A lady and her lover once
Were walking on a rocky beach:
Soft at first, and gentle, was
The music of their mutual speech,
And the looks were gentle, too,
With which each regarded each.
At length some casual word occurr'd
Which somewhat moved the lady's bile;
From less to more her anger wax'd--
How sheepish look'd her swain the while!--
And now upon their faces twain
There is not seen a single smile.
A ring was on the lady's hand,
The gift of that dumb-founder'd lover--
In scorn she pluck'd it from her hand,
And flung it far the waters over--
Far beyond the power of any
Duck or drag-net to recover.
Remorse then smote the lady's heart
When she had thrown her ring away;
She paceth o'er the rocky beach,
And resteth neither night nor day;
But still the burthen of her song
Is, "Oh, my ring! my ring!" alway.
Her lover now essays to soothe
The dark compunctious visitings,
That assail the lady's breast
With a thousand thousand stings,
For that she had thrown away
This, the paragon of rings.
But all in vain; at length one day
A fisher chanced to draw his net
Across the sullen spot that held
The gem that made the lady fret,
And caught about the finest cod
That ever he had captured yet.
He had a basket on his back,
And he placed his booty in it;
The lady's lover bought the fish,
And, when the cook began to skin it,
She found--incredible surprise!--
She found the ring--was _not_ within it.
The next tale, called "The Woodman's Daughter," is a story of seduction,
madness, and child-murder. These are powerful materials to work with;
yet it is not every man's hand that they will suit. In the hands of
common-place, they are simply revolting. In the hands of folly and
affectation, their repulsiveness is aggravated by the simpering conceits
which usurp the place of the strongest passions of our nature. He only
is privileged to unveil these gloomy depths of erring humanity, who can
subdue their repulsiveness by touches of ethereal feeling; and whose
imagination, buoyant above the waves of passion, bears the heart of the
reader into havens of calm beauty, even when following the most
deplorable aberrations of a child of sin. Such a man is not Mr Patmore.
He has no imagination at all--or, what is the same thing, an imagination
which welters in impotence, far below the level of the emotions which it
ought to overrule. The pitfalls of his tale of misery are covered over
with thin sprinklings of asterisks--the poorest subterfuge of an
impoverished imagination; and besotted indeed is the senselessness with
which he disports himself around their margin. Maud, the victim, is the
daughter of Gerald, the woodman; and Merton, the seducer, is the son of
a rich squire in the neighbourhood. Maud used to accompany her father to
his employment in the woods.
"She merely went to think she help'd;
And whilst he hack'd and saw'd,
The rich squire's son, a young boy then,
For whole days, as if aw'd,
Stood by, and gazed alternately
At Gerald and at Maud.
"He sometimes, _in a sullen tone_,
Would offer fruits, and she
Always received his gifts with an air,
So unreserved and free,
That half-feign'd distance soon became
Familiarity.
"Therefore in time, when Gerald shook
The woods at his employ,
The young heir and the cottage-girl
Would steal out to enjoy
The music of each other's talk--
A simple girl and boy.
"They pass'd their time, both girl and boy,
Uncheck'd, unquestion'd; yet
They always hid their wanderings
By wood and rivulet,
Because they could not give themselves
A reason why they met.
--It may have been in the ancient time,
Before Love's earliest ban,
Psychean curiosity
Had broken Nature's plan;
_When all that was not youth was age,
And men knew less of Man;_--
"Or when the works of time shall reach
The goal to which they tend,
And knowledge, being perfect, shall
At last in wisdom end--
That wisdom to end knowledge--or
Some change comes, yet unkenn'd;
"It perhaps may be again, that men,
Like orange plants, will bear,
At once, the many fine effects
To which God made them heir--
Large souls, large forms, and love like that
Between this childish pair.
"Two summers pass'd away, and then--
_Though yet young Merton's eyes,
Wide with their language, spake of youth's
Habitual surprise_--
He felt that pleasures such as these
No longer could suffice."