Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of a mild declivity, the last
As 't were the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs; the hill
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing,--the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself,--but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful;
And both were young,--yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had looked
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which colored all his objects;--he had ceased
To live with himself: she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all; upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously;--his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother,--but no more; 'twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honored race. It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not,--and why?
Time taught him a deep answer--when she loved
Another; even _now_ she loved another,
And on the summit of the hill she stood,
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned;
Within an antique oratory stood
The boy of whom I spake;--he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned
His bowed head on his hands and shook, as 'twere
With a convulsion,--then arose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears,
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet; as he paused,
The lady of his love re-entered there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved; she knew--
For quickly comes such knowledge--that his heart
Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,
For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed
From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The boy was sprung to manhood; in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man,
Clad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The lady of his love was wed with one
Who did not love her better: in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,--her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing infancy,
Daughters and sons of beauty,--but behold!
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lids were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?--she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?--she had loved him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which preyed
Upon her mind--a spectre of the past.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The wanderer was returned.--I saw him stand
Before an altar--with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The starlight of his boyhood;--as he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The selfsame aspect and the quivering shock
That in the antique oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then--
As in that hour--a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced,--and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reeled around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been,--
But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back
And thrust themselves between him and the light;
What business had they there at such a time?
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The lady of his love;--O, she was changed,
As by the sickness of the soul! her mind
Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things,
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth,
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compassed round
With hatred and contention; pain was mixed
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains: with the stars
And the quick Spirit of the universe
He held his dialogues; and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was opened wide,
And voices from the deep abyss revealed
A marvel and a secret.--Be it so.
My dream was past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality,--the one
To end in madness--both in misery.
LORD BYRON.
ALAS! HOW LIGHT A CAUSE MAY MOVE.
FROM "THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM."
Alas! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love!
Hearts that the world in vain has tried,
And sorrow but more closely tied;
That stood the storm when waves were rough,
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,
Like ships that have gone down at sea,
When heaven was all tranquillity!
A something light as air,--a look,
A word unkind or wrongly taken,--
O, love that tempests never shook,
A breath, a touch like this has shaken!
And ruder words will soon rush in
To spread the breach that words begin;
And eyes forget the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day;
And voices lose the tone that shed
A tenderness round all they said;
Till fast declining, one by one,
The sweetnesses of love are gone,
And hearts, so lately mingled, seem
Like broken clouds,--or like the stream,
That smiling left the mountain's brow,
As though its waters ne'er could sever,
Yet, ere it reach the plain below,
Breaks into floods that part forever.
O you, that have the charge of Love,
Keep him in rosy bondage bound,
As in the Fields of Bliss above
He sits, with flowerets fettered round;--
Loose not a tie that round him clings,
Nor ever let him use his wings;
For even an hour, a minute's flight
Will rob the plumes of half their light.
Like that celestial bird,--whose nest
Is found beneath far Eastern skies,--
Whose wings, though radiant when at rest,
Lose all their glory when he flies!
THOMAS MOORE.
BLIGHTED LOVE.
Flowers are fresh, and bushes green,
Cheerily the linnets sing;
Winds are soft, and skies serene;
Time, however, soon shall throw
Winter's snow
O'er the buxom breast of Spring!
Hope, that buds in lover's heart,
Lives not through the scorn of years;
Time makes love itself depart;
Time and scorn congeal the mind,--
Looks unkind
Freeze affection's warmest tears.
Time shall make the bushes green;
Time dissolve the winter snow;
Winds be soft, and skies serene;
Linnets sing their wonted strain:
But again
Blighted love shall never blow!
From the Portuguese of LUIS DE CAMOENS.
Translation of LORD STRANGFORD.
THE NEVERMORE.
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;
Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell
Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,
Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.
Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart
One moment through my soul the soft surprise
Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,--
Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart
Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
THE PORTRAIT.
Midnight past! Not a sound of aught
Through the silent house, but the wind at his prayers.
I sat by the dying fire, and thought
Of the dear dead woman upstairs.
A night of tears! for the gusty rain
Had ceased, but the eaves were dripping yet;
And the moon looked forth, as though in pain,
With her face all white and wet:
Nobody with me, my watch to keep,
But the friend of my bosom, the man I love:
And grief had sent him fast to sleep
In the chamber up above.
Nobody else, in the country place
All round, that knew of my loss beside,
But the good young Priest with the Raphael-face,
Who confessed her when she died.
That good young Priest is of gentle nerve,
And my grief had moved him beyond control;
For his lips grew white, as I could observe,
When he speeded her parting soul.
