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Alfred Austin - The Human Tragedy ACT I
Work rating: Low

1 2 
Personages:
     Olive—
     Godfrid—
     Gilbert.

      Protagonist:
     Love.


Place: England.
Time: June-November 1857

 Love! all—creating Love, primordial Power,
 By whom the Heavens, from whom the stars had birth,
 Fountain and force of air, light, season, shower,
 Growth, and the green apparel of the Earth,
 Source of the seed and secret of the flower,
 Parent of all our woe and all our worth,
 Thine too the fervent tenderness that gives
 Breath unto Song, whereby it, quickening, lives.

 Therefore this earthy strain, wherein are blent
 Peace and unrest, meetings and partings dire,
 Joy that consumes and never can content,
 Passion and pain, despondency, desire,
 And hope that weaves its own pale cerëment,
 Do Thou with heavenly harmony inspire;
 So that it steal within the heart, and be
 A cherished sadness, even like to Thee.

 But not of these alone, of yearnings blind,
 Swift raptures and slow penalties, I sing.
 I must be lifted by a fiercer wind,
 And whirled and wafted on a wider wing,
 Still as Religion, Country, or Mankind,
 Wakes in the shell and wails along the string.
 For Faith, Hope, Charity, whereby we be
 Noblest, enact The Human Tragedy.

 Rude Winter, violating neutral plain
 Of March, through April`s territory sallied,
 Scoured with his snowy plume its fair domain,
 Then, down encamping, made his daring valid.
 Nor till May, mustering all her gallant train
 Of phalanxed spears Spring`s cowering levies rallied,
 Did the usurper from the realm of sleet
 Fold his white tents, and shriek a wild retreat.

 Then, all at once, the land laughed into bloom,
 Feeling its alien fetters were undone;
 Rushed into frolic ecstasies; the plume
 The courtly lilac tosses i` the sun,
 Laburnum tassels dripping faint perfume,
 Hawthorn and chestnut, showed, not one by one,
 But all in rival pomp and joint array,
 Blent with green leaves as long delayed as they.

 The dog—rose, simplest, sweetest of its kind,
 Brocaded brake and hedgerow ere as yet,
 In grassy hollow screened from sun and wind,
 The primrose paled and perished. The violet
 Closed not blue eyes, to early doom resigned,
 Ere it beheld the clambering woodbine wet
 With honey self—distilled, and knew that earth
 Would, at its death, be sweet as at its birth.

 And to its woodland grave with hasteful feet
 Came the anemone, and o`er it flung,
 In love but scarce in sorrow, such a sheet
 Of pink—white petals as befits the young
 Whose fair false hopes the kindly gods defeat:
 While, following swift, the hyacinth upsprung
 From the soft sod, and through the sylvan shells
 Thrust his bold stalk, and shook his scented bells.

 The cuckoo, babbling egotist, from tree
 To tree as with short restless wing he flew,
 Called his own name, doubling the word for glee:
 The stockdove meditated, all day through,
 Its one deep note of perched felicity;
 And the sweet bird to one sad memory true,
 Finding the day for its laments too brief,
 Charmed listening night with its melodious grief.

 No longer cowering by the fleecy screen
 Of their warm dams or bleating at the ills
 Of unkind life and norland tempests` spleen,
 Huddled the helpless lambs,—but skipped like rills
 Among the dykes and mounds of pastures green,
 And orchards sunned by golden daffodils;
 Frisked like young Loves, in ever—shifting ring,
 Round the old boles, flushed with the wine of Spring.

 A subtle glory crept from mead to mead,
 Till they were burnished saffron to behold,
 And, from their wintry byres and dark sheds freed,
 The musing kine lay couched on cloth of gold.
 Abetted by the Spring, the humblest weed
 Wore its own coronal, and gaily bold
 Waved jewelled sceptre. Stirred by some strange power,
 The very walls seemed breaking into flower.

 And all throughout the air there reigned a sense
 Of deep smooth dream with odorous music laden,
 Of life too conscious made and too intense
 By sudden advent of excessive Aiden:
 Bewilderment of beauty`s affluence,
 Such as delights, though dangerous, man and maiden.
 And then it was, by Love`s despotic grace,
 Godfrid first gazed on Olive`s form and face.

 She was no goddess of majestic mould,
 That draws the gaze and homage of the crowd,
 Mere marble flesh, voluptuously cold,
 Bait for the rich and chattel of the proud;
 One of those splendid idols, gorged with gold,
 And surfeited on flattery`s scented cloud,
 Within whose hollow bosom fashion dwells,
 False priest, and thence emits its oracles.

 She was an English maiden, unexiled
 From that true Paradise, an English home,
 Where fair Eve`s fairer daughters, unbeguiled
 By tree or subtle serpent, still may roam.
 Evil and good she knew but as a child
 Knoweth, when reading in some ancient tome
 Of gruesome deeds, it sheddeth transient tears
 For wrong it neither understands nor fears.

