OLRIG GRANGE. 
 
 S^A\rh,WJ^^i^ (f/^A'/^-'x 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 HERMANN, KiJNST, PHILOL. PROFESSOR. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
 
 Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 
 1872. 
 
 k,k'
 
 From Advance Sheets. 
 
 University Press : Welch, Bicelow, & Co., 
 Cambriucs.
 
 Wa 
 
 Accept., my Friend, this Offering slight. 
 Familiar Photographs in verse ; 
 
 No subtle matter I indite, 
 
 A^or tale of strange events rehearse. 
 Nor polish 'ivit in couplets terse : 
 
 But shadozus from our age that fall. 
 
 Make pictures in a chamber small, 
 Where, late, I found these characters 
 Of Folk that are living — next door to us all.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 3Sook JFirst. 
 
 Page 
 
 Editorial 9 
 
 Loquitur Thorold i6 
 
 33ooft Secontt. 
 
 Editorial 43 
 
 Loquitur Hester 49 
 
 38aofe E\}ix'a. 
 
 Editorial 75 
 
 Loquitur Mater Domina So 
 
 iSook jFourtlj. 
 
 Editorial i°7 
 
 Loquitur Pater ... ... 113
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 Book JFiCtfj. 
 
 Editorial 137 
 
 LoQ/UiTUR Rose 142 
 
 Book 5titlj. 
 
 Editorial 171 
 
 Loquitur Thorold 178 
 
 \
 
 l00k Jfxrst.
 
 /
 
 I, Herr Professor Kiinst, Philologus, 
 Editor of these rhymes, — having no knack 
 That way, myself, to make my words go chime, 
 Or none that makes a crystal of my thought, 
 Face answering to face, and so built up 
 By inward force of Law inevitable, — 
 Care not to tag mere fringes to my lines, 
 And mar their meaning. 'T is a pretty sight 
 The lissome maiden dancing her light measure, 
 And keeping time with Castanet or timbrel, 
 When maiden, dance, and timbrel all are one 
 Joy of great nature. But enough for me 
 The unwonted dance without the castanet, 
 1*
 
 lO 
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 The measured tread without the timnig jingle. 
 God giveth speech to all, song to the few. 
 
 A quaint old gateway, flanked on either side 
 
 By grim, heraldic beasts with beak and claw 
 
 And scaly coating, — yet four-footed beasts, — 
 
 Opened into a long, straight avenue, 
 
 Lined by rough elms, stunted, and sloping west, 
 
 And nipped by sharp sea-winds. Without a turn 
 
 It ran up to a tall, slim, gray old house, 
 
 With many blinking windows, row on row, 
 
 And high-pitched gables rising, step by step, 
 
 Above heraldic beasts with beak and claw. 
 
 That pranced at every corner. A green bank, 
 
 Broken with flower-plots, on the one side dropt 
 
 Down to a prattling brook : upon the other 
 
 A group of brown Scotch firs reared their straight boles 
 
 And spreading crowns, dotted with cawing rooks : 
 
 And then a holly hedge engirt the place, 
 
 Which aUoLrether covered scant an acre.
 
 EDITORIAL. J I 
 
 Eastward you saw the glimmer of the sea, 
 And the white pillar of the lighthouse tall 
 Guarding the stormy Ness : a minster church 
 Loomed with twin steeples high above the smoke 
 Of a brisk burgh, offspring of the church 
 And of the sea, and with an old Norse love 
 Of the salt water, and the house of God, 
 And letters and adventure. On the west, 
 Cleft by the stream, a slow-retiring hill 
 Embayed a goodly space which once had been 
 Waste moorland for the curlew, and the snipe 
 Haunted its marshes. Lately, growing wealth, 
 From fleets of fishing craft, and ventures far 
 To Greenland and Archangel, had subdued 
 The peat-hag and the stony wilderness : 
 And here and there a citizen's country-house 
 Stood among fields where cattle browsed, or corn 
 Was rustling : yet there still were here and there 
 Stretches of heathy moss and yellow gorse, 
 And desert places strewn with white bleached stones.
 
 12 EDITORIAL. 
 
 And gray rocks tufted o'er with birch and hazel. 
 And through the gorse, and over rock and stone, 
 The pratthng brook leaped downward to the sea. 
 
 The slim, gray house with its heraldic beasts. 
 
 Nestling in its scant acre of flower-plots 
 
 And greensward, at the end of the elm-tree drive, 
 
 Stood plainly in ancestral dignity, 
 
 Aloof from citizen's villa : shorn of wealth, 
 
 It was the home of culture and simple taste, 
 
 And heir of fine traditions. 
 
 By the door, 
 V/here it was hid by lioneysuckle sprays 
 And brier-rose that trailed around the porch, 
 There stood a youth, at early twilight, making 
 Impatient gestures, switching thistle-down 
 And nettle and dandchon, and whate'er 
 His hasty stroke miglit reach ; yet humorous 
 Rather than fretful, for the art was his 
 To break vexations with a ready jest,
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 13 
 
 As one that, on the stirrup duly rising, 
 
 Rides lightly through the world. A graceful youth, 
 
 And tall, and slightly stooping, with features high 
 
 And thin and colorless ; yet earnest life 
 
 Beamed full of hope and energy and help 
 
 From his great lustrous eyes, though now and then 
 
 They swam into a dreamy, far-off gaze. 
 
 As seeing the invisible. He was 
 
 A student who had travelled many a field 
 
 Of arduous learning, planted venturous foot 
 
 On giddy ledge of speculative thought, 
 
 And searched for truth o'er mountain, shore, and sea, 
 
 In stone and flower, and every living thing 
 
 Where he might read the open secret of God 
 
 With his own eyes, and ponder out its meaning. 
 
 Intent he was to know, and knowing do 
 
 The work laid to his hand ; yet evermore, 
 
 As he toiled up the solemn stair with joy. 
 
 Caught by some outlook on a larger world. 
 
 He seemed to pause, and gaze, and dream a dream.
 
 J 4 EDITORIAL. 
 
 These moods I noted when he was my pupil, 
 And some strange vocable from India, 
 Or fragment of the old Egyptian speech, 
 Would suddenly arrest his eager quest, 
 And sunder us, like the ocean or the grave. 
 
 So stood he, in the twilight, near his home, 
 And waiting for his sister, smote the weeds ; 
 Impetuous, humorous, bright, and mystical. 
 The wonder and the glory of the place. 
 Scarce out of boyhood, yet the pride of all. 
 
 Trained for a priest, for that is still the pride 
 
 And high ambition of the Scottish mother, 
 
 There was a kind of priestly purity 
 
 In him. and a deep, solemn undertone 
 
 Ran through his gayest fimcies, and his heart 
 
 Reached out with manifold sympathies, and laid 
 
 Fast hold on many outcast and alone 
 
 r the world. Uut being challen^red at the door
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 Of God's high Temple to indue himself 
 With armor that he had not proved, to clothe 
 With articles of ready-made Belief 
 His Faith inquisitive, he rent the Creed 
 Trying to fit it on, and cast it from him ; 
 Then took it up again, and found it worn 
 With age, and riddled by the moth, and rotten. 
 Therefore he trod it under foot, and went 
 Awhile with only scant fig-leaves to clothe 
 His naked spirit, longing after God, 
 But striving more for knowledge than for faith. 
 The Priest was left behind ; the hope of Glory 
 Became pursuit of Fame ; and yet a light 
 From heaven kept hovering always over him, 
 Like twilight from a sun that had gone down. 
 
 15
 
 ILoquitur 5ll)oroltl. 
 
 /"AUICK, Hester, quick ! the old scarlet cloak 
 r-^^ And silken hood are dainty trim 
 'Mong birch and hazel and lichened rock ; 
 The sun is but a little rim 
 Above the hill, and twilight dim 
 Is settling o'er the leaping brook 
 Where we our summer pleasance took 
 When youth was light of heart and limb. 
 And Life was the dream of a Fairy Book. 
 
 Quick! let us spend the gloaming there: 
 A plague on bonnets, shawls, and pins, 
 
 And last nice touches of the hair. 
 That just begin when one begins
 
 lOQUITUR THOROLD. 17 
 
 To lose his patience ! Women's sins 
 Are not alone the ills they do, 
 But those that they provoke you to, 
 
 While smiling lips and dimpling chins 
 Wonder what can be the matter with you. 
 
 Well, minx ! I hope you 're pleased at last : 
 You 've made yourself an angel nice, 
 
 And me a brute this half-hour past. 
 Now, did you ever count the price 
 When each new grace costs some new vice? 
 
 You fondle a curl, — my wrath I pet; 
 
 You finger a ribbon, — I fume and fret ; 
 You 'd ruin a husband worse than dice. 
 Buying your beauty at such a rate. 
 
 Look, how the slanting sunbeams long 
 Gird with light-rings the gray birch-trees ; 
 
 And from his unseen place of song 
 The skylark on the evening breeze 
 
 B
 
 LOQU/TUR TIIOROLD. 
 
 Shakes clown his fluttering melodies: 
 The conies from their burrows creep, 
 The troutlets in the still pools leap, 
 
 The pines tlieir odorous gums release, 
 And the daisies are pink in their dewy sleep. 
 
 Perchance we ne'er shall hear again, 
 
 Thus hand in hand, the swift brook flow, 
 Except in dreams when we are fain 
 
 To haunt the fabled long-ago ; 
 
 For ere to-morrow's sun is low, 
 I haste me to the crowded street 
 Where every stranger face I meet 
 
 Shall less of kithly feeling show 
 Than the rippling gleam of this water sweet. 
 
 Nay, dear ; my heart is full of hope ; 
 
 Bid me not stay in my career. 
 Our little Bourg hath little scope 
 
 For aught but gossip in the car ;
 
 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 19 
 
 And I must gird me to appear 
 A man among the strong and brave, 
 A man with purpose high and grave, 
 
 Still fronting duty without fear, 
 And helming my prow to the threatening wave. 
 
 'T was sweet to dream as we have dreamed 
 
 Together in years long ago. 
 When Life might be, as Fancy deemed. 
 
 For aught the happy child could know, 
 
 A bright illusion, and a show 
 Create at will, and shaped to meet 
 Each changeful whim, and quaint conceit, 
 
 And varying mood of joy or woe, 
 Nor ever with tragic end complete. 
 
 But ill for him who will not see 
 The dream to be a dream indeed. 
 
 And life a foteful mystery. 
 And iron fact the only creed
 
 20 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 
 
 To lean on in the hour of need. 
 The child may dream ; the man must act 
 ■\\'ith reverence for the world's great fact ; 
 And look to toil and sweat and bleed, 
 And gather his energies all compact. 
 
 Why might I not my battle fight 
 
 Here by your side with pen and book ? 
 
 Girls never understand aright 
 
 That men must leave the ingle-nook 
 And for a larger wisdom brook 
 
 Experience of a harder law, 
 
 And learn humility and awe : 
 
 And books are mirrors where you look 
 But on shadows of things which others saw. 
 
 How sweet the old brook tinkles still 
 Through daisy mead and golden broom. 
 
 Where once we placed our water-mill, 
 And heard it clicking in the gloom,
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. zi 
 
 Hushed, sleepless, in our little room ! 
 Yonder, we caught the tiny trout, — 
 Our first, — you carried it about 
 All day, complaining of its doom, 
 And trying each pool if its life were gone out. 
 
 There are no traces of the mill : 
 
 But lo ! our garden in the nook. 
 The walks, we sha;ped with simple skill. 
 
 Bordered with white stones from the brook ; 
 
 And there are still some flowers we took 
 From garden plots, and planted here : 
 Our works decay and disappear, 
 
 God's frailest works abide and look 
 Down on the ruins we toil to rear. 
 
 Here is the sloping mossy bank. 
 With slender pansies purple-eyed, 
 
 And drooping harebells, and the rank 
 Plume-fern in all its palmy pride;
 
 2 2 LOQUITUR rilOROLD. 
 
 And yonder the still waters glide 
 Where the big rasps and brambles grew; — 
 The stream was deep and broad for you, 
 
 And there my imping manhood tried 
 To reach at them for my sister true. 
 
 I.o ! here we dreamed the Pilgrim's dream ; 
 
 And went forth, that bright summer day, 
 To seek the New Jerusalem, 
 
 Along the strait and thorny way 
 
 Tangled with gorse and bramble spray, 
 But never found the wicket-gate : 
 Distraught, our mother wandered late. 
 
 While we beside the mill-dam lay, 
 And saw the newt creep 'mong the bulrushes great. 
 
 There, too, we dreamt a lonely isle, 
 With white waves girdled by the sea 
 
 That stormed along the beach, the while 
 A good ship struggled gallantly ;
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 23 
 
 And I alone must saved be, 
 And thou wert Friday, by and by. 
 Whose mystic footprint caught my eye, 
 On the brown sand ; and thou to me 
 Wert slave ever ready to run or fly. 
 
 And we had Geni of the Lamp, — 
 The lamp was ne'er so rubbed before ; 
 
 And jars and crocks we left in damp 
 Odd corners all the night or more,- 
 Which we as fishers hauled ashore, 
 
 Listening to hear the prisoned Gin 
 
 Bemoan his captive fate within : 
 And what if he were free to soar 
 Like a dreadful giant with smoke and din ! 
 
 Ay me ! What happy dreams we had ! 
 
 And still they linger fondly here ; 
 The air seems nimble with the glad 
 
 Quaint fancies of our childhood dear ;
 
 24 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD' 
 
 And here, at least, they do appear 
 Half real still ; it seems profane 
 To reason them down as fcmcies vain, 
 
 Where all that meets the eye and ear 
 Brings the faith and glory of youth back again. 
 
 Then by and by great thoughts were ours 
 
 Of triumijh and high enterprise, 
 As knowledge broadened with our powers. 
 
 And Science oped our wondering eyes 
 
 To Nature's fruitful mysteries. 
 No life of vulgar wealth w^e sought, 
 Nor pleasure from indulgence got ; 
 
 We would be brave and true and wise. 
 And hoard all treasures of noble thought. 
 
 The heroes of historic age 
 
 Beckoned us on to glorious deeds 
 
 And hardy training, and to wage 
 Victorious war on foemen weeds :
 
 lOQUITUR THOROLD. 25 
 
 And now we breathed on oaten reeds 
 Or conned, apart, a secret song, 
 Ashamed as if the deed were wrong ; 
 
 And now we rubbed your amber beads 
 For trial of their attraction strong. 
 
 We gathered wild-flowers in the woods, 
 We wandered miles for heath and fern. 
 
 We found in brakes the callow broods 
 Of singing birds ; we sought the earn 
 On its lone cliff; and strove to learn 
 
 All Nature's kindly providence 
 
 For all its creatures, and the sense 
 Of all its changes to discern, 
 With all the infinite why and whence. 
 
 We turned the glass to moon and stars, 
 The Pleiads, and the Milky Way, 
 
 To Saturn's ring, and fiery Mars, 
 And Venus haunting close of day :
 
 26 LOQUITUR T//OKOLD. 
 
 We bent the glass to watch the play 
 Of spasm-like life in water-drops ; 
 And where the red stone upward crops 
 
 We hammered, eager for a prey 
 Of moss or fern from the old-world copse. 
 
 And O those days beside the sea! 
 
 The skerries paved with knotted shells, 
 The bright pools of anemone, 
 
 The star-fish with its fretted cells. 
 
 The scudding of the light-foam-bells 
 Along the stretch of rippled strand 
 Spotted with worms of twisted sand. 
 
 The white gulls, and the shining sails, 
 And the thoughts they all brought from the Wonder-land ! 
 
 And fondly watched our mother dear 
 The dawning promise of our youth. 
 
 Lilting a ballad low and clear, 
 
 And fosterins: fearless love of truth
 
 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 27 
 
 And meekness, piety and ruth, 
 And charity and womanhood ; 
 For so she said, that to be good 
 Was to be rich in very sooth ; 
 And the good Lord gave his children food. 
 
 And still unfailing laughter pealed 
 
 At homely jests that ne'er grew old ; 
 And still we breathless heard, and thrilled 
 
 When the old winter's tale was told ; 
 
 And still, as thought grew keen and bold, 
 Her loving instinct steadied all 
 The march of mind with faithful call 
 
 To patient duty manifold, 
 And to wait and work when the light was small. 
 
 O happy childhood ! wakening first 
 In moony realms of fond romance ; 
 
 And quenching soon a deeper thirst 
 In science that refrained to glance
 
 28 LOQUITUR TJIOKOLD. 
 
 Scorn at old fiiiths : so we could once 
 Believe we heard the mermaid sing, 
 And that the deft Fays shaped the ring 
 Footing o' moonlights in the dance, 
 And that Spirits lay hidden in everything. 
 
 Nor need that early faith be all 
 In clear defined knowledge lost : 
 
 Though never Greek to Ilium's wall 
 In the swift ships the sea had crossed, 
 Each wrathful king with banded host,' 
 
 The tale of Troy were true to me, 
 
 More than bare fact of history : 
 
 There is more truth than is engrossed 
 In your musty sheepskin guaranty. 
 
 And there is truth transcending far 
 The way of scientific thought, 
 
 Which travels to the farthest star. 
 And verges on the smallest mote,
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 
 
 But all beyond it knoweth not ; 
 Its ladder, based on earth, must lean 
 Its summit on the felt and seen ; 
 
 But ever our hearts their rest have sought 
 In that dim Beyond, where it hath not been. 
 
 'T is wisdom, doubtless, for the man 
 To learn the fact and steadfast Law ; 
 
 Yet Wisdom also in its plan 
 
 Embraced the child's great wondering awe 
 Which found the Unseen in all it saw, 
 
 Whom now we seek with cruel strain 
 
 Of longing heart and wildered brain, 
 Tossing our barren chaff and straw 
 In search of the old diviner grain. 
 
