 
 We shall meet as they meet who have little to gain 
 
 In the meeting, no deep-stirring pleasure the pain 
 
 Of their yesterday's parting to stifle ; no burning 
 
 Unrest through the brief separation ; no yearning 
 
 For glance of an eye, or for touch of a hand, 
 
 Speaking language that love may not misunderstand. 
 
 Let it be so. I'm used to all bitter restraint 
 
 Upon gladness and warmth that can make the heart faint 
 
 With repression and hunger. No bitterest trial 
 
 Henceforth can be harder than this of denial 
 
 That through the long years I have helplessly known. 
 
 I should say that my heart must be hardened to stone, 
 
 If it were not that now, as I think of you here, 
 
 I can feel its quick throbbings. 
 
 " You may not be near 
 In the flesh : in the spirit you cannot go far 
 From my side, though you go the world over. We ar« 
 As apart as are darkness and day, though we walk 
 Arm in arm a day's journey. So distances mock 
 At conditions, and laugh at desire. So the flesh is 
 
142 ' GERALDINE. 
 
 Divorced from the spirit it feebly enmeshes, 
 A.nd twain they must be evermore/' 
 
 As he resid 
 Her response, to his feverish longing it said 
 More than syllables strongest could utter. It throbbed 
 V^^ith the pain and the passion behind it that rol »bed 
 xler who wrote of her peace. In its silence it spake, 
 Even more than its speech, of the wearying ache 
 Of her soul. It aroused all his sympathies, strong 
 And intense as his love, to the uttermost. Wrong 
 As it might be to stay, he was tempted to bide 
 The results of a wrong very sweet by her side, 
 And remain ; for she needed him. Hunger like hers 
 Can be fed by one bounty alone. It occurs 
 To those wealth-giving hearts only, born to make gift 
 Of their riches unchecked, to go out from their thrift 
 Into want such as this. So he reasoned. He knew 
 That his need of her, born but with yesterday, giew 
 Every hour. Could he smother it, crush it, and kill it ? 
 Is hunger a thing to forget, if you will it ? 
 Will want, lean and wolfish, grow comelier there 
 If you sit in its presence and fancy it fair? 
 
 When they met, half a hundred were hearing her tell 
 How the storm came upon them. She pictured it 
 
 well, 
 And in spmt dramatic. How many could guess 
 That her language, so fitting, and free to express 
 
GEBALDINE. 143 
 
 The alarm of the moment, the peril and fetress 
 
 Of the time, was a mantle to cover the feeling 
 
 Far deeper ? that words so intense were concealing 
 
 The incident's actual color and glow? 
 
 That the mood of that night never mortal might 
 
 know 
 Save herself and the man whom she greeted as one 
 Of her commonest friends when he joined them ? 
 
 ''WeUdone, 
 Good and faithful,'* the major declared in his light, 
 Flippant way. " Though you gave us a horrible fright, 
 We forgive you. But don't undertake the heroic 
 Again with this cousin of mine. She's a stoic, 
 I grant, and would make not a word of complaint 
 To be cast away often, if only some saint 
 Of romance would invoke with his kind benediction 
 Such company pleasant ; but harrowing fiction 
 So very romantic too pungently savors 
 Of fact." 
 
 ** We will spare you such odious flavors, 
 I think, in the future," said Trent. " Mrs. Lee 
 Is as patient as any lost Crusoe would see 
 His companion in trouble ; and none could desire 
 Better company, should he unwisely aspire 
 Tc the life of a castaway. One such experiment 
 Answers, however. There's not enough merriment 
 In it to make us demand an eicore. 
 We are sjw^i^'fied quite, without crying for more *' 
 
144 GERALBINE. 
 
 '' I supposed you were fond of positions dramatic, 
 And might not object to one slightly aquatic," 
 Said Mellen, satirical. " Poets are pardoned 
 For tastes rather perilous. Fancies have hardened 
 Theii sensitive shrinking from facts. The romantic 
 In dreams should not render them foolishly frantic 
 If coming to active reality. Most 
 Of the guild, I suspect, would incline to make boast, 
 Soon or late, of a thrilling and strange episode 
 So uncommon as yours, in an epic or ode.'' 
 
 " Now I warn you to spare us your comments derisive 
 For once," Mrs. Lee with a manner decisive 
 Declared. " You would make of an epic or ballad 
 One element only of bitter-sweet salad 
 For cynics to feed on, who'd say grace with sneers, 
 And would smile in derision at sentiment's tears. 
 You who laugh at poetical things of romance, 
 And so boldly charge at them a-tilt with your lance 
 Ever drawn, are so many unwise Sancho Panzas, 
 Because you could never pen passable stanzas 
 Yourselves, and so win the world's plaudit for wages 
 The prose of our being has many dull pages : 
 The poetiy of it is none too profuse, 
 And each incident striking, I think, has its use. 
 WTiat this recent adventure of ours may have meant, 
 I am puzzled to tell ; but perhaps Mr. Trent 
 Will some picture find in it to grace, by and ])y, 
 
OEEALDINE, 146 
 
 The one poem each poet ambitious should try 
 To embalm himself in." And she laughed. 
 
 ''From such banter 
 A Pegasus modest would flee at a canter," 
 He parried. ' ' Mine dare not remain. * ' And he bowed, 
 Self-possessed and amused, to the gathering crowd, 
 And betook his way down to the river, his heart 
 Strangely stirring within him. The marvellous art 
 Of the woman he loved, in so meeting with grace 
 Unconfused the demand of the time and the place. 
 Made him wonder. No woman beside, he believed. 
 Could have faced the surprise of the hour, and de- 
 ceived 
 All who saw her and heard her so soon into thinkmg 
 The episode fruitless of love. Without shrinking, 
 She told all there was of that notable night 
 For the curious ear ; and her silence was quite 
 Unsuspected concerning the holier things 
 He must set himself quick to forget ; for the stings 
 Of his conscience were cutting and keen. The begin- 
 ning 
 Of passion despotic was bitter as sinning 
 When sin has been drunk to the dregs. Now for him 
 There was only a fate full of wretchedness grim. 
 And to-morrow must usher it in. He would start 
 On the early boat, leaving at five, and depart 
 Without word of adieu. And this calm afternoon 
 He would seek for his spirit some balm-laden boon 
 
146 GERALDINE. 
 
 In the quiet of channels none other might find, 
 Wh(;rein beauty and redolent odor combined, 
 And where dreaming, aglow like the blush of a rose, 
 Should beguile the unrest of his soul to repose. 
 
VEBALDINE. 117 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The pale gold of the west into crimson had burned, 
 
 And then faded to purple, before he returned. 
 
 He had done more than dream in the hours intervening ; 
 
 Had pondered half wisely and well on the meaning 
 
 Of passion so futile, so bitter, so rife 
 
 With the seeds of all bitterness, meeting his life 
 
 Whc re its path appeared gladdest ; had wondered if so 
 
 Into every existence some mad currents flow, 
 
 Makmg turbulence where should be placidest peace ; 
 
 Had questioned if ever this tumult would cease 
 
 That now troubled his soul; and had reasoned tlial 
 
 being 
 Is only a cruel and blind unforeseeing 
 Of problems we never may find to be soluble. 
 Out with a friend, and inclined to be voluble, 
 Trent would have talked in the dubious tones 
 Of a man who has battled with fate, and who ownn 
 To his utter defeat, who is idly indignant 
 With life and its lessons. 
 
 The beauties benignant 
 Amid which he rowed could not suddenly quiet 
 The feverish pulse that so boldly ran riot 
 
148 OEBALDINE. 
 
 Within him ; no balmiest opiate breezes 
 
 Could bear him at once the glad blessing that eases 
 
 Tormenting thus born of some lingering bane. 
 
 Yet at evening he found himself back, with the pain 
 
 At his heart rather stupefied ; found himself ready 
 
 To meet a gay welcome with nerves that were steady, 
 
 And voice that could syllable badinage gay 
 
 As the gayest, nor once by a tremor betray 
 
 Any deep hidden feeling. 
 
 That night, as the few 
 Whom he daily had met, and thus pleasantly knew 
 In such casual way, were about to take leave 
 Of each other, he mentioned his going. 
 
 " I grieve 
 To announce that good-night must be also good-by 
 In my own case,'* he said, " though I leave with a sigh 
 Of regret that the summer so nearly is spent." 
 
 " And you go in the morning? I think, Mr. Trent, 
 You should kindly have told us your purpose, that we 
 Might prepare for the parting," said Isabel Lee 
 With surprise well affected, her manner as free 
 From all touch of restraint, and as simply well bred, 
 As if never a tenderer word had been said 
 Between this man and her. '' We shall see you again 
 Before winter? " she asked ; and as commoner men 
 Took the hand she extended, politely h*^ took it 
 In formal farewell, and as lightly forsook it, 
 
OERALDINE. 1 i9 
 
 Determined to show that he also could cover 
 All signs that might hint of his being a lover. 
 
 *' Perhaps. I have promised a night in November 
 
 At L , and may call at that time. 1 remember 
 
 My friends when I can," as if most to forget 
 Were his custom exacting. 
 
 Some words of regret 
 From the others were spoken in courteous phrase. 
 
 " I may meet you in Rivermet one of these days," 
 Said the major, with manner as easy and hearty 
 As if the brief sentence were not made a party 
 To eager suspicion, and wish to detect 
 Through the words, or their carefully noted effect, 
 Any reason for Trent's sudden going. 
 
 Unshaken 
 And cool as the major himself, Trent had taken 
 His leave of them all in a moment, and stood 
 On the ample veranda alone. 
 
 ''Very good 
 As a piece of lay acting, that was, I admit ; 
 But there's something not hinted, I'm sure, under it," 
 Major Mellen remarked by and by to the major, 
 There being no other man near ; " and I'll wagei 
 A 1/ox of Havanas that Bell has been flirting 
 With Trent till he flees her with wound that is hurting 
 Him hard. She can stab with most delicate art. 
 
150 GEBALBINE. 
 
 Can it be that the girl ever had any heart? 
 
 What a marvellous actress she'd make ! She had known 
 
 Of his plan for departure, of course, but has shown 
 
 An indifferent ignorance mighty well feigned ; 
 
 And there's reason, I'm certain. The man had remained 
 
 Here a fortnight beyond his original date : 
 
 He'd have tarried a full fortnight longer, if fate 
 
 Had not shown him his danger. He'll shun Rivermet 
 
 And ]\Iiss Geraldine Hope till this fair Juliet 
 
 Be forgotten. And somehow you can't soon forget 
 
 Such a woman," he added, with grimace that spoke 
 
 Of unpleasant remembrance his language awoke- 
 
 *' It is well that I quietly published my going," 
 
 Thought Trent, as he looked on the river deep flowing 
 
 Before him, the night-breeze but tenderly kissing it. 
 
 ** Were I without the least word to be missing, it 
 
 Might cause remark, and then gossip would say 
 
 There was reason peculiar for going away. 
 
 I suspect that the major, keen-scented, quick-eyed, 
 
 Some hint of the truth has already descried : 
 
 His allusion to Rivermet may have been wide 
 
 Of all purpose he had, except simply to see 
 
 If, in parting thus early from Isabel Lee, 
 
 I should hasten to Geraldine Hope. Having heard 
 
 Our reputed engagement discussed, it occurred 
 
 To him, doubtless, that I have been guilty of treason. 
 
 He felt his face flush in the dark, as If reason 
 
OEltALDINE. 161 
 
 Were ample for such an unpleasant impression. 
 "My self-respect once was my surest possession, 
 [ fancied : I'm losing my grip on it fast. 
 Can a future of duty deep cover this past 
 So it cannot stare up at me pallid and white, 
 Like the face of a friend unforgiving, whom quite 
 I have killed with keen cruelty ? Can I still live 
 My poor future so bravely, that self can forgive 
 The sad wrong I have done it, and lift up its head 
 As if shame were not living, and trust were not dead? 
 Yonder river runs tranquil and sweet as it glides 
 To the sea ; but the ocean's unquenchable tides 
 Are but bitterness all. Do I stand on the brink 
 Of a sea as resistless and bitter, where sink 
 The sweet hopes of these earlier years ? Must I sail 
 By the compass of duty, though borne by a gale 
 Of fierce passions to harbor unkind ? ' ' 
 
 So he mused 
 And he questioned till midnight. His conscience refused 
 The short comfort of sleep until well toward the morn- 
 ing, 
 lie rose in good time for the steamer, and scorning 
 The pitiful weakness that so overpowered 
 His strength, and compelled hun to fly like a coward, 
 Ele walked to the landing, and hastened aboard. 
 
 As he sat on the deck, the glad sunrise restored 
 Him in part to himself. He is wanton, in truth. 
 
152 GEBALDINE, 
 
 (Who is farther away from his age than his youth,) 
 Who can see the dawn flush, the horizon fast redden, 
 The color burn into the skies that were leaden, 
 The stars slip away into measureless spaces. 
 The mountains grow rosy and glad as their faces 
 Look sunward and catch the first smile of the day^ 
 And not thrill with the glory revealed, and not say 
 In his heart a thanksgiving. 
 
 The Islands quick faded 
 In mellowest distance. The sunlight, unshaded 
 By fleck of a cloud, or by film of a mist. 
 Lay across the broad river, and lovingly kissed 
 Every ripple to laughter and silence. A spell 
 Of enchanting content on the voyager fell : 
 From this land of the real all gladly he turned 
 To a country of dreams where they never have learned 
 To forget and be wise. 
 
 And the day wore along. 
 When the quivering steamer dashed into the strong, 
 Angry sweep of the rapids, Trent roused to the scene, 
 And became, till it passed them, a spectator keen. 
 Pid they typify being, his being ? Must he 
 From the currents of peace irresistibly flee 
 To such wild buffetings ? Was there nothing before 
 Like the beauty behind, where the rush and the roar 
 Of this channel tempestuous early should fade 
 Into murmurous music, -^olian made 
 By the harp of his memory ? 
 
GERALDINE. 168 
 
 Eager and swift 
 I'he boat flew to the beckoning billows that lift 
 Far above the sharp ledges at anchor beneath, 
 And that over a current so treacherous wreathe 
 Into sparkle and foam. In the swirl and the sweep 
 Of the waves, that so madly and merrily leap. 
 They went madly and merrily downward careering, 
 No anger of rock or of river once fearing, — 
 A spirited race as with water is run ! 
 
 Where the silver St. Francis, asleep in the sun. 
 Smiled them welcome un worded, they drifted from sound 
 Into silence, — a silence as sweet and profound 
 As is midsummer calm, — and from struggle to rest. 
 So there come to our lives, when we stand the hard test 
 Of the billows that buffet us, reaches so still 
 That we drift in delight with the current's calm will, 
 And find peace. 
 
 The broad lake of the river was smooth 
 As the sky overhead, and its beauty might soothe 
 Any trouble of soul. Far away on the left 
 The low spire of St. Regis in peacefulness cleft 
 The horizon of blue ; far away to the right 
 The blue hills of the south faintly bounded the sight ; 
 And before them the river's magnificence swept. 
 As the steamer straight onward her patient way kept, 
 To the narrower channels below. Here and there 
 A stray water-fowl, lazily beating the air, 
 
154 GEBALDINE. 
 
 Was th3 only suggestion of life beyond reach 
 Of the vessel itself : if the silence had speech, 
 It was only an echo of yesterday's life, 
 Or it hinted, mayhap, of some possible strife 
 Yet to be. 
 
 As the sun was fast sinking, its flame 
 Of white heat into rosy red burning, they came 
 To the river's superlative charm, — the La Chine. 
 It is just a mad passion of waters between 
 Two long levels of tranquil repose. The St. Lawrence 
 Here dashes the majesty grand of its torrents 
 Swift down the decline ; here it hurls them in wrath 
 High above the rough ledges that torture its path ; 
 Here it ripples and laughs, here it seethes and it surges, 
 As on to St. Peter's sweet quiet it urges 
 Its dangerous way ; here it dances and sings ; 
 Here it pours and it roars, and its wild current flings 
 Into spray ; here, with grandeur majestic, it sweeps 
 O'er its breakers, and smooth and unbroken it leaps 
 From the crest of the low cataract ; here it beats 
 Into fury along the sharp headlands, retreats 
 From its futile attack with the thunder of hate, 
 And renews it again ; here it flies to the fate 
 That awaits it, with passionate force ; here it lingers 
 As if it were clasping compassionate fingers 
 In 'oving farewell ; here it hurries and flashes, 
 And scurries and gleams, and in mad columns crashes 
 Against the high rocks that defy it insultingly j 
 
GEBALBINE. 166 
 
 Here it springs over the ledges exultingly, 
 
 Breaks into foam, and goes merrily drifting 
 
 And lifting, and leaping and plunging, and shiftiLg 
 
 From color to color, as if there were dyes 
 
 Of all marvellous tints where it flashes and flies ; 
 
 Here it lifts the stout prow that encounters it, sways it 
 
 With terribly masterful will that betrays it 
 
 Almost to disaster and death ; here you feel 
 
 A quick shiver of fear course along the boat's keel, 
 
 rill she struggles with pain like a person, and shudders 
 
 With live apprehension, and writhes in her rudder's 
 
 Strong hold, and leaps forward at length as if greeting 
 
 Her moment of mastery, heart and soul beating 
 
 With martyrlike purpose heroic : for here 
 
 She may sail with the sky bending over her clear 
 
 As a crystal, the winds in Euroclydon's caves 
 
 All asleep, and yet meet as wild tempest as raves 
 
 When the demon of storm his black anger has hurled 
 
 O'er the waters, and God has forgotten the world. 
 
 As he stood on the bow of the steamer, Trent saw 
 The smooth waters uplift, as if swept by a flaw 
 Of some wind that he felt not. A rift it appeared 
 At the first ; but as to it they steadily neared. 
 It grew angry and strong as the surf of the ocean : 
 He saw the wild channels in wilder commotion, 
 And heard then: low thunder, more sullen and loud, 
 Like a warning to venture no farther. The crowd 
 
166 GEBALDINE, 
 
 Gatliered round him, alert and intent. At the wheel, 
 The grim face of their pilot, with muscles of steel 
 Quick to answer command, was immovably set, 
 Looking into the torrent beyond. As they met 
 The first break of the water, a breathless suspense 
 Came upon them, a fear that no human defence 
 Could avail against madness lil^e this. 
 
 Through the leaping 
 And boiling and thundering waves they went sweeping 
 And surging, a sense as of rapidly sinking 
 Within them, a tardy and cowardly shi inking 
 From fury still madder to come. And yet faster 
 They swept through this turbulent hell of disaster, 
 Where ruin and wreck seem forever at home. 
 Tm-ough the billows of green and the breakers of foam. 
 Sinking down with a tremor and thrill o'er the ledges 
 Beneath, and careening far over the edges 
 Of cataracts highest, the stout vessel tossed 
 Like a shell in the surf, its swift course often crossed 
 By the outjutting rocks that so cruelly waited 
 To crush it, but always as happily fated 
 To shun its hard foes, and each moment confounded 
 By terrors yet greater. 
 
 The thunders resounded 
 In mightier music majestic ; the leap 
 Of the waters was wilder and fiercer ; the sweep 
 Of their desperate will conquered being and breath 
 As the gasp of the dying is conquered by death. 
 
QEBALDINE. 157 
 
 Still the pilot peered out on the tempest before, 
 Undismayed by its terrible tumult and roar, 
 And the captain stood silent and stern at his bella, 
 With a look as intense as if tolling farewells. 
 'Twas a mad, irresistible race with the devils 
 Of furious flood, where their turbulent revels 
 Are maddest, — a race to remember as glorious, 
 Once you have won it, and panting, vi'^torious, 
 Through its wild pleasure and peril at last 
 To the tortuous channel below you have passed, 
 And you know by the quieter waters, serene 
 As the sunset, you safely have run the La Chine. 
 
It58 GEBALDINB. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Trent remained for a day, but to pay the brief call 
 
 Of a tourist in passing, at gray Montreal ; 
 
 Then uneasy, uncertain, he walked the boat's deck 
 
 That should land him next morning at quainter Quebec 
 
 Until late in the evening he paced up and down, 
 
 Looking back on the walls of the vanishing town. 
 
 Looking out on the opposite islands low lying 
 
 In beauty of green, on the sky that was dyeftig 
 
 Itself in the crimson and scarlet and gold 
 
 Of the sunset, with eyes half indifferent. Cold 
 
 To the color that warmed all about him, and glowed 
 
 The glad heart like a dream of the tropics, he rode 
 
 Through the lingering twilight, and into the dark. 
 
 The dim shores faded out. A late fisherman's bark 
 
 Came in call, and stole by like a ghost, with its sails 
 
 Wing-and-wing, as if wooing the slumbering gales. 
 
 Some hilarious raftsman, afar out of sight. 
 
 Let his lusty-lunged laughter float out on the night 
 
 Till it frightened the echoes. The passengers aft 
 
 Over gossip and story occasional laughed. 
 
 Till Trent listened in positive pain. He was lonely, 
 
 Ajid longing, and heartsick, as they can be only 
 
OEBALDINE. 169 
 
 Who taste the one pleasure of life but to miss it, 
 Who pine for the face of a friend, when to kiss it 
 Would open the windows of heaven. 
 
 He went in 
 The deserted saloon, compensation to win 
 For his loneliness there, if he could. Sitting down 
 To the open piano, he hastened to drown 
 His regrets and unrest in its magical flow. 
 Ti lis delicate touch it responded in low, 
 Sympathetic sonatas, that lingered and thrilled 
 On the sensitive ear, or in melodies filled 
 With the wordless compassion of song. So he played 
 As the mood was upon him. Some quiet ones made 
 Their way in from the deck, and close up to his side ; 
 But he heeded them not — or his manner belied 
 Any heeding. Enrapt in the harmonies rare, 
 He could easy forget every trouble and care. 
 All the common surroundings of time and of place. 
 Through the sweetness of song, some enrapturing grace 
 Breathed upon him its witchery soft, till he knew 
 Neither doubt, nor misgiving, nor dread. Thus he grew 
 To be soberly glad. Thus he sang, ere he ceased. 
 In a strain that the gladness of singing increased, 
 Of a lessoji he learned from 
 
 THE LIGHT IN THE EAST. 
 
 I saw the day fade into darkness; 
 I saw the glow shade into gloom; 
 
too GERALDINE. 
 
 And I fell a great dread in my soul as I said, 
 " Can the night bring a bud to its bloom ? 
 
 Can there ever be bom a bright morrow 
 Of sorrowful dark such as this ? 
 
 Will the sun ever shine with its glory divine, 
 And the beauty and blessing I miss ?" 
 
 I sat in my doubt half despairing; 
 
 I knew not the way I should grope : 
 So I wondered and wept by my hope as it slept, 
 
 And I feared It the death of my hope. 
 More deep was the darkness, and denser 
 
 The gloom that enveloped me there ; 
 And my faith grew so weak, it no longer could speak 
 
 The sweet syllables shaping a prayer. 
 
 O Father, forbearing and tender. 
 
 Have mercy on souls that are dumb! 
 To their silence reply through the dark, " It is 1 1" 
 
 As in comforting love thou dost come. 
 The need may be deepest that cries not 
 
 For lack of strong agony's word: 
 O Father, come near with thy comfort and cheer, 
 
 And give answer as if thou hadst heard I 
 
 A bird singing low in the silence 
 
 Brought healing for hurting to me; 
 For I saw, looking far by the horizon bar. 
 
 What the sons of men ever may see, — 
 The gloom of the midnight departing; 
 
 Th'v aay, from its bondage released. 
 Stealing up through the space, with a light on its face, 
 
 The glad, wonderful light in the east. 
 
GERALDINE, 161 
 
 " The night of my vigil shall vanish," 
 
 I sang with the song of the bird ; 
 " For the sun never set on a yesterday yet, 
 
 To rise on a morrow deferred. 
 The dawn is as sure as the darkness, 
 
 The pledge is as true as the boon ; 
 For the light in the east never failed us, nor reased 
 
 To make certain the morning and noon." 
 
 As he sang in a baritone mellow and trained, 
 With a feeling and thrill that were deeper than feigned, 
 Many lingered and listened, and finally sighed, 
 That a song so beguiling and glad should have died 
 Into silence so soon. 
 
 He arose and went out. 
 He had sung himself back into peace from the doubt 
 He had wrestled with so through the days. It might be 
 That the morrow would wound him afresh : he was free 
 From all weary besetments to-night. He could rest 
 In the darkness untroubled by dread, and possessed 
 By no fear for the end. 
 
 The next morning the height 
 Of historic Cape Diamond first greeted his sight, 
 And above the gray walls of the citadel hung 
 The tricolor of Britain. A battle-ship swung 
 By its anchor, asleep in the harbor below. 
 The bright roofs of the city took dazzle and glow 
 From the sun but just risen. Without haze, or the fleck 
 Of a cloud, the sky shone upon silent Quebec. 
 
162 GERALDINE. 
 
 When the steamei swung round in the channel, and swept 
 
 With some bustle and stir to her landing, he stepped 
 
 From the New to the Old ; for the centuries waited 
 
 Here once, and ^nce then have been always belated. 
 
 As up to the gate from the river you climb, 
 
 You go back a long cycle or two into time ; 
 
 You see round you the life, and the works, and the 
 
 ways 
 Of the world in its ruder and ruddier days, 
 When the color of being so readily run 
 To the surface, that battle and pillage were done 
 For the sake of the doing ; when war was a thing 
 To be studied and learned for the fame it should bring ; 
 When the shedding of blood was a part of Christianity 
 Practised and preached for the good of humanity. 
 
 Please don't infer that they pillage and plunder 
 To-day in the sleepy old town ; do not wonder 
 If Trent beheld murder and rapine and lust 
 4s in wars mediaeval, where settles the dust 
 Of the past undisturbed on a present too quiet 
 To start a more valiant crusade than a riot. 
 I made, it may be, an unfortunate reference, 
 Too comprehensive and broad, out of deference 
 Only, in fact, to the city's antiquity. 
 History simply concedes the iniquity 
 To it, 'tis true, of repelling long sieges, 
 Defending the onset of loyalty's liegen, 
 
QEBALBINE. 168 
 
 Withstanding the shock of the enemy's hosts, 
 And compelled to see carnage unsought. 
 
