R r^M^^jC JC^iCirjfi' LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA GIFT OF MRS. MARY WOLFSOHN IN MEMORY OF HENRY WOLFSOHN MF W4 9^m ^ Of rh:. VNIVERs* ^; c*. **^ 2o-Zcrr2t /, POETICAL WORKS OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. {COMPLETE) FROM THE TWELFTH LONDON EDITION. ILLUSTRATED, or THE \^ r». Of £5t /ro- TROY, N.Y. : NIMS AND KNIGHT. h*-«-»H I ♦ ■ »'l COPYKIGHT BY T. Y. CROWELL & CO., 1882. JTrankUn y«aa : RAND, AVERT, AND COMPANY. BOSTON. \'d'd-2~ I ^ I ■ I ^m I i DEDICATION. TO MY FATHER. When your eyes fall upon this page of dedication, and you start to see to whom it is inscribed, your first thought will be of the time, far off, when I was a child, and wrote verses, and when I dedicated them to you, who were my public and my critic. Of all that such a recollection implies of saddest and sweetest to both of us, it would become neither of us to speak before the world ; nor would it be possible for us to speak of it to one another with voices that did not falter. Enough, that what is in my heart when I write thus will be fully known to yours. And my desii-e is, that you, who are a witness how, if this art of poetry had been a less earnest object to me, it must have fallen from ex- hausted hands before this day, — that you, who have shai-ed with me in things bitter and sweet, softening or enhancing them, every day, — that you, who hold with me, over all sense of loss and transiency, one hope by one name, — may accept from me the inscription of these vol- umes, the exponents of a few years of an existence which has been sustained and comforted by you, as well as given. Somewhat more faint-hearteil than I used to be, it is my fancy thus to seem to return to a visilile personal dependence on you, as if indeed I were a child again; to conjure your beloved image between myself and the public, so as to be sure of one smile ; and to satisfy my heart, while I sanctify my ambition, by associating with the great jiursuit of my life its ten- derest and holiest affection. Your E. B. B. London, 50 "Wimpole Street, 1844. ADYERTISEME^T. This edition, including my earlier and later writings, I have en- deavored to render as little unworthy as possible of tlie indulgence of the public. Several poems I would willingly have withdrawn, if it were not almost impossible to extricate what has been once caught and involved in the machinery of the press. The alternative is a request' to the generous reader that he may use the weakness of those earliei verses, which no subsequent revision has succeeded in strengthening, less as a reproach to the writer than as a means of marking some prog- ress in lier other attempts. E. B. B. London, 1856. iv 1 1 ■ < ^m I CONTENTS. Page AuBORA Leigh: — First Book 1 Second Book t9 Third Book 40 Fourtli Book 60 Fifth Book 80 Sixth Book , . .100 Seventh Book 121 Eighth Book 142 Ninth Book 103 A Drama of Exile 179 The Seraphim 212 \Prometheus bound. From the Greek of ^schylus .... 22-5 A Lament for Adonis. Froj( the Greek of Bion 245 A Vision of Poets 247 The Poet's Vow 261 The Romaunt of Margret .... 268 IsoBEL's Child 271 The Romaunt of the Page .... 277 The Lay of the Brown Rosary . . 282 A Romance op the Ganges .... 290 Rhyme of the Duchess May' . . . 293 The Romance of the Swan's Ne?t . 302 Bertha in the Lane 303 Lady- Geraldine's Courtship . . . 306 The Runaway' Slave at 1'ilgri.m's I'oint 317 Vl'nt; f'^y mr th^- niTTTppp^v .... .321 Jf A Child asleep . ' 323 The Fourfold Aspect 324 KiGHT AND THE MeRRY' MaN .... 326 Earth and her Praisers 327 The Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus 330 An Island .332 The Soul's Travelling 335 To Bettine 338 Man and Nature 339 A Seaside AValk .339 The Sea-mew 340 Felicia Hemans 340 L. E. L.'s Last Question 341. Crowned and wedded 342 Crowned and buried 344 To Flush, my Dog 347 The Deserted Garden .349 My' Doves 350 Hector in the Garden 351 Sleeping and Watching 3.52 Sounds 353 Page Sonnets : — The Soul's Expression 355 The Seraph and Poet 355 Bereavement 355 Consolation 356 To Mary Russell Mitford. In her Garden 356 On a Portrait of Wordsworth by B. R. Haydon 356 Past and Future 356 Irreparableness 357 Tears 357 Grief .357 , Substitutioii 357 Comfort 358 Perplexed Music .358 \Vork 358 Futurity 359 The Two Sayings 3-59 The Look 359 The Meaning of the Look .... 3-59 A Thought for a Lonely Death-bed . 360 Work and Contemplation .... 360 Pain in Pleasure 360 Fiiish or Faunus 360 Finite and Infinite 361 An Apprehension 361 Discontent 361 Patience taught by Nut lire .... 362 Cheerfuhiess taught by Reason . . 362 Exaggeration 362 Adequacy 362 To George Sand. A Desire . . .363 To George Sand. A Recognition . 363 The Prisoner 363 Insufficiency 363 Two Sketches. 1 364 Two Sketches. II 364 Mountaineer and Poet 364 The Poet 364 Hiram Powers' Greek Slave . . . 365 Life 365 Love 365 Heaven and Earth 366 The Prospect 366 Hugh Stuart Bovd. His Blindness. 366 Hugh Stuart Boyd. His Death . . 367 Hugh Stuart Boyd. Legacies . . 367 The Lost Bower 367 A Song against Singing 373 Wine of Cy'prus 374 A Rhapsody' of Life's Progress . . 876 V VI CONTENTS. \-*-\\-*-{ Page A Lay of the Early Rose .... 379 The Po^t anb thk Rtrd . a Fable. 381 The Ory' of the Human 382 A Portrait 383 Confessions 384 Loved once .■^gSB The House of Clouds 387 A Sabbath Morning at Sea . . . 388 A Flower in a Letter 389 The Mask . . 391 Calls on the Heart 391 Wisdom Unapplied 393 Memory- and Hope 394 Human Life's Mystery 395 A Child's Thought of God .... 396 The Claim 396 Song of the Rose 396 A Dead Rose 397 The Exile's Return 397 The Sleep 398 The Measure 399 Cowper's Grave 399 The "Weakest Thing 401 The Pet Name 401 The Mourning Mother 402 A Valediction 403 Lessons from the Goese .... 404 The Lady''s Yes 404 A Woman's Shortcomings .... 404 A Man's Requirements 405 A Year's Spinning 406 Change upon Change 406 That Day 407 A Reed 407 The Dead Pan 408 A "Child's Grave at Florence . . 411 CatarinjV to Camoens 413 Life and Love 415 A Denial 415 Proof and Disproof 416 Question and Answer 417 Inclusions 417 ^ Insufficiency 417 ■■•■ Sonnets from the Portuguese . . 418 \ Casa Guidi Windows 429 l^J'oEMS before Congress: — Naijoleon III. in Italy 463 The Dance 467 A Tale of Villafranca 469 A Court Lady 470 An August Voice 471 Christmas Gifts 473 Italy and the World 473 A Curse for a Nation 476 JjAst Poems: — Little Mattie 478 A False Step 479 Void in Law 479 493 495 Page Last Poems : — Lord Walter's Wife 480 Bianca among the Nightingales . . 482 My Kate 484 A Song for the Ragged-Schools of London 485 May's Love 487 Amy's Cruelty ......... 487 My Heart and I 488 The Best Thing in the World . . .489 Where's Agnes ? 4S9 XDe Profundis 490 A Musical Instrum e n t 492 F'irsl i\ews irom Villafranca . . . 493 .-■'^ing Victor Emanuel entering Flor- ence, April, 1860 The Sword of Castruccio Castracani Summing up in Italy 495 " Died ..." 497 The Forced Recruit 497 Garibaldi 498 Only a Curl 499 A View across the Roman Campagna 500 The King's Gift 501 Parting Lovers 501 Mother and Poet 502 Nature's Remorses 504 The North and the South .... 506 Translations : — From Theocritus: — The Cyclops 507 XFrom Apuleius : — Psyche gazing on Cupid . . Psyche wafted by Zephyrus Psyche and I'an Psyche propitiating Ceres . Psyche and the Eagle . . . Psyche and Cerberus . . . Psyche and Proserpine . . Psyche and Venus .... Mercury carries Psyche to Olym- pus 512 Marriage of Psyche and Cupid . 512 From Noun us : — How Bacchus finds Ariadne sleep- ing 513 How Bacchus comforts Ariadne . 514 From Hesiod : — Bacchus and A riadne 515 From Euripides : — Aurora and Tithonus 515 From Homer : — Hector and Andromache .... 516 The Daughters of Pandarus . . 518 Another Version 518 From Anacreon : — Ode to the Swallow 518 From Heine 519 509 509 510 510 511 512 512 512 v J^ AURORA LEIGH. A POEM IN NINE BOOKS Dedication to John Ken von, Esq. The words " cousin " and " friend " are constantly recurring in this poem, the last pages of which have been finished under the hosjiitality of your roof, my own dearest cousin and friend, — cousin and friend in a sense of less equality and greater disinterestedness than " Romney's." Ending, therefore, and preparing once more to quit England, I venture to leave in your hands this book, the most mature of my works, and the one into which my highest convictions upon life and art have entered; that as, through my A^arious efforts in literature, and steps in life, you have believed in me, borne with me, and been generous to me, far beyond the common uses of mere relationship or sympathy of mind, so you may kindly accept in sight of the public this poor sign of esteem, gratitude, and affection from Your unforgetting 39 Devonshire Place, Oct. 17, 1856. E. B. B. AURORA LEIGH, FIRST BOOK. Of writing many books there is no end ; And I, who have written much in prose and verse For others' tases, will write now for mine, — Will write my story for my better self. As when you jiaint your portrait for a friend, Who keeps it in a drawer, and looks at it Long after he has ceased to love you, just To hold together what he was and is. I, writing tlms, am still what men call young : I have not so far left the coasts of life To travel inland, that I cannot hear That murmiir of the outer Infinite Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep When wondered at for smiling ; not so far. But still I catch my mother at her jiost 1 AURORA LEIGH. Beside the nursery-door, with finger np, " Hush, hush, here's too mucli noise ! " while her sweet eyes Leap forward, taking part against her word In the chikl's riot. Still I sit, and feel My father's slow hand, ^hen she had left us both, Stroke out my childish curls across his knee. And hear Assunta's daily jest (she knew He liked it better than a better jest) Inquire how many golden scudi went To make such ringlets. O my father's hand, Stroke heavily, heavily, the poor hair down. Draw, press the child's head closer to thy knee ! I'm still too young, too young, to sit alone. I write. My mother was a Florentine, Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me When scarcely I was four years old ; my life A poor spark snatched up from a fail- ing lamp AVhich went out therefore. She was weak and frail ; She could not bear the joy of giving life ; The mother's rapture slew her. If her kiss Had left a longer weight upon my lijis. It might have steadied the uneasy breath. And reconciled and fraternized my soul AYith the new order. As it was, in- deed, I felt a mother-want about the world. And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb Left out at night in shutting up the fold, — As restless as a nest-deserted bird Grown chill through something being away, though what It knows not. I, Aurora Leigh, was born To make njy father sadder, and mv- self Not overjoyous, truly. Women know The way to rear up children (to be just) ; They know a simple, merry, tender knack Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes. And stringing jn-etty words" that make no sense. And kissing full sense into empty words ; Which things are corals to cut life upon. Although such trifles : children learn by such. Love's holy earnest in a pretty play, And get not over-early solemnized. But seeing, as in a ro'se-bush. Love's Divine, Which burns and hurts not,— not a single bloom, — Become aware and unafraid of love. Such good do mothers. Fathers love as well, — Mine did, I know, — but still with heavier brains. And wills more consciously responsi- ble. And not as wiselj^ sintse less foolishly: So mothers have God's license to be missed. My father was an austere Englishman, Who, after a dry lifetime spent at home In college-learning, law, and i:)arish talk, Was flooded with a passion unaware, His whole provisioned and compla- cent iiast Drowned out from him that moment. As he stood In Florence, where lie had come to spend a month. And note the secret of Da Vinci's drains, He musing somewhat absently per- haps Some English question . . . whether men should pay The unpopular but necessary tax With left or right hand — in the alien sun In that great square of the Santissinia There drifted past him (scarcely marked enough To move his comfortable island scorn) A train of priestly banners, cross and psalm. The white-veiled, rose-crowned maid- ens holding up Tall tapers, weighty for such wrists, aslant ' I, a little child, would crouch For hours upon the floor, with knees drawn up, And gaze across them, half in terror, half In adoration at the picture." —Page 3. ] AURORA LEIGH. 3 To the blue luminous tremor of the air, Aucl letting drop the white wax as they went To eat the bishop's wafer at the church ; From which long trail of chanting l^riests and girls A face flashed like a cymbal on his face, And shook with silent clangor brain and heart, Transfiguring him to music. Thus, even thus, He, too, received his sacramental gift With eucharistic meanings; for he loved. And thus beloved, she died. I've heard it said That but to see him, in the first sur- prise Of widower and father, nursing me, Unmothered little cliild of four vears old, — His large man's hands afraid to totxch my curls. As if the gold would tarnish, his grave lips Contriving such a miserable smile As if he knew needs must, or I should die. And yet 'twas hard, — would almost "make the stones Cry out for pity. There's a verse he set In Santa Croce to her memory, — " Weep for an infant too young to weep much When death removed this mother," — stops the mirth To-day on women's faces when they walk, With rosy children hanging on their gowns. Under the cloister to escape the sun That scorches in the piazza. After which He left our Florence, and made haste to hide Himself, his prattling child, and silent grief, Among the mountains above Pelago; Because unmothered babes, he thought, had need Of mother-nature more than others use. And Pan's Avhite goats, with udders warm, and full Of mystic contemplations, come to feed Poor milkless lips of orphans like his own. Such scholar-scraps he talked, I've heard from friends; For even i^rosaic men who wear gr'-ef long Will get to wear it as a hat aside With a flower stuck in't. Father, then, and child. We lived among the mountains many years, God's silence on the outside of the house. And we who did not speak too loud within, And old Assunta to make up the fire. Crossing herself whene'er a sudden flame Which lightened from the firewood made alive That picture of my mother on the wall. The painter drew it after she was dead ; And when the face was finished, throat and hands. Her cameriera carried him, in hate Of the English-fashioned shroud, the last brocade She dressed in at the Pitti. " He should paint No sadder thing than that," she swore, " to wrong Her poor signora." Therefore very strange The effect was. I, a little child, would crouch For hours upon the floor, with knees drawn up, And gaze across them, half in terror, half In adoration, at the picture there, — That swan-like supernatural white life Just sailing upward from the red stiff silk Which seemed to have no part in it, nor power To keep it from quite breaking out of bounds. * For hours I sate and stared. Assun- ta's awe And my poor father's melancholy eyes Still pointed that way. That way went my thoughts i AURORA LEIGH. When wandering beyond sight. And as I gr«w In years, I mixed, confused, nncon- scionsl>-, Whaterer I last read, or heard, or ^ith still that face . . . which did not therefore change. But kept the mystic level of all forms, Hates, fears, and admirations — was by turns Ghost, "fiend, and angel, fairy, witch, and sprite; A dauntless Muse who eyes a dread- ful Fate; A loving Psyche who loses sight of Love ; A still ISIedusa with mild milky brows, All curdled and all clothed upon with snakes Whose slime falls fast as sweat will; or anon Our Lady of the Passion, stabbed with swords Where the Babe sucked; or Lamia in her first Moonlighted ]iallor, ere she shrunk and blinked, And shuddering wriggled down to the unclean; Or my own mother, leaving her last smile In her last kiss upon the baby-mouth My father pushed down on the bed for that ; Or my dead mother, without smile or kiss. Buried at Florence. All which im- ages. Concentred on the picture, glassed themselves Before my meditative childhood, as The incoherencies of change and death Are represented fully, mixed and merged. In the smooth fair mystery of perpet- ual life. And while I stared away my childish wits Upon my mother's picture, (ah, poor child!) My father, who through love had suddenly Thrown off the old conventions, broken loose From chin-bands of the soul, like Lazarus, Yet had no time to learn to talk and walk. Or grow anew familiar with the sun ; Who had reached to freedom, not to action, lived, But lived as one entranced, with thoughts, not aims; Whom love had unmade from a com- mon njan, But not completed to an uncommon man, — My father taught me what he had learnt the best Before he ilied, and left me, — grief and love. And seeing we had books among the hills. Strong words of counselling souls confederate With vocal j)ines and waters, out of books He taught me all the ignorance of men, And how God laughs in heaven when any man Says, "Here-I"m learned; this I un- derstand; In that I am ncA^er caught at fault or doubt." He sent the schools to school, demon- strating A fool will pass for such through one mistake, AVhile a iihilosopher will pass for such Through said mistakes being ven- tured in the gross, And heaped iip to a sy.stem. I am like. They tell me, my dear father. Broad- er brows Howbeit, upon a slenderer under- growth Of delicate features, — imler, near as grave ; But then my mother's smile breaks up the whole, And makes it better sometimes than itself. So nine full years our days were hid with God Among his mountains. I was just thirteen, AURORA LEIGH. Still growing like the plants from \\n- seen roots In tongue-tied springs, and suddenly awoke To full life and life's needs and ago- nies, With an intense, strong, struggling heart, beside A stone-dead father. Life, struck sharp on death. Makes awful lightning. His last word was, " Love — Love, my child, love, love! " — (then he had done with grief) " Love, my child." Ere I answered, he was gone. And none was left to love in all the world. There ended childhood. What suc- ceeded next I recollect, as, after fevers, men Thread back the passage of delirium, Missing the turn still, bafHed by the door ; Smooth, endless days, notched here and there with knives, A weary, wormy darkness, spurred i' the flank With flame, that it should eat and end itself Like some tormented scorjiion. Then at last I do remember clearly how there came A stranger with authority, not right (I thought not), who commanded, caught me up From old Assunta's neck; how with a shriek She let me go, while I, with ears too full Of my father's silence to shriek back a word. In all a child's astonishment at grief. Stared at the wharf-edge where she stood and moaned. My poor Assunta, where she stood and moaned! The white walls, the blue hills, my Italy, Drawn backward from the shudder- ing steamer-deck, Like one in anger drawing back her skirts Which suppliants catch at. Then the bitter sea Inexorably pushed between us both. And, sweeping up the ship with my despair. Threw us out as a pasture to the stars. Ten nights and days we voyaged on the deep; Ten nights and days without the com- mon face Of any day or night; the moon and sun Cut off from the green reconciling earth , To starve into a blind ferocity, And glare unnatural ; the very sky (Dropping its bell-net down upon the sea As if no human heart should 'scape alive). Bedraggled with the desolating salt. Until it seemed no more that holy heaven To which my father went. All new and strange; The universe turned stranger, for a child. Then land! — then England! oh, the frosty cliffs Looked cold upon me. Could I find a home Among those mean red liouses through the fog ? And when I heard ujy father's lan- guage first From alien lips which had no kiss for mine, I wept alovid, then laughed, then wept, then wept; And some one near me said the child was mad Through much sea-sickness. The train swept us on. Was this my father's England ? the great isle ? The ground seemed cut up from the fellowship Of verdure, field from field, as man from man: The skies themselves looked low and positive, As almost you could touch them with a hand. And dared to do it, they were so far off From God's celestial crystals; all things blurred And dull and vague. Did Shakspeare and his mates AURORA LEIGH. Absorb the light here ? Not a hill or stone With heart to strike a radiant color up, Or active outline on the indifferent air. I think I see my father's sister stand Upon the hall-step of her country- house To give me welcome. She stood straight and calm, Her somewhat narrow forehead braid- ed tight As if for taming accidental thoughts From possible pulses; brown hair l>ricked with gray By frigid use of life (she was not old, Although my father's elder by a year); A nose drawn sharply, yet in delicate lines; A close mild mouth, a little soured about The ends, through speaking unrequit- ed loves Or, peradventure, niggardly half- truths ; Eyes of no color — once they might have shoiled, But never, never, have forgot them- selves In smiling; cheeks in which was yet a rose Of perished summers, like a rose in a book. Kept more for ruth than pleasure — if past bloom. Past fading also. She liad lived, we'll say, A harmless life, she called a virtuous life, A quiet life, which was not life at all (But that, she had not lived enough to know), Between the vicar and the county squires. The lord-lieutenant looking down sometimes From the empyrean to assure their soi;ls Against chance vulgarisms, and, in the abyss. The apothecary looked on once a year To prove their soundness of luiniility. The poor-club exercised her Christian gifts Of knitting stockings, stitching petti- coats, Because we are of on* flesh, after all, And ueed one flannel (with a proper sense Of difference in the quality); and still The book-club, guarded from your modern trick Of shaking dangerous questions from the crease, Preserved her intellectual. She had lived A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage, Accounting that to leap from perch to perch AYas act and joy enoiigh for any bird. Dear Heaven, how silly are the things that live In thickets, and eat berries! I, alas ! A wild bird scarcely fledged, was brought to her cage. And she was there to meet me. Very kind. Bring the clean water, give out the fresh seed. She stood upon the stejis to welcome me. Calm, in black garb. I clung about her neck : Yoiang babes, who catch at every shred of wool To draw the new light closer, catch and cling Less blindly. In my ears my father's word Hummed ignorantly, as the sea in shells, — " Love, love, my child." She, black there with my grief. Might feel my love: she was his sis- ter once. I clung to her. A moment she Beemed moved, Kissed me with cold lips, suffered me to cling. And drew me feebly through the hall into The room she sate in. There, with some strange spasm Of pain and passion, slie wrung loose my hands Imperiously, and held me at arm's- lengtli, And with two gray-steel naked-bladed eyes Searched through my face, — ay, stabbed it through and through. -J^ AURORA LEIGH. Through hrows and cheeks and chin, as if to find A wicked murderer in my innocent face, If not here, there perhaps. Then, drawing breath. She struggled for lier ordinary calm, And missed it rather ; told me not to shrink. As if she had told me not to lie or swear, " She loved my father, and would love me too As long as I deserved it." Very kind. I understood her meaning afterward: She thought to find my mother in my face, And questioned it for that. For she, my aunt, Had loved my father truly, as she could. And hated with the gall of gentle souls My Tuscan mother, who had fooled awaj' A wise man from wise courses, a good man From obvious duties, and depriving her, His sister, of the household prece- dence, Had wronged his tenants, robbed his native land. And made him mad, alike by life and death, In love and sorrow. She had pored for years What sort of woman Could be suitable To her sort of hate, to entertain it with. And so her very curiosity Became hate too, and all the idealism She ever used in life was used for hate. Till hate, so nourished, did exceed at last The love from which it grew in strength and heat, And wrinkled her smooth conscience with a sense Of disputable virtue (say not sin) When Christian doctrine was enforced at church. And thus my father's sister was to me My mother's hater. From that day she did Her duty to me (I appreciate it In her own word as spoken to herself). Her duty in large measure, well pressed out. But measured always. She was gen- erous, bland. More courteous than was tender, gave me still The first place, as if fearful that God's saints "Would look down suddenly and say, " Herein You missed a jioint, I think, through lack of love." Alas ! a mother never is afraid Of speaking angrily to any child, Since love, she knows, is justified of love. And I — I was a good child, on the whole, A meek and manageable child. Why not? I did not live to have the faults of life. There seemed more true life in my father's grave Than in all England. Since that threw me off Who fain would cleave (his latest will, they say, Consigned me to his land), I only thought Of lying quiet there, where I was thrown Like seaweed on the rocks, and suf- fering her To prick me to a pattern with her pin, Fibre from fibre, delicate leaf from leaf. And dry oiit from my drowned anat- omy The last sea-salt left in me. ' So it was. I broke the copious curls upon my lie ad In braids, because she liked smooth- ordered hair. I left off saying my sweet Tuscan words Which still at any stirring of the heart Came up to float across the English phrase As lilies {Bene or Che che), because She liked my father's child to speak his tongue. I learnt the collects and the cate- chism, ! 8 AURORA LEIGH. The creeds, from Athanasius back to Nice, The Articles, the Tracts against the times (By no means Buouaventure's " Prick of Love"), And various popular synopses of Inhuman doctrines never taught by John, Because she liked instructed pietJ^ I learnt my comi^lement of classic French (Kept pure of Balzac and neologism) And German also, since she liked a range Of liberal education, — tongues, not books. I learnt a little algebra, a little Of the mathematics, brushed with extreme Hounce The circle of the sciences, because She misliked women who are frivo- lous. I learnt the royal genealogies Of Oviedo, the internal laws Of the Burmese Empire, by how many feet Mount Chimborazo outsoars Tene- rifife, What navigable river joins itself To Lara, and what census of the year five "Was taken atKlagenfurt, because she liked A gen-eral insight into useful facts. I learnt much music, such as would have been As quite impossible in Johnson's day As still it might be wished, fine sleights of hand And unimagined fingering, shuflSiug off The hearer's soul through hurricanes of notes To a noisy Tophet ; and I drew . . . costumes From French engravings, nereids neatly draped (With smirks of simmering godship). I washed in Landscapes from nature (rather saj-, washed out). I danced the polka and Cellariiis, Spun glass, stuffed birds, and mod- elled flowers in wax. Because she liked accomplishments in girls. I read a score of books on woman- hood, To prove, if women do not think at all, They may teach thinking (to a maiden-aunt, Or else the author), — books that boldly assert Their right of comprehending hus- band's talk When not too deep, and even of an- swering With jiretty "may it please you," or " so it is; " Their rapid insight and fine aptitxide. Particular worth and general mission- ariness. As long as they keep quiet by the fire, And never say " no " when the world says " aj'," For that is fatal; their angelic reach Of virtue, chiefly used to sit and darn. And fatten household sinners; their, in brief. Potential faculty in every thing Of abdicating power in it: she owned She liked a woman to be womanly. And English women, she thanked God, and sighed (Some people always sigh in thanking God), Were models to the universe. And last I learnt cross-stitch, because she did not like To see me wear the night with empty hands, A-doing nothing. So my shepherdess Was something, after all (the jiastoral saints Be praised for't), leaning lovelorn, witli pink eyes To match her shoes, when I mistook the silks. Her head uncrushed by that round weight of hat So strangelv similar to the tortoise- shell " Which slew the tragic poet. By the way. The works of women are .symbolical. We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight, Producing what ? A jiair of slippers, sir, To put on when you're weary, or a stool To stumble over, and vex vou . . . " Curse that stool ! " Or else, at best, a cushion, where you lean I AURORA LEIGH. And sleep, and dr^m of something we are not, But would be for your sake. Alas, alas ! This hurts most, this, — that after all we are paid The worth of our work, perhaps. In looking down Those years of education (to return) I wonder if Brinvilliers suffered more In the water-torture . . . flood suc- ceeding flood To drench the incapable throat, and split the veins . . . Thau I did. Certain of your feel)ler souls Go out in such a process; many pine To a sick, inodorous light; my own endured: I had relations in the Unseen, and drew The elemental nutriment and heat From nature, as earth feels the sun at nights. Or as a babe sucks surely in the dark I kept the life thrust on me, on the outside Of the inner life, with all its ample room For heart and lungs, for will and in- tellect. Inviolable by conventions. God, I thank thee for that grace of thine ! At first I felt no life which was not patience; did The thing she bade me, without heed to a thing Beyond it; sate in just the chair she placed, "With back against the window, to ex- clude The sight of the great lime-tree on the lawn. Which seemed to have come on pur- pose from the woods To bring the house a message, — ay, and walked Demurely in her carpeted low rooms, As if I should not, barkening my own steps, Misdoubt I was alive. I read her books; "Was civil to her cousin, Romney Leigh; Gave ear to her vicar, tea to her visit- ors, And heard them whisper, when I changed a cup (I blushed for joy at that), — "The Italian child. For all her blue eyes and her quiet ways. Thrives ill in England. She is paler yet Than when we came the last time: she will die." , " "Will die." My cousin Romney Leigh blushed too, "With sudden anger, and approaching me. Said low between his teeth, "You're wicked now ! You wish to die and leaA'e the world a-dusk For others, with your naughty light blown out ? ' ' I looked into his face defyingly. He might have known, that, being what I was, 'Twas natural to like to get away As far as dead folk can; and then, in- deed, Some people make no trouble when they die. He turned and went abruptly, slammed the door. And shut his dog out. Romney, Romney Leigh. I have not named my cousin hitherto, And yet I used him as a sort of friend; My elder by few years, but cold and shy And absent . . . tender, when he thought of it, Which scarcely was imperative, grave betimes. As well as early master of Leigh Hall, Whereof the nightmare sate upon his youth Rejiressing all its seasonable delights. And agonizing with a ghastly sense Of iiniversal hideous want and wrong To incriminate possession. When he came From college to the country, very oft He crossed the hill on visits to my aunt. With gifts of blue grapes from the hothouses, A book in one hand, — mere statistics (if I chanced to lift the cover), count of all The goats whose beards grow sprout- ing down toward hell i 10 AURORA LEIGH. Against God's separative judgment- hour. And she, — she almost loved him ; even allowed That sometimes he should seem to sigh my way: It made him easier to be pitiful, And sighing was his gift. So, undis- turbed At whiles, she let him shut my music up. And push my needles down, and lead me out To see in that south angle of the house Tiie figs grow black as if by a Tuscan rock. On some light pretext. She would turn her head At other moments, go to fetch a thing, And leave me breath enough to speak with him. For his sake: it was simple. Sometimes too He would have saved me utterly, it seemed. He stood and looked so. Once he stood so near He dropped a sudden hand upon my head Bent down on woman's work, as soft as rain ; But then I rose, and .shook it ofi as fire, — The stranger's touch that took my father's place. Yet dared seem soft. I used him for a friend Before I ever knew him for a friend. 'Twas better, 'twas worse also, after- ward : We came so close, we saw our differ- ences Too intimately. Always Romney Leigh "Was looking for the worms, I for the gods. A godlike nature his : the gods look down. Incurious of themselves ; and cer- tainly 'Tis well I should remember, how, those days, I was a worm too, and he looked on me. A little by his act jierhaps, yet more By something in me, surelv not mv will, I did not die; but slowly, as one in swoon, * To whom life creeps back in the form of death. With a sense of separation, a blind pain Of blank obstruction, and a roar i' the ears Of visionary chariots which retreat As earth grows clearer . . . slowly, by degrees, I woke, rose up . . . where was I ? in the world ; For uses therefore I must count worth while. I had a little chamber in the house, As green as any jiriA'et-hedge a bird Might choose to build in, though the nest itself Could show but dead-brown sticks and straws. The walls Were green ; the carpet was pure green; the straight Small bed was curtained greenly ; and the folds Hung green about the window, which let in The outdoor world with all its green- ery. You could not push your head out, and escape A dash of dawn-dew from the honey- suckle. But so you were baptized into the grace And privilege of seeing. . . . First the lime (I had enough there, of the lime, be sure : My morning-dream was often hummed away By the bees in it); i^aat the lime the lawn. Which, after sweeping broadly round the house. Went trickling through the shrulv- beries in a stream Of tender turf, and wore and lost itself Among the acacias, over which you saw The irregular line of elms by the deep lane Which stopped the grounds, and dammed the overflow Of arbutus and laurel. Out of sight The lane was ; sunk so deep, no foreign tramp, AURORA LEIGH. 11 Nor drover of wild ponies out of Wales, Could guess if lady's hall or tenant's lodge Dispensed such odors, though his stick, well crooked, Might reach the lowest trail of hlos- soming lirier Which dipped iipon the wall. Be- hind the elms. And through their tops, vou saw the folded hills Striped up and down with hedges (burly oaks Projecting from the line to show themselves). Through which my cousin Romney's chimneys smoked, As still as when a silent mouth in frost Breathes, showing where the wood- lands hid Leigh Hall; While, far above, a jut of table-land, A promontory without water, stretched. You could not catch it if the days were thick. Or took it for a cloud; but, other- wise. The vigorous sun would catch it up at eve, And use it for an anvil till he had filled The shelves of heaven with Inirning thunderbolts. Protesting against night and dark- ness ; then. When all his setting trouble was re- solved To a trance of passive glory, you inight see In ajiiJarition on the golden sky, (Alas, \m' Giotto's l)ackground !) the sheef) run Along the fine clear outline, small as mice That run along a witch's scarlet thread. Not a grand nature ; not my chestnut- woods Of Vallombrosa, cleaving by the spurs To the precipices; not my headlong leai^s Of waters, that cry out for joy ur fear In leaping through the palintating pines, Like a white soul tossed out to eter- nity With thrills of time upon it; not, in- deed, My multitudinous mountains, sitting in The magic circle, with the mutual touch Electric, panting from their full deeii hearts Beneath the influent heavens, and waiting for Communion and commission. Italj' Is one thing, England one. On English ground You understand the letter, — ere the fall How Adam lived in a garden. All the fields Are tied up fast with hedges, nose- gay-like; The hills are crumpled plains, the plains parterres; The trees round, woolly, ready to be clii^ped ; And if you seek for any wilderness. You find at best a park. A nature tamed, And grown domestic like a barn-door fowl. Which does not awe you with its claws and beak. Nor tempt you to an eyry too high up, But which in cackling sets you think- ing of Your eggs to-morrow at breakfast, in the i:)ause Of finer meditation. Rather say, A sweet familiar nature, stealing in As a dog juight, or child, to touch your hand. Or pluck your gown, and humbly mind you so Of presence and affection, excellent For inner uses, from the things with- out. I could not be unthankful, I who was Entreated thus, and holpen. In the room I speak of, ere the house was well awake, And also after it was well asleep, I sate alone, and drew the blessing in Of all that nature. With a gradual step, 12 AURORA LEIGH. A stir among the leaves, a breatli, a ray, It came in softly, while the angels made A place for it beside me The moon came. And swept my chamber clean of fool- ish thonglits. The sun came, saying, " Shall I lift this light Against the lime-tree, and you will not look ? I make the birds sing: listen! — but, for you, God never hears your voice, excepting when You lie upon the bed at nights, and weep." Then something moved jue. Then I wakened up, More slowly than I verily write now ; But wholly, at last, I wakened, opened A^ide The window and my soul, and let the airs And outdoor sights swec]) gradual gospels in. Regenerating what I was. O Life ! How oft we throw it off, and think, " Enough, Enough of life in so much! — here's a cause For rupture; herein we must break with Life, Or be ourselves unworthy; here we are wronged, Maimed, spoiled for aspiration: fare- well, Life!" And so, as froward liabes, we hide our eyes And think all ended. Then Life calls to us In some transformed, apocalj-ptic voice. Above us, or below us, or around: Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's, Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed To own our compensations than our griefs : Still Life's A^oice; still we make our peace with Life. And I, so young then, was not sullen. Soon I used to get up early just to sit And watch the morning cpiicken in the gray. And hear the silence open like a flower. Leaf after leaf, and stroke with list- less hand The woodbine through the window, till at last I came to do it with a sort of love, At foolish unaware: whereat I smiled, A melancholy smile, to catch myself Smiling for joy. Capacity for joy Admits temptation. It seemed, next, worth while To dodge the sharja sword set against my life, To slip down stairs through all the sleepy house, As mute as any dream there, and es- cape, As a soul from the body, out of doors, Glide through the shrubberies, drop into the lane, And wander on the hills an hour or two. Then back again, before the house should stir. Or else I sate on in my chamber green. And lived my life, and thought my thoughts, and prayed My iirayers without the vicar; read my books. Without considering whether thej' were fit To do me good. Mark there, j We get no good "■ By being ungenerous, even to a book. And calculating profits, — so much help By so much reading. It is rather when We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge Soul-forward, headlong, intt) a book's profound. Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth, — 'Tis then we get the right good from a book. , I read much. What my father taught before From many a volume, love re-em- phasized Upon the selfsame pages: Theojilirast AURORA LEIGH. 13 Grew tender with the memory of his eyes, And ^lian made mine wet. The trick of Greelt And Latin he had taught me, as he woukl Havfe taught me wrestling, or the game of lives, If such lie had I<;nown, — most like a shipwrecked man, AYho heaps his single platter with goats' cheese And scarlet berries; or like any man Who loves but one, and so gives all at once, Because he has it, rather than be- cause He counts it worthy. Tlius my father gave ; And thus, as did the women formerly Bj' young Achilles, when they pinned a A'eil Across the boy"s audacious front, and swept "With tuneful laughs the silver-fretted rocks. He wrapt his little daughter in his large Man's doublet, careless did it fit or 110. But after I had read for memory I read for hope. The path my father's foot Had trod me out (which suddenly broke off ^Yhat time he drojiped the wallet of the flesh And passed) alone I carried on, and set ^ly child-heart 'gainst the thorny un- derwood, To reach the grassy shelter of the trees. Ah babe i' the wood, without a brother-babe ! iSIy own self-jjity, like the redbreast bird. Flies back to cover all that past with leaves. Sublimest danger, over which none weeps. When any A'ouug wavfaring soul goes forth' Alone, unconscious of the perilous road. The day-sun dazzling in his limpid eyes. To thrust his own way, he an alien, through The world of books ! Ah, you ! — you think it fine. You clap hands — " A fair day ! " — you cheer him on. As if the worst could hajipen were to rest Too long beside a fountain. Y^et be- hold. Behold ! — the world of books is still the world, And worldlings in it are less merciful And more puissant. For the wicked there Are winged like angels; every knife that strikes Is edged from elemental fire to assail A si^iritual life; the beautiful seems right By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong Because of weakness ; power is justi- fied, Though armed against St. Michael; many a crown Covers bald foreheads. In the book- world, true. There's no lack, neither, of God's saints and kings, That shake the ashes of the grave aside From their calm locks, and, undis- comfited. Look steadfast truths against Time's changing mask. True, many a prophet teaches in the roads ; True, many a seer pulls down the flaming heavens Upon his own head in strong martj'r- dom In order to light men a moment's sjjace. But stay ! Who judges ? Who dis- tinguishes 'Twixt Saul and Nahash justly, at first sight, And leaves King Saul precisely at the sin. To serve King David ? Who discerns at once The sound of the trumpets, when the trumpets blow For Alaric as well as Charlemagne ? Who judges wizards, and can tell true seers From conjurers ? The child, there ? Would you leave [♦■♦I 14 AURORA LEIGH. •That child to wander in a battle- field, And push his innocent smile against the guns ? Or even in a catacomb, his torch Grown ragged in the fluttering air, and ail The dark a-mutter round him ? not a child. I read books bad and good, — some bad and good At once (good aims not always make good books: "Well-tempered spades turn up ill- smelling soils In digging vineyards even) ; books that prove God's being so definitely, that man's doubt Grows self-defined the other side the line, Made atheist by suggestion; moral books, Exasperating to license ; genial books, Discounting from the human dignity ; And merr,y books, which set you weeping when The sun shines ; ay, and melancholy books, Which make you laugh that any one shoitid weep In this disjointed life for one wrong more. The world of books is still the world, I write ; And both worlds have God's provi- dence, thank God, To keep and hearten. With some struggle, indeed, Among the breakers, some hard swim- ming through The deeps, I lost breath in my soul sometimes. And cried, " God save me, if there's any God ! " But, even so, God saved me; and, being dashed From error on to error, every turn Still brought me nearer to the central truth. I thought so. All this anguish in the thick Of men's opinions . . . press and counterpress. Now up, now down, now underfoot, and now Emergent . . . all the best of it, per- haps. But throws you back upon a noble trust And use of your own instinct, — merely proves Pure reason stronger than bare infer- ence At strongest. Try it, — fix against heaven's wall The scaling-ladders of school logic, mount Step by step ! — sight goes faster ; that still ray "Which strikes out from you, how, you cannot tell. And why, you know not, (did you eliminate. That such as vou indeed should ana- lyze ?) Goes straight and fast as light, and high as God. / The cygnet finds the water; but the man Is born in ignorance of his element, And feels out, blind at first, disorgan- ized Bv sin i' the blood, his spirit-insight dulled And crossed by his sensations. Pres- ently He feels it quicken in the dark some- times. When, mark, lie reverent, be obedi- ent. For such dumb motions of imperfect life Are oracles of vital Deity, Attesting the Hereafter. Let who says "The soul's a clean white jiaper," rather say, A palimpsest, a jirojihet's holograiih. Defiled, erased, and covered by a monk's, — The apocalypse, by a Longus ! i^oring on Which obscene text, we may discern, perhaps, Some fair, fine trace of what was written once. Some upstroke of an alpha ajul omega Expressing the old scripture. Books, l)ooks, books ! I had found the secret of a garret- room. Piled high with cases in my father's name. ! AURORA LEIGH. 15 Piled high, packed large, where, creei> ing in and out Among the giant fossils of my past, Like some small nimble mouse be- tween the ribs Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there At this or that box, pulling through the gap In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, The first book first. And how I felt it beat Under my pillow in the morning's dark, An hour before the sun would let me read ! My books ! At last, because the time was ripe, I chanced upon the poets. As the earth Plunges in fury, when the internal fires Have reached and pricked her heart, and throwing flat The marts and temples, the triumphal gates And towers of observation, clears her- self To elemental freedom — thus, my soul, At poetry's divine first finger-touch, Let go conventions, and sprang up surprised, Convicted of the great eternities Before two worlds. What's this, Aurora Leigh, You write so of the poets, and not laugh ? Those virtuous liars, dreamers after dark, Exaggerators of the sun and moon, And soothsayers in a tea-cuji ? I write so Of the only truth-tellers now left to God,'^ The only speakers of essential truth, Opposed to relative, comjiarative. And temjioral truths; the onlv holders by His sun-skirts, through conventional gray glooms; The onh' teachers who instruct man- kind , From just a shadow on a charnel- wall, To find man's veritable stature out Erect, sublime, — the measure of a man; And that's the measure of an angel, says The apostle. Ay, and wliile your common men Lay telegraphs, gauge railroads, reign, reap, dine. And dust the flaunty carpets of the world For kings to walk on, or our presi- dent, The poet suddenly will catch them up "With his voice like a thunder, — " This is soul, This is life, this word is being said in heaven, Here's God down on us! what are you about?" How all those workers start amid their work, Look round, look uji, and feel, a mo- ment's space. That carpet-dusting, though a pretty trade, Is not the imperative labor, after all ! My own best poets, am I one with you, That thus I love you, — or but one through love ? Does all this smell of thvme about mv feet Conclude my visit to your holy hill In personal presence, or but testify The rustling of your vesture through my dreams With influent odors ? When my joy and pain, My thought and aspiration, like the stops Of pipe or flute, are absolutely dumb, tJnless melodious, do you play on me. My pipers? — and if, sooth, you did not blow, AVould no sound come ? or is the mu- sic mine. As a man's voice or breath is called his own, Inbreathed by the Life-breather ? There's a doubt For cloudy seasons! But the sun was high When first I felt my pulses set them- selves For concord ; when the rhythmic tur- bulence Of blood and brain swept outward upon words, As wind upon the alders, blanching them 16 AURORA LEIGH. By turning up their under-natures till They trembled in dilation. O delight And triumph of the poet, who would say A man's mere " yes," a woman's com- mon " no," A little human hope of that or this. And says the word so that it burns you through With a special revelation, shakes the heart Of all the men and women in the world, As if one came back from the dead, and spoke. With eyes too happy, a familiar thing Become divine i' the iitterance ! while for him The poet, speaker, he expands with joy; The palpitating angel in his flesh Thrills inly with consenting fellow- ship To those innumerous spirits who sun themselves Outside of time. O life ! O poetry, — Which means life in lite! cognizant of life Beyond this blood-beat, passionate for truth Beyond these senses! — poetry, my life. My eagle, with lioth grap]jling feet still hot From Zeus's thunder, who hast rav- ished me Away from all the shepherds, sheep, and dogs, And set me in the Olympian roar and round Of luminous faces for a cup-bearer. To keep the mouths of all the god- heads moist For everlasting laughters, — I myself Half drunk across the -beaker "with their eyes! How those gods look! Enough so, Ganymede, We shall not bear above a round or two. We drop the golden cup at Here's foot. And swoon Itack to the earth, and find ourselves Face down among the pine-cones, cold with dew, While the dogs bark, and many a shepherd scoffs, " What's now come to the youth?" Such \\\)S, and downs Have poets. Am I such indeed ? The name Is royal, and to sign it like a queen Is what I dare not, — thougli some royal lilood Would seem to tingle in me now and then. With sense of power and ache, — with imposthumes And manias usual to the race. How- beit I dare not: 'tis too easy to go mad And ajie a Bourbon in a crown of straws : The thing's too common. Many fervent souls Strike rhyme on rhyme, wlio would strike steel on steel, If steel had offered, in a restless heat Of doing something. Many tender souls Have strung their losses on a rliyming thread. As children, cowslips: the more pains they take, The work more withers. Young men, ay, and maids, Too often sow their wild oats in tame verse, Before they sit down under their own vine. And live for use. Alas! near all the birds Will sing at dawn ; and yet we do not take The chaiTering swallow for the holy lark. In those days, though, I never an- alyzed, Not even myself. Analysis comes late. You catch a sight of Nature earliest In full front sun-face, and your eye- lids wink And drop Ijefore the wonder oft : you miss The form, through seeing the light. I lived those days. And wrote because I lived — unli- censed else ; My heart l)eat in my brain. Life's vio- lent flood Abolished bounds ; and which my neighbor's field. Which mine, what mattered ? It is thus in vouth. AURORA LEIGH. AVe play at leap-frog over the god Term; The love within us and the love with- out Are mixed, confounded : if we are loved, or love. We scarce distinguish. Thus with other power ; Being acted on and acting seem the same. lu that first onrush of life's chariot- wheels, We know not if the forests move, or we. And so, like most voung poets, in a flush Of individual life I poured myself Along the A'eins of others, and achieved Mere lifeless imitations of live A-erse, And made the living- answer for the dead, Profaning nature. " Touch not, do not taste, Nor handle," — Ave're too legal, who write young : We beat the phorminx till we hurt our thumbs, As if still ignorant of counterpoint ; We call the Muse, — "O Muse, be- nignant Muse ! ■' — As if we had seen her jiurple-ljraided head. With the eyes in it, start between the boughs As often as a stag's. What make- believe, With so much earnest ! what effete results From virile efforts I what cold wire- drawn odes. From such white heats ! — bucolics, where the cows Would scare the writer if they splashed the mud In lashing oft" the flies ; didactics, driven Against the heels of what the master said ; And counterfeiting epics, shrill with trumps A babe might blow between two straining cheeks Of Ijubbled rose, to make his mother laugh ; And elegiac griefs, and songs of love, Like cast-off nosegays jiicked up on the road, The worse for being warm: all these things, writ On happy mornings, with a morning heart. That leaps for love, is active for resolve, Weak for art only. Oft the ancient forms Will thrill, indeed, in carrying the young blood. The wine-skins, now and then a little warped. Will crack even, as the new wine gurgles in. Spare the old bottles ! Spill not the new wine. By Keats's soul, the man who never stepped In gradual progress like another man, But, turning grandly on his central self, Ensphered himself in twenty iierfect years. And died, not young (the life of a long life Distilled to a mere drop, falling like a tear Upon the world's cold cheek to make it burn Forever), — by that strong excepted soul I count it strange and hard to under- stand That nearly all young jjoets should write old ; That Poi^e was sexagenary at sixteen. And beardless Bj-ron academical, And so with others. It may be, jier- haps, Such have not settled long and deep enough In trance to attain to clairvoyance ; and still The memory mixes with the vision, spoils, And works it turbid. Or perhaps, again. In order to discover the Muse-Sphinx, The melancholy desert must sweep round, Behind you as before. For me, I wrote False poems, like the rest, and thought them true Because myself was true in writing them. I, peradventure, have writ true ones since With less complacence. 18 AURORA LEIGH. But I could not hide My quickening inner life from those at watch. They saw a light at a window now and then They had not set there : who had set it there ? My father's sister started when she caught My soul agaze in my eyes. She could not say I had no husiness with a sort of soul ; But plainly slie objected, and de- murred That souls were dangerous things to carry straight Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world. She said sometimes, "Aurora, have you done Your task this morning ? have you read that book ? And are you readv for the crochet here?" — As if she said, " I know there's some- thing wrong ; I know I iiave not ground you down enough To flatten and bake you to a whole- some crust, For household uses and proprieties. Before the rain has got into my barn. And set the grains a-sprouting. AVhat, you're green With outdoor impudence ? you al- most grow ? ' ' To which I answered, " Would she hear my task, And verify my abstract of the book? Or should I sit down to the crochet- work ? Was such her jjleasure?" Then I sate and teased The i^atient needle till it spilt the thread. Which oozed off from it in meander- ing lace From hour to hour. I was not there- fore sad ; My sold was singing at a work apart. Behind the wall of sense, as safe from harm As sings the lark when sucked \\\) out of sight In vortices of glory and blue air. And so, through forced work and sjjontaneous work. The inner life informed the outer life, Reduced the irregular blood to a set- tled rhythm, Made cool i\\e forehead with fresh- sprinkling di-eams. And rounding to the spheric soul the thin. Pined body, struck a color up the cheeks, Though somewhat faint. I clinched my brows across My blue eyes, greatening in tlie look- ing-glass. And said, " We'll live, Aurora ! we'll be strong. The dogs are on us ; but we will not die." Whoever lives true life will love true love. I learnt to love that England. Verv oft, Before the day was born, or otherwise Through secret windings of the after- noons, I threw my hunters off, and plunged myself Among the deep hills, as a hunted stag Will take the w^aters, shivering with the fear And passion of the course. And when at last Escaped, so many a green slope built on slope Betwixt me and the enemy's house behind, I dared to rest, or wander in a rest iSIade sweeter for the step upon the grass, And view the ground's most gentle dimplement (As if God's finger touched, but did not press. In making England); such an up-and- down Of verdure, nothing too much up or down, A ripple of land; such little hills the sky Can stoop to tenderly, and the wheat- fields climb ; Such nooks of valleys lined with orchises, Fed full of noises by invisible streams ; And open pastures where you scarce- ly tell White daisies from white dew; at intervals i AURORA LEIGH. 19 The mythic oaks and elm-trees stand- ing out Self-poised upon their prodigy of shade, — I thought my father's land was wor- thy too Of being my Shakspeare's. Very oft alone, Unlicensed; not unfrequently with leave To walk the tliird with Romney and his friend The rising painter, Vincent C'arring- ton, Whom men judge hardly as bee-bon- neted, Because he holds that, paint a body well. You paint a soul bj' implication, like The grand first Master. Pleasant walks: for if He said, " When I was last in Italy," It sounded as an instrument that's played Too far off for the tune, and yet it's fine To listen. Ofter we walked only two, If cousin Romney pleased to walk with me. We read, or talked, or quarrelled, as it chanced. We were not loA-ers, nor even friends well matched: Say, rather, scholars upon different tracks, Aud thinkers disagreed, — he, over- full Of what is, and I, haply, overbold For what might be. But then the thrushes sang. And shook my jjulses and the elm's new leaves; At which I turned, and held my fin- ger lip, And bade him mark, that howsoe'er the world Went ill, as he related, certainly The thruslies still sang in it. At the word His brow would soften; and he bore with me In melancholy patience, not unkind, While, breaking into voluble ecstasy, I flattered all the beauteous country round. As poets use, — the skies, the clouds, the fields. The happy violets hiding from the roads The primroses run down to, carrying gold ; The tangled hedgerows, where the cows push out Impatient horns and tolerant churn- ing mouths 'Twixt driijping ash-boughs; hedge- rows all alive With birds and gnats, and large white butterflies Which look as if the Mayflower had caught life. And palpitated forth upon the wind; Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist; Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills; And cattle grazing in the watered vales ; And cottage-chimneys smoking from the woods; And cottage-gardens smelling every- where, Confused with smell of orchards. "See!" I said, " Aud see! is not God with us on the earth ? And shall we put him down by aught we do ? W^ho says there's nothing for the poor and vile Save poverty and wickedness ? Be- hold! '■' Aud ankle-deeji in English grass I leaped. And clapped my hands, and called all very fair. In the beginning, when God called all good, Even then, was evil near us, it is writ; But we indeed who call things good and fair, The evil is upon us while we speak: Deliver us from evil, let us pray. SECOND BOOK. Times followed one another. Came a morn I stood upon the brink of twenty years. And looked l)efore and after, as I stood Woman aud artist, either incomplete, ^K*H AURORA LEIGH. Both credulous of completion. There I lield The whole creation in my little cup, And smiled with thirstj' lips before I drank " Good health to you and me, sweet neighbor mine, And all tliese jieoples." I was glad that day ; The June was in me, with its multi- tudes Of nightingales all singing in the dark, And rosebuds reddening where the calyx split. I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God, So glad, I could not choose be very wise, And, old at twenty, was inclined to pull My childhood backward in a childish jest To see the face oft once more, and farewell! In which fantastic mood I bounded forth At early morning, would not wait so long As even to snatch my bonnet by the strings, But, brushing a green trail across the lawn With my gown in the dew, took will and way Among the acacias of the shrubber- ies, To fly my fancies in the open air. And keep my birthday till my aunt awoke To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I murmured on As honeyed bees keep humming to themselves, " The worthiest poets have remained uncrowned Till death has bleached their fore- heads to the bone; And so with me it must be, unless I prove Unworthy of the grand adversity; And certainly I would not fail so much. "What, therefore, if I crown myself to- day In sport, not pride, to learn the feel of it Before my brows be numbed as Dante's own To all the tender jiricking of such leaves ? Such leaves ! what leaves ? I pulled the branches down To choose from. " Not the bay! I choose no bay, (The fates deny us if we are overbold) Nor myrtle, which means chiefly love; and love Is something awful, which one dares not touch So early o' mornings. This verbena strains The point of passionate fragrance; and hard by This guelder-rose, at far too slight a beck Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples. Ah, there's my choice, that ivy on the wall, That headlong ivy ! not a leaf will grow But thinking of a wreath. Large leaves, smooth leaves, Serrated like ray vines, and half as green. I like such \\y, bold to leap a height 'Twas strong to climb; as good to grow on graves As twist about a thyrsus; pretty too, (And that's not ill) when twisted round a comb." Thus speaking to mvself, half singing it. Because some thoughts are fashioned like a bell. To ring with once being touched, I drew a wreath Drenched, blinding me with dew, across my brow. And, fastening it behind so, turning, faced . . . My public! — cousin Romney — with a mouth Twice graver than his eyes. I stood there fixed, My arms up, like the caryatid, sole Of some abolished temple, helplessly Persistent in a gesture which derides A former purpose. Yet my blush was flame. As if from liax, not stone. " Aurora Leigh, The earliest of Auroras! " ' Hand stretched out I clasped, as shipwrecked men will clasp a hand. I " I stood there fixed, My arms up, like the caryatid." — Page ao. Of *r><- of AURORA LEIGH. 21 Indifferent to the sort of palm. The tide Had caught me at my pastime, writing down My foolish name too near upon the sea, Which drowned me with a blush as foolish. " You, My cousin! " The smile died out in his eyes, And dropped upon his lips, a cold dead weight, For just a moment, " Here's a book I found ; No name writ on it — poems, by the form ; Some Greek upon the margin; lady's Greek Without the accents. Read it ? Not a word. I saw at once the thing had witchcraft in't. Whereof the reading calls up danger- ous spirits: I rather bring it to the witch." " My book. You found it" . . . " In the hollow by the stream That beech leans down into, of which you said The Oread in it has a Naiad's heart. And pines for waters." "Thank you." " Thanks to you My cousin, that I have seen you not too much Witch, scholar, poet, dreamer, and the rest, To be a woman also." With a glance The smile rose in his eyes again, and touched The ivy on my forehead, light as air. I answered gravely, " Poets needs must be. Or men or women, more's the pity." "Ah, But men, and still less women, hap- pily. Scarce need be poets. Keep to the green wreath. Since even dreaming of the stone and bronze Brings headaches, pretty cousin, and defiles The clean white morning dresses." " So you judge, Because I love the beautiful I must Love pleasure chiefly, and be over- charged For ease and whiteness ! well, you know the world. And only miss your cousin: 'tis not much. But learn this: I would rather take my part With God's dead, who afford to walk in white. Yet spread his glory, than keep quiet here. And gather up my feet from even a step. For fear to soil my gown in so much dust. I choose to walk at all risks. Here, if heads That hold a rhythmic thought must ache perforce. For my part I choose headaches, — and to-day's my birthday." " Dear Aurora, choose instead To cure them. You have balsams." " I perceive. The headache is too noble for my sex. You think the heartache would sound decenter. Since that's the woman's special, proper ache, And altogether tolerable, except To a woman." Saying which, I loosed my wreath. And swinging it beside me as I walked. Half petulant, half playful, as we walked, I sent a sidelong look to find his thought. As falcon set on falconer's finger may. With sidelong head, and startled, braving eye. Which means, " You'll see, you'll see I I'll soon take flight. You shall not hinder." He, as shak- ing out His hand, and answering, " Fly, then," did not speak. Except by such a gesture. Silently We paced, until, just coming into sight Of the house-windows, he abruptly caught At one end of the swinging wreath, and said, "Aurora!" There I stopped short, breath and all. " Aurora, let's be serious, and throw by AURORA LEIGH. This game of head and heart. Life means, be sure, Both heart and head, — both active, both complete, And both in earnest. Men and wo- men make The world, as head and heart make human life. Work, man, work, woman, since there's work to do In this beleaguered earth for head and heart; And thought can never do the work of love: But work for ends, I mean for uses, not For such sleek fringes (do you call them ends, Still less God's glory ?) as we sew our- selves Upon the velvet of those baldaquins Held 'twixt us and the sun. That book of yours I haA^e not read a page of ; Vjut I toss A rose up — it falls calyx down, you see ! The chances are, that being a woman, young And pure, with such a pair of large, calm eyes. You write as well . . . and ill . . . upon the whole, As other women. If as well, what then ? If even a little better . . . still, what then? We want the best in art now, or no art. The time is done for facile settings-up Of minnow-gods, nymphs here, and tritons there: The polytheists have gone out in God, That unity of bests. No best, no God! And so with art, we say. Give art's divine, Direct, indubitable, real as grief. Or, leave us to the grief, we grow our- selves Divine by overcoming with mere hope And most i^rosaic patience. You, you are young As Eve with nature's daybreak on her face ; But this same world you are come to, dearest coz. Has done with keeping birthdays, saves her wreaths To hang upon her ruins, and forgets To rhyme the cry with which she still beats back Those savage, hungry dogs that hunt her down To the empty grave of Christ. The world's hard pressed: The sweat of labor in the early curse Has (turning acrid in six thousand years) Become the sweat of torture. Who has time. An hour's time . . . think ! — to sit upon a bank, And hear the cymbal tinkle in white hands ? When Egypt's slain, I say, let Miriam sing ! — Before — where's Moses ? " " Ah, exactly that. Where's Moses? Is a Moses to be found ? You'll seek him vainly in the bul- rushes, While I in vain touch cymbals. Yet concede, Such sounding brass has done some actual good (The application in a woman's hand, If that were credible, being scarcely spoilt), In colonizing beehives." "There it is ! You play beside a death-bed like a child, Yet measure to yourself a prophet's place To teach the living. None of all these things Can women understand. You gen- eralize, Oh, nothing, — not even grief ! Your (juick-breathed heai'ts, So sympathetic to the personal pang, Close on each separate knife-stroke, yielding up A whole life at each wound, incapable Of deepening, widening a large lap of life To hold the world-full woe. The human race To you means such a child, or such a man, You saw one morning waiting in the cold Beside that gate, perhaps. You gather up A few such cases, and when strong sometimes AURORA LEIGH. 23 Will write of factories and of slaves, as if Your father were a negro, and your son A spinner in the mills. All's yours and you, All colored with your blood, or other- wise Just nothing to you. Why, 1 call you hard To general suffering. Here's the world half-blind With intellectual light, half-brutal- ized With civilization, having caught the plague In silks from Tarsus, shrieking east and west Along a thousand railroads, mad with l^ain And sin too ! . . . does one woman of you all (You who weep easily) grow pale to see This tiger shake his cage ? Does one of you Stand still from daucing, stop from stringing jiearls, And pine and die, because of the great sum Of universal anguish? Show me a tear Wet as Cordelia's in eyes bright as yours. Because the world is mad. You can- not count That you should weep for this ac- count, not you! You weep for what you know. A red- haired child Sick in a fever, if you touch him once, Though but so little as with a finger- tip, Will set you weeping; but a million sick . . . You could as soon weep for the rule of three Or compound fractions. Therefore this same world Uncomprehended by you, must re- main Uninfluenced by you. Women as you are. Mere women, personal and passion- ate. You give us doating mothers, and perfect wives. Sublime Madonnas, and enduring saints: We get no Christ from you, and verily We shall not get a poet, in my mind." "With which conclusion you con- clude "... "But this: That you, Aurora, with the large live brow And steady eyelids, cannot conde- scend To play at art, as children play at swords, To show a pretty spirit, chiefly ad- mired Because true action is impossible. You never can be satisfied with praise Which men give women when they judge a book Not as mere work, but as mere wo- man's work. Expressing the comparative resjject. Which means the absolute scorn. ' Oh, excellent! What grace, what facile turns, what fluent sweeps, What delicate discernment ... al- most thought! The book does honor to the sex, we hold. Among our female authors we make room For this fair writer, and congratulate The country that produces in these times Such women, competent to ' . . . spell." " Stop there," I answered, burning through his thread of talk With a quick flame of emotion, — " you have read My soul, if not my book, and argue well I would not condescend . . . we will not say To such a kind of praise (a worthless end Is praise of all kinds), but to such a use Of holy art and golden life. I am young. And peradventure weak — you tell me so — Through being a woman. And for all the rest. Take thanks for justice. I would rather dance At fairs on tight-rope, till the babies dropped AURORA LEIGH. Their gingerbread for joy, than shift the types For tolerable verse, intolerable To men who act and suffer. Better far Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means. Than a sublime art frivolously." " You Choose nobler work than either, O moist eyes, And hurrying lips, and heaving heart! We are young, Aurora, you and I. The world, — look round, — The world we're come to late is swollen hard With perished generations and their sins: The civilizer's spade grinds horribly On dead men's bones, and cannot turn up soil That's otherwise than fetid. All success Proves partial failure; all advance implies What's left behind; all triumph, something crushed At the chariot-wheels; all govern- ment, some wrong; And rich men make the poor, who curse the rich, Who agonize together, rich and poor, Under and over, in the social spasm And crisis of the ages. Here's an age That makes its own vocation; here we have stepped Across the bounds of time; here's nought to see, But just the rich man and just Laza- rus, And both in torments with a mediate giilf, Though not a hint of Abraham's bosom. Who, Being man, Aurora, can stand calmly by And view these things, and never tease his soul For some great cure ? No physic for this grief. In all the earth and heavens too ? " " You believe In God, for your part? — ay? that He who makes Can make good things from ill things, best from worst. As men plant tulips upon dunghins when They wish them finest ? " " True. A death-heat is The same as life-heat, to be accurate ; And in all nature is no death at all, As men account of death, so long as God Stands witnessing for life perpetuallj'. By being just God. That's abstract truth, I know, Philosophy, or sympathy with God; But I, I sympathize with man, not God, (I think I was a man for chiefly this,) And, when I stand beside a dying bed, 'Tis death to me. Observe: it had not much Consoled the race of mastodons to know. Before they went to fossil, that anon Their place would quicken with the elephant: They were not elephants, but masto- dons; And I, a man, as men are now, and not As men may be hereafter, feel with men In the agonizing present." "Is it so," I said, " my cousin ? Is the world so bad, While I hear nothing of it through the trees ? The world was always evil, — but so bad?" "So bad, Aurora. Dear, my soul is gray With poring over the long sum of ill; So much for vice, so much for discon- tent. So much for the necessities of power, So much for the connivances of fear, Coherent in statistical despairs With such a total of distracted life . . . To see it down in figures on a page. Plain, silent, clear, as God sees through the earth The sense of all the graves, — that's terrible For one who is not God, and cannot right The wrong he looks on. May I choose indeed But vow away my years, my means, my aims, AURORA LEIGH. 25 Among the helpers, if there's any help In such a social strait ? The common blood That swings along my veins is strong enough To draw me to this duty." Then I spoke : " I have not stood long on the strand of life, And these salt waters have had scarcely time To creep so high up as to wet my feet : I cannot judge these tides — I shall, perhaps. A woman's always younger than a man At equal years, because she is disal- lowed Maturing by the outdoor sun and air. And kept in long-clothes past the age to walk. Ah, well ! I know you men judge otherwise. You think a woman ripens as a peach, In the cheeks, chiefly. Pass it to me now^ : I'm young in age, and younger still, I think, As a woman. But a child may say amen To a bishop's prayer, and feel tlie way it goes. And I, incapable to loose the knot Of social questions, can approve, ap- plaud August compassion, Christian thoughts that shoot Bej'ond the vulgar white of personal aims. Accept my teverence." There he glowed on me With all his face and eyes. " No other help?" Said he, "no more than so ? " " What help ? " I asked. " You'd scorn my help, as Nature's self, you say. Has scorned to put her music in my mouth, Because a woman's. Do you now turn round And ask for w^hat a woman cannot give?" " For what she only can, I turn and ask," He answered, catching up my hands in his, And dropping on me from his high- eaved brow The full weight of his soul. " I ask for love. And that, she can ; for life in fellow- ship Through bitter duties, that, I know she can ; For wifehood — will she ? " " Now," I said, " may God Be witness 'twixt us two ! " and with the word, Meseemed I floated into a sudden light Above his stature, — "am I proved too weak To stand alone, yet strong enough to bear Such leaners on my shoulder ? poor to think, Yet rich enough to sympathize with thought ? Incompetent to sing, as blackbirds can. Yet competent to love, like him ? " I paused ; Perhaps I darkened, as the light- house will That turns upon the sea. "It's al- ways so. Any thing does for a wife." " Aurora dear, And dearly honored," he pressed in at once With eager utterance, " you trans- late me ill. I do not contradict my thought of you, Which is most reverent, with another thought Found less so. If your sex is weak for art, (And I who said so did but honor you By using truth in courtship,) it is strong For life and duty. Place your fecund heart In mine, and let us blossom for the world That wants love's color in the gray of time. My talk, meanwhile, is arid to you, ay. Since all my talk can only set you where You look down coldly on the arena- heaps Of headless bodies, shapeless, indis- tinct. 26 AURORA LEIGH. The judgment-angel scarce would find his way Through such a heap of generalized distress To the individual man with lips and eyes, Much less Aurora. Ah, my sweet, come down, And hand in hand we'll go where yours shall touch These victims one by one, till, one by one, The formless, nameless trunk of every man Shall seem to wear a head with hair you know. And every woman catch your moth- er's face To melt you into passion." " I am a girl," I answered slowly : " you do well to name My mother's face. Though far too early, alas ! God's hand did interpose 'twixt it and me, I know so much of love as used to shine In that face and another ; just so much. No more, indeed, at all. I have not seen So much love since, I pray you par- don me, As answers even to make a marriage with In this cold land of England. What you love Is not a woman, Romney, but a cause : You want a helpmate, not a mistress, sir ; A wife to help your ends, in her no end . Your cause is noble, your ends ex- cellent ; But I, being most unworthy of these and that, Do otherwise conceive of love. Fare- well ! " "Farewell, Aurora? you reject me thus?" He said. " Sir, you were married long ago. You have a wife already whom you love, — Your social theory. Bless you both, I say. For my part, I am scarcely meek enough To be the handmaid of a lawful spouse. Do I look a Hagar, think you ? " " So you jest." " Nay, so I speak in earnest," I re- plied. " You treat of marriage too much like, at least, A chief apostle : you would bear with you A wife ... a sister . . . shall we speak it out ? — A sister of charity." " Then must it be. Indeed, farewell ? And was I so far wrong In hope and in illusion, when I took The woman to be nobler than the man. Yourself the noblest woman in the use And comprehension of what love is, — love That generates the likeness of itself Through all heroic duties ? so far wrong In saying bluntly, venturing truth on love, ' Come, human creature, love and work with me,' Instead of, ' Lady, thou art wondrous fair, And, where the Graces walk before, the Muse Will follow at the lightning of their eyes, And where the Muse walks, lovers need to creep: Turn round and love me, or I die of love?'" With quiet indignation I broke in, " You misconceive the question like a man. Who sees a woman as the comple- ment Of his sex merely. You forget too much That every creature, female as the male. Stands single in responsible act and thought As also in birth and death. Whoever says To a loyal woman, ' Love and work with me,' Will get fair answers, if the work and love, AURORA LEIGH. 27 Being good themselves, are good for her, — the best She was born for. Women of a softer mood, Surprised by men when scarcely awake to life. Will sometimes only hear the first word, love. And catch up with it any kind of work, Indifferent, so that dear love go with it. I do not blame such women, though for love They pick much oakum: earth's fa- natics make Too frequently heaven's saints. But me your work Js not the best for, nor your love the best, t^or able to commend the kind of work For love's sake merely. Ah ! you force me, sir. To be over-bold in speaking of my- self: I, too, have my vocation, — work to do. The heavens and earth have set me since I changed My father's face for theirs, and, though your world Were twice as wretched as you repre- sent. Most serious work, most necessary work As any of the economists'. Reform, Make trade a Christian possibility. And individual right no general wrong, Wipe out earth's furrows of the thine and mine. And leave one green for men to play at bowls, With innings for them all ! . . . what then, indeed. If mortals are not greater by the head Than any of their prosperities ? what then. Unless the artist keep up open roads Betwixt the seen and unseen, burst- ing through The best of your conventions with his best, The speakable, imaginable best God bids him speak, to prove what lies beyond Both speech and imagination ? A starved man Exceeds a fat beast: we'll not barter, sir, The beautiful for barley. And, even so, I hold you will not compass your poor ends Of barley-feeding and material ease Without a poet's individualism To work your universal. It takes a soul To move a body : it takes a high-souled man To move the masses even to a cleaner sty: It takes the ideal to blow a hair'.s- breadth off The dust of the actual. Ah ! your Fouriers failed. Because not poets enough to under- stand That life develops from within. For me. Perhaps I am not worthy, as you say, Of work like this: perhaps a woman's soul Aspires, and not creates: yet we as- pire. And yet I'll try out your perhapses, sir, And if I fail . . . why, burn me up my straw Like other false works. I'll not ask for grace : Your scorn is better, cousin Rom- ney. I Who love my art would never wish it lower To suit my stature. I may love my art. You'll grant that even a woman may love art. Seeing that to waste true love on any thing Is womanly, past question." I retain The very last word which I said that day. As you the creaking of the door, years past, Which let upon you such disabling news You ever after have been graver. He, His eyes, the motions in his silent mouth. Were fiery points on which my words were caught. Transfixed forever in my memory For his sake, not their own. And yet I know AURORA LEIGH. I did not love him . . . nor he me . . that's sure . . . And what I said is unrepented of, As truth is always. Yet . . . a prince- ly man — If hard to me, heroic for himself. He bears down on me through the slanting years, The stronger for the distance. If he had loved, Ay, loved me, with that retributive face, . . . I might have been a common woman now. And happier, less known, and less left alone. Perhaps a better woman, after all. With chubby children hanging on my neck To keep me low and wise. Ah me ! the vines That hear such fruit are proud to stoop with it. The palm stands ui>right in a realm of sand. And I, who spoke the truth then, stand upright, Still worthy of having spoken out the truth. By being content I spoke it, though it set Him there, me here. Oh, woman's vile remorse, To hanker after a mere name, a show, A supposition, a potential love ! Does every man who names love in our lives Become a power for that? Is love's true thing So much best to us, that what person- ates love Is next best ? A potential love for- sooth ! I'm not so vile. No, no! He cleaves, I think. This man, this image, chiefly for the wrong And shock he gave my life in finding me Precisely where the devil of my youth Had set me on those mountain peaks of hope. All glittering ^vith the dawn-dew, all erect. And famished for the noon, exclaim- ing, while I looked for empire and much tribute, " Come, I have some worthy work for thee be- low. Come, sweep my barns, and keep my hospitals. And I will pay thee with a current coin "Which men give women." As we spoke, the grass "Was trod in haste beside us, and my aunt, "With smile distorted by the sun, — face, voice. As mucli at issue with the summer- day As if you brought a candle out of doors, — Broke in with, " Romney, here! — My child, entreat Your cousin to the house, and have your talk, If girls must talk upon their birth- days. Come." He answered for me calmly, with pale lips That seemed to motion for a smile in vain. " The talk is ended, madam, where we stand. Your brother's daughter has dismissed me here ; And all my answer can be better said Beneath the trees than wrong by such a word Your house's hospitalities. Fare- well." With that he vanished. I could hear his heel Ring bluntly in the lane as down he leapt The short way from us. Then a measured speech Withdrew me. "What means this, Aurora Leigh ? My brother's daughter has dismissed my guests?" The lion in me felt the keeper's voice Through all its quivering dewlaps: I was quelled Before her, meekened to the child she knew: I i^rayed her pardon, said "I had little thouglit To give dismissal to a guest of hers In letting go a friend of mine who came I! AURORA LEIGH. 29 To take me into service as a wife, — No more than that, indeed." " No more, no more ? Pray Heaven," she answered, "that I was not mad. I could not mean to tell her to her face That Romney Leigh had asked me for a wife, And I refused him ? " "Did he ask?" I said. " I think he rather stoojied to take me up For certain uses which lie found to do For something called a wife. He never asked." "What stuff!" she answered. "Are they queens, these girls ? They must have mantles stitched with twenty silks. Spread out upon the ground, before they'll step One footstep for the noblest lover born." "But I am born," I said with firm- ness, " I, To walk another way than his, dear aunt." "You walk, you walk! A babe at thirteen months Will walk as well as you," she cried in haste, " Without a steadying finger. Why, you child, God help you ! you are groping in the dark. For all this sunlight. You suppose, perhaps. That you, sole offspring of an opulent man. Are rich, and free to choose a way to walk ? You think, and it's a reasonable thought, That I, beside, being well to do in life. Will leave my handful in my niece's hand When death shall paralyze these fin- gers ? Pray, Pray, child, albeit I know you love me not. As if you loved me, that I may not die; For when I die and leave you, out you go, (Unless I make room for you in my grave,) Unhoused, unfed, my dear, poor broth- er's lamb, (Ah, heaven 1 that pains) without a right to crop A single blade of grass beneath these trees, Or cast a lamb's small shadow on the lawn, Unfed, unfolded. Ah, ray brother, here's The fruit you planted in your foreign loves ! Ay, there's the fruit he planted ! Never look Astonished at me with your mother's eyes. For it was they who set you where you are, An undowered orphan. Child, your father's choice Of that said mother disinherited His daughter, his and hers. Men do not think Of sons and daughters when they fall in love. So much more than of sisters: other- wise He would have paused to ponder what he did. And shrunk before that clause in the entail Excluding offspring by a foreign wife, (The clause set up a hundred years ago By a Leigh who wedded a French dancing-girl, And had his heart danced over in re- turn;) But this man shrank at nothing, never thought Of you, Aurora, any more than me. Y'our mother must have been a pretty thing. For all the coarse Italian blacks and browns. To make a good man, which my broth- er was, Unchary of the duties to his house; But so it fell indeed. Our cousin Vane, Vane Leigh, tlie father of this llom- ney, wrote. Directly on your birth, to Italy: ' I ask your baby-daughter for my son. In whom the entail now merges by the law. AURORA LEIGTI. Betroth her to us out of love, in- stead Of colder reasons, and she shall not lose By love or law from henceforth: ' so he wrote. A generous cousin was my cousin Vane. Remember how he drew you to his knee The year you came here, just before he died, And hollowed out his hands to hold your cheeks, And wished them redder : you re- member Vane? And now his son, who represents our house. And holds the fiefs and manors in his place, To whom reverts my pittance when I die, (Except a few books and a pair of shawls) — The boy is generous like him, and prepared To carry out his kindest word and thought To you, Aurora. Yes, a fine young man Is Romney Leigh, although the sun of youth Has shone too straight upon his brain, I know. And fevered him with dreams of doing good To good-for-nothing people. But a wife Will put all right, and stroke his tem- ples cool "With healthy touches." . . . I broke in at that. I could not lift my heavy heart to breathe Till then; but then I raised it, and it fell In broken words like these, — "No need to wait: The dream of doing good to . . . me, at least, Is ended, without waiting for a wife To cool the fever for him. We've escaped That danger — thank Heaven for it." " You," she cried, " Have got a fever. What, I talk and talk An hour long to you, I instruct you how You cannot eat, or drink, or stand, or sit, Or even die, like any decent wretch In all this unroofed and unfurnished world. Without your cousin, and you still maintain There's room 'twixt him and you for flirting fans, And running knots in eyebrows? You must have A pattern lover sighing on his knee ? You do not count enough a noble heart (Above book-patterns) which this very morn Unclosed itself in two dear fathers' names To embrace your orphaned life ? Fie, fie ! But stay, I write a word, and counteract this sin." She would have turned to leave me, but I clung. " Oh, sweet my father's sister, hear my word Before you write yours. Cousin Vane did well, And cousin Romney well, and I well too. In casting back with all my strength and will The good they meant me. O my God, my God ! God meant me good, too, when he hindered me From saying ' yes ' this morning. If you write A word, it shall be ' no.' I say no, no ! I tie up ' no ' upon his altar-horns Qiute out of reach of perjury ! At least My soul is not a pauper : I can live At least my soul's life, without alms from men; And if it must be in heaven instead of earth. Let heaven look to it: I am not afraid." She seized my hands with both hers, strained them fast. And drew her probing and unscrupu- lous eyes Right through me, body and heart. " Yet, foolish sweet. \ AURORA LEIGH. 31 You love this man, I've watched you when he came, And when he went, and when we've talked of him. I am not old for nothing; I can tell The weather-signs of love: you love this man." Girls blush sometimes because they are alive. Half wishing they were dead to save the shame. The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow: They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats. And flare up bodily, wings and all. What then ? Who's sorry for a gnat ... or girl ? I blushed. I feel the brand upon my forehead now Strike hot, sear deep, as guiltless men may feel The felon's iron, say, and scorn the mark Of what they are not. Most illogical. Irrational nature of our womanhood. That blushes one way, feels another way. And prays, perhaps, another. After all. We cannot be the equal of the male. Who rules his blood a little. For although I blushed indeed, as if I loved the man. And her incisive smile, accrediting That treason of false witness in my blush, Did bow me downward like a swathe of grass Below its level that struck me, I at- test The conscious skies and all their daily suns, I think I loved him not, — nor then, nor since, Nor ever. Do we love the school- master, Being busy in the woods ? much less, being poor. The overseer of the parish? Do we keep Our love to pay our debts with ? White and cold I grew next moment. As my blood recoiled From that imputed ignominy, I made My heart great with it. Then, at last, I spoke, Spoke veritable words, but passion- ate. Too passionate perhaps . . . ground up with sobs To shapeless endings. She let fall my hands And took her smile off in sedate dis- gust. As peradventure she had touched a snake, — A dead snake, mind I — and, turning round, replied, " We'll leave Italian manners, if you please. I think you had an English father, child. And ought to lind it possible to speak A quiet 'yes' or 'no,' like English girls. Without convulsions. In another month We'll take another answer, — no, or yes." With that, she left me in the garden- walk. I had a father ! yes, but long ago, — How long it seemed that moment ! Oh, how far, How far and safe, God, dost thou keep thy saints. When once gone from us ! We may call against The lighted windows of thy fair June heaven, Where all the souls are happy, and not one, Not even my father, look from work or play To ask, " Who is it that cries after us Below there, in the dusk ? " Yet for- merly He turned his face upon me quick enough, If I said, " Father." Now I might cry loud : The little lark reached higher with his song Than I with crying. Oh, alone, alone, Not trouTiling any in heaven, nor any on earth, I stood there in the garden, and looked up The deaf blue sky that brings the roses out On such June mornings. AURORA LEIGH. You who keep account Of crisis and transition in this life, Set down the first time Nature says plain " no " To some "yes" in you, and walks over you In gorgeous sweeps of scorn. We all begin By singing with the birds, and run- ning fast "With June days, hand in hand; but once, for all, The birds must sing against us, and the sun Strike down upon us like a friend's sword caught By an enemy to slay us. while we read The dear name on the blade which bites at us ! That's bitter and convincing. After that, We seldom doubt that something in the large. Smooth order of creation, though no more Than haply a man's footstep, has gone wrong. Some tears fell down my cheeks, and then I smiled. As those smile who have no face in the world To smile back to them. I had lost a friend In liomney Leigh. The thing was sure, — a friend Who had looked at me most gently now and then. And spoken of my favorite books, our books," With such a voice I Well, voice and look were now More utterly shut out from me, I felt, Than even my father's. Komney now was turned To a benefactor, to a generous man. Who had tied himself to marry . , . me, instead Of such a woman, with low timorous lids He lifted with a sudden word one day, And left, perhaps, for my sake. Ah, self-tied By a contract, male Iphigenia bound At a fatal Aulis for the winds to change, (But loose him, they'll not change,) he well might seem A little cold and dominant iri love ; He liad a right to be dogmatical, This iioor, good Romney. Love to him was made A simple law-clause. If I married him, I should not dare to call my soul my own Which so he had bought and paid for : every thought And every heart-beat down there in the bill ; Not one found honestly deductible From any use that pleased him ! He might cut My body into coins to give away Among his other paupers ; change my sons. While I stood dumb as Griseld, for black babes Or piteous foundlings ; might un- questioned set My right hand teaching in the ragged schools, My left hand washing in the public baths. What time my angel of the Ideal stretched Both his to me in vain. I could not claim The poor right of a mouse in a trap trised rejiroach ! I think the tears were in them as he looked; I think the manlv mouth just trem- bled. Then He broke the silence. " I may ask, perhaps. Although no stranger . . . only Rom- ney Leigh, AVhich means still less . . . than Vin- cent Carrington, Your iilaus in going henoe, and where you go. This cannot he a secret." I ^m I ■-♦-^^' ' As I spoke I tore the paper up and down — till it fluttered from my hands." — Page 3S, ' or Tw: AURORA LEIGB. " All my life Is open to you, cousin. I go hence To London, to the gathering-place of soiils, To live mine straight out. vocally, in books ; Harmoniously for others, if indeed A woman's soul, like man's. l>e wide enough To carry the whole octave (that's to prove); Or, if I fail, still purely for myself. Pray God be with me, Roraney." " Ah, poor child ! "Who flglit against the mother's 'tiring liand, And choose the headsman's. May God change hi.s world For your sake, sweet, and make it mild as heaven, And juster than I have found you." But I paused. ■■ And von, my cousin ? " " i," lie said — " you ask ? You care to ask ? Well, girls have curious minds. And fain would know the end of every thing, Of cousins, therefore, with the rest. For me, Aurora, I've my work: yon know my work : And, having missed this year some personal hope. I must beware the rather that I miss No reasonable duty. While you sing Your happy pastorals of the meads and trees, Bethink you tliat I go to impress and prove On stifled brains and deafened ears, stunned deaf, Crushed dull with grief, that nature sings itself. And needs no mediate poet, lute, or voice To make it vocal. While you ask of men Your audience, I may get their leave, perhaps. For hungry orphans to say audibly, ' We're hungry, see : ' for T)eaten and bullied wives To hold their unweancd babies up in sight. Whom orphanage would better ; and for all To speak and claim their portion . . . bv no means Of the soil . . . but of the sweat in tilling it ; Since this is nowadays turned privi- lege. To have only God's curse on ns, and not man's. Such work I have for doing, elbow- deep In social problems, as yon tie your rhymes, To draw my uses to cohere Avith needs. And bring the uneven world back to its round, Or, failing so mncli, fill up, bridge at least To smoother issues, some abysmal cracks And feuds of earth intestine heats have made To keep men separate, using sorry shifts Of hospitals, almshouses, infant schools, And other practical stuff of partial good You lovers of the beautiful and whole Despise by system." " I despise ? The scorn Is yours, my cousin. Poets become such Through scorning nothing. You de- cry them for The good of beauty sung and taught by them ; While they respect your practical partial good As being a part of beauty's self. Adieu ! When God helps all the workers for his world. The singers shall have help of him, not last." He smiled as men smile when they will not speak Because of something bitter in the thought ; And still I feel his melancholy eyes Look judgment on me. It is seven years since. I know not if 'twas jiity or 'twas scorn Has made them so far-reaching: judge it, ye Who have had to do with pity 7uore than love. And scorn than hatred. T am used. since then. AURORA LEIGH. To other ways from equal men. But so, Even so, we let go hands, my cousin and I, And in between us rushed the torrent- world To blanch our faces like divided rocks, And bar forever mutual sight and touch. Except through swirl of spray and all that roar. THIRD BOOK. " To-day thou girdest up thy loins thyself, And goest where thou wouldest : presently Others shall gird thee," said the Lord, " to go Where thou wouldst not." He spoke to Peter thus, To signify the death which he should die When crucified head downward. If he spoke To Peter then, he speaks to us the same. The word suits many different mar- tyrdoms. And signifies a multiform of death. Although we scarcely die apostles, we, And have mislaid the keys of heaven and earth. For 'tis not in mere death that men die most; And, after our first girding of the loins In youth's fine linen and fair broidery To run up hill and meet the rising sun, We are apt to sit tired, patient as a fool, While others gird us with the violent bands Of social figments, feints, and formal- isms, Reversing our straight nature, lifting up Our base needs, keeping down our lofty thoughts. Head downward on the cross-sticks of the world. Yet he can pluck us from that shame- ful cross. God, set our feet low and our forehead high, And show us how a man was made to walk ! Leave the lamp, Susan, and go up to bed : The room does very well. I have to ' write Beyond the stroke of midnight. Get away : Your steps, forever buzzing in the room. Tease me like gnats. Ah, letters ! Throw them down At once, as I must have them, to be sure. Whether I bid you never bring me such At such an hour, or bid you. No ex- cuse : You choose to bring them, as I choose, perhaps, To throw them in the fire. Now get to bed. And dream, if possible, I am no( cross. Why, what a i^ettish, petty thing ] grow A mere, mere woman, a mere flaccid nerve, A kerchief left out all night in the rain. Turned soft so, — overtasked and over- strained And overlived in this close London life. And yet I should be stronger. Never burn Your letters, poor Aurora ; for they stare With red seals from the table, saying each, " Here's something that you know not." Out, alas ! 'Tis scarcely that the world's more good and wise. Or even straighter and more conse- quent. Since yesterday at this time; yet, again. If but one angel spoke from Ararat, I should be very sorry not to hear: So open all the letters, let me read. Blanche Ord, the writer in the "Lady's Fan," [-♦-•-•H AURORA LEIGH. 41 Requests my judgmeut on . . . that, afterwards. Kate Ward desires the model of my cloak, And signs, " Elisha to you." Priugle Sharpe Presents his work on " Social Con- duct," craves A little money for his pressing debts . . . From me, who scarce have money for my needs; Art's fiery chariot which we journey in Being apt to singe our singing-robes to holes. Although you ask me for my cloak, Kate Ward. Here's Rudgely knows it, editor and scribe: He's " forced to marry where his heart is not, Because the purse lacks where he lost bis heart." Ah — ■ lost it because no one ijicked it up: That's really loss (and passable im- pudence). My critic Hammond flatters prettily, And wants another volume like the last. My critic Belfair wants another book Entirely different, which will sell, (and live ?) A striking book, yet not a startling book. The public blames originalities, (You must not pump spring-water unawares Upon a gracious public full of nerves :) Good things, not subtle, new yet or- thodox. As easy reading as the dog-eared page That's fingered by said public fifty years. Since first taught spelling by its grandmother, And yet a revelation in some sort : That's hard, my critic Belfair. So — what next? My critic Stokes objects to abstract thoughts. " Call a man John, a woman Joan," says he " And do not prate so of humanities : " Whereat I call my critic simply Stokes. My critic Jobson recommends more mirth. Because a cheerful genius suits the times. And all true poets laugh unquencha- bly Like Shakspeare and the gods. That's very hard. The gods may laugh, and Shakspeare; Dante smiled With such a needy heart on two pale lips. We cry, " Weeji, rather, Dante." Poems are Men, if true i^oems; and who dares exclaim At any man's door, "Here, 'tis un- derstood The thunder fell last week and killed a wife. And scared a sickly husband: what of that? Get np, be merry, shout, and claji your hands. Because a cheerful genius suits the times ? None says so to the man ; and why, indeed. Should any to the ijoem ? A ninth seal ; The apocalypse is drawing to a close. Ha — this from Vincent Carrington, — '* Dear friend, I want good counsel. Will you lend me wings To raise me to the subject in a sketch I'll bring to-morrow — may I? — at eleven ? A poet's only born to turn to use, So save you ! for the world . . . and Carrington." (Writ after.) "Have you heard of Romney Leigh, Beyond what's said of him in news- papers, His phalansteries there, his speeches here, His pamphlets, pleas, and statements everywhere ? He drojjped me long ago ; but no one droits A golden apple, though, indeed, one day You hinted that, but jested. Well, at least You know Lord Howe, who sees him . . . whom he sees. And you see, and I hate to see, — for Howe Stands high upon the brink of theo- ries, AUROEA LEIGH. Observes the swimmers, and cries, ' Very fine ! ' But keeps dry linen equally, — unlike That gallant Lreaster, Romney. Strange it is, Such sudden madness seizing a young man To make earth over again, Avhile I'm content To make the jiictures. Let me bring the sketch: A tiptoe Danae, overbold and hot, Both arms aflame to meet her wish- ing Jove Halfway, and burn him faster down; the face And breasts upturned and straining, the loose locks All glowing with the auticii^atedgold. Or here's another on the self-same theme. She lies here, flat iij^on her jirison- floor. The long hair swathed about her to the heel Like wet seaweed. Yon dimly see her through The glittering haze of that prodigious rain, Half blotted out of nature by a love As heavy as fate. I'll bring you either sketch. I think, myself, the second indicates More passion." Surely. Self is i>ut away, And calm -with abdication. She is Jove, And no more Danae — greater thus. Perhaps The painter symbolizes unaware Two states of the recipient artist- soul. One, forward, jiersonal, wanting rev- erence, Becavise aspiring only. We'll be calm, And know, that, when indeed our Joves come down, We all turn stiller than we liave ever been. Kind Vincent Carrington. I"ll let him come. He talks of Florence, and may say a word Of something as it chanced seven years ago, — A hedgehog in the ])atb, or a hime bird, In those green country walks, in that good time When certainlv I was so misera- ble .. . I seem to haA^e missed a blessing ever since. The music soars within the little lark. And the lark soars. It is not thus with men. We do not make our j^laces with our strains, Content, while they rise, to remain behind Alone on earth, instead of so in heav- en. No matter: I bear on my broken tale. When Romney Leigh and I had l^arted thus, I took a chamber tip three flights of stairs Not far from being as steep as some larks climb, And there, in a certain house in Ken- sington, Three years I lived and Avorked. Get leave to work In this Avorld — 'tis the best vou get at all ; For God, in cur-sing, gives ns better gifts Than men in benediction. God savs, " Sweat For foreheads: " men say, " CroAvns." And so we are crowned, Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel Which snaps with a secret sj^ring. Cret work, get work ! Be sure 'tis better than what a^ou Avork to get. Serene, and unafraid of solitude, I worked the short days out, and Avatched the sun On lurid morns or monstrous after- noons (Like some Druidic idol's fiery brass, With fixed unflickcring outline of dead heat. From Avliich the blood tpf Avretches jient inside Seems oozing forth to incarnadine the air) Push out through fog Avith his dilated disk. And startle the slant roofs and cliini- ney-pots AURORA LEIGH. With splashes of fierce color. Or I saw Fog only — the great tawny weltering fog — Involve the passive city, strangle it Alive, and draw it off into the void, — Spires, bridges, streets, and s(]nar('S, — as if a sponge Had wiped out London, or as noon and night Had clapped together, and utterly struck out The intermediate time, undoing them- selves In the act. Your city poets see such things Not desi^icable. Mountains of the south, AVhen, drunk and mad with elemental wines They rend the seamless mist, and stand tip bare. Make fewer singers, haply. No one sings, Descending Sinai: on Parnassus- mount You take a mule to climb, and not a muse, Except in fable and figure: forests chant Their anthems to themselves, and leave you dumb. But sit in London iit the day's de- cline, And view the city perish in the mist Like Pharaoh's armaments in the deep Red Sea, The chariots, horsemen, footmen, all the host, Sucked down and choked to silence — then, surprised By a sudden sense of vision and of tune, A'ou feel as conquerors, though you did not fight ; And you and Israel's other singing girls, Ay, iviiriam with them, sing the song you choose. I worked with patience, ■which means almost power. I on the first page. Many a letter, signed Or unsigned, showing the writers at eighteen Had lived too long, although a muse should help Their dawn liy holding candles, — compliments To smile or sigh at. Such could pass with me No more than coins from Moscow cir- culate At Paris: would ten roubles Vmy a tag Of ribbon on the boulevard, worth a sou ? I smiled that all this youth should love me, sighe sees just A ghost, and sighing like Dido's. J came home Uucured, convicted rather to myself Of being in love ... in love ! That's coarse, you'll say, I'm talking garlic." Coldly I replied: " Apologize for atheism, not love ! For me, I do believe in love, and God. I know my cousin; Lady Waldemar I know not: yet I say as much as this, — Whoever loves him, let her not ex- cuse. But cleanse herself, that, loving such a man. She may not do it with such unwor- thy love He cannot stoop and take it." "That is said Austerely, like a youthful prophetess. Who knits her brows across her pret- ty eyes To keep them back from following the gray flight Of doves between the temple-col- umns. Dear, Be kinder with me: let us two be friends. I'm a mere woman, — the more weak, perhaps. Through being so proud ; you're bet- ter; as for him. He's best. Indeed, he builds his goodness up So high, it topples down to the other side. AURORA LEIGH. And makes a sort of badness: there's the worst I have to say against your cousin's best. And so be mild, Aurora, with my worst, For his sake, if not mine." "I own myself Incredulous of confidence like this Availing him or you." "And I, myself, Of being worthy of him with any love: In your sense I am not so ; let it pass. And yet I save him if I marry him; Let that pass too." " Pass, pass! we play jjolice Upon my cousin's life to indicate What may or may not pass ? " I cried. " He knows What's worthy of him : the choice re- mains with him ; And what he chooses, act or wife, I think I shall not call unworthy, I, for one." " 'Tis somewhat rashly said," she an- swered slow. "Now let's talk reason, though we talk of love. Your cousin Romney Leigh's a mon- ster: there, The word's out fairly, let me prove the fact. We'll take, say, that most perfect of antiques They call the Genius of the Vatican, (Which seems too beauteous to endure itself In this mixed world, and fasten it for once Upon the torso of the Dancing Faun, (Who might limp, surely, if he did not dance,) Instead of Buonarroti's mask: what then ? We show the sort of monster Romney is. With godlike virtues and heroic aims Subjoined to limijing possibilities Of mismade human nature. Grant the man Twice godlike, twice heroic, still he limps ; And here's the point we come to." "Pardon me; But, Lady Waldemar, the point's the thing We never come to." " Caustic, insolent At need! I like you," — (there she took my hands) " And now, my lioness, help Andro- cles. For all your roaring. Help me! for myself I would not say so, but for him. He limps So certainly, he'll fall into the pit A week hence, — so I lose him, so he is lost! For when he's fairly married, he a Leigh, To a girl of doubtful life, undoubtful birth, Starved out in London till her coarse- grained hands Are whiter than her morals, even you May call his choice unworthy." " Married! lost! He . . . Romney! " " Ah, you're moved at last, she said. " These monsters, set out in the open sun. Of course throw monstrous shadows: those who think Awry will scarce act straightly. Who but he ? And who but you can wonder ? He has been mad, The whole world knows, since first, a nominal man. He soured the proctors, tried the gownsmen's wits With equal scorn of triangles and wine. And took no honors, vet was honora- ble. They'll tell you he lost count of Ho- mer's ships In Melbourne's poor-bills, Ashley's factory-bills; Ignored the Aspasia we all dare to praise. For other women, dear, we could not name Because we're decent. Well, he had some right On his side, probably : men always have. Who go absurdly wrong. The living boor Who brews your ale exceeds in vital worth Dead Caesar who ' stojis bungholes ' iu the cask. And also, to do good is excellent, I i AURORA LEIGH. 49 For persons of his income, even to boors. I sympathize with all such things. But he "Went luad upon them . . , madder and more mad From college times to these, as, going down hill, The faster still, the farther. You must know Your Leigh by heart: he has sown his black young curls With bleaching cares of half a million men Already. If j'^ou do not starve, or sin. You're nothing to him: pay the in- come-tax, And break your heart upon't, he'll scarce be touched ; But come upon the parish, qualified For the parish stocks, and Romney will be there To call you brother, sister, or perhaps A tenderer name still. Had I any chance With Mister Leigh, who am Lady Waldemar, And never committed felony ? " " You speak Too bitterly," I said, "for the literal truth." "The truth is bitter. Here's a man who looks Forever on the ground. You must be low. Or else a pictured ceiling overhead, Good painting thrown away. For me, I've done What women may: we're somewhat limited. We modest women; but I've done my best. — How men are perjured when they swear our eyes Have meaning in them! They're just blue or brown, They just can drop their lids a little. And yet Mine did more ; for I read half Fou- rier through, Proudhon, Considerant, and Louis Blanc, With various others of his socialists, And, if I had been a fathom less in love. Had cured myself with gaping. As it was. I quoted from them jirettily enough. Perhaps, to make them .sound half rational To a saner man than he whene'er we talked, (For which I dodged occasion;) learnt by heart His speeches in the Commons and elsewhere Upon the social question; heaped re- ports Of wicked women and penitentia- ries On all my tables (with a place for Sue); And gave my name to swell svibscrip- tion-lists Toward keeping up the sun at nights in heaven, And other possiblo ends. All things I did. Except the impossible . . . such as wearing gowns Provided by the Ten Hours' move- ment: there I stopped — we must stop somewhere. He, meanwhile, Unmoved as the Indian tortoise 'neath the world. Let all that noise go on upon his back. He would not disconcert or throw me out; 'Twas well to see a woman of my class With such a dawn of conscience. For the heart Made firewood for his sake, and flam- ing up To his face, — he merely warmed his feet at it: Just deigned to let my carriage stop him short In i^ark or street, he leaning on the door With news of the committee which sate last On pickpockets at suck." " You jest, you jest." " As martyrs jest, dear (if you read their lives) Upon the axe which kills them. When all's done By me . . . for him — you'll ask him presently The color of my hair: he cannot tell, Or answers, ' Dark,' at random ; while, be sure, AURORA LEIGJf. He's absolute on the figure, live or ten, Of ray last subscription. Is it beara- ble, And I a woman ? " " Is it reparable, Though I were a man ? " " I know not. That's to prove. But first, this shameful marriage ? " "Ay?" I cried, " Then really there's a marriage ? " " Yesterday I held him fast upon it. ' Mister Leigh,' Said I, ' shut up a thing, it makes more noise. The boiling town keeps secrets ill: I've known Yours since last week. Forgive my knowledge so: You feel I'm not the woman of tlie world Tlie world thinks; you have borne with me before. And used me in your noble work, our work. And now you shall not cast me' off because You're at the diificult point, the join. 'Tis true Even I can scarce admit the cogency Of such a marriage . . . where you do not love, (Except the class) yet marry, and throw your name Down to the gutter, for a fire-escape To future generations ! 