As the wind that heaps sand in a desert, there stirr'd

Through his voice an emotion that swept every word

Into one angry wail; as, with feverish change,

He continued his monologue, fitful and strange.

"Woe to him in whose nature, once kindled, the torch

Of Passion burns downward to blacken and scorch!

But shame, shame and sorrow, O woman, to thee

Whose hand sow'd the seed of destruction in me!

Whose lip taught the lesson of falsehood to mine!

Whose looks made me doubt lies that look'd so divine!

My soul by thy beauty was slain in its sleep:

And if tears I mistrust, 'tis that thou too canst weep!

Well!... how utter soever it be, one mistake

In the love of a man, what more change need it make

In the steps of his soul through the course love began,

Than all other mistakes in the life of a man?

And I said to myself, 'I am young yet: too young

To have wholly survived my own portion among

The great needs of man's life, or exhausted its joys;

What is broken? one only of youth's pleasant toys!

Shall I be the less welcome, wherever I go,

For one passion survived? No! the roses will blow

As of yore, as of yore will the nightingales sing,

Not less sweetly for one blossom cancell'd from Spring!

Hast thou loved, O my heart? to thy love yet remains

All the wide loving-kindness of nature. The plains

And the hills with each summer their verdure renew.

Wouldst thou be as they are? do thou then as they do,

Let the dead sleep in peace. Would the living divine

Where they slumber? Let only new flowers be the sign!'

"Vain! all vain!... For when, laughing, the wine I would quaff,

I remember'd too well all it cost me to laugh.

Through the revel it was but the old song I heard,

Through the crowd the old footsteps behind me they stirr'd,

In the night-wind, the starlight, the murmurs of even,

In the ardors of earth, and the languors of heaven,

I could trace nothing more, nothing more through the spheres,

But the sound of old sobs, and the track of old tears!

It was with me the night long in dreaming or waking,

It abided in loathing, when daylight was breaking,

The burthen of the bitterness in me! Behold,

All my days were become as a tale that is told.

And I said to my sight, 'No good thing shalt thou see,

For the noonday is turned to darkness in me.

In the house of Oblivion my bed I have made.'

And I said to the grave, 'Lo, my father!' and said

To the worm, 'Lo, my sister!' The dust to the dust,

And one end to the wicked shall be with the just!"

VII.

He ceased, as a wind that wails out on the night

And moans itself mute. Through the indistinct light

A voice clear, and tender, and pure with a tone

Of ineffable pity, replied to his own.

"And say you, and deem you, that I wreck'd your life?

Alas! Duc de Luvois, had I been your wife

By a fraud of the heart which could yield you alone

For the love in your nature a lie in my own,

Should I not, in deceiving, have injured you worse?

Yes, I then should have merited justly your curse,

For I then should have wrong'd you!"

"Wrong'd! ah, is it so?

You could never have loved me?"

"Duke!"

"Never? oh, no!"

(He broke into a fierce, angry laugh, as he said)

"Yet, lady, you knew that I loved you: you led

My love on to lay to its heart, hour by hour,

All the pale, cruel, beautiful, passionless power

Shut up in that cold face of yours! was this well?

But enough! not on you would I vent the wild hell

Which has grown in my heart. Oh, that man! first and last

He tramples in triumph my life! he has cast

His shadow 'twixt me and the sun... let it pass!

My hate yet may find him!"

She murmur'd, "Alas!

These words, at least, spare me the pain of reply.

Enough, Duc de Luvois! farewell. I shall try

To forget every word I have heard, every sight

That has grieved and appall'd me in this wretched night

Which must witness our final farewell. May you, Duke,

Never know greater cause your own heart to rebuke

Than mine thus to wrong and afflict you have had!

Adieu!"

"Stay, Lucile, stay!"... he groaned, "I am mad,

Brutalized, blind with pain! I know not what I said.

I mean it not. But" (he moan'd, drooping his head)

"Forgive me! I--have I so wrong'd you, Lucile?

I... have I... forgive me, forgive me!"

"I feel

Only sad, very sad to the soul," she said, "far,

Far too sad for resentment."

"Yet stand as you are

One moment," he murmur'd. "I think, could I gaze

Thus awhile on your face, the old innocent days

Would come back upon me, and this scorching heart

Free itself in hot tears. Do not, do not depart

Thus, Lucile! stay one moment. I know why you shrink,

Why you shudder; I read in your face what you think.

Do not speak to me of it. And yet, if you will,

Whatever you say, my own lips shall be still.

I lied. And the truth, now, could justify nought.

There are battles, it may be, in which to have fought

Is more shameful than, simply, to fail. Yet, Lucile,

Had you help'd me to bear what you forced me to feel--"

"Could I help you," she murmur'd, "but what can I say

That your life will respond to?" "My life?" he sigh'd. "Nay,

My life hath brought forth only evil, and there

The wild wind hath planted the wild weed: yet ere

You exclaim, 'Fling the weed to the flames,' think again

Why the field is so barren. With all other men

First love, though it perish from life, only goes

Like the primrose that falls to make way for the rose.

For a man, at least most men, may love on through life:

Love in fame; love in knowledge; in work: earth is rife

With labor, and therefor, with love, for a man.

If one love fails, another succeeds, and the plan

Of man's life includes love in all objects! But I?

All such loves from my life through its whole destiny

Fate excluded. The love that I gave you, alas!

Was the sole love that life gave to me. Let that pass!

It perish'd, and all perish'd with it. Ambition?

Wealth left nothing to add to my social condition.

Fame? But fame in itself presupposes some great

Field wherein to pursue and attain it. The State?

I, to cringe to an upstart? The Camp? I, to draw

From its sheath the old sword of the Dukes of Luvois

To defend usurpation? Books, then? Science, Art?

But, alas! I was fashion'd for action: my heart,

Wither'd thing though it be, I should hardly compress

'Twixt the leaves of a treatise on Statics: life's stress

Needs scope, not contraction! what rests? to wear out

At some dark northern court an existence, no doubt,

In wretched and paltry intrigues for a cause

As hopeless as is my own life! By the laws

Of a fate I can neither control nor dispute,

I am what I am!"

VIII.

For a while she was mute.

Then she answer'd, "We are our own fates. Our own deeds

Are our doomsmen. Man's life was made not for men's creeds

But men's actions. And, Duc de Luvois, I might say

That all life attests, that 'the will makes the way.'

Is the land of our birth less the land of our birth,

Or its claim the less strong, or its cause the less worth

Our upholding, because the white lily no more

Is as sacred as all that it bloom'd for of yore?

Yet be that as it may be; I cannot perchance

Judge this matter. I am but a woman, and France

Has for me simpler duties. Large hope, though, Eugene

De Luvois, should be yours. There is purpose in pain,

Otherwise it were devilish. I trust in my soul

That the great master hand which sweeps over the whole

Of this deep harp of life, if at moments it stretch

To shrill tension some one wailing nerve, means to fetch

Its response the truest, most stringent, and smart,

Its pathos the purest, from out the wrung heart,

Whose faculties, flaccid it may be, if less

Sharply strung, sharply smitten, had fail'd to express

Just the one note the great final harmony needs.

And what best proves there's life in a heart?--that it bleeds?

Grant a cause to remove, grant an end to attain,

Grant both to be just, and what mercy in pain!

Cease the sin with the sorrow! See morning begin!

Pain must burn itself out if not fuel'd by sin.

There is hope in yon hill-tops, and love in yon light.

Let hate and despondency die with the night!"

He was moved by her words. As some poor wretch confined

In cells loud with meaningless laughter, whose mind

Wanders trackless amidst its own ruins, may hear

A voice heard long since, silenced many a year,

And now, 'mid mad ravings recaptured again,

Singing through the caged lattice a once well-known strain,

Which brings back his boyhood upon it, until

The mind's ruin'd crevices graciously fill

With music and memory, and, as it were,

The long-troubled spirit grows slowly aware

Of the mockery round it, and shrinks from each thing

It once sought,--the poor idiot who pass'd for a king,

Hard by, with his squalid straw crown, now confess'd

A madman more painfully mad than the rest.--

So the sound of her voice, as it there wander'd o'er

His echoing heart, seem'd in part to restore

The forces of thought: he recaptured the whole

Of his life by the light which, in passing, her soul

Reflected on his: he appear'd to awake

From a dream, and perceived he had dream'd a mistake:

His spirit was soften'd, yet troubled in him:

He felt his lips falter, his eyesight grow dim,

But he murmur'd...

"Lucile, not for me that sun's light

Which reveals--not restores--the wild havoc of night.

There are some creatures born for the night, not the day.

Broken-hearted the nightingale hides in the spray,

And the owl's moody mind in his own hollow tower

Dwells muffled. Be darkness henceforward my dower.

Light, be sure, in that darkness there dwells, by which eyes

Grown familiar with ruins may yet recognize

Enough desolation."

IX.

"The pride that claims here

On earth to itself (howsoever severe

To itself it may be) God's dread office and right

Of punishing sin, is a sin in heaven's sight,

And against heaven's service.

"Eugene de Luvois,

Leave the judgment to Him who alone knows the law.

Surely no man can be his own judge, least of all

His own doomsman."

Her words seem'd to fall

With a weight of tears in them.

He look'd up, and saw

That sad serene countenance, mournful as law

And tender as pity, bow'd o'er him: and heard

In some thicket the matinal chirp of a bird.

X.

"Vulgar natures alone suffer vainly.

"Eugene,"

She continued, "in life we have met once again,

And once more life parts us. Yon day-spring for me

Lifts the veil of a future in which it may be

We shall meet nevermore. Grant, oh grant to me yet

The belief that it is not in vain we have met!

I plead for the future. A new horoscope

I would cast: will you read it? I plead for a hope:

I plead for a memory; yours, yours alone,

To restore or to spare. Let the hope be your own,

Be the memory mine.

