The news flew fast about the countryside

That, with the kind man, it was ask and have;

And ask and have they did. To instance you:--

A mob of beggars at The Ravissante

Clung to his skirts one day, and cried "We thirst!"

Forthwith he bade a cask of wine be broached

To satisfy all comers, till, dead-drunk

So satisfied, they strewed the holy place.

For this was grown religious and a rite:

Such slips of judgment, gifts irregular,

Showed but as spillings of the golden grist

On either side the hopper, through blind zeal;

Steadily the main stream went pouring on

From mill to mouth of sack--held wide and close

By Father of the Mission, Parish-priest,

And Mother of the Convent, Nun I know,

With such effect that, in the sequel, proof

Was tendered to the Court at Vire, last month,

That in these same two years, expenditure

At quiet Clairvaux rose to the amount

Of Forty Thousand English Pounds: whereof

A trifle went, no inappropriate close

Of bounty, to supply the Virgin's crown

With that stupendous jewel from New York,

Now blazing as befits the Star of Sea.

Such signs of grace, outward and visible,

I rather give you, for your sake and mine,

Than put in evidence the inward strife,

Spiritual effort to compound for fault

By payment of devotion--thank the phrase!

That payment was as punctual, do not doubt,

As its far easier fellow. Yesterday

I trudged the distance from The Ravissante

To Clairvaux, with my two feet: but our friend,

The more to edify the country-folk,

Was wont to make that journey on both knees.

"Maliciously perverted incident!"

Snarled the retort, when this was told at Vire:

"The man paid mere devotion as he passed,

Knelt decently at just each wayside shrine!"

Alas, my lawyer, I trudged yesterday--

On my two feet, and with both eyes wide ope,--

The distance, and could find no shrine at all!

According to his lights, I praise the man.

Enough! incessant was devotion, say--

With her, you know of, praying at his side.

Still, there be relaxations of the tense:

Or life indemnifies itself for strain,

Or finds its very strain grow feebleness.

Monsieur Léonce Miranda's days were passed

Much as of old, in simple work and play.

His first endeavor, on recovery

From that sad ineffectual sacrifice,

Had been to set about repairing loss:

Never admitting, loss was to repair.

No word at any time escaped his lips

--Betrayed a lurking presence, in his heart,

Of sorrow; no regret for mischief done--

Punishment suffered, he would rather say.

Good-tempered schoolboy-fashion, he preferred

To laugh away his flogging, fair price paid

For pleasure out of bounds: if needs must be,

Get pleasure and get flogged a second time!

A sullen subject would have nursed the scars

And made excuse, for throwing grammar by,

That bench was grown uneasy to the seat.

No: this poor fellow cheerfully got hands

Fit for his stumps, and what hands failed to do,

The other members did in their degree--

Unwonted service. With his mouth alone

He wrote, nay, painted pictures--think of that!

He played on a piano pedal-keyed,

Kicked out--if it was Bach's--good music thence.

He rode, that 's readily conceivable,

But then he shot and never missed his bird,

With other feats as dexterous: I infer

He was not ignorant what hands are worth,

When he resolved on ruining his own.

So the two years passed somehow--who shall say

Foolishly,--as one estimates mankind,

The work they do, the play they leave undone?--

Two whole years spent in that experiment

I told you of, at Clairvaux all the time,

From April on to April: why that month

More than another, notable in life?

Does the awakening of the year arouse

Man to new projects, nerve him for fresh feats

Of what proves, for the most part of mankind

Playing or working, novel folly too?

At any rate, I see no slightest sign

Of folly (let me tell you in advance),

Nothing but wisdom meets me manifest

In the procedure of the Twentieth Day

Of April, 'Seventy,--folly's year in France.

It was delightful Spring, and out of doors

Temptation to adventure. Walk or ride?

There was a wild young horse to exercise,

And teach the way to go, and pace to keep:

Monsieur Léonce Miranda chose to ride.

So, while they clapped soft saddle straight on back,

And bitted jaw to satisfaction,--since

The partner of his days must stay at home,

Teased by some trifling legacy of March

To throat or shoulder,--visit duly paid

And "farewell" given and received again,--

As chamber-door considerately closed

Behind him, still five minutes were to spend.

How better, than by clearing, two and two,

The staircase-steps and coming out aloft

Upon the platform yonder (raise your eyes!)

And tasting, just as those two years before,

Spring's bright advance upon the tower a-top,

The feature of the front, the Belvedere?

Look at it for a moment while I breathe.

IV

Ready to hear the rest? How good you are!

Now for this Twentieth splendid day of Spring,

All in a tale,--sun, wind, sky, earth and sea,--

To bid man, "Up, be doing!" Mount the stair,

Monsieur Léonce Miranda mounts so brisk,

And look--ere his elastic foot arrive--

Your longest, far and wide, o'er fronting space.

Yon white streak--Havre lighthouse! Name and name,

How the mind runs from each to each relay,

Town after town, till Paris' self be touched,

Superlatively big with life and death

To all the world, that very day perhaps!

He who stepped out upon the platform here,

Pinnacled over the expanse, gave thought

Neither to Rouher nor Ollivier, Roon

Nor Bismarck, Emperor nor King, but just

To steeple, church, and shrine, The Ravissante!

He saw Her, whom myself saw, but when Spring

Was passing into Fall: not robed and crowned

As, thanks to him, and her you know about,

She stands at present; but She smiled the same.

Thither he turned--to never turn away.

He thought ...

(Suppose I should prefer "He said"?

Along with every act--and speech is act--

There go, a multitude impalpable

To ordinary human faculty,

The thoughts which give the act significance.

Who is a poet needs must apprehend

Alike both speech and thoughts which prompt to speak.

Part these, and thought withdraws to poetry:

Speech is reported in the newspaper.)

He said, then, probably no word at all,

But thought as follows--in a minute's space--

One particle of ore beats out such leaf!

"This Spring-morn I am forty-three years old:

In prime of life, perfection of estate

Bodily, mental, nay, material too,--

My whole of worldly fortunes reach their height.

Body and soul alike on eminence:

It is not probable I ever raise

Soul above standard by increase of worth,

Nor reasonably may expect to lift

Body beyond the present altitude.

"Behold me, Lady called The Ravissante!

Such as I am, I--gave myself to you

So long since, that I cannot say 'I give.'

All my belongings, what is summed in life,

I have submitted wholly--as man might,

At least, as _I_ might, who am weak, not strong,--

Wholly, then, to your rule and governance,

So far as I had strength. My weakness was--

I felt a fascination, at each point

And pore of me, a Power as absolute

Claiming that soul should recognize her sway.

Oh, you were no whit clearlier Queen, I see,

Throughout the life that rolls out ribbon-like

Its shot-silk length behind me, than the strange

Mystery--how shall I denominate

The unrobed One? Robed you go and crowned as well,

Named by the nations: she is hard to name,

Though you have spelt out certain characters

Obscure upon what fillet binds her brow,

_Lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, life's pride_.

'So call her, and contemn the enchantress!'--'Crush

The despot, and recover liberty!'

Cried despot and enchantress at each ear.

You were conspicuous and pre-eminent,

Authoritative and imperial,--you

Spoke first, claimed homage: did I hesitate?

Born for no mastery, but servitude,

Men cannot serve two masters, says the Book;

Master should measure strength with master, then,

Before on servant is imposed a task.

You spoke first, promised best, and threatened most;

The other never threatened, promised, spoke

A single word, but, when your part was done,

Lifted a finger, and I, prostrate, knew

Films were about me, though you stood aloof

Smiling or frowning 'Where is power like mine

To punish or reward thee? Rise, thou fool!

Will to be free, and, lo, I lift thee loose!'

Did I not will, and could I rise a whit?

Lay I, at any time, content to lie?

'To lie, at all events, brings pleasure: make

Amends by undemanded pain!' I said.

Did not you prompt me? 'Purchase now by pain

Pleasure hereafter in the world to come!'

I could not pluck my heart out, as you bade:

Unbidden, I burned off my hands at least.

My soul retained its treasure; but my purse

Lightened itself with much alacrity.

Well, where is the reward? what promised fruit

Of sacrifice in peace, content? what sense

Of added strength to bear or to forbear?

What influx of new light assists me now

Even to guess you recognize a gain

In what was loss enough to mortal me?

But she, the less authoritative voice,

Oh, how distinct enunciating, how

Plain dealing! Gain she gave was gain indeed!

That, you deny: that, you contemptuous call

Acorns, swine's food not man's meat! 'Spurn the draff!'

Ay, but those life-tree apples I prefer,

Am I to die of hunger till they drop?

Husks keep flesh from starvation, anyhow.

Give those life-apples!--one, worth woods of oak,

Worth acorns by the wagon-load,--one shoot

Through heart and brain, assurance bright and brief

That you, my Lady, my own Ravissante,

Feel, through my famine, served and satisfied,

Own me, your starveling, soldier of a sort!

Your soldier! do I read my title clear

Even to call myself your friend, not foe?

What is the pact between us but a truce?

At best I shall have staved off enmity,

Obtained a respite, ransomed me from wrath.

I pay, instalment by instalment, life,

Earth's tribute-money, pleasures great and small,

Whereof should at the last one penny piece

Fall short, the whole heap becomes forfeiture.

You find in me deficient soldiership:

Want the whole life or none. I grudge that whole,

Because I am not sure of recompense:

Because I want faith. Whose the fault? I ask.

If insufficient faith have done thus much,

Contributed thus much of sacrifice,

More would move mountains, you are warrant. Well,

Grant, you, the grace, I give the gratitude!

And what were easier? 'Ask and have' folk call

Miranda's method: 'Have, nor need to ask!'

So do they formulate your quality

Superlative beyond my human grace.

The Ravissante, you ravish men away

From puny aches and petty pains, assuaged

By man's own art with small expenditure

Of pill or potion, unless, put to shame,

Nature is roused and sets things right herself.

Your miracles are grown our commonplace;

No day but pilgrim hobbles his last mile,

Kneels down and rises up, flings crutch away,

Or else appends it to the reverend heap

Beneath you, votive cripple-carpentry.

Some few meet failure--oh, they wanted faith,

And may betake themselves to La Salette,

Or seek Lourdes, so that hence the scandal limp!

The many get their grace and go their way

Rejoicing, with a tale to tell,--most like,

A staff to borrow, since the crutch is gone,

Should the first telling happen at my house,

And teller wet his whistle with my wine.

_I_ tell this to a doctor and he laughs:

'Give me permission to cry--Out of bed,

You loth rheumatic sluggard! Cheat yon chair

Of laziness, its gouty occupant!--

You should see miracles performed! But now,

I give advice, and take as fee ten francs,

And do as much as does your Ravissante.

Send her that case of cancer to be cured

I have refused to treat for any fee,

Bring back my would-be patient sound and whole,

And see me laugh on t'other side my mouth!'

Can he be right, and are you hampered thus!

Such pettiness restricts a miracle

Wrought by the Great Physician, who hears prayer,

Visibly seated in your mother-lap!

He, out of nothing, made sky, earth, and sea,

And all that in them is, man, beast, bird, fish,

Down to this insect on my parapet.

Look how the marvel of a minim crawls!

Were I to kneel among the halt and maimed,

And pray 'Who mad'st the insect with ten legs,

Make me one finger grow where ten were once!'

The very priests would thrust me out of church.

'What folly does the madman dare expect?

No faith obtains--in this late age, at least--

Such cure as that! We ease rheumatics, though!'

"Ay, bring the early ages back again,

What prodigy were unattainable?

I read your annals. Here came Louis Onze,

Gave thrice the sum he ever gave before

At one time, some three hundred crowns, to wit--

On pilgrimage to pray for--health, he found?

Did he? I do not read it in Commines.

Here sent poor joyous Marie-Antoinette

To thank you that a Dauphin dignified

Her motherhood--called Duke of Normandy

And Martyr of the Temple, much the same

As if no robe of hers had dressed you rich;

No silver lamps, she gave, illume your shrine!

Here, following example, fifty years

Ago, in gratitude for birth again

Of yet another destined King of France,

Did not the Duchess fashion with her hands,

And frame in gold and crystal, and present

A bouquet made of artificial flowers?

And was he King of France, and is not he

Still Count of Chambord?

"Such the days of faith,

And such their produce to encourage mine!

What now, if I too count without my host?

I too have given money, ornament,

And 'artificial flowers'--which, when I plucked,

Seemed rooting at my heart and real enough:

What if I gain thereby nor health of mind,

Nor youth renewed which perished in its prime,

Burnt to a cinder 'twixt the red-hot bars,

Nor gain to see my second baby-hope

Of managing to live on terms with both

Opposing potentates, the Power and you,

Crowned with success? I dawdle out my days

In exile here at Clairvaux, with mock love,

That gives, while whispering 'Would I dared refuse!'--

What the loud voice declares my heart's free gift!

Mock worship, mock superiority

O'er those I style the world's benighted ones,

That irreligious sort I pity so,

Dumas and even Hertford, who is Duke.

"Impiety? Not if I know myself!

Not if you know the heart and soul I bare,

I bid you cut, hack, slash, anatomize,

Till peccant part be found and flung away!

Demonstrate where I need more faith! Describe

What act shall evidence sufficiency

Of faith, your warrant for such exercise

Of power, in my behalf, as all the world,

Except poor praying me, declares profuse?

Poor me? It is that world, not me alone,

That world which prates of fixed laws and the like,

I fain would save, poor world so ignorant!

And your part were--what easy miracle?

Oh, Lady, could I make your want like mine!"

Then his face grew one luminosity.

"Simple, sufficient! Happiness at height!

I solve the riddle, I persuade mankind.

I have been just the simpleton who stands--

Summoned to claim his patrimonial rights--

At shilly-shally, may he knock or no

At his own door in his own house and home

Whereof he holds the very title-deeds!

Here is my title to this property,

This power you hold for profit of myself

And all the world at need--which need is now!

"My title--let me hear who controverts!

Count Mailleville built yon church. Why did he so?

Because he found your image. How came that?

His shepherd told him that a certain sheep

Was wont to scratch with hoof and scrape with horn

At ground where once the Danes had razed a church.

Thither he went, and there he dug, and thence

He disinterred the image he conveyed

In pomp to Londres yonder, his domain.

