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BY
(contents)
(erratum)
Lionel.
Then it is true!
Eleanor.
Oh Lionel, you look
So strangely at me. Think, I all alone,
So many reasons, all my friends so fain,
My mother pressing me, Sir Joyce so good,
So full of promises, he who could choose
No bride among the highest ladies round
But she would smile elate and all her kin
Bow low and thank him and go swelled with pride--
You cannot wonder that my friends declare
They'll hear no Noes, but force me to my good.
Lionel.
No, 'tis at you I wonder. Eleanor,
When first I heard this lie--I called it so
In anger for you, I will call it so,
Though your lips contradict me, till the last
Worst proof have sworn it other, 'tis so strange,
So recklessly untrue to that pure self
Of my love Eleanor--When first I heard
That lie on you, as if you, a young thing
In the bud of stainless girlhood, you the like
Of babies in your fond grave innocence,
You proud as maidens are who do not know
What sin and weariness is like in lives
Smirched by the pitch that seethes, they've told you, far
From your balm-scenting nostrils, but perceive
Yourselves are as the high accessless snows
Whose blushings do but prove their perfect white,
And so look coldly down on something base,
You know not what, beneath you--you whose smiles
Are gladder than most laughters, and whose voice
Rings like the wild birds' singing in the wood,
Because you are so young and new in heart,
You who to me--
But say, to put the least,
You, the Miss Vaughan we men agree to think
Worth anyhow such common reverence
As good girls like our sisters have from us--
That you were bought like any lower thing
Our Croesus fancies, like the horse that won
The Derby last, the picture of the year,
The best bred pointer, or the costliest ring;
You bought by such a buyer, a cold fool
Whose very vices, like his polished airs,
His tastes and small-talk, were acquired by dint
Of callous perseverance; one who'll own,
With a feigned yawn, he's something bored with life,
Meaning by life stale sins and selfishness;
A dried up pithless soul, who, having lacked
The grace to have a youngness in his youth,
Now lacks the courage to be old--You bought
For laces, diamonds, a conspicuous seat
In country ball-rooms, footmen, carriages,
A house in town and so on--and no doubt
Most liberal settlements, that is but just.
A man past youth and practised out of tune
For loving should not haggle at the price
When he buys girlhood, blushes, sentiment,
Grace, innocence, aye even piety
And taste in decking churches, such fawn eyes
As yours are, Eleanor, and such a bloom
Of an unfingered peach just newly ripe.
Aye, when a modest woman sells herself
Like an immodest one, she should not find
A niggard at the cheque book.
Eleanor,
Can I not taunt you even to a no?
Look up; defend yourself. Oh! you sit there
Languid and still, and grow a little pale,
And flush a little, and will not reply
Even by a look. Be angry with me, child,
Cry out that I misjudge you to my shame;
Say I, like a rough lawyer, questioned you
Into a maze, and twisted me a yes
Out of your shifting coil of noes, while you
Were dimly pondering what I asked. Speak, speak;
Say anything, but do not let me break
My passion on you while you droop and give
Like a rock-rooted seaweed in the surf.
Say anything, except that I do well
To speak to you as I have spoken now.
Eleanor.
Ah well! you do no ill that I can chide.
I, who have gladly let you give me praise
Far past my merit in the foolish time
When I believed I could grow like your praise
Must bear in patience now if you give blame
Perhaps a little harder than you know.
Lionel.
So humble, Eleanor! How you are changed--
What is it? Are you ill? You were so proud.
Eleanor.
Yes, that was long ago before I knew
I could be tempted even to do wrong.
You know my boast was that I never broke
The lightest merry promise. Long ago
I could be proud.
Lionel.
Be proud again, my love,
My Eleanor! I know you are yourself
When you speak so. Be proud again, too proud
Not to atone. Stay, shall I tell you, dear,
How I received the tidings that Miss Vaughan
Was pricked for Lady Boycott? Why, I laughed,
Laughed, Eleanor, as any schoolboy might
Who heard his awful doctor had been caught
Picking a small boy's pocket for his pence.
It was not long ago. Young Polwarth came
To town, dined with me at our club, and there
Tossed out his precious news quite innocent
Of where it touched. "Miss Vaughan!" I laughed, "The joke
Is too far-fetched. You do not know her well."
Till he, abashed, recanted, "Well, no doubt
The rumour is not true; but so it runs."
And later that same evening Pringle came,
And he--I think he knew he stung me--yes
He'd guessed why his sweet speeches forced a clash
Of discord in your ears, where other words
Were making your love music--he was loud
With the same story. "Aye," he said, "she's wise,
That coy Miss Eleanor, she knows her worth.
All very well to lure on you or me
With her odd ways, half peacock and half dove,
Strutting and cooing--but, for marriage, why
We come to business then. She's a shrewd girl."
And he would not recant: he'd swear 'twas true.
But I said, "You'd not play fool's trumpeter
To the idiot gossips who invent such trash:
No surely: You and I both know her well."
And, Eleanor, even now I say to you,
It is not true--I know it who know you.
Eleanor.
Yes long ago you knew me, but not now.
Lionel.
And when was long ago? A second time
You talk of long ago. Not three months past
Since we last parted, and I took your word
Of sorrow-sweet good bye away with me
To be my sweetest memory, and thought,
"I shall succeed because she loves me so,"
And turned me to my crabbed toil, as if
It had been some romance of a true love
That thrills the reader through--some rare romance
With your name in it, Eleanor, and mine,
And a glad end. You call this long ago,
And I still live in it, live in the life
Your love--the dream of your love was it?--gave.
What long ago? Not all a year by days
Has passed since first a sudden moment broke
My silence--ours. You looked me a reproach,
Not knowing how you looked, how pleadingly,
For a light word I spoke--as a man speaks
Who plays with his own heart and pricks at it
To prove because he laughs it does not feel--
A jest as if I thought gay scorn of love
And prized a woman as we prize a rose,
Meaning all roses and the one in hand,
All liked with just a difference for taste
In perfumes and in tints. You looked at me:
And I at you. How could I help it, child?
I had remembered on for weeks and months
That I was a poor man and should not speak,
But I forgot it just a moment long,
Because you had forgotten, and my eyes,
Hungry for one love look, met yours so full
That you grew red and trembled, and I knew
In a quick impulse that you were my own,
And that I had no life which was not you.
And I said, breathless--what, I do not know,
But something that meant "love me," and you raised
Your quivering face with a strange radiance on it
Of tenderness and promise and grave joy,
And looked into my eyes, and said no word,
But laid your hand in mine. And then you wept
Because--'twas you that said it, Eleanor--
Because you were so happy. And I drew
Your head against my breast, and whispered "wife,"
And you--oh sweet and simply loving girl
And natural--you put your lips to mine
And kissed me. Oh! my wife that was to be,
My Eleanor, was that day long ago,
That day which always is my yesterday?
Eleanor.
No, no, you must not talk to me of that,
You must not. There are things one must forget--
One should at least. But ah! it is so hard.
One must be happier than I can be
To be able to forget past happiness.
But, Lionel, what you call yesterday
Seems to me parted from my present self
By a whole other life lived in the dark,
I know not when. Ah! surely yesterday
Is long ago when all its hopes are dead,
And Eleanor is dead who lived in it
And loved you--oh did love you. Do not think
I am all heartless. I did love you more
Than you will know now ever.
Let me go,
Let go my hand--not now--oh! Lionel,
We are not each other's now.
Lionel.
Did love me, did?
Is that a long ago too? My own love
You love me now. Yes love me. Look at me.
You'll keep your faith. You dare not say again
We are not each other's now.
Eleanor.
You hold my hand;
Look what you hold with it--it hurts me now
In your tight gasp, and it has hurt ere now
With another kind of pain. But bye and bye
I shall grow used to it. It means, you know,
My fetter to the hus-- to him, Sir Joyce,
Who will be soon--I suppose I am his now,
Marked by his ring.
Lionel.
There, take your hand again.
It is his for the moment. It was mine
By a less unholy bargain. Answer me,
Do you love your happy lover, Eleanor Vaughan?
Eleanor.
He is kind. A good wife always gives her love
To a kind husband.
Lionel.
Aye, some women can;
Not you.
Eleanor.
Sir, though I have done wrong to you,
And so have humbled me before your scoffs,
I am a woman, as I think, not like
To fall short of my duty as a wife.
Be sure Sir Joyce will have his due from me.
Lionel.
Yes, crane your neck in the old way, flash down
Superb bright scorning from your hooded eyes.
Wife's duty, yes, you'll never shame that, child;
You'll make this sin of yours shine out at last
Like virtue by your married perfectness.
I can believe it. But you'd make me laugh,
Were't not for shuddering that you are so fooled
To your blind venture by a moral shred
Of heartlessness. "Kind husbands make good wives,
And good wives love their husbands"--very sage--
And prudent mothers preach it to their girls,
And the pith of it is "Do not choose by love,
But look to means; because a man who's poor
Must be unkind, for want of cash to spend
Upon his wife." And so you're all agreed,
You and your family, Sir Joyce will be
A model husband, (he's so rich), and make,
By paying bills, and giving jewelry,
The typed good wife of you. But do you think,
You who at least have known that loving means
A something more than Thank yous, than replies
Of a civil sort, and easy going smiles,
And a fattening placid womanly goodwill
To a comfortable master, can learn now
To cheat your heart with such a dull content,
And be at rest and bask? You, Eleanor!
You'll pine to love as a caged sparrow pines
To fly, you'll tear and break your useless wings
With beating at the bars, or else you'll mope
In obstinate tired stillness; you'll not thrive
On caged birds' food, and sing. Oh! you are mad.
You do not know yourself. Oh! child, be warned.
Why will you curse your youth with such a life?
Nay, let me speak to you--let me speak still.
I have not spoken to you of myself:
I would not beg for mercy, let you find
What a poor quivering wretch a man may be
Before the little blow from a light hand
That breaks his heart: I dared not even say
"Tis something hard on me," lest I should bare
A foolish throbbing anguish for myself
'Twere fitter to keep hidden, and should shock
Your cold ear with such outcry for the pain
As shames a man. But I will tell you once
Because, since you still love me, I believe
It may a little move you, I endure
More grief in this than--
Child, I cannot do it!
