Chapter III

But one sweet passage from the book you read
The o’ergrown bud of love contrived to burst,
And all the beauty it had warmly nursed
Broke in our trembling hearts and blossomèd.
Youth’s long-fought fire our unloosed fancies fed;
Our souls felt Love’s unsatiable thirst;
O! happiest moment then, but now the worst,
When life’s blue sky grew all aflame with red!
But when you told how that long looked for smile
Was kissed by noble Lancelot, then--then--
You kissed my quivering lips; nor read again;
And bliss eternal breathed in us awhile.
Ah, me! there is no greater grief than when we feel
The thought of happier days o’er present sorrows steal.

DE SENECTUTE.

Ninety years forever fled
Seem but ninety minutes past,
As I, waiting for the last,
Live alone among the dead.

Musing in the gloom and glow,
Lo! I see a ghostly train,
Spectres conjured by the brain,
Images of long ago.

From the soul rise strangled cries,
Death-groans from the sins it wrought;
From the mind spring buried thought,
Poisoned hopes, vain sympathies.

In a weird, phantasmal band,
Seen as though in life’s eclipse,
Perished women kiss my lips,
Dead men take me by the hand.

Infant figures glad with glee,
Cluster in unbidden band,
Clasp my old and palsied hand
Pulsing high with memory.

Pass light fingers through my hair,
Once like their’s all tangled gold,
Silvery now and thin and old,
Bleached with age and blanched with care.

Softly touch my parchment skin,
Laugh and touch again and ask
That I throw aside time’s mask,
Dull with years and dark with sin.

Look into my dim, dead eyes,
Dimmer now with tears that start
From the little left of heart
That to those dear souls outflies.

Crowds of spirit-children pass,
Faces, lost long years ago,
Buds, soon buried in the snow,
Playmates--comrades in the class.

Chide me for my childish tears,
Bid me join the childish game,
Call me by a childish name
None have named for scores of years.

Youths, high-souled, with aims that age
Neither blighted nor betrayed,
Look with truth-lit eyes that made
Noble life’s short pilgrimage.

Friends whose friendship now I crave,
Hearts whose love I yet would feel,
One by one before me steal,
In and out my living grave.

All things I have seen and known,
Read in book and dreamed in dream,
Stand as true as they did seem
When I claimed them for my own.

I have tried the truth of life,
Kissed love’s lips till they grew cold,
Drained the cup and clutched the gold,
Mingled in the human strife.

Seen men come and go like leaves
Through the falls of many years,
Joined their laughter, shared their tears,
In the plot the great God weaves.

Ninety years forever fled,
Seem but ninety minutes past,
And I, waiting for the last,
Live alone among the dead.

THE COMING OF SUMMER.

Grim Winter rose and girded on his sword
To battle with the world. At each swift blow
The wind hissed cold, and at the sound abhorred
Birds ceased their singing and the river’s flow
Stayed in its course, the sun’s warm glow
Reached not the flowers through the air’s dark frown,
The last leaves perished, and the crystal snow
Paled the soft bosom of the earth so brown
And all her pulsing life was frozen down.

Within Time’s wondrous palace of past years
Nature sat grieving on her ancient throne;
Her furrowed cheeks were wet with scalding tears,
And from her wrinkled mouth ’scaped many a moan;
For she was brooding on delights long flown,
When all was bright and happy and the land
Flourished in fruitfulness, and there was known
No sign of sorrow, ere stern Winter’s hand
Gave right of spoil to all his ruthless band.

“Ah me!” she cried aloud in accents sad,
“That ever son of Time should work such woe,
And he of all the offspring I have had,
The eldest, unto whom my love did go
Like streams that meadow margins overflow
With rainy surfeit for the thirsty earth;
Whom I had hoped from childhood would upgrow
Rich in high thought, bold deed and noble worth,
And yet Woe’s curse fell on him from his birth.”

In simple beauty Spring knelt gently down,
Kissed the sad tears from Nature’s care-worn face,
Smoothed from her thoughtful brow each troublous frown
With tender hands, that left of pain no trace,
And then upstood in modest maiden grace,
Saying: “Behold! mine hour hath come to me;
I go to make my love a resting-place
Against his coming from beyond the sea--
A throne most fitting for his sovereignty.”

So Spring walked forth into the icy cold,
And as her first soft footfall touched the earth,
A joyous thrill on everything took hold,
And from the spot a snowdrop white had birth;
Then a bold robin piped across the dearth
Of frozen land a loud defiant sound;
Then Winter knew his power was little worth,
And sped him forth to higher vantage ground,
With all his yelling rout fast flying round.