"Once of yore, when for man

Faith yet lived, ere this age of the sluggard began,

Men aroused to the knowledge of evil, fled far

From the fading rose-gardens of sense, to the war

With the Pagan, the cave in the desert, and sought

Not repose, but employment in action or thought,

Life's strong earnest, in all things! oh, think not of me,

But yourself! for I plead for your own destiny:

I plead for your life, with its duties undone,

With its claims unappeased, and its trophies unwon;

And in pleading for life's fair fulfilment, I plead

For all that you miss, and for all that you need."

XI.

Through the calm crystal air, faint and far, as she spoke,

A clear, chilly chime from a church-turret broke;

And the sound of her voice, with the sound of the bell,

On his ear, where he kneel'd, softly, soothingly fell.

All within him was wild and confused, as within

A chamber deserted in some roadside inn,

Where, passing, wild travellers paused, over-night,

To quaff and carouse; in each socket each light

Is extinct; crash'd the glasses, and scrawl'd is the wall

With wild ribald ballads; serenely o'er all,

For the first time perceived, where the dawn-light creeps faint

Through the wrecks of that orgy, the face of a saint,

Seen through some broken frame, appears noting meanwhile

The ruin all round with a sorrowful smile.

And he gazed round. The curtains of Darkness half drawn

Oped behind her; and pure as the pure light of dawn

She stood, bathed in morning, and seem'd to his eyes

From their sight to be melting away in the skies

That expanded around her.

XII.

There pass'd through his head

A fancy--a vision. That woman was dead

He had loved long ago--loved and lost! dead to him,

Dead to all the life left him; but there, in the dim

Dewy light of the dawn, stood a spirit; 'twas hers;

And he said to the soul of Lucile de Nevers:

"O soul to its sources departing away!

Pray for mine, if one soul for another may pray.

I to ask have no right, thou to give hast no power,

One hope to my heart. But in this parting hour

I name not my heart, and I speak not to thine.

Answer, soul of Lucile, to this dark soul of mine,

Does not soul owe to soul, what to heart heart denies,

Hope, when hope is salvation? Behold, in yon skies,

This wild night is passing away while I speak:

Lo, above us, the day-spring beginning to break!

Something wakens within me, and warms to the beam:

Is it hope that awakens? or do I but dream?

I know not. It may be, perchance, the first spark

Of a new light within me to solace the dark

Unto which I return; or perchance it may be

The last spark of fires half extinguish'd in me.

I know not. Thou goest thy way: I my own;

For good or for evil, I know not. Alone

This I know; we are parting. I wish'd to say more,

But no matter! 'twill pass. All between us is o'er.

Forget the wild words of to-night. 'Twas the pain

For long years hoarded up, that rush'd from me again.

I was unjust: forgive me. Spare now to reprove

Other words, other deeds. It was madness, not love,

That you thwarted this night. What is done is now done.

Death remains to avenge it, or life to atone.

I was madden'd, delirious! I saw you return

To him--not to me; and I felt my heart burn

With a fierce thirst for vengeance--and thus... let it pass!

Long thoughts these, and so brief the moments, alas!

Thou goest thy way, and I mine. I suppose

'Tis to meet nevermore. Is it not so? Who knows,

Or who heeds, where the exile from Paradise flies?

Or what altars of his in the desert may rise?

Is it not so, Lucile? Well, well! Thus then we part

Once again, soul from soul, as before heart from heart!"

XIII.

And again clearer far than the chime of a bell,

That voice on his sense softly, soothingly fell.

"Our two paths must part us, Eugene; for my own

Seems no more through that world in which henceforth alone

You must work out (as now I believe that you will)

The hope which you speak of. That work I shall still

(If I live) watch and welcome, and bless far away.

Doubt not this. But mistake not the thought, if I say

That the great moral combat between human life

And each human soul must be single. The strife

None can share, though by all its results may be known.

When the soul arms for battle, she goes forth alone.

I say not, indeed, we shall meet nevermore,

For I know not. But meet, as we have met of yore,

I know that we cannot. Perchance we may meet

By the death-bed, the tomb, in the crowd, in the street,

Or in solitude even, but never again

Shall we meet from henceforth as we have met, Eugene.

For we know not the way we are going, nor yet

Where our two ways may meet, or may cross. Life hath set

No landmarks before us. But this, this alone,

I will promise: whatever your path, or my own,

If, for once in the conflict before you, it chance

That the Dragon prevail, and with cleft shield, and lance

Lost or shatter'd, borne down by the stress of the war,

You falter and hesitate, if from afar

I, still watching (unknown to yourself, it may be)

O'er the conflict to which I conjure you, should see

That my presence could rescue, support you, or guide,

In the hour of that need I shall be at your side,

To warn, if you will, or incite, or control;

And again, once again, we shall meet, soul to soul!"

XIV.

The voice ceased.

He uplifted his eyes.

All alone

He stood on the bare edge of dawn. She was gone,

Like a star, when up bay after bay of the night,

Ripples in, wave on wave, the broad ocean of light.

And at once, in her place was the Sunrise! It rose

In its sumptuous splendor and solemn repose,

The supreme revelation of light. Domes of gold,

Realms of rose, in the Orient! and breathless, and bold,

While the great gates of heaven roll'd back one by one,

The bright herald angel stood stern in the sun!

Thrice holy Eospheros! Light's reign began

In the heaven, on the earth, in the heart of the man.

The dawn on the mountains! the dawn everywhere!

Light! silence! the fresh innovations of air!

O earth, and O ether! A butterfly breeze

Floated up, flutter'd down, and poised blithe on the trees.

Through the revelling woods, o'er the sharp-rippled stream,

Up the vale slow uncoiling itself out of dream,

Around the brown meadows, adown the hill-slope,

The spirits of morning were whispering, "HOPE!"

XV.

He uplifted his eyes. In the place where she stood

But a moment before, and where now roll'd the flood

Of the sunrise all golden, he seem'd to behold,

In the young light of sunrise, an image unfold

Of his own youth,--its ardors--its promise of fame--

Its ancestral ambition; and France by the name

Of his sires seem'd to call him. There, hover'd in light,

That image aloft, o'er the shapeless and bright

And Aurorean clouds, which themselves seem'd to be

Brilliant fragments of that golden world, wherein he

Had once dwelt, a native!

There, rooted and bound

To the earth, stood the man, gazing at it! Around

The rims of the sunrise it hover'd and shone

Transcendent, that type of a youth that was gone;

And he--as the body may yearn for the soul,

So he yearn'd to embody that image. His whole

Heart arose to regain it.

"And is it too late?"

No! for Time is a fiction, and limits not fate.

Thought alone is eternal. Time thralls it in vain.

For the thought that springs upward and yearns to regain

The true source of spirit, there IS no TOO LATE.

As the stream to its first mountain levels, elate

In the fountain arises, the spirit in him

Arose to that image. The image waned dim

Into heaven; and heavenward with it, to melt

As it melted, in day's broad expansion, he felt

With a thrill, sweet and strange, and intense--awed, amazed--

Something soar and ascend in his soul, as he gazed.

CANTO VI.

I.

Man is born on a battle-field. Round him, to rend

Or resist, the dread Powers he displaces attend,

By the cradle which Nature, amidst the stern shocks

That have shatter'd creation, and shapen it, rocks.

He leaps with a wail into being; and lo!

His own mother, fierce Nature herself, is his foe.

Her whirlwinds are roused into wrath o'er his head:

'Neath his feet roll her earthquakes: her solitudes spread

To daunt him: her forces dispute his command:

Her snows fall to freeze him: her suns burn to brand:

Her seas yawn to engulf him: her rocks rise to crush:

And the lion and leopard, allied, lurk to rush

On their startled invader.

In lone Malabar,

Where the infinite forest spreads breathless and far,

'Mid the cruel of eye and the stealthy of claw

(Striped and spotted destroyers!) he sees, pale with awe,

On the menacing edge of a fiery sky,

Grim Doorga, blue-limb'd and red-handed, go by,

And the first thing he worships is Terror.

Anon,

Still impell'd by necessity hungrily on,

He conquers the realms of his own self-reliance,

And the last cry of fear wakes the first of defiance.

From the serpent he crushes its poisonous soul;

Smitten down in his path see the dead lion roll!

On toward Heaven the son of Alcmena strides high on

The heads of the Hydra, the spoils of the lion:

And man, conquering terror, is worshipp'd by man.

A camp has the world been since first it began!

From his tents sweeps the roving Arabian; at peace,

A mere wandering shepherd that follows the fleece;

But, warring his way through a world's destinies,

Lo from Delhi, from Bagdadt, from Cordova, rise

Domes of empiry, dower'd with science and art,

Schools, libraries, forums, the palace, the mart!

New realms to man's soul have been conquer'd. But those

Forthwith they are peopled for man by new foes!

The stars keep their secrets, the earth hides her own,

And bold must the man be that braves the Unknown!

Not a truth has to art or to science been given,

But brows have ached for it, and souls toil'd and striven;

And many have striven, and many have fail'd,

And many died, slain by the truth they assail'd,

But when Man hath tamed Nature, asserted his place

And dominion, behold! he is brought face to face

With a new foe--himself!

Nor may man on his shield

Ever rest, for his foe is ever afield,

Danger ever at hand, till the armed Archangel

Sound o'er him the trump of earth's final evangel.

II.

Silence straightway, stern Muse, the soft cymbals of pleasure,

Be all bronzen these numbers, and martial the measure!

Breathe, sonorously breathe, o'er the spirit in me

One strain, sad and stern, of that deep Epopee

Which thou, from the fashionless cloud of far time,

Chantest lonely, when Victory, pale, and sublime

In the light of the aureole over her head,

Hears, and heeds not the wound in her heart fresh and red.

Blown wide by the blare of the clarion, unfold

The shrill clanging curtains of war!

And behold

A vision!

The antique Heraclean seats;

And the long Black Sea billow that once bore those fleets,

Which said to the winds, "Be ye, too, Genoese!"

And the red angry sands of the chafed Cheronese;

And the two foes of man, War and Winter, allied

Round the Armies of England and France, side by side

Enduring and dying (Gaul and Briton abreast!)

