  Walter, As a wild maiden, with love-drinking eyes, Sees in sweet dreams a beaming Youth of Glory, And wakes to weep, and ever after, sighs For that bright vision till her hair is hoary; Ev'n so, alas! is my life's-passion story. For Poesy my heart and pulses beat, As Aaron's serpent the Egyptians' swallow'd, One passion eats the rest. My soul is follow'd By strong ambition to out-roll a lay, Whose melody will haunt the world for aye, Charming it onward on its golden way. [Tears the paper and paces the room with disordered steps. Oh, that my heart were quiet as a grave Asleep in moonlight! For, as a torrid sunset boils with gold Up to the zenith, fierce within my soul A passion burns from basement to the cope. Poesy! Poesy! I'd give to thee, As passionately, my rich-laden years, My bubble pleasures, and my awful joys, As Hero gave her trembling sighs to find Delicious death on wet Leander's lip. Bare, bald, and tawdry, as a fingered moth, Is my poor life, but with one smile thou canst Wilt bid me die for thee? O fair and cold! As well may some wild maiden waste her love Upon the calm front of a marble Jove. I cannot draw regard of thy great eyes. I love thee, Poesy! Thou art a rock, I, a weak wave, would break on thee and die. There is a deadlier pang than that which beads With chilly death-drops the o'er-tortured brow, When one has a big heart and feeble hands,— A heart to hew his name out upon time As on a rock, then in immortalness To stand on time as on a pedestal; When hearts beat to this tune, and hands are weak, We find our aspirations quenched in tears, The tears of impotence, and self-contempt That loathsome weed, up-springing in the heart, Like nightshade 'mong the ruins of a shrine; I am so cursed, and wear within my soul A pang as fierce as Dives' drowsed with wine, Waked by a fiend in hell!—— 'T is not for me, ye Heavens! 't is not for me To fling a Poem, like a comet, out, Far-splendouring the sleepy realms of night. I cannot give men glimpses so divine, As when, upon a racking night, the wind Draws the pale curtains of the vapoury clouds, And shows those wonderful, mysterious voids, Throbbing with stars like pulses.—Naught for me But to creep quietly into my grave; Or calm and tame the swelling of my heart With this foul lie, painted as sweet as truth. That "great and small, weakness and strength, are naught, That each thing being equal in its sphere, The May-night glow-worm with its emerald lamp, Is worthy as the mighty moon that drowns Continents in her white and silent light." This—this were easy to believe, were I Fair sides with moonlight; not the shining worm. But as I am—beaten, and foiled, and shamed, The arrow of my soul which I have shot To bring down Fame, dissolved like shaft of mist— This painted falsehood, this most damned lie, Freezes me like a fiendish human face, With all its features gathered in a sneer. Oh, let me rend this breathing tent of flesh; Uncoop the soul—fool, fool, 't were still the same, 'T is the deep soul that's touch'd, it bears the wound; And memory doth stick in 't like a knife, Keeping it wide for ever.[A long pause. I am fain To feed upon the beauty of the moon! [Opens the casement. Sorrowful moon! seeming so drowned in woe, A queen, whom some grand battle-day has left Unkingdomed and a widow, while the stars, Thy handmaidens, are standing back in awe, All men have loved thee for thy beauty, moon! Adam has turned from Eve's fair face to thine, And drunk thy beauty with his serene eyes. Anthony once, when seated with his queen, Worth all the East, a moment gazed at thee: She struck him on the cheek with jealous hand, And chiding said,—"Now, by my Egypt's gods, That pale and squeamish beauty of the night Has had thine eyes too long; thine eyes are mine! Alack! there's sorrow in my Anthony's face! Dost think of Rome? I'll make thee, with a kiss, Richer than CÆsar! Come, I'll crown thy lips." [Another pause. How tenderly the moon doth fill the night! Not like the passion that doth fill my soul; It burns within me like an Indian sun. A star is trembling on the horizon's verge, That star shall grow and broaden on the night, Until it hangs divine and beautiful Might I so broaden on the skies of fame! O Fame! Fame! Fame! next grandest word to God! I seek the look of Fame! Poor fool—so tries Some lonely wanderer 'mong the desert sands By shouts to gain the notice of the Sphynx, Staring right on with calm eternal eyes. SCENE II.A Forest. Walter sleeping beneath a tree. Enter Lady with a fawn. LADY. Halt! Flora, halt! This race Has danced my ringlets all about my brows, And brought my cheeks to bloom. Here will I rest And weave a garland for thy dappled neck. [Weaves flowers. I look, sweet Flora, in thine innocent eyes, And see in them a meaning and a glee Fitting this universal summer joy: With joy the white clouds navigate the blue, And, on his painted wings, the butterfly, Most splendid masker in this carnival, Floats through the air in joy! Better for man, Were he and Nature more familiar friends! His part is worst that touches this base world. Although the ocean's inmost heart be pure, Yet the salt fringe that daily licks the shore Is gross with sand. On, my sweet Flora, on! [Rises and approaches Walter. Ha! what is this? A bright and wander'd youth, Thick in the light of his own beauty, sleeps Like young Apollo, in his golden curls! At the oak-roots I've seen full many a flower, But never one so fair. A lovely youth, With dainty cheeks and ringlets like a girl, And slumber-parted lips 'twere sweet to kiss! Ye envious lids! I fain would see his eyes! Jewels so richly cased as those of his From which he drinks such joy as doth a pale And dim-eyed worker who escapes, in Spring, The thousand-streeted and smoke-smothered town, And treads awhile the breezy hills of health. [Lady opens the book, a slip of paper falls out; she reads. The fierce exulting worlds, the motes in rays, The churlish thistles, scented briers, The wind-swept blue-bells on the sunny braes, Down to the central fires, Exist alike in Love. Love is a sea, Filling all the abysses dim Of lornest space, in whose deeps regally Suns and their bright broods swim. This mighty sea of Love with wondrous tides, Is sternly just to sun and grain; 'Tis laving at this moment Saturn's sides,— All things have something more than barren use; There is a scent upon the brier, A tremulous splendour in the autumn dews, Cold morns are fringed with fire; The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breathed flowers; In music dies poor human speech, And into beauty blow those hearts of ours, When Love is born in each. Life is transfigured in the soft and tender Light of Love, as a volume dun Of rolling smoke becomes a wreathÈd splendour In the declining sun. Driven from cities by his restless moods, In incense-glooms and secret nooks, A miser o'er his gold—the lover broods Oft is he startled on the sweetest lip; Across his midnight sea of mind A Thought comes streaming, like a blazing ship Upon a mighty wind, A Terror and a Glory! Shocked with light, His boundless being glares aghast; Then slowly settles down the wonted night, All desolate and vast. Daisies are white upon the churchyard sod, Sweet tears, the clouds lean down and give. This world is very lovely. O my God, I thank Thee that I live! Ringed with his flaming guards of many kinds, The proud Sun stoops his golden head, Grey Eve sobs crazed with grief; to her the winds I gave this beggar Day no alms, this Night Has seen nor work accomplished, planned, Yet this poor Day shall soon in memory's light A summer rainbow stand! There is no evil in this present strife; From th' shivering Seal's low moans, Up through the shining tiers and ranks of life, To stars upon their thrones, The seeming ills are Loves in dim disguise; Dark moral knots, that pose the seer, If we are lovers, in our wider eyes Shall hang, like dew-drops, clear. Ye are my menials, ye thick-crowding years! Ha! yet with a triumphant shout My spirit shall take captive all the spheres, God! what a glorious future gleams on me; With nobler senses, nobler peers, I'll wing me through Creation like a bee, And taste the gleaming spheres! While some are trembling o'er the poison-cup, While some grow lean with care, some weep, In this luxurious faith I'll wrap me up, As in a robe, and sleep. Oh, 'tis a sleeping Poet! and his verse Sings like the syren-isles. An opulent Soul Dropt in my path like a great cup of gold, All rich and rough with stories of the gods! Methinks all poets should be gentle, fair, And ever young, and ever beautiful: I'd have all Poets to be like to this,— Gold-haired and rosy-lipped, to sing of Love. Love! Love! Old song that Poet ever chanteth, Soul is a moon, Love is its loveliest phase. Alas! to me this Love will never come Till summer days shall visit dark December. Woe's me! 'tis very sad, but 'tis my doom To hide a ghastly grief within my heart, And then to coin my lying cheek to smiles, Sure, smiles become a victim garlanded! Hist! he awakes—— WALTER (awakening). Fair lady, in my dream Methought I was a weak and lonely bird, In search of summer, wander'd on the sea, Toiling through mists, drenched by the arrowy rain, Struck by the heartless winds: at last, methought I came upon an isle in whose sweet air I dried my feathers, smoothed my ruffled breast, And skimmed delight from off the waving woods. Thy coming, lady, reads this dream of mine: I am the swallow, thou the summer land. LADY. Sweet, sweet is flattery to mortal ears, And, if I drink thy praise too greedily, My fault I'll match with grosser instances. Do not the royal souls that van the world Hunger for praises? Does not the hero burn To blow his triumphs in the trumpet's mouth? And do not poets' brows throb feverous Till they are cooled with laurels? Therefore, sir, If such dote more on praise than all the wealth Of precious-wombÈd earth and pearlÈd mains, Blame not the cheeks of simple maidenhood. Fair sir, I am the empress of this wood! The courtier oaks bow in proud homages, And shake down o'er my path their golden leaves. Queen am I of this green and summer realm. This wood I've entered oft when all in sheen The princely Morning walks o'er diamond dews, And still have lingered, till the vain young Night Trembles o'er her own beauty in the sea. WALTER. And as thou passest some mid-forest glade, The simple woodman stands amazed, as if An angel flashed by on his gorgeous wings. LADY. I am thine empress. Who and what art thou? Art thou Sir Bookworm? Haunter of old tomes, Sitting the silent term of stars to watch Your own thought passing into beauty, like An earnest mother watching the first smile Dawning upon her sleeping infant's face, Until she cannot see it for her tears? And when the lark, the laureate of the sun, Doth climb the east, eager to celebrate His monarch's crowning, goeth pale to bed,— Art thou such denizen of book-world, pray? WALTER. Books written when the soul is at spring-tide, When it is laden like a groaning sky Before a thunder-storm, are power and gladness, And majesty and beauty. They seize the reader As tempests seize a ship, and bear him on With a wild joy. Some books are drenchÈd sands, On which a great soul's wealth lies all in heaps, Like a wrecked argosy. What power in books! They mingle gloom and splendour, as I've oft, In thund'rous sunsets, seen the thunder-piles Seamed with dull fire and fiercest glory-rents. They awe me to my knees, as if I stood In presence of a king. They give me tears; Such glorious tears as Eve's fair daughters shed, When first they clasped a Son of God, all bright With burning plumes and splendours of the sky, In zoning heaven of their milky arms. How few read books aright! Most souls are shut By sense from grandeur, as a man who snores, Night-capped and wrapt in blankets to the nose, Breaketh for ever on a strand of stars. Lady, in book-world have I ever dwelt, This book has domed my being like a sky. LADY. And who was its creator? WALTER. He was one Who could not help it, for it was his nature To blossom into song, as 'tis a tree's To leaf itself in April. LADY. Did he love? WALTER. Ay; and he suffered.