I cannot. Oh! the passion will have vent.
Aye, if one could dissect one's living heart
And lecture coldly on it, I might speak
In sober phrases and set out my grief
With due pathetic touches, till perhaps
You'd weep a little for it. Now 'tis I
Who shed a fool's weak tears. Yes, keep your head
Turned from me; you are wise, for if you looked
You might remember, were't but in a mood
Of foolish pity, that I am the man
Who trusted you, set all his hopes on you,
Because he had your promise, loved you past
All thought of treachery from you. Aye, there,
There in one breath is the whole agony,
I love you.
Eleanor.
Oh my love! Oh, my own love!
Forgive me, help me.
Lionel.
Yes, press your dear arms
Still round my neck, close, so. My Eleanor,
You are my own again, is it not so?
Eleanor.
Yes, yes.--I cannot tell--Oh Lionel,
Do help me. Tell me what to do.
Lionel.
My love,
My promised wife, we stand together now;
They shall not part us with their formal rules.
I gave my word, till I could come to them,
"I am rich enough to ask your leave again,"
I would not take aloud the right you gave
And say "she is for me," nor ask to break
The weariness of absence with one word
Written to bid you think I worked for you,
Nor one dear answer that you loved me still.
"No letters, no engagement." I bore all,
And kept my faith. They've kept no faith with me:
And now I face them. Love, can you be firm
And wait? Wait, not for such a wealth and rank
As shall be Lady Boycott's at the Hall,
But for a simple home where things are smoothed
By love more than by spending, for a life
Where little cares go plodding hand in hand
With little pleasures?
Eleanor.
Lionel, I know
I could be happier so--with you--I know,
Than in the tempting paradise Sir Joyce
Has won my parents with--and almost me.
Ah! love, I have been weak. You were away.
And I was flattered. And I had gone far
Before I knew where I was being led.
It seemed too late at last. But I am yours:
I have come back to you. Yes I will wait
For always.
Lionel.
Dear, it need not be for long,
If you will take a poor man, but half way
To where he hopes to reach. I'm prospering, love.
I shall not win for long what was to be
My goal for claiming you, the promised prize;
But I take answer now from none but you,
And, very soon I hope, I shall return
And say "Come now, for there is room for you
In a fit home which I have earned." But, love,
You will be strong?
Eleanor.
Yes; but you must not go,
You must be near me.
Lionel.
Nay, dear, I must work.
Clients and causes stand no truanting:
And I am greedy now to heap up gains.
Oh! darling, I am sad to leave you here
In your changed churlish home. You will not find
Much kindness in it now?
Eleanor.
You will be kind.
Lionel.
Oh, darling! oh, my love won back to me!
Cling to me once again. My Eleanor!
Sir Joyce can never buy my wife away.
Eleanor.
Oh never, never. Love, I will be strong.
Lady Boycott.
Yes, dear; come in. I was but looking out
At the soft twilight slowly growing specked
With those white stars. A dreamy sort of time
This is, and one forgets the clock goes on
While one is watching stillness so. I fear
I seem discourteous keeping thus apart;
I did not mean it.
Mary.
And I did not think it.
Only your journey has been long--I feared
You might be over weary.
Lady B.
I am tired.
I am always tired, I think. Shall we be missed
Beyond forgiveness if we sit awhile
Here in this quiet, you and I alone,
And dream a little as we used to do
In the old idle days when we were young?
Mary.
Were young! Why I feel nearer to a child
And feel life newer now than when I went,
With all our school-girl ladylike grave airs
And necessary stateliness still worn
With the gloss not yet rubbed off, to play my part
Of bridesmaid to my classmate Eleanor--
Some months I think my elder. Then it seemed
As if months told in age. Do they count still?
That was six years ago, and I am young:
And are you old?
Lady B.
Ah! well, you laugh at me.
But I count years by length of heavy days.
It is so different--a girl's time goes
Like music played for dancing; but a wife's--
Ah Mary married women soon grow old.
Mary.
Love is itself a youth; they should be young
Until their husbands die.
Lady B.
And mine is dead.
Mary.
Dear Eleanor! My foolish sudden tongue!
What was I thinking of?
Lady B.
Why not of me.
You had forgotten me, I saw, just then.
Mary, you need not play now at belief
That the happiness of wifely love was mine--
Such love as we believed in when we talked
In our dear wont here, oh! so long ago,
In such soft dusk as this, of what should be
And what should not to make up that pure good
Of loving and of being loved again.
Mary, you know I never loved Sir Joyce.
Mary.
Oh Eleanor! I feared it. But indeed
I think you should not say it--even now.
Lady B.
Oh let me say it, friend, sweet secret friend,
Who will not babble it to the four winds
To have them blow it through the neighbours' homes.
Let me speak but to you, I who have smiled
A cheating silence for so many years.
You do not know the penance to be good
And pretty mannered dull day by dull day,
Lapping one's heart in comfortable sloth
Lest it should fever for its work, its food
Of free bold loving. No, you cannot dream
How one may suffer just by doing right
When in one's heart one knows how under right,
For base of it, there lies a stifled wrong
Which is not dead. Ah me! wrong never dies.
You lay it underground, you tread your path
Smoothly above it, then you build new hopes,
New duties, new delights, upon its grave--
It stirs and breaks up all. And, worse than this,
Mary, you cannot kill old happiness--
No not except by heaping new upon it--
And you remember in your heavy heart
The sweetness of delicious unwise days
Left with your young girl follies--with your doll,
Your poetry, your dreamings, and your love;
Irrational light pastimes.
Mary.
Hush, oh! hush.
I never like you in your flouting moods.
You shall not scorn yourself so. Weep, dear, weep,
If you are sad, and bid me comfort you,
But let be with that jarring heartlessness.
'Tis bitter acting, dear, when grief puts on
A show of laughters and makes mirth by scoffs.
Lady B.
Aye, you were right to hush me. Let me have
The ease of free complaining. There's no fault
If I look dull-eyed now, no secret told.
'Tis only loveless wives who must not fret,
For fear of being understood--indeed
For fear of understanding their own selves.
But I, alas! there has a new thing chanced,
And forced myself upon me. I have burst
My serious due disguise of widowhood.
I am bold now with my sorrow. Why indeed
Should I talk shadows to myself or you
Who know the shape of truth behind them? Yes,
You read my secret, Mary, years ago:
You, with your show of taking me at what
I should have been, an easy-minded wife
Who loved her lord in quiet and was pleased
To have her comforts with him ... or without;
You, with your silent tenderness, your talk
Of making duty dear by loving it
For God's sake, if not man's--you knew the while,
I saw it, you kind prudent hypocrite,
That I was wearier than the worn drudge
Who toils past woman's strength the hard day through
And cowers at evening to the drunken boor
Who strikes her with a curse because she's his
And that's his right upon her--wearier
Because my labour was to love against
The longings and the loathings of my heart,
Because the price I earned was only smiles
And too familiar fondlings. Ah! he had
His rights upon me. And he meant me well.
He was not often hard to me; he gave
With an unstinting hand for all my whims,
And tricked me with the costliest fineries
Almost beyond my wish; was proud of me
And liked to look at me, and vaunted me,
My beauty and my grace and stateliness,
My taste and fashion. What could he do more?
We were not suited; some more fitting wife--
Say one who could have loved him, for that makes
The only fitness--one whom years or care
Had brought a little nearer to his age,
Enough to crave no more than was in him
Of sympathies and high ideal hopes;
One who had never loved, or could forget
How the young love, and could bestow on him
A fond contented kindness for the sake
Of his meant kindness to her; such a wife
Might have enjoyed in him a better calm
Of meet companionship than I could find,
Might have shared with him little daily thoughts
And answered when he talked and not felt dull,
Nor missed--you do not know him I did love;
You do not know all that there was to miss.
I cannot make you feel that for me. Well,
As for Sir Joyce, doubtless if he had used
A cruel tongue against me, cruel smiles
And frowns, or cruel hands, I must have been
Only more wretched; though I'd wildly think
Often and often I could draw free breath
Rather beneath a bad harsh tyranny,
Coming from him, than kindness and his smile
And condescending husbandly caress.
He made me feel so abject and so false
When he approved me so! Why, I have longed
To shriek "No, hate me, I am false to you,"
And have him think me fouler than my fault.
And yet I dreamed, not loving him, I loved
No other then. I thought my heart at least
Had numbed to an unsinning deadness. Yes,
I did in truth believe I had full learned
The difficult strange lesson to forget,
Because I would not, could not think of him.
Because I had no lover, I believed
I had no love.
Mary.
Oh! my poor Eleanor,
I stop you once again. You run too wild
In your regrets. I know you had no love,
Except as one may love the dead. You were
A weary woman plodding on alone,
Thinking sometimes "Alas I might have gone
A fairer way and held a guiding hand
Warm within mine," and sometimes looking back
Too sadly on the old bright time of love,
As in your age you might look back on youth;
But you had no fond passion quick in you
To make a fever in your heart. That pulsed
Too slow and chilly. You were faint because
You had foregone the love on which it lived,
And you knew that. But, dear, you let the love
Go with the lover, mourning for them both.
I could read that much, plainly.
Lady B.
Well, may be
You read it rightly, and I did not dash
My forced cold wifely duty with that blot.
I'll hope it. But there has a new life come
And joined on to the old that was before
My bargain with Sir Joyce, and now it seems
As if there had been scarce a break between--
Only a troubled rest, as when one tries
To wake and cannot, and yet does not sleep.
I cannot count you "Look, so many days,
Or years, or moments even, I was pure
From present loving." I feel only this:
There is a man I know whose whisper was
To me all promise of the future days,
All sweetness of the present; and there is
A man who with one cold and civil look
Has broken me, has made me sick of hope
Because he is not in it, made my life
Too flickering to be worth the care it costs;
And they are one, and they are my one love.
Oh! Mary, darling, comfort, comfort me.
Yes, hold me to you, let my head lie so.
Yes, soothe me, love me, darling--Oh my friend
I need another love than yours, his love.
