Chapter XIII: Part THE FOURTH

"Thus With The Year
Seasons Return, But Not To Me Returns
Day, Or The Sweet Approach Of Even Or Morn,
Or Sight Of Vernal Bloom, Or Summer's Rose,
Or Flocks, Or Herds, Or Human Face Divine;
But Cloud Instead, And Ever-during Dark
Surrounds Me."--_paradise Lost, Book III._

"Though Fall'n On Evil Days,
In Darkness, And With Danger Compass'd Round,
And Solitude; Yet Not Alone, While Thou
Visit'st My Slumbers Nightly, Or When Morn
Purples The East."--_paradise Lost, Book VII._

I.

Its gay farewell to hospitable eaves
The swallow twitter'd in the autumn heaven;
Dumb on the crisp earth fell the yellowing leaves,
Or, in small eddies, fitfully were driven
Down the bleak waste of the remorseless air.
Out, from the widening gaps in dreary boughs,
Alone the laurel smiled,--as freshly fair
As its own chaplet on immortal brows,
When Fame, indifferent to the changeful sun,
Sees waning races wither, and lives on.--
An old man sate before that deathless tree
Which bloom'd his humble dwelling-place beside;
The last pale rose which lured the lingering bee
To the low porch it scantly blossom'd o'er,
Nipp'd by the frost-air had that morning died.
The clock faint-heard beyond the gaping door,
Low as a death-watch, click'd the moments' knell;
And through the narrow opening you might see
Uncertain foot-prints on the sanded floor
(Uncertain foot-prints which of blindness tell);
The rude oak board, the morn's untasted fare;
The scatter'd volumes and the pillow'd chair,
In which, worn out with toil and travel past,
Life, the poor wanderer, finds repose at last.

II.

The old man felt the fresh air o'er him blowing
Waving thin locks from musing temples pale;
Felt the quick sun through cloud and azure going,
And the light dance of leaves upon the gale,
In that mysterious symbol-change of earth
Which looks like death, though but restoring birth.
Seasons return; for him shall not return
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn.
Whatever garb the mighty mother wore,
Nature to him was changeless evermore.--
List, not a sigh!--though fall'n on evil days,
With darkness compass'd round--those sightless eyes
Need not the sun; nightly he sees the rays,
Nightly he walks the bowers of Paradise.
High, pale, still, voiceless, motionless, alone,
Death-like in calm as monumental stone,
Lifting his looks into the farthest skies,
He sate: And as when some tempestuous day
Dies in the hush of the majestic eve,
So on his brow--where grief has pass'd away,
Reigns that dread stillness grief alone can leave.

III.

And while he sate, nor saw, nor sigh'd,--drew near
A timorous trembling step;--from the far clime
The Pilgrim Woman came: long year on year,
In brain-sick thought that takes no heed of time,
How had she pined to gaze upon that brow
Last seen in youth, when she was young:--AND NOW!
And now! O words that make the sepulchre
Of all our Past! Life sheds no sadder tear
Than, when recalling what the Hours inter
Of hopes, of passions, of the things that made
Our hearts once quicken with tumultuous bliss,
We feel what worlds within ourselves can fade,
Sighing "And now!"--Alas the nothingness
Even of love--had it no life but this!

IV.

Thus as she stood and gazed, and noiseless wept,
Two young slight forms across the threshold crept
And reach'd the blind grey man, and kiss'd his hand,
And then a moment o'er his lips there stray'd
The old, familiar, sweet yet stately smile.
On either side the children took their stand,
And all the three were silent for awhile:
Till one, the gentler, whisper'd some soft word,
Mingling her young locks with that silvery hair;
And the old man the child's meek voice obey'd,
Rose,--lingering yet to breathe the gladsome air--
Or catch the faint note of the neighbouring bird;
Then leaning on the two, his head he bow'd,
And from the daylight pensive pass'd away.
Sharp swept the wind, the thrush forsook the spray,
And the poor Pilgrim wept at last aloud.

V.

