Ma«MfiwJaM«riMfijMq^^ 
 
 5* 
 
 :'A'>-.<y'ti', >."<■;
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 

 
 
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 ',r
 
 
 /7. 
 
 CONVICT ONCE 
 
 ^ POEM 
 
 BY 
 
 T. BRUNTON STEPHENS 
 
 MAC MILL AN AND CO. 
 
 I 87 r 
 
 All rip'lils ft'served
 
 I'KINTEU liY KOliERT MACLKHOSE.
 
 PR 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART FIRST, . 
 PART SECOND, 
 
 fAGK 
 
 3 
 
 83 
 
 PART THIRD, j2- 
 
 PART FOURTH, j^j 
 
 868793
 
 PROEM. 
 
 T HYACINTH, of whom she wrote, now write 
 Not from the hope of fame, or wish for praise ; 
 But that, in waning of her latter days, 
 
 She willed her warning tale should see the light 
 
 And whispered with her fading breath that I 
 Should soften nothing that she did reveal, 
 But charter her confession with a seal 
 
 Of manual pardon — as I do hereby. 
 
 A
 
 PROEM. 
 
 And ere ye scorn her troubles, passion-fed, 
 Her wilful choosing of the crooked path. 
 And ere ye make a virtue of your wrath, 
 
 I pray you all, remember — she is dead. 
 
 Forgive the passions that she could not curb, 
 The heaving trouble of a fevered breast. 
 She's very quiet now. She hath her rest : 
 
 And there is none can wake her, none disturb. 
 
 I, who have most to pardon, pardon all, 
 As I myself beseech forgiving grace ; 
 And live in hope that I shall see her face, 
 
 Even as an angel's, at the Judgment call.
 
 1 
 
 PART FIRST.
 
 ,' CONVICT ONCE 
 
 "PREE again ! Free again ! Glory and brightness 
 of Life's Saturnalia ! 
 What is denied me now ? What is withheld me 
 now ? I who am free ! 
 Surely the Sun holdeth revel ! and Jubilee reigns in 
 Australia ! 
 And there are echoes of joy in mine ears from far 
 lands o'er the sea.
 
 6 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 2 
 
 Wrought even to pain with emotions long-prisoned and 
 ardours volcanic, 
 Great with the promise of things that have grown 
 in the silence of years, 
 Seems to me now that my soul should be mother of 
 issue Titanic. 
 Drunken with Freedom I leap, as a maddened steed 
 plunges and rears. 
 
 Seven retributive years have not left my tried spirit 
 unshaken, 
 Vulture-like tearing me ; harpy-like soiling me, 
 blinding my eyes. 
 Yet from the depths I emerge ; like a giant refreshed 
 I awaken, 
 Strong for the purj)ose of life, for the struggle, the 
 victory, the prize.
 
 CONVICT ONCE. 7 
 
 4 
 
 Ah ! I must calm me, nor triumph too soon with 
 exultant delirium : 
 Silence, and patience, and foresight, to these is 
 J the victory given : 
 Life's raging sea is not cloven at the sound of the 
 timbrel of Miriam ; 
 But at the touch of the rod of the Seer the dark 
 waters are riven. 
 
 Yes, I must calm me, remembering that Freedom 
 restores me to Duty — 
 Not to the license and rapture of such as have 
 struggled and won. 
 Passion hath proved itself fatal, and fatal the magic 
 of beauty ; 
 I must try wisdom and prudence, contented to 
 walk ere I run.
 
 8 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 6 
 
 Have I not found what I longed for ? Already my 
 star is propitious. 
 Heaven hath found me a home where life's sweetest 
 amenities smile ; 
 Lowly indeed, but unmerited, poor to a spirit 
 ambitious ; 
 Yet a sweet oasis-fountain whereat I may linger 
 awhile. 
 
 7 
 
 Here I behold it, my long-cherished dream of a 
 home in the wild wood : 
 Here I shall hide my reproach, and my name 
 shall be Magdalen Power. 
 Never again shall I utter the name that I bore in 
 my childhood ; 
 Know it shall none, save the Angel that watched 
 at my christening hour.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 9 
 
 8 
 
 Now I begin life again ; but a clearer, a stronger 
 beginning : 
 Not as a child, but a woman — a teacher of children 
 \ not mine. 
 What can / teach them ? My lesson ? Repenting 
 is longer than sinning ? 
 Nay ; I can read ; I can write ; I can moralize, 
 line upon line. 
 
 Branded no more as a felon : — but hush ! let such 
 phrases be banished ! 
 Let me recall the old precepts that moulded my 
 innocent youth ! 
 Knowledge, and Beauty, and Goodness, thank God I 
 have not utterly vanished : 
 Quick to perceive them as ever ; alive to the glory 
 of Truth.
 
 lo CONVICT ONCE. ]>art 
 
 lO 
 
 No more abasement ! I'm weary and blind with the 
 tears of repentance : 
 Though it was wrong, and I know it, yet surely 
 such weeping is vain. 
 Have I not borne to the full all the pangs of my 
 terrible sentence ? 
 Shall there no harvest arise from this plentiful 
 penitent rain ? 
 
 1 1 
 
 Worshipping sorrow it seems, thus to sacrifice life on 
 its altar ; 
 Petting my error it is, thus to water it evening and 
 morn : 
 Cherishing aye in my breast, as a fetish, a scarce 
 escaped halter — 
 I'his is the culture of Terror — Idolatry worthy of 
 scorn !
 
 CONVICT ONCE. " 
 
 12 
 
 I will no more of it.— Twenty-three years have I 
 lived ; and my labour 
 Vanity, fruitless regret, and a secret that may not 
 J be told, 
 Honour-imperilling, head-overhanging, like Damocles' 
 sabre, 
 Swinging and threat'ning my new-donned propriety 
 scarce a day old. 
 
 13 
 
 Ha ! I must clothe me with armour ; yet not in the 
 garb of defiance : 
 Panoply brazen flings back every incident ray of the 
 sun : 
 Darkly encased I shall be in a corselet of (juiet 
 reliance \ 
 Shield I shall carry of triple propriety ; sword I'll 
 have none.
 
 12 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 14 
 
 Is this hypocrisy ? Is it a refuge 't\vixt seeming and 
 being ? 
 Self-enforced virtue (who knows?) may develop from 
 habit to love. 
 Heedless of obstacles, patient for ends, strong of 
 heart, and far-seeing, 
 I may be wise as the serpent, yet innocent still as 
 the dove. 
 
 15 
 
 Die then, sad memories, leaving behind you nor 
 token nor relic ! 
 Hark how the tremulous night-wind is passing in 
 joy-laden sighs ! 
 Soft through my \vindows it comes, like the fanning 
 of pinions angelic. 
 Whispering to cease from myself, and look out on 
 the infinite skies.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 13 
 
 16 
 
 Out on the orb-studded night, and the crescent 
 effulgence of Dian; 
 Out on the far-gleaming star-dust that marks where 
 
 / 
 
 the angels have trod ; 
 
 Out on the gem-pointed Cross, and the glittering 
 pomp of Orion, 
 Flaming in measureless azure, the coronal jewels of 
 God. 
 
 17 
 
 Luminous streams of delight in the silent immensity 
 flowing, 
 Journeying surgelessly on through impalpable 
 ether of peace, 
 How can I think of myself when infinitude o'er me 
 is glowing, 
 Glowing with tokens of love from the land where 
 my sorrows shall cease ?
 
 14 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 18 
 
 Oh, summer-night of the South ! Oh, sweet languor 
 of zephyrs love-sighing ! 
 Oh, mighty circuit of shadowy soUtude, holy and 
 still ! 
 Music scarce audible, echo-less harmony joyously 
 dying, 
 Dying in faint suspirations o'er meadow, and forest, 
 and hill ! 
 
 19 
 
 I must go forth and be part of it, part of the night 
 and its gladness. 
 But a few steps, and I pause on the marge of the 
 shining lagoon. 
 Here then, at length, I have rest ; and I lay down 
 my burden of sadness, 
 Kneeling alone 'neath the stars and the silvery 
 arc of the moon.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 15 
 
 20 
 
 Peace-speaking night of the South, will thine in- 
 fluence last through my sleeping, 
 Dream with my dreaming, awake with my waking, 
 and blend with the morn ? 
 Or shall I start as of old, and my pillow be wet with 
 my weeping, 
 Victim alternate of self - accusation and impious 
 scorn ? 
 
 21 
 
 Have I so cast out myself that the morrow's meridian 
 shall find me 
 Lightly esteeming the earth, and with spirit affianced 
 to heaven ? 
 Have I said, once and for ever, " Proud Lucifer, get 
 thee behind me ! 
 Leave me to die in the desert, if only my sin be 
 forgiven " ?
 
 1 6 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 22 
 
 Let me not hoodwink myself. Of the many desires 
 that come thronging — 
 Demons they may be, or angels of brightness, I 
 hardly know which — 
 One I retain unto death, one supreme irresistible 
 longing ; 
 Heaven without it were poor, and earth with it 
 ineffably rich. 
 
 23 
 
 Can it be wrong? It was God, and not I, who 
 created me woman, 
 And on my woman's heart portrayed the nobler 
 ideal of man ; 
 Dowered me with instincts of love, that shall rule till 
 I cease to be human : 
 Shall the Creator require of the creature beyond 
 what she can ?
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 17 
 
 24 
 
 Ah ! but the soft, subtle voice of the Night whispers, 
 " First be thou worthy : 
 Vaunt not thyself till the work of thy hands is 
 . recorded above : 
 Gird thee for labour ; and if, being earthly, thou 
 needs must be earthy, 
 Pray that through Duty alone thou attain to the 
 pleasaunce of love."
 
 1 8 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 II. 
 
 ■pLEASANTLY, almost too pleasantly, blendeth 
 to-day with to-morrow. 
 Hours are as moments : a twinkle of white wings, 
 and, lo, they are gone ! 
 Day bringeth work without bondage, and night 
 bringeth dreams without sorrow : 
 Pleasantly, almost too pleasantly, life is meander- 
 
 mg on.
 
 1. CONVICT ONCE. 19 
 
 2 
 
 Precious my charge, and delightsome : three spirits 
 all joyous and tender — • 
 Children of nature and innocence, breathing the 
 \ freshness of flowers. 
 Love-tokens are they from Paradise, warm from the 
 kiss of the Sender, 
 Blossoms of promise still rich with the glow of the 
 Amaranth Bowers. 
 
 Hyacinth, Lily, and Violet — pleasant conceit of their 
 
 christening : 
 Hyacinth, darkly embowered in the riches of 
 
 clustering curls ; 
 Slenderly delicate Lily, a lily transfigured and glisten - 
 
 ino" ■ 
 
 Violet, lowly and meek, yet the joy of my garlaml 
 of girls.
 
 20 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 4 
 
 Happy their lot — in themselves, in their sire, in a 
 mother's affection ; 
 Happy in mutual love all the merry bright round 
 of the years, 
 Little they reck of the travailing world, with its 
 nameless dejection ; 
 Even their sighs are the surfeit of joy, laughter- 
 laden their tears. 
 
 5 
 
 Lofty things move them to worship ; adoring they 
 wonder, but fear not ; 
 Little things minister pleasure, as ever it fares with 
 the good ; 
 Nature to them utters low subtle voices that other 
 ears hear not ; 
 rvLarvellous harmonies greet them from river, and 
 mountain, and wood.
 
