Chapter II: Part THE SECOND: I

London, I take thee to a Poet's heart!
For those who seek, a Helicon thou art.
Let schoolboy Strephons bleat of flocks and fields,
Each street of thine a loftier Idyl yields;
Fed by all life, and fann'd by every wind,
There burns the quenchless Poetry--_Mankind!_
Yet not for me the Olympiad of the gay,
The reeking SEASON'S dusty holiday:--
Soon as its summer pomp the mead assumes,
And Flora wanders through her world of blooms,
Vain the hot field-days of the vex'd debate,
When Sirius reigns,--let Tapeworm rule the state!
Vain Devon's cards, and Lansdowne's social feast,
Wit but fatigues, and Beauty's reign hath ceased.
His mission done, the monk regains his cell;
Nor even Douro's matchless face can spell.
Far from Man's works, escaped to God's, I fly,
And breathe the luxury of a smokeless sky.
Me, the still "LONDON," not the restless "TOWN"
(The light plume fluttering o'er the helmed crown),
Delights;--for there the grave Romance hath shed
Its hues; and air grows solemn with the Dead.
If, where the Lord of Rivers parts the throng,
And eastward glides by buried halls along,
My steps are led, I linger, and restore
To the changed wave the poet-shapes of yore;
See the gilt barge, and hear the fated king
Prompt the first mavis of our Minstrel spring;[J]
Or mark, with mitred Nevile,[K] the array }
Of arms and craft alarm "the Silent way," }
The Boar of Gloucester, hungering, scents his prey! }
Or, landward, trace where thieves their festive hall
Hold by the dens of Law,[L] (worst thief of all!)
The antique Temple of the armed Zeal
That wore the cross a mantle to the steel;
Time's dreary void the kindling dream supplies,
The walls expand, the shadowy towers arise,
And forth, as when by Richard's lion side,
For Christ and Fame, the Warrior-Phantoms ride!
Or if, less grave with thought, less rich with lore,
The later scenes, the lighter steps explore,
If through the haunts of living splendour led--
Has the quick Muse no empire but the Dead?
In each keen face, by Care or Pleasure worn,
Grief claims her sigh, or Vice invites her scorn;
And every human brow that veils a thought
Conceals the Castaly which Shakespeare sought.

II.

Amidst the crowd (what time the glowing Hours
Strew, as they glide, the summer world with flowers),
Who fly the solitude of sweets to drown
Nature's still whisper in the roar of Town;
Who tread with jaded step the weary mill--
Grind at the wheel, and call it "Pleasure" still;--
Gay without mirth, fatigued without employ,
Slaves to the joyless phantom of a joy;--
Amidst this crowd was one who, absent long,
And late return'd, outshone the meaner throng;
And, truth to speak, in him were blent the rays
Which form a halo in the vulgar gaze;
Howden's fair beauty, Beaufort's princely grace,
Hertford's broad lands, and Courtney's vaunted race;
And Pembroke's learning in that polish'd page,
Writ by the Grace, 'the Manners and the Age!'
Still with sufficient youth to please the heart,
But old enough for mastery in the art;--
Renown'd for conquests in those isles which lie
In rosy seas beneath a Cnidian sky,
Where the soft Goddess yokes her willing doves,
And meets invasion with a host of Loves;
Yet not unlaurell'd in the war of wile
Which won Ulysses grave Minerva's smile,
For those deep arts the diplomat was known
Which mould the lips that whisper round a throne.

Long in the numbing hands of Law had lain
Arden's proud earldom, Arden's wide domain.
Kinsman with kinsman, race with race had vied
To snatch the prize, and in the struggle died;
Till all the rights the crowd of heirs made dim,
Death clear'd--and solved the tangled skein in him.
There was but ONE who in the bastard fame
Wealth gives its darlings, rivall'd Arden's name:
A rival rarely seen--felt everywhere,
With soul that circled bounty like the air,
Simple himself, but regal in his train,
Lavish of stores he seem'd but to disdain;
To art a Medici--to want a god,
Life's rougher paths grew level where he trod.
Much Arden (Arden had a subtle mind,
Which sought in all philosophy to find)
Loved to compare the different means by which
Enjoyment yields a harvest to the rich--
Himself already marvell'd to behold
How soon trite custom wears the gleam from gold;
Well, was his rival happier from its use
Than he (his candour whisper'd) from abuse?
He long'd to know this Morvale, and to learn:
They met--grew friends--the Sybarite and the stern.
Each had some fields in common: mostly those
From which the plant of human friendship grows.
Each had known strong vicissitudes in life;
The present ease, and the remember'd strife.
Each, though from differing causes, nursed a mind
At war with Fate, and chafed against his kind.
Each with a searching eye had sought to scan
The solemn Future, soul predicts to man;
And each forgot how, cloud-like passions mar,
In the vex'd wave, the mirror of the star;--
How all the unquiet thoughts which life supplies
May swell the ocean but to veil the skies;
And dark to Man may grow the heaven that smiled
On the clear vision Nature gave the Child.
Each, too, in each, where varying most they seem,
Found that which fed half envy, half esteem.
As stood the Pilgrim of the waste before
The stream that parted from the enchanted shore,
Though on the opposing margent of the wave
Those fairy boughs but _seeming_ fruitage gave;
Though his stern manhood in its simple power,
If cross'd the barrier, soon had scorn'd the bower;
Yet, as some monk, whom holier cloisters shade,
Views from afar the glittering cavalcade,
And sighs, as sense against his will recalls
Fame's knightly lists and Pleasure's festive halls,--
So, while the conscience chid, the charm enchain'd,
And the heart envied what the soul disdain'd.

While Arden's nature in his friend's could find
An untaught force that awed his subtler mind--
Awed, yet allured;--that Eastern calm of eye
And mien--a mantle and a majesty,
At once concealing all the strife below
It shames the pride of lofty hearts to show,
And robing Art's lone outlaw with the air
Of nameless state the lords of Nature wear;--
This kingly mien contrasting this mean form,
This calm exterior with this heart of storm,
Touch'd with vague interest, undefined and strange,
The world's quick pupil whose career was change.

Forth from the crowded streets one summer day, }
Rode the new friends; and cool and silent lay }
Through shadowy lanes the chance-directed way. }
As with slow pace and slacken'd rein they rode,
Men's wonted talk to deeper converse flow'd.

"Think'st thou," said Arden, "that the Care, whose speed
Climbs the tall bark and mounts the flying steed,
And (still to quote old Horace) hovers round
Our fretted roofs, forbears yon village ground?--
Think'st thou that Toil drives trouble from the door;
And does God's sun shine brightest on the Poor?"