 But the ghosts 
 Of dead heroes yet walk the high battlements round it ; 
 Red fame has a place where men sought it and found it ; 
 Still grim and defiant re-echo the guns 
 That m silence have slept through a century's suns ; 
 ]n the cry of the sentry a dim challenge calls 
 Out of long-buried lips from the citadel walls ; 
 The wild music of musketry breaks on the air, 
 Where the gamer is death for the gallant who dare ; 
 And above all the present's calm quietude reigns 
 The fierce tumult of strife upon Abraham's Plains. 
 
 Through the quaint, crooked city our friend made his 
 
 way, 
 Searchmg out the things quaintest by night and by day ; 
 Walking over the battle-field hard by the town ; 
 From the parapets airy and bold, looking down ; 
 Looking on at the garrison's showy parade ; 
 Idly watching the pride and the fashion displayed 
 On the terrace ; or bowlmg right merrily on, 
 Through the Gate of St. Charles or the Gate of St. 
 
 John, 
 In a rocking caleche^ to the country that sleeps 
 Beyond city and suburb at peace, or where leaps 
 Hontmorenci in beautiful haste to be wed 
 With the wooing St. Lawrence. The life that he led 
 
164 QEItALBINE, 
 
 For a week was the life of a dreamer unstirred 
 By the impulse of action. He languidly heard 
 The faint callings of duty, and answered them not. 
 In the midst of such sleepy surroundings, forgot 
 Was the wide-awake being and doing so near 
 In his future. The lotos-blooms redolent here 
 He would press to his lips, and forget. 
 
 But he failed 
 In forgetting. Regret his good purpose assailed. 
 And wherever he went he was haunted by thought 
 Of what had been and must be. His dreams ever caught 
 The sweet flavor of emerald islands, the sheen 
 Of the waves as they twain had long drifted between 
 in those days of delight, and his sweetest repose 
 Was a blessed remembrance. 
 
 Most happy are those 
 vVho have only remembrances blessed ! who turn 
 From no memories bitter, with feelmgs that burn 
 Like a fire in the breast ! They have come to the garden 
 Of paradise so without knowing it. Pardon 
 For sins of the past cannot blesseder be 
 Than in granting forgetf ulness certain and free 
 Of the sin put away, that henceforth it may never 
 Stand ghostly and grim by the present's endeavor, 
 And mock it, and make it afraid. 
 
 Though the time 
 Was so full of a dreamy content, to the rhyme 
 Of each day a sad music was set, lik-e a moan 
 
GERALDINE, 165 
 
 A-mid mellowest laughter, — a low undertone, 
 Never ceasing, half heeded, half heard, but existent, 
 And paining the ear of the soul with persistent 
 Continuance. Walk where he would, he could hear 
 The low pulsing of pain far away, and yet near 
 As the conscience within. He could never forget 
 To the full of forgetting, so long as Regret 
 Was his daily companion, rose with him at dawn, 
 And sat with him at eve when the twilight was gone 
 Till he bade her a weary good-night. 
 
 At the end 
 Of a week he took up delayed duty, and penned 
 A long letter to Geraldine Hope. If it read 
 Like his former epistles, but little it said 
 Of the ardent affection of lovers, implying 
 What might have been written, in no wise denying 
 By evident lack what he often had told. 
 While he wrote it, in fact, if the love had grown cold 
 That he felt for her once, it was only, it seemed 
 To himself, by comparison. Passion undreamed 
 In its mastery, coming unheralded quite, 
 Had not hidden this older love out of his sight 
 As a thing very worthful and sweet. 
 
 Are degrees 
 With the heart so impossible ever? Are these 
 Who have burned the hot flame of fierce passion's desire 
 To its ashes, no more to be warmed by the fire 
 Of some calm-glowing feeling ? Believe it who Trill • 
 
166 GEBALBINE, 
 
 You may sit by the blaze of your passion, and tlu'ill 
 With quick grief as it flickers, and falters, and dies ; 
 But some day from the embers new color may rise 
 Into glowing, and gladden you. Grieving is brief, 
 Or the sum of this being were simply a grief. 
 
OEBALDINE. 167 
 
 XIX. 
 
 **My dear Geraldine, — 
 
 ''Pardon unwonted delay," 
 So his letter began, " in my writing. Don't play 
 At the brief indignation you never must feel 
 At my gravest shortcomings, nor try to conceal 
 The sweet fact that long silence has new revelation 
 Of need. I've been dreaming, and lacked animation 
 For more. That's the only excuse I can render. 
 There's something that lurks in the crystalline splendor 
 Of summer days here that I cannot explain ; 
 It has proved, in my case, a most excellent bane 
 For the poison of purpose to do. I have drifted 
 From morning to night like the veriest gifted 
 Do-nothing of genius, — my only ambition 
 To see, and to feel, and be glad. If the mission 
 Of sunshine were ever performed as a healing 
 And free soporific, in balminess stealing 
 Tlirough heart and through brain, and so lifting the 
 
 weight 
 Of hard duty and care, it is here. How the late 
 Mellow twilights beguile to repose ! How the calm 
 Of each morning seems pressing some opiate balm 
 
168 GERALBINE, 
 
 On the eyelids ! How earth in a beautiful swoon 
 Seems to lie through the glow of each brief afternoon ! 
 How the far-away mountains are hallowed with rest, 
 As if truly the summits of God ! How the west 
 Into marvellous color and majesty glows, 
 As the sun to his morrow magnificent goes 
 Through a gateway of gold ! 
 
 '* You may say, if you choose, 
 I am florid in feeling. I never shall lose 
 Out of memory's life the week's rest I have known 
 Here in quiet Quebec. When I weary am grown 
 Amid duties to come, I shall dreamily drift 
 Out of bustle and crowd, to the holiday gift 
 A kind fortune has granted to have and to keep, 
 And be sweetly refreshed as if gladdened by sleep. 
 
 '' Having been the whole round of the places historical 
 
 Here, I might now, in a style paregorical, 
 
 (Sleepy, you know, like the air of the town,) 
 
 And with guide-pages handy, proceed to put down 
 
 All the facts and the figures important. But no ! 
 
 You shall wait yet a year, and come with me, and grow 
 
 Even wiser than I am concerning the place. 
 
 Do I see a glad flush stealing over your face 
 
 At the prospect so pleasant? I like the half -blush 
 
 That you wear at odd times, when you say I must 
 
 hush 
 Some fond nonsense or other. You're prettiest then. 
 
GERALDINE, 169 
 
 Ot» not show the same blush to less fortunate men, 
 Lest they envy me more ! 
 
 " As for history here — 
 In the magical glow of to-day's atmosphere 
 There is little but being historic. And yet, 
 If I lounge on the Terrace when Fashion has set 
 Its gay current there soon, I shall see as much pride 
 As disports itself now on the popular side 
 Of Broadway, New York, in this day of our Lord 
 Eighteen hundred and blank. If I greatly abhorred 
 The Dame Fashion, I'd say with some bitterness mild, 
 She was wrinkled and gray, even history's child ; 
 And I'd point you, in proof, to that notable twain 
 Who began their existence in clothes rather plain, 
 And became quite ashamed to be seen. But I'll grant 
 That the pride which so gaylv would flutter and flaunt 
 The fine trappings of dress is a modernized thing. 
 And that over the picture the promenades fling 
 A bright hue of the present, to lessen and lighten 
 The half-sombre tint of the past, and to heighten 
 The picturesque whole. 
 
 ** Yet you feel, when you stfjid 
 On the parapet yonder, as though in a land 
 Of dim yesterdays fled ; and you walk the quaint street 
 As if certain some knight mediaeval to meet ; 
 And you listen to mass in the Jesuit piles 
 Of the priests, as if monks moved about in the aisles 
 From the far middle ages 
 
170 GEBALDINE. 
 
 " Poor priest-ridden people ! 
 If only there lifted some truth-telling steeple 
 To point the true way they must go ! But the spire 
 Of the Jesuit never points heavenward much higher 
 Than head of the prelate or priest ; and the soul 
 Of the dead or the dying must pay proper toll, 
 Or go seeking its paradise long. In this dreary 
 Sahara of doubt the one spot that is cheery 
 And vernal alone is the Virgin. Dear Mother 
 Of Christ ! Because each, in believing, his brother 
 Becomes, we may hallow her thus with our love 
 As the mother of all ; but before and aboj^e 
 The sweet mother Madonna forever is Christ ; 
 And whoever from worshipping him is enticed 
 To a less adoration, while walking the way 
 Of a faith without fruitage, must penalty pay, 
 And not penance. Some paintings a worthy grace give 
 To the Virgin ; but Christ as an infant must live 
 In the arms of the mother Madonna, or hang 
 From the cross where he died with the crucifix pang 
 On his face, as the Jesuits have it, instead 
 Of ascending on high, from his place with the dead, 
 And remaining a Saviour for all, with no need 
 Of a priest to stand up, and with him intercede 
 For the seeking and penitent. 
 
 " Battle-fields teach 
 Many lessons. The monuments on them may preach 
 A. wise gospel that calls for no sheddmg of gore. 
 
GERALDINE. 171 
 
 On the plains where the men of Montcalm fled before 
 The wild charge of their foes, is the leo;end, ' Here died 
 Wolfe victorious.' Life is a battle-field wide. 
 And we fight for the right or the wrong till the end. 
 I have wondered how many who fall, my dear friend, 
 Are the victors, how many go down to defeat, 
 Never gaining the victoiy certain and sweet, 
 But discouraged, disheartened, dismayed. Marble shaft 
 Never rises above them ; no spring where they quaffed 
 The last cup of refreshing is pointed to those 
 WTio still linger, and face the fierce onset of foes 
 That the world never sees ; but they slumber unsung. 
 And are silent forever. God pity the tongue 
 That prays feebly for help from defeat at the last, 
 When it ought to be singing thanksgiving, as fast 
 It sinks down into silence ! I think it were blest 
 Thus to die like this soldier of fortune, who pressed 
 To his lips a clear draught from the spring, and then went 
 Into rest, let us hope, with a warrior's content. 
 Having won. But he won as must all, having fought 
 Like a faithful and tru(? knight of God. Had he sought 
 Cheaper victory, doubtless defeat would have robbed 
 Ilim of glory and fame. Never faithfulness throbbed 
 Out of life into death without recompense lust. 
 Though it come when the heart is but ashes and dust. 
 
 ^' But I'll spare you philosophy further. Please credil 
 This much to the mood of my pen, that but led it 
 Astray. 
 
172 GEBALBINE. 
 
 " I have lingered here longer than most 
 Of the sight-seers do, who ' from pillar to post * 
 Hurry on as if fevered with haste. By and by, 
 In the sweetest of leisure indeed, you and I 
 Will thus tarry untroubled, unhurried, together, 
 And paradise find in this marvellous weather. 
 To-morrow I leave for the Saguenay, — far 
 Down the river, and up where the solitudes are. 
 I have made Montmorenci a visit to-day 
 For the last, and shall list to the exquisite play 
 Of its murmurous music no more, lest I listen 
 In dreams. Where its waters gleam ever and glisten, 
 Like showers of pearls in the sun, I have laid 
 Half the day full of dreamy delight. The cascade 
 Partly faces the town ; but a leisure hour's ride 
 Down the river's left bank, yet unseen from the side, 
 You approach it. In front, between it and the stream 
 It is leaping to meet, is the vision supreme 
 Of its beauty. A green, grassy point there invites you 
 To linger and gaze, and with gazing delights you ; 
 For yonder the play of the waters is sweet 
 As the sunlight that silvers the foam at your feet ; 
 Their loud thunder has lost all its resonant ring, 
 And in murmurs ^olian softly they sing 
 Through the distance between ; like white gossamer lace 
 They droop down the precipitous deep, with the grace 
 Of a bridal veil gleaming with gems. You could lingei 
 In rapt fascination forever, the finger 
 
GERALBINE, 173 
 
 Of silence laid soft on your lips, that you might 
 Ne'er attempt the expression in words of delight 
 Inexpressible. 
 
 "Yonder, with beautiful smile, 
 The St. Lawrence sweeps onward, and kisses the Isle 
 Of Orleans like a lover, and fondly embraces it ; 
 Turn half around from the falls, and one faces it, — 
 River of silver and island of green, 
 A pure emerald set in a circlet of sheen, 
 A fair picture of peace as man ever has seen. 
 On the opposite side are the cottages low 
 Of the poor Jiabitans^ an irregular row. 
 Running nigh to the dim water-line ; far beyond. 
 In the yet dimmer distance, the sky bending fond 
 To caress them, the mountain-tops blend with the blue, 
 And your vision has bounded the reach of the view. 
 Turn again to the right and the west, and you gaze 
 On the slumbering city, its roofs all ablaze 
 In the sunshine, and flooding its soberer grays 
 With a tropical glory ; its batteries, grim 
 And defiant as hate, become mellow and dim 
 In the distance ; its rugged and angular steeps 
 Sloping gently and soft to the river that sleeps 
 At their base ; and above, the red cross of St. George 
 From the citadel flung. 
 
 " I have sat by the gorge 
 Which the point overlooks, so enraptured and charmed 
 By the scene, that my driver no doubt was alarmed 
 
174 GERALBINE, 
 
 For his fare, apprehensive that I would attempt 
 To slip off as a suicide, going exempt 
 From the fees common visitors pay. As I staid 
 1'here to-day, and the fall sweeter melodies played 
 Tn farewell, I wrote thus of 
 
 THE SUNNT CASCADE. 
 
 Fair Montmorenci gleaming goes 
 
 Adown its dim defiles : 
 In nooks no human vision knows, 
 Its tricksy current laughing flows, 
 
 Flash out its silver smiles. 
 
 Far up amid dim mountain dells. 
 It drinks from crystal springs; 
 Of cooling rills and mountain wells 
 It gayly sips, and gladly tells, 
 As free it leaps and sings. 
 
 It lingers long in quiet grots 
 
 Where bending birches weep : 
 Where bloom the blue forget-me-notti 
 Along the warm and sunny spotSy 
 It sings itself to sleep. 
 
 It wakes to laugh at foaming rift, 
 
 And flies with merry glee 
 Adown the swirling rapid swift, 
 Where mossy walls in wonder lift 
 
 Their whitening heads to see. 
 
OEBALBINE. 175 
 
 It Binks to rest by pleasant shades 
 
 Where meadow-reaches run, 
 Or gleams coquettish through the glades 
 Where long it mirrored dusky maids 
 
 Who dusky warriors won. 
 
 And rousing soon to rougher ways, 
 
 It sports through rocky fen, 
 Where bright the sunlight streams and pl»yi 
 Within the lonely woodland maze, 
 
 And longs for haunts of men. 
 
 Then down the wider steep it flies 
 
 With eager, hastening feet. 
 And sweet complaint for smiling skies, 
 To leap with laughter and surprise. 
 
 And glad its wooer greet. 
 
 Serene the broad St. Lawrence flows, 
 
 Tet winning with its smiles; 
 And Montmorenci gleaming goes 
 In joy to wed its sweet repose 
 
 Where bliss alone beguiles. 
 
 Forever down its dizzy height 
 
 The cascade sunny leaps, 
 Its waters robed in angel white, 
 Its song an anthem of delight 
 
 From heaven's own azure deeps. 
 
 Its pearly spray, to diamonds kissed. 
 
 Plays truant with the breeze; 
 And on it borne as lightest mist. 
 In flush of gold and amethyst. 
 
 It seeks the sunset seas. 
 
176 GEBALDINE. 
 
 The fleecy foam in beauty falls 
 
 To hide the bare abyss; 
 From out its dripping cavern-halls 
 A witching Undine laughing calls 
 
 To win her lover's kiss. 
 
 And ever on in sportive race 
 
 Fair Montmorenci runs; 
 Forever changing all the grace 
 That wimples on its smiling face, 
 
 Yet changeless as the sun's. 
 
 *' I must bid you adieu till each other we see, 
 When my roving vacation has gone, vis-a-vis.*' 
 And he signed himself brief, in a style that was meant 
 To seem loving as ever, 
 
 " Your 
 
 "Pkbctval Trent." 
 
aSBALLINX. 177 
 
 XX. 
 
 Major Mellen had business or pleasure again, 
 Or it may have been both, down at Rivermet, wlien 
 He returned from his summer's diversion. He made 
 A long call upon Geraldine Hope, and he played 
 In the cruelest way with her peace. She acquitted 
 Him, true, of deliberate wish that admitted 
 Such torture to her : she could scarce have believed 
 That with purpose prepense he would idly have grieved 
 Her as now. She accepted the pain that he gave 
 With a patient acceptance, submissive, and brave. 
 And withal she was glad that he came ; for he brought 
 A great blessing of comfort at first ; and it caught 
 Her up, willing and weak, in the shock of its flow, 
 Overcoming her quite. 
 
 '' I can never forego 
 Paying tribute to friendship as pleasant as yours,'* 
 He remarked, " and the business is kind that insures 
 Opportunity easy. I'm barely returned 
 From the River St. Lawrence, all blistered and burned 
 By the sun, as you see. We have had a month's leisuring. 
 Filled running over with vagabond pleasuring. 
 Sandwiched with some of gay fashion's formalities, 
 
178 QEBALDINE. 
 
 Spiced with a few of flirtation's dualities. 
 
 Jolliest company, too, that I ever 
 
 Was out with, and rather uncommonly clever." 
 
 " You must have been fortunate, major," she said 
 As he paused, though she felt tha' the color had fled 
 From her face. 
 
 " Well, I was : it's my normal condition, 
 You know," and he laughed, as if every ambition 
 He knew had been gratified. "When a man chooses 
 To waste a few weeks doing nothing, he loses 
 His temper as well as his time, if the rest 
 Who should aid him in laudable ways are possessed 
 Of the devils of social discomfort. They tear 
 Very many. Miss Hope, I am willing to swear 
 On the word of a man who has studied them well : 
 They are devils of which there's no record to tell 
 Out of whom or of what they were cast. It may be 
 They went down with the swine to their bath in the sea, 
 And escaped — with their piggish propensities, grunting 
 At every experience, always affronting 
 Your pleasure and patience. There can't be a place 
 That is better for lifting the mask from the face 
 Of a character rude than half-roughing it where 
 The good-humor and fun are a part of the fare. 
 There were none in our set with whom grumbling was 
 
 chronic ; 
 No one of us bored all the rest with Byronic 
 
QERALDINE. 179 
 
 Quotations and sentiments ; nobody flung 
 
 A wet blanket of sneers from tiie loom of his tongue 
 
 Till he chilled the whole company ; all were discreet 
 
 And good-natured, forbearing and wise, as is meet 
 
 For a party of idlers like ours. Even I 
 
 In deportment, I fancy, was rated as high 
 
 As the others — unless it was Trent.** 
 
 As he named 
 Her beloved, it seemed he had purposely aimed 
 A keen arrow to enter her bosom. She gasped 
 As if panting for air, and convulsively clasped 
 Her hands close in unheeded beseeching. 
 
 " He canned 
 The honors off easy — or would if he'd tarried 
 As long as the rest. Your good fellows who sing, 
 And who play, and make speeches, and do every thing 
 As if that were their /or^e, have the best of us noodles 
 Who count with the ladies about as their poodles, — 
 Poor curs, our one talent the meek one of following. 
 Led by a string. When I see women swallowing 
 Music like Trent's, with their hearts in their faces, 
 As ready to yield him their love and embraces 
 As even to listen and praise, I am vexed 
 That with dower so meagre I ever was sexed 
 With the males. It's discouraging, isn't it? " 
 
 Waiting 
 No answer, not stayed by the half-hesitating 
 Appeal that spoke out of her face, he asserted : 
 
180 GERALBINE. 
 
 "If ever coquettes have outrageously flii-ted 
 With men, it is men of his fortunate class. 
 The less charming ones they are content to let \ ass 
 In the main, as not worthy their wickedest wiles, 
 And we get what I call their superfluous smiles. 
 We are lucky, perhaps, after all, in not knowing 
 The sharpest effects of their skill, and in going 
 Unscathed where the cleverer fellows receive 
 Cruel injury.'* 
 
 "White to her lips, and in tones 
 That were trembling, and swift might have sunk intc 
 
 moans, 
 She besought revelation of mystery hinted 
 At thus in his words. 
 
 " ' The Palladium ' prmted 
 A paragraph, saying your friends had been drowned." 
 
 '' So I've heard. They were caught in a storm, and we 
 
 found 
 Their boat empty and broken the following day. 
 After searching for hours. The quick journalist's way 
 Was to telegraph promptly their death. When they came 
 Back alive, as they did, they were rather to blame 
 For denying a fact : so the newspaper said 
 Nothing of it, and silently left them for dead.** 
 
 The hard ring of his sentence sarcastic was much 
 Like a dash of cool water when fainting : its touch 
 
OEBALDINE. 181 
 
 Grave her strength. Yet her heart appeared swelhng to 
 
 burst, 
 And her lips were as dry as if parching with thirst ; 
 And a great dizziness overcame her so nearly, 
 She whispered a prayer. 
 
 '' Percy Trent's case was clearly 
 A desperate one after that. So romantic 
 Conditions must plunge a man in the Atlantic 
 Of love beyond rescue. He fled from his fate 
 Like the coward all men are with flirts. I should hate 
 To be hit in the heart as he's been ; for these poets 
 Take hard any hurt of that kind, though I know it's 
 Quick over with often. He'll write better verse 
 After this ; and his life will not be any worse 
 For the blow she has dealt him." 
 
 " You think Mrs. Let 
 Is unmerciful then? " 
 
 " Yes. I know her to be 
 A coquette of the wickedest, once she attempts 
 Any conquest in earnest. She kindly exempts 
 From her efforts all average men, for they sicken 
 Her soon ; but a man of some genius can quicken 
 The strongest allurements within her. She gives 
 Herself cheerfully over to winning him ; lives 
 In the pleasure she finds in her growing success ; 
 Leads him on in the quietest fashion, with less 
 Of apparent desire than indifference ; wins 
 All his worship, and — stabs him." i 
 
t 
 
 182 GEEALDINE. 
 
 " And wickedly sina 
 Against womanhood/* warmly she answered him, throb- 
 bing 
 Her heart through her speech. ^' There can never be 
 
 robbing 
 More wanton than takes of the treasure of life 
 For the taking, then presses keen Cruelty's knife 
 To the vitals, and leaves it." 
 
 "• The stab never reaches 
 So deep as that quite, and the victim beseeches 
 A cure from some sister of mercy. The curate 
 Her ministry finishes. All must endure it, — 
 The wound and the treatment, I mean." And he sneered 
 In his cynical fashion. 
 
 She trembled, and feared 
 To reply. 
 
 " As for Trent," he continued, sarcastic 
 Yet earnest, " his love, I believe, is elastic 
 Enough to rebound from the bitterest strain. 
 He will weaken a while with the shock and the pain ; 
 But in time he will marry that sister of mercy, 
 Who never may dream that the poems her Percy 
 Produces hereafter take color and tone 
 From a love that was earlier born than her own. 
 It's the way of the world. When with kisses we wed. 
 We have stood by the grave of some passion, and 
 
 shed 
 The hot tears of forgetting." 
 
GERALBINE. 188 
 
 " You speak foi the men, 
 It may be ; ** and she rallied indignantly then. 
 *^ Men may love and forget : women love till they die." 
 
 ' ' Then they stand at the altar, I fear, with a lie 
 
 On their lips many times,'* he responded. ''The 
 
 chances 
 Don't favor fulfilment of early romances. 
 We're creatures of fate, or of hard circumstances 
 That govern us, come between us and the kindest 
 Conditions of being, and lead in the blindest 
 Of paths. Women do with their love as they must ; 
 And the truest of faith, the sublimest of trust. 
 Cannot yield the full fruitage of love absolutely 
 And ever. A woman may love when she mutely 
 Must look her farewell. If she never forgets, 
 She pays penalty twice, in her love and regrets. 
 For the sex that compels her to silence. She ought 
 To have recompense rare for a fact that is fraught 
 With unfairness the greatest, — the fact that avers 
 A man's freedom of speech, and then robs her of hers 
 But suppose she were granted like freedom of voice, 
 It might chance that she make an unfortunate choice, 
 And win only refusal, and go disappointed 
 A.way, as the men do, you know. It's disjointed 
 And ciaol and wrong, if the woman must cling 
 To her love when it comes to be only a sting 
 And a weariness to her." 
 
184 GEBALDINE. 
 
 He spoke with a ban 
 On his flippant expression, that frequently ran 
 To severity reckless. If ever sincere 
 And believing, he seemed to be now. 
 
 "You appear 
 Full of sympathy, major, for women who fail 
 To find sweetness in loving,*' she said ; and her pale 
 Cheeks were glowing with color returned. " You would 
 
 make 
 Of their love but a fancy short-lived, for the sake 
 Of in charity sparing them pain. You contend 
 That love blooms like an annual, ready to lend 
 Of its fragrance to him who will water it well 
 When its winter of grief has gone by. You compel 
 A belief that we love as we like, and our fancies 
 Are cherished or dropped as the fortunate chances 
 Of being direct. But I cannot accept 
 Such a theory. Granted that women have wept 
 Bitter tears, and then wiped them away, and then 
 
 carried 
 A smile for their friends, — even say that they married, 
 And grew into matrons with faces lUie saints 
 For the happy light in them, and made no complaints 
 Of the past, — I believe they remembered, and knew 
 That they never could wholly forget, and were true 
 To the law of their natures. God made us to love ; 
 And we love for a purpose beyond and above 
 The mere loving. Some discipline comes to us, up 
 
GEBALDINE. 186 
 
 From the dregs that are found in the bitterest cup, 
 That we never should learn, did we drink and forget.*' 
 
 She was smiling, with tears in her eyes, that she let 
 Slip away unawares down her beautiful cheeks , 
 And the major observed them. 
 