You liked the old place better than the new.

The Count might surely have divined as much:

He did not; some one might have spoke a word:

No one did. A mere dream had warned enough,

That back again in pomp you best were borne:

No dream warned, and no need of convoy was;

An angel caught you up and clapped you down,--

No mighty task; you stand one metre high,

And people carry you about at times.

Why, then, did you despise the simple course?

Because you are the Queen of Angels: when

You front us in a picture, there flock they,

Angels around you, here and everywhere.

"Therefore, to prove indubitable faith,

Those angels that acknowledge you their queen,

I summon them to bear me to your feet

From Clairvaux through the air, an easy trip!

Faith without flaw! I trust your potency,

Benevolence, your will to save the world--

By such a simplest of procedures, too!

Not even by affording angel-help,

Unless it please you: there 's a simpler mode:

Only suspend the law of gravity,

And, while at back, permitted to propel,

The air helps onward, let the air in front

Cease to oppose my passage through the midst!

"Thus I bestride the railing, leg o'er leg,

Thus, lo, I stand, a single inch away,

At dizzy edge of death,--no touch of fear,

As safe on tower above as turf below!

Your smile enswathes me in beatitude,

You lift along the votary--who vaults,

Who, in the twinkling of an eye, revives,

Dropt safely in the space before the church--

How crowded, since this morn is market-day!

I shall not need to speak. The news will run

Like wild-fire. 'Thousands saw Miranda's flight!'

'T is telegraphed to Paris in a trice.

The Boulevard is one buzz--'Do you believe?

Well, this time, thousands saw Miranda's flight:

You know him, goldsmith in the Place Vendôme.'

In goes the Empress to the Emperor:

'Now--will you hesitate to make disgorge

Your wicked King of Italy his gains,

Give the Legations to the Pope once more?'

Which done,--why, grace goes back to operate,

They themselves set a good example first,

Resign the empire twenty years usurped,

And Henry, the Desired One, reigns o'er France!

Regenerated France makes all things new!

My house no longer stands on Quai Rousseau,

But Quai rechristened Alacoque: a quai

Where Renan burns his book, and Veuillot burns

Renan beside, since Veuillot rules the roast,

Re-edits now indeed 'The Universe.'

O blessing, O superlatively big

With blessedness beyond all blessing dreamed

By man! for just that promise has effect,

'Old things shall pass away and all be new!'

Then, for a culminating mercy-feat,

Wherefore should I dare dream impossible

That I too have my portion in the change?

My past with all its sorrow, sin and shame,

Becomes a blank, a nothing! There she stands,

Clara de Millefleurs, all deodorized,

Twenty years' stain wiped off her innocence!

There never was Muhlhausen, nor at all

Duke Hertford: naught that was, remains, except

The beauty,--yes, the beauty is unchanged!

Well, and the soul too, that must keep the same!

And so the trembling little virgin hand

Melts into mine, that 's back again, of course!

--Think not I care about my poor old self!

I only want my hand for that one use,

To take her hand, and say 'I marry you--

Men, women, angels, you behold my wife!

There is no secret, nothing wicked here,

Nothing she does not wish the world to know!'

None of your married women have the right

To mutter 'Yes, indeed, she beats us all

In beauty,--but our lives are pure at least!'

Bear witness, for our marriage is no thing

Done in a corner! 'T is The Ravissante

Repairs the wrong of Paris. See, She smiles,

She beckons, She bids 'Hither, both of you!'

And may we kneel? And will you bless us both?

And may I worship you, and yet love her?

Then!"--

A sublime spring from the balustrade

About the tower so often talked about,

A flash in middle air, and stone-dead lay

Monsieur Léonce Miranda on the turf.

A gardener who watched, at work the while

Dibbling a flower-bed for geranium-shoots,

Saw the catastrophe, and, straightening back,

Stood up and shook his brows. "Poor soul, poor soul,

Just what I prophesied the end would be!

Ugh--the Red Night-cap!" (as he raised the head)

"This must be what he meant by those strange words

While I was weeding larkspurs, yesterday,

'Angels would take him!' Mad!"

No! sane, I say

Such being the conditions of his life,

Such end of life was not irrational.

Hold a belief, you only half-believe,

With all-momentous issues either way,--

And I advise you imitate this leap,

Put faith to proof, be cured or killed at once!

Call you men, killed through cutting cancer out,

The worse for such an act of bravery?

That 's more than _I_ know. In my estimate,

Better lie prostrate on his turf at peace,

Than, wistful, eye, from out the tent, the tower,

Racked with a doubt, "Will going on bare knees

All the way to The Ravissante and back,

Saying my Ave Mary all the time,

Somewhat excuse if I postpone my march?

--Make due amends for that one kiss I gave

In gratitude to her who held me out

Superior Fricquot's sermon, hot from press,

A-spread with hands so sinful yet so smooth?"

And now, sincerely do I pray she stand,

Clara, with interposing sweep of robe,

Between us and this horror! Any screen

Turns white by contrast with the tragic pall;

And her dubiety distracts at least,

As well as snow, from such decided black.

With womanhood, at least, we have to do:

Ending with Clara--is the word too kind?

Let pass the shock! There 's poignancy enough

When what one parted with, a minute since,

Alive and happy, is returned a wreck--

All that was, all that seemed about to be,

Razed out and ruined now forevermore,

Because a straw descended on this scale

Rather than that, made death o'erbalance life.

But think of cage-mates in captivity,

Inured to day-long, night-long vigilance

Each of the other's tread and angry turn

If behind prison bars the jailer knocked:

These whom society shut out, and thus

Penned in, to settle down and regulate

By the strange law, the solitary life--

When death divorces such a fellowship,

Theirs may pair off with that prodigious woe

Imagined of a ghastly brotherhood--

One watcher left in lighthouse out at sea,

With leagues of surf between the land and him,

Alive with his dead partner on the rock;

One galley-slave, whom curse and blow compel

To labor on, ply oar--beside his chain,

Encumbered with a corpse-companion now.

Such these: although, no prisoners, self-entrenched,

They kept the world off from their barricade.

Memory, gratitude, was poignant, sure,

Though pride brought consolation of a kind.

Twenty years long had Clara been--of whom

The rival, nay, the victor, past dispute?

What if in turn The Ravissante at length

Proved victor--which was doubtful--anyhow,

Here lay the inconstant with, conspicuous too,

The fruit of his good fortune!

"Has he gained

By leaving me?" she might soliloquize:

"All love could do, I did for him. I learned

By heart his nature, what he loved and loathed.

Leaned to with liking, turned from with distaste.

No matter what his least velleity,

I was determined he should want no wish,

And in conformity administered

To his requirement; most of joy I mixed

With least of sorrow in life's daily draught,

Twenty years long, life's proper average.

And when he got to quarrel with my cup,

Would needs out-sweeten honey, and discard

That gall-drop we require lest nectar cloy,--

I did not call him fool, and vex my friend,

But quietly allowed experiment,

Encouraged him to spice his drink, and now

Grate _lignum vitæ_" now bruise so-called grains

Of Paradise, and pour now, for perfume,

Distilment rare, the rose of Jericho,

Holy-thorn, passion-flower, and what know I?

Till beverage obtained the fancied smack.

'T was wild-flower-wine that neither helped nor harmed

Who sipped and held it for restorative--

What harm? But here has he been through the hedge

Straying in search of simples, while my back

Was turned a minute, and he finds a prize,

Monkshood and belladonna! O my child,

My truant little boy, despite the beard,

The body two feet broad and six feet long,

And what the calendar counts middle age--

You wanted, did you, to enjoy a flight?

Why not have taken into confidence

Me, that was mother to you?--never mind

What mock disguise of mistress held you mine!

Had you come laughing, crying, with request,

'Make me fly, mother!' I had run upstairs

And held you tight the while I danced you high

In air from tower-top, singing 'Off we go

(On pilgrimage to Lourdes some day next month),

And swift we soar (to Rome with Peter-pence),

And low we light (at Paris where we pick

Another jewel from our store of stones

And send it for a present to the Pope)!'

So, dropt indeed you were, but on my knees,

Rolling and crowing, not a whit the worse

For journey to your Ravissante and back.

Now, no more Clairvaux--which I made you build,

And think an inspiration of your own--

No more fine house, trim garden, pretty park,

Nothing I used to busy you about,

And make believe you worked for my surprise!

What weariness to me will work become

Now that I need not seem surprised again!

This boudoir, for example, with the doves

(My stupid maid has damaged, dusting one)

Embossed in stucco o'er the looking-glass

Beside the toilet-table! dear--dear me!"

Here she looked up from her absorbing grief,

And round her, crow-like grouped, the Cousinry,

(She grew aware) sat witnesses at watch.

For, two days had elapsed since fate befell

The courser in the meadow, stretched so stark.

They did not cluster on the tree-tops, close

Their sooty ranks, caw and confabulate

For nothing: but, like calm determined crows,

They came to take possession of their corpse.

And who shall blame them? Had not they the right?

One spoke. "They would be gentle, not austere.

They understood, and were compassionate.

Madame Muhlhausen lay too abject now

For aught but the sincerest pity; still,

Since plain speech salves the wound it seems to make,

They must speak plainly--circumstances spoke!

Sin had conceived and brought forth death indeed.

As the commencement, so the close of things:

Just what might be expected all along!

Monsieur Léonce Miranda launched his youth

Into a cesspool of debauchery,

And, if he thence emerged all dripping slime,

--Where was the change except from thin to thick,

One warm rich mud-bath, Madame?--you, in place

Of Paris-drainage and distilment, you

He never needed budge from, boiled to rags!

True, some good instinct left the natural man,

Some touch of that deep dye wherewith imbued

By education, in his happier day,

The hopeful offspring of high parentage

Was fleece-marked moral and religious sheep,--

Some ruddle, faint reminder (we admit),

Stuck to Miranda, rubbed he ne'er so rude

Against the goatly coarseness: to the last,

Moral he styled himself, religious too!

Which means--what ineradicable good

You found, you never left till good's self proved

Perversion and distortion, nursed to growth

So monstrous, that the tree-stock, dead and dry,

Were seemlier far than such a heap grotesque

Of fungous nourishing excrescence. Here,

Sap-like affection, meant for family,

Stole off to feed one sucker fat--yourself;

While branchage, trained religiously aloft

To rear its head in reverence to the sun,

Was pulled down earthward, pegged and picketed,

By topiary contrivance, till the tree

Became an arbor where, at vulgar ease,

Sat superstition grinning through the loops.

Still, nature is too strong or else too weak

For cockney treatment: either, tree springs back

To pristine shape, or else degraded droops,

And turns to touchwood at the heart. So here--

Body and mind, at last the man gave way.

His body--there it lies, what part was left

Unmutilated! for, the strife commenced

Two years ago, when, both hands burnt to ash,

--A branch broke loose, by loss of what choice twigs!

As for his mind--behold our register

Of all its moods, from the incipient mad,

Nay, mere erratic, to the stark insane,

Absolute idiocy or what is worse!

All have we catalogued--extravagance

In worldly matters, luxury absurd,

And zeal as crazed in its expenditure

Of nonsense called devotion. Don't we know

--We Cousins, bound in duty to our kin,--

What mummeries were practised by you two

At Clairvaux? Not a servant got discharge

But came and told his grievance, testified

To acts which turn religion to a farce.

And as the private mock, so patent--see--

The public scandal! Ask the neighborhood--

Or rather, since we asked them long ago,

Read what they answer, depositions down,

Signed, sealed and sworn to! Brief, the man was mad.

We are his heirs and claim our heritage.

Madame Muhlhausen,--whom good taste forbids

We qualify as do these documents,--

Fear not lest justice stifle mercy's prayer!

True, had you lent a willing ear at first,

Had you obeyed our call two years ago,

Restrained a certain insolence of eye,

A volubility of tongue, that time,

Your prospects had been none the worse, perhaps.

Still, fear not but a decent competence

Shall smooth the way for your declining age!

What we propose, then" ...

Clara dried her eyes,

Sat up, surveyed the consistory, spoke

After due pause, with something of a smile.

"Gentlemen, kinsfolk of my friend defunct,

In thus addressing me--of all the world!--

You much misapprehend what part I play.

I claim no property you speak about.

You might as well address the park-keeper,

Harangue him on some plan advisable

For covering the park with cottage-plots.

He is the servant, no proprietor,

His business is to see the sward kept trim,

Untrespassed over by the indiscreet:

Beyond that, he refers you to myself--

Another servant of another kind--

Who again--quite as limited in act--

Refer you, with your projects,--can I else?

To who in mastery is ultimate,

The Church. The Church is sole administrant,

Since sole possessor of what worldly wealth

Monsieur Léonce Miranda late possessed.

Often enough has he attempted, nay,

Forced me, wellnigh, to occupy the post

You seemingly suppose I fill,--receive

As gift the wealth intrusted me as grace.

This--for quite other reasons than appear

So cogent to your perspicacity--

This I refused; and, firm as you could wish,

Still was my answer, 'We two understand

Each one the other. I am intimate

--As how can be mere fools and knaves--or, say,

Even your Cousins?--with your love to me,

Devotion to the Church. Would Providence

Appoint, and make me certain of the same,

That I survive you (which is little like,

Seeing you hardly overpass my age

And more than match me in abundant health)

In such case, certainly I would accept

Your bounty: better I than alien hearts

Should execute your planned benevolence

To man, your proposed largess to the Church,

But though I be survivor,--weakly frame,

With only woman's wit to make amends,--

When I shall die, or while I am alive,

Cannot you figure me an easy mark

For hypocritical rapacity,

Kith, kin and generation, crouching low,

Ever on the alert to pounce on prey?

Far be it I should say they profited

By that first frenzy-fit themselves induced,--

Cold-blooded scenical buffoons at sport

With horror and damnation o'er a grave:

That were too shocking--I absolve them there!

Nor did they seize the moment of your swoon

To rifle pocket, wring a paper thence,

Their Cousinly dictation, and enrich

Thereby each mother's son as heart could wish,

Had nobody supplied a codicil.

But when the pain, poor friend! had prostrated

Your body, though your soul was right once more,

I fear they turned your weakness to account!