'tis sublime, A great example, a true genesis Of the opening social era. But take heed : Tliis virtuous act must have a patent weight, Or loses half its virtue. Make it tell. Interpret it, and set in the light. And do not muttie it in a winter-cloak As a vulgar bit of shame, — as if, at best, A Leigh had made a misalliance, and blushed A Howard should know it.' Then I pressed him more: ■ He would not choose,' I said, ' that even his kin . . . Aurora Leigh, even . . . should con- ceive liis act Less sacrifice, more fantasy.' At which He grew so i^ale, dear ... to the lijjs, I knew I had touched him. ' Do you know her,' he inquired, ' My cousin Aurora ? ' — ' Yes,' I said, and lied, (But truly we all know you by your books) And so I offered to come straight to you. Explain the subject, justify the cause, And take you with me to St. Marga- ret's Court To see this miracle, this Marian Erie, This drover's daughter (she's not pretty, he swears). Upon whose finger, exquisitely pricked By a hundred needles, we're to Jiang the tie 'Twixt class and class in England, — thus indeed By such a presence, yours and mine, to lift The match up from the doubtful place. At once He thanked me, sighing, murmured to himself, ' She'll do it, perhaps: she's noble,' — tliauked me twice, And promised, as my guerdon, to iiut off His marriage for a month." I answered then, " I understand your drift imperfectly. You wisli to lead me to my cousin's betrothed. To touch her hand if worthy, and hold her liand If feeble, tlms to justify his match. So be it, then. But how this serves j'our ends. And how the strange confession of your love Serves this, I have to learn — I can- not see." She knit her restless forehead. " Tlien, despite Aurora, that most radiant morning name, You're dull as any Loudon afternoon. I wanted time, and gained it; want' ed you, And gain j'ou ! You will come and see the girl In whose most prodigal eyes the lineal pearl And pride of all j-our lofty race of Leighs Is destined to solution. Authorized AURORA LEIGH. 51 By sight and knowledge, then, you'll speak your mind. And jirove to Romney, in your bril- liant way, He'll wrong the people and posterity, (Say such a thing is bad for me and you. And you fail utterly) by concluding thus An execrable marriage. Break it up, Disroot it; perad venture presently "We'll plant a better fortune in its place. Be good to me, Aurora, scorn me less For saying the thing I should not. Well I know I should not. I have kept, as others have. The iron rule of womanly reserve In lip and life, till now: I wept a week Before I came here." Ending, she was pale. The last words, haughtily said, were tremulous. This palfrey pranced in harness, arched her neck, And only by the foam upon the bit You saw- she champed against it. Then I rose. " I love love: truth's no cleaner thing than love. I comprehend a love so fiery hot It burns its natui-al veil of august shame. And stands sublimely in the nude, as chaste As Medicean Venus. But I know, A love that burns through veils will burn through masks, And shrivel up treachery. What, love and lie ! Nay. Go to the opera ! Your love's curable." " I love and lie ? " she said, — "I lie, forsooth ? " And beat her taper foot upon the floor. And smiled against the shoe, — " You're hard. Miss Leigh, Unversed in current phrases. Bowl- ing-greens Of poets are fresher than the world's highways. Forgive me that I rashly blew the dust Which dims our hedges even, in your eyes. And vexed you so much. You find, probably, No evil in this marriage, rather good Of innocence, to pastoralize in song. You'll give the bond your signature, perhaps. Beneath the lady's mark, indifferent That Romney chose -a wife could write her name. In witnessing he loved her." " Loved ! " I cried. " Who tells you that he wants a wife to love ? He gets a horse to use, not love, I think: There's work for wives, as well, — and after, straw. When men are liberal. For myself, you err Sui^posing power in me to break this match. I could not do it to save Romney's life, And would not to save mine." '•' You take it so," She said: "farewell, then. Write your books in j^eace, As far as may be for some secret stir Now obvious to me; for, most obvi- ously. In coming hither I mistook the way." Whereat she touched my hand, and bent her head. And floated from me like a silent cloud That leaves the sense of thunder. I drew breath. Oppressed in my deliverance. After all. This woman breaks her social system up For love, so counted, — the love possi- ble To siicli; and lilies are still lilies, pulled By smutty hands, thovigh spotted from their w-liite; And thus she is better haply, of her kind, Than Romney Leigh, who lives by diagrams. And crosses out the sijoutaneities Of all his individual, personal life With formal universals. As if man AYere set upon a high stool at a desk To keep God's books for him in red and black. And feel by millions ! What if even God AURORA LEIGH. Were chiefly God bv living out him- self To an individualism of the infinite, Eterne, intense, profuse, — still throwing up The golden spray of- multitudinous worlds In measure to the proclive weight and rush Of his inner nature, — the spontane- ous love Still jiroof and outflow of spontane- ous life ? Then live, Aurora. Two hours afterward, Within St. Margarefs Court I stood alone, Close- veiled. A siek child, from an ague-fit. Whose wasted right hand gambolled 'gainst his left With an old brass l)utton in a blot of sun. Jeered weakly at me as I passed across The uneven pavement; while a wo- man rouged Upon the angular cheek-boues, ker- chief torn. Thin dangling locks, and flat lascivi- ous mouth, Cursed at a window lioth ways, in and out. By turns some Ijed-rid creature and myself, — " Lie still there, mother ! liker the dead dog You'll be to-morrow. What, we pick our way, Fine, madam, with those damnable small feet ! We cover up our face from doing good, As if it were our purse ! What brings you here, My lady? is't to find my gentleman Who visits his tame pigeon in the eaves ? Our cholera catch you with its cramps and spasms, And tumble up your good clothes, veil and all, And turn your whiteness dead-blue! " I looked up: I tliink I could have walked through hell that day. And never flinched. " The dear Christ comfort you," I said, " you must have been most miserable, To be so cruel; " and I emjitied out My purse upon the stones: when, as I had cast The last charm ia the caldron, the whole court Went boiling, bubbling up, from all its doors . And windows, with a hideous wail of laughs, And roar of oaths, and Idows per- haps ... I passed Too quickly for distinguishing . . . and pushed A little side-door hanging on a hinge. And plunged into the dark, and groped and climbed The long, steep, narrow stair 'twixt broken rail And mildewed wall that let the plas- ter drop To startle me in the blackness. Still, up, up So high lived liomney's bride. I paused at last Before a low door in the roof, and knocked: Tliere came an answer like a hurried dove, — '■ So soon ? can that be Mister Leigh ? so soon ? And as I entered an ineffable face Met mine upon the threshold. "Oh, not you, Not you ! " The drojiiiing of the voice implied, "Then, if not you, for me not any- one." I looked her in the eyes, and held her hands. And said, "I am his cousin, — Rom- ney Leigh's ; And here I come to see my cousin too." She touched me with her face and with her voice. This daughter of the people. Such soft flowers. From such rough roots ■' the people under there, Can sin so, curse so, look so, smell so , . . faugh ! Yet have such daughters ? Nowise beautiful Was Marian Erie. She was not white nor brown. But could look either, like a mist that changed According to being shoue on more or less. MARIAN ERL£. ^r the' >'^ \ ^NlV^f^ or SITY 'ised by steadier workmen, — keeping swine On commons, picking hops, or hurry- ing on The harvest at wet seasons, or, at need, Assisting the Welsh drovers, when a drove Of startled horses plunged into the mist Below the mountain-road, and sowed the wind ^^■itll wandering neighings. In be- tween the gajis Of such irregular work he drank and slept, And cursed his wife because, the pence being out, She could not buy more drink. At which she turned, (The worm) and Ijeat her baby in re- venge For her own broken heart. There's not a crime But takes its proper change out still in crime If once rung on the counter of this world : Let sinners look to it. AURORA LEIGH. Yet the outcast child, For whom the very mother's face fore- went The mother's special patience, lived and grew; Learnt early to cry low, and walk alone, Witli that pathetic, vacillating roll Of the infant body on the uncertain feet, (The earth being felt unstable ground so soon,) At which most women's arms unclose at once With irrepressive instinct. Thus at three This i^oor weaned kid would run off from the fold, This babe would steal off from the mother's chair. And, creeping through the golden walls of gorse, "Would find some keyhole toward the secrecy Of heaven's high blue, and, nestling down, peer out — Oh, not to catch the angels at their games. She had never heard of angels, — but to gaze She knew not why, to see she knew not what, A-hungering outward from the barren earth For something like a joy. She liked, she said. To dazzle black her sight against the sky; For then, it seemed, some grand blind Love came down. And groped her out, and clasped her with a kiss. She learnt God that way, and was beat for it Whenever she went home, yet came again. As surely as the trapped hare, get- ting free, Returns to his form. This grand blintl Love, she said. This skyey father and mother both in one, Instructed her and civilized her more Than even Sunday school did after- ward, To which a lady sent her to learn books. And sit upon a long bench in a row With other children. Well, she laughed sometimes To see them laugh and laugh, and maul their texts; But ofter she was sorrowful with noise. And wondered if their mothers beat them hard That ever tliey should laugh so. There was one She loved indeed, — Rose Bell, a seven years' child So pretty and clever, who read sylla- bles When Marian was at letters : she would laugh At nothing, hold your finger up, she laughed, Then shook her curls down over eyes and mouth To hide her make-mirth from the schoolmaster. And Rose's pelting glee, as frank as rain On cherry-blossoms, brightened Mar- rian too. To see another merry whom she loved. She whispered once (the children side by side, With mutual arms intwined about their necks) " Your mother lets you laugh so?" " Ay," said Rose, "' She lets me. She was dug into the ground Six years since, I being but a yearling wean. Such mothers let vis play, and lose our time. And never scold nor beat us. Don't you wish You iiad one like that?" There Marian breaking off Looked suddenly in my face. " Poor Rose ! ' ' said she : " I heard her laugh last night in Ox- ford Street. I'd jDour out half my blood to stop that laugh. Poor Rose, jioor Rose ! " said Marian. She resumed. It tried her, when she had learnt at Sunday school What God was, what lie wanted from us all. And how in choosing sin we vexed the Christ, To go straight liome, and hear her father i^uU I ^ I ■ I ^ AURORA LEIGH. The Name clown on us from the thim- der-shelf, Then drink away his soul into the dark From seeing judgment. Father, mother, liome. Were God and heaven reversed to her: the more She knew of right, tlie more she guessed their wrong : Her price paid down for knowledge was to know The vileness of her kindred: through her heart, Her filial and tormented heart, hence- forth, They struck their lilows at virtue. Oh ! 'tis hard To learn you have a father up in heaven Ey a gathering certain sense of being, on earth. Still worse than orphaned: 'tis too heavy a grief The having to thank God for such a joy. And so passed Marian's life from year to year. Her parents took her with them when they tramped, Dodged lanes and heaths, frequented towns and fairs, And once went farther, and saw Man- chester, And once the sea, — that blue end of the world, That fair scroll-finis of a wicked book, — And twice a prison, back at inter- vals, Returning to the hills. Hills draw like heaven. And stronger sometimes, holding out their hands To pull you from the vile flats up to them. And though, perhaps, these strollers still strolled back, As sheep do, simply that they knew the way, They certainly felt bettered un- aware. Emerging from the social smut of towns. To wipe their feet clean on the moun- tain turf. In which long wanderings Marian lived and learned, Endured and learned. Tlie people on the roads .Would stop, and ask her why her eyes outgrew Her cheeks, and if she meant to lodge the birds In all that hair ; and then they lifted her, — The miller in his cart a mile or twain. The butcher's boy on horseback. Of- ten, too. The jjeddler stopped, and tapped her on the head With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed. And asked, if peradventure she could read ; And when she answered, "Ay," would toss her down Some stray odd volume from his heavy pack, — A " Thomson's Seasons," mulcted of the spring. Or half a play of Shakspeare's, torn across, (She had to guess the bottom of a page By just the top, sometimes ; as diffi- cult As, sitting on the moon, to guess the earth !) Or else a sheaf of leaves (for that small Ruth's Small gleanings) torn out from the heart of books. From Churchyard Elegies and Edens Lost, From Burns, and Bunyan, Selkirk, and Tom Jones. 'Twas somewhat hard to keep the things distinct; And oft the jangling influence jarred the cliild. Like looking at a sunset full of grace Through a pothouse window, while the drunken oaths Went on behind her. But she weeded out Her book-leaves, threw away the leaves that hurt, (First tore them small, tliat none should find a word) And made a nosegay of the sweet and good To fold within her breast, and pore upon At broken moments of the noontide glare. When leave was given her to untie her cloak. AURORA LEIGH. And rest iijion the dusty highway's bank From the road's dust : or oft, the journey done, Some city friend would lead her by the hand To hear a lecture at an institute. And thus she had grown, this Marian Erie of ours. To no book-learning. She was igno- rant Of authors ; not in earshot of the things Outspoken o'er the heads of common men Bymenwho are uncommon, but within The cadenced hum of such, and ca- pable Of catching from the fringes of the wing Some fragmentary phrases here and there Of that fine music, which, being car- ried in To lier soul, had reproduced itself afresh In finer motions of the lips and fids. She said, in speaking of it, " If a flower "Were thrown you out of heaven at intervals. You'd soon attain to a trick of look- ing up " And so with her. She counted me her years, Till / felt old ; and then she counted me Her sorrowful pleasures, till I felt ashamed. She told me she was fortunate and calm On such and such a season, sate and sewed. With no one to break up her crystal thoughts, While rhymes from lovely poems span around Their ringing circles of ecstatic tune. Beneath the moistened linger of the hour. Her parents called her a strange, sickly child. Not good for much, and given to sulk and stare, And smile into the hedges and the clouds, And tremble if one shook her from her fit By any blow, or word even. Outdoor jobs Went ill with her, and household quiet work She was not born to. Had they kept the north, They might have had their penny- worth out of her, Like other jjarents, in the factories, (Your children work for yon, not you for them, Or else they better had been choked with air The first breath drawn ;) but, in this tramping life. Was nothing to be done with such a child But tramp and tramp. And yet she knitted hose Not ill, and was not dull at needle- work ; Antl all the country people gave her pence For darning stockings past their natu- ral age, And patching petticoats from old to new. And other light work done for thrifty wives. One day, said Marian, — the sun shone that day, — Her mother had been badly beat, and felt The bruises sore about her wretched soul, (That must have been) : she came in suddenly. And snatching in a sort of breathless rage Her daiighter's headgear comb, let down the hair Upon her like a sudden waterfall. Then drew her drenched and passive l)y the arm Outside the hut they lived in. When the child Could clear her blinded face from all that stream Of tresses . . . there a man stood, with beast's eyes. That seemed as they would swallow her alive. Complete in body and spirit, hair and all. And T)urning stertorous breath that hurt her cheek. He breathed so near. The mother held her tight. "A wagoner had found her in a ditch." — Page' £7- 'yould lose no moment of the blessed time. She lay and seethed in fever many weeks. But youth was strong, and overcame the test: Revolted soul and flesh were recon- ciled. And fetched back to the necessary day And daylight duties. She could creep about The long bare rooms, and stare out drearily From any narrow window on the street, Till some one wlio had nursed her as a friend Said coldly to her, as an enemy, " She had leave to go next week, being well enough," (While only her heart ached.) " Go next week," thought she. ' ' Next week ! how would it be with her next week. Let out into that terrible street alone Among the i^ushing people ... to go . . . where ? " One day, the last before the dreaded last, Among the convalescents, like herself Prepared to go next morning, she sate dumb. And heard half absently the women talk, — How one was famished for her baby's cheeks, " The little wretch would know lier ! a year old And livel}% like his father; " one was keen To get to work, and fill some clamor- ous mouths; And one was tender for her dear goodman Who had missed her sorely ; and one, querulous . . . " Would iiay backbiting neighbors who had dared To talk about her as already dead; " And one was i^roud ..." and if her sweetheart Luke Had left her for a ruddier face than hers, (The gossip would be seen through at a glance) Sweet riddance of such sweethearts — let him hang ! 'Twere good to have been sick for such an end." And while they talked, and Marian felt the worse For having missed the worst of all their wrongs, A visitor was, ushered through the wards And paused among the talkers. " When he looked It was as if he sjioke, and when he spoke He sang perhaps," said ISfarian; "could she tell? She onlj^ knew" (so much she had chronicled, As seraphs might the making of the sun) " That he who came and spake was Romney Leigh, And then and there she saw and heard him first." i II AURORA LEIGH. And when it was her turn to have the face Upon her, all those buzzhig pallid lips Being satisfleel with comfort — when he changed To Marian, saying, "And yov ? yon'ro going, wliere ? " She, moveless as a worm l)eneath a stone AVhich some one's stumbling foot has spurned aside, "Writhed suddenly, astonished with the light. And breakinginto sobs cried, " Where Igo? None asked nic till this moment. Can I say Where J go, when it has not seemed worth while To God himself, who thinks of every one. To think of me, and fix where I shall go?" ■'So young," he gently asked lier, ' ' you have lost Your fatlier and vour mother ? " " Both," she said, "Both lost! My father was burnt up witli gin Or ever I sucked milk, and so is lost. ^ly mother sold me to a man last month, And so my mother's lost, 'tis mani- fest. And I, who fled from her for miles and miles, As if I had caught sight of the fire of hell Through some wild gap, (she was my mother, sir) It seems I shall be lost too presently: And so we end, all three of us." "Poor child! " He said, with such a pity in his voice. It soothed her more than her own tears, — " i:)oor child! 'Tis simple that betrayal by mother's love Should bring despair of frod's too. Yet be taught, He's better to us than many mothers are. And children cannot wander beyond reach Of the sweep of his white raiment. Touch and hold ! And, if you weep still, weep where John was laid While Jesus loved him." " She could say the words," She told me, " exactly as he \ittered them A year back, since in any doulit or dark They came out like the stars, and shone on her With just their comfort. Common words, perhaps The ministers in church might say the same ; But he, he made the church with what he spoke : The difference was the miracle," said she. Then catching up her smile to ravish- ment. She added quickly, "I repeat his words. But not his tones: can any one re- peat The music of an organ out of church '? And when he said, 'Poor child!' I shut my eyes To feel how tenderly his voice broke through, As the ointment-box broke on the Holy feet To let out the rich medicative nard." She told me how he had raised and rescued her With reverent pity, as in touching grief He touched the wounds of Christ, and made her feel More self-respecting. Hope he called belief In God; work, worship: therefore let us pray. And thus, to snatch her soul from atheism, And keep it stainless from her moth- er's face, He sent her to a famous seamstress- house Far off in London, there to work and hope. With that they parted. She kept sight of heaven. But not of Eomney. He had good to do To others. Through the days and through the lughts 60 AURORA LEIGH. She sewed and sewed and sewed. She drooped sometimes, And wondered, while along tlie tawny light She struck the new thread into her needle's eye, How people without mothers on the hills Could choose the town to live in; then she drew The stitch, and mused how Romney's face would look. And if 'twere likely he'd remember hers When they two had their meeting after death. « BOOK FOURTH. They met still sooner. 'Twas a year from thence That Lucy Gresham — the sick seam- stress girl, Who sewed by Marian's chair so still and quick. And leant her head upon its back to cough More freely, wdien, the mistress turn- ing round. The others took occasion to laugh out — Gave up at last. Among the workers spoke A bold girl with lilaek eyebrows and red lips: " You know the news ? Who's dying, do you think ? Our Lucy Gresham. I expected it As little as Nell Hart's wedding. — Blush not, Nell, Thy curls be red enough without thy cheeks. And some day there'll l^e found a man to dote On red curls. Lucy Gresham swooned last night, Dropped sudden in the street while going home ; And now the baker says, who took her up And laid her by her grandmother in bed. He'll give her a week to die in. Pass the silk. Let's hope he gave her a loaf too, within reach; For otherwise they'll starve before they die. That f unnv pair of bedfellows ! — Miss Beir, I'll thank you for the scissors. The old crone Is paralytic; that's the reason why Our Lucy's thread went faster than her breath. Which went too quick, we all know. — Marian Erie ! Why, Marian Erie, you're not the fool to cry ? Your tears spoil Lady Waldemar's new dress, You piece of pity ! ' ' Marian rose up straight, And, breaking through the talk and through the work, AVent outward, in the face of their surprise, To Lucv's home, to nurse her back to life Or down to death. She knew, bj- such an act, All ])lace and grace were forfeit in the house. Whose mistress would supplj' the missing hand With necessary not inhuman haste, And take no blame. But pity, too, had dues. She coiild not leave a solitary soul To founder in the dark, while she sate still And lavished stitches on a lady's hem, As if no other work were paramount. " Why, God," thought Marian, " has a missing hand This moment: Lucy wants a drink, perhaps. Let others miss me ! never miss me, God! " So Marian sate by Lucy's bed, con- tent With duty, and was strong, for recom- pense, To hold the lanqi of Innnan love arm- high. To catch the death-strained eyes, and comfort them. Until the angels, on the luminous side Of death, had got theirs ready. And she said. If Lucy thanked her sometimes, called her kind, AURORA LEIGH. It touched her strangely. "Marian Erie, called kind ! What Marian, beaten and sold, who could not die ! 'Tis verily good fortune to be kind. Ah, you!" she said, " who are born to such a grace. Be sorry for the unlicensed class, the poor, Reduced to think the best good for- tune means That others simply should be kind to them." From sleep to sleep when Lucy had slid away So gently, like the light upon a hill. Of which none names the moment that it goes Though all see when 'tis gone, a man came in And stood beside the bed. The old idiot wretch Screamed feebly, like a baby over- lain, " Sir, sir, you won't mistake me for the corpse ? Don't look at me, sir ! never bury me I Although I lie here, I'm alive as yoTi, Except my legs and arms, — I eat and drink And imderstand, — (that you're the gentleman Who tits the funerals ui). Heaven speed you, sir,) And certainlv I should be livelier still If Lucy here . . . sir, Lucy is the corpse . . . Had worked more properly to Iniy me wine; But Lucj% sir, was always slow at work, . I sha'n't lose much by Liicv. — Marian Erie, Speak up, and show the gentleman the corpse." And then a voice said, " Marian Erie." She rose ; It was the hour for angels — there stood hers ! She scarcely marvelled to see liomney Leigh. As light November snows to empty nests. As grass to graves, as moss to mil- dewed stones, As July suns to ruins, through the rents. As ministering spirits to mourners, through a loss. As Heaven itself to men, through Jiangs of death. He came uncalled wherever grief had come. "And so," said Marian Erie, "we met anew," And added softly, "so, we shall not part." He was not angry that she had left the house Wherein he placed her. Well, she had feared it might Have vexed him. Also, when he found her set On keeping, though the dead was out of sight. That half-dead, half-live body left be- hind With cankerous heart and flesh, which took your best, And cursed vou tor the little good it did, (Could any leave the bedrid wretch alone. So jojdess she was thankless even to God, ]Much more to you ?) he did not say 'twas well. Yet Marian thought he did not take it ill, Since day by day he came, and every day She felt withiji his utterance and liis eyes A closer, tenderer presence of the soul. Until at last he said, " We shall not part." On that same day was Marian's work complete: She had smoothed the empty bed, and swept the floor Of cotifln sawdust, set the chairs anew The dead had ended gossip in, and stood In that poor room so cold and orderly; The door-key in her hand, prepared to go As they had, howbeit not their way. He spoke. " Dear Marian, of one clay God made us all ; AURORA LEIGH. And though men push and poke and paddle in't, (As children play at fashioning dirt- pies) And call their fancies by the name of facts, Assuming difference, lordship, jirivi- lege, When all's plain dirt, they come back to it at last: The first grave-digger proves it with a spade, And pats all even. Need we wait for this, You MariaH, and I Romney ? " She, at that. Looked blindly in his face, as when one looks Through driving aiitumn-raius to find the sky. He went on speaking: " Marian, I being born What men call noble, and you issued from The noble people, though the tyran- nous sword Which pierced Christ's heart has cleft the world in twain 'Twixt class and class, opposing rich to poor, Shall M-e keep parted? Not so. Let us lean And strain together rather, each to each, Compress the red lips of this gaping wound As far as two souls can, ay, lean and league, — I from my superabundance, from your want You, — joining in a protest 'gainst the wrong On both sides." All the rest he held her hand In speaking, which confused the sense of much. Her heart against his words beat out so thick. They might as well be written on the dust Where some poor bird, escaping from hawk's beak. Has dropped, and beats its shudder- ing wings, the lines Are rubbed so; yet 'twas something like to this: ' • That they two, standing at the two extremes Of social classes, had received one seal. Been dedicate and drawn beyond themselves To mercy and ministration, — he, in- deed, Through what he knew, and she, through what she felt; He, by man's conscience, she, by wo- man's heart. Relinquishing their several 'vantage posts Of wealthy ease and honorable toil. To work with God at love. And since God willed. That, putting out his hand to touch this ark, He found a woman's hand there, he'd accept The sign too, hold the tender fingers fast. And say, ' My fellow-worker, be my w'ite ! • '■' She told the tale with simple, rustic turn.s. Strong leaps of meaning in her sud- den eyes That took the gaps of any imperfect phrase Of the unschooled speaker: I have rather writ The thing I understood so than the thing I heard so. And I cannot render right Her quick gesticulation, wild yet soft, Self-startled from the habitual mood she used. Half sad, half languid, — like dumb creatures (now A rustling bird, and now a wandering deer. Or squirrel 'gainst the oak-gloom flash- ing up His sidelong, burnished head, in just her way Of savage spontaneity,) that stir Abruptly the green silence of the woods. And make it stranger, holier, more profound ; As Nature's general heart confessed itself Of life, and then fell backward on repose. I kissed the lips that ended. indeed , He loves vou. Marian ? " ■So, AURORA LEIGH. 63 " Loves iiie ! " She looked up With a child's wonder when you ask him first Who made the sun, — a puzzled blush, that grew, Then broke off in a rapid, radiant smile Of sure solution. " Loves me ! He loves all. And me, of course. He had not asked me else To work with him forever, and be his wife." Her words reproved me. This, per- haps, was love, — To have its hands too full of gifts to give, For putting out a hand to take a gift; To love so much, the perfect round of love Includes in strict conclusion being loved; As Eden-dew went up, and fell again. Enough for watering Eden. Obvi- ously She had not thought about his love at all. The cataracts of her soul had poured themselves, And risen self-crowned in rainbow: would she ask Who crowned her ? It sufficed that she was crowned. With women of my class 'tis other- wise : We haggle for the small change of our gold. And so much love accord for so much love, Rialto-prices. Are we therefore wrong ? If marriage be a contract, look to it then. Contracting parties should be equal, just; But if, a simple fealty on one side, A mere religion, right to give, is all. And certain brides of Europe duly ask To mount the pile as Indian widows do. The spices of their tender youth heaped up. The jewels of their gracious virtues worn. More gems, more glory, to consume entire For a living husband: as the man'-s alive. Not dead, the woman's duty by so much Advanced in England beyond Hindo- stan. I sate there musing, till slie touched my hand With hers, as softly as a strange white bird She feared to startle in touching. " You are kind. But are you, peradventure, vexed at heart Because your cousin takes me for a wife? I know I am not worthy — nay, in truth, I'm glad on't, since, for that, he chooses me. He likes the poor things of the world the best; I would not, therefore, if I could, be rich. It pleasures him to stoop for buttei-- cups. I would not be a rose upon the wall A queen might stop at, near the pal- ace-door. To say to a courtier, ' Pluck that rose for me: It's prettier than the rest.' O Rom- ney Leigh! I'd rather far be trodden l)y his foot Than lie in a great queen's bosom." Out of breath. She paused. " Sweet Marian, do you disavow The roses with that face ? " She dropt her heati As if the wind had caught that flower of her And bent it in the garden, then looked up With grave assurance. " Well, you think me bold ; But so we all are, when we're pray- ing God. And if I'm bold, yet, lady, credit me. That since I know myself for what I am, — Much fitter for his handmaid than his wife, — I'll prove the handmaid and the wife at once. Serve tenderly, and love obediently. And be a worthier mate, perhaps, than some 64 AURORA LEIGH. "Who are wooed in silk among their learned books; While I shall set myself to read his eyes, Till such grow plainer to me than the French To wisest ladies. Do you think I'll miss S. letter in the spelling of his mind ? No more than they do when they sit and write Their flying words with flickering wild-fowl tails, Nor ever pau^e to find how many Should that be y or i, they know't so well : I've seen them writing, when I brought a dress And waited, floating out their soft white hands On shining paper. But they're hard sometimes. For all those hands. We've used out many nights. And worn the yellow daylight into shreds Which flapped and shivered down our aching eyes Till night appeared more tolerable, just That pretty ladies might look beau- tiful, Who said at last . . . ' You're lazy in that house! You're slow in sending home the work: I count I've waited near an hourfor't.' Par- don me, I do not blame them, madam, nor misprise : They are fair and gracious; ay, but not like you. Since none but you has Mister Leigh's own blood. Both noble and gentle, — and with- out it . . . well, They are fair, I said ; so fair, it scarce seems strange That, flashing out in any looking- glass The wonder of their glorious brows and breasts. They're charmed so, they forget to look behind, And mark how pale we've grown, we pitiful Remainders of the world. And so perhaps If Mister Leigh had chosen a wife from these. She might, although he's better than her best. And dearly she would know it, steal a thought Which should be all his, an eye-glance from his face. To plunge into the mirror opposite In search of her own beauty's pearl : while I . . . Ah, dearest lady, serge will outweigh silk For winter-wear, when bodies feel a^cold. And I'll be a true wife to your cousin Leigh." Before I answered, he was there him- self. I think he had been standing in the room. And listened probably to half her talk. Arrested, turned to stone, — as white as stone. Will tender sayings make men look so white ? He loves her then profoundly. " You are here, Aurora? Here I meet you!" We clasped hands. " Even so, dearRomney. Lady Wal- demar Has sent me in haste to find a cousin of mine Who shall be." " Lady Waldemar is good." " Here's one, at least, who is good," I sighed, and touched Poor Marian's happy head, as dog- like she. Most passionately patient, waited on, A-tremble for her turn of greeting words ; " I've sate a full hour with your Mar- ian Erie, And learnt the thing by heart, and from my heart Am therefore competent to give you thanks For such a cousin." " You accept at last A gift from me, Aurora, without scorn ? At last I please you ? " How his voice was changed! AURORA LEIGH. 65 " You cannot please a woman against her will, And once you vexed me. Shall we speak of that ? We'll say, then, you were noble in it all, And I not ignorant — let it pass ! And now You please me, Romney, when you please yourself: So, please you, be fanatical in love, And I'm well pleased. Ah, cousin ! at the old hall. Among the gallery portraits of our Leighs, We shall not find a sweeter signory Thau this pure forehead's." Not a word he said. How arrogant men are! Even philan- thropists — Who try to take a wife up in the way They put down a subscription-check, if once She turns, and says, "I will not tax you so, Most charitable sir " — feel ill at ease. As though she had wronged them somehow. I suppose We women should remember what we are, And not throw back an obolus in- scribed With Csesar's image lightly. I re- sumed. " It strikes me, some of those sub- lime Vandykes Were not too proud to make good saints in heaven ; And, if so, then they're not too proud to-day, To bow down (now the ruffs are off their necks) And own this good, true, noble Mar- ian, yours. And mine I'll say! For poets, (bear the word). Half-poets even, are still whole demo- crats, — Oh, not that we're disloyal to the high, But loyal to the low, and cognizant Of the less scrutable majesties. For me, I comprehend your choice, I justify Your right in choosing." " No, no, no! " he sighed, With a sort of melancholy impatient scorn. As some grown man who never had a child Puts by some child who plays at be- ing a man, " You md not, do not, can not com- prehend My choice, my ends, my motives, nor myself: No matter now — we'll let it pass, you say. I thank you for your generous cousin- ship Which helps this present: I accept for her Your favorable thoughts. We're fall- en on days, We two who are not poets, when to wed Requires less mutual love than com- mon love For two together to bear out at once Upon the loveless many. Work in pairs. In galley-couplings or in marriage- rings. The difference lies in the honor, not the work, — And such we're bound to, I and she. But love, (You poets are benighted in this age, The hour's too late for catching even moths. You've gnats instead,) love ! — love's fool-paradise Is out of date, like Adam's. Set a swan To swim the Trenton rather than true loA^e To float its fabulous plumage safely down The cataracts of this loud transition- time, Whose roar forever henceforth in my ears Must keep me deaf to music." There, I turned And kissed poor Marian, out of dis- content. The man had baffled, chafed me, till I flung For refuge to the woman, as some- times, Impatient of some crowded room's close smell. You throw a window open, and lean out To breathe a long breath in the dewy night. G6 AURORA LEIGH. And cool your angry forehead. She, at least, Was not built up as walls are, brick by brick, Each fancy squared, each feeling ranged by line, The very heat of burning youth ap- plied To indurate form and system ! excel- lent bricks, A well-built wall, which stops you on the road. And into which you cannot see an inch Although you beat your head against it — pshaw ! " Adieu," I said, " for this time, cous- ins both, And cousin Romney, pardon me the word. Be happy, — oh ! in some esoteric sense Of course, — I mean no harm in wish- ing well. Adieu, my Marian. May she come to me. Dear Romney, and be married from my house ? It is not part of your philosophy To keep your bird upon the black- thorn ? " "Ay, He answered; " but it is. I take my wife Directly from the people; and she comes. As Austria's daughter to imperial France, Betwixt her eagles, blinking not her race. From Margaret's Court at garret- height, to meet And wed me at St. James's, nor put off Her gown of serge for that. The things we do. We do: we'll wear no mask, as if we blushed." "Dear Romney, you're the poet," I replied. But felt my smile too mournful for my word, And turned and went. Ay, masks, I thought, — beware Of tragic masks we tie before the glass. Uplifted on the cothurn half r yard Above the natural stature ! we would play Heroic parts to ourselves, and end, perhaps. As impotently as Athenian wives Who shrieked in fits at the Eumeni- des. His foot pursued me down the stair. " At least You'll suffer me to walk with you beyond These hideous streets, these graves, where men alive, Packed close with earthworms, burr unconsciously About the plague that slew them : let me go. The very women pelt their souls in mud At any woman who walks here alone. How came you here alone ? — you are ignorant." We had a strange and melancholy walk: The night came drizzling downward in dark rain. And as we walked, the color of the time. The act, the presence, my hand upon his arm. His voice in my ear, and mine to my own sense. Appeared unnatural. We talked modern books And daily papers, Spanish marriage- schemes And English climate — was't so cold last year ? And will the wind change by to-mor- row morn ? Can Guizot .stand? is London full? is trade Competitive ? has Dickens turned his hinge A-pinch upon the fingers of the great ? And are potatoes to grow mythical Like moly ? will the apple die out too ? Which way is the wind to-night? south-east ? due east ? We talked on fast, while every com- mon word Seemed tangled with the thunder at one end. And ready to pull down uijon our heads A terror out of sight. And yet to pause i AURORA LEIGH. G7 Were surelier mortal : we tore greedi- ily up All silence, all the innocent breath- ing-points, As if, like pale conspirators in haste, We tore up impers where our signa- tures Imperilled us to an ugly shame or death. I cannot tell you why it was. 'Tis plain "We had not loved nor hated: where- fore dread To spill gunpowder on ground safe from fire ? Perhaps we had lived too closely to diverge Ko absolutely: leave two clocks, they say. Wound up to different hours, iipon one shelf, And slowly, througli the interior wheels of each, The blind mechanic motion sets itself A-throb to feel out for the mutual time. It was not so with us, indeed: while he Struck midnight, I kept striking six at dawn ; While he marked judgment, I, re- demption-day: And such exception to a general law Imperious upon inert matter even, IVIight make us, each to either, inse- cure, A beckoning mystery, or a troubling fear. I mind me, when we i)arted at the door. How strange his good-night sounded, — like good-night Beside a deathbed, where the mor- row's sun Is sure to come too late for more good days. And all that night I thought . . . " Good-night," said he. And so a month passed. Let me set it down At once, — I have been wrong, I liave been wrong. We are wrong always when we think too much Of what we think or are: albeit our thoughts Be verily bitter as self-sacrifice. We're no less selfish. If we sleep on rocks Or roses, sleeping past the hour of noon. We're lazv. This I write against mj-- self,' I had done a duty in the visit paid To Marian, and was ready otherwise To give the witness of my presence and name Whenever she should marry. Which, I thought. Sufficed. I even had cast int(j the scale An overweight of justice toward the match. The Lady Waldemar liad missed her tool. And broken it in the lock as being too straight For a crooked purpose; while poor Marian Erie , Missed nothing in my accents or my acts : I had not been ungenerous on the whole, Nor yet untender : so enough. I felt Tired, overworked: this marriage somewhat jarred ; Or, if it did not, all the bridal noise. The pricking of the map of life with pins, In schemes of ... " Here we'll go," and " There we'll stay," And " Everywhere we'll prosper in our love," Was scarce my business: let them order it: Who else should care ? I threw my- self aside. As one who had done her work, and shuts her eyes To rest the better. I, who should have known, Forereckoned mischief 1 Where we disavow Being keeper to our brother, we're his Cain. I might have held that poor child to ■my heart A little longer ! 'twould have hurt me much To have hastened by its beats the marriage-day, And kept her safe meantime from tampering hands, t I AURORA LEIGH. Or, peradventure, traps. What drew me back Prom telling Romney plainly the de- signs Of Lady Waldemar, as spoken out To me . . . me ? had I any right, ay, right, With womanly compassion and re- serve To break the fall of woman's impu- dence? — To stand by calmly, knowing what I knew, And hear him call her good ? Distrust that word. " There is none good save God," said Jesus Christ If he once, in the first creation-week. Called creatures good, forever after- ward. The Devil only has done it, and his heirs. The knaves who win so, and the fools who lose : The word's grown dangerous. In the middle age I think they called malignant fays and imps Good people. A good neighbor, even in this. Is fatal sometimes, cuts your morning up To mince-meat of the very smallest talk. Then helps to sugar her bohea at night With your reputation . I have known good wives, As chaste, or nearly so, as Potiphar's; And good, good mothers, who would use a child To better an intrigue ; good friends, beside, (Very good) who hung succinctly round your neck And sucked your breath, as cats are fabled to do By sleeping infants. And we all have known Good critics who have stamped out poet's hope. Good statesmen who pulled ruin on the state. Good patriots who for a theory risked a cause, Good kings who disembowelled for a tax, Good popes who brought all good to jeopardy, Good Christians who sate still in easy- chairs And damned the general world for standing up. Now may the good God pardon all good men ! How bitterly I speak ! how certainly The innocent white milk in us is turned By much persistent shining of the sun ! Shake up the sweetest in us long enough With men, it drops to foolish curd, too sour To feed the most untender of Christ's lambs. I should have thought, — a woman of the world Like her I'm meaning, centre to her- self Who has wheeled on her own pivot half a life In isolated self-love and self-will, As a windmill seen at distance radi- ating Its delicate white vans against the sky, So soft and soundless, simply beauti- ful, Seen nearer, — what a roar and tear it makes. How it grinds and bruises ! — if she loves at last. Her love's a re-adjustment of self- love, No more, — a need felt of another's use To her one advantage, as the mill wants grain, The fire wants fuel, the very wolf wants prey. And none of these is more unscrupu- lous Than such a charming woman when she loves. She'll not be thwarted by an obstacle So trifling as . . . her soul is . . . much less yours ! — Is God a consideration? — she loves you, Not God : she will not flinch for him indeed : She did not for the Marchioness of Perth, When wanting tickets for the fancy ball. AURORA LEIGH. She loves yon, sir, with passion, to lunacy. She loves you like her diamonds . . . almost. Well, A month passed so, and then the no- tice came. On such a day the marriage at the church: I was not backward. Half Saint Giles in frieze "Was bidden to meet Saint James in cloth-of-gold, And, after contract at the altar, pass To eat a marriage-feast on Hamp- stead Heath. Of course the people came in uncom- pelled, Lame, blind, and worse; sick, sor- rowful, and worse; The humors of the peccant social wound All pressed out, poured down upon Pimlico, Exasperating the unaccustomed air With a hideous interfusion. You'd suppose A finished generation, dead of plague, Swept outward from theii" graves into the sun. The moil of death upon them. What a sight! A holiday of miseralile men Is sadder than a burial-day of kings. They clogged the streets, they oozed into the church In a dark slow stream, like blood. To see that sight, The noble ladies stood up in their pews. Some pale for fear, a few as red for hate, Some simply curious, some just inso- lent. And some in wondering scorn, " What next ? what next ? " These crushed their delicate rose lips from the smile That misbecame them in a holy place, With l)roidered hems of perfumed handkerchiefs ; Those passed the salts, with confi- dence of eyes, And simultaneous shiver of moire silk; While all the aisles, alive and black with heads. Crawled slowly toward the altar from the street. As bruised snakes crawl and hiss out of a hole With shuddering involution, swaying slow From right to left, and then from left to right. In pants and pauses. What an ugly crest Of faces rose upon you everywhere From that crammed mass ! you did not usually See faces like them in the open day : They hide in cellars, not to make you mad As Romney Leigh is. Faces ! O my God, We call those faces ? — men's and wo- men 's . . . ay. And children's; babies, hanging like a rag Forgotten on their mother's neck — poor mouths. Wiped clean of mother's milk by mother's blow Before they are taught her cursing. Faces ? . . . phew. We'll call them vices, festering to despairs. Or sorrows, petrifying to vices; not A finger-touch of God left whole on them. All ruined, lost, the countenance worn out As the garment, the will dissolute as the act. The passions loose and draggling in the dirt. To trip a foot up at the first free step ! Those faces ? — 'twas as if you had stirred up hell To heave its lowest dreg-fiends upper- most In fiery swirls of slime, such strangled fronts, Such obdurate jaws, were thrown up constantly To twit you with your race, corrupt your blood. And grind to devilish colors all your dreams Henceforth, though haply you should drop asleep By clink of silver waters, in a muse On Raffael's mild Madonna of the Bird. AURORA LEIGH. I've waked and slept through many nights and days Since then ; but still that day will catch my breath Like a nightmare. There are fatal days, indeed, In which the fibrous years have taken root So deeply, that they quiver to their tops Whene'er you stir the dust of such a day. My cousin met me with his eyes and hand , And then, with just a word, . . . that "Marian Erie "Was coming with her bridesmaids presently," Made haste to place me by the altar- stair Where he and other noble gentlemen And high-born ladies waited for the bride. We waited. It was early: there. was time For greeting and the morning's com- pliment; And gradually a ripple of women's talk Arose and fell, and tossed about a spray Of English ss, soft as a silent hush, And, notwithstanding, quite as au- dible As louder phrases thrown out by the men. — " Yes, really, if Ave need to wait in church We need to talk there." — " She ? 'tis Lady Ayr, In blue, not purple! that's the dow- ager." "She looks as young" — "She flirts as young, you mean. Why, if you had seen her upon Thurs- day night. You'd call Miss Norris modest." — " You again ! I waltzed with you three hours back. Uj) at six. Up still at ten ; scarce time to change one's shoes: I feel as white and sulky as a ghost. So prav don't speak to me. Lord Belcher." — " No, I'll look at you instead, and it's enough While you have that face." — "In church, my lord! fie, fie! " — "Adair, you staid for the Divis- ion?"— "Lost By one." — " The devil it is! I'm sorry for't. And if I had not promised Mistress Grove" . . . " You nught have kept your word to Liverpool." — "Constituents must remember, after all, We're mortal." — "We remind them of it." — "Hark, The bride comes! here she comes in a stream of milk! " — "There? Dear, you are asleep still: don't you know The live Miss Granvilles ? always dressed in white To show they're ready to be married." "Lower! The aunt is at your elbow." — " Lady Maud, Did Lady Waldemar tell you she had seen This girl of Leigh's ? "— " No — wait! 'twas Mistress Brookes Who told me Lady Waldemar told her — No, ' twasn't Mistress Brookes." — "She's pretty ? " — " Who ? Mistress Brookes? Lady Walde- mar ?—" How hot ! Pray is't the law to-day we're not to breathe ? You're treading on my shawl — I thank you, sir." — " Thej' say the bride's a mere child, who can't read, But knows the things she shouldn't, with wide-awake Great eyes. I'd go through fire to look at her." — "You do, I think." — "And Lady Waldemar (You see her; sitting close to Romney Leigh. How beautiful she looks, a little flushed!) Has taken up the girl, and methodized Leigh's folly. Should I have come here, you suppose, Except she'd ask me?" — "She'd have served him more By marrying him herself." " Ah — there she comes, The bride, at last! " " Indeed, no. Past eleven. AURORA LEIGH. She puts off her patched petticoat to- day And puts on May-fair manners, so begins By setting us to wait." — "Yes, yes, this Leigh Was always odd: it's in the blood, I think. His father's uncle's cousin's second son "Was, was . . . you understand me; and for hiui, He's stark — has turned quite lunatic upon This modern question of the poor — the poor. An excellent subject when you're moderate. You've seen Prince Albert's model lodging-house ? Does honor to his Royal Highness. Good ! But would he stop his carriage in Cheapside To shake a common fellow by the fist Whose name was . . . Shakspeare? no. We draw a line; And if we stand not by our order, we In England, we fall headlong. Here's a sight, — A hideous sight, a most indecent sight ! My wife would come, sir, or I bad kept her back. By heaven, sir, when poor Damiens' trunk and limbs Were torn by horses, women of the court Stood by and stared, exactly as to-day On this dismembering of society. With pretty, troubled faces." " Now, at last. She comes now." " Where ? who sees ? you push me, sir. Beyond the point of what is manner- ly- You're standing, madam, on my sec- ond flounce. I do beseech you "... " No — it's not the bride. Half-past eleven. How late ! The bridegroom, mark, Gets anxious and goes out." "And, as I said, These Leighs ! our best blood running in the rut ! It's something awful. We had par- doned hira A simple misalliance got up aside For a pair of sky-blue eyes: the House of Lords Has winked at such things, and we've all been young. But here's an intermarriage reasoned out, A contract (carried Ijoldly to the light To challenge observation, pioneer Good acts by a great example) 'twixt the extremes Of martyrized society, — on the left The well-born, on the right the mer- est mob. To treat as equals ! — 'tis anarchical; It means more than it says; 'tis dam- nable. Why, sir, we can't have even our cof- fee good, Unless we strain it." " Here, Miss Leigh ! " " Lord Howe, You're Romney's friend. What's all tliis waiting for? " "I cannot tell. The bride has lost her head (And way, perhaps) to prove her sym- pathy With the bridegroom." " What, — you also disapprove ! " " Oh, / approve of nothing in the world," He answered, " not of you, still less of me. Nor even of Romney, though he's worth us both. We're all gone wrong. The tune in us is lost; And whistling down back alleys to the moon W^ill never catch it." Let me draw Lord Howe. A born aristocrat, bred radical, And educated socialist, who still Goes floating, on traditions of his kind. Across the theoretic flood from France, Though, like a drenched Noah on a rotten deck, Scarce safer for his place there. He, at least, Will never land on Ararat, he knows, To recommence the world on the new plan: Indeed, he thinks said world liad bet< ter end. AURORA LEIGH. He sympathizes rather with the fish Outside than with the drowned paired beasts witliiu, Who cannot couple again or multi- ply, — And that's the sort of Noah he is, Lord Howe. He never could be any thing com- plete, Except a loyal, upright gentleman, A liberal landlord, graceful diner-out, And entertainer more than hospita- ble, Whom authors dine with, and forget the hock. Whatever he believes, and it is much. But nowise certain, now here and now there. He still has sympathies beyond his creed Diverting him from action. In the House No party counts upon him, while for all His speeches have a noticeable weight. Men like his books too (he has writ- ten books). Which, safe to lie beside a bishop's chair, At times outreach themselves with jets of lire At which the foremost of the progress- ists May warm audacious hands in pass- ing by. Of stature over-tall, lounging for ease; Light hair, that seems to carry a wind in it; And eyes, that, when they look on you, will lean Their whole weight, half in indolence, and half In wishing you unmitigated good. Until you know not if to flinch from him. Or thank him. — 'Tis Lord Howe. " We're all gone wrong," Said he; "and Romney, that dear friend of ours, Is nowise right. There's one true thing on earth. That's love: he takes it up, and dresses it. And acts a play with it, as Hamlet did, To show what cruel uncles we have been, And how we should be uneasy in our minds, While he. Prince Hamlet, weds a pretty maid (Who keeps us too long waiting we'll confess) By symbol to instruct us formally To fill the ditches up 'twixt class and class, And live together in phalansteries. What then ? — he's mad, our Hamlet ! clap his play, And bind him." " Ah, Lord Howe ! this spectacle Pulls stronger at us than the Dane's. See there ! The crammed aisles heave and strain and steam with life. Dear Heaven, what life ! " " Why, yes, — a poet sees; Which makes him different from a common man. I, too, see somewhat, though I can- not sing: I should have been a poet, only that My mother took fright at the ugly world, And bore me tongue-tied. If you'll grant me now That Romney gives us a fine actor- piece To make us merry on his marriage- morn, The fable's worse than Hamlet's I'll concede. The terrible people, old and poor and blind. Their eyes eat out with plague and poverty From seeing beautiful and cheerful sights, We'll liken to a brutalized King Lear, Led out, — by no means to clear scores with wrongs, — His wrongs are so far back, he has forgot (All's past like youth); but just to witness here A simple contract, — he upon his side, And Kegan with her sister Goneril, And all the dappled courtiers and court-fools, On their side. Not that any of these would say They're sorry, neither. What is done is done. And violence is now turned privilege, As cream turns cheese, if buried long enough. AURORA LEIGH. 73 What could such lovely ladies have to do With the old man there in those ill- odorous rags, Except to keep the wind-side of him ? Lear Is flat and quiet, as a decent grave : He does not curse his daughters in the least. Be these his daughters ? Lear is thinking of His porridge chiefly ... is it getting cold At Hampstead? will the ale be served in pots ? Poor Lear, poor daughters ! Bravo, Romney's play." A murmur and a movement drew around ; A naked whisper touched us. Some- thing wrong ! What's wrong? The black crowd, as an overstrained Cord, quivered in vibration, and I saw . . . Was that his face I saw ? . . . his . . . Romney Leigh's . . . Which tossed a sudden horror like a sponge Into all eyes, while himself stood white upon The topmost altar-stair, and tried to speak. And failed, and lifted higher above his head A letter ... as a man who drowns and gasps. " My brothers, bear with me ! I am very weak. I meant but only good. Perhaps I meant Too proudly, and God snatched the circumstance. And changed it therefore. There's no marriage — none. She leaves me, — she deimrls, — she disappears, I lose her. Yet I never forced her 'ay,' To have her 'no' so cast into my teeth In manner of an accusation, thus. My friends you are dismissed. Go, eat and drink According to the programme — and farewell ! " He ended. There was silence in the church. We heard a baby sucking in its sleep At the farthest end of the aisle. Then spoke a man, "Now, look to it, coves, that all the beef and drink Be not filched from us, like the other fun; For beer's spilt easier than a wo- man's lost ! This gentry is not honest with the poor: They bring us up, to trick us." — "Go it, Jim ! " A woman screamed back. " I"m a tender soul ; I never banged a child at two years old. And drew blood from him, but I sobbed for it Next moment, and I've had a plague of seven. I'm tender: I've no stomach even for beef, Until I know about the girl that's lost, That's killed mayhap. I did mis- doubt at first. The flue lord meant no good by her or us. He, maybe, got the upper hand of her By holding up a wedding-ring, and then . . . A choking finger on her throat last night. And just a clever tale to keep us still, As she is, poor lost innocent. 'Dis- appear ! ' Who ever disappears, except a ghost? And who believes a story of a ghost ? I ask you, would a girl go off, instead Of staying to be married ? A fine tale! A wicked man, I say, a wicked man I For my part I would rather starve on gin Than make my dinner on his beef and beer." At which a cry rose up, " We'll have our rights. We'll have the girl, the girl ! Your ladies there Are married safely and smoothly every day. And she shall not drop through into a trap Because she's poor and of the people. Shame ! i 74 AURORA LEIGH. We'll have no tricks played off by gentle folks. We'll see her righted." Through the rage and roar I heard the broken words which Rom- ney flung Among the turbulent masses, from the ground He held still with his masterful pale face, As huntsmen throw the ration to the pack, Who, falling on it headlong dog on dog In heaps of fury, rend it, swallow it up With yelling hound-jaws, — his in- dignant words, His suppliant words, his most pa- thetic words. Whereof I caught the meaning here and there By his gesture . . . torn in morsels, yelled across. And so devoured. From end to end, the church Rocked round us like the sea in storm, and then Broke up like the earth in earth- quake. Men cried out, " Police ! " and women stood, and shrieked for God, Or dropt and swooned ; or, like a herd of deer, (For whom the black woods suddenly grow alive, Unleashing their wild shadows down the wind To hunt the creatures into corners, back And forward), madly fled, or blindly fell. Trod screeching underneath the feet of those Who fled and screeched. The last sight left to me Was Romney's terrible calm face above The tumult. The last sound was, " Pull him down ! Strike — kill him!" Stretching my unreasoning arms, As men in dreams, who vainly inter- pose 'Twixt gods and their undoing, with a cry I struggled to precipitate myself Headforemost to the rescue of my soul In that white face . . . till some one caught me back. And so the world went out, — I felt no more. What followed was told after by Lord Howe, Who bore me senseless from the strangling crowd In church and street, and then re- turned alone To see the tumult quelled. The men of law Had fallen as thunder on a roaring fire, And made all silent, while the peo- ple's smoke Passed eddying slowly from the emp- tied aisles. Here's Marian's letter, which a rag- ged child Brouglit running, just as Romney at the porch Looked out expectant of the bride. He sent The letter to me by his friend, Lord Howe, Some two hours after, folded in a sheet On which his well-known hand had left a word. Here's Marian's letter. " Noble friend, dear saint, Be patient with me. Never think me vile. Who might to-morrow morning be your wife But that I loved you more than such a name. Farewell, my Romney. Let me write it once, — My Romney. " 'Tis so pretty a coupled word, I have no heart to pluck it with a blot. We say, ' My God ' sometimes, upon our knees. Who is not therefore vexed : so bear with it . . . And me. I know I'm foolish, weak, and vain ; Yet most of all I'm angry with myself For losing your last footstep on the stair That last time of your coming, — yes- terday ! The very first time I lost step of yours. AURORA LETGH. (Its sweetness comes the iiuxt to what yoti speak,) But yesterday sobs took me by the throat And cut me off from music. " Mister Leigh, You'll set me down as wrong in many things. You've praised me, sir, for truth — and now you'll learn I had not courage to be rightly true. I once began to tell you how she came, The woman . . . and you stared upon the floor In one of your fixed thoughts . . . which put me out For that day. After, some one spoke of me So wisely, and of you so tenderly. Persuading me to silence for your sake . . . Well, well ! it seems this moment I was wrong In keeping back from telling you the truth : There might be truth betwixt us two, at least. If nothing else. And yet 'twas dan- gerous. Suppose a real angel came from heaven To live with men and women ! he'd go mad, If no considerate hand should tie a blind Across his piercing eyes. 'Tis thus with you: You see us too much in your heavenly light. I always thought so, angel, and in- deed There's danger that you beat yourself to death Against the edges of this alien world, In some divine and fluttering pity. "Yes, It would be dreadful for a friend of yours To see all England thrust you out of doors, And mock you from the windows. You might say, Or think (that's worse), ' There's some one in the house I miss and love still.' Dreadful ! " Very kind, I pray you, mark, was Lady Walde- mar. She came to see me nine times, rather ten — So beautiful, she hurts one like the day Let suddenly on sick eyes. " Most kind of all. Your cousin — ah, most like you I Ere you came She kissed me mouth to mouth: I felt her soul Dip through her serious lips in holy fire. God help me; but it made me arro- gant. I almost told her that you would not lose By taking me to wife; though ever since I've pondered much a certain thing she asked . . . 'He loves you, Marian?' ... in a sort of mild Derisive sadness ... as a mother asks Her babe, 'You'll touch that star, you think ? ' " Farewell ! I know I never touched it. " This is worst: Babes grow, and lose the hope of things above: A silver threepence sets them leaping high — But no more stars ! mark that. " I've writ all night. Yet told you nothing. God, if I could die. And let this letter break off innocent Just here ! But no — for your " Here's the last: I never could be happy as your wife, I never could be harmless as your friend, I never will look more into your face Till God says, ' Look ! ' I charge you seek me not, Nor vex yourself with lamentable thoughts That i^erad venture I have come to grief; Be sure I'm well, I'm merry, I'm at ease, But such a long way, long way, long way off, I think you'll find me sooner in my grave. And that's my choice, observe. For what remains. AURORA LEIGH. An over-generous friend will care for me, And keep me happy . . . happier . . . " There's a blot ! This ink runs thick . . . we light girls lightly weep . . . And keep me happier . . . was the thing to say, Than as your wife I could be. — Oh, my star, My saint, my soul ! for surely you're my soul, Through whom God touched me ! I am not so lost I cannot thank you for the good you did. The tears you stopped, which fell down bitterly, Like these — the times you made me weep for joy At hoping I should learn to write your notes, And save the tiring of your eyes at night; And most for that sweet thrice you kissed my lips. Saying, ' Dear Marian.' " 'T would be hard to read, This letter, for a reader half as learned ; But you'll be sure to master it in spite Of ups and downs. My hand shakes, I am blind; I'm poor at writing at the best — and yet I tried to make my ^s the way you showed. Farewell ! Christ love you ! Say, ' Poor Marian ! ' now." Poor Marian! — wanton Marian! — was it so. Or so? For days, her touching, fool- ish lines We mused on with conjectural fan- tasy. As if some riddle of a summer-cloud On which one tries unlike similitudes, Of now a spotted hydra-skin cast off. And now a screen of carven ivory That shuts the heavens' conventual secrets up From mortals over-bold. We sought the sense. She loved him so perhaps (such words mean love,) That, worked on by some shrewd per- fidious tongue, (And then I thought of Lady Walde- mar) She left him not to hurt him; or per- haps She loved one in her class; or did not love. But mused upon her wild bad tramp- ing life. Until the free blood fluttered at her heart. And black bread eaten by the road- side hedge Seemed sweeter than being put to Romney's school Of philanthropical self-sacrifice Irrevocably. Girls are girls, be- side. Thought I, and like a wedding by one rule. You seldom catch these birds except with chaff. They feel it almost an immoral thing To go out and be married in broad day. Unless some winning special flattery should Excuse them to themselves for't. . . . " No one parts Her hair with such a silver line as you. One moonbeam from tlie forehead to the crown! " Or else ..." You bite your lip in such a way It spoils me for the smiling of the rest; " And so on. Then a worthless gaud or two To keep for love, — a ribbon for the neck. Or some glass pin, — they have their weight with girls. And Romney sought her many days and weeks. He sifted all the refuse of the town, Explored the trains, inquired among the ships, And felt the country through from end to end; No Marian! Though I hinted what I knew, — A friend of his had reasons of her own For throwing back the match, — he would not hear: The lady had been ailing ever since, The shock had harmed her. Some- thing in his tone AURORA LEIGH. i i Repressed me ; something in me shamed my doubt To a sigh repressed too. He went on to say, That, putting questions where his Marian lodged. He found she had received for vis- itors — Besides himself and Lady Waldemar, And, that once, me — a dubious wo- man dressed Beyond us both: the rings upon her hands Had dazed the children when she threw them pence; " She wore her bonnet as the queen might hers, To show the crown," they said, — "a scarlet crown Of roses that had never been in bud." "When Romney told me that, for now and then He came to tell me how the search advanced, His voice dropped. I bent forward for the rest. The woman had been with her, it ajv peared. At first from week to week, then day by day And last, 'twas sure . . . I looked upon the ground To escape the anguish of his eyes, and asked, As low as when you speak to mourn- ers new Of those they cannot bear yet to call dead, " If Marian had as much as named to him A certain Rose, an early friend of hers, A ruined creature." " Never! " Starting up, He strode from side to side about the room. Most like some prisoned lion sprung awake. Who has felt the desert sting him through his dreams. " What was I to lier, that she should tell me aught ? A friend! was I a friend? I see all clear. Such devils would pull angels out of heaven. Provided they could reach them: 'tis their pride, And that's the odds 'twixt soul and body plague! The veriest slave who drops in Cairo's street Cries, "Stand off from me!" to the passengers; While these blotched souls are eager to infect. And blow their bad breath in a sister's face, As if they got some ease by it." I broke through. " Some natures catch no plagues. I've read of babes Found whole, and sleeping by the sjiotted breast Of one a full day dead. I hold it true, As I'm a woman and know woman- hood, That Marian Erie, however lured from place, Deceived in way, keeps pure in aim and heart As snow that's drifted from the gar- den-bank To the open road." 'Twas hard to hear him laugh. "The figure's hapjjy. Well, a dozen carts And trampers will secure you pres- ently A fine white snow-drift. Leave it there, your snow! 'Twill pass for soot ere sunset. Pure in aim ? She's pure in aim, I grant you, like myself. Who thought to take the world upon my back To carrj' it o'er a chasm of social ill. And end by letting slip, through im- potence, A single soul, a child's Aveight in a soul. Straight down the pit of hell! Yes, I and she Have reason to be proud of our pure aims." Then softly, as the last repenting drops Of a thunder-shower, he added, " The poor child. Poor Marian! 'twas a luckless day for her. When first she chanced on my philan- thropy." I AURORA LEIGH. He drew a chair beside me, and sate down ; And I instinctively — as women use Before a sweet friend's grief, when in his ear They hum the tune of comfort, though themselves Most ignorant of the special words of such, And quiet so and fortify his brain, And give it time and strength for feel- ing out To reach the availing sense beyond that sound — "Went murmuring to him what, if written here, Would seem not much, yet fetched him better help Than peradventure if it had been more. I've known the pregnant thinkers of our time, And stood by breathless, hanging on their lips. When some chromatic sequence of fine thought In learned modulation phrased itself To an iinconjectured harmony of truth ; And yet I've been more moved, more raised, I say, By a simple word ... a broken, easy thing A three-years infant might at need repeat, A look, a sigh, a touch upon the palm. Which meant less than " I love you," than by all The full-voiced rhetoric of those mas- ter-mouths. " Ah, dear Aurora," he began at last. His pale lips fumbling for a sort of smile, " Your i^rinter's devils have not spoilt your heart: That's well. And who knows, but long years ago When you and I talked, you were somewhat right In being so peevish with me ? You, at least. Have ruined no one through your dreams. Instead, You've helped the facile youth to live youth's day With innocent distraction, still, per- haps Suggestive of things better than your rhymes. The little shepherd-maiden, eight years old, I've seen upon the mountains of Vau- cluse. Asleep i' the sun, her head upon her knees. The flocks all scattered, is more lau- dable Than any sheep-dog trained imper- fectly. Who bites the kids through too much zeal." " I look As if I had slept, then ? " He was toixched at once By something in my face. Indeed, 'twas sure That he and I, despite a year or two Of younger life on my side, and on his The heaping of the years' work on the days, The three-hour speeches from the member's seat. The hot committees in and out of doors, The pamphlets, "Arguments," "Col- lective Views," Tossed out as straw before sick houses, just To show one's sick, and so be trod to dirt. And no more use, — through this world's underground The burrowing, groping effort. whence the arm And heart come torn, — 'twas sure that he and I Were, after all, unequally fatigued; That he, in his developed manhood, stood A little sunburnt by the glare of life, While I ... it seemed no sun had shone on me, So many seasons I had missed my springs. My cheeks had pined and perished from their orbs. And all the youth-blood in them had grown white As dew on autumn cyclamens: alone My eyes and forehead answered for my face. He said, " Aurora, you are changed — are ill!" AURORA LEIGH. " Not so, luy cousin, — only not asleep," I answered, smiling gently. " Let it be. You scarcely found the poet of Vau- cluse As drowsy as the shepherds. What is art But life upon the larger scale, the higher, "When, graduating up in a spiral line Of still expanding and ascending gyres, It pushes toward the intense signifi- cance Of all things, hungry for the Infinite? Art's life; and where we live, we suf- fer and toil." He seemed to sift me with his painful eyes. "You take it gravely, cousin: you refuse Your dreamland's right of common, and green rest. You break the mythic turf where danced the ftymphs. With crooked ploughs of actual life, let in The axes to the legendary woods. To pay the poll-tax. You are fallen indeed On evil days, you poets, if your- selves Can praise that art of yours no other- wise; And if you cannot . . . better take a trade And be of use: 'twere cheaper for your youth." " Of use ! " I softly echoed, " there's the point We sweep about forever in argument, Like swallows which the exasperate, dying year Sets spinning in black circles, round and round. Preparing for far flights o'er unknown seas. And we — where tend we ? " "Where?" he said, and sighed. " The whole creation, from the hour we are born, Perplexes us with questions. Not a stone But cries behind us, every weary step, ' Where, where ? ' I leave stones to reply to stones. Enough for me and for my Heshly heart To hearken the invocations of my kind, When men catch liold upon my shud- dering nerves. And shriek, ' What help? what hope ? what bread i' the house ? What fire 1' the frost ? ' There must be some response, Though mine fail iitterly. This social Sphinx Who sits between the sepulchres and stews. Makes mock and mow against the crystal heavens, And bullies God, — exacts a word at least From each man standing on the side of God, However paying a sphinx-price for it. We pay it also, if we hold our peace, In pangs and pity. Let me speak and die. Alas ! you'll say I speak and kill in- stead." I pressed in there. "The best men, doing their best. Know peradventure least of what they do; Men usefuUest i' the world are simply used; The nail tlaat holds the wood must pierce it first; And he alone who wields the ham- mer sees The work advanced by the earliest blow. Take heart." " Ah, if I could have taken yours ! " he said — " But that's past now." Then rising, — " I will take At least your kindness and encour- agement. I thank you. Dear, be happy. Sing your songs, If that's your way; but sometimes slumber too. Nor tire too much with following, out of breath, The rhymes upon your mountains of Delight. Reflect, if art be in truth the higher life. You need the lower life to stand upon In order to reach up unto that higher; AURORA LEIGH. And none can stand a-tiptoe in the place He cannot stand in with two stable feet. Remember then ! for art's sake hold , your life. We parted so. I held him in respect. 1 comprehended what he was in heart And sacrificial gteatness. Ay, but he Supposed me a thing too small to deign to know. He blew me, plainly, from the cruci- ble As some intruding, interrupting fly, Not worth the pains of his analysis Absorbed on nobler subjects. Hurt a fly! He would not for the world: he s pitiful To flies even. " Sing," says he, " and tease me still. If that's your way, poor insect." That's your way ! FIFTH BOOK. Aurora Leigh, be humble. Shall I hope To speak my poems in mysterious tune With man and nature ? with the lava- lymph That trickles from successive galaxies Still drop by drop adown the finger of God In still new worlds? with summer- days in this That scarce dare breathe, they are so beautiful ? With spring's delicious trouble in the ground, Tormented by the quickened blood of roots. And softly pricked by golden crocus- sheaves In token of the harvest-time of flow- ers ? With winters and with autumns, and beyond With the human heart's large sea- sons, when it hopes And fears, joys, grieves, and loves ? with all that strain Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh In a sacrament of souls ? with moth- er's breasts, Which, round the new-made crea- tures hanging there. Throb luminous and harmonious like pure sjjheres ? With multitudinous life, and, finally, With the great escapings of ecstatic souls. Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame. Their radiant faces upward, burn away This dark of the bodj , issuing on a world Beyond our mortal ? Can i speak my verse So plainly in tune to these things and the rest, That men shall feel it catch them on the quick. As having the same warrant over them To hold and move them, if they will or no. Alike imperious as the primal rhythm Of that theurgic nature ? I must fail, Who fail at the beginning to hold and move One man, and he my cousin, and he my friend, And he born tender, made intelligent. Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides Of difficult questions, yet obtuse to me, Of me, incurious ! likes me very well. And wishes me a paradise of good, — Good looks, good means, and good digestion, — ay. But otherwise evades me, puts me ofE With kindness, with a tolerant gen- tleness, — Too light a book for a grave man's reading ! Go, Aurora Leigh: be humble. There it is, We women are too apt to look to one. Which proves a certain impotence in art. We strain our natures at doing some- thing great. Far less because it's something great to do Than haply that we, so, commend ourselves AURORA LEIGH. As being not small, and more appre- ciable To some one friend. We must bave mediators Betwixt our highest conscience and the judge ; Some sweet saint's blood must quick- en in our palms, Or all the life in heaven seems slow and cold; Good only being perceived as the end of good, And God alone pleased, — that's too poor, we think. And not enough for us by any means. Ay, Romney, I remember, told me once We miss the abstract when we com- prehend; We miss it most when we aspire, — and fail. Yet, so, I will not. This vile wo- man's way Of trailing garments shall not trip me up: I'll have no traffic with the personal thought In art's pure temple. Must I work in vain. Without the approbation of a man ? It cannot be; it shall not. Fame it- self, That approbation of the general race. Presents a poor end, (though the ar- row speed Shot straight with vigorous finger to the white,) And the highest fame was never reached except By what was aimed above it. Art for art. And good for God himself, the essen- tial Good ! We'll keep our aims sublime, our eyes erect, Although our woman-hands should shake and fail; And if we fail . . . But must we ? — Shall I fail ? The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, " Let no one be called happy till his death." To which I add. Let no one till his death Be called unhappy. Measure not the work Until the da^^'s out and the labor done ; Then bring your gauges. If the day's work's scant, Why, call it scant; affect no compro- mise; And, in that we've nobly striven at least. Deal with us nobly, women though we be. And honor us with truth, if not with praise. My ballads prospered; but the bal- lad's race Is rapid for a poet who bears weights Of thought and golden image. He can stand Like Atlas, in the sonnet, and sup- port His own heavei:8 pregnant with dy- nastic stars; But then he must stand still, nor take a step. In that descriptive poem called " The Hills," The prospects were too far and indis- tinct. 'Tis true my critics said, " A fine view, that ! " The public scarcely cared to climb my book For even the finest, and the public's right: A tree's mere firewood, unless hu- manized; Which well the Greeks knew when they stirred its bark With close-pressed bosoms of subsid- ing nymphs, And made the forest-rivers garru- lous With babble of gods. For us, we are called to mark A still more intimate humanity In this inferior nature, or our- selves Must fall like dead leaves trodden underfoot By veritable artists. Earth (shut up By Adam, like a fakir in a box Left too long buried) remained stiff and dry, A mere dumb corpse, till Christ the Lord came down. Unlocked the doors, forced open the blank eyes, 82 AURORA LEIGH. And used his kiygly chrism to straighten out The leathery tongue turned hack into the throat; Since when, she lives, remembers, palpitates In every limb, aspires in every breath, Embraces infinite relations. Now "We want no half-gods, Panomphiean Joves, Fauns, Naiads, Tritons, Oreads, and the rest. To take possession of a senseless world To unnatural vampire-uses. See the earth. The body of our body, the green earth, "indubitably human like this flesh And these articulated veins through which Our heart drives blood ! There's not a flower of spring That dies ere June, but vaunts itself allied By issue and symbol, by significance And correspondence, to that spirit- world Outside the limits of our space and time. Whereto we are bound. Let poets give it voice With human meanings, else they miss the thought. And henceforth step down lower, stand confessed Instructed poorly for interpreters, Thrown out by an easy cowslip in the text. Even so my pastoral failed: it was a book Of surface-pictures, pretty, cold, and false With literal transcript, — the worse done, I think, For being not ill done : let me set my mark Against such doings, and do other- wise. This strikes me. — If the public whom we know Could catch me at such admissions, I should pass For being right modest. Yet how proud we are In daring to look down upon our- selves ! The critics say that epics have died out With Agamemnon and the goat- nursed gods: I'll not believe it. I could never deem, As Payne Knight did, (the mythic mountaineer Who travelled higher than he was born to live. And showed sometimes the goitre in his throat Discoursing of an image seen through fog,) That Homer's heroes measured twelve feet high. They were but men: his Helen's hair turned gray Like any plain Miss Smith's who wears a front ; And Hector's infant whimpered at a plume As yours last Friday at a turkey- cock. All actual heroes are essential men. And all men possible heroes: every age, Heroic in proportions, double-faced, Looks backward and before, expects a morn And claims an epos. Ay; but every age Appears to souls who live in't (ask Carlyle) Most unheroic. Ours, for instance, ours — The thinkers scout it, and the poets aboiind Who scorn to touch it with a finger- tip — A pewter age, mixed metal, silver- washed — An age of scum, spooned off the richer past, — An age of patches for old gaberdines, An age of mere transition, meaning nought Except that what succeeds must shame it quite If God please. That's wrong think- ing, to my mind. And wrong thoughts make poor po- ems. Every age. Through being beheld too close, is ill discerned By those who have not lived past it. We'll suppose Mount Athos carved, as Alexander schemed, i AURORA LEIGH. To some colossal statue of a man. The peasants, gathering brushwood in his ear, Had guessed as little as the browsing goats Of form or feature of humanitj' Up there, — in fact, had travelled five miles off Or ere the giant image broke on them, Full human profile, nose and chin distinct. Mouth muttering rhythms of silence up the sky, \ And feci at evening with the blood of sons; Grand torso, — hand tliat flung per- petually The largesse of a silver river down To all the country pastures. 'Tis even thus With times we live in, — evermore too great To be apprehended near. But poets should Exert a double vision; should have eyes To see' near things as comprehen- sively As if afar they took their point of sight. And distant things as intimately deep As if they touched tliem. Let us strive for this. I do distrust the poet who discerns No character or glory in his times, And trundles back his soul five hun- dred years, Past moat and drawbridge, into a castle-court. To sing — oh, not of lizard or of toad Alive i' the ditch there, — 'twere ex- cusable. But of some black chief, half knight, half sheep-lifter. Some beauteous dame, half chattel and half queen, I As dead as must he, for the greater part. The poems made on their chivalric bones ; And that's no wonder: death inherits death. ■ ) Nay, if there's room for poets in this world A little overgrown, (I think there is) Their sole work is to represent the age, Their age, not Charlemagne's,— this live, throbbing age, That brawls, cheats, maddens, calcu- lates, asi^ires, And spends more passion, more hero- ic heat, Betwixt the mirrors of its drawing- rooms. Than Roland with his knights at Roncesvalles. To flinch from modern varnish, coat, or flounce. Cry out for togas and the picturesque, Is fatal, — foolish too. King Arthur's self Was commonplace to Lady Guinevere ; And Camelot to minstrels seemed as flat As Fleet Street to our poets. Never flinch. But still, unscrupvilously epic, catch Upon the burning lava of a song The full-veined, heaving, double- breasted age. That, when the next shall come, the . men of that May touch the impress with reverent hand, and say, " Behold, behold, the paps we all have sucked ! This bosom seems to beat still, or at least It sets ours beating: this is living art, Which thus presents and thus records true life." What form is best for poems ? Let me think Of forms less, and the external Trust the spirit. As sovran natiire does, to make the form; For otherwise we only imprison spirit And not embody. Inward evermore To outward, — so in life, and so in art. Which still is life. Five acts to make a play. And why not fifteen ? why not ten ? or seven ? What matter for the number of the leaves, Supposing the tree lives and grows ? exact The literal unities of time and place. When 'tis the essence of passion to ignore Both time and place ? Absurd. Keep up the fire. And leave the generous flames to shape themselves. AURORA LEIGH. 'Ti8 true the stage requires obsequi- ousness To this or that convention; "exit" here And "enter" there; the points for clapping fixed, Like Jacob's white-jieeled rods before the rams; And all the close-curled imagery clipped In manner of their fleece at shearing- time. Forget to prick tlie galleries to the heart Precisely at the fourth act, culminate Our five i>yramidal acts with one act more, We're lost so: Shakspeare's ghost could scarcely plead Against our just damnation. Stand aside; We'll muse, for comfort, that last century, On this same tragic stage on which we have failed, A wigless Hamlet v^^ould have failed the same. And whosoever writes good poetry Looks just to art. He does not write for you Or me, for Loudon or for Edinburgh; He will not suffer the best critic known To step into his sunshine of free thought And self-absorbed conception, and exact An inch-long swerving of the holy lines. If virtue done for ijopularity Defiles like vice, can art, for praise or hire, Still keep its splendor, and remain pure art ? Eschew such serfdom. What the poet writes. He writes. Mankind accepts it if it suits. And that's success: if not, the poem's passed From hand to hand, and yet from hand to hand. Until the unborn snatch it, crying out In pity on their father's being so dull; And that's success too. I will write no plays. Because the drama, less sublime in this. Makes lower appeals; submits more menially; , Adopts the standard of the public taste To chalk its height on ; wears a dog- chain round Its regal neck, and learns to carry and fetch The fashions of the day to please the day; Fawns close on pit and boxes, who clap hands, Commending chiefly its docility And humor in stage-tricks; or else, indeed. Gets hissed at, howled at, stamped at like a dog. Or worse, we'll say. For dogs, un- justly kicked. Yell, bite at need; but if your drama- tist (Being wronged by some five hundred nobodies, Because their grosser brains most naturally Misjudge the fineness of his subtle wit) Shows teeth an almond's breath, pro- tests the length Of a modest phrase, " My gentle countrymen, There's something in it haply of your fault," Why then, besides five hundred no- bodies, He'll have five thousand and five thousand more Against him, — the whole public, all the hoofs Of King Saul's father's asses, in full drove. And obviously deserve it. He ap- pealed To these, and why say more if they condemn. Than if they praise him ? Weep, my iEschylus, But low and far, upon Sicilian shores ! For since 'twas Athens (so I read the myth) Who gave commission to that fatal weight The tortoise, cold and hard, to drop on thee And crush thee, better cover thy bald head. She'll hear the softest hum of Hyblan bee Before thy loudest protestation. AURORA LEIGH. 85 Then The risk's still worse upon the mod- ern stage : I could not, for so little, accept suc- cess; Nor would I risk so much, in ease and calm, For manifester gains: let those who prize Pursue them: I stand off. And yet forbid \ That any irreverent fancy or conceit Should litter in the drama's throne- room where The rulers of our art, in whose full veins Dynastic glories mingle, sit in strength And do their kingly work, conceive, command. And from the imagination's crucial heat Catch up their men and women all aflame For action, all alive, and forced to prove Their life by living out heart, brain, and nerve, Until mankind makes witness, " These be men As we are," and vouchsafes the greet- ing due To Imogen and Juliet, — sweetest kin On art's side. 'Tis that, honoring to its worth The drama, I would fear to keep it down To the level of the footlights. Dies no more The sacrificial goat, for Bacchus slain. His filmed eyes fluttered by the whirling Avhite Of choral vestures, troubled in his blood, While tragic voices that clanged keen as swords, Leapt high together with the altar- flame. And made the blue air wink. The waxen mask, Which set the grand, still front of Themis' son Upon the puckered visage of a player; The buskin, which he rose upon and moved. As some tall ship, first conscious of the wind. Sweeps slowly past the piers; the mouthpiece, where The mere man's voice, with all its breaths and breaks. Went sheathed in brass, and clashed on even heights Its phrased thunders, — these things are no more. Which once were. And concluding, which is clear, The growing drama has outgrown such toys Of simulated stature, face, and sjieech, It also peradventure may outgrow The simulation of the painted scene, Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume. And take for a worthier stage the soul itself, Its shifting fancies and celestial lights. With all its grand orchestral silences To keep the pauses of its rhythmic sounds. Alas ! I still see something to be done, And what I do falls short of what I see. Though I waste myself on doing. Long green days. Worn bare of grass and sunshine; long calm nights, From which the silken sleeps were fretted out, — Be witness for me, with no amateur's Irreverent haste and busy idleness I set myself to art ! What then ? what's done ? What's done, at last ? Behold, at last, a book. If life-blood's necessary, which it is, — (By that blue vein a-throb on Ma- homet's brow, Each prophet-poet's book must show man's blood !) If life-blood's fertilizing, I wrung mine On every leaf of this, unless the drops Slid heavily on one side, and left it dry. That chances often. Many a fervid man Writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones From which the lichen's scraped; and if St. Preux Had written his own letters, as he might. We had never wept to think of the little mole AURORA LEIGH. 'Neath Julie's drooping eyelid. Pas- sion is But something suffered, after all. While art Sets action on the top of suffering, The artist's part is both to be and do, Transfixing with a special central power The flat experience of the common man. And turning outward, with a sud- den wrench, Half agony, half ecstasy, the thing He feels the inmost, — never felt the less Because he sings it. Does a torch less burn For burning next reflectors of blue steel, That he should be the colder for his place 'Twixt two incessant fires, — his per- sonal life's. And that intense refraction which burns back Perpetually against him from ■ the round Of crystal conscience he was born into. If artist-born? Oh, sorrowful, great gift Conferred on poets, of a twofold life. When one life has been found enough for pain ! We, staggering 'neath our burden as mere men, Being called to stand up straight as demigods. Support the intolerable strain and stress Of the universal, and send clearly up With voices broken by the human sob, Our poems to find rhymes among the stars ! But soft, — a "poet" is a word soon said, A book's a thing soon written. Nay, indeed, The more the poet shall be questiona- ble, The more unquestionably comes his book. And this of mine — well, granting to myself Some passion in it, furrowing up the flats, Mere passion will not prove a volume worth Its gall and rags even. Bubbles round a keel Mean nought, excepting that the ves- sel moves. There's more than passion goes to make a man Or book, which is a man too. I am sad. I wonder if Pygmalion had these doubts. And, feeling the hard marble first relent, Grow supple to the straining of his arms, And tingle through its cold to his burning lip, Supposed his senses mocked, sup- posed the toil Of stretching past the known and seen to reach The archetypal beauty out of sight, Had made his heart beat fast enough for two, And with his own life dazed and blinded him ! Not so. Pygmalion loved ; and whoso loves Believes the impossible. But I am sad : I cannot thoroughly love a work of mine, Since none seems worthy of my thought and hope More highly mated. He has shot them down, Mj' Phoebus Apollo, soul within my soul, Who judges by the attempted what's attained. And with the silver arrow from his height Has struck down all my works before my face, While I said nothing. Is there aught to say ? I called the artist but a greatened man. He may be childless also, like a man. I labored on alone. Tlie wind and dust And sun of the world beat blistering in my face; And hope, now for me, now against me, dragged My spirits onward, as some fallen balloon, AURORA LEIGH. ^Yhich, whether caught by blossom- ing tree or bare, Is torn alike. I sometimes touched my aim, Or seemed, and generous souls cried out, " Be strong, Take courage ; now you're on our level — now ! The next step saves you." I was flushed with praise ; But, pausing just a moment to draw breath, I could not choose but murmur to myself, " Is this all ? all that's done ? and all that's gained ? If this, then, be success, 'tis dismaller Than any failure." O my God, my God, O supreme Artist, who, as sole return For all the cosmic wonder of thy work, Demandest of us just a word ... a name, "My Father! " thou hast knowledge, only thou, How dreary 'tis for women to sit still On winter nights, by solitary fires, And hear the nations praising them far off, Too far ! ay, praising our quick sense of love. Our very heart of passionate woman- hood, Which could not beat so in the verse, without Being present also in the iinkissed lips, And eyes undried, because there's none to ask The reason they grew moist. To sit alone. And think for comfort, how that very night Affianced lovers, leaning face to face, "With sweet half-listenings for each other's breath, A.re reading haply from a page of ours, To pause with a thrill (as if their cheeks had touched) When such a stanza, level to their mood. Seems floating their own thought out — "So I feel For thee," — "And I, for thee: this poet knows What everlasting love is!" — how that night Some father, issuing from the misty roads Upon the luminous round of lamp and hearth. And happy children, having caught up first The youngest there, until it shrink and shriek To feel the cold chin prick its dim- ples through With winter from the hills, may throw i' the lap Of the eldest (who has learnt to drop her lids To hide some sweetness newer than last year's) Our book, and cry ... " Ah, you, you care for rhymes : So here be rhymes to pore on under trees, When April comes to let yon I I've been told They are not idle, as so many are, Butset hearts beating pure, as well as fast. 'Tis yours, the book : I'll write your name in it. That so you may not lose, however lost In poet's lore and charming revery, The thought of how your father thought of yov In riding from the town." To have our books Appraised by love, associated with love. While ive sit loveless ! is it hard, you think ? At least 'tis mournful. Fame, indeed, 'twas said. Means simply love. It was a man said that. And then there's love and love : the love of all (To risk in turn a woman's paradox) Is but a small thing to the love of one. You bid a hungry child be satisfied With a heritage of many cornfields : nay, He says he's hungry ; he would rather have That little barley-cake yon keep from him While reckoning up his harvests. So with us ; (Here, Romney, too, we fail to gener- alize !) We're hungry. 88 AURORA LEIGH. Hungry ! But it's pitiful To wail like unweaned babes, and suck our thumbs, Because we're hungry. Who in all this world (Wherein we are haply set to pray and fast, And learn what good is by its oppo- site) Has never hungered ? Woe to him who has found The meal enough ! If Ugolino's full. His teeth have crunched some foul unnatural thing; For here satiety proves penury More utterly irremediable. And since We needs must hunger, better, for man's love Than God's truth ! better, for com- panions sweet Than great convictions ! Let us bear our weights. Preferring dreary hearths to desert souls. Well, well ! they say we're envious, we who rhyme ; But I — because I am a woman, per- haps. And so rhyme ill— am ill at envying. I never envied Graham his breadth of style, Which gives you, with a random smutch or two, (Near-sighted critics analyze to smutch) Such delicate perspectives of full life; Nor Belmore, for the unity of aim To which he cuts his cedarn poems, fine. As sketchers do their pencils; nor Mark Gage, For that caressing color and tran- cing tone Whereby you're swept away, and melted in The sensual element, which, with a back wave, Restores you to the level of pure souls, And leaves you with Plotinus. None of these. For native gifts or popular applause, I've envied; but for this, — that when by chance Says some one, ^ There goes Belmore, a great man ! He leaves clean work behind him, and requires No sweeper-up of the chips," ... a girl I know, Who answers nothing, save with her brown eyes. Smiles unaware, as if a guardian saint Smiled in her; for this, too, that Gage comes home, And lays his last book's prodigal re- view Upon his mother's knee, where, years ago. He laid his childish spelling-book, and learned To chirp, and peck the letters from her mouth. As young birds must. " Well done," she murmured then: She will not say it now more won- deringly. And yet the last " Well done " will touch him more. As catching up to-day and yesterday In a perfect chord of love. And so, Mark Gage, I envy you your mother — and you, Graham, Because you have a wife who loves you so. She half forgets, at moments, to be proud Of being Graham's wife, until a friend observes, "The boy here has his father's mas- sive brow. Done small in wax ... if we push back the curls." Who loves me? Dearest father, mother sweet, — I speak the names out sometimes by myself, And make the silence shiver. They sound strange. As Hindostanee to an Ind-born man Accustomed many years to Englisli speech; Or lovely poet-words grown obsolete. Which will not leave off singing. Up in heaven I have my father, with my mother's face Beside him in a blotch of heavenly light; No more for earth's familiar, house- hold use. No more. The best verse written by this hand Can never reach them where they sit, to seem i AURORA LEIGH. 89 Well done to them. Death quite un- fellows us, Sets dreadful odds betwixt the live and dead, And makes us part, as those at Babel did Through sudden ignorance of a com- mon tongue. A living Csesar would not dare to play At bowls with such as my dead father is. And yet this may be less so than ap- pears. This change and separation. Spar- rows five For just two farthings, and God cares for each. If God is not too great for little cares. Is any creature, because gone to God ? I've seen some men, veracious, no- wise mad, "Who have thought or dreamed, de- clared and testified, They heard the dead a-ticking like a clock Which strikes the hours of the eter- nities, Beside them, with their natural ears, and known That human spirits feel the human way. And hate the unreasoning awe which waves them off From possible communion. It may be. At least, earth separates as well as heaven. For instance, I have not seen Rom- ney Leigh Full eighteen months . . . add six, you get two years. They say he's very busy with good works. Has parted Leigh Hall into alms- houses. He made one day an almshouse of his heart, Which ever since is loose upon the latch For those who pull the string. — I never did. It always makes me sad to go abroad. And now I'm sadder that I went to- night Among the lights and talkers at Lord Howe's. His wife is gracious, with her gloss j' braids, And even voice, and gorgeous eye- balls, calm As her other jewels. If she's some- what cold, Who wonders, when her blood has stood so long In the ducal reservoir she calls her line By no means arrogantly ? She's not proud ; Not prouder than the swan is of the lake He has always swum in : 'tis her ele- ment, And so she takes it with a natural grace. Ignoring tadpoles. She just knows, perhaps, There are who travel without out- riders. Which isn't her fault. Ah, to watch her face. When good Lord Howe expounds his theories Of social justice and equality ! 'Tis curious what a tender, tolerant bend Her neck takes; for she loves him, likes his talk, "Such clever talk — that dear odd Algernon ! " She listens on, exactly as if he talked Some Scandinavian myth of Lemures, Too pretty to dispute, and too absurd. She's gracious to me as her husband's friend. And would be gracious were I not a Leigh, Being used to smile just so, without her eyes. On Joseph Strangways, the Leeds mesmerist, And Delia Dobbs, the lecturer from "the States" Upon the "Woman's question." Then, for him — I like him: he's my friend. And all the rooms Were full of crinkling silks that swept about The fine dust of most subtle courte- sies. What then ? Why, then we coma home to be sad. 90 AURORA LEIGH. How lovely one I love not looked to- night ! She's very pretty, Lady Waldemar. Her maid must use both hands to twist that coil Of tresses, then be careful lest the rich Bronze rounds should slip: she missed, though, a gray hair, A single one, — I saw it ; otherwise The woman looked immortal. How tliey told, Those alabaster shoulders and bare lir easts. On which the pearls, drowned out of sight in milk. Were lost, excepting for the ruby clasp. They split the amaranth velvet bod- dice down To the waist, or nearly, with the auda- cious press Of full-breathed beauty. If the heart within "Were half as white ! — but, if it were, perhaps The breast were closer covered, and the sight Less aspectable by half, too. I heard The young man with the German student's look — A sharp face, like a knife in a cleft stick, Which shot up straight against the parting line So equally dividing the long hair — Saj' softly to his neighbor (thirty- five And mediteval), " Look that way, Sir Blaise. She's Lady Waldemar, — to the left — in red, — Whom Romney Leigh, our ablest man just now. Is soon about to marry." Then replied Sir Blaise Delorme, with quiet, priest- like voice, Too used to syllable damnations round To make a natural emphasis worth while, "Is Leigh your ablest man? — the same, I think, Once jilted by a recreant pretty maid Adopted from the people? Now, iu change, He seems to have plucked a flower from the other side Of the social hedge." " A flower, a flower ! " exclaimed My German student, his own eyes full blown Bent on her. He was twenty, cer- tainly. Sir Blaise resumed with gentle arro- gance, As if he had dropped his alms into a hat And gained the right to counsel, " My young friend, I doubt your ablest man's ability To get the least good or help meet for him. For Pagan phalanstery or Christian home. From such a flowery creature." "Beautiful!" My student murmured, rapt. " Mark how she stirs ! Just waves her head, as if a flower indeed, Touched far off by the vain breath of our talk." At which that bilious Grimwald (he who writes For the Renovator), who had seemed absorbed Upon the table-book of autograjihs, (I dare say mentally he crunched the bones Of all those writers, wishing them alive To feel his tooth in earnest), turned short round With low carnivorous laugh, — "A flower, of course ! She neither sews nor spins, and takes no thought Of her garments . . . falling off." The student flinched ; Sir Blaise the same; then both, draw- ing back their chairs As if they spied black-beetles on the floor. Pursued their talk, without a word being thrown To the critic. Good Sir Blaise's brow is high, And noticeably narrow : a strong wind. You fancy, might unroof him sud- denly, AURORA LEIGH. 91 And blow that great top attic off bis head So piled with feudal relics. You ad- mire His nose in profile, though you miss his chin ; But, though you miss his chin, you seldom miss His ebon cross worn innermostly, (carved For penance by a saintly Styrian monk "Whose flesh was too much with him,) slipping through Some unaware unbuttoned casualty Of the under waistcoat. With an ab- sent air Sir Blaise sate fingering it, and speak- ing low, While I upon the sofa heard it all. "My dear young friend, if we could bear our eyes, Like blessedest St. Lucy, on a plate. They would not trick us into choos- ing wives. As doublets, by the color. Otherwise Our fathers chose; and therefore, when they had hung Their household keys about a lady's waist, The sense of duty gave her dignity : She kept her bosom holy to her babes. And, if a moralist reproved her dress, "Twas, "Too much starch!" and not, "Too little lawn !" " Now, pshaw ! " returned the other in a heat, A little fretted by being called " Young friend," Or so I took it, — " for St. Lucy's sake, If she's the saint to swear by, let us leave Our fathers, — plagued enough about our sons ! " (He stroked his beardless chin) " yes, plagued, sir, plagued: The future generations lie on us As heavy as the nightmare of a seer; Our meat and drink grow painful prophecy. I ask you, have we leisure, if we liked. To hollow out our weary hands to keep Your intermittent rushlight of the past From draughts in lobbies ? Prejudice of sex And marriage-law . . . the socket drops them through While we two speak, however may protest Some over-delicate nostrils like your own, 'Gainst odors thence arising." " You are young," Sir Blaise objected. " If I am," he said With fire, " though somewhat less so than I seem. The young run on before, and see the thing That's coming. ' Reverence for the young ! ' I cry. In that new church for which the world's near rij^e, You'll have the yovxnger in the eld- er's chair. Presiding with his ivory front of hope O'er foreheads clawed by cruel car- rion birds Of life's experience." " Pray your blessing, sir," Sir Blaise replied good-humoredly. " I plucked A silver hair this morning from my beard. Which left me your inferior. Would I were Eighteen, and worthy to admonish you ! If young men of your order run be- fore To see such sights as sexual preju- dice And marriage-law dissolved, — in plainer words, A general concubinage expressed In a universal ]3ruriency, — the thing Is scarce worth running fast for, and you'd gain Bv loitering with your elders." " Ah ! " he said, " Who, getting to the top of Pisgah- hill, Can talk with one at bottom of the view. To make it comprehensible? Why, Leigh Himself, although our ablest man, I said. Is scarce advanced to see as far as this; Which some are. He takes up imper- fectly AURORA LEIGH. The social question, —by one handle, — leaves Tlie rest to trail. A Christian socialist Is Romney Leigh, you understand." " Not I. I disbelieve in Christian-Pagans, much As you in women-fishes. If we mix Two colors, we lose both, and make a third, Distinct from either. Mark you ! to mistake A color is the sign of a sick brain. And mine, I thank the saints, is clear and cool : A neutral tint is here impossible. The church — and by the church, I mean, of course. The catholic, apostolic, mother- church — Draws lines as plain and straight as her own wall. Inside of which are Christians, obvi- ously. And outside . . . dogs." " We thank you. "Well I know The ancient mother-church would fain still bite. For all her toothless gums, as Leigh himself AVould fain be a Christian still, for all his wit. Pass that: you two may settle it for me. You're slow in England. In a month I learnt At Gottingen enough philosophy To stock your English schools for fifty years ; Pass that too. Here alone, I stop you short, — Supposing a true man like Leigh could stand Unequal in the statvire of his life To the height of his opinions. Choose a wife Because of a smooth skin ? Not he, not he ! He'd rail at Venus' self for creaking shoes. Unless she walked his way of right- eousness ; And if he takes a Venus Meretrix (No imputation on the lady there) Be sure, that, by some sleight of Christian art. He has metamorphosed and converted her To a Blessed Virgin." " Soft ! " Sir Blaise drew breath As if it hurt him, — " Soft! no blasphe- my, I pray you ! " " The first Christians did the thing: Why not the last ? " asked he of Got- tingen, Witli just that shade of sneering on the lip, Compensates for the lagging of the beard, — " And so the case is. If that fairest fair Is talked of as the future wife of Leigh, She's talked of too, at least as cer- tainly. As Leigh's disciple. You may find her name On all his missions and commissions, schools. Asylums, hospitals: he had her down. With other ladies whom her starry lead Persuaded from -their spheres, to his country-place In Shropshire, to the famed phalan- stery At Leigh Hall, christianized from Fourier's own, (In which he has planted out his sap- ling stocks Of knowledge into social nurseries) And there they say she has tarried half a week. And milked the cows, and churned, and pressed the curd, And said ' My sister ' to the lowest drab Of all the assembled castaways: such girls ! Ay, sided with them at the washing- tub — Conceive, Sir Blaise, those naked perfect arms. Round glittering arms, plunged el- bow-deep in suds. Like wild swans hid in Hlies all a-shake." Lord Howe came up. " What, talk- ing poetry So near the image of the unfavoring Muse? That's you. Miss Leigh: I've watched you half an hour, Precisely as I watched the statue called AURORA LEIGH. 93 A Pallas in the Vatican. — You mind The face, Sir Blaise ? — intensely calm and sad, As wisdom cut it off from fellow- ship. But that spoke louder. — Not a word from you ! And these two gentleman were bold, I marked, And unabashed by even your si- lence." " Ah," Said I, " my dear Lord Howe, you shall not speak To a printing woman who has lost her place (The sweet safe corner of the house- hold fire • Behind the heads of children) com- l)liments, As if she were a woman. "We who have dipt The curls before our eyes may see at least As plain as men do. Speak out, man to man. No compliments, beseech you." " Friend to friend, Let that be. "We are sad to-night, I saw, ( — Good-night, Sir Blaise ! ah. Smith — he has slipped away) I saw you across the room, and staid. Miss Leigh, To keep a crowd of lion-hunters off, "With faces toward your jungle. There were three : A spacious lady, five feet ten, and fat, "Who has the devil in her (and there's room) For walking to and fro upon the earth. From Chijipewa to China ; she requires Your autograph upon a tinted leaf 'Twixt Queen Pomare's and Emperor Soulouque's. Pray give it ! she has energies, though fat: For me I'd rather see a rick on fire Than such a woman angry. Then a youth Fresh from the backwoods, green as the underboughs, Asks modestly. Miss Leigh, to kiss your shoe. And adds he has an epic in twelve parts, "Which when you've read, you'll do it for his boot: All which I saved you, and absorb next week Both manuscript and man, — because a lord Is still more potent than a poetess "With any extreme Republican. Ah, ah, You smile at last, then." "Thank you." " Leave the smile. I'll lose the thanks for't, ay, and throw you in My transatlantic girl, with golden eyes, That draw you to her splendid white- ness as The pistil of a water-lily draws, Adust with gold. Those girls across the sea Are tyrannously pretty, and I swore (She seemed to me an innocent frank girl) To bring her to you for a woman's kiss; Not now, but on some other day or week: — "We'll call it jierjury; I give her up." " No, bring her." " Now," said he, " you make it hard To touch such goodness with a grimy palm. I thought to tease you well, and fret you cross, And steel myself, when rightly vexed with you. For telling you a thing to tease you more." "Of Romney?" " No, no: nothing worse," he cried, " Of Romney Leigh than what is buzzed about, — That he is taken in an eye-trap too, Like many half as wise. The thing I mean Refers to you, not him." "Refers to me." He echoed, — "'Me' ! Y''ou sound it like a stone Dropped down a dry well very list- lessly By one who never thinks about the toad Alive at the bottom. Presently per- haps You'll sound vour ' me ' more proud- ly- till I shrink." 