Hark, from within, slow and sonorous stole
Deep organ-tones; with solemn pomp of sound
Meet to bear up the disimprison'd soul
From mortal homage in material piles,
To blend with Angel Halleluiahs!--Round
The charmed place the notes melodious roll
As with a visible flood: adown the aisles
Of Nature's first cathedrals (vistas dim,
Through leafless woodlands), far and farther float
On to the startled haunts of toiling men,
The marching music-tides: the heavenly note
Thrills through the reeking air of alleys grim;
Awes wolf-eyed Guilt close skulking in its den;
Lulls Childhood, wailing with white lips for bread,
On the starved breast of nerveless Penury;
Fever lies soothed upon its burning bed:
Indignant Worth stills its world-weary sigh;
The widow'd bride looks upward from the dead,
And deems she hears his welcome to the sky.
On, the grand music, more and more remote,
Bore the grey blind man's soul, itself a hymn,
Till lost in air amid the Seraphim.

VI.

Our life is as a circle, and our age
Back to our youth returns at last in dreams;
The intermediate restless pilgrimage
Vexing the earth with toils, the air with schemes,
Pays our hard tribute to the work-day world.
That done, as some storm-shatter'd argosy
Puts to the port from whence its sail unfurl'd,
The soul regains the first familiar shore,
And greets the quiet it disdain'd before.
He who in youth from purple poetry
Flush'd the grey clouds in this cold common sky,
After his shadeless undelusive noon
Shall mark the roseate hues, which morning wore,
Herald the eve, and gird his setting sun;
And the last Hesperus shine on Helicon.
O long (yet nobly, since for man) resign'd
Nature's most sovereign, care's most soothing boon;
Again, again, with vervain fillets bind
Anointed brows--O Mage supreme of song!
Again before the enchanted crystal glass
Let the celestial phantoms glide along--
Thou, whose sweet tears yet hallow Lycidas;
Thou, who the soul of Plato didst unsphere,
By chaste Sabrina's beryl-paven cell!
If now no more thou deign'st to charm the ear
"With measures ravish'd from Apollo's shell,"
Re-wake the harp which mournful willows hide
Left by the captives of Jerusalem;
For thou hast thought of Sion, and beside
The streams of Babylon, hast wept--like them!

VII.

Aged, forsaken--to the crowd below
(As to the Priest[F] who chronicled the time),
"_One Milton!_--_The blind Teacher_"--be it so.
Neglect and ruin make but more sublime
The last lone column which survives the dearth
Of a lost city,--when it lifts on high.
Above the waste and solitude of earth
Its front: and soars, the Neighbour of the Sky.

To him a Voice floats down from every star;
An Angel bends from every cloud that rolls;
Life has no mystery from our sight more far
Than the still joy in solemn Poet-souls.
As some vast river, fresh'ning lands unknown
Where never yet a human footstep trod,
Leave the grand Song to flow majestic on
And hymn delight, from all its waves, to God.

VIII.

A death-bell ceased;--beneath the vault were laid
A great man's bones;--and when the rest were gone,
Veil'd, and in sable widow-'d weeds array'd,
An aged woman knelt upon the stone.
Low as she pray'd, the wailing notes were sweet
With the strange music of a foreign tongue:
Thrice to that spot came feeble, feebler feet,
Thrice on that stone were humble garlands hung.
On the fourth day some formal hand in scorn
The flowers that breathed of priestcraft cast away;
But the poor stranger came not with the morn,
And flowers forbidden deck'd no more the clay.
A heart was broken!--and a spirit fled!
Whither--let those who love and hope decide--
But in the faith that Love rejoins the dead,
The heart was broken ere the garland died.

[F] Burnett.

EVA.

A TRUE STORY.

I.

THE MAIDEN'S HOME.

A cottage in a peaceful vale;
A jasmine round the door;
A hill to shelter from the gale;
A silver brook before.
Oh, sweet the jasmine's buds of snow,
In mornings soft with May;
Oh, silver-clear the waves that flow,
Reflecting heaven, away!
A sweeter bloom to Eva's youth
Rejoicing Nature gave;
And heaven was mirror'd in her truth
More clear than on the wave.
Oft to that lone sequester'd place
My boyish steps would roam,
There was a look in Eva's face
That seem'd a smile of home.
And oft I paused to hear at noon
A voice that sang for glee;
Or mark the white neck glancing down,--
The book upon the knee.--

II.

