Ergo hominum genus incassum frustraque laborat
Semper, et in curis consumit inanibus aevum.--Lucret.
'Tis midnight! Round the lamp which o'er
My chamber sheds its lonely beam,
Is wisely spread the varied lore
Which feeds in youth our feverish dream
The dream--the thirst--the wild desire,
Delirious yet divine-to know;
Around to roam--above aspire
And drink the breath of Heaven below!
From Ocean-Earth-the Stars-the Sky
To lift mysterious Nature's pall;
And bare before the kindling eye
In MAN the darkest mist of all--
Alas! what boots the midnight oil?
The madness of the struggling mind?
Oh, vague the hope, and vain the toil,
Which only leave us doubly blind!
What learn we from the Past? the same
Dull course of glory, guilt, and gloom--
I ask'd the Future, and there came
No voice from its unfathom'd womb.
The Sun was silent, and the wave;
The air but answer'd with its breath
But Earth was kind; and from the grave
Arose the eternal answer--Death!
And this was all! We need no sage
To teach us Nature's only truth!
O fools! o'er Wisdom's idle page
To waste the hours of golden youth!
In Science wildly do we seek
What only withering years should bring
The languid pulse--the feverish cheek
The spirits drooping on their wing!
To think--is but to learn to groan
To scorn what all beside adore
To feel amid the world alone,
An alien on a desert shore;
To lose the only ties which seem
To idler gaze in mercy given!
To find love, faith, and hope, a dream,
And turn to dark despair from heaven!
I pass on to a wilder period of my history. The passion, as yet only
revealed by the eye, was now to be recorded by the lip; and the scene
which witnessed the first confession of the lovers was worthy of the last
conclusion of their loves!
E------ was about twelve miles from a celebrated cliff on the seashore,
and Lady Margaret had long proposed an excursion to a spot, curious alike
for its natural scenery and the legends attached to it. A day was at
length fixed for accomplishing this plan. Falkland was of the party. In
searching for something in the pockets of the carriage, his hand met
Emily's, and involuntarily pressed it. She withdrew it hastily, but he
felt it tremble. He did not dare to look up: that single contact had
given him a new life: intoxicated with the most delicious sensations, he
leaned back in silence. A fever had entered his veins--the thrill of the
touch had gone like fire into his system--all his frame seemed one nerve.
Lady Margaret talked of the weather and the prospect, wondered how far
they had got, and animadverted on the roads, till at last, like a child,
she talked herself to rest. Mrs. Dalton read "Guy Mannering;" but
neither Emily nor her lover had any occupation or thought in common with
their companions: silent and absorbed, they were only alive to the vivid
existence of the present. Constantly engaged, as we are, in looking
behind us or before, if there be one hour in which we feel only the time
being--in which we feel sensibly that we live, and that those moments of
the present are full of the enjoyment, the rapture of existence--it is
when we are with the one person whose life and spirits have become the
great part and principle of our own. They reached their destination--a
small inn close by the shore. They rested there a short time, and then
strolled along the sands towards the cliff. Since Falkland had known
Emily, her character was much altered. Six weeks before the time I write
of, and in playfulness and lightness of spirits she was almost a child:
now those indications of an unawakened heart had mellowed into a
tenderness full of that melancholy so touching and holy, even amid the
voluptuous softness which it breathes and inspires. But this day,
whether from that coquetry so common to all women, or from some cause
more natural to her, she seemed gayer than Falkland ever remembered to
have seen her. She ran over the sands, picking up shells, and tempting
the waves with her small and fairy feet, not daring to look at him, and
yet speaking to him at times with a quick tone of levity which hurt and
offended him, even though he knew the depth of those feelings she could
not disguise either from him or from herself. By degrees his answers and
remarks grew cold and sarcastic. Emily affected pique; and when it was
discovered that the cliff was still nearly two miles off, she refused to
proceed any farther. Lady Margaret talked her at last into consent, and
they walked on as sullenly as an English party of pleasure possibly could
do, till they were within three quarters of a mile of the place, when
Emily declared she was so tired that she really could not go on.
Falkland looked at her, perhaps, with no very amiable expression of
countenance, when he perceived that she seemed really pale and fatigued;
and when she caught his eyes, tears rushed into her own.
"Indeed, indeed, Mr. Falkland," she said, eagerly, "this is not
affectation. I am very tired; but rather than prevent your amusement,
I will endeavour to go on." "Nonsense, child," said Lady Margaret, "you
do seem tired. Mrs. Dalton and Falkland shall go to the rock, and I will
stay here with you." This proposition, however, Lady Emily (who knew
Lady Margaret's wish to see the rock) would not hear of; she insisted
upon staying by herself. "Nobody will run away with me; and I can very
easily amuse myself with picking up shells till you comeback." After
along remonstrance, which produced no effect, this plan was at last
acceded to. With great reluctance Falkland set off with his two
companions; but after the first step, he turned to look back. He caught
her eye, and felt from that moment that their reconciliation was sealed.