Why else to me, who agonizing watched,

Sneak, cap in hand, now bribe me to forsake

My maimed Léonce, now bully, cap on head,

The impudent pretension to assuage

Such sorrows as demanded Cousins' care?--

_For you rejected, hated, fled me, far_

_In foreign lands you laughed at me!_--they judged.

And, think you, will the unkind one hesitate

To try conclusions with my helplessness,--

To pounce on and misuse your derelict,

Helped by advantage that bereavement lends

Folk, who, while yet you lived, played tricks like these?

You only have to die, and they detect,

In all you said and did, insanity!

Your faith was fetish-worship, your regard

For Christ's prime precept which endows the poor

And strips the rich, a craze from first to last!

They so would limn your likeness, paint your life,

That if it ended by some accident,--

For instance, if, attempting to arrange

The plants below that dangerous Belvedere

I cannot warn you from sufficiently,

You lost your balance and fell headlong--fine

Occasion, such, for crying _Suicide!_

_Non compos mentis_, naturally next,

Hands over Clairvaux to a Cousin-tribe

Who nor like me nor love The Ravissante:

Therefore be ruled by both! Life-interest

In Clairvaux,--conservation, guardianship

Of earthly good for heavenly purpose,--give

Such and no other proof of confidence!

Let Clara represent The Ravissante!'

--To whom accordingly, he then and there

Bequeathed each stick and stone, by testament

In holograph, mouth managing the quill:

Go, see the same in Londres, if you doubt!"

Then smile grew laugh, as sudden up she stood

And out she spoke: intemperate the speech!

"And now, sirs, for your special courtesy,

Your candle held up to the character

Of Lucie Steiner, whom you qualify

As coming short of perfect womanhood.

Yes, kindly critics, truth for once you tell!

True is it that through childhood, poverty,

Sloth, pressure of temptation, I succumbed,

And, ere I found what honor meant, lost mine.

So was the sheep lost, which the Shepherd found

And never lost again. My friend found me;

Or better say, the Shepherd found us both--

Since he, my friend, was much in the same mire,

When first we made acquaintance. Each helped each,--

A twofold extrication from the slough;

And, saving me, he saved himself. Since then,

Unsmirched we kept our cleanliness of coat.

It is his perfect constancy, you call

My friend's main fault--he never left his love!

While as for me, I dare your worst, impute

One breach of loving bond, these twenty years.

To me whom only cobwebs bound, you count!

'He was religiously disposed in youth!'

That may be, though we did not meet at church.

Under my teaching did he, like you scamps,

Become Voltairian--fools who mock his faith?

'Infirm of body!' I am silent there:

Even yourselves acknowledge service done,

Whatever motive your own souls supply

As inspiration. Love made labor light."

Then laugh grew frown, and frown grew terrible.

Do recollect what sort of person shrieked--

"Such was I, saint or sinner, what you please:

And who is it casts stone at me but you?

By your own showing, sirs, you bought and sold,

Took what advantage bargain promised bag,

Abundantly did business, and with whom?

The man whom you pronounce imbecile, push

Indignantly aside if he presume

To settle his affairs like other folk!

How is it you have stepped into his shoes,

And stand there, bold as brass, 'Miranda, late;

Now, Firm-Miranda'? Sane, he signed away

That little birthright, did he? Hence to trade!

I know and he knew who 't was dipped and ducked,

Truckled and played the parasite in vain,

As now one, now the other, here you cringed,

Were feasted, took our presents, you--those drops,

Just for your wife's adornment! you--that spray

Exactly suiting, as most diamonds would,

Your daughter on her marriage! No word then

Of somebody the wanton! Hence, I say,

Subscribers to the 'Siècle,' every snob--

For here the post brings me the 'Univers'!

Home and make money in the Place Vendôme,

Sully yourselves no longer by my sight,

And, when next Schneider wants a new _parure_,

Be careful lest you stick there by mischance

That stone beyond compare intrusted you

To kindle faith with, when, Miranda's gift,

Crowning the very crown, The Ravissante

Shall claim it! As to Clairvaux--talk to Her!

She answers by the Chapter of Raimbaux!"

Vituperative, truly! All this wrath

Because the man's relations thought him mad!

Whereat, I hope you see the Cousinry

Turn each to other, blankly dolorous,

Consult a moment, more by shrug and shrug

Than mere man's language,--finally conclude

To leave the reprobate untroubled now

In her unholy triumph, till the Law

Shall right the injured ones; for gentlemen

Allow the female sex, this sort at least.

Its privilege. So, simply "Cockatrice!"--

"Jezebel!"--"Queen of the Camellias!"--cried

Cousin to cousin, as yon hinge a-creak

Shut out the party, and the gate returned

To custody of Clairvaux. "Pretty place!

What say you, when it proves our property,

To trying a concurrence with La Roche,

And laying down a rival oyster-bed?

Where the park ends, the sea begins, you know."

So took they comfort till they came to Vire.

But I would linger, fain to snatch a look

At Clara as she stands in pride of place,

Somewhat more satisfying than my glance

So furtive, so near futile, yesterday,

Because one must be courteous. Of the masks

That figure in this little history,

She only has a claim to my respect,

And one-eyed, in her French phrase, rules the blind.

Miranda hardly did his best with life:

He might have opened eye, exerted brain,

Attained conception as to right and law

In certain points respecting intercourse

Of man with woman--love, one likes to say;

Which knowledge had dealt rudely with the claim

Of Clara to play representative

And from perdition rescue soul, forsooth!

Also, the sense of him should have sufficed

For building up some better theory

Of how God operates in heaven and earth,

Than would establish Him participant

In doings yonder at The Ravissante.

The heart was wise according to its lights

And limits; but the head refused more sun,

And shrank into its mew, and craved less space.

Clara, I hold the happier specimen,--

It may be, through that artist-preference

For work complete, inferiorly proposed,

To incompletion, though it aim aright.

Morally, no! Aspire, break bounds! I say,

Endeavor to be good, and better still,

And best! Success is naught, endeavor 's all.

But intellect adjusts the means to ends,

Tries the low thing, and leaves it done, at least;

No prejudice to high thing, intellect

Would do and will do, only give the means.

Miranda, in my picture-gallery,

Presents a Blake; be Clara--Meissonnier!

Merely considered so by artist, mind!

For, break through Art and rise to poetry,

Bring Art to tremble nearer, touch enough

The verge of vastness to inform our soul

What orb makes transit through the dark above,

And there 's the triumph!--there the incomplete,

More than completion, matches the immense,--

Then, Michelagnolo against the world!

With this proviso, let me study her

Approvingly, the finished little piece!

Born, bred, with just one instinct,--that of growth,--

Her quality was, caterpillar-like,

To all-unerringly select a leaf

And without intermission feed her fill,

Become the Painted Peacock, or belike

The Brimstone-wing, when time of year should suit;

And 't is a sign (say entomologists)

Of sickness, when the creature stops its meal

One minute, either to look up at heaven,

Or turn aside for change of aliment.

No doubt there was a certain ugliness

In the beginning, as the grub grew worm:

She could not find the proper plant at once,

But crawled and fumbled through a whole parterre.

Husband Muhlhausen served for stuff not long:

Then came confusion of the slimy track

From London, "where she gave the tone awhile,"

To Paris: let the stalks start up again,

Now she is off them, all the greener they!

But, settled on Miranda, how she sucked,

Assimilated juices, took the tint,

Mimicked the form and texture of her food!

Was he for pastime? Who so frolic-fond

As Clara? Had he a devotion-fit?

Clara grew serious with like qualm, be sure!

In health and strength he,--healthy too and strong,

She danced, rode, drove, took pistol-practice, fished,

Nay, "managed sea-skiff with consummate skill."

In pain and weakness, he,--she patient watched

And whiled the slow drip-dropping hours away.

She bound again the broken self-respect,

She picked out the true meaning from mistake,

Praised effort in each stumble, laughed "Well climbed!"

When others groaned "None ever grovelled so!"

"Rise, you have gained experience!" was her word:

"Lie satisfied, the ground is just your place!"

They thought appropriate counsel. "Live, not die,

And take my full life to eke out your own:

That shall repay me and with interest!

Write!--is your mouth not clever as my hand?

Paint!--the last Exposition warrants me,

Plenty of people must ply brush with toes.

And as for music--look, what folk nickname

A lyre, those ancients played to ravishment,--

Over the pendule, see, Apollo grasps

A three-stringed gimcrack which no Liszt could coax

Such music from as jew's-harp makes to-day!

Do your endeavor like a man, and leave

The rest to 'fortune who assists the bold'--

Learn, you, the Latin which you taught me first,

You clever creature--clever, yes, I say!"

If he smiled "Let us love, love's wrong comes right,

Shows reason last of all! Necessity

Must meanwhile serve for plea--so, mind not much

Old Fricquot's menace!"--back she smiled "Who minds?"

If he sighed "Ah, but She is strict, they say,

For all Her mercy at The Ravissante,

She scarce will be put off so!"--straight a sigh

Returned "My lace must go to trim Her gown!"

I nowise doubt she inwardly believed

Smiling and sighing had the same effect

Upon the venerated image. What

She did believe in, I as little doubt,

Was--Clara's self's own birthright to sustain

Existence, grow from grub to butterfly,

Upon unlimited Miranda-leaf;

In which prime article of faith confirmed,

According to capacity, she fed

On and on till the leaf was eaten up,

That April morning. Even then, I praise

Her forethought which prevented leafless stalk

Bestowing any hoarded succulence

On earwig and black-beetle squat beneath;--

Clairvaux, that stalk whereto her hermitage

She tacked by golden throw of silk, so fine,

So anything but feeble, that her sleep

Inside it, through last winter, two years long,

Recked little of the storm and strife without.

"But--loved him?" Friend, I do not praise her love!

True love works never for the loved one so,

Nor spares skin-surface, smoothening truth away.

Love bids touch truth, endure truth, and embrace

Truth, though, embracing truth, love crush itself.

"Worship not me, but God!" the angels urge:

That is love's grandeur: still, in pettier love

The nice eye can distinguish grade and grade.

Shall mine degrade the velvet green and puce

Of caterpillar, palmer-worm--or what--

Ball in and out of ball, each ball with brush

Of Venus' eye-fringe round the turquoise egg

That nestles soft,--compare such paragon

With any scarabæus of the brood

Which, born to fly, keeps wing in wing-case, walks

Persistently a-trundling dung on earth?

Egypt may venerate such hierophants,

Not I--the couple yonder, Father Priest

And Mother Nun, who came and went and came,

Beset this Clairvaux, trundled money-muck

To midden and the main heap oft enough,

But never bade unshut from sheath the gauze,

Nor showed that, who would fly, must let fall filth,

And warn "Your jewel, brother, is a blotch:

Sister, your lace trails ordure! Leave your sins,

And so best gift with Crown and grace with Robe!"

The superstition is extinct, you hope?

It were, with my good will! Suppose it so,

Bethink you likewise of the latest use

Whereto a Night-cap is convertible,

And draw your very thickest, thread and thrum,

O'er such a decomposing face of things,

Once so alive, it seemed immortal too!

This happened two years since. The Cousinry

Returned to Paris, called in help from Law,

And in due form proceeded to dispute

Monsieur Léonce Miranda's competence,

Being insane, to make a valid Will.

Much testimony volunteered itself;

The issue hardly could be doubtful--but

For that sad 'Seventy which must intervene,

Provide poor France with other work to mind

Than settling lawsuits, even for the sake

Of such a party as The Ravissante.

It only was this Summer that the case

Could come and be disposed of, two weeks since,

At Vire--Tribunal Civil--Chamber First.

Here, issued with all regularity,

I hold the judgment--just, inevitable,

Nowise to be contested by what few

Can judge the judges; sum and substance, thus:--

"Inasmuch as we find, the Cousinry,

During that very period when they take

Monsieur Léonce Miranda for stark mad,

Considered him to be quite sane enough

For doing much important business with--

Nor showed suspicion of his competence

Until, by turning of the tables, loss

Instead of gain accrued to them thereby,--

Plea of incompetence we set aside.

--"The rather, that the dispositions, sought

To be impugned, are natural and right,

Nor jar with any reasonable claim

Of kindred, friendship, or acquaintance here.

Nobody is despoiled, none overlooked;

Since the testator leaves his property

To just that person whom, of all the world,

He counted he was most indebted to.

In mere discharge, then, of conspicuous debt,

Madame Muhlhausen has priority,

Enjoys the usufruct of Clairvaux.

"Next,

Such debt discharged, such life determining,

Such earthly interest provided for,

Monsieur Léonce Miranda may bequeath,

In absence of more fit recipient, fund

And usufruct together to the Church

Whereof he was a special devotee.

"--Which disposition, being consonant

With a long series of such acts and deeds

Notorious in his lifetime, needs must stand,

Unprejudiced by eccentricity

Nowise amounting to distemper: since,

In every instance signalized as such,

We recognize no overleaping bounds,

No straying out of the permissible:

Duty to the Religion of the Land,--

Neither excessive nor inordinate.

"The minor accusations are dismissed;

They prove mere freak and fancy, boyish mood

In age mature of simple kindly man.

Exuberant in generosities

To all the world: no fact confirms the fear

He meditated mischief to himself

That morning when he met the accident

Which ended fatally. The case is closed."

How otherwise? So, when I grazed the skirts,

And had the glimpse of who made, yesterday,--

Woman and retinue of goats and sheep,--

The sombre path one whiteness, vision-like,

As out of gate, and in at gate again,

They wavered,--she was lady there for life:

And, after life--I hope, a white success

Of some sort, wheresoever life resume

School interrupted by vacation--death;

Seeing that home she goes with prize in hand,

Confirmed the Châtelaine of Clairvaux.

True,

Such prize fades soon to insignificance.

Though she have eaten her Miranda up,

And spun a cradle-cone through, which she pricks

Her passage, and proves peacock-butterfly,

This Autumn--wait a little week of cold!

Peacock and death's-head-moth end much the same.

And could she still continue spinning,--sure,

Cradle would soon crave shroud for substitute,

And o'er this life of hers distaste would drop

Red-cotton-Nightcap-wise.

* * * * *

How say you, friend?