 Can it be wisdom to forget 
 
 What wisdom taught us yesterday ? 
 
 What if the form may change, and yet 
 The truth abide that in it lay? 
 
 29
 
 30 LOQUITUR TIJOROLD. 
 
 And what if Gin and Ghost and Fay 
 Were but the form of highest truth, — 
 The Father's parable for youth, 
 
 To teach that Law is Will, to say, 
 I am the worker of all, in sooth ! 
 
 So might the dream be, after all, 
 
 The key which confident Science lost, 
 
 And liath been groping round the wall 
 Of mystery, perplexed and tossed. 
 In search of, making many a boast, 
 
 Yet conscious that her universe 
 
 Of several facts and laws is scarce 
 God's living world ; yea, is at most 
 His graveyard, whither she drove his hearse. 
 
 Our Science knows no Father yet ; 
 
 He seems to vanish as we think ; 
 And most of all, when we are set 
 
 To fish for Faith upon the brink
 
 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. ^i 
 
 Of nature ; we draw, link by link, 
 A line of close-plied reasoning 
 Elaborate, and hope to bring, 
 
 Besides the baited thought we sink, 
 God from the depths at the end of a string ! 
 
 Ah ! who shall find the perfect Whole 
 
 In the small fragment that we see ? 
 Or mirror in the flesh-bound soul 
 
 The image of Immensity ? 
 
 Our hearts within us faint, and we, 
 Amid the storm and darkness driven, 
 Cry out for God to earth and heaven: 
 
 But what if all our answer be 
 Only our cry by the echoes given ? 
 
 As light outside the Temple vast 
 
 Coming and going, with sudden gleams 
 
 On altar, pillar, and pavement cast, 
 Down on our lower world He streams
 
 32 LOQUITUR rilOROLD. 
 
 An extern glory. So it seems ; 
 But wlio can tell ? The things that press 
 On our dream-life's half-consciousness, 
 Though real as the hills and streams, 
 Are the stuft" dreams are made of nevertheless. 
 
 O days of Faith ! when earth appeared 
 
 A Bethel sure, an House of God, 
 And in the dream his voice was heard, 
 
 And sorrow was his chastening rod ; 
 
 And stony pillow and grassy sod 
 Seemed, lying on the Father's breast ; 
 And men had many an angel guest. 
 
 And ever Avhere the pilgrim trod 
 God was near him, The Highest and Best. 
 
 Great days of Faith and miracle ! 
 
 When nature might not be explained, 
 And the earth kept her secret well. 
 
 But there was worship high, unfeigned,
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 33 
 
 And men were noble, and God reigned ; 
 They were not barren though we laugh, 
 And swear their mills ground finest chaff; 
 
 For peace and love and truth unstained 
 Are more than steam and a telegraph. 
 
 How is it that our modern thought 
 
 Has travelled from these sacred ways, 
 And every certain truth is bought 
 
 By parting with some Faith and Praise ? 
 
 We light our earth with the quenched rays 
 Of heaven ; and j^et we only seek 
 Truth for the strong and for the weak, 
 
 Loving it more than length of days. 
 Or the ruby lijD and the blooming cheek. 
 
 Our science, with its several facts 
 
 And fragmentary laws, hath lost 
 The unity that all compacts, 
 
 And makes a cosmos of the host. 
 
 2* c
 
 34 LOQUITUR TflOROLD. 
 
 Force changes, but its changes cost, 
 And in the elemental war 
 Conserving transformations are 
 
 So wasteful, Time shall one day boast 
 But a burnt-out sun and a cinder star. 
 
 Well, well ; our mother knew no laws, 
 Except the* Ten Commandments clear, 
 
 Nor talked of First or Final Cause, 
 But walked with God in love and fear. 
 And always felt that he was near 
 
 By instinct of a spirit true ; 
 
 And she had peace and strength in lieu 
 Of that unrest and trouble here 
 Which break like the billows on me and you. 
 
 Enough; we have not yet redeemed 
 The promise of our early days ; 
 
 We are not all that we have dreamed. 
 
 Nor all that she would crown with praise ;
 
 LOQUITUR TliOKOLD. ^^ 
 
 But we have loving been always, 
 And earned some little fame, and hope 
 For more where there is ampler scope ; 
 
 And you will crown me with my bays, 
 Sweet sister mine, when I reach the top. 
 
 Nay, say not that I shall forget, 
 And find a dearer love than thee ; 
 
 A sweeter love was never yet 
 Than this sufficing joy in me : 
 Thou art my fulness. I shall be 
 
 But half a heart and head and will 
 
 Except thou be beside me still. 
 
 For in our being's mystery 
 
 Ever the better part thou didst fill. 
 
 Not jealous, say you? but afraid 
 
 About my principles and views ? 
 Why, it was you that first betrayed. 
 
 You little sceptic, dangerous, loose.
 
 36 LOQUITUR rilOROLD. 
 
 And unsound doctrine I but use 
 The wicked weapons that you made : 
 Even as a child you never prayed 
 
 With half my faith in those old Jews, 
 And we ne'er got the Catechism into your head. 
 
 But my Faith is not gone, although 
 At times it seems to fade away. 
 
 I would I were as long ago ; 
 
 I cling to God, and strive to say 
 The Devil and all his angels Nay : 
 
 But in the crucible of thought 
 
 Old forms dissolve, nor have I got. 
 Or seem to wish, new moulds of clay 
 To limit the boundless truth I sought. 
 
 Can the great God be aught but vague, 
 
 Bounded by no horizon, save 
 What feeble minds create to plague 
 
 Hinh Reason with ? We madlv crave
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 37 
 
 For definite truth, and make a grave, 
 Through too much certainty precise. 
 And logical distinction nice, 
 
 For all the little Faith we have. 
 Buying clear views at a terrible price. 
 
 Too dear, indeed, to part with Faith 
 
 For forms of logic about God, 
 And walk in lucid realms of death, 
 
 Whose paths incredible are trod 
 
 By no mind living. Faith's abode 
 Is mystery forevermore, 
 Its life to worship and adore. 
 
 And meekly bow beneath the rod. 
 When the day is dark, and the burden sore. 
 
 What soft, low notes float everywhere 
 
 In the soft glories of the moon ! 
 Soft winds are whispering in the air, 
 
 And murmurina; waters softlv croon
 
 38 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 
 
 To mossy banks a muffled tune ; 
 Softly a rustling fiiint is borne 
 Over the fields of waving corn, — 
 
 God's still small voice, we drown at noon, 
 ^^'hich is everywhere heard in the even and morn. 
 
 Hush ! let us go. The stars shine out. 
 
 Yonder the moonlight on the sea, — 
 The fishers spread their sails about 
 
 Its tangled rings ; from yon lime-tree 
 
 The hum of some belated bee 
 Sways as if lost ; I seem to hear 
 A boding murmur in my ear 
 
 Of coming storm. What if it be 
 Omen of tempest in my career? 
 
 Strange ! that whene'er the hour arrives, 
 ^Vhich we have longed for day and night, 
 
 To act the puri)ose of our lives. 
 Fades all the glory and the light,
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 3^ 
 
 Fails too the sense of power and might ; 
 And there are omens in the air, 
 And voices whispering Beware ! — 
 
 But never victor in the fight 
 Heeded the portents of fear and care.
 
 1001 
 
 ijr0Htr.
 
 (i^ilitorial. 
 
 She sat alone at evening by the fire 
 
 In a dim parlor panelled with brown pine, 
 
 Some sewing in her lap, — yet she sewed not, 
 
 A book in hand, — and yet she did not read, , 
 
 My Hester, as she sits beside me now, 
 
 His sister, twin in birth, in culture twin, 
 
 And with a marked unlikeness, strangely like. 
 
 For he was tall, and a black shock of hair, 
 Of stiff, rough hair, rose o'er a forehead broad 
 And noticeable, though you noticed only 
 The large gray eyes beneath, — not cruel-gray. 
 But swimming, dreamy eyes that seemed to gaze 
 Into a world of wonders far away.
 
 44 
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 And she was fair, a golden blue-eyed maid, 
 
 A slight, small girl, with the Norse aspect frank, 
 
 And sunny and intelligent, and firm 
 
 Of purpose ; for she never dreamt, or dreamt 
 
 Knowingly, swinging on an anchor held 
 
 Fast to a bottom of clearest consciousness : 
 
 A lady practical, imperative, 
 
 With mind compact and clear and self-possessed, 
 
 And reason peremptory and competent ; 
 
 Ne'er blinded by the glamour of loving thought, 
 
 And yet not less enamored with her thought, 
 
 But loyal, true, and womanly. Wherein 
 
 The unlike likeness lay you could not tell ; 
 
 But as you travailed with them day by day. 
 
 And grew familiar with their looks and ways. 
 
 And knew the tenor of their thoughts, you felt 
 
 The twain were twin alike in mind and body. 
 
 Deft is she to detect, and to dissect 
 
 Folly and foible and weakness, and with keen 
 
 Shaft of light humor, or bolt of piercing wit
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 Can reach the joints and marrow ; yet she says 
 That if her hero is but brave and true, 
 She knows herseH" to be so httle and poor, 
 And knows the world, beside, so mean and false, 
 And knows how hard the battle to be true. 
 That she bates not her faith or love or worship 
 For seams and flaws that only show him human, 
 And linked by weakness closer to our love. 
 
 And in those years her brother she adored. 
 And he was worthy ; and she loves me now ; 
 With all my sins and mine infirmities 
 At large writ in her book, she loves me still, 
 My Hester who is sitting by my side. 
 And in whose features, scanning one by one, 
 I trace, amid unlikeness, likeness strange 
 To him who halved a common life with her. 
 
 Of an old stock, lairds of the barren moorland 
 While mitred abbots lorded there supreme. 
 
 45
 
 46 EDITORIAL. 
 
 But Vikings from Norwegian fiords long 
 
 Before the cross or mitre or the hght 
 
 Of Cliristian Faith left but the names of Thor 
 
 And Thing and Balder clinging to the shores \ 
 
 In later times they gathered from the sea 
 
 Wealth that the land denied, and swept the coast 
 
 With net and yawl, and had their iron-bound fleets 
 
 Spearing the Arctic whale, whose jawbones arched 
 
 A lofty gateway to their busy wharf; 
 
 Or hunting seal, and walrus fierce in battle, 
 
 But faithful and piteous to its uncouth young : 
 
 And thereof many a stirring tale was told 
 
 Of perilous combat, touched with pathos rude, 
 
 By weather-beaten mariners at home 
 
 In the long nights beside the winter fire. 
 
 So they grew rich, and had enriched the land ; 
 
 But the last Burgher laird died young, and left 
 
 Many large ventures on the perilous sea 
 
 And in more perilous mines. His gentle widow, 
 
 Harassed by alien cares, retired at length
 
 EDITORIAL. 47 
 
 With her twin children from the wildering task, 
 Cheerfully leaving three parts of her wealth 
 Somewhere — she knew not where — in falling scrip, 
 And flooded mines, and meshes of the law. 
 
 But from that hour, a happy mother, she 
 Lived for her children, trained them faithfully 
 With generous culture to all nobleness, 
 Giving them for inheritance the wealth 
 Of the old wisdom and the new research : 
 And then she also died. Thorold and Hester 
 Were last of all the Asgards of Olrig. 
 And so she sat that evening by the fire, 
 In the dim parlor panelled with brown pine, 
 And nothing seemed to do, and nothing see, 
 But all the more she was alert to hear. 
 As if she listened eager for the coming 
 Of one who yet came not ; she only heard 
 The far-off moaning of the restless sea, 
 The nearer rippling of the lightsome brook,
 
 48 
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 The rising breeze that tossed the brown Scotch pines, 
 The rooks that cawed, high-cradled by the breeze. 
 The creak and slamming of a wicket-gate, 
 The barking of a dog in upland farm, 
 The untimely crowing of a wakeful cock, 
 And all the inexplicable sounds that haunt 
 Turret and stair, and lobbies in old houses 
 When the wind stirs o' nights. And then she felt 
 The creeping of an eerie loneliness.
 
 I^oquitur ^ciStcr. 
 
 00 he is gone, and I am left 
 Alone, and very lone it is, 
 
 To keep the dear old home bereft 
 Of all that made it home and bliss, 
 Of all on earth that I should miss. 
 
 1 almost fear my heart will break ; 
 And yet it must not, for his sake ; 
 
 But it is hard to suffer this. 
 For there 's nothing I look on but makes my heart ach; 
 
 It is like living with the dead, 
 
 These pictures, and the old arm-chair, 
 
 And all I meet when I turn my head 
 In every room, on every stair ; 
 
 3 D
 
 50 LOQUITUR HESTER. 
 
 Their eyes gaze on me everywhere, 
 And all so silent ; yet I seem 
 At times to hear, as in a dream, 
 
 Dear voices calling here and there. 
 And mocking my heart as I stitch and seam. 
 
 I must not turn a silly maid, 
 
 A feather-pated girl, the prey 
 Of weak nerves and an empty head. 
 
 That sighs through all the vacant day, 
 
 And trembles, in the evening gray, 
 Over a dull dog-eared romance. 
 To see the stealthy moonbeams glance. 
 
 Or hear the wind in crannies play, 
 Or the mice in the wainscot squeak and dance. 
 
 Why might I not have gone with him ? 
 
 We ne'er were parted heretofore ; 
 I am as strong of heart and limb : 
 
 At worst, I could not suffer more
 
 LOQUITUR HESTER. ^I 
 
 Than fretting" here. O, it was sore 
 To stand upon the windy pier, 
 And try to wave my hand, and cheer, 
 With something in my heart's wild core 
 That surged with rebellion and trouble and fear! 
 
 I deem it barbarous, this way 
 Of making woman a helpful wife 
 
 By keeping us poor girls away 
 From all the enterprise of life, 
 Its hardship, and its generous strife. 
 
 All men are Turks at heart, and hold 
 
 That sugar-plums, and rings of gold, 
 And pretty silks, and jewels rife, 
 Are all that we need till we're fat and old. 
 
 And yet they want us, ne'ertheless, 
 
 To think their thoughts, and sympathize 
 
 With all the struggle and distress 
 
 Of souls that would be true and wise,
 
 52 LOQUITUR J I ESTER. 
 
 To laud them when they win the prize, 
 To cheer them if they strive and fail, 
 And gird anew their glorious mail, 
 
 And then sink back to housewiferies, 
 To shirts and flannels, and beef and ale. 
 
 What if I were to follow him 
 
 To that great London? I have tried 
 
 To think and write, and I might swim, 
 With other minnows, by the side 
 Of the great fish that keep the tide. 
 
 A tale, a woman's touch of art, 
 
 And insight into woman's heart, 
 
 Not deeply thought, but keenly spied, 
 That were not, surely, too lofty a part. 
 
 But it would vex him ; and his love 
 Is more to me tlian all the world : 
 
 There 's nothing he dislikes above 
 A short-haired woman, frizzly, curled,
 
 LOQUITUR HESTER. 53 
 
 Her flag for woman's rights unfurled, 
 Her middle finger black with ink, 
 Her staring eyes that will not wink, 
 
 Like spectacles, — a double-barrelled 
 Terror, he says, to men that think. 
 
 So that would never do : beside. 
 
 There 's plenty other reasons. He 
 Would keep the old household by my side, 
 
 And all things as they used to be ; 
 
 The plants, and stones, and library. 
 The fossils rare, and etchings nice, 
 And other things beyond all price : 
 
 And there 's another might long for me. 
 And his evening chess-board, once or twice. 
 
 I 'm cold, and yet the night is warm \ 
 And restless, yet the hour is still ; 
 
 And haunted by a vague alarm. 
 Yet all is hopeful, and he will
 
 54 LOQUITUR HESTER. 
 
 Surely a glorious fate fulfil. 
 I dare not doubt it. He is true 
 To the high aim he has in view, 
 
 Intolerant of hoary ill, 
 But open to all that is good and new. 
 
 The doubts of venturous thought have cast 
 Uncertain shadows o'er his mind ; 
 
 His soaring spirit has not jDassed 
 Above the realm of clouds, to find 
 The light serene that lies behind : 
 
 But he is pure and undefiled, 
 
 Unworldly as a little child, 
 
 And still, amid the darkness blind, 
 Clings to the Lowly One, meek and mild. 
 
 He has a scholar's culture, hence 
 A Greek-like taste, calm, purified ; 
 
 He has the poet's delicate sense 
 Of bcautv, ever with good allied ;
 
 LOQUITUR HESTER. 55 
 
 A nature large and free and wide 
 And plastic and impressible, — 
 Too much perhaps : a stronger will, 
 
 A little more of self and pride, 
 And he would be safer from earthly ill. 
 
 And then he has more sympathy. 
 
 Perchance, with truth and beauty than 
 
 The power creative : he would be 
 A stronger, if a narrower man. 
 Less balanced ; for his equal plan, 
 
 Diffused on all sides from his youth. 
 
 Unto all wisdom, grace, and truth. 
 Into most just proportions ran. 
 With risk of being only graceful and smooth. 
 
 A perfect critic of all good, 
 
 But longing ever to be more : ■ 
 Well understanding every mood 
 
 Of genius, finding every door
 
 56 LOQUITUR HESTER. 
 
 Of knowledge open, and the lore 
 Of ages to his insight free, 
 For he has still the master-key ; 
 
 Yet would he launch out from the shore, 
 And plough for himself an untravelled sea. 
 
 And there is risk that such a mind 
 Shall be too nice and delicate, 
 
 And in its equipoise may find 
 A very impotence, and wait. 
 Nor ever dare a glorious fate, 
 
 The sense of fine perfection still 
 
 Embarrassing the purposed will, 
 Until the shadows gather late, 
 And the mist is folded about the hill. 
 