—His was not that love And this his book unveils it, as the night Her panting wealth of stars. The world was cold, And he went down like a lone ship at sea; And now the fame that scorned him while he lived Waits on him like a menial.—— When the dark dumb Earth Lay on her back and watched the shining stars, A Soul from its warm body shuddered out To the dim air and trembled with the cold; Through the waste air it passed as swift and still, As a dream passes through the lands of sleep, Till at the very gates of spirit-world 'Twas asked by a most worn and earnest shape That seemed to tremble on the coming word, About an orphan Poem, and if yet A Name was heard on earth. LADY. 'Tis very sad, I used to sing in lap of summers dead, When I was but a child, and when we played Like April sunbeams 'mong the meadow-flowers; Or romped i' the dews with weak complaining lambs; Or sat in circles on the primrose knolls, Striving with eager and palm-shaded eyes, 'Mid shouts and silver laughs, who first should catch The lark, a singing speck, go up the blue. I'll sing it to thee; 'tis a song of One— (An image slept within his soul's caress, Like a sweet thought within a Poet's heart Ere it is born in joy and golden words)— Of One whose naked soul stood clad in love, Like a pale martyr in his shirt of fire. I'll sing it to thee. [Lady sings. In winter when the dismal rain Came down in slanting lines, And Wind, that grand old harper, smote A Poet sat in his antique room, His lamp the valley kinged, 'Neath dry crusts of dead tongues he found Truth, fresh and golden-winged. When violets came and woods were green, And larks did skyward dart, A Love alit and white did sit, Like an angel on his heart. From his heart he unclasped his love Amid the trembling trees, And sent it to the Lady Blanche On wingÈd poesies. The Lady Blanche was saintly fair, Nor proud, but meek her look; In her hazel eyes her thoughts lay clear Her father's veins ran noble blood, His hall rose 'mid the trees; Like a sunbeam she came and went 'Mong the white cottages. The peasants thanked her with their tears, When food and clothes were given,— "This is a joy," the Lady said, "Saints cannot taste in Heaven!" They met—the Poet told his love, His hopes, despairs, his pains,— The Lady with her calm eyes mocked The tumult in his veins. He passed away—a fierce song leapt From cloud of his despair, As lightning, like a bright, wild beast, He poured his frenzy forth in song,— Bright heir of tears and praises! Now resteth that unquiet heart Beneath the quiet daisies. The world is old,—Oh! very old,— The wild winds weep and rave; The world is old, and grey, and cold, Let it drop into its grave! Our ears, Sir Bookworm, hunger for thy song. WALTER. I have a strain of a departed bard; One who was born too late into this world. A mighty day was past, and he saw nought But ebbing sunset and the rising stars,— Still o'er him rose those melancholy stars! Unknown his childhood, save that he was born That he grew up 'mong primroses moon-pale In the hearts of purple hills; that he o'er ran Green meadows golden in the level sun, A bright-haired child; and that, when these he left To dwell within a monstrous city's heart, The trees were gazing up into the sky, Their bare arms stretched in prayer for the snows. When first we met, his book was six months old, And eagerly his name was buzzed abroad; Praises fell thick on him. Men said, "This Dawn Will widen to a clear and boundless Day; And when it ripens to a sumptuous west With a great sunset 'twill be closed and crowned." Lady! he was as far 'bove common men As a sun-steed, wild-eyed and meteor-maned, Neighing the reeling stars, is 'bove a hack With sluggish veins of mud. More tremulous Than the soft star that in the azure east Trembles with pity o'er bright bleeding day, I was to him but Labrador to Ind; His pearls were plentier than my pebble-stones. He was the sun, I was that squab—the earth, And basked me in his light until he drew Flowers from my barren sides. Oh! he was rich, And I rejoiced upon his shore of pearls, A weak enamoured sea. Once did he say, "My Friend! a Poet must ere long arise, And with a regal song sun-crown this age, As a saint's head is with a halo crown'd;— One, who shall hallow Poetry to God And to its own high use, for Poetry is The grandest chariot wherein king-thoughts ride;— One, who shall fervent grasp the sword of song As a stern swordsman grasps his keenest blade, To find the quickest passage to the heart. A mighty Poet whom this age shall choose To be its spokesman to all coming times. In the ripe full-blown season of his soul, And grapple with the questions of all time, And wring from them their meanings. As King Saul Called up the buried prophet from his grave To speak his doom, so shall this Poet-king Call up the dead Past from its awful grave To tell him of our future. As the air Doth sphere the world, so shall his heart of love— Loving mankind, not peoples. As the lake Reflects the flower, tree, rook, and bending heaven, Shall he reflect our great humanity; And as the young Spring breathes with living breath On a dead branch, till it sprouts fragrantly Green leaves and sunny flowers, shall he breathe life Through every theme he touch, making all Beauty And Poetry for ever like the stars." His words set me on fire; I cried aloud, "Gods! what a portion to forerun this Soul!" He grasped my hand,—I looked upon his face,— A thought struck all the blood into his cheeks, Burned on mine own. He said, "A grim old king, Whose blood leapt madly when the trumpets brayed To joyous battle 'mid a storm of steeds, Won a rich kingdom on a battle-day; But in the sunset he was ebbing fast, Ringed by his weeping lords. His left hand held His white steed, to the belly splashed with blood, That seemed to mourn him with its drooping head; His right, his broken brand; and in his ear His old victorious banners flap the winds. He called his faithful herald to his side,— 'Go! tell the dead I come!' With a proud smile, The warrior with a stab let out his soul, Which fled and shrieked through all the other world, 'Ye dead! My master comes!' And there was pause Till the great shade should enter. Like that herald, Walter, I'd rush across this waiting world And cry, 'He comes!'" Lady, wilt hear the song? In the street, the tide of being, how it surges, how it rolls! God! what base ignoble faces, God! what bodies wanting souls, 'Mid this stream of human being, banked by houses tall and grim, Pale I stand this shining morrow with a pant for woodlands dim, To hear the soft and whispering rain, feel the dewy cool of leaves, Watch the lightnings dart like swallows round the brooding thunder-eaves, To lose the sense of whirling streets, 'mong breezy crests of hills, Skies of larks, and hazy landscapes, with fine threads of silver rills,— Stand with forehead bathed in sunset on a mountain's summer crown, One great life in my myriad veins, in leaves, in flowers, in cloudy cars, Blowing, underfoot, in clover; beating, overhead, in stars! Once I saw a blissful harvest-moon, but not through forest-leaves; 'Twas not whitening o'er a country, costly with the pilÈd sheaves; Rose not o'er the am'rous ocean, trembling round his happy isles; It came circling large and queenly o'er yon roof of smoky tiles, And I saw it with such feeling, joy in blood, in heart, in brain, I would give to call the affluence of that moment back again, Europe, with her cities, rivers, hills of prey, sheep-sprinkled downs,— For with that resplendent harvest-moon, my inmost thoughts were shared By a bright and shining maiden, hazel-eyed and golden-haired; One blest hour we sat together in a lone and silent place, O'er us, starry tears were trembling on the mighty midnight's face. Gradual crept my arm around her, 'gainst my shoulder came her head, And I could but draw her closer, whilst I tremulously said,— "Passion as it runs grows purer, loses every tinge of clay, As from Dawn all red and turbid flows the white transparent Day, And in mingled lives of lovers, the array of human ills Breaks their gentle course to music, as the stones break summer rills." "They are fit to line portmanteaus;" "Nay," she whispered, "Memories." And thereat she looked upon me with a smile so full of grace, All my blood was in a moment glowing in my ardent face! Half-blind, I looked up to the host of palpitating stars, 'Gainst my sides my heart was leaping, like a lion 'gainst his bars, For a thought was born within me, and I said within my mind, "I will risk all in this moment, I will either lose or find." "Dost thou love me?" then I whispered; for a minute after this, I sat and trembled in great blackness—On my lips I felt a kiss;— Than a roseleaf's touch 'twas lighter,—on her face her hands she prest, I could make her faith, my passion, a wide mark for scorn and sneers, I could laugh a hollow laughter but for these hot bursting tears; In the strong hand of my frenzy, laws and statutes snapt like reeds, And furious as a wounded bull I tore at all the creeds; I rushed into the desert, where I stood with hopeless eyes, Glaring on vast desolations, barren sands, and empty skies! Soon a trembling naked figure, to the earth my face was bowed, For the curse of God gloomed o'er me like a bursting thunder-cloud. Rolled away that fearful darkness, pass'd my weakness, pass'd my grief, Weary eyes are looking eastward, whence the golden sun upsprings, Cry the young and fervid spirits, clad with ardour as with wings, "Life and Soul make wretched jangling, they should mingle to one Sire As the lovely voices mingle in a holy temple choir. O! those souls of ours, my brothers! prisoned now in mortal bars, Have been riched by growth and travel, by the round of all the stars. Soul, alas! is unregarded; Brothers! it is closely shut: All unknown as royal Alfred in the Saxon neatherd's hut, In the Dark house of the Body, cooking victuals, lighting fires, Swelters on the starry stranger, to our nature's base desires. We have wronged it; we do wrong it—'tis majestically dumb! God! our souls are aproned waiters! God! our souls are hired slaves: Let us hide from Life, my Brothers! let us hide us in our graves. O! why stain our holy childhoods? Why sell all for drinks and meats? Why degrade, like those old mansions, standing in our pauper streets, Lodgings once of kings and nobles, silken stirs and trumpet's din, Now, where crouch 'mong rags and fever, shapes of squalor and of sin?" Like a mist this wail surrounds me; Brothers, hush; the Lord Christ's hands Ev'n now are stretched in blessing o'er the sea and o'er the lands. Throw the Present! 