 *' Who foolishly seeks 
 To convince any woman," he said, " must repent 
 And be silent, or soon be convinced. I'm content 
 To admit you the argument, since you appeal 
 To economies only your faith can reveal. 
 And my questioning doubts. Divine purposes blind 
 Me wherever I turn. Where they seem to you kind. 
 They appear to me cruel. One loves and is glad. 
 And another goes out from her paradise sad. 
 And in sorrow she ought to forget ; and you say 
 She must always remember, for this is the way 
 That her Maker has ordered. He brings her, you think, 
 A deep draught the most bitter, and bids her to drink ; 
 Ajid she never may sweet enough happily sip 
 To remove the bad taste that is left on her lip. 
 It is better to drink and forget, as men do 
 Who sip kisses of comfort, devotedly woo 
 Where 'tis easy to win, and make matches at last 
 For the happy-faced matrons who cling to their past 
 Without evident grieving.' ' 
 
 His words had the ring 
 Of fine irony in them 
 
186 GEBALDINE. 
 
 " Some bitter draughts bring 
 Their own subsequent sweetness , " she answered. ' * The 
 
 taste 
 May grow pleasanter to us, though never effaced : 
 It may lose all its bitterness even, and leave 
 Little more than the kiss of a friend. We may grieve, 
 And be glad even while we remember ; for God 
 Will be kind, I am sure, and will spare us the rod 
 Of a wretched remembrance when once we have learned 
 What his wisdom would teach. He has tenderly turned 
 Many Marahs to wells of refreshing and strength. 
 I believe every heart can find gladness at length 
 In the faith that all lessons of God are as good 
 As the Master himself.*' 
 
 '' And no reasoning could 
 Be so strong as your faith," he replied. "I should 
 
 know 
 It were idle to challenge that. Since I must go 
 Very soon, I'll admit I am vanquished." 
 
 He laughed 
 In his easy and spirited way, and with craft 
 And with cunning address he diverted their speech 
 Into other relations ; yet often the reach 
 Of his cynical comment was cruel and keen, 
 As with utterance sharp it went flashing between 
 A half-credence and ready denial. He spared 
 Nothing reverent now from allusion that dared 
 To be lightly irreverent, measured and mocked 
 
GERALUINE, 187 
 
 TLe pretences of creed and profession, and talked 
 Like tlie doubter he was. 
 
 Many heard him, and felt 
 A quick shrinking and pain from the blows that he dealt 
 Without mercy wherever he went ; but the most 
 Only laughed at his wit and the half-hidden boast 
 In his words of a wise unbelief, and took pleasure 
 In hearing him. Gifted with insight to measure 
 The feelings that shyly kept silence, he sounded 
 The shallows of conscience and motive, and bounded 
 The average purpose with ready precision, 
 Then singled them out for sarcastic derision, 
 And sneered at their shame. 
 
 When at length he had ended 
 His call, and, with delicate lightness intended 
 To soften his previous words, he had said 
 An adieu, the mixed feelings of Geraldine led 
 To as mingled expression. She wept, and she smiled 
 A'nid weeping. She uttered her thanks, like a child 
 In retm*n for a token surprising, to Him 
 WTio had spared her beloved. With eyes growing dim, 
 And with language that faltered, she prayed him to keep 
 Her beloved as hers, that none other might creep 
 In between her warm heart and his own, that their waya 
 Might be never divided. She prayed, as he prays 
 For liis soul who is losing it, pleading, with pain. 
 That she never might know the wild longing and vain 
 Of a love unrequited. She whispered the name 
 
188 QEBALDINE. 
 
 Of her lover in tenderness sweet (though it came 
 Through her tears) in the confidence always she gave 
 To her Lord, and besought him in mercy to save 
 Them from drifting apart. Yet her heart by and by, 
 In the midst of her need and her longing, could cry, 
 " Let it be as thou wilt, loving Father ; for mine 
 Is the weakness of love, but the wisdom is thine." 
 
QEBALDINE, 189 
 
 XXI. 
 
 In the late summer's glory that softly suffused 
 All the world, Percy Trent idly, dreamily cruised 
 Down the River St. Lawrence. The wonderful sweep 
 Of its waters grew wider and grander. The sleep 
 Of the sunlight upon them, unstirred by a dream 
 Of wild passion, was sweetly unbroken. Supreme 
 In majestical beauty the river rolled far. 
 Through a land where the deepest of solitudes are, 
 Gn its widening course to the sea. In the mood 
 Of its marvellous peace, that serenely did brood 
 0*er the scene, he went sailmg away to content. 
 
 When the afternoon lengthened, and day was far spent, 
 
 They caught sight of Cocouna, where wealthy Canadians 
 
 Saunter in summer like happy Arcadians. 
 
 Trim and white- visaged, it sat on the shore. 
 
 Miles remote from the steamer that steadily bore 
 
 For the Saguenay's mouth, far across ; and it seemed 
 
 Like a city set low in the sky, as it gleamed 
 
 On the crystal horizon, — a city of cloud. 
 
 Far away from the din and the fret of the crowd, 
 
 In some country of silence. 
 
19T) GEBALDINE. 
 
 At Tadousac's wharf 
 They made landmg, and tarried to look at its dwarf 
 Of a church, and the relics of centuries dead. 
 Pretty Tadousac out of its stillness has said 
 Not a word for the foreigner's hearing. It hides 
 In its modesty shy where the Saguenay's tides 
 Pour their inkiness into the mightier flow 
 Of St. Lawrence ; and none of its quiet can know, 
 And the charm of its solitude strange, till they stand 
 On the beautiful beach, where its delicate sand 
 Ever tempts the most delicate feet to a bath, 
 Or go straying alone by some vine-hidden path 
 To the bluffs overlooking the river and bay. 
 In the dark of the waters, white porpoises play, 
 And make merrily bright the tranquillity there ; 
 But no music of birds is borne out on the air, 
 And no whirring of spindles, no clangor of steel. 
 And no screaming of whistles, make frequent ap» 
 
 peal 
 To your sense of activity. Languor and rest 
 Are as opiates here ; and the common behest 
 To a laborer's brain and his wearying heart, 
 To arise, and in duty and doing take part, 
 Is a whisper unheard, where the speech of the time 
 Is in whispers, with rest for its rhythm and its rhyn^e. 
 
 In the deeper and mellower hush of the night, 
 A-mid shadows that shut the wide world out of «ight, 
 
GEBA LDINE. 191 
 
 They went sailing north-west. The next morning at 
 
 seven 
 The Bay of Sweet Laughter, that looks up to heaven 
 Untroubled and glad, — sunny Ha-Ha, — gave greeting 
 With smiles of surprise. As the morning sped, fleeting 
 As mornings of pleasure and peace ever seem. 
 The sharp bow of the steamer was set down the stream 
 And they sailed with the tide through the silence. A 
 
 shell 
 Of pure pearl was the sky overhead, and it fell 
 In its purity silvern and whit€ to the hills 
 On the left and the right. If tha Ivord ever stills 
 A fierce tempest of feeling run high in the breast. 
 With the might of his word to an infinite rest. 
 It is here. If the silence of God ever falls 
 In its tenderness down on the world from the walls 
 Of the City of Gold, they have known it who sailed 
 Through the Saguenay's stillness. 
 
 No mariner hailed 
 Their approach, and no fisherman shouted his word 
 Of salute. The soft calm of the air never stir *.d 
 To harsh utterance here, or the wing of a bird 
 Flying wearily home to his nest-keeping mate. 
 From the bold, rocky heights that were grim ^-«o- 
 
 late. 
 And untenanted, bounding the river's deep blaci 
 From the sunny Ha-Ha to the quaint Tadousac, 
 Never came to their ears or their vision a sound 
 
192 GERALDINE, 
 
 Or a signal the solitude deep and profound 
 To disturb. 
 
 Cape Eternity, grandly uprearing 
 Its dome to the azure, invited their nearing. 
 And thrilled them with awe of its might so tremendoua 
 Cape Trinity, opposite, Ufted stupendous 
 And mighty its masses of granite to greet 
 The sublimity facing it. Majesties meet 
 In no kinglier fashion than these, as they tower 
 Far into the deep of the blue in their power 
 Titanic, from out the deep blackness below ; 
 And no gloomier depths in their sombreness flow 
 To the sea than the deeps of these desolate capes, 
 That in silent solemnity cover their shapes 
 Half the altitude marvellous. Sailing beside 
 Their huge granite upheavals, the pomp and the pride 
 Of humanity fade to forgetting, in awe 
 Of the Infinite Presence that never man saw 
 But on mountains majestic and lonely. The lift 
 Of their faces is Godward ; and sudden and swift 
 [s the leap of our thought from each adamant crown 
 To the Spirit eternal that loving bends down 
 With a gliid benediction forever. 
 
 Too soon 
 Came the close of that sheeny and bright afternoon 
 As they sailed down the river of silence. The sweetest 
 And gladdest of days is forever the fleetest : 
 It slips into yesterday's arms, and we say 
 
GERALBINE. 198 
 
 k good-night to its pleasure and peace in the gray 
 Of a twilight that will not forbear. If it take 
 Of our heart*s-ease, and cruelly leave but the ache 
 Of disquietude, hunger, and longing, what need 
 That we wonder and grieve ? They are blessed indeed 
 Who their faces have steadily set from the past, 
 And who will not look back. 
 
 The next mom they made fast 
 To the wharf at Quebec, and Trent hastened by rail 
 To the hills of New Hampshire. A summer day's sail 
 Has its charm for the soul in disquiet : the ills 
 Of imrest are forgot in the calm of the hills 
 Everlasting. Who walks where their grandeur upreara 
 Should be glad with a hallowing gladness that cheers 
 Like a word of the Lord never lost. In the strength 
 Of their masterful quiet and glory, at length 
 He should stand as do they, with their face to the throne 
 Of their Maker, in patience, and wait. 
 
 As alone 
 Through the mountains he wandered uplifted, his soul 
 Catching glimpses beyond of the land of its goal, 
 He was near to content. He could muse, in a mood 
 Of serene exaltation, on passion that wooed 
 Him astray from the pathway of duty, nor shrink 
 From the wearisome way he must journey, nor think 
 Bitter things of himself. In this mood he could lie 
 On the sunniest slope, see the fleets of the sky 
 [n their fleecy white silence float dreamily by 
 
1 94 GEBALBINE, 
 
 See the thistledown drifting at peace on the air, 
 Hear the tinkle of bells far below him, and care 
 For no morrow of possible pain. 
 
 Yet aware 
 Of the days that awaited, nor happily blind 
 To their certain unrest, though now calmly resigned 
 Jn a willingness patient, he staid to behold 
 The glad summer in garments of scarlet and gold 
 Proudly decking herself in the early September, 
 While sweetly she tarried in dreams to remember. 
 Ere leaving, the mountain- top highest he climbed, 
 And with vivid and sorrowful prophecy rhymed, 
 Out of vision unclouded, and quieted fears, 
 And pathetic concern, of 
 
 THE VALLEY OF TEARS. 
 
 If I climb to the mountains of gladness, 
 
 And bask in the sunshine of bliss, 
 If unheeding all sorrow and sadness, 
 
 Forgetting the good that I miss, 
 I look out from my uplands of being 
 
 Across the broad reach of the years, 
 I grow tenderly sober at seeing 
 
 The shadowy Valley of Tears. 
 
 It is never quite lost to my vision, 
 
 Though often beyond it I see 
 The green slopes of the summits elysian 
 
 That wait with their blessing for »n<» ; 
 
OLRALDINE. 196 
 
 And, though often I long for the freedom 
 
 That yonder eternally reigns, 
 I remember that each has his Edom 
 
 Before the glad Canaan he gains. 
 
 When my heart with tumultuous throbbing 
 
 Takes up the sad burdens of men, 
 I go down amid sighing and sobbing. 
 
 And walk the dim valley again: 
 A sober, sepulchral procession 
 
 We make as we journey along, 
 With a grief for our only possession, 
 
 A funeral dirge for our song. 
 
 There are willows above us low bending, 
 
 That weep with us over our woe ; 
 And the mist of the mountains, descending. 
 
 Bedews all the way as we go. 
 In the dark of our dubious grieving 
 
 We walk as if stars had gone out, 
 And our souls were grown sick of beUeving 
 
 The morrow were more than a doubt. 
 
 There are hearts, with their hunger pathetic, 
 
 That walk in the Valley of Tears; 
 There are souls, in their sadness ascetic, 
 
 That linger and grieve through the years; 
 There are loves that come silently hither 
 
 To seek for some treasure of cost. 
 And that mourn, as a bairn for its mitter. 
 
 The wonderful love that is lost. 
 
 There are many who wait and who wander 
 Within the dim valley with me, 
 
196 GEBALDINB. 
 
 And who yearn for the mountain-tops ycndeTi 
 The sunlight and gladness to see; 
 
 But a stranger I look in their faces, 
 And strangers they ?ook into mine; 
 
 And as strangers we grope for the places 
 Where sunlight and gladness may shine. 
 
 For who walks in the valley so lonely 
 
 Goes there m his sorrow alone ; 
 And who gives friendly greeting gives only 
 
 For bread to the hungry a stone. 
 They may touch us whose yesterdays tendet 
 
 Made loving and Uving supreme ; 
 But our grieving refuses surrender, 
 
 And friendship was only a dream. 
 
 I ara far up the mountains of being: 
 
 The mists of the morning below 
 In their beauty shut out from my seeing 
 
 The valley where soon I must go ; 
 But I know, though the sun of my hoping 
 
 May shine with a gladness that cheers, 
 That I soon shall be wearily groping 
 
 My way in the Valley of Tears. 
 
 You may smile on the summits of gladness 
 
 Who never have wept at their base; 
 But in time with the garment of sadness 
 
 You closely will cover your face ; 
 And unknown of the many who wander, 
 
 Unknowing as they are unknown. 
 You shall grope for the radiance yond«r 
 
 Across the dark valley alone. 
 
GEBALDINE, 197 
 
 Amid pitiful sobbing and sigliiug 
 
 Where willows and cypresses bend, 
 You shall walk where the shadows are lying, 
 
 And see not a sign of the end : 
 You shall know, by the twilight unliwoken 
 
 When mom on the mountain appears, 
 You have come, without warning or token, 
 
 ▲t length to the Yalley of Tean. 
 
198 OBRALDINX. 
 
 xxn. 
 
 When she read the long letter of Percival Trent, 
 
 Loving Geraldine Hope of her tenderness lent 
 
 To its words, and they gladdened her. Still he was hera 
 
 In possession the truest. No doubt ever stirs 
 
 The fond heart to keen throbbings of pain, but is stiUed 
 
 By repeated assurance of love. Never thrilled 
 
 Any love with the pang of distrust, but could glow 
 
 With the gladness of faith come again, like the flow 
 
 Of a tide that has ebbed. 
 
 But a striliing omission 
 She saw by and by, that began to condition 
 Her happiness new. Not a word had he penned 
 Of his late episode : from beginning to end 
 There was not an allusion, in fact, to his friend 
 Mrs. Lee. It was plain that he could not have known 
 Of the published report of their death that had flown 
 With such cruelty to her ; more bitterly certain 
 It seemed that his silence had drawn a thick curtain 
 Between her and part of his past. She resented 
 His action at first, and then swiftly repented 
 The feeling she had not expressed ; for he knew 
 VVTiat w^B best for them both, and in kindness he drew 
 
GEEALDINE. 199 
 
 Ajiy veil that might hide her from seeing. Till he 
 Should the curtain uplift, she would reverent be, 
 Nor profane it with curious touch. She could wait, 
 In the patience of prodigal love, for the late 
 llevelation that love would compel. If it never 
 Were made, if by strange providence she must ever 
 Relinquish the love that could make it, perchance 
 In a clearer to-morrow the dark circumstance 
 Would light up into blessing. God knew. 
 
 If she came 
 In the trust of her faith to a pitiful blame 
 Of her love, to a fear that so worthful and sweet 
 An incoming as this in her life were not meet 
 For the Master's approval, or, tearful, to ask 
 If he chose to place on her the pain-giving task 
 Of upyielding it, could she obedient lay 
 The dear sacrifice on the Lord's altar, and say, 
 " I have given thee. Lord, all the sweetest and best 
 That is mine " ? — if the loss of her love, as a test 
 Of her love for the Master, came to her at length. 
 And she struggled and doubted and wept till the strength 
 Of her faith overpowered her heart, — be not swift 
 To assert that she lacked the great womanly gift 
 Of deep loving ; and wait till all women you learn, 
 Ere you doubt if the heart of a woman can turn. 
 When the weakness and longing of love make it falter, 
 And give of its riches unspared on the altar 
 Of God. 
 
800 GEEALBINE. 
 
 There are heroines kneeling alone 
 In their Holy of holies, or sitting unknown 
 Where the multitudes worship, whose offerings, made 
 In the silence of faith seldom doubting, have paid 
 Dearer tribute than incense of patriarchs. Laid, 
 With the lingering touches of womanhood tender, 
 In tearful but cheerful and hallowed surrender 
 Before the veiled face of their Lord as he waited, 
 Such offerings precious and costly were fated 
 To pleasure him better than blood, and to win 
 Recognition as precious. They only begin 
 To approximate love, who in selfishness sin 
 By withholding its wonderful treasure and sweetness, 
 And hindering so the perfected completeness 
 Of full consecration. 
 
 And Geraldine felt 
 All the deepest assertion of love when she knelt 
 And said, " Lord, if this thing that to me is so dear 
 Has been wrong in thy sight, let me hallow it here 
 With my tears of upgiving, and yield it to thee 
 To do with as thou wilt." She could generous be 
 With the Master, not doling him meagrely out 
 Of her poverty's wicked withholding and doubt, 
 But as lavishly yielding her riches, and knowing 
 The best she could give must be beggarly showing 
 To God, the one Giver of all. Though she gave 
 With a liberal heart, that was noble and brave, 
 She well knew that the end was not won in her giving , 
 
GERALDINE, 201 
 
 Ttiat sacrifice sweetest to God is a livhig 
 
 Obedience daily, when truly obeying 
 
 Is harder than praise, and more costly than praying. 
 
 She knew, if the Lord should her offering take, 
 
 She must make it complete through the lingering ache 
 
 Of her heart in the wearying days to be met ; 
 
 That the Lord could not mean her to drink and forget. 
 
 If he gave her the cup. 
 
 She was human ; she rose 
 To no saint-nature, clad in angelic repose, 
 In this crisis of faith : and how strongly she kept 
 Her humanity weak could be seen as she wept 
 For the love she might lose. In the time intervening 
 Ere Percival Trent came again, the full meaning 
 Of painful expectancy blossomed, and bore 
 Bitter fruit in her life. Now, as never before. 
 She was wearied and troubled of soul. For the rrst 
 Of content she could sobbingly pray ; but its blest 
 Benediction should come as the Master bestowed. 
 Though she longed for the peace lili:e a river that flowed, 
 She but caught an occasional draught from its brink, 
 As her thirsty soul pined, even panted, to drink 
 To its measureless blessing. 
 
 When Trent came at last, 
 From her wearisome doubting and fearing sh^ passed 
 To a loving acceptance of good in to-day. 
 She made glad, in her simple and beautiful way. 
 His return to her love. He was hers once again, — 
 
202 QEBALBINE. 
 
 The one prince of her heart mid the nobles of men. 
 She would trust till he told her to doubt ; she would sho^ 
 How she trusted and loved till he made her to know 
 He must fail of requital. Perchance, if he cared 
 For another, her love, if it maidenly dared 
 To give new revelation of being, would lure 
 Him away from his fancy to faithfulness sure. 
 Could the Father forbid an endeavor so pure, 
 And deny it success ? Could the semblance of sin 
 Be in any beguiling made only to win 
 And to keep what she felt to be hers ? Worthy winning 
 It was ; and the Father such dutiful sinning 
 Would quiclvly forgive. 
 
 Do you wonder that Trt nt 
 For a time could believe the strong passion was s'^jent 
 He had wrestled with so ? He had come from the hills, 
 With their peace fresh upon him, their masterful wills 
 Overmastering feverish impulse. He came 
 Full of purposes faithful, and penitent shame 
 Of his former unfaith, to be loyal and true ; 
 And he stood by her side, undeserving, he knew, 
 With no wish beyond happiness present, believing, 
 In blind, willing credence, that folly's sore grieving 
 Was ended. She helped his belief with her sweet 
 Declarations unsyllabled. Passion's defeat. 
 With the aid that she brought him, so timely and tender, 
 Yet strong, was complete, or so seemed. Its surrender 
 He smiled at in strength over-rated. 
 
GEBALDINE. 203 
 
 They talked 
 In the language of lovers ; as lovers they walked 
 Wliere the waters run seaward by Rivermet's side, 
 To behold the tall maples in radiance dyed 
 Like the robes of a qeeen ; and, if peace were denierl 
 In superlative measure, these twain, who received 
 Of its blessing more moderate, fondly believed 
 It enough. 
 
 When some good we have craved appears less 
 Than will meet our desire, we are prone to possess 
 The full bounty in easy imaginings, cheating 
 Ourselves that we may not be cheated, repeating 
 The pretty delusion, and letting it seem 
 To be fact : so we make of our moments supreme 
 A half -fiction, the truth very deftly disguising 
 That great expectation may be most surprising 
 In lack of fulfilment. Poor dolts that we are 
 Thus to carry our covetous folly so far ' 
 
204 GESALDINB. 
 
 xxin. 
 
 In November, Trent lectured at L . Mrs. Lee 
 
 Was again the one hearer responsive to see, 
 Of all present, in scanning the crowd at the Hall. 
 He was moved by the cui'rent magnetic, and all 
 The quick feeling begot by a look in her face. 
 They who listened were stirred by the magical grace 
 Of his speech, as he never had stirred them before. 
 In the musical ring of his words there was more 
 Of a sympathy deep than he knew, or than those 
 Whom it thrilled could define or describe. 
 
 At the close 
 Of his lecture she came to him, — came as the rest, 
 Who with greeting and compliment's flattery pressed 
 To his side ; and they met in the casual way 
 Of a common acquaintance, with courteous play 
 Of inquiry and answer. The major took part 
 In their meeting, and studied them both with the art 
 He had mastered so well ; but no secret he read 
 Of their innermost holding. Their manner but said 
 They were friends without interest deeper. 
 
 They wen 
 From the Hall as together they gossiped ; and Trent 
 
GERALDINE, 205 
 
 In her company supped, with the major. If either 
 Was thiilled by the strongest remembrances, neither 
 Grave sign. Conversation was easy, and ranged 
 From the grave to the gay at its will. They exchanged 
 Merry trifles of wit in the merriest fashion ; 
 And none could have guessed that a powerful passion 
 Hid under such trivial speech and composure 
 So perfect. In vain for some look of disclosure. 
 Some word of deep meaning, the major made scrutiny 
 Keenest. Swift passion was dead, or its mutiny 
 Conquered by resolute will. 
 
 And yet, leaving 
 To seek his hotel, in a partial deceiving 
 Of self as to feeling aroused, and believing 
 Too much in his strength to make safe his belief in it, 
 Percival Trent was unhappy. The grief in it, 
 Subtle, deep-seated, and dimly defined 
 As a grief, with a robbery keenly unkind, 
 Took away from his evening's endeavor the glad 
 Sense of triumph. He walked the still streets with a 
 
 sad 
 Recognition slow forcing itself on his soul. 
 That the glamour of public approval is dole 
 But the poorest for peace of the heart. 
 
 The next morning, 
 Regardless of silent yet forcible warning 
 Against it, he called on his friend ; and she met him 
 With charming serenity graceful that set him 
 
206 GERALDINE. 
 
 To wondering. Could it be she whom he heard, 
 
 When her feeling had swift every syllable stirred 
 
 With deep fervor, confessing a love too supreme 
 
 For denial, or silence, or death ? Did he dream 
 
 She had lain on his breast, with her heart to his own, 
 
 In a bliss of possession too sensitive grown 
 
 To be painless ? Was this the same woman who spoktj 
 
 Of her wilderness barren and lonely, and woke 
 
 His quick passion's response ? Was her winning repose 
 
 Like a calm of the tropics deceptive, that glows 
 
 With the heat midemeath it to hurricane wild ? 
 
 She received him with beautiful grace, that beguiled 
 Him anew. The warm grasp of her lingering hand 
 Within his, like a breath upon dark embers, fanned 
 His swift feeling to flame ; but he struggled to hold 
 As serene a demeanor as hers, and controlled 
 Himself well. Without blushes, or faintest betraying 
 Of passionate force that was meetly delaying 
 Assertion, she talked like a woman long wed 
 With content, far removed from the girl who has said 
 Her first loving confessional. Part of the harm 
 She might do to a heart was hid under the charm 
 So elusive, that spoke of conditions beyond 
 Idle feminine art, or superfluous fond 
 Demonstration. 
 
 His lecture she praised with a keen 
 Apprehension of meanings and truths ; and between 
 
GEBALDINE, 207 
 
 Her svfeet flatteriej gave with a friendly temerity 
 Critical jvords that declared her sincerity, 
 Making the light of her praise appear strong 
 By the shade of her delicate frankness. As long 
 As it pleased her, they talked of the commoner things 
 Of experience, shunning the sensitive springs 
 That can open the heart ; or discoursed of the newest 
 Attemptings in prose and in verse, and the truest 
 Successes of those who had won. She appealed 
 To the poesy in him expression to yield 
 With the power and art he might master, and give 
 Out of gifts that were his a few poems to live, 
 And win laurels undying. 
 
 '' I honor the gifts 
 Of the poet," he said ; *' and my pen never lifts 
 To do rhythmic endeavor, but keenly it longs 
 For the genius to make it a singer of songs 
 That may gladden the future. The crudest dower 
 Men have, I believe, is the semblance of power 
 They know to be weakness. We narrowly miss 
 A great good, and forever we fancy that this 
 Is the sum of our cruel defrauding. I hear 
 Now and then the sweet accents of Poesy clear. 
 And I strive to repeat them ; but swiftly they faxle 
 Out of memory. Silence her finger has laid 
 On my lips ; and I feel, through the pain that has 
 
 come 
 To my soul, it were happier far to be dumb." 
 
208 GEBALDINE. 
 
 " But the singers to whom the world listens must feel 
 
 The same bitterness often. They rarely reveal 
 
 The full music that thrills them: they breathe a fe-w 
 
 notes, 
 And the rest never hallow their fortunate throats 
 For our blessing. Moreover, no true singer's art 
 Was born in him whole statured. He learns of his heart, 
 And he sings as he learns. He must grow to the measure 
 Of full-singing strength in a studious leisure 
 Improved by the lessons of pain. You can turn 
 To the poet's best pages at will, and there learn 
 How he grew to his manhood poetic by reading 
 Between his own lines ; for his silence makes pleading 
 Of sympathy. Do not you feel he has striven 
 To teach you in song what to him has been given 
 In cryings for utterance? " 
 
 Looking with furtive, 
 Quick glance in her face, he beheld the assertive 
 Appeal that so haunted it often, swift showing 
 Itself through her smile. With his blood quicker flowing, 
 Yet calmly, he spoke, — 
 
 " I suspect that you read 
 With a vision much deeper than mine ; that I need 
 My poetic first lessons to learn now of you : 
 For no singer is heard without sympathy true, 
 And deep insight to see what are mysteries hidden 
 From all but the few. I believe you were bidden 
 To sing, and are wickedly silent. For me 
 
OEBALDINE, 209 
 
 \'a<jre is only an echo of song : there can be 
 
 No outringing of marvellous notes that are mme 
 
 As I catch them direct from the singer divine 
 
 To whom poets all listen. And yet a refrain 
 
 May be tenderly sung till it softens the pain 
 
 In some sorrowing heart, and uplifts it. I'd ask 
 
 For no mission diviner, no holier task. 
 