 Yet if he were not what he is, 
 
 I could not love him then as now : 
 
 It were another mind than his, 
 Other, not better than, I trow :
 
 LOQUITUR HESTER. 57 
 
 He hath such courage to avow 
 His foiths, such knowledge to impart, 
 Such boundless sympathy with Art, 
 
 Such fancies, like the blossomed bough 
 That clasps the fruit in its fragrant heart. 
 
 Then he is brave and beautiful 
 
 In manhood, radiant with the might 
 
 Of that rich life and grace which rule 
 The admiration and delight 
 Of Fashion, — witty, airy, bright: 
 
 I dread for him a woman's wiles. 
 
 And cunning arts, and winsome smiles. 
 And trifling with the heart and right, 
 Tangling his love in her loveless toils. 
 
 I would not have him not to love 
 
 Another, dearer life than mine : 
 Let but a maiden worthy prove. 
 
 And with his love my love shall twine 
 3*
 
 58 LOQUITUR HESTER. 
 
 To clothe her with a joy divine. 
 But he esteems all women pure, 
 Can spy no craft in looks demure, 
 
 Holds them all angels good that pine 
 For heaven in a world they strive to cure. 
 
 And so I fear for him ; T dread 
 
 That he may set his love on one 
 With little either of heart or head 
 
 Save what he dowers her with, and run 
 
 After a shadow in the sun, 
 Only to learn his weary fate 
 When the great heart is desolate, 
 
 And the fire burns, and there is none 
 Cometh to cheer him early or late. 
 
 And once I feared that he had placed 
 His all on such a chance. And she — 
 
 The grand, fine lady, scarcely graced 
 With outsides of hypocrisy — •
 
 LOQUITUR HESTER. ^g 
 
 True to the flesh she seemed to be : 
 And yet he made a god of her, 
 And 'girt her with an atmosphere 
 Of incense, light, and poesie, — 
 But the glory was all in the worshipper. 
 
 'T is strange, the finest insight still 
 Seems blindest to a woman's art. 
 
 The base get love unto their fill ; 
 The noble thirst for that true heart 
 Whereto they may their life impart. 
 
 And find in it their solace meet : 
 
 But clothing with their fancies sweet 
 A wanton or a fool, they start 
 To know in their love but their sorrow complete. 
 
 Out of the world he lives afar 
 
 In chivalrous ideal trust. 
 Enshrining woman like a star 
 
 For worship of the good and just,
 
 6o LOQUITUR HESTER. 
 
 Where no unworlliy thought or lust 
 May enter with unhalhjwed tread ; 
 And though he has a sister made, 
 Like other girls, of sorry dust, 
 He never would see that our gold was but lead. 
 
 O if men knew us only, — knew 
 
 The cowardice and commonplace, 
 The petty circle of our view. 
 
 The meanness and the littleness 
 
 That lie behind a pretty ftice ! 
 Thank heaven, I was not bred with girls, 
 A thing of ribbons, scents, and curls, 
 
 And quaint in fancies of a dress, 
 And gold and jewels and strings of pearls. 
 
 Our mother trained me up with him 
 To love the right, the truth to speak, 
 
 The scholar's thoughtful lamp to trim, 
 
 And trace the rhythm of numbered Greek,
 
 LOQUITUR HESTER. 6 1 
 
 And in the world of God to seek 
 Wisdom in knowledge of his ways, 
 And gladness in the song of praise 
 Which rises from the strong and weak 
 To the Father that keepeth us all our days. 
 
 And this, at least, I've learnt, that man 
 
 Can be more godlike far than we, 
 And never is more glorious than 
 
 When bending low a suppliant knee 
 
 In his pure-hearted chivalry. 
 Entranced with his own spell of might, 
 Blind with his own exuberant light. 
 
 Lost in love's rapture and ecstasy, 
 Which girls only trifle with, day and night. 
 
 Therefore I fear his life may be 
 
 A disenchantment day by clay, 
 A glory that he seems to see. 
 
 Only to see it fade away •
 
 62 LOQUITUR HESTER. 
 
 And then perchance he may not play 
 The great part that he wouUi in life, 
 But waste hhn in a petty strife 
 With little cares, and be the prey 
 Of fretful thoughts, and a foolish wife. 
 
 Then will he die, and leave no trace 
 
 Of all the great work he has schemed ; 
 And men will say for such a race 
 
 He has not trained, but only dreamed ; 
 
 7\.nd that pure liglit of heaven which streamed 
 Along his morning pilgrimage. 
 Broadening and brightening every stage, 
 
 No forecast true shall be esteemed 
 Of the battle which genius has to wage. 
 
 Hence, idle fear ! He 's brave and true. 
 With patient toil as well as fire ; 
 
 What fruitful effort can, he '11 do 
 
 To crown with triumph high desire.
 
 LOQUITUR HESTER. 63 
 
 And make the wondering world admire, 
 And win himself a lofty name. 
 Yet what were all the pride of Fame 
 If he were linked in bondage dire 
 To a heartless flirt, or a haughty dame ! 
 
 The Herr Professor says I 'm not 
 
 Just to the croqueting, crocheting kind 
 
 Of girls ; for they fulfil their lot 
 
 Like flowers which w-ant no subtle mind, 
 But waft their sweetness on the wind, 
 
 And flash their beauty on the eye. 
 
 And bloom, and ripen, and then die ; 
 And they are lovely, and we are blind 
 If we think that the world is not better thereby. 
 
 Maybe I am not just to them ; 
 
 Maybe I ask more mind and heart ; 
 Maybe a woman, like a gem. 
 
 Is but a bawble of precious art,
 
 64 LOQUITUR HESTER. 
 
 And as a toy should play her part. 
 God meant her for an helpmeet true, 
 But men have (^uite another view : 
 
 Let her bright eyes like diamonds dart, 
 And she may be hard as the diamond too. 
 
 Yet one may harden, he avers, 
 
 By thought as well as thoughtlessness ; 
 And women's minds may equal theirs, 
 
 Have wit as keen, nor reason less ; 
 
 Only they will not bear the stress 
 Of manly toil, and keep the good 
 Pure quality of womanhood : 
 
 And logic is not more than dress 
 For the sweetening of life in its weary mood. 
 
 The Herr Professor speaks indeed 
 Many odd quips and crusty jokes. 
 
 He vows that I have too much creed 
 To have much faith, and daily shocks
 
 LOQUITUR HESTER. 65 
 
 My thought with some mad paradox ; 
 And in the ancient truth he sees 
 But an old bunch of rusty keys 
 
 Hung at the belt of the Orthodox, 
 To open a dungeon which they call Peace. 
 
 And yet I know he loveth much, 
 
 And walks with God in truth and right ; 
 And if the world had many such, 
 
 It were indeed a world of light, 
 
 All radiant with a glory bright: 
 And sometimes, in his quaintest words, 
 He seems to touch the deepest chords. 
 
 And with a master's skill and might 
 Holds high discourse of the Lord of lords. 
 
 But, psha ! what matters what he thinks ? 
 
 And yet why do my thoughts still veer, 
 As drawn to him by subtle links 
 
 Of yearning hope, and trembling fear 
 
 E
 
 66 LOQUITUR J J ESTER. 
 
 How in his sight I shall appear? 
 And wherefore do I watch for him 
 In the elm-tree walk at evening dim, 
 As he comes singing loud and clear 
 A Burschen song or a Luther hymn ? 
 
 Can this be love ? and could I charge 
 
 Thorold that he would by and by 
 Love with a love more deep and large 
 
 Than sister's love could satisfy ? 
 
 And all the while, alas ! was I 
 But taxing him to liidc my own 
 Lapse into passionate depths unknown ? 
 
 Nay, but this foolish thought would die 
 If I were not left Here brooding alone. 
 
 And yet I know not. Heretofore 
 
 I used to bring my thoughts to book, 
 
 And opened every chamber door. 
 
 And searched my soul through every nook ;
 
 LOQUITUR HESTER. 67 
 
 But into this I shrank to look : 
 It came with silent, owly flight 
 In the still quiet of the night ; 
 
 I heard the wind, I heard the brook, 
 But the love slid into my soul like light. 
 
 And when I found it nestling there, 
 
 Like swallow twittering in the eaves. 
 It felt like summer warm and fair, 
 
 And blossomy spray, and fragrant leaves. 
 
 A cosey nest my bright bird weaves, — 
 My bird which is but a German swallow, 
 Guttural-speaking, big and sallow : 
 
 Only his heart with great thought heaves. 
 And there's naught in him little or poor or shallow. 
 
 Am I ashamed to say I love. 
 
 Yet proud of him I love so well? 
 O strange proud shame ! yet hand and glove 
 
 Could fit no better, truth to tell.
 
 68 LOQUITUR HESTER. 
 
 I used to laugh at girls who fell 
 Blusliing and lying time about, 
 And sware 1 would love out and out, 
 Or not at all ; yet now the spell 
 Holds me in transport and terror and doubt. 
 
 What can it mean, this love and fear. 
 
 This open shame and secret i)ride. 
 The yearning gladness, and the tear 
 
 That comes so often by its side ; 
 
 This thought we fondle while we hide, 
 This trembling dread when he is late. 
 And pouting joy that makes him wait. 
 
 And passion passionately denied, 
 And the feeling of overmastering Fate ? 
 
 I will to Thorold's room. Nay, that 
 I may not. Last niglit I went there, 
 
 And the pale moon in silence sat 
 So ghostly on the great arm-chair,
 
 LOQUITUR HESTER. 69 
 
 And the mice pattered here and there, 
 And the wind in the chimney moaned, 
 And the old pine at the window groaned, 
 
 And something stepped the creaking stair. 
 I dare not sit in the room he owned. 
 
 Come back, come back, my brother dear : 
 The storm is gathering on thy way. 
 
 And mine is no more calm and clear ; 
 The mist is creeping dull and gray 
 O'er surfy beach and troubled bay, 
 
 And I am friendless and alone. 
 
 And doubtful of myself, with none 
 To counsel me ; and day by day 
 Fear is chilling my heart like stone. 
 
 Am I grown fanciful, to muse 
 
 On school-girl whimseys foolishly? 
 
 What should I fear, except to lose 
 The great true heart that loveth me
 
 70 LOQUITUR HESTER. 
 
 Better than I deserve to be, 
 With tender strength and manly care, 
 And modest hope his lot to share, 
 
 And share his thoughts, too, high and free, 
 And bear all the burden which he must bear? 
 
 To mine own soul let me be true ; 
 
 I love my love by night and day, 
 I love my love, — the sound is new, 
 
 But O, how sweet it is to say ! 
 
 I love my love, — it is like play. 
 But yet I love with heart and mind, 
 And passion trembling, fond and blind ; 
 
 I love my love in Love's old way. 
 And ever in loving new life I find. 
 
 I cannot rest ; he cometh not ; 
 
 And yet, a little while ago. 
 What wildest fancy could have thought 
 
 A day of tumult and of woe
 
 LOQUITUR HESTER. 71 
 
 Among the peoples, stricken low, 
 Who rose up in a wrath divine. 
 On Seine, the Danube, and the Rhine, 
 Would shoot, in that volcanic glow, 
 A flame from their heart to kindle mine ? 
 
 I should as soon have looked to see 
 
 Some bright star from the stormy heaven 
 Glide down to earth, and rest on me. 
 
 From all its glorious comrades riven. 
 
 So strangely fates are interwoven ! 
 And how he loves his Deutsch-land dear. 
 Its patient thought, that knows no fear. 
 
 Its Luther, Goethe, Heine, given 
 For lights to the ages far and near. 
 
 I will go forth. The moonlight dim 
 Dusks with broad shade the silent hill ; 
 
 I will go up, and think of him, 
 
 Where the old brook is tinkling still.
 
 72 LOQUITUR JJESTER. 
 
 With memories of our water-mill; — 
 I think he sometimes strolls that way, 
 With pipe and book at evening gray ; 
 Lut memories of childhood will 
 Pleasantly wind up a weary day.
 
 !00k Cljirtr.
 
 Lady Anne Dewhurst on a crimson couch 
 Lay, with a rug of sable o'er her Icnees, 
 In a bright boudoir in Belgravia; 
 Most perfectly arrayed in shapely robe 
 Of sumptuous satin, lit up here and there 
 With scarlet touches, and with costly lace 
 Nice-fingered maidens knotted in Brabant : 
 And all around her spread magnificence 
 Of bronzes, Sevres vases, marquetrie. 
 Rare buhl, and bric-a-brac of every kind. 
 From Rome and Paris and the centuries 
 Of far-off beauty. All of goodly color, 
 Or graceful form that could delight the eye,
 
 76 EDITORIAL. 
 
 In orderly disorder lay around, 
 
 And flowers with perfume scented the warm air. 
 
 Stately and large and beautiful she was, 
 
 Spite of her sixty summers, with an eye 
 
 Trained to soft languors, that could also flash 
 
 Keen as a sword and sharp, — a black bright eye. 
 
 Deep sunk beneath an arch of jet. She had 
 
 A weary look, and yet the w'eariness 
 
 Seemed not so native as the worldliness 
 
 Which blended with it. Weary and worldly, she 
 
 Had quite resigned herself to misery 
 
 In this sad vale of tears, but fully meant 
 
 To nurse her sorrow in a sumptuous fashion. 
 
 And make it an expensive luxury ; 
 
 For nothing she esteemed that nothing cost. 
 
 Beside her, on a table round, inlaid 
 
 With precious stones by Roman art designed, 
 
 Lay i^hials, scents, a novel, and a Bible,
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 A pill-box and a wineglass, and a book 
 
 On the Apocalypse ; for she was much 
 
 Addicted unto physic and religion, 
 
 And her physician had prescribed for her 
 
 Jellies and wines and cheerful literature. 
 
 The book on the Apocalypse was writ 
 
 By her chosen pastor, and she took the novel 
 
 With the dry sherry, and the pills prescribed. 
 
 A gorgeous, pious, comfortable life 
 
 Of misery she lived ; and all the sins 
 
 Of all her house, and all the nation's sins. 
 
 And all shortcomings of the Church and State, 
 
 And all the sins of all the world beside. 
 
 Bore as her special cross, confessing them 
 
 Vicariously day by day, and then 
 
 She comforted her heart, which needed it, 
 
 With bric-a-brac and jelly and old wine. 
 
 Beside the fire, her elbow on the mantle. 
 And forehead resting on her finger-tips. 
 
 77
 
 78 EDITORIAL. 
 
 Shading a face where sometimes loomed a frown, 
 
 And sometimes flashed a gleam of bitter scorn, 
 
 Her daughter stood ; no more a graceful girl, 
 
 But in the glory of her womanhood, 
 
 Stately and haughty. One who might have been 
 
 A noble woman in a nobler world. 
 
 But i^ow was only woman of her world, 
 
 With just enough of better thought to know 
 
 It was not noble, and despise it all, 
 
 And most herself for making it her all. 
 
 A w^oman, complex, intricate, involved ; 
 
 Wrestling with self, yet still by self subdued ; 
 
 Scorning herself for being what she was, 
 
 And yet unable to be that she would ; 
 
 Uneasy with the sense of possible good 
 
 Never attained, nor sought, except in fits 
 
 Ending in failures ; conscious, too, of power 
 
 Which found no purpose to direct its force, 
 
 And so came back upon herself, and grew 
 
 An inward fret. The caired bird sometimes dashed
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 79 
 
 Against the wires, and sometimes sat and pined, 
 But mainly pecked her sugar, and eyed her glass, 
 And trilled her graver thoughts away in song. 
 
 Mother and daughter, — yet a childless mother, 
 And motherless her daughter; for the world 
 Had gashed a chasm between, impassable. 
 And they had naught in common, neither love. 
 Nor hate, nor anything except a name. 
 Yet both were of the world ; and she not least 
 Whose world was the religious one, and stretched 
 A kind of isthmus 'tween the Devil and God, 
 A slimy, oozy mud, where mandrakes grew. 
 Ghastly, with intertwisted roots, and things 
 Amphibious haunted, and the leathern bat 
 Flickered about its twilight evermore.
 
 I^oqititur piittcr Pomina. 
 
 O O there you are at last. Please, draw 
 That odious curtain, will you ? Do. 
 A hideous thing as e'er I saw ! 
 
 It gives one such a corpse-like hue. 
 But I might be a corpse for you : 
 It's little any of you cares 
 How your heart-broken mother fares, 
 Burdened with sorrows old and new, 
 As the world entangles you all in its snares. 
 
 Please, no excuse : it does no good. 
 
 Of course, you have j-our morning calls. 
 Your shopping, and your listless mood 
 
 After late dinners, drums, and balls ;
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. gl 
 
 My world is these four weary walls, 
 My body, but an aching back. 
 My life, a torture on the rack. 
 
 My thoughts, like dizzying waterfalls 
 That never will silence, or change, or slack. 
 
 I get my jellies, soups, and stews, 
 
 My little wine, — what need I more ? 
 My morning paper with the news 
 
 That everybody knew before. 
 
 I hear the street calls, and the roar 
 Of the town traffic, and the clash 
 Of milk-bells, and the angry crash 
 
 Of brass bands, and the drowsy snore 
 Of an organ as dull as the flat sea-wash. 
 
 And then the night falls, and the clock 
 Ticks on the mantel, and the wheels 
 
 Crunch the hard gravel, as the flock 
 Of weary revellers homeward reels, 
 
 4 * TS
 
 82 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 
 
 Until the opal morning steals 
 Up in the sky. So, clay by day, 
 My life crawls on its dreary way ; 
 
 No hope it stirs, no joy it feels ; 
 But it's all like a foggy November day: 
 
 A gray fog in the early jDrime, 
 A blue fog by the breakfast-hour, 
 
 A saffron fog at luncheon-time, 
 At dinner a persistent shower 
 ttf?^mut, and then a dismal power 
 
 Of choking darkness and despair 
 
 Thickening and soddening all the air:- 
 But we are all a fading flower. 
 And life is a burden of sorrow and care. 
 