THE IDIOT BOY.

Who stands between thee and the sun?--
A cloud himself,--the Wandering One!
A vacant wonder in the eyes,--
The mind, a blank, unwritten scroll;--
The light was in the laughing skies,
And darkness in the Idiot's soul.
He touch'd the book upon her knee--
He look'd into her gentle face--
"Thou dost not tremble, maid, to see
Poor Arthur by thy dwelling-place.
I know not why, but where I pass
The aged turn away;
And if my shadow vex the grass,
The children cease from play.
_My_ only playmates are the wind,
The blossom on the bough!
"Why are thy looks so soft and kind?
Thou dost not tremble--thou!"
Though none were by, she trembled not--
Too meek to wound, too good to fear him;
And, as he linger'd on the spot,
She hid the tears that gush'd to hear him.--

III.

PRAYER OF ARTHUR'S FATHER.

"O Maiden!"--thus the sire begun--
"O Maiden, do not scorn my prayer:
I have a hapless idiot son,
To all my wealth the only heir;
And day by day, in shine or rain,
He wanders forth, to gaze again
Upon those eyes, whose looks of kindness
Still haunt him in his world of blindness;
A sunless world!--all arts to yield
Light to the mind from childhood seal'd
Have been explored in vain.
Few are his joys on earth;--above,
For every ill a cure is given--
God grant me life to cheer with love
The wanderer's guileless path to Heaven."
He paused--his heart was full--"And now,
What brings the suppliant father here?
Yes, few the joys that life bestows
On him whose life is but repose--
One night, from year to year;--
Yet not so dark, O maid, if thou
Couldst let his shadow catch thy light,
Couldst to his lip that smile allow
Which comes but at thy sight;
Couldst--(for the smile is still so rare,
And oh, so innocent the joy!)
His presence, though it pain thee, bear,
Nor fear the harmless idiot boy!"
Then Eva's father, from her brow
Parted the golden locks, descending
To veil the sweet face, downwards bending:--
And, pointing to the swimming eyes,
The dew-drops glist'ning on the cheek,
"Mourner!" _the happier_ father cries,
"These tears her answer speak!"

Oh, sweet the jasmine's buds of snow,
In mornings soft with May;
Oh, silver-clear the waves that flow
In summer skies away;--
But sweeter looks of kindness seem
O'er human trouble bow'd,
And gentle hearts reflect the beam
Less truly than the cloud.

IV.

THE YOUNG TEACHER.

Of wonders on the land and deeps
She spoke, and glories in the sky--
The Eternal life the Father keeps,
For those who learn from Him to die.
So simply did the maiden speak--
So simply and so earnestly,
You saw the light begin to break,
And Soul the Heaven to see;
You saw how slowly, day by day,
The darksome waters caught the ray
Confused and broken--come and gone--
The beams as yet uncertain are,
But still the billows murmur on,
And struggle for the star.

V.

THE STRANGER SUITOR.

There came to Eva's maiden home
A Stranger from a sunnier clime;
The lore that Hellas taught to Rome,
The wealth that Wisdom works from Time,
Which ever, in its ebb and flow,
Heaves to the seeker on the shore
The waifs of glorious wrecks below,
The argosies of yore;--
Each gem that in that dark profound
The Past,--the Student's soul can find;
Shone from his thought, and sparkled round
The Enchanted Palace of the Mind.
In man's best years, his form was fair,
Broad brow with hyacinth locks of hair;
A port, though stately, not severe;
An eye that could the heart control;
A voice whose music to the ear,
Became a memory to the soul.
It seem'd as Nature's hand had done
Her most to mould her kingly son;
But oft beneath the sunlit Nile
The grim destroyer waits its prey,
And dark, below that fatal smile,
The lurking demon lay.