I want it, want it.
Mary.
Dear, dear Eleanor.
Ah! you are hurt past help of mine. I would
I had this lover here: he should not keep
A placid conscience. But, dear, be too proud
To let him break you. If he, years ago,
Must win a girl's weak heart to toss it back,
A plaything you might hand on to Sir Joyce
While he should choose some other--
Lady B.
Mary, No.
I was the one who wronged our truth--I, I.
He was all truth.
Mary.
Ah! now I understand
That you are sad beyond the help of tears.
Poor heart, how shall I soothe you. Ah! you tore
The blossom of its hope with your own hand,
And then you hunger in a barren day
Because it bears no fruit. Dear sorrower,
What can I say? Take courage. Not a life
So lonely in this world but somewhere grows
A blessing for it out of other lives,
And warmth out of their fire-light. Not a soul
So lonely under heaven but it may reach
The hand of God, and lift itself from pain.
Take courage, dear.
Lady B.
No, let me break my heart.
Would he had never loved me--only that,
Not to remember that he loved me once.
Mary.
But, Eleanor, he may remember too.
Truly you did him such a bitter harm
As well may make a man grow hard and strong
Against a woman's sobbings, battling back
The vain breath of her words like a barred tower
Careless to the wild useless gusts of winds,
Silent against them. Yet, for the dear sake
Of what you were to him and he to you,
And for the likeness of your face to that
He loved to look on once, which smiled on him
With so unlike a smile, and for the thought
That you might be yourself again through him,
And for the sorrow constant in your eyes,
He might put by his rancour, might tune down
The bitter tongue of blame to just a strain
Of pity for himself who had lost you,
Until 'twas pity for you too, and so
He must forgive you.
Lady B.
Oh! your idle hopes!
It is as if you'd mock me. They were mine.
I shaped them for myself--such pretty dreams!
Like what one sees in clouds--and then the wind,
The lightest breeze that scarce can stir a leaf,
Will float them into nothings. Why, you give
My folly a clear voice, and make me laugh
To think how crookedly its answer falls
To the plain question of my wretchedness.
He does forgive me, has no rancour left,
Has quite forgotten bitterness and blame,
Doubtless would pity me if he but cared
To know if I am sorry or content--
He'd pity me out of his chivalry,
Because I am a woman. But he looks
Unmoved upon me, doubtless would allow
"Her face is fair, she has an easy grace,
Was most attractive, though now something worn;"
And there's an end of it. I am to him
At most the faded picture of a girl
Whom he once wished for but could teach himself
To do without, and so for that, because
All memory which is not pain is sweet,
And for the courtesy of gentlemen
To well-bred women, he'll sit by my side
And chat a little, give a gracious laugh
At my tart sayings, talk of the last news,
Ask some one sitting near if he agrees
With Lady Boycott's judgment on the point,
And go to be as civil to the next
Upon his list of doll acquaintances.
Forgive me! Blame me! Why, he'll meet my eye
With a friend's carelessness, will smile at me
The perfect proper smile of drawing-rooms.
Oh! my lost love! one love of all my life!
He cares no more for me than for the weed
In flower against his foot, that, if he has time,
He'll notice "In its way 'tis well," and pass,
Just stepping so as not to trample it,
Because he's kindly natured and would crush
No poor slight growing thing without a need.
He cares for me no more than for the dream
He dreamed in last night's sleep, and waking lost:
No more than for the queen in pinafores
Loved in his days of slate and spelling-book.
I am nothing to him, nothing--oh, my love!
And I to shiver in the cold he makes
And smile to him! Mary, I sometimes wish--
Yes, wish, as some sick wretch will idly moan,
"Give me sharp pangs rather than this dull pain,"--
I might go mad a moment, lose the sense
Of womanhood, and let his cold man's eyes
See to my heart, see my unhonoured love.
Not that he'd love me then--no never that--
But that there'd be some bond between us then,
Or some defiance, not this civil show,
This mannerly kind hateful indifference.
At least he'd be ashamed for my shame, drop
His eyes that look on me so cold and pleased
At our next meeting, stammer when he spoke.
Perhaps he'd shun me. Aye, and at the least
I could shun him. Now I dare never wince,
Nor stand a step back from a meeting, lest
He should discover.
Mary.
But, my Eleanor,
Since all he knows is that you long ago
Took back your love, were it not possible
That he should silently be measuring
The present with the past and noting down
The unconscious signals?
Lady B.
Not another word,
Not one smooth word of hope. When he did love
I knew before he spoke--half knew, I think,
Before he knew it. Now I as well know
He'll never, never, never think again
Of love and me together. Not if I crawled
To wile him on with all sweet artifice
Of wooings and of shrinkings interchanged
Which many women do not shame to use,
And all men smile at, pleased to be deceived:
Not if I worshipped him with the fine fumes
Of delicate nice flattery some I know
Will offer to their idol, while his brain
Grows dizzy with the scent and pleasant mist:
Not if I played at him the pouts and scolds
And provocations of a mimic feud:
Not if I pleased him with an equal mind
To be convinced by arguments of his:
Not if I sang to tears for him, made mirth,
Were sad, wise, foolish, all for him alone:
Not if I lived my whole poor life for him:
No, not if it were so that I might die
To serve him something: he'd not love me yet,
He could not. When you're in a pleasant dream
And some one wakes you rudely, try your most,
You cannot dream again that selfsame dream.
'Tis over, gone. You cannot even think
Exactly how it went, with what quick turns.
You'll dream again, perhaps, as he, they say,
Dreams once more now, but not that dream again--
Oh never that.
Kind Mary, talk to me
Of other things. No, let me tell you first,
(Lest you should too far scorn me), how it came
This new old love sprang sudden to a growth
Beyond my checking now.
Mary.
Dear, tell me all.
It comforts you to tell me. Do not fear
I cannot share it with you. I have now
So large a happiness that it is wide
To hold most sorrows--more than sorrow can.
I know that, I, who once had sorrow too,
And scorn you, darling? Do you think me then
So shallow-righteous that. I can scorn grief
Because perhaps there went one drop of wrong
To tip its sting? Scorn you too for your love?
I know you have all pride a woman should
Of modesty. You talk to me because
It is, here in this twilight we were wont
To call "our time," like talking to yourself:
But I know well you have been hushed to him--
You'd not woo, you, if you could win him so.
Lady B.
Yet let me tell you. While my husband lived
In seeming strength I had a creeping fear
Would haunt my conscience like bad memories there,
As if, if he should die, I should perceive
A sense of freedom, and go lighter stepped,
And not be sad at all as I must seem.
But while I nursed him dying that was changed.
I did not feign the tenderness I shewed,
Nor wear my care for ornament. I seemed
To love him since he suffered. And I felt
That to his best he loved me. So I wept
Because we were to part with such an awe,
And he was scared at dying, not because
It seemed the wife's right way. And then, he dead,
The irretrievable strange going hence,
And something too the still dread show of death,
Struck me with such a sadness as made tears
A natural comfort to me, made the calm
Of one who has been grieving hush my life.
And while I still was sad a good kind soul--
If she had but grown dumb as well as deaf!
Came with her cordial chatter. "So, my dear,
The widow's weeds put by. Well, quite time too:
You've worn them past the fashion for wives now.
I'm glad too; for my nephew's coming soon.
Don't think I did not know that naughty work--
You were too bad. But he could never bear
A word against you. Ah! he's true to you,
Like lovers in old times. You never heard
I think of that bad fever that he had
And raved of you long after you were wed.
Ah he raves now of you another way,
Poor boy. You'll not desert him now again."
I thought she knew. I had not seen him then
Since he had made me promise, but some months
Before my marriage, to be true to him,
And strong.--Strong! I who was too weak to stand
Against some breaths of anger and the stress
Of long persuasions and the paltry lure
Of being the great lady all ablow
With insolent wealth and fashion. Strong! and I--
Why did he trust me? He should have staid near,
If but to look at me the silent look
That made me feel my purpose confident
Because he trusted.
Well, to tell my tale:
I played the cheat to him and to Sir Joyce:
Loved one and left him, did not love the other
And married him. But, foolishly enough,
It was the one I left who made complaint
As if I had been worth it. Laugh with me;
How foolish men will be! Aye you hold up
A warning finger. Well, I'll be sedate,
And pity my own sorrows decorously.
He was angry, had some bickering with Sir Joyce,
(They never told me what nor why), and so
They broke acquaintance and we never met.
How could I tell that the good cackler's talk
Was ... what it was?
Alas! for many weeks
It chimed in like rich music when I thought,
Growing sweeter, sweeter, sweeter, day by day,
As never surely the good woman's words
Were heard in any ears before. I framed
My hopes, my fancies, purposes, to them,
And, since the time seemed long till he should come,
Spent my full heart in day-dreams.
Did I say,
A while ago, I'd dream here now with you
As we were wont? Ah! Mary, weariness
Can never dream. It sleeps, or is afire
With fever of a visionary toil
Over the trodden way that was so long.
I know no dreamings now.
Oh, foolish me!
I saw one bar, and only one. I thought.
"He'd never take me with my clog of lands,
Houses, and shares, and so forth, which are mine
Because I was another man's. He's proud,
He will not be beholden to Sir Joyce."
And so among my dreams I saw the joy
Of sacrificing what I once prized far
Beyond its worth, and still prized something well,
To him, to our new-blossomed love. And then
I fancied how he'd thank me, and forgive,
And praise me as in old days.
Well, we met.
I woke, at the first moment woke. He smiled,
And I could have shrieked, weeping out aloud,
But I smiled too. And bye and bye I tried
To fool myself a little: but 'twas vain.
We have talked often--always pleasantly,
Appropriately to the occasion too--
And I could hate myself who looked to him
For more than that. I heard a while ago
That he was new betrothed. I never asked
Was the news true or false. To me 'tis one.
Nothing could make me less to him than now,
Or more. To him I'm--Talk of something else,
Of any thing but me. 'Tis your turn now.
Mary.