 I don't complain ; it is the lot 
 Appointed me by wisdom best : 
 
 'T is meet that I should be forgot 
 By all of you, and learn to rest
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. \ 
 
 Content, while ye have mirth and jest, 
 And I religion. Still I feel; 
 I hide the wounds I cannot heal, 
 
 I keep my sorrow unexpressed, — 
 But I 'm not quite so hard as a lump of steel. 
 
 My nerves are not just wires and cords, 
 
 I 'm not a mere rhinoceros 
 Where arrows stick as in deal boards. 
 
 And bullets fall as soft as moss. 
 
 My patient heart can bear its cross, 
 And bleed unseen, — but still it bleeds. 
 And all the more that no one heeds, 
 
 And all the more to see your loss 
 Of all sound religious views and creeds. 
 
 O, were I only dead and gone ! 
 
 It 's hard to live, and see the way 
 That all of you are hurrying on 
 
 Blindly unto the dreadful day.
 
 84 LOQUITUR MATER DOM IN A. 
 
 You prate of fossils, while I pray, 
 And beetles occupy your heart 
 More than its own Immortal part : 
 
 Your father's hairs are turning gray, 
 In this impious babble of science and art. 
 
 Poor fools ! that fain would break a spear 
 With Moses and the Pentateuch, 
 
 And only blinded reason hear, 
 And will no revelation brook, 
 Nor miracle nor inspired Book! 
 
 But for some sweet refreshing showers 
 
 Of doctrine, during Sabbath hours, 
 
 'T would break my heart on you to look ; 
 But the Book and Day are still happily ours. 
 
 Ah ! what were life without the Book ? 
 
 And what this world without its story? 
 And what were man, if he forsook 
 
 The Sabbath, foretaste of heaven's glory ?
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 8$ 
 
 A den of wild beasts, dark and gory ! 
 A being quite devoid of grace, 
 A heatlien with a tattooed face, 
 
 That burns his widows ! I implore you, 
 Set your heart, Rose, in the proper place. 
 
 But you have no religion, — none. 
 
 It is the heart that 's wrong, my dear : 
 If you had not a heart of stone, 
 
 You could not leave me lonely here. 
 
 And men may do who have not clear 
 Decided views ; they go about 
 The Clubs, and hear who's in and out, 
 
 And which is " Favorite " this year. 
 And bet, and are dreadfully wicked, no doubt. 
 
 But women who have lost their Faith 
 Are angels who have lost their wings, 
 
 And ahvays have a nasty breath 
 Of chemistry, and horrid things
 
 86 LOQUITUR MATER DO MI N A. 
 
 That go off when a lecturer rings 
 His bell. — But they will not go off; 
 They take a mission or a cough ; 
 For men will marry a fool that sings 
 Sooner than one that has learnt to scoff. 
 
 You don't believe me : you go in 
 For science, culture, common sense, 
 
 And think a woman sure to win 
 
 Because she knows tlie why and whence, 
 And looks at vermin through a lens: 
 
 And yet you 've seen a score of girls 
 
 With empty heads, and silly curls, 
 
 And laughter light, and judgment dense, 
 Wedded to INIarquises, Dukes, and Earls. 
 
 And why ? They started fair with you : 
 You dressed as well, — for that was mine; 
 
 You were as handsome and well-born, too, 
 And you had wit like sparkling wine :
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 87 
 
 But they all took to things divine 
 Like sober, pious girls. I know 
 That some were High Church, and would go, 
 
 Like nuns, with beads and crosses fine, — 
 But they all were wives in a season or so. 
 
 Men may be bad, but still they like 
 
 A pious wife that lives for heaven ; 
 Your wit may shine, your beauty strike, 
 
 But not to these their love is given. 
 
 Ah ! had you with your Prayer-Book driven 
 To church, and kept a Sunday-school, 
 And visited, and lived by rule — 
 
 But that is past and all forgiven, 
 Though you played your cards like a perfect fool. 
 
 You cannot be a hypocrite, 
 
 To mumble out a false remorse. 
 And wear a look of prim conceit 
 
 Only to be the winning horse? —
 
 88 LOQUITUR MATER DOM IN A. 
 
 Of course you cannot, and of course 
 I never meant you should. But yet, 
 You might feel true grief and regret 
 
 For sin ; and could be none the worse 
 For the strawberry leaves in a coronet. 
 
 You wonder at me, with my views 
 Of doctrine sound, and worship pure. 
 
 That I should plead the least excuse 
 For girls whom Romish arts allure, 
 Through Ritualism to Babylon sure. 
 
 But did I say their views were right? 
 
 Or did I call their darkness light ? 
 Or did I only try to cure 
 Your heart, which is turned from the Gospel quite? 
 
 It's grace you need. Rose, to illume 
 Your darkened nature. What an age 
 
 Since I have seen you in my room ! 
 Though I have nothing to engage
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 89 
 
 My thoughts, except the sacred page, 
 And that sweet book which is so clear 
 Upon the Beast and his numbered year : — 
 Yet all the while there 's quite a rage 
 For some wonderful May-fair novel, I hear. 
 
 And after all I have done for you! — 
 
 But daughters are not what they were, 
 And you are only proving true 
 What all the Prophets do aver. 
 O, had you heard our minister 
 Upon The Signs of the End, and how 
 The children of the saints shall grow 
 Still wickeder and wickeder ! — 
 Till all to the Beast and the Woman shall bow. 
 
 That is the worst part of my trial : 
 
 But prophecy must be fulfilled, 
 And we are in the Seventh Vial, 
 
 The Witnesses will soon be killed,
 
 90 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 
 
 And all the land with blood be filled 
 And Papists ; and a cruel fote 
 Shall separate the Church and State, 
 
 And then more blood is to be spilled 
 By the Frogs, — that's your Radical friends of late. 
 
 It 's clear the Woman and the Beast 
 
 Are Buonaparte and the Pope ; 
 The Prophets won't explain the least 
 
 Without them ; they 're the merest rope 
 
 Of sand in that case : and I hope 
 I know my Bible. Still the Book 
 Is sealed, and you shall vainly look 
 
 To find its meaning and its scope. 
 If the Jews don't return, and the Pentateuch. 
 
 Ah ! we had such a sermon on it ! — 
 The Vicar's wife she was not there ; 
 
 She had not got her new spring bonnet — 
 But all the world was. Do you care
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. gi 
 
 For the new mode ? You blondes mvist wear 
 Pink, shaped Hke tuiy Httle shells ; 
 So natural ! with silver bells. — 
 
 But that great sermon ! I declare, 
 I can't for the world think of anything else. 
 
 So searching and pathetic ! He 
 
 Soaked two clean handkerchiefs in tears, 
 While clearing up the prophecy, 
 
 The mystic number, and the years. 
 
 And Daniel ; and it still appears 
 That this Napoleon is the Beast 
 That was and wasn't, you know: at least 
 
 The Armageddon swords and spears 
 Were long ago shipped from Marseilles to the East. 
 
 Nay, tell me not you do not care 
 
 Although the end of the world were come. 
 
 It's very wicked to despair; 
 
 You should be gentle, patient, dumb,
 
 92 LOQUITUR MATER DOMTVA. 
 
 Thinking that any day the hum 
 Of myriad angels, saintly crowds, 
 With rainbow trimmings round their shrouds, 
 
 May greet you at a kettle-drum, 
 Coming in glory among the clouds. 
 
 We live in wondrous times ; such times 
 
 The world has never seen before ; 
 With earthquakes in the tropic climes, 
 
 And kingdoms shaken to the core, 
 
 And revolutions at our door ; 
 And Kings and Queens discrowned appear 
 In London every other year, 
 
 While Barons clothed in rags implore 
 You to buy pens and sealing-wax dreadful dear. 
 
 And Ritualists our Church defile. 
 And Rationalists our faith deny, 
 
 And Papist nuns and chaplains wile 
 Our very thieves in jail. And I
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 93 
 
 Went to a chapel once hard by, 
 And heard a Non-conformist say 
 The Sabbath was a mere Jewish day! 
 I left, of course, and had to fly 
 In the rain, but I hailed a cab by the way. 
 
 And there 's your " Robertson of Brighton," 
 
 He's lying now on every table, 
 With " Ecce Homo " to enlighten 
 
 Our carnal hearts, and minds unstable. 
 
 We have no anchor now or cable ; 
 Our admirable Liturgy, 
 Our very Bible, is not free 
 
 From criticism lamentable ; 
 And everybody is all at sea. 
 
 What next? The land is rotten quite, 
 
 And infidel and Papist too : 
 There 's Gladstone ruled by Mr. Bright, 
 
 The very Bishops hardly true,
 
 94 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 
 
 And the Queen knows not what to do. 
 But prophecy is coming clear, 
 The awful end is drawing near, 
 And bitterly this land will rue 
 The way it has treated the Jews, I fear. 
 
 Last week our Vicar plainly told — 
 He's a converted Jew, I know — 
 
 How seven fine ladies should lay hold 
 Even on the man that cries " Old Clo'," 
 To save them in the day of woe ; 
 
 And proved it from the Prophets clear. 
 
 So then I thought I 'd ask you, dear, — 
 The poor man looked so shabby and low, 
 If you knew any Jew of the better class here. 
 
 For though all Israel shall be saved, 
 And all the lost tribes found again, 
 
 And all be proper and well behaved. 
 And all be free from sorrow and pain ;
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 95 
 
 Yet even in heaven, it is quite plain, 
 As stars with different glory shine, 
 There shall be people poor and fine. 
 
 For perfect order there shall reign : 
 And one would not like to go over the line. 
 
 You did not come to speak of Jews — 
 They 're Charlie's friends, and he can tell ; 
 
 Nor yet about the Vicar's views 
 Of millennarian heaven or hell: — 
 My dear, that 's hardly spoken well. 
 
 But what, then, did you come about ? 
 
 A call, a lecture, or a rout? 
 A flower, a beetle, or a shell ? 
 Or a prodigy found in some country lout? 
 
 Eh ! What say you ? That puling boy 
 With the Scotch brogue and hungry look? 
 
 Your genius whom you made a toy 
 Last winter at your drums, and took
 
 g6 LOQUITUR MATER DOMLVA. 
 
 About with you by hook or crook ! 
 Tush, tush ! I do not hke your set : 
 But what's come of the baronet? 
 As for the writer of a book, 
 You 're not come quite to the curates yet. 
 
 O yes, you love him; that's of course : 
 It 's your fifth season, is n't it, dear ? 
 
 But really you are little worse : — 
 And I am sure you loved last year 
 Sir Wilfred with his rent-roll clear. — 
 
 A person at St. John's Wood ? Shame ! 
 
 No proper girl should ever name 
 A person there or person here ; 
 And, no doubt, she is the one to blame. 
 
 They always are, these creatures. Ah ! 
 
 This wicked world we 're living in ! 
 There sliould be some severer law 
 
 For low-born creatures who would win
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. gy 
 
 Youth over to the ways of sin. 
 But there 's that shameful Act which frees 
 Their vice from want and from disease, 
 
 Although they neither toil nor spin, — 
 Right in the face of all heaven's decrees. 
 
 It 's shameful, shocking ; quite enough 
 
 To bring down on us wrath divine ; 
 I don't care for their facts and stuff, 
 
 I won't believe a single line. 
 
 I know it's sin. And I opine 
 Gladstone our morals means to sap, 
 And then, his wickedness to cap. 
 
 The House of Lords he'll undermine 
 And bring in the Pope like a thunder-clap. 
 
 All men are dreadful wicked. Sad 
 
 It is to say it; but it's true; 
 You hardly would believe how bad ; 
 
 So bad that it would never do 
 
 5 G
 
 g8 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 
 
 If girls before their marriage knew. 
 And if you will be prude and nice 
 And will go poking into vice, 
 
 And shying when it comes in view, 
 You will never be married at any price. 
 
 Now, hear me, Rose : give up at once 
 
 Your silly fancy for this boy 
 Whom you have led an idle dance, 
 
 I dare say, only to annoy 
 
 Sir Wilfred ; and for once employ 
 The arts that others use for sin 
 His erring heart again to win 
 
 Back to a purer life and joy. 
 Which you're certain to do if you '11 just begin. 
 
 Be patient now ; leave all to me ; 
 
 Don't fiy off in a girlish hufif. 
 You'll need a new dress, — let me see, — 
 
 Of some soft, lustrous, dainty stuff;
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 99 
 
 Made Christian-like and low enough, — 
 You did not get a bust like this 
 To hide like some raw country miss, — 
 
 Say poplin of a delicate buff; 
 With Honiton lace, for a taste like his ; 
 
 You never yet knew how to dress, 
 
 You never have a gown to fit. 
 Your things are always in a mess 
 
 That 's shocking, even to look at it ; 
 
 Your colors somehow never hit, 
 They never match themselves nor you ; 
 They 're always out of fashion too ; 
 
 And as for gloves, you must admit 
 They 're just the one thing that you cannot do. 
 
 Anyhow, leave all that to me. 
 
 Could I but see you settled well, 
 As, sure, my daughter ought to be, 
 
 I 'd die in peace unspeakable.
 
 lOO LOQUITUR MATER DOMJNA. 
 
 Why am I here ? why do I dwell 
 In this unhappy world ? unless 
 To help my children, and express 
 
 Undying faith in principle, — 
 Though I don't like your baronet's quite, I confess. 
 
 He wants to open the Museum 
 
 Upon the blessed Sabbath-day; 
 He wants the bands to play " Te Deum " 
 
 When we should go to church and pray; 
 
 It will be masses next, I say ; — 
 His views of sin are far from sound ; 
 Eternal punishment, I found. 
 
 He will not hear of; and his way 
 Is altogether on dangerous ground. 
 
 But then, woe's me! you're all the same; 
 
 All turned from Bible-teaching quite, 
 All snared in folly, sin, and shame, 
 
 And blinded to the only light.
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. loi 
 
 4nd he at least is of the right 
 Old blood, and has an income nice, 
 And never touches cards or dice 
 Or horses. It 's a happy sight, 
 A man of his rank with a single vice. 
 
 It 's wonderful, most wonderful, 
 
 The times we 're living in ! And yet 
 
 We 're born, and christened, and go to school, 
 And marry Lord or Baronet, 
 And dress and dine, and vex and fret. 
 
 And strive the tide of Fate to stem 
 
 Which Prophets had revealed to them. 
 And never think the times are set 
 For the Jews' going back to Jerusalem. 
 
 The Prophets say that there shall be 
 A Highway and a Way : we read 
 
 Also of ships upon the sea. 
 
 Made of bulrushes ; and we need,
 
 I02 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 
 
 Unless you think I 'm blind indeed, 
 Unless I 'm blinder than a bat, 
 No prophet to interpret that. 
 
 With a steamboat running at full speed 
 On the Suez Canal, like a water-rat. 
 
 There could not be a clearer sign 
 
 That now the end draws near in view. 
 And that it 's Providence' design 
 
 To bring deliverance to the Jew, 
 
 And break their bonds. — Now, shame on you 
 To scofif with your unhallowed wit ; 
 There 's almost blasphemy in it : — 
 
 I don't mean bonds of I O U, 
 Such as Charlie gives when he's badly hit. 
 
 But wherefore speak of things like these 
 To things like you, who heed no more 
 
 The murmur of prophetic breeze 
 Than creaking of a rusty door ?
 
 LOQUITUR MATER DOMINA. 103 
 
 You walk along the solemn shore 
 Washed by the tide of awful doom, 
 While lights and shadows flash and gloom, 
 
 And neither wonder nor adore. 
 But stamp and "pshaw" through the drawing-room.
 
 .00k Jourtlj, 
 
 5*
 
 eft) ito rial. 
 
 I will not answer for my wife's reports ; 
 Quite true, no doubt, in the main, as true at least 
 As the most excellent women can report 
 People they don't much like ; not meant to bear 
 Law3'er's cross-questioning, which they detest 
 With a good conscience, conscious that they speak 
 True to the idea, if the facts hang loose 
 At one point, at another have been joined 
 Ingeniously. Men are so troublesome! 
 Rose was not faultless, as her lovers swore, 
 Nor yet so faulty as my Hester thought : 
 Women judge women hardly ; hit perchance 
 The likeness true enough by instinct keen
 
 lo8 EDirOKIAI. 
 
 That, piecing trivial incidents, detects 
 
 The soul of character ; but they have no shading, 
 
 No softening tints, no generous allowance 
 
 For circumstance, to make the picture human, 
 
 And true because so human. Rose was human ; 
 
 And for a woman born of such a mother. 
 
 And for a woman reared in such a world, 
 
 And for a woman dowered with queenly beauty 
 
 Set out for sale, and buzzed by flatterers 
 
 All her lifelong, was even womanly, 
 
 And better truly than she might have been. 
 
 So stately as she left my lady's chamber, 
 
 Her full eyes flashing scorn, yet with her scorn 
 
 Contending to retain a mother still. 
 
 If no more shrined in natural reverence. 
 
 Yet cloaked with charit}'. But in the hall 
 
 Her heart failed, and she pressed her forehead flushed 
 
 On the cold fluting of a marble pillar. 
 
 And wept to feel her life so desolate,
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 109 
 
 And wept still more because the world had made it 
 
 So desolate, yet was the world her all ; 
 
 She loathed it, but she knew it was her all. 
 
 Thus she with passionate rebellion wept, 
 
 Printing the fluted pillar on her brow, 
 
 And then with weary, lifeless steps she went 
 
 Heavily to her father's chamber door. 
 