 T. CONVICT ONCE. 21 
 
 6 
 
 Down in umbrageous retreats, chosen haunts by the 
 shadow-flecked river, 
 Drinking dehghts from the murmur of streams and 
 / the flutter of wings, 
 Streams as they murmur, bright wings as they flutter, 
 green leaves as. they quiver, 
 All have strange music for them, and a tale of 
 invisible things. 
 
 Almost I fancy them other than human; great 
 Nature's own daughters. 
 Beings of Fable that only the rapture of Fancy 
 conceives, 
 Naiad-like, laving white feet in the dimpled disturbance 
 of waters, 
 Dryad-like, peering bright-visioned thro' tremulous 
 umbrage of leaves.
 
 CONVICT ONCE. i-art 
 
 Othervvhile mounted on steeds and in madness of 
 motion careering, 
 Fitfully seen thro' far vistas, and mazy divergence 
 of trees; 
 Elfin-revealings of fleetness and liberty sudden 
 appearing, 
 Vanishing whither they list, uncontrolled as the 
 libertine breeze. 
 
 Train them and form them ! Ah me ! it is they who, 
 unconscious, have wrought me 
 Back to the form that I bore when I bloomed as 
 the darling of home. 
 / their preceptress ! Ah me ! with their innocent 
 smiles they have taught me 
 Lessons more glorious than Greece, aspirations 
 more lofty than Rome.
 
 CONVICT ONCE. 
 
 lO 
 
 Mine is the love of dark ages, of empires convulsed 
 and war-wasted, 
 Rapine and bloodshed, the ebb and the flow of 
 ^ perpetual strife ; 
 / of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and of 
 Evil have tasted ; 
 Fitter for them were the fruit of the Tree, angel- 
 guarded, of Life.
 
 24 CONVICT ONCE. 
 
 FART 
 
 III. 
 
 TTYACINTH loves ... I have noted of late the 
 mysterious transition ; 
 Soft silken-footed approaches of something that 
 whispers a change ; 
 Chrysalis-stirrings that herald the fuII-winged and 
 perfected mission ; 
 Timid assumptions of woman-demeanour unwonted 
 and strange ;
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 25 
 
 2 
 
 Beautiful sequence of vermeil suffusions and paleness 
 unbidden ; 
 Dream-lustred eyes that look inward on something 
 \ to others unseen ; 
 Reveries sudden, and maidenly languor, and sighs 
 but half-hidden ; 
 Pensive reserve over-drooping the virginal grace of 
 her mien. 
 
 3 
 
 Saddened, yet listlessly happy; ah, well I remember 
 the token ! 
 Well I remember the oxymel mingling of pleasure 
 and pain ! 
 Some face hath gleamed upon hers, and the sleep of 
 her childhood is broken ; 
 Hardly she knows as yet whether to rise or to 
 slumber again.
 
 26 CONVICT ONCE. i-ar r 
 
 IV. 
 
 "\ 1 T'ANDERING to-day by the river where refuge 
 is greenest and coolest, 
 Watching beneath me the moving mosaic of 
 shadow and sheen, 
 Came I on Hyacinth, radiant, elated, her bloom at 
 the fullest, 
 Rapt, like a vision-filled soul that hath quaffed of 
 divine Hippocrene.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 27 
 
 2 
 
 No need of words to interpret those moist lips 
 half-parted and glowing, 
 Nor the luxurious droop of the eye-lid with 
 ^ pleasure opprest, 
 Nor the strewn ^^•ealth of her tresses, in careless 
 dishevelment flowing, 
 Nor the wann crimson that blushed thro' the 
 gossamer folds on her breast. 
 
 3 
 
 Heedless and hearing not, trance-like — the sun thro' 
 the bowerage above her, 
 Scattering broken effulgence, like largesse of gold, 
 on her charms, — 
 Stood the flushed impress of maidenhood fresh from 
 the kiss of a lover. 
 Fervid in recent release from the passioned 
 entwinement of arms.
 
 28 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 4 
 
 Such I divined, with an eye and an instinct for Love's 
 hidden history ; 
 Thrilled by ineffable sympathies, every sweet token 
 I knew. 
 Gathered in fancy the fluttering threads, and unravelled 
 the mystery, 
 Read, like a scroll, the yet lingering signs of 
 reluctant adieu. 
 
 5 
 
 Lower her eyelids drooped, closing; then rose, and 
 the sensuous present 
 Broke once again into verdure and song, on her 
 eye and her ear ; 
 But the entrancement of vision was gone, and the 
 bloom evanescent 
 Passed into sorrowful paleness, and died in the 
 track of a tear.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 29 
 
 6 
 
 Then, while her ringlets, in silken compliance and 
 rich adaptation, 
 Rounded each movement with graces, as music the 
 J words of a lay. 
 Stooped she a moment, and, fluttering still with Love's 
 sweet trepidation, 
 Caught up a scroll from the grass at her feet, and 
 moved, sighing, away. 
 
 7 
 
 And, till the sun set, empurpling the glorified hills 
 with its splendour. 
 Lone in her chamber sat Hyacinth, writing the 
 words on her soul ; 
 Then, as the glory died, yielding to radiance more 
 softened and tender, 
 Forth from her chamber came Hyacinth, singing 
 the song of the scroll :
 
 30 CONVICT ONCE. tart 
 
 8 
 
 " Ever thou speakest of angels, my love, and I fear 
 me, I fear me, 
 Thou art too heavenly pure to commerce with 
 such grossness as mme." 
 " Angels are lower than God, and when thou art 
 anear me, anear me. 
 Godhead looks into mine eyes, for thy kinship, 
 through grace, is Divine." 
 
 " Ah, but the angels will find thee in sleep, and will 
 take thee, will take thee, 
 Bearing thee far from me, leaving me weary, 
 forsaken, and old." 
 " Yea, but thou likewise shalt sleep, and my singing 
 shall wake thee, shall wake thee, 
 Over the crystalline sea, by the city of jasper and 
 gold."
 
 CONVICT ONCE. 
 
 lO 
 
 " Ah, but the angels are better than I ! and will love 
 thee, will love thee, 
 Teaching thee music I know not, and whispering 
 ^ secrets of bliss." 
 " Yea, but though angels, no angel I'll cherish above 
 thee, above thee ; 
 Nought, till thou come to thy love, save the feet of 
 my God, shall I kiss." 
 
 II 
 
 " Ah, but the angels, the iris-winged angels, will hate 
 me, will hate me. 
 Soiled with the touch of corruption, and swathed 
 in the cerements of sin." 
 " Nay, at the glistening portals of pearl I'll await thee, 
 await thee. 
 Bearing thee radiant attire for the joy of thine 
 entering in."
 
 32 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 12 
 
 "Ah, but the angels, the aurioled angels, adoring, 
 adoring, 
 Will they not mock us, faint-quiring the notes of 
 our penitent strain ? " 
 " Nay, for our hymns have a theme of Redemption, 
 high-soaring, high-soaring. 
 Far o'er the music of angels, the song of the Lamb 
 that Avas slain.'' 
 ****** 
 
 "Where hath she learned it?" quoth one ; and "Who 
 wrote it ? who gave it ? " another : 
 Hyacinth answered with silvery laughter, and sought 
 her lone room. 
 " Surely my child has some secret at heart," said the 
 wondering mother. 
 I alone knew why she brooked not the question of 
 whence or by whom.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. n 
 
 All the night-long in her slumber I heard the 
 unconscious out-pouring 
 Of her young spirit in jubilant thoughts from the 
 J dream-broken strain ; 
 Ever she murmured — " a theme of Redem2:)tion high- 
 soaring, high-soaring, 
 Far o'er the music of angels, the song of the Lamb 
 that was slain."
 
 34 
 
 CONVICT ONCE. takt 
 
 V. 
 
 " PLEASANTLY," said I ? Yea, pleasantly. 
 Three summer months of contentment, 
 Bright with bright faces, and sweet with sweet 
 voices, or sleeping in smiles. 
 Here the green earth is the heaven-domed temple of 
 poet's presentment, 
 Manifold harmonies rolling for ever thro' long 
 forest aisles.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 35 
 
 2 
 
 Softly I've moved through the time with the echo-less 
 footfalls of Duty, 
 Wearing the garments of meekness and schooling 
 . \ my heart to constraint, 
 Shunning my mirror for dread of the slumbering 
 demon of Beauty : 
 Puritan I in my plainness of garb, in demeanour 
 a saint. 
 
 3 
 
 All I resolved I have done much in spirit, and 
 wholly in letter ; 
 Faultless my conduct and converse . . . but where 
 is the sign of return ? 
 See, I have prisoned my life in routine till my soul is 
 no better ' 
 
 Than the grey ashes that lie in the coldly- 
 symmetrical urn.
 
 36 CONVICT ONCE. I'Akt 
 
 4 
 
 Am I then weary of well-doing, deeming it fruitless 
 endurance ? 
 Nay, but my spirit is cloyed with the feast of 
 perpetual sweets. 
 I was not moulded for peace, or the dreamless repose 
 of assurance. 
 Oh, I am faint with the opiate breath of these 
 woodland retreats ! 
 
 5 
 This is not life, to be bowed in the heart-hush of 
 worship for ever, 
 Softly asleep on my shadow to glide o'er a 
 summer-lit sea. 
 Life is not passionless calm, but the turbid delight of 
 the river. 
 Give me the billowy Jordan ! . . . enough now of 
 blue Galilee.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 37 
 
 6 
 
 All my young dream was of heroes ; my plaj- was 
 Olympian frolic, 
 Venus, Minerva, Alecto, alternate — love, wisdom, 
 \ and gall. 
 What is the mood of my life-music now ? Why, a 
 piping bucolic. 
 Babbling melodious of pastoral peace and content ; 
 that is all. 
 
 Soul cannot march to the bleating of sheep and the 
 lowing of cattle. 
 Rather the war-blast were thrilling again in mine 
 ears ! 
 Oh for a touch of the palpitant world \ for the glory 
 of battle ! 
 Show me once more the proud wave of the 
 banners, the gleam of the spears !
 
 38 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 8 
 
 What would I conquer ? Myself? So I might; but 
 such war were inglorious'. 
 How should it yield me the rapture that only the 
 conqueror feels ? 
 What were the spoils of the slain ? To what Capitol 
 march when victorious ? 
 Whom should I drag thro' the dust, captive-bound 
 at my chariot-wheels ? 
 
 Oh, I am sick of unlaurelled self-conquest ! A region 
 fire-smitten 
 Lies at the feet of the victor, unworthy the cost of 
 the strife. 
 What is the fruit of my summer of meekness ? 
 Behold, I have written ! 
 Ink ! where the blood should have been, and the 
 dust of the battle of Hfe !
 
 CONVICT ONCE. 39 
 
 TO 
 
 Stay. Let me question myself. Whence this change 
 of mood ? Yesterday only 
 All in my heart was the hush of the temple, 
 \ conventual calm. 
 Yesterday quickening Nature sufficed me ; alone, but 
 not lonely. 
 Breathing concordant with all things, embraced in 
 the infinite psalm. 
 
 II 
 
 Now all this musical silence but frets me. I live, but 
 I sing not. 
 Save in harsh discords that jar with the tender 
 discourse of the flowers. 
 Soft airs are wooing my brow with their winnowing 
 wings, but they bring not 
 Tribute of hope. Time's too smooth, and I chafe 
 at the impotent hours.
 
 40 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 12 
 
 What hath unfellowed me thus from the spirits of 
 beauty beside me ? 
 Why do I turn from the honey of Hfe to the 
 blood-kindHng wine ? 
 Yesterday, heaven was opened : I saw, but its bliss 
 was denied me, 
 Saw it in Hyacinth's eyes with the Demon of Envy 
 in mine. 
 