'tis thy servant only when 'tis overcast,— Give battle to the leaguÈd world, if thou'rt worthy, truly brave, Thou shalt make the hardest circumstance a helper or a slave, As when thunder wraps the setting sun, he struggles, glows with ire, Rifts the gloom with golden furrows, with a hundred bursts of fire, Melts the black and thund'rous masses to a sphere of rosy light, Then on edge of glowing heaven smiles in triumph on the night. Lo! the song of Earth—a maniac's on a black and dreary road— Rises up, and swells, and grandeurs, to the loud triumphal ode— In each cycle of her being, as an adder casts her skin; Lo! I see long blissful ages, when these mammon days are done, Stretching like a golden ev'ning forward to the setting sun. He sat one winter 'neath a linden tree In my bare orchard: "See, my friend," he said, "The stars among the branches hang like fruit, So, hopes were thick within me. When I'm gone The world will like a valuator sit Upon my soul, and say, 'I was a cloud That caught its glory from a sunken sun, And gradual burn'd into its native grey.'" On an October eve, 'twas his last wish To see again the mists and golden woods; Upon his death-bed he was lifted up, The slumb'rous sun within the lazy west With their last gladness filled his dying eyes. No sooner was he hence than critic-worms And thus they judged the dead: "This Poet was An April tree whose vermeil-loaded boughs Promised to Autumn apples juiced and red, But never came to fruit." "He is to us But a rich odour,—a faint music-swell." "Poet he was not in the larger sense; He could write pearls, but he could never write A Poem round and perfect as a star." "Politic i' faith. His most judicious act Was dying when he did; the next five years Had fingered all the fine dust from his wings, And left him poor as we. He died—'twas shrewd! And came with all his youth and unblown hopes On the world's heart, and touched it into tears." LADY. WALTER. Lady! ay! Ruling my being with as fierce a sway As the mad sun the prostrate desert sands, And it is that. LADY. Hast some great cherished theme? WALTER. Lovely in God's eyes, where, in barren space, Like a rich jewel hangs His universe, Unwrinkled as a dew-drop, and as fair, In my poor eyes, my loved and chosen theme Is lovely as the universe in His. LADY. Wilt write of some young wanton of an isle Whose beauty so enamoured hath the sea, It clasps it ever in its summer arms And wastes itself away on it in kisses? The seasons four knit in one flowery band Are dancing ever? Or some older realm? WALTER. I will begin in the oldest; far in God. When all the ages, and all suns, and worlds, And souls of men and angels, lay in Him Like unborn forests in an acorn cup. LADY. And how wilt thou begin it? WALTER. With old words! With the soliloquy with which God broke The silence of the dead eternities. At which most ancient words, O beautiful! With showery tresses like a child from sleep, Uprose the splendid-mooned and jewelled night,— The loveliest born of God. LADY. Then your first chorus Must be the shoutings of the morning stars! What martial music is to marching men Should Song be to Humanity. In song The infant ages born and swathÈd are. A beauteous menial to our wants divine, A shape celestial tending the dark earth With light and silver service like the moon, Is Poesy; ever remember this— How wilt thou end it? WALTER. With God and Silence! When the great universe subsides in God, Ev'n as a moment's foam subsides again Upon the wave that bears it. LADY. Why, thy plan Is wide and daring as a comet's path! And doubtless 'twill contain the tale of earth By way of episode or anecdote. This precious world which one pale marrÈd face Dropt tears upon. This base and beggar world To your rich soul! O! Marc Anthony, With a fine scorn did toss your world away For Cleopatra's lips!—so rich, so poor. SCENE III.Antique Room. Walter pacing up and down. WALTER. Thou day beyond to-morrow! though my life Should cease in thee, I'd dash aside the hours That intervene to bring thee quicklier here. Again to meet her in the windy woods! When last we met she was as marble, calm: I, with thick-beating heart and sight grown dim, And leaping pulses and loud-ringing ears, And tell-tale blood that rushed into my face, And blabbed the love secreted in my heart. She must have understood that crimson speech, I think that I am worthy to be loved. Oh, could I lift my heart into her sight, As an old mountain lifts its martyr's cairn Into the pure sight of the holy heavens! Would she but love me, I would live for her! Were she plain Night, I'd clothe her with my stars. My spirit, Poesy, would be her slave, 'Twould rifle for her ocean's secret hoards, And make her rough with pearls. If Death's pale realms Contained a gem out-lust'ring all the world, I would adventure there, and bring it her. My inmost being dwells upon her words, "Wilt trim a verse for me by this night week? Make it as jubilant as marriage bells; Or, if it please you, make it doleful sad As bells that knoll a maiden to her grave, When the spring earth is sweet in violets, Of the lone plover fits a dismal heath." I'll write a tale through which my passion runs, Like honeysuckle through a hedge of June. A silent isle on which the love-sick sea Dies with faint kisses and a murmured joy, In the clear blue the lark hangs like a speck, And empties his full heart of music-rain O'er sunny slopes, where tender lambkins bleat, And new-born rills go laughing to the sea, O'er woods that smooth down to the southern shore, Waving in green, as the young breezes blow O'er the sea sphere all sweet and summer smells. Not of these years, but by-gone minstrel times, Of shepherd-days in the young world's sunrise, Was this warm clime, this quiet land of health, By gentle pagans filled, whose red blood ran Healthy and cool as milk,—pure, simple men: Ah, how unlike the swelterers in towns! Sunshine-swathed earth; nor hear the singing rills, Nor feel the breezes in their lifted hair. A lovely youth, in manhood's very edge, Lived 'mong these shepherds and their quiet downs; Tall and blue-eyed, and bright in golden hair, With half-shut dreamy eyes, sweet earnest eyes, That seemed unoccupied with outward things, Feeding on something richer! Strangely, oft, A wildered smile lay on his noble lips. The sunburnt shepherds stared with awful eyes As he went past; and timid girls upstole, With wond'ring looks, to gaze upon his face, And on his cataract of golden curls, Then lonely grew, and went into the woods To think sweet thoughts, and marvel why they shook With heart-beat and with tremor when he came, And in the night he filled their dreams with joy. But there was one among that soft-voiced band And died among the roses of the spring. When Eve sat in the dew with closÈd lids, Came gentle maidens bearing forest flowers To strew upon her green and quiet grave. They soothed the dead with love-songs low and sweet; Songs sung of old beneath the purple night, Songs heard on earth with heart-beat and a blush, Songs heard in heaven by the breathless stars. Thought-wrapt, he wandered in the breezy woods In which the Summer, like a hermit, dwelt. He laid him down by the old haunted springs, Up-bubbling 'mid a world of greenery, Shut-eyed, and dreaming of the fairest shapes That roam the woods; and when the autumn nights Were dark and moonless, to the level sands He would betake him, there to hear, o'er-awed, The old Sea moaning like a monster pained. One day he lay within the pleasant woods On bed of flowers edging a fountain's brim, And gazed into its heart as if to count The veined and lucid pebbles one by one, Up-shining richly through the crystal clear. Thus lay he many hours, when, lo! he heard A maiden singing in the woods alone A sad and tender island melody, Which made a golden conquest of his soul, Bringing a sadness sweeter than delight. As nightingale, embowered in vernal leaves, Pants out her gladness the luxurious night, The moon and stars all hanging on her song, She poured her soul in music. When she ceased, The charmÈd woods and breezes silent stood, As if all ear to catch her voice again. Uprose the dreamer from his couch of flowers, With awful expectation in his look, And happy tears upon his pallid face, With eager steps, as if toward a heaven, Fairer than Dian, in the forest glade. His footsteps startled her, and quick she turned Her face,—looks met like swords. He clasped his hands, And fell upon his knees; the while there broke A sudden splendour o'er his yearning face; 'Twas a pale prayer in its very self. "I know thee, lovely maiden!" then he cried; "I know thee, and of thee I have been told: Been told by all the roses of the vale, By hermit streams, by pale sea-setting stars, And by the roaring of the storm-tost pines; And I have sought for thee upon the hills, In dim sweet dreams, on the complacent sea, When breathless midnight, with her thousand hearts, Beats to the same love-tune as my own heart. I've waited for thee many seasons through, Seen many autumns shed their yellow leaves O'er the oak-roots, heard many winters moan Now am I joyful, as storm-battered dove That finds a perch in the Hesperides, For thou art found. Thou, whom I long have sought, My other self! Our blood, our hearts, our souls, Shall henceforth mingle in one being, like The married colours in the bow of heaven. My soul is like a wide and empty fane, Sit thou in 't like a god, O maid divine! With worship and religion 'twill be filled. My soul is empty, lorn, and hungry space; Leap thou into it like a new-born star, And 'twill o'erflow with splendour and with bliss. More music! music! music! maid divine! My hungry senses, like a finch's brood, Are all a-gape. O feed them, maid divine! Feed, feed my hungry soul with melodies!" Thus, like a worshipper before a shrine, He earnest syllabled, and, rising up, He led that lovely stranger tenderly He never, by the maidens of the isle Nor by the shepherds, was thereafter seen 'Mong sunrise splendours on the misty hills, Or stretched at noon by the old haunted wells, Or by the level sands on autumn nights. I've heard that maidens have been won by song. O Poesy, fine sprite! I'd bless thee more If thou would'st bring that lady's love to me, Than immortality in twenty worlds. I'd rather win her than God's youngest star, With singing continents and seas of bliss.—— Thou day beyond to-morrow, haste thee on! SCENE IV.The Banks of a River.—Walter and the Lady. LADY. The stream of sunsets? WALTER. 