Where the towers of the North fret the skies of the East.

III.

Since that sunrise which rose through the calm linden stems

O'er Lucile and Eugene, in the garden of Ems,

Through twenty-five seasons encircling the sun,

This planet of ours on its pathway hath gone,

And the fates that I sing of have flowed with the fates

Of a world, in the red wake of war, round the gates

Of that doom'd and heroical city, in which

(Fire crowning the rampart, blood bathing the ditch!),

At bay, fights the Russian as some hunted bear,

Whom the huntsmen have hemm'd round at last in his lair.

IV.

A fang'd, arid plain, sapp'd with underground fire,

Soak'd with snow, torn with shot, mash'd to one gory mire!

There Fate's iron scale hangs in horrid suspense,

While those two famished ogres--the Siege, the Defence,

Face to face, through a vapor frore, dismal, and dun,

Glare, scenting the breath of each other.

The one

Double-bodied, two-headed--by separate ways

Winding, serpent-wise, nearer; the other, each day's

Sullen toil adding size to,--concentrated, solid,

Indefatigable--the brass-fronted, embodied,

And audible [Greek text omitted] gone sombrely forth

To the world from that Autocrat Will of the north!

V.

In the dawn of a moody October, a pale

Ghostly motionless vapor began to prevail

Over city and camp; like the garment of death

Which (is formed by) the face it conceals.

'Twas the breath

War, yet drowsily yawning, began to suspire;

Wherethrough, here and there, flash'd an eye of red fire,

And closed, from some rampart beginning to bellow

Hoarse challenge; replied to anon, through the yellow

And sulphurous twilight: till day reel'd and rock'd

And roar'd into dark. Then the midnight was mock'd

With fierce apparitions. Ring'd round by a rain

Of red fire, and of iron, the murtherous plain

Flared with fitful combustion; where fitfully fell

Afar off the fatal, disgorged scharpenelle,

And fired the horizon, and singed the coil'd gloom

With wings of swift flame round that City of Doom.

VI.

So the day--so the night! So by night, so by day,

With stern patient pathos, while time wears away,

In the trench flooded through, in the wind where it wails,

In the snow where it falls, in the fire where it hails

Shot and shell--link by link, out of hardship and pain,

Toil, sickness, endurance, is forged the bronze chain

Of those terrible siege-lines!

No change to that toil

Save the mine's sudden leap from the treacherous soil.

Save the midnight attack, save the groans of the maim'd,

And Death's daily obolus due, whether claim'd

By man or by nature.

VII.

Time passes. The dumb,

Bitter, snow-bound, and sullen November is come.

And its snows have been bathed in the blood of the brave;

And many a young heart has glutted the grave:

And on Inkerman yet the wild bramble is gory,

And those bleak heights henceforth shall be famous in story.

VIII.

The moon, swathed in storm, has long set: through the camp

No sound save the sentinel's slow sullen tramp,

The distant explosion, the wild sleety wind,

That seems searching for something it never can find.

The midnight is turning: the lamp is nigh spent:

And, wounded and lone, in a desolate tent

Lies a young British soldier whose sword...

In this place,

However, my Muse is compell'd to retrace

Her precipitous steps and revert to the past.

The shock which had suddenly shatter'd at last

Alfred Vargrave's fantastical holiday nature,

Had sharply drawn forth to his full size and stature

The real man, conceal'd till that moment beneath

All he yet had appear'd. From the gay broider'd sheath

Which a man in his wrath flings aside, even so

Leaps the keen trenchant steel summon'd forth by a blow.

And thus loss of fortune gave value to life.

The wife gain'd a husband, the husband a wife,

In that home which, though humbled and narrow'd by fate,

Was enlarged and ennobled by love. Low their state,

But large their possessions.

Sir Ridley, forgiven

By those he unwittingly brought nearer heaven

By one fraudulent act, than through all his sleek speech

The hypocrite brought his own soul, safe from reach

Of the law, died abroad.

Cousin John, heart and hand,

Purse and person, henceforth (honest man!) took his stand

By Matilda and Alfred; guest, guardian, and friend

Of the home he both shared and assured, to the end,

With his large lively love. Alfred Vargrave meanwhile

Faced the world's frown, consoled by his wife's faithful smile.

Late in life he began life in earnest; and still,

With the tranquil exertion of resolute will,

Through long, and laborious, and difficult days,

Out of manifold failure, by wearisome ways,

Work'd his way through the world; till at last he began

(Reconciled to the work which mankind claims for man),

After years of unwitness'd, unwearied endeavor,

Years impassion'd yet patient, to realize ever

More clear on the broad stream of current opinion

The reflex of powers in himself--that dominion

Which the life of one man, if his life be a truth,

May assert o'er the life of mankind. Thus, his youth

In his manhood renew'd, fame and fortune he won

Working only for home, love, and duty.

One son

Matilda had borne him; but scarce had the boy,

With all Eton yet fresh in his full heart's frank joy,

The darling of young soldier comrades, just glanced

Down the glad dawn of manhood at life, when it chanced

That a blight sharp and sudden was breath'd o'er the bloom

Of his joyous and generous years, and the gloom

Of a grief premature on their fair promise fell:

No light cloud like those which, for June to dispel,

Captious April engenders; but deep as his own

Deep nature. Meanwhile, ere I fully make known

The cause of this sorrow, I track the event.

When first a wild war-note through England was sent,

He, transferring without either token or word,

To friend, parent, or comrade, a yet virgin sword,

From a holiday troop, to one bound for the war,

Had march'd forth, with eyes that saw death in the star

Whence others sought glory. Thus fighting, he fell

On the red field of Inkerman; found, who can tell

By what miracle, breathing, though shatter'd, and borne

To the rear by his comrades, pierced, bleeding, and torn.

Where for long days and nights, with the wound in his side,

He lay, dark.

IX.

But a wound deeper far, undescried,

The young heart was rankling; for there, of a truth,

In the first earnest faith of a pure pensive youth,

A love large as life, deep and changeless as death,

Lay ensheath'd: and that love, ever fretting its sheath,

The frail scabbard of life pierced and wore through and through.

There are loves in man's life for which time can renew

All that time may destroy. Lives there are, though, in love,

Which cling to one faith, and die with it; nor move,

Though earthquakes may shatter the shrine.

Whence or how

Love laid claim to this young life, it matters not now.

X.

Oh is it a phantom? a dream of the night?

A vision which fever hath fashion'd to sight?

The wind wailing ever, with motion uncertain,

Sways sighingly there the drench'd tent's tattered curtain,

To and fro, up and down.

But it is not the wind

That is lifting it now: and it is not the mind

That hath moulded that vision.

A pale woman enters,

As wan as the lamp's waning light, which concenters

Its dull glare upon her. With eyes dim and dimmer

There, all in a slumberous and shadowy glimmer,

The sufferer sees that still form floating on,

And feels faintly aware that he is not alone.

She is flitting before him. She pauses. She stands

By his bedside all silent. She lays her white hands

On the brow of the boy. A light finger is pressing

Softly, softly the sore wounds: the hot blood-stain'd dressing

Slips from them. A comforting quietude steals

Through the rack'd weary frame; and, throughout it, he feels

The slow sense of a merciful, mild neighborhood.

Something smooths the toss'd pillow. Beneath a gray hood

Of rough serge, two intense tender eyes are bent o'er him,

And thrill through and through him. The sweet form before him,

It is surely Death's angel Life's last vigil keeping!

A soft voice says... "Sleep!"

And he sleeps: he is sleeping.

XI.

He waked before dawn. Still the vision is there.

Still that pale woman moves not. A minist'ring care

Meanwhile has been silently changing and cheering

The aspect of all things around him.

Revering

Some power unknown, and benignant, he bless'd

In silence the sense of salvation. And rest

Having loosen'd the mind's tangled meshes, he faintly

Sigh'd... "Say what thou art, blessed dream of a saintly

And minist'ring spirit!"

A whisper serene

Slid, softer than silence... "The Soeur Seraphine,

A poor Sister of Charity. Shun to inquire

Aught further, young soldier. The son of thy sire,

For the sake of that sire, I reclaim from the grave.

Thou didst not shun death: shun not life: 'Tis more brave

To live than to die. Sleep!"

He sleeps: he is sleeping.

XII.

He waken'd again, when the dawn was just steeping

The skies with chill splendor. And there, never flitting,

Never flitting, that vision of mercy was sitting.

As the dawn to the darkness, so life seemed returning

Slowly, feebly within him. The night-lamp yet burning,

Made ghastly the glimmering daybreak.

He said,

"If thou be of the living, and not of the dead,

Sweet minister, pour out yet further the healing

Of that balmy voice; if it may be, revealing

Thy mission of mercy; whence art thou?"

"O son

Of Matilda and Alfred, it matters not! One

Who is not of the living nor yet of the dead:

To thee, and to others, alive yet"... she said...

"So long as there liveth the poor gift in me

Of this ministration; to them, and to thee,

Dead in all things beside. A French Nun, whose vocation

Is now by this bedside. A nun hath no nation.

Wherever man suffers, or woman may soothe,

There her land! there her kindred!"

She bent down to smooth

The hot pillow; and added... "Yet more than another

Is thy life dear to me. For thy father, thy mother,

I know them--I know them."

"Oh, can it be? you!

My dearest dear father! my mother! you knew,'

You know them?"

She bowed, half averting her head

In silence.

He brokenly, timidly said,

"Do they know I am thus?"

"Hush!"... she smiled, as she drew

From her bosom two letters: and--can it be true?

That beloved and familiar writing!

He burst

Into tears... "My poor mother--my father! the worst

Will have reach'd them!"

"No, no!" she exclaimed, with a smile,

"They know you are living; they know that meanwhile

I am watching beside you. Young soldier, weep not!"

But still on the nun's nursing bosom, the hot

Fever'd brow of the boy weeping wildly is press'd.

