Chapter II: Part 2

"Ay, as a cousin. He woo'd me, Leopard mine,
I speared him with a jest; for there are men
Whose sinews stiffen 'gainst a knitted brow,
Yet are unthreaded, loosened by a sneer,
And their resolve doth pass as doth a wave:
Of this sort was my cousin. I saw him once,
Adown a pleachèd alley, in the sun,
Two gorgeous peacocks pecking from his hand;
At sight of me he first turned red, then pale.
I laughed and said, 'I saw a misery perched
I' the melancholy corners of his mouth,
Like griffins on each side my father's gates.'
And, 'That by sighing he would win my heart,
Somewhere as soon as he could hug the earth,
And crack its golden ribs.' A week the boy
Dwelt in his sorrow, like a cataract
Unseen, yet sounding through its shrouding mists.
Strange likings, too, this cousin had of mine.
A frail cloud trailing o'er the midnight moon,
Was lovelier sight than wounded boar a-foam
Among the yelping dogs. He'd lie in fields,
And through his fingers watch the changing clouds,
Those playful fancies of the mighty sky,
With deeper interest than a lady's face.
He had no heart to grasp the fleeting hour,
Which, like a thief, steals by with silent foot,
In his closed hand the jewel of a life.
He scarce would match this throned and kingdom'd earth
Against a dew drop.

"Who'd leap into the chariot of my heart,
And seize the reins, and wind it to his will,
Must be of other stuff, my cub of Ind;
White honour shall be like a plaything to him,
Borne lightly, a pet falcon on his wrist;
One who can feel the very pulse o' the time,
Instant to act, to plunge into the strife,
And with a strong arm hold the rearing world.
In costly chambers hushed with carpets rich,
Swept by proud beauties in their whistling silks,
Mars' plait shall smooth to sweetness on his brow;
His mighty front whose steel flung back the sun,
When horsed for battle, shall bend above a hand
Laid like a lily in his tawny palm,
With such a grace as takes the gazer's eye.
His voice that shivered the mad trumpet's blare,--
A new-raised standard to the reeling field,--
Shall know to tremble at a lady's ear,
To charm her blood with the fine touch of praise,
And as she listens--steal away the heart.
If the good gods do grant me such a man,
More would I dote upon his trenchèd brows,
His coal-black hair, proud eyes, and scornful lips,
Than on a gallant, curled like Absalom,
Cheek'd like Apollo, with his luted voice.

"Canst tell me, Sir Dark-eyes,
Is 't true what these strange-thoughted poets say,
That hearts are tangled in a golden smile?
That brave cheeks pale before a queenly brow?
That mail'd knees bend beneath a lighted eye?
That trickling tears are deadlier than swords?
That with our full-mooned beauty we can slave
Spirits that walk time, like the travelling sun,
With sunset glories girt around his loins?
That love can thrive upon such dainty food
As sweet words, showering from a rosy lip,
As sighs, and smiles, and tears, and kisses warm?"
The dark Page lifted up his Indian eyes
To that bright face, and saw it all a-smile;
And then half grave, half jestingly, he said,--
"The devil fisheth best for souls of men
When his hook is baited with a lovely limb;
Love lights upon the heart, and straight we feel
More worlds of wealth gleam in an upturned eye,
Than in the rich heart of the miser sea.
Beauty hath made our greatest manhoods weak.
There have been men who chafed, leapt on their times,
And reined them in as gallants rein their steeds
To curvetings, to show their sweep of limb;
Yet love hath on their broad brows written 'fool.'
Sages, with passions held in leash like hounds;
Grave Doctors, tilting with a lance of light
In lists of argument, have knelt and sighed
Most plethoric sighs, and been but very men;
Stern hearts, close barred against a wanton world,
Have had their gates burst open by a kiss.
Why, there was one who might have topped all men,
Who bartered joyously for a single smile
This empired planet with its load of crowns,
And thought himself enriched. If ye are fair,
Mankind will crowd around you thick as when
The full-faced moon sits silver on the sea,
The eager waves lift up their gleaming heads,
Each shouldering for her smile."

The lady dowered him with her richest look,
Her arch head half aside, her liquid eyes,
From 'neath their dim lids drooping slumberous,
Stood full on his, and called the wild blood up
All in a tumult to his sun-kissed cheek,
As if it wished to see her beauty too--
Then asked in dulcet tones, "Dost think _me_ fair?"
"Oh, thou art fairer than an Indian morn,
Seated in her sheen palace of the east.
Thy faintest smile out-prices the swelled wombs
Of fleets, rich-glutted, toiling wearily
To vomit all their wealth on English strands.
The whiteness of this hand should ne'er receive
A poorer greeting than the kiss of kings;
And on thy happy lips doth sit a joy,
Fuller than any gathered by the gods,
In all the rich range of their golden heaven."
"Now, by my mother's white enskied soul!"
The lady cried, 'twixt laugh and blush the while,
"I'll swear thou'st been in love, my Indian sweet.
Thy spirit on another breaks in joy,
Like the pleased sea on a white-breasted shore--
That blush tells tales. And now, I swear by all
The well-washed jewels strewn on fathom-sands,
That thou dost keep her looks, her words, her sighs,
Her laughs, her tears, her angers, and her frowns,
Balmed between memory's leaves; and ev'ry day
Dost count them o'er and o'er in solitude,
As pious monks count o'er their rosaries.
Now, tell me, did she give thee love for love?
Or didst thou make Midnight thy confidant,
Telling her all about thy lady's eyes,
How rich her cheek, how cold as death her scorn?
My lustrous Leopard, hast thou been in love?"
The Page's dark face flushed the hue of wine
In crystal goblet stricken by the sun;
His soul stood like a moon within his eyes,
Suddenly orbed; his passionate voice was shook
By trembling into music.--"Thee I love."
"Thou!" and the Lady, with a cruel laugh,
(Each silver throb went through him like a sword,)
Flung herself back upon her fringèd couch.
From which she rose upon him like a queen,
She rose and stabbed him with her angry eyes.
"'Tis well my father did not hear thee, boy,
Or else my pretty plaything of an hour
Might have gone sleep to-night without his head,
And I might waste rich tears upon his fate.
I would not have my sweetest plaything hurt.
Dost think to scorch me with those blazing eyes,
My fierce and lightning-blooded cub o' the sun?
Thy blood is up in riot on thy brow,
I' the face o' its monarch. Peace! By my grey sire,
Now could I slay thee with one look of hate,
One single look! My Hero! my Heart-god!
My dusk Hyperion, Bacchus of the Inds!
My Hercules, with chin as smooth as my own!
I am so sorry maid, I cannot wear
This great and proffered jewel of thy love.
Thou art too bold, methinks! Didst never fear
That on my poor deserts thy love would sit
Like a great diamond on a threadbare robe?
I tremble for 't. I pr'ythee, come to-morrow
And I will pasture you upon my lips
Until thy beard be grown. Go now, sir, go."
As thence she waved him with arm-sweep superb,
The light of scorn was cold within her eyes,
And withered his bloom'd heart, which, like a rose,
Had opened, timid, to the noon of love.