Well then of me. I'll preach a little hope
Out of my simple life. Once, some years past,
I was betrothed--not yet so long ago
I could have told my tale more passionately,
With intricate vexed memories, have marked
The turns and changes and the subtle breaks,
Showing "I hoped thus" and "I sorrowed thus:"
But now I find so little to be told.
Whilst I was loving happily I learned
That I must love no more. I bade him wed
The mother of his child; and that he did,
And has been worthier since. But, Eleanor,
I suffered. Nay I think it must be worse
Than one's own due remorse for wrong to find
Shame in you for the man you love. And I
Was heavy for the loss of love and hopes
That had been--ah we know what such hopes are.
I was so desolate for long. I would
That I could make you feel it; but myself
I cannot feel it now. The sun aglow,
Warm on my eyes, has dazzled them from sight
Of the clouds far floating backwards from the rent
It burst between them. Oh, dear Eleanor,
Never believe there is not happiness
Waiting you somewhere. I was helpless once,
And thought my life would limp on darkling, lost
In the clinging mist.
Lady B.
And now you hope?
Mary.
And now
I am happy, happy! Better too than that,
I make him happy--though that means the same.
Lady B.
You, Mary, you! I thought you'd mapped your life
In solitary busy spinsterhood.
Mary.
And he has quite remapped it. Did I know
There was a man like him out in the world
Without a woman loving him and loved?
And, dear, we seem well paired. We think alike
On most things, leaving but some needful points
For controversy lest we should be drowsed
By nodding constant Yes-es. We blend well
In tastes too. And, since we both have known a love
Which darkened into storm and wearied us
With tossing long unrest--for once he wooed
Some fickle beauty and believed he'd won,
And then she left him--since we have both known
That fret and fevering, 'tis well for us
To have, in our fixed trust, calm fearless rest.
Lady B.
Mary, you do not love him! No, you talk
Too soberly. You do not love him. No,
Not with your heart, the very life in you--
Less will not do. You must not; no, you must not.
You shall not marry so. Oh! if you guessed
What it will be to live as a wife lives
Beside a man who is not all to you!
All, all, I tell you.
Mary.
Do you think we love
But with half hearts because our love to us
Is part of daily life, too known a thing
To praise or wonder at or analyse?
We are so sure, so happy, love so well,
That we forget 'tis loving, as one breathes
Pure genial air and never notes one breathes.
Not love him! Well, you'll see him presently,
You'll know how far from possible it were
For the woman who loves Lionel Ellerton
To love a little. You laugh, Eleanor,
With that strange bitter laugh of yours that rings
Always half like a cry to me who knew
The days when you were merry honestly.
You scorn such bright monotony, you'd have
A love like mountain-showers and sunlights mixed,
Dashes of anger but the love light still
Prompt to the eyes. But wait, dear Eleanor,
Till love worth you, that yet makes you more worth
That you may be worth it and him you love,
Comes, as it yet will come, must come, and then
You'll know what a rich thing my sunshine is,
My sunshine that makes beauty everywhere
Even upon the little cross black clouds
That cannot come athwart it but they change
And seem part of the sunshine.
Lady B.
Yes, I know,
I understand, no doubt you love him well,
And he loves you. For your sake I am glad.
But, tell me, dear, he never owned the name
Of his fickle ladylove, or let you guess?
I mean, is she repenting all forlorn,
A woe-begone thin spinster, mourning him?
Or is she plump and cosy, well to do,
With a fit husband, house, and chubby babes?
Or dead, more like--one way or other dead.
Mary.
We thought it best and right I should not know.
She is living, I might meet her, and 'twere hard
Not to be angry with her--though indeed
I have so much to thank her for. But then
She gave him pain he thought past bearing once
And shook his life to the very roots of it.
Lady B.
Dear, I am glad he loves you. It is good
To see you happy. I, whom no one loves,
Will pray you may be happy, both of you.
And I know something of your Lionel, know
He is a man well thought of, one I think
We can trust you to.
Mary.
You know him?
Lady B.
Why, he has
An uncle--or aunt's husband I should say--
And cousins--pretty too, the girls--who live
Not far from Boycott Hall. Sometimes he comes
To see them: I have met him there. They say
He's growing famous at the bar, rich too--
A very rising man. I give you joy.
A husband with both means and merit! Why,
You must have sold your soul to have such luck,
Signed a red bond to Satan.
Mary.
Well I think
We shall know how to cheat him. He'll not gain
Much by our marriage.
Lady B.
Mary, promise me
You'll not betray me to your Lionel,
I would not have your lover know the trash
I've told you now. Weak baby trash enough,
But still my secret, Mary.
Mary.
No indeed,
He'll never know it.
Lady B.
No, he'll never know it.
Mary.
Listen! He's there. He thought he might be kept
Until to-morrow. But I knew he'd come.
Lady B.
Dear, go to him. I'm tired. I'll rest to-night.
You'll say I'm tired--Or no, I'll follow you.
'Twill seem strange to your mother. Presently
I'll follow. Go to him.
Mary.
Well if I must.
(Exit Mary.)
Lady B.
Her Lionel! Her husband! Oh my heart,
The pain in it! Her lover! If I wait
She'll say "We've Lady Boycott here," and then
The quick surprise may make him tell her more
Than she should know. No, I must go to him,
Welcome him briskly, wear the cheerful face
Of pleasant meeting: he's my friend's betrothed,
And I must take him so. 'Twere easier
To ape indifference, dislike itself.
But I can play my part, and naturally,
And he'll not tell her, he'll be so at ease,
So careless of me.
For she must not know.
I will not have her peace one moment stirred.
She'd pity me too kindly if she knew,
Be sad for me: I will not have her sad.
I love her for herself, and Lionel loves--
I could know nothing between hate and love,
I think for any woman he would wed,
I must thank God I love her. 'Tis best so
And comforts me.
Oh my rare smiling part!
My pretty cordial acting! We shall be
A genial pair of friends. We both love her,
And there's our bond. Oh! to be day by day
Talking and talking, smiling and smiling! Well
It will not last for ever. I have lied
In smiles and saying nothings prettily
To a worse purpose ere to-day.
Ah me!
I thought that I was hopeless: now I know
I had a little foolish lingering hope.
'Tis strange I could! I knew so well the truth
That I was nothing to him.
Lionel,
I'm coming to you; I, not Eleanor:
She's gone, she's dead. But, as for Lady Boycott,
Perhaps you'll like her ...... she is Mary's friend.
BLUE happy sky, sweet lights of day,
Round hills that lean against the air,
Clear grass blades shining in my way,
How beautiful is everywhere!
I cannot see all that I would
There is so much on every side,
This glorious earth is very wide,
And so much beauty to it given.
Dear Lord, the earth is wondrous good,
It must be very like thy heaven.
I see! I see! Look the great field,
A full bright lake of yellow ears
So sunlike that my eyes new healed
See through a golden mist of tears!
Look, the broad fig-tree over-head,
Oh cool green brightness through the leaves!
What a fair web the spider weaves!
Look where 'tis knit across the dock.
And who could find a richer red
Than the flushed poppy's on that rock?
Beautiful! beautiful everywhere!
Ah now I see that when I most
Moaned for lost sight in dim despair
I but half felt what I had lost.
Oh! sight is happier than I knew:
I had forgotten more, I find,
What it was like not to be blind
Than I believed. What! long ago
Was green so green and blue so blue?
Did I laugh thus to see them so?
Oh darkness gone! oh dreary days!
No human face, no world, no light!
Large darkness meeting my strained gaze,
Vague darkness making sleep of sight!
And all around things wax and wane,
And change and growth come over all,
But the dull eyes see but their pall.
And in the dark life seems so still;
Days come and go but you remain
With vacant night and drowse your fill.
Oh, weariness of darkness gone,
Broken as feverish last sleeps break
Because some sunbeam on us shone
And we start up and are awake!
He was the sun that shone on me.
He looked and I could feel the light,
He spoke and once more I had sight,
I saw the hills, I saw the sky,
I saw the sunlight on the tree--
And I saw Him and did not die.
I saw Messiah's very face,
My daylight seemed to break from Him,
And I stood rooted to the place,
Trembling and cold in every limb.
And then I loved Him and was strong.
He spoke it "Faith has made thee whole."
Light in my eyes! Light in my soul!
And I can love Him, and I see!
Oh Lord, the darkness was so long.
Now I have sight--and I saw Thee!
Break into song, Oh! Zion, shout.
Christ is among us, Christ the Light.
Darkness is gone, and sin, and doubt.
Oh golden time! the blind have sight.
Light, light is on us, there is day.
From the glad earth a ringing voice
Bounds through my heart "Rejoice, rejoice,"
Behold the day-spring from on high.
Rejoice the night has passed away,
Jesus of Nazareth comes by.
"We drove that bargain well, at least. The fool!
To sell his Master on such easy terms,
And his own soul too--though what's that to us?
And then to toss us back the price again
As if that could change matters."
No, I'll have
My money back: they shall not profit so.
Rather the sea shall have it. The full sea
Will take it greedily, as a man takes,
And never look the fuller. But I doubt--
Not doubt, I know some horrible strange chance
Would kill me if I took it in my hands.
I dare not touch it. Let them keep it then,
And take the curse with it.
The price of blood!
And who's? But He, how could he die indeed?
He could not with our death. Not if he was
Whom I at times believed him, Whom he said.
And if he said it falsely then 'twas fit
His dupes should be unduped--the priests urged that.
I could not go amiss: if he were Christ,
His glory would burst forth and dazzle earth,
Wake up our Zion, scare the Romans hence;
And if not Christ, why then the dread of death
Would make him speak plain words of what he was,
And be set free forgiven.
But he'd bate
No jot, no tittle, would be only Christ.
And yet he died. He could not have been Christ.
And then what was he?
When I followed him,
The first great day he came among our hills
And talked of love and truth, he who was both
Whatever else he was, I knew at once
That God had sent him to us, and I thought
I felt God's voice bid me go forth with him.
Who was it sent me with him? Satan then
That I might murder him?
That black slow cloud,
Heavy on Calvary, looks ghastly now--
He might be in it, He, my lord, my friend.
If His face looked on me I should fall dead
Even if it should seem no more than man's.