"I know not," answer'd Morvale, "but I know
Each state feels envy for the state below;
Kings for their subjects--for the obscure, the great:
The smallest circle guards the happiest state.
Earth's real wealth is in the heart;--in truth,
As life looks brightest in the eyes of youth,
So simple wants--the simple state most far
From that entangled maze in which we are,
Seem unto nations what youth is to man,"--

"'When wild in woods the noble savage ran,'"
Said Arden, smiling. "Well, we disagree;
Even youth itself reflects no charms for me;
And all the shade upon my life bestow'd
Spreads from the myrtle which my boyhood sow'd."
His bright face fell,--he sigh'd. "And canst thou guess
Why all once coveted now fails to bless?--
Why all around me palls upon the eye,
And the heart saddens in the summer sky?
It is that youth expended life too soon:
A morn too glowing sets in storm at noon."

"Nay," answer'd Morvale, gently, "hast thou tried
That _second_ youth, to which ev'n follies guide;
Which to the wanderer SENSE, when tired and spent,
Proclaims the fount by which to fix the tent?
The heart but rests when sense forbears to roam;
We win back freshness when Love smiles on Home;--
Home not to _thee_, O happy one! denied." }
}
"To me of all," the impatient listener cried, }
"Thy words but probe the wounds I vainly hide; }
That which I pine for, thou hast pictured now;--
The hearth, the home, the altar, and the vow;
The tranquil love, unintertwined with shame;
The child's sweet kiss;--the Father's holy name;
The link to lengthen a time-honour'd line;--
These not for me, and yet these should be mine."
"If," said the Indian, "counsel could avail,
Or pity soothe, a friend invites thy tale."

"Alas!" sigh'd Arden, "nor confession's balm
Can heal, nor wisdom whisper back to calm.
Yet hear the tale--thou wilt esteem me less--
But Grief, the Egoist, yearneth to confess.
I tell of guilt--and guilt all men must own,
Who but avow the loves their youth has known.
Preach as we will, in this wrong world of ours,
Man's fate and woman's are contending powers;
Each strives to dupe the other in the game,--
Guilt to the victor--to the vanquish'd shame!"
He paused, and noting how austerely gloom'd
His friend's dark visage, blush'd, and thus resumed.
"Nay, I approve not of the code I find,
Not less the wrong to which the world is kind.
But, to be frank, how oft with praise we scan
Men's actions only when they deal with man;
Lo, gallant Lovelace, free from every art
That stains the honour or defiles the heart,--
_With men_;--but how, if woman the pursuit?
What lies degrade him, and what frauds pollute;
Yet still to Lovelace either sex is mild,
And new Clarissas only sigh--'How wild!'"

"Enough," said Morvale; "I perforce believe:
Strong Adam owns no equal in his Eve;
But worse the bondage in your bland disguise;
Europe destroys,--kind Asia only buys!
If dull the Harem, yet its roof protects,
And Power, when sated, still its slave respects.
With you, ev'n pity fades away with love,--
No gilded cage gives refuge to the dove;
Worse than the sin the curse it leaves behind:
Here the crush'd heart, or there the poison'd mind,--
Your streets a charnel or a market made,
For the lorn hunger, or the loathsome trade.
Pardon,--Pass on!"
"Behold, the Preface done,"
Arden resumed, "now opens Chapter One!"

III.

LORD ARDEN'S TALE.

"Rear'd in a court, a man while yet a boy,
Hermes said 'Rise,' and Venus sigh'd 'Enjoy;'
My earlier dreams, like tints in rainbows given,
Caught from the Muse, glow'd but in clasping heaven;
The bird-like instinct of a sphere afar
Pined for the air, and chafed against the bar.
But can to Guelphs Augustan tastes belong?
Or _Georgium Sidus_ look benign on song?
My short-lived Muse the ungenial climate tried,
Breathed some faint warbles, caught a cold, and died!
Wise kinsmen whisper'd 'Hush! forewarn'd in time;
The feet that rise are not the feet of Rhyme;
Your cards are good, but all is in the lead,
Play out the heart, and you are lost indeed:
Leave verse, my boy, to unaspiring men--
The eagle's pinion never sheds a pen!'

"So fled the Muse! What left the Muse behind?
The aimless fancy and the restless mind;
The eyes, still won by whatsoe'er was bright,
But lost the star's to prize the diamond's light.
Man, like the child, accepts the bauble boon.
And clasps the coral where he ask'd the moon.
Forbid the pomp and royalty of heaven,--
To the born Poet still the earth is given;
Duped by each glare in which Corruption seems
To give the glory imaged on his dreams:
Thus, what had been the thirst for deathless fame,
Grew the fierce hunger for the Moment's name;
Ambition placed its hard desires in Power,
And saw no Jove but in the Golden Shower.
No miser I--no niggard of the store--
The end Olympus, but the means the ore:
I look'd below--there Lazarus crawl'd disdain'd;
I look'd aloft--there, who but Dives reign'd?
He who would make the steeps of power his home,
Must mask the Titan till he rules the Gnome.
If I insist on this, my soul's disease,
Excuse for fault thy practised sight foresees:
It makes the moral of my tale, in truth,
And boyhood sow'd the poison of my youth.

"Meanwhile men praised, and women smiled;--the wing,
Bow'd from the height, still bask'd beneath the spring.
Pass by the Paphian follies of that day,--
When true love comes, it is to close our May.
Well, ere my boyish holiday was o'er,
The grim god came, and mirth was mine no more:
A well-born pauper, I seem'd doom'd to live
By what great men to well-born paupers give:
I had an uncle high in power and state,
Who ruled three kingdoms' and one nephew's fate.
This uncle loved, as English thanes will all,
An autumn's respite in his rural hall;
In slaughtering game, relax'd his rigid breast;
And so,--behold me martyr'd to his guest!

IV.

"Wandering, one day, in discontented mood
By a clear brook--through grassy solitude,
Leading the dance of light waves chanting low--
A little world of sunshine seem'd to grow
Out from the landscape--as with sudden spring
From bosk and brake--leapt the stream glittering.
Lo, the meek home, its porch with roses twined,
Green sward before, a sacred tower behind;
On the green sward the year's last flowers were gay,
And the last glory of the golden day
Paused on the spire, that, shining, soar'd to cleave
Those clouds, the loveliest, that precede the eve.

"Along the bank, beneath the bowering tree,
Young fairies play'd--young voices laugh'd in glee;
One voice more mellow'd in its silver sound,
Yet blithe as rang the gladdest on the ground;
One shape more ripen'd, one sweet face more fair,
Yet not less happy, the Titania there.
Soft voice, fair face, I hear, I see ye still!
Shades and dim echoes from the blissful hill
Behind me left, to cast but darkness o'er
The waste slow-lengthening to the grave before!