The lady sank again into her couch,
Panting and flushed; slowly she paled with thought;
When she looked up the sun had sunk an hour,
And one round star shook in the orange west.
The lady sighed, "It was my father's blood
That bore me, as a red and wrathful stream
Bears a shed leaf. I would recall my words,
And yet I would not.
Into what angry beauty rushed his face!
What lips! what splendid eyes! 'twas pitiful
To see such splendours ebb in utter woe.
His eyes half-won me. Tush! I am a fool;
The blood that purples in these azure veins,
Rich'd with its long course through a hundred earls,
Were fouled and mudded if I stooped to him.
My father loves him for his free wild wit;
I for his beauty and sun-lighted eyes.
To bring him to my feet, to kiss my hand,
Had I it in my gift, I'd give the world,
Its panting fire-heart, diamonds, veins of gold;
Its rich strands, oceans, belts of cedared hills,
Whence summer smells are struck by all the winds.
But whether I might lance him through the brain
With a proud look,--or whether sternly kill
Him with a single deadly word of scorn,--
Or whether yield me up,
And sink all tears and weakness in his arms,
And strike him blind with a strong shock of joy--
Alas! I feel I could do each and all.
I will be kind when next he brings me flowers,
Plucked from the shining forehead of the morn,
Ere they have oped their rich cores to the bee.
His wild heart with a ringlet will I chain,
And o'er him I will lean me like a heaven,
And feed him with sweet looks and dew-soft words,
And beauty that might make a monarch pale,
And thrill him to the heart's core with a touch;
Smile him to Paradise at close of eve,
To hang upon my lips in silver dreams."

LADY.

What, art thou done already? Thy tale is like
A day unsealed with sunset. What though dusk?
A dusky rod of iron hath power to draw
The lightnings from their heaven to itself.
The richest wage you can pay love is--love.

WALTER.

Then close the tale thyself, I drop the mask;
I am the sun-tanned Page; the Lady, thou!
I take thy hand, it trembles in my grasp;
I look in thy face and see no frown in it.
O may my spirit on hope's ladder climb
From hungry nothing up to star-packed space,
Thence strain on tip-toe to thy love beyond--
The only heaven I ask!

LADY.

My God! 'tis hard!
When I was all in leaf the frost winds came,
And now, when o'er me runs the summer's breath,
It waves but iron boughs.

WALTER.

What dost thou murmur?
Thy cheeks burn mad as mine. O untouched lips!
I see them as a glorious rebel sees
A crown within his reach. I'll taste their bliss
Although the price be death----

LADY (_springing up_).

Walter! beware!
These tell-tale heavens are list'ning earnestly.
O Sir! within a month my bridal bells
Will make a village glad. The fainting Earth
Is bleeding at her million golden veins,
And by her blood I'm bought. The sun shall see
A pale bride wedded to grey hair, and eyes
Of cold and cruel blue; and in the spring
A grave with daisies on it. [_A pause._
O my friend!
We twain have met like ships upon the sea,
Who hold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet;
One little hour! and then, away they speed
On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam,
To meet no more. We have been foolish, Walter!
I would to God that I had never known
This secret of thy heart, or else had met thee
Years before this. I bear a heavy doom.
If thy rich heart is like a palace shattered,
Stand up amid the ruins of thy heart,
And with a calm brow front the solemn stars.
[LADY _pauses;_ WALTER _remains silent._
'Tis four o'clock already. She, the moon,
Has climbed the blue steep of the eastern sky,
And sits and tarries for the coming night.
So let thy soul be up and ready armed,
In waiting till occasion comes like night;
As night to moons to souls occasion comes.
I am thine elder, WALTER! in the heart,
I read thy future like an open book:
I see thou shalt have grief; I also see
Thy grief's edge blunted on the iron world.
Be brave and strong through all thy wrestling years,
A brave soul is a thing which all things serve;
When the great Corsican from Elba came,
The soldiers sent to take him, bound or dead,
Were struck to statues by his kingly eyes:
He spoke--they broke their ranks, they clasped his knees,
With tears along a cheering road of triumph
They bore him to a throne. Know when to die!
Perform thy work and straight return to God.
Oh! there are men who linger on the stage
To gather crumbs and fragments of applause
When they should sleep in earth--who, like the moon,
Have brightened up some little night of time,
And 'stead of setting when their light is worn,
Still linger, like its blank and beamless orb,
When daylight fills the sky. But I must go.
Nay, nay, I go alone! Yet one word more,--
Strive for the Poet's crown, but ne'er forget
How poor are fancy's blooms to thoughtful fruits;
That gold and crimson mornings, though more bright
Than soft blue days, are scarcely half their worth.
Walter, farewell! the world shall hear of thee.
[LADY _still lingers._
I have a strange sweet thought. I do believe
I shall be dead in spring, and that the soul
Which animates and doth inform these limbs
Will pass into the daisies of my grave:
If memory shall ever lead thee there,
Through daisies I'll look up into thy face
And feel a dim sweet joy; and if they move,
As in a little wind, thou'lt know 't is I. [LADY _goes._

WALTER (_after a long interval, looking up_).