'Tis that loveliest stream. I've learned by heart its sweet and devious course By frequent tracing, as a lover learns The features of his best-beloved's face. In memory it runs, a shining thread, With sunsets strung upon it thick, like pearls. All washed with fire, while, in the midst, the sun Beat like a pulse, welling at ev'ry beat A spreading wave of light. Where yonder church Stands up to heaven, as if to intercede For sinful hamlets scattered at its feet, I saw the dreariest sight. The sun was down, And all the west was paved with sullen fire. I cried, "Behold! the barren beach of hell At ebb of tide." The ghost of one bright hour Comes from its grave and stands before me now. 'Twas at the close of a long summer day, As we were sitting on yon grassy slope, The sunset hung before us like a dream That shakes a demon in his fiery lair; The clouds were standing round the setting sun Like gaping caves, fantastic pinnacles, Citadels throbbing in their own fierce light, Tall spires that came and went like spires of flame, Cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and peaks A-tilt and poised, bare beaches, crimson seas, All these were huddled in that dreadful west, All shook and trembled in unsteadfast light, And from the centre blazed the angry sun, Stern as the unlashed eye of God a-glare O'er evening city with its boom of sin. I do remember, as we journeyed home, (That dreadful sunset burnt into our brains), With what a soothing came the naked moon. She, like a swimmer who has found his ground, Came rippling up a silver strand of cloud, And plunged from the other side into the night. I and that friend, the feeder of my soul, Did wander up and down these banks for years, Talking of blessed hopes and holy faiths, How sin and weeping all should pass away In the calm sunshine of the earth's old age. Breezes are blowing in old Chaucer's verse, 'Twas here we drank them. Here for hours we hung Oft, standing on a hill's green head, we felt Breezes of love, and joy, and melody, Blow through us, as the winds blow through the sky. Oft with our souls in our eyes all day we fed On summer landscapes, silver-veined with streams, O'er which the air hung silent in its joy— With a great city lying in its smoke, A monster sleeping in its own thick breath; And surgy plains of wheat, and ancient woods, In the calm evenings cawed by clouds of rooks, Acres of moss, and long black strips of firs, And sweet cots dropt in green, where children played To us unheard, till, gradual, all was lost In distance-haze to a blue rim of hills, Upon whose heads came down the closing sky. Beneath the crescent moon on autumn nights We paced its banks with overflowing hearts, Discoursing long of great thought-wealthy souls, And with what spendthrift hands they scatter wide Their spirit-wealth, making mankind their debtors: Who come before their time, are starved, and die, Like swallows that arrive before the summer. Or haply talked of dearer personal themes, Blind guesses at each other's after fate; Feeling our leaping hearts, we marvelled oft How they should be unleashed, and have free course To stretch and strain far down the coming time— But in our guesses never was the grave. LADY. The tale! the tale! the tale! As empty halls Gape for a coming pageant, my fond ears To take its music are all eager-wide. WALTER. Within yon grove of beeches is a well, I've made a vow to read it only there. LADY. As I suppose, by way of recompense, For quenching thirst on some hot summer day. WALTER. Memories grow around it thick as flow That well is loved and haunted by a star. The live-long day her clear and patient eye Is open on the soft and bending blue, Just where she lost her lover in the morn. But with the night the star creeps o'er the trees And smiles upon her, and some happy hours She holds his image in her crystal heart. Beside that well I read the mighty Bard Who clad himself with beauty, genius, wealth, Then flung himself on his own passion-pyre And was consumed. Beside that lucid well The whitest lilies grow for many miles. 'Tis said that, 'mong the flowers of perished years, A prince woo'd here a lady of the land, And when with faltering lips he told his love, Into her proud face leapt her prouder blood; She struck him blind with scorn, then with an air She swept right on and left him in the dew. Again he sat at even with his love, He sent a song into her haughty ears To plead for him;—she listened, still he sang. Tears, drawn by music, were upon her face, Till on its trembling close, to which she clung Like dying wretch to life, with a low cry She flung her arms around him, told her love, And how she long had loved him, but had kept It in her heart, like one who has a gem And hoards it up in some most secret place, While he who owns it seeks it and with tears. Won by the sweet omnipotence of song! He gave her lands! she paid him with herself. Brow-bound with gold she sat, the fairest thing Within his sea-washed shores. LADY. Most fit reward! A poet's love should ever thus be paid. WALTER. Ha! Dost thou think so? LADY. Yes. The tale! the tale! WALTER. On balcony, all summer roofed with vines, A lady half-reclined amid the light, Golden and green, soft-showering through the leaves, Silent she sat one-half the silent noon; At last she sank luxurious in her couch, Purple and golden-fringÈd, like the sun's, And stretched her white arms on the warmÈd air, As if to take some object wherewithal To ease the empty aching of her heart. "Oh, what a weariness of life is mine!" The lady said, "soothing myself to sleep With my own lute, floating about the lake To feed my swans; with nought to stir my blood, Unwrought yet in the tapestry of my life Are princely suitors kneeling evermore. I, in my beauty, standing in the midst, Touching them, careless, with most stately eyes. Oh, I could love, methinks, with all my soul! But I see nought to love; nought save some score Of lisping, curl'd gallants, with words i' their mouths Soft as their mothers' milk. Oh, empty heart! Oh, palace, rich and purple-chambered! When will thy lord come home? "When the grey morn was groping 'bout the east The Earl went trooping forth to chase the stag; I trust he hath not, to the sport he loves Better than ale-bouts, ta'en my cub of Ind. My sweetest plaything. He is bright and wild As is a gleaming panther of the hills,— Lovely as lightning, beautiful as wild! His sports and laughters are with fierceness edged; As I were toying with a naked sword, Which starts within my veins the blood of earls. I fain would have the service of his voice To kill with music this most languid noon." She rang a silver bell: with downcast eyes The tawny nursling of the Indian sun Stood at her feet. "I pr'ythee, Leopard, sing; Give me some stormy song of sword and lance, Which, rushing upward from a hero's heart, Straight rose upon a hundred leaguered hills, Ragged and wild as pyramid of flame. Or, better, sing some hungry lay of love Like that you sang me on the eve you told How poor our English to your Indian darks; Shaken from od'rous hills, what tender smells Pass like fine pulses through the mellow nights; The purple ether that embathes the moon,— Your large round moon, more beautiful than ours; Your showers of stars, each hanging luminous, Like golden dewdrops in the Indian air." Its sweetest sweet, steeped ere the close in tears. 'Twas sung into the cold ears of the stars Beside the murmured margent of the sea. 'Tis of two lovers, matched like cymbals fine, Who, in a moment of luxurious blood, Their pale lips trembling in the kiss of gods, Made their lives wine-cups, and then drank them off, And died with beings full-blown like a rose; A mighty heart-pant bore them like a wave, And flung them, flowers, upon the next world's strand. Night the solemn, night the starry, 'Mong the oak-trees old and gnarry; By the sea-shore and the ships, 'Neath the stars I sat with Clari; Her silken bodice was unlaced, My arm was trembling round her waist, I plucked the joys upon her lips; Joys that plucked still grow again! Canst thou say the same, old Night? Oh, that death would let me tarry Like a dewdrop on a flower, Ever on those lips of Clari! Our beings mellow, then they fall, Like o'er-ripe peaches from the wall; We ripen, drop, and all is o'er; On the cold grave weeps the rain; I weep it should be so, old Night. Ah! my tears are vain. Night the solemn, night the starry, Say, alas! that years should harry Gloss from life and joy from lips, Love-lustre from the eyes of Clari! Moon! that walkest the blue deep, Like naked maiden in her sleep; Star! whose pallid splendour dips In the ghost-waves of the main. Oh, ye hear me not! old Night, He ceased to sing; queenly the lady lay, One white hand hidden in a golden shoal Of ringlets, reeling down upon her couch, And heaving on the heavings of her breast, The while the thoughts rose in her eyes like stars, Rising and setting in the blue of night. "I had a cousin once," the lady said, "Who brooding sat, a melancholy owl, Among the twilight-branches of his thoughts. He was a rhymer, and great knights he spoiled, And damsels saved, and giants slew—in verse. He died in youth; his heart held a dead hope, As holds the wretched west the sunset's corpse: He went to his grave, nor told what man he was. He was unlanguaged, like the earnest sea, Which strives to gain an utterance on the shore, But ne'er can shape unto the listening hills The lore it gathered in its awful age; The crime for which 'tis lashed by cruel winds; To fledge with music, wings of heavy noon, I'll sing some verses that he sent to me:— Where the west has sunset-bloomed, Where a hero's heart is tombed, Where a thunder-cloud has gloomed, Seen, becomes a part of me. Flowers and rills live sunnily In gardens of my memory. Through its walks and leafy lanes, Float fair shapes 'mong sunlight rains; Blood is running in their veins. One, a queenly maiden fair, Sweepeth past me with an air, Round her heart, a rosebud free, Reeled I, like a drunken bee; Alas! it would not ope to me. One comes shining like a saint, But her face I cannot paint, For mine eyes and blood grow faint. Eyes are dimmed as by a tear, Sounds are ringing in mine ear, I feel only, she is here, That she laugheth where she stands, That she mocketh with her hands; I am bound in tighter bands. Laid 'mong faintest blooms is one, Singing in the setting sun, She was born 'mong water-mills; She grew up 'mong flowers and rills, In the hearts of distant hills. There, into her being stole Nature, and embued the whole, And illumed her face and soul. She grew fairer than her peers; Still her gentle forehead wears Holy lights of infant years. Her blue eyes, so mild and meek, She uplifteth, when I speak, Lo! the blushes mount her cheek. Weary I of pride and jest, In this rich heart I would rest, "My dazzling panther of the smoking hills, When the hot sun hath touched their loads of dew, What strange eyes had my cousin, who could thus (For you must know I am the first o' the three That pace the gardens of his memory) Prefer before the daughter of great earls, This giglot, shining in her golden hair, Haunting him like a gleam or happy thought; Or her, the last, up whose cheeks blushes went As thick and frequent as the streamers pass Up cold December nights. True, she might be A dainty partner in the game of lips, Sweet'ning the honeymoon; but what, alas! When redhot youth cools down to iron man? Could her white fingers close a helmet up, And send her lord unkissed away to field, Her heart striking with his arm in every blow? Would joy rush through her spirit like a stream, When to her lips he came with victory back: His mouthÈd wounds brave trumpets in his praise, Drawing huge shoals of people, like the moon, Whose beauty draws the solemn-noisÈd seas? Or would his bright and lovely sanguine-stains Scare all the coward blood into her heart, Leaving her cheeks as pale as lily leaves? And at his great step would she quail and faint, And pay his seeking arms with bloodless swoon? My heart would leap to greet such coming lord, Eager to meet him, tiptoe on my lips." "This cousin loved the Lady Constance; did The Lady Constance love her cousin, too?" "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: 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, 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, 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, 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 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, 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, 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. 