I sat by the dreary hearth alone:
I thought of the pleasant days of yore:
I said, "The staff of my life is gone:
The woman I loved is no more.
"On her cold dead bosom my portrait lies,
Which next to her heart she used to wear--
Haunting it o'er with her tender eyes
When my own face was not there.
"It is set all round with rubies red,
And pearls which a Peri, might have kept.
For each ruby there my heart hath bled:
For each pearl my eyes have wept."
And I said--"The thing is precious to me:
They will bury her soon in the churchyard clay;
It lies on her heart, and lost must be
If I do not take it away."
I lighted my lamp at the dying flame,
And crept up the stairs that creaked for fright,
Till into the chamber of death I came,
Where she lay all in white.
The moon shone over her winding-sheet,
There stark she lay on her carven bed:
Seven burning tapers about her feet,
And seven about her head.
As I stretched my hand, I held my breath;
I turned as I drew the curtains apart:
I dared not look on the face of death:
I knew where to find her heart.
I thought at first, as my touch fell there,
It had warmed that heart to life, with love;
For the thing I touched was warm, I swear,
And I could feel it move.
'Twas the hand of a man, that was moving slow
O'er the heart of the dead,--from the other side:
And at once the sweat broke over my brow.
"Who is robbing the corpse?" I cried.
Opposite me by the tapers' light,
The friend of my bosom, the man I loved,
Stood over the corpse, and all as white,
And neither of us moved.
"What do you here, my friend?" ... The man
Looked first at me, and then at the dead.
"There is a portrait here," he began;
"There is. It is mine," I said.
Said the friend of my bosom, "Yours, no doubt,
The portrait was, till a month ago,
When this suffering angel took that out,
And placed mine there, I know."
"This woman, she loved me well," said I.
"A month ago," said my friend to me:
"And in your throat," I groaned, "you lie!"
He answered, ... "Let us see."
"Enough!" I returned, "let the dead decide:
And whosesoever the portrait prove,
His shall it be, when the cause is tried,
Where Death is arraigned by Love."
We found the portrait there, in its place:
We opened it by the tapers' shine:
The gems were all unchanged: the face
Was--neither his nor mine.
"One nail drives out another, at least!
The face of the portrait there," I cried,
"Is our friend's, the Raphael-faced young Priest,
Who confessed her when she died."
The setting is all of rubies red,
And pearls which a Peri might have kept.
For each ruby there my heart hath bled:
For each pearl my eyes have wept.
ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON (_Owen Meredith_).
ONLY A WOMAN.
"She loves with love that cannot tire:
And if, ah, woe! she loves alone,
Through passionate duty love flames higher,
As grass grows taller round a stone."
--COVENTRY PATMORE.
So, the truth's out. I'll grasp it like a snake,--
It will not slay me. My heart shall not break
Awhile, if only for the children's sake.
For his, too, somewhat. Let him stand unblamed;
None say, he gave me less than honor claimed,
Except--one trifle scarcely worth being named--
The heart. That's gone. The corrupt dead might be
As easily raised up, breathing,--fair to see,
As he could bring his whole heart back to me.
I never sought him in coquettish sport,
Or courted him as silly maidens court,
And wonder when the longed-for prize falls short.
I only loved him,--any woman would:
But shut my love up till he came and sued,
Then poured it o'er his dry life like a flood.
I was so happy I could make him blest!--
So happy that I was his first and best,
As he mine,--when he took me to his breast.
Ah me! if only then he had been true!
If for one little year, a month or two,
He had given me love for love, as was my due!
Or had he told me, ere the deed was done,
He only raised me to his heart's dear throne--
Poor substitute--because the queen was gone!
O, had he whispered, when his sweetest kiss
Was warm upon my mouth in fancied bliss,
He had kissed another woman even as this,--
It were less bitter! Sometimes I could weep
To be thus cheated, like a child asleep;--
Were not my anguish far too dry and deep.
So I built my house upon another's ground;
Mocked with a heart just caught at the rebound,--
A cankered thing that looked so firm and sound.
And when that heart grew colder,--colder still,
I, ignorant, tried all duties to fulfil,
Blaming my foolish pain, exacting will,
All,--anything but him. It was to be
The full draught others drink up carelessly
Was made this bitter Tantalus-cup for me.
I say again,--he gives me all I claimed,
I and my children never shall be shamed:
He is a just man,--he will live unblamed.
Only--O God, O God, to cry for bread.