 The Squire was banished to a little room 
 That overlooked a paved court and a mews. 
 A small, close chamber, lined with dusty books 
 And dingy maps ; and savage crania 
 Grinned from high shelves, with clubs and arrow-heads 
 And tools of flint, and shields of hide embossed. 
 There were great cobwebs on the windows dim. 
 Where bloated spiders watched their webs, and heard 
 The blue-fly knock his head against the pane. 
 And buzz about their snares. And through the room, 
 On table and chair, were globes and glasses tall, 
 Retorts and crucibles, electric jars
 
 no EDITORIAL. 
 
 And batteries, and microscopes and prisms 
 And balances, and fossil plants and shells, 
 Disorderly and dusty ; and the floor 
 Was carpeted with papers and thick dust, — 
 Papers and books and instruments and dust. 
 
 A gray old man sat in that dim gray room 
 Wrapt in a dressing-gown of soft gray stuff, 
 And puzzling o'er a paper wearily 
 Of circles, squares, and pentagons, and lines 
 Of logarithms, he strove to disentangle. 
 He was a little, brisk, bald-headed man, 
 With fiery eyes, and forehead narrow and high 
 And far-retiring : one who could have led 
 A regiment to the belching cannon's mouth 
 If wisely ordered when ; or might have headed 
 The cheery hunt across the stubble field, 
 Taking the fences gallantly, nor turning 
 From the wide brook to seek the safer ford. 
 But being held in London half the year.
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And with no taste for politics or fashion, 
 
 Or such rehgion as he came across, 
 
 He took to Science, made experiments, 
 
 Bought many nice and costly instruments, 
 
 Heard lectures, and believed he understood 
 
 Beetle-browed Science wrestling with the fact 
 
 To find its meaning clear ; but all in vain. 
 
 He thought he thought, and yet he did not think, 
 
 But only echoed still the common thought. 
 
 As might an empty room. The forehead high 
 
 And fiery eye had no reflection in them 
 
 To brood and hatch the secret of the world. 
 
 He could but skim and dip, like restless swallow 
 
 Fly-catching on the surface of all knowledge 
 
 Anthro{)ologic and Botanical 
 
 And Chemical, and what was last set forth 
 
 By charlatan to stun the vulgar sense. 
 
 But yet a strain of noble chivalry 
 
 Ran through his nature, and a faint crisp humor 
 
 Rippled his thought, and would have been a joy
 
 112 EDITORIAL. 
 
 Had life been kindlier ; but his cheeriest smile 
 Verged on a sneer, and ran to mocking laughter. 
 Yet under all his pottering at science, 
 And deeper than his feeble cynic sneer, 
 Lay a great love, to which he fondly clung, 
 For Rose, the stately daughter of his house.
 
 ILoquitur ^atcr. 
 
 T WILL not hear of it. No more; 
 
 Besides, I 'm busy, as I said ; 
 You come and knock, knock at my door, 
 And drive all thought clean from my head. 
 Just when at last I 've caught the thread, 
 Subtle and brittle and sought for long. 
 That would most surely bind a throng 
 Of facts together, firmly wed 
 By doctrine of Science clear and strong. 
 
 I labor and experiment, 
 
 I methodize and meditate, 
 I watch the bias and the bent 
 
 Of the mind's idols. Still I wait 
 
 H
 
 114 LOQUITUR PATER. 
 
 And verify and speculate, 
 When rat-tat-tat ! my mind 's a blank, 
 My thread of thought, a tangled hank, 
 My ordered facts, confusion great; — 
 And it's always you women I have to thank. 
 
 You've heard of Newton's dog that spoiled 
 The calculations of long years, 
 
 And of that brutish maid whose soiled 
 And sooty fingers used the tears 
 Of genius and its hopes and fears, 
 
 Page after page, to light her fire, — 
 
 A horrible and impious pyre ! 
 
 So all my labored thought appears 
 To melt, like the snow, into slush and mire. 
 
 I say it 's worse than Suttee, or 
 The sacrifice of beautiful youth, 
 
 This waste of thought long waited for. 
 This fruitless birth of still-born truth.
 
 LOQUITUR PATER. 115 
 
 What matters for the silly, smooth, 
 Meaningless face of widow trim, 
 Slow roasting to a drowsy hymn ? 
 
 But you do rob the world in sooth, 
 When the lights of Science are quenched or dim. 
 
 Is 't not enough to have your maids 
 Scrubbing and brooming at my door, 
 
 With whispers shrill, and sudden raids 
 On cobwebs that have taught me more 
 Wisdom and beauty than a score 
 
 Of chattering girls? Only last night 
 
 I found my favorite beetle quite 
 
 Crushed and mangled upon the floor ; 
 And the jade held to it she did quite right. 
 
 A plague on maids ! and him who first 
 Invented them ! They 're all the same. 
 
 I 've tried them saucy, tried them curst, 
 I 've tried them sluts, and tried to tame
 
 Il6 LOQUITUR PATER. 
 
 Their natural instincts, and to shame 
 Their ignorance, and to abate 
 Their furious and unfeehng hate 
 
 Of fellow-creatures ; but my claim 
 Was vain as ajDpeal to the wheels of Fate. 
 
 Whate'er they do not understand 
 
 Is dirt, and must be brushed away ; 
 They 'd broom all science from the land, 
 
 And scour from heaven the Milky Way. 
 
 I plan by night, I work by day 
 With chemic and electric Force, 
 And tremble as I watch the course 
 
 Of nature ; all in vain, for they 
 Baffle in some way my best resource. 
 
 And now you come, like all the rest, 
 My daughter, but a woman still. 
 
 My daughter, whom I thought the best 
 Of possible daughters, trained with skilly
 
 LOQUITUR PATER. ny 
 
 And scliooled in Science to fulfil 
 The part of Cuvier's daughter true ; 
 And when I hope and trust in you, 
 You fall in love, and coo and bill, 
 And want to know what I mean to do. 
 
 Of course, the fellow came to me, 
 
 And talked of marriage, love, and trash, 
 As if he thought I did not see 
 
 He meant just settlements and cash. 
 
 But there 's my banker gone to smash. 
 Shares fallen to nothing, farmers' rents 
 Begged off, and half my three per cents 
 
 Gone to save Charlie from a smash ; 
 And where is the money for settlements? 
 
 O yes ! He did not care for that. 
 He did not woo you for your gold, 
 
 He wished for nothing, cared not what 
 You brought or did not bring him ; told
 
 Il8 LOQUITUR PATER. 
 
 His means and prospects, and was bold 
 To think that love like his and yours 
 'W'ould work miraculous works and cures, 
 
 Keep you from hunger, debt, and cold. 
 And all the evils that man endures. 
 
 The old stor)', Rose ; the silly stuff 
 
 Of fools and beggars superfine ! 
 Why ! he has hardly means enough 
 
 To keep you in gloves and flowers and wine. 
 
 You could not dress, you could not dine, 
 You could not keep a maid or horse, 
 Or drive but in a cab, or worse ; — 
 
 The man's a fool; no child of mine 
 Could marry a beggar like him, of course. 
 
 I marvel at his impudence ; 
 
 A fellow with some paltry three 
 Hundred a year! A grain of sense — 
 
 But that he hasn't — had made him see
 
 LOQUITUR PATER. ug 
 
 The silliness of plaguing nie. 
 His genius and his prospects ? Well ; 
 Can you eat prospects ? Will they sell ? 
 And will his trumpery genius be 
 A dinner, or only a dinner-bell ? 
 
 There, there ; don't cry ; I do not mean 
 
 He is not all that you would say, — 
 A handsome fellow, as I 've seen. 
 
 And true and modest in his way : 
 
 And it is hard to say you nay ; 
 Yet why should your old father lose 
 His one ewe-lamb ? Why should he choose 
 
 To steal my only joy away. 
 Since Charlie went to the dogs and Jews ? 
 
 And that reminds me, Charlie says 
 
 Your friend 's a screw, and awful close : 
 
 But then he 's poor, and no doubt pays 
 His way, which Charlie never does.
 
 20 LOQUITUR PATER. 
 
 That makes a difference, for those 
 May freely give and lend, whose purse 
 Is shut to all their creditors. 
 
 I wish I knew their secret. Rose, 
 How never to pay, and be never the worse. 
 
 Well, yes ; I liked him, as you say. 
 
 And praised him to my friends ; and he 
 May wed their daughters any day 
 
 He likes, — that's no concern to me. 
 
 But this I could not bear to see. 
 My Rose stuck in his buttonhole. 
 And shunned, like any stained soul. 
 
 By a world that hates all poverty, — 
 And the world is perfectly right, on the whole. 
 
 But tush ! with marriage and affiance ; 
 
 The Medium waits me at the door, 
 That Pythoness of modern science. 
 
 Who brings back Intellect once more
 
 LOQUITUR PATER. 12 1 
 
 To hear and wonder and adore. 
 She photographed by electric hght 
 My old Grandmother's ghost last night, 
 
 The very cap and wig she wore, 
 While the spirit sat by me there bolt upright. 
 
 I did not see Her ; but I saw 
 
 The portrait like as like could be, 
 And felt a kind of creeping awe, 
 
 And old religion back in me ; 
 
 A hand was laid upon my knee, 
 And there was music in the air. 
 The very song she whiled my care 
 
 Away with in my infancy ; 
 And she lives in some kind of a sphere somewhere. 
 
 And conscience twitched me, like a spasm, 
 
 For hitherto I had no faith 
 In anything but protoplasm ; 
 
 I held that spirit was but breath, 
 c
 
 22 LOQUITUR PATER. 
 
 And all the Future silent death. 
 And what, if Science shall restore 
 The faith it robbed me of before ? 
 
 For call it spirit, ghost, or wraith, 
 One was there who did not come in by the door. 
 
 It 's wonderful what now we do ; 
 
 This is a mighty age indeed, 
 With march of Intellect so true. 
 
 From prejudice and bondage freed, 
 
 And pious fraud, and worn-out creed ! 
 We weigh the farthest stars in scales, 
 We comprehend the wandering gales, 
 
 We summon spirits at our need 
 From the shadowy world which love bewails. 
 
 I don't deny that, heretofore. 
 
 The spirits have not much to tell, 
 
 That Shakespeare 's something of a bore. 
 That Milton proses about Hell,
 
 LOQUITUR PATER. 123 
 
 That Scott has lost his wizard spell, 
 That Plato has forgot his Greek, 
 That Byron 's dull, and Goethe weak ; 
 
 But, then, deal tables could not well 
 Utter the thoughts they might wish to speak. 
 
 We wait for better instruments, — 
 
 Wind harps to suit the spirit hand, 
 Sweet lutes to place beside the rents 
 
 In the dim walls of the spirit-land. 
 
 No Maestro with his cunning wand 
 Beethoven's symphonies could get 
 From bones and bagpipes. We are yet 
 
 But groping 'mong the secrets grand 
 Of the mystic spiritual Alphabet. 
 
 At any rate, this is the age 
 
 Of miracles proper, — wonders done 
 
 By careful reading the dark page 
 Of Nature, searching one by one
 
 124 LOQiJTUR rATER. 
 
 Her secrets till there shall be none. 
 And he who reads them is the true 
 Prophet-Apostle of this new 
 Annus mirabilis, whose sun 
 Shines its great light now on me and you. 
 
 Wonders of Science ! marvels high, 
 
 Beyond our wildest dream or hope, 
 Found in the sunlight and the sky 
 
 By spectroscope and telescope I 
 
 Miracles in a dirty drop 
 Of water from a stagnant pool ! 
 And every lichened rock is full 
 
 Of history; and there's a crop 
 Of marvels now in a table or stool ! 
 
 Now, go to your mother. Rose, she'll give 
 Excellent counsel in Heaven's name ; 
 
 Right worldly wisdom, as I live, 
 And all in pious phrase and frame.
 
 LOQUITUR PATER. 125 
 
 I wish I knew that Httle game, 
 It is a secret worth the knowing, 
 To clothe with Scripture Language glowing 
 
 The Devil's plain common sense, and claim 
 The Word of truth for the truth's o'erthrowing. 
 
 What? You have only come from her? 
 
 Well, I 'm a beast, a perfect brute. 
 To fret and fume and stamp and stir 
 
 With fretful word, and angry foot, 
 
 While my poor girl stands still and mute. 
 With that taste in her mouth, where all 
 Nauseous bitters scriptural 
 
 Are mingled by a branch-and-root 
 Right Low Church Evangelical. 
 
 But come, now, tell me what she said. 
 
 Yet what needs asking that ? Of course. 
 Her heart was broken, and she prayed 
 
 For Death to come on his pale horse.
 
 126 LOQUITUR PATER. 
 
 And all the world was waxing worse ; 
 And then she blamed your wicked views, 
 And touched upon the elected Jews 
 Going to Zion back in force, — 
 And they can't go sooner than I would choose. 
 
 And still beneath the grieving saint, 
 You found the nether millstone hard ; 
 
 She 's not a fool, nor given to faint, 
 But maundered nonsense by the yard, 
 Until she had you off your guard, 
 
 Then lisped soft words that stung you sore. 
 
 And hints that maddened you still more. 
 You bit the peach and for reward 
 Cracked your teeth on the stony core. 
 
 I know it all ; the winding stream 
 
 Of pious babble linked along. 
 As loose as some fantastic dream. 
 
 Oblivious of all right and wrong,
 
 LOQUITUR PATER. 127 
 
 Here swirling round in eddies strong 
 'Neath twisted roots of old dead thought, 
 There slushing among mud and rot, 
 
 And chill as salt and snow among 
 The tremblings of feeling highly wrought. 
 
 Our modern science has not left 
 
 A leg for faith to stand upon ; 
 Of all its miracles bereft, 
 
 Its history to myth all gone ; 
 
 Yet would it surely hold its own 
 But for that nether millstone bit 
 That lieth in the heart of it. 
 
 A little mercy would atone 
 For failure of reason, and lack of wit. 
 
 She is your mother, and my wife? 
 
 Well, yes ! and may be I have been 
 No wise guide for a troubled life, 
 
 To lead it to the peace serene.
 
 128 LOQUITUR PATER. 
 
 A brighter girl was never seen ; 
 There 's none of you that may compare, 
 A moment, with her beauty rare, 
 
 Her perfect sense, and insight keen. — 
 How she headed the liunt on that wild black mare ! 
 
 Ah ! well ; that 's past. And I am vexed 
 
 If I have added to your pain. 
 I did not mean it. I 'm perplexed 
 
 With Charlie's gambling debts again. 
 
 Do what I will, 't is all in vain : 
 He plays to-night, and prays to-morrow, 
 Now tries to preach, and now to borrow 
 
 Among the Jews ; and then is fain 
 To come to me when he comes to sorrow. 
 
 Now, kiss me, Rose, and let me go; 
 
 And put this business quite away 
 Out of your thoughts. You surely know 
 
 'T is easier far for me to say
 
 LOQUITUR PATER. 129 
 
 A yea to any one than nay ; 
 And yea to thee was pleasant still, 
 Anci nay, against my heart and will ; 
 
 But it would quench my light of day, 
 If aught should happen to thee of ill. 
 
 Even when you leave me for a home, 
 
 Happy and honored, it will be 
 The last bright day shall ever come 
 
 With sunshine to my home and me ; 
 
 And the years afterwards will flee 
 Like drift of dry and barren sand 
 Along the shore, between the land 
 
 And the low moaning of the sea 
 That creeps with the gray mist, hand in hand. 
 
 If you had loved with love supreme, 
 
 Which to itself is all in all ; 
 If you were lapt in blissful dream, 
 
 Which wakens not at any call, 
 
 6* I
 
 130 LOQUITUR PATER. 
 
 But still loves on whate'cr befall ; 
 If worldly custom, j)ricle, and show, 
 And all your wonted life might flow 
 
 Past you unheeded, and the small 
 Tattle of fools, like the winds that blow ; 
 
 If I could think you loved like this, 
 And had no half-heart for the world, 
 
 If perfect Love were perfect bliss, 
 
 Whose spotless flag you had unfurled, 
 And its serene defiance hurled 
 
 At toil, contempt, and hardships great, — 
 
 But you have ne'er confronted Fate : 
 Your love is rosy, scented, curled. 
 And dreams of a carriage, and man to wait. 
 
 My dear, you know it not ; but yet 
 
 That is the truth ; I 've read your heart 
 
 You are no heroine ; you would fret 
 To play a common, obscure part,
 
 LOQUITUR PATER. 131 
 
 To watch the coming baker's cart, 
 To tremble at the butcher's bill, 
 To patch and darn and hem, and still 
 
 To make yourself look neat and smart 
 In a twopenny print and a muslin frill. 
 
 There 's nothing of the hero, Rose, 
 
 In any of us. We could fight, 
 I dare say, if it came to blows, 
 
 Almost like the old Norman knight 
 
 Who won our lands, — Heaven bless his might! 
 We could not win them if we tried, — 
 We can but shoot and fish and ride. 
 
 And lightly spend what came so light. 
 And I don't know we can do aught beside. 
 
 Indeed, you must not think of it. 
 
 For us there 's naught but commonplace. 
 A dinner good, a dress to fit, 
 
 A ride to hunt, a pretty face.
 
 132 LOQUITUR PATER. 
 
 Old \Yine, old china, and old lace ; 
 We can no more. I "vc tried to know 
 Science, but Science will not show 
 
 Her secrets to the trifling race 
 Of Dilettanti, brisk or slow. 
 
 You don't like this, you don't like that ; 
 
 You don't like horsy-hunting squires, 
 You don't like parsons sleek and fat, 
 
 You don't like those whose only fires 
 
 Are the quenched ashes of their sires ; 
 Nor do you love this Thorold so. 
 That you with him, like lilve, would go 
 
 Into a world of thorns and briers, 
 Glad to be with him in weal or woe. 
 