 13 
 
 Even as she passed from my sight, while the branches 
 yet shook from her presence. 
 Rose in unblest resurrection the sepulchred passions 
 of yore. 
 / to go dreaming of life while this novice is drinking 
 its essence ! 
 / to be almost content with the dregs, while htr 
 cup runneth o'er !
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 41 
 
 Say, were an angel cast down by mischance at the 
 great consummation, 
 Would not his sharpest distress be the gleam of his 
 I home in the skies ? 
 Even the shadow of heaven were worse torment than 
 hell's conflagration : 
 What then for me was the reflex of Eden in 
 Hyacinth's eyes ! 
 
 Shut out from life and from love by hard circumstance, 
 not from unmeetness, 
 Can I untempted look on while another sits down 
 to the feast ? 
 Why must I drag through the hours when this 
 Hyacinth leaps to completeness. 
 Leaps to her queenly meridian, still flushed with 
 the roseate east ?
 
 42 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 i6 
 
 " It is because thou hast sinned." Oh emaci.ate 
 ghost of repentance ! 
 Thou here again with thine offerings of sackcloth, 
 and ashes, and tears ! 
 Pointing thy skeleton finger at Law ! See, I 
 point to the Sentence, 
 Paid to the uttermost farthing by weary fulfilment 
 of years. 
 
 What then ? Shall envy inherit me wholly ? A 
 thousand times Never. 
 It hath but waked me once more from the spell 
 of a somnolent hour, 
 Stirred up the thorns in the nest, struck a spur in 
 the flank of endeavour : 
 I am the old self again. I am. . . . Na}-, I am 
 Magdalen Power.
 
 CONVICT ONCE. 43 
 
 vr. 
 
 O TRANGERS to-day ; a momentous event in 
 this slumb'rous seclusion : 
 Lily and Violet sadly impatient of jjrecept and 
 books : 
 Hyacinth calmer, but fluttering dove-like with pretty 
 confusion ; ^' 
 
 Something of mystery, too, in those quick interro- 
 gative looks.
 
 44 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 2 
 
 " Are they from far ? " I ask carelessly. " Not from a 
 very great distance," 
 Violet answers ; " but oh 1 'tis so seldom they visit 
 us now. 
 There was a quarrel, you know," she continues with 
 prattling persistence, 
 All unaware of the shadow that gathers on 
 Hyacinth's brow. 
 
 " Something I don't understand, about cattle, and 
 buying, and selling ; 
 Arthur Trevelyan was rude, and dropped words 
 about ' ill-gotten gear ' ; 
 Father was angered, and said that no Convict should 
 darken his dwelling : 
 But he repented, and wrote to both father and son ; 
 so they're here.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 45 
 
 4 
 
 "What is a Convict?" she asks me ; " Trevelyan's a 
 Convict, they tell me. 
 It must be something, I'm sure, to be proud of, if 
 \ Raymond is one." 
 Ah, cruel question that would to my own definition 
 compel me ! 
 Hyacinth comes to my rescue : " A Convict ! 
 Young Raymond is none ! 
 
 5 
 
 " Tell me," she said, and I mark the unwonted and 
 quivering passion, 
 " Can it be just that a son should inherit a father's 
 disgrace ? " 
 Gladly I catch at the turn of the theme, and repl)', 
 " 'Tis a fashion 
 That were best honoured by breach." There's 
 a story in Hyacinth's face.
 
 46 CONVICT ONCE. i'akt 
 
 VII. 
 
 /^FT hath it pleased me in day-dream and night- 
 watch to mould an ideal : 
 Is not my heart-wish incarnate, new-risen or dropt 
 from above ? 
 One sudden gleam of a tace, and my cherished ideal 
 is real I 
 There moved my miracle, there passed my Fate, 
 whom to see is to love !
 
 1. CONVICT ONCE. 47 
 
 2 
 
 Somewhere I've read that the gods, waxing wroth at 
 our mad importunity, 
 Hurl us our boon, and it falls with the weight of a 
 . curse at our feet : 
 Perilous thing to intrude on their lofty Olympian 
 immunity ! 
 " Take it, and die," say the gods, and we die of 
 our fondest conceit. 
 
 3 
 
 Is it so now with myself? I have riven the night- 
 watches asunder. 
 Murmuring "Give me to see him," and fretting 
 the beautiful skies. 
 Lo, I have seen him ! And now, I shrink, 
 trembling with impotent wonder. 
 Pondering, Is it the blessing I craved, or a curse in 
 disguise ?
 
 48 CONVICT OXCE. part 
 
 4 
 
 Yes, I have seen him ; and envious murmur and 
 fretful rebelUon 
 Pause as I muse on a possible future, and gird uj) 
 ni}' strength. 
 How my wild spirit was hushed when I looked on 
 this Ra}TTiond Trevelyan ! 
 Prince of my dreams, by the throb of this heart, 
 thou art come — come at length !
 
 CONVICT ONCE. 49 
 
 VIII. 
 
 T~>|OWN in the vines he is sitting, the fruitage 
 leaf-shadowed above him 
 Lending concomitant charm to the ripeness that 
 flushes his cheek. 
 There is the glory of summer about him. I see 
 him, and love him, 
 Asking not why. I but know that the strong one 
 is come to the weak. 
 
 D
 
 50 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 2 
 
 Down in the vines he is sitting; and radiance leaf- 
 softened and golden 
 On the broad calm of his brow through the veil of 
 the vintage is shed. 
 Blest be each bough that enshrines him ! Henceforth 
 I am ever beholden 
 Unto the slenderest, tenderest leaflet that shelters 
 his head. 
 
 3 
 
 Down in the vines he is sitting ; I see him leaf-circled 
 and Faun-like, 
 Such as I've seen in my dreams, in like halo of 
 amber and green, 
 With those same love-seeking glances, so placidly, 
 dreamily, dawn-like, 
 Quiet as the birth of the dew, as the star of the 
 morning serene.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 51 
 
 4 
 
 Dream, heart, no more of thy lyre-lauded heroes, and 
 demi-gods storied ! 
 Open tliine eyes on the breathing fulfilment of 
 \ beauty and strength ! 
 Down in the vines he is sitting ; I see him leaf-girt, 
 and leaf-gloried ; 
 Prince of my dreams, by the throb of this heart, 
 thou art come — come at length I
 
 52 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 IX. 
 
 /^NLY two syllables uttered — "Goodnight;" a 
 conventional pressure — 
 Nay, not so much — a mere meeting of finger-tips 
 formally deigned. 
 Nothing for heart to interpret ; no look to remember 
 and treasure : 
 Lovingly courteous to others ; to me alone coldly 
 constrained.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 53 
 
 2 
 
 Yet he is mine. I have marked him for mine. 
 Am I fantasy's minion ? 
 Slave to a self-born philosophy ? victim of doating 
 ; conceit? 
 Or, am I privileged priestess, beholding dark things 
 Eleusinian, 
 Piercing the thought of the gods, and fore-casting 
 the way of their feet ? 
 
 3 
 
 Gods, gods, and gods ! I am weary of gods ! I have 
 looked on humanity, 
 Living, and breathing, and glowing, and burning, 
 limb, body, and face ! 
 Time that my dreams become touch, that I cease 
 from this bodiless vanity, 
 Wistfully rounding my vacuous arms to the shape 
 of embrace !
 
 54 
 
 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 X. 
 
 /^VER my mirror. 'Tis time that I look to my 
 weapons and armour. 
 Keener than ever, I fancy, the penetrant edge of 
 my glance. 
 I can remember a fuller-orbed cheek, and a rose- 
 blushing warmer ; 
 But on my brow is no line sorrow-furrowed, no 
 wake of mischance.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 55 
 
 2 
 
 Loves he dark tresses, I wonder, in sinuous subtlety 
 twining ? 
 Loves he dark eyes, fired witli love, and star- 
 \ sympathied passion of night ? 
 Loves he the long drooping eye-lash, half secret half 
 story combining ? 
 Loves he the lithe grace of undulous ease, and 
 imperial height ? 
 
 This is the reflex of beauty I gaze on, the beauty 
 I've hidden, 
 Most from myself, and have struggled thro' years of 
 control to forget. 
 Deeming it e'en as a perilous thing, and a weapon 
 forbidden. 
 Piercing the hand of the user, and dealing but 
 shame and regret.
 
 56 CONVICT ONCE. fart 
 
 4 
 
 Wherefore should beauty be e^■il ? and that which in 
 liHes and roses 
 Men deem most gracious and holy be fatal in 
 woman alone ? 
 Why should the flower seek the light, while the 
 woman in cloister reposes, 
 Sealed do\vn by vows from the eyes that were made 
 to drink love at her own ? 
 
 5 
 
 Beauty, like Knowledge, is Power; what of Beauty 
 and Knowledge colleaguing, 
 (iuided by keen-visioned Prudence to work to one 
 ultimate goal ? 
 Not Cleopatra herself, 'mid the lurements of Tarsus 
 intriguing, 
 Boasted this tri-une endowment concluded in body 
 and soul.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 57 
 
 6 
 
 Not as my past is my present. No more as a child 
 shall I stumble, 
 Hastening the end by false measures, and grasping 
 J the fruit immature : 
 I shall be patient. The time may be long, and the 
 means may be humble, 
 But he is mine ; I have marked him for mine ; and 
 the triumph is sure. 
 
 This idle curl that I smooth even now betwixt finger 
 and finger 
 Silkenly circling his own shall he press upon 
 amorous lips ; 
 Yea, on the yielding delight of this breast shall that 
 conquered head linger. 
 And 'neath the veil of these tresses lie hid in 
 enamoured eclipse.
 
 58 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 8 
 
 But my lamp pales as I gaze ; and I feel the weird 
 tremor that thrilleth 
 •Brain, heart, and limb, when the night seems to 
 yield up its soul unto day. 
 Now to mine orisons. Shall I then speak as the 
 spirit not willeth ? 
 Nay: I must couch me unshriven. To-night I am 
 powerless to pray.
 
 CONVICT ONCE. 59 
 
 XI. 
 
 "\1[ /"AS it a chance or a Providence brought me 
 once more to the river ? 
 Wandering whither I knew not, and cared not, I 
 came as before 
 Unto the spot. It was ever my solace to wander; 
 and ever 
 Seem I allured to the stream : for the rush and the 
 musical roar,
 
 6d convict once. part 
 
 2 
 
 Rhyming and chiming in mystic agreement with that 
 which works in me, 
 Bravely concording Avith thoughts of wild action 
 and furious delight, 
 Win me from baleful contentment, from dreamy 
 oblivion win me, 
 Call me to live and to dare, re-endow me with 
 motion and might. 
 
 3 
 
 How I have smiled at my school-bred compatriots 
 languidly viewing 
 Ivy-clad relics caducous, and morbidly learned in 
 decay ! 
 Give me the bountiful rush of my river, its ever- 
 renewing 
 Life and festivity, song, dance, and revel by night 
 and by day !
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 6i 
 
 4 
 
 Surely 'twas this and not espionage guided my fanciful 
 wandering, 
 Drew me thro' bosky entanglement e'en to the 
 { ripple-wooed marge ; 
 Couched me in ready concealment, and set me 
 conjecturing, pondering, 
 Ever on life, and on my life ; when, lo, by the 
 mangroves a barge 
 
 5 
 
 Fairy-like, noiselessly ghding ! Or ever I saw 
 him I knew him. 
 Knew by the sudden rebound of my blood, and the 
 quiver of limb ! 
 Knewytoo, that rustling of leaves, and the gleam of 
 white vesture that drew him 
 Unto the haven appointed — the heaven of Hyacinth 
 and him.
 