"So Love was born. With love invention came;
I won my entrance, but conceal'd my name.
A village priest her father, poor and wise,
In aught that clears to mortal sight the skies,
But blind and simple as a child to all
The things that pass upon the earth we crawl;
The mask'd Lothario to his eyes appear'd
A student youth, by Alma Mater rear'd
The word to preach, the hunger to endure,
And see Ambition close upon a Cure;--
A modest youth, who own'd his learning slight,
And brought his taper to the master's light.
This tale believed, the good man's harmless pride
Was pleased the bashful neophyte to guide:
Spread out his books, and, moved to pity, press'd
The backward pupil to the daily guest.

"So from a neighbouring valley, where they deem
My home, each noon I cross the happy stream,
And hail the eyes already watchful grown,
And clasp the hand that trembles in my own;
But not for guilt had I conceal'd my name,
The young warm passion nursed no thought of shame;
The spell that bound ennobled while it charm'd,
And Romeo's love Lothario's guile disarm'd;
And vain the guile had been!--impure desire
Round that chaste light but hover'd to expire:
Her angel nature found its own defence,
Ev'n in the instincts of its innocence;
As that sweet plant which opens every hue
Of its frank heart to eyes content to view,
But folds its leaves and shrinks in coy disdain
From the least touch that would the bloom profane.
Link'd with the woman's Meekness, side by side,
Stood, not to lose but guard the angel, Pride;
Pride, with the shield for honour, not the heart,
Sacred from stain, not proof against the dart.
Brief,--then, such love it was my lot to win
As sways a life to every grief but--sin.

V.

"Yet in the light of day to win and wed,
To boast a bride, yet not to own a shed;
To doom the famine, yet proclaim the bliss,
And seal the ruin in the nuptial kiss;--
Love shunn'd such madness for the loved one's sake;
What course could Prudence sanction Love to take?
Lenient I knew my kinsman to a vice;
But, oh, to folly Cato less precise!
And all my future, in my kinsman bound,
Shadow'd his humours--smiled in him or frown'd;
But uncles still, however high in state, }
Are mortal men--and Youth has hope to wait, }
And Love a conqueror's confidence in Fate.-- }
A secret Hymen reconciled in one
Caution and bliss--if Mary could be won?
Hard task!--I said it was my lot to win
Sway o'er a life for grief;--this was not sin.
To her I told my name, rank, doubts, and fears,
And urged the prayer too long denied with tears--
'Reject'st thou still,' I cried, 'well, then to me
The pride to offer all life holds to thee;
I go to tell my love, proclaim my choice--
Clasp want, mar fate, meet ruin, and rejoice,
So that, at least, when next we meet, thy sigh
Shall own this truth--"He better loved than I."'

"With that, her hand upon my own she laid,
Look'd in my eyes--the sacrifice was made;
Alas, she had no mother!--Nature moved
That heart to this--she trusted, for she loved!

"I had a friend of lowlier birth than mine,
The sunnier spot allured the trailing vine.
My rising fortunes had the southern air,
And fruit might bless the plant that clamber'd there.
My smooth Clanalbin!--shrewd, if smooth, was he,
His soul was prudent, though his life was free;
Scapin to serve, and Machiavel to plot,
Red-hair'd, thin-lipp'd, sly, supple,--and a Scot!
To him the double project I confide,
To cloak the rite, and yet to clasp the bride;
Long he resisted--solemnly he warn'd,
And urged the perils love had seen and scorn'd.
At length subdued, he groan'd a slow consent,
And pledged a genius practised to invent.
A priest was found--a license was procured,
Due witness hired, and secrecy assured;
All this his task:--'tis o'er;--and Mary's life
Bound up in one who dares not call her wife!

"Alas--alas, why on the fatal brink
Of the abyss--doth not the instinct shrink?
The meaner tribe the coming storm foresees--
In the still calm the bird divines the breeze--
The ox that grazes shuns the poison-weed--
The unseen tiger frights afar the steed--
To man alone no kind foreboding shows
The latent horror or the ambush'd foes;
O'er each blind moment hangs the funeral pall,
Heaven shines, earth smiles--and night descends on all!

"But I!--fond reader of imagined skies,
Foretold my future in those stars--her eyes!
O heavenly Moon, circling with magic hues
And mystic beauty all thy beams suffuse,
Is not in love thine own fair secret seen?
Love smooths the rugged--love exalts the mean:
Love in each ray inspires the hush'd alarm,
Love silvers every shadow into charm.

VI.

"O lonely beech, beneath whose bowering shade
The tryst, encircling Paradise, was made,
How the heart heard afar the hurrying feet,
And swell'd to breathless words--'At last we meet!'
But Autumn fades--dark Winter comes, and then
Fate from Elysium calls me back to men;
We part!--not equal is the anguish;--she
Parts with all earth in that farewell to me;
For not the grate more bars the veiled nun
From the fair world with which her soul has done,
Than love the heart, that vows, without recall,
To one,--fame, honour, memory, hope, and all!
But I!--behold me in the dazzling strife,
The gaud, the pomp, the joyous roar of life,--
Man, with man's heart insatiate, ever stirr'd
By the crowd's breath to conflict with the herd;
Which never long one thought alone can sway,--
The dream fades from us when we leap to-day.
New scenes surround me, new ambitions seize,--
All life one fever,--who defy disease?--
Each touch contagion:--living with the rest,
The world's large pulse keeps time in every breast.
Yet still for her--for her alone, methought,
Its web of schemes the vulgar labour wrought:
To ransom fate--to soar, from serfdom, free,
Snap the strong chains of high-born penury;
And, grown as bold to earth as to the skies,
Proclaim the bliss of happy human ties:--
So, ever scheming, the soothed conscience deem'd!
Fate smiled, and speeded all for which I schemed.
My noble kinsman saw with grave applause
My sober'd moods, too wise to guess the cause.
''Tis well,' said he, one evening; 'you have caught
From me the ardour of the patriot's thought;
No more distinguish'd in the modes of vice,
Forsworn the race-course, and disdain'd the dice:
A nobler race, a mightier game await
The soul that sets its cast upon the state.
Thoughtful, poor, calm, yet eager; such, in truth,
He who is great in age should be in youth,
Lo, your commencement!'

"And my kinsman set
Before the eyes it brighten'd--the Gazette!
Oh, how triumphant, Calendar of Fame!
Halo'd in type, emerged the aspirant's name!