 That is the curse upon us. Rose ; 
 
 We cannot dare a noble fate, 
 And yet our hearts find no repose 
 
 In all our empty show and state :
 
 LOQUITUR PATER. 133 
 
 We can be neither small nor great ; 
 With strong desire and feeble power 
 We hanker through our weary hour, 
 Like flowers that try to blossom late, 
 In a sickly struggle with frost and shower. 
 
 Our race is run : the Norman knight 
 
 Is distanced by the engineer ; 
 The cotton-spinner beats us quite 
 
 When all the battle is to clear 
 
 A hundred thousand pounds a year : 
 That is the glory of our age. 
 Six figures on the Ledger's page, — 
 
 And no bad glory either, dear, 
 As glory goes among saint and sage. 
 
 Our life is all a poor illusion, 
 
 And nothing is that seems to be ; 
 
 Our knowledge only breeds confusion, 
 Our love is moonshine on the sea.
 
 134 LOQUITUR PATER. 
 
 Our faith is but the shadow we 
 Cast on the cloud that bounds our view ; 
 And to be virtuous and true 
 
 Is trouble, plague, and misery, 
 If we have not the funds when the bills come due.
 
 gooli fxiih.
 
 I 
 
 i
 
 (^iJitorial. 
 
 Dressed, like a penitent, in sombre black 
 That hung about her limp and scrimp, and all 
 Without relief of ribbon, lace, or tucker, 
 Collar, or cuff, or any lightsome thing ; 
 Her hair, that wont in regal braid to fold 
 A shining coronet around her brow, 
 Stuffed loosely in a net ; nor ring nor jewel 
 Gracing the hand that trembled as it lifted 
 A book, a pencil, or an ornament, 
 And could not help but lift them ; so arrayed, 
 A nun-like woman over all dull and sad. 
 In tragic dress of studied negligence, 
 Which covered not the less a tragic pain, — 
 For there are souls that live in symbolisms,
 
 138 EDITORIAL. 
 
 And are most true in most dramatic seeming, — 
 Thus Rose awaited for the sacrifice. 
 
 She could not rest, but paced about the room ; 
 Now drawing curtains close, to dim the light ; 
 Now watching the slow movement of the clock, 
 Uncertain whether to chide its tardy pace. 
 Or its unfeeling haste ; now sitting down. 
 Holding her side, or white, spasm-choking throat ; 
 And anon starting up to stamp and frown. 
 With flashing look defiant, saying, " I will " ; 
 But soon she drooped her head, and sobbed, " I 
 
 cannot ; 
 God, pity me, a creature pitiful ; 
 I dare not say, God help me, for this business 
 Is one he cannot help in. I am to choose 
 Deliberately the mean life I have proven. 
 And knowing it so hollow, heartless, vain. 
 And knowing, too, the better life of love, 
 And knowing it may break a noble heart,
 
 EDITORIAL. 139 
 
 And make mine own a lean and barren heart, 
 
 I am to seal a covenant 'jyith darkness, 
 
 And sign mine own death-warrant. Can I do it? 
 
 Is there no hope, no other way but this, 
 
 As they all tell me ? — how I hate them all ! 
 
 Why was there none to back my better thought, 
 
 And help the struggling spirit to do right? 
 
 O Father, mother, brother, why do all 
 
 Forsake me? ply me so with reasons strong 
 
 To play the baser part? Was ever girl 
 
 So hard beset with preachers of a lie ? 
 
 Was ever girl so drawn by cords of love 
 
 To break the cord of Love? Or can it be, 
 
 As they do all aver, and I myself 
 
 Half feel, yet hate myself for feeling" it. 
 
 That this poor world of Custom is my Fate ; 
 
 That I must be what yet I scorn to be 3 
 
 That empty as it is, it is my all ; 
 
 That I should only wreck another soul. 
 
 Trying another life; — that I have lost.
 
 I40 EDITORIAL. 
 
 With their upbringing, simple womanhood 
 
 And patient strength of love? Too late, too late! 
 
 That is his step, his ring. I know them well, 
 
 As the fond wife her husband's footfall kens, 
 
 Home-coming while she watches for his coming. 
 
 Ah me ! how often I have sat intent 
 
 To hear it, while they thought I heeded them 
 
 Dully haw-hawing, which he never did ; 
 
 Stupidly flattering, which he never did ; 
 
 Or peddling in the Devil's small-ware, gossip 
 
 And innuendo, which he never did ; 
 
 For he is gracious, generous, and true : 
 
 And all the time my spirit was not here, 
 
 But hovering by the door, and out and in. 
 
 And, hungering for him, hated them the more. 
 
 And now I shake and shiver like a rush 
 
 To hear the step which I shall hear no more. 
 
 No more ! he will not see me any more ! 
 
 No more ! and I must snap with mine own hand 
 
 The gold-thread in my life, and make it all 
 
 1
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 141 
 
 Leaden and passionless forevermore ! 
 I hate it all ; I '11 do some wicked thing, 
 I know, ere all is ended. How I dread 
 The future they have fashioned out for me, 
 And fierce rebellion of the best in me 
 Against the duty which were good for me ! 
 Heaven help me to be true at least to him 
 When falsest to myself; my way is hard." 
 Then she sat down, and was composed and calm 
 To look at, as a marble monument.
 
 I^oquitur ^osjc. 
 
 "XT AY, sit down there, and touch me not : 
 
 I am not worthy ; and I feel 
 In my shamed soul the leprous spot 
 Burn in thy presence. I would kneel, 
 Or put my neck beneath thy heel, 
 If Nature had her way, and youth 
 Its old simplicity and truth: 
 
 But the wolf's gnawing we conceal 
 'Neath a surface passionless, bland, and smooth. 
 
 No more ashamed of doing wrong. 
 We are ashamed of feeling right. 
 
 Ashamed of any feeling strong. 
 And of all shame ashamed quite :
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 1 43 
 
 And I am like the rest; the light 
 Laughter of fools arrests my shame 
 And self-contempt and bitter blame : 
 
 So we must meet as if the might 
 Of passion and pain were an empty name. 
 
 Ah me ! 't is hard for me to speak, 
 
 And will be hard for you to hear; 
 Yet do not comfort me, nor seek 
 
 To soothe one pang or stay one tear. 
 
 No fear of that, alas ! no fear ; 
 More like to scorn me for the lot 
 Which I have chosen ; yet scorn me not ; 
 
 I 've been so happy, being so dear ; 
 Yet I 'd rather be hated than quite forgot. 
 
 I 've been so happy, and can be 
 No more as I have been again ; 
 
 And my most cherished memory 
 
 Henceforth shall be my keenest pain.
 
 144 
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 I have been loved ; that will remain 
 The treasured thought of all m}' prime, 
 The treasured grief of all my time ; 
 And I have loved, and not in vain, 
 Though my Love, in Love's vision, was almost crime. 
 
 I loved above myself, — above 
 
 Mine own capacity of soul. 
 As one that with an earthly love 
 
 Seeks Heaven, yet spurns its high control. 
 
 I did aspire unto the role 
 Of a great blessedness, unmeet 
 For such as me. 'T w-as very sweet, 
 
 While the dream lasted round and whole, 
 But the sorrow of waking is more complete. 
 
 Yet do not let me wholly pass 
 
 Out of your mind, though I must be 
 
 Apart from your true life, alas ! 
 And from a meaner level see,
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 1 45 
 
 As one looks where the stars go free, 
 Its struggle brave and triumph great, 
 For you will strive and conquer Fate : 
 
 And think not bitterly of me 
 When you take to your bosom a worthier mate. 
 
 But let me speak all I must say, 
 
 For I must say it, though my heart 
 Protests with an indignant nay ! 
 
 And loathes to play the ignoble part. 
 
 Ignoble it is : I have no art 
 To picture wrong as it were right ; 
 But if I sin I sin outright, 
 
 And know it sin, and know the smart 
 Will follow as surely as day and night. 
 
 I hate a sham ; let bad be bad, 
 And good be good forevermore : 
 
 Who doeth right, let him be glad, 
 Knowing the good he liveth for ; 
 7 J
 
 I .(3 LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 Who doeth wrong, let him, too, pour 
 Unshrinking light upon his ill, 
 And do it with determined will: — 
 
 Our Devil clings to his role of yore, 
 And is fain to play the good angel still. 
 
 I had a schoolmate once, — a girl 
 
 Much like myself, not very good, 
 Nor very bad ; no precious pearl. 
 
 Or perfect flower of womanhood ; 
 
 But one that graced and understood 
 Our pleasant, artificial life, 
 And would have made a charming wife, 
 
 Had she been only gayly w^ooed 
 By a fine redcoat and a drum and fife. 
 
 But there came one across her way, — 
 A Priest : a grave, high-thoughted man, 
 
 Who did not lag behind his day, 
 But bravely dared to lead the van
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 147 
 
 Of Progress : with a lofty plan, 
 'Not counting for himself the jDrice, 
 Up the great stair of Sacrifice, 
 Trod by the meek and lowly One, 
 He would lead our gay world into Paradise. 
 
 He came across her path, and she 
 
 Caught up his dream, and dreamt awhile ; 
 
 She came across his path, and he 
 Found dreams angelic in her smile \ 
 He had no knowledge, she no guile: — 
 
 Leave that to satire-novels ; both 
 
 But dreamt a happy dream, not loath ; 
 There was no woman's art or wile 
 When she gave to him freely her plighted troth. 
 
 And for a while she strove to live 
 His life, and meekly played her part ; 
 
 And for a while she tried to give 
 Not service only, but her heart
 
 148 LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 To sacred work and thought and art ; 
 To help the poor, tlie sick to cheer, 
 And breathe sweet love instead of fear 
 
 Into our worship, and impart 
 To all men the feeling that God was near. 
 
 Why do I dwell on this ? Because 
 'T was not herself, but he that spoke 
 
 In her. And soon there came a pause 
 In her hot zeal. The spell was broke, 
 And once more, her old self awoke 
 
 With yearning for the former days, 
 
 The laughter crisp, the empty praise, 
 The dressing, dancing, and the flock 
 Of butterflies sunning them in her rays. 
 
 Then by and by, in her old place 
 We met her ; first, a matron meek, 
 
 Come to diffuse a light of grace ; 
 But for this task she was too weak,
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 149 
 
 When guardsmen gathered round to seek 
 
 The old smiles, and the banter light, 
 
 And midnight chatter sparkling bright 
 
 With airy bubbles ; while a bleak 
 
 Loneliness reigned in her home all night. 
 
 What would you ? There was nothing wrong 
 
 In our sense, only flirting gay. 
 Meanwhile the grave priest went along, 
 
 With heavy heart, his weary way, 
 
 Heavier hearted every day. 
 Till, as a shield for her good name, 
 Weary and dreary he, too, came 
 
 To ball and rout and drum and play; 
 And she squandered his life in her reckless game. 
 
 His vow to cherish her he deemed 
 
 First of all duties binding ; so 
 The glorious dream which he had dreamed 
 
 Of a great batde with sin and woe,
 
 150 LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 
 And dealing them a deadly blow, 
 With a brave woman by liis side, 
 Became a mournful strife to hide 
 
 A broken heart, nor let her know 
 How the hope and the light of his soul had died. J 
 
 Now, hear me : I too had my dream. 
 
 The which I fondled day and night, 
 It shed upon my life the gleam 
 
 Of a new world of truth and right ; 
 
 Nor all in vain, for in its light 
 I see as I had never seen 
 Before ; I see that life is mean 
 
 Without the purpose and the might - 
 Of a noble Faith, and a Hope serene. 
 
 And yet 't is but a dream with me, 
 
 Vague, feeble, and unsolid : I 
 Am of the world, worldly ; I can see. 
 
 Admiring still, the vision high.
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 151 
 
 And feel the sentiment and sigh 
 Of truer nature in my breast, 
 Our artificial world confessed 
 
 A proven vanity and lie, — 
 But the owl sees the sunshine and winks in its nest. 
 
 I am not fit to live your life, 
 
 I am not meet to share your thought, 
 I am not able for the strife 
 
 Of any high and glorious lot, 
 
 I am not worthy to be brought 
 Into companionship of those 
 Who heed not custom as it goes. 
 
 Who heed not what opinions float. 
 Who heed but the light that high Reason throws. 
 
 I will not be to you a care, 
 
 A burden only changed for death ; 
 
 I will not be to you a snare. 
 
 As she was to the Priest of Faith ;
 
 152 LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 You shall not tremble lest the breath 
 Of slander dim a wife's pure name, 
 And feeling shame deny the shame, 
 And sadly smiling bear the scath 
 Of a nature too shallow to get much blame. 
 
 Na}', think not tnese are motives good 
 Framed but to hide the ill I do, 
 
 Nor drive me to a bitter mood 
 
 When my sore heart would most be true 
 And faithful and tender unto you. 
 
 I have done wrong, and hide it not, 
 
 But yet it was not in my thought ; 
 And bitterly your heart would rue 
 Blending me with your life and lot 
 
 Therefore my dream I must dispel. 
 Therefore my love I must refuse ; 
 
 It was a sweet and tender spell 
 Of soft enchantment I did use : 
 
 I
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 153 
 
 I was to blame ; I therefore lose 
 The one great bliss I ever knew, 
 The false love which yet made me true, 
 
 Bathing me in its cleansing dews, — 
 But I know it grew irksome already to you. 
 
 Nay, don't deny it ; it was right ; 
 
 You could not help it ; I have seen 
 Often the anxious, doubtful light 
 
 Of those true eyes when I have been 
 
 Showing a nature small and mean ; 
 I 've watched the shadow of regret. 
 The pleading look when our looks met, 
 
 The pain and fear you fain would screen, — 
 And I could not be other, and cannot yet. 
 
 And then, too, though I am not old, 
 I know my years are more than thine ; 
 
 And that quaint thing, your sister, told. 
 By many an angry look and sign.
 
 154 LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 That she did more than half divine 
 That I, in wanton idlcssc, angled, 
 And had, with crafty art, entangled 
 
 Your love, and strained upon the line. 
 Nor cared how your heart was torn and mangled. 
 
 Little she knew, — but let that pass; 
 
 Perhaps I played at love ; perhaps 
 The game to earnest grew, alas ! 
 
 Ere I could mark the gradual lapse. 
 
 The unnoticed tide crept up the gaps, 
 And circled us with foaming sea, 
 And there was no escape, and we. 
 
 Enforced, clasped the love that wraps 
 Forgetfulness in its ecstasy. 
 
 Yet mine is not a love like thine, 
 Whicli brooks no rival, fears no ill. 
 
 Which time would mellow like old wine, 
 Which hath no separate end or will,
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 155 
 
 And is content with loving still. 
 Such life would grow insipid soon 
 To me, and tiresome as a tune 
 
 Ground on a barrel-organ, till 
 A change were as welcome as flowers in June. 
 
 It should not, but I know it would; 
 
 It seems as if some evil spell 
 Were on me, holding me from good, 
 
 And from the peace unspeakable ; 
 
 There is that in me like a bell 
 Cracked in the belfty, where it swings 
 Shaming its office, for it rings. 
 
 For Christmas cheer and passing knell. 
 The same false note for all truest things. 
 
 Women are fickle, — I am more ; 
 
 Women are contrary, — I am worse ; 
 Even ficklest women can adore, 
 
 And in adoring gain a force
 
 1^6 LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 Which holds them to a steadfast course ; 
 But I 've no reverence ; mine eyes 
 Have only learnt to criticise, 
 
 To find out flaws, and trace their source, 
 And to weary of folk that are good and wise. 
 
 I love enough to part with pain, 
 But not enough to wed thee poor ; 
 
 I dare not face the way of men 
 Who nobly labor and endure, 
 Seeking a great life high and pure. 
 
 But I have one true purpose yet ; 
 
 I will not lead thee to forget 
 The splendid hope of glory sure, 
 Which was all your thought until we two met. 
 
 Ah ! you will not believe the truth. 
 Because it shows me poor and mean ; 
 
 You 've dreamt that I am all in sooth, 
 AMiich I have dreamt I might have been ;
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. i^y 
 
 And should, perhaps, if I had seen 
 In early years the generous life 
 Of aspiration high, and strife 
 
 For truth and love and faith serene, 
 Which oft you have pictured for you and your wife. 
 
 But this it was not mine to see ; 
 
 A household ours where Home is not, 
 We carp and criticise, and we 
 
 Never do anything we ought. 
 
 Ah ! happy was your sister's lot ! 
 My brother idles, trifles, spends, 
 And here he borrows, there he lends, 
 
 And I, like him, have never thought 
 Of doing a thing that makes or mends. 
 
 Yet we must eat and drink and dress. 
 
 And drive in carriages, and ride 
 In Rottenrow, and crush and press, 
 
 Bejewelled at St. James's, tied
 
 1^8 LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 Fast to the chariot of our pride, 
 Have spacious rooms, and sumi)tuous fare, 
 And waiting-maids and grooms to share 
 
 Our vicious idleness, and hide 
 The dull stupid ennui shot with care. 
 
 It 's all a lie, this life we lead ; 
 
 And breeds in all of us sloth and sin ; 
 The coachman wigged and tippeted, 
 
 The maid who cannot sew nor spin. 
 
 The brawny giant that let you in, 
 Who should have been a grenadier, 
 They 're good for nothing before a year, 
 
 Save lazy gossip, tippling gin, 
 And keeping a taproom, and drawing beer. 
 
 How could I hope to escape the taint? 
 
 I 've not escaped it, — I am just 
 Like all the rest, on folly bent 
 
 Like all the rest, — devoured with rust
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 159 
 
 Of idleness ; a hollow crust 
 Of sentiment, and surface wit, 
 And scraps of knowledge. I am fit 
 
 For no brave life of love and trust, 
 Or a home where the lamp of truth is lit. 
 
 You think I draw my portrait ill, 
 
 Beclouded by some fitful mood ; 
 And fancy you could raise me still 
 
 Into a nobler world of good. 
 