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, 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 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. 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! 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 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 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, 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 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, 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. 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 [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, 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; 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; 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 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, 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, 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 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, 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, 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, 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, "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 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, 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: 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 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 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. 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 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 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, 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 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; 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— 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. 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. 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 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 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 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! 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, 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, 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 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, 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, 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 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, 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Dungeoned in poverty, he saw afar The shining peaks of fame that wore the sun, Most heavenly bright, they mocked him through his bars, A lost man wildered on the dreary sea, When loneliness hath somewhat touched his brain, Doth shrink and shrink beneath the watching sky, Which hour by hour more plainly doth express The features of a deadly enemy, Drinking his woes with a most hungry eye. Ev'n so, by constant staring on his ills, His spirit, like a roused sea, white with wrath, Struck at the stars. "Hold fast! Hold fast! my brain! Had I a curse to kill with, by yon Heaven! I'd feast the worms to-night." Dreadfuller words, Whose very terror blanched his conscious lips, He uttered in his hour of agony. With quick and subtle poison in his veins, With madness burning in his heart and brain, With words, like lightnings, round his pallid lips, He rushed to die in the very eyes of God. 'Twas late, for as he reached the open roads, Where night was reddened by the drudging fires, The drowsy steeples tolled the hour of One. The city now was left long miles behind, A large black hill was looming 'gainst the stars, He reached its summit. Far above his head, Up there upon the still and mighty night, God's name was writ in worlds. Awhile he stood, He raised his hands, alas! 'twas not in prayer— He long had ceased to pray. "Father," he said, "I wished to loose some music o'er Thy world, To strike from its firm seat some hoary wrong, And then to die in autumn with the flowers, And leaves, and sunshine I have loved so well. Thou might'st have smoothed my way to some great end— But wherefore speak? Thou art the mighty God. This gleaming wilderness of suns and worlds Is an eternal and triumphant hymn, Chanted by Thee unto Thine own great self! Wrapt in Thy skies, what were my prayers to Thee? My pangs? My tears of blood? They could not move Thee from the depths of Thine immortal dream. Thou hast forgotten me, God! Here, therefore, here, To-night upon this bleak and cold hill-side, Like a forsaken watch-fire will I die, It shall reproach Thee before all Thy worlds." His death did not disturb that ancient Night. Scornfullest Night! Over the dead there hung Greats gulfs of silence, blue, and strewn with stars— No sound—no motion—in the eternal depths. EDWARD. Now, what a sullen-blooded fool was this, At sulks with earth and Heaven! Could he not Out-weep his passion like a blustering day, And be clear-skied thereafter? He, poor wretch, Must needs be famous! Lord! how Poets geck At Fame, their idol. Call 't a worthless thing, Colder than lunar rainbows, changefuller Than sleeked purples on a pigeon's neck, More transitory than a woman's loves, The bubbles of her heart—and yet each mocker Would gladly sell his soul for one sweet crumb To roll beneath his tongue. WALTER. Alas! the youth Earnest as flame, could not so tame his heart As to live quiet days. When the heart-sick Earth Turns her broad back upon the gaudy sun, And stoops her weary forehead to the night, To struggle with her sorrow all alone, The moon, that patient sufferer, pale with pain, Presses her cold lips on her sister's brow, Till she is calm. But in his sorrow's night He found no comforter. A man can bear A world's contempt when he has that within Which says he's worthy—when he contemns himself, There burns the hell. So this wild youth was foiled In a great purpose—in an agony, In which he learned to hate and scorn himself, He foamed at God, and died. MR. WILMOTT. Rain similes upon his corse like tears— The youth you spoke of was a glowing moth, Born in the eve and crushed before the dawn. VIOLET. He was, methinks, like that frail flower that comes Amid the nips and gusts of churlish March, Drinking pale beauty from sweet April's tears, Dead on the hem of May. EDWARD. A Lapland fool, Who, staring upward as the Northern lights Banner the skies with glory, breaks his heart, Because his smoky hut and greasy furs Are not so rich as they. ARTHUR. Mine is pathetic— A ginger-beer bottle burst. WALTER (aside). And mine would be The pale child, Eve, leading her mother, Night. [Mr. Wilmott, Arthur, and Edward, converse—Violet approaches Walter. VIOLET. Did you know well that youth of whom you spake? WALTER. Know him! Oh, yes, I knew him as myself— Two passions dwelt at once within his soul, Like eve and sunset dwelling in one sky. And as the sunset dies along the west, Eve higher lifts her front of trembling stars, Till she is seated in the middle sky, So gradual, one passion slowly died, And from its death the other drew fresh life, Until 't was seated in his soul alone— The dead was Love—the living, Poetry. VIOLET. Alas! if Love rose never from the dead. WALTER. Between him and the Lady of his Love There stood a wrinkled worldling ripe for hell. When with his golden hand he plucked that flower, And would have smelt it, lo! it paled and shrank, And withered in his grasp. And when she died, The rivers of his heart ran all to waste; They found no ocean, dry sands sucked them up. Lady! he was a fool—a pitiful fool. She said she loved him, would be dead in spring— She asked him but to stand beside her grave— She said she would be daisies—and she thought 'Twould give her joy to feel that he was near. She died like music; and, would you believe 't? As ceremonious as a chapel keeps A relic of a saint. And in the spring The doting idiot went! VIOLET. What found he there? WALTER. Laugh till your sides ache! Oh, he went, poor fool! But he found nothing save red-trampled clay, And a dull sobbing rain. Do you not laugh? Amid the comfortless rain he stood and wept, Bare-headed, in the mocking, pelting rain. He might have known 'twas ever so on earth. VIOLET. You cannot laugh yourself, Sir, nor can I. Her unpolluted corse doth sleep in earth, Like a pure thought within a sinful soul. Dearer is earth to God for her sweet sake. WALTER. 'Tis said our nature is corrupt; but she O'erlaid hers with all graces, ev'n as Night Wears such a crowd of jewels on her face, You cannot see 'tis black. VIOLET. How looked this youth? Did he in voice or mien resemble you? Was he about your age? Wore he such curls? Such eyes of dark sea-blue? WALTER. Why do you ask? VIOLET. I thought just now you might resemble him. Were you not brothers?—twins? Or was the one A shadow of the other? WALTER. What mean you? VIOLET. That like the moon you need not wrap yourself In any cloud; you shine through each disguise; You are a masker in a mask of glass. You've such transparent sides, each casual eye May see the heaving heart. WALTER. Oh, misery! Is 't visible to thee? VIOLET. 'Tis clear as dew! Mine eyes have been upon it all the night, Unknown to you. WALTER. The sorrowful alone Can know the sorrowful. What woe is thine, That thou canst read me thus? VIOLET. A new-born power, Whose unformed features cannot clearly show Whether 'tis Joy or Sorrow. But the years May nurture it to either. WALTER. To thee I'm bare. My heart lies open to you, as the earth To the omniscient sun. I have a work— The finger of my soul doth point it out; I trust God's finger points it also out. I must attempt it; if my sinews fail, On my unsheltered head men's scorns will fall, Like a slow shower of fire. Yet if one tear Were mingled with them, it were less to bear. VIOLET. I'll give thee tears.