"'We send you second to a court, 'tis true;
Small, as befits a diplomat so new,'
Quoth my wise kinsman: 'but requiring all
Your natural gifts;--to rise not is to fall!
And harkye, stripling, you are handsome, young,
Active, ambitious, and from statesmen sprung!
_Wed_ well--add wealth to power by me possess'd,
And sleep on roses,--I will find the rest!
But one false step,--pshaw, boy! I do not preach
Of saws and morals, his own code to each,--
By one false step, I mean one foolish thing,
And the wax melts, my Icarus, from your wing!
Let not the heart the watchful mind betray,--
Enough!--no answer!--sail the First of May!'

"Here, then, from vapour broke at last the sun!
Station, career, fame, fortune, all begun!
Now, greater need than ever to conceal
The secret spring that moved the speeding wheel;
And half forgetting that I wish'd forgot,
Each thought divides the absent from my lot.
One night, escaped my kinsman's hall, which blazed
With dames who smiled, and garter'd peers who praised,
I seek my lonely home,--ascend the stair,--
Gain my dim room,--what stranger daunts me there?
A grey old man!--I froze his look before; }
The Gorgon's eye scarce fix'd its victim more,-- }
The bride's sad father on the bridegroom's floor! }
In the brief pause, how terrible and fast,
As on the drowning seaman, rush'd the past!
How had he learn'd my name,--abode,--the tie
That bound?--for all spoke lightning in his eye.
Lo, on the secret in whose darkness lay
Power, future, fortune, pour'd the hateful ray!
Thus silence ceased.

"'When first my home you deign'd
To seek, what found you?--cheeks no tears had stain'd!
Untroubled hearts, and conscience clear as day:
And lips that loved, where now they fear, to pray:
'Twixt kin and kin, sweet commune undefiled--
The grateful father--the confiding child!
What now that home?--behold! its change may speak
In hair thus silver'd--in this furrow'd cheek!
My child'--(he paused, and in his voice, not eyes,
Tears seek the vent indignant pride denies)
'My child--God pardon me!--I was too proud
To call her "daughter!"--what shall call the crowd?
Man--man, she cowers beneath a Father's eye,
And shuns his blessing--with one wish to die;
And I that death-bed will resign'd endure
If--speak the word--the soul that parts is pure?'

"'Who dares deny it?' I began, but check'd
In the warm burst--cold wisdom hiss'd--'Reflect;
Thy fears had outstripp'd truth--as yet unknown,
The vows, the bond!--are these for thee to own?'
The father mark'd my pause, and changing cheek,
'Go on!--why falter if the truth thou speak?'
"Who dares deny it?"--Thou!--thy lip--thine eye--
Thy heart--thy conscience--_these_ are what deny?
O Heaven, that I were not thy priest!'

"His look
Grew stern and dark--the natural Adam shook
The reverend form an instant;--like a charm
The pious memory stay'd the lifted arm;
And shrunk to self-rebuke the threatening word,
'Man's not my weapons--I thy servant, Lord!'
Moved, I replied--'Could love suffice alone }
In this hard world,--the love to thee made known, }
A bliss to cherish, 'twere a pride to own: }
And if I pause, and if I falter--yet
I hide no shame, I strive with no regret.
Believe mine honour--wait the ripening hour;
Time hides the germ, the season brings the flower.'
Wildly he cried--'What words are these?--but one
Sentence I ask--her sire should call thee _son_!
Hist, let the heavens but hear us!--in her life
Another lives--if pure she is thy wife!
Now answer!'

I had answer'd, as became
The native manhood and the knightly name;
But shall I own it? the suspicious chill,
The world-wise know, froze up the arrested will.
Whose but _her_ lips, sworn never to betray,
Had fail'd their oath, and dragg'd my name to day?
True, she had left the veil upon the shrine,
But set the snare to make confession mine.
Thus half resentment, half disdain, repell'd
The man's frank justice, and the truth withheld.
Yet, so invoked, I scorn'd at least the lie,
And met the question with this proud reply:--
'If thou dost doubt thy child, depart secure,
My love is sinless, and her soul is pure.
This by mine honour, and to Heaven, I swear!
Dost thou ask more?--then bid thy child declare;
What she proclaims as truth, myself will own;
What she withholds, alike I leave unknown;
What she demands, I am prepared to yield;
Now doubt or spurn me--but my lips are seal'd.'
I ceased, and stood with haughty mien and eye,
That seem'd all further question to defy;
He gazed, as if still spell'd in hope or fear,
And hungering for the word that fail'd the ear.
At last, and half unconscious, in the thrall
Of the cold awe, he groan'd--

'And is this all?
Courage, poor child--there may be justice yet--
Justice, Heaven, justice!'

With this doubtful threat
He turn'd, was gone!--that look of stern despair,
The uncertain footstep tottering down the stair,
The clapping door; and then that void and chill,
Which would be silence, were the conscience still;
That sense of something gone, we would recall;
The soul's dim stun before it feels its fall.

VII.

"Next day, the sire my noble kinsman sought;
One ruling senates must be just, he thought.
What chanced, untold--what follow'd may declare: }
Behold me summon'd to my uncle's chair! }
See his cold eye--_I_ saw my ruin there! }
I saw and shrunk not, for a sullen pride
Embraced alike the kinsman and the bride:
Scorn'd here, the seeming snare by cunning set;
And there, coarse thraldom, with rebellion met.

"Brief was my Lord--

'An old man tells me, sir,
You woo his child, to wed her you demur;
Who knows, perhaps (and such his shrewd surmise),
The noose is knit--you but conceal the ties!
Please to inform me, ere I go to court,
How stands the matter?--sir, my time is short.'