God! what a light has passed away from earth
Since my last look! How hideous this night!
How beautiful the yesterday that stood
Over me like a rainbow! I am alone.
The past is past. I see the future stretch
All dark and barren as a rainy sea.

SCENE V.

WALTER, _wandering down a rural lane. Evening of the same day as Scene IV._

WALTER.

Sunset is burning like the seal of God
Upon the close of day.--This very hour
Night mounts her chariot in the eastern glooms
To chase the flying Sun, whose flight has left
Footprints of glory in the clouded west:
Swift is she haled by wingèd swimming steeds,
Whose cloudy manes are wet with heavy dews,
And dews are drizzling from her chariot wheels.
Soft in her lap lies drowsy-lidded Sleep,
Brainful of dreams, as summer hive with bees;
And round her in the pale and spectral light
Flock bats and grisly owls on noiseless wings.
The flying sun goes down the burning west,
Vast night comes noiseless up the eastern slope,
And so the eternal chase goes round the world.

Unrest! unrest! The passion-panting sea
Watches the unveiled beauty of the stars
Like a great hungry soul. The unquiet clouds
Break and dissolve, then gather in a mass,
And float like mighty icebergs through the blue.
Summers, like blushes, sweep the face of earth;
Heaven yearns in stars. Down comes the frantic rain;
We hear the wail of the remorseful winds
In their strange penance. And this wretched orb
Knows not the taste of rest; a maniac world,
Homeless and sobbing through the deep she goes.
[_A Child runs past;_ WALTER _looks after her._
O thou bright thing, fresh from the hand of God,
The motions of thy dancing limbs are swayed
By the unceasing music of thy being!
Nearer I seem to God when looking on thee.
'Tis ages since he made his younger star.
His hand was on thee as 'twere yesterday,
Thou later Revelation! Silver Stream,
Breaking with laughter from the lake divine
Whence all things flow! O bright and singing babe!
What wilt thou be hereafter?--Why should man
Perpetuate this round of misery
When he has in his hand the power to close it?
Let there be no warm hearts, no love on earth.
No Love! No Love! Love bringeth wretchedness.
No holy marriage. No sweet infant smiles.
No mother's bending o'er the innocent sleep
With unvoiced prayers and with happy tears.
Let the whole race die out, and with a stroke,
A master-stroke, at once cheat Death and Hell
Of half of their enormous revenues.
[WALTER _approaches a cottage; a peasant sitting at the door._
One of my peasants. 'Tis a fair eve.

PEASANT.

Ay, Master!
How sweet the smell of beans upon the air;
The wheat is earing fairly. We have reason
For thankfulness to God.

WALTER (_looking upward_).

We _have_ great reason;
For He provides a balm for all our woes.
He has made Death. Thrice blessed be His name!

PEASANT.

He has made Heaven----

WALTER.

To yawn eternities.
Did I say death? O God! there is no death.
When our eyes close, we only pass one stage
Of our long being.--Dost thou wish to die?

PEASANT.

I trust in God to live for many years,
Although with a worn frame and with a heart
Somewhat the worse for wear.

WALTER.

O fool! fool! fool!
These hands are brown with toil; that brow is seamed,
Still must you sweat and swelter in the sun,
And trudge, with feet benumbed, the winter's snow,
Nor intermission have until the end.
Thou canst not draw down fame upon thy head,
And yet would cling to life! I'll not believe it;
The faces of all things belie their hearts,
Each man's as weary of his life as I.
This anguish'd earth shines on the moon--a moon.
The moon hides with a cloak of tender light
A scarr'd heart fed upon by hungry fires.
Black is this world, but blacker is the next;
There is no rest for any living soul:
We are immortals--and must bear with us
Through all eternity this hateful being;
Restlessly flitting from pure star to star,
The memory of our sins, deceits, and crimes,
Eating into us like a poisoned robe.
Yet thou canst wear content upon thy face
And talk of thankfulness! O die, man, die!
Get underneath the earth for very shame.
[_During this speech the Child draws near;
at its close her Father presents her to_ WALTER.
Is this thy answer? [_Looks at her earnestly._
O my worthy friend,
I lost a world to-day and shed no tear;
Now I could weep for _thee_. Sweet sinless one!
My heart is weak as a great globe, all sea.
It finds no shore to break on but thyself:
So let it break.
[_He hides his face in his hands, the Child
looking fearfully up at him._

SCENE VI.

_A Room in London._ WALTER _reading from a manuscript._

My head is grey, my blood is young,
Red-leaping in my veins,
The spring doth stir my spirit yet
To seek the cloistered violet,
The primrose in the lanes.
In heart I am a very boy,
Haunting the woods, the waterfalls,
The ivies on grey castle-walls;
Weeping in silent joy
When the broad sun goes down the west,
Or trembling o'er a sparrow's nest.