 She had been cradled amid loveliest things,
 And rocked to sweetest music. Scent of flowers,
 Long dreamy lawns, and birds on happy wings,
 Keeping their homes in never—rifled bowers,
 Cool fountains filling with their murmurings
 The sunny silence `twixt the chiming hours,
 Kind looks, and gentle voices,—these had made
 The even world in which she lived and strayed.

 Harsh word or cold she never heard nor spake,
 But simple homage with frank smile repaid,
 And they who served her, served her for the sake
 Of being near so fair and kind a maid.
 E`en in brute breasts her coming seemed to wake
 A human instinct: loud the stables neighed,
 Hearing her footfall; and the herds that fed,
 Felt her afar, and trooped to greet her tread.

 Until she rose it did not seem the dawn.
 The shaggy deerhound none could yet decoy
 From where he lay long—stretched upon the lawn,
 When she came forth, bounded and bayed for joy,
 Then followed on her gaze; the orphan fawn,
 To every other voice and summons coy,
 Came trotting through the dew at her command,
 And laid its head beneath her lily hand.

 Fancy, to find her likeness, earth and skies
 Would vainly sweep; all paragons must fail.
 For unto what would it compare her eyes?
 Not unto violets; for violets pale.
 Her hair to golden daylight? Daylight dies.
 And, for her face, how would the rose avail
 When the rose hangs its head and bends its stem?—
 Compare fair things to her, not her to them.

 Such, and so guarded by benignant stars,
 Was Olive, when that unknown factor, Fate,
 Who every earthly calculation mars,
 Made Godfrid guest within her father`s gate:
 After May, marching with her shimmering cars,
 Had driven Winter from the plains where late
 He overawed the Spring and had unfurled
 His hoary usurpation o`er the world.

 Who says the Seasons change, nor haply knows
 That to each change man`s heart is still replying?
 That sweet shy Spring whose colour comes and goes,
 That Summer in a golden languor lying,
 Half—stifled by the smell of the musk—rose,
 That Autumn of her hectic beauty dying,
 And even Winter blowing through his hands
 To thaw his veins, rule us with unseen bands?

 Had Godfrid first that peaceful threshold crossed
 What time the robin pecks against the pane,
 When dripping boughs beweep their beauty lost,
 And furrowed fields lament the rifled grain,
 Or e`en when curled by crisp October`s frost,
 The shivering leaves are blown aslant like rain,
 He might have come and gone and left no trace
 In Olive`s heart, no shade on Olive`s face.

 Winter is ruled by male Divinities;
 But Summer, gentle Summer, owns the sway
 Of that coequal sex whose mild decrees
 All understanding souls love and obey.
 And so it happed that ere by tame degrees
 Of trite acquaintance broadening day by day,
 Which disenchant the sense, till all seems known,
 Godfrid and Olive walked the woods alone.

 And who amid June`s world of fair and sweet,
 Eglantined hedgerow, woodbine—scented air,
 To guide his novel footsteps was so meet
 As Olive, queen of all things sweet and fair?
 Who knew so well the foxglove`s cool retreat,
 In what moist crevice hid the maidenhair,
 Where piped the throstle loudest, or the sound
 Of runnel rippled silveriest underground?

 Distinguished she a flower, he plucked it straight;
 And if she spied a rounded nest half hid
 In forkëd spray, from which the fluttered mate
 Had flown as they drew nigh, though still amid
 Yet denser boughs its love—lord piped elate,
 He, while she half abetted and half chid,
 The curtain drew aside, for her to peep
 Upon the warm close—nestled eggs, asleep.
 
 Then, as she held her breath, and crosswise laid
 An arrowy finger on a bow—shaped lip,
 The leafy covering, careful, he remade,
 Just as before, then soft away would slip.
 When hark! the cuckoo called! Anew they stayed
 Their steps, more deeply of the sound to sip,
 And gazed at one another with mute ken,
 Until it should repeat the note again;

 And then walked on, still hearing in their heart
 Echo on echo of that joyous strain,
 Which hath a sense of moisture, and seems part
 Of childlike April`s laughter—rippled rain;
 Which makes the soul to bud, the pulse to start,
 The hackneyed heart youth`s wonderland regain,
 When, ere by passion parched, by grief turned sere,
 Life gleams with smile or shimmers through a tear.

 Then would a freshet runnel cross their track,
 Low—purling to itself for secret bliss,
 Now pattering onward, now half—turning back,
 To give the smooth round pebbles one more kiss:
 Here travelling straight as haste, there, with changed tack,
 Meandering on in utter waywardness.
 Now diving under tangled grass, and then
 With frolic laugh bubbling to sight again.

 Whereat they stopped afresh, for him to say:
 ``Shall we not hearken to its musings bland?
 For Nature hath a gift of tongues, which they
 Alone who heed the Spirit understand.
 Sometimes I hope I am not wholly clay,
 And you, meseems, are of the chosen band.``
 Attentive then they drank its teachings clear,
 Seeming to listen with the selfsame ear.