"'My Lord,' I answer'd, with unquailing brow,
'Not to such ears should youth its faults avow;
And grant me pardon if I boldly speak,
Youth may have secrets honour shuns to seek.
I own I love, proclaim that love as pure!
If this be sin--its sentence I endure.
All else belongs unto that solemn shrine,
In the veil'd heart, which manhood holds divine.
Men's hearths are sacred, so our laws decree;
Are hearts less sacred? mine at least is free.
Suspect, disown, forsake me, if thou wilt;
I prize the freedom where thou seest the guilt.'
My kinsman's hand half-shaded the keen eye,
Which glanced askant;--he paused in his reply.
At length, perchance, his practised wit foresaw
Threats could not shake where interest fail'd to awe;
And judged it wise to construe for the best
The all I hid, the little I confess'd;
Calmly he answer'd--

'Sir, I like this heat;
Duper or duped, a well-bred man's discreet;
Take but this hint (one can't have all in life),
You lose the uncle if you win the wife.
In this, you choose Rank, Station, Power, Career;
In that, Bills, Babies,--and the Bench, I fear.
Hush;--'the least said' (old proverb, sir, but true!)--
As yet your fault indulgently I view.
Words,--notes (sad stuff!)--some promise rashly made--
Action for breach--_that_ scandal must be stay'd.
I trust such scrapes will teach you to beware;
'Twill cost some hundreds--that be my affair.
Depart at once--to-morrow--nay, to-day:
When fairly gone, there will be less to pay!'
So spoke the Statesman, whom experience told
The weight of passion in the scales of gold.
Pleased I escape, but how reprieve enjoy?
One word from her distrusted could destroy!
Yet that distrust the whispering heart belied,
Self ceased, and anger into pity died;
I thought of Mary in her desolate hour,
And shudder'd at the blast, and trembled for the flower.
Why not go seek her?--chide the impatient snare; }
Or if faith linger'd, win it to forbear? }
Now was the time, no jealous father there! }
Swift as the thought impell'd me, I obey'd!
'Tis night; once more I greet the moonlit shade;
Once more I see the happy murmuring rill;
The white cot bower'd beneath the pastoral hill!
An April night, when, after sparkling showers,
The dewy gems betray the cradled flowers,
As if some sylphid, startled from her bed
In the rath blossom by the mortal's tread,
Had left behind her pearly coronal.--
Bright shone the stars on Earth's green banquet-hall;
You seem'd, abroad, to see, to feel, to hear
The new life flushing through the virgin year;
The visible growth--the freshness and the balm;
The pulse of Nature throbbing through the calm;
As wakeful, over every happy thing,
Watch'd through the hush the Earth's young mother--Spring!
Calm from the lattice shot a steady ray; }
Calm on the sward its silvery lustre lay; }
And reach'd, to glad the glancing waves at play. }
I stood and gazed within the quiet room;--
Gazed on her cheek;--_there_, spring had lost its bloom!
Alone she sate! _Alone!_--that worn-out word,
So idly spoken, and so coldly heard;
Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known,
Of hope laid waste, knells in that word--ALONE!

"Who contemplates, aspires, or dreams, is not
Alone: he peoples with rich thoughts the spot.
The only loneliness--how dark and blind!--
Is that where fancy cannot dupe the mind;
Where the heart, sick, despondent, tired with all,
Looks joyless round, and sees the dungeon wall;
When even God is silent, and the curse
Of torpor settles on the universe;
When prayer is powerless, and one sense of dearth
Abysses all, _save_ solitude, on earth!
So sate the bride!--the drooping form, the eye
Vacant, yet fix'd,--that air which Misery,
The heart's Medusa, hardens into stone,
Sculptured the Death which dwelleth in the lone!
Oh, the wild burst of joy,--the life that came }
Swift, brightening, bounding through the lips and frame, }
When o'er the floors I stole, and whisper'd soft her name! }
'Come--come at last! Oh, rapture!'
Who can say
Why meaner natures hold mysterious sway
Over the nobler? Why mine orb malign
Ruled as a fate a spirit so divine;
Giving or light or darkness all its own
Unto a star so near the Sapphire Throne?

"'So thou art come!'
'Hush! say whose lips reveal'd
All _these_ soft traitors swore to guard conceal'd--
Our love--my name?'
'Not I--not I--thy wife!
No, truth to thee more dear than fame, than life:
A friend, my father's friend, the secret told;
How guess'd I know not. Oh! if Love controll'd
My heart that hour--that bitter hour--when, there
Bent that old man who----Husband, hear my prayer
Have mercy on my father!--break, oh, break
This crushing silence!--bid his daughter speak,
And say, Thou'rt not dishonour'd?'

'If thou wilt,
Tell all;--dishonour not alone in guilt!
Men's eyes dishonour in the fallen see;--
Speak, and dishonour thou inflict'st on me:
The debt, the want, the beggary, and the shame,--
The pauper branded on the noble's name!
Speak and inflict--I still can spurn--the doom;
Unveil the altar to prepare the tomb!
I, who already in my grasp behold,
Bright from Hesperian fields, the fruit of gold,
By which alone the glorious prize we gain,
Foil'd of the goal will die upon the plain.
I own two brides, both dear alike, and see
In one Ambition--in the other Thee:
Destroy thy rival, and to her destroy'd
Succeeds despair to make the world a void.'
Then, with stern frankness to that shrinking ear,
I told my hopes,--in her my only fear;
Told, with a cheek no humbling blushes dyed,
How met the sire--how unavow'd the bride!
'Thus have I wrong'd--this cruel silence mine;
And now be truth, and truth is vengeance, thine!'
I ceased to speak; lo, she had ceased to weep;
Her white lips writhed, as Suffering in its sleep;
And o'er the frame a tremulous shudder went,
As every life-stream to the source was sent:
The very sense seem'd absent from the look,
And with the Heart, its temple, Reason shook!
So there was silence; such a silence broods
In winter nights, o'er frost-bound solitudes,
Darkness, and ice, and stillness all in one,--
The silence without life, the withering without sun.
But o'er that silence, as at night's full noon,
Through breathless cloud, shimmers the sudden moon;
A sad but heavenly smile a moment stirr'd,
And heralded the martyr's patient word:
'Fear not; pursue thy way to fortune, fame;
I will not soil thy glory with my shame.
Betray! avenge!--For ever, until thou
Proclaim the bond and ratify the vow,
Closed in this heart, as lamps within the tomb,
Shall waste the light, that lives amidst the gloom,--
That lives, for oh! the day _shall_ come at length,
Though late, though slow,--(give hope, for hope is strength!)--
When, from a father's breast no more exiled,
The wife may ask forgiveness for the child?'"

VIII.

"And so you parted?" with a moisten'd eye,
Said Morvale;--"nay, man, spare me the reply;
Too much the Eve has moved me----"
"Not to feel
That for the serpent which thy looks reveal,"
Said Arden, sadly smiling; "yet in truth,
See how the grey world grafts its age on youth;
See how we learn to prize the bullion Vice,
Coin'd in all shapes, yet still but Avarice;
The stamp may vary,--you the coin may call
'Ambition,' 'Power,' 'Success,'--but Gold is all.
Mine is the memoir of a selfish age:
Turn every leaf--slight difference in the page;
Through each, the same fierce struggle to secure
Earth's one great end--distinction from the Poor;
All our true wealth, like alchemists of old,
Fused in the furnace--for a grain of gold.

IX.