The world might laugh were I to tell
What most my old age cheers,--
Mem'ries of stars and crescent moons,
Of nutting strolls through autumn noons,
Rainbows 'mong April's tears.
But chief, to live that hour again,
When first I stood on sea-beach old,
First heard the voice, first saw out-rolled
The glory of the main.
Many rich draughts hath Memory,
The Soul's cup-bearer, brought to me.

I saw a garden in my strolls,
A lovely place, I ween,
With rows of vermeil-blossomed trees,
With flowers, with slumb'rous haunts of bees,
With summer-house of green.
A peacock perched upon a dial,
In the sun's face he did unclose
His train superb with eyes and glows,
To dare the sun to trial.
A child sat in a shady place,
A shower of ringlets round her face.

She sat on shaven plot of grass,
With earnest face, and weaving
Lilies white and freakèd pansies
Into quaint delicious fancies,
Then, on a sudden leaving
Her floral wreath, she would upspring
With silver shouts and ardent eyes,
To chase the yellow butterflies,
Making the garden ring;
Then gravely pace the scented walk,
Soothing her doll with childish talk.
And being, as I said before,
An old man who could find
A boundless joy beneath the skies,
And in the light of human eyes,
And in the blowing wind,
There, daily were my footsteps turned,
Through the long spring, until the peach
Was drooping full-juiced in my reach.--
Each day my old heart yearned
To look upon that child so fair,
That infant in her golden hair.

In this green lovely world of ours
I have had many pets,
Two are still leaping in the sun,
Three are married; _that_ dearest one
Is 'neath the violets.
I gazèd till my heart grew wild,
To fold her in my warm caresses,
Clasp her showers of golden tresses,--
Oh, dreamy-eyèd child!
O Child of Beauty! still thou art
A sunbeam in this lonely heart.

When autumn eves grew chill and rainy,
England left I for the Ganges;
I couched 'mong groves of cedar-trees,
Blue lakes, and slumb'rous palaces,
Crossed the snows of mountain-ranges,
Watched the set of old Orion,
Saw wild flocks and wild-eyed shepherds,
Princes charioted by leopards,
In the desert met the lion,
The mad sun above us glaring,--
Child! for thee I still was caring.

Home returned from realms barbaric,
By the shores of Loch Lubnaig,
A dear friend and I were walking
('Twas the Sabbath), we were talking
Of dreams and feelings vague;
We pausèd by a place of graves,
Scarcely a word was 'twixt us given,
Silent the earth, silent the heaven,
No murmur of the waves,
The awèd Loch lay black and still
In the black shadow of the hill.

We loosed the gate and wandered in,
When the sun eternal
Was sudden blanched with amethyst,
As if a thick and purple mist
Dusked his brows supernal.
Soon like a god in mortal throes,
City, hill, and sea, he dips
In the death-hues of eclipse;
Mightier his anguish grows,
Till he hung black, with ring intense,
The wreck of his magnificence.
Above the earth's cold face he hung
With a pale ring of glory,
Like that which cunning limners paint
Around the forehead of a saint,
Or brow of martyr hoary.
And sitting there I could but choose,--
That blind and stricken sun aboon,
Stars shuddering through the ghostly noon,
'Mong the thick-falling dews,--
To tell, with features pale and wild,
About that Garden and that Child.

When moons had waxed and waned, I stood
Beside the garden gate,
The Peacock's dial was overthrown,
The walks with moss were overgrown,
_Her_ bower was desolate.
Gazing in utter misery
Upon that sad and silent place,
A woman came with mournful face,
And thus she said to me,--
"Those trees, as they were human souls,
All withered at the death-bell knolls."

I turned and asked her of the child.
"She is gone hence," quoth she,
"To be with Christ in Paradise.
Oh, sir! I stilled her infant cries,
I nursed her on my knee.
Though we were ever at her side,
And saw life fading in her cheek,
She knew us not, nor did she speak,
Till just before she died;
In the wild heart of that eclipse,
These words came through her wasted lips:--

'The callow young were huddling in the nests,
The marigold was burning in the marsh,
Like a thing dipt in sunset, when He came.

My blood went up to meet Him on my face,
Glad as a child that hears its father's step,
And runs to meet him at the open porch.

I gave Him all my being, like a flower
That flings its perfume on a vagrant breeze;
A breeze that wanders on and heeds it not.

His scorn is lying on my heart like snow,
My eyes are weary, and I fain would sleep;
The quietest sleep is underneath the ground.

Are ye around me, friends? I cannot see,
I cannot hear the voices that I love,
I lift my hands to you from out the night!

Methought I felt a tear upon my cheek;
Weep not, my mother! It is time to rest,
And I am very weary; so, good night!'

"My heart is in the grave with her,
The family went abroad;
Last autumn you might see the fruits,
Neglected, rot round the tree-roots;
This spring no leaves they shewed.
I sometimes fear my brain is crost:
Around this place, the churchyard yonder,
All day, all night, I silent wander,
As woeful as a ghost----
God take me to His gracious keeping,
But this old man is wildly weeping!"

That night the sky was heaped with clouds;
Through one blue gulf profound,
Begirt with many a cloudy crag,
The moon came rushing like a stag,
And one star like a hound.
Wearily the chase I eyed,
Wearily I saw the Dawn's
Feet sheening o'er the dewy lawns.
O God! that I had died.
My heart's red tendrils were all torn
And bleeding on that summer morn.

WALTER (_after a long silence, speaking abstractedly, and with frequent pauses_).