I go in dread of that, and every sound
Has something of his voice in it. There's talk
As if he should appear still on the earth,
Stand life-like near the living, speak to them--
Great God!--nay 'tis my folly. That long sigh
Of wind among the olives is not new
That it should startle me. I've often sat
And listened to it when the night came on.
With its shrill breezy rustlings like the sea
We'd hear at home plashing on pebbly shores
Far from us, and it always seemed to me
To make me quieter as His voice did.
His voice! How every thought comes back to Him!
Can I know nothing then but this one man,
Him crucified? Why I have other friends--
No I mean had. I lost my natural friends
When I cast in my lot with him they thought
A devil's preacher sent to cozen us
With holy maxims, lost them for his sake,
Father and brother, yes my mother too,
Teachers and comrades and familiar guests,
They turned and loathed me. And my new friends now,
I am a leper to them, one cast out
Past mercy from them. Would there one of them
Look upon me if I should crawl to him,
Grovel beneath his feet crying "Oh man,
Touch me that I may feel I am a man.
Touch with thine hand?" Would Peter, or would James,
Or even sweet-tongued John? Would I forgive
If one of them had done the accursed deed?
No there's not one in all the world to speak
A praying word for me, not even to say
"Let him but die and never wake from death
Let him not know the name or face of God
Nor Jesus whom he slew; let him but die
As the beast dies, and rot as the dead tree,
And be no more." Himself was merciful,
But no mere men would be thus merciful:
They'd say "No, let him live on with the sense
Of darkness round him and of some one near--
As if a murderer dragged the corpse with him
And shivered sickly lest it should arise
And shrivel him with dreadful ghostly looks,
Alive with awful life. Yes, let him breathe
With the sharp gasps of some mad hunted thing
When none pursue. Let him cry out aloud
With anguish, and not know how to repent.
Let him go agonized with doubt, and know
Doubt and belief make no more now for him
Than for dumb dogs. Only let him not die
And fall asleep." Yes none will say "His pain
Is more than he can bear."
Where Jesus was
None could be friendless, none despair: and now--
My name is blotted from among the names
Of the living, there is no man says to me
"Alas my brother!" There is no God for me
Who heareth prayer. I only in the world
Have not a God to cry to. Who is God
But He who sent us Christ? And who is Christ
But Jesus the Nazarene, Jesus who had
The Godhead in him? Die, thou lost one, die!
I know him now and tremble, know Him now
Whom I believed in vaguely, whom I sold!
How should I pray? "Jehovah whose own Son,
A very part of thee, I did to death,
Be very gracious to me for His sake?"
Aye so, He said prayer should be in his name,
And taught us how to use it. Properly
'Twould fit my lips--His name a plea for me!
Would God that Baal had a life in him
And could at least do harm. I'd pray to him
"Baal, for love of my great sin, do thou
Give me kind nothingness, make me a thing
Like thy block image, soulless, ignorant
Of light and darkness and of any thought."
"Baal," I'd say, "fall on me, batter me
To piecemeal rubbish, and drag down my soul
To thy void chaos where 'twill rot with thee,
To thy void chaos where God will not come,
Nor Jesus."
Did my heart leap to him once,
Our holy Master? Surely it did once.
I left my home, even as the others left,
Left all my worldly goods to follow him,
Even as the others, bore with scoffs and taunts,
And tender sad reproach more hard to bear.
I loved the holiness he taught, I loved
The love, I loved the glorious saintly scorn
Of all things tyrannous and cunning, loved
The pitying tenderness for all things weak.
And then his talk stirred longings in my heart
For freer breath than we draw now, strong days
Rid of the hindering trammels we have now,
Justice and mercy in our streets, rich peace,
And God to rule and judge us as of old.
I thought the looked-for King was come in Him,
And he would so deliver us. I looked
To see the Romans scattered, fleeing hence,
Calling in terror on their idle gods,
Before avenging Israel. I looked
To have our Zion sing the song of praise,
And the hills laugh with golden harvests thick
Up to their brows, and the green valleys ring
With singing of full rivers through the fields,
Because the great Messiah King was come
With spoils in His right-hand of all our foes
And blessings for the people. But he seemed
To bow the neck to Cæsar patiently
And care for no deliverance. Poverty
Was the first blessing that he offered us
To make the world a kind one. And we saw,
We who were watching, for his cry to sound
"Now Israel to your tents," we who believed
We should be leaders under him and lords,
To have the people honour us, and live
In our ceiled palaces among the tribes
Content and prospering around us, saw
He would but teach submission to the yoke,
Saw we were only chosen to be poor
More than all others, meaner, more despised,
Servants of servants, we. And many turned,
And saw his face no more. But I remained,
I loved his teaching though it angered me,
I saw the greatness of it.
Would to God
I too had left him!
Why did they all smile
With mocking eyes, that day when I was vexed
To see the spikenard wasted? If they had had
The wisdom to be secret of their thoughts
And somewhat less discerning, those prompt priests
With their shrewd chaffering might perhaps have had
No bargain out of me--I'd said them nay
To more before that time, and to my thought
They'd ceased to look to me for any help.
Why did the others chafe me? If the purse
Had now and then, 'twas rarely, furnished me
A secret pittance to supply the needs
And hide the shame of the poor squalid life
I led with sick dislike, had I not lost
The promise of good days? Had I not lost
My chance of growing gains, my handicraft
To earn me something more than beggar's fare?
Did I not always with my nicest skill,
Such as not one of them could reach, swell out
Our wretched means and make two pence like three?
Why, but by that, I gave more than I took,
Threefold and fourfold. Yes the brethren might
Have spared their smiles. How hot they made my heart!
I hated them.
And then His grave sad look!
He saw too far into men's hearts. What man
Can live with one who knows him at his worst?
It makes him have no best. I could not bear
Their scorn, His knowing. I would show them all
I had some power--aye and I had a purse
Besides their bag to draw from. In my haste
I went--and afterwards it seemed too late.
I know not how, the priests can argue well,
If they pay smally. And the time was short;
I never seemed to have the space to think,
Till I awoke, and knew.
The time was short.
He saw too far into men's hearts: he knew
The purpose dizzying mine. Aye, there was need
To hasten its fulfillment. Could I wait
And nurse it while he watched me? "What thou doest
Do quickly." And I did not dare to ask
A meaning for it. He knew me. And I fled
Out from his presence. What had it served then
To lag and waver, and perchance repent?
He knew me.
Jesus is dead, is dead. Go to,
The very devils, sure, must mourn for that;
For I mourn. Jesus is dead, who looked on me
As if he loved me though he knew me. Dead!
I never thought they'd kill him. Dead, I say.
Out on you priests with your false glozing tongues,
Liars and murderers. Aye shoot your lips,
Look with your triumphing cold sidelong looks,
Take your full ease again, you've had your way.
There's one who could have saved the world from death
Sickness and sin and weepings, dead through you.
What's that to you? There's one, your purchased wretch,
Mad with the worst guilt the foul world has known,
His very prayer made sin. What's that to you?
You're very pious, you observe the law,
You have no blood-gouts on your fringe, you've caught
No unclean taint by touching death too near,
You only planned and plotted, you are pure.
You kept the high-day too, the cross was bare
When the sun set on the mere labouring day.
Oh zealous saintly rulers! holy men!
But I am only a poor common man,
And ignorant, and I must bear the curse
Of generations of lost death-struck men
Who'll cry "One came to save us, Jesus came,
But Judas took him from us." If I die
Or if I live the cry will still ring out
And shiver through and through me worse than pain--
"The world is lost, lost, left a prey to death
For ever and for ever since Christ died."
Oh me accursed! the dead shall have their graves
For ever, and the living have no hope,
Israel have no Messiah! Will not earth
Cover me in her Hades out of sight
Of all these men whose souls I have destroyed?
I've done so much for death can I not die
Body and soul, body and soul, like all;
Body and soul out of the sight of death,
That I have made the Master of the world;
Out of the sight of life and death; henceforth
Both misery to every soul that breathes?
Why I can die. Why surely I can die
Like other men. I only of the world
To have the perfect life all were to have--
And find it perfect anguish! That might be:
'Twere a rare vengeance on me, well assigned.
But death is for us all. I can have death
I'll think of it--body and soul asleep!
Pilate.
Foolishness! foolishness! Fye, you weary me.
You are so small, you women, cannot peep
Over the fence next to you; so self-willed,
You'll not trust other's eyes who see a world
Stretched out beyond it. "Dearest" says the man,
"I see some certain hills and valleys there;
I'll draw them in my picture of the world."
"Not so" the woman says, "there's nothing more
Than this green yard we stand in. Map it out
And that's the world." And so she'll make her roads
Run straight to little points within the hedge,
And never thinks there may be curves to take
To reach great points outside.
Procla.
And does that mean
A woman thinks a judge is to be just,
And a man thinks a judge is to resolve
What policy were spoiled if he were just?
Pilate.
It means a man, a ruler as I am,
Must look beyond the moment, must allay
Justice with prudence. Innocence is much
To save a man, but is not everything
Where a whole province is at stake for Rome.
How many lives think you had cost this life
Refused to these hot zealots? In one word
Sum up the answer--war. You tender soul
Who weep so for this one man dead, what tears,
What cataracts of tears would wear the sight
Out of your frightened eyes if I had been,
What by the Gods I longed to be, mere just,
Had, starving them of their sweet blood-draught, roused
The wild dog lurking in each several man
Of your dear Jews, these stubborn sullen Jews
Who are ready any moment to spring up
And flesh their teeth in Roman throats? Aye, think--
Bloody rebellion loosed; the ready cry
"Insult to Moses' law" howled through the land,
Maddening these tiger tribes; the Roman sway
Tottering and rent as by an earthquake's throes;
Our Romans hacked and maimed and trampled, snared
In ambushes and onslaughts in the dark.