"Well then, we parted,--to make brief the tale,
I take my orders, and my leave, set sail;
For weeks, for months, fond letters, long nor few,
Keep hope alive with love for ever new:
If she had suffer'd, she betray'd it not;
All save one sweetness--'that we loved' forgot.
She never named her father;--once indeed
The name _was_ writ, but blurr'd;--it was decreed
That she should fill the martyr-measure,--hide
Not the dart only, but the bleeding side,
And, wholly generous in the offering made,
Veil even sorrow, lest it should upbraid.

"At length one letter came--the _last_; more blest
In faith, in love, false hope, than all the rest;
But at the close some hastier lines appear,
Tremblingly writ, and stain'd with many a tear,
In which, less said than timorously implied
(The maid still blushing through the secret bride),
I heard her heart through that far distance beat:
The hour Eve's happiest daughter dreads to meet,--
The hour of Nature's agony was nigh,--
Husband and father, false one, where was I?

"Slow day on slow day, unrevealing, crept,
And still its ice the freezing silence kept:
Fear seized my soul, I could no longer brook
The voiceless darkness which the daylight took.
I feign'd excuse for absence;--left the shore:
Fair blow the winds;--behold her home once more!

"Her home! a desert! Still, though rank and wild,
On the rank grass the heedless floweret smiled;
Still by the porch you heard the ungrateful bee;
Still brawl'd the brooklet's unremembering glee;
But they--the souls of the sweet pastoral ground?
Green o'er the father rose the sullen mound!
Amidst his poor he slept; _his_ end was known,--
Life's record rounded with the funeral stone:
But she?--but Mary?--but my child?--what dews
Fall on _their_ graves?--what herbs which heaven renews
Pall their pure clay?--Oh! were it mine at least
To weep, beloved, where your relics rest!--
Bear with me, Morvale,--pity if you can--
These thoughts unman me--no, they prove me man!"
"Man of the cities," with a mutter'd scorn,
Groan'd the stern Nomad from the lands of Morn,--
"Man of the sleek, far-looking prudence, which
Beggars life's May, life's Autumn to enrich;
Which, the deed doing, halts not in its course,
But, the deed done, finds comfort in remorse.
Man, in whom sentiment, the bloodless shade
Of noble passion, alternates with trade,--
Hard in his error--feeble in his tears,
And huckstering love, yet prattling of the spheres!"
So mused the sombre savage, till the pale
And self-gnaw'd worldling nerved him to his tale:--
"The hireling watch'd the bed where Mary lay,
In stranger arms my first-born saw the day.
Below,--unseen _his_ travail, all unknown
_His_ war with Nature, sate the sire alone:
He had not thrust the one he still believed,
If silent, sinless, or in sin deceived--
He had not thrust her from a father's door;
So Shame came in, and cower'd upon the floor,
And face to face with Shame, he sate to hear
The groan above bring torture to his ear.
In that sad night, when the young mother slept,
Forth from his door the elder mourner crept;
Absent for days, none knowing whither bent,
Till back return'd abruptly as he went.
With a swift tremulous stride he climb'd the stair, }
Through the closed chamber gleam'd his silver hair, }
And Mary heard his voice soft--pitying--as in prayer! }
'Child, child, I was too hard!--But woe is wild;
Now I know all!--again I clasp my child!'
Within his arms, upon his heart again
His Mary lay, and strove for words in vain;
She strove for words, but better spoke through tears
The love the heart through silence vents and hears.

"All this I gather'd from the nurse, who saw
The scene, which dews from hireling eyes could draw;
So far;--her sob the pastor heard, and turn'd,
Waved his wan hand, nor what more chanced she learn'd.

"Next morn in death the happier father lay,
From sleep to Heaven his soul had pass'd away;
He had but lived to pardon and to bless
His child;--emotion kills in its excess,
And that task done, why longer on the rack
Stretch the worn frame?--God's mercy call'd him back.
The day they buried him, while yet the strife
Of sense and memory raged for death and life
In Mary's shatter'd brain, her father's friend,
Whose hand, perchance, had sped him to his end,
Whose zeal officious had explored, reveal'd
My name, the half, worse half, of all conceal'd,
Sought her, and saw alone: When gone, a change
Came o'er the victim, terrible and strange;
All grief seem'd hush'd--a stern tranquillity
Calm'd the wan brow and fix'd the glassy eye;
She spoke not, moved not, wept not,--on her breast
Slept Earth's new stranger--not more deep its rest.
They fear'd her in that mood--with noiseless tread
Stole from the room; and, ere the morn, she fled.
Gone the young Mother with her babe!--no trace;
As the wind goes, she vanish'd from the place;
They search'd the darkness of the wood, they pried
Into the secrets of the tempting tide,
In vain,--unseen on earth as in the wave,
Where life found refuge or despair a grave."
"And is this all?" said Morvale--
"No, my thought
Guess'd at the clue; her father's friend I sought,
A stern hard man, of Calvin's iron mould,
And yet I moved him, and his tale he told.
It seem'd (by me unmark'd), amidst the rest,
My uncle's board had known this homely guest.
Our evil star had led the guest, one day,
Where through the lone glade wound our lovers' way,
To view, with Age's hard, suspecting eyes,
The high-born courtier in the student's guise.
Thus, when the father, startled to vague fears,
By his child's waning cheek and unrevealing tears,
First to his brother priest for counsel came,
He urged stern question--track'd the grief to shame,
Guess'd the undoer, and disclosed the name.

"Time went--the priest had still a steady trust
In Mary's honour; but, to mine unjust,
Divined some fraud--explored, and found a clue,
There had been marriage, if the rites were due;
Had learn'd Clanalbin's name, as one whose eye
Had seen, whose witness might attest the tie.
This news to Mary's father was convey'd
The eve her infant on her heart was laid.

"That night he left his home, he did not rest
Till found Clanalbin--'Well, and he confess'd?'
I cried impatient;--my informer's eye
Flash'd fire--'Confess'd the fraud,' was his reply.
'The fraud!'--'The impious form, the vile disguise!
Mock priest, false marriage, hell's whole woof of lies!'
'Lies!--had the sound earth open'd its abyss
Beneath my feet, my soul had shudder'd less.
Lies!--but not mine!--his own!--not mine such ill.
O wife, I fly--to right, avenge, and claim thee still!'"
"Thy hand--I wrong'd thee," Morvale falter'd, while
His strong heart heaved--"Thou didst avenge the guile?
Thou found'st thy friend--thy witness--well! and he?"--
"Had spoken truth, the truth of perfidy.
This man had loved me in his own dark way,
Loved for past kindness in our wilder day,
Loved for the future, which, obscure for him,
Link'd with my fate, with that grew bright or dim.
I told thee how he warr'd with my intent,
The strong dissuasion, and the slow consent:
The slow consent but veil'd the labour'd wile;
That I might yet be great, he grovell'd to be vile.
_'Twas_ a false Hymen--a mock priest--and she
The pure, dishonour'd--the dishonourer free!