Twice hath the windy Summer made a noise
Of leaves o'er all the land from sea to sea,
And still that Child's face sleeps within my heart
Like a young sunbeam in a gloomy wood,
Making the darkness smile--I almost smile
At the strange fancies I have girt her with;
The garden, peacock, and the black eclipse,
The still old graveyard 'mong the dreary hills,
Grey mourners round it--I wonder if she's dead?
She was too fair for earth. Ah! she would die
Like music, sunbeams, and the pallid flowers
That spring on Winter's corse--I saw those graves
With Him who is no more. They are all dead,
The beings whom I loved, and I am sad,
But would not change my sadness for a life
Without a fissure running through its joy.
This very hour a suite of sumptuous rooms
O'erflows with music like a cup with wine;
Outside, the night is weeping like a girl
At her seducer's door, and still the rooms
Run o'er with music, careless of her woe.
I would not have my heart thus. This poor rhyme
Is but an adumbration of my life,
My misery tricked out in a quaint disguise.
Oh, it did happen on a summer day
When I was playing unawares with flowers,
That happiness shot past me like a planet,
And I was barren left!

_Enter_ EDWARD, _unobserved._

EDWARD.

Walter's love-sick for Fame:
A haughty mistress! How this mad old world
Reels to its burning grave, shouting forth names,
Like a wild drunkard at his frenzy's height,
And they who bear them deem such shoutings _Fame_,
And, smiling, die content. What is thy thought?

WALTER.

'Tis this, a sad one:--Though our beings point
Upward, like prayers or quick spires of flame,
We soon lose interest in this breathing world.
Joy palls from taste to taste, until we yawn
In Pleasure's glowing face. When first we love,
Our souls are clad with joy, as if a tree,
All winter-bare, had on a sudden leapt
To a full load of blooms; next time 'tis nought.
Great weariness doth feed upon the soul;
I sometimes think the highest-blest in heaven
Will weary 'mong its flowers. As for myself,
There's nothing new between me and the grave
But the cold feel of Death.

EDWARD.

Watch well thy heart!
It is, methinks, an eager shaking star,
Not a calm steady planet.

WALTER.

I love thee much,
But thou art all unlike the glorious guide
Of my proud boyhood. Oh, he led me up,
As Hesper, large and brilliant, leads the night!
Our pulses beat together, and our beings
Mixed like two voices in one perfect tune,
And his the richest voice. He loved all things,
From God to foam-bells dancing down a stream,
With a most equal love. Thou mock'st at much;
And he who sneers at any living hope
Or aspiration of a human heart,
Is just so many stages less than God,
That universal and all-sided Love.
I'm wretched, Edward! to the very heart;
I see an unreached heaven of young desire
Shine through my hopeless tears. My drooping sails
Flap idly 'gainst the mast of my intent.
I rot upon the waters when my prow
Should grate the golden isles.

EDWARD.

What wouldst thou do?
Thy brain did teem with vapours wild and vast.

WALTER.

But since my younger and my hotter days
(As nebula condenses to an orb),
These vapours gathered to one shining hope,
Sole-hanging in my sky.

EDWARD.

What hope is that?

WALTER.

To set this Age to music--The great work
Before the Poet now--I do believe
When it is fully sung, its great complaint,
Its hope, its yearning, told to earth and heaven,
Our troubled age shall pass, as doth a day
That leaves the west all crimson with the promise
Of the diviner morrow, which even then
Is hurrying up the world's great side with light.
Father! if I should live to see that morn,
Let me go upward, like a lark, to sing
One song in the dawning!

EDWARD.

Ah, my ardent friend!
You need not tinker at this leaking world,
'Tis ruined past all cure.

WALTER.

Edward, for shame!
Not on a path of reprobation runs
The trembling earth. God's eye doth follow her
With far more love than doth her maid, the moon.
Speak no harsh words of Earth, she is our mother,
And few of us, her sons, who have not added
A wrinkle to her brow. She gave us birth,
We drew our nurture from her ample breast,
And there is coming, for us both, an hour
When we shall pray that she will ope her arms
And take us back again. Oh, I would pledge
My heart, my blood, my brain, to ease the earth
Of but one single pang!

EDWARD.

So would not I.
Because the pangs of earth shall ne'er be eased.
We sleep on velvets now, instead of leaves;
The land is covered with a net of iron,
Upon whose spider-like, far-stretching lines,
The trains are rushing, and the peevish sea
Frets 'gainst the bulging bosoms of the ships,
Whose keels have waked it from its hour's repose.
Walter! this height of civilisation's tide
Measures our wrong. We've made the immortal Soul
Slave to the Body. 'Tis the Soul has wrought
And laid the iron roads, evoked a power
Next mightiest to God, to drive the trains
That bring the country butter up to town;
Has drawn the terrible lightning from its cloud,
And tamed it to an eager Mercury,
Running with messages of news and gain;
And still the Soul is tasked to harder work,
For Paradise, according to the world,
Is scarce a league a-head.

WALTER.

The man I loved
Wrought this complaint of thine into a song,
Which I sung long ago.

EDWARD.

We must reverse
The plans of ages. Let the Body sweat,
So that the soul be calm, why should _it_ work?
Say, had I spent the pith of half my life,
And made me master of our English law,
What gain had I on resurrection morn,
But such as hath the body of a clown,
That it could turn a summerset on earth?
A single soul is richer than all worlds,
Its acts are only shadows of itself,
And oft its wondrous wealth is all unknown;
'Tis like a mountain-range, whose rugged sides
Feed starveling flocks of sheep; pierce the bare sides,
And they ooze plenteous gold. We must go down
And work our souls like mines, make books our lamps,
Not shrines to worship at, nor heed the world--
Let it go roaring past. You sigh for Fame;
Would serve as long as Jacob for his love,
So you might win her. Spirits calm and still
Are high above your order, as the stars
Sit large and tranquil o'er the restless clouds
That weep and lighten, pelt the earth with hail,
And fret themselves away. The truly great
Rest in the knowledge of their own deserts,
Nor seek the confirmation of the world.
Wouldst thou be calm and still?