And, then the vengeance! these your hero Jews,
Whose myths and hymns so take you, trodden out
Like reptiles underneath the heel; not one,
But hundreds, crucified; rapine and fire
And slaying everywhere. Then, bye and bye,
The province settled in an angry peace,
Half our Jews dead, the other half grown dumb
For utter fear, and Rome supreme again,
Cæsar bethinks him whence the mischief came:
"Our procurator--What! to save one man
Who preached, he thought, a fine philosophy
He put a slight upon the famous law
He was bidden touch so gingerly, and set
The land in that fierce uproar! Call him home
And let him answer it." You'd blame me then
In sadder fashion, Procla. Aye, I know
You women do it. Always 'tis a fault,
Never an evil fortune. A man dies,
You're wretched, but you tell him while he dies
It was his fault.
Procla.
Alas! Have I deserved
This bitterness?
Pilate.
Because you harp and harp
On one cross theme--that necessary death.
You know it vexed me sharply. Let me be.
The past is past, the dead are dead, and groans
And "would I had not"s will not make not done
That which was not done scarce a minute back.
Fate's self can never say "the past is not,"
Only the coming swerves for fate or gods,
And how can a man's sorrow touch it then?
Procla.
He may find good from sorrow for ill deeds.
Pilate.
What good? Will sorrow lengthen a man's days
Or give him wealth or triumphs? Sorrow eats
Into the heart like a wasp into the fruit,
Eats up the pith within you, leaves you, like
The Dead Sea dust fruits, proper to the sight
For customary use, but inwardly
Unserviceable ashes. Do you think
I've vexed Apollo or some fire-breathed God
Who'll dart a plague on me unless I bend
And offer hecatombs? No, no, the wrong
Is but against my nature and the man
Who died not having sinned; so there is none,
Nor God, nor man, to whom I can atone.
Nor see I how my sorrowing would help.
Procla.
I know it. Yet, if Jesus were divine--
Pilate.
What then, you Nazarene?
Procla.
Why then 'twould be
As if you had vexed Apollo. You would bring
A sacrifice to make his anger cease.
Pilate.
My child, this Jesus, if he were divine,
Was a philosopher. Such would not snuff
Our reeking altar smokes with much delight.
What sacrifice could he have?
Procla.
I have heard
He used to say the sacrifice to him
Was sorrow for ill-doing.
Pilate.
Said he that?
If a poet now could have his pick of Gods
To put in heaven, he'd make him one for that.
My Procla, I have heard of many things
Most noble and most touching that man taught
And I believe that he, though of mean state,
Not tutored as I think in subtle lore
Of the wise Greeks nor of our reasoning schools,
Would yet have left his stamp upon the world
As deep as any sage's, would have raised
A school of teachers of the highest flight
Who might perhaps have learned for us some things
We vaguely yearn to know of, found perhaps
Something to take for real and hold fast
In the confusion of philosophies
And shifting dulled traditions of our Gods
Who let us wander on and make no sign--
For what are we to them or they to us?
Something at least to take for starting point
Amid the coil of labyrinths that twist
And fret and cross and bring us back again
To where we were, the labyrinths that seem
To wreath and puzzle round a gaping void
Where truth, we're told, should be,--a starting point
To find the clue from, and perhaps the goal....
Which our philosophers put out of count,
As if the work was to make labyrinths,
More than we have, and see where they might end.
For him, he seemed, if he had not seen truth,
At least to think he had; and that is much.
And if I could have saved him, but for this
That he might reason with me, I had done it.
And I, whom the Jews call a cruel man,
At least love justice as a Roman should,
And that man's innocence, (I tell you this
That you may cease to make my trouble worse),
Weighs on me like my guilt, though I indeed
Absolve myself from share in dooming him.
But there was no way left; you know I tried
To save him and I failed. No more of this.
Now never vex me with his name again,
Unless you'd have me loathe you as I loathe
The murderous Jews who dragged their victim from me
By threats of Cæsar.
Procla.
No, you'll love me still.
I will not fret you, you are grieved enough.
But you'll have his name forced upon you yet--
They say he's risen.
Pilate.
Pretty simpleton,
You look as awestruck, draw your breath as quick
As if you were no wiser than the geese.
That cackle in the back lanes of all towns.
Risen, my baby! I have heard this talk.
And do you think death but an actor's mask
To be thrown off and there's the man alive?
I would he could be risen. I should laugh
To see the Jews' scared faces. More than that
I should be thankful, sleep more easily;
And you'd smile all the sweeter. But the dead
Lie stark and helpless, then rot into earth,
And there's an end. That's the deep sadness, child,
Which all our hearts, outface it as we will,
Faint at and whimper at through all our thoughts,
That the dead are really dead and not asleep,
And so there is no rising. Nay indeed
If they should rise, what body could they wear?
Is there not loathsome mildewing decay
That eats the putrid flesh? My fond fair wife,
Let us take life as softly as we can
So hard a toil, and gild it with all joys,
And not nurse sorrow on it, as you'd do,
Because of evil chances; for so soon
As it is given us foul death begins
To nibble at it, and one day he gnaws
The heartstrings and we go back to the earth,
And there's nor joy nor sorrow nor fond hope,
For we are nothing.
Procla.
Do you think indeed
There is no soul?
Pilate.
I know there is a soul,
Since there's a body and the body moves
And feels and breathes, though 'tis such reeking dung
When something's gone, the something that is soul.
But that dies first, gasps into nothingness,
And after that the body dies and fats
The earth it came of. Nay, if the soul lived
As part of the great breath we call the air
And so a part of life and every life,
What life were that to us to call it ours?
We die, my Procla, and to die is death.
Procla.
Those Jewish wondrous writings which love
And you call glorious phantasies allow
Another sense to death--which one should come
To show men plainly, so that none should die.
Oh husband, if this Jesus were the man
Or god who was to show it!
Pilate.
Aye, indeed
That were a parlous loss! But they can hope
And dream without a teacher, and what more
Could any teach them than to hope and dream?
And now, dear Procla, leave me, I have work,
Letters and long reports to write for Rome.
Go to your tapestries--a fitter use,
And fairer, for your wits than these sad thoughts
Which, saddening us, may make us sooner die,
But cannot soften death. Go dear.
Procla.
I go.
But as for tapestries, the needle flies
And thought flies quicker. Sorrow will not die
Upon the needle's point Good bye awhile.
Pilate.
Good bye, be merry, and forget this talk.
(Exit Procla.)
Aye, so one says forget. She may forget:
Women are but bird-minded, flying quick
And eager from one tree-perch to the next,
And sometimes lighting on a thorny bough,
By chance, but not for long. A day or two
And she'll forget the prophet, be content
With her dear Jewish legends. But, for me,
Her sobbings and her talk will vex me, long
Past her remembering them. I'm strangely moved!
Indeed these several days I have not lost
The sense of shame that shook me when he looked
With quiet eyes at me, standing condemned
By my allowance. Wonderful weird man!
If gods indeed would take men's shapes, I'd say.
I saw the God in him. It is past thought
That any, even haters like the Jews,
Could hate him. Well they did and murdered him.
But I am guiltless of his blood. I went
To the utmost verge of prudence--nay, beyond--
To check the infuriate mob. Yes, by the gods,
No light task 'twould have been to clear myself
For my part in the mischief, if there'd grown
A riot from the trial, and that seemed like
Before I yielded. They are hard at Rome
On luckless governors. Aye, aye, my Jews
Had made a rare case of it: for the man,
Though to our Roman sense most innocent
Of all save too much wisdom for their wits,
Was doubtless somewhere tangled in the toils
Of their fastidious laws. Why, he had washed
At the wrong time--or had not washed, which was it?
He said the Scribes were pedants and the priests
Rank hypocrites ... which only we may say,
And which we're bidden not say to the Jews;
He told the mob their God was, after all,
More than their Moses; and, most heinous sin,
He healed their sick on sabbaths. By their law
He ought to die; their rulers urged that loud.
Never let any say I was unjust.
"The Son of God" he took for name, they said.
Belike one of their Syriac metaphors
Which, like hot-tempered kestrels, overfly
The quarry aimed at. But, if he did mean
To boast a mystic kindred with some source
Of life and thought divinely different
From the every-day plain sires who made our lives,
I'd never mock his claim until I knew
Its secret import. Not if the title was
Of his own taking. If the sheepish herds;
That flock around each new teacher, all asweat
With running and jostling for the nearest place,
To stare and wonder what he means and cry
"Oh the rare teacher!" till the next one comes,
So dubbed him, why, 'tis but the ancient tale:
The multitude, self-conscious, thinks a man
Must be a fool and base, and when it finds
One who is neither, or at least not both,
Is sure by that his father is a god,
Or he's a god himself, or going to be.
But Jesus if he said I am the Son
Of a divine one, or of the One God,
Implied some esoteric subtlety
With a great import--for I looked on him
And heard him speak, and his was no crazed soul,
Fired from its own dank heat like ill-housed ricks;
And no impostor, sane, would in such stead
Have kept so obstinate a courage.
Truth!
He claimed to know truth, which no man yet knew.
Was that his meaning? Truth is real life,
Such as the gods might have, and he had reached
To truth and so was as One near the gods,
Or near the great One God--which possibly
Is but a name of life.
But why waste thought
To beat out the philosophy or creed
He would have taught, from the disfiguring husks
Rough rumour gives as grain? The man is dead;
Guilty or innocent, wise or possessed,
He sleeps the silent sleep which ends all hope,
And we may bawl our questions at his door,
He'll make no answer. Dead philosophers
Are just as useful to the living world
As are dead lions, or dead rats ... they help
To make good soil. As for the coins they leave,
Of thought, for us to heir, why, ninety-nine
Out of each hundred stamp their own images
On all their dies, and so the coins mean nought,
Save to disciples who will let them pass
As money 'twixt themselves, still bickering,
The while, about their values. If by chance
We take the mint of one man for some worth,
Then in a trice we're rich with counterfeits
Yielding base metal to the assayer's tests.
Let the sage live and give us his own gold,
That's something: we are all disciples then
After a fashion. For at least we're sure
That what we hear him speak he speaks--or thus,
The sounds he makes have such results on ears
Which are our own, and so we say we're sure,
Though in true sense we're sure of nothing.