How trustful in the leafy June,
She roved with him the lonely vale;
How trustful by the tender moon,
She blushed to hear a tenderer tale.
O happy Earth! the dawn revives,
Day after day, each drooping flower--
Time to the heart _once_ only gives
The joyous Morning Hour.
"To him--oh, wilt thou pledge thy youth,
For whom the world's false bloom is o'er?
My heart shall haven in thy truth,
And tempt the faithless wave no more.
In my far land, a sun more bright
Sheds rose-hues o'er a tideless sea;
But cold the wave, and dull the light,
Without the sunshine found in thee.
Say, wilt thou come, the Stranger's bride,
To that bright land and tideless sea?
There is no sun but by thy side--
My life's whole sunshine smiles in thee!"

Her hand lay trembling on his arm,
Averted glow'd the happy face;
A softer hue, a mightier charm,
Grew mellowing o'er the hour--the place;
Along the breathing woodlands moved
A PRESENCE dream-like and divine--
How sweet to love and be beloved,
To lean upon a heart that's thine!
Silence was o'er the earth and sky--
By silence Love is answer'd best--
_Her_ answer was the downcast eye,
The rose-cheek pillow'd on his breast.
What rustles through the moonlit brake?
What sudden spectre meets their gaze?
What face, the hues of life forsake,
Gleams ghost-like in the ghostly rays?
You might have heard his heart that beat,
So heaving rose its heavy swell--
_No more the Idiot_--at her feet,
The Dark One, roused to reason, fell.
Loosed the last link that thrall'd the thought,
The lightning broke upon the blind--
The jealous love the cure had wrought,
The Heart in waking woke the Mind.

VI.

THE MARRIAGE.

To and fro the bells are swinging,
Cheerily, clearly, to and fro;
Gaily go the young girls, bringing
Flowers the fairest June may know.
Maiden, flowers that bloom'd and perish'd
Strew'd thy path the bridal day;
May the Hope thy soul has cherish'd,
Bloom when these are pass'd away!

The Father's parting prayer is said,
The daughter's parting kiss is given;
The tears a happy bride may shed,
Like dews ascend to heaven;
And leave the earth from which they rise,
But balmier airs, and rosier dyes.

VII.

THE HERMIT.

Years fly; beneath the yew-tree shade
Thy father's holy dust is laid;
The brook glides on, the jasmine blows;
But where art thou, the wandering wife,
And what the bliss, and what the woes,
Glass'd in the mirror-sleep of life?
For whether life may laugh or weep,
Death the true waking--life the sleep.
None know! afar, unheard, unseen--
The present heeds not what has been;
This herded world together press'd,
Can miss no straggler from the rest--
Not so! Nay, all _one_ heart may find,
Where Memory lives, a saint enshrined--
Some altar-hearth, in which our shade
The Household-god of Thought is made,
And each slight relic hoarded yet
With faith more solemn than regret.
Who tenants thy forsaken cot--
Who tends thy childhood's favourite flowers--
Who wakes, from every haunted spot,
The Ghosts of buried Hours?
'Tis He whose sense was doom'd to borrow
From thee the Vision and the Sorrow--
To whom the Reason's golden ray,
In storms that rent the heart was given;
The peal that burst the clouds away
Left clear the face of heaven!
And wealth was his, and gentle birth,
A form in fair proportions cast;
But lonely still he walk'd the earth--
The Hermit of the Past.
It was not love--that dream was o'er!
No stormy grief, no wild emotion;
For oft, what once was love of yore,
The memory soothes into devotion!
He bought the cot:--The garden flowers--
The haunts his Eva's steps had trod,
Books--thought--beguiled the lonely hours,
That flow'd in peaceful waves to God.

VIII.

DESERTION.

She sits, a Statue of Despair,
In that far land, by that bright sea;
She sits, a Statue of Despair,
Whose smile an Angel seem'd to be--
An angel that could never die,
Its home the heaven of that blue eye!
The smile is gone for ever there--
She sits, the Statue of Despair!
She knows it all--the hideous tale--
The wrong, the perjury, and the shame;--
Before the bride had left her vale,
Another bore the nuptial name;
Another lives to claim the hand
Whose clasp, in thrilling, had defiled:
Another lives, O God, to brand
The Bastard's curse upon her child!
ANOTHER!--through all space she saw
The face that mock'd th' unwedded mother's!
In every voice she heard the Law,
That cried, "Thou hast usurp'd another's!"
And who the horror first had told?--
From _his_ false lips in scorn it came--
"Thy charms grow dim, my love grows cold;
My sails are spread--Farewell."
Rigid in voiceless marble there--
Come, sculptor, come--behold Despair!