WALTER.

I'd be as lieve
A minnow to leviathan, that draws
A furrow like a ship. Away! away!
You'd make the world a very oyster-bed.
I'd rather be the glad, bright-leaping foam,
Than the smooth sluggish sea. O let me live
To love and flush and thrill--or let me die!

EDWARD.

And yet, what weariness was on your tongue
An hour ago!--you shall be wearier yet.

SCENE VII.

_A Balcony overlooking the Sea_--EDWARD _and_ WALTER _seated._

WALTER.

The lark is singing in the blinding sky,
Hedges are white with May. The bridegroom sea
Is toying with the shore, his wedded bride,
And, in the fulness of his marriage joy,
He decorates her tawny brow with shells,
Retires a space, to see how fair she looks,
Then proud, runs up to kiss her. All is fair--
All glad, from grass to sun! Yet more I love
Than this, the shrinking day, that sometimes comes
In Winter's front, so fair 'mong its dark peers,
It seems a straggler from the files of June,
Which in its wanderings had lost its wits,
And half its beauty; and, when it returned,
Finding its old companions gone away,
It joined November's troop, then marching past;
And so the frail thing comes, and greets the world
With a thin crazy smile, then bursts in tears,
And all the while it holds within its hand
A few half-withered flowers. I love and pity it!

EDWARD.

Air is like Happiness or Poetry.
We see it in the glorious roof of day,
We feel it lift the down upon the cheek,
We hear it when it sways the heavy woods,
We close our hand on 't--and we have it not.

WALTER.

I'd be above all things the summer wind
Blowing across a kingdom, rich with alms
From ev'ry flower and forest, ruffling oft
The sea to transient wrinkles in the sun,
Where ev'ry wrinkle is a flash of light.

EDWARD.

Like God, I would pervade Humanity,
From bridegroom dreaming on his marriage morn,
To a wild wretch tied on the farthest bough
Of oak that roars on edge of an abyss,
The while the desperate wind with all its strength
Strains the whole night to drive it down the gulf,
Which like a beast gapes wide for man and tree.
I'd creep into the lost and ruined hearts
Of sinful women dying in the streets,--
Of pinioned men, their necks upon the block,
Axe gleaming in the air.

WALTER.

Away, away!
Break not, my Edward, this consummate hour;
For very oft within the year that's past
I've fought against thy drifts of wintry thought
Till they put out my fires, and I have lain,
A volcano choked with snow. Now let me rest!
If I should wear a rose but once in life,
You surely would not tear it leaf from leaf,
And trample all its sweetness in the dust!
Thy dreary thoughts will make my festal heart
As empty and as desolate's a church
When worshippers are gone and night comes down.
Spare me this happy hour, and let me rest!

EDWARD.

The banquet you do set before your joys
Is surely but indifferently served,
When they so readily vacate their seats.

WALTER (_abstractedly_).

Would I could raise the dead!
I am as happy as the singing heavens--
There was one very dear to me that died,
With heart as vacant as a last-year's nest.
Oh, could I bring her back, I'd empty mine,
And brim hers with my joy!--enough for both.

EDWARD (_after a pause_).

The garrulous sea is talking to the shore,
Let us go down and hear the greybeard's speech.
[_They walk along the sands._
I shall go down to Bedfordshire to-morrow.
Will you go with me?

WALTER.

Whom shall we see there?

EDWARD.

Why, various specimens of that biped, Man.
I'll show you one who might have been an abbot
In the old time; a large and portly man,
With merry eyes, and crown that shines like glass.
No thin-smiled April he, bedript with tears,
But appled-Autumn, golden-cheeked and tan;
A jest in his mouth feels sweet as crusted wine.
As if all eager for a merry thought,
The pits of laughter dimple in his cheeks.
His speech is flavorous, evermore he talks
In a warm, brown, autumnal sort of style.
A worthy man, Sir! who shall stand at compt
With conscience white, save some few stains of wine.

WALTER.

Commend me to him! He is half right. The Past
Is but an emptied flask, and the rich Future
A bottle yet uncorked. Who is the next?

EDWARD.

Old Mr. Wilmott; nothing in himself,
But rich as ocean. He has in his hand
Sea-marge and moor, and miles of stream and grove,
Dull flats, scream-startled, as the exulting train
Streams like a meteor through the frighted night,
Wind-billowed plains of wheat, and marshy fens,
Unto whose reeds on midnights blue and cold,
Long strings of geese come clanging from the stars.
Yet wealthier in one child than in all these!
Oh! she is fair as Heaven! and she wears
The sweetest name that woman ever wore.
And eyes to match her name--'Tis Violet.

WALTER.

If like her name, she must be beautiful.

EDWARD.

And so she is; she has dark violet eyes,
A voice as soft as moonlight. On her cheek
The blushing blood miraculous doth range
From tender dawn to sunset. When she speaks
Her soul is shining through her earnest face,
As shines a moon through its up-swathing cloud--
My tongue's a very beggar in her praise,
It cannot gild her gold with all its words.

WALTER.

Hath unbreeched Cupid struck your heart of ice?
You speak of her as if you were her lover.
Could _you_ not find a home within her heart?
No, no! you are too cold, you never loved.

EDWARD.

There's nothing colder than a desolate hearth.

WALTER.

A desolate hearth! Did fire leap on it once?

EDWARD.

My hand is o'er my heart--and shall remain.--
Let the swift minutes run, red sink the sun,
To-morrow will be rich with Violet.

WALTER.

So be it, large he sinks! Repentant Day
Frees with his dying hand the pallid stars
He held imprisoned since his young hot dawn.
Now watch with what a silent step of fear
They'll steal out one by one, and overspread
The cool delicious meadows of the night.

EDWARD.