 62 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 6 
 
 Then the old story, the Adam-old story, the Eve-old 
 love story : 
 Rapture of lips, and entwining of arms, and 
 commingling of sighs, 
 Heart-to-heart clingings, and glad jets of tears ; all the 
 glow and the glory 
 Of a ripe summer of love sunned in splendour of 
 amorous eyes. 
 
 7 
 Was it in generous forbearance I bore me so calmly, 
 so mildly, 
 Marking the kiss-dented lips, and sweet license of 
 zephyr-blown hair ? 
 Who could have dreamed of young Hyacinth clasping 
 and clinging so wildly ? 
 She of the angels ! In sooth such embracement is 
 not of the air.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 63 
 
 8 
 
 Well : 'tis enough. A new obstacle. Sometimes the 
 ghost of it haunted me, 
 Breathing on sparks of suspicion that now are 
 I enkindled to flame. 
 Phantom no more : I have seen, and the glare of the 
 truth hath not daimted me ; 
 Truly, forewarned is forearmed, and I grow but the 
 more to mine aim. 
 
 She is a child ; I a woman ; and he ! could he fill up 
 the measure 
 Of the great longing I read in his eyes with a kiss 
 
 or a song? 
 
 Greatness of heart soon outgrows the milk-dainties of 
 infantile pleasure. 
 Weak silly-winning young ways are poor wiles for 
 
 the wise and the strong.
 
 64 CONVICT ONCE. tart 
 
 lO 
 
 It is not ivy he needeth, the boughs of his manhood 
 caressing, 
 Ivy that drains what it clings to, and sappeth the 
 hfe of the tree. 
 It is the earth for the roots, and the blood of the 
 storm, and the blessing 
 Wrapt in the rolling of vapours, and born of the 
 sun and the sea. 
 
 II 
 
 These would I give him, a closer embrace than poor 
 parasite clinging, 
 Being his meat, and his drink, and his strength, and 
 his light, and his breath ! 
 Is not this better than daintiest love-lore of sighing 
 and singing ? 
 Hyacinth ! Hyacinth ! It is not you, it is I 
 . . . his till death !
 
 CONVICT ONCE. 65 
 
 12 
 
 Yea, though I saw you to-day in the rapture of 
 parasite-clinging, 
 Luring the strength from his heart, and suspiring a 
 } mutual breath, 
 Practising daintiest love-lore of kissing, and sighing, 
 and singing, 
 Hyacinth ! Hyacinth ! ... it is not you ... it is 
 I . . . his till death !
 
 66 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 XII. 
 
 T ET me be justified in my own sight. She is 
 young, and before her 
 Lies all the wide world to choose from. Would 
 God that it were so with me ! 
 Hers is blind impulse : she cannot have chosen : and 
 Raymond reigns o'er her 
 Only by right of first comer. Not such would my 
 fealty be !
 
 CONVICT ONCE. 67 
 
 Not with the eye of a child do I measure those 
 opulent merits — 
 Frame of Antinous, utterance of Pericles, heart of 
 I " The Just." 
 All the more mine do I claim him because of the 
 taint he inherits : 
 This were a shame unto her in high places of 
 blue-veined disgust. 
 
 3 
 
 Shall I invoke higher motives, and sanction my 
 purpose by duty ? 
 Well, an I would, so I might, and no more than 
 my duty fulfil. 
 Am not I Hyacinth's keeper, aedile of this temple of 
 beauty, 
 Bound by my service and honour to watch and to 
 guard? . . . And I luill.
 
 68 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 XIII. 
 
 T INGER, oh Sun, for a little, nor close yet this 
 day of a million ! 
 Is there not glory enough in the rose-curtained halls 
 of the West ? 
 Hast thou no joy in the passion-hued folds of thy 
 kingly pavilion ? 
 Why shouldst thou only pass through it? Oh 
 rest thee a little while, rest 1
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 69 
 
 2 
 
 Why should the Night come and take it, the wan 
 Night that cannot enjoy it, 
 Bringing pale argent for golden, and changing 
 J vermilion to grey ? 
 Why should the Night come and shadow it, entering 
 but to destroy it ? 
 Rest 'mid thy ruby-trailed splendours ! Oh stay 
 thee a little while, stay ! 
 
 3 
 
 Rest thee at least a brief hour in it ! 'Tis a right 
 royal pavilion. 
 Lo, there are thrones for high dalliance all 
 gloriously canopied o'er ! 
 Lo, there are hangings of purple, and hangings of 
 blue and vermilion, 
 And there are fleeces of gold for thy feet on the 
 diapered floor !
 
 70 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 4 
 
 Linger, a little while linger. To-morrow my heart 
 may not sing to thee : 
 This shall be Yesterday, numbered with memories, 
 folded away. 
 Now should my flesh- fettered soul be set free ! I 
 would soar to thee, cling to thee, 
 And be thy rereward Aurora, pursuing the skirts of 
 To-day ! 
 
 S 
 
 Shall I not doat on to-day that hath brought me the 
 earnest of blessing, 
 Young buds of friendship whose promise the 
 comins of time shall fulfil ? 
 First the green blade ; then the ear, from the green "to 
 the yellow progressing ; 
 Then the full corn in the ear, golden-waving, to 
 reap when I will.
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 7i 
 
 6 
 
 For, as it fell out to-day, I was sought and was found 
 of young Raymond ; 
 And he hath told me his story, beseeching my 
 , counsel and aid : 
 Closest of friends, we are Pythias out-Pythias'd and 
 Damon out-Damon'd ; 
 Man unto man is as nought to our friendship of* 
 young man and maid. 
 
 7 
 All this is well. It is something to nourish a secret 
 between us. 
 All this is well. There are meetings, and moon- 
 light and star-light in store. 
 Ah, my poor "mournful CEnone,'' dost think there is 
 pity in Venus 
 When she contends with her peers for the prize ? 
 Such have I, and no more.
 
 72 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 8 
 
 This is not new in the love-!ore of woman — love's 
 messenger pleading 
 Subtly and warily, making the cause of another her 
 own ; 
 Skilfully pouring in shaft upon shaft, till the love that 
 lies bleeding 
 Turns to the smiter for help, and finds rest in her 
 bosom alone. 
 
 9 
 
 Didst thou not dream then, my love, when I proffered 
 a guerdonless traffic 
 'Twixt that poor dove and thyself, that thy trust was 
 most sweetly beguiled ? 
 Didst thou then deem me so icy-angelic, so snowy- 
 seraphic. 
 That I but gazed on thine eyes to reflect back 
 their light on a child ?
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 73- 
 
 TO 
 
 Ah mc ! this turmoil of heart ! Is it truly a change 
 for the better ? 
 Once I remember a setting of sun, yea, and 
 / settings of suns. 
 Which I all-hailed, when-as warder, and order, and 
 grating, and fetter. 
 Passed into darkness and silence — twin-heaven of 
 the spirit that shuns. 
 
 11 
 
 Daylight and audible life. Oh my soul ! the delight, 
 the delicious 
 Pressing together of arms, and up-gathering of 
 knees to the chin, 
 And the spent air breathed for warmth 'twixt the 
 breasts, Avhile the darkness propitious 
 Softer than wool wrapt me round with a dreamless 
 oblivion of sin !
 
 74 CONVICT ONCE. tart 
 
 12 
 
 Which is the better?- — the torpid collapse of spent 
 penitence crouching 
 Into the darkness and solitude, hugging the joy of 
 the night, 
 Or the fierce gladness of day that would hinder the 
 sun from his couching, 
 Mad with the bitter-sweet wine of desire, and the 
 pain of delight ? 
 
 13 
 Is there no midway for such one as I am 'twixt being 
 and doing? 
 Is there no choice save the lotus of sleep or the 
 apple of strife ? 
 Is there no bliss that is neither dull rest nor a fevered 
 pursuing ? 
 Is there no twilight dividing the noon-flame and 
 night of my life ?
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 75 
 
 14 
 
 Well, what I am, that I am. It is better to scheme 
 than to slumber. 
 What was this goodness that sometime I strove 
 ^ for? Supineness, constraint, 
 Mortification of spirit, and crosses and thorns without 
 number, 
 Pride in abasement, and sombre complacence of 
 embrj'o saint. 
 
 15 
 
 That is all over ; and, saving some fitful remembrance 
 of pity 
 Piercing the joints of the harness, to break as it 
 reaches the heart. 
 All is as erst . . . Touching Hyacinth, she must to 
 school, to the city. 
 This I advise for her good — for her good (perhaps 
 mine, too, in part).
 
 76 CONVICT ONCE. I'Airi 
 
 XIV. 
 
 ^ FASTNESS of verdurous solitude, forest com- 
 plexity boundless, 
 Where is no stir save the fall of a leaf, or the wave 
 of a wing : 
 
 Lone sunny regions where virginal Nature roams 
 
 ceaseless and soundless, 
 Rich with the richness of summer, yet fresh with 
 the freshness of spring :
 
 I. CONVICT ONCE. 77 
 
 2 
 
 Where is no stir save of leaf in its falling, or bird in 
 its winging, 
 Or the unfrequent sweet idyll low-murmured by 
 , devious streams ; 
 Where is no passion, or sign of desire, save the 
 infantile clinging 
 Of the young tendrils, or opening of flowers to a 
 morning of beams. 
 
 3 
 
 That was but yesterday. Comes a brief journey . . . 
 a sleep . . . and the morrow 
 Wakes on the City, with issuing forth of tumultuous 
 life- 
 Wakes upon quickening footsteps, and faces acquainted 
 with sorrow, 
 Hurried uptaking of burdens, and voices familiar 
 with strife.
 
 78 CONVICT ONCE. 
 
 PART 
 
 Marvel of contrast, that seems like tlie swift incoher- 
 ence of vision ! 
 As peradventure it may be ; for who can say more 
 than " It seems " ? 
 Surely all life is a dream, mis-begot of Olympian 
 derision, 
 And the divided strange courses of men are but 
 dreams within dreams. 
 
 5 
 Let me dream on, then. Of late I confess I have 
 dreamed somewhat pleasantly. 
 Last night I dreamed of a school in a convent. 
 And Hyacinth and I 
 Came to the gate. So we knocked at the gate, and 
 it opened, and presently 
 Hyacinth passed from my sight, and I heard a voice 
 sobbing "Good-bye."
 
 CONVICT ONCE. 79 
 
 Poor little Hyacinth ! But it was better, assuredly 
 better. 
 You'll be too busy to think, and too much with 
 ' the anrels to care. 
 Now you are safe from the freaks of young fantasy — 
 safe as your letter 
 Is not to pass from my hand into his. You'll forget 
 him in there 1
 
 8o CONVICT ONCE. 
 
 PART 
 
 XV. 
 
 T)ACK to my woods; back to Lily and Violet; 
 back to the daily 
 Track of the wheels, and the hidden rotation of 
 wheels within wheels. 
 But there is hush in the home all unwonted. Where 
 three voices gaily 
 Sang to one tune, there is silence, save whispers, 
 and wordless appeals
 
 r. CONVICT ONCE. 8i 
 
 2 
 
 From sad young eyes unto mine, as the last who have 
 seen and have kissed her, 
 Fretting my soul with unspoken entreaty and 
 ^ inquest of truth, 
 Seeming to ask with sharp scrutiny "Wliat hast thou 
 done with our sister ? 
 Art thou more cruel than death, that thou grudgest 
 the years of her youth ?" 
 