94 AURORA LEIGH. " Lord Howe's the toad, then, in this question ? " "Brief, We'll take it graver. Give me sofa^ room. And quiet hearing. You know Eg- linton, — John Eglinton of Eglinton in Kent ? " "Is he the toad? He's rather like the snail, Known chiefly for the house upon his back: Divide the man and house, you kill the man: That's Eglinton of Eglinton, Lord Howe." He answered grave: "A reputable man. An excellent landlord of the olden stamp If somewhat slack in new philanthro- pies. Who keeps his birthdays with a ten- ants' dance. Is hard upon them when they miss the church Or hold their children back from cate- chism, But not ungentle when the aged poor Pick sticks at hedgesides: nay, I've heard him say, ' The old dame has a twinge because she stoops: That's punishment enough for felo- ny.'" " O tender-hearted landlord ! may I take My long lease with him, when the time arrives For gathering winter-fagots ! ' ' "He likes art; Buys books and pictures ... of a certain kind; Neglects no j^atent duty; a good son "... " To a most obedient mother. Born to wear His father's shoes, he wears her hus- band's too: Indeed I've heard it's touching. Dear Lord Howe, You shall not praise me so agaiust your heart When I'm at worst for praise and fagots." "Be Less bitter with me; for . . . in short," he said, " I have a letter, which he urged me so To bring you ... I could scarcely choose but yield ; Insisting that a new love, passing through The hand of an old friendship, caught from it Some reconciling odor." " Love, you say ? My lord, I cannot love: I only find The rhyme for love; and that's not love, my lord. Take back your letter." " Pause. You'll read it first ? " "I will not read it: it is stereotyped, The same he wrote to, — anybody's name, Anne Blythe the actress, when she died so true A duchess fainted in a private box ; Pauline the dancer, after the great pas In which her little feet winked over- head Like other fireflies, and amazed the pit; Or Baldinacci, when her F in alt Had touched the silver tops of heaven itself With such a pungent spirit-dart, the Queen Laid softly, each to each, her white- gloved palms. And sighed for joy ; or else (I thank your friend) Aurora Leigh, when some indifferent rhymes, Like those the boys sang round the holy ox On Memphis-highway, chance per- haps to set Our Apis-publlc lowing. Oh, he wants. Instead of any worthy wife at home, A star upon his stage of Eglinton ? Advise him that he is not over- shrewd In being so little modest: a dropped star Makes bitter waters, says a Book I've read, — And there's his unread letter." " My dear friend," Lord Howe began . . . AURORA LEIGH. In haste I tore the phrase. " You mean your friend of Eglinton, or me? " "I mean you, yon!" he answered with some fire. " A happy life means prudent com- promise; The tare runs through the farmer's garnered sheaves, And, thougli the gleaner's apron holds pure wheat We count her poorer. Tare with wheat, we cry. And good with drawbacks. You, you love your art, And, certain of vocation, set your soul On utterance. Only, in this world we have made, (They say God made it first, but if he did 'Twas so long since, and, since, we have spoiled it so. He scarce would know it, if he looked this way, From hells we preach of, with the flames blown out,) — In this bad, twisted, topsy-turvy world. Where all the heaviest wrongs get uppermost, — In this uneven, unfostering England here. Where ledger-strokes and sword- strokes count indeed. But soul-strokes merely tell upon the flesh They strike from, — it is hard to stand for art, Unless some golden tripod from the sea Be fished up, by Apollo's divine chance. To throne such feet as yours, my prophetess, At Delphi. Think, — the god comes down as fierce As twenty bloodhounds, shakes you, strangles you. Until the oracular shriek shall ooze in froth ! At best 'tis not all ease; at worst too hard. A place to stand on is a 'vantage gained, And here's your tripod. To be plain, dear friend, You're poor, except in what you rich- ly give ; Y'ou labor for 3 our own bread pain- fully, Or ere you pour our wine. For art's sake, pause." I answered slow, — as some wayfar- ing man. Who feels himself at night too far from home. Makes steadfast face against the bitter wind, — " Is art so less a thing than virtue is, That artists first must cater for their ease. Or ever they make issue past them- selves To generous use ? Alas ! and is it so, That we who would be somewhat clean must sweep Our ways, as well as walk them, and no friend Confirm us nobly, — ' Leave results to God, But you, be clean ! ' What ! ' pru- dent compromise Makes acceptable life,' you say in- stead, — You, you, Lord Howe? — in things indifferent, well. For instance, compromise the wheaten bread For rye, the meat for lentils, silk for serge, And sleep on down, if needs, for sleep on straw ; But there end compromise. I will not bate One artist-dream on straw or down, my lord. Nor pinch my liberal soul, though I be poor. Nor cease to love high, though I live thus low." So speaking, with less anger in my voice Than sorrow, I rose quickly to de- part ; While he, thrown back upon the noble shame Of such high stumbling natures, mur- mured words, — The right words after wrong ones. Ah, the man Is worthy, but so given to entertain Impossible plans of superhuman life. He sets his virtues on so raised a shelf, I AURORA LEIGH. To keep them at the grand millennial height, He has to mount a stool to get at them, And meantime lives on q.uite the common way. With everybody's morals. As we passed, Lord Howe insisting that his friendly arm Should oar me across the sparkling, brawling stream Which swept from room to room, we fell at once On Lady Waldemar. " Miss Leigh," she said, And gave me such a smile, — so cold and bright. As if she tried it in a 'tiring glass And liked it, — "all to-night I've strained at you As babes at bawbles held up out of reach By spiteful nurses, (' Never snatch,' they say,) And there you sate, most perfectly shut in By good Sir Blaise and clever Mister Smith, And then our dear Lord Howe ! At last indeed I Almost snatched. I have a world to speak About your cousin's place in Shrop- shire where I've been to see his work . . . our work, — you heard I went? . . . and of a letter yester- day. In which if I should read a page or two You might feel interest, though you're locked of course In literary toil. — You'll like to hear Your last book lies at the phalan- stery, As judged innocuous for the elder girls And younger women who still care for books. We all must read, you see, before we live. Till slowly the ineffable light comes up And as it deepens drowns the written word: So said your cousin, while we stood and felt A sunset from his favorite beech-tree seat. He might have been a poet if he would ; But then he saw the higher thing al once And climbed to it. I think he looks well now, Has quite got over that unfortu- nate . . . Ah, ah ... I know it moved you. Tender-heart ! You took a liking to the wretched girl. Perhaps you thought the marriage suitable, Who knows ? A poet hankers for ro- mance. And so on. As for Romney Leigh, 'tis sure He never loved her, — never. By the way. You have not heard of her . . . ? Quite out of sight, And out of saving? Lost in every sense ? " She might have gone on talking half an hour And I stood still, and cold, and pale, I think, As a garden-statue a child pelts with snow For pretty pastime. Every now and then I put in "yes" or "no," I scarce knew why: The blind man walks wherever the dog pulls, And so I answered. Till Lord Howe broke in: " What i^enance takes the wretch who interrupts The talk of charming women ? I at last Must brave it. Pardon, Lady Walde- mar ! The lady on my arm is tired, unwell, And loyally I've promised she shall saj' No harder word this evening than . . . good-night: The rest her face speaks for her." — Then we went. And I breathe large at home. I drop my cloak, Unclasp my girdle, loose the band that ties " We fell at once on Lady Waldemar." — Page 96. #ER8fTy or AURORA LEIGH. 97 My hair . . . now could I but unloose my soul ! "We are sepulchred alive in this close world, And want more room. The charming woman there — This reckoning u^) and writing down her talk Affects me singularly. How .she talked To pain me ! woman's spite. You wear steel mail; A woman takes a housewife from her breast, And plucks the delicatest needle out As 'twere a rose, and pricks vou care- fully 'Neath nails, 'neath eyelids, in your nostrils, say: A beast would roar so tortured; but a man, A human creature, must not, shall not, flinch. No, not for shame. What vexes, after all. Is just that such as she, with such as I, Knows how to vex. Sweet Heaven ! she takes me up As if she had fingered me, and dog- eared me, And spelled me by the fireside half a life. She knows my turns, my feeble points. What then ? The knowledge of a thing implies the thing: Of course, she 'ound that in me, she saw that, Her pencil underscored this for a fault, And I, still ignorant. Shut the book up — close ! And crush that beetle in the leaves. O heart ! "At last we shall grow hard too, like the rest. And call it self-defence because we are soft. And after all, now . . . why should I be pained That Romney Leigh, my cousin, should espouse This Lady Waldemar? And, say she held Her newly blossomed gladness in my face, . . . 'T was natural surely, if not generous. Considering how, when winter held her fast, I helped the frost with mine, and pained her more Than she pains me. Pains me ! — But wherefore pained ? 'Tis clear my cousin Romney wants a wife. So, good ! The man's need of the woman, here. Is greater than the woman's of the man. And easier served ; for where the man discerns A sex (ah, ah, the man can general- ize, Said he), we see but one ideally And really: where we yearn to lose ourselves. And melt like white pearls, in an- other's wine. He seeks to double himself by what he loves. And makes his drink more costly by our pearls. At board, at bed, at work and holi- day. It is not good for man to be alone; And that's his way of thinking, first and last. And thus my cousin Romney wants a wife. But then my cousin sets his dignity On personal virtue. If he under- stands By love, like others, self-aggrandize- ment. It is that he may verily be great By doing riglitly and kindly. Once he thought. For charitable ends set duly forth In heaven's white judgment-book, to marry . . . ah. We'll call her name Aurora Leigh, although She's changed since then! — and once, for social ends, Poor Marian Erie, my sister Marian Erie, My woodland sister, sweet maid Mar- ian, Whose memory moans on in me like the wind Through ill-shut casements, making me more sad Than ever I find reasons for. Alas, Poor pretty plaintive face, embodied ghost ! I ) AURORA LEIGH. He finds it easy, then, to clap thee off Froua pulling at his sleeve and book and pen, He locks thee out at night into the cold, Away from butting with thy horny eyes Against his crystal dreams, that now he's strong To love anew ? that Lady Waldemar Succeeds uiy Marian ? After all, why not ? He loved not Marian more than once he loved Aurora. If he loves at last that third, Albeit she prove as slippery as spilt oil On marble floors, I will not augur him 111 luck for that. Good love, howe'er ill placed. Is better for a man's soul in the end Than if he loved ill what deserves love well. A Pagan kissing for a step of Pan The wild-goat's hoof-print on the loamy down, Exceeds our modern thinker who turns back The strata . . . granite, limestone, coal, and clay. Concluding coldly with, "Here's law! Where's God?" And then at worse, — if Romney loves her not, — At worst, — if he's incapable of love, (Which may be), — then, indeed, for such a man Incajiable of love, she's good enough; For she, at worst too, is a woman still. And loves him ... as the sort of woman can. My loose long hair began to burn and creep. Alive to the very ends, about my knees: I swept it backward, as the wind sweeps flame. With the passion of my hands. Ah, Romney laughed One day . . . (how full the memories come up !) — " Your Florence fireflies live on in your hair," He said, " it gleams so." Well, I wrung them out, My fireflies; made a knot as hard as life Of those loose, soft, imin-acticable curls, And then sat down and thought . . . " She shall not think Her thought of me," — and drew my desk, and wrote. "Dear Lady Waldemar, I could not speak With people round me, nor can sleep to-night. And not speak, after the great news I heard Of you and of my cousin. May you be Most happy, and the good he meant the world Replenish his own life ! Say what I say, And let my word be sweeter for your mouth, As you are you ... I only Aurora Leigh." That's quiet, guarded : though she hold it up Against the light, she'll not see through it more Than lies there to be seen. So much for pride ; And now for peace a little. Let me stop All writing back . . . " Sweet thanks, my sweetest friend. You've made more joyful my great joy itself." — No, that's too simple: she would twist it thus, "My joy would still be as sweet as thyme in drawers, However slmt up in the dark and dry; But violets aired and dewed by love like yours Outsmell all thyme : we keep that in our clothes," But drop the other down our bosoms till They smell like "... Ah ! I see her writing back Just so. She'll make a nosegay of her words. And tie it with blue ribbons at the end, To suit a poet. Pshaw ! And then we'll have The call to church ; the broken, .sad, bad dream AURORA LEIGH. 99 Dreamed out at last ; the marriage- vow complete "With the marriage-hreakfast ; praying in white gloves, Drawn off in haste for drinking jiagan toasts In somewhat stronger wine than any sipped By gods since Bacchus had his way with grapes. A postscript stops all that and rescues me. " You need not write. I have heen overworked, And think of leaving London, Eng- land even, And hastening to get nearer to the sun, Where men sleep better. So, adieu ! " I fold And seal ; and now I'm out of all the coil : I breathe now, I spring upward like a branch The ten-years' schoolboy with a crooked stick May pull down to his level in search of nuts. But cannot hold a moment. How we twang Back on the blue sky, and assert our height. While he stares after ! Now, the won- der seems That I could wrong myself by such a doubt. We poets always have uneasy hearts, Because our hearts, large-rounded as the globe. Can turn but one side to the sun at once. We are used to dip our artist hands in gall And potash, trying potentialities Of alternated color, till at last We get confused, and wonder for our skin How nature tinged it first. Well, here's the true Good flesh-color : I recognize my hand. Which Romney Leigh may clasp as just a friend's, And keep his clean. And now, my Italy. Alas ! if we could ride with naked souls. And make no noise, and pay no price at all, I would have seen thee sooner, Italy ; For still I have heard thee crying through my life. Thou piercing silence of ecstatic graves, Men call that name. But even a witch to-day Must melt down golden pieces in the nard, Wherewith to anoint her broomstick ere she rides ; And poets evermore are scant of gold. And if they find a piece behind the door. It turns by sunset to a withered leaf. The Devil himself scarce trusts his patented Gold-making art to any who make rhymes. But culls his Faustus from philoso- phers. And not from jioets. " Leave my Job," said God ; And so the Devil leaves him without pence, And poverty proves plainly special grace. In these new, just, administrative times Men clamor for an order of merit : why ? Here's black bread on the table, and no wine ! At least I am a poet in befng poor, Thank God ! I wonder if the manu- script Of my long poem, if 'twere sold out- right. Would fetch enough to buy me shoes to go Afoot (thrown in, the necessary patch For the other side the Alps) ? It can- not be. I fear that I must sell this residue Of my father's books, although the Elzevirs Have fly-leaves over-written by his hand In faded notes as thick and fine and brown As cobwebs on a tawny monument Of the old Greeks — conferenda hac cum his — Corrupte citat — lege potiiis, And so on, in the scholar's regal way ^m I ^m I it 100 AURORA LEIGH. Of giving judgment on the parts of speech, As if he sate on all twelve thrones up- piled, Arraigning Israel. Ay, but books and notes Must go together. And this Proclus too, In these dear quaint contracted Gre- cian types. Fantastically crumpled, like his thoughts, Which would not seem too plain ; you go round twice For one step forward, then you take it back, Because you're somewhat giddy ; there's the rule For Proclus. Ah, I stained this mid- dle leaf With pressing in't my Florence iris- bell, Long stalk and all. My father chided me For that stain of blue blood. I recol- lect The ijeevish turn his voice took, — " Silly girls ! "Who plant their flowers in our phi- losoi^hy To make it fine, and only spoil the book. No more of it, Aurora." Yes— no more. Ah, blame of love, that's sweeter than all praise Of those who love not ! 'Tis so lost to me, I cannot, in such beggared life, afford To lose my Proclus — not for Florence even. The kissing Judas, Wolff, shall go instead, Who builds us such a royal book as this To honor a chief poet, folio-built. And writes above, " The house of No- body ! " Who floats in cream as rich as any sucked From Juno's breasts, the broad Ho- meric lines, And while with their spondaic pro- digious mouths They lap the lucent margins as babe- gods, Proclaims them bastards. Wolff's an atheist ; And if the Iliad fell out, as he says. By mere fortuitous concourse of old songs. Conclude as much, too, for the uni- verse. That Wolff, those Platos : sweep the upper shelves As clean as this, and so I am almost rich, Which means, not forced to think of being poor In sight of ends. To-morrow : no delay. I'll wait in Paris till good Carrington Dispose of such, and, having chaffered for My book's price with the publisher, direct All proceeds to me. Just a line to ask His help. And now I come, my Italy, My own hills ! Are you 'ware of me, my hills, — How I burn toward you ? do you feel to-night The urgency and yearning of my soul. As sleeping mothers feel the sucking babe. And smile ? Nay, not so much as when in heat Vain lightnings catch at your invio- late tops And tremble, while ye are steadfast. Still ye go Your own determined, calm, indiffer- ent way Toward sunrise, shade by shade, and light by light, Of all the grand jirogression nought left out. As if God verily made you for your- selves, And would not interrupt your life with ours. SIXTH BOOK. The English have a scornful insular way Of calling the French light. The levity Is in the judgment only, which yet stands ; AURORA LEIGH. 101 For, say a foolish thing but oft enough (And here's the secret of a hundred creeds, Men get opinions as boys learn to spell, By re-iteration chiefly), the same thing Shall pass at last for absolutely wise, And not with fools exclusively. And so We say the French are light, as if we said The cat mews, or the milch-cow gives us milk: Say, rather, cats are milked, and milch-cows mew; For what is lightness but inconse- quence, Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause, Compelled by neither? Is a bullet light, That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye "Winks and the heart beats one, to flatten itself To a wafer on the white speck on a wall A hundred paces off^ Even so di- rect, So sternly undivertible of aim. Is this French people. All idealists Too absolute and earnest, with them all The idea of a knife cuts real fiesh; And still, devouring the safe inter- val Which nature placed between the thought and act With those too fiery and impatient souls. They threaten conflagration to the world. And rush with most unscrupulous logic on Imi^ossible practice. Set your orators To blow upon them with loud windy mouths Through watchword phrases, jest or sentiment. Which drive our burly brutal English mobs. Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow, — This light French iJeople will not thus be driven. They turn indeed; but then thej' turn upon Some central pivot of their thought and choice. And veer out by the force of holding fast. That's hard to understand, for Eng- lishmen Unused to abstract questions, and un- trained To trace the involutions, valve by valve. In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth , And mark what subtly fine integu- ment Divides opposed compartments. Free- dom's self Comes concrete to us, to be under- stood. Fixed in a feudal form incaruately To suit our ways of thought and rev- erence ; The special form, with us, being still the thing. With us, I say, though I'm of Italy By mother's birth and grave, by father's grave And memory, let it be, — a poet's heart Can swell to a pair of nationalities, However ill lodged in a woman's breast. And so I am strong to love this noble France, This poet of the nations, who dreams on And wails on (while the household goes to wreck) Forever, after some ideal good, Some equal poise of sex, some un- vowed love Inviolate, some spontaneous brother- hood. Some wealth that leaves none poor and finds none tired. Some freedom of the many that re- spects The wisdom of the few. Heroic dreams ! Sublime to dream so; natural to wake ; And sad to use such lofty scaffold- ings, Erected for the building of a church. To build, instead, a brothel or a pris- on. May God save France ! And if at last she sighs Her great soul up into a great man's face, hJ II 102 AURORA LEIGH. To flush his temples out so gloriously That few dare carp at Caesar for being bald, What then ? This Caesar represents, not reigns, And is no despot, though twice abso- lute: This head has all the people for a heart; This purple's lined with the democ- racy, — Now let him see to it ! for a rent within Would leave irreparable rags with- out. A serious riddle : And such anywhere Except in France, and, when 'tis found in France, Be sure to read it rightly. So, I mused Up and down, up and down, the ter- raced streets, The glittering boulevards, the white colonnades, Of fair fantastic Paris who wears trees Like plumes, as if man made them, spire and tower As if they had grown by nature, toss- ing up Her fountains in the sunshine of the squares. As if in beauty's game she tossed the dice, Or blew the silver down-balls of her dreams To sow futurity with seeds of thought. And count the passage of her festive hours. The city swims in verdure, beautiful As Venice on the waters, — the sea- swan. What bosky gardens dro^jped in close- walled courts, Like plums in ladies' laps who start and laugh ! What miles of streets that run on after trees. Still carrying all the necessary shops. Those open caskets with the jewels seen ! And trade is art, and art's philoso- In Paris. There's a silk, for instance, there, As worth an artist's study for the folds. As that bronze opposite ! nay, the bronze has faults; Art's here too artful, — conscious as a maid Who leans to mark her shadow on the wall Until she lose a 'vantage in her step. Yet art walks forward, and kno^s where to walk: The artists also are idealists. Too absolrte for nature, logical To austerity in the ajiplication of The special theory; not a soul con- tent To f)aiut a crooked pollard and an ass, As the English will, because they find it so. And like it somehow. — There the old Tuileries Is pulling its high cap down on its eyes. Confounded, conscience-stricken, and amazed By the apparition of a new fair face In those devouring mirrors. Through the grate Within the gardens, what a heap of babes. Swept up like leaves beneath the chestnut-trees From every street and alley of the town. By ghosts, perhaps, that blow too bleak this way A-looking for their heads 1 dear pretty babes, I wish them luck to have their ball- l^lay out Before the next change. Here the air is thronged With statues poised upon their col- umns tine. As if to stand a moment were a feat, Against that blue ! What squares ! what breathing-room For a nation that runs fast, ay, runs against The dentist's teeth at the corner in pale rows. Which grin at progress, in an epi- gram ! I walked the day out, listening to the chink Of the first Napoleon's bones in his second grave, By victories guarded 'neath the gold- en dome AURORA LEIGH. 103 That caps all Paris like a bubble. " Shall These dry bones live," thought Loiiis Philippe once, And lived to know. Herein is argu- ment For kings and politicians, but still more For poets, who bear buckets to the vrell Of ampler draught. These crowds are very good For meditation (when we are very strong,) Though love of beauty makes us tim- orous, And draws us backward from the coarse town-sights To count the daisies upon dappled fields, And hear the streams bleat on among the hills In innocent and indolent repose; While still with silken elegiac thoughts We wind out from us the distracting world. And die into the chrysalis of a man. And leave the best that may, to come of us. In some brown moth. I woiild be bold, and bear, To look into the swarthiest face of things. For God's sake who has made them. Six days' work; The last day shutting 'twixt its dawn and eve The whole work bettered of the pre- vious five ! Since God collected and resumed in man The firmaments, the strata, and the lights, Fish, fowl, and beast, and insect, — all their trains Of various life caught back upon his arm. Re-organized, and constituted man. The microcosm, the adding-up of works ; Within whose fluttering nostrils, then, at last Consummating himself the Maker sighed. As some strong winner at the foot- race sighs Touching the goal. Humanity is great; And if I would not rather pore upon An ounce of common, ugly, human dust. An artisan's palm or a peasant's brow, Unsmooth, ignoble, save to me and God, Than track old Nilus to his silver roots. Or wait on all the changes of the moon Among the mountain-peaks of Thes- saly (Until her magic crystal round itself For many a witch to see in) — set it down As weakness, strength by no means. How is this. That men of science, osteologists And surgeons, lieat some poets in respect For nature? — count nought common or unclean, Spend raptures upon perfect speci- mens Of indurated veins, distorted joints, Or beautiful new cases of curved si)ine, While we, we are shocked at nature's falling off, We dare to shrink back from her warts and blains. We will not, when she sneezes, look at her. Not even to say, " God bless her ! " That's our wrong: For that, she will not trust us often with Her larger sense of beauty and de- sire. But tethers us to a lily or a rose, And bids us diet on the dew in- side. Left ignorant that the hungry beggar- boy (Who stares unseen against our ab- sent eyes. And wonders at the gods that we must be, To pass so careless for the oranges !) Bears yet a breastful of a fellow- w'orld To this world, iindisparaged, unde- spoiled, And (while we scorn him for a flower or two. As being. Heaven help us, less poeti- cal) Contains himself both flowers and firmaments And surging seas and aspectable stars, 104 AURORA LEIGH. Aud all that we would push him out of sight In order to see nearer. Let us pray God's grace to keep God's image in repute, That so the poet and philanthropist (Even I and llomney) may stand side by side, Because we both stand face to face with men, Contemplating the people in the rough, Yet each so follow a vocation, his And mine. I walked on, musing with myself On life and art, and whether after all A larger metaphysics might not help Our physics, a completer poetry Adjust our daily life and vulgar wants More fully than the special outside plans. Phalansteries, material institutes. The civil conscriptions, and lay mon- asteries Preferred by modern thinkers, as they thought The bread of man Indeed made all his life, And washing seven times in the " People's Baths " "Were sovereign for a people's lepro- sy, Still leaving out the essential proph- et's word That comes in power. On which we thunder down. We prophets, poets, — Virtue's in the loord ! The maker burnt the darkness up with his. To inaugurate the use of vocal life; And plant a poet's word even deep enough In any man's breast, looking pres- ently For offshoots, you have done more for the man Than if you dressed him in a broad- cloth coat, And warmed his Sunday pottage at your fire. Yet Romney leaves me . . . God ! what face is that ? O Romney, O Marian ! Walking on the quays. And pulling thoughts to pieces leis- urely, As if I caught at grasses in a field, And bit them slow between my ab- sent lips. And shred them with my hands . . . What face is that ? What a face, what a look, what a likeness ! Full on mine The sudden blow of it came down, till all My blood swam, my eyes dazzled, then I sprang . . . It was as if a meditative man Were dreaming out a summer after. noon. And watching gnats a-prick upon a pond. When something floats up suddenly, out there, Turns over ... a dead face, known once alive . . . So old, so new ! it would be dreadful now To lose the sight, aud keep the doubt of this: He plunges — ha! he has lost it in the splash. I plunged — I tore the crowd up, either side, And rushed on, forward, forward, after her. Her ? whom ? A woman sauntered slow ra front. Munching an apple ; she left off amazed As if I had snatched it: that's not she, at least. A man walked arm-linked with a lady veiled, Both heads dropped closer than the need of talk: They started ; he forgot her with his face. And she, herself, and clung to him as if My look were fatal. Such a stream of folk. And all with cares and business of their own ! I ran the whole quay down against their eyes — No Marian; nowhere Marian. Al- most, now, I could call " Marian, Marian ! " with the shriek Of desperate creatures calling for the dead. Where is she, was she ? was she any- where ? ^i I ^m I T AURORA LEIGH. I stood still, breathless, gazing, strain- ing out In every uncertain distance, till at last A gentleman abstracted as myself Came full against me, then resolved the clash In voluble excuses, — obviously Some learned member of the Institute Upon his way there, walking, for his health, "While meditating on the last " Dis- course; " Pinching the empty air 'twixt finger and thumb, From which the snuff being ousted by that shock Defiled his snow-white waistcoat duly pricked At the button-hole with honorable red; "Madame, your pardon," — there he swerved from me A metre, as confounded as he had heard That Dumas would be chosen to fill up The next chair vacant, by his "men in us.'' Since when was genius found respect- able ? It passes in its place, indeed, which means The seventh floor back, or else the hosi^ital. Revolving pistols are ingenious things ; But prudent men (academicians are) Scarce keep them in the cupboard next the prunes. And so, abandoned to a bitter mirth, I loitered to my inn. O world, O world, O jurists, rhymers, dreamers, what you please, "We play a weary game of hide-and- seek ! We shape a figure of our fantasy, Call nothing something, and run after it And lose it, lose ourselves, too, in the search. Till clash against us comes a some- body Who also has lost something and is lost, — Philosopher against philanthropist, Academician against poet, man Against woman, against the living the dead — Tlien home, with a bad headache and worse jest. To change the water for my helio- tropes And yellow roses. Paris has such flowers. But England also. 'Twas a yellow rose. By that south window of the little house, My cousin Romney gathered with his hand On all my birthdays for me, save the last ; And then I shook the tree too rough, too rough. For roses to stay after. Now, my maps. I must not linger here from Italy Till the last nightingale is tired of song. And the last firefly dies off in the maize. My soul's in haste to leap into the sun. And scorch and seethe itself to a finer mood. Which here in this chill north is apt to stand Too stifliy in former moulds. That face persists. It floats up, it turns over in my mind As like to Marian as one dead is like The same alive. In very deed a face. And not a fancy, though it vanished so : The small fair face between the darks of hair I used to liken, when I saw her first. To a point of moonlit water down a well ; The low brow, the frank space be- tween the eyes. Which always had the brown pathetic look Of a dumb creature, who had been beaten once. And never since was easy with the world. Ah, ah ! now I remember perfectly Those eyes to-day : how overlarge they seemed ! As if some i^atient passionate despair (Like a coal dropt and forgot on tap- estry, AURORA LEIGH. Which slowly burns a widening circle out) Had burnt them larger, larger. And those eyes, To-day, I do remember, saw me too, As I saw them, with conscious lids astrain In recognition. Now, a fantasy, A simple shade or image of the brain, Is merely passive, does not retroact. Is seen, but sees not. 'Twas a real face, Perhaps a real Marian. Which being so, I ought to write to Romney, " Mari- an's here : Be comforted for Marian." My pen fell ; My hands struck sharp together, as hands do Which hold at nothing. Can I write to him A half-truth ? can I keep my own soul blind To the other half . . . the worse ? What are our souls. If still, to run on straight a sober pace, Nor start at every pebble or dead leaf, They must wear blinkers, ignore facts, suppress Six-tenths of the road ? Confront the truth, my soul ! And, oh ! as truly as that was Mari- an's face, The arms of that same Marian clasped a thing . . . Not hid so well beneath the scanty shawl, I cannot name it now for what it was. A child. Small business has a cast- away Like Marian, with that crown of pros- perous wives. At which the gentlest she grows ar- rogant. And says, "My child." Who finds an emerald ring On a beggar's middle finger, and re- quires More testimony to convict a thief ? A child's too costly for so mere a wretch : She filched it somewhere ; and it means with her. Instead of honor, blessing, merely shame. I cannot write to Romney, " Here she is, Here's Marian found ! I'll set you on her track. I saw her here in Paris, . . . and her child. She put away your love two years ago. But, plainly, not to starve. You suf- fered then; And now that you've forgot her ut- terly, As any last year's annual, in whose place You've planted a thick flowering evergreen, I choose, being kind, to write and tell you this To make you wholly easy, — she's not dead. But only . . . damned." Stop there : I go too fast ; I'm cruel, like the rest, — in haste to take The first stir in the arras for a rat. And set my barking, biting thoughts upon't. — A child! what then? Suppose a neighbor's sick, And asked her, "Marian, carry out my child In this spring air," — I punish her for that ? Or say, the child should hold her round the neck For good child reasons, that he liked it so, And would not leave her, — she had winning ways, — I brand her, therefore, that she took the child ? Not so. I will not write to Romney Leigh, For now he's happy, and she may, indeed, Be guilty, and the knowledge of hei' fault Would draggle his smooth time. But I, whose days Are not so fine tifiey cannot bear the rain. And who, moreover, having seen her face. Must see it again . . . icill see it, by my hopes Of one day seeing heaven too. The police Shall track her, hound her, ferret their own soil: I V»V--- ■^T' A '-•^ J^n^Tii ^W " Marian! I find you. Shall I let you go?" — Page 107. or Sir ' And, long ere this, that Lady Walde- mar He loved so " . . . " Loved ! " I started — " loved her so ! Now tell me "... " I will tell you," she replied: " But, since we're taking oaths, you'll jiromise first That he in England, he, shall never learn In what a dreadful trap his creature here, Round whose unworthy neck he had meant to tie The honorable ribbon of his name, Fell unaware, and came to butchery : Because, — I know him, — as he takes to heart The grief of every stranger, he's not like To banish mine as far as I should choose In wishing him most happy. Now he leaves To think of me, perverse, who went my way, Unkind, and left him; but if once he knew . . . Ah, then, the sharp nail of my cruel wrong Would fasten me forever in his sight, Like some poor curious bird, through each spread wing Nailed high uji over a fierce hunter's fire. To spoil the dinner of all tenderer folk Come in by chance. Nay, since j^our Marian's dead. You shall not hang her up, but dig a hole. And bury her in silence; ring no bells." I answered gayly, though my wiiole voice wept, " "We'll ring the joy-bells, not the funeral-bells. Because we have her back, dead or alive." She never answered that, but shook her head; Then low and calm, as one who, safe in heaven, Shall tell a story of his lower life, Unmoved by shame or anger, so she spoke. She told me she had loved upon her knees. As others pray, more perfectly ab- sorbed In the act and inspiration. She felt his For just his uses, not her own at all. His stool, to sit on or put up his foot; His cujj, to fill with wine or vinegar; Whichever drink might please him at the chance. For that should please her always; let him write His name upon her ... it seemed natural : It was most precious, standing on his shelf. To wait until he chose to lift his hand. Well, w^ell, — I saw her then, and must have seen How bright her life went floating on her love, Like wicks the housewives send afloat on oil Which feeds them to a flame that lasts the night. To do good seemed so much his busi- ness. That having done it she was fain to think Must fill up his capacity for joy. At first she never mooted with her- self If he was happy, since he made her so; Or if he loved her, being so much be- loved. Who thinks of asking if the sun is light. Observing that it lightens ? who's so bold, To question God of his felicity ? Still less. And thus she took for granted first What, first of all, she should have put to i^roof , And sinned against him so, but only so. " What could you hope," she said. " of such as she? You take a kid you like, and turn it out 116 A U HOE A LEIGH. In some fair garden : though the crea- ture's fond And gentle, it will leap upon the beds, And break your tulips, bite your ten- der trees : The wonder would he if such inno- cence Spoiled less. A garden is no place for kids." And by degrees, when he who had chosen her Brought in his courteous and benig- nant friends To spend their goodness on her, which she took So very gladly, as a part of his, — By slow degrees it broke on her slow sense. That she, too, in that Eden of delight Was out of place, and, like the silly kid. Still did most mischief where she meant most love. A thought enough to make a woman mad, (No beast in this but she may well go mad) That saying " I am thine to love and use " May blow the plague in her protest- ing breath To the very man for whom she claims to die ; That, cliTiging round his neck, she pulls him down And drowns liim ; and that, lavishing her soul. She hales jierdition on him. " So, being mad," Said Marian . . . " Ah ! who stirred such thoughts," you ask ? "Whose fault it was that she should have such thoughts ? None's fault, none's fault. The light comes, and we see : But if it were not truly for our eyes. There would be nothing seen for all the light : And so with Marian. If she saw at last, The sense was in her : Lady Walde- inar Had spoken all in vain else." " O my heart, O prophet in my heart ! " I cried aloud. " Then Lady Waldemar spoke ! " " Z>^■d she speak ? " Mused Marian softly, " or did she only sign ? Or did she put a word into her face And look, and so impress you with the word ? Or leave it in the foldings of her gown, Like rosemary smells a movement will shake out When no one's conscious ? Who shall say, or guess ? One thing alone was certain, — from the day The gracious lady paid a visit first. She, Marian, saw things different, — felt distrust Of all that sheltering roof of circvmi- stance Her hopes were building into with clay nests : Her heart was restless, pacing up and down. And fluttering, like dumb creatures before storms, Not knowing wherefore she was ill at ease." " And still the lady came," said Mari- an Erie, — " Much oftener thanfte knew it, Mister Leigh. She bade me never tell him she had come, She liked to love me better than he knew : So very kind was Lady Waldemar. And every time she brought with her more light, And every Hght made sorrow clearer . . . Well, Ah, well ! we cannot give her blame for that : 'Twould be the same thing if an angel came, Whose right should prove our wrong. And every time The ladv came she looked more beau- tiful. And spoke more like a flute among green trees, Until at last, as one, w^hose heart be- ing sad On hearing lovely music, suddenly Dissolves in weeping, I brake out in tears Before her, asked her counsel, — ' Had I erred AURORA LEIGH. 117 In being too happy ? would she set me straight ? For slie, being wise and good, and born above The flats I had never climbed from, could jjerceive If such as I might grow upon the hills, And whether such poor herb sufficed to grow For Romney Leigh to break his fast iipon't ; Or would he pine on such, or haply starve ? ' She wrapt me in her generous arms at once, And let me dream a moment how it feels To have a real mother, like some girls ; But, when 1 looked, her face was younger . . . ay, Youth's too bright not to be a little hard. And beauty keeps itself still upper- most. That's true ! Though Lady Walde- mar was kind. She hurt me, liurt, as if the morning- sun Should smite us on the eyelids when we sleep. And wake us up with headache. Ay, and soon Was light enough to make my heart ache too. She told me truths I asked for, — 'twas my fault, — ' That Romney could not love me, if he would. As men call loving : there are bloods that flow Together, like some rivers, and not mix, Through contraries of nature. He, indeed, "Was set to wed me, t<> espouse my class, Act out a rash opinion ; and, once wed, So just a man and gentle could not choose But make my life as smooth as mar- riage-ring, Bespeak me mildly, keep me a cheer- ful house. With servants, brooches, all the flow- ers I liked. And pretty dresses, silk the whole year round ' . . . At which I stopped her, — ' This for me. And now For him ? ' She hesitated, — truth grew hard ; She owned ' 'Twas plain a man like Romney Leigh Required a wife more level to him- self. If (lay by day he had to bend his height To pick up sympathies, opinions, thoughts, And interchange the common talk of life, Which helps a man to live, as well as talk. His days were heavily taxed. Who buys a staff To fit the hand, that reaches but the knee? He'd feel it Intter to be forced to miss The perfect joy of married suited pairs, AVho, bursting through the separating hedge Of iiersonal dues with that sweet eg- lantine Of equal love, keep saying, "So we think. It strikes ■uh, that's orir fancy."' — When I asked If earnest will, devoted love, em- liloyed In youth like mine, would fail to raise me up, As two strong arms will always raise a child To a fruit hung overhead, she sighed and sighed . . . ' That could not be,' she feared. ' You take a pink, You dig about its roots, and water it. And so improve it to a garden-jiink, But will not change it to a helio- trope: The kind remains. And then the harder truth, — This Romney Leigh, so rasli to leap a pale. So bold for conscience, quick for mar- tyrdom. Would suffer steadilj' and never flinch. But suffer surely and keenly, when his class Turned shoulder on him for a shame- ful match. And set him up as ninepin in their talk 118 AURORA LEIGH. To Lowl him down with jestiugs.' There she iiaused, And when I used the pause in doubt- ing that W'e wronged him, after all, in what we feared — ' Suppose such things could never touch him more In his high conscience (if the things should he,) Than, when the queen sits in an up- per room, The horses in the street can spatter her ! ' — A moment, hope came; but the lady closed That door, and nicked the lock, and shut it out, Observing wisely, that ' the tender heart Which made him over-soft to a lower class Would scarcely fail to make him sen- sitive To a higher, — hoAV they thought, and what they felt.' "Alas, alas!" said Marian, rocking slow The pretty baby who was near asleep, The eyelids creejiing over the blue balls, — " She made it clear, too clear: I saw the whole. And yet who knows if I had seen my way Straight out of it by looking, though 'twas clear. Unless the generous lady, 'ware of this, Had set her own house all a-fire for me To light me forwards ? Leaning on my face Her heavy agate eyes, which crushed my will. She told me tenderly, (as when men come To a bedside to tell people they must die) 'She knew of knowledge, — ay, of knowledge knew, That Romney Leigh had loved her formerly. And she loved him, she might say, now the chance Was past. But that, of course, he never guessed. For something came between them, — something thin As a cobweb, catching every fly of doubt To hold it buzzing at the window- liane. And help to dim the daylight. Ah, man's pride Or woman's,. — which is greatest ? most averse To brushing cobwebs ? Well, but she and he Remained fast friends: it seemed not more than so, Because he had bound his hands, and could not stir. An honorable man, if somewhat rash; And she — not even for Romney would she spill A blot, as little even as a tear . . . Upon his marriage-contract, — not to gain A better joy for two than came by that ; For, though I stood between her heart and heaven. She loved me wholly.' " Did I laugh , or curse ? I think I sat there silent, hearing all, . ^ Ay, hearing double, — Marian's tale, at once, And Romney's marriage-vow, "I'll keep to THEE," Which means that woman-serpent. Is it time For church now ? " Lady Waldemar spoke more," Continued Marian; " but as when a soul Will pass out through the sweetness of a song Beyond it, voyaging the uphill road, Even so mine wandered from the things I heard To those I suffered. It was afterward I shaped the resolution to the act. For many hours we talked. What need to talk ? The fate was clear and close; it touched my eyes; But still the generous lady tried to keep The case afloat, and would not let it go, And argued, struggled upon Marian's side. Which was not Romney's, though she little knew What ugly monster would take up the end, — II AURORA LEIGH. 119 What griping death within the drowning death "Was ready to complete mv sum of death." I thought, — Perhaps he's sliding now the ring Upon that woman's finger . . . She went on: " The lady, failing to prevail her way, Upgather'ed my torn wishes from the ground, And pieced them with her strong be- nevolence; And as I thought I could breathe freer air Away from England, going without pause, Without farewell, just breaking with a jerk The blossomed offshoot from ' my thorny life. She promised kindly to i')rovide the means. With instant passage to the colonies And full protection, ' would commit me straight To one who had once been her wait- ing-maid. And had the customs of the world, intent On changing England for Australia Herself, to carry out her fortune so.' For which I thanked the Lady Wal- demar. As men upon their death-beds thank last friends Who lay the pillow straight: it is not much. And yet 'tis all of which they are ca- pable, — This lying smoothly in a bed to die. And so, 'twas fixed; and so, from day to day. The woman named came in to visit me." Just then the girl stopped speaking, sate'erect. And stared at me as if I had been a ghost, (Perhaps I looked as white as any ghost) With large-eyed horror. " Does God make," she said, " All sorts of creatures really, do vou think ? Or is it that the Devil slavers them So excellently, that we come to doubt Who's stronger, — he who makes, or he who mars ? I never liked- the woman's face, or voice, Or ways: it made me blush to look at her; It made me tremble if she touched my hand; And when she spoke a fondling word, I shrank As if one hated me who had power to hurt; And, every time she came, my veins ran cold. As somebody were walking on my grave. At last I spoke to Lady Waldemar: ' Could such a one be good to trust ? ' I asked. Whereat the lady stroked my cheek, and laughed Her silver laugh (one must be born to laugh To put such music in it), — 'Foolish girl, Your scattered wits are gathering wool beyond The sheep-walk reaches ! — leave the thing to me.' And therefore, half in trust, and half in scorn That I had heart still for another fear In such a safe despair, I left the thing. " The rest is short. I was obedient: I wrote my letter which delivered him From Marian to his own prosperities, And followed that bad guide. The lady? — hush, I never blame the lady. Ladies who Sit high, however willing to look down. Will scarce see lower than their dain- ty feet; And Lady Waldemar saw less than I, With what a Devil's daughter I went forth Along the swine's road, down the precipice, In such a curl of hell-foam caught and choked. No shriek of soul in anguish could pierce through To fetch some help. They say there's help in heaven For all such cries. But if one cries from hell . . . What then? — the heavens are deaf upon that side. 120 AURORA LEIGH. " A woman . . . hear nie, let me make it jilain . . . A woman . . . not a monster . . . both her breasts Made right to suckle babes . . . she took me off A woman also, young and ignorant, And heavy with my grief, my two poor eyes Near washed away with weeping, till the trees. The blessed unaccustomed trees and fields Ran either side the train like stranger dogs Unworthy of any notice, — took me off So dull, so blind, so only half alive. Not seeing by wliat road, nor by what ship, Nor toward what place, nor to what end of all. Men carry a corpse thus, — past the doorway, past The garden-gate, the children's play- ground, up The green lane, — then they leave it in the pit. To sleep and find corrujrtion, cheek to cheek AVith him who stinks since Friday. " But sujipose: To go down with one's soul into the grave. To go down half dead, half alive, I say. And wake up with corruption . . . cheek to cheek With him who stinks since Friday ! There it is, And that's the horror oft, Miss Leigh. "You feel? You understand? — no, do not look at me. But understand. The blank, blind weary way Which led, where'er it led, away at least; The shifted ship ... to Sydney, or to France, Still bound, wherever else, to another land; The swooning sickness on the dismal sea. The foreign shore, the shameful house, the night. The feeble blood, the heavy-headed grief . . . No need to bring their damnable drugged cup, And yet they brought it. Hell's so prodigal Of Devil's gifts, hunts liberally in packs, Will kill no poor small creature of the wilds But fifty red wide throats must smoke at it. As HIS at me . . . when waking up at last . . . I told you that I waked up in the grave. " Enough so ! — it is plain enough so. True, We wretches cannot tell out all our wrong Without offence to decent happy folk. ^ I know that we must scrupulously hint With half-words, delicate reserves, the thing Which no one scrupled we should feel in full. Let pass the rest, then; only leave my oath Upon this sleeping child, — man's vio^ lence. Not man's seduction, made me what I am, As lost as ... I told him I should be lost. When mothers fail us, can we help ourselves ? That's fatal ! And you call it being lost. That down came next day's noon, and caught me there Half gibbering and half raving on the floor. And wondering what had happened up in heaven. That suns should dare to shine when God himself Was certainly abolished. " I was mad. How many weeks I know not, — many weeks. I think they let me go when I was mad: They feared my eyes, and loosed me, as boys might A mad dog which they had tortured. Up and down I went, by road and village, over tracts Of open foreign country, large and strange. " And there I sate, one evening by the road, 1, Marian Erie."— Page 121. ■<, of ; 1 AURORA LEIGH. 121 Crossed everywhere by long, t'lin poplar-lines Like fingers of some ghastly ske' jton hand Through sunlight and through moon- light evermore Pushed out from hell itself to jiluck me back, And resolute to get me, slow and sure ; While every roadside Christ upon his cross Hung reddening through his gory wounds at me. And shook his nails in anger, and came down To follow a mile after, wading up The low vines and green wheat, cry- ing, " Take the girl ! She's none of mine from henceforth." Then I knew (But this is somewhat dimmer than the rest) The charitable peasants gave me bread. And leave to sleep in straw; and twice they tied. At parting, Mary's image round mj^ neck. How heavy it seemed ! — as heavy as a stone ; A woman has been strangled with less weight: I threw it in a ditch to keep it clean, And ease my breath a little, when none looked: I did not need such safeguards : brutal men Stopped short, Miss Leigh, in insult, when they had seen My face, — I must have had an awful look. And so I lived: the weeks passed on, — I lived. 'Twas living my old tramp-life o'er again. But this time in a dream, and hunted round By some prodigious dream-fear at my back, Which ended yet: my brain cleared presently; And there I sate, one evening, by the road, I, Marian Erie, myself, alone, undone, Facing a sunset low upon the flats As if it were the finish of all time. The great red stone upon my sepul- chre, Which angels were too weak to roll away. SEVENTH BOOK. " The woman's motive ? shall we daub ourselves With finding roots for nettles ? 'tis soft clay, And easily explored. She had the means, The moneys, by the lady's liberal grace, In trust for that Australian scheme and me, Which so, that she might clutch with both her hands, And chink to her naughty uses un- disturbed. She served me (after all it was not strange : 'Twas only what my mother would have done) A motherly, right damnable good turn. " Well, after. There are nettles everywhere ; But smooth green grasses are more common still: The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud. A miller's wife at Clichy took me in. And spent her pity on me, — made me calm. And merely very reasonably sad. She found me a servant's place in Paris, where I tried to take the cast-off life again. And stood as qiiiet as a beaten ass, Who, having fallen through overloads, stands up To let them charge him with another pack. " A few months, so. My mistress, young and light, Was easy with me, less for kindness than Because she led, herself, an easy time Betwixt her lover and her looking. glass. Scarce knowing which way she was praised the most. She felt so pretty and so pleased all day, She could not take the trouble to be cross. But sometimes, as I stooj^ed to tie her shoe. r AURORA LEIGH. Wouid tap me softly with her slender foot, Still restless with the last night's dancing in't, And say, ' Fie, pale-face ! Are you English girls All grave and silent ? mass-book still, and Lent ? And first-communion pallor on your cheeks, Worn past the time for't ? Little fool, be gay ! ' At which she vanished, like a fairy, through A gap of silver laughter. " Came an hour When all went otherwise. She did not speak. But clinched her brows, and clipped me with her eyes As if a viper with a pair of tongs. Too far for any touch, yet near enough To view the writhing creature, — then at last, ' Stand still there, in the holy Vir- gin's name. Thou Marian: thou'rt no reputable girl. Although sufificient dull for twenty saints ! I think thou mock'st me and my house,' she said; ■'Confess tbou'lt be a mother in a month. Thou mask of saintship.' " Could I answer her ? The light broke in so. It meant that, then, that? I had not thought of that, in all my thoughts. Through all the cold numb aching of my brow, Through all the heaving of impatient life Which threw me on death at inter- vals: through all The upbreak of the fountains of my heart The rains had swelled too large. It could mean that ? Did God make mothers out of victims, then, And set such pure amens to hideous deeds ? Why not ? He overblows an ugly grave With violets which blossom in the spring. And / could be a mother in a mouth ? I hope it was not wicked to be glad. I lifted up my voice and wept, and laughed — To heaven, not her — until it tore my throat. ' Confess, confess ! ' What was there to confess, Except man's cruelty, except my wrong ? Except this anguish, or this ecstasy? This shame or glory ? The light wo- man there Was small to take it in: an acorn-cup Would take the sea in sooner. " ' Good ! ' she cried: ' Unmarried and a mother, and she laughs ! These unchaste girls are always im- pudent. Get out, intriguer ! Leave my house, and trot ! I wonder you should look me in the face,. With such a filthy secret.' •' Then I rolled My scanty bundle up, aud went my way. Washed white with weeping, shud- dering, head and foot, With blind, hysteric passion, stagger- ing forth Beyond those doors. 'Twas natural, of course, She should not ask me where I meant to sleep; I might sleep well beneath the heavy Seine, Like others of my sort : the bed was laid For us. But any woman, womanly. Had thought of him who should be in a month, The sinless babe that should be in a month, Aud if by chance he might be warmer housed Than underneath such dreary drip- ping eaves." I broke on Marian there. " Yet she herself, A wife, I think, had scandals of her own, A lover not her husband." •' Ay," she said: " But gold and meal are measured otherwise : I learnt so much at school," said Marian Erie. AURORA LEIGH. 123 " O crooked world," I cried, " ridicu- lous, If not so lamentable ! 'Tis the way With these light women of a thrifty vice, My Marian, — alwaj-^s hard upon the rent In any sister's virtue ! while tliey keep Their own so darned and patched with perfidy. That, though a rag itself, it looks as well Across a street, in balcony or coach, As any perfect stuff might. For my part, I'd rather take the wind-side of the stews Than touch such women with my fin- ger-end ! They top the poor street-walker by their lie. And look the better for being so much worse : The Devil's most devilish when re- spectable. But you, dear, and your storv." "All the rest Is here," she said, and signed upon the child. " I found a mistress-seamstress who was kind, And let me sew in peace among her girls. And what was better than to draw the threads All day and half the night for him and him ? And so I lived for him, and so he lives; And so I know, by this time, God lives too." She smiled beyond the sun, and ended so, And all my soul rose up to take her part Against the world's successes, vir- tues, fames. " Come with me, sweetest sister," I returned, " And sit within my house and do me good From henceforth, thou and thine ! ye are my own From henceforth. I am lonely in the world, And thou art lonely, and the child is half An orphan. Come; and henceforth thou and I, Being still together, will not miss a friend. Nor he a father, since two mothers shall Make that up to him. I am journey- ing south. And in my Tuscan home I'll find a niche And set thee there, my saint, the child and thee, And burn the lights of love before thy face. And ever at thy sweet look cross my- self From mixing with the world's pros- perities; That so, in gravity and holy calm. We two may live on toward the truer life." She looked me in the face and an- swered not. Nor signed she was unworthy, nor gave thanks, But took the sleeping child, and held it out To meet my kiss, as if requiting me And trusting me at once. And thus, at once, I carried him and her to where I live: She's there now, in the little room, asleep, I hear the soft child-breathing through the door; And all three of us, at to-morrow's break, Pass onward, homeward, to our Italy. Romney Leigh ! I have your debts to pay, And I'll be just and pay them. But yourself ! To pay your debts is scarcely difficult; To buy your life is nearly impossi- ble. Being sold away to Lamia. My head aches; 1 cannot see my road along this dark; Nor can I creep and grope, as fits the dark. For these foot-catching robes of wo- manhood : A man might walk a little . . . but I ! — He loves The Lamia-woman, — and I write to him What stojis his marriage, and destroys his peace, ! 124 AURORA LEIGH. Or what perhaps shall simply trouble him, Until she only need to touch his sleeve "With just a finger's tremulous white flame, Saying, " Ah, Aurora Leigh ! a pretty tale, A very pretty poet ! I can guess The motive," — then, to catch his eyes in hers And vow she does not wonder, and they two To break in laughter, as the sea along A melancholy coast, and float up higher. In such a laugh, their fatal weeds of love ! Ay, fatal, ay. And who shall answer me Fate has not hurried tides, and if to- night My letter would not be a night too late, An arrow shot into a man that's dead. To i^rove a vain intention? Would I show The new wife vile to make the hus- band mad ? No, Lamia ! shut the shutters, bar the doors From every glimmer on thy serpent- skin: I will not let thy hideous secret out To agonize the man I love — I mean The friend I love ... as friends love. It is strange. To-day, while Marian told her story •like To absorb most listeners, how I lis- tened chief To a voice not hers, nor yet that ene- my's, Nor God's in wrath . . . but one that mixed with mine Long years ago among the garden- trees, And said to me, to me too, " Be my wife, Aurora." It is strange with what a swell Of yearning passion, as a snow of ghosts Might beat against the impervious door of heaven, I thought, "Now, if I had been a woman, such As God made women, to save men by love, By just my love I might have saved this man, And made a nobler poem for the world Than all I have failed in." But I failed besides In this; and now he's lost — through me alone ! And, by my only fault, his empty house Sucks in at this same hour a wind from hell To keep his hearth cold, make his casements creak Forever to the tune of plague and sin — O Romney, O my Romney, O my friend ! My cousin and friend I my helper, when I would ! My love, that might be ! mine I Why, how one weeps When one's too weary ! Were a wit- ness by. He'd say some folly . . . that I loved the man, Who knows? . . . and make me laugh again for scorn. At strongest, women are as weak in flesh. As men, at weakest, vilest, are in soul: So hard for women to keep pace with men ! As well give up at once, sit down at once, And weep as I do. Tears, tears ! why we weep ? 'Tis worth inquiry? — That we've shamed a life. Or lost a love, or missed a world, per- haps ? By no means. Simply that we've walked too far. Or talked too much, or felt the wind i' the east; And so we weeji, as if both body and soul Broke up in water — this way. Poor mixed rags Forsooth we're made of, like those other dolls That lean with pretty faces into fairs. It seems as if I had a man in me. Despising such a woman. Yet, indeed, To see a wrong or suffering moves us all To undo it, though we should undo ourselves ; AURORA LEIGH. 125 Ay, all the more that we undo our- selves : That's womanly, past doubt, and not ill-moved. A natural movement, therefore, on my part, To fill the chair up of ray cousin's wife. And save him from a Devil's com- pany! We're all so, — made so : 'tis our woman's trade To suffer torment for another's ease. The world's male chivalry has jier- islied out ; But women are knights-errant to the last ; And if Cervantes had been Shak- speare too, He had made his Don a Donna. So it clears. And so we rain our skies blue. Put away This weakness. If, as I liave just now said, A man's within me, let him act him- self. Ignoring the jioor conscious trouble of blood That's called the woman merely. I will write Plain words to England, — if too late, too late ; If ill accounted, then accounted ill : We'll trust the heavens with some- thing. " Dear Lord Howe, You'll find a story on another leaf Of Marian Erie, — what noble friend of yours She trusted once, through what flagi- tious means. To what disastrous ends : the story's true. I found her wandering on the Paris quays, A babe upon her breast, — unnatural Unseasonable outcast on such snow, Unthawed to this time. I will tax in this Your friendship, friend, if that con- victed she Be not his wife yet, to denounce the facts To himself, but otherwise to let them pass On tiptoe like escaping murderers. And tell my cousin merely — Marian lives. Is found, and finds her home with such a friend. Myself, Aurora. Which good news, 'She's found,' Will help to make him merry in his love : I send it, tell him, for my marriage- gift, As good as orange-water for the nerves, Or perfumed gloves for headache, — though aware That he, except of love, is scarcely sick : I mean the new love this time . . . since last year. Such quick forgetting on the part of men ! Is any shrewder trick upon the cards To enrich them ? Pray instruct me how 'tis done. First, clubs ; and, while you look at clubs, 'tis spades ; That's prodigy. The lightning strikes a man, And, when we think to find him dead and charred . . . Why, there he is on a sudden playing pipes Beneath the splintered elm-tree ! Crime and shame, And all their hoggery, trample your smooth world. Nor leave more foot-marks than A\^o\- lo's kine. Whose hoofs were muffled by the thieving god In tamarisk-leaves and myrtle. I'm so sad. So weary and sad to-night, I'm some- what sour, — Forgive me. To be blue and shrew at once Exceeds all toleration except yours ; But yours, I know, is infinite. Fare- well 1 To-morrow we take train for Italy. Speak gently of me to your gracious wife. As one, however far, shall yet be near In loving wishes to your house." I sign. And now I loose my heart upon a page. This — " Lady Waldemar, I'm very glad I never liked you ; which you kuew so well 126 AURORA LEIGH. You spared me, in your turn, to like me much. Your liking surely had done worse for me Than has your loathing, thougli the last appears Sufficiently unscrupulous to hurt, And not afraid of judgment. Now there's space Between our faces, I stand off, as if I judged a stranger's portrait, and pronounced Indifferently the type was good or bad. What matter to me that the lines are false ? I ask you. Did I ever ink my lips By drawing your name through them as a friend's ? Or touch your hands as lovers do? Thank God I never did ! And since you're proved so vile, Ay, vile, I say, — we'll show it pres- ently,— I'm not obliged to nurse my friend in you, Or wash out my own blots in counting yours. Or even excuse myself to honest souls Who seek to press my lip, or clasp my palm, — ' Alas, but Lady Waldemar came first! ' 'Tis true, by this time you may near me so That you're my cousin's wife. You've gambled deep As Lucifer, and won the morning-star In that case ; and the noble house of Leigh Must henceforth with Its good roof shelter you. I cannot speak and burn you up be- tween Those rafters, I who am born a Leigh; nor speak And pierce your breast through Rom- ney's, I who live His friend and cousin : so you're safe. You two Must grow together like the tares and wheat Till God's great fire. But make the best of time. " And hide this letter : let it speak no more Than T shall, how you tricked poor Marian Erie, And set her own love digging its own grave Within her green hope's pretty gar- den-ground, — Ay, sent her forth with some one of your sort To a wicked house in France, from which she fled With curses in her eyes and ears and throat. Her whole soul choked with curses, mad, in short. And madly scouring up and down for weeks The foreign hedgeless country, lone and lost, — So innocent, male fiends might slink within Remote hell-corners seeing her so de- filed. "But you, — you are a woman, and more bold. To do you justice, you'd not shrink to face . . . We'll say, the unfledged life in the other room. Which, treading down God's corn, you trod in sight Of all the dogs in reach of all the guns, — Ay, Marian's babe, her poor un- fathered child. Her yearling babe ! — you'd face him when he wakes And opens up his wonderful blue eyes ; You'd meet them, and not wink per- haps, nor fear God's triumph in them and supreme revenge When righting his creation's balance- scale (You pulled as low as Tophet) to the top Of most celestial innocence. For me Who am not as bold, I own those in- fant eyes Have set me praying. " While they look at heaven. No need of protestation in my words Against the place you've made them ! let them look. They'll do your business with the heavens, be sure : I spare you common curses. " Ponder this; If haply you're the wife of Romney Leigh, I ^m I ■ I ^ AURORA LEIGH. 127 (For which inheritance bej'ond your birth You sold that poisonous porridge called your soul) I charge you be his faithful and true wife ! Keep warm his hearth, and clean his board, and, when He speaks, be quick with your obedi- ence; Still grind your paltry wants and low desires To dust beneath his heel, though, even thus, The ground must hurt him: it was writ of old, ' Ye shall not yoke together ox and ass,' The nobler and ignobler. Ay; but you Shall do your part as well as such ill things Can do aught good. You shall not vex him, — mark, Y'ou shall not vex him, jar him when he's sad, Or cross him when he's eager. Un- derstand To trick him with apparent sympa- thies, Isor let him see thee in the face too near, And unlearn thy sweet seeming. Pay the price Of lies bv being constrained to lie on stili: 'Tis easy for thy sort: a million more "Will scarcely damn thee deeper. " Doing which Y^ou are very safe from Marian and myself: "We'll breathe as softly as the infant here, And stir no dangerous embers. Fail a point, And show our Romney wounded, ill content, Tormented in his home, we open mouth, And such a noise will follow, the last trump's Will scarcely seem more dreadful, even to you ; i'ou'll have no pipers after: Romney AVill (I know him) push you forth as none of his, All other men declaring it well done; While women, even the worst, your like, will draw Their skirts back, not to brush you iii the street: And so I warn you. I'm . . . Aurora Leigh." The letter written, I felt satisfied. The ashes smouldering in me were thrown out By handfuls from me: I had writ my heart, And wept my tears, and now Avas cool and calm; And, going straightway to the neigh- boring room, I lifted up the curtains of the bed Where Marian Erie — the babe upon her arm, Both faces leaned together like a pair Of folded innocences self-complete, Each smiling from the other — smiled and slept. There seemed no sin, no shame, no wrath, no grief. I felt she too had spoken words that night. But softer certainly, and said to God, Who laughs in heaven perhaps that such as I Should make ado for such as she. "Defiled" I wrote? "defiled" I thought her? Stoop, Stoop lower, Aurora ! get the angels' leave To creep in somewhere, humbly on your knees, Within this round of sequestration white In which they liave wrapt earth's foundlings, heaven's elect. The next day we took train to Italy, And fled on southward in the roar of steam. The marriage-bells of Romney must be loud To sound so clear through all. I was not well. And truly, though the truth is like a jest, I could not choose but fancy, half the way, I stood alone i' the belfry, fifty bells. Of naked iron, mad with merriment, (As one who laughs and cannot stop himself) All clanking at me, in me, over me. i 128 AURORA LEIGH. Until I shrieked a shriek I could not hear, And swooned with noise, but still, along my swoon, Was 'ware the baffled changes back- ward rang, Prepared at each emerging sense to beat And crash it out with clangor. I was weak; I struggled for the posture of my soul In upright consciousness of place and time, But evermore, 'twixt waking and asleep. Slipped somjBhow, staggered, caught at Marian's eyes A moment, (it is very good for strength To know that some one needs you to be strong) And so recovered what I call myself, For that time. I just knew it when we swept Above the old roofs of Dijon. Lyons dropped A spark into the night, half trodden out Unseen. But presently the winding Rhone Washed out the moonlight large along his banks Which strained their yielding curves out clear and clean To hold it, — shadow of town and castle blurred Upon the hurrying river. Such an air Blew thence upon the forehead, — half an air And half a water —that I leaned and looked, Then, turning back on M:.i: ■.,:, smiled to mark That she lookec" c-._y o;\ h'jr child, who slept, His face toward 'iie mo? v too. So we passed The liberal open country and the close, Ahd .shot through tunnels, like a li^'^. 'ing- wedge By great Tlior-hammers driven through the rock, Which, quivering through the intes- tine blackn-'ss, splits, And lets it ia at once: the train swept iu Athrob with effort, trembling with resolve. The fierce denouncing whistle wailing on, And dying off, smothered in the shud- dering dark; While we self-awed, drew troubled breath, oppi-essed As other Titans, underneath the pile And nightmare of the mountains. Out, at last. To catch the dawn afloat upon the land. — Hills, slung forth broadly and gauntly everywhere. Not crampt in 'their foundations, pushing wide Rich outspreads of the vineyards and the corn, (As if they entertained i' the name of France) While down their straining sides streamed manifest A soil as red as Charlemagne's knightly blood, To consecrate the verdure. Some one said, "Marseilles!" And lo, the city of Marseilles, With all her ships behind her, and beyond, The cimiter of ever-shining sea For right-hand use, bared blue against the sky ! That night we spent between the pur- ple heaven And purple water. I think Marian slept ; But I, as a dog a-watch for his mas- ter's foot. Who cannot sleep or eat before he hears, I sate upon the deck, and watched the niglit, And listened through the stars for Italy. Those marriage-bells I spoke of sounded far, As some child's go-cart in the street beneath To a dying man who will not pass the day. And knows it, holding by a hand he loves. I, too, sate quiet, satisfied with death. Sate silent. I could hear my own soul speak, ^ AURORA LEIGH. 129 And had my friend ; for Natnre comes sometimes, And says, " I am ambassador for God." I felt the wind soft from the land of souls ; The old miraculous mountains heaved in sight, One straining past another along the shore, The way of grand dull Odyssean ghosts Athirst to drink the cool blue wine of seas. And stare on voyagers. Peak push- ing peak. They stood. I watched, beyond that Tyrian belt Of intense sea betwixt them and the ship, Down all their sides the misty olive- woods Dissolving in the weak congenial moon, And still disclosing some brown con- A'ent-tower, That seems as if it grew from some brown rock, Or many a little lighted village, dropt Like a fallen star upon so high a point You wonder what can keep it in its place From sliding headlong with the water- falls Which powder all the myrtle and orange groves "With spray of silver. Thus my Italy Was stealing on us. Genoa broke with day ; The Doria's long pale palace striking out, From green hills in advance of the white town, A mar1)le finger dominant to ships. Seen glimmering thi:?ngh the uncer- tain gray of dawn. And then I did not think, " My Italy ! " I thought, " My father ! " Oh, my fa- ther's house. Without his presence ! Places are too much, Or else too little, for immortal man, — Too little, when love's May o'ergrows the ground ; Too much, when that luxuriant robe of green Is rustling to our ankles in dead leaves. 'Tis only good to be or here or there, Because we had a dream on such a stone, Or this or that; but once being wholly waked, And come back to the stone without the dream. We trip upon't, alas ! and hurt our- selves ; Or else it falls on us, and grinds us flat, — The heaviest gravestone on this bury- ing earth. — But, while I stood and mused, a quiet touch Fell light upon my arm, and, turning round, A pair of moistened eyes convicted mine. " What, Marian ! is the babe astir so soon ? " " He sleeps," she answered. " I have crept up thrice, And seen you sitting, standing, etill at watch. I thought it did you good till now; but now" . . . "But now," I said, "you leave the child alone." "And you're alone," she answered; and she looked As if I, too, were something. Sweet the help Of one we have helped ! Thanks, Marian, for such help, I found a house at Florence on the hill Of Bellosguardo. 'Tis a tower which keeps A post of double observation o'er That valley 'of Arno (holding as a hand The outsjiread city) straight toward Fiesole And Mount Morello and the setting sun, The Vallombrosan mountains opi^o- site. Which sunrise fills as full as crystal cups Turned red to the brim because their wine is red. No sun could die, nor yet be born, \u\- seen By dwellers at my villa. Morn and eve 130 AURORA LEIGH. Were magnified before us in the pure Illimitable space and pause of sky, Intense as angels' garments blanched with God, Less blue than radiant. From the outer wall Of the garden drops the mystic float- ing gray Of olive-trees, (with interruptions green From maize and vine) until 'tis caught and torn Upon the abrupt black line of cypress- es Which signs the way to Florence. Beautiful The city lies along the ample vale, Cathedral, tower and palace, piazza and street. The river trailing like a silver cord Tlirough all, and curling loosely, both before And after, over the whole stretch of land Sown whitely up and down its oppo- site slopes With farms and villas. Many weeks had passed. No word was granted. Last, a letter came From Vincent Carrington, — " My dear Miss Leigh, You've been as silent as a poet should. When any other man is sure to speak. If sick, if vexed, if dumb, a silver piece Will split a man's tongue, — straight he speaks, and says, ' Received that check.' But you . . . I send you funds To Paris, and you make no sign at all. Remember I'm responsible, and wait A sign of you, Miss Leigh. " Meantime your book Is eloquent as if you were not dumb ; And common critics, ordinarily deaf To such fine meanings, and, like deaf men, loath To seem deaf, answering chance-wise, yes or no, ' It must be,' or 'It must not,' (most pronounced When least convinced) pronounce for once aright: You'd think they really heard, — and so they do . . . The burr of three or four who really hear And praise your book aright: fame's smallest trump Is a great ear-trumpet for the deaf as posts. No other being effective. Fear not, friend : We think here you have written a good book. And you, a woman ! It was in you — yes, I felt 'twas in you; yet I doubted half If that od-force of German Reichen- bach, Which still from female finger-tips burns blue. Could strike out as our masculine white-heats To quicken a man. Forgive me. All my heart Is quick with yours since, just a fort- night since, I read your book and loved it. " Will you love My wife too? Here's my secret I might keep A month more from you ; but I yield it up Because I know you'll write the sooner for't, Most women (of your height even) counting love Life's only serious business. Who's my wife That shall be in a month ? you ask ? nor guess ? Remember what a pair of topaz eyes You once detected, turned against the wall. That morning in my London paint- ing-room ; The face half-sketched, and slurred; the eyes alone ! But you . . . you caught them up with yours, and said 'Kate Ward's eyes surely.' — Now I own the truth: I had thrown them there to keep them safe from Jove, They would so naughtily find out their way To both the heads of both my Danaes, Where just it made me mad to look at them. Such eyes ! I could not paint or think of eyes But those, — and so I flung them into paint, AURORA LEIGH. 131 And turned them to the wall's care. Ay, but now I've let them out, my Kate's. I've painted her, (I change my style, and leave mythol- ogies). The whole sweet face: it looks upon my soul Like a face on water, to beget itself. A half-length jiortrait, in a hanging cloak Like one you wore once; 'tis a little frayed, — I pressed too for the nude, hai-moni- ous arm; But she, she'd have her way, and have her cloak: She said she coiild be like you only so. And would not miss the fortune. Ah, my friend. You'll write and say she shall not miss your love Through meeting mine ? in faith, she would not change. She has your books by heart more than my words, And quotes you up against me till I'm imshed AMiere, three months since, her eyes were: nay, in fact. Nought satisfied her but to make me paint Your last book folded in her dim^Jled hands. Instead of my brown palette, as I wished. And, grant me, the j^resentment had been newer: She'd grant me nothing. I coni- jjounded for The naming of the wedding-day next month. And gladly too. 'Tis pretty to re- mark How women can love women of your sort, And tie their hearts with love-knots to your feet, Grow insolent about you against men, And put us down by putting up the lip. As if a man — there are such, let us own, Who write not ill — remains a man, poor wretch. While you ! — Write weaker than Aurora Leigh, And there'll be women who believe of you (Besides my Kate) that if you walked on sand You would not leave a footprint. " Are you put To wonder by my marriage, like poor Leigh ? ' Kate Ward ! ' he said. ' Kate Ward I ' he said anew. ' I thought ' ... he said, and stopped, — ' I did not think ' . . . And then he dropped to silence. " Ah, he's changed. I had not seen him, you're aware, for long. But went, of course. I have not touched on this Through all this letter, conscious of your heart. And writing lightlier for the heavy fact, As clocks are voluble with lead. " How poor, To say I'm sorry ! dear Leigh, dear- est Leigh ! In those old days of Shropshire, — pardon me, — When he and you fought many a field of gold On what you should do, or you should not do, — Make bread, or verses, (it just came to that) I thought you'd one day draw a silk- en peace Through a golden ring. I thought so: foolishly. The event proved ; for you went more oj)posite To each other, month by mouth, and year by year, Until this happened. God knows best, we say, But hoarsely. When the fever took him first, Just after I had writ to you in France, They tell me Lady Waldemar mixed drinks. And counted grains, like any salaried nurse, Excepting that she wept too. Then, Lord Howe, You're right about Lord Howe, Lord Howe's a trump; And yet, with such iu his hand, a man like Leigh 132 AURORA LEIGH. May lose as he does. There's an end to all, Yes, even this letter, though this second sheet May find you doubtful. "Write a word for Kate: She reads my letters always, like a wife, And if she sees her name I'll see her smile And share the luck. So, bless you, friend of two ! I will not ask you what your feeling is At Florence with my pictures. I can hear Your heart a-flutter over the snow- hills; And, just to pace the Pitti with you once, I'd give a half-hour of to-morrow's walk With Kate ... I think so. Vincent Carrington." The noon was hot: the air scorched like the sun. And was shut out. The closed per- siani threw Their long-scored shadows on my villa-floor, And interlined the golden atmos- phere Straight, still, — across the pictures on the wall, The statuette on the console, (of young Love And iPsyche made one marble by a kiss) The low couch where I leaned, the table near. The vase of lilies Marian pulled last night, (Each green leaf and each white leaf ruled in black As if for writing some new text of fate) And the open letter rested on my knee; But there the lines swerved, trembled, though I sate Untroubled, plainly, reading it again And three times. Well, he's married: that is clear. No wonder that he's married, nor, much more. That Vincent's therefore " sorry." Why, of course The lady nursed him when he was not well, Mixed drinks — unless nepenthe was the drink 'Twas scarce worth telling. But a man in love Will see the whole sex in his mistress' hood. The prettier for its lining of fair rose. Although he catches back and says at last, " I'm sorry." Sorry. Lady Walde- mar At prettiest, under the said hood, pre- served From such a light as I could hold to her face To flare its ugly wrinkles out to shame. Is scarce a wife for Romney, as friends judge, — Aurora Leigh, or Vincent Carrington : That's plain. And if he"s " conscious of my heart "... It may be natural, though the phrase is strong; (One's apt to use strong phrases, being in love) And even that stuff of " fields of gold," " gold rings," And what he " thought," poor Vin- cent ! what he " thought," May never mean enough to ruflfle me. — Why, this room stifles. Better burn than choke : Best have air, air, although it comes with fire; Throw open blinds and windows to the noon, And take a blister on my brow in- stead Of this dead weight ! best perfectly be stunned By those insufferable cicale, sick And hoarse with rapture of the sum- mer heat. That sing, like poets, till their hearts break, — sing Till men say, " It's too tedious." Books succeed. And lives fail. Do I feel it so at last? Kate loves a worn-out cloak for being like mine. While I live self-despised for being myself. And yearn toward some one else, who yearns away AURORA LEIGH. 133 From what be is, iu his turn. Strain a step Forever, yet gain no step? Are we such "We cannot, with our admirations even, Our tiptoe aspirations, tou("h a thing That's higher than we ? Is all a dis- mal flat, And God alone above each, — as the sun O'er level lagunes, to make them shine and stink, — Laying stress upon us with immediate flame. While we respond with our miasmal fog, And call it mounting higher because we grow More highly fatal ? Tush, Aurora Leigh ! You wear your sackcloth looped in Caesar's way, And brag your failings as mankind's. Be still. There is what's higher, in this very world. Than you can live, or catch at. Stand aside. And look at others, — instance little Kate. She'll make a perfect wife for Car- rington. She always has been looking round the earth For something good and green to alight upon And nestle into, with those soft- winged eyes. Subsiding now beneath his manly hand, 'Twixt trembling lids of inexpressive joy. I will not scorn her, after all, too much. That so much she should love me. A wise man Can i^luck a leaf, and find a lecture in't; And I too . . . God has made me, — I've a heart That's capable of worship, love, and loss: We say the same of Shakspeare's. I'll be meek And learn to reverence, even this poor myself. Tlie book, too — pass it. "A good book," says he, " And you a woman." I had laughed at that But long since. I'm a woman, it is true ; Alas, and woe to us, wlien we feel it most ! Then least care have we for the crowns and goals And compliments on writing our good books. The book has some truth in it, I be- lieve ; And truth outlives pain, as the soul does life. I know we talk our Phsedons to the end, Through all the dismal faces that we make, O'er-wrinkled with dishonoring agony From decomposing drugs. I have written truth. And I a woman, — feebly, partially, Inaptly in presentation, Romney'll add, Because a woman. For the truth it- self. That's neither man's nor woman's, but just God's; None else has reason to be proud of truth : Himself will see it sifted, disin- thralled , And kept upon the height and in the light, As far as and no farther than 'tis truth ; For now he has left off calling firma- ments And strata, flowers and creatures, very good. He says it still of truth, which is his own. Truth, so far, in my book, — the truth which draws Through all things upwards, — that a twofold world Must go to a i^erfect cosmos. Natural things And spiritual, — who separates those two In art, in morals, or the social drift. Tears up the bond of nature, and brings death, Paints futile pictures, writes unreal verse, ( 134 AURORA LEIGH. Leads vulgar days, deals ignorantly with men, Is wrong, in short, at all points. We divide This apple of life, and cut it through the pips: The perfect round which fitted Venus' hand Has perished as utterly as if we ate Roth halves. Without the spiritual, observe, The natural's impossible, no form, No motion: without sensuous, spirit- ual Is inappreciable, no beauty or jMwer. And in this twofold sphere the two- fold man (For still the artist is intensely a man) Holds firmly by the natural to reach The spiritual beyond it, fixes still The type with mortal vision to pierce through, With eyes immortal to the antetype Some call the ideal, better called the real. And certain to be called so presently,' When things shall have their names. Look long enough On any peasant's face here, coarse and lined, You'll catch Antiuous somewhere in that clay. As perfect-featured as he yearns at Rome From marble pale with beauty; then persist. And, if your apprehension's compe- tent, You'll find some fairer angel at his back, As much exceeding him as he the boor, And pushiug him with empyreal dis- dain Forever out of sight. Ay, Carring- tou Is glad of such a creed: an artist must. Who paints a tree, a leaf, a common stone With just his hand, and finds it sud- denly Apiece with and conterminous to his soul. Why else do these things move him, — leaf, or stone? The bird's not moved, that jjecks at a spring-shoot; Nor yet the horse, before a quarry agraze : But man, the twofold creature, ap- prehends The twofold manner, in and out- wardly. And nothing in the world comes sin- gle to him, A mere itself, — cup, column, or can- dlestick, All patterns of what shall be in the Mount; The whole temporal show related royally. And built up to eterne significance Through the open arms of God. "There's nothing great Nor small," has said a poet of our day, Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve, And not be thrown out by the matin's bell: And truly, I reiterate. Nothing's small ! No lily-muflied hum of a summer-bee. But finds some coupling with the spinning stars; No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere ; No chaffinch, but implies the cheru- bim; And (glancing on my own thin, veined wrist) In such a little tremor of the blood The whole strong clamor of a vehe- ment soul Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven. And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees takes otf his shoes. The rest sit round it and pluck black- berries, And daub their natural faces un- aware More and more from the first simili- tude. Truth, so far, in my book ! — a truth which draws From all things upward. I, Aurora, still Have felt it hound me through the wastes of life As Jove did lo; and until that hand Shall overtake me wholly, and ou my head AURORA LEIGH. 135 Lay down its large unfluctuatiug peace, The feverish gad-fly pricks me up and down. It must be. Art's the witness of what is Behind this show. If tliis world's show were all, Then imitation would be all in art. There Jove's hand gripes us ! for we stand here, we, If genuine artists, witnessing for God's Complete, consummate, undivided work; — That every natural flower which grows on earth Implies a flower upon the spiritual side, Substantial, archetypal, all aglow Svith blossoming causes, — not so far away. But we whose spirit-sense is some- what cleared May catch at something of the bloom and breath, — Too vaguely apprehended, though, indeed. Still apprehended, consciously or not. And still transferred to pictui'e, music, verse, For thrilling audient and beholding souls By signs and touches which are known to souls. How known, they know not; why, they cannot find : So straight call out on genius, say, "A man Produced this," when much rather they should say, " 'Tis insight, and he saw this." Thus is art Self-magnified in magnifying a truth Which, fully recognized, would change the world. And shift its morals. If a man could feel, Not one day, in the artist's ecstasy. But every day, — feast, fast, or work- ing day, — Tlie spiritual significance burn through The hieroglyphic of material shows, Henceforward he would paint the globe with wings. And reverence fish and fowl, the bull, the tree, And even his very body as a man ; Which now he counts so vile, that all the towns Make offal of their daughters for its use On summer-nights, when God is sad in heaven To think what goes on in his recreant world He made quite other; while that moon he made To shine there, at the first love's cov- enant. Shines still, convictive as a marriage- ring Before adulterous eyes. How sure it is. That, if we say a true word, instantly We feel 'tis God's, not ours, and pass it on. Like bread at sacrament we taste and pass, Nor handle for a moment, as indeed We dared to set up any claim to such ! And I — mv poem — let my readers talk. ' I'm closer to it, I can speak as well: I'll say Avith Romney, that the book is weak, The range uneven, the points of sight obscure. The music interrupted. Let us go. The end of woman (or of man, I think) Is not a book. Alas, the best of books Is but a word in art, which soon grows cramped, Stiff, dubious-statured, with the weight of years. And drops an accent or digamma down Some cranny of unfathomable time. Beyond the critic's reaching. Art itself. We've called the larger life, must feel the soul Live iiast it. For more's felt than is perceived, And more's perceived than can be in- terpreted. And love strikes higher with his lam- bent flame Than art can pile the fagots. Is it so ? When Jove's hand meets us with composing touch. And when at last we are hushed and satisfied. _i_ 136 AURORA LEIGH. Then lo does not call it truth, but love ? Well, well ! my father was an English- man : My mother's blood in me is not so strong That I should bear this stress of Tus- can noon, And keep my wits. The town there seems to seethe In this Medjean boil-pot of the sun, And all the patient hills are bubbling ' round As if a prick would leave them flat. Does heaven Keep far off, not to set us in a blaze ? Not so ; let drag your fiery fringes, heaven, And burn us up to quiet Ah ! we know Too much here, not to know what's best for peace ; We have too much light here, not to want more fire To purify and end us. We talk, talk. Conclude upon divine x^hilosophies, And get the thanks of men for hope- ful books ; Whereat we take our own life up, and . . . pshaw ! Unless we piece it with another's life, (A yard of silk to carry out our lawn) As well suppose my little handker- chief Would cover Samminiato, church and all, • If out I threw it past the cypresses, As, in this ragged, narrow life of mine. Contain my own conclusions. But at least We'll shut \x^ the persiani, and sit down. And when my head's done aching, in the cool. Write just a word to Kate and Car- rington. May joy be with them ! she has chosen well. And he not ill. I should be glad, I think, Except for Romney. Had he married Kate, I surely, surely, should be very glad. This Florence sits upon me easily. With native air and tongue. My graves are calm. And do not too much hurt me. Mari- an's good, Gentle, and loving, lets me hold the child. Or drags him up the bills to find me flowers And fill these vases ere I'm quite awake, — My grandiose red tulips, which grow wild ; Or Dante's purple lilies, which ho blew To a larger bubble with his prophet breath ; Or one of those tall flowering reeds that stand In Arno like a sheaf of sceptres left By some remote dynasty of dead gods To suck the stream for ages, and get green, And blossom wheresoe'er a hand di- vine Had warmed the place with ichor. Such I find At early morning laid across my bed, And wake up pelted with a childish laugh Which even Marian's low precipitous "Hush!" Has vainly interposed to put away ; While I, with shut eyes, smile and motion for The dewy kiss that's very sure to come From mouth and cheeks, the whole child's face at once Dissolved on mine, as if a nosegay burst Its string with the weight of roses overblown, And dropt upon me. Surely I should be glad. The little creature almost loves me now. And calls my name " Alola," strip- ping off The rs like thorns, to make it smooth enough To take between his dainty, milk-fed lips, God love him ! I should certainly be glad. Except, God help me ! that I'm sor- rowful Because of Romney. Romney, Romney ! Well, This grows absurd, — too like a tune that runs I' the head, and forces all things in the world — Wind, rain, the creaking gnat or stut- tering fly — AURORA LEIGH. 137 To slug itself, and vex you ; yet jier- haps A paltry time you never fairly liked, Some "I'd be a butterfly," or "C'est I'amour." We're made so, — not such tyrants to ourselves. But still we are slaves to nature. Some of us Are turned, too, overmuch like some poor verse With a trick of ritouruelle : the same thing goes, And comes back ever. Vincent Carrington Is " sorry," and I'm sorry ; Init /(e's strong To mount from sorrow to his heaven of love, And when he says at moments, " Poor, poor Leigh, Who'll never call his own so true a heart. So fair a face even," he must quick- Ij^ lose The pain of pity in the blush he makes By his very pitying eyes. The snow, for him. Has fallen in May, and finds the whole earth warm. And melts at the first touch of the green grass. But Romnev, — he has chosen, after all. I think he had as excellent a sun To see by as most others ; and per- haps Has scarce seen really worse than some of us. When all's said. Let him pass. I'm not too much A woman, not to be a man for once, And bury all my dead like Alaric, Depositing the treasures of my soul In this drained water-course, then letting flow The river of life again with commerce- ships. And pleasure-barges full of silks and songs. Blow, winds, and help us. Ah, we mock ourselves With talking of the winds ! perhaps as much With other resolutions. How it weighs, This hot, sick air ! and how I covet here The dead's provision on the river- couch. With silver curtains drawn on tinkling rings ; Or else their rest in quiet crypts, laid by From heat and noise, from those cicale, say. And this more vexing heart-beat ! So it is. We covet for the soul the body's part. To die and rot. Even so, Aurora, ends Qur aspiration who bespoke our place So far in the east. The occidental flats Had fed us fatter, therefore ? we have climbed Where herbage ends? we want the beast's part now, And tire of the angel's ? Men define a man. The creature who stands front-ward to the stars. The creature wlio looks inward to himself. The tool-wright, laugliing creature. 'Tis enough : We'll say, instead, the inconsequent creature, man, For that's his specialty. What crea- ture else Conceives the circle, and then walks the square ? Loves things proved bad, and leaves a thing proved good ? You think the bee makes honey half a year, To loathe the comb in winter, and de- sire The little ant's food rather ? But a man — Note men ! — they are but women, after all, As women are but Auroras ! — there are men Born tender, apt to pale at a trodden worm. Who paint for pastime, in their favor- ite dream. Spruce auto-vestments flowered with crocus-flames ; There are, too, who believe in hell, and lie; There are, too, who believe in heaven, and fear; 138 AURORA LEIGH. There are, who waste their souls in working out Life's problem on these sands betwixt two tides, Concluding, "Give us the oyster's part, in death." Alas, long-suffering and most patient God, Thou needst be surelier God to bear with us Than even to have made us ! thou aspire, aspire From henceforth for me ! thou who hast thyself Endure Say yes in singing, and I'll under- stand." But now the creatures all seemed far- ther off. No longer mine, nor like me, only there, A gulf between us. I could yearn, indeed. Like other rich men, for a droj) of dew To cool this heat, — a drop of the early dew. The irrecoverable child-innocence (Before the heart took tire and with- ered life) "When childhood might pair equally Avith birds; But now . . . the liirds were grown too proud for us, Alas ! the very sun forbids the dew. And I — I had come back to an empty nest. Which every bird's too wise for. How I heard ]My father's step on that deserted ground, His voice along that silence, as he told The names of Ijird and insect, tree and flower, And all the presentations of the stars Across Valdarno, interposing still "My child," "my child." Wlicn fathers say, " My child," 'Tis easier to conceive the universe, And life's transitions down the steps of law. I rode once to the little mountain- house As fast as if to find my father there; But when in sight oft, within fifty yards, I drojij^ed my horse's bridle on his neck. And paused ujion his fiank. The house's front Was cased with lingots of ripe Indian corn In tessellated order and device Of golden patterns, not a stone of wall Uncovered, not an incli of room to grow A vine-leaf. The old poi'ch had dis- appeared. And right in the open doorway sate a girl At jjlaiting straws, her black hair strained away To a scarlet kerchief caught beneath her chin In Tuscan fashion, her full ebon eyes. Which looked too heavy to be lifted so, Still dropt and lifted toward the mul- berry-tree, On which the lads were busj' with their staves In shout and laughter, stripiiing every bough, As bare as winter, of those summer leaves Mv father had not clianged for all the silk In which the ugly silkworms hide themselves. Enough. My horse recoiled l)efore my heart. I turned the rein ;ibniptly. Back we went As fast, to Florence. That was trial enough Of graves. I would not visit, if I could, My father's, or my mother's any more. To see if stone-cutter or lichen beat So early in the race, or throw my flowers. Which could not out-smell heaven, or sweeten earth. I 140 AURORA LEIGH. They live too far al)ove, that I should look So far below to find them: let me think That rather they are visiting my grave, Called life here, (undeveloped yet to life) And that they drop upon me now and then, For token or for solace, some small weed Least odorous of the growths of par- adise, To sjiare such pungent scents as kill with joy. My old Assunta, too, was dead, — was dead. O land of all men's past ! for me alone It would not mix its tenses. I was past. It seemed, like others, — only not in heaven. And many a Tuscan eve I wandered down The cypress alley like a restless ghost That tries its" feeble, ineffectual breath Upon its own charred funeral-brands put out Too soon, where black and stiff stood up tlie trees Against the broad vermilion of the skies. Such skies ! — all clouds abolished in a sweep Of God's skirt, with a dazzle to ghosts and men. As down I went, saluting on the bridge The hem of such before 'twas caught away Beyond the peaks of Lucca. Under- neath, The river, just escaping from the weight Of that intolerable glory, ran In acquiescent shadow murmurously; While up beside it streamed the festa- folk With fellow-murmurs from their feet and fans. And issimo and ino and sweet poise Of A'owels in their pleasant, scandal- ous talk; Returning from the grand-duke's dairv-farm Before the trees grew dangerous at eight, (For "trust no tree by moonlight," Tuscans say) To eat their ice at Donay's tenderly. Each lovely lady close to a cavalier Wlio holds her dear fan while she feeds her smile On meditative spoonfuls of vanille, And listens to his hot-breathed vows of love. Enough to thaw her cream, and scorch his beard. 'Twas little matter. I covild pass them by Indifferently, not fearing to be known. No danger of being wrecked upon a friend. And forced to take an iceberg for an isle! The verj^ English here must wait, and learn To hang the cobweb of their gossip out To catch a fly. I'm happy. It's sub- lime. This perfect solitude of foreign lands ! To be as if you had not been till then, And were then, simply that you chose to be; To spring up, not be brought forth from the ground, Like grasshoppers at Athens, and skip thrice Before a woman makes a pounce on you And plants you in her hair! — pos- sess, yourself, A new world all alive with creatures new, — New sun, new moon, new flowers, new peojjle — ah. And be possessed by none of them 1 no right In one to call your name, inquire your where, Or wliat you think of Mister Some- one's book. Or Mister Other's marriage or de- cease. Or how's the headache which you had last week, Or why you look so pale still, since it's' gone. — Such most surprising riddance of one's life AURORA LEIGH. 1-U Comes next one's death: 'tis disem- bodiment Without tlie panj?. I marvel people choose To stand stock-still, like fakirs, till the moss Grows on them and they cry out, self-admired, " How verdant and how virtuous ! " Well, I'm glad, Or sliould be, if grown foreign to mv- self As surely as to others. Musing so, I walked the narrow, iinrecognizing streets. Where many a palace-front peers gloomily Through stony visors iron-barred, (prepared Alike, should foe or lover pass that way. For guest or victim) and came wan- dering out Upon the churches with mild open doors And plaintive wail of vespers, where a few. Those chiefly women, sprinkled round in blots Upon the dusky pavement, knelt and jirayed Toward the altar's silver glory. Oft a ray (I liked to sit and watch) would trem- ble out. Just touch some face more lifted, more hi need, (Of course a woman's) while I dreamed a tale To fit its fortunes. There was one who looked As if the earth had suddenly grown too large For such a little humpbacked thing as she; The pitiful black kerchief round her neck Sole proof she had had a mother. One, again, Looked sick for love, seemed pray- ing some soft saint To put more virtue in the new, fine scarf She spent a fortnight's meals on yes- terday. That cruel Gigi might return his eyes From Giuliana. Tliere was one, so old. So old, to kneel grew easier than to stand ; So solitary, she accepts at last Our Ladj' for her gossip, and frets on Against the sinful world which goes its rounds In marrying and being married, just the same As when 'twas almost good and had the right, (Her Gian alive and she herself eigh- teen). " And yet, now even, if ]Madonna willed. She'd win a tern in Thursday's lot- terj'. And better all things. Did she dream for nought. That, boiling cabbage for the fast- day's soup, It smelt like blessed entrails ? such a dream For nought ? would sweetest Mary cheat her so. And lose that certain candle, straight and white As any fair grand-duchess in her teens. Which otherwise should tlari3 here in a week ? Benigna sis, thou beauteous Queen of heaven ! " I sate there musing, and imagining Such utterance from such faces, poor blind souls That writhe toward heaven along the Devil's trail: Who knows, I thought, but he may stretch his hand And pick them up ? 'Tis written in the Book He heareth the young ravens when they cry, And yet they cry for carrion. O mv God ! And we who make excuses for the rest, W^e do it in our measure. Then I knelt. And dropped nay head upon the pave- ment too. And prayed — since I was foolish in desire Like other creatures, craving offal- food — That he would stop his ears to what I said. 142 AURORA LEIGH. And only listen to the run and beat Of tliis poor, passionate, hclple.ss blood — And then I lay, and si)oke not; bnt he heard in heaven. So many Tuscan evenings passed the same. I could not lose a sunset on the bridge, And would not miss a vigil in the church. And liked to mingle with the out- door crowd, So strange and gay, and ignorant of my face; For men you know not are as good as trees> And only once, at the Sautissima, I almost chanced upon a man I knew. Sir Blaise Delorme. He saw me cer- tainly, And somewhat hurried, as he crossed himself, The smoothness of the action; then half bowed, But only half, and merely to my shade, I slipped so quick behind the porphyry plinth, And left him dubious if 'twas really I, Or pei-adventure Satan's usual trick To keep a mounting saint uncanon- ized. But he was safe for that time, and I too: The argent angels in the altar-flare Absorbed his sold next moment. Tlie good man ! In England we were scarce acquaint- ances, Tliat hei"e in Florence he should keep my thought Beyond the image on liis eye, which came And went: and yet his thought dis- turbed my life; For after that I oftener sat at home On evenings, watching how they fined themselves With gradual conscience to a perfect night. Until the moon, diminished to a curve. Lay out there like a sickle for His hand Who Cometh down at last to reap the earth. At such times ended seemed my trade of verse : I feared to jingle bells upon my robe Before the four-faced silent cheru- bim. With God so near me, could I sing of God?. I did not write, nor read, nor even think. But sate absorbed amid the quicken- ing glooms, Most like some passive broken lump of salt Drojit in by chance to a bowl of ceno- mel. To spoil the drink a little, and lose it- self. Dissolving slowly, slowly, until lost. EIGHTH BOOK. One eve it happened, when I sate alone. Alone, upon the terrace of my tower, A book upon my knees to counterfeit The reading that I never read at all. While Marian, in tlie garden down below, Knelt by the fountain I could just hear thrill The drowsy silence of the exhausted day, " And jjeeled a new fig from that purple heap In the grass beside her, turning out the red To feed her eager child, who sucked at it With vehement lips across a gap of air. As he stood opposite, face and curls- aflame With that last sun-ray, crying, " tiive me, give ! " And stamping with imperious baby- feet, (We're all born princes) something startled me, — The laugh of sad and innocent souls that breaks Abrujitly, as if frightened at itself. 'Twas Marian laughed. I saw her glance abo^'e In sudden shame that I should hear her laugh, AURORA LEIGH. And straightway dropped my eyes upon my book, And knew, the first time, 'twas Boc- caccio's tale, The Falcon's, of the lover who for love Destroyed the best that loved him. Some of us Do it still, and then we sit, and laugh no more. Laugh ymi, sweet Marian, you've the right to laugh. Since God himself is for you, and a child. For me there's somewhat less, and so I sigh. The heavens were making room to hold the night, Tlie sevenfold heavens unfolding all their gates To let the stars out slowly (prophe- sied In close-approaching advent, not dis- cerned), Wliile still the cue-owls from the cj-- presses ()i the Poggio called and counted every jjulse Of the skvev palpitation. Gradu- ally The purple and transparent shadows slow Had filled up the whole valley to the brim. And flooded all the city, which you saw As some drowned city in some en- chanted sea, Cut off from nature, drawing you who gaze. With passionate desire, to leap and plunge, And find a sea-king with a voice of waves. And treacherous soft eyes, and slip- perj' locks You cannot kiss but you shall bring away Their salt upon vour lips. The duomo- bell Strikes ten, as if it struck ten fathoms down, So deep, and twenty churches answer it The same, with twenty various in- stances. Some gaslights tremble along scjuares and streets ; The Pitti's palace-front is drawn in fire ; And, past the quays, Maria Novella Place, In which the mystic obeiisks stand up Triangular, pyramidal, each based Upon its four-square brazen tortoises, To guard that fair church, Buonarro- ti's Bride, That stares out from her large blind dial-eyes, (Her quadrant and armillary dials, black With rhythms of many suns and moons) in vain Inquiry for so rich a soul as his. Methinks I have plunged, I see it all so clear . . . And O my heart . . . the searking ! In my ears The sound of waters. There he stood, my king ! I felt him, rather than beheld him. Up I rose, as if he were my king indeed. And then sate down, in trouble at myself. And struggling for my woman's em- pery. 'Tis pitiful ; but women are so made : We'll die for you, perhaps, — 'tis probable ; But we'll not spare you an inch of our full height : AVe'll have our whole just stature, — five feet four. Though laid out in our coffins : piti- ful. — " You, Romnev ! — Lady Waldemar is here?" He answered in a voice which was not his. " I have her letter : you shall read it soon. But first I must be heard a little, I Who have waited long and travelled far for that, Although you thought to have shut a tedious book. And farewell. Ah, you dog-eared such a page, And here you find me." Did he touch my hand, Or but my sleeve ? I trembled, hand and foot : 144 AURORA LEIGH. He must have touched me. " Will you sit? " I asked, And motioned to a chair ; but down he sate, A little slowlJ^ as a man in doubt, Upon the couch beside me, couch and chair Being wheeled upon the terrace. "You are come, My cousin Romney ? This is wonder- ful. But all is wonder on siich summer- nights ; And nothing should surprise us any more, Who see that miracle of stars. Be- hold." I signed above, where all the stars were out. As if an urgent heat had started there A secret writing from a sombre page, A blank last moment, crowded sud- denly With hurrying splendors. " Then you do not know " — He murmured. " Yes, I know," I said, " I know. I had the news from Vincent Carring- ton. And yet I did not think yovi'd leave the work In England for so much even, — though of course You'll make a work-day of your holi- day. And turn it to our Tuscan people's use, — Who much need helping, since the Austrian boar (So bold to cross the Alp to Lom- bard y. And dash his brute front unabashed against The steep snow-bosses of that shield of God Who soon shall rise in wrath, and shake it clear) Came hither also, raking up our grape And olive gardens with his tyrannous tusk, And rolling on our maize with all his swine." " You had the news from Vincent Carrington," He echoed, picking up the phrase be- yond, As if he knew the rest was merely talk To fill a gap and keep out a strong wind : " You had, then, Vincent's personal news?" " His own," I answered. " All that ruined world of yours Seems crumbling into marriage. Car- rington Has chosen wisely." " Do you take it so ? " He cried, "and is it possible at last" ... He paused there, and then, inward to himself, — " Too much at last, too late ! yet cer- tainly" . . . (And there his voice swayed as an Alpine plank That feels a passionate torrent under- neath) "The knowledge, had I known it first or last. Could scarce have changed the actual case for me, And best for her at this time." Nay, I thought. He loves Kate Ward, it seems, now, like a man. Because he has married Lady Walde- mar ! Ah, Vincent's letter said how Leigh was moved To hear that Vincent was betrothed to Kate. With what cracked pitchers go we to deep wells In this world! Then I spoke, — "I did not think. My cousin, you had ever known Kate Ward'." "In fact I never knew her. 'Tis enough That Vincent did, and therefore chose liis wife For other reasons than those topaz eyes We've heard of. Not to undervalue them. For all that. One takes up the world with eyes." — Including Romney Leigh, I thought again, Albeit he knows them only by repute. How vile must all men be, since lie's a man ! AURORA LEIGH. 