There, at last, the young heart sobs itself into rest:

And he hears, as it were between smiling and weeping,

The calm voice say... "Sleep!"

And he sleeps, he is sleeping.

XIII.

And day follow'd day. And, as wave follow'd wave,

With the tide, day by day, life, re-issuing, drave

Through that young hardy frame novel currents of health.

Yet some strange obstruction, which life's health by stealth

Seemed to cherish, impeded life's progress. And still

A feebleness, less of the frame than the will,

Clung about the sick man--hid and harbor'd within

The sad hollow eyes: pinch'd the cheek pale and thin:

And clothed the wan fingers with languor.

And there,

Day by day, night by night, unremitting in care,

Unwearied in watching, so cheerful of mien,

And so gentle of hand, sat the Soeur Seraphine!

XIV.

A strange woman truly! not young; yet her face,

Wan and worn as it was, bore about it the trace

Of a beauty which time could not ruin. For the whole

Quiet cheek, youth's lost bloom left transparent, the soul

Seemed to fill with its own light, like some sunny fountain

Everlastingly fed from far off in the mountain

That pours, in a garden deserted, its streams,

And all the more lovely for loneliness seems.

So that, watching that face, you could scarce pause to guess

The years which its calm careworn lines might express,

Feeling only what suffering with these must have past

To have perfected there so much sweetness at last.

XV.

Thus, one bronzen evening, when day had put out,

His brief thrifty fires, and the wind was about,

The nun, watchful still by the boy, on his own

Laid a firm quiet hand, and the deep tender tone

Of her voice moved the silence.

She said... "I have heal'd

These wounds of the body. Why hast thou conceal'd,

Young soldier, that yet open wound in the heart?

Wilt thou trust NO hand near it?"

He winced, with a start,

As of one that is suddenly touched on the spot

From which every nerve derives suffering.

"What?

Lies my heart, then, so bare?" he moaned bitterly.

"Nay,"

With compassionate accents she hastened to say,

"Do you think that these eyes are with sorrow, young man,

So all unfamiliar, indeed, as to scan

Her features, yet know them not?

"Oh, was it spoken,

'Go ye forth, heal the sick, lift the low, bind the broken!'

Of the body alone? Is our mission, then, done,

When we leave the bruised hearts, if we bind the bruised bone?

Nay, is not the mission of mercy twofold?

Whence twofold, perchance, are the powers that we hold

To fulfil it, of Heaven! For Heaven doth still

To us, Sisters, it may be, who seek it, send skill

Won from long intercourse with affliction, and art

Help'd of Heaven, to bind up the broken of heart.

Trust to me!" (His two feeble hands in her own

She drew gently.) "Trust to me!" (she said, with soft tone):

"I am not so dead in remembrance to all

I have died to in this world, but what I recall

Enough of its sorrow, enough of its trial,

To grieve for both--save from both haply! The dial

Receives many shades, and each points to the sun.

The shadows are many, the sunlight is one.

Life's sorrows still fluctuate: God's love does not.

And His love is unchanged, when it changes our lot.

Looking up to this light, which is common to all,

And down to these shadows, on each side, that fall

In time's silent circle, so various for each,

Is it nothing to know that they never can reach

So far, but what light lies beyond them forever?

Trust to me! Oh, if in this hour I endeavor

To trace the shade creeping across the young life

Which, in prayer till this hour, I have watch'd through its strife

With the shadow of death, 'tis with this faith alone,

That, in tracing the shade, I shall find out the sun.

Trust to me!"

She paused: he was weeping. Small need

Of added appeal, or entreaty, indeed,

Had those gentle accents to win from his pale

And parch'd, trembling lips, as it rose, the brief tale

Of a life's early sorrow. The story is old,

And in words few as may be shall straightway be told.

XVI.

A few years ago, ere the fair form of Peace

Was driven from Europe, a young girl--the niece

Of a French noble, leaving an old Norman pile

By the wild northern seas, came to dwell for a while

With a lady allied to her race--an old dame

Of a threefold legitimate virtue, and name,

In the Faubourg Saint Germain.

Upon that fair child,

From childhood, nor father nor mother had smiled.

One uncle their place in her life had supplied,

And their place in her heart: she had grown at his side,

And under his roof-tree, and in his regard,

From childhood to girlhood.

This fair orphan ward

Seem'd the sole human creature that lived in the heart

Of that stern rigid man, or whose smile could impart

One ray of response to the eyes which, above

Her fair infant forehead, look'd down with a love

That seem'd almost stern, so intense was its chill

Lofty stillness, like sunlight on some lonely hill

Which is colder and stiller than sunlight elsewhere.

Grass grew in the court-yard; the chambers were bare

In that ancient mansion; when first the stern tread

Of its owner awaken'd their echoes long dead:

Bringing with him this infant (the child of a brother),

Whom, dying, the hands of a desolate mother

Had placed on his bosom. 'Twas said--right or wrong--

That, in the lone mansion, left tenantless long,

To which, as a stranger, its lord now return'd,

In years yet recall'd, through loud midnights had burn'd

The light of wild orgies. Be that false or true,

Slow and sad was the footstep which now wander'd through

Those desolate chambers; and calm and severe

Was the life of their inmate.

Men now saw appear

Every morn at the mass that firm sorrowful face,

Which seem'd to lock up in a cold iron case

Tears harden'd to crystal. Yet harsh if he were,

His severity seem'd to be trebly severe

In the rule of his own rigid life, which, at least,

Was benignant to others. The poor parish priest,

Who lived on his largess, his piety praised.

The peasant was fed, and the chapel was raised,

And the cottage was built, by his liberal hand.

Yet he seem'd in the midst of his good deeds to stand

A lone, and unloved, and unlovable man.

There appear'd some inscrutable flaw in the plan

Of his life, that love fail'd to pass over.

That child

Alone did not fear him, nor shrink from him; smiled

To his frown, and dispell'd it.

The sweet sportive elf

Seem'd the type of some joy lost, and miss'd, in himself.

Ever welcome he suffer'd her glad face to glide

In on hours when to others his door was denied:

And many a time with a mute moody look

He would watch her at prattle and play, like a brook

Whose babble disturbs not the quietest spot,

But soothes us because we need answer it not.

But few years had pass'd o'er that childhood before

A change came among them. A letter, which bore

Sudden consequence with it, one morning was placed

In the hands of the lord of the chateau. He paced

To and fro in his chamber a whole night alone

After reading that letter. At dawn he was gone.

Weeks pass'd. When he came back again he return'd

With a tall ancient dame, from whose lips the child learn'd

That they were of the same race and name. With a face

Sad and anxious, to this wither'd stock of the race

He confided the orphan, and left them alone

In the old lonely house.

In a few days 'twas known,

To the angry surprise of half Paris, that one

Of the chiefs of that party which, still clinging on

To the banner that bears the white lilies of France,

Will fight 'neath no other, nor yet for the chance

Of restoring their own, had renounced the watchword

And the creed of his youth in unsheathing his sword,

For a Fatherland father'd no more (such is fate!)

By legitimate parents.

And meanwhile, elate

And in no wise disturbed by what Paris might say,

The new soldier thus wrote to a friend far away:--

"To the life of inaction farewell! After all,

Creeds the oldest may crumble, and dynasties fall,

But the sole grand Legitimacy will endure,

In whatever makes death noble, life strong and pure.

Freedom! action!... the desert to breathe in--the lance

Of the Arab to follow! I go! vive la France!"

Few and rare were the meetings henceforth, as years fled,

'Twixt the child and the soldier. The two women led

Lone lives in the lone house. Meanwhile the child grew

Into girlhood; and, like a sunbeam, sliding through

Her green quiet years, changed by gentle degrees

To the loveliest vision of youth a youth sees

In his loveliest fancies: as pure as a pearl,

And as perfect: a noble and innocent girl,

With eighteen sweet summers dissolved in the light

Of her lovely and lovable eyes, soft and bright!

Then her guardian wrote to the dame,... "Let Constance

Go with you to Paris. I trust that in France

I may be ere the close of the year. I confide

My life's treasure to you. Let her see, at your side,

The world which we live in."

To Paris then came

Constance to abide with that old stately dame

In that old stately Faubourg.

The young Englishman

Thus met her. 'Twas there their acquaintance began,

There it closed. That old miracle, Love-at-first-sight,

Needs no explanations. The heart reads aright

Its destiny sometimes. His love neither chidden

Nor check'd, the young soldier was graciously bidden

An habitual guest to that house by the dame.

His own candid graces, the world-honor'd name

Of his father (in him not dishonor'd) were both

Fair titles to favor. His love, nothing loath,

The old lady observed, was return'd by Constance.

And as the child's uncle his absence from France

Yet prolong'd, she (thus easing long self-gratulation)

Wrote to him a lengthen'd and moving narration

Of the graces and gifts of the young English wooer:

His father's fair fame; the boy's deference to her;

His love for Constance,--unaffected, sincere;

And the girl's love for him, read by her in those clear

Limpid eyes; then the pleasure with which she awaited

Her cousin's approval of all she had stated.

At length from that cousin an answer there came,

Brief, stern; such as stunn'd and astonish'd the dame.

"Let Constance leave Paris with you on the day

You receive this. Until my return she may stay

At her convent awhile. If my niece wishes ever

To behold me again, understand, she will never

Wed that man.

"You have broken faith with me. Farewell!"

No appeal from that sentence.

It needs not to tell

The tears of Constance, nor the grief of her lover:

The dream they had laid out their lives in was over.

Bravely strove the young soldier to look in the face

Of a life where invisible hands seemed to trace

O'er the threshold these words... "Hope no more!"

Unreturn'd

Had his love been, the strong manful heart would have spurn'd

That weakness which suffers a woman to lie

At the roots of man's life, like a canker, and dry

And wither the sap of life's purpose. But there

Lay the bitterer part of the pain! Could he dare

To forget he was loved? that he grieved not alone?