 3 
 
 Give me a woman to strive with, a man, or a demon, 
 or angel ! 
 When did I tremble or cringe, when the proud and 
 the strong were my foes ? 
 But from the weaklings of Christ, from the delicate 
 lambs of Evangel, 
 From the lorn looks of young innocents — save me, 
 oh save me from those ! 
 
 F
 
 PART SECOND.
 
 
 "jC* VEN as water to him who thirsts wayfaring, 
 dust-dry and burning, 
 After sore heat and long stumbhng in courses with 
 never .a rill, 
 Weary with counting of ridges, and barren result of 
 much turning, 
 Tempted to curse God and die, let the afterward 
 be what it \vill ;
 
 86 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 2 
 
 Even as the brimming delight of the wine-cup by fair 
 hands commended 
 Unto hot lips that are sanguine from onslaught and , 
 stifif-set from ire, 
 With the undoing of baldrick and habergeon heavy 
 and splendid, 
 Changed for a girth of white arms, and the softness 
 of silken attire ; 
 
 Even as pressure of ministering hands on the fevered 
 and aching 
 Brow of the sorrowful, morrow-full sire and provider 
 of bread, 
 Wherein is grace of sweet solace and peace, and a 
 virtue awaking 
 Unexplained hope, and discernment of bliss all 
 around and o'er-head ;
 
 11. CONVICT ONCE. 87 
 
 4 
 
 Even as green rivage with homestead, rose-garden, 
 and grass-lawn trim-shaven, 
 Unto eyes weary with wide waste of waters and 
 / seething sea-foam, 
 Changing the spirit of heaviness into the joy of the 
 haven, 
 And the long vigils of storm to the rest and 
 observance of home ; 
 
 5 
 Even as the stirring of leaves on the boughs after 
 breathless unbroken 
 Months of dead drought, when the earth is as iron, 
 and heaven as brass, 
 When the rain-argosy cometh, and sendeth a sigh for 
 a token. 
 And there is hope in the flowers, and a wave on 
 the languishing grass ;
 
 88 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 6 
 
 Even as the coming of dawn to the pilgrims in 
 trackless wild places, 
 Lighting up landmarks of old, and confirming his 
 face to the south 
 Zionward, — even to Jerusalem the Golden, where rest 
 is and grace is. 
 Whither he toils, angel-tended, with Songs of 
 Degrees in his mouth ; 
 
 7 
 
 Even as the coming of night to the premature 
 children of labour, 
 Smit to the heart of their youth with the curse 
 of the iron and steel — 
 Night with re-unions of home, or sweet converse of 
 neighbour with neighbour, 
 Proffering the peace of her stars for the wildering 
 whirl of the wheel ;
 
 II. CONVICT ONCE. 89 
 
 8 
 
 Even as all golden moments, all joyance of welcome 
 transition, 
 Gathered from all the wide circuit of life and 
 / concluded in one ; — 
 So to Love's fever and fret, its sore travail and 
 thirsting ambition, 
 Comes what my lips and my heart knew to-day at 
 the set of the sun !
 
 90 CONVICT ONCE. iart 
 
 II. 
 
 TTE is not faithless or fickle, and had he all 
 shamelessly yielded 
 At the first stroke, I had spurned liim, and left 
 him ignobly to die : 
 Or I had dallied a little, and played with the potence 
 I wielded — 
 Kissed him perchance, and then loathed him, and 
 branded his love with a lie.
 
 II. CONVICT ONCE. 91 
 
 2 
 
 I might have gazed on his eyes till the light of 
 allurement had quenched them ; 
 Suffered a violent brief little bondage of manly 
 j embrace ; 
 This way and that way have parted his hair with my 
 fingers, then clenched them, 
 And with the scorn of a woman have smitten him 
 full on the face. 
 
 3 
 
 But he is noble and virtuous, patient of evil appear- 
 
 ance ; 
 
 Charity in him is sovereign ; it suffereth long and 
 
 is kind. 
 " She may seem wholly estranged ; all is darkness ; 
 
 but time bringeth clearance, 
 And I will grope in my darkness, content for her 
 
 sake to be blind."
 
 92 CONVICT ONCE. tart 
 
 Long months of silence, and agonized waiting, and 
 ever-increasing 
 Substance of wonder still found him believing the 
 message would come : 
 Yet not as mine could his suffering be, a hid torture 
 unceasing, 
 Knowing the cause, yea, and bei:ig the cause, and 
 yet wilfully dumb. 
 
 5 
 
 Ah those poor letters of his and of hers ! Like things 
 murdered they haunt me. 
 Dead things have power on me, though with the 
 quick I be fearless and brave. 
 Surely the fire would consume them ! But how if 
 the sight of them daunt me ! 
 And when I open my desk, it would seem as I 
 opened a grave.
 
 II. CONVICT ONCE. 93 
 
 6 
 
 There are some things even I cannot do. False I 
 could not declare her ; 
 Nor could I ruthlessly slander a living love never 
 I Avithdrawn. 
 How could I rail at poor Hyacinth, knowing her 
 purer and fairer 
 In the well-springs of her soul than the opaline 
 deeps of the dawn ? 
 
 7 
 
 Thanks to her father, her blundering father, who 
 spoke of her marriage, 
 Right in the hearing of Raymond, as something 
 quite fixed and at hand : 
 Vulgarly boasted of fortune in store for her, "servants 
 and carriage," 
 And of the change of her name to a name that is 
 known in the land.
 
 94 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 8 
 
 Thanks to her father, who knows not the obstacle, 
 knows not tlie wayward 
 Heart of a girl that no arbiter brooks in the gift 
 of her youth ; 
 Sees not, gold-dazzled, the scorn of the world when 
 December looks Mayward ; 
 Thanks to her father mistaking his easy consent 
 for the truth. 
 
 9 
 
 Hyacinth seen, and admired, and desired — this I 
 knew, and concealed it ; 
 Fain would have shaped it to something, and 
 profited somehow thereby ; 
 Made it available, made her seem saleable, subtly 
 revealed it : 
 Thanks to the old man again, who has saved me 
 the crime of a lie.
 
 ir. CONVICT ONCE. 95 
 
 10 
 
 This was the spark. It was not of my hghting. 
 Mine only to breathe on it. 
 Ready the fuel, long-dried by suspense, to flame 
 I into a hell ! 
 Mine but to watch the dark cauldron of agony bubble 
 and seethe on it. 
 Then to sing soft incantations that loosen and 
 alter the spell. 
 
 II 
 
 Wherefore record them : the wiles and the low- 
 whispered counsel, the honeyed 
 Words of feigned comfort, the maxims of wisdom, 
 the fanning of pride, 
 Praises disguised as dispraise of alliances landed and 
 moneyed — 
 Damning excuses, replete with exposure, while 
 seeming to hide ?
 
 96 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 12 
 
 Wherefore ? There are, and myself am of such, who 
 are slaves to an inward 
 Devil of self- contemplation that drinks its own 
 blood and own breath, 
 Lapping insatiate at all streams alike, be they God- 
 ward or sinward ; 
 Making good evil, bad worse : self-consmning, yet 
 frugal of death. 
 
 13 
 
 Even as the shedder of blood ever fleeing the dread 
 scene of slaughter, 
 Yet by centripetal charm ever drawn to the spot 
 where the hand 
 Points from the shuddering earth, or the sodden 
 white face on the water 
 Stares its unsinking appeal till his days be cut oft" 
 from the land,—
 
 n. CONVICT ONCE. 97 
 
 So do I circle and hover, so flee, and yet circle and 
 hover 
 Round my past deeds, and past purpose, and 
 central arcana of sin. 
 When shall I know the great sigh of relief, the 
 " Thank God, it is over " ? 
 Ah, could I think death were better how soon 
 should I slumber therein ! 
 
 15 
 
 Strange I should love to record what, already too 
 luridly lettered, 
 Burns on the tablets within me in lines of un- 
 quenchable fire. 
 Strange there is respite in singing of self, that the 
 Demon sleeps fettered, 
 When of my passion-strained heart-strings I make 
 me and wake me a lyre. 
 
 G
 
 98 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 i6 
 
 Even as I've seen in fair Italy, where the weird 
 mystical mountain 
 Travailing mightily foams with red ruin from 
 summit to base ; 
 Seen there the cunning in art, ere destruction is 
 quenched at its fountain, 
 Take of the lava, and make of it things of adorn- 
 ment and grace ; 
 
 Yea, of the spume of convulsion make things to be 
 worn on the bosom, 
 Out of the travail of darkness bring issue of beauty 
 to light, 
 Fashion a dove into tenderness, simulate softness 
 of blossom, 
 Or the fair shoulders of Sappho, voluptuous, 
 Parian-white ;
 
 II. CONVICT ONCE. 99 
 
 18 
 
 So do I take of my sin, and my suffering, and labour 
 of passion, 
 Mould them to semblance of beauty of Nature, or 
 classic conceit, 
 Smooth them, and lose me the body of pain in the 
 » sense of the fashion. 
 
 Binding distress itself captive to art in the linking 
 of feet. 
 
 19 
 
 Yet, to re-track all the wiles one by one — nay I 
 cannot, I may not. 
 Under the web is complexity, subtle, and hopeless 
 to trace. 
 Raymond is blameless. How could he be else ! 
 There are things that I say not 
 Which would redeem him in eyes the severest 
 from ban of disgrace.
 
 lOO 
 
 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 III. 
 
 ■pvID not I dream that true happiness 'sat in the 
 throne of attainment, 
 Crowned with the crown of victorious endeavour, 
 and sceptred with palm ? 
 Did not I see Fate herself flower-subdued, and in 
 rosy enchainment, 
 And the importunate problem of life lying stifled 
 in balm ?
 
 II. CONVICT ONCE. loi 
 
 2 
 
 Is it the way of high Heaven to mock us with tokens 
 of favour, 
 Lavish of sunshine to ripen the growth of our 
 dearest device ; 
 Then to deceive us with harvests that nourish not, 
 fruits without savour. 
 Hemlock and hebenon clothed with the semblance 
 of balsam and spice ? 
 
 3 
 
 Is the high God of Evangel more cruel than gods 
 of old fable ? 
 Tantalus only beholds, never touches, the fruit ere 
 it slips : 
 But this Jehovah — He fiUeth our hands with it, 
 heapeth our table ; 
 Then laughs in heaven when it changes to ashes 
 and fire on our lips !
 
 I02 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 4 
 
 Yes ; turn on Heaven ! Call the gods, then the God 
 of gods, scornful and cruel ! 
 Rail at the pitiless Triads that rule us, and mock 
 us, and curse ! 
 Call up thine ancient despair, challenge Nemesis' 
 self to the duel ! 
 Arm thee with Greek old-world blasphemies ! . . . 
 Feel'st thou then better, or worse ? 
 
 5 
 
 Thou hast the wish of thine heart. Would'st have 
 more ? See, 'twixt finger and finger, 
 Lo, how he twineth thy hair, and then lifts it to 
 amorous lips ! 
 See, on the yielding delight of thy breast doth the 
 conquered head linger, 
 And 'neath the veil of thy tresses lies hid in 
 enamoured eclipse !
 
 II. CONVICT ONCE. 103 
 
 6 
 
 Wherefore the fret ? Is it surfeit of pleasure or surfeit 
 of sinning ? 
 Would'st thou have appetite grow with the feeding ? 
 the lust of the eyes 
 Ever renewed with the gazing? And knew'st thou 
 » not from the beginning 
 
 That, when sin hath its desire, the desirableness 
 thereof dies ? 
 