 But what it spake, neither nor said nor asked,
 But on a seat, under a blossoming thorn,
 One bunch of whiteness, that had vainly tasked
 The painter`s hand and put his art to scorn,
 Olive the guide, they sate them down and basked
 In shaded sunshine of the mounting morn,
 And knew, by silence dropped on bush and brake,
 `Twas noon, when birds their wise siesta take.

 And they grew silent too, till with a smile
 He turned and said: ``Now, do not laugh nor scoff!
 But will you graciously sit here awhile,
 And let me stand a little farther off?``
 He spoke so simply, so exempt from guile,
 She, guileless, did his will. ``And, pray you, doff
 That churlish hat, and leave your forehead bare,
 So that the shadows fall upon your hair.

  ``Yes, yes, like that! Now, on my word, you make
 A monstrous pretty picture, thorn and you!
 Wherein we see full many a hanging flake
 Of Winter living within Summer`s hue.
 How strange it seems the thorn should neither shake
 Its snowy plumage down and o`er you strew
 A white cold sheet, nor in the radiant glare
 You shed should melt, leaving its branches bare!``

 Then to the rustic seat beneath the thorn,
 Which overhung them with its bleachëd hood,
 Returning: ``They are right, though sophists scorn,
 Who say that Beauty is the chiefest good.
 For Truth still leaves its votaries forlorn,
 And Virtue hides within a tangled wood,
 Which, as one pushes on, yet denser grows.
 Beauty alone hath wisdom and repose.``

 ``O no!`` she said, ``it is a little thing,
 And to be strong and manful is the best:
 Beauty is queen, but Valour still is king,
 Mere consort she, but he the lord confessed.
 Her wisdom and repose from this but spring,—
 She waits his bidding; but his large unrest
 Life`s arduous height still climbs, nor ever stops,
 Like the young sun shouldering the mountain tops.``

 ``Yours sounds the nobler doctrine,`` he replied,
 ``And fits you well, though mine saves honour too.
 But words for ever of the mark fly wide,
 And language makes that false which thought left true.``
 ``Then let us call wise silence to our side,``
 With laughing lids she said, ``to find the clue
 To that agreeing ground where creeds that jar
 Upon the lips, the mind`s twin—brothers are.``

 ``Nay, if you thus discourse, I would have you talk
 Till the declining sun shall yield the sky
 To the mild lustre of the milky walk.``
 Whereat the laughter faded from her eye;
 And, like two flowers upon a single stalk,
 Fed by one hidden root, they secretly
 Drank the same thoughts, same feelings, and same air,
 And, without looking, knew each other there.

 He was of open mien and virile guise,
 In manhood fully blossomed, as are those,
 Reared by the tarrying Northland`s seasoning skies,
 When their fifth lustre draweth just to close.
 Of that hard—wooded stock time checks and tries,
 Whose fibre slowly unto ripeness grows,
 But, once matured, withstands the storms and drouth
 That stunt the hastier saplings of the South.

 Unto the ancient Faith his folk had clung,
 When reason chimed with passion to unbind
 The folds in which, while yet its limbs were young,
 Fond nurse Authority had swathed mankind.
 Withal `twas whispered by the curious tongue
 He had, himself, of late unserfed his mind,
 But, out of courtesy, and since the goal
 Uncertain seems, in peace possessed his soul.

 To him was woman`s loveliness the sum
 Of heavenly intimations from earth`s dome.
 The smell of tasselled larch—woods, and the hum
 Of happy bee bearing its honey home,
 The cascade`s plash, the breezes crisp that come
 From unguessed lands on backs of bounding foam;
 These, to his sense, but scattered fragments were
 Of central beauty, perfected in Her.

 And when his eyes the radiance did perceive
 Of such, it moved him like a dewy star
 That tingles on the high calm brow of eve,
 It would be far too gross to wish less far;
 And with whose peace we but aspire to weave
 The thoughts and feelings which the deepest are
 In the unfathomable soul, and do
 Alone feed hope that we are heavenly too.

 And now it was as though June ne`er before
 Had filled her lap with roses; as though now
 Did merle first sing and skylark rippling soar,
 And wren and blackcap glance from bough to bough.
 The daisy`s frill a wondrous newness wore,
 And childlike marvel puckered up their brow,
 When from deep banks, with tangled tussocks heaped,
 The roguish periwinkle, laughing, peeped.

 When with staid mothers` milk and sunshine warmed,
 The pasture`s frisky innocents bucked up,
 Flush from the ground, or, on smooth hillock swarmed,
 With hornless fronts each other `gan to tup,
 That frolic sight their eyes as freshly charmed,
 As though ne`er carved on many an antique cup,
 Nor time on time, when men and Gods were young,
 By the pastoral Muse of the sweet Sicilian sung.