 Were I laureate crowned for the world, than to sing 
 
 Of its sunshine, and on my strong melody bring 
 
 It forth out of the dark." 
 
 " By and by you will print 
 The best songs you have sung, and will give us a hint 
 Of the sweeter to come : I believe in your gift 
 As diviner indeed than you think. It should lift 
 You above the great chorus, who sing out of tune, 
 And torment us. You'll give us a tenderer rune 
 Than the many could breathe, if they stood at the door 
 Of the innermost temple, and listened, before 
 They began to make echoes of song. It will know 
 Sweeter cadence and mellower grace for the flow 
 Of last summer's experience into your being. 
 Some deeps of clear vision have come to your seeing, 
 You needed, for charity's sake and for love's, 
 To behold." 
 
 " I remember, my friend, that the dove's 
 Divine errand came after the storm. But, if sent 
 When the floods of this passion so idle are spent. 
 Will the dear dove of song, flying over the waste 
 
210 GERALBINE. 
 
 Of my life, come again in her comforting haste, 
 Bringing olive-leaves ? " 
 
 She with her sudden allusion 
 Unmanned him ; and he in as sudden confusion 
 Responded, he hardly knew how. With the look 
 That she gave him, his strong resolution forsook 
 Him, and fled. In its hunger pathetic he saw 
 The great want that would scorn to derision all law 
 Of denial, if free from its bondage of chains. 
 And that bondage — what was it ? 
 
 '' For you there remains 
 "Worthy work in the world, and who labors receives 
 In due time of his wages. Your dove's olive-leaves 
 Will bring promise of happy fulfilment to make 
 Your life rich with glad increase. You'll sing for the 
 
 sake 
 Of the multitudes eagerly listening, and find 
 Your own gladness in service of song that is kind 
 Most of all to yourself. Good Samaritan singers 
 Are few, I believe, who divinely are bringers 
 Of oil and of wine to the wounded and sore, 
 And who fail of a blessing themselves as they pour 
 The sweet blessing on others." 
 
 She spoke with some feeling, 
 Her words seeming tenderer still, as appealing 
 She looked in his face. 
 
 '' Could I sing you to peace, 
 I would stop by the wayside forever, nor cease 
 
CIERALBINE. 211 
 
 In my semce of song till you bade me/* he said 
 Jq his passionate utterance low. 
 
 '^But instead 
 Vou must sing for the mass," she replied. " I shall 
 
 listen 
 More eager than they. In my heart I shall christen 
 As mine all the sweetest and tenderest things 
 You may breathe. I shall comforted say, ' Now he slnga 
 For the neediest one, — for the one in the world 
 Who can take the rich treasure of sweetness impearled 
 In his notes, and feel gladdest and richest possessing it.* 
 Give as you may to the multitude, blessing it 
 Freely with giving's extravagant hand, 
 I shall count you my singer henceforth, though you stand 
 On the highest Parnassus, and I, sitting far 
 In the valley below, see you shine like a star." 
 
 With a mighty endeavor he mastered the tide 
 That was sweeping him on to expression denied, 
 Yet invited. He rose to depart. 
 
 " I shall climb 
 To no height above yours ; and my tenderest rhyme 
 Must forever fall short of the ministry sweet 
 I would lend it for you. Never song so complete 
 By a poet was sung as my longing desire 
 Would make vocal, if only these lips knew the firt? 
 That is burning my heart. But my lips are as weak 
 As the lips of a woman." 
 
21.2 GEBALBINE. 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 "If, to speak 
 Of her love, a weak woman — the weakest — might iare 
 In the words that were fittest, you'd own that a share 
 Of the strength of her heart had been suddenly lent 
 To her lips." And the look that she gave to him sent 
 The warm blood to his breast. " And her lips need be 
 
 strong 
 To repress what in utterance could be but wrong. 
 Do you doubt it?" 
 
 '' Their silence is cruel, when speech 
 Would be cruelty worse. Let them tenderly teach 
 The same silence to mine. ' ' And he kissed her, repenting 
 At once the request and her ready assenting. 
 
 *' Good-by ! You will sing for me often," she urged. 
 
 The wild passion he wrestled with rioted, surged, 
 Through his heart. With a masterful effort he turned 
 To the door. 
 
 " When the singer's true art I have learned, 
 You may hear me. Good-by ! " 
 
 He went hastily out 
 Of her presence, ar'i into a torment of doubt. 
 
GSBALDINE. 218 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 But a day or two later a brief letter came, 
 Without prefix of date, or appendix of name ; 
 And as Percival Trent read it, flushing and eager. 
 The forces of passion combined to beleaguer 
 His soul. 
 
 *' You have been here," the letter began : 
 " You have come and have gone. If our hearts overrjin 
 The hard limits we set for them, flowing together 
 Like parallel rivers in storm-laden weather, 
 Are we to be blamed ? O my poet ! the touch 
 Of your lips lingers yet upon mine ; and, if much 
 Of my feverish longing and pain they reveal, 
 You who wooed them to speech must as gently conceal 
 Your displeasure. I never can bid you be dumb 
 Any more ; for it seems to me now that the sum 
 Of my pain is your silence. I long so to hear 
 The dear words you ought never to speak, that I fear 
 I am foolish, unwomanly grown ; and I crav*^ 
 For the freedom to echo those words, as a slave 
 Must pine after the freedom forever denied. 
 As I see you far over the gulf yawning wide 
 And unending between us, I reach out my hands 
 
214 GEBALDINE. 
 
 And I call to you. Fate with its cruel commands 
 Would compel me to cease ; but I cannot. I cry 
 Through the desolate distance, and say, ' By and by 
 He will hear me and answer.' You make no reply, 
 And my hope like a willow droops downward, and weepa. 
 I am learning the infinite pity that sleeps 
 In the bosom of God, I so pity myself. 
 As I count up the goods that I have, they are pelf 
 But the poorest compared with the treasure I covet. 
 I see it just out of my reach ; and I love it 
 So wildly, and long with such longing to hold 
 £t supremely my own, that my heart, over-bold, 
 Would compel the possession at once — if it could. 
 
 '-'• O my friend ! you who hold by the true and the good 
 With so steady a hand, you must come to my need 
 With your certain uplifting. I hunger, with greed 
 That can brook no denial, for life that is strong 
 In the truth, and that steadily sets against wrong 
 The unchangeable features of duty. You only 
 Can lead me up out of this solitude lonely 
 In which now I wait, by temptation beset. 
 When I stronger am grown, I may cease to regret. 
 And may go, with a face that is calm and determined, 
 Along the hard road where they march who are ermined 
 Of soul like yourself ; but to-day not the weakest 
 Of women, among the most timid and meekest, 
 Is weaker than I. May Heaven pity me ! None 
 
GERALDINE. 215 
 
 A.re so feebly outstretching their hands to the sun, 
 WTiiile they sit in the shadows, and shiver. The whole 
 Of my being is but a complaint. In my soul 
 There are only wild throbbings rebellious, and great 
 Sobs of pain, and these loud cryings-out against fate,'' 
 
 He was stirred to the deep of his nature, and wrote 
 An impulsive reply : — 
 
 " To your passionate note 
 My heart beats a response that the flow of my pen 
 Can but coldly interpret. I kiss you again, 
 That my heart, overrunning my lips, may betray 
 To your own, throbbing fen'idly under, what they 
 Could not fitly reveal, though endowed with the spirit 
 Of love Pentecostal. They only who hear it. 
 Or feel it, know all the sweet emphasis hid 
 In lovers tender, unsyllabled speech. If you bid 
 Me to breathe out a full revelation, I never 
 Can do it in words : I must make the endeavor 
 In language with meaning far deeper. 
 
 ''My friend, 
 I can lead you in worthiest way to an end 
 That is worthiest, only as steady I face 
 My hard duty apart from your side. In the grace 
 Of your presence 'twere easy to turn from the heights 
 I must climb, and to find in the sunny delights 
 Of my longing the gladness I crave. I could flee 
 From the path I must follow, and hold you to me 
 
216 GEBALDINE, 
 
 In possession defiant of duty, defiant 
 
 Of all your denial, supremely reliant 
 
 On need, — on your need and my own. To resist 
 
 The pathetic appeal of those lips I have kissed. 
 
 Till our souls came together ; to hearken, and hear 
 
 Them beseeching my help in a cry that is clear 
 
 As the signal of love is forever, and stay 
 
 In the distance — ah ! this is the trial that may 
 
 Overmaster my manhood, my being, at length. 
 
 If I ever can reach you my hands in the strength 
 
 Of uplifting to serve, and not sacrifice each 
 
 With its weakness, not long will you wait, and be« 
 
 seech 
 For the aid I can render. I pity your need 
 With a pity unbounded, that can but proceed 
 From a love that is boundless. I hear the appeals 
 Of your heart with a throb of my soul that reveals 
 The deep pain I must suffer, the yearnings intense, 
 And the buffetings cruel. My way is as dense 
 With perplexities now as your wilderness long 
 Has been lonely and sorrowful ; in it the song 
 Of sweet faith has died out into silence. Too stoutly 
 Distrust of myself is asserted, devoutly 
 To let me fronj self turn away to the might 
 That is certain. I dare not kneel down, and invite 
 For us both the one help that alone can avail, 
 When I know my petition must falter and fail 
 On account of so feeble desire. For confess 
 
GEBALBINE. 217 
 
 It I will : I would rather this moment possess 
 
 The great love that you give me, and know it mj 
 
 own 
 Undenying, in fullest of plenitude shown, 
 Than to pray you may learn its withholding, or leani 
 What is easier far, — to forget. And they bum 
 In my bosom, these words that might hint of return 
 I would make, as I do and I must ; while my prayer 
 For denial of speech would go out on the air 
 With a wish that itself be denied, and my plea 
 For the strength to forget would but mockery be 
 Of too cherished remembrances. 
 
 "No: on the reed 
 Of my resolute purpose I lean, till to plead 
 For a better support I may dare, feeling true 
 To the want I shall syllable, pulsating through 
 My petition a longing sincere. Very tender 
 Indeed to the soul that in perfect surrender 
 Of wish and of will comes to him, are the greetings 
 Of God ; but he never can hush the wild beatings 
 Within a poor heart that denyingly holds 
 To its pain. All my love your strong feeling infolds ; 
 And as vain as I know it, as wicked as vain, 
 And as certain of sorrow, so sweet is the pain, 
 That I welcome it. Held in its clinging embraces, 
 We two may clasp hands, and touch hearts, though the 
 
 spaces 
 Of infinite distance are rolling between.*' 
 
218 GEBALDINE. 
 
 While he still on the reed of his purpose would lean, 
 She made answer to answer of his : — 
 
 "That you came 
 When I called you, can never be set to your blame, 
 Since you thought your response a denial instead. 
 To my hunger and longing you tenderly said 
 The sweet words that were manna to me ; and they 
 
 fed 
 When I famished. What need had my poor heart to 
 
 hear 
 Your profession of love ? I believe that the ear 
 Of cold Venus de Medici yonder would glow 
 Into rose, would you once for the marble let flow 
 Your warm current of masterful, passionate speech. 
 There is only one utterance now that can reach, 
 To revive it, this poor fainting soul that is mine, — 
 The assurance that still you do love me. Some sign 
 I must have, in my need, of that love, or I die. 
 You will grant it hereafter as quick, when I cry 
 To you over the deeps ? 
 
 '' My beloved, I try 
 To be patient and silent and brave. I would add 
 Not a pang to your struggle, nor sigh to your sad 
 But heroic endeavor. Instead, I would make 
 A glad martyr to-day of myself for your sake, 
 If I only could bring you content. For I love , 
 You. So simple a thing to declare, but, above 
 AU assertion, so forceful and sweet ! The mild passion 
 
GERALBINE. 219 
 
 Of maidens at school in as eloquent fashion 
 
 Might syllables take ; but this love that I feel 
 
 Is as truer than that as the ring of white steel 
 
 Is more vibrant than lead. 'Tis a passion grown stronger 
 
 And deeper, and richer and sweeter, the longer 
 
 It slumbered : awakened, it holds me, and sways 
 
 Me at will. In the glow of those glad summer days 
 
 When it thrilled me at first, I half fancied 'twould seem, 
 
 When we parted, as only a midsummer dream : 
 
 In this sombre November the warmth of its flushes 
 
 I feel, as the maiden can feel her first blushes 
 
 At flattery paid ; and so warmly it gladdens me 
 
 Now with its color and life, that it saddens me 
 
 Even to tears. 
 
 " Foolish tears ! As they fall 
 Down my face, I am glad that hereafter not all 
 Of my bitterest weeping can rob it of sweetness 
 Your kisses have left ; and my very unmeetness 
 For holy caresses so tender and pure 
 Can but make them in sanctified blessing endure. 
 my friend ! my beloved ! so close have I been 
 To the worst in the world, that the shadow of sin 
 Hovers grimly about me to frighten and grieve me. 
 Not mine was the fault ; and, my darling, believe me, 
 The sin was no sin of intent, if to some 
 Like a sin it appeared. 
 
 " By and by you will come 
 To my love and my need, as it seems to you best, 
 
220 GERALDINE. 
 
 With your love and your plenty. You cannot have 
 
 guessed 
 From these hints, my heart's heart, how I hunger and 
 
 long 
 For your comfoi-ting presence and cheer, or how strong 
 Is the love I have weakly declared. With your face 
 Looking into my own, and your loving embrace 
 Giving courage and strength, I could better translate 
 A brief page of love's living epistle. Sweet fate 
 That will bring me some blessedest glimpses of yon I 
 For I love you ! And this is my only adieu.'* 
 
6EBALDINE. 221 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Eaklt winter went by. It was fortunate, truly, 
 
 That Trent was so much in demand ; for unruly. 
 
 Impulsive desire must have led him astray 
 
 From his purpose so true, but for need to obey 
 
 The imperative calls of the public. By night 
 
 He would speak to the crowds ; and by day he would writ* 
 
 For still wider persuasion in print. Had they known 
 
 Who so eagerly heard him, how often a moan 
 
 Of disquiet was hid by the utterance strong 
 
 That so quieted them, or how frequent the wrong 
 
 He was fighting within bore him down, while he wielded 
 
 His blows on the wrong from without, they'd have 
 
 yielded 
 Their sympathy freely as yielding their praise. 
 There were hours when he rose like a victor, and days 
 When he sank in the dust of defeat. There were seasons 
 When Duty made plain all her eloquent reasons 
 For holding him firm to his wearying course ; 
 There were times when his passion took terrible force, 
 And so bitterly pressed hfm, so sharply assailed him, 
 That faith in its feebleness faltered and failed him, 
 Ajid night swept him into its pitiless gloom. 
 
222 GERALUINE. 
 
 It may be he was morbid by natm-e. The bloom 
 Of all beautiful things, it is certain, bore fruit 
 In his thought ; and he wisely and kindly was mute, 
 If but ashes of apples he frequently tasted 
 Instead, or but seldom unhappily hasted 
 To tell of their bitterness. 
 
 Men are too free 
 With complaining recitals. Far better 'twould be 
 For us all, if the troubles that fret and annoy 
 Were but hidden away in a privacy coy. 
 And not prated about to our fellows. Far better 
 To make them for sunshiny gladness our debtor, 
 Than beg of their sympathy often, and take 
 Of its costly bestowal at will, when the ache 
 Of their life may be deeper than ours. If we urge 
 Our own woe on their ears, and go wailing a dirge 
 Over happiness fled, we shall hear enough minor 
 From them and ourselves to forget all the finer 
 And happier music of hearts. 
 
 When he went 
 For another day's tarry at Rivermet, Trent 
 Was subdued in demeanor, and notably carried 
 Himself with restraint ; but he partially parried 
 His Geraldine's questioning look. He was weaker 
 Than wont, he explained. The hard strain on a speakei 
 Had worn him uncommonly. Seldom he slept 
 Until nigh to the morning. His labor had kept 
 Him from adequate rest through the day ; he had used 
 
OERALDINE. 223 
 
 Of his vital resources too freely, abused 
 
 The great blessing of health, and must pay for it dear 
 
 In depression and dulness. 
 
 She gave him the cheer 
 Of her outflowing love, though it seemed to her heart 
 An impassable wall had arisen to part 
 Them still further. She knew by some keen intuition, 
 That once he would come on his lover's glad mission 
 Of love with a happier feeling, and say 
 Sweeter words than she now must expect. And the day 
 For distrusting might come to her soon ! With the 
 
 dread 
 Of its darkness upon her, she faintingly fled 
 To her Father, and unto his pity she cried 
 For the strength she would need. 
 
 When she, troubled, replied 
 To the honest complaining of Trent, though evasive 
 As honest, she urged him with feeling persuasive 
 To seek a long rest amid scenes that were new. 
 
 " Put an ocean of green, or an ocean of blue. 
 Between work and yourself,'* she suggested. ** Go over 
 The billowy prairies, or turn again rover 
 By sea, and get hearty and happy and strong.** 
 
 ' But the time of my absence might seem to you 
 
 long ; 
 And next summer, remember, we were to be wed.'* 
 
224 GERALBINE. 
 
 '^ So you planned it, I know," hesitating she said ; 
 ' ' But it may be God means us to wait. I have praycvi 
 That our marriage may be in some manner delayed, 
 If for any good reason it should not take place 
 As we fixed.'* And the serious look on her face 
 Told how earnest she was. ' ' When the winter is ended, 
 The wealth of your life will have been so expended, 
 You'll need a whole summer of rest to regain 
 The great loss. Go away. If it seem to be plain 
 When the late summer comes? that our wedding should 
 
 wait 
 But your presence, no distance can be to you great 
 That you journey on errand so glad ; " blushing now 
 At her words, as she uttered them shyly. 
 
 '' I bow 
 To your bitter decree," he responded, not daring 
 To trust a more serious answer. '' The faring: 
 Of bold pioneers in the West has invited 
 The vagabond in me since youth. I have slighted 
 The call every year : now I'll heed it, and go 
 To the region of sunset so soon as the snow 
 Shall have vanished. But trust me to come to you soon 
 When you freely will give me the coveted boon 
 Of yourself." 
 
 '' And I freely will do it when truly 
 It seems to be best ; yet I would not unduly 
 Make haste. We must try to be certain, and take 
 Every step as the Master may lovingly make 
 
GEBALDINE. 226 
 
 The way clear. He will show us his path for our feet 
 If we ask bim.'* 
 
 '' Your faith is as certain and sweet 
 As my own is uncertain and vapid too often. 
 'Twould light up the gloomiest way, and would soften 
 The hardest and ruggedest path. Do you never 
 Have doubts of the Master? — of all your endeavor 
 To touch him for healing of soul, when you press 
 To his side in despair of aught else? '* 
 
 *'I were less 
 A weak woman, and more like a saint, could I hold 
 To my faith without doubting forever. As bold 
 As was Peter, he sank in the wave when he walked 
 To his Lord ; and my weakness has bitterly mocked 
 Me at times when I should have been strong. We must 
 
 doubt, 
 I suppose, being human ; and heartsick, without 
 Any help of ourselves, we too often must stem 
 The thick crowd of our doubts and our fears, ere the hem 
 Of the Healer's soft garment we touch.** 
 
 ''And you feel 
 That the Master walks always near by, and will heal. 
 If you press through the throng to his side ? Though 
 
 unseen. 
 You are sure he is there? " 
 
 '' There are times when between 
 Him and me I can see only blackness ; but still 
 I believe I shall find him through doing his will ; 
 
226 GERALDINE. 
 
 And he never is lost. It is I who have strayea 
 From the way that he journeys. I seek him, afraid, 
 Till I hear his quick question, ' Who touched me ? ' and 
 
 then 
 I am glad." ' 
 
 Far less tender and reverent men 
 Would have thrilled to her thought and her tone sym- 
 pathetic, 
 And smothered in silence all questions heretic 
 That might have been syllabled. 
 
 *' Faith is magnetic 
 As love, when it speaks from a heart beating free 
 With the healthiest life ; and your faith upon me 
 Is electric. I feel it more keenly, indeed. 
 Than I feel my own faith from within. When my need 
 Is the greatest, I wonder if once I believed, 
 Or made pretence of trust.*' 
 
 She was troubled and grieved 
 At his words. 
 
 " You are living, it may be, too mainly 
 In self, are depending too much and too vainly 
 On strength of your own, to be sure of the way. 
 Or of light in the dark. We must serve him to-day 
 With our might, when the strongest we feel, would we 
 
 know 
 The Lord's help in our weakness. The farther we go 
 Independent of him, in an idle belief 
 In ourselves, the more certain some brambles of grief 
 
QEEALDIUB. 227 
 
 Will be found in our pathway to prick us, the more 
 Is it sure that our questions will trouble us sore. 
 Jt is easy to doubt," a quick thrill running through 
 Iler brief words as she uttered them. " Men who, like 
 
 you. 
 Are endowed with large manhood and generous life, 
 Have the amplest endowment for doubting. The strife 
 Of unfaith and belief must oft carry them far 
 From the face and the voice of the Master. They are 
 To be envied for strength, to be pitied for weakness. 
 Their manliness strong and assertive the meekness 
 Of faith overcomes ; and a faith that is proud 
 Of the manhood that holds it will some time be bowed 
 To the dust." 
 
 ''If I ever have foolishly classed 
 My weak self with the strong, the brief season is 
 
 passed," 
 He responded half bitterly. '* Few are so weak. 
 And so conscious of weakness, as I. But I seek 
 The great Fountain of strength without finding, and 
 
 dwell 
 Weary days in a desert where flows but a well 
 Of deep bitterness ever, and drink till I thirst 
 As do they who are famishing utterly. Cursed 
 By the keenest of longings for peace and sweet quiet 
 Of soul, I am held where the tumult and riot 
 Are greatest, till often I sigh for the rest 
 Of that sleep never ending.** 
 
228 OEBALDINE, 
 
 She trembled, and pressed 
 Back die tears that her sympathy quick could have shed. 
 
 ** But you always are out of your desert-place led, 
 
 WhcH at last you are willing to follow the leading 
 
 Of God, are you not? Our most pitiful pleading 
 
 Is vain, if we make it while wickedly clinging 
 
 To ways that we ought to forsake. The sweet bringing 
 
 Of peace to our souls is along the hard road 
 
 Of some duty we would not perform." And theie 
 
 glowed 
 In her face the glad light of a full consecration. 
 
 " Perhaps if we knew not some great desolation 
 Of God," he rejoined, '' we should never feel sure 
 Of his fatherhood ; and, if we cannot endure 
 To be fatherless so for a little, how could 
 We be orphaned forever ? Believing is good 
 That will bring an occasional glimpse of his face, 
 To make certain he is. I am glad of the grace 
 Of my faith, that at times can believe so completely, 
 And yours that so seldom can doubt, as they sweetly 
 Make better my life." 
 
 ^' But your faith may be fervent 
 And certain as mine, if you go as the servant 
 Each day of a Master most loving, who cares 
 But to bless you in service," she said. Unawares 
 She was blending rebuke with her words of appeal ; 
 
QEBALBINE. 229 
 
 5ret no chiding of hers could be harsh. " Tou must fee 
 In your trouble and doubt, that you have not in ali 
 
 things 
 I^ent willing obedience. Out of the small things 
 Of selfish idolatry oftenest grow 
 The great forests of doubt, into which we may go, 
 Beyond sunlight and shadow, far into the night." 
 
 " But we always come out into morning and light? *' 
 
 ' ' You and I, let us hope. ' ' And she smiled rather sadl '. 
 '* Some souls there may be who go onward so madly 
 Intent on their own wicked wills, that they sink 
 In abysses we miss, and are lost. When I think 
 Of their pitiful madness, their longing distress 
 In the dark, I could weep ; for the way that we press 
 Is a hard enough way at the best. You and I, 
 When it troubles us most, may find comforting nigh ; 
 But these wayfaring souls, without help or a hope, 
 Can but wearily on in the wilderness grope 
 TUltheend.'* 
 
 So they talked of the holiest things 
 Of the heart. So he drank from the up-welling springi 
 Of her beautiful faith, till his spirit grew stronger. 
 He left her sweet patience at length, but no longer, 
 As to it he came, full of bitter unrest. 
 The old song of belief that had slept in his breast 
 Woke to music again in a strain that was finer 
 
230 GEBALDINE, 
 
 And sweeter than once for the tremulous minor 
 
 That thrilled it. Complaint with new blessedness 
 
 sharing, 
 Be soberly sang by the way of 
 
 WAYFAKING. 
 
 The way is long, O Lord, that leads 
 
 To cooling springs and fragrant meads: 
 
 I weary of its weary length ; 
 
 I lose all heart and hope and strength, 
 
 As here I halt my tired feet 
 
 And pray for rest so far, so sweet. 
 
 I thank thee for a halting-place 
 Made glad by thine own smiling face; 
 I thank thee that the dusty way 
 Thy footsteps knoweth day by day; 
 I thank thee that some path there be 
 From pain and care to peace and thee. 
 
 Its rugged steeps I would not mind, 
 If, daily climbing, I could find 
 Secure repose at day's decline 
 A little nearer thee and thine ; 
 If always from the mountain-peaks 
 My faith could see the land it 
 
 But when through gloomy vales I go, 
 That no glad sunshine ever know; 
 When even thy dear presence seems 
 A far-off thing of doubt and dreams, «-• 
 Forgive me, Lord, if then I faint, 
 And murmur oft, and make complaint. 
 
GERALDINE. 281 
 
 I know my times are in thy hand; 
 
 I long for light to imderstand 
 
 How thou canst for each pilgrim care, 
 
 How thou canst hear each pleading prayer. 
 
 How unto thee each soul is known 
 
 Ai if it walked the world alone. 
 