 7 
 
 Is it God's way that in Nature He suffereth His own 
 disappearance, 
 Leaves it to work to its end in the groove of 
 immutable rule ; 
 But that in things of the spirit He willeth direct 
 interference, 
 Giving the crown to the simple, and meting out 
 grace to the fool ?
 
 I04 CONVICT ONCE. tart 
 
 8 
 
 Is this His sovereign and awful prerogative : joy He 
 retaineth 
 Absolute, in His own hands, to bestow, to withhold, 
 to destroy ? 
 What shall it profit a man that he prosper, if joy He 
 restraineth 
 Who can give joy without cause, and a bounteous 
 cause without joy ? 
 
 9 
 
 I am a fool to indulge me in sadness of spirit- 
 communing. 
 Thought is all sadness ; but night is all kindness : 
 the stars are on high. 
 It is the hour. I will rush to him, cling to him, revel 
 to swooning 
 In the dear love of him. Eat, drink, be merry, 
 To-morrow we die !
 
 II. CONVICT ONCE. 105 
 
 IV. 
 
 Tl yHAT have I gained? One grand moment, one 
 moment supreme and delirious. 
 Something hath perished from earth and from 
 heaven since that eve when he spoke : 
 That one prime eve, when the moon was a sun, and 
 the brightness of Sirius 
 Glowed in the tiniest star, and the palpitant 
 
 firmament broke
 
 io6 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 2 
 
 Everywhere into confusion of glory, and sordid 
 conditions, 
 Earthy and palpable, clean fell away from our feet 
 and our eyes, 
 And in the mid air we seemed, ether-fed with unspeak- 
 able visions. 
 And there was none save us twain in the lands, or 
 the seas, or the skies ! 
 
 No^^• is no life at my heart save the life of the serpent 
 that hisses, 
 Coiled round its roots, giving slime for all moisture, 
 and poison for dew. 
 Now I but mourn o'er a grace unrenewed. All in 
 vain do his kisses 
 Press on a passionless cheek, that is cold as the 
 conscience I slew.
 
 II. CONVICT ONCE. 107 
 
 4 
 
 One supreme moment ; no more. And the joy of it 
 died with the using : 
 One subHme bound to the copestone of bliss, then 
 the chilHng recall : 
 
 One sudden sense of a crown, then the sting of the 
 
 \ 
 
 ' thorns of accusmg : 
 
 One sudden draught of the nectar, that turned as 
 I drank into gall. 
 
 What shall I curse ? The poor hands that lie life- 
 lessly lax when he takes them 
 Into his own ? Or the arms that are flaccid and 
 powerless to cling ? 
 Or the set lips without fervour? The eyes whose 
 effulgence forsakes them ? 
 Or the thin, quavering, passionless voice that 
 refuses to sing?
 
 io8 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 6 
 
 There is no good thing, I think, 'neath the sun. And 
 yet somehow it seems to me, 
 When I saw her, that true happiness shone Hke the 
 sun from her face 
 As he drew near to her. GUmpses of Hyacinth 
 come in my dreams to me, 
 Radiant, elated, and clothed with joy as an 
 angel of grace. 
 
 7 
 
 All for young Raymond — my Raymond too ! But 
 there's a curse on my loving ; 
 Curse of an inward recoiling, and curse of an 
 outward decline ; 
 Curse of an outward supineness, and curse of an 
 inward reproving ; 
 Cursed most of all in that memory of intercourse 
 other than mine !
 
 n. CONVICT ONCE. 109 
 
 8 
 
 What shall the end be ? Ah me, my wrecked reason 
 refuseth conclusions. 
 Lacks there but madness to fill up my cup of 
 reproach to the brim ? 
 God ! send me rather the sharp fires of hell than the 
 . reign of delusions ! 
 This is the one thing I ask thee, to slay me ere 
 judgment grow dim !
 
 I lo CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 V, 
 
 "\ 1 /"HY walk we softly and whisper to-day, as if one 
 in a fever 
 Slept, and life lay in the stifling of sound, and the 
 batement of breath ? 
 Know we not well that no step can awake her, no 
 dissonance grieve her? 
 Know we not well the omnipotence of the last 
 febrifuge — Death ?
 
 II. CONVICT ONCE. in 
 
 2 
 
 Surely we know she is dead to our reverence and 
 muffled dissembling, 
 Past all our little proprieties, in unprofanable 
 spheres ; 
 Yet we walk softly, and whisper, and do our least 
 1 office with trembling. 
 As if the vibrating air yet made converse of sound 
 in her ears. 
 
 This is the riddle of Death : while she lived, no such 
 reverent seeming 
 Silkened our ways. She is dead, and we whisper, 
 move softly, and weep ; 
 As if our delicate Avalking would rhyme with the 
 peace of her dreaming, 
 As if the music of whispers would deepen the hush 
 of her sleep.
 
 112 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 4 
 
 Surely we know all must die : yet we cherish and 
 hoard up our reverence, 
 Until the known are unknown; then subside to 
 unechoing feet. 
 Were it not wiser and better to count on the moment 
 of severance, 
 And pay the dues of the tomb in the house, in the 
 mart, in the street ?
 
 CONVICT ONCE. 
 
 VI. 
 
 TTYACINTH'S mother. . . . One question appals 
 me. When spirits are bounded 
 No more by strait circumscription and narrow 
 availment of brain, 
 When they are done with all mediums wherewith 
 our dull nature is rounded, 
 Can they then look, soul to soul, on the secrets 
 of such as remain ? 
 
 H
 
 114 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 2 
 
 Then she knows all ; and my heart like a scroll lieth 
 open before her, 
 And I am read as I am in the merciless noonlight 
 of truth, 
 As the high-priestess of craft, the arch-scorner, the 
 self-god adorer, 
 As the contemner of innocence, and the deceiver 
 of youth ! 
 
 3 
 
 Hush ! This is dotage of morbid timidity, fruit of 
 long waking. 
 Offspring of death-bed anxieties, weak suicidal 
 despair. 
 I will throw off superstition, arise when the daylight 
 is breaking, 
 Look on the body, and touch it, and breathe in 
 the death-laden air.
 
 11. CONVICT ONCE. 115 
 
 4 
 
 I will be friendly with death, and familiarly handle 
 and think of it, 
 Call its deep peace a delight, and its etiolation 
 a grace. 
 Surely 'tis wise now and then just to sip at the cup 
 ' ere we drink of it, 
 
 Wise to strip Doom of its terror by looking it full 
 in the face.
 
 ii6 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 VII. 
 
 T O, where it lies, not yet wholly cut off from the 
 land of the living. 
 What is there in it should haunt me, and thrill 
 with mysterious awe ? 
 Is it not matter as I am, obedient to sunlight, and 
 giving 
 Even in its shadow the tenebrous token of natural 
 law?
 
 11. CONVICT ONCE. ii; 
 
 Yea, by the shadow it casts one might reckon the 
 hour of the morning. 
 It is then subject of time, and the changing 
 relations of space. 
 Is it then other than I, save the fashion of outward 
 » adorning. 
 
 Other than I, save the shroud, and the flowers, and 
 the hue of the face ? 
 
 Oh, who will read me this Death ! Who will read me 
 this stranger Life-mystery, 
 Pierce to its primary subtlety, seize it, and drag it 
 to light. 
 Show me its essence, its fount, its transmission, its 
 law, and its history ! 
 Oh who will teach me what Day is, ere yet I go 
 down unto Night !
 
 u8 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 Ever the problem besets me, in labour, in sorrow, in 
 laughter : 
 Mystery of mysteries, too wide for conception, too 
 deep and too high ! 
 Imbecile ! What doth it profit to gaze on the mists 
 of Hereafter ! 
 Turn me away from them. Eat, drink, be merry, 
 To-morrow we die !
 
 II. CONVICT ONCE. 119 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A H, but to-morrow we die not. For morrow, and 
 morrow on morrow, 
 Each with a cry of awakening, and stretching 
 importunate hands. 
 Rending the garments of sleep, and unveiHng new 
 danger and sorrow, 
 Bursts on the soul of the schemer, and bids it take 
 heed how it stands.
 
 I20 CONVICT ONCE. par r 
 
 2 
 
 Hyacinth cometh. No delegate Fury ni wrath 
 unrelenting 
 Ever tracked mortal as tracks me the pallid 
 reproach of her face. 
 Yet even one tear is denied me. I find me no place 
 for repenting, 
 Cast forth all lawless and lonesome beyond the 
 attraction of grace. 
 
 Oh, there are deep and dark places on earth where I 
 fain would be lying, 
 Fain would be sleeping unrecked of, and hidden 
 away from the sun, 
 Where is no next, and no imminent, where even 
 deadi is past dying, 
 Where is no doing or undoing, where all is done 
 and undone 1
 
 11. CONVICT ONCE. 121 
 
 4 
 
 What have I done that the heaven frowneth o'er me, 
 and earth reeleth under ! 
 Hypocrite heaven, and hypocrite earth, as if sin 
 were yet young, 
 And it be-hoved you to trumpet the marvel with 
 ,' tempest and thunder ! 
 Ye who have smiled upon sin since the song of 
 Creation was sung ! 
 
 Have ye not smiled upon all the seven sins, yea, on 
 seventy times seven, 
 That ye must blare out your wrath at my deeds 
 with tempestuous din ? 
 Were ye not glowing in greenness, oh earth, and in 
 azure, oh heaven. 
 When the fair hand of our mother was laid on the 
 key-note of sin ?
 
 122 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 6 
 
 Was your complaining thus thunderous, the hue of 
 your vesture thus sable, 
 When the fell Serpent hissed hideous triumph with 
 pestilent breath ? 
 Were ye so fruitful of gloom when the life-blood of 
 innocent Abel 
 Wrote on the flowers of the field the first line of 
 the annals of death ? 
 
 AVhere were your flood-gates of anger when Ammon 
 encompassed Uriah, 
 Victim of lust, in the fore-front of battle fell prone 
 to the earth ? 
 Hid ye your beauty with sackcloth and weeping when 
 Queen Athaliah 
 Spared not the innocent souls whose one crime was 
 the fount of their birth ?
 
 u. CONVICT ONCE. 123 
 
 8 
 
 Can I not picture you glorious in verdure, and azure, 
 and amber, 
 When the proud Tullia swerved not her wheels 
 from the corse of her sire ? 
 Can I not conjure the sunshine that gilded the 
 porphyry chamber, 
 When the blind son of Irene lay moaning his 
 eyelids of fire ? 
 
 9 
 
 Ha, ye must flash ! ye must bellow ! Yet have ye no 
 potence to scare me. 
 Full in the face of your fury I tell you my life is 
 my own ; 
 And I shall end it to-day, let your thunderous futility 
 dare me 
 Even as it will. I am I — I am mine. God-for- 
 saken, alone !
 
 124 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 lO 
 
 Yea, and I know it is sin, and as sin I yet dare it, 
 and do it. 
 Death is a light thing, and death is your inmost, 
 your utmost, your all ! 
 And if the wages of sin is but death, see, I crave it, 
 I sue it ; 
 Sue it as wages, for worse thing than life is can 
 never befall. 
 
 II 
 
 Oh for the Sea ! 'Twere so easy to cease in its 
 yielding embracement, 
 Caught like a rain-drop, and merged in the huge- 
 ness of infinite rest, 
 Only the laugh of a ripple o'erbubbling the dimpled 
 displacement. 
 Then the great level of calm, and the hush of the 
 passionless breast.
 