Recording a love that drew sorrow upon

The woman he loved, for himself dare he seek

Surcease to that sorrow, which thus held him weak,

Beat him down, and destroy'd him?

News reach'd him indeed,

Through a comrade, who brought him a letter to read

From the dame who had care of Constance (it was one

To whom, when at Paris, the boy had been known,

A Frenchman, and friend of the Faubourg), which said

That Constance, although never a murmur betray'd

What she suffer'd, in silence grew paler each day,

And seem'd visibly drooping and dying away.

It was then he sought death.

XVII.

Thus the tale ends. 'Twas told

With such broken, passionate words, as unfold

In glimpses alone, a coil'd grief. Through each pause

Of its fitful recital, in raw gusty flaws,

The rain shook the canvas, unheeded; aloof,

And unheeded, the night-wind around the tent-roof

At intervals wirbled. And when all was said,

The sick man, exhausted, droop'd backward his head,

And fell into a feverish slumber.

Long while

Sat the Soeur Seraphine, in deep thought. The still smile

That was wont, angel-wise, to inhabit her face

And made it like heaven, was fled from its place

In her eyes, on her lips; and a deep sadness there

Seem'd to darken the lines of long sorrow and care,

As low to herself she sigh'd...

"Hath it, Eugene,

Been so long, then, the struggle?... and yet, all in vain!

Nay, not all in vain! shall the world gain a man,

And yet Heaven lose a soul? Have I done all I can?

Soul to soul, did he say? Soul to soul, be it so!

And then--soul of mine, whither? whither?"

XVIII.

Large, slow,

Silent tears in those deep eyes ascended, and fell.

"HERE, at least, I have fail'd not"... she mused... "this is well!"

She drew from her bosom two letters.

In one,

A mother's heart, wild with alarm for her son,

Breathed bitterly forth its despairing appeal.

"The pledge of a love owed to thee, O Lucile!

The hope of a home saved by thee--of a heart

Which hath never since then (thrice endear'd as thou art!)

Ceased to bless thee, to pray for thee, save! save my son!

And if not"... the letter went brokenly on,

"Heaven help us!"

Then follow'd, from Alfred, a few

Blotted heart-broken pages. He mournfully drew,

With pathos, the picture of that earnest youth,

So unlike his own; how in beauty and truth

He had nurtured that nature, so simple and brave!

And how he had striven his son's youth to save

From the errors so sadly redeem'd in his own,

And so deeply repented: how thus, in that son,

In whose youth he had garner'd his age, he had seem'd

To be bless'd by a pledge that the past was redeem'd,

And forgiven. He bitterly went on to speak

Of the boy's baffled love; in which fate seem'd to break

Unawares on his dreams with retributive pain,

And the ghosts of the past rose to scourge back again

The hopes of the future. To sue for consent

Pride forbade: and the hope his old foe might relent

Experience rejected... "My life for the boy's!"

(He exclaim'd); "for I die with my son, if he dies!

Lucile! Heaven bless you for all you have done!

Save him, save him, Lucile! save my son! save my son!"

XIX.

"Ay!" murmur'd the Soeur Seraphine... "heart to heart!

THERE, at least, I have fail'd not! Fulfill'd is my part?

Accomplish'd my mission? One act crowns the whole.

Do I linger? Nay, be it so, then!... Soul to soul!"

She knelt down, and pray'd. Still the boy slumber'd on,

Dawn broke. The pale nun from the bedside was gone.

XX.

Meanwhile, 'mid his aides-de-camp, busily bent

O'er the daily reports, in his well-order'd tent

There sits a French General--bronzed by the sun

And sear'd by the sands of Algeria. One

Who forth from the wars of the wild Kabylee

Had strangely and rapidly risen to be

The idol, the darling, the dream and the star

Of the younger French chivalry: daring in war,

And wary in council. He enter'd, indeed,

Late in life (and discarding his Bourbonite creed)

The Army of France: and had risen, in part

From a singular aptitude proved for the art

Of that wild desert warfare of ambush, surprise,

And stratagem, which to the French camp supplies

Its subtlest intelligence; partly from chance;

Partly, too, from a name and position which France

Was proud to put forward; but mainly, in fact,

From the prudence to plan, and the daring to act,

In frequent emergencies startlingly shown,

To the rank which he now held,--intrepidly won

With many a wound, trench'd in many a scar,

From fierce Milianah and Sidi-Sakhdar.

XXI.

All within, and without, that warm tent seems to bear

Smiling token of provident order and care.

All about, a well-fed, well-clad soldiery stands

In groups round the music of mirth-breathing bands.

In and out of the tent, all day long, to and fro,

The messengers come and the messengers go,

Upon missions of mercy, or errands of toil:

To report how the sapper contends with the soil

In the terrible trench, how the sick man is faring

In the hospital tent: and, combining, comparing,

Constructing, within moves the brain of one man,

Moving all.

He is bending his brow o'er some plan

For the hospital service, wise, skilful, humane.

The officer standing behind him is fain

To refer to the angel solicitous cares

Of the Sisters of Charity: one he declares

To be known through the camp as a seraph of grace;

He has seen, all have seen her indeed, in each place

Where suffering is seen, silent, active--the Soeur...

Soeur... how do they call her?

"Ay, truly, of her

I have heard much," the General, musing, replies;

"And we owe her already (unless rumor lies)

The lives of not few of our bravest. You mean

Ah, how do they call her?... the Soeur--Seraphine

(Is it not so?). I rarely forget names once heard."

"Yes; the Soeur Seraphine. Her I meant."

"On my word,

I have much wish'd to see her. I fancy I trace,

In some facts traced to her, something more than the grace

Of an angel; I mean an acute human mind,

Ingenious, constructive, intelligent. Find,

And if possible, let her come to me. We shall,

I think, aid each other."

"Oui, mon General:

I believe she has lately obtained the permission

To tend some sick man in the Second Division

Of our Ally; they say a relation."

"Ay, so?

A relation?"

"'Tis said so."

"The name do you know?"

Non, mon General."

While they spoke yet, there went

A murmur and stir round the door of the tent.

"A Sister of Charity craves, in a case

Of urgent and serious importance, the grace

Of brief private speech with the General there.

Will the General speak with her?"

"Bid her declare

Her mission."

"She will not. She craves to be seen

And be heard."

"Well, her name, then?"

"The Soeur Seraphine."

"Clear the tent. She may enter."

XXII.

The tent has been clear'd,

The chieftain stroked moodily somewhat his beard,

A sable long silver'd: and press'd down his brow

On his hand, heavy vein'd. All his countenance, now

Unwitness'd, at once fell dejected, and dreary,

As a curtain let fall by a hand that's grown weary,

Into puckers and folds. From his lips, unrepress'd,

Steals th' impatient sigh which reveals in man's breast

A conflict conceal'd, and experience at strife

With itself,--the vex'd heart's passing protest on life.

He turn'd to his papers. He heard the light tread

Of a faint foot behind him: and, lifting his head,

Said, "Sit, Holy Sister! your worth is well known

To the hearts of our soldiers; nor less to my own.

I have much wish'd to see you. I owe you some thanks;

In the name of all those you have saved to our ranks

I record them. Sit! Now then, your mission?"

The nun

Paused silent. The General eyed her anon

More keenly. His aspect grew troubled. A change

Darken'd over his features. He mutter'd "Strange! strange!

Any face should so strongly remind me of HER!

Fool! again the delirium, the dream! does it stir?

Does it move as of old? Psha!

"Sit, Sister! I wait

Your answer, my time halts but hurriedly. State

The cause why you seek me."

"The cause? ay, the cause!"

She vaguely repeated. Then, after a pause,--

As one who, awaked unawares, would put back

The sleep that forever returns in the track

Of dreams which, though scared and dispersed, not the less

Settle back to faint eyelids that yield 'neath their stress,

Like doves to a pent-house,--a movement she made,

Less toward him than away from herself; droop'd her head

And folded her hands on her bosom: long, spare,

Fatigued, mournful hands! Not a stream of stray hair

Escaped the pale bands; scarce more pale than the face

Which they bound and lock'd up in a rigid white case.

She fix'd her eyes on him. There crept a vague awe

O'er his sense, such as ghosts cast.

"Eugene de Luvois,

The cause which recalls me again to your side,

Is a promise that rests unfulfill'd," she replied.

"I come to fulfil it."

He sprang from the place

Where he sat, press'd his hand, as in doubt, o'er his face;

And, cautiously feeling each step o'er the ground

That he trod on (as one who walks fearing the sound

Of his footstep may startle and scare out of sight

Some strange sleeping creature on which he would 'light

Unawares), crept towards her; one heavy hand laid

On her shoulder in silence; bent o'er her his head,

Search'd her face with a long look of troubled appeal

Against doubt: stagger'd backward, and murmur'd... "Lucile?

Thus we meet then?... here!... thus?"

"Soul to soul, ay,

Eugene,

As I pledged you my word that we should meet again.

Dead,..." she murmur'd, "long dead! all that lived in our lives--

Thine and mine--saving that which ev'n life's self survives,

The soul! 'Tis my soul seeks thine own. What may reach

From my life to thy life (so wide each from each!)

Save the soul to the soul? To thy soul I would speak.

May I do so?"

He said (work'd and white was his cheek

As he raised it), "Speak to me!"

Deep, tender, serene,

And sad was the gaze which the Soeur Seraphine

Held on him. She spoke.

XXIII.

As some minstrel may fling,

Preluding the music yet mute in each string,

A swift hand athwart the hush'd heart of the whole,

Seeking which note most fitly must first move the soul;

And, leaving untroubled the deep chords below,

Move pathetic in numbers remote;--even so

The voice which was moving the heart of that man

Far away from its yet voiceless purpose began,

Far away in the pathos remote of the past;

Until, through her words, rose before him, at last,

Bright and dark in their beauty, the hopes that were gone

Unaccomplish'd from life.

He was mute.

XXIV.