Have I redeemed my promise? Smile assent

Through the dark Winter-gloom between us both!

Already, months ago and miles away,

I just as good as told you, in a flash,

The while we paced the sands before my house,

All this poor story--truth and nothing else.

Accept that moment's flashing, amplified,

Impalpability reduced to speech,

Conception proved by birth,--no other change!

Can what Saint-Rambert flashed me in a thought,

Good gloomy London make a poem of?

Such ought to be whatever dares precede,

Play ruddy herald-star to your white blaze

About to bring us day. How fail imbibe

Some foretaste of effulgence? Sun shall wax,

And star shall wane: what matter, so star tell

The drowsy world to start awake, rub eyes,

And stand all ready for morn's joy a-blush?

THE INN ALBUM

The story told in this poem was suggested to Browning, but not followed

in all its details, by an adventure of Lord De Ros, a friend of

Wellington's and mentioned frequently by Greville in his _Memoirs_. The

circumstances of De Ros's villainy were much talked of in London at the

time of their occurrence, just before the middle of this century.

I

"That oblong book 's the Album; hand it here!

Exactly! page on page of gratitude

For breakfast, dinner, supper, and the view!

I praise these poets, they leave margin-space;

Each stanza seems to gather skirts around,

And primly, trimly, keep the foot's confine,

Modest and maidlike; lubber prose o'ersprawls

And straddling stops the path from left to right.

Since I want space to do my cipher-work,

Which poem spares a corner? What comes first?

'_Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!_'

(Open the window, we burn daylight, boy!)

Or see--succincter beauty, brief and bold--'

_If a fellow can dine On rump-steaks and port wine,_

_He needs not despair Of dining well here_'--

'_Here!_' I myself could find a better rhyme!

That bard 's a Browning; he neglects the form:

But ah, the sense, ye gods, the weighty sense!

Still, I prefer this classic. Ay, throw wide!

I 'll quench the bits of candle yet unburnt.

A minute's fresh air, then to cipher-work!

Three little columns hold the whole account:

_Ecarté_, after which Blind Hookey, then

Cutting-the-Pack, five hundred pounds the cut.

'T is easy reckoning: I have lost, I think."

Two personages occupy this room

Shabby-genteel, that 's parlor to the inn

Perched on a view-commanding eminence;

--Inn which may be a veritable house

Where somebody once lived and pleased good taste

Till tourists found his coigne of vantage out,

And fingered blunt the individual mark,

And vulgarized things comfortably smooth.

On a sprig-pattern-papered wall there brays

Complaint to sky Sir Edwin's dripping stag;

His couchant coast-guard creature corresponds;

They face the Huguenot and Light o' the World.

Grim o'er the mirror on the mantelpiece,

Varnished and coffined, _Salmo ferox_ glares,

--Possibly at the List of Wines which, framed

And glazed, hangs somewhat prominent on peg.

So much describes the stuffy little room--

Vulgar flat smooth respectability:

Not so the burst of landscape surging in,

Sunrise and all, as he who of the pair

Is, plain enough, the younger personage

Draws sharp the shrieking curtain, sends aloft

The sash, spreads wide and fastens back to wall

Shutter and shutter, shows you England's best.

He leans into a living glory-bath

Of air and light where seems to float and move

The wooded watered country, hill and dale

And steel-bright thread of stream, a-smoke with mist,

A-sparkle with May morning, diamond drift

O' the sun-touched dew. Except the red-roofed patch

Of half a dozen dwellings that, crept close

For hillside shelter, make the village-clump,

This inn is perched above to dominate--

Except such sign of human neighborhood,

"And this surmised rather than sensible"

There 's nothing to disturb absolute peace,

The reign of English nature--which means art

And civilized existence. Wildness' self

Is just the cultured triumph. Presently

Deep solitude, be sure, reveals a Place

That knows the right way to defend itself:

Silence hems round a burning spot of life.

Now, where a Place burns, must a village brood,

And where a village broods, an inn should boast--

Close and convenient: here you have them both.

This inn, the Something-arms--the family's--

(Don't trouble Guillim: heralds leave out half!)

Is dear to lovers of the picturesque,

And epics have been planned here; but who plan

Take holy orders and find work to do.

Painters are more productive, stop a week,

Declare the prospect quite a Corot,--ay,

For tender sentiment,--themselves incline

Rather to handsweep large and liberal;

Then go, but not without success achieved

--Haply some pencil-drawing, oak or beech,

Ferns at the base and ivies up the bole,

On this a slug, on that a butterfly.

Nay, he who hooked the _salmo_ pendent here,

Also exhibited, this same May-month,

"_Foxgloves: a study_"--so inspires the scene,

The air, which now the younger personage

Inflates him with till lungs o'erfraught are fain

Sigh forth a satisfaction might bestir

Even those tufts of tree-tops to the South

I' the distance where the green dies off to gray,

Which, easy of conjecture, front the Place;

He eyes them, elbows wide, each hand to cheek.

His fellow, the much older--either say

A youngish-old man or man oldish-young--

Sits at the table: wicks are noisome-deep

In wax, to detriment of plated ware;

Above--piled, strewn--is store of playing-cards,

Counters and all that 's proper for a game.

He sets down, rubs out figures in the book,

Adds and subtracts, puts back here, carries there,

Until the summed-up satisfaction stands

Apparent, and he pauses o'er the work:

Soothes what of brain was busy under brow,

By passage of the hard palm, curing so

Wrinkle and crowfoot for a second's space;

Then lays down book and laughs out. No mistake,

Such the sum-total--ask Colenso else!

Roused by which laugh, the other turns, laughs too--

The youth, the good strong fellow, rough perhaps.

"Well, what 's the damage--three, or four, or five?

How many figures in a row? Hand here!

Come now, there's one expense all yours not mine--

Scribbling the people's Album over, leaf

The first and foremost too! You think, perhaps,

They 'll only charge you for a brand-new book

Nor estimate the literary loss?

Wait till the small account comes! '_To one night's_

_Lodging_,' for--'beds' they can't say,--'_pound or so;_

_Dinner, Apollinaris,--what they please,_

_Attendance not included;_' last looms large

'_Defacement of our Album, late enriched_

_With_'--let 's see what! Here, at the window, though!

Ay, breathe the morning and forgive your luck!

Fine enough country for a fool like me

To own, as next month I suppose I shall!

Eh? True fool's-fortune! so console yourself,

Let 's see, however--hand the book, I say!

Well, you 've improved the classic by romance.

Queer reading! Verse with parenthetic prose--

'_Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!_'

(Three-two fives) '_life how profitably spent_'

(Five-naught, five-nine fives) '_yonder humble cot_,'

(More and more naughts and fives) '_in mild content;_

_And did my feelings find the natural vent_

_In friendship and in love, how blest my lot!_'

Then follow the dread figures--five! '_Content?_'

That 's appetite! Are you content as he--

Simpkin the sonneteer? _Ten thousand pounds_

Give point to his effusion--by so much

Leave me the richer and the poorer you

After our night's play; who 's content the most,

If, you, or Simpkin?"

So the polished snob.

The elder man, refinement every inch

From brow to boot-end, quietly replies:

"Simpkin 's no name I know. I had my whim."

"Ay, had you! And such things make friendship thick.

Intimates, I may boast we were; henceforth,

Friends--shall it not be?--who discard reserve,

Use plain words, put each dot upon each i,

Till death us twain do part? The bargain 's struck!

Old fellow, if you fancy--(to begin--)

I failed to penetrate your scheme last week,

You wrong your poor disciple. Oh, no airs!

Because you happen to be twice my age

And twenty times my master, must perforce

No blink of daylight struggle through the web

There 's no unwinding? You entoil my legs,

And welcome, for I like it: blind me,--no!

A very pretty piece of shuttle-work

Was that--your mere chance question at the club--

_'Do you go anywhere this Whitsuntide?_

_I'm off for Paris, there 's the Opera--there 's_

_The Salon, there 's a china-sale,--beside_

_Chantilly; and, for good companionship,_

_There 's Such-and-such and So-and-so. Suppose_

_We start together?' 'No such holiday!'_

I told you: _'Paris and the rest be hanged!_

_Why plague me who am pledged to home-delights?_

_I 'm the engaged now; through whose fault but yours?_

_On duty. As you well know. Don't I drowse_

_The week away down with the Aunt and Niece?_

_No help: it 's leisure, loneliness, and love._

_'Wish I could take you; but fame travels fast,--_

_A man of much newspaper-paragraph,_

_You scare domestic circles; and beside_

_Would not you like your lot, that second taste_

_Of nature and approval of the grounds!_

_You might walk early or lie late, so shirk_

_Week-day devotions: but stay Sunday o'er,_

_And morning church is obligatory:_

_No mundane garb permissible, or dread_

_The butler's privileged monition! ~No~!_

_Pack off to Paris, nor wipe tear away!'_

Whereon how artlessly the happy flash

Followed, by inspiration! '_'Tell you what--_

_Let 's turn their flank, try things on t' other side!_

_Inns for my money! Liberty 's the life!_

_We 'll lie in hiding: there 's the crow-nest nook,_

_The tourist's joy, the Inn they rave about,_

_Inn that 's out--out of sight and out of mind_

_And out of mischief to all four of us--_

_Aunt and niece, you and me. At night arrive;_

_At morn, find time for just a Pisgah-view_

_Of my friend's Land of Promise; then depart._

_And while I'm whizzing onward by first train,_

_Bound for our own place (since my Brother sulks_

_And says I shun him like the plague) yourself--_

_Why, you have stepped thence, start from platform, gay_

_Despite the sleepless journey,--love lends wings,--_

_Hug aunt and niece who, none the wiser, wait_

_The faithful advent! Eh?' 'With all my heart,'_

Said I to you; said I to mine own self:

'_Does he believe I fail to comprehend_

_He wants just one more final friendly snack_

_At friend's exchequer ere friend runs to earth,_

_Marries, renounces yielding friends such sport?_'

And did I spoil sport, pull face grim,--nay, grave?

Your pupil does you better credit! No!

I parleyed with my pass-book,--rubbed my pair

At the big balance in my banker's hands,--

Folded a check cigar-case-shape,--just wants

Filling and signing,--and took train, resolved

To execute myself with decency

And let you win--if not Ten thousand quite,

Something by way of wind-up-farewell burst

Of firework-nosegay! Where 's your fortune fled?

Or is not fortune constant after all?

You lose ten thousand pounds: had I lost half

Or half that, I should bite my lips, I think.

You man of marble! Strut and stretch my best

On tiptoe, I shall never reach your height.

How does the loss feel! Just one lesson more!"

The more refined man smiles a frown away.

"The lesson shall be--only boys like you

Put such a question at the present stage.

I had a ball lodge in my shoulder once,

And, full five minutes, never guessed the fact;

Next day, I felt decidedly: and still,

At twelve years' distance, when I lift my arm

A twinge reminds me of the surgeon's probe.

Ask me, this day month, how I feel my luck!

And meantime please to stop impertinence,

For--don't I know its object? All this chaff

Covers the corn, this preface leads to speech,

This boy stands forth a hero. '_There, my lord!_

_Our play was true play, fun not earnest! I_

_Empty your purse, inside out, while my poke_

_Bulges to bursting? You can badly spare_

_A doit, confess now, Duke though brother be!_

_While I 'm gold-daubed so thickly, spangles drop_

_And show my father's warehouse-apron: pshaw!_

_Enough! We 've had a palpitating night!_

_Good morning! Breakfast and forget our dreams!_

_My mouth 's shut, mind! I tell nor man nor mouse._'

There, see! He don't deny it! Thanks, my boy!

Hero and welcome--only, not on me

Make trial of your 'prentice-hand! Enough!

We 've played, I 've lost and owe ten thousand pounds,

Whereof I muster, at the moment,--well,

What 's for the bill here and the back to town.

Still, I 've my little character to keep;

You may expect your money at month's end."

The young man at the window turns round quick--

A clumsy giant handsome creature; grasps

In his large red the little lean white hand

Of the other, looks him in the sallow face.

"I say now--is it right to so mistake

A fellow, force him in mere self-defence

To spout like Mister _Mild Acclivity_

In album-language? You know well enough

Whether I like you--_like_ 's no album-word,

Anyhow: point me to one soul beside

In the wide world I care one straw about!

I first set eyes on you a year ago;

Since when you 've done me good--I 'll stick to it--

More than I got in the whole twenty-five

That make my life up, Oxford years and all--

Throw in the three I fooled away abroad,

Seeing myself and nobody more sage

Until I met you, and you made me man

Such as the sort is and the fates allow.

I do think, since we two kept company,

I 've learnt to know a little--all through you!

It 's nature if I like you. Taunt away!

As if I need you teaching me my place--

The snob I am, the Duke your brother is,

When just the good you did was--teaching me

My own trade, how a snob and millionaire

May lead his life and let the Duke's alone,

Clap wings, free jackdaw, on his steeple-perch,

Burnish his black to gold in sun and air,

Nor pick up stray plumes, strive to match in strut

Regular peacocks who can't fly an inch

Over the courtyard-paling. Head and heart

(That 's album-style) are older than you know,

For all your knowledge: boy, perhaps--ay, boy

Had his adventure, just as he were man--

His ball-experience in the shoulder-blade,

His bit of life-long ache to recognize,

Although he bears it cheerily about,

Because you came and clapped him on the back,

Advised him '_Walk and wear the aching off!_'

Why, I was minded to sit down for life

Just in Dalmatia, build a seaside tower

High on a rock, and so expend my days

Pursuing chemistry or botany

Or, very like, astronomy because

I noticed stars shone when I passed the place.

Letting my cash accumulate the while

In England--to lay out in lump at last

As Ruskin should direct me! All or some

Of which should I have done or tried to do,

And preciously repented, one fine day,

Had you discovered Timon, climbed his rock

And scaled his tower, some ten years thence, suppose,

And coaxed his story from him! Don't I see

The pair conversing! It 's a novel writ

Already, I 'll be bound,--our dialogue!