 II. CONVICT ONCE. 125 
 
 12 
 
 Curse on tlios® undulous pastures, and far-vista'd 
 woods unavailing, 
 Scant of contiguous umbrage, unmeet for the tomb 
 that I crave ! 
 Oh for the dark-curtained sleep of the Sea, for her 
 
 L' 1 Ti r 1 n/" 1 1 n 1 ^4 I I 1 1 ^ . 
 
 kindly, unfailing 
 
 End of all dolorous things in the bliss of the kiss 
 of the wave ! 
 
 13 
 
 Would that my oft-haunted river were deep as the 
 concave of ocean, 
 Tideless as Pontus, and true to the secrets of 
 final despair ! 
 God ! it would wake me, methinks, to be dragged 
 in its libertine motion ; 
 Stranded, perchance, to be flouted once more by 
 the sun and the air.
 
 126 CONVICT ONCE. 
 
 I do remember that once in my wanderings I noted 
 a lakelet, 
 Strangely sequestered, and high on a ridge un- 
 frequented and steep. 
 Green things lapped lovingly of it, and lightly in 
 many a flakelet 
 Floated shed tribute of lilies thereon, a sweet 
 refuge — and deep. 
 
 15 
 
 Thither I'll hie me, and lay down my burden of sin 
 
 * 
 
 and of sorrow ; 
 Cast me therein with one instant and ultimate 
 thrill of release ; 
 And the great world shall go round to renewing of 
 days ; but to-morrow 
 I shall be deep in the heart of the hills, at the 
 centre of peace !
 
 I 
 
 PART THIRD.
 
 TT was a fever, they tell me: to me 'twas a sleep 
 and a waking ; 
 Yet not a sleep without dreams : if indeed they 
 were dreams that I saw. 
 Never, I think, shall I call it a dream : but the truth 
 and the breaking 
 Up of all dreams, and a glimpse of superlative 
 being and law.
 
 I30 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 2 
 
 fl 
 
 Sweet, passing sweet, is this light of the morning, by 
 green leaves made tender, 
 Tender and mellowed on lids fever-folded, yet sick 
 of repose ; 
 Even as this leaf-mellowed glow to the flood of 
 meridian splendour, 
 So is the life that we live to the life that such 
 visions disclose. 
 
 Sweet is this dance of the shadows of leaves on my 
 coverlet, ever 
 Shifting and changing, yet silent, impalpable, fret- 
 ting no fold ; 
 Even as this shadowy dance to the forest's tumultuous 
 quiver, 
 So is the life that we live to the life that in vision 
 is told.
 
 III. CONVICT ONCE. 131 
 
 As I lie here on the dubious bank betwixt waking and 
 slumber, 
 Life on earth seems but a window that straitens 
 our view of the skies ; 
 And all our fluttering joys and life's things of desire 
 without number 
 Are but the lattice-leaves, tempering God's light to 
 our infantile eyes. 
 
 5 
 
 I have beheld what hath changed me, I know not in 
 body or spirit, 
 Far in a region where leagues are no measure, and 
 time is no bound ; 
 Up in the realms imperturbable, which the high 
 spirits inherit ; 
 Out of the reach of all seasons; beyond the last 
 echo of sound.
 
 132 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 6 
 
 First there came one like a storm-cloud, and bore me 
 high up on a mountain, 
 Showed me the kingdoms of earth, and the glory- 
 thereof, and the power ; 
 
 Ope'd me the well-springs of Love, drew the wine of 
 
 Desire from its fountain : 
 "Bow down and worship," it said, "and all this 
 will I give for thy dower." 
 
 7 
 
 Then came, all star-girt, another, and caught me 
 away, and I know not 
 Whither he bore me, because of the pure inacces- 
 sible ray, 
 Save that it was in the land where the beams of 
 eternity flow not 
 From, any sun, and no morning or evening divideth 
 the day.
 
 III. CONVICT ONCE. m 
 
 8 
 
 As in a chrysolite sea I beheld the great cycles of 
 story, 
 Circling and widening afar at each pulse of the 
 will of the King : 
 But where I stood there was darkness that marred 
 » the immaculate glory; 
 
 Shadowed therein I beheld me, a guilty and shud- 
 dering thing. 
 
 And while I stood all estranged, without welcome, or 
 greeting, or token. 
 There was a voice in my soul, " Thou must weep, 
 if thy spirit would live." 
 Came a great longing for tears, and the spell of the 
 vision was broken. 
 And on my bed I lay tremulous, weeping, and 
 crying, " Forgive ! "
 
 134 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 10 
 
 Lo, by my side, all in white ! it was Hyacinth, fair 
 as the morning ; 
 And on her face were the meekness and peace of 
 an angel of heaven. 
 Keener than anger is pity, and love than the weapons 
 of scorning ! 
 Lifting her finger, she smote me with — " Hush ! 
 All is known, and forgiven."
 
 III. CONVICT, ONCE. 135 
 
 II. 
 
 T ITTLE by little the tale of the stroke and the 
 fever I gather, 
 As I lie bridging oblivion, and weaving her words 
 into form ; 
 How I was found as one dead, on a hill-side, by 
 Hyacinth's father, 
 Struck by the uppermost boughs of a tree that was 
 wrecked in the storm.
 
 136 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 How, after days of the semblance of death, there 
 came fever and raving ; 
 How the brain's anarchy loosened the tongue from 
 its wonted control ; 
 How I spoke wildly and darkly of Raymond and 
 Hyacinth, craving 
 Death for my body because of them, uttermost 
 death for my soul. 
 
 How it was deemed as a duty to one whom no care 
 could recover, 
 Freely to search for some token of kindred, or 
 trace of a friend ; 
 How in the scrutiny Hyacinth chanced on the words 
 of her lover. 
 Read and knew all, yet forbore to add woe to my 
 imminent end.
 
 III. CONVICT ONCE. i37 
 
 4 
 
 How, too, at length I had rest, and the burden of 
 heavy complaining 
 Changed to the sighing of rapturous vision, and 
 tranced repose. 
 Well : it is over. Where now is the passion that 
 » knew no restraining? 
 
 But is the evil past? Will the shed petals return 
 to the rose? 
 
 S 
 
 Full of crushed fragments my hands are. Ah me, can 
 'I e'er re -unite them 
 Into the sacrament cup of the love I have broken 
 and spilt? 
 
 How they two clung as the vine and the elm ere I 
 saw, but to blight them ! 
 Is there a river of tears that can cleanse out the 
 mildew of guilt ?
 
 I3S COX VICT ONCE. part 
 
 6 
 
 Is there no way? Ah, no way! From my raving her 
 father, astonished, 
 Gathered a part of poor Hyacinth's story, sufficient 
 for wrath ; 
 Led her away from me, questioned her, threatened, 
 upbraided, admonished, 
 Tyrant and father by turns ; till, unpurposed, their 
 devious path 
 
 7 
 
 Ceased at the grave of her mother. Which seeing, 
 the old man, with weeping, 
 Knelt, and made Hyacinth kneel on the verge of 
 the flowerless sod : 
 " Now, by my dead, hear me swear ; by the heart of 
 thy mother here sleeping" — 
 And he uncovered his head, and uplifted his hands 
 unto God. 
 
 'OJ
 
 III. CONVICT ONCE. 139- 
 
 8 
 
 And as he raised them the gleam of the known 
 wedding-ring on his finger, 
 Catching his eye as it gHttered, gave form to the 
 words of his oath : 
 "See it," he said ; "it was her's; and by all the pure 
 « memories that linger 
 Round it, I make it the sign and the seal of a 
 covenant for both. 
 
 "When I shall offer this ring as a sacred and cove- 
 nant token 
 Unto a convict, the choice of thy father : then love 
 where thou wilt. 
 Can I more fitly say Never? Enough. When my 
 purpose is broken, 
 Go thou to Raymond, and make thyself kin to 
 dishonour and guilt."
 
 HO CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 lO 
 
 Could he more fitly say Never? I know him, a 
 puritan cleaving 
 Unto the letter of covenant, a word-clinging Jeph- 
 thah in vows. 
 He will go down to the grave with his vow in his 
 right hand, believing 
 He hath done well by his children, his honour, his 
 name, and his house.
 
 11 L CONVICT ONCE. 141 
 
 III. 
 
 T AM not done with my shame. As a garment it 
 cHngeth around me. 
 Even as a shroud it doth cover me paralysed, 
 swathed in disgrace. 
 Fast in the folds of obstruction, as one of the dead 
 it hath wound me, 
 Holding me motionless : and as a face-cloth it 
 covereth my face.
 
 143 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 2 
 
 What shall I do with my life, now I live? Could 
 there be restitution, 
 Then were there something to live for, a guerdon 
 to strive for and win. 
 Is there no hope, and must life be henceforward a 
 slow dissolution, 
 Passive and tearful purgation of soul from unspeak- 
 able sin ? 
 
 In tlie old days there was refuge in orisons, vigils, and 
 fasting, 
 Cloistered retirement, and matins, and vespers, and 
 garments of grey ; 
 Wherein tlie broken in spirit caught glimpses of joy 
 everlasting. 
 Turning their life into night that the night might 
 inherit the day.
 
 III. CONVICT ONCE. 143 
 
 4 
 
 Queens, and Kings' daughters, and delicate damsels, 
 their pride and their beauty- 
 Laid on the altar of Jesus. I think of such things 
 and am fain. 
 Faugh ! It was cowardice all, and the sickly evasion 
 of duly ! 
 Shame may be turned to a snare, and repentance 
 made fruitless and vain. 
 
 I shall not cease to upbraid me. My burden is fixed. 
 I will bear it. 
 Yet must this bondage of shame be unwound that 
 my soul may respire. 
 Hid 'neath the vesture, and next to the flesh, as a 
 chain I will wear it, 
 As did the monarch of old that was stained with 
 the blood of his sire.
 
 144 CONVICT ONCE. pakt 
 
 6 
 
 So may I fight as he fought, with the iron memorial 
 cherished 
 Under all kingly array, until life was laid gloriously 
 down : 
 Also the world holds him kindly, and tearfully tells 
 how he perished : 
 His was a crown and a chain ; oh, may mine be a 
 chain and a crown !
 
 Tir. CONVICT ONCE. 145 
 
 IV. 
 
 T HAVE made all my confession ; the truth, and 
 the whole, and truth only ; 
 Made it with anguish of spirit, and weeping, and 
 hiding of face. 
 But I have justified him. So far well. Single-handed 
 and lonely 
 I must begone with my burden. My guilt over- 
 shadows the place. 
 
 K
 
 146 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 2 
 
 Raymond is far from us. Driven from his peace by 
 my fitful demeanour, 
 Sudden he leaped at a chance of adventure, and 
 passed from his home. 
 He too must know. Then my spirit may yield to a 
 sorrow serener. 
 Seeking some token of duty to beckon me whither 
 to roam. 
 
 Hyacinth fighteth against my new purpose. His 
 love is for ever 
 Closed against her, so she reasons. The oath of 
 her father endures. 
 Also she pleads her worth poor ; " If in you he has 
 found what I never 
 Could have been unto him, let the means pass ; 
 not the less is he yours."
 
 III. CONVICT ONCE. 147 
 
 4 
 
 Piteous dove ! though thy pardon extend unto 
 seventy times seven, 
 I shall not strain the advantage : thy loving is 
 better than mine : 
 Clinging like Sterope unto a mortal, like her I lose 
 } heaven. 
 
 Now through repentance and duty I look to a 
 union divine. 
 
 5 
 
 Surely God loves thee, thou sweet one ! The Psyche 
 that moves in thy moving, 
 Looks through thine eyelids, and breathes in thy 
 breath, is some angel of grace ! 
 Kiss me, oh Hyacinth ! that the sweet sense of 
 forgiving and loving. 
 Some little fifth of thy nectar, may pass from thy 
 lips to my face !
 