 But them, whom morning had together brought
 And knit with links of Nature`s subtle art,
 By no third breath divided or distraught,
 The eve unkindly worse than thrust apart;
 Conjoining with them tongues, disowned, unsought,
 Whose foreign accents jar the home—sick heart,
 Making it inly fretful, and but yearn
 The shy secluded hours would swift return.

 And these returned, when on the hawthorn spray
 The covert nightingale unceasing sang
 Sweet trouble that but fitful broke by day,
 And every copse with argute anguish rang.
 The moon came up and took her trackless way,
 Pale as when first she heard the love—bird`s pang,
 Pale with a sorrow of her own untold,—
 Found it a voice, perchance were half consoled.

 Then, with no other nigh them or between,
 And over them the night`s resplendent vault,
 Olive and Godfrid in the dewy sheen
 Stepped forth, unmindful of fair Eden`s fault.
 Beneath a flowering chestnut`s moonlit screen,
 At a white gateway leaning, made they halt,
 By currents drawn of pleasurable pain
 Onward to Love`s immeasurable main.

 But they were still among the fresh sweet rills
 That feed Love`s brackish ocean; and the call
 Of nightingale to nightingale in trills
 That lived upon each other, like a tall
 And many—plashing fountain that refills
 Its silvery jets with silvery jets that fall,
 Seemed to speak all their thinking, and impart
 What was yet inarticulate in their heart.

 Thus in the leafy moonshine hushed they stood,
 Their entranced souls surrendered to the night,
 Deep drinking of unmoralisëd good
 From the clear founts of beauty and delight.
 And when some throat its wistful treble would
 Prolong, it seemed, beyond even music`s might,
 They listened with eyes that met, till the slow strain
 Quick quavered down the sharp descents of pain.

 Thus steeped in luscious sadness, unexpressed
 Save by joint silence, back they turned, alas!
 Home from the shrubbery`s many a tuneful nest,
 By twinkling gravel skirting shimmering grass.
 Then Olive, folded to her father`s breast
 An instant, like an image from a glass,
 Vanished,—and all seemed blank: though Godfrid`s host
 With kindly converse filled the vacant post.

 He could not vaunt, bequeathed to him from yore,
 A knightly name, in sooth a dubious boast
 Now when the knightly scutcheon glows no more,
 And knightly honour stalks a nerveless ghost.
 His sires had wrung from ransacked sea and shore
 The guerdon modern glory covets most,
 Wealth, with wealth`s crowning symbol, once the spoil
 Of faithful swords, a hold upon the soil.
 
 Among his sylvan acres, loosed from care,
 He led the free and philosophic life
 Denied to those poor straws of fate, who share
 The Court`s mean pomp or Senate`s frothy strife;
 Constant at covert, Sessions, house of prayer,
 To that true household god, a helpful wife,
 Left gracious hearth and hospitable board,
 In his own home adoring and adored.

 For Olive`s was a heart which back to love
 Turns as a flower will turn to warmth and light;
 And on the perch of home, even as a dove
 Upon one bough, with never a thought of flight,
 Heedless of all beyond it or above,
 Will sit and coo from morning unto night,
 So stayed contented, happy,—unaware
 That earth held ought or larger or more fair.

 But as there lies a deep and dewy cell
 In the most open flower, which yields the sweet,
 Stored in its virgin coy receptacle,
 Neither to parent sun nor fostering heat,
 But guards it close, till on the fragrant bell
 Some child of air, with wandering wings and feet,
 Settling to sip, down to its heart doth press,
 And boldly rifles its last lusciousness;

 So in the heart of most ingenuous maid
 That ever nestled at a father`s knee,
 Hearkened a mother`s precepts unafraid,
 And slept unweaned from home felicity,
 Dwells a dim nook not parents` feet invade,
 No tongue may violate, no eye can see,
 Till some strange wanderer, sent by Heaven, shall dive,
 And suck the secret of that honeyed hive.

 And thus within fair Olive`s filial breast
 There was another Olive, unallowed
 To outer gaze, and by herself but guessed
 Dimly, as by deep lake a fleecy cloud:
 Olive that trembled, yet to none confessed
 That she had trembled, when her lids were bowed
 Over some poet`s page which freshly told
 The old, old story, that is never old.

 But at no other than the rainbow tale
 Which tearful fancy weaves, had Olive yet
 Felt the pulse quicken and the cheek grow pale;
 No voice had heard, to mesh her like a net,
 No touch had known, to thrill her like a wail,
 No face had seen, impossible to forget;
 But only thought, when bent the page above,
 How sweet, for others, it must be to love.

 But when, that night, she, left alone with sleep,
 Dimpled the pillow with her golden head,
 Did stealthy dream o`er trustful slumber creep,
 Now come, now gone, now clear, now vanishëd,
 Of one whose words could thrill, whose voice could weep,
 Whose silence more than others` language said,
 Manlier than men, gentler than women are,
 Bright as a sun, but quiet as a star.