And lo, the first one flutters in the blue
With a quick sense of liberty and joy!

(_Two hours afterwards_), WALTER.

The rosy glow has faded from the sky,
The rosy glow has faded from the sea.
A tender sadness drops upon my soul,
Like the soft twilight dropping on the world.

EDWARD.

Behold yon shining symbol overhead,
Clear Venus hanging in the mellow west,
Jupiter large and sovereign in the east,
With the red Mars between.

WALTER.

See yon poor star
That shudders o'er the mournful hill of pines!
'Twould almost make you weep, it seems so sad.
'Tis like an orphan trembling with the cold
Over his mother's grave among the pines.
Like a wild lover who has found his love
Worthless and foul, our friend, the sea, has left
His paramour the shore; naked she lies,
Ugly and black and bare. Hark how he moans!
The pain is in his heart. Inconstant fool!
He will be up upon her breast to-morrow,
As eager as to-day.

EDWARD.

Like man in that.
We cannot see the lighthouse in the gloom,
We cannot see the rock; but look! now, now,
It opes its ruddy eye, the night recoils,
A crimson line of light runs out to sea,
A guiding torch to the benighted ships.
[_After a long pause._
O God! 'mid our despairs and throbs and pains,
What a calm joy doth fill great Nature's heart!

WALTER.

Thou look'st up to the night as to the face
Of one thou lov'st; I know her beauty is
Deep-mirrored in thy soul as in a sea.
What are thy thinkings of the earth and stars?
A theatre magnificently lit
For sorry acting, undeserved applause?
Dost think there's any music in the spheres?
Or doth the whole creation, in thine ear,
Moan like a stricken creature to its God,
Fettered eternal in a lair of pain?

EDWARD.

I think--we are two fools: let us to bed.
What care the stars for us?

SCENE VIII.

_Evening_--_A Room in a Manor_--Mr. WILMOTT, ARTHUR, EDWARD--WALTER _seated a little apart._

WALTER.

She grows on me like moonrise on the night--
My life is shaped in spite of me, the same
As ocean by his shores. Why am I here?
The weary sun was lolling in the west,
Edward and I were sauntering on the shore
Yawning with idleness; and so we came
To kill the tedium of slow-creeping days.
On such slight hinges an existence turns!
How frequent in the very thick of life
We rub clothes with a fate that hurries past!
A tiresome friend detains us in the street,
We part, and turning, meet fate in the teeth.
A moment more or less had 'voided it.
Yet through the subtle texture of our souls,
From circumstance each draws a different hue.
The sunlight falls upon a bed of flowers,
From the same sunlight one draws crimson deep,
Another azure pale. Edward and I
See Violet each day, her silks brush both,
She smiles on both alike--My heart! she comes.
[VIOLET _enters and crosses the room._
O God! I'd be the very floor that bears
Such a majestic thing! Now feed, my eyes,
On beauteous poison, Nightshade, honey sweet.
[_A silence._

VIOLET.

There is a ghastly chasm in the talk,
As if a fate hung in the midst of us,
Its shadow on each heart. Why, this should be
A dark and lustrous night of wit and wine,
Rich with quick bouts of merry argument,
And witty sallies quenched in laughter sweet,
Yet my voice trembles in a solitude,
Like a lone man in a great wilderness.

MR. WILMOTT.

Arthur, you once could sing a roaring song,
That to the chorus drew our voices out;
'Twere no bad plan to sing us one to-night.
Come, wash the roughness from your throat with wine.

ARTHUR.

What sort of song, Sirs, shall I sing to you--
Dame Venus panting on her bed of flowers,
Or Bacchus purple-mouthed astride his tun?
Now for a headlong song of blooded youth,
Give 't such a welcome as shall lift the roof off--
Sweet friends, be ready with a hip hurrah!

ARTHUR _sings._

A fig for a draught from your crystalline fountains,
Your cold sunken wells,
In mid forest dells,
Ha! bring me the fiery bright dew of the mountains,
When yellowed with peat-reek, and mellowed with age,
O, richest joy-giver!
Rare warmer of liver!
Diviner than kisses, thou droll and thou sage!
Fine soul of a land struck with brightest sun-tints,
Of dark purple moors,
Of sleek ocean-floors,
Of hills stained with heather like bloody footprints;
In sunshine, in rain, a flask shall be nigh me,
Warm heart, blood and brain, Fine Sprite deify me!

I've drunk 'mong slain deer in a lone mountain shieling,
I've drunk till delirious,
While rain beat imperious,
And rang roof and rafter with bagpipes and reeling.
I've drunk in Red Rannoch, amid its grey boulders:
Where, fain to be kist,
Through his thin scarf of mist,
Ben-More to the sun heaves his wet shining shoulders!
I've tumbled in hay with the fresh ruddy lasses,
I've drunk with the reapers,
I've roared with the keepers,
And scared night away with the ring of our glasses!
In sunshine, in rain, a flask shall be nigh me,
Warm heart, blood, and brain, Fine Sprite deify me!

Come, string bright songs upon a thread of wine,
And let the coming midnight pass through us,
Like a dusk prince crusted with gold and gems!
Our studious Edward from his Lincoln fens,
And home quaint-gabled hid in rooky trees,
Seen distant is the sun in the arch of noon,
Seen close at hand, the same sun large and red,
His day's work done, within the lazy west
Sitting right portly, staring at the world
With a round, rubicund, wine-bibbing face--
Ha! like a dove, I see a merry song
Pluming itself for flight upon his lips.

EDWARD _sings._

My heart is beating with all things that are,
My blood is wild unrest;
With what a passion pants yon eager star
Upon the water's breast!
Clasped in the air's soft arms the world doth sleep,
Asleep its moving seas, its humming lands;
With what an hungry lip the ocean deep
Lappeth for ever the white-breasted sands;
What love is in the moon's eternal eyes,
Leaning unto the earth from out the midnight skies!