— WALTER. That were as queenly Night Would loosen all the jewels from her hair, And hail them on this sordid thing, the earth. Thy tears keep for a worthier head than mine. VIOLET. I will not cope with you in compliment. I'll give you tears, and pity, and true thoughts; If you are desolate, my heart is open; I know 'tis little worth, but any hut, However poor, unto a homeless man, Is welcomer than mists or nipping winds. But if you conquer Fame—— WALTER. With eager hands I'll bend the awful thing into a crown, And you shall wear it. VIOLET. Oh, no, no! Lay it upon her grave. [Another silence. ARTHUR. Run out again! We should he jovial as the feasting gods, We're silent as a synod of the stars! The night is out at elbows. Laughter's dead. To the rescue, Violet! A song! a song! VIOLET sings. Upon my knee a modern minstrel's tales, Full as a choir with music, lies unread; My impatient shallop flaps its silken sails I see a wretched isle, that ghost-like stands, Wrapt in its mist-shroud in the wint'ry main; And now a cheerless gleam of red-ploughed lands, O'er which a crow flies heavy in the rain. I've neither heart nor voice! [Rises and draws the curtain. You've sat the night out, Masters! See, the moon Lies stranded on the pallid coast of morn. ARTHUR. Methinks our merriment lies stranded, too. Draw the long table for a game of bowls. You will be captain, Edward,—Gods! he yawns. [To Walter. Your thunder, Jove, has soured these cream-pots all. MR. WILMOTT. To bed! To bed! SCENE IX.A Lawn—Sunset—Walter lying at Violet's feet. VIOLET. You loved, then, very much, this friend of thine? WALTER. The sound of his voice did warm my heart like wine. He's long since dead; but if there is a heaven, He's in its heart of bliss. VIOLET. How did you live? WALTER. We read and wrote together, slept together; We dwelt on slopes against the morning sun, We dwelt in crowded streets, and loved to walk While Labour slept; for, in the ghastly dawn, The wildered city seemed a demon's brain, The children of the night its evil thoughts. Sometimes we sat whole afternoons, and watched The sunset build a city frail as dream, With bridges, streets of splendour, towers; and saw The fabrics crumble into rosy ruins, And then grow grey as heath. But our chief joy Was to draw images from everything; And images lay thick upon our talk, As shells on ocean sands. VIOLET. WALTER. Why, this. The sun is dying like a cloven king In his own blood; the while the distant moon, Like a pale prophetess, whom he has wronged, Leans eager forward, with most hungry eyes, Watching him bleed to death, and, as he faints, She brightens and dilates; revenge complete, She walks in lonely triumph through the night. VIOLET. Give not such hateful passion to the orb That cools the heated lands; that ripes the fields, While sleep the husbandmen, then hastes away Ere the first step of dawn, doing all good In secret and the night. 'Tis very wrong. Would I had known your friend! WALTER. Iconoclast! 'Tis better as it is. VIOLET. Why is it so? WALTER. Because you would have loved him, and then I Would have to wander outside of all joy, Like Neptune in the cold. [A pause. VIOLET. Do you remember You promised yesterday you'd paint for me Three pictures from your life? WALTER. I'll do so now. On this delicious eve, with words like colours, I'll limn them on the canvass of your sense. VIOLET. Be quick! be quick! for see, the parting sun But peers above yon range of crimson hills, Taking his last look of this lovely scene. Dusk will be here anon. WALTER. And all the stars! VIOLET. Great friends of yours; you love them overmuch. WALTER. I love the stars too much! The tameless sea Spreads itself out beneath them, smooth as glass. You cannot love them, lady, till you dwell In mighty towns; immured in their black hearts, The stars are nearer to you than the fields. I'd grow an Atheist in these towns of trade, Were 't not for stars. The smoke puts heaven out; I meet sin-bloated faces in the streets, And curses spilt from lips that once were sweet, And sealed for Heaven by a mother's kiss. I mix with men whose hearts of human flesh, Beneath the petrifying touch of gold, Have grown as stony as the trodden ways. I see no trace of God, till in the night, While the vast city lies in dreams of gain, He doth reveal himself to me in heaven. My heart swells to Him as the sea to the moon; Therefore it is I love the midnight stars. VIOLET. I would I had a lover who could give Such ample reasons for his loving me, As you for loving stars! But to your task. WALTER. Wilt listen to the pictures of my life? VIOLET. Patient as evening to the nightingale! WALTER. 'Mong the green lanes of Kent—green sunny lanes— Where troops of children shout, and laugh, and play, And gather daisies, stood an antique home, Within its orchard, rich with ruddy fruits, For the full year was laughing in his prime. Wealth of all flowers grew in that garden green, And the old porch with its great oaken door Was smothered in rose-blooms, while o'er the walls The honeysuckle clung deliriously. Before the door there lay a plot of grass, Snowed o'er with daisies,—flower by all beloved, And famousest in song—and in the midst, A carvÈd fountain stood, dried up and broken, On which a peacock perched and sunned itself; Beneath, two petted rabbits, snowy white, Squatted upon the sward. A row of poplars darkly rose behind, Around whose tops, and the old-fashioned vanes, The mighty sky, with sailing sunny clouds. One casement was thrown open, and within, A boy hung o'er a book of poesy, Silent as planet hanging o'er the sea. In at the casement open to the noon Came sweetest garden-odours, and the hum— The drowsy hum—of the rejoicing bees, Heavened in blooms that overclad the walls; And the cool wind waved in upon his brow, And stirred his curls. Soft fell the summer night. Then he arose, and with inspired lips said,— "Stars! ye are golden-voicÈd clarions To high-aspiring and heroic dooms. To-night, as I look up unto ye, Stars! I feel my soul rise to its destiny, Like a strong eagle to its eyrie soaring. Who thinks of weakness underneath ye, Stars? A hum shall be on earth, a name be heard, An epitaph shall look up proud to God. Stars! read and listen, it may not be long." VIOLET (leaning over him). I'll see that grand desire within your eyes— Oh, I only see myself! WALTER. Violet! Could you look through my heart as through mine eyes, You'd find yourself there, too. VIOLET. Hush, flatterer! Yet go on with your tale. WALTER. Three blue days passed, Full of the sun, loud with a thousand larks; An evening like a grey child walked 'tween each. 'Twas in the quiet of the fourth day's noon, The boy I speak of slumbered in the wood. A lady bent above him. He awoke; She blushed like sunset, 'mid embarrassed speech; A shock of laughter made them friends at once, And laughter fluttered through their after-talk, As darts a bright bird in and out the leaves. All day he drank her splendid light of eyes; Nor did they part until the deepening east Gan to be sprinkled with the lights of eve. VIOLET. Go on! go on! WALTER. June sang herself to death. They parted in the wood, she very pale, And he walked home the weariest thing on earth. That night he sat in his unlighted room, Pale, sad, and solitary, sick at heart, For he had parted with his dearest friends, Troops of fine fancies that like lambs did play Amid the sunshine and the virgin dews, Thick-lying in the green fields of his heart. Calm thoughts that dwelt like hermits in his soul, Fair shapes that slept in fancifullest bowers, Hopes and delights,—He parted with them all. Linked hand in hand they went, tears in their eyes, As faint and beautiful as eyes of flowers, And now he sat alone with empty soul. Last night his soul was like a forest, haunted With pagan shapes; when one nymph slumbering lay, A sweet dream 'neath her eyelids, her white limbs Sinking full softly in the violets dim; When timbrelled troops rushed past with branches green. One in each fountain, riched with golden sands, With her delicious face a moment seen, And limbs faint-gleaming through their watery veil. To-night his soul was like that forest old, Running like one distract 'mong their old haunts, Gold-sanded fountains, and the bladed flags. [A pause. It is enough to shake one into tears. A palace full of music was his heart, An earthquake rent it open to the rain; The lovely music died—the bright throngs fled— Despair came like a foul and grizzly beast, And littered in its consecrated rooms. Nature was leaping like a Bacchanal On the next morn, beneath its sky-wide sheen The boy stood pallid in the rosy porch. The mad larks bathing in the golden light, The flowers close-fondled by the impassioned winds, The smells that came and went upon the sense, Like faint waves on a shore, he heeded not; He could not look the morning in the eyes. Long years have passed, and he has not returned, Beggared or laden, home. VIOLET. Ah, me, 'tis sad! And sorrow's hand as well as mine has been Among these golden curls. 'Tis past, 'tis past; It has dissolved, as did the bank of cloud That lay in the west last night. WALTER. I yearned for love, As earnestly as sun-cracked summer earth Yearns to the heavens for rain—none ever came. VIOLET. Oh, say not so! I love thee very much; Let me but grow up like a sweet-breathed flower Within this ghastly fissure of thy heart! Do you not love me, Walter? WALTER. By thy tears I love thee as my own immortal soul. Weep, weep, my Beautiful! Upon thy face There is no cloud of sorrow or distress. It is as moonlight, pale, serene, and clear. Thy tears are spilt of joy, they fall like rain From heaven's stainless blue. Bend over me, my Beautiful, my Own. Oh, I could lie with face upturned for ever, And on thy beauty feed as on a star! [Another pause. Thy face doth come between me and the heaven— Start not, my dearest! for I would not give Thee in thy tears for all yon sky lit up For a god's feast to-night. And I am loved! Why did you love me, Violet? VIOLET. The sun Smiles on the earth, and the exuberant earth Returns the smile in flowers—'twas so with me. I love thee as a fountain leaps to light— I can do nothing else. WALTER. Say these words again, And yet again; never fell on my ear Such drops of music. VIOLET. Alas! poor words are weak, So are the daily ills of common life, To draw the ingots and the hoarded pearls From out the treasure-caverns of my heart. Suffering, despair, and death alone can do it: Poor Walter! [Kisses him. WALTER. Gods! I could out-Anthony Anthony! This moment I could scatter Kingdoms life halfpence. I am drunk with joy. This is a royal hour—the top of life. Henceforth my path slopes downward to the grave— All's dross but love. That largest Son of Time, Who wandered singing through the listening world, Will be as much forgot as the canoe That crossed the bosom of a lonely lake A thousand years ago. My Beautiful! I would not give thy cheek for all his songs— Thy kiss for all his fame. Why do you weep? VIOLET. To think that we, so happy now, must die. WALTER. That thought hangs like a cold and slimy snail On the rich rose of love—shake it away— Give me another kiss, and I will take But thou art fairer, Violet! Unloose The midnight of thy tresses, let them float Around us both. How the freed ringlets reel Down to the dewy grass! Here lean thy head, Now you will feel my heart leap 'gainst thy cheek; Imprison me with those white arms of thine. So, so. O sweet upturnÈd face! (Kisses her.) If God Told you to-night He'd grant your dearest wish, What would it be? VIOLET. That He would let you grow To your ambition's height. What would be yours? WALTER. A greater boon than Satan's forfeit throne! That He would keep us beautiful and young For ever, as to-night. Oh, I could live Grows dim and wrinkled as an old man's face. Our cheeks are close, our breaths mix like our souls. We have been starved hereto; Love's banquet's spread, Now let us feast our fills. VIOLET. Walter! SCENE X.A Bridge in a City—Midnight—Walter alone. WALTER. Adam lost Paradise—eternal tale Repeated in the lives of all his sons. I had a shining orb of happiness, God gave it me; but sin passed over it As small-pox passes o'er a lovely face, Leaving it hideous. I have lost for ever And now stand in the middle of my life Looking back through my tears—ne'er to return. I've a stern tryst with Death, and must go on, Though with slow steps and oft-reverted eyes. 