_'What?' cried the elder and yet youthful man--_

_So did the eye flash 'neath the lordly front,_

_And the imposing presence swell with scorn,_

_As the haught high-bred bearing and dispose_

_Contrasted with his interlocutor_

_The flabby low-born who, of bulk before,_

_Had steadily increased, one stone per week,_

_Since his abstention from horse-exercise:--_

_'What? you, as rich as Rothschild, left, you say_

_London the very year you came of age,_

_Because your father manufactured goods--_

_Commission-agent hight of Manchester--_

_Partly, and partly through a baby case_

_Of disappointment I've pumped out at last--_

_And here you spend life 's prime in gaining flesh_

_And giving science one more asteroid?'_

Brief, my dear fellow, you instructed me,

At Alfred's and not Istria! proved a snob

May turn a million to account although

His brother be no Duke, and see good days

Without the girl he lost and some one gained.

The end is, after one year's tutelage,

Having, by your help, touched society,

Polo, Tent-pegging, Hurlingham, the Rink--

I leave all these delights, by your advice,

And marry my young pretty cousin here

Whose place, whose oaks ancestral you behold.

(Her father was in partnership with mine--

Does not his purchase look a pedigree?)

My million will be tails and tassels smart

To this plump-bodied kite, this house and land

Which, set a-soaring, pulls me, soft as sleep,

Along life's pleasant meadow,--arm left free

To lock a friend's in,--whose, but yours, old boy?

Arm in arm glide we over rough and smooth,

While hand, to pocket held, saves cash from cards.

Now, if you don't esteem ten thousand pounds

(--Which I shall probably discover snug

Hid somewhere in the column-corner capped

With '_Credit_,' based on '_Balance_,'--which, I swear,

By this time next month I shall quite forget

Whether I lost or won--ten thousand pounds,

Which at this instant I would give ... let 's see,

For Galopin--nay, for that Gainsborough

Sir Richard won't sell, and, if bought by me,

Would get my glance and praise some twice a year,--)

Well, if you don't esteem that price dirt-cheap

For teaching me Dalmatia was mistake--

Why then, my last illusion-bubble breaks,

My one discovered phœnix proves a goose,

My cleverest of all companions--oh,

Was worth nor ten pence nor ten thousand pounds!

Come! Be yourself again! So endeth here

The morning's lesson! Never while life lasts

Do I touch card again. To breakfast now!

To bed--I can't say, since you needs must start

For station early--oh, the down-train still,

First plan and best plan--townward trip be hanged!

You 're due at your big brother's--pay that debt,

Then owe me not a farthing! Order eggs--

And who knows but there 's trout obtainable?"

The fine man looks wellnigh malignant: then--

"Sir, please subdue your manner! Debts are debts:

I pay mine--debts of this sort--certainly.

What do I care how you regard your gains,

Want them or want them not? The thing _I_ want

Is--not to have a story circulate

From club to club--how, bent on clearing out,

Young So-and-so, young So-and-so cleaned me,

Then set the empty kennel flush again,

Ignored advantage and forgave his friend--

For why? There was no wringing blood from stone!

Oh, don't be savage! You would hold your tongue,

Bite it in two, as man may; but those small

Hours in the smoking-room, when instance apt

Rises to tongue's root, tingles on to tip,

And the thinned company consists of six

Capital well-known fellows one may trust!

Next week, it 's in the 'World.' No, thank you much.

I owe ten thousand pounds: I 'll pay them!"

"Now,--

This becomes funny. You 've made friends with me:

I can't help knowing of the ways and means!

Or stay! they say your brother closets up

Correggio's long lost Leda: if he means

To give you that, and if you give it me" ...

"_I_ polished snob off to aristocrat?

You compliment me! father's apron still

Sticks out from son's court-vesture; still silk purse

Roughs finger with some bristle sow-ear-born!

Well, neither I nor you mean harm at heart!

I owe you and shall pay you: which premised,

Why should what follows sound like flattery?

The fact is--you do compliment too much

Your humble master, as I own I am;

You owe me no such thanks as you protest.

The polisher needs precious stone no less

Than precious stone needs polisher: believe

I struck no tint from out you but I found

Snug lying first 'neath surface hairbreadth-deep!

Beside, I liked the exercise: with skill

Goes love to show skill for skill's sake. You see,

I 'm old and understand things: too absurd

It were you pitched and tossed away your life,

As diamond were Scotch-pebble! all the more,

That I myself misused a stone of price.

Born and bred clever--people used to say

Clever as most men, if not something more--

Yet here I stand a failure, cut awry

Or left opaque,--no brilliant named and known.

Whate'er my inner stuff, my outside 's blank;

I 'm nobody--or rather, look that same--

I 'm--who I am--and know it; but I hold

_What_ in my hand out for the world to see?

What ministry, what mission, or what book

--I 'll say, book even? Not a sign of these!

I began--laughing--'_All these when I like!_'

I end with--well, you 've hit it!--'_This boy's check_

_For just as many thousands as he he 'll spare!_'

The first--I could, and would not; your spare cash

I would, and could not: have no scruple, pray,

But, as I hoped to pocket yours, pouch mine

--When you are able!"

"Which is--when to be?

I 've heard, great characters require a fall

Of fortune to show greatness by uprise:

_They touch the ground to jollily rebound_,

Add to the Album! Let a fellow share

Your secret of superiority!

I know, my banker makes the money breed

Money; I eat and sleep, he simply takes

The dividends and cuts the coupons off,

Sells out, buys in, keeps doubling, tripling cash,

While I do nothing but receive and spend.

But you, spontaneous generator, hatch

A wind-egg; cluck, and forth struts Capital

As Interest to me from egg of gold.

I am grown curious: pay me by all means!

How will you make the money?"

"Mind your own--

Not my affair. Enough: or money, or

Money's worth, as the case may be, expect

Ere month's end,--keep but patient for a month!

Who 's for a stroll to station? Ten 's the time;

Your man, with my things, follow in the trap;

At stoppage of the down-train, play the arrived

On platform, and you 'll show the due fatigue

Of the night-journey,--not much sleep,--perhaps,

Your thoughts were on before you--yes, indeed,

You join them, being happily awake

With thought's sole object as she smiling sits

At breakfast-table. I shall dodge meantime

In and out station-precinct, wile away

The hour till up my engine pants and smokes.

No doubt, she goes to fetch you. Never fear!

She gets no glance at me, who shame such saints!"

II

So, they ring bell, give orders, pay, depart

Amid profuse acknowledgment from host

Who well knows what may bring the younger back.

They light cigar, descend in twenty steps

The "_calm acclivity_," inhale--beyond

Tobacco's balm--the better smoke of turf

And wood fire,--cottages at cookery

I' the morning,--reach the main road straightening on

'Twixt wood and wood, two black walls full of night

Slow to disperse, though mists thin fast before

The advancing foot, and leave the flint-dust fine

Each speck with its fire-sparkle. Presently

The road's end with the sky's beginning mix

In one magnificence of glare, due East,

So high the sun rides,--May 's the merry month.

They slacken pace: the younger stops abrupt,

Discards cigar, looks his friend full in face.

"All right; the station comes in view at end;

Five minutes from the beech-clump, there you are!

I say: let 's halt, let 's borrow yonder gate

Of its two magpies, sit and have a talk!

Do let a fellow speak a moment! More

I think about and less I like the thing--

No, you must let me! Now, be good for once!

Ten thousand pounds be done for, dead and damned!

We played for love, not hate: yes, hate! I hate

Thinking you beg or borrow or reduce

To strychnine some poor devil of a lord

Licked at Unlimited Loo. I had the cash

To lose--you knew that!--lose and none the less

Whistle to-morrow: it 's not every chap

Affords to take his punishment so well!

Now, don't be angry with a friend whose fault

Is that he thinks--upon my soul, I do--

Your head the best head going. Oh, one sees

Names in the newspaper--great This, great That,

Gladstone, Carlyle, the Laureate:--much I care!

Others have their opinion, I keep mine:

Which means--by right you ought to have the things

I want a head for. Here 's a pretty place,

My cousin's place, and presently my place,

Not yours! I 'll tell you how it strikes a man.

My cousin 's fond of music and of course

Plays the piano (it won't be for long!)

A brand-new bore she calls a '_semi-grand_'

Rosewood and pearl, that blocks the drawing-room,

And cost no end of money. Twice a week

Down comes Herr Somebody and seats himself,

Sets to work teaching--with his teeth on edge--

I 've watched the rascal. '_Does he play first-rate?_'

I ask: '_I rather think so_,' answers she--

'_He's What's-his-Name!_'--'_Why give you lessons then?_'--

'_I pay three guineas and the train beside._'--

'_This instrument, has he one such at home?_'--

'_He? Has to practise on a table-top,_

_When he can't hire the proper thing._'--'_I see!_

_You 've the piano, he the skill, and God_

_The distribution of such gifts._' So here:

After your teaching, I shall sit and strum

Polkas on this piano of a Place

You 'd make resound with '_Rule Britannia_'!"

"Thanks!

I don't say but this pretty cousin's place,

Appendaged with your million, tempts my hand

As key-board I might touch with some effect."

"Then, why not have obtained the like? House, land,

Money, are things obtainable, you see,

By clever head-work: ask my father else!

You, who teach me, why not have learned, yourself?

Played like Herr Somebody with power to thump

And flourish and the rest, not bend demure

Pointing out blunders--'_Sharp, not natural!_

_Permit me--on the black key use the thumb!_'

There 's some fatality, I 'm sure! You say

'_Marry the cousin, that's your proper move!_'

And I do use the thumb and hit the sharp:

You should have listened to your own head's hint,

As I to you! The puzzle 's past my power,

How you have managed--with such stuff, such means--

Not to be rich nor great nor happy man:

Of which three good things where 's a sign at all?

Just look at Dizzy! Come,--what tripped your heels?

Instruct a goose that boasts wings and can't fly!

I wager I have guessed it!--never found

The old solution of the riddle fail!

'_Who was the woman?_' I don't ask, but--'_Where_

_I' the path of life stood she who tripped you?_'"

"Goose

You truly are! I own to fifty years.

Why don't I interpose and cut out--you?

Compete with five-and-twenty? Age, my boy!"

"Old man, no nonsense!--even to a boy

That 's ripe at least for rationality

Rapped into him, as maybe mine was, once!

I 've had my small adventure lesson me

Over the knuckles!--likely, I forget

The sort of figure youth cuts now and then,

Competing with old shoulders but young head

Despite the fifty grizzling years!"

"Aha?

Then that means--just the bullet in the blade

Which brought Dalmatia on the brain,--that, too,

Came of a fatal creature? Can't pretend

Now for the first time to surmise as much!

Make a clean breast! Recount! a secret 's safe

'Twixt you, me, and the gate-post!"

"--Can't pretend,

Neither, to never have surmised your wish!

It 's no use,--case of unextracted ball--

Winces at finger-touching. Let things be!"

"Ah, if you love your love still! I hate mine."

"I can't hate."

"I won't teach you; and won't tell

You, therefore, what you please to ask of me:

As if I, also, may not have my ache!"

"My sort of ache? No, no! and yet--perhaps!

All comes of thinking you superior still.

But live and learn! I say! Time 's up! Good jump!

You old, indeed! I fancy there 's a cut

Across the wood, a grass-path: shall we try?

It 's venturesome, however!"

"Stop, my boy!

Don't think I 'm stingy of experience! Life

--It 's like this wood we leave. Should you and I

Go wandering about there, though the gaps

We went in and came out by were opposed

As the two poles still, somehow, all the same

By nightfall we should probably have chanced

On much the same main points of interest--

Both of us measured girth, of mossy trunk,

Stript ivy from its strangled prey, clapped hands

At squirrel, sent a fir-cone after crow,

And so forth,--never mind what time betwixt.

So in our lives; allow I entered mine

Another way than you: 't is possible

I ended just by knocking head against

That plaguy low-hung branch yourself began

By getting bump from; as at last you too

May stumble o'er that stump which first of all

Bade me walk circumspectly. Head and feet

Are vulnerable both, and I, foot-sure,

Forgot that ducking down saves brow from bruise.

I, early old, played young man four years since

And failed confoundedly: so, hate alike

Failure and who caused failure,--curse her cant!"

"Oh, I see! You, though somewhat past the prime,

Were taken with a rosebud beauty! Ah--

But how should chits distinguish? She admired

Your marvel of a mind, I 'll undertake!

But as to body ... nay, I mean ... that is,

When years have told on face and figure" ...

"Thanks,

Mister _Sufficiently-Instructed!_ Such

No doubt was bound to be the consequence

To suit your self-complacency: she liked

My head enough, but loved some heart beneath

Some head with plenty of brown hair a-top

After my young friend's fashion! What becomes

Of that fine speech you made a minute since

About the man of middle age you found

A formidable peer at twenty-one?

So much for your mock-modesty! and yet

I back your first against this second sprout

Of observation, insight, what you please.

My middle age, Sir, had too much success!

It 's odd: my case occurred four years ago--

I finished just while you commenced that turn

I' the wood of life that takes us to the wealth

Of honeysuckle, heaped for who can reach.

Now, I don't boast: it 's bad style, and beside,

The feat proves easier than it looks: I plucked

Full many a flower unnamed in that bouquet

(Mostly of peonies and poppies, though!)

Good-nature sticks into my buttonhole.

Therefore it was with nose in want of snuff

Rather than Ess or Psidium, that I chanced

On what--so far from '_rosebud beauty_' ... Well--

She 's dead: at least you never heard her name;

She was no courtly creature, had nor birth

Nor breeding--mere fine-lady-breeding; but

Oh, such a wonder of a woman! Grand

As a Greek statue! Stick fine clothes on that,

Style that a Duchess or a Queen,--you know,

Artists would make an outcry: all the more,

That she had just a statue's sleepy grace

Which broods o'er its own beauty. Nay, her fault

(Don't laugh!) was just perfection: for suppose

Only the little flaw, and I had peeped

Inside it, learned what soul inside was like.

At Rome some tourist raised the grit beneath

A Venus' forehead with his whittling-knife--

I wish--now--I had played that brute, brought blood

To surface from the depths I fancied chalk!

As it was, her mere face surprised so much

That I stopped short there, struck on heap, as stares

The cockney stranger at a certain bust

With drooped eyes,--she 's the thing I have in mind,--

Down at my Brother's. All sufficient prize--

Such outside! Now,--confound me for a prig!--

Who cares? I 'll make a clean breast once for all!