And get a stone! Daily to lay my head
Upon a bosom where the old love's dead!
Dead?--Fool! It never lived. It only stirred
Galvanic, like an hour-cold corpse. None heard:
So let me bury it without a word.
He'll keep that other woman from my sight.
I know not if her face be foul or bright;
I only know that it was his delight--
As his was mine; I only know he stands
Pale, at the touch of their long-severed hands,
Then to a flickering smile his lips commands,
Lest I should grieve, or jealous anger show.
He need not. When the ship's gone down, I trow,
We little reck whatever wind may blow.
And so my silent moan begins and ends,
No world's laugh or world's taunt, no pity of friends
Or sneer of foes, with this my torment blends.
None knows,--none heeds. I have a little pride;
Enough to stand up, wifelike, by his side,
With the same smile as when I was his bride.
And I shall take his children to my arms;
They will not miss these fading, worthless charms;
Their kiss--ah! unlike his--all pain disarms.
And haply as the solemn years go by,
He will think sometimes, with regretful sigh,
The other woman was less true than I.
DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK.
DOROTHY IN THE GARRET.
In the low-raftered garret, stooping
Carefully over the creaking boards,
Old Maid Dorothy goes a-groping
Among its dusty and cobwebbed hoards;
Seeking some bundle of patches, hid
Far under the eaves, or bunch of sage,
Or satchel hung on its nail, amid
The heirlooms of a bygone age.
There is the ancient family chest,
There the ancestral cards and hatchel;
Dorothy, sighing, sinks down to rest,
Forgetful of patches, sage, and satchel.
Ghosts of faces peer from the gloom
Of the chimney, where with swifts and reel,
And the long-disused, dismantled loom,
Stands the old-fashioned spinning-wheel.
She sees it back in the clean-swept kitchen,
A part of her girlhood's little world;
Her mother is there by the window, stitching;
Spindle buzzes, and reel is whirled
With many a click: on her little stool
She sits, a child, by the open door,
Watching, and dabbling her feet in the pool
Of sunshine spilled on the gilded floor
Her sisters are spinning all day long;
To her wakening sense the first sweet warning
Of daylight come is the cheerful song
To the hum of the wheel in the early morning.
Benjie, the gentle, red-cheeked boy.
On his way to school, peeps in at the gate;
In neat white pinafore, pleased and coy,
She reaches a hand to her bashful mate;
And under the elms, a prattling pair.
Together they go, through glimmer and gloom:--
It all comes back to her, dreaming there
In the low-raftered garret room;
The hum of the wheel, and the summer weather.
The heart's first trouble, and love's beginning,
Are all in her memory linked together;
And now it is she herself that is spinning.
With the bloom of youth on cheek and lip.
Turning the spokes with the flashing pin,
Twisting the thread from the spindle-tip,
Stretching it out and winding it in.
To and fro, with a blithesome tread,
Singing she goes, and her heart is full,
And many a long-drawn golden thread
Of fancy is spun with the shining wool.
Her father sits in his favorite place,
Puffing his pipe by the chimney-side;
Through curling clouds his kindly face
Glows upon her with love and pride.
Lulled by the wheel, in the old arm-chair
Her mother is musing, cat in lap,
With beautiful drooping head, and hair
Whitening under her snow-white cap.
One by one, to the grave, to the bridal,
They have followed her sisters from the door;
Now they are old, and she is their idol:--
It all comes back on her heart once more.
In the autumn dusk the hearth gleams brightly,
The wheel is set by the shadowy wall,--
A hand at the latch,--'tis lifted lightly,
And in walks Benjie, manly and tall.
His chair is placed; the old man tips
The pitcher, and brings his choicest fruit;
Benjie basks in the blaze, and sips,
And tells his story, and joints his flute:
O, sweet the tunes, the talk, the laughter!
They fill the hour with a glowing tide;
But sweeter the still, deep moments after,
When she is alone by Benjie's side.
But once with angry words they part:
O, then the weary, weary days!
Ever with restless, wretched heart,
Plying her task, she turns to gaze
Far up the road; and early and late
She harks for a footstep at the door,
And starts at the gust that swings the gate,
And prays for Benjie, who comes no more.
Her fault? O Benjie, and could you steel
Your thoughts towards one who loved you so?--
Solace she seeks in the whirling wheel,
In duty and love that lighten woe;
Striving with labor, not in vain,
To drive away the dull day's dreariness,--
Blessing the toil that blunts the pain
Of a deeper grief in the body's weariness.