145 His deep pathetic voice, as if lie guessed I did not surely love liim, took the word : " You never got a letter from Lord Howe A month back, dear Aurora ? " "None," I said. " I felt it was so," he replied. " Yet, strange ! Sir Blaise Delorme has passed through Florence?" "Ay, By chance I saw him in Our Lady's Church, (I saw him, mark you; but he saw not me) Clean-washed in holy water from the count Of things terrestrial, — letters and the rest: He had crossed us out together with his sins. Ay, strange; but only strange that good Lord Howe Preferred him to the post because of pauls. For me, I'm sworn to never trust a man — At least with letters." " There were facts to tell. To smooth with eye and accent. Howe supposed . . . Well, well, no matter ! there was dubious need: You heard the news from Vincent Carrington. And yet perhaps you had been star- tled less To see me, deai y^urora, if you had read That letter." — Now he sets me down as vexed. I think I've draped myself in wo- man's pride To a perfect puri^ose. Oh, I'm vexed, it seems ! My friend Lord Howe deputes his friend Sir Blaise To break, as sof ;ly as a sparrow's egg That lets a bird ovit tenderly, the news Of Eomney's marriage to a certain saint, To smooth ivith eye and accent, — indi- cate His jjossible presence. Excellently well You've played j'our jiart, my Lady Waldemar, — As I've played mine. " Dear Eomney," I began, " You did not use of old to be so like A Greek king coming from a taken Troy 'Twas needful that iirecursors spread your path With three-piled carpets to receive your foot. And dull the sound oft. For myself, be sure, Although it frankly grinds the gravel here, I still can bear it. Yet I'm sorry, too, To lose this famous letter, which Sir Blaise Has twisted to a lighter absently To fire some holy taper. Dear Lord Howe Writes letters good for all things but to lose : And many a flower of London gos- sipry Has dropt wherever sucli a stem broke off. Of course I feel that, lonely among my vines, Where nothing's talked of, save the blight again. And no more Chianti I Still the let- ter's use As preparation . . . Did I start in- deed ? Last night I started at a cockchafer, And shook a half-hour after. Have you learnt No more of women, 'spite of jirivi- lege, Than still to take account too seri- ously Of such weak flutterings ? Why, we like it, sir: We get our powers and our effects that way. The trees stand stiff and still at time of frost. If no wind tears them ; but let sum- mer come, When trees are happy, and a breath avails To set them trembling through a mil- lion leaves In luxury of emotion. Something less It takes to move a woman: let her start 146 AVROllA LEIGH. And shake at pleasure, nor conclude at yours, The winter's bitter, but the summer's green." He answered, " Be the summer eA'er greeu With you, Aurora ! though you sweep your sex With " somewhat bitter gusts from where you live Above them, whirling downward from your heights Your very oVn pine-cones, in a grand disdain Of the lowland burrs with which you scatter them. Ho high and cold to others and vour- self, A little less to llomney were unjust, And thus, I would not have you. Let it pass : I feel content so. You can bear, in- deed, ]SIy sudden steji beside you: but for me, 'Twould move me sore to hear your softened voice,— Aurora's voice, — if softened un- aware In pity of what I am." Ah, friend ! I thought. As husband of the Lady Waldemar You're granted very sorely pitiable; And yet Aurora Leigh must guard her voice From softening in the pity of your case, As if from lie or license. Certainly We'll soak up all the slush and soil of life With softened A^oices, ere we come to you. At which I interrupted my own thought, And spoke out calmly. " Let us pon- der, friend, Whate'er our state, we must have made it first; And though the thing displease us, ay, jierhaps Displease us warrantably, never doubt That other states, thought possible once, and then Kejected by the instinct of our lives. If then adopted, had displeased us more Than this in which the choice, the will, the love. Has stamped the honor of a patent act From henceforth. What we choose may not be good; But that we choose it proves it good for us Potentially, fantastically, now Or last year, rather than a thing we saw. And saw no need for choosing. Moths will burn Their wings, — which proves that light is good for moths. Who else had flown not where they agonize." "Ay, light is good," lie echoed, and there paused; And then abruptly ..." Marian. Marian's well ? " I bowed my head, Viut found no word. 'Twas hard To speak of her to Lady Waldemar's New husband. How much did he know, at last ? How much ? how little ? He would take no sign. But straight repeated, — " Marian. Is she well '?" " She's well," I ansAvered. She was there in sight An hoiir back; but the night had drawn her home, Where still I heanl her in an upper room, 3W A'C bed. Who, restless with the summer-heat and play. And slumber snatched at noon, was long sometimes In falling off, and took a score of songs And mother hushes ere she saw him sound. " She's well," I answered. "Here?" he asked. " Yes, here." He stopped and sighed. " That shall be presently; But now this must be. I have words to say, " I'm thinking, Romnev, how 'twas morning then And now, 'tis night." — Page 147. i£dLpath, thinking bit- terly . . . Well, well ! no matter. I but say so much , To keep j'ou, Romney Leigh, from saying more. And let you feel I am not so high in- deed. That I can bear to have you at my foot. Or safe, that I can help you. That June day. Too deeply sunk in craterous sunsets now For you or me to dig it up alive; To jiluck it out all bleeding with spent flame At tlie roots, before those moralizing stars We have got in.stead, — that poor lost day, you said Some words as truthful as the thing of mine You cared to keep in memory; and I hold If I that day, and l)eing the girl I was. Had shown a gentler si)irit, less arro- gance. It had not hurt me. You will scarce mistake The point here. I but only think, you see, More justly, that's more humbly of myself, Than when I tried a crown on, and supposed . . . Nay, laugh, sir, — I'll laugh with you ! — pray you laugh. ^ AURORA LEIGH. 151 I've had so man y birthdaj'S since that day, I've learnt to prize mirth's opportu- nities, Which come too seldom. "Was it you who said I was not clianged ? the same Au- rora? Ah, We could laugh there too ! Why, Ulysses' dog Knew him, and wagged his tail and died; but if I had owned a dog, I too, before my Troy, And if you brought liim here ... I warrant you He'd look into my face, bark lustily. And live on stoutly, as the creatures will Whose spirits are not troubled by long loves. A dog would never know me, I'm so changed. Much less a friend . . . except that you're misled By the color of the hair, the trick of the voice, Like that Aurora Leigh's." " Sweet trick of voice ! I would be a dog for this, to know it at last, And die upon the falls of it. O love, best Aurora ! are you then so sad You scarcelv had been sadder as mv wife?'" " your wife, sir ! I must certainly be changed, If I, Aurora, can have said a thing So light, it catches at the knightly spurs Of a noble gentleman like Romney Leigh, And trips him from his honorable sense Of what befits "... " You wholly misconceive," He answered. I returned, — " I'm glad of it. But keep from misconception, too, yourself: 1 am not humbled to so low a point, Nor so far saddened. It I am sad at all. Ten layers of birthdays on a woman's head Are apt to fossilize her girlish mirth. Though ne'er so merry: I'm perforce mor§ wise, And that, in truth, means sadder. For the rest. Look here, sir: I was right, upon the whole, That birthday morning. 'Tis impos- sible To get at men excepting through their souls. However open their carnivorous jaws; And poets get directlier at the soul Than any of your economists; for which You must not overlook the poet's work When scheming for the world's neces- sities. The soul's the way. Not even Christ himself Can save man else than as he holds man's soul; And therefore did he come into our flesh, As some wise hunter, creeping on his knees With a torch, into the blackness of a cave. To face and quell the beast there, — take the soul. And so possess the whole man, body and soul. I said, so far, right, yes; not farther, though : We both were wrong that June daj-, — both as wrong As an east wind had been. I who talked of art. And you who grieved for all men's griefs . . . what then ? We surely made too small a part for God In these things. What we are im- ports us more Than what we eat; and life, you've granted me, Develops from within. But inner- most Of the inmost, most interior of the interne, God claims his own, divine humanity Renewing nature; or the piercingest verse, Prest in by sulitlest poet still must keep As much upon the outside of a man As the very bowl in which he dips his l)eard. — And then . . . the rest; I cannot surely si)eak: 152 AURORA LEIGH. Perhaps I doubt more than you doubted then, If I the poet's veritable charge Have borne upon my forehead. If I have, It might feel somewhat liker to a crown, The foolish green one, even. Ah, I think. And chiefly when the sun shines, that I've failed. But what then, Romuey ? Though we fail indeed, You ... I ... a score of such weak workers . . . He Fails never. If he cannot work by us, He will work over us. Does he want a man, Much less a woman, think you? Every time The star winks there, so many souls are born, Who all shall work too. Let our own- be calm: We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars. Impatient that we're nothing." " Could we sit Just so forever, sweetest friend," he said, " My failure would seem better than success. And yet indeed your book has dealt with me More gently, cousin, than vou ever will. Your book brought down entire the bright .June day. And set me wandering in the garden- walks, And let me watch the garland in a place You blushed so . . . nay, forgive me, do not stir; I only thank the book for what it taught. And what permitted. Poet doubt yourself. But never doubt that you're a poet to me From henceforth. You have written poems, sweet, Which moved me in secret, as the sap is moved In still March branches, signless as a stone ; But this last book o'ercame rae like soft rain Which falls at midnight, when the tightened bark Breaks out into unhesitating buds, And sudden x'l'otestations of the spring. In all your other books I saw but yoii. A man, may see the moon so, in a pond. And not be nearer therefore to the moon, Nor use the sight . . . except to drown himself: And so I forced my heart back from the sight. For what had /, I thought, to do with her, Aurora . . . Romney? But in this last book You showed me something separate from yourself. Beyond you, and I bore to take it in. And let it draw me. You have shown me truths, O June-day friend, that help me now \ at night When June is over, — truths not yours, indeed, But set within my reach by means of you, Presented by your voice and verse the way To take them clearest. Verily I was wrong; And verily many thinkers of this age, Ay, many Christian teachers, half in heaven, Are wrong in just my sense who un- derstood Our natural world too insularly, as if No spiritual counterpart completed it. Consummating its meaning, rounding all To justice and perfection, line by line. Form by form, nothing single nor alone. The great below clinched by the great above. Shade here authenticating substance there. The body piroving spirit, as the effect The cause: we meantime being too grossly apt To hold the natural, as dogs a bone, (Though reason and nature beat us in the face) So obstinately that we'll break our teeth AURORA LEIGH. 153 Or ever we let go. For everywliere "We're too materialistic, eating clay, (Like men of the west) instead of Adam's corn And Noah's wine, — clay by handfuls, clay by lumps, Until we're filled up to the throat with clay, And grow the grimy color of the ground On which we are feeding. Ay, mate- rialist The age's name is. God himself, with some. Is aj^prehended as the bare result Of what his hand materially has made, Expressed in such an algebraic sign Called God; that is, to put it otlier- wise, They add up nature to a nought of God, And cross the quotient. There are many even, "Whose names are written in the Christian church To no dishonor, diet still on miid, And splash the altars with it. You might think The clay Christ laid upon their eye- lids, when. Still blind, he called them to the use of sight, Remained there to retard its exer- cise "With clogging incrustations. Close to heaven, They see for mysteries, through the ojien doors, Vague puffs of smoke from pots of earthenware. And fain would enter, when their time shall come, "With quite another body than St. Paul Has 25romised, — husk and chaff, the whole barley-corn, Or Where's the resurrection ? " " Thus it is," I sighed. And he resumed with mournful face. " Beginning so, and filling up with clay The wards of this great key, the natu- ral world. And fumbling vainly therefore at the lock Of the spiritual, we feel ourselves shut in "With all the wild-beast roar of strug- gling life, The terrors and compunctions of our souls, As saints with lions, — we who are not saints, And have no heavenly lordship in * our stare To awe them backward. Ay, we are forced, so pent, To judge the whole too partially . . . confound Conclusions. Is there any common phrase Significant, with the adverb heard alone, The verb being absent, and the pro- noun out ? But we, distracted in the roar of life, Still insolently at God's adverb snatch, And bruit against him that his thought is void. His meaning hopeless, — cry, that everywhere The government is slipping from his hand. Unless some other Christ (say Rom- ney Leigh) Come up and toil and moil and change the world, Because the First has proved inade- quate. However we talk bigly of his work And piously of his person. "We blas- pheme At last, to finish our doxology. Despairing on the earth for which he died." " So now," I asked, " you have more hope of men?" " I hope," he answered. " I am come to think That God will have his work done, as you said, And that we need not be disturbed too much For Romney Leigh or others having failed "With this or that quack nostrum, — recipes For keeping summits by annulling depths, For wrestling with luxurious loun- ging sleeves, And acting heroism without a scratch. 154 AURORA LEIGH. We fail, — what then? Aixrora, if I smiled To see you, in your lovely morning- pride, Try on the j^oet's wreath which suits the noon, (Sweet cousin, walls must get the weather-stain Before they grow the ivy) certainly I stood myself there worthier of con- tempt, Self rated, in disastrous arrogance. As competent to sorrow for mankind And even their odds. A man may well despair, Who counts himself so needful to success. I failed: I throw the remedy back on God, And sit down here beside you, in good hope." "And yet take heed," I answered, " lest we lean Too dangerously on the other side, And so fail twice. Be sure, no ear- nest work Of any honest creature, howbeit weak, Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much It is not gathered as a grain of sand To enlarge the sum of human action iised For carrying out God's end. No crea- ture works So ill, observe, that therefore he's cashiered. The honest earnest man must stand and work. The woman also: otherwise she drops At once below the dignity of man, Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work. Whoever fears God fears to sit at ease." He cried, " True. After Adam, work was curse : The natural creature labors, sweats, and frets. But, after Christ, work turns to privi- lege, And henceforth, one with our human- ity, The Six-day Worker, working still in us. Has called us freely to work on with him In high companionship. So, hajv piest ! I count that heaven itself is only work To a surer issue. Let us work, in- deed, But no 'more work as Adam, nor as Leigh Erewhile, as if the only man on earth, Responsible for all the thistles blown. And tigers couchant, struggling in amaze Against disease and winter, snarling on Forever that the world's not para- dise. cousin, let us be content, in work, To do the thing we can, and not pre- sume To fret because it's little. 'Twill em- ploy Seven men they say to make a per- fect pin; Who makes the head, content to miss the point; Who makes the point, agreed to leave the join: And if a man should cry, ' I want a pin, And I nmst make it straightway, head and point,' His wisdom is not worth the pin he wants. Seven men to a pin, and not a man too much. Seven generations, haply, to this world. To right it visiblj^ a finger's breadth. And mend its rents a little. Oh, to storm And say, ' This world here is intolera- ble; 1 will not eat this corn, nor drink this wine. Nor love this woman, flinging her ray soul Without a bond for't as a lover should, Nor use the generous leave of happi- ness As not too good for using generous- ly '- (Since virtue kindles at the touch of joy. Like a man's cheek laid on a \yoman's hand, And God, who knows it, looks for quick returns AURORA LEIGH. 155 From joys) — to stand and claim to have a life Beyond the bounds of the iiulividnal man, And raze all personal cloisters of the soul To Iniild up public stores and maga- zines, As if God's creatures otherwise were lost, The builder surelj' saved by any means ! To think, — I have a pattern on my nail. And I will carve the world new after it, And solve so these hard social ques- tions, nay, Impossible social questions, since their roots Strike deep in e\irs own existence here, Which God ]iermits because the ques- tion's hard To abolish evil nor attaint fi-ee-will. Ay, hard to God, but not to llomney Leigh; For Komney has a pattern on his nail (Whatever may be lacking on the ]Mount), And, not being overnice to sepa- rate What's element from what's conven- tion, hastes By line on line to draw you out a world. Without your help indeed, unless you take His yoke ujwu you, and will learn of him, So much he has to teach ! — so good a world. The same the whole creation's groan- ing for ! No rich nor poor, no gain nor loss nor stint, No pottage in it able to exclude A brother's birthright, and no right of birth, The pottage, — both secured to every man. And perfect virtue dealt out like the rest Gratuitously, with the soup at six, To whoso does not seek it." " Softly, sir," I interrupted. " I had a cousin once I held in reverence. If he strained too wide, It was not to take honor, but give help. The gesture was heroic. If his hand Accomplished nothing . .^ (well, it is not jiroved) That empty hand thrown irapotently out Wert} sooner caught, I think, by One in heaven, Than many a hand that reaped a har- vest in And keeps the scythe's glow on it. Praj- you, then, For my sake merely, use less bitter- ness In speaking of my cousin." "Ah," he said, "Aurora! when the projihet beats the ass. The angel intercedes." He shook his head. " And yet to mean so well, and fail so foul, Expresses ne'er another beast than man: The antithesis is human. Hearken, dear : There's too much abstract willing, purposing, In this poor world. We talk by ag- gregates, And think by systems, and, being used to face Our evils in statistics, are inclined To cap them with unreal remedies Drawn out in haste on the other side the slate." "That's true," I ans\vered, fain to throw up thought. And make a game oft. "Yes, we generalize Enough to please you. If we pray at all, We pray no longer for oitr daily bread, But next centenary's harvests. If we give, Our cup of water is not tendered till We lay down pipes and found a com- pany With branches. Ass or angel, 'tis the same : A woman cannot do the thing she ought, Which means whatever perfect thing she can. In life, in art, in science, but she fears 15G AURORA LEIGH. To let the perfect action take her part, And rest there : she must prove what she can do Before slfe does it, prate of woman's rights, Of woman's mission, woman's func- tion, till The men (who are prating tbo on their side) cry, ' A woman's function plainly is . . . to talk.' l^oor souls, tlicy are very reasonably A'exed : They cannot hear each other talk." " And you, An artist, judge so ? " " I, an artist, yes. Because, precisely, I'm an artist, sir, And woman, if another sate in sight, I'd whisper, — ' Soft, my sister ! not a word ! By sjieaking we prove oidy Ave can speak, Which he, the man here, never doubted. What He doubts is, whether we can do the thing With decent grace we've not yet done at all. Now, do it; bi'ing your statue, — you have room ! He'll see it even by the starlight here; And if 'tis ere so little like the god Who looks out from the marble si- lently Along the "track of his own shining dart Through the dusk of ages, there's no need to speak: The universe shall henceforth speak for you. And witness, " ShcAvho did this thing was born To do it. — claims her license in her work.' " And so with more works. Whoso cures the plague. Though twice a woman, shall be called a leech; Who rights a land's finances is ex- cused For touching coppers, though her hands be white, — But we, we talk ! " " It is the age's mood," He said: " we boast, and do not. We put up Hostelry signs where'er we lodge a day. Some red colo-ssal cow with mighty paps A Cyclops' fingers could not strain to milk. Then bring out presently our saucer- ful Of curds. We want more quiet in our works. More knowledge of the bounds in which we work, More knowledge that each individual man Remains an jVdam to the general race. Constrained to see, like Adam, that he keep His personal state's condition hon- estly. Or vain all thoughts of his to help the world. Which still must be deA'eloped from its one, If bettered in its many. We indeed, Who think to lay it out new like a park, — We take a work on us which is not man's; For God alone sits far enough above To speculate so largely. None of us (Not Romney Leigh) is mad enough to say, We'll have a grove of oaks upon that slope. And sink the need of acorns. Gov- ernment, If A^eritable and lawful, is not given By imposition of the foreign hand. Nor chosen from a pretty pattern-book Of some domestic idealogue who sits And coldly chooses empire, where as well He might republic. Genuine govern- ment Is but the expression of a nation, gootl Or less good, even as all society, Howe'er unequal, monstrous, crazed, and cursed, Is but the expression of men's single lives. The loud sum of the silent units. What, We'd change the aggregate, and yet retain Each separate figure ? whom do we cheat by that ? Now, not even Romney." " Cousin, you are sad. AURORA LEIGH. 15' I Did all your social labor at Leigh Hall And elsewhere come to nought, then?" It was nought," He answered mildly. " There is room indeed For statues still, in this large world of God's, But not for vacuums : so I am not sad, — Not sadder than is good for what I am. My vain phalanstery dissolved itself ; My men and women of disordered lives, I brought in orderly to dine and sleep. Broke up those waxen masks I made them wear. With fierce contortions of the natural face, And cursed me for my tyrannous con- straint In forcing crooked creatures to live straight. And set the country hounds upon my back To bite and tear me for my wicked deed Of trying to do good without the church. Or even the squires, Aurora. Do you mind Your ancient neighbors ? The great •book-club teems With ' sketches,' ' summaries,' and ' last tracts,' but twelve, On socialistic troublers of close bonds Betwixt the generous rich and grate- ful pool". The vicar preached from ' Revela- tion,' (till The doctor woke) and found me with ' the frogs ' On three successive Sundays ; ay, and stopped To weep a little (for he's getting old) That such perdition should o'ertake a man Of such fair acres, — in the parish, too! He i^rinted his discourses ' by re- quest ; ' And, if your book shall sell as his did, then Your verses are less good than I sup- pose. The women of the neighborhood sub- scribed. And sent me a copy bound in scarlet silk. Tooled edges, blazoned with the arms of Leigh : I own that touched me." " What, the pretty ones ? Poor Romney ! " " Otherwise the effect was small. I had my windows broken once or twice By liberal peasants naturally in- censed At such a vexer of Arcadian peace, Who would not let men call their wives their own To kick like Britons, and made obsta- cles When things went smoothly, as a baby drugged, Toward freedom and starvation, bringing down The wicked London tavern-thieves and drabs To affront the blessed hillside drabs and thieves With mended morals, quotha, — fine new lives ! — My windows paid for't. I was shot at, once, By an active poacher who had hit a hare From the other barrel, (tired of springeing game So long upon my acres, undisturbed. And restless for the country's virtue ; yet He missed me) ay, and pelted very oft In riding through the village. ' There he goes, Who'd drive away our Christian gen- tlefolks, To catch us undefended in the traji He baits with poisonous cheese, and lock us up In that pernicious prison of Leigh With all his murderers ! Give another name. And say Leigh Hell, and burn it up with fire.' And so thev did, at last, Aurora." " Did ? " " You never heard it, cousin ? Vin- cent's news Came stinted, then." " They did ? They burnt Leigh Hall?" 15S AURORA LEIGH. "You're sorry, dear Aurora? Yes indeed, Tliey did it perfectly ; a thorough work, And not a failure, this time. Let us grant 'Tis somewhat easier, though, to burn a house Than yiuild a system ; yet that's easy, too — In a dream. Books, pictures, aj% the pictures ! What, You think your dear Vandykes would give them pause ? Our proud ancestral Leighs, with those peaked beards, Or bosoms white as foam thrown up on rocks From the old-spent wave. Such calm defiant looks They flared uji with ! now nevermore to twit The bones in the family vault with ugly death. Not one was rescued, save the Lady Maud, Who threw you down, that morning you were born, The undeniable lineal mouth and chin. To wear forever for her gracious sake ; For which good deed I saved lier : the rest went : And you, you're sorry, cousin. Well, for me, With all my phalansterians safely out, (Poor hearts, they helped the burners, it Mas said, And certainly a few clapped hands and yelled) The ruin did not hurt me as it might ; As when, for instance, I was hurt one day, A certain letter being destroyed. In fact. To see the great house flare so . . . oaken floors Our fathers made so fine with rushes once. Before our mothers furbished them with trains, Carved wainscoats, panelled walls, (the favorite slide For draining off a martyr — or a rogue) The echoing galleries, lialf a half-mile long, And all tlie various stairs that took you up. And took you down, and took you round aliout Upon their slippery darkness, recol- lect. All helping to keep up one blazing jest ; The flames through all the casements pushing forth Like red-hot devils crinkled into snakes. All signifying, ' Look you, Rojnnev Leigh, We save the people from your saving, here. Yet so as by fire ! we make a pretty show Besides,— and that's the best you've e\>er done.' — To see this, almost moved myself to clap. The ' vale et plaude ' came too with effect, When in the roof fell, and the fire that paused. Stunned momently beneath the stroke of slates And tumbling rafters, rose at once and roared, And, wrapping the whole house (which disappeared In a mounting whirlwind of dilated flame), Blew upward straight its drift of fiery chaff In the face of heaven . . . which blenched, and ran up higher." " Poor Romney ! " " Sometimes when I dream," he said, " I hear the silence after, 'twas so still. For all those wild beasts, yelling, cursing round. Were suddenly silent while you counted live., — So silent that you heard a young bird fall From the top-nest in the neighboring rookery, Through edging over-rashly toward the light. The old rooks had already fied too far To hear the screech they fled with, though you saw Some flying still, like scatterings of dead leaves " With one stone stair, symbolic of my life, Ascending, winding, leading up to nought." — Page 15Q. ^ « ■' A m\:: or THE ' AURORA LEIGH. 159 In autumn-gusts, seen dark against the sky, — All flying, ousted, like the house of Leigh." " Dear Romney ! " " Evidently 'twould have been A fine sight for a poet, sweet, like you. To make the verse blaze after. I my- self, Even I, felt something in the grand old trees, Which stood that moment like brute Druid gods Amazed upon the rim of ruin, where. As into a blackened socket, the great fire Had dropjied, still throwing up splin- ters now and then To show them gray with all their centuries. Left there to witness that on such a day The house went out." "Ah!" " While you counted tive, I seemed to feel a little like a Leigh ; But then it passed, Aurora. A child cried. And I had enough to think of what to do AVith all those houseless wretches in the dark. And ponder where they'd dance the next time, — they Who had burnt the viol." " Did you think of that ? Who burns his viol will not dance, I know, To cymbals, Romney." " O my sweet, sad voice," He cried, — " O voice that speaks and overcomes ! The sun is silent; but Aurora speaks." "Alas ! " I said, " I speak I know not what: I'm back in childhood, thinking as a child, A foolish fancy — will it make you smile? — I shall not from the window of my room Catch sight of those old chimneys any more." "No more," he answered. "If you pushed one day Through all the green hills to our fathers' house, You'd come upon a great charred cir- cle, where The patient earth was singed an acre round, With one stone stair, symbolic of mj- life. Ascending, winding, leading up to nought. 'Tis worth a poet's seeing. Will you go?" I made no answer. Had I any right To weep with this man, that I dared to speak ? A woman stood between his soul and mine. And waved us oiT from touching evermore, With those unclean white hands of hers. Enough. We bad burnt our viols and were silent. So, The silence lengthened till it pressed. I spoke To breathe, — "I think you were ill afterward." "More ill," he answered, "had been scarcely ill. I hoped this feeble fumbling at life's knot Might end concisely; but I failed to . die. As formerly I failed to live, and thus Grew willing, having tried all other ways. To try just God's. Humility's so good When pride's impossible. Mark us, how we make Our virtues, cousin, from our worn- out sins. Which smack of them from hence- forth. Is it right. For instance, to wed here while you love there ? And yet, because a man sins once, the sin Cleaves to him in necessity to sin. That if he sin not so, to damn him- self. He sins so, to damn others with him- self: And thus to wed here, loving there, becomes A duty. Virtue buds a dubious leaf i 160 AURORA LEIGH. Round mortal brows: your ivj's bet- ter, dear. — Yet she, 'tis certaiu, is my very wife, The very lamb left mangled by the wolves Through my own bad shepherding: and could I choose But take her on my shoulder i)ast this stretch Of rough, uneasj' wilderness, poor lamb. Poor child, poor child ? Aurora, my beloved, 1 will not vex you any more to-night; But, having spoken what I came to say. The rest shall please you. "What .she can in me, — Protection, tender liking, freedom, ease, — She shall have surely, liberally, for her And hers, Aurora. Small amends they'll make For hideous evils which she had not known Except by me, and for this imminent loss. This forfeit presence of a gracious friend, "Which also she must forfeit for my sake, Since . . . droji your hand in mine a moment, sweet, "We're parting! — Ah, my snowdrop, what a touch. As if the wind had swept it off ! you grudge Your gelid sweetness on my palm but so, A moment ? angry, that I could not bear Yon . . . speaking, breathing, living, side by side "With some one called my wife . . . and live myself? Nay, be not cruel: you must under- stand ! Your lightest footfall on a floor of mine "Would shake the house, my lintel being uncrossed 'Gainst angels: henceforth it is night with me. And so, henceforth, I put the shutters up: Auroras must not come to spoil rav dark." He smiled so feebly, with an empty hand Stretched sideway from me — as in- deed he looked To any one luit me to give him help; And while the moon came suddenly out full, The double-rose of our Italian moons, Sufficient plainly for the lieaven and earth, (The stars, struck dumb, and washed away in dews Of golden glory, and the mountains steeped In divine languor) he, the man, ai> peared So pale and patient, like the marble man A sculptor puts his personal sadness in To join his grandeur of ideal thought — As if his mallet struck me from my height Of passionate indignation, I who had risen Pale, doubting paused. . . . "S\"as Romney mad indeed ? Had all this wrong of heart juade sick the brain ? Then quiet, with a sort of trenndous pride, " Go, cousin," I .said coldlv: " a fare- well "Was sooner sjioken 'twixt a pair of friends In those old days than seems to suit you now. Howbeit, since then, I've writ a book or two, I'm somewhat dull still in the manly art Of phrase and metaphrase. "SV'hy, any man Can carve a score of white Loves out of snow, As Buonarroti in my Florence there. And set them on the wall in some safe shade, — As safe, sir, as your marriage ! very good; Though if a woman took one from the ledge To put it on the table by her flowers. And let it mind her of a certain friend, 'Twould dro]) at once, (so better) would not bear AURORA LEIGH. 161 Her }iail-iiiark even, where she took it up A little tenderly (so best, I say :) For me, I would not toucli the fragile thing And risk to S]>oil it half an honr before The sun shall shine to melt it: leave it there. I'm plain at speech, direct in pur- pose: when I speak, you'll take the meaning as it is. And not allow for puckerings in the silk By clever stitches. I'm a woman, sir, And use the woman's figures natu- rally, As you the male license. So, I wish you well. I'm simply sorry for the griefs you've had, And not for your sake only, but man- kind's. This race is never gi'ateful: from the first, One fills their cuj) at sujjiierwith pure wine, Which back they give at cross-time on a sponge, In vinegar and gall." " If gratefuller," He murnau-ed, " bv so mucli less jiitia- ble ! God's self would never have come dt)wn to die. Could man have thanked him for it." , "Happily 'Tis patent, thit, whatever," I re- sumed, " You suffered from this thankless- ness of men, You sink no more than Moses' bul- rush-boat When once relieved of Moses; for you're light. You're light, my cousin ! which is well for you. And manly. For myself — now mark me, sir. They burnt Leigh Hall; but if, coii- smn mated To devils, heightened beyond Luci- fers, They had burnt instead a star or two of those We saw above there just a moment back. Before the moon abolished them, destroyed And riddled them in ashes through a sieve On the head of tlie foundering uni- verse — what then ? If you and I remained still you and I, It could not shift our places as mere friends, Nor render decent you should toss a phrase Beyond the point of actual feeling ! — Nay, You shall not interruiit me: as you said, We're parting. Certainly, not once nor twice To-night you've mocked me some- what, or yourself. And I, at least, have not deserved it so That I should meet it unsurprised. But now. Enough. We're parting . . , parting. Cousin Leigh, I wish vou well through all the acts of life And life's relations, wedlock not the least. And it shall ' please me,' in your words, to know You yield your wife in-otection, free- dom, ease. And very tender liking. May you live So haijpy with her, Romney, that your friends Shall praise her for it. Meantime some of us Are wholly dull in keeping ignorant Of what she has suffered by you, and what debt Of sorrow your rich love sits down to pay: But, if 'tis sweet for love to pay its debt, 'Tis sweeter still for love to give its gift: And you, be liberal in the sweeter way ; You can, I think. At least as touches me. You owe her, cousin Komney, no amends. She is not used to hold my gown so fast You need entreat her now to let it go: The lady never was a friend of mine, Nor capable— I thought you knew aa much — i 162 AURORA LEIGH. Of losing for your sake so poor a prize As such a worthless friendship. Be content, Good cousin, therefore, both for her and you ! I'll never spoil your dark, nor dull your noon. Nor vex you when you're merry or at rest: You shall not need to put a shutter up To keep out this Aurora, though j-our north Can make Auroras which vex no- body. Scarce known from night, I fancied ! let me add, My larks fly higher tlian some win- dows. Well, You've read your Leighs. Indeed 'twould shake a house. If such as I came in with outstretched hand Still warm and thrilling from the clasp of one . . . Of one we know ... to acknowledge, palm to palm. As mistress there, the Lady Walde- mar." " Now God be with us ! " . . . with a sudden clash Of voice he interrupted. " What name's that ? You spoke a name, Aurora." " Pardon me: I would that, Romney, I could name your wife Nor wound you, yet be worthy." " Are we mad?" He echoed — "wife! mine! Lady Waldemar ! I think you said my wife." He sprang to his feet. And threw his noble head back toward the moon. As one who swims against a stormy sea, Then laughed with such a helpless, hopeless scorn, I stood and trembled. " May God judge me so ! " He said at last, — "I came convicted here. And humbled sorely, if not enough. T came. Because this woman from her crystal soul Had shown me something which a man calls light; Because too, formerly, I sinned by her, As then and ever since I haVe bv God, Through arrogance of nature, — though I loved . . . Whom best I need not say, since that is writ Too plainly in the book of my mis- deeds: And thus I came here to abase myself. And fasten, kneeling, on her regent brows A garland which I startled thence one day Of her beautiful June youth. But here again I'm bafHed, fail in my abasement as My aggrandizement: there's no room left for me At any woman's foot who miscon- ceives My nature, purpose, possible actions. What ! Are you the Aurora who made large my dreams To frame your greatness ? you con- ceive so small ? You stand so less than woman through being more, And lose your natural instinct (like a beast) Through intellectual culture ? since indeed I do not think that any common she Would dare adopt such monstrous forgeries For the legible life-signature of such As I, with all my blots, with all mv blots ! At last, then, peerless cousin, we arc; peers; At last we're even. Ah, you've left your height, And here upon my level we take hands. And here I reach you to forgive you, sweet, Aud that's a fall, Aurora. Long ago You seldom understood me; but be- fore I could not blame you. Then, you only seemed So high above, you could not see be- low; But now I breathe, — but now I par- don I Nay, We're parting. Dearest, men have burnt my house, AURORA LEIGH. 163 Maligned my motives; hut not one, I swear, Has wronged my soul as this Aurora has, Who called the Lady Waldemar my wife." " Not married to her ! Yet you said" . . . "Again? Nay, read the lines " (he held a letter out) " She sent you through me." By the moonlight there I tore the meaning out with passion- ate haste Much rather than I read it. Thus it ran. NINTH BOOK. Even thus. I pause to write it out at length, The letter of the Lady Waldemar. " I prayed your cousin Leigh to take you this ; He says he'll do it. After years of love. Or what is called so, when a woman frets And fools upon one string of a man's name. And fingers it forever till it breaks. He may perhaps do for her such a thing, And she accept it without detriment, Although she should not love him any more. And I, who do not love him, nor love you, Nor you, Aurora, choose you shall repent Your most ungracious letter, and con- fess, Constrained by his convictions, (he's convinced) You've wronged me foully. Are you made so ill, You woman, to impute such ill to me ? We both had mothers, — lay in their bosom once. And, after all, I thank you, Aurora Leigh, For proving to myself that there are thiuKS I would not do, — not for my life, nor him, — Though something I have somewhat overdone ; For instance, when I went to see the gods One morning on Olympus, with a step That shook the thunder from a cer- tain cloud. Committing myself vilely. Could I think The Muse I pulled my heart out from my breast To soften had herself a sort of heart. And loved my mortal ? He at least loved her, I heard hina say so: 'twas my rec- ompense. When, watching at his bedside four- teen days, He broke out ever, like a flame at whiles Between the heats of fever, "Is it thou? Breathe closer, sweetest mouth ! ' And when, at last The fever gone, the wasted face ex- tinct, As if it irked him much to know me there, He said, ' 'Twas kind, 'twas good, 'twas womanly,' (And fifty praises to excuse no love), ' But was the picture safe he had ven- tured for ? ' And then, half wandering, — 'I have loved her well, « Although she could not love rue.' ' Say instead,' I answered, ' she does love you.' 'Twas my turn To rave: I would have married him so changed. Although the world had jeered me properly For taking uj) with Cupid at his worst, The silver quiver worn off on his hair. ' No, no,' he murmured, ' no, she loves me not; Aurora Leigh does better. Bring her book And read it softly. Lady Waldemar, Until I thank your friendship more for that Than even for harder service.' So I read Your book, Aurora, for an hour that day: AURORA LEIGH. I kept its pauses, marked its empha- sis; My voice, empaled upon its hooks of rhyme, Not once would writhe, nor quiver, nor revolt; I read on calmly, — calmly shut it up, Observing, ' There's some merit in the book; And yet the merit in't is thrown away, As chances still with women if we write Or write not: we want string to tie our flowers. So drop them as we walk, which serves to show The way we went. Good-morning, Mister Leigh; You'll find another reader the next time. A woman who does better than to love, I hate; she will do nothing very well: Male poets are preferable, straining less. And teaching more.' I triumphed o'er you both. And left him. " When I saw him afterward, I had read your shameful letter, and my heart. He came with health recovered, strong, though pale, — Lord Howe and he, a courteous pair of friends, — Ho say what men dare say to women, when Their debtors. But I stopped them with a word. And proved I had never trodden such a road To carry so much dirt upon my shoe. Then, putting into it something of disdain, I asked forsooth his pardon, and my own. For having done no better than to love. And that not wisely, though 'twas long ago. And had been mended radically since. I told him, as I tell you now, Miss Leigh, And proved I took some trouble, lor his sake, (Because I knew he did not love the girl) To spoil my hands with working in the stream Of that poor bubbling nature, till she went. Consigned to one I trusted (my own maid "Who once had lived full five months in my house. Dressed hair superbly) with a lavish purse To carry to Australia where she had left A husband, said she. If the creature lied. The mission failed, — we all do fail and lie More or less, — and I'm sorry, wliich is all Expected from ua when we fail the most. And go to church to own it. What I meant Was just the best for him, and me, and her . . . Best even for Marian ! — I am sorry for't, And very sorry. Yet my creature said She saw her stop to speak in Oxford Street To one ... no matter ! I had sooner cut My hand off (though 'twere kissed the hour before. And promised a duke's troth-ring for the next) Than crush her silly head with so much wrong. Poor child ! I would have mended it with gold, Until it gleamed like St. Sophia's dome When all the faithful troojj to morning prayer: But he, he nipped the bud of such a thought With that cold Leigh look which I fancied once, And broke in, ' Henceforth she was called his wife. His wife required no succor: he was bound To Florence to resume this broken bond ; Enough so. Both were haj^py, he and Howe, To acquit me of the heaviest charge of all' — — At which I shot my tongue against my fly. A U ROE A LEIGH. And struck him: ' Would he carry, he was just, A letter from me to Aurora Leigh, And ratify from his authentic mouth My answer to her accusation ? ' — ' Yes, If such a letter were prepared in time.' — He's just, your cousin; ay, abhor- ently : He'd wash his hands in blood to keep them clean. And so, cold, courteous, a mere gen- tleman, He bowed, we parted. " Parted. Face no more. Voice no more, love no more ! wiped wholly out. Like some ill scholar's scrawl from heart and slate ; Ay, spit on, and so wiped out utterly, By some coarse scholar ! I have been too coarse, Too human. Have we business, in our rank. With blood i' the veins ? I will have henceforth none. Not even to keep the color at my lip. A rose is pink and pretty without blood ; Why not a woman? When we've played in vain The game, to adore, — we have re- sources still, And can play on, at leisure, being adored : Here's Smith already swearing at my feet That I'm the typic she. Awa'y with Smith ! — Smith smacks of Leigh, — and hence- forth I'll admit No socialist within three crinolines. To live and have his being. But for you. Though insolent your letter and ab- surd, And tliough I hate you frankly, — take my Smith ! ' For when you have seeu this famous marriage tied, A most unspotted Erie to a noble Leigli, (His love astray on one he should not love) Howbeit you may not want his love, beware. You'll want some comfort. So I leave you Smith; Take Smith ! — he talks Leigh's sub- jects, somewhat worse; Adopts a thought of Leigh's, and dwindles it; Goes leagues beyond, to be no inch behind ; Will mind you of him, as a shoe- string may Of a man: and women when they are made like you Grow tender to a shoe-string, foot^ print even. Adore averted shoulders in a glass, And memories of what, present once, was loathed. And yet you loathed not Romney, though you played At ' fox-and-goose ' about him with your soul: Pass OA'er fox, you rub outfox, — ig- nore A feeling, you eradicate it — the act's Identical. " I wish you joy. Miss Leigh, You've made a happy marriage for your friend, And all the honor, well-assorted love. Derives from you who love him, whom he loves ! You need not wish me joy to think of it, I have so much. ObserA^e, Aurora Leigh, Your droop of eyelid is the same as his. And but for you I might have won his love. And to you I have shown my naked heart; For which three things, I hate, hate, hate you. Hush ! Suppose a fourth, — I cannot choose but think That, with him, I were virtuouser than you Without him: so I hate you from this gulf And hollow of my soul which opens out To what, except for you, had been my heaven. And is, instead, a place to curse by ! Love." An active kind of curse. I stood there cursed, Confounded. I had seized and caught the sense 1G6 AURORA LEIGH. Of the letter, with its twenty sting- ing snakes, In a moment's sweep of eyesight, and I stood Dazed. " Ah ! not married." " You mistake," he said, "I'm married. Is not Marian Erie my wife ? As God sees things, I have a wife and child; And I, as I'm a man who honors God, Am here to claim them as my child and wife. I felt it hard to breathe, much less to speak. Nor word of mine was needed. Some one else Was there for answering. " Rom- ney," she began, " My great good angel, Romney." Then, at first, I knew that Marian Erie was beauti- ful. She stood there, still and pallid as a saint, Dilated, like a saint in ecstasy, As if the floating moonshine inter- posed Betwixt her foot and the earth, and raised her up To fioat upon it. "I had left my child. Who sleeps," she said, "aud, having drawn this way, I heard you speaking . . . friend ! — Confirm me now. You take this Marian, such as wicked men Have made her, for your honorable wife?" The thrilling, solemn, proud, pathetic voice. He stretched his arms out toward that thrilling voice. As if to draw it on to his embrace. — "I take her as God made her, and as men Must fail to unmake her, for my hon- ored wife." She never raised her eyes, nor took a step. But stood there in her place, aud spoke again. — "You take this Marian's child, which is her sliame In sight of men and women, for your child. Of whom j'ou will not ever feel ashamed?" The thrilling, tender, proud, pathetic voice. He stepped on toward it, still with outstretched arms. As if to quench upon his breast that voice. — "May God so father me as I do him. And so forsake me as I let him feel He's orphaned haply. Here I take the child To share my cup, to slumber on my knee. To play his loudest gambol at my foot. To hold my finger in the public ways. Till none shall need inquire, ' Whose child is this ? ' The gesture saying so tenderly, ' Mj-^ own.' " She stood a moment silent in her place ; Then turning toward me very slow and cold, — " And you, — what say you ? — will you blame me much. If, careful for that outcast child of mine, I catch this hand that's stretched to me and him. Nor dare to leave him friendless in the world Where men have stoned me ? Have I not the right To take so mere an aftermath from life, Else found so wholly bare ? Or is it wrong To let your cousin, for a generous bent. Put out his ungloved fingers among briers To set a tumbling bird's nest some- what straight ? You will not tell him, though we're innocent, We are not harmless . . . and that both our harms Will stick to his good, smooth, noble life like burrs, Never to drop off, though he shakes the cloak ? AURORA LEIGH. 16' You've been my friend: you will not now be his ? You've known him that he's worthy of a fi-iend, And you're his cousin, lady, after all, And therefore more than free to take his part. Explaining, since the nest is surely spoilt, And Marian what you know her, — though a wife. The world would hardly understand her case Of being just hurt and honest; while for him, 'Twould ever twit him with his bas- tard child And married harlot. Speak while yet there's time. You would not stand and let a good man's dog Turn round and rend him, because his, and reared Of a generous breed; and will you let his act. Because it's generous ? Speak. I'm bound to you. And I'll be bound by ouly you in this." The thrilling, solemn voice, so pas- sionless. Sustained, yet low, without a rise or fall. As one who had authority to speak, And not as Marian. I looked up to feel If God stood near me, and beheld his heaven As blue as Aaron's priestly robe ap- peared To Aaron when he took it off to die. And then I spoke, — "Accept the gift, I say, My sister Marian, and be satisfied. The hand that gives has still a soul behind "Which will not let it quail for having given, Though foolish worldlings talk they know not what Of what they know not. Romuey's strong enough For this: do you be strong to know he's strong. He stands on right's side: never flinch for him. As if he stood on the other. You'll be bound By me ? I am a woman of repute ; No fly-blow gossip ever specked my life; My name is clean and open as this hand, Whose glove there's not a man dares blab about. As if he had touched it freely. Here's my hand To clasp your hand, my Marian, owned as pure ! — As pure, as I'm a woman and a Leigh ; And, as I'm both, I'll witness to the world That Romney Leigh is honored in his choice Who chooses Marian for his honored wife." Her broad wild woodland eyes shot out a light; Her smile was wonderful for raptiire. " Thanks, My great Aurora." Forward then she sprang, And, dropping her impassioned span- iel head With all its brown abandonment of curls On Romney's feet, we heard the kisses drawn Through sobs upon the foot, upon the ground — " O Romney ! O my angel ! O un- changed ! Though since we've parted I have passed the grave. But death itself could only better thee. Not change thee. Thee I do not thank at all : I but thank God who made thee what thou art, So wholly godlike." When he tried in vaiu To raise her to his embrace, escaping thence As any leaping fawn from a hunts- man's grasp, She bounded off, and 'lighted beyond reach, Before him, with a staglike majesty Of soft, serene defiance, as she knew He could not touch her, so was toler- ant He had cared to try. She stood there with her great Drowned eyes, and dripping cheeks, and strange sweet smile 168 AURORA LEIGH. That lived through all, as if one held a light Across a waste of waters, — shook her head To keep some thoughts down deeper in her soul, — Then, white and tranquil like a sum- mer-cloud, Which, having rained itself to a tardy peace, Stands still in heaven as if it ruled the day, Spoke out again, — "Although, my generous friend. Since last we met and parted you're unchanged. And, having promised faith to Marian Erie, Maintain it, as she were not changed at all ; And though that's worthy, though that's full of balm To any conscious spirit of a girl Who once has loved you as I loved you once, — Yet still it will not make her ... if she's dead, And gone away where none can give or take In marriage, — able to revive, return And wed you, — will it, Romney ? Here's the point ; My friend, we'll see it plainer : you and I Must never, never, never join hands so. Nay, let me say it ; for I said it first To God, and placed it, rounded to an oath. Far, far above the moon there, at his feet. As surely as I wept just now at yours, — We never, never, never join hands so. And now, be patient with me : do not think I'm speaking from a false humility. The truth is, I am grown so proud with grief. And He has said so often through his nights And through his mornings, ' Weep a little still, Thou foolish Marian, because women must. But do not blush at all except for sin,' — That I, who felt myself unworthy once Of virtuous Romney and his high- born race, Have come to learn, — a woman, poor or rich. Despised or honored, is a human soul, And what her soul is, that she is herself, Although she should be spit upon of men. As is the pavement of the churches here, Still good enough to pray in. And being chaste And honest, and inclined to do the right. And love the truth, and live my life out green And smooth beneath his steps, I should not fear To make him thus a less uneasy time Than many a hapiner woman. Very proud You see me. Pardon, that I set a trap To hear a confirmation in your voice, Both yours and yours. It is so good to know 'Twas really God who said the same before ; And thus it is in heaven, that first God speaks. And then his angels. Oh, it does me good, It wipes me clean and sweet from devil's dirt. That Romney Leigh should think me worthy still Of being his true and honorable wife ! Henceforth I need not say, on leaving earth, I had no glory in it. For the rest. The reason's ready (master, angel, friend, Be patient with me) wherefore you and I Can never, never, never join hands so. I know you'll not be angry like a man (For you are none) when I shall tell the truth. Which is, I do not love you, Romney Leigh, I do not love you. Ah, well ! catch ray hands, Miss Leigh, and burn into my eyes with yours, — I swear I do not love him. Did I once? 'Tis said that women have been bruised to death, AURORA LEIGH. 169 And yet, if once they loved, that love of theirs Could never be drained out with all their blood : I've heard such things and pondered. Did I indeed Love once ? or did I only worship ? Yes, Perhaps, O friend, I set you up so high Above all actual good, or hope of good, Or fear of evil, all that could be mine, I haply set you above love itself, And out of reach of these poor wo- man's arms, Angelic Romnev. What was in my thought? " To be your slave, your help, your toy, your tool. To be your love ... I never thought of that. To give you love . . . still less. I gave you love ? I think I did not give you any thing ; I was but only yours, — upon my knees. All yours, in soul and body, in head and heart, — A creature you had taken from the ground, Still crumbling through your fingers to your feet To join the dust she came from. Did I love, Or did I worship? Judge, Aurora Leigh ! But, if indeed I loved, 'twas long ago. So long! — before the sun and moon were made. Before the hells were open, ah, be- fore I heard my child cry in the desert night, And knew he had no father. It may be I'm not as strong as other women are, Who, torn and crushed, are not un- done from love. It may be I am colder than the dead, Who, being dead, love always. But for me. Once killed, this ghost of Marian loves no more. No more . . . except the child . . . no more at all. I told your cousin, sir, that I was dead ; And now she thinks I'll get up from my grave, And wear my chin-cloth for a wed- ding-veil, And glide along the churchyard like a bride. While all the dead keep whispering through the withes, ' You would be better in your place with us, You pitiful corruption ! ' At the thought. The damps break out on me like lep- rosy. Although I'm clean. Ay, clean as Marian Erie ! As Marian Leigh, I know I were not clean: Nor have I so much life that I should love, Except the child. Ah God ! I could not bear To see my darling on a good man's knees, And know by such a look, or such a sigh. Or such a silence, that he thought sometimes. 'This child was fathered by some cursed wretch ' . . . For, Romney, angels are less tender- wise Than God and mothers: even yo^i would think What ive think never. He is ours, the child; And we would sooner vex a soul in heaven By coupling witli it the dead body's thought It left behind it in a last month's grave Than in my child see other than . . . my child. We only never call him fatherless Who has God and his mother. O my babe. My pretty, pretty blossom an ill wind Once blew upon my breast ! Can any think I'd have another, — one called hap- pier, A fathered child, with father's love and race That's worn as bold and open as a smile. To vex my darling when he's asked his name h AURORA LEIGH. And has no answer ? What ! a hap- pier child Than mine, my best, who laughed so loud to-night He could not sleep for pastime ? Nay, I swear By life and love, that if I lived like some, And loved like . . . some, ay, loved you, Romney Leigh, As some love, (eyes that have wept so much see clear) I've room for no more children in mj' arms. My kisses are all melted on one mouth, I would not push ray darling to a stool To dandle babies. Here's a hand shall keep Forever clean without a marriage- ring. To tend my boy until he cease to need One steadying finger of it, and desert (Not miss) his mother's lap to sit with men. And when I miss him (not he me) I'll come And say, ' Now give me some of Rom- ney's work, — To help your outcast orphans of the world And comfort grief with grief.' For you, meantime. Most noble Romney, wed a noble wife. And open on each other your great souls: I need not farther bless you. If I dared But strain and touch her in her upper sphere And say, ' Come down to Romney — pay my debt ! ' I should be joyful with the stream of joy Sent through me. But the moon is in my face . . . I dare not, — though I guess the name he loves: I'm learned with my studies of old days. Remembering how he crushed his under lip When some one came and spoke, or did not come: Aurora, I could touch her with my hand, And tiy because I dare uot." She was gone. He smiled so sternly that I spoke in haste. "Forgive her— she sees clearly for herself: Her instinct's holy." " / forgive ! " he said, " I only marvel how she sees so sure. While others " . . . there he paused, then hoarse, abrupt, — " Aurora, you forgive us, her and me ? For her, the thing she sees, poor loyal child. If once corrected by the thing I know. Had been unspoken, since she loves you well. Has leave to love you; while for me, alas ! If once or twice I let my heart escape This night . . . remember, where hearts slip and fall They break beside: we're parting, — parting, — ah. You do not love, that you should surely know What that word means. Forgive, be tolerant: It had not been, but that I felt myself So safe In impuissance and despair I could not hurt you, though I tossed my arms And sighed my soul out. The most utter wretch Will choose his postures when he comes to die, However in the presence of a queen; And you'll forgive me some unseemly spasms Which meant no more than dying. Do you think I had ever come here in mj"^ perfect mind, Unless I had come here in my settled mind Bound Marian's, — bound to keep the bond, and give My name, my house, my hand, the things i could. To Marian ? For even / could give as much: Even I, affronting her exalted soul By a supposition that she wanted these. Could act the husband's coat and hat set up To creak i' the wind, and drive the world-crows off From pecking in her garden. Straw can fill II AURORA LEIGH. 171 A hole to keep out vermin. Now, at last, T own heaven's angels round her life suffice To fight the rats of our society, Without this Romney. I can see it at last; And here is ended my pretension which The most pretended. Over-proud of coui'se. Even so ! — but not so stupid . . . blind . . . that I, Whom thus the great Taskmaster of the world Has set to meditate mistaken work, — My dreary face against a dim Itlank wall Throughout man's natural lifetime, — could pretend Or wish . . . O love, I have loved you ! O my soul, I have lost you ! But I swear by all yourself, And all you might liave been to nie these years If that June morning had not failed my hope, I'm not so bestial to regret that day This night, — this night, which still to you is fair; Nay, not so blind, Aurora. I attest Those stars above us which I cannot see "... " You cannot "... " That if Hea;ven itself should stoop, Remix the lots, and give me another chance, I'd say, ' No other ! ' I'd record my blank. Aurora never should be wife of mine." " Not see the stars ? " " 'Tis worse still not to see To find your hand, although we're parting, dear. A moment let me hold it ere we part, And understand my last words — these at last ! — 1 would not have you thinking when I'm gone That Romney dared to hanker for your love In thought or vision, if attainable, (Which certainly for me it never was) And wished to use it for a dog to- day To help the blind man stumbling. God forbid ! And now I know he held j'ou in his palm, And kept you open-eyed to all my faults. To save you at last from such a dreary end. Believe me. dear, that if I had known, like him. What loss was coming on me, I had done As well in this as he has. — Farewell you Who are still my light, — farewell! How late it is ! I know that now. You've been too patient, sweet. I will but blow my whistle toward the lane, And some one comes, — the same who brought me here. Get in. Good-night." " A moment. Heavenly Christ ! A moment. Speak once, Romney. 'Tis not true. I hold your hands, I look into your face — You see me?" " No more than the blessed stars. Be blessed too, Aurora. Nay, my sweet, You tremble. Tender-hearted ! Do you mind Of yore, dear, how you used to cheat old John, And let the mice out slyly from his traps. Until he marvelled at the soul in mice Which took the cheese, and left the snare ? The same Dear soft heart always ! 'Twas for this I grieved Howe's letter never reached you. Ah, you had heard Of illness, not the issue, not the ex- tent, — My life long sick with tossings up and down. The sudden revulsion in the blazing house. The strain and struggle both of body and soul. Which left fire running in my veins for blood Scarce lacked that thunderbolt of the falling beam Which nicked me ou the forehead as I passed 172 AURORA LEIGH. The gallery-door with a burden. Say heaven's bolt, Not William Erie's, not Marian's father's, — tramp And poacher, whom I found for what he was, And, eager for her sake to rescue him. Forth swept from the open highway of the world. Road-dust and all, till, like a wood- land boar Most naturally unwilling to be tamed, He notched me with his tooth. But not a word To Marian ! And I do not think, be- sides, He turned the tilting of the beam my way; And if he laughed, as many swear, poor wretch, Nor he nor I supposed the hurt so deep. We'll hope his next laugh may be merrier. In a better cause." " Blind, Romney?" ' " Ah, my friend, You'll learn to say it in a cheerful voice. I, too, at first desjionded. To be blind. Turned out of nature, mulcted as a man. Refused the daily largess of the sun To humble creatures ! When the fever's heat Dropped from me, as the flame did from my house, And left me ruined like it, stripped of all The hues and shapes of aspectable life, A mere bare blind stone in the blaze of day, A man, upon the outside of the earth. As dark as ten feet under, in the grave, — Why, that seemed hard." "No hope?" " A tear ! you weep. Divine Aurora? tears upon my hand ! I've seen you weeping for a mouse, a bird, — But, weep for me, Aurora? Yes, there's hope. No hope of sight : I could be learned, dear, And tell you in what Greek and Latin name The visiial nerve is withered to the root, Though the outer eyes appear indif- ferent, Unspotted in their crystals. But there's hope. The spirit, from behind this de- throned sense, Sees, waits in patience till the walls break up From which the bas-relief and fresco have dropt: There's hope. The man here, once so arrogant And restless, so ambitious, for his part, Of dealing with statistically packed Disorders (from a pattern on his nail), And packing such things quite an- other way. Is now contented. From his personal loss He has come to hope for others when they lose, And wear a gladder faith in what we gain . . . Through bitter experience, compen- sation sweet. Like that tear, sweetest. I am quiet now. As tender surely for the suffering world, But quiet, — sitting at the wall to learn. Content henceforth to do the thing I can; For though as powerless, said I, as a stone, A stone can still give shelter to a worm. And it is worth while being a stone for that. There's hope, Aurora." " Is there hope for me ? For me ? — and is there room beneath the stone For such a worm ? And if I came and said . . . What all this weeping scarce will let me say, And yet what women cannot say at all But weeping bitterly . . . (the pride keeps up Until the heart breaks under it) . , . I love, — I love you, Romney " . . . AURORA LEIGH. 173 " Silence ! " he exclaimed. " A woman's pity sometimes makes her mad. A man's distraction must not cheat liis soul To take advantage of it. Yet 'tis hard — Farewell, Aurora." " But I love you, sir; And when a woman says she loves a man, The man must hear her, though he love her not, Which . . . hush ! ... he has leave to answer in his turn: She will not surely blame him. As for me, You call it pity, think I'm generous ? 'Twere somewhat easier, for a woman proud As I am, and I'm very vilely proud. To let it pass as such, and press on you Love born of pity, — seeing that ex- cellent love.s Are born so, often, nor the quicklier die, — And this would set me higher by the head Than now I stand. No matter. Let the truth Stand high; Aurora must be humble : no, My love's not pity merely. Obviously I'm not a generous woman, never was, Or else, of old, I had not looked so near To weights and measures, grudging you the power To give, as first I scorned your power to judge For me, Aurora. I would have no gifts Forsooth, but God's ; and I would use them, too. According to my pleasure and my choice. As he and I were equals, yovi below, Excluded from that level of inter- change Admitting benefaction. You were wrong In much ? you said so. I was wrong in most. Oh, most ! You only thought to res- cue men By half-means, half-way, seeing half their wants, While thinking nothing of your per- sonal gain. But I, who saw the human nature broad At both sides, comprehending too the soul's, And all the high necessities of art, Betrayed the thing I saw, and wronged my own life For which I pleaded. Passioned to exalt The artist's instinct in me at the cost Of putting down the woman's, I for- got No perfect artist is developed here From any imperfect woman. Flower from root. And spiritual from natural, grade by grade In all our life. A handful of the earth To make God's image ! the despised poor earth, The healthy odorous earth, — I missed, with it The divine breath that blows the nos- trils out To ineffable inflatus, — ay, the breath Which love is. Art is much ; but love is more. art, my art, thou'rt much ; but love is more ! Art symbolizes heaven ; but love is God, And makes heaven. I, Aurora, fell from mine. 1 would not be a woman like the rest, A simple woman who believes in love. And owns the right of love because she loves. And, hearing she's beloved, is satis- fied With what contents God : I must analyze. Confront, and question, just as if a fly Refused to warm itself in any sun Till such was in leone : I must fret, Forsooth, because the month was only May, Be faithless of the kind of proffered love, And captious, lest it miss my dignity, And scornful, that my lover sought a wife To use ... to use ! O Romney, O my love ! I am changed since then, changed whollv ; for indeed 174 AURORA LEIGH. If now you'd stoop so low to take my love, And use it roughly, without stint or spare, As men use common things with more behind, (And, in this, ever would be more be- hind) To any mean and ordinary end. The joy would set me, like a star in heaven. So high up, I should shine because of height. And not of virtue. Yet in one respect. Just one, beloved, I am in no wise changed : I love you, loved you . . . loved you first and last, And love you on forever. Now I know I loved you always, Romney. She who died Knew that, and said so ; Lady Walde- uiar Knows that . . . and Marian. I had known the same. Except that I was prouder than I knew. And not so honest. Ay, and as I live, I should have died so, crushing in my hand This rose of love, the wasp inside and all, Ignoring ever to my soul and you Both rose and pain, — except for this great loss, This great despair, — to stand before your face And know you do not see me where I stand. You think, jierhaps, I am not changed from pride, And that I chiefly bear to say such words Because you cannot shame me with your eyes ? calm, grand eyes, extinguished in a storm. Blown out like lights o'er melancholy seas, Though shrieked for by the ship- wrecked ! O my Dark, My Cloud, — to go before me every day, While I go ever toward the wilder- ness, — 1 would that you could see me bare to the soul ! If this be pity, 'tis so for myself. And not for Romney : he can stand alone ; A man like him is never overcome : No woman like me counts him pitia- ble While saints apjilaud him. He mis- took the world ; But I mistook my own heart, and that slip Was fatal. Romney, will you leave me here ? So wrong, so proud, so weak, so un- consoled, So mere a woman ! — and I love you so, I love you, Romney " — Could I see his face I wept so ? Did I drop against his breast. Or did his arms constrain me ? Were my cheeks Hot, overflooded, with my tears, or his? And which of our two large explosive hearts So shook me ? That I know not. There were words That broke in utterance . . . melted in the fire ; Embrace that was convulsion . . . then a kiss As long and silent as the ecstatic night. And deep, deep, shuddering breaths, which meant beyond Whatever could be told by word or kiss. But what he said ... I have written day by day. With somewhat even writing. Did I think That such a passionate rain would intercept And dash this last page ? What he said, indeed, I fain would write it down here like the rest. To keep it in my eyes, as in my ears. The heart's sweet scrijiture, to be read at night When weary, or at morning when afraid, And lean my heaviest oath on when I swear. That when all's done, all tried, all counted here, All great arts, and all good philoso- phies, AURORA LEIGH. 175 This love just puts its hand out in a dream, And straight outstretches all things. What he said I fain would write. But, if an angel spoke In thunder, should we haply know much more Than that it thundered ? If a cloud came down And wrapt us wholly, could we draw its shape, As if on the outside, and not over- come? And so he spake. His breath against my face Confused his words, yet made them more intense, — (As when the sudden finger of the wind Will wipe a row of single city lamps To a pure white line of flame, more luminous Because of obliteration) more intense. The intimate presence carrying in itself Comi^lete communication, as with souls, Who, having put the body off, per- ceive Through simply being. Thus 'twas granted me To know he loved me to the depth and height Of such large natures, ever compe- tent. With grand horizons by the sea or land, To love's grand suni-ise. Small spheres hold small fires; But he loved largely, as a man can love, Who, bafHed in his love, dares live his life. Accept the ends which God loves, for his own. And lift a constant aspect. From the day I brought to England my poor search- ing face, (An orphan even of my father's grave) He had loved me, watched me, watched his soul in mine. Which in me grew and heightened into love. For he, a boy still, had been told tlie tale Of how a fairy bride from Italy, With smells of oleanders in her hair. Was coming through the vines to touch his hand; Whereat the blood of boyhood on the palm Made sudden heats. And when at last I came, And lived before him, lived, and rarely smiled. He smiled, and loved me for the thing I was. As every child will love the year's first flower, (Not certainly the fairest of the year. But in which the complete year seems to blow) The poor sad snowdrop, growing be- tween drifts, Mysterious medium 'twixt the plant and frost, So faint with winter while so quick with spring. And doubtful if to thaw itself away With that snow near it. Not tliat Romney Leigh Had loved me coldly. If I thought so once. It was as if I had held my hand in fire. And shook for cold. But now I un- derstood Forever, that the very fire and heat Of troubling passion in him burned him clear. And shaped to dubious order word and act ; That, just because he loved me over all,— All wealth, all lands, all social privi- lege. To which chance made him unex- pected heir, — And just because on all these lesser gifts. Constrained by conscience and the sense of wrong. He had stamped with steady hand God's arrow-mark Of dedication to the human need. He thought it should be so, too, with his love. He, passionately loving, would bring down His love, his life, his best, (because the best) His bride of dreams, who walked so still and high Through flowery poems, as through meadow-grass. 176 T AURORA LEIGH. The dust of goldea lilies on her feet, That she should walk beside him on the rocks In all that clang and hewing out of men, And helj) the work of help which was his life. And prove he kept back nothing, — not his soul. And when I failed him, — for I failed him, I, — And when it seemed he had missed my love, he thought, " Aurora makes room for a working- noon," And so, self-girded with torn strips of hope. Took up his life as if it were for death, (Just capable of one heroic aim) And threw it in the thickest of the world. At which men laughed as if he had drowned a dog. No wonder, — since Aurora failed him first ! The morning and the evening made his day. But oh the night ! O bitter-sweet 1 O sweet ! O dark, O moon and stars, O ecstasy Of darkness 1 O great mystery of love, lu which absorbed, loss, anguish, treason's self, Enlarges rapture, as a pebble dropt In some full winecup over-brims the wine ! While we two sate together, leaned that night So close my very garments crept and thrilled With strange electric life, and both my cheeks Grew red, then pale, with touches from my hair In which his breath was; while the golden moon Was hung before our faces as the badge Of some sublime, inherited despair. Since ever to be seen by only one, — A voice said, low and rapid as a sigh. Yet breaking, I felt conscious, from a smile, " Thank God, who made me blind to make me see ! Shine on, Aurora, dearest light of souls, Which rul'st forevermore both day and night ! I am happy." I flung closer to his breast, As sword that after battle flings to sheath ; And, in that hurtle of united souls, The mystic motions which in com- mon moods Are shut beyond our sense broke in on us, And, as we sate, we felt the old eartli spin, And all the starry turbulence of worlds Swing round us in their audient cir- cles, till If that same golden moon were over- head Or if beneath our feet, we did not know. And then calm, equal, smooth with weights of joy. His voice rose, as some chief musi- cian's song Amid the old Jewish temple's Selali- pause, And bade me mark how we two met at last Upon this moon-bathed promontory of earth, To give up much on each side, then take all. "Beloved," it sang, "we must be here to work; And men who work can only work for men. And, not to work in vain, must com- prehend Humanity, and so work humanly. And raise men's bodies still by rais- ing souls. As God did first." " But stand upon the earth," I said, " to raise them, (this is human too; There's nothing high which has not first been low; My humbleness, said One, has made me great !) As God did last." " And work all silently And simply," he returned, " as God does all; Distort our nature never for our work. Nor count our right hands stronger for being hoofs. i AURORA LETGH. i I The man most man, with tendercst human hands, Works best for men, as God in Nazareth." He paused upon the word, and then resumed : " Fewer programmes, we who have no prescience. Fewer systems, we who are held, and do not hold. Less mapping out of masses to be saved, By nations or by sexes. Fourier's void. And Corate absurd, and Cabet, puerile. Subsist no rules of life outside of life, No perfect manners, without Chris- tian souls: The Christ himself had been no Law- giver Unless he had given the life too, with the law." I echoed thoughtfully, — "Tlie man most man Works best for men, and, if most man indeed. He gets his manhood plainest from his soul; While obviously this stringent soul itself Obeys the old law of development. The Spirit ever witnessing in ours. And love, the soul of soul, within the soul. Evolving it sublimely. First, God's love." "And next," he smiled, " the love of wedded souls, Which still presents that mystery's counteriiart. Sweet shadow-rose upon the water of life. Of such a mystic substance, Sharon gave A name to ! human, vital, fructuous rose. Whose calyx holds the multitude of leaves. Loves filial, loves fraternal, neighbor- loves And civic, — all fair petals, all good scents, All reddened, sweetened, from one central Heart ! " " Alas ! " I cried, " it was not long ago You swore this very social rose smelt ill." " Alas ! " he answered, " is it arose at all? The final's thankless, the fraternal's hard, The rest is lost. I do but stand and think. Across the waters of a troubled life, This flower of heaven so vainly over- hangs. What perfect counterpart would be in sight If tanks were clearer. Let us clean the tubes, And wait for rains. O jJoet, O my love, Since / was too ambitious in my deed, And thought to distance all men in success, (Till God came on me, marked the place, and said, ' Ill-doer, henceforth keep within this line. Attempting less than others;' and I stand And work among Christ's little ones, content, ) Come thou, my compensation, my dear sight, My morning-star, my morning ! rise and shine. And touch my hills with radiance not their own. Shine out for two, Aurora, and fulfil My falling-short that must be ! work for two. As I, though thus restrained, for two shall love ! Gaze on, with insolent vision, toward the sun. And from his visceral heat pluck out the roots Of light beyond him. Art's a ser- vice, mark: A silver key is given to thy clasp. And thou shalt stand unwearied, night and day. And fix it in the hard, slow-turning wards. To open, so, that intermediate door Betwixt the different planes of sensu- ous form And form insensuous, that inferior men 178 AURORA LEIGH. May learn to feel on still through these to those, And bless thy ministration. The world waits For help. Beloved, let us love so well, Our work shall still be better for our love, And still our love be sweeter for our work, And both commended, for the sake of each. By all true workers and true lovers born. Now press the clarion on thy woman's lip, (Love's holy kiss shall still keep con- secrate) And breathe thy fine keen breath along the brass. And blow all class-walls level as Jeri- cho's Past Jordan, crying from the top of souls. To souls, that here assembled on earth's flats, They get them to some purer emi- nence Than any hitherto beheld for clouds ! What height we know not, but the way we know. And how, by mounting ever, we at- tain, And so climb on. It is the hour for souls. That bodies, leavened by the will and love. Be lightened to redemption. The world's old; But the old world waits the time to be renewed, Toward which new hearts in individ- ual growth Must quicken, and increase to multi- tude In new dynasties of the race of men. Developed whence shall grow spon- taneously New churches, new economies, new laws Admitting freedom, new societies Excluding falsehood: He shall make all new." My Romney ! — Lifting up my hand in his. As wheeled by seeing spirits toward tlie east. He turned instinctively, where, faint and far. Along the tingling desert of the sky, Bevond the circle of the conscious hills. Were laid in jasper-stone as clear as glass The first foundations of that new, near day Which should be builded out of heaven to God. He stood a momentwith erected brows In silence, as a creature might who gazed, — Stood calm, and fed his blind, majesN tic eyes Upon the thought of perfect noon: and when I saw his soul saw, — " Jasper first," I said, " And second, sapphire; third, chalce% dony; The rest in order, — last, an anie' thyst." A DRAMA OF EXILE. Scene. — The outer side of the gate of Eden shut fast leith cloud, from the depth of which revolves a sword of fire self- moved. Adam and Eve are seen in the distance, flying along the glare. LiTlciPER, alone. Rejoice in the clefts of Gehenna, My exiled, my host ! Earth has exiles as hopeless as when a Heaven's empire was lost. Through the seams of her shaken foundations Smoke up in great joy ! With the smoke of your tierce exulta- tions Deform and destroy ! Smoke up with your lurid revenges, And darken the face Of the white heavens, and taunt them with changes From glory and grace ! "We in falling, while destiny strangles. Pull down with us all. Let them look to the rest of their angels ! Who's safe from a fall ? He saves not. Where's Adam ? Can pardon Requicken that sod ? Unkinged is the King of the Garden, The image of God. Other exiles are cast out of Eden, More curse has heen hurled : Come up, O my locusts, and feed in The green of the world ! Come up ! we have conquered by evil ; Good reigns not alone: J prevail now, and, angel or devil, Inherit a throne. [In sudden apparition a watch of i?inu- merable angels, rank above rank, slopes up from arcncnd the gate to the senith. The angel Gabriel de- scends.] Ltic. Hail, Gabriel, the keeper of the gate ! Now that the fruit is plucked, prince Gabriel, I hold that Eden is impregnable Under thy keeping. Gab. Angel of the sin, Such as thou standest, — pale in the drear light Which rounds the rebel's work with Maker's wrath, — Thou Shalt be an Idea to all souls, A monumental melancholy gloom Seen down all ages, whence to mark despair. And measure out the distances from good. Go from us straightway ! Lvc. Wherefore ? Gab. Lucifer, Thy last step in this place trod sor- row up. Recoil before that sorrow, if not this sword. Luc. Angels are in the world : wherefore not I ? Exiles are in the world : wherefore not I? The cursed are in the world: where- fore not I ? Gab. Depart ! Liic. And Where's the logic of " de- part"? Our lady Eve had half been satis- fied To obey her Maker, if I had not learnt To fix my postulate better. Dost thou dream Of guarding some monopoly in heav- en Instead of earth ? Why, I can dream with thee To the length of thy wings. Gab. I do not dream. This is not heaven, even in a dream, nor earth, As earth was once, first breathed among the stars, Articulate glory from the mouth di- vine, 179 180 A DRAMA OF EXILE. To which the myriad spheres thrilled audibly, Touched like a lute-string, and the sons of God Said Amen, singing it. I know that this Is earth not new created, but new cursed — This, Eden's gate, not opened, but built up With a final cloud of sunset. Do I dream ? Alas, not so ! this is the Eden lost By Lucifer the serpent; this the sword (This sword alive with justice and with fire) That smote upon the forehead Luci- fer The angel. Wherefore, augel, go, de- part ! Enough is sinned and suffered. Luc. By no means. Here's a brave earth to sin and suffer on: It holds fast still ; it cracks not under curse ; It holds like mine immortal. Pres- ently We'll sow it thick enough with graves as green, Or greener certes, than its knowl- edge-tree. We'll have the cypress for the tree of life. More eminent for shadow: for the rest, We'll build it dark with towns and jiyramids, And temples, if it please you: we'll have feasts And funerals also, merrymakes and wars, Till blood and wine shall mix, and run along Right o'er the edges. And, good Gabriel, (Ye like that word in heaven), / too have strength, — Strength to behold Him, and not wor- ship Him ; Strength to fall from Him, and not cry on Him; Strength to be in the universe, and yet Neither God nor his servant. The red sign Burnt on my forehead, wliich you taunt me with, Is God's sign that it bows not unto God, — The potter's mark ujion his work to show It rings well to the striker. I and the earth Can bear more curse. Gab. O miserable earth, ruined angel ! Luc. Well, and if it be, 1 CHOSE this ruin: I elected it Of my will, not of service. What I do, I do volitient, not obedient, And overtop thy crown with my de- spair. My sorrow crowns me. Get thee back to heaven, And leave me to the earth, which is mine own In virtue of her ruin, as I hers In virtue of my revolt ! turn thou, from both That bright, impassive, passive angel- hood, And spare to read us backward any more Of the spent hallelujahs ! Gab. Spirit of scorn, I might say of unreason, I might say That who despairs, acts; that who acts, connives With God's relations set in time and space; That who elects, assumes a some- thing good Which God made possible; that who lives, obeys The law of a Life-maker . . . Luc. Let it pass: No more, thou Gabriel ! What if I stand up And strike my brow against the crys- talline Roofing the creatui"es — shall I say, for that. My stature is too high for me to stand, Henceforward I must sit ? Sit thou ! Gab. I kneel. Luc. A heavenly answer. Get thee to thy heaven, And leave my earth to me ! Gab. Through heaven and earth God's will moves freely, and I follow it. As color follows light. He overflows The firmamental walls with deity. i A DRAMA OF EXILE. 181 Therefore with love. His lightnings go abroad; His pity may do so; his angels must Whene'er he gives them charges. Luc. Verily, I and my demons, who are spirits of scorn. Might hold this charge of standing with a sword 'Twixt man and his inheritance, as well As the benignest angel of you all. Gab. Thou speakest in the shadow of thy change. If thou hadst gazed upon the face of God This morning for a moment, thou hadst known That only pity fitly can chastise. Hate but avenges. Luc. As it is, I know Something of pity. When I reeled in heaven. And my sword grew too heavy for my grasp. Stabbing through matter which it could not pierce So m.xich as the first shell of, toward the throne ; When I fell back, down, staring up as I fell. The lightnings holding open my scathed lids, And that thouglit of the infinite of God Hurled after to precipitate descent; When countless angel faces still and stern Pressed out upon me from the level heavens Adown the abysmal sjiaces, and I fell, Trampled down by your stillness, and struck blind By the sight within your eyes, — 'twas then I knew How ye could pity, my kind angel- hood ! Gab. Alas, discrowned one, by the truth in me Which God keeps in me, I would give away All — save that truth and his love keeping it, — To lead thee home again into the light, And hear thy voice chant with the morning stars When their rays tremble round them with much song Sung in more gladness ! Luc. Sing, my morning star ! Last beautiful, last heavenly, that I loved ! If I could drench thy golden locks with tears, What were it to this angel ? Gab. What love is. And now I have named God. Luc. Yet, Gabriel, By the lie in me which I keep myself, Thou'rt a false swearer. Were it otherwise, What dost thou here, vouchsafing tender thoughts To that earth-angel or earth-demon (which, Thou and I have not solved the prob- lem yet Enough to argue), that fallen Adam there, That red-clay and a breath, who must, forsooth, Live in a new apocalypse of sense. With beauty and music waving iu his trees, And running in his rivers, to make glad His soul made perfect ? — is it not for hope — A hope within thee deeper than thy truth — Of finally conducting him and his To fill the vacant thrones of me and mine. Which affront heaven with their vacuity ? Gab. Angel, there are no vacant thrones in heaven To suit thy empty words. Glory and life Fulfil their own depletions ; and, if God Sighed you far from him, his next breath drew in A compensative splendor up the vast. Flushing the starry arteries. Luc. With a change ! So let the vacant thrones and gardens too Fill as may please you ! — and be piti- ful. As ye translate that word, to the de- throned And exiled, — man or angel The fact stands. That I, the rebel, the cast out and down. Am here, and will not go; while there, along 182 A DRAMA OF EXILE. The light to which ye flasli the desert out, Flies your adopted Adam, your red- clay lu two kinds, both being flawed. Why, what is this ? Whose work is this ? Wliose hand was in the work ? Against whose hand ? In this last strike, methinks, I am not a fallen angel ! Gah. Dost thou know Aught of those exiles ? Luc. Ay: I know they have fled Silent all day along the wilderness: I know they wear, for burden on their backs, The thought of a shut gate of Para- dise, And faces of the marshalled cheru- bim Shining against, not for, them; aud I know They dare not look in one another's face, As if each were a cherub ! Gah. Dost thou know Aught of their future ? Luc. Only as much as this: That evil will increase and multiply Without a benediction. Gab. Nothing more? Luc. Why, so the angels taunt ! What should be more ? Gab. God is more. Luc. Proving what ? Gab. That he is God, And capable of saving. Lucifer, I charge thee, by the solitude he kept Ere he created, leave the earth to God! Luc. My foot is on the earth, firm as my sin. Gab. i charge thee, by the memory of heaven Ere any sin was done, leave earth to God ! Luc. My sin is on the earth, to reign thereon. Gab. I charge thee, by the choral song we sang, AVhen, up against the white shore of our feet. The depths of the creation swelled aud brake, And the new worlds — the beaded foam and flower Of all that coil — roared outward into space On thvmder-edges, leave the earth to God! Luc. My woe is on the earth, to curse thereby. Gah. I charge thee, by that mournful morning star Which trembles . . . Luc. Enough spoken. As the pine In norland forest drops its weight of snows By a night's growth, so, growing toward my ends I drop thy counsels. Farewell, Ga- briel ! Watch out thy service: I achieve niv will. And perad venture in the after-years. When thoughtful men shall bend their spacious brows Upon the storm and strife seen every- where To ruffle their smooth manhood, and break up With lurid lights of intermittent hope Their human fear and wrong, they may discern The heart of a lost angel in the earth. CHORUS OF EDEN SPIRITS. {Chanting from. Paradise, while Adam and EvBj?y across the sword-glare.) Harkeu, oh barken ! let your souls behind you Turn, gently moved ! Our voices feel along the Dread to find you, O lost, beloved ! Through the thick-shielded and strong- marshalled angels They press and pierce : Our requiems follow fast on our evan- gels: Voice throbs in verse. We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden A time ago: God gave us golden cups, and we were bidden To feed you so. But now our right hand hath no cup remaining, No work to do ; The mystic hydromel is spilt, and staining The whole earth through, — Most ineradicable stains, for showing (Not interfused !) A DRAMA OF EXILE. 183 That brighter colors were the world's foregoing, Than shall be nsed. Harken, oh harken ! ye shall harken surely, For years and years, The noise beside you, dripping coldlj-, purely. Of spirits' tears. The yearning to a beautiful denied you Shall strain your powers ; Ideal sweetnesses shall over-glide you. Resumed from ours. In all your music our pathetic minor Your ears shall cross, And all good gifts shall mind you of diviner. With sense of loss. We shall be near you in your poet- languors And wild extremes. What time ye vex the desert with vain angers, Or mock with dreams. And when upon you, weary after roaming. Death's seal is put. By the foregone ye shall discern the coming. Through eyelids shut. Spi7-its of tJie trees. Hark ! the Eden trees are stirring. Soft and solemn in your hearing, — Oak and linden, palm and fir, Tamarisk and juniper. Each still throbbing in vibration Since that crowning of creation When the God-breath spake abroad, Let lis make man like to God ! And the pine stood quivering As the awful word went by, Like a vibrant music-string Stretched from mountain-peak to sky ; And the platan did expand Slow and gradual, branch and head; And the cedar's strong black shade Fluttered brokenly and grand : Grove and wood were swept aslant In emotion jubilant. Voice of the same, but softer. Which divine impulsion cleaves In dim movements to the leaves Dropt and lifted, dropt and lifted, In the sunlight greenly sifted, — In the sunlight and the moonlight Greenly sifted through the trees. Ever wave the Eden trees In the nightlight and the moonlight. With a ruffting of green branches Sliaded off to resonances, Never stirred by rain or breeze. Fare ye well, farewell ! Tlie sylvan sounds, no longer audible; Expire at Eden's door. Each footstep of your treading Treads out some murmur which ye heard before. Farewell ! the trees of Eden Ye shall hear nevermore. River-s}}irUs. Hark the flow of the four rivers, Hark the flow ! How the silence round you shivers, While our voices through it go Cold and clear ! A Softer Voice. Think a little, while ye hear. Of the banks Where the willows and the deer Crowd in intermingled ranks. As if all would drink at once Where the living water runs ! — Of the fishes' golden edges Flashing in and out the sedges; Of the swans, on silver thrones, Floating down the winding streams With impassive eyes turned sho ward. And a chant of undertones. And the lotus leaning forward To help them into dreams ! Fare ye well, farewell ! The river-sounds, no longer audible, Expire at Eden's door. Each footstep of your treading Treads out some murmur which ye heard before. Farewell ! the streams of Eden Ye shall hear nevermore. Bird-spirit. I am the nearest nightingale That singeth in Eden after you , And I am singing loud and true, And sweet: I do not fail. I sit upon a cypress-bough. Close to the gate, and I fling my song Over the gate, and through the mail Of the warden angels marshalled strong, — Over the gate, and after you. And the warden-angels let it pass. Because the poor brown bird, alas ! Sings in the garden, sweet and true. And I build my song of high, pure notes, i 184 A DRAMA OF EXILE. Note over note, height over height, Till I strike the arch of the Infi- nite; And I bridge abysmal agonies With strong, clear calms of harmo- nies; And something abides, and some- thing floats In the song which I sing after you. Fare ye well, farewell ! The creature-sounds, no longer audi- ble, Expire at Eden's door. Each footstep of your treading Treads out some cadence which ye heard before. Farewell ! the birds of Eden Ye shall hear nevermore. Flower-spirits. We linger, we linger. The last of the throng, Like the tones of a singer Who loves his own song. We are spirit-aromas Of blossom and bloom. We call your thoughts home, as Ye breathe our perfume, To the amaranth's splendor Afire on the slopes ; To the lily-bells tender And gray heliotropes ; To the poppy-plains keeping Such dream-breath and blee, That the angels there stepping Grew whiter to see ; To the nook set with moly. Ye jested one day in, Till your smile waxed too holy, And left your lips praying; To the rose in the bower-place, That dripped o'er you sleeping To the asphodel flower-place, Ye walked ankle-deep in. We pluck at your raiment. We stroke down your hair. We faint in our lament. And pine into air. Fare ye well, farewell ! The Eden scents, no longer sensible, Expire at Eden's door. Each footstep of your treading Treads out some fragrance which ye knew before. Farewell ! the flowers of Eden Ye shall smell nevermore. [There is silence. Adam and Eve fly on, and never look back. Only a colossal shadow, as of the dark Angel passing quickly, is cast upon the sword-glare. Scene. — The extremity of the sword-glare. Adam. Pausing a moment on this outer edge. Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light The dark exterior desert, hast thou strength, Beloved, to look behind us to the gate ? Eve. Have I not strength to look up to thy face ? Adam. We need be strong: yon spectacle of cloud, Which seals the gate up to the final doom. Is God's seal manifest. There seem to lie A hundred thunders in it, dark and dead, The unmolten lightnings vein it mo- tionless; And, outward from its depth, the self- moved sword Swings slow its awful gnomon of red fire From side to side, in pendulous hor- ror slow. Across the stagnant ghastly glare thrown flat On the intermediate ground from that to this. The angelic hosts, the archangelic pomps, Thrones, dominations, princedoms, rank on rank, Rising sublimely to the feet of God, On either side, and overhead the gate. Show like a glittering and sustained smoke Drawn to an apex. That their faces shine Betwixt the solemn clasping of their wings Clasped high to a silver point above their heads, We only guess from hence, and not discern. Eve. Though we were near enough to see them shine. The shadow on thy face were aw- fuUer To me, at least, — to me, — than all their light. Adam. What is this. Eve? Thou droppest heavily h»HI-»H A DRAMA OF EXILE. 185 In a heap earthward, and thy body heaves Under the golden floodings of thine hair. Eve. O Adam, Adam ! by that name of Eve,— Thine Eve, tliy life, — which suits me little now, Seeing that I now confess myself thy death And thine undoer, as the snake was mine, — I do adjure thee put me straight away, Together with my name ! Sweet, punish me ! O love, be just ! and ere we pass be- yond The light cast outward by the fiery sword. Into the dark which earth must be to us. Bruise my head with thy foot, as the curse said My seed shall the first tempter's ! — strike with curse. As God struck in the garden ! and as HE, Being satisfied with justice and with wrath, Did roll his thunder gentler at the close. Thou, peradventure, mayst at last recoil To some soft need of mercy. Strike, my lord ! I, also, after tempting, writhe on the ground, And I would feed on ashes from thine hand, As suits me, O my tempted ! Adam. My beloved. Mine Eve and life, I have no other name For thee, or for the sun, tlian what ye are, — My utter life and light ! If we have fallen. It is that we have sinned, — we. God is just; And, since his curse doth comprehend us both, It must be that his balance holds the weights Of first and last sin on a level. What ! Shall I, who had not virtue to stand straight Among the hills of Eden, here assume To mend the justice of the perfect God, By piling up a curse upon his curse. Against thee, — thee ? Eve. For so, perchance, thy God Might take thee into grace for scorn- ing me. Thy wrath against the sinner giving proof Of inward abrogation of the sin: And so the blessed angels might come down And walk with thee as erst, — I think they would, — Because I was not near to make them sad. Or soil the rustling of their inno- cence. Adam, They know me. I am deep- est in the guilt, If last in the transgression. Eve. Thou ! Adam,. If God, Who gave the right and joyaunce of the world Both xinto thee and me, gave thee to me, — The best gift last, — the last sin was the worst. Which sinned against more comple- . ment of gifts And grace of giving. God ! I render back Strong benediction and perpetual praise From mortal feeble lips (as incense- smoke Out of a little censer may fill heaven), That thou, in striking my benumbed hands, And forcing them to drop all other boons Of beauty and dominion and delight. Hast left this well-beloved Eve, this life Within life, this best gift between their palms, In gracious compensation. Eve. Is it thy voice, Or some saluting angel's, calling home My feet into the garden ? Adam,. O my God ! I, standing here between the glory and dark, — The glory of thy wrath projected forth From Eden's wall, the dark of our distress. Which settles a step off in that drear world, — 186 A DRAMA OF EXILE. Lift up to thee the hands from whence hath fallen Only creation's sceptre, thanking thee That rather thou hast cast me out with hfr Than left me lorn of her in Paradise, With angel looks and angel songs around To show the absence of her eyes and voice. And make society full desertness Without her use in comfort. Eve. Where is loss ? Am I in Eden ? Can another speak Mine own love's tongue ? Adam. Because, with her, I stand Upright, as far as can be in this fall, And look away from heaven which doth accuse. And look away from earth which doth convict, Into her face, and crown my dis- crowned brow Out of her love, and put the thought of her Around me for an Eden full of birds, And lift her body up — thus — to my heart. And with my lips upon her lips — thus, thus — Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath. Which cannot climb against the grave's steep sides, But overtops this grief. Eve. 1 am renewed. My eyes grow with the light which is in thine; The silence of my heart is full of sound. Hold me up — so ! Because I com- prehend This human love, I shall not be afraid Of any human death; and yet, because I know this strength of love, I seem to know Death's strength by that same sign. Kiss on my lips. To shut the door close on my rising soul. Lest it pass outwards in astonishment, And leave thee lonely ! Adam. Yet thou liest, Eve, Bent heavily on thyself across mine arm. Thy face flat to the sky. Eve. Ay; and the tears Running, as it might seem, my life from me. They run so fast and warm. Let me lie so. And weep so, as if in a dream or prayer, Unfastening, clasp by clasp, the hard tight thought Which clipped my heart, and showed me evermore Loathed of thy justice as I loathe the snake. And as the pure ones loathe our sin. To-day, All day, beloved, as we fled across This desolating radiance cast by swords. Not suns, my lips prayed soundless to myself, Striking against each other, ' ' O Lord God ! " ('Twas so I prayed) " I ask thee by my sin. And by thy curse, and by thy blame- less heavens, Make dreadful haste to hide me from thy face And from the face of my beloved here For whom I am no helpmeet, quick away Into the new dark mystery of death ! I will lie still there; I will make no plaint; I will not sigh, nor sob, nor speak a word, Nor struggle to come back beneath the sun, Where, peradventure, I might sin anew Against thy mercy and his pleasure. Death, Oh, death, whate'er it be, is good enough For such as I am; while for Adam here. No voice shall say again, in heaven or earth, It is not good for him to he alone." Adam. And was it good for such a prayer to pass. My unkind Eve, betwixt our mutual lives ? If I am exiled, must I be bereaved ? Eve. 'Twas an ill prayer: it shall be prayed no more. And God did use it like a foolishness. Giving no answer. Now my heart has grown Too high and strong for such a foolish prayer: A DRAMA OF EXILE. Love makes it strong. And since I was the first In the transgression, with a steady foot I will be first to tread from this sword- glare Into the outer darkness of the waste, — And thus I do it. Adam. Thus I follow thee, As erewhile in the sin. — What sounds ! what sounds ! I feel a music which comes straight from heaven, As tender as a watering dew. Eve. I think That angels, not those guarding Par- adise, But the love angels, who came erst to us. And, when we said " God," fainted unawares Back from our mortal presence unto God, (As if he drew them inward in a breath,) His name being heard of them, — I think that they With sliding voices lean from heaven- ly towers. Invisible, but gracious. Hark — how soft! CHORUS OF INVISIBLE ANGELS. Faint and teyider. Mortal man and woman. Go upon your travel ! Heaven assist the human Smoothly to unravel All that web of pain Wherein ye are holden. Do ye know our voices Chanting down the Golden ? Do ye guess our choice is. Being unbeholden. To be barkened by you yet again ? This pure door of opal God hath shut between us, — Us his shining people. You who once have seen us And are blinded new; Yet, across the doorway. Past the silence reaching. Farewells evermore may, Blessing in the teaching. Glide from us to you. First semichorus. Think how erst your Eden, Day on day succeeding. With our presence glowed. We came as if the heavens were bowed To a milder music rare. Ye saw us in our solemn treading. Treading down the steps of cloud. While our wings, oiitspreading Double calms of whiteness. Dropped superfluous brightness Down from stair to stair. Second semichorus. Or oft, abrupt though tender. While ye gazed on space, We flashed our angel-splendor In either human face. With mystic lilies in our hands, From the atmospheric bands. Breaking with a sudden grace, We took you unaware ! While our feet struck glories Outward, smooth and fair, Which we stood on floorwise, Platformed in mid-air. First semichonts. Or oft, when heaven descended. Stood we in our wondering sight In a mute apocalypse With dumb vibrations on our lips From hosannas ended. And grand half-vanishings Of the empyreal things Within our eyes belated. Till the heavenly Infinite, Falling off from the Created, Left our inward contemplation Opened into ministration. Chorus. Then upon our axle turning Of great joy to sympathy, We sang out the morning Broadening up the sky; Or we drew Our music through The noontide's hush and heat and shine. Informed with our intense Divine ! Interrupted vital notes Palpitating hither, thither, Burning out into the ether. Sensible like fiery motes; Or, whenever twilight drifted Through the cedar masses, The globed sun we lifted, Trailing purple, trailing gold. Out between the passes Of the mountains manifold, To anthems slowly sung ! 188 A DRAMA OF EXILE. While he, aweary, half in swoon For joy to hear our climbing tune Transpierce the stars' concentric rings,— The burden of his glory flung In broken lights upon our wings. [ The chant dies away con- fusedly, and Lucifer appears. Luc. Now may all fruits be pleasant to thy lips. Beautiful Eve ! The times have some- what changed Since thou and I had talk beneath a tree, Albeit ye are not gods yet. Eve. Adam, hold My right hand strongly ! It is Luci- fer, — And we have love to lose. Adam. I' the name of God, Go apart from us, O thou Lucifer ! And leave us to the desert thou hast made Out of thy treason. Bring no serpent- slime Athwart this path kept holy to our tears. Or we may curse thee with their bit- terness. Luc. Curse freely ! Curses thicken. Why, this Eve Who thought me once part worthy of her ear. And somewhat wiser than the other beasts, — Drawing together her large globes of eyes, The light of which is throbbing in and out Their steadfast continuity of gaze, — Knots her fair eyebrows in so hard a knot. And down from her white heights of womanhood Looks on me so amazed, I scarce should fear To wager such au apple as she plucked. Against one riper from the tree of life. That she could curse too — as a wo- man may — Smooth in the vowels. Eve. So — speak wickedly: I like it best so. Let thy words be wounds, For so I shall not fear thy power to hurt; Trench on the forms of good by open ill, For so I shall wax strong and grand with scorn, Scorning myself for ever trusting thee As far as thinking, ere a snake ate dust. He could speak wisdom. Luc. Our new gods, it seems, Deal more in thunders than in cour- tesies. And, sooth, mine own Olympus, which anon I shall build up to loud-voiced ima- gery From all the wandering visions of the world, May show worse railing than our lady Eve Pours o'er the rounding of her argent arm. But why should this be ? Adam par- doned Eve. Adam. Adam loved. Eve. Jehovah pardon both ! Eve. Adam forgave Eve, because loving Eve. Luc. So, well. Yet Adam was un- done of Eve, As both were by the snake: there- fore forgive. In like wise, fellow-temptress, the poor snake, Who stung there, not so poorly ! [Aside. Eve. Hold thy wrath. Beloved Adam ! Let me answer him; For this time he speaks truth, which we should hear. And asks for mercy, which I most should grant, In like wise, as he tells us, in like wise ! — And therefore I thee pardon, Luci- fer, As freely as the streams of Eden flowed When we were happy by them. So, dei^art; Leave us to walk the remnant of our time Out mildly in the desert. Do not seek To harm us any more, or scoff at us. Or, ere the dust be laid upon our face, To find there the communion of the dust And issue of the dust. Go 1 Adam. At once go I h»HI-»H A DRAMA OF EXILE. 189 Ye images mould, By Luc. Forgive ! and go ! of clay, SliruTik somewhat in the what jest is this ? What words are these to use ? what a thought Conceive ye of me ? Yesterday — a snake ! To-day— what? Adam. A strong spirit. Eve. A sad spirit. Adam.. Perhaps a fallen angel.— Who shall say ! Luc. Who told thee, Adam ? Adam. Thou ! — the prodigy Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes, Which comprehend the heights of some great fall. I think that thou hast one day worn a crown Under the eyes of God. Luc. And why of God ? Adam,. It were no crown else. Verily, I think Thou'rt fallen far. I had not yester- day Said it so surely ; but I know to-day Grief by grief, sin by sin. Luc. A crown by a crown. Adam. Ay, mock me ! now I know more than I knew: Now I know that thou art fallen be- low hope Of final re-ascent. Luc. Because ? Adam,. Because A spirit who expected to see God, Though at the last point of a million years. Could dare no mockery of a ruined man Such as this Adam. Luc. Who is high and bold, — Be it said passing, — of a good red clay Discovered on some top of Lebanon, Or haply of Aornus, beyond sweep Of the black eagle's wing. A fur- long lower Had made a meeker king for Eden. Soh! Is it not possible by sin and grief (To give the things your names) that spirits should rise, Instead of falling ? Adam. Most impossible. The Highest being the Holy and the Glad, Whoever rises must approach delight And sanctity in the act. Luc. Ha, my clay king \ Thou wilt not rule by wisdom very long The after-generations. Earjbh, me- thinks. Will disinherit thy philosoiAy For a new doctrine suited to thine heirs. And class these present dogmas with the rest Of the old-world traditions, — Eden fruits And Saurian fossils. Eve. Speak no more with him. Beloved ! it is not good to speak with him. — Go from us, Lucifer, and speak no more ! We have no pardon which thou dost not scorn, Nor any bliss, thou seest, for coveting. Nor innocence for staining. Being bereft. We would be alone. Go ! Luc. Ah ! ye talk the same. All of you, — spirits and clay, — Go, and depart ! In heaven they said so, and at Eden's gate. And here re-iterant in the wilderness. None saith. Stay with me, for thy face is fair ! None saith. Stay with me, for thy voice is sweet ! And yet I was not fashioned out of clay. Look on me, woman ! Am I beauti- ful ? Eve. Thou hast a glorious darkness. Luc. Nothing more ? Eve. I think no more. Luc. False heart, thou thinkest more ! Thou canst not choose but think, as I praise God, Unwillingly but fully, that I stand Most absolute in beauty. As your- selves Were fashioned very good at best, so we Sprang very beauteous from the cre- ant Word Which thrilled behind us, God liim- self being moved When that august work of a perfect shape, His dignities of sovran angelhood, T 190 A DRAMA OF EXILE. Swept out into the universe, divine With thunderous movements, earnest looks of gods, And silver-solemn clash of cymbal wings. Whereof was I, in motion and in form, A part not poorest. And yet — yet, perhaps. This beauty which I speak of is not here, As God's voice is not here, nor even my crown, — I do not know. What is this thought or thing Which I call beauty ? Is it thought or thing ? Is it a thought accepted for a thing ? Or both ? or neither ? — a pretext, a word ? Its meaning flutters in me like a flame Under my own breath: my percep- tions reel Forevermore around it, and fall off, As if it, too, were holy. Eve. Which it is. Adam. The essence of all beauty I call love. The attribute, the evidence and end. The consummation to the inward sense, Of beauty apprehended from without, I still call love. As form when colorless Is nothing to the eye, — that pine-tree there, Without its black and green, being all a blank,— So, without love, is beauty imdis- cerned In man or angel. Angel ! rather ask What love is in thee, what love moves to thee. And what collateral love moves on with thee; Then shalt thow know if thou art beautiful. Luc. Love ! what is love ? I lose it. Beauty and love I darken to the image. Beauty — love ! [He fades aioay, tchile a low music sounds. Adam. Thou art pale. Eve. Eve. The precipice of ill Down this colossal nature dizzies me : And hark ! the starry harmony re- mote Seems measuring the heights from whence he fell. Adam. Think that we have not fall- en so ! By the hope And aspiration, by the love and faith. We do exceed the stature of this angel. Eve. Happier we are than he is by the death. Adam.. Or, rather, by the life of the Lord God. How dim the angel grows, as if that blast Of music swept him back into the dark ! [ The music is stronger, gath- ering itself into uncer- tain articulatio7i. Eve. It throbs in on us like a plain- tive heart, Pressing with slow pulsations, vibra- tive. Its gradual sweetness through the yielding air. To such exi:)ression as the stars may use. Most starry-sweet and strange. With every note That grows more loud the angel grows more dim. Receding in proportion to approach, Until he stand afar, — a shade. Adam. Now, words. SONG OP THE MORKING STAR TO LUCIFER. lie fades utterly away, and vanishes as it proceeds. Mine orbed image sinks Back from thee, back from thee, As thou art fallen, methinks. Back from me, back from me. O my light-bearer. Could another fairer Lack to thee, lack to thee ? Ah, ah, Heosphoros ! I loved thee with the fiery love of stars Who love by burning, and by loving move Too near the throned Jehovah not to love. Ah, ah, Heosphoros ! Their brows flash fast on me from gliding cars, Pale-passioned for my loss. Ah, ah, Heosphoros ! A DRAMA OF EXILE. 