Beside, you 've heard the gossip. My life long

I 've been a woman-liker,--liking means

Loving and so on. There 's a lengthy list

By this time I shall have to answer for--

So say the good folk: and they don't guess half--

For the worst is, let once collecting-itch

Possess you, and, with perspicacity,

Keeps growing such a greediness that theft

Follows at no long distance,--there 's the fact!

I knew that on my Leporello-list

Might figure this, that, and the other name

Of feminine desirability,

But if I happened to desire inscribe,

Along with these, the only Beautiful--

Here was the unique specimen to snatch

Or now or never. 'Beautiful' I said--

'Beautiful' say in cold blood,--boiling then

To tune of '_Haste, secure whatever the cost_

_This rarity, die in the act, be damned,_

_So you complete collection, crown your list!_'

It seemed as though the whole world, once aroused

By the first notice of such wonder's birth,

Would break bounds to contest my prize with me

The first discoverer, should she but emerge

From that safe den of darkness where she dozed

Till I stole in, that country-parsonage

Where, country-parson's daughter, motherless,

Brotherless, sisterless, for eighteen years

She had been vegetating lily-like.

Her father was my brother's tutor, got

The living that way: him I chanced to see--

Her I saw--her the world would grow one eye

To see, I felt no sort of doubt at all!

'_Secure her!_' cried the devil: '_afterward_

_Arrange for the disposal of the prize!_'

The devil's doing! yet I seem to think--

Now, when all 's done,--think with '_a head reposed_'

In French phrase--hope I think I meant to do

All requisite for such a rarity

When I should be at leisure, have due time

To learn requirement. But in evil day--

Bless me, at week's end, long as any year,

The father must begin, '_Young Somebody,_

_Much recommended--for I break a rule--_

_Comes here to read, next Long Vacation._'--'_Young!_'

That did it. Had the epithet been '_rich_,'

'_Noble_,' '_a genius_,' even '_handsome_,'--but

--'_Young_'!"

"I say--just a word! I want to know--

You are not married?"

"I?"

"Nor ever were?"

"Never! Why?"

"Oh, then--never mind! Go on!

I had a reason for the question."

"Come,--

You could not be the young man?"

"No, indeed!

Certainly--if you never married her!"

"That I did not: and there 's the curse, you 'll see!

Nay, all of it 's one curse, my life's mistake

Which nourished with manure that 's warranted

To make the plant bear wisdom, blew out full

In folly beyond fieldflower-foolishness!

The lies I used to tell my womankind!

Knowing they disbelieved me all the time

Though they required my lies, their decent due,

This woman--not so much believed, I 'll say,

As just anticipated from my mouth:

Since being true, devoted, constant--she

Found constancy, devotion, truth, the plain

And easy commonplace of character.

No mock-heroics but seemed natural

To her who underneath the face, I knew

Was fairness' self, possessed a heart, I judged

Must correspond in folly just as far

Beyond the common,--and a mind to match,--

Not made to puzzle conjurers like me

Who, therein, proved the fool who fronts you, Sir,

And begs leave to cut short the ugly rest!

'_Trust me!_' I said: she trusted. '_Marry me!_'

Or rather, '_We are married: when, the rite?_'

That brought on the collector's next-day qualm

At counting acquisition's cost. There lay

My marvel, there my purse more light by much

Because of its late lie-expenditure:

Ill-judged such moment to make fresh demand--

To cage as well as catch my rarity!

So, I began explaining. At first word

Outbroke the horror. '_Then, my truths were lies!_'

I tell you, such an outbreak, such new strange

All-unsuspected revelation--soul

As supernaturally grand as face

Was fair beyond example--that at once

Either I lost--or, if it please you, found

My senses,--stammered somehow--'_Jest! and now,_

_Earnest! Forget all else but--heart has loved,_

_Does love, shall love you ever! take the hand!_'

Not she! no marriage for superb disdain,

Contempt incarnate!"

"Yes, it 's different,--

It 's only like in being four years since.

I see now!"

"Well, what did disdain do next,

Think you?"

"That's past me: did not marry you!---

That 's the main thing I care for, I suppose.

Turned nun, or what?"

"Why, married in a month

Some parson, some smug crop-haired smooth-chinned sort

Of curate-creature, I suspect,--dived down,

Down, deeper still, and came up somewhere else--

I don't know where--I 've not tried much to know,--

In short, she 's happy: what the clodpoles call

'Countrified' with a vengeance! leads the life

Respectable and all that drives you mad:

Still--where, I don't know, and that 's best for both."

"Well, that she did not like you, I conceive.

But why should you hate her, I want to know?"

"My good young friend,--because or her or else

Malicious Providence I have to hate.

For, what I tell you proved the turning-point

Of my whole life and fortune toward success

Or failure. If I drown, I lay the fault

Much on myself who caught at reed not rope,

But more on reed which, with a packthread's pith,

Had buoyed me till the minute's cramp could thaw

And I strike out afresh and so be saved.

It 's easy saying--I had sunk before,

Disqualified myself by idle days

And busy nights, long since, from holding hard

On cable, even, had fate cast me such!

You boys don't know how many times men fail

Perforce o' the little to succeed i' the large,

Husband their strength, let slip the petty prey,

Collect the whole power for the final pounce!

My fault was the mistaking man's main prize

For intermediate boy's diversion; clap

Of boyish hands here frightened game away

Which, once gone, goes forever. Oh, at first

I took the anger easily, nor much

Minded the anguish--having learned that storms

Subside, and teapot-tempests are akin.

Time would arrange things, mend whate'er might be

Somewhat amiss; precipitation, eh?

Reason and rhyme prompt--reparation! Tiffs

End properly in marriage and a dance!

I said 'We 'll marry, make the past a blank'--

And never was such damnable mistake!

That interview, that laying bare my soul,

As it was first, so was it last chance--one

And only. Did I write? Back letter came

Unopened as it went. Inexorable

She fled, I don't know where, consoled herself

With the smug curate-creature: chop and change!

Sure am I, when she told her shaveling all

His Magdalen's adventure, tears were shed,

Forgiveness evangelically shown,

'Loose hair and lifted eye,'--as some one says.

And now, he 's worshipped for his pains, the sneak!"

"Well, but your turning-point of life,--what 's here

To hinder you contesting Finsbury

With Orton, next election? I don't see" ...

"Not you! But _I_ see. Slowly, surely, creeps

Day by day o'er me the conviction--here

Was life's prize grasped at, gained, and then let go!

--That with her--maybe, for her--I had felt

Ice in me melt, grow steam, drive to effect

Any or all the fancies sluggish here

I' the head that needs the hand she would not take

And I shall never lift now, Lo, your wood--

Its turnings which I likened life to! Well,--

There she stands, ending every avenue,

Her visionary presence on each goal

I might have gained had we kept side by side!

Still string nerve and strike foot? Her frown forbids:

The steam congeals once more: I 'm old again!

Therefore I hate myself--but how much worse

Do not I hate who would not understand,

Let me repair things--no, but sent a-slide

My folly falteringly, stumblingly

Down, down, and deeper down until I drop

Upon--the need of your ten thousand pounds

And consequently loss of mine! I lose

Character, cash, nay, common-sense itself

Recounting such a lengthy cock-and-bull

Adventure, lose my temper in the act" ...

"And lose beside,--if I may supplement

The list of losses,--train and ten-o'clock!

Hark, pant and puff, there travels the swart sign!

So much the better! You 're my captive now!

I 'm glad you trust a fellow: friends grow thick

This way--that 's twice said; we were thickish, though,

Even last night, and, ere night comes again,

I prophesy good luck to both of us!

For see now!--back to '_balmy eminence_'

Or '_calm acclivity_' or what 's the word!

Bestow you there an hour, concoct at ease

A sonnet for the Album, while I put

Bold face on, best foot forward, make for house,

March in to aunt and niece, and tell the truth--

(Even white-lying goes against my taste

After your little story.) Oh, the niece

Is rationality itself! The aunt--

If she 's amenable to reason too--

Why, you stopped short to pay her due respect,

And let the Duke wait (I 'll work well the Duke).

If she grows gracious, I return for you;

If thunder 's in the air, why--bear your doom,

Dine on rump-steaks and port, and shake the dust

Of aunty from your shoes as off you go

By evening-train, nor give the thing a thought

How you shall pay me--that 's as sure as fate.

Old fellow! Off with you, face left about!

Yonder 's the path I have to pad. You see,

I 'm in good spirits, God knows why! Perhaps

Because the woman did not marry you

--Who look so hard at me,--and have the right,

One must be fair and own."

The two stand still

Under an oak.

"Look here!" resumes the youth.

"I never quite knew how I came to like

You--so much--whom I ought not court at all:

Nor how you had a leaning just to me

Who am assuredly not worth your pains.

For there must needs be plenty such as you

Somewhere about,--although I can't say where,--

Able and willing to teach all you know;

While--how can you have missed a score like me

With money and no wit, precisely each

A pupil for your purpose, were it--ease

Fool's poke of tutor's _honorarium_-fee?

And yet, howe'er it came about, I felt

At once my master: you as prompt descried

Your man, warrant, so was bargain struck.

Now, these same lines of liking, loving, run

Sometimes so close together they converge--

Life's great adventures--you know what I mean--

In people. Do you know, as you advanced,

It got to be uncommonly like fact

We two had fallen in with--liked and loved

Just the same woman in our different ways?

I began life--poor groundling as I prove--

and ambitious to fly high: why not?

There 's something in 'Don Quixote' to the point,

My shrewd old father used to quote and praise--

'_Am I born man?_' asks Sancho; '_being man,_

_By possibility I may be Pope!_'

So, Pope I meant to make myself, by step

And step, whereof the first should be to find

A perfect woman; and I tell you this--

If what I fixed on, in the order due

Of undertakings, as next step, had first

Of all disposed itself to suit my tread,

And I had been, the day I came of age,

Returned at head of poll for Westminster

--Nay, and moreover summoned by the Queen

At week's end, when my maiden-speech bore fruit,

To form and head a Tory ministry--

It would not have seemed stranger, no, nor been

More strange to me, as now I estimate,

Than what did happen--sober truth, no dream.

I saw my wonder of a woman,--laugh,

I'm past that!--in Commemoration-week.

A plenty have I seen since, fair and foul,--

With eyes, too, helped by your sagacious wink;

But one to match that marvel--no least trace,

Least touch of kinship and community!

The end was--I did somehow state the fact,

Did, with no matter what imperfect words,

One way or other give to understand

That woman, soul and body were her slave

Would she but take, but try them--any test

Of will, and some poor test of power beside:

So did the strings within my brain grow tense

And capable of ... hang similitudes!

She answered kindly but beyond appeal.

'_No sort of hope for me, who came too late._

_She was another's. Love went--mine to her,_

_Hers just as loyally to some one else._'

Of course! I might expect it! Nature's law--

Given the peerless woman, certainly

Somewhere shall be the peerless man to match!

I acquiesced at once, submitted me

In something of a stupor, went my way.

I fancy there had been some talk before

Of somebody--her father or the like--

To coach me in the holidays,--that's how

I came to get the sight and speech of her,--

But I had sense enough to break off sharp,

Save both of us the pain."

"Quite right there!"

"Eh?

Quite wrong, it happens! Now comes worst of all!

Yes, I did sulk aloof and let alone

The lovers--_I_ disturb the angel-mates?"

"Seraph paired off with cherub!"

"Thank you! While

I never plucked up courage to inquire

Who he was, even,--certain-sure of this,

That nobody I knew of had blue wings

And wore a star-crown as he needs must do,--

Some little lady,--plainish, pock-marked girl,--

Finds out my secret in my woeful face,

Comes up to me at the Apollo Ball,

And pityingly pours her wine and oil

This way into the wound: '_Dear f-f-friend,_

_Why waste affection thus on--must I say,_

_A somewhat worthless object? Who's her choice--_

_Irrevocable as deliberate--_

_Out of the wide world? I shall name no names--_

_But there's a person in society,_

_Who, blessed with rank and talent, has grown gray_

_In idleness and sin of every sort_

_Except hypocrisy: he's thrice her age,_

_A byword for 'successes with the sex'_

_As the French say--and, as we ought to say._

_Consummately a liar and a rogue,_

_Since--show me where's the woman won without_

_The help of this one lie which she believes--_

_That--never mind how things have come to pass,_

_And let who loves have loved a thousand times--_

_All the same he now loves her only, loves_

_Her ever! if by 'won' you just mean 'sold,'_

_That's quite another compact. Well, this scamp,_

_Continuing descent from bad to worse,_

_Must leave his fine and fashionable prey_

_(Who--fathered, brothered, husbanded,--are hedged_

_About with thorny danger) and apply_

_His arts to this poor country ignorance_

_Who sees forthwith in the first rag of man_

_Her model hero! Why continue waste_

_On such a woman treasures of a heart_

_Would yet find solace,--yes, my f-f-friend--_

_In some congenial_--fiddle-diddle-dee?'"

"Pray, is the pleasant gentleman described

Exact the portrait which my '_f-f-friends_'

Recognize as so like? 'Tis evident

You half surmised the sweet original

Could be no other than myself, just now!

Your stop and start were flattering!"

"Of course

Caricature's allowed for in a sketch!

The longish nose becomes a foot in length,

The swarthy cheek gets copper-colored,--still,

Prominent beak and dark-hued skin are facts:

And '_parson's daughter_'--'_young man coachable_'--

'_Elderly party_'--'_four years since_'--were facts

To fasten on, a moment! Marriage, though--

That made the difference, I hope."

"All right!

I never married; wish I had--and then

Unwish it: people kill their wives, sometimes!

I hate my mistress, but I'm murder-free.

In your case, where's the grievance? You came last,

The earlier bird picked up the worm. Suppose

You, in the glory of your twenty-one,

Had happened to precede myself! 'tis odds

But this gigantic juvenility,

This offering of a big arm's bony hand--

I'd rather shake than feel shake me, I know--

Had moved _my_ dainty mistress to admire

An altogether new Ideal--deem

Idolatry less due to life's decline

Productive of experience, powers mature

By dint of usage, the made man--no boy

That's all to make! I was the earlier bird--

And what I found, I let fall; what you missed,

Who is the fool that blames you for?"