 And gentleness—in—strength wins those that are,
 Not strong, but gentle only; and when dawn
 With glittering prow burst o`er the Eastern bar,
 And gossamer—veiled mead and dew—faced lawn
 Seemed waves of rippling sunshine scanned afar,
 The waking thoughts of Olive back were drawn
 Unto sweet yesterday, with half—owned hope
 To—day, afresh, to tread love`s gradual slope.

 But from that pleasant pathway fitful Fate,
 Who bridles with delay the human heart
 Only to speed it to the goal more straight,
 All the long morn, with many a spurious start,
 Withheld their fretful footsteps,—trifles, prate,
 Which, themselves worthless, let prized time depart.
 Nor till the dark elm shadows nigh had grown
 Long as the trunks, roved they once more alone.

 Then over silent sward, and underneath
 Pendulous trees, and onward to the sweeter,
 Path—thridden woods, whose arching branches wreathe
 For the heart`s communings a refuge meeter,
 Where even the thoughtless winds forbear to breathe,
 But the fleet hours pass pitilessly fleeter;
 Or where, half—sadly warbling as it went,
 Like a boy—poet`s happy discontent,

 Moss—bedded runnel anxious music made,
 Eager for broader future; and along
 The freër streamlet, till the rash cascade
 Bounded adown the cataract, would—be strong;
 Thence by the lake`s mild margin that delayed
 Its froward petulance, and by the song
 Of river blithe with its enfranchisement,
 Olive and Godfrid solitary went.

 The world was all shut out, and Eden`s gate
 Upon its golden hinges back was rolled.
 Death, deluge, tongues` confusion, sorrow, hate,
 Seemed but a tale, to please sweet sadness told;
 Such as some minstrel, welcomed by the great,
 Strenuous would wring from simple harp of old,
 Waking live echoes in the long—dead years,
 And melting happy hearts to happier tears.

 No such, no kindred thoughts, as yet perplexed
 These two young souls, on moving to their fate.
 Cheeks nearer drawn by some magnetic text,
 Hand at a rural stile or churlish gate
 Held out for courteous aid, but till the next
 For more than courtesy retained, and prate
 Which dipped into the inner life, were all
 That proved them heritors of Adam`s Fall.

 But summer days, like happiest fairy story
 That e`er of love and love`s crowned longings breathed,
 Sadden to close, and slowly—fading glory
 Of dell, and glade, and runnel meadow—sheathed,
 And breadth of bracken green round beeches hoary,
 Dies, and to memory only is bequeathed;
 And tight—linked hands, at parting`s leaden knell,
 Relax, and wave irresolute farewell.

 And by the porch impatient horses paw,
 And nearer sound admonitory feet.
 Spurred by the desperate hour, released from awe
 By sudden sense of parting, rashly meet,
 But strangers hitherto, their lips, to draw
 A draught of joy so novel, so complete,
 They feel that, voided of the common air,
 That kiss must linger, fixed for ever there!

 A moment only: but such moments are
 Beyond time`s count, aye, or eternity`s.
 Closer the feet; upon the door ajar
 Intrusive hand. From just—discovered bliss
 Themselves they wrench asunder. Faint and far
 O`er gravel drive, o`er harder highway, is
 Prolonged the fragile link of sounding wheel.
 Then, hush. Then twilight. Then Night`s silent seal.

 And swiftly borne along through winding lanes,
 Belted by thickets in whose cloistered deeps
 Nature`s recluses sang late vesper strains,
 Godfrid, like one who now half wakes half sleeps,
 Dropping on dreamy consciousness the reins
 Till o`er the will an opiate slumber creeps,
 His soul surrendered to that mystic bliss
 Which memory keeps from a departed kiss.

 Since unfulfilled, with freshness still besprent,
 Love`s baptism of dew, love`s tightest knot,
 Of all love`s rites the holiest sacrament:
 A never full—ripe fruit, that cannot rot,
 An unplucked flower which ne`er will shed its scent;
 Perfect imperfect, nought can mar or mend,
 A fair beginning, still uncursed by end.

 And when the gloaming, faded from the sky,
 Left dim the outlines of each winding lane,
 He still was wandering where the sun rode high,
 By glade and stream, grave wood and florid plain,
 With one whose soul was stationed in her eye,
 Fresh as June`s grass, golden as Autumn`s grain,
 Whose voice was passion`s undertone, whose mouth
 Sweet as warm showers blown up from the soft South.

 Nor till he marked the melancholy gleam
 Of huddled homes, and with a shock of pain
 Heard the Promethean monster`s strident scream,
 Vanished calm rapture`s visionary reign.
 Then, like to one who starts from a deep dream,
 And but beholds the darkness, so in vain
 He strove with fancy`s eye once more to see,
 Lying awake with black reality.