She went on

And still further down the dim past did she lead

Each yielding remembrance, far, far off, to feed

'Mid the pastures of youth, in the twilight of hope,

And the valleys of boyhood, the fresh-flower'd slope

Of life's dawning land!

'Tis the heart of a boy,

With its indistinct, passionate prescience of joy!

The unproved desire--the unaim'd aspiration--

The deep conscious life that forestalls consummation

With ever a flitting delight--one arm's length

In advance of the august inward impulse.

The strength

Of the spirit which troubles the seed in the sand

With the birth of the palm-tree! Let ages expand

The glorious creature! The ages lie shut

(Safe, see!) in the seed, at time's signal to put

Forth their beauty and power, leaf by leaf, layer on layer,

Till the palm strikes the sun, and stands broad in blue air.

So the palm in the palm-seed! so, slowly--so, wrought

Year by year unperceived, hope on hope, thought by thought,

Trace the growth of the man from its germ in the boy.

Ah, but Nature, that nurtures, may also destroy!

Charm the wind and the sun, lest some chance intervene!

While the leaf's in the bud, while the stem's in the green,

A light bird bends the branch, a light breeze breaks the bough,

Which, if spared by the light breeze, the light bird, may grow

To baffle the tempest, and rock the high nest,

And take both the bird and the breeze to its breast.

Shall we save a whole forest in sparing one seed?

Save the man in the boy? in the thought save the deed?

Let the whirlwind uproot the grown tree, if it can!

Save the seed from the north wind. So let the grown man

Face our fate. Spare the man-seed in youth.

He was dumb.

She went one step further.

XXV.

Lo! manhood is come.

And love, the wild song-bird, hath flown to the tree.

And the whirlwind comes after. Now prove we, and see:

What shade from the leaf? what support from the branch?

Spreads the leaf broad and fair? holds the bough strong and staunch?

There, he saw himself--dark, as he stood on that night,

The last when they met and they parted: a sight

For heaven to mourn o'er, for hell to rejoice!

An ineffable tenderness troubled her voice;

It grew weak, and a sigh broke it through.

Then he said

(Never looking at her, never lifting his head,

As though, at his feet, there lay visibly hurl'd

Those fragments), "It was not a love, 'twas a world,

'Twas a life that lay ruin'd, Lucile!"

XXVI.

She went on.

"So be it! Perish Babel, arise Babylon!

From ruins like these rise the fanes that shall last,

And to build up the future heaven shatters the past."

"Ay," he moodily murmur'd, "and who cares to scan

The heart's perish'd world, if the world gains a man?

From the past to the present, though late, I appeal;

To the nun Seraphine, from the woman Lucile!"

XXVII.

Lucile!... the old name--the old self! silenced long:

Heard once more! felt once more!

As some soul to the throng

Of invisible spirits admitted, baptized

By death to a new name and nature--surprised

'Mid the songs of the seraphs, hears faintly, and far,

Some voice from the earth, left below a dim star,

Calling to her forlornly; and (sadd'ning the psalms

Of the angels, and piercing the Paradise palms!)

The name borne 'mid earthly beloveds on earth

Sigh'd above some lone grave in the land of her birth;--

So that one word... Lucile!... stirr'd the Soeur Seraphine,

For a moment. Anon she resumed here serene

And concentrated calm.

"Let the Nun, then, retrace

The life of the soldier!"... she said, with a face

That glow'd, gladdening her words.

"To the present I come:

Leave the Past!"

There her voice rose, and seem'd as when some

Pale Priestess proclaims from her temple the praise

Of her hero whose brows she is crowning with bays.

Step by step did she follow his path from the place

Where their two paths diverged. Year by year did she trace

(Familiar with all) his, the soldier's existence.

Her words were of trial, endurance, resistance;

Of the leaguer around this besieged world of ours:

And the same sentinels that ascend the same towers

And report the same foes, the same fears, the same strife,

Waged alike to the limits of each human life.

She went on to speak of the lone moody lord,

Shut up in his lone moody halls: every word

Held the weight of a tear: she recorded the good

He had patiently wrought through a whole neighborhood;

And the blessing that lived on the lips of the poor,

By the peasant's hearthstone, or the cottager's door.

There she paused: and her accents seem'd dipp'd in the hue

Of his own sombre heart, as the picture she drew

Of the poor, proud, sad spirit, rejecting love's wages,

Yet working love's work; reading backwards life's pages

For penance; and stubbornly, many a time,

Both missing the moral, and marring the rhyme.

Then she spoke of the soldier!... the man's work and fame,

The pride of a nation, a world's just acclaim!

Life's inward approval!

XXVIII.

Her voice reach'd his heart,

And sank lower. She spoke of herself: how, apart

And unseen,--far away,--she had watch'd, year by year,

With how many a blessing, how many a tear,

And how many a prayer, every stage in the strife:

Guess'd the thought in the deed: traced the love in the life:

Bless'd the man in the man's work!

"THY work... oh, not mine!

Thine, Lucile!"... he exclaim'd... "all the worth of it thine,

If worth there be in it!"

Her answer convey'd

His reward, and her own: joy that cannot be said

Alone by the voice... eyes--face--spoke silently:

All the woman, one grateful emotion!

And she

A poor Sister of Charity! hers a life spent

In one silent effort for others!...

She bent

Her divine face above him, and fill'd up his heart

With the look that glow'd from it.

Then slow, with soft art,

Fix'd her aim, and moved to it.

XXIX.

He, the soldier humane,

He, the hero; whose heart hid in glory the pain

Of a youth disappointed; whose life had made known

The value of man's life!... that youth overthrown

And retrieved, had it left him no pity for youth

In another? his own life of strenuous truth

Accomplish'd in act, had it taught him no care

For the life of another?... oh no! everywhere

In the camp which she moved through, she came face to face

With some noble token, some generous trace

Of his active humanity...

"Well," he replied,

"If it be so?"

"I come from the solemn bedside

Of a man that is dying," she said. "While we speak,

A life is in jeopardy."

"Quick then! you seek

Aid or medicine, or what?"

"'Tis not needed," she said.

"Medicine? yes, for the mind! 'Tis a heart that needs aid!

You, Eugene de Luvois, you (and you only) can

Save the life of this man. Will you save it?"

"What man?

How?... where?... can you ask?"

She went rapidly on

To her object in brief vivid words... The young son

Of Matilda and Alfred--the boy lying there

Half a mile from that tent door--the father's despair,

The mother's deep anguish--the pride of the boy

In the father--the father's one hope and one joy

In the son:---the son now--wounded, dying! She told

Of the father's stern struggle with life: the boy's bold,

Pure, and beautiful nature: the fair life before him

If that life were but spared... yet a word might restore him!

The boy's broken love for the niece of Eugene!

Its pathos: the girl's love for him; how, half slain

In his tent, she had found him: won from him the tale;

Sought to nurse back his life; found her efforts still fail

Beaten back by a love that was stronger than life;

Of how bravely till then he had stood in that strife

Wherein England and France in their best blood, at last,

Had bathed from remembrance the wounds of the past.

And shall nations be nobler than men? Are not great

Men the models of nations? For what is a state

But the many's confused imitation of one?

Shall he, the fair hero of France, on the son

Of his ally seek vengeance, destroying perchance

An innocent life,--here, when England and France

Have forgiven the sins of their fathers of yore,

And baptized a new hope in their sons' recent gore?

She went on to tell how the boy had clung still

To life, for the sake of life's uses, until

From his weak hands the strong effort dropp'd, stricken down

By the news that the heart of Constance, like his own,

Was breaking beneath...

But there "Hold!" he exclaim'd,

Interrupting, "Forbear!"... his whole face was inflamed

With the heart's swarthy thunder which yet, while she spoke,

Had been gathering silent--at last the storm broke

In grief or in wrath...

"'Tis to him, then," he cried,...

Checking suddenly short the tumultuous stride,

"That I owe these late greetings--for him you are here--

For his sake you seek me--for him, it is clear,

You have deign'd at the last to bethink you again

Of this long-forgotten existence!"

"Eugene!"

"Ha! fool that I was!"... he went on,... "and just now,

While you spoke yet, my heart was beginning to grow

Almost boyish again, almost sure of ONE friend!

Yet this was the meaning of all--this the end!

Be it so! There's a sort of slow justice (admit!)

In this--that the word that man's finger hath writ

In fire on my heart, I return him at last.

Let him learn that word--Never!"

"Ah, still to the past

Must the present be vassal?" she said. "In the hour

We last parted I urged you to put forth the power

Which I felt to be yours, in the conquest of life.

Yours, the promise to strive: mine--to watch o'er the strife.

I foresaw you would conquer; you HAVE conquer'd much,

Much, indeed, that is noble! I hail it as such,

And am here to record and applaud it. I saw

Not the less in your nature, Eugene de Luvois,

One peril--one point where I feared you would fail

To subdue that worst foe which a man can assail,--

Himself: and I promised that, if I should see

My champion once falter, or bend the brave knee,

That moment would bring me again to his side.

That moment is come! for that peril was pride,

And you falter. I plead for yourself, and another,

For that gentle child without father or mother,

To whom you are both. I plead, soldier of France,

For your own nobler nature--and plead for Constance!"

At the sound of that name he averted his head.

"Constance!... Ay, she enter'd MY lone life" (he said)

"When its sun was long set; and hung over its night

Her own starry childhood. I have but that light,

In the midst of much darkness! Who names me but she

With titles of love? And what rests there for me

In the silence of age save the voice of that child?

The child of my own better life, undefiled!

My creature, carved out of my heart of hearts!"

"Say,"

Said the Soeur Seraphine--"are you able to lay

Your hand as a knight on your heart as a man

And swear that, whatever may happen, you can

Feel assured for the life you thus cherish?"

"How so?"

He look'd up. "if the boy should die thus?"

"Yes, I know

What your look would imply... this sleek stranger forsooth!

Because on his cheek was the red rose of youth

The heart of my niece must break for it!"

She cried,

"Nay, but hear me yet further!"