"Myself--

For nothing, everything! For finding out

She, whom I worshipped, was a worshipper

In turn of ... but why stir up settled mud?

She married him--the fifty-years-old rake--

How you have teased the talk from me! At last

My secret's told you. I inquired no more,

Nay, stopped ears when informants unshut mouth;

Enough that she and he live, deuce take where,

Married and happy, or else miserable--

It's 'Cut-the-pack;' she turned up ace or knave,

And I left Oxford, England, dug my hole

Out in Dalmatia, till you drew me thence

Badger-like,--'_Back to London_' was the word--

'_Do things, a many, there, you fancy hard,_

_I'll undertake are easy!_'--the advice.

I took it, had my twelvemonth's fling with you--

(Little hand holding large hand pretty tight

For all its delicacy--eh, my lord?)

Until when, t'other day, I got a turn

Somehow and gave up tired: and '_Rest!_' bade you,

'_Marry your cousin, double your estate,_

_And take your ease by all means!_' So, I loll

On this the springy sofa, mine next month--

Or should loll, but that you must needs beat rough

The very down you spread me out so smooth.

I wish this confidence were still to make!

Ten thousand pounds? You owe me twice the sum

For stirring up the black depths! There's repose

Or, at least, silence when misfortune seems

All that one has to bear; but folly--yes,

Folly, it all was! Fool to be so meek,

So humble,--such a coward rather say!

Fool, to adore the adorer of a fool!

Not to have faced him, tried (a useful hint)

My big and bony, here, against the bunch

Of lily-colored five with signet-ring,

Most like, for little-finger's sole defence--

Much as you flaunt the blazon there! I grind

My teeth, that bite my very heart, to think--

To know I might have made that woman mine

But for the folly of the coward--know--

Or what's the good of my apprenticeship

This twelvemonth to a master in the art?

Mine--had she been mine--just one moment mine

For honor, for dishonor--anyhow,

So that my life, instead of stagnant ... Well,

You've poked and proved stagnation is not sleep--

Hang you!"

"Hang _you_ for an ungrateful goose!

All this means--I who since I knew you first

Have helped you to conceit yourself this cock

O' the dunghill with all hens to pick and choose--

Ought to have helped you when shell first was chipped

By chick that wanted prompting '_Use the spur!_'

While I was elsewhere putting mine to use.

As well might I blame you who kept aloof,

Seeing you could not guess I was alive,

Never advised me '_Do as I have done--_

_Reverence such a jewel as your luck_

_Has scratched up to enrich unworthiness!_'

As your behavior was, should mine have been,

--Faults which we both, too late, are sorry for:

Opposite ages, each with its mistake:

'_If youth but would--if age but could_,' you know.

Don't let us quarrel! Come, we're--young and old--

Neither so badly off. Go you your way,

Cut to the Cousin! I'll to Inn, await

The issue of diplomacy with Aunt,

And wait my hour on '_calm acclivity_'

In rumination manifold--perhaps

About ten thousand pounds I have to pay!"

III

Now, as the elder lights the fresh cigar

Conducive to resource, and saunteringly

Betakes him to the left-hand backward path,--

While, much sedate, the younger strides away

To right and makes for--islanded in lawn

And edged with shrubbery--the brilliant bit

Of Barry's building that's the Place,--a pair

Of women, at this nick of time, one young,

One very young, are ushered with due pomp

Into the same Inn-parlor--"_disengaged_

_Entirely now!_" the obsequious landlord smiles,

"_Since the late occupants--whereof but one_

_Was quite a stranger_"--(smile enforced by bow)

"_Left, a full two hours since, to catch the train,_

_Probably for the stranger's sake!_" (Bow, smile,

And backing out from door soft-closed behind.)

Woman and girl, the two, alone inside,

Begin their talk: the girl, with sparkling eyes--

"Oh, I forewent him purposely! but you,

Who joined at--journeyed from the Junction here--

I wonder how he failed your notice. Few

Stop at our station: fellow-passengers

Assuredly you were--I saw indeed

His servant, therefore he arrived all right.

I wanted, you know why, to have you safe

Inside here first of all, so dodged about

The dark end of the platform; that's his way--

To swing from station straight to avenue

And stride the half a mile for exercise.

I fancied you might notice the huge boy.

He soon gets o'er the distance; at the house

He'll hear I went to meet him and have missed;

He'll wait. No minute of the hour's too much

Meantime for our preliminary talk:

First word of which must be--oh, good beyond

Expression of all goodness--you to come!"

The elder, the superb one, answers slow.

"There was no helping that. You called for me,

Cried, rather: and my old heart answered you.

Still, thank me! since the effort breaks a vow--

At least, a promise to myself."

"I know!

How selfish get you happy folk to be!

If I should love my husband, must I needs

Sacrifice straightway all the world to him,

As you do? Must I never dare leave house

On this dread Arctic expedition, out

And in again, six mortal hours, though you,

You even, my own friend forevermore,

Adjure me--fast your friend till rude love pushed

Poor friendship from her vantage--just to grant

The quarter of a whole day's company

And counsel? This makes counsel so much more

Need and necessity. For here's my block

Of stumbling: in the face of happiness

So absolute, fear chills me. If such change

In heart be but love's easy consequence,

Do I love? If to marry mean--let go

All I now live for, should my marriage be?"

The other never once has ceased to gaze

On the great elm-tree in the open, posed

Placidly full in front, smooth bole, broad branch,

And leafage, one green plenitude of May.

The gathered thought runs into speech at last.

"O you exceeding beauty, bosomful

Of lights and shades, murmurs and silences,

Sun-warmth, dew-coolness,--squirrel, bee and bird,

High, higher, highest, till the blue proclaims

'_Leave earth, there's nothing better till next step_

_Heavenward!_'--so, off flies what has wings to help!"

And henceforth they alternate. Says the girl--

"That's saved then: marriage spares the early taste."

"Four years now, since my eye took note of tree!"

"If I had seen no other tree but this

My life long, while yourself came straight, you said,

From tree which overstretched you and was just

One fairy tent with pitcher-leaves that held

Wine, and a flowery wealth of suns and moons,

And magic fruits whereon the angels feed--

I looking out of window on a tree

Like yonder--otherwise well-known, much-liked,

Yet just an English ordinary elm--

What marvel if you cured me of conceit

My elm's bird-bee-and-squirrel tenantry

Was quite the proud possession I supposed?

And there is evidence you tell me true.

The fairy marriage-tree reports itself

Good guardian of the perfect face and form,

Fruits of four years' protection! Married friend,

You are more beautiful than ever!"

"Yes:

I think that likely. I could well dispense

With all thought fair in feature, mine or no,

Leave but enough of face to know me by--

With all found fresh in youth except such strength

As lets a life-long labor earn repose

Death sells at just that price, they say; and so,

Possibly, what I care not for, I keep."

"How you must know he loves you! Chill, before,

Fear sinks to freezing. Could I sacrifice--

Assured my lover simply loves my soul--

One nose-breadth of fair feature? No, indeed!

Your own love" ...

"The preliminary hour--

Don't waste it!"

"But I can't begin at once!

The angel's self that comes to hear me speak

Drives away all the care about the speech.

What an angelic mystery you are--

Now--that is certain! when I knew you first,

No break of halo and no bud of wing!

I thought I knew you, saw you, round and through,

Like a glass ball; suddenly, four years since,

You vanished, how and whither? Mystery!

Wherefore? No mystery at all: you loved,

Were loved again, and left the world of course:

Who would not? Lapped four years in fairyland,

Out comes, by no less wonderful a chance,

The changeling, touched athwart her trellised bliss

Of blush-rose bower by just the old friend's voice

That's now struck dumb at her own potency.

_I_ talk of my small fortunes? Tell me yours

Rather! The fool I ever was--I am,

You see that: the true friend you ever had,

You have, you also recognize. Perhaps,

Giving you all the love of all my heart,

Nature, that's niggard in me, has denied

The after-birth of love there 's some one claims,

--This huge boy, swinging up the avenue;

And I want counsel: is defect in me,

Or him who has no right to raise the love?

My cousin asks my hand: he's young enough,

Handsome,--my maid thinks,--manly's more the word:

He asked my leave to '_drop_' the elm-tree there,

Some morning before breakfast. Gentleness

Goes with the strength, of course. He's honest too,

Limpidly truthful. For ability--

All's in the rough yet. His first taste of life

Seems to have somehow gone against the tongue:

He travelled, tried things--came back, tried still more--

He says he 's sick of all. He 's fond of me

After a certain careless-earnest way

I like: the iron 's crude,--no polished steel

Somebody forged before me. I am rich--

That 's not the reason, he 's far richer: no,

Nor is it that he thinks me pretty,--frank

Undoubtedly on that point! He saw once

The pink of face-perfection--oh, not you--

Content yourself, my beauty!--for she proved

So thoroughly a cheat, his charmer ... nay,

He runs into extremes, I 'll say at once,

Lest you say! Well, I understand he wants

Some one to serve, something to do: and both

Requisites so abound in me and mine

That here 's the obstacle which stops consent--

The smoothness is too smooth, and I mistrust

The unseen cat beneath the counterpane.

Therefore I thought--'_Would she but judge for me,_

_Who, judging for herself succeeded so!_'

Do I love him, does he love me, do both

Mistake for knowledge--easy ignorance?

Appeal to its proficient in each art!

I got rough-smooth through a piano-piece,

Rattled away last week till tutor came,

Heard me to end, then grunted '_Ach, mein Gott!_

_Sagen Sie "easy"? Every note is wrong!_

_All thumped mit wrist--we 'll trouble fingers now._

_The Fräulein will please roll up Raff again_

_And exercise at Czerny for one month!_'

Am I to roll up cousin, exercise

At Trollope's novels for one month? Pronounce!"

"Now, place each in the right position first,

Adviser and advised one! I perhaps

Am three--nay, four years older; am, beside,

A wife: advantages--to balance which,

You have a full fresh joyous sense of life

That finds you out life's fit food everywhere,

Detects enjoyment where I, slow and dull,

Fumble at fault. Already, these four years,

Your merest glimpses at the world without

Have shown you more than ever met my gaze;

And now, by joyance you inspire joy,--learn

While you profess to teach, and teach, although

Avowedly a learner. I am dazed

Like any owl by sunshine which just sets

The sparrow preening plumage! Here 's to spy

--Your cousin! You have scanned him all your life,

Little or much; I never saw his face.

You have determined on a marriage--used

Deliberation therefore--I 'll believe

No otherwise, with opportunity

For judgment so abounding! Here stand I--

Summoned to give my sentence, for a whim,

(Well, at first cloud-fleck thrown athwart your blue,)

Judge what is strangeness' self to me,--say '_Wed!_'

Or '_Wed not!_' whom you promise I shall judge

Presently, at propitious lunch-time, just

While he carves chicken! Sends he leg for wing?

That revelation into character

And conduct must suffice me! Quite as well

Consult with yonder solitary crow

That eyes us from your elm-top!"

"Still the same!

Do you remember, at the library

We saw together somewhere, those two books

Somebody said were notice-worthy? One

Lay wide on table, sprawled its painted leaves

For all the world's inspection; shut on shelf

Reclined the other volume, closed, clasped, locked--

Clear to be let alone. Which page had we

Preferred the turning over of? You were,

Are, ever will be the locked lady, hold

Inside you secrets written,--soul absorbed,

My ink upon your blotting-paper. _I_--

What trace of you have I to show in turn?

Delicate secrets! No one juvenile

Ever essayed at croquet and performed

Superiorly but I confided you

The sort of hat he wore and hair it held.

While you? One day a calm note comes by post--

'_I am just married, you may like to hear._'

Most men would hate you, or they ought; we love

What we fear,--_I_ do! '_Cold_' I shall expect

My cousin calls you. I--dislike not him,

But (if I comprehend what loving means)

Love you immeasurably more--more--more

Than even he who, loving you his wife,

Would turn up nose at who impertinent,

Frivolous, forward--_loves_ that excellence

Of all the earth he bows in worship to!

And who 's this paragon of privilege?

Simply a country parson: his the charm

That worked the miracle! Oh, too absurd--

But that you stand before me as you stand!

Such beauty does prove something, everything!

Beauty 's the prize-flower which dispenses eye

From peering into what has nourished root--

Dew or manure: the plant best knows its place.

Enough, from teaching youth and tending age

And hearing sermons,--haply writing tracts,--

From such strange love-besprinkled compost, lo,

Out blows this triumph! Therefore love 's the soil

Plants find or fail of. You, with wit to find,

Exercise wit on the old friend's behalf,

Keep me from failure! Scan and scrutinize

This cousin! Surely he 's as worth your pains

To study as my elm-tree, crow and all,

You still keep staring at. I read your thoughts."

"At last?"

"At first! '_Would, tree, a-top of thee_

_I wingèd were, like crow perched moveless there,_

_And so could straightway soar, escape this bore,_

_Back to my nest where broods whom I love best--_

_The parson o'er his parish--garish--rarish_,'--

Oh, I could bring the rhyme in if I tried:

The Album here inspires me! Quite apart

From lyrical expression, have I read

The stare aright, and sings not soul just so?"

"Or rather _so?_ '_Cool comfortable elm_

_That men make coffins out of,--none for me_

_At thy expense, so thou permit I glide_

_Under thy ferny feet, and there sleep, sleep,_

_Nor dread awaking though in heaven itself!_'"

The younger looks with face struck sudden white.

The elder answers its inquiry.

"Dear,

You are a guesser, not a '_clairvoyante_.'

I 'll so far open you the locked and shelved

Volume, my soul, that you desire to see,

As let you profit by the title-page"--

"_Paradise Lost?_"

"_Inferno!_--All which comes

Of tempting me to break my vow. Stop here!

Friend, whom I love the best in the whole world,

Come at your call, be sure that I will do

All your requirement--see and say my mind.

It may be that by sad apprenticeship

I have a keener sense: I 'll task the same.

Only indulge me,--here let sight and speech

Happen,--this Inn is neutral ground, you know!

I cannot visit the old house and home,

Encounter the old sociality

Abjured forever. Peril quite enough

In even this first--last, I pray it prove--

Renunciation of my solitude!