The birds set up a chorus of glad song,
Watching their nests among the shady trees;
Insects in quick innumerable throng
Made live the earth and air; gold-laden bees
Scorned the fine butterflies that flew at ease
Among the blossomed beauties of the fields;
The strong young leaves defied the assaulting breeze,
Spreading the brightness of their verdant shields
To guard the nurseling fruit that Autumn yields.

Where the thin moonbeams cast their joys along
A verdured vale of rapturous delight
Spring caught the echoes of the herald’s song,
And saw the flowerets in the dead of night
Lift up their watchful faces, glad and bright,
And heard the birds soft singing through the shade,
Singing for Summer and the morning light;
Then sank her soul within her, and afraid,
She watched the circuit that the fast moon made.

As Death, unseen, poised high his vengeful dart,
And Nature knelt beside Spring’s fallen form,
Night’s outer curtain ’gan to wave and part
Before the sun’s first breath, so bright and warm;
The diamond dew to rainbows did transform,
The flowers raised up their heads to their full height,
The breeze bore on its wings a music storm
As every bird sang forth in full delight
And loudest strain the sighings of the night.

And Spring, revived a little, moved her head,
And to her mother said, in accents mild:
“Before he comes, alas! I may be dead.
O hasten to him, mother, for thy child,
And give him this, I plucked it in the wild,
And tell him ere King Death his mantle throws
I would he kissed my lips, and on me smiled.
O haste thee, mother mine! take this white rose,
And bid him come my dying eyes to close.”

With her last word the golden door swung free,
A blaze of sunshine scattered all the gloom,
Sweet music rolled in a voluptuous sea,
The radiant air was filled with scent and bloom,
And Summer stood, the bravest-hearted groom
That ever bride had waited for and won;
But Spring lay like an image on a tomb,
Her too-short pilgrimage already done,
Her blue eyes closed, her latest breath begun:

And as her soul forsook its frail abode,
Golden-haired Summer, with a cry of pain,
Across the threshold of Time’s palace strode,
With tears that fell in showers like to rain,
Calling on Spring to come to life again.
But tears could not disturb her last repose,
And all the calling of his heart was vain.
Summer still thinks of Spring--his grief he shows,
When golden raindrops fall upon the rose.

RONDEL.

God’s wisdom all my spirit fills
With faith that puts to flight all doubt,
The snow dissolving into rills
Refreshing earth from last year’s drought
Adown the peeping slopes of hills
Carve their increasing channels out,
God’s wisdom all my spirit fills
With faith that puts to flight all doubt.

The day that stirs, the night that stills;
Spring’s masque of flowers; rich summer’s rout;
Each wonder, far past finding out,
With joy and love my bosom thrills;
God’s wisdom all my spirit fills
With faith that puts to flight all doubt.

THE ABBEY WALLS.

This was the Abbey long years ago
When a priest was pious, a lord was brave
And a lady repeated her Ave slow
With fair eyes fixed on the architrave
As she heard a sanctified voice that clave
The clear bright air with a holy strain:
All have been lost in Time’s great wave--
Only the old grey walls remain.

One arch still stands of all the row
That circled the Abbey so tall and brave,
These flags as legend would have us know,
Are the very stones that used to pave
The cloister-walk, when a proud margrave
Heard from his hiding a love-talk plain
Which he never forgot and never forgave,
Only the old grey walls remain.

Here where the nettle and nightshade grow
By a nameless stone, is the quiet grave
Of a murdered priest;--they laid him low
Under the walk of the quiet nave.
’Tis whispered alas! that a dagger gave
A stab to the heart that brought no pain;
Of all the story that Time could save
Only the old grey stones remain.

ENVOI.

Ballade! To that dead lady go
Say Love still sings its sad refrain;
Of its lofty hope and sunny glow
Only its old grey walls remain.

THE VIOLET.

Born in the night and christened with the dew,
The violet lifts its face for morning’s kiss;
And each fair petal, filled with Nature’s bliss,
Weaves from the sunshine a sweet robe of blue.
The birds look down and wonder how it grew,
For yesterday the leaves where now it is
Lay green i’ the grass, and nought was like to this,
Earth’s earliest counterfeit of Heaven’s hue.
The shy hepatica; the showdrop white;
The trebly mounted trillium; the blaze
Of golden daffodil with sunny rays--
Have all arisen in their beauty bright;
But none of Flora’s first-born can compare,
With this blue-blossomed darling of the air.

LA FARFALLA.

Bright little butterfly, mounting at morning
Over Love’s garden of sweet delight,
Heedless of harm and the honey-bee’s warning,
Bent upon pleasure, in pains despite.
Gaily thou flutterest, gaudily flaunting
All thy fair charms to the winds that kiss
Like a soul in elysian happiness haunting
New meadows of bliss.