191 Mine orbed heats drop cold Down from thee, down from thee, As fell thy grace of old Down from me, down from me. my light-bearer, Is another fairer Won to thee, won to thee ? Ah, ah, Heosphoros, Great love preceded loss. Known to thee, known to thee. Ah, ah ! Thou, breathing thy communicable grace Of life into my light. Mine astral faces, from thine angel face Hast inly fed. And flooded me with radiance over- much From thy pure height. Ah, ah ! Thou, with calm, floating pinions both ways spread , Erect, irradiated. Didst sting my wheel of glory On, on before thee. Along the Godlight, by a quickening touch ! Ha, ha ! Around, around, the firmamental ocean I swam expanding with delirious fire! Around, around, around, in blind de- sire To be drawn upward to the Infinite — Ha, ha ! Until, the motion flinging out the motion To a keen whirl of passion and avidity. To a dim whirl of languor and delight, I wound in gyrant orbits smooth and white With that intense rapidity. Around, around, 1 wound and interwound. While all the cyclic heavens about me spun. Stars, planets, suns, and moons di- lated broad. Then flashed together into a single sun. And wound, and wound in one: And as they wound I wound, around, around, In a great fire I almost took for God. Ha, ha, Heosphoros ! Tliine angel glory sinks Down from me, down from me: My l>eauty falls, methinks, Down from thee, down from thee. O my light-bearer, O my iiath-preparer. Gone from me, gone from me ! Ah, ah, Heosphoros ! I cannot kindle underneath the brow Of this new angel here who is not thou. All things are altered since that time ago; And if I shine at eve, I shall not know. I am strange, I am slow. Ah, ah, Heosphoros I Henceforward, human eyes of lovers be The only sweetest sight that I shall see. With tears between the looks raised up to me. Ah, ah ! When, having wept all night, at break of day Above the folded hills, they shall sur- vey My light, a little trembling, in the gray, Ah, ah ! And, gazing on me, such shall com- prehend, Through all my jjiteous pomp at morn or even And melancholy leaning out of heaven. That love, their own divine, may change or end, That love may close in loss ! Ah, ah, Heosjihoros ! Scene. — Farther on. A wild open country seen vaguely in the approaching night. Adam. How doth the wide and mel- ancholy earth Gather her hills around us, gray and ghast. And stare with blank significance of loss Right in our faces ! Is the wind up ? Eve. Nay. Adam. And yet the cedars and the junipers Rock slowly, through the mist, with- out a sound, i 192 A DRAMA OF EXILE. And shapes which have no certainty of shape Drift duskly in and out between the pines, And loom along the edges of the hills, And lie flat, curdling in the open ground, — Shadows without a body, which con- tract And lengthen as we gaze on them. Eve. O life, Which is not man's nor angel's ! What is this ? Adam. No cause for fear. The cir- cle of God's life Contains all life beside. Eve. I think the earth Is crazed with curse, and wanders from the sense Of those first laws affixed to form and space Or ever she knew sin. Adam. We will not fear: We were brave sinning. Eve. Yea, I plucked the fruit With eyes upturned to heaven, and seeing there Our god-thrones, as the tempter said, not God. My heart, which beat then, sinks. The sun hath sunk Out of sight with our Eden. Adam. Night is near. Eve. And God's curse nearest. Let us travel back. And stand within the sword-glare till we die. Believing it is better to meet death Than suffer desolation. Adam. Nay, beloved ! We must not pluck death from the Maker's hand, As erst we plucked the apple: we must wait Until he gives death, as he gave us life. Nor murmur faintly o'er the primal gift Because we spoilt its sweetness with our sin. Eve. Ah, ah ! dost thou discern what I behold ? Adam. I see all. How the spirits in thine eyes From their dilated orbits bound be- fore To meet the spectral Dread ! Eve. I am afraid — Ah, ah ! the twilight bristles wild with shapes Of intermittent motion, aspect vague. And mystic bearings, which o'ercreep the earth, Keeping slow time with horrors in the blood. How near they reach . . . and far ! How gray they move, Treading upon the darkness without feet. And fluttering on the darkness with- out wings ! Some run like dogs, with noses to the ground; Some keep one path, like sheep; some rock, like trees; Some glide, like a fallen leaf; anti some flow on, Copious as rivers. Adam. Some spring up like fire; And some coil . . . Eve, Ah, ah ! dost thou pause to say Like what? — coil like the serpent, when he fell From all the emerald splendor of his height And writhed, and could not climb against the curse, — Not a ring's length. I am afraid — afraid — I think it is God's will to make me afraid. Permitting these to haunt us in the place Of his beloved angels, gone from us Because we are not pure. Dear pity of God, That didst permit the angels to go home, And live no more with us who are not pure, Save us, too, from a loathly company, Almost as loathly in our eyes, per- haps, As loe are in the purest ! Pity us, — Us too ! nor shut us in the dark, away From verity and from stability, Or what we name such through the precedence Of earth's adjusted uses ! leave us not To doubt, betwixt our senses and our souls, Which are the more distraught, and full of pain, And weak of apprehension ! Adam. Courage, sweet ! The mystic shapes ebb back from us, and drop A DRAMA OF EXILE. 193 " 1 "With slow concentric movement, eacli on each, Expressing wider spaces, and col- lapsed In lines more definite for imagery And clearer for relation, till the throng Of shapeless spectra merge into a few Distinguishable phantasms vague and grand. Which sweep out and around us vastily. And hold us in a circle and a calm. Eve. Strange phantasms of pale shadow ! there are twelve. Thou who didst name all lives, hast names for these ? Adam. Methinks this is the zodiac of the earth. Which rounds us with a visionary dread. Responding with twelve shadowy signs of earth. In fantasque apposition and ap- proach. To those celestial, constellated twelve Which palpitate adown the silent nights Under the pressure of the hand of God Stretched wide in benediction. At this hour Not a star pricketh the flat gloom of heaven ; But, girdling close our nether wilder- ness. The zodiac-figures of the earth loom slow. Drawn out, as suiteth with the place and time, In twelve colossal shades, instead of stars. Through whic'u the ecliptic line of mystery Strikes bleakly with an unrelenting scope, Foreshowing life and death. Eve. By dream, or sense. Do we see this ? Adam. Our spirits have climbed high By reason of the passion of our grief, And from the top of sense looked over sense, To the significance and heart of things. Rather than things themselves. Eve. And the dim twelve . . . Adam. Are dim exponents of the creature-life, As earth contains it. Gaze on them, beloved ! By stricter apprehension of the sight, Suggestions of the creatures shall assuage The terror of the shadows; what is known Subduing the unknown, and taming it From all prodigious dread. That phantasm, there, Presents a lion, albeit twenty times As large as any lion, with a roar Set soundless in his vibratory jaws. And a strange horror stirring in his mane. And there a pendulous shadow seems to weigh, — Good against ill, perchance; and there a crab Puts coldly out its gradual shadow- claws, Like a slow blot that spreads, till all the ground Crawled over by it seems to crawl itself. A bull stands horned here, with gib- bous glooms ; And a ram likewise; and a scorpion writhes Its tail in ghastly slime, and stings the dark. This way a goat leaps with wild blank of beard; And here fantastic fishes duskly float. Using the calm for waters, while their fins Throb out quick rhythms along the shallow air. While images more human — Eve. How he stands, That phantasm of a man — who is not thou ! Two phantasms of two men ! Adam. One that sustains, And one that strives, resuming, so, the ends Of manhood's curse of labor.i Dost thou see ' Adam recognizes in Aquarius the water-bearer, and Sagittarius the archer, distinct types of the man bearing and the man eombating, — the passive and active forms of human labor. I hope that the pre- ceding zodiacal signs — transferred to the earthly shadow and representative purpose — of Aries, Taurus, Cancer, Leo, Libra, Scorpio, Capricornus, and Pisces, are suffi- ciently obvious to the reader. A DRAMA OF EXILE. That phantasm of a woman ? Eve. I have seen; But look off to those small humani- ties ^ Which draw me tenderly across my fear — Lesser and fainter than my woman- hood, Or yet thy manhood — with strange innocence Set in the misty lines of head and hand. They lean together ! I would gaze on them Longer and longer, till my watching eyes, As the stars do in watching any thing. Should light them forward from then- outline vague To clear configuration. [ Two spirits, of organic and iiwrganic nature, arise frovx the ground.'\ But what shapes Rise up between us in the open space, And thrust me into horror, back from hope ! Adam. Colossal shapes — twiu sov- ran images, With a disconsolate, blank majesty Set in their wondrous faces; with no look. And yet an aspect, — a significance Of individual life and passionate ends, W^hich overcomes us gazing. O bleak sound ! O shadow of sound ! O phantasm of thin sound ! How it comes, wheeling, as the pale moth wheels, — Wheeling and wheeling in continu- ous wail Around the cyclic zodiac, and gains force. And gathers, settling coldly like a moth. On the wan faces of these images We see before us, whereby modified, It draws a straight line of articulate song From out that spiral faintness of la- ment. And by one voice expresses many griefs. 1 Her maternal Oem,ini. iustincl is excited by First Spirit. I am the spirit of the harmless earth. God spake me softly out among the stars, — As softly as a blessing of much worth ; And then his smile did follow, un- awares. That all things fashioned so for use and duty Might shine anointed with his chrism of beauty — Yet I wail ! I drave on with the worlds exult- ingly. Obliquely down the Godlight's gradual fall; Individual aspect and complexity Of gyratory orb and interval Lost in the fluent motion of delight Toward the high ends of Being be- yond sight — Yet I wail ! Second Spirit. I am the spirit of the harmless beasts. Of flying things, and creeping things, and swimming; Of all the lives, erst set at silent feasts. That found the love-kiss on the gob- let brimming, And tasted in each drop within the measure The sweetest pleasure of their Lord's good pleasure — Yet I wail 1 What a full hum of life around his lips Bore witness to the fulness of crea- tion ! How all the grand words were full- laden ships. Each sailing onward from enuncia- tion To separate existence, and each bear- ing The creature's power of joying, hop- ing, fearing ! — Yet I wail ! Eve. They wail, beloved! they speak of glory and God, And they wail — wail. That burden of the song Drops from it like its fruit, and heavi- ly falls Into the lap of silence. Adam. Hark, again ! Fii'st Spirit. 1 was so beautiful, so beautiful. My joy stood up within me bold to add 1 A DRAMA OF EXILE. A word to Clod's, and, wlicii liis work was full. To " very good," responded " very glad ! " Filtered through roses, did the light enclose me. And bunches of the grape swam blue across me — Yet I wail ! Second Spirit. I bounded with my panthers: I re- joiced In my young tumbling lions rolled together: My stag, the river at his fetlocks, poised, Then dipped his antlers through the golden weather In the same ripple which the alliga- tor Left, in his joyous troubling of the , water — Yet I wail ! First Spirit. O my deep waters, cataract and flood. What wordless triumph did your voices render ! O mountain-summits, where the an- gels stood, And shook from head and wing thick dews of splendor ! How with a holy quiet did your Earthy Accept that Heavenly, knowing ye were worthy ! — Yet I wail ! Second Spirit. O my wild wood-dogs, with your lis- tening eyes; My horses; my ground-eagles, for swift fleeing; My birds, with viewless wing of har- monies; My calm cold fishes of a silver being, — How happy were ye, living and 2:)os- sessing, fair half-souls capacious of full blessing ! — Yet I wail ! First Spirit. 1 wail, I wail ! Now hear my charge to-day. Thou man, thou woman, marked as the misdoers By God's sword at your backs ! I lent nay clay To make your bodies, which had grown more flowers; And now, in change for what I lent, ye give me The thorn to vex, the tempest-fire to cleave me — And I wail ! Second Spirit. I wail, I wail ! Behold ye, that I fasten My sorrow's fang upon your souls dishonored ? Accursed transgressors ! down the steep ye hasten, Your crown's weight on the world, to drag it downward Unto your ruin. Lo ! my lions scent- ing The blood of wars, roar hoarse and unrelenting — And I wail ! First Spirit. I wail, I wail ! Do you hear that I wail ? I had no part in your transgression — none. My roses on the bough did bud, not pale ; My rivers did not loiter in the sun; I was obedient. Wherefore in my centre Do I thrill at this curse of death and winter ? — Do I wail ? Second Spirit. I wail, I wail ! I wail in the assault Of undeserved perditiou, sorely wounded ! My nightingale sang sweet without a fault; My gentle leopards innocently bounded. We were obedient. What is this con- ATilses Our blameless life with pangs and fever-jiulses ? — And I wail ! Eve. I choose God's thunder and his angels' swords To die by, Adam, rather than such words. Let us pass out, and flee. Adam. We cannot flee. This zodiac of the creatures' cruelty Curls round us, like a river cold and drear. And shuts us in, constraining us to hear. First Spirit. I feel your steps, O wandering sin- ners, strike 196 A DRAMA OF EXILE. A sense of death to me, and undug graves The heart of eartli, once caha, is trem- bling like The ragged foam along the ocean- waves; The restless earthquakes rock against each other; The elements moan round me, " Mother, mother " — And I wail ! Second Spirit. Your melancholy looks do pierce me through ; Corruption swathes the paleness of your beautj'. Why have ye done this thing ? What did we do That we should fall from bliss, as ye from duty ? Wild shriek the hawks, in waiting for their jesses, Fierce howl the wolves along the wil- dernesses — And I wail ! Adam. To thee, the Spirit of the harmless earth, To thee, the Spirit of earth's harmless lives, Inferior creatures, but still innocent, Be salutation from a guilty mouth Yet worthy of some audience and re- spect From you who are not guilty. If we have sinned, God hath rebuked us, who is over us To give rebuke or death, and if ye wail Because of any suffering from our sin, — Ye who are under and not over us, — Be satisfied with God, if not witli us, And i^ass out from our presence in such peace As we have left you, to enjoy revenge Such as the heavens have made you. Verily, There imist be strife between us large as sin. Eve. No strife, mine Adam ! Let us not stand high Upon the wrong we did to reach dis- dain, Who rather should be humbler ever- more. Since self-made sadder. I speak, I who spake once to such a bitter end, — Adam, shall Shall I speak humbly now, who once was proud ? I, schooled by sin to more humility Than thou hast, O mine Adam, O my king, — My king, if not the world's ? Adam. Speak as thou wilt. Eve. Thus, tlien, my hand in thine — . . . Sweet, dreadful Spirits ! I pray you humbly, in the name of God, Not to say of these tears, which are impure — Grant me such pardoning grace a.s can go forth From clean volitions toward a spotted will, From the wronged to the wronger, this and no more ! I do not ask more. I am 'ware, in- deed, That absolute pardon is impossible From you to me, by reason of my sin; And that I cannot evermore, as once, With worthy acceptation of pure joy, Behold the trances of the holy hills Beneath the leaning stars, or watch the vales Dew-pallid with their morning ecsta- sy; Or hear the winds make pastoral peace between Two grassy uplands; and the river- wells Work out their bubbling mysteries underground; And all the birds sing, till, for joy of song. They lift their trembling wings as if to heave The too-much weight of music from their heart And float it up the ether. I am 'ware That these things I can no more ap- prehend With a pure organ into a full delight. The sense of beauty and of melody Being no more aided in me by the sense Of i^ersonal adjustment to those heights Of what I see well formed, or hear well tuned, But rather coupled darkly, and made ashamed By my jjercipiency of sin and fall In melancholy of humiliant thoughts. A DJiAMA OF EXILE. 19' But, oh ! fair, dreadful Spirits — albeit this, Your accusation must confront my soul, Aud your pathetic utterance and full gaze Must evermore subdue me, — be con- tent ! Conquer me gently, as if pitying me. Not to say loving; let my tears fall thick As watering dews of Eden, unre- proached; And, when your tongues reprove me, make me smooth. Not ruffled, — smooth and still with your reproof. And, peradventure, better while more sad. For look to it, sweet Spirits, look well to it. It will not be amiss in you, who kept The law of your own righteousness, and keep The right of your own griefs to mourn themselves, To pity me twice fallen, — from that and this. From joy of place, and also right of wail ; "I wail" being not for me, — only "I sin." Look to it, O sweet Spirits ! For was I not. At that last sunset seen in Paradise, When all the westering clouds flashed out in throngs Of sudden angel-faces, face by face. All hushed and solemn, as a thought of God Heid them suspended, — was I not, that hour, The lady of the world, princess of life, ^Mistress of feast and favor ? Could I touch A rose with my white hand, but it be- came Redder at once ? Could I walk leis- urely Along our swarded garden, but the grass Tracked me with greenness ? Could I stand aside A moment underneath a cornel-tree. But all the leaves did tremble as alive With songs of fifty birds who were made glad Because I stood there ? Could I turn to look With these twain eyes of mine, — now weeping fast. Now good for only weeping, — upon man. Angel, or beast, or bird, but each re- joiced Because I looked on him ? Alas, alas ! 'And is not this much woe, — to cry ''Alas!" Speaking of joy ? And is not this more shame, — To have made the woe myself, from all that joy ? To have stretched my hand, and plucked it from the tree, And chosen it for fruit ? Nay, is not this Still most despair, — to have halved that bitter fruit. And ruined so the sweetest friend I have, Turning the Greatest to mine ene- my? Adam. I will not hear thee speak so. Hearken, Spirits ! Our God, who is the enemy of none, But only of their sin, hath set your hope And my hope in a promise ou this head. Show reverence, then, aud never bruise her more With unpermitted and extreme re- proach, Lest, passionate in anguish, she tling down Beneath your trampling feet God's gift to us Of sovran ty by reason and freewill. Sinning against the province of the soul To rule the soulless. Reverence her estate. And pass out from lier presence with no words. Eve. O dearest heart, have patience with my heart ! O Spirits, have patience, 'stead of rev- erence. And let me speak; for, not being in-' nocent, It little doth become me to be proud. And I am prescient by the very hope And promise set upon me, that hence- forth i 198 A DRAMA OF EXILE. Only my gentleness shall make me great, My humbleness exalt me. Awful Spirits, Be witness that I stand in your re- proof But one sun's length off from my happiness — Happy, as I have said, to look around. Clear to look up ! — and now ! I need not speak — Ye see me what I am: ye scorn me so, Because ye see me what I have made myself From God's best making ! Alas, — peace foregone. Love wronged, and virtue forfeit, and tears wept Upon all, vainly ! Alas, me 1 alas, Who have undone myself from all that best. Fairest, and sweetest, to this wretch- edest. Saddest, and most defiled — cast out, cast down — What word metes absolute loss ? Let absolute loss Suffice you for revenge. For /, who lived Beneath the wings of angels yester- day, Wander to-day beneath the roofless world: I, reigning the earth's empress yes- terday. Put off from me to-day your hate with prayers: /, yesterday, who answered the Lord God, Composed and glad as singing-birds the sun, Might shriek now from our dismal desert, " God," And hear him make reply, " What is thy need, — Thou whom I cursed to-day ? " Adam. Eve ! Eve. I, at last, Who yesterday was helpmate and de- light Unto mine Adam, am to-day the grief And curse-meet for him. And so pity us, Ye gentle Spirits, and pardon him and me; And let some tender peace, made of our pain, Grow up betwixt us, as a tree might grow. With boughs on both sides ! in the shade of which, When presently ye shall behold us dead. For the poor sake of our humility Breathe out your pardon on our breathless lips. And drop your twilight dews against our brows, And stroking with mild airs our harmless hands Left empty of all fruit, perceive your love Distilling through your pity over us, And suffer it, self-reconciled, to pass ! LuciFEK rises in the circle. Luc. Who talks here of a comple- ment of grief ? Of expiation wrought by loss and fall? Of hate subduable to pity ? Eve ? Take counsel from thy counsellor the snake,. And boast no more in grief, nor hope from pain, My docile Eve ! I teach you to de- spond. Who taught you disobedience. Look around ! Earth-spirits and phantasms hear you talk unmoved, As if ye were red clay again, and talked. What are your words to them ? your grief to them ? Your deaths, indeed, to them ? Did the hand pause For their sake, in the plucking of the fruit. That they should pause for yoxl in hating you? Or will your grief or death, as did your sin, Bring change upon their final doom ? Behold, Your grief is but your sin in the re- bound, And cannot expiate for it. Adam. That is true. Luc. Ay ; that is true. The clay king testifies To the snake's counsel, — hear him! — very true. Earth-spirits. I wail, I wail! Luc. And certes, that is true. Ye wail, ye all wail. Peradventure I Could wail among you. O thou uni- verse, A DRAMA OF EXILE. 199 That boldest sin and woe, — more room for wail ! Distant Starry Voice. Ah, ah, Heos- phoros! Heosphoros! Adam. Mark Lucifer ! He changes awfully. Eve. It seems as if he looked from ' grief to God, And could not see him. "Wretched Lucifer! Adam. How he stands — yet an angel! Earth-spirits. "We all wail! Luc. {after a pa?«e). Dost thou re- member, Adam, when the curse Took us in Eden? On a mountain- peak Half-sheathed in primal woods, and glittering In spasms of awful sunshine at that hour, A lion couched, part raised upon his paws, "With his calm, massive face turned full on thine, his mane listening. "When the ended cvirse silence in the world, right sud- denly sprang up rampant, and stood straight and stiff, As if the new reality of death "Were dashed against his eyes, and roared so fierce, (Such thick carnivorous passion in his throat Tearing a passage through the wrath and fear) And roared so wild, and smote from all the hills Such fast keen echoes crumbling down the vales Precipitately, — that the forest beasts, One after one, ditl mutter a response Of savage and of sorrowful complaint Which trailed along the gorges. Then, at once, He fell back, and rolled crashing from the height Into the dusk of pines. Adam. It might have been. I heard the curse alone. Earth-spirits. I wail, I wail! Luc. That lion is the type of what I am. And as he fixed thee with his full- faced hate. And roared O Adam, comprehending doom, And Left He So, gazing on the face of the Unseen, I cry out here between the heavens and earth My conscience of this sin, this woe, this wrath, "Which damn me to this depth. Earth-spirits. I wail, I wail! Eve. I wail — O God! Luc. I scorn you that ye wail, "Who use your petty griefs for pedes- tals To stand on, beckoning pity from without. And deal in pathos of antithesis Of what ye rvere forsooth, and what ye are ! — I scorn you like an angel ! Yet one cry I, too, would drive up like a column erect, Marble to marble, from my heart to heaven, A monument of anguish to transpierce And overtop your vapory complaints Expressed from feeble woes. Earth-spirits. I wail, I wail! Luc. For, O ye heavens, ye are my witnesses, That J, struck out from nature in a blot, The outcast and the mildew of things good, The leper of angels, the excepted dust Under the common rain of daily gifts, — I the snake, I the tempter, I the cursed, — To whom the highest and the lowest alike Say, Go from us : we have no need of thee, — "Was made by God like others. Good and fair He did create me! ask him if not fair; Ask if I caught not fair and silverly His blessing for chief angels on my head Until it grew there, a crown crystal- lized; Ask if he never called me by my name, Lucifer, kindly said as " Gabriel " — Lucifer, soft as "Michael! " while se- rene I, standing in the glory of the lamps, Answered, " My Father," innocent of shame And of the sense of thunder. Ha! ye think. 200 A DRAMA OF EXILE. "White angels in jonr niches, I re- pent, And would tread down my own of- To service at the footstool ? That's read wrong! I cry as the beast did, that I may cry Expansive, not appealing! Fallen so deep, Against the sides of this prodigious pit I cry, cry, dashing out the hands of wail On each side, to meet anguish every- where. And to attest it in the ecstasy And exaltation of a woe sustained. Because provoked and chosen. Pass along Your wilderness, A'ain mortals! Puny griefs In transitory shapes, be henceforth dwarfed To your own conscience by the dread extremes Of what I am and have been. If ye have fallen. It is but a step's fall, the whole ground beneath Strewn woolly soft with promise: if ye have sinned, Your jn-ayers tread high as angels; if ye have grieved. Ye are too mortal to be pitiable : The power to die disproves the right to grieve. Go to ! Ye call this ruin ? I half scorn The ill I did you! Were ye wronged by me. Hated and tempted and undone of me, Still, what's your hurt to mine of doing hurt, Of hating, tempting, and so ruining ? This sword's hilt is the sharpest, and cuts through The hand that wields it. Go! I curse you all. Hate one another, — feebly, — as ye can ! I would not certes cut you short in hate: Far be it from me! Hate on as ye can ! I breathe into your faces, Spirits of earth. As wintry blast may breathe on win- try leaves, And, lifting up their brownness, show beneath The branches bare. Beseech you, Spirits, give To Eve, who beggarly entreats your love For her and Adam when they shall be dead. An answer rather fitting to the sin Than to the sorrow, as the heavens, I trow, For justice' sake gave theirs. I curse you both, Adam and Eve. Say grace, as after meat. After my curses. May your tears fall hot On all the hissing scorns o' the crea- tures here — And yet rejoice ! Increase and mul- tiply, Ye in your generations, in all plagues, Corruptions, melancholies, poverties, And hideous forms of life and fears of death, The thought of death being alway eminent. Immovable, and dreadful in your life. And deafly and dumbly insignificant Of any hope beyond, as death itself, Whichever of you lieth dead the first. Shall seem to the survivor, yet re- joice My curse catch at you strongly, body and soul, And He find no redemption, nor the wing Of seraph move your way — and yet rejoice l_ Rejoice, because ye have not set in you This hate which shall pursue you, — this fire-hate Which glares without, because it burns within ; Which kills from ashes, — this poten- tial hate. Wherein I, angel, in antagonism To God and his reflex beatitudes, Moan ever in the central universe With the great woe of striving against Love, And gasp for space amid the Infinite, And toss for rest amid the Desert- ness. Self-orphaned by my will, and self- elect To kingship of resistant agony i A DRAMA OF EXILE. 201 Toward the Good round ine, hating; good and love, And willing to hate good and to hate love, And willing to will on so evermore, Scorning the Past, and damning the To come — Gro and rejoice ! — I curse you. [LuciFKR vanishes. Earth-spirits. And we scorn you ! There's no par- don Which can lean to you aright. When your bodies take the guerdon Of the death-curse in oiir sight. Then the bee that hummeth lowest shall transcend you; Then ye shall not move an eyelid, Though the stars look down your eyes ; And the earth which ye defiled Shall expose you to the skies, — " Lo ! these kings of ours, wlio sought to comprehend you." First Sjiirit. And the elements shall boldly All your dust to dust constrain. Unresistedly and coldly I will smite you with my rain. From the slowest of my frosts is no receding. Second Spirit. And my little worm, aiJjiointed To assume a royal part. He shall reign, crowned and anoint- ed, O'er the noble human heart. Give him counsel against losing of that Eden ! Adam. Do ye scorn us ? Back your scorn Toward your faces gray and lorn, As the wind drives back the rain. Thus I drive with passion-strife, — I, who stand beneath God's sun, Made like God, and, though un- done, Not unmade for love and life. Lo ! ye utter threats in vain. By my free will that chose sin, By mine agony within Round the passage of the fire, By the pinings which disclose That my native soul is higher Than what it chose. We are yet too high, O SiJirits, for your disdain. Eve. Nay, beloved ! If these be low. We confront them from no height. Wp have stooped down to their level By infecting them with evil, And their scorn that meets our blow Scathes aright. Amen. Let it be so. Earth-spirits. We shall triumpli, triumph greatly. When ye lie beneath the sward. There our lily shall grow stately, Though ye answer not a word, And her fragrance shall be scornful of your silence: While your throne ascending calm- ly, We, in heirdom of your soul, Flash the river, lift the palm-tree. The dilated ocean roll. By the thoughts that throbbed within you, round the islands. Alp and torrent shall inherit Your significance of will, And the grandeur of your spirit Shall our broad savannahs fill; In our winds your exultations shall be springing. Even your parlance, which invei- ■ gles, Bj' our rudeness shall be won. Hearts poetic in our eagles Shall beat up against the sun, And strike downward in articulate clear singing. Your bold speeches our Behemoth With his thunderous jaw shall wield. Your high fancies shall our Mam- moth Breathe sublimely up the shield Of St. Michael at God's throne, who waits to speed him, Till the heavens' smooth-grooved thunder, Spinning back, shall leave them clear. And the angels, smiling wonder With dropt looks from sphere to sphere. Shall cry, "Ho, ye heirs of Adam ! ye exceed him." Adam. Root oiat thine eyes, sweet, from the dreary ground I Beloved, we may be overcome by God, But not bj' these. Eve, By God, perhaps, in these. A DRAMA OF EXILE. Adam. I think not so. Had God foredoomed despair, He had not spoken hope. He may destroy Certes, but not deceive. Eve. Behold this rose ! I plucked it in our bower of Paradise This morning, as I went forth, and my heart Has beat against its petals all the day. I thought it would be always red and full, As when I plucked it. Is it? Ye may see. I cast it down to you that ye may see, All of you ! Count the petals lost of it, And note the colors fainted ! Ye may see ! And I am as it is, who yesterday Grew in the same place. Oh ye Spirits of earth, I almost, from my miserable heart. Could here ujibraid you for your cruel heart. Which will not let me, down the slope of death. Draw any of your pity after me. Or lie still in the quiet of your looks, As my flower, there, in mine. [A bleak wind, quickened with indistinct human voices, spins around the earth-zodiac, filling the circle with its presence, and then, wailing off into the east, carries the 7-ose away with it. 'Eve falls upon her face. Adam stands erect. Adcmi. So, verily. The last departs. Eve. So memory follows hope. And life both. Love said to me, " Do not die," And I replied, " O Love, I will not die. I exiled and I will not orphan Love."' But now it is no choice of mine to die: My heart throbs from me. Adam. Call it straightway back ! Death's consummation crowns com- pleted life, Or comes too early. Hope being set on thee For others, if for others, then for thee, — For thee and me. [The wind revolves from the east, and round again to the east, perfumed by the Fden-rose, and full of voices iDhich sioeep oxit into articulation as they pass. Let thy soul shake its leaves To feel the mystic wind — hark ! Eve. I hear life. Infant Voices passing in the vjind. Oh, we live ! oh, we live ! And this life that we receive Is a warm thing and a new. Which we softly bud into From the heart and from the brain. Something strange that overmuch is Of the sound and of the sight. Flowing round in trickling touches'. With a sorrow and delight; Yet is it all in vain ? Rock us softly, Lest it be all in vain. Youthful Voices passing. Oh, we live! oh, we live ! And this life that we achieve Is a loud thing and a bold. Which, with pulses manifold. Strikes the heart out full and fain, — Active doer, noble liver. Strong to struggle, sure to conquer. Though the vessel's prow will quiver At the lifting of the anchor; Yet do we strive in vain ? Infant Voices passing. Rock us softly, Lest it be all in vain. Poet Voices passing . Oh, we live ! oh, we live ! And this life that we conceive Is a clear thing and a fair. Which we set in crystal air That its beauty may be plain. With a breathing and a flooding Of the heaven-life on the whole, While we hear the forests budding To the music of the soul ; Yet is it tuned in vain ? Infant Voices passing . Rock us softly. Lest it be all in vain. Philosophic Voices passing. Oh, we live ! oh, we live ! And this life that we perceive Is a great thing and a grave. Which for others' use we have, Duty-laden to remain. We are helpers, fellow-creatures. Of the right against the wrong, We are earnest-hearted teachers Of the truth which maketh strong; Yet do we teach in vain ? .1 DRAMA OF EXILE. 20.3 " Infant Voices passing. Rock us softly, Lest it be all in vain. lievel Voices passing. Oh, we live ! oh, we live ! And this life that we reprieve Is a low thing and a light, Which is jested out of siglat. And made worthy of disdain. Strike with bold electric laughter The high tops of things divine: Turn thy head, my brother, after. Lest thy tears fall in my wine ; For is all laughed in vain ? Infant Voices passing. Rock us softly. Lest it be all in vain. Eve. I hear a sound of life, — of life like ours, Of laughter and of wailing, of grave speech, Of little plaintive voices innocent, Of life in separate courses, flowing out Like our four rivers to some outward main. I hear life — life! Adam. And so thy cheeks have snatched Scarlet to paleness, and thine eyes drink fast Of glory from full cups, and thy moist lips Seem trembling, both of them, with earnest doubts Whether to utter words, or only smile. Eve. Shall I be mother of the com- ing life ? Hear the steep generations, how they fall Adown the visionary stairs of Time Like supernatural thunders, far, yet near. Sowing their fiery echoes through the hills ! Am I a cloud to these, — mother to these ? Earth-spirits. And bringer of the curse upon all these. [Eve sinks dozen again. Poet Voices passing, Oh, we live ! oh, we live ! And this life that we conceive Is a noble thing and high. Which we climb up loftily To view God without a stain, Till, recoiling where the shade is, We retread our steps again. sur- And descend the gloomy Hades To resume man's mortal pain. Shall it be climbed in vain ? Infant Voices passing. Rock us softly. Lest it be all in vain. Love Voices ixissing. Oh, we live ! oh, we live ! And this life we would retrieve Is a faithful thing apart Which we love in, heart to heart, Until one heart fitteth twain. " Wilt thou be one with me ? " " I will be one with thee." " Ha, ha! we love and live ! " Alas ! ye love and die. Shriek — who shall reply? For is it not loved in vain ? Infant Voices passing. Rock us softly, Though it be all in vain. Aged Voices passing. Oh, we live ! oh, we live ! And this life we would vive Is a gloomy thing and brief. Which, consummated in grief, Leaveth ashes for all gain. Is it not all in vain ? Infant Voices passing. Rock us softly. Though it be all in vain. [ Voices die aioay. Earth-spirits. And bringer of the curse upon all these. Eve. The voices of foreshown hu- manity Die off: so let me die. Adam. So let us die, When God's will soundeth the right hour of death. Earth-spirits. And bringer of the curse upon all these. Eve. O Spirits ! by the gentleness ye use In winds at night, and floating clouds at noon, In gliding waters under lily-leaves. In chirp of crickets, and the settling hush A bird makes in her nest with feet and wings, — Fulfil your natures now ! Earth-spirits. Agreed, allowed I We gather out our natures like a cloud, And thus fulfil their lightnings ! Thus, and thus ! Harken, oh, barken to us ! 204 A DRAMA OF EXILE. First Spirit. As the storm-wind blows bleakly from the norland, As the snow-wind beats blindly on the moorland, As the simoom drives hot across the desert, As the thunder roars deep in the Unmeasured, As the torrent tears the ocean-world to atoms, As the whirlpool grinds it fathoms below fathoms, Thus — and thus ! Second Spirit. As the yellow toad, that spits its poi- son chilly, As the tiger in the jungle crouching stilly. As the wild boar, with ragged tusks of anger. As the wolf-dog, with teeth of glitter- ing clangor, As the vultures, that scream against the thunder, As the owlets, that sit, and moan asunder; Thus — and thus 1 Eve. Adam ! God ! Adam. Cruel, unrelenting Spirits ! By the power in me of the sovran soul, Whose thoughts keep pace yet with the angel's march, I charge you into silence, trample you " Down to obedience. I am king of you ! Earth-Hpirit.'i. Ha, ha ! thou art king ! With a sin for a crown. And a soul undone ! Thou, the antagonized. Tortured, and agonized, Held in the ring Of the zodiac ! Now, king, beware ! We are many and strong, Whom thou standest among; And we press on the air. And we stifle thee back, And we multiply where Thou wouldst trample us down From rights of our own To an utter wrong. And from under the feet of thy scorn, O forlorn, We shall spring up like corn. And our stubble be strong. Adam. God, there is power in thee ! I make appeal Unto thy kingship. Eve. There is pity in Thee, sinned against, great God ! My seed, my seed, There is hope set on Thee, — I cry to thee, Thou mystic Seed that shalt be ! — leave us not In agony beyond what we can bear, Fallen in debasement below thunder- mark, A mark for scorning, taunted and perplext By all these creatures we ruled yes- terday, Whom thou. Lord, rulest alway ! O my Seed, Through the tempestous years that rain so thick Betwixt my ghostly vision and thy face. Let me have token ! for my soul is bruised Before the serpent's head is. [A vision of Christ appears in the midst of the zodiac, xohich pales be- fore the heavenly light. The Earth- spirits grow grayer and fainter. Christ. I am here ! Adam. This is God I Curse us not, God, any more ! Eve. But gazing so, so, with om- nific eyes. Lift my soul upward till it touch thy feet! Or lift it only — not to seem too proud — To the low height of some good angel's feet, For such to tread on when he walketh straight. And thy lips praise him ! Christ. Spirits of the earth, 1 meet you with rebuke for the re- proach And cruel and unmitigated blame Ye cast upon your masters. True, they have sinned; And true their sin is reckoned into loss For you the sinless. Yet your inno- cence, Which of you praises ? since God made your acts Inherent in your lives, and bound your hands A DRAMA OF EXILE 205 With instincts and imperious sancti- ties From self-defacement. Which of j'ou disdains These sinners, who in falling proved their height Above you by their liberty to fall? And which of you complains of loss by them, For whose delight and use ye have your life And honor in creation ? Ponder it ! This regent and sublime Humanity, Though fallen, exceeds you ! this shall film your sun, Shall hunt your lightning to its lair of cloud, Turn back your rivers, footpath all your seas, Lay flat your forests, master with a look Your lion at his fasting, and fetch down Your eagle flying. Nay, without this law Of mandom, ye would perish, — beast by beast Devouring, — tree by tree, with stran- gling roots And trunks set tuskwise. Ye would gaze on God With imperceptive blankness up the stars. And mutter, " Why, God, hast thou made us thus?" And, pining to a sallow idiocy. Stagger up blindly against the ends of life. Then stagnate into rottenness, and drop Heavily — poor, dead matter — piece- meal down The abysmal spaces, like a little stone Let fall to chaos. Therefore over you Receive man's sceptre ! therefore be content To minister with voluntary grace And melancholy pardon every rite And function in you to the human hand ! Be ye to man as angels are to God, — Servants in pleasure, singers of de- light, Siiggesters to his soul of higher things Than any of your highest ! So at last. He shall look round on you with lids too straight To hold the grateful tears, and thank you well, And he prays his he sings his he has learnt bless you when secret prayers. And praise you, when open songs. For the clear song-note in you Of purifying sweetness, and extend Across your head his golden fantasies Which glorify you into soul from sense. Go, serve him for such price ! That not in vain. Nor yet ignobly, ye shall serve, I place My word here for an oath, mine oath for act To be hereafter. In the name of which Perfect redemption and perpetual grace I bless you through the hope and through the peace Which are mine, — to the love which is myself. Eve. Speak on still, Christ ! Albeit thou bless me not In set words, I am blessed in barken- ing thee — Speak, Christ ! Chbist. Speak, Adam ! Bless the woman, man. It is thine office. Adam. Mother of the world. Take heart before this Presence ! Lo, my voice. Which, naming erst the creatures, did express (God breathing through my breath) the attributes And instincts of each creature in its name. Floats to the same afflatus, — floats and heaves. Like a water-weed that opens to a wave, A full-leaved prophecy affecting thee, Out fairly and wide. Henceforward arise, aspire To all the calms and magnanimities. The lofty iises and the noble ends. The sanctified devotion and full work, To which thou art elect forevermore. First woman, wife, and mother ! Eve. And first in sin. Adam. And also the sole V)earer of the Seed Whereby sin dieth. Raise the majes- ties Of thy disconsolate brows, O well- beloved, H^-ll-^H I 206 A DRAMA OF EXILE. And front with level eyelids the To come, And all the dark o' the world ! Rise, woman, rise To thy peculiar and best altitudes Of doing good and of enduring ill, Of comforting for ill, and teaching good, And reconciling all that ill and good Unto the patience of a constant hope, — Rise with thy daughters ! If sin came by thee. And by sin, death, the ransom-right- eousness The heavenly life and compensative rest, Shall come by means of thee. If woe by thee Had issue to the world, thou shalt go forth An angel of the woe thou didst achieve. Found acceptable to the world instead Of others of that name, of whose bright steps Thy deed stripped bare the hills. Be satisfied: Something thou hast to bear through womanhood. Peculiar suffering answering to the sin, — Some pang paid down for each new human life, Some weariness in guarding such a life. Some coldness from the guarded, some mistrust From those thou hast too well served, from those beloved Too loyally some treason ; feebleness Within thy heart, and cruelty with- out, And pressures of an alien tyranny "With its dynastic reasons of larger bones And stronger sinews. But go to ! thy love Shall chant itself its own beatitudes After its own life-working. A child's kiss Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad; A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich; A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong; Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense Of service which thou rendereat. Such a crown I set upon thy head, — Christ wit- nessing With looks of prompting love, — to keep thee clear Of all reproach against the sin for- gone, From all the generations which suc- ceed. Thy hand which plucked the apple I clasp close; Thy lips which spake wrong counsel I kiss close; I bless thee in the name of Paradise And by the memory of Edenic joys Forfeit and lost, — by that last cy- press-tree, Green at the gate, which thrilled as we came out ; And by the blessed nightingale which threw Its melancholy music after us ; And by the flowers, whose spirits full of smells Did follow softly, plucking us behind Back to the gradual banks, and ver- nal bowers. And fourfold river-courses. By all these I bless thee to the contraries of these ; I bless thee to the desert and the thorns, To the elemental change and turbu- lence, And to the roar of the estranged beasts. And to the solemn dignities of grief, To each one of these ends, and to their end Of death and the hereafter. Eve. I accept For me and for my daughters this high part. Which lowly shall be counted. No- ble work Shall hold me in the place of garden rest. And, in the place of Eden's lost de- light. Worthy endurance of permitted pain ; While on my longest patience there shall wait Death's speechless angel, smiling in the east Whence cometh the cold wind. I bow myself Humbly henceforward on the ill I did, i i A DRAMA OF EXILE. That bumbleness may keep it in the shade. Shall it be so ? Shall I smile, saying so? Seed ! O King ! O God, who shalt be seed, — What shall I say ? As Eden's foun- tains swelled Brightly betwixt their banks, so swells my soul Betwixt thy love and power. And, sweetest thoughts Of foregone Eden, now, for the first time Since God said " Adam," walking through the trees, 1 dare to pluck you, as I plucked ere- while The lily or pink, the rose or helio- trope. So pluck I you — so largely — with both hands. And throw you forward on the outer earth Wherein we are cast out, to sweeten it. Adam. As thou, Christ, to illume it, boldest Heaven Broadly over our heads [The Christ is gradually tranrfigiired, during the following phrases of dia- logue, into humanity and suffering. Eve. O Saviour Christ, Thou standest mute in glory, like the sun ! Adam. We worship in thy silence. Saviour Christ. Eve. Thy brows grow grander with a forecast woe ; Diviner, with the possible of death. We worship in thy sorrow, Saviour Christ. Adam. How do thy clear still eyes transpierce our souls. As gazing through them, toward the Father-throne In a pathetical, full Deity, Serenely as the stars gaze through the air Straight on each other ! Eve. O pathetic Christ, Thou standest mute in glory, like the moon ! Christ. Eternity stands alway fronting God; A stern colossal image, with blind eyes, :^nd grand dim lips that murmur evermore, God, God, God ! while the rush of life and death, The roar of act and thought, of evil and good. The avalanches of the ruining worlds Tolling down space, — the new worlds' genesis Budding in fire, — the gradual hum- ming growth Of the ancient atoms and first forms of earth. The slow procession of the swathing seas And firmamental waters, and the noise Of the broad, fluent strata of pure airs, — All these flow onward in the intervals Of that reiterated sound of — God ! Which WORD innumerous angels straightway lift Wide on celestial altitudes of song And choral adoration, and then drop The burden softly, shutting the last notes In silver wings. Howbeit, in the noon of time Eternity shall wax as dumb as death. While a new voice beneath the spheres shall cry, " God ! Why hast thou forsaken me, my God?" And not a voice in heaven shall an- swer it. [ The transfiguration is com- plete in sadness. Adam. Thy speech is of the heaven- lies, yet, O Christ, Awfully human are thy voice and face 1 Eve. My nature overcomes me from thine eyes. Christ. In the set noon of time shall one from heaven. An angel fresh from looking upon God, Descend before a woman, blessing her. With perfect benediction of pure love. For all the world in all its elements. For all the creatures of earth, air, and sea. For all men in the body and in the soul. Unto all ends of glory and sanctity. Eve. O laale pathetic Christ, I wor- ship thee ! I thank thee for that woman ! 208 A DRAMA OF EXILE. Christ. Then at last, I, wrapping round me your human- ity, Which, being sustained, shall neither break nor burn Beneath the fire of Godhead, will tread earth. And ransom you and it, and set strong peace Betwixt you and its creatures. With my pangs I will confront your sins; and, since those sins Have sunken to all Nature's heart from j'ours, The tears of my clean soul .shall fol- low them, And set a holy passion to work clear Absolute consecration. In my brow Of kingly whiteness shall be crowned anew Your discrowned human nature. Look on me ! As I shall be uplifted on a cross In darkness of eclipse and anguish dread. So shall I lift up in my pierced hands, — Not into dark, but light; not unto death. But life, — beyond the reach of guilt and grief. The whole creation. Henceforth in my name Take courage, O thou woman, — man, take hope ! Your grave shall be as smooth as Eden's sward Beneath the steps of your prospective thoughts, And, one step past it, a new Eden- gate Shall open on a hinge of harmony. And let you through to niercv." Ye shall fall No more within that Eden, nor jiass out Any more from it. In which hope, move on, First sinners and lirst mourners. Live and love, Doing both nobly, because lowlih-; Live and work, strongly, because jja- tiently ! And, for the deed of death, trust it to God That it be well done, unrepented of, And not to loss. And thence witli constant prayers Fasten your souls so high, that con- tantly The smile of your heroic cheer may float Above all floods of earthly agonies. Purification being the joy of pain I [ T/ie vision o/CuEisT vanishes. Adam and Eve stand in an ecstasy. The earth-zodiac pales away shade by shade, as the stars, star by star, shine out in the sky ; and the fol- lowing chant from the two Earth- spirits {as they sweejj back into the zodiac, and disappear icith it) ac- companies the process of change. Earth-spirits. By the mighty word thus spoken Both for living and for dying. We our homage oath, once broken. Fasten back again in sighing. And the creatures and the elements renew their covenanting. Here forgive us all our scorning; Here we promise milder duty; And the evening and the morning Shall re-organize in beautj- A sabbath day of sabbath joy, for imiversal chanting. And if, still, this melancholy INIay be strong to overcome us; If this mortal and unholy We still fail to cast out from us ; If we turn upon you unaware your own dark influences; If ye tremble when surrounded By our forest pine and palm trees; If we cannot cure the wounded With our gum-trees and our balm- trees; And if your souls all mournfully sit down among your senses, — Yet, O mortals do not fear us 1 We are gentle in our languor; Much more good ye shall have nour us Than any pain or anger. And our God's refracted blessing in our blessing shall be given. By the desert's endless vigil We will solemnize your passions; By the wheel of the black eagle We will teach you exaltations, When he sails against the wind, to the white spot up in heaven. A DRA.AfA OF EXILE. 209 Ye shall find us tender nurses To your weariness of nature, And our hands shall stroke the curse's Dreary furrows from the creature, Till your bodies shall lie smooth in death, and straight and slum- berful. Then a couch we will provide you Where no summer heats shall dazzle, Strewing ou you and beside you Thyme and rosemary and basil, And the yew-tree shall grow over- head to keep all safe and cool. Till the Holy Blood awaited Shall be chrism arouud us run- ning. Whereby, newly consecrated, We shall leap up in God's sun- ning, To join the spheric company which purer worlds assemble; While, renewed by new evangels, Soul-consummated, made glori- ous. Ye shall brighten past the angels. Ye shall kneel to Christ victori- ous, And the rays around his feet beneath your sobbing lips shall trem- ble. [The phantastic vision has all passed; the earth-zodiac has broken like a belt, and is dissolved from the des- ert. The Earth-spirits vanish, and the stars shine out above. CHORUS OF INVISIBLE ANGELS, While Adam and Eve advance into the desert, hand in hand. Hear our heavenly promise Through your mortal passion 1 Love ye shall have from us, In a pure relation. As a fish or bird Swims or flies, if moving, We unseen are heard To live on by loving. Far above the glances Of your eager eyes, Listen ! we are loving. Listen, through man's ignorances, Listen, through God's mysteries. Listen, down the heart of things, — Ye shall hear our mystic wings Murmurous with loving. Through the opal door Listen evermore How we live by loving ! First semichorvs. When your bodies therefore Reach the grave, their goal, Softly will we care for Each enfranchised soul. Softly and unloathly, Through the door of opal, Toward the heavenly people. Floated on a minor fine Into the full chant divine. We will draw you smoothly, While the human in the minor Makes the harmony diviner. Listen to our loving I Second semichorus. There, a sough of glory Shall breathe on you as you come, Rutfling round the doorway All the light of angeldom. From the empyrean centre Heavenly voices shall repeat, " Souls, redeemed and pardoned, enter. For the chrism on you is sweet." And every angel in the place Lowlily shall bow his face, Folded fair on softened sounds, Because upon your hands and feet He images his Master's wounds. Listen to our loving ! First seinichoras. So, in the universe's Consummated undoing. Our seraphs of white mercies Shall hover round the ruin. Their wings shall stream upon the flame As if incorporate of the same In elemental fusion; And calm their faces shall burn out With a pale and mastering thought, And a steadfast looking of desire From out between the clefts of fire, While they cry, in the Holy's name, To the final Restitution. Listen to our loving ! Second semichorti.'i. So, when the day of God is ■To the thick graves accompted, Awaking the dead bodies, The angel of the trumpet Shall split and shatter the earth To the roots of the grave 210 A DRAMA OF EXILE. Which never before were slackened, And quicken the charnel birth With his blast so clear and brave That the dead shall start, and stand erect, And every face of the bnrial-place Shall the awful single look reflect Wherewith he them awakened. Listen to our loving ! First semichorKs. But wild is the horse of Death. He will leap up wild at the clamor Above and beneath. And where is his Tamer On that last day. When he crieth. Ha, ha! To the trumpet's blare, And paweth the earth's Aceldama ? When he tosseth his head. The drear-white steed. And ghastlily chamjoeth the last moon-ray, What angel there Can lead him away, That the living may rule for the dead? Second semichorus. Yet a Tajvier shall be found ! One more bright than seraph crowned, And more strong than cherub bold. Elder, too, than angel old, By his gray eternities. He shall master and surprise The steed of Death. For he is strong, and he is fain: He shall quell him with a breath. And shall lead him where he will, With a whisper in the ear, Full of fear, And a hand upon the mane, Grand and still. First semichorus. Through the flats of Hades, where the souls assemble, He will guide the Death-steed calm between their ranks, While, like beaten dogs, they a little moan and tremble To see the darkness curdle from the horse's glittering flanks. Through the flats of Hades, where the dreary shade is. Up the steep of heaven, will the Tamer guide the steed, — Up the spheric circles, circle above circle, We who count the ages shall count the tolling tread ; Every hoof-fall striking a blinder, blanker sparkle From the stony orbs, which shall show as they were dead. Second semichorus. All the way the Death-steed with toll- ing hoofs shall travel; Ashen gray the planets shall be mo- tionless as stones; Loosely shall the systems eject their parts coeval ; Stagnant in the spaces shall float the pallid moons: Suns that touch their apogees, reeling from their level, Shall run back on their axles in wild, low, broken tunes. Chorus. Up against the arches of the crystal ceiling, From the horse's nostrils, shall steam the blurting breath ; Up between the angels pale with si- lent feeling, AVill the Tamer calmly lead the horse of Death. Semi-chorus. Cleaving all that silence, cleaving all that glory, Will the Tamer lead him straightway to the Throne ; "Look out, O Jehovah, to this I bring before thee. With a hand nail-pierced, — I who am thy Son." Then the Eye Divinest, from the Deepest, flaming. On the mystic courser shall look out in fire: Blind the beast shall stagger where it overcame him. Meek as lamb at pasture, bloodless in desire. Down the beast shall shiver, slain amid the taming. And by Life essential the phantasm Death exjiire. Chorxis. Listen, man, through life and death, Through the dust and through the breath ; Listen down the heart of things ! Ye shall hear our mystic wings Murmurous with loving. A Voice from, below. Gabriel, thou Gabriel ! A Voice from above. What wouldst thou with me ? i A DRAMA OF EXILE. 211 First Voice. I heard thy voice sound in the angels' song, And I would give thee question. Second Voice. Question me ! First Voice. Why have I called thrice to my morning star, And had no answer ? All the stars are out, Andanswerintheiri^laces. Only invain I cast my voice against the outer rays Of my star shut in light behind the sun. No more reply than from a breaking string, Breaking when touched. Or is she not my star ? "Where is my star, my star ? Have ye cast down Her glory like my glory ? Has she waxed Mortal, like Adam ? Has she learnt to hate Like any angel ? Second Voice. She is sad for thee. All things grow sadder to thee, one by one. Angel Chorus. Live, work on, O Earthy ! By the Actual's tension Speed the arrow worthy Of a pure ascension ; From the low earth round you Reach the heights above you; From the stripes that wound you Seek the loves that love you. God's divinest burnetii plain Through the crystal diaphane Of our loves that love you. First Voice. Gabriel, O Gabriel ! Second Voice. What wouldst thou with me ? First Voice. Is it true, O thou Ga- briel, that the crown Of sorrow which I claimed, another claims ? That He claims that too ? Second Voice. Lost one, it is true. First Voice. That He will be an ex- ile from his heaA^en To lead those exiles homeward ? Second Voice. It is true. First Voice. That He will be an ex- ile by his will. As I by mine election ? Second Voice. It is true. First Voice. That / shall stand sole exile finally, — Made desolate for fruition ? Second Voice. It is true. First Voice. Gabriel ! Second Voice. I hearken. First Voice. Is it true besides. Aright true, that mine orient star will give Her name of " Bright and Morning Star "to Him, And take the fairness of his virtue back To cover loss and sadness ? Second Voice. It is true. First Voice. UNtrue, UNtrue ! O Morning Star, O Mine, Who sittest secret in a veil of light Far up the starry spaces, say — Untrue.' Speak but so loud as doth a wasted moon To Tyrrhene waters. I am Lucifer. [A pause. Silence in the stars. All things grow sadder to me, one by one. Angel Chorus Exiled human creatures. Let your hope grow larger, Larger grows the vision Of the new delight. From this chain of Nature's God is the Discharger, And the Actual's prison Opens to your sight. Semichorus. Calm the stars and golden In a light exceeding: What their rays have measured Let your feet fulfil ! These are stars beholden By your eyes in Eden; Yet across the desert, See them shining still ! Chorus. Future joy and far light. Working such relations, Hear us singing gently. Exiled is not lost ! God, above the starlight, God, above the patience. Shall at last j^resent ye Guerdons worth the cost. Patiently enduring, Painfully surrounded. Listen how we love you, Hope the uttermost ! Waiting for that curing Which exalts the wounded. Hear us sing above you — Exiled, but not lost ! [The stars shine on brightly ichile Xdath and Eve ptirsue their way into the far iDilderness. There is a souiid through the silence, as of the falling tears of an angel. THE SERAPHIM. " I look for Angels' songs, and hear Him cry." GILES FLETCHRB. PART THE FIRST. [It is the time of the crucifixion ; and the angels of heaven have departed towards the earth, except the two seraphim, Ador the Strong, and Zerah the Bright One. The place is the outer side of the shut heavenly gate.] Ador. O SERAPH, pause no more ! Beside this gate of heaven we stand alone. Zerah . Of heaven ! Ador. Our brother-hosts are gone — Zerah. Are gone before. Ador. And the golden harps the angels bore, To help the songs of their desire. Still burning from their hands of fire, Lie, without touch or tone, Upon the glass-sea shore. Zerah. Silent upon the glass-sea shore ! Ador. There the Shadow from the throne. Formless with infinity, Hovers o'er the crystal sea Awfuller than light derived, And red with those primeval heats Whereby all life has lived. Zerah. Our visible God, our heav- enly seats I Ador. Beneath us sinks the pomp angelical. Cherub and seraph, powers and virtues, all, The roar of whose descent has died To a still sound , as thunder into rain. Immeasurable space spreads, magnified With that thick life, along the plane The worlds slid out on. What a fall 212 And eddy of wings innumerous, crossed By trailing curls that have not lost The glitter of the God-smile shed On every prostrate angel's head! What gleaming-up of hands that fling Their homage in retorted rays, From high instinct of worship- And habitude of praise ! Zerah. Rapidly they drop below us. Pointed palm, and wing, and hair Indistinguishable, show us Only pulses in the air Throbbing with a fiery beat, As if a new creation heard Some divine and plastic word. And, trembling at its new-found being, Awakened at our feet. Ador. Zerah, do not wait for seeing ! His voice, his, that thrills us so As we our harpstrings, uttered 60, Behold the Holy in his looe ! And all are gone, save thee and — Zerah. Thee ! Ador. I stood the nearest to the throne, In hierarchical degree. What time the Voice said Go ! And whether I was moved alone By the storm-pathos of the tone Which- swept through heaven the alien name of woe, Or whether the subtle glory broke Through my strong and shielding wings, Bearing to my finite essence Incapacious of their presence. Infinite imaginings, None knoweth save the Throned who spoke; THE SERAPHIM. 213 But I, who at creation stood upright, And heard the God-breath move Shaping the words that lightened, "Be there light," Nor trembled but with love, Now fell down shudderingly, My face upon the pavement whence I had towered. As if in mine immortal overpowered By God's eternity. Zcrah. Let me wait ! let me wait ! Ador. Nay, gaze not backward through the gate ! God fills our heaven with God's own solitude Till all the pavements glow. His Godhead being no more subdued By itself, to glories low Which seraphs can sustain. What if thou, in gazing so, Shouldst behold but only one Attribute, the veil undone, — Even that to which we dare to press Nearest for its gentleness, — Ay, his love ! How the deep ecstatic pain Thy being's strength would capture ! Without language for the rapture. Without music strong to come And set the adoration free, For ever, ever, wouldst thou be Amid the general chorus dumb, God-stricken to seraphic agony. Or, brother, what if on thine eyes In vision bare should rise The life-fount whence his hand did gather With solitary force Our immortalities I Straightway how thine own would wither. Falter like a human breath, And shrink into a point like death. By gazing on its source I — My words have imaged dread. Meekly hast thou bent thine head. And dropt thy wings in languish- ment Overclouding foot and face, As if God's throne were eminent Before thee in the place. Yet not — not so, O loving sjiirit and meek, dost thou fulfil The supreme Will. Not for obeisance, but obedience, Give motion to tliy wings 1 Depart from hence 1 The Voice said, " Go ! Zerah. Beloved, I depart. His will is as a spirit within my spirit, A portion of the being I inherit. His will is mine obedience. I resem- ble A flame all undefilM, though it trem- ble: I go and tremble. Love me, O beloved ! O thou, who stronger art. And standest ever near the Infinite, Pale with the light of Light, Love me, beloved ! — me, more newly made. More feeble, more afraid. And let me hear with mine thy pin- ions moved. As close and gentle as the loving are, That, love being near, heaven may not seem so far. Ador. I am near thee, and I love thee. Were I loveless, from thee gone. Love is roiind, beneath, above thee, God, the omnipresent one. Spread the wing, and lift the brow! Well-beloved, what fearest thou ? Zerah. I fear, I fear — Ador. What fear ? Zerah. The fear of earth. Ador. Of earth, the God-created, and God-praised In the hour of birth ? Where every night the moon in light Doth lead the waters silver-faced ? Where every day tlie sun doth lay A rapture to the heart of all The leafy and reeded pastoral. As if the joyous shout which burst From angel lips to see him first Had left a silent echo in his ray ? Zerah. Of earth, the God-created and God-curst, Where man is, and the thorn ; Where sun and moon have borne No light to souls forlorn; Where Eden's tree of life no more uprears Its spiral leaves and fruitage, but instead The yew-tree bows its melancholy head. And all the undergrasses kills and sears. Ador. Of earth the weak. Made and unmade ? Where men that faint do strive for crowns that fade ? Where, having won the profit which they seek. 214 THE SERAPHIM. They lie beside the sceptre and the gold "With tleshless hands that cannot wield or hold, And the stars shine in their unwink- ing eyes ? Zerah. Of earth the bold, Where the blind matter wrings An awful potence out of impotence. Bowing the spiritual things To the things of sense ; Where the human will replies With ay and no, Because the human pulse is quick or slow; Where Love succumbs to Change, With only his own memories, for re- venge. And the fearful mystery — Ador. Called Death ? Zerah. Nay, death is fearful; but who saith " To die," is comprehensible. What's fearfuUer, thou knowest well, Though the iitterance be not for thee, Lest it blanch thy lips from glory — Ay ! the cursed thing that moved A shadow of ill, long time ago, Across our heaven's own shining floor, And when it vanished some who were On thrones of holy empire there, Did reign — were seen — were — never more. Come nearer, O teeloved ! Ador. I am near thee. Didst thou bear thee Ever to this earth ? Zerah. Before. When thrilling from his hand along Its lustrous path with spheric song The earth was deathless, sorrowless. Unfearing, then, pure feet might press The grasses brightening with their feet. For God's own voice did mix its sound In a solemn confluence oft With the rivers' flowing round, And the life-tree's waving soft. Beautiful new earth and strange ! Ador. Hast thou seen it since — the change ? Zerah. Nay; or wherefore should I fear To look upon it now ? I have beheld the ruined things Only in depicturings Of angels from an earthly mission. Strong one, even upon thy brow, When, with task completed, given Back to us in that transition, I have beheld thee silent stand, Abstracted in the seraph band. Without a smile in heaven. Ador. Then thou wast not one of those Whom the loving Father chose In visionary pomp to sweep O'er Judaea's grassy places. O'er the shepherds and the sheep. Though thou art so tender, dim- ming All the stars excej)t one star With their brighter, kindei faces ? And using heaven's own tune in hymning, While deep response from earth's own mountains ran, " Peace upon earth, good-will to man." Zerah. " Glory to God." I said amen afar. And those who fi"om that earthly mis- sion are. Within mine ears have told That the seven everlasting Spirits did hold With such a sweet and prodigal con- straint The meaning yet the mystery of the song What time they sang it, on their na- tures strong, That, gazing down on earth's dark steadfastness, And speaking the new i>eace in ]>rom- ises. The love and pity made their voices faint Into the low and tender music, keep- ing The place in heaven of what on earth is weeping. Ador. Peace upon earth. Come down to it. Zerah. Ah me ! I hear thereof uncomprehendingly. Peace where the tem^jest, where the sighing is, And worship of the idol, 'stead of His? Ador. Yea, peace, where He is. Zerah. He ! Say it again. Ador. Where He is. THE BERAPniM. 215 Zerah. Can it be That earth retains a tree Whose leaves like Eden foliage can be swayed By the breathing of His voice, nor shrink and fade ? Ado7\ There is a tree ! — it hath no leaf nor root; Upon it hangs a curse for all its fruit: Its shadow on His head is laid. For He, the crowned Son, Has left his crown and throne, Walks earth in Adam's clay, Eve's snake to bruise and slay — Zerah. Walks earth in clay ? Ador. And, walking in the clay which he created, He through it shall touch death. What do I utter ? what conceive ? did breath Of demon howl it in a blasphemy ? Or was it mine own voice, informed, dilated By the seven confluent Spirits — Speak — answer me ! Who said man's victim was his deity ? Zerah. Beloved, beloved, the word came forth from thee. Thine eyes are rolling a tempestuous light Above, below, around. As putting thunder questions without cloud, Reverberate without sound, To universal nature's depth and height. The tremor of an inexpressive thought Too self-amazed to shape itself aloud O'erruns the awful curving of thy lips ; And while thine hands are stretched above, As newly they had caught Some lightning from the throne, or showed the Lord Some retributive sword. Thy brows do alternate with wild eclipse And radiance, with contrasted wrath and love, As God had called thee to a seraph's part. With a man's quailing heart. Ador. O heart, O heart of man! O ta'eu from human clay To be no seraph's, but Jehovah's own! Made holy in the taking. And yet unseparate From death's perpetual ban. And human feelings sad and passion- ate; Still subject to the treacherous for- saking Of other hearts, and its own steadfast pain. O heart of man — of God! which God has ta'eu From out the dust, with its humanity Mournful and weak, yet innocent, around it. And bade its many pulses beating lie Beside that incommunicable stir Of Deity wherewith he interwound it. O man 1 and is thy nature so defiled That all that holy heart's devout law- keeping. And low pathetic beat in deserts wild. And gushings pitiful of tender weep- ing For traitors who consigned it to such woe, — That all could cleanse thee not, with- out the flow Of blood, the life-blood — 7//s — and streaming so ? O earth the thundercleft, windshaken, where The louder voice of " blood and blood" doth rise, Hast thou an altar for this sacrifice ? O heaven ! O vacant throne ! crowned hierarchies that wear your crown When his is put away I Are ye unshamed that ye cannot dim Your alien brightness to be liker him, Assume a human passion, and down- lay Your sweet secureness for congenial fears, And teach your cloudless ever-burn- ing eyes The mystery of his tears ? Zerah. I am strong, I am strong. Were I never to see my heaven again, 1 would wheel to earth like the tem- pest rain Which sweeps there with an exultant sound To lose its life as it reaches the ground. I am strong, I am strong. Away from mine inward vision swim The shining seats of my heaveulv birth, I see but his, I see but him — The Maker's steps on his cruel earth. 21G THE SEEAPHJAf. Will the Litter herbs of earth grow sweet To me, as trodden by his feet ? Will the vexed accurst humanity, As worn by him, begin to be A blessed, yea, a sacred thing, For love and awe and ministering ? I am strong, I am strong. By our angel ken shall we survey His loving smile throiigh his woful clay? I am swift, I am strong, The love is bearing me along. Ador. One love is bearing us along. PART THE SECOND. [Mid-air, above Judma. Ador and Ze- RAU are a little apart from the visi- ble angelic hosts.] Ador. Beloved, dost thou see ? Zerah. Thee — thee. Thy burning eyes already are Grown wild and mournful as a star Whose occupation is for aye To look upon the place of clay Whereon thou lookest now. Thy crown is fainting on thy brow To the likeness of a cloud. The forehead's self a little bowed From its aspect high and holy. As it would in meekness meet Some seraphic melancholy: Thy very wings that lately flung An outline clear do flicker here And wear to each a shadow hung, Dropped across thy feet. In these strange contrasting glooms Stagnant with the scent of tombs. Seraph faces, O my brother, Show awfully to one another. Ador. Dost thou see ? Zerah, Even so: I see Our empyreal company. Alone the memory of their bright- ness Left in them, as in thee. The circle upon circle, tier on tier, Piling earth's hemisphere With heavenly infiniteness, Above us and around, Straining the whole horizon like a bow: Their songful lips divorced from all sound, A darkness gliding down their silvery glances. Bowing their steadfast solemn counte- nances As if they heard God speak, and could not glow. Ador. Look downward ! dost thou see ? Zerah. And wouldst thou press that vision on my words ? Doth not earth speak enough Of change and of undoing, Without a seraph's witness ? Oceans rough With tempest, pastoral swards Displaced by fiery deserts, mountains ruing The bolt fallen yesterday. That shake their piny heads, as who would say " We are too beautiful for our de- cay "— Shall seraphs speak of these things ? Let alone Earth to her earthly moan ! Voice of all things. Is there no moan but hers ? Ador. Hearest thou the attestation Of the roused universe Like a desert lion shaking Dews of silence from its mane ? With an irrepressive passion Uprising at once, Rising up and forsaking Its solemn state in the circle of suns. To attest the jiain Of him who stands (O patience sweet !) In his own handprints of creation, With human feet ? Voice of all things. Is there no moan but ours ? Zerah. Forms, Spaces, Motions wide, O meek, insensate things, O congregated matters ! who inherit Instead of vital powers, Impulsions God-supplied; Instead of influent spirit, A clear informing beauty; Instead of creature-duty Submission calm as rest. Lights, without feet or wings. In golden courses sliding ! Glooms, stagnantly subsiding. Whose lustrous heart away was prest Into the argent stars 1 THE SERAPHIM. 217 Ye crystal, firmamental bars That hold the skyey waters free From tide or tempest's ecstasy ! Airs universal ! thunders lorn That wait your lightnings in cloud- cave Hewn out by the winds ! O brave And subtle elements ! the Holy Hath charged me by your voice with folly. 1 Enough, the mystic arrow leaves its wound. Return ye to your silences inborn. Or to your inarticulated sound. Ador. Zerah! Zerah. Wilt thou rebuke ? God hath rebuked me, brother. I am weak. Ador. Zerah, my brother Zerah ! could I speak Of thee, 'twould be of love to thee. Zemh. Thy look Is fixed on earth, as mine upon thy face. Where shall I seek His ? I have thrown One look upon earth, but one. Over the blue mountain lines, Over the forests of palms and pines, Over the harvest-lands golden, Over the vallej's that fold in The gardens and vines — He is not there. All these are unworthy Those footsteps to bear, Before which, bowing down I would fain quench the stars of my crown In the dark of the earthy. Where shall I seek him ? No reply ? Hath language left thy lips, to place Its vocal in thine eye ? Ador, Ador ! are we come To a double portent, that Dumb matter grows articulate, And songful seraphs dumb ? Ador, Ador ! Ador. I constrain The passion of my silence. None Of those places gazed upon Are gloomy enow to fit his pain. Unto Him whose forming word Gave to nature flower and sward. She hath given back again For the myrtle, the thorn. For the sylvan calm, the human scorn. 1 "His angels he charged with folly." — Job iv. 18. Still, still, reluctant seraph, gaze be- neath ! There is a city — Zerah. Temple and tower. Palace and purple, would droop like a flower, (Or a cloud at our breath) If He neared in his state The outermost gate. Ador. Ah me, not so In the state of a king did the victim go! And Thou who hangest mute of speech 'Twixt heaven and earth, with fore- head yet Stained by the bloody sweat, God ! man ! thou hast forgone thy throne in each. Zerah. Thine eyes behold him ! Ador. Yea, below. Track the gazing of mine eyes, Naming God within thine heart That its weakness may depart. And the vision rise ! Seest thou yet, beloved ? Zerah. I see Beyond the city, crosses three. And mortals three that hang there- on 'Ghast and silent to the sun. Round them blacken and welter and press Staring multitudes whose father Adam was, whose brows are dark With his Cain's corroded mark. Who curse with looks. Nay — let me rather Turn unto the wilderness ! Ador. Turn not ! God dwells with men. Zerah. Above He dwells with angels, and they love. Can these love ? With the living's pride They stare at those who die, who hang In their sight and die. They bear the streak Of the crosses' shadow, black not wide, To fall on their heads, as it swerves aside When the victims' pang Makes the dry wood creak. Ador. The cross — the cross ! Zerah. A woman kneels The mid cross under. With white lips asunder, 218 THE SERAPHIM. And motion on each. They throb as she feels, With a spasm, not a speech; And her lids, close as sleep. Are less calm, for the eyes Have made room there to weep Drop on drop — Ador. Weep? Weep blood, All women, all men ! He sweated it, He, For yonr pale womanhood And base manhood. Agree That these water-tears, then, Are vain, mocking like laugh- ter. Weep blood ! Shall the flood Of salt curses, whose foam is the darkness, on roll Forward, on from the strand of the storm-beaten years, And back from the rocks of the hor- rid hereafter. And up in a coil from the present's wrath-spring, Yea, down from the windows of heaven opening. Deep calling to deep as they meet on His soul — And men weep only tears ? Zerah. Little drops in the lapse ! And yet, Ador, perhaps It is all that they can. Tears ! the lovingest man Has no better bestowed Upon man. Ador. Nor on God. Zerah. Do all-givers need gifts ? If the Giver said "Give," the first motion would slay Our Immortals, the echo would ruin away The same worlds which he made. Why, what angel uplifts Such a music, so clear, It may seem in God's ear Worth more than a woman's hoarse weeping ? And thus, Pity tender as tears I above thee would speak, Thou woman that wee pest ! weep uu- scorned of us ! I, the tearless and pure, am but loving and weak. Ador. Speak low, my brother, low, — and not of love Or human or angelic ! Rather stand Before the throne of that Supreme above. In whose infinitude the secrecies Of thine own being lie hid, and lift thine hand Exultant, saying, " Lord God, I am wise ! " Than utter here, " I love." Zerah. And yet thine eyes Do utter it. They melt in tender light, — The tears of heaven. Ador. Of heaven. Ah, me ! Zerah. Ador ! Ador. Say on ! Zerah, The crucified are three. Beloved, they are unlike. Ador. Unlike. Zerah. For one Is as a man who has sinned, and still Doth wear the wicked will, The hard, malign life-energy. Tossed outward, in the parting soul's disdain, On brow and lip that cannot change again. Ador. And one — Zerah. Has also sinned. And yet (O marvel !) doth the Spirit- wind Blow white those waters ? Death upon his face Is rather shine than shade, — A tender shine by looks beloved made: He seemeth dying in a quiet place. And less by iron wounds in hands and feet Than heart-broke by new joy too sud- den and sweet. Ador. And one ! — Zerah. And one ! — Ador. Whv dost thou pause ? Zerah. God ! God ! Spirit of my spirit ! who movest Through seraph veins in burning deity To light the quenchless pulses ! — Ador. But hast trod The depths of love in thy peculiar nature. And not in any thou hast made and lovest In narrow seraph hearts ! — Zerah. Above, Creator ! Within, Upholder ! Ador. And below, below, The creature's and the upholden's sacrifice ! Zerah. Why do I pause ? Ador. There is a silentness THE SERAPHIM. 219 That answers thee enow, That, like a brazen sound Excluding others, doth ensheathe us round : Hear it. It is not from the visible skies, Though they are still. Unconscious that their own dropped dews express The light of heaven on everv earthly hill. It is not from the hills, though calm and bare They, since their first creation. Through midnight cloud or morning's glittering air. Or the deep deluge blindness, toward the place Whence thrilled the mystic word's creative grace, And whence again shall come The word that uncreates, Have lift their brows in voiceless ex- pectation. It is not from the places that en- tomb Man's dead, though common Silence there dilates Her soul to grand proportions, wor- thily To fill life's vacant room. Not there — not there. Not vet within those chambers lieth He, A dead one in hi.s living world; his south And west winds blowing over earth and sea, And not a breath on that creating mouth. But now a silence kee]is (Not death's, nor sleep's) The lips whose whispered word Might roll the thunders round rever- berated. Silent art thou, O my Lord, Bowing down thy stricken head ! Fearest thou a groan of thine Would make the jnilse of thy crea- tion fail As thine own pulse? — would rend the veil Of visible things, and let the Hood Of the unseen Light, the essential God, Rush in to whelm the undivine ? Thy silence, to my thinking, is as dread. Zerah. O silence ! Ad07-. Doth it say to thee — the NAME, Slow-learning seraph ? Zerah. I have learnt. Ador. The flame Perishes in thine eyes. Zerah. He opened his, And looked. I cannot bear — Ador. Their agony ? Zerah. Their love. God's depth" is in them. From his brows White, terrible in meekness, didst thou see The lifted eyes unclose ? He is God, seraph ! Look no more on me, O God — I am not God. Ador. The loving is Sublimed within them bv the sorrow- ful. In heaven we could sustain them. Zerah. Heaven is dull, Mine Ador, to man's earth. The light that burns In fluent, refluent motion Along the crystal ocean ; The springing of the golden harps be- tween The bowery wings, in fountains of sweet sound; The winding, wandering music that returns Upon itself, exultingly self-bound In the great spheric round Of everlasting praises ; The God-thoughts in our midst that intervene, Visibly flashing from the supreme throne Full in seraphic faces Till each astonishes the other, grown More Ijeautiful with worship and de- liglit — My heaven ! my home of heaven ! my infinite Heaven choirs ! what are ye to this dust and death, This cloud, this cold, these tears, this failing breath, Where God's immortal love now is- sueth In this man's woe ? Ador. His eyes are very deep, yet calm. Zerah. No more On me, Jehovah-man — Ador. Calm-deep. They show A passion which is tranquil. They are seeing I 220 THE SERAPHIM. No earth, no heaven, no men that slay and curse, No seraphs that adore ; Their gaze is on the invisible, the dread. The things we cannot view or think or speak, Because we are too happy, or too weak, — The sea of ill for which the universe With all its piled space, can find no shore. With all its life no living foot to tread. But he, accomplished in Jehovah- being, Sustains the gaze adown. Conceives the vast despair. And feels the billowy griefs come up to drown, Nor fears, nor faints, nor fails, till all be finished. Zerah. Thus, do I fiud Thee thus? My undiminished And undiminishable God! — my God! The echoes are still tremulous along The heavenly mountains, of the latest song Thy manifested glory swept abroad In rushing past our lips: they echo aye " Creator, thou art strong ! Creator, thou art blessed over all." By what new utterance shall I now recall, Unteaching the heaven-echoes? dare I say, " Creator, thou art feebler than thy work ! Creator, thou art sadder than thy creature ! A worm, and not a man. Yea, no worm, but a curse " ? I dare not so mine heavenly phrase reverse. Albeit the piercing thorn and thistle- fork (Whose seed disordered ran From Eve's hand trembling when the curse did reach her) Be garnered darklier in thy soul, the rod That smites thee never blossoming, and thou Grief-bearer for thy world, with un- kinged brow — I leave to men their song of Ichabod: I have an angel-tongue — I know but praise. Ador. Hereafter shall the blood- bought captives raise The passion-song of blood. Zerah. And we, extend Our holy vacant hands towards the throne. Crying, " We have no music." Ador. Rather, blend Both musics into one. The sanctities and sanctified above Shall each to each, with lifted looks serene, Their shining faces lean, And mix the adoring breath. And breathe the full thanksgiving. Zerah. But the love — The love, mine Ador ! Ador. Do we love not ? Zerah. Yea, But not as man shall ! not with life for death. New-throbbing through the startled being; not With strange astonished smiles, that ever may Gush passionate, like tears, and fill their place; Nor yet with speechless memories of what Earth's winters were, enverduring the green Of every heavenly palm Whose windless, shadeless calm Moves only at the breath of the Un- seen. Oh, not with this blood on us, and this face. Still, haply, pale with sorrow that it bore In our behalf, and tender evermore, Witli nature all our own, upon us gazing, Nor yet with these forgiving hands upraising Their unreproachful wounds, alone to bless ! Alas, Creator ! shall we love thee less Than mortals shall ? Ador. Amen I so let it be. We love in our proportion to the bound Thine infinite our finite set around. And that is finitely, thou infinite, And worthy infinite love ! And our delight Is watching the dear love poured out to thee From ever fuller chalice. Blessed they, THE SERAPHIM. 221 Who love tliee more than we do : blessed we, Viewing that love which shall exceed even this, And winning in the sight a double bliss For all so lost in love's supremacy. The bliss is better. Only on the sad Cold earth there are who say It seemeth better to be great than glad. The bliss is better. Love him more, O man, Than sinless seraphs can ! Zerah. Yea, love him more ! Voices of the angelic multitude. Yea, more ! Ador. The loving word Is caught by those from whom we stand apart; For silence hath no deepness in her heart AVhere love's low name low breathed would not be heard By angels, clear as thunder. Angelic Voices. Love him more. Ador. Sweet voices, swooning o'er The music which ye make ! Albeit to love there were not ever given A mournful sound when uttered out of heaven. That angel-sadness ye would fitly take. Of love be silent now ! We gaze adown Upon the incarnate Love who wears no crown. Zerah. No crown ! the woe instead Is heavy on his head, Pressing inward on his brain With a hot and clinging pain Till all tears are prest away, And clear and calm his vision may Peruse the black abyss. No rod, no sceptre, is Holden in his fingers pale: They close instead upon the nail. Concealing the sharp dole, Never stirring to put by The fair hair jjeaked with blood, Drooping forward from the rood Helplessly, heavily. On the cheek that waxeth colder, Whiter ever, and the shoulder Where the government was laid. His glory made the heavens afraid : Will he not unearth this cross from its hole ? His pity makes his piteous state; Will he be uncompassionate Alone to his proper soul ? Yea, will he not lift up His lips from the bitter cup, His brows from the dreary weight, His hand from the clinching cross, Crying, " My Father, give to me Again the joy I had with thee Or ere this earth was made for loss"? No stir — no sound. The love and woe being interwound, He cleaveth to the woe. And putteth forth heaven's strength below — To bear. Ador. And that creates his anguish now, Which made his glory there. Zerah. Shall it need be so ? Awake, thou Earth! behold, — Thou, uttered forth of old In all thy life-emotion. In all thy vernal noises; In the rollings of thine ocean, Leaping founts, and rivers run- ning. In thy woods' prophetic heaving Ere the rains a stroke have given; In thy winds' exultant voices When they feel the hills anear; In the firmamental sunning. And the tempest which rejoices Thy full heart with an awful cheer ! "Thou, uttered forth of old. And Mith all thy music rolled In a breath abroad By the breathing God ! Awake ! He is here ! behold ! Even thou — Beseems it good To thy vacant vision dim. That the deadly ruin should For thy sake encompass him ? That the Master-word should lie A mere silence, while his own Processive harmony. The faintest echo of his lightest tone, Is sweeping in a choral triumph by ? Awake ! emit a cry ! And say, albeit used From Adam's ancient years To falls of acrid tears. To frequent sighs unloosed, Caught back to press again On bosoms zoned with pain, — To corses still and sullen <> 222 THE SERAPHIM. The shine and music dulling To that Atoner making calm and free? "With closed eyes and ears Am I a God as he. That nothing sweet can enter. To lay down peace and power as will- Commoving thee no less ingly ? With that forced quietness Ador. He looked for some to pity: Than the earthquake in thy cen- there is none. tre— All pity is within him, and not for Thou hast not learnt to bear him. This new divine despair ! His earth is iron under him, and o'er These tears that sink into thee, him These dying eyes that view thee, His skies are brass. This dropping blood from lifted His seraphs cry, " Alas ! " rood. With hallelujah voice that cannot They darken and undo thee. weep. Thou canst not presently sustain And man, for whom the dreadful this corse — work is done . . . Cry, cry, thou hast not force ! Scornful Voices from the Earth. If Cry, thou wouldst fainer keep verily this be the Eternal's Thy hopeless charnels deep, son — Thyself a general tomb Ador. Thou hearest. Man is grate- Where the first and the second ful. Death Zerah. Can I hear, Sit gazing face to face, Nor darken into man, and cease for- And mar each other's breath. ever While silent bones through all the My seraph smile to wear ? place Was it for such 'Neath sun and moon do faintly It pleased liim to overleap glisten, His glory with his love, and sever And seem to lie and listen From the God-light and the For the tramp of the coming Doom. throne. Is it not meet And all angels bowing down. That they who erst the Eden fruit From whom his every look did did eat touch Should champ the ashes ? New notes of joy on the unworn That they who wrap them in the string thunder-cloud Of an eternal worshipping ? Should wear it as a shroud, For such he left his heaven ? Perishing by its flashes ? There, though never bought by That they who vexed the lion should blood be rent ? And tears, we gave him gratitude : Cry, cry, " I will sustain my pun- We loved him there, though un- ishment, forgiven. The sin being mine, but take away Ador. The light is riven from me Above, around. This visioned dread — this Man — And down in lurid fragments flung. this Deity ! " That catch the mountain-peak and The Earth. I halve groaned; I have stream travailed: I am weary. With momentary gleam, I am blind with my own grief, and Then perish in the water and tlie cannot see, ground. As clear-eyed angels can, his agony; River and waterfall, And what I see I also can sustain, Forest and wilderness, Because his power protects me from Mountain and city, are together his pain. wrung I have groaned; I have travailed: I Into one shape, and that is shapeless- am dreary, ness: Harkening the thick sobs of my The darkness stands for all. children's heart: Zerah. The pathos hath the day un- How can I say " Depart " done: II THE SERAPHTM. 223 Tlie death-look of his eyes Hath overcome the sun, And made it sicken in its narrow skies. Ador. Is it to death ? He dieth. Zerah. Through the dark He still, he only, is discernible. The naked hands and feet transfixed stark, The countenance of patient anguish white. Do make themselves a light More dreadful than the glooms which round them dwell, And therein do thev shine. Ador. God ! Father-God ! Perpetual Radiance on the radiant throne ! Uplift the lids of inward deity, Flashing abi'oad Thy burning Infinite ! Light up this dark where there is nought to see Except the uuimagined agony Upon the sinless forehead of the Son ! Zerah. God, tarry not ! Behold, enow Hath he wandered as a stranger, Sorrowed as a victim. Thou Appear for him, O Father ! Appear for him. Avenger ! Apjjear for him. Just One and Holy One, For he is holy and just ! At once the darkness and dishonor rather To the ragged jaws of hungry chaos rake. And hixrl aback to ancient dust These mortals that make blasphe- mies "With their made breath, this earth and skies That only grow a little dim. Seeing their curse on him. But him, of all forsaken. Of creature and of brother, Never wilt thou forsake ! Thy living and thy loving cannot slacken Their firm essential hold upon each other, And well thou dost remember how his part Was still to lie upon thy breast, and be Partaker of the light that dwelt in thee Ere sun or seraph shone ; And how, while silence trembled round the throne. Thou countedst by the beatings of his heart The moments of thine own eternity. Awaken, O right hand with the lightnings ! Again gather His glory to thy glory ! What es- tranger, What ill supreme in evil, can be thrust Between the faithful Father and the Son? Appear for him, O Father ! Appear for him. Avenger ! Appear for him, Just One and Holy One, For he is holy and just ! Adoi'. Thy face upturned toward the throne is dark; Thou hast no answer, Zerah. Zerah. No replj% O unforsaking Father ? Ador. Hark ! Instead of downward voice, a cry Is uttered from beneath. Zerah. And by a sharper sound than death Mine immortality is riven. The heavy darkness which doth tent the sky Floats backward as by a sudden wind; But I see no light behind; But I feel the farthest stars are all Stricken and shaken. And I know a shadow sad and broad Doth fall — doth fall On our vacant thrones in heaven. Voice from the Cross. My God, my God, Why hast thou me forsaken? The Earth. Ah me, ah me, ah me ! the dreadful why ! My sin is on thee, sinless one ! Thou art God-orphaned for my burden on thy head. Dark sin, white innocence, endurance dread ! Be still within yoiir shrouds, my buried dead, Nor work with this quick horror round mine heart. Zerah. He hath forsaken Him. I perish. Ador. Hold Upon his name ! we perish not. Of old His will — I 224 THE SERAPHIM. Zerah. I seek liis will. Seek, sera- phim ! My God, my God ! where is it ? Doth that curse Reverberate spare us, seraph or uni- verse ? He hath forsaken Him. Ador. He cannot fail. Anqel Voices. We faint, we droop; Our love doth tremble like fear. Voices of Fallen Angels from the Earth. Do we prevail ? Or are we lost ? Hath not the ill we did Been heretofore our good ? Is it not ill that One, all sinless, should Hang heavy with all curses on a cross ? Nathless, that cry ! With huddled faces hid Within the empty graves which men did scoop To hold more damned dead, we shud- der through What shall exalt us, or undo, — Our triumph, or our loss. Voice from the Cross. It is finished. Zerah. Hark, again ! Like a victor speaks the slain. Angel Voices. Finished be the trem- bling vain ! Ador. Upward, like a well-loved son, Looketh He, the orphaned One. Angel Voices. Finished is the mystic pain. Voices of Fallen Angels, His deathly forehead at the word Gleameth like a seraph sword. Angel Voices. Finished is the demon reign. Ador. His breath, as living God, createth ; His breath, as dying man, completeth. Angel Voices. Finished work his hands sustain. The Earth. In mine ancient sepul- chres. Where my kings and prophets freeze, Adam dead four thousand years, Unwakened by the universe's Everlasting moan. Aye his ghastly silence mocking — Unwakened by his children's knock- ing At his old sepulchral stone, " Adam, Adam, all this curse is Thine and on us yet ! " — Unwakened by the ceaseless tears Wherewith they made his cerement wet, " Adam, must thy curse remain? " — Starts with sudden life and hears. Through the slow dripping of the cav- erned eaves, — Angel Voices. Finished is his bane. Voice from the Cross. Father ! my SPIRIT TO THINE HANDS IS GIVEN. Ador. Hear the wailing winds that be By wings of unclean spirits made 1 They in that last look surveyed The love they lost in losing heaven, And passionately fiee With a desolate cry that cleaves The natural storms, though the]/ are lifting God's strong cedar-roots like leaves, And the earthquake and the thun- der. Neither keeping either under. Roar and hurtle through the glooms, And a few pale stars are drifting Past the dark to disappear. What time, from the splitting tombs Gleauiingly the dead arise, Viewing with their death-calmed eyes The elemental strategies. To witness, victory is the Lord's. Hear the wail o' the spirits ! hear ! Zerah. I hear alone the memory of his words. EPILOGUE. My song is done. My voice that long hath faltered shall be still. The mystic darkness drops from Cal- vary's hill Into the common light of this day's sun. II. I see no more thy cross, O holy Slain! I hear no more the horror and the coil Of the great world's turmoil Feeling thy countenance too still, — nor yell PROMETHEUS BOUND. 225 Of demons sweeping past it to their prison. Tiie skies that turned to darkness with thy pain Make now a summer's day ; And on my changed ear that sabbath bell Records how Christ is risen. III. And I —ah, what am I To counterfeit, with faculty earth- darkened, Seraphic brows of light. And seraph language never used nor barkened ? Ah me ! what word that seraphs say, could come From mouth so used to sighs, so soon to lie Sighless, because then breathless, in the tomb ? IV. Bright ministers of God and grace, of grace Because of God ! — whether ye bow adown In your own heaven, before the living face Of Him who died, and deathless wears the crown. Or whether at this hour ye haply are Anear, around me, hiding in the night Of this permitted ignorance your Ihigt, This feebleness to spare, — Forgive me, that mine earthly heart should dare Shape images of unincarnate spirits. And lay upon their burning lips a thought Cold with the weeping which mine earth inherits. And though ye find in such hoarse music, wrought To copy yours, a cadence all the while Of sin and sorrow, only pitying smile! Ye know to pity, well. /, too, may haply smile another day At the fair recollection of this lay. When God may call me in your midst to dwell. To hear your most sweet music's mir- acle. And see your wondrous faces. May it be ! For his remembered sake, the Slain on rood, "Who rolled his earthly garment red in blood (Treading the wine-press) that the weak, like me, Before his heavenly throne should walk in white. PROMETHEUS BOUND. FROM THE GREEK OP .ffliSCHYLUS. PERSONS OF THE DRAMA. Prometheus. Heph^stus. OcEANUS. lo, daughter of Ina- Hermes. chus. Strength and Force. Chorus of Ocean Nymphs. Scene. — Strength and Force, Heph^s- tus and Prometheus, at the Rocks. Strength. "We reach the utmost limit of the earth, — The Scythian track, the desert with- out man. J^ And now, Hephsestus, thou must needs fulfil The mandate of our Father, and wtih links Indissoluble of adamantine chains Fasten against this beetling precipice This guilty god. Because he filched away Thine own bright flower, the glory of plastic fire. And gifted mortals with it, — such a sin It doth behoove he expiate to the gods, 226 PROMETHEUS BOUND. Learning to accept the empery of Zeus, And leave off his old trielc of loving man. Ilephcestus. O Strength and Force, for you our Zeus's will Presents a deed for doing, no more ! — But I, I lack your daring, up this storm-rent chasm To fix with violent hands a kindred god, Howbeit necessity compels me so That I must dare it, and our Zeus commands With a most inevitahle word. Ho, thou ! High-thoughted son of Themis, who is sage ! Thee loath, I loath must rivet fast in chains Against this rocky height unclomb by man. Where never human voice nor face shall find Out thee who lov'st them; and thy beauty's flower, Scorched in the sun's clear heat, shall fade away. Night shall come up with garnitiire of stars To comfort thee with shadow, and the sun Disperse with retrickt beams the morning-frosts; But through all changes, sense of pres- ent woe Shall vex thee sore, because with none of them There comes a hand to free. Such fruit is plucked From love of man ! And in that thou, a god, Didst brave the wrath of gods, and give away Undue respect to mortals, for that crime Thou art adjudged to guard this joy- less rock. Erect, unslumberiug, bending not the knee. And many a cry and unavailing moan To utter on the air. For Zeus is stern, And new-made kings are cruel. Strewjth. Be it so. Why loiter in vain pity ? Why not hate A god the gods hate ? — one, too, who l)etrayed Thy glory unto men ? Jlephcestus. An awful thing Is kinshijj joined to friendship. Strength. Grant it be: Is disobedience to the Father's word A possible thing ? Dost quail not more for that ? Ilephcestus. Thou, at least, art a stern one, ever bold. Strength. Why, if I wept, it were no remedy; And do not thou spend labor on the air To bootless uses. HephcEstus. Cursed handicraft ! I curse and hate thee, O my craft ! Strength. Why hate Thy craft most plainly innocent of all These pending ills ? Heioh(B.^tus. I would some other hand Were here to work it ! Strength. All work hath its pain. Except to rule the gods. There is none free Except King Zeus. IlephcBStus. I know it very well ; I argue not against it. Strength. Wliy not, then, Make haste and lock the fetters over HIM, Lest Zeus behold thee lagging ? Hephaestus. Here be chains. Zeus may behold these. Strength. Seize him; strike amain; Strike with the hammer on each side his hands; Rivet him to the rock. Hephcestus. The work is done. And thoroughly done. Strength. Still faster grai^ple him; Wedge him in decider; leave no inch to stir. He's terrible for finding a way out From the irremediable. Ilephcestus. Here's an arm, at least. Grappled past freeing. Strength. Now, then, btickle me The otlier securely. Let this wise one learn He's duller than our Zeus. Hepjhoestus. Oh, none but he Accuse me justly. Strength. Now, straight through the ciiest, Take him and bite him with the clenching tooth Of the adamantine wedge, and rivet him. Ilephcestus. Alas, Prometheus, what thou sufferest here I sorrow over. " Behold nie, a god, what I endure from gods ! "—Page 227. "♦z;;:^. PROMETHEUS BOUND. Strencitli. Dost thou flinch again, Autl breathe groans lor the enemies of Zens? Beware lest tliine own pity tind thee out. Iliphagtiis. Thou dost l>ehokl a spec- taele tliat turns The sight o' the eyes to pity. Strength. I l)ehohl A sinner suffer his sin's ]ienalty. But lash the thongs about his sides. Ilephcestus. So much I must do. Urge no farther tlian I must. Strength. Ay, but I v!// urge ! and, with sliout on sht)nt, Will hound tliee at this (piarry. (let thee down, And ring amain the iron round liis legs. Hephoistus. That work was not long doing. Strength. Heavily now Let fall the strokes upon the perfo- rant gyves; For he who rates the work lias a heavy hand. IlepMestus. Thy speech is savage as thy shape. ■ Strength. Be thou Gentle and tender, but revile not me For the firm will and the untruc- kling hate, llephce!py ones sublime Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me ! Woe, woe ! to-day's woe and the coming morrow's I cover with one groan. And where is found me A limit to these sorrows ? And yet what word do I say ? I have foreknown Clearly all things that should be; nothing done Comes sudden to my soul; and I must bear What is ordained with patience, being aware Necessity doth front the universe With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse Which strikes me now I find it hard to brave In silence or in speech. Because 1 gave Honor to mortals, I have voiced my soul To this compelling fate. Because I stole The secret fount of fire, whose bnl>- bles went Over the ferule's brim, and man- ward sent Art's mighty means and perfect ru- diment, That sin I expiate in this agony. Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky. Ah, ah me ! what a sountl ! What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen Of a god, or a mortal, or nature be- tween. Sweeping up to this rock where the Earth has her bound, To have siglit of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain. Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain ! The god Zeus hateth sore, And ids gods hate again. As many as tread on his glorified floor, PROMETHEUS BOUND. Because I loved mortals too much evermore. Alas me ! what a mnrniur and motion I hear, As of birds flying near ! And the air undersings The light stroke of their wings, And all life that approaches I wait for in fear. Chorvs of Sea-iii/nipJis, 1st strophe. Fear nothing ! our troop Floats lovingly up ^^'ith a cpiick-oaring stroke Of wings steered to the rock, Ha\ing softened the soul of our father below. For the gales of swift-bearing have . sent me a sound, And the clank of the iron, the mal- letted blow. Smote down the profound Of my caverns of old. And struck the red light in a blush from my brow. Till I sprang up unsandalled, m haste to behold, And rushed forth on my chariot of wings manifold. Promi'theiis. Alas me ! alas me ! Ye offspring of Tethys, who bore at her breast Many children, and eke of Oceanus, he. Coiling still around earth with per- isetual unrest ! Behold me and see How transfixed with the fang Of a fetter I hang On the high-jutting rocks of this fis- sure, and keep An uncoveted watch o'er the world and the deep. Chorus, 1st antistrophe. I behold thee, Prometheus; yet now, yet now, A terrible cloud whose rain is tears Sweeps over mine eyes that witness how Thy body appears Hung awaste on the rocks by infran- gible chains: For new is the hand, new the rudder, that steers The ship of Olympus through surge and wind, And of old things. passed, uo track is behind. PrometheKs. Under earth, under Hades, Where the home of the shade is. All into the deep, deep Tartarus, I would he had hurled me adown. I would he had plunged me, fastened thus In the knotted chain, with the savage clang, All into the dark, where there should be none, Neither god nor another, to laugh and see. But now the winds sing through and shake The hurtling chains wherein I hang, And I in my naked sorrows make Much mirth for my enemy. Chorus, 2(1 strophe. Nay ! who of the gods hath a heart so stern As to use thy woe for a mock and mirth ? "Who would not turn more mild to learn Thy sorrows ? who of the heaven and earth Save Zeus ? But he Right wrathfuUy Bears on his sceptral soul unbent, And rules thereby the heavenly seed. Nor will he pause till he content His thirsty heart in a finished deed. Or till Another shall appear. To win by fraud, to seize by fear, The hard -to -be -captured govern- ment. Prometheus. Yet even of me he shall have need, That monarch of the blessed seed, — Of me, of me who now am cursed By his fetters dire, — To wring my secret out withal. And learn by whom his sceptre shall Be filched from him, as was at first His heavenly tire. But he never shall enchant me With his honey-lipped persua- sion; Never, never, shall he daunt me. With the oath and threat of passion, Into speaking as they want me, Till he loost' this savage chain, And accept the expiation Of my sorrow in his pain. PROMETHEUS ROUND. Cliiinas, 2d antistrophe. Thou art, sootli, a brave fjod, And, for all thou liast borno From the stroke of the rod, Nought relaxest from scorn. l!ut thou speakest unto me Too free and unworn ; And a terror sti'ikes througli me And festers my soul. And I fear, in the roll Of the storm, for thy fate In the shii) far from shore; Since the son of Saturnus is hard in his hate. And unmoved in his heart ever- more. Prometheus. I know that Zeus is stern; I know he metes bis justice by his will ; And yet his soul shall learn More s )ftness when once broken by this ill; And, curbing his unconquerable vaunt, He shall rush on in fear to meet with me "Who rush to meet with him in agony, To issues of harmonious covenant. Chorus. Remove the veil from all things, and relate The story to us, — of what crime ac- cused, Zeus smites thee with dishonoral)le pangs. Speak, if to teach iis do not grieve thyself. Prometlivus. The utterance of these things is torture to me. But so, too, is their silence: cacii way lies Woe strong as fate. When gods began with wrath, And war rose uji between their starry brows. Some choosing to cast Chronos from his throne That Zeus might king it there, and some in haste With opposite oaths, that they would have no Zeus To rule the gods forever, — I, who brought The counsel I thought meetest, could not move The Titans, children of the Heaven aTid Earth, What time, disdaining in their rugged souls M3' subtle machinations, they as- sumed It was an easy thing for force to take The mastery of fate. My mother, then, Who is called not only Thenus, but Earth too, (Her single beauty joys in many names) Did teach me with reiterant prophec\- What future should be, and how con- quering gods Should not prevail by strength and violence, But by guile only. When I told them so, They would not deign to contemplate the truth On all sides round; whereat I deemed it best To lead my willing mother upwardly, And set my Themis face to face with Zeus As willing to receive her. Tartarus, With its abysmal cloister of the Dark, Because I gave that counsel, covers up The antique Chronos and his siding hosts, And, by that counsel helped, the king of gods Hath recompensed me with these bit- ter pangs; For kingshii:) wears a cancer at the heart, — Distrust in friendship. Do ye also ask What crime it is for which he tortures me ? That shall be clear before you. When at first He filled his father's throne, he in- stantly Made various gifts of glory to the gods. And dealt the empire out. Alone of men, Of miserable men, he took no count. But yearned to sweep their track off from the world, Aiul plant a newer race there. Not a god Resisted such desii'e, except mysell. / dared it ! I drew mortals back to light. From meditated ruin deep as hell ! For whiless trunk, supinely, at full- length Beside the strait of ocean, spurred into By roots of ^Etna, high upon whose tops Hephnestus sits, and strikes the flash- ing ore. From thence the rivers of fire shall burst away Hereafter, and devour with savage jaws The equal plains of fruitful Sicily, Such passion he shall boil back in hot darts Of an insatiate fury and sough of flame, Fallen Typhon, howsoever struck and charred By Zeus's bolted thunder. But for thee. Thou art not so unlearned as to need My teaching; let thy knowledge save thyself. I quaff the full cup of a present doom. And wait till Zeus hath quenched his will in wrath. Oceatuis. Prometheus, art thou ig- norant of this. That words do medicine anger ? Prometheus. If the word With seasonable softness touch the soul. And, where the parts are ulcerous, sear them not By any rudeness. With a noble aim -is there harm in Oceanus. To dare as nobl^- tliat ? Dost thou discern it ? Teach me. Prometheus. I discern Vain aspiration, unresultive work. Oceanus. Then suffer me to bear the brunt of this. Since it is profitable that one who is wise Should seem not wise at all. Prometheus. And such would seem My very crime. Oceanus. In truth thine argu- ment Sends me back home. Prometheus. Lest anj- lament for me Should cast thee down to hate. Oceanus. The hate of him Who sits a new king on the absolute throne ? Prometheus. Beware of him, lest thine heart grieve by him. Oceanus. Thy doom, Prometheus, be mj^ teacher ! Prometheus. Go ! Depart ! Beware! And keep the mind thou hast. Oceanus. Thy words drive after, as I rush before. Lo, my four-footed bird sweeps smooth and wide The flats of air with balanced pinions, glad To bend his knee at home in the ocean- .stall. [Oceanus departs. Chorus, 1st strophe. I moan thj^ fate, I moan for thee, Prometheus! From my ej-es too tender Drop after drop incessantly The tears of my heart's pity render My cheeks wet from their fountains free; Because that Zeus, the stern and cold, Whose law is taken from his breast, Uplifts his sceptre manifest Over the gods of old. 1st antistrophe. All the land is moaning With a murmured plaint to-day; All the mortal nations Having habitations In the holv Asia mo MET hi: us bound. 2fJ3 i T Are a dirge entoning For thine lionor and thy brothers', Once majestic beyond others In the old belief, — Now are groaning in the groaning Of thy deep-voiced grief. 2d strophe Mourn the maids inhabitant Of the Colchian land. Who with white, calm bosoms stand In the battle's roar : Mourn the Scythian tribes that haunt The verge of earth, Ma^otis' shore. 2(i (oitistrophe. Yea ! Arabia's battle crown. And dwellers in the beetling town Mt. Caucasus sublimely nears — An iron squadron, thundering down With the sharp-prowed spears. But one other before have I seen to remain By invincible pain, Bound and vanquished, — one Titan! 'twas Atlas, who bears In a curse from the gods, by that strength of his own Which he evermore wears, The weight of the heaven on his shoul- der alone, While he sighs up the stars; And the tides of the ocean wail, bursts ing their bars; Murmurs still the profound, And black Hades roars up tlirough the chasm of the ground. And the fountains of pure-running rivers moan low In a pathos of woe. Prometheus. Beseech you, think not I am silent thus Through pride or scorn. I onl^' gnaw my heart With meditation, seeing myself so wronged. For see — their honors to these new- made gods, What other gave but I, and dealt them out With distribution? Ay! but here I am dumb: For here I should repeat your knowl- edge to you, If I spake aught. List rather to the deeds I (lid for mortals; how, being fools before, I made them wise and true in aim of soul. And let me tell you, ^ not as taunt- ing men. But teaching you the intention of my gifts, — How, first beholding, they beheld in vain. And, hearing, heard not, but. like shapes in dreams. Mixed all things wildly down the te- dious time, Nor knew to build a house against the sun With wicketed sides, nor any wood- craft knew. But lived, like silly ants, beneath the ground In hollow caves unsunned. There came to them No steadfast sign of winter, nor of spring Flower-perfumed, nor of summer full of fruit. But blindlj' and lawlessly theytlid all things. Until I taught them how the stars do rise And set in mystery, and devised for them Number, the inducer of philoso- phies. The synthesis of letters, and, beside. The artificer of all things, memory. That sweet muse-mother. I was first to yoke The servile beasts in couples, carry- ing An heirdom of man's burdens on their backs. I joined to chariots, steeds, that love the bit They champ at, — the chief pomji of golden ease. And none but I originated ships. The seaman's chariots, wanderings on the brine With linen wings. And I — oh, mis- eral)le ! — Who did devise for mortals all these arts. Have no device left now to save my- self From the woe I suffer. Cliorns. Most unseemly woe Thou sufferest, and dost stagger from the sense 2^4 rROMETHEUS BOUND. Bewildered ! I^ike a bad leerh falling sick. Tlion art. faint at soul, and canst not lind the drugs Required to save thyself. Prometlu'-iis. Harken the rest, And marvel further, what more arts and means I did invent, — this, greatest: if a man Fell sick, there was no cure, nor escu- lent Nor chrism nor liquid, hut for lack of drugs Men pined and wasted, till I showed them all Those mixtures of emollient reme- dies Whereby they might be rescued from disease. I fixed the various rules of mantic art. Discerned the vision from the com- mon dream. Instructed them in vocal auguries Hard to interpret, and defined as plain The waysiit antistrophe. 