 And as on roaring adamantine feet
 Further and further ever was he whirled
 From the closed gates of Eden`s vanished seat,
 Beneath dun domes in rolling vapour furled,
 Or by white banks of moonlit meadowsweet,
 From dreamland`s height yet lower was he hurled,
 Till, hemmed in between past and future years,
 Turning, he stood, like quarry girt with spears.

 ``Can this be Love? Love no such question asks.
 Love never yet was yoked with sluggish doubt;
 And while tame Fancy in the sunshine basks,
 And purrs and blinks, wild passion roams about,
 Intent upon its predatory tasks.
 Who questions if love`s fire be in or out?
 The moment `tis alight, it shines so clear,
 Nought then is seen but its own atmosphere.

 ``This is not love: `tis fancy`s newest born;
 A bastard to be strangled in its crib;
 A misbegotten harbinger of scorn,
 Quick from the sight for ever to be hid.
 Yet,—yet how fair, under the flaky thorn
 She looked! how fresh, the vocal woods amid!
 And when the nightingales sang fast and clear,
 How more than fresh or fair! How close! How dear!

 ``Could hers be love, though mine but fancy were?
 Are not maids caught in springes manhood breaks?
 That which I doubt may be deep truth to her,
 And she thirst more from draught that my thirst slakes.
 Yet were I base as any garbage cur,
 If I could sleep when such a bosom wakes,
 Or could I call out love`s name loud and clear,
 Then let its echo die upon her ear.

 ``Love`s name! Doth love thus readily reply?
 And can her heart, chaste as yon dewy moon
 That lo! once more comes gliding up the sky,
 From mine have taken fire,—so soon, so soon!
 From mine? Presumptuous thought! Why, what am I?
 An instrument unused, so out of tune,
 That, did I sound it, who would care to sing
 To its discordant note and slackened string?

 ``Who cannot see it all? Assume the best:
 Let self—love brood upon the fervid hope
 That I could force the chamber of her breast;
 `Twould swiftly swarm with foes with whom to cope,
 I all unarmed, were madness manifest.
 What are your means? Enough to buy a rope.
 Buy it, before the world, indignant grown,
 Dangles you from a gibbet of its own!

 ``So, better that that kiss should seal the past,
 Than we should journey on from stage to stage
 Of lengthening bliss to a bare goal at last,
 And be but heart—sore for the pilgrimage!
 Farewell, sweet lips! I will not break my fast,
 Nor at your fount youth`s selfish thirst assuage.
 Forgive—forget—that one deep breathless draught:
 You, the pure wave; `twas I alone that quaffed.

 ``And you may go upon your maiden way,
 Careless and free as never—stopping brook,
 By which the drouthy hind, at close of day,
 Halting, and laying on the ground his crook,
 Lies prone and dips to drink its sparkling spray;
 Whilst it, nor robbed nor soiled by what he took,
 But laughs and trips along, elusive elf,
 Singing its happy secret to itself.``

 Thus with a sigh, such as will ofttimes heave
 Pathetic fancy in a gentle breast,
 Not, not those gasps of passionate pain that leave
 No room in the heart for any wiser guest,
 And hence with ear attentive to receive
 The hints of reason, friend of what is best,
 Spurning soft pleasure for right`s harder sake,
 Godfrid relinquished what he scarce could take.

 ``I send,`` he wrote, ``the book of Tuscan lays,
 You said `twould give you pleasure to possess,
 In poor return for those two happy days
 I owe to your abounding graciousness;
 Such as a grateful bankrupt debtor pays,
 Who cannot pay, but would his debt confess.
 How I enjoyed them never can I tell:
 To such as I, they come not twice. Farewell.``

 ``I thank you,`` she replied, ``for your kind note,
 And for the Tuscan songs you send with it.
 Already I know some of them by rote.
 Others transcend my feeble woman`s wit.
 The best, I think, are those I heard you quote;
 And once or twice I wished that you could sit
 Beside me as I read them, and explain
 The passages that puzzle my dull brain.

 ``You recognise a debt that is not due,
 And readily could pay whate`er were owed.
 You have a world of wealth amassed by few,
 Which was on me too lavishly bestowed.
 I did enjoy our strolls as much as you,
 And there are walks beside the ones I showed,
 That lovelier grow with the advancing year.
 Be sure you always will be welcome here.``

 He wrote again, still striving to combine
 Homage to her rare winsomeness and worth
 With hinted grief that he must needs resign
 His dream, and own his servitude to earth;
 Hoping that she would read between each line
 He was uprooting fondness at its birth,
 Only because he knew, if left to grow,
 The flower would be but bane, the fruit but woe.

 But there are hearts in whom love`s subtle seeds
 So promptly germinate, so swiftly spread,
 That ere the careless hand which dropped them heeds,
 `Tis all too late to tear them from the bed.
 And Olive, wandering slow through woods and meads,
 Haunted by one dear voice, one echoing tread,
 Felt she could never the remembrance smother
 Of that one kiss, excepting with another!