They arrived, at last, at the cliff. Its height, its excavations, the
romantic interest which the traditions respecting it had inspired, fully
repaid the two women for the fatigue of their walk. As for Falkland, he
was unconscious of everything around him; he was full of "sweet and
bitter thoughts." In vain the man whom they found loitering there, in
order to serve as a guide, kept dinning in his ear stories of the
marvellous, and exclamations of the sublime. The first words which
aroused him were these; "It's lucky, please your Honour, that you have
just saved the tide. It is but last week that three poor people were
drowned in attempting to come here; as it is, you will have to go home
round the cliff." Falkland started: he felt his heart stand still.
"Good God!" cried Lady Margaret, "what will become of Emily?"
They were--at that instant in one of the caverns, where they had already
been loitering too long. Falkland rushed out to the sands. The tide was
hurrying in with a deep sound, which came on his soul like a knell. He
looked back towards the way they had come: not one hundred yards distant,
and the waters had already covered the path! An eternity would scarcely
atone for the horror of that moment! One great characteristic of
Falkland was his presence of mind. He turned to the man who stood beside
him--he gave him a cool and exact description of the spot where he had
left Emily. He told him to repair with all possible speed to his home
--to launch his boat--to row it to the place he had described. "Be
quick," he added, "and you must be in time: if you are, you shall never
know poverty again." The next moment he was already several yards from
the spot. He ran, or rather flew, till he was stopped by the waters. He
rushed in; they were over a hollow between two rocks--they were already
up to his chest. "There is yet hope," thought he, when he had passed the
spot, and saw the smooth sand before him. For some minutes he was
scarcely sensible of existence; and then he found himself breathless at
her feet. Beyond, towards T----- (the small inn I spoke of), the waves
had already reached the foot of the rocks, and precluded all hope of
return. Their only chance was the possibility that the waters had not
yet rendered impassable the hollow through which Falkland had just waded.
He scarcely spoke; at least he was totally unconscious of what he said.
He hurried her on breathless and trembling, with the sound of the booming
waters ringing in his ear, and their billows advancing to his very feet.
They arrived at the hollow: a single glance sufficed to show him that
their solitary hope was past! The waters, before up to his chest, had
swelled considerably: he could not swim. He saw in that instant that
they were girt with a hastening and terrible death. Can it be believed
that with that certainty ceased his fear? He looked in the pale but calm
countenance of her who clung to him, and a strange tranquillity, even
mingled with joy, possessed him. Her breath was on his cheek--her form
was reclining on his own--his hand clasped hers; if they were to die, it
was thus. What would life afford to him more dear? "It is in this
moment," said he, and he knelt as he spoke, "that I dare tell you what
otherwise my lips never should have revealed. I love--I adore you! Turn
not away from me thus. In life our persons were severed; if our hearts
are united in death, then death will be sweet." She turned--her cheek
was no longer pale! He rose--he clasped her to his bosom: his lips
pressed hers. Oh! that long, deep, burning pressure!--youth, love, life,
soul, all concentrated in that one kiss! Yet the same cause which
occasioned the avowal hallowed also the madness of his heart. What had
the passion, declared only at the approach of death, with the more
earthly desires of life? They looked to heaven--it was calm and
unclouded: the evening lay there in its balm and perfume, and the air was
less agitated than their sighs. They turned towards the beautiful sea
which was to be their grave: the wild birds flew over it exultingly: the
far vessels seemed "rejoicing to run their course." All was full of the
breath, the glory, the life of nature; and in how many minutes was all to
be as nothing! Their existence would resemble the ships that have gone
down at sea in the very smile of the element that destroyed them. They
looked into each other's eyes, and they drew still nearer together.
Their hearts, in safety apart, mingled in peril and became one. Minutes
rolled on, and the great waves came dashing round them. They stood on
the loftiest eminence they could reach. The spray broke over their feet:
the billows rose--rose--they were speechless. He thought he heard her
heart beat, but her lip trembled not. A speck--a boat! "Look up, Emily!
look up! See how it cuts the waters. Nearer--nearer! but a little
longer, and we are safe. It is but a few yards off;--it approaches--it
touches the rock!" Ah! what to them henceforth was the value of life,
when the moment of discovering its charm became also the date of its
misfortunes, and when the death they had escaped was the only method of
cementing their--union without consummating their guilt?