'Tis sweet to liave Life lengthened out With hopes proved brave Bv the very doubt, Till' the spirit infold Those manifest joys wliieli were foretold. But I tlirill to behold Thee, victim doomed, By the countless cares And the drear despairs Forever consumed, — And all because thou, who art fear- less now Of Zeus above. Didst overflow for mankind below With a free-souled, reverent love. All, friend, behold and see ! What's all the beauty atli, on high, on high; And along the sands of the siding deep. All famine-worn, he follows me, And his waxen reed doth under.sound The waters round. And giveth a measure that giveth sleej). Woe, woe, woe ! Where shall my weary course be done ? What wouldst thou with me, Saturn's son ? And in what have I sinned, that I should go Thus yoked to grief by tliine hand forever ? Ah, ah ! dost vex me so That I madden and shiver Stung through with dread ? Flasli the fire down to burn me ! Heave the earth w]) to cover me ! Plunge me in the deep, with the salt waves over me. That the sea-beasts may be fed ! king do not spurn me In my prayer ! For this wandering everlouger, evermore, Hath overworn me, And I know not on what shore 1 may rest from my desimir. C'hurtis. Hearest thou what the ox- horned maiden saith ? Prometheus. How could I choose but harken what she saith, The frenzied maiden ? — Inachus's child? — Who love-warms Zeus's heart, and now is lashed By Here's hate along the unending ways? 23C ntOMETHE US BO UN J). Jo. Wlio taught tlipfi to articulate that name, — My father's ? Speak to his child By grief and shame defiled ! Who art thou, victim, thou who dost acclaim Mine anguish in true words on the wide air, And callest, too, by name the curse that came From Here unaware, To waste and pierce me with its mad- dening goad ? Ah, ah, I leap With the pang of the hungry; I hound on the road; I am driven by my doom ; I am overcome By the wrath of an enemy strong and deep ! Are any of those who liave tasted pain, Alas ! as wretched as I ? Now tell me plain, doth aught remain For my soul to endure beneath the sky? Is there any help to be holpen by ? If knowledge be in thee, let it be said ! Cry aloud — crj- To the wandering, woful maid. Promethena. Whatever thou wouldst learn, I will declare; No riddle upon my lips, but such straight words As friends should use to each other when they talk. Thou seest Prometheus, who gave mortals fire. lo. O common help of all men, known of all, O miserable Prometheus, for what cause Dost thou endui-c thus ? Prometheus. I have done with wail For my own griefs but lately. lo. Wilt thou not Vouchsafe the boon to me ? Promethens. Say what thou wilt. For I vouchsafe all. lo. Si>cak, then, and reveal Who shut thee in this chasm. Prometheus. The will of Zeus, The hand of his Hepbiestus lo. ■ " Dost expiate so ? PrometheKS. liave told In so nnu?h onlv. And what crime Enouiih for thee I lo. Nay, but show besides The limit of iny wandering, and the time Which yet is lacking to fulfil my grief. Prometheus. Why, not to know were better than to know For such as thou. lo. Beseech thee, blind me not To that which I must sutfer. Prometheus. If I do. The reason is not tliat I grudge a boon. /'). What reason, then, prevents thy speaking out? Prometheus. No grudging, but a fear to break thine heart. /'). Less care for me, I pray thee. Certainty I count for advantage. Prometlu'u.t. Thou wilt have it so, And therefore I must speak. Now liear — Chorus. Not yet. Give half the guerdon my way. Let us learn First what the curse is that befell the maid. Her own voice telling her own wast- ing woes : The sequence of that anguish shall await The teaching of thy lips. Prometheus. It doth behoove That thou, maid lo, shouldst vouch- safe to these The grace they pray, — the more, be- cause they are called Thy father's sisters; since to open out And mourn out grief, where it is pos- sible To draw a tear from the audience, is a work That pays its own price well. lo. " I cannot choose But trust you, nymphs, and tell you all ye ask, In clear 'words, though I sob amid my speech In speaking of the storm-curse sent from Zeus, And of my beauty, from which height it took Its swoop on me, poor wretch ! left thus deformed And monstrous to your eyes. For evermore Around my virgin-chamber, wander- ing went PROMETHEUS BOUND. 237 The nightly visions which entreatad me With syllabled smooth sweetness. — " Blessetl maid, Why lengthen out thy maiden liours. when fate Permits the noblest spousal in the world ? When Zeus burns' with the arrow of thy love. And fain would touch thy beauty? — jMaiden, thou Despise not Zeus ! depart to Lerne's mead That's green around thy father's tlocks and stalls, Until the passion of the heavenly Eye Be quenched in sight." Such dreams did all night long Constrain me, — me, unhappy ! — till I dared To tell my father how they trod the dark With visionary steps. AVhereat he sent His frequent heralds tsT. Choj-Ks. Speak: teach, > To those who are sad alreadj', it seems sweet. By clear foreknowledge to make per- fect, pain. Prometheus. The boon ye asked me first was lightly won; For tirst ye asked the story of this maid's grief. I h-»Hi I ^m I I 238 rnOMETHEUS BOUND. As her own lips might tell it. Now reiuains To list what other sorrows she so young Must ])ear from Here. Inachns's child, O thou ! drop down thy soul my weighty words, And measure out the landmarks which are set To end thy wandering. Toward the orient sun First turn thy face from mine, and journey on Along the desert-flats till tliou shalt come Where Scythia's shepherd-peoples dwell aloft, Perched in wheeled wagons under woven roofs, And twang the rapid arrow past the liow. .A]>proach them not, but, siding in thy course The rugged sliore-rocks resonant to the sea. Dc])art that country. On the left hand dwell Th(! iron-workers, calh^d the Chaly- hes. Of whom beware, for certes they are uncouth. And nowise bland to strangers. Reaching so The stream Hybristes (well the scorner called). Attempt no pa.ssage, — it is hard to pass, — Or ere thou come to Caucasus itself. That highest of mountains, where the river leaps The [)recipice in his strength. Thou must toil up Those mountain-tops that neighbor with the stars. And tread the soutli way, and draw- near, at last, Tlu; Amazonian host that hateth man. Inhabitants of Themiscyra, close Upon Thernjodon, where the sea's rough jaw Doth gnash at Salmydessa, and ]>ro- vide A cruel host to seamen, and to ships A stepdame. They, with unreluctant hand, Shall lead thee on aud on till thou arrive Just where the ocean-gates show nar- rowest On the Cimmerian isthmus. Leaving which, Behooves thee swim with fortitude of soul The strait Mseotis. Ay, and ever- more That traverse shrfll be famous on men's lips. That strait called Bosphorus, the horned one's road, So named because of thee, who so wilt pass From Europe's ]ilain to Asia's conti- nent. How think ye, nymplis ? the king of gods appears Impartial in ferocitms deeds? Be- hold ! The god desirous of this mortal's love Hath cursed lier with these wander- ings. Ah, fair child, Thou hast met a bitter groom for bri- dal troth ! For all thou yet hast heard can only prove The incompleted ])reludeof thy doom. lo. Ah, ah ! Prometheus. Is't tlij- turn now to shriek and moan " How wilt thou, when thou hast bar- kened what remains? Chorus. Besides the grief thou liast told, can aught remain ? Prometheus. A sea of foredoomed evil worked to storm. III. What boots juy life, then ? why not cast myself Down headlong from this miserable rock, That, dashed against the flats, I may redeem My soul -from sorrow ? Better once to die Than day by day to stiffer. Protnetheiis. Verily, It would be hard for thee to bear my woe For whom it is appointed not to die. Death frees from woe; but I befoj-e me see In all my far prevision not a bound To all I suffer, ere that Zeus shall fall From being a king. lo. And can it ever Ix- That Zeus sliall fall from empire ? Primiethcus. Thou, methinks, Wouldst take some joy to see it. PROM KTUE US BO UND. 239 lo. Could I choose ? / who endure siicli i)ano;s now, by that god ! Prometheus. Learn Ironi me, there- fore, that the event sliall be. lo. By wlioni shall his imperial sceptred hand Be emptied so ? Prometheus. Himself shall sjioil himself, Throufih his idiotic counsels. lo. How? declare, Unless the word bring evil. Prometheus. He shall wed. And in the marriage-bond be joined to grief. lo. A heavenly bride, or human ? Speak it out, If it be utterable. Prometheus. Why should I .sav which ? It ought not to be uttered, verily. lo. Then It is his wife shall tear him from his throne ? Prometheus. It is his wife shall bear a sou to him More mighty than tlie father. To. From this doom Hath lie no refuge ? Prometheus. None: or ere that I Loosed from these fetters — lo. Yea; bvit who shall loose While Zeus is adverse ? Prometheus. Onewho is born of thee : It is ordained so. lo. What is this thou sayest ? A son of mine shall liberate thee from w'oe ? Prometlieiis. After ten generations count three more, And find him in the third. lo. The oracle Remains obscure. Prometheus. And search it not to learn Thine own griefs from it. lo. Point me not to a good To leave me straight bereaved. Prometheus. I am prepared To grant thee one of two things. lo. But which two ? Set them before me; grant me jiower to choose. Prometheus. I grant it; choose now! Shall I name aloud What griefs remain to wound thee, or what hand Shall save me out of mine V Chorus. Vouchsafe, O god, The one grace of the twain to her who prays, The next to me, and turn back nei- ther prayer Dishonored by denial. To herself Recount the future wandering of her feet; Then point me to the looser of thy chain, Because I yearn to know him. Prometheus. Since ye will. Of absolute will, this knowledge, I will set No contrary against it, nor keep back A word of all ye ask for. lo, first To thee I must relate thy wandering course Far winding. As I tell it, write it down In thy soul's book of memories. When thou hast past The refluent bound that jiarts two continents, Track on the footsteps of the orient sun In his own tire across the roar of seas, — Fly till thou hast reached the Gor- gona^an flats Beside Cisthene. There the Phorci- des. Three ancient maidens, live, with shape of swan, One tooth between them, and one common eye. On whom the sun doth n<'ver look at all With all his rays, nor evermore the moon M'hen she looks through the night. Auear to whom Are the Gorgon sisters three, en- clotheel with wings. With twisted snakes for ringlets, man-abhorred : There is no mortal gazes in their face, And gazing can breathe on. I speak of such To guard thee from their horror. Ay, and list Another tale of a dreadful sight: be- ware The Griffins, those unbarking dogs of Zeus, Those sharp-mouthed dogs! — and the Arimaspian host Of one-eyed horsemen, habiting be- side 240 PROMETHEUS BO VXD. The river of Pluto that runs bright with gold: Approach thein not, beseech thee. Presently Thon'lt come to a distant land, a dusky tribe Of dwellers at the fountain of the Sun, Whence Hows the River ^Ethiops; wind along Its lianks, and turn off at the cata- racts, Just as the Nile pours from the Byb- line hills His holy and sweet wave: his course shall guide Thine own to that triangular Nile- ground Where, lo, is ordained for thee and thine A lengthened exile. Have I said in this Aught darkly or incompletely? — now repeat The question, make the knowledge fuller ! Lo, I have more leisure than I covet here. Chords. If thou canst tell us aught that's left untold. Or loosely told, of her most dreary flight, Declare it straight; but, if thou hast uttered all, Grant us that latter grace for which we prayed, liemembering Low we prayed it. I'roiiietheiis. She lias heard The uttermost of her wandering. There it ends. But, that she may be certain not to have heard All vainly, I will speak what she en- dured Ere coming hither, and invoke the past To prove my prescience true. And so — to leave A multitude of words, and pass at once To the subject of thy course — when thou hadst gone To those Molossian ])lains which sweep around Dodona shouldering Heaven, where- by the fane Of Zeus Thesprotian keepeth oracle, And, wonder past belief, where oaks do wave Articulate adjurations — (ay, the same Saluted thee in no perplexed phrase, But clear with glory, noble wife of Zeus That shouldst be, there some sweet- ness took thy sense !) Thou didst rush further onward, stung along The ocean-shore, toward Rhea's mighty bay. And, tost back from it, wast tost to ir- again In stormy evolution: and know well. In coming time that hollow of the sea Shall bear the name Ionian, and pre- sent A monument of lo's passage Through, Unto all mortals. Be these words the signs Of my soul's jiower to look beyoml the veil Of visible things. The rest to you and her I will deelai'e in common audience, nymphs, Returning thither where my speech brake off. There is a town, Canobus, built upon The earth's fair margin, at the month of Nile, And on the mound washed up by it: lo, there Shall Zeus give back to thee thy jjcr- fect mind, And only by the pressure and the touch Of a hand not terrible; and thou to Zeus Shalt bear a dusky son who shall be called Thence Epajihns, Tom-hed. That son shall pluck the fruit Of all that land wide-watered by the rtow Of Nile; but after him, when counting out As far as the fifth full generation, then Full fifty maidens, a fair woman-race. Shall back to Argos turn reluctantly, To tiy the proffered nuj^tials of their kin, Their father's brothers. The.se being ]>assion-struck , Like falcons l.iearing hard on flying doves. Shall follow hunting at a quarry of love They should not hunt; till envious Heaven maintain i "T rROMETHEUS BOUND. 241 A curse betwixt tliat beauty and their desire, And Greece receive them, to be over- come In imirtherous woman-war liy fierce red hands Kept savage by the night. For every wife Shall slay a husband, dyeing deeji in blood Tlie sword of a double edge — (I wish indeed As fair a marriage-joy to all my foes !) One bride alone shall fail to smite to death The liead upon her pillow, touched with love. Made impotent of purpose, and im- l^elled To choose the lesser evil, — shame on her cheeks. Than blood-guilt on her hands; which bride sliall bear A royal race in Argos. Tedious speech AVere needed to relate particulars Of these things; 'tis enough that from her seed Shall spring the strong He, famous with the bow, Whose arm shall break my fetters off. Behold, My mother Themis, that old Titaness, Delivered to me such an oracle; But how and when, I should l)e long to speak, And thou, in hearing, wouldst not gain at all. /('. Eleleu, eleleu ! How the spasm and the pain, And the fire on the l)rain, Strike, burning me through ! How the sting of the curse, all aflame as it flew, Pricks me onward again ! How my heart in its terror is spurning my breast. And my eyes like the wheels of a chariot roll round ! I am whirled from my course, to the east, to the west. In the whirlwind of frenzy all mad- ly inwound; And my mouth is unbridled for an- guish and hate. And my words beat in vain, in wild storms of unrest, On the sea of my desolate fate. [To t-usUes out. Chorus, — strophe. Oh, wise was he, oh, wise was he, Who first within his spirit knew, And with his tongue declared it true, That love comes best that cijmes unto The equal of degree ! And that the poor and that the low Should seek no love from those above, Whose souls are fluttered witli the flow Of airs about their golden height. Or proud because they see arow Ancestral crowns of light. Antisfrophr. Oh. never, never, may ye, Fates, Behohl me with your awful eyes Lift mine too fondly up the skies Where Zeus upon the purple waits ! Nor let me step too near, too near, To any suitor bright from heaven; Because I see, because I fear. This loveless maiden vexed and laden By this fell curse of Here, driven On wanderings dread and drear. Nay, grant an equal troth instead Of nujitial love, to bind me by ! It will not hurt, I shall not dread To meet it in reply. But let not love from those above Revert and fix me, as I said. With that inevitable Eye ! I have no sword to fight that fight, I have no strength to tread that path, I know not if my nature hath The power to l)ear, I cannot see Whither from Zeus's infinite I have the power to flee. Promcthcns. Yet Zeus, albeit most absolute of will. Shall turn to meekness, — such a mar- riage-rite He holds in preparation, which anon Shall thrust him headlong from his gerent seat Adown the abysmal void; and so the curse His father Chronos muttered in his fall. As he fell from his ancient throne and cursed, Shall be accomplished wholly. No escape From all tliat ruin shall the filial Zeus 242 PROMETHEUS BOUND. to liiDj from any of his him. I the refuge Now, therefore, Find granteil gods, Unless I teach know, And I, the means. let him sit And brave the imminent doom, and lix his faith On his supernal noise.s hurtling on With restless hand the bolt that breathes out fire: For these things shall not help him, none of them, Nor hinder his perdition when he falls To shame, and lower than patience: such a foe He doth himself prepare against him- self, A wonder of unconquerable hate, An organizer of suhlimer fire Than glares in lightnings, and of grander sound Than aught the thunder rolls, out- thundering it, With jiowerto shatter in Poseidon's fist The trident-spear, which, while plagues the sea, Doth shake the shores around Ay, and Zeus, Precipitated thus, shall learn length The difference betwixt rule and servi- tude. Chorus. Thou makest threats for Zeus of thy desires. Prometheus. 1 tell you all these things shall be fulfilled Even so as I desire them. Chorus. Must we, then. Look ovit for one shall come to master Zeus? Prometheus. These chains weigh lighter than his sorrows shall. Cliorvs. How art thou not afraid to utter such words ? Prometheus. What should / fear, who cannot die ? Chorus. But he Can visit thee with dreader woe than death's. Prometheus. Why, let him do it! I am here, prepared For all things and their pangs. Chorus. The wise are they Who reverence Adrasteia. Prometheus. Reverence thou. Adore thou, flatter thou, whomever reigus, it it. at Whenever reigning! But forme, your Zeus Is less than nothing. Let him act and reign His brief hour out according to his will: He will not, therefore, rule the gods too long. But lo! I see that courier-god of Zeus, That new-made menial of the new- crowned king: He, doubtless, comes to announce to us something new. Hermes enters. Hermes. I speak to thee, the soph- ist, the talker-down Of scorn by scorn, the sinner against gods. The reverencer of men, the thief of fire, — I speak to thee and adjure thee: Zeus requires Thy declaration of what marriage-rite Thus moves thy vaunt, and shall here- after cause His fall from empire. Do not wrap thj' speecla In riddles, but speak clearly. Never cast Ambiguous paths, Prometheus, for my feet, Since Zeus, thou mayst perceive, is scarcely won To mercy by such means. Prometheus. A speech well- mouthed In the utterance, and full-minded in the sense, As doth befit a servant of the gods! New gods, ye newly reign, and think, forsooth, Ye dwell in towers too high for any dart To carry awoxxnd there ! Have I not stood by While two kings fell from thence ? and shall I not Behold the third, the same who rules you now, Fall, shamed to sudden ruin? Do I seem To tremble and quail before your modern gods ? Far be it from me ! For thyself, de- part; Re-tread thy steps in haste. To All thou hast asked I answer nothing. PROMETHEUS BOUND. 243 Hirnii s. Such a wind of pride Impelled thee of yore full sail upon these rocks. Prometheus. I would not barter — learn thou soothl y that ! — My suffering for thy service. I main- tain It is a nobler thing to serve these rocks Than live a faithful slave to father Zeus. Thus upon scorners I retort their scorn. Hermes. It seems that thou dost glory in thy despair. Prometheus. I glory ? Would my foes did glory so, And I stood by to see them! — naming wliom, Thou art not unremembered. Hermes. Dost thou cliarge Me also Avith the blame of thy mis- chance ? Prometheus. 1 tell thee I loathe the universal gods, Who, for tlie good I gave them, ren- dered back The ill of their injustice. Hermes. Thou art mad, Thou art raving, Titan, at the fever- height. Prometheus. If it be madness to abhor my foes, May I be mad ! Hermes. If thou wert jirosperous. Thou wouldst be unendurable. Prometheus. Alas! Hermes. Zeus knows not that word. Prometheus. But maturing Time Teaches all things. Hermes. Howbeit, thou hast not learnt The wisdom yet, thou needest. Prometheus. If I had, I should not talk thus with a slave like thee. Hermes. No answer thou vouch- safest, I believe. To the great Sire's requirement. Prometheus. Verily I owe him grateful service, and shoiUd pay it. Hermes. Why, thou dost mock me, Titan, as I stood A child before thy face. PrometheAis. No child, forsooth, But yet more foolish than 'a foolish child, If thou expect that I should answer aught Thy Zeus can ask. No torture frotn his hand. Nor any machination in the world, Shall force mine utterance ere he loose, himself. These cankerous fetters from me. For the rest, Let him now hurl his blanching light- nings down. And with his white-winged snows, and mutterings deei) Of subterranean thunders, mix all things. Confound them in disorder. None of this Shall bend my sturdy will, and make me speak The name of his dethroner who shall come. Hermes. Can this avail thee? Look to it ! Prometheus. Long ago It was looked forward to, jirecoun- selled of. Hermes. Vain god, take righteous courage! Dare for once To apprehend and front thine agonies With a just prudence. Prometheus. Vainly dost thou chafe My soul with exhortation, as yonder sea Goes beating on the rock. Oh! think no more That I, fear-struck by Zeus to a wo- man's mind. Will supjilicate him, loathed as he is, With feminine upliftings of myhands. To break these chains. Far from me be the thought! Hermes. I have indeed, methinks, said much in vain. For still thy heart beneath my show- ers of prayers Lies dry and hard, nay, leaps like a young horse Who bites against the new bit in his teeth. And tugs and struggles against the new-tried rein. Still fiercest in the feeblest thing of all, Wliicli sophism is; since absolute will (.lisjoined From perfect mind is worse than weak. Behold, Unless my words persuade thee, what a blast — I — i 244 PROMETHEUS BOUND. And wliii-lwind of inevitable woe Must sweep persuasion through thee ! For at first The Father will split up this jut of rock With the great thunder and the bolted tlame, And liide thy body where a hinge of stone Shall catch it like an arm; and, when thou hast passed A long black time witliin, thou shalt come out To front the svm while Zeiis's winged hound, The strong, carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down To meet thee, self-called to a daily feast, And set his fierce beak in thee, and tear off The long rags of thy flesh, and l>atten deep Upon thy dusky liver. Do not look For any end, moreover, to this curse. Or ere "some god appear to accept thy pangs On his own head vicarious, and de- scend With unreluctant step the darks of hell And gloomy abysses around Tartarus. Then ponder this, — this threat is not a growth Of vain invention; it is spoken and meant: King Zeus's mouth is impotent to lie, Consummating the utterance by the act. So, look to it, thou ! take heed, and nevermore Forget good counsel to indulge self- will. Chorus. Our Hermes suits his I'ea^ sons to the times, At least I think so, since he bids thee drop Self-will for prudent counsel. Yield to him ! When the wise err, their wisdom makes their shame. Prometheus. Unto me the fore- knower, this mandate of power He cries, to reveal it. What's strange in my fate, if I suffer from hate At the hour that I feel it? Let the locks of the lightning, all bristling and whitening, Flasli, coiling me round. While the ether goes surging 'neath thunder and scourging Of wild winds unbound ! Let the blast of the firmament whirl from its place The earth rooted below, Anvl the brine of the ocean, in rapid (^motion, Be driven in the face Of the stars up in heaven, as they walk To and fro ! Let him hurl jne anon into Tartarus — on — To the blackest degree, With Necessity's vortices strangling me down; But he cannot join deatli to a fate meant for me ! Hermes. Why, the words that he speaks and the thoughts that he thinks Are maniacal ! — add, If the Fate who hath bound him should loose not the links. He were utterly mad. Then depart ye who groan with him. Leaving to moan with him; Go in haste ! lest the roar of the thunder anearing Should blast you to idiocy, living and hearing. Chorus. Change thy speech for another, thy thought for a new, If to move me and teach me indeed be thy care ; For thy words swerve so far from the loyal and true That "the thunder of Zeus seems more easy to bear. How 1 couldst teach me to venture such vileness ? behold ! I choose with this victim this an- guish foretold 1 I recoil from the traitor in haste and disdain, And I know that the curse of the treason is worse Than the pang of the chain. Hermes. Then remember, O nymphs, what I tell you before. Nor, when pierced by the arrows that Ate will throw you. Cast blame on your fate, and declare evermore That Zeus thrust you on anguish he did not foreshow you. Nay, verily, nay 1 for ye perish anon A LAMENT FOR AD ON IS 245 For your deed, by your choice. By no blindness of douitt, No abruptness of doom, but by mad- ness alone, In the great net of Ate, whence none cometh out. Ye are wound and undone. Prometheus. Ay ! in act now, in word now no more. Earth is rocking in space. And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar. And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face. And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round, And the blasts of the winds univer- sal leap free, And blow each upon each with a pas- sion of sound. And ether goes mingling in storm with the sea. Such a curse on my head, in a mani- fest dread. From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along. Oh my mother's fair glory ! O Ether, enringing All eyes with the sweet common light of thy bringing ! Dost see how I suffer this wrong ? A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. FROM THK GREEK OF BION. I mourn for Adonis — Adonis is dead, Fair Adonis is dead, and the Loves are lamenting. Sleep, Cypris, no more on thy purple- strewed bed : Arise, wretch stoled in black. Iteat thy breast unrelenting, And shriek to the worlds, "Fair Adonis is dead." I mourn for Adonis — the Loves are lamenting. He lies on the hills in his beauty and death : The white tusk of a boar has trans- pierced his white tliigh. Cytherea grow.s mad at his thin, gasping breatli, M'hile the black blood drips d.own on the pale ivory. And his eyeballs lie (iiu'.nched with the weight of his brows: The rose fades from his lips, and upon them just parted The kiss dies the goddess consents not to lose, Though the kiss of the dead cannot make her glad-hearted: He knows not who kisses him deail in the dews. HI. I mourn for Adonis — the Loves are lamenting. Deep, deep, in the thigh is Adonis's wound; But a deeper, is Cypris's bosom pre- senting. The youth lieth dead while his dogs howl around, And the nymphs weep aloud from the mists of the hill. And the poor Aphrodite', with tresses unbound. All dishevelled, unsandalled, shrieks mf)urnful and shrill Through the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her feet. Gather up the red tiower of her blood which is holy, Each footstep she takes; and the valleys repeat The sharp cry she utters, and draw it out slowlv. i 24G .1 LAMENT FOR ADONIS. She calls on lier spouse, lier Assy- rian, on him Her own youth, while the dark blood sjireads over his body. The chest taking luie from the gash in the limb. And the bosom once ivory turning to ruddy. IV. Ah, ah, Cytherea ! the Loves are Ja- menting. She lost her fair spouse, and so lost her fair smile: "When he lived she was fair, by the whole world's consenting, Whose fairness is dead with liim: woe W(jrth the while ! All the mountains above, and the oak- lands below. Murmur, ah, ah, Adonis! the streams overflow Aphrodite's deep wail; river-fountains in pity Weep soft in the hills; and the flow- ers as they blow Redden outward with sorrow, while all hear her go With the song of her sadness through mountain and city. Ah, V. Cytherea ! Adonis is ah, dead. Fair Adonis is dead — Echo an- swers Adonis ! Who weeps not for Cypris, when bow- ing her head She stares at the wound where it gapes and astonies ? — When, ah, ah!— she saw how the blood ran away And empurpled the thigh, and, with wild hands Hung out, Said with sobs, " Stay, Adonis ! un- happy one, stay, Let me feel thee once more, let me ring thee about With the clasp of my arms, and press kiss into kiss ! Wait a little, Adonis, and kiss me again. For the last time, beloved; and but so nnich of this That the kiss may learn life from the warmth of the strain ! — Till thy breath shall exude from thy soul to my mouth, To my heart, and, the love-charm I once more receiving, May drink thy love in it, and keep of a truth That one kiss in the jjlace of Adonis the living. Thou fiiest me, mournful one, fliest me far. My Adonis, and seekest the Acheron portal, To Hell's cruel King goest down with a scar. While I weep and live on like a wretched immortal. And follow no step ! O Persephone', take him. ]My husband ! thou'rt better and brighter than I, So all beauty flows down to thee: / cannot make him Look up at my grief: there's despair in my cry, Since I wail for Adonis who died to me — died to me — Then, I fear thee! Art thou dead, my Adored ? Passionends like a dream in the sleep that's denied to me, Cypris is widowed, the Loves seek their lord All the house through in vain. Charm of cestus has ceased With thy clasp ! O too bold in the hunt past preventing. Ay, mad, thou so fair, to have strife with a beast ! " Thus the goodess wailed on; and the Loves are lamenting. VI. Ah, is ah, Cytherea! Adonis dead. She wept tear after tear with the blood which was shed. And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden-close, — Her tear, to the wind-flower; his blood to the rose. VII. I mourn for Adonis — Adonis is dead. Weep no more in the woods, Cythe- rea, thy lover ! So, well: make a place for liis corse in thy bed. With the purples thou sleepest in, under and over. [-♦-•-♦H A VISION OF POETS. 247 He's fair, though a corse, — a fair corse, like a sleeper. Lay him soft in the silks he had pleasure to fold When, beside thee at night, holy dreams deep and deeper Enclosed his young life on the couch made of gold. Love him still, poor Adonis; cast on him together The crowns and the flowers: since he died from the place. Why, let all die with him; let the blossoms go wither; Rain myrtles and olive-buds down on his face. Rain the myrrh down, let all that is best fall a-pining Since the myrrh of his life from thy keeping is swept. Pale he lay, thine Adonis, in purples reclining: The Loves raised their voices around him and wejii. They have shorn their bright curls off to cast on Adonis: One treads on his bow; on his arrows, another; One breaks up a well-feathered quiv- er; and one is Bent low at a sandal, untying the strings; And one carries the vases of gold from the springs, AVhile one washes the wound, and bo- hind them a brother Fans down on the body sweet air with, his wings. VIII. Cytherea herself now the Loves are lamenting. Each torch at the door Hymenreus blew out; And, the marriage-wreath dropping its leaves as repenting. No more "Hymen, Hymen," is chanted about; But the «/ ai instead — "ai alas"i.s begun For Adonis, and then follows " ai HymenjEus ! " The Graces are weeping for Cinyris' son, Sobbing low, each to each " His fair eyes cannot see us ! " Their wail strikes more shrill than the sadder Dione's. The Fates mourn aloud for Adonis, Adonis, Deep chanting: he hears not a word that they say : He would hear, but Persephone has him in keeping. — Cease moan, Cytherea ! leave pomps for to-daj' , And weep new when a new year re- fits thee for weeping. A VISION OF POETS. O sacred Essence, lighting me this liour. How may I lightly stile thy great power? Echo. Power. Power! but of whence? under the green- wood spraye? Or liv'st in Heaven? saye. Echo. In Heavens aye. In Heavens aye ! tell, may I it obtayne By alm.s, by fasting, prayer, — by painc ? Echo. By paine. Show mo the paine, it shall be under gone : I to mine end will still go on. Echo. Go on. Britannia's pastorals. A POET could not sleep aright, For his soul kept up too much light Under his eyelids for the night. And thus he rose disquieted, With sweet rhymes ringing through his head. And in the forest wandered. i 248 A VISION OF FOETS. Where, sloping up the darkest glades, The moon had drawn long colonnades Upon whose floor the verdure fades To a faint silver, pavement fair The antique wood-nymphs scarce would dare To footprint o'er, had such heen there. And rather sit by breathlessly, With fear in their large eyes, to see The consecrated sight. But hk The poet, who, with spirit-kiss Familiar, had long claimed fqr his Whatever earthly beauty is, Who also in his spirit bore A beauty passing the earth's stoi^, Walked calmly onward evermore. His aimless thoughts in metre went Like a babe's hand, without intent, Drawn down a seven-stringed instru- ment ; Nor jarred it with his humor as. With a faint stirring of the grass, An apparition fair did pass. He might have feared another time; But all things fair and strange did chime With his thoughts then, as rhyme to rhyme. An angel had not startled him. Alighted from heaven's burning rim To breathe from glory iu the Dim; Much less a lady riding slow Upon a paU'i'ey white as snow. And smooth as a snow-cloud could go. Full upon his she turned her face: " What ho, sir i>oet ! dost thou pace Our woods at night in ghostly chase " Of some fair dryad of old tales. Who chants between the nightingales And over sleep by song prevails ? " She smiled; but he could see arise Her soul fr|)m far adown her eyes, Prepared as if for sacrifice. She looked a queen who seeuieth gay From royal grace alone. " Now, nay," He answered, " slumber passed away " Compelled by instincts in my head That I should see to-night, instead Of a fair nymph, some fairer Dread." She looked up quickly to the sky And spake: "The moon's regality Will hear no praise; she is as I. " She is in heaven, and I on eartli; This is my kingdom: I come forth To crown all poets to their worth." He brake iu with a voice tlial mourned : "To their worth, lady? They are scorned By men they sing for, till inurned. "To their worth? Beauty in the mind Leaves the hearth cold, and love-re- fined Ambitions make the world unkind. "The boor who ploughs the daisy down, The chief whose mortgage of renown Fixed upon graves has bought a crown — " Both these are happier, more ap- proved. Than poets! — why should I be moved In saying both are more beloved ? " "The south can judge Udt of the north," She resumed calmly: " I come forth To crown all poets to their worth. " Yea, verily, to anoint them all With blessed oils, which surely shall Smell sweeter as the ages fall." "As sweet," the poet said, and rung A low sad laugh, "as flowers are, sprung Out of their graves when they die young ; " As sweet as window-eglantine. Some bough of which, as they tle- cline. The hired uurse gathers at their sign; " As sweet, iu short, as perfumed shroud Which the gay Roman maidens sewed For English Keats, singing aloud." A VIS/ON OF POETS. 249 The lady answered, " Yea, as sweet ! The things thou naraest being com- plete In fragrance, as I measure it. " Since sweet the death-clothes and the knell Of him who, having lived, dies well; And wholly sweet the asphodel " Stirred softly by that foot of his. When he treads brave on all that is. Into the world of souls, from this. "Since sweet the tears dropped at the door Of tearless death, and even before — Sweet, consecrated evermore. "What, dost thou judge it a strange thing That poets, crowned for vanquishing. Should l)ear some dust from out the ring? " Come on with me, come on with me, And learn in coming: let me free Thy spirit into verity." She ceased: her palfrey's jiaces sent No separate noises as she went: 'Twas a bee's hum, a little spent. And, while the poet seemed to tread Along the drowsy noise so made, The forest heaved up overhead Its billowy foliage through the air. And the calm stars did far and spare O'erswim the masses everywhere. Save when the overtopping pines Did bar their tremulous light with lines All fixed and black. Now the moon shines A broader glory. You may see The trees grow rarer jn-esently ; The air blows u]i more fresh and free: Until they coine from dark to light. And from the forest to the sight Of the large heaven-heart, bare with night, A fiery throb in every star. Those burning arteries that are The conduits of God's life afar. A wild brown moorland underneath, And four pools breaking up the heath With white h>w gleamings blank as death. Beside the first pool, near the wood, A dead tree in set horror stood, Peeled and disjointed, stark as rood: Since thunder-stricken years ago. Fixed in the spe(;tral strain and throe Wherewith it struggled from the blow: A monumental tree, alone, That will not bend in storms, nor groan. But break off sudden like a stone. Its lifeless shadow lies oblique Upon the pool where, javelin-like, The .star-rays quiver while they strike. " Drink," said the ladv, verv still: " Be holv and cold.'' He" did her will. And drank the starry water chili. The next pool they came near unto Was bare of trees; there, only grew Straight fiags, and lilies just a few, Which sullen on the water sate. And leant their faces on the fiat, As weary of the starlight-state. " Drink," said the lady, grave and slow : " M'drhVs ii.se behooveth thee to know." He drank the bitter wave below. The third pool, girt with thorny bushes, And flaunting weeds and reeds and rushes That winds sang through in mournful gushes. Was whitely smeared in many a round By a slow slime: the starlight swound Over the ghastly light it found. •' Drink," said the lady, sad and slow: " World'n love behooveth thee to know." He looked to her commauding so; 250 A VISION OF POETS. Her Ijrow was troubled; but her eye Struck clear to his soul. For all reply He drauk the water suddenly, Then, with a deathly sickness, passed Beside the fourth pool and the last, Where weights of shadow were down- cast From yew and alder, and rank trails Of nightshade clasping the trunk- scales, And flung across the intervals From yew to yew: who dares to stoop "Where those dank branches over- droop, Into his heart the cliill strikes up. He hears a silent gliding coil, The snakes strain hard against the soil. His foot slips in their slimj* oil, And toads seem crawling on liis hand, And clinging bats, but dimly scanned, Full in his face their wings expand. A paleness took the poet's cheek: " Must I drink here?" he seemed to seek The lady's will with utterance meek: " Ay, ay," she said, " it so must be: " (And this time she spake cheerfully) "Behooves thee know icorkVs cruel- ty." He bowed his forehead till liis mouth Curved in the wave, and drank un- loath As if from rivers of the south; His lips sobbed through the water rank. His heart paused in him while he drank. His brain beat heart-like, rose and sank. And he swooned backward to a dream Wherein he lay 'twixt gloom and gleam, With death and life at each extreme: And spiritual thunders, born of soul. Not cloud, did leap from mystic pole. And o'er him roll and counter-roll. Crushing their echoes reboant With their own wheels. Did Heaven so grant His spirit a sign of covenant ? At last came silence. A slow kiss Did crown his forehead after this; His eyelids flew back for the bliss. The lady stood beside his head. Smiling a thought with hair dispread: The moonshine seemed dishevelled In her sleek tresses manifold. Like Danae's in the rain of old That dripped with melancholy gold: But SHE was holy, pale and high As one who saw an ecstasy Beyond a foretold agony. " Rise up ! " said she with voice where song Eddied through speech, — " rise up, be strong; And learn how right avenges wrong." The poet rose up on his feet: He stood before an altar set For sacrament with vessels meet. And mystic altar-lights, which shine As if their flames were crystal- line Carved flames that would not shrink or pine. The altar filled the central place Of a great church, and toward its face Long aisles did shout and interlace, And from it a continuous mist Of incense (round the edges kissed By a yellow light of amethyst) Wound upward slowly and throb- bingly. Cloud within cloiul, right silverly. Cloud above cloud, victoriously, — Broke full against the arched roof. And thence refracting eddied off, And floated through the marble woof Of many a fine-wrought architrave. Then, poising its white masses brave. Swept solemnly down aisle an(l nave, " Alone amid the shifting scene That central altar stood serene." — Page 251. ''.'£., A \'isjON OF roars. 251 Where now in dai-k, and now in light, The countless columns, glimmering white, Seemed leading out to the Infinite: Plunged halfway up the shaft they showed, In that pale shifting incense-cloud Which flowed them l>y, and over- flowed, Till mist and marble seemed to bleud And the whole temple at the end, With its own incense to distend, — The arches like a giant's bow To bend and slacken; and, below. The niched saints to come and go: Alone amid the shifting scene That central altar stood serene In its clear, steadfast taper-sheen. Then first the poet was aware Of a chief angel standing there Before that altar, in the glare. His ej'es were dreadful, for you saw That they saw God; his lips and jaw, Grand-made and strong, as Sinai's law They could enunciate, and refrain From vibratory after-pain; And his brow's height was sovereign: On the vast background of his wings Rises his image, and he flings From each plumed arc pale glitteriugs And fiery flakes (as beateth more Or less the angel-heart) before And round him upon roof 'and floor. Edging with fire the shifting fumes; While at his side, 'twixt lights and glooms. The phantasm of an organ booms. Extending from which instrument And angel, right and left way bent, The poet's sight grew sentient Of a strange company around And toward the altar; pale and bound, With bay above the eyes profound. Deathful their faces were, and yet The power of life was in them set. Never forgot, nor to forget: Sublime significance of mouth. Dilated nostril full of youth, And forehead royal with the truth. These faces were not multiplied Beyond your count, but, side by side, Did front the altar, glorified. Still as a vision, yet exprest Full as an action, — look and geste Of buried saint in risen rest. The poet knew them. Faint and dim His spirits seemed to sink in him; Then, like a dolphin, change, and swim The current: these were poets true. Who died for Beauty, as martyrs do For Truth; the ends being scarcely two. God's prophets of the Beautiful These jioets were; of iron rule, The rugged cilix, serge of wool. Here Homer, with the broad suspense Of thunderous brows, and lips intense Of garrulous god-innocence. There Shakspeare, on whose forehead climb The crowns o' the world: O eyes sub- lime With tears and laughters for all time! Here ^schylus, the women swooned To see so awful when he frowned As the gods did: he standeth crowned. Euripides, with close and mild Scholastic lips, that could be wild, And laugh or sob out like a child, Even in the classes. Sophocles, With that king's look which down the trees Followed the dark eflSgies Of the lost Theban. Hesiod old. Who, somewhat blind and deaf and cold. Cared most for gods and bulls. And bold Electric Pindar, quick as fear, With race-dust on his cheeks, and clear. Slant, startled eyes that seem to hear 252 A VISION OF POKTS. The chariot rounding the last goal, To hurtle past it in his soul. And Saijpho, with that gloriole Of ebon hair on calmed brows — O poet-woman! none foregoes The leap, attaining the repose. Theocritus, with glittering locks Dropt sideway, as betwixt the rocks He watched the visionary flocks. And Aristophanes, who took The world with mirth, and laughter- struck The hollow caves of Thought, and woke The infinite echoes hid in each. And Virgil : shade of Mantuan beech Did help the shade of bay to reach And knit around his forehead high; For his gods wore less majesty Than his brown bees hummed death- lessly. Lucretius, nobler than his mood. Who dropped his plummet down the broad, Deei) universe, and said " No God," Finding no bottom : he denied Divinely the divine, and died Chief jioet on the Tibei'-side By grace of God: his face is stern As one compelled, in sjiite of scorn. To teach a truth he would not learn. And Ossian, dimly seen or guessed; Once counted greater than the rest. When mountain-winds blew out his vest. And Spenser drooped his dreaming head (With languid sleep-smile, you had said, From his own verse engendered) On Ariosto's, till they ran Their curls in one: the Italian Shot nimbler heat of bolder man From his fine lids. And Dante, stern And sweet, whose spirit was an urn For wine and milk poured out in turn. Hard-souled Alfieri: and fancy-willed Boiardo, wlio with laughter filled The pauses of the jostled shield. And Berni, with a hand stretched out To sleek that storm. And, not witli- out The wreath he died in, and the doubt He died by, Tasso, bard and lover, Whose visions were too thin to cover The face of a false woman over. And soft Racine; and grave Corneille, The orator of rhymes, whose wail Scarce shook his purple. And Pe- trarch pale. From wliose brain-lighted heart were thrown A thousand thoughts beneath the sun. Each lucid with the name of One. And Camoens, with that look he had, Compelling India's Genius sad From the wa\e tlirough the Lusiad; The murmui's of tlie storm-cape ocean Indrawn in vibrative emotion Alongthe verse. And, while devotion In his wild eyes fantastic shone Under the tonsure blown upon By airs celestial, Calderon. And bold De Vega, who breathed quick Verse after verse, till death's old trick Put pause to life and rhetoric. And Goethe, with tliat reaching eye His soul reached out from, far and high. And fell from inner entity. And Schiller, with heroic front Worthy of Plutarch's kiss iipon't, — Too large for wreath of modern wont. And Chaucer, with his infantine Familiar clasp of things divine: That mark ujion his lip is wine. Here Milton's eyes strike piercing- dim: The shapes of suns and stars did swim Like clouds from them, and granted him T .4 VISION OF POETS. 253 God for sole vision. Cowley, there, Wliose active fancy deljonair Drew straws like amber — foul to fair. Drayton and Browne, with smiles they drew From outward nature, still kept new From their own inward nature true. And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben, Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when The world was worthy of such men. And Burns, with punpjent passionings Set in his ej'es: deep lyric springs Are of the fire-mount's issuings. And Shelley, in his white ideal, All statue-blind. And Keats, the real Adonis with the hymeneal Fresh vernal Inids half sunk between His youthful curls, kissed straight and sheen In his Rome-grave by Venus queen. And poor, proud Byron, sad as grave, And salt as life; forlornly brave, And quivering'with the dart he drave. And visionary Coleridge, who Did sweep his thoughts as angels do Their wings with cadence up the Blue. These poets faced (and many more) The lighted altar looming o'er The clouds of incense dim and hoar; And all their faces, in the lull Of natural things, looked wonderful With life and death and deathless rule. All, still as stone, and yet intense, As if by spirit's vehemence That stone were carved, and not bj' sense. But where the heart of each should beat. There seemed a wound instead of it, From whence the blood dropjied to their feet Drop after drop, — dropped heavily As century follows century Into the deep eternity. Then said the lady, — and her word Came distant, as wide waves were stirred Between lier and the ear that heard, — " WorlcVii i(se is cold; ivorkVs Inre is vain; World's cruelty is bitter bane: But pain is not the fruit of jiain. " Harken, O poet, whom I led From the dark wood ! dismissing dread, Now hear this angel in my stead. " His organ's clavier strikes along These poets' hearts, sonorous, strong, Thej' gave him without count of wrong, — " A diapason whence to guide Up to God's feet, from these who died. An anthem fully glorified, "Whereat God's blessing, Ibarak qu') Breathes back this music, folds it back About the earth in vapory rack, " And men walk in it, crviug, 'Lo The world is wider, and we know The very heavens look brighter so;- " ' The stars move statelier round the edge Of the silver spheres, and give in pledge Their light for nobler privilege; " ' No little flower but joys or grieves; Full life is rustling in the sheaves; Full spirit sweeps the forest-leaves.' " So works this music on the earth; God so admits it, sends it forth To add another worth to worth, — "A new creation-bloom, that rounds The old creation, and expounds His Beautiful in tuneful sounds, "Now harken!" Then the poet gazed Upon the angel, glorious-faced. Whose hand, majestically raised, 2:)4 A VISION OF POETS. Floated across the organ-keys, Like a pale inoon o'er murmuring seas, With no touch but with influences: Then rose and fell (with swell imd swound Of shapeless noises wandering round A concord which at last they found) Those mystic keys: the tones were mixt. Dim, faint, and tlirilled and throbbed betwixt The incomplete and the unfixt; And therein mighty minds were heard In mighty musings, inly stirred. And struggling outward for a word. Until these surges, having run Tins way and that, gave out as one An Aphrodite of sweet tune, A harmony, that, finding vent, Upward in grand ascension went. Winged to a heavenly argument, — Up, upward like a saint who strips The shroud liack from his eyes and lips, And rises in apocalypse; A liarmony sublime and plain. Which cleft (as flying swan, the rain. Throwing the drops off with a strain Of her white wing) those undertones Of perplext chords, and soared at once. And struck out from the starry thrones Their several silver octaves as It passed to God. The music was Of divine stature, strong to pass; And those who heard it understood Something of life in spirit and blood, Something of Nature's fair and good. And while it souniled, those great souls Did thrill as racers at the goals, And burn in all their aureoles: But she the lady, as vapor-bound, Stood calmly in the joy of sound, Like Nature, with the showers around ; And when it ceased, the blood which fell Again, alone grew audible, ,, Tolling the silence as a bell. The .so\ran angel lifted high His hand, and spake out .sovranly : " Tried poets, hearken and reply ! " Give me true answers. If we grant That not to suffer is to want The conscience of the jubilant; " If ignorance of anguish is But ignorance, and mortals miss Far prospects by a level bliss; " If, as two colors must be viewed In a visible image, mortals should Need good and evil to see good; " If to speak nobly comprehends To feel profoundly; if the ends Of power and suffering. Nature blends; " If poets on the tripod must Writhe like the Pj'thian to make just Their oracles, and merit trust; " If every vatic word that sweeps To change the world must pale their lips, And leave their own souls in eclipse; " If to search deep the universe Must pierce the searcher with the curse. Because that bolt (in man's reverse) " Was shot to the heart o' the wood, and lies Wedged deepest in the best; if eyes That look for visions and surprise "From influent angels must shut down Their eyelids flrst to sun and moon, The head asleep upon a stone; " If One who did redeem you back, By his own loss, from final wrack, Did consecrate by touch and track "Those temporal sorrows till the taste Of brackish waters of the waste Is salt with tears lie dropt too fast; A VISION OF POETS. 255 " If all the crowns of eai'th must wound With prickings of the thorns lie found ; If saddest sighs swell sweetest sound, — " What say ye unto this? Refuse This baptism in salt water ? Choose Calm breasts, mute lips, and labor loose ? " Or, O ye gifted givers! ye Who give your liberal hearts to me To make the world this harmony, " Are ve resigned that they be spent To such world's help ? " The spirits bent Their awful brows, and said, " Con- tent." Content! it soun'ded like Amen Said by a choir of mourning men; An affirmation full of i)ain And patience; ay, of glorying And adoration, as a king Might seal an oath for governing. Then said the angel, — and his face Lightened abroad until the place Grew larger for a moment's space. The long aisles flashing out in light, And nave and transept, columns white And arches crossed, being clear to sight As if the roof were off, and all Stood in the noon-sun, — " Lo! I call To other hearts as liberal. " This pedal strikes out in the air: My instrument has room to bear Still fuller strains and jjerfecter. " Herein is room, and shall be room While time lasts, for new hearts to come Consummating while they consume. " What living man will bring a gift . Of his own heart, and help to lift The tune ? The race is to the swift." So asked the angel. Straight, the while, A company came up the aisle With measured step and sorted smile; Cleaving the incense - clouds that rise, With winking, unaccustomed eyes, And lovelocks smelling sweet of spice. One bore his head above the rest As if the world were dispossest; And one did pillow chin on breast, Right languid, an as he should faint; One shook his curls across liis jiaint, And moralized on worldly taint; One, slanting up his face, did wink The salt rheum To the eyelid's brink, To think, O gods ! or — not to think. Some trod out stealthily and slow, As if the sun would fall in snow If they walked to instead of fro; And some, with conscious ambling free. Did shake their bells right daintily On hand and foot, for harmony; And some, composing sudden sighs In attitudes of j^oint-device, Rehearsed impromptu agonies. And when this company drew near The spirits crowned, it might appear Submitted to a ghastly fear; As a sane eye in master-passion Constrains a maniac to the fashion Of hideous maniac imitation In the least geste, — the dropping low O' the lid, the wrinkling of the brow, Exaggerate with mock and mow: So mastered was rliat coniiiany By the crowned vision utterly. Swayed to a maniac mockery. One dulled his eyeballs, as they ached With Homer's forehead, though he lacked An inch of any; and one racked His lower lip with restless tootli, As Pindar's rushing words forsooth Were jient behind it; one his smooth I 250 A VISION OF POETS. Piuk cheeks did rumple passionate Like ^sehyhis, and tried to prate On trolling tongue of fate and fate ; One set her eyes like Sappho's — or Any light woman's; one forbore Like Dante, or any man as poor In mirth, to let a smile undo His hard-shut lips; and one that drew Sour humors from his mother blew His sunken cheeks out to the size Of most unnatural jollities, Because Anacreon looked jest-wise; So with the rest: it was a sight A great world-laughter would requite. Or great world-wrath, with equal right. Out came a speaker from that crowd To speak for all, in sleek and proud Exordial periods, while he bowed His knee before the angel: "Thus, O angel who hast called for us, We bring thee service emulous, — " Fit service from sufficient soul, Hand-service to receive world's dole, Lip-service in world's ear to roll " Adjusted concords soft enow To hear the wine-cups passing through, And not too grave to spoil the show: " Thou, certes, when thou askest more, O sapient angel ! leanest o'er The window-sill of metaphor. " To give our hearts up? Fie 1 that rage Barbaric antedates the age: It is not done on any stage. " Because your scald or gleeman went With seven or nine stringed instrument Upon his back, — must ours be bent ? " We are not pilgrims, by your leave; No, nor yet martyrs: if we grieve, It is to rhyme to — summer eve: " And if we labor, it shall be As suitetli best with our degi'ee. In after-dinner revery." More yet that speaker would have said. Poising between his smiles fair-fed Each separate phrase till finished; But all the foreheads of those born And dead true i)oets flashed with scorn Betwixt the bay-leaves round them worn ; Ay, jetted such brave fire, that they. The new-come, shrank and paled away Like leaden ashes when the day Strikes on the hearth. A spirit-blast, A presence known by power, at last Took them up mutely: they had passed. And he, our pilgrim poet, saw Only their places in deep awe. What time the angel s smile did draw His gazing upward. Smiling on, The angel in the angel shone, Revealing glory in benison; Till, ripened in the light which shut The poet in, his spirit mute Dropiied sudden as a perfect fruit: He fell before the angel's feet. Saying, " If what is true is sweet, In something I may compass it: " For, where my worthiness is poor, My will stands richly at the door To pay shortcomings evermore. " Accejit me, therefore: not for price, And not for pride, my sacrifice Is tendered; for mj' soul is nice, " And will beat down those dusty seeds Of bearded corn if she succeeds In soaring while the covey feeds. " I soar; I am drawn up like the lark To its white cloud: so high my mark. Albeit my wing is small and dark. " I ask no wages, seek no fame: Sew me for shroud, round face and name, God's banner of the oriflamme. A VISWi\ OF POETS. 257 " I only would have leave to loose (In tears and blood if so He choose) Mine inward music out to use; " I only would be spent — in pain And loss perchance, but not in vain — Upon the sweetness of that strain: " Only project beyond the bound Of mine own life, so lost and found. My voice, and live on in its sound; " Only embrace and be embraced By fiery ends, whereby to waste. And light God's future with my past." The angel's smile grew more divine. The mortal speaking; ay, its shine Swelled fuller, like a choir-note tine, Till the broad glory round his brow Did vibrate with the light below; But what he said, I do not know. Nor know I if the man who prayed Rose up accepted, unforbade, From the church-tioor where he was laid ; Nor if a listening life did run Through the king-poets, one by one Rejoicing in a worthy son: My soul, which might have seen, grew blind By what it looked on: I can find No certain count of things behind. I saw alone, dim white and grand As in a dream, the angel's hand Stretched forth in gesture of command Straight tlirough the haze. And so, as erst, A strain more noble than tlie first Mused in tlie organ, and outburst: With giant march from floor to roof Ivose the full notes now parted off In pauses massively aloof Like measured thunders, now rejoined In concords of mysterious kind Which fused together sense and mind. Now flashing sharp on sharp along, Exultant in a mounting throng, Now dying off to a low song Fed upon minors, wavelike sonnd.s Re-eddying into silver rounds. Enlarging liberty with bounds: And every rhythm that seemed to close Survived in confluent underflows Symphonious with the next that rose. Thus the whole strain being multi- plied And greatened, with its glorified Wings shot abroad from side to side, Waved backward (as a wind might wave A Brocken mist, and with as lirave Wild roaring) arch and architrave. Aisle, transept, columii, marble wall, Then swelling outward, prodigal Of aspiration beyond thrall, Soared, and drew up with it the whole Of this said vision, as a soul Is raised by a thought. And as a scroll Of bright devices is unrolled Still upward with a gradual gold, So rose the vision manifold. Angel and organ, and the round Of spirits, solemnized and crowned; While the freed clouds of incense wound Ascending, following in their track, And glimmering faintly like the rack O' the moon in her own light cast back. And as that solemn dream withdrew, The lady's kiss did fall anew Cold on the poet's brow as dew. And that same kiss which bound him first Beyond the senses, now reversed I(S own law, and most subtly pierced His sjiirit with the sense of things Sensual and present. Vanishiugs Of glory with ^olian wings Struck him and passed: the lady's face Did melt back in the chrysopras Of the orient morning sky, that waa (-•-■-♦H 258 A VISION OF rOKTS. Yet clear of lark; ami there and so She melted as a star might do, Still smiling as she melted slow, — Smiling so slow, he seemed to see Her smile the last thing, gloriously Bej'ond her, far as memory. Then he looked round: he was alone. He lay before the V)reaking sun, As Jacob at the Bethel stone. And thought's entangled skein being wound, He knew the moorland of his swound. And the pale pools that smeared the ground ; The far wood-pines like oflfing ships; The fourth pool's yew anear him drips. World's cruelty attaints his lips, And still he tastes it, bitter still: Through all that glorious possible He had the sight of present ill. Yet rising calmly up and slowly. With such a cheer as scorneth folly, A mild, delightsome melancholy, He journeyed homeward through the wood. And prayed along the solitude Betwixt the pines, " O God, my God! " The golden morning's open tiowings Did sway the trees to murmurous bowings, In metric chant of blessed poems. And passing homeward through the wood, He prayed along the solitude, " Thou, Poet-God, art great and good ! " And though we must have, and have had Right reason to be earthly sad. Thou, Poet-God, art great and glad! " CONCLUSION. Life treads on life, and heart on heart: We press too close in church and mart To keep a dream or grave apart. And I was 'ware of walking down That same greenforest,,wherehadgoue The poet-i>ilgrim. One by one I traced his footsteps. From the east A red and tender radiance pressed Through the near trees, until I guessed The sun behind shone full and round; While up the leafiness profound A wind scarce old enough for sound Stood ready to blow on me when I turned that way; and now and then The birds sang, and brake off again To shake their pretty feathers dry Of the dew, sliding droppingly From the leaf-edges, and apply Back to their song: 'twixt dew and bird So sweet a silence ministered, God seemed to use it for a word; Yet morning souls did leap and run In all things, as the least had won A joyous insight of the sun. And no one, looking round the wood, Could help confessing as he stood, This Poet-God is f/lad and good. But hark! a distant sound that grows, A heaving, sinking of the boughs, A rustling murmur, not of those, A breezy noise which is not breeze! And white-clad children by degrees Steal out in troops among the trees, — Fair little children morning-bright. With faces grave, yet soft to sight, Expressive of restrained delight. Some plucked the palm-boughs within reach. And others leapt up high to catch The upper boughs, and shake from each A rain of dew, till, wetted so. The child who held the branch let go. And it swang backward with a flow Of faster drippings. Then I knew The children laughed; but the laugli flew From its own chirrup as might do A frightened song-bird; and a child Who seemed the chief said very mild, " Hush! keep this morning undefiled." A V/SION OF POETS. 259 His eyes reljiiked them from calm spheres; His soul upon his brow appears In waiting for more holy years. I called the child to me, and said, '• What are your palms for? " — " To be spread," He answered, " on a poet dead. "The poet died last month, and now The world, which had been some- what slow In honoring his living brow, "Commands the jialms: they must be strown On his new marble very soon, In a procession of the town." I sighed and said, " Did lie foresee Any such honor ? " — " Verily I cannot tell you," answered he. " But this I know. I fain would lay My own head down, another day, As he did — with the fame away. " A lily a friend's hand had plucked Lay by his death-bed, which he looked As deeyi down as a bee had sucked, " Then, turning to the lattice, gazed O'er hill and river, and upraised His eyes illumined, and amazed " With the world's beauty, up to God, Re-offering on their iris broad The images of things bestowed " By the chief Poet. ' God,' he cried, ' Be jn-aised for anguish which has tried. For beauty which has satisfied; " ' For this world's jiresence half within And half without me, — thought and scene, — This sense of Being and Having Been . " ' I thank thee that my soul hath room For thy grand world: both guests may come — Beauty, to soul; body, to tomb. " ' I am content to be so weak: Put strength into the words I speak, And I am strong in what I seek " ' I am content to he so bare Before the archers, everywhere My wounds being stroked by heav- enly air. " ' I laid my soul before thy feet. That images of fair and sweet Should walk to other men on it. " ' I am content to feel the step Of each pure image: let those keep To mandragore who care to sleep. " ' I am content to touch the brink Of the other goblet, and I think My bitter drink a wholesome drink. " ' Because my portion was assigned Wholesome and bitter, thou art kind. And I am blessed to my mind. " 'Gifted for giving, I receive The may thorn, and its scent outgive: 1 grieve not that I once did grieve. " ' In my large joy of sight and touch Beyond what others count for such, I am content to suffer much. " ' I knoic — is all the mourner saitb, Knowledge by suffering entereth. And life is perfected by death.' " The child spake nobly : strange to hear, His infantine soft accents clear. Charged with high meanings did ap- pear; And, fair to see, his form and face Winged out with whiteness and pure grace From the green darkness of the place. Behind his head a palm-tree grew; An orient beam which pierced through Transversely on his forehead drew it The figure of a palm-branch brown, Traced on its brightness up and down In tine fair lines, — a shadow-crown: Guido might paint his angels so, — A little angel taught to go With holy words to saints below, — Such innocence of action, yet Significance of object, met In his whole bearing strong and sweet. ! 260 A VISION OF POETS. And all the children, tlie whole band, Did round in rosy reverence stand. Each with a palm-bough in his hand. "And so he died," I whispered. " Nay, Not so," the childish voice did say: "That poet turned hiiu first to pray " In silence, and God heard the rest 'Twixt the sun's footsteps down the west. Then he called one who loved him best, "Yea, he called softly through the room (His voice was weak, yet tender) — 'Come,' He said, ' come nearer ! Let the bloom " ' Of life grow over, iindenied. This bridge of death, which is not wide : I shall be soon at the other side. " ' Come, kiss me ! ' So the one in truth "Who loved him best, in love, not ruth, Bowed down, and kissed him mouth to mouth: " And in that kiss of love was won Life's manumission. All was done: The mouth that kissed last kissed alone. " But in the former, confluent kiss. The same was sealed, I think, by His, To words of truth and uprightness." The child's voice trembled, his lips shook Like a rose leaning o'er a brook, "Which vibrates, though it is not struck. "And who," I asked, a little moved, Yet curious-eyed, " was this that loved And kissed him last, as it behoved ? " "/," softly said the child; and then, " /," said he louder, once again: " His son, my rank is among men: " And, now that men exalt his name, I come to gather palms with them, That holy love may hallow fame. " He did not die alone, nor should His memory live so, 'mid these rude "World-praises — a worse solitude. " Me, a voice calleth to that tomb "Where these are strewing branch and bloom, Saying, ' Come nearer: ' and I come. " Glory to God ! " resumed he, And his eyes smiled for victory O'er their own tears which I could see Fallen on the palm, down cheek and chin — " That poet now has entered in The place of rest which is not sin. "And while he rests, his songs in troops "Walk up and down our earthly slopes, Companioned by diviner hopes." " But thou," I murmured to engage The child's speech farther, " hast an age Too tender for this orphanage. ' " Glory to God — to God ! " he saith, " Knowledge by suffering EXTEn- ETH, And life is pekfected by death." THE POET'S VOW. " Oh, be -wiser tlioii, Instnieted that true knowledge leads to love." woRDSwoitTir. PART THE FIRST. SHOWING WHEREFORE THE VOW WAf3 MADE. I. EvK is a twofold mystery; The stillness Earth doth keep, The motion wherewith human hearts Do each to either leap As if all souls between the poles Felt " Parting comes in sleep." II. The rowers lift their oars to view Each other in the sea; The landsmen watch the rocking boats In a pleasant company; While up the hill go gladlier still Dear friends by two and three. III. The peasant's wife hath looked with- out Her cottage-door, and smiled: For there the peasant drops his spade To clasp his youngest child, Which hath no speech; but its hand can reach And stroke his forehead mild. IV. A poet sate that eventide Within his hall alone. As silent as its ancient lords In the coffined place of stone, When the bat hath shrunk from the praying monk, And the praying monk is gone. Nor wore the dead a stiller face Beneath the cerement's roll: His lips refusing out in words Their mystic thoughts to dole', His steadfast eye burnt inwardly, As burning out his soul. VI. You would not think that brow could e'er Ungentle moods express ; Yet seemed it, in this troubled world. Too calm for gentleness, When the very star that shines from far Shines trembling ne'ertheless. VII. It lacked, all need, the softening light Which other brows supply: We should conjoin the scathed trunks Of our humanity, That each leafless spray intwining may Look softer 'gainst the sky. VIII. None gazed within the poet's face; The poet gazed in none : He threw a lonely sliadow straight Before the moon and sun. Affronting Nature's heaven-dwelling creatures With wrong to Nature done: IX. Because this poet daringly — The nature at liis heart, And that quick tune along his veins He could not change by art — Had vowed his blood of brotherhood To a stagnant place apart. He did not vow in fear, or wrath, Or grief's fantastic whim, But, weights and sliows of sensual things 2G1 2C.2 THE POET'S row. Too closely crossing him, On his soul's eyelid the pressure slid, And made its vision dim. XI. And darkening in the dark he strove, 'Twixt earth and sea and sky, To lose in shadow, wave, and cloud. His brother's haunting cry: The winds were welcome as thej' swept, God's five-day work he would accept, But let the rest go by. XII. He cried, " O touching, patient Earth, That weepest in thy glee. Whom God created verj- good, And verj' mournful, we ! Thy voice of moan doth reach his throne. As Abel's rose from thee. XIII. " Poor crystal sky with stars astray ! Mad winds tliat howling go From east to west! perplexed seas That stagger from their blow ! O motion wild ! O wave defiled ! Our curse hath made you so. XIV. " We ! and ovr curse ! do I partake The desiccating sin ? Have / the apple at my lips ? The money-lust within ? Do / human stand with the wounding hand. To the blasting heart akin ? XV. " Thou solemn pathos of all things, For solemn joy designed ! Behold, submissive to your cause. An holy wrath I find, And for your sake the bondage break That knits me to my kind. man s sympa- XVI. " Hear me forswear thies. His pleasant yea and no, His riot on the piteous earth Whereon his thistles grow, His changing love -«• with stars above. His i)ride — with graves below. xvxi. " Hear me forswear his roof by night. His bread and salt by day. His talkings at the wood-fire hearth, His greetings by the wai% His answering looks, his systemed books. All man, for aye and aye. XVIII. purged, once human " Tliat so my heart. From all the human rent. May gather strength to pledge and drink Your wine of wonderment. While you pardon me all blessingly The woe mine Adam sent. XIX. " And I shall feel your unseen looks Innumerous, constant, deep, And soft as haunted Adam once. Though sadder round me creep — As slumbering men have mj^stic ken Of watchers on their sleep. XX. " And ever, when I lift my brow At evening to the sun. No voice of woman or of child Recording ' Day is done.' Your silences shall a love express. More deep than such an one." PART THE SECOND. SHOWING TO WHOM THE VOW WAS DE- CLARED. The poet's vow was inly sworn, The i:)oet's vow was told. He shared among his crowding friends The silver and the gold; They clasping bland his gift, his hand In a somewhat slacker hold. II. They wended forth, the crowding friends. With farewells smooth and kind. They wended forth, the solaced friends, riri: poet'S vow. 263 ! And left but twain beliind: One loved him true as brothers do, And one was Rosalind. III. He said, "My friends have wended forth With farewells smooth and kind; Mine oldest friend, my plifj^lited bride, Ye need not stay l)ehind: Friend, wed my fair bride for my sake. And let my lands ancestral make A dower for Rosalind. rv. " And when beside your wassail board Ye bless your social lot, I charge you that the giver be In all his gifts forgot. Or alone of all his words recall The last, — Lament me not." She looked upon him silently With her large, doubting eyes, Like a child that never knew but love. Whom words of wrath surprise, Till the rose did break from either cheek. And the sudden tears did rise. VI. She looked upon him mournfully, While her large eyes were grown Yet larger with the steady tears. Till, all his purpose known, She turned slow, as she would go — The tears were shaken down. VII. She turned slow, as she would go. Then quickly turned again. And gazing in his face to seek Some little touch of pain, "I thought," she said, — but shook her head : She tried that speech in vain. viri. " I thought — but I am half a child, And very sage art thou — The teachings of the lieaven and earth Should keep us soft and low. They have drawn iny tears in early years. Or ere I wept — as now. IX. " But now that in thy face I read Their cruel homily, Before their beauty I would fain Untouched, unsoftened be, — If I indeed could look on even The senseless, loveless earth and heaven As thou canst look on me ! X. " And couldest thou as coldly view Thy childhood's far abode, Where little feet kept time with thine Along the dewy sod. And thy mother's look from holy book Rose like a thought of God ? XI. O brother, — called so, e'er her last Betrothing words were said ! O fellow-watcher in her room. With hushed voice and tread ! Remeraberest thou how, liand in hand, friend, O lover, we did stand, And knew that she was dead ? XII. " I will not live Sir Roland's bride, That dower I will not hold; 1 tread below my feet that go. These jiarchments bouglit and sold: The tears I weep are mine to keep. And worthier than thy gold." XIII. The poet and Sir Roland stood Alone, each turned to each. Till Roland brake the silence left By that soft-throbbing speech — " Poor heart ! " he cried, " it vainly tried The distant heart to reach. XIV. " And tliou, O distant, sinful heart That climbest up so high To wrap and blind thee with the snows That cause to dream and die. What blessing can from lips of man Approach thee with his sigh ? 264 THE POET'S VOW. XV. " Ay, what from earth — create for man, And moaning in his moan ? Ay, what from stars — revealed to man. And man-named one by one ? Ay, more ! what blessing can be given Where the spirits seven do show in heaven A MAN upon the throne ? XVI. "A man on earth he vrandered once. All meek and undefiled, And those who loved him said ' He wept ; ' None ever said ' He smiled : ' Yet there might have been a smile unseen, When he bowed his holy face, I ween, To bless that happy child. xvir. " And now he jileadeth up in heaven For our humanities, Till the ruddy light on seraphs' wings In pale emotion dies. They can better bear their Godhead's glare Than the pathos of his eyes. x^'lII. " I will go pray our God to-day To teach thee how to scan His work divine, for human use. Since earth on axle ran; To teach thee to discern as plain His grief divine, the blood-drop's stain He left there, .MAy for man. XIX. " So, for the blood's sake shed by Him Whom angels God declare. Tears like it, moist and warm with love. Thy reverent eyes shall wear. To see i' the face of Adam's race The nature God doth share." XX. " I heard," the poet said, " thy voice As dimly as thy breath: The sound was like the noise of life To one auear his death; Or of waves that fail to stir the pale Sear leaf they roll beneath. XXI. between the sound and "And still me White creatures like a mist Did interfloat confusedly. Mysterious shapes unwist: Across im' heart and across my brow I felt them droop like wreaths of snow. To still the pulse they kist. XXII. " The castle and its lands are thine — The poor's — it shall be done. Go, man, to love! I go to live In Courland hall, alone: The bats along the ceilings cling, The lizards in the floors do run. And storms and years have worn and reft The stain by human builders left In working at the stone." PART THE THIRD. SHOWING HOW THE VOW WAS KEPT. 1. He dwelt alone, and sun and moon Were witness that he made Rejection of his humanness Until they seemed to fade : His face did so, for he did grow Of his own soul afraid. II. The self-poised God may dwell alone With inward glorying; But God's chief angel waiteth for A brother's voice to sing; And a lonely creature of sinful nature^ It is an awful thing. III. An awful thing that feared itself; While many years did roll, A lonely man, a feeble man, A part beneath the whole, He bore by day, he bore by night. That pressure of God's infinite Upon his finite soul. THE POET'S VOIV. 265 IV. The poet at his lattice sate And downward looked he. Three Christians wended by to prayers, With mute ones in their ee; Each turned above a face of love, And called him to the far chapelle With voice more tuneful than its bell; But still they wended three. V. There journeyed by a bridal pomp, A bridegroom and his dame; He speaketh low for happiness, She blusheth red for shame : But never a tone of benison From out the lattice came. VI. A little child with inward song^ No louder noise to dare, Stood near the wall to see at play The lizards green and rare; Unblessed the while for his childish smile. Which Cometh unaware. PART THE FOURTH. SHOWING HOW ROSALIND FARED BY THE KEEPINS OP THE VOW. In death-sheets lieth Rosalind, As white and still as they; And the old nurse thatwatchedherbed Rose up with " Well-a-day ! " And oped the casement to let in The sun, and that sweet, doubtful din Whict droppeth from the grass and bough Sans wind and bird, none knoweth how, To cheer her as she lay. II. The old nurse started when she saw Her sudden look of woe; But the quick, wan tremblings round her mouth In a meek smile did go, And calm she said, " When I am dead, Dear nurse it shall be so. III. " Till then, shut out those sights and sounds. And pray God jiardon me That I without this jiain no more His blessed works can see ; And lean beside me, loving nurse. That thou mayst hear, ere I am worse What thy last love should be." IV- The loving nurse leant over her, As white she lay beneath, — The old eyes searching, dim with life. The young ones dim with death, — To read their look if sound forsook The trying, trembling breath. V. " When all this feeble breath is done, And I on bier aui laid, My tresses smoothed for never a feast, My body in shroud arrayed, Uplift each palm in a saintly calm, As if that still I prayed. VI. "And heap beneath mine head the fiowers You stoop so low to pull, — The little white flowers from the wood Which grow there in the cool, Which he and I, in childhood's games. Went plucking, knowing not their names. And filled thine apron full. VII. " Weep not ! / weep not. Death is strong; The eyes of Death are dry: But lay this scroll upon my breast When hushed its heavings lie, And wait a while for the corpse's smile Which shineth presently. VIII. " And when it shineth, straightway call Thy youngest children dear. And bid them gently carry me All barefaced on the bier; But bid them pass my kirkyard grass That waveth long anear. I 266 THE POET'S VOW. the IX. bank where I used to " And up sit, And dream what life would be; Along the brook with its sunny look Akin to living glee; O'er the windy hill, through the for- est still, — Let them gently carry me. " And through the piney forest still, And down the open moorland, Round where the sea beats mistily And blindly on the foreland; And let them chant that hymn I know. Bearing me soft, bearing me slow, To the ancient hall of Courland. XI. " And when withal they near the hall, In silence let them lay Mj' bier l^efore the bolted door. And leave it for a day: For I have vowed, though I am proud. To go there as a guest in shroud. And not be turned away." XII. The old nurse looked within her eyes, Whose mutual look was gone; The old nurse stooped upon her mouth, Whose answ^ering voice was done; And nought she heard, till a little bird. Upon "the casement's woodbine swinging. Broke out into a loud, sweet singing For joy o' the summer sun: " Alack I alack ! " — she watched no more; With head on knee she wailed sore, And the little bird sang o'er and o'er For joy o' the summer sun. PART THE FIFTH. SHOWING HOW THE VOW WAS BROKEN. I. The poet oped his bolted door The midnight sky to view; A spirit-feel was in the air Which seemed to touch his spirit bare Whenever his breath he drew; And the stars a liquid softness had, As alone their holiness forbade Their falling with the dew, II. They shine upon the steadfast hills, Upon the swinging tide. Upon the narrow track of beach, And the murmuring pebbles pied: They shine on every lovely place. They shine upon the corpse's face, As it were fair beside. III. It lay before him, human-like, Yet so unlike a thing ! More awful in its shrouded pomp Than any crowned king; All calm and cold, as it did hold Some secret, glorying. IV. A heavier weight than of its clay Clung to his heart and knee: As if those folded palms could strike. He staggered groaningly, And then o'erhung, without a groan. The meek, close mouth that smiled alone. Whose speech the scroll must be. THE WORDS OF SCROLL. ROSALIND'S " I left thee last a child at heart, A woman scarce in years: I come to thee a solemn corpse, Which neither feels nor fears. I have no breath to use in sighs: They laid the dead-weights on mine eyes To seal them safe from tears. " Look on me with thine own calm look: I meet it calm as thou. No look of thine can change this smile. Or break thy sinful vow. I tell thee that my poor scorned heart Is of thine earth — thine earth, a part: It cannot vex thee now. " But out, alas ! these words are writ By a living, loving one, Adown whose cheeks the proofs of life, > z. 3 a> a- a- < o < ^ n < C t3 a — -?> 01 -^ ^" ? Trj^^- i^ •■ - « ?" ' 'V* ^^^ 's. 5 r? 1 L* l' ""' fy\ '^^T. 1? '.h^' i;, i THE FOKT'S VOIV 267 The warm quick tears, do run: Ah, let the unloviiij,' corpse con- trol Thy scorn back from tlie loving soul AVhose place of rest is won. " I have prayed for thee, with liurst- ingf sobs, When jiassion's course was free; I liave jirayed for thee, with silent lips, In the anguish none could see: They whispered oft, ' She sleepeth soft ' — But I only prayed for thee. " Go to ! I pray for thee no more: The corpse's tongue is still; Its folded lingers point to heaven, But point there stiff and chill: No further wrong, no further woe, Hath license from the sin l)elow Its tranquil heart to thrill. li)v th livinj "I charge thee, prayer, And the dead's silentness, To wring from out thy soul a cry Which God shall hear and bless ! Lest Heaven's own j)alm drooji in my hand, And pale among the saints I stand, A saint companiouless.' Bow lower down before tlu^ throne. Triumphant Rosalind! He ])oweth on thy corpse his face. And weepeth as the blind : 'Twas a dread sight to see them so. For the senseless corpse rocked to and fro With the wail of his living mind. ^'I. But dreader sight, could such be seen. His inward mind did lie, Wliose long-sul)jected humanness Gave out its lion cry, And fiercely rent its tenement lu a mortal agony. VII. I tell you, friends, had you lieard his wail, "Twould haunt you in coiirt and mart, And in merry feast, mitil you set Your cup down to depart, — That weeping wild of a reckless child From a proud man's hrok«?n heart. VIII. O broken heart, O broken vow, That wore so proud a feature I God, grasping as a thunderbolt The man's rejected nature. Smote him tlierewitli i' the presence high Of his so worshipped earth and sky That looked on all indifferently — A wailing human creature. IX. A human creature found too weak To bear his human jiain : (May Heaven's dear grace have spo- ken peace To his dying heart and brain !) For when tliey came at dawn of day To lift the lady's corjise away, Her bier was holding twain. X. They dug beneath the kirkyard grass For botli one dwelling deep; To which, when years had mossed the stone, Sir Koland brought liis little son To watch the funeral heaj): And when the hajipy boy would rather Turn upward his blithe eyes to see The wood-doves nodding from the tree, " Nay, boy, look downward," said his father, " Upon this human dust asleeji. And liold it in thy constant ken That God's own unity compresses (One into one) the human many, And that his everlastingness is The bond which is not loosed by any; That thou and I this law must keep. If not in love, in sorrow then — Though smiling not like other men, Still, like them we must weep." " I » ■ ♦ I THE PtOMAUNT OF MARGRET. " Can ray affections find out nothing bust, But Btill and still remove? " tJUABLES. I PLANT a tree whose leaf The yew-tree leaf will suit; But when its shade is-o'er yoii laid, Turn round, and pluck the fruit. Now reach iny harp from off the wall Where shines the sun aslant: The sitn may shine and we he cold ! O liarken, loving hearts and bold, Unto my wild romaunt. Margret, Margret. II. Sitteth the fair ladye Close to the river-side "Which runneth on with a merry tone Her merry thoughts to guide: It runneth through the trees. It runneth by the hill, Nathless the lady's thoughts have found A way more jileasant still. Margret, Margret. III. The night is in her hair. And giveth shade to shade; And the pale moonlight on her fore- head white Like a spirit's hand is laid; Her lips ])art with a smile Instead of speakings done: I ween she thinketh of a voice, Albeit uttering none. Margret, Margret. IV. All little birds do sit With heads beneath their wings; Nature doth seem in a mj'Stic dream, Absorbed from her living things: 268 high cold That dream by that ladye Is certes ttnpartook. For she looketh to the stars With a tender human look. Margret, Margret. The lady's shadow lies Upon the running river; It lieth no less in its quietness, For that which resteth never: Most like a trusting heart Upon a passing faith, Or as upon the course of life The steadfast doom of death. Margret, Margret. VI. The lady doth not move, The lady doth not dream; Yet she seeth her shade no longer laid In rest upon the stream: It shaketh without wind, It parteth from the tide, It standeth upright in the cleft moon- light, It sitteth at her side. Margret, Margret. VII. Look in its face, ladye, And keep thee from thy swound; With a spirit bold thy pulses hold, And hear its voice's sound: For so will sound thy voice When thy face is to the wall, And such will be thy face, ladye. When the maidens work thy pall. Margret, Margret. THE ROM AUNT OF MARGRET. 269 VIII. " Am I not like to thee ? " The voice was calm and low, And between each word you might have heard The silent forests grow: " Tlie like may sway the like ; " By which mysterious law Mine "eyes from thine, and my lips from thine, The light and breath may draw. Margret, Margret. IX. " My lips do need thy breath. My lips do need thy smile. And my pallid eyne, that light in thine Which met the stars ere while: Yet go with light and life, If that thou lovest one In all the earth who loveth thee As truly as the sun. Margret, Margret. Her cheek had waxed white. Like cloud at fall of snow; Then, like to one at set of sun. It wa:ied red also : For love's name maketh bold, As if the loved were near: And then she sighed the deep, long sigh Which cometh after fear. Margret, Margret. XI. " Now, sooth, I fear thee not — Shall never fear thee now ! " (And a noble sight was the sudden light Which lit her lifted brow.) " Can earth be dry of streams, Or hearts of love ? " she said; " Who doubteth love can know not love: He is already dead." Margret, Margret. XII. "I have" . . . and here her lips Some word in pause did keep. And gave the while a quiet smile, As if they paused in sleep, — " I have ... a brother dear, A knight of knightly fame: I broidered him a knightly scarf With letters of my name. Margret, Margret XIII. " I fed his gray gosshawk, I kissed his fierce bloodhound, I sate at home when he might come, And caught his horn's far sound: I sang him hunter's songs, I poured him the red wine. He looked across the cup, and said, / love thee, sister mine." Margret, Margret. XIV. IT trembled on the grass With a low, shadowy laughter; The sounding river which rolled, for- ever Stood dumb and stagnant after: " Brave knight thy brother is ! But better loveth he Thy chaliced wine than thy chanted song, And better both than thee, Margret, Margret." XV. The lady did not heed The river's silence, while Her own thoughts still ran at their will. And calm was still her smile. " My little sister wears The look our mother wore: I smooth her locks with a golden comb, I bless her evermore." Margret, Margret. XVI. " I gave her my first bird When first my voice it knewj I made her share my posies rare, And told her where they grew: I taught her God's dear name With prayer and praise to tell: She looked from heaven into my face. And said, I love thee loell." Margret, Margret. I 270 Tni: ROM AUNT OF MARGRET. XVII. IT trembled on tlie grass. With a low, shadowy laughter; Yon could see eath bird as it woke and stared Through the shrivelled foliage after. " Fair child thy sister is ! But Itetter loveth she Thy golden comb than thy gathered Hower.s, And better both than thee, Margret, Margret." XVIII. Thv lady did not heed The withering on the bough: Still calm her smile, albeit the while A little pale her brow: " I have a father old, The lord of ancient halls; An hundred friends are in his court, Yet only me he calls. Margret, Margret. XIX. "An hundred knights are in his court, Yet read I by his knee; And when forth' they go to the tour- nej' show I rise not up to see: 'Tis a weary book to read. My tryst's at set of sun ; But loving and dear beneath the stars Is his blessing when I've done." Margret, Margret. XX. IT trembled on the grass With a low, shadowy laughter: And moon and star, thougli bright and far. Did shrink and darken after. " High lord thy father is ! But better loveth he His ancient halls than his hundred friends, His ancient halls, than thee, Margret, Margret." XXI. The lady did not heed That tlie far stars did fail; Still calm her smile, albeit the while — Nay, but she is not pale ! " I have more than a friend Across the mountains dim: No other's voice is soft to me. Unless it nameth him." Margret. Margret XXIT. " Though louder beats my heart, I know his tread again. And his fair plume aye, unless turned away, For the tears do blind me then: We brake no gold, a sign Of stronger faith to be; But I wear his last look in my soul, ^^'hich said, / Ioi-p but thee ! "' Margret, Margret. XXIII. IT trembled on the grass With a low, shadowy laughter; And the wind did toll, as a passing soul ^^'ere sped by church-bell after; And shadows, 'stead of light, Fell from the stars above. In flakes of darkness on her face Still bright with trusting love. Margret, Margret. XXIV, "He loved but only thee ! Tliat love is transient too. The wild hawk's bill doth dabble still I' the mouth that vowed thee true: Will he open his dull eyes. When tears fall on his brow ? Behold the death-worm to his heart Is a nearer thing than tliou, Margret, Margret.'- XXV. Her face was on the ground, None saw the agony; But the men at sea did that night agree They heard a drowning cry: And when the morning brake. Fast rolled the river's tide, With the green trees wavingoverhead. And a white corse laid beside. Margret, Margret JSOBEL\S CHILD. 271 XXVI. XXVII. A knight's bloodhound and he Hang up my harp again 1 The funeral watch did keep; I have no voice for song. With a thought o' the chase, he stroked Not song, but wail, and mourners its face, pale, As it howled to see him weep. Not bards, to love belong. A fair child kissed the dead. failing human love ! But shrank before its cold. O light, by darkness known ! And alone yet proudly in his hall Oh false, the while thou treadest earth! Did stand a baron old. Oh deaf beneath the stone ! Margret, Margret. Margret, Margret. ISOBEL'S CHILD. " so find we pi ofit, By losing of our prayers." SHAKESPEARE. To rest the weary nurse has gone: An eight-day watch had watched .she. Still rocking beneath sun and moon The baby on her knee. Till Isobel its mother said, " The fever wanetli, wend to l)ed. For now the watch comes round to me." II. Then wearily the nurse did throw Her pallet in the darkest place Of that sick-room, and slept and dreamed : For, as the gusty wind did blow The night-lamp's flare across her face. She saw or .seemed lo see, but dreamed. That the poplars tall on the opposite hill, The seven tall poplars on the hill, Did clasp the setting sun until His rays dropped from him, pined and still As blossoms in frost, Till he waned and paled, so weirdly crossed, To the color of moonlight wliich doth pass Over the dank ridged churchyard grass. The poplars held the sun, and he The eyes of the nurse that they should not see — Not for a moment, the babe on her knee, Though she shuddered to feel that it grew to be Too chill, and lay too heavily. III. She only dreamed ; for all the while "Twas Lady Isobel that kept The little baby: and it sle]it Fast, warm, as if its mother's smile, Laden with love's dewy weight. And red as rose of Harpocrate, Dropt upon its eyelids, prest Lashes to cheek in a sealed rest. IV. And more and more smiled Isobel To see the baby sleep so well : She knew not that she smiled. Against the lattice, dull and wild Drive the heavy, droning drops, Drop by drop, the sound being one; 272 JSOBEL'S CHILD. As momentl.y time's segments fall Ou the ear of God, wlio hears tlirough all Eternity's unbroken monotone. And more and more smiled Isobel To see the baby sleep so well : She knew not that she smiled. The wind in intermission stops Down in the beechen forest, Then cries alond As one at the sorest, Self-stung, self-driven, And rises up to its very tops, Stiffening erect the branches bowed, Dilating with a tempest-sonl The trees that with their dark hands break Through their own outline, and heavy roll Shadows as massive as clouds in heaven Across the castle lake. And more and more smiled Isobel To see the baby sleep so well. She knew not that she smiled; She knew not that the storm was wild ; Through the uproar drear she could not hear The castle clock which struck anear : She heard the low, light breathing of her child. V. Oh ! sight for wondering look, While the external nature broke Into such abandonment, Wliile the verj' mist, lieart-rent By the lightning, seemed to eddy Against nature, with a din, — A sense of silence and of steady Natural calm appeared to come From things without, and enter in The human creature's room. VI. So motionless she sate. The babe asleep upon her knees. You might have dreamed their souls had gone Away to things inanimate. In such to live, in such to moan. And that their bodies had ta'en back. In mystic change, all silences That cross the sky in cloudy rack, Or dwell beneath the reedy ground In waters safe from their own sound: Only she wore The deepening smile I named before, And that a deepening love exprest; And who at once can love and rest ? VII. In sooth the smile that then was keeping Watch upon the baby sleeping, Floated with its tender light Downward, from the drooping eyes. Upward, from the lips apart, Over cheeks which had grown whitt. With an eight-day weeping : All smiles come in such a wise Where tears shall fall or have of old -'- Like northern lights that fill the heart Of heaven in sign of cold. VIII. Motionless slie sate. Her hair had fallen by its weight On each side of her smile, and lay Very blackly on the arm Wliere the baby nestled warm, Pale as baby carved in stone Seen by glimpses of the moon Up a dark cathedral aisle; But tlirough the storm no moonbeam fell Upon the child of Isobel — Perhaps you saw it by the ray Alone of her still smile. IX. A solemn thing it is to me To look upon a babe that sleeps. Wearing in its spirit-deexis The undeveloped mystery Of our Adam's taint and woe, Which, when they developed be, Will not let it slumber so; Lying new in life beneath The shadow of the coming death. With that soft, low, quiet breath, As if it felt the sun; Knowing all things by their blooms. Not their roots, yea, sun and sky Only by the warmth that comes Out of each; earth only by The iJleasant hues that o'er it run ; And human love by drops of sweet White nourishment still hanging round The little mouth so slumber- bound : All which broken sentiency And conclusion incomplete. Will gather and unite, and climb To an immortality hM»-»H ISOBEL 'S CHILD. 273 Good or evil, each suljlime, Through life and death to life again. O little lids, now folded fast, Must ye learn to drop at last Our large and burning tears? O warm quick body, must thou lie, When the time comes round to die, Still from all the whirl of years. Bare of all the joy and pain ? O small frail being, wilt thou stand At God's right hand, Lifting up those sleeping eyes Dilated by great destinies. To an endless waking? thrones and seraphim. Through the long ranks of their solem- nities. Sunning thee with calm looks of Heaven's surprise. But thine alone, on Him ? Or else, self-willed, to tread the God- less place, (God keep thy will !) feel thine own energies Cold, strong, objectless, like a dead man's clasp. The sleepless, deathless life within thee grasp. While myriad faces, like one change- less face, With woe, not love's, shall glass thee everywhere. And overcome thee with tliiue own desi)air " X. More soft, less solemn images Drifted o'er the lady's heart Silently as snow. She had seen eiglit days depart Hour by hour on bended knees. With pale wrung hands and pray- ings low And broken, through which came the sound Of tears that fell against the ground. Making sad stops: " Dear Lord, dear Lord { " She still had prayed (the heavenly word Broken by an earthly sigh) — '• Thou who didst not erst deny The mother-joy to ISIarj- mild, Blessed in the blessed child Which barkened in meek babyhood Her cradle-hymn, albeit used To all that music interfused Tr» breasts of angels high and good ! Oh, take not, Lord, my babe away I Oh, take not to thy songful heaven The pretty babj- thou hast given. Or ere that I have seen him play Around his father's knees and known That hi' knew how my love has gone From all the world to him. Think, God among the cherubim. How I shall shiver every day In thy June sunshine, knowing where The grave-grass keeps it from his fair Still cheeks, and feel at every tread His little body which is uead, And hidden in thy tiirfy fold. Doth make thj" whole warm earth a-cold ! O God, I am so young, so j'oung — I am not used to tears at nights Instead of slumber — not to prayer With sobbing lips, and hands out- wrung ! Thou knowest all mj- prayings were ' I bless thee, God, for past de- lights — Thank God ! ' I am not used to bear Hard thoughts of death; the earth doth cover No face from me of friend or lover: And must the first who teaches me The form of shrouds and funerals be Mine own first-born beloved — he Who taught me first this mother-love ? Dear Lord, who spreadest out above Thy loving, transpierced hands to meet All lifted hearts with blessing sweet, Pierce not my heart, my tender heart Thou madest tender ! Thou who art So happy in thj' heaven alway, Take not mine only bliss away ! " XI. She so had prayed; and God, who hears Through seraph-songs the sound of tears, From that beloved babe had ta'en The fever and the beating pain. And more and more smiled Isobel To see the baby sleep so well. (She knew not that she smiled, I wis) Until the pleasant gradual thought Which near her heart the smile in wrought. Now soft and slow, itself did seem To float along a happy dream, Beyond it into speech like this- 274 ISOBLL-S CHILD. xn. " I prayed for tliee, uiy little child, And God has heard my prayer ! And when thy babyhood is gone, We two togetlier undefiled By men's repinings, will kneel down Upon his earth which will be fair (Not covering thee, sweet !) to ns twain, And give him thankful praise." XIII. Dully and wildly drives the rain: Against the lattices drives the rain. XIV. " I thank liim now, that I can think Of those same future days, Nor from the harmless image shrink Of what I there might see. — Strange babies on their mothers' knee. AVhose innocent soft faces might From off mine eyelids strike the light. With looks not meant for me ! " XV. Gustily blows the wind through the rain, As against the lattices drives the rain. X\'I. " But now, O baby mine, together We turn this hope of ours again To many an hour of summer weather, When we shall sit and intertwine Our spirits, and instruct each other In the pure loves of child and mother ! Two human loves make one divine." xvii. The thunder tears through the wind and the rain. As full on the lattices drives the rain. XVIII. "My little child, what wilt thou choose ? Now let me look at thee and pon- der. What gladness from the gladnesses Futurity is spreading under Thy gladsome sight? Beneath the trees Wilt thou lean all day, and lose Thy spirit with the river seen Intermittently between The winding beechen alleys, — Half in labor, half repose. Like a shepherd keeping sheep, Thou, with only thoughts to keep Which never a bound will overpass. And which are innocent as those That feed among Arcadian valleys Upon the dewy grass ? " The large white owl that with age is blind. That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow, Is carried away in a gust of wind; His wings could bear him not as fast As he goeth now the lattice past; He is borne by the winds, the rains do follow. His white wings to the blast outflow- ing. He hooteth in going. And still in the lightnings coldly glitter His round unblinking eyes. XX. " Or, Viaby, wilt thou think it fitter To be eloquent and wise, — One upon whose lips the air Turns to solemn verities For men to breathe anew, and win A deeper-seated life within ? Wilt be a philosopher, By whose voice the earth and skies Shall speak to the unborn ? Or a poet, Ijroadly spreading The golden immortalities Of thy soul ou natures lorn And poor of such, them all to guard From their decay, — beneath thy treading. Earth's Howers recovering hues of Eden, — And stars drawn downward by thy looks, To shine ascendant in thy books ? " XXI. The tame hawk in the castle-yard. How it screams to the lightning, with its wet Jagged plumes o\-erhanging the para- pet ! And at the lady's door the hound Scratches witli a crying sound. ISOBEL'S CHILD. 275 X X 1 1 . " But, O my babe, tliy lids are laid Close, fast upon tby cheek. And not a dream of ]>ower and sheen Can make a passage up between. Thy heart is of thy mother's made, Thy looks are very meek, And it will lie their chosen place To rest on some beloved face, As these on thine, ami let the noise Of the whole world go on, nor drown The tender silence of thy joys: Or.when that silence shall have grown Too tender for itself, the same Vtiarning for sound, — to look abo\'e And utter its one meaning, love, That He may hear His name." XXIII. No wind, no rain, no thunder ! The waters had trickled not slowly, The thunder was not sjtent. Nor the wind near finishing : Who would have said that the storm was diminishing? No wind, no rain, no thunder ! Their noises dropped asunder From the earth and the firmament. From the towers ami the lattices. Abrupt and echoless As ripe fruits on the ground unshaken wholly As life in death. And sudden and solemn the silence fell. Startling the heart of Isobel As the tempest could not Against the door went panting the breath Of the lady's hound whose cry was still. And she, constrainctl howe'er she would not. Lifted her eyes, and saw the moon Looking out of heaven alone Upon the i)oplared liill, — A calm of God, made visible That men might bless it at their will. XXIV. The moonshine ou the baby's face Falleth clear and cold; The mother's looks have fallen back To the same place: Hecause no moon with .silver rack, Nor broad sunrise in jasper skies. Has power to hold Our loving eyes, Which still rtivert, as ever must Wonder and Hope, to gaze on the dust. XXV. The moonshine on the baby's face Cold and clear remaineth; The mother's looks do shrink away, The mother's looks return to stay, As charmed by what paineth: Is any glamour in the case ? Is it dream, or is it sight ? Hath the change ui)on the wild Elements that signs the night, Passed upon the child ? It is not dream, but sight. XXVI. The babe lias awakened from sleep, And unto the gaze of its mother Bent over it, lifted another, — Not the baby-looks that go Unaimingly to and fro. But an earnest gazing deep Such as soul gives soul at length When by work and wail of years It winneth a solemn strength, And mourneth as it wears. A strong man could not brook, With pulse unhurried by fears, To meet that baby's look O'erglazed by manhood's tears, The tears of a man full grown. With a power to wring our own, In the eyes all undefiled Of a little three-months' child, — To see that babe-brow wrought By the witnessing of thought To judgment's ])rodigy. And the small soft mouth miweaued, By mother's kiss o'erleaned, (Putting the sound of loving Where no sound else was moving Except the speechless cry) Quickened to mind's expression, Shaped to articulation. Yea, uttering words, yva., naming woe. In tones that w\X\\ it strangely went. Because so baby-innocent. As the child spalie out to the mother, so: — XXVII. " O mother, mother, loose thy jirayer, Christ's name hath made it strong. It bindeth me, it holdcth me. With its nit)st lo^■ing cruelty. I 276 ISOBEL'S CHILD From Hoating my new soul along The liappy lieavenly air. It biniletli me, it liohleth me In all this tlark, upou this ilull Low earth by only weepers troil. It bimleth me, it hokleth me ! Mine angel looketh sorrowful Upon the face of God.i XXVIII. " Mother, mother, can I dream Beneatli your eartlily trees ? I had a vision and a gleam; I heard a sountl more sweet than these When rippled by the wind: Did you see the Dove with wings, Bathetl in golden glisterlngs from a sunless light behind. Dropping on me from the sky, Soft as mother's kiss, until 1 seemed to leap, and yet was still ? Saw you how his love-large eye, Looked upon me mystic calms, Till the power of His divine Vision was indrawn to mine ? XXIX. •' Oh the dream within the dream ! I saw celestial places even. Oh the vistas of high palms Making finites of delight Through the heavenly infinite. Lifting up their green still tops To the heaven of heaven ! Oh the sweet life-tree that drops Shade like light across the river Glorified in its forever Flowing from the Throne ! Oh the shining holiuesses Of the thousand, thousand faces God-sunned by the throned One, And made intense with such a love, That, though I saw them turned above, Each loving seemed for also me ! A.nd,. oh the Unspeakable, the He, The manifest in secrecies. Yet of mine own heart partaker With the overcoming look Of One who hath been once forsook, And blesseth the forsaker ! Mother, mother, let me go Toward the Face that looketh so ! Through the mystic winged Four ' " For I say unto yoii that in bcavon iboir ana:els do always beliold the faco of my Fatbor which is in 'heaven." — Matt, xviii. 10. Whose are inward, outward eyes Dark with light of mysteries And the restless evermore "Holy, holy, holj'," — through The sevenfold lamps that burn in view Of cherubim and seraphim, Through the four and twenty crowned Stately elders white around, SufTer lue lo go to Him ! XXX. " Is your wisdom very wise. Mother, on the narrow earth. Very liajipy, very worth That i should stay to learn ? Are these air-corrupting sighs Fashioned by unlearned breath? Do the students' lamps that burn All night illumine death ? Mother, albeit this be so. Loose thy i)rayer, and let me go Where that bright chief angel stands, Apart from all liis brother bands. Too glad for smiling, having bent In angelic wilderment O'er the depths of God, and brought Reeling thence one only thought To fill his own eternity. He the teacher is for me. He can teach what I would know: Mother, mother, let me go ! XXXI. " Can your poet make an Eden No winter will undo. And light a starry fire, while heed- ing His hearth's is burning too ? Drown in music the earth's din, And keep his own wild soul within The law of his own harmony ? Mother, albeit this be so, Let ine to my heaven go ! A little harp me waits thereby, — A harp whose strings are golden all. And tuned to music spherical. Hanging on the green life-tree Where no willows ever be. Shall I miss that harp of mine ? INIother, no ! the Eye divine Turned upon it makes it shine; And, when I touch it, poems sweet, Like separate souls, shall fiy from it, Each to the immortal fytte. We shall all be poets there. Gazing on the chiefest Fair. THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE. xxxri. "Love! earth's love! and can we love Fixedly where all things move? Can the sinning love each other ? Mother, mother, I tremble in thy close embrace; I feel thy tears adown my face: Thy prayers do keep me ont of bliss, — Oh dreary earthly love ? Loose thy prayer, and let me go To the place which loving is, Yet not sad; and when is given Escape to thee from this below, Thou slialt behold me, that I wait For thee beside the happy gate, And silence shall be up in heaven To hear our greeting kiss." xxxiri. The nurse awakes in the morning sun. And starts to see beside her bed The lady with a grandeur spread Like pathos o'er her face, as ou,e God-satisfied and earth-undone. The babe upon her arm was dead; And the nurse could utter forth no cry, — was awed by the calm in the mother's eye. XXXIV. She ""Wake, nurse ! " the lady said: " We are waking, — he and I, — I on earth, and he in sky: And thou must help me to o'erlay With garment white this little clay Which needs no more our lullaby. XXXV. " I changed the cruel prayer I made^ And bowed my meekened face, ana prayed That God would do his will; and thus He did it, nurse ! He parted us; And his sun shows victorious The dead calm face, — and / am calm. And heaven is liarkening a new psalm. xxxvr. " This earthly noise is too anear, Too loud, and will not let me hear The little harp. My death will soon Make silence." And a sense of tune, A satisfied love meanwhile Which nothing earthly could de- spoil, Saug on within her soul. XXXVII. Oh you. Earth's tender and impassioned few, Take courage to intrust your love To Him so named, who guards above Its ends, and shall fulfil ! Breaking the narrow prayers that may Befit your narrow liearts away In his broad, loving will. THE ROMAUl^T OF THE PAGE. A KNIGHT of gallant deeds, And a young page at his side. From the holy war in Palestine Did slow and thoughtful ride. As each were a palmer, and told for beads The dews of the eventide. II " O young page," said the knight, '■ A noble page art thou! Thou fearest not to steep in blood The curls upon thy brow; And once in the tent, and twice in the fight, Didst ward me a mortal blow." 27« THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE. iir. "O brave knight," said the page, " Or ere we hither came, We talked in tent, we talked in field. Of the bloody battle-game; Bnt here, below this greenwood bough, I cannot speak the same. IV. " Our troop is far behind. The woodland caliu is new, Our steeds, with slow grass-muffled lioofs. Tread dee]) the shadows through; And in my inind some blessing kind Is dropping with the dew^. " The Avoodland calm is pure: I cannot choose but have A thought from these o' the beechen- trees Which in our England wave. And of the little finches fine Which sang there while in Palestine The waiTior-hilt we drave. vr. " Methinks, a moment gone, 1 heard my mother pray: I heard, sir knight, the prayer for me Wherein she passed away; And I know the heavens are leaning down To hear what I shall say." VII. The page spake calm and high, As of no mean degree; Perhaps he felt in nature's broatl Full heart his own was free: And the knight looked up to his lifted eye, Then answered, smilingly, — VHI. " Sir iiage, T jiray your grace ! Certes, I meant not so To cross your pastoral mood, sir page. With the crook of the battle- bow; But a knight may speak of a lady's face, I ween, in any mood or place, If the grasses die or grow. IX. " And this I meant to say, — My lady's face shall shine As ladies' faces use, to greet My page from Palestine: Or speak she fair, or prank she gay. She is no lady of mine. " And this I meant to fear, — Her bower may suit thee ill; For, sooth, in that same field and tent Thy talk was somewhat still: And fitter thy hand for my knightly spear Than thy tongue for mv lady's will." XI. Slowly and tliankfully The young page bowed his head ; His large eyes seemed to muse a smile, Until he blushed instead; And no lady in her bower, pardi& Could blush more sudden red. " Sir knight, thy lady's bower to me Is suited well," he said. XII. Beati, beati, mortui! From the convent on the sea, One mde off, or scarce so uigh. Swells the dirge as clear and high As if that, over brake and lea. Bodily the wind did carry The great altar of St. Mary, And the fifty tapers burning o'er it, Aiul the lady abbess dead before it, And the chanting nuns whom yes- ter week Her voice did (jharge and bless, — Chanting steady, chanting meek. Chanting witli a solemn breath, Because that they are thinking les.