With books, with flowers, with Angel offices, But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. Old studies fail'd; seldom she spoke; but oft Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men Darkening her female field: void was her use; And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore, And suck the blinding splendor from the sand, And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn Expunge the world: so fared she gazing there; So blacken'd all her world in secret, blank And waste it seem'd and vain; till down she came, And found fair peace once more among the sick. And twilight dawn'd; and morn by morn the lark Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, lay But Psyche tended Florian: with her oft Melissa came; for Blanche had gone, but left Her child among us, willing she should keep Court-favor: here and there the small bright head, A light of healing glanced about the couch, Or thro' the parted silks the tender face Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw The sting from pain; nor seem'd it strange that soon He rose up whole, and those fair charities Join'd at her side; nor stranger seem'd that hearts So gentle, so employ'd, should close in love, Than when two dew-drops on the petal shake To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, And slip at once all-fragrant into one. Less prosperously the second suit obtain'd At first with Psyche. Not though Blanche had sworn That after that dark night among the fields, She needs must wed him for her own good name; Not tho' he built upon the babe restored; Nor tho' she liked him, yielded she, but fear'd To incense the Head once more; till on a day When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind Seen but of Psyche: on her foot she hung A moment, and she heard, at which her face A little flush'd, and she past on; but each Assumed from thence, a half-consent involved In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. Nor only these: Love in the sacred halls Held carnival at will, and flying struck With showers of random sweet on maid and man. Nor did her father cease to press my claim, Nor did mine own now reconciled; nor yet Did those twin brothers, risen again and whole; Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. But I lay still, and with me oft she sat : And call her hard and cold which seem'd a truth: Last I woke sane, but wellnigh close to death For weakness: it was evening: silent light Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought Two grand designs: for on one side arose The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest A dwarflike Cato cower'd. On the other side Hortensia spoke against the tax; behind, A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat, With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins, The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused Hortensia, pleading: angry was her face. I saw the forms: I knew not where I was: They did but seem as hollow shows; nor more Sweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: the dew Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape And rounder show'd: I moved: I sigh'd: a touch Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand: Then all for languor and self-pity ran Mine down my face, and with what life I had, And like a flower that cannot all unfold, So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun, Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly : "If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, I would but ask you to fulfil yourself: I ask you nothing: only, if a dream, Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. I could no more, but lay like one in trance, She stoop'd; and out of languor leapt a cry; Then came a change; for sometimes I would catch And down the streaming crystal dropt; and she Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard, And fling it like a viper off, and shriek "You are not Ida;" clasp it once again, And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not, And call her sweet, as if in irony, Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep. Deep in the night I woke: she, near me, held A volume of the Poets of her land: There to herself, all in low tones, she read. "Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white: Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: The firefly wakens: waken thou with me. A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. Her voice Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands, "Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, Till notice of a change in the dark world "Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me.. "Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. "Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, And slips into the bosom of the lake: So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip Into my bosom and be lost in me." I heard her turn the page; she found a small Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read: Was lisp'd about the acacias, and a bird, That early woke to feed her little ones, Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light: She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. "Blame not thyself too much," I said, "nor blame "Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain How shall men grow? but work no more alone! height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), So she low-toned; while with shut eyes I lay Listening; then look'd. Pale was the perfect face: The bosom with long sighs labor'd; and meek Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, And the voice trembled and the hand. She said Brokenly, that she knew it, she had fail'd In sweet humility; had fail'd in all; That all her labor was but as a block Left in the quarry; but she still were loath, She still were loath to yield herself to one, That wholly scorn'd to help their equal rights Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws. She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than power In knowledge: something wild within her breast, Our place is much: as far as in us lies But diverse: could we make her as the man, But like each other ev'n as those who love. calm: Then springs the crowning race of humankind. May these things be!" They will not." Sighing she spoke, "I fear Is half itself, and in true marriage lies Defect in each, and always thought in thought, The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full stroke, And again sighing she spoke: "A dream That once was mine! what woman taught you this?" "Alone," I said, "from earlier than I know, Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, I loved the woman: he, that doth not, lives Or pines in sad experience worse than death, Said Ida, tremulously, "so all unlike "But I," It seems you love to cheat yourself with words: This mother is your model. I have heard A gallant fight, a noble princess-why And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, I moved as in a strange diagonal, And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part In our dispute: the sequel of the tale Had touch'd her; and she sat, she pluck'd the grass, She flung it from her, thinking: last, she fixt A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, "You-tell us what we are" who might have told, For she was cramm'd with theories out of books, But that there rose a shout: the gates were closed At sunset, and the crowd were swarming now, To take their leave, about the garden rails. So I and some went out to these: we climb'd Of your strange doubts: they well might be: I The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw seem Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood: now, CONCLUSION. So closed our tale, of which I give you all So pray'd the men, the women: I gave assent: The happy valleys, half in light, and half "Look there, a garden!" said my college friend, The Tory member's elder son, "and there! God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, A nation yet, the rulers and the ruledSome sense of duty, something of a faith, Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, Some patient force to change them when we will, Some civic manhood firm against the crowdBut yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat, The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, The king is scared, the soldier will not fight, The little boys begin to shoot and stab, A kingdom topples over with a shriek Like an old woman, and down rolls the world In mock heroics stranger than our own; Revolts, republics, revolutions, most No graver than a school-boys' barring out; Too comic for the solemn things they are, Too solemn for the comic touches in them, Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream As some of theirs-God bless the narrow seas! I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad." "Have patience," I replied, "ourselves are full Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams Are but the needful preludes of the truth: For me, the genial day, the happy crowd, The sport half-science, fill me with a faith. This fine old world of ours is but a child Yet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it time To learn its limbs: there is a hand that guides." In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman, Fair-hair'd and redder than a windy morn; But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, So much the gathering darkness charm'd: we sat But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, Perchance upon the future man: the walls Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd, And gradually the powers of the night, That range above the region of the wind, Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. Last little Lilia, rising quietly, Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we went. IN MEMORIAM. STRONG Son of God, immortal Love, Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why; He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just. Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine. Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they. We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see; And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow. Let knowledge grow from more to more, Forgive my grief for one removed, Forgive these wild and wandering cries, IN MEMORIAM. A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII. I. I HELD it truth, with him who sings Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Than that the victor Hours should scorn II. OLD Yew, which graspest at the stones The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock Beats out the little lives of men. O not for thee the glow, the bloom, And gazing on thee, sullen tree, Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, I seem to fail from out my blood And grow incorporate into thee. III. O SORROW, cruel fellowship, O Priestess in the vaults of Death, O sweet and bitter in a breath, What whispers from thy lying lip? 1 |