'Tis a thick, rich-hazed, sumptuous autumn night; The moon grows like a white flower in the sky; The stars are dim. The tired year rests content Among her sheaves, as a fond mother rests Among her children; all her work is done. There is a weight of peace upon the world; It sleeps: God's blessing on it. Not on me! Oh, as a lewd dream stains the holy sleep, I stain the holy night, yet dare not die! I knew this river's childhood, from the lake That gave it birth, till, as if spilt from heaven, It floated o'er the face of jet-black rocks, Graceful and gauzy as a snowy veil. Now we are black alike. This stream has turned The wheels of commerce, and come forth distained; And now trails slowly through a city's heart, Drawing its filth as doth an evil soul Attract all evil things; putrid and black It mingles with the clear and stainless sea. So into pure eternity my soul Will disembogue itself. Good men have said That sometimes God leaves sinners to their sin,— He has left me to mine, and I am changed; My worst part is insurgent, and my will Is weak and powerless as a trembling king When millions rise up hungry. Woe is me! My soul breeds sins as a dead body worms! They swarm and feed upon me. Hear me, God! Sin met me and embraced me on my way; Methought her cheeks were red, her lips had bloom; I kissed her bold lips, dallied with her hair: It was a putrid corse that clung to me, That clings to me like memory to the damned, That rots into my being. Father! God! I cannot shake it off, it clings, it clings;— I soon will grow as corrupt as itself. [A pause. God sends me back my prayers, as a father Returns unoped the letters of a son Who has dishonoured him. Have mercy, Fiend! Thou Devil, thou wilt drag me down to hell. Oh, if she had proclivity to sin Who did appear so beauteous and so pure, Nature may leer behind a gracious mask. And God himself may be——I'm giddy, blind, The world reels from beneath me. [Catches hold of the parapet. (An outcast approaches.) Wilt pray for me? GIRL (shuddering). 'Tis a dreadful thing to pray. WALTER. Why is it so? Hast thou, like me, a spot upon thy soul That neither tears can cleanse nor fires eterne? GIRL. But few request my prayers. WALTER. I request them. For ne'er did a dishevelled woman cling So earnest-pale to a stern conqueror's knees, Pleading for a dear life, as did my prayer Cling to the knees of God. He shook it off, And went upon His way. Wilt pray for me? GIRL. Sin crusts me o'er as limpets crust the rocks. I would be thrust from ev'ry human door; I dare not knock at heaven's. WALTER. Poor homeless one! There is a door stands wide for thee and me— The door of hell. Methinks we are well met. I saw a little girl three years ago, With eyes of azure and with cheeks of red, A crowd of sunbeams hanging down her face; Sweet laughter round her; dancing like a breeze. I'd rather lair me with a fiend in fire Than look on such a face as hers to-night. But I can look on thee, and such as thee; I'll call thee "Sister;" do thou call me "Brother." A thousand years hence, when we both are damned, We'll sit like ghosts upon the wailing shore, And read our lives by the red light of hell. Shall we not, Sister? GIRL. O thou strange, wild man! Let me alone: what would you seek with me? WALTER. Your ear, my Sister. I have that within Which urges me to utterance. I could accost A pensive angel, singing to himself Upon a hill in heaven, and leave his mind As dark and turbid as a trampled pool, To purify at leisure.—I have none To listen to me, save a sinful woman Upon a midnight bridge.—She was so fair, God's eye could rest with pleasure on her face. Oh, God, she was so happy! Her short life, As full of music as the crowded June Of an unfallen orb. What is it now? She gave me her young heart, full, full of love: My return—was to break it. Worse, far worse; I crept into the chambers of her soul, Like a foul toad, polluting as I went. GIRL. I pity her—not you. Man trusts in God; He is eternal. Woman trusts in man, And he is shifting sand. WALTER. Poor child, poor child! We sat in dreadful silence with our sin, Looking each other wildly in the eyes: Methought I heard the gates of heaven close, She flung herself against me, burst in tears, As a wave bursts in spray. She covered me With her wild sorrow, as an April cloud With dim dishevelled tresses hides the hill On which its heart is breaking. She clung to me With piteous arms, and shook me with her sobs, For she had lost her world, her heaven, her God, And now had nought but me and her great wrong. She did not kill me with a single word, But once she lifted her tear-dabbled face— Had hell gaped at my feet I would have leapt Still it pursues me like a haunting fiend: It drives me out to the black moors at night, Where I am smitten by the hissing rain, And ruffian winds, dislodging from their troops, Hustle me shrieking, then with sudden turn Go laughing to their fellows. Merciful God! It comes—that face again, that white, white face, Set in a night of hair; reproachful eyes, That make me mad. Oh, save me from those eyes! They will torment me even in the grave, And burn on me in Tophet. GIRL. Where are you going? WALTER. My heart's on fire by hell, and on I drive To outer blackness, like a blazing ship. [He rushes away. SCENE XI.Night.—Walter, standing alone in his garden. WALTER. Summer hath murmured with her leafy lips Around my home, and I have heard her not; I've missed the process of three several years, From shaking wind-flowers to the tarnished gold That rustles sere on Autumn's aged boughs. I went three years ago, and now return, As stag sore-hunted a long summer day Creeps in the eve to its deep forest-home. [A pause. This is my home again! Once more I hail It stands all flecked with shadows in the moon, Patient, and white, and woeful. 'Tis so still, It seems to brood upon its youthful years, When children sported on its ringing floors, And music trembled through its happy rooms. 'Twas here I spent my youth, as far removed From the great heavings, hopes, and fears of man, As unknown isle asleep in unknown seas. Gone my pure heart, and with it happy days; No manna falls around me from on high, Barely from off the desert of my life I gather patience and severe content. God is a worker. He has thickly strewn Infinity with grandeur. God is Love; He yet will wipe away Creation's tears, And all the worlds shall summer in His smile. Why work I not? The veriest mote that sports Its one-day life within the sunny beam Has its stern duties. Wherefore have I none? As a strong runner, straining for his life, Unclasps a mantle to the hungry winds. A mighty purpose rises large and slow From out the fluctuations of my soul, As, ghost-like, from the dim and tumbling sea Starts the completed moon. [Another pause. I have a heart to dare, And spirit-thews to work my daring out; I'll cleave the world as a swimmer cleaves the sea, Breaking the sleek green billows into froth, With tilting full-blown chest, and scattering With scornful breath the kissing, flattering foam, That leaps and dallies with his dipping lip. Thou'rt distant, now, O World! I hear thee not; No pallid fringes of thy fires to-night Droop round the large horizon. Yet, O World! I have thee in my power, and as a man By some mysterious influence can sway Another's mind, making him laugh and weep, Much have I suffered, both from thee and thine; Thou shalt not 'scape me, World! I'll make thee weep; I'll make my lone thought cross thee like a spirit, And blanch thy braggart cheeks, lift up thy hair, And make thy great knees tremble; I will send Across thy soul dark herds of demon dreams, And make thee toss and moan in troubled sleep; And, waking, I will fill thy forlorn heart With pure and happy thoughts, as summer woods Are full of singing-birds. I come from far, I'll rest myself, O World! awhile on thee, And half in earnest, half in jest, I'll cut My name upon thee, pass the arch of Death, Then on a stair of stars go up to God. SCENE XII.An Apartment—Charles and Edward seated. EDWARD. Have you seen Walter lately? CHARLES. Very much; I wintered with him. EDWARD. What was he about? CHARLES. He wrote his Poem then. EDWARD. That was a hit! The world is murmuring like a hive of bees: He is its theme—to-morrow it may change. Was it done at a dash? CHARLES. It was; each word sincere, As blood-drops from the heart. The full-faced moon, Set round with stars, in at his casement looked, And saw him write and write: and when the moon Was waning dim upon the edge of morn, Still sat he writing, thoughtful-eyed and pale; And, as of yore, round his white temples reeled His golden hair, in ringlets beautiful. Great joy he had, for thought came glad and thick As leaves upon a tree in primrose-time; And as he wrote, his task the lovelier grew, Like April unto May, or as a child, A-smile in the lap of life, by fine degrees In atmosphere of beauty round her breathed. He wrote all winter in an olden room, Hallowed with glooms and books. Priests who have wed Their makers unto Fame, Moons that have shed Eternal halos around England's head; Books dusky and thumbed without, within, a sphere Smelling of Spring, as genial, fresh, and clear, And beautiful, as is the rainbowed air After May showers. Within this pleasant lair He passed in writing all the winter moons; But when May came, with train of sunny noons, He chose a leafy summer-house within The greenest nook in all his garden green; Oft a fine thought would flush his face divine, As he had quaffed a cup of olden wine, Which deifies the drinker: oft his face Gleamed like a spirit's in that shady place, While he saw, smiling upward from the scroll, There, 'mid the waving shadows of the trees, 'Mong garden-odours and the hum of bees, He wrote the last and closing passages. He is not happy. EDWARD. Has he told you so? CHARLES. Not in plain terms. Oft an unhappy thought, Telling all is not well, falls from his soul Like a diseasÈd feather from the wing Of a sick eagle; a scorched meteor-stone Dropt from the ruined moon. EDWARD. What are these thoughts? CHARLES. I walked with him upon a windy night; We saw the streaming moon flee through the sky, Pursued by all the dark and hungry clouds. He stopped and said: "Weariness feeds on all. God wearies, and so makes a universe, And gathers angels round him.