Back, you, to house and cousin! Leave me here,

Who want no entertainment, carry still

My occupation with me. While I watch

The shadow inching round those ferny feet,

Tell him '_A school-friend wants a word with me_

_Up at the inn: time, tide, and train won't wait:_

_I must go see her--on and off again--_

_You 'll keep me company?_' Ten minutes' talk,

With you in presence, ten more afterward

With who, alone, convoys me station-bound,

And I see clearly--and say honestly

To-morrow: pen shall play tongue's part, you know.

Go--quick! for I have made our hand-in-hand

Return impossible. So scared you look,--

If cousin does not greet you with '_What ghost_

_Has crossed your path?_' I set him down obtuse."

And after one more look, with face still white,

The younger does go, while the elder stands

Occupied by the elm at window there.

IV

Occupied by the elm; and, as its shade

Has crept clock-hand-wise till it ticks at fern

Five inches further to the South,--the door

Opens abruptly, some one enters sharp,

The elder man returned to wait the youth:

Never observes the room's new occupant,

Throws hat on table, stoops quick, elbow propped

Over the Album wide there, bends down brow

A cogitative minute, whistles shrill,

Then,--with a cheery-hopeless laugh-and-lose

Air of defiance to fate visibly

Casting the toils about him--mouths once more

'_Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!_'

Then clasps-to cover, sends book spinning off

T' other side table, looks up, starts erect

Full-face with her who--roused from that abstruse

Question '_Will next tick tip the fern or no?_'--

Fronts him as fully.

All her languor breaks,

Away withers at once the weariness

From the black-blooded brow, anger and hate

Convulse. Speech follows slowlier, but at last--

"You here! I felt, I knew it would befall!

Knew, by some subtle undivinable

Trick of the trickster, I should, silly-sooth,

Late or soon, somehow be allured to leave

Safe hiding and come take of him arrears,

My torment due on four years' respite! Time

To pluck the bird's healed, breast of down o'er wound!

Have your success! Be satisfied this sole

Seeing you has undone all heaven could do

These four years, puts me back to you and hell!

What will next trick be, next success? No doubt

When I shall think to glide into the grave,

There will you wait disguised as beckoning Death,

And catch and capture me forevermore!

But, God, though I am nothing, be thou all!

Contest him for me! Strive, for he is strong!"

Already his surprise dies palely out

In laugh of acquiescing impotence.

He neither gasps nor hisses: calm and plain--

"I also felt and knew--but otherwise!

_You_ out of hand and sight and care of me

These four years, whom I felt, knew, all the while ...

Oh, it 's no superstition! It 's a gift

O' the gamester that he snuffs the unseen powers

Which help or harm him. Well I knew what lurked,

Lay perdue paralyzing me,--drugged, drowsed

And damnified my soul and body both!

Down and down, see where you have dragged me to,

You and your malice! I was, four years since,

--Well, a poor creature! I became a knave.

I squandered my own pence: I plump my purse

With other people's pounds. I practised play

Because I liked it: play turns labor now

Because there 's profit also in the sport.

I gamed with men of equal age and craft:

I steal here with a boy as green as grass

Whom I have tightened hold on slow and sure

This long while, just to bring about to-day

When the boy beats me hollow, buries me

In ruin who was sure to beggar him.

Oh, time indeed I should look up and laugh

'_Surely she closes on me!_' Here you stand!"

And stand she does: while volubility,

With him, keeps on the increase, for his tongue

After long locking-up is loosed for once.

"Certain the taunt is happy!" he resumes:

"So, I it was allured you--only I

--I, and none other--to this spectacle--

Your triumph, my despair--you woman-fiend

That front me! Well, I have my wish, then! See

The low wide brow oppressed by sweeps of hair

Darker and darker as they coil and swathe

The crowned corpse-wanness whence the eyes burn black,

Not asleep now! not pin-points dwarfed beneath

Either great bridging eyebrow--poor blank beads--

Babies, I 've pleased to pity in my time:

How they protrude and glow immense with hate!

The long-triumphant nose attains--retains

Just the perfection; and there 's scarlet-skein

My ancient enemy, her lip and lip,

Sense-free, sense-frighting lips clenched cold and bold

Because of chin, that based resolve beneath!

Then the columnar neck completes the whole

Greek-sculpture-baffling body! Do I see?

Can I observe? You wait next word to come?

Well, wait and want! since no one blight I bid

Consume one least perfection. Each and all,

As they are rightly shocking now to me,

So may they still continue! Value them?

Ay, as the vendor knows the money-worth

O£ his Greek statue, fools aspire to buy,

And he to see the back of! Let as laugh!

You have absolved me from my sin at least!

You stand stout, strong, in the rude health of hate,

No touch of the tame timid nullity

My cowardice, forsooth, has practised on!

Ay, while you seemed to hint some fine fifth act

Of tragedy should freeze blood, end the farce,

I never doubted all was joke. I kept,

Maybe, an eye alert on paragraphs,

Newspaper-notice,--let no inquest slip,

Accident, disappearance: sound and safe

Were you, my victim, not of mind to die!

So, my worst fancy that could spoil the smooth

Of pillow, and arrest descent of sleep,

Was '_Into what dim hole can she have dived,_

_She and her wrongs, her woe that 's wearing flesh_

_And blood away?_' Whereas, see, sorrow swells!

Or, fattened, fulsome, have you fed on me,

Sucked out my substance? How much gloss, I pray,

O'erbloomed those hair-swathes when there crept from you

To me that craze, else unaccountable,

Which urged me to contest our county-seat

With whom but my own brother's nominee?

Did that mouth's pulp glow ruby from carmine

While I misused my moment, pushed,--one word,--

One hair's-breadth more of gesture,--idiot-like

Past passion, floundered on to the grotesque,

And lost the heiress in a grin? At least,

You made no such mistake! You tickled fish,

Landed your prize the true artistic way!

How did the smug young curate rise to tune

Of '_Friend, a fatal fact divides us. Love_

_Suits me no longer. I have suffered shame,_

_Betrayal: past is past; the future--yours--_

_Shall never be contaminate by mine!_

_I might have spared me this confession, not_

_--Oh, never by some hideousest of lies,_

_Easy, impenetrable! No! but say,_

_By just the quiet answer--"I am cold."_

_Falsehood avaunt, each shadow of thee, hence!_

_Had happier fortune willed ... but dreams are vain._

_Now, leave me--yes, for pity's sake!_' Aha,

Who fails to see the curate as his face

Reddened and whitened, wanted handkerchief

At wrinkling brow and twinkling eye, until

Out burst the proper '_Angel, whom the fiend_

_Has thought to smirch,--thy whiteness, at one wipe_

_Of holy cambric, shall disgrace the swan!_

_Mine be the task_' ... and so forth! Fool? not he!

Cunning in flavors, rather! What but sour

Suspected makes the sweetness doubly sweet,

And what stings love from faint to flamboyant

But the fear-sprinkle? Even horror helps--

_Love's flame in me by such recited wrong_

_Drenched, quenched, indeed? It burns the fiercelier thence!_'

Why, I have known men never love their wives

Till somebody--myself, suppose--had '_drenched_

_And quenched love_,' so the blockheads whined: as if

The fluid fire that lifts the torpid limb

Were a wrong done to palsy. But I thrilled

No palsied person: half my age, or less,

The curate was, I 'll wager: o'er young blood

Your beauty triumphed! Eh, but--was it _he?_

Then, it _was_ he, I heard of! None beside!

How frank you were about the audacious boy

Who fell upon you like a thunderbolt--

Passion and protestation! He it was

Reserved _in petto!_ Ay, and '_rich_' beside--

'_Rich_'--how supremely did disdain curl nose!

All that I heard was--'_wedded to a priest;_'

Informants sunk youth, riches and the rest.

And so my lawless love disparted loves,

That loves might come together with a rush!

Surely this last achievement sucked me dry:

Indeed, that way my wits went. Mistress-queen,

Be merciful and let your subject slink

Into dark safety! He 's a beggar, see--

Do not turn back his ship, Australia-bound,

And bid her land him right amid some crowd

Of creditors, assembled by your curse!

Don't cause the very rope to crack (you can!)

Whereon he spends his last (friend's) sixpence, just

The moment when he hoped to hang himself!

Be satisfied you beat him!"

She replies--

"Beat him! I do. To all that you confess

Of abject failure, I extend belief.

Your very face confirms it: God is just!

Let my face--fix your eyes!--in turn confirm

What I shall say. All-abject's but half truth;

Add to all-abject knave as perfect fool!

_So_ is it you probed human nature, _so_

Prognosticated of me? Lay these words

To heart then, or where God meant heart should lurk!

That moment when you first revealed yourself,

My simple impulse prompted--end forthwith

The ruin of a life uprooted thus

To surely perish! How should such spoiled tree

Henceforward balk the wind of its worst sport,

Fail to go falling deeper, falling down

From sin to sin until some depth were reached

Doomed to the weakest by the wickedest

Of weak and wicked human-kind? But when,

That self-display made absolute,--behold

A new revealment!--round you pleased to veer,

Propose me what should prompt annul the past,

Make me '_amends by marriage_'--in your phrase,

Incorporate me henceforth, body and soul,

With soul and body which mere brushing past

Brought leprosy upon me--'_marry_' these!

Why, then despair broke, reassurance dawned,

Clear-sighted was I that who hurled contempt

As I--thank God!--at the contemptible,

Was scarce an utter weakling. Rent away

By treason from my rightful pride of place,

I was not destined to the shame below.

A cleft had caught me: I might perish there,

But thence to be dislodged and whirled at last

Where the black torrent sweeps the sewage--no!

'_Bare breast be on hard rock_,' laughed out my soul

In gratitude, '_howe'er rock's grip may grind!_

_The plain, rough, wretched holdfast shall suffice_

_This wreck of me!_' The wind,--I broke in bloom

At passage of,--which stripped me bole and branch,

Twisted me up and tossed me here,--turns back,

And, playful ever, would replant the spoil?

Be satisfied, not one least leaf that's mine

Shall henceforth help wind's sport to exercise!

Rather I give such remnant to the rock

Which never dreamed a straw would settle there.

Rock may not thank me, may not feel my breast,

Even: enough that _I_ feel, hard and cold,

Its safety my salvation. Safe and saved,

I lived, live. When the tempter shall persuade

His prey to slip down, slide off, trust the wind,--

Now that I know if God or Satan be

Prince of the Power of the Air,--then, then, indeed,

Let my life end and degradation too!"

"Good!" he smiles, "true Lord Byron!" '_Tree and rock:_

_Rock_,'--there's advancement! He's at first a youth,

Rich, worthless therefore; next he grows a priest:

Youth, riches prove a notable resource,

When to leave me for their possessor gluts

Malice abundantly; and now, last change,

The young rich parson represents a rock

--Bloodstone, no doubt. He's Evangelical?

Your Ritualists prefer the Church for spouse!"

She speaks.

"I have a story to relate.

There was a parish-priest, my father knew,

Elderly, poor: I used to pity him

Before I learned what woes are pity-worth.

Elderly was grown old now, scanty means

Were straitening fast to poverty, beside

The ailments which await in such a case.

Limited every way, a perfect man

Within the bounds built up and up since birth

Breast-high about him till the outside world

Was blank save o'erhead one blue bit of sky--

Faith: he had faith in dogma, small or great,

As in the fact that if he clave his skull

He'd find a brain there: who proves such a fact

No falsehood by experiment at price

Of soul and body? The one rule of life

Delivered him in childhood was '_Obey!_

_Labor!_' He had obeyed and labored--tame,

True to the mill-track blinked on from above.

Some scholarship he may have gained in youth:

Gone--dropt or flung behind. Some blossom-flake,

Spring's boon, descends on every vernal head,

I used to think; but January joins

December, as his year had known no May;

Trouble its snow-deposit,--cold and old!

I heard it was his will to take a wife,

A helpmate. Duty bade him tend and teach--

How? with experience null, nor sympathy

Abundant,--while himself worked dogma dead,

Who would play ministrant to sickness, age,

Womankind, childhood? These demand a wife.

Supply the want, then! theirs the wife; for him--

No coarsest sample of the proper sex

But would have served his purpose equally

With God's own angel,--let but knowledge match

Her coarseness: zeal does only half the work.

I saw this--knew the purblind honest drudge

Was wearing out his simple blameless life,

And wanted help beneath a burden--borne

To treasure-house or dust-heap, what cared I?

Partner he needed: I proposed myself,

Nor much surprised him--duty was so clear!

Gratitude? What for? Gain of Paradise--

Escape, perhaps, from the dire penalty

Of who hides talent in a napkin? No:

His scruple was--should I be strong enough

--In body? since of weakness in the mind,

Weariness in the heart--no fear of these?

He took me as these Arctic voyagers

Take an aspirant to their toil and pain:

Can he endure them?--that 's the point, and not

--Will he? Who would not, rather! Whereupon,

I pleaded far more earnestly for leave

To give myself away, than you to gain

What you called priceless till you gained the heart

And soul and body! which, as beggars serve

Extorted alms, you straightway spat upon.

Not so my husband,--for I gained my suit,

And had my value put at once to proof.

Ask him! These four years I have died away

In village-life. The village? Ugliness

At best and filthiness at worst, inside.

Outside, sterility--earth sown with salt

Or what keeps even grass from growing fresh.

The life? I teach the poor and learn, myself,

That commonplace to such stupidity

Is all-recondite. Being brutalized

Their true need is brute-language, cheery grunts

And kindly cluckings, no articulate

Nonsense that 's elsewhere knowledge. Tend the sick,

Sickened myself at pig-perversity,

Cat-craft, dog-snarling--maybe, snapping" ...

"Brief:

You eat that root of bitterness called Man

--Raw: I prefer it cooked, with social sauce!

So, he was not the rich youth after all!

Well, I mistook. But somewhere needs must be

The compensation. If not young nor rich" ...

"You interrupt!"

"Because you 've daubed enough

Bistre for background. Play the artist now,

Produce your figure well-relieved in front!

The contrast--do not I anticipate?

Though neither rich nor young--what then? 'T is all

Forgotten, all this ignobility,

In the dear home, the darling word, the smile,

The something sweeter" ...