With slow heavy stride,

Unheeding her words, he was pacing the tent,

He was muttering low to himself as he went.

Ay, these young things lie safe in our heart just so long

As their wings are in growing; and when these are strong

They break it, and farewell! the bird flies!"...

The nun

Laid her hand on the soldier, and murmur'd, "The sun

Is descending, life fleets while we talk thus! oh, yet

Let this day upon one final victory set,

And complete a life's conquest!"

He said, "Understand!

If Constance wed the son of this man, by whose hand

My heart hath been robb'd, she is lost to my life!

Can her home be my home? Can I claim in the wife

Of that man's son the child of my age? At her side

Shall he stand on my hearth? Shall I sue to the bride

Of... enough!

"Ah, and you immemorial halls

Of my Norman forefathers, whose shadow yet falls

On my fancy, and fuses hope, memory, past,

Present,--all, in one silence! old trees to the blast

Of the North Sea repeating the tale of old days,

Nevermore, nevermore in the wild bosky ways

Shall I hear through your umbrage ancestral the wind

Prophesy as of yore, when it shook the deep mind

Of my boyhood, with whispers from out the far years

Of love, fame, the raptures life cools down with tears!

Henceforth shall the tread of a Vargrave alone

Rouse your echoes?"

"O think not," she said, "of the son

Of the man whom unjustly you hate; only think

Of this young human creature, that cries from the brink

Of a grave to your mercy!

"Recall your own words

(Words my memory mournfully ever records!)

How with love may be wreck'd a whole life! then, Eugene,

Look with me (still those words in our ears!) once again

At this young soldier sinking from life here--dragg'd down

By the weight of the love in his heart: no renown,

No fame comforts HIM! nations shout not above

The lone grave down to which he is bearing the love

Which life has rejected! Will YOU stand apart?

You, with such a love's memory deep in your heart!

You the hero, whose life hath perchance been led on

Through the deeds it hath wrought to the fame it hath won,

By recalling the visions and dreams of a youth,

Such as lies at your door now: who have but, in truth,

To stretch forth a hand, to speak only one word,

And by that word you rescue a life!"

He was stirr'd.

Still he sought to put from him the cup, bow'd his face

on his hand; and anon, as though wishing to chase

With one angry gesture his own thoughts aside,

He sprang up, brush'd past her, and bitterly cried,

"No!--Constance wed a Vargrave!"--I cannot consent!"

Then up rose the Soeur Seraphine.

The low tent

In her sudden uprising, seem'd dwarf'd by the height

From which those imperial eyes pour'd the light

Of their deep silent sadness upon him.

No wonder

He felt, as it were, his own stature shrink under

The compulsion of that grave regard! For between

The Duc de Luvois and the Soeur Seraphine

At that moment there rose all the height of one soul

O'er another; she look'd down on him from the whole

Lonely length of a life. There were sad nights and days,

There were long months and years in that heart-searching gaze;

And her voice, when she spoke, with sharp pathos thrill'd through

And transfix'd him.

"Eugene de Luvois, but for you,

I might have been now--not this wandering nun,

But a mother, a wife--pleading, not for the son

Of another, but blessing some child of my own,

His,--the man's that I once loved!... Hush! that which is done

I regret not. I breathe no reproaches. That's best

Which God sends. 'Twas his will: it is mine. And the rest

Of that riddle I will not look back to. He reads

In your heart--He that judges of all thoughts and deeds.

With eyes, mine forestall not! This only I say:

You have not the right (read it, you, as you may!)

To say... 'I am the wrong'd."'...

"Have I wrong'd thee?--wrong'd THEE!"

He falter'd, "Lucile, ah, Lucile!"

"Nay, not me,"

She murmur'd, "but man! The lone nun standing here

Has no claim upon earth, and is pass'd from the sphere

Of earth's wrongs and earth's reparations. But she,

The dead woman, Lucile, she whose grave is in me,

Demands from her grave reparation to man,

Reparation to God. Heed, O heed, while you can,

This voice from the grave!"

"Hush!" he moan'd, "I obey

The Soeur Seraphine. There, Lucile! let this pay

Every debt that is due to that grave. Now lead on:

I follow you, Soeur Seraphine!... To the son

Of Lord Alfred Vargrave... and then,"...

As he spoke

He lifted the tent-door, and down the dun smoke

Pointed out the dark bastions, with batteries crown'd,

Of the city beneath them...

"Then, THERE, underground,

And valete et plaudite, soon as may be!

Let the old tree go down to the earth--the old tree

With the worm at its heart! Lay the axe to the root!

Who will miss the old stump, so we save the young shoot?

A Vargrave!... this pays all... Lead on! In the seed

Save the forest!...

I follow... forth, forth! where you lead."

XXX.

The day was declining; a day sick and damp.

In a blank ghostly glare shone the bleak ghostly camp

Of the English. Alone in his dim, spectral tent

(Himself the wan spectre of youth), with eyes bent

On the daylight departing, the sick man was sitting

Upon his low pallet. These thoughts, vaguely flitting,

Cross'd the silence between him and death, which seem'd near,

--"Pain o'erreaches itself, so is balk'd! else, how bear

This intense and intolerable solitude,

With its eye on my heart and its hand on my blood?

Pulse by pulse! Day goes down: yet she comes not again.

Other suffering, doubtless, where hope is more plain,

Claims her elsewhere. I die, strange! and scarcely feel sad.

Oh, to think of Constance THUS, and not to go mad!

But Death, it would seem, dulls the sense to his own

Dull doings..."

XXXI.

Between those sick eyes and the sun

A shadow fell thwart.

XXXII.

'Tis the pale nun once more!

But who stands at her side, mute and dark in the door?

How oft had he watch'd through the glory and gloom

Of the battle, with long, longing looks, that dim plume

Which now (one stray sunbeam upon it) shook, stoop'd

To where the tent-curtain, dividing, was loop'd!

How that stern face had haunted and hover'd about

The dreams it still scared! through what fond fear and doubt

Had the boy yearn'd in heart to the hero. (What's like

A boy's love for some famous man?)... Oh, to strike

A wild path through the battle, down striking perchance

Some rash foeman too near the great soldier of France,

And so fall in his glorious regard!... Oft, how oft,

Had his heart flash'd this hope out, whilst watching aloft

The dim battle that plume dance and dart--never seen

So near till this moment! how eager to glean

Every stray word, dropp'd through the camp-babble in praise

Of his hero--each tale of old venturous days

In the desert! And now... could he speak out his heart

Face to face with that man ere he died!

XXXIII.

With a start

The sick soldier sprang up: the blood sprang up in him,

To his throat, and o'erthrew him: he reel'd back: a dim

Sanguine haze fill'd his eyes; in his ears rose the din

And rush, as of cataracts loosen'd within,

Through which he saw faintly, and heard, the pale nun

(Looking larger than life, where she stood in the sun)

Point to him and murmur, "Behold!" Then that plume

Seem'd to wave like a fire, and fade off in the gloom

Which momently put out the world.

XXXIV.

To his side

Moved the man the boy dreaded yet loved... "Ah!"... he sigh'd,

"The smooth brow, the fair Vargrave face! and those eyes,

All the mother's! The old things again!

"Do not rise.

You suffer, young man?"

THE BOY.

Sir, I die.

THE DUKE.

Not so young!

THE BOY.

So young? yes! and yet I have tangled among

The fray'd warp and woof of this brief life of mine

Other lives than my own. Could my death but untwine

The vext skein... but it will not. Yes, Duke, young--so young!

And I knew you not? yet I have done you a wrong

Irreparable!... late, too late to repair.

If I knew any means... but I know none!... I swear,

If this broken fraction of time could extend

Into infinite lives of atonement, no end

Would seem too remote for my grief (could that be!)

To include it! Not too late, however, for me

To entreat: is it too late for you to forgive?

THE DUKE.

You wrong--my forgiveness--explain.

THE BOY.

Could I live!

Such a very few hours left to life, yet I shrink,

I falter... Yes, Duke, your forgiveness I think

Should free my soul hence.

Ah! you could not surmise

That a boy's beating heart, burning thoughts, longing eyes

Were following you evermore (heeded not!)

While the battle was flowing between us: nor what

Eager, dubious footsteps at nightfall oft went

With the wind and the rain, round and round your blind tent,

Persistent and wild as the wind and the rain,

Unnoticed as these, weak as these, and as vain!

Oh, how obdurate then look'd your tent! The waste air

Grew stern at the gleam which said... "Off! he is there!"

I know not what merciful mystery now

Brings you here, whence the man whom you see lying low

Other footsteps (not those!) must soon bear to the grave.

But death is at hand, and the few words I have

Yet to speak, I must speak them at once.

Duke, I swear,

As I lie here, (Death's angel too close not to hear!)

That I meant not this wrong to you. Duc de Luvois,

I loved your niece--loved? why, I LOVE her! I saw,

And, seeing, how could I but love her? I seem'd

Born to love her. Alas, were that all! Had I dream'd

Of this love's cruel consequence as it rests now

Ever fearfully present before me, I vow

That the secret, unknown, had gone down to the tomb

Into which I descend... Oh why, whilst there was room

In life left for warning, had no one the heart

To warn me? Had any one whisper'd... "Depart!"

To the hope the whole world seem'd in league then to nurse!

Had any one hinted... "Beware of the curse

Which is coming!" There was not a voice raised to tell,

Not a hand moved to warn from the blow ere it fell,

And then... then the blow fell on BOTH! This is why

I implore you to pardon that great injury

Wrought on her, and, through her, wrought on you, Heaven knows

How unwittingly!

THE DUKE.

Ah!... and, young soldier, suppose

That I came here to seek, not grant, pardon?--

THE BOY.

Of whom?

THE DUKE.

Of yourself.

THE BOY.

Duke, I bear in my heart to the tomb

No boyish resentment; not one lonely thought

That honors you not. In all this there is naught

'Tis for me to forgive.

Every glorious act

Of your great life starts forward, an eloquent fact,

To confirm in my boy's heart its faith in your own.