"This then the tale that, while it snapp'd the chord,
Still to the father's heart the child restored;
This told to her by the hard zealot's tongue,
Had the last hope from spoil'd existence wrung;
Had driven the outcast through the waste to roam,
And with the altar shatter'd ev'n the home.
No! trust ev'n then,--ev'n then, hope, was not o'er:
One morn the wanderer reach'd Clanalbin's door.
O steadfast saint! amidst the lightning's scathe,
Still to the anchor clung the lingerer Faith;
Still through the tempest of a darken'd brain,
Where misery gnaw'd and memory rack'd in vain,
The last lone angel that deserts the grief
Of noble souls, survived and smiled,--BELIEF!
There had she come, herself myself to know,
And bow'd the head, and waited for the blow!
What matter how the villain soothed, or sought
To mask the crime?--enough that it was wrought;
She heard in silence,--when all said, all learn'd,
Still silent linger'd; then a flush return'd
To the pale cheek,--the Woman and the Wrong
Rear'd the light form,--the voice came clear and strong.
'Tell him my father's grave is closed; the dread
Of shame sleeps with him--dying with the dead:
Tell him on earth we meet no more;--in vain
Would he redress the wrong, and clear the stain,
His child is nameless; and his bride--what now
To her, too late, the mockery of the vow?
I was his wife--his equal;--to endure
Earth's slander? Yes!--because my soul was pure!
Now, were he kneeling here,--fame, fortune won,--
My pride would bar him from the fallen one.
Say this; if more he seek my fate, reply--
'Once stain the ermine, and its fate--to die!'
I need not tell thee if my fury burst
Against the wretch--the accurser--the accurst!
I need not tell thee if I sought each trace
That lured false hope to woe's lorn resting-place;
If, when all vain,--gold, toil, and art essay'd,
Still in my sunlight stalk'd the avenging shade,
Lost to my life for ever;--on the ground
Where dwell the spectres,--Conscience--ever found!"

X.

"True was the preface to thy gloomy tale;
Pity can soothe not--counsel not avail,"
Said Morvale, moodily. "What bliss foregone!
What years of rich life wasted! What a throne
In the arch-heaven abandon'd! And for what?
Darkness and gold!--the slave's most slavish lot!
Thy choice forsook the light--the day divine--
God's loving air--for bondage and the mine!
Oh! what delight to struggle side by side
With one loved soother!--up the steep to guide
Her steps--as clinging to thy hardier form,
She treads the thorn and smiles upon the storm!
And when firm will and gallant heart had won
The hill-top opening to the steadfast sun,
Look o'er the perils of the vanquish'd way,
And bless the toil through which the victory lay,
And murmur--'Which the sweeter fate, to dare
With thee the evil, or with thee to share
The good?' Nay, haunting must thine error be;
Thee Camdeo gave the blest Amrita tree,[M]
The ambrosia of the gods,--to scorn the prize,
And choose the Champac[N] for its golden dyes:
Thou hast forsaken--(thou must bear the grief)--
The immortal fruitage for the withering leaf!"

"Nay," answer'd Arden, writhing, "cease to chide;
Who taunts the ordeal should the fire have tried.
If Fortune's priests had train'd thy soul, like mine, }
To worship Fortune's as the holiest shrine, }
Perchance my error, cynic, had been thine!" }

"Pardon," said Morvale; "and my taunt to shame,
Know me thus weak,--I envy while I blame;
_Thou hast been loved!_ And had I err'd like thee;
Mine had been crime, from which thy soul is free,
Thy gentler breast the traitor could forgive----"
"Never!" cried Arden--
"_Does the Traitor live?_"
And as the ear that hissing whisper thrill'd,
That calm stern eye the very life-blood chill'd;
For there, the instinct Cain bequeath'd us spoke,
And from the chain the wild's fierce savage broke.
"O yes!" the fiery Alien thus renew'd;
"I know how holy life by law is view'd;
I know how all life's glory may be marr'd,
If safe the clay, which, as life's all, ye guard.
Law--Law! what is it but the word for gold?
Revenge is crime, if taken--Law if sold!
Vile tongues, vile scribes, may rot your name away,
But Law protects you,--with a fine to pay!
The child dishonour'd, the adulterous wife,
Gold requites all, save this base garment--life!
So, _life_ alone is sacred!--_so_, your law
Hems the worm's carcass with a godhead's awe:
So, if some mighty wrong with black despair
Blots out your sun, and taints to plague the air;
If with a human impulse shrinks the soul
Back from the dross which compensates the whole;
If from the babbling court, the legal toil,
And the lash'd lackey's guerdon, ye recoil,
And seize your vengeance with your own right arm,
How every dastard quivers with alarm!
Mine be the heart, that can itself defend--
Hate to the foe, devotion to the friend!--
The fearless trust, and the relentless strife:
Honour unsold, and wrong avenged with life!"
He ceased, with trembling lip and haughty crest,
The native heathen labouring in the breast!
As waves some pine, with all its storm of boughs,
O'er the black gulf Norwegian winds arouse,
Shook that strong spirit, gloomy and sublime,
Bending with troubled thought above the abyss of crime!

XI.

Long was the silence, till to calm restored
The moody Indian and the startled lord.
"And yet," resumed the first, with softer mien,
And lip that smiled, half mocking, yet serene,
"Not long thy sorrow dimm'd thy life;--unless
Men's envy wrong thee, thou mightst more confess
Of loves, perchance as true and as deceived;
Of rose-wreaths wither'd in the hands that weaved.
Talk to the world of Arden's dazzling lord, }
And tales of joyous love go round the board; }
Who, though adoring less, by beauty more adored?" }

"Ill dost thou read the human heart, my friend,
If bounding man's life with the novel's end;
Where lovers married, ever after love--
To birds alone the turtle and the dove!
Where wicked men (if I be of the gang)
Repent, turn hermits, or cut throats and hang!
Our souls repent,--our lives but rarely change;
Grief halts awhile, then goads us on to range.
More woo'd than wooing, scarce I feign'd to feel--
What magic to the magnet draws the steel?
Wealth soon grew mine, the parasital fame
Conceal'd the nature while it deck'd the name;
Kinsman on kinsman died, each death brought gold;
In birth, wealth, fame, strange charms the sex behold!
The outward grace the life of courts bestows,
The tongue that learns unconsciously to gloze,
All drew to mine the fates I could but mar;
And Aphrodite was my native star!
Forgive the boast, not blessings these, but banes,
If spring sows only flowers, small fruit the autumn gains!
I mark my grave coevals gather round
Their harvest-home, with sheaves for garners bound;
And I, that planted but the garden, see
How the blooms fade! no harvest waits for me!"

"Yet didst thou never love again? as o'er
The soft stream, gliding by the enamell'd shore,
Didst thou ne'er pause, and in some lovelier vale
Moor thy light prow, and furl thy silken sail?"
"But once," said Arden; "years on years had fled,
And half it soothed to think my Mary dead.
For I had sworn (could faith, could honour less?)
My hearth at least to priestly loneliness;
To wed no other while she lived, and be,
If found at last, for late atonement free.
I kept the vow, till this ambiguous doom,
Half wed, half widow'd, took a funeral gloom;
So many years had pass'd, no tidings gain'd,
The chance so slight that yet the earth retain'd,
At length, though doubtful, I believed that time
Had from the altar ta'en the ban of crime.
Impulse, occasion, what you will, at last
Seized one warm moment to abjure the past.

XII.

"Far other, she, who charm'd me thus awhile,
Thought in each glance, and mind in every smile;
Genius was hers, with all the Iris dyes
That paint on cloud the arch that spans the skies;
Wild in caprice, impassion'd, and yet coy,
Woman when mournful, a frank child in joy;
The Phidian dream, in one concentring all }
The thousand spells with which the charmers thrall, }
And pleasing most the eye which years begin to pall. }
I do not say I loved her as, in truth,
We only love when life is in its youth;
But here at least I thought to fix my doom,
And from the weary waste reclaim a home.
Enough I loved, to woo, to win, to bind
To her my fate, if Heaven had so assign'd!
The nuptial day was fix'd, the plighting kiss
Glow'd on my lips;--that moment the abyss,
Which, hid by moss-grown time, yet yawn'd as wide
Beneath my feet, divorced me from her side.
A letter came--Clanalbin's hand; what made
Treason so bold to brave the man betray'd?
I break the seal--O Heaven! my Mary yet
Lived; in want's weeds the wretch his victim met;
Track'd to her home (a beggar's squalid cell!), }
Told all the penitence that lips could tell: }
'Come back and plead thyself, and all may yet be well!' }
Had I a choice? could I delay to choose?--
Here conscience dragg'd me, there it might excuse.

"Few hurried lines, obscurely dark with all
The war within, my later vows recall,
Breathe passionate prayer--for hopeless pardon sue,
And shape soft words to soothe the stern adieu.
So, as some soul the beckoning ghost obeys,
The haunting shadow of the vanish'd days
Lures to the grave of Youth my charmed tread,
And sighs, 'At length thou shalt appease the Dead!'

"Scarce had I reach'd the shores of England, ere
New pomps spring round me,--I am Arden's heir!
The last pretender to the princely line,
Whose flag had waved from towers in Palestine,
Borne to our dark Walhalla,--left me poor
In all which sheds a blessing on the boor.--
Yes, thou art right! how, at each sickening grasp
For the heart's food, had gold befool'd my clasp!
Gorged with a satrap's treasure, the soul's dearth
Envied the pauper crawling to his hearth."
"But Mary--she--thy wife before Heaven's eye?"
"Lost as before!" was Arden's anguish-cry;
"Not beggary, famine--not her child (for whom,
What could she hope from earth?--as stern a doom!)
Could bow the steel of that proud chastity,
Which scorn'd as alms the atonement due from me!
Out of the sense of wrong her grandeur grown,
She look'd on shame from Sorrow as a throne.
Once more more she fled;--no sign!--again the same
Vain track--vain chase!--Not _here_ was I to blame!"

"Thou track the outcast!" mutter'd Morvale!--"No!
Too far from Luxury lies the world of Woe!"

"Henceforth," sigh'd Arden, "hope, aim, end, confined
To one--my heart, if tortured, is resign'd;
So lately seen, oh! sure she liveth yet!
Once found--oh! strong thine eloquence, Regret!
The palace and the coronal, the gauds
With which our vanity our will defrauds,--
These may not tempt her, but the simple words
'I love thee still,' will touch on surer chords,
And youth rush back with that young melody,
To the lone moonlight and the trysting-tree!"

As the tale ceased, the fields behind them lay,--
The huge town once more open'd on the way;
The whir of wheels, the galliard cavalcade;
The crowd of pleasure, and the roar of trade;
The solemn abbey soaring through the dun
And reeking air, in which sunk slow the sun;
The dusky trees, the sultry flakes of green;
The haunts where Fashion yawns away the spleen;--
Vista on vista widens to reveal
Ease on the wing, and Labour at the wheel!
The friends grew silent in that common roar,
The Real around them, the Ideal o'er;
So the peculiar life of each, the unseen
Core of our being--what we are, have been--
The spirit of our memory and our soul
Sink from the sight, when merged amidst the whole;
Yet atom atom never can absorb,
Each drop moves rounded in its separate orb.

[J] "One of the most remarkable pictures of ancient manners which
has been transmitted to us, is that in which the poet Gower
describes the circumstances under which he was commanded by
King Richard II.--

'To make a book after his hest.'

The good old rhymer---- ... had taken boat, and upon the broad
river he met the king in his stately barge.... The monarch
called him on board his own vessel, and desired him to book
'some new thing.'--This was the origin of the Confessio
Amantis."--KNIGHT'S _London_, vol. i. art. _The Silent Highway._

[K] "What a picture Hall gives us of the populousness of the Thames,
in the story which he tells us of the Archbishop of York
(brother to the King-maker), after leaving the widow of Edward
IV. in the sanctuary of Westminster, 'sitting below on the
rushes all desolate and dismayed,' and when he opened his
windows and looked on the Thames, he might see the river full of
boats of the Duke of Gloucester his servants, watching that no
person should go to sanctuary, nor none should pass
unsearched."--Id. ibid.

[L] A favourite rendezvous a few years since (and probably even
still) for the heroes of that fraternity, more dear to Mercury
than to Themis, was held at Devereux Court, occupying a part of
the site on which stood the residence of the Knights Templars.

[M] The Amrita is the name given by the mythologists of Thibet
to the heavenly tree which yields its ambrosial fruits to the
gods.

[N] The Champac, a flower of a bright gold-colour, with which
the Indian women are fond of adorning their hair. Moore alludes
to the custom in the "Veiled Prophet."

"The maid of India blest again to hold
In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold," &c.