 And sometime I may comprehend. 
 The way is long ; but at its end 
 A clearer vision waits the sight. 
 In thy dear garden of delight. 
 Wayfaring done, let me abide 
 Where nerer f «lLi an eveotide. 
 
2S2 OEBALDINE. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 It was later by less than a fortnight, that Trent 
 
 Gave a lecture one night in the village of Ghent. 
 
 He had firmly decided he would not again 
 
 Meet his friend, Mrs. Lee ; but each purpose of men 
 
 Is uncertain of issue. One only of all 
 
 The great number of faces that crowded the hall 
 
 Was familiar, and that one — was hers. As he caught 
 
 Her first answering look, a brief moment he fought 
 
 With his passion for mastery ; then with the art 
 
 Of his utterance quickly he moved every heart 
 
 To responses of sympathy. 
 
 Who can define 
 What is eloquence ? Is it some thought half divme 
 And all noble ? Or is it the audible sign 
 Of some feeling within that is striving to leap 
 Into being of speech ? Is true eloquence deep 
 As the orator's soul, and as deep as the hearer's 
 He touches ? Indeed, is it true that he mirrors 
 Some innermost thought of our own, unexpressed 
 Hitherto, and unformed, when we feel in our breas^. 
 The pulsations of pleasure that syllables seek 
 Without finding ? Is eloquence strength for the weak 
 
QEBALBINE. 233 
 
 tn expressiou, and lips for the dumb, who may speak 
 Through the wonderful words of another ? 
 
 The lecture 
 Was over at last, and the ready conjecture 
 Of Trent became truth. Mrs. Lee was with friends 
 In the place on a visit. 
 
 '' The time comprehends 
 A surprise the most happy for me in thus hearing 
 And meeting you now," she remarked ; and, appearing 
 Unmoved in demeanor as he did, she asked 
 Him to go with her friends to their home. 
 
 If they masked 
 Every passionate feeling in plain commonplace ; 
 If he sat amid strangers, and looked in her face 
 As he looked into theirs, with the courteous grace 
 Of attentiveness only to speech that was clevei 
 Or trite as it chanced, — it may be his endeavor 
 Was small ; for his passion was passive. He curbed 
 It so etoutly and well, that it little disturbed 
 His composure at present. To-morrow ? What matter 
 Defeats yet to come, if to-day only flatter 
 With victory ? 
 
 Leaving them all in an hour, 
 With placid serenity passing for power 
 Over self, he went out to his solitude grim 
 With its weakness defiant of strength. When to him, 
 But a day or two later, this brief message came, 
 In his breast he could feel the fierce breathings of flame • 
 
234 GERALDINE. 
 
 *' O my friend ! are we always and always like this 
 
 To go on? Is a touch of your hand, or a kiss 
 
 Of your lips, to be all I can ever have granted 
 
 Of you ? You could banish the ghost that has haunted 
 
 Me long. You could lift me up into the sun 
 
 From these shivering shadows. 
 
 " How much you have done 
 For me now I can never reveal. As your debtor 
 I ever must be, unless loving you better 
 Than even I dare to confess is a payment 
 Acceptable. Ah ! when I sleep in the raiment 
 Of death, will they look in my face, comprehending 
 How long and how sorely I needed befriending 
 That God only gives through his image ? — the soul 
 Of a man's loving nature, to guide and control 
 My weak waywardness ? — love that should hold my be- 
 havior 
 In line with its purity true, be my savior 
 From all that could touch me to hurt or assoil, 
 In a merciful tenderness pour the sweet oil 
 Of its gladness on life's troubled waters, infold 
 All my faults in its mantle of charity, hold 
 Me apart in its own blessed heaven ? 
 
 " I know, 
 Could you stand by me, darling, (God grant it be so !) 
 When at last I am but a white silence, you'd hear 
 A new message to you through the calm atmosphere 
 Round about me. My lips might not move ; but as cleai 
 
GEBALDINE. 235 
 
 Aa the clearest articulate speech they would tell 
 
 Of the hunger that starved me to death. And so 
 
 well 
 Would you then comprehend all the longing and need 
 I had suffered, I think you would pitying plead 
 For the seal of that silence in mercy to break, 
 That I might not eternally want. For your sake. 
 My beloved, to tenderest speech I would come. 
 Though the highest archangel might bid me be dumb ; 
 Out of pitiful rest the white silence would rise. 
 And beguile you with kisses, and quiet the cries 
 Of your heart for the loss of my love, and the grave 
 Would in mercy release me to you. 
 
 " But a slave 
 To the hardest taskmaster — to Life — should not thinlj 
 How much kinder a master might Death be. I drink 
 Of the bitterest draughts every day, then I dip 
 My cup deep in the well of your love, and I sip 
 Till its sweetness has gladdened me. Always athirst 
 And an hungered I am. My one darling ! the worst 
 Of the Magdalenes dare to come near to the Christ ; 
 And her faith, that was loving the sweetest, sufficed 
 To redeem her from sin. If no virtue were mine 
 But to love you, I fancy that this would incline 
 The one Master to pity me. Wicked as one 
 Who has never been pardoned, or ne'er has begun 
 To be penitent, still I could love you no more, 
 Were I good as the angels of God." 
 
236 QEBALBINB. 
 
 As before, 
 VThen she called to him thus in her passionate speech, 
 He responded, as moved by it strongly. 
 
 " You teach 
 The deep meanings of words,** he made answer. *' You 
 
 tell me 
 Of love far beyond my belief ; you compel me 
 To marvel that such a great love can be given 
 To me. And for what ? O my friend ! I have striven 
 To solve the hard problem, have striven to still 
 The strong, masterful throbs of my heart ; but the will 
 Is as weak as the reason. Why love should lay hold 
 Of my being with mastery cruel as bold, 
 Is as dark and as blind as the will to resist it 
 Is feeble. To-day I should hardly enlist it. 
 If help were at hand that could victory give 
 To my feeble resistance. To-day I would live 
 In this marvellous love and the blessing it brings me. 
 
 *' The honeycomb shelters the bee that quick stings me 
 I taste of the sweets of your love but to feel 
 The sharp pain that its riches of blessing conceal. 
 You can never be mine. We are parted as much 
 As if never I felt the soft lingering touch 
 Of your kisses, — are parted as certain and wide 
 As the east and the west. If you hungered and died 
 In my absence, I could not come close to your side 
 In the nearness of love*s divine freedom to weep. 
 
GEBALDINE. 237 
 
 Were I sleeping to-day the unanswering sleep 
 
 Of the grave, you must stand in the distance, and say 
 
 But a tearless farewell. 
 
 '' I am going away 
 Wlien the buds begin bursting. Your duty and mine 
 Both demand that I should. We must follow the line 
 Of our separate fates. What your duty may be 
 I can only imagine : my own is to me 
 As unyielding as God. It is holding me now 
 With its fingers of steel, and in calmness I bow — 
 Though in merely the fiction, the semblance, of loyalty^ 
 Need not be said — to its rigorous royalty. 
 Still, while I walk in the way that it urges 
 Me on, I can feel the impetuous surges 
 Of passion within me responding to yours ; 
 I can longing look back on your face as it lurea 
 My return. Set it steadily forward, nor let 
 It look backward to me with its haunting regret. 
 Let us walk the two ways that lead farther apart, 
 As if love were a lie, and we lived without heart. 
 
 ** Am I bitter and cruel? Forgive me, and know 
 That I write out of burning unrest. 
 
 "I shall go 
 To the West in a month, -o find peace, if I can, 
 On its plains and its mountains. The rigorous ban 
 Of my duty forbids me to sefs you again 
 Before going. I think if the strongest of men 
 
238 GEBALBINE. 
 
 Were to stand at your side, with his purpose as true 
 To another as purpose that God ever knew, 
 He would falter, and love you, and linger — unless 
 Tou compelled him to leave. So in safety I press 
 The last passionate kiss on your beautiful face 
 But in fancy : I hold you to me through the space 
 That divides us, but dare not in parting come near ; 
 And I speak idle words could your heart only hear • 
 You would echo them back with such winningness, I 
 Should wait near you to listen forever. Good-by ! ** 
 
 She began her reply with the utterance strong 
 Of a passionate nature unmastered. 
 
 *'Ilong 
 For your presence and cheer with a longing that leaps 
 Every barrier now, and compels it ; that keeps 
 You beside me wherever you go. I shall cling 
 To your hand, though you journey as far as the spring 
 Is from winter, and climb to the uttermost heights 
 Of the earth ; for I hold as the crown of delights 
 In all good that is fruitage of love, the keen sense 
 Of a bodily presence in absence — the tense 
 That takes hold of my yesterday's doing and being, 
 And keeps it material still to my seeing 
 To-day. You made yesterday worth such a keeping 
 To me. When you entered my Lre, all its weeping 
 To smiles of thanksgiving and gladness was turned. 
 [ have learned the true meaning of life : I have learned 
 
GEBALDINE. 289 
 
 The sublimest of charity. Out of the wild 
 Of my desert so dreary, your love has beguiled 
 Me to come ; but alas for the many who faint 
 On the blistering sands, and whose feeble complaint 
 Is not heard ! And alas for the souls that are lost, 
 Ere the desert so barren and burning is crossed ! 
 
 *' My beloved ! you cannot take leave of me here. 
 
 If our paths run apart, you are always as near 
 
 As affection can bring you ; so near, that I share 
 
 In your nobleness, feel the uplift of the air 
 
 That you breathe, am made better and truer by you. 
 
 It were folly to bid you a mocking adieu 
 
 When I know you must stay by my side in the spirit, 
 
 If not in the flesh. And my soul needs you near it 
 
 So bitterly often ! So often it cries 
 
 For the aid you can render, and waits the replies 
 
 Of your heart with so weary a waiting, I think 
 
 It would kill me, if now you should utterly sink 
 
 From my sight into echoless silence. 
 
 '' And yet, 
 Though my face may look back with its haunting regret 
 That will haunt it forever, I see but a dim 
 And a shadow-like semblance or spectre of him 
 Whom so madly I love. The true self that I need 
 With such hunger of needing will swiftly recede 
 Out of reach. And I feel so defrauded ! The whole 
 Of my womanhood owns you its master. My soul, 
 
240 GEBALDINE. 
 
 Being cheated of you, like a slave in distress 
 Can but moan by the way, with no bounty to blegft 
 It, and bring it again to the face of its lord. 
 Without you I am always and only the ward 
 Of tyrannical want, and my poverty begs 
 For some opiate cup I may drain to the dregs, 
 And forget the great wealth I have missed. 
 
 ''Am I writing 
 Unreason ? Demented, am I but inditing 
 "Vagaries absurd, as the contrary feelings 
 Of love I express in this manner ? Revealings 
 Thus opposite ought not, perhaps, to be made 
 The same moment. 
 
 " If wild I may be, I have weighed 
 The hard problem before us, with reason that held 
 Me above the great hunger of love, and compelled 
 Me to heed. You have work in the world, and I will 
 Not make doing it harder. To-day I would still 
 Every longing of mine, but to spare you a pang 
 Of disquiet. The hope and the faith that you sang 
 Ere you saw me must yet in your singing abide, 
 Or I shall not forget that I ought to have died 
 Before hearing and seeing you. O my heart's heart ! 
 Let me feel your strong throbbing again ere we part ; 
 Let it teach me the courage of faith and of hope, 
 As along in the desert I desolate grope. 
 Tou will pardon the prayer ? I'm not practised at pray- 
 ing, 
 
GEBALDINE. 241 
 
 A.nd chiefly, I fear, have the habit of saying 
 My prayers unto you. 
 
 " ' God be with you I ' I say 
 Now to him. For your sake I can fervently pray, 
 If I may not or dare not look God in the face 
 For myself. And I pray that some heaven-sent grace 
 May bedew you with patience wherever you go. 
 We have tested life deep enough, darling, to know 
 That victorious living is better and truer 
 Than happiness. May you the battle endure 
 Like a victor, and win, if not happiness, peace ! 
 And remember, belovtid, I never shall cease 
 To aspire for you, hope for you, love you, be proud 
 Of your many successes, as if in the crowd 
 Of the world I alone had the right. And who ought 
 To be prouder than I? In my future, the thought 
 That I once was your friend, though forgotten I be, 
 Will seem sweet as another's remembrance to me. 
 I would rather have had my brief portion of you 
 Than be held in possession most perfect and true, 
 For a lifetune, of all other men. I am weak 
 With the passionate gladness that flows to my cheek 
 As you kiss me farewell. I am faint with the pain 
 That is flooding my heart as I call you m vain 
 Through the widening distance. The mist in my eyes 
 Becomes heavy, and stifles my pitiful cries." 
 
Z42 QERALDINX. 
 
 xxvn. 
 
 Trent was true to his purpose. He went to the West 
 Without stopping to see Mrs. Lee. To the test 
 Of her presence he would not, he dare not, again 
 Bring himself. 
 
 And his leave-takings troubled him when 
 He saw Geraldine last. A great tenderness thrilled 
 Through her loving good-bys. He could easy have 
 
 willed 
 To remain with her now, and possess her without 
 Any waiting ; for over him brooded a doubt 
 That he could not have set into speech, — an impression, 
 That, leaving her thus, he was putting possession 
 Beyond him forever. Her words of farewell 
 Were so solemnly tender and sweet, that they fell 
 Like a sad prophecy on his ears. 
 
 He had penned 
 A long letter to Isabel, making amend 
 For refusing the cry of her heart, Dy replying 
 In echoes as passionate. Firmly denying 
 Himself the great gladness of holding her yet 
 Once again to his breast, his quick pen would not let 
 Him keep silent completely. It revelled in words 
 
GERALDINE. 248 
 
 That to listening of love were as music of birds ; 
 And it told as with tears of his frequent unrest, 
 Of the longing and fears that his being possessed. 
 
 You will say he was weak. Let it pass to his credit 
 That he had discerned the same truth, and had said il 
 With bitter reproaches of self. And, beside, 
 Let it temper your judgment that he had denied 
 A temptation the greatest, — to go to her, give 
 To the winds every promise and duty, and live 
 On her riches of love. He was weak, and he knew it : 
 His weakness had caused him too often to rue it. 
 To leave him in doubt. He was weak : so are all 
 Who believe in their strength ; and the many who fall 
 Into folly and sin are the arrogant souls 
 Who stand censor to others. 
 
 We go to the goals 
 Of our strong aspiration in weakness that trips ns 
 Again and again. The hard fortune that whips us 
 With discipline's lashes has oftenest found 
 Opportunity swift when we fell to the ground 
 With our faces uplifted in scorn of the weak. 
 If we find the great blessing of strength, we must seek 
 For it humbly, believing our need to be ^re. 
 
 If the hills of the East have a charm to restore 
 Balmy peace to the troubled of soul, the wide plains 
 Of the West are as richly endowed. He regains 
 
244 QEBALDINE. 
 
 The sweet quiet of being who goes to them faint 
 With long striving for victory ; doubt and complaint 
 Become rest and rejoicing ; the rigors that goaded 
 Him on melt away in the sunlight, so loaded 
 With burdens of glory it glows like the blazing 
 Of tropical heat ; and eyes weary with gazing. 
 The roll and the sweep of their reaches are grand 
 As the ocean unbounded ; the billows of land 
 Float away to horizons far lapping the sky ; 
 And the magical breezes blow ardently by, 
 As if bearing rich argosies over the sea 
 To some haven of hope. If infinitude be 
 Ever laid before mortals for dim comprehending, 
 It hides in the plains and their reaches unending. 
 
 The saunterer's mission was Trent's. He fulfilled it 
 Religiously. Time was his own : if he killed it, 
 And buried it out of his sight, he was winning 
 The wager of life. And he thought it not sinning, 
 In search of his bodily good, and the peace 
 Of his spirit, to throw away care, and to cease 
 From all studious habits. He lived like the men 
 Whom he met by the way. He abandoned his pen 
 For his rifle ; spent weeks as a hunter with those 
 Who made hunting a business ; laid down at the close 
 Of each radiant day with his face to the stars ; 
 And sleep opened for him the imprisoning bars 
 Of his being, and freed him to perfect content. 
 
OEBALDINE. 246 
 
 The glad winds of the West in their spoit came and went 
 WTiere unsheltered he lay ; and, as boldly they kissed him, 
 Their marvellous vigor flowed into his system, 
 And so he grew strong. 
 
 He was seldom in reach 
 Of the mails, and but seldom, therefore, did the speech 
 Of his friends come to gladden or sadden him. One 
 Wrote as little of love as if scarcely begun 
 To believe herself loving ; the other withheld 
 Not a passionate word, and her passion compelled 
 His replies. But he wrote to his Geraldine merely 
 The messages born of a love that sincerely 
 Is guarded of duty, — such letters as most 
 Of men send to their wives when their love is a ghost 
 Of the thing it once was, and tjomes only in sight 
 As a matter of habit when rarely they write. 
 
 Did he love her? He questioned thus daily. In vain 
 Did he say to his heart that the answer was plain 
 In the question itself. ' ' Love may doubt, ' ' he could heai 
 His heart reason. " The love that is surest may fear 
 For its very existence. Wild passion may hide 
 It from sight ; but it will not so swiftly have died 
 As you think. It is modest. It sits in the shade 
 Of assertion unblushing, and trembles, afraid 
 For its life. But hot passion is bold as the day, 
 And it knows no rebuking, nor fears to betray 
 Itself ever and always." 
 
246 OERALBINE. 
 
 He held by the love 
 He had pledged to be true to, before and above 
 The strong feeling that shadowed it, e'en though his lipg 
 Were so dumb to expression while passion's eclipse 
 Hovered over. Nor once did he say to its face 
 That it could not be lovb ^ that it came to a place 
 Not divinely its own ; that the heaven-guided guest 
 Had more recently come to abide in his breast, 
 And the early intruder must go. Never through 
 The long days was he thus to his pledges untrue, 
 If untrue in a deeper and wickeder sense 
 He confessed himself. Either in fact or pretence 
 He was loyal to love in the positive, though 
 The superlative tried him for treason. 
 
 The glow 
 Of young summer grew fierce on the plains, and he took 
 His way thence to the mountains ; there swift he forsook 
 All the commoner haunts for those places where only 
 The few ever come, and in solitude lonely 
 Communed with the grandeur around him. He rode 
 Up and down the green valleys ; he made his abode 
 For the night where the night overtook him, and slept 
 With no tent overhead but the azure that swept 
 From one summit of gray to another ; he mounted 
 Magnificent peaks, till in wonder he counted 
 Their neighbors magnificent, lifting afar 
 Their white crowns to the purple ; in gorges that scar 
 The c^lm features of Nature lilte pitiless gashes 
 
GERALDINE. 247 
 
 Som(j Titan has made with his terrible slashes, 
 He marvelled anew, till this life, growing small 
 Mid the greatnesses round, seemed to dwindle, and fall 
 Out of sight ; and he moved but an atom in space 
 Overhung by the Infinite's glorious grace. 
 
 In the grand exaltation of spu-it that came 
 To him here, life had never a worthier aim 
 Than to he. Nothing grander than being can seem, 
 Where the mountains lift upward, majestic, supreme. 
 And eternal. They stand like old statues of time. 
 Looking God in the face. With the world in its prime, 
 They are hoary of head ; and they gleam in the noons, 
 Turn to crimson in sunsets, and gray in the moon's 
 Mellow glory, as through the long ages asleep. 
 As the shadows of darkness fast over them sweep 
 When the moon is away, they grow ghostly and grim, 
 TUl their majesties fade into distances dim. 
 And the hush of their silence is solemn as death. 
 When the dawn is at hand, its first crimsoning breath 
 Floats across the long reach of their summits to crown 
 
 them 
 With colors of life ; the dark shadows slip down them, 
 And seek the defiles where they lurk through the day ; 
 Clear aid strong their dim outlines come forth from the 
 
 -p-ay 
 Of the morning ; and through the baptistical rays 
 Of thf sun all their silence is priestly with praise. 
 
248 QEBALBINE. 
 
 xxvni. 
 
 When the midsummer heat to its uttermost burned, 
 From his wild mountaineering alone Trent returned 
 To a town of the mines, for some letters expected. 
 On reaching the place he grew strangely dejected 
 In spirit, and felt a foreboding of ill 
 That he could not shake off, though he bent all his will 
 To the task. 
 
 It was time for his summons from her 
 He had promised to wed. If he went, should he err 
 Against both, to give vows before God to be true 
 Ere his passion was dead, and when truly he knew 
 It must face him with mockery ? Should he not sin 
 Against God and his soul, were he soon to begin 
 Wedded life, while a woman he never might wed 
 Could so burden his peace with the words that shi 
 
 said? 
 Were it not the clear wisdom for him to postpone 
 Consummation distrusted till doubt should have flown, 
 And till love in sweet certainty came to its own ? 
 In this questioning mood, there was put in his hand 
 A small package of letters, that quickly he scanned 
 For the two he cared chiefly to read ; and he broke 
 
GEBALDINE. 249 
 
 Mrs. Lee*s first of all. It was passionful ; spoke. 
 In the phrases she forcibly used, of her feeling 
 Intense ; called upon him anew for his healing 
 The hurt, " the sweet hurt of this sorrowful love," 
 (That had grown in her being beyond and above 
 All beside, making other loves seem but the sign 
 Of weak tolerance now,) with the oil and the wine 
 Of his love-bearing speech : it, in short, was a letter 
 Of credit drawn on him at sight, as a debtor 
 To love, without lunit, and paid by his passion 
 In throbs of response. 
 
 With a face growing ashen, 
 When once he had fairly begun to peruse 
 The long letter of Geraldine, this was the news 
 That he read of her final decision, the sum 
 Of her reasons for failing to say he should come : 
 
 "My deab Friend, — 
 
 '' Turn your face to the shadow a while 
 You may make believe then, that I say with a smile 
 What the tears give me trouble to write. I am sure 
 That God bids me speak, or I could not endure 
 The hard duty. 
 
 " I love you : let this be as plain 
 As I ever have made it to you, and remain 
 A fixed thing in your memory ; though to refrain 
 From the simple confession were wiser, perhaps. 
 I shall love you, I think, till eternity laps 
 
250 GEBALDINE. 
 
 Upon time. It is sweet just to say it once more 
 While the right is still left me. 
 
 ' ' You loved me before 
 You Lad come to the measure of love in degree 
 That is highest. You loved me as much as in me 
 Was the power to call out your deepest expression 
 Of love. I believe it, and hold the possession 
 Of that which was mine, and which may be mine yet, 
 Above rubies. 
 
 '' But, though I may weep with regret 
 That I could not the deeps of your nature so stir 
 As another has done, I no longer demur 
 Against fortune that proved me so weak to excite 
 Your strong feeling, and showed you the higher de- 
 light 
 That I could not awaken. And blame cannot live 
 In my heart against you. I have nought to forgive 
 Of unfaith : you have been to your pledges as true 
 As true purpose could hold you. A greater love grew 
 In your breast, and it would not be stifled. 
 
 ''I knew 
 Months ago of the struggle that wearied you, saw 
 How you battled in secret to conquer a law 
 Of your nature, and feared the defeat that impended. 
 You're battling to-day : but the fight will have ended 
 When this you have read ; for I claim you no longer 
 As njine. You may yield to the love that is stronger 
 Than love given me, and be free to win much 
 
OEBALDINE. 251 
 
 A^ may answer to yours. And God grant that it touch 
 You to peace ! 
 
 ''I have struggled to say this so long ; 
 For I could not at first give you up. May the wrong 
 Of my selfishness find its quick pardon ! I hoped 
 That my love might still hold you to me : but I groped 
 In a path growing dark, for my will was arrayed 
 Against God's ; and my wishes were most, I'm afraid 
 For my happiness rather than yours. 
 
 " You will make 
 No reply to this letter, but spare me the ache 
 Of repeating the prayerful decision contained 
 In it here. If you knew how my heart had complained 
 To itself, — how with ready ^xcuses it plied me, 
 And long all the comfort of trusting denied me, — 
 You could be but pitiful now, as you must. 
 I have faith in your manhood and mercy : I trust 
 In your silence to help me do right. For the way 
 Opens clear to my sight ; and you never must say 
 To yourself or to me that you ought to fulfil 
 The faith plighted between us. I know that the will 
 Of the Lord is against it. I know that he tells us 
 To separate now ; and he always compels us 
 To hear him. 
 
 " You must not feel blame because I 
 Make a sacrifice costly to me. By and by 
 Compensation will come to my soul for the loss 
 To my heart. By and oy, shining sweetly across 
 
252 GEBALDINE. 
 
 The hard path that I go, I shall see the dear smile 
 Of my Master ; and that will the way so beguile, 
 I shall cease to regret. 
 
 *' Do not think of me, then, 
 As unhappy forever, or urge me again, 
 Out of pity and honor mistaken, to wed you. 
 The love that against your own will has thus led you 
 Apart from me quite, was permitted for some 
 Divine purpose. I beg you, my friend, to be dumb 
 While I study the lesson that to me is taught : 
 When I fully have mastered it, life will have caught 
 A deep meaning but now only dimly defined. 
 And the Teacher will prove that his wisdom was kind. 
 
 « 
 *' On a day that is distant, perhaps, we may stand 
 Face to face in a friendship with strength to command 
 Every thought of the past into silence and sleep. 
 Until then you will see me no more, lest I reap 
 Greater harvest of pain than to-day I must glean. 
 May God bless you in love and in life ! May you lean 
 On his bosom for rest when you weary ! May being 
 Grow broader and richer henceforth to your seeing. 
 And fill itself nobly with duties well done ! 
 God be with you, and keep you ! 
 
 . . . "At last I have won 
 .The long conflict. Henceforth I shall think of you 
 
 mainly 
 As one who was dear, and is dead ; and, if vainly 
 
GERALBINE. 263 
 
 I seek thus to put you away, I shall know 
 That the Masier would teach me still furthei, and go 
 Through the ways of remembrance till he leads me fai 
 Where the pools of his peace and his blessedness are. 
 
 '* Let me kiss you farewell, as a sister might kiss you 
 Who felt that for years she must want you and miss you. 
 Forgive the hot tears that will fall on your face. 
 I am heart- worn and weak ; but the pitying grace 
 Of our Father will strengthen me. Into your eyes 
 Let me look once again, while the saddest good-bys 
 That I ever have wept trickle over my cheeks, 
 And my love its last picture for memory seeks. 
 Breathe a prayer with me now that not always between 
 The dear picture and me shall be tears. 
 