—He is weak; I weary, and so wreak myself in verse,—— Away with scrannel-pipes. Oh, for mad War! I'd give my next twelve years to head but once Ten thousand horse in a victorious charge. Give me some one to hate, and let me chase Him through the zones, and finding him at last, Make his accursed eyes leap on his cheeks, And his face blacken, with one choking gripe." EDWARD. Savage enough, i' faith! CHARLES. He often said, His strivings after Poesy and Fame Were vain as turning blind eyes on the sun. His Book came out; I told him that the world Hailed him a Poet. He said, with feeble smile, "I have arisen like a dawn—the world, Like the touched Memnon, murmurs—that is all." He said, as we were lying on the moss, (A forest sounding o'er us, like a sea Above two mermen seated on the sands,) "Our human hearts are deeper than our souls, And Love than Knowledge is diviner food— Oh, Charles! if God will ever send to thee A heart that loves thee, reverence that heart. We think that Death is hard, when he can kill An infant smiling in his very face: Harder was I than Death.—In cup of sin I did dissolve thee, thou most precious pearl, Then drank thee up." We sat one eve, Gazing in silence on the falling sun: Like a fine veil, came down the tender gloom; A dove came fluttering round the window, flew Away, and then came fluttering back. He said, "As that dove flutters round the casement, comes A pale shape round my soul; I've done it wrong, I never will be happy till I ope My heart and take it in."—'Twas ever so; To some strange sorrow all his thoughts did tend, Like waves unto a shore. Dost know his grief? EDWARD. CHARLES. He told me once, The saddest thing that can befall a soul Is when it loses faith in God and Woman; For he had lost them both. Lost I those gems— Though the world's throne stood empty in my path, I would go wandering back into my childhood, Searching for them with tears. EDWARD. Let him go Alone upon his waste and dreary road, He will return to the old faith he learned Beside his mother's knee. That memory That haunts him, as the sweet and gracious moon Haunts the poor outcast Earth, will lead him back To happiness and God. CHARLES. May it be so! SCENE XIII.Afternoon.—Walter and Violet entering the garden from the house. VIOLET. This is the dwelling you have told me of,— Summer again hath dressed its bloomy walls, Its fragrant front is populous with bees; This is the garden—all is very like, And yet unlike the picture in my heart; I know not which is loveliest. I see Afar the wandering beauty of the stream, Its broad and gleaming back among the woods. Is that the wood you slept in? WALTER. That is it. And every nook and glade and tangled dell, From its wide circle to its leafy heart, Is as familiar to me as my soul. Memories dwell like doves among the trees, Like nymphs in glooms, like naÏads in the wells; And some are sweet, and sadder some than death. [A pause. I could have sworn the world did sing in air, I was so happy once. The eagle drinks The keen blue morning, and the morn was mine. I bathed in sunset, and to me the night Was a perpetual wonder and an awe. Oft, as I lay on earth and gazed at her, The gliding moon with influence divine And spill it o'er my eyes. Sadness was joy Of but another sort. My happiness Was flecked with vague and transitory griefs, As sweetly as the shining length of June With evanescent eves; and through my soul At intervals a regal pageant passed, As through the palpitating streets the corse Of a great chieftain, rolled in music rich, Moves slow towards its rest. In these young days Existence was to me sufficient joy; At once a throne and kingdom, crown and lyre. Now it is but a strip of barren sand, On which with earnest heart I strive to rear A temple to the Gods. I will not sadden you. [They move on. This is the fountain: once it flashed and sang (Possessed of such exuberance of joy) To golden sunrise, the blue day, and when The night grew gradual o'er it, star by star,— Now it is mute as Memnon. VIOLET. Sad again! Its brim is written over—o'er and o'er; 'Tis mute; but have you made its marble lips As sweet as Music's? WALTER. Miserable words! The offspring of some most unhappy hours. To me this fountain's brim is sad as though 'Twere splashed with my own blood. VIOLET (reads). "Nature cares not Although her loveliness should ne'er be seen By human eyes, nor praised by human tongues. The cataract exults among the hills, And wears its crown of rainbows all alone. Libel the ocean on his tawny sands, Erases both alike. Alas for man! Unless his fellows can behold his deeds He cares not to be great." 'Tis very true. The next is written in a languid hand: "Sin hath drunk up my pleasure, as eclipse Drinks up the sunlight. On my spirit lies A malison and ban. What though the Spring Makes all the hills and valleys laugh in green,— Is the sea healed, or is the plover's cry Merry upon the moor? I now am kin To these, and winds, and ever-suffering things." Oh, I could blot these words out with my tears! WALTER. So could I when I wrote them. VIOLET. What is next? "A sin lies dead and dreadful in my soul, Oh, rather, since it cannot be destroyed, Let me as reverently cover it As with a cloth we cover up the dead, And place it in some chamber of my soul, Where it may lie unseen as sound, yet felt,— Making life hushed and awful." WALTER. No more. No more. Let God wash out this record with His rain! This is the summer-house. [They enter. It is as sweet As if enamoured Summer did adorn It for his Love to dwell in. I love to sit And hear the pattering footsteps of the shower, As he runs over it, or watch at noon The curious sunbeams peeping through the leaves. VIOLET. I've always pictured you in such a place Writing your Book, and hurrying on, as if You had a long and wondrous tale to tell, And felt Death's cold hand closing round your heart. WALTER. Have you read my Book? VIOLET. I have. WALTER. It is enough. The Book was only written for two souls, And they are thine and mine. VIOLET. For many weeks, When I was dwelling by the moaning sea, Your name was blown to me on ev'ry wind, You had fulfilled your heart, and hoped you would Put off the robes of sorrow, and put on The singing crown of Fame. One dreary morn Your Book came to me, and I fondled it, As though it were a pigeon sent from thee With love beneath its wing. I read and read Until the sun lifted his cloudy lids And shot wild light along the leaping deep, Then closed his eyes in death. I shed no tear, I laid it down in silence, and went forth Burdened with its sad thoughts: slowly I went; And, as I wandered through the deepening gloom, I saw the pale and penitential moon Rise from dark waves that plucked at her, and go Sorrowful up the sky. Then gushed my tears— The tangled problem of my life was plain— I cried aloud, "Oh, would he come to me! I know he is unhappy; that he strives As fiercely as that blind and desperate sea, He never will be happy till he comes." As I went home the thought that you would come Filled my lorn heart with gladness, as the moon Filled the great vacant night with moonlight, till Its silver bliss ran o'er—so after prayer I slept in the lap of peace—next morn you came. WALTER. And then I found you beautiful and pale— Pale as that moonlight night! O Violet, I have been undeceived. In my hot youth I kissed the painted bloom off Pleasure's lips And found them pale as Pain's,—and wept aloud. Never henceforward can I hope to drain The rapture of a lifetime at a gulp. My happiness is not a troubled joy; 'Tis deep, serene as death. The sweet contents, The happy thoughts from which I've been estranged, Surround and welcome a repentant spirit, Who by the steps of sorrow hath regained His throne and golden prime. The eve draws nigh! The prosperous sun is in the west, and sees From the pale east to where he sets in bliss, His long road glorious. Wilt thou sing, my love, And sadden me into a deeper joy? Violet sings. The wondrous ages pass like rushing waves, Each crowned with its own foam. Bards die, and Fame Hangs like a pallid meteor o'er their graves. Religions change, and come and go like flame. Nothing remains but Love, the world's round mass It doth pervade, all forms of life it shares, The institutions that like moments pass Love is a sanctifier; 'tis a moon, Turning each dusk to silver. A pure light, Redeemer of all errors—— [Ceases, and bursts into tears. WALTER. What ails you, Violet? Has music stung you like a very snake? Why do you weep? VIOLET. Walter! dost thou believe Love will redeem all errors? Oh, my friend, This gospel saves you! doubt it, you are lost. Deep in the mists of sorrow long I lay, Hopeless and still, when suddenly this truth Like a slant sunbeam quivered through the mist, And turned it into radiance. In the light I wrote these words, while you were far away We floated o'er the smooth, moon-silvered sea; The sky was smiling with its orbs of bliss; And while we lived within each other's eyes, We struck and split, and all the world was lost In one wild whirl of horror darkening down; At last I gained a deep and silent isle, Moaned on by a dim sea, and wandered round, Week after week, the happy-mournful shore, Wond'ring if you had 'scaped. WALTER. Thou noble soul, Teach me, for thou art nearer God than I! My life was a long dream; when I awoke, Duty stood like an angel in my path, And seemed so terrible, I could have turned Into my yesterdays, and wandered back To distant childhood, and gone out to God By thy sweet inspiration, as the tide Lifts up a stranded boat upon the beach. I will go forth 'mong men, not mailed in scorn, But in the armour of a pure intent. Great duties are before me and great songs, And whether crowned or crownless, when I fall It matters not, so that God's work is done. I've learned to prize the quiet lightning-deed, Not the applauding thunder at its heels Which men call Fame. Our night is past; We stand in precious sunrise, and beyond A long day stretches to the very end. Look out, my beautiful, upon the sky! Even puts on her jewels. Look! she sets, Venus upon her brow. I never gaze Upon the evening but a tide of awe, And love, and wonder, from the Infinite, Swells up within me, as the running brine From the smooth-glistening, wide-heaving sea, Until it threats its banks. It is not joy, 'Tis sadness more divine. VIOLET. How quick they come,— World after world! See the great moon above Yon undistinguishable clump of trees Is slowly from the darkness gathering light! You used to love the moon! WALTER. This mournful wind Has surely been with Winter, 'tis so cold; The dews are falling, Violet! Your cloak— Draw it around you. Let the still night shine! A star's a cold thing to a human heart, And love is better than their radiance. Come! Let us go in together. |
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