Proud and petted and spoiled was she:
A word, and all her life is changed!
His wavering love too easily
In the great, gay city grows estranged:
One year: she sits in the old church pew;
A rustle, a murmur,--O Dorothy! hide
Your face and shut from your soul the view--
'Tis Benjie leading a white-veiled bride!
Now father and mother have long been dead,
And the bride sleeps under a churchyard stone,
And a bent old man with a grizzled head
Walks up the long dim aisle alone.
Years blur to a mist; and Dorothy
Sits doubting betwixt the ghost she seems,
And the phantom of youth, more real than she,
That meets her there in that haunt of dreams.
Bright young Dorothy, idolized daughter,
Sought by many a youthful adorer,
Life, like a new-risen dawn on the water,
Shining an endless vista before her!
Old Maid Dorothy, wrinkled and gray,
Groping under the farm-house eaves,--
And life was a brief November day
That sets on a world of withered leaves!
Yet faithfulness in the humblest part
Is better at last than proud success,
And patience and love in a chastened heart
Are pearls more precious than happiness;
And in that morning when she shall wake
To the spring-time freshness of youth again,
All trouble will seem but a flying flake,
And lifelong sorrow a breath on the pane.
JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.
THE NUN AND HARP.
What memory fired her pallid face,
What passion stirred her blood,
What tide of sorrow and desire
Poured its forgotten flood
Upon a heart that ceased to beat,
Long since, with thought that life was sweet,
When nights were rich with vernal dusk,
And the rose burst its bud?
Had not the western glory then
Stolen through the latticed room,
Her funeral raiment would have shed
A more heart-breaking gloom;
Had not a dimpled convent-maid
Hung in the doorway, half afraid,
And left the melancholy place
Bright with her blush and bloom!
Beside the gilded harp she stood,
And through the singing strings
Wound those wan hands of folded prayer
In murmurous preludings.
Then, like a voice, the harp rang high
Its melody, as climb the sky,
Melting against the melting blue,
Some bird's vibrating wings.
Ah, why, of all the songs that grow
Forever tenderer,
Chose she that passionate refrain
Where lovers 'mid the stir
Of wassailers that round them pass
Hide their sweet secret? Now, alas,
In her nun's habit, coifed and veiled,
What meant that song to her!
Slowly the western ray forsook
The statue in its shrine;
A sense of tears thrilled all the air
Along the purpling line.
Earth seemed a place of graves that rang
To hollow footsteps, while she sang,
"Drink to me only with thine eyes.
And I will pledge with mine!"
HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.
FIDELITY IN DOUBT.
Come, lady, to my song incline,
The last that shall assail thine ear.
None other cares my strains to hear,
And scarce thou feign'st thyself therewith delighted!
Nor know I well if I am loved or slighted;
But this I know, thou radiant one and sweet,
That, loved or spurned, I die before thy feet!
Yea, I will yield this life of mine
In every deed, if cause appear,
Without another boon to cheer.
Honor it is to be by thee incited
To any deed; and I, when most benighted
By doubt, remind me that times change and fleet,
And brave men still do their occasion meet.
From the French of GUIRAUD LEROUX.
Translation of HARRIET WATERS PRESTON.
FAITH.
Better trust all and be deceived,
And weep that trust and that deceiving,
Than doubt one heart that, if believed,
Had blessed one's life with true believing.
O, in this mocking world too fast
The doubting fiend o'ertakes our youth;
Better be cheated to the last
Than lose the blessed hope of truth.
FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE-BUTLER.
* * * * *
II. PARTING AND ABSENCE
PARTING.
If thou dost bid thy friend farewell,
But for one night though that farewell may be,
Press thou his hand in thine.
How canst thou tell how far from thee
Fate or caprice may lead his steps ere that to-morrow comes?
Men have been known to lightly turn the corner of a street,
And days have grown to months, and months to lagging years,
Ere they have looked in loving eyes again.
Parting, at best, is underlaid
With tears and pain.
Therefore, lest sudden death should come between.
Or time, or distance, clasp with pressure firm
The hand of him who goeth forth;
Unseen, Fate goeth too.
Yes, find thou always time to say some earnest word
Between the idle talk,
Lest with thee henceforth,
Night and day, regret should walk.
COVENTRY PATMORE.
TO LUCASTA.
ON GOING TO THE WARS.
Tell me not, sweet, I am unkinde,
That from the nunnerie
Of thy chaste breast and quiet minde,
To warre and armes I flee.
True, a new mistresse now I chase.--
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith imbrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.