When the first grey beam of the dawn uplifting
Shadows of sleep from a world of dreams,
From sea-marge to mountain and meadow-land drifting,
Lighted at last on thy wings’ bright gleams
Kissed thee and waked thee and whispered thee hasten
To herald the sun where it might not smite
In the deeps of dark dells where white flowers wasten
And languish for light.

Thou hast bathed in the sun-flashing spray that arises
From ripples that laugh on the brook’s fair face,
Thou hast gazed in the mirror that Nature devises
For Beauty’s delight in her own sweet grace,
Thou hast basked in the heat of the noon-tide splendour
When cricket piped high in the grass beneath,
And the blossoms that carried thy burden so tender
Were crowned with a wreath.

The lily grew pale for thou passed its perfection,
The violet bowed in a passion of grief,
The daisy had hope of thy gracious election,
The blue-bell despaired of its heart’s relief,
The hyacinth spread all its beauties before thee,
The marjoram blushed as it caught thine eye,
The mignonette flung its sweet fragrance o’er thee--
But thou passed them by.

Light was thy heart and the pleasures thou scattered
Were pure as the flowers on which they fell,
Till the red rose sought thee and caught thee and flattered,
With promise of love thou hast known too well.
All the long hours till the low sun glamoured
The bright blushing petals to kiss and to toy,
Thou paused in thy flight, for thy heart enamoured
Drank deeply of joy.

The blossoms that drooped in the dark and were sighing
For tidings of light thou wert bidden to tell
Lay down in despair, dreading death, and yet dying
And great was the grief in deeps of the dell,
For thou hadst forgotten the message of morning
And the work of the day thou wast given to do,
For the love of the rose and the honey-bee’s scorning
For thy love was true.

Poor little butterfly! dying so sadly
At the rise of the moon o’er the ripe-gold grain;
Dost thou rue of the pleasure thou tasted so madly,
Would’st thou take back thy love to take life again?
Ah, no! Love is sweeter and meeter than duty,
And shall hold thee in joy till thy last breath beats,
Till thou liest at rest--a dead marvel of beauty
Surrounded by sweets.

COWPER.

A gentle stream purled on its peaceful way
Through woodlands fair and meadows wondrous sweet,
Chancing at length a cavern dark to meet
Within whose depth ne’er fell the light of day;
Lo! as it entered, heavenward flew the spray
All loth to pass beyond and backward beat,
As though the natural course it would defeat
That plunged it where the sun cast not a ray.
Through that lone cave of blackness on it sped,
Its happy music turned to mournful sigh,
Until it reached the end, when earth and sky
Shone doubly bright that seemed for so long dead;--
Thus didst thou pass, sweet singer, through the gloom
Of life’s dark hollow. Light came at the tomb.

RAIN.

Love only laughs when sunshine floods the air,
When winds flute summer music through the trees,
When nature’s masquers are attired to please
And Flora holds gay gala everywhere;
But now Heaven’s brow is underknit with care,
Low clouds burst forth a-weeping, flowery leas
Are drowned with runnels and the ponds grow seas,
Leaves droop beneath the dripping loads they bear,
And silence reigns in each late lute-filled bough;
The cricket chorus and the humming crowd
That tell how labour lightens earth’s hard way
Are all--all gone. Love hears no music now--
Only an endless falling, sharp and loud,
The dreary rhythm of a rainy day.

HYMN.

When the calm of night is falling
And the cares of day are o’er,
Hear the voice of Jesus calling;--
Go to Him and sin no more.

When the heart is sad and troubled
He alone can peace restore,
By his love is life ennobled;--
Go to Him and sin no more.

When the soul in grief and anguish
Mourns the evil done before,
Let your faith no longer languish;--
Go to Him and sin no more.

Go to Him! for He can only
Soothe the pain and heal the sore,
All who are distressed and lonely;--
Go to Him and sin no more.

Go to Him! lay down your burden,
At His feet His love implore,
Ask in penitence for pardon;--
Go to Him and sin no more.

Go to Him! He hath invited
All to enter Heaven’s door,
Sinners by His love united;--
Go to Him and sin no more.

THE GREAT PLAY.

There is a playwright older than the years,
Who maketh all men actors in his play,
And, though they know not what they do or say,
The purpose of the plot in all appears.
Each in his turn, beset with inborn fears,
Enters unseen, youth’s comedy so gay,
Laughs through the hours that glide too soon away
Beneath the clouds of soul-consuming tears.
Then manhood’s tragedy with perils fraught,
Pursues its fickle fortunes to the end,
When Fate, the villain of the piece doth send
By whom the last exciting scene is wrought;
A timely stab from Death’s sure-falling knife
Brings down the curtain o’er the play of life.