 '' Geraldine.*' 
 
 As he read and re-read it, quick flushes of shame 
 Brought the color anew to his cheeks, and swift blame 
 Of himself fell upon him. He saw, as by clear 
 Revelation, how weak he would always appear 
 In her sight, and how wickedly love had been wronged. 
 And he felt, that, in losing what once had belonged 
 To him wholly, he lost a great treasure of worth 
 Beyond any conception before. 
 
 The wide earth 
 Was between them. He knew her too well to assail 
 Her decision by reason or wish. To avail 
 
254 GEBALDINE. 
 
 AgaiQst faith like her own, against purpose so strong 
 Based upon it, he now must convince her of wrong 
 Against him in her judgment, must show her that through 
 All the days of his doubt he had ever been tine 
 To the highest ideal of love. Could he do it ? 
 He shrank from the question when thus he came to it. 
 It hurt him deep down. It revealed to him clearly 
 How false he had been ; and for days he was nearly 
 Distracted between all the bitter accusals 
 Of conscience, the hungers of heart, the refusals 
 Of shame-stricken manhood, that hourly beset him. 
 For, turn where he would, they persistently met him, 
 And harassed him, pricked him, defied him to scorn 
 Df himself, till he wished he had never been bom. 
 
OBSALDINE. 255 
 
 xxrx. 
 
 On departing, thus troubled, beset, from the town, — 
 Was it accident? — something occurred that should 
 
 crown 
 The unhappy condition of Trent. As he rode 
 Through a caiion, where foaming and musical flowed 
 A wild torrent, he found, by the bridle-path lying, 
 A man who was dead, or at best appeared dying, 
 Alone. He lay prone on his face. In his side 
 Was a wound from which oozed the life-current, and dyed 
 His apparel. He looked like a miner, but more 
 Like the men who infest mining-camps to win ore 
 By the tarn of a card, not the stroke of a pick. 
 
 To dismount, and to lift the man up, was the quick 
 
 And impetuous movement of Trent. As he laid 
 
 The Ihnp figure again at its length in the shade 
 
 Of a pine overhanging, he gazed in its face. 
 
 It was colored with death ; but there lingered a trace 
 
 Of an earlier beauty within it despite 
 
 Many traces of reckless abandon. Its white 
 
 And its haggard uplooking at Trent so deep stirred him, 
 
 He groaned, " May God help you ! I can't." 
 
256 QEBALDINE. 
 
 The man heard him, 
 And opened his eyes. They were burning, intense, 
 With a haunted look in them that glad innocence 
 Never gives. For an instant they gleamed upon Trent 
 In such glaring and murderous way, that they sent 
 A strange fear running through him, then softened. 
 
 '' You're not 
 The sneak coward," the man weakly whispered, *' who 
 
 &5iot 
 Me, I see.'* And his eyes closed again. '' Lift me up. 
 Let me drink— from your flask.** 
 
 *' Mine is only a cup 
 Of cold water,* Trent answered : " your own, it may be, 
 Can the quicker revive you. I'll search you, and see 
 If it's empty.** 
 
 He felt the man's pockets, and took 
 A canteen full of brandy from one, and the look 
 Of quick death passed away from the man as he drank it. 
 Then placing him easily there, with a blanket 
 To bolster him up, Trent ripped open his shirt. 
 And with awkward attention examined his hurt. 
 It was mortal : no question of that. 
 
 ''You are near 
 The next world, my poor fellow, ' * said Trent. ' ' Do yon 
 
 fear 
 To go out of this into the other? ** 
 
 A sneer 
 Curled the colorless lips. 
 
QEBALDINE. 267 
 
 *' I was never — afraid,** 
 The man answered, with speech growing stronger. *' I 
 
 made 
 My mind up — long ago — that some time — I should 
 
 die 
 In my boots. It's a trifle — too soon — by and by 
 Would have suited — me better, of course — but I'll go 
 Without flinching. A curse on the vagabond, though, 
 Who waylaid me ! ** he said, sudden energy lending 
 Itself to his words. 
 
 '* And who was he ? ** 
 
 "If sending 
 A ball through my body prove friendship, I'll call him 
 My friend,*' he made answer. " Perdition befall hun 
 For this ! ** And he moaned in his pain. 
 
 *' He should stretch 
 A short rope for the deed he has done you, the wretch I 
 Was it plunder, or hate? ** 
 
 " We were partners : we quarrelled, 
 As partners are certain to do. I had coralled 
 Too much — of the stock, he declared ; and he swore 
 That unless I divided — again, he would boie 
 A hole into my heart. He sneaked up — at the last — 
 Unbeknown, and — you found me here, dying — as fast 
 As I could without help of the doctors.** 
 
 He grew 
 Half facetious as strength from the brandy swift flew 
 Through his veins. 
 
268 OEBALDINE. 
 
 '* Will you tell me his name? I will see 
 That some effort is made to arrest him.'* 
 
 *''Twouldbe 
 To poor purpose. No soul saw him do it. He's free 
 From all proof. Let him go to the Devil the way 
 That best pleases him.*' 
 
 '' Is there no word I can say 
 For you after you're gone? " 
 
 A keen agony spread 
 O'er his face. 
 
 " There are none to regret me when dead. 
 1 am friendless, — a vagabond — worthless and worse. 
 All my life has been simply a blight and a curse ; 
 But I'm going out game ! " And he set his lips hard, 
 As if battling with weakness. 
 
 '' No life is so scan'ed 
 And disfigured by sin but that blessing can fall 
 On it through the one Life that was given for all," 
 Replied Trent. 
 
 " That's the stuff of the preachers : don't preach it 
 To me ! There's a hell for some men, and they'll 
 
 reach it. 
 For all of your preaching. I'm one of them." 
 
 Pain 
 Of the body or soul made him wince. 
 
 He had lain 
 A few seconds in silence, when Trent spoke again, — 
 
OERALDINE. 259 
 
 ** God is father of all ; and the Saviour of men 
 Is a brother as loving, as willing, as we 
 Can desire in our need. He says, ' Come unto me ; * 
 And no limit is set to the words. Will you hear him? *' 
 
 '* I've long been a comrade of Death, and I fear him 
 Far less than the preachers. I'm growing too weak 
 For much talking ; and yet I have something to speak. 
 Put the flask to my lips.** 
 
 Trent complied, with his pitj 
 Deep moved for the man. 
 
 " At the East, in the city 
 
 Of L , is a woman, — my wife. You may learn 
 
 Where she lives — and her name — from my papers, 
 
 and earn 
 The reward of her gratitude should you soon bring 
 The glad news of my death. If there be any thing 
 She supremely desires, it is early to know 
 She is truly a widow.** 
 
 Said Trent, ''I will go 
 To her on my return to the East, and will bear 
 The sad message you wish.** 
 
 " It*s not likely she*ll weal 
 Any mournmg,'* he sneered, going on as if Trent 
 Had not spoken. " I left her, without her consent. 
 Years ago. A fifth cousin of hers had been making 
 Too free with her beauty. I left her, forsaking 
 The home she had shamed I enlisted, and soon 
 
260 QERALDINE. 
 
 They reported me dead. ' Twould have been the one boon 
 She most wanted, — my death ; but I lived, though I 
 
 borrowed 
 The name of another, and though my wife sorrowed 
 In elegant black for the loss that was gain 
 To her only. I lived, and must live — that was plain. 
 When discharged from the army by orders my own. 
 I came West — on the quiet — and wrote her. Alone 
 Of all women and men from that time, she has known — 
 Me as living, and known that she never could wed. 
 Though a widow — in name, till again I was dead. 
 I have punished her so for the way she betrayed me. 
 Besides — for my punishment just — she has paid me 
 My price every year. I have lived on the sum — 
 She was willing to give — that I never might come 
 To life — there at her side." 
 
 Hearing this, Trent became 
 Even pale as the speaker. He feared for the name 
 Of this woman so worse than one widowed. His breath 
 Grew as short as the man's who lay facing his death. 
 
 *'She was proud — she was handsome," the speaker 
 
 resumed, 
 ' ' And men worshipped her. Dozens — like me — have 
 
 assumed 
 That she loved them — devotedly. Stranger, beyare I 
 When the news of this day to that woman you bear : 
 She will wm you to love her — as always she wins 
 When it — suits her to try. 
 
OESALDINE. 261 
 
 " Ah ! the daylight — begms — 
 To fade — early. I thought — it was morning — my 
 friend/' 
 
 With great effort Trent spoke, — 
 
 '* It is noon ; but the end 
 Of your life may appear like the close of a day. 
 It is twilight for you. In the dusk let us pray 
 That a morning of pardon be yours.*' And beside 
 The man dying he knelt. 
 
 " O thou Saviour, who died 
 Between sinners, that sinners might live, see the soul 
 That is going to God unforgiven, and roll 
 Its black burden of guilt from it swiftly. Bend down 
 In beneficent mercy this moment, and crown 
 A poor life with the blessing of peace. Turn the heaii 
 Of this sinner to penitence. Lord, thou who art 
 The one Master and Father of all. Make him yield 
 To the sweet ministration of Christ. Be revealed 
 To him now, in this darkness of noonday, as one 
 Who forgives and is kind ; who is just, but whose Son 
 Can redeem the most fallen to thee. Let him seek 
 The great treasure of life at the last ; and, as weak 
 ^Lud uncertain he gropes for it now, take his hand, 
 Divine Brother of men, and lead into the land 
 Where the weakest can never sin more." 
 
 As he faltered, 
 A.nd ceased his petition, the dying face altered. 
 
262 QERALBINE, 
 
 The dying lips moved, as if shaping a prayer ; 
 And a smile settled on them, and fixed itself there. 
 By the wayside. Death came in his silence, and none 
 Could have seen his dark form in the noon of the sun ; 
 Yet he took the life up from the clay at his feet, 
 And he bore it away with a motion so fleet 
 That the watcher knew not if it lingered, or went, 
 But in awe the old marvel awaited. 
 
 As Trent 
 Became certain that life had gone out of the face 
 Growing fairer before him, he rose from the place 
 "Where he knelt, and walked down to the torrent to lave 
 His hot brow in its beauty and blessing. A grave 
 Must be dug, and within it, perchance, he must bury 
 Some part of his faith in his kind. How the merry, 
 Mad music of waters grew sad to his ears ! 
 He was buffeted now by the bitterest fears 
 That had ever assailed him. Who was the man dead 
 Tn Ihe shadow near by? And what woman had wed 
 Ilim, dishonored her vows, and such penalty paid 
 For her sin and his silence ? 
 
 He tenderly laid 
 His cloak over the figure at length, after taking 
 Whatever of value was on it. With aching 
 Expectancy, then, he sat down to make clear 
 In the papers before him the mystery here. 
 As the first revelation, he started to see 
 A fair portrait look out — that of Isabel Lee. 
 
GEBALDINE, 263 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Major Mellen to Rivennet went, as the summer 
 Grew long ; and Miss Hope, as she met every comer, 
 Received him with courtesy winning and sweet 
 When he called. 
 
 '' I am off for a rest ; and my feet 
 Would not carry me farther until I had tarried 
 To look in 3'our face," he said warmly. 
 
 She parried 
 His compliment gracefully, though she felt sure 
 He was thinking her changed. 
 
 ''But what makes you endure 
 The hot season in town?'* he made question. '' You 
 
 show 
 The depression it causes. You surely should go 
 To the seaside." 
 
 '' I may by and by," she replied : 
 "I have hardly been strong enough yet ; " and she sighei 
 In unconscious confession of weakness. 
 
 He spoke 
 His regrets with more feeling than often he woke 
 Into speech, and she locked at him wondering. Then 
 She discovered his errand, and trembled. 
 
264 QERALDIIfE. 
 
 "All men 
 WTio have met you,*' he said, "must believe that you 
 
 never 
 Can sicken, or change, or grow old. You are ever 
 To look at them out of a face that is fair. 
 From your windows of life ever young. You will wear 
 In my sight the same smile that unceasing you wore 
 That brief summer I saw you at first, and before 
 I had come to my years of discretion.*' 
 
 He smiled 
 As if half in contempt of his past. 
 
 "I was wild 
 In those days,** he went on, " and too wayward to win 
 Your respect altogether. You held it a sin 
 Pretty nearly, that I should declare as I did 
 How I loved you. You chided me then, and forbid 
 Me to see you again till I quite had outgrown 
 The hot fancy that vexed you. You gave me a stone 
 Of dislike when I begged for the bread that could feed me 
 To worthier life, — your great love. Could you need me 
 To-day as I need you, I*d give you the whole 
 Of my being, my strength, all the body and soul 
 1 hat are mine. The old fancy is dead ; but maturer 
 And stronger than that is this love that is purer 
 I offer you now. And I beg you be pitiful ! 
 None of the worst, out of all the wide city full. 
 Need your true goodness as I' do. I plead 
 A.8 I never have pleaded before.** 
 
OERALDINE. 265 
 
 " If your need 
 Be so great,** she made answer quite slowly and faintly, 
 While over her face came a look that was saintly, 
 • ^ I never can meet it. I gave all I had 
 Long ago to another.** She smiled in a sad, 
 Sober way that was touching to see. " You have more 
 Of love*s riches than I. You can some time restore 
 Any loss of your love, you believe ; but for me — 
 I must always love on, though my love ever be 
 But a grief and a bitterness.** 
 
 " Say you are free 
 From all pledges. Miss Hope,** he went on to beseech; 
 " Say you do not quite hate me, and then I will teach 
 You again to be glad and forget. I would take 
 You to me, though I knew you were ill with the ache 
 Of your love for another, believing you'd learn 
 In my arms to grow happy and strong, and return 
 All I give you.** 
 
 She thanked him, with eyes growing dim, 
 For his charity broad. 
 
 " I am pledged but to Him 
 Who creates or permits every love. My one vow 
 Is to follow his leading in patience, and bow 
 To his will. He would never allow me to seek 
 A new happiness, tUl he has taught me how weak 
 Are affections of earth to bring happiness best. 
 He is giving me now a hard lesson to test 
 My submission to him. I must always deny 
 
'Z6Q GERALDINE. 
 
 What you ask ; for no need can be greater than my 
 Certain duty. Besides, it would be but a sin 
 Against God and ourselves for us two to begin 
 Wedded life, with my heart buried deep in its grave, 
 And your heart turned away from the Maker, who ga^ 
 It capacities great.** 
 
 '' Do you hate me? ** he asked 
 With quick passion. 
 
 Her weakness was burdened and taskt 1 
 To its uttermost. 
 
 ^' No. I have thought of you only 
 As one of my friends, — as of one who was lonely, 
 And so to be pitied, because he had kept 
 The Lord out of his life." And she silently wept 
 As she said this. '' I pity you now, and I pray 
 Him to pity you too." 
 
 '' Yet you sit there, and say 
 That you never will lead me to him, as you might. 
 If I perish at last in the pitiful fight 
 I have made and am making with faith, will you stand 
 Conscience free, when you might have laid hold of my 
 
 hand. 
 And uplifted me ? You can believe in a God 
 Who is kind, though he hurt you ; you look at his rod 
 As a discipline : I only doubt, as I must, 
 Born a sceptic at best. But to live with your trust 
 At my side would be next to believing, would hold mCr, 
 At least, from denial complete." 
 
GEBALBINE. 267 
 
 " Though you told me," 
 She answered, " that, were I henceforth to deny 
 Your request, I should send you to ruin, still I 
 Should deny it. Your duty lies only on you : 
 You must do it, or suffer. And I must be true 
 To myself and the teachings of God ; and these tell ?n« 
 That love is essential to love : they compel me 
 Forever to hold myself free from a union 
 Where two cannot meet in the perfect communion 
 Of hearts, neither giving the other a measure 
 It cannot return, and both finding all pleasure 
 In giving their all. I have nothing to give. 
 You would fall into folly and sin, should you live, 
 Or attempt it, on husks of a poor toleration. 
 Unfed and unhelped by love's full consecration 
 Responding to yours. I should lead you to death. 
 Should I bid you to come, with no love in the breath 
 Of my bidding. The leading of God is far better 
 Than mine ; for he binds with the beautiful fetter 
 Of love beyond changing, that never can fail.*' 
 
 " I would rather have your love than his." 
 
 She grew pale 
 A.t his wicked irreverence. 
 
 " Pardon the thought, 
 A.nd the speaking it," quiv;kly he said. 
 
 "But you ought 
 To beg pardon of him," was her answer. 
 
268 GEBALDINE. 
 
 ^ He lifted 
 His eyebrows amusedly. 
 
 '' Some are not gifted 
 At praying/' he parried. " I never should be." 
 
 She was hurt by his manner, and he could but see 
 His mistake. 
 
 *' I was mad to suppose that my need 
 Could win favor from you, or that pyssion could plead 
 Out of lips so irreverent ever as mine, 
 And not shock you. 'Twere madness and folly of 
 
 thine. 
 Could I even persuade you, to trust to my keeping 
 The peace of your faith. I should win you to weeping 
 The bitterest often. And still I believe 
 You would help me. Miss Hope. I shall go but to grieve 
 That my fate is unkind." And a tenderer ring 
 In his tones made her pity him more. 
 
 * ' I can bring 
 
 You no • heart's-ease " she answered him softly, ''to 
 
 please you, 
 Since faith that is comfort to me cannot ease you. 
 I live on its blessing to-day, as may all 
 Who in trouble of soul to its ministry call 
 For relief." 
 
 " Are you happy? " he asked her. 
 
 The tears 
 On lier face gave him answer. 
 
GERALDINE. 269 
 
 "Tbe Father who hears 
 My petition each day would not grant it, I think, 
 Should I ask him for happiness yet. I must drink 
 The whole cup that he gives me, though bitter and deep. 
 I may never be happy again, save in sleep 
 And in dreams — as I once was, I mean ; but the peace 
 Of obedient service may cause me to cease 
 Any longing for happiness lower." 
 
 He saw 
 The great weariness marking her face ; and with awe 
 Of her faith that he never had yielded before, 
 lie aiv/dc to depart. As he stood at the door, 
 Ho remarked, — 
 
 " Will you grant me some leave-taking token, 
 To prove that I have not mcurably broken 
 Our friendly relations ? Your promise to breathe 
 A brief prayer for me daily would always inwreathe 
 Me in holy remembrance. I ask it as one, 
 Who, long doubting your faith, has almost now begun 
 To be sick of his doubt ; and I ask it for sake 
 Of my love, that, in leaving you now, would here make 
 Its confession of weakness. I've tasted the sweets 
 Of all sinning ; I've mocked at the bitter defeats 
 That have mastered me. Long in my weariness, tired 
 Of these idle pretences, my soul has desired 
 With a hungry desiring some help from without. 
 As I came here to-day, in this pitiful doubt 
 Of myself, to entreat you to give me your love, 
 
270 GEBALDINE. 
 
 So I ask you to bear my great longing above 
 All the sins that beset it. I know not the way, 
 And I have not the words.'* 
 
 " I will promise to pray 
 That some prayer may be taught you," she said. An J 
 
 her eyes 
 Overflowed as she spoke. " God is near, and our cries 
 He can hear, though so feeble and faint that they seem 
 Like a breath in the night. And his help is supreme 
 In its blessing. You'll know it some time." And she 
 
 smiled 
 Through her tears. 
 
 " In your company faith had beguiled 
 Me, perhaps, to believing long since. I have fear 
 For my future alone. God is nearer me here 
 By your side than he ever will come when I go 
 Into ways of my choosing. I know this, and know 
 I shall need you forever. Good-by." 
 
 As he went 
 Thus abruptly, the strength of her womanhood spent 
 To its uttermost, Geraldine sank to her knees. 
 By a sofa, half fainting. 
 
 Through cruel degrees 
 She had come to a weakness so weary and worn, 
 That it seemed she had suffered and sorrowed and borne, 
 Until death would be welcome. 
 
 Alas I had she known 
 How another was tempted and beaten, alone, 
 
GEBALDINE. 271 
 
 A.nd unhelped of the Master, since asking had flown 
 From his need, she might even have begged to surrender 
 The burden of being. 
 
 But God is as tender 
 Ajid loving as wise. He in mercy will keep 
 Too much seeing from eyes that already must weep. 
 
272 QESALDINX. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 In the solitudes vast, in the wide, solemn spaces 
 Where mountains looked up with their reverent faces, 
 As if they besought benediction on all 
 Who were troubled of soul, lingered Trent. Of the 
 
 gall 
 Of self-scorn, self-condemnings, he drank day by day 
 Wretched draughts. On his forehead the breezes might 
 
 play 
 From white snow-peaks that yonder gleamed always in 
 
 sight ; 
 But he knew not the touch of their cooling delight. 
 He was worn ; but he cared for no healing. He waited 
 Apart from his kind, in a gloom that was fated 
 To blind him to every bright presence, and stood 
 Face to face with dark evil, deserted of good. 
 
 There are terrible deeps that a man may go down 
 When his feet are not stayed. From the beautiful crown 
 Of some summit of gladness he sudden may sink 
 Into blackness of hell, with no will but to shrink 
 From the terror, no strength to leap upward, and hold 
 Himself there in the sunlight. 
 
GEBALDINE. 273 
 
 The shadows that i oiled 
 Over Trent became darker and denser. The days 
 Moved along like a dream. The white noons, the cool 
 
 grays 
 Of the evenings, the dawns with their wonderful blushe? 
 On mountain and sky, and the marvellous hushes 
 That stilled all the world, — what were these in the 
 
 strait 
 Of his being? Alone he confronted the great 
 And unknowable mysteries. Life was his own, — 
 To be lived amid pain ; to give up with the groan 
 Of an instant ; to cling to, with skies like a psalm, 
 And the air heavy laden with peace like a balm ; 
 To let go at his will when tempestuous sweeps 
 Of the storm bore him down to these horrible deeps ; 
 To be sick of and scorn ; to condemn as a gift 
 Without blessing or worth ; to give absolute shift — 
 If he dare ! Yes, his life was his own. What ol 
 
 death? 
 The one heritage truly ; the Silence that saith 
 To all care and all effort, " Be still ! " the one blessing 
 The poorest of all may be sure of possessing ; 
 The rest from all fever ; the peace from all pa ji ; 
 The one antidote certain for life's bitter bane ; 
 All humanity's right, that Divinity gave 
 When he peopled the earth, and permitted a grave ; 
 The last mystery waiting mortality's ken. 
 To be read by and by — why not master it, then ? 
 
274 GEBALDINE. 
 
 What was Fame, that he cared for i. ? Only a speck 
 
 On the ocean to sink in it ; only a fleck 
 
 III the blue far above him to fade in the sun, 
 
 A.nd be lost. What was Right, that the race he should niu 
 
 Against Wrong and be borne to the dust, but a bare 
 
 And uncertain abstraction, that puniest care 
 
 Like his own could not nourish or guard? What waa 
 
 Duty 
 But just a poor idol, bereft of all beauty. 
 That he had been worshipping blindly till now ? 
 What was Song, that she ever could place on his brow 
 Any laurels to gladden him? — what but a faint 
 Crying-out after concord, a feeble complaint 
 Across echoless distance, all efforts at singing? 
 To yield them all up were the best, and by flinging 
 Himself on the Future so misty and dim. 
 To be rid of the Present defiant and grim. 
 
 *' I have made up my mind,'' so he wrote to a friend, 
 *' To go out of the world. I would walk to the end 
 Of my life at a step. Yes, I know you will say 
 Of life here. But I'm dealing with things of to-day. 
 They have wearied me utterly. What is the gaio 
 To do battle forever? The victories vain 
 That must daily be won are but gilded defeats. 
 I am sick of their wearying, vanishing sweets. 
 There are men who will call him a coward who goes 
 From the work that is his to the lasting repose 
 
GERALDINE. 276 
 
 Of the grave without call of the Master. I care 
 
 For no speech of the crowd. But you know that I darfi 
 
 What the mass hold in terror. You know that I face 
 
 The unknown of the ages — the limitless space 
 
 Of the Ever-and-Ever — with courage tliat sees 
 
 All its possible dread. I have drunk to the lees 
 
 Of regret, and its poison has entered my soul. 
 
 How it withers and burns ! How my heart and the whole 
 
 Of my riotous being are simply on fire ! 
 
 I am wild with the one overcoming desire 
 
 To go out from this fever to limitless rest — 
 
 To forget — if I may ! 
 
 " Were you ever possessed 
 Of the devils of love ? Yes, my friend, there are such. 
 They lay hold as with fingers of velvet : their touch 
 Has the blessing of paradise in it at first, 
 But God pity the man who has by them been cursed ! 
 For they rend at the end like the demons of hell. 
 All the hope and the beauty of being, as well 
 As the fruit and the promise, are torn to a shred. 
 It were better, indeed, to be known of the dead 
 Than abide with demoniacs living and grim 
 Mid the tombs. 
 
 " Waste no words of your pity on him 
 Wlio can feel as I feel, and can write as I write. 
 He has only the scorn of himself. In his sight 
 He is just a demoniac, rent with a rage 
 That no Master of demons is neaj to assuage 
 
:276 . GEBALBINE. 
 
 And allay. And yet pity me, though 1 forbid 
 Any pitiful utterance ! Pity me, hid 
 From the f ity of God by a cloud of black doubt 
 That makes night of my day ! I am beaten about 
 Dy a tempest unceasing. My anchors are gone. 
 It is gloom without end. I can pray for no dawn^ 
 Since some sin of my being has smitten me dumb 
 Before Him who might help me, — who only could come 
 Into tempest so fearful, and still it. 
 
 . . . ''I wait 
 But some prospecting party to end the hard fate 
 Of this life, and begm again — where? They wil^ 
 
 take 
 A few letters for friends, but not one that will make 
 Any mention of purpose lilie this. My good-by 
 Will not burden another than you. When I lie 
 Here alone in the solitude, caring no more 
 "Whether love be a fiction, or death be a door 
 Into fiction more idle, they'll say I was killed 
 By some vagrant. You only will know that I stilled 
 My heart's beating myself ; and you will not contend 
 You are wiser than they, since you serve me as friend 
 With your silence. I know I shall like the long quiet 
 These mountains will give me. Their peace, when m^ 
 
 riot 
 Of living is over, will stand me instead 
 Of the heaven that so blesses those happier dead 
 Who have waited in patience to reach it. The Loixi 
 
GERALBINE. - 271 
 
 Mu3t be near me henceforth ; and some meagre reward 
 VV^ill be mine for the pang of my dying. 
 