-? Upon the dead than upon death. Beati, beati, mortui! Now the vision in the sound Wheeleth on the wind around; Now it sweepeth back, away, — The uplands will not let it stay To dark the western sun: MortiH .' away at last. Or ere the page's blush is past! Aud the knight heard all, and th# page heard none. THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE. 279 XIII. " A boon, thou noble knight, If ever I served thee! Though thou art a knight, and I am a page. Now grant a boon to me; And tell me, sooth, if dark or bright If little loved, or loved aright, Be the face of thy ladye." XIV. Gloomily looked the knight — " As a son thou hast served me; And would to none I had granted boon, Except to only thee! For haply then I should love aright, For then I should know if dark or bright Were the face of my ladye. XV. " Yet it ill suits my knightly tongue To grudge that granted boon. That heavy price from heart and life I paid in silence down; The hand that claimed it, cleared in fine My father's fame: 1 swear by mine That price was nobly won! XVI. " Earl Walter was a brave old earl. He was my father's friend; And while I rode the lists at court. And little guessed the end, My noble father in his shroud. Against a slanderer lying loud, He rose up to defend. XVII. " Oh, calm below the marble gray My father's dust was strewn! Oh, meek above the marble gray His image prayed alone! The slanderer lied; the wretch was brave — For, looking up the minster-nave. He saw my father's knightly glaive Was changed from steel to stone. XVIII. " Earl Walter's glaive was steel, With a brave old hand to wear it, And dashed the lie back in the mouth Which lied against the godly truth And against the knightly merit: The slanderer, 'neath the avenger's heel, Struck up the dagger in appeal From stealthy lie to brutal force, And out upon the traitor's corse Was yielded the true spirit. XIX. " I would mine hand had fouglit that fight, And justified my father I I would mine heart had caught that wound. And slept beside him rather ! I think it were a better thing Than murdered friend and marriage- ring Forced on my life together. XX. " Wail shook Earl Walter's house; His true wife shed no tear: She lay upon her bed as mute As the earl did on his bier. Till — ' Ride, ride fast,' she said at last, ' And bring the avenged's son anear ! Ride fast, ride free, as a dart can flee; For white of blee with waiting for me Is the corse in the next chambere.' XXI. " I came, I knelt beside her bed; Her calm was worse than strife. ' My husband, for thy father dear. Gave freely, when thou wast not here, His own and eke my life. A boon ! Of that sweet child we make An orphan for thy father's sake, Make thou, for ours, a wife.' XXII. " I said, ' My steed neighs in the court. My bark rocks on the brine. Ami the warrior's vow I am under now To free the pilgrim's shrine; But fetch the ring, and fetch the priest, And call that daughter of thine. And rule she wide from my castle on Nyde While I am in Palestine.' 280 THE ROM AUNT OF THE PAGE. XXIII. " In the dark chambere, if the liride was fair, Ye wis, I coukl not see; But the steed thrice neiglied, and the priest fast prayed, And wedded fast were we. Her mother smiled upon her bed, As at its side we Ivuelt to wed; And the bride rose from lier knee. And kissed tlie smile of her mother dead. Or ever she kissed me. XXIV. "My page, my page, what grieves thee so, That the tears run down thy face?" — " Alas, alas ! mine own sister Was in thy lady's case: But she laid dojvn the silks she wore, And followed him she wed before, Disguised as his true servitor. To the very battle-place.' "' XXV. And wept the page, but laughed the knight, A careless laugh laughed he: " Well done it were for thy sister. But not for my ladye ! My love, so please you, shall requite No woman, whether dark or bright, Unwomaned if she be.' " XXVI. The page stopped weeping, and smiled cold: " Your wisdom may declare That womanhood is jn-oved the best By golden brooch and glossy vest The mincing ladies wear; Yet is it proved, and was of old, Anear as well, I dare to bold. By truth, or by despair.' " xxvii. He smiled no more, he wept no more; But passionate he spake: " Oh, womanly she prayed in tent. When none beside did wake ! Oh, womanly slie paled in fight, For one beloved's sake ! — And her little hand, defiled with blood. Her tender tears of womanhood Most woman-pure did make." XXVIII. — " Well done it were for thy sister, Thou tellest well her tale; But for my lady, she shall pray I' the kirk of IS'ydesdale. Not dread for me, but love for me. Shall make my lady pale: No casque shall hide her woman's tear, It shall have room to trickle clear Behind her woman's veil." XXIX. — " But what if she mistook thy mind, And followed thee to strife. Then kneeling did entreat thy love, As Paynims ask for life ? '' — "I would forgive, and evermore Would love her as my servitor. But little as my wife. Look up ! XXX. there is a small bright cloud Alone amid the skies: So high, so pure, and so apart, A woman's honor lies." The page looked up; the cloud was sheen: A sadder cloud did rush, I ween, Betwixt it and his eyes." XXXI. Then dimly dropped his eyes away From welkin unto liill. Ha ! who rides there ? the page is 'ware, Though the crj' at his heart is still ; Anil the page seeth all, and the knight seeth none, Though banner and spear do fleck the sun. And the Saracens ride at will. XXXII. He speaketh calm, he speaketh low: " Ride fast, my inaster, ride, Or ere within the broadening dark The narrow shadows hide." " Yea, fast, my page, I will do so, And keep thou at my side." XXXIII. " Now nay, now nay, ride on thy way, Thy faithful jjage precede: For I must loose on saddle-bow My battle-casque that galls, I trow, i Tffr. ROM AUNT OF Till-: PAGi:. 281 Tlie shoulder of ruy steed; And I must jiray, as I did vow, For one in bitter need, XXXIV. " Ere night I shall be near to thee, Now ride, my master, ride ! Ere night, as jiarted spirits cleave To mortals too beloved to leave. I shall be at thy side." • The knight smiled free at the fantasy. And adown the dell did ride. XXXV. Had the knight looked np to the page's face. No smile the word had won : Had the knight looked up to the page's face, I ween he had never gone: Had the knight looked bac^k to the page's geste, I ween he had turned anon, For dread was the woe in the face so young, And wild was the silent geste that tlung Casque, sword, to earth, as the boy down sprung And stood — alone, alone. XX.WI. He clinched his hands as if to hold His soul's great agony — " HaA'e I renounced my womanhood For wifehood unto ///ee, And is this the last, last look of thine That ever I shall see ? xxxvri. " Yet God thee save, and mayst thou have A lady to thy mind, More woman-proud, and half as true, As one thou leav'st behind I And God me take with Him to dwell, For Him I cannot love too well, As I have loved my kind." XXX\'11I. Shk looketh up, in earth's despair. The hopeful heavens to seek; That little cloud still Hoateth tliere, Whereof her loved did speak: How bright the little cloud appears ! Her eyelids fall upon the tears. And the tears down eitlicr cheek. XXXIX. The tramp of hoof, the flash of steel — The Paynims rage, but truthful woman; She stands amid them all unmoved: A heart once broken by the loved Is strong to meet the foeman. XL. "Ho, Cliristian page! art keeping sheep, From i)ouring wine-cujis rest- ing?"— " I keep my master's noble name l<""or warring, not for feasting; And if that here Sir Hubert were, My master brave, my master dear, Ye would not stay the questing." xi,r. "Where is th^' master, scornful page. That we may slay or bind him ? " — "Now search the lea, and search the wood. And see if ye can find him ! Nathless, as hath been often tried, Your Paynim heroes faster ride Before liim than behind him." XMI. " Give smoother answei-s, lying page, Or perish in the lying ! " — " I trow that if the warrior brand Beside my foot were in my hand, . 'Twere better at replying ! " They cursed her deep, they smote her low, They cleft her golden ringlets through; The Loving is the Dying. XLIII. She felt the cnuiter gleam down, And met it from beneath With smile more bright in victory Than any sword from slieath. Which flashed across her li]) serene, Most like the spirit-light between The darks of life and death. xr.iv. hiL/emisco, i)tatient now, {Toll slowly) And the children might be bold to pluck the kingcups from your mould. Ere a month had let them grow. VIII. And you let the goldfinch sing, in the alder near in spring, — {Toll slowly) Let her build her nest, and sit all the three weeks out on it. Murmuring not at any thing. IX. In your patience ye are strong; cold and heat ye take not wrong; {Toll sloivly) When the trumpet of the angel blows eternity's evangel. Time will seem to you not long. X. Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, ( Toll slotvly) And I said in under-breath, " All our life is mixed with death. And who knoweth which is best ? " XI. Ol the little birds sang east, and the ' little birds sang west, {Toll slotvly) And I smiled to think God's greatness I flowed around our incomplete- / ness, — / Round our restlessness, his rest. ! THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST. " So tlic dreams depart, So the fadiiiiT pliaiitoms flee, And the sharp reality Now must aet its part." Wkstwoou's Beads from a Rosary. Little Ellie sits alone 'Mid the beeches of a meadow, By a stream-side on the grass, And the trees are showering down Doubles of their leaves in shadow. On her shining hair and face. 11. .She has thrown her bonnet by, And her feet she has been dipping In the shallow water's flow ; Now she holds them nakedly In her hands, all sleek and dripping, While she rocketh to and fro. III. Little Ellie sits alone. And the smile she softly uses Fills the silence like a speech. While she thinks what shall be done. And the sweetest pleasure chooses For her future within reach. IV. Little Ellie in her smile Chooses, " I will have a lover, Riding on a steed of steeds : He shall love me without guile, And to him I will discover The swan's nest among the reeds. " And the steed shall be red-roan, And the lover sliall be noble, With an eye that takes the breath. And the lute he plays upon Shall strike ladies into trouble, As his sword strikes men to death. o02 VI. " And the steed it shall be shod All in silver, housed in azure; And the the mane shall swim the wind ; And the hoofs along the sod Shall flash onward, and keep meas- ure, Till the shepherds look behind. VII. " But my lover will not prize All the glory that he rides in, When he gazes in my face. He will say, ' O Love, thine eyes Build the shrine my soul abides in. And I kneel here for thj- gracel' VIII. " Then, ay, then he shall kneel low, With the red-roan steed anear him. Which shall seem to understand, Till I answer, ' Rise and go ! For the world must love and feai him Whom I gift with heart and hand, IX. " Then he will arise so pale, I shall feel my own lips tremble With a yes I must not say : Nathless maiden-brave, 'Farewell,' I will utter, and dissemble — ' Light to-morrow with to-day ! ' X. " Then he'll I'ide among the hills To the wide world past the river, There to put away all wrong. To make straight distorted wills, And to empty the broad quiver Which the wicked bear along. BEWrnA IN THE LANE. 303 XI. " Three times shall a young foot-page Swim the stream, and climb the mountain, And kneel down heside my feet: ' Lo! my master sends this gage. Lady, for thy pity's counting. What wilt thou exchange for it? ' XII. " And the first time I will send A white rosebud for a guerdon: And the second time, a glove; But the third time I may bend From my pride, and answer, — ' Pardon, If he comes to take my love.' XIII. " Then the .young foot-page will run; Then my lover will ride faster, Till he kneeleth at my knee: ' I am a duke's eldest son, Thousand serfs do call me master. But, O Love, I love but tlwe ! ' XIV. " He will kiss me on the mouth Then, and lead me as a lover Through the crowds that praise his deeds. And, when soul-tied by one troth, ITuto him t will discover That swan's nest among the reeds." XV. Little EUie, with her smile Not yet ended, rose up gayly, Tied the bonnet, donned the shoe, And went liomeward, round a mile, Just to see, as she did daily, Wliat more eggs were with the two. XVI. Pushing through the elm-tree copse, Winding \\\) the stream, light- hearted, Where the osier pathway leads. Past the boughs she stoops, and stops. Lo, the wild swan had deserted, And a rat had gnawed the reeds ! XVII. Ellie went home sad and slow. If she found the lover ever. With his red-roan steed of steeds, Sooth I know not; but I know She could never show him — never. That swan's nest among the reeds. BERTHA m THE LANE. Pri the broidery-frame away, For my sewing is all done: The last thread is used to-day, And I need not join it on. Though the clock stands at the noon, I am weary. I have sewn. Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown. II. Sister, help me to the bed, And stand near me, dearest sweet. Do not shrink, nor be afraid, Blushing with a sudden heat! No one standeth in the street ? By God's love I go to meet, Love I thee with love complete. III. Lean thy face down; drop it in These two hands, that I mav hold 'Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin. Stroking back the curls of gold: 'Tis a fair, fair face, in sooth — Larger eyes and redder mouth Than mine were in my tirst youth. i 304 BERTHA IN THE LANE. IV. Thou art younger by seven years — Ah ! so bashful at my gaze. That the lashes, hung with tears, Grow too heavy to upraise ? I would wound thee by no touch Which thy shjniess feels as such. Dost thou mind me. dear, so much ? V. Have I not been nigh a^nother To thy sweetness ? — tell me, dear; Have we not loved one another Tenderly, from year to year, Since our dying mother mild Said, with accents undefiled, " Child, be mother to this child " ? VI. Mother, mother, up in heaven. Stand up on the jasper sea, And be witness I have given All the gifts required of me, — Hope that blessed me, bliss that crowned. Love that left me with a wound, Life itself that turueth round. VII. Mother, mother, thou art kind, Thou art standing in the room. In a molten glory shrined. That rays off into the gloom ; But thy smile is bright and bleak Like cold waves: I cannot s^jeak, I sob in it, aud grow weak. VIII. Ghostly mother, keep aloof One iiour longer from my soul ; For I still am thinking of Earth's warm-beating joy and dole ! On my finger is a ring AV'hicii I still see glittering When the night hides every thing. IX. Little sister, thou art pale I Ah, I have a wandering brain, — But I lose that fever-bale, And my thoughts grow calm again. Lean down closer, closer still: I have words thine ear to fill, .\nd would kiss thee at mv will. Dear, I heard thee in the spring, — Thee and Robert, — through the trees, — When we all went gathering Boughs of May-bloom for the bees. Do not start so ! think instead How the sunshine overhead Seemed to trickle through the shade. XI. What a day it was that day ! Hills and vales did openly Seem to heave, and throb away At the sight of the great sky ; And the silence, as it stood In the glory's golden flood, Audibly did bud, aud bud. XII. Through the winding hedgerows green How we wandered, I and you, With the bowery tops shut in, And the gates that showed the view 1 How we talked there: thrushes soft Sang our praises out, or oft Bleatings took them from the croft: XIII. Till the pleasure, grown too strong, Left me muter evermore, And, the winding road being long, I walked out of sight, before. And so, wrapt in musings fond. Issued (past the wayside pond) On the meadow-lands beyond. XIV. I sate down beneath the beech Which leans over to the lane. And the far sound of your sj)eech Did not i^romise any pain ; Aud I blessed you full and free. With a smile stooped tenderly O'er the May-flowers on my knee. XV. But the sound grew into word As the speakers drew more near — Sweet, forgive me that I heard What j'ou wished me not to hear. Do not weep so, do not shake; Oh, I heard thee, Bertha, make Good true answers for my sake. BERTHA IN THE LANE. 805 XVI. Yes, and he too ! let liiiii stand In thy tlioughts untouched by blame. Could he help it, if my hand He had claimed with hasty claim ? That was wrong, perhaps; but then Such things be — and will again. Women cannot judge for men. XVII. Had he seen thee when he swore He would love but me alone ? Thou wast absent, sent before To our kin in Sidmoutli town. When he saw thee, who art best Past compare, and loveliest, He but judged thee as the rest. XVIII. Could we blame him witli grave words. Thou and I, dear, if we might ? Thy brown eyes have looks like birds Flying straightway to the light: Mine are older. Hush ! Look out — Up the street ! Is none without ? How the poplar swings about ! XIX. And that hour, beneath the beech, When I listened in a dream. And he said in his deep speech That he owed me all esteem, — Each word swam in on my brain With a dim, dilating pain. Till it burst with that last strain. XX. I fell flooded with a dark. In the silence of a swoon. When I rose, still cold and stark. There was ■iMglit; I saw the moon : And the stars tach in its jilace, And the May-blooms on the grass, Seemed to wonder what I was. XXI. And I walked as if apart From myself, when I could stand; And I pitied my own heart, As if I held it in my hand. Somewhat coldly, with a sense Of fulfilled benevolence, And a " poor thing " negligence. XXII. And I answered coldly, too. When you met me at the door; And I only heard the dew Dripping from me to the floor; And the flowers I bade you see Were too withered for the bee, As mv life lienceforth for me. XXIII. Do not weep so, dear — heart-warm! All was best as it befell. If I say he did me harm, I speak wild — I am not well. All his words were kind and good — He esteemed me. Only, blood Runs so faint in womanhood ! XX tv. Then I always was too grave. Liked the saddest ballad sung, - With that look, besides, we have In our faces, who die young. I had died, dear, all tlie same: Life's long, joyous, jostling game Is too loud for my meek shame. XXV. We are so unlike each other. Thou and I, that none could gue.ss We were children of one mother, But for mutual tenderness. Thou art rose-liued from the cold, And meant verily to hold Life's pure pleasures manifold. XXVI. I am pale as crocus grows Close beside a rose-tree's root: Whoso'er would reach the rose Treads the crocus under foot. /, like May-bloom on thorn-tree, Thou, like merry summer-bee, — Fit that I be plucked for thee ! XXVII. Yet who plucks me ? No one mourns, I have lived my season out. And now die of my own thorns Which I could not live without. Sweet, be merry ! How the light Comes and goes ! If it be night, Keep the candles in my siglit. 306 LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP. XXVIII. Are there footsteps at the door ? Look out quickly. Yea, or nay ? Some one might be waiting for Some last word that I might say. Nay ? So best ! so angels would Stand off clear from deathly road, Not to cross the sight of God. XXIX. Colder grow my hands and feet. When I wear the shroud I made, Let the folds lie straight and neat, And the rosemary be spread, That, if any friend should come, (To see thee, sweet), all the room May be lifted out of gloom. XXX. And, dear Bertha, let me keep On my hand this little ring, Which at nights, when others sleep, I can still see glittering. Let me wear it out of sight. In the grave, where it will light All the dark up, day and night. XXXI. On that grave drop not a tear ! Else, though fathom-deep the place, Through the woollen shroud I wear I shall feel it on nij- face. Rather smile there, blessed one, Thinking of me in the sun. Or forget me, — smiling on ! XXXII. Art thou near me ? Nearer ! so — Kiss me close upon the eyes, That the earthly light maj^ go Sweetly, as it used to rise When I watched the morning-gray Strike, betwixt the hills, the way He was sure to come that day. XXXIII. So — no more vain words be said !' The hosannas nearer roll. Mother, smile now on thy dead, I am death-strong in my soul. Mystic Dove alit on cross. Guide the poor bird of the snows Through the snow-wind above loss ' XXXIV. Jesus, Victim, comprehending Love's divine self-abnegation. Cleanse my love in its self-spending. And absorb the jioor libation ! Wind my thread of life up higher. Up, through angels' hands of fire ! I aspire while I expire. LADI GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP. A ROMANCE OF THE AGE. A poet voriten to his friend. Place. — A room in Wycombe Hall, Time. — Late in tlie evening. I. Deab my friend and fellow-student, I would lean my spirit o'er you ! Down the purple of this chamber tears should scarcely run at will. I am humbled who was humble. Friend, I bow my head before you: You should lead me to my peasants; but their faces are too still. II. There's a lady, an earl's daughter, — she is proud and she is noble, And she treads the crimson carpet, LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP. 307 and she breathes the perfumed air, And a kingly blood sends glances up, her princely eye to trouble, And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair. in. She She has halls amonc; the woodlands, she has castles by the breakers, has farms and she has manors, she can threaten and command, And the jialpitating engines snort in steam across her acres, As they mark upon the blasted heaven the measure of the land. IV. There are none of England's daugh- ters who can show a jn'ouder presence ; Upon princely suitors praying, she has looked in her disdain. She was sprung of English nobles, I was born of English peasants: "What was I that I shoulil love her, save for competence to pain ! I was only a poor ]ioet, made for singing at her casement. As the finches or the thrushes, while she thought of other things. Oh, she walked so high above me, she appeared to my abasement. In her lovely silken murmur, like an angel clad in wings ! VI. bow before her sweeps their as her door- Many vassals carriage ways; She has blest their little children, as a priest or queen were she: Far too tender, or too cruel far, her smile upon the i^oor was. For I thought it was the same smile which she used to smile on me. VII. She has voters in the commons, she has lovers in the palace, And of all the fair court-ladies, few have jewels half as fine ; Oft the prince has named her beauty 'twixt the red wine and the chalice: Oh, and what was /to love her? my beloved, my Geraldine ! VIII. Yet I could not choose but love her: I was born to poet-uses, — To love all things set above me, all of good and all of fair. Nymphs of mountain, not of valley, we are wont to call the Muses"; And, in nympholeptic climbing, poets pass from mount to star. IX. And because I was a poet, and lie- cause the public praised me. With a critical deduction for the mod- ern writer's fault, I could sit at rich men's tables, though the courtesies that raised me Still suggested clear between us the pale spectrum of the salt. And they praised me in her presence: " Will your book appear this summer '? " Then, returning to each other — " Yes, our plans are for the moors; " Then, with whisper dropped behind me — ' ' There he is ! the latest comer. Oh, she only likes his verses ! what is over, she endures. XI. " Quite low-born, self-educated! some- what gifted, though, by nature. And we make a point of asking him, — of being very kind. You may speak , he does not hear you ; and, besides, he writes no satire: All these serjients kept by charmers leave the natural sting behind." XII. I grew scornfuller, grew colder, as T stood up there among them. Till, as frost intense will burn you, the cold scorning scorched mj-brow ; When a sudden silver speaking" grave- ly cadenced, over-rung them. And a sudden silken stirring touched my inner nature through. I 308 LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHir. XIII. I looked upward and beheld lier: with a calm and regnant spirit, Slowly round she swept her eyelids, and said clear before them all, " Have you such superfluous honor, sir, that, able to confer it, You will come down, Mister Bertram, as my guest to Wycombe Hall? " XIV. Here she paused: she had been paler at the first word of her speak- ing. But, because a silence followed it, blushed somewhat, as for shame, Then, as scorning her own feeling, re- sumed calmly, " I am seeking More distinction than these gentle- men think worthy of ray claim. XV. not " Ne'ertheless, you see, I seek it because I am a woman," (Here her smile sprang like a fountain, and so, overflowed her mouth), " But because my woods in Sussex have some purjile shades at gloaming Which are worthy of a king in state, or poet in his youth. XVI. " I invite you. Mister Bertram, to no scene for worldly speeches, — Sir, I scarce should dare, — but only where God asked the thrushes first; And if yoM will sing beside them, in the covert of my beeches, I will thank you for the woodlands, for the human world at worst." XVII. Then she smiled around right childly, then she gazed around right queenly, And I bowed — I could not answer; alternated liglit and gloom, While, as one who quells the lions, with a steady eye, serenely. She, with level, fronting eyelids, passed out stately from the room. XVIII. Oh the blessed woods of Sussex ! I can hear them still around me, With their leafy tide of greenery still rippling up the wind. Oh the cursed woods of Sussex! where the hunter's arrow found me When a fair face and a tender voice had made me mad and ])lind! XIX. In that ancient hall of Wycombe thronged the numerous guests invited, And the lovely London ladies trod the floors with gliding feet; And their voices, low with fashion, not with feeling, softly freighted All the air about the windows witli elastic laughters sweet. XX. For at eve the open wintlows flung their light out on the terrace, Which the floating orbs of curtains did with gradual shadow sweep, While the swans upon the river, fed at morning by the heiress, Trembled downward through their snowy wings at music in their sleep. XXI. And there evermore was music, both of instrument and singing, Till the flnclies of the shrubberies grew restless in the dark; Bnt the cedars stood up motionless, each in a moonlight-ringing, And the deer, half in the glimmer, strewed the hollows of the park. XXII. And though sometimes she would bind me with her silver-corded speeches To commix my words and laughter with the converse and the jest. Oft I sat apart, and, gazing on the river through the i)eeclies. Heard, as pure the swans swam down it, her pure Aoice o'erfloat the rest. LADY G/:RALDINE\S COURTS/IIP. ]()[) XXIII. Ill the morning, liorii of hiuitsinan, lioof of steed, and langh of rider, Spread out clieery from the courtyard till we lost them in the hills; While herself and otlicr ladies, and her suitors left besiile her, Went a-\vaiidering up the gardens, tjirough the laurels and abeles. XXIV. Thus, her loot upon the new-mown grass, bareheaded, with tlie flowing Of the virginal white vesture gath- ered closely to her throat. And the golden ringlets in her neck just quickened by her going, And appearing to breathe sun for air, and doubting if to float, — XXV. "With a bunch of dewy maple which her right hand held above her, And which trembled, a green shadow, in betwixt her and the skies, As she turned her face in going, thus, she drew me on to love her. And to worship the diviueness of the smile hid in her eyes. XXVI. For her eyes alone smile constantly; her lips have serious sweetness. And her front is calm; the dimple rarely ripples on the cheek; But lier deep blue eyes smile constant- ly, as if they in discreetness Kept tiie secret of a happy dream she did not care to speak. xxvii. Thus she drew ine, the first morning, out across into the garden, Ami I walked among her noble friends, and could not keep be- hind. Spake she unto all and unto me, " Be- hold, I am the warden Of the song-birds in these lindens, which are cages to their mind. xxvni. " But within this swarded circle into Avhich the lime-walk brings us, Whence the beeches, rounded greenly, stand away in reverent fear, I will let no music enter, saving what the fountain sings us, Which the lilies round the basin may seem pure enough to hear. xxix. " The live air that waves the lilies waves the slender jet of water. Like a holy thought sent feebly up from soul of fasting saint: Whereby lies a marble Silence sleep- ing (Lough the sculptor wrought her,) So asleep she is forgetting to say ' Hush! ' — a fancy quaint. XXX. "Mark how heavy white her eyelids! not a dream between them lin- gers; And the left hand's index droppeth from the lips upon the cheek; While the right hand, with the sym- bol-rose held slack within the fingers, Has fallen backward in the basin, — yet this Silence will not speak! XXXI. " That the essential meaning growing may exceed the special symbol, Ls the thought as I conceive it: it ap- plies more high and low. Our true noblemen will often through right nobleness grow humble. And assert an inward honor by deny- ing outward show." XXXII. " Nay, your Silence," said I, " truly, holds her symbol-rose but slackly ; Yet she holds it, or would scarcely be a Silence to our ken: And your nobles wear their ermine on the outside, or walk blackly In the presence of the social law as mere ignoble men. XXXIII. " Let the poets dream such dreaming! madam, in these British islands 'Tis the substance that wanes ever, 'tis the symbol that exceeds. i LADY GERALDLNE'S COURTSHIP. Soon we shall have nought but sj'in- hol; and, for statues like this Silence, Shall accept the rose's image — in an- other case, the weed's.'" XXXIV. "Not so quickly," she retorted: "I confess, where'er you go, you Find for things, names — shows for actions, and pure gold for honor clear: But, when all is run to symbol in the social, I will throw you The world's book which now reads dryly, and sit down with Silence here." XXXV. Half in playfulness she spoke, I thought, and half in indigna- tion : Friends who li.stened, laughed her words of¥, while her lovers deemed her fair, — A fair woman, tinshed with feeling, in her nolile-lighted station Near the statue's white reposing and both bathed in sunny air ! X.XXVI. "With the trees round, not so distant but you beard their vernal mur- mur, And beheld in light and shadow the leaves in and outward move. And the little fountain leaping toward the sun-heart to be warmer. Then recoiling in a tremble from the too much light above. XXXVII. 'Tis a picture for remembrance. And thus, morning after morning. Did I follow as she drew me by the spirit to her feet. Why, her greyhound followed also ! dogs — we both were dogs for scorning — To be sent back when she pleased it and her path lay through the wheat. XXX VI II. And thus, morning after morning, spite of vows, and si)ite of sor- row. Did I follow at her drawing, while the week-days passed along, Just to feed the swans this noontide, or to see the fawns to-morrow. Or to teach the hillside echo some sweet Tuscan in a song. XXXIX. Ay; for sometimes on the hillside, while we sate down in the gowans. With the forest green behind us, and its shadow cast before. And the rirer running under, and across it, from the rowans, A brown partridge whirring near us till we felt the air it bore, — XL. There, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud the poem's Made to Tuscan flutes, or instruments more various of our own; Read the pastoral parts of Spenser, or the subtle interflowings Found in Petrarch's sonnets — here's the book, the leaf is folded down ! XLI. Or at times a modern volume, Words- worth's solemn-thoughted idyl, Howitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's enchanted revery, Or from Browning some " Pomegran- ate,'' which, if cut deep down the middle, Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity. XLII. Or at times I read there hoarsely some new poem of my making: Poets ever fail in reading their own verses to their worth; For the echo in you breaks upon the words which you are speaking. And the chariot-wheels jar in the gate through which you drive them forth. XLIII. After, when we were grown tired of books, the silence round us flinging A slow arm of sweet compression, felt with beatings at the breast, She would break out on a sudden in a gush of woodland singing, Like a child's emotion in a god, — a naiad tired of rest. LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSIITP. 311 XLIV. Oil to see or liear lier singling ! scarce I know which is diviuest, For her looks sing too — she modu- lates her gestures on the tune, And her mouth stirs with the song, like song; and, when the notes are finest, 'Tis the eyes that shoot out voeal light, and seem to swell them on. XLV. Then we talked — oh, how we talked ! her voice, so cadenced in the talking, Made another singing — of the soul ! a music without bars: While the leafy sounds of woodlands, humming round where we were walking. Brought interposition worthy-sweet, as skies about the stars. XLVI. And she spake such good thoughts natural, as if she always thought them; v She had sympathies so rapid, open, free as bird on branch, Just as ready to fly east as west, whichever way besought them. In the birchen-wood a chirrup, or a cock-crow in the grange. XLVII. In lier utmost lightness there is truth, and often she speaks lightly, Has a grace in being gay which even mournful souls approve; For the root of some grave earnest thought is understruck so right- As to justify the foliage and the wav- ing flowers above. XLVIII. And she talked on — we talked, rather! iipon all things, — substance, shadow. Of the sheep that browsed the grasses, of the reapers in the corn. Of the little children from the schools, seen winding through the mead- ow. Of the poor rich world beyond them, still kept poorer by its scorn. XLIX. So of men, and so, of letters — books are men of higher stature. And the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear; So, of mankind in the abstract, wliicli grows slowly into nature, Yet will lift tlie cry of " progress," as it trod from sphere to sphere. And her custom was to jiraise me when I said, " The age culls sim- ples. With a broad clown's back turned broadly to the glory of the stars. AVe are gods by our own reck'ning, and may well shut up the tem- ples. And wield on, amid the incense- steam, the thunder of our cars. LI. "For we throw out acclamations of self-thanking, self-admiring. With, at every mile run faster, ' Oh the wondrous, wondrous age ! ' Little thinking if we work our souls as nobly as our iron. Or if angels will commend us at the goal of pilgrimage. LII. " Why, what is this patient entrance into Nature's deep resources But the child's most gradual learning to walk upright without bane ? When we drive out from the cloud of steam majestical white horses. Are we greater than the first men who led black ones by the mane? LIU. " If we trod the deeps of ocean, if we struck the stars in rising. If we wrapped the globe intensely with one hot electric breath, 'Twere but power within our tether, No new spirit-power comprising. And in life we were not greater men, nor bolder men in death." LI v. She was patient with my talking; and I loved her, loved her certes As I loved all heavenly objects, with uplifted eyes and hands ; 312 LADY GERALDLXE'S COUIiTSHIP. As I loved pure inspirations, loved the graces, loved tlie virtues, In a Love content with writing his own name on desert sands. LV. Or at least I thought so, purely; thought no idiot hope was rais- ing Any crown to crown Love's silence, silent Love that sate alone. Out, alas ! the stag is like me, ^ he that tries to go on grazing "With the great deep gun-wound in his neck, then reels with sud- den moan. LVI. It was thus I reeled. I told you that her hand had many suitors; But she smiles them down imperially, as Venus did the waves, And with such a gracious coldness, that they cannot press their fu- tures On the present of her courtesy, which yieldingly enslaves. Lvn. And this morning, as I sat alone with- in the inner chamber With the great saloon beyond it, lost in pleasant thought serene. For I had been reading Camoens, that poem, you remember, Which his lady's eyes are praised in as the sweetest ever seen. LVIII. And the book lay opeii; and my thought flew from it, taking from it A vibration and ini])ulsion to an end beyond its own, As the branch of a green osier, when a child would overcome it. Springs up freely from his claspings, and goes swinging in the sun. LIX. As I nuised I heard a muniHir: it grew deep as it grew longer, Speakers using earnest language — " Lady Geraldine, you icould ! " And I heai'd a voice that pleaded ever on in accents stronger. As a sense of reason gave it power to make its rhetoric good. Well I knew that voice: it was an earl's, of soul that matched his station, — Soul completed into lordship, might and right read on his brow; Very finely courteous: far too proud to doubt his domination Of the common people, he atones for grandeur by a bow. LXI. High straight forehead, nose of eagle, cold blue eyes of less expression Than resistance, coldly casting off the looks of other men, As steel, arrows; unelastic lips, which seem to taste possession. And be cautious lest the common air should injure or distrain. i..xir. For tlie rest, accomplished, upright, ay, and standing by his order With a bearing not ungraceful; fond of art and letters too; Just a good man made a prouil man. — as the sandy rocks that border A wild coast, by circumstance's, in a regnant ebb and flow. LXIII. Thus, I knew that voice, I heard it. and I could not helji the heark- ening: In the room I stooil up blindly, and my bvirning heart within Seemed to seethe and fuse my senses till they ran on all sides dark- ening. And scorched, weighed like melted metal round my feet that stood therein. LXIV. And that voice, I heard it pleading, for love's sake, for wealth, posi- tion. For the sake of liberal uses, and great actions to be done — And she interrupted gently, " Nay, my lord, the old tradition Of your Normans, by some worthier hand than mine is, should be won." LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP. 313 LXV. "Ah, tliat white hand!" he said quickly; and in his he either drew it Or attempted, for with gravity and instance she replied, "Nay, indeed, my loi'd, this talk is vain, and we had best eschew it, And pass on, like friends, to other points less easy to decide." LXVI. it is What he said again, I know not: likely that his trouble "Worked his pride up to the surface, for she answered in slow scorn, "And your lordship judges rightly. Whom I marry, shall be noble. Ay, and wealthy. I shall never blush to think how he was born." LXVII. There I maddened. Her words stung me. Life swept through me in- to fever, And my soul sprang up astonished, — sprang fuU-statured in an hour. Know you what it is when anguish with apocalyptic never To a Pythian height dilates you, and desiiair sublimes to power ? LXVIII. From my brain the soul-wings budded, waved a flame about my body. Whence conventions coiled to ashes. I felt self-drawn out, as man. From amalgamate false natures, and I saw the skies grow ruddy With the deepening feet of angels, and I knew what spirits can. LXIX. I was mad, inspired, say either! (an- guish worketh insjiiration) Was a man or beast. — perhaps so, for the tiger roars when speared; And I walked on step by step along the level of my passion — Oh ray soul ! and passed the doorway to her face, and never feared. LXX. He had left her, ijeradventure, when my footstep proved my coming," But for her — she half arose, then sate, grew scarlet, and grew pale. Oh, she trembled ! 'tis so always with a worldly man or woman In the presence of true spirits : what else fan they do but quail ? LXXI. Oh ! she fluttered like a tame bird in among its forest brothers Far too strong for it; then drooping, bowed her face upon her hands; And I spake out wildly, fiercely, brutal truths of her and others: /, she planted in the desert, swathed her, windlike, with my sands. LXXII. I plucked up her social fictions, bloody-rooted, though leaf-ver- dant, Trod them down with words of sham- ing, — all the purple and the gold, All the "landed stakes" and lord- ships, — all that spirits pure and ardent Are cast out of love and honor because chancing not to hold. LXXIII. " For myself I. do not argue," said I, " though I love you, madam. But for better souls that nearer to the height of yours have trod: And this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam, Than, directly by profession, simple infidels to God. LXXIV. ' I said, O grave! " I mother's heart and " Yet, O God! ' said, "O bosom! With whom first and last are equal, saint and corpse and little child. We are fools to your deductions in these figments of heart closing; We are traitors to your causes in these sympatliies defiled. 314 LADY GERALD INK'S COURTSlIir tiXXV. " Learn more reverence, madam, not for rank or wealth, that needs no learning, — That comes quickly, quick as sin does, ay, and culminates to sin, — But for Adam's seed, max! Trust me, 'tis a clay above your scorning, "With God's image stamped upon it, and God's kindling breath with- in. LXXVI. " "What right have you, madam, gaz- ing in your palace mirror daily, Getting so bj' heart your beauty which all others must adore, While j'ou draw the golden ringlets down your fingers, tovowgayly You will wed no man that's only good to God, and nothing more ? LXXVII. " "Why, what right have you. made fair by that same God, the sweetest woman Of all women he has fashioned, with your lovely spirit-face, "Which would seem too near to vanish, if its smile were not so human. And your voice of holy sweetness, turning common words to grace, LXXVIII. " What right can you have, God's other works to scorn, despise, revile them, In the gross, as mere men, broadly, not as noble men, forsooth ; As mere pariahs of the outer world, forbidden to assoil them In the hope of living, dying, near that sweetness of vour mouth '.' LXXIX. " Have you any answer, madam ? If my spirit were less earthly. If its instrument were gifted with a better silver string, I would kneel down where I and say, 'Behold me! worthy Of thy loving, for I love thee, worth V as a kins;.' stand, I am I am LXXX. ' As it is, your ermined pride I swear, shall feel this stain upon her. That /, poor, weak, tost with passion, scorned by me and you again. Love you, madain, dare to love you, to my grief and your di.shonor. To my endless desolation, and j'i.>ur impotent disdain." I.XXXI. More mad words like these, — mere madness ! friend, I need not write them fuller. For I hear my hot soul dropping on the lines in showers of tears. Oh, a woman! friend, a woman! why, a beast had scarce been duller Than roar bestial loud complaints agaiust the shining of the spheres. LXXXII. But at last there came a pause. I stood all vibrating with thunder Which my soul had used. The silence drew her face up like a call. Could you guess what word she ut- tered ? She looked up, as if in wonder, With tears beaded on Iier lashes, and said, " Bertram! " it was all. LXXXIII. If she had cursed me, — and she might have, — or if even, with queenly bearing Which at need is used by women, she had risen uj) and said. " Sir, you are my guest, and therefore i have given you a full hearing: Now, beseech you. choose a name ex- acting somewhat less, instead," LXXXIV. I had borne it : but that " Bertram " — why, it lies there on tlie paper, A mere word, without her accent, and you cannot judge tlie weight Of the calm wliich crushed my pas- sion. I seemed drowning in a vapor, And lier gentleness destroyed me, whom her scorn made desolate. <> LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP. O 1 " I LXXXV. So, struck backward and exhausted by that inward flow of passion, "Which had rushed on, sparing noth- ing, into forms of abstract truth. By a logic agonizing through unseemly demonstration. And by youth's own anguish turning grimly gray the hairs of youth, LXXXVI. By the sense accursed and instant, that, if even I spake Avisely, I spake basely — using truth, if what I spake indeed was true. To avenge wrong on a woman — her, who sate there weighing nicely A poor manhood's worth, found guiltj^ of such deeds as I could do ! — LXXXVII. By such wrong and woe exhausted — what I suffered and occasioned, As a wild horse through a city runs with lightning in his eyes. And then dashing at a church's cold and passive wall, impassioned, Strikes the death into his burning brain, and blindly drops and dies — LXXXVIII. So I fell, struck down before her — do you blame me, friend, for weakness ? 'Twas my strength of passion slew me — fell before her like a stone; Fast the dreadful world rolled from me on its roaring wheels of blackness: When the light came, I was lying in this chamber, and alone. LXXXIX. Oh, of course she charged her lackeys to bear out the sickly burden, And to cast it from her scornful sight, but not beyond the gate; She is too kind to be cruel, ami too haughty not to pardon Such a man as I: 'twere sumething to be level to her hate. xc. But for me — you now are conscious why, my friend, I write this let- ter. How my life is read all backward, and the charm of life undone. I shall leave her house at dawn, — I would to-night, if I were bet- ter, — And I charge my soul to hold my body strengthened for the sun. xci. When the sun has dyed the oriel, I depart, with no last gazes, No weak inoanings (one word only, left in writing for lier hands). Out of reach of all derision, and some unavailing praises, To make front against this anguish in the far and foreign lands. XCII. Blame me not. I would not squander life in grief — I am abstemious. I but nurse iny spirit's falcon that its wing may soar again. There's no room for tears of weak- ness in the blind eyes of a Plie- mius : Into work the poet kneads them, and he does not die till tJtcn. CONCLUSION. Bek Still I'RAM finished the last pages, while along the silence ever, in hot and heavy splashes, fell the tears on every leaf. Having ended, he leans backward in his chair, with lips that quiver From the deep unspoken, ay, and deep unwritten, thoughts of grief. II. Soli ! How still the lady standeth ! 'Tis a dream. — a dream of mer- cies ! 'Twixt the ijurple lattice-curtains how she .standeth still and pale ! 'Tis a vision, sure, of mercies sent to soften his self curses, Sent to sweep a patient quiet o'er the tossing of his wail. L 316 LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP. III. "Eyes," lie said, "now throbbing throiigh me, are ye eyes tliat did undo me ? — Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone ! Underneath that calm white forehead are ye ever burning torrid O'er the desolate sand-desert of my heart and life undone ? " IV. "With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air the purple curtain Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows, While the gliding of the river sends a ripiiling noise forever Through the open casement whitened by the moonlight's slant repose. Said he, "Vision of a lady, stand there silent, stand there steady ! Now I see it plainly, plainly, now I cannot hope or doubt — There, the brows of mild repression; there, the lips of silent passion. Curved like an archer's bow to send the bitter arrows out." VI. slow Ever, evermore the while, in a silence she kept smiling, And approached him slowly, slowlj-, in a gliding, measured pace. With her two white hands extended, as if, praying one offended. And a look of suiiplication gazing earnest in his face. VII. Said he, " Wake me by no gesture, sound of breath, or stir of ves- ture ! Let the blessed apparition melt not yet to its divine ! No approaching — hush, no breathing, or my heart must swoon to death in The too utter life thou bringest, O thou dream of Geraldiue ! " vin. Ever, evermore the while, in a slow silence she kept smiling; But the tears ran over lightly from her eyes, and tenderly: — " Dost thou, Bertram, truly love me ? Is no woman far above me Found more worthy of thy poet-heart than such a one as I? " IX. Said he, "I would dream so ever, like the flowing of that river, Flowing ever in a shadow greenly onward to the sea ! So, thou vision of all sweetness, princely to a full complete- ness. Would my heart and life flow on- ward, deathward, through this dream of thee ! " X. Ever, evermore the while, in a slow silence she kept smiling. While the silver tears ran faster down the blushing of her cheeks ; Then, with both her hands infolding both of his, she softly told him, "Bertram, if I say I love thee, . . . 'tis the Aision onlj' speaks." XI. Softened, quickened to adore her, on his knee he fell before her; And she whispered low in triumph, " It shall be as I have sworn. Very rich he is in virtues, very noble, — noble, certes; And I shall not blush in knowing that men call him lowly born." " And appru;iLiu;d him slowly, slowly, in a gliding, measured pace." — Page 516. THE RUNAAV AY SLAVE AT PILGPJMS POINT. I STAJTD on the mark beside the shore Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee, "Where exile turned to ancestor, And God was thanked for liberty. I have run through the night, my skin is as dark, I bend my knee down on this mai'k: I look on the skv and the sea. II. O pilgrim-sonls, I speak to you ! I see you come proud and slow From tiie land of the spirits pale as dew, And round nw, and round me, ye go. O pilgrims ! I have gasjied and run All night long from the whips of one, Who, in your names, works sin and woe. III. And thus I thought that I would come. And kneel here where ye knelt be- fore, And feel your souls around me hum In undertone to the ocean's roar, And lift my black face, my black hand, Here, in your names, to curse this land Ye blessed in freedom's, evermore. IV. I am black, I am black; And yet God made me, they say: But, if he did so, smiling back He must have cast his work away Under the feet of his white creatures. With a look of scorn, that the dusky features Might be trodden again to clav. And yet he has made dark things To be glad and merry as light: There's a little dark bird sits and sings; There's a dark '.stream ripples out of sight; And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass; And the sweetest stars are made to pas^ O'er the face of the darkest night. VI. But ice who are dark, we are dark ! Ah God, we have no stars ! About our souls in care and cark Our blackness shuts like prison- bars: The poor souls crouch so far behind That never a comfort can they find By reaching through the pris'on-bars. VII. Indeed, we live beneath the sky. That great smooth hand of God stretched out On all his children fatherly, To save them from the dread and doubt Whicli would be, if, from this low place, All opened straight up to his face Into the grand eternitv. VIII. And still God's sunshine and his frost. They make us hot, they make us cold. As if we were not black and lost; And the beasts and birds in wood and fold 317 318 Tin: RUXAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S POINT. Do fear, and take us for very men: Could the weep-poor-will or the cat of the glen Look into iny eyes, and he hold ? IX. I am black, I am black ! But once I laughed in girlish glee, For one of my color stood in the track Where the drivers drove, and looked at me ; And tender and full was the look he gave: Could a slave look so at another slave ? I look at the skv and the sea. X. And from that hour our spirits grew As free as if unsold, unbought: Oh, strong enough, since we were two, To conquer the world, we thought ! The drivers drove us day by day : "We did not mind, we went one way, And no better a freedom sought. XX. In the sunny ground between the canes, He said, " I love you," as he passed; "When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains. I heard how he vowed it fast; "While others shook, he smiled in the hut, As he carved me a bowl of the cocoa- nut, Through the roar of the hurricanes. xn. I sang his name instead of a song, Over and over I sang his name; Upward and downward I drew it along My various notes, — the same, the same ! I sang it low, that the slave-girls near Might never guess from aught they could hear It was only a name — a name. XIII. I look on the sky and the sea. "We were two to love, and two pray. Yes, two, O God, who cried to thee Though nothing didst thou say! to Coldly thou sat'st behind the sun; And now I crj-, who am but one, Thou wilt not speak to-day. XIV. "V\"e were black, we were black ! AVe had no claim to love and bliss; "What marvel if each went to wrack ? They wrung my cold hands out of his. They dragged him — where? I crawled to touch His blood's mark in the dust . . . not much, Ye pilgrim-souls, though plain as this! XV. "S\^rong, followed by a deeper wrong ! Mere grief's too good for such as I: So the white men brought the shame ere long To sti-angle the sol) of my agony. They would not leave me for my dull "Wet eyes! — it was too merciful To let me weep pure tears, and die. XVI. I am black, I am black ! I wore a child upon my breast. An amulet that hung too slack, And in my unrest could not rest: Thus we went moaning, child and mother. One to another, one to another, Until all ended for the best. XVII. For hark! I will tell you low, low, I am black, j'ou see; And the l)abe who lay on my bosom so Was far too white, too white for me, — As white as the ladies who scorned to pray Beside me at church but yesterday, Though my tears had washed a jiiace for my knee. XVIII. My own, own child ! I could not bear To look in his face, it was so white: I covered him up with a kerchief there. I covered his face in close and tight; i THE RUXAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S POINT. 319 And he moaned and struggled, as well might be, For the white child wanted his liber- ty - Ha, ha ! he wanted the master-right. XIX . He moaned, and beat with his head and feet, — His little feet that never grew ; He struck them out, as it was meet. Against my heart to break it through. I might have sung and made him mild ; But I dared not sing to the white- faced child The only song I knew. XX. I pulled the kerchief very close: He could not see the sun, I swear, More then, alive, than now he does From between the roots of the man- go .. . where ? I know where. Close ! A child and mother Do wrong to look at one another, When one is black, and one is fair. XXI. "Why, in that single glance I had Of mv child's face ... I tell vou all, I saw a look that made me mad ! — The master's look, that used to fall On my soul like his lash . . . or worse ! And so, to save it from my curse, I twisted it round in my shawl. XXII. And he moaned, and trembled from foot to head, He shivered from head to foot; Till, after a time, he lay instead Too suddenly still and mute. I felt, beside, a stiffening cold ; I dared to lift up just a fold. As in lifting a. leaf of the mango- fruit. XXIII. But »??/ fruit . . . ha, ha ! — there had been (I laugh to think on't at this hour !) Your fine white angels (who have seen Nearest the secret of God's power) And plucked my fruit to make them wine. And sucked the soul of that child of mine As the humming-bird sucks the soul of the flower. XXIV. Ha, ha, the trick of the angels white ! They freed the white child's spirit so. I said not a word, but day and night I carried the body to and fro. And it lay on my heart like a stone, as ciiill. — The sun may shine out as much as he will: I am cold, though it happened a month ago. XXV. From the white man's house, and the blackmail's hut, I carried the little botly on ; The forest's arms did round us shut, And silence through the trees did run : They asked no question as I went. They stood too high for astonishment: They could see God sit on his throne. XXVI. My little body, kerchiefed fast, I Itore it on through the forest, on; And when I felt it was tired at last, I scooped a hole beneath the moon: Through the forest-tops the angels far. With a white sharp finger from every star. Did point and mock at what was done. .vxvii. Yet when it was all done aright, — Earth 'twixt me and my baby strewed, — All changed to black earth, — noth- ing white, — A dark child in the dark ! — ensued Some comfort, and my heart grew young: I sate down smiling there, and sung The song I learnt in my maiden- hood. i 320 THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S I'OINT. XXVIII. Ami tlius we two were reconciled, — The white chiUl and black mother, thus ; For, as I sang it soft and wild, The same song, more melodious, ^ose from the grave whereon I sate : It was tlie dead child singing that, To join the souls of both of us. XXIX. vlook on tlie sea and the sky. Where the pilgrims' ships first anchored lay The free sue rideth gloriously. But the pilgrim-ghosts have slid away Through the earliest streaks of the morn : My face is black; l:ut it glares with a scorn Which they dare not meet by day. XXX. stead their hunter Ha! — in their sons ! Ha, ha ! they are on me — they hunt in a ring !, Keep off ! I brave you all at once, I throw off your eyes like snakes that sting ! You have killed the black eagle at nest, I think: Did you ever stand still in your tri- umph, and shrink From the stroke of her wounded wing? XXXI. (Man, drop that stone vou dared to lift !) I wish you who stand there five abreast. Each for his own wife's joy and gift, A little corpse as safely at rest As mine in the mangoes ! Yes, but she May keep live babies on her knee. And sing the song she likes the best. XXXII. I am not mad: I am black ! I see you staring in m.y face — I know you staring, shrinking back, Ye are born of the Washington- race, And this land is the free America, And this mark on my wrist — (I prove what I say) Ropes tied me up here to the flog- ging-place. You XXXIII. shrieked then ■? Not a think I sounil ! I hung, as a gourd hangs in the sun ; I only cursed them all around As softly as I might have done My very own child : from these sands Up to the mountains, lift your hands, O slaves, and end what I begun ! xxxiv. these must answer Whips, curses: those ! For in this Union you have set Two kinds of men in adverse rows, Each loathing each, and all forget The seven wounds in Christ's body fair. While Hk sees gaping everywhere Our countless wounds that pay no debt. Our xxxv. are different. You wounds white men Are, after all, not gods indeed, Nor able to make Christs again Do good with bleeding. We who bleed (Stand off !) we help not in our loss ! We are too heavy for our cross. And fall and crush you and your seed. XXXVI. I fall, I swoon! I look at the sky. "The clouds are breaking on my brain. I am floated along, as if I should die Of liberty's exquisite pain. In the name of the white child wait- ing for me In the death-dark, where we may kiss and agree. White men, I leave you all curse- free In my broken heart's disdain. THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. " 4>ev, ev, Tc npoaSepKeaOe fi' OfXfiacrif, TfKva' " — MRDEA. Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop tlieir tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ; The young birds are chirping in the nest; The young fawns are playing with the shadows; The young flowers are blowing — toward the west : But the young, young children, O my brothers ! They are weeping bitterly. They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free. II. Do you question tlie young children in the sorrow, Whj' their tears are falling so ? The old man may weep for his to- morrow Which is lost in long ago; The old tree is leatiess in the forest; The old year is ending in the frost; The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest; The old hope is hardest to be lost: But the young, young children, O my brothers ! Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers. In our hai>py fatherland ? III. They look up with their pale and sunken faces; And their looks are sad to see. For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy. <> " Your old earth," tliey say, " is very dreary; Our young feet," they say, " are very weak ; Few paces have we taken ,y et ar(i weary ; Our grave-rest is very far to seek. Ask the aged why they weep, anr<' the world shall bring it praises, or the tomb shall see it fade. IX. Softly, softly ! make no noises ! Now he lieth dead and dumb; Now he hears the angels' voices Folding silence iu the room; Now he muses deep the meaning of the hoavon-^vords as they come. Speak not ! he is consecrated; Breathe no breath across his ej'es: Lifted up and separated On the liand of God he lies In a sweetness beyond touching held in cloistral sanctities. XI. Could ye bless him, fatlier, mother — Bless the dimple in his cheek ? Dare ye look at one another, And the benediction speak ? Would ye not break out in weeping, and confess yourselves too weak ? XII. He is harmless, ye are sinful; Ye are troubled, he at ease: From his slumber, virtue winful Floweth outward with increase. Dare not bless him ! but be blessed by his iieace, and go in peace. THE FOURFOLD ASPFXTC. Whkn ye stood up in the house With your little childish feet, And, in touching life's first shows, First the touch of love did meet, — Love and nearness seeming one. By tlie heartlight cast before, And of all beloveds, none Standing farther than the door; Not a name being dear to thought, With its owner l>eyoud call ; Not a face, unless it brought Its own shadow to the wall; AVhen tlie worst recorded change Was of apple dropt from bough. When love's sorrow seemed more strange Than love's treason can seem now: Then, tlie Loving took you up Soft, upon their elder knees, Telling why the statues droop rndcrneath the clnirchyard trees, i HI-»H TIIF. FOURFOLD ASPFCT. 325 And how ye must lie beneath tlieni Through the winters long and deep, Till the last trump overbrcatho them, And ye smile out of your sleep. Oh, ye lifted up your head, and it seemed as if they said A tale of faiiy ships With a swan-wing for a sail; Oh, ye kissed their loving lips For the merry, merry tale — So carelessly ye thought upon the dead. II. Soon ye read in solemn stories Of the men of long ago, Of the pale bewildering glories Shining farther than we know; Of the heroes with the laurel, Of the poets with the bay. Of the two world's earnest quar- rel For that lieauteous Helena; How Achilles at the poi'tal Of the tent heard footsteps nigh. And his strong heart, half-immor- tal, Met the ktitai with a cry; How Ulysses left the sunlight For the pale eidola race. Blank and passive through the dun light. Staring blindly in his face; How that true wife said to Ptetus, With calm smile and wounded heart, '■ Sweet, it hurts not ! " How Ad- metus Saw his blessed one depart: How King Arthur proved his mis- sion. And Sir Roland wound his horn. And at Sangreal's moony vision Swords (lid bristle round like corn. Oh, ye lifted up your head, and it seemed, the while ye read, That this death then must be found A Valhalla for the crowned, The heroic who prevail: None be sure can enter in Far below a i>alad"n Of a noble, uol)le te''H — 5o awfully ve thought Upoii the dead ! III. Ay, but soon ye woke nj) shrieking, As a child that wakes at night From a dream of sisters s]>eaking In a garden's summer-light. — That wakes starting up and bound- ing. In a lonely, lonely bed. With a wall of darkness round him, Stifling black about his head ! And the full sense of your mortal Rushed ujion you deep and loud, And ye heard the thunder hurtle From the silence of the cloud. Funeral-toi'ches at your gateway Threw a dreadful light within. All things changed: you rose up straightway. And saluted Death and Sin. Since, vour outward man has ral- lied. And your eye and voice grown boUi; Yet the Sphinx of Life stands pallid. With her saddest secret told. Happy places have grown holy: If ye went where once ye went, Only tears would fall down slowly. As at solemn sacrament. Merry books, once read for pastime, If ye dared to read again. Only memories of the last time NN'ould swim darkly up the brain. Household names, which used to flutter Through your laughter unawares, God's divinest ye could utter With less trembling in your prayers. Ye have dropt adown your head, and it seems as if ye tread On your own hearts in the path Ye are called to in His wrath. And your prayers go uj) in wail — "Dost Thou see, then, all our loss, O Thou agonized on cross ? Art thou reading all its tale ? " So mournfully ye think upon the dead ! IV. Pray, pray, thou who al.so weei)est, And the drops will slacken so. Weep, weep, aiul the watch thou keepest With a quicker count will go. [-♦-•-♦H 326 NIGHT AND THE MERRY MAN. Think: the shadow on the dial For the nature most undone Marks the passing of the trial, Proves the presence of the sun. Look, look up, in starry passion. To the throne above the spheres: Learn: the spirit's gravitation Still must differ from the tear's. Hope: M'ith all the strength thou usest In embracing thy despair. Love : the earthly love thoii losest Shall retnrn to thee more fair. "Work: make clear the forest-tangles Of the wildest stranger-land. Trust: the blessed deathly angels "Whisper, " Sabbath hours at hand ! " By the heart's wound when most gory. By the longest agony. Smile ! — Behold in sudden glory The Transfigured smiles on tliee .' And ye lifted up your head, and it seemed as if He said, " My beloved, is it so ? Have ye tasted of my woe ? Of my heaven ye shall not fail ! " He stands brightly where the shade is, "With the keys of Death and Hades, And there, ends the mournful tale — So hopefully ye think upon the dead ! NIGHT AND THE MERRY MAN. NIGHT. 'Neath my moon, what doest thou, "With a somewhat paler brow Than she giveth to the ocean ? He, without a pulse or motion. Muttering low before her stands, Lifting his invoking hands Like a seer before a sprite, To catch her oracles of light: But thy soul out-trembles now Many pulses on thy brow. Where be all thy laughters clear, Others laughed alone to hear ? Where thy quaint jests, said for fame? Where thy dances, mixed with game? Where thy festive companies, Mooned o'er with ladies' eyes All more bright for thee, I trow ? 'Neath my moon, what doest thou ? THE MERRY MAN. I AM digging my warm heart Till I find its coldest part; I am digging wide and low. Farther than a spade will go, Till that, when the pit is deep And large enough, I there may heap All my present pain and past Joy, dead things that look aghast By the daylight: now 'tis done. Throw them in, by one and one '. I must laugh, at rising sun. Memories, — of fancy's golden Treasures which my hands have holden Till the chillness made them ache; Of childhood's hopes, that used to wake If birds were in a singing strain, And, for less cause, sleep again; Of the moss seat in the wood Where I trysted solitude; Of the hilltop where the wind Used to follow me behind, Then in sudden rush to blind Both my glad eyes with my hair, Taken gladly in the snare; Of the climbing up the rocks. Of the playing 'neath the oaks Which retain beneath them now Only shadow of tlie bough; Of the lying on the grass While the clouds did overpass. Only they, so lightly driven, Seeming betwixt me and heaven; Of the little prayers serene. Murmuring of earth and sin; Of large-leaved philosophy Leaning fi'om my childish knee; Of poetic book sublime. Soul-kissed for the first dear time, Greek or English, ere I knew Life was not a poem too: Throw them in, by one and one ! I must laiigli, at rising sun. EARTH AND TIER PRAISERS. 327 — Of the glorious ambitions Yet unquenehed l)y their fruitions; Of the reading out the nights ; Of the straining at mad lieights; Of achievements, less descried By a dear few than magnified; Of praises from the many earned When praise from love was undis- cerned; Of the sweet reflecting gladness Softened by itself to sadness: Throw theni in, by one and one ! I must laugh, at rising sun. What are these ? more, more than these ! Throw in dearer memories ! — Of voices whereof but to speak Makes mine own all sunk and weak; Of smiles the thought of which is sweeping All my soul to floods of weeping; Of looks whose absence fain would weigh My looks to the ground for aye; Of clasping hands — ah me, I wring ISIine, and in a tremble fling Downward, downward, all this i^ain- ing ! Partings with the sting remaining, Meetings with a deejier throe Since the joy is ruined so. Changes with a fiery burning, (Shadows upon all the turning). Thoughts of . . . with a storm they came. Them I have not breath to name : Downward, downward, be they cast In the pit ! and now at last My work beneath the moon is done, And I shall laugh, at rising sun. But let me pause or ere I cover All my treasures darkly over: I will speak not in thine ears, Only tell my beaded tears Silently, most silently. When the last is calmly told. Let that same moist rosary With the rest sepidchred be. Finished now ! The darksome mould Sealeth up the darksome pit. I will lay no stone on it: Grasses I will sow instead. Fit for Queen Titania's tread; Flowers, encolored with the sun, And at at written upon none; Thus, whenever saileth by The Lady World of dainty eye, Not a grief shall here remain, Silken shoou to damp or stain ; And while she lisps, "I have not seen Any place more smooth and clean," Here she cometh ! Ha, ha ! who Laughs as loud as I can do ? EARTH AND HER PRAISERS. The Earth is old ; Six thousand winters make her heart a-cold : The sceptre slanteth from her palsied hold. She saith, " 'las me ! God's word that I was ' good ' Is taken back to heaven. From whence, when any sound comes, I am riven By some sharji bolt; and now no angel would Descend with sweet dew-silence on my mountains. To glorify the lovely river fountains That gush along their side: I see, O weary change ! I see instead This human wrath and pride, These thrones and tombs, judicial wrong and l)lood. And bitter words are poured upon mine head — ' O Earth ! thou art a stage for tricks unholy, A church for most remorseful melan- choly; Thou art so siDoilt we should forget we had An Eden in thee, wert thou not so sad ! ' Sweet children, I am old ! ye, every one, Do keep me from a portion of my sun: Give praise in change for brightness ! That I may shake my hills in infinite- ness 328 EARTH AND TIER P RAISERS. Of breezy laughter, as in youthful mirth, To hear Earth's sons and daughters praising Earth.'' II. Whereupon a child began, With spirit running up to man As by angel's shining ladder, (May he find no cloud above !) Seeming he had ne'er been sadder All hfs days than now. Sitting in the chestnut-grove, With that joyous overflow Of smiling from his month o'er brow And cheek and chin, as if the breeze, Leaning tricksy from the trees To part his golden hairs, had blown Into an hundred smiles that one. III. " O rare, rare Earth ! " he saith, " I will praise thee presently; Not to-day, I have no breath: I have hunted squirrels three — Two ran down in the furzy hollow; Where I could not see nor follow; One sits at the top of the filbert-tree, With a yellow nut and a mock at me: Presently it shall be done 1 When I see which way these two have run. When the mocking one at the filbert- top Shall leap adown, and beside me stop. Then, rare Earth, rare Earth, Will I pause, having known thy worth, To say all good of thee ! " IV. Next a lover, — with a dream 'Neath his waking eyelids hidden, And a frequent sigh unbidden, And an idlesse all the day Beside a wani^ering stream. And a silence that is made Of a word he dares not say, — Shakes slow his pensive head: " Earth, Earth ! " saith he, " If spirits, like thy roses, grew On one stalk, and winds austere Could but only blow tliem near, To share each other's dew; If, when summer rains agree To beautify thy hills, I knew Looking off them I might see Some one very beauteous too, — Then Earth," saith he, "I would praise . . . nay, nay — not thee ! " V. Will the pedant name her next ? Crabbed with a crabbed text Sits he in his study nook. With his elbow on a book, And with stately crossed knees, And a wrinkle deeply thrid Through his lowering brow, Caused by making proofs enow That Plato in " Parmenides " Meant the same Spinoza did ; Or that an hundred of the groping Like himself had made one Homer, Hoineros being a misnomer. What hath he to do with praise Of Earth or aught ? Whene'er the sloping Sunbeams through his windows daze His eyes off from the learned phrase, Straightway he draws close the cur- tain. May abstraction keep him dumb ! Were his lips to ope, 'tis certain " Derivatum est " would come. VI. Then a mourner moveth pale In a silence full of wail. Raising not his sunken head Because he wandered last that way With that one beneath the clay: Weeping not, because that one. The only one who would have said, " Cease to weep, beloved ! " has gone AVhence returneth comfort none. The silence breaketh suddenly, — " Earth, I praise thee ! " crieth he, " Thou hast a grave for also me." VII. Ha, a poet ! know him by The ecstasy-dilated eye. Not uncharged with tears that ran Upward from his heart of man; By the cheek, from hour to hour, Kindled bright, or sunken wan With a sense of lonely power; By the brow uplifted higher Than others, for more low declining; By the lip which words of fire Overboiling have burned white, While they gave the nations light: Ay, in every time and place, Ye may know the poet's face By the shade or shining. L__ kv '7-^ i^Aa^'.:«:*^h, :^- r c %. i ^ ^ • " The icaiuagi. Of the close trees o'er the brhii Of a sunshine-haunted stream. "- Page 329. / ^>< Of f-.^ 9 >^^t: / EARTH AND HER PRAISERS. 329 VIII. 'Neath a golden clovid he stands, Spreading his impassioned hands. •■ O God's Earth ! " he saith, " the sign From the Father-soul to mine Of all beauteous luystcries, Of all perfect iniai^es Which, divine in his divine, In my luiman only are Very'excellent and fair! Think not, Earth, that I wonld raise AVeary forehead in thy praise, (Weary, that I cannot go Farther from thy region low,) If were struck no richer meanings From thee than thyself. The leanings Of the close trees o'er the brim Of a sunshine-haunted stream Have a sound beneath their leaves, Not of wind, not of wind. Which the poet's voice achieves: The faint mountains, heaped behind, Have a falling on their tops. Not of dew, not of dew. Which the poet's fancy drops: Viewless things his eyes can view, Driftings of his dream do light All the skies by day and night. And the seas that deepest roll Carry murmurs of his soul. Earth, I praise thee! praise thou iiit ! God perfectetli his creation AYith this recipient poet-passion, And makes the beautiful to be. I praise thee, O beloved sign, From the God-soul unto mine ! Praise me, that I cast on thee The cunning sweet interpretation, Tlie help and glory and dilation Of mine immortalitv ! " IX. There was silence. None did dare To nse again the spoken air Of that far-charming voice, until A Christian resting on the hill. With a thoughtful smile subdued (Seeming learnt in solitude) Which a weeper might have viewed Without new teai's, did softly say. And looked up unto heaven alway While he i^raised the Earth, — "O Earth, I count the praises thou art worth, By thy waves that move aloud, By thy hills against the cloud. By thy valleys warm and green. By the copses' elms between, us By their birds, which, like a sprite Scattered by a strong delight Into fragments musical, Stir and sing in every bush ; By thy silver founts that fall. As if to entice the stars at night To thine heart; by grass and rush. And little weeds the children pull, Mistook for flowers ! — Oh, beautiful Art thou. Earth, albeit worse Than in heaven is called good ! Good to us, that we may know Meeklj- from thy good to go; Mliile the holy, crying blood Puts its music kind and low 'Twixt snch ears as are not dull, And thine ancient curse ! " Praised be the mosses soft In thy forest pathways oft. And the thorns, which make think • Of the thornless river-brink Where the ransomed tread; Praised be thy sunny gleams, And the storm, that worketh dreams Of calm unfinished; Praised be thine active days. And thy night-time's solemn need, When in God's dear book we read No nhjht shall he therein ; Praised be thy dwellings warm By household fagot's cheerful blaze, AVhere, to hear of pardoned sin, Pauseth oft the merry din, Save the babe"s upon the arm Who croweth to the crackling wood: Yea, and, better understood, Praised be thy dwellings cold, Hid beneath the churchyard mould, Where the bodies of the saints, Separate from earthly taints, Lie asleep, in blessing lionnd, Waiting for the trumpet's sound To free them into blessing — none Weeping more beneath the sun. Though dangerous words of human love Be graven very near, above. XI. "Earth, we Christians praise thee thus, Even for the change that comes With a grief from thee to us; For thy cradles and thy tombs. 330 THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS. For the pleasant corn and wine And summer-heat, and also for The frost upon the sycamore And hail upon the vine ! " THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS. But see the Virgin blest Hath laid her babe to rest." Milton's Hymn on the Nativity. Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One ! My flesh, my Lord ! — what name ? I do not know A name that seemeth npt too high or low. Too far from me or heaven : My Jesus, tliat is best ! that word be- ing given By the majestic angel whose com- mand Was softly as a man's beseeching, said. When I and all the earth appeared to stand In the great overflow Of light celestial from his wings and head. Sleep, sleep, my saving One ! II. And art thou come for saving, baby- browed And speechless Being — art thou come for saving ? The palm that grows beside our door is bowed By treadings of the low wind from the south, A restless shadow through the cham- ber waving: Upon its bough a bird sings in the sun; But thou, with that close slumber on thy mouth. Dost seem of wind and sun already weary. Art come for saving, O my weary One ? III. Perchance this sleep, that shutteth out the dreary Earth sounds and motions, opens on thy soul High dreams on fire with God; High songs that make the pathways where they roll More bright than stars do theirs; and visions new Of thine eternal Nature's old abode. Suffer this mother's kiss. Best thing that earthly is, To glide the music and the glory through. Nor narrow in thy dream the broad upliftings Of any seraph wing. Thus noiseless, thus. Sleep, sleep, my dreaming One ! IV. The slumber of his lips meseems to run Through my lips to mine heart, to all its shiftings Of sensual life, bringing contrarious- ness ' In a great calm. I feel I could lie down As Moses did, and die,' — and then live most. I am 'ware of you, heavenly Pres- ences, That stand with your peculiar light unlost. Each forehead with a high thought for a crown. Unsunned i' the sunshine ! I am 'ware. Ye throw No shade against the wall ! How motionless Ye round me with your living statu- ary, While through your whiteness, in and outwardly, Continual thoughts of God apjiear to go. Like light's soul in itself. I bear, I bear To look upon the dropt lids of your eyes, Though their external shining testi- fies To that beatitude within which were Enough to blast an eagle at his sun: 1 It is a Jewish tradition that Moses died of the liisses of God's lips. THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS. 331 I full uot on my sad clay face before ye, — I look on His. I know ]My spirit which dilateth with the woe Of His mortality, May well contain yonr glory. Yea, drop your lids more low. Ye are but fellow-woi"shippers with me ! Sleep, sleep, my worshipped One ! V. "We sate among the stalls at Bettile- hem; The dumb kine, from their fodder turning them, Softened their horned faces To almost human gazes Toward the newly Born: The simple shepherds from the star- lit brooks Brought visionary looks. As yet in their astonied hearing rung The strange sweet angel-tongue: The magi of the East, in sandals worn. Knelt reverent, sweeping round, "With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground, The incense, myrrh, and gold These baliy hands were impotent to hold: So let all earthlies and celestials wait Upon thy royal state. Sleep, sleep, my kingly One ! VI. I am not proud — meek angels, ye in- vest New meeknesses to hear s;ich utter- ance rest On mortal lips, — "I am not proud " — not proud .' Albeit in my tlesh God sent his Son, Albeit over him my head is bowed As others bow before him, still mine heart Bows lower than their knees. O cen- turies That roll in vision your futurities My future grave athwart, AVhose murmurs seem to reach me while I keep Watch o'er this sleeji, Say of me as the Heavenly said, "Thou art The blessedest of women ! " — bless- edest, Not holiest, not noblest, no high name Whose height misjilaced may pierce me like a shame When I sit meek in heaven ! For me, for me. God knows that I am feeble like the rest ! I often wandered forth more child than maiden. Among the midnight hills of Galilee Whose summits looked heaven- laden, Listening to silence as it seemed to be God's voice, so soft yet strong, so fain to press Upon my heart as heaven did on the height. And waken up its shadows bv a light, And show its vileuess by a holiness. Then I knelt down most silent like the night. Too self-renounced for fears. Raising my small face to the bound- less blue Whose stars did mix and tremble in my tears : God heard them falling after, with his dew. VII. So, seeing my corruption, can I see This Incorruptible now born of me. This fair new Innocence no sun did chance To shine on (for even Adam was no child), Created from my nature all defiled, This mystery, from out mine igno- rance, — Nor feel the blindness, stain, corrup- tion, more Than others do, or / did heretofore ? Can hands wherein such burden j^ure has been Not open with the cry, " Unclean, unclean," More oft than any else beneath the skies ? Ah King, ah Christ, ah sou ! The kine, the shepherds, the abased wise Must all less lowly wait Than I, upon thy state. Sleep, sleep, my kingly One. 332 .4,V ISLAND. Yin. Art thou a King, then? Come, his universe, Come, crown me him a King. Phick rays from all such stars as never fiing Their light where fell a curse, And make a crowning for this kingly Virow. What is my word ? Each empyreal star Sits in a sphere afar In shining ambuscade: The child-l)row, crowned by none, Keeps its unchildlike shade. Sleep, sleep, my crownless One. IX. Unchildlike shade ! No other babe doth wear An aspect verj' sorrowful, as thou. No small babe-smiles my watching heart has seen To float like speech the speechless lips between. No dovelike cooing in the golden air, No quick, short joys of leaping baby- hood : Alas ! our earthly good In lieaven thought evil, seems too good for thee. Yet sleep, luy weary One. And then the drear, sharp tongue of prophecy, With the dread sense of things which shall be done, Doth smite me inly, like a sword : a sword ? r/ta«" smites the Shepherd." Then, I think aloud The words "despised," "rejected," every word Recoiling into darkness as I view The Darling on my knee. Bright angels, move not, lest ye stir the cloud Betwixt my soul and his futurity. I must not die, with mother's work to do, And could not live — and see. XI. It is enough to bear This image still and fair; This holier in sleep Than a saint at prayer; Tliis aspect of a cliild Who never sinned or smiled; This presence in an infant's face: This sadness most like love; This love than love more deep; This weakness like omnipotence It is so strong to move. Awful is this watching place, Awful what I see from hence, — A king without regalia, A God without the thunder, A child without the heart for play; Ay, a Creator, rent asunder From his lirst glory, and cast away On his own world, for me alone To hold in hands created, crying, "Son! " XII. That tear fell not on thee, Beloved, yet thou stirrest in thy slumi)er! Thou, stirring not for glad sounds out of number, Wliich through the vibratory palm- trees run From summer wind and bird, So quickly hast thou heard A tear fall silently ? AVak'st thou, O loving one ? AN ISLAND. .VU goeth but Goddis will." — Old Pokt. My dream is of an island place, Which distant seas keep lonely, — A little island on whose face The stars are watchers only : Those bright, still stars ! they need not seem Brighter or stiller in my dream. II. An island full of hills and dells. All ruin]iled and uneven With green recesses, sudden swells, And odorous ^'allej's driven So deep and straight, that always there The wind is cradled to soft air. Hh#H AN ISLAND. 333 T III. Hills running up to heaven for light Through woods that hali'-way ran, As if the wild earth mimicked right The wilder heart of man : Onlj^ it shall be greener far, And gladder, than hearts ever are. IV. More like, jierhaps, that mountain piece Of Dante's paradise. Disrupt to an hundred hills like these, In falling from the skies; Bringing within it all the roots Of heavenly trees and flowers and fruits : For, saving where the graj' rocks strike Their javelins up the azure, Or -where deep fissures, miser-like. Hoard up some fountain treasure, (And e'en iu them, stooi) down and hear Leaf sounds with water iu your ear). VI. The place is all awave with trees, — Limes, myrtles purple-ueaded, Acacias having drunk the lees Of the night-dew, faint-headed. And wan gray olive-woods, which seem The fittest foliage for a dream. VII. Trees, trees, on all sides! Thej' com- bine Their plumy shades to throw. Through whose clear fruit and blos- som fine "Whene'er the sun may go. The ground beneath he deeplj' stains. As passing through cathedral panes. VIII. But little needs this earth of ours That shining from above her, When many pleiades of flowers (Not one lost) star her over; The rays of their unnumbered hues Being all refracted by the dews. IX. Wide-petalled plants that boldly drink The Aiiireeta of the sky. Shut bells that dull with rapture sink. And lolling buds, half shy: I cannot count them, but between Is room for grass and mosses green. X. And brooks, that glass in different strengths All colors in disorder, Or, gathering up their silver lengths Beside their winding border, Sleep, haunted through the slumber hidden. By lilies white as dreams in Eden. XI. Nor think each arched tree with each Too closely interlaces To admit of vistas out of reach, And broad moon-lighted places, LT^pon whose sward the antlered deer May view their double image clear. XII. For all this island's creature-full (Kept happy not by halves), Mild cows, that at the vine-wreaths pull. Then low back at their calves With tender lowings, to api^rove The warm mouths milking them for love. XIII. Free, gamesome horses, antelopes. And harmless leaping leopards, And buffaloes upon the slopes, And sheep unruled by shejiherds; Hares, lizards, hedgehogs, badgers, mice, Snakes, squirrels, frogs, and butter- flies. siv. And T)irds that live there in a crowd. Horned owls, rajit nightingales, Larks bold with heaven, and peacocks proud, Self-siiliered in those grand tails; All creatures glad and safe, I deem: No guns nor sjiringes in my dream ! I 334 AN ISLAND. XV. Tlie island's edges are a-wing With trees that overbranch The sea with song-birds welcoming The curlews to green change; And doves from half-closed lids espy The red and purple fish go by. XVI. One dove is answering in trust The water every minute, Thinking so soft a murmur must Have her mate's cooing in it: So softly doth earth's beauty round Infuse itself in ocean's sountl. XVII. My sanguine soul bounds forwarder To meet the bounding waves; Beside them straightway I repair, To live within the caves: And near me two or three may dwell. Whom dreams fantastic jjlease as well. XVIII. Long winding caverns, glittering far Into a crystal distance! Through clefts of which, shall many a star Shine clear without resistance! And carry down its rays the smell Of flowers above invisible. XIX. I said that two or three might choose Their dwelling near mine own, — Those who would change man's voice and use, For Nature's way and tone; Man's veering heart and careless eyes, For Nature's steadfast sympathies. XX. Ourselves, to meet her faithfulness, Shall play a faithful part: Her beautiful shall ne'er address The monstrous at oiu* heart: Her musical shall ever touch Something within us also such. XXI. Yet shall she not our mistress live, As doth the moon of ocean, Though gently as the moon she give Our thoughts a light and motion: More like a harp of many lays. Moving its master while' he plays. XXII. No sod in all that island doth Yawn open for the dead ; No wind hath borne a traitor's oath; No earth, a mourner's tread: We cannot say by stream or shade, " I suffered here, was here betrayed." XXIII. Our only " farewell " we shall laugh To shifting cloud or hour. And use our only epitaph To some bud turned a flower: Our only tears shall serve to i^rove Excess iu jDleasure or in love. XXIV. Our fancies shall their plumage catch From fairest island-birds, AVhose eggs let young ones out at hatch, Born singing I then our words Unconsciously shall take the dyes Of those prodigious fantasies. XXV. Yea, soon, no consonant unsmooth Our smile-tuned li]5s shall reach; Sounds sweet as Hellas spake iu youth Shall glide into our speech: (What music, certes, can you find As soft as voices which are kind ?) XXVI, And often, by the joy without And in us overcome. We, through our musing, shall let float Such poems — sitting dumb — As Pindar might have writ if he Had tended sheep in Arcady; XXVII. Or ^^schylus^ the pleasant fields He died in, longer knowing; Or Homer, had men's sins and shields Been lost iu Meles flowing; Or i^oet Plato, had the undim Unsetting Godlight broke on him. XXVIII. Choose me the cave most wortliy choice. To make a place for prayer, And I will choose a praying voice To iwur our spirits there: THE SOUL'S TRAVELLING. 335 How silverly tlie echoes run ! Thy Kill be done, — thy loill he done. XXIX. Gently yet strangely uttered words ! They lift me from my dream; The island fadeth with its swards That did no more than seem: The streams are dry, no sun could find — The fruits are fallen without wind. XXX. So oft the doing of God's will Our foolish wills undoeth ! And yet what idle dream breaks ill, Which morning-light sulidueth ? And who would murmur and mis- doubt, "When God's great sunrise finds him out? THE SOUL'S TRAVEL- LING. H5tj t'oepou? IIcTacrai Tapcrou?. Synbsius. I DWELL amid the city ever. The great humanity which beats Its life along the stony streets. Like a strong and unsunned river In a self-made course, I sit and harken while it rolls. Very sad and very hoarse Certes is the flow of souls; Infinitest tendencies: By the finite prest and pent. In the finite, turbulent: How we tremble in surprise When sometimes, with an awful sound, God's great plummet strikes the ground ! II. The champ of the steeds on the silver bit As they whirl the rich man's carriage by; The beggar's whine as he looks at it — But it goes too fast for charity; The trail on the street of the poor man's broom, That the lady who walks to her pal- ace-home, On her silken skirt may catch no dust ; The tread of the liusiness-men who must Count their per-cents by the paces they take; The cry of the babe unheard of its mother Though it lie on her breast, while she thinks of the other Laid yesterday where it will not wake ; The fiower-girl's prayer to buy roses and pinks, Held out in the smoke, like stars by day; The gin-door's oath that hollowly chinks Guilt upon grief, and wrong upon hate ; The cabman's cry to get out (jf the way; The dustman's call down the area- grate; The young maid's jest, and the old wife's scold. The haggling talk of the boys at a stall, The fight in the street which is backed for gold, The plea of the lawyers in Westmin- ster Hall; The drop on the stones of the blind man's staff As he trades in his own grief's sacred- ness; The brothel shriek, and the Newgate laugh; The hum upon 'Change, and the or- gan's grinding; (The grinder's face being neverthe- less Dry and vacant of even woe While the children's hearts are leap- ing so At the merry music's winding); The black-plumed funeral's creeping train Long and slow (and yet they will go As fast as life, though it hurry and strain !) f 336 THE SOUL'S TRAVELLING. Creeping the populous bouses through, And nodding their plumes at either side, — At many a house where an infant, new To the sunshiny world, has just strug- gled and cried, — At many a house where sitteth a In-ide Trying to-morrow's coronals With a scarlet blush to-day: Slowly creep the funerals. As none should lu^ar the noise, and say, " The living, the living, must go away To multiply tlie dead." Hark ! an upward shout is sent: In grave, strong joy from tower to steeple The bells ring out. The trumpets sound, the jjeople sliout. The young queen goes to her parlia- ment; She turneth rouud her large blue eyes. More bright with childish memories Than royal hope, upon the people; On either side she bows her head Lowlj', with a queenly grace. And smile most trusting-innocent, As if she smiled upon her mother; The thousands i)ress before each other To bless her to her face; And booms the deep majestic voice Through trump and drum, "May the queen rejoice In the peoi)le's liberties ; " III. I dwell amid the city, And hear the flow of souls in a^t and speech. For pomp or trade, for merrymake or folly: I hear the confluence and sum of each, And that is melancholj- ! Thy voice is a complaint, O crowned city, The blue sky covering thee like God's great pity. IV. O Tjlue sky ! it mindeth me Of places wliere I usetl to see Its vast unbroken circle thrown From the far pale-peaked hill Out to the last verge of ocean, As by God's arm it were done Then for the tirst time, with the emotion Of that first impulse on it still. Oh we spirits fly at will Faster than the winged steed Whereof in old book we read. With the sunlight foaming back From his flanks to a misty wrack, And his nostril reddening jiroud As he breasteth the steep thunder- cloud, — Smoother than Sabrina's chair, Gliding up from wave to air, While she smileth debonair Yet holy, coldly and yet brightly. Like her own mooned waters nightly, Through her dripi^iug hair. V. Very fast and smooth we fly. Spirits, though the flesh be by: All looks feed not from the eye, Nor all hearings from the ear: We can hearken and espy Without either, we can journey . Bold and gay as knight to tourney; And, though we wear no visor down To dark our countenance, the foe Shall never chafe us as we go. VI. I ana gone from peopled town ! It pcisseth its street-thunder round My body which yet hears no sound ; For now another sound, another ' Vision, my soul's senses have — O'er a hundred valleys deep Where th [-•HI-»H L. E. l:s last question. 341 Or flowers; to soothe the "captive's" sight, from earth's free bosom gathered, Reminding of his eartlily hope, then withering as it withered; IV. But bring not near the solemn corse a type of human seeming; Lay only dust's stern verity upon the dust undreaming: And, while the calm perpetual stars shall look upon it solely, Her sphered soul shall look on them with eyes more bright and holy. V. Nor mourn, O living one, because her part in life was mourning: Would she have lost the poet's fire for anguish of the burning ? The minstrel harp, for the strained string? the tripod, for the af- flated y Woe ? or the vision, fon those tears in which it shone dilated ? VI. Perhaps she shuddered while the world's cold hand her brow was wreathing. But never wronged that mystic breath which breathed in all her breathing, Which drew from rockj- earth and man abstractions high and moving, — Beauty, if not the beautiful, and love, if not the lovinsr. VII. Such visionings have paled in sight: the Saviour she descrieth, And little recks irho wreathed the brow which on his bosom lieth: The whiteness of his innocence o'er all her garments flowing. There learneth she the sweet " new song" she will not mourn in knowing. VIII. Be hamy, crowned and living one ! ai'ld, as thy dust decayeth. May thine own England say for thee what now for her it sayeth, — "Albeit softly in our ears her silver song was ringing, The footfall of her parting soul is softer than her singing." L. E. L.'S LAST QUES- TION. " Do you think of me as I think of j-oii ? " Written during the voyage to'the Cape. " Do yon think of me as I think of you, My friends, my friends ? " *She said it from the sea. The English minstrel in her min- strelsy. While, under brighter skies than erst she knew. Her heart grew dark, and gi-ojied there as the blind To reach across the waves friends left behind — "Do you think of me as I think of you?" II. It seemed not much to ask — " as / of yon ? " We ail do ask the same: no eyelids cover Within the meekest eyes that ques- tion over: And little in the world the loving do But sit (among the rocks ?) and listen for The echo of their own love ever- more — " Do you think of me as I think of you 9 " III. Love-learned she had sung of love and love, — And like a child, that, sleeping with dropt head Upon the fairy-book he lately read. Whatever household noises round him move, <> l-»HI-»H 342 CROWNED AND WEDDED Hears in his dream some elfin turbu- lence, — Even so, suggestive to lier inward sense. All sounds of life assumed one tune of love. IV. And when the glory of her dream withdrew. When knightly gestes and courtly pageantries Were broken in her visionary eyes By tears the solemn seas attested true, Forgetting that sweet lute beside her hand. She asked not, "Do voii jiraise me, O my land?" But, "Think ye of me, friends, as I of you ? ' ' v. Hers was the hand that played for many a year Love's silver phrase for England, smooth and well. Would Gpd, her heart's more inward oracle In that lone moment might confirm her dear ! For when her questioned friends in agony Made passionate resjionse, " W^e think of thee," Her place was in the tlust, too deep to hear. VI. Could she not wait to catch their an- swering breath ? Was she content, content, with ocean's sound, Which dashed its mocking infinite around One thirsty for a little love? — be- neath Those stars content, where last her song had gone, — They mute and cold in radiant life, as soon Their singer was to be in darksome death ? ^ VII. Bring vour vain answers; crv, "We tiunk of thee!" How think ye of her ? — wai-m in long ago ' Her lyric on tlie pol.ar star came home with her latest papers. Delights ? or crowned with budding bays ? Not so. None smile, and none are crowned, where lieth she, With all her visions unfulfilled save one, Her childhood's, of the palm-trees in the sun — And lo ! their shadow on her sepul- chre ! VIII. "Do ye think of me as I think of you?" — O friends, O kindred, O dear brother- hood Of all the world ! what are we that we should For covenants of long affection sue ? Why press so near each other when the touch Is barred by graves ? Not much, and yet too much, Is this, "Think of me as I think of you." IX. But while on mortal lips I shape anew A sigh to mortal issues, Aerily Above the unshaken stars that see us die A vocal pathos rolls; and He who drew All life from dust, and for all tasted death. By death and life and love, appealing saith, "Do you think of me as I think of you ? " CROWNED AND WEDDED. When last before her people's face her own fair face she bent. Within the meek projection of that shade she was content To erase the child-smile from her lips, which seemed as if it might Be still kept holy from the world to childhood still in sight — CROWNED AND WEDDED. 343 To erase it with a solemn vow, a l^rincely vow — to rule, A priestly vow — to rule by graeo of God the pitiful, A very godlike vow — to rule in right and righteousness. And with the law and for the land — so God the vower bless ! n. The minster was alight that day, but not with tire, I ween; And long-drawn glitterings swept adown that mightly aisled scene ; The 2)riests stood stoled in their pomp, the sworded chiefs in theirs. And so the collared knights, and so the civii niinisters, And so the waiting lords and dames, and littlt: pages best At holding trains, and legates so, from countries cast and west; So alien princes, native peers, and high-born ladies bright. Along whose brows the Queen's, now crownetl, flashed coronets to light; And so the j^eojile at the gates with priestly hands on high, Which bring the first anointing to all legal majesty; And so the Dead, who lie in rows be- neath the minster floor. There verily an awful state maintain- ing evermore ; The statesman whose clean palm will kiss no bribe, whate'er it be. The courtier who for no fair queen will rise up to his knee. The court-dame who for no court-tire will leave her shroud behind. The laureate, who no courtlier rhyme than " dust to dust " can find, The kings and queens who haAing made that a'ow and worn thai; crown, Descended unto lower thrones, and darker, deep adown: Dieu ct moil droit — ■ what is't to them ? what meaning can it have ? — The King of kings, the right of death — God's judgment and the grave. And when betwixt the quick and dead the young fair queen had vowed, The living shouted, " May she live ! Victoria, live ! " aloud: And, as the loyal shouts went up, true spirits prayed between, " The blessings hapjjy monarchs have be thine, O crowned queen ! " m. But now before her 2">eople's face she bendeth hers anew. And calls them, while she vows, to be her witness thereunto. She vowed to rule, and in that 'oath her childhood put away: She doth maintain her womanhood, in vowing love to-day. O lovely lady ! let her vow ! such lips become such vows, And fairer goeth bridal wreath than crown with vernal brows. O lovely lady ! let her vow ! yea, let her vow to love ! And though she be no less a queen, with purples hung above, The pageant of a court behind, the royal kin around, And woven gold to catch her looks turned maidenly to ground, Yet may the bride-veil hide from her a little of that state. While loving hoi^es for retinues about her sweetness wait. She vows to love who vowed to rule — (the chosen at her side) Let none say, God preserve the queen ! but rather. Bless tlie bride ! None blow the trump, none bend the knee, none violate the dream Wherein no monarch l)ut a wife she to herself may seem. Or if ye say, Preserve the queen ! O, breathe it inward low — She is a ?co?n((H, and beloved! and 'tis enough but so. Count it enough, thou noble prince who tak'st her by the hand, And claimest for thj^ lady-love our lady of the land I And since. Prince Albert, men have called thy sjiirit high and rare, And true to truth'and brave for truth as some at Augsburg were. We charge thee by thy lofty thoughts and by thy poet-mind. Which not by glory and degree takes measure of mankind. Esteem that wedded hand less dear for sceptre than for ring, And hold her uncrowned womanhood to be the roval thing. I ^m » f ' I 344 CROWNED AND BURIED. IV. And'uow, upon our queen's last vow what blessings shall we pray ? None straitened to a shallow crown will suit our lips to-day: Behold, they must be free as love, they must be broad as free, Even to the borders of heaven's light and earth's humanity, Long live she ! — send up loyal shouts, and true hearts pray between, " The blessings happy peasants have, be thine, O crowned queen ! " CROWNED AND BURIED. Napoleon! — years ago, and that great word. Compact of human breath in hate and dread And exultation, skied us overhead, — An atmosphere whose lightning was the sword Scathing the cedars of the world, — drawn down In burnings by the metal of a crown. 11. Napoleon ! — nations, while they cursed that name. Shook at their own curse; and while others bore Its sound, as of a trumpet, on before, Brass-fronted legions justified its fame ; And dying men on trampled battle- sods Near their last silence uttered it for God's. III. Napoleon! — sages, with high fore- heads drooped, Did use it for a problem; children small Leapt up to greet it, as at manhood's call; Priests blessed it from their altars overstooped By meek-eyed Christs; and widows with a moan Spake it, when questioned why they sate alone. IV. That name consumed the silence of the snows In Alpine keeping, holv and cloud- hid; The mimic eagles dared what Natrire's did, And over-rushed her mountainous re- pose In search of eyries; and the Egyptian river Mingled the same word with its grand " Forever." That name was shouted near the py- • ramidal Nilotic tombs, whose mummied habit- ants, Packed to humanity's significance, Motioned it back with stillness, — shouts as idle As hireling artists' work of myrrh and spice Which swathed last glories round the Ptolemies. VI. The world's face changed to hear it: kingly men Came down in chidden babes' bewil- derment From autocratic places, each content With sprinkled ashes for anointing; then The people laughed, or wondered for the nonce, To see one throne a composite of thrones. VII. Napoleon ! — even the torrid vasti- tude Of India felt in throbbings of the air That name which scattered by disas- trous blare All Europe's bound-lines, — drawn afresh in blood. Napoleon ! — from the Russias west to Spain, And Austria trembled till ye heard her chain; I ^ I ■ I ^m CROWNED AND BURIED. 345 vin. And Germany was 'ware; and Italy, Oblivious of old lames, — her laurel- locked. High-ghosted Cresars passing uniu- voked, — Did crumble her own ruins with her knee, To serve a newer: ay ! but French- men cast A future from them nobler than her past : IX. For verily, though France augustly rose With that raised Name, and did as- sume by such The jiurple of the world, none gave so much As she in purchase — to speak plain, iu loss — Whose hands, toward freedom stretched, dropped paralyzed To wield a sword, or tit an under- sized King's crown to a great man's head. And though along Her Paris streets did float, on fre- quent streams Of triumph, pictured or emmarbled dreams Dreamt right by genius in a world gone wrong. No dream of all so won was fair to see As the lost vision of her liberty. XI. Napoleon ! — 'twas a high name lifted high : It met at last God's thunder sent to clear Our compassing and covering atmos- jihere. And open a clear sight beyond the sky Of supreme empire; this of earths was done — And kings crept out again to feel the sun. XII. The kings crept out: the peoples sate at home, And, finding the long-invocated peace (A pall embroidered with worn im- ages Of rights divine) too scant to cover doom Such as they suffered, cursed the corn that grew Rankly to bitter bread on Waterloo. XIII. A deep gloom centred in the deep repose ; The nations stood up mute to count their dead : And he who owned the Name which vibrated Through silence, trusting to his no- blest foes When earth was all too gray for chiv- alry. Died of their mercies 'mid the desert sea. XIV. O wild St. Helen ! verj- still she kejit him. With a green willow for all pyramid. Which stirred a little if the low wind did, A little more, if pilgrims overwept him. Disparting the lithe boughs to see the clay Which seemed to cover his for judg- ment-day. Nay, not so long ! France kept her old affection As deeply as the sepulchre the corse; Until, dilated by such love's remorse To a new angel of the resurrection, She cried, " Behold, thou England ! I would have The dead whereof thou wottcst, from that grave." XVI. And England answered in tiie cour- tesy Which, ancient foes turned lovers, may befit, — " Take back thy dead ! and, when thou buriest it, Throw in all former strifes "twixtthee and me." Amen, mine England ! 'tis a courte- ous claim: But ask a little room too — for thy shame ! 34G CROWNED AND BURIED. XVII. Because it was not well, it was not well, Nor tuneful with thy lofty-chanted part Among the Oceanides, — that heart To bind and bare and vex with vul- ture fell. I would, my noble England, men might seek All crimson stains upon thy breast — not cheek ! XVIII. I would that hostile fleets had scarred Torbay, Instead of the lone ship which waited moored Until thj' princely purpose was as- sured. Then left a shadow, not to jiass away — Not for to-night's moon, nor to-mor- row's sun: Green watching hills, ya witnessed what was done ! i XIX. But since it toas done, — in sepulchral dust We fain would pay back something of our debt To France, if not to honor, and for- get How through much fear we falsified Ihe trust Of a fallen foe and exile. "We return Orestes Electra — in his urn. XX. A little urn^ — -a little dust inside, Which once outbalanced the large earth, albeit To-day a four-years' child might carry it Sleek-browed and snnling, " Let the burden 'bide ! " Orestes to Electra ! — O fair town Of Paris, how the wild tears will run down XXI, And run l>ack in the chariot-marks of time. When all the people shall come forth to meet 1 Writtuii at Torquay. The passive victor, death-still in the street He rode througli 'mid the shouting and bell-chime, And martial music, under eagles which Dyed their rapacious beaks at Aus- terlitz ! XXII. Napoleon! — he hath come again, / borne home J/Upon the jwijular ebbing lieart, — a 'i sea Which gathers its own wrecks per- petually, ^lajestically moaning. Give him room ! Room for the dead in Paris ! welcome solemn And grave-deep 'neath the cannon- moulded column ! i XXIII. There, weapon-spent and warrior- spent, may rest From roar of fields, — jirovided Jupi- ter Dare trust Saturnus to lie down so near His bolts 1 — and this he may ; for, dispossessed Of any godship lies the godlike arm — The goat Jove sucked as likely to do harm. XXIV. And yet . . . Napoleon ! — the re- covered name Shakes the old casements of the world; and we Look out upon the passing pageantry. Attesting that the Dead makes good his claim To a French grave, — another king- dom won. The last, of few spans — by Napole- on. XXV. Blood fell like dew beneath his sun- rise — sooth ! But glittered dew-like in the cove- nanted Meridian light. He was a desjiot — granted ! 1 It was the first intention to bury liini inidur tlie column. TO FLUSH MY DOG. 347 But the auTos of his autocratic moutli Said yea i' the people's Frencli: he magnified The image of the freedom he denied. XXVI. And if they asked for rights, he made reply, "Ye have my glory!" — and so, drawing round them His ample jiurple, glorifietl and bound them In an embrace that seemed identity. He ruled them like a tyrant — true ! but none ^Were ruled like slaves: each felt Nai^oleon. XXVII. I do not praise this man: the man ^vas flawed For Adam — much more, Christ! — his knee unbent. His hand unclean, his aspiration i)ent "VVithin a sword-sweep — pshaw! — but, since he had The genius to be loved, why, let him ' have V^he justice to be honored in his grave. XXVUI. I think this nation's tears thus poured together Better than shouts. I think this fu- neral Grander than crownings, though a pope bless all. I think this grave stronger than thrones. But, whether The crowned Napoleon or the buried clay Be worthier, I discern not: angels mav. TO FLUSH MY DOG. Loving friend, the gift of one "Who her own true faith has run Through thy lower nature, i 1 This doi? was the sjift of my dear and admired friend. Miss Mitford, and belongs to the beautiful race she has rendered cele- brated among EngUsh and American read- Be my benediction said With my hand upon thy head, Gentle fellow-creatiu-e ! n. Like a lady's ringlets brown, Flow thy silken ears adown Either side demurely Of tliy silver-suited breast, Shining out from all the rest Of thy body purely. ni. Darkly brown thy body is. Till the sunshine striking this Alchemize its duluess, When the sleek curls manifold Flash all over into gold With a burnished fulness. IV. LTnderneath my stroking hand. Startled eyes of hazel bland \ Kindling, growing larger. Up thou leajiest with a spring, Full of prank and curvetting, Leaping like a cliarger. Leap ! thy broad tail waves a light, Leap ! thy slender feet are bright. Canopied in fringes; Leap ! those tasselled ears of thine Flicker strangely, fair and fine Down their golden inches. VI. Yet, my pretty sportive friend. Little is't to such an end Tliat I praise thy rareness: Other dogs may be thy jieers Haply in these drooping ears And this glossy fairness. VII. . But of thee it shall be said, \ This dog v.-atched beside a bed \ Day and night unweary, — * Watched within a curtained room Where no sunbeam brake the gloom, Round the sick and dreary. ers. The Flushes have their laurels as well as the Csesars, the chief diti'ercnec (at least the very head and front of it) consisting, perhaps, in the bald head of the hitter luider the crown. 1344. 348 TO FLUSH MY DOG. \ VIII. Roses, gathered for a vase, In that chamber died apace. Beam and breeze resigning: This dog only waited on, Knowing, that, wlien light is gone, Love remains for shining. IX. Other dogs in thymy dew Tracked the hares, and followed through Sunny moor or meadow : This dog only crept and crept Next a languid cheek that slept, Sharing in the shadow. Other dogs of loyal cheer Bounded at the whistle clear, Up the woodside hieing: This dog only watched in reach Of a faintly uttered speech. Or a louder sighing. XI. And if one or two quick tears DropiJed upon his glossy ears, Or a sigh came double, Up he sprang in eager haste. Fawning, fondling, breathing fast, In a tender trouble. XII. And this dog was satisfied If a pale, thin hand would glide Down his dewlaps sloping, — Which he pushed his nose within, After, — platforming his chin On the i^alm left open. XIII. This dog, if a friendly voice Call him now to blither choice Than such chamber-keeping, " Come out ! " praying from the door, Presseth backward as before, Up against me leaping. XIV. Therefore to this dog will I, Tenderly not scornfully, Render praise and favor: With my hand upon his head. Is my benediction said Therefore and forever. XV. And because he loves me so, Better than his kind will do Often man or woman. Give I back more love again Than dogs often take of men, Leaning from my human. XVI. Blessings on thee, dog of mine, Pretty collai's make thee line. Sugared milk make fat thee ! Pleasures wag on in thy tail. Hands of gentle motion fail Nevermore to pat thee ! XVII. Downy pillow take thy head. Silken coverlet bestead. Sunshine help thy sleei^ing ! No fly's buzzing wake thee up, No man break thy purple cup Set for drinking deep in ! xvni. Whiskered cats aroynted flee, Sturdy stoppers keep from thee Cologne distillations; Nuts lie in thy path for stones, And thy feast-day macaroons Turn "to daily rations ! XIX. Mock I thee, in wishing weal ? Tears are in my eyes to feel Thou art made so straitly: Blessings need must straiten too, Little canst thou joy or do, Thou who lovest greatly. XX. Yet he blessed to the height Of all good and all delight Pervious to thy nature ; Only loved beyond that line, With a love that answers thine, Loving fellow-creature I a > S 2. V n 1 = >3 3 n 3 3 ^ Or r ",- >?ifc THE DESERTED GARDEN. 