 He was not near to give it. In its place
 Came letters, loveless, lacking warmth and life,
 Which, changing vague delight to keen disgrace,
 Self setting with intenser self at strife,
 Deepened the sense of that too close embrace,
 Such as transforms to all but wedded wife
 The bosom truly maiden; uncompleted,
 Leaves a reproach behind, profoundly seated.

 O purity of women who are pure!
 To praise it is to soil it. Sudden pledge,
 At moment when no surety can be sure,
 Had she bestowed by treacherous parting`s ledge.
 Should that betrothal hasty not endure!
 Would she were lying underneath the sedge
 Strolled past with him, whom she, unkissed before,
 Too much had given, should she give no more.

 And stronger waxed within her trembling soul
 This demon horror, till, whene`er she walked
 By grassy undulation, tufted knoll,
 Concealing hedgerow where the slender—stalked
 Convolvulus peeped out, or past the bole
 Of weathered ash where she had sate and talked
 With him the afternoon away, it stepped
 Close to her side, till, terrified, she wept.

 And when lone night from its dark loosened tresses
 Did o`er the earth invisible spices shake,
 What time its subtle sister, slumber, presses
 Consenting lids, would Olive, still awake,
 Bent o`er his letters, with unstable guesses
 At their fixed meaning, aggravate her ache,
 Then lean out at her casement, with moist eyes
 Raised to the stars, unanswering in the skies.

 But when the hush was very deep, and o`er
 The drowsy world the slumberous film had floated,
 The trouble in her breast would rise and pour
 Out melody, low, brief, and broken—throated,
 As to sick babe a nurse of simple lore,
 Or to itself a mind that strayed and doted.
 But the wild notes nor nurse nor mind unstrung
 Was like to know; and these the words she sung.

 Will the sun never set?
 Will the twilight never fade?
 My heart is sick, my eyes are wet,
 With the night and his step delayed.
 Go, loitering light, from the west!
 Sink, floating light, in the stream!
 Fold, breeze, thy pinions, and rest!
 Rest: sleep; and dream!

 The twilight lingers still
 I hate the hues on the hill;
 I hate the sundown streak!
 Oh! if I could but wreak
 On crimson crag, on saffron peak,
 My baffled will!

 Come to me, silent as stars!
 Come to me, soft as the dew!
 Come as the light through my bars
 When moons are new.
 But come! come! come!
 My own, my sweet, my true!

 Oh! come!
 I have flung the lattice wide,
 That the tendrils of the vine
 May guide your arms as they climb and glide
 Nearer up to mine!
 Come! come! come!
 I cannot be mute, be dumb,
 For I pine, I pine, I pine!

 Hush! It is he! I heard
 A footstep in the laurelled walk!
 Alas! `Twas but a dreaming bird
 Chased by a phantom hawk!

 I cannot await him longer.
 Love, ruffled against delay,
 A moment fiercer, stronger,
 Beats,—flutters,—faints away!

 Thus like a bird that ceaseth its sad flute
 Because none answereth, so on the dumb night
 Died the warm strain, and Olive too was mute.
 Glistened the grass like tesselated light,
 The dewdrops hung upon the bough like fruit;
 And at the window, motionless and white,
 All but her golden hair, she nursed her dole,
 And let the silence sink into her soul.

 O purity of women who are pure!
 They know, and yet they know not. In their breast
 A fearsome, restless secret they immure,
 Which to themselves is never quite confessed,
 But oft withal, as though they can endure
 No longer Nature`s promptings being repressed
 Escapes in flood of tears, or tell—tale praise
 Of amorous song and poet`s burning lays.

 They are like children playing on the beach
 Of a mysterious ocean. Fascinated
 By the strange terror it inspires, let preach
 As mother instinct may, their steps elated
 Will trespass where the faint foam—fringes reach.
 Cometh, asudden, wave precipitated
 By the dread sea they toy with: how they fly,
 From earnest peril, with a feeble cry!

 Olive had fled too late, and now her heart,
 O`ertaken in its flight, was drenched with doubt.
 Yes! yes! he loved her! What! he played a part,
 When, as they watched the timid stars come out,
 And the pale moon on her long journey start,
 His voice had faltered? He but meant to flout
 At love`s confiding promptness, when he pressed
 His lips to hers, her breast unto his breast?

 Yet, if he did not love her! Did love weigh
 Impulse and prudence in a dangling scale?
 Did love, o`erawed by numbers, shirk the fray,
 Or, when winds blew untoward, furl its sail?
 Was love a sage? What did those letters say?
 They breathed no strain of hope, no note of wail,
 But in each pondered line there spake alone
 Will`s stately voice and wisdom`s sovran tone.

 Some six weeks later, Godfrid, who in vain
 Had striven to lay the ghost of that dead time
 Whose pleasure now had curdled into pain,
 And whose reviewed delight seemed almost crime,
 Striving to think that she would still retain,
 For all their blight, the freshness of her prime,
 Dogged by lame doubt, by self—reproach distressed,
 Received a note by Olive`s pen addressed.