 '' Farewell! 
 The Beyond is so broad, that two never can tell 
 If again they will meet when they lift its dark curtain 
 To wander within it. This only is certain : 
 The devils that mock me will miss me, and I 
 Shall be free from this fever that bums me. Good-by ! ' * 
 
 The days passed. The pain lingered. The fever 
 
 burned hot 
 In his veins. He was nigh to delirium. Not 
 A stray miner came near where he tarried. He strolled 
 Up and down the green valley in dreams. He grew old 
 As if suns were the measure of years. 
 
 Then he made 
 His resolve. He would climb the tall mountain, whase 
 
 shade 
 Had been over him daily ; would sound from its summit 
 The deeps of blue distance beneath, with his plummet 
 Of vision ; would gaze on the glory far lying 
 iVround him, again, and find easier dying 
 Where heaven was the nearest. 
 
 The journey was long, 
 And was slow. It was helped by no snatches of song 
 That he once might have sung. On its earlier way 
 There were reaches of green, and cool shadiness lay 
 Like a bles&ing upon it ; but later the steep 
 
278 GERALBINE. 
 
 Became burren and rugged : for hours he must creep 
 Through the glare of the sun, along courses no feet 
 Had made easy before him. The blistering heat 
 Of the noon made him faint. He grew giddy and weak, 
 Yet he staggered along. Far above him the peak 
 Reared in solitude lonely. Majestic, sublime, 
 It awaited his coming. 
 
 Unconscious of time, 
 Save that often it seemed an eternity here 
 Had begun, he crept on. Through the white atmosphere 
 He could see other peaks lifted far to the blue 
 Of the sky ; while the distance took boundaries new 
 As he slowly ascended, and range after range 
 In sublimity rose, till an ocean of strange 
 Rocky billows rolled far all around him, their tips 
 Only swept by the wandering, vanishing ships 
 Of the clouds, that before a warm breeze were adrift, 
 And their hues ever shifting and changing, as swift 
 The hot sun, the cool shadow, went by. The dark green 
 Of the timber-lines everywhere belted between 
 The light gray of the summits, and, sleeping below, 
 The soft green of those valleys where musical flow 
 The mad streams of the mountains ; the glimmering 
 
 gleams 
 Of white ledges shone out on the silvering beams 
 Of the sun, and gave light to the soberer veins 
 Lurking lower ; and broad in the east the great plains 
 Rolled away from his vision, vast reaches of yellow, 
 
GJERALBINE. 279 
 
 Dry sod, with long swells like the sea, and a mellow 
 Haze marking their splendor remote. 
 
 As he rested 
 At times, he looked over that ocean, so crested 
 With color and grandeur, half heeding how splendid 
 The view had become, and yet feeling befriended 
 And helped by its breadth. Though the fever grew hotter 
 And fiercer within him, and often the water 
 Supply that he bore was diminished, his brain 
 Became steadier, truer, the throbbings of pain 
 At his heart were less wild, and the marvellous wonder 
 Of being laid hold on his insight ; for under 
 The massiveness round a great thought seemed to hid© 
 From his vision, though dimly and vaguely descried 
 By some deeper sense in him. He felt that he neared 
 The sublimities nearest to God. It appeared 
 To his sensitive soul, as yet higher he climbed, 
 That he came where his nature the nearest sublimed 
 To the nature divine. He grew out of his own 
 Narrow bondage of life into freedom alone 
 He can know who is filled by a new comprehension 
 Of infinite fact. 
 
 The day waned. The ascension 
 More rugged became. The thin air was so light, 
 That he panted for breath. Still above him the whitf 
 Of the peak was uplifted against the blue arch 
 Vaulting oi?er, but lent him no shadow. His march 
 Had begun, he believed, through eternity. Slowly 
 
280 GERALDINE. 
 
 He dragged himself up through the solitude holy, 
 As slowly the sun swung its way down the west. 
 The cool summit airs kissed him at last, as a guest 
 Who was welcome. They fanned his faint heart. Thej 
 
 upbore him, 
 As onward he went, till he saw just before him 
 The crest that was highest of all. 
 
 When the sun 
 Had sunk quite to his level, his journey was done, 
 And he stood on the uttermost height, — a bald crown 
 Of gray granite, moss-covered, from which, looking 
 
 down 
 Either side, he could see the dim valleys grow dimmer 
 As deepened the shadows, could see the peaks glimmei 
 With light far beyond them, could gaze on their faces, 
 Uplifted around through the wide, solemn spaces, 
 And marvel in awe. 
 
 '' Al^ the strength of the hills 
 Is His also ! ** he murmured. " How weak are the wills 
 Of His creatures ! How puny the arms we outreach 
 In our proudest endeavor ! How idle the speech 
 That we utter, the cries of our souls ! Life is only 
 An atom of weakness, each atom as lonely 
 As if God had gone from the world.*' 
 
 There were tears 
 On his face. He fell prostrate, and swift the fleet years 
 Passed before him as thus he lay prone. All their error, 
 Their failure, their loss, he beheld. With a terror 
 
GEEALDINE. 281 
 
 At heart that he never had known, here he faced 
 VVliat he had been and was. He grew shamed and 
 
 abased 
 In the presence relentless each moment. He thought 
 Of old Moses on Nebo, who, hungering, caught 
 A sweet glimpse into being the best, and then gave 
 It all up, with no mortal to hollow his grave. 
 And he said to himself, '' I have seen the fair land 
 Where love lives in content ; but I never can stand 
 In its gladness, or sip of its honey and peace. 
 This is Nebo to me. May it give me release 
 From the bondage of passion forever ! " 
 
 He lay 
 Thus in trouble of soul while the beautiful day 
 Faded out. The west crimsoned to scarlet. The bars 
 Which imprisoned the sun were blood-red. A few stars 
 Glinted down the blue deeps. The gray twilight let 
 
 faU 
 A soft mantle of shadows and silence on all. 
 
 Then afar from the north came a wonderful sweep 
 Ql black cloud that swift mounted the darkening steep 
 Of the summit. Far thunder growled low. The sharj 
 
 flashes 
 Of lightning grew constant, and nearer the crashes 
 That followed them. Over the man lying there 
 Where the mercy of sleep had soon found him, the air 
 Became scintillant, gleamed with fine courses of flame. 
 
282 GEBALBINE. 
 
 As if fretted with fire. The whole mountiin became 
 But a cone for electric display. 
 
 He awoke 
 As the storm gathered might, and a thunder-gun spoke 
 Just above him with utterance awful. He sprung 
 To his feet. Was it hell ? Had he certainly flung 
 Himself into a future of horrors ? The gloom 
 Of far spaces was lurid with light, and the doom 
 Of dark Tartarus shrouded him. Blinded and dazed 
 For the instant, his brain in a whirl, as if crazed 
 By some terrible pressure, he stood there, and strove 
 To make sure that he heard but the breathings of Jove 
 
 The mad lightning flew over the rocks of the summit 
 In crinkles of flame. It shot down like a plummet 
 Of fire through the deeps far beneath. The red flow 
 Of its flashes lit up the black night with a glow 
 Beyond color of speech. The whole atmosphere gleamed 
 With the fluid electric that sparkled and streamed 
 Bound the visitor there as if mocking him, flaring 
 Itself in his face as if vexed at the daring 
 He showed, playing round him in circles that filled 
 All his frame with their current. 
 
 At last, as he thrilleo 
 To the touches of death in believing, there came 
 From the deep far above him a forking of flame : 
 A great glare flooded over the dark, and he fell 
 Limp and lifeless, with never a creature to tell 
 
GEEALDINE. 285 
 
 The wild story and sad, if forever the breath 
 
 Of his being had fled, and this silence were death. 
 
 And he lay there alone, with his white, haggard face 
 
 Looking up to the sky, neither longing nor grace 
 
 Of life marking it now ; while the pitiful rain 
 
 Beat upon it, as though to wipe out all the pain 
 
 It had known in the past. Thus he lay there alone, 
 
 Smitten down, with no time for a thought or a groan, — 
 
 Smitten down when he held a mad purpose to take 
 
 His own being up wickedly, rashly, and break 
 
 It in twain in the face of his Maker, — struck down 
 
 By the Maker himself, on the masterful crown 
 
 Of that mountain sublime, ere the deed he had done, 
 
 And the life of the future unfitly begun 
 
 By a terrible sin in the present. He lay 
 
 Thus alone till the storm spent itself, and the gray 
 
 Of the dawn in the east began flushmg with day. 
 
284 OEBALDISS. 
 
 xxxn. 
 
 Mother Nature is kind. The cool rain pelting Iheit 
 In the face of the man smitten down gave him care 
 That was timely and saving. It rallied him so 
 From the shock he had suffered. It chilled the hot glow 
 Of the fire in his veins. 'Twas the medicine best 
 For this fever that burned like a flame in his breast, 
 And it blest him. 
 
 He woke as the morning grew strong 
 To uncover the night ; he awoke with a throng 
 Of confused recollections besieging his brain. 
 At the first, all his effort and striving were vain 
 To recall what had happened ; then slowly he came 
 To himself. He remembered his journey, the aim 
 That it had, the mad pm-pose that moved him, the night^s 
 Awful vision. He shut his eyes close ; but the sights 
 He had latest beheld were before hun again. 
 As they burned through his eyelids, he shuddered ; and 
 
 then, 
 Rising up, looking out from the height, he was thrilled 
 By a wonderful picture. 
 
 The tempest had stilled. 
 Flying mists from the summit had flown to the deeps 
 
GERALhINE. 285 
 
 Lower down. The lone peak was an island : its steeps 
 W^ere encircled in fleeciuess white, — a .wide sea 
 Without motion, milk-foamy, outreaching as free 
 As the limitless ocean, — a sea with no sail 
 On its surface to hint of a haven or gale, — 
 A broad sea of white silence, where softly the hail 
 Of some sailors unseen one might fancy he heard, 
 Leaning over to listen. 
 
 The ah" never stirred 
 To a breath. Far away in the east the round sun 
 Had rolled up from this ocean of cloud, that begun 
 To be silver beneatn it. Across the broad sweep, 
 Looking straight from himself to the sun, on the sleep 
 Of this marvellous oea he beheld a bright shimmering, 
 Scintillant pathway to glory, whose glimmering 
 Beauty grew brighter while gazed on. Below, 
 Hidden under a gloomy, dense mass, with no glow 
 Of glad color to cheer it, green valleys lay dim 
 In their twilight, and waited the morning. 
 
 For him 
 The warm sun had arisen in splendor that eyes 
 Of a mortal but seldom behold. The clear skies 
 Of the morning held blessings for him. The white sea, 
 Reaching round his calm anchorage, glistened, that ho 
 Might be glad with the vision. For him, him alone, 
 The sun emptied its glory so freely, that shone 
 Over summit and sea. Solitar}', and far 
 From his fellows, as ever mi"rht seem a faint star 
 
Ji86 GERALDINE. 
 
 Lost away in the wilderness spaces, be stood 
 
 There deserted of evil, alone with the good. 
 
 Here and there a gray mountain-peak rugged uplifted 
 
 Its crown, but another lone island, where drifted 
 
 No mortal along through the silence to keep 
 
 Him companionship distant. The radiant deep 
 
 Was unpeopled ; its islands were desolate. He 
 
 Was alone in the world. From that wonderful sea 
 
 Of white splendor the sun had arisen to glow 
 
 For himself, as if never a mortal might know 
 
 Its bright blessing, beside, on the breadth of the earth ; 
 
 For himself, as if for him the planet had birth 
 
 In the thought of the Lord, as if for him the world 
 
 Had been made, into wonderful space had been whirled, 
 
 And the Maker had set him high up on its throne, 
 
 And crowned him with glory as king of his own. 
 
 Then he saw, with a sense that was deeper than seeing, 
 
 He felt^ the great truth, that the lines of his being 
 
 Ran always from him to his God ; that in fleeing 
 
 From life he was fleeing from God ; that forever 
 
 His being, God-given, ran through all endeavor 
 
 To God ; that he cared for it, guarded it, held 
 
 It to uses the best and the truest ; compelled 
 
 It to answer for doing or promises ; knew 
 
 Lot and purpose within it, as much as if through 
 
 The long ages no mortal beside him could be, 
 
 Or had been in the past, and as much as if he 
 
GERALDINE. 281 
 
 Were the one only creature of God's mighty hand. 
 Set to serve him as subject, and do the command 
 Of his will ; as if God and himself peopled all 
 The broad universe. 
 
 Then, as a light fell on Saul 
 "When he rode to Damascus, convincing him swift 
 Of his sin, while it clearly revealed the great gift 
 r)f his pardon, the glory that Trent beheld here 
 Laid before him the ^m of his purpose ; and clear 
 As tlie glory itself he could see how the sin 
 Had deluded his reason. Could penitence win 
 Him forgiveness ? Could penitence ever beguile 
 The sweet mercy of God, and make certain the smile 
 Of compassionate pity? He sank on his knees, 
 A weak suppliant now : — 
 
 ' ' Divine Father, who seei 
 Every wandering soul, a poor prodigal comes 
 To thy table, and begs for the merciful crumbs 
 That his hunger can feed. See him now as he pleads 
 For thy pardon ! Thy bounty can measure his needs, 
 And thy love can bestow. Let the light of thy face 
 Shine upon him, as here he beseeches the grace 
 Penitential to hallow his heart. Let him feel 
 The strong clasp of thy tender embraces, and neal 
 The deep hurts he has suffered from sinful desire. 
 With thy touches of cooling remove the hot fire 
 Thai his passion has kindled within him, and give 
 Him thy peace. Make him eager hereafter to live. 
 
288 OEBALBINE. 
 
 May he hold by thy gift of creation with pride 
 That is reverent, knowing that always the wide 
 And the infinite distance between him and thee 
 Is bridged over by infinite love. Let him see 
 The great glory of being, the equal and greater 
 Concern of a trust from the Father-Creator 
 Directly to him. 
 
 " Help him now, holy God, 
 As again he begins the hard way to be trod 
 Through the world. It is dark in the valleys ; but f ai 
 Above mist, above gloom, the glad sun-glories are. 
 May he see them forever before him, as one 
 Who has stood face to face here alone with the sun, 
 And beheld the Lord's presence. O Master divine ! 
 Let this morning to him be a token and sign 
 In his memory ever, that always above 
 The dim twilight of cloud glow the smiles of thy love 
 And thy pardon compassionate.'* 
 
 Melted and broken 
 By feeling intense that so feebly had spoken. 
 His prayer became sobbing that moved him beyond 
 Any utterance. Over his forehead the fond 
 Morning breezes blew tenderly. Kneeling, he felt 
 Their soft kisses of cooling, until as he knelt 
 He grew calmer, and stronger of soul. 
 
 Then he rose 
 To his feet, and looked out on the scene of repose 
 So magnificent round him. A vision supernal 
 
GERALBINE. 289 
 
 [t was, in the light that from ages eternal 
 
 Has glorified day, since the Deity spoke 
 
 It to being, and earth into splendor awoke 
 
 From its earliest night — a glad vision of peace. 
 
 The white sea, like a calm that no tempest could cease ; 
 
 The lone islands outlying in silence ; a rift 
 
 Here and there in the deep, through which sudden and 
 
 swift 
 Could be seen a green valley in depths far below, — 
 A glad vision. Alas that a picture with glow 
 So ineffable, beauty and blessing so fair, 
 Should as soon fade away as the mists of the air I 
 
 He was faint with long fasting, was hungry and weak, 
 WTien with footsteps that faltered he turned fi-om the 
 
 peak 
 To begin his descent. In the valley he knew 
 He had food, and a horse ; but he said his adieu 
 To the summit, in doubt if he ever could gain 
 What so greatly he needed. If upward had lain 
 The hard journey, he soon must have sunk by th€ 
 
 way; 
 But he stumbled along down the mountain-side, gray 
 With the mist that he entered at length, till he stood 
 Underneath it, and saw it inwrap like a hood 
 The far height he had left. Then below the dark chill 
 Of its sombreness, gloomy, forbidding, he still 
 Sought the valley beneath. 
 
290 GERALDINE. 
 
 More than once did he sink, 
 Ovort)ome and exhausted with effort, and think 
 That he never should rise. More than once did be ask 
 For the strength that he had not, to finish his task. 
 As the valley grew nearer, more level the slope 
 Of the mountain became ; and a lingering hope 
 Died away in his heart of attaining the spot 
 Where his camp had been made. The sun burned him, 
 
 as hot 
 It shone down through the vanishing clouds. He grew 
 
 sick 
 Unto death. His lips bleeding, his tongue become thick 
 From the thirst that beset him, he scarcely could lend 
 Any form to a prayer. He must walk to the end 
 Of his life, as it seemed, when he would not, nor seek 
 The one help, save in dumb aspiration. And weak 
 As a babe at the breast, when his feeble endeavor 
 Had spent itself utterly, hopeless as ever 
 Was babe that had never breathed hope, he sank prone 
 To the earth, and lay there with a pitiful moan 
 Faintly marking his slow and irregular breath, 
 Alone telling that still he was master of death. 
 
aSBALVINX. 291 
 
 xxxin. 
 
 On a late autumn-day Mrs. Lee sat alone 
 
 In her room. If some part of her beauty had flown 
 
 Through long vigils of waiting, a casual glance 
 
 In her face could not show it. Some tale of romance 
 
 Mediaeval lay idly before her unread, 
 
 Though its pages were open* Dumb sorrow, that shed 
 
 Only tears of repression, looked out of her eyes. 
 
 One might easily think she was hearing the cries 
 
 Of a soul in despair. 
 
 It was mid-afternoon, 
 And for visits of form rather early ; but soon 
 She was summoned below by a caller. No name 
 Had been given the servant, — a friend, who but came 
 With a message of interest : this was the word 
 That was brought to her. Wondering, when she had heard 
 What the message might be, if the effort to hear it 
 Would seem well repaid, and beginning to fear it 
 As something portentous of ill, she descended 
 The stairs. If her life had on calmness depended. 
 She could not more calm have appeared when she went 
 Through the drawing-room door, and saw Percival 
 Trent. 
 
:292 GERALDLNE. 
 
 He looked aged and worn, as if years had gone past 
 Since they parted. Some change had been wrought that 
 
 would last 
 In his life, she as quickly discerned. 
 
 "You've been ill, 
 Mr. Trent,'' she remarked as they met, " and are still 
 But an invalid." 
 
 " Yes : I was ill in the mountains 
 A month," he replied ; " am in search of the fountains' 
 Of health, now, at home." 
 
 "I had fears you were dead. 
 It is two or three summers, I think, since you said 
 Me a word. Were you reckless of life? " 
 
 A quick pain 
 Made more haggard his face. 
 
 "I'd have counted it gain 
 But a little before to have died ; but I prayed 
 More than ever to live when it seemed I had laid 
 Myself down at death's door." 
 
 "Tell me of it," her fact 
 Growing eager and pitying now, and the lace 
 On her bosom betraying the heart-beats below. 
 
 " There is little to tell. It is little I know 
 Of the story, at any rate. Wandering down 
 To my camp in the valley, from climbing the crown 
 Of a mountain, my strength began failing me. All 
 I could do by and by was to stagger and fall, 
 
OERALBINE. 298 
 
 A.nd then lie there unconscious. The next that 1 knew 
 
 I was lying in camp, not my own, with a true 
 
 Good Samaritan nursing me. Providence sent him 
 
 That way in the wilderness surely, and lent him 
 
 To save me. He says I had fever, and lay 
 
 On the edge of the grave for a fortnight. One day 
 
 I awoke out of sleep, and I found myself there, 
 
 As I said, in the camp of a stranger. His care 
 
 And the Lord's brought me through. When my strength 
 
 had returned, 
 He came with me to Denver.** 
 
 '* He certainly earned 
 The undying regard of your friends,*' she declared. 
 Speaking warmly. " You cannot so early be spared 
 From the need of the world. ' * And the look that she gave 
 Had a hungering in it. 
 
 '' I never shall crave 
 To go out of this being again. 1 have seen 
 How it links with the being of God, how between 
 The divine and the human runs ever a thought 
 That should glorify life.** 
 
 It was clear he had caught 
 A new glimpse of the sacredness being might hold. 
 From his words and his tone, and she wondered. 
 
 ''I tcld 
 A man dying,** he said, '' a while since, I would bear 
 A hard message to you. He was past any care 
 That could save him, — was dying alone.** 
 
294 QERALDINE. 
 
 As he spoke 
 Very slowly and sadly, he heard the slow stroke 
 Of a neighboring bell, and it seemed like a knell 
 For the dead. He went on, while his utterance fell 
 To a low monotone, and she listened as one 
 Who half feared, half divined, what was coming. 
 
 "His bun 
 Set at noon. It had been a sad life at the best. 
 Before going, he told me a part ; and the rest 
 I discovered from papers of his. He had said 
 I should learn his wife's name from these when he was 
 
 dead, 
 A.nd should find her.*' 
 
 The woman who listened grew pale, 
 But kept silence. 
 
 " My search could not possibly fail 
 Of success, when, directed so plainly as here, 
 I found guidance.*' 
 
 He gave her a picture, — as clear 
 A reflection of her as she ever had faced 
 At the mirror ; and when in her hand he had placed 
 The mute semblance, he waited her answer. 
 
 She took 
 Tlie small portrait, but offered no word. A dumb look 
 Of appealing came over her face. 
 
 " Richard Lee 
 Was your husband. He died, with none near him but me, 
 '^n a canon some miles from a camp. I sought aid 
 
GERALDINB. 2% 
 
 From theie later, and buried him under the shade 
 
 Of a pme, where he died. In this package you'll find 
 
 The few papers he had, and his watch." 
 
 *' You are kind," 
 She said faintly, accepting them ; much as if saying it 
 Only to prelude soine question, deb'^ng it. 
 
 * No : I am cruel," he answered her sadly, 
 '* To you and myself. I would only too gladly 
 Have spared you the pain of this meeting, and saved 
 Me the hurt it has cost. But I could not. I braved 
 Your distress and my own, as I must, for the sake 
 Of my promise to him, and because I must make 
 A last call upon you." 
 
 She looked up at him then. 
 With her eyes full of tears. 
 
 "You have come to me when 
 I can read you my riddle of life, can unmask 
 What before I have hidden ; and now will you task 
 Me to say a good-by that is final ? I ask 
 For your pardon and pity. Forgive me for keeping 
 The truth from you so ! I am bitterly reaping 
 My harvest of folly.*' 
 
 The pain in her voice 
 Betrayed more than the words. 
 
 '' There is left me no choice," 
 He responded with feeling. " We cannot continue 
 To meet as if friends I am free now to win you, 
 
296 GEBALDINE. 
 
 And you are as free to be won ; but our ways 
 Must henceforth lie apart." 
 
 She looked at hun with gaze 
 So intense that he trembled. 
 
 *' What was it you learned 
 Of that man as he died, that so certainly turned 
 Ton away from me ? What was the lie that he sealed 
 His lips with at the last? " 
 
 As she boldly appealed 
 To him thus, she was calmer than he. It was hard 
 To repeat the hard tale of a woman's life marred 
 As hers had been, and hard to refuse all replying 
 When questioned so keenly. 
 
 '' He was not bel3ing 
 You wholly. You were the man's wife ? " 
 
 Thus he parried 
 Her queries, or tried to. 
 
 '' I was. We were married 
 When I was a child, now it seems to me, — more 
 Than a lifetime ago, I could think it, — before 
 I at all comprehended what loving or living 
 Might mean ; for I gave him my hand when the 
 
 giving 
 Was much like the gift of a book to a friend, — 
 The mere thing of a moment. The saddest amend 
 Has been made for my careless bestowal. Ten years 
 He has called me his wife, — a long season of tears, 
 And of pain to my soul. Within less than a week 
 
GERALDINE. 297 
 
 From the wedding I loathed him, — yes, loathed him; 
 
 but, meek 
 As a woman, I yielded myself to his will. 
 He was gross in his nature, — so gross he could kill 
 Every sensitive feeling within me, and mock 
 At the murder in scorn. There are times when hia 
 
 talk 
 I can hear even yet, till no hell of hereafter 
 Could madden me so. There are times when his laughter 
 All devilish crazes me now, or so nearly 
 I wonder if reason is left me. Yes, dearly, 
 With price beyond any computing, I've paid 
 For the gift that I gave him. My girlhood was made 
 A dark shadow of gloom, and my womanhood knew 
 Only shadow and chill till you came. If I grew 
 To be heartless and reckless, my friend, do you wonder? 
 Cut off from all happy content, put asunder 
 From all that I craved, wedded so to the worst 
 In the world that is ever incarnate, and cursed 
 By my bondage with sin so diverse it took in 
 All the grosser and uglier forms, I might sin 
 Without adding to sorrow, I often was sure ; 
 But I did not. I held my poor womanhood pure, 
 Save as soiled by its contact with him. Did he tell 
 You a different story? *' 
 
 '' He said that you fell 
 From your womanhood's purity, covered with shame 
 The home-altar," he answered her frankly. 
 
298 OEBALDINE, 
 
 A flame 
 Of indignant denial burned over her cheeks. 
 *' You believed him? " she asked. '' All those pitiless 
 
 weeks 
 ^\^len 3"ou said me no word, you believed me to be 
 A false wife? Is it so? *' 
 
 '' You forget, Mrs. Lee, 
 That my silence was nearly the silence of death." 
 
 " I remember now," faintly she said ; and her breath 
 Became quicker, her manner more passionate. ' ' Did you 
 Believe for one moment his story ? I bid you, 
 By all we have been to each other, and all 
 That we might be, to tell me ! " 
 
 " One scarcely car call 
 It believing, when doubt is as strong as belief," 
 He made answer. "And partial believing brought ^rief 
 To me keen as you suffer at knowing that you 
 Could be partially doubted." 
 
 He paused. 
 
 " I was true 
 To myself and to him," she declared, " till you taught me 
 What loving and life might in blerising have brought me. 
 Imprudent and reckless at times, I confess, 
 I cared little for gossip and comment, and less 
 For the jealousy feeding on both. As for him 
 Who pronounced me untrue by and by — 'twas h grim 
 And a sickening burlesque on purity, when 
 
GEBALDINE. 299 
 
 He accused me of shame and dishonor. The men 
 And the women of brothels knew well where he spent 
 Both his time and my money. 
 