 'T is kindly said ; but as I brood 
 Over the thought, I seem to see 
 You failing of your destiny ; 
 
 And for myself I never could 
 Live the life you have painted to me. 
 
 I could not bear the poky rooms 
 
 Where Bloomsbury students talk and smoke, 
 I 'd sicken at the steamy fumes, 
 
 The maid-of-all-vvork would evoke ;
 
 i6o LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 I 'd sooner hear a raven croak 
 Than hearken to the flow of wit, 
 And watch the gleams of genius flit, 
 While shabby artist fellows broke 
 The silence with laughter loud and fit. 
 
 'T was nice, of course, to hear from you 
 About their wild Bohemian ways ; 
 
 One likes to know how people do 
 Who are not in the world. We gaze 
 Upon their splendid works, and praise 
 
 Their genius, and we long to hear 
 
 About their naughty vices dear. 
 
 So charming in our books and plays, 
 Like beings quite in another sphere. 
 
 You do not like this tone? I know 
 You hate a false, affected vein ; 
 
 What, then, if we were bound to row, 
 Like galley-slaves, together, twain
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. igj 
 
 Linked each to each by loathsome chain ; 
 And by that union sundered more, 
 Until the fretting bondage wore 
 
 Your heart, and left an aching pain, 
 As the only trace of the love you bore ? 
 
 It may not be, it may not be; 
 
 'T were grievous sin in me to wed 
 A soul to so great misery, 
 
 Binding the living with the dead. 
 
 And now this parting word is said, 
 We, being twain, may still love on, 
 Who, being one, had turned to stone ; 
 
 We loose our vows, but link, instead, 
 Our hearts more surely to love alone. 
 
 A sad love? Yes! I call to mind. 
 
 That fisher-woman long ago 
 Who, in the storm of sleet and wind, 
 
 Lost all her sons at one fell blow, —
 
 162 LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 Three stalwart men. We saw her go, 
 Don't you remember? with her dead, 
 Side by side the corpses laid, 
 
 Three long black coffins in a row. 
 On the bench of the boat, head touching head. 
 
 Never a word came from her lips ; 
 
 She took the helm, and bent the sail, 
 And silently slid by the ships, 
 
 Where strong men sob, and women wail ; 
 
 Across the bar she caught the gale. 
 And sped on o'er the darkening wave 
 Into black night : she never gave 
 
 One sign, but tearless, hard, and pale, 
 Sailed with her dead to their father's grave. 
 
 And now I go like her, with all 
 My dead hopes lying cold in me ; 
 
 The great mist cometh, like a wall 
 Of darkness, striding o'er the sea ; 
 
 1
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 163 
 
 And all my dead are orderly- 
 Spread out beside me ; and I know 
 That they and I together go 
 
 Into the black night, leaving thee, — 
 I and my dead hopes all in a row : 
 
 Into the moonless, starless gloom. 
 Into the gray and trembling cloud, 
 
 Night closing o'er me like a tomb, 
 The wet mist clinging as a shroud, 
 And the wind wailing dirges loud: — 
 
 Men will call it a wedding ga}'', 
 
 And maids will flutter, priests will pray, 
 And joy-bells gather the viUage crowd, 
 To toast the dead on her bridal day. 
 
 Or dead or worse ; they drive me mad ; 
 
 I wot not what the end may be ; 
 And there are times I feel so bad, 
 
 And in the shadowy future see,
 
 164 LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 In dark revenge of misery, 
 A sinful woman scorning shame, 
 Spurning a liateful home and name. 
 
 I 've known such, yearning to be free 
 That they recked not either of guilt or blame. 
 
 I wot not what it means ; but now 
 
 The stories of your gray North Sea 
 Keep running in my head, somehow ; 
 
 And weird and eerie tales they be. 
 
 Was it yourself that told it me? 
 Or some one else? — I do not know — 
 How 'mong the isles the tide-waves flow, 
 
 Like maddened steeds that franticly 
 Are lashed into fury as on they go ; 
 
 And how a fisher-lad was once 
 
 Caught in the race, and swejDt away ; 
 
 And how his oars, by evil chance, 
 Were reft from him ; and how he lay
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 165 
 
 Helpless among the tossing spray; 
 And how he saw the grim crags loom, 
 And heard the big waves crash and boom, 
 Through mists that darkened on his way, 
 Darkened and deepened like walls of his tomb ; 
 
 And how his heart in him grew cold, 
 
 As still the boat went hurrying on. 
 Past foaming skerry and headland bold. 
 
 Into the darkness all alone 3 
 
 And weird, witch forms, with eyes of stone, 
 Looked on, and mocked with laughter dread. 
 As hungry waves, like fierce wolves, sped. 
 
 And leaped on him ; and hope was none ; 
 And he fain would pray, but cursed instead : 
 
 And how he lifted up his hand 
 To pray or curse, as it might be, 
 
 And in that moment grazed the land. 
 When something smote his palm, and he
 
 l66 LOQUITUR ROSE. 
 
 Grasped a strong rope unconsciously, — 
 A fowler's rope that dangled there, 
 Down on his darkness and despair, 
 
 Barely dipping the swollen sea, — 
 And the half-uttered curse gasped into a prayer. 
 
 Even so am I on fateful tide 
 
 Borne on, and by the surges tossed, 
 
 And helplessly I rock and ride, 
 Alone, and in the darkness lost, 
 Haunted by many a mocking ghost; 
 
 No help without, no help within. 
 
 Forsaken in my way of sin. 
 Forsaken by myself the most, 
 But I reach out in vain through the gloom and the din. 
 
 I reach out, but I reach in vain ; 
 
 No help for me ; I touch the shore ; 
 They only push me back again ; 
 
 The tide sweeps on, the waters roar,
 
 LOQUITUR ROSE. 167 
 
 My head is dizzy, my heart is sore ; 
 I reach out, but no help is near, 
 A cloud is on my soul, and fear, 
 And hate and madness evermore 
 Are hissing their whispers in my ear. 
 
 There is no cord of life for me 
 
 Amid my darkness and despair ; 
 Pity me, look not cold on me ; 
 
 There 's cursing in the heart of prayer, 
 
 And cursing in the very air. 
 Will you not kiss me once .-' and say 
 You love me still and ever ? Nay ? 
 
 So be it. Wherefore should I care 
 To chafe back the life which were better away. 
 
 O heart, lie dead, and feel no more ; 
 
 So best, if I must still live on : 
 The desert life that lies before 
 
 Were best to have a heart of stone.
 
 1 68 LOQCITUR ROSE. 
 
 Now leave me ; I would be alone. 
 You will be happy yet, and free, 
 And I accept my destiny. 
 
 We had a dream, and it is gone; 
 And I wake, but there 's no day breaking for me.
 
 i0oli Bui\i<
 
 Home ! in the gray old house beside the brook ; 
 Home ! in the dim old room among his books ; 
 Home ! with his sister sitting by his side, 
 And a fond throng of clinging memories 
 Hovering about him, as the swallows fluttered 
 Round their old nests, and twittered in the eaves, 
 White-throated : there he lay in his young manhood, 
 A fever-flush upon his wasted cheek, 
 And a fire burning in his large gray eye ; 
 Waiting, he said, for that uncourtly valet 
 Who doth unclothe us of our fleshly robes, 
 Preparing us for sleep. I had my fears ; 
 Yet life was strong, only it had no relish.
 
 172 
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 And hope was broken ; and the springs of life 
 Being gone, he only longed to see the end 
 Of its hard jolting. Then the Doctors came, 
 And tapped, and stethoscoped, and spoke of rales 
 And lesions and adhesions and deaf parts, 
 Cells, stitches, mucus, coughs, and blisterings : 
 And then, with kindly knowing helplessness, 
 They shook their heads, and went upon their way. 
 
 But he, in full persuasion that the end 
 Had well begun, was tender, cheerful, kind ; 
 Not bitter with this world, nor troubled greatly 
 About the other : yea, he had great peace 
 Thinking of Hester and me, and laying plans 
 About our wedding, making settlements 
 Preposterous, and buying heaven knows what 
 From heaven knows where, but restless till he saw it ; 
 Still glad to hear no murmur of the streets. 
 And see no pile of books and sorted task- 
 Urging the o'erwrought brain, and hold no more
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 173 
 
 The sluggish pen in wear}^, fevered hand. 
 
 Could he but sleep a little ! Oft he lay, 
 
 Seeing old faces flit by as in dreams, 
 
 Hearing old voices talking in the air. 
 
 All senses strangely keen, and fancy quick, 
 
 Yet, as it were, a passive instrument 
 
 Played on by passing sounds and subtle smells 
 
 And lights and shadows, and all fleeting things. 
 
 At peace he was with God, at peace with man ; 
 
 Only he had forgotten how to sleep. 
 
 I 'm not a poet ; I have no romance, 
 
 But stand by facts, and laws o' the Universe ; 
 
 Though doubtless rhyme and rhythm and play of 
 
 fancy 
 Are facts too, and have laws like utter prose. 
 But what I mean is, if a man abuse 
 Stomach and brain, they will revenge themselves 
 For sleepless nights, and hastily snatched meals, 
 And life at fever-heat. You must not think
 
 174 
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 Of a heart broken, dying in despair 
 
 Of unrequited love. He loved, and lost 
 
 That sweetest relish of laborious life 
 
 Which henceforth was all labor, — that was all. 
 
 It did not change his spirit, did not fill 
 
 His mouth with the big words of tragedy, 
 
 Much pitying himself; it only set him 
 
 Doggedly to his task of work, with force 
 
 Unbroken, undivided, unrelieved ; 
 
 And therein he had lived, and therein found 
 
 A joy and fulness of life, till something cracked 
 
 With the overstrain of so unresting toil. 
 
 Moreover, he had planned a scheme so vast 
 
 That only a Goethe-Methuselah, with a power 
 
 Of vision, and a power of master-work, 
 
 Prolonged a thousand years, had seen the end on 't. 
 
 But now it is not given to any one 
 
 To overarch the structure of all knowledge, 
 
 And crown it with its dome and golden cross ; 
 
 Nor is it given to any one to work,
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 175 
 
 As God does, leisurely, because he draws 
 
 Upon the unmeasured ages, wherefore he 
 
 Alone may say '"Tis finished, and very good." 
 
 We only do a part, and partly well. 
 
 And others come and mend it. Thorold tried 
 
 Too much for our brief life, — a cosmic work, 
 
 And toiled to do it in his week of days . 
 
 That had nor fresh-breathed morn nor restful eve 
 
 For him. So he broke down, a wreck, at last, 
 
 Achieving but a fragment of his thought, 
 
 A porch, a pillar, and an outline dim. 
 
 Some deemed he was a failure ; others saw 
 
 The germ of grand discovery in his thought, 
 
 And worked it to their profit. Ah ! well, well : 
 
 There are who give us all they have, complete. 
 
 Nothing omitted, nothing lying behind, 
 
 All formulated, tidy, docketed. 
 
 Tied neatly up in ribbons, laid in drawers, 
 
 And handy for our use, — an entire soul, 
 
 With all its thoughts booked up to the last hour
 
 176 EDITORIAL. 
 
 In double entry: these don't interest me; 
 
 I know them, and am done with them ; they have 
 
 No infinite possibilities, no shadows 
 
 Of the great God upon them, and their light 
 
 Is but a row of foot-lights and reflectors 
 
 Shining upon the stage, and on themselves. 
 
 Eut others, more aspiring than achieving, 
 
 Achieve all in suggestion. They lie down 
 
 With Nature, as Ruth lay at the feet of Boaz, 
 
 Who longed for his upwaking, and yet feared 
 
 What the daybreak might bring ; so they with dread 
 
 And yearning wait, till God shall speak to them 
 
 The thing they cannot utter, save in fragments, 
 
 In broken strains of angel melody, 
 
 Or visions momentary behind the veil ; 
 
 Yet more suggestive of Divinity, 
 
 ]\Iore helpful by their infinite reaching forth 
 
 Than all completed thinking. Thorold thus 
 
 Pushed at the gates of God, and through the chink 
 
 Caught, wondering, some gleams of inmost Light ♦
 
 EDITORIAL. 
 
 Transcendent, and some chords of harmony 
 Entrancing; unexpected mysteries 
 Of unison and beauty, heretofore 
 Or jarring, or divided, blended now 
 In reconcilino; vision of higher truth. 
 
 177 
 
 8*
 
 Iloquitur (ITljorolti. 
 
 'T^HANKS, Hester dear, this little hand 
 
 Was always gentle ; none like thee 
 Can smooth a pillow in all the land, 
 Or sweeten the sick-room delicately : 
 A tender, loving hand to me, — 
 Too good, for I was rough and bold ; 
 Now let me to the sunshine hold 
 The dainty fingers up, and see 
 The red light through, as in days of old. 
 
 How sweet the day gleams through the faint 
 Pink curtains of the dear old room, 
 
 Like heaven-sent visions of a saint 
 Tinged with the nature they illume !
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. ^^^ 
 
 You 've kept all here as fresh as bloom, 
 Just as it was long years ago ; 
 I have not felt blanch linen so 
 Lavender-sweet since fateful doom 
 Lured nie abroad to a world of woe. 
 
 The old flowers through the window toss 
 
 Wafts of sweet incense; roses pink 
 Knock at the pane, cushioned in moss. 
 
 And yellow buds, too, smile and blink 
 
 Over the sill ; and as I drink 
 The fragrant breath, an airy jet 
 From the sweet-pea and mignonette 
 
 Falls on the sense, and makes me think 
 Of the old bright mornings, dewy wet. 
 
 Why should, at times, a passing scent, 
 Just sniffed a moment on the breeze, 
 
 Its sensuous power so swiftly spent, 
 Come laden with more memories
 
 l8o LOQUITUR TJIOKOLD. 
 
 Than the low hum of honey-bees, 
 Or sound of old familiar strains, 
 Or rustling of the autumn grains, 
 Or voices from the whispering trees, 
 Or the running brooks, or the pattering rains. 
 
 The smell of these moss-roses sweet. 
 More than aught meets the ear or eye. 
 
 Speaks of old times, and seems to greet 
 Me kindly from the days gone by: — 
 There by the window you and I 
 
 Hearken the kirk bell in the air, 
 
 I see our mother on the stair. 
 
 And white-capped matrons leisurely 
 Trudging along to the house of prayer. 
 
 They are all gone, all sainted now, 
 
 All clothed in raiment clean and white ; 
 
 V\\\.\\ palm-crown on each grave, sad brow 
 They stand before the Fount of light,
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. i8i 
 
 And praise His glory day and night ; 
 No wrinkles on their face I see, 
 No toil-rough hand, nor stiffening knee. 
 
 Yet clinging to their glory bright 
 Is the scent of the sweet thyme and rosemary. 
 
 How the old books look bright in gold ! 
 
 You must have dusted them all day 
 To keep them so from moth and mould. 
 
 Those were school prizes near you ; pray 
 
 Give me my Homer, that I may 
 Smell the old Russia smell once more, 
 And feel the old Greek torrent pour. 
 
 Like plashing waves on shingly bay, 
 As the King mused, wrathful, along the shore. 
 
 Have you forgot your Greek, and all 
 
 Our quarrel ? How you would have sent 
 
 Fair Helen from the Trojan wall 
 
 Back to the King of men, nor spent
 
 l82 LOQUITUR rilOROI.D. 
 
 One arrow though the bow were bent, 
 Nor borne a dint on Hector's shield, 
 Nor planted banner on the field, 
 Nor shouted from the battlement, 
 For a woman whose faithless heart could yield. 
 
 You held the men unfit to rule 
 
 Who 'd launch their galleys on the deep, 
 
 And leave their realms to micklc dule. 
 And lonely wives to watch and weep, 
 By sandy shore and rocky steep. 
 
 For leman false and lover faint ; 
 
 Yea, were she pure as purest saint, 
 Better have died than so to keep 
 The kings from their high task of government. 
 
 What scornful beauty you would show 
 In scorning beauty and its charms ! 
 
 How eloquent your words Avould grow 
 O'er lordless realms and vague alarms,
 
 LOQUITUR THCROLD. 183 
 
 And feeble age with rusty arms 
 Fending the matrons, while the men 
 Were bleeding on the sand or fen, 
 
 Or dreaming of their homes and farms. 
 Or fattening the lean wolf in his den. 
 
 I think you should have been the boy, 
 
 You were so politic and wise. 
 Impatient of an idle toy. 
 
 And piercing with those steadfast eyes 
 
 The heart of all great enterprise. 
 While I — ah me! my life is sped, 
 Already numbered with the dead ; 
 
 And with the vanities and lies 
 Clasp it up in its coffin lead. 
 
 Yes, yes ; I know you '11 say me nay ; 
 
 You still believe in me, though I 
 Have lost faith in myself, and pray 
 
 For nothing but in peace to die,
 
 l84 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 
 
 And be forgotten by and by. 
 
 sister's fixith, so fond and true, 
 Still hiding failure from our view ! 
 
 Close-clinging ivy green and high, 
 That covers the ruin with glories new ! 
 
 Dear, there 's a small flower lying in 
 My Terence, near the fortieth page : 
 
 'T was the first honor I did win 
 In science, and my youthful gauge 
 Of earnest battle to assuage 
 
 The thirst for knowledge. .Near a stone 
 
 1 found it blooming all alone, 
 Upon an eager pilgrimage : 
 
 I was first to discover where it had grown. 
 
 'T is almost the sole mark to know 
 That I have lived ; and I would feel 
 
 AVhat then I felt when, bending low, 
 I saw its delicate petals steal
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 185 
 
 A coy glance, almost where my heel 
 
 Had crushed the treasure ; and I drew 
 
 A long breath, trembling ; and I knew 
 
 The passion of science, and the zeal 
 
 To broaden the realm of the known and true. 
 