 148 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 V. 
 
 /^NCE again out in the breeze and the sun-hght, 
 heaven o'er me, earth under ! 
 Grown unfamiHar by reason of sickness, all 
 beautiful things 
 Meet me with hundred-fold welcome, each green leaf 
 a jubilant wonder, 
 And the old throb of delight in the music of 
 fluttering wings.
 
 HI. CONVICT ONCE. 149 
 
 2 
 
 Now I can smile with the fljpwers ; for to-day I have 
 learned what hath brought me 
 Nearer akin to them. Ere this same summer hath 
 numbered its hours, 
 I shall be mixed with their roots. There came one 
 } here to-day who hath taught me 
 How there is that in my heart which shall lay me 
 ere long with the flowers. 
 
 Science hath uttered its sentence. I own to a 
 transient terror; 
 Only a little at first, then a sense of unspeakable 
 rest. 
 Taken away from the evil to come ! The long 
 bondage of error 
 Soon shall be over ! I carry my ransom about in 
 my breast.
 
 t5o CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 4 
 
 Ah, it is well. For I iiJcnow my own heart : had I 
 lived, I had striven 
 With a too violent haste and much stumbling to 
 seize on the prize. 
 Now I am cast back on mercy, content to be simply 
 forgiven, 
 Beggared of righteousness, pleading but needful- 
 ness, Magdalen-wise. 
 
 Yet it is strange I should smile with the flowers. I 
 was wont to dissever 
 Nature and Grace. Behold Grace lends to Nature 
 a kindlier charm. 
 All things are bright with a glorious light of redemp- 
 tion, and never 
 Seemed all the verdurous umbrage so gracious, the 
 rose-blush so warm !
 
 III. CONVICT ONCE. 151 
 
 6 
 
 Once on a time, to me beauty seemed only a beautiful 
 dying, 
 Like to the moribund glow of the doomed one, 
 illusive as sweet. 
 Death ! I had deemed it the end of all beauty, the 
 I hid underlying 
 Worm at the root of all loveliness, making each 
 grace a deceit. 
 
 7 
 
 This from afar. But now, nearer, I hail it the needful 
 condition 
 Of the superlative life ; not a pause, but a step, 
 and a birth ; 
 As but a yew-shadowed avenue leading to splendid 
 fruition. 
 And the fulfilment of that which is writ on the 
 flowers of the earth.
 
 152 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 8 
 
 It is but closing the eye for repose, ere we wake to 
 the wonder 
 Waiting our vision through slumber made strong 
 to behold the Divine. 
 It is but turning the web we have seen as yet only 
 from under, 
 That we may look on the tissues of life in com- 
 pleted design. 
 
 9 
 
 'Tis but the fall of the seed when the season of 
 blossom is over, 
 Dying to spring up anew from the womb of its 
 burial clod. 
 'Tis but the clasp of the die on the coin, which the 
 mould must once cover, 
 Ere it shine forth with the bright superscription 
 and image of God.
 
 111. CONVICT ONCE. i53 
 
 lO 
 
 Once in mine agony, once in my darkness of purpose 
 I sought it, 
 Wilfully blind to its issues, and caring for respite 
 alone ; 
 Trampling the jewel of life under foot that was His 
 ^ who hath bought it ; 
 
 Lord, re-unite the poor fragments, and set them 
 at last with Thine own ! 
 
 II 
 
 Not with Thine amethysts, not with the emerald, 
 sapphire, and ligure, 
 Lest I be shamed into nought, as a star when the 
 sun is on high ; 
 Not with the Urim and Thummim, of Light and 
 Perfection the figure. 
 For I am dark and imperfect; no gem of Thine 
 worthless as L
 
 154 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 12 
 
 Oh, if it be that a pearl is a tear, as a pearl do Thou 
 set me 
 Where infant-angels shall point to me, asking the 
 meaning of pain. 
 So in the day when Thou gatherest Thy jewels Thou 
 wilt not forget me, 
 Though I be dim with remembrance, and shades 
 of old sorrow remain.
 
 III. 
 
 CONVICT ONCE. i55 
 
 VI. 
 
 QTRANGELY I wake to high thoughts, and 
 beneath them a quiet gratulation, 
 Like a hid brook whisper-quiring the lordly old 
 music of pines ; 
 And, around all, as a glory, an incense of sweet 
 consecration 
 Wraps me in mists of devotion that soars beyond 
 visible signs.
 
 156 CONVICT ONCE. part 
 
 2 
 
 Through the thin wall that divides us I hear the low 
 breath of the sleeper, 
 All whose blest dreaming is worship, whose veriest 
 breathing is prayer. 
 Oh to be like her ! so meet for the Master, so ripe 
 for the Reaper, 
 Clothed on with gentleness, full of sweet amnesties, 
 stainlessly fair. 
 
 Let me but look on her. 'Twill be a sacred and 
 privileged portal 
 Unto new day, but to mark how the stages of 
 crimsoning morn 
 Quicken the life in her cheek — how the mortal that 
 shrines the immortal 
 Grows out of darkness from grace unto grace, 
 re-illumined, re-born.
 
 III. CON VIC T ONCE. 1 5 7 
 
 « 
 
 4 
 
 Peace to this chamber. Now kneehng I gather the 
 breath of her purity. 
 See how the dehcate pinions of dawning seem 
 fondly to sweep 
 Over faint outlines and twilight suggestions of 
 f shapely obscurity, 
 Brushing the tokens of night from the maiden 
 white marvel of sleep. 
 
 5 
 
 Seems as Aurora were groping for beauty, and, lo ! 
 having found it, 
 Flushes with roseate rapture, and, bounteous, 
 hastes to unfold 
 All the rare gifts she hath gathered from orient, and 
 lavish around it 
 Various profusion of homage in amber, and crim- 
 son, and gold.
 
 158 CONVICT OXCE. part 
 
 6 
 
 Not on tlie mountain-tops only the glad things of 
 dawning are treasured, 
 Not in the vaporous magic with bright dreams 
 bewitching the air, 
 Not by proud eminence only the scope of her bounty 
 is measured ; 
 Sweetest it lies on my sweet, on her face, and her 
 aureoled hair. 
 
 Soft sits the light on her beautiful brow; no such 
 radiance is given, 
 In the morn's kiss, unto uppermost leafage or 
 easternmost peak : 
 There is no hue on the rainbow-winged messengers 
 floating in heaven, 
 Like the ethereal pigments tliat blend in the bloom 
 of her cheek.
 
 HI. CONVICT ONCE. 159 
 
 8 
 
 What are thy visions, fair slumbering sister? What 
 alchemy hidden 
 Orbeth the tremulous dream-drop that pearls the 
 dark fringe of thine eye? 
 Oh, if thou sorrowest even in sleep, by thy sleep am 
 . I chidden : 
 There was no tear in the peace of thy dawn ere my 
 shadow passed by. 
 
 9 
 
 I should go from thee ; from all that is thine ; and 
 yet fondly I linger, 
 Thinking some providence yet may redeem the 
 foul wrong that I weep. 
 May not some juncture of good, like an angel with 
 beckoning finger, 
 Wave me the way of redress, and establish thy joy 
 ere I sleep?
 
 i6o CONVICT ONCE. 
 
 lO 
 
 Oft where the clouds gather darkest, the star of our 
 
 comfort is shining. 
 Black though the night of our sorrow, who knows 
 
 but the dawn may be nigh ? 
 I will not speak of my secret of death, till the signs of 
 
 declining 
 Warn me to flee to the city : to choose me a home 
 
 where to die.
 
 PART FOURTH.
 
 " T HAVE no heart and no time to go forth to the 
 world, there to choose me 
 One who may be to my children a mother in 
 room of the dead. 
 Soil-rooted, I am no more of society. I should but 
 lose me 
 In its mad vortex. And yet, it behoves me to 
 choose, and to wed.
 
 1 64 CONVICT ONCE. tart 
 
 2 
 
 " No more for love. As thou seest, I am old, and 
 my summer is over. 
 Yet 'tis for love, too, the love of a father who fears 
 for his own. 
 It is for them. Mark, I plead not in guise of a 
 passionate lover. 
 Plain in my speech, what I offer are honour and 
 duty alone. 
 
 3 
 
 " Beauteous I see thee ; yet 'tis not thy beauty that 
 tempts me to sue thee : 
 'Tis that I've noted thee faithful in many things, 
 weighty and small. 
 Gifted I know thee ; yet not thy attainments could 
 tempt me to woo thee : 
 Nought I behold save that tJwii lovest them, and 
 they thee — this is all.
 
 IV. CONVICT ONCE. 165 
 
 4 
 
 " If I should say I am rich and thou poor, this were 
 
 little to claim thee. 
 • If not for love of my little ones, let my poor quest 
 
 be as nought. 
 Cast it aside as unseemly, incongruous : I shall not 
 blame thee. 
 Better ray children left motherless than a false 
 motherhood bought. 
 
 " Ponder it. Give me thine answer in peace. Be it 
 joyous or grievous, 
 Thou hast my blessing : thy will shall be sacred as 
 heaven's decree. 
 If thou rebukest my haste, 'tis because thou art 
 purposed to leave us, 
 Therefore I speak ere thou goest; and what are 
 the world's ways to me ? "
 
 1 66 CONVICT ONCE. i>art 
 
 II. 
 
 " 'T^HOU then declinest to answer me openly, till 
 thou hast pleaded 
 (Well, too, thou pleadest) the cause of my child. 
 Would my will were my power ! 
 Mightier things than all words for the same have in 
 vain interceded — 
 Her- dim sad eyes, and the cheeks that are blanch- 
 ing from hour unto hour.
 
 IV. CONVICT ONCE. 167 
 
 2 
 
 " But, from my youth up, my word has been sacred. 
 The roots of mine honour 
 Must be uptoni ere I yield to the breaking of 
 covenant vow. 
 Yet my heart weeps for my darling, yea, bleeds to 
 • have mercy upon her ! 
 
 And I have pleaded with heaven that a way might 
 be shown, even as thou. 
 
 3 
 
 " Yea, were the brand of the law on thy name — 
 shall the mere Avords offend thee ? — 
 As I have done, even thus would I do, for the 
 love of my child. 
 Couldst thou but show me a way, it were token that 
 heaven did send thee 
 That my pledged faith and her heart-wish should 
 meet and embrace — reconciled."
 
 i68 CONVICT ONCE. 
 
 PART 
 
 III. 
 
 T^OTH the excess of joy kill? When the chahce 
 of pleasure o'erfloweth, 
 Is it the time of the end ? I am sick unto 
 death of delight. 
 Why should I tarry when life is fulfilled, and no 
 longer bestoweth 
 Anything better than that which hath been. Let 
 me sleep. It is night.
 
 IV. CONVICT ONCE. 169 
 
 2 
 
 No sleep for joy ! When he brought them together, 
 and blessed them in union, 
 There was a note in my heart that rang death. 
 As I write, once again 
 Quivers the welcome vibration that rings in the 
 ' heavenly communion. 
 
 Oh Thou that comest, come quickly, triumphant 
 o'er death and o'er pain ! 
 
 'Tis but the heart of my flesh that doth flutter. 
 Thine infinite merit 
 Helpeth me mightily o'er the dark mountains that 
 Thou too hast trod. 
 Into Thy hands I commend me, eternal and merciful 
 Spirit. 
 Come Euthanasia ! Let it be kneeling. . . . My 
 Lord and my God !
 
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