 *' One day, Mr. Trent, 
 When my baby came to me," — a far-away look 
 In her eyes as she spoke, — "in brief gladness I took 
 It up into my arms, and I said to the Lord, 
 ^ Thou hast given me here what must be my reward 
 For the misery mine. May it minister so 
 To my need, I may better and worthier grow ! * 
 But it sickened. The dear little thing slipped away 
 From my clinging embrace. It was cruel to pray 
 It might live ; for the blood in its innocent veins 
 Knew the sins of its father, and carried the stains 
 Of his lecherous life in each drop. So he killed it 
 By fatal transmission. They said the Lord willed it : 
 I hated him then ; I have doubted him since. 
 
 " After that, Richard Lee went away. I can wince 
 Even yet at the pain that I felt, though, before 
 I had courage to force him to leave me. The more 
 And more freely I gave liim if means, but the lower 
 He sank into defilement. I stopped his supplies, 
 And he robbed me of jewels, and pawned them. My 
 
 cries 
 And my pleadings he jeered at. At length he accused me 
 Of shame;" and she shuddered. "The charge Imt 
 
 amuse i me 
 
300 GERALDINE. 
 
 At first. But I had been too careless ; and some. 
 
 Who professed to be friends, for the moment were dumlj 
 
 In declaring belief in my purity. None 
 
 Can so hurt you as friends with their silence. The sun 
 
 Cast a shadow far darker than ever on me, 
 
 When my husband so hedged me about, I could see 
 
 No escape. Then I offered to pay Kichard Lee 
 
 The full half of my annual income to go 
 
 Out of sight of me ever, and stay there ; and so 
 
 He enlisted next day, having drunk enough then 
 
 To be brave. I could hardly be sorrowful when 
 
 They reported him dead ; but my sorrow was deep 
 
 When he came to life later. To-day if I wQep, 
 
 It will be for the loss of your love.*' 
 
 " I believe 
 In your truth and your purity both, and I grieve 
 That we cannot be friends in the future, except 
 At a distance. This passion of ours, that has swept 
 Through our lives like a Western tornado across 
 The wide prairies, may leave us with feeling of loss 
 And of cruel besetment. But both of us soon 
 Will breathe freer and purer. A calm afternoon 
 Of content and uplifting may come to us each 
 For the morning of storms. I have heard the clear spee^ii 
 Of my Master f.ppointing the way I must take. 
 And I enter it patiently, gladly. The ache 
 Of your life will be healed by and by, and the way 
 That you walk will be pleasant, if lonely to-day.*' 
 
GERALDINE. 301 
 
 She smiled sadly, half bitterly. 
 
 " Prophecy drops 
 From your lips like a song, but unhappily stops 
 I'oo far short of a plain revelation. It yields 
 Me poor comfort to say that through sunshiny fields 
 I ma}^ go on some morrow, if pain shall have ceased, 
 Simply painless alone. It might give me at least 
 Just a hint of companionship : but there is only 
 (3ne soul to mate mine ; and the way must be lonely 
 That will not permit me to walk by your side.'* 
 
 ** I am weak, and unworthy all love," he replied. 
 
 *' I had plighted my love and my faith, ere we met. 
 
 And was true to the pledge. When my sympathy set 
 
 With your current of need, then swift passion conspired 
 
 To make league against love. All my nature was fired 
 
 With the conflict. I wrote you, I said you, no sentence 
 
 Of passionate feeling, but called for repentance 
 
 Of manhood and faith. Thus it was till my pledge 
 
 Was returned to me broken. I stood on the edge 
 
 Of dishonor, and saw myself ready to sink 
 
 Into pitiless shadow. And there, by the brink 
 
 Of that darkness that opened, shone out a great light. 
 
 I saw clearly again, and I stood in affright 
 
 At the vision so clear. Strong as ever the love 
 
 I had plighted and broken appeared, set above 
 
 Every other profession, yet shadowed by sin, 
 
 And made darker by loss. That I ever can win 
 
802 GEBALDINE. 
 
 My great losses once more, I may hope in some morrow, 
 But dare not to-day. 
 
 ' ' Yet to-day I may borrow 
 Your thought, that victorious living is better 
 Than happiness. Count me forever your debtor, 
 If slowly the thought in my life crystallizes 
 To character. Out of the many surprises 
 That wait for insnaring my weakness, I then 
 Shall come forth a glad victor, and happier men 
 Will not know such a blessing as crowns me. 
 
 "And you — 
 Let me echo your thought as the final adieu 
 That I speak to you now, Mrs. Lee. I could never 
 Make certain and true any patient endeavor 
 Of yours : I could never prove company best 
 For your soul. There is only one Strength we may test 
 To the uttermost, knowing it never can fail : 
 May you find it ! " 
 
 He rose, and his cheeks were as pale 
 As her own when she spoke. 
 
 " And this, then, is the end ? " 
 She besought him with pleading. 
 
 '' Say, rather, my frirnd, 
 That this moment we make a beginning in living 
 Victorious,'* firmly he answered, and giving 
 His hand to her now. 
 
 As she took it, they stood 
 Face to face in farewell. 
 
OERALDINE. 303 
 
 ** You are noble and good, 
 But as cruel as fate/* she declared. *■' And my fate 
 Has been cruder far than the grave. I shall wait 
 For the kindness of that with impatient appeal, 
 TiU it comes.'* 
 
 The sharp pain in her words he could feel 
 Keenly stabbing his heart. 
 
 *' May you learn that the blessing 
 Of death is not one to be coveted ! " pressing 
 Her hand between his. ' ' May you see, as I see it, 
 That life has its uses and sweetness, albeit 
 Its crosses and losses are great ! *' 
 
 She grew faint 
 From her hunger and hurt and the steady restraint 
 Over self. As he saw it, he tenderly bore 
 Her across to a sofa, and strode to the door. 
 
 So they parted, — the woman half fainting, no word 
 
 Of good-by slipping through the white lips that had erred 
 
 In confessing a passion unduly, no token 
 
 Of bitter reproach for the words he had spoken ; 
 
 The man with a sens i of distrust making laggard 
 
 His self-justifyings, his face growing haggard 
 
 And pinched with the pity and torment of soul 
 
 That possessed him, — to find, if God please, the one 
 
 goal 
 At the end of the world, whither every road leads 
 That we walk in, whatever our longing and needs. 
 
304 QEBALDINE, 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 [t was months before Trent became stalwart again ; 
 But he took up his labor, and went among men, 
 In much bodily weakness, and often depressed. 
 Yet with strength of his manhood renewed. And nonfl 
 
 guessed 
 That his life was a penitence daily ; that, giving 
 Brave words for the true and the good, he was living 
 A bitter repentance for sin he had pondered 
 And planned ; that alone in despair he had wandered 
 To lay down the burdens of being. He held 
 His old cheeriness well before others, compelled 
 The good-humor that won him his friends, went about 
 As a light, not a shadow. But often some doubt 
 Of himself sent him into the gloom that was near, 
 Even when he stood most in the sun ; or a fear 
 Of the mercy of God made him weak as a child, 
 And despairing as one who is never beguiled 
 By the blessing of Christ. 
 
 At the first, in December*! 
 Chill dreariness, sitting alone by the embers 
 He stirred to a blaze, he made offering gladly 
 Of Mrs. Lee's letters, then musingly, sadly, 
 
GEBALBINE. 305 
 
 As flickered the flames into quivering flashes 
 Of light, and then died, he wrote, — 
 
 ASHES TO ASHES. 
 
 A grate full and glowing: now bum every letter 
 
 That tells of the past. 
 Ashes to ashes I 'Tis better, far better, 
 
 Such love should not last. 
 
 Words half aflame with the warmth of theh* passioii 
 
 Will need but a spark: 
 Nothing remains but a film that is ashen, 
 
 Faded, and dark. 
 
 How the fire leaps in its madness so merry, 
 
 And kisses the lines I 
 Darkness will soon all their sentiment bury 
 
 Where no one divines. 
 
 . What is the past ? A wild dream that has faded, 
 A story soon told : 
 All of its sunshine to sombre is shaded. 
 Its summer grown cold. 
 
 Bleak blow the winter winds down the to-morrowi 
 
 With shiver and moan. 
 How the grate glows with the fever it borrows 
 
 From love that is flown I 
 
 Chilly the air is; the fever is dying 
 
 That fed the hot grate: 
 Oat in the night the chill night-breeze is sighing 
 
 As plaintive as fate. 
 
306 GEliALBINE, 
 
 Falter the flames into flickering flashea, 
 
 Till dark is the room: 
 Whisper it tenderly, "Ashes to ashesi" 
 
 Here in the gloom. 
 
 Nothing remains of a marvellous treasure 
 
 That one day was mine, — 
 Passion disguised as a love beyond measure, 
 
 And now without sign. 
 
 Nothing remains ? Ah! perhaps it were better 
 
 Were ashes the whole ; 
 But somehow I fancy each passionate letter 
 
 To me had a soui ; 
 
 And in the dark days of my dreary Decembers 
 
 Each soul may return, 
 And here in the gloom of my flickering embers 
 
 May sacrifice burn. 
 
 No matter. Good-by to the words that were spoken 
 
 In days that are fled I 
 for passion burned out, let the ashes be token, 
 
 As dust for the dead. 
 
 So he put from his sight what he could of the past 
 That might trouble him, or that a shadow might cast 
 On his present, to prove but a shadow of hurting, 
 Not healing. His manhood grew stronger, asserting 
 Its purified purpose in patience, and leaning 
 More nearly each day upon God. The deep meaning 
 Of life became clearer and sweeter. He knew 
 
GERALBINE. 307 
 
 A diviner and holier thought running through 
 
 All its uses than ever before. He was eager 
 
 With tongue and with pen for the right. To beleaguei 
 
 The wrong was henceforward his mission with zeal 
 
 ^lore intense, and with faith more uplifted and leal. 
 
 And the time wore away. He shunned Rivermet chiefly, 
 
 Or tarried there only as needful, and briefly. 
 
 His hunger of heart for the love that he missed, 
 
 And yet knew to be his, would at seasons insist 
 
 Upon going to Geraldine straightway, and telling 
 
 Its craving of need, with insistence compelling 
 
 Anew the great gift of herself ; but he waited 
 
 In patient endeavor the gift, that, belated, 
 
 Must minister unto his need, if he ever 
 
 Should know the sweet ministry more. Yet he never 
 
 Felt utterly hopeless when once he had come 
 
 Into healthier life. If to-day he were dumb. 
 
 Some to-morrow might happily gladden him, when 
 
 He could win her to hearing and trust. Until then 
 
 He would do a man's work as he might, among men. 
 
 There are souls who walk cheerfully with us, and lift 
 
 Us to new aspirations by bountiful gift 
 
 Of their courage and hope, who are braver than those 
 
 Going forth into battle. Each day their repose 
 
 Is but peace after striving. Each day they have fought 
 
 A strong enemy hidien within, and have caught 
 
 JH 
 
308 GEBALBINE. 
 
 The sweet griice of their patience from "\dctory won 
 Over self. And each day the hard duty, best done, 
 Is this facing a foe ever present, with hope 
 Never yielding, and courage that always can cope 
 With the haunting defiance, and conquer it. Add 
 To the strife of to-day the remembrances mad 
 Of a bitter defeat in the past, the pale ghost 
 Of a mastery cruel, whose torment is most 
 In the memory yet like a prelude of hell, 
 And we pity the soul that from victory fell ; 
 But we never can blame if again there be tears 
 And laments for a victory lost. 
 
 Through the years* 
 Busy rounds, in much hope and much fearfulness, weut 
 Up and down uncomplainingly Percival Trent. 
 As he labored, his love for the work best returning 
 True wages of labor, he slowly was earning 
 The prizes of fame. Without shaping his life 
 For the public, a place in the front of the strife 
 Between error and truth was forever accorded him. 
 Men with brave honor of manhood rewarded him 
 Out of their generous confidence, yielded 
 Him heartiest praise for the blows that he wielded 
 Defending the right, made him willing and strong 
 When unwilling and weak he became ; and his song 
 Grew as sweet and as clear as his eloquent speech 
 Became braver and stronger. Its musical reach 
 Was as broad as the longings of men, and it thrilled 
 
QEBALDINE. 309 
 
 With uew tenderness. Through it some mastery willed 
 
 The deep feeling of hearts, till they listened and stirred 
 
 In their stupor or pain as if touched by a word 
 
 Out of heaven. And as always the singer hears much 
 
 In his song that is lost to the many, some touch 
 
 Of divinely beneficent blessing he knew. 
 
 As he sang, that was never sent pulsating through 
 
 Any heart but his own. 
 
 He had sweet compensation 
 For singing. A tender and hallowed elation 
 Of spirit came to him in place of depression 
 And pain. In his heart there was gladder possession 
 Than doubt and distrust. And if silent he kept, 
 Walking on for a day while all melody slept 
 In his soul with no sunshine to thrill it and wake it, 
 Some comfort came over his journey to make it 
 Less dark : the warm thanks of glad hearts he had 
 
 cheered 
 Were borne to him in cheering, and life was endeared 
 To himself as for others he made it a gladder 
 And holier thing. If his song became sadder 
 At times than a lyric of hope, it was rare 
 That it had not a hope hidden under, a care 
 Reaching through it for others more hopeless, a thought, 
 Out of hunger and heartache and loneliness caught. 
 For some hunger of hope to make feast of. 
 
 At times. 
 Ringing clear as a chime through his musical rhymes. 
 
810 GEBALDINE, 
 
 Canie a glad Jubilate^ — a song full of praise 
 For the light in the night, for the glory of days 
 Without shadow of dark, for the glow and the gbry 
 Of being. And often through legend or story 
 Some homily ran in disguise, close akin 
 To the teaching of Christ, that persuasive could win 
 Where a plainer appeal might repel. So he preached 
 A wide gospel of good. So he happily reached 
 The closed ear of indifference often, and made 
 The great heart of humanity thrill as he played 
 On its quivering strings. So he brought to clear seeing 
 The secret of life, as in 
 
 BUILDING AND BEING. 
 
 The king would build, so a legenJ says, 
 The finest of all fine palaces. 
 
 He sent for St. Thomas, a builder rare, 
 And bade him to rear them a wonder fair. 
 
 The king's great treasure was placed at hand, 
 And with it the sovereign's one command, — 
 
 " Build well, O builder so good and great I 
 And add to the glory of my estate. 
 
 "Build well, nor spare of my wealth to show 
 A prouder palace than mortals know." 
 
 The king took leave of his kingdom then, 
 And wandered far from the haunts of men. 
 
GERALDINE. 211 
 
 St. Thomas the king's great treasure spent 
 In worthier way than his master meant. 
 
 He clad the naked, the hungry fed, 
 The oil of gladness around him shed. 
 
 He blessed them all with the ample store, 
 As never a king's wealth blessed before. 
 
 The king came back from his journey long, 
 But found no grace in the happy throng 
 
 That greeted him now on his slow return. 
 To teach him the lesson he ought to learn. 
 
 The king came back to his well-spent gold; 
 But no new palace could he behold. 
 
 In terrible anger he swore, and said 
 
 That the builder's folly should cost his head. 
 
 St. Thomas in dungeon dark was cast, 
 
 Till the time for his punishment dire were passed 
 
 Then it chanced, or the good God willed it so, 
 That the king's own brother in death lay low. 
 
 When four days dead, as the legend reads, 
 He rose to humanity's life and needs. 
 
 From sleep of the dust he strangely woke. 
 And thus to his brother the king he spoke: — 
 
312 GE'RALBINE. 
 
 " I have been to Paradise, O my king I 
 And have heard the heavenly angels singp 
 
 " And there I saw, by the gates of gold, 
 A palace finer than tongue has told; 
 
 " Its walls and tower* were lifted high 
 In beautiful grace to the bending sky; 
 
 "Its glories, there in that radiant place, 
 
 Shone forth like a smile from the dear Lord's facet 
 
 '* An angel said it was builded there 
 
 By the good St. Thomas, with love and care 
 
 ** For our fellow-men, and that it should be 
 Thy palace of peace through eternity." 
 
 The king this vision pondered well, 
 
 Till he took St. Thomas from dungeon-cell. 
 
 And said, " O builder I he most is wise 
 Who boildeth ever for Paradiee." 
 
QEBALDINS. 813 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 A. GREAT audience gathered in Rivermet Hall 
 To hear words of reform. It was late in the fall, 
 And the night had the glory of winter, with less 
 Than its frostiness brilliant. 
 
 The leading address 
 Was to be, as a newspaper item declared. 
 By a man of the people, — a man who had dared 
 To be true to himself and all manhood, at peril 
 Of popular favor ; who planted the sterile 
 And adamant wayside with seeds of the right, 
 And could wait for the harvest ; who, until to-night, 
 Had not spoken for Rivermet hearing in years. 
 If fine irony lurked in the language for ears 
 Quick to catch it, the writer might well have been par 
 
 doned. 
 The wayside of life has forever been hardened 
 By selfishness, strewn with the rocks of dispute 
 And denial and error ; and whoso would fruit 
 The good seed of the truth must be patient indeed, 
 If on ground that is stony he scatter his seed : 
 Yet all harvests of time worth the reaping have grown 
 From an acreage rocky where patience Imd strewn. 
 
314 GEBALDINE. 
 
 In the crowded assembly sat Geraldine, flushed 
 
 With expectancy eager ; or haply she blushed 
 
 At the conscious desire that was hers. She had schooled 
 
 Her poor heart into silence, she thought ; she had cooled 
 
 Its hot bui'nings, or smothered them so they no more 
 
 Could arouse the old fever of pain : but, before 
 
 She looked into the face of the speaker, she knew 
 
 That she waited with longing and hunger that grew 
 
 Beyond all satisfaction she ever might find. 
 
 She must love to the end, whether loving be kind 
 
 Or be cruel ; must love, and be keenly alive 
 
 To her love ; and no long separation could shrive 
 
 Her of loving, or bring her the absolute peace 
 
 Of unlovingness. Yet she had found a release 
 
 From the bitterest bondage of love. She had stood 
 
 In the freedom of faith, and had seen life a good 
 
 And a beautiful thing, though by sorrow beset : 
 
 In a ministry sweet she had learned to forget 
 
 Her own sorrowing need, and be glad : she had measure 
 
 Of happiness, measure of peace, in the pleasure 
 
 That grew out of daily bestowing. 
 
 As Trent 
 Came before them, the air was all smitten and rent 
 By the storm of applause ; and her pulse quicker beat 
 As she looked once again in his face from her seat 
 Near the front of the hall. He was changed. He had 
 
 older 
 And manlier grown ; and a careful beholder 
 
GEBALDINE. 815 
 
 Could see in his smile a great weariness hide, — 
 
 Not alone of the head, but the heart. The strong tide 
 
 He had buffeted long, the bold errors without. 
 
 And, within, the old struggle with passion and doubt. 
 
 Had been wearing to soul and to brain. But his speech 
 
 Held perennial freshn^s within it for each 
 
 Of that waiting assemblage ; and round after round 
 
 Of tiunultuous cheers gave approval. 
 
 The sound 
 Of his voice and the sight of his face were too much 
 For her fancied control over self ; and the touch 
 Of swift tears on her cheek brought to Geraldine shame 
 And distress. The keen gladness that thrilled her became 
 But reproaches and bitterness. Longing unrest 
 Was upon her, a need and a craving unguessed 
 Before thus she was mastered. For so to be near him 
 Was only half pleasure, half pain. Could she heaf 
 
 him 
 Once breathing her name ; could she know that he spoke it 
 With love undivided as faith ere he broke it, — 
 Ah ! then she might go from him comforted, strong, 
 And content in the will of the Lord. But to long 
 For his answering love through a distance decreed 
 By the wisdom of God, and to know that her need 
 Never met a response ; to be conscious, not merely 
 Of distance that held them apart, but as clearly 
 To feel that no cry of his heart came to hers 
 Through the spaces between, — ah ! the hope that defen 
 
516 GEBALBINE. 
 
 Maketh sick ; but the hope that is hopeless can pain 
 To sore agony. 
 
 Hiding her face, and the rain 
 Of hot tears that ran over it, Geraldine heard 
 Without heeding what followed, yet melted and stirred 
 To the deeps of her soul by the (?urrent magnetic 
 That throbbed through the place. If the words were 
 
 pathetic 
 That came from those lips she had kissed, she but knew it 
 Unconsciously. Over their meaning, and through it, 
 Went pulsing a thrill and a message that spoke 
 To her only ; that through the vast concourse awoke 
 No such answer as hers. 
 
 She was dimly aware 
 That a gathering tempest of cheers blew the air 
 Into waves of approval around her again, 
 After silence that spoke as approvingly, when, 
 Far above the applause that went echoing round, 
 Striking sharp on the sense as a thunder of sound 
 Amid hushes of stillness, she heard a wild cry 
 With swift terror outwinging it, — 
 
 **Fire!*' 
 
 Then to fly 
 Was the impulse of all. Women shrieked, and the facei 
 Of men became ghastly. They rose in their places. 
 And surged for the doors. A mad panic impended, 
 And death brooded grim over life, when ascended 
 A clarion call of command that arrested 
 
GEBALDINE. 817 
 
 n^ft flimult, and forced them to hear. He who breasted 
 Their purpose insane stood as calm he had stood 
 But a moment before, and entreated them. 
 
 "Good 
 And brave people,** he said, '' the great danger to you 
 Is in haste ; for the flames are above us. Be true 
 To strong manhood and womanhood now, would you live 
 To be strong men and women to-morrow. 1*11 give 
 You the signal when haste is imperative. None 
 Are in peril this moment. Pass out.*' 
 
 He had won 
 Them to reason ; and, standing there steady and cool 
 As a master dismissing his turbulent school, 
 By his mightier will he restrained them. 
 
 And she 
 Whom he loved and who loved him, as calmly as he 
 Stood and looked at the crowd, little caring to go 
 Since he staid. She had torn off her veil, and a glow 
 Of excitement illumined her face, while the light 
 Of their tears glistened still in her eyes. The mad fright 
 Had not seized her, although she had seen at the first 
 The red flames lap the ceiling, and knew how the worst 
 Might appall. But she felt in his presence a glad, 
 Indefinable safety, that held her, and bade 
 Her to wait. 
 
 The crowd lessened. She Imgered alon€ 
 In that part of the hall. The swift flames having flown 
 All along the bright fresco just over the stage. 
 
318 GEBALBINE. 
 
 Leaping lower, ran hissing and snapping in rage 
 At the man who stood under them, seeming to caie 
 For each one but himself. Seeing which, with a prayei 
 For them all, she turned toward him, as only intent 
 On the figures receding he seemed. 
 
 "Mr. Trent! 
 You forget your own safety," she cried. 
 
 As he turned 
 At her sudden appeal, close in rear of hun burned 
 The hot breath of the blaze. He sprang down to the 
 
 floor, 
 And as quickly flew to her. 
 
 " I saw you before, 
 And I saw that you waited," he answered her, speaking 
 With tremulous haste. *' It is time we were seeking 
 Safe exit. Our ways lie together till death 
 Shall divide us." 
 
 Around them the ^feverish breath 
 Of the flames became hotter and fiercer. Without 
 There were shoutings and cheers; but amid all the 
 
 doubt 
 That surrounded, one certainty came to them each. 
 Clear and sweet as the sunlight, too holy for speech, 
 And too happy for smiles. As he looked in her eyes, 
 So she looked into his, out of patient and wise 
 Revelation and hope ; and love's certain assurance 
 Shone glad on them both with its pledge of endurance 
 And faith. 
 
OEBALDINE, 819 
 
 They were last to pass out from the smoke 
 That grew blinding and stifling, as after them broke 
 Lurid torrents of fire. In the street they were gre-eted 
 By thundering cheers that were caught and repeated 
 On quivering lips by the masses who waited 
 To see him appear. 
 
 The great building was fated 
 For ruin and ashes. No effort could check 
 The omnivorous demons that fed on its wreck 
 Amid laughter demoniac, shrieking and screaming — 
 Mad fiends of the flames. Like a horrible dreaming 
 The picture became to these two as they staid 
 With the rest to behold it. 
 
 At length, when there laid 
 But a smouldering pile sobbing up to the night, 
 They went slowly away. 
 
 '^ So the passion whose might 
 Came between us burned out into ashes," he said. 
 " Let the dead of our yesterdays bury its dead. 
 Ton are mine for to-morrow and always ; and I 
 Shall be true to a love never dead till I die.*' 
 
 With the tenderest speech to his own she replied, — 
 '' The past narrows to nothing. To-morrow is wide 
 As eternity. God, who is loving and just. 
 Whispers, ' Ashes to ashes, and dust unto dust,' 
 Over all that is gone. Let it sleep, while in trust 
 We walk on through the future together. ' ' 
 
B20 GEBALDINE 
 
 Above, 
 
 The stars glistened in blessing. To be and to love 
 
 Became deeper and truer and holier far, 
 
 For the narrowing past. Every hallowing star 
 
 Shed a glory beneficent on them, to tint 
 
 Thft broad morrow with softness, and leave but a hint 
 
 Of the night ot erflown in the mellower splendor 
 
 Of day. 
 
 So in reverent, final surrender 
 Of each unto each, they uplifted the burdens 
 Borne separate long, to grow glad with the guerdons 
 Of victory sweeter than any they know 
 Who are never twin-souled : so at last would they go 
 In the strength of each other and God till the end, 
 Seeing each within each truest lover and friend. 
 
 They were wedded at Christmas. Next summer they 
 
 went 
 For a bridal trip down the St. Lawrence. Content 
 Kppt them company sweet. A far summer that seemed 
 When he sailed there before ; and, if once he had 
 
 dreamed 
 Of such beauty and peace, it could hardly have been 
 More indeed like a dream that he lingered within. 
 He had drifted away from all memories keen ; 
 And his life, like the river, ran smooth and serene : 
 He had come where the current set calm to the sea, 
 And the sum of each day was to love and to be. 
 
GERALDINE. 821 
 
 Thej were long at the Islands. 
 
 One night as they tarried 
 Trent, smiling but silent, to Greraldine carried 
 A newspaper marked : and she read in it, — 
 
 MAERIED. 
 Last eyening at eight, at the church of All Souls* 
 In this city, by Bishop Delancy Canolles 
 And the rector the Reverend Doctor Pardee, 
 Major Archibald Mellen and Isabel Lee. 
 
'k 
 
 
 ^ 
 
YB 57245