The infant woke from feverish rest--
Its smiles she sees, its voice she hears--
The marble melted from the breast,
And all the Mother gush'd in tears.

IX.

THE INFANT-BURIAL

To and fro the bells are swinging,
Heavily heaving to and fro;
Sadly go the mourners, bringing
Dust to join the dust below.
Through the church-aisle, lighted dim,
Chanted knells the ghostly hymn,
_Dies irae, dies illa,
Solvet saeclum in favilla!_
Mother! flowers that bloom'd and perish'd,
Strew'd thy path the bridal day;
Now the bud thy grief has cherish'd,
With the rest has pass'd away!
Leaf that fadeth--bud that bloometh,
Mingled there, must wait the day
When the seed the grave entombeth
Bursts to glory from the clay.
_Dies irae, dies illa,
Solvet saeclum in favilla!_
Happy are the old that die,
With the sins of life repented;
Happier he whose parting sigh
Breaks a heart, from sin prevented!
Let the earth thine infant cover
From the cares the living know;
Happier than the guilty lover--
Memory is at rest below!
Memory, like a fiend, shall follow,
Night and day, the steps of Crime;
Hark! the church-bell, dull and hollow,
Shakes another sand from time!
Through the church-aisle, lighted dim,
Chanted knells the ghostly hymn;
Hear it, False One, where thou fliest,
Shriek to hear it when thou diest--
_Dies irae, dies illa,
Solvet saeclum in favilla!_

X.

THE RETURN.

The cottage in the peaceful vale,
The jasmine round the door,
The hill still shelters from the gale,
The brook still glides before.

Without the porch, one summer noon,
The Hermit-dweller see!
In musing silence bending down,
The book upon his knee.

Who stands between thee and the sun?--
A cloud herself,--the Wand'ring One!--
A vacant sadness in the eyes,
The mind a razed, defeatured scroll;
The light is in the laughing skies,
And darkness, Eva, in thy soul!
The beacon shaken in the storm,
Had struggled still to gleam above
The last sad wreck of human love,
Upon the dying child to shed
One ray--extinguish'd with the dead:
O'er earth and heaven then rush'd the night!
A wandering dream, a mindless form--
A Star hurl'd headlong from its height,
Guideless its course, and quench'd its light.
Yet still the native instinct stirr'd
The darkness of the breast--
She flies, as flies the wounded bird
Unto the distant nest.
O'er hill and waste, from land to land,
Her heart the faithful instinct bore;
And there, behold the Wanderer stand
Beside her Childhood's Home once more!

XI.

LIGHT AND DARKNESS.

When earth is fair, and winds are still,
When sunset gilds the western hill,
Oft by the porch, with jasmine sweet,
Or by the brook, with noiseless feet,
Two silent forms are seen;
So silent they--the place so lone--
They seem like souls when life is gone,
That haunt where life has been:
And his to watch, as in the past
Her soul had watch'd his soul.
Alas! _her_ darkness waits the last,
The grave the only goal!
It is not what the leech can cure--
An erring chord, a jarring madness:
A calm so deep, it must endure--
So deep, thou scarce canst call it sadness;
A summer night, whose shadow falls
On silent hearths in ruin'd halls.
Yet, through the gloom, she seem'd to feel
His presence like a happier air,
Close by his side she loved to steal,
As if no ill could harm her there!
And when her looks his own would seek,
Some memory seem'd to wake the sigh,
Strive for kind words she could not speak,
And bless him in the tearful eye.
O sweet the jasmine's buds of snow,
In mornings soft with May,
And silver-clear the waves that flow
To shoreless deeps away;
But heavenward from the faithful heart
A sweeter incense stole;--
The onward waves their source desert,
But Soul returns to Soul!

THE FAIRY BRIDE.

A TALE[A]