Chapter VIII

A year pass’d over me. Can I forget
That wondrous April day that set me free?
At first, as though I own’d no soul at all,
I seem’d myself a part of that wide air,
And all things else had souls. The very earth
Beneath me seem’d alive! its pulse to throb
Through every trembling bush! its lungs to heave
Where soft-blown wind-sighs thrill’d the wooded hills!
And then, this great life broke in many lives,
All one through sympathy. In lieu of clouds,
The gusty breeze caught up the fluttering lark
And shook down showers of trills that made bare rocks
More sweet than fount-spray’d flowers, while all the leaves
Went buzzing on their boughs like swarming bees.
Then reverence hush’d the whole; for, greeting me,
Our dear church spire seem’d soon to mount the hill,
Our home to reach around a slow-turn’d rock,—
And all stood still with Haydn. Chill as ice,
My hot cheek felt my sister’s kiss then, then my father’s,
And then bewilder’d, as from out a dream,
At last I woke.
And what a dawn was that!
As if the sun had drawn the earth to itself,
I dwelt in central light; and heaven, high heaven—
Could feel some rays, perhaps, was touch’d by them,
At star-points in the sky, but own’d no more.

IX.

Doretta in the year had grown so fair
That, in her first ripe flush of maidenhood,
I did not wonder, while I watch’d his eyes,
My Haydn’s eyes, that he could crave the fruit.
And intimate they were. Right merrily
Through all the house I heard their voices chime.
But me our Haydn did not seem to know;
So quiet was he, and reserved with me.
Yet all my heart would flutter like a bird’s
At his approach; and all my will fly off,
And, as if poised in air and not in me,
Leave half my words and ways without control,
Until I seem’d as if I prized him not.