And have I not hoarded, to ponder upon,

A hundred great acts from your life? Nay, all these,

Were they so many lying and false witnesses,

Does there rest not ONE voice which was never untrue?

I believe in Constance, Duke, as she does in you!

In this great world around us, wherever we turn,

Some grief irremediable we discern;

And yet--there sits God, calm in Heaven above!

Do we trust one whit less in his justice or love?

I judge not.

THE DUKE.

Enough! Hear at last, then, the truth

Your father and I--foes we were in our youth.

It matters not why. Yet thus much understand:

The hope of my youth was sign'd out by his hand.

I was not of those whom the buffets of fate

Tame and teach; and my heart buried slain love in hate.

If your own frank young heart, yet unconscious of all

Which turns the heart's blood in its springtide to gall,

And unable to guess even aught that the furrow

Across these gray brows hides of sin or of sorrow,

Comprehends not the evil and grief of my life,

'Twill at least comprehend how intense was the strife

Which is closed in this act of atonement, whereby

I seek in the son of my youth's enemy

The friend of my age. Let the present release

Here acquitted the past! In the name of my niece,

Whom for my life in yours as a hostage I give,

Are you great enough, boy, to forgive me,--and live?

Whilst he spoke thus, a doubtful tumultuous joy

Chased its fleeting effects o'er the face of the boy:

As when some stormy moon, in a long cloud confined,

Struggles outward through shadows, the varying wind

Alternates, and bursts, self-surprised, from her prison,

So that slow joy grew clear in his face. He had risen

To answer the Duke; but strength fail'd every limb;

A strange, happy feebleness trembled through him.

With a faint cry of rapturous wonder, he sank

On the breast of the nun, who stood near.

"Yes, boy! thank

This guardian angel," the Duke said. "I--you,

We owe all to her. Crown her work. Live! be true

To your young life's fair promise, and live for her sake!"

"Yes, Duke: I will live. I MUST live--live to make

My whole life the answer you claim," the boy said,

"For joy does not kill!"

Back again the faint head

Declined on the nun's gentle bosom. She saw

His lips quiver, and motion'd the Duke to withdraw

And leave them a moment together.

He eyed

Them both with a wistful regard; turn'd and sigh'd,

And lifted the tent-door, and pass'd from the tent.

XXXV.

Like a furnace, the fervid, intense occident

From its hot seething levels a great glare struck up

On the sick metal sky. And, as out of a cup

Some witch watches boiling wild portents arise,

Monstrous clouds, mass'd, misshapen, and ting'd with strange dyes,

Hover'd over the red fume, and changed to weird shapes

As of snakes, salamanders, efts, lizards, storks, apes,

Chimeras, and hydras: whilst--ever the same

In the midst of all these (creatures fused by his flame,

And changed by his influence!) changeless, as when,

Ere he lit down to death generations of men,

O'er that crude and ungainly creation, which there

With wild shapes this cloud-world seem'd to mimic in air,

The eye of Heaven's all-judging witness, he shone.

And shall shine on the ages we reach not--the sun!

XXXVI.

Nature posted her parable thus in the skies,

And the man's heart bore witness. Life's vapors arise

And fall, pass and change, group themselves and revolve

Round the great central life, which is love: these dissolve

And resume themselves, here assume beauty, there terror;

And the phantasmagoria of infinite error,

And endless complexity, lasts but a while;

Life's self, the immortal, immutable smile

Of God, on the soul in the deep heart of Heaven

Lives changeless, unchanged: and our morning and even

Are earth's alternations, not Heaven's.

XXXVII.

While he yet

Watched the skies, with this thought in his heart; while he set

Thus unconsciously all his life forth in his mind,

Summ'd it up, search'd it out, proved it vapor and wind,

And embraced the new life which that hour had reveal'd,--

Love's life, which earth's life had defaced and conceal'd;

Lucile left the tent and stood by him.

Her tread

Aroused him; and, turning towards her, he said:

"O Soeur Seraphine, are you happy?"

"Eugene,

What is happier than to have hoped not in vain?"

She answer'd,--"And you?"

"Yes."

"You do not repent?"

"No."

"Thank Heaven!" she murmur'd. He musingly bent

His looks on the sunset, and somewhat apart

Where he stood, sigh'd, as though to his innermost heart,

"O bless'd are they, amongst whom I was not,

Whose morning unclouded, without stain or spot,

Predicts a pure evening; who, sunlike, in light

Have traversed, unsullied, the world, and set bright!"

But she in response, "Mark yon ship far away,

Asleep on the wave, in the last light of day,

With all its hush'd thunders shut up! Would you know

A thought which came to me a few days ago,

Whilst watching those ships?... When the great Ship of Life

Surviving, though shatter'd, the tumult and strife

Of earth's angry element,--masts broken short,

Decks drench'd, bulwarks beaten--drives safe into port;

When the Pilot of Galilee, seen on the strand,

Stretches over the waters a welcoming hand;

When, heeding no longer the sea's baffled roar,

The mariner turns to his rest evermore;

What will then be the answer the helmsman must give?

Will it be... 'Lo our log-book! Thus once did we live

In the zones of the South; thus we traversed the seas

Of the Orient; there dwelt with the Hesperides;

Thence follow'd the west wind; here, eastward we turn'd;

The stars fail'd us there; just here land we discern'd

On our lee; there the storm overtook us at last;

That day went the bowsprit, the next day the mast;

There the mermen came round us, and there we saw bask

A siren?' The Captain of Port will he ask

Any one of such questions? I cannot think so!

But... 'What is the last Bill of Health you can show?'

Not--How fared the soul through the trials she pass'd?

But--What is the state of that soul at the last?"

"May it be so!" he sigh'd. "There the sun drops, behold!"

And indeed, whilst he spoke all the purple and gold

In the west had turn'd ashen, save one fading strip

Of light that yet gleam'd from the dark nether lip

Of a long reef of cloud; and o'er sullen ravines

And ridges the raw damps were hanging white screens

Of melancholy mist.

"Nunc dimittis?" she said.

"O God of the living! whilst yet 'mid the dead

And the dying we stand here alive, and thy days

Returning, admit space for prayer and for praise,

In both these confirm us!

"The helmsman, Eugene,

Needs the compass to steer by. Pray always. Again

We two part: each to work out Heaven's will: you, I trust,

In the world's ample witness; and I, as I must,

In secret and silence: you, love, fame, await;

Me, sorrow and sickness. We meet at one gate

When all's over. The ways they are many and wide,

And seldom are two ways the same. Side by side

May we stand at the same little door when all's done!

The ways they are many, the end it is one.

He that knocketh shall enter: who asks shall obtain:

And who seeketh, he findeth. Remember, Eugene!"

She turn'd to depart.

"Whither? whither?"... he said.

She stretch'd forth her hand where, already outspread

On the darken'd horizon, remotely they saw

The French camp-fires kindling.

"See yonder vast host, with its manifold heart

Made as one man's by one hope! The hope 'tis your part

To aid towards achievement, to save from reverse

Mine, through suffering to soothe, and through sickness to nurse.

I go to my work: you to yours."

XXXVIII.

Whilst she spoke,

On the wide wasting evening there distantly broke

The low roll of musketry. Straightway, anon,

From the dim Flag-staff Battery bellow'd a gun.

"Our chasseurs are at it!" he mutter'd.

She turn'd,

Smiled, and pass'd up the twilight.

He faintly discern'd

Her form, now and then, on the flat lurid sky

Rise, and sink, and recede through the mists: by and by

The vapors closed round, and he saw her no more.

XXXIX.

Nor shall we. For her mission, accomplish'd, is o'er.

The mission of genius on earth! To uplift,

Purify, and confirm by its own gracious gift,

The world, in despite of the world's dull endeavor

To degrade, and drag down, and oppose it forever.

The mission of genius: to watch, and to wait,

To renew, to redeem, and to regenerate.

The mission of woman on earth! to give birth

To the mercy of Heaven descending on earth.

The mission of woman: permitted to bruise

The head of the serpent, and sweetly infuse,

Through the sorrow and sin of earth's register'd curse,

The blessing which mitigates all: born to nurse,

And to soothe, and to solace, to help and to heal

The sick world that leans on her. This was Lucile.

XL.

A power hid in pathos: a fire veil'd in cloud:

Yet still burning outward: a branch which, though bow'd

By the bird in its passage, springs upward again:

Through all symbols I search for her sweetness--in vain!

Judge her love by her life. For our life is but love

In act. Pure was hers: and the dear God above,

Who knows what His creatures have need of for life,

And whose love includes all loves, through much patient strife

Led her soul into peace. Love, though love may be given

In vain, is yet lovely. Her own native heaven

More clearly she mirror'd, as life's troubled dream

Wore away; and love sigh'd into rest, like a stream

That breaks its heart over wild rocks toward the shore

Of the great sea which hushes it up evermore

With its little wild wailing. No stream from its source

Flows seaward, how lonely soever its course,

But what some land is gladden'd. No star ever rose

And set, without influence somewhere. Who knows

What earth needs from earth's lowest creature? No life

Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife

And all life not be purer and stronger thereby.

The spirits of just men made perfect on high,

The army of martyrs who stand by the Throne

And gaze into the face that makes glorious their own,

Know this, surely, at last. Honest love, honest sorrow,

Honest work for the day, honest hope for the morrow,

Are these worth nothing more than the hand they make weary,

The heart they have sadden'd, the life they leave dreary?

Hush! the sevenhold heavens to the voice of the Spirit

Echo: He that o'ercometh shall all things inherit.

XLI.

The moon was, in fire, carried up through the fog;

The loud fortress bark'd at her like a chained dog.

The horizon pulsed flame, the air sound. All without,

War and winter, and twilight, and terror, and doubt;

All within, light, warmth, calm!

In the twilight, longwhile

Eugene de Luvois with a deep, thoughtful smile

Linger'd, looking, and listening, lone by the tent.

At last he withdrew, and night closed as he went.