349 THE DESERTED GAIIDEN. I Mixi> me, in the days departed, How often underneath the sun With chiklish bounds I used to run To a garden long deserted. The beds and wallvs were A'anished quite; And whereso'er had struck the spade, The greenest grasses Nature laid To sanctify her right. I called the place my wilderness. For no one entered there but I: The sheep looked in the grass to espy, And passed it ne'ertheless. The trees were interwoven wild, And spread their boughs enough about To keep both sheep and shepherd out, But not a happy child. Adventurous joy it was for me ! I crept beneath the l)Oughs, and found A circle smooth of mossy ground Beneath a X)oplar-tree. Old garden rose-trees hedged it in, Bedropt with roses waxen-white "Well satisfied with dew and light, - And careless to be seen. Long years ago, it might befall, "When all the garden-flowers were trim. The grave old gardener inided him On these the most of all Some lady, stately overmuch. Here moving with a silken noise, Has blushed Ijeside them at the voice That likened lier to such. And these, to make a diadem. She often may have plucked and twined. Half-smiling as it came to mind That few would look at them. Oh, little thought that lady proud, A child would watch her fair white rose. When buried lay her whiter brows. And silk was changed for shroud ! that gardener (full of and simple Nor thought scorns For men unlearned jjhrase), A child would bring it all its praise By creeping through the thorns. To me upon my low moss seat, Though never a dream the roses sent Of science or love's compliment, I ween they smelt as sweet. It did not move my grief to see The trace of human step departed: Because the garden was deserted. The blither place for me. Friends, blame me not ! anari-ow ken Has childhood 'twixt the sun and sward: We draw the moral afterward, We feel the gladness then. And gladdest hours for me did glide In silence at the rose-tree wall: A thrush made gladness musical Upon the other side. Nor he nor I did e'er incline To peck or pluck the blossoms white: How should I know but roses might Lead lives as glad as mine ? To make my hermit-home complete, I brought clear water from the spring Praised in its own low murmuring, And cresses glossy wet. And so, I thought, my likeness grew (Without the mehmcholy tale) To " gentle hermit of the dale," And Angelina too. For oft I read within my nook Such minstrel stories, till the breeze Made sounds poetic in the trees, And then I shut the book. If I shut this wherein I write, I hear no more the wind athwart Those trees, nor feel that childish heart Delighting in delight. My childhood from my life is parted. My footstep from the moss which drew Its fairy circle round: anew The garden is deserted. 350 MY DOVES. Another tlirnsh may there reliearse The madrigals which sweetest are: No more for me ! myself afar Do sing a sadder verse. Ah me, ah me ! when erst I lay In that child's-nest so greenly wrought, I laughed unto myself, and thought " The time will pass away." And still I laugl'ed, and did not fear But that, whene'er was passed away The childish time, some hapjiier play My womanhood would cheer. I knew the time would pass away. And yet, beside the rose-tree wall. Dear God, how seldom, if at all. Did I look lip to pray ! The time is past; and now that grows The cypress high among the trees. And I behold white sepulchres, As well as the white rose, — When graver, meeker thoughts are given. And I have learnt to lift my face, Reminded how earth's greenest place The color draws from heaven, — It something saith for earthly pain. But more for heavenly promise free. That I who was, would shrink to be That happy child again. MY DOVES. ■ O Weisheit ! l)u red'st wie eiuc Taulie! " Goethe. ^Iy little doves have left a nest Upon an Indian tree, Whose leaves fantastic take theirrest Or motion from the sea : For ever there the sea-winds go With sunlit paces to and fro. The tropic flowers looked up to it. The tropic stars looked down; And there my little doves did sit,, W^ith feathers softly brown. And glittering eyes that showed their right To general nature's deep delight. And CTod them taught at every close Of murmuring waves beyond And green leaves round, to interjioRe Their choral voices fond. Interpreting that love must be The meaning of the earth and sea. Fit ministers ! Of living loves Theirs hath the calmest fashion. Their living voice the likest moves To lifeless intonation The lovely monotone of springs And winds and such insensate things. My little doves were ta'en away From that glad nest of theirs. Across an ocean rolling gray, And temiiest-clouded airs, — My little doves, who lately knew The sky and wave by warmth and blue. And now, within the citj- prison, In mist and chillness pent. With sudden upward look they listen For sounds of past content, — For lajjse of water, swell of breeze, Or nut-fruit falling from the trees. The stir without the glow of passion, The triumph of the mart. The gold and silver as they clash on Man's cold metallic heart. The roar of wheels, the cry for bread: These only sounds are heard instead. Yet still, as on my human hand Their fearless heads they lean. And almost seem to understand What human musings mean, (Their eyes with such a plaintive shine Are fastened upwardly to mine !) Soft falls their chant as on the nest Beneath the sunny zone; For love that stirred it in their breast Has not aweary grown. And 'neath the city's shade can keep The well of music clear and deep. And love that keeps the music fills With pastoral memories ; All echoings from out the hills, -I ^m I ■-« HECTOR IN THE GARDEN. 351 All droppings from the skies. All flowings from the wave ami wind, Remembered in their chant, 1 find. So teach ye me the wisest part, My little doves ! to move Along the city-ways with heart Assured by holy love, And vocal with such songs as own A fountain to the world unknown. 'Twas hard to sing by Babel's stream — More hard in Babel's street; But if the soulless creatures deem Their music not unmeet For sunless walls, let us begin, "Who wear immortal wings within ! To me, fair memories belong Of scenes that used to bless, For no regret, but present song And lasting thankfulness, And very soon to break away. Like types, in purer things thau they. I will have hopes that cannot fade, For flowers the valley yields; I will have humble thoughts instead Of silent, dewy fields: My sjiirit and my God shall be My seaward hill, my boundless sea. HECTOR IN THE GAR- DEN. Nine years old! The first of any Seem the happiest years that come; Yet when J was nine, I said No such word ! I thought instead That the Greeks had used as many In besieging Ilium. II. Nine green years had scarcely brought me To my childhood's haunted spring: I had life, like dowers and bees. In betwixt the country trees; And the sun the pleasure taught me Which he teacheth every thing. iir. If the rain fell, there was sorrow. Little heail leant on the pane, Little finger drawing down it The long trailing drops upon it, And the " Eain, rain, come to-mor- row," Said for charm against the rain. IV. Such a charm was right Canidian. Though you meet it with a jeer: If I said it long enough. Then the rain hununed dimly off, And the thrush with his pure Lydian Was left only to the ear; And the sun and I together Went a-rushing out of doors: We our tender s])irits drew Over hill and dale in view, Glimmering hither, glimmering thith- er. In the footsteps of the showers. VI. Underneath the chestnuts dripping. Through the grasses wet and fair. Straight I sought my garden-ground, With the laurel on the mound, And the pear-tree oversweeping A side-shadow of green air. VII. In the garden lay supinely A huge giant wrought of spade; Arms and legs were stretched at length In a passive giant strength,— The fine meadow-turf, cut finely. Round them laid and interlaid. VIII. Call him Hector, son of Priam ! Such his title and degree. With my rake I smoothed his brow, Both his cheeks I weeded through ; But a rhymer such as I am, Scarce can sing his dignity. IX. Eyes of gentianellas azure. Staling, winking at the skies; Nose of gilh'tlowers and box; Scented grasses put for locks, Which a little breeze at pleasure Set a-waving round his eyes: 352 SLEEPING AND WATCHING. X. Brazen lielin of daffodillies, Wi^h a glitter toward the light; Purple violets for the mouth, Breathing jierfumes west and south ; And a sword of Hashing lilies, Holden ready for the rtght: XI. And a breastplate made of daisies, Closely fitting, leaf on leaf; Periwinkles interlaced Drawn for belt about the waist; While the brown bees, hninming praises, Shot their arrows round the eliief. xir. And who knows (I sometimes won- dered,) If the disembodied soul Of old Hector once of Troy Might not take a dreary joy Here to enter — if it thundered, Rolling up the thunder-roll ? XIII. Rolling this way from Troy-ruin, In tins body rude and rife Just to enter, and take rest 'Neath the daisies of the breast — They, with tender roots, Renewing His heroic heart to life ? XIV. know I sometimes "Who could started At a motion or a sound ! Did his mouth speak, naming Troy "With an ototototoi ? Did the pulse of the Strong-bearted ISIake the daisies tremble round ? XV. It was bard to answer, often; But the birds sang in the tree, But the little birds sang liold In the pear-tree green and old, And my terror seemed to soften Through the courage of their glee. XVI. Oh tb(! birds, the ti-ee, the rnddy And white blossoms sleek with rain ! Oh, my garden rich with jiansies ! Oh, my childhood's brigbt ro- mances ! All revive, like Hector's body, And I see them stir again. XVII. And despite life's changes, chances, And despite the deatTibell's toll, They press on me in full seeming: Help, some angel ! stay this dream- ing ! As the birds sang in the branches. Sing God's patience through my soul ! XVIII. That no dreamer, no neglecter Of the present's work unsped, I may wake np and be doing, Life's heroic ends pursuing. Though my past is dead as Hector, And though Hector is twice dead SLEEPING AND AYATCIl- ING. Sleep on, baby, on the floor, Tired of all the playing; Sleep with smile the sweeter for That you dropped away in. On your curls' full roundness stand Golden lights serenely; One cheek pushed out by the hand Folds the dimjile inly: Little head and little foot. Heavy laid for pleasure, Underneath the lids lialf-shnt. Slants the shining azure. Open-soul in noonday sun, So you lie and slumber: Nothing evil having done, Nothing can encnmber. II. I who cannot sleep as well, Shall I sigh to view you ? Or sigh further to foretell All that maj' nndo you ? SOUNDS. 353 Xay, keep smiling, little child, Ere the sorrow neareth: I will smile too: patience mild Pleasure's token weareth. Nay, keep sleeping before loss: Ishall sleep though losing — As by cradle, so by cross. Sure is the reposing. III. And God knows who sees us twain, Child at childish leisure, I am near as tired of pain As you seem of pleasvire. Very soon too, by his grace Gently wrapt around me. Shall I show as calm a face. Shall I sleep as soundly, — Differing in this, that you Clasp your playthings, sleeping, "While my hand shall drop the few Given to my keeping; Differing in this, that I Sleeping shall be colder. And in waking presently, Brighter to beholder; Differing in this beside (Sleeper, have you heard me ? Do you move, and open wide Eyes of wonder toward me ?) — That while you I thus recall From your sleep, I solely, Me from mine an angel shall, "With reveille holv. SOUNDS. HKOvtra? r) ovk rjKovfra^ ; ^T-SCHYI.l'S. I. Harken, barken ! The rapid river carrieth ]Many noises underneath The hoary ocean : \ Teaching his solemnity Sounds of inland life and glee Learnt beside the waving tree When the winds in summer prank Toss the shades from bank to bank, And the quick rains, in emotion Which rather gladdens earth than grieves, Count and visibly rehearse The pulses of the \iniverse Upon the summer leaves — Learnt among the lilies straight. When they bow them to tlie weight Of many bees whose hidden hum Seemeth from themselves to come — Learnt among the grasses green Where tlie rustling mice are seen By the gleaming, as they run. Of their quick eyes in the sun ; And lazy sheep are browsing through With iheir noses trailed in dew; And the squirrel leaps adown. Holding fast the filbert brown; And the lark, with more of mirth In his song than suits the earth, Droppeth some in soaring high. To pour the rest out in the sky; While the woodland doves apart In the cojise's leafy heart, Solitary, not ascetic. Hidden and yet vocal, seem Joining in a lovely psalm, Man's despondence, nature's calm. Half mystical and half jiathetic. Like a singing in a dream. i All these sounds the river telleth. Softened to an undertone Which ever and auon he swelleth By a burden of his own, In the ocean's ear: Ay, and ocean seems to hear With an inward gentle scorn, Smiling to his caverns worn. n. Harken, barken ! The child is shouting at his j^lay Just in the tramping funeral's way; The widow moans as she turns aside To shun the face of the blushing bride, I " While fJoatin;: up bright fonns ideal, Slistress or iViemi, ;iroiind me stream ; Half sense-supplied, and half unreal. Like music mingling with a dream." John Kekton. I do not doubt that the " music " of the two concluding lines mingled, though very unconsciously, with my own "dream," and gave their form and pressure to the above distich. The ideas however being sufficient- ly distinct, I am satisfied with sending this note to the press after my verses, and with acknowledging another obligation to the valued friend to whom I already owe so many. 1S44. T 354 ,S0 UNDS. While, sliaking the tower of the an- cient church, The marriage-bells do swing; And in the shadow of the porch An idiot sits with his lean hands full Of hedgerow flowers and a poet's skull, Laughing loud and gil)hering Because it is so brown a thing, "While he sticketh the gaudy poppies red In and out the senseless head Where all sweet fancies grew instead. And you may hear at the self-same time Another poet who reads his rhyme, Low as a brook in summer air, Save when he droppeth his voice adown To dream of the amaranthine crown His mortal brows shall wear; And a baby cries with a feeble sound 'Neath the weary weight of the life new-found; And an old man groans — with his testament Only half-signed — for the life that's spent; And lovers twain do softly say. As they sit on a grave, " For aye, for aye;" And foemen twain, while Earth their mother Looks greenly upward, curse each otlier; A schoolboy drones his task, with looks Cast over the page to the elm-tree rooks; A lonely student cries aloud Eureka! clasping at his shroud; A beldame's age-cracked voice doth sing To a little infant slumbering; A maid forgotten weeps alone. Muffling her sobs on the trysting- stone; A sick man wakes at his own mouth's wail; A gossip coughs in her thrice-told tale ; A muttering gamester shakes the dice ; A reaper foretells good luck from the skies; A monarch vows as he lifts his hand to them ; A patriot, leaving his native laud to them Cries to the world against perjured state ; A priest disserts Upon linen skirts; A sinner screams for one hope more; A dancer's feet do palpitate A ])iper's music out on the floor; And righ to the awful Dead, the liv- ing Low speech and stealthy steps are giving. Because he cannot hear; And he who on that narrow bier Has room enough is closely wound In a silence piercing more than sound. III. Harken, hark en ! God siaeaketh to thy soul, Using the supreme voice which doth confound All life with consciousness of Deity, All senses into one, — As the seer-saint of Patmos, loving John (For whom did backward roll The cloud-gate of the future) turned to see The Voice which spake. It speaketh now. Through the regular breath of the calm creation. Through the moan of the creature's desolation Striking, and in its stroke resembling The memory of a solemn vow Which jiierceth the din of a festival To one in the midst, — and he letteth fall The cup with a sudden trembling. IV. Harken, harken ! God speaketh in thy soul. Saying, "O thou that movest With feeble steps across this earth of mine. To break beside the fount thy golden bowl And spill its purple wine, — Look up to heaven and see how like a scroll My right hand hath thine immortality In an eternal lovest grasping ! thou that sonn/:ts. 355 The songful birds and grasses under- foot, And also what change mars and tombs polhite — J am the end of love ! give love to Me! And count the droppings of my vic- tim-blood, And seek none other sound! " V. thou that sinnest, grace doth more abound Than all thy sin ! sit still beneatli my rood, Harken, barken ! Shall we hear the lapsing river And our brother's sighing ever, And not the voice of God ? SONNETS. THE SOUL'S EXPRESSION. With stammering lips and insufficient sound 1 strive and struggle to deliver right That music of my nature, da.^ and night With dream and thought and feeling interwound, And inly answering all tlie senses round With octaves of a mystic depth and height Which step out grandly to the infinite From the dark edges of the sensual ground. This song of soul 1 struggle tooutbear Through portals of the sense, sublimf^ and whole, And utter all myself into the air: But if I did it, as the thunder-roll Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would l^erisb there, Before that dread apocalypse of soul, THE SERAPH AND POE^I'. The seraph sings before the manifest God-One, and in the burning of the Seven, And with the full life of consummate Heaven Heaving beneath him like a mother's breast Warm with her first-born's slumber in that nest. The poet sings upon the earth grave- riven, Before the naughty world, soon self- forgiven For wronging him; and in the dark- ness prest From his own soul by worldly weights. Even so Sing, seraph with the glory ! heaven is high ; Sing, poet with the sorrow ! earth is low ; The universe's inward voices cry "Amen" to. either .song of joy and woe; Sing, seraph, poet, sing on equally ! BEREAVEMENT. When some beloveds, 'neath whose eyelids lay The sweet lights of my childhood, one by one, Did leave me dai-k before the natural sun, And I astonied fell, and could not pray, A thought within me to myself did say, " Is God less God, that thou art left undone ? Rise, worship, bless him in this sack- cloth spun, As in that purple ! " But I answered, "Nay! i5fi SONNETS. What child his filial heart in words can loose If he behold his tender father raise The hand that chastens sorely ? can he choose But sob in silence with an upward gaze ? — And my great Father, thinking fit to bruise, Discerns in speechless tears both prayer and praise." CONSOLATION. All are not taken : there are left be- hind Living beloveds, tender looks to bring And make the daylight still a happy thing, And tender voices to make soft the wind : But if it were not so, if I could find No love in all the world for comfort- ing, Nor any path but hollowly did ring Where " dust to dust" the love from life disjoined, And if, before those sepulchres uu- moving I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth), Crying, "Where are ye,"0 my loved "and loving? " I know a Voice would sound, " Daughter, I am. Can I suffice for heaven and not for earth?" TO MARY RUSSELL MIT- FORD. IN HER GARDEN. What lime I lay these rhymes auear thy feet, Benignant friend, I will not proudly say As better poets use, " These flowers 1 lay," Because I would not wrong thy roses sweet. Blaspheming so their name. And yet repeat Thou, overleaning them this spring- time day, With heart as ouen to love as theirs to May, — " Low-rooted verse may reach some heavenly heat, Even like my blossoms, if as nature- true. Though not as precious." Thou ai-t unperplext. Dear friend, in whose dear writings drops the dew, And blow the natural airs, — thou, who art next To nature's self in cheering the world's view, To preach a sermon on so known a text ! ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDS- WORTH BY B. R. HAYDON. Wordsworth upon Helvellyn ! Let the cloud Ebbaudibly along the mountain-wind. Then break against the rock, and show behind The lowland valleys floating up to crowd The sense with beauty. He with forehead bowed And humble-lidded eyes, as one in- clined Before the sovran thought of his own mind, And very meek with inspirations proud. Takes here his rightful place as poet- priest By the high altar, singing prayer and prayer To the higher Heavens. A noble vis- ion free Our Haydon'.s hand has fiung out from the mist: No portrait tliis, with academic air ! This is the poet and his poetry. PAST AND FUTURE. My future will not copy fair my past On any leaf but heaven's. Be fully done, Supernal Will ! I would not fain be one, [-•-•-♦H SONNETS. 357 Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast, Upon the fulness of the heart at last Says no grace after meat. My wine has run Indeed out of nay cup, and there is none To gather up the bread of my repast Scattered and trampled; yet I find some good In earth's green herbs, and streams that buttble up Clear from the darkling ground, — content until I sit with angels before better food. Dear Christ ! when thy new vintage fills my cup, This hand shall shake no more, nor that wine spill. IRREPARABLENESS. I HAVE'been in the meadows all the day. And gathered there the nosegay that you see, Singing within myself as bird or bee. When such do field-work on a morn of May. But, now I look upon my flowers, de- cay Has met them in my hands more fa- tally Because more warmly clasped; and sobs are free To come instead of songs. What do you say. Sweet counsellors, dear friends ? that I should go Back straightway to the fields and gather more ? Another, sooth, may do it; but not I ! My heart is verj^ tired, my strength is low, My hands are full of blossoms plucked before. Held dead within them till myself shall die. TEARS. Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not More grief than ve can weep for. That is well;" That is light grieving ! lighter, none befell Since Adam forfeited the primal lot. Tears !— what are tears? The babe weeps in its cot, The mother singing; at her marriage- bell The bride weeps; and before the ora- cle Of high-faned hills the poet has forgot Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace. Ye who weep only ! If, as some have done, Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place, And touch but tombs, look up ! those tears will run Soon in long rivers down the lifted face. And leave the A-ision clear for stars and sun. GRIEF. I TELL you hoi>eless grief is passion- less ; That only men incredulous of despair. Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air Beat upward to God's throne in loud access Of shrieking and reproach. Full des- ertness. In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare Under the blanching, vertical ej^e- glare Of the absolute heavens. Deep- hearted man, express Grief for thy dead in silence like to death — Most like a monumental statue set In everlasting watch and moveless woe Till itself crumble to the dust beneath. Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet : If it could weep, it could arise and go. SUBSTITUTIOX. When some beloved voice that was to you Both sound and sweetness faileth suddenly. i 358 SONNETS. And silence against which jou dare not cry Aches round you like a strong dis- ease and new, What hope ? what lielii ? what music will undo That silence to your sense ? Not friendshii:)'s sigh; Not reason's subtle count; not mel- ody Of viols, nor of pipes that Fauims blew; Not songs of poets, nor of nightin- gales Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees To the clear moon ; nor yet the spheric laws Self-chanted, nor the angels' sweet All-hails, Met in the smile of God: nay, none of these. Speak THOU, availing Christ ! and fill this pause. COMFORT. Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet From out the hallelujahs sweet and low, Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so. Who art not missed by any that en- treat. Speak to me as to Mary at thj' feet! And if no precious gums my hands bestow, Let my tears drop like amber while I go In reach of thy divinest voice com- plete In humanest affection, — thus, in sooth. To lose the sense of losing; as a child, Whose song-bird seeks the wood for- evermore, Is sung to in its stead bj^ mother's mouth Till, sinking on her breast, love-recon- ciled. He sleeps the faster that he wept be- fore. pp:rplexei) music. AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO E.J. Experience, like a pale musician, holds A dulcimer of i>atience in his hand. Whence harmonies we cannot under- stand. Of God's will in his worlds, the strain unfolds In sad, peri^lexed minors: deathly colds Fall on us while we hear, and coun- termand Our sanguine heart back from the fancy-lantl, With nightingales in visionary wolds. We murmur, " Where is an j" certain tune Or measured music in such notes as these ? But angels, leaning from the golden seat. Are not so minded : their fine ear hath won The issue of completed cadences. And, smiling down the stars, they whisper — Sweet. WOflK. What are we set on earth for ? Say, to toil ; Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines For all the heat o' the day, till it declines, And death's mild curfew shall from work assoil. God did anoint thee with his odor- ous oil. To wrestle, not to reign; and he as- signs All thy tears over, like pure crystal- lines, For younger fellow-workers of the soil To wear for amulets. So others shall Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand, From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer. And God's grace fructify through thee to all. SONNETS. 359 The least flower, with a brimming CU13 may stand And share its dewdrop with another near. FUTURITY. AxD O beloved voices, upon which Ours passionately call, because ere- long Ye brake off in the middle of that song We sang together softly, to enrich The poor world with the sense of love, and witcli The heart out of things evil, — 1 am strong. Knowing ye are not lost for aye among The hills with last year's thrush. God keeps a niche In heaven to hold our idols; and al- beit He brake them to our faces, and de- nied That our close kisses should impair their white, I know we shall behold them raised, complete, The dust swept from their beauty, — glorified New Memnons singing in the great God-light. THE TWO SAYINGS. Two sayings of the Holy Scriptures beat Like pulses in the church's brow and breast ; And by them we find rest in our un- rest. And, heart-deep in salt tears, do yet entreat, God's fellowship as if on heavenly seat. The first is, Jesus wept, whereon is prest Full many a sobbing face that drops its best And sweetest waters on the record sweet: And one is where the Christ, denied and scorned, Looked upojj Peteu. Oh, to render plain. By help of having loved a little, and mourned. That look of sovran love and sovran pain Which He, who could not sin yet suf- fered, turned On him who could reject, but not sus- tain ! THE LOOK. The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word. No gesture of reproach: the heavens serene, Tliough heavy with armed justice, did not lean Their thunders that way: the forsaken Lord Looked only on the traitor. None re- cord What that look was, none guess; for those who liave seen Wronged lovers loving through a death-pang keen, Or pale-cheeked martyrs smiling to a sword. Have missed Jehovah at the judg- ment-call. And Peter, from the height of blas- phemy, — " I never knew this man " — did quail and fall As knowing straight that God, and turned free And went out speechless from the face of all. And filled the silence, weeping bitter- ly- THE MEANING OF THE LOOK. I THINK that look of Christ might seem to say, "Thou Peter ! art thou, then, a com- mon stone Which I at last must break my heart upon. For all God's charge to his high an- gels may Guard mj^ foot better ? Did I yester- day Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should run Quick to deny me 'neath the morning sun ? I 360 SONNETS. And do thy kisses, like the rest, be- tray ? Tlie cock crows coldly. — Go, and manifest A late contrition, but no bootless fear; For, when thy final need is dreariest, Thou shalt not be denied, as I am here: My voice to God and angels shall at- test, Because I know this man, let him be clear." A THOUGHT FOR A LONE- LY DEATH-BED. INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND E. C. If God compel thee to this destiny. To die alone, with none beside thy bed To rufHe round with sobs thy last word said. And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee. Pray then alone, " O Christ, come ten- derly ! By thy forsaken Sonship in the red Drear wine-press, by the wilderness outspread. And the lone garden where thine agony Fell bloody from thy brow, — by all of those Permitted desolations, comfort mine ! No earthly friend being near me, in- terpose No deathly angel 'twixt my face and thine, But stoop thyself to gather my life's rose. And smile away my mortal to di- vine ! " WORK AND CONTEMPLA- TION. The woman singeth at her siMnning- wheel A pleasant chant, ballad, or barcarole; She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel Is fiill, and artfully her fingers feel With quick adjustment, jirovident control. The lines, too subtly twisted to un- roll. Out to a perfect thread. I hence ap- peal To the dear Christian Church, that we may do Our Father's business in these tem- ples mirk, Thus swift and steadfast, thus intent and strong; While thus, apart from toil, our souls pursue Some high, calm, spheric tune, and prove our work The better for the sweetness of our song. PAIN IN PLEASURE. A THOUGHT lay like a flower upon mine heart, And drew around it other thoughts like bees. For multitude and thirst of sweet- nesses: Whereat rejoicing, I desired the art Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf and mart Could lure those insect swarms from orange-trees, That I might hive with me such thoughts, and please My soul so always. Foolish counter- part Of a weak man's vain wishes ! While I spoke, Ths thought I called a flower grew nettle-rough, The thoughts called bees stung me to festering: Oh, entertain (cried Reason as she woke,) Your best and gladdest thoughts but long enough. And they will all prove sad enough to sting ! FLUSH OR FAUNUS. You see this dog: it was but yester- day I mused, forgetful of his presence here, Till thought on thought drew down- ward tear on tear: SONNETS. Wheii from the pillow wliere wet- cheeked I lay, A head as haiiy as Fauniis thrust its way Right sudden against my face, two golden-clear Great eyes astonished mine, a droop- ing ear Did flap me on either cheek to dry the spray ! 1 started first as some Arcadian Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove; But, as the bearded vision closelier ran My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above Surprise and sadness, thanking the true Pan Who by low creatures leads to heights of love. FINITE AND INFINITE. The wind sounds only in opposing straits. The sea beside the shore; man's spirit rends Its quiet only up against the ends Of wants and oppositions, loves and hates, Where, worked and worn by passion- ate debates. And losing by the loss it apprehends, The flesh rocks round, and .every breath it sends Is ravelled to a sigh. All tortured states Suppose a straitened place. Jehovah, Lord, Make room for rest, around me ! out of sight Now float me, of the vexing land ab- horred, Till, in deep calms of space, my soul may right Her nature, shoot large sail on length- ening cord. And rush exultant on the infinite. AN APPREHENSION. If all the gentlest-hearted friends I know Concentred in one heart their gentle- ness, That still grew gentler till its pulse was less For life than pity, I should yet be slow To bring mj' own heart nakedly be- low The palm of such a friend, that he should press Motive, condition, means, appli- ances. My false ideal joy and fickle woe, Out full to light and knowledge: I should fear Some plait between the brows, some rougher chime In the free voice. O angels, let your flood Of bitter scorn dash on me ! do ye hear What / say who bear calmly all the time This everlasting face to face with God? DISCONTENT. Light human nature is too lightly tost And ruffled without cause, complain- ing on, Kestless with rest, until, being over- thrown. It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frost Or a small wasp have crept to the innermost Of our ripe peach, or let the wilful sun Shine westward of our window, straight we run A furlong's sigh, as if the world were lost. But what time through the heart and through the brain God hath transfixed us, we, so moved before, Attain to a calm. Ay, shouldering weights of pain. We anchor in deep waters, safe from shore. And hear, submissive o'er the stormy main God's chartered judgments walk for- evermore. I 362 SONNETS. PATIENCE TAUGHT BY NATURE. ' O DREARY life! " we cry, " O dreary, life!" And still the generations of the birds Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds Serenely live while we are keeping strife With Heaven's true pur^jose in us, as a knife Against which we may struggle! Ocean girds Unslackened the dry land, savannah- swards Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees To show above the unwasted stars that i)ass In their old glory. O thou God of old, Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these ! But so much patience as a blade of grass Grows by, contented througli the heat and cold. To meet the flints ? At least it may be said, " Because the way is short, I thank thee, God." ' CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REASON. I THINK we are too ready with com- plaint In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope, Indeed, beyond the zenith, and the slope Of yon gray blank of sky, we might grow faint To muse upon eternity's constraint Round our aspirant souls; but, since the scope Must widen early, is it well to droop, FoT a few days consumed in loss and taint ? O pusillanimous heart, be comforted, And like a cheerful traveller take the road, Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread Be bitter in thine inn, and tliou un- shod EXAGGERATION. We overstate the ills of life, and take Imagination (given us to bring down The choirs of singing angels over- shone By God's clear glory) down our earth to rake The dismal snows instead, flake fol- lowing flake, To cover all the corn; we walk upon The shadow of hills across a level thrown. And pant like climbers: near the al- derbrake We sigh so loud, the nightingale with- in Refuses to sing loud, as else she would. O brothers! let us leave the shame and sin Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood, The holy name of Grief! — holj' herein. That by the grief of One came all our good. ADEQUACY. Now, by the verdure on thy thousand hills, Beloved England, doth the earth ap- pear Quite good enough for men to over- bear The will of God in, with rebellious wills ! We cannot say the morning-sun ful- fils Ingloriously its course, nor that the clear, Strong stars without significance in- sphere Our habitation: we, meantime, our Ills Heap up against this good, aud lift a cry Against this work-day world, this ill- spread feast, As if ourselves were better certainly Than what we come to. Maker and High Priest, SONNETS. 863 I I ask thee not my joys to multiply', Only to make me worthier of the least. TO GEORGE SAND. A DESIRE. I Thou large-brained woman and large- I hearted man, i Self-called George Sand, whose son], amid the lions ; Of thy tumultuous senses, moans de- rt fiance, And answers roar for roar, as spirits can, I would some mild miraculous thun- der ran Above the ajiplauded circus, in appli- ance Of thine own uoliler nature's strength and science, Drawing two jiinions, white as wings of swan. From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place With holier light ! that thou, to wo- man's claim And man's, mightst join beside the angel's grace Of a jnire genius sanctified from blame. Till child and maiden pressed to thine emlirace To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame. ( TO GEORGE SAND. A RECOGNITION. Tkue genius, but true woman, dost deny The woman's uature with a manly scorn. And break away the gauds and arm- lets worn By weaker women in captivity ? Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry Is sobbed in by a woman's voice for- lorn. Thy woman's hair, my sister, all un- shorn, Floats back dishevelled strength in agony, Disproving thy man's name; and while before The world thou burnest in a poet-fire, We see thy woman-heart beat ever- more Through the large flame. Beat jiurer, heart, and higher. Till God unsex thee on the heavenly shore Where unincarnate spirits ]iurely as- pire ! THE PRISONER. I COUNT the dismal time by months and years Since last I felt the greensward under foot, And the great breath of all things summer-mute Met mine upon my lips. Now earth appears As strange to me as dreams of distant spheres, Or thoughts of heaven we weep at. Nature's lute Sounds on, behind this door so closely shut, A strange, wild uuisic to the prison- er's ears Dilated by the distance, till the brain Grows dim with fancies which it feels too fine, While ever, with a visionary pain. Past the precluded senses, sweep and shine Streams, forests, glades, and many a golden train Of sunlit hills transfigured to divine. INSUFFICIENCY. When I attain to utter forth in verse Some inward thought, my soul throbs audibly Along my pulses, yearning to be free, And something farther, fuller, higher, rehearse, To the individual, true, and the uni- verse. In consummation of right harmony; But like a wind-exposed, distorted tree. We are blown against forever by the curse 364 SONNETS. Which breathes through nature. Oh, the workl is weak. The effluence of each is false to all, And what we best conceive we fail to speak. Wait, soul, until thine ashen gar- ments fall, And then resume thy broken strains, and seek Fit peroration without let or thrall. TWO SKETCHES. H. B. The shadow of her face upon the wall May take your memory to the perfect Greek; But when you front her, you would call tiie cheek Too full, sir, for your models, if, with- al, That bloom it wears could leave you critical. And that smile reaching toward the rosy streak ; For one who smiles so has no need to speak To lead your thoughts along, as steed to stall. A smile that turns the sunny side o" the heart On all the world, as if herself did win By what she lavished ou an open mart ! Lei no man call the liberal sweetness sin; For friends may whisper as they stand apart, " Metliinks there's still some warmer place within."' A. B. II. Hek azure eyes dark lashes hold in fee; Her fair superliuous ringlets without check Drop after one another down her neck. As many to each cheek as you might see Green leaves to a wild rose: this sign outwardly. And a like woman-covering seems to deck Her inner nature, for she will not rteck World's sunshine with a finger. Sym- pathy Must call her in love's name ! and then, I know, She rises up, and brightens as she should. And lights her smile for comfort, and is slow In nothing of high-hearted fortitude. To smell this flower, come near it: such can grow In that sole garden where Christ's brow dropped blood. MOUNTAINEER AND POET. The simple goatherd between Alp and sky, Seeing his shadow in that awful tryst Dilated to a giant's on the mist. Esteems not liis own stature larger by The apparent image, but more pa- tiently Strikes his staff down beneath his clenching tist, While the snow-mountains lift their amethyst And sapphire crowns of splendor, far and nigh. Into the air around him. Learn from hence Meek morals, all ye poets tliat pursue Your way still onward up to emi- nence: Ye are not great because creation drew Large revelations round your earliest sense, Nor bright because God's glory shines for you. THE POET. The poet hath the child's sight in his breast, And sees all neiv. What oftenest he has viewed. He views with the first glorj'. Fair and good Pall never on him at the fairest, best, SONNETS. 365 But stand before him holy, and un- dressed In week-day false conventions, such as would Drag other men entered, mosses hushing Stole all noises from my foot; And a green elastic cushion. Clasped within the linden's root, Took me in a chair of silence very rare and absolute. XXVII. All the floor was paved with glory, Greenly, silently inlaid (Through quick motions made be- fore me) With fair counterparts in shade Of the fair serrated ivy-leaves which slanted overhead. xxvin. " Is such pavement in a palace ? " So I questioned in my thought: The sun, shining through the chal- ice Of the red rose hung without. Threw within a red libation, like an answer to my doubt. XXIX. At the same time, on the linen Of my childish lap there fell "Two white may-leaves, downward winning Through the ceiling's miracle. From a blossom, like an angel, out of sight, yet blessing well. 370 THE LOST BOWER. XXX. Down to floor, and np to ceiling Quick I turned my childish face. With an innocent appealing For the secret of the place To the trees, which surely knew it in partaking of the grace. XXXI. Where's no foot of human creature How could reach a human hand ? And, if this be work of Nature, Why has Nature turned so bland. Breaking off from other wild-work ? It was hard to understand. xxxn. Was she weary of rough-doing. Of the bramble and the thorn ? Did she pause in tender rueing Here of all her sylvan scorn ? Or in mock of art's deceiving was the sudden mildness worn ? • xxxin. Or could this same bower (I fancied) Be the work of dryad strong, Who, surviving all that chanced In the world's old Pagan wrong, Lay hid, feeding in the woodland on the last true poet's song ? XXXIV. Or was this the house of fairies, Left, because of the rough ways, Unassoiled by Ave Marys Which the passing pilgrim prays. And beyond St. Catherine's chiming on the blessed sabbath daj's ? XXXV. So, young muser, I sate listening To my fancy's wildest word: On a sudden, through the glistening Leaves around, a little stirred, C'ame a sound, a sense of music, which was rather felt than heard. XXXVI. Softly, finely, it inwound me; From the world it shut me in. Like a fountain falling i-ound me. Which with silver waters thin Clips a little water-Naiad sitting smil- ingly within. XXXVII. Whence the music came, whoknow- eth ? /know nothing; but indeed Pan or Faunus never bloweth So much sweetness from a reed Which has sucked the milk of waters at the oldest riverhead. XXXVIIl. Never lark the sun can waken With such sweetness, when the lark, The high planets overtaking In the half-evanished dark. Casts his singing to their singing, like an arrow to the mark. XXXIX. Never nightingale so singeth: Oh, she leans on thorny tree, And her poet-song she flingeth Over pain to victory ! Yet she never sings such music — or she sings it not to me. XL. Never blackbirds, never thrushes, Nor small finches, sing as sweet, When the sun strikes through the bushes To their crimson clinging feet. And their pretty eyes look sideways to the summer heavens com- plete. XLI. If it xoere a bird, it seemed Most like Chaucer's, which, in sooth. He of green and azure dreamed, AVhile it sate in spirit-ruth On that bier of a crowned lady, sing- ing nigh her silent mouth. XLII. If it v>ere a bird ? — ah, sceptic. Give me "yea" or give me "nay," Though my soul were nymxiholep- tic As I heard that virelay, You may stoop your pride to pardon, for my sin is far away I THE LOST BOWER. 371 XLIII. I rose up in exaltation And an inward trembling heat, And (it seemed) in geste of passion Dropped the music to my feet Like a garment rustling downwards — such a silence followed it ! XLIV. Heart and head beat through the quiet Full and heavily, though slower: In the song, I think, and by it, Mystic Presences of power Had upsnatched me to the Timeless, then returned me to the Hour. XLV. In a child-abstraction lifted. Straightway from the bower I past, Foot and soul being dimly drifted Through the greenwood, till at last In the hilltop's open sunshine I all consciously was cast. XLVI. with the true mouu- Face to face tains I stood silently and still. Drawing strength from fancy's dauntings. From the air about the hill. And from Nature's open mercies, and most debonair good- will. XL VII. Oh the golden-hearted daisies "Witnessed there, before my youth, To the truth of things, with praises Of the beauty of the truth ; And I woke to Nature's real, laugh- ing joyfully for both. XLvni. And I said within me, laughing, I have found a bower to-day, A green lusus, fashioned half in Chance, and half in Nature's play, And a little bird sings nigh it, I will nevermore missay. XLIX. Henceforth /will be the fairy Of this bower not built by one : I will go there, sad or merry, With each morning's benison, And the bird shall be my harper in the dream-hall I have won. So I said. But the next morning, — (Child, look up into my face, — 'Ware, O sceptic, of your scorning ! This is truth in its pure grace !) The next morning, all had vanished, or my wandering missed the place. LI. Bring an oath most sylvan-holy, And upon it swear me true, By the wind-bells swinging slowly Their mute curfews in the dew. By the advent of the snowdrop, by the rosemary and rue, — Lll. I affirm by all or any. Let the cause be charm or chance. That my wandering searches many Missed the bower of my romance. That I nevermore upon it turned my mortal countenance. Lin. I affirm, that, since I lost it, Never bower has seemed so fair, Never garden-creeper crossed it With so deft and brave an air. Never bird sung in the summer as saw and heard them there. LIV. Day by day, with new desire. Toward my wood I ran in faith, tinder leaf and over brier, Through the thickets, out of breath, Like the prince who rescued Beauty from the sleep as long as death. LV. But his sword of mettle clashed. And his arm smote strong, I ween, And her dreaming spirit flashed Through her body's fair white screen. And the light thereof might guide him up the cedar alleys green. 372 THE LOST BOWER. LVI. But for me I saw uo splendor, — All my sword was my child-lieart; And the wood refused surrender Of that bower it held ajiart, Safe as CEdipus' grave-place 'mid Colone's olives swart. LVII. As Aladdin sought the basements His fair palace rose upon, And the four and twenty casements "Which gave answers to the sun, So, in wilderraent of gazing, I looked up, and I looked down. Lvra. vanished since, as Years have wholly As the little bower did then; And you call it tender folly That such thoughts should come again ? Ah, I cannot change this sighing for your smiling, brother-men ! LIX. For this loss it did prefigure Other loss of better good, When my soul, in spirit-vigor And in ripened womanhood, Fell from visions of more beauty than an arbor in a wood. LX. I have lost, oh, many a pleasure, Many a hope, and many a j^ower, Studious health and merry leisure, The first dew on the first flower; But the first of all my losses was the losing of the bower. LXI. I have lost the dream of Doing, And the other dream of Done; The first spring in the Pursuing, The first pride in the Begun, First recoil from incompletion in the face of Avhat is won ; LXII. Exaltations in the far light Where some cottage only is; Mild dejections in the starlight. Which the saddei'-hearted miss; And the child-cheek blushing scarlet for the A'ery shame of bliss. i.xnr. I have lost the sound child-sleeping Which the thunder could not break; Something, too, of the strong leaping Of the staglike heart awake, Which the pale is low for keeping in the road it ought to take. LXIV. Some respect to social fictions Has been also lost by me. And some generous genuflexions. Which my spirit offered free To the pleasant old conventions of our false humanity. LXV. All my losses did I tell you, Ye perchance would look away, Ye would answer me, " Farewell, you Make sad company to-day. And your tears are falling faster than the bitter words you say." LXVI. For God placed me like a dial In the open ground with power, And my heart had for its trial All the sun and all the shower; And I suffered many losses, — and my first was of the bower. LXVII. Laugh you ? If that loss of mine be Of no heavy-seeming weight, — When the cone falls from the pine- tree, The young children laugh thereat ; Yet tlie wind that struck it riseth, and the tempest shall be great. Lxvm. One who knew me in my childhood. In the glamour and the game. Looking on me long and mild, would Jfever know me for the same. Come, unchanging recollections, where those changes overcame ! LXIX. By this couch I weakly lie on While I count my memories. Through the fingers, which, still sighing, I press closely on mine eyes, Clear as once beneath the sunshine, I behold the bower arise. A SONG AGAINST SINGING. 373 LXX. Springs the linden-tree as greenly, Stroked with light adovvn its rind, And the ivy-leaves serenely Each in either intertwined; And the rose-trees at the doorway — they have neither grown nor pined. LXXI. From those overblown faint roses Not a leaf appeareth shed ; And that little bud discloses Not a thorn's breadth moi-e of red For the winters and the summers which have passed me overhead. LXXU. And that music overfloweth, Sudden sweet, the sylvan eaves ; Thrush, or nightingale, — who knoweth ? Fay, or Faunus, — who believes ? But my heart still trembles in me to the trembling of the leaves. LXXIII. Is the bower lost then ? who sayeth That the bower indeed is lost ? Hark I my spirit in it prayeth Through the sunshine and the frost; And the prayer preserves it greenly to the last and uttermost, LXXI v. Till another open for me In God's Eden-land unknown, With an angel at the doorway, White with gazing at his throne; And a saint's voice in the palm-trees, singing, " All is lost . . . and won f " SONG AGAINST SING- ING. TO E. J. H. They bid me sing to thee, Thou golden-haired and silver-voiced child. With lips by no worse sigh than sleep's defiled, With eyes unknowing how tears dim the sight. And feet all trembling at the new de- light Treaders of earth to be. It. Ah, no ! the lark may bring A song to thee from out the morning cloud. The merry river from its lilies bowed, The brisk rain from the trees, the lucky wind That half doth make its music, half doth find; But I — I may not sing, IIL How could I think it right, New-comer on our earth as. Sweet, thou art, To bring a verse from out an human heart Made heavy with accumulated tears. And cross with such amount of weary years Thy day-sum of delight? IV. Even if the verse were said, Thou, who wouldst clasp thy tiny hands to hear The wind or rain, gay bird or river clear, Wouldst, at that sound of sad humani- ties. Upturn thy bright, uncomprehending eyes. And bid me play instead. Therefore no song of mine. But prayer in place of singing, — prayer that would Commend thee to the new-creating God, Whose gift is childhood's heart with- out its stain Of weakness, ignorance, and chan- ging vain : That gift of God be thine! VI. So wilt thou aye be young. In lovelier childhood than thy shining brow And pretty winning accents make thee now ; 374 WINE OF CYPRUS. Yea, sweeter than this scarce articu- late sound (How sweet !) of " father," " mother," shall be found The Abba on thy tong^ue. VII. And so, as years shall chase Each other's shadows, thou wilt less resemble Thy fellows oi the earth who toil and tremble, Tlian him thou seest not, — thine angel, bold Yet meek, whose ev«r-lifted eyes be- hold The Ever-loving's face. WINE OF CYPRUS. GIVEN TO ME BY H. 8. BOTD, AUTHOR OF " SELECT PASSAGES FROM THE OREEK FATHERS," ETC., TO WHOM THESE STAN- ZAS ARE ADDRESSED. 1. If old Bacchus were the speaker, He would tell you, with a sigh, Of the Cyprus in this beaker I am sipping like a fly, — Like a tiy or gnat on Ida At the hour of goblet-pledge, By queen Juno brushed aside, a Full white arm-sweep, from edge. the u. Sooth, the drinking should be ampler When the drink is so divine, And some deep-mouthed Greek ex- emplar Would become your Cyprus wine: Cyclops' mouth might plunge aright in. While his one eye over-leered; Nor too large were mouth of Titan, Drinking rivers down his beard. III. Pan might dip his head so deep in, That his ears alone pricked out; Fauns around him pressing, leaping, Each one pointing to his throat; While the Naiads, like Bacchantes, Wild, with urns thrown out to waste, Cry, " O earth, that thou wouldst grant us Springs to keep, of such a taste ! " But for me, I am not worthy After gods and Greeks to drink. And my lips are pale and earthy To go bathing from this brink: Since you heard them speak the last time, They have faded from their blooms, And the laughter of my pastime Has learnt silence at the tombs. Ah, my friend ! the antique drinkers Crowned the cup, and crowned the brow. Can I answer the old thinkers In the forms they thought of, now ? Who will fetch from garden-closes Some new garlands while I speak, That the forehead, crowned with roses, May strike scarlet down the cheek ? VI. Do not mock me ! with my mortal, Suits no wreath again, indeed: I am sad-voiced as the turtle Which Anacreon used to feed ; Yet, as that same bird demurely Wet her beak in cup of his. So, without a garland, surely I may touch the brim of this. Go ! let others praise the Chian ; This is soft as Muse's string; This is tawny as Rhea's lion ; This is rapid as his spring; Bright as Paphia's eyes e'er met us, Light as ever trod her feet; And the brown bees of Hymettus Make their honey not so sweet. VIII. Very copious are my praises, Though I sip it like a fly. Ah 1 but, sipping, times and place Change before me suddenly. WINE OF CYPRUS. 375 As Ulysses' old libation Drew the ghosts from every part, So your Cyprus wine, dear Grecian, Stirs the Hades of mv heart. IX. And I think of those long mornings Which my thought goes far to seek, "When, betwixt the folio's turnings, Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek: Past the pane the mountain spread- ing. Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise. While a girlish voice was reading Somewhat low for ais and ois. X. Then what golden hours were for ns ! While we sate together there; How the white vests of the chorus Seemed to wave up a live air ! How the cothurns trod majestic Down the deep iambic lines. And the rolling auapestic Curled like vapor over shrines ! XI. Oh, our ^schylns, the thunderous ! How he drove the bolted breath Tlirough the cloud, to wedge it pon- derous In tlie gnarled oak beneath ! Oh, our Sophocles, the royal ! Who was born to monarch's place. And who made the whole world loyal, Less by kingly power than grace. xn. Our Euripides, the human. With his droppings of warm tears, And his touches of things common Till they rose to touch the spheres ! Our Theocritus, our Bion, And our Pindar's shining goals ! — These were cup-bearers undying. Of the wine that's meant for souls. XIII. And my Plato, the divine one. If men know the gods aright By their motions as they shine on With a glorioius trail of light ! And your noble Christian bishops, Who mouthed grandly the last Greek, Though the sponges on their hyssops Were distent with wine — too weak. XIV. Yet your Chrysostom, you praised him As a liberal mouth of gold; And your Basil, you upraised him To the height of speakers old : And we both praised Heliodorns For his secret of pure lies, — Who forged first his linked stories In the heat of lady's eyes. XV. And we botli praised your Synesius For the fire shot up his odes, Though the Church was scarce propi- tious As he whistled dogs and gods. And wt both praised Nazianzen For the fervid heart and speech; Only I eschewed his glancing At the lyre hung out of reach. xvi. Do you mind that deed of Ate Which you bound me to so fast, Reading " De Virginitate," From the first line to the last ? How I said at ending, solemn. As I turned and looked at you, That St. Simeon on the column Had had somewhat less to do ? xvn. For we sometimes gently wrangled, Very gently, be it said. Since our thoughts were disentangled By no breaking of the thread ; And I charged you with extortions On the nobler fames of old ; Ay, and sometimes thought your Per- sons Stained the purple they would fold. xvui. For the rest — a my.stic moaning Kept Cassandra at the gate, With wild eyes the vision shone in, And wide nostrils scenting fate. And Prometheus, bound in passion By brute force to the blind stone, Showed us looks of invocation Turned to ocean and the sun. 376 A RHAPSODY OF LIFE'S PROGRESS. XIX. And Medrea we saw burning At her nature's planted stake; And proud CEdipus late-scorning While the cloud came on to break — "While the cloud came on slow, slower, Till he stood discrowned, resigned ! But the reader's voice dropped lower When the poet called him blind. XX. Ah, my gossip! you were older, And more learned, and a man ; Yet that shadow, the infolder Of your quiet eyelids, ran Both our spirits to one level ; And I turned from hill and lea And the summer-sun's green revel, To your eyes that could not see. XXI. Now Christ bless you with the one light Which goes shining night and day ! May the flowers which grow in sun- light Shed their fragrance in your way ! Is it not right to remember All your kindness, friend of mine. When we two sate in the chamber. And the poets poured us wine ? XXII. So, to come back to the drinking Of this Cyprus, — it is well; But those memories, to my thinking Make a better oenomel; And, whoever be the speaker, None can murmur with a sigh That, in drinking from that beaker, I am sipping like a fly. A RHAPSODY OF LIFE'S PROGRESS. ' Fill all the stops of life with tuneful breath." Poems on Man, by Cornelius Mathews. ^ We are borne into life: it is sweet, it is strange. We lie still on the knee of a mild mystery ' A small volume, by an American poet, — as remarkable in thought and manner for a Which smiles with a change; But we doubt not of changes, we know not of spaces; The heavens seem as near as our own mother's face is. And we think we could touch all the stars that we see ; And the milk of our mother is white on our mouth; And with small childish hands we are turning around The apple of life which another has found : It is warm with our touch, not with sun of the south. And we count, as we turn it, the red side for four. O Life, O Beyond, Thou art sweet, thou art strange evermore ! 11. Then all things look strange in the pure golden ether; We walk through the gardens with hands linked together. And the lilies look large as the trees; And as loud as the birds sing the bloom-loving bees; And the birds sing like angels, so mystical-fine. And the cedars are brushing the archangels' feet. And time is eternity, love is divine, And the world is complete. Now, God bless the child — father, mother, respond ! O Life, O Beyond, Thou art strange, thou art sweet ! m. Then we leap on the earth with the armor of youth. And the earth rings again; And we breathe out, " O beauty ! " we cry out, " O truth ! " And the bloom of our lips drops with wine. And our blood runs amazed 'neath the calm hyaline: The earth cleaves to the foot, the sun burns to the brain, — What is this exultation ? and what this despair ? The strong pleasure is smiting the nerves into pain, vital sinewy vigor, as the right arm of Path- finder. 1844. A RHAPSODY OF LIFE'S PROGRESS. 377 And we drop from the fair as we climb to the fair, And we lie in a trance at its feet; And the breath of an angel cold- piercing the air Breathes fresh on our faces in swoon, And we think him so near, he is this side the sun. And we wake to a whisper self-mur- mured and fond, O Life, O Beyond, Thou art strange, thou art sweet ! IV. And the winds and the waters in pas- toral measures Go winding around us, with roll up- on roll, Till the soul lies within in a circle of pleasures Which hideth the soul ; And we run with the stag, and we leap with the horse, And we swim with the fish through the broad water-course, And we strike with the falcon, and hunt with the hound. And the joy which is in us flies out by a wound. And we shout so aloud, "We exult, we rejoice," That we lose the low moan of our brothers around ; And we shout so adeep down crea- tion's profound. We are deaf to God's voice. And we bind the rose-garland on forehead and ears. Yet we are not ashamed ; And the dew of the roses that run- neth unblamed • Down our cheeks is not taken for tears. Help us, God ! trust us, man! love us, woman ! "I hold Thy small head in my hands, — with its grapelets of gold Growing bright through my fingers, — like altar for oath, 'Neath the vast golden spaces like witnessing faces That watch the eternity strong in the troth — I love thee, I leave thee, Live for thee, die for thee ! I prove thee, deceive thee, Undo evermore thee ! Help me, God ! slay me, man ! — one is mourning for both." And we stand up, though young, near the funeral-sheet Which covers old Cresar and old Pharamond ; And death is so nigh us, life cools from its heat. O Life, O Beyond, Art thou fair, art thou sweet ? Then we act to a purpose, we spring up erect; We will tame the wild mouths of the wilderness-steeds ; We will plough up the deep in the ships double-decked; We will build the great cities, and do the great deeds, Strike the steel upon steel, strike the soul upon soul. Strike the dole on the weal, overcom- Let ing the dole. the cloud meet the cloud in a grand thunder-roll ! " While the eagle of thought rides the tempest in scorn. Who cares if the lightning is burning the corn ? Let us sit on the thrones In a purple sublimity, And grind down men's bones To pale unanimity. Speed me, God ! serve me, man ! I am god over men ; When I speak in my cloud, none shall answer again: 'Neath the stripe and the bond, Lie and mourn at my feet ! " O Life, O Beyond, Thou art strange, thou art sweet ! VI. Then we grow into thought, and with inward ascensions Touch the bounds of our being. We lie in the dark here, swathed doubly around With our sensual relations and social conventions, Yet are 'ware of a sight, yet are 'ware of a sound Beyond hearing and seeing; Are aware that a Hades rolls deep on all sides With its infinite tides T 378 A RHAPSODY OF LIFE'S PROGRESS. About and above us, until the strong arch Of our life creaks and bends as if ready for falling, And through the dim rolling we hear the sweet calling Of si)irits that speak in a soft under- tongue The sense of the mystical march. And we cry to them softly, " Come nearer, come nearer, And lift up the lap of this dark, and speak clearer. And teach us the song that ye sung ! ' ' And we smile in our thought as they answer or no; For to dream of a sweetness is sweet as to know. Wonders breathe in our face, And we ask not their name ; Love takes all the blame Of the world's prison-place ; And we sing back the songs as we guess them, aloud; And we send up the lark of our mu- sic that cuts Untired through the cloud. To beat with its wings at the lattice heaven shuts: Yet the angels look down, and the mortals look up, As the little wings beat; And the iioet is blessed with their pity or hope. 'Twixt tiie heavens and the earth can a poet despond ? O Life, O Beyond, Thou art strange, thou art sweet ! vn. Then we wring from our souls their applicative strength. And bend to the cord the strong bow of our ken. And, bringing our lives to the level of others, Hold the cup we have filled to their uses at length. " Help me, God ! love me, man ! I am man among men. And my life is a pledge Of the ease of another's ! " the fire and the water we drive out the steam With a rush and a roar and the speed of a dream ; And the car without horses, the car without wings. Roars onward, and flies On its gray iron edge 'Neath the heat of a thought sitting still in our eyes: And our hand knots in air, with the bridge that it flings, Two peaks far disrupted by ocean and skies, And, lifting a fold of the smooth-flow- ing Thames, Draws under the world with its tur- moils and pothers. While the swans float on softly, un- touched in their calms By humanity's hum at the root of the springs. And with reachlngs of thought we reach down to the deeps Of the souls of our brothers. We teach them full words with our slow-moving lips, "God," "Liberty," "Truth," — which they hearken and think. And work into harmony, link upon link, Till the silver meets round the earth gelid and dense. Shedding sparks of electric respond- ing intense On the dark of eclipse. Then we hear through the silence and glory afar. As from shores of a star In aphelion, the new generations that cry Disinthralled by our voice to harmo- nious reply, " God," " Liberty," " Truth ! " We are glorious forsooth, And our name has a seat. Though the shroud should be donned. O Life, O Beyond, Thou art strange, thou art sweet ! VIII. Help me, God ! help me, man ! I am low, I am weak; Death loosens my sinews, and creeps in my veins; My body is cleft by these wedges of pains From my spirit's serene. And I feel the externe and insensate creep in On my organized clay ; I sob not, nor shriek. Yet I faint fast away: \ A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE. 379 I am strong in the spirit, deep- thoughted, clear-eyed; 1 could walk, step for step, with an angel beside, On the heaven-heights of truth. Oh, the soul keeps its youth; But the body faints sore, it is tried in the race, It sinks from the chariot ere reach- ing the goal, It is weak, it is cold, The rein drops from its hold, It sinks back with the death in its face. On, chariot ! on, soul ! Ye are all the more fleet: Be alone at the goal Of the strange and the sweet ! IX. Love us, God ! love us man ! we be- lieve, we achieve ! Let us love, let us live; For the acts correspond ; "We are glorious, and die; And again on the knee of a mild mys- tery That smiles with a change, Here we lie. O Death, O Beyond, Thou art sweet, thou art strange ! A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE. ' Discordance that can accord." ROMAUNT OF THE KOSE. A ROSE once grew within A garden April-green, In her loneness, in her loneness, And the fairer for that oneness. A white rose delicate On a tall bough and straight: Early-comer, early-comer. Never waiting for the summer. Her pretty gestes did win South winds to let her in, In her loneness, in her loneness, All the fairer for that oneness. " For if I wait," said she, " Till time for roses be. For the moss-rose and the musk-rose. Maiden-blush and royal-dusk rose, ■' What glory, then, for me In such a company ? Roses plenty, roses plenty. And one nightingale for twenty ! " Nay, let me in," said she, " Before the rest are free. In my loneness, in my loneness, All the fairer for that oneness. " For I would lonelj' stand, Uplifting my white hand, On a mission, on a mission, To declare the coming vision. " Upon which lifted sign What worship will be mine ! What addressing, what caressing, And what thanks and praise and blessing ! " A windlike joy will rush Through every tree and bush. Bonding softly in affection And spontaneous benediction. " Insects, that only may Live in a sunbright ray. To my whiteness, to my whiteness. Shall be drawn as to a brightness, " And evei"y moth and bee Approach me reverently, "Wheeling o'er me, wheeling o'er me, Coronals of motioned glory. " Three larks shall leave a cloud. To my whiter beauty vowed. Singing gladly all the moontide, Never waiting for the suntide. " Ten nightingales shall flee Their woods for love of me. Singing sadly all the suntide, Never waiting for the moontide. " I ween the very skies Will look down with surprise, When below on earth they see me With my starry aspect dreamy. " And earth will call her flowers To hasten out of doors, 380 A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE. By their courtesies and sweet-smell- ing, To give grace to my foretelling." So praying, did she win South winds to let her in, In her loneness, in her loneness, And the fairer for that oneness. But ah, alas for her ! No thing did minister To her praises, to her praises, More than might unto a daisy's. No tree nor bush was seen To boast a perfect green, Scarcely having, scarcely having, One leaf broad enough for waving. The little flies did crawl Along the southern wall. Faintly shifting, faintly shifting. Wings scarce long enough for lifting. The lark, too high or low, I ween, did miss her so. With his nest down in the gorses. And his song in the star-courses. The nightingale did please To loiter beyond seas; Guess him in ifche Happy islands, Learning music from the silence. Only the bee, forsooth. Came in the place of both, Doing honor, doing honor, To the honey-dews upon her. The skies looked coldly down As on a royal crown; Then, with drop for drop, at leisure, They began to rain for pleasure. Whereat the earth did seem To waken from a dream. Winter-frozen, winter-frozen. Her unquiet eyes unclosing, — Said to the Rose, " Ha, snow ! And art thou fallen so ? — Thou, who wast enthroned stately All along my mountains lately ? " Holla, thou world-wide snow ! And art thou wasted so, With a little bough to catch thee, And a little bee to watch thee ? " — Poor Rose, to be misknown ! Would she had ne'er been blown, In her loneness, in her loneness, All the sadder for that oneness. Some word she tried to say, Some no ... ah, well-away ! But the passion did o'ercome her, And the fair, frail leaves dropped from her, — Dropped from her, fair and mute, Close to a poet's foot, Who beheld them, smiling slowly. As at something sad, yet holy, — Said, " Verily, and thus It chances too with us Poets, singing sweetest snatches, While that deaf men keep the watches ; " Vaunting to come before Our own age evermore. In a loneness, in a loneness, And the nobler for that oneness. " Holy in voice and heart, To high ends set apart: All unmated, all unmated, Just because so consecrated. " But if alone we be. Where is our empery ? And, if none can reach our stature. Who can mete our lofty nature ? " What bell will yield a tone, Swung in the air alone ? If no brazen clapper bringing. Who can hear the chimed ringing ? " What angel but would seem To sensual eyes ghost-dim ? And, without assimilation, Vain is iuterpenetratiou. " And thus, what can we do, Poor rose and poet too. Who both antedate our mission In an unprepared season ? " Drop, leaf ! be silent, song ! Cold things we come among: We must warm them, we must warm them, Ere we ever lioije to charm them." I ^ I ■ I ^ THE POET AND THE BIRD. 381 " Howbeit " (here his face Lightened around the place, So to mark the outward turning Of its spirit's inward burning) " Something it is, to hold In God's worlds manifold, First revealed to creature-duty, Some new form of his mild beauty " Whether that form respect The sense or intellect, Holy be, in mood or meadow, Tlie chief beauty's sign and shadow ! " Holy in me and thee, Rose fallen from the tree, Though the world stand dumb around us, All unable to expound us " Though none us deign to bless. Blessed are we, nathless; Blessed still and consecrated In that, rose, we were created. " Oh, shame to poet's lays Sung for the dole of praise, — Hoarsely sung upon the highway, "With that obolum da mihi . " Shame, shame, to poet's soul, Pining for such a dole, When heaven-chosen to inherit The high throne of a chief spirit ! " Sit still upon your thrones, O ye poetic ones ! And if, sooth, the world decry you, Let it pass unchallenged by you. " Ye to yourselves suffice, Without its flatteries. Self-contentedly approve you Unto Him who sits above you, — ' ' In prayers that upward mount Like to a fair-sunned fount, Which, in gushing back upon you. Hath an upper music won you, — " In faith, that still perceives No rose can shed her leaves, Far less, poet fall from mission. With an uufullilled fruition, — " In hope, that apprehends An end beyond these ends, And great uses rendered diily By the meanest song sung truly, — " In thanks, for all the good By poets understood, For the sound of seraphs moving Down the hidden depths of loving, — " For sights of things away Through fissures of the clay. Promised things which shall be given And sung over up in heaven, — " For life so lovely vain, For death, which breaks the chain, For this sense of present sweetness. And this yearning to completeness ! " THE POET AND THE BIRD. A FABLE. I. Said a people to a poet, "Go out from among us straightway ! While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine: There's a little fair brown nightin- gale who, sitting in the gateway, Makes fitter music to our ear than any song of thine I " u. The poet went out weeping ; the nightingale ceased chanting: " Now wherefore, O thou nightin- gale, is all thy sweetness done?" — "I cannot sing my earthly things, the heavenly poet wanting, Whose highest harmony includes the lowest under sun." III. The poet went out weeping, and died abroad, bereft there; The bird flew to his grave, and died amid a thousand wails: And when I last came by the place, I swear the music left there Was only of the poet's song, and not the nightingale's. i 382 THE CRY OF THE HUMAN. THE CRY OF THE HUMAN. " There is no God," the foolish saith, But none, " There is no sorrow; " And Nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow. Eyes which the preacher could not school By wayside graves are raised ; And lips say, " God be pitiful," Who ne'er said, " God be praised." Be pitiful, O God ' n. The tempest stretches from the steep The shadow of its coming; The beasts grow tame, and near us creep, As help were in the human: Yet, while the cloud-wheels roll and grind. We spirits tremble under — The hills have echoes; but we find No answer for the thunder. Be pitiful, O God ! III. The battle hurtles on the plains, Earth feels new scythes upon her; We reap our brothers for the wains. And call the harvest — honor: Draw face to face, from line to line, One image all inherit, Then kill, curse on, by that same sign. Clay — clay, and spirit — spirit. Be pitiful, O God ! IV. The plague runs festering through the town. And never a bell is tolling. And corpses, jostled 'neath the moon. Nod to the dead-cart's rolling; The young child calleth for the cup, The strong man brings it weeping. The mother from her babe looks up, And shrieks away its sleeping. Be pitiful, O God 1 V The plague of gold strikes far and near, And deep and strong it enters; This purple chimar which we wear, Makes madder than the centaur's: Our thoughts grow blank, our words grow strange. We cheer the pale gold-diggers, Each soul is worth so much on 'Change, And marked, like sheep, with fig- ures. Be pitiful, O God 1 VI. The curse of gold upon the land The lack of bread enforces; The rail-cars snort from strand to strand. Like more of death's white horses; The rich preach " rights " and " future days," And hear no angel scofling; The i)oor die mute, with starving gaze On corn-ships in the offing. Be pitiful, OGod ! VII. We meet together at the feast, To private mirth betake us ; We stare down in the winecup, lest Some vacant chair should shake us; We name delight, and pledge it round — " It shall be ours to-morrow ! " God's seraphs, do your voices sound As sad in naming sorrow ? Be pitiful, O God I viri. We sit together, with the skies. The steadfast skies, above us. We look into each other's eyes, '■ And how long will you love us ? " The eyes grow dim with prophecy, The voices, low and breathless, — " Till death us part ! " O words, to be Our best, for love the deathless ! Be pitiful. O God ! IX. We tremble by the harmless bed Of one loved and departed; Our tears drop on the lips that said Last night, " Be stronger-hearted 1 " A PORTRAIT. 383 O God, to clasp those fiugers close, And yet to feel so lonely ! To see a light upon such brows, Which is the daylight only ! Be pitiful, O God ! X. The happy children come to us, And look up in our faces; They ask us, " Was it thus, and thus, When we were in their places ? " We cannot speak ; we see anew The hills we used to live in. And feel our mother's smile press through The kisses she is giving. Be pitiful, OGodl XI. We pray together at the kirk For mercy, mercy solely: Hands wearv with the evil work. We lift them to the Holy. The corpse is calm below our knee. Its spirit bright before Thee : Between them, worse than either, we. Without the rest or glory. Be pitiful, O God ! XII. We leave the communing of men. The murmur of the passions. And live alone, to live again With endless generations: Are we so brave ? The sea and sky In silence lift their mirrors, And, glassed therein, our spirits high Recoil from their own terrors. Be pitiful, O God ! XIII. We sit on hills our childhood wist. Woods, hamlets, streams, behold- ing: The sun strikes through the farthest mist The city's spire to golden: The city's golden spire it was When hope and health were strong- est; But now it is the churchyard grass We look upon the longest. Be pitiful, O God ! xiv. And soon all vision waxeth dull; Men whisper, " He is dying: " We cry no more, " Be pitiful I " We have no strength for crying — No strength, no need. Then, soul of mine, Look up, and triumph rather: Lo, in the depth of God's divine "The Son adjures the Father, Be pitiful, O God ! A PORTRAIT. ' One name is Elizabeth." — Bkn Jokson. I WILL paint her as I see her. Ten times have the lilies blown Since she looked upon the sun. And her face is lily-clear, Lily-shaped, and dropped in duty To the law of its own beauty. Oval cheeks encolored faintly. Which a trail of golden hair Keeps from fading off to air; And a forehead fair and saintly, Which two blue eyes undershine, Like meek prayers before a shrine. Face and figure of a child, Though too calm, you think, and tender. For the childhood you would lend her. Yet child-simple, undefiled, Frank, obedient, waiting still On the turnings of your will. Moving light, as all young things, — As young birds, or early wheat When the wind blows over it. Only, free from flutterings Of loud mirth that scorneth mea.s- ure, Taking love for her chief pleasure. 384 CONFESSIONS. Choosing pleasures for the rest, "Which come softly, just as she "When she nestles at your knee. Quiet talk she liketh best, In a bower of gentle looks, "Watering flowers, or reading books. And her voice, it murmurs lowly. As a silver stream may run, "Which yet feels, you feel, the sun. And her smile, it seems half holy, As if drawn from thoughts more far Than our common jestings are. And, if any poet knew her. He would sing of her with falls Used in lovely madrigals. And, if any painter drew her, He would paint her unaware "With a halo round the hair. And, if reader read the poem. He would whisper, " You done a Consecrated little Una." have And a dreamer (did you show him That same picture) would exclaim, " 'Tis my angel, with a name ! " And a stranger, when he sees her In the street even, smileth stilly, Just as you would at a lily. And all voices that address her Soften, sleeken every word, As if speaking to a bird. And all fancies yearn to cover The hard eartJti whereon she passes, "With the thymy-scented grasses. And all hearts do pray, "God love her!" Ay, and always, in good sooth, We may all be sure He doth. CONFESSIONS. Face to face in my chamber, my silent chamber, I saw her: God and she and I only, there I sate down to draw her Soul through the clefts of confession, " Speak, I am holding thee fast. As the angel of resurrection shall do it at the last ! " " My cup is blood-red "With my sin," she said, " And I pour it out to the bitter lees, As if the angels of judgment stood over me strong at the last, Or as thou wert as these." II. When God smote his hands together, and struck out thysoul asaspark Into the organized glory of things, from deeps of the dark, Say, didst thou shine, didst thou burn, didst thou honor the power in the form, As the star does at night, or the fire- fly, or even the little ground- worm ? " I have sinned," she said, " For my seed-light shed Has smouldered away from His first decrees. The cypress praiseth the firefiy, the ground-leaf praiseth the worm : I am viler than these." III. When God on that sin had pity, and did not trample thee straight With his wild rains beating and drenching thy light found inad- equate ; When he only sent thee the north wind, a little searching and chill. To quicken thy flame, — didst thou kindle and flash to the heights of his will ? "I have sinned," she said, " Unquickened, unspread. My fire dropt down, and I wept on my knees: I only said of his winds of the north as I shrank from their chill, What delight is in these ? " -TT* — . - I ^"• m :/ ,v,..,&.^\m\\::^ " And if any painter drew lier, He would paint her unaware With a halo round tlie hair." — Page 384- I CONFESSIONS. 585 IV. Wlieii God on that sin had pity, and did not meet it as sucli. But tempered tlie wind to tliy uses, and softened the world to thy touch, At least tliou wast moved in thy soul, though, unable to prove it afar. Thou couldst carry thy light like a jewel, not giving it out like a star ? " I have sinned," she said, ' ' And not merited The gift he gives, by the grace he sees ! The mine-cave praiseth the jewel, the hillside praiseth the star: I am viler than these." V. Then I cried aloud in my passion. Unthankful and impotent crea- ture. To throw up thy scorn unto God through the rents in thy beg- garly nature ! If he, the All-giving and Loving, is served so unduly, what then Hast thou done to the weak and the false and the changing, — thy fellows of men ? "T have loved," she said, (Words bowing her head As the wind the wet acacia-trees) "I saw God sitting above me, but I ... I sate among men, And I have loved these." VI. Again with a lifted voice, like a choral trumpet, that takes The lowest note of a viol that trem- bles, and triumphing breaks On the air with it solemn and clear, " Behold ! I have sinned not in this ! "Where I loved, I have loved much and well: I have verily loved not amiss. Let the living," she said, " Inquire of the dead. In the house of the i)ale-frouted images: My own true dead will answer for me, that I have not lovsd amiss In my love for all these. VII. "The least touch of their hands in the morning, I keep it by day and by night; Their least step on the stair, at the door, still throbs through me, if ever so light; Their least gift which they left to my childhood, far off in the long-ago years. Is now turned from a toy to a relic, and seen through the crystals of tears. Dig the snow," she said, " For my churchyard bed ; Yet I, as r sleep, shall not fear to freeze, If one only of these my beloveds shall love me with heart-warm tears. As I have loved these ! " VIII. " If I angered any among them, from thenceforth my own life was sore ; If I fell by chance from their pres- ence, I clung to their memory more: Their tender I often felt holy, their bitter I sometimes called sweet; And, whenever their heart has refused me, I fell down straight at their feet. I have loved," she said: "Man is weak, God is dread; Yet the weak man dies with his S]nrit at ease, Having poured such an unguent of love but once on the Saviour's feet, As I lavished for these." IX. Go, I cried: thou hast chosen the hu- man, and left the divine ! Then, at least, have the human shared with thee their wild berry-wine ? Have they loved back thy loVe, and, when strangers approached thee with blame, Have they covered thy fault with their kisses, and loved thee the same ? But she shrunk and said, " God over my head 386 LOVED ONCE Must sweep iu the wrath of his judgment-seas, [f He shall deal with me sinning but only indeed the same, And no gentler than these." LOVED ONCE. I CLASSED, appraising once, Earth's lamentable sounds, — the well-aday, The jarring yea and nay. The fall of kisses on unauswering clay. The sobbed farewell, the welcome mournfuller; But all did leaven the air "With a less bitter leaven of sure de- spair Than these words, '• I loved once." And who saith " I loved once " ? Not angels, whose clear eyes, love, love, foresee, Love, through eternity. And by To Love do apprehend To Be. Not God, called Love, his noble crown-name casting A light too l)road for blasting: The great God changing not from everlasting, Saith never, " I loved once." IXI. Oh, never is " Loved once " Thy word, thou Victim-Christ, mis- prized friend ! Thy cross and curse may rend. But, having loved, thou lovest to the end. This is man's saying, — man's; too weak to move One sphered star above, Man desecrates the eternal God-word Love By his No More and Ouce. IV. " We loved once," Is your earth not cold How say ye, Blasphemers ? enow, Mourners, without that snow? Ah, friends, and would ye wrong each other so ? And could ye say of some whose love is known, Wliose prayers have met your own. Whose tears have fallen for you, whose smiles have shone So long, " We loved them once "? V. Could ye, " We loved her once," Say calm of me, sweet friends, when out of sight ? When hearts of better right Stand in between me and your happy light ? Or when, as flowers kept too long in the shade, Ye find my colors fade. And all that is not love in me de- cayed ? Such words, — Ye loved me once ! VI. We loved her once," me when further put Could ye, ' Say cold' of away In earth's sepulchral clay. When mute the lips which deprecate to-day ? Not so ! not then — least then ! When life is shriven. And death's full joy is given. Of those who sit and love you tap in heaven. Say no* " We loved them once." VII. Say never, ye loved once : God is too near above, the grave, be- neath, And all our moments breathe Too quick in mysteries of life and death For such a word. The eternities avenge Affections light of range. There comes no change to justify that change, Whatever comes, — Loved once ! THE HOUSE OF CLOUDS. 387 VIII. And yet that same word once Is hunianly acceptive. Kings have said, Shaking a discrowned head, "We ruled once," — dotards, "We once taught and led: " Cripples once danced i' the vines; and bards approved Were once by scornings moved: But love strikes one hour — love! those never loved Who dream that they loved once. THE HOUSE OF CLOUDS. I WOULD build a cloudy house For my thoughts to live in When for earth too fancy-loose, And too low for heaven. Hush ! I talk my dream aloud, I liuild it bright to see; I build it on the moonlit cloud To which I looked with tliet. II. Cloud-walls of the morning's gray. Faced with amber column. Crowned with crimson cupola From a sunset solemn: May-mists for the casements fetch, Pale and glimmering, With a sunbeam hid in each, And a smell of spring. III. Build the entrance high and prond, Darkening, and then brightening, Of a riven thunder-cloud. Veined by the lightning: Use one with an iris-stain For the door so thin, Turning to a sound like rain As I enter in. IV. Build a spacious hall thereby Boldly, never fearing; Use the blue place of the sky Which the wind is clearing : Branched with corridors sublime Flecked witli winding stairs, Such as children wish to climb Following their own prayers. In the mutest of the house I will have inj' chamber; Silence at the door shall use Evening's light of amber, Solemnizing every mood. Softening in degree. Turning sadness into good Ap I turn the kev. VI Be my chamber tapestried With the showers of summer, piose, but soundless, glorified > When the sunbeams come here Wandering harpers, harping on Waters stringed for such, Drawing color for a tune, With a vibrant touch. VII. Bring a shadow green and still From the chestnut- forest: Bring a purple from the hill When the heat is .sorest; Spread them out from wall to wall, Carpet-wove around. Whereupon the foot shall fall Id light instead of souiid. VIII Bring fantastic cloudlets home From the noontide zenith. Ranged for sculptures round the room; Named as Fancy weeneth ; Some be Junos without eyes, Naiads without sources; Sojne be birds of paradise; Some, Olympian horses. IX. Bring the dews the birds shake off Waking in the hedges; Those too, perfumed for a proof. From the lilies' edges: From our England's field and moor Bring them calm and white in. Whence to form a mirror jiure For love's self-delighting. i 388 A SABBATH MORNING AT SEA. Bring a gray cloud from tlie east. Where the hirk is singing, (Something of the song at least Unlost in the bringing;) That shall be a morning-chair Poet-dream may sit in "When it leans out on the air, Unrhjniied and unwritten. XI. Bring the red cloud from the sun. While he sinketh, catch it; That shall be a couch, with one Sidelong star to watch it, — Fit for poet's finest thought At the curfew sounding; Things unseen being nearer brought Than the seen around hira. XII. Poet's thought, not poet's sigh — 'Las, they come together ! Cloudy walls divide and fly, As in April weather. Cupola and column proud, Structure bright to see, *Tone ! except that moonlit cloud To whicli I looked with thee. xni. Let them ! Wipe such visionings Fi'om the fancy's cartel; Love secures some fairer things Dowered with his immortal. The sun may darken, heaven bowed; But still unchanged shall be, Here, in my soul, that moonlit cloud To which I looked with thee ! be SABBATH MORNING AT SEA. The ship went on with solemn face; To meet the darkness on the deep The solemn ship went onward: I bowed down weary in the place; For parting tears and present sleep Had weighed mine eyelids down- ward. II. Thick sleep which shut all dreams from me, And kept my inner self apart, And quiet from emotion. Then brake away, and left me free, Made conscious of a human heart Betwixt the heaven and ocean. Th III. the new wondrous new sight, sight ! The waters round me, turbulent. The skies impassive o'er me, Calm in a moonless, sunless light, Half-glorified by that intent Of holding the day-glory ! Two pale thin clouds did stand upon The meeting line of sea and -sky, With aspect still and mystic: I think they did foresee the sun, And rested on their prophecy In quietude majestic. Then flushed to radiance where they stood. Like statues by the open tomb Of shining saints half risen. The sun ! he came up to be viewed. And sky and sea made mighty room To inaugurate the vision. VI. 1 oft had seen the dawnlight run As red wine through the hills, and Itreak Through many a mist's inurning; But here no earth profaned the sun: Heaven, ocean, did alone partake Tlie sacrament of morning. VII. Away with thoughts fantastical ! I would be humble to my worth, Self-guarded as self-doubted: Though here no earthly shadows fall, I, joying, grieving without earth, May desecrate without it. A FLOWER IN A LETTER. 389 VIII. morning sweeps the &od's sabbath waves ; I would not praise the pageant high, Yet miss tlie dedicature : I, carried toward the sunless graves Bv force of natural things — should I Exult in only nature ? IX And could I bear to sit alone 'Mid Nature's fixed benignities. While my warm jiulse was mov- ing ? Too dark thou art, O glittering sun, Too strait ye are, capacious seas, To satisfy the loving ! It seems a better lot than so To sit with friends beneath the beech, And feel them dear and dearer; Or follow children as they go In pretty pairs, with softened speech . As the church-bells ring nearer. XI, Love me, sweet friends, this sabbath day ! The sea sings round me while ye roll Afar the hymn unaltered. And kneel where once I knelt to pray. And bless me deeper in the soul. Because the voice has faltered. XII And though this sabbath comes to me Without the stoled minister. Or chanting congregation, God's Spirit brings communion, He Who brooded soft on waters drear. Creator on creation, XIII. Himself, I think, shall draw me higher, Where keep the saints with harp and song An endless sabbath morning; And on that sea commixed with fire Oft drop their eyelids, raised too long To the full Godhead's burning. A FLOWER IN TER. A EET- My lonely chamber next the sea Is full of many flowers set free By summer's earliest duty: Dear friends upon the garden-walk Might stop amid their fondest talk "To pull the least in beauty. II. A thousand flowers, each seeming one, That learnt by gazing on the sun To counterfeit his shining; Within whose leaves the holy dew That falls from heaven has won anew A glory in declining. Ill Red roses, used to praises long, Contented with the poet's song, The nightingale's being over; And lilies white, prepared to touch The whitest thought, nor soil it much. Of dreamer turned to lover. IV. Deep violets, you liken to The kindest eyes that look on you. Without a thought disloyal; And cactuses a queen might don. If weary of a golden crown, And stil! ai^pear as royal. Pansies for ladies all, — I wis That none who wear such brooches miss A jewel in the mirror; And tulips, children love to stretch Their fingers down, to feel in each Its beauty's secret nearer. VI. Love's language may be talked with these: To work out choicest sentences, No blossoms can be meeter; And, such being used in Eastern bow- ers, Young maids may wonder if the flow- ers Or meanings be the sweeter. !♦■ ♦! 390 A FLOWER IK A LETTER. vir. And, such being strewn l)efore a bride, Her little foot maj^ turn aside, Their longer bloom decreeing, Unless some voice's whispered sound Should make her gaze upon the ground Too earnestly for seeing. VIII. And, such being scattered on a grave, "Whoever mourneth there may have A type which seemeth worthy Of that fair body hid below. Which bloomed on earth a time ago, Then perished as the earthy. IX. And such being wreathed for worldly feast. Across the brimming cup some guest, Their rainljow colors viewing, May feel them with a silent start, The covenant his childish heart With Nature made, renewing. No our X. gardened England To flowers hath match with these in bloom and breath. Which from the world are hiding In sunny Devon moist with rills, — A nunnery of cloistered hills, The elements presiding. By XI. stream the flowers are Loddon's fair That meet one gifted lady's care With prodigal rewarding, (For beauty is too used to run To Mitford's bower, to want the sun To light her through the garden). XII But here, all summers are comprised ; The nightly frosts shrink exorcised Before the priestly moonshine; And ev(>ry wind with stoled feet, In wandering down the alleys sweet, Steps lightly on the sunshine, XIII. And (having promised HarpoiU-ate Among tiie nodding roses that No harm shall touch his daughters) Gives quite away the rushing sound He dares not use upon such gi'ound, To ever-trickling waters. XIV. Yet sun and wind ! what can ye do But make the leaves more brightly show In posies newly gathered ? I look away from all your best, To one poor flower unlike the rest, — A little flower half withered. XV. I do not think it ever was A pretty flower, — to make the grass Look greener where it reddened ; And now it seems ashamed to be Alone in all this company. Of asuect shrunk and saddened. XVI A chamber-window was the spot It grew in from a garden-pot. Among the city shadows: If any, tending it, might seem To smile, 'twas only in a dream Of nature iu the meadows. XVII. How coldly on its head did fall The sunshine from the city-wall In pale refraction driven ! How sadly plashed upon its leaves The raindrops, losing in the eaves The first sweet news of heaven ! XVIII. And those who planted gathered it In gamesome or in loving fit, And sent it. as a token Of what their city pleasiu-es be. For one, in Devon by the sea And garden-blooms, to look on, XIX. • But SHE for whom the jest was meant, With a grave passion innocent Receiving what was given, — Oh if her face she turned then, Let none say 'twas to gaze again Upon the flowers of Devon ! r CALLS ON THE HEART. 391 XX. Because, whatever virtue dwells lu genial skies, warm oracles For gardens brightly springing, — The flower which grew beneath your eyes, Beloved friends, to mine supplies A beautv worthier singing. THE MASK. I HAVE a smiling face, she said ; I have a jest for all I meet; I have a garland for my head, And all its flowers are sweet: And so you call me gay, she said. II. Grief taught to me this smile, she said ; And Wrong did teach this jesting bold; These flowers were plucked from gar- den-bed While a death-chime was tolled: And what now will you say? she said. III. Behind no prison-grate, she said. Which slurs the sunshine half a mile, Live captives so uncomforted As souls behind a smile. God's pity let us pray, she said. IV. I know my face is bright, she said; Such brightness dying suns diffuse : I bear upon my forehead shed The sign of what I lose. The ending of my day, she said. \. If I dared leave this smile, she said, And take a moan upon my mouth, And tie a cypress round my head. And let my tears run smooth, It were the happier way, she said. VI. And since that must not be, she said, I fain your bitter world would leave. How calmly, calmly, smile the dead, Who do not, therefore, grieve I The yea of heaven is yea, she said. VII. Bujtin your bitter world, she said. Face-joy's a costly mask to wear; 'Tis bought with pangs long nourislv ed. And rounded to despair: Grief's earnest makes life's play, she said. Ye VIII. those who weep? she weep for said — Ah, fools ! I bid you pass them by. Go weep for those whose hearts have bled What time their eyes were dry. Whom sadder can I say ? she said. CALLS ON THE HEART. Free Heart, that singest to-day Like a bird on the first green spray, Wilt thou go forth to the world. Where the hawk hath his wing un- furled, To follow, perhaps, thy way ? Where the tamer thine own will bind, And, to make thee sing, will blind, While the little hip grows for the free behind ? Heart, wilt thou go ? — ' No, no ! Free hearts are better so." II. The world, thou hast heard it told. Has counted its robber-gold. And the pieces stick to the hand : The world goes riding it fair and grand. While the truth is bought and sold: '-■ I ^m I i 392 CALLS OX THE HEART. World- voices east, world-voices west, They call thee. Heart, from thine early rest, " Come hither, come hither, and be our guest." Heart, wilt thou go ? — ' No, no ! Good hearts are calmer so." III. Who calleth thee, Heart ? World's Strife, With a golden heft to his knife; World's JSIirth, with a finger fine That draws on a lioard in wine Her blood-red plans of life; World's Gain, with a brow knit down : World's Fame with a laurel crown Which rustles most as the leaves turn brown : Heart, wilt thou go ? — " No, no ! Calm hearts are wiser so." IV. Hast heard that Proserpina (Once fooling) was snatched away To partake the dark king's seat, And the tears ran fast on her feet To think how the sun shone yes- terday ? With her ankles sunken in asphodel She wept for the roses of earth which fell From her lap when the wild car drave to hell. Heart, wilt thou go? — " No, no ! Wise heai-ts are warmer so." V. And what is this place not seen, Where hearts may hide serene ? " 'Tis a fair still house well kept. Which humble thoughts have swept, And holy prayers made clean. There I sit with Love in the sun, And we two never have done Singing sweeter songs than are guessed by one." Heart, wilt thou go ? — "No, no! Warm hearts are fuller so." VI. O Heart, O Love, I fear That love may be kept too near. Hast heard, 6 heart, that tale, How Love may be false and frail To a heart once holden dear ? — " But this true love of mine Clings fast as the clinging vine, And mingles pure as the grapes in wine," Heart, wilt thou go ? — "No, no! Full hearts beat higher so." VII. O Heart, O Love, beware ! Look \\i>, and boast not there; For who has twirled at the pin ? 'Tis the World between Death and Sin,— The World and the world's De- spair ! And Death has quickened his pace To the hearth with a mocking face, Familiar as Love in Love's own place. Heart, wilt thou go ? — "Still, no! High hearts must grieve even so." VIII. The house is waste to-day, — The leaf has dropt from the spray. The thorn prickt through to the song: If summer doeth no wrong The winter will, thej' say, Sing, Heart ! what heart rejDlies ? In vain we were calm and wise, If the tears unkissed stand on in our eyes. Heart, wilt thou go ? — "Ah, no! Grieved hearts must break even so." IX. Howbeit all is not lost. The warm noon ends in frost, And worldly tongues of promise, Like sheep-bells die off from us On the desert hills cloud-crosst; Yet through the silence shall Pierce the death-angel's call, And " Come up hither," recover all. Heart, wilt thou go ? — "Igo! Broken hearts triumph so." JL WISDOM UNAPPLIED. WISDOM UNAPPLIED. If I were thou, O butterfly ! And poised my purple wing to spy The sweetest flowers that live and die, n. waste mv strength on I would not those, As thou; for summer has a close, And pansies bloom not in the snows. III. If I were thou, O working bee ! And all that honey-gold I see Could delve from roses easily, IV. I would not hive it at man's door, As thou, that heirdom of luy store Should make him rich, and leave me poor. If I were the a, O eagle proud ! And screamed the thunder back aloud, And faced the lightning from the cloud, VI. I would not build my eyry-throne, As thou, upon a crumbling stone Which the next storm may trample down. VTI. If I were thou, O gallant steed ! With pawing hoof and dancing head, And eye outrunning thine own speed, VIII. I would not meeken to the rein, As thou, nor smooth my nostril plain From the glad desert's snort and strain. rx. If I were thou, red-breasted bird. With song at shut-up window heard. Like love's sweet yes too long de- ferred, X. I would not overstay delight. As thou, but take a swallow-flight Till the new spring returned to sight. XI. While yet I spake, a touch was laiil Upon my brow, whose pride did fade As thus, methought, an angel said, — XII. " If I were ihon who sing'st this song. Most wise for others, and most strong In seeing right while doing wrong. XIII. " I would not waste my cares, and choose. As thoTt, — to seek what thou must lose, Such gains as perish in the use. XIV. " I would not work where none can win, As tliou, — halfway 'twixt grief and sin, But look above, and judge within. XV. " I would not let my pulse beat high. As thou, — towards fame's regality. Nor yet in love's great jeopardy. XVI. " I would not champ the hard, cold bit. As thou, — of what the world thinks lit. But take God's freedom, using it. XVJI. " I would not play earth's winter out. As thou, — but gird my soul about. And live for life past death and doubt. xvin. " Then sing, O singer! but allow. Beast, fly, and bird, called foolish now. Are wise (for all thy scorn) as thou." ,.i.» 3!)4 MEMORY AMJ HOPE. MEMORY AND HOPE. Back-looking Memory And prophet Hope both sprang from out the ground, — One, where the tiashing of r-herubic sword Fell sad in Eden's ward; And one, from Eden earth within the sound Of the four rivers lapsing pleasantly. What time the promise after curse was said: "Thy seed shall bruise his head." II. Poor Memory's brain is wild, As moonstruck by that flaming atmos- phere When she was born ; her deep eyes shine and shone With light that conquereth sun And stars to wanner paleness, year by year: With odorous gums she mixeth things defiled; She trampleth down earth's grasses green and sweet With her far-wandering feet. III. She plucketh many flowers, Their beauty on her bosom's coldness killing; She teachetli every melancholy sound To winds and waters round ; She droppeth tears with seed, where man is tilling rugged soil in his exhausted hours ; ah me ! in her smile The She smileth doth go A mood of deeper woe. IV. Hope tripped on out of sight, Crowned with an Eden wreath she saw not wither, And went a-nodding through the wil- derness. With brow that shone no less Than a sea-gull's wing, brought nearer by rough weather, Searching the treeless rock for fruits of light; Her fair, quick feet being armed from stones and cold By slippers of pure gold. V. Memory did Hope much wrong, And, while she dreamed, lier slippers stole away; But still she wended on with mirth unheeding. Although her feet were bleeding, Till Memory tracked her on a certain day. And with most evil eyes did search her long And cruelly ; whereat she sank to ground In a stark deadly swound. vr. And so my Hope were slain, Had it not been that Thou wast stand- ing near, O Thou who saidest, " Live," to crea- tures Ij'ing In their own blood, and dying ! For Thou her forehead to Thine heart didst rear. And make its silent pulses sing again. Pouring a new light o'er her darkened eyne. With tender tears from Thine. VII. Therefore my Hope arose From out her swound, and gazed upon Thy face; And, meeting r,here that soft, subdu- ing look Which Peter's spirit shook, Sauk downward in a raj^ture, to em- brace Thy pierced hands and feet with kisses close. And prayed Thee to assist her ever- more To " reach the things before." VIII. Then gavest Thou the smile Whence angel-wings thrill quick, like summer lightning. Vouchsafing rest beside Thee, where she never From Love and Faith may sever: Whereat the Eden crown she saw not wLdteuing HUMAN LIFE'S MYSTERY. 395 A time ago, though whitening all the while, Reddened with life to hear the Voice which talked To Adam as he walked. HUMAN LIFE'S MYS- TERY. We sow the glebe, we reap the corn, We build the bouse where we may rest. And then, at moments, suddenly We look up to tlie great wide sky. Inquiring therefore we were born, — For earnest, or for jest? The senses folding thick and dark About the stifled soul within. We guess diviner things bej^ond. And yearn to them with yearning fond : We strike out blindly to a mark Believed in, but not seen. III. "\^'e vibrate to the pant and thrill Wherewith Eternity lias curled In serpent-twine about God's seat; While, freshening upward to his feet, In gradual growth His full-leaved will Ex])ands from world to world. IV. And, in the tumult and excess Of act and i^assion under sun, We sometimes hear — oh, soft and far, As silver star did touch with star — The kiss of pef ce and righteousness Through all things that are done. God keeps his holy mysteries Just on the outside of man's dream; In diapason slow, we think To hear their pinions rise and sink, While they Hoat pure beneath his eyes, Like swans adown a stream. VI. Abstractions are they,'*from the forms Of his great beauty ? exaltations From his great glorj^? strong pre- visions Of what we shall be ? intuitions Of what we are, in calms and storms Beyond our peace and passions ? VII. Things nameless ! which in passing so Do stroke us with a subtle grace ; We say, "Who passes?" they are dumb ; We cannot see them go or come, Their touches fall soft, cold, as snow Upon a blind man's face. VIII. Yet, touching so, they draw above Our common thoughts to heaven's unknown. Our daily joy and pain advance To a divine significance, Our human love — O mortal love, That light is not its own ! IX. And sometimes horror chills our blood To be so near such mystic things, And we wrap round us for defence Our purple manners, moods of sense, As angels from the face of God Stand hidden in their wings. And sometimes through life's heavy swound We grope for them, with strangled breath We stretch our hands abroad, and try To reach them in our agony, And widen so the broad life-wound Soon large enough for death. I i I 396 .1 CHILD'S THOUGHT OF GOD. A CHILD'S THOUGHT OF GOD. They say that God lives very high; But, it you look altove the pines, You cannot see our God ; and why ? II. And, if you dig down in the mines. You never see him in the gold; Though from him all that's glor;, shines. III. God is so good he wears a fold Of heaven and earth across his face, Like secrets kept for love, untold. IV. But still T feel that his embrace Slides down by thrills through all things made, — Throno;h sight and sound of every jilace. v. As if my tender mother laid On my shut lips her kisses' pres- sure, Half waking me at night, and said "Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser? " THE CLAIM. Gkief sate upon a rock and sighed one day, (Sighing is all her rest) " Well-away, well-away, ah well- away ! " As ocean beat the stone, did she her breast, " Ah well-away ! ah me ! alas, ah me!" Such sighing uttered she. II. A clond spake out of heaven, as soft as rain That falls on water: " Lo, The winds have wandered from me ! I remain Alone in the sky- waste, and cannot go To lean my whiteness on the moun- tain blue Till wanted for more dew. III. "The sun has struck my brain to weary peace. Whereby constrained and pale I spin for him a larger golden fleece Than Jason's, yearning for as full a sail. Sweet Grief, when thou hast sighed to thy mind. Give me a sigh for wind. IV. And let it carry me adown the west." But Love, who i^rbstrated Lay at Grief's foot, his lifted eyes possessed Of her full image, answered in her stead; " Now nay, now nay ! she shall not give away What is my wealth, for any Cloud that flieth: M'here Grief makes moan. Love claims his own, And therefore do I lie here night and day, And eke my life out with the breath she sigheth." SONG OF THE EOSE. ATTRIBUTED TO SAPPHO. {From Achilles Tatius.) If Zeus chose us a king of the fiow. ers in his mirth. He would call to the rose, and would royally crown it; THE EXILE'S RETURN. 39; For the rose, ho, the rose ! is the grace of the earth, Is the light of the i^lants that are growing upon it: For the rose, ho, the rose ! is the eye of the flowers, Is the hhish of the meadows that feel themselves fair, Is the lightning of beauty that strikes through the bowers Ou pale lovers who sit in the glow unaware. Ho, the rose breathes of love ! ho, the rose lifts the cujd To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest ! Ho, the rose, having curled its sweet leaves for the world. Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up, As thej^ laugh to the wind as it laughs from the west ! A DEAD ROSE. O ROSE, who dares to name thee ? No longer roseate now, nor soft nor sweet, But pale and hard and dry as stubble wheat. Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles .shame thee. II. The breeze that used to blow thee Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away An odor up the lane to last all day. If breathing now, unsweetened would forego thee. III. The sun that used to smite thee, And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn. Till beam appeared to bloom, and flower to burn, If shining now, with not a hue would light thee. IV. The dew that used to wet thee. And, white first, grow incarnadined because It lay upon thee where the crimson was. If dropping now, would darken where it met thee The fly that lit upon thee To stretch the tendrils of its tiny feet Along thy leaf's pure edges "^ after heat. If lighting now, would coldly overrun thee. VI. The bee that once did suck thee, And build thy perfumed ambers up his hive. And swoon in thee for joy, till scarce alive. If passing now, would blindly over- look thee. VII. The heart doth recognize thee, Alone, alone ! the heart doth smell thee sweet. Doth view thee fair, doth judge thee most complete. Perceiving all those changes that disguise thee. VIII. Yes, and the heart doth owe thee More love, dead rose, than to any roses bold Which Julia wears at dances, smiling cold: Lie still upon this heart which breaks below thee. THE EXILE'S RETURN. When from thee, weeping, I removed, And from my land for years, I thought not to return, beloved, With those same parting tears. I come again to hill and lea Weeping for thee. I 398 THE SLEEP. II. I clasiied thine hand when standing last Upon tlie shore in sight. Tlie land is green, the ship is fast, I shall be there to-night. / shall be there — no longer vm — No more with thee ! III. Had I beheld thee dead and still, I might more clearly know How heart of thine conld turn as chill As hearts by nature so; How change could touch the false- hood-free And changeless thee. IV. But now thy fervid looks last seen Within my soul remain: 'Tis hard to think that they have been. To be no more again; That I shall vainly wait, ah me I A wortl from thee. I could not bear to look upon That mound of funeral clay Where one sweet voice is silence, one Ethereal brow, decay; Where all thy mortal t may see, But never thee. VI. For thou art where all friends are gone Whose parting pain is o'er; And I, who love and weep alone, AVhere thou \\\\\> weep no more, W^eep bitterly and selfishlj' For me, not tliee. VII. I know, beloved, thou canst not know That I endure this pain; For saints in heaven, the Scriptures show. Can never grieve again: And grief known mine, even there, would be Still shared by thee. THE SLEEP. " He giveth His beloved sleep." — Ps. cxxvil. 2. I. Of all the thoughts of God that are Borne inward into souls afar Along the Psalmist's music deep. Now tell me if that anj' is. For gift or grace, surpassing this, — " He givetli His beloved sleep." II. What would we give to our beloved ? The hero's heart to be unmoved, The poet's star-tuned harp to sweep. The patriot's voice to teach and rouse. The monarch's crown to light the brows? — He giveth His beloved sleep. III. What do we give to our beloved ? A little faith all undisproved, A little dust to overweep, And bitter memories to make The whole earth blasted for our sake: He giveth His beloved sleep. IV. " Sleep soft, beloved ! " we sometimes say. Who have no tune to charm away Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep; But never doleful dream again Shall bi-eak the hajipj' slumber when He giveth His beloved sleep. O earth, so full of dreary noises ! O men with wailing in your voices ! O delved gold the wallers heap ! O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! God strikes a silence through you all, And giveth His beloved sleep. VI. His dews drop mutely on the hill. His cloud above it saileth still. Though on its sloj^e men sow and reap : INIore softly than the dew is shed, Or cloud is floated overhead. He giveth His beloved sleeji. COWPER'S GRAVE. 399 VII. Ay, men may wonder wliile they scan A living, tliinking, feeling man Confirmed in such a rest to keep; But angels say, and through tlie word I tliink their happy smile is he