 He tore it open with a trembling hand,
 And with a greedy eye its message read,
 Written, it seemed, in haste, and quickly scanned.
 ``I write to tell you my last news, instead
 Of leaving it to gossip`s busy band.
 I am engaged, and shortly shall be wed.
 Congratulate me, won`t you? All here send
 Their best regards. I fear that I must end.``

 ``Deign to accept,`` he answered, ``from afar,
 My fondest wishes for your future life.
 May you be happy, as you gentle are,
 And what you were as daughter, be as wife!
 I pray in Heaven there move some vigilant star,
 To ward from off you sorrow, loss, or strife,
 And circle round you smoothly to the end.
 Farewell! with homage from your grateful friend.``

 O thou eternal secret, woman`s heart!
 Now, as when Eve was fooled, profoundly hid.
 Man into life hath forced dead tongues to start,
 Wrested dumb truths from stony pyramid,
 Spanned the high hills, made of blank seas a chart,
 And through the stars triumphant pathway thrid;
 But woman`s heart, the riddle still unread,
 Confounds the living, and confutes the dead.

 In that sad season of the bygone year,
 When rise the mists and downward flows the sap,
 And beggared Autumn, with a silent tear,
 Empties her gold leaves into Winter`s lap,
 Another guest, lord in the hills severe
 Whose harvest is the heather, and where flap
 Crag—cradled kittiwakes round splintered foam,
 Had crossed the porch of Olive`s gentler home.

 Him had her sire through prickly stubble led,
 Marked for him coign of vantage on the track
 Where towered the slow—flushed pheasant overhead,
 And shown him, eager, where the twinkling pack,
 Mute as though muzzled, work the gorsey bed,
 Till gleeful throat to gleeful throat peals back,
 Then sweep o`er rolling down and dipping vale,
 Straight as trim barks that head a following gale.

 Men praised his steady nerve, true hand, quick eye,
 Tall granite frame, clean limbs, and mien robust;
 Yet, softer critics, though they scarce knew why,
 With colder voice his vaunted parts discussed.
 ``No, not the man to wake a woman`s sigh:
 Goodly, no doubt, brave, generous, helpful, just;
 But lacking in the mien, the tones, that draw
 The charmed heart onward by some subtle law.``

 But every lip averred that Olive`s grace
 Bounded the horizon of Sir Gilbert`s eye,
 That, noon and eve, her side seemed still his place,
 And he was vacant when she was not nigh.
 Yet could they read no tremor in her face,
 No flush of pride, no cautious dread descry,
 No sudden glow of fondness chilled by fear,
 To show she felt that Love was walking near.

 At first she started at his name, as starts
 A free—born colt when cunning bait is brought,
 And broke away. But when with winsome arts
 Her parents followed still, and still besought,
 She, like the colt, when its wise dread departs,
 Came to their beck, and nibbled, and was caught.
 Then, still like it, which yields when o`er its head
 The halter slips, she let herself be led.

 So unto them at least it seemed, whose past
 Had only skimmed the inland lakes of life,
 Whose sails had still swung lightly round the mast,
 Nor once been swelled and strained by winds of strife.
 They little guessed what made her yield at last,
 Or, when she promised to be Gilbert`s wife,
 She would have wed the wintry wind, or laid
 Her head on pillow smoothed by sexton`s spade.

 He was a man of not uncommon worth
 In this determined isle whose tongue we speak,
 The only one he had been taught from birth,
 Except a little Latin and less Greek.
 England he deemed the navel of the earth,
 And night and morning blessed the silver streak,
 Holding the faith there lived beyond its waves
 But papists, revolutionists, and slaves.

 He knew the trick of every bird that flies,
 Of every fish that swims, and could have told
 When those would lie quite close, when these would rise,
 How to entice the shy, outtire the bold.
 He laughed to scorn the boast of sunny skies,
 Of marble cities, orchards hung with gold,
 Vowing one day`s rough tramp through gloomy heather
 Worth a whole year of stagnant Southern weather.

 He felt no tremor when the evening star
 In the moist west the vanished sun succeeds,
 And in the heart the sense of things afar
 Grows a religion deeper than all creeds.
 How, in such moments, flesh and spirit jar,
 And deepest joy still deeper anguish breeds,
 He never owned, nor yearned for that vague goal
 To which some god still goads the panting soul.

 The contemplation, and the pangs profound,
 That fain would plumb unfathomable seas
 Of light, and colour, darkness, silence, sound,
 Life`s straining aches,—he nothing recked of these.
 Brute—like, he walked with eyes upon the ground;
 He heard no promise in Spring`s dimpling breeze,
 No buried hope in Autumn`s curdling dirge,
 Nor shared the secret of the wailful surge.

 Yet do not scorn him, you whose finer strings
 Move to the murmur of the faintest wind;
Source
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