Aye,
We're sure of nothing. That's the wretched void
Which makes all thinking sad and like the wind
That with much blustering breaks itself a way
And passes on to nowhere. We live now,
And life means a great hurrying on to death;
And then we die and death means nothingness;
And weep, or scoff, or reason at it, still
Two facts so bald as these are all we have
For fruit of all our pains, and those we had
Taking no pains at all. All other things,
As how we live, and why, and whence, remain
A fretting mystery. Like shipwrecked men
We try to float upon a sea of doubts:
We'd swim for shore if there were any shore,
But the only ground at hand to give us rest
Is the loathed home of dead things underneath.
This Jesus now--how strangely he has seized
Upon my mind! I cannot lose the sense
Of his sad look fixed on me sovereign
With patient high rebuke--he seemed to wear
A quiet on him, as if he did rest,
As if he somehow would have given rest
To those who learned of him. But he is dead;
And I half feel as if in killing him
They had refused the last hope of the world
For any comfort in the heavy gloom.
That death and doubt throw on it. They! say we.
I am accomplice; gloze it as I will
With fair and true excuses, in my heart
It rankles a great shame and bitterness.
I killed him, I, the unjust and coward judge
Who cringed before the passion of a mob
And was their tool. Gods! 'twas a hideous deed,
A dastardly foul deed, to let him die.
I'm sick at it, I'm weary like a man
Who carries crimes on him he dares not name
Even to his next and dearest lest they'd turn
And loathe him. Every creeping silent hour
Since I beheld him haled forth to the cross
Has dragged an age of thought with it, and what
I know not how to name except as dread.
And yet what do I dread? But more and more,
Like a poor baby shuddering in the dark
And peopling loneliness with awful shades,
I feel as if I could not be alone
Because I tremble. Somewhere there must be
A terror near, or why should I be scared?
There's all my reasoning. The baby cries,
And some one helps it, lights it safe to bed.
The man must hold his peace, or they'll say "mad"
And chain and lash him long before he's mad
With trying to make out his bugbear's shape.
Nay I'll not peer for mine. I could not bear
Poor Procla's fancies and I sent her hence,
To be in peace, but my own fancies are
Like monster shadows, hers thrown hideously
On lurid mists. What! can I never now
Trust myself with myself? Must there still come
This madman's mood upon me, as if guilt
Were more than man can bear who yet bears death
With pleasantness if any one be near
To give him honour for it?
Ah! they say
Through all his anguish he would still look down
With an ineffable strange pitying,
As if 'twas those below who died, not he;
They say through all he--nay, no more of this.
The crime sits hard enough on my wrung mind
Without these useless broodings to swell out
Its vampire bulk. I know too certainly
I shall be haunted with it all my days,
As if the Furies clung to me. But I
Refuse the guilt, I did not will the doom;
Let the Jews look to it, they took his death
On them and on their children.
But if aught
Could purify me I'd give this right hand
The water should have cleansed from that just blood,
To purchase that redemption.
Well, 'tis naught.
To weep past evil is a vainer thing
Than to shake drops of dew upon the fire.
I'll think no' more of it--were't possible
I'd never think again. There's much to do,
These letters should be sent to Rome at once.
Cleopas.
I cannot see to reason, 'tis as if
I walked amid a cloud and saw all blurred
Through its slow hazes, nothing certain shaped.
What this portends I guess not. But 'tis strange.
The other Disciple.
Most strange indeed! The closing stone roll'd back
By stealth! the body stolen from the tomb!
Think you the rulers have done this, for fear
His tomb should be a sacred place for us
Who loved him, and the fickle people, moved
With memory of his great signs and words,
Might come and touch his tomb with reverence,
And build about it a great monument
To honour him to all the future days,
A prophet, yea and more?
Cleopas.
Nay but they said,
The women, they had looked upon and heard
A vision of great angels.
The other.
Idle tales.
Alas! they have been weeping now so long,
They go distraught for sorrow. One of them
Had a sick fancy, and the rest, all scared
And horror-struck because the dead was gone,
Believed her ravings, and came huddling back,
Breathless like children who have news to tell
And could not wait to see if it were true
Lest some one else should tell it first. Their words
Seemed to the Apostles idle tales, and they
Know more than we.
Cleopas.
But then the Lord is gone.
The other.
Yes they have taken him. Would we but knew
Where they have laid him! Will they wreak their hate
Even on the dead? Oh cruel! could they not
Have left us so much comfort as there is
To weep outside a grave?
Cleopas.
And yet he talked
Of rising.
The other.
Dost thou think it? Did that mean
That he should rise his own same self again?
Cleopas.
Alas who knows? He showed us many things
Which we perceived but dimly, for weak eyes
Wink at the light and see it in a haze.
We cannot tell. He said he was the life,
Yet he saw death. He came to be our light,
And we grope in the darkness, crying out
To know which way we tend, and none replies,
Nor takes our hand to set us in the path.
The other.
Aye, we may weep. We seemed to have a hope
For Israel and for us. And lo! the strength
Of Satan has been stronger than Christ's strength.
We are given over to our sins and death,
God will not pity us. He has looked down
On Israel's stubbornness, and turns aside
His purposed blessing from us. Jesus came
And said, "Be happy, be the sons of God."
And Israel answered "Nay, but we will have
The yoke that is too heavy and the pain
That is too sharp. We will not come to thee
For life, but we will live our life and die."
And Israel answered "Nay but thy sweet words
Are bitter in our ears because of sin.
Depart from us, be dumb among the dead."
And so they slew him. Oh! our Master slain
With the transgressors! And the promise given
For ages and for ages, Israel's hope
And consolation, marred in the very hour
Of its fulfillment! Now shall men drudge on
For ever in the same unhopeful round,
Sadder than sunless days, for Christ is slain
Who was the Sun of lives.
Cleopas.
So after all
Thou too continuest sure he is the Christ.
The other.
We who have known him, know he was the Christ
Because he told us so. In all this doubt
We will not doubt of that. But, woe is me
For our lost hope! Christ should have ruled the world.
Cleopas.
Therefore it seems to me death cannot have
Dominion over him.
The other.
It should be so.
But he is dead.
Cleopas.
Yet if the angels spake
"Why will ye seek the living with the dead?
He is not here."
The other.
Alas! my Cleopas,
We saw him die.
Cleopas.
There is another life.
The other.
Yes, some dim other life which was a sleep
Until Messiah came ... then should be life.
But he has come, and now what is that life?
For whom do the sleepers wait?
Cleopas.
My brother, hear.
I am not subtle, cannot gather up
The several threads of counter prophecies
And show them crossing but as woof and warp,
But I trust God and Jesus whom he sent,
Whom we call Lord. God shall save Israel
From all their sins: the promise was set forth
In many signs and many various words,
And came scarce a day later to the world
Than sin itself, which the serpent taught the world.
The promise was because of sins. Shall then
The father of all sins, who is the serpent,
Be master of the world through Israel's sin
Against the promise? Can men thwart God's will?
Jesus also himself declared to us
We should be comforted. How comforted,
If he sleep carelessly among the dead,
And the hope die with him? Since Christ is come
It must be that the promise is fulfilled,
And is fulfilled in him?
The other.
Fulfilled? But how?
Cleopas.
I know not. Oh, my brother, we must weep,
And the tears darken out the light.
The other.
We weep
Because the light is gone.
Cleopas.
Oh Jesus, Lord,
Light out of Heaven, our glory and our love,
Thou art gone from us. Gone! Oh! can the dead
Hear thee and love thee as the living once?
Why then the dead are living, we are dead.
Let us live with thee Lord among the dead.
Alas! I am a blind man crying out
For sight, and know not if my eyes would wake
On only heavy darkness of the night
Or if there's day upon the earth.
The other.
Alas!
Can day give any comfort to the blind?
And, Jesus gone, we every one are blind,
With none to heal us. Oh our light! our life!
Thou gone we are blind, we are dead. Oh Cleopas,
Had God forsaken him?
Cleopas.
Oh no, no, no.
It could not be. Our Christ! the Son of God!
The other.
The Son of God, as we believe, God's Own,
A very part of God. And yet he died
Even as a man dies whose life is wind.
And where then is our hope?
Cleopas.
Woe, woe, is me!
Is then our hope made vanity? Is life
The way to death? Nothing but the way to death?
Shall the world lie in darkness to the end
And desolate?
AND JESUS HIMSELF DREW NEAR.
RING then, ring loudly, merry midnight bells,
Peal the new lord of days blithe welcoming--
What though your sweet-scaled tones be also knells,
Be knells the while for the old fallen king
Resting his dying head upon the snow?
Ring out the old year, for the new year ring.
Mock him with laughing voices, bid him go;
Let him make haste to rest among the dead,
He is no more it lord for life to know.
Ring in the coming year; his power has fled,
He has no blessing and no sorrow more.
Ah well; yet should no tear for him be shed
Surely some gift of good to men he bore,
He too was greeted as an honoured guest;
Ah fickle! do we joy his reign is o'er?
Should we so vex him, as he sinks to rest,
Greeting with glad acclaim his passing sigh?
He droops into his grave unmourned, unblest;
With dying ears he hears the joyous cry
That bids his rival take his crown and reign;
The mirth of music and of songs laughs by;
He hears men merry at his dying pain,
"He breathes his last, laugh him a gay good-bye."--
And yet he did not live with us in vain.
But what is this to me? Well, let him die.
Did he bring any joy or good to me?
He taught me tears, shall tears now flood mine eye?
But I among the rest make jubilee,
(Here in the midnight, sitting all alone,
Far in my heart from any thought of glee),
And, triumphing to see him overthrown,
I say "Yes die, make haste to thy far flight,
Let the new days reap that which thou hast sown."
For thou hast sown; and if thy stormful might
Has crushed the buddings of the former years,
Ah well! their fields of promise were too bright,
Too bright--oh! childish folly of vain tears,
To weep for weeds which were no more than fair,
And dwarfed the fulness of the golden ears!--
Too bright with cornflowers and the crimson flare
Of idle poppies, and with purpled chains
Of trailing vetch too frail its weight to bear.
Well, thou hast broken them with they strong rains
And buried them to death beneath thy snows--
What though with them have sunk the swelling grains?