 I found it : but the shepherd lad 
 
 Had found it centuries before, 
 And made his rustic maiden glad 
 
 By gilding with its golden store 
 
 Her golden hair, — nor cared foi;^ more. 
 We find we know not what ; we know. 
 And idle blossoms, as they blow 
 
 By mountain burn or cottage door. 
 Fashion our life into which they grow. 
 
 That litde flower gave bent to all 
 The best years I have lived on earth 
 
 To any purpose. I recall 
 
 Gladly our days of childish mirth.
 
 l86 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 
 
 The blithe home, and the kindly hearth ; 
 But a rarer light still gilds the hour, 
 When happening on this tender flower, 
 
 I found an impulse that gave birth 
 From an aimless life to a life of power. 
 
 Of power? Ah no! This life hath been 
 Feeble and fruitless, like the faint 
 
 And watery glimmer you have seen 
 Of broken rainbows, never bent 
 In glory athwart the firmament, — 
 
 A sickly splendor, would-be light, 
 
 That had not beauty's awful might: 
 And now the bootless years are spent, 
 And the darkness cometli on me like night. 
 
 O for more time! a little more! 
 
 I am so young ; and I had planned 
 So many years for gathering lore. 
 
 So many for my work in hand, —
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. igy 
 
 My Book which, with a purpose grand, 
 Our fragmentary truth should knit 
 In cosmic clearness, wholly lit 
 
 And by one sovran doctrine spanned — 
 And now, alas ! it will never be writ. 
 
 How strangely Destiny is ruled ! 
 
 This small pale flower became my lot ; 
 And all my wandering fancies schooled, 
 
 And gave my life a fixed thought, 
 
 Which to one centre all things brought; 
 And henceforth this base earth was all 
 Instinct with meaning, prodigal 
 
 Of riches ; yet there cometh not 
 One full-ripe fruit to my blossomed wall. 
 
 So be it ; God hath ordered all 
 
 The way by which my life was led. 
 
 Success it had not, or but small ; 
 Nor care I now for laurelled head,
 
 1 88 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 
 
 Or sleeping with the glorious dead. 
 Slight are the trophies I have won, 
 IMeagre is all the work I 've done ; 
 
 But I have lived, at least, and fed 
 On that which the noblest live upon. 
 
 And now that we are here alone, 
 Sweet sister, let me tell you all ; 
 
 I could not speak to any one 
 As unto you. Can you recall 
 A lovely girl, stately and tall, 
 
 A maiden with a queenly look, 
 
 And how she praised my. little book. 
 And spake of Fame that should befall 
 The gray old house by the brattling brook? 
 
 You did not like her much, I know. 
 
 But there was never maiden fair 
 Seemed worth}', as queen flower, to grow 
 
 Well gardened in my heart with care,
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 189 
 
 The chiefest treasure and glory there. 
 Fond, foolish Hester! you could see 
 No Eve my helpmate fit to be 
 
 Of all that breathed the common air, 
 Unless God should fashion her purposely. 
 
 And I deceived you, Hester dear, 
 And spake of loving none like you, 
 
 And talked of seeking a career 
 Of ardent toil and science true, 
 When all the while I had in view 
 
 Her stately form, her glorious eye, 
 
 Her high imperial majesty 
 
 Of sovran beauty ; for I knew 
 She was my Fate, to live or to die. 
 
 And so I left the dear old home. 
 And so I left you, sister dear, 
 
 And precious scroll, and cherished tome. 
 The gathered wealth of many a year ;
 
 190 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 
 
 And listed no more to appear 
 With hammer dcfily bringing forth 
 The buried records of the earth, 
 
 Or to enhance their facts with clear 
 Thought, which gives to them all their worth. 
 
 And I went forth from thee and them 
 To the great world of London, where 
 
 Men crowd, they say, to touch the hem 
 Of Wisdom's robes, and breathe the air 
 Of serene Science ; and the care 
 
 Of a wise State has garnered all 
 
 Fruits of research, since Adam's fall 
 By wisdom made our wisdom rare, 
 And man forgot what we now recall. 
 
 Heaven help me ! I used all the slang 
 Of penny-a-liner big words then ; 
 guessed 't was cant, and yet I rang 
 The changes on 't, like other men ;
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 191 
 
 Sweet, you may count that nine in ten 
 Have naught to say but cant prolific ; 
 The pious kind is more terrific, 
 
 But there 's as much in people when 
 They are literary and scientific. 
 
 Abhorred it is of scholar true, 
 
 High musing with his books alone ; 
 Abhorred of accurate science too, 
 
 Slow-pondering a leaf or stone ; 
 
 But fashion has its torrid zone 
 Where sages in a week shall grow 
 Ripe and ready, and seem to know 
 
 All that long painful thought hath won 
 From the heaven above, and the earth below. 
 
 I left you then Avith little truth 
 
 In me, — and truth alone is power; 
 
 I left you in your lonely youth 
 
 For her : and found her like a flower
 
 1 92 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 
 
 Bee-haunted in the sunny hour, 
 With a great crowd of wits and beaux, 
 And varied hum of verse and prose 
 
 Encircling her, while she would shower 
 Several influence as she chose. 
 
 And they were mainly fools, — a set 
 Of parlor-pedants chattering science, 
 
 Their thoughts all tangled in a net 
 Of hard, dry fact ; the pygmy giants 
 Hurled at the gods their proud defiance. 
 
 Tracing fit genealogies 
 
 Far back among the co^oa-trees, 
 And fondly hugging brute-alliance 
 With the monkey tribes and the chimpanzees. 
 
 All heresies of art came there, 
 
 All heresies of science too. 
 And theorists were free to air 
 
 All social heresies, and new
 
 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 193 
 
 Commandments that a man should do, 
 And women who had wrongs and rights, 
 And patriots from disastrous fights, 
 And geniuses came there, who grew 
 Quicker than mushrooms overnights. 
 
 A Babel of confused tongues ! 
 
 A Limbo of the inchoate ! 
 A gasping of distempered lungs 
 
 That blamed the air, and not their state! 
 
 All fain to mend the world and fate, 
 All hating labor, and the slow 
 Results that from its patience grow ; 
 
 And O the froth was very great 
 As they swirled and eddied to and fro. 
 
 Yet wherefore should I speak in scorn ? 
 
 God made them in their kind, and he 
 Had use for them, at least had borne 
 
 With their most flippant vanity : 
 
 9 . . M
 
 194 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 
 
 As in his Universe we see 
 A province for all meanest things; 
 Even for the earthworm's twisted rings 
 
 A service and a ministry, 
 To silence our hasty cavillings. 
 
 And London is not One. It is 
 
 A group of vil'.ages, a lot 
 Of clic^ues and clubs and coteries; 
 
 Where the fresh fact or novel thought, 
 I Filtered from stage to stage, may not 
 Long time the simple fact remain, 
 Or thought as sent from the thinker's brain; 
 
 Rogues sweat their sovereigns ; fools, I wot, 
 Clip smaller the thoughts of their wisest men. 
 
 But she ? Well, she was like a spring 
 Of purest water, cold and clear. 
 
 Where bright birds come to preen their wing, 
 And owls and ravens too appear:
 
 LOQUITUR TIIOKOLD. 195 
 
 She mirrored all as they drew near, 
 And they all drank, and left no trace ; 
 But each man deemed he saw his foce 
 
 Deep in her heart, and had no fear 
 That the shadow changed when he changed his place. 
 
 Me for a while she honored with 
 
 Selectest intercourse of few, 
 Rehearsing every night a myth 
 
 Of what I was, and how I grew 
 
 In a lone country-house, and knew 
 Science like Pascal, with no aid, 
 Except the quaintest little maid 
 
 Who was a delicate genius too. 
 And how she had drawn me out of the shade. 
 
 I tired of this ; 't was weary all, 
 And all unlike the glorious dream. 
 
 Which now with smiles I can recall, 
 Of a fair woman who did seem
 
 1^6 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 
 
 Down on my lower world to gleam, 
 Like something from the heavens untainted, 
 And for whose love my spirit fainted. 
 
 And would all lowliest worship deem 
 Too poor for her I had shrined and sainted 
 
 Perhaps I judged her wrong ; her way 
 Was harder than at first I knew ; 
 
 Her young life panted to be gay, 
 Her young heart panted to be true, 
 Her home was all divided too, 
 
 False science false religion met. 
 
 And lavish waste with scrimping debt ; 
 Poor heart ! the wonder is she grew 
 Half so noble as she was yet. 
 
 You did not know, — you could not guess; 
 
 But we had plighted love before ; 
 We pledged it in a long caress 
 
 One evening on the gray sea-shore,
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. i^-j 
 
 As thought came surging like the hoar, 
 Wild, bursting waves upon the beach ; 
 It was a passion beyond speech, 
 Ne'er quite articulate, and the more 
 Dumb that its hope seemed so far out of reach. 
 
 And I do think she loved as well 
 
 As she could love ; at any rate 
 I will not judge her, but will tell 
 
 The sorry issue of my fate. 
 
 I spake : she said she might not wait 
 For the slow ripening of my fame, 
 And the high honors that my name 
 
 Would win for some more worthy mate. 
 But she would cherish it all the same. 
 
 Enough ! why dwell on it ? She chose, 
 
 After her kind, one of the set ; 
 A man of blue-books, cold and close, 
 
 A scientific baronet,
 
 Ifjg LOQUITUR rirOROLD. 
 
 A creature who would vex and fret 
 Her soul wilh circumstantials, 
 And pottering among chemicals, 
 
 And prosing about funded debt, 
 And his articles in the serials. 
 
 So all was over. I had striven 
 
 'Gainst clearest proofs, to prove them wrong, 
 Had fought with doubts, as if for Heaven. 
 
 To cherish a delusion strong : 
 
 And O the cruel, bitter tlirong 
 Of haunting memories that came. 
 Still summoned by her cherished name, 
 
 Sweeping like mocking ghosts along. 
 As the dreary night-wind shook the window-frame ! 
 
 Seemed now the world a weary waste, 
 A heartless world, a thing to scorn ; 
 
 'T was only coldness made the chaste, 
 And Cupid was of Plutus born ;
 
 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. jf^Q 
 
 And evermore my soul was torn 
 With jealous rage to think of him, 
 The dainty prig, so spruce and trim, 
 
 Whose acres made my heart forlorn, 
 Whose love was naught but a summer whim. 
 
 Then turned I to my work. Not mine, 
 
 I said, to pule for woman's love; 
 With searching thoughts will I entwine 
 
 Round Nature's porches ; I 'm above 
 
 Being a slight girl's silken glove 
 Shaped to her hand, and laid away. 
 Or taken u^d, as fancy may : 
 
 I have a problem high to prove, 
 And the facts to gather, and set in array. 
 
 Alone, through many a weary day, 
 Alone through many a silent night, 
 
 I wended on my patient way, 
 
 Groping through darkness into light.
 
 oo LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 
 
 Now sore perplexed, now staggered quite, 
 Yet slowly working out a thought 
 That all to clearest order brought : 
 It held me with a spell of might, 
 And my days were happy, for I forgot, 
 
 Happy, for I forgot ! Ah me ! 
 
 I met her one day in the street, 
 Looking so sorrow-stricken ! he 
 
 Was glancing at his dainty feet, 
 
 And with his ready smirk would greet 
 Me heavy-laden : but I hid 
 My sorrow as a thing forbid. 
 
 And while my pained heart madly beat, 
 Silently into the throng I slid. 
 
 Again I met her in the Park ; 
 
 I was then thin and worn and faint ; 
 It was about the gathering dark. 
 
 And scarcely did she know me bent
 
 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 31 
 
 With toiling clay and night. I went 
 Close to her carriage, and she said, 
 " Cruel ! I hoped to crown your head 
 
 With laurel ; must my care be spent 
 On pallid flowers for a grave, instead ? " 
 
 A weary look was in her eye, 
 
 A wasting grief on her cheek so pale ; 
 
 And in my heart then muttered I, 
 
 " So, the stony heart has an unheard wail 
 Low moaning on the midnight gale, 
 
 And sighing now for love like mine. 
 
 When love alone is felt divine. 
 And life is flat, and riches stale. 
 And the soul awakens to long and pine." 
 
 An evil thought ! God pardon me ; 
 
 The fevered joy of passion fell, 
 A lurid light, could only be 
 
 Glared upward from the depths of hell ! 
 9*
 
 52 ■ LOQUITUR THOROLD. 
 
 Nay, be not wrotli : I loved her well, 
 Loved her, and love is ne'er in vain, 
 Loved her, and found in all its pain 
 
 A dew and blessing, and the swell 
 Of a life that joyed like the bounding main. 
 
 And I had died in early youth 
 
 At any rate. O, blame her not ; 
 She did but make my path more smooth, 
 
 And shed some sunlight on my lot. 
 
 I had of old this hectic spot, — 
 Our mother's gift of delicate bloom : 
 And it is well she 'scaped the doom 
 
 Of early widowhood. I sought 
 To wed her young life to a fated tomb. 
 
 And as I loved her, you will love. 
 And gently scan her, hap what may ; 
 
 Sweet, as we hope to meet above, 
 You promise, ere I go away.
 
 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 203 
 
 There, kiss me in pledge of it. I lay 
 A wager that 's your Hermann strong, 
 His deep bass booming a Luther-song 
 Out of a heart as big as gay : 
 What a great life is that coming tramping along ! 
 
 Would I be like him ? Nay, not now ; 
 
 Best as it is, dear : all is best. 
 I 've lived my life ; and gladly bow 
 
 Unto the high, supreme Behest, 
 
 As I draw near the hour of rest, 
 Leaving no care behind me here : 
 Soon all the mystery shall be clear, 
 
 Or in high fellowship of the Best 
 Little we '11 heed, with the great God near. 
 
 My sun sinks without clouds or fears ; 
 
 No spectral shadows gather round 
 The gateway of the endless years. 
 
 Where we, long blindfold, are unbound.
 
 204 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 
 
 And lay our swath ings on the ground, 
 To face the Eternal. So I rest 
 Peacefully on the Strong One's breast, 
 
 Even though the mystery profound 
 Ever a mystery be confessed. 
 
 My old doubts? — Well, they no more fret, 
 
 Nor chafe and foam o'er sunken rocks. 
 I don"t know that my Faith is yet 
 
 Quite regular and orthodox ; 
 
 I have not keys for all the locks, 
 And may not pick them. Truth will bear 
 Neither rude handling, nor unfair 
 
 Evasion of its wards, and mocks 
 Whoever would falsely enter there. 
 
 But all through life I see a Cross, 
 
 Where sons of God yield up their breath 
 
 There is no gain except by loss, 
 There is no life except by death,
 
 LOQUITUR rilOROLD. 205 
 
 There is no vision but by Faith, 
 Nor glory but by bearing shame, 
 Nor justice but by taking bhame ; 
 And that Eternal Passion saith, 
 " Be emptied of glory and right and name." 
 
 Anselm and Luther, Tauler, Groot, 
 With reverent search and solemn awe, 
 
 Saw each some angle of God's great thought. 
 Saw none of them the perfect Law, 
 And, in defining much, some flaw 
 
 Marred all their reasoning ; nor may 
 
 I fashion forth the truth which they 
 Only in broken fragments saw ; 
 But the way of the just is to trust, and pray. 
 
 I wonder how the twilight shines 
 
 On the tinkling brook that cleaves the hill, 
 And how it rays with great broad lines 
 
 Through rifted clouds that slumber still,
 
 2o6 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 
 
 And how the fall that turned our mill 
 Glistens, and how the shadows fold 
 Around the dew as niglit grows cold, 
 
 And how the lark with tuneful bill 
 
 Sings o'er the meadows we loved of old. 
 
 I ever loved our earth, and still 
 
 I love its scaurs and brooks and braes, 
 
 The long bleak moor, the misty hill, 
 And all their creatures, and their ways. 
 And many waters sounding praise ; 
 
 It seems as if my lingering feet 
 
 Clung to its moss and grasses sweet, 
 And ferny glades, and golden days 
 When cowslips and lad\birds made our hearts beat. 
 
 Throw up the' window ; let me hear 
 The mellow ouzel once more sing, 
 
 The carol of the skylark clear. 
 The hum of insects on the wing,
 
 LOQUITUR THOROLD. 207 
 
 The lowing of the kiiie to bring 
 The milkmaid singing witli her pail, 
 The tricksy lapwing's far-off wail, 
 
 The woodland cushat's murmuring. 
 And the whish of the pines in the evening gale. 
 
 Fain would I carry with me all 
 
 Blithe Nature's blended harmony ; 
 The half-notes and the tremulous fall 
 
 Of her young voices, and the free 
 
 Gush of full-throated melody \ 
 And like a child, I 'm loath to go. 
 And leave the elders to the flow 
 
 Of speech and song and memorj', 
 And take me to sleep in the room below. 
 
 But I can yet take up the pra^'er 
 Of childhood at the mother's knee, • 
 
 And breathe it as the natural air 
 Of truest Faith and Piety,
 
 2o8 LOQUITUR TIIOROLD. 
 
 r 
 Its meanings deepening as I see 
 
 My deeper needs, his deeper light; 
 
 For wonder grown to wisdom might 
 
 Find there fit utterance and a key 
 
 To the thoughts that reach to the Infinite. 
 
 My Father, lo ! the end draws near, 
 And in thy presence I am dumb ; 
 
 Have mercy on my lowly fear, 
 
 And, Father, let thy kingdom come : 
 I thank thee for my daily crumb ; 
 
 Forgive me, as I do forgive ; 
 
 And in my dying may I live; 
 
 And when the hours of trial come, 
 Help and deliverance do thou give. 
 
 trijc Enti. 
 
 Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co
 
 3 1205 02089 9264 
 
 UC SOUTHEF?N REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A A 001 429 684 2