One night I found my father still more sad
Than was his wont. I knelt before him then,
And “O my father, why is this?” I ask’d.
But he said nothing. Then I question’d him:
And found the cause out. Haydn was the cause.
My father loved him so, as men love sons;
And long had hoped he might a son become.
But they had talk’d in confidence, and talk’d
About Doretta. “Ah,” my father sigh’d;
“My plans for all of you are vain!—
“Why now?”
He cried, “in this my old age, now, too late
To be replaced again, should I have lost
My aims, my home, my hope, my happiness?—
And who has brought it on? has done such wrong
His deeds deserve it?—Here am I, myself,—
I loved you, loved you both, but plann’d your good:
The priest loved (so he says) the Church and you:
Doretta loved; sought only love’s full fruit:
And Haydn loved; wish’d but to show his love:
And you, child, loved, were but obedient:
We all of us were loving, were we not?
Yet working outward, wisely, as we deem’d,
We all have done the thing to doom us all.
Alas what power has wrought to thwart us thus?
I do believe, though long I doubted it,
There lives a Devil! Hell-scorch’d hands alone
Could weave such death-black shrouds from thread so bright,
Drawn from sleek skeins of love. That spider-fiend,
Feeding on our sweet plans, emits this web,
To trip and trap us in like flies!—Ah me,
It may be well that one should suffer here
Until a wish bereaved shriek prayers for death;
But through what fearful pangs earth peels away
This withering flesh from off the worthier soul!
The scales about my own grow thin, how thin!
Pauline and Haydn gone, and home, and hope,—
What further shred invests the love so stript!—
Is this, then, being freed from earth?—Yet where
Are signs of heaven?—My God, I see them not.”
“O father, rave not thus,” I cried. “O if—
If Haydn,—if I had some power with him.”—
“Nay, daughter, nay,” he said. Yet o’er his face
Flush’d hope like hues at dawn. I kiss’d his brow,
Said, “Father, I will try,” and went my way.