Thy large dark eyes are wide upon my brow,
Filled with as tender light
As yon low moon doth fill the heavens now,
This mellow autumn night!
On the late flowers I linger at thy feet,
I tremble when I touch thy garment's rim,
I clasp thy waist, I feel thy bosom's beat--
O kiss me into faintness sweet and dim!
Thou leanest to me as a swelling peach,
Full-juiced and mellow, leaneth to the taker's reach.

Thy hair is loosened by that kiss you gave,
It floods my shoulders o'er;
Another yet! Oh, as a weary wave
Subsides upon the shore,
My hungry being with its hopes, its fears,
My heart like moon-charmed waters, all unrest,
Yet strong as is despair, as weak as tears,
Doth faint upon thy breast!
I feel thy clasping arms, my cheek is wet
With thy rich tears. One kiss! Sweet, sweet, another yet!

I sang this song some twenty years ago,
(Hot to the ear-tips, with great thumps of heart),
On the gold lawn, while, Cæsar-like, the sun
Gathered his robes around him as he fell.

ARTHUR.

Struck by some country cousin, a rosy beauty
Of the Dutch-cheese order, riched with great black eyes,
Which, when you planned a theft upon her lips,
Looked your heart quite away!
Oh, Love! oh, Wine! thou sun and moon o' our lives,
What oysters were we without love and wine!
Our host, I doubt not, vaults a mighty tun,
Wide-wombed and old, cobwebbed and dusted o'er.
Broach! and within its gloomy sides you'll find
A beating heart of wine. The world's a tun,
A gloomy tun, but he who taps the world
Will find much sweetness in 't. Walter, my boy,
Against this sun of wine's most purple light
Burst into song.

WALTER.

I fear, Sir, I have none.

ARTHUR.

Hang nuts in autumn woods? Then 't is your trade,
Spin us a new one. Come! some youth love-mad,
Reading the thoughts within his lady's eyes,
Earnest as One that looks into the Book,
Seeking the road to bliss--
Clothe me this bare bough with your sunny flowers.

WALTER.

The evening heaven is not always dressed
With frail cloud-empires of the setting sun,
Nor are we always in our singing-robes.
I have no song, nor can I make you one;
But, with permission, I will tell a tale.

ARTHUR.

If short and merry, Heaven speed your tongue;
If long and sad, the Lord have mercy on us!

WALTER.

Within a city One was born to toil,
Whose heart could not mate with the common doom
To fall like a spent arrow in the grave.
'Mid the eternal hum, the boy clomb up
Into a shy and solitary youth,
With strange joys and strange sorrows, oft to tears
He was moved, he knew not why, when he has stood
Among the lengthening shadows of the eve,
Such feeling overflowed him from the sky.
'Mong crowds he dwelt, as lonely as a star
Unsphered and exiled, yet he knew no scorn.
Once did he say, "For me, I'd rather live
With this weak human heart and yearning blood,
Lonely as God, than mate with barren souls;
More brave, more beautiful, than myself must be
The man whom truly I can call my Friend;
He must be an Inspirer, who can draw
To higher heights of Being, and aye stand
O'er me in unreached beauty, like the moon;
Soon as he fail in this, the crest and crown
Of noble friendship, he is nought to me.
What so unguessed as Death? Yet to the dead
It lies as plain as yesterday to us.
Let me go forward to my grave alone,
What need have I to linger by dry wells?"
Books were his chiefest friends. In them he read
Of those great spirits who went down like suns,
And left upon the mountain-tops of Death
A light that made them lovely. His own heart
Made him a Poet. Yesterday to him
Was richer far than fifty years to come.
Alchymist Memory turned his past to gold.
When morn awakes against the dark wet earth,
Back to the morn she laughs with dewy sides,
Up goes her voice of larks! With like effect
Imagination opened on his life,
_It_ lay all lovely in that rarer light.

He was with Nature on the sabbath-days;
Far from the dressed throngs and the city bells
He gave his hot brows to the kissing wind,
While restless thoughts were stirring in his heart.
"These worldly men will kill me with their scorns,
But Nature never mocks or jeers at me;
Her dewy soothings of the earth and air
Do wean me from the thoughts that mad my brain.
Our interviews are stolen, I can look,
Nature! in thy serene and griefless eyes
But at long intervals; yet, Nature! yet,
Thy silence and the fairness of thy face
Are present with me in the booming streets.
Yon quarry shattered by the bursting fire,
And disembowelled by the biting pick,
Kind Nature! thou hast taken to thyself;
Thy weeping Aprils and soft-blowing Mays,
Thy blossom-buried Junes, have smoothed its scars,
And hid its wounds and trenches deep in flowers.
So take my worn and passion-wasted heart,
Maternal Nature! Take it to thyself,
Efface the scars of scorn, the rents of hate,
The wounds of alien eyes, visit my brain
With thy deep peace, fill with thy calm my heart,
And the quick courses of my human blood."
Thus would he muse and wander, till the sun
Reached the red west, where all the waiting clouds,
Attired before in homely dun and grey,
Like Parasites that dress themselves in smiles
To feed a great man's eye, in haste put on
Their purple mantles rimmed with ragged gold,
And congregating in a shining crowd,
Flattered the sinking orb with faces bright.
As slow he journeyed home, the wanderer saw
The labouring fires come out against the dark,
For with the night the country seemed on flame:
Innumerable furnaces and pits,
And gloomy holds, in which that bright slave, Fire,
Doth pant and toil all day and night for man,
Threw large and angry lustres on the sky,
And shifting lights across the long black roads.