For nought can perish quite; the crimson glows
Will be more faint, the purples fade away,
But harvest wealth will wave in closer rows.
The buried blooms give life from their decay,
And strength and fulness to the aftergrowth,
Out from their graves it climbs to a perfect day.
So comes a richer fruit. Why am I wroth
With thee, old year? And yet I am content:
Now in that thought, now this, and doubting both.
I say "Haste hence; I joy thy life is spent,
I shall breathe freer when thy reign is o'er;
Let the young lord of hopes make his ascent."
I say "Oh dying year, my heart is sore
For thee who hast become a part of me,
I grieve that I shall see thy face no more."
And all the while the death-chills creep o'er thee
Lying on thy cold couch 'mid snow and rain;
A moment now, and thou hast ceased to be.
Hark! hark! the music of the merry chime!
The King is dead! God's blessing on the King!
Welcome with gladness this new King of Time.
Oh merry midnight bells, ring blithely, ring,
Wake with your breathless peal the startled night,
High in your belfry in mad frolic swing.
Laugh out again, sweet music and delight,
In happy homes a moment hushed to hear
The midnight strokes boom out the old year's flight.
See, he is gone for ever, the old year,
Why should we vex our hearts with sad farewells?
Let the dead sleep, bare not his shrouded bier,
Ring on, ring yet more gladly, merry bells,
Peal the new lord of days glad welcoming--
What though your happy chimes be also knells?
A WILD rough night: and through the gloomy grey
One sees the blackness of the headland grow,
One sees the whiteness of the upflung spray,
The whiteness of the breakers down below.
A wild wild night: and on the shingly rim
The furious sea-surge roars and frets and rives;
And far away those black specks, growing dim,
Are tossing with their freights of human lives.
And all the while upon the silent height
The strong white star, beneath the starless sky,
Shines through the dimness of the troubled night,
Shines motionless while the vexed winds hoot by.
Oh! steadfast light, across dark miles of sea
How many straining eyes whence sleep is chased
Are watching through the midnight storm for thee
Large glimmering through the haze to the grey waste!
And in the night, fond mothers, scared awake,
And lonely wives, pushing the blind aside,
See thee and bless thee for their sailor's sake,
And thank God thou art there, the dear ship's guide.
Oh! strong calm star, so watching night by night,
And hour by hour, when storm-winds are astir,
They find thee changeless with thy patient light,
A beacon to the sea-tossed wanderer.
Oh strong and patient! Once upon my life
Shone such a star, and, when the trouble wave
Reached me and I grew faint with tempest strife,
Through all I saw that hope-star and was brave.
Oh my lost star! my star that was to me
Instead of sunlight that the happy know!
Oh weary way upon life's trackless sea!
And through the gloom there shines no beacon glow.
NEVER again. This shivering rose, that sees
Its dwindled blossoms droop and fall to earth
Before the chillness of the Autumn rain,
Will bud next summer with more fair than these--
But when have love's waned smiles a second birth?
Never again, Never again.
Never again. Oh dearest do you know
All the long mournfulness of such a word?
And even you who smile now on my pain
May seek some day for love lost long ago
And sigh to the long echo faintly heard
Never again, Never again.
Never again. The love we break to-day
May linger in my heart unto the last;
And even with you some memory must remain,
But ah! no more. The sunlight died away
Will wake again, but never wakes the past--
Never again, Never again.
THE ripples break upon the beach,
And sway the shadow of the heights;
The long slant beams that shoreward reach
Are fretted in a thousand lights.
But on the shore the stillness dreams,
In the blue sky the hill-tops sleep,
And through the haze of golden gleams
The quiet shadows show more deep.
Oh silent hills! oh sleeping shore!
Soon shall I lose you in the grey
Of stealthy evening creeping o'er,
Of evening darkening o'er the bay.
Oh silent hills! oh sleeping shore!
The waning light will come again,
But I shall look on you no more,
For me morn wakens you in vain.
Sleep on, fair shore and sun-loved hills--
I seek the land where I was born;
I seek the grey north with its chills;
I shall not look on you at morn.
I WAKE before the morn, when all is still;
No noisy crowing clamours yet to hail
That first long glimmer o'er the eastern hill.
Dim shadow rests upon the quiet vale;
Night silence holds it yet in happy rest;
Voiceless the silver river shimmers pale;
One star peeps shily through the clouded west
Above the moor's low blackness stretching wide
From the dusk ridges of the wood's long crest.
One light gleams redly on the mountain side
And seems to cheer the gloom. And yet perchance
That gleam were more with thought of grief allied.
Perhaps a mother, with love-restless glance,
Sits lonely by it, weeping in the night,
Watching the tokens of death's stern advance;
And with a trembling hand she trims the light
That flickers strangely on his dying face,
Her son's dear face that lies so worn and white;
And prays unceasing that dear Heaven's grace
May yet withdraw him from the Cold One's grasp,
And seeks in vain for sign of his retrace.
Perhaps this moment hears his dying gasp,
And she, all stony in her mother-woe,
Feels a dead hand lie heavy in her clasp.
Some grief, alas! that little star's red glow
Has surely shone on through a troubled night,
Some anguish such as pallid watchers know.
And I, who, wakened ere the morning light
By a vague consciousness of inward pain,
Look outward through the gloom with tear-dimmed sight,
And, feeling power is given me in vain
Of joying in degree surpassing speech,
Pine as one hill-born tethered to a plain,
And sigh because my days may never reach
Fullness of life and love their need to fill--
Somewhat my thoughts my sicklier fancy teach.
Seeing that sorrow-star upon the hill,
And reading many's sorrows by its ray,
I turn me from myself with holier will,
And know my feet tread not too rough a way,
Though some sharp stones lie crimsoned from their blood;
Know I have cause to thank as well as pray.
And know moreover that, well understood,
It is great love that gives us not all joy,
So we may learn more joy in others' good,
And learn a love more free from self's alloy,
And so live deeply, having heavenly food,
Being love-workers in God's great employ.
SUMMER wind surging the branches,
Dost thou come from the far away shore by the sea?
Was my love looking out on the waves astir,
Thinking "Ah would they might bear me to her,"
And did he whisper his thought to thee?
Hast thou no message for me?
Summer wind kissing the roses,
Summer wind come to me here from the sea,
Is my true love sighing for when he was here
With his lips to the lips that he holds so dear?
Did he whisper a little word to thee?
Hast thou no message for me?
Summer wind wooing the lily,
Summer wind come far away from the sea,
Is his love as true and as single yet
As it was when our parting tears were wet?
Did he whisper his faith and his trust to thee?
Hast thou no message for me?
Summer wind fretting the willow,
Summer wind stolen from the shore by the sea,
Is my true love longing and lone at heart
In the bright rest-days where I have no part?
Did he not whisper his yearning to thee?
Hast thou no message for me?
Summer wind waving the ivy,
Summer wind sent to me here from the sea,
Is my true love counting the days that go by
Ere he clasp my life into his till I die?
Did he not whisper his longing to thee?
Hast thou no message for me?
THEY rode through the wood at the dead of night,
Three knights and a lady sad and pale,
While the moon drooped down with a wan weird light,
And a low wind sighed through the sleeping dale,
And the dead leaves rustled under their tread,
And the trees swayed muttering overhead,
And the moans of the forest pines came nigh;
But the river rolled onward silently.
Two of the knights rode straight and strong,
But the middle one bowed on his horse's mane,
And the winding path that they came along
Was tracked with a terrible crimson stain,
And a terrible sound, as of dying groans,
Rose as they passed o'er the broken stones
Down where the gorge lay bare to the sky,
And the river rolled onward silently.
And the lady wailed with a piteous woe,
While they rode on steadily down the bank
Where the blackness of water lay below
And the tall sedge-weeds grew lush and dank;
And the lady shrieked and prayed for grace,
But her brothers rode to the fording place
And looked with a triumphing deadly eye
Where the river was rolling on silently.
They rode their steeds to the middle stream--
The water stood at each horse's mouth--
They waited awhile in the dreary gleam
While their wearied chargers slaked their drouth;
And they raised from his saddle the wounded knight--
One moment his armour flashed in the light,
Then an eddy whirled and passed slowly by,
And the river rolled onward silently.
Two plashes, a face twice seen to rise,
The water a moment tinged with gore,
Then a gurgle heard mid the lady's cries,
A sudden bubble and all was o'er.--
And the knights rode quickly back to the bank
Where the lady watched while her lover sank--
Three that had come and but two to hie--
And the river rolled onward silently.
But the lady struck at her palfrey's side
And plunged him down with a plashing bound
Into the dark stream's deepest tide,
And they saw the white wreaths of foam whirl round;
And the palfrey swam to the farthest shore,
But the lady came to the land no more.
And two lay dead where but one should die.
But the river rolled onward silently.
TWO maidens listening to the sea--
The younger said "The waves are glad,
The waves are singing as they break."
The elder spake
"Sister, their murmur sounds to me
So very sad."
Two maidens looking at a grave--
One smiled "A place of happy sleep.
It would be happy if I slept."
The younger wept
"Oh save me from the rest you crave,
So lone, so deep."
Two maidens gazing into life--
The younger said "It is so fair,
So warm with light and love and pride."
The elder sighed
"It seems to me so vexed with strife,
So cold and bare."
Two maidens face to face with death--
The elder said "With quiet bliss
Upon his breast I lay my head."
The younger said
"His kiss has frozen all my breath,
Must I be his?"
OH happy glow, oh sun-bathed tree,
Oh golden-lighted river,
A love-gift has been given me,
And which of you is giver?
I came upon you something sad,
Musing a mournful measure,
Now all my heart in me is glad
With a quick sense of pleasure.
I came upon you with a heart
Half sick of life's vexed story,
And now it grows of you a part,
Steeped in your golden glory.
A smile into my heart has crept
And laughs through all my being,
New joy into my life has leapt,
A joy of only seeing!
Oh happy glow, oh sun-bathed tree,
Oh golden-lighted river,
A love-gift has been given me,
And which of you is giver?
IF I should die this night, (as well might be,
So pain has on my weakness worked its will),
And they shoul