Thus then it was. Griselda's childhood ends With this untoward night; and what portends May only now be guessed by those who read Signs on the earth and wonders overhead. I dare not prophesy. What next appears In the vain record of Griselda's years Is hardly yet a token, for her life Showed little outward sign of change or strife, Though she was changed and though perhaps at war. Her face still shone untroubled as a star In the world's firmament, and still she moved, A creature to be wondered at and loved. Were all unchanged, though each seemed more intense And lit up with new passion and inspired To active purpose, valiant and untired. She faced the world, talked much and well, made friends, Promoted divers schemes for divers ends, Artistic, social, philanthropical: She had a store of zeal for each and all. She pensioned poets, nobly took in hand An emigration plan to Newfoundland, Which ended in disaster and a ball. She visited St. George's hospital, The Home for Fallen Women, founded schools Of music taught on transcendental rules. L. House was dull though splendid. She had schemes Of a vast London palace on the Thames, Which should combine all orders new and old Of architectural taste a house could hold, She fairly wearied and her soul gave way. Again she sought Lord L., but not to ask This time his counsel in the thankless task She could no more make good, the task of living. He was too mere a stranger to her grieving, Her needs, her weakness. All her woman's heart Was in rebellion at the idle part He played in her sad life, and needed not Mere pity for a pain to madness wrought. She did not ask his sympathy. She said Only that she was weary as the dead, And needed change of air, and life, and scene: She wished to go where all the world had been— To Paris, Florence, Rome. She could not die And not have seen the Alps and Italy. Lord L. had tried all Europe, and knew best Where she could flee her troubles and find rest. Such was her will. Lord L., without more goad, Prepared for travel—and they went abroad. I will not follow here from day to day Griselda's steps. Suffice it if I say She found her wished-for Paris wearisome, Another London and without her home, And so went on, as still the fashion was, Some years ago, e'er Pulman cars with gas And quick night flittings had submerged mankind In one mad dream of luggage left behind, By the Rhone boat to Provence. This to her Seemed a delicious land, strange, barren, fair, An old-world wilderness of greys and browns, Rocks, olive-gardens, grim dismantled towns, Deep-streeted, desolate, yet dear to see, Smelling of oil and of the Papacy. Griselda first gave reins to her romance In this forgotten corner of old France, Feeding her soul on that ethereal food, The manna of days spent in solitude. Lord L. was silent. She, as far away Saw other worlds which were not of to-day, She stopped to weep with Laura at Vaucluse, Where waiting in the Mistral poor Lord L., Who did not weep, sat, slept and caught a chill; This sent them southwards on through Christendom, To Genoa, Florence, and at last to Rome, Where they remained the winter. Change had wrought A cure already in Griselda's thought, Or half a cure. The world in truth is wide, If we but pace it out from side to side, And our worst miseries thus the smaller come. Griselda was ashamed to grieve in Rome, Among the buried griefs of centuries, Her own sweet soul's too pitiful disease. She found amid that dust of human hopes An incantation for all horoscopes, A better patience in that wreck of Time: Her secret woes seemed chastened and sublime She suffered with the martyrs. These would know, Who offered their chaste lives and virgin blood, How mortal frailty best might be subdued. She saw the incense of her sorrow rise With theirs as an accepted sacrifice Before the face of the Eternal God Of that Eternal City, and she trod The very stones which seemed their griefs to sound Beneath her steps, as consecrated ground. In face of such a suffering hers must be A drop, a tear in the unbounded sea Which girds our lives. Rome was the home of grief, Where all might bring their pain and find relief, The temple of all sorrows: surely yet, Sorrow's self here seemed swallowed up in it. 'Twas thus she comforted her soul. And then, She had found a friend, a phoenix among men, Easier to be a woman and a wife. This was Prince Belgirate. He of all The noble band to whose high fortune fall The name and title proudest upon earth While pride shall live by privilege of birth, The name of Roman, shone conspicuous The head and front of his illustrious house, Which had produced two pontiffs and a saint Before the world